this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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B-but the tankies say that Russia and China are paradises for minorities! They wouldn't lie, right?
I kinda get why tankies would defend China (CCP is still ostensibly Communist), but why Russia?? it's literally a kleptocratic oligarchy led by a billionaire dictator/mob boss. ain't nothing Soviet about it.
Go spend time in China. Its capitalist as fuck
I plan to, actually. I don't support CCP at all - it's authoritarian as fuck, with the Great Firewall, the reeducation camps in Xinjiang and the annexation of Tibet - but it's fascinating to me that the country hasn't completely collapsed into corruption like so many autocracies, and that they do so much long-term planning.
my impression is that China is a hybrid of state capitalism and central planning, with a lot of poor rural areas and a moderate oligarchy, but that they see billionaires as political rivals (e.g. Jack Ma) and Gilded Age economic inequality as a risk of social unrest and keep it from getting as out of hand as the US.
I used to think there was more to it, but it really is as simple as "They're the enemy of the west? Then all of the horrible things they do must be western propoganda, and their own state media is 100% truthful! Woo! You go Russia! De-nazify Ukraine!"
That they are allies with China and North Korea probably helps further legitimize that belief.
It also really helps that any information about those countries that conflicts with their preexisting views is immediately rejected as propoganda, no matter the validity of the information. Similar to a cult.
I think there is a little more to it, namely that a lot of "tankies" are just Russians who haven't let go.
Why are all these "communists" hard-line vatniks? Because that's who they've always been.
Or are paid to pretend they haven't changed anyways, you look at tankie communities and they're just pasting the feed from RT into their news communities half the time.
I'm sure that explains some of them, but a good amount of tankies are people who grew up and live in the west, with no real connection to Russia other than their texts glorifying the USSR.
In their case, I think when they began to become disillusioned with western governments, they unfortunately hadn't developed enough skill in critically investigating sources of information that is critical of capitalism, and more importantly, become involved in a ML group, which gave them a sense of belonging.
Unfortunately, most ML groups require a continued belief in their selected holy texts and approved histories to continue participation in the group, much like a cult. This is a tremendous motivator to ignore credible information critical of the group's core texts, as no one wants to lose access to their tribe, or lose their friends by being branded a traitor who fell for the 'shitlib' propaganda, thus become an ostracized 'shitlib' themselves.
Right! I mean to themselves and also each other sure, but never to you, princess 💋:-)