I’m deeply interested in this book as both a socialist and a Buddhist, so I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. As far as I can see based on video results, most of the memes are largely unrelated to what seems to be the actual content of the book. Like the US government, the Nazis, and everyone else around that time, there were people within communist circles interested in the occult, magic, “exotic” rituals, and so on. A lot of these memes seem to feature UFOs and such because much of the research into the occult was clearly silly, like with telekinesis, and people seeing little gray aliens. The rest of it seems pretty surface level, just using vaguely “Asian” aesthetics alongside communist imagery, music, AI art, etc to depict a theoretical ideal society or kind of hidden/long lost magical socialist utopia. I am assuming the depictions of figures like Lenin and Superman are comparing them to enlightened Buddhist figures, those with extreme compassion for others and examples of how other people should act. Essentially depicting communists as the ultimate archetype that comes from the perfect synthesis of Buddhist practice and communist theory.

There’s also references to us being in the Kali Yuga, the dark age, and socialism bringing us out of that dark age into the light. And in the real or metaphorical return of Maitreya, a sort of Buddhist savior figure.

They’re a pretty funny genre if I’m being honest, but buried in like 7 layers of irony and esoteric references like a Slammer meme.

I can’t find anything outside of what is written in that book either, so it seems like some folks read it and it caught on in some niche circles, since all the videos I can find have relatively low views. This person is very dedicated. This is their explanation from one of their TikTok videos:

“So basically in Tibetan Buddhism there is a prophecy about the arrival of a Chakravartin (“wheel turning king”) in the future who establishes a Buddhist utopia called Shambhala. Many of the Turkic and Mongol ethnic groups living in and near the USSR believed in this prophecy, and there were attempts by the Soviet government to portray the USSR as Shambhala (or at least Shambhalic). There’s a book about that by a guy called Znamenski called Red Shambhala. You’re probably aware about the Agartha/Hyperborea bullshit Nazis are making, and more recently some communists have been making Red Shambhala edits as kind of an answer to that. I specifically have been a Buddhist-Communist for a long time, and I noticed that a lot of the edits are only superficially Buddhist, but I think this meme is opportunity to encourage for people to look into Buddhist-Communist synthesis and I’m using this account to try and encourage that.”

EDIT: There’s also a Pitchfork article that references it within the larger context of “Laborwave” and “EsotericBolshevism” memes. I think this is probably the most comprehensive explanation.

It’s also referenced within events in the Red Flood mod for the Hearts of Irons IV video game. It seems like a lot of these memes may come out of that community as well. One of the explicit Ideologies is Esoteric Socialism.

The young people are okay.