The United States of America isn’t a nation-state. It never has been; it never can be.

This may be provocative to some, but there is no denying it once the actual structure of the state is understood. This isn’t a historical point of curiosity, but the bedrock on which the United States has been built and continues to stand to this day.

If the United States isn’t a nation-state, then what is it?

Above all, the United States is a settler-colonial state, and it has remained a settler-colonial state for well over three hundred years, going back to when the territories that would go on to form its constituent parts were ruled by the British crown from across the ocean. European settlers of different nationalities crossed the Atlantic, leaving behind increasingly precarious class positions, to seize Indigenous land for themself by force. For this purpose, the Indigenous peoples were murdered, expelled, and forced into unequal treaties that weren’t worth the paper they were written on, until gradually the settler colony turned into an independent, continent-spanning empire that reigned supreme from coast to coast.

In the meantime, the settlement of the so-called ‘New World’ combined with the globalization of trade brought a new horror with it: the transatlantic slave trade, resulting in the abduction, purchase and enslavement of millions upon millions of Africans to provide forced labor on the other side of the world. In the prosperous lands of the so-called American South, ripe for exploitation after the native populations had been expelled or exterminated by the settlers, slavery created the foundation for the quasi-aristocratic planter class. This relation would form the backbone of the southern plantation economy, so vital for primitive accumulation, which paved the way toward fully developed capitalism in North America, by appropriating the labor of the enslaved African masses.

All of this finds its expression through the central ideology of this American settler empire, creating justification for the crimes and consolation through the crimes’ artificially constructed necessity in one: White supremacy.

So far, this should be a relatively agreeable understanding of American history, even if expressed in sharper terms than one would find in the average acknowledgement of historic (always historic, never current) brutality. All but the most reactionary Americans generally conclude that slavery and the genocide of the indigenous peoples aren’t something that should be celebrated long after the fact, and even they will usually admit that racism ‘played a role’ in it. The issue is that the hegemonic narrative starts to become confused and downright bizarre at the latest when assessing everything following the post civil war reconstruction period—a period that is criminally misunderstood by many, which contributes to the confusion—and is given over to historical narratives that are pure expressions of liberal ideology, which insists that equality in the United States is aspirational, and slowly (but surely!) ‘history’ is moving in that direction. Its proponents, often across party lines since internalized white supremacy is genuinely bipartisan, might ask:

Did we not abolish slavery?

(Ignoring the astounding continuity between the modern American prison system and the legal reconstruction of slavery after the Civil War.)

Did we not give the Indigenous peoples rights to their land?

(Ignoring the forced assimilation once the process of extermination was concluded, and the continued existence of the reservation system on tiny fractions of their land.)

Did we not give civil rights to everyone?

(Ignoring the complete banality of formal rights in the absence of equality in all political, economic, and cultural spaces.)

Are we not a nation of immigrants? Are we not all human? Are we not all Americans?

This ‘we’—the worst kind of we, the chauvinist’s national we—is imaginary in all capitalist states, but it is especially empty in the context of the US empire. There is no American national identity with any content beyond propagandized adherence to the symbolism, slogans and personality cults of the settler state, mixed with what is essentially commodity fetishism. The exception is the one identity that outright fascists try to revitalize out in the open, and liberals try to obscure with an incoherent ideology of moral progress: Whiteness—an ever-expanding and yet brutally limited category built around the exclusion of the actual nations within the empire’s borders.

Some of these nations carry names and are recognized by the US as a token gesture, and even that much was often bitterly fought for: Sioux, Cherokee, Shawnee, Navajo, and a hundred more Indigenous nations split into disparate tribal reservations by the process of genocide, displacement and subjugation.

Just as the settler state fragmented Indigenous nations, it forged new oppressed nations through slavery and annexation. Enslaved Africans, ripped from their home continent, transported across the ocean, and over generations deprived of much of their cultural heritage and even their language, formed a distinct national identity through the shared experience of enslavement, liberation and struggle against white supremacy. Similarly, although in less acute circumstances, the people subjugated by the conquest of the western territories once held by the Mexican state were subsumed into the empire, but not into whiteness, and without that, never raised to the status of settlers. When we speak of nations, we mean communities forged by shared history, territory, and struggle—not mere cultural identity. The Black nation in America, for example, like the Indigenous nations in their modern form, was created through violent subjugation and resistance against it. All of this, from the first settlements to the modern condition, exemplified by the underserved reservation and the ‘inner-city’ ghetto, only leaves one conclusion:

The United States isn’t a nation-state. It is a prison—a “prison of nations.”

