How does a communist system effectively answer the problem of what EVERYONE wants?

When you have a socialist revolution, you don't destroy the industry that was already there, you nationalize it. If the capitalist country you live in is providing to you what you want, there is no reason if it went socialist it could not, because it would have control over the same industry. Capitalism lays the foundations for socialism as it already constructs all the infrastructure needed to produce and deliver things to people, and on top of that, it also centralizes that infrastructure over time, making it national and therefore easy to expropriate and nationalize.

The Soviet Union did have shortages but it was a developing country, all developing countries have shortages. When you have a shortage under capitalism, you just bump up the price, and then voila! No shortage anymore because people are buying according to the demand. People like to not count it as a shortage if it is locked by a price barrier.

Sometimes it made mistakes in planning that led to shortages but you also have to remember the Soviet Union was founded long before computers were even a thing, all these calculations had to be done by hand. It's strange to think that socialism if it took place in a developed country today would look anything like the Soviet Union.

If you consider the GDP per capita against things like universal access to health care, employment, education, housing, etc, it actually did far better compared to countries of similar GDP per capita. It was not in the slightest like they were worse off than capitalist countries of equal development, despite having shortages at times.

/r/communism101 Thread