You got it pretty much spot on, though I'll nitpick here

They also aren't defending the actions of those countries as much as they are recontexualizing them.

They're whitewashing history. Yes, if you want to try communism, it's critical to understand where previous attempts failed. They don't, and they don't want to.

Putin is the biggest Imperial threat on the planet.

And yet they still support him. I got banned from grad for 3 years for telling a mod to stop throating putin's cock. I'll see if I can pull up the exchange, it was pretty funny. He immediately whatabouted the US working with nazis after wwii. Like, yeah bud that was bad, I agree, tell me how that justifies invading Ukraine right now though?