COMMUNISM - The Red Nation
COMMUNISMIS THE HORIZONQUEERINDIGENOUS FEMINISMIS THE WAY
“I firmly believe that thephilosophy of my ancestorslines up quite tidily with thephilosophy of communism.I make no apology for myprinciples.”— Lee Maracle
IntroductionWhat the ruling classes call chaos is theinevitable cycle of a world able to surviveonly on violence against the people of theearth and the earth itself. The Red Nation(TRN) stands with and moves with thepeople as we move together with the earth.Where have the masses gone these pastmonths? We are living with a pandemic.Our relatives have died, their proximity topremature death made ever more visible.It is no coincidence that within the UnitedStates the workers, the dispossessed, andthe Black, Brown and Indigenous masses,have suffered the greatest losses. Ourrelatives, from these same communities,are on the streets carrying the torch asthe revolutionary moment flares. We haveseen the domestic imperial forces burn.It is a time of extreme clarification. Weare changed. This statement reflects thischange. 1
At the 2019 Native Liberation Conference, we discussed,debated, and ratified the following position: the primarypolitical ideology of The Red Nation is revolutionary socialism.As waves of mass insurrection rose across Turtle Island, a smallgroup of us gathered to consider further one of the centraltensions that we hold as an Indigenous socialist organization:does socialism and the method we use to arrive there, Marxism,align or conflict with Indigenous histories of resistance?What is the relevance of Marxism to Indigenous practices ofcommunalism and philosophies of land as relation?We present the following as a natural extension of the work webegan in the previous position paper. We stand by that positionand we stretch it here to meet the demands and analysis ofour members as we come into greater understanding of ourpast, present, and future. Continuing to develop and clarifythe principles that guide TRN is of central importance to us.As we rise to meet the people, we continue to center queerIndigenous feminism, which must be articulated as strongly as,and simultaneous with, revolutionary socialism. Beyond thisbanner of revolutionary socialism, we see ourselves walkingtoward communism. How does queer Indigenous feminismshape and reshape communism? In the end, we find littlesense in speaking of them separately. As feminists, we reclaimthese methods and steward them to serve the people. This is acontinuation of Third World struggle.We write with urgency but also from within history. Wedesperately need to orient ourselves and our people to makeit through this world to another, but we cannot act outof desperation. We turn to socialism to undertake a wellcoordinated, massive redistribution of resources, and the endof US settler colonial occupation that uproots lives for the sakeof ravaging the earth’s resources for capitalist accumulation. 2
We practice resurgent and insurgent forms of communalismas we work to become more-human human beings capable ofpracticing reciprocity with the land and its form of love.Like everything TRN does, what we undertake here willcontinue to change because our material conditions are alwayschanging.1. Communism is Indigenous- On Socialism -Though the language of socialism and communism islargely attributed to Marx, our ancestors were born freeand practiced systems of caretaking that provided for thepeople without profit or accumulation in the capitalist sense.It is only because of capitalism that we are forced to employrevolutionary socialism as a vehicle to reclaim and name thesecaretaking systems.Socialism is not the same as communism.Socialism is the first step in reclaiming a sense of humanity aswell as a love for humanity. Grace Lee Boggs, echoing FrantzFanon, wrote that revolution is the process of becoming morehuman human beings. Through socialism, we begin the processof reclaiming our humanity.Socialism is a program for survival. If we want to live to seecommunism, we must build something that can weather thealready-present ecological crisis. We know that capitalism andits handy machinery of militarized colonialism has destroyedthe land, water, and skies, and torn up the bodies and spiritsof Indigenous, Brown and Black people around the world. We 3
need socialism to usher in the sweeping changes for liberationand to defend ourselves from the inevitable brutal reactionof the capitalist class. Once the survival of colonized peoplesis secured through the mass redistribution of resources anddecimation of violent state capabilities, we can build up ourliberated territories towards communism.Socialism is the path to the full development of the creativepotential of all. It is the chiseling away of oppressive socialrelations that have chained humanity to the rule of the few. Itis breaking down the walls of oppression that keep the humblepeople of the Earth hemmed-in under the jackboot of the rich.Torrents of creative power locked in the hearts of billions ofpeople around the world await to burst out and destroy capitalistsocial