this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Ha ha "tankies" aka people who break through the empire wall of propaganda programming. So choosing to stop believing western propaganda rags and CIA psyops to answer your question
"Authoritarianism" isnt even real, its jus another CIA op from the 60s so they could label any bad scary commie country as it
I like how you didn't even remotely attempt to answer the question
Username checks out.
So China and Russia aren't authoritarianisms?
Every state is authoritarian
What a crazy stretch just to avoid answering a simple question.
It isn't a stretch, have you studied any leftist theory at all?
The idea that a state is inherently "authoritarian" is an introductory level concept.
The key difference between "tankies" and anarchists is that the former understands you need to change the economic substructure before you can change the super structure and the latter generally thinks what is essentially the opposite.
The keyword here is "theory".
Adopting one theory as your one and only point of view, like a religion, is nonsensical.
I refrain from being dragged in such limited perspectives on reality, from politics to science. It's always better to doubt of everything, especially about what people believe blindly.
Me when a round earther tries to force their round earth theory on me
Are you saying you believe the earth is flat? Lol and lmao
No I'm saying you are the equivalent of a flat earther, rejecting something because the word "theory" was used. You probably don't wash your hands because "germ theory" is an authoritarian rule being forced on you by the ruling class. You probably float into the air because the theory of gravity is a form of bourgeois oppression
You mean like dialectical reasoning? Gee, I wonder who applied that, especially to material conditions...
Tell me that you have no clue what the word "theory" means without telling me.
Good lord, don't they teach this stuff in highschool?
No.
What you are thinking of is indoctrination and no, they didn't do that in my highschool.
Instead they taught us about how different theories exist and how each is valid until it is not.
I think what chloroken is getting at is "the key word here is 'theory'" sounds like a dismissal in the same vein as "evolution is just a theory." The sense of 'theory' in both "evolutionary theory" and "leftist theory" is the same, and in both cases it's distinct from the colloquial sense. It means "body of conceptual academic work," not "hypothetical belief." In neither case does it imply dogmatism.
"Every state is authoritarian" is a pretty non-controversial claim in leftist political theory of any stripe. Comrade's point was "China is authoritarian" is a non-sequitur from any leftist perspective, because China is a state so of course it is. Anarchist and ML theorists are going to disagree on the implications of that basic observation.
Bingo.
And is also avoiding to say that China and Russia are basically dictatorships, but with extra steps.
Like, as I said, saying all people are bad would be a way to avoid saying that Nazis are bad, but with extra steps.
It's also similar to far righters when asked if they are antifascists and they answer that they are antifascists and anticommunists.
Just different shapes of delusion.
How would you respond if someone criticized Revolutionary Catalonia because marriage/religion/domestic violence still existed inside of it?
They answered your question with an implied "yes" and provided relevant additional context by saying that so are all the other states. Their answer would only count as avoiding the question if you had asked something like "Is X more authoritarian than Y?" instead.
Yeah, like:
"Are Nazis bad people?"
"All people are bad"
LMAO
wut
Actually I think this comment unintentionally answers OP's question.
I think a common tankie story is:
Realization that much of western media is propaganda or influenced by propaganda.
Finding that enemies of the American empire (and Europe) with some semblance of power agree that western media is propaganda, and these people are MLM communists.
After they've established credibility with their accurate criticisms of western capitalist society, tell you that, oh, by the way, those propaganda outlets in the west also lie about us, actually almost all of what we do is awesome and people who claim otherwise are automatically suspect.
Number 3 is a mistake, I think, but it's an understandable one. This isn't super fair to tankies but the analogy I'd give is to people who fall under the spell of someone like Jordan Peterson: he sounds smart, and he lulls you into a sense of security with good advice about taking care of yourself, keeping your house clean, etc., and then once he's gotten your trust he gently introduces stuff like "oh by the way evolution proves that men and women shouldn't work together" or whatever, and because he's made sensible points up until then, your guard is down and you don't critique it in your head before accepting it.
Western propaganda outlets absolutely do like about their enemies though. It's verifiable.
The primary goal of the empire is maintaining its hegemony. Since the biggest threats to that hegemony are its rival states, it undermines support for them by libeling and slandering them. The empire doesn't much care about how great you think it is. As long as you hate every alternative more, they're not threatened. The reason Stalin and Mao were demonized more than anyone else is because they scared the living shit out of capitalists.
