this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.

Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.

If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.

Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!

Rules

Version without spoilers

0. Only post socialist memes


That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)


1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here


Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.


2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such


That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.


3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.


That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).


4. No Bigotry.


The only dangerous minority is the rich.


5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.


We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.

(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)


6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.


Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (62 children)

Isn't that the point of the meme? Leftists can share 94% of views, but if they disagree on one thing they are treated as the worst enemy, rather than the people who share 0% of the same views.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (48 children)

Correct, if those differences are irreconcilable. I can ally with lefties that want slightly different things, but "America is evil therefore Stalin wasn't that bad" is not someone grounded in reality.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (47 children)

Don't take this as Stalin defending, but if you are trying to accomplish movements to the Left and both Person A and Person B want Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, and Person C wants literal fascism, is Person B being a Stalin defender worth creating a 3 way battle when people who identify with C far outnumber A and B combined currently? That seems to go against what is strategically necessary in the US, at least.

I think it's more important to build a cohesive worker movement that's as large as possible before we move on to discussing Marxism vs Anarchism vs some other flavor of Leftism, at least in the US.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

History shows that allying with authoritarians rarely works out for those who don't want authoritarianism.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Sure. But if you have to pick between a 3 way fight and a 2 way fight, it is easier to convince someone with 94% shared views while allying with them than it is to win a 3 way fight.

A united front is the only way to get Socialism in the US.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Yeah because it's historically been REALLY easy to get rid of authoritarian allies once a semblance of victory is achieved 🙄

Also, for a left libertarian (aka an anti-authoritarian leftist), the authoritarianism itself is a huge part of the problem.

Personally, I'm not a fan of people being murdered for trying to unionize like fascists would, but I'm also not a fan of people being murdered for NOT unionizing like stalinists would.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

On the nose! Capitalism always devolves to authoritarian or fascistic systems when left to it's own devices. Broken by anticompetitive behavior. And Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism start there. Going from one to the other is a lateral move. Their benefits and faults are oddly similar. Despite how vehemently they despise each other. The authoritarian nature is the fault. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't think you'll find many people advocating for either of those positions outside the most fringe of fringe.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Clearly you've not met a lot of tankies.

Not to worry though: since you're on Lemmy you're bound to meet far too many of them sooner rather than later!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

The authoritarian nightmare will turn on you the moment they have secured victory. It happens every time.

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