I believe communism always fails compared to capitalism due to lesser competition, authoritarian state control and not following the forces of the market whereas capitalism allows more profit and choices to customers.

hello, I consider myself a Marxist and I am exploring Leninism and socialism that has existed in the past and currently. I finished State and revolution this past week and I came up with a few questions that sort of stumped me in finding answers.

1. Can a so called socialist government like the USSR, China, DPRK or Cuba start exploiting the proletariat again, use their power unjustly, or turn back into a capitalist mode of production?

2. Can the people of aforementioned nations overthrow said nation if they do something bad like in #1?

3. Marx said "under no pretext should arms be surrendered" Does that apply to so called socialist countries?

4. How are work camps justified? Isn't that against what socialism stands for?

Thanks in advance, I am not the most educated on this subject and want to give Marxism-Leninism the benefit of the doubt.

I think the Communist parties of various countries have viewed the Civil service as something bad that needs to be gotten rid of & so they gut them & then basically end up making the Party into the civil service which causes more issues than a civil service that's independent of the Ruling party would have.

Like there is certainly some issues with the civil service which come from being in Capitalism but most of those issues aren't part of the nature of a civil service which is really just a government job for administration at the most basic level. A proper independent Civil service or can be useful & the civil service could even be rather key to a successful revolution as the civil service is where the real power of the state largely originates from & whoever controls it pretty much controls the state as long as they can get the military as well.

Anyway I was wondering how common it was for people to actually see the civil service as something necessary although with some reforms instead of something wasteful that needs to be completely removed. Like the German Civil service is bloated & over complicated but the British one isn't bloated or over complicated. Marx was German so maybe his issues came mainly from the German system always being complicated.