“If Indians cannot develop into a modern nation then they will disappear”

A kites interview with Ray Bobb

kites Editorial Note: The following interview was commissioned by the kites Editorial Committee and was conducted over the first part of 2023. For more information on Ray Bobb and the context of this interview, see the kites Editorial Committee’s “Introducing Ray Bobb and the Urgent Questions Facing Native Politics in Canada Today,” which is being presented alongside this interview and Ray Bobb’s contribution, “Theory, Strategy, & Tactics in the Native Movement”, all of which are being published in kites #9.

1. Ray Bobb, thank you for agreeing to this interview. It’s a real pleasure and very important for us to be speaking to an elder revolutionary like yourself—someone who’s lived through and participated in the revolutionary high tide of the 1960s and ’70s that many of us today can only read about.

After many years of not writing, you’ve now come out with “Theory, Strategy & Tactics in the Native Movement” (TST). We’d like to start this interview by asking what the significance of this piece is for you after not writing much in recent decades and so long after the high point of your political activity in the Red Power Movement when much of your previous writing was completed. Without getting too much into the content of TST, by way of introduction can you summarize how you see the progression and/or ruptures within your thinking over the decades?

RB: Theory, Strategy & Tactics in the Native Movement (TST) is meant as a tribute to the activists in the Native Alliance for Red Power (NARP), 1967–1970, and in the Native Study Group (NSG), 1971-1975. The core of activists in NARP and NSG was, more or less, the same. They changed their focus of work after 1969 when the Federal Government intervened in and took over Native politics in Canada. Toward the end of 2022 a conference was called in Victoria, BC to which activists from the 1960s and 1970s were invited. Having received short notice, I decided on a short presentation that would include only the bare bones of a politics: this was TST. I thought that TST contained some answers that were sought after for years by NARP/NSG.

From the beginning NARP/NSG espoused an undefined Indian nationalism and a revolutionary tendency. Not being able to define the Indian nation, we could not arrive at the concept of a strategic alliance with the Canadian working class. We grasped that the Indian nation was an internal colony of the Canadian imperialist settler state. However, we did not see the dual character of an internal colony as both a third world and first world phenomenon. Thus, we could not see that revolutionary integration and revolutionary sovereignty could be a viable, mutually inclusive part of the politics of national liberation for the Native internal colony. Further, lacking a strategic objective, we could not arrive at an outcome in which dual citizenships could play a part.

2. One of the principal political and theoretical distinctions of TST in comparison to a lot of Left thinking and Indigenous politics today, such as they exist, is the return to a Pan-Indian framework for the liberation of Native people, which prevailed in the period of activity of the 1960s and ’70s when you became a revolutionary. You argue that we must view the situation facing Native people collectively through the experience of a common “Indian nation”, which you call a “nation of exception,” a nation that was forged by the combination of European colonialism and its successor, Canadian colonialism, which assimilated all previously existing Indigenous peoples into what is now an “internal colony” of the Canadian state. You argue that the many Indigenous peoples across Canada are better conceived of as tribes and not nations. This is a sharp break from how things are seen and treated today. You argue that the historic process by which reserves have been turned into “First Nations” is just a modern day extension of the colonial and assimilationist agenda of the Canadian state. In opposition to the assimilationist agenda, you argue that the only possible liberatory future for the Native movement as a whole is through revolutionary Indian nationalism (RIN). A number of questions arise for us from these points.

First, can you expand on your understanding of what Indigenous people’s social, political, and economic existence was like prior to European colonialism (to the extent that any generalizations can be made) and how the concept of the nation (according to Stalin’s definition) helps or hinders our understanding of Indigenous people’s self-determination in the pre-colonial period? Does that point to a limitation in Stalin’s conception or a limitation in how that concept has been applied and extended further across history?

And then, some questions about how the pre-colonial situation of Indigenous peoples was rendered into an oppressed nation and “internal colony”: Over what time period do you believe Indigenous peoples across Canada were effectively made into an “internal colony”? And can you say more about why you believe Native people’s realities in Canada today are better understood through—and why Native people’s future has greater possibilities within—the Indian nation?

