See, this is why I say you have Cold War mentality and you don't understand what I say... Which are the 5 communist countries in the World now? Which were the communist countries in the past? They were all communist states just in the word of the Western governments. Communism has nothing to do with form of government, communist society is stateless society since Marx and Engels. Engels in "Origin of the Family, State and Private Property" analyse the state as it forms together with class society and should disapear in classless society (or how he and Marx call it communist or socialist society). The state is class aparathus , you can't have classless state. Socialism and communism never had anything to to with form of government. The only government Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky speak is the transition from capitalist to socialist society which is working class government that lasts only to the point when all that is left from the class society exists. Only in the USA socialism and communism are defined like forms of a government, since the beggining of communist thought, since the social utopians before Marx, only US liberals and conservatives (during Cold War) have defined communism and socialism as form of government. That is why I say u have Cold War mentality, find and read what communists have written about communism, socialism, USSR, China... Socialism is a whole different system, not just different form of government. The problem with defining socialism as more state controll and capitalism more free market is that capitalism is not just regulation it is a whole system from the way how we produce product to the relations in production even Family, is not that simple. You can regulate economy, but by regulation you can't end commodity production.
You are approaching communism like communism is the foreign policy of the USSR and China and not a movement with history and thought that lasted from before the USSR, 19 centurie till today. Claiming that part of the left in US is communist doesn't mean that the are agents of China or USSR, that is Cold War mentality. The question is which left in USA, liberals? You are absolutly right, communism has no connection to them, but the question is if they are left wing... I can name you 16 Trotskyist internationals that have organizations in the USA and that declare themself communist...
China has nothing to do with communism, the thing that China has regulated economy don't make China socialist or communist, as i said communism is not form of government but society. Most of the EU countries have nationalized industries, they are not communist.
Yes communism can work like Marx intended to, because Marx never wrote how communism should work in his whole life. He only wrote that communism will be classless society after the class contradictions will end. Marx deals with capitalism, why is exploitative, oppressive, how it exploits, how profits are created by the surplus value labor creates, and why capitalism will end at some point and how it could be ended. Marx was not a prophet nor had crystal ball to predict the future, he was a social scientist who knew that u can't predict future. Not only Marx, Lenin also doesn't write how communism will function, nor Trotsky... your whole understanding of what Marx wrote, what is communism is based on state propaganda about Marx and communism...
You don't need to tell me how wrong had the USSR (or China, or Yugoslavia) gone, my friend, my political line was formed in the gulags in Siberia, Trotsky was exiled and murdered in Mexico for claiming that the USSR was not socialist but degenerated worker's state in which the bureaucracy ruled in their own interest. My political movement was formed by the purges in the Communist International from the Left Opposition. I know well how bad have things gone, as I know that Stalinist as not Bolsheviks, Lenin himself denounced Stalin in his Letter to the 23 Congress... But no matter how bad had Yugoslavia went, it had more basic human dignity for workers, you could not die from hunger in SFRY, you could not end on the street if you lost your job or got sick, in fact usually you could not lose your job, you could quit your job. If you lost your job, you would get 24 month selaries and social benefits. People were not rich, but they were not poor as they are now. You can't neglect those aspect of life in Yugoslavia. You could change the Manager if is an asshole by voting for him to be changed. I don't think there is, or have been job in USA, or any other capitalist state (including the Yugoslav now) where if your Manager is an asshole u could say to him to fuck himself without being in some way punished. This is less stress in the everyday life, u can't ignore that by simply saying: "communism is bad"