OK, I see what you mean now, thanks. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 11/10/2011 04:40:48 AM
Socialism is state control of most if not all sources of production. It is the form of economic system that the Soviet Union had.
The distinction between state industry and state controlled industry is a valid and important one.
Communism is defined (by the communists, no less) as the stage of development where the state withers away, money is no longer needed and all assets are held in common by the people. There is no example of a communist economic system ever having been implemented on a large scale. The closest thing that I can find is Nestor Makhno's anarchist collectives in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War.
Meh, the notion of a stateless dictatorship of the proletariat has always been semantic self indulgent rhetoric. Communisms subordination of individual persons to "the people" is a state straight out of social contract government whether or not anyone can admit it. "Anarchist collective" is almost a contradiction in terms, and the proletariat can have no power, dictatorial or otherwise, without organizations and hierarchies that are governments substance. Calling it "the party" rather than "the state" is, again, only semantics.