This is something I always get in arguments about, whenever I use the word tankie hexbear and grad users argue that its just a term for socialists.
I’ve always just used it to referr to authoritarian communists, i.e, people who unironically support modern russia, and/or oppose ukraine, and think nothing happened to the uyghurs.
They’re not communists
Thats dangerously close to the “no true scotsman” fallacy.
their end goal is state capitalism though, so I don’t see the contradiction
Yeah. If they call the current state of China with literal billionaires, communist, then they aren’t communist in any economically defined sense of the world
It’s only a fallacy when used wrong
It isn’t close to, it is the no true Scotsman fallacy.
“No true Scotsman” is about redefining a term to suit the argument, not that purity tests or gatekeeping are inherently illegitimate.