I never heard of tankies until I got to lemmy.

The first thing that I ever saw from them was a meme about how Joseph Stalin had very little in the way of material things when he died, despite the position he held.

And I was like Bitch, I care about Stalin's earthly possessions in the exact same way that I care about Hitler's painting with watercolors skill set.

This got me thinking about my western canadian upbringing through the back half of the Cold War. A steady stream of western indictrination and perspective. I recall zero words spoken about Joseph Stalin's personal life or spending habits.

So who the fuck was that meme aimed at? Who is out there, just wanting to love Stalin, but can't on account of thinking he lived in opulence? Who is out there heaping scorn on Stalin for what he owned or didn't?

That's when I realized that tankies are just a combination of Flat Earthers/Sovereign Citizens. It’s all bullshit, and the point is to be exceedingly difficult to talk to.

I wish people would stop referring to Tankies and authoritarian regimes as leftists. If we stop entertaining the hallucination that they are- then maybe places like Wikipedia will start labeling them correctly as right wing.

From the very beginning of the terms "Left" and "Right" to describe the political spectrum, which originated in pre-revolutionary war France, the Left has always been about freedom from Tyranny and the Right has been pro-government (ruling class) control.

Maybe the USSR did start out as revolutions of the proletariat, but once they were controlled by increasingly authoritarian leadership, that should have flipped them from left to right on the political spectrum. In a sane world that's exactly what would have happened. Guess who's best interests it was to mislabel the USSR, the PRC and the DPRK as 'Leftists'? Ill give you one guess. If you said capitalists and the right wing in Western democracies- That's a bingo! And of course they are going to label themselves as 'left wing'. To admit otherwise would be to expose the whole lie. So in a weird example of cold war cooperation between the East and West, that fiction has continued.

The only reason that Communism and Socialism were correctly labeled as 'Left' ideologies in the first place is because, implemented correctly, they both offer less control by the 'ruling class'. Socialism was meant to return the power to the people, and communism was meant to abolish the state completely. Authoritarian regimes run counter to both those goals. You will NEVER abolish the state by strengthening the state. That makes about as much sense as 'trickle down economics'. Hey maybe if we give the billionaires all the money, they'll give us a little back in return. Spoiler alert, no they wont.

/rant

I lean socialist, but yeah fuck this. Ukraine should be liberated as much as Palestine, Nepal, and the Philippines. Fuck authoritarian simps.

The ONLY conflict that should concern us all is the class conflict.

If so called "leftists" think that solidarity doesn't extend to their favorite oppressed people, then they aren't leftists. They are fascists in disguise who associate with an in-group juxtaposed against an out-group. Leftists must realize that EVERYONE is part of the in-group, even fascists themselves. For if their material lives were well nourished and enriched, they wouldn't feel the need to hate.

Now, I have heard that there has been and may still be corruption in the Ukrainian government. That corruption doesn't give permission for other countries to invade and take over, though. If anything, internal affairs should be dealt between the opposing sides PEACEFULLY and DEMOCRATICALLY. If things do come to violence, those internal seeking to restore a democratic system of government should be supported more by those external than the opposing side of corruption.

Slava Ukraini! Go fuck yourself, .ml tankies

I had no idea so much of lemmy.ml was run and populated by a bunch of paid Russian agents and their useful idiots. One guy had only been on Lemmy for a couple of months and had already posted hundreds of propaganda pieces from Russian state sponsored new sources. Another poster specialized on propaganda from other sources but was just as prolific.

lemmy.ml is the toilet of Lemmy.