Talk:Tankie/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

Talk Tankie: there is an alternative definition - and an honourable one! I refer to menbers of the world's first Tank formation; the Royal Tank Regiment. This is the successor to the Royal Tank Corps, which itself was succeeded by the Royal Armoured Corps incorporating the old - and obsolete - Cavalry regiments. But THOSE are NOT TANKIES: who of course, RULE! Not that I myself could be accused of being in the the slightest prejudiced in any way...! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.66.130 (talk) 16:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Not really relevant, I don't think. I've added sources about the use of the term Jim Killock (talk) 01:03, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Sources, deletion, etc

I've added sources and so on. I think the topic is worth a mention - it's one of those phrases that get used in political culture in the UK. Whether it deserves a separate page, or merging, is another matter. Jim Killock (talk) 01:07, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it belongs in wikitionary, not wikipedia.--Cerejota (talk) 22:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, the further sections seem like original research - precisely one of the reasons this belongs in wikitionary.--Cerejota (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps, but it's also the name of a faction, and reflective of the story of the perception of a current in British politics. There's more here than would get into Wiktionary. I've removed the two citation needed tags, and replaced with the Campbell reference. The way the term is used by Blair and Campbell indicates its currency, they drop it into conversation. Hope that is ok.

as per AfD, #REDIRECT to Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain#Tankie

I have completed it.--Cerejota (talk) 19:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Notability

Horse Eye Jack, I don't think this meets GNG. Coverage in RS doesn't appear to rise above the level of a mere definition, with the exception of the piece in the New Statesman. Additionally, the claims that the term was actually used in Czechoslovakia do not appear to be supported by the provided source, and seem a bit far-fetched given that Czechs and Slovaks aren't known for their use of English slang. In the absence of additional sources, I think that either restoring the redirect (and adding mention of its more recent use outside of the UK) or converting to a wiktionary redirect would be more appropriate. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:36, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill:I’l admit The Independent obit was kind of hard to parse. The use by Boris Johnson appears notable and came after the last discussion. Actually all these sources did, there are also few I havent added which cover the modern use of the term a little more in-depth like [1]. Plenty more sources to come, give it 24 hours? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:40, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Horse Eye Jack, I wasn't judging based on the past AfD; I think that the the depth of coverage in the provided sources doesn't really do much more than define the term, which would make this a better fit for wiktionary. I don't think BoJo's use of it amounts to much notability in itself, although it does raise the odds that an RS decided to give coverage to the term. As someone who's quite familiar with the term, [2]'s description (as written by the article's author) is eyeroll inducing...how strange is it really for a leftist to support the USSR's policies? The quoted Twitter description is better, although someone else could quibble with Carl Beijer's credentials.

The depth of that last source is solid, although I'm not familiar with the source itself. Feel free to keep working on the article for now. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

At least if it gets merged back now it will be somewhat understandable and at least acknowledge that the term is used outside of the context of British leftism. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:30, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

"Neo-tankie"

I have never heard the word "neo-tankie" employed in my life and the only person I have seen use it is the "satirist" Rowan. Is this WP:UNDUE to devote a section to such an obscure term?PailSimon (talk) 21:14, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree. A Google search for "neo-tankie" shows zero relevant sources. I deleted the section. — Chrisahn (talk) 20:01, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Definition vs usage

These surely are the same thing and ought to be merged. Also, the "definition" section currently states that the term originated in 1968 (Prague Spring) while it is cited as in use in 1956 in the "usage" section. Merging these sections while keeping the sources seems sensible --Jim Killock (talk) 14:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

non-NPOV, non-RS sentence

I deleted a sentence which violated WP:NPOV and whose source is not a WP:RS.

1. The term tankie is pejorative, as the article correctly states. Per WP:NPOV, in particular WP:IMPARTIAL, we can't use pejorative terms in articles. More precisely: We can describe how such terms are used (which the rest of the article does), but we can't use them directly (which the sentence did).
2. The source https://newbloommag.net does not meet the criteria of WP:RS. As far as I can tell (e.g. [3] and [4]), it's a blog run by a group of students. For example, all articles in its 'politics' category are written by the same person, namely the author of the article provided as a source. See WP:RSSELF, WP:SELFPUBLISH, WP:NEWSBLOG.

