I identify differently depending on the context.
When around comrades, I will identify as a Marxist-Leninist, as this is the most precise definition of what I hold to. I generally don’t use this other than around comrades because no one else has any idea of what it means.
If I’m around people who at least sort of know what Marxism is, I’ll call myself a Marxist. But in my experience this is pretty rare. Or this is what I will default to around people who I know are leftist broadly. I feel like “Marxist” is accurate enough where getting into the details of M-L isn’t really necessary.
But when I’m around most normies, I will identify as a socialist. I think it’s accurate enough to convey to people who do not have a very developed political understanding what I hold to. “Socialist” at the same time conveys a commitment to radical change well beyond the current Republican/Democrat paradigm, while not, for example, putting my job in jeopardy if I call myself a socialist to co-workers.
So the obvious question is why I don’t call myself a communist very often IRL, even though I am one. I have before and used it a bit interchangably with M-L among comrades, but I don’t use it around people I don’t know well and know they are down with it. What I have found with the people in my broader social circle is such a huge lack of political understanding that calling myself a communist only shuts people down. When it comes to Americans, I think it’s easy to overestimate their political understanding. I used to think most Americans just think communism is when “everyone is equal”. What I’ve found is worse than that: it’s more like people just have this vague notion that “communism = evil”. They have no idea what it’s about other than decades of propaganda that just equates communism as the ideology of our enemies and those who want to destroy America. So to most Americans, a communist is just someone who is “very bad person” who wants to destroy America (I mean, death to Amerikkka of course, but it’s so much more than that). My own parents just think that communism means atheism and can’t explain it more than that.
I totally understand the idea that we shouldn’t shy away from calling ourselves communists. We need to normalize the idea because communism specifically is what’s needed to save the planet. But idk, at this time and place in the US it feels like trying to do this just closes more doors than it opens, at least with the politically ignorant (most people).
I am a communist ,I had classmates who were communists in school ,no one cared
I have comrades in university too, hell the taxi I go with to Uni with has a Che portrait lmao
Wallahi there are more communists in my city than there are in the entirety of the USA
So to most Americans, a communist is just someone who is “very bad person” who wants to destroy America
My Dad thinks the same but it is why he loves communism
I generally don’t. Labels are substitutes for thought.
If you tell people what you believe, then they have to deal with what you believe.
If you give them a label, they can and generally will stop engaging with you as an individual and will instrad focus entirely on whatever crude stereotype they have associated with that label inside their own brains.
Yeah, context is important. I live in a pretty reactionary region, so I’m not likely to say it if I just somehow get into casual political chat with your average Joe here, but if I’m engaging with broad, non-sectarian leftist spaces, I do make clear that I’m a Marxist-Leninist. I find that it helps normalize acceptance of “tankies” and diminishes the hasty, misinformed, and deeply unserious “anti-tankie” rhetoric that gets blindly pushed around by many in mainstream leftist spaces. Also, I’ve seen people (many of whom are
s themselves) show their ignorance by saying that MLs are “mostly white” when these are the same people who’d cheer on the 
. Deeply unserious, and it gives me an incentive to make the representation of Black Marxism very clear.I just call myself a communist but beyond that I don’t think it matters right now. Leftists of all types in the US are so scattered and powerless I don’t find it useful to nitpick at theoretical differences. Identifying oneself more concretely would perhaps matter in a situation like pre-revolution Russia, where a bunch of different organized struggles were occuring with concrete differences in tactics.
But right now there are so few of us do we really have the time to make distinction between ourselves based on tactics that we may have in some hypothetical future? We have to start doing stuff right now and work with whoever we can. And I’ll emphasize that we cannot work with organizations with explicitly bigoted views. Other than that I don’t see a lot of daylight between American leftist orgs. Some swing more anarchist or some more Marxist but from organizing experience with both, it doesn’t really matter much. It only says what kind of books they might read, or how many cops might try infiltrating.
But like even among apolitical people I refer to myself as a communist. I’ll explain if they’re curious but otherwise don’t push it that much. I’m not ashamed and I don’t really try to hide it. I already look super queer and alt so why try to put up any kind of Overton window respectability on top of that? I already look like a cultural enemy to respectable types. Among other leftists I don’t put any labels on myself, just a communist and I’ll try to help
I’m a third way guy. I think we need to triangulate a position between Posada and Hoxha.
Ah yes, the Diefenbunkist.
On a related note, when I do talk politics with white folks in my area (generally reactionary), their first reaction is often confusion. Because I am a very Kevin-ass looking white boy, they just have a baseline assumption in their brains that I must be a reactionary like them.
“I believe in democracy in the workplace.”
Based on Wolff pilled
paraphrasing something I saw somewhere:
philosophically I’m an anarchist, so pragmatically I’m a communist, and currently I’m a socialist
I think this works pretty well based on the ‘read the room’ context to determine which one you might want to use. If you aren’t feeling safe using socialist or anarchist, then leftist seems OK fall back.
I say communist unless I’m at work or something. I used to say socialist, but everyone just thinks that means capitalism with welfare characteristics here, and I can’t deal with people thinking I’m a lib.
I tell everyone I’m a communist, lmao
Death to ameriKKKa, death to piSSrael
I am a loud and proud commie that fortunately lives in a safe enough place where i walk around daily with trans colored ☭☭☭ patches over my heart on my vest
I am generally very cagey about my beliefs around people I don’t know very well. My friends know that I am a communist, though they don’t know enough about the particulars of different strains to know what kind I usually identify with, they do know enough about leftist politics to know that I do not identify as a ‘progressive’ and in general find progressives distasteful politically, though I will hold my nose if there is actually something to be gained by collaboration.
That said, if someone asks me about something I will give my honest opinion and why I believe that, but people are honestly abit baffled when I discuss differences between pre-war and post-war USSR or US policy or get in depth with Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Hegel, or even Von Mises or DiLorenzo. Most of my arguments and beliefs draw from philosophy, history, anthropology, and even basic engineering economy such as lean manufacturing, so people have troubling pinning me into the ‘communist’ box or any box, because most people just have rarely ever heard anyone ever talk like me or express their opinions in the way I do.
I’m vegan.
Dumb-guy socialist. Online and offline. I’m no organizer, or movement builder, or leader—my life is a chaotic mess even without all that. I’m just the guy who shows up to the picket line with rice and chili, and will throw hands if absolutely necessary.
Otherwise I just stick to my garden, offer a safe haven for any LGBT kids in the neighborhood who don’t have one at home, and keep a couch clear if somebody needs to crash for a night or two.
