Thread for discussion of Socialist symbolism and iconography. Thoughts on a good replacement for the hammer and sickle for nations in which most workers don't work on farms or in factories?
ITT: Flags, emblems, and symbolism
Christian Williams
Jeremiah Bell
thank u for your input very cool
Tyler Anderson
Flag of the People's Committee of Korea in three different color schemes
The botton two are custom, the top one is the original
Jeremiah Bell
...
Jayden Howard
New aussie flags when?
Alexander Young
Really want to get this made.
Carter Flores
Fuck off marketing shill, no one wants to buy your shitty drinks
Grayson Rodriguez
Asher Rodriguez
Calm down,Lenin
Thomas Smith
(me)
*People's Republic of Korea
Cameron Sanchez
In regards to symbolism, the EFF is ahead of the curve in their rejection of suits reflecting the bourgeois lifestyles and other colonialist forms of clothing. It reminds me of Sankara’s promotion of the faso dan fani for government workers.
Luis Martinez
$5-10 (depending on size), including shipping, from aliexpress.com
Lincoln Cook
NAZBOL BELARUS
Zachary Barnes
The hammer, and shoe represent the peoples will, and willingness to fight to uphold socialism
Blake Harris
Caleb Anderson
Hmm. I was just thinking about what evocative symbols there could be for gig-labourers, holders of service McJobs, cubicle wageslaves, and the like, since first world city dwellers don't see a lot of people in industrial or agricultural labour. Anything to do with a smartphone would probably be easy to dismiss as frivolous, social-media addict snowflake, though.
Parker Cooper
Henry Flores
found these; De Leonism, Council Communism, and Market Socialism
William Fisher
I really like the second one, looks pretty modern
Brody Hernandez
All your designs look like crap. For me, I still favour the flag of the American Party of Labor. Ismail was a co-founder.
Gabriel Hughes
You can't beat the good ol' Eureka Flag m8
Jason Butler
The Starry Plough, the International Brigades, some Grafitti, and a cool flag
Connor James
The three-pointed star is the best symbol for modern socialism, an undiluted and underused symbol of internationalism without the historic connotations of old socialist symbolism and a proud communist, internationalist and anti-fascist tradition.
Its simple, iconic, easily-recognisable and both hasn't been appropriated to death by non-socialists nor has does there exist a deep-seated bias against it.
It can be easily emblazoned on anything, items of clothing, placards, armbands, posters and not look out of place, it can be applied to a variety of flags, tricolours or tribands, plain banners, or naval jacks. It really is a symbol that should be popularised and used by contemporary international communist movement.
Anthony Roberts
If we're LARPing, and speculating I'd have to disagree on only using the three pointed star
The hammer and, sickle are recognizable, and a meme in themselves. On top of that the anarchist A, and wobbly symbolism, are dank, and recognizable af, and even culturally ingrained (i.e pie in the sky).
Michael Harris
This is actually a legit good point, it also represents anti-sectarianism of the forces themselves.
Although what do the three points themselves stand for? They say it comes from Spanish Republican imagery, so Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood then?
Tbh my main problem with the hammer and sickle is that it is inherently pretty Russian: like a handsickle has no real representative force in a country like Britain.
David Fisher
I'm not arguing that we should abandon old socialist imagery though, merely that the three-pointed star has, i think, great potential for 21st century communism and should be popularised.
However you can't ignore that there exist major biases to certain leftist symbols, the hammer and sickle (which i like and think should be retained fairly unapologetically) is bad PR in many places and many people will dismiss you out of hand for having it because of the associations, as well as being hopelessly outdated as a symbol of the communist movement even in the third world, hammers and sickles represent a historical workers movement, not the real current one.
The circle-A carries the a similar but different prejudice, its been wholly appropriated into mainstream culture, no one could tell you it means 'anarchy is order', its solely associated with edgy teens and 'le anarchy is chaos amirite' and most people will equally dismiss any political movement which uses it as immature kids.
Wobbly symbolism is fringe as fuck tbh, the sabot cat is unrecognisable to most and an overly complex graphical motif with limited practical application.
I've never been able to find any definitive source for the origin and meaning of it. While it could be to do with Spanish republican 'Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood' i find it unlikely, The tricolour of the spanish republic isn't meant to represent them and i don't thing that slogan was ever popularised or widespread. Moreover from what i can tell the first instance of the three pointed star is on the flag of the popular front government, which wasn't an official flag designated by the government, but rather first featured on an election poster in february 1936, by the communist party where it was meant to represent the popular front and it was simply accepted as a symbol from there, finding most recognition when used by the international brigades to which it spread.
So really there is no way of knowing what its meant to represent, perhaps it was spanish republican slogans (but given its origin in the communist party i doubt it), maybe it was meant to represent any three forces of the popular front (communists, socialists and liberals, or communists, anarchists and liberals), perhaps the person who drew the poster just thought it was a cool symbol and little thought went into it, we'll probably never know.
Tbf, the standard five-pointed red star isn't much different, while some post-hoc justifications for the symbolism being each point representing a section of soviet society, the origin was little more than trotsky seeing an esperantist friend wearing a green five-pointed star, inquired about it and decided a red one would be a good symbol for the red army and there wasn't much deep meaning to it.
