Essay:How Marxism-Leninism promotes indigenous self-determination

This is an evolving essay of compiled documentation and rants demonstrating the utility of Marxism-Leninism to indigenous self-determination, sovereignty, land back, culture rights, etc. It is a work in progress.

☭ Why Marxism-Leninism? Like Dissolves Like

"The argument from Lenin is that the best way to fight against such a machine is with a machine of our own — a self-repairing, self-replicating, massive instrument of the proletariat, with the capacity to organize and carry out war, and that process and the underlying philosophy is called Marxism-Leninism."

— Some Internet Marxist

"An economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more-than-human beings: this is a Windigo economy. ... We are not powerless against the Windigo, they say. Remember that we already have everything we need. And so—we conspire. When I get to my feet, Nanabozho has appeared beside me, with resolute eyes and a trickster grin. “You have to think like the monster to defeat him,” he says. “Like dissolves like.” He points with his eyes to a line of dense shrubs at the edge of the woods. “Give him a taste of his own medicine,” he says with a smirk. He walks into the gray thicket and laughter overtakes him as he disappears."

— Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

"In other words: under capitalism we have the state in the proper sense of the word, that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by another, and, what is more, of the majority by the minority. Naturally, to be successful, such an undertaking as the systematic suppression of the exploited majority by the exploiting minority calls for the utmost ferocity and savagery in the work of suppressing, it calls for seas of blood through which mankind has to wade in slavery, serfdom and wage labour.

Furthermore, during the transition from capitalism to Communism suppression is still necessary; but it is now the suppression of the exploiting minority by the exploited majority. A special apparatus, a special machine for suppression, the "state," is still necessary, but this is now a transitional state; it is no longer a state in the proper sense of the word; for the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday is comparatively so easy, simple and natural a task that it will entail far less bloodshed than the suppression of the risings of slaves, serfs or wage labourers, and it will cost mankind far less. And it is compatible with the extension of democracy to such an over whelming majority of the population that the need for a special machine of suppression will begin to disappear."

— V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917.

The fascists are rummaging through the entire history of every nation so as to be able to pose as the heirs and continuators of all that was exalted and heroic in its past, while all that was degrading or offensive to the national sentiments of the people they make use of as weapons against the enemies of fascism. Hundreds of books are being published ... with only one aim -- to falsify the history... Communists who suppose that all this has nothing to do with the cause of the working class, who do nothing to enlighten the masses on the past of their people in a historically correct fashion, in a genuinely Marxist-Leninist spirit, who do nothing to link up the present struggle with the people's revolutionary traditions and past -- voluntarily hand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historical past of the nation, so that the fascists may fool the masses. No, Comrades, we are concerned with every important question, not only of the present and the future, but also of the past of our own peoples. ...to sneer at all the national sentiments of the broad masses of working people is far from being a genuine Bolshevik, and has understood nothing of the teaching of Lenin on the national question.

Comrades, proletarian internationalism must, so to speak, "acclimatize itself" in each country in order to strike deep roots in its native land. National forms of the proletarian class struggle and of the labor movement in the individual countries are in no contradiction to proletarian internationalism; on the contrary, it is precisely in these forms that the international interests of the proletariat can be successfully defended.

...the socialist revolution will signify the salvation of the nation and will open up to it the road to loftier heights. By the very fact of building at the present time its class organizations and consolidating its positions, by the very fact of defending democratic rights and liberties against fascism, by the very fact of fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, the working class is fighting for the future of the nation. The revolutionary proletariat is fighting to save the culture of the people, to liberate it from the shackles of decaying monopoly capitalism, from barbarous fascism, which is laying violent hands on it. Only the proletarian revolution can avert the destruction of culture and raise it to its highest flowering as a truly national culture -- national in form and socialist in content.

Only by struggling hand in hand with the proletariat of the imperialist countries can the colonial peoples and oppressed national minorities achieve their freedom. The sole road to victory for the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries lies through the revolutionary alliance of the working class of the imperialist countries with the national-liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries, because, as Marx taught us, "no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations."

Communists belonging to an oppressed, dependent nation cannot combat chauvinism successfully among the people of their own nation if they do not at the same time show in practice, in the mass movement, that they actually struggle for the liberation of their nation from the alien yoke. And again, on the other hand, the Communists of an oppressing nation cannot do what is necessary to educate the working masses of their nation in the spirit of internationalism without waging a resolute struggle against the oppressor policy of their "own" bourgeoisie, for the right of complete self-determination for the nations kept in bondage by it. If they do not do this, they likewise do not make it easier for the working people of the oppressed nation to overcome their nationalist prejudices.

