Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
I find with things like this everyone has a slightly different view. Its like if someone mentions socialism some folks will say its not really socialism unless its like full on communism but others look at socialism as the other end of a spectrum with socialism and how a country operates is somewhere on the line. Some people think anarchy means everyone does what they want and others view it as very local democratic communities with no central authority. I have encountered folks who view something like the term social contract to only be applicable to how one writer spoke about it as opposed to a general concept.