I wonder if anyone ever said "Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens".
Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don't believe communism is an effective form of government, it's still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.
There is a poem in Polish, it goes in fast and dirty translation: "Today you scare us with communists, just as years ago, you scared our fathers with the democrat name".
Someone between 1804 and 1830: Democracy doesn't work, just look at France, it dissolves into an empire
Seeing some of the zingers in the comments here, now seems like a great time to plug my "Read Theory, Darn it!" introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Read up, comrades!
Communism isn't bad, it just crumples as soon you put anything but saints in charge of it.
I'm not entirely sure anything works better in a long-term scenario though :)