Someone else already commented how tankies got their name.

Tankies in the comments can generally be recognized by:

• Anything that a liberal democratic country does is bad.
• Authoritarian regimes such as China, Venezuela, Russia, North-Korea, … are somehow the good guys, no matter how well documented their transgressions against human rights are. Tankies defend Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for example.
• Because tankies want to present some atrocious regimes and people as the good guys, they have to twist the truth a lot. So they constantly lie and misrepresent/omit facts to push their false narrative.
• Since they’re not interested in an actual discussion or non tankie viewpoints, they employ non-constructive discussion techniques to score points and “win” arguments. And this last bullet point is mostly why everyone else hates them.

“Tankie” is a derogatory term for Marxist-Leninists. We support AES or “actually existing socialist” states, in contrast to left idealists who support every revolution except the ones that actually succeed, which can always be imagined as perfect because they never had to confront practical reality. We’re known for our opposition to war (except class war) and belief in multipolarity, which is the idea that one nation shouldn’t be the lone superpower with hegemony around the world, and we treat the media with reasonable skepticism when it tries to tell us who to hate - ironically, these traits cause us to be characterized as militaristic, authoritarian, and blindly gullible.

People who have never read any communist theory beyond the Manifesto (if that) don’t think we’re real communists because they have no idea what they’re talking about.

As far as I am aware, the primary difference is that tankies are authoritarian. They got their name because they supported the USSR sending tanks into Hungary in 1956. I’ve seen many express positive opinions towards China and North Korea while ignoring or denying things like mass censorship in both countries, China’s concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims or the fact that people and their families risk death if they try to flee North Korea.

I typically add a user note to all tankies I encounter or I just block them.

Edit: I originally incorrectly cited that they got their name because they deny the tiananmen square massacre (which they claim was either peaceful or non-existent). It is still true that they deny it, but it is not the origin of their name.

Tankie was initially someone who didn’t have an issue with running over protestors in a tank in support of their beliefs, and has grown to include anyone willing to use violent means in support of communist ideals.

Current examples include supporting Russia or blaming Ukraine for the conflict, or supporting China invading Taiwan.