You know the rule among socialists. Every socialist politician is more socialist than the other socialist politician. Every socialist regime never practiced socialism.
German socialists hated Hitler, even though Hitler was heavily involved in the German socialist movement until he came up with his own version of socialism. When he rose to power, the German socialists turned on Hitler.
The same story happened in Italy with Mussolini. Mussolini strayed from the Italian socialists when he created fascism. The Italian socialist killed him for it.
Debs was running for president in the Socialist Party. He had to discredit Wilson's socialist leanings.
Wilson hated the Constitution. He wanted to throw it out. He was clearly part of the early 20th century Progressive movement.
Wilson said, "We ought to regard ourselves and act as socialists -- believers in the wholesomeness and beneficence of the body politic"
He also said "You cannot tear up the ancient rootage and safely plant the tree of liberty in soil that is not native to it"
And: "No government has ever been beneficent when the attitude of government was that it was taking care of the people. The only freedom consists in the people taking care of the government."
These are his ideas of socialism. While other socialists might favor what Wilson said, after all he was a hero to the Democrat party until recently when the Dems started cancelling everyone out of our history who was a racist and Wilson was the most racist president since Andrew Jackson.
There is a problem that all socialists have. They cannot recognize socialism in other forms of collectivism. Marx build his version of communism on socialism. Hitler patterned Nazism after Marx and socialism. Mussolini also patterned fascism on socialism. Mao on Marx and socialism.
All of those systems of government are built on the same foundation and that foundation is socialism. It drives socialists, communists, Nazis and fascists crazy when you say that because they are caught in the minutia but they all have the same foundation. And that foundation is limited or no private property, the economy is controlled by the government. Businesses are either owned or co-owned with controlling interest by the government. Labor sets the price of products, not competition. The individual is expendable, only the collective matters.
In order to get the people onboard with these regimes there must be an oppressed and an oppressor.