RB: National development in pre-contact times was that of tribal nations. These nations were supported by people engaged in hunter/gatherer/fisher and early agricultural production. The east coast was developed in terms of farming just as the west coast was developed in terms of whaling and just as the north could do without agriculture altogether.

Stalin’s definition of a nation applied to the modern industrial context. Indians were catapulted through thousands of years of development into this context by mega-death and, thereby, the destruction of the tribal nations. Self-determination is a concept emergent from colonial domination and the aftermath of inter-imperial conflict.

The Native internal colony was created at the same time as the settler-state, the Dominion of Canada, in 1867. Foremost of the documents of the time was the British North America Act. Following thereupon was the Indian Act of 1876. Before 1867, the colonies of Indians might be looked upon as colonies within colonies. Ultimately, all the remaining British colonies in North America were confederated into an imperialist settler-state and all the remnants of the tribal nations become one Native internal colony or oppressed Indian nation. What is sometimes missed in understanding the history of imperialist settler-states is that, in their formation, vast areas of land, peoples and resources are involved and that in such domination or conquest the seeds of imperialist centers are sown big-time.

Human society has seen development from the family to imperialist empires and colonies. In this consideration, I think if Indians cannot develop into a modern nation, then they will have reached the end of their independent historical line and they will disappear.

3. You offer some thought-provoking visions for what a future of “revolutionary integration and revolutionary sovereignty” could look like across present-day Canada, such as what people’s national memberships could look like across different nations. A couple questions arise for us in thinking through this outline that you’ve begun to sketch for a new society for Natives and the rest of the working class. You make the point that an integral aspect of national self-determination would be the right to self-determine national membership (which at this point is something Indian bands are prohibited from doing by both the Indian Act and the assimilationist Comprehensive Land Claims process that has been in place since 1973 which seeks to replace the Indian Act). This point about national membership is fascinating and breaks with the “racial” blood-quantum approach to national membership across the many iterations of the Indian Act, which have generally tended to reduce, divide, and weaken rather than strengthen Native people’s nationhood. By contrast, it’s been argued that part of what accounts for the strength and size of Haudenosaunee communities in the face of wars driven by European invasion and settler colonial expansionism over the centuries has been their ability to assimilate other peoples to their national formation, from orphaned fractions of other destroyed or scattered Indigenous peoples to European settlers.

On the other hand, the expansion and consolidation of the Canadian state over the past century and a half has entailed many distinct waves of assimilationism wherein the Canadian state has shifted its definition for who can and cannot assimilate into its (colonial) national project to suit the needs of its settler colonial expansion and then consolidation as an imperialist power. So we have many examples throughout Canadian history to illustrate the point that a nation’s ability to determine their national membership is at the core of national self-determination.

But your proposition is especially provocative in the face of the politics and thinking that is so prevalent today across the postmodernist and identity-driven Left (which seems to us much closer to the segregationist line of thinking that you point to in TST from the mid-twentieth century). We wonder if you can say more concerning how you envision how these questions of dual citizenship and national memberships could be treated within a “mutually-inclusive” framework of revolutionary integration and revolutionary sovereignty for both the Indian nation and its coexistence with the rest of the proletariat?

RB: In the, perhaps, simplistic view of Revolutionary Indian nationalism (RIN) there are only two majorly conflicting peoples in Canada: the members of the Native internal colony on the one hand and the settlers and immigrants on the other. Quebec is viewed by RIN as a part of the imperialist settler-state. Independence for Quebec is the same politics as that of the Israeli settler-state. All countries have the right to sovereignty but if a given country oppresses other countries, then, one cannot support its right to do so.

NARP/NSG did develop a rapport with some immigrants and refugees from the third world. We were part of a formation called the Third World Peoples’ Alliance (TWP). Both they and ourselves were mistaken in our self-identification as third world people but NARP/NSG could definitely see that they, because of their third world experience, represented a potentially progressive force. Our collaboration in TWP was aimed at supporting the struggles in our various, non-Canadian homelands.

