After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.
I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.
Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?
EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)
Ha ha “tankies” aka people who break through the empire wall of propaganda programming. So choosing to stop believing western propaganda rags and CIA psyops to answer your question
“Authoritarianism” isnt even real, its jus another CIA op from the 60s so they could label any bad scary commie country as it
I like how you didn’t even remotely attempt to answer the question
Comon, at least put some effort into your liberal trolling, I even put in “to answer your question” right there ha ha!
How exactly does “So choosing to stop believing western propaganda rags and CIA psyops to answer your question” answer any of these three questions? Like it’s ridiculous to think that {rejecting CIA propaganda} => {immortal science of Marxism-Leninism}, i.e. people can and do reasonably disagree with Marxist-Leninists and other state socialists out of an organic theoretical and practical desire to do things differently.
Also, western leftists have a problem swallowing CIA and pro-Western propaganda (myself included, something I’m trying to unlearn) — including western “tankies”.
Go through my comment history. 95% of my comment history is screaming at liberals for being fucking liberals 😮💨
Sorry if I’m being curt but you came into our space and started being a jerk to people, and now you’re all surprised Pikachu face that we’re being less than polite back. If you want to actually have a productive discussion then great, but you’re just not doing that right now.
They corrected you and you didn’t even address it, you’re losing
It is difficult for me to imagine how someone could possibly convince themselves of this. What do you call it when a leader consolidates power around themselves, removing checks on their position and making unilateral mandates that are enforced through state violence against all who dare oppose?
I remember seeing this argument before. It’s something like all states are authoritarian, so you can’t call out any single state for being authoritarian. Like the label only exists for some states to de-legitimize others even though the ones doing the labeling are also authoritarian. It appears to me to be an intentional attempt to strip the word of meaning so that authoritarians can no longer be criticized as such.
All states are authoritarian, some moreso than others. It’s true that some states do cynically accuse others of doing what they do themselves to delegitimize them, but it is completely valid still to single out certain states that are particularly authoritarian, and to compare them to others.
This is why it’s necessary to investigate the nature of authority and the state. The state is simply the tool by which one class establishes supremacy, and the degree to which said authority is used depends on the conditions the state finds itself in, and not on any individual’s decision. Socialist states where the working class is in control have to develop instruments of state power to protect the gains of socialism, even anarchists do this as well in practice. Capitalist states where capitalists are in control oppress the working class to protect the free flow of capital and continuous circulation.
Trying to treat the level of authority employed as a policy choice, rather than a response to existing conditions, delegitimizes the use of necessary tools to defend the gains of socialism.
How you respond to existing conditions is a policy choice, and authoritarian methods are not necessary for defending the gains of socialism.
For example, one existing condition in the US is the fentanyl crisis. The US government has chosen to respond to this existing condition by continuing the criminalization of drug abuse and using the crisis as justification for imperialism in Venezuela. The US could have chosen to respond by funding addiction treatment centers and decriminalizing drug abuse.
Another example, an existing condition in China was population growing faster than their economy could keep up (ostensibly). China chose to respond with a one-child policy, restricting reproductive freedom. China could have chosen to respond by encouraging contraception and creating financial incentives and disincentives.
What you suggest is political determinism, implying that there is only one way that a state can respond to existing conditions, when in fact there is a vast range of possibility.
Flip it around. The US Empire didn’t randomly choose to attack Venezuela, the imperialist system itself found justification for doing so. The mode of production takes priority over the what actions a system takes, its internal contradictions are what drives its change. The US Empire is in a state of decline, and thus needs to re-exert itself millitarily. The conditions are that imperialism is weakening, the outcome is the violent re-assertion of control. Had imperialism been working fine and Venezuela colonized by the US, it would not be attacking Venezuela right now, but the capacity for doing so already exists.
In 1954, condoms and cervical caps were already promoted over abortions for family planning. They continued to promote birth control, in the early 1970s they sent “barefoot doctors” to the rural areas where birth rates were higher to teach about contraceptives and provide abortions if needed. It wasn’t until 1979, 25 years after they started promoting modern methods of birth control and incentives for lowering birth rates that they implemented the One Child Policy, exempting ethnic minorities. It wasn’t the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth tactic, but one finally employed after 25 years, over a decade and a half from the baby boom in the 60s. The state responded to crisis in increasing measure because simply promoting awareness of birth control and providing it for free did not work at the rates needed.