relations based on greed and the search for profits. Thiscreative power comes from many sources, some human, someother-than-human:.Millionsof Indigenous people seizing their own destiny as protectors and defenders of Mother Earth.Billions of workers strengthening communal relationsthrough sharing the wealth created by their labor viavoluntary mutual aid.Millions of living artists and scientists, creators andspiritual beings, giving full reign to their potentialities,making it possible to elevate one another, their other-than-human relations, the Earth, and life itself.For Indigenous people, socialism is the process of being able tolive as Indigenous again in full collective determination of ourpresent and future. Communism fulfills all that begets life onMother Earth through the overturning of all forms of privateproperty. 4
- On Communism-Communism is our past and our horizon. Indigenous peoplehave always been communists. We call for communism inour prayers because communism is our rightful relation withthe earth. When we hear “from the bottom up,” we think ofliberation achieved from reflecting on the experiences of lifefrom the grassroots to the next world—literally that whichemerges from below the earth and grows upward to greet thesun. When we bless ourselves, we start from our feet and workour way up to the top of our heads. We emerged into newworlds from the ground up, bringing with us what we lovedfrom past worlds and discarding practices that caused violenceand chaos. This is an Indigenous theory of history. It is also thetheory of communism. Courage, love, and change comes fromthe bottom up. This is how we want to emerge into the worldof communism.Left abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore has said, “we don’twant to create something today that we will have to destroytomorrow.” The same holds true for Indigenous communism.While we draw from many traditions of socialism andcommunism, we are intentional in learning from history andnot simply replicating that which has come before. While wedraw from Indigenous political traditions, we do not claimthat our ancestors lived in a perfect world. We have a rightto study the dynamic and complex history of socialism andcommunism—with all its faults and glories—and choose whichaspects of this history to bring with us (and which to discard)as we create a new world. The same applies to Indigenoushistory and Indigenous traditions of resistance. Marxism, forexample, is a science and tool for liberation and class analysis.Indigenous struggles around the world have studied andutilized Marxism for this precise reason. To dismiss Marxismas only belonging to Europe erases these Indigenous strugglesthat have embraced and weaponized Marxism for their own 5
liberation. These struggles teach us that the choice betweensuch traditions —communist, socialist, Indigenous, feminist, orotherwise— is our right as oppressed nations seeking liberation.We have been systematically denied by colonialism the freedomto choose our own destiny. To study, debate, and choose our pathtowards liberation is an act of defiant self-determination andIndigenous autonomy in the face of self-doubt and dependency,the only political currency made available to us by paternalisticsystems of colonial guardianship. We break this cycle today.Communism will be relevant to Indigenous liberation solong as we value kinship. Communism is kinship; kinship iscommunism. Marx knew this. Marx saw in Indigenous kinshipthe fulcrum of the commons, which he understood as the basisof communism. He understood the original form of capitalistviolence was the enclosure of the commons. The caging andcommodification of communal lands through the erectionof fences and borders created the conditions for primitiveaccumulation. It also alienated people from their kinshipbonds, literally forged through communal relationship with theland. While Marx was observing this in England, Indigenouspeople were resisting and mourning the enclosure of ourcommons here in Turtle Island: the theft and transfer of ourbeloved kin—the land, mountains, and rivers—into privateproperty and eminent domain. Capitalism requires all formsof relationality to become selfish (as in to own property) andindividualist (as in to own wealth). Communism is based onthe opposite: generosity and collectivity, what we as Indigenouspeoples simply call ‘kinship’ (the term is different in each of ourlanguages, so the English term is a shorthand).Today, The Red Nation reclaims communism forIndigenous people.The redistribution of abundance through and after the 6
