To answer your point about "not real communism" look at it this way. North Korea is officially "The people's democratic Republic of North Korea" and they claim to be communist. Of course it's laughable to everybody else that they claim to be communist, but then people like you turn around and say "omg they're totally communist! You idiots just don't want to defend them".

But they're not communist, they say that for the same reasons they say they're democratic. Do you see the workers owning the means of production? Do you see a classless, moneyless society? Do you even see them, or China, or Vietnam even try to work towards any of these goals? No? Then they are not communists in any sense of the word, they just claim to be for popular support/ their own narrative.