Actually there were a lot of socialists and communists who were against the violent tactics Lenin and Stalin. Those people got murdered by the regimes they opposed. The communists you and I learn about in school were the authoritarian communists, and they were indeed bad because authoritarianism is bad. They were violent because they were authoritarian, not because they were communist. Now Marx did advocate for some violence I believe, but he had contemporary critics including Michael Bakunin.
> Do you ever find it odd that the "bad guys" always seem to subvert these movements?
I don’t think it’s odd at all. The murderous revolutionaries I can think of (Bolsheviks, Mao, Mugabe...) were won against regimes just as bloodthirsty as they were. The peaceful revolutions I can think of eg South Africa happened because both sides were willing to negotiate fairly.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
> It seems to me that socialism has a 100% failure rate
Adopting socialist policies while keeping a market economy has worked out ok for most developed nations.
Communist USSR was able to educate its population and rapidly industrialize while fighting off two invasions by forces that, on paper, should have been able to beat them without much trouble, and emerge as one of the most powerful nations in the world. I’d consider that a success
I don’t follow. What bad guys? A significant effort has been put out by the United States to undermine socialism and communism. In a lot of other places socialism has been effective.
