Christopher Helali
Christopher Joseph Helali (born October 18, 1989) is an American political activist and organizer who serves as International Secretary of the American Communist Party (ACP) and Head of the North American Executive Committee of the DPRK International Solidarity Group (DPRK ISG). He previously served as International Secretary of the Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) and co-founded the International Revolutionary People's Guerrilla Forces (IRPGF) in Rojava, Syria.
Early life and education
Helali was born in Paxton, Massachusetts, the son of an Iranian immigrant father and a Greek-American mother. He holds degrees from the University of San Diego (BA), Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China (MA in Marxist Philosophy), Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (MTS), the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (MSc), and Dartmouth College (MALS).
During his time in China on a government scholarship, Helali was working illegally as an English teacher on a separate visa. After contacting an organizer of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he attracted police attention, lost his position, and was eventually banned from the country.
Military service
Helali served in the U.S. Army Reserve from approximately 2011 to 2015. His Ballotpedia profile states he graduated U.S. Army Airborne School and received the German Armed Forces Badge for Military Proficiency in Gold. He has described himself in various settings as a paratrooper and has claimed attendance at the School of the Americas.
His official discharge documents, filed in federal court (Case 2:21-cv-00141-cr, District of Vermont, 2021), show he held the rank of First Lieutenant (1LT) with Military Occupational Specialty 56X (Chaplain Candidate) — a program for seminary students training to become military chaplains. He received an honorable discharge effective October 15, 2015, after submitting a voluntary resignation citing conscientious objection under AR 135-175.
In a podcast interview (circa 2020), Helali stated:
- "I never fired a bullet, never was deployed with the US Army, never did anything like that."
- He transferred to the Chaplain Corps specifically to avoid deployment to Afghanistan: "They wanted to send me over to Afghanistan, and I got out of the pipeline by going to seminary."
- He fabricated a religious calling to facilitate the transfer: "I went to the military, I said, you know, I had a vision from Jesus."
Helali has given contradictory accounts of his departure from the military: claiming in different contexts that he was discharged for homosexuality, that he was a conscientious objector, and that he transferred to the Chaplain Corps to avoid combat deployment.
Service in Syria (2017)
In January 2017, Helali traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan, transited through PKK camps, and crossed into Syria to join the YPG. He co-founded the International Revolutionary People's Guerrilla Forces (IRPGF), an anarchist subunit within the International Freedom Battalion (IFB).
Combat claims vs. record
Helali's frontline service lasted approximately 8–10 weeks (late April to July 2017) during the approach to Raqqa — phases four and five of the campaign. In his own words:
- "I never fought in the city itself, I fought all the way to the city, and then I was injured."
- His injury was non-combat: "I fell off a roof at night time, and I injured my leg and my knees."
- He describes firing a weapon once — at a suspicious car whose occupant emerged waving a white flag.
Despite this, Helali has claimed in interviews to have participated in "a frontline assault on Raqqa" (Seven Days Vermont) and implied involvement in the city's fall (Jackson Hinkle interview). Raqqa fell on October 17, 2017 — by which time Helali had left Syria and enrolled at Dartmouth College.
IRPGF expulsion and dissolution
In August 2017, a YPG-affiliated account stated the IRPGF had been "kicked out of Raqqa" for producing "empty propaganda" instead of fighting. The Syrian Democratic Forces separately denied knowledge of the IRPGF's queer subunit TQILA when it was announced in July 2017.
The IRPGF dissolved on September 24, 2018. The IFB continued to fight through the Battle of Afrin (2018), Operation Peace Spring (2019), and the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani (2019).
Theft from IWW
In 2016, while serving as Branch Secretary-Treasurer of the IWW Boston branch, Helali misappropriated approximately $4,510 from the branch treasury. The IWW General Executive Board issued a public statement on the matter. The branch was reimbursed through an insurance payout. A Greek anarchist collective in Athens separately reported that Helali had stolen funds from a comrade there and was attempting to purchase property in a squatted building using money of uncertain origin.
