Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage 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" (read: Dengists) (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.
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
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- Fascism
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- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
view the rest of the comments
This comment is so real it hurts.
I just had someone trying to convince me that Russia can't be imperialist because they oppose the US, an imperialist nation.
... that's not the definition of "imperialist," my dear tankie.
Not sure if linking it so others can laugh/cry is "brigading" worthy of getting me banned off of various Lemmy communities/instances or not.
Fuck it, here's the thread:
https://lemmy.world/comment/25044062
I needed a good laugh.
Never heard the word "irredentism" before, looked it up. It's literally fascist logic. Do tankies seriously not realize that the logical endpoint of irredentism is a world made up exclusively of ethnostates?
If you actually read what the person was saying, they said:
Marxists tend to use a specific definition of imperialism, and that user's position is that while Russia does engage in irredentism (bad), like invading Ukraine, they do not fit the Marxist definition of imperialism (which is more concerned with resource extraction on a global scale). This Marxist definition goes back at least to Lenin, so it isn't something that they just made up (as they were accused of in the thread), but the common meaning today is different.
This is being misinterpreted or distorted here into, "Russia's invasion of Ukraine is fine because it's irredentism" which was very clearly not what they were saying. What they were saying is that irredentism is bad (including the war in Ukraine), but that it is a distinct thing from imperialism.
They're still doing apologia by playing with definitions to argue that not only is Russia not imperialist, but they're anti-imperialist. Stating that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is irredentist and not imperialist carries the assumption that Russia's officially stated reasons for invading Ukraine are truthful when they are clearly not. Russia wants Ukrainian territory not because it's populated by ethnic Russians, but because they want to exploit the natural resources contained therein. Irredentism is the justification for imperialism, they are not mutually exclusive.
It's inherently difficult and subjective to speculate about motivations, and doubly so when talking about a country with multiple groups with their own motivations. Of course, in any conflict, enemy countries will be assigned the worst motivations possible, which is why virtually every conflict draws comparisons to Nazis, and the idea that the enemy will just keep attacking forever if they are not defeated. This was said about Vietnam (Domino Theory) and Afghanistan ("if we don't fight them there, we'll be fighting them here"). Those examples show that motivations assigned to enemy countries are often inaccurate.
I don't think it should be considered "apologia" to express reasonable skepticism that the motivations of a rival country aren't what some people speculate. Especially when they're still assigning a negative motivation to said country, just a different negative motivation than the one you assign. That's kind of a ridiculous degree of purity testing, "It's not enough to condemn Russia, you have to agree with my exact assessment of their motivations, otherwise you're doing apologia by condemning them in the wrong way."
As they said, they condemn both Russia's invasion and irredentism in general, so my main point was to correct your misunderstanding, when you asked if "tankies" don't realize that irredentism leads to negative results.
Trying to divine Russia's True Motivations for invading Ukraine is a total Red Herring side show distraction in the context of this discussion.
The problem we're discussing is that tankies employ definitions gymnastics to escape giving traditionally capitalist negative labels to their beloved authoritarian dictatorships, like "imperialist" and "tyrant."
"Russia is not imperialist because they only invade for irredentist reasons" and "Russia is not imperialist because they oppose imperialist nations" are both half-cooked, dumb assertions.
It doesn't matter if Russia invades other countries and takes their resources because they think the Bible says they should, because there are people with similar genetics in neighboring countries, or because Putin is bored; it's still imperialist.
Imagine if someone said the USA is not imperialist because they're only bombing Iran to fulfill a biblical prophesy, so they're actually just theocratic. That's obviously a ridiculous thing to say and you wouldn't jump in to defend them because you're biased to defend tankies but not western capitalists.
I'm not interested in discussing anything else with you until you answer my other comment, because it seems to me that you just blatantly lied claiming you didn't label the other user a tankie. If you blatantly lied about that conversation, then I should expect you'll lie about this one too. Even now you're labelling them a tankie again, after claiming not to.
That's because you have difficulties reading and comprehending English or logic.
Speaking of blatant lies...
Claiming that it's a blatant lie after I described you calling them a tankie and you replied "that's not what I was asserting," wtf you're just trolling.
You described why I called them a tankie, and your why was wrong.
It's not trolling, you're just too thick or bad at English reading to figure it out.
Hell, you don't even read my comments before you downvote them and you call me the troll? Blocking you unless my most recent comment is an eye-opener and you apologize or get back on topic.
I read all your comments before down voting them, and for the record I'm a native English speaker with a degree. It's not my fault if you communicate unclearly and then refuse to clarify because "you don't respect me." And that when you finally did clarify, you explained that you didn't call them a tankie for being too prone to Marxist definitions, but for using "definition gymnastics," which entailed... being too prone to Marxist definitions.
