70 Years ago today the USSR caused Brits to invent the word tankie
70 Years ago the USSR rolled tanks into Budapest to crush the Hungarian uprising. British communists invented the term "tankie" to describe comrades who supported the soviets crushing dissent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956Open linkView original on literature.cafe
8 replies
Oh, so it wasn't the CIA that invented it?^/s^
It was hidden Ukrainian spies, obviously
LOL. Maybe it was MI6
Remember, don't let the tankies label legitimate socialist revolutionaries like in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 as "capitalist counterrevolutionaries". Alexander Dubcek (Prague Spring) was a saint and Imre Nagy was decent for his role in the Hungarian revolution.
Even knowing the real history of the term, I still headcanonically think of it as someone who looks at that famous picture of a guy standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square and finds themself rooting for the tanks.
Thats the same thing. Those tanks rolled over students before two photo was taken
It's the same picture
Based socialist revolt against authoritarianism.
I like this summary from https://communist.red/the-1956-hungarian-revolution-a-struggle-for-genuine-socialism/