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 :)
Yep, life expectancy doubled in Russia and China, literacy rates tripled, homelessness nearly eliminated, dramatic gains were made across all socialist countries.
But what actually happened in real life?
Exactly what I just said:
Life expectancy in pretty much all countries drastically increased with industrialization.
“Extreme poverty” for that graph you’re displaying is defined at living at less than $2.30 a day. In real life there’s 16.6 million people in China living benath their national poverty line, defined as 2,300 CNY a year, which is $328.74. Yeah, totally not extreme poverty.
But no worries, believe whatever b.s. you want.
Life expectancy not only increased due to industrialization, but land reform resulting in an end to famine, free healthcare and education, and nearly eliminating homelessness. Purchasing power is different in China, and as such 2,300 CNY gets you a lot further, and China has 1.4 billion people. More importantly, though, you can see that the number was over 90% in 1980, and this dramatic transformation was a deliberate effort.
I believe facts and statistics, and you’re trying to minimize them now that I gave evidence for my claims. Keep moving the goalposts.