Communism in Russia was botched because those in power never let go of their power. Yes there were elections but there was only one party wich ment only one candidate. There was noone else to vote for but Stalin or anyone who came after. The problems with most governments is they start fine sticking to their ideals but after the first generation of rulers it becomes an oligarchy. The leaders should be chosen the ancient Greek way via lottery. Citizens' names are picked at random and they serve as ruler for a year. There was a legislative body that was picked in the same manor. Also no citizen couldn't serve more than once in the same office. They even had an impeachment process. I think the Greeks had one of the best forms of government ever. As for payment for you job should be based on the difficulty of you job and your performance. A good example, in america the crumy jobs like say scrubbing toitlets gets payed minimum wage if you are lucky while Mike Eisner pays himself more than any human being is worth for doing... what does he do anyway. It should be the other way around. We need the guy who cleans toilets cuz otherwise everybathroom in america would be really nasty. If they didn't who would. We take our clean toilets for granted. But I digress. I have found that more often than not, people believe communism works best in small communities or countries but is impracticle in a country as large as the US. It is my beliefe that no country can just dive into communism like diving into a pool. You have to ease into it like a hot tub. The larger the country the slow you ease into communism. Another aspect of socialism that appeals to me other than basic necessities being provided is major industries such as steel, lumber, oil, energy, etc. are controled by the governenmt. All the problems with international conglomerates we are having now would be none existant.
