• geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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    1 month ago

    In that case the term Tankie could not be applied to China as the original meaning of the word Tankies could only apply to the Soviet Union.

    What I have always understood to be the implication is “people justifying and usually denying war crimes from a government or group which aligns with their political ideology”.

    Most often those people do not care about the war crimes. They think a government and/or government ideology is awesome and therefore will excuse any war crimes because it is for the greater good/lesser evil.

    • voldage@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      And honestly speaking I’m not sure myself if “tankie” should apply to China, seeing how most of their bad shit happend internally with the notable exceptions of Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are a stretch. There is a distinctive difference between Russia and China, despite both belonging to same political alliance and both have a dictatorial leaderships. Hating west/USA and loving either of them would make one a campist, but I’m not sure about that qualifyng as tankie. Naturally, most campists support both, so by that definition it would make them tankies.

      While your definition does describe tankies as well, I always understood it to be a derogatory term for the general authoritarian communist/pseudo-communist block more so than applying to all national supermacists.