this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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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)


0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility


(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)

We require 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.


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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[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yo, I know I'm kinda late with this but please provide alt text when you're posting here in the future

Also this isn't exactly a meme either

[–] PirateFrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Apologies. Alt text added!

[–] alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Thank you for adding good quality alt text! ^w^

Also I didn't mean to sound harsh in the post above, you could post similar content over on c/Socialism next time

[–] PirateFrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

No worries, and will do! :)

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Put on a russian, blue hat with red arrow and winni puh too <3

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

We had help with the rest of the world.

Germany didn't get out of the third Reich by themselves (which is what is going on)

[–] PirateFrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Consider that Germany was in far more dire straits economically, and Hitler's approval was crazy high even towards the end of the war (something like 60 or 70%). So the entire time the opposition was outnumbered.

In comparison, Trump's approval is around 45%.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Look up the history. Hitler wasn't elected by a majority but appointed by an elite and then killed the opposition. There was massive opposition before, including street battles. But that's also why he got the dictatorial power. Apporoval means nothing if people obey executive orders.

[–] PirateFrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (15 children)

Could you link some sources for that massive resistance? Wikipedia says there was very little organized resistence for most of his rise to power, and the regime was SO popular amongst the populace, it prevented even anti-nazi's in the intelligence services from acting on their underground networks.

What we're seeing with the current fairly widescale open resistence is far beyond anything that happened in Germany.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 14 points 2 weeks ago

From what I recall from Behind the Bastards, a major part of Hitler's bloc was the upper middle-class. Shopkeepers, factory managers, so on. It basically came down to the opportunity to eliminate wealthy Jews, and taking their stuff - fancy furniture, buildings, their businesses, ect. The destruction of the Jews was a matter of greed that happened to fit hand-in-glove with racist ideology.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Resistence is too late. There was opposition before the nazis gained power.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbanner_Schwarz-Rot-Gold

German site says 2.5 million members were organized mostly by SPD, with 250,000 in the elite units.

They are mentioned as opponents to the SA:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Roter Frontkämpferbund of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and especially Jews.

By the time Hitler assumed power in January 1933, SA membership had increased to approximately 2,000,000

Strangely there is no information about the conflicts. This is what I found, on the site of the communist units who also fought the nazis.

Since the strategy of the SA was to fight and provoke, violent encounters between the RFB and SA soon became a part of everyday life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roter_Frontk%C3%A4mpferbund

What we’re seeing with the current fairly widescale open resistence is far beyond anything that happened in Germany.

If it is not clear, it's the other way round.

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[–] masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The scale of the opposition would be difficult to quantify - the whole reason liberals hand power to fascists in the first place is to violently suppress dissent against the status quo, after all.

Italy gives a clue, however - almost the entire north of Italy was liberated by antifascist Partisan movements (before the US and UK suppressed them, of course.) The same thing happened in Greece - and Greece had turned fascist even before Italy and Germany did.

So yeah... Hitler's (supposed) "popularity" should be viewed with the same suspicion as Putin's.

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[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Germany didn't want to, at least not a majority. Maybe if Germans would have known where it was going (unwinnable war vs all neighbours at once etc), they would have tried early. US Americans have the advantage of this knowledge.

[–] reev@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Look where having the advantage of this knowledge got us.

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[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 36 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

By killing them. You can't defeat a nazi in debate, but you can hang them.

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[–] Soulg@ani.social 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I thought we had moved past this whole pepe is alt-right thing. He's a beloved little goof.

[–] Nythos@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago

The Nazis can take my little pepes out of my cold dead hands

[–] masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

We never beat them.

The west ensured that Nazism survived, filling the ranks of West Germany's security services with them and then institutionalising fascist terrorist groups all throughout Europe through it's "Gladio" networks. Japan's economy was essentially just handed back to the very same pack of colonialists and industrialists that had fuelled Japan's imperialism in the 20s.

Hell, even the Romanian Communist Party got in on the act - those vicious Iron Guard bastards were just too good at torture and murder to pass up, I guess.

So no... we never beat them.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

Maybe it's too pedantic of me but I think we beat them. We failed to fix the corrupted system that spawned them. The inequity and the propaganda, The oligarchs pitting a us against each other. Marginalizing groups as scapegoats.

We (the US) let those little those freedom checks and balances we were touted in school be destroyed with barely a whimper

[–] masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Scratch a fascist and a liberal bleeds - see, that's how you can tell that we did not, in fact, defeat the fascists - if we did, liberalism would be dead and buried, too.

Instead, we allowed "liberal democracy" to nurse fascism back to health, hone it's murderousness by using it as a tool of colonialist domination, and pretend to be shocked when these fascists just suddenly show up to protect their precious capitalist status quo back home in the imperial core.

None of that was an accident - when we say fascism is just colonialism coming home to roost we don't mean it figuratively.

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[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You're wrong, they did not fail it was intentionally.

US/UK made sure plenty of fascists escaped after surrendering to them.
Kept them in power in all of Europe with a slap on the wrist at most.
How many nazis where trialed at the Nuremberg virtue signaling trials? 24.
NATO literally had fascist regimes in it, Spain, Portugal, Greece.
Even leading NATO/EU and various countries. .

All of this has been swept under the carpet.

https://ebeggin.substack.com/p/ratlines-nato-and-the-fourth-reich
https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2024/01/12/nato-as-seen-from-one-who-grew-up-under-us-sponsored-neofascism-unherd/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_Gs-0dhOo

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[–] 2ugly2live@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

But the call is coming from inside the house this time.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The call was always coming from inside the house - fascism is just colonialism coming home to roost, after all.

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

“Fascism is imperialism turned inwards.”

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[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Yeah, the two most prominent examples of fascism in history (Germany and Italy) were only beaten by a combined military power much, much greater than them. Even as they were literally being bombed into rubble and their military situation was beyond hopeless, they never overthrew their fascist leaders.

[–] Monstrosity@lemm.ee 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Maybe they're only the most prominent b/c they weren't stopped?

Remember the mid-2000's Ukrainians Orange revolution? I wouldn't be surprised you don't b/c those fasciat losers were stopped from within, so we don't talk about them too often. Which is good, honestly.

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[–] ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago
[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 weeks ago

Down with MAGA!

[–] andybytes@programming.dev 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The USA supported the Nazis in the beginning and were reluctant to intervene. Then we did and took all the credit. It was to weaken Russia. Now the world is a global capitalist hellhole. Chynah is capitalist and Russia is capitalist. You are a subject. You are not free. Freedom is relative and bound by natural law. Unions need leverage. Thank gawd all men die.

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[–] the_abecedarian@piefed.social 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

More left victory memes for the cause ❤️

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[–] yardratianSoma@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Unionists versus the confederates all over again, history definitely repeats itself

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[–] SuspiciousCatThing@pawb.social 6 points 2 weeks ago

Bro leave Pepe out of this ;w;

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