Well… ‘There is nothing you can do or say’ about that, baybay.

I’d argue them being centre-left between 1929 and 1973, from the start of the great depression up until the petrodollar agreement and Bretton Woods II, out of fear communism winning during that time.

No, they were thought to be oppressed yes-men, forced to keep clapping for their supreme leader because whoever stopped clapping first would be taken to the gulags.

Red Flag Linux 3.0,
taking the RedNote route decades before it was cool,
but did not get much further than the installation screen,

After that it was Ubuntu -> Mint -> Arch -> Parabola -> Manjaro.