Russia and America are colonial powers, the Soviet Union most definitely wasn’t, but they claimed the land of the previous regime including all the bits that were stolen. Colonialism in Russia wasn’t as bad as it was in the United States but it was still colonialism. Why didn’t the Soviet Union turn Siberia into one or multiple soviets like they did East Germany or Ukraine? Why did Russia get to keep it?

As for the United States I don’t see indigenous and black people being happy about the United States existing even as communist state, Mexicos claims to the south west are arguably still valid, would a communist United States return it? There’s also the glaring issue of all the islands that have active independence movements, most notably Hawaii and Purto Rico, probably wouldn’t want to associate with a communist United States even if they were independent. Is the scars of slavery, colonialism, and genocide too much for a communist United States to bare? Was colonialism in Russia small enough that a communist state could claim lands that the previous regime stolen that any actual leftist power in the United States couldn’t?

I know ideally states shouldn’t exist but certainly the path forwards would require some kind of left wing American state(s)? How much of the colonial project of the United States can be claimed by revolutionaries, it can’t be as much as Russia?

  • queendeadsept8 [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    What makes the non continuous land so special? There are arguably more native people living in the inner 48 that deserve the same rights to their own country as all the ones in pr, Hawaii, Alaska, etc deserve. And what about the black people? They arguably deserve more rights than the natives, their land claims will overlap with native ones.

    I don’t know if it would be possible for a leftist org to claim all of that territory like the Bolsheviks did in Russia. Maybe looking at just the United States is too blinding, maybe we should be looking at a pan American type state, but eventually the question of territory and nationality and race in the United States will have to be brought up, the United States is a lot less fluid culturally speaking than Europe, the whole American identity would be a lot harder to beat out of people.

    • KingPush [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think the main difference I actually see is that those three regions have were acquired more recently, and postbellum. And they thus would have more capable and identifiable power structures, and also that they have seen relatively less colonization.

      With regards to the Native American's, and I'm no expert in postcolonial theory, but I think a genuinely dual power structure would be best, which recognized the genocide, and gave true economic, judicial sovereignty, etc, but within a larger structure. I think the only thing with establishing new nation states is that, as I understand it, you had these sometimes amorphous configurations before European expansion, so its hard for me to see how these new states would look, would their be overlapping borders, etc? But this is not something I'm incredibly well-versed in.

      And, of course this is all qualified with the fact that any sort of American revolution would be so destabilizing to the global system, that maybe it would just be best to form some sort of pan-American state as you say.