What is good about commmunism?

Answer 1

People in the east refer to Communism as socialism, but I will explain the advantages of Communism as in Communism in the western sense.

1)Lack of unemployment- what people in former Communist/socialist countries missed the most is social security. People who defected from North Korea to South Korea or from East to West Germany usually found finding jobs a very challenging task. This is because in Communist countries (that's ran under what the Chinese call 'old socialism', that is, planned economy, collective farming, Stalinism etc.) the government usually assign jobs to individuals for economic planning, as opposed to finding jobs in a private enterprise.

2)Equality- most people, particularly women, were treated as equals in Communist countries. This is because the Marxist ideology advocates equality and he once quoted, 'social progression is measured by the social status of women'. My father also quoted that people in the old days loved Mao because he treated most people fairly and equally- everyone was poor except for the small 'Red Bourgeoisie' party members, where as in China today and many countries with market economy the gaps between the rich and the poor had widened.

3)Social welfare- in Communist countries everyone must be taken care of, which can be summed up by the famous quote by Marx, 'from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs'. Communist tried to give as much as possible to dedicate to the socialist cause, thus schooling and health care were free or very cheap. Despite severe shortages caused by inefficiency in economic planning, food in the state markets was also very cheap.

Because of the 3 reasons above, despite constant fear of the secret police, long queues for goods, inefficient and out of date technologies and heavy pollution, some if not many people still talk about the 'good old days' under Communism/socialism, especially in Russia and former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, some eastern European states and 70% of people in China. As people in eastern Europe would say, 'what the Communist told us about socialism may be false, but what they told us about capitalism is true.'

Answer 2

Nothing at all really, everyone pretty much has to follow the same rules. There are no freedoms to press, religon, speech, etc. It is controlled by the government.