As near as I can tell, advocating for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies is enough for someone to be considered a tankie (ironically enough). WWI era socialists who did not fall in line behind their governments certainly faced similar accusations.
And there you have it. If you advocate for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies, you are a tankie because you’re letting other nations that aren’t those things win. The exact same logic that caused “leftists” to rally around their own imperialist governments in WWI. Germany wasn’t socialist, so why should the British socialists let them win? Britain wasn’t socialist, so why should the German socialists let them win?
The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution made it clear, that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win”
What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of “neither victory nor defeat." This, however, is nothing but a paraphrase of the “defence of the fatherland” slogan. It means shifting the issue to the level of a war between governments (who, according to the content of this slogan, are to keep to their old stand, “retain their positions"), and not to the level of the struggle of the oppressed classes against their governments! It means justifying the chauvinism of all the imperialist nations, whose bourgeoisie are always ready to say—and do say to the people—that they are “only” fighting “against defeat”.
On closer examination, this slogan will be found to mean a “class truce”, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is impossible without dealing blows at one’s “own” bourgeoisie, one’s “own” government, whereas dealing a blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Bukvoyed’s information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of one’s own country. Those who accept the “neither victory-nor-defeat” slogan can only be hypocritically in favour of the class struggle, of “disrupting the class truce”; in practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the imperialist governments against defeat. The only policy of actual, not verbal disruption of the “class truce”, of acceptance of the class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie in order to overthrow them. This, however, cannot be achieved or striven for, without desiring the defeat of one’s own government and without contributing to that defeat.
When, before the war, the Italian Social-Democrats raised the question of a mass strike, the bourgeoisie replied, no doubt correctly from their own point of view, that this would be high treason, and that Social-Democrats would be dealt with as traitors. That is true, just as it is true that fraternisation in the trenches is high treason. Those who write against “high treason”, as Bukvoyed does, or against the “disintegration of Russia”, as Semkovsky does, are adopting the bourgeois, not the proletarian point of view. A proletarian cannot deal a class blow at his government or hold out (in fact) a hand to his brother, the proletarian of the “foreign” country which is at war with “our side”, without committing “high treason”, without contributing to the defeat, to the disintegration of his “own”, imperialist “Great” Power.
Whoever is in favour of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat” is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes.
Neither Russia or China are peaceful, dovish, or isolationist. You know that, you aren’t an idiot. The fact that you don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when it’s a nation you like doing it is what makes you a tankie, and a hypocrite.
I feel like I answered literally exactly this in my response.
What you’re saying is exactly what British social democrats would have said to people opposing the war, that Germany isn’t peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, that they know that, they don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when Germany does it, and it’s also what German social democrats would have said to people opposing the war, that Britain isn’t peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, that they know that, they don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when Britain does it, and so on.
As near as I can tell, advocating for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies is enough for someone to be considered a tankie (ironically enough). WWI era socialists who did not fall in line behind their governments certainly faced similar accusations.
Since neither Russia nor China is peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, what are you on about?
And there you have it. If you advocate for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies, you are a tankie because you’re letting other nations that aren’t those things win. The exact same logic that caused “leftists” to rally around their own imperialist governments in WWI. Germany wasn’t socialist, so why should the British socialists let them win? Britain wasn’t socialist, so why should the German socialists let them win?
The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War, V.I. Lenin
That’s an extremely longwinded way to avoid the question.
You asked what I’m on about and I told you what I’m on about. No question avoided.
You posted all that, and didn’t even answer the damn question.
What question did I not answer?
If the question is ‘what are you on about’ pretty much any answer is valid.
You know what the question is. We both know you aren’t stupid.
I answered that. What I said is what I’m on about.
Maybe you can rephrase that to mean something clearer, if my answer isn’t what you’re looking for?
Neither Russia or China are peaceful, dovish, or isolationist. You know that, you aren’t an idiot. The fact that you don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when it’s a nation you like doing it is what makes you a tankie, and a hypocrite.
I feel like I answered literally exactly this in my response.
What you’re saying is exactly what British social democrats would have said to people opposing the war, that Germany isn’t peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, that they know that, they don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when Germany does it, and it’s also what German social democrats would have said to people opposing the war, that Britain isn’t peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, that they know that, they don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when Britain does it, and so on.
Eugene Debs went to prison for that exact reason.