Communism is a failed form of government that should not be tried again.

As I quote from my opponent: "Communism is a stateless society, whereas totalitarianism is a society where the state has no limits to its authority. Since the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and many other nations people improperly consider communist, still have a state, they were never communist. In fact, I would argue that these countries were totalitarian, thus they cannot be used as examples for proving communism is a failed form of government." One thing that each of the countries my opponent mentioned had in common was that their initial leaders (that is to say, the ones who founded the government) were communist, and therefore, set up a communist state.[2][3][4] After the initial leader of each of these countries passed, the government would become totalitarian, sometimes with the country's second leader (this was the case with the Soviet Union, with Stalin gradually establishing Totalitarian rule under Lenin, so that by the time he passed, the USSR was Totalitarian[1]) If a country starts out communist and turns to totalitarianism, can you say that it was always totalitarian and was never communist? Of course not, just because something X turned to Y, you cannot say that it was always Y and never X. This is a prime example of the no true scotsman fallacy. You can't make any judgment about whether something is or isn't Communist, you must accept every possible interpretation of your position and defend it. Now that I believe I have established that these countries were, indeed, communist, at one point or another, it can safely be said that, at the very least, the Soviet Union was a failed example of communism/totalitarianism. The points made in my first argument were very similar to what happened with the USSR, including the revocation of all weaponry, subsidization of all industries, and the poor, miserable conditions that 99% of the population lived under. And seeing as how it is no longer existent today, it can be safely assumed that the USSR failed in one way or another. One final example of Communism failing was before it was even called Communism. The original Jamestown colony had a system of governing where everyone would do an equal amount of work for an equal amount of reward. Eventually, however, some settlers became dependent on other settlers to do their work for them, resulting in more work burdens on some for less rewards. This, obviously, led to starvation. The men and boys that came to the colony were not well-trained in farming, supply ships from England were too intermittent, and poor relations with the Natives meant no trading could be done.[5] By the time a new form of leadership was instituted, only 60 of the 500 initial residents survived. [1] From Wikipedia on the Soviet Union: "Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the 1920s, established totalitarian rule." [2] Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, was a self-proclaimed communist, and led the country's communist party. https://en.wikipedia.org... [3] Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, was a self-proclaimed communist, and led the country's communist party. https://en.wikipedia.org... [4] Fidel Castro, leader of the Republic of Cuba, was a Marxist-Leninist who governed the country with Communist ideas, and led the country's communist party. https://en.wikipedia.org... [5] Starving Time in the Jamestown Colony https://en.wikipedia.org... I look forward to your rebuttal.