Tankie

[W]e also desired to shock the staid older party members and the tankies. The tankies and softliners differed as to what sort of magazine Challenge should be.

Stephen Well, read the Morning Star and keep up with the tankies. / Max The tankies[…] How the years roll by. Dubcek is back. Russia agrees to withdraw its garrisons. Czechoslovakia takes her knickers off to welcome capitalism. And all that remains of August '68 is a derisive nickname for the only real Communists left in the Communist Party. I'm exactly as old as the October Revolution[…]

[T]he tankies, those members of the British Communist Party who unquestioningly followed Moscow's line, up to and beyond supporting Soviet tanks rumbling through the streets of Budapest and Prague, […]

Near-synonym: authcom

As far as the Sparklies were concerned the new comics were scruffy herberts who shouted ‘Fuck Thatcher’ over and over, while raving Tankie Stalinists hooted indiscriminately in the front row.

Though in an age in which anyone can publish texts, images, and videos to potentially huge audiences and in which impassioned leftists of “woke,” “tankie,” and “democratic-socialist” (post-Corbynista or Bernie Bro) persuasions post constant calls to action, informational posts, and manifestos, the failure of the left to ignite needs further analysis.

Obviously a thrust by the tankies over the ridge and through the minefield was just not on, there and then in broad daylight, a fact they appeared to recognise. At that stage the Germans were well positioned to give them a warm reception with their powerful 88s and other artillery.

Breakfast was taken alongside a curious tank without a turret. When I asked about it a tankie sergeant said, 'It's a Kangaroo: that's a Sherman without a turret. The Canadians make them.[…]'