It was something their own personal branding , even if their form of government , by their own definition , was not communism , or at least their interpretation of the concept was not fully realized , yet their insignia is still recognized as a symbol of communism . This lends itself to my point Soviet leaders used pieces of communism , the political theory , as propaganda for their individual needs . Their insignia is recognized as a symbol of communism because of this , and as a result we have people who are misinformed about the definition of communism as a political ideology . As I said before , we have a choice of how to use the term . The only practical way academically is to retain its original meaning as a political ideology . This means that in order to understand the term we must refer to Marx , his international successors , and his legitimate i . e . not influenced by the power structure academic critics . If that can ' t be realized , the term needs to be abandoned and something else must be chosen to represent its meaning .