Lefty Memes
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
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.
- 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
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Great! Assuming you're being genuine, my goal is not to convince you to become a hard-line Marxist-Leninist or anything, my goal is to get you to rescind your statement that Marxism-Leninism is fascist. You can disagree with Lenin if you want, or think he could have done things far better with different methods, but calling him and Marxist-Leninists fascist is wrong.
Wikipedia has an article on Soviet Democracy, the democratic model followed by the USSR. If you want to hear Lenin describe everything, in his own words, The State and Revolution goes over Lenin's contributions to Revolutionary Theory.
Theoretically yes, though this never happened. Lenin was extremely popular until his death. The closest was the Bolsheviks losing to the SRs in the 1917 Constituent Assembly, but replacing the Liberal Capitalist Constituent Assembly with only the Soviet system. Previous to that election, both Soviets and the Liberal Provisional Government held dual-power, overturning it fully transitioned to a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Hence the need for Democratic Centralism, diversity in thought, unity in action. Later on, Mao added the concept of the Mass Line to draw a direct line from the top to the bottom, but this was well after the USSR had come into existence, this was Mao tweaking the Soviet system.
You can read what I have linked. If you want a book that tries to analyze the USSR, for both positives and negatives while working through Red-Scare Propaganda, Blackshirts and Reds goes over quite a lot of the overall system of the USSR.
Nope, I'm being completely genuine. I suspect the people I've talk to about the subject before did either a poor job explaining it or were too far in love with Lenin have a realistic perspective with on things. Guy was a human like the rest of us, not a saint.
I will need some time to process all this information. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me about this subject.
P.S. I am not a Zionist or Homophobic.
Glad to hear it, this conversation was worth it in the end then.
Bit of A, bit of B.
Overall, you absolutely did have an absolute resistance towards even considering that Lenin may not have been a fascist, that's difficult to engage with, and I imagine it would be hard to convince you in any other context as well.
As for the love Lenin himself gets, it's important to recognize 2 major factors.
Lenin is incredibly popular among Marxists for being the first major figure to fully study Marxism, apply it to the conditions of the world he lived in, expand on Marxism, put Theory to Practice, take down the Brutal Tsarist Regime, and create the first true Socialist State. This is on top of having an unapologetic and fiery writing style. He is very easy to like, as a Marxist. As an example, see the opening to The State and Revolution:
Secondly, liking Lenin does not mean Marxists deny missteps, errors, or believe him to be a "Great Man." Marxists explicitly reject Great Man Theory, which posits that history is guided by unique individuals and their ideas, rather than the material conditions of society. If Lenin had never been born, someone else would have eventually come to similar conclusions, and revolution would have likely happend without him. Lenin was not a saint, he was just the person who filled up a historical role that someone else could have just as easily filled.
No worries, there's a lot to dig through, and it deserves to be thoroughly looked at. I do think reading Marx and Engels first, at least Critique of the Gotha Programme, Wage Labor and Capital, and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific from Marx and Engels before jumping into Lenin's works can better allow you to personally judge if Lenin was a departure from Marx, or an expander upon Marx.
For Lenin himself, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and The State and Revolution are his essential works, and what really matters when it comes to Marxism itself. If you go through Marx and Engels, then compare Lenin's works to theirs, you can come to your own conclusions, free from outside bias.
I hoped you weren't. I do still believe the bit on Lenin and Marx was homophobic, even if unintentionally. The root of the "humor" in those jokes is just naked homophobia.