Communism has succeeded, in small groups and when it comes about naturally from the bottom up instead of from the top down like with the communist states most people think of when they hear the word communism. Go read the Communist Manifesto if you really want to know more about it. Marx's vision of a utopian society was one where the workers themselves got fed up with the status quo and overthrew the rich guys so they could take over and redistribute the wealth. USSR and any other communist state that existed and failed did not follow this vision. It was coming from the government/military, not from the people themselves.

waspbr said it better than me, "the fact that the government became the sole holder of the means of production means that it was not communism/socialism but state capitalism"

However if you look at Native Americans before the white men came in and fucked everything up, or even hippie communes in the 60s, communism can work. I think it can only really work on a small scale though because once it grows too big there is too much chance for corruption to creep in.

The thing to keep in mind about that, though, is we also have corruption in our government. Capitalism and "democracy" are not exempt from the corrupting influence of power.