Why havent people come up with new symbols for Communism and Revolution?

[Blanquist]

I think the hammer and sickle is played out.

I mean, how many peasants do you know? Even in places like Colombia the country is 80% urban.

1. Does anyone have any idea's?

2. Who came up with the hammer and sickle in the first place?

3. Who's idea was the red star??

[marl]

No.
Russian revolutionaries.
Paris commune, I believe.

[seventeethdecember2016]

I've got it! A hammer and a grain side by side!

No, that's used. Um...

Oh, I've got it!

A picture of Zizek side by side with grain. I really outdo myself don't I?

On a serious note, how about a red 5 point star with the world as a background?

[Conscript]

They have, though it usually means little and is more a sign of breaking with marxism than advancing it. The CPUSA's logo is a hammer and gear.

[Brosip Tito]

The red flag was from the Paris Commune.

I don't think these symbols are outdated. They represent the history of the movement, and they are not tainted by tyrant capitalists like Stalin or Hoxha.

There are, however, newer symbols, such as using the cog.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

For the international symbol, the hammer and sickle must still be used. There are still many, many peasants all over the world! And the star originally stands for the 5 continents of the world (idk why, because there are 6 populated continents :confused:).

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

tyrant capitalists like Stalin or Hoxha.

Stop tendency baiting, please.

[Grenzer]

There aren't that many peasants. They still are a huge force in some so-called "Third world" countries; but the peasantry is much less of a force than it was thirty or forty years ago. The expansion of foreign capital into the last untapped markets is quickly transforming them demographically, but I still like the hammer and sickle for nostalgia's sake.

[Art Vandelay]

Stop tendency baiting, please.

If you don't like what someone says just don't reply.

Also I think that the red flag was originally symbolic for the blood shed by workers during the establishment of the paris commune.

[MarxSchmarx]

I dunno, old timey symbols help with developing brand names and stuff.

Just ask these guys:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-16o1NGbmWZI/Tw86B7rM9kI/AAAAAAAACOk/OextsqOxCic/s1600/cross2.gif

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I like to stick with my red and black flag http://lapilgrim.narod.ru/blkredflag.png

[Comrade Samuel]

I really like the hammer and sickle why change it?

[Pretty Flaco]

we havent got nothing new because we're all really lame

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

we havent got nothing new because we're all really lame

Goddamn it, just when I was feeling good about myself!:crying:

[28350]

yeah damn if the hammer and sickle isn't awesome but it isn't really relevant and is also the symbol of an oppressed social being

maybe a hammer and sickle dissolving would be more appropriate

Red flags are great but not a symbol (in the graphic sense)

[Kronsteen]

Milton Babbit (composer) once said, "Nothing gets older quicker than a new sound."

It's probably also true for symbols.

[Psy]

I really like the hammer and sickle why change it?
The sickle is an obsolete tool and you can represent farming by having wheat like in the GDR coat of arms.

http://www.symbols.net/flags/_img_nations3/east_germany_coa250w.png

[WanderingCactus]

Milton Babbit (composer) once said, "Nothing gets older quicker than a new sound."

It's probably also true for symbols.
And cymbals.

[Ostrinski]

I agree that the hammer and sickle is outdated (as well as the red flag/star) but I don't have any ideas for any new symbolism.

[Manic Impressive]

Despite my rabid anti leninism :p I like the hammer & sickle. Sue me

[citizen of industry]

Not many people these days use a hammer or a sickle. Maybe it should be a some kind of impact wrench crossed with a tractor? Doesn't sound good, does it? That one's played out.

The red star is timeless though, let's hold on to that one. Raised fist is good. I like IWW's black cat. Though slightly off-topic, the Jolly Roger in its many varients is also badass.

[Leftsolidarity]

I would like to comment on how you make very strange threads.


They represent the history of the movement and there are plenty of other symbols. They usually represent specific groups though.

Also, your thread(s) suggest that communists/leftists in general, are some homogenous group that gets together and decides what we're all going to do.

[OnlyCommunistYouKnow]

How about we incorporate the sword like there was going to originally be.
Hammer- industrial workers
Sickle- agricultural workers
Sword- Soldiers

[BE_]

Shit, I have no ideas. Maybe a wrench and hammer?

