Soviet Pigeon

You need to differentiate then and emphasise the different conclusions you make compared to the person you are discussing with.

In the late Soviet Union there were indeed standing lanes for products. This is true and I don’t think this was good. I think a anticommunist would say the same, but my conclusion is not that the Soviet Union was bad or socialism itself leads to such things. Through further discussion I would explain it more and more.

Often enough their propaganda includes some truth, but is bastardised. When Hungary 1956 happened it was indeed a tragedy. It was not a pure product of CIA, the communist party there made clear mistakes which made people unhappy. But the situation was then also used by CIA (probably also other foreign agencies), which is meanwhile proven how they provided weapons, and this lead all to a lot of causalities. In my opinion this short explanation puts this historic event in a more correct light, then “people were unhappy and then soviet tanks invades and committed a massacre”.

The same goes for all those other topics. The famine in Soviet Ukrainian and western part of Soviet Russia. It was awful, absolutely. We know that the were many causalities for that and the communist party made mistakes¹

Kronstadt also, anarchists are mentioning it often. Kronstadt was a tragedy, nothing good about that. But it was really necessary for taking it, otherwise the revolution would be in danger.

First you need of course enough knowledge about a certain topic and second then patiently explaining. If you try Lenin and read more from him, you will discover how much he explains and he repeats his self a lot. He was a great pedagogue.

From all what I wrote now, I provided more information, then a liberal would do about that topics and I am not talking like it was all a cool.

I don’t know if this helps you somehow. What me helped in the past was reading Lenin. I guess every 3th comment I make here on Lemmygrad is something about how much reading him helps in theory and praxis. In the collected works there are also his speeches he gave to students. As long as you engage more and more in explaining, you will get better with that. And don’t forget, admit mistakes that were made or are made, but emphasise that your critique comes from the left and doesn’t align with the anticommunist propaganda.

¹I shouldn’t write more about the famine in Ukraine. So far as I know, I can get into trouble with the German law, if I say in a public space, that my conclusion is not a anticommunist one (I know, I formulated it strange). They would probably find a way to get me doxxed.

I definitely saw it once on YouTube. They had an official YouTube channel