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Because it was spread by a totalitarian communist dictatorship. if the USSR were democratic , they wouldve spread democracy.

Because there was never anything communist about these states in any way whatsoever.

Communism is a state (as in a social, political and economic condition, not a government). None of these states ever reached this condition, and, therefore, was never communist. And, one could argue, that their development literally went the opposite way to what could be called communist with a straight face. As the anarchist Bakunin famously said, "the people's boot is still a boot."

This is why the Maoist-types call this shit "democratic centralism," which is essentially just double-speak for "what the party says goes."

This does not make the idea of communism invalid - but it's still as perfectly vague as ever, unfortunately.

Because, at a high level, communism requires that a leader or group of leaders get things on track and then give up all of their power over time. Instead, the type of people who tend to lead revolutions are the same type of people who are unlikely to want to give up power and instead end up wanting more power. So no true communism has ever existed because it never gets to that phase.

In modern communist societies the government has an insane amount of power and control over just about everything. This power and control attracts a certain type of person who thirsts for power and control. People usually develop a bloodthirsty desire for power and control due to underlying psychological issues. These issues influence the person to think they ALWAYS need more power (think anorexic person who weighs 95lbs but still insists they are overweight).

It's a human nature problem imo.

The word "communism" means a specific social arrangement, but is misused to denounce things people don't like. Similar to the word "slavery" today.

Marx opined that certain material conditions had to be achieved before a socialist state could be successfully made. These material conditions include bourgeois capitalist democracy. Marx explicitly said that capitalism forges the tools with which it will be destroyed.

A certain subset of communists known as Marxist-Leninists decided that bourgeois capitalist democracy wasn't necessary if you just oppressed people REALLY hard, you could skip straight to a socialist state. And because they 'succeeded' in overthrowing traditional Marxists in 1917 Russia and getting the full power of a massive country to spread their ideology, they've had bootlickers calling their particular brand of insanity the only 'real' form of communism ever since.

When we think of 'communist' countries, we think of Marxist-Leninist countries which tried to jump from feudal societies to socialist societies, which, quite obviously from the results, doesn't work. Doesn't stop the cultists from licking boots, of course.

What makes sense to me, is that unlike capitalism, communism requires a government to function. Well, and how do governments fail? By turning into a dictatorship.