Everyone thinks communists are like Nazis

I think we've gone over this so many times already.

Link to a thread would be useful, one set of old hands may have seen a discussion repeated till they're sick of it, but for some of us it's fresh material.

That's how it will always be! I don't understand "we've done this to death" posts, because "we" is a constantly changing quantity

I think most people can work out that "anarcho-communism" has nothing to do with Stalinism.

You want a bet? I have spent hours debating the meaning of communism and anarchism with non-politicos. The former is inseparable from Stalinism, and the latter from US Libertarianism. Joining the words together is an "oxymoron".

Jodi Dean speaks a lot about this in her book 'The Communist Horizon'. She claims that the word/ signifier 'communism' is important to retain both for historical reasons (working class struggles/ revolutions) and because it contains the notion of commonness/ being-in-common which is the most effective idea to be juxtaposed with the individualism of capital. She says that we need to re-articulate/ redefine communism in public discourse, that is to say fight for it also at the symbolic level.

I think it's preferable for a person I'm talking to to be confused but perhaps intrigued rather than assuming I'm promoting either Stalinist dystopia or random chaos. Though, in general, I try to avoid -isms like the plague in political conversation with non-communists.

It dependes a lot on who you are talking to, some people won't change their views no matter what.

I suppose a useful way to look at the issue would be: is there any point in attempting a "correction" when we see erroneous nonsense being spread, like on the linked CIF page? And if so, what is the best approach?

This isn't a particularly new thing perpetuated by pillocks in the comment pages of the Grauniad. This seems to go way back to the late 40s, at least. I've been reading up on the post WW2 communist witch-hunts in the US (and mostly about those in Hollywood). From what I can piece together it went something like this:

[Apologies if this is too long.]

The US had entered WW2 on the same side as the USSR, and consequently had to put the breaks on its anti-communist propaganda until after the war, and simultaneously had to crank up the anti-fascist propaganda. This was a sore point with some in Hollywood who had been quite openly pro-Nazi - and who now had to put up not only with anti-fascist propaganda, but also some quite blatant pro-communist propaganda (like the 1943 film, The North Star).

After the war, the focus turned back to anti-communist propaganda - but by that time it was no longer cool to be openly pro-fascist after several years of intense anti-fascist propaganda (both in Hollywood and the newspapers). The former fascists, who were always virulently anti-communist, started to cunningly make use of all the anti-fascist propaganda, and began using the term "Red Fascism" to refer to communism - and generally worked hard to conflate communism with fascism.

When Howard Hughes, owner of RKO Pictures, saw an early unreleased version of The Whip Hand, 1951 - which featured a plot involving escaped Nazis developing a deadly virus with Adolf Hitler making an appearance at the end - Hughes insisted that scenes by reshot to turn the Nazis into communists. So in the final version they became communist ex-Nazis.

[NB: When I use the term "communist" above, I mean it in a very general and stupid way, which is the way it was used back then (and still is today), combining everything from Soviet Russia, the CPUSA, socialism (in general), trade unionism, the civil rights movement, social democracy, Roosevelt's New Deal, and the Democrat party and liberals in general. (And it would include us too!) The US fascists in particular used their anti-communism as much as anything as an excuse to attack the New Deal and the Democrats (as well as the unions) - which they regarded as dangerously communist. Others, particularly racists in the South, would use anti-communism to attack the civil rights movement.]

Now, at the risk of undermining everything I've just said, its also worth noting that Ninotchka, a 1939 anti-communist romantic comedy (an anticomromcom ), seems to also conflate Soviet communism with Naziism. During a scene near the beginning, three Soviets are at a train station waiting to meet their superior, who they've never seen before (and don't realize is a woman). They see a man get off the train, and immediately assume him to be their superior. One says "Yes! He looks like a comrade!" and all of them look impressed by the man. They head over to meet him, but the man is intercepted by a woman and the pair exchange Nazi salutes and Heil Hitlers. Do you see that they did there, the cunning monkeys!? (The film makers weren't exactly subtle, and at one point the title character says, referring to the Stalinist purges, "The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians." As I said, a romcom.)

