by Theresa Henry
Donald Trump has recently threatened to make Canada the “51st state,” and to use “economic force” to “annex” Canada, which would mean the annexation and coercion of the Indigenous nations that share their territory with Canada. In light of these threats, I will argue two points. First, affirmation of Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood could unite Canadian workers and Indigenous sovereigntists against Trumpist imperialism while strengthening the opposition to Canadian colonialism. Second, affirmation of Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood advances the position of Canadian workers in the class struggle against “our” rulers.
While Trump’s threats—which former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has assured us are real—have elicited a range of responses from various parts of Canadian and Indigenous societies, the dominant response from Canadians has been chauvinistic. For example, the outcome of the 2025 Canadian federal election was largely determined by who Canadian voters believed to be better suited to defend Canada against Trumpist aggression, Liberal Party leader Mark Carney or Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. The Liberals rose from a sure defeat by Poilievre’s Conservatives, prior to Trump’s threats, to victory by a small margin of (2.5 percent of the popular vote).
Yet while the Liberals’ victory is a repudiation of Trumpism, it does not represent widespread dissatisfaction with the Conservatives. Nor does Carney’s strategy for defending Canada indicate that we are entering a period of expanded democratic and national rights for Indigenous peoples.
Text message received by the author before the 2025 Canadian federal election. Credit: MHI
There has been considerable discussion of Trump’s threats within the Canadian left. My aim in this article is to intervene in the discussion by providing a socialist internationalist perspective. Section A takes up the supposedly “pro-worker” response of the New Democratic Party (NDP)—which was decimated in the election—and the labor bureaucracy, exposing it as a form of bourgeois nationalism. Section B defends two principles that Vladimir Lenin considered “essential” to the socialist internationalist perspective. Section C acknowledges the internationalist response of Indigenous leaders and admonishes the non-Indigenous left for our neglect of Indigenous traditions of internationalism.
Section D explains why Marxist-Humanists invariably recognize Indigenous nationhood and the right of Indigenous people to self-determination. Section E clarifies that Lenin’s position on national self-determination was oriented to securing national-liberation struggles’ independence from all bourgeois powers. Section F demonstrates that working-class solidarity with Indigenous nations already exists and that it is ultimately in the interests of Canadian workers. I conclude by urging Canadian socialists to recognize the stakes of the current moment.
A. The Bourgeois Nationalist Response
One type of response to Trump’s annexation threats has come from the NDP and the labor bureaucracy. Their allegedly “pro-worker” response is only interested in defending Canada against Trumpism to secure “exclusive national privileges” for the Canadian nation-state. These national privileges include, but are not limited to, ownership and jurisdiction over the lands of at least 50 Indigenous nations, according to the Government of Canada. In other words, the so-called “pro-worker” response turns out to be precisely what Lenin described in “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination“ as the bourgeois policy towards national liberation.
On February 10, former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh released a statement committing his party to building Canadian, buying Canadian, and supporting Canadian workers. Singh’s plan, like those of all other party leaders, aims to reduce Canadian reliance on the American economy. However, the only reference to Canadian workers is a call to protect our jobs and to reform Employment Insurance benefits. Even worse, there is no mention of affirming the sovereignty of, or working with, Indigenous nations against Trump.
Similarly to the NDP, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the largest labour organization in Canada, has called on the Canadian government to protect “Canadian jobs and industries through retaliation and investments in our future.” More specifically, it suggests that Canada “rebuild our manufacturing, strengthen our supply chains, and create the good union jobs of tomorrow” while developing “affordable housing” and “public transit.” Further, it states that Canada must “enhance Employment Insurance benefits, expand Work-Sharing programs and provide direct financial support to those at the frontlines of this trade war.” Finally, the CLC reminds Canadian workers that now is the time to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for our country.
Unifor, the largest private sector union in Canada, released a statement that is nearly identical to the CLC’s, despite Unifor’s disaffiliation from the CLC in 2018. The United Steelworkers (USW), an international union, released another similar statement. While USW acknowledged that Trump’s tariffs are bad for workers on “both sides of the border,” the emphasis in their February 10 statement is on “counter-tariffs, enhanced worker and industry support and a firm commitment to use Canadian steel and aluminum in public infrastructure projects.”
In short, the emphasis in these statements is on protecting Canadian industry. However, it is not just Canadian industry that is being threatened; it is also Canadian and Indigenous sovereignty.
