You’re kind of missing the point of materialism. Viewing freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and other rights as individual issues that one may support or oppose is antithetical to materialism. The point of materialism is to acknowledge that there actually is no such thing as a human right except that which can be enforced via political power and, ultimately, violence or the threat of violence. In other words: materialists don’t “support” freedom of the press, they analyze how one may come to control the press and use it to exert power in favor of one’s class interests. Same thing with any other right. Those rights don’t exist, the ruling class only plays ball when necessary and can do away with them when needed; idealist “progressives” would rather try to pressure the ruling class into recognizing their rights, while Marxists and co perfectly understand that the only way to guarantee rights is to overthrow the ruling class.

Thinking that a new world, even a socialist one, is brought about by changing people’s minds is pretty much the definition of idealism and mostly everyone on this site rejects that. History bears out that massive populations of people who hold reactionary beliefs can be pushed to join revolutionary movements when their conditions radicalize them. It also shows that, as radical and progressive as the academics, artists, and other intellectuals of a given society might be, if the material conditions for revolution aren’t present those ideas don’t change the world by themselves at all. Without a gun to back up an idea, it’s just a prayer, even if a million people believe it.