Personal conduct allegations
In March 2019, the IWW Boston branch unanimously passed a resolution documenting allegations against Helali including reproductive coercion, child abandonment, financial theft, and domestic abuse. The resolution was widely circulated in leftist networks and resulted in Helali being barred from multiple publications and organizations.
At least three former partners across different countries have independently described similar behavioral patterns: love-bombing, rapid proposals of marriage and children, identity shifting to match the partner's values, financial exploitation, and the insistence that only physical violence constitutes abuse.
Helali responded to these allegations not through the requested restorative justice process but through litigation, filing a restraining order in Vermont against the mother of his child — a state she had never visited. The order was denied. He subsequently filed a federal civil complaint (Case 2:21-cv-00141-cr) in 2021, which was terminated in October 2023.
Shifting identity
Helali's political, ethnic, religious, and gender identity has shifted repeatedly across documented contexts:
- Military period: Marxist, proud of U.S. Army service, identified as white cisman
- Boston anarchist scene (2015–2017): Gender non-conforming anarchist using they/them pronouns; co-founded TQILA under the slogan "These Faggots Kill Fascists"
- Vermont/Dartmouth period (2017–2020): Socialist anti-war farmer
- PCUSA/ACP period (2020–present): Marxist-Leninist, socially conservative; publicly attacked gender non-conforming people as "mentally unstable" at the DPRK ISG founding (June 2024)
His ethnic self-identification shifted from exclusively Greek (2012–2013) to "half Greek, half Persian" (China period) to ethnic Kurd (2016 onward). He has acknowledged: "I am the first in the family to identify as Iranian Kurd...my dad doesn't identify like that at all."
His accent has been documented progressively thickening across public appearances from a standard American accent in a 2013 Chomsky interview to a noticeably different presentation by 2017.
Political career
Party of Communists USA (2020–2024)
Helali ran for Congress in Vermont in 2020 (approximately 1% of the vote) and for U.S. Senate in 2022, both on the PCUSA ticket. He rose to International Secretary of the PCUSA Central Committee and established a Center for Marxist Education in Bethel, Vermont.
American Communist Party (2024–present)
On July 21, 2024, Helali co-founded the ACP with Jackson Hinkle and Haz al-Din in Chicago. He appeared on Russia Today the same day. The Communist Workers' Platform USA described the ACP as "a thoroughly petty-bourgeois formation, led by streamers (small businessmen), political grifters, and ex-functionaries of the state."
On November 5, 2024, Helali was elected High Bailiff of Orange County, Vermont as a write-in candidate.
DPRK International Solidarity Group
On June 25, 2024, Helali was appointed Head of the North American Executive Committee of the DPRK ISG at a meeting attended by DPRK ISG Chairman Alexander Mostov (Moscow-based), Jackson Hinkle, and others. A "Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation" between the DPRK ISG and the ACP was signed on August 20, 2024.
The DPRK ISG was founded in Russia in 2020. Its chairman, Mostov, received a commendation at DOSAAF headquarters in October 2023 for his "invaluable role in protecting the 'Russian World'" and coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an embedded war correspondent with Russian forces.
At the founding meeting, Helali stated: "If a person is not able to determine whether he is a 'boy' or a 'girl', then how can he be trusted to resolve much more serious political issues?...I support the DPRK insofar as it is a stronghold of traditional values."
International activities (2024–2026)
- Spoke at UN press conferences organized by Russia's Permanent Mission (2024)
- Attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (February 2025)
- Spoke at a Houthi-organized rally in Sana'a, Yemen (March 2025)
- Volunteered as a "martyrdom seeker" with Iran-backed Hizbullah Brigades (January 2026)
- Spoke at the Sovintern inaugural event in Moscow alongside Evo Morales and George Galloway (April 2026)
- Met with DPRK ISG President Zheng Yutong in Beijing (March 2026)
Helali was added to the Myrotvorets database on December 9, 2025.