• Guitarguru2001@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Short answer: folk who are so pro-Communist that they think the Tiananmen Square massacre was a good thing. The massacre in which the CCP bulldozed protestors with tanks.

      Hence, “tankie”

      Edit: apparently I’m wrong on the origin of the term, and it predates Tiananmen Square. See the reply below.

      I will add that given the current projection of power currently, China is a far more powerful authoritarian communiststate than Russia, so most tankie propaganda is China-centric these days.

      • Deceptichum@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s a wrong answer.

        It’s in relation to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Prague spring, where they were doing evil things like giving people more freedoms and not having everything under centralised authoritarian state control so the soviets sent over some tanks to kill people and enforce their imperialistic control over the country.

        Ironically enough doing more to encourage actual communism than the larpers in Russia ever did.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie

        In your defence, it’s confusing trying to keep track of who these authies murdered with tanks.

        • Greenskye@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Wrong spectrum. Both Republicans and Tankies are authoritarian, which is why they feel similar (especially because current republicans are barely even conservative and have mostly gone all in on the authoritarian part).