You got it right here. The biggest stumbling block I’ve noticed is western chauvinism. People get into leftist theory all the time. They can recite Marx backwards and forwards. What stops them is a core belief that non-western people are backwards and that foreign attempts to create socialism all did it incorrectly. They’ll throw around words like authoritarian, tyranny, they’ll refuse to acknowledge the accomplishments of foreign socialist movements. Parenti is really good on this one.

So that’s the thing people should focus on. We need international solidarity immediately. We need an understanding from first worlders that they live in imperialist countries that have boots on the necks of other nations, including foreign socialist nations. Everyone really needs to unlearn the idea that communism only works when it fits their cultural, racial, or linguistic biases. Without an understanding of international history, you just get ultra-leftists, armchair socialists, or people who distort/mangle the name of anarchists.