And a Stellaris mod was instrumental in me realizing what Socialism actually was: a civic for Socialism described as “The means of production are owned and controlled by the people who use them. If you don’t use it, you can’t profit from it.”

It makes it especially pathetic how the vanilla commie civic, Shared Burdens, was basically just "Government distributes everything to everyone equally".

Kaiserreich helped a lot too. A shit ton actually. Comparing the focus trees for Labor/Socialist/Communist parties versus the focus trees for Liberal parties is quite the eye opener.

Something that's been an educating experience is taking a look at the Kaiserreich fanbase. There are so many "democracy-loving" shitlibs who unironically stan the Entente and Reichspakt, two god awful colonial blocs, over even wholesome 100 big chungus libertarian socialist states (which are objectively the most democratic countries at the start) without the "icky" things assorted with gommulism. It really opens my eyes as to the pure ideology distilled into Westoid minds, given that Apartheid South Africa, Mittelafrika, and National France (ran by a Nazi-collaborating sack of shit) aren't "deal breakers" for them but states that abolish or even just severely limit private property are.

Also, out of any of the sides of the American Civil War, only the socialists destroy racial segregation in its entirety. Really makes you think.