Unspoken in the ultimate alliance of struggles of the Native internal colony and of the Canadian working class is the question of the contradiction between the labouring classes in the world and the question of the relationship between the national liberation movements in the third world and the movements for class emancipation in the imperialist countries. Just as Indians are colonized by Canadian imperialism, they could also be colonized by the eventuality of Canadian social imperialism. When we (NARP/NSG) visited the People’s Republic of China in 1975 we asked about the Sino-Soviet split. They (a responsible cadre) said that the USSR sought to dominate China by means of a military pact. The Chinese responded (paraphrase),”Go ahead. We will go into the mountains and fight guerrilla war.”

4. How do you evaluate the concept of “Indigeneity”, which has been the prevalent way that Indigenous people’s existence and knowledge has been conceptualized in the academic terrain over the past couple of decades and has been increasingly used by activists, Native and non-Native alike. In fact, the word Native itself rarely even makes an appearance in academic literature concerning Indigenous peoples in Canada. Is this conceptual framework incompatible with the politics of revolutionary national liberation? Can you tell us how this distinction in language reflects the deeper political distinctions that RIN is trying to bring out into the open?

RB: Terminological concepts for people are important. We must recognize that the Federal Government, now, determines such language in relation to Native people in a fashion that hides the basic truths of our existences. Indigeneity is an anthropological term. Native is a political term in the context of the colonial condition that divides peoples into Natives and settlers. Settlers are not colonizers. Colonizer relates to a ruling class element that stands in strategic opposition to both Native and settler. The Federal Government also insists on First Nations instead of Indian people. This term also hides the facts of social reality and facilitates the Federal Government’s aim of doing away with Indians as a legal and political entity.

5. You’ve stated in TST, as you’ve written elsewhere in past decades, that a certain degree of success must occur in Third World national liberation struggles in order to deal a strong blow to imperialism, awaken and radicalize proletarian consciousness in Canada, and partially enable better conditions for a revolutionary movement of the working class in Canada. We’re certainly in agreement that revolutionary advances against capitalism-imperialism in the oppressed countries will contribute positively to hastening the objective conditions out of which the exploited and oppressed masses in imperialist centres can advance a proletarian revolution. However, we do have some questions pertaining to both the external and internal conditions for a revolutionary socialist movement in an imperialist country like Canada (and we suspect that the generalizations that can be made can be applied to the US as well).

How dependent do you think revolution in imperialist centres is today on national liberation struggles of the oppressed countries in the imperialist world system? Will the internal factors not be more decisive in the development of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and the Indian nation in Canada today? We ask this because, in our view, it seems entirely possible and perhaps even likely that the deteriorating conditions and proliferation of crises within imperialist societies, even if these conditions were accelerated by revolutionary advances in the oppressed countries, will continue to yield fascist and reactionary mobilization above and beyond revolutionary mobilization, unless the subjective forces of revolution within Canada are able to effectively intervene within the internal dynamics of Canada? After all, as you say in TST, “conscious activity can be imparted as intervention into the developing equation of history to strengthen particular variables or accelerate their development.” Can you say more about how you conceptualize the internal and external factors of the revolution we need here?

RB: While it is true that, in the development of a thing, internal factors or contradictions are determinant while external factors are only conditional, we must also be cognizant that the true social unit of present day analysis is the globe. The kind of revolutionary movements that occur, here, will be determined by class and national contradictions in Canada. However, if we look at Canada in terms of the world revolution, the factors that are considered external acquire more importance. This importance was seen by Marx when he maintained that the liberation of colonies was a precondition for the workers victory in England. This importance was also seen by the Chinese Minister of Defense, Lin Piao, when he said in 1965 (paraphrase), if you applied Mao’s countryside-encirclement-of-the-city strategy of revolution (Maoism) to the world, Asia, Africa, and Latin America would be the countryside areas while North America and Europe would be the city areas. Due to the correctness of these positions, I would say that radicalism in the imperialist countries must be defined, firstly, as internationalist or, more correctly, proletarian internationalist. In regard to the development of fascism in the imperialist countries I would say that this is a natural, temporary aspect of a polarization that also witnesses revolutionism in the global south.

