I mean, I've said it wasn't communism in that it wasn't a classless, stateless, moneyless society, but I agree that's what they were trying to get to and they were using what they thought were the best methods to get there.
I think this semantic quibble needs to be abandoned as well, or at least explained in clearer terms, because when you say it like that, the uneducated anticommunist-by-default just hears a validation of the works-on-paper canard. it's useful context to know that communism's 20th century practitioners didn't believe their work was fully complete, but that can't be seen as undermining what they did achieve.
I mean, I've said it wasn't communism in that it wasn't a classless, stateless, moneyless society, but I agree that's what they were trying to get to and they were using what they thought were the best methods to get there.
I think this semantic quibble needs to be abandoned as well, or at least explained in clearer terms, because when you say it like that, the uneducated anticommunist-by-default just hears a validation of the works-on-paper canard. it's useful context to know that communism's 20th century practitioners didn't believe their work was fully complete, but that can't be seen as undermining what they did achieve.