Socialism has two kinds of problems, economic and moral.

The economic problems include the inability to accurately value capital goods without a free market (von Mises 1922) and the inability to utilize widely distributed local information in central planning (von Hayek 1945). In fact advanced societies that are popularly imagined to be socialist, such as the Scandinavian countries, actually have free market capitalist economies combined with high levels of taxation. There really are only two choices, the free market and poverty.

The moral problem of socialism is the necessity of using coercion. Capitalism requires only voluntary exchanges between willing people, but socialism always requires people with guns to enforce government policies. Stalin, who murdered tens of millions of people, was just an extreme example of the coercion socialism always requires. Nikita Krushchev and Robert Conquest were much better informed about Stalin's bloody crimes than gullible celebrities like Du Bois, Wells, and Einstein.

Stalin communist .....yes. Socialist... no.

Surprised? I was.