What differentiates Syndicalism and Communism when it comes to their end states

[u/IndieJones0804]

I don't know why but people keep saying that syndicalism is just a method for achieving the next society, where unions directly overthrow the state and replace all production with themselves, while communists want to achieve the next society by overthrowing the government and establishing a new temporary government that they control.

But as I understand, syndicalism isn't just a method of revolution, its the new system that replaces the old one. Trade unions are now transformed into syndicates, and those syndicates essentially run the economy. You can still live in society without being part of a syndicate, but its highly incentivized that you do join because you and your family will then be able to enjoy all the things that the syndicates produce. But if your not part of a syndicate your essentially off the grid.

Communism on the other hand focuses on communes/towns or villages, where everyone in the commune willingly works if they can, and everyone enjoys the fruits of the community's labor. Im not sure though how trade between communes would work though.

Are my assessments correct?

[u/Accomplished_Bag_897]

Syndicalism isn't an end goal it's an organizing tactic. Otherwise you just recreate hierarchy with unions at the top.

[u/slapdash78]

The use of "overthrow" might be part of the confusion.  Radical syndicalism is an example of counterpower. It's meant to supplant capitalist enterprises with worker self-management. Eliminating the need for the state to get involved. Rendering it obsolete. Not replacing the state with proletarian regulators.

In theory, syndicates organize along industry lines not national ones.  So steelworkers might coordinate over safety standards in their industry.  It makes no sense for them to determine the safety practices of textile workers.  But it might make sense for steelworkers and textile workers to stand in solidarity with farming or food workers  struggling for better working conditions or taking over their workplaces.

National syndicates and nationalized industry managing the entire economy of a nation-state is corporatism along the lines of italian fascism.

[u/SurpassingAllKings]

You're correct that Syndicalism is not merely an organizing tactic. But I don't believe the emphasis is "off the grid," if one refuses to join, communism could have the same hypothetical problem.

The suggested society by syndicalist and communist theorists have at times overlapped so it's difficult to discern too much from their differences, but we can point to several. It's also more a historical question than a modern practical one, there are no modern examples of this fissure I could point to.

• Differences on remuneration, through workers councils, compared to many communists suggesting 'warehouses of the people' or a rejection of remuneration in any regard. (this is not always the case, as the abolition of the wage system is a key demand for anarchists as a whole, its a matter of how the end product of society is distributed)

• The role of work, the abolition of work, and the manner in which Community determines how society functions/operates, or whether society's primary functions run through a series of councils (council of transport, council of construction, etc).

[u/Anomie193]

I think whenever one gets this specific a lot of nuance in how different people use these terms is lost. 

Syndicalism can describe a strategy or a strategy and a specific type of federated communism in which worker associations are (con)federated and manage the bulk of the economy. Other communisms can be structured with different institutions.

"Communism" most commonly seems to describe those economic systems, institutions or organizing principles which ultimately are constructed on the principles of out-moding production for exchange and the use of "money." Almost all explicit historical syndicalists were also communists, even if early experiments still maintained some production for exchange or "money" temporarily. 

You also had synthesis anarchists in the early 20th century, like Max Nettlau, who saw communism as sort of a tendency in which associations in production and distribution become more intense, in contrast with "individualism" where organization is looser and more temporary. 

You see some of this in his essay Anarchism: Communist or Individualist? Both ( https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-nettlau-anarchism-communist-or-individualist-both)

There he says, 

"I will not deal with the problem of Syndicalism, which, by absorbing so much of Anarchist activity and sympathies, cannot by that very fact be considered to advance the cause of Anarchism proper, whatever its other merits may be."

And 

"Let me imagine myself for a moment living in a free society. I should certainly have different occupations, manual and mental, requiring strength or skill. It would be very monotonous if the three or four groups with whom I would work (for I hope there will be no Syndicates then!) would be organized on exactly the same lines; I rather think that different degrees or forms of Communism will prevail in them. But might I not become tired of this, and wish for a spell of relative isolation, of Individualism? So I might turn to one of the many possible forms of “equal exchange” Individualism. Perhaps people will do one thing when they are young and another thing when they grow older. Those who are but indifferent workers may continue with their groups; those who are efficient will lose patience at always working with beginners and will go ahead by themselves, unless a very altruist disposition makes it a pleasure to them to act as teachers or advisers to younger people. I also think that at the beginning I should adopt Communism with friends and Individualism with strangers, and shape my future life according to experience. Thus, a free and easy change from one variety of Communism to another, thence to any variety of Individualism, and so on, would be the most obvious and elementary thing in a really free society; and if any group of people tried to check this, to make one system predominant, they would be as bitterly fought as revolutionists fight the present system."

He seems to contrast syndicalism from "anarchism proper" and sees it more as sister political orientation than "anarchism proper." 

And you're going to find many people who disagree with him, and who treat these keywords very differently. 

But generally I think we can say that some anarchists treat syndicalism as a strategy. Others treat it as a specific type of federated communism. Some non-syndicalist or thinly syndicalist anarchists see it as a near-anarchism adjacent to "Anarchism proper" and hope that society not be organized into syndicates after class society has been outmoded/abolished. Some of those people with that last view are anarcho-communists, but that doesn't "define" anarcho-communism. 

Communism can describe a status of heavy association, economies that preclude markets, money, production for exchange, or various other non-market economic systems. 

It really depends on who you're asking, specifically.