This is the linked piece on Tiananmen Square

It claims (with some at least superficially convincing evidence, to be fair) that it isn’t accurate to call the event a massacre, and that deadly violence did not occur in the square but did occur elsewhere in Beijing. It tries to paint the deadly crackdown as justified because some of the protesters were violent toward the PLA. It also claims the protest was supported by the CIA and that the protesters had sympathies toward capitalist countries and the US because they erected a statue resembling the Statue of Liberty in the square.

Lady Liberty is a recognizable symbol for freedom and democracy around the world. It doesn’t necessarily mean pro-US or pro-capitalist. Seems an appropriate symbol for any protest to me.

The piece criticizes an excerpt of a description of the event from the U.S. State Department website, saying that it’s deliberately vague and implying this is nefariously meant to imply bad things happened whilst having plausible deniability. This is the silliest part of the piece. It couldn’t possibly be that the State Department is vague because there are conflicting accounts of the event which wasn’t well-documented and they don’t want to be inaccurate.

Wikipedia has this:

The protests were initiated by the death of former pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China. The movement’s goals reflected anxieties among the people and political elite about the nation’s future. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, dismantling of the “iron rice bowl”, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although the protests were highly disorganised with varying goals, student protestors called for reforms including the rollback of the removal of iron rice bowl jobs, greater political accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. Workers’ protests were generally focused on economic issues, specifically inflation and Deng’s economic reforms, which weakened Mao-era guarantees such as lifetime employment in state-owned enterprises and associated workplace benefits. These groups united around anti-corruption demands, adjusting economic policies, and protecting social security. At the height of the protests on May 17, about one million people were assembled in the square.

“Iron rice bowl” is a Chinese term for an occupation with guaranteed job security, similar to life tenure. Traditionally, people considered to have such positions include military personnel, members of the civil service, as well as employees of various state-owned enterprises (through the mechanism of the work unit).

Okay, so, in other words, it was a protest against the liberalizing economic reforms and dismantling of part of the social safety net. So you won communism and then it’s being taken away. I’d be pissed too. Imagine if the government took away medicare, medicaid, and social security in the US. You better believe we’d be justifiably rioting. No foreign support needed.

So, the protesters were socialists. Aren’t lefties always advocating for overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with communism, violently if necessary? So we should do that, but when students try that in 1989 in China, the good guys were the government trying to stop them? Be consistent.

Also, the CIA was involved? But it was actually a pro-socialist protest. Hmm.

I think we can get an understanding from looking at all the points as a whole. Anything anti-america is good. Anything against that is a CIA op nazi. That’s their entire ideology, full stop.

Most tankies aren’t usually that braindead, but the general theme is the same.

Because everything against China/Russia/NK is done bay the CIA at the behest of ‘Capitalism Inc.’ ©®

How in the actual fuck does one justify the violent and literal crushing of the Chinese people’s right to protest against their government as a good thing?!

I’d love to see that propaganda link for myself, just to see how on Earth anybody could frame the killing of innocent people as a good thing.

I’m not defending the Chinese government’s actions, but I can explain a potential framing of those actions and the mentality of defending it.

There is a concept called “Siege Socialism” that I don’t think many people really consider. I’ve written a number of comments explaining it. It’d been on my mind for a while but I was ignorant of the term until recently.

Capitalists hold so much power all over the world and they do NOT want anyone to consider anything else. It’s extremely difficult for a socialist/communist state to exist without it being pushed to become an authoritarian state. Consider the absolute onslaught of pressure from those capitalist powers. Propaganda, sanctions, trade wars, blockades, posturing, funding opposition parties, funding rebel groups, sabotage, proxy wars, etc. Imagine all of your neighbors working vehemently to ensure you look bad and fail at everything you do. Could you imagine a well-intentioned leader in such a situation pushed to paranoia and state violence? Is it even paranoia if its real?

The Chinese side is simple. Those protestors were funded and encouraged by the US and other foreign powers in an effort to destabilize and create unrest.

I’m not saying China had or currently has only innocent, well-intentioned leaders and I do not give any of them a pass for their uses of state violence. However, the US and western capitalist powers are just as capable of propaganda as the Chinese or Soviets and they often jump at any chance to make life more difficult for their enemies. I doubt it was anywhere near as simple as either side might try to paint it.

These are not serious people (if they’re people at all), and you should not spend too much time thinking about how to rebuke them, because bullshit is always more costly to debunk than to create.

Like every fascist or overly authoritarian goverment in the history of world always does: “external enemies”.