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?
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.