Without writing an even longer essay:
Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal')[1][2] is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state.[7][8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Some communists like Trotsky would say that what the Soviet Union had until ~1954 was Stalinism, not communism.
Stalin starved a lot of people by collectivizing farms and confiscating crops. See Holomodor.
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems[1] characterised by social ownership of the means of production,[2] as opposed to private ownership.[3][4][5] It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems.[6] Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative,[7][8][9] or employee.[10][11] As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is the standard left-wing ideology in most countries.[12] Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.[13][14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
All the systems I know or have heard of make a distinction between personal property like furniture and private property like ownership of factories or whole industries.
Democratic socialism represents any socialist movement that seeks to establish an economy based on economic democracy by and for the working class. Democratic socialism is difficult to define and groups of scholars have radically different definitions for the term. Some definitions simply refer to all forms of socialism that follow an electoral, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism rather than a revolutionary one.
Social democracy is a socialist tradition of political thought.[147][148] Many social democrats refer to themselves as socialists or democratic socialists and some such as Tony Blair employ these terms interchangeably.[149][150][151] Others found "clear differences" between the three terms and prefer to describe their own political beliefs by using the term social democracy.[152] The two main directions were to establish democratic socialism or to build first a welfare state within the capitalist system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Democratic_socialism_and_social_democracy
My own take is that capitalism is economic feudalism. It arose when European countries were building empires. It relies on stolen labor. The African slave trade arose to provide abundant free labor for the nascent capitalists. In modern America, the average worker sees only about 5% of the value of teir labor.
I see socialism as economic democracy, where we have no "kings of industry", and planning occurs for the whole social body, not just the owner class.
Yes, it's complicated. But if I had to give a one sentence answer, I would say that communism has more State power.
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