Yeah, there is a really important difference between examining certain choices as mistakes of strategy or limitations of the material or gaps in knowledge and experience, as opposed to treating an AES state, past or present, as something shameful that one must distance themself from in its realities in order to be a good, wholesome commie. Being able to talk about the things these projects have done well and continue to do well (of which there is a lot) is critically important and as you put it, if you can't stand behind them, then what exactly are you fighting for.

In a way, I get why people can end up in that place. The west can be so vicious toward actual support of AES, or even support of self-determination, that people become motivated to couch what they say in softer terms, to water it down, to avoid saying things that would them look like "the enemy". But the danger is also just part of the fight and is unavoidable as part of it. If you remove all the danger from it, you're no longer opposition. You're a career reformist pushing for tweaks.

I can't speak for other countries, but in the US context, I think wannabe-commies who linger in those awkward places of "trying not to be vilified" could learn a thing or two from the far right as audacity goes (not to be confused with learning from them in ideology! fuck patsocs). Granted, the far right has more acceptance and agreement from the offset in the existing power structure, but it also doesn't always go well for them and they keep chipping away anyway. Too many on "the left" are too liberal still and so (I suspect) on top of the fear of being vilified, they succumb to the allure of "going along to get along". But the world does not need liberal would-be commies in the imperial core. It needs the kind of people who would go to a protest knowing they may get arrested, but also directed by the strategic thinking of ML, not just Christian martyrdom thought; so that their actions are put toward the most strategically effective rather than the most self-sacrificing and performative.

I'm sure the latter part of this sounds a bit preachy and I know there are various strategic reasons at times for being careful about how obvious one is in what they believe. But conscious strategy is different from fear-based avoidance. So it's important people identify which they are operating on and try to move more according to conscious strategy, lest they water themselves down into nothing in order to avoid the boot.