Not quite. My point isn’t that choice doesn’t exist, but that the extent to which measures are employed and the types of measures employed depends on the class character of the state and the existing material conditions the state finds itself in. Modern Germany doesn’t have a lesser potential for authority than Nazi Germany, it just hasn’t had the need to thanks to benefiting from decades of imperialism. Now that imperialism is crumbling, it’s trending to the far-right again. This isn’t because of any choice for authority, but the state responding to real conditions.
We call it a dictatorship. The term “authoritarian” was developed by the west to antagonize its enemies. It means nothing except “this country is bad” in the exact same way that “terrorist” means nothing except “this person is bad”.
Look, western nations do often hypocritically point out authoritarianism in their geopolitical rivals for cynical reasons, but to pretend that the word was invented for this purpose and is meaningless just makes you look like an autocrat worshipping moron. It’s the same as how Trump supporters after being accused of being fascist insist that the word is a meaningless insult. The word authoritarianism exists because there’s a spectrum between a democratically elected benevolent leader and a ruthless dictator. You don’t want to confront the fact that they may have a point.
Read it again and again until you learn.
People who try to convince you that words are meaningless are never up to any good. I’m sure it makes you feel real good about yourself to pretend I’m too stupid to understand instead of smart enough to see that words that are often misused still have meaning.
No pretending required, you are too stupid to get it.
I call it “class society”
Which is authoritarian in nature.
That’s circular
Explain.
I don’t really believe that authoritarianism is materially possible in classless society
I believe that authoritarianism is the origin of class. All that it takes is for one person to draw a boundary, state “this is mine,” and then enforce that with violence. There is no end of history. Even if we do manage to create a classless society, there’s no guarantee that it will remain that way. To maintain such a society will require maintenance, and that means identifying and resisting authoritarianism when and where it inevitably emerges. It is therefore essential to have a word to describe the types of behaviour that can result in the reemergence of class society.
Actually I think this comment unintentionally answers OP’s question.
I think a common tankie story is:
Realization that much of western media is propaganda or influenced by propaganda.
Finding that enemies of the American empire (and Europe) with some semblance of power agree that western media is propaganda, and these people are MLM communists.
After they’ve established credibility with their accurate criticisms of western capitalist society, tell you that, oh, by the way, those propaganda outlets in the west also lie about us, actually almost all of what we do is awesome and people who claim otherwise are automatically suspect.
Number 3 is a mistake, I think, but it’s an understandable one. This isn’t super fair to tankies but the analogy I’d give is to people who fall under the spell of someone like Jordan Peterson: he sounds smart, and he lulls you into a sense of security with good advice about taking care of yourself, keeping your house clean, etc., and then once he’s gotten your trust he gently introduces stuff like “oh by the way evolution proves that men and women shouldn’t work together” or whatever, and because he’s made sensible points up until then, your guard is down and you don’t critique it in your head before accepting it.
Western propaganda outlets absolutely do like about their enemies though. It’s verifiable. They lie about them more than anything else.
The primary goal of the empire is maintaining its hegemony. Since the biggest threats to that hegemony are its rival states, it undermines support for them by libeling and slandering them. The empire doesn’t much care about how great you think it is. As long as you hate every alternative more, they’re not threatened. The reason Stalin and Mao were demonized more than anyone else in modern history is because they scared the living shit out of the capitalists.
Example of their lies
My “tankie story”, so to speak, began in 2019 just before the Hong Kong protests kicked off. I followed the progression of that story through Marxist news sources like Proles Pod:
A Chinese man murdered and dismembered his girlfriend, stashed her body parts in a suitcase, and fled to Hong Kong. China couldn’t extradite him back to the mainland, so the Chinese authorities in Hong Kong crafted an extradition law. Hong Kong capitalists opposed it, fearing extradition for their financial crimes.
For a long time, I heard nothing about the story from mainstream American news sources. Then one day, NPR broached the subject. I thought “oh boy, someone is finally covering this story!”
All that NPR had to say about it was “There are protests in Hong Kong. The protesters want more democracy. China is against them because they hate democracy.” I was flabbergasted! There was no substance at all to the reporting. Absolutely none of the inciting background was covered. I was introduced in real time to the way that even “good” liberal, Western news sources like NPR flatten all stories about enemy countries into simple good vs. evil narratives.
