Yes. But the degree to which I blame my own frustrations on this or that conspiracy's machinations is the degree to which I'm not seeing the situation clearly. It's the difference between something raining on one's parade and parading in the rain.

Or as it was put to me: 'To a man with no slack, even "Bob" served the Conspiracy. To a man with "Bob"'s slack, even the Conspiracy is of service"

I would argue, moreover, that conspiracy is the very definition of capitalism: everyone competing against each other and making alliances to crush competition.

It's not disconnected from reality to consider some groups of people to have too much power and to conspire against the best interests of society at large for their own benefits. What is delusional is to link that to reptiles or illuminatis, when the people pulling the strings are the same ones we see smiling on TV: multinationals and their lobbyists, bosses unions (eg. MEDEF in France), political parties.

Some of these interest groups tend to be more secretive (eg. Bildeberg, Dîners du siècle) but they are comprised of well-known figures whose interests align, and there's certainly not a single group of people controlling the entire planet's fate. It just so happens the rich and powerful have strong incentives to unite in order to screw the rest of us.

I think you would find a LOT of conspiracies in the history of communism.

Of course! Whether it's plots to assassinate powerful people, or police setups like Sacco & Vanzetti, or FBI's CoIntelPro infiltration, sabotage, setup and assassination program of all US revolutionary groups of the 50s/60s (Black Panthers, Young Lords, MOVE..)

If you're strictly speaking about marxism-leninism, which as an anarchist i do not recognize as a form of communism (but rather a form of State capitalism), that's also the case long before Stalin came in. Notoriously, the revolt of the Kronstadt soviet in 1921 was framed by Lenin and Trotsky as counter-revolutionary, see: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Trotsky_Protests_Too_Much

However, communism as a political perspective (whether libertarian or authoritarian) promotes mutual aid and emulation as principles of organizing society, not competition. So my specific critique of capitalist mindset/education/system as a major factor in the development of actual conspiracies does not really apply to communist ideas in themselves.

Networks might be a more useful term than conspiracies.