In its February 7 statement, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)—Canada’s largest public sector union—did defend Indigenous sovereignty. CUPE demanded that the federal government “recognize and uphold the rights of Indigenous people through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples“ (UNDRIP). UNDRIP recognizes the right of Indigenous peoples to national self-determination, advocates for the “principles of free, prior and informed consent,” and defends Indigenous peoples’ rights to “a meaningful say in the decisions that impact their land, territories, languages, cultures and way of life.”
Still, the lack of explicit affirmation of Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood in the rest of the statements exposes the fact that the current “pro-worker” response of the NDP and the unions is, in Lenin’s words, “out for … either privileges for its own nation or exceptional advantages to it.” Despite calls to protect and defend Canadian workers, this type of opposition to Trump does not challenge Canada’s exclusive national privilege to conduct itself as the sole sovereign nation on the territories it shares with at least 50 other nations.
Nor does this type of opposition to Trump attempt to revoke the exceptional economic and political advantages that Canada has received through its occupation, control, and annexation of other nations’ land and resources. Furthermore, as evidenced by its almost total lack of reference to the interests of workers in the US, Greenland, and Mexico, this so-called “pro-worker” approach refuses to subordinate the interests of workers in one country to the interests of the international working-class movement.
Finally, this type of opposition to Trump has nothing to say about preserving the “unity of the proletarian struggle“ or amalgamating Indigenous, Canadian, American, Mexican, Panamanian, Greenlandic, and Palestinian workers—to name just a few peoples that have recently had their political and territorial sovereignty threatened by Trump—into a “close-knit international association.” Given all this, it is clear that the character of the NDP and the union bureaucracy’s response is bourgeois nationalist.
B. Two Essential Principles of Socialist Internationalism
Independent socialists in Canada have attempted to develop a socialist internationalist perspective in response to the rise of bourgeois nationalism. However, to my knowledge, they have not yet done so coherently. According to Lenin, a resolution on national self-determination adopted at the 1896 London International Conference “reproduces the most essential and fundamental propositions” of the socialist internationalist perspective:
1. “The absolutely direct, unequivocal recognition of the full right of all nations to self-determination” (my emphasis), and
2. “The equally unambiguous appeal to the workers for international unity in their class struggle.”
For Lenin, these principles need to be taken together. Making them inseparable “gives the only correct lead to the proletarian class policy on the national question,” which is “opposed to all privileges, all exclusiveness,” and which aims “to secure national peace … equal rights and to create the best conditions for the class struggle.”
Following Lenin, I believe that adherence to both principles is a necessary component of a coherent socialist internationalist response to Trump’s threats and the rise of bourgeois nationalism in Canada. As demonstrated above, failure to appeal to Canadian workers for international unity in the class struggle means yielding to the Canadian bourgeoisie’s attempt to secure exclusive national privileges and advantages for itself. Similarly, failure to affirm—absolutely, directly, and unequivocally—the right of all nations to self-determination shies away from what Lenin called the “implacable struggle against … national oppression,” and it thereby benefits Trump and the Canadian bourgeoisie.
Yet an article recently published in the revolutionary socialist journal Midnight Sun, on the rise of “cross-class nationalism” in Canada, made no mention of national oppression. A brief examination of this article, “From Trade War to Class War,” by John Clarke, will help us to understand why Lenin argued that adherence to both principles is the only way to achieve a socialist internationalist perspective.
Clarke argues that “the vital task will be to advance in every way possible an independent, militant, and internationalist working-class perspective.” He also says that a proletarian internationalist perspective will be vital for combatting the “class agenda” of the ruling “establishment in Canada.” I completely agree with Clarke on this point. I disagree, however, with his singular focus on appealing to Canadian workers for unity with workers of other nations.
National oppression of Indigenous peoples is a significant item on the Canadian ruling class’s agenda (not to mention Trump’s!). So why does Clarke shy away from this discussion? I do not know the answer to this question.
I do know, however, that in Lenin’s view, the consequence of shying away from the struggle against national oppression is that we “arouse distrust“ among the workers of other nations. We thus weaken the possibility of working together, “to the delight of the bourgeoisie.” Given this, even if Clarke opposes the national oppression of Indigenous people—I imagine that he does—his failure to discuss it in his article misses an opportunity to develop further the ground for international solidarity between Canadian workers and Indigenous sovereigntists. This omission aids the Canadian ruling class in its pursuit of exclusive national privileges. Put frankly, this means that Clarke’s omission undermines the perspective he is trying to advance, i.e., the proletarian internationalist perspective.
