&gt; &quot;Famines in the Ukraine and China come to mind.&quot;<p>Neither the Soviet Union nor Communist China were&#x2F;are communist states. They had rulers, communist states cannot have rulers, otherwise they violate the need for absence of social classes.<p>We shouldn&#x27;t dismiss an idea just because some people misunderstood it. If you can find a society that tried communist principals (and I mean all of the core principals, not half hearted attempts), I&#x27;ll definitely be interested to know about them.