Tankie Wiki

**Tankie Wiki time, grab a drink.**
A collection of kind of ragefans of the "tankie" subculture documenting some of their greatest hits. Also arguably, tankie culture is a bit of a fandom itself, and tends to attempt to ingratiate itself in all other media based sub-cultures, and as such is worthy for documentation here on Fandom, in order to help users be aware of this phenomenon.

**Accessibility**: Info about accessibility, eg. languages, subtitles, translations, file sizes, file formats, audio / video lengths in square brackets, [ ]. Information why someone might not click on a link, political / corporate biases, content notes or content warnings in parentheses, ( ).

If a Sci-Hub URL or a LibGen URL does not work, please check their social media feeds to see if they moved domains. We will fix the links when notified.

Also note, we regularly back up the wiki and will just revert the changes of any vandalism. Even if this got taken down, we'd just self host which would, if anything, be a more secure option.

## **What are “Tankies?”**

Originally “tankie” was coined as a way to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who supported crushing the Hungarian uprising in the 1950s and followed the Moscow line. This event caused a split amongst communist parties. Support for this action destroyed the credibility of the CPGB amongst other Marxists.

Modern use of the term “tankie” varies widely but tends to refer to those who white-wash or fully deny the crimes of both historical authoritarian-communist regimes, current tenuously-socialist regimes, and, in the name of anti-imperialism, sometimes literally any state at least nominally opposed to the US and its allies. Usage also includes right-wing regimes appropriating communist histories. More on the history and modern use of the term can be found here.

Maybe a better question is "why are tankies?".

**Note:** Reading Lenin or being a Marxist-Leninist does not make someone a “tankie”. Some of the resources provided are from Marxist-Leninists themselves who are against “tankieism”. Additionally, the existence of “tankies” is not an excuse to be racist. Similarly, there is a large diversity of Marxist thought especially amongst BIPoC authors and activists.

## **About Us**

*This document is maintained by a small but diverse network of marxists, anarchists, progressives, and other aligned leftists. Everyone tends to work on their own little section independently or follows their own interests. Wherever possible native speakers have also included links in original languages or worked on sections relevant to their own backgrounds.*

*We also include a range of different perspectives, wherever possible including state documents or the perspectives of communists and leftists from affected areas, so as to decentralize US-centric tankieism in left discourses. This goal is especially important around more pressing topics, such as genocide revisionism and the mass repression of complex social movements. We also hope to help update conversations around certain key events into the current moment.*

*We trust the reader to employ critical thinking about the biases of any piece in this document and instead seek to form an understanding beyond the many different angles presented here. As much as possible, we attempt to name the biases of different outlets as stated in the accessibility description.*

*The larger communities with which much of this information was developed are mostly not from the US, are heavily queer, and largely non-white/western.*

