Talk:Hammer and sickle

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"Communist" is not a common noun here
@Vipz made a number of useful changes (I'm particularly grateful for the link to Communist symbolism). However, his decision to decapitalize (pun unavoidable) "Communist" is wrong, because it's not a common noun. It's the name of a political/social movement that follows specific doctrines espoused by Karl Marx.

Examples: hunter-gatherer societies (according to Marx) lack any sense of private property and are thus litle-c communist. They don't belong to a movement called "Communism" they just practice "communism". On the other hand, the Communist Party of China does belong to this movement and is thus big-C Communist.

By the same token, John Locke was a small-d democrat because he espoused democratic doctrines. But he didn't belong to any party called "Democratic" so he was not, like Joe Biden, a big-D Democrat. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 21:27, 17 September 2023 (UTC)


 * @Isaac Rabinovitch: That's a lot to unpack here. First of all, "Communism" is typically capitalized when it has state/government/party annotations; I'm not convinced there is academic consensus to capitalize "communism" as theorized by Karl Marx. The note #3 in the lead section of article communism elaborates on this issue. Secondly, the hammer and sickle has a worldwide adoption among communist movements, the article is on both the big-C and small-c usage of it. Are anarchist communists actually "anarchist Communists" or "Anarchist Communists" because they read theory about their ideology? Is their usage of the symbol big-C? –Vipz (talk) 22:00, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * You make some good points, and you're sort of winning this argument, mostly on the strength of the usage I'm seeing from googling "anarcho-communist." But it seems strange that we say that the H&S is a symbol of little-c communism when so many little-c communists have never heard of it. Indeed, Marx's supposed pre-agricultural communists would be extremely puzzled by the industrial-era symbolism.
 * Oh well, I guess I'm leaning too hard on the idea that language should be logically consistent. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 00:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

hammer and cycle a universal symbol for communism?
This article doesn't seem to contain any contradicting information to the idea that the hammer and cycle is, and always has been, a universal symbol of communism. It never directly mentions any communist groups that doesn't use it and instead tries to present this *soviet* symbol as a universal symbol for communism. This may be a manifestation of bias and/or targeted propaganda. How widespread the symbol actually isis, how it spread, as well as current and historical contexts should be addressed within the article rather than being nothing but a list of reasons why it should be considered widespread without ever directly stating that conclusion. 2A02:3030:822:32A:1:0:7F0E:B90E (talk) 07:12, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Pre-Soviet source dubious
I just removed a few paragraphs about pre-Soviet use of this symbol that was sourced only to this source and some WP:OR. Needless to say, I don't believe this source is provably reliable nor enough to support the information it was cited in support of.

However, if someone can provide better sources about pre-Soviet use of this symbol I would like to see them.

Loki (talk) 05:12, 30 September 2023 (UTC)


 * English-language sources on the Internet seem scarce; I was able to find two about the hammer and sickle on Chilean peso: The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine (April 1938), The Numismatist (1933). –Vipz (talk) 15:01, 1 October 2023 (UTC)