I wasn't saying it was like capitalism. Capitalism (even Marx knew this) is comparatively more progressive than slavery or feudalism. So I would agree with you. Even so, the point is, you can't opt to go back in time economically without a major catastrophe. Like Pol Pot's "Year Zero" campaign.
In order for this analogy to make sense, then instituting communism would have to be as much of an advance in society as ending slavery was, and that is an offensive thing to claim. If it turned out that people did not like it, then that would be proof it was not an advancement.
The people who had been enslaved very much liked being freed. If it had been put to a vote, they would not have voted to be re-enslaved. No one would have worried that maybe they'd make a mistake and vote to re-enslave themselves, because their condition was so obviously better.
But you know that there IS a real risk that a country that institutes communism might vote to end it if they can, because that has happened. It's not really that it would be "going backward," it's that you want communism considered progress whether or not it actually makes people happier.
The truth is that history isn't teleological. There's no such thing as an end state we progress toward. People just try things, and sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. Sometimes people secure rights for themselves in a place, and then they lose them, or vice versa. It just goes on and on.
No, it isn't teleological, any more than evolution is teleological. But it doesn't have to be *teleological* to simply be logical. There hasn't been a rush anywhere to return to the economic system of feudalism and serfdom, even as fascists romanticize the aesthetics of the past.
If socialism is established on the basis of the productive forces built up by Western capitalism, it would be as great of an advance and no one would want to go back. To address your later point: people did not vote to end communism, which did not exist. What it really was is open to some debate.
This is like if a Christian went "No, the Spanish Inquisition wasn't a bad thing Christianity did. Those weren't TRUE Christians." Okay man.
The word "communism" was aspirational for the USSR and its satellites. They said this over and over. We do not have true communism. They thought they were working towards it. What they had established was arguably state capitalism, arguably a form of socialism, either way encircled by imperialism.
That's exactly like America saying we're doing an experiment in democracy that is ever unfinished, we're aspiring to the most perfect democracy but no place on earth has ever achieved that, it's aspirational. We're still a capitalist democracy and the USSR was still a communist authoritarian state.
No, it is nothing like that - you're conflating economic development with political ideology. The material simply was not there for communism, and everyone knew it. You can have a million labels, ideas, and good intentions and it means nothing without the material foundations.
Marx developed a theory of how socialism and later communism arise from the highest levels of capitalist development, which were then and still are now (along with a few other places) in the Western world. The Eastern revolutionaries understood they did not have those foundations.
Their "communism" could only be aspirational, while in practice they had the task before them of massively building up the productive forces, something capitalism did over hundreds of years. China seems to be well on the way. But even they haven't achieved it yet.
That doesn't make sense. If this theory was such an advancement, it shouldn't have needed the same length of time as the outmoded system it was replacing. It didn't work because it's an unnatural way for people to live and Marx had huge gaps in his understanding of human nature.
China is doing better because they relaxed the authoritarian communism to allow more freedom, and that makes people happier and more productive. Also because the communists assigned people to work they weren't suited for, for political reasons, so not doing that anymore helps a lot.
China still has state ownership and economic planning. It is still an aspirational communist society in its basic economic character. They engaged with the global market in ways the USSR/Eastern Bloc could not.
Theories explain reality. They're not blueprints. Purely nationalist forces could have won in Russia and China and they would have been faced with the same problems (and were in many other countries that got rolled by imperialism). Throughout this you are conflating economics and politics.
Marx did not opine on "human nature." Marx revealed the contradictions at the heart of the capitalist system which inevitably create the conditions for a socialist transformation. He was ahead of the curve and underestimated the concessions capital would make to stave of revolution 100 years ago.
"Inevitably" is doing a lot of work there. That's the part where it becomes a faith-based belief system. Objectively, it doesn't make sense to think that one thing "inevitably" leads to another, about any part of human history. None of the choices made were inevitable.
But those days are over. Capitalism has no more concessions to give. That is why we are faced with a fascist dictatorship. They cannot give up wealth, property, power - nor can they maintain it without brute force. They could destroy everything before we get to socialism, though.