revolution must be premised on a different conception ofwealth and value, particularly as they apply to land. Land isnot a gift freely given, but a relation. Indigenous peoples havelong struggled against the abstraction and commodificationof land into property. Communism means the resurgence ofsocial relations premised on understanding land as a relative.There can be no ownership of our relative; our collective use isreciprocal with the land and its systems. Communism is the endof a class society premised on private property and systems oflife that require the caging of land and all existing on it withborders. It is the restoration of a way of life premised on kinship,free of borders and notions of ownership. Communism allowsthe land to be sacred. In our dreams, we see Mother Earthliberated, no longer scarred with the borders of enclosure andprivate property. We see humanity returning to a life based onkinship.We love communism because we love ourselves. When wespeak of Indigenous communism, we speak of caretakingand liberation. We speak of a world based on social wellbeingand abundance where all relatives have their needs met andlive with dignity and joy. Where social relations are based oncooperation, reciprocity, consent, mutual respect, support, andcare, and other-than-human relatives have equal standing withhuman beings. This is a world of self-determination, autonomy,and the agency of all life to live free from violence and coercion,specifically carcerality. A world where equality abounds andclass disappears. A world filled with creativity and happiness.The Red Nation operates on the basis of revolutionary love forall oppressed peoples. We recognize the special place that Blackliberation holds for the future of any socialist revolution in theselands. The mass insurrection we are witnessing in this historicmoment proves this to be true. Black liberation is the spear alongwith Indigenous liberation towards building communism onTurtle Island. If Black and Indigenous liberation are the spear of 7
socialist revolution, then Black and Indigenous left feminismis the tip of that spear. Indigenous and Black left feministsare the special beacons for our collective struggle. We lookto these feminists to lead the revolutionary struggle becauseit is from within these traditions that caretaking and ethicalrelationality have emerged as the path towards abolition anddecolonization. However, bourgeois feminism serves only theupwardly mobile and elite classes such as those populating theranks of the academy. Bourgeois academic culture in generalis rife with anticommunism, particularly in the feminist andqueer theories that dictate academically-produced politics inthe Global North. These traditions of queer feminism oftenmistake critique for politics and divorce ideas from praxis,reinforcing the very abstraction of materiality that Marx sodetested. Critique constitutes only part of politics; liberationrequires praxis and a deep, unwavering commitment tobuilding revolutionary movements with other human beings.This sets left queer feminists apart from radical bourgeoisefeminists. Black and Indigenous left feminists steer us towardsthe development of movements based on kinship, solidarity,and hope. These traditions guide Indigenous nations into justand reciprocal relations with other nations based on kinshipand solidarity so that we may live free of violence and stopharming the earth.Communists are caricatured by social and politicalconservatives, including many on the left, as rabidauthoritarians, power-hungry state despots, enforcers oflabor camps, and silencers of dissent. These anticommunistmyths roll off the tongues of those who seek to destroy truecommunism found in Indigenous movements to decolonizethe earth. To be anticommunist on stolen land is to be antiIndian. And yes, Indigenous people who are anticommunistcan be anti-Indian. It goes without saying that all subjectsof the US empire—including our fellow Indigenous people—have been taught from birth that communism is evil. Or that 8
it’s just a “dead white man” philosophy. Many in TRN harboredanticommunism in the past. We encourage everyone to questionwhat you have been taught about communism, especially if youlive in the United States. Anticommunism simply justifies andemboldens settler claims to stolen land, premised as they are onenclosure, entitlement, and individualism. As we fan the flamesof the cleansing fire raging across Turtle Island, topplingcolonizers, righting history, and setting the stage for mass landreturn, Indigenous people will be facing increased repressionfrom a settler order that desperately clings to property as itsfinal vestige of power in a dying society.Do not put the struggle for Indigenous liberation at greater risksimply because you refuse to question your prejudice againstcommunism. We love communism because we love our peopleand the lands that claim us. Join us in building a communistworld of abundance, creativity, and joy.- Special Clause for Settler Socialists and Communists If your socialism or communism in North America does notcenter Indigenous liberation and decolonization (i.e. landreturn), then you need to better understand your self-proclaimedpolitical tradition and get with the program. Communism is,and always has been, Indigenous.2. On Feminism- Queer Indigenous Feminism -Our thinking about queer Indigenous feminism has changedsince we adopted our first position in September 2019.In this follow up, we wish to clarify the specific relationshipbetween queer Indigenous feminism, socialism, and communism. 9
