The trial of four American socialist activists began this week in a case that echoes the ideological tensions of the Cold War era. The US government has accused these individuals of instigating social unrest in America at the behest of the Kremlin. This case pits allegations of Russian misinformation against the fundamental American right to free speech – and the limits thereof. It also brings to the fore complex issues such as colonialism, late-stage capitalism, and the interplay between Marxist principles and reparations for American slavery.
In this explainer, we will delve into the US Department of Justice’s case against Omali Yeshitela, founder of the Florida-based African People’s Socialist Party and the international Uhuru Movement, described collectively in charging documents as APSP, and several of his allies.
What is the bare minimum I need to know about the case?
Four American activists are accused of having disseminated Russian propaganda on behalf of Moscow-based intelligence agency the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Why would Russian intelligence work with an American grassroots organization to advance Moscow’s foreign policy goals?
History holds no shortage of examples of efforts by nations to interfere with other nations’ internal and electoral processes, often with the use of propaganda and targeted information or disinformation campaigns.
Russian government-backed actors have long been accused of orchestrating disinformation campaigns on social media and other online platforms aimed at sowing discord, manipulating political debates, and exploiting divisions within US society.
As described in the US v. Yeshitela indictment:
Among the foreign policy objectives of Russian government leadership was to expand Russia’s sphere of influence. … Through [influence operations targeting the US and its allies], Russia attempted to shape foreign perceptions and to influence populations by, among other things, seeking to create wedges that reduce trust and confidence in democratic processes, degrade democratization efforts, weaken US partnerships with European allies, undermine Western sanctions, encourage anti-US and anti-Western political views, and counter efforts to bring Ukraine and other former Soviet states into European and international institutions.”
These efforts have often targeted issues related to identity politics, race, and the interests of specific demographic groups.
The use of American racism as a rallying cry has a particularly layered history in US-Russian relations. During the Cold War era, pervasive anti-Black racism complicated Washington’s efforts to portray itself as a champion of democracy and freedom on the global stage. The US government’s failure to meaningfully address systemic racism and protect the civil rights of Black Americans gave the Soviet Union propaganda ammunition to criticize American hypocrisy, contrasting the discrimination faced by Black Americans with the egalitarian rhetoric of US foreign policy. This undermined US soft power and provided an opening for the Soviets to court newly independent African nations, many of which were wary of aligning with a country that did not fully guarantee the rights of its own Black citizens. In the early years of the Soviet Union, a few Black Americans emigrated to Russia, lured by promises of equality. Actor Paul Robeson immortalized this perspective during a 1934 visit to the USSR: “Here, I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life. … I walk in full human dignity.” The story did not end happily for all of these expatriates, including Lovett Fort-Whiteman – the only African American known to have died in a Soviet gulag.
How does this relate to the defendants?
The defendants include the APSP movement’s founder and chairman, Omali Yeshitela, as well as members Penny Joanne Hesse, Jesse Nevel, and Augustus C. Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo.
According to an APSP profile, Yeshitela established the political theory of African Internationalism – a Marxist revolutionary framework rooted in the shared global struggles of African and Black workers. He said of the movement: “African Internationalism recognizes that the process of slavery and brigandage that consolidated the political economy, national identity and general well-being of what came to be known as Europe is the same process that results in the wretched, divided, impoverished, and exploited lot of Africans and much of the world.”
He founded APSP in 1972. According to the organization’s website, its “immediate tasks” include “leading the struggle to end the [American] system of domestic colonialism and smash[ing] the US capitalist-colonialist state.”
Going back to the indictment, US prosecutors claim that Russian efforts to meddle in US policy and elections can involve the use of nonprofit organizations “as fronts to promote connections between Russia and its compatriots living abroad, to propagate disinformation, and to surreptitiously seek access to foreign officials, businesspersons, and other figures, in the [US] and elsewhere, to advance and promote Russian interests.”
In this framework, a US-based nonprofit whose stated goal is to “smash the US capitalist-colonialist state” and whose work on issues of systemic racial injustice resonated with broader public dialogues on the lasting legacies of historical US racism would be an attractive target. And indeed, the indictment focuses on several specific allegations of Moscow’s expansion of APSP’s platform to reach a broader US and global audience.
What exactly are they accused of?
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) claims the malign foreign influence efforts at issue in the case were orchestrated by three Russian nationals – two FSB officers identified as Aleksei Borisovich and Yegor Popov, and Aleksandr Ionov, a Moscow-based activist whose anti-globalization efforts were allegedly bankrolled by the FSB. Ionov founded and ran the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), which, according to prosecutors, worked with a handful of US grassroots organizations to spread Russian influence and interfere with US elections.
To this end, Ionov invited Yeshitela to Moscow in 2015 to discuss “future cooperation,” according to the indictment. The trip was fully paid for by AGMR, according to US prosecutors, who also noted that in planning logistics, Yeshitela had requested meetings with “an official representative of the Russian government” and members of the diplomatic corps of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Though the indictment did not detail the outcome of the Moscow trip, it outlined several campaigns AGMR subsequently supported APSP with, including a UN “petition on Genocide of African people in US,” which Ionov allegedly offered media support in exchange for.
According to the DOJ, AGMR used APSP and other groups to “create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine” and to cast Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a war on “Naziism.” The latter is a common Kremlin talking point; in March 2022, days after Russia launched its invasion, Putin told members of the Russian Security Council:
I will never abandon my conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation, even though some people in Ukraine have been intimidated, many have been duped by nationalist Nazi propaganda, and some have consciously decided to become followers of Bandera and other Nazi accomplices, who fought on Hitler’s side during the Great Patriotic War.
Among other alleged incidents, the AMGR also pushed APSP to make statements in support of APSP Russian Olympic team as its athletes were ensnared in a massive doping scandal, encouraged APSP’s efforts to seek reparations for American slavery, and offered to finance defendant Nevel in a run for local office.
Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel, and Romain face charges of conspiring to defraud the US. The former three are also charged with failure to register as agents of a foreign government.
How have they responded to the charges?
All have pleaded not guilty. Advocates for the defendants have emphasized the sanctity of free speech, with APSP describing the case as the “free speech trial of the century” in a release this week. In a motion to dismiss filed in July 2023, defendant Hess argued the charges constituted an unconstitutional violation of her right to political expression, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. In response, the DOJ wrote: “The First Amendment does not protect the Defendants’ knowing participation in this Russian government-controlled influence operation.”
Advocates of the group have echoed these sentiments.
In a press conference, Mwezi Odom, an activist who chairs the Hands Off Uhuru campaign in support of the defendants, said the US Government’s framing of APSP’s activities as the brainchild of a shadowy operation in Moscow was a “racist denial of Black people’s agency. We can think for ourselves and define our own agenda.”
Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for the upcoming US presidential elections, also voiced support for the defendants, stating at the press conference: “The attack on the [APSP defendants] is fundamentally an attack on free speech, on our right to oppose endless wars and economic oppression abroad, aka colonialism. It is an attack on our right to oppose the cost of these endless wars at home, namely economic austerity. No one should think that being white is a protection against resurgent fascism, everyone is at risk from this assault on democracy and we need to fight for the [defendants] together.”
