Elsewhere on HN people have been criticized for what's been called a knee-jerk reaction to socialist ideas. But the history of socialism makes that reaction every bit as legitimate as the reaction to touching a hot stove.
Sweden is a socialist state, and a family is a commune.
Just because ideas have failed spectacularly in some places and on some scales doesn't mean they don't work well elsewhere.
Side Note: While people like to say "Socialism == Communism", Marx viewed them as separate and distinct 'stages' of political/economic development.
Of course, the socialism that most people refer to doesn't correlate with any correct definition (more closely "democratic socialism"), but what do we expect from the "unwashed masses". ;)
Among a well-educated and logical population, knee-jerk reactions are always improper.
During the civil war, the communists has substantial support from the academics and intellectuals (think Spanish Civil War). This combined with successful economic policies during the early 50s made Mao overly confident of his support base.
At the time the Nationalists in Taiwan was still recognized as the legitimate government of China on the world stage, so Mao wanted some vocal support. To his surprise he opened the can and worms came out, which caused huge embarrassment, and he blamed it on rightist infiltration.
As a reaction he locked up "naysayers" and implemented radical ideological-based economic policies that ended up in disaster, so he stepped down for a few years. During the time his rival Liu Shaoqi became the chairman, who played with the idea of market economy and was warming up to the west.
This infuriated Mao as it implied his failure as a visionary, so he out-maneuvered Liu and launched the cultural revolution to manufacture support for his vision on a large scale. It helped him to maintain power til his death, but at the cost of running the country into the ground.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rightist_Movement#Origins :
The Anti-Rightist Movement was a reaction against the Hundred Flowers Campaign, which had promoted pluralism of expression and criticism of the government. It is not clear whether the Hundred Flowers Campaign was a deliberate tactic to smoke out "rightists", or whether Mao simply decided that it had gone too far.
My father-in-law spent time in prison with Wang Ruowang, noted dissident mentioned here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Ruowang
My own wife's family hail from North Vietnam. Not particularly educated or politically opinionated, they nevertheless saw several off their family wiped out by what we'd today call 'collateral damage' - in this particular case, the family home had the bad luck to be within spitting distance of a factory, and got flattened by an American bomb.
Permit me a degree of skepticism about the moral purity of institutions we take for granted. though I'm neither a communist or a socialist, I don't see that being democratic and capitalist gives anyone a free pass to kill people.