And it isn’t the first of its kind.

When the Bolsheviks prepared for revolution against the semi-feudal Tsarist state—the original “prison of nations,” as Lenin referred to it—the task of national liberation was often at the forefront, and often controversial; from the question of how to deal with bourgeois nationalism to autonomy for the colonized tribal nations of Siberia. The experiences of the early Soviet Union show that dismantling empire requires combating national chauvinism with proletarian internationalism, which necessarily includes the right to national self-determination.

Consequently, the nations chained by the empire must be liberated from it—this goes for the less than United States now, as it did for the decrepit Tsarist Autocracy a hundred years ago. Let’s take a closer look at the similarities and differences, and what concrete lessons there are to learn for today’s liberation struggle.

The National Question — From Empire to Union State

Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality.

This, in three words, can be understood as the official ideology of the Tsarist state in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and was in many ways its answer to surging bourgeois national movements all over Europe, including within the borders of the empire. We will focus on the “Nationality,” which would be better described as national supremacy and primacy of the “Great Russians”— we simply call them Russians today, and the name already contains a hint of their supposed role in the eyes of Tsarism, as a guiding nationality for the “lesser” peoples.

Lenin describes the use of this supremacist ideology, as it was expressed by the proto-fascist Black Hundreds movement and endorsed by the Tsar:

The conditions of life of this vast population [the oppressed nationalities] are even harsher than those of the Russians. The policy of oppressing nationalities is one of dividing nations. At the same time it is a policy of systematic corruption of the people’s minds. The Black Hundreds’ plans are designed to foment antagonism among the different nations, to poison the minds of the ignorant and downtrodden masses […] This dirty and despicable work is undertaken, not only by the scum of the Black Hundreds, but also by reactionary professors, scholars, journalists and members of the Duma. Millions and thousands of millions of rubles are spent on poisoning the minds of the people. — Lenin, National Equality, 1914

So, how are these conditions resolved, and how do they relate to socialist revolution? The most obvious answer, the “common sense” of today’s liberals, as it was of liberals of the last century, is the establishment of legal equality. This was obvious to everyone except the most reactionary chauvinists. Even the 1906 constitution gave token concessions to the national minorities, and finally, the February Revolution of 1917 abolished the remnants of official national discrimination, especially severe against the Muslim and Jewish minorities of the empire. The success of the Bolsheviks was not needed for this hollow “equality under the law,” instead, they went far beyond. While Kerensky’s government of national defense quickly became a government of national oppression, attempting to keep the prison of nations intact by all means—a cause soon taken up by the White Army, much to their detriment—the Bolsheviks, and Lenin in particular often against fierce opposition, insisted on the uncompromising right to national self-determination and secession by oppressed nations. This position was kept up during the entirety of the civil war—the only debatable exception is the Red Army’s seizure of Baku to secure an oil supply for the nascent proletarian revolution, and even there, a government of Azerbaijani communists took the lead.

For the Bolsheviks, the national right to self-determination was the basis of proletarian internationalism:

In this situation, the proletariat of Russia is faced with a twofold or, rather, a two-sided task: to combat nationalism of every kind, above all, Great-Russian nationalism; to recognize, not only fully equal rights for all nations in general, but also equality of rights as regards polity, i.e., the right of nations to self-determination, to secession […] Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-determination; the unity of the workers of all nations—such is the national programme that Marxism, the experience of the whole world, and the experience of Russia, teach the workers. — Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, 1914

It is no coincidence that Lenin would later stress the negative influences of Great-Russian chauvinism on the early Soviet Union, and, with that, the centrality of combating it. It is no coincidence either, but rather a direct expression of this policy, that the Union Treaty of 1922, which formally established the Soviet Union, enshrined the right to secession for the constituent socialist republics, that the Soviet Union returned land seized from China and Mongolia by the Tsarist autocracy once the revolution took root there, and that where policies of russification or national suppression were implemented the offending members were expelled from the party without hesitation. This program was applied to all colonized nations, from autonomy for the tribal peoples of Siberia to demanding equal rights for those colonized by the imperialist states across the oceans.

The so-called American left should be ashamed that a party leading a revolutionary conflict in one of the most underdeveloped regions of Europe was miles ahead of them when it came to the question of national self-determination over a hundred years ago. In fact, they often reproduce the exact chauvinism so sharply attacked by Lenin.

