Friend is a Tankie
February 10, 2021 5:30 PM Subscribe
Trying to talk to a friend who is sliding into black and white thinking in regards to authoritarian communist countries.
A friend of mine, who is very sensitive and intelligent, has become a tankie (or an apologist for authoritarian communist states like China and the USSR.) We talk, and I try to bring up stuff I remember, but my history is a little shaky and she brushes off everything I say as being influenced by US propaganda.
I'm a leftist too, and I'm really not a pro-US person, or unaware about how skewed communism is portrayed in the media. But I'm gobsmacked that she doesn't see China and the USSR as imperial, authoritarian powers that have/had their own propaganda and agendas for centralized power. In our last conversation she gave me links to the Qiao Collective, about how the Uyghur situation is overblown by Western media.
It's like she sees the issue with US/Western anti-communist media propaganda as being based in complete lies, rather than a mixed bag of slanted framing, cherry-picked truths, some lies, and some decent journalism.
I'm looking for any advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation, and what sources were compelling or at least thought-provoking to tankies. Anything that complicates the "anything called communism=good" mindset. I'm also shoring up my own understanding of China and the USSR with some reading too, and any thoughts about that would be appreciated, in agreement or not.
A friend of mine, who is very sensitive and intelligent, has become a tankie (or an apologist for authoritarian communist states like China and the USSR.) We talk, and I try to bring up stuff I remember, but my history is a little shaky and she brushes off everything I say as being influenced by US propaganda.
I'm a leftist too, and I'm really not a pro-US person, or unaware about how skewed communism is portrayed in the media. But I'm gobsmacked that she doesn't see China and the USSR as imperial, authoritarian powers that have/had their own propaganda and agendas for centralized power. In our last conversation she gave me links to the Qiao Collective, about how the Uyghur situation is overblown by Western media.
It's like she sees the issue with US/Western anti-communist media propaganda as being based in complete lies, rather than a mixed bag of slanted framing, cherry-picked truths, some lies, and some decent journalism.
I'm looking for any advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation, and what sources were compelling or at least thought-provoking to tankies. Anything that complicates the "anything called communism=good" mindset. I'm also shoring up my own understanding of China and the USSR with some reading too, and any thoughts about that would be appreciated, in agreement or not.
Give her a copy of The Search for Modern China. It's somewhat dated historiographically but it's a good clear read, and if she can reconcile actually reading about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution with a belief in the perfection of communism, she's too far gone to argue with.
posted by praemunire at 5:43 PM on February 10, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 5:43 PM on February 10, 2021 [9 favorites]
Maybe she'd find Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism interesting, insofar as it deals with the personal and emotional toll of similar kinds of hardline thinking (in the Stalin years, before Khrushchev's speech at the 20th Congress). The book is by no means perfect, she'll probably find lots to complain about in it, but it's a sympathetic enough treatment that it might give her room to reflect.
posted by Beardman at 5:55 PM on February 10, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Beardman at 5:55 PM on February 10, 2021 [5 favorites]
You can't win, and people just like you have been losing arguments and friendships with true believers since the 1930s, but if you want to recommend your friend some good books, a few absolute crackers—Karl Schlögel's Moscow 1937, which is a cultural and literary history of Soviet life centred on, but not entirely about, Stalin's purges. Sheila Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism, a history of urbanisation and how ordinary people lived and coped with change in the high Stalinist era. (Fitzpatrick studied in the USSR for a time, and is a fascinating person in her own right). Red Plenty I always recommend, which is quasi-fictional, but based on real Soviet problems politics and economics. They're all engaging, even-handed, and give real credit to Soviet achievements as well as the system's crimes.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:57 PM on February 10, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:57 PM on February 10, 2021 [9 favorites]
My question is often...
What makes this so important to you?
What is appealing about these ideas?
What scares you or worries you or bores you about the world you live in?
These ideas usually are not about the ideas.
I guess I would like to add that we can turn those questions on ourselves. Why is it important to argue the opposite. Or anything at all? Why is it important to 'correct' this person?
posted by jander03 at 7:01 PM on February 10, 2021 [18 favorites]
What makes this so important to you?
What is appealing about these ideas?
What scares you or worries you or bores you about the world you live in?
These ideas usually are not about the ideas.
