Communism is not when the workers own the means of production or capital (Anarchosyndicalism, Market socialism, mutualism)

Communism is not when the state owns all capital (USSR, Cuba, NK, ML in general)

Communism isnt about building productive forces for some alleged future socialism (China, Vietnam, Dengism)

Communism is not about acheiveing "real democracy" (Anarchism, autonomism. libertarianism)

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.” ― Karl Marx

The present state of things are - the existence of the value-form, commodities and their exchange, wage-labor, private property : all of which are interlinked and cannot be abolished piecemeal. These are the categories that actually describe capitalism, this was what Marx uncovered.

The elimination of these things does not occur by imagining their replacement and working towards an ideal imagined society, but by working on the present premises. It is a movement, and the truths of the next society is uncovered by the movement itself, i.e. the knowledge of the concrete aspects of communism is discovered in practice.

Until there exists a movement, it is fruitless to engage in utopian theorizing and prattling about action or activism. The movement must arise from the working class itself and only itself, as it becomes conscious of itself and actively works to abolish not just the capitalist class but also itself.

Movements by working class people to reform capitalism, such as the DSA, most trade union activity, electoralism, "anti-imperialism" a.k.a allying with local bourgs against international bourgs, and all other such activity is not revolutionary and communists do not want anything to do with it.

It is true that truly revolutionary working class people are a tiny minority, and don't exist as a real movement anywhere in the world, but this doesnt mean that communists dilute their concrete goals and their theory to appeal to the masses. In this sense, we are anti-democratic and "authoritarian".

I've written all this because one of the principles communists have is they "disdain to conceal their views and aims". As unpopular as these views may be among leftists (which communists are not), they are nevertheless our actual views and principles that will not be changed.