American border sign. Credit: Wikipedia.
Among many Canadian socialists, it is not controversial to suggest that Lenin’s position implies that we must explicitly affirm the right of Indigenous people to self-determination. I think it is controversial, however, that I am suggesting also that Lenin’s position implies that we must explicitly affirm the right of Canadians to self-determination. In my experience, many Canadian socialists are uncomfortable affirming the right of Canadians to self-determination, because they are afraid that this will be confused with apologism for Canadian colonialism, or because they think it is apologism for Canadian colonialism.
But affirming the right of Canadians to self-determination is not the same thing as defending the colonial relationship between Indigenous nations and the Canadian state. If we distinguish between rights and privileges, this becomes clear.
According to Lenin, annexation of another nation is a “violation of the self-determination of [that] nation.” If the socialist internationalist perspective is that all nations should have the right to oppose annexation, it follows that a coherent socialist internationalist perspective affirms the right of Canada to oppose annexation, i.e., the right to self-determination. But this is not a privilege. A coherent socialist internationalist perspective also affirms the right of Indigenous peoples to oppose annexation, including Canada’s annexation of their lands.
Further, if the socialist internationalist perspective defines self-determination as political independence, up to and including secession, the establishment of an independent state, or to “choose freely the state of which [a nation] wish[es] to form part,” a coherent socialist internationalist perspective will defend Canada’s right to political independence from the US. But again, this is not a privilege.
A coherent socialist internationalist perspective will also affirm the right of Indigenous peoples to political independence from both the US and Canada. In other words, a coherent socialist internationalist perspective will be “unconditionally hostile to“ Trump’s annexation of Indigenous nations and to Canada’s “use of force in any form whatsoever” to negate the national rights of Indigenous peoples.
In summary, my problem with the recent discussion among Canadian socialists is that, to my knowledge, none of them have absolutely, directly, and unequivocally affirmed the right of all nations to self-determination. In the context of advancing a socialist internationalist perspective, this is incoherent.
If we affirm the right of self-determination for Canadians only, we have adapted to a bourgeois policy towards national liberation. Yet if we affirm the same right only for Indigenous peoples, we are implying that we do not think that Canada should have the right to defend itself. This is nonsensical. Since Canadians and Indigenous peoples share the same territory, if Trump annexes Canada, he annexes Indigenous nations, too. Finally, if we shy away from this discussion completely, we undermine the development of solidarity between Canadian workers and Indigenous sovereigntists. In each case, we erect more obstacles to securing national peace, equal rights, and the best conditions for the class struggle.
C. The Indigenous Internationalist Response
At issue is the right of all nations to self-determination. We have seen that Canadian socialists have failed, in various ways, to consistently affirm this right in the face of Trump’s annexation threats. But what about Indigenous leaders? To the best of my knowledge, in their responses to Trump’s threats and the actions that Canada has taken to defend itself, Indigenous leaders have asserted the sovereignty of their nations without negating the sovereignty of any other nation. In other words, they have been the most consistently internationalist.
According to Global News, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed said he “expects to work closely with Greenlandic and Alaskan Inuit to ensure they act collectively.” Moreover, Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty No. 6 First Nations, Greg Desjarlais, issued a reminder to “our southern neighbours that Canada is on Treaty Land. Our First Nations are sovereign Nations with Treaty Rights forever; we stand against U.S. aggression.” For Kory Wilson, chair of the BC First Nations Justice Council, Indigenous sovereignty is “about working together, living together and allowing people to be self-determining.”
Similarly, the Matawa Chiefs Council has called on the “premier of Ontario to reconsider the colonial approach underway and meet with us collectively as a matter of priority.” Linda Debassige, Grand Council Chief of the Anishinabek Nation, mentioned in her March 26 statement to Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, that “[i]t seems we are entering another pivotal period in history and it bears repeating that we remain your allies, we continue to uphold our Treaty obligations, and now, you must do the same.” In the same statement, Debassige urged Canada to “engage with us in a spirit of partnership that honours our shared history and paves the way for a brighter future built on mutual respect and understanding.”
