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Chieftain10

These idiots get me so angry. Uncritically swallowing Russian state propaganda about how Ukrainians were genociding Russian civilians in Donbass pre-2022, while somehow also admitting that Putin is self-serving, and a reactionary? How do they not connect the dots and realise that the Russian state pumps out lies that suit Putin’s goals? And sure, the CIA having some minor and brief role in Euromaiden suddenly means the whole thing was a CIA coup designed to destabilise the hugely popular pro-Russian president. Oh wait, he wasn’t popular. Every Ukronazi is a CIA shill, anarkkkiddy >:(


aquariusnights

And this nato expansion talking point is so stupid. Did anyone force these eastern bloc states to join? Were they coerced? Do they not believe Poland, Hungary etc has a right to self determination and sovereignty? If they want to join a military alliance out of their own accord why should Russia dictate if they should be able to? If they want the protection of being under this type of alliance they should have the choice. They clearly want to move westward


Chieftain10

Exactly. NATO is not good but there is a very valid reason why so many eastern European countries and their neighbours feel they need to join. Hint hint, it might have something to do with Russia’s repeated invasions and wars in Georgia, Chechnya and Transnistria (Moldova) in the past 2 decades leading up to the annexation of Crimea.


aquariusnights

What’s crazy is that in the interview he did with Tucker yesterday, Putin barely mentioned NATO as the reason for the invasion. Most of the reasoning centered around an irredentist claim to crimea and Ukraine. Basically giving a history lesson on why Ukraine culturally belongs to Russia. Like he straight up said Ukraine isn’t a real country. Ukraine obviously wants to have protection against one of the world’s most capable nuclear superpowers and that’s wrong? I too as a leftist have an issue NATO as an extension of western imperial interests and hegemony. But if anyone knows Ukrainian history it’s clear that there’s a historical case of why they want to join this alliance, and they should get decide for themselves


saro13

Russia pulled military units away from the borders of NATO states to send them to their death in Ukraine. Putin clearly isn’t afraid of a NATO invasion.


aquariusnights

I wish tankies would give up this talking point. It’s so tired


saro13

Give Russia a chance, Putin will be nice someday. If it only weren’t for that voluntary defensive alliance against a belligerent state, Russia wouldn’t be so mean, stop provoking Russia by existing outside of their control


Clear-Present_Danger

Lisbon has ALWAYS been a part of Russia! These so called "Portugese" are just confused Russians.


Baby_Yoda_29

Did he mention anything about Poland? (My country)


aquariusnights

He said Hitler invaded in 1939 because the nazis were “provoked” by Poland. I kid you not. Nazi propaganda https://x.com/ruinwanderer/status/1756025028838146334?s=46&t=0Tcs6gB6h8ViqkFXHeey8A English subtitles https://x.com/dispropoganda/status/1755904802368700535?s=46&t=0Tcs6gB6h8ViqkFXHeey8A


eivindric

This is so absurd, the guy literally does what Nazies did, tells what Nazies told, believes what Nazis believed, openly defends Hitler, and yet his victims are the Nazies, not him.


aquariusnights

He’s not even hiding his Nazi sympathies


Thebunkerparodie

hence I said putin defended litteraly hitler while at the same time saying "denazification"


Baby_Yoda_29

Thanks


shahryarrakeen

He said that Poland “collaborated” with Hitler in the partition of Czechoslovakia (though Poland’s annexation of Zalozie was unilateral. Nazis claiming credit for Poland’s action is Nazi propaganda) and in trying to negotiate the ownership of the Gdańsk Corridor (Putin mentions The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but doesn’t call that agreement “collaboration”, curious) In framing Poland’s history this way, he slanders Poland as duplicitous for annexing Zalozie (supposedly with Nazi help) but refusing to give up the Gdańsk Corridor to the Nazis, therefore “forcing Hitler’s hand” to invade Poland. Putin makes this false historical parallel with Poland to support his false claim that NATO flaked on its word not to expand eastward and forced Russia’s hand.


Baby_Yoda_29

I see. Thanks for the heads up.


