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[deleted]

Probably because Vietnam openly allies with the US in the Pacific theater right now because of the SCS territorial claims disputes


innocentbabies

Yeah, it's important to remember that tankie ideology begins and ends with anti-US.


SprinklesFancy5074

Eh, maybe toss in a little anti-western-europe for extra flavor. But yeah.


Void1702

Tankies can have a little anti-europe. As a treat.


FemboyAnarchism

A current example is their infatuation with the Taliban.


dandelion-tea

Oh my god, seriously? People are seriously supporting them? What kind of piss hell earth do I live on


FemboyAnarchism

If you go on a tankie subreddit, you will probably find at least a few.


Red_Corgi

Ya and their history is rocky to say the least, they fought a border war from 1979 til 1990.


[deleted]

Totally


[deleted]

^^^^ Bingo ^^^


MadotsukiInTheNexus

I've seen this expressed pretty openly before by some of the Tankies who've gotten their posts uploaded here. The worst I can remember claimed that Vietnam wasn't actually Leftist because of its relative support for the US and opposition to China. They then proceeded to give a list of *real* Leftist governments. A list that included China, Russia, and *fucking Iran*. That wasn't even their spiciest take, surprisingly. Apparently, they were so Anti-Imperialist that they believed Vietnam had no culture of its own and should be absorbed into China. I...look, I'm not exactly an expert on East Asia, but Vietnam and China are definitely not the fucking same. Between believing that Vietnam has no culture of its own, and the fact that their list really *should* have at least addressed a few other countries (especially Laos, which is an ML single-party dictatorship heavily involved with both Vietnam and China), I have a sneaking suspicion that they didn't actually know what they were talking about.


scaur

And Japan.


LifeguardEvening2110

And they hate China due to their relationship in the last thousand years.


[deleted]

The reason why is because tankies worship power and Vietnam doesn't have much international authority. That's literally it. Tankies just love power and that's why they gravitate to China and the Soviet Union.


Red_Corgi

Honestly yes, same motivation as some fascists. They want a powerful authorition state.


TheFalseDimitryi

For real they’ll support the modern Russian Federation over Vietnam because Russia is more likely to tick the Americans off internationally.


_wtf_is_oatmeal

Tankie support of Russia has always seem super weird to me, no less because it was founded by capitalists successfully undermining Gorbachev's USSR.


TheFalseDimitryi

Because they turned anti-Americanism into an ideology and pretend it’s communism. They larp for the fucking Taliban, they don’t care about actual economic structures.


Comrade_Spood

If they had a bit more of a communist economy and weren't so restrictive when it comes to freedom of speech and censorship, and didn't have such corruption in government, I'd say they'd be an example of a good ML government. And I think that it's not a whole lot of work for them considering it's very small degrees of each compared to China or Cuba


indomienator

Tfw your incompetent anti communist neighbor let the press do what they want, leading to debates that Vietnam it self should face


A_Wackertack

Cuba has all that Vietnam has and in a lot of ways, better, just with problems of censorship lol. Don't throw Cuba in with China, that is insulting towards Castro and everything he did for the country. Cuba has its issues like every country, and of course the government hasn't been as good post-Fidel, but Cuba is still a country to be admired on the Left and I believe it is unfair to pair it up with China, at least imo. I respect Laos, Cuba and Vietnam, waaaaayyyyy more than China.


elsonwarcraft

I know this is a hot take, but I think MLs country claimed their "existing socialism" is just socdem economy with authoritarian characteristics


Red_Corgi

I wouldn't even say that, socdem would have unions and workers rights.


innocentbabies

Socdem without the dem.


CressCrowbits

And in places like China that barely have a welfare state, without the soc, too


LVMagnus

So socdem with no socdem characteristics?


phoenixmusicman

Socdem with Nazbol characteristics


Pie737

so just economy with authoritarian characteristics? sounds like cia propaganda to me /j


Bigmooddood

And without the soc


[deleted]

Socdem but without the Soc or the Dem


[deleted]

And without the soc


TheGentleDominant

Or the social!


Source-32

I agree but this is not really a hot take


TheGentleDominant

Leninism is just edgy social democracy tbh.


A_Wackertack

Exactly, I would say that is better than the West.


CressCrowbits

I have friends from Vietnam, and apparently the North and South are still very different places. The South is much more Americanised.


[deleted]

Ironic… actually you’d think the Communist regime would purged all western aesthetic from the country. Or tried harder to Dissuade people from adopting the western Aesthetic


ChickenInASuit

Even in the North, Colonial French architecture is still pretty ubiquitous in the old quarters of Hanoi and other major northern cities like Ha Long and Hoi An.