Here, it is especially important to note that many of these responses have come from organizations comprised of people from multiple Indigenous nations, i.e., international organizations. Furthermore, all these statements affirm the right of Indigenous peoples to govern themselves without infringing upon the right of Canadians to do the same.
Flag of the Metis Nation. According to Jean Teillet, the Metis infinity symbol suggests “the idea of infinite freedom from boundaries and arbitrary limitations.”
Indigenous people have long been practicing internationalism on the territories shared, occupied, and annexed by Canada, even before the Canadian Confederation in 1867 united Canadian provinces into a single federation. One form Indigenous internationalism has taken is treaty-making. In her book, Breathing Life into the Stone Fort Treaty, Aimee Craft discusses the treaty-making processes of the Anishinaabe peoples. Before negotiating the Stone Fort Treaty (Treaty One) with the Crown (Canada’s sovereign and Head of State), the Anishinaabe had already made treaties with other Indigenous nations, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the British.
Craft argues that, for the Anishinaabe, treaties are “solemn agreements between people” and “both parties’ understandings of the treaty need to be taken into account in its interpretation and implementation.” In Craft’s view, the Anishinaabe understanding of the Stone Fort Treaty is that Canada and Indigenous peoples would “share the land in a spirit of peace and coexistence” and that “sharing did not mean giving up land and resources … it meant using the land and resources together.”
I refer to Indigenous traditions of internationalism because they are largely ignored by the non-Indigenous left, even those on the non-Indigenous left who proclaim themselves to be anti-colonial. I reference Anishinaabe internationalism specifically because I live on Treaty One Territory. Here, I am drawing attention to the absurdity of adopting a militant anti-colonial posture without bothering to learn about the history, intellectual traditions, traditional economies, governance, and (to borrow some terms from Metis writer, lawyer, and author of The North-West is Our Mother, Jean Teillet) the “procedural norms” and “substantive legal principles” of the Indigenous people’s land you live on. If we do not have a grasp of these principles and practices, there is no way we can sincerely respect Indigenous nationhood and engage meaningfully in nation-to-nation conversations, diplomacy, and collaboration.
The point I am making is that Indigenous people have been trying to show settlers how to live in harmony and reciprocity since before Canada, as we now know it, was even a country. For example, Teillet argues that, for the Métis Nation at the time of Confederation, “the idea of joining Canada was not the problem.” The problem was that:
The new relationship needed negotiation so that unity would be achieved for the right reasons—voluntary inclusion, equal participation and mutual compromise—thereby achieving a collective endorsement of what would become new and inclusive principles and institutions of Canada.
What is so frustrating about the non-Indigenous left in Canada, starting with the republican movement in the 1830s and culminating in the post-Stalinist left of today, is that we have not been listening.
Karl Marx, however, was listening. Just a decade after Canadian Confederation, in his Ethnological Notebooks, Marx praised the democratic sophistication of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. He noted that the leaders of the American Revolution were advised and inspired by the Haudenosaunee. He also noted that the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity—principles that animated the French Revolution—were “cardinal principles” of the Confederacy, that “women were the great power” in Haudenosaunee society, and that women exercised their voice alongside men in democratic assemblies.
Today, there is a similar democratic sophistication in the internationalist response of Indigenous sovereigntists. Because the Indigenous internationalist response affirms the nationhood of Indigenous peoples without negating the nationhood of Canadians, a vision of Indigenous political independence and a more democratic Canada emerges.
If the Metis Nation’s demands for “voluntary inclusion, equal participation and mutual compromise” were met, Canada would be transformed into a union of multiple, equal nations. If Anishinaabe understandings of the Stone Fort Treaty were recognized and implemented, the borders of Canada would be redrawn, and numerous nations would exist with shared jurisdiction on the same territory. Remember, this profound transformation would result from meeting the demands of just two Indigenous peoples. Canada would be further transformed by the national demands of other Indigenous peoples and the Quebecois.
In my opinion, it is essential to acknowledge the internationalist character of Indigenous leaders’ responses and the traditions of Indigenous internationalism, as they offer principles and practices for Canadian workers who seek to show solidarity with Indigenous movements. In other words, Indigenous internationalism strives for people-to-people solidarity between Canadians and Indigenous people, which would unite the opposition to Trump’s imperialist aggression while eroding Canada’s colonial power.
D. The Marxist-Humanist Conception of Nationhood
However, people-to-people solidarity between Canadian workers and Indigenous people also requires that Canadian workers affirm Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty. Given this, it is important to advance the Marxist-Humanist conception of nationhood, which invariably recognizes Indigenous nationhood and, therefore, the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination.
