I agree that the USSR was more democratic and worker-focused than Tsarist Russia, but saying they were definitely Communists and Socialists depends on your definition of those words. An originalist Marxist for example would vehemently disagree that they were communist because communism was envisioned as this pure ideal stateless society, the “end goal” to work towards. Statelessness is definitely no longer a requirement of communism for modern Marxists, but it used to be.

Not entirely true, actually. Marx was not an Anarchist, and often fought vehemontly against them. You may wish to visit Critique of the Gotha Programme. Communism, in Marx’s original view, would still have a Government, just not a State. The State for Marx is specifically the apparatus of government by which one class oppresses the others. Notably, the State according to Marx could only whither away globally, not in a single country. Marx himself would say the USSR was absolutely a Socialist state working towards Communism.

While this is definitely the case, people at the time had legitimate critiques of the USSR that may have led them to see it as “not true Communism,” see above. Wedges are driven into splits that already exist.

There were many issues with the USSR, and sometimes even bourgeois elements. However, it was fundamentally a Marxist state building towards Communism.

Because everyone seems to have their own unique definition of what Communism/Socialism is, saying that something is/isn’t socialist/communist should be taken more as an expression of that person’s values than a semantic argument. If someone says they are socialist and [insert government here] is not, what they are really saying is that there are aspects of [insert government here] that they disagree with to the point that it’s a dealbreaker for them.

This is unfortunately true, I see it many times, and generally this is sectarian nonsense that gets in the way of coalition building.