Is there any place where communism doesn't lead to pyramids of human skulls?

So asked a student of mine today during my lesson on post war communism focusing on the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia.

I replied that that was a good question.

No.

Wherever communism is tried it leads to death and privation.

But, I said, there is such a thing as democratic socialism. George Orwell believed in democratic socialism. Does it exist today? Yes. Sweden for example. Sweden has a socialist government that believes in state control and out right state ownership of much of the economy.

In his work, Eat the Rich, PJ O'Rourke travelled the world attempting to answer the simple question: why are some places so rich? Why are some places so poor.

The answer, he concluded, is the rule of law. Sweden is socialist and prosperous. Cuba is socialist, and as Mr. O'Rourke would say, Cuban cigars are rationed there.

Rule of law. Government by the governed. Free speech. Property rights. Sweden has them. Cuba doesn't.

And that is what I told my class today.

Also, communism killed a hundred million people in the 20th century.