I guess I would like to add that we can turn those questions on ourselves. Why is it important to argue the opposite. Or anything at all? Why is it important to 'correct' this person?
posted by jander03 at 7:01 PM on February 10, 2021 [18 favorites]
I'm sorry that this won't be particularly helpful, but I (a lefty) also have friends like this. I also have familial history on both sides of the family of Soviet occupation, oppression, and genocide (both my parents and their families were refugees from different countries that were invaded and then forcibly occupied by the USSR). Not even detailed, first-hand stories of my family's history or even stories told to them by my family members who experienced atrocities directly have effectively swayed the tankies I know. The irrational explaining away of facts and fascination with violent authoritarianism is strong with them. I've stopped trying.
posted by quince at 7:11 PM on February 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by quince at 7:11 PM on February 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
I have a good friend with similar opinions, and my girlfriend talks sometimes about how she was on that page a few years before we met. My approach with my good friend is to avoid topics that we have dramatically different perspectives on (Muslims in China, Jews under Stalin, etc) and focus on our commonalities: we both want to see everyone fed and housed with dignity, we both see the police as inherently a weapon to be used against poor people.
Overall we get on really well, sometimes I find myself resenting that I have to be the one to steer our conversation away from controversy. When that comes up for me I will take some distance from her for a week or two, usually it’s because other parts of my life are feeling like a drag! We’ve had a couple of genuine arguments about politics that hurt my feelings and when we reconciled, we focused on the emotional themes and feelings that came up rather than the political specifics. I don’t think I can change my friend’s mind and if I tried it would be a bad experience for both of us. She is who she is.
Recently, she’s had some shifts in her opinions about Lenin specifically that I think might be a sign of some deeper changes but I don’t want to jump the gun. For her, the catalyst for this recent shift has been the increasing privatization of Cuba. It might be worth asking your friend about her thoughts on this, or more broadly on socialism in Cuba (a topic that tankies I know are fairly divided on). I’m sure she would have opinions about privatization, the us embargo, what says about Leninism and anti-imperial movements, etc.
Whatever she thinks is really up to her. My friend is a really funny and caring person, who I think is a little too smart for her own good, she thinks all the time and it’s led her down some weird intellectual paths. Like jander03, I think it’s good to reflect on why you want your friend to change.
My girlfriend says that for her, leaving behind tankie-dom had less to do with new information and more to do with some new ideas. After tankie stuff she got into anarcho-primativism for a while and then mellowed out about all of it when she decided to get sober and quit the punk scene. For her I think the draw of tankie stuff was having something to explain problems in the world, and the black-white thought was comforting for her when she felt lost. Her family are really conservative Christians so there was a rebellion element there as well that stopped meaning as much when she had more distance for them. Now she’s really into Islam and Roman stoic philosophy so she’s still pretty into having ideas that guide her life, but they’re very different ideas. That’s the kind of person she is, I guess. I think the key to having these kinds of conversations with loved ones is learning what pulls them towards the things they read and listening with both compassion and whatever skepticism we feel.
I also think it’s fine to just ignore the topic entirely! I’m sure you know this but we really have no power over what other people think and if nothing else this may be a good exercise in accepting that.
posted by Summers at 7:56 PM on February 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
Overall we get on really well, sometimes I find myself resenting that I have to be the one to steer our conversation away from controversy. When that comes up for me I will take some distance from her for a week or two, usually it’s because other parts of my life are feeling like a drag! We’ve had a couple of genuine arguments about politics that hurt my feelings and when we reconciled, we focused on the emotional themes and feelings that came up rather than the political specifics. I don’t think I can change my friend’s mind and if I tried it would be a bad experience for both of us. She is who she is.
Recently, she’s had some shifts in her opinions about Lenin specifically that I think might be a sign of some deeper changes but I don’t want to jump the gun. For her, the catalyst for this recent shift has been the increasing privatization of Cuba. It might be worth asking your friend about her thoughts on this, or more broadly on socialism in Cuba (a topic that tankies I know are fairly divided on). I’m sure she would have opinions about privatization, the us embargo, what says about Leninism and anti-imperial movements, etc.
Whatever she thinks is really up to her. My friend is a really funny and caring person, who I think is a little too smart for her own good, she thinks all the time and it’s led her down some weird intellectual paths. Like jander03, I think it’s good to reflect on why you want your friend to change.
My girlfriend says that for her, leaving behind tankie-dom had less to do with new information and more to do with some new ideas. After tankie stuff she got into anarcho-primativism for a while and then mellowed out about all of it when she decided to get sober and quit the punk scene. For her I think the draw of tankie stuff was having something to explain problems in the world, and the black-white thought was comforting for her when she felt lost. Her family are really conservative Christians so there was a rebellion element there as well that stopped meaning as much when she had more distance for them. Now she’s really into Islam and Roman stoic philosophy so she’s still pretty into having ideas that guide her life, but they’re very different ideas. That’s the kind of person she is, I guess. I think the key to having these kinds of conversations with loved ones is learning what pulls them towards the things they read and listening with both compassion and whatever skepticism we feel.
