How do you bring up all of the Soviet atrocities to people who are unironically fans of Communists and communism? The kind who wear shit with Che's face on it and stuff?
Richard Pipes was a b_b recommendation and I thank him every chance I get. He was an old-school Reaganite hawk and this book, in particular, is written for tenth graders. It covers "how fucked were the Bolsheviks after the revolution" "how blind were American boosters of Communism" "How much of a catastrophe was Soviet central planning" and "how much of a humanitarian crisis rule by the nomenklatura caused" while using historical and sociological research to point out that communism as advanced by everyone that has tried it runs afoul of basic human wants and needs. He spends a little time early on basically calling bullshit on marxism in general and then goes out of his way to point out that Marxism-Leninism ain't "communism" and that which was practiced in China and the Soviet Union are a far cry from what Marx had in mind anyway. You gotta keep in mind - Che is not a communist, not as far as that goes, anyway. He's a face on a t-shirt. 
You might notice that the left has been trying to figure out where to go given that the Soviet Union wasn't what it looked like it was in the 30s for around 70 years now and the kid in the Che shirt is probably better informed than you. You might notice that even CPUSA, the Communist Party McCarthy wanted to know if you were a member of, hasn't been Marxist-Leninist in decades, and that most communists you're likely to meet are anarchists. You might wonder if there is some connection between the first and the second and conclude that the kid in the stupid tshirt won't benefit from your insights. Or you might keep bathing in Jordan Peterson's logorrhea and keep hating on the pinkos like it's 1929. Whatever makes you happy.