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

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 11 hours 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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[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think what chloroken is getting at is "the key word here is 'theory'" sounds like a dismissal in the same vein as "evolution is just a theory." The sense of 'theory' in both "evolutionary theory" and "leftist theory" is the same, and in both cases it's distinct from the colloquial sense. It means "body of conceptual academic work," not "hypothetical belief." In neither case does it imply dogmatism.

"Every state is authoritarian" is a pretty non-controversial claim in leftist political theory of any stripe. Comrade's point was "China is authoritarian" is a non-sequitur from any leftist perspective, because China is a state so of course it is. Anarchist and ML theorists are going to disagree on the implications of that basic observation.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

Bingo.

[–] kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And is also avoiding to say that China and Russia are basically dictatorships, but with extra steps.

Like, as I said, saying all people are bad would be a way to avoid saying that Nazis are bad, but with extra steps.

It's also similar to far righters when asked if they are antifascists and they answer that they are antifascists and anticommunists.

Just different shapes of delusion.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

How would you respond if someone criticized Revolutionary Catalonia because marriage/religion/domestic violence still existed inside of it?