And were would you put European countries such as Germany on that scale?      It would take days for just a handful of us to come to a common agreement of what socialism means, let alone communism.  

China is communist in form, just as Russia once called themselves Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.  Those nations have little in common with the socialist Democracies of western Europe.  Germany is not Venezuela.

I think all those labels are going to change in meaning - again.   Problems solvers, like yourself, would benefit from not being put in a 'box/label' that creates a ton of presumption about your bias.   When we let ourselves get labeled it just creates barriers to mutually beneficial solutions.   I'm working on avoiding labeling, but man it's hard in today's political environment.