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 :)
Someone said your name further up in the comments.
And that sounds dope as fuck from an objective pov.
“Queer” as in complex and not easily defined, though communists are very often queer sexually.
I think I’m going to refer to myself as queer from now on.
Go for it.
Last question homie, what dafuq is a tankie?
I’ve gotten loads of answers that pretty much describe them as leftist authoritarians.
I also read you might be one. So, in your own words. What that?
I’m not cowbee but I’ll just say that “tankie” is pretty much a meaningless word. It’s like how conservatives call everything they don’t like “woke” even when it’s other conservatives. “Tankie” basically just means “someone on the left that I disagree with”
It used to refer to a group of communists in Britain who didn’t condemn Khrushchev for sending in tanks to suppress right wing protests in Hungary. Later it became a general term for anyone who had a positive opinion of the USSR. Later it just became a catch-all term for leftists (including anarchists) but nowadays it can even include liberals. It’s kinda meaningless.
Hey! Another name I recognize(but from much earlier today)
I’m honestly(heart to sky) not trying to start an argument, as much as an honest conversation.
What are your feelings on the Tiananman square incident?
I think the government made a mistake allowing the student protests to reach the point that they reached and they probably should’ve cracked down sooner to avoid the number of deaths that ended up happening. JSYK in the Tiananmen square itself there was a peaceful evacuation in June 4 1989, so strictly speaking nothing too newsworthy happened. The actual fighting between protesters and the police/army happened in the streets surrounding the square and that’s where a lot of people were killed. There’s been some useful master-posts on Lemmy explaining the specifics of what went down using accounts from journalists who were in Beijing at that time, let me see if I find them.
Edit: https://hexbear.net/comment/5032963
Currently sorting through the link you provided, but I’m going to be honest I’m intoxicated so it won’t going to be quick.
I’ll read through the posts, but can you provide me with an abridged overview until then?
Thanks for an honest answer.
Can I ask you about your feelings on the classic picture of the dude standing in front of a line of tanks with his hand up in the “stop” gesture?
It’s just a pejorative for those that recognize the legitimacy of socialist states as they exist in the real world, and support them.
Can I ask you your feelings on authoritarianism?
I think it’s good for the working classes to wield the state against capitalists, fascists, landlords, sabateurs, etc. and a bad thing for those groups to wield state power against the working classes.
And whats your opinion on Russia invading Ukraine?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
Smort! Linking an article instead of trying to explain it to my dumb ass.
Gunna be real though. I have a hard time reading things like this in my phone.
I’m traveling currently, but I promise I will read this when I get home!