See, what you're pushing isn't Patriotism, Cerise...but Nationalism.
It is EXTREMELY Patriotic to criticize your country, because you want it to be better..you want it to be the BEST country it can be.
It isn't Nationalistic to do so, because you assume that your country can do no wrong, no matter what they do.
I'm reading Edgar Snow's Red Flag Over China to understand how the communist government came to power there. Interesting point you are making, Bish... the government prior to communism was a Nationalist government under Chiang Kai Shek. Under Chiang, taxation of the lower classes (peasants, farmers, small landlords, merchants, etc.) was as much as 50%, which the upper classes (large landlords, tax collectors, gentry, etc.) paid nothing. Local militia (hired by the large landlords to keep the peasants under foot) could also take their share of the farmer's crops, animals, or money at will.
Chiang's Nationalist government put into effect many laws that forbade freedoms we take for granted such as assembly, speech (all news was censored including foreign correspondence), protest and criticism of the government. These crimes were punishable with imprisonment and often death.
Mao Zedong's Communist Party (and the Red Army) won the hearts and minds of people by retaking the land from the landlords and tax collectors that was stolen from the farmers over several droughts and famines; and adopting an Anti-Japanese ("anti-imperialist") policy. They had wanted to combine with the Kuomintang to defeat the imperialist (Japanese) forces that were occupying China but Chiang's anti-communist policy focused on campaigns to wipe out the Red Army and allowed the people to suffer under the sword of Japan.
One wonders if the prior government in China had been fair and open would communism have taken foot in China?