Well as a Liberal I can tell you that you are wrong about us and what we have accomplished. And what we stand for.
Really?
Tell me what
you stand for. Because if you support minimum wage, workers' rights, environmental protection rights, the right to unionize- you're a Leftist, not a liberal. Liberalism failed in the 1800s, leading to the need for Leftist reform and the emergence of the modern socialist system in the USA and Western Europe.
Since America entered its socialist stage, the standard of living has improved significantly, the sick and elderly are tended to even if they don't have the pocket money for care, and the poor are able to eat while they seek employment as members of the protected proletariat with the right to work under clean and safe conditions. The system is far from perfect and we've seen it in jeopardy as the corporations push us back towards Bourgeois Capitalism (corporate charters, sweatshops, outsourcing) and many politicians attempt to grow the Fed into a totalitarian authority and rob the member States if their liberty, but it's still a whole lot better than the way things were before.
It would be like if I asked an American what communism was like, they would have a much different answer than a Russian who actually lived thru it.
The Russians never experiences communism. They experienced totalitarianism and a one-party state. The majority of communists opposed Lenin from the outset because he was a traitor to the cause who only returned to Russia after the communists began making progress in their struggle and who never proposed anything remotely resembling a communists society. Meanwhile, most communists outside of Russia echoed Marx's warnings that Russia was nowhere near the necessary stage of socioeconomic development for the emergence of a communist society and that revolution was most likely to result in a totalitarian regime- as was the case.