It doesn't have to happen overnight, they could just provide greater support for trade unions and co-operatives.
And nationalisation of "private property" and land reforms have happened outside of communist governments, e.g. in Nasser's Egypt, the Mexican oil reserves, Mossadegh and the Iranian oil reserves, the Shah's White Revolution, etc.
My whole point is that communism and communist parties didn't need to be seen as some radical "other" system, but could have become more moderate as society gradually accepted strong trade unions, co-operatives, and nationalised resources without the Cold War (much like the transitions to parliamentary democracy). Unfortunately the Cold War polarised everything, and now we're stuck with a society where the existence of billionaire is sacrosant.
Because they never tried to make San Marino into a communist economy, seeing as how it is not really an independent nation with any kind of economic sovereignty. The only thing it does is sell its own postage stamps and sell some commemorative gold coins. It's a big castle surrounded by some vineyards. They make money from tourism and duty-free shopping, and of course tax-avoidance.
It's like if you elect a communist to be the leader of your Elks Lodge, and then praise his moderate communist rule.
They certainly did try to make San Marino a communist economy. It's just that they didn't think that this meant the immediate nationalisation of all property.
They were far from alone in doing so, notably Marx and Lenin agreed and advocated for similar trajectories, so it was far from a fringe position.
A popular communist program for developped countries is to remove all political influence as a result of money, encourage cooperatives, nationalizes key industries (as in China), and manage productive surpluses to provide for everyone, removing markets where they are zero sum of negative sum (housing, etc...), and coordinating markets for optimum growth, until the economy is developped enough that the entirety of the local economy can be ran as either part of the nationalizes sector or by cooperatives.
It's a fairly mild program when compared to Stalin. There is not really any reason to abolish private property until the economy is large enough that it can be fully run by the workers from a communist point of view - Stalin did it because he judged that heavy industry was not developing rapidly enough, which was a strategic judgement mostly on grounds of the preservation of the state (and therefore himself). Otherwise Lenin's policy of managed capitalism/socialism for a hundred years or so was in place.
And nationalisation of "private property" and land reforms have happened outside of communist governments, e.g. in Nasser's Egypt, the Mexican oil reserves, Mossadegh and the Iranian oil reserves, the Shah's White Revolution, etc.
My whole point is that communism and communist parties didn't need to be seen as some radical "other" system, but could have become more moderate as society gradually accepted strong trade unions, co-operatives, and nationalised resources without the Cold War (much like the transitions to parliamentary democracy). Unfortunately the Cold War polarised everything, and now we're stuck with a society where the existence of billionaire is sacrosant.
I mentioned San Marino because they were governed by the communist party for 10 years, and weren't so extreme - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammarinese_Communist_Party