honestly i think these are fairly easy!!!! like we can get into nuance and parts to critique about AES but youre talking about people who literally cannot fathom getting to a place where they can talk about AES like they're actual things and not just the embodiment of evil or sin

1. constant siege/sanctions/blockades. even if they cite dissolution of ussr it's simpler at this point (before getting into things like revisionists) just to say, china IS a communist state that has survived till now, compliant to socialist theory. they'll be like BUT IT HAS MARKETS at which point you can tell them that it's not just communist button/egalitarianism/any similar vulgar mischaracterization or simplification and then you can explain what ML theory actually entails. you could also get to other AES but china is the easiest gate as an undeniably successful project at this point

2. so what? i mean, that's reductive, but first of all they probably mean stalin era ussr, dprk, etc. or any other example that's usually been mythologized. hell, people dont even think dprk is a place that exists in reality, only in a far off universe that produces fantasy stories for westerners to jerk off to.

it's been very clear since october 7 that all pretense of free speech in the west is farcical, but regardless let's look at the situations for each. ussr was literally under siege by nazis who wanted to exterminate all slavs and then colonize the region, THEN found itself in a cold war with the west who both absorbed a bunch of nazis + had crazy espionage campaigns that honestly even as a lib little kid i knew about. they were proclaimed ideological enemies of the ussr! they were of course going to be on their guard, only so long after the war and with such suspicious ties to the nazi leaders. again if u get them to this level u have a chance to explain capitalism and fascism being an integral part of it but youre focusing on the most blatant historical myths, this at least helps contextualize this before u can introduce theory

and there have been marked examples of color revolutions that destabilize + harm regions in long run, usamerican plants (they will scoff at you as conspiratorial but beg them to look past their blindness that they have gotten from believing they are the only ones free of all propaganda [which isnt ontologically good or bad]) that have existed and we have SEEN!!! like that one girl begging for an invasion of iraq!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

of course there is going to be censorship! there have been people that speak out 'on behalf of the country' that beg for regime change!! so censorship then occurs to protect the country!! is it ideal? fuck no!! is it what other states (like DOTBs) do? yes!! does this equate them morally to DOTBs? no because measure the results first!! two countries can use the same means for different ends, like how a gun in the hand of a nazi was not the same as a gun in the hand of a red army soldier!! if you want to eliminate censorship still first you must remove those who place them under siege + endanger them. if they're like 'all censorship is ontologically bad' you simply must just question this the same way you question the idea that all hierarchies are ontologically evil and not just natural!!! ask them how they think things like CSAM should be cracked down on!!! how they probably would and SHOULD endorse censorship in many fields!! free exchange of ideas should preclude totally nonsensical and antisocial and evil ideologies like fascism/racial ideology!!!!!!

for many this will be backbreaking since they worship the ideas of rights that can never be infringed, but it honestly turned around for me just thinking about the alternatives, connected to the previous point. yes i could finally admit to myself censorship was needed in spaces, even in conjunction with restorative justice! things should be taken down and some evil things that can harm a country should be repressed lest they turn out inciting violence or causing a deeply detrimental regime change as so many of these people fiend for!!!

how many in collapsed socialist states have suffered more under new neolib regime?? we know this!! looking at russia alone post-ussr dissolution is proof of that but i digress!! how many eastern europeans prostituted themselves, children, the tweet 'sadness in his eyes you can only see in eastern european gay porn' is not that funny when you realize it's fucking coercive by nature otherwise he'll fucking STARVE. that may be too much humanization of evil eurasian orcs for one day, though!!!! don't scare them away by asking them to please imagine russians/slavs (well chinese and dprkoreans too but i truly ardently believe china is now an easier sell) as humans and not drones!!!!!!

3. this is bullshit completely dependent on ignoring anything from or about china. you can safely disengage.

this is still half untrue, honestly, it's simply thought-termination and undying loyalty to western bourgeois rags under the impression this somehow passes as free press. first of all, on the purely global level?? never has china invaded another country since that minor fiasco with vietnam and since mao their foreign policy has been (to the point of criticism for many MLs/leftists) very lenient. they have never been particularly violent or exploitative, and again if we're comparing to the satanic state of the usa it still isn't a comparison to anyone remotely aware of what usamerikkka has even done, iraq war, afghanistan, vietnam, backing israel, etc. etc., and most allusions to this are myths that are beyond the pale (fucking go to xizang! they must look at what xizang was before the war instead of reading pedophile theocrats whine about how they cant enslave/skin women and kids anymore!! or xinjiang it's fucking crazy!!!) or misconstruing real foreign policy that actually benefits people (so called debt trap diplomacy is as flimsy as paper) i just!!!! IT'S FUCKING USA!! as soon as u show them what USA DOES this point is toilet paper!!

Communism didn't fail of its own accord, it was shot down, backstabbed and slaughtered by Western imperialists. No account of the failures of socialist governance is complete without acknowledgement of the wider context of the 'Cold' war and in particular US interventionism across the world post WW2.