Obfuscation around terminology is part of the game with the commies of today, especially with the pervasive use of "socialism" instead of "communism", but I've long believed that it would be of great benefit if opposing public figures explained what exactly each of those terms mean, revealing that
socialism has always been the worst part of the whole scheme. It's actually very simple:
- Communism - the utopian dream in which there is no government and everyone lives in harmony with shared resources, hence "real communism has never been tried"
- Socialism - the society in which the government owns and "redistributes" everything, historical examples including the Soviet Union and Maoist China.
- Marxism - Karl Marx's proposed process of transitioning society from capitalism to communism by way of socialism, tending to get stuck at the socialism part for some reason
Unfortunately, the historical, prominent use of the term "communist" was actually a misnomer that has contributed to the common misconception and downplaying of what a socialist is today. In truth, the communists of the 20th century were called as such for their suggested utopian end goal when it would've been more correct to call them socialists since that's what they (wanted to) practice.