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How do people actually fall into the "Tankie" mindset? (anarchist.nexus)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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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[-] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 11 points 10 months ago

Well for sure one of the reason is that even in non marxist communities they show up and write comments in a style that many people resonate with. I mean using citations, good grammar, appealing to logic, (seemingly) good argumentations etc.

This makes them look reasonable and even if you do not read all their sources, you might remember their comments and talking points in a pretty positive light.

I dont want to say this style of arguing is bad, but I think it gets valued higher than arguments based on intuition and emotion with a less "scientific" style, because that is what many people are taught when growing up, going to school etc.

Also I would like to say, in some cases this "showing up" is done in a way that feels invasive to (parts of) communties. Like an online version of Jehovas Witnesses.

[-] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

I really dig that they often "show their receipts"and I'll always take someone with citations more seriously than those without. I think it's prudent to be even more sceptical of those replies, though, as it's far more likely they have an agenda. That agenda might be as benign as educating others (it's often why I cite), but it's still best to think critically about the context, text, and subtext of their narrative.

this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
220 points (91.0% liked)

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