This was an off-handed remark I came across in Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts. I initially thought this might be another example of my incredible Canadian education leaving out our minimizing the significance of a socialist project. I don't know a ton about the Red River Rebellion but I've found it pretty difficult to find any other similar descriptions online of his group as socialists. Is this just a quick hot take by our boy Mikey Davis? Or is this a bird-brained statement?
Surely Hexbear knows.
This is what Howard Adams (a metis man, also a marxist) says about Riel in his book about the Metis A Tortured People.
I don't have much more to add other than to note that in discussions of the 1885 Rebellions I've read (Loyal Till Death, Cree Narrative Memory and Clearing the Plains) economic stuff has basically never come up wrt Riel, neither has the working class. His focus seems to have been political rights for metis and recognition of their claims on land. He was also racist towards "full natives", which is part of why (despite what wikipedia says) the Cree didn't join his war (they did however loot a few towns bc they were hungry).