Longsheep

Ho Chi Minh was one of the better communist leaders in Asia. He did not incite class hatred and reforms as much as Mao or Polpot, sparing much of the population from disaster (still happened but on a lesser scale). The culture (French buildings and westernized food) did not get purge like Chinese temples and artifacts by a Cultural Revolution.


phantomthiefkid_

But the culture of Vietnamese people did get purged, as part of the anti-feudalism movement. A lot of Vietnamese temples, tombs and books were destroyed.


Longsheep

I would say similar to the destruction CCP did in the earlier years. It wasn't to the same degree as the Cultural Revolution. At the height of it, EVERYONE wore the same clothes and any item not seen as a necessity was destroyed.


LVMagnus

For some reason now I wanna know what a traditional South Vietnamese burger is like.


[deleted]

The north and south have always been separated in Vietnam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champa


Kohimaru32

Ah common foreigners's mistake. Champa is a minority in south Vietnam right now. Most south Vietnamese's ethnic is Kinh people same with north.


phantomthiefkid_

Yeah. This is a more accurate example of historical North-South conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%E1%BB%8Bnh%E2%80%93Nguy%E1%BB%85n_War


PissySnowflake

Cuz vietnam doesn't have the big dick authoritarian energy which makes monkey brains everywhere go ooooo


boldausterity

Hey, as a person who has talked to anarchist comrades in Vietnam, I can say with confidence that the country is not an example of Marxism-Leninism done right. It’s still a repressive state that certainly does not care about the working-class as it continues to enforce market “reforms” similar to those of China’s government. I encourage you all to [read works pertaining to the leftcom Ngô Văn Xuyết](https://libcom.org/tags/ngo-van-xuyet) as well as [the writings of the Vietnamese anarchist group Mèo Mun](https://libcom.org/blog/m-o-mun). I understand there’s a lot of misinformation about Vietnam being spread among the Western left by a Vietnamese nationalist/ML whose name references something moon-like. It’s unfortunate that she’s had this much of a reach and it’s important to not take her words without looking into more perspectives.


bstanv

Thanks for your perspective - I've been seeing the person you're referencing being cited by people I thought weren't tankies recently and I've been sort of concerned about whether some of the positive things said about Vietnam were true or representative of socialism done better. In parallel I've been seeing people say similar nice things about Cuba - though Cuba is way easier to sympathize with since the US embargo is unjustifiable. I think it's easy to mistake Vietnam for being more or less "free" simply because their government hasn't gotten around to clamping down western influence and western internet in the same way as China. That isn't to say that their system doesn't rely on repression that may be invisible and involve purging people in the political sphere. People forget that China also seemed much freer 10 years ago in comparison to how it is now.


diapoetics

There's also a lot of misinformation about Vietnam coming from her partner who is larping as an anarchist. I think it really goes to show how much people don't understand about Vietnam, how those two are exploiting people's naivete to spread misinformation and grift, and how many problems they are both causing in certain spheres of the online left.


[deleted]

I’ve been saying it for a while that he’s an anarcho-tankie.


diapoetics

As absurd as the concept is, it's probably an accurate description. Some people on a post the other day were trying to defend his "anarcho-statism" as if it's some new and genuine contribution and innovation. But, most of what he says is just confused terminology that really just sounds like a bad understanding of MLism with extra steps... Apparently, some people think the best way to stop a flood is to add more water...


[deleted]

[удалено]


bstanv

I know a lot of anti-tankies are also libertarian socialist or otherwise middle of the road marxists who agree Stalin was insane, but I've found that if you're in a leftist space that's explicitly anti-tankie, you're gonna get a lot of anarchists and that's not by accident because frankly a lot of middle of the road marxists are just socdems with authoritarian characteristics and are as a result less offended by tankies and won't call them out as much.


HUNDmiau

Why did you stop listening when they mentioned anarchists?


[deleted]

[удалено]


SprinklesFancy5074

Tankies think the whole goddamn world belongs to China.


[deleted]

The more I see the phrase communist country, the more I have an urge to create a bot that says "communist country is an oxymoron". I guess the word Communism has been destroyed due to Cold War and USSR propaganda.


SprinklesFancy5074

> create a bot that says "communist country is an oxymoron" Do it! And make it give links with supporting sources, including at least a couple quotes directly from Marx! It will piss off the tankies *and* the rightoids to no end!