[Prometeo liberado]

So long as you dont touch the Scarlet standard:
Beneath it's folds we'll live and die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here

[Blanquist]

How about a sledge-hammer crossed with a Japanese sword?

The regular hammer is too small to cross with a sword and a sledge-hammer is also better because it is more powerful.

The Japanese sword will represent the soldiers and our Samurai-like discipline and honor.

There is no need for anything to represent farming but maybe something to represent our intelligence and culture but not just a simple book or paint-brush.

Also, it would be great to have something to represent technology, maybe something to do with robotics (It's the future).

[Ostrinski]

I think the intense clinging to our outdated symbols is a reflection of conservative nostalgia. The Soviet Union is long dead, and the worker's movement must reinvent itself in adaptation to the twenty first century.

[Ostrinski]

How about a sledge-hammer crossed with a Japanese sword?

The regular hammer is too small to cross with a sword and a sledge-hammer is also better because it is more powerful.

The Japanese sword will represent the soldiers and our Samurai-like discipline and honor.

There is no need for anything to represent farming but maybe something to represent our intelligence and culture but not just a simple book or paint-brush.

Also, it would be great to have something to represent technology, maybe something to do with robotics (It's the future).I think this is all very, very weird.

[ArrowLance]

For the international symbol, the hammer and sickle must still be used. There are still many, many peasants all over the world! And the star originally stands for the 5 continents of the world (idk why, because there are 6 populated continents :confused:).

Actually a continent really isn't that well defined. Europe and Asia are consided to be the same continent by some, sometimes Africa is also included with them. The same can be said about North and South America.

[Leftsolidarity]

Come on Blanquist, let's be honest. You're a troll aren't you?

[Leftsolidarity]

Actually a continent really isn't that well defined. Europe and Asia are consided to be the same continent by some, sometimes Africa is also included with them. The same can be said about North and South America.

Ah, but SA and NA along with Africa and Europe/Asia are no longer connected by land because of canals. Tricky tricky.

[khad]

How about we incorporate the sword like there was going to originally be.
Hammer- industrial workers
Sickle- agricultural workers
Sword- Soldiers
http://unimaps.com/flags-africa/mozambique-flag.gif

[Prometeo liberado]

Adapt this for adults and kids. Family revolutionary fun!!!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f2/Nationalyouthorganization.PNG/220px-Nationalyouthorganization.PNG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nationalyouthorganization.PNG)

[o well this is ok I guess]

There are plenty of different symbols
red stars and hammer-and-sickles are simply great for soviet roleplay

[o well this is ok I guess]

So long as you dont touch the Scarlet standard:
Beneath it's folds we'll live and die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here I dunno man flag waving is so pastiche
Red armbands will never go out of style, though.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Didn't RevLeft already come up with the forklift as the new revolutionary symbol?

[citizen of industry]

How about a PC crossed over a cash register?

[Zealot]

There's actually quite a few, the hammer and sickle is just the most well-known.

[Geiseric]

How bout a big pile of feces with a gear around it and a green/yellow/purple flag in the background? Should be the coolest flag ever made.

[Rusty Shackleford]

forklifts, goddamnit!

[Ostrinski]

I think our new symbolism should be flags with great album art on them.

[Geiseric]

Like the Dark Side of the Moon cover? Or Led Zeppelin 2?

[Ostrinski]

Absolutely.

[Kronsteen]

Milton Babbit (composer) once said, "Nothing gets older quicker than a new sound."
It's probably also true for symbols. And cymbals.

Ba-doom TISH!

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Like the Dark Side of the Moon cover? Or Led Zeppelin 2?
Choking Victim's No Gods, No Managers should go well with that idea
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Nogodsnomanagers.jpg

[Sea]

Ba-doom TISH!
Especially the TISH!

In all seriousness though, to the layperson, the very type of person that it is a goal to make communism known to, a hammer and sickle will conjure up mental images of a mass of people slaving to an oppressive regime. Images of poor little old ladies being jailed and tortured for such enlightened things as rock and roll or the latest hit TV series.

The hammer and sickle recollect Joe Public of the caricature of communism as painted by the capitalist world.

This isn't what we want. We want people to see that flag, logo, armband or what have you and think of the ideas that the communist movement (in its present form) represents, more or less the opposite of what people see in the hammer and sickle.

I'm pretty sure that answers why the OP wants a new logo. How, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely....