Our recognition of Indigenous nationhood and affirmation of the right of Indigenous people to self-determination are based on a fundamental political-philosophical principle of Marxist-Humanism: nationhood is self-determined. Thus, the Marxist-Humanist conception of nationhood is fundamentally opposed to the prevailing conception of nationhood within the Marxist movement.
Marxist-Humanists view the dominant conception of nationhood in the Marxist movement as “objectivist,” i.e., a conception that defines nationhood on the basis of a so-called distinguishing “objective” characteristic, such as having a distinct culture, speaking the same language, or living in the same territory. There are at least two problems with this approach. First, the so-called “objective” criteria mentioned above are just another set of subjective criteria; it is one’s subjective conception, not brute facts, that privileges one or another criterion as the basis of nationhood Second, imperialist powers and racists use these exact criteria to deny nationhood to oppressed peoples.
Contrary to the dominant, “objectivist” view in the Marxist movement, Marxist-Humanists conceive of nationhood as being “up to the people who live there.”
Left to right: Joe Hansen, English Secretary; Leon Trotsky; Jean Van Heijenoort, French and German Secretary; Natalia Trotsky (Sedova); Raya Dunayevskaya (Rae Spiegel), Russian Secretary. Mexico, 1938. Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library.
The Marxist-Humanist conception of nationhood was first developed by Raya Dunayevskaya in the mid-1940s, as part of a debate within the Workers Party (a US Trotskyist organization headed by Max Shachtman) on the self-determination of Black people in the US, particularly in her 1946 “Abstract of Com. Coolidge’s Document on Negro Question.” In her notes, she defended what she understood to be Trotsky’s position on Black Americans’ right to national self-determination, a position that she acknowledged “he had never elaborated as such.” What was decisive was the self-understanding and aspirations of Black people.
Dunayevskaya reported that Trotsky insisted that whether Black people in the US constituted a nation “was a question [Black Americans] themselves must decide.”[1] Further, Dunayevskaya reported that Trotsky explained that he arrived at this view due to his experience after the October Revolution in Russia, when he witnessed the emergence of national consciousness among ethnic and cultural minorities. According to Dunayevskaya, Trotsky recounted that “many nationalities asked for self-determination after October” and that “naturally, it was granted to them.”
Here, it is important to note that these “many nationalities” did not, prior to the revolution, consider themselves separate peoples (or at least did not strive for a separate state). In other words, Trotsky recognized that the October Revolution triggered the development of national consciousness in Russia, and, by doing so, transformed cultural, religious, and ethnic minorities into nations. While objectivist conceptions of nationhood either fail to recognize or refuse to acknowledge such historical developments, the Marxist-Humanist conception is attuned to and affirms them.
There is, however, another benefit to our approach as well. The Marxist-Humanist approach leaves room for multiple definitions of nationhood, while opposing “raceshifting,” because it affirms that it is up to the people themselves to determine their nationhood, membership, citizenship, rights, responsibilities, etc. In other words, the significance of our conception of nationhood is that Marxist-Humanists affirm the sovereignty of Indigenous nations in every conceivable case.
E. Independence from Ruling Powers
This unwavering, unconditional affirmation of Indigenous nationhood and the right of Indigenous people to self-determination does not imply, however, uncritical support for the ruling factions in Indigenous societies. Nor is uncritical support implied by recognition of the internationalist character of Indigenous leaders’ responses to Trump’s threats and the rise of bourgeois nationalism in Canada.
While it might be a stretch to say that there is a developed “Indigenous bourgeoisie” in Canada, there are certainly competing interests within Indigenous societies. There are also Indigenous leaders and organizations interested in capitalist development. For this reason, a socialist internationalist perspective must address the issue of maintaining independence from these emerging bourgeois powers. To do this, it is extremely helpful to understand the following distinction that Lenin made in his writings on national self-determination:
distinguish between the support for “the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation” insofar as it “fights the oppressor” and opposition to “the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation” insofar as it “stands for its own bourgeois nationalism.”
Conspicuously, this distinction between contradictory aspects of bourgeois nationalism has been absent from any of the socialist responses to Trump’s threats and the rise of bourgeois nationalism in Canada—even the responses that try to develop Lenin’s position in the Canadian context!
