Communism under a dictatorship is a paradox. The people own and control nothing. The leader and their chosen circle own and control everything. That is neither communism nor socialism and it is not possible for either to exist in any authoritarian context.

Yep.

Communism and socialism in itself isn't that problematic an economic system. Unless of course you belong to the few select brands of freeloaders who've successfully managed to sell to the general population that without you, everything would collapse (looking at you, landlords and billionaires and stock market speculators).

The problem is that the economic part can't work without an evenly matched societal system - and for people to bypass their immediate greed reaction of the usual "why should the result of my work go to others who didn't do that work" BS, as seeing far ahead to realise that pooling resources in such manner will benefit everyone, and when the community thrives, so does the individual. For that, one needs proper education, which is usually the antithesis of a capitalist system (a capitalist system will inherently only allow one to learn a limited set of facts, and will systematically ridicule those who dare step outside those limits).

And herein lies the second problem. Socialism and communism could be great for the average people, but the average people have been misled and lied to and been brainwashed for so long, they need to be forcibly broken out of that bubble. And the only way to force that is through a revolution, and authoritarian enforcement of the socioeconomic system.

Now the problem with that is... it's incredibly easy for a malicious actor to then infiltrate the authoritarian system, and push its leaders to do counterproductive things. Add on top of that the constant CIA meddling, and you get your run of the mill authoritarian "communist" (in name only) paranoid leader who rules with an iron fist. The intention might've been good, but the execution was starkly against the very people the revolution was supposed to help. Repeat it a few times and now the whole world is afraid of the economic system, not authoritarianism.

Then continue by throwing in some brainwashed tankies who literally suck up to the authoritarian regimes, spreading BS about how those are "true communism", just so average people don't even consider learning about it because the term becomes synonymous with authoritarians and their bootlickers.

Communism is very much a social system. Implying economics don't have a huge impact on society would be the opposite of Marxism.

But he wasn't criticizing communism, or advocating for capitalism. He was criticizing a dictator and saying he prefers democracy.

Unless you think communism can't exist outside of a brutal dictatorship.

I would personally prefer a Mutualist system.

Communism inherently couples both the economy and the government.

In theory, capitalism can be decoupled since it mostly depends on laissez-faire governance. Communism inherently requires a planned economy and centralized control of such.

There is theoretically nothing stopping said leaders of a communist regime from being elected through a democratic process. But much like democracies tend to favor capitalism and (lower case) libertarian ideals, communism tends to lend itself to dictatorships because... you have a centralized control of all aspects of society.

Looks around.Is that what you gotta tell yourself?

Why do lemmy.ml users get hysterical when Joseph Stalin is described accurately?

I wonder why the .ml stans seem so interested in defending current Russian interests, it's very perplexing, it's like they're watching Russian media or something

This sarcasm would work better if it wasn't a direct riff on Hexbear jokes about Anglo Saxons. Which are probably ironic, but in the sense that everyone is about to die from poisoning.