this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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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)


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 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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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

We were never going to transition directly from feudal society to socialism, the peasant class could not organize in those conditions to rise up against their opressor. Capitalism developed the material conditions necessary for a truly liberatory revolution rather than a passing over of keys from one ruler to another.

Yes capitalism is responsible for truly horrific things, that is why it needs to be dismantled and replaced. However, it also concentrated the working class into closer quarters and developed the machinary necessary to move past scarcity.

Sure yeah maybe we could have transitioned from hunter gatherer society to socialist agrarianism and never developed the power structures we see today but that didn't happen for a reason. Agriculture solved the food problem of hunter gatherer societies, feudalism solved the military problem of early agrarian societies that left them vulnerable, capitalism solved the technological development problem of feudalist societies that caused them to stagnate and socialism will solve the resource problem that causes capitalist societies to constantly murder eachother and themselves. Note all of these social structures caused the problems that necessitated the next reorganization of society.

Also, telling someone who isn't already socialist/communist/anarchist that capitalism was a mistake will seem rediculous if they live a comfortable life.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Except the peasant classes did rise up many times, and were repeatedly betrayed by the petit bourgeois and pushed back down in order to establish capitalism more fully.

Plus, lots of the benefits of capitalism that people felt were really using imperialism and colonialism to import benefits and export suffering - not an actual increase in overall comfort or "good".

Classical Marxist historical materialism is, honestly a load of bunk.