This is just a straw man. The reason the concept of “critical support” is so common in Marxist anti-imperialist spaces is because we acknowledge nuance and limit our support to productive actions.
I’m going to throw back once more to my experience with Proles Pod, a podcast that was widely criticized as being one of the most “Stalinist” media in existence. I was introduced to them through an interview with the hosts conducted by Breht O’Shea on Revolutionary Left Radio. They spent the first twenty minutes enumerating all their criticisms of the mistakes that Stalin made.
That almost works, except critics of western propaganda exist everywhere especially in academia & intelligentsia. The west doesn’t try to suppress them. So why out of everyone, those guys with a salient agenda over the critics without a discernable one?
Campism, aka team sports. Critizism from academic figures is (not entirely incorrectly) identified as managed opposition, and for sure they are not a team you can simp for with the hope of them “winning”.
“it’s okay that I support imperialism, the imperialists told me the anti imperialists will believe anything!”
Please point to where I said I support imperialism
I’m commenting on the meme you shared, which takes the position that being a puppet of US imperialism is actually the lesser evil than having any rational perspective on the evil authoritarians of the east
The meme I shared takes the position that those you call “puppets of US imperialism” are fully aware that they are being showered with propaganda and that the US is an evil state which lies about everything.
We constantly criticize the US for its bullshit but the second we criticize the “communist” nations of the east we are gobbling up western propaganda and sucking the cocks of the US elite
westerners are famous for being fully aware
it isn’t hard to point out western propaganda made by the US explicitly to foment war and conquest over their enemies.
It sounds like you are saying that by pointing this out when it is happening it isn’t fair because the US is also bad, so their enemies also deserve to be called bad, even by the US, even when it is easily proven to be a lie?
If you say some shit that is easily proven to be a lie, it just is that. It isn’t some propaganda conspiracy by evil authoritarians when someone posts blatant bullshit and gets called out.
As I said in another comment, browse hexbear for awhile and you will see plenty of criticism of Russia, China, Iran and more. We just criticize them for things that we have evidence for instead of shit that is directly paid for by the US state department, like the idea that Venezuela’s president runs the largest cartel in the country or that the leadership of North Korea ties prisoners to cannons and shoots them into tiny pieces. Ironically that fake store about DPRK was really what the British did to their colonized subjects, as is often the case with imperialist nonsense
Pick one. I’m also sure the next thing you’re going to say is that you are fully aware.
Not what I’m saying at all. The examples you gave are ridiculous and I’ve never heard anyone claim those. I’m talking basic shit like North Korea not allowing people to escape the country, and visits there being heavily chaperoned, so the only coverage is either directly from the North Korean government or from controlled journalism (or western propaganda). But I still see government “news” posted on hexbear and y’all treat it like 100% truth.
But when it’s pointed out that “hey maybe the governments you look up to aren’t being totally honest either” we get shit like
Why do I need to pick one? That’s a strange false dichotomy to assert.
No ML denies that the DPRK has strict border policies, but there are also a fuck ton of DPRK citizens working in China and Russia, so it obviously isn’t true that no one can leave. This is the type of basic shit where you are just repeating a claim that traces back to western propaganda and parroting it as if it is common knowledge that cannot be argued against, despite plenty of evidence.
No ML would deny that tourists needs to be with a guided group.
Any news posted on our instances regarding DPRK has little to nothing to do with either of those topics, so I’m not seeing how it correlates.
The DPRK has a strict border policy and guided tours, so that means that a repost of their statement isn’t newsworthy? It means they must be lying anytime they say something? What did they lie about that you see any of us backing up?
US propaganda: “Russia, China, and North Korea are hellscapes filled with mindless automatons ruled over by evil, ruthless dictators with unlimited, supernatural powers who sit on ivory thrones all day and press the human misery button. Their people yearn for freedom and will greet us as liberators if we nuke their governments, because every citizen is a prisoner.”
Russian propaganda: “The West is full of d*gener*te queers[1], and the US repeatedly meddles in the affairs of other nations.[2]”
North Korean propaganda: “We built a row of houses in this rural village and gave them to the farmers that live there.”
Chinese propaganda: “Look at this cute panda eating bamboo and rolling down a hill.”
Tankies reject this bigotry. ↩︎
Undoubtedly true ↩︎
Lmao
Worshipping states is cringe
And what state was I worshiping??
