The DM was a DM asking us to change our no tankies policy and remove the fuck tankies banner as it was apparently upsetting hexbear users. Apparently tankies view the word tankie as a form of slur. The admin wants us to ally as a form of “left solidarity”
Are Cuba and Vietnam considered good or bad? Nicaragua? How about the new coup leaders in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger? Any successful revolution has demonstrated the necessity of authority, to enforce an ideological will on society and stop the bourgeois class from re-appearing requires authority. Any revolution with be authoritarian, even and especially if it is the oppressed overthrowing the oppressor.
Sure, say you don’t like China, the Soviet Union, or the DPRK for your own reasons, but why use a term that encompasses any successful revolution, as even the CNT-FAI was finding a need for things like secret police during the awful times of a revolution.
You should maintain your site culture, but there’s a reason anti-communists and fascists use the term tankie as well, it’s imprecise and volatile.
Edit: I apologize if this is not a post meant to invite discussion, I just don’t see this perspective shared very often in these conversations.
Look I am sure many of those places have done great things, like China’s recent wage cuts for rich bankers and pay rises for those lower on the totem pole, a good thing give credit where credit is due. But. How can you possibly remove the Bourgeois then place yourself at the top of the totem pole and not think of yourself as the new Bourgeoisie?
Yes every violent revolution is going to be authoritarian because you have lined people against the wall and you are not going to get every dissenter in the first round and unsurprisingly they are going to be pissed. So now you have a violent government and and a violent opposition, not exactly fun times for everyone stuck in the middle, Which once that happens is not just the liberals as many hexbears use as an insult for everyone not Auth-Left but basically the whole political spectrum that aren’t on the far ends.
A benevolent dictatorship is going to be the absolute best form of government you could possibly ever have but. You are never going to have one. The people at the top want to be at the top, and the people who want to be at the top are always going to be bastards.
You think that Authoritarianism is needed to keep the revolution going. Definitely correct if you do it through a coup. I don’t want to be under a nation that will silence me or worse because I criticise them. You can call that counter-revolutionary if you like but I would rather have incremental improvements where things get better slowly than everything is worse now and you just got to believe that things will get better, and our leaders plans will all just work out.
Tankie is a slur against Auth-Left. If you are Auth-Left well that’s the slur people who don’t like you are going to use.
To pivot on what this original post was likely created for (admittedly in a pretty bad way). Hexbear is full of some really crazy people who have very strong opinions and shout memes that make sense in Hexbear but don’t really out of it. 90% of Hexbears just seem so unhinged. If I see someone from Hexbear it makes me skittish to actually start a discussion with that person as there is a high chance they are just going to be hostile.