Lefty Memes
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
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] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage 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.
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
- Sexual 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
It doesn't matter. I have argued with literal western sources, like primary attributions what the chief of the NED said or the archived funding page of the NED, or academic works by Ukrainian scholars. Photos and western media articles about the Nazi problem in Ukraine.
Nothing with convince a liberal that the Nato isn't a holy alliance of the pure and willing to bring freedom, justice and democracy to Ukraine. A full embrace of the fantasy that the west finally fights "the good fight" again.
All I want is peace and a diplomatic solutions, an end to the warmongering. But what do pacifists get today? Endless insults and mocking. The liberals and "leftists" are acting just like MAGAts and climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers. I look from one to the other and back again and see no difference.
So what's your solution? Let Ukraine put their weapons down so that Russia would annex and genocide them?
Let's not forget that Russia is a nazi state, hellbent on promoting Russian ethnic supremacy.
One major reason that Nazis are bad is their propensity for invading, robbing, and murdering the people of their neighboring countries.
Fuck Ukraine and fuck your fake concern for anything but yourself
Lol, lmfao even.
Hmm, methinks one is unaware of the hypocrisy.
If your premise is that Russia is "obviously" is a fascist nazi state hellbent on genocide, there is obviously no solution but constant war. If that were the case I would obviously agree with you. But there is no evidence for your premise. Russia was an antagonist interfering in other countries before the Ukraine regime change, but they didn't engage in conquest and genocide. Nor do I know of state sanctioned discrimination between the different ethnicity living in Russia.
They're literally taking children from Ukraine to give to Russian families so that they Russified, as part of their Russification programs. Which is classified as cultural genocide, if you didn't know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war
It is a war crime and rises to ethnic cleansing.
I am however doubting the numbers since there are no independent observers in this war. You can't just unquestionably take one sides word for things. Anyone in any western dominated institution that questions the narrative about the Ukraine war gets fired. There are plenty of stories about Ukrainian war crimes as well, but unlike OP makes it sound I do not believe Russia propaganda either.
Also whenever there is war, there are war crimes and atrocities. That is why war should be prevented at all costs.
Also "cultural genocide" is a made up word invented to be used against China. It is literally imperialist propaganda, part of the more than 1.6 billion dollar the US spend on this.
So I do not see how this justifies endless war. A diplomatic peace treaty should obviously see a return of these children.
Okay so, if you're a pacifist, then clearly you believe that Russia should leave the currently occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, since Russia obviously started this war first and all hostilities should cease between the two nations.
Sure, that would be nice. I doubt however Russia is going to go for that.
Russia made their demands pretty clear at the beginning and they weren't unreasonable. These demands have never been discussed in mainstream media and are always dismissed. By now it is much harder to get to a reasonable diplomatic solution.
The ICC has accused Maria Lvova Belova of being the person in charge of the child abductions/ethnic cleansing. They are neutral and independent enough for me.
I fully agree.
While it's true that it classifies as a genocidal act under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it's not the only criteria. To be technically classified as genocide, you need to prove the clear intent of destroying a specific group, either in part or fully.
Judging by how this war started, and by both sides' behaviour, I don't think it'd be ruled as genocide in any international court or tribunal. Cases formally ruled as genocide are rare, precisely because it's not easy to prove the intent.
And frankly, it's rarely present. In almost all cases governments are after leverage, power, or resources, and could not care less about the nations or ethnic groups.
Even in Israel's case it took a long time to produce enough evidence for the UN and ICC to formally declare a genocide is ongoing. And look how obvious that one is.
Cool story kiddo
"There's no evidence"... Except for the damn war they started and continue to this day with the explicit intent of conquest.
No no komrade, is special 3 day operation, Ukraine totally attacked first, Russia is just bro, trust us.
Did you forget about Crimea?
So because Russia had other conflicts where they didn't commit genocide, it's impossible for them to commit genocide in the future? Or if they do start doing genocide them it's actually someone else's fault?
Weird amount of genocide denialism and victim blaming from a self processed passifist
Woah that is the most insane argument I've read so far. With that logic we should attack everyone because they could commit genocide. And if you disagree you're a genocide denier lol.
Argument for what? I'm pointing out that you're doing genocide denial and suddenly I'm saying someone should get attacked? Being against genocide denial doesn't mean I think anyone should get attacked you goof.
Notice how I said absolutely nothing about whether I think the war is great or what anyone should be doing, and yet you projected all these views onto me, just because I said genocide denial is wrong. Rethink your life, friend.
No, no, you're definitely in the wrong here. Let's go through the play-by-play:
Famko said: "Let Ukraine put their weapons down so that Russia would annex and genocide them? Let’s not forget that Russia is a nazi state, hellbent on promoting Russian ethnic supremacy."
AlteredEgo said: "But there is no evidence for your premise. Russia was an antagonist interfering in other countries before the Ukraine regime change, but they didn’t engage in conquest and genocide. Nor do I know of state sanctioned discrimination between the different ethnicity living in Russia."
You said: "So because Russia had other conflicts where they didn’t commit genocide, it’s impossible for them to commit genocide in the future? Or if they do start doing genocide them it’s actually someone else’s fault?"
So here we see someone positing that Russia will genocide Ukraine if Ukraine surrenders and someone saying that there's no evidence of this in the history of the RF for the last 30 years and there's no evidence of it happening now. You said that just because Russia didn't commit genocide previously doesn't mean it's impossible for them to commit genocide in the future.
