Communism: How Bad Can It Be? Everyone in my class loved Mr. Debenedetto, the social studies teacher. He barely gave homework and the classes were fun. Who wouldn't love it? It was one of the few classes where I listened attentively. I was interested in the topic we were currently studying: communism. We were discussing how America was always against communism, whether it was the Vietnam War or the Cold War. At that time, I did not know the true meaning of communism. Textbook definitions were always wordy and confusing. What does it mean "a theory or system of social organization based on the ownership of all property in common, with effective ownership vested in the community as a whole or in the state" (dictionary.reference.com/browse/communism ) ? Additionally, I remember a conversation with my father. I asked him: “Why is communism so bad?” He responded by saying, “Don’t be stupid. Who told you that? If communism is so bad, why is China so successful today? Did you know that China lends money to America? Even today, I still think about his comment. Who started the idea of ​​communism? What does a communist society look like? Why does America think this is so bad? Through my research, I hope to answer these and other questions that may arise. My history teacher, Ms. Shuman, while discussing communism, said that China is not meant to be any other type of government: “A country with so many people can't be a democracy; the population will not be controlled. China is fit to be communist. » Obviously, before trying to find out if communism is bad, I need to find out what communism is. To find general information about communism, I searched the Internet and found a website about political ideas. A pure communist society would involve everyone sharing everything equally and everyone providing a service to others (www.allaboutphilosophy.org/communism.htm). So a new question arose: if countries are trying to be communist, then why is it so bad? “Looking for general information on the history of communism, I went to my local library. The librarian searched the database and found only two books. I thought one of them, Communism by Nigel Ritchie, would be easy to read since it was a picture book. But my intuition was wrong. The book gave me a lot of information about the history of communism, but there were so many political words I had to look up, like socialism and capitalism..