— Georgi Dimitrov

Are we class-conscious Great-Russian proletarians impervious to the feeling of national pride? Certainly not. We love our language and our motherland; we, more than any other group, are working to raise its laboring masses (i.e., nine-tenths of its population) to the level of intelligent democrats and socialists. We, more than anybody are grieved to see and feel to what violence, oppression and mockery our beautiful motherland is being subjected by the tsarist hangmen, the nobles and the capitalists. We are proud of the fact that those acts of violence met with resistance in our midst, in the midst of the Great Russians; that this midst brought forth Radischev, the Decembrists, the intellectual revolutionaries of the seventies; that in 1905 the Great-Russian working class created a powerful revolutionary party of the masses.

We are filled with national pride because of the knowledge that the Great-Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class, that it, too, has proved capable of giving humanity great examples of struggle for freedom and for socialism; that its contribution is not confined solely to great pogroms, numerous scaffolds, torture chambers, severe famines and abject servility before the priests, the tsars, the landowners and the capitalists.

We are filled with national pride, and therefore we particularly hate our slavish past... and our slavish present, in which the same landowners, aided by the capitalists, lead us into war to stifle Poland and the Ukraine, to throttle the democratic movement in Persia and in China, to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskis, Puriskeviches that cover with shame our Great-Russian national dignity.

— V. I. Lenin, Collected Works 21:103-4

☭ Against Settler 'Socialist' Distortion of Marxism-Leninism

Marxism-Leninism wants nothing less than for your nation and culture to be liberated from opression. However, there are some revisionists who think they can install socialism in a country while leaving the colonialism intact. This is no less ridiculous than Kibbutism.

"They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. ... All the social-chauvinists are now ‘Marxists’ (don’t laugh!)."

— V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917.

By Marxist Leninist I mean the antiimperialist tradition coming from the October Revolution in Russia and culminating in the socialist countries we see today. Many Asian Marxists distinguish Eastern Marxism from Western Marxism (the second is a wannabe ideology). Some people use different words to say the same things, and that's valid. But I also want to stress for BIPOC readers that an idea is defined by its material effect upon the world, and the ideas of Marxist Leninism are *not* European/Eurocentric they are mainly Asian/Eastern in origin. Even Marx himself was a non-observing Jewish man, child of long line of Rabbis on both sides. Marxism-Leninism is borne of the contradictions of orientalism and colonialism, too. The whitewashing of Marxism-Leninism only serves to confuse and alienate us from a practice, international by design, that could genuinely liberate. Calling Marxism-Leninism a white thing is like calling yoga a white thing just because some clueless crackers misused it. Everybody seemingly wants to be communist but without actually being a Communist.

The Left-Right paradigm is useless for an ML anyway, that terminology comes from the Monarchists vs Bourgeoisie/Liberals of the French Revolution. Most people you think of whether they are 'left' or 'right' are liberals. And then there's the fascists... But even then, scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds.

I also call myself a dialectical materialist, mainly to distance myself from Marx as a person, but it's all the same method. Any proper application of dialectical materialism would bring someone to 'Marxist-Leninist' conclusions by any name.

Dialectical materialism is also important for cultural revitalization and preservation because it places culture in a historical materialist viewpoint which happens to be the most correct and coincides with the way history is told by many indigenous people for whom historical events are supposed to inform us about the present. It allows for us to not be frozen in time, but also preserve what is important. Liberal ideology offers no such benefits. In addition, dialectical materialism, not to be confused with mechanical materialism (the other form of idealism), is compatible with indigenous epistemology or ways of knowing, and helpfully combats Christianity, hippy nonsense, and other reactionary tendencies. Language is tricky here... Our languages do not really have the same Western hegemonic meanings. All knowledge is knowledge of the universe. Ideas and matter are in a dialectical relationship. So, it's almost impossible to use english to describe indigenous knowledge and practices, through colonial terms and frameworks, without something lost in translation. Our idea of knowledge is more expansive.

