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 defence 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.
The term was literally created by Marxists to insult the kind of person who wants to use tanks to suppress a worker’s revolution. Tankies aren’t communists. They’re counterrevolutionaries who want to stop all progress made towards dissolving the state as Marx said.
We demand general elections by universal, secret ballot are held throughout the country to elect a new National Assembly, with all political parties participating. We demand that the right of workers to strike be recognised.
We demand complete revision of the norms operating in industry and an immediate and radical adjustment of salaries in accordance with the just requirements of workers and intellectuals. We demand a minimum living wage for workers.
So you’re saying the revolution demanding minimum wage and the right to strike wasn’t a worker’s revolution? Are all tankies this right-wing or just you?
drag does realize that the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries were working with literal Nazis, and were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, right? They were lynching people, and even freed Nazis from jail to help with the lynching. The “political parties” they wanted to be able to participate were not worker parties, but fascist ones.
This is genuinely what liberals often accuse “tankies” of doing: uncritically supporting movements based on nominally being progressive, despite in reality being highly reactionary. Further, Hungary wanted to get out of paying reparations for World War II, that was one of the biggest cruxes of the situation. Who did Hungary fight alongside in WWII, does drag remember?
Overall, when it comes to geopolitical enemies of the United States in particular, it would not be a bad idea to treat drag’s current understanding with extreme skepticism until drag has investigated counter-sources as well. That doesn’t mean the US always lies, in fact it frequently tells mostly the truth, but will distory either the quality or quantity of an event.
If they were capitalists, why didn’t the demands of the student protesters say anything about capitalism? If the USSR allowed workers the right to strike, why were the students demanding it?
Read the sources drag asked for. What this was was a bourgeois supported counter-revolution that armed fascists that were doing pograms. The legitimacy of the demands immediately comes into question when drag understands that these were Nazi sympathizers. They wanted to allow fascist and Capitalist parties to dominate Hungary and wanted to get out of paying reparations for the damage they did as Nazis during World War II.
As for striking, it happened sometimes in the Soviet Union. Worker rights were much better there than in Western countries so it wasn’t as common.
One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes made by Communists is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful, all serious revolutionary work requires that the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class must be understood and translated into action.
- Lenin, 1922
It probably means they read Lenin and liked his ideas a lot better than Stalin’s nonsense. Now, you were explaining how tankies oppose minimum wage and the right to strike?
To be clear, drag is calling Nazis and Nazi sympathizers “the advanced working class.” Trying to twist Lenin into supporting fascism is incorrect, to say the least.
Moreover, Stalin was dead before 1956, this was Khrushchev.
drag asked for sources, was that just to waste my time? Read them. Here’s another few excerpts:
Section from the book “The Truth about Hungary” by Herbert Aptheker; a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse in the 1940’s, and Marxist Historian. Written in 1957 it outlined what later would be confirmed by the bourgeois Western press:
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”
“But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing.”
“Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements’ …” (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
“The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary.”
"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
horseshoe theory with “I’m not like other girls” characteristics
The term was literally created by Marxists to insult the kind of person who wants to use tanks to suppress a worker’s revolution. Tankies aren’t communists. They’re counterrevolutionaries who want to stop all progress made towards dissolving the state as Marx said.
They were putting chalk marks on the doors of jews and communists. It wasn’t a worker’s revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demands_of_Hungarian_Revolutionaries_of_1956
So you’re saying the revolution demanding minimum wage and the right to strike wasn’t a worker’s revolution? Are all tankies this right-wing or just you?
drag does realize that the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries were working with literal Nazis, and were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, right? They were lynching people, and even freed Nazis from jail to help with the lynching. The “political parties” they wanted to be able to participate were not worker parties, but fascist ones.
This is genuinely what liberals often accuse “tankies” of doing: uncritically supporting movements based on nominally being progressive, despite in reality being highly reactionary. Further, Hungary wanted to get out of paying reparations for World War II, that was one of the biggest cruxes of the situation. Who did Hungary fight alongside in WWII, does drag remember?
Spoiler: the Nazis.
Source?
This is a decent overview of the background that led up to the events of 1956, and this is a decent overview of the darker side, where the lynchings happened. Content Warning: lynched corpses. Here is a source on MI6 training and arming the counterrevolutionaries. Those 3 articles give only the briefest overview of the events, but don’t do the real buildup to them, their complexities, what the people actually supported, or the real character in any depth. If drag wants to actually take a deep dive, these are additional sources:
The History of the Working Class Movement in Hungary
1956 Counter-Revolution in Hungary
Others can offer more sources.
Overall, when it comes to geopolitical enemies of the United States in particular, it would not be a bad idea to treat drag’s current understanding with extreme skepticism until drag has investigated counter-sources as well. That doesn’t mean the US always lies, in fact it frequently tells mostly the truth, but will distory either the quality or quantity of an event.
If they were capitalists, why didn’t the demands of the student protesters say anything about capitalism? If the USSR allowed workers the right to strike, why were the students demanding it?
You asked for sources and then you ignored them in favor of your “um actually” debate pervert bullshit. You’re a deeply unserious person.
Read the sources drag asked for. What this was was a bourgeois supported counter-revolution that armed fascists that were doing pograms. The legitimacy of the demands immediately comes into question when drag understands that these were Nazi sympathizers. They wanted to allow fascist and Capitalist parties to dominate Hungary and wanted to get out of paying reparations for the damage they did as Nazis during World War II.
As for striking, it happened sometimes in the Soviet Union. Worker rights were much better there than in Western countries so it wasn’t as common.
What do you think “all political parties participating” means in 1956 Hungary?
- Lenin, 1922
It probably means they read Lenin and liked his ideas a lot better than Stalin’s nonsense. Now, you were explaining how tankies oppose minimum wage and the right to strike?
To be clear, drag is calling Nazis and Nazi sympathizers “the advanced working class.” Trying to twist Lenin into supporting fascism is incorrect, to say the least.
Moreover, Stalin was dead before 1956, this was Khrushchev.
There’s nothing fascist in the 16 demands, and drag’s search for evidence of this chalk thing turned up nothing with the word “chalk” in it -
drag asked for sources, was that just to waste my time? Read them. Here’s another few excerpts:
Section from the book “The Truth about Hungary” by Herbert Aptheker; a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse in the 1940’s, and Marxist Historian. Written in 1957 it outlined what later would be confirmed by the bourgeois Western press: