Certainly the definitions of socialism, communism and capitalism I use are not conceptions that came after the USSR, but that predate it by decades. They are definitions that Marx used. He died in 1881, and the USSR was formed in 1922. They predate Stalin and Mao by decades, a century for Mao. Certainly the definition of communism I use, that it is a classless, stateless society where the means of production are held in common by all and exchange value does not exist, is the properly understood definition of communism, the original definition. Stalin and Mao themselves would have recognized that as communism - they did not believe to have created communist societies yet. Stalin never recognized the USSR as being communist, and Mao did not recognize the PRC as being communist. They would both consider them to be socialist countries on the road to achieving communism.
What you are laying out here are what Jordan Peterson calls “low-resolution” depictions of ideologies.
youtu.be/sSDClxjcR-4
He further develops the analogy by likening, say Marx, to a child sketching a picture of a helicopter on paper. That rendition of a helicopter will never fly. It might be charming and have a certain creative flair that will enamor some people, but the real test of flight-worthiness is to zero-in on the details to the point that each part has been conceived, engineered and tested in the real world.
The conception you are sketching out of a “classless, stateless society where the means of production are held in common by all and exchange value does not exist,” which you claim is the “properly understood definition of communism” is akin to a child’s charming little picture of a helicopter they might lovingly and laboriously draw with colorful crayola wax on rough newsprint.
The problem with this sketch is that when you do focus attention on the aspects which are required to make the thing fly - the high resolution working plan - there are huge practical problems with regard to making each of the parts functional towards the flight-worthiness of the thing that your charming little depiction of communism just doesn’t address.
States such as the Societ Union, Nazi Germany, China, Cuba, and a myriad of others are real world attempts to make your cherished depiction fly on a large scale and for extended periods. None have worked and all have resulted in high casualty totals.
Now you can continue to insist that your low-resolution conception will not produce the same results, but will be different from all those disastrous attempts merely because you add a bit more colour and aesthetic wonderfulness to it, but at some point you have to get into the details and engineer those details into existence in order to make it fly.
You might even try a small scale model - say a household of likeminded individuals and see how that turns out.
Anyone who has shared a house or suite with several others will tell you that it doesn’t often turn out as you claim. Look at marriages and families trying to exist in a wider nonsupportive culture of dissolution, narcissism and egoism - they are less than 50% successful today. What are you going to do when your large communist society begins to unravel and disagreements about certain specifics arise? We already know the answer to that from the communist states which actually have been implemented in the past. We properly anticipate boatloads of people trying to escape, detention camps, forced labor and shortages of the necessities of life.
“No,” you say, “my ‘communism’ will be different because they got it all wrong in the past and Marx knew something about human beings that they did not. Being as brilliant and insightful as Marx, I am competent to bring about success where they have all failed.” How many resulting casualties is the threshold at which you will admit that your rendition of communism is no better than anyone else’s and that Marx just got it wrong?
Now there is a workable form of “communalism” which has had some success in the past and even today - the monastaries and monastic communities that still dot the landscape around the globe, but all of these would attribute their success to supernatural intervention (grace) of some sort, not purely human good will, and none would be so foolish as to attempt to expand their communities to include everyone in the wider society. There are periods of discernment and formation which are necessary to determine who ought to be permitted into the community and how they are to be properly formed into the lifestyle.
The military feared invasion, so they couldn’t give back the grain, ect. ect.
The famines. Apples and oranges.