this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2026
41 points (95.6% liked)
Memes of Production
1709 readers
829 users here now
Seize the Memes of Production
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the “ML” influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Rules:
Be a decent person.
No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, zionism/nazism, and so on.
Other Great Communities:
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I’d argue that we shouldn’t be seeing communism as just the endpoint, isolated from how we get there, and historical precedents should absolutely be part of its modern definition rather than “it was not real communism”.
I mean, there’s already a word for classless and stateless type of society, that doesn’t bear an implication of preceding century of vanguard party rule.
I'd say we risk chasing words and definitions in a circle without much benefit with that method. If we don't differentiate between the two it makes redicalization easy. People can easily state "no, they're an idiot, here's all the factual historical evidence. See? Believe me, don't believe them, they don't know what they're talking about"
There's value in differentiating. If someone comes along stating "I believe in communism" and it's entirely different than what you state you're going to argue against a specter and be disapointed when the person isn't a leninist. Most communists aren't, pretending they are isn't going to help anything.
What value does conflation hold? You get to "own the libs" sure with a trump card of "but the USSR!" to any communist sure but that only makes you feel good with no value outside of it. If they use a new term then we completely divorce their belief from its historical context.
Nobodies stating we ignore precedent. The opposite in fact. Your conflation attempts to seperate the reality of communism and its beliefs from the historical reality of those trying to bring it about. We should be accurate in our representation. These people tried to bring communism to society. Here's what they've tried, here's how it failed, and here's why it was wrong. That's the conversation we should have. Communists should look back at that past and look for another way which isn't horrific to further their cause. The insistence that we conflate Leninism with the whole idea of communism typecasts the communist into that hole without value to anyone. Do we want that to be the only thing we talk about? Ignore all else? Shut down conversation?
No, I think not. Communism is an economic and societal system. Leninism is policy. The difference is important. They'll do it to what you believe too by the way. Find whatever horror they can to justify dismissing you completely. Sure, you should think on that horrible action, address it, but its obviously not defining.
Sorry for the screed sincerely I understand your point of view. I will always prefer preciseness in speech. Lastly, language is a tool, the fact that others misuse it is meaningless towards how it should be used. If we follow that logic, socialism is now defined as "whatever joe biden did" with how many people call him a socialist. People conflating communism the economic and social system with the policies of the USSR are doing the same.