Why would having the means of production under workers' democratic control be unfair?

We've never witnessed genuine socialism except briefly - like the Menshevik part of the Russian February Revolution of 1917 before the Bolsjeviks under Lenin crushed the workers' councils and every socialist and democratic initiative in the October Revolution - so why should we consider ''socialism'' as a failure just because various dictatorships during the 20th century used ''socialism'' to describe their government? That they called themselves socialist is just as misleading as they used the word ''democratic'' to describe themselves. Socialism is the democratic control of the means of production and anything else with that label is tyranny under disguise.