# Why doesn’t Stalin’s version of communism work? “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their labor?” **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2026, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesn-t-stalin-s-version-of-communism-work-from-each-according-to-their-abilities-to-each-according-to-their-labor/1032137 "2026-08-04T11:50:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 84
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesn-t-stalin-s-version-of-communism-work-from-each-according-to-their-abilities-to-each-according-to-their-labor/1032137/84 "2026-08-07T15:25:01Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I try to be a very loud champion of nuance when it comes to history. Saying that Stalin or Trump weren’t responsible for every stupid or evil decision made while they were in power is technically true and must often be placed in context. In this case, the context is that the vast majority of the stupid and evil decisions made by underlings were made to please their superiors and up and up ultimately to the man who set the course for those decisions. Stalinism and Trumpism could not exist in an environment in which their followers operated on the basis of what they thought was “best” rather than on the definition of “best” that radiated downward from those in charge. > > Stalin eventually eliminated virtually all those who balked at his vision whereas Trump is facing continual blowback from his opponents, a reflection of the fundamental differences in the two forms of government. (Trump, who has shrewdness rather than intelligence, tried to remove all internal balkers from his government in his second term, only to find, as Stalin did, that incompetent loyal toadies promulgating his vision lead to a mounting pile of disasters. One system could bury them, in several senses, the other, as Trump is realizing, cannot. You don’t need to know Marx to see those parallels.) I think this is important to note that our American system of government makes us the [Best Country in the World](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-or-where-do-us-citizens-learn-that-the-usa-is-the-best-country-in-the-world-etc/1031943/205) because it was designed with a series of controls that provide a stable mechanism for failure and recovery in the event of corrupt or incompetent leadership. Most ideologies seem take an approach of "as long as we select perfect, competent leaders who perfectly follow or religious, economic, and political dogma, everything will run perfectly! Then inevitably they collapse or the system is stuck with them until they die and some new leaders appears who fools everyone into thinking THEIR religious, economic, and political dogma is really the correct one and if everyone just follows THEM, everything will run perfectly. Our system has worked for 250 not because we picked perfect leaders but because the Founding Fathers knew that at some point, some asshole would be in charge and they designed the system to be so convoluted that even the shittiest ruler could only fuck it up so much for a limited time. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesn-t-stalin-s-version-of-communism-work-from-each-according-to-their-abilities-to-each-according-to-their-labor/1032137)._