Marx and communism

Dear Editors,
I have been reading some of Marx’s writings. I find him to be very good reading. I would like to hear your views on what he called “crude communism”. The passages I refer to are in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In the section “Private property and communism”, he mentions different types of communism which some have the ideal politically but are still under the influence of private property (democratic or despotic). How does this compare with, say, Russia’s state-run system of seventy years? I believe just like the SPGB that Russia’s communism was a form of state-run capitalism. I wonder if Marx would have agreed with this or just called it “crude communism” somewhere between, the first and second stages of development. What is the SPGB’s view on this?
COLIN Robertson, Queenstown, New Zealand