I also think it’s fine to just ignore the topic entirely! I’m sure you know this but we really have no power over what other people think and if nothing else this may be a good exercise in accepting that.
posted by Summers at 7:56 PM on February 10, 2021 [7 favorites]
" Why is it important to 'correct' this person?"
I consider it important to correct someone who is starting to engage in genocide denial. Especially since, if the friend is sending links to non-tankies about the Uyghur "situation" being "overblown," we can bet they are already thinking/saying far wilder things in private. Even if the friend is too far gone, it's worth attempting to enlighten them just as a part of being a human. It's also worth doing because this friend was presumably at one point, and in various contexts may still be, a reasonable and compassionate person (or else the impulse toward communist ideas likely wouldn't be present). That person is worth trying to recover from the vortex of targeted info they are probably reading online, which has distorted their moral reasoning in ways a previous "version" of them might not recognize.
I wish I could offer resources, but as the above may imply, I stopped engaging with the person who did this around me. They were the definition of too far gone. It looks like they are now mired in a crossover tankie/QAnon socialmedia-verse, which is somehow even worse than I figured.
For some reason, Wild Swans is a book that un-tankified someone else I kinda knew, but that person was more tank-curious than tank-nivorous at the time.
posted by desert outpost at 8:07 PM on February 10, 2021 [35 favorites]
I consider it important to correct someone who is starting to engage in genocide denial. Especially since, if the friend is sending links to non-tankies about the Uyghur "situation" being "overblown," we can bet they are already thinking/saying far wilder things in private. Even if the friend is too far gone, it's worth attempting to enlighten them just as a part of being a human. It's also worth doing because this friend was presumably at one point, and in various contexts may still be, a reasonable and compassionate person (or else the impulse toward communist ideas likely wouldn't be present). That person is worth trying to recover from the vortex of targeted info they are probably reading online, which has distorted their moral reasoning in ways a previous "version" of them might not recognize.
I wish I could offer resources, but as the above may imply, I stopped engaging with the person who did this around me. They were the definition of too far gone. It looks like they are now mired in a crossover tankie/QAnon socialmedia-verse, which is somehow even worse than I figured.
For some reason, Wild Swans is a book that un-tankified someone else I kinda knew, but that person was more tank-curious than tank-nivorous at the time.
posted by desert outpost at 8:07 PM on February 10, 2021 [35 favorites]
is she too far gone to read and understand the firsthand accounts from Solzhenitsyn?
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:19 PM on February 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:19 PM on February 10, 2021 [3 favorites]
By the way, I think folks here are wrong to tell you it's ok to ignore this tendency of hers, any more than if she were a Holocaust denier.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:20 PM on February 10, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:20 PM on February 10, 2021 [14 favorites]
I don't have experience with this kind of thing, but perhaps talking about China's stance on Taiwan would be a better place to start, since there's less misinformation on that than there is on Xinjiang? That would let you talk more about ideological aspects of her beliefs (Is it ok to fire missiles towards another country because they're having an election that might result in someone who is pro-independence being elected? How does she feel about China consistently gesturing towards war for things like Taiwan wanting to be involved in the WHO or UN? Does she think that China sending fighter jets over the median of the Taiwan Strait on an almost daily basis is good?)
I think it's hard to disagree on the facts about what's happening in Taiwan (there is an independent, democratic government which the populace on the whole likes a lot and wants to keep, while the PRC wants to take control over Taiwan, despite never having historically had any role in governance of the region) — that might be a good wedge for helping her see that the PRC is frequently imperialist in a lot of similar ways to the United States.
posted by wesleyac at 9:54 PM on February 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think it's hard to disagree on the facts about what's happening in Taiwan (there is an independent, democratic government which the populace on the whole likes a lot and wants to keep, while the PRC wants to take control over Taiwan, despite never having historically had any role in governance of the region) — that might be a good wedge for helping her see that the PRC is frequently imperialist in a lot of similar ways to the United States.
posted by wesleyac at 9:54 PM on February 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm half-venezulean and a lefty and I don't think I've ever seen a good take on venezuela from anyone, especially the tanky set. It's been really hard for me! If I really care about the person I will take the time to deal with it, otherwise I just move on and make new friends. Tankiedom is really endemic on the online left and it sucks.
posted by wooh at 12:40 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by wooh at 12:40 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
If your friend would be willing to read them:
Two works mentioned by others here - Jung Chang's Wild Swans and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - were both fantastically effective at preventing me from ever swerving into tankiedom when I was a lefty teenager (I'm still a firm socialist).
