Good effort. I think you don’t have a robust understanding of the history of the movement for communism, but generally we occupy similar positions. Where I would first push back is on this position you have that not only had there never been communism but that every communist party must prove that they were trying and failed. Communism, as Engels wrote, is the doctrine of the liberation of the working classes. It’s not to be understood as a goal, or a system of government. It’s not something people implement, or choose. It’s a movement with a specific understanding of the world arrived at through analysis which dictates a specific direction and set of abstract objectives. Socialism, as Lenin wrote, is the attempt to build a state according to Communism, that is to say, according to the doctrine of the liberation of the working classes. Socialism, therefore, is fundamentally an attempt to build something that literally no one has ever seen before, has never succeeded at, does not have known recipe, does not have known ingredients, and for which we do not have empirical data. Central planning, as far as the analysis of class society is concerned, is a requirement for developing a state along the doctrine of the liberation of the working classes. Central planning is not equivalent with socialism, as fascism also uses central planning, but the use of central planning, as far as human beings have determined, is a necessity for creating the conditions for ending class society. So the great things that the USSR achieved was because of the movement for communism overthrowing the ruling class and establishing a socialist state. That is to say they took control of a state that was currently in a feudal/capitalist transition and then they set about eliminating the last remaining feudalist elements and then eliminating what capitalist elements they could (like private property and anarchy of the markets). Having been the first ever group to attempt such a thing, they were operating with vague theories and no empirical evidence of what not to do. And, despite all the great things they did achieve, they failed to maintain the movement for communism. A great example of this is with China’s embrace of capitalism and the subsequent raising up of hundreds of millions of people living in poverty. This is a pro-capitalist framing. The more nuanced reality is that prior to adopting capitalist techniques for resource allocation and distribution, China was outpacing most industrialized countries in poverty alleviation and increasing quality of life. This was “easy” because China was coming from the poorest position in the world, so even modest absolute gains were massive relative gains. But they achieved massive poverty alleviation without capitalism. They adopted capitalism not because they wanted to alleviate more poverty, but because there are problems that central planning is currently not sufficiently advanced enough to address. Central planning and markets are just tools for solving problems. China had an advantage over the USSR - it could learn from the mistakes of the USSR. One of those mistakes was using central planning when it was not up to the task. Another of those mistakes was the establishment of hardline isolationist trading bloc. Chinese communists analyzed these behaviors and found they led to outcomes that threatened the movement for communism, but they also did not abandon central planning, for that too would threaten the movement from communism. So they apply central planning insofar as it is necessary, sufficient, and advantageous to do so, and they allow markets insofar as they are effective and advantageous to do so. I don’t want to totally disparage countries attempting to create communism, even if they failed miserably. There’s only 2 that failed - the USSR and Yugoslavia. The rest are still operating. There is no doubt that the US and other countries did everything they could to sabotage communism. Generally the US is the reason why revolutions fail, but not why socialist states revert to capitalism. Both USSR and Yugoslavia failed the movement for communism long before they were destroyed. If the Cuban communist party loses control of the state, that one we can firmly blame the US for. But the US usually kills movements before they take over the state. I mean, they invaded Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cuba, and many others in an attempt to kill the movement for communism before it could establish control. And then, as for your reference to oligarchies, which seems directed at communist states, really the main one I can think of is late stage USSR. After Kruschev took office he started by changing the national conversation away from its revolutionary past, then accumulated more wealth into the state as a way of solving hard economic problems but without any strong controls in place, which led to massive corruption that could not be stopped which led to the empowerment of a new oligarchy who then liberalized the economy, which led to massive poverty, and then they attempted to join the West and become an imperial partner, until they finally dismantled the project and the oligarchs emerged. Other than that. Stalin was a poor laborer son of a poor laborer from a national ethnicity that was considered dirty and stupid. He died owning basically nothing and without any money to pass on to anyone. Chinese business tycoons aren’t able to buy elections and they can lose everything including their lives if they try to do anything that would change the balance of power. There is no wealth in Cuba or North Korea to be hoarded because the countries can barely function on the international markets with the sanctions and thus there’s no mechanism to accumulate capital through trade and domestically it’s not like they can become robber barons and then take over government through political parties. I wouldn’t consider Vietnam or Laos to be oligarchies. Their inequality is slightly worse than the most advanced European nations but still better than Bulgaria and Lithuania. That’s all I got for now. Let me know what you think.