No Stupid Questions

I think asking this question on a Lemmy.world community is a bit of a mistake. If you want an answer from Marxists, it would be better to ask it on an instance with more Marxists. As a consequence, there are numerous errors people have been making here that are a consequence of not really engaging with Marxist theory outside of Wikipedia definitions, the oversimplification of which has led to drastic errors in conclusions, the blind leading the blind.

Communism, for Marxists, would look like a Worldwide Republic with full Public Ownership and Central Planning. The issue you are runnung into is Marxist definition of the State. For Marxists, the State is an instrument of Class oppression. When you eliminate Classes, you so eliminate the State. Administration, planning, legal networks, etc would still exist without what Marx considered a "State" to be. Moreover, this is the fundamental difference between what Marxists want and what Anarchists want. From Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.

The reason it isn't instantaneous is because Marx and Engels believed Private Property could only truly be folded into the Public Sector once it had developed enough to be easily planned, and this happens at different rates across different industries, and to different degrees. The revolutionary aspect is still necessary and quite short-term, but once the Proletariat has siezed control the productive forces must be developed within the constraints of physical reality, ie you can't will the system or decree it into being fully publicly owned and centrally planned. It's a gradual process, but revolution is required up front because without it the Bourgeoisie maintain political power, and they need that power wrested from them before Socialism can even begin.

I highly recommend checking out my Introductory Marxist Reading List if you want to learn more, but feel free to ask any questions!

something that doesn't work, easy.

Communism is the struggle for a moneyless, stateless, classless society.

There's no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The "authoritarianism" arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology. I've looked into the histories a lot and its very complicated. Not like you wouldn't understand it, just that it can't be reduced to a simple truism, cant be made succinct.

Let's just say that the capitalists who hoard all the wealth and do nothing to earn millions and billions, who own the media and for whose benefit the state represents, aren't too keen on movements that sometimes overthrow them. So it's in their interests to paint socialism and communism in as bad a light as possible.

Motherfuckers really will downvote a non-stupid question on !nostupidquestions

The confusion is between communism as an economic system and communism (more properly, Marxism-Leninism) as a political system.

Economically communism is a classless, stateless, society.

Most Marxist-Leninist states take the position that transitioning to that instantly is impossible, and you need to build the material conditions for it by transitioning through capitalism (be that state capitalism or some other form) to socialism to communism. The Communist Party of China for instance has a goal of achieving socialism by 2050.

That's a very simplified version anyway, and some (Trotskyists mostly) disagree that a transition period is necessary.

Basically.

Most "Communist" countries practices Vanguardism, the idea of a "Vanguard Party" that is suppose to look out for the people, and act in the interest of the people, taking absolute control of the country, destroy capitalism and implement communism, then when communism is achieved, the state would naturally "wither away", ceasing to exist.

Yea... imagine how that works in practice. Once a party gets into power, they aint ever giving it up, thats the problem.

Pure Socialism is a society where resources are shared as equally as possible across all participants. Resources are distributed as appropriately as possible to create what is needed, excess is distributed with as little waste as possible. Communism has a centralized body to distribute these resources.

The end-goal is a stateless society. But you cannot achieve it if all other people are living in states, you need something that is of similar power. Hence it's a necessary step towards the end-goal which can only happen once everyone (or at least a significant portion of the world) is a communist. And that happens right after a unicorn rides across the sky while shooting rainbow and ice cream out of its ass.

As to why all communism is authoritarian, everyone who goes into politics is a authoritarian or an idealist. So the way it usually goes is either the authoritarian comes and explains to everyone that they're communist, or the idealist convinces everyone of the idea and then his colleagues slowly swap them out for the authoritarian, because they're usually the one actually capable of running a country.

In other words, to have a successful ideal communism everyone on Lemmy has a hard-on for, you need an unsevered chain of idealist leaders who are also capable of running a country. To achieve the authoritarian version of communism, you need only one authoritarian leader anywhere in the chain. I think everyone can guess which one's easier and more likely.

In conclusion, communism can never exist on a large scale as long as people are in power. The only possibility of communism I can see is far in the future when we have true AI (not the current bullshit machines) which rules over us without any possibility of humans altering its decisions. Not sure how likely that is, but at least it's theoretically achievable.

The notion of "state" differs wildly across people, so that probably adds to the confusion.

The core concept is that ownership of a thing belongs to the people of the thing. This is where it clashes with feudalism and capitalism, where ownership of e.g. a farm is not held by the farm workers.

The organizational unit is "group of people cooperating", or a "commune". This can be small, like a hippie farm, or it can be big - a traditional state.

A democratic state can be communist if it forbids private ownership of common resources. I.e. your house is your house and your car is your car but some rich fuck can't decide to build a fence around the local hiking trail.

An authoritarian state may technically be communist if it is strongly democratic. That is theoretical. The ones currently claiming communism are dictatorships.