For example, Valerie Lannon, co-author of Indigenous Sovereignty and Socialism in Canada, published an article in Spring Socialist Magazine on the return of the “national question” in Canada. Her article emphasizes a different distinction that Lenin made:
A distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and that of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a big nation and that of a small nation. In respect of the second kind of nationalism, we, nationals of a big nation, have nearly always been guilty, in historic practice, of an infinite number of cases of violence; furthermore, we commit violence and insult an infinite number of times without noticing it.[2]
Lannon states that this quote demonstrates that Lenin believed that “nationalism in an oppressor nation played a different role than nationalism in an oppressed nation.” Yet she does not define what role Lenin thought nationalism played in oppressed nations. On this point, she refers to Metis theorist and activist Howard Adams’s concept of “radical nationalism:” “It develops the understanding that a native liberation struggle is essentially the same struggle as that of the working class and all oppressed people against a capitalist ruling class.”
Although I have often encountered the idea among anti-imperialist activists that Lenin opposed the nationalism of the oppressor nation and supported the nationalism of the oppressed nation, this idea is not correct. Lenin himself never counterposed bourgeois nationalism to native liberation struggles as such (“radical nationalism”), opposing the former while supporting the latter. Instead, he counterposed bourgeois nationalism to socialist internationalism. Native liberation struggles can be waged on socialist internationalist grounds, but they can also be waged on bourgeois nationalist grounds.
Directly after the quote from Lenin that Lannon included in her article, he made the point that internationalism on the part of imperialist or colonial nations “must consist not only in the observance of formal equality of nations,” but also must “compensate” people in the oppressed nation “for the lack of trust, the suspicion and the insults to which the government of the ‘dominant’ nation subjected them in the past.” Nonetheless, Lenin repeatedly stated that socialist internationalism required socialists to “combat nationalism of every kind.”
Further, I do not think that Lenin would have agreed that national liberation struggles are “essentially the same” struggle as the class struggle. In fact, Lenin had a very different view on the role of the relationship between national liberation and the class struggle. He made it clear in “The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up:”
The dialectics of history are such that small nations, powerless as an independent factor in the struggle against imperialism, play a part as one of the ferments, one of the bacilli, which help the real anti-imperialist force, the socialist proletariat, to make its appearance on the scene.
For the sake of the argument, let us entertain the idea that Lenin’s position is contradictory. On the one hand, he suggests that national liberation movements, which certainly have a nationalist dimension, can stimulate the international class struggle. On the other hand, he is clearly saying we should be opposed to all nationalism. So—if we conflate the national liberation movement with its nationalist dimension—it seems that Lenin is saying that we should support the nationalism of the oppressed nation. This contradicts his demand that we combat all nationalism.
I don’t think this is a plausible interpretation of Lenin, for two reasons. First, it makes his position self-contradictory, which is prima facie evidence that it misinterprets Lenin (see pp. 60-62). Second, as far as I know, Lenin never conflated national liberation with nationalism. Thus, his support for national-liberation struggles was not support for the “nationalism of the oppressed.”
In fact, even when he recognized that “international culture is not non-national,” he rejected talk of a unified “national culture” or nation. Instead, he said that “[t]he elements of democratic and socialist culture are present … in every national culture,” because “in every nation there are toiling and exploited masses, whose conditions of life inevitably give rise to the ideology of democracy and socialism.” In my interpretation, what Lenin viewed as the basis of socialist internationalism were these democratic and socialist “elements” of every national culture, not the “nationalism of the oppressed.”
Unfortunately, there is one other problem we face when parsing this controversy: the term “nationalism” does not have a fixed meaning. For example, Google’s dictionary, provided by Oxford Languages, defines nationalism as the “identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations” (my emphasis). However, in her book Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution, Raya Dunayevskaya argues that “The birth of the Third World has made it easy not to fall into the trap of counterposing ‘internationalism’ and ‘nationalism,’ as if they were at all times irreconcilable absolutes” (1982). While the dictionary definition implies that nationalism and internationalism are incompatible, Dunayevskaya claims that they can be reconciled.
Directly after the passage above, she quotes the following from Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, to explain how nationalism and internationalism can be reconciled: “History teaches us clearly that the battle against colonialism does not run straight along lines of nationalism…. National consciousness, which is not nationalism, is the only thing that will give us an international dimension.”