Of course, not all of this survived into the era of consolidation under Stalin’s leadership, but that is a discussion for another time—the general principle and its importance should be clear:

The October Revolution did not lead to the foundation of a ‘Great Russian Soviet Republic’, and neither can an American revolution lead to the foundation of an ‘National American Soviet Republic’. The right to national self-determination and secession must be upheld under all circumstances. In fact, these rights become only clearer in the American case, because of the class structure inherent to the settler state. Let’s talk about that in more detail.

Facing the Settler — Finding an ‘American’ Proletariat

The argument that is about to follow is the exact type of argument people in the West who imagine themself as prospective revolutionaries don’t like to hear. That makes the argument all the more important, considering most prospective Western revolutionaries never engage in revolution. I’ll try to be gentle.

Unlike in Tsarist Russia, where the ‘Great Russian’ proletariat became one of the chief revolutionary forces for the reasons discussed in the last section, the vast majority of American settlers, even those among them who are supposedly proletarian, have always been complicit in the reproduction of empire. To be clear: This isn’t a moral judgement on individuals, but rather an attempt to approach the objective class relations within the boundaries of the US state, and understand where revolutionary potential can be found and under what circumstances. Without that, making revolution is an impossibility.

To explain the particular class position of American settlers, we should talk about J. Sakai’s often maligned but rarely seriously interrogated polemic ‘Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat’. He didn’t try to be gentle. His fundamental position is that the vast majority of white workers in the US have always constituted a privileged labor aristocracy, ultimately in alliance with the bourgeoisie when it comes to the subjugation of colonized nations. They are settlers, which, in turn, reflects on the self-conception of the American left if they falsely identify them as the primary revolutionary class.

Sakai states this position on the history and present of the American state and with that the American left, explicitly:

The imperialists even concede that their standard ‘U.S. history’ is a white history, and is supposedly incomplete unless the long-suppressed Third-World histories are added to it. Why? The key to the puzzle is that Theirstory (imperialist Euro-Amerikan mis-history) is not incomplete; it isn’t true at all. Theirstory also includes the standard class analysis of Amerika that is put forward into our hands by the Euro-Amerikan Left. Theirstory keeps saying, over and over: ‘You folks, just think about your own history; don’t bother analyzing white society, just accept what we tell you about it.’ — J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, 1983

What are we—those of us not interested in reproducing national chauvinism with our analysis of class relations in the US—to make of this? Well, for now, let’s take Sakai’s arguments seriously.

One of the most destructive tendencies of the American socialist movement has been to view the struggle of the oppressed nations against the empire as ‘merely’ an incidental part of the larger struggle against capitalism. This tendency will acknowledge that white supremacy is a central issue, that indigenous self-determination is vital, that reparations for slavery may be necessary, and so forth, while ultimately seeing all of it as an afterthought compared to the ‘real’ fight for socialism. These ‘lesser’ issues are relegated to the eventual destruction of the white supremacist bourgeois state, which will presumably unfold in the revolutionary process that is, for the foreseeable future, exclusively unfolding in their heads.

On what terms is this real struggle supposed to take place, then? The Bolsheviks understood the necessity of a combined struggle on all fronts, so what do these ‘Euro-Amerikan’, self-declared revolutionaries have to offer? They would never say it out loud because that exposes the blatant white supremacist logic beneath, but ultimately they conceive the revolutionary process as one advanced by the white majority, which should ‘accommodate’ or ‘integrate’ non-white proletarians into the larger struggle. And just in case it needs to be said: No, claiming you ‘don’t see color’ like a caricature of the worst kind of liberal, doesn’t change the ideology of this surface-level integrationist tendency, and its complete inability to conceive of a general liberation struggle against the American bourgeois state by those who are actually subjugated by it.

In reality, and this is absolutely vital to understand, the revolutionary process is one and the same as the struggle for self-determination by the proletarian masses of the oppressed nations. They have never been truly integrated by the settler state, and face it as the most severely exploited people within the empire’s borders.

Ignoring this inevitably reproduces white supremacy, and ultimately is an expression of the settlers’ concrete class interest of maintaining their comparatively privileged position as part of the global imperialist hegemon’s labor aristocracy, petit bourgeois landowners, and at the very top, as the imperial bourgeoisie. This is rarely understood in those terms, but is crystal clear when viewed through the historical failures and capitulations of the American union movement and various communist organizations—as Sakai does—which were dominated by a settler majority.

