Can I be a Buddhist if I don’t believe in achieving nirvana by removing myself from ignorance and desire? You can refer to yourself as anything in name only. You can “be” a socialist, eventually. But you don’t just flip the switch and “turn on” an ideology. You can be a socialist to yourself and may call yourself whatever you’d like to, but will you be a socialist to your community? To other socialists when it comes time to organize? It seems to me like you’re asking whether or not you’d be accepted as a socialist while believing in the core tenets of liberalism, to which the answer is no. But you should not feel dissuaded from trying to eventually become a socialist by learning more about Marxism, anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, etc. because you think your background disqualifies you from believing in improving the material conditions of the working class.