Initially, I found this extremely confusing. Dunayevskaya refers to this passage as “beautifully develop[ing]” the “dialectical relationship” between nationalism and internationalism. Yet Fanon is explicitly making a distinction between nationalism and national consciousness. In other words, it appears that Dunayevskaya and Fanon disagree.
However, when Dunayevskaya discusses dialectics, later in the same chapter, she emphasizes that Lenin’s “new comprehension of the dialectic, especially the principle of transformation into opposite, by no means limited itself to…the socialist revolution” (62, 1982). I bring this up to suggest that it is likely that, when Dunayevskaya refers to the “dialectical relationship” between nationalism and internationalism, she is referring to the possibility of nationalism transforming into its opposite—internationalism.
It seems, then, that she is interpreting Fanon as saying something similar, i.e., that nationalism can transform into internationalism. Fanon explicitly indicates that national consciousness is a necessary mediating link in this process. I think this mediation helps us to understand Lenin’s position more clearly.
To me, what Fanon is saying is ultimately quite simple: an oppressed people’s comprehension of itself as a nation is the only thing that can lead it into collaboration with other peoples on a nation-to-nation basis. Similarly, Lenin’s position is ultimately simple: an oppressed people’s assertion of national self-determination can be an expression of the idea that the right of self-determination is universal. In other words, Fanon’s thinking helps us to understand Lenin’s position because the two are thinking along the same lines—for national liberation, against “nationalism.”
Regardless of how one uses the term “nationalism,” what is important to understand is that Lenin was concerned with the independence of the proletariat and the socialist movement from all bourgeois powers, whether imperialist or nationally oppressed. To return to the distinction I mentioned at the beginning of this section: to be “free of nationalism, and be absolutely neutral … in the fight for supremacy that is going on among the bourgeoisie of the various nations,” it is necessary to support the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation in its fight against the exclusive state and national privileges of the oppressor nation while opposing that same bourgeoisie’s demands for exclusive state and national privileges for its own nation.
Lenin’s position has immediate implications for the present context. Adherence to Lenin’s position would mean, first, that we affirm the right of Indigenous nations and Canada to self-determination. Second, it would mean that we oppose the Canadian bourgeois-nationalist response and support the Indigenous internationalist response. Finally, it would mean that we identify and work with Canadian and Indigenous people who are “opposed to all privileges, to all exclusiveness.” At no point does Lenin’s position imply that socialist internationalists should endorse Indigenous nationalism or support every demand of Indigenous leaders. Thus, his position also implies that the socialist movement and the Canadian working class must maintain independence from the powers within Indigenous nations who are cozying up to capitalism.
F. Our Position in the Class Struggle
The only force within Canadian society able to show solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty movements, while maintaining independence from all bourgeois powers, is the working class. However, this responsibility does not fall on Canadian workers simply because the left, labor bosses, and the ruling class are unable and uninterested. Ultimately, the responsibility falls on workers because it is in our interests: solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty movements strengthens our position in the class struggle.
Unfortunately, the problem in Canada is not simply the fact that Canadian workers fail to show solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty movements. It is more severe. Many Canadian workers actively side with “our own” ruling classes against Indigenous people.
Marx described a similar phenomenon in his writings on the “national question” in Ireland. While he identified competition over jobs as one of the economic reasons for the English worker’s hostility towards the Irish, he also realized that this “hatred was not merely economic. It was shot through-and-through with prejudice, supremacist attitudes, and nationalistic identification with the English ruling classes,” as MHI put it in our 2018 Perspectives, “Resisting Trumpist Reaction (and Left Accommodation).” Of the English worker, Marx said: “[he] regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself.”
For Marx, this kind of identification weakened the English workers’ position in the class struggle. In a 1869 letter to his friend Ludwig Kugelmann, Marx wrote that he was convinced that the English workers “will never be able to do anything decisive here in England” until “they separate their attitude towards Ireland quite definitely from that from that of the ruling classes and not only make common cause with the Irish, but even take the initiative in dissolving the Union.” In fact, Marx was convinced that “the national emancipation of Ireland“ was the “first condition” of “social emancipation” in England.
Similarly to Marx, I believe that the nationalistic identification of Canadian workers with “our” rulers weakens our position in the class struggle. When we side against Indigenous people in their struggles for national emancipation, we miss an opportunity “to rouse mass action and revolutionary attacks on the bourgeoisie.” Moreover, we help the bourgeoisie consolidate its repressive powers—the exact repressive powers they deploy against our movements.