More recently, David Aaronovitch's Party Animals is an interesting look at the varying reactions among British Communists to the emerging evidence of Stalin's atrocities: unease; minimisation; leaving the Party in disgust; denial; justification; blaming capitalist propaganda, etc. It's based on personal experience - David's parents were committed Communists.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 3:34 AM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
Two works mentioned by others here - Jung Chang's Wild Swans and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - were both fantastically effective at preventing me from ever swerving into tankiedom when I was a lefty teenager (I'm still a firm socialist).
More recently, David Aaronovitch's Party Animals is an interesting look at the varying reactions among British Communists to the emerging evidence of Stalin's atrocities: unease; minimisation; leaving the Party in disgust; denial; justification; blaming capitalist propaganda, etc. It's based on personal experience - David's parents were committed Communists.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 3:34 AM on February 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
I want to third the comment that it is in fact very important to push back on people who are denying or downplaying genocide. I know quite a few people who have survived genocide, and these attitudes are deeply harmful to very real people.
posted by faineg at 4:39 AM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by faineg at 4:39 AM on February 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
Does your friend know any non-party expats from Russia or China who can speak from first hand experiences? Maybe introduce them to some?
posted by redlines at 5:51 AM on February 11, 2021
posted by redlines at 5:51 AM on February 11, 2021
There is a tradition in less-rabid leftist circles to talk about a "Kronstadt moment". This refers to the first massive wave of disillusionment with the USSR following their quashing of the Kronstadt sailors' uprising. So someone might say something like "I was a devoted Communist until I saw the soldiers throwing Polish babies from the trains in Siberia. That was my Kronstadt."
I'm still mad that I missed the stage production of Wild Swans!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 6:08 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm still mad that I missed the stage production of Wild Swans!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 6:08 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
Is your friend part of a tankie sect, or just came to these conclusions herself like on Twitter?
This is a significant difference - there are culty groups like Bob Avakian's set out there, and they provide people with a self-affirming community, political "clarity", etc that's tough to counter. Sounds like that's possible, if she's denying genocide.
On the other hand, some people draw stark political conclusions that seem totally insane to those who disagree - I mean hell, I still know liberals who think the Obama administration was *not* an abject failure! But people come around, so keep talking with her, sharing sources like those shared above, and stay friends.
But if she's in one of those little cells, I wouldn't argue with her about politics. Just keep an eye on her and let her know you are there for her.
posted by RajahKing at 7:41 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
This is a significant difference - there are culty groups like Bob Avakian's set out there, and they provide people with a self-affirming community, political "clarity", etc that's tough to counter. Sounds like that's possible, if she's denying genocide.
On the other hand, some people draw stark political conclusions that seem totally insane to those who disagree - I mean hell, I still know liberals who think the Obama administration was *not* an abject failure! But people come around, so keep talking with her, sharing sources like those shared above, and stay friends.
But if she's in one of those little cells, I wouldn't argue with her about politics. Just keep an eye on her and let her know you are there for her.
posted by RajahKing at 7:41 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
I’ve not been in this exact situation but in similar situations I’ve had much more success in providing positive/utopian alternatives rather than trying to counteract the beliefs directly. My read on why this route is more successful is that when people are stuck in a closed circle of perseveration, information from inside the circle, whether it is pro- or anti- their current beliefs, serves to only reinforce current beliefs. It is only information from completely outside of the circle that can break the cycle.
Science fiction has been very helpful to me and as a recommendation to others who are becoming intellectually rigid. Reading Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed for the first time pulled me out of one of these negative cycles even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the thing I was perseverating on. Philosophy, religions from other cultures, and history not at all related to the specific topic at issue have also served this purpose.
posted by scantee at 8:12 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
Science fiction has been very helpful to me and as a recommendation to others who are becoming intellectually rigid. Reading Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed for the first time pulled me out of one of these negative cycles even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the thing I was perseverating on. Philosophy, religions from other cultures, and history not at all related to the specific topic at issue have also served this purpose.
posted by scantee at 8:12 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
My guess is that, for your friend, this is less about the merits of a specific ideology and more about creating a self-image and political purpose and possibly finding a community. If she's Very Online, she's also probably getting some mental food pellets by dunking on "liberals" on Twitter or some similar nonsense. Realizing that capitalism is flawed and then running to centralized, repressive state-controlled "communism" seems a bit like going from one abusive relationship to another. I have a good friend who is incredibly critical about the U.S. and Western liberalism (even the good parts) but who doesn't seem to apply that level of critical thinking to lefty ideas and examples. It's easy because it's all theoretical from your friend's point, right? She is not going to have to live in Soviet Russia, and the US (if that's where she is) is not likely to experience a communist revolution, especially not driven by the tiny fraction of Americans who could articulate the difference between liberal/progressive/leftist.
