Indigenous Principles

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by Charhapiti
Published: September 3rd 2025, originally drafted June 9th 2024 (last update: 2025-09-05)
10-20 minutes

Furthermore, every individual is originally native to some place based on historical relationship to a Community, and their membership to a Community is defined by a complex and nuanced interaction of lineage from that Community and their actual productive activity, their work. (...) We thus conclude that the indigenous question is the national question, and the national question is the indigenous question. The national question is a question of unity and of community and of people and of collectivism. The national question is a question of love, and Communism is all about the practical expression of the highest form of non-egoic, selfless love directed towards all humanity and all life: through service to the people a Communist demonstrates the principle: we want everyone to be well fed, to thrive, to be happy. In fact, the national struggle is also the class struggle, so the indigenous struggle is too a class struggle. For after all, every national and class struggle is a struggle for control and ownership of a state. If indigenous people are to liberate themselves, they must control the state. Yet at any given time, a state is controlled only by a specific class. Therefore, it is always a dictatorship of the proletariat representing the interests of the indigenous population that Communists should be struggling for and nothing less.

Introduction

We, the Decolonial Indigenous and Proletarian Study Group, are working to educate and unite people over decolonial/anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, Marxist-Leninist/scientific socialist, Juche, pro-women and LGBT2S+ topics. We have determined that ProleWiki is the most suitable platform to diffuse our message to the world. We created the Portal:Turtle Island Decolonial Reading List. We support actually existing socialism (AES) of the global majority, we oppose and expose settler socialism through normalization of the indigenous and global majority socialist perspectives, especially in the Global South, where socialism enjoys the most popular support despite attempts at erasure.

We hold that "indigenous" is a word with lots of nuances, but it is also deceptively simple. The simple truth is that indigenous are the people who are fighting against their colonizers. However most indigenous peoples don't typically self-identify with the indigenous label unless conscientized about it. Its relevance becomes most apparent in the face of a colonial threat. Technically, the 'intact' indigenous people mainly exist in Asia and Africa, these being places colonialism failed to dominate as extensively. For many, cultural continuity is for the most part uninterrupted. Regardless of the severity of colonialism, we want for the rest of the indigenous world to be liberated and enjoy prosperity and renewal. We recognize China, DPRK, Vietnam, and Laos as milenary indigenous civilizations that are building socialism. Cuba, the resilient socialist gem, we see is to a lesser degree indigenous, given its cultural continuity being disrupted from the prior era of colonization, and is going through an era of renewal. We don't recognize settler-colonial states as socialist.

We welcome people who are new to socialism, who wish to learn about socialism's application in varying parts of the world, who wish to connect with a variety of perspectives. Let's learn together and have fun in the process. Remember: Communism will win!

However, if you can't accept that indigenous people exist in vast numbers outside the U.S. and Canada, and have different struggles and perspectives than you, then you are chauvinist against Global South indigenous people, even if you are indigenous. It is a self-defeating position for any indigenous person to take, isolating them from the global communities of the world. There is nothing found within the Global North indigenous world that is not also found within the Global South indigenous world. In fact, the Global North indigenous world can learn much through engagement with the Global South indigenous world. Refrain from Western and Global North chauvinism against Global South nations and actually existing socialist (AES) states, including accusations that they are "imperialist", arguments that they should be overthrown, and derision of South-South solidarity.

