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How do people actually fall into the "Tankie" mindset? (anarchist.nexus)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by stinky@anarchist.nexus to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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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 :)

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[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago

I didn't support Russia until I learned the history of the region going back to 2013. Now I critically support it like most other marxists.

I used to condemn China for committing genocide until I learned that it actually isn't. Even installed xiaohongshu and could see for myself.

That's what I meant by

tankies were the ones citing sources and having incredibly nuanced understandings while me and the other libs didn’t really.

See this comment for an example of a typical debate between a tankie and a lib.