If there's a reliable source stating that certain groups, e.g. certain members of the Chinese diaspora, have often been called tankies in the last few years or so, and that information is deemed relavant enough for inclusion in the article, we can add it. But one article from a group blog certainly isn't enough, and using a pejorative term for any group of people is never admissible. Chrisahn (talk) 18:10, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

New Bloom is a WP:RS, it is not a group blog. Pejoratives are always permissible, see WP:NOTCENSORED. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:30, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Stalin and Khrushchev

Stalin's and Khrushchev's governments shouldn't be conflated, as the latter nominally and actually distanced itself from the former, so the government that invaded Hungary or it's leader should be talked about, instead of the one that preceded it. Also what does Mao have to do with it? He called out the Khrushchevites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MisterCauliflower2137 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Biases, inaccuracies

The article refers to leaders such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong as "totalitarian" this is of course preposterous as such leaders were regulated through Democratic Centralism, Stalin was elected by party members three times, that was how he gained his position of leadership and he also tried to resign four times meaning he didn't care about preserving his status as leader and wanted to leave office. It also means he was selected democratically, if you say this selection by party members isn't democratic, you are ignorantly hypocritical, look at America, the voters don't select their leader, the electoral college does, that's how Trump got elected despite the fact Hillary had the popular vote, for example. Proletarian Banner (talk) 00:06, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Stalinism isn't technically an ideology and merely refers to Marxism-Leninism, most Marxist-Leninists who refer to themselves as "tankies", or "Stalinists" most often do it ironically with an attempt of humour. Proletarian Banner (talk) 00:07, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• I don’t trust a user called “proletarian banner” to be neutral on this any more than I trust all the conservatives bombing socialism articles with WP:NOTFORUM rants. Wikipedia isn’t about righting WP:GREATWRONGS no matter what side you’re on. Dronebogus (talk) 05:07, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  Violation of WP:AGF Jibal (talk) 04:47, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

  Given that the user is arguing that Stalin and Mao weren't totalitarian and has now been blocked for sock puppetry, I'd say Dronebogus was pretty on the money. — Czello 07:36, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

• This article is not the place to have a discussion about whether Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong were totalitarian. If thats what the WP:RS call them then thats what we do as well, we don't really have the latitude to replace the findings of experts with our own personal opinion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:31, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't trust a user with the term bogus within their name to be neutral either. Proletarian Banner (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I am not righting any great wrongs. Also, their status as "experts" is absurd, they clearly don't understand the political systems of those nations or the concept of democratic centralism because they are ignorant, biased right-wingers, okay?! Proletarian Banner (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

It's not my opinion that they were democratic, it's factual. I could argue America isn't democratic because it uses an electoral college to decide who becomes president and disregards the voters, these could be interpreted as phony, mock elections. Proletarian Banner (talk) 19:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

The United States is formally a federal presidential-constitutional republic—the lead of United States explicitly says this—but that does not really change the fact that Stalin is widely described as totalitarian by a metric ton of Reliable Sources. Referring to all people who think that the Soviet Union was totalitarian as ignorant, biased right-wingers is an extraordinary (and false) claim. Additionally, Democratic Centralism is a concept associated with vanguardism that means that votes are binding to all members of a political party, which is different than direct democracy in a number of ways (but an in-depth comparison of the two systems is not the crux of this issue, which can be solved by examining mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP on Stalin’s rule). — Mhawk10 (talk) 14:41, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

This isn't the place to debate such things. Jibal (talk) 04:49, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Nah, it's not an extraordinary and false claim, it's true. Proletarian Banner (talk) 21:50, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I think the preponderance of scholarship is going to disagree with you here, especially with respect to the Stalin era. The edit summary you left here indicated that there is a bit of original claim-making going on in that edit. — Mhawk10 (talk) 15:24, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

