Before the terminology gets too tangled here, and so we can return a.s.a.p. to the thread theme:
“Socialism” isn’t really a useful term in this context when talking about contemporary politics. It originated with Marx and Engels, or more correctly was ‘funneled’ by them on the basis of earlier revolutionary movements with a concern for social issues. Put very basically, since the 1920s it has broadly diverged into communism and social democracy. Regarding these two, I don’t think anyone here is going to claim “they’re both the same”... (?). What can still be confusing, especially for people from some parts of the world, is that the terms “socialism” and “socialist” are now, or were until quite recently, used to refer to things so truly disparate as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, in contrast, the British Labour Party or the (West) German Social Democratic Party to give a couple of the many Western European examples. Both of which have frequently produced a few respectable Prime Ministers / Chancellors in recent generations. And who didn’t have any of their political opponents shot in the back of the head and flung into shallow graves, strangely enough.
Here in (Western) Europe, “socialist” is now usually (but not always, it’s true) a shorthand term for various shades of social democracy. When we’re talking about the USSR and its former satellite states, the PRC and similar we would normally say “communist”. Although in the former GDR (East Germany), they did indeed refer to their own state and politics as “socialist”. But that's now at least 30 years in the past. At the same time, people in West Germany mostly referred to the politics of East Germany as “communist”, and the Social Democrats in West Germany did too.
So to sum up, you’ll still find “socialist” used in various ways by citizens and by very different kinds of politicians, parties and states. Also by various groups or parties who in some way could be called "socialist", while some of these would totally reject each other’s ideologies and political practice. I think it would be constructive not to use it as blanket term at RSF, at least.
@ Peacedog. “National Socialism” and fascism were of course one and the same. And there was little practical difference between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, apart from living standards before the war of course. “Communist fascism” is not necessarily an oxymoron, it’s true! But otherwise, please refer to above.