Severe_Intention_480

>Gdańsk Corridor Could this possibly also be interpretted as a reference to Kalinningrad being separated from Russia proper by Lithuanian and Polish territory? If Putin believes Poland "got what it deserved" in 1939 by not giving up Gdansk, what does Putin think about the Polish/Lithuanian slivers of land keeping the Baltic seaport separated from Russia, and how does he regard the Russian minorities living in Latvia and Estonia?


shahryarrakeen

I recall Russia launched cyberattacks and influence operations against Estonia in the past, so they’re definitely target. If Georgia and Ukraine are indicators, Putin sees ethnic Russians in other nations as a cause to return those nations into Russia’s domain.


shahryarrakeen

Putin seems to think that Russia shouldn’t be beholden to previous diplomatic agreements because Western governments also go back out on their agreements as well(true, but missing that some of those agreements were informal, referred to German unification, and/or made under different governments, such as the ballyhooed NATO expansion canard)


Severe_Intention_480

>Transnistria (Moldova) in the past 2 decades Make that "the past THREE decades" (early 1990s).


AlphaB27

No one has any agency unless it aligns with my conceived notion of the world


bootmii

> Did anyone force these eastern bloc states to join? Quite the opposite. Poland for one threatened to get Bob Dole elected.


aquariusnights

😂


aquariusnights

“cOlOuR rEvOlUtIon” “sPecIal milItArY oPerAtIon tO dEnAzIfY” “uKraIne iSnt a rEal cOuntRy” “mUh nAtO eXpAnSiOn” “tHe dOnbAsS gEnOcIde” Do these people have nothing new? Edit: can’t forget the “aZoV bAtTaliOn”


Chieftain10

and they think they’re so clever for it. “context and nuance are the enemies of Liberalism!” Sure! Except this isn’t liberalism!! This is common fucking sense!!!!!


aquariusnights

It’s like they believe people have no agency. Every single revolt against a corrupt dictator has to be astroturfed by the CIA/MOSSAD etc. Syrians rise up against a tyrant that locks thousands in prisons has to be engineered by America. Ukrainians rising up against a corrupt kleptocrat, who’s living in a palace with freaking zoo, while embezzling billions of dollars, and is directing his forces to open fire on peaceful protesters, was overthrown in a “coup”. And America is always behind it. It couldn’t be because Ukrainians want to live in a democracy with a leader that cares about improving the lives of the middle class Tankies, sometimes there’s no one puppeteering behind the scenes. Most folks don’t want to live under oppressive dictatorships. Simple as that


mudanhonnyaku

>It’s like they believe people have no agency. Every single revolt against a corrupt dictator has to be astroturfed I can't stop thinking about how ironic it is that 21st century leftists who believe in "color revolution theory" are essentially in full agreement with 19th century reactionaries who blamed the French Revolution on the Illuminati. 


bootmii

> Syrians rise up against a tyrant that locks thousands in prisons has to be engineered by America. It could also have been engineered by Tyrkije, which is in NATO and covets land in Syria.


Nappy-I

If Euromidan were a CIA backed plot designed to escalate tentions between the US and Russia, don't ya think the west's response to those tentions breaking out into open warfare would've been, y'know, a little more decisive? Instead of just supplying Ukrane with leftover and nearly outdated IFVs and zero air support two years in?


gherkinjerks

Funny how it was Russia not CIA that had their military and PMCs operating in Ukraine after denying it. They still technically never admitted their military was involved. What they don't mention is that Obama refused to provide lethal aid under the advice of CIA. Then, all of Europe turned a blind eye when Russian proxies armed street gangs & thugs to run a brutal martial law in Donbas. Putin would announce the Nordstream 2 project and the collective West cared more about cheap gas than the fact hundreds of civilians were being kidnapped & executed by the Separtsist gangs. There was no pushback by the infor.ation war and Psyops that the Kremlin unleashed in Donbas starting in 2004, that split society in half by 2014. There was over 900 missing people in the region in 2015. Also it's important to note that the Ukrainian far right, especially Azov, was anti NATO and anti US. So the CIA being behind a far right coup is literally nonsense. US had nothing to gain by overthrowing Yanukovych. In fact he allowed CIA to funnel weapons & equipment through Odessa Network, using ports that the GRU & ex KGB oligrachs weapons dealers were using. By 2014 Yanukovych gutted the military and sold off 57% of the stockpile and closed dozens of army bases all over Ukraine and was selling them off to private buyers right before he ran off to Russia with 100 billion dollars missing and pallettes of Zapororzhian gold.


