It’s come to my attention that you’re someone who genuinely believes Russia is not an imperialist nation (where you ironically also attempt to hand-wave the definition of imperialism as forceful authority over another nation and imply that the only right one is that it’s a direct and unique result of capitalism—as if a word can’t have more than one definition), so I doubt you’re someone I can have a rational discussion about authoritarianism with regardless.

And again, you’re fixing the term based on your own perception to make it support your point, which doesn’t really have any merit when it comes to using these words as they are by academics essentially ubiquitously. Until we can both accept that authoritarianism has a set definition independent of many ideologies and therefore cannot be universally applied to them, this will remain a purely rhetorical argument.

This is a semantic argument so it’s pretty much a nothingburger. I’m just gonna go ahead and apply Alder’s razor and call it here

Notice I wrote ‘as you’ve described it’. I shouldn’t have to explain that the criticism the term tankie is calling attention to in theory is authoritarianism, not communism or socialism as a whole (as the term was literally created by communists). Unless you’re arguing that authoritarianism is a good thing. I guess I wouldn’t be all that surprised.

Agreed! Sorry for giving you that “nuance” you craved, in any case.

I can already tell this isn’t a good faith response based on the first paragraph lol, you clearly didn’t read the article nor do you know the history of the term Tankie. Again, Wikipedia:

The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

As you can see (if you care to be sincere here) it’s a pejorative term created by leftists to describe other leftists. Neither are acts of oppression defined by any of the groups you listed in this context. Be serious, please.

It’s ignorant and combative because it hand waves away all successful socialist states (China, Cuba, etc) without any nuance.

Inherently biased counter-point. You can’t just pose a government as having a successful ideology, at that point we might as well say there exists such a thing as utopia. It’s entirely rhetorical and has nothing solid to stand on.

Socialism and Communism are one in the in the same according to Marx. As we use the terms today, from actual Socialists, is that Socialism is a beginning, transitory state before full Communism.

Sure, but hopefully we can agree that contemporary socialists as a whole certainly do not agree on that definition. The ideology is far too diversified at this point for that to be the case. You can’t say “they aren’t socialists then” because again, that’s entirely rhetorical. In that case Protestants aren’t Christians, and Shia Muslims aren’t Islamic. Sure that’s religion, and you can say that’s different, but at the end of the day both religion and politics encompass ideological systems. They cover different niches, but what they fundamentally are stays the same.

This is the general agreed upon consensus at a high level.

This part really gets me. What are we defining as high level? Lemmy.ml mods? Even experts on the matter wouldn’t unanimously agree, they’re not a hivemind.

the term “tankie” insults Socialists and Communists alike, as we’re all working towards the same goal.

See my third point. Generalizations out the wazoo in this statement.

Where was I supposed to find a succinct rebuttal to this other than the people against whom the term is used? Wikipedia? Fox News?

Oh, I dunno… Academic sources would be a good place to start. I wouldn’t say a lemmy community is very close to that.

False equivalence and you know it.

Fair, though I edited it right after from Jew to National Socialism as I realized the error right away. You can’t say that’s a false equivalence, so ha!

This is framing the term “tankie” disingenuously if not intentionally. According to the Wikipedia article:

Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof.

It’s only ‘ignorant and combative’ in the same way that people call right-wing authoritarianism fascism, which is perfectly reasonable if not sympathetically misguided. Not to mention socialism isn’t apart of the meaning at all as you’ve described it.

I also find it funny that your source for the meaning of tankie is from lemmy.ml, as if that isn’t the exact instance this post is criticizing. It would be like if I corrected someone on the meaning of the term “National Socialism” by sourcing Mein Kampf.

Let them eat beans on toast