A state only does welfare policies when it is compelled to by democratic forces.
Correction: by the need to disarm and pacify the proletariat, when class rule becomes too threatened. German Empire is a good example. Nobody would dare to call Bismarck’s rule “democratic”
And you’re still describing welfare. Most SocDems I know support things like this or similar ones, and food subsidies are done by many liberal governments, irrelevant of the democratic status.
using a different definition of a word that a community clearly does not use
I agree, MLs have long abandoned what communism was supposed to mean.
don’t remember making any references to “the will of the people”
I mean, your schpiel about welfare implying democracy is kinda it. You still haven’t made neither communist ties to mode of production, nor more liberal ties to the electoral structure. You’re only pushing the welfare angle.
Monarchs wanting to keep the populace docile, like in modern Saudi Arabia or in the German Empire would often implement welfare, and it would be ridiculous to call that in any way a democracy. However fascists often define “democracy” as the ruler following the will of the people, which is shown through fulfilling certain needs of the population, like food, healthcare, housing. Your “welfare implies democracy” take runs parallel to that idea, and can be argued to be a slight repackaging of the reactionary concept.
would make me a “liberal-fascist”
That is not how it works. It is possible to believe fascist things while being a liberal and to believe liberal and fascist things while being a socialist. The point is not that you are that shitty thing, but that you should change your position from the wrong one to the right one.