Any that calls themselves socialist by the looks of it
So China and Russia aren’t authoritarianisms?
Every state is authoritarian
What a crazy stretch just to avoid answering a simple question.
It isn’t a stretch, have you studied any leftist theory at all?
The idea that a state is inherently “authoritarian” is an introductory level concept.
The key difference between “tankies” and anarchists is that the former understands you need to change the economic substructure before you can change the super structure and the latter generally thinks what is essentially the opposite.
Lenin, state and revolution
The keyword here is “theory”.
Adopting one theory as your one and only point of view, like a religion, is nonsensical.
I refrain from being dragged in such limited perspectives on reality, from politics to science. It’s always better to doubt of everything, especially about what people believe blindly.
Tell me that you have no clue what the word “theory” means without telling me.
Good lord, don’t they teach this stuff in highschool?
No.
What you are thinking of is indoctrination and no, they didn’t do that in my highschool.
Instead they taught us about how different theories exist and how each is valid until it is not.
I think what chloroken is getting at is “the key word here is ‘theory’” sounds like a dismissal in the same vein as “evolution is just a theory.” The sense of ‘theory’ in both “evolutionary theory” and “leftist theory” is the same, and in both cases it’s distinct from the colloquial sense. It means “body of conceptual academic work,” not “hypothetical belief.” In neither case does it imply dogmatism.
“Every state is authoritarian” is a pretty non-controversial claim in leftist political theory of any stripe. Comrade’s point was “China is authoritarian” is a non-sequitur from any leftist perspective, because China is a state so of course it is. Anarchist and ML theorists are going to disagree on the implications of that basic observation.
The school you went to should be investigated if it’s cranking out weapons-grade morons like you.
Me when a round earther tries to force their round earth theory on me
Are you saying you believe the earth is flat? Lol and lmao
No I’m saying you are the equivalent of a flat earther, rejecting something because the word “theory” was used. You probably don’t wash your hands because “germ theory” is an authoritarian rule being forced on you by the ruling class. You probably float into the air because the theory of gravity is a form of bourgeois oppression
You mean like dialectical reasoning? Gee, I wonder who applied that, especially to material conditions…
They answered your question with an implied “yes” and provided relevant additional context by saying that so are all the other states. Their answer would only count as avoiding the question if you had asked something like “Is X more authoritarian than Y?” instead.
Yeah, like:
“Are Nazis bad people?”
“All people are bad”
LMAO
wut
That’s ok, you’ll get your social credit points nonetheless.
Would you have been satisfied if Jabril said “Yes, every state is authoritarian” instead? What was Jabril supposed to say?
I didn’t realize that the CIA even existed in 1883.
They’re referring to the fact that in contemporary discourse ‘Authoritarianism’ is a label applied by the western media to any government that bucks the ‘US led rules based international order’
is ‘Authoritarianism’ a thing? yes, but it has become a thought-terminating cliché and has lost all meaning in modern discourse
I assume you think that China is Authoritarian? I’d probably agree with you, the issue arises when people do not apply the same standards everywhere, is China authoritarian because it surveils its population and imprisons people?
Then why isn’t the US also labelled 'Authoritarian '? it also surveils its population , so much so that they have the highest percentage of its population incarcerated than any other country,
Its forces specifically target ethnic minorities often imprisoning them on spurious chargers , and for political dissention
The US drops 46 bombs a day on average , with a drone program is 90% inaccurate (They imprisoned the whistle-blower who revealed this) alongside other war crimes such as the first time a noble peace prize winner bombed another(Obama, MSF) and sexual abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
China hasn’t been in a war for 46 years, not to say its perfect my any means it engages in the same severe human rights abuses any large state does and should be condemned for it, but when compared to the very literally Evil Empire than is the the US and its neo-colonialism you can see why people support this state that offers countries a lifeline outside of the usurious IMF world order
So while both states clearly meet the definition of being Authoritarian, one engages in mass killings globally, so you may see why so called Tankies critically support one of these two ‘Authoritarian’ states over the other
“OUR glorious Ministry of Truth has determined that their hated Ministry of Truth is full of lies. Our glorious ministry of truth also assures us that they never lie.”
Sure, bud.
What source do you think we’re reading our news from? What’s our “Ministry of Truth”?
Username checks out.