Marx, therefore, further refined the concept of a âtransition societyâ and introduced the idea that the development of communist society would take place in two phases. In the first stage, âsocialismâ as he called it, the commune state was still necessary both to defeat all attempts at counter-revolution and to reconstruct the international economic system on an egalitarian and planned basis.
Marx was too idealistic. He didn't account for what happens when you put people into power of this "dicatorship of the proletariat". Most people who get into power are not going to willingly give up power. You'll end up with self-proclaimed communist countries that are either stuck in this transition phase indefinitely, or end up abandoning it in favor of state capitalism.
Saying a state is Communist is shorthand for asserting that it's on the path to achieving Communism. It's an uncharted path with many obstacles so just saying "X government did this bad thing therefore it's not communist/socialist" is very unhelpful, and it really only makes any sort of sense in the context of arguing on the internet
Every country is a mixed economy. Capitalism/Communism as ideology is dumb (like most ideologies). The closest to a fully capitalist country was probably Somalia in the 90s.
I wish everyone would embrace this view so we could start talking implementation details instead of the endless ideological warfare. These capitalists and communists might as well just make a fucking church out of it already, so much dogma.