But there are people who identify as left-wing who will support China and Russia while downplaying their authoritarianism.

That’s not something being invented as a boogeyman. Anyone can go to lemmygrad.ml right now to see it in action.

You got down voted but you’re right. Tankie is the new form of commie after that fell out of favor. Western “champaign socialists” (another term I hate but it kinda applies here) use it to criticize people from countries that actually have had socialist experiments. Most of the leftists globally are not western and would fit under the standard western definition of tankie. But if you’ve never come close to overthrowing your own government, are you positioned all that well to criticize someone elses revolution while you sit comfortably in the imperial core?

Poor countries face challenges that rich countries can’t imagine often from western interference and revolutions are an ugly business. No Castro was not Santa Claus but he was a marked improvement over Batista.