Tankies don’t usually believe that Stalin or Mao “did nothing wrong,” although many do use that phrase for effect (this is the internet, remember). We believe that Stalin and Mao were committed socialists who, despite their mistakes, did much more for humanity than most of the bourgeois politicians who are typically put forward as role models (Washington? Jefferson? JFK? Jimmy Carter?), and that they haven’t been judged according to the same standard as those bourgeois politicians. People call this “whataboutism,” but the claim “Stalin was a monster” is implicitly a comparative claim meaning “Stalin was qualitatively different from and worse than e.g. Churchill,” and I think the opposite is the case. If people are going to make veiled comparisons, us tankies have the right to answer with open ones.

-Nia Frome, "Tankies"

I recommend reading the whole article. I think the meme is actually pretty poor agitprop about Stalin. The idea that Stalin genuinely did nothing wrong at all isn't found on Hex, .ml, or Grad. The idea that Stalin did more good than bad is the prevailing opinion among Marxists, however.

Demystifying Stalin

I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.

J. V. Stalin

Nia Frome's "Tankies"

[8 min]

W. E. B Dubois' On Stalin

[6 min]

Domenico Losurdo's Primitive Thinking and Stalin as Scapegoat

[30 min]

Domenico Losurdo's Stalin and Stalinism in History

[16 min]

J. V. Stalin interviewed by H. G. Wells

[42 min]

J. V. Stalin interviewed by Emil Ludwig

[38 min]

J. V. Stalin interviewed by Roy Howard

[9 min]

Domenico Losurdo's Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend

[5 hr 51 min]

Ludo Martens' Another View of Stalin

[5 hr 25 min]

Anna Louise Strong's This Soviet World

Stalin's Major Theoretical Contributions to Marxism

I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Seri of things that are very good.

Che Guevara

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Thanks, I was more commenting on the difference between instances and painted a flattened picture of tankies. I'm aware that tankies are willing to criticize Stalin and shouldn't have made such a stupid joke.

That said, you might guess from my instance that I disagree with the notion your quoting. When tankies say how bourgeois states are bad I agree because states in general are bad to varying degrees and in different ways but all states are authoritarian. For me, socialist state is an oxymoron and neither Lenin nor Stalin substantially worked towards a free, stateless society. That's what Bakunin predicted in his exchange with Marx, Kropotkin warned Lenin about, Goldman criticized after Kronstadt, ...

Kropotkin started a school of thought that describes stateless, egalitarian societies. Recent authors like Graeber, Gelderloos and J. C. Scott follow this tradition. The reason that it is difficult to find recent examples is that both bourgeois and bolshevik states work together to smash anti-state movements like the Makhnovshchina or the anarchosyndicalists in Spain, or more recently Rojava and the Zapatistas.

[–] KawaiiHawaii@lemmy.kya.moe 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I’m aware that tankies are willing to criticize Stalin and shouldn’t have made such a stupid joke.

If they were, they wouldn't be tankies... Communists can critic Stalin, tankies cannot.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 months ago

"Tankie" is just a pejorative for communist, like "commie" or "pinko." There isn't a subsection of communist thought called "tankie," the fictional "tankie" is a strawman ready-made to be flung at communists to turn valid and reasoned arguments into caricature.

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