TL;DR: "This comment you just made explains away my confusion so I refuse to respond to it because I am (pretending to be) confused about the other comment you made."
Oh look, you're lying about this conversation too, just like you did the other one! I should know better than to engage with you liberals in good faith.
Nope.
Any reader can see you're playing silly games. Allow me to make for one less reader of yours thanks to the beautiful Lemmy feature known as: Block.
+1 in the bucket for my ongoing internal question of "Should I just block lemmy.ml?" Socialists are usually pretty cool, but it seems the tankies tend to flow from lemmy.ml more than other instances.
Troll.
"Anyone who pops my echo chamber bubble is a troll."
Lol, that's incredibly rich when this whole conversation happened because you dismissed someone as a tankie for condemning Russia but in the wrong way.
That's an oversimplification that bolsters your side of things in a bad faith way.
So... typical tankie behavior.
It's so funny how you just throw around debate terms randomly like accuse this of being an oversimplification, that of being a straw man, the other thing of being blah blah blah but you never even attempt to substantiate any of it, like everyone is supposed to read your mind and follow some convoluted leaps of logic and if they can't then they must be a dumb illiterate foreigner and/or tankie, which retroactively justifies your bad faith behavior because "you don't respect me." The reality is that you do this vagueposting because you have nothing, and you're just completely full of shit.
Oh and dismissing everything I say on the accusation that I'm a "tankie" is textbook ad hominem btw.
Any reader here
hcso is full of shit and we all see it.
You're one reader, actually, but I applaud you for saying something. That said, your instance is no coincidence. Obviously tankies are going to back tankies no matter what; that's one of the defining characteristics of a tankie.
Before I consider your opinion, please attempt this tankie-screening captcha:
Is there a genocide of the Uyghurs going on right now and is it the fault of the CCP?
Did the Holodomor happen and was it a manmade famine perpetrated by the USSR?
Is the Kim dynasty of the DPRK a hereditary dictatorship wherein there is brutal violence and starvation to suppress dissidence to enforce the strict hierarchy of the regime?
You said any reader am I not a reader?
Jesus Christ you sound like trump saying he's winning the Iran war. Just keep insisting your right and everyone agrees with you.
If it looks like the opposite why it must be rigged! Quick block those pesky tankies! They're cheating!
The worst kind of idiot is the kind that never realizes they're an idiot because they can never learn or grow.
"Before I consider your opinion" fuck off you clearly don't consider much of anything.
Sorry, but you didn't pass the captcha.
If they're going with a niche definition rather than the common definitions everyone uses, they should have stated that to prevent the confusion and argument that it seeded, as I said further down in the argument.
I actually agree with you on that. However, "being too prone to using Marxist definitions and terminology" does not warrant labelling them as a "tankie" or "Russian propagandist."
It's this sort of thing that makes me see every accusation of "tankie" as a complete joke. If you can literally say, word for word, "I do not support the Russian invasion of Ukraine" and still get called a tankie and Russian propagandist, then those words have no meaning, aside from, "You disagreed with a liberal about literally anything."
Did their condemnation of Russia not give you a moment's pause before dismissing them as a Russian propagandist and misrepresenting their positions to others afterwards? It seems like you just recognized that they're not part of your political in-group so you ignore everything and jump straight to labelling them a fascist. Yes, they communicated in a way that's somewhat confusing, but you're much more at fault for jumping to those unwarranted accusations.
Even if we take the assertion that they are doing apologia for Russia as true; the accusation of ‘tankie’ is strange. As if people who identify as communist have never heard of the fall of the USSR.
Maybe it would make sense when defending China in some contemporary contexts, but Russia?
It all reminds me of how George Bush used the term terrorism. Anyone who thought we need a different approach to respond to 9/11 than GWB was ‘letting the terrorist win’. Now anyone who thinks we need to find a different approach other than throwing the military industrial complex at the war in Ukraine is a tankie.
Do these same people think the war in Iran would be better if China got involved. Of course not, that would be insane. But change China to US and Iran to Ukraine and all of a sudden they support it.
The point is to have more skepticism toward all militarism; that’s not to say militarism is never justified. But NATO was literally built to contain the USSR, it worked on some level, the USSR fell. Russia’s militarism toward Ukraine is completely unjustified, but their complaint about still being contained NATO is valid. They subjected their people to a ton of economic hardship in the 90s to appease the west. But we can’t disband or renegotiate NATO because too many people benefit from it staying how it is.
