>>So yeah, they did take your personal belongings. If you had a pretty wife or daughter, the local armed chiefs might take them too.

Even worst, they had their way with females after arresting their husbands and fathers as enemies of the state. Now that was some consensual relationship...

^this. Thank you for providing some perspective. Both of my parents immigrated to the US from countries occupied or torn apart by Communism. I think the many downsides of the Communist ideology are lost to younger modern Americans (and I think many Western Europeans?)... the Cold War is not even a memory for many, and its easy to deconstruct its lessons as part of oikophobic self-criticism. It seems fashionable to expound Leftist ideology today and extol the virtues of Communism since "now we have the technology to do it right!". Even the "This time we'll do Communism right!" refrain is historically old.

For a more modern example of pervasive, invasive control, look no further than China. Why confiscate glitzy consumer toys when you can just monitor and control everything? ;)

I spent a semester in Budapest back in '92, and I recall a Central European History professor wryly observing: "The only Marxists left are all in the West."

China is not a communist country: they don't have the N1 criteria: "a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production".

Isn't The Party controls the means and The Party represent the people?