Teach me your ways you dirty commies.

(I don't speak for all self-described Communists, but here is what Communism means to me)

• From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. i.e. everyone should work as hard as they can, but everybody should get what they need, and any surplus must be managed democratically by the whole proletariat. There should be no bourgeoisie appropriating and deciding what to do with the surplus by taking advantage of bourgeois property laws and the remnants of primitive accumulation (inheritance of the spoils of past and ongoing violence).
• Restructure society so that poverty is impossible. This must be done through revolution. This cannot be done through reforms because reforms are only meant to postpone revolution and lull the working class back to sleep. once this is achieved, reforms are rolled back (see how roe v. wade only lasted 50 years, for example, and how the benefits of FDR's social-democratic New Deal were quickly eroded by neoliberalism)
• Work within existing organizations, such as trade unions, industrial unions, mutual aid groups, workers' cooperatives, consumers' cooperatives, etc., but don't view these organizations in and of themselves as the end goal. View them as subordinate to a greater revolutionary cause, and try to link the efforts of these organizations with each other so that they are not acting in isolation.
• Capitalism was born out of the contradictions of feudalism, and is itself an internally contradictory system that is inherently unstable and produces its own gravediggers (the proletariat). One example of a contradiction in Capitalism is that in order to make high profits, the owners must pay the workers as little as possible, but in order to sell the finished product, the worker must be able to afford the product. Another example of a contradiction in Capitalism is that in order to make high profits, the owner must produce commodities cheaper and faster than the competition, but by doing so, he drives down the price of his own commodities, since the price of a commodity is highly correlated with how easy it is to produce (the average labor time in society needed to create it). Another example of a contradiction in capitalism is that the owners claim to be "job creators" and yet they must maintain a large population of desperate unemployed people who can be brought in to replace workers who get too militant and disruptive with labor strikes, etc. If all able-bodied adults were gainfully and productively employed, scabbing and strikebreaking against unions would be impossible.
• Anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism and marginalized identity struggles are not contrary to anti-capitalism, but all aspects of the broader anti-capitalist struggle, and the labor movement in general.
• Uphold materialism, not idealism or solipsism
• Dialectical materialism (recognizing that systems are internally contradictory and must be overcome through real physical struggle), not metaphysical materialism (the fetishism of logic, and of looking for fallacies in everything and rejecting the possibility of existing internal contradictions that must be overcome through physical struggle), not dialectical idealism (Hegel's stupid system)
• Protect marginalized social minorities (disabled, LGBTQIA+, colonized peoples, mentally ill, physically ill, etc.) from the socially dominant majority, but also protect the economic majority (proletariat) from privileged economic minority (the bourgeoisie). Some people think these are contrary purposes or that they interfere with each other, but I do not think that is the case. That is why I am able to support the plight of Muslim Palestinians against Israeli zionist fascism despite being a nonreligious westerner, while also supporting Jewish minorities in the west against antisemitism.
• Context is always important. To consider something without its accompanying context leads to flawed analysis

If you're interested in foundational texts of Marxism, the Movemento Anti-Imperialista put together a Marxism study plan: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/wisiw/basic_marxismleninism_study_plan/

Which has been read aloud in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOAII71GaFY&list=PLXUFLW8t2sntNn5jQO8vF7ai9x0fna3PV