No, it’s not! Nothing compares to communism. For example, in communism, private property and money should not exist at all. When they exist in some limited scope, like in USSR or PRC, it’s just temporary tradeoff. And unemployment in communism is almost criminal offense (in 1980s USSR you could get into jail by being on the street during working hours without good excuse), you cannot freely choose not to work.
Discussion
Good point, in true communism private property as well as state power should be abolished (which hasn’t happened). What we often refer to as “communism” is the violent & invasive state bureacracy there was USSR.
Western “democracies” definitely have more freedoms than there were in USSR, but honestly modern day lockdowns or madatory military service are somewhat comparable state power exercises. Ancient Greeks certainly would have a good laugh at the phony 4 year elections we call representative democracy 😅
There definitely are ideological differences between the two, but sadly what we know of both “communism” and “democracy” are just state massive state bureacracies that ultimately only differ by the scale of misuse of their powers.