I don't think it's a tool for sowing division. There is a significant group of self-proclaimed socialists who proudly stan the Soviet Union and Mao's China, so I think it's more of a case of ideologies being more messy than they seem.

Personally, I don't care as much about the label themselves as I do about the relationships they describe behind.

Socialism isn't well-defined except that it's Not Capitalism and claims to be better than capitalism. Even Hitler called himself a socialist!