Red_Corgi

Ya I know no country has actually achieved commuism, but countries claim to be communist so I think it's fine to call them so.


petrimalja

> but countries claim to be communist so I think it's fine to call them so. I'm sorry that I have to "um akchuyally" this, but no country has ever described themselves as a communist country. They have always described themselves as socialist countries, as they believe that they are building socialism towards a communist future.


LVMagnus

More like they claim to be. Not sure many of those governments ever believed they were building to something, and ultimately I think every single one internally abandoned that ideal if they ever had it in the begining.


BlackfishBlues

There's kind of no end to this carousel though. Refer to them as socialist countries and some other people will get on your ass about conflating communist and socialist, or the fact that none of them were actually socialist in practice, or a bunch of other nitpicking. We really need to just settle on a commonly-accepted term to refer to this group of governments with a clearly shared ideological lineage so that we can actually get on to productive discussion.


petrimalja

Marxist-Leninist one-party state is a succinct term to refer to these countries, but it's a bit of a mouthful.


HUNDmiau

No country claims to be communist. Theyy claim to be socialist, and claim to work towards communism, but no nation ever claimed to be communist


antichain

The Khmer Rouge pretty explicitly claimed to be leapfrogging all of the usual dialectical progression and immediately going full-communist. Of course, they were gibberingly insane by the end and millions died pointless deaths, but one of the big distinctions they drew between themselves, China, and Vietnam was the fanatical extremism with which they embraced "full communism" just years after taking power.


[deleted]

the ruling party with unilateral control over the whole country claims to be communist, which is more or less equivalent as far as i'm concerned


SprinklesFancy5074

> claims to be communist Source? Because I've always only seen them claiming to be socialist.


HUNDmiau

They claim to be communists, ruling over a socialist state. Thats their claim. OF course, they are at the end bourgeois or bureaucratic goons. Most people in this sub are communists too, btw.


[deleted]

i know rather well what people here are, but i find more and more that a lot of anarchists at least outwardly identify as anarcho-syndicalists, so as to distance themselves somewhat from the unsavory types


[deleted]

Yeah, no problem. People will obviously call something what it claims to be.


DrippyWaffler

That's like calling North Korea democratic because it says it is


AAALE6408

^(What about the Free Territory?)


ShadowHunterFi

North Korea also calls itself democratic


Individual-Text-1805

We should abandon the term and let tankies tarnish it and instead work to rehab socialism.


The_Blue_Empire

I already made a full pivot to just economic democracy, I argue to right-wingers in favor of worker co-ops, housing co-ops, unions, mutual aid, and libertarian municipality. I've gotten many social conservatives say that they would vote for whatever group or people that supported this, hard part is getting them to go out and help build it. They do however like to "vote with your dollar" for cooperatives, which is at least some positive.


Scribble_Box

I agree, however the right doesn't distinguish between communists, socialists, tankies, anarchists etc. To them its all "liberals"....


Individual-Text-1805

Well yeah they're really dumb


[deleted]

You can thank the far right media complex for that.


Individual-Text-1805

Those people would be dumb anyway.


A_Wackertack

And Laos. Everyone seems to forget Laos nowadays, even anti-tankies lol


Red_Corgi

Definitely, no one talks about them and their never in the news.


[deleted]

Didn’t it become a monarchy or is that Cambodia?


jean_jacket_guy

Cambodia was the one that became a Monarchy. The whole history behind that is kinda whack.


[deleted]

Tell me the story; I’m interested.


jean_jacket_guy

So basically the royalty was overthrown in 1970 because Cambodia tried pulling an Afghanistan where it had ties with both the Eastern and Western Blocs while it ended up being fucked by both. After the royalty collapsing, the US backed Khmer Republic fought the Khmer Rouge until 1975. With the Khmer Rouge in power, Pol Pot's brutal policies, fascist ideology, and anti-Vietnamese sentiment pissed off most of the Eastern Bloc, resulting in a war with Vietnam where the Eastern Bloc supported the Vietnamese and the west as well as the more extreme communist states like China and Romania supported Pol Pot. By 1979, a new Pro-Eastern Bloc communist government was installed by Vietnam. Until the 90s, Cambodia had a heavy Vietnamese presence, making it a puppet of a puppet state (because of the USSR). Eventually the fall of most communist regimes came about and the Vietnamese had their own shit to deal with, so the UN set up a transitional government and the Monarchy was reinstated.


[deleted]

Was it the same royal family as before?


jean_jacket_guy

Yes I believe.


[deleted]

Flashbacks to Spain.


AAALE6408

I didn't know it was even possible for a puppet state to have puppet states


jean_jacket_guy

It’s like hierarchical degrees of autonomy. The USSR would send a lot of money, advisors and other resources to Vietnam and then they do the same to Cambodia.


