I have recently made post about reporting any ACP (American Communist Party) infiltrators. Though in this post I want to provide evidence to you all on the Deprogram-Forum, and the rest of Lemmy-grad on how the ACP is deliberately brigading other leftists reddit-subs. The Attached Image is the evidence that this was a planned and organized brigade.
The call to brigade other leftists’ spaces, came from the chairman of the ACP himself, Haz Al-Din (his reddit username is Infrared Show). He posted this call on r/AskSocialists which is now a completely ACP-compromised subreddit. It was then reposted on r/LeftAgainstACP, and this is also how most of us found out.
Current situation Summary:
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There were many attempts of the ACP trying to brigade leftists’ subs, and also even conservative subs (for rage bait I guess, or spreading more reactionary bs)
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Many actual leftists made posts about it, and a call to ban them if you see them.
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Thus far ACP people have tried to brigade or brigaded: r/AskSocialists (successfully), r/Socialism, r/TankieTheDeprogram (unsuccessfully), r/SocialistGaming (you could mostly find ACP apologist on my anti-ACP post in that sub, which are promptly banned).
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When I searched ACP, in the reddit search bar I even saw that they were posting in r/ConservativeYouth, where the post was immediately removed from.
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They also actively tried to target r/GenZeDong.
If you want to add more subs that have been infiltrated by the ACP, pls leave them below in the comments section.
The ACP
As a brief reminder the ACP is not our friend, nor are they actual leftists. Jackson Hinkle (among others) founded the ACP, and its current chairman is Haz Al Din. Midwestern Marx is also another ACP affiliated figure.
They claim to be Marxist–Leninist, but many critics argue they are not Marxist at all, instead promoting a blend of socially conservative, nationalist, and pro-authoritarian politics. Essentially Strasserims, Nazbolism. They are Nazis who use the USSR as an aesthetic branding.
They oppose much of what communism has stood for historically: they reject liberal-left “woke” politics, express support for nationalist and reactionary stances. In practice, their activities have centred on online propaganda (TikTok, Twitter), political positioning, and alignment with authoritarian regimes. They also call themselves** MAGA-Communists,** and socially conservative and claim that Marxism is historically conservative.
This is not Marxism, so please report them if you see them.
What can we do?
- Support your mods in your favourite online spaces by reporting brigadiers.
- Help inform other leftists , about why the ACP is bad.
- Support and watch r/LeftAgainstACP for more information.
- Share or create actual Marxist social media content, so that the ACP cannot dominate the conversation online. Support those creators who are successfully calling them out.
- Make sure your discord servers have a verification-process
-Get organized in IRL, support unions and actual leftists’ parties.
If you have more solutions pls leave them below
Also this post is not meant to cause mass hysteria, its purpose is to document what the ACP has done yesterday and start a conversation.
Anyway, leave your thoughts, comments, and feedback below.
N.B: I am not going to add links here right now because I am not sure how it works with tracking on this platform, and I do not want to invite the ACP in.
We can agree on the Venezuala issue while still vehemently arguing against him and the ACP. The issue is not Americans as a whole [currently], but those who are class conscious. The ACP represents similar threats that Mamdami and the social democrats to, just in a different form. That being that they will take class consciousness and drain it, and leave those who need leaders either leaderless and dissolutioned or mindless, unconcious thralls who regurgite the "logic" of the revisionists
What could you potentially offer that appeals to the material conditions of those that the ACP successfully target? I don't necessarily disagree with you, I think that we could maybe consider starting with the above paradigm where appropriate.
I think the ACP targets people who want to... feel better about themselves, for lack of a better description. This isn't some denunciation, but just an observation.
There's a psychological thing I've started to notice, that humans wish to abdicate themselves of responsibility wherever possible. I'm unsure if this is a result of capitalism or just a general psychological quirk, but it is where a lot of failures to act and failures to think come from.