Principles and Analysis of Indigeneity

Indigenous people, no matter the extent or duration of oppression, deserve to have full restoration of their traditional ways, national characteristics, economic self-determination, territory, unity and power, by all means at their disposal. Everything that was stolen will be returned. Every individual indigenous community or nation must be considered according to its own conditions, thus all statements that follow in here are principles for approaching each nation individually and with respect.
A historically constituted Community is the natural basis and inviolable reality in which nativeness is grounded, and whereas nation is sometimes used more broadly or abstractly, Stalin's description is suitable: "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." ... And also: "A nation is primarily a community, a definite community of people." Stalin's conception of a nation is not a catechism nor is it a way to judge individual belonging, but it has some utility, despite limitations that both Lenin and Stalin later self-critiqued after growing past the failures of the Second International. After the Third International, Stalin and Lenin began to use 'nation', 'people, and 'community' in more flexible ways that allowed for nuanced engagement with the struggles of colonialism and dispossession.
Furthermore, every individual is originally native to some place based on historical relationship to a Community, and their membership to a Community is defined by a complex and nuanced interaction of lineage from that Community and their actual productive activity, their work. This "work" is sometimes heard colloquially as "making an effort". What counts as "making an effort" is defined by that Community. In present times, "ethnicity" or "tribe" is sometimes informally used, or even worse, "race", but these terms have limited or at times counterproductive results. Capital-C Community should be clearly differentiated from the liberal, ahistorical, ephemeral sense of "community" as "gamer community", "women's community", "disabled community", etc, which are not communities in the material and stable sense.
Identity is not reducible to borders or location of birth. Diaspora status, migration, adoption, foster care, attempted assimilation, or other displacement does not cancel or prohibit one from their identity. Likewise, simply living in or being born in a place while having ancestors from somewhere else (e.g. a settler who was born in a settler colony) does not make that person native to that land, no matter how many generations pass. The oppressed native Community, no matter how many members are eliminated, is the ultimate and rightful keeper of the land, no matter whether the land is managed well or mismanaged. Also, the fact of being oppressed (while being native to somewhere else) does not grant that a person or people are native to a land they migrated to. However, not being native to their current location due to historical displacement, immigration, or having a migratory pattern, does not mean a people are not an oppressed nation with rights to defend. Likewise, indigenous Communities can be oppressors of other Communities.
At the same time as lineage usually grants access to a Community, there is also the complex relationship of being adopted into a Community whether by marriage or spiritual family or whatsoever the Community defines as valid kinship. Often this process of kinship making, the reintegration of former members and assimilation of outsiders, is precisely the way that a Community reproduces itself outside of the typical biological reproduction, and happens more often than people would tend to admit, or perhaps can even explain, since its subtleties are spontaneous, irreducible and non-mechanical. However, the reality that Love itself is what makes a Community, at times recognized within but also far beyond the structures of law and biological reproduction, is clearly seen.
Genetic drift, "race", "mixedness", etc, also do not cancel ethnicity. Also, having the genes or "racial characteristics" does not automatically confer the ethnicity. Race is a bourgeois invention, akin to caste, based in idealism and upheld by violence.
Having said that, all people of all classes and origins (even indigenous) fall on one side or the other in the contradiction between oppressing and oppressed nations. What side they fall on depends entirely upon their own personal loyalties. One can be a class traitor (Engels was a class traitor!) of the bourgeoisie. Or one can betray their own proletariat. It is ultimately up to the choices of the individual whether to follow the interests of their class and nation.
The indigenous world is enveloped in contradictions. There is the contradiction between nations whose territory is occupied, versus nations who are the settler-colonizers. There is the contradiction between the nations who retain their country, but who are colonized from afar by imperialist nations ("traditional" colonialism), e.g. France and its colonies such as Kanaky New Calcedonia. With the arrival of monopoly capitalism, most formal colonies transformed into neocolonies because it became possible to control a country and its resources from afar without direct brute force, although occasionally direct brute force is still used under imperialism. There is the contradiction between the whole of the global south, and the whole of the global north in a complex web of neocolonial relationships, aka the global system of modern imperialism. Some global south countries are mired in a semi-settler-colonial relationship with the original indigenous people because the majority population may have had indigenous ancestors themselves, but now carry on the oppressive role and cultural traits of their colonizers while the entire country is simultaneously being neocolonized by the global north (e.g. Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, etc); the colonizing majority has no courage in the face of imperialism but are instead identified with their imperializers and the concept of "national minorities" does NOT capture the depth of the problem that indigenous people in these countries face.
