No, they are not ideologically communist. A ruling party is by definition not communist. They are diometrically opposed.

Being ideologically communist simply means that you believe the ideal society is a communist society. Theoretically, you could be the king of britain and still be a communist.

I’m sure there are many people who are members of communist parties who are not actual communists, but there are some true believers who think they are working towards a communist society in the far future by building up state power in order to “compete” with capitalist/imperialist forces.

Again, I doubt their methods will work. I don’t think you can work towards a stateless society by strenghtening the state. But I’m not gonna deny their ideals because I don’t like their approach.

There are virtually zero actually communist countries in the world. That is factually true.

I’m not a marxist, but this point doesn’t make sense to me. “Communist countries” aren’t called that because they have somehow managed to achieve a communist society (which would be impossible to exist in a capitalist world), but because they are ruled by a governent that is ruled by a group/party which is (or at the very least claims to be) ideologically communist…

Sure, but the scene is the first scene of the movie. There is nothing you can miss.

Except of course if you know anything about the movie or what it is about, but then it should be kinda obvious why they are shooting at the dog…