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Yes, I agree the heart of what it means to be a tankie is to be authoritarian socialist of some stripe; I think that's precisely why I don't find the label fitting to Chomsky, given the whole of his work and the kind of political advocacy he has engaged in.

Thank you for the link to the response to his talking points.

As I have said, previous to this discussion I have not known anything about Chomsky's view on Ukraine.

I did find this, from April 2022, Noam Chomsky: A Left Response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Whatever the explanation for the Russian invasion, an important, crucial question, the invasion itself was a criminal act, a criminal act of aggression, a supreme international crime on par with other such horrific violations of international law and fundamental human rights like the US invasion of Iraq, the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland, and all too many other examples.

From this I get the broad sense that Chomsky does not side with Putin nor does he support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This is hardly saying much, since seething reactionaries like Jordan Peterson have said similar things, decrying the invasion of Ukraine while defending and rationalizing Russian interests.

This has long been a problem with the Left since the main geopolitical opposition to the U.S. and Western Imperialist countries have been problematic Marxist-Leninist authoritarian countries like the USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

Though ironically Chomsky was also decried is an Imperialist and liberal for supporting U.S. intervention in Syria to support the Kurdish movement in Rojava, so he has committed sins in both directions (against Russian interests, and for, apparently).

From the May 2022 Open Letter responding to Chomsky's position there are many claims of positions Chomsky takes in his interviews, but the only quote they provide is about Crimea. Sure, maybe he is wrong about the people of Crimea supporting Russian annexation considering the claims made by the Ukrainians that dispute the Crimean referendum that Chomsky may have been alluding to by his comment. Hard to say, but I at least understand why people might bristle when Chomsky says "Crimeans apparently do like [being off the table]."

It seems to me there is a lot of work to do to sort through all the claims and counter-claims and evaluate evidence and so on.

I can suspect Chomsky is not likely to come out of that entirely clean, and I can understand to a Ukrainian that anything less than full, uncritical support is betrayal enough. War creates a stark psychological reality for the victims; it is for Ukrainians an issue of survival and all this hemming and hawing about larger geopolitical issues and Leftist ideological commitments will just come across as hypocritical to supposed Leftist values, and compromising to the pragmatic goals of resisting the Russian invasion which is pressing, immediate, and traumatizing. It reminds me of Che Guevera who summarily executed a suspected traitor, and was surprised when people were shaken by this. His reality had adjusted to war-time, and he had become so pragmatic he had stopped caring about due process or rights. This is the reality the Ukrainains are in, and we should understand this and be sympathetic to the on-going genocide.

I don't have the time or space to educate myself on this issue, and I am sorry for that. It may be that Chomsky is like other famous leftists who have taken compromising positions in the past.

Coming to mind for me is Howard Zinn who was so bent on criticizing the U.S. that he amplified Nazi propaganda about the Dresden fire-bombings. I don't think that made Zinn a Nazi or a Nazi collaborator, nor do I think it undermines his humanistic principles or overall project as a historian. I do think it is unfortunate, that it weakened him as a figure, and so on. I see Chomsky similarly. In his attempt to attack the U.S. he can come too close to defending authoritarian regimes. (I don't know whether that's true with Ukraine, it's just sounding like it from what you are telling me; I've had the thought previously about his support of China.) Still, I think in the context of his ideological commitments those compromises make sense even if they are flawed, problematic, or simply built on lies that are convenient to authoritarians. The politics are messy and none of the sides are morally righteous even though that's not how it feels.

I do not expect figures like Chomsky to be right about everything. We could be having a similar discussion right now about how Kropotkin is a whatever-disparaging-term-you-wish because he supported Western entry into World War I.

Some figures might be more compromised by others, but I don't think Chomsky or Kropotkin are compromised to the point of figures like Lenin, Trotsky, or Stalin who each proclaimed ideals of communism and did much more to destroy those ideals.

Still, I am sympathetic to criticizing Chomsky where he is wrong, I just don't have the time to figure out exactly what sins he has committed with regards to Ukraine, as plentiful as those sins may be.