Example of their lies
My "tankie story", so to speak, began in 2019 just before the Hong Kong protests kicked off. I followed the progression of that story through Marxist news sources like Proles Pod:
A Chinese man murdered and dismembered his girlfriend, stashed her body parts in a suitcase, and fled to Hong Kong. China couldn't extradite him back to the mainland, so the Chinese authorities in Hong Kong crafted an extradition law. Hong Kong capitalists opposed it, fearing extradition for their financial crimes.
For a long time, I heard nothing about the story from mainstream American news sources. Then one day, NPR broached the subject. I thought "oh boy, someone is finally covering this story!"
All that NPR had to say about it was "There are protests in Hong Kong. The protesters want more democracy. China is against them because they hate democracy." I was flabbergasted! There was no substance at all to the reporting. Absolutely none of the inciting background was covered. I was introduced in real time to the way that even "good" liberal, Western news sources like NPR flatten all stories about enemy countries into simple good vs. evil narratives.
This is just a straw man. The reason the concept of "critical support" is so common in Marxist anti-imperialist spaces is because we acknowledge nuance and limit our support to productive actions.
I'm going to throw back once more to my experience with Proles Pod, a podcast that was widely criticized as being one of the most "Stalinist" media in existence. I was introduced to them through an interview with the hosts conducted by Breht O'Shea on Revolutionary Left Radio. They spent the first twenty minutes enumerating all their criticisms of the mistakes that Stalin made.
"it's okay that I support imperialism, the imperialists told me the anti imperialists will believe anything!"
Please point to where I said I support imperialism
I'm commenting on the meme you shared, which takes the position that being a puppet of US imperialism is actually the lesser evil than having any rational perspective on the evil authoritarians of the east
The meme I shared takes the position that those you call “puppets of US imperialism” are fully aware that they are being showered with propaganda and that the US is an evil state which lies about everything.
We constantly criticize the US for its bullshit but the second we criticize the “communist” nations of the east we are gobbling up western propaganda and sucking the cocks of the US elite
westerners are famous for being fully aware
it isn't hard to point out western propaganda made by the US explicitly to foment war and conquest over their enemies.
It sounds like you are saying that by pointing this out when it is happening it isn't fair because the US is also bad, so their enemies also deserve to be called bad, even by the US, even when it is easily proven to be a lie?
If you say some shit that is easily proven to be a lie, it just is that. It isn't some propaganda conspiracy by evil authoritarians when someone posts blatant bullshit and gets called out.
As I said in another comment, browse hexbear for awhile and you will see plenty of criticism of Russia, China, Iran and more. We just criticize them for things that we have evidence for instead of shit that is directly paid for by the US state department, like the idea that Venezuela's president runs the largest cartel in the country or that the leadership of North Korea ties prisoners to cannons and shoots them into tiny pieces. Ironically that fake store about DPRK was really what the British did to their colonized subjects, as is often the case with imperialist nonsense
Pick one. I’m also sure the next thing you’re going to say is that you are fully aware.
Not what I’m saying at all. The examples you gave are ridiculous and I’ve never heard anyone claim those. I’m talking basic shit like North Korea not allowing people to escape the country, and visits there being heavily chaperoned, so the only coverage is either directly from the North Korean government or from controlled journalism (or western propaganda). But I still see government “news” posted on hexbear and y’all treat it like 100% truth.
But when it’s pointed out that “hey maybe the governments you look up to aren’t being totally honest either” we get shit like
Why do I need to pick one? That's a strange false dichotomy to assert.
No ML denies that the DPRK has strict border policies, but there are also a fuck ton of DPRK citizens working in China and Russia, so it obviously isn't true that no one can leave. This is the type of basic shit where you are just repeating a claim that traces back to western propaganda and parroting it as if it is common knowledge that cannot be argued against, despite plenty of evidence.
No ML would deny that tourists needs to be with a guided group.
Any news posted on our instances regarding DPRK has little to nothing to do with either of those topics, so I'm not seeing how it correlates.
The DPRK has a strict border policy and guided tours, so that means that a repost of their statement isn't newsworthy? It means they must be lying anytime they say something? What did they lie about that you see any of us backing up?
"OUR glorious Ministry of Truth has determined that their hated Ministry of Truth is full of lies. Our glorious ministry of truth also assures us that they never lie."
Sure, bud.
Worshipping states is cringe
And what state was I worshiping??