## **Table of Contents**

* Anti-Tankie
	+ Anti-Tankie
	+ Anti-work
	+ Dishonest Arguments
		- Accumulation
		- Anti-anarchism
		- Anti-imperialism
		- Badjacketing
		- Cultural genocide is still genocide
		- Decentralized resiliency
		- Deplatforming
		- Diverse anti-authorianism
		- Great Man theory
		- Online cultures
		- Tokenization
	+ Marxist critiques
	+ Marxist-Leninist critiques
	+ State contradictions
* Atrocities
	+ Afghan refugee crisis
	+ Anfal genocide
	+ Bosnian genocides
	+ Cambodian genocide
	+ Chinese "Cultural Revolution", 1966-1976
	+ Ethiopia's Derg regime
	+ Great Chinese famine, 1959-1961
	+ Gukurahundi massacre
	+ Iraqi refugee crisis
	+ Katyn massacre
	+ Kazakh famine, 1932-1933
	+ LIbyan refugee crisis
	+ Lucanamarca massacre
	+ Palestinian genocide
	+ Rohingya genocide
	+ Rwandan genocide
	+ Sudanese refugee crisis
	+ Syrian genocides
	+ Syrian refugee crisis
	+ Sudanese refugee crisis
	+ Tigray genocide
	+ Ukrainian famine, 1932-1933
	+ Uyghur genocide
	+ Venezuelan refugee crisis
	+ War on Terror
* Authoritarianism
	+ Arrests
	+ Censorship
	+ Deportations and purges of nationalities
	+ Drug Wars
	+ Expansion of Government Powers
	+ Paternalism
	+ People Fleeing For Political Asylum
	+ Persecution of Religious Freedoms
	+ Prisons, Police and Criminal Justice Systems
	+ Suppression of Political Dissent
	+ Surveillance
	+ Theories of Authoritarianism
* Bigotry
	+ Ableism
	+ Anti-immigration
	+ Anti-LGBTQIA+
	+ Anti-sex work
	+ Border politics
	+ Colonialism
	+ Cultural Genocide is still genocide
	+ Imperialism
	+ Linguicism
	+ Nationalism
	+ Patriarchy
	+ Racism
		- Anti-Asian racism
		- Anti-Black racism
		- Anti-Indigenous racism
		- Antisemitism
		- Antiziganism
		- Islamophobia
		- Whiteness
* Economics
	+ Accumulation
	+ Central Planning
	+ COVID Managements
	+ Environmental
	+ International Capitalism
	+ Government Mismanagements
	+ National Economies
		- Chinese Economics
		- Cuban Economics
		- East German (DDR) Economics
		- Nepali Economics
		- Nicaraguan Economics
		- North Korean Economics
		- Soviet Economics
		- Venezuelan Economics
		- Vietnamese Economics
* Fascism
	+ Anti-government reactionaries
	+ The Assads are anti-communists
	+ Campism
	+ The DDR did not denazify either
	+ Deplatforming
	+ Green-brown alliances
	+ Hezbollah is far-right
	+ Iran is a far-right reactionary state
	+ Populism
	+ Putin is anti-communist
	+ Qaddafi was anti-communist
	+ Red-brown alliances in 20th century
	+ Red-brown alliances, post-Cold War
	+ Saddam was anti-communist
* Imperialism
	+ Campism
	+ Colonialism
	+ Deportations and purges of nationalities
	+ Han Chauvinism
		- Indigenous Peoples of Mainland China
		- Kashmir
		- Palestine
		- Philippines
		- Southern Mongolia
		- Taiwan
		- Tibet
		- Xinjiang
			* Uyghur Genocide
	+ Imperial Tendencies in Marx and Engels
	+ Kinh Chauvinism
	+ Palestine
	+ Russian Chauvinism
		- Crimea
		- The Caucasus
			* Baku Commune, 1917 - 1918
			* Chechnya
		- Central Asia
			* Afghanistan
			* Kazakhstan
				+ Kazakh Famine, 1932-1933
			* Uzbekistan
		- Hungary
			* Hungarian Uprising, 1956
		- Palestine
		- Poland
			* Katyn Massacre
			* Poznan Uprising, 1956
		- Siberia
		- Ukraine
			* Ukraine insurrectionist uprisings, 1918 - 1921
			* Ukrainian Famine, 1932-1933
			* Ukraine Protests
* Populism
* Repression
	+ Historical Repression
		- Baku Commune, 1917 - 1918
		- Budapest Commune, 1919
		- Kronstadt Rebellion, 1921
		- "Great Purge," 1930s
			* Antisemitism in the Great Purge
			* Purge of anarchists in the Great Purge
			* Purge of foreigners in the Great Purge
			* Purge of Marxists in the Great Purge
			* Purge of party members in the Great Purge
		- Barcelona May Days, 1937
		- East German Uprising, 1953
		- Vorkuta uprising, 1953
		- Norilsk uprising, 1953
		- Hungarian Uprising, 1956
		- Poznan Uprising, 1956
		- Chinese "Cultural Revolution", 1966-1976
			* Shanghai Commune, 1967
		- Tiananmen Square, 1989
	+ Recent/Contemporary Protest Movements
		- Belarus Protests
		- Bolivia Protests
		- China Protests
		- Cuba protests
		- Hong Kong and Macau Protests
		- Iran protests
		- Kazakhstan Protests
		- Lebanon Protests
		- Myanmar Protests
		- Nicaragua Protests
		- Russia Protests
		- Syria Protests
		- Thailand Protests
		- Ukraine Protests
		- Venezuela Protests
	+ Suppression of anarchist movements
	+ Suppression of Marxist movements
	+ Suppression of Workers' movements

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