At best—and it really isn’t good at all—it results in treating the conflicts of the oppressed nations, and with that, the vast majority of the most acutely exploited proletarians, as secondary, as it has been done over and over again by class-collaborationist unions in the United States. Instead, the goal is to win concessions from the spoils of empire.

Sakai makes special note of this in his characterization of early trade-unionism:

Underneath the surface appearance of militant popular reform, of workers taking on the wealthy, these movements were only attempts to more equally distribute the loot and privileges of Empire among its citizens. That’s why the oppressed colonial subjects of the Empire had no place in these movements. —J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, 1983

At worst, we can see the results in parties like the CPUSA, which gradually turned itself into a sad, parasitic entity attached to the Democratic Party—and with that to the settler state—by abandoning even the semblance of revolutionary action. Why? Because once the Civil Rights Act established formal legal equality, they had exhausted their wedge issue, which initially led them ‘across racial lines’, and reverted to the lowest common denominator for all practically exhausted and theoretically confused communist parties: reformism thinly veiled by red flags. To this day, the CPUSA blatantly denies that anyone except the American bourgeoisie can be understood as settlers, while appropriating the language of national liberation—they, too, have made the ‘prison of nations’ comparison, abusing Lenin’s work only to retreat to the equivalent of a ‘Great Russian’ chauvinist’s position on the matter.

A crass difference can be seen between organizations taking on the role of de facto collaborators with the empire, and those that actually presented a threat to it by focusing on a proletarian liberation struggle, and connecting it to the larger fight against world imperialism. There is a reason why the Black Panther Party became the most advanced communist organization the US has ever seen before it was suppressed, why militants of the Black Liberation Army were killed and hunted down without mercy, why the Indigenous-led Red Power movement was torn apart with armed force and the violence of courts, and why even the generally more ‘moderate’ Land Back Movement and Chicano Movement are under continued surveillance and pressure by American state institutions. They present a real threat by uniting the proletarian masses of oppressed nations within the Empire’s borders in the struggle against the bars of their collective prison.

These movements prove liberation must begin where the empire’s violence is most acute, not where settlers feel most comfortable.

The Terms of the Struggle — Shattering the Prison

Ultimately, the American left has two choices: continue as the empire’s useful idiots, or finally recognize that liberation won’t come from the settlers, but from those they’ve imprisoned in the boundaries of their state. Of course, it is no coincidence that the largest sections of the so-called left have not recognized this, since it is in their class interest as labor aristocrats to close their eyes, and the others are pulled along by their sway in organizations. Class suicide—actively working against one’s own class interests, in more than words—is rarely an appealing notion, and neither is the prospect of a grueling revolutionary struggle that will, for some time at least, shatter the established value chains, reduce living standards and cause panic among those used to living off the superprofits extracted from the labor of the third world and the land of subjugated nations.

This can be no excuse. Facing reality is always preferable to idealist fantasies and lies, produced to enable a false radicalism that is ultimately destructive. Lenin was quite clear on that matter, and the role of such delusions in revolutionary situations:

After their first serious defeat, the overthrown exploiters—who had not expected their overthrow, never believed it possible, never conceded the thought of it—throw themselves with energy grown tenfold, with furious passion and hatred grown a hundredfold, into the battle for the recovery of the ‘paradise’ of which they were deprived […] In the train of the capitalist exploiters follow the wide sections of the petty bourgeoisie, with regard to whom decades of historical experience of all countries testify that they vacillate and hesitate, one day marching behind the proletariat and the next day taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution; that they become panic-stricken at the first defeat or semidefeat of the workers, grow nervous, run about aimlessly, snivel, and rush from one camp into the other. — Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, 1918

All of this does not mean there is no role for white Americans in this struggle—quite the opposite, in fact, because they have the veil of protection granted by white supremacy others are not afforded—but without understanding their own position, they are bound to reproduce completely dysfunctional and often outright reactionary tactics. And while whiteness is generalized, there are, of course, differences in the concrete class positions of white workers in the United States, ranging from fully integrated labor aristocrats in the empire’s metropoles to the historically superexploited workers of the Appalachians—the fact that this needs to be addressed is already a concession to white fragility, but I want to anticipate the inevitable outrage in the comments somehow.

