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it was a long process. it didn't take too long to see that even those home-grown communists (who, unlike Stalin, hadn't killed anybody) were not going to do anything positive. reading milton friedman and other libertarians influenced me a lot, and i was a libertarian for a long time. The 9/11 attacks combined with the libertarians' rather pathetic response to the government's anti-terror policy made me lose confidence in the libertarians.
i'm still very suspicious of big government, especially when it comes to non-security-related issues. i tend to be libertarian on most issues, and conservative on defense and security issues.
recently, i've read a lot about the history of communism in russia, including a number of biographies of lenin, stalin, and trotsky. there were very few "good guys" in russia to choose from at that time, but even Rosa Luxemburg (the famous german communist) and Emma Goldman (the anarchist) could see at the time that Lenin was a dictator, and quite a few russian communists quit the party over the years because of the dictatorial and vicious methods of lenin and stalin. the more history i read, the more i become anti-communist and conservative on security and defense matters.
many idealistic (and ignorant)young people have started out as communists, but only the truly cynical and evil people can stick with it for very long.