[Zav]

For the international symbol, the hammer and sickle must still be used. There are still many, many peasants all over the world! And the star originally stands for the 5 continents of the world (idk why, because there are 6 populated continents :confused:).
In Europe, the Americas are sometimes considered one continent, or Eurasia or is one, and some people put Europe, Asia, and Africa together.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I actually like the CPUSA's logo and wish a organization that was actually worth something had it instead of them.

[Ismail]

In Albania, although the hammer and sickle was not rare, the symbol of the Party was the pickaxe and rifle.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/p1012056gs2.jpg

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/03759920_400.jpg

Also most parties had their own versions of the hammer and sickle, they weren't all exactly the same.

E.g. in Albania (though it's a brief shot): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U0gccUjfZU&t=7m51s

Random hammer and sickle variants various parties have used: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3387/39625283.png

[The Guy]

People haven't come up with new ideas because they want the original idea to always remain intact.

Perhaps it has been sported by corrupting psuedo-communists or changed a little by nationalist dictators. The idea of communism or socialism or anarchism - the root symbol that represents everything those ideologies stand for - will remain through the symbols the true and dedicated gave it when it first began.

[Rooster]

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9xICR1apo5M/TWGuvOQfr3I/AAAAAAAAAF4/cP4X6tg0kWc/s350/COL-25.jpg

I don't really think people need symbols and all the pomp and pomposity.

[tachosomoza]

A simple red star, with a weapon of some kind.

http://www.bant-shirts.com/images/nonph/ezln-320.gif

[Drosophila]

The hammer and sickle is recognized worldwide, so I think it should be kept.

[Offbeat]

We should change our symbol to a bottle of wine on top of a book, to represent all the middle-class student Marxists.

[Zav]

We should change our symbol to a bottle of wine on top of a book, to represent all the middle-class student Marxists.
:laugh:

I think we should keep the Hammer and Sickle. It looks badass, and that's far more important than making a positive impression. No, I really think we should favor the red (and/or black) star and try to distance ourselves from the State Capitalist imitations. I think we should use tool symbols for various unions, though. Like the fast food workers' Headset and Spatula, the painters' Roller and Brush, the blacksmiths' Hammer and Tongs, the office workers' Pen and (Pencil? Keyboard?), or the cashiers' Scanner and Whatever Else They Use Regularly.

[The Machine]

"Drawn crudely in the dust of three window-panes were a swastika, a hammer and sickle, and the Stars and Stripes. I had drawn the three symbols weeks before, at the conclusion of an argument about patriotism with Kraft. I had given a hearty cheer for each symbol, demonstrating to Kraft the meaning of patriotism to, respectively, a Nazi, a Communist, and an American. "Hooray, hooray, hooray," I'd said"

[Firebrand]

I reckon a lit match makes a good symbol, just because any symbol involving fire is automatically awesome.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

To answer the OP's question: because no party/organization that has a different symbol has yet to make revolutionary gains that would propel a new symbol in the popular consciousness.

[Pretty Flaco]

A simple red star, with a weapon of some kind.


hammer and prison shank

[Firebrand]

A dinosaur skeleton crossed with a laptop. To represent the dinosaurs and the keyboard activists. :D

[gorillafuck]

people aren't going to be tricked into thinking you're not a communist just because you don't use a hammer and sickle

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Like the Dark Side of the Moon cover? Or Led Zeppelin 2?

I'd be up for that. Dark Side of the Moon represents the narrow beam of capitalism being shattered by the mighty proletarian prism into the colourful spectrum of our communist future. Or something like that.


I reckon a lit match makes a good symbol, just because any symbol involving fire is automatically awesome.

http://www.freewebs.com/black-legacy/KKK-burn-cross-med.JPG

[Firebrand]

http://www.freewebs.com/black-legacy/KKK-burn-cross-med.JPG

Ok fair point. Any symbol involving fire that is not linked to evil rightwing nutjobs is awesome.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Ok fair point. Any symbol involving fire that is not linked to evil rightwing nutjobs is awesome.

That's better :p

[Bostana]

I got it:
http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/obama-communist.jpg

[marl]

Shh... They're already on to us, Bostana!

I made a yellow keyboard and spatula on red in inkscape, I'll have to find it.