At the same time, the objective existence of oppressed nations must be seen as an opportunity. The most elemental task of any revolutionary organization is to find a revolutionary class to make revolution with, not as an appendage, not as an imposition, but as one of them, leading the struggle in the clearest possible terms. This is the task of the vanguard party—not to ‘include’ or ‘consider’ the proletarian masses, but to take a leading position from within the proletarian masses.

Consequently, in the United States, the task of this revolutionary organization is not to convince oppressed nations or settlers that they must work together, on a vague and entirely ahistorical and anti-materialist basis akin to liberal denial of the most severe expressions of white supremacy, but rather that their collective liberation is one and the same task. This is what the most advanced socialist organizations like the Black Panther Party advocated for, despite distortions to the contrary that attempt to deny the colonial nature of the state:

The dissolution of the American settler empire, the destruction of the bourgeois state, the establishment of workers’ power, and the uncompromising right to self-determination, autonomy and secession for the nations imprisoned in the boundaries of the empire.

The terms of this struggle are clear—the prison of nations must be shattered.

However, white supremacists face an immediate contradiction due to the essential role of undocumented labor in the U.S. Some capitalists have already begun to beg the president to scale down the raids, complaining that ICE is taking all their best workers and hurting their profit margins. Every fascist accusation against the Global South is an admission², whether directed at Black people in South Afrika for “white genocide” or undocumented people in the imperial core for bringing violence to a society that seeks to exploit and assault them. 

30 years after apartheid, the 7% minority of white settlers continue to occupy 72% of South Afrika’s farmland. Legalistic mechanisms for land reforms have failed to address the problem; only 9% of the land has been returned to the Black people it was stolen from. Before it can return land, the government needs to provide compensation to the white settler. In other words, the law requires the government to pay thieves to return stolen land. Black South Afrikans can’t get their land back because doing so would bankrupt the country. The result? In 2025, South Afrika has the highest wealth inequality of any country in the world. The average Black household owns 5% of the wealth of the average white household. These statistics alone explain why South Afrikan white lobbying groups — who project false claims of supposed “racial persecution” throughout the world  — have spoken out against relocation to the U.S. Relocating white settlers would only hamper domestic settler efforts towards retaking full political power and overturning the basic legal rights won by the Black majority in 1994. One white pensioner spelled the situation out clearly: “If you haven’t got any problems here, why would you want to go?” 

Trump’s relocation of white settlers appears to be part of a larger U.S. attack on South Afrika’s government. In 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa enacted the “Land Expropriation Act” —  essentially an eminent domain law which allows the government to repurpose private land for the public benefit. According to the law, land can only be expropriated without compensation in limited scenarios, like when property is unused or abandoned. To this day, no land has been seized in South Africa without compensation. This is the law that Trump claims will cause “white genocide” in South Afrika. The U.S. had already cut off nearly all foreign aid to South Afrika back in February, throwing the country’s healthcare system into a new crisis overnight. 

Although Trump and his imperialist collaborators understand the reformist nature of South Afrika’s government, the country is still centered in the U.S.’ crosshairs because of its rejection of outright western colonial rule. South Afrika has been represented by the ANC (African National Congress) — the party of Nelson Mandela — since the end of apartheid. In all likelihood, the U.S. wants to remove the ANC from power and replace it with one of the more imperialist-friendly parties representing white interests. In its 30 years of rule, the ANC has built strong economic relationships with enemies of the U.S. such as China, Russia, and Iran. The South Afrikan lawsuit against so-called “israel” in the International Court of Justice — supposedly the highest court in the world — continues to isolate the zionist entity, which has lost sympathy even in the West. If the U.S. were to succeed in its regime change effort, they would replace the ANC with a party such as the Democratic Alliance. With its bedrock of white support, this party would be quick to submit to the U.S. by signing extortionist trade deals and dismissing the I.C.J. lawsuit. For Trump, the chance to bully an oppressed country like South Afrika while pandering to the white base at home was too convenient to pass up. 

