europe

I find a bit of room engaging with "socialists" (socdems) by clearly expecting them to have read theory or pay attention to China or whatever. So many of them just don't have a viewpoint at all since the propaganda stifles their enthusiasm to research before they get going (and "it's hard"). I don't really think of myself as "M-L" and I don't brand myself that way, I do run in to a lot of "socialists" and set a good example for them.

It seems it could be more effective to organize a communist party simply by not calling it as such, still in policy and action be fully communist, just using different language.

If I had to start something over from 0, I would do this, but since Lefts exist in a national context it's actually something very hard to do. I think the Worker's Party of Belgium is technically a communist party (and I see them every year in the Avante Festival) but they don't assume a communist political identity.

That being said, a few years ago I did casually discuss with some comrades if the portuguese communist party should change its name or something like that, since people support pretty much everything in the party's program but don't want to vote for communists (although that's why the party runs in the broader CDU coalition), and I've always opposed doing that here, because I don't actually believe it would work without sacrificing the party's principles, like it happen with communist parties after the 90s there were attempts to "renovate" ie "get rid of marxism leninism" in the party and those people failed and left (they've since appealed for people to vote for the PS), so since the communist party already exists I think it's better to support its communist identity (so basically try to resist and hold onto what we have) rather than try to start over and possibly lose it for nothing.