0 publicized shootings. all my homies hate tankies.
this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
86 points (72.6% liked)
Lefty Memes
6373 readers
152 users here now
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
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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, yeah. They also didn't have any gay people in the USSR.
Compared to the western world's welcoming and tolerance for homosexuality in the same time period?
Wtf does this have to do with leftist memes?
Best case interpretation:
Community effort aimed at teaching useful skills, funded and safely managed by a state entity, for the benefit of the broad society.
load more comments
(19 replies)
My mum was fastest in her class at disassembling and (re-)assembling AK 74s 😼
My mum was fastest in her class at disassembling and (re-)assembling AK 74s 😼
It was 27 more gooder than the base model.
Edit: TIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-74
... You... didn't know about the AK 74?
Lemme guess, you think the AR in AR 15 stands for Assault Rifle, right?
This one doesn't land with me
It feels like "US mass shootings are caused by a kid showing off his dad's ar when someone accidentally switched it to auto and bumped the trigger"
Nah, its showing the difference between:
Anyone can buy and own and posses and carry a firearm, basically, with little to no required training.
and
Everyone is encouraged to be trained in the proper usage and maintenance of firearms, but also, you do not get to take them home with you, carry or posses them privately.
Gun control was huge in the USSR.
But... that does not mean that you cannot also train the population in the usage of firearms, and then just keep those firearms locked in the training facilities/range armories.
Sure, you're allowed to have whatever takeaway vibe you want... but that doesn't mean your takeaway vibe makes any sense at all.
Especially for younger people, proper firearm training is as much about proper technical care as it is proper usage, but I think the key hidden element is, ironically, normalizing guns.
In the West, guns are fucking cool. You know what's not cool? Anything you learned about in middle school.
Yeah, no way to connect these dots for me either.
Let's call it anecdotal evidence if we must, but it seems to me that most school shooters seem to have been fairly knowledgeable in handling their weapons and aware of what happens when they pull the trigger.
It's a media regulation issue. Bowling for Columbine did a very good breakdown of the causes 20 years ago. Nothing is new or unlearned, just ignored.
This old canard of "USA (bad thing) vs USSR (good thing)" is so flat and devoid of meaning, it is qualitatively no different from blanket statements that the USSR is all bad or USA is all good.
And I understand the methodology here, trying to use "cognitive dissonance" in order to stimulate reflection within a subject (the subject being a thinking person). Stimulating reflection and critical thought in people is the aim of socialist education, it is a precondition to unlearning views we have been "propagandized" to accept. These same tactics of flattening and abstracting a history in order to lead people to certain conclusions is exactly how we have been propagandized. But to just do it in reverse is wrongheaded. It shows that the propagandist hasn't developed a method of education beyond the bourgeois propaganda they are trying to unlearn. Using the same method of propaganda as an enemy with roles reversed isn't liberating, it is replacing one set of illusions for another set. Engels called it "unity of opposites" and it is shocking to hear people cite "Dialectical Materialism" still miss this.
Practically, this method of propaganda has mixed results. If the individual is moved to take action, and somehow resists falling into sectarianism, then the propaganda could have actually shaken loose the subject from their illusions. Through discussion and personal development they might overcome the propaganda and become critical thinkers rather than simple followers of an ideology. Unfortunately sects are usually pretty good at managing critical thought through social acceptance. Since people abandoning the status quo often find difficulty sharing their ideas in most places, the sect becomes the only place where a person can feel accepted, which if you've ever engaged in recruiting or onboarding into resistance actions, you know this feeling can be extremely powerful. Its always amazing to me how sectarians can be so close to myself in principle and imperative, but practically seethe with disdain if I mention where my own socialist education came from, or if they hear me frame an issue a certain way, or principally acriticize the bureaucracy of a country that receives uncritical support from the sect.
The most effective sectarian propaganda is always half-true. It sorts people into camps, there becomes a camp that stresses the truth in the propaganda, and a camp that stresses the lie. Both camps engage only in opposition to one another, deepening their differences, both moving further away from real conditions in the here and now as they dig in deeper to this or that idealist version of history.
A meme about gun control and education might stimulate discussion about how the USSR educated people from a young age how to handle arms and conceive of gun rights (I'm not an expert on this part of Soviet history, just extrapolating from what little meaning is actually contained in the meme); whereas in the USA, the discourse around 2A is so poisoned, practically no one can come to any agreement except the people who are 100% for and 100% against, even though both groups when surveyed, often show individual support for common sense reforms and especially education. Rather than provide even a glancing analysis of real conditions, or dig into any actual phenomenon, two distorted abstractions are placed next to each other so the viewer is sorted into their camp.
Fortunately for my point, this meme is clunky AF, and the dynamics within the discourse are easier to suss out because of it.
Ideas only exist in practice, and the presentation of these ideas have only led to catastrophe and disaster. Not to say, USSR bad or good or whatever, only that getting people to agree with you isnt revolutionary. Only the self aware, critical subject is capable of revolutionary praxis. Turning people or movements into objects to be "educated" or struggled against is just bourgeois idealism flying a socialist flag, which is no kind of socialism at all.
We had those classes in elementary school, in 7th grade (about 14 y.o.), Yugoslavia...
Well, there is also 0 of soviet states currently, so another win!
For whom? The oligarchs? The ones perpetuating imperialist (proxy) wars between fraternal peoples?
view more: next ›