From within the U.S., we can see how the relocation fiasco is in perfect alignment with the current fascist playbook. The illusions of a multi-racial participatory society in a racist settler colony are dissipating in the face of an explicit preference for white immigration, especially those who show loyalty to the imperial project. I.C.E. agents and deputized local police are snatching undocumented people from their homes and workplaces. The most immediate hurdle to the new terror project lies in the capitalist class itself, who keenly appreciate the essential role of undocumented immigrants in the Amerikan economy. Capitalists in both meatpacking and agriculture economic sectors pleaded directly to Trump that the ICE raids are having a bad effect on business. By working the hardest jobs for the least pay, undocumented workers ensure that Amerikans have access to cheap produce while guaranteeing a steady profit for the capitalist. The class collaboration between these capitalists and Amerikans at large is essential to the arrangement. Without undocumented labor, the already small profit margins in agriculture and meatpacking would vanish, which would then trigger skyrocketing food costs. The takeaway from this is that there was already ample reason to be in the streets before the ICE raids began. Instead of waving the Amerikan flag like the recently-arrived South Afrikan settlers, protesters should agitate based on the general conditions of racial hierarchies in labor. Violent ICE raids will of course continue, although the business enterprises of certain capitalists will now be spared by the Trump regime. The federal and municipal pigs will continue to arrest grandparents, parents, and children. 

While fascists balance the contradictions between their rhetoric and reality, they still agitate their base by attacking a sovereign nation with racist dog whistles. On June 2, 9 more settlers from South Afrika arrived in the U.S, and more will be on the way unless South Afrika bows under the pressure. We must never forget that Land Back is as desperately needed here on Turtle Island as it is in South Afrika. Amerikan fascists feign horror at Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of land repossession. Imagine their response to a real campaign for Land Back on what they consider to be their home territory. 

Spend these summer months engaged in social investigation or engaged in study. USU and the All-Empire Workers’ League are here to join you in struggle with materials and assistance as we work on tangible projects in the real world. Whatever you do, don’t let the summer pass you by as white supremacists continue their push to convert the mass fascist state into its final, deadly form. 

1.  The term “global flea market” is borrowed from George Jackson’s Blood in my Eye (page 118)  ︎
2. For further discussion of colonial psychology, see Chapter 2: The Historical Background in Robert Biel’s Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement, with special attention paid to page 32 (local page source) ︎

In subject and colonized countries, wars of national liberation sometimes take the form of semi-revolutionary or revolutionary military seizures of power. The putative “democratic” elements in countries deeply compromised by neo-colonial hegemony, like those of Niger, are a mere cover for imperialist control. National militaries, however, generally have long traditions of national pride; it is sometimes from the oppressed-national military tradition that national liberation finds its most fertile soil.

Upon receiving news of the coup, Macron decried it as, “completely illegitimate and profoundly dangerous for the Nigeriens, Niger and the whole region.” However, Macron, as the official representative of French imperialism, could never admit to the simple fact  that the Council’s seizure is not dangerous to Nigeriens, Niger, or the region; it’s dangerous to France and Western interests.

Niger has been a cornerstone of French imperial policy in Africa since the 19th century. It straddles the Sahel and Sahara regions, and shares an immense land border with Nigeria to the south. Niger has served as the military staging ground for French excursions into neighboring regions, what are now Chad and Mali, since the old imperial powers crassly divided Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884. Although Niger was granted nominal independence from France in 1960, there have been few years when French compradors, those among the neo-colonial ruling class who help siphon-off the wealth of the national economy and ship it to Paris, were not in charge.

Today, Niger supplies 25% of the uranium used in the EU’s nuclear power generation. 35% of the uranium for France’s nuclear reactors comes from Niger. Meanwhile, only 14% of Niger’s population of 25.25 million have reasonable access to electricity, while 62% have no access whatsoever. Hundreds of thousands of Nigeriens live exposed to radioactive waste leftover from the mining process. France has never displayed any alarm over the radioactive tailings its empire leaves behind. The French “alarm” over this coup is blatantly cynical and self-interested, not motivated by genuine concern for the Nigeriens, for whom the French government has never before displayed an ounce of sympathy. More accurately, France fears the loss of modern comforts, which are only possible due to its exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. The French may soon experience the rolling blackouts and brownouts that they’ve forced on Nigeriens for decades.

Perhaps even more alarming to France than the loss of access to resources is the potential disruption to its currency hegemony over West Africa. Mohamed Bazoum, the deposed president, had been a pliant and steady leader of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), which controls the West African Franc. Forcing its former colonies to use a currency pegged to the Euro locks African nations into accepting trade deals that any honest person would simply call theft. Recently, African radicals such as Julius Malema, President of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa, have proposed creating a Pan-African currency backed by Africa’s natural resources. The prospect of this currency terrifies the empire. Recently leaked emails of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton of the U.S. Empire revealed NATO killed Gaddafi in part to stop the formation of a Pan-African gold-backed currency like the one proposed by Malema. The U.S. and its NATO allies are willing to go to great lengths to stop a Pan-African union.

