The hard part seems to be for the workers to keep the means of production after they are taken. In all those examples, you end up with a leadership that owns everything nominally "on behalf of the people". If anything, democracy gets the closest to that ideal, a compromise with all it's flaws.

Well, it's rather patronising of of me to call that "the hard part", after all the terrible struggles workers have gone through to earn a seat at the table, but you know what I mean.