From an older article:
“To the Communists, words are tools to achieve effects, not means to communicate in search of truth,” writes Possony. This thought is also conveyed in Doubletalk: The Language of Communism, where author Harry Hodgkinson writes:
The language of communism … is not so much a means of explaining to an unbeliever what communism means, but an armory of weapons and tools intended to produce support or dissolve opposition to communist policies on the part of people either hostile or indifferent to them. The meaning of a communist word is not what you think it says, but what effect it is intended to produce.
Thus in communism, words and phrases are not defined by the meanings found in a dictionary but by the actions they elicit. This is the essence of “Aesopian language.” Symbols and gestures are also principal components of the Marxian “Aesopian language.” Among the most well-known symbols and hand gestures for communists and their fellow travelers is the raised clenched fist.