I think that’s a fair take and perhaps indicates you’d lean anarchist-left.

I perceive myself as a social democrat, maybe with elements of anarchism, such as decentralization and down-to-up elements of organization.

I have mixed feelings myself, that kind of natural transformation won’t just be left alone to evolve, it’ll be actively resisted by powerful political and global forces, the United States and its allies would not allow it, for example.

This problem is actually a hard one -- otherwise no one wouldn't need to argue about it, and there is no simple choice. If someone thinks that there is an obvious simple solution, then he/her may be just very ignorant. Maybe I will sound controversial here, but in contrast to Marxist-Leninist, I do not blame United States for damping revolution. Revolution will not come simply because we are not in 19th century capitalism anymore. Capitalists adapted, provided more humane conditions to workers to not be swept by workers' revolution, and Antonio Gramsci saw it something like 100 years ago, but Marxist-Leninists still live in 19th century and do not see that low-income class would rather choose far-right options like Trump or AfD. The United States indeed massively interfered with damping of "socialists" republics in South America, but I think we do not need another "red" imperialism country like USSR or Russia's vassal. Humanity needs real communism, not "red" authoritarianism.

I think this pretty clearly demonstrated that the USSR wasn’t interested in anything but Empire.

I think so, and with time this was becoming more and more obvious. Western leftists were surprisingly long (like 1956) under the charm of USSR, maybe with an exception of people like Emma Goldman.