We are the halluci-nation. Our DNA is the earth and sky. The halluci-nation, the human beings, the people, see the spiritual and the natural through sense and feeling. Everything is related: all the things of earth and in the sky have 'spirit', everything is sacred. Confronted by the alien-nation, the subjects and the citizens see the material religions through trauma and numb. Nothing is related: all the things of the earth and in the sky have energy to be exploited. Even themselves. Mining their spirits into souls sold, into nothing is sacred, not even themselves. The a-LIE-nation, the alienation.

— John Trudell, spoken word poetry, Santee Dakota nation

Thus, poetry becomes necessary, to bypass the language barrier. This underscores the need to preserve our languages to communicate unique perspectives and our own ontological frameworks. As I was saying, historical materialism is very important to transmit what we were meant to learn. The earliest written records mentioning this concept of historical materialism (though not with the same name) was in China by Liu Zongyuan (773–819) and Li Gou (1009–1059).

Fighting colonialism and imperialism certainly went on since the day Colombus set foot on Turtle Island, as people fought valiantly to liberate their individual nations but it was when imperialist *capitalism* reached a global scale of development that the world saw Lenin codify Marxist-Leninism, an anti-imperialist science that seeks to unite and liberate entire multinational/multiethnic countries through proletarian revolution against imperialism. History has shown us that the working class is the driver of unity between all groups oppressed by capitalist imperialism, especially unity within and between ethnic groups despite the contradictions between them.

For the global south, the struggle for liberation evolved dialectically towards Marxist-Leninism in response to global economic shifts caused by settler colonialism and imperialism in general. (Settler-colonialism is a branch of imperialism.)

Indigenous people in the global north need to ally with the global south instead of having our gaze fixed upon the West, or on the latest psyop. We, especially our material interests, really are not that different from the global south. Our futures are intertwined!

"The Indian Wars never ended, the United States simply fabricated new Indians -- new terrorists, new insurgents, and enemies-- to justify endless wars and expansion."

— The Red Nation, "The Red Deal", 2020

In my opinion every sincere person who wants to fight for their people's liberation will naturally become inclined to support Marxist-Leninism. There are many global examples in the 20th century of this being so, worldwide Marxist Leninism (sometimes referred to by other names) is the political method chosen by every people fighting imperialism. Imperialism is the primary contradiction worldwide of the 20th and 21st century!

☭ LGBT, Indigeneity, and Socialism

There has always been more than two genders, worldwide. Only with imperialism, colonialism, and maybe early empires(?) was there any attack upon gender, because gender diverse bodies are inconvenient to imperialist ambitions. LGBTphobia increases when capitalism and imperialism enter. It's hard not to be Marxist if you are LGBT, look at the way gender and sexuality were colonized. It's the imperialism question again, and Marxist Leninism is the answer to that question. Dialectical materialism also proves there are more than 2 genders and people can change their gender.

I highly recommend Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg. And of course, none of this is a replacement for listening to native elders, it is an additional resource.

☭ The Tasks of Communists Towards Decolonization

Communists should be working towards the preservation and strengthening of indigenous people's political autonomy, economic prosperity, cultural education and language rights. The Red Deal book has many good ideas on specific actions you can take to support your indigenous comrades. Braiding Sweetgrass offers an indigenous perspective of science. But please also never forget to ask an oppressed nation what they need.

☭ The Dialectics of Praxis

Every revolution requires a revolutionary theory, and educating the people.

There is a lot of education that needs to happen. Of course, education and mutual aid and advocacy can all happen at the same time, and can also feed into each other. Everything weaves together through a somewhat intuitive, yet also planned or organized, process.

You can have these moments where you are educating people and then include a call to action. Education gets people invested in the cause, and a person might ask, 'How can I help?'

As you're educating people and spreading awareness, you're also making an impression on somebody and building up trust and making contacts, which are the basic requirements for carrying out mutual aid, support, solidarity, etc.

As we engage in class struggle, we also learn lessons, and that feeds back into theory.

Over time, people become more grounded, confident, ready to act and ready to take the correct actions.

That's praxis.

I'm boiling some water right now for my meal. It's like education is me applying heat to the water. The actions are the bubbles that spring up from the depths of the pot. With enough temperature and bubbles (quantitative change), it reaches a point where the water is rolling and boiling. When the water is officially boiling, that represents a fundamental qualitative change, i.e. it now has the capacity to cook my food. Revolution. Cooking: the most ancient revolution as started by homo erectus, the birth of the human brain and therefore all our species' comprehension of natural laws.