All existing countries are police states, it's not a useful term.

If those are your beliefs then they are infantile, and its no wonder you are openly against AES and people who support real world projects in socialism. The new world will be built by people around the world while left anti-communists whine about how they are doing it wrong because they don't understand the theoretical basis communist are using in these states, and they refuse to understand the real material contexts in which these societies struggle to survive against the US imperialist world order.

There are many anarchist comrades on Hexbear who regularly get called "tankies" by people like you and are able to understand the difference between criticizing some AES without being anti-communist. We have a non-sectarian rule there so we don't argue about our specific tendencies. You should maybe soeak to some of them to form a more nuanced view of AES. As an ML i can't really do that, because i do have some fundamental theoretical differences, such as veiwing the term of authoritarian as kind of pointless, thst hoes back to Engels arguing with anarchists about the Paris Commune basically.

If you're open to a book about left anti-communism and how its driven a wedge between yourself and people you call tankies, i recommend Micheal Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds_-rational-fascism-and-the-overthrow-of-communism-2001.pdf