quick history lesson for those who are curious.
"Tankie" Is a derogatory term the spawned from the use of tanks in hungary by the USSR against the 1956 uprising. Many saw this uprising as a movement for the people, and the use of full on tanks to stop it was seen as absurd, so people started complaining, and calling those who supported this action "tankies" because they supported the tanks. The thing that is often neglected is 1. the context, and 2. information on the actual uprising itself.
First I'll give a little context and then address the contents of the revolt.
This uprising followed "Khrushchev's thaw", a period in which Khrushchev rolled back many of the previous rules against capitalists and fascists in their and surrounding territory. This lead to many fascists being freed and congregating for movements to try and seize power back from the USSR.
There were some legitimate complaints about the USSR anywhere and in particular in 1956 Hungary, so some people did genuinely gather to press for reforms and better governance, with even some socialistic demands being made initially. This is the part you'll hear about from liberals. The part you won't hear about is what happened following this, and how the movement was co-opted by full on fascists. This isn't just a claim by an online Marxist but something we have clear evidence of. Here is a picture of the "protesters" standing over the tanks.
it's the long dead flag flown under the Nazi occupation of the country.
Perhaps they simply flew that flag because they didn't have better symbols? Okay, consider this passage from The Truth about Hungary by Herbert Apthker
This uprising was a sustained fascist mob, lynching communists and Jewish people. I'm certainly not known for my support of militarization or brutal actions, but I don't think that a strong response to this situation somehow makes the USSR or the people who supported their use of tanks, "red fascists", or otherwise poor communists or even just poor people in general.
Tankie is a useless term to me because standing against fascism "too strongly" doesn't make you somehow a reverse fascist or some nonsense, it makes you an anti fascist. Standing against fascism is how you defeat it. I am a "tankie" in the original sense that I support the use of tanks in the intervention against the fascists in Hungary. Not as a blank check, I'm sure there is nuance and perhaps they could have done things differently, but it is not an action I think the USSR needs to be condemned for taking. Despite this, I don't think the word "tankie" is even particularly useful for reactionaries anymore, as it's becoming so diluted as to refer to anyone left of the person saying it, with it making it's way all the way from intra-communist criticisms to now being something fascists use to deride anyone vaguely left.
Using "Tankie" as a derogatory term implicitly supports fascist lynchings, please stop
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