Russian Influence Operations in the U.S.

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(photo from Cori Bush website)

Russian Influence Operations in America

By Cliff Kincaid

Fascism, or National Socialism, died with Hitler but the case of the Texas mall shooter suggests that fascism as a philosophy of race war, as opposed to Marxist class warfare, can still have a major influence on certain individuals susceptible to murderous ideologies. What is interesting in this case is that a man named Mauricio Garcia used a Russian social media platform to send and receive neo-Nazi messages from like-minded people. He appears to have been sympathetic to a Russian philosophy known as National Bolshevism.

At the same time, the Russians have been caught funding and orchestrating the activities of a communist “black liberation” group seeking to divide Americans with charges of genocide and demands for financial reparations for blacks.

Welcome to the real world of Russian influence operations in America.

The case of a “Mexican white supremacist” by the name of Mauricio Garcia sounds bizarre. He was ranting on a Russian social media site against racial minorities such as himself. What seems clearly to be the case is that he was programed to kill, perhaps by other associates or contacts through social media.

The revelation about his use of a Russian social media platform suggests that the official concern over TikTok, on the grounds that it was Chinese controlled, misses the point. TikTok is mainly an entertainment platform for young people, designed to gather their data, but on the Russian site, the mass murderer displayed photos of Nazi tattoos and attacked Jewish people.

It is significant that he used what many thought was an obscure Russian social media platform to share these fascist beliefs.

In this context, our book Back from the Dead: The Return of the Evil Empire, notes similarities between the National Socialism of Hitler and the National Bolshevism of Russian Alexander Dugin, an adviser to Vladimir Putin and well-known advocate of the invasion and destruction of Ukraine.

Anti-communist writer and filmmaker Trevor Loudon has noted in the past that several mass killers adhere to the National Bolshevism philosophy, but that this ideological connection that motivates them to commit crimes is often overlooked by the media and many others. Loudon told Epoch Times, “It’s a communist philosophy, Bolshevik, but it has nationalist elements to it. And it’s very popular [among] some of the white supremacist groups.”

Hence, the liberal media call a man named Mauricio Garcia a “white supremacist,” without analyzing how this seeming paradox came about. It is more accurate to describe his neo-Nazi philosophy, as displayed on a Russian social media platform, as National Bolshevism.

In another case, that of Payton Gendron, the man who killed 10 black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, he was an open national Bolshevik.

The goal of the National Bolshevism movement, Loudon documents, is to bring down America by sparking a civil war in the country.

On the other side, that of the “anti-fascists” or communists, there appears to be opposition to the “white supremacists.” But they work together to spark the civil war. Indeed, Loudon points out that, during the 2017 Charlottesville rally, there were two pro-Russian groups battling on the streets: pro-Russian white supremacists and national Bolsheviks fighting with pro-Russian communists from the Party of Socialism and Liberation.

Both sides were pro-Russian, Loudon said, calling the fight “an enemy operation” designed to cause conflict and chaos. The liberal media react with their confusing coverage, laying the blame on white supremacists without examining the hidden Russian role.

On the other hand, when the federal government does suspect a Russian role in the incitement of a civil war, it filed charges that communists in the U.S. were merely operating as “illegal agents of the Russian Government.” Such is the case with the indictment of members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) by the Department of Justice.

The indictment of the APSP says it was directed by Russian intelligence operatives to sponsor “separatist” activities in the United States. One activity encouraged by the Russians was for the APSP to file a petition with the United Nations charging the U.S. with the “genocide” of black people. The APSP also supports financial reparations over slavery.

According to the indictment, the funding was concealed through multiple bank accounts and accounting mechanisms, and the participants in the “conspiracy” tried to hide their own involvement.  

However, some of the APSP members attended a conference in Moscow, under the auspices of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, which was supervised and managed by the Russian FSB, the successor to the KGB, and Russian communists.

The APSP newspaper The Burning Spear reported on this event, noting that APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela denounced U.S. support for Ukraine and then “called on the conference participants to understand that the U.S. is itself a State that was created on the stolen land of the Indigenous people called Indians and became wealthy in part because of the theft of half of Mexico and the forced free labor of Africans who were captured and forced into slavery.”

At one point, the paper said, Chairman Omali was presented with a “medal of honor” from the Communist Party of Russia by “Comrade Alexander Ionov,” identified as “a member of that organization and many others.” Omali appears with Ionov in a YouTube video.

Comrade Ionov is usually described in press reports as a Russian businessman and political figure living in Moscow. But he was indicted by the Justice Department for manipulating U.S. political groups, including the APSP, on behalf of the Russian FSB, the successor to the old Soviet KGB. 

It is a classic Russian influence operation using tactics of communist propaganda and disinformation to create the conditions for a civil war in the United States.

Yet, the indictment simply charges the APSP members with being unregistered foreign agents, rather than communists dedicated to the overthrow of the United States.  The indictment reflects the lack of enforcement action over what the Communist Control Act, a law still on the books, calls “communist action organizations” that engage in unlawful activities.

The APSP was among a dozen or so communist groups I captured in various photographs at the March 18 communist rally in Washington, D.C.

Writing in the paper of the Workers World Party, one of those communist organizations represented at the rally in D.C., Tom Michalak said he went to Russia in 2014 to attend the Anti-Globalization Movement conference and that “Our host during our stay in Moscow was Alexander Ionov, president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia.”

He explained, “On the wall in the group’s office are framed photographs of Hafez [Al Assad] and Bashar Al-Assad of Syria, Kim Il Sung of socialist Korea, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara of Cuba, Moammar Gadhafi of Libya and Omar Torrijos of Panama --  all political leaders that U.S. imperialism has demonized.”

He explained, “I went to Moscow as part of a small delegation of peace activists from the United States. Our goal was to demonstrate that among working people of all countries, cooperation is possible and in our best interests. The other delegates were Óscar Hernández-Santoyo of Milwaukee, an immigrant rights activist with “Youth Empowered in the Struggle,” and Joe Iosbaker, of the Rasmea [Odeh] Defense Committee and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.”

Rasmea Odeh was a convicted terrorist associated with the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who fled to the United States and then deported.

What’s also fascinating about the APSP case is that these “black activists” were encouraging “black liberation” by campaigning for “reparations” for slavery, a cause embraced by leading black members of the national Democratic Party. The “Reparations Now” resolution introduced by Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri proposes $14 trillion in reparations to Black Americans.

Does this mean that black Democrats are serving the interests of the Kremlin in pushing such a divisive cause?  If so, where is the FBI investigation of Rep. Cori Bush?

• Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org

 

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