My personal definition would be “authoritarian communist (or “”“communist””“) regime supporters/apologists”.

What does this actually mean? Is Nelson Mandela a “tankie” to you? You might think I’m being facetious, but I’m serious. I’ll link some photographs and quotes from Mandela that a lot of the capitalists in charge want you to forget:

“I read works by and about Che Guevara, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro. In Edgar Snow’s brilliant Red Star Over China I saw that it was Mao’s determination and non-traditional thinking that had led him to victory.”

“The revolution in China was a masterpiece, a real masterpiece. If you read how they fought that revolution, you believe in the impossible. It’s just miraculous.”

“From its earliest days, the Cuban Revolution has also been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist-orchestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gain made in the Cuban Revolution.”

“Within that international support for our struggle the Soviet Union and other socialist countries stood out. The governments and peoples of the socialist bloc gave material, moral and political support to our struggle in a manner and on a scale that we will never be able to repay.”

So again, does this make Nelson Mandela a “tankie”? If so, what does it say about "tankies " and the west, in that the so called “tankies” supported Mandela in the fight against apartheid, while the west did not. In fact, the west often supported apartheid. Even Antony Blinken admitted to that recently.

“The Soviet Union was supportive of the freedom forces in South Africa, and of course unfortunately, more than unfortunately, the United States was much too sympathetic to the apartheid regime, so that history also doesn’t get erased, you know, overnight, it’s a process,” Blinken said.