this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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Lefty Memes
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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
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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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage 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 they’re 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.
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That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
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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" (read: Dengists) (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).
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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.
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.
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I get the tankie label a lot, moreso on Reddit, but sometimes on Lemmy too.
You'll get the label for such burning hot (?) takes as "the cold war wasn't about good vs evil" or "I don't support NATO" or "Cuba did pretty good given its circumstances actually", some people let the CIA live rent free in their head and really do believe anything to their left is automatically authoritarian.
I hate authoritarianism though :( I even wrote an entire manifesto on how the USSR went wrong when Lenin purposefully ignored Marx's remarks on radical recallability of vanguard party members back when I was a lil wee revolutionary teenage lad, before the neoliberal 2000s crushed the revolutionary spirit of the millenial youth.
Yeah, I scroll smugideologyman on reddit sometimes and see that.
On some irish subreddits I see people calling our president a tankie for things like saying that sanctions on syria aren't helping the situation there, or condemning kneecap for not speaking against the cuban government when they visited the island.
Case in point,
I love kneecap btw.
Don't care for their music, but they're beyond based humans and I sincerely wish them the best.
History will remember them fondly.
reddit has always been a cesspool, the reddit sentiment is that you only believe in communism if you are a teenager trying to be edgy, and if you are not that you are obviously a troll
I generally feel that someone is a tankie when they become emotional about some topic that is not worth the emotion as if you thinking something slightly differently is a personal attack.
What do you mean with NATO? Other than the US being currently involved, I am pretty neutral about its existance.
Also, isn't cuba quite authoritarian?
After WWII the Americans put Nazi leaders into positions of power within NATO.
The entire point of NATO was to extend the power of the usa and prevent communism spreading/open a front against the USSR if war broke out.
It is a racist imperial project architected by the worst people in the world.
NATO is a coalition of imperialist countries, designed to protect them from backlash from the global south, and to isolate and break up communism.
Cuba is a state, so by definition it's a monopoly on violence. It's also democratically run by the Cuban working classes. You can call that "authoritarian" in that it's a tool to oppress the capitalists, landlords, and fascists, but it's also democratic and uplifting for the working classes.
I mean authoritarian as in, castro was the leader since its creation, and when he died it was passed onto his brother. Really dont see how it can be democratic.
To clarify, is your position that democracy means regular change in position of the head of state? In that case, President Miguel Diáz-Canel isn't related to the Castros at all, so your cause for concern should be alleviated. Personally, I don't see authority and democracy as contradictory, all States are monopolies on violence, as I said. Democracy in my view is rule by the majority, which I see as rule by the working classes. Cuba has a complex system of democracy that goes above western conceptions of democracy.
Cuba has what they call a participatory democracy. People participate in all levels of government, and the government is led by the PCC. The democratic structure relies on delegates sent to the various organs of government from among the people, and this translates into popular rule by the working classes themselves.
Long-serving leaders are not indicative of a lack of democracy, but more towards stability. In the context of a country under siege, stability is critical, and regular turnover introduces chaos that they cannot afford. In fact, the low term limits of leaders in countries like the US are there to prevent lasting change from ever happening, and instead let the ongoing background processes take priority, those processes being capitalism and imperialism.