Reply #36: It also depends on what you define 'communism' as

[muriel_volestrangler]

Is it the original theory, almost utopian, that ownership of anything more than your personal belongings would be done away with, and everyone would work "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" - and that this would be a worldwide movement, so that the idea of countries that could go to war would disappear? Or is it what happened in practice when 'communist parties' were in control of countries, such as the USSR or China under Mao? The latter situation is worth avoiding; the former sounds nice, but I've never seen how we get there from here, and it may be ignoring a certain amount of inate human behaviour.

The blurring between 'communism' and 'socialism' was helped by the USSR - after all, that was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with the Communist Party in charge.

The dividing line needs to be drawn between democratic socialism, where fairly (and regularly) elected politicians can direct the economy, and write laws, for the general good, with checks and balances; and authoritarian socialism, where someone in charge (whether initially through democracy or through force) gets to direct the economy and legislation without any restraint, and gets to stay in power and appoint their successors - and even if they think they are doing it for the sake of the people, pretty soon they won't be.