Yeah, as Agent said, it has been mulled over many times - but there is a reason: autogestion is right. These words kill us.
I've been in a few discussions about this problem lately and their has been a certain amount of agreement that in Britain possibly the term syndicalism is the only untainted - possibly because people are unfamiliar with the term.
However, at some time or other you have to describe what you're about and some words - to date - are going to either be used or replaced.
I reckon people join things that win to a certain degree; if communist unions fought and won strikes, raised wages and improved terms and conditions, then sure as eggs are eggs, we'd see large communist unions (how long they maintained their radical edge with a membership largely consisting of fair weather friends is debatable).
Providing the descriptive word means something tangible and positive, and brings a sort of pride and class power, then people may once again start to identify with words like communism. Reclaiming words often needs a reason; these misunderstandings shame and wound us in our small circles, but even though there is a general misunderstanding out there, we can only prove them wrong by making our politics a workplace and community reality.

One of the problems with trying to replaces the words anarchism or communism is that it leaves you more open the being accused of being anarchist or communist, because the politics of communism under any other name are the same its possible to take specific elements of those politics, show there association with communism and thus demonies the new word as communism in disguise. So i don't think tryig to hide that we are communists works.

Yes, though there are certain touch words that can open the door to more workers without having to deal with the baggage that propaganda has injected into communism and anarchism, and why does anyone need to say them anyways? Out of the various struggles going on, once they escalate and coalesce into a broader anti-capitalist movement with a lot of momentum, then those words might be more useful. But if it's not a huge societal struggle, then capitalism isn't threatened as a totality, and so they're somewhat irrelevant, even though communism is made up of a thousand different little communizations. It's definitely good to at least emphasize the tangible benefits of communism, worker and community autonomy, rather than call it what it is, which is just using the language of what ideologues and politicians have been using and tainting for hundreds of years.

The name is important for the reasons in #6. We shouldn't have to renounce our language because the class enemy has appropriated it as a bad word, that is a capitulation. We also shouldn't renounce it because it includes the idea of the common and refers back to the experience of the Commune.

That said, we can't be ignorant of how we play out to non-communists who might be sympathetic or latent communists themselves. Representing ourselves in a non-alienating way is a real problem...but I'm not sure if that problem lies with the word themselves.

In the post by omen #10 there were numerous good examples of the how capitalism has (con)fused the terms ‘communist/red’ and ‘Nazi/fascist’ into near identical concepts. However I don’t think they had to work too hard to do so as they did not invent the spectacle of Stalinist leaders in Red Square watching the parades of tanks, the Nazis saluting the goose-stepping soldiers, or the slave labour camps, etc., etc.

A wee while ago talking with a workmate, he used the word communism and I’d use the word Stalinism. After a bit he said he didn’t know anything about Stalinism. I replied that he seemed to know a great deal and it was communism of which he was ignorant.
In my experience the best one can do to undermine some of the ‘common sense’ assumptions behind political labels is by asking pointed questions and giving people time to think about the contradictions in their understanding while being prepared to admit one’s own mistakes.

i am personally a staunch anti communist (communist) . why use the word? words mean what the mainstream says they mean, we cant change that, instead we should just accommodate ourselves to common terminology. i also think anarchism should go too . call ourselves libertarian socialists i say , its a non alarming phrase.

vicent #16

It is wishful thinking to think that by adopting an ‘ambiguous’ label you will not be recognised.

A few months ago a woman a member of the SPGB told me she was explaining ‘Socialism’ to someone and was told “That’s communism!” In the nineteen sixties George Williamson and some other members of Solidarity were labeled as anarchists in the local Glasgow press.
And so it goes – you can define your politics in your own terms though others will label you as they think fit.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. There is a reason the capitalist class has gone to great lengths to give the word "communism" a bad name and it's not because Stalin was a ratbag. Rather, they want people to associate the abolition of capitalism with a vicious totalitarian regime. Similarly, they want to associate the abolition of the State with chaos and violence.

