Dunking on Tankies from a leftist perspective. A tankie is someone who
defends/supports authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes who call themselves
“socialist”. The term originated from people supporting the 1956 invasion of
Hungary by the Soviet Union. Nowadays they are just terminally online, denying
genocides, and falling for totalitarian propaganda and calling such regimes
“true democracies”.
They weren't surveilling the people and controlling them, they were keeping an eye on a foreign propaganda agent.