this post was submitted on 12 Aug 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, 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)


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.


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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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 15 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I’m not sure what system would work. The problem is people. Once the wrong people are in charge, they’ll ignore or break laws with impunity.

Capitalism has definitely proven that it’s not the answer, though.

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago (19 children)

Anarchism avoids this problem by putting no one in charge

[–] positiveWHAT@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (3 children)

But that's how we started. How are you gonna stop the people that then gather and creates groups with leaders that ravage the land like the golden horde?

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I recommend you read this: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/crimethinc-frequently-asked-questions-about-anarchism#toc7

More specifically,

But if we overthrow the government without offering something to take its place, what’s to stop something really nasty from filling the power vacuum?

That’s the mantra of those who are working up the nerve to be really nasty themselves. The really ruthless usually tell you that they are there to protect you from other ruthless people; often, they are telling themselves the same thing.

If we were powerful enough to overthrow one government, we would be powerful enough to prevent the ascendance of another, provided we weren’t tricked into rallying around some new authority. What should take the place of the government is not another formalized power structure, but cooperative relationships that can meet our needs while keeping new would-be rulers at bay.

From the vantage point of the present, no one can imagine creating a stateless society, though many of the problems we face will not be solved any other way. In the meantime, we can at least open spaces and times and relations outside the control of the authorities.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

That entire FAQ is a hodge podge of logical fallacies; apparently written by someone who's read lots of 20th century history books but has zero understanding of real life civics.

That’s the mantra of those who are working up the nerve to be really nasty themselves.

Calling everyone who disagrees closet-oppressors is an ad hominim not an argument.

If we were powerful enough to overthrow one government, we would be powerful enough to prevent the ascendance of another,

That's a hasty generalization that US interventions abroad patently disproves.

not another formalized power structure, but cooperative relationships that can meet our needs while keeping new would-be rulers at bay.

That's just reinventing the wheel. Relationships need to be formalized in order to consistently deliver at scale. Likewise power structures inherently exist because of the would-be rulers.

no one can imagine creating a stateless society, though many of the problems we face will not be solved any other way.

This is an appeal to ignorance on multiple levels.

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[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

If we were powerful enough to overthrow one government, we would be powerful enough to prevent the ascendance of another

I'm not convinced. What if the government was just weak at the time

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

By meeting with them regularly as their neighbor and getting to know their needs through continuous dialog and figuring out how to make you and them materially reliant on one another in order to create an organic, interdependent, cooperative community in which the wants and needs of individuals become aligned.

This has literally always been the only way to dependably avoid your scenario under any system, regardless of institutional obfuscations to the contrary. Anarchism really just strips away those obfuscations and thrusts it's participants directly into mutual power with one another.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's also a terrible argument since hunter gatherer societies largely avoided conflict due to humans being so sparse. It was simply much, much, easier to move on than to fight prior to the agricultural revolution.

Meanwhile we have archeological evidence of subsistence marauders from the stone age. They found a village that lacked contemporary agriculture. It also had a mass grave of victims who had been killed violently but their deaths spanned over a decade.

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 8 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Okay, but weapons exist. Any country that declared that it had no government would be taken over in less time than it’s taking me to type this (granted, I’m on a phone, but still).

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is a great book that explores an anarchist society. It works because the anarchists are on an unwelcoming moon with very few resources.

[–] releaseTheTomatoes@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Anarchism isn't about pretending harm doesn’t exist either. The people that want to do real harm and will cause harm (will in bold because it's important to distinguish people who want to do harm and people who will do harm) can just as easily get into positions of power in our current system. Most people don’t want chaos, so why should we organize society around the assumption that we need rulers to prevent it? Basic morals are very, very easy for a super majority of a society to get behind.

Bad actors will mess up any polity, to any degree. That's not a unique fault of anarchism, my friend.

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[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

Weapons exist for both sides :)

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago (47 children)
[–] theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You know communism of some form obviously private ownership of the means of production is self evidently bad for humanity and the planet in general.

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