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...you're oversimplifying the issues at hand. Your critique of the various 20th century incarnations and subversions of "worker's" movements is apt, but this absolutely must be viewed within the modern context such movements and subversions have helped to create. Suggesting changing the name of real left movements probably seems trivial to some, but I also see it a deadly importance in it. Browsing through other comments on this piece, I noted that others have done a fine job of pointing out how "communisim" has been made into a dirty word. We all know this, we just hate accepting the ramifications of that. Historical moments such as McCarthyism and the internal treacheries of worker's movements that you identify so well have weighed on the cultural consciousness of that little word, "communisim," that by the begining of the 21st century it takes a heavy intelectual effort to break the word free of the foolhardy and "evil" conotations that it has been given. Sad, but true. Communisim, socialism, and anything too strongly associated with them will be automatically disregarded by your average person - the very persons a true left movement needs and desires. History has proven time and again that the attractiveness of an idea has far more to do with its spread than its validity, and therefore the question of what name should represent the valid ideas we are talking about here isn't about how to present it directly or even most "honestly." It's about how to make it the most attractive.

With that in mind, a "proletarist" movement loses its luster. It's the sort of name that preaches to the choir, rallying the already dwinidling group of socialist converts while providing only a difficult new invitation to those outside the movement, those the movement needs, who s
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ee first in such a name the failures and treacheries that history and culture has ground into the very thought of communisim. In light of this, I find myself disregarding any movement moniker that remotely rings of old communisim. I'd even go so far as to suggest mining capitalist lingo for ideas, taking the old wolf-in-sheep's clothing approach (or sheep-in-wolf's clothing, perhaps). Finally, there really is a bigger issue within such discussions than just movement names. The whole language of socialism, communisim, proletarism, lenin-trotsky-mao-take-your-pickism needs revision in light of the unfortunate connotations that history and culture have given much of the old language.