There's not original claim making, there is evidence to suggest that they were democratic. Proletarian Banner (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

More sources, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proletarian Banner (talk • contribs) 01:45, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

In order, your sources are:

1. A CIA report emphasizing that the top of the Communist party calls the shots as a group in the USSR;
2. A deadlink;
3. An insecure website I'm not going to click through on;
4. Another deadlink
5. A chapter of a 1918 document written by Lenin
6. Another chapter of that same 1918 document written by Lenin
7. A third deadlink
8. A fourth deadlink
9. A 1938 article written by a grad student and hosted on a deprecated website
10. Another writing by Vladimir Lenin
11. A manifesto of CPSU General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko
12. An anonymous blogpost
13. A 1947 work by an ethics professor at Union Theological Seminary

None of these remotely meet the criteria of reliable scholarship on the Soviet Union. The writings of Lenin are fine primary sources for his thoughts—not independent scholarship on how the Soviet Union actually worked in practice. The manifesto of a CPSU General Secretary that was published by a state publishing company is also clearly not independent of the CPSU. Blogs are not reliable sources, particularly when they are published by anonymous non-experts. Links to non-existent pages are not even sources at all, in and of themselves. This leaves the super insecure website, a 1952 CIA memo, a 1947 work by an ethics professor, and the 1938 work by the grad student. The text of the CIA memo doesn't actually support the claim that the Soviet Union was a democracy, while the book written by the ethics professor is clearly written out-of-expertise. The 1938 work by a grad student indeed says that the Soviet Union had democratic elections under the auspices of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is extremely old, and was published by the American Russian Institute—this doesn't smell like peer-reviewed scholarship, and it seems to be WP:FRINGE territory. — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

References

It's not a fringe theory, I gave you over twenty sources, want more? I could give you a hundred! You refuse to acknowledge the truth because of your biases and you dismiss several things just because you don't like them and don't think they constitute academic research. Proletarian Banner (talk) 03:52, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

First off, you did not give me twenty sources—you gave 13 links, 4 of which were deadlinks and 1 of which is a fatally insecure website. Second off, I believe that I am evaluating the eight sources that you've presented in line with Wikipedia's guideline on reliable sources and I have made my reasoning explicit. This is not a situation where I just don't like it, this is a situation where the sources spectacularly fail to meet the relevant guidelines on scholarship. If you'd prefer, I could open up a noticeboard discussion to involve more users on whether or not the notion that the Soviet Union was a democracy is a fringe historical theory. Third off, I don't really see how this is ordered towards improving the Tankie page's content, and it is bridging into WP:NOTFORUM territory. — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Just a single WP:RS would be fine, none of those work. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:59, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

More recent usage (2022)

In 2022 the term "tankie" is sometimes used for those leftists who support the Russian invasion of Ukraine (such as by Hungarian YouTuber Adam Something). Maybe this use isn't frequent enough yet to be mentioned in this article. Tobias b köhler (talk) 20:00, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of Sources

I was purusing through the article and noticed a part that seemed odd. So I looked at the sourcing, Source 10, and the title stood out as a little odd. So I decided to go to the piece in question. It is an opinion piece that has anti-Chinese misinformation in its opening paragraph that then goes on to talk about China. While the piece does have some possible uses, are there not any sources that don't open with the equivalent of blowing their foot off? Or at least something that doesn't have such an extreme bias from out of the gate? 206.127.65.238 (talk) 07:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

If you're talking about the Diplomat, it's considered reliable per WP:RSP. What is the misinformation in the opening paragraph? — Czello 08:12, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Unclear origin of usage

Under the Definition section it starts with the Prague Spring (1968), but under the Usage section it states the term comes from the UK when referring to the Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956). Should there be an addition in the beginning of the Definition section that starts with the definition from British politics, or is it that the term was popularized/its definition solidified in common lexicon after the Prague Spring? Riverraleigh (talk) 01:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)