Within hours of Delta Force’s extraction of Venezuelan narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro, far-left activists flooded the streets with premade signs and polished talking points. The protests’ speedy appearance and apparent organization should have been no surprise. For years, groups like The People’s Forum (TPF) have cultivated a cultish following, capable of activating scores of organizations at a moment’s notice—always in service of the interests of America’s adversaries.
The People’s Forum is a “movement incubator” and “a home” for over 200 left-wing groups. Its Manhattan location offers “co-working space, conference rooms, a theater for film screenings, a media laboratory, a lending library, and [the] People’s Café,” as well as an art space, “ideal for art builds, poster making, screen printing.” Part of what makes the organization so quick to respond is that outsourcing isn’t necessary—everything is in-house.
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The speed that awed many on Saturday was largely due to this preparatory work. Soon after Maduro’s arrest on January 3, TPF founder and executive director Manolo De Los Santos—who met with Maduro in 2021—joined a protest in Times Square. The New York Post later reported that TPF had organized Maduro-related demonstrations in Times Square and Brooklyn over the weekend, and called for “emergency protests nationwide.”
The group has drawn congressional scrutiny for its behavior and alleged Chinese connections. Last year, Senator Chuck Grassley contacted the Department of Justice about TPF’s “reported Chinese Communist Party ties.” Representative Jason Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, urged the IRS to revoke TPF’s tax-exempt status, citing its role in “inciting riots and violence, supporting illegal activity, and conducting other activity contrary to the public good.”
Elected officials are right to worry. One of TPF’s most radical allies is Nodutdol, a pro-North Korean organization that hosted its end-of-year fundraiser at TPF’s space. In April 2025, TPF hosted a Nodutdol-facilitated event on “Socialism and Sovereignty” in what it referred to simply as “Korea,” in which it denounced “the constant demonization of North Korea” and deemed “reunification” of the Koreas “a vital front in the global anti-imperialist struggle.”
Newer organizations also rely on The People’s Forum as a volunteer hub. That includes groups like ICE Out of New York, which has staged direct actions, such as a disruptive protest inside a Manhattan Home Depot over the corporation’s failure to condemn deportations occurring on its properties.
De Los Santos seems to consider educational events, such as the Nodutdol seminar, central to TPF’s mission. During “All Power to the People: A Summer School for Socialism,” one of the group’s summer school classes, De Los Santos lamented that most activists have “no ideas . . . no theory . . . no program” and “no accumulated experience about how to fight.” Political education, he added, allows activists to “learn how to fight with your eyes open. I want you to fight with the power and the legacy of everyone who's ever fought before in history behind you.”
What’s missing, he said, is leadership: “The lack of a vanguard or a group that’s coordinated, that’s disciplined, that’s organized to guide that movement and actually build a path forward means that those movements are easy to disrupt. Easy to take down.”
TPF’s educational and cultural content gives activists those ideas, theories, and experiences—and can easily consume their calendars. This month alone, TPF is offering a course on the “Hidden Histories of Rebellion in the United States,” a Venezuelan portrait exhibit, and a documentary on a family in remote China. It also hosts seemingly innocuous social events, like the aforementioned Kimchi Bowl, Nodutdol’s end-of-year fundraiser. These parties serve as friendly on-ramps to more extreme ideas, like the Juche Communism that Nodutdol preaches.
TPF programming often deploys what cult researcher and former John Jay College professor Robert J. Lifton coined “thought-terminating clichés”: emotionally charged phrases that shut down debate. TPF presenters often blame the world’s ills on “capitalists” and “imperialists.” No nuance is required, and any deeper questions can always be dismissed as the product of the system itself.
Lifton notes that cults “suggest rude questions about middle-class family life and American political and religious values.” TPF’s cult-like opposition to capitalism makes anything opposed to the American way of life seem noble, explaining the group’s support for Maduro and its relationship with Nodutdol. When your worldview boils down to “capitalism bad,” all of capitalism’s opponents—no matter how disreputable—seem worthy of defense.
While TPF is based in Manhattan, its influence extends far beyond Gotham. Its classes use a hybrid format, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to participate. TPF’s in-house press and bookstore, 1804 Books, prints, publishes, and distributes all manner of “socialist literature and revolutionary theory.” And as it fundraises for a major renovation, the group’s reach and operational capacity appear poised to expand.
This weekend’s rapid, coordinated protests make one thing clear: the anti-capitalist movement is growing. The People’s Forum is just one node in a massive militant network that opposes the American experiment. Officials must keep watch—and when lawbreaking occurs, take action.
Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images