First of all, you missed a nice opportunity to mention my weak points. Second, western media loves to satanize dprk, yet the gulags are not just yet another speculation from noname korean outlet that was reposted by the bigger western ones, it is a real violation of human rights as well as the executions of families being a thing. You can not call documented years of systematic public executions and gulags "tabloid shit".

[ Also comparing Maduro, a dictator that rigged elections (thus being dictator , because people were against his regime) , to a real socialist like Allende, that came to power in a real competition, and had a real name, without having to establishing state oligarchy under red flag and calling it a socialism, is ironical at best. No one is sad because Maduro is captured, no one cares about him, many people celebrated even. When Allende was killed, even those frustrated by the chaos of 1970s , respected the fact that he was a legitimate leader, Allende died because he did not want to flee, and died with rifle in his hands. But I do understand it is some sort of analogy. ]

Your takeaway , that the only way to build a socialism is through "seizing power and never lose it" a.k.a turning from socialist system into yet another state oligarchy is also hilarious, because this is literally what the so called "social bloc" , the fact that soviet union and china was no different from corpocracy , where the main goal is oppress any independent worker unions, silence the people, and own as much as possible in the hands of the one guy. This system is unsustainable and leads to anything but socialism. Socialism without democracy is not socialism by the very fundamental idea of socialism, the society supposed to own the means of production, not the state oligarchs , that cannot be replaced by democratic voting. Instead you get corpocracy wanting to expand (definitely not imperialism, but a good will), crushing everything beneath them, putting oligarchs, censoring everything and locking down their people.

If you need an alternative to US imperialism and tankie dictatorship, how about getting rid of any hegemony, thus weakening the most dangerous actor (US) , and then do political activism all together , to return to the strong social-democratic baseline, and then, Meidner's plan, independent workers unions, worker's self-management and trying different approaches to moving from free market to market socialism or similar.

I don't want to know your opinion if it is not about people ruling the state.