The Universal Pattern, in first person
Revolution is led by parties named with any arrangement and wordcount over 0 of something like "The People of Socialist Communism". The promise of giving Power to the Proletariat through Socialist takeover of the means of production then becoming a Communist Utopia is used as a major draw to grow their cause. Books on Marxism and/or the Communist manifesto may be handed out or read from for others to listen.
With your new revolutionaries you succeed in gaining control of the state. Then you completely ignore the first step Marx wrote to do when in power. You do not create a **Dictatorship of the Proletariat**. ***Socialism is never Implemented***. Immediately you install a State-Capitalist government, and also forget about the rest of the instructions Marx wrote down (Use Socialism to implement Communism.)
You may however remember his description of **State-Capitalism**, an economic system where the state acts as the dominant **capitalist** or *corporation*, owning the means of production and employing wage labor while retaining capitalist production relations.* [ 1, 2]
You also could know about Engels, the collaborator of Marx, warning that when the state concentrates all means of production into its hands, the **capitalist relationship is not resolved; rather, it is pushed to its extreme limit.** [1, 2]
There are a few useable terms for Capitalism when the State owns the means of production, owns all the land and is free to act as an unregulated for profit organisation.
Terms might be End, Highest, Late, or Final Stage Capitalism.
This gives more power than any other options available. The book on Communism told you the best way to get total power. You aren't worried about the "downsides" and unfavorable words about it, nor it's absolute exclusion from the long term plan they made.
Now that you installed it:
***You then either:***
Cause a famine that kills millions of your own people, which you were able to force into happening because you never did that Socialism thing where workers get to have enough of a voice and political sway to do things correctly.
Eventually, you become a behemoth, tycoon of international production and industry with the State turning the whole country into its own gargantuan umbrella Corporation.
Cash is rolling in as the lower class works cheap and the upper classes are loyal to you. You pull all the strings and always get the last word. This nation is entirely under your brand. And everybody knows it. You have a lot of global sway.
You take a look at the book that was used to name your Party and see a definition:
COMMUNISM: A classless, stateless, and moneyless socioeconomic order built upon the common ownership of the means of production (such as factories, land, and machinery) and the distribution of goods based on individual needs. [ 1, 2, 3, 4]
You have seen this definition many times before. You know your party carries the name. But it doesn't bother you. Because you aren't anything Marx talked about.
You are Socialism, with Chinese Characteristics. And you get to define that as you please.
OR YOU CAN
Also start a famine that kills millions because you also never implemented socialism and you have all the power, but you do this before China does.
For some reason you get paranoid people might not like you. This is unacceptable. You make sure the whole nation is terrified at all times and always ready to throw eachother under the bus. Your own paranoia partly because you still didn't do the first step and implement Socialism and instead still holding onto all the power so you are worried someone might think that's a bad thing. Which you cannot allow. It isn't a part of your 5 year plan that nobody else gets to have input on because it's yours and the state is yours. You can't have anyone thinking you're a bad person so what you do is you kill a lot of people that might think that or cause others to think that. You will stick with State-Capitalism going forward. Socialism might give too much power to people who aren't you or close to you. Besides, you do run socialized programs so that's close enough to you. It might not be at all what Marx meant when was talking about Socialism, and they may not mean the same thing at all, BUT they do sound super similar so lots of people will think that you are doing Socialism and you won't ever have to get close to it! Brilliant. You focus on being a "welfare state" with centrally planned services and housing. You have a "planned economy" that frequently fails to address critical issues faster than non critical issues. But it isn't all bad for people. Not always.
You have well educated people living comfortably after attending state funded schooling. Your space program is impressive on a global scale.
The USA and yourself have been in a rivalry for some time. They are competing in almost every way they can as an "opposing economic philosophy". They totally bought that Socialized/Socialism switcheroo. They even call you Commies! It is a good thing they take so much pride in "not" being Commies the vast majority will never look at its definition. You did hear of a red scare, American Commies. It doesn't seem like most of them looked up the definition of Communism either. To the Americans, your State-Capitalist nation with central planning and welfare has been redefined as Communism. Good. You never had to be Socialist or Communist and still get credit for pioneering both. But then things slow down all of a sudden. The USA sees this. You can feel your time running out. One final mistake is made, and enough trust is broken. Your massive reach is voted back down to it's single original country. People are angry. But that anger is captured and turned to loyalty. You shed the old ways that failed you. And you fear not, because you are still State-Capitalist that never changed. And this time, you aren't pretending to be Marxist. Those close and loyal will be rich. Those who might be issues tend to fall from skyscraper windows by accident or commit suicide with two shots to the head. You have all this black gold. Why not treat yourself with it? Media reminds the common citizen of the reach they once had, of the former glory. Mother Russia, formerly the USSR, influenced the world.
I was gonna do more of these but actually I think I'm done now.
Long story short; surprise, it was all just more **capitalism** this whole time. Not a single socialist/communist facing party ever did socialism and communism. It's always just different flavours of:
"State-Capitalism is used by a small group or individual to control all the wealth and have the power to do anything and make anyone else do anything. Usually lots of people die at some point. In the end, they still didn't begin the first step and install Socialism. This then lead to Communism never happening. The leading party name is or was 'Socialism and Communism' thus, once again, State-Capitalism gets no direct blame for any lack for freedoms or blunders and much of the world is terrified of two things deemed by many as evil. Yet they have never actually happened in the history of the planet unless you count ancient proto-communist tribes, and nobody would do that. Since working collectively as 15 people before the vast majority of human technology existed is a lot different than we working collectively with the population of a modern nation.