Socialist economies are determined by which form of production is primary in an economy, and in the USSR post-NEP this was public ownership and central planning. It is undeniably Socialist from a Marxian analysis, the ownership being the public and therefore the Proletariat, not some obscure "ownership class" that has no bearing in Marxist analysis.

The Proletarian State is the tool of class oppression against the bourgeoisie. This is traditional Marxism, the public owning the MoP is the hallmark of Socialism, and the Proletarian State withers with respect to how collectivized production has become. Marx was certainly no Anarchist, there can be no Marxism without Public Ownership and Central Planning.

If you think the US has "socialist policies," I wouldn't be so sure you know what Socialism means either. It's worth reading theory IMO.

Yep, hopefully Korea can be liberated from the US.

It's worth noting that I've seen far more people thinking of citizens of North Korea as pitiful subhumans than support for the DPRK in general, and fewer still who support the DPRK extending to the ROK. The "tankie" instances end up just being regular Marxist and Anarchist instances.

No country has made it to a Communist mode of production yet, only Socialist, and all countries use violence to perpetuate their systems. By that metric, anyone who supports any Socialist country is a tankie. No, China isn't perfrct, but it's much better than western countries on average. You only seem to accept perfection as valid.

Clarify the difference, then, because whenever anyone seems to do so they end up just clarifying a tiny minority of western orthodox Marxists as "real Marxists" and the billions of practicing Marxists as "tankies."

I am not trying to tell you that your opinions are "invalid" or "worthless." You raise a good problem well known by actual, practicing Marxists about Western "Marxists" that seek to endlessly critique society without changing it. However, it would be a mistake to not learn from Socialists in the past and present who have a wealth of experience and lifetimes of analysis to draw from. Rather, my goal isn't telling you that you don't know enough to be involved, but that I think you are making a critical error in attacking Socialists based on what I believe are misconceptions and misunderstandings, and this hurts leftist movement.

I think if you made an effort to understand what these billions of Socialists believe in and are committed to, you would better understand if their ideas and systems are valid or not. I think without reading theory that you are only going to have an incomplete and partial view, and this, while not delegitimizing your opinions and views, certainly harms the integrity. Celebrating an "end to theory" was something the Socialist Revolutionaries adhered to pre-revolution in Russia, and this was proven a mistake, while the Bolsheviks' strict adherence to theory and mass worker organization proved correct.

Hierarchical? Yes, we need administrators, managers, planners, and other forms of necessary hierarchy as we continue to work towards more complex production at larger and larger scales. Even Anarchists concede this point.

Authoritarian? What constitutes "authoritarianism," any hierarchy? If you oppose all hierarchy, it sounds like you disagree with even mainstream Anarchism, and seek to return to more tribal modes of production, scavenging and whatnot.

Grown "from the bottom-up?" Yes, Marxism has historically been accomplished by Proletarian revolution and organization, it hasn't succeeded from tiny terrorist cells throwing coups. Mass worker movements are what achieved Socialism.

A "strong-man" making all of the decisions? No, and that's not how AES states actually existed. Nobody argues for such a method, if that's a euphamism for full public ownership of property, I ask why you separate the people from the government at that point.

As for the idea of an "authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence," I don't know what you specifically mean here. That sounds to me like all states, sans the as-yet undefined "authoritarian" bent. AES is democratic, so there must be something you don't like but haven't defined yet. Furthermore, trying to "design" a perfect society is Utopianism, and doesn't actually focus on how to build Socialism from where we are.

Markets aren't evil, correct, at low levels of development they are highly useful. However, the goal is full Public Ownership, as Central Planning becomes far more efficient at higher levels of development. A system of "worker coops" would inevitably work towards either a regression into Capitalism or centralization into Socialism, a problem shown and worked out in Anti-Dühring by Engels.

Overall, I think you owe it to yourself to read more historical accounts of AES and how they function, Blackshirts and Reds as I linked earlier is a good start.

I mean this with all sympathy, after all, I used to share views similar to your own before I started taking Marxism seriously, and to dismiss you would be to dismiss myself, and thus the capacity for change. When you simplify Marxism to "workers should collectively own the Means of Production," you remove the entirety of Marxism, as such a thought was common even pre-Marx. When you simplify AES to "authoritarian states with a monopoly on violence to enforce Communism," you assume greater knowledge of the practice of building Socialism than the billions of people who have worked tirelessly to bring it into existance for the last century from the inside, not criticizing from afar.

With all due respect, and no "I've read more than you so my power level is higher" nonsense, have you read Marx?

I disagree with the reasons you gave, feeding those in need didn't hurt the USSR and the GULAG system was abolished several decades prior to the dissolution of the USSR. It's ultimately a complicated issue, but one that I believe ultimately had to do with rejecting much of the world economy, which resulted in a form of Siege Socialism.

Pure unregulated Capitalism can't exist though, there's no such thing as a "pure" system to begin with.

Yep, really US foreign policy purely supports that which it can profit from, and it can't do that if the population starts using its own resources for its own benefit rather than allowing them to be stolen by the US.