[Ismail]

Shh... They're already on to us, Bostana!One time I noted to a conservative how the Great Soviet Encyclopedia praises Abraham Lincoln (who Marx praised and wrote a congratulatory letter to) and Thomas Jefferson, and how both men and other bourgeois figures in those times tended to be considered by Marxists as objectively progressive and even revolutionary, etc.

Let's just say he didn't expect that. Then I noted how Marx thought Adam Smith was generally awesome and how Marxists tend to see Smith and other early bourgeois theorists of capitalism, etc. It's pretty easy to debate with such people because they know basically nothing about Marxism or socialism or history in general outside of idealist conceptions where all history is a big struggle between "liberty" and "tyranny" towards a struggle for the American Declaration of Independence and American constitutionalism.

And this is why it doesn't matter if you are waving the hammer and sickle or not, what matters is that people actually know that it doesn't stand for Barack Obama or whatever.

[Sputnik_1]

Someone has stolen my idea :(

http://th09.deviantart.net/fs50/PRE/i/2009/287/0/7/CCCP_Mouse_Pen_by_Black_Angel1624.png

[Rural Comrade]

A wrench and grain would capture the idea and a tractor would symbolize both.

[TheIrrationalist]

Oh no, a necro! Kill it, kill it with fire!

[TooManyQuestions]

Symbols are important in human culture. That being said, culture is not easily created. The Madison avenue types are good with symbolism to trick people into thinking that this pair of jeans is somehow different from that pair of jeans.

It is important to remember that meaning is created by the person viewing the symbol, not the one drawing it.

1.A valid symbol should be instantly recognizable as to what it stands for. If you have to explain what is does or does not mean, you have failed.
2.It should look "cool"
3. It should be easy to reproduce in graffiti
4.It should have some link to the culture the symbol is being aimed toward. The keyboard and spatula thing is not going to mean anything to a person who lives in a place with few computers and few fast food joints. Just as the hammer and sickle loses something in places with no hand-tool agriculture.

I like the black flag, red and black flag, raised fist, the big A, and the star. My favorite is the anti-fascist circle. The hammer and sickle is visually striking, but as some people note, is strongly linked to the USSR, not as much a symbol of a belief in general.

If you want to move forward and promote a new idea, or an evolved notion of an old idea, then you need a new symbol.

If you insist of recycle ideas other people had more than a century ago, stick to the classics.

My idea would to be to combine a cog with the human brain. Perhaps a red circle formed of one hemisphere of the brain and the other side half a gear. On a black background of course.

Or red lightning bolts crossing under a skull, jolly roger style.

[waqob]

What about the symbol on the flag of Angola?

[UncleLenin]

The Hammer and Sickle has been a leftist symbol for years. It is known all over the world. The same applies for the 5 pointed star.

Why should we make a new one when we have these perfectly good ones?:confused:

[Flying Purple People Eater]

What about the symbol on the flag of Angola?

To be honest, It does look like an updated 'symbol of labour' if you will. Shame it's used for China's number one imperial shill.


Symbols are important in human culture. .

Whatever you say Atlas.

[Decommissioner]

A deep frier crossed with a keyboard. We are all being pushed into fast food and call center type jobs, no need to keep symbolism related to manufacturing. ;)1

[Sotionov]

Impossibilists pretty much don't have a symbol, there's to little of us to have someone who knows how to invent and make one.. We're anarchists in that we're against hierarchy, yet we can't use any anarchist symbolism because we're for parliamentary revolution, and we can't use the hammer & sickle because we opposse bolsheviks as state-capitalists :(

I like what Regicollis made, also I find this Labour symbol interesting:

http://labourlist.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/liberty-logo.jpg

I guess I have a thing for torch symbolism.


A deep frier crossed with a keyboard. We are all being pushed into fast food and call center type jobs, no need to keep symbolism related to manufacturing. ;)1


http://i.imgur.com/IWnlrGu.png?1

[TheEmancipator]

http://openclipart.org/people/worker/mouse_and_sickle.svg

In the West, at least.

[G4b3n]

I like the hammer and sickle, though I go with the red and black flag because fuck authority.

[John Lennin]

I prefere the red flag. No Hammer. No Sickle. Just red.

[Brutus]

I prefere the red flag. No Hammer. No Sickle. Just red.

The red flag and the red star. As Rafiq said: we will make it fly.

[bcbm]

this thread is over a year old. please let the dead stay where they belong.

closed