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 :)

    • YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth
      0·
      8 months 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…