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?

    • YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth
      101·
      11 hours ago

      Mao’s policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his tenure, mainly due to starvation, but also through persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions.

      Li Rui, Mao’s personal secretary and CCP comrade, opined that “Mao’s way of thinking and governing was terrifying. He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing to him.”

      Mao has been credited for boosting literacy, reducing poverty, a near doubling life expectancy, a near doubling of the population, rapidly developing China’s industry and infrastructure, and creating a self-sufficient and self-reliant economy, paving the way for its position as a world power.

      Source

      Believe it or not, it is possible to recognize that someone did a lot of good things, while also accepting that they did a lot of bad too. Reducing Mao to a “mass killer” is disingenuous, but so is denying the deaths that occurred under his rule.

      The construction of these false dichotomies between complete supporter and complete opposer is the exact same construction responsible for the constant infighting among the working class of the west. I really wish people would allow any nuance into these conversations…

      • Jabril [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        222·
        9 hours ago

        Blaming a single guy for famines that had historically been happening in China for hundreds of years is pretty disingenuous too isn’t it?

        Mao became leader of China after a period they call 100 years of humiliation. They lost over 22 million during WW2, had mostly illiterate peasant economy, and had been brutally colonized by Japanese, British and others, opium addiction, poisoned water…

        Mao did not order the death of tens of millions of people and to equate such is actually an insane thing to do.

        Hitler literally called for the death of people for being subhuman, that’s what makes fascists evil.

        Mao was one part of a large leadership circle of an even larger communist party who inherited the ruins of a nation and laid the foundation for one of the poorest nations in the world to become the most powerful in one lifespan.

        You are sourcing from Wikipedia which has long been proven to be heavily influenced by US and Israeli intelligence, but I would challenge you to follow their sources and see which ass they pulled these numbers out of to blame on Mao and look it right in the eye and give it a smooch.

        Believe it or not, it is possible to recognize that someone did a lot of good things, while also accepting that they did a lot of bad too.

        What’s so funny about this is that it is exactly what communists say. Deng Xiaoping famously said Mao was 70% right and 30% wrong. Every actual communist can talk in depth about the failures of communism, it just isn’t worth the time with liberals because they already live in a fantasy world

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        13·
        8 hours ago

        I agree that acting like Mao never had anyone killed is disingenuous and counterproductive. Jabril already explained some of the issues with the opposite side of trying to make him responsible for deaths due to famine when famine was just the reality before communism in China. I just wanted to add that rejecting the dichotomy and acknowledging that a figure like Mao, Stalin, or whoever else made huge mistakes (including selfish, cruel, and dogmatic decisions) doesn’t mean that you don’t get to celebrate them for their achievements either. They led a world antifascist and anti-colonial struggle that every person alive today should be grateful for.

        Going back to the subject of the thread, there shouldn’t be anything weird with having a Mao Zedong megathread. There’s no part of having a Mao Zedong megathread that denies the complexity of the history of the PRC, simplifies it, whitewashes it, or whatever. As we stand, the only piece of information that points toward “tankies” being intellectually dishonest dogmatists that ignore any of their heroes’ wrongdoings (I take it that this is OP’s accusation even if it’s implicit) is the comment you’re replying to, which is itself a flippant reaction to OP’s premise.

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        9 hours ago

        I support your quest for nuance.

        Mao was critical of his own policies which exacerbated the famine during the Great Leap Forward.

        My understanding is that the executions were a form of justice doled out by the peasants (not Mao himself) against their former landlords and oppressors. As Mao said, “a revolution is not a dinner party”; it’s a class war. Violence is part of it. Given the scale, it’s plausible to me that some of the killings could have been unjust, but I would need to learn of the specifics in such cases before arriving at that condemnation.