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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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[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago

Obviously the Nazis being stopped was a good thing. But I dont have to worship the nations that did it to appreciate it. Nor do I have to exonerate them of their atrocities to say that this one course of action was good.

His point is that this is the same kind of critical support that MLs want to extend to AES states. MLs have a lot of criticisms of, e.g., contemporary China. They just think it is one of the better available realistic alternatives, and deserves qualified support over (say) the United States. MLs agree that a stateless society is the eventual goal (and that China is flawed), but believe that as a matter of practical real-world tactics, it is better to support China against the US in the same way it was better to support the US against Nazi Germany.