The answer to the Ukraine war was to bring Russia into the western block on more equal terms 30 years ago. Now the situation is fucked, it gets more dangerous to more people every day it goes on.
I completely agree. Throughout history people opposing war have almost always been accused of treason and supporting the other side. 20 years ago the term was "terrorist sympathizer," today it's "tankie" and when we're still at war 20 years from now it'll probably be something equally meaningless.
Social democrats tend to rally around the flag during wartime, going all the way back to the social democrats in Germany and Western Europe who supported WWI. The reason for that is that they contain their stances to what is acceptable to the powers that be, and during wartime the scope of what is a permissible opinion narrows considerably. If they were prepared to break from that, they wouldn't be social democrats. For this reason, careerist social democrats will never be able to have any kind of international solidarity, nor will they generally oppose war in practice, no matter how much they condemn it in the abstract.
The best case scenario in Ukraine is, and has been from day 1, whatever peace agreement can end the war quickly and uphold lasting peace, regardless of who ends up with what.
The recent interview with Jeremy Scahill and Ro Khanna comes to mind as a contemporary example.
How much rhetoric has flown around about Israel's right to defend itself?
In that context, Ro Khanna, one of the most sympathetic national politicians to the Palestinian cause immediately after being held up at gun point by Isreal cannot say the Palestinians also have the same right to defend themselves.
I have a lot of respect for as far as Ro has tried to push things, but come on man, humanity cannot keep playing these games. Something has to give.
That's not what I was asserting, no.
The rest of your comment soapboxes on that straw man so I'll not respond to it.
Uh huh.
You're trying to deny labelling them a tankie now? That's just a blatant lie.
Another straw man. Try again.
How on God's green earth could that possibly be a strawman?
Hint:
Point out the comment where I said I didn't label them a tankie.
Is there a reason you're dancing around this instead of explaining what you meant by this? You're just trolling.
Jesus Christ, try to keep your racism in check.
Well then, I guess this is the conversational path you wanted, where we yell at each other over easily resolved misunderstandings because you decided to be a dick. Entirely your choice, not mine.
Yeah, hey, and what were those reasons you explained in the linked thread? Let's check:
Oh hey, what do you know? You're labelling them a tankie because they're too prone to using Marxist definitions!
Ah, more tankie logic; "Anti-Russian and Anti-North-Korean sentiment can only come from a place of racism."
Oh you surely started the douchey behavior. I definitely joined you in the mud, though.
Not all Marxist definitions are mental gymnastics to defend imperialists, no. Until today I thought none of them were, but I haven't read everything he wrote so you could be right about some of them.
Either way, you're still wrong to assert that I beleive Marxist Definitions = Tankie. Marx wasn't a tankie.
No, suggesting that I need a translator is what's racist.
Funny, that's not what I said. Unlike you, I'll explain the distinction, though you probably won't see it. I said that you accused this specific person of being a tankie based on their tendency to use Marxist definitions, not that you do the same to anyone who uses any Marxist terminology.
It's not racist to assert that people are always better at their native tongue than they are at second languages; that's just linguistics and how human brains work. I'll never be as good at my second languages as I am at English, for example. It's not racist against my race if I or someone else says that. See how that works?
But I get it, you need to grasp at straws to malign me at this point. Propagandists gotta propaganda.
And again, that logic does not follow, and so it is not what I believe; I accused that specific person of being a tankie because they are doing mental gymnastics, yes by using what you consider a Marxist definition of imperialism, to assert that Russia is not imperialist. I sincerely doubt Marx would've thought Russia in 2026 is not imperialist. In fact, I don't even think that person was using a Marxist definition of the term. From marxist.com:
Feel free to cite Marx's actual words on the topic if you want, as I found that harder to find.
Regardless, "opposing imperialist states" is not the definition of a non-imperialist state, as that person asserted. Nor is "invading for irredentism (and taking and profiting off of the invaded country's resources)."
It is incredibly racist to start accusing someone of being a foreigner any time there's a miscommunication. And to be clear, this miscommunication is entirely on you, having admitted that you refused to clarify on the basis of "I don't respect you." English is my first language, and I am a white American.
There is absolutely no grasping at straws here. Imagine someone went up to order coffee and the barista mixed up their order, and they immediately started accusing them of being a foreigner, demanding to know if they "needed a translator" to get the order right. That person would very clearly and obviously be a racist, just like you. Maybe you're just too used to dismissing accusations of racism as "tankie nonsense" to see it, but it doesn't stop being racist just because you add a political context.
And you decided to go all in on the distinction between "Using a Marxist definition" and "using a definition that may be Marxist but I'm not sure and also I assumed they were using it in bad faith?"