6. Building on our last question, we believe that advancing class consciousness in an imperialist country like Canada is principally dependent upon revolutionary organization internal to the imperialist country and a proletariat consciously organized by a communist party that wields all the necessary political weapons to bring the proletariat to power.How do you understand the historical tasks of RIN in relation to a broader proletarian revolutionary movement (to be sure, one that understands its own stakes in the Native liberation movement and will actively work in revolutionary alliance with it)? Should Native people on the whole pursue both membership in an integrated proletarian revolutionary organization and/or within sovereigntist structures within a RIN framework?

RB: It is my belief that centers of revolutionary subjectivity can be created in imperialist countries in line with associations with and solidarity or support work for armed struggles for national liberation in the third world. This will eventually develop relationships from support workers to comrades.

I am aware of the necessity for Party building but I am also aware that, without internationalist ideas and activity, progressive organizations can fall into sectarian conflict. In our eight-plus years of activism the police never bothered us (aside from throwing us in jail now and then), but, we were physically attacked twice by sectarians. I can remember the chant of the sectarians who were attacking us: “Death to the opportunists” (us).

7. Turning now to the question of what revolutionary tasks exist for Native people within a RIN framework, do you see distinctions between the tasks falling to Native people on reserves, in rural areas, and in their ancestral territories versus those living in big cities that are non-reserve and non-rural (even though some of these territories may also be ancestral)? Does the distinction between sovereignty and integration fall along these urban/rural lines, or are there more distinctions for us to grasp?

RB: Indian reserves of the present will almost certainly remain to the people who live there. These reserves in Canada are so small that almost no negotiation will be required. However, there will probably be twenty or more tribal territories covering five to ten percent, or more, of what is now claimed by Canada. The percentage will be determined by how many Canadians join the struggle for national liberation. Before that eventuality, i.e., now, a certain percentage of finance that the various levels of the Canadian Government accrue from industry and resource extraction must accrue, instead, to Indian representative organizations for purposes of government and much-needed economic development.

Right now a large number of Indians reside in the cities of Canada for work and education. This number of Indians will fully participate in the revolutionary nationalist struggle but must, also, be given the right to remain where they are on the basis of a dual citizenship arrangement. Similarly, settlers and immigrants resident on tribal territories of the Indian nations must, also, be afforded dual citizenship and full rights. Before the times of strife, efforts should be made to map out, occupy and develop the tribal territories.

The Canadian Government is not interested in granting self-determination to the Native internal colony. The Canadian imperialist settler-state has always implemented an Indian policy of forced assimilation. It must be disabused of this notion and the colonial status quo must, for a time, be reinstated much in the form that presently exists in the US, i.e., as limited internal sovereignty.¹

9. You argue that a new revolutionary Indian nationalism must oppose the divide and conquer tactic that the government has used to split Native people into the more than 600 small “First Nations”, with many Indian bands having been subsumed to the legal, ideological and political framework of the Canadian state’s propaganda of “nation-to-nation” agreements and negotiations, falling into the trap of believing that a band is an actual nation capable of negotiating with the state of Canada. On the basis of this analysis, you then give very clear direction to the Native movement to “expose, oppose, and reverse” the Canadian state’s Comprehensive Land Claims (or “modern treaties”) process that has been in place since 1973. A few questions arise from this: First, comprehensive land claims are being pursued aggressively in British Columbia because it is mostly unceded territories. How would other regions of Canada that are not facing the comprehensive treaty process—regions that may be under other Historic Treaties²—or areas where Aboriginal title has already been surrendered through comprehensive land claims (as with much of the North)—participate in or contribute to this “expose, oppose, reverse” politics? Are there other political lines that should be developed to reflect the conditions in other parts of the Indian nation?

RB: A movement should be created to oppose, stop and reverse the government Indian policy of forced assimilation as it is implemented in the comprehensive treaty process and in many other ways including the Land Code process (privatization of Indian reserve land) and the definition of Indian and Indian progeny. It is likely that the Federal Government hopes to subject all members of the Native internal colony to the extinguishment process typified by the comprehensive treaties. Those Indians under historic treaties do not agree that these treaties have extinguished Aboriginal Title.

