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this post was submitted on 19 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
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).
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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.
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- (National) chauvinism
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- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
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Fascism, in the views of most leftists, is primarily a Reactionary attempt by the Bourgeoisie to "turn the clock back" to the "good old days." Core to this is Class Colaborationism between the Bourgeioise and Petite Bourgeoisie against the Proletariat and Lumpenproletariat. There is also extreme nationalism and corporatism, it's a far-right response to the inevitable decline in Capitalism.
Looking at the USSR, it does not fit this general guideline. The USSR practiced Soviet Democracy, which definitely had issues, but was not "totalitarian." It was also Socialist, via being a Worker State, and there were few bourgeois elements (at least until the Black Markets started taking off later in its lifespan, as it began to liberalize).
As for Religion, the USSR was Atheist as the state "religion," it allowed Religious freedom when it comes to practice, but harshly limited the influence of Religion. There were individual events of repression against Religion overall, as this overtly Atheist goal did come into conflict with local religions.
umm, as you say you're giving the marxist definition of fascism which excludes USSR, while capitalists will also give their definition which is BASED on USSR.
I imagine myself standing on the middle of this conversation and judging USSR by the elements that commoners associate with the word fascism, @Kwakigra@beehaw.org offered 14 points in his summarization, there are in particular 3 points that I'm familiar with in the political atmosphere of my country (which received some kind of help from USSR to achieve independence) :
1- Disagreement is treason
2- Appeal to a frustrated middle class
3- “Obsession with a plot”
4- Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”.
as explained by Kwakigra on each line, so it seems to me that ML is just fascism but without the brainwashing and with modernism, which doesn't differ that much from liberalism (in theory, in practice I see liberalism as an imaginary spectrum)
No, this is false. Capitalists also understand fascism to be based on Benito Mussolini's Italy and Nazi Germany, reinventing fascism to be based on Communism is silly.
Secondly, your analysis of the 14 points is almost laughably incorrect.
Sort of. Those attempting to overthrow the state and bring back the Tsars, known as the White Army, were fought violently. Those collaborating with Nazi Germany were also violently suppressed. I don't think this quite counts as oppressing "wrongthink." Overall, partially true, we can leave it, why not.
This is woefully false. The USSR appealed to the lower classes! The entire point of the USSR was Liberation of the proletariat! It was not focused on the Petite Bourgeoisie, ie small shop owners and the like, but the working men and women in factories. This is the furthest from the truth.
Don't know what you mean by this, at all, really. Let's leave it as true and tally it up at the end.
They did not, really. The USSR always portrated themselves as rising underdogs, and Capitalists and Fascists as their fearsome opponents. We can leave it as true, for tallying.
This means of the 14 points, we generously gave them 3. In reality, it would be 1-2, of a list designed to nail the main aspects of fascism. This is ridiculous, the US scores far higher and is still Liberal (for now).
Completely false. You can disagree with Marxism-Leninism with facts and logic, not by contorting it into something it isn't. That's a textbook strawman.
hmm, for the 3rd point I meant that communist authority will condemn any other party, ideology or political spectrum as part of the capitalist/imperialist masterplan, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to criticize Marxists with this
I mean, that was happening, though. The White Army, Nazi collaborators, and surrounding Capitalist nations during WWI all tried to overthrow the USSR.
hmm, in the same way I can say that "jews" served the purposes of the imperialist agenda inside and outside Germany, does that give the Nazis right to oppress an ethnicity and use that vulgar language against them? This is called political failure imo
Are you arguing that Jewish People and Fascists are equivalent? Dangerous terrorists that actively were murdering people and attempting to return the state to Tsarist Rule should have been opposed.
Jewish People are an ethnicity, this isn't a tie to power but an intrinsic genetic characteristic.
This is an absurd comparison.
I wanted to say that foreign conspiracies aren't an excuse for authoritarianism and oppressing the other ideologies and antagonizing them. You justified USSR acts by saying their fears were true.
Now Nazis fears also about Jewish element came true, and I think I've seen that actually the Jewish population was actually being manipulated by foreign entities, in fact this is something every country has, minorities being manipulated by U.S.A, U.K ...etc (even in U.S.A and U.K lool)
The Nazis solution to "the jewish problem" is similar to the marxist solution to ideological/political discrepancy which is to antagonize and oppress every other. That's what I think
The ideology of fascism was against the USSR, and armies moved against it. Calling antifascism "authoritarianism" is the paradox of tolerance, you cannot tolerate the intolerant.
No. The fears of a Jewish "cabal" were false, and focused on ethnicity. This is wild and borders on Holocaust justification.
Throwing Jewish People into concentration camps and exterminating 9 million people is not the same as rooting out and militarily combatting fascist organization, the goals of which are genocide of the slavic peoples and reinstatement of the brutal Tsarist monarchy the people overthrew. The fact that you think this is in any way comparable speaks volumes about your positions, as you're quite literally sympathizing with fascists.
Punching Nazis is good.
I don't know exactly how much of the bad that was said about Nazis is true, neither how much of the bad said about USSR or Maoists is true, most likely USSR's acts weren't as dramatic as the former, but I'm pointing they were both extremely authoritarian
You sympathized with Nazis by saying the USSR oppressed them, that's more than pointing the USSR out as authoritarian, that's defense of fascism.
emm, I think you didn't live in a communist directed country. Certainly Nazis and these things exist, but not every other ideology or party or organized religion is Nazi plot, authoritarianism leads to political stagnation
Sure, but we have historical evidence of numerous Nazi collabotors working within the USSR to destabilize it, and numerous instances of the White Army attempting to restore the Romanovs.