this post was submitted on 08 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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[–] Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

liberation getting co-opted by selfish assholes and becoming the thing they swore to destroy

Totally, like the USSR. They started out with a good idea of redistributing and communalizing the means of production, but ended up creating a new ruling class of politicians that exploited people just as much. Just look at modern evidence of income inequality in the USSR compared to Tsarism (pre-1917) and capitalism (post-1990):

See? By looking at factual evidence... wait... hold up... Income inequality actually maintained itself at the historical lowest in the region during communism's entire existence... Well, time to disregard my comment because I'm a tankie and a Ruzzian bot, amirite?

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The hierarchies present in the USSR didn't take the form of income inequality. You're taking a metric that is very useful for analyzing capitalist countries and using it in a context where it doesn't make much sense.

Anyway, the comparison with the west isn't really relevant to the comparison I would make in that case, which would be between the initial revolutionary movement and where it ended up.

[–] Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The hierarchies present in the USSR didn't take the form of income inequality

Wonderful, do you have any numeric data to present?

Non-income sources of access to goods and services perhaps? Such as the universal access to jobs, and universal access to housing mostly through the work union? Universal access to education to the highest level for free? Widely available, high quality, dense, affordable, high frequency public transit? High quantity of public sport facilities, art centres and so-called "culture houses"? Which of those was, numerically and with data, less egalitarian in the USSR?

the comparison I would make in that case, which would be between the initial revolutionary movement and where it ended up

The graph goes from pre-revolution, to Bolshevism, and to capitalism. You can see that income inequality remained somewhat stable during Socialism, and was much lower than before or after.

[–] F_State@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is just for Stalin and what I could quickly pull off the internet

in Moscow area:

Kuntsevo Dacha ("Near Dacha") Uspenskoye Dacha (Far Dacha, old) Semyonovskoye Dacha (Far Dacha, new) Zubalovo dacha, the first one; not preserved[1] Lipki dacha; not preserved[1] Elsewhere in Russia:

Sochi dacha (Matsesta dacha) Bolshiye Brody dacha, Valday, Novgorod Oblast[1]

There were 5 Stalin's dachas in Abkhazia[2]

New Athos dacha Kholodnaya Rechka dacha Lake Ritsa dacha Sukhumi dacha, amid the Sukhumi arboretum (now part of the Sukhumi botanical garden) Miusera dacha

Oh, you mean state-owned dachas that many politicians of the high spheres of the party shared, and none of which was actually Stalin's property? Was the White House Obama's property?

How many of said "dachas belonging to Stalin" were inherited by his children, as expected if he owned them?

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What somebody formally owns and gets in income isn't the same as the wealth they actually control in authoritarian systems.

Also, wealth equality through being poor isn't that brilliant

[–] Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What somebody formally owns and gets in income isn't the same as the wealth they actually control in authoritarian systems

Great, why don't you provide us with some numerical metrics of that in the Soviet Union vs. modern Russia or USA? Or are you possibly just making it up without evidence?

wealth equality through being poor isn't that brilliant

I agree. So did the soviets, and that's why they took a backwards feudal nation in Europe with 85% of the population composed of exploited peasants with an average life expectancy of 28 years, and industrialized the country until it was the second world power, the majority of the population were city dwellers with modern lives and amenities, and rose life expectancy to 70+ years.

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

https://wealthpol.web.ox.ac.uk/article/how-rich-are-dictators

That wasn't hard was it

Ok and then they did what after industrialization? How come you're leaving that part out?

[–] Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com -3 points 1 week ago

There is no information about the Soviet Union whatsoever on the page you linked, though?

Ok and then they did what after industrialization?

Idk, what did the Soviet Union do in the 1970s-1980s?

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Just wanted to say: keep up the goated work, like in this thread in general