I empathize with some of the thinking, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. To keep it simple, imagine how many different world powers are working to sabotage openly Socialist and Communist governments. What kinds of tools and resources might these world powers have at their disposal? I can’t imagine being part of a disfavored leftist government and not becoming haggard and paranoid beyond reason.

For the same reason people fall into fascism. Capitalism is putting the screws to people. Rent is too high, food is too expensive, people are on a treadmill, and dissatisfaction hangs in the air like miasma. People are mad, and they don’t know at what. They sense something is rotten, they dont have the words. Fascism co-opts leftist talking points, but pulls a bait and switch with the Jews and migrants and whoever.

Tankies also start from this choking miasma, you look at Tankie propaganda, its compelling. The US commited genocide and war crimes, and is more racist than you know. Capitalists are terrible, yadda yadda you know it. Tankie propaganda also frames politics as a team sport. When you look at the US (or you can look at it as the “Nato Empire,” which can be an interesting way to think about it), as the ultimate evil, can be easy to see anyone opposing them as good or worth supporting.

same way people fall into conservative mindset, propaganda. you hear a little snippet of here and there, and ragebaiting or drama, add in a little racism and authotarianism, which both extreme loves. you fall on either opposites of the spectrum politically. they also dont bother to research on the actual material of being “hard left”

How do people fall into any mindset. Scientology is more wacky but also way more prolific than Tankies. Why do you have a hard time wrapping your mind around Tankies if something even crazier exists.

Tiananmen square is one of those things Tankies are generally correct about. There was no massacre, but they also fail to realize there could have been one if things had gone differently that day.

They use this as a decent proof that Western propaganda is lies. Of course it is, so is China’s propaganda. There are no good guys. As someone who discovered the awful truth of the US early on I spent a lot of time contemplating alternatives.

I could see how if I had stopped studying and just landed on the “West is wrong” I could have adopted many of their views. I didn’t though, I kept digging.

As other posters point out they are not really large. They also hit above their weight with their constant pushing of propaganda along with many alts and suppressive behavior on their instance. This is why I found them so distasteful. Their admins were outright abusive. I blocked a few and that solved 99% of the problem.

I’d argue that they functionally don’t exist.

Sure, here you run into them here in this universe…not a great sample size. I’m a really social person who spent years in deep leftist Canada…and I’m one of the most radical socialist (whatever you want to call it…all the terms are fraught) folks I’ve met. I’m definitely nowhere near a tankie.

I’ve met exactly one true “tankie”. Good friend…always making excuses for atrocities…it spills over into radical support for modern day Russia etc…but dude is also a silver spooner who works for his dads investment firm.

I honestly wish there were more tankies…and among the lower classes where they should be…but many of the poor people I know are conservatives or nihilists/anarchists.

Propaganda and self interest. Pick whatever story is being told that you feel like picking and that’s it.

How do people actually fall into the “Tankie” mindset?

The MLs answering in good faith despite the question being framed in bad faith have exceptional grace.

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 […]”

Oh hey I know that guy. If anyone who wants to know more about propaganda & media literacy, please see also: previously.

Well for sure one of the reason is that even in non marxist communities they show up and write comments in a style that many people resonate with. I mean using citations, good grammar, appealing to logic, (seemingly) good argumentations etc.

This makes them look reasonable and even if you do not read all their sources, you might remember their comments and talking points in a pretty positive light.

I dont want to say this style of arguing is bad, but I think it gets valued higher than arguments based on intuition and emotion with a less “scientific” style, because that is what many people are taught when growing up, going to school etc.

Also I would like to say, in some cases this “showing up” is done in a way that feels invasive to (parts of) communties. Like an online version of Jehovas Witnesses.

Time for you to study socialist/communist theory - https://redsails.org/

I’d wager half or more of the tankie posts are bots, paid posters in 3rd world countries, or slave labor in 3rd world countries. The rest are a combo of incest, edge lords, nihilistic, and some vanishingly small number of actual true believers in the power of Fascist accelerated forced Communism.

Marx and his allies believed Communism can’t come about by force, only by natural progression following the unavoidable natural collapse of capitalism. Our experience seems to demonstrate that attempting to force any of it only ever sets the process back.

I just want to point out that there was a time a little over a century ago when anarchists were Public Enemy #1, and there was a huge propaganda campaign to make anarchists look like murderous uncultured savages. Vestiges of this portrayal still remain in the cultures of core capitalist nations.

Of course, this couldn’t be further from the truth. That shows you how powerful the propaganda is and how important it is to analyze the power dynamics you find yourself in the middle of and correct your worldview around who’s been deceiving you and how.

A valuable heuristic is to look at specific policies (especially foreign policy) in the present day, and note the times when your stance is on the same side as the neoliberal establishment.

Imo this has been a good thread with opportunities for large and well thought out posts from marxists who are being responded to with well thought out positions, and responding in kind. There’s a lot of the classic dross, but I like seeing people’s posts appear to be getting up and downvoted based on content.

Not the usual entertaining brigading, but a good read nonetheless.

Tribalism

They opposed one tribe so they joined another

They can’t see that any government is going to create corruption so they picked the government they have the least experience with to side with. Of course at the heart of the tankies is a huge amount of fud being generated by russia and the ccp.

There is no one answer. Dr. Bob Altemeyer‘s book “The Authoritarians” sheds some light on the psychology.

Regardless of what you think about vanguardism as a means to leftist ends, they also seem to miss the logical point that vanguardism and the state are meant to wither away. It is a theoretical rightist means to a leftist ends, it is not itself leftist.

But again, if you read The Authoritarians you find that logic and reason do not matter to them. Trying to reason with an authoritarian is pointless.