Communism is political, and material. Even if it be unfeasible or unrealistic it isn't a religion. It deals with power, and specifically power distribution over the economy. If there is a path to communism it is certainly not the path of being the change we wish to see in the world -- that's the sort of thing people in charge would say, to get you to pursue some personal project or spiritual journey rather than pursuing power, which for people without it basically comes from the numbers of people who can unite together in common cause -- hence why I've emphasized throughout that it's the relationships with the people you know that matter, rather than some idea, or a particular history.

In general that's a lesson I've noticed could be taught more -- communist or otherwise, politics doesn't begin with the party, the idea, the nation -- it begins with the people around you. It's an important perspective that's often lost in thinking about politics in theory, and is especially lost in the representative systems we have in place now where so much is done by appealing to an expert or an authority.

It's only by actively organizing that the ideas even begin to make sense as anything other than a philosophical exercise.

I guess this stuff wasn't mentioned explicitly in the thread, so I'll toss something in.

Political philosophers envisioned the masses transcending countries (or any such partitioning I suppose). The masses could find common ground and solidarity, like refuse being sent to wars against each other. With the advent of mass communication, discussions + organizing should be technically possible more or less worldwide; well, except that having sessions where all of the masses attended isn't feasible, so representatives would be needed. The likes of ideologies, religions, cultures, traditions, distrust, certain ambitions, greed, extremism, whatever, might get in the way of such efforts, yet, surely the masses + commoners + whatnot, if in voluntary agreement, could force an agenda across large regions, across multiple countries. After all, if they all (or most of them) plainly said "No" to go to war killing each other, or perhaps sanctioning each other, then it would be less likely to happen. Conversely, the more people, the more diversity can be expected. (And what of personal relationships?)

The top honchos of the old USSR didn't follow the philosophers, but instead forced themselves on others, right off the Russian revolution. They didn't seek out voluntary solidarity, but instead replaced old with new honchos that became ruthless dictators, and rolled over other countries regardless of what any masses might have to say there. (Is it easier to force involuntary compliance than for voluntary cooperation to come about?) Would-be communism that wasn't.

The UN doesn't have that much power, and there's plenty of globalization-phobia to come by, though one could sometimes wish otherwise. Well, centralization and concentration of broad and wide powers are known to carry inherent dangers, balances and limits are warranted. Conversely, cooperation can and does achieve markedly more than any individual.

Why have these ideas not caught on?

On a smaller scale, unions are around though, in part going by similar objectives, with top honchos of their own by the way.

The world has an unholy mix of dictatorships, theocracies, authoritarianism, corruption, semi-democracies, civilized democracies, ... It only takes one, for others to be threatened.

Anyway, I remain skeptical that communism is feasible/realistic; don't see anything particularly better than democracy, and that takes work to maintain.

(I'd quote a variety of people, fiction and non-fiction, but have already babbled long enough here.)

I would say that communism is a tool for the world state. Which, is, to make the farmer leave the farms for the town. Or something like this.

Also, in my book, communism is no rich. Which is impossible.