You're right. The left has always been very good in propaganda and uses terminology and definitions to the full, making the most of it. You see how today we say that the Nazis were fascists, but fascist was Mussolini not Hitler, those who told the Nazis fascists were the Soviets, so they did not admit that the Nazis were National Socialists, they did not want socialism in that.

They also did the same thing using the neoliberal term. They want to remove the positive connotation that liberalism carries and they want to make a gap between the movements that brought freedom to America, and the movements that promote freedom today.

Nowadays they are doing the same, they want to separate the negative connotation that the communist term implies, that is why they do not define themselves as communists and if they do so as socialists.