Tankie

Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes or their allies. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, democratic socialists and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberal and right‐wing factions as well.^[5]^[6]

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). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.^[7]^[8] The term has extended to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the actions of communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. In recent times, the term has been used across the political spectrum and in a geopolitical context to describe those who have a bias in favour of anti-Western states, authoritarian states or states with a socialist legacy, such as Belarus, Cuba, China,^[9] Syria,^[10] North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. Additionally, the term pejoratively describes left-wing political activists who are allegedly favourable towards non-socialist authoritarian states that oppose the U.S., such as Iran.^{[citation needed]}

Definition

In 1968, Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress liberalisation efforts by the government.^[11]

After the Prague Spring, the term was used to describe Communist party members of Western countries who had supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact states, of which Czechoslovakia was a member.^[12]^[13] It was also used in the 1980s to describe the uncritical support the Morning Star gave to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.^[14]^[15]^[16] According to Christina Petterson, "Politically speaking, tankies regard past and current socialist systems as legitimate attempts at creating communism, and thus have not distanced themselves from Stalin, China, etc."^[17]

By 2017, tankie had re-emerged as internet slang for authoritarian socialists,^[18] and it became particularly popular among young democratic socialists.^[19] In 2017, left-wing writer Carl Beijer argued that there are two distinct uses of the term tankie. The original, which was "exemplified in the sending of tanks into Hungary to crush resistance to Soviet communism". More generally, a tankie is someone who tends to support "militant opposition to capitalism", and a more modern online variation, which means "something like 'a self-proclaimed communist who indulges in conspiracy theories and whose rhetoric is largely performative.'" He was critical of both uses.^[20] The Intercept journalist Roane Carey identified the "key element in the tankie mindset [as] the simple-minded assumption that only the United States can be imperialist, and thus any country that opposes the U.S. must be supported."^[21]

Usage

In the United Kingdom

Tankie originated in the UK as a term for hardline members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).^[22] This Stalinist or "tankie" wing of the CPGB was associated with the views of the strong CPGB presence in British trade unions.^[23]^[24] Journalist Peter Paterson asked the Amalgamated Engineering Union official Reg Birch about his election to the CPGB Executive after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Paterson recalled:

When I asked him how he could possibly have sided with the tankies, so called because of the use of Russian tanks to quell the revolt, he said "they wanted a trade unionist who could stomach Hungary, and I fitted the bill."^[25]^[a]

The support of the invasion of Hungary was disastrous for the party's reputation in Britain.^[7]^[26]^[27] The CPGB made mild criticisms of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, which they justified as a necessary intervention,^[28] although a hardline faction supported it, including the Appeal Group who left the party in response.^[29]These events then led to much of the subsequent internal politics of the CPGB to be viewed along the lines of "tankies versus Euros".^[30]^[23]

The term continued to be used into the 1980s, especially in relation to the split between the reform-minded eurocommunist wing of the CPGB and the traditionalist, pro-Soviet group, the latter continuing to be labelled tankies. The term is sometimes used within the Labour Party as slang for a politically old-fashioned leftist. Alastair Campbell reported a conversation about modernising education, in which Tony Blair said: "I'm with George Walden on selection." Campbell recalled: "DM [David Miliband] looked aghast ... [Blair] said when it came to education, DM and I were just a couple of old tankies."^[31] In 2015, Boris Johnson referred to Jeremy Corbyn and the left wing of the Labour Party as "tankies and trots", the latter referring to Trotskyism.^[32]^[b]

Modern Internet uses

The term tankie has been used in English-language social media to describe communists, particularly those from the Western world, who uphold the legacies of communist leaders, such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong. While generally used pejoratively, some Marxist–Leninists have re-appropriated it and used the term as a badge of honour.^[33]

The Taiwanese left-wing magazine New Bloom alleges that many modern tankies are members of the Asian diasporas of English-speaking countries. In particular, members of the Chinese diaspora searching for radical responses to social ills such as xenophobia against Asians are drawn to tankie discourse. This modern conception of tankie has also been described as "diasporic Chinese nationalism".^[34]

An instance of the modern usage is the description of those "who instinctively defend China based on the idea that it is an example of actually existing socialism resisting Western imperialism", in discussions around the persecution of Uyghurs in China and justify the "anti-terrorism" operations of the Chinese government.^[35]

