In late August, an alleged photo of a membership card identifying U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union started circulating on various social media platforms and websites, with the claim that she was a Communist Party member.
The image was frequently shared alongside a photo of printed text claiming that the membership card was "a unique document" recently released by the State Archives of the Russian Federation. The image soon went viral and social media users have since been trying to find out about the authenticity of the claim. However, the claims are entirely unfounded and have no basis in reality.
Weird Claim about Kamala Harris
The social media post claimed that the State Archives of the Russian Federation released an image of Harris' Communist Party of Soviet Union membership card. The post read:
On August 19, the official Telegram channel of the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) published the CPSU party card of US presidential candidate Camille [sic] Harris, which she received during her first visit to the USSR in 1984.
It turned out that the American politician at the age 16 joined the Communist Party of the USA and in the mid-1980s she came to Moscow and Voronezh at least three times through the All-Union Komsomol Organization.
"To dispel all the controversy surrounding Comrade Harris, today we will publish a unique document from our archival fund - her party card, which was personally presented by the second secretary of the Komsomol in June 1984," senior researcher at GARF Matvey Streltsov told reporters.
Harris herself refused to comment, but according to The New York Times, her campaign headquarters will not demand a refutation - the US presidential candidate was indeed a member of the CPSU and paid party dues until 1991," the post ended.
However, these claims are completely baseless. The so-called evidence that Harris is or was a communist—the alleged Soviet-era membership card—actually proves to be a forgery.
Claims About Harris False and Proof of Forgery
Images of purported CPSU membership cards with identical ID numbers and payment records (the columns on the right side of the image) have been circulating on social media for almost a decade.
This is because the number used corresponds to an image created by a Russian website where users can generate such cards with any name and face, making it far from "a unique document."
The photograph used in the Harris forgery, claimed to be from 1984, was actually taken at Howard University in 1986. There is no evidence, apart from this forgery, suggesting that Harris traveled to the Soviet Union or joined any communist groups during that period.
Also, no New York Times articles about Harris were found that correspond with the ones mentioned in social media posts as further proof of the claim's validity.
Since this image comes from a website that generates variations of the same "membership card" rather than from the State Archives of the Russian Federation as claimed, it is classified as "Fake."
