They talk about it like that because that is how the propaganda both Pro and against talk about it. The fact is Soviet Russia and China started out basically as forms of marxist leninism. They aspired to be communist but weren’t. But they loved the word. And used it a lot. It’s like Nazis having socialist in the name. It didn’t make them socialist.
Practicing communists? Look towards communes. They are the only groups actually practicing communism. Whether they were the hippie communes Bohemian communes etc. Those are what communism in general would look like. Not explicitly but overall. Each commune is its own group that governs itself but could cooperate with similar outside groups. Soviet Russia and China were never communist in any sense.