10. Comrade, what do you make of the rise in popularity of the “Land Back” slogan? What do you see as the possibilities of, and limitations to, this slogan and the anti-colonial sentiment that it’s captured in recent years?

RB: Land Back certainly seems to have the proper sentiment. However, I am not familiar with its context. Land Back could refer to the many illegal alienations of Indian land, in the past, that have led to the present-day specific land claim cases of which there are about nine hundred in Canada. Land Back, could also relate to the revolutionary nationalist claims which go beyond specific land claims to challenge Canada’s sovereignty in the tribal territories of the Indian nation.

11. Concerning the distinction between what’s tribal and what’s national, do you have insights into how to introduce a critique of the “we are individual sovereign nations” position without antagonizing Native people at large who, to a great extent and for legitimate reasons, gravitate towards cultural rejuvenation at that scale? How do we popularize the strategy of a united Indian nation without minimizing or belittling the cultural and linguistic differences and aspirations that many Native people are so proud of and are trying today to reclaim?

RB: Cultural rejuvenation of all kinds including language is not only good but necessary. However, a basic aspect of culture is work and production and this is, also, worthy of song and praise in the sense of working class endeavor. Natives have proudly been a part of the creation of what has become the settler-state economy. At times, Indians were the mainstay of production and the creation of wealth. Sometimes they worked alone and sometimes shoulder to shoulder with settlers and immigrants. This, together with the art forms of song, dance, carving, painting and writing, ensure that the Indian nation will be one of the most beautiful, varied and productive nations on earth.

12. By way of moving towards our conclusion to this interview comrade, let’s return to the personal dimension of things: what’s revived your interest in writing and intervening politically at this moment in your life, at this stage in the Native movement, and at this point in history?

RB: With not-so-good health and approaching year eighty I may still make a small theoretical contribution from the grassroots. The timing is even more crucial in that, politically, Native people are under telling attack by the enemy colonizer.

13. Earlier in this interview you made the provocative and compelling point that the continuance of Native people depends upon successfully developing into a modern nation, with the implication that this outcome is by no means guaranteed, and now you remark of Native people being under direct attack. What’s your analysis of the methods that the Canadian state is using to wage this attack and curtail Native political organization and economic self-determination toward its ultimate goal of full assimilation? What clear-eyed prognosis would you give concerning the current state of Native politics in Canada, and what gives you hope for turning the tides?

RB: I said that the continuance of Native people, as a people, depends upon their successful development into a modern nation. This has been the course of mankind, i.e., all those who fell victim to European colonialism in modern history. The first stage of their oppression saw them being conquered and colonized. This involved, in most cases, the destruction of tribal nations and the incorporation of their peoples into colonies or possessions. These colonies, so created, represented modern oppressed nations.

The second stage of oppression was neo-colonialism. Under neo-colonial rule the colonies achieved formal independence or sovereignty. This sovereignty was limited, however, because the former colonies were still dominated and exploited by various imperialist powers. Neo-colonialism allowed “free trade” and the development of a middle class in the nation and it is by means of this elite that the nation could be governed, indirectly, from abroad. In keeping with organic world development, this should also be the condition of the Native internal colony of Canada. However, the Native internal colony is in the “belly of the beast” and, unlike the Black and Mexican internal colonies to the south, is very small. This smallness bespeaks a vulnerability under which the Native national question can be obliterated. One may say that in terms of a nation, the Native internal colony is very oppressed while in class terms it is somewhat privileged.

The Indian policy of Canada has always been that of forced assimilation which is conceived by the settler-state as its only beneficial recourse. Having an internal colony means that a part of Canada’s sovereignty is actually tyranny. Once that tyranny is overcome Canada will have to give up sovereignty over a part of the land that it now claims.

The first implementation of Canada’s Indian forced assimilation policy was the Indian Residential School system which effectively integrated many Indians. The second implementation of this policy was, and is, the comprehensive (or extinguishment) treaty process. The comprehensive treaty process has met with some success.

