Is communism as bad as people say

The only reason why this is even being asked now is because it is over 30 years since the stark realities of communism were there for all to see in Eastern Europe. The backdrop to 1980s popular culture was the grey drab reality of Eastern Europe. Now it is a subject that is barely talked about, actually the second and first world wars along with the Vietnam war are much more prominent topics for drama and documentaries now. Its curious that no modern drama or netflix series are set in Communist Europe or Russia even though it lasted for almost 50 years . Another topic strangely absent from popular drama is the Middle East given the turmoil going on there for decades now

Eh, it's 2021, the question was answered 30 years ago - the answer was & still is a resounding yes

Israel was founded by a socialist basically, David Ben-Gurion...

israel nowadays is one of the most socially and politically right wing countries on the planet....

Exactly, that is essentially why communism failed because it failed to accommodate people's future desires and goods . If the whole world had of went communist everyone would be living with 1920s technology and goods. The only reason why there was quasi consumer goods in the Soviet block was that they had to try and compete with what capitalism was producing in the west. They also had to build a big wall to keep everyone in the block and stop nasty western media showing what they were missing in the East.

Communism famously produced dodgy ugly cars, their only fairly satisfactory car by communist standards the lada, was effectively a fiat 127 design which they bought from fiat and for which you had to wait years for

communism for me in theory is a desirable way of life but probably unworkable because there is a flaw in its very design.The flaw being that the state takes responsibiilty for providing all the needs of its citizens and when anyone is deemed to be endangering that purpose ,they become an enemy of the state and the subsequent crackdown leads to further unrest and a vicious cycle of revolt and subjugation quickly takes hold,the state then becomes totally paranoid and tyranny follows.

I don't see myself as power hungry or corrupt but I am definitely flawed and a bit greedy. The reason I would do everything possible to escape a communist regime would not be loss of revenue but loss of freedom. All communist regimes have had a strong controlling hierarchy that manage not only economic life but social life too. That's completely unacceptable to me and I'm sure most people. Freedom of expression is also not tolerated. People think that making money is about greed or pride but for many people including me it is about freedom. I want to have enough money to not be coerced into a job I don't want or live in a place I don't like or to be friends with people that I don't particularly care for. It's not about materialism or ego, money brings freedom and choice.

The problem with socialism and communism is that such states lack an efficient way to prices goods. Pricing and the profit motive is everything. If a local committee or government is pricing everything, you will get incorrect prices, weaken profit motive, have less growth, and everyone will be worse off. Pricing has to be done by the private market, by actors with profit motives. So socialism might not have a 1% of the super-rich, but you will have the same thing with power, a 1% or thereabouts with government power. Don't underestimate how much damage communism has done over time. Look at Russia. Today the Russian economy is smaller than South Korea, despite twice the population, South Korea is a country that was poorer than Kenya in 1950. 

That, more than likely, has to do with the fact that Stalin's harsh measures won the war against Germany than anything else. It's akin to the British rose tinted view about Churchill being the "greatest Briton".

An awful lot gets left out of the assessment, due to the fortuitous (for them) circumstances in which each leader found themselves. There's an argument that for both leaders, the war made them and without neither would be remembered that much today. This is particularly true of Churchill, who capitalised on the conflict for all that it was worth.

Stalin, in all likelihood, would probably have been disposed sooner or later. But with victory achieved, his legendary status was sealed until his death.

BTW, "great" doesn't necessarily mean most loved or even acceptable. "Great" can merely mean the impact with which something or someone has. Hitler was voted Time Magazine's Man of the Year for his "great" achievements in the 30's. But it didn't mean what you might think it means.

Also Stalin only turned on Hitler after Hitler betrayed him and began expanding Eastwards. If he hadn't its very very likely Stalin would have stuck by Hitler until the end of the war. Only then then he would have most likely turned on Hitler when Germany's strength was depleted.

That doesn't matter once the war was won.

The same can be said for Churchill, who was the architect of the Dardanelles disaster of WWI and also had a large impact on the failures of Norway in WWII. Churchill's meddling was very often counter productive to Britain's prosecution of the war and at the end of it he had bankrupted the country in pursuit of it.

But nobody cares about that, because Britain "won".

People will often negotiate around uncomfortable facts once a favourable outcome is achieved.