Ludditism and Communist thought often co-occur, but the majority of serious Communists saw automation as a way to free the proletariat. The goal was to use automation to spread the wealth and reduce working hours, rather than using it as a way to reduce employment and further concentrate wealth in the hands of the few.
Adam Smith is generally credited with being the founder of capitalism, with his book The Wealth of Nations. However, the book reads more easily as a communist tract, as he proposes the collectivisation of labour -- workers' coops, essentially -- and industrialisation as a means to increase efficiency and therefore individual wealth. Smith's argument that a conscientious pinmaker could make enough pins and save enough money to automate failed to consider the effects of automation elsewhere, which meant that the unautomated pinmaker was likely to be forced out of business by falling prices.
He glossed right over the rise of the industrialist capitalist - the man who had enough money to set up a factory, therefore making enough money to set up another, and so on ad infinitum. It continues to this day that those who start with money can squeeze the new players out.
Remember also that the industrialists had people working twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. They invented he night shift for their own profit, not for the quality of the product, nor in order to provide employment. In the industrial revolution, workers were less valuable than manure.
So it's not surprising that many people associated automation with slavery, but it's a shame. As I said, communist thought says automation should serve the commune (NB: not "the state") and free everyone to have more leisure time.
But leisure time is dangerous in a totalitarian regime, so the nominally-communist dictator will play up the "machinery is capitalism" myth in order to aid him in maintaining control.