In 2022, New York magazine reported that in the US "so-called tankies don't make up the majority of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) membership or wield much power within the broader left, but they do exist", and that "leftists from other countries have been contending with the American tankie for years", quoting activists from Hong Kong and Poland.^[36]^[37]

The term tankie has also been used in contemporary times to describe the defenders of anti-American leaders like Bashar al-Assad or those who propagate pro-Russian narratives in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War.^[4] It has been applied to "elements within the self-identified [American] left that have soft-pedalled Russia's aggressive foreign policy and history of human rights abuses", according to Sarah Jones of New York.^[36]

In media

In the 2006 play Rock 'n' Roll by the Anglo-Czech author Tom Stoppard, the character Max, based on Eric Hobsbawm,^[38] discusses with Stephen what to read to hear what is happening in the communist party, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Their options are Marxism Today and the daily newspaper, the Morning Star:

MAX: Marxism Today? It's not so much the Eurocommunism. In the end it was the mail order gifts thing. I couldn't take the socks with little hammers and sickles on them.
STEPHEN: Well, Read the Morning Star and keep up with the Tankies.
MAX: The Tankies ... How the years roll by. Dubcek is back. Russia agrees to withdraw its garrisons. Czechoslovakia takes her knickers off for capitalism. And all that remains of August '68 is a derisive nickname for the only real communists left in the Communist Party.^[39]

Explanatory notes

^ Reg Birch's hardline attitudes later led him to split away from the CPGB to form a pro-Albanian Maoist party.
^ ""The Trots" also puns on UK slang for diarrhea, as one has to repeatedly "trot" to the toilet.