So now we have AlteredEgo coming back to say, paraphrased "[wait, are you saying that if it's possible that Russia might commit genocide against Ukraine in the future that this is sufficient for why we should fight a war of total domination against them?"]
Because that's the context of the thread you jumped into
Yes, I read their posts just fine, nothing you said is news. I objected that "there's no evidence Russia has ever done genocide before" is not a coherent argument against the allegations that Russian forces are committing genocide previously. I also disagree there's no evidence it's happening now, but the particular argument that "they didn't do it in a different war, so they can't be doing it in this one" is just absurd on its face and was the one I wanted to reply to the most.
That's not what was said. What was said was that there is not evidence of a genocide happening now, and the response was that they COULD commit a genocide if Ukraine surrendered.
No, no, you're definitely in the wrong here. Let's go through the play-by-play;
So this here is a post, from AlteredEgo. In it, they said that Russia doing things in the past that weren't conquest and genocide meant that somehow genocide cannot be happening now.
Nope. You're skipping over the important bits.
Famko said: “Russia is a nazi state, hellbent on promoting Russian ethnic supremacy.”
and AlteredEgo said: "Russia was an antagonist interfering in other countries before the Ukraine regime change, but they didn’t engage in conquest and genocide. Nor do I know of state sanctioned discrimination between the different ethnicity living in Russia."
So AlteredEgo is providing the evidence against the claim that Russia is a nazi state hellbent on promoting Russian ethnic supremacy. If this were the case, it would seem that we would see evidence for it in their other conflicts and we do not.
This is a perfectly reasonable argument to make.
All you want is for the Ukrainians to stop fighting back, you mean.
I don't think for a moment Ukraine is getting NATO support for altruistic reasons, but that doesn't mean NATO started this fight. Nobody in the EU wanted a proxy war with Russia. They were all making tons of money from Russia, and vice versa.
The Russian pretext for the invasion has shifted about a dozen times since the war started, and Putin's little green men were all over the border region stirring up trouble ever since the invasion of Crimea. These are all documented facts too. He gambled he could get away with it without much of a fight, and lost the bet. Fuck around and find out I guess.
It's also true that there is a well documented percentage of Ukrainians who are literally neonazis, like the Azov brigade. But surely one could reasonably assume the biggest reason Ukrainians hate the Russians nowadays is because Russia invaded their country, not some CIA psyop, or because they've been reading Meine Kampf to the kids at night.
Well the CIA/NED under Obama wanted to "wrest Ukraine from Russia". You can follow the western sources and the webarchive pages of the NED webpage yourself if you want: Anatomy of a Coup: How CIA Front Laid Foundations for Ukraine War
"Fuck around and find out" describes this brinkmanship very well. I mean, who could have known:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
The quotes around "experienced" are mine, because I love that word to describe what happened. Well what did happen? A color revolution at the border of Russia led to civil war. National Endowment for Democracy’s Role in Colour Revolutions and Regime Change
I haven't read the academic sources for the Rose Revolution myself, but the CIA/NED has been doing this shit for decades all around the world.
I want to the truth and a diplomatic solution. And ideally those responsible for the regime change, the maidan massacre and the war prosecuted. But I guess all of this history, it never happened.
Ukraine has a Nazi problem? Oh man, that is horrible!
Do Ukrainian Nazis invade rob and murder their neighboring countries? That would be a really bad thing for Nazis to do.
How many seats in the Ukrainian parliament are currently held by Nazis?
This is a pretty good 2026 article written by a Ukrainian academic: Ukraine's military has a real Nazi problem | Responsible Statecraft
Or see the coverage of the recent reburial of Nazi collaborator with state honor by Zelensky. Note how different and prominent the headlines are between Israel newspapers and the western mainstream newspapers.
The bigger question though is who got into power and how during the regime change:
Read a bit from this book written by another Ukrainian academic scholar: The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: The Mass Killing that Changed the World | Springer Nature Link. From the conclusions:
This isn't just this guy saying it, or propaganda, or a conspiracy theory - a 2023 jury trial verdict in Ukraine comes to the same conclusion after reviewing all the evidence. Buried trial verdict confirms false-flag Maidan massacre in Ukraine – Canadian Dimension
If you really want to know the truth and do not trust these articles you can download the original trial verdict in Ukrainian and try google translate. Unfortunately I have not found a way to do a full english translation myself because the verdict is a 14mb html file.
So tell me, if true, is this important at all? To the question of who came into power? Of how this is pretty much ignored or labeled disinfo?
108 civilian protesters and 13 police officers were murdered in the "Revolution of Dignity".
Does it excuse Russia's invasion? No. But it makes it much less of a simple and one sided situation. All of this after the CIA/NED chief bragged about wrestling Ukraine away from Russia. See Anatomy of a Coup: How CIA Front Laid Foundations for Ukraine War for more western sources.
So you can mock and laugh all you want. The facts remain the ugly facts when you use "non Russian aligned" sources.
Bottom line right here. You are going on quite a bit about stuff that has absolutely no bearing on the most important issues of the day.
Russian war crimes in Ukraine have killed about 4 orders of magnitude (10,000 times) more people than the incident you mention here. And you feel it’s important and relevant to discuss the reburial of one guy who died a half century ago. Your priorities are severely misplaced. The main tool of propaganda is not the lie, but the emphasis, and your emphasis on small things in trying to distract from 10,000 times bigger things is wildly out of whack.
Damn right. All the best lies have a grain of truth to them.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.