For my purposes, it doesn't really matter how they fall short. It usually varies from country to country. Some have freely elected legislatures subject to the veto power of a military junta, a monarch or a strong president . Others are provisional governments run by coalitions pending new elections. The economy of these nations is centrally planned and operated by fiat.
All industry is owned by the state.
Power is monopolized by a centrally organized party which supports its legitimacy by quoting Marxist dogma. Communism is not the opposite of democracy. The proper dichotomy is communism vs. capitalism. Yes, technically, Communism is an economic system rather than a political system, but we just can't escape the fact that the 20th Century has seen this big block of countries that have had a lot in common with one another and less in common with the rest of the world. In fact, this block has been one of the century's most distinctive cluster of countries, so it seems rather evasive to not set up a category to cover them.