The whole point of Communism is to balance power away from the 1% and back to the masses

But there needs to be some governing body that is responsible for determining how the power and wealth is distributed. Per the OP's point: if the proper guardrails are not in place, control of that governing body will eventually shift towards a person or party who corrupts it for their own purposes. It doesn't matter what the "point" of a system is, corrupt people will always attempt to take the wheel.