Further, following Marx, I believe that the national emancipation of Indigenous people is the first condition for the social emancipation of the Canadian working class, as it would help liberate the Canadian working class from this nationalistic identification with “our” rulers. In other words, the end of Canada’s colonial rule would mean the beginning of an era where Canadian workers would no longer belong to, alongside our bosses, a dominating stratum of society that enjoys special economic, social, and national privileges and advantages. At this point, we would be compelled to face our class position without the intoxicating effects of formal national and racial supremacy.
Yet Marx did not think that moral appeals to the anti-Irish sections of the English working class helped the cause of Irish independence. In fact, MHI showed in “Resisting Trumpist Reaction (And Left Accommodation)” that “Marx had come to the conclusion that, as long as English rule over Ireland persisted, appeals for unity … were abstract and futile” (Part V, 2018). Eschewing a liberal humanitarian approach, Marx mobilized the International Workingmen’s Association (First International) to support the Irish independence movement. In this spirit, I am urging socialists to see the naivete in their humanitarian appeals to racist Canadians and, instead, to focus their time and energy on assisting the sections of the Canadian working class that support Indigenous sovereignty movements.
While this section of the Canadian working class may be small, it does exist. Recently, transit workers with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 raised $85,000, through their “Employee Community Fund,“ to buy and donate a van to Main Street Project, an NGO that provides harm reduction services for people living on the streets and struggling with addiction. On the surface, this is not particularly remarkable. Unions often donate to community programs. Further, harm-reduction services help police surveil the poor. Yet, the van aims to bring urban Indigenous people to ceremonies and cultural events such as medicine-picking that they would usually be unable to participate in. In many Indigenous nations, ceremony is an essential part of asserting nationhood and sovereignty.
Amalgamated Transit Unit 1505 Local. Credit: ATU1505 Facebook page.
By helping the urban Indigenous poor gain access to Indigenous ceremonies—ceremonies that were made illegal by Canada’s Indian Act—the transit workers are helping Indigenous people to connect with their nation and affirm their national rights, and thereby supporting what Indigenous intellectuals, such as Glen Coulthard and others, call the “resurgence” movement. “Resurgence” theorists and philosophers articulate their aims and strategies differently but appear to be united in their conviction that to gain political and economic independence from Canada, Indigenous people must reengage in nation-building and rebuilding practices.
Canadian workers’ support for Indigenous national resurgence strengthens our position in the class struggle for two reasons. First, it brings Canadian workers and Indigenous people into closer unity—two parties with a shared interest in opposing the Canadian ruling class. Second, it encourages formal political equality between Canada and Indigenous nations, which could stimulate the political independence of the Canadian working class from “our” rulers.
Conclusion
The absence of a coherent socialist internationalist response to Trump’s threats and the rise of bourgeois nationalism in Canada is desperately worrying, as this absence will likely have profound consequences. Our failure to articulate a socialist internationalist response to Trump’s threats will likely embolden Trump’s imperial ambitions and Canadian bourgeois nationalism.
Further, our failure as socialist internationalists to measure up to the principles of socialist internationalism means that we have skirted our responsibilities to Indigenous people struggling against both American imperialism and Canadian colonialism; it also means we have skirted our responsibility to the sections of the Canadian working class that are showing solidarity with Indigenous nations and with their fellow workers resisting Trumpism around the world. The consequence of this is that we have likely made it even harder to develop solidarity between Indigenous and socialist movements.
Finally, by ignoring or underestimating the positions and movements of Indigenous sovereigntists and internationalist workers yet again, we may have doomed ourselves to even further irrelevance.
Perhaps Canadian socialists do not see the stakes of the present moment. Let me reiterate what they are: we have been presented with an opportunity to clarify the role of Canadian workers, not just in opposing Trump and his threats of annexation, but in transforming Canada from a colonial power into a country that respects the independence of neighboring nations within Canada—all of which are crucial to the development of the international class struggle.
Notes
[1] All quoted words and phrases attributed to Coolidge and Trotsky are Dunayevskaya’s paraphrases; she reported on and characterized what they said without quoting them verbatim.
[2] There is no indication in Lannon’s article where this quote is from. I identify it as coming from Lenin’s 1922 “The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation,” specifically Lenin’s December 31 note included at the bottom of the document.
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