The truth is that any branded "ism" or ideology is flawed and that what we all have to do is develop a set of moral values and apply situational ethics to make good decisions as a person, tribe, or society. If you are in the US that might mean running for office as a Democrat and making health care policy 2% better. Or organizing to demand better working conditions. Or whatever. I agree with mekily that the important thing is "where the rubber meets the road" a.k.a. praxis.
You'll probably do better by discussing or working together on specific goals. The name of the system isn't important and I doubt your friend wants to violently purge some group of people to achieve her goals :-)
posted by freecellwizard at 9:17 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
The truth is that any branded "ism" or ideology is flawed and that what we all have to do is develop a set of moral values and apply situational ethics to make good decisions as a person, tribe, or society. If you are in the US that might mean running for office as a Democrat and making health care policy 2% better. Or organizing to demand better working conditions. Or whatever. I agree with mekily that the important thing is "where the rubber meets the road" a.k.a. praxis.
You'll probably do better by discussing or working together on specific goals. The name of the system isn't important and I doubt your friend wants to violently purge some group of people to achieve her goals :-)
posted by freecellwizard at 9:17 AM on February 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
I might start with the topic of the Uyghurs, since if anything, this is downplayed in mainstream media. You can also find plenty of critical coverage of this in lefty media outlets, like The Intercept.
posted by coffeecat at 1:17 PM on February 11, 2021
posted by coffeecat at 1:17 PM on February 11, 2021
Has your friend been introduced to libertarian communism (aka anarcho-communism)?
posted by eviemath at 5:50 PM on February 11, 2021
posted by eviemath at 5:50 PM on February 11, 2021
Haha, I didn't know this had a name.
Is your friend Chinese herself? That would be my first question. When I first came to the USA in kindergarten, people really did not understand that there were people who were neither white nor black, that it made a lot of sense for me to draw the sun with my red crayon instead of my yellow crayon, or that no, I was not from Taiwan, nor did I eat dog, and no, origami, despite its Japanese name, was invented in China, etc.
Like, if people in the USA were so misinformed about Chinese people at every turn and got so many things wrong about me, why should I trust them to know anything about my country? Like, if you accuse me of eating dog, then maybe your accusations about my country's human rights track record is equally misinformed.
I'll tell you what's changed my mind: seeing my Chinese relatives being extremely media-savvy and picking apart the party line for being overly moralistic (there were some CNY banquet sketches that were pretty heavy-handed). They don't trust their media, so I shouldn't reflexively believe that what the US media says about China is false either.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:11 PM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Is your friend Chinese herself? That would be my first question. When I first came to the USA in kindergarten, people really did not understand that there were people who were neither white nor black, that it made a lot of sense for me to draw the sun with my red crayon instead of my yellow crayon, or that no, I was not from Taiwan, nor did I eat dog, and no, origami, despite its Japanese name, was invented in China, etc.
Like, if people in the USA were so misinformed about Chinese people at every turn and got so many things wrong about me, why should I trust them to know anything about my country? Like, if you accuse me of eating dog, then maybe your accusations about my country's human rights track record is equally misinformed.
I'll tell you what's changed my mind: seeing my Chinese relatives being extremely media-savvy and picking apart the party line for being overly moralistic (there were some CNY banquet sketches that were pretty heavy-handed). They don't trust their media, so I shouldn't reflexively believe that what the US media says about China is false either.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:11 PM on February 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
To clarify; it is possible that libcom could be a helpful antidote for your friend.
posted by eviemath at 5:40 AM on February 14, 2021
posted by eviemath at 5:40 AM on February 14, 2021
Well, how does she explain the Sino-Soviet split, if she thinks both the USSR and China are blameless? Maybe it would be worth pointing out instances of Communist country non-cooperation (another good example: Sino-Vietnam War) as a wedge into showing how it's not even a coherent position to consider every Communist country infallible.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:03 PM on September 5, 2021
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:03 PM on September 5, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
But mostly, I just don’t have an interest in purely ideological debates. So I’ve decided not to engage with debating these people except when it relates to concrete actions one of us is taking, like voting for a particular candidate or attending a protest or joining an organization or something. Talking about it otherwise feels kinda pointless to me.
posted by mekily at 5:40 PM on February 10, 2021 [3 favorites]