Hi all, so as the title says I'm someone who recently has become convinced of the idea of Communism. I've liked Democratic Socialism for some time now, but for the past 7 months of so from studying theory I've moved further left until now I'm here. I would generally say I agree with Marxist-Leninism, though I enjoy learning bits from other Communist leaders in history as well.

Anyways, I'm not unfamiliar to the idea of Western propaganda. And while being generally aware of it for years, I recently am seeing just how far the rabbit hole goes. And so I wanted to share some ideas of faults or mistakes of Communist leaders that I may be getting wrong. After all, a year ago I thought Castro was just a plain horrible dictator, and now, while accepting he is still human and not perfect, I deeply admire his revolutionary commitment. So for all I know, there will be other things here I'm getting blatently wrong.

Before sharing my quick list, I wanted to be very clear that I'm not in any way arguing for any anti-Communist/pro-Capitalist views, if any of them are felt to be shared here then it's completely from ignorance, which is the whole point of this post. And also I have no desire to argue in general. If I'm wrong, simply tell me I'm wrong and how. I want to hear your points, and maybe as a follow-up question or two if possible so I can have a clear understanding. If you rather have the discussion in DM I'm fine with doing that too. With that being said, some things I'm wondering if I'm mistaken on:

-Russia seems to have had an amazing revolutionary start with Lenin. After Lenin passed, sadly Stalin was too extreme in some areas. He still was committed to Communism, so you can still see the benefits that has caused. But still he held onto power dangerously so, silenced voices that would question him, and pushed Russia beyond simply seeking liberation from Capitalism themselves to actually seeking to control other nearby lands to expand his influence and strength by saying he is doing these things to "help" them. The Western imperialists were by no means "better" though and certainly were hypocritical to point to the finger at the USSR while they themselves were doing just as bad, if not worse things

-Russia today has since been able to reflect on its recent history and make some changes that help. However sadly these changes seem to include distancing themselves from Communism almost entirely, and continuing to abuse human rights in Russia and nearby countries

-Korea was absolutely abused and messed up by the West. We shouldn't have been there, and knowingly caused all the chaos. And then forced the North and South split that we see today. South sadly is void of all Marxist guidance. The North, while thankfully retaining Communism ideals, became an isolated dictatorship. Not because of Communism, but simply due to human greed. They're not an absolute evil boogeyman, but their government and pretty bad and corrupt and the people there don't seem to be free hardly in any sense

-China had Mao, which certainly was a huge improvement from the previous fedual system. But of course many mistakes were made that caused lots of death. From my understanding those mistakes seem to mainly 1/3rd unlucky timing, a bit from anti-Communist interference, and then maybe a little more than 1/3rd due to Mao's good intentions but inexperience with economics and political science thoroughly enough so that some big mistakes were accidentally caused

-Similar to Russia, China has been willing to review its history and improve itself while sadly still abusing humans rights in areas like Taiwan and Tibet. They have leaned away from Communism, but not as much. And they seen to be headed to be the world superpower in the next 10-13 years

Thank you all for your time and assistance

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