“Democratic Socialism is the same thing as Communism, achieved by a different path.”
Terms like “free enterprise” and “capitalism” don’t need the modifier “democratic”, because it’s automatically assumed. Putting “Democratic” and “Socialist” together defines a paradox, or an oxymoron, or a brief period in the descent to absolute slavery.
No, no paradox. Hence the difference between “democracy” and “republic”.
Woodrow Wilson saw democracy and socialism as “one and the same” actually, as did Marx and Engels who claimed that the communist revolution would set up “a democratic constitution” through which their imaginary “proletariat” would become the ruling class.