this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
287 points (92.8% liked)
Microblog Memes
11741 readers
1214 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
- Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
- Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
- Absolutely no NSFL content.
- Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
- No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
According to Marxist theory the individual soldier usually is working class since class is not defined by the function or moral evaluation but by their position within the economical and power structures.
A regular soldier does not own land, a factory or any other means of extracting profit, they are selling their own labour, they do not exercise power over their own labour other than providing it in exchange for a wage and they are usually recruited from lower/middle class.
With Marx class does not equal a political function, a soldier can be objectively working class and still be used by their employer (state) against the interest of their own class. In Marx's theory that is not a contradiction but a feature of the state as a class instrument.
Soldiers would be considered lumpenproletarians and class traitors in Marxist theory. Being working class doesn't mean you have class consciousness.
I agree but the term 'class traitor' does not appear in Marx or Engels texts because they do not discuss individual 'guilt' or any form of individual morality, they discuss the overall econimcal and societal relations to each other.
Class traitors as a term appears later in revolutionary rhetoric and it usually describes a conscious effort against the interest of the own class. Soldiers act within the power structure of the state, not as free actors representing their class. Their role is institutionally dictated, not a individual ideological 'betrayal' like for example union busters.
With the term lumpen Proletarier Marx himself describes something similar but different. The Lumpenproletariat according to Marx does not live within the structures of typical class, they do not own means of production, but they are also not giving their labor for a wage. Through that they can not have a unified class consciousness and act largely indivualisticly. He means economic minorities like beggars, vagabonds, criminals, grifters and the like. According to Marx they are 'politically unreliable ' and usually reactionary in nature.
It's worth noting that this kind of classification was criticized widely, the term itself is seen as problematic even within Marxist circles.