Sorry which article did you want me to read? There are several links. The last one was a book on how women had better sex under socialism/communism, I assume you don't mean that :)

Yes, China has always "called" itself democratic. But there is only one political party. So it's an empty claim, similar to the "Yes" or "No" vote that Saddam Huessain rigged to show the world that Iraq was democratic.

So I'm not into labels. But what I am solidly against is central planning. You acknowledge Stalin's Gulag camps totalitarianism, but his other great sin was the Lenin-inspired central food supply that caused mass starvation among his own people - even the farmers of that food supply.

The only way to sustain any centrally planned economy is totalitarian force. You saw this in Russia with Lenin and Stalin, and you see this in North Korea, and China today. There is NO socialist country, that does not become a dictatorship within a generation. Venezuela is the clearest example of this; Maduro does not care how many of his own, fellow Proletariats starve; he cares about staying in power.

Successful governments are able to get out of the way. The US was a very good example of this during the dawn of the internet, telling Silicon Valley, "Organize yourselves or we will," and tech was able to set up a governance framework free from government inferference. This is why we all have high speed internet, smart phones, and not ONE state-run technology company overseeing all innovation, but dozens of companies that are competing with each other for top dog.