Kropotkin is a nice start, though if you want an introduction I think Errico Malatesta’s work is a lot better for that. The essay “Anarchy” is short for leftist standards and is very good. Also “At the cafe” is honestly an amazing introduction piece and it’s written in a regular language as socratic dialogues, so it’s perfect for starting. It even adresses a lot of counter arguments from many perspectives.

Otherwise Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloo is also amazing.

For the standards of leftists in the USA, they’re massive.

What would be different about this revolution that would see it go right (or what examples am I missing?)

I would say there’s no way revolutions of today will go in exactly the same path as before. Remember that China’s and Russia’s revolutions happened in extermely rural, agrarian, over exploited and basically completely ruined countries. If there’s a revolution in the global north, just the difference in conditions and systems is already going to make a huge difference. But even if it happens in the global south, most of it is at least partially industrialized and not agrarian, as far as I know.

Anyway, other than that, I can’t really give you an objective, unbiased answer. I was actually the same as you a couple of years ago, actually. I had the same concerns as you. I think you would really resonate with anarchist theory, analysis and critique of past revolutions, if you’re interested in digging into it.

Enormous by socialist standards. The fact that they can have so many members in this day and age is commendable. A few decades ago any socialist thought being given an honest platform at all among the general population was a miracle.

I think you’re seriously underestimating what most young socialists believe. It is true that they don’t believe in revolution, but many of them change when they grow older and they lose faith in the system. I’m confident that will keep happening.

No, an average person in the DSA believes in wayy more than any regular social democrat. I agree that they’re not radical enough, but they’re an enormous organization of people against the status quo and so many of them genuinely care, so it’s no surprise that a huge part of current radicals are ex-DSA members.

That’s what the media has always done. It’s just that in this age it’s the easiest it’s ever been to see past red scare propaganda.

Actually socialism is more popular now than ever. Enough that mainstream media constantly writes scare articles about how socialist the young generations are.

To give you the less complicated answer, communism is an economic system, not a form of government. Communism can and has been authoritarian, but it can also be libertarian or anarchistic. There’s nothing inherently authoritarian about an economy without money and without classes, based on need. It’s just the ideologies that want to (or say they want to) implement it in authoritarian ways that got to run the more famous socialist experiments. If you want to see how non-authoritarian communism worked, there are also historical examples of it, they’re just smaller and lasted less.

Answering your question - in the period where most countries that called themselves communist existed, no capitalist countries accepted trans people either. But you are a capitalist nonetheless no? Huh, I wonder why.