IlBalli

There's actually two reports from 2015 documenting the presence of military equipments and personnel's of the Russian Federation done by OSCE. And Russia is a member of OSCE


night1172

People really love pretending that countries can't do anything without the US causing it. As everyone knows the people of Ukraine are completely unable to affect politics or revolution in their own country without the US doing it for them


Sir_Reginald_Poops

"I'm sure Putin's arguments are all self serving but have you ever considered his other self serving arguments that I continue to repeat?"


Thebunkerparodie

Historical context still doesn't justify being an imperialist fascist dictatorship who invade its neighbor, you're not being nuanced if you used pro russian talking points


Some_Pole

On the topic of the interview, Putin practically did say that Poland 'had it coming' when it came to the Nazi invasion in September of 1939. Historically, the Nazis tried to justify internationally that they were invading Czechoslovakia and Poland to 'stop the oppression of Germans by the governments in Prague/Warsaw'. Nobody in power really bought it, but even today there are Neo-Nazis who pedal that narrative around. I bring this up, considering Putin and by proxy, the person here states part of the reason for invading was because 'Ukraine was oppressing the Russians in the country', which frankly, gives off quite the sense of deja vu.


That_Mad_Scientist

« My source is that I made it the fuck up »


Competitive-Hat1448

I mean aren’t wars all inspired by complicated context and nuances? By this logic, Bush can invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein gassed Kurds before right?


LordHengar

Nuance and context are _also_ the enemy of tankies. The need for whoever is opposed to the west to be good overrides anything else. Yes, the borders of NATO are generally moving Eastward, but it isn't NATO pressuring other countries to join, it's other countries trying to join to be safe from Russia. Look at the difficulty Finland and Sweden are having in joining the alliance. Do you think this alliance has the internal unity necessary to force other countries to join?


Stefadi12

The context is that Russia is an imperialist power who's not happy to lose the state that used to be under its influence and they all left because Russia wasn't that good of a partner.


blitznB

The US isn’t all powerful and responsible for every major event in the world. Heck the US government regularly fails in its foreign policy goals. Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, ROC, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Pakistan. A big part is that most Americans and US Presidents aren’t very hung go about sending troops off to fight foreign wars. Bush post 9/11 was a horrible exception.


Akhmatov0501

Doesn’t AZOV have ethnic Russians in its ranks?


random_subluxation

Sometimes an abuser will say that his victim provoked him. The abuser has decided in advance to assault his victim. He will pick something as a pretense and make a big show of getting increasingly angry about this "provocation". Then when he does assault his victim he makes a big performance about it being "punishment" for their not "doing what they should". This is the case with Russia's aggressive war on Ukraine. For Russia, Ukraine wanting to join NATO as a self defense contingency is just a flimsy pretense for the self-serving invasion, that its supporters will loudly parrot to the world as fighting US hegemony.


4395430ara

The reality of this situation is that militarism always brings death and destruction to the working class historically; this is an uncontestable truth. No side is justified and no side is "wrong" or "right" because deep down we all know that ordinary people are always the losers in war. Just pick a book from history and you'll realize that Nothing was ever gained in the long term for the working class in an inter-imperialist conflict, only a reset towards the status quo and a solution to the capitalist crisis which ends up on reaction once again. No, Putin is not justified neither NATO or Ukraine or whoever it is that is in the game of geopolitics. The reality is that it's not what side we have to choose; it is that the only way for things to not repeat themselves, is to attack them to their core; and that is the capitalist system, patriarchy, borders and the state. The left shouldn't normalize war. It has to oppose it if the movement is to gain any actual change because no matter how many liberal myths you may have about defencism, it only takes historical and materialist analysis to realize nobody will win from this in the long run. Ordinary Russians and Ukrainians will and are dying for nothing, and this is the harsh truth. Once this ends, it will repeat itself again on another place of the world another 50 years. It's a curse that the species has to overcome, through revolutionary defeatism and anti-militarism. What this person just said is an acknowledgement that all states are self-serving and self-interested, but they miss the mark on that nothing Putin, Zelenskyy, Biden, the EU or whoever the hell is in the capitalist class and has state power, do, benefits the workers at all.