this post was submitted on 21 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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[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That isn't left wing architecture. It's USSR architecture. Don't make everything bad from that dictatorship a part of the left. The Soviet Union wasn't even real communism. Because communism wouldn't have a regime consisting of oligarchs and a dictator for example. Just because some people abused something for bad, doesn't make the thing itself bad.

But these Stalin blocks were actually built an mass to house all the nomads living in the USSR. Most people didn't have a home, electricity, running water. They used to live in tents. So even though these blocks are ugly and depressing, it made sure people didn't have to live in a tent with -40°C and Stalin was widely praised for that.

[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I am a loud critic of the USSR but WW2 destroyed an enormous amount of housing in their country and they spent decades struggling to catch up. Even prior to that, they had WW1 and a civil war negatively impact housing and during the interwar industrialization they focused on increasing industrial output with most home building relegated to cheap temporary construction. A number of the economic issues faced by the USSR were unrelated to any specific political or economic system (for example, the vastness of the country added transportation expenses)

Better than live in ugly apartments than freeze in the harsh Russian winters.

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

Not completely right. The main reason for panel construction wasn't war reconstruction, it was rapid industrialization. The USSR in 1929 had 80+% of peasants working the land with a horse or with their hands. By 1970, it was a fully industrialized country with a majority urban population. This required the construction of housing for over a hundred million people over the span of a few decades.

Compare that to England, France, the USA or Germany, which had a few centuries to develop the cities together with their industry since the industrial revolution.

Now compare the housing in the USSR in 1970 with that of Brazil in 1970. The USSR in 1929 was actually less developed than Brazil.

[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

I listed industrialization