Looking at any single step on a path and rejecting it because the extreme end of the path isn't desirable is a quick way to never make any progress.
We can improve things, we can do social good, and never slide to authoritarianism. (I assume you are talking about authoritarian communism vs, eg, council communism.)
Of course we can, but doing it at a society scale is very difficult and you have to be vary careful about who is on charge - or ends up with most influence - as history has consistently shown.
I think it's easy (well reasonably) to do if resources are plentiful, but what do you do if there are more people than resources available to support them, who starts making the hard choices?
We can improve things, we can do social good, and never slide to authoritarianism. (I assume you are talking about authoritarian communism vs, eg, council communism.)