Authoritarian communists. Think Stalinists, and people who support regimes like the CCP. The top left of the political compass.
2Except Russia and China aren’t even pretending ti be communist.
Russia is a christo fascist oligarchy.
And China is a corporatist authoritarian state.
-1This doesn't stop tankies from being pro-Russia and pro-China. Modern tankies are absolutely happy with oligarchies and gigacorporations running the world, they just hate western society.
In essence, they worship authoritarianism rather than communism itself.
I'd say the difference between a tankie and a socialist is that a socialist wants equality and well-being for everyone and tankies just want people they don't like to die at the hands of an authoritarian regime, regardless of whether it's actually a communist regime.
0
"I'm saying that, when a communist does it, it's not an atrocity."
If we wanted to mess up scansion for the sake of correctness, "when someone who calls themselves a communist."
1Communists who glorify murderous regimes or dictators.
1Communist philosophy has a lot of really useful analytical tools. It describes and criticizes society, especially capitalist society, in a very sharp and insightful way. People should read and learn it because it's interesting, useful stuff that is easily applied to modern politics.
Communist philosophy also calls for a (typically violent) revolution involving an authoritarian transition to get rid of capitalist society and usher in the future collective state. When a violent revolution is being called for in (mostly) functional democracies, that should usher in some skepticism from a normal, reasonable person.
The tankies reallllllly seem to like the violence, though, and are extremely supportive of any state that claims to be communist regardless of what atrocities that state commits along the way. They will be intensely defensive against any criticism (criticisms like "maybe Stalin shouldn't have starved millions of people to death through incompetence and genocidal inclinations", "maybe Mao shouldn't have wiped out all the doctors and artists", "maybe Putin shouldn't be allowed to try and annex Ukraine", etc.).
At some point, it becomes hard to properly separate these supposedly "authoritarian left" types from the "authoritarian right" fascists. Political compasses are stupid anyway.
0Political compasses are stupid anyway.
It's a political torus. Walk of one end and you end up in the other
1