Some "indigenous" Communities are actively engaged in oppression of other "indigenous" Communities (e.g. Castillians against Basque, English against Welsh or Cumbria). Some indigenous Communities not suffering direct occupation are imperialized while also actively oppressing other indigenous Communities (e.g. Hindu against other communities of India), while this is not a settler relationship because they historically share a territory, it is one of national oppression.
Everyone is indigenous to somewhere; when we talk of indigenous we are talking first of all about a historical and preferably ongoing relationship to a land as the origin or starting point of the conversation. Indigenous struggles are primarily land based and ultimately about asserting political control over a land, or at least freedom of movement and existence within it. Often "indigenous" is only relevant when the context is the oppressing nation as an alien nation, a foreigner. Indigenous is not a mythical measure of traditionality versus modernity, and it is not a rejection of industrial society; a people's "way of life" is a separate question. "Indigenous" is the aforementioned "historically constituted" and "territory" aspect of a nation, while "way of life" is all the rest: the language, economic activity, and psychological aspects in a common culture, for instance. An indigenous people's -- that is to say, any people or nation's -- way of life is subject to change through historical events, but what we want is for each nation to control their own destiny, including in how that history and change develops.
Original communism developed the essential features of the original Community through an evolutionary process. Hence, there are no 'new' indigenous people-groups, especially not after the dawn of imperialism i.e. the carving up of the world, and imperialism cannot 'create' 'new' indigenous people-groups through this carving up. In order to impose capitalism, the Community was plundered, and our grandparents and ancestors' way of life was disrupted, often breaking the chain of continuity for the next generations. This original Community is in many ways what colonized people today long to get back to, with different peoples experiencing different levels of damage and intactness. The surviving essence of that original Community is in the proletariat and peasantry, these are the classes who engage in culture production the most through their daily life as producers and the majority practitioners and "consumers" of culture. The proletariat also by sheer numbers outnumbering all classes, contains the most wisdom keepers.
Renewal is possible even in the face of cultural genocide, we know this because unlike liberals we don't have a metaphysical view of culture. Instead, culture is living relation that continually springs out from collective lived experiences. Under the right conditions, culture can regenerate. Even the most unique indigenous knowledges can be rediscovered, reintroduced, remembered, but only if the people are given control of their destiny. Of course, the better thing is if it is not lost at all since this is like talking about restoring the health of a sick person. So, in order to restore the original way of life, updated to modern realities, we must engage a revolutionary process. Revival of genocided culture in the unsteady hands of the Bourgeois classes produces state policies that are short-sighted at best. Poorly designed and executed due to their alienation from the masses who are mainly proletariat, this results in crises, failures, and hostilities. Prior to revolution, the people struggle to survive. During this phase, socialists must focus their energies on this survival, both physical and cultural. Once a people's future is secured by revolution, only a Socialist and gradual approach can ensure a harmonious and permanent National revival; no 'cultural revolution' can happen (like the GPCR), because it must be organic, the process cannot be forced nor rushed.
Indigenous peoples have a right to their past, but they also have a right to carry themselves forward without losing themselves.
We thus conclude that the indigenous question is the national question, and the national question is the indigenous question. The national question is a question of unity and of community and of people and of collectivism. The national question is a question of love, and Communism is all about the practical expression of the highest form of non-egoic, selfless love directed towards all humanity and all life: through service to the people a Communist demonstrates the principle: we want everyone to be well fed, to thrive, to be happy. In fact, the national struggle is also the class struggle, so the indigenous struggle is too a class struggle. For after all, every national and class struggle is a struggle for control and ownership of a state. If indigenous people are to liberate themselves, they must control the state. Yet at any given time, a state is controlled only by a specific class. Therefore, it is always a dictatorship of the proletariat representing the interests of the indigenous population that Communists should be struggling for and nothing less.

For more perspectives on indigeneity, I recommend: