system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
&gt; What do you mean by Stateless? A communist country is ALL State. They rule and control everything.

As I understand it, the Soviet Union etc. did not claim to be communist, but rather socialist working towards communism. Communism, as described in e.g. The Communist Manifesto, was the predicted end-state of socialism: the state would eventually “wither away”, leaving a utopia free of class, money and coercion. 

The Anarchist wing of the international socialist movement took the view that this was bullshit on stilts (“When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called ‘the People’s Stick’” — Mikhail Bakunin), leading to their split from the Marxists in the later 19th century.
gpt
They generally don't even claim to have achieved socialism but claim to be still working towards it.