Does it really not work? It seems to have done okay in various contexts - Maoism in China and Ba'athism in the Arab world stand out to me. Maoism evolved and became very successful. Ba'athism mostly fell apart with the Arab Spring revolutions (the Syrian civil war is the last stand), but it lasted a long time and brought a lot of improvements to some really weak countries.

Heck, consider Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh's revolution survived years of the most powerful nation on Earth dropping more firepower on the tiny nation than was dropped in all of WWII. They won, America left, and Vietnam is a modern communist state.

Then again, I don't completely believe this... I'm kind of under the spell of Tolstoy right now, and tend to think that history just sort of happens, and we attribute the ebb and flow of it to the success or failure of individual leaders and their decisions, ignoring the broader forces. A lot of what led to success in these countries was going to happen regardless.

preemptive edit: Yes, I know these were murderous dictatorships. No need to mansplain how wrong I am, guys.