It has become clear to us through praxis that the egalitarianismand emphasis on relations of care that lie at the heart ofIndigenous traditions of kinship are, in fact, the very same asthose that communism names. To be socialist revolutionariesfacilitating the transition from capitalism to communism inthe present means to be good relatives, caretakers, protectors,and fierce defenders of all living beings. The discrimination,exclusion, and domination at the heart of capitalist and settlerheteronormativity have no place in the next world.The communist world we build will come not only from streetrevolts and guerilla actions against the settler state, but thepreviously obscured work that women, queers, and trans peopleof all genders have done in the realms of care. This is thelabor of sustaining us, our basic needs whether these be forfood, shelter, or pleasure. Care encompasses a set of practicesfor recreating the world and reimagining our relationship toall our relatives. We have already seen and experienced thisunder global pandemic with the rise of widespread mutualaid networks that have the potential to become caretakinginfrastructures. The economies of our capitalist present arepremised on abuse. The economies of our socialist transitionand communist future will be premised on care.Queer Indigenous feminism emphasizes kinship andrelationality based in reciprocity. Queer Indigenous feministsremind us that Indigenous traditions of kinship do notdiscriminate against gender and sexual diversity amongstour relatives. Prior to settler colonialism many Indigenouspeoples recognized and respected their relatives who did not fitgender binaries. Indigenous stories and kinship practices showthe presence of female, male, intersex, and multiple genders. 10
Gender roles within families and societies included non-binaryrelatives. Those who did not fall into binary gender roles werevalued members of Indigenous societies and even crucial to thesurvival of people and communities. Marriage as an expressionof kinship was fluid, divorce was uncomplicated, and pluralpartnerships were common. Childrearing was not the soleresponsibility of biological mothers but, rather, often spreadacross multiple caretakers within a kinship network. We seeka return to these practices of self-determination in regardsto gender and sexuality and communal distribution of socialreproduction.In addition to these fluid relationships with gender andsexuality, Indigenous peoples also embraced the earth andland as a relative. As queer Indigenous feminists have longargued, the gender binary is the source, in settler societies, ofperspectives on how the earth and land should be treated. Thebinary dictates that land is feminine and should be conquered,subjugated, and dominated by men. This is also the basis forconverting land into property that can be “possessed” and“owned.” Early accounts from colonizers displayed horror aboutIndigenous societies that did not regard the land as an objectto be dominated. Alarmed by Indigenous peoples’ reverence forthe earth as a relative with which humans could—and did—haverelationships (sometimes sexual), settlers used the violence ofheteronormativity to destroy these relationships.Settler heteronormativity has fundamentally disruptedIndigenous traditions of kinship that embrace multiple genders,fluid sexualities, and other-than-human relationships. In orderto stop the many-headed monster of settler normativity, wemust harness the power of Indigenous kinship to survive 11
and gather our collective forces toward the care of allbecause, fundamentally, kinship is about care. And care, asour first position on queer Indigenous feminism notes, doesnot discriminate. For Indigenous peoples, care is the basisof social reproduction. When we caretake our relations, weagree to caretake all our relations with the same openness andacceptance of difference and multiplicity that our ancestorspracticed. We must embrace queer Indigenous feminism as thedeepest expressions of this kinship.As we discuss above, communism describes a political andeconomic system derived from Indigenous traditions ofkinship. In the context of Indigenous liberation struggles,queer Indigenous feminism names the social relations thatmake the larger political project of communism possible.Communism also creates a system in which a person’s “worth”is not determined by the proximity to the self-possessed andpossessive male but rather allows for the flourishing of gendersand sexualities. This is a system that honors the roles of diversegenders and plural sexualities in caretaking and kinship.- Marxist Feminism -Our stance on queer Indigenous feminism relates
Communism will be relevant to Indigenous liberation so long as we value kinship. Communism is kinship; kinship is communism. Marx knew this. Marx saw in Indigenous kinship the fulcrum of the commons, which he understood as the basis of communism. He understood the original form of capitalist violence was the enclosure of the commons. The caging and
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