Yeah. You don't get to revise away anything uncomfortable. USSR and China were socialist experiments that succeeded in raising quality of life and transforming rural countries into industrial, scientific states. If people wanna talk about what went wrong, great. Pretending they "don't count" just puppets capitalist apologia and doesn't help
The "black book of communism" includes german soldiers who died during WW2, it includes people who might have had 4 kids but only had 2, it includes victims of the US in vietnam.
That comment meant anything that needs root will prompt for it WITHOUT you running as root. Running GUI apps as root directly won't work well (1, it isn't a good idea. 2, your user likely owns the X session)
fascism isn't a third way. It's liberalism in crisis