State socialism - the precursor to communism according to Marx/Lenin/Engels - does not just 'need' a totalitarian government, it also needs automatons instead of evolved primates to be implemented successfully. While 'by each according to their means, to each according to their needs' may sound fine it only works in the confines of the circle of personal acquaintances - from family to small-scale collective. Large (state) scale socialism inevitably fails because it has its feedback loops twisted: it rewards slacking and punishes those who go the extra mile. As long as the providers have social control over the consumers this can be worked around but this fails on a larger scale.
Douglas Murray wrote an article on the subject of the mysterious glamour which socialism and communism manage to retain, even though these doctrines have been at the base of several of the largest-scale massacres in the history of the world. Venezuela is mentioned a few times but he focuses on the apparent resurge of openly socialist and communist politicians in 'the west':