Significantly, this coup also symbolizes Niger’s rejection of American and French influence on its military affairs, and a rejection of the NATO client, Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) dominance over the region. Western mouthpieces such as Anthony Blinken, the American Secretary of State, have lamented the deterioration of the “security situation” in Niger, but his words sound hollow. After all, General Tchiani directly cited French and American ineptitude in conflicts with Islamic militants as one of the reasons for the coup in the first place!

The real concern for France and America is that Niger will follow Mali and Burkina Faso’s example: expel Western troops from its borders and turn to Russia’s Wagner Group for military assistance. Symbolically, the coup was carried out when Bazoum declined to personally attend the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. After the coup, there were some pro-Russia demonstrations in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, and Wagner Group’s leader Prigozhin lauded the coup’s success. The loss of Niger as a Western client would be devastating for American military power in West Africa. America’s six bases in Niger, the most it has in a single African country, are strategically positioned to secure its share of uranium, and serve as the command hub for all American operations across Western Africa.

In a further act of hypocrisy, western powers also criticized the deleterious socio-economic impact that the coup could have on Niger, but supported the fierce sanctions that their puppet ECOWAS immediately imposed against the country. France, America, and ECOWAS are so panic stricken over their loss of control (and of uranium) that they are threatening a military intervention if Bazoum is not restored to power within a week. Meanwhile, Mali and Burkina Faso have pledged to militarily support Niger in the event of an intervention against the new government.

Sanctions and threat of military intervention, against an already impoverished and exploited nation, must be unequivocally condemned. Western pontification about Niger’s security and socioeconomic situation should be exposed as the sardonic ruse it is. Have no illusions — The United States Empire, and its partner, France, only care about Niger insofar as they can continue to exploit it. The people of Niger, all victims of French colonialism, and colonized people the world over, must be free to overthrow their oppressors, claim their national wealth, and seek national development on their own terms.

The People’s Republic of China has once again reaffirmed its solidarity with the peoples of Africa through its continued commitment to mutual cooperation with 53 African countries and the African Union.

On August 18, Wang Yi, State Councilor and Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, addressed a virtual conference of the Forum on China–Africa Coordination (FOCAC), attended by African and Chinese leaders. FM Wang reflected on the progress made in recent years through FOCAC towards shared sustainable development goals, achieving peace and stability, facilitating cultural and academic exchange, ameliorating food crises, and ending the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, and outlined the Communist Party of China’s vision for “building a China–Africa community with a shared future in the new era.”

FOCAC is the main forum through which China–Africa political, economic, technological, and other multilateral cooperation is facilitated. FOCAC was founded in October 2000, following years of diplomatic coordination efforts between members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to today’s African Union, and the People’s Republic of China. Last month’s meeting concerned the implementation of follow-up actions of the 8th Ministerial Conference of FOCAC, held in November 2021.

Today, all African countries, with one exception, plus the African Union Commission (the central governing body of the African Union) are members of FOCAC.

The one exception is the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, currently ruled by Africa’s last absolute monarchy. The reactionary, autocratic monarchy has made the country heavily dependent on Taiwan for capital investments and foreign aid; in order to maintain its close ties with Taiwan, Eswatini maintains no diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, and does not recognize the PRC as a legitimate state. In recent years, the struggle of the Swazi people for democracy has grown into a rising revolutionary movement, led in part by the Communist Party of Swaziland, that is threatening to overthrow the autocracy and establish a republic. The People’s Republic of China has been accused by the Taiwanese government and the Western imperialist press of supporting revolutionary-democratic forces in Swaziland, but this is highly unlikely, given the CPC’s commitment to non-interventionist international policy. However, the Communist Party of Swaziland has expressed solidarity with China in the face of heightened U.S. imperialist provocations in Taiwan.

A Vision of China–Africa Cooperation for the “New Era”

At the 2021 FOCAC 8th Ministerial Conference, representatives of the 53 African member countries, the African Union Commission, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) released their joint plan for “mid- to long-term cooperation,” the China–Africa Cooperative Vision 2035. The document ties together the PRC’s own “Vision 2035,” the African Union’s “2063 Agenda,” and the United Nations “Agenda 2030” Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to outlining a plan for multilateral China–Africa fair trade through China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), and for “promoting a new development paradigm featuring transformation and growth to advance industries in China and Africa,” the China–Africa Cooperative Vision 2035 also makes concrete, practical commitments to “developing a new green growth model for common eco-development,” to sharing technological and medical resources, and to “creating a new chapter in people-to-people exchanges for common cultural prosperity in China and Africa.”

