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 :)

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    1·
    12 hours ago

    I’m not seeing any valid arguments here. I’m good-faith, and I’m reading the arguments, I just disagree with them. Calling me bad-faith for disagreeing with you isn’t a point, nor does it mean I am actually bad-faith.

    • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
      11·
      12 hours ago

      Do you really want me to go point back at the strawmen or the spots where you failed to even respond to what I was saying? But by all means, please, keep downvoting me for calling out your behavior. I know you can do better, so maybe you just need time to calm down and reassess.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        1·
        11 hours ago

        Uh, I don’t think you understood their point. Tankies aren’t communists, they’re authoritarians with a red paint job. We’re not talking about nuanced Marxist thinkers, we’re taking about people who think “Just line everyone who doesn’t accept my exact interpretation of communism up against the wall” is rational praxis.

        This is the original comment I replied to, which is a strawman. The people that think “Just line everyone who doesn’t accept my exact interpretation of communism up against the wall” is rational praxis don’t exist in any significant numbers, yet the word “tankie” is thrown around willy nilly these days.

        There are plenty of ways to rationally arrive at Communism, but really the only way to get to Tankie is, as the top comment says, rejecting Western propaganda in favor of the propaganda of so-called “communists”.

        This argument is that existing socialist states aren’t to be trusted and are equally bad, but becoming a communist isn’t just about agreeing with a nice picture of it in our heads, but to also see what communists have done in real life.

        The original comment was itself a strawman, and you didn’t offer any compelling argument beyond “extremists exist,” which is true but not relevant. We aren’t talking about outliers, but a common phenomenon, that being communists on the fediverse that uphold existing socialist states and are called “tankies” for it.

        • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
          11·
          11 hours ago

          How do you think replying to someone else’s comment is, in any way/shape/form, relevant to the strawman arguments you propped up against me to deflect against my entire comment? Here, I’ll make you read it again. Maybe this time you can meaningfully respond to it.

          Because even if the statement was hyperbole when referring to the majority of the tankie population, it still rings true for some of them- an inconvenient truth that you outright denied initially and were forced to backpedal on/reframe.

          Most rational people are going to see this, see someone obviously using hyperbole, see someone obfuscating reality to serve their purposes, and dismiss you outright.

          Beyond that, while it IS hyperbole to say tankies as a monolith believe in executing political dissidents, it is NOT hyperbole to say tankies as a monolith continue to support several states which DO believe in executing political dissidents.

          I wouldn’t color myself an anarchist necessarily, but I do find myself increasingly believing that anarchists are, for the most part, some of the only internally consistent ideologues. Fuck all states seems to be the only reasonable position when all existing states fucking suck.

          Edit: here’s a hint in being consistent. You cannot literally interpret another person’s words when it benefits you and choose to respond with a wishy-washy non-literal deflection that requires reframing to fit the prompt.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            1·
            11 hours ago

            I never denied that outliers existed, my point is that outliers that actually fit the label are small in number yet the label is applied to non-outliers as a way to equate them. I’m consistent with my critique, and you haven’t engaged with my point, just dodged it and claimed to be doing everyone a service.

            • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world
              11·
              8 hours ago

              I don’t know how you are incapable of processing the situation rn.

              I don’t need to engage with your point. I made a point that you didn’t engage with.

              You need to engage that point instead of attempting to use this opportunity to sanitize the pejorative “tankie”.

              Reread my comment that I already requoted for you again. Keep rereading it. Keep rereading it. You can stop rereading it whenever you engage with it.

              Edit: hell, maybe reread the entire thread for context. You seem lost as hell.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                1·
                15 minutes ago

                I processed the situation fully, you’re getting lost in the sauce a bit here. I’ll spell it out for you paragraph by paragraph though:

                Because even if the statement was hyperbole when referring to the majority of the tankie population, it still rings true for some of them- an inconvenient truth that you outright denied initially and were forced to backpedal on/reframe.

                This is the point I made about outliers existing, I didn’t outright deny that they did in my original comment. The ones it rings true for, the “outliers,” are an extreme minority. I wasn’t forced to backpedal on it, when you interpreted my comment as denying their existence I clarified for you.

                Most rational people are going to see this, see someone obviously using hyperbole, see someone obfuscating reality to serve their purposes, and dismiss you outright.

                See, the problem with this statement is that I didn’t do that.

                Beyond that, while it IS hyperbole to say tankies as a monolith believe in executing political dissidents, it is NOT hyperbole to say tankies as a monolith continue to support several states which DO believe in executing political dissidents.

                That’s not what the original comment said, though. “Executing political dissidents” like using state violence against fascists and sabateurs is supported by the overwhelming majority of Marxists, but that was not the statement made:

                Just line everyone who doesn’t accept my exact interpretation of communism up against the wall” is rational praxis

                This is what you’re now interpreting as any “executing of political dissidents.” It’s true that Marxists are revolutionary, and support using the state to protect that, but it isn’t true that there’s a significant number of us that want to line everyone up against the wall for thought crime.

                I wouldn’t color myself an anarchist necessarily, but I do find myself increasingly believing that anarchists are, for the most part, some of the only internally consistent ideologues. Fuck all states seems to be the only reasonable position when all existing states fucking suck.

                I really don’t care what you think about this considering your lack of understanding the current argument being made to begin with. Marxism is internally consistent, whether someone misinterpreting an argument believes so or not.