Let's be clear. That is the miscommunication you refused to clarify. That is what caused you to go full racist and accuse me of being an illiterate foreigner, because I didn't read your mind to discover this razor-thin distinction.
You could have simply said that you didn't think it was a Marxist definition. But you do all this fucking bullshit, for literally no point but to air your racism and your total disrespect for anyone who disagrees with you on literally any point, who you will label as "tankie."
Obviously, in addition to all this horrendously bad faith behavior, you're also wrong on the actual point. The definition you cited is in line with my previous description of the Marxist definition pertaining to resource extraction, especially on a global scale.
Absolutely not, no. Xenophobic maybe, but in the context of someone spreading propaganda for foreign governments like Russia, DPRK, and China do routinely, it's absolutely not racist to suspect someone shilling for those regimes might actually be from those countries. It'd be like accusing me of being an American because I dislike tankies. "Oh no, racism!"
No, the miscommunication rests on your inability to parse logic written in English and my refusal to hold your hand because you gave me tankie vibes, which by now you have confirmed to be a good suspicion.
No point in saying that at this stage. "I promise, dear internet stranger, I am not lying!"
"Your opnion is incorrect. Mine is correct."
Thanks for practicing your writing and helping me practice my reading? Not a very convincing argument so I suppose that was the only reason you wrote it.
There you go, fixed your metaphor.
Rude, yes. Racist? No.
You tankies exhaust non-tankies with your constant bad faith tactics and you get all pissy when you get rude responses back. Sorry I'm not sorry. Scurry back to tankie spaces if you don't want that kind of reaction, I guess.
You've got it backwards. If I say things critical of Russia/China/DPRK on Lemmy when lemmy.ml people are present, they run out of the woodwork to accuse me of being racist. Cue eye-roll.
Again you stretch the truth to fit a nice straw man to attack. I can't comprehend what I wrote for you, and I can only re-write it to clarify so many times before it becomes clear that you don't actually care or have the ability to understand what I was saying.
Literally never accused you of being "an illiterate foreigner." I accused you of English not being your first language OR you struggling with logic.
Again, DPRK/China/Russia/etc. are known to have divisions of internet trolls attempting to influence the West. That's what I suspect you of. That's not racist.
Lot of words to justify racist bullshit.
Goddamn, you are impossible to communicate with. I think I've finally figured it out though. You just don't like when things aren't framed in the way you like. Saying that I must be a foreigner because I lack reading comprehension (or mind reading, in this case) is the exact same thing as accusing me of being an illiterate foreigner. The only difference is that spelling it out explicitly makes you look worse than when you were couching the accusation coyly in your own words.
In the same way, you insist that you weren't accusing someone of being a tankie because they were too prone to using Marxist definitions, but because they used "definition gymnastics" which happens to look exactly like insisting on Marxist definitions. It's literally the exact same thing, but you just don't like the way I say it. But it's not that anything I said was remotely untrue.
This entire conversation is just you whining about me accurately describing the things you're doing. It's like you expect anything anyone says describing your actions to be constantly glazing you and fluffing you up, and if that part is missing then it's "lying."
What an incredible display of racism, bad faith, and narcissism.
Another straw man. Try again.
Honestly, at this point, it's whatever you want to tell yourself. We both know why you said I needed a translator. This it like the third or fourth completely meaningless distinction without a difference that you've hinted at without being willing to even say. I don't care what games you want to play to try to weasel out of being called on your racism.
I grew up in the South before I became a communist, I'm all too familiar with this kind of "polite" racism, with whatever plausible deniability you think you have. That you're a racist is not a question to me at all, it's just a fact. Obviously, you're never going to admit fault, because you're acting in bad faith. But yes, in fact, you did imply that I was an illiterate foreigner, and yes, in fact, doing that is racist. You can whine about "strawmen" and call me a tankie for calling you out all day long, and I guess its whatever you need to do to sleep at night, but I can see straight through your bullshit.
It's more or less exactly the content of this post here. Literal Russian propaganda, I'm sure. Couldn't confirm 100% because I don't waste my precious time checking what Russia has to say about their invasion, but I'm sure the term/topic of "irredentism" comes up and never "invasion" or "genocide."
Irredentism is a negative word, nobody would use it in their own propaganda to describe their own actions. Furthermore, the user you were talking to clearly and explicitly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine:
You seem to have misunderstood what they were saying, and the idea that they're spouting "literal Russian propaganda" while explicitly condemning the invasion, and labelling it an invasion, is completely absurd.
I guess that's why you felt the need to pretend they didn't label it as an invasion. I do wish y'all would practice a slightly higher degree of intellectual honesty though.
What a mind-bogglingly stupid thing to say