Tankie

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Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes or their allies. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberal and right‐wing factions as well.^[5][6]

The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.^[7][8] In British English, especially within the left, it can be used to mean someone with traditional statist left wing views, compared to more moderate centrist politics.^{[citation needed]}

The term has extended to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the actions of communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. In recent times, the term has been used across the political spectrum and in a geopolitical context to describe those who have a bias in favour of anti-Western states, authoritarian states or states with a socialist legacy, such as Belarus, Cuba, China,^[9] Syria,^[10] North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.^[11] Additionally, the term pejoratively describes left-wing political activists who are allegedly favorable towards non-socialist authoritarian states that oppose the U.S., such as Iran.^[11]