Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and many others who were not so afraid, though they are

Sure, a similar situation occurred with Mao -- many followers who were afraid to criticize for too long (and many others who were not so afraid, though they are often left out because they failed to comprehensively demonize China). Does that repudiate communism in its entirety as a school of thought and action? I don't think so -- that's why I disagree with the root comment who conflated communist with Stalinist, and who was defining the bounds of (barely) acceptable opinion as (paraphrasing) "minor increase to the welfare state", with anything further being equated with Stalinism or anti-semitism. I agree there are quasi-Marxist cults, I know the story you're talking about. (I'd argue the continued lack of development of what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as opposed to the current "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" can successfully look like, and how to then achieve "the withering away of the state" -- or even how to take power in the place where it's supposed to, the developed capitalist countries like Germany, without just gesturing at "the contradictions" and saying the people will get there -- that's what destroyed the Old Left communists. I have a different but no less critical appraisal of the New Left, and the Millennial Left. None of these projects even have a vision for how to get a vision for the future).