[bell-cot]

The USSR was economically socialist, ideologically communist, and politically somewhere on the autocracy-dictatorship spectrum. (That last varied over time, as is normal for such governments. Underlings always want autocracy, which means more power for them. The top guy almost always wants an absolute dictatorship.)

There were plenty of communists who didn't like that last part - but they were brutally purged by the autocratic-dictatorial faction. Famously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky

I'd blame the angry, simplistic Western denunciations of anything vaguely resembling communism (including socialism) on the Western monied classes. Whether Old Money, Plutocrats, Wall Streeters, wanna-be's, sycophants, or whatever - those folks generally hate any idea which might mean less for them, and more for the 99%.