this post was submitted on 17 Mar 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.

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

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] 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" (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).


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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[yellow, angry]
I don't like communism because every time we tried it, power corrupted people

[yellow, smiling and shrugging]
This is why I prefer capitalism, in which power corrupts people

[yellow, t-posing and drooling]
I am very smart and understand ideologies very well than you for coming to my TED talk

https://thebad.website/comic/elite_reasoning

top 15 comments
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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

As long as we're talking about Libertarian Communism, I'm 100% on board :D

But if we're talking about centralized state controlled communism, I am most definitely not on board :(

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 12 points 2 weeks ago

my people still remember how we had a successful union movement going until Lenin said "All Power to the Soviet", demanded that we quit striking all the time so that the urban factory settings could industrialize faster, and then the ML Union Bosses of the Stalin era became just as corrupt as the mine operators with both the mine bosses and the union bosses telling us to shut the fuck up and get back to work and stop worrying about whatever the hell "black lung" is.

okay. that's enough thinking out of me. i'm going back to recovering from RSV.

as always, fuck every extractive economy no matter what color their fascist movement purports to be

[–] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 weeks ago

Getting people to decouple political systems and economic systems from one another is extremely difficult, especially for MLs because the thought leaders they're in love with wrote grand unifying theories that present them as one and the same. They're linked, but not so strictly as people tend to think.

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Power doesn't just corrupt.

It mostly attracts corrupt people disproportionately - those who see it as a gift rather than a burden of responsibility.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's why democracy is less worse than the other systems, you get to kick the bad guy out before he entrenches himself.

I'd love some mix of anarchy, maybe communism but based on democracy. Lol I guess.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Anarchism+Communism is basically extreme democracy on steroids, since power is then concentrated at the bottom at a community level instead of at the top, and local decisions can be decided via consensus, and then delegated out to a wider federated society :D

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 weeks ago

What we, societally, call "democracy" is often a small amount of influence or even manufactured consent within an otherwise fascist hierarchical structure. True democracy is an entire process encompassing ways of being and living. Anarchism is democratic, but not necessarily all democracy is anarchic. For example, the Haudenosaunee famously participated in an anti-authoritarian power structure that does not qualify as anarchy, however, I would definitely qualify it as one of the most democratic structures ever established on the North American continent.

In fact, I'd even argue that the entire point of "lefist unity" should be that political movements are, and must be, hyper local. It's the #1 thing I think Zapatismo gets right about political theory. Urban centers tend to find ML works and processes the most useful for achieving their liberation whereas rural and pre-industrial economies such as mining communities tend to find the most value in Anarchist, Trotskyist, and Council-Communist lines of thought. It's just that "leftist unity" has a tendency to not work out that way

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

According to anthropologist every society has had growing inequality outside of 2 scenarios, being war and famine, funny when capitalist say communism or socialism has these problems.

Really it's capitalist doing whatever to protect the statue quo

[–] NaibofTabr -1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Er, wait, do you think Mao was a capitalist?

[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The modern China definitely is

[–] NaibofTabr 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Sure, but in the context of:

Really it's capitalist doing whatever to protect the statue quo

What Mao did to China had nothing to do with capitalism. Socialism and communism also struggle with the strong-man populist authoritarianism problem, and blaming capitalists for that makes no sense at all.

[–] Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nobody said anything about Mao, so that's why we're confused.

[–] NaibofTabr -4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Cattail's comment implies that the historical failures of socialist and communist societies is due to capitalists working to prevent them from reaching their true Utopian goals.

My point is that socialism and communism fail entirely on their own. Mao is obviously an extreme example, but far from the only such example.

For proponents of communist or socialist systems to blame capitalists as the reason they can't have their perfect societies is pure deflection, a refusal to address their own internal problems in an honest way. It is hypocrisy and self-delusion.

No it doesn't imply that you just misread it.

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

No? I don't care if mao was capitalist or not