eyooo shoutout to my boy Marx, Kapital Vol. 1 is indeed considered a literary masterpiece at least by David Harvey https://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/karl-marx-capital-david-harvey btw Marx died before he finished finished Capital, he only finished the first volume, the second and third volumes were not completed.
@Elbow to add on to
@ZeonII's comment, Marxist theory and literature is incredibly expansive and absolutely not limited to the authoritarian communist regimes of the 20th century. Most people who compare communism negatively to capitalism also don't acknowledge the extent to which the US has obliterated democratically-elected governments throughout the world for the past century in the name of capitalism (#BoliviaCoup), to which IMF-imposed austerity measures have destroyed developing economies and capitalism itself kills the environment; and yes people die from this.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/your-complete-guide-to-the-n-y-times-support-of-u-s-backed-coups-in-latin-america/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/27/austerity-policies-do-more-harm-than-good-imf-study-concludes
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/02/does-capitalism-have-to-be-bad-for-the-environment/
https://eand.co/if-communism-killed-millions-how-many-did-capitalism-kill-2b24ab1c0df7 and https://www.quora.com/What-has-killed-more-people-communism-or-capitalism (there are thoughtful and less thoughtful answers here, happy to discuss which ones I think are bull and why)
also check out this youtube channel where this british guy talks to people who used to live in the soviet union, they overwhelmingly recall it positively, even one woman whose family was killed during the Stalinist purges https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50pQHccrlHg the soviet union that Americans have been taught to fear is primarily under Stalin who died in 1953 (perhaps as a comparison, consider whether you base your evaluation of the USA solely on its role in perpetrating genocide against Amerindians). Post-Stalin USSR and other 20th century communist states all have vibrant and nuanced histories with both promising and awful moments, unfortunately these histories continue to be obscured by anti-communist propaganda in America (to be clear I am not condoning authoritarianism).
