b_b recommended Richard Pipes many years ago; I read Communism: A History shortly thereafter and I wholeheartedly second his recommendation. Full disclosure: Pipes is a Reagan hawk of the 1st order but he also knows his shit.

Mile-high view: Marxism-Leninism as practiced in the USSR was more accurately described as a kleptocracy than "communism" and the czarist system of patronage was replaced with the Stalinist system of Nomenklatura. China, meanwhile, went from an imperial economy to a command economy where a sizable black market/gray market accomplished many of the economic essentials that communism could not. True Marxist "communism" has never been practiced at any scale because the system as envisioned by Moore/Marx has far too many loopholes through which to drive a truckload of corruption.

On a more psychological level, behavioral economics seems to indicate that for organizations larger than Dunbar's number, collectivism runs contrary to human psychological risk/reward pathways. I recommend Ariely's Predictably Irrational.

First I'll admit this is not my area of expertise.

China killed millions of people through deliberate famine campaigns and bad public policy, but it was more effective at isolating Chinese people from Western ideas. Eventually, when this isolation became untenable, China's government kept the title of "Communist" for its ruling party but quickly dismantled any policy that had exhibited anything like communist ideas. A focus on transforming the economy replaced the superficial exultation of the hardworking peasant that had been the norm since the Cultural Revolution. Remember Tiananmen Square? That was what happened when Chinese people first started being exposed to American ideas directly. The government was successful at continuing to suppress these ideas for longer, probably mostly because they were geographically isolated from the West.

Eastern Europe was always more of a focus for subversive activities and espionage from outsiders, because it's really, really hard for a white CIA agent to avoid notice in 1980's China. Because China's economy didn't have the diversity of the USSR's (read: people were poor), there was no angry middle class clamoring for sitcoms and Velvet Underground records. The USSR thought the American TV show Dallas would be safe because the villain was a wealthy capitalist, but it became one of the cultural artifacts that introduced the masses to the simple luxuries that Americans took for granted.

In short, China didn't follow the same trajectory in terms of its introduction to American ideas. By the time most Chinese people were exposed to American luxury, the government had already recognized them as aspirational and modified the economy in response.

As for "why communism", I can give a brief overview of my understanding of Marxist thought. Marx started from the premise that all value comes from labor. A person does not provide value by allowing use of their land, or of gold. Wealth and comfort acquired by access to materials is undeserved. When you see a handwoven silk tablecloth, that tablecloth is not valuable because silkworms are valuable, but because a human can make only a limited number of such artifacts in their life.

So start from this premise -- that labor is the source of all value -- and then look at the state of things during the Industrial Revolution. People were losing their livelihood and entering inferior arrangements. Artisans were losing value. Marx believed that human history started with people freely committing to creative work, but that work had been dehumanised by the rule of the wealthy and powerful. Workers were increasingly productive but only suffered as a result of it because their labor was dehumanized and they would never experience its fruits, so they were deprived of any purpose in their work. Marx considered such a system unconscionable and unsustainable.

hina didn't become Maoist until the 50s, so it has had about 60 years of 'communism.' The USSR lasted from 1919 to 1991, so a total of 72 years.

Why do you think that China has done better than the USSR? China didn't become Maoist until the 50s, so it has had about 60 years of 'communism.' The USSR lasted from 1919 to 1991, so a total of 72 years. Its collapse took only a couple of years, so China's system (which has strongly moved away from the original Maoist system, and is very far from Marxism) could end too without much warning. It takes time, I think, for the generations to change enough for the atrocities before communism came to be forgotten. The original generation in the USSR would have passed memories on to their children, but their grandchildren had had enough. You said you wanted less communism is bad. Personally, I wouldn't like it, but on a broader scale, Marxism was laid out pretty specifically for an industrial economy. Most of the Western world has moved past that system. Proletariats as Marx knew them don't exist on a large scale anymore. I find it amusing that most of the socialists and communists at my school come from a solidly middle-class background. They are the bourgeoisie. If a dictatorship of the proletariat were implemented, they would lose out. That's why I left the red ranks, I couldn't shake the feeling of being a hypocrite.

If you haven't done so yet, The Communist Manifesto is a surprisingly easy read. Engles needs a lot more credit than he gets for his writting style. If you really get into it, Capital is also a mainstay, but is pure Marx and much denser (and longer in general). There are some other shorter works and letters, often printed with the Manifesto that can help you too.