this post was submitted on 29 Dec 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, 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" 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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[–] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 5 points 51 minutes ago (1 children)

the irony of this coming from an ml user lol

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 1 points 11 minutes ago

Sounds like something a CIA agent would say!

Remember, it's only leftist infighting when you disagree with them.

[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 minutes ago

It's not even always a MLM/anarchist split.

I've run into some terminally online-dumb shit. Look at my account age and post count for how strong a claim I'm making here:

I'm less terminally online brain poisoned and social media brain rotted than 95% of the people I find in left spaces in California. It's wild.

It's not even about real ideology sometimes. I recommended an essay about why being a cop is bullshit by George Orwell and got iced out of a mutual aid project for 'liking problematic authors', and that's not even the dumbest one. I've been called ableist about a disability I have for saying reading theory has value.

[–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 hour ago

This is why I work on blind solidarity. If a leftist organization organizes something and I like it I help it and assume they're better than Democrats. If I think its demonic I ignore it.

Plus I like bragging about achieving to an infighter

[–] dogbert@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

“Leftism” is an umbrella term that encapsulates dozens of ideologies. “Leftist infighting” is a result of these groups wanting different things as they explicitly have different goals.

A communist and an anarchist doing “infighting” is largely a result of them having completely different goals, not CIA mind-control.

The CIA narrative you’re referring to pertains largely to socialist organization specifically.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 12 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It's both. Popular fronts are a thing, and Spanish Republican style coalitions are incredibly powerful tools. Political pluralism within leftist movements is healthy when we let it be healthy. The CIA, FBI, and various governments and reactionary groups have engaged in psyops against this for decades.

But these divisions are real and they come from real ideological differences and hurt. The CIA didn't force the red army to fire on the black armies, it didn't force the blunder of ideology at Kronstadt, it didn't force the betrayal in Spain. And it also didn't force anarchists to have issues controlling their people or implementing their goals. It didn't force the syndicalists to fuck up in South America and Berlin. And it didn't force the USSR and CCP to nearly go to war with each other.

What they did do however is project Gladius, COINTELPRO, operation condor, and various other anti left programs. They made damn sure Fred Hampton died and they made sure the Black Panthers couldn't trust each other enough to be effective. They also made sure the inner cities were filled with crack to destroy black anti capitalist organizing.

And here's where you get the mix. Anarchists already don't trust MLs, because of the aforementioned betrayals and disorganization, then you get government campaigns working to ensure that trust remains broken and that the culture becomes one in which cooperation is anathema. And the trots are kept distrustful of the MLs and the anarchists. MLs are encouraged to keep thinking of themselves as the only real socialists except MLMs. It's similar to the Russian campaigns between democrats and republicans, both already didn't like each other and the goal is to keep picking at the wounds and encouraging off putting behaviors.

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 hour ago

Speaking at least in the context of the US, any revolutionary minded leftists (or "leftists", if you prefer) have goals that diverge so far from the present day as to be irrelevant.

[–] HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 2 hours ago

This is why I I try to focus on the right and just ignore stupid people on the left. They can be by my side as long as they throw rocks at the fascists.

[–] PixelatedSaturn@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Not everything is the fault of the CIA. I don't think left parties need any help in self-destruction, they are well capable in this department. 😁

It's how it is, because the left parties are democratic and discuss many ideas and people get passionate about different things. The right are usually authoritarian and people fall in line, no matter how much they disagree with the actual set of ideas, also because of the consequences.

It's the natural natural way of things.

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

Sure. Wrecking absolutely exploits existing vulnerabilities. Resist exacerbating such vulnerabilities.

[–] SleepyPie@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The CIA and Chinese troll farms lately

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago

Chinese troll farms are trying to divide leftists?

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Post needs text alternative.


So, are tankies a CIA operation?

[–] dogbert@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Tankies are a “CIA operation” in the sense that they’re responsible for the CIAs existence. It’s been the only historical threat to capitalist western powers.

[–] HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

If they didn't have a suitable threat, they'd have invented one.

[–] dogbert@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

They didn’t need to invent one.

[–] StarlightDust@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 44 minutes ago

honestly, most "leftist infighting" is men who won't stop hanging out with their rapist mates who got kicked out of an organising space. im an ancom but we have a wide array of ideologies in our scene but the bullshit shows up wherever you organise.