Communist means believing that property should be owned by everybody in common. A communist party, communist rule, a lifelong communist.
Capitalised it names a party and its states, and uncapitalised the belief, which are not the same thing — plenty of small-c communists opposed the twentieth-century states that used the name. The word is older than Marx and comes from the French for common.
1adjectivecommunistBelieving property should be owned in common.
“In communist countries, the state owned the factories and the farms.”
communist is a political belief.
French communiste comes from commun, common, from Latin communis. The word is older than Marx.
French
communiste
English, today
communist
Built from
From French communiste. From French communiste, from commun (“common, communal”) + -iste (“-ist”). by surface analysis, commune + -ist.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA