Communism Vs. Socialism

I was recently with my husband and another couple seeking to understand the real difference between communism and socialism.  This basics were stated:

"Everyone owns everything in communism."  How absurd.  We can't all own the same stuff - someone has to be in charge of making it, maintaining it and rationing it out.  Who really ends up owning everything and deciding what to do with it?  The government.  The government is comprised of people who are special because they are in charge.  So now you have special people owning everything.

"In socialism we take money from the rich and give it to the poor."  Ok, but if you take too much, the rich will lose incentive to work to get rich and we'll all be poor.  Again, who decides how much the rich will give to the poor?  The government.  The government is comprised of people in charge, so again you have special people owning most of the stuff.

I met a man who grew up in communist China.  He explained how in China everyone received the same wage.  I asked him, "Ok, so they solved the poverty problem by doing that?"

I should not have been surprised by his answer.  "Oh, no," he exclaimed, "many were still poor because they didn't spend their money rightly.  They wasted their money and hence still lived in poverty!"

Jesus does say in John 12:8, "You will always have the poor with you."

Looking at those two explanations, it appears communism and socialism are very much alike, but I've discovered so much more to consider in the comparison:

Socialism seeks to make everyone own the same amount of stuff, but Communism goes further than that and abolishes freedom in order to make everyone look the same, thus eliminating class antagonisms.

The idea of communism originated with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.  They wrote and published The Communist Manifesto in order to let the world know exactly what the ideas of communism entailed.  Their manifesto repeats several times they desire to make communist ideas known and not keep them secret.  They are very blunt about those ideas.  Below are some excerpts from the authorized English translation published by International Publishers, New York in 1948.

"...the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:  "Abolition of private property." (p. 23)

"In a word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property.  Precisely so; that is just what we intend." (p. 25)  Marx calls for a violent revolution to get this done.

"But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience." (p. 29)

Marx seeks to abolish "class antagonisms" by abolishing "classes generally."  (p31)  Great, no religion.  No freedom.  We all look the same and think the same.  Well, that's not going to happen unless you force us.  So now, you've got a government (which is a few people in charge) who decide what we will all think and do.  Nice idea Marx & Engels.