in a marxist framework, the revolutionary period is something that cannot be extended or terminated at will, it is produced by material conditions, and the duration is not decided by any leaders, but rather by whether or not class antagonism persists.

societies develop through contradictions between productive forces and relations of production and when they become unsustainable, things intensify until the ruling class is overturned. marx would argue that such a state cannot legitimize itself forever by rhetoric alone, because political superstructures ultimately depend on material relations, and if the proletariat no longer exists as a class, the state loses its function and withers away, if the state persists, that indicates unresolved class structures, not a valid permanent transition, essentially eternal revolution is impossible under the correct material conditions

That logic defines the Revolution by its outcome rather than by how it's conducted, so it's one big No True Scotsman Falacy were the One True Socialist revolution is the one which yields a state were all class structures are resolved and there is no state, and you only know that's the case when you get that outcome: per that theory is perfectly possible to have a Revolution were the "rulling class is overturned" following a period of "contradictions between productive forces and relations of production" "becoming unsustainable" resulting in there being "no state" and yet there still being at least in part "unresolved class structures" and a "proletariat as a class".

In fact both the Soviet Union and "Communist" China both quickly showed that their "Revolution Of The Proletariat" wasn't really The One Socialist Revolution as after the initial period of "no state" during the initial stage a "state" once again arose (which is, for example, what managed how food was grown and distributed) and there were clearly people who worked and got some benefit alongside other people who "led" and even got greater benefits (i.e. there was a "working class" and a "ruling class") thus showing that the "no state" phase of the Revolution was reached with"unresolved class structures" hence was not the true Socialist Revolution.

All of this feeds into my original point: Socialism is not a plan to successfully reach Communism, it's more of a Manifesto which basically says that amongst many ways (possibly an infinite number of ways) which are not correct, there is a correct way to have a Revolution that results in Communism, though one has to somehow "resolve all class structures" including eliminating a "proletariat as a class", and how to do that is exactly the hard part to figure out which is left for others to do, which is such a typically way to "pass the hot potato" rather than address the devil in the details.

It's funny because I have a background in Science and one in Engineering and that stuff is like Alcubierre coming up with a Mathematical proof that one can travel faster than light and leaving the hard details (namelly how to transform a planet the size of Jupiter into energy to actually power said Alcubierre drive) to somebody else - yeah, sure, nice to know it's possible, but without the actual details of how to make it happen it's totally useless.