What if you believe the tautological kernel at the core of Marxism is what causes communism ("as implemented") to always run off the rails, and become an oppressive authoritarian state?
What I see is the root of Communism; "No True Communist" is simple deflection.
No True Scotsman is a good point here; likewise the motte-and-bailey issue mentioned elsewhere in the thread. There might be some baby somewhere in the bathwater, but I'm not really very interested in sifting through 19th-century hermaneutics in order to figure out whether or not it exists.
Either Communism is an unusually badly-designed system, more than usually volatile and likely to implode by accident; or it was built to implode on purpose, using good intentions as cover for a world-historic power grab. There's no way to prove which of these theories is true -- but that says something pretty unflattering right there -- but either way, it's rather horrifying that there are still people out there who go to bat for it, some of whom aren't even on Vladimir Putin's payroll...
> What if you believe the tautological kernel at the core of Marxism is what causes communism ("as implemented") to always run off the rails, and become an oppressive authoritarian state?
What if I believe the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East?
If you mean to provide a reason that I should believe the thing you suggest, perhaps an argument and/or evidence supporting that proposition would be in order.
What I see is the root of Communism; "No True Communist" is simple deflection.