Memes

Such as the Russian revolution that modern communists have mixed praise for until a dictator emerged and so it doesn't count.

Or the Chinese revolution that modern communists have mixed praise for until a dictator emerged and so it doesn't count.

Or the Cuban revolution that be serious you know goddamn well what we're talking about. I wasn't being coy. People call these dictatorships communist because they're the only countries that were ever called communist, and - generally speaking - they became dictatorships after genuinely attempting to implement communism.

If you want to say it's like shitting on democratic republics because of the French revolution, hey great sure, that's an attempt gone terribly wrong. Revolutions are pluripotent and dictatorships can emerge from nearly anything. But advocates of secular democracy can point to examples that went right.