Indeed, their efforts to run the "Klingon culture is bad" thread got comically awkward in TNG, where they also really hammered on the multiculturalist "all cultures are equally valid" theme. All cultures... except for Klingons, whose barbaric and violent customs are just obviously inferior.
While there are elements of communism depicted in the Federation as a whole, those are facets of a global post-scarcity society that has somehow evolved beyond the less "progressive" bits of human behavior. I'd argue that the biggest fantasy of Star Trek isn't warp drive, but the notion that humans are somehow less violent than Klingons.