Mao and Stalin proudly referred to their politics as communist. Americans find it convenient to refer to it as socialist, thus blanketing everything to the left of capitalism as of a piece with those blood-soaked tyrants. I will go further and say that Ho Chi Minh and the state he created were also communist.
Western Europe has been running what are in essence social democracies for several decades - for instance, with universal healthcare. Anyone is of course welcome to refer to this as failed socialist experiments, but I see value there which the United States - with, for instance, its crap healthcare statistics and extreme wealth inequalities - does not match.
OK, that's my 2c.
Oh - I'll just add, with Orwell, that language matters.
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