“Maoists”. judging by the harsh reaction your post paints, you probably ran into the type of Maoists who are only Maoists because it gives them an excuse to be left anti communists.

basically Maoists denounce the idea of AES and capitalist reforms, however this comes with the problem of anti-communist radlibs joining Maoist spaces simply because they feel like they have a home there, and its not combatted enough in my opinion.

one of the biggest components of Maoist philosophy is criticism and criticism of oneself. this is meant to be in good faith, and spark genuine discussions which actually achieve something. so as a rule of thumb, I never engage with “maoists” who do not try to explain and have discussion, and genuinely evaluate criticism.

tl;dr radlibs hiding behind a red banner