Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
The usual rhetoric is that you shouldn’t look at the dozens of examples, and their consequences (1). Rather focus on the theory, and agree that that theory is perfect. And also that anything else is bad. Unless it’s an attempt at being communist, then the bad things aren’t bad. Unless they are undeniably bad, but in that case, it isn’t real communism.
Well this was kinda my opinion going in, so I wanted a different perspective lol.
What they’re describing is a so-called tankie who claims that they’re communist but instead really they’re just authoritarians who need to feel a little less shitty about themselves so they pretend they do it for the good of all people.