this post was submitted on 02 Oct 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.


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.



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

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[–] Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

The Soviet Union wasn’t communist

How so? I already dispelled your erroneous, CIA-manufactured understanding of ownership of the means of production in the USSR and gave you my sources, to which you haven't replied other than by making up stuff on the spot. Would you care to argue otherwise from data?

Here is the graph with your methodical errors corrected

Thanks, I wasn't aware of the caps-sensitivity of the Ngram viewer, good point. Regardless, you do notice that your graph proves further my point, right? That "Holodomor" is a word essentially unused from 1930 to 2000, and now it grows in usage each year as a consecuence of unaware pro-capitalist propagandists like you. I repeat: do you use such scary words for capitalist-inflicted famines, or is it something you reserve for punching to your left?

Dude, 3.5 million deaths (That’s the low estimate, by the way) through famine does not qualify as “successful nation-wide land collectivization”.

Depends. Famines were commonplace in the Russian Empire, and it's to be expected that in a country in preindustrial agricultural production famines would happen. Ultimately there were mistakes during the land collectivization that led to unnecessary degrees of famine, true, but remember, it was the only successful attempt in the sense that it did collectivize land in a long-lasting and widespread manner, which had been attempted countless times over the past 5 millenia with no success until that point and many deaths in every attempt, e.g. the Gracchi brothers already attempted land collectivization in ancient Rome.

The collectivization of agriculture in the USSR enabled the first ever case of a state-owned industrial revolution, which managed to make the country grow by 10-15% YEARLY in economic output. The former Russian Empire went from being a pre-capitalist agrarian society to becoming an industrializing nation in 10 years, and that wasn't out of desire, it was out of necessity. The 1929 collectivization coincides in time (not by coincidence) with the first 5-year plan, which set in motion the industrialization of the USSR that would lead to an increase of life expectancy from 30 years of age to 60 in 30 years, even with the most devastating war in history inbetween those years. Not only did it solve hunger forever and allow for widespread healthcare, it also enabled the industrial revolution that ended up DEFEATING NAZISM. Nazis had plans to murder and forcibly reallocate all Slavic and many other peoples between Germany and Urals, which amounts to hundreds of millions of people. By defeating Nazism, the industrial revolution of the USSR, kicked off in 1929, effectively saved TENS OF MILLIONS of lives from genocide, and then gave those very people healthcare and guaranteed food that DOUBLED life expectancy in a formerly feudal backwards empire. For reference, a comparable country in economic situation in 1930 would be Brazil, which by 1965 had a life expectancy of 55 years, where at that point USSR had raised it to 68. Multiply by 200 million lives, how many tens of millions of lives saved is that?

Now tell me: knowing how many tens if not hundreds of millions of lives were saved by the 1929 collectivization and industrial plans, do you still deny its success?

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

Well, it's ten PM. I'll read it later.