I had written before about foreign influence in domestic conflict in Moral Conflict in America – providing examples of Soviet Union and China exploiting racial tension in America. I want to dig in a little more and provide a more recent example.
I’ll start by recapping.
The Negroes in a Soviet America (1935) – Separatism
In 1935 a booklet was published titled, ‘The Negroes in a Soviet America.’
It called for two revolutions: a proletarian revolution in the country as a whole country and a revolution in the South in which “the black belt” would form its own nation.
From it:
Trotsky said in 1933: “We do not compel [blacks] to separate from the States, but they have the full right to self-determination when they so desire and we will support and defend them with all the means at our disposal in the conquestion [conquest] of this right, the same as we defend all oppressed peoples.”
The Crusader (1964) – Sabotage Attacks to Create Panic
In the 60s, Robert F Williams published a monthly newsletter, ‘The Crusader.’ In it, he called for violent racial revolution with acts of sabotage to produce panic in the population. The newsletter paid tribute to China’s Mao Tse-Tung – whom Williams referred to as a teacher. The October 1964 special edition contained a statement from Mao himself. Williams met with Mao in person, spoke at CCP events, and spent some years living in China.
From May-June 1964 Crusader:
A couple excerpts from a 2017 article from Fairbanks Center of Chinese Studies titled,
Black Power in China: Mao’s Support for African American “Racial Struggle as Class Struggle”:
“[The Chinese State] ultimately threw its weight behind a strategy of “race struggle is class struggle.” In effect, the People’s Republic publicly acknowledged and denunciated the salience of race to world politics while attempting to harness that insight to a broader campaign for global socialism.”
“The Chinese endeavor to cultivate political alliance with the African American left was meticulous, targeted, and effective.”
People’s Forum (2023) – Movement Incubator in NYC
People’s Forum posted a video on X Dec 6, 2023 in which the speaker said,
“When we finally deal that final blow to Israel, when the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow that we can give to global capital and to imperialism in our lifetime. Everyone after will have to ask, if the Palestinian people with no army, with no air force, with no navy, was able to defeat Israel and the US, what is impossible? What can’t we do? … When we defeat Israel and the US empire, we will actually have been able to know how to dismantle capitalism here in the United States.”
Ted Oehmke, former NYTimes fact-checker/writer, noted an August 2023 NYTimes investigation found a link between People’s Forum and Chinese influence ops.
