This is an anti-historical take. You can disagree with ML methods or ideology while still acknowledging where they have had material success in bringing about wins for the working class.
Lefty Memes
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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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)
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,
as well as 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.
7. 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
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
Really, that's very interesting. I didn't know marxist-leninists did any communist revolutions. I thought they only did socialist revolutions, and then expected the state to magically wither away over time. Of course, as you and I both know, Marx defined communism as stateless, so socialism with a state is not communism, and a revolution that doesn't immediately dismantle the state isn't a revolution producing communism. Could you give me any historical examples of marxist-leninists doing communist revolutions? Because honestly I thought only anarchists had ever done a real communist revolution.
"Vote for Biden THEN move him left! (never mind that the DNC went to court to ensure their right to run whoever they want, and that both parties move the goalposts anytime a 3rd party comes close to inclusion, completely ensuring zero methods to move anybody to the left)"
Actually, the Stalinists are the ones saying not to vote for Biden.
Is it acceptable to say I’m a liberal while US democrats by and large aren’t?
Still better than the alternative by a mile, but that’s a super low bar.
while US democrats by and large aren’t
I'm not sure what you mean?
I think they mean that the US Democratic Party does not stand for any of the values of liberalism besides capitalism.
We know how feasible communist revolutions are. They end up in authoritarianism, not in communism.
Socialism is working out fairly well for the Zapatistas rn. It worked out well for Catalonia until the PCE and the Republicans backstabbed the POUM and CNT, leading to the fascists winning against a weak and broken-up left.
It seems like communism works best when it's entered into voluntarily, which the capital class never will.
Tell that to Salvador Allende. Without the military completly on your side the US will sponsor a coup and instal the most brutal dictator in your countries history after they kill you.
United States incursions may apply