I really think you got caught being a bit intellectually careless in your essay — most of which I agreed with — and defended what you wrote as a reflex, and now you’re stuck continuing to defend it.

Stalin and Mao — like Mussolini, Hitler, Tojo, etc. — were insane mass murderers who used whatever ideology was available to gain power. There have been plenty of smaller-scale recent examples, many using theology to gain power, as well as myriad examples from history preceding the existence of ‘socialism’.