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, 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 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.
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
view the rest of the comments
Not all anarchist critique of communism is anarchist by virtue of coming from self-described anarchists. Some is liberal, and the barrier to entry for genuine anarchist critique of existing and formerly existing socialist states is higher than just repeating red scare era misinformation. Further, some anarchist critique is genuinely anarchist critique, but based on misinformation from liberals and fascists, and so still needs to be corrected even if we accepted the nature of the critique.
The reverse is also true for Marxists critiqueing anarchists, of course, but there just isn't the same level of scale when it comes to existing anarchist projects, so the level of anti-anarchist fearmongering from liberals and fascists isn't nearly as high. Regardless of your opinions on anarchism, this is a basic fact that must be accepted.
The pursuit of genuine truth for genuine critique is something anarchists and Marxists should agree on, especially when we both should agree that it's the fascists and liberals that are our primary enemies, not each other. Anarchists and Marxists have worked together on numerous occasions, it's the rare times that we've raised arms against each other that get remembered to sow division.
Not really arguing the main point, but I do find it important to mention that the reason there isn't the same level of scale when it comes to anarchist projects is because communists actively sold them out, killed them, and jailed them. There were multiple anarchist communes and councils but they were systematically destroyed during the rise of the USSR and Stalinism. WW1 and 2 didn't really help either, and it wasn't only communists going after them either but I feel their role shouldnt be understated either. Obviously with an ideology opposed to state hood and wielding political power, it makes sense that the rhetoric and political machines communists used at the time won out, even if there was mass popularity for the anarchist cause amongst the workers.
Critique is important and so is being wary ornrepeating history. But at this point working together is our best strategy and fighting over petty differences is just doing the feds work for them.
That's generally not true. Not only has Marxism been largely localized and thus anarchism had plenty of room on its own to struggle, but Marxists and anarchists worked together more often than not. The times with open fighting were usually when both groups took up arms against each other, such as Makhnovschina (which even other anarchists like Lucy Parsons called bandits). The deliberate choices of those anarchists shouldn't be minimized.