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Communists view socialism as a transitional or developmental stage in preparation to communism. So a party or person can be communist and also be a socialist. There are historically many different types of socialism however. Not just Marxist. Someone who is a socialist but not a communist views their brand of socialism as an end in itself. All communists of the Marxist persuasion are socialists but not all socialists are communists.

I start from the orthodox Marxist view from Engels, where they are largely synonyms. From Engels’ 1888 preface to the English edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

Thus the history of the Manifesto reflects the history of the modern working-class movement; at present, it is doubtless the most wide spread, the most international production of all socialist literature, the common platform acknowledged by millions of working men from Siberia to California.

Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, [See Robert Owen and François Fourier] both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the “educated” classes for support. Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself Communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still, it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class to produce the Utopian communism of Cabet in France, and of Weitling in Germany. Thus, in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.

However, I also think it useful, starting from the synonymous view, to consider a difference between:

1. the most local socialism/communism in the worker coöperative commercial enterprise (a.k.a. communist enterprise) and the geographical residential commune immediate surrounding of our households, which I call specifically communism, with an organ/instrument/institution of a communist Commonwealth serving the polis of the local jurisdiction (the commune as it’s called today and in Marx’s time in France).

And

1. the umbrella socialism/communism where resides the “few but important functions which would still remain for a central government” (Marx), which I call specifically socialism, with an organ/instrument/institution of the socialist Commonwealth serving the polis of the umbrella jurisdiction.

The socialist and communism in this sense are symbiotic. The direct democracy of the communism keeps the delegate representative democracy of the socialism in check, and the universal rights, the securing of the equal imprescriptible rights of all, managing and hedging all customary risks, and in general maximizing of the social welfare — all through strict and equal rule of law in the socialism —complements and eases the political tasks of the communism. Together the socialism and communism ensure the common resources and all other common affairs are all administered in keeping with the concerns of society (faithful to the polis, as in the universal body of all persons on the jurisdiction).

The whole thing is semantics that they invented so that they could distract us while they seize power and then destroy everything.

We should just start linking to previous times questions have been asked

Did Marx advocate for One global union structure?

Socialism means the nationalization of key industries, whereas "Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat." — Friedrich Engels

Socialism is defined by Marx as the stepping stone to communism, and the first major goal on the way to a communist society

Communism is a variety of socialism

Communism is a system in which there is no class and property division, no government, and all decisions are made collectively by all citizens. Socialism is a society in which the state, elected by the citizens, directs the distribution of goods produced by the citizens among the citizens themselves. There is a state apparatus and a political leadership elected by the citizens. As you can see, the difference is significant.

To simplify it, two communities from the Star Trek series can be considered an example from the mass culture. The United Federation of Planets is a socialist state, and Q continuum is a communist state. As you can see, there is a very large evolutionary gap between them.

TLDR; Nop

Socialism is a broad umbrella of ideas about collective ownership or control of major industries. There are many forms of socialism, ranging from democratic socialism (which supports elections, civil liberties, and mixed economies) to more centralized state socialism.

Communism is a specific, more radical branch of socialism that aims (in theory) for a classless, stateless society with no private ownership. In Marx’s view, socialism is a transitional stage, where the state still exists and manages production, while communism is the end goal, where the state and class divisions disappear.

In practice, many countries that called themselves "communist" (like the USSR, China or Cuba) were actually state socialist (even state capitalist) systems, not the stateless, classless communism Marx described.

Technically across socialist history it’s been a variable question. Marx and early theorists used them interchangeably.