"It's not imperialism when the Soviets do it!"
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Explanation: In 1956, socialist revolutionaries performed an uprising across Hungary, demanding workers' control of production and a return to genuine democratic elections. The Soviet Union, unwilling to let go of a vassal state, and certainly not a dangerous one trying to show that actual democracy and socialism were compatible, invaded, rolling tanks into the major cities of Hungary and suppressing and executing dissidents as they saw fit.
From this ugly incident we get the word 'tankie', coined by Western Communists who were previously largely content, even during the Stalinist years, to accept the argument that much of the bad press was capitalist propaganda. Apparently, seeing an independent socialist state created by workers' agitation crushed by Soviet tanks was enough to finally shake that saintly sheen off the Soviet project.
And just like that, having been freed from the Soviet grasp in 1989, they enjoyed three decades before spooning again with the Russians, seemingly having forgotten their imperialist goals - led by none other than the guy who was the loudest activist against the Soviets in 1989. This really feels like that fawn-in-the-pool meme.
This is going to make the MLs very angry.