Ancient_Egg_57

Early this morning u/DrunkAlunya and I woke up seeing that u/Alexitine (the top mod in this community) had added u/FamousPlan101, one of the National Bolsheviks (or Nazbols - what are nazbols?) from the ACP as a moderator. Immediately after that, the mod list was reordered and some of us most active mods in the community (like u/DrunkAlunya and u/HeinrichTheWolf_17) were removed as well.

As soon as we realized that this subreddit got infiltrated by those fascists, some of us mods got in touch with each other and decided on how to proceed. We then contacted Reddit's support and eventually, we were able to remove u/FamousPlan101 and reinstate as mods the same old team that was here.

It is our belief that u/Alexitine's account was hacked because (as you can see in the screenshot) the account had been inactive for some time and, out of nowhere, one day we received a warning from Reddit saying that the account tried to add someone to the moderation team. That warning got buried in the modmail but, looking at the modlog, we can see that after that warning, u/Alexitine's account became active again in an effort to gain the 'active' status. And this morning, when the account finally returned active, the whole shitshow happened.

Whoever is using u/Alexitine's account tried explaining away the whole situation by sending the message you can see in the screenshot in the mod group chat. Mind you, that was the first and only message we had received from u/Alexitine in months. And after that, nothing else.

We have mentioned all of this to Reddit's team of course. However, their reply (so far) was that they believe u/Alexitine's account was NOT hacked...

Because of Reddit's reply, at the moment we are unable to fully remove u/Alexitine as top moderator sadly. But rest assured that we the other mods we are continuing to HEAVILY monitor the situation and keep an eye out for more practical resolutions.

In the meantime, I would like to thank all the users that kept telling those fascists to fuck off from this community 🫡

If you have more questions about this morning's situation feel free to write in this post

Just wanted to update everyone of the good news!!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/41148785

Many comrades know that one of my side projects, is recording audiobooks and putting them on youtube and torrents for all to listen.

Many times when I record a book, its the first-reading, so if it turns out to be a bad book, I can always stop recording, and move on to the next one. Usually this happens early on in the book, as its fairly easy to tell if an author has anything of value to add.

Based on ComradeHakim's recent book recommendation video, I decided to read something from an author I hadn't before, Torkil Lauesen's - The long transition towards socialism and the end of capitalism. PDF here

There were a few red flags early on in the book, that made me suspect that Lauesen was either a Trot or ultra-left (an idealist definition of socialism, a claim that the USSR wasn't socialist), but it was difficult to discern, because the early part of the book was about early socialist history (the internationals), and didn't make too many firm judgements.

It took until about 40% of the book was done, probably 7+ hours of recording wasted, until Lauesen shows his ultraleft politics. Chapter 12 is where it really comes out (you can read it in the pdf linked above). Some of his points:

• He denounces the USSR as not socialist, and abandoning Marxism in favor of building a "state bureacracy".
• Denounces socialism in one country as abandoning internationalism.
• Citing trotskyist writers like Deutscher to claim that Stalin was "authoritarian", and a "schemer", and ruthlessly eliminating/purging opponents.
• Stalin is painted in the standard western caricature as a ruthless self-serving bureacrat who subverted socialism to build his own power.
• Groups Lenin and Stalin as the "right-wing" of the bolsheviks while Trotsky represented the "left".
• Claims the majority of peasants were allied to kulaks in opposing the USSR, industrialization, and collectivization.
• Claims that a priviledged "class" of party leaders lived above the people and lost legitimacy. (Why does a socialist writer not know what class means?)
• Has a weird interpretation of Lenin's state and revolution, where he thinks a critical point of the book is about abolishing standing armies in favor of a "people in arms", and the USSR not doing this was a "retreat" from socialism.
• Worst of all, rather than defending the socialist character of the USSR, he repeats the claim of every purity-loving ultra-left, that defending the history of the USSR as a socialist state, damages the "brand" of socialism.

ComradeHakim clearly did not read this book, which is unfortunate since its explicitly in his recommendations.

TL;DR Don't always trust a comrade's book recommendations, and always check their views on the USSR and Stalin before diving in.