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

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 3 days 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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[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Why do I need to pick one? That's a strange false dichotomy to assert.

No ML denies that the DPRK has strict border policies, but there are also a fuck ton of DPRK citizens working in China and Russia, so it obviously isn't true that no one can leave. This is the type of basic shit where you are just repeating a claim that traces back to western propaganda and parroting it as if it is common knowledge that cannot be argued against, despite plenty of evidence.

No ML would deny that tourists needs to be with a guided group.

Any news posted on our instances regarding DPRK has little to nothing to do with either of those topics, so I'm not seeing how it correlates.

The DPRK has a strict border policy and guided tours, so that means that a repost of their statement isn't newsworthy? It means they must be lying anytime they say something? What did they lie about that you see any of us backing up?

[–] smoker@lemmy.zip 0 points 5 days ago

I didn’t say no one can leave the country, I said that it doesn’t allow people to escape. Obviously pre-approved people are going to be allowed to leave (more likely in the upper classes, no doubt). But I guess it’s on brand to change my words to slot into the strawman the US has built.

Lying by omission is still lying. Even if everything to come out of the NK government is 100% true, it can still be dishonest if they cut away all the parts that make them look bad, and it is still propaganda. That is what comes of heavily controlled tours and journalism, not open bald-faced lies.

I doubt any of the unredacted portions of the Epstein files are deliberately falsified, but you don’t see me saying that their release was an honest move.