When I converted, I was a very Patriotic social democrat. Like full on Harry Truman doctrine and "speak softly and carry a big stick" level. I even made a post on r/asksocialists asking how to reconcile my patriotism with my [newfound] socialism. I did get a lot of good answers [and a few bad ones], but the thing I discovered about myself is that I was trying to get away from critically examining things. I definitely still do this in certain areas [even when I try not to] so I'm not judging anyone. My point is that I was acting out of discomfort.
I think people following the ACP most likely have some combination of beliefs or emotional reasons that make them suseptible.
1.A wish to keep the heros they used to have.
This was mine, and while I still have heros and people I idolize [although not to the same degree and definitely try to not let it influence my actual decision making], they aren't the Washingtons and Bismarks and such that I used to have.
3.A wish to be different
4.Communist autophobia
[This one I haven't confirmed personally, but I think part of it might be that they have always been told "communists are soy woke people who hate people for being white and just want to write yaoi in their commune all day" by the internet and such. But since they can't deny that the economic aspect of Marxism is right, they inherit this phobia into their own worldview in order to feel better about going against themselves.]
5."Reactionary" philosophy
[What I mean by this is not reactionary in the political sense. Not that they aren't also often reactionary, but that pat-socs look at the soviet union and such similar to how Maoists look at pre 76 China. They simply wish for a 1-1 return to the past, and that every policy Stalin and the CPSU had at the time is the exact same policy we should have now. It's a reaction to the present, rather than an analysis of it].
So I think when looking at ways to stem the ACP's influence, we should start here. There are the issues with petite bourgeois membership and such, but specifically the people we should be trying to reach probably already have the material conditions necessary to want to be a communist [besides those who are just edgy and wanna be nazbols cause they saw it in a hoi4 mod or something]
I think, materially speaking, the key things would be
1.Dont let the ACP lead or present their qualifications unchallenged. The ACP does like presenting their mutual aid stuff, so counter by actually investigating their mutual aid [not in person, that's not necessary i dont think.] and seeing if what they say is true, or helpful. If they're lying, spread the word. If they're not lying, then we should lead where applicable. Obviously parties shouldn't do this uncritically [probably better to stay at home and actually work on things rather than have your leaders gallivanting around the world], but communists don't tail, and leading has, historically, had the best results for hopes of victory.
2.This is cliche, but getting organized. The ACP does mostly operate through the internet, and that's a problem, but they shouldn't be able to do real, lasting damage through it. So organizing those most likely to join the ACP will help nip off their bud. Additionally, actually showing material action puts your ideology on the same playing feild in terms of concrete actions, which then leaves ideology.
3.Educate. I know this is also cliche, but being accommodating, helpful and educating people will help nip the ideological buds. Additionally, helping people think critically will [hopefully] help them not follow a guy who says gamers should be sent to prison and homeless people are the ruling class of America.
Online, the best way is to curate the space and have disipline, as with any revisionism.
Right now I am more worried about social democrats like Mamdani than I am the ACP. But the playbook is, IMO, the same. Educate, organize, criticize, and offer an alternative.
Please feel free to ask for more clarification, I would write more in depth but I am short on time right now. I hope this was at least somewhat helpful for your question, I know its not a perfect one.
Thanks for the effort in your reply.
With regards to the social conservatism, immanent critique can go a long way if your world perspective can potentially offer material gains in the short term over the perceived material gains in being a social conservative.
https://redsails.org/on-dialectics/
I find that linking the emancipation of the "minority" to their emancipation ie it is not question of extending empathy to someone who is different to you (which is the most that intersectionalism can offer) but their oppression is linked to why the target audience is not free enough. For example, trans empancipation and breakdown of patriarchy is intrinsically linked to your cost of living crisis, why your kids can't medical care or why we have endless wars (assuming they care about the last three things). And in practice if we can't offer that material gain, there is a class barrier of your target that will be insurmountable until/if their material conditions change.