References

^ "The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents". National Security Archive. 4 November 2002. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
^ Kohn, George Childs, ed. (2007). "Hungarian Revolt of 1956". Dictionary of Wars (Third ed.). pp. 237–238.
^ Niessen, James P. (11 October 2016). "Hungarian Refugees of 1956: From the Border to Austria, Camp Kilmer, and Elsewhere". Hungarian Cultural Studies. 9: 122–136. doi:10.5195/AHEA.2016.261. ISSN 2471-965X.
^ ^a ^b Dutkiewicz, Stecuła; Jan, Dominik (4 July 2022). "Why America's Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 26 January 2023.
^ Watt, Nicholas (5 October 2015). "Boris Johnson: Jeremy Corbyn and Labour left are 'tankies and trots'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
^ Stecuła, Jan Dutkiewicz, Dominik (4 July 2022). "Why America's Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 21 June 2023.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ ^a ^b Driver, Stephen (16 May 2011). Understanding British Party Politics. Polity Press. p. 154. ISBN 978-0745640785.
^ New Statesman 2016.
^ Lanza, Fabio (20 October 2021). "Of Rose-Coloured Glasses, Old and New". Made in China Journal. 6 (2): 22–27. doi:10.22459/MIC.06.02.2021.02. Archived from the original on 25 June 2024.
^ Douthat, Ross (18 October 2021). "Wèishéme zhōngguó zài 007 diànyǐng lǐ quēshǎo cúnzài gǎn" 为什么中国在007电影里缺少存在感 [Why does China lack a sense of presence in 007 movies?]. The New York Times (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 15 December 2021. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
^ "Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia". European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
^ Paterson, Tony (6 February 2014). "Hard-line Czech communist Vasil Bilak dies: Last surviving tankie who supported 1968 invasion of his own country by Soviet Union passes away at 96". The Independent. Archived from the original on 26 May 2022. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
^ "Vasil Bilak, 96, Dies; Czech Communist Encouraged 1968 Soviet Invasion". The New York Times. 6 February 2014. Archived from the original on 23 February 2014. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
^ "Soviet invasion of Afghanistan". History Learning Site. Archived from the original on 4 July 2019. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
^ "Afghanistan: Making Human Rights the Agenda" (PDF). Amnesty International. 1 November 2001. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
^ New Statesman (2016): "The first time 'Tankie' was written down was in the Guardian in May 1985, in an article describing the Morning Star crowd: 'The minority who are grouped around the Morning Star (and are variously referred to as traditionalists, hardliners, fundamentalists, Stalinists, or "tankies"—this last a reference to the uncritical support that some of them gave to the Soviet "intervention" in Afghanistan).'"
^ Petterson, Christina (2020). Apostles of Revolution? Marxism and Biblical Studies. Brill. p. 11. ISBN 978-9004432208.
^ Rickett, Oscar (23 October 2017). "From latte socialist to gauche caviar – how to spot good-time leftwingers around the world". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
^ Pearl, Mike (11 November 2018). "How a Real Class War, Like with Guns, Could Actually Happen". Vice. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
^ Peyser, Eve (22 August 2017). "Corncob? Donut? Binch? A Guide to Weird Leftist Internet Slang". Vice. Archived from the original on 25 March 2021. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
^ Carey, Roane (1 March 2022). "Don't Be a Tankie: How the Left Should Respond to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine". The Intercept. Archived from the original on 1 April 2022. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
^ Glastonbury, Marion (March 1998). "Children of the Revolution: matters arising". Changing English. 5 (1): 7–16. doi:10.1080/1358684980050102. ISSN 1358-684X.
^ ^a ^b Hassan, Gerry (2004). The Scottish Labour Party: History, Institutions and Ideas. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 220–222.
^ Undy, Roger (2008). Trade Union Merger Strategies: Purpose, Process, and Performance. Oxford University Press. p. 178.
^ Paterson, Peter (February 2011). How Much More of This, Old Boy...?: Scenes from a Reporter's Life. London: Muswell. p. 181. ISBN 9780956557537. OCLC 751543677.
^ Pimlott, Herbert (2005). "From 'Old Left' to 'New Labour'? Eric Hobsbawm and the Rhetoric of 'Realistic Marxism'". Labour/Le Travail. 56: 185.
^ Davies, Andrew (1996). To Build a New Jerusalem: The British Labour Party from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair. Abacus. ISBN 978-0-349-10809-4.
^ Andrews, Geoff (2004). Endgames and New Times: The Final Years of British Communism 1964–1991. Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. pp. 93–94. ISBN 978-0853159919. [John Gollan] said 'we completely understand the concern of the Soviet Union about the security of the socialist camp ... we speak as true friends of the Soviet Union'.
^ Parker, Lawrence (2012). "1977 and all that". The Kick Inside: Revolutionary opposition in the CPGB, 1945–1991 (2nd ed.). November Publications. pp. 75–95. ISBN 978-1-291-19609-2.
^ Parker, Lawrence (2012). "Introduction". The Kick Inside: Revolutionary opposition in the CPGB, 1945–1991 (2nd ed.). November Publications. pp. 11–14. ISBN 978-1-291-19609-2.
^ Campbell, Alastair (2010). Diaries. Volume 1, Prelude to power. London: Hutchinson. p. 301. ISBN 9780091797263.
^ Watt, Nicholas (5 October 2015). "Boris Johnson: Jeremy Corbyn and Labour left are 'tankies and trots'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
^ Andersen, Sebastian Skov; Chan, Thomas. "Tankie Man: The Pro-Democracy Hong Kongers Standing Up to Western Communists". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 31 March 2021. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
^ Hioe, Brian (22 June 2020). "The Qiao Collective and Left Diasporic Chinese Nationalism". New Bloom Magazine. Archived from the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
^ Robertson, Matthew P.; Roberts, Sean R. (May 2021). "The war on the Uyghurs: A conversation with Sean R. Roberts". Made in China Journal. 6 (2): 262–271. doi:10.22459/MIC.06.02.2021.33. Archived from the original on 4 March 2023.
^ ^a ^b Jones, Sarah (3 March 2022). "Russia's Invasion Tests the American Left". Intelligencer. New York. Archived from the original on 3 March 2022. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
^ "Communist Poland". Encyclopedia Britannica.
^ Jernigan, Daniel K. (2012). Tom Stoppard: Bucking the Postmodern. McFarland and Co. p. 187. ISBN 978-0786465323.
^ Stoppard, Tom (2006). Rock 'n' roll. Faber and Faber. p. 79.

General and cited references

New Statesman (9 August 2016). "What exactly are 'Trots' and 'Tankies'?". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 16 September 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2019.