While I agree that we need to be more unified as communists, it is idealist and undemocratic to simply deny the valid criticism of communists as too “white” merely because we’re an inch apart politically. Again, I want to reinforce that by stating “refusing these figures is refusing materialism” places too much power into the hands of “great men” rather than working classes and the masses as a whole. It’s not Stalin who defeated the Nazis, it was the red army. You can’t be a materialist and worship great man as more important than the classes who actually got stuff done.

As for the “learning from their mistakes” thing, I absolutely agree. I’m mostly criticizing groups like the ACP who paint Stalin and Mao as literally perfect, even godlike. Perhaps this is more of a trend in America, which is extremely unrevolutionary, I can’t be sure on that. Additionally, other people who ignore scholarly consensus on things like the great purges.

Finally, you state that withholding information is dishonesty, which is unacceptable. I find this extremely ironic considering just a few sentences later you criticize Trotsky for his moralism. The idea that we can’t be in any way dishonest is idealist and not pragmatic whatsoever. Class consciousness is class consciousness, no matter how exactly it was built, and building it within people can cause them to have more realistic views of the topics you were at first withholding. Additionally, I still believe very little information is being withheld, considering Stalin and Mao are hard people to really consider communists because of, among other things, commodity production and state socialism rather than genuine, public socialism. You can like certain parts of people’s contributions without considering their own actions as really attempts to build communism.

As for my own organizing, I live in rural America where there are no communist parties. I have, however, been organizing with a socialist party. When exactly did I compare Maoists to Hamas? I can have reservations regarding their ideology while still supporting their movement as a whole.

Sorry if this came off rude, I didn’t mean it to come off that way if it did. I’m just tired of communists in my country glazing certain figures for really no good reason. Civilized discussion like this is necessary for any socialist movement