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I recently learned a thing about the Great Leap Forward, the massive famine in China due to a mismanaged command economy.

Mao pushed for everyone, down to the last peasant farmer, to produce steel, which some accomplished by melting down their cookware. They did ask for grain, but only to be sent to the state. Mao expected the people would know to still engage in sustenance work to stay alive, but no, they patriotically sent their materials to the state, expecting that they'd get sustenance back. That didn't happen, and there was mass famine.

In feudal times, this was called squeezing the peasants which liege lords sometimes did to quickly develop a war chest. These taxes were collected in kind (of raw materials, not coin or gold). The serfs' regular work would not get done. There'd be food shortages, and significantly fewer serfs after the winter, but the lord would get his war. (Typically it wasn't even his war, but that of his lord, or further up the chain. Lower-ranking nobles like barons and counts were obligated to provide fighting forces for dukes and kings. Something, something high lords playing their games of thrones... )

Back to Mao's China, there were dissenters, but there was also a strong anti-intellectualism movement, the same thing we're seeing in the States today. Administrators don't believe in expertise and figure they can work economies, manage health and conduct wars based on vibes (and nowadays, memes). On the international stage, this results in getting totally played (and left behind) by the rest of the global community, the ones who do believe in experts.

There's a reason that the US, for once, took education very seriously (STEM, critical thinking, liberal arts, etc.) right after Sputnik. We saw we were falling behind and decided we needed to get into gear. The US would then freak out about the common folk questioning authority and trying to think for themselves, which they're supposed to do in a democracy. But then, thinking citizens cannot be controlled.

I don't think you necessarily hate communism. I think you hate incompetence. And as we're seeing in the (very, very, capitalist-identifying) United States, incompetence is a plague that crosses all ideologies.

(And that's a thing too. Ideologies might present a model for how things might work, but they shouldn't be the goal, and when an ideology doesn't achieve its mission, it should be reconsidered, revised and maybe abandoned. Supply side economics, for example, is an ideology. Collective prosperity is its goal. Allegedly.)

Ceausescu was a very low bar, probably only undercut by Stalin, Hoxha and Pol Pot.

My family lived under the GDR (which also had a lot of flaws) but looking back now they'd have liked the economy to stay more on the communist side but with more freedoms, like freedom of expression and movement. They say that during Communism people were nicer to and more looking after each other than they are now under the more competitive Capitalism. Also the GDR was leading in terms of equal payment and women advancing on the career ladder. It also had a good network of public kindergardens and schools all reasons why a lot of East Germans in hindsight have mixed feelings about the unification and transition towards Capitalism (especially the neoliberalist Capitalism that meant the privatisation of i.e. the railways and hospitals).

Of course that came with the backside of it there being an inbalance (and de facto a two class system) between high ranking party members and the public, movement restrictions, harsh border controls (not just to the West but in general, I have been told if you looked funny at the border guard they would disassemble your car "to look for illegal stuff" and you had to reassemble it"), and ofc it being a spy state. But that was never intended by Marx so I wouldn't blame that on communism but on their flavor of it.

Coming back to your comment tho I agree with the "nothing is black and white" section ultimately politics and economics always has to adjust to the current situation and if it fails to do so it'll turn into a crisis.

Also I think that everyone is entitled to their opinion as long as this opinion doesn't limit other people's personal freedom. So I am sorry for what happened to your family as long as they didn't intend to hurt others (which I assume they did not).

Personally I would love that land would be owned by the districs / communes (not on the state level but also not on the private level). What individuals should be able to do is lease land and structures on it from the local commune (with even lifetime leases possible and securities for the the person who leases the land.) On top of that basic services such as water, electricity, food, education, infrastructure, etc should also be owned by the public. The rest is debatable but in general I l'd say centralize where common grounds are needed (for i.e. standardisation) decentralise where possible and politics should be as open and transparent as possible in order to be accountable.

You can't have your government owning everything and you can't have the private sector owning everything.

There is a third way: cooperatives. Houses are owned by the people who live in them. Factories are owned by the people who work in them. Municipal infrastructure (water, electricity, internet, etc) is owned by the citizens who use them.

This removes the current need to maximize profit and ignore all other metrics. Nobody is going to vote for maximizing profits if that means the service they are using every day is getting worse.

There is no centralized government who controls everything. You still have market forces. But the people in control are not regulators or investors on the other side of the world, they are very close to the product and therefore have much better insight and more vested interests in the product succeeding aside from profit maximization.

Was it a state? If yes, it was not communist

I am sorry for your family. Marxism-leninism has polluted communism

I agree with the middle section of your comment, and I think it's very reasonable. It's nearly impossible, and in fact, seems to not be the case, that any system currently available would be the answer to all problems of the present and future.

However, the opening feels manipulative.

First of all, maybe I missed something, but when was there communism in Romania? Communism, as in the definition - no classes, no currency, etc., not just a ruling party called 'communist'. Last I checked that never took place in Romania.

Second, capitalism has killed and continues to kill anywhere between 100x more and 10000x more people than 'communism'. But for some reason this is only ever used as a point against communism, and never against capitalism.

A lot more people around the world can easily say the same about capitalism. Their entire families are dead because of it. But you don't seem to care, or notice. Which, and why is that, exactly? Because you don't know them? Because they're far away? I'd love to know.

And, I'm sorry to say, but the ending is just plain pathetic and selfish. If you don't want to engage with people on a forum, then stop posting. Maybe start a blog and disable comments.

The exact same points you're making could be easily made by the capitalist class. And if you cried about it, they might very well respond with:

Go ahead and downvote. You'll never win an election anyway. I don't even care.

What'd be your answer to that, I wonder. Although that may very much be hypothetical, because I get the feeling you come from a specific background that can afford a moderate stance on the socialism vs capitalism issue. Feel free to correct if wrong.

Marxism-Leninism*

Might wanna spruce up on anarchist and council communism, those are anti-authoritarian.

I used to be a social democrat as well, gradually drifted towards those though. If you've any questions, feel free to ask!

Go ahead and downvote

👍

communism ≠ socialism