this post was submitted on 31 Jul 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
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.)
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Whom did he genocide according to you? And I guess you're against the worker-councils that made an incredible amount of the decisions in the RSFSR and the early USSR?
Even Paul Averich, an anarchist who wrote the definitive history of the 1921 Kronstadt uprising and critic of the Bolsheviks, didn't call Lenin genocidal. Ever heard about the White terror? After the civil war Lenin was sick and by Feb 1924 he would be dead, but go ahead and keep believing in myths. Calling Lenin a genocidal dictator, and hand wringing about the red terror after the Russia fought off civil war and invasions for years after the October revolution, is akin to taking the side of the confederates after the American civil war. Complete ignorance of history, complete acceptance of bourgeois myth.
I'm not uncritical of the USSR or the Bolsheviks and I'm a little skeptical of campists who are; but at least they have usually read reliable history books on the topic and come to a conclusion based on some factual information. You are not dealing with the historical context in which these tragedies occurred.
Your black and white false equivocation completely divorced from historical context is the bullshit. At what point have you demonstrated even an elementary knowledge of the circumstances? You can't just throw out words like Cheka and Black Army as a substitute for historical understanding. Make an actual point based in historic facts. I'm not here to entertain your ignorance, I'm here to provide nuance and context to the bourgeois myths you are determined to repeat. Unlike many communists I am actually critical of the Bolsheviks; but that doesn't make me a willing stooge for disinformation. I've studied, I've discussed, I've made up my own mind about these things. I'm not wrong for asking a bit more from you than blind disdain, in fact I wish you would ask more from yourself.