The three-pointed star also doesn't seem to have a proper name geometrically or heraldically, the closest to an established name for it is just the internationalist star which i think is fine.
I don't really have an issue with the star itself not having an original meaning, or at least one available to us, its acquired meaning, being a symbol of internationalism, solidarity, socialism and militant anti-fascism and that's what its recognised for today, and we can give it more meaning still by using it as the leading symbol of 21st century communism.
Logan Nguyen
These symbols (the hammer, and sickle/anarchy A) still get you press that's not completely terrible (really not viewed like a swatstika anywhere), and getting a platform, and spreading the truth is half the battle.
It's not like a based road spike from the 1930's is much more recognizable, or easier to draw without pulling hairs out.
Still an incredibly good point on using the internationalist star
Elijah Rodriguez
If you need to be artsy, and creative, the hammer, and pickax might be good in the U.K
Robert Morgan
The insignia on the keyboard warrior death squads.
Nicholas Cook
I prefer the old labour symbol tbh: A spade for the manual labourers, a quill for the intellectual labourers, a torch for the leaders of labour, and shield to protect labour.
Lucas Jones
Also tbh, thinking on what the three pointed star could mean: Democracy, Internationalism, and Anti-fascism.
Levi Perry
t. not a pole
And as i said the hammer and sickle will get you dismissed as an incomprehensible loony 70% of the time and the anarchy A will get you a smug dismissal 100% of the time. Neither is particularly palatable to the workers, at least in the west, and the anarchy A isn't palatable to anyone anywhere.
Personally i find that the role of communists and communist parties today should be educating people about the crisis of capitalism and the solution to it (socialism) rather than exonerating the USSR. Im quite certain that it is far easier to redpill people on who the good guys were in the cold war, how bolshevism is based actually and how death tolls are fabricated once they're already onboard with a socialist political program, focusing on revising the bourgeois historical narrative seems to be putting the cart before the horse.
if you've ever been at a protest for any broadly left-wing cause, or ever seen any demo, you've probably seen one or two international brigades flags, its fairly common and ubiquitous, as well as distinctive and not found anywhere else.
sorry but that's bullshit, its infinitely easier to draw, cut out from fabric or card, sew or embroider a three-pointed star than it is to draw the fucking sabot cat or the iww logo, hell even the clenched fist is more intricate.
The internationalist star is both simple and distinctive which gives it its edge.
Moreover, to add onto what the user earlier mentioned, its not only by definition an internationalist symbol, devoid of any particular national connotation, its entirely non-sectarian, as, despite the woeful sectarianism of the republican side of the civil war, our side losing means we get to keep supporting it and the entire left can pretty much be united under that symbol (as can crucially social democracy and a chunk of the liberal left, which in a clear conflict of good and evil such as the spanish civil war, can be drawn to our side and radicalised). No political movement could ever realistically organise under the anarchy A, pretty much nobody but anarchists would want to, the hammer and sickle and even the red star equally are unlikely to attract anyone other than MLs trots and maoists. The only thing that comes close to a symbol as uniquely fit for 'left unity' as the internationalist star is the plain red banner (and even that is divisive with black and black/red banners abound).
I'm not fond of anti-fascism being a plank in itself, its not good to define yourself against things. Moreover that triad is entirely inclusive of milquetoast liberals which should be avoided. Socialism, Internationalism, Democracy, is a better triad, the anti-fascism is implicit in these as they already refute it and it clearly sets out a radical character.
Charles Hernandez
Maybe its represent the three organizations that formed the front, the UGT, the CNT-FAI and the IRS.
Ryan Ward
Juche Symbol Gang
Not that recognizable compared to the red star or hammer and sickle. Could be further modified.
Ukraine?
I really have to agree on this. Their military still uses the red star and the hammer and sickle is still everywhere. What do you guys think of the Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists use of the symbols? Some of them are pretty based, but they remind me of 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧Peshmerga🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧.
Tyler Morris
Neither the UGT nor the CNT-FAI were part of the front, they did support it though. The Front was made up of more than three parties, it was the PSOE (socialist/socdem), POUM (marxist, leninist) PCE (marxist-leninist), IR (republican libs) and UR (republican libs)
They were supported/endorsed by the UGT (PSOE affiliated union), CNT-FAI (anarcho-syndie union), the PG (broad tent Gallician nationalist party) and ERC (leftish Catalan nationalist party) but these weren't members of the front.
Aaron Wood
That's actually pretty neat, I thought the torch was just a Kaisserreich meme
Allah bless, and I hope you don't have to put up with too much bullshit. That being said, I think the majority of Poland is a lost cause, and the material conditions just aren't there
You need a platform to do that, and it's not that hard to despook, as long as you don't go full autist, and say Stalin made no mistakes, and try to talk about him.
eh, your right, i'm just an autist who has to make everything perfect
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One point on the star for left unity?
"Muh Russia" is immortal (The IWW was portrayed as the most stereotypical Russian, Cossak, Bolshevik, in old cartoons). and it appears autistic to everybody who's willing to change, and isn't a lizard man style conspiracy theorist
Oliver Gomez
True.
I don’t understand.
Zachary Walker
Reactionaries/Liberals can be conspiracy prone idiots, who aren't worth converting if they just go "Nuh, uh".
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