Toward these shared aims, at the FOCAC 8th Ministerial Conference, PRC President Xi Jinping announced the launch of nine programs:

1. A medical program. China will donate 600 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa and send 1,500 Chinese medical personnel.
2. A poverty reduction and agricultural development program. China will set up agrotechnology centers across Africa, staffed by 500 Chinese agricultural experts.
3. A trade promotion program. China will work with the African Continental Free Trade Area to expand the BRI and will broadly remove tariffs for underdeveloped countries.
4. An investment promotion program. The Chinese government will encourage businesses to invest in Africa towards African industrialization goals.
5. A digital innovation program. China and Africa will expand cooperation in technological development and promote African businesses through e-commerce.
6. A green development program. China will support eco-development initiatives in Africa, such as the African Union’s “Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel” initiative, which, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, aims to reverse land degradation and desertification, improve food security and livelihoods for the populations of more than 20 Sahelian countries, and contribute to climate change mitigation.
7. A capacity building program. China will help build and upgrade 10 schools in Africa, provide training to 10,000 African professionals, launch vocational programs for African students, and open 800,000 jobs in African countries.
8. A cultural and people-to-people exchange program. China will promote tourism to and from Africa, hold film festivals, and host China–Africa women’s and youth forums.
9. A peace and security program. China will provide military assistance to the African Union in ongoing efforts to combat terrorism across the African continent.

Speaking at the August 2022 Coordinators’ Meeting on the Implementation of Follow-up Actions, 6 months after the FOCAC 8th Ministerial Conference, PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi said,

We are pleased to see that, despite the evolving international situation, rising global challenges and repeated external disturbances, China and Africa have stayed our course in enhancing solidarity and focusing on cooperation. We have made good progress in implementing the outcomes of the conference…

In the face of the various forms of hegemonic and bullying practices, China and Africa have stood with each other shoulder to shoulder. China appreciates the firm commitment of African countries to the one-China principle and your strong support for China’s efforts to safeguard sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. China has also spoken up for our African brothers at the UN and other multilateral settings, upholding justice and opposing unwarranted interference and unilateral sanctions against Africa. In solidarity and coordination, China and Africa have become a pillar force in defending the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries, upholding the purposes of the UN Charter, and advocating multilateralism and international fairness and justice.

The “hegemonic and bullying practices” condemned by FM Wang are a reference to the policies of the Western imperialist powers, led by the United States of America, and can be summed up in one word: Neo-colonialism.

South–South Cooperation versus Neo-Colonialism

FM Wang also promised that China would waive outstanding debts owed by 17 African countries since 2021. The debts arose from 23 interest-free loans issued through China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The promise to waive these loans means that the 17 African countries will not be expected to repay China for its developmental aid.

China has been harshly criticized in the Western press and by Western politicians and economists for its interest-free loans to Africa; some have characterized these loans as “debt-traps,” meant to render Africa dependent on China in the long-term.

The truth, however, is that most African countries are severely indebted not to the People’s Republic of China, but to Western imperialist countries, such as the U.S. and France. For several decades, Western powers have used global financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, to issue predatory loans, with extremely high interest rates, knowing full-well that the loans won’t be repaid and that the borrowing countries will only become further indebted, while remaining badly underdeveloped and impoverished. Moreover, the imperialist loans always come with strings attached — conditions forced on the borrowing countries. These conditions are designed to hinder economic development, worsen wealth inequality, eliminate protections for workers and entrench modern slavery, facilitate unequal trade, and cheaply strip borrowing countries of their natural resources — all for the benefit of the highly-developed imperialist countries. For instance, IMF loans frequently require the governments of borrowing countries to cut public spending (funding for transport, education, healthcare, etc.), privatize their natural resources, and allow Western companies to freely buy up their land and to establish mines, plantations, and factories that pay dollar-per-day wages or use slave-labor. In the process, the world’s least developed regions, including most of Africa, have suffered ecological devastation, causing widespread droughts, famines, and desertification.

This process, by which the imperialist powers keep underdeveloped countries and regions indebted, dependent, and indirectly controlled, is known as neo-colonialism.

Kwame Nkrumah, the Marxist-Leninist and pan-Africