[aspenmayer]

I liken the concept of tankie to that of jumping the shark by Fonzie on Happy Days. I wonder if there's some kind of portmanteau going on there in the etmology? Maybe a (now-discontinued SAT test style) analogy will help show how I think this might have occurred, or a least provide a potentially helpful backronymic mnemonic device? I think I have made my relations clear conceptually, and I think the analogy works and the wordplay seems like it could be intentional, but I can't say what was going through the mind of whoever first used the word tankie to refer to socialists who essentially backslide into fascism after some kind of failed revolution, if I understand the proper usage as understood by modern leftists correctly.

Tankie (authoritarianism with little red flags (after precipitating incident)) is to Tank Man (precipitating incident) in relation to China (socialist status quo (before precipitating incident)), is as Fonzie is to jumping the shark in relation to Happy Days.

[dragonwriter]

The precipitating incident for "tankie" isn't "Tank Man" (or even the Tiananmen Square incident in China in 1989 more generally), but the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 by the invasion by the USSR the same year.

[aspenmayer]

That is helpful context, much appreciated!

Do you know when tankie was first used in this authoritarian socialist sense, or is that what you're saying?

[dragonwriter]

> Do you know when tankie was first used in this authoritarian socialist sense, or is that what you're saying?

My understanding is that it was first used in the immediate aftermath of 1956 in internal criticism within the British Communist Party, and gained wider international currency after the Prague Sprint in 1968.

[aspenmayer]

Do you have a source? I don't doubt you, I just am looking for good slang sources since I lost my last good one. That is, I used to have a slang dictionary, but I gave it as a gift to someone as a child and have regretted it ever since, as the recipient doesn't seem to have it anymore, and I haven't ever been able to find a decent one before or since, though I haven't really looked very hard. My old one had a lot of old slang common among WWII and other military members and veterans that I've never seen before, for instance.