People over on Hexbear don't love Russia. I myself have posted news articles on Russian authorities enjailing marxists and they got widely popular in Hexbear.
As for China, I'd argue they're not more authoritarian than most developed countries. I'm a Spaniard, my state has political prisoners for pro-Catalonian independence actions such as promoting a referendum for independence. The most leftist party to appear in decades fell into oblivion recently because the state police apparatus manufactured false evidence of corrupt funding of said party (Podemos) by Venezuela and Iran, and leaked these false police reports to all media, which echoed it nonstop for months.