Yeah nah communism is by definition stateless, no other adjectives needed.

Socialism comes about when the working class seizes power. Full stop. Working class not in control? Not managing production? Ain't socialist.

But you're correct in thinking that socialism - the working class having seized power - does not necessarily mean the absence of the state. In the Marxist sense, the socialist worker's state exists essentially as a transitional period. As frameworks and modes of production change, the role of the state changes, with the end point being a classless, stateless society - communism.

You seem to be stuck on the idea that USSR = Communism, and that since the USSR was a state, communism has states. But even looking only specifically at the USSR, you're wrong. The USSR, despite communism being the ruling ideology, did not label itself a communist state, because there's no such thing. It's right there in the name - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was to be - nominally, at the very least - a transitional socialist state with communism as the goal.

Anywho I'm not here to argue the goods and bads and whether the USSR was socialist in the strict sense etc etc, I'm just pointing out that, even in the definition of the state you are most associating communism with, states cannot be communist.

But textbook definitions don't really amount to much honestly, what matters is understanding material conditions and how those conditions inevitably create change. So to your other point - socialismis a transition period, like it or not, due to changing conditions and methods of production shifting the way that society is organized.

Don't get economic systems and systems of state governance mixed up here. A given state may not by intent be "transitioning" towards anything, sure. Doesn't matter. The hypothetical state in question may resist with all its might, but at the end of the day, the state gets no say.

All economic systems, good and bad, are transitional whether or not a state utilizing any given system wants it to be. The government of France didn't sit down one day and think "hey let's cut it out with this feudalism stuff, yeah?" Material conditions, changing relations of production, and the working class made it happen. This'll be the same way it happens with capitalism, and the same way it'll happen with socialism.