Our task is to win the argument to redefine the concepts of Anarchism and Communism in the public mind. It will be a slow process, but being open about it means that we can't be accused of it. When we reach the size that gets a meaningful number of capitalists scared, they will turn their propaganda machine on us. At that point, it would be a disaster if the fact that we are Anarchists and/or Communists was news to people who were not part of the movement, but sympathetic to it. When the capitalists turn their propaganda machine on us, we need everyone who knows us to say "Hey, this isn't the Communism I know".

One tactic I use to deal with some of the people who are more resistant than usual to making the distinction between Stalinism & Communism is to make a two part argument. The first part is to show that the classical definition of Communism, which is the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs", never applied in the USSR. There wasn't even an attempt to do it.

The next step is to say that, since the people running the USSR didn't meet any objective test of being Communists, the only reason to call them that is that they used the term themselves. Then you ask your sceptic whether they think that the Communist Party were truthful. Of course, they will denounce them as inveterate liars. You then forcefully agree with them. The people running the USSR lied about the news and they lied about history; they lied about art and they lied about science; they lied about industry and they lied about agriculture; they lied about war and they lied about peace; they lied about their friends and they lied about their enemies.

By this stage, you will have your sceptic agreeing with you emphatically. And then you turn their own momentum against them. You say, "Well, since they lied about everything else, why should we believe them when they talk about themselves?"

Of course, this line of argument doesn't actually prove a whole lot. What it does do, however, is jolt knee-jerk anti-communists into realising that there is a problem with their logic. Hopefully, it makes them open their mind a bit and explore forms of thought outside the approved definitions.

So i just use words like anti-autoritarian (libertarian) socialism.
Communism is just for friends of communism

I think there is an argument for using cognitive dissonance as the starting point of explaining a political position. Mashing together two seemingly irreconcilable ideas undermines both the listeners' assumptions and the associations of the terms used both at once. Anarchist-Communist is a good one for vaguely politico people. Free-socialist can work for others. Class struggle anarchist even works the job is some rare situations. The point is mashing together terms that the audience had assumptions about and seem to be contradictory so they become interested in why you think there are ways of reconciling your definitions of these terms.

All a bit English student* wanky, but I think it sort of works.

*which, thank fuck, I've never been

I would rather say between Leninism and communism.

I stopped calling myself an anarchist a decade ago because here in America it's used to describe either chaos or nihilistic punkrock youth. It's by far not perceived to be, by average Joe/Jane, a viable system for organizing society. I prefer to use the term libertarian socialist. "Communist" is indeed a word that, in the average Americans mind, conjures up images of the CHEKA putting people against walls en mass and gulags and starving masses in China. North Korea with the insanity that is Songun and Juche. Pol Pot with his psychotic theories. A world with thousands of nuclear weapons pointed in all directions one push of the button away from total annihilation. Why in the world would people want that? A lot of it in my opinion, the backwardness of actual "communist" states, wasnt so much to do with the authoritarian nature of the state but more so to do with Marxists ignoring historical materialism in so much as pushing for communism in less advanced nations and doing capitalism's job of industrializing while then fighting in WW2 then subsequently fighting a 'cold war' with capital.

"Communism" then can be understood, as we've seen it, as a system that had to dispossess the majority of the population of the countryside in so forcing them into either farming or industry for the benefit of the state so as to facilitate industrialization on a mass scale while fighting a world war and subsequent proxy wars and counterrevolution with little access to global resources, meaning, done in relative isolation. This isn't communism, what we've seen have been misguided attempts at communism. Everything, as far as Marxism is concerned, fell apart after Lenin realized Russia wasn't the spark that ignited a global revolution. Mao probably didn't even read Marx in any detail, Pol Pot was partly a creation of US foreign policy and the result of attempting communism in a backwards nation where "communists" either haven't read Marx or reject his theories outright.

