After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

  • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    18·
    22 days ago

    I am all for letting people believe what they want

    Until those beliefs attempt to control others who don’t share the same beliefs. That’s the limit. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for certain groups to leave people alone.

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      20 days ago

      That’s exactly the complaint against tankies. Tankies are specifically authoritarian “communists”, who defend the violent enforcement of “communism” by authoritarian states. Tankies explicitly want to control others who do not share their beliefs, that’s the material distinction between a tankie specifically and a Communist in general.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
      32·
      21 days ago

      because they aren’t liberals, in the libertarian sense.

      they don’t want freedom, they want control of other people. freedom of belief and others having different belief is viewed as a threat to be met with hostility. other people being different, acting different, etc is all viewed this way.