this post was submitted on 14 Nov 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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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s such a broad body of work that it’s hard to list all of the issues I have it it. I guess the biggest issue is just that Marx’s writings were an early attempt at describing a more rigorous case for social reform before more scientific theories of social change and economics were developed. So while his ideas were groundbreaking and innovative at the time they were written, not all of them have held up or are relevant to today’s world. And yet I don’t see many Marxists who have been willing to seriously dissect his ideas and take the useful ideas while discarding the bad or irrelevant ones. And in fact, those few who are willing to take a more critical stance are often ostracized and deemed “revisionists” which strikes me as a frankly absurd accusation. If you are not revising your theories then they are no longer theories but mere dogma, and that seems to be the state of mainstream Marxism today.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

It's pretty difficult to talk about anything if you don't give specifics. What of Marxism hasn't held up? What is better than it? Kinda hard to have a convo that way.

Secondly, taking a critical stance towards Marxism isn't enough to be revisionist. Lenin added on Marxism and analyzed along his contemporary times, and isn't considered a revisionist. Marxism is an ever-evolving ideology. Revisionism rejects pillars of Marxism like Scientific Socialism, the Law of Value, or Dialectical and Historical Materialism.

All that being said, it's difficult to understand what you're getting at if you don't give an example.