this post was submitted on 13 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.
Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.
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If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
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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.
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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
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- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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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).
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The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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(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.
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Best economic system ever, they say. Unlike communism, this is a situation where you can say it has been tried many times throughout history.
Why do you tankies always say communism has never been tried? Power hungry people exist no matter the system, and so far...as much as the system is rigged, capitalism has brought a lot more people out of poverty than anything else. Communism has been tried countless times, it just ends up not working because power hungry people exist.
The largest elimination of poverty in history was in China, in a socialist economy. If you remove China from the last century, poverty has gone up.
Even though you're getting shit on with downvotes, you are half right. Communism hasn't been tried before, but it's also very difficult to achieve due to opportunism (or what you call power hunger).
For communism to be achieved, the working class has to take down the dominance, or dictatorship of the capitalist class (also called dictatorship of the proletariat), then productive forces have to be reorganized to produce to satisfy everyone's needs rather than for profit, and then abolish commodity production entirely and replace it with planned economy, distributing goods via labor vouchers or "according to their need" in later stages.
So far we got only to dictatorship of the proletariat (which manifests as state capitalism, not communism as many steps are missing) in USSR, and the Bolsheviks under Lenin were genuinely disciplined, but the country wasn't industrialized, with hundreds of millions of peasants. Can't provide for everyone when theres no factories to build enough stuff in!
However, capitalism and state capitalism breeds opportunism, meaning that if you don't replace it quickly then even under proletariat class control opportunism will rear it's ugly head, as seen in USSR. Of course there's also other factors, but for communism to have a chance to work, it has to happen in an already developed country with international spread so capitalism over and done with quickly.
The problems with the USSR were more nuanced than the idea that opportunism is inevitable rot. There are existing socialist countries today that are continuing to develop, and trying to depend on the west for socialism to succeed anywhere is a self-defeating analysis.
For communism to work, we need each and every person to not be a greedy bastard under it all. It only takes one greedy bastard to ruin it all, as history has repeatedly shown.
We are but monkeys in trousers. Our survival instincts still rule our behaviours, and until that changes, communism will not work, simple as that.
That's not true, though. Communism, ie a system where production and distribution are fully collectivized and run according to a common plan, doesn't care at all if someone is "greedy," and socialist economies that have begun building towards such a society have proven the opposite of your claims; they've been remarkably effective at achieving positive economic growth while delivering better metrics for the working class than capitalist systems.
If you want, I made an intro Marxist-Leninist reading list, feel free to give it a look. Albert Einstein's Why Socialism? is a good intro!
Capitalism has brought a lot of people into poverty.
I'm by no means in support of communism but I think you're assuming that these systems have been tested in a vacuum. Specifically with regard to communism in the global south where Western capitalist entities act as agents of sabotage in order to secure the people of these nations as a perpetually destitute global underclass. So that their corporations can continue to have access to underpaid labor. Which you and I benefit from in some way shape or form.
No system has really been tested in a vacuum. Some systems have just eirher adapted or endured it
And capitalism also exists in a vacuum? Why is a system such as Communism supposedly so great but breaks because of outside influence...odd
Capitalism predates communism and has spent centuries chewing through human lives to get to it's position of influence today. I refer you to the entirety of the colonial era.
No...no it doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_communism
Even marx suggested that it's pretty much the first tried system.
Modern communism (is the age of industrialization) is essentially Marxism which is younger than capitalistic models.
Hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian but its impossible to apply a pre-civilization framework to civilizational societies. So the fact that he referred to it as primitive communism is not an indictment on communism.
Communism as a political movement was introduced by Marx and Engles. Only since then has it been attempted on a nation state level. Prior to this nearly every political and economic system was an autocracy or monarchy where the state administered private land ownership rights to lords. There are very few exceptions to this in civilizational history.
So if we are looking at communism as a political and economic system as can be applied to modern civilizations ie. nation states, it is much younger than capitalism.
rofl you think I'm a tankie for shitting on capitalism!?
ahahaha way to broadcast how pitifully tiny your understanding is...
People being lifted out of poverty as an economic test COMPLETELY IGNORES the reality of technological advancement. Way to further demonstrate how you do not know even the major milestones of history, let alone economic history...
The technological advancements were in large part due to the large scale growth of industry under capitalism. Although lots of bloodshed and suffering was involved in the process, and without leftists fighting for reforms, we wouldn't be able to enjoy its fruits today.
The mass availability of the internet, and many other pillars of infrastructure are a result of capitalism. And these developments definitely have increased living standards for the majority of humans, even ones in third world nations (The popular image of a destitute country with rampant poverty is extremely rare these days.)
lol no
So no alternative explanation? You should at least point me to some resources that say otherwise.
I fully acknowledge the wild ecological harm and rising inequality that capitalism has brought with it. However, even Marx had written about the system's capacity for the advancement of industrial technology and productivity.
Centrally planned economies like the ones of the USSR and similar 21st century socialist states do not work. They would never have enabled the vast distribution and rapid development of technology like we see today. Lemmy itself is a product of capitalism.
Says the guy who literally spouts tankie shit.
Communism was tried and is still tried just because it doesn't look like this perfect utopia you read about in a book doesn't mean it's not been tried/exists.
This isn't a friendly game of checkers and saying "that's not what I meant to do"...