Lenin was a political opportunist and Stalin most likely faked Lenin's will to appoint himself after his death. The Bolsheviks also murdered/incarcerated plenty of leftists and disempowered the pre-existing worker coops and trade unions through centralization.
Anarchists, syndicalists and other leftists were literally building decentralized structures before the Bolsheviks swooped in and decided the public would need decades of ideological education before it could be trusted to make any decisions about their lives and "helpfully" started making the decisions for them. It doesn't help that many of the leftists outside Russia who were critical of Bolshevism were murdered by German paramilitaries and later more indirectly by the USSR while trying to fight fascism in Spain.
Saying you have a good understanding what "left" is because you were born in the USSR is like saying you have a good understanding of what pasta is because you've been eating Yum Yum noodles for a decade.
Have you read Kropotkin? Bakunin? Proudhon? Bookchin? There is a wide range of leftist thought outside the very narrow niche within Marxist-Leninist-Maoism that still uncritically defends the USSR.
You try to explain the consequences of communism with "few bad apples"; well, at least it's not a "no true scottsman", I have to give credit for that. However, there have been so many cases of leftists coming to power and building a state, and the only one I know that didn't end is tragedy was Israel — and even it resulted in financial crisis and eventual move to capitalism.
Of course, it's opportunists and sociopaths who come to power. You're absolutely right about that. But it would be silly to explain all these outcomes as fault of particular individuals, even if they are at fault. It's the principles behind the system itself, which make it vulnerable to this kind of attack.
Essentially, the problem is with this: every kind of leftism makes moral behaviour nor a matter of personal choice and responsibility, but something mandated by the state or a quasi-state organisation. This sounds very good in theory, especially for the people who are sensitive to the wrongs of the world. But in practice, it makes those organisations infallible and creates in their place a perfect vessel for said opportunists and sociopaths.
State power is like The Ring from LOTR. It's very seductive to use it for good, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. It should be not used, but destroyed.
You do know that anarchist ideology is literally defined by the opposition to states and state-lile structures, right?
It seems odd to tar specifically anti-statists with wanting to create a state. Anarchy being literally the antonym of hierarchy, statism is the complete antithesis of anti-authoritarian left-wing politics.
You're thinking of Stalinist/Leninist authoritarian communism, which certainly doesn't encompass all of left-wing ideology, only a niche.
When Stalin came to power, one of the first things he did was too purge all the anarchists and other non-authoritarian socialists. Thus most leftists despise Stalin and what he did. Mao, too.
Anarchists, syndicalists and other leftists were literally building decentralized structures before the Bolsheviks swooped in and decided the public would need decades of ideological education before it could be trusted to make any decisions about their lives and "helpfully" started making the decisions for them. It doesn't help that many of the leftists outside Russia who were critical of Bolshevism were murdered by German paramilitaries and later more indirectly by the USSR while trying to fight fascism in Spain.
Saying you have a good understanding what "left" is because you were born in the USSR is like saying you have a good understanding of what pasta is because you've been eating Yum Yum noodles for a decade.
Have you read Kropotkin? Bakunin? Proudhon? Bookchin? There is a wide range of leftist thought outside the very narrow niche within Marxist-Leninist-Maoism that still uncritically defends the USSR.