I myself grew up in the USSR. I know well the ideology of socialism, and from today's position I can say that socialism is just a utopia, an unfulfilled dream of idiots.
there is no singular "ideology of socialism". on the contrary, it's a diverse range of ideologies that includes anarchism, democratic socialism and autonomism among other schools of thought. the USSR and marxism-leninism are not representative of socialism at all. that's a common rhetorical ploy that anti-socialists often employ---"look at how bad stalin was! stalin called himself a socialist! that must mean all socialists are stalinists!"
it's totally illogical, but it works on a really basic level. it's hard to have an honest discussion about the merits of various socialist ideologies when these kinds of rhetorical devices are so rampant. in truth, many marxists actually see ideologies like stalinism and maoism as a perversion of marxist theory.
Looking from historical standpoint, I tend to believe capitalists "forced" socialism into countries like Russia or Cambogia because
with such ideology and poor industrial development to support it, it was inevitable to end up in tirany, fulfilling its role
of scaring people in capitalist countries in a way you described - "look at how bad stalin was! stalin called himself a socialist! that must mean all socialists are stalinists!"
In my opinion, it should be recognized that socialism as an ideology opposing capitalism has long since exhausted itself. In fact, socialism has failed since the collapse of the USSR. In my opinion, the last country that still consistently supported socialist principles was Cuba. Now she is gradually returning from isolation to the industrialized countries. Other countries, such as North Korea, China, have long been combining a different ideology, although sometimes they don’t even want to admit this to themselves.
Lots of logical errors here...also, Marx said its inevitable that socialism starts first in most developed countries...capitalists themselves
recognized this the best, so they did everything to scare people, including supporting socialism in poor countries. many americans
have no idea that Khmer Rouge were mostly supported by USA, while socialist Vietnam toppled them from power