On their own, the Native internal colony does not have much of a chance. However, they are not alone. Inter-imperial contradictions will soon allow for the re-emergence of the national liberation movement in the global south. This movement cannot be stopped. This great movement will impart legitimacy and ideological strength to the Native internal colony. After a time imperialism will be weakened and super profits will disappear. Workers in the imperialist countries will revolt and the Native struggle for national liberation will form a part of this revolt.

1 For federally recognized tribes in the US, the colonial status quo is a limited form of self-determination through tribes’ status as “domestic dependent nations,” a phrase first used by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1823) and since upheld as the current federal approach to Indian sovereignty. This phrase means that tribes are distinct nations inside the US subject to and dependent on the federal government (and subordinate to Congress who has the power to limit, terminate, or conversely, grant tribal status), that exercise internal authority over tribal affairs but lack external authority to engage with foreign nations. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 and Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 codified Indian jurisdiction over internal affairs including resource management, education, law enforcement, education and child welfare.

How Indian policy in the US arrived at limited self-determination is instructive. From 1940 until the mid-1960s, the federal government enacted a series of policies, referred to as Indian Termination, that sought to assimilate and fully proletarianize Native people by relocating Natives from reservations to cities, liquidate reservation land, and terminate the recognition of tribal sovereignty and status. More than 100 tribes lost federal recognition and over 1 million acres of tribal land was lost. Though many (not all) tribes eventually regained recognition, fighting to get it back took some tribes decades and resulted in further impoverishment and fragmentation. In response to tribal resistance and Native activism, the federal government began to shift its formal policy towards limited self-determination by the end of the 1960s. The agenda of assimilation attempted in US Indian Termination policy, and the Native resistance it sparked, parallels the assimilationist agenda of Pierre Trudeau’s White Paper and Native resistance in the late 60s and early 70s in Canada.

But unlike Canada, another tactic of assimilation was already well underway in the US: settling outstanding land claims. As early as 1946, hundreds of claims were brought against the federal government for broken treaty obligations by both federally recognized tribes and unrecognized tribal groups (that had either lost recognition through Termination, or in the previous era of Allotment under the 1887 Dawes Act which saw two-thirds of tribal land, 100 million acres, appropriated by the US government into fee simple private property). In the minority of claims found in tribes’ favor, the Indian Claims Commission, and later the US Court of Claims, compensated tribes with payouts for appropriated land, and had no ability or mandate to grant or return land. In most cases, once tribes accepted the payout, their claim to Aboriginal title was extinguished, and some tribes actually forfeited federal recognition in lieu of their payout. The last land claim from this era, brought forward by the Western Shoshone National Council, was finally settled in 2006 – in favor of the federal government.

By far, the largest land claim in US history – and arguably largest singular act of assimilation and termination of collective land tenure – was the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This Act extinguished Aboriginal title and Aboriginal hunting and fishing rights, while allotting 45.5 millions acres of land and about 1 billion dollars to 12 newly created Alaskan Native regional corporations, more than 200 village corporations, and one additional regional-level corporation for Alaskan Natives living outside of Alaska to receive a portion of the cash payment (but no land). The 12 regional corporations generally own sub-surface rights while the 200 villages own surface rights. Some Alaskan Native corporations have transferred ownership of land to respective Alaskan tribes, who then own the land as fee simple property. All this to say, the outcomes of land claims in the US portend little good news for tribal nations in Canada who seek to retain collective stewardship of land.

2 The Historic Treaties in Canada are 70 treaties signed between 1701 and 1923, and include: Treaties of Peace and Neutrality (1701-1760), Peace and Friendship Treaties (1725-1779), Upper Canada Land Surrenders and Williams Treaties (1764-1862/1923), Robinson Treaties and Douglas Treaties (1850-1854), and The Numbered Treaties (1871-1921). The Modern Treaty era was made possible by the 1973 Supreme Court of Canada decision Calder vs. British Columbia which found that Aboriginal title existed outside of colonial law and prior to colonization. Two years later, the first modern treaty (or comprehensive land claims agreement), the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, was signed with the Cree and Inuit in northern Quebec. Twenty-six modern treaties have been signed to date.