Is communism fundamentally incompatible with democracy?

Here are some democratic (or, better yet, consensus-driven) communist mass societies:

1. Free Territory of Ukraine
(1918 - 1921)

2. Rojava (in Northern Syria)
(2012 - Present)

3. Revolutionary Catalonia
(1936–1939)

4. Korean People's Association in Manchuria
(1929–1931)

5. Morelos Commune
(1913 - 1917)

You will find other examples here: List of anarchist communities

Now one could nit-pick that these aren’t nation states…but they are certainly self-contained autonomous regions, some of which being quite large. One could also argue that many didn’t endure for very long — but that wasn’t a consequence of any inherent lack of viability, but instead most often the result of violent, authoritarian rulers who didn’t want them to exist. So either argument would be splitting hairs IMO.

In any case, these and many other examples throughout history (such as the Paris Commune, which Marx himself admired) demonstrate that communism (and socialist anarchism) are not incompatible with democracy…at all.

My 2 cents.

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