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 :)


Recognize that you have an anti-Tankie mindset. One where its important to side with your Nazi CIA rulership’s narrative that is only interested in promoting their fascist evil supremacy by diminishing others.
Mao definitely went over the top with a purge, IMO. The Chinese narrative for the event 40 years ago now, is they put down a riot. Don’t think you are capable of invalidating that narrative when you also say “it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.” which happens to be more falsifiable CIA propaganda and terrorism.
The problem with the anti-Tankie mindset, that innevitably includes calling everyone who corrects Nazi CIA lies a tankie, is that your are siding with corrupt oppressive regimes who are stealing your prosperity, and against governments genuinely trying and improving their people’s lives. When you permit divisive and fraudulent speech, CIA/oligarchist speech is louder than all other speech, Nazi/CIA puppets gain rulership to oppress people for CIA backed corporatist supremacy over them.
In anarchist context, the Paris commune is a real world exemplary ideal. It’s eventual failure was from insufficient security and control over divisiveness, which in real world, invited demonic oligarchism to infiltrate and sabotage it, while gaining narrative for their jack booted thugs to come in to destroy it for good.