Yes, the famous “fascist uprisings” where students demanded things like a return to democracy with free elections, putting local communist politicians in power in the interim, end of occupation by a foreign power or state military, end to media censorship and oppression of dissidents, and the return to local rule.
Those are the things tankies defend. They self identify as communist, because anyone can call themself a communist. Tankies are the “communists” that blindly celebrate the instances of failure and oppression instead of denouncing or learning from them – that is what separates a tankie from normal, sane communists.