because commy is a strong word

Try "proletocrat."

What I don;t get is why bother using ''non-proprietary'', i haven't heard of any proprietary libertarian socialists.

I always have better results with the "definition, then term" model where I explain my beliefs, then give the anarchist-communist name to them. If people really don't like the word even after knowing what it really means (which I find is rare), that's their problem. Besides, if you're thinking about ways to reach out to working-class people outside the activist sphere, the last thing we need to be doing is filling our language with even more confusing jargon and made-up words.

This topic comes up about every 2 months.

I can understand why 'communism' is widely perceived as a dirty word in some places. From experience, talking about communism in Eastern Europe is very difficult, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, the word communism - like any substitute we find for it - will always be stigmatised and/or misinterpreted by those who oppose the movement. The word communism references a history and vision of the future and I think is a 'label' to proudly promote.

This label promotion thing sounds lifestylist. I'm perfectly comfortable letting Leninists and their ilk suffer the stigma of "communism." Why fight the inevitable? It's more dialectical to work with it, use its own weaknesses.

I'm not advocating 'labelling' myself (my inverted commas were meant to indicate that this is how others might see it) or going on Commie Pride marches. I just don't think we should be ashamed of using a term which links to the history of the movement. Agree with Rev Tap's comment above.

Acracian? Acratocrat?

thanks to all of you, these responses have been very entertaining and have brought me a teary smile and hope. I especialy loved 'acratocrat.' I will try some of the others in the future.

Yes, proving that leninist capitalist dictatorships are the farthest thing from communism is very important. In addition, I still think we need other ways of reaching out even at risk of "be[ing] accused of trying to deceive people ."

If you want to switch words every time it becomes misrepresented by states and/or ideologues then you will probably never hold on to one for very long. Good luck. I'm still a - oh no! - communist. Not to mention that this phrase you've come up with sounds like shit.

Constantly changing names with the times was good enough in Marx's day (communism<->social democracy<->socialism etc..) What's wrong now? The aforementioned alternative are kind of lame, sure, but why fight for the sanctity of mere political brands? Fuck who you are, what are you doing, how are you doing it? You are fomenting revolution through class struggle, and that should be good enough for anyone.

I'm in agreement with the good reverend. The most important thing is the ideas, and terms for describing them are of secondary importance.

But at the same time the ideas of communism hold a great deal of appeal. (Indeed, the ruling class' debasement of the c word is only necessary because it's ideas are attractive.) Everybody wants to have more power over their own lives, to eliminate poverty and war, to create economic equality, to foster a more democratic society, and so on. Obviously these vague ideals are not the same thing as an actual communist theory, and most people have no conception of how to actually get to this better society, but at least communists and the average person tend to have some minimal agreement on what we should be striving for.

Another problem I've run into is that when trying to separate my actual political ideas from the morass of associations that the terms anarchism or communism call up is that people tend to confuse my denial of any commonality between my ideas and those of Stalin and Mao with a naive idealism that promotes a vision of a better society while ignoring the actual consequences of pursuing such a society. They think "sure, he may deny that the USSR is really communist, and anarcho-communism as he's describing it sounds great, but doesn't history show the futility of this vision?" Or the ubiquitous "communism/anarchism is a good idea in theory, but it doesn't work in practice and only leads to gulags" type shit.

The only solution to this type of confusion is to offer examples of "real" communism in practice and not as an abstract set of ideals.

Yeah, I agree hopping to a new term won't solve the problem. In fact language is filled with words originally designed to serve as neutral descriptors that acquire negative connotations because of a hostility to the underlying concept. (Idiot, cretin, and retard for example.)

Words have social and historical contexts that you ignore at your peril. If you want to communicate with people you're going to have to adapt your approach so as not to completely alienate them. While "communist" may be the best word to describe your politics it carries extremely unpleasant associations for many people and brings to mind totalitarian dictatorships. Refusal to acknowledge this and adapt to the situation will only limit the spread of communist ideas. I mean, the swastika had many other meanings before it was used by the Nazis, but anyone who tries to use it in the West as a symbol of eternity or whatever is going to run into a lot of unnecessary confusion and hostility.

Of course, the word "communism" isn't as irrevocably tainted as the swastika to serve as a descriptor, and I agree with you that substituting euphemisms for "communist" is ridiculous and counterproductive. I also agree that we shouldn't pander to or try to deceive those we enter into dialogue with. But ignoring the problems with the word in favor of a "if they're too ignorant to know the REAL meaning of communism then fuck 'em" approach is simply political suicide.

even in eastern europe?

revol68 wrote:

i'm a communist, if the wider working class can't get beyond knee jerk reactions to words it's not likely to do fuck all revolutionary anyway.

right because the proper use of words is the necessary prerequisite to doing 'fuck all revolutionary.'
sorry pal but a lot of the most radical revolutionary acts in history were carried out by people who could hardly talk, read or write.
you don't really need piles of ideology and discourse to be pissed off enough to rise up and make a change.
but i guess if you're a communist, you wouldn't understand revolution anyway. communists aren't revolutionaries. they don't want to abolish hierarchies, all they want to do is flip em upside down so they stay just as they are but get stamped with a bunch of totalitarian pigs' faces standing in a row, draped with red flags, and generally made to look stupid. then they get right back down to exploiting you, making you work constantly, produce produce produce, compulsively, and spreading 'marxist-leninist-mao-tse-tung thought' or whatever
fuck all those guys. if you want to see revolution, quit looking for it in a bunch of stupid books and get out in the streets. people are pissed off right now, and they don't need any isms to do something about it. they need to be spontaneously creative, and all your communist shit will do is make them compulsively productive.
jive ass.

I agree with this part.

This part is total shit. Revol (and all the other communists on this board) bear no resemblance to your bad caricature of authoritiarian "communism". Either you are completely ignorant of what people on Libcom mean by communism (in which case I refer you, for starters, to this) or you're just being intentionally stupid.

wtf you agree that lots of revolutionary acts where carried out by people who could hardly talk?
I'm guessing you didn't mean that, but i just couldn't leave that be.

anarchyjordan you talk a lot of shit, you seriously need to learn something about communism before you start insulting people who call them self's communists, it also looks like you know fuck all about anarchism.
To start with Leninists are not communists, Leninists include Trotskyists, Stalinists and Maoists.
Secondly the USSR and other "Communist" countries where state capitalist not communist. Even Lenin admitted this, although he claimed that was socialism.

As far as theory goes, it helps us to workout what is wrong with the world, what works to change it and what kind of world we want to create. If we don't think about this beforehand then at best nothing will change and at worst you get something like the USSR again.
Also as far as I can tell the most successful revolutions happened where anarchist/communist theory was most widely known, if people are ignorant of the theory that just makes it easier for authoritarians to gain or maintain power.