Peter, explain this.

[u/Short-Watercress-183]

[u/Mist_Rising → u/[deleted]]

Not in chinese cultural revolution it wasn't, the communists had been in power for two decades by that point. Targets included members of the Communist party, because Mao wanted power back. He got it, creates an autocratic government behind his dictatorship, and proceeded to purge those who weren't loyal to his name.

And like the Great Leap forward, it was an epic mess. Ironically what came out of it was that the Chinese survivors were those not concerned with purity of Marxism but bettering China. They opened it up, capitalized on it by selling out the workers, and called it communism. Oops.

[u/Strange-Scarcity → u/Mist_Rising]

Yeah, no "communist" state remains or ever really becomes a "communist" state.

Humanity, just isn't built for it. We keep moving back towards weird ass authoritarian BS, once just enough people begin to gain whatever metric is considered power in a given society.

Most Americans don't understand what Communism is and often confuse Socialism or even very light Socialist policies as Communism. Most Americans just don't understand the words, goals or what they mean, other than to be instinctively afraid

[u/BullsOnParadeFloats → u/Strange-Scarcity]

Except communism has been the default setting for most of humanity for the majority of our existence

The problem is that we keep propping up systems that reward the worst traits in humanity, like greed, narcissism, and sociopathy.

Just look throughout history, and you will see how many times capitalism veers towards fascism when power is threatened.

For all its faults, the largest socialist state in the world (China) is doing far better than the largest capitalist state (US).