A communist would believe in “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” (Karl Marx).
However Lenin, and to a greater degree his authoritarian successors acted according to the slogan, “To each according to his contribution”, which even they admitted was not in accordance with true communism. Lenin even used the slogan, “He who does not work, neither shall he eat“.
From Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917
The socialist principle, “He who does not work shall not eat”, is already realized; the other socialist principle, “An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor”, is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish “bourgeois law”, which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a “defect” according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism
Unfortunately their “first phase” evolved into an authoritarian regime instead of the stateless heirarchyless utopia Marx envisioned.
A communist would believe in “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” (Karl Marx).
However Lenin, and to a greater degree his authoritarian successors acted according to the slogan, “To each according to his contribution”, which even they admitted was not in accordance with true communism. Lenin even used the slogan, “He who does not work, neither shall he eat“.
From Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917
Unfortunately their “first phase” evolved into an authoritarian regime instead of the stateless heirarchyless utopia Marx envisioned.