There is a distinction between Communists and tankies.

Tankies are a subset of Communists. Specifically, tankies have rejected Marx in favor of authoritarianism, power for power's sake. "Everyone is equal, and some people are more equal than others" sort of thinking. They want to show anyone who doesn't agree with them the barrel of a gun.

The term came from when the Soviets invaded Hungary in order to prevent popular reforms. But I think a better example of what tankies are like (and how they differ from communists) is looking at Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia was a communist country already, but they were doing reforms that would help the average worker and promote equality within the country. The plan was to transition away from a single-party state within Czechoslovakia and towards a form of democratic socialism, where the parties still held core communist ideas but no one figure could wield influence (in line with what Marx expected).

The Soviets saw this as a threat. Their model of a one-party authoritarian state where the secret police dominate everything and the proletariat have no rights is the one they wanted to push everywhere. So they invaded Czechoslovakia and sent tanks into the country.

Later, the Chinese Communist Party sent tanks in to crush peaceful protestors who were asking for human rights and democracy within the proletariat. The protesters were literally turned into jelly by the tanks and washed down into the gutters.

Tankies support these atrocities. They say that a one-party authoritarian state is the only way to do things. Don't let them trick you into thinking they're the only true Communists - tankies want an upper class and a lower class, just like capitalists do. The distinction is that to tankies, the upper class are the party elite, the ones who do and say what they're told. The lower class are the people they don't like, or those who are unlucky enough not to have friends in high places.

Tankies are absolute scum. Lemmy's founders are tankies, Lemmygrad and Lemmy.ml both push tankie politics (Lemmy.ml is more subtle about it, but does enforce it via their moderation policy), and now Hexbear is coming over to Lemmy in order to complete the tankie trifecta.

I hate that this place is infested with tankies. I don't mind communists - I'm pretty left-leaning myself - but tankies are not true communists, and they never can be unless they fundamentally rethink their views about equality and freedom.