Communes collapsed from structural inability to resolve disputes, not just external pressures.

Evidence

The long after-dinner meetings were discontinued when some members rejected them as artificial “mind-fucking sessions that brought people down.” Everything would go smoothly if everyone made love, some argued. Others said vaguely that personal conflicts should be resolved through the natural and spontaneous interplay of feelings. And if that didn’t work, then those who didn’t get along should leave. … In fact, leaving was a common solution. Faced with what a Twin Oaks member called “the tyranny of everyone doing their own thing,” those who had escaped once were driven to escape again, this time from the commune. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 167