So if there one thing I'd be happy for you take out of this convo, is that I am in no way supportive of US-style polemics about "this is such a communist shithole!" or any of the variety of standardized phrases comparing "capitalism" to "communism".

When I lived in the US, this was extremely annoying! That being said, that doesn't mean I am going to deny reality.

Ok. Neither did the communist revolutions of the 20th century permanently damage communism as a political system.

But they have. There are no more communist countries. The remaining countries that are marketed as communist, have long become authoritarian capitalist countries.

There is zero mass momentum towards "communist" parties. Many "communist" parties are little more than fronts for places like russia (a hyper-capitalist shithole with a majority of the population committed to genocidal imperialism).

Anarchists and communistic system have indeed existed before the USSR/CCP China appeared, but they are not functionally comparable to an ideology-focused communist government regime.

It's like saying commerce, competition, innovation are element of capitalism, when these things have existed before capitalism and will likely exist after capitalism (in the polemical sense) becomes mostly a matter of history books.

Besides, so called “liberal democracies” have done far more evil than the USSR or Communist China. In fact, they’re doing a repeat of the Holocaust as we speak. Does that “permanently (without any chance of rehabilitation) discredit democracy as a legitimate ideology”?

This is false.

Sure, if you’re a complete dullard who has mainlined nothing but pure, concentrated cold war propaganda without any thought or consideration, without ever bothering to open a single book on political theory. Everyone else is not that stupid.

This is not cold war propaganda. I was born in the USSR, as was my family. I live in a country that was occupied under the banner of communism under the USSR.

I oppose the current oligarch regime and I have an extremely negative view of the American political system. That being said, communism is not the answer.

Communism is the past. It's history. It's done.

We need to build something better (often inspired by the ideals of Marx), we are wasting chasing a dead end ideology; this only makes the oligarchs and the criminals stronger.