While I like the scientific method, I am certainly not willing to try the same thing again and see if just as many people die a second time.

Capitalism kills far more people, by design. While the famine in the USSR was due to wide-spread drought, unlike the man-made famine that would kill millions in Bengal a few years later.

I am interested in examining any modern plan to see if I can see issues in it or if it looks like it could work and is worth supporting.

You cannot understand present society, let alone have a model that can predict future developments with any reliability if you don’t learn history.

But if you want to understand economics, you’re gonna have to read a book on economics.

Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism is good if you’re more interested in higher-level detail than Marx talking about linen.

State and Revolution is more history and provides analysis of communist projects.