When totalitarian hellholes call themselves "people's democratic republic of whatever", nobody blames their failings on democracy and republicanism. Why is communism held to a different standard?
> When totalitarian hellholes call themselves "people's democratic republic of whatever",
Because all those groups professes a Marxist philisophy (e.g. The democratic People's Republic of Korea). I personally attribute most of Africa's problems to Marxism. Almost all of the failed states' parties professes a Marxist ideology.
No-one can point to a communist country that works. Every communism/Marxist country that fails, is said to be "not truly communist". Yet there are many variations of free market countries and they are all at least moderately successful.
This is like trying to claim that "the Bible is a failure" because people have used it to justify everything from Nazism to plantation slavery to KKK activities.
People will glom on to an ideology (X), pull out the parts they don't like (Z) and add in some of their own 'flavor' (Y). Then they try to claim that X+Y-Z = X. And if you try to tell them differently they will just claim that their brand is the 'true' brand of X ideology. This is true of everything from socioeconomic ideologies to religious ideologies. To say that X is a 'failure' because all X+Y-Z combinations up until now have failed is intellectually dishonest. Claiming that making a distinction between X and X+Y-Z is the 'True Scotsman Fallacy' is misguided at best (and misdirection at worst).
Most of these 'so-called' communist states are nothing more than power-grabs. They use Communism as a buzz-word to gain the support of the people. Sure they also put private industry under state-control, but this has little to do with trying to improve the condition of the 'common man' and more to do with the increasing power of the government (and therefore the despot). If you're a power-hungry dictator, which sounds better: (1) you have direct control of private industry or (2) private industry can do its own thing making money for other people than yourself?
If you want to argue that the term 'Communism' is defined by what the public thinks it means (much the same argument against the people that try to correct the usage of 'begs the question'), then yes, these totalitarian states are Communism, and Communism is a failure. ...But a majority of the (American) public supported invading Iraq because they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9/11, that doesn't mean it's true.
If myself and all of my friends dress up like dinosaurs, act like dinosaurs, and refer to ourselves as dinosaurs, it doesn't make us dinosaurs. Nor does it prove that 'all dinosaurs' were 5-6 feet tall, stood up-right, and spoke English.
