Capitalism is great

A few of Socialism's/Communism's greatest hits:

Gulags and forced labor camps, mass starvation and food rationing, "reeducation" torture agencies, forced abortions, forced relocations, no free press, no freedom of movement (travel), strong borders (to keep everyone in), mass surveillance and data collection by government agencies, and hyper control of every aspect of life: where you live (house or apartment, city or rural), how much and what you eat, how many children you have, what kind of car you drive (if you get one), when and how many can gather together in a single place (permits for all gatherings), and so much more!

With all of it's faults, I'll still take Capitalism...

Socialism/communism or state capitalism?

Are you asking me what the items I listed are examples of? They are examples of Socialism/Communism in China, Russia, et al...If you need references, just read "The Gulag Archipelago" and "Coming out of the Ice"

China and Russia are/were state capitalist governments. The Bolsheviks were responsible for returning Russia to conditions under the Tsar, but worse. Look at Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) and see that the policy of the Soviet Union, Marxism-Leninism, is really just state capitalism. Part of the country's industry was private, even in the days of Lenin.

Now you are just playing semantics word games...So it's "state" capitalism because the state owns all the means of production and all property and uses those things to produce goods and services? That's the very definition of socialism/communism. You can call a duck a dog as many times as you want, but it's still a duck.

The first thing the Bolsheviks did was eliminate private property, so there was never any true private capitalist industry once it became the Soviet Union. Private industry requires private property so eliminating one eliminates the other, by definition.

Private property was already largely cultivated by the masses under the provisional government and before the Bolsheviks took power. Their first action was making peace with Germany, and then banning all political opposition.

The New Economic Policy, as instituted by Lenin, re-instated private ownership, and the Soviet economy became mixed. And yes, state capitalism is a mixture of state and private-owned enterprises comprising an economy, which adequately describes the Marxist-Leninist policy of the Soviet Union. Socialism is when there is social ownership of goods and services, and workers own the tools of production. Not when the State holds this means.

They described themselves as socialists and communists. Marx used the terms interchangeably. THEY WERE/ARE COMMUNISTS AND SOCIALISTS, by their own admission. The people who advocate communism/socialism today use their flags as symbols of socialism/communism. Again, you keep trying to change the subject by saying they weren't what they claimed themselves to be, and what everyone since their inception has called them (that they themselves have not denied...they, in fact, proclaimed it proudly).

The fact remains that they were/are socialists/communists and they committed all the atrocities I stated. No amount of re-definition of words will change those facts. I'll say it again, with all it's faults, I'd still take American capitalism over Russia/China's (or any other country's) socialism/communism (or whatever you decide you want to call it).

There's a reason an ideology such as left-communism exists. Marxism-Leninism, while authoritarian communism, is still to the right in its endorsement of state capitalism (though they won't call it that). I believe the Bolsheviks even initially wanted capitalism to reach its full potential before the revolution took it over, which was quickly rebuked by other communist factions.

It's honestly hard to say, but I don't think most communists today are tankies. They may not be mostly anarchist communists like myself, but most are not Stalin and Mao apologists. That is surely foolish.