Class Alliances: More Than a Trick
"The FBI is surveilling them so they must be revolutionary" and other lies (Part 1)
Author’s Note: while abuse is mentioned in this article, it is not graphic. Other cited texts go into those details. The focus of this text is on class relationships.
While false internationalism involves deception, it is more than a trick. It is a class alliance between petty-bourgeois and lumpen opportunist elements from both oppressor and oppressed nations. Misleadership and continued dependency on the oppressor nation is promoted, against the interests of the oppressed. And the collaboration is concealed under the label of revolutionary “solidarity” or internationalism.
-False Nationalism, False Internationalism; Introduction (source)
Introduction
This Series is a 4-part investigation into the history and class character of two organizations: the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the African People’s Socialist Party. We show how their shared class character and alliance to the settler nation explains the counter-revolutionary practices of the organizations. Importantly, that they are not unique, but instead represent a long history of opportunistic mis-leaders selling out revolutionaries and political prisoners; abusing people; and ultimately serving as unpaid agents of the Amerikan occupation government.
Appropriately contextualizing the class character of these organizations exposes the threat they pose to the New Afrikan nation beyond and including the abuses of their members. We are by no means dismissing the horrific abuses inflicted by these individuals involved, and we have included links to victim testimonies as citations in this article, as those are also important.
The class dimension of these organizations is regularly overlooked in favor of the particularities of their abusive practices. However, abuse is only a symptom of material conditions, and writing them off simply as strange cults is inadequate.
The only defense against such abuses requires identifying the material and root causes. We hope that by unearthing the class character of these counterrevolutionary organizations we can better identify threats to protect our communities and to build a genuine national liberation movement.
Author’s note: while we had originally intended to include the Black Hammer Organization in this investigation, unearthing the particular details has proven too emotionally distressing to thoroughly complete the investigation. Initial evidence indicates that Gazi Kodzo shared a similar relationship as Omali Yeshitela regarding their relationship to settler wealth.
Definitions:
This series draws heavily from the text False Nationalism and False Internationalism: class contradictions in the armed struggle. It is an important historical study of “the struggle for solidarity between the left in an oppressor nation and rebellions against that nation from the oppressed.” We begin with their definition of False Internationalism1:
While false internationalism involves deception, it is more than a trick. It is a class alliance between petty-bourgeois and lumpen opportunist elements from both oppressor and oppressed nations. Misleadership and continued dependency on the oppressor nation is promoted, against the interests of the oppressed. And the collaboration is concealed under the label of revolutionary “solidarity” or internationalism.
False Internationalism is one of the most powerful political tools of counterinsurgency. We understand that many petit-bourgeois groups in the imperial core have a class interest in maintaining imperialist domination even if they may have some problems with particularities of it. False internationalism will repeat the “right phrases” and sometimes their political lines may even be “correct”. But their actions are always counterrevolutionary.
[The] view that white people are the answer to the problems of the oppressed nations is neo-colonial and Eurocentric, and is one of the main forms of false internationalism.
On a world scale, neo-colonialism as a stage of imperialism has proven to be very dangerous because of its flexibility and powers of camouflage as compared to colonialism. Even people who are opposed to imperialism can get misdirected by neo-colonial influences.
The African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and associated Uhuru Movement represent this quite clearly. They prioritize settler ‘solidarity’ while materially being class-alliances between profiteers, across racial lines. Their function is simple: misdirecting and exploiting New Afrikans whose interests lay in opposing imperialism.
Background:
In late July 2022, The organization “African People’s Socialist Party" (APSP)” was raided by the FBI:
APSP appears to be one of several unidentified groups and people implicated in a 25 page Indictment of a Russian national, Aleksandr Ionov. The Moscow-based founder of the nonprofit Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) has been accused of attempting to influence U.S.-based groups to turn against the United States and work in favor of Russia.
A strange dual-narrative has emerged:
The DOJ and the state media apparatus are claiming that APSP is actually part of a Russian plot to destabilize amerika.
This means Ionov is being accused of doing what the United States/EU/NATO imperialists have been doing with NGO’s around the planet for decades under the guise of “human rights” and “democracy.”2
The APSP is saying that this raid is “COINTELPRO repression against the Black movement”. Their leader Omali Yeshitela even had the audacity to compare himself to the martyr Fred Hampton. Now, The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), and a whole host of other organizations have repeated the same narrative.
