I think modern people in the West, and especially people who are against communism, may not realize that Marx's ideas took hold so forcefully because they seemed to provide a way for everyday workers to fight back against the working conditions that arose following the industrial revolution. (Charles Dickens's novels provide a lot of detail from the perspective of the working class.)
One example: in retrospect, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia resulted in much death and starvation. But the people of Russia in the 1920s were fed up with the working conditions and effective two-lane legal state in Russia (i.e. the law bound poor people and protected rich people) that had existed for hundreds of years under the Tsars.
As far as I can tell, rule of law is always the best answer to injustice - a law that reflects the will of the people, binds all equally, and protects all equally. But when injustice has persisted for a while, people can be vulnerable to ideologues and ideologies that can take advantage of the situation, create a new ruling class, and cause an overcorrection.
One example: in retrospect, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia resulted in much death and starvation. But the people of Russia in the 1920s were fed up with the working conditions and effective two-lane legal state in Russia (i.e. the law bound poor people and protected rich people) that had existed for hundreds of years under the Tsars.
As far as I can tell, rule of law is always the best answer to injustice - a law that reflects the will of the people, binds all equally, and protects all equally. But when injustice has persisted for a while, people can be vulnerable to ideologues and ideologies that can take advantage of the situation, create a new ruling class, and cause an overcorrection.