I get why you think of it as a direction and not a concrete definition. Seems like most people think of it that way, like when the government does stuff it's socialism and when it does alot of stuff it's communism.
Kills me that that's the way people think of it because of how unproductive it is but I get it...
I don't think anything is bloodless. Staying status quo and voting is super bloody with all the conflict and genocide going on too. I would like an end state that creates a better world for workers.
I'd argue the USSR was socialist and that they improved the lives of workers dramatically. That can be compared to the previous feudalist monarchy they had their bloody revolution against or the clown show capitalist country that took their place after.
I'm not saying the USSR was perfect and didn't commit any atrocities but I'd say they were one of the better countries for their time. I think there's a lot of propaganda, especially on the English internet about them. This is something I found a couple years ago that the CIA declassified mentioned Stalin not being a dictator and explained a bit of how the actual politics work.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf
I don't think me and you were going to get to the bottom of it, but if you weren't aware historians really contest whether or not the holodomor was intentional. What's funny to me is almost nobody knows about the Bengal famine which was done by Britain. Around the same time. It was racially targeted at Indian people and it killed nearly as many people but no one ever talks about it. Only bring it up to say the holodomor wasn't good. It was an atrocity regardless of if it was planned or incompetence but it's weird to me. How much we let it influence the legacy of the USSR as opposed to other countries with other atrocities.
In case you don't believe me, it's very contested:
I'm curious what you have against Xi?
As far as the uighur genocide, have you considered how weird it is that the same countries that are supporting Israel's genocide in Palestine are the ones calling out China for this?
At the same time there is shit like the link below that makes me wonder if genocide is apt or if the treatment of uyghurs is more similar to how black Americans are treated in America. It seems like there is extra prison time and use of Labor in prison, but it doesn't seem like a wholesale slaughter or cultural erasure.