Even just reading the abstract would make it clear why I sent you that link.
Those countries does/did not operate as communist states the way that Marx and other political theorists imaginend them.
The article details the way in which socialist theory has been implemented throughout points in history and compares and contrasts with the modern Chinese methods. It is not "just a label" as you casually threw out earlier. China has used the productive forces of capital to rapidly modernize, however they do not allow capital to be turned into political power which results in a government that is shielded from a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie forming like we have in every capitalist country. Their capital accumulation is actually used to massively better the lives of the people who live there because they have a real say in what goes on.