No, it wasn't.
If you've read a lot of Marx then you'll know that the abolition of the value form and the abolition of the class system are pretty much the principle standards for the achievement of communism, and a country like China which has taken absolutely zero steps towards said abolition cannot be said to be communist by any real standard that would be recognised by Marx, or indeed Engels.
It's fair to say, if you want, that communism is a conceptual failure because it can't be implemented and collapses into state capitalism. But it's another thing to just say ''oh yeah communism is when things get corrupt.''