I don't think it does anyone any good to throw around naive and simple terms like communism. Focus on issues like public healthcare, breaking monopolies, basic incomes, and so on. We'll get along a lot better that way.

What is is today is state sponsored capitalism. You have cronyism, nepotism, lobbying and rent seeking. All of which are also found in the US.

China's social spending is far lower than many other developed nations.

But generally, people still remember the Soviet concentration camps, censorship, shortages of basic goods and the inborn corruption that came with the Soviet implementation of communism.

Communism ideologies seem to thrive among the young in (pseudo) democratic societies. That’s a paradox for me, as communism seems to exist because of the wealth distribution that capitalism creates.

Now, what the EU is doing right now with all that bureaucratic machine and the leftist social agenda, is another topic.

They're more capitalist than we (the West) ever were. Communism is basically only something that remains in the name of the party. Their version of capitalism just has a lot more state involvement and capital controls, which lets them plan over longer time horizons more successfully and pivot to new priorities much faster.