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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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
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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if theyāre too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The hammer and sickle is used by practically every socialist movement. What sort of leftist doesnāt know that??
I know. It's just that it was originally created by the soviet union.
The nation that created the most successful iteration of socialism everā¦
you have got to be kidding me. Tankies gonna tankie i guess
As an Anarchist even I have to acknowledge that to date the Soviet Union has been the most successful socialist state, of course I am also of the belief that if the Republicans in Spain or the Anarchists in Ukraine they would have established far more successful implementations of socialism. Still the fact remains that the Soviet Union was by all metrics available successful and even until the very end the majority of people in nearly every SSR supported keeping the Soviet Union alive (if not with reforms), they suffered CIA and western backed reactionary rebellions and I don't belive any other socialist state would have handled it any better
(yes according to polling made by the reactionaries to gage how much the Soviet population wanted to end to the Soviet Union the majority did not, they promptly ignored the results)
Typo there I meant to say Anarchists in Catalonia, still the fact remains that demanding absolute purity and claiming anything else isnt socialist doesn't result in socialism. That line of thinking objectively only results in the creation of more fascist states.
Quite frankly the entire world would become fascist before a single nation in the global south accepts your specific definition of pure socialism
Pretending that socialism is "when the gubment does stuff" hasn't resulted in socialism, either.
Yes, that's what political elites do when the power and privilege of the class they serve is threatened - and that includes the ones pretending to be "socialist."
We've known this since forever - and your solution to this is to render an enduring political concept so impotent and hollow that it ceases to have any meaning to the very people it is supposed to liberate?
The solution is to be pragmatic and support various socialist groups when it makes sense to do so. For example I voted for Mamdani and I dont regret it whatsoever, obviously he's not going to declare revolution and instate a pure socialist utopia.
Westerners gonna western. None of your fam is from there probably ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
How would you know that?
Because I know what the polls look like for people who actually lived there, because I know my families' opinion and because I know the results of the 1991 referendum
Name a more successful iteration of socialism. Iāll wait. You seem very confident about this lol.
Edit: they were never heard from again š¤£
It's concerning that you think the Soviet union was socialist and not authoritarian.
Socialist isn't entirely the opposite of authoritarian. In some dimensions it is. In others it's unrelated. The USSR can be both socialist and authoritarian. Many argue it was both.
Socialism requires a dictatorship of the proletariat. Have you never read theory?
āDictator of the proletariatā didnāt mean the proletariats needed a dictator. It meant they needed to be the dictators. The common people must decide what the common people need, is what that sentence means.
Thatās what Iām saying.
Iām very interested to hear your thoughts on how it is possible to have a dictatorship of the proletariat, while simultaneously having an actual dictator.
Iām actually not disagreeing that the USSR was socialist, by the way. For most intents and purposes, they were. But ādictatorship of the proletariatā at least to me, sounds like a democracy which is antithetical to authoritarianism
That is "state socialism" as pushed by cold war propaganda (marxism-leninism interpretation). Socialism certainly doesn't require a dictatorship.
The only other option would be magic.
When you establish a socialist nation, the resources of the ruling must be extracted by force, as they cannot be reasoned with. They will not simply give up their wealth because socialism won. The only option is to take the resources by force. The exact same sort of force they use on us today.
Feel free to provide any other realistic solution to wealth redistribution. That is the issue with people like you that donāt read theory. You think socialism just magically happens. The countries that ACTUALLY did this shit know that isn't how this works.
There has never been a transition from a large mature capitalist republic to a socialist republic society(ussr certainty didn't). No one can predict how it will happen, certainly not you and certainly not me. The ussr is no model at all for the future of the United states.
Cuba
Does pre-revolution Cuba qualify as a comparable stage of capitalist development to the US today? Methinks no and I don't expect things to go the same way in the US as they did in Cuba. I think the US is closer to the state of capitalism Marx thought would start a transition towards socialism than Cuba or tsarist Russia.
Some significant differences from past iterations:
Just based on those two, if a socialist revolution is to occur in the US, there would be no immediate (or any war) waged on it, so no resources would need to be dedicated on that. There would be no need to scramble to develop almost all industry. Due to the extreme consolidation, taking control over the system would likely be easier - fewer levers control everything.
It doesnāt need to be perfectly comparable. The reality is, we know these worms aināt gonna give up their resources for nothing. It will be taken by force. That is a guarantee.
Sure, but that force can be exercised via worker's democracy, like in the Paris Commune or the early Russian Revolution.
Sure, you could call most of these socialist: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seca5
It seems like you did not, in fact, wait. I have better stuff to do than debating tankies.
Also, the fact that you consider the USSR a successful iteration of socialism is.... concerning.
This is just a link for an anarchism FAQ. Feel free to just name the nations. You can type it out.
And yes, I do consider a nation that went from millions of peasants, to exploring space, providing free education, free healthcare, and womenās rights, while going toe to toe with the greatest capital super power of all time as a success.
It's an anarchism FAQ :P
It was a brutal dictatorship. What they achieved does not excuse that.
Yeah, Iām getting the impression Iām dealing with a political lightweight here.
Socialism is an economic system, not a moral one.
Best of luck of on your journey.
The one of the largest problems with any state system or really any system that includes involuntary hierarchies is the decoupling of economics and morality. Power not only is a corrupting force but the people who want power over others tend to have the basest morality. Both western capitalism and the Chinese implementation of socialism are both perfectly happy destroying the environment, utilizing slave labor, and implementing surveillance states all in the name of "progress" and the continuation of a world order that primarily benefits an elite few while grinding billions under their boot heels.
Stating historical fact makes you a tankie apparently
š£š£š£š„š„š„
Reality has a leftist bias
congratulations you found a liberal
Except that there was nothing socialist about it.
I am not a fan of the USSR, but when the guy in charge nationalizing everything and abolishing private property it is socialism whether we like it or not.
Alight fine that's State Socialism... which, apparently, is the only type of Socialism that is talked about or allowed to exist here.
So you're claiming the Apartheid-regime was socialist?
Hasn't China surpassed it at this point?
Yeah, but that's "socialism with Chinese characteristics" aka state capitalism. Modern China is very much not socialist.
If we mention China, the libs here are gonna be even more pissed. Baby steps.
Really?