this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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The tankies?
Those who literally deny the existence of the massacre in the Tiananmen Square, claiming that "nobody was killed" (or far more rarely, unapologetically stating that if they were, then they deserved it). Basically far-left extremists that exist in a world of "alternative facts" just like conservatives, the common denominator being that and simping for authoritarian regimes.
Words like "consent" tend not to matter to those holding that ideology.
"Tankie" does not come from Tiananmen Square, that is a common misconception. The term "tankie" is 33 years older than the Tiananmen Square massacre.
It originated to describe people who supported the 1956 Soviet Union military intervention in Hungary. Stalin sent in a bunch of T-35 tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution. He was successful, and thousands of people died in the process.
Ever since then, "tankie" has been used as a derogatory term against Stalinists, Marxist-Leninists, communists, and leftists in general.
The term mostly had been invoked by anti-authoritarian leftists derisively toward anyone who still supported the Soviet Union. In time, the usage generalized to apply broadly to authoritarian leftists, such as Marxist-Lenininsts (or Stalinists).
Now is it largely misused by liberals to designate anyone strongly critical of Western imperialism, which includes everyone from anarchists to campists.