These organizations are all plugged into the WWP/PSL/CIA False-Internationalist Hydra which can be seen more in our research here.
Instead of listening to the DOJ saying that the APSP are Russian ops, and instead of listening to controlled opposition BAP and abuser/fraud Omali Yeshitela, we should investigate the material lineage behind the Uhuru movement.
Series Synopsis
The accusation that the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) are “Russian ops” is bogus; the claim these raids represent an attack on Black revolutionaries is equally bogus.
The ‘anti-war left’ comparing the FBI raids on APSP to historical COINTELPRO operations is a spit in the face of actual revolutionaries who were/are actually victimized by COINTELPRO. These “solidarity with APSP” campaigns serve as a rewriting of historical memory to prop up ‘defeatism’: “a belief that euro-amerikan settlers are the key to New Afrikan liberation and independence.”3
The reason they are so incredibly counter-revolutionary is because they were always class alliances between petite-bourgeois New Afrikans and petite-bourgeois euro-amerikan settlers: a class alliance oriented towards imperialism and continued neo-colonialism. Importantly, such relationships are the dominant force of the entire Amerikan left.
The real “op” here is that these organizations exist(ed) at all and are propped up by certain members of the controlled opposition of the ‘anti-war left’.
The ‘op’ is that these such groups monopolize the political terrain associated with “anti-imperialism” or New Afrikan national liberation. Would-be partisans get scooped up by these groups.
Additionally, people and organizations from other countries who want to build genuine internationalism with New Afrikans get rerouted through such groups. These sham groups can then serve as an unofficial honeypot for enemies of the US.
Part 2
Sham ‘anti-war left’ organizations run by snitches, ops, and sellouts are behind many of the solidarity campaigns for political prisoners who have been targeted by the repressive counterinsurgency policing apparatus.
Consequently these campaigns run on ‘amnesty appeals’ that do not achieve freedom but instead profit off political prisoner’s suffering. As Martin Sostre said, “Sometimes it is better for the party line to keep the Black victim in jail rather than get him out on bail. … The important thing is that he is the rallying point around which the Black community can be mobilized and in the process fed the party line.”4
Neither the CAFR or APSP have a strategy to combat political repression because they simply do not have to. They are not in any genuine danger. The state knows they are not a threat, and if they experience low-level repression it is merely collateral damage of the occupation government pursuing someone else.
Part 3
Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the The African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) is a con-man and an abuser who, along with his wife and some wealthy settlers, uses the APSP and the Uhuru Movement as a front for a multi-million dollar business operation.
The scheme is cloaked in language of New Afrikan liberation but is actually fueled by the exploitation of New Afrikans.
The scheme is run through dozens of front organizations that Omali runs with his rich euro-amerikan settler “allies” that call themselves the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC).
This class-alliance between con-man Omali Yeshitela and his wealthy settler accomplices is very old and was originally exposed over 40 years ago.
Omali Yeshitela has a history of abusing New Afrikan women; once when confronted with this abuse he called it a “lesbian-FBICOINTELPRO repressive operation against Black people”5
Part 4
Omali Yeshitela used the APSP to actively sabotage socialists in Sierra Leone during the 2000’s.
They tried to co-opt the pre-existing African Socialist Movement of Sierra Leone and the African Socialist International.
When they could not co-opt the movement the APSP claimed the successes of the ASM-SL as their own and used video footage to raise money for themselves.
When confronted for their insidious practices, they began a campaign to actively sabotage socialist organizing in Sierra Leone, to the point where the ASM-SL began questioning if Omali Yeshitela himself was a CIA asset!
The Anti-Globalization Movement headed by Alexander Ionov has connections to many different national liberation struggles and global revolutionary forces.
Building relationships with organizations in other countries (even in Russia) does not mean they are controlled by those countries. In fact, internationalism with Friends is crucial for building revolutionary capacity.
Yeshitela and BAP monopolize the relationships between New Afrikans and internationalist forces who support liberation which destroys the possibility of building genuine alliances.
See Part 2
The Global Times has a report on this, Countercurrents as well, The New Atlas has a video on this as well if that’s more accessible.