But, what I've heard over the last 20 years is "communism failed, humanity tried it and it was not only used to brutalize people but it economically failed. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot!". Liberals, fascists, free market advocates....a random person walking down the street, this is the mantra. Even in the days of Stalinism shortly after WW2 (before the USA propagandized the ongoings in Russia) workers in the USA weren't, in viable numbers, open to the idea of communism. I think class struggle was at it's height in the US at the time but still not enough for any sort of worker led revolution. Again, the idea that less advanced and or smaller nations can facilitate communist revolutions and "compete" with the western bloc industrial/imperial/economic power houses set the stage for "communism" to look pretty drab. This was never the job of "communism". According to Marx/Engels communism would have to arise from the most materially/economically and culturally advanced nations.

though i am sympathetic especially in the usa to people just calling themselves libertarian socialists and/or revolutionary unionists, i have a bone to pick usually with this thinking about how we use these labels.

basically there are different ways and levels of interaction we have with people.

do i think it makes sense to drop the C bomb with my coworkers or neighbors, sometimes no, sometimes yes...there are a lot of factors about if some people are ready to hear this...

some people have more education about the terms, maybe are lefty, or into history and politics...

a subset of this are people who are in revolutionary milieu and to some of these people like some anarchists i may be a communist or as good as a bolshevik...to most bolsheviks i'm a crazy ultra left anarchist.

idk if i'm explaining myself clearly, but basically you have to have literacy on how to talk with members of the class who may be at various levels of consciousness about such things.

despite all of this politics and speaking and working out directly in struggle the content of them is very very necessary and i don't fall for the idea that we should make everything vague and apolitical/nonpolitical sounding either to try and appeal to everyone... that's opportunism.

Da-bombunism
Its da-bombunism, come & grab a slice
everyone's equal

And what, pray tell, do we do when we have gotten large enough to frighten some capitalist government and convince them we need to be crushed with a good red scare? When the papers and the TV start denouncing us as "communists", it won't be any use to deny it. We're identifiably communist, since we want to abolish capitalism and set up a society in which the principle of "from each according to their ability; to each according to their need" applies.

We will be in deep doo-doo then because we won't have detoxified the term. Loose allies of the movement will turn on us, for their own survival, even if they don't feel seriously deceived and betrayed by us. Many of our own members will find, in the face of newly vehement criticism from the State, that retirement from the movement will be a more viable course of action than dealing with accusations that they are not only communists, but are sneaky, lying, dishonest ones, pretending to be something else in order to advance their nefarious agenda on the quiet. Oh, yes, when we come under attack for being communists, our previous reluctance to mention the term will be used as proof positive that we are up to no good.

A movement that uses euphemisms to describe itself is building a house on sand. There are real issues around the ideas we advocate and we need to be open about them up front. When the State comes after us, our movement, and our friends, have to be solid.

A movement that uses euphemisms to describe itself is building a house on sand.

Anti-autoritarian (libertarian) socialism is not an euphemism. It is a correct definition of proletarian self-organisation. I wood like to remind you that "anti-autoritarian" (or "libertarian") is a definition of Bakunin's wing of International and it's also usede by some council communists like Hanry Simon.

And what, pray tell, do we do when we have gotten large enough to frighten some capitalist government and convince them we need to be crushed with a good red scare? When the papers and the TV start denouncing us as "communists",

)
О! If we have a millions of members and supporters and real power we just close all burgua papers and TV. From another side you will have your own.

Afaik, movements tend to be based on actions - ours are politically motivated actions. People are attracted by good ideas and successful organisers. People tend to shy away from people who only talk about metaphysical, theoretical what-ifs and do eff all beyond that.
Communism is about structure and delivery as much as the theory behind it.
So I'm not too shook up by people being put off right now by words; if we can show them what we're about in the way we organise, fight and - hopefully - win, then I couldn't give a ha'penny hump for those put off by the sound of a word ( or 2).