I think you have a misperception of modern communists. I've never met a communist that endorses Stalin's policies. He's recognized as historically important, which is pretty much undeniable, but many communists today consider him (and sometimes Lenin) to be state capitalist. Modern Western communists are very much towards the libertarian side of that particular political axis. Ironically, communists today kind of have a problem where accusations of Stalinism have become a thought-terminating cliche. edit: this is not to say that i agree with modern communists. there are significant problems with vanguardism, democratic centralism, and other ideas which are still endorsed by the communist parties of today.
the branding problem is being solved as we speak. newer generations are less indoctrinated by the cold war propaganda that created the branding problem. anarchists are developing new theory all the time, orthodoxy is antithetical to anarchism. the student group that organized the initial bus fare protests is considered autonomist, which is a newish strain of anarcho-communist thought that developed in the sixties.
Speaking of anarcho-communism, these protests have led me to do research on the anarcho-syndicalist strain of anarquism.