Ok so I just finished disco elysium for the first time and I gotta say I'm kind of, surprised I guess for all the hype I saw for it from here? Feel free to call me dumb and that I missed that whole point but I felt like it was so hard on communism as an idea and communists as people that I was left with nothing at the end but "communism is a hopeless shot in the dark and trying to be a decent person in the hellscape world will end up with you dead, safer just to be a musclebound fascist who fucks bimbos all day or an elon musk who accumulates so much wealth they are above the laws of physics" Like I get those characters and ideas in the context of the situations and what they are saying there, but the over all vibe left me feeling nothing but demoralized about communism. Did I just not "get it?"
But communism did fail in real life. But, as in Disco Elysium as in real life, it failed but it's not dead. There is some sweetness and optimism buried deep in the unflinching depiction of what remains among the pieces of a revolution that was just shattered.
And another dimension of this is that
explicit spoilers
Harry is not a reliable narrator. He is not a blank slate onto which you can write "FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY COMMUNISM". Disco Elysium is a role playing game in the truest sense. You may think you are shaping Harry into being a cool communist, but by the end of the vision quest especially it becomes clear that, no, the sudden bizarre, cartoonish political radicalization is just one of the many ways Harry can act out in an attempt to process the things which led to his breakdown. This is made most explicit if you fail the "Ask the most important question about communism" check at the end of the vision quest. When you fail that one, Harry blurts out "Are women bourgeouis?" and spirals into another embarassing spectacle where it's abundantly obvious that even the communism thing is, for him, another way he's trying to get over Dora. So I think that should color your reading of communism's portrayal whenever Harry's thoughts and dialogue choices are involved.