I highly recommend you watch The Cuba Libre Story on Netflix. Yes, Che Guevara was communist, but Fidel Castro was opposed to it until the US branded him as one. At that point he had no choice but to embrace the Soviets. That said, we've never seen real communism on a national scale. We've seen autocracies hiding behind a communist banner. The central tenant of communism is worker owned businesses, not state run economies.
yea, but now the concept of communism is tainted by those autocracies, so we may never see a real one. least in our life times.
Certainly not an entire nation-state. Communism is alive and well on a small scale embedded in every nation. Even in the uber-capitalist US, there are companies who are nearly entirely employee owned. There are many advantages of such a structure, starting with the ability to look more at the long term consequences of decisions rather than focusing on the next quarter's earnings.
Next comes every activity of an independent character, so self-employed persons are dubbed beeing commies.