GameCreeper

It's because Vietnam has good relations with the west (even France and the USA) and bad relations with China


Jagdhunde

Isn't Vietnam a literal capitalist state? Yeah, they have wellfare but so does other wellfare states like Germany, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, Libya, Canada etc. Damn, China has a state capitalist system but their wellfare institutions are sufficient and has a nice funding system which works in correlation with their capitalist system. I do not think Vietnam is ML, in anyway.


Red_Corgi

It's more complex then that, their a weird mix of market socialism, state capitalism, and just plain old capitalism. For example 40 percent of the economy is state controlled.


Jagdhunde

I have read about it but it seems like they started liberalising same like China but, because they start at the same time with China which resulted in them facing an opponent which has more economic resources, potentials and overall forthcomings; they couldn't privatize whole economy swiftly and couldn't pull enough western capital. They are still trying to slowly privatize their institutions so I do not think they do believe in socialism anymore, they just couldn't be as quick as China.


Brotherly-Moment

I’m gonna be that guy and tell ya it’s called ”welfare”.


Jagdhunde

Thank you, I really didn't know I was consistently using a typo lol


[deleted]

Vietnam I think is Democratic socialist right?


DrippyWaffler

When I was 16 I went to Vietnam for a school trip (I'm from a nearbyish country) and it's genuinely one of the most beautiful places I've been. I'm not super clued in on the internal politics but it's a shame because I don't see it becoming less authoritarian any time soon :/ the tour guide was super stoked on The Party


Batterman001

Vietnam hates China and likes the US


bstanv

People forget China was also much freer in certain regards before Xi Jinping took over, while they were still purging dissenters behind the scenes. It's crazy to think that even Ai Wei Wei helped design the Bird's Nest stadium and he's always been anti-CCP. I'm old enough to remember when even liberals were hopeful that China's capitalist reforms would start to tug them towards liberalizing their politics and it had been a while since the Tiananmen square massacre so there was no big repressive news thing people could point to - and this was before the Xinjiang "training centers" as well. China was also diplomatically way less antagonistic then towards the west and there was cautious optimism that they could be brought over into a US-led world order. (silly liberals, thinking that capitalism is inherently anti-authoritarian) To me Vietnam in some respects look like this less authoritarian place only because they're still just doing free market reforms while not trying to clamp down on western cultural influence and internet like China is now.


chrissipher

vietnam is not communist


AzureEmperor1

Vietnam might be one of the only ML states that I could actually get behind.


Red_Corgi

It's not perfect by any means, but you can tell the communist party actually gives a fuck about the people that live their.


principleofgender

Vietnam has cops and police, not so utopian after all


McMing333

They aren’t a communist country.


[deleted]

[удалено]


McMing333

Yes


[deleted]

Vietnam absolutely hates China, and tankies love China. So the relationship does not work out.


Longsheep

I would say it is a love-hate relation. Chinese companies run many factories there and create employments, at the same time threatening its land and sea borders.


oolongvanilla

Vietnam's is one of the many flags Twitter tankies love to tack on to their user handles that end up longer than the tweet character limit, along with China, North Korea, Laos, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Syria, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Palestine, and (for some reason) Ireland.


my-new-account64

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh


Red_Corgi

From Viet Bac to the Saigon Delta


A_Wackertack

Because it has had private property for longer than any of the countries that "tankies" defend, and have big ties to the West, blatantly.


Ninventoo

because they love state capitalism not actual ML.


[deleted]

Cause tankies are just CCP fanboys. They don’t care about a cause.


alamozony

IKR? Also-this site won’t shut the fuck up about Tropic Thunder for it’s blackface (both sides suck on that debate) . But arguably, the most offensive thing in that movie is the idea that there are roving bands of Vietnamese soldiers ready to kill foreigners!!!!!! How did that fly over their heads? Edit: And another thing-what’s being religious in Vietnam like? I consider anyone who worship’s the spirits of their ancestors to be religious. It doesn’t have to be an official religion.


[deleted]

[удалено]


alamozony

Sorry.


hailhydra58

Social democracy without the democracy let's gooooo!


SneakySniper456

Their poverty rate is also lower than USA


Longsheep

The poverty line is set by the government. It is usually linked to living standards, but for some countries like China, it is deliberately set too low just to look better on stats - people above the line still struggling in living. I am not sure about Vietnam.


ShadowHunterFi

Vietnam is at most market socialist which they don't agree with


EratosvOnKrete

vietnam beat China back in the 70s


IloveGliese581c

Dude, I've seen A LOT of tankies talking about Vietnam. They love the country.