Uh. Mah. God. It was right in front of us all the time. This is deep. So deep. (dons hip boots)
By this logic, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (what we call North Korea) must be just a swell place, being as how it's run by the people in a democracy and all.
And I'm sure the citizens of Leipzig miss the old days of the German Democratic Republic when They the People were in charge. Hey, it's in the name, and names don't lie.
Next time your mom takes you to the grocery store, pull a box of Grape Nuts off the shelf and show me where there's even a single ingredient derived from either grapes or nuts.
Wow, revelation time. We should let that sink in. For about a year.
So you think control by the people would be wonderful?
Do you know anything of Lenin? No, not John Lennon, but Vladimir Lenin? While leftist canon is that Communism has never been tried and therefore has not failed (and that you will succeed in creating a communist paradise,) the fact is the Lenin was a "true believer." Stalin may have been an opportunist thug, but Lenin drank the koolaid.
After the White Russians lost control of Petrograd in 1921, it became the center for the "great experiment." Oddly enough, Lenin chose to engage in social engineering in St. Petersburg, rather than Moscow - funny how that works.
Do you know why the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" was named as it was? Do you know what a "Soviet" is? A "Soviet" is a peoples council or congress. The word has nothing to do with Communism, and in fact regards democracy, the idea that the people in a congress meet to determine their own rules.
We always paint the USSR as a brutal dictatorship, which it was, but Lenin attempted the most democratic society in history, sort of. Petrograd was divided into small zones, and each zone elected a ruling Soviet. The catch was that only the Proletarians could vote, or be elected.
During the fighting, the Aristocracy chose sides, the Reds fled to Moscow, and the Whites were murdered by the Communists. The middle class, the Bourgeoisie, were tied to shops and small business, thus could not flee. Lenin stole all of the businesses and holdings of the middle class, but made them pariahs.
The Soviets had absolute rule over those in their zones. They determined housing, food allotments, work assignments, and even cohabitation. Often, the Soviet decided that people didn't need to sleep indoors in the arctic winter, or didn't need any food, or that wives should be given to others, or that 24 hour work shifts were needed. In the case of the middle class, all of these were often decided at once.
So ponder well the idea of your neighbors deciding your fate - it may not be the paradise you imagine.