Revolution is most often a goal of a Communist movement. If not then the movement aims into commune creation. Rather rarely we see movements set into democratic regulations. That is not to say there are none. Communes then are the middle ground. It usually is an attempt in creating new society. Mostly somewhere secluded. This practice is not new nor exclusive only to left-leaning ideologies. Nation of Israel created the initiative of Kibbutz to settle new locations in Holy Land. They were mostly successful in creating new communities based on specific production. Be it industrial, agrarian or even high-tech. Now the secret to Israeli success is ultra-nationalist racism. By being surrounded by Arabs and in constant state of warfare Israelites hardened themselves. The focus on survival enabled them an efficient development without the room for errors. Normal communes though do not operate in that way. The most common view of them is persons of Hippie movement in USA trying to live on their own terms. Mostly delusional they rarely succeeded. Leaving society comes with many hardships. To feed one person per year a 0.5 acre of crops is needed. Agriculture is a tremendously hard labour. Now of course not as much with creation of many machines that really do help a farmer. Another point is that mostly those people are not even skilled enough to do said labour which also shocks them. They do believe that commune living will be harmonious with nature and relaxing. But world of nature is brute and dirty.
In both communes and all forms of Communism we can see egalitarianism. Taken from Christianity to extreme. While yes, Catholicism argues that we are all children of God, it does not abandon tradition gender roles. That is not to said females must do generally seen as female work. Nor does men need to know how to fix everything. But our society was always based on those ideas. Females and males are better at different things. It comes from our biology and instincts. Instincts will always ultimately repel higher thinking. In Kibbutz project, for example, at start total equality was assured. Even institution of marriage was mostly looked down upon. Yet, in 2 generations. It reverted to more traditional family and society model.
Communes generally resemble tribal village model. In tribal village people shared their resources and everyone did work to benefit the community. But it was highly hierarchical with authority centred around the Chief. That made a simple progression into Monarchy later when a Chieftain with a strong enough tribe conquered the others and made a state. Communism in some case says that in paradise of their making everyone will be living in self sufficient communes. But they do not have any regulations against authoritative figure rising up and conquering other communes. Some people are bad and power-hungry so it is inevitable. In democratic societies the thing keeping them from doing this is the system itself. Democracy is not like others. Monarchy is centred around the Monarch. Communism around the Authoritative Ruler. Democracy is based upon the system. Not a person, rather than institutions. That is why it is hard to establish autocracy in well-functioning democracy. Communes could possibly work as tribal hierarchies yet that misses the point. Then they could be democratic but with their small communities it would be hard to implement costly democratic institutions. A personality cult could arise and the democracy would be threw into the rubbish. The only case in which a commune could be democratic AND not hierarchical is when the society that lives in it believes in an ideology to that extent that it is almost cult like. Religion is the immaterial force having power upon us. No one will see that you stole an extra onion but God will. This only shows imperfections in our lives. The idea of commune contradicts each outcome. No utopia can be reached.
