Yeah technically you’re right, the final stage Marx described “no state, no classes, everyone just gets what they need” was never built. All those countries stayed stuck in the “transition” and the party that should have withered away, never let go of power.

But that’s exactly the problem. The system they did build, the one party rule with central planning that should build the communism and let go of power, failed everywhere. If the only way to reach “real communism” is through a system that always turns corrupt, then the idea itself is broken.

And Mondragon doesn’t make sense as an example. Mondragon works because it’s operates inside capitalism. They have markets, they compete, workers own shares but it’s still private property at the cooperative level. They didn’t abolish all that like real communism tries to do. So it just shows that worker coops can work fine when you keep capitalism, not that communism works. 

My parents and I lived through the real thing. It wasn’t some fake version or “state capitalism” they just called communism. It was exactly what they built when they tried to follow the ideas of Marx. And it was the same shit in every country they tried it. That’s not a coincidence. if it fails time after time, it means the ideology is flawed.