Memes

Ok, let me try one last time. Every single "tankie" here was in the same position you are now. Every one of us believed everything we were told about the horrors of the USSR and China and Cuba, any and all socialist states. We aren't being "brainwashed" by another country on the other side of the planet, we have tried to understand these places better, of our own accord. And what we've found is that while these places are not perfect, they are grossly misrepresented in the west. The capitalists want you to hate socialism and socialist states, they don't care if you call yourself a socialist or not while you do so. Your anti-communism, sorry, anti-tankieism is indistinguishable from any western liberal who says "socialism works in theory but in practice it just leads to evil dictators." How are you actually different from them if you believe everything they do about socialism? How are you actually a socialist if actual socialists disagree with you and liberals agree with you instead?

Please, if you consider yourself a socialist, read theory, seek to learn, to understand, rather than just trying to dismiss people because their position frustrates you. The ruling class in the west wants us to fight amongst ourselves and what you're doing right now is exactly what they want from people. People who wear socialism like a T-shirt. People who don't learn about it, don't try to understand it, don't try to actually create a socialist state because it is seen as "authoritarian." I know it makes you mad when we call you a liberal. It should, and I'm sorry for that, but your are behaving exactly like one right now. I don't think you're a bad person, I just think you're being corralled into a capitalist friendly version of socialism, which is impotent and ineffectual. "Leftcoms" if you'd rather not be called a liberal, have been criticised for their inability to accomplish anything for over a century. Is that really how you want your "communism" to be? Just a bunch of empty impotent, impractical ideas and denunciations of those who did something, who improved things, flawed as they may be, because they weren't perfect? Do you really want to sit around your whole life with your thumb up your ass waiting for "perfect" socialism to arrive?

Please, read theory, Lenin especially. Your ideas are not new ones, they are very old hat, even cliche at this point, one of the oldest means of stifling communism was to corral it into "safe" versions which denounced all attempts at socialist experiments. I'd recommend this work in particular, but if you're a lib, it won't interest you, I know how much libs hate learning new things: https://www.marxist.com/classics-marxism-two-book/left-wing-communism-an-infantile-disorder.htm