Communism is a political philosophy which in and of itself does not advocate for oppression. There is indeed nothing wrong with it, at least if you advocate for freedom of thought.
The Stalinist version of authoritarianism has been conflated with communism by american (mostly) media during the cold war. It is however a very specific ideology.
Apologists for authoritarian regimes, whatever their political leaning, deserve no platform or tolerance. Plurality of thought however is needed and essential.
You know there is money in communist nations right? The Soviet Ruble was a thing. This comment reeks of “You criticize society, yet you participate in it”. The Lemmy devs need money to survive, especially in a cutthroat capitalist world. I don’t find it hypocritical within their beliefs. Criticize them for their waving away authoritarian actions, for spreading propaganda, or silencing wrongthink on their instances, but I don’t think it’s fair to come at them for wanting to be fairly compensated for their labor, that’s Marxism 101.
The end goal of communist theory is a stateless, moneyless society. The fact that no country has been successful in transitioning to such a society doesn't matter here, the end goal remains the same, when speaking about theory.
I personally maintain the major downfall has been putting one person in charge. That's never gone particularly well, even in capitalist democracies. I'd like to see a country try it out with a council at the top, preferably 9 or more members, but always an odd number to prevent ties.
Also they all failed to establish a proper democracy first, and therefore fell into authoritarianism
Unfortunately executive power tends to coalesce in a single person whenever an emergency situation occurs. Rome tried rule by committee like what you're describing but gradually slid into dictatorship because of various forces that are basically just human nature.
The Six Nations pulled it off for 15,000-25,000 years. That's just based on the limited archaeological evidence and oral history, but still. I don't think it's human nature so much as a lack of viewing war/violence as a failure of society. The Romans outright celebrated their generals, and many other societies have done so as well.
I'm sure that having the major religion of the last couple millennia in Europe being based on a god of war from the bronze age collapse era didn't help us any either.
A commune is a group of people living together and sharing possessions and responsibilities.
On one end, a group of friends who live in a house sharing food and living space, you can absolutely call them communists. And the other end of all the bad shit. Same with capitalist, where there's multiple angles of it all.
That bad shit is tankie, where its authoritarian communists.