• mazdak
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Honestly why do we even use the word socialist as opposed to communist?

      Eh, that's a tricky one. Sometimes they're used as synonyms, sometimes they mean different things. It's a classic case of "if i write a paper about this, i'll first have to explain what i mean by this word".

      Marx and Engels originally used the words interchangeably, but later coined the word communism specifically for expressly revolutionary approaches - for them, socialism then became a synonym for social democracy.

      Lenin defines socialism as the transitionary stage between capitalism and communism - what is often known as AES / Already Existing Socialism / Realsozialismus today.

      Then there's people who use socialism as a blanket term for all things anti-capitalist, an umbrella for communists, anarchists and democratic socialists (sometimes social democrats and left libertarians / radlibs, too, if you're extra generous).

      And that's just some of the definitions that come from people who've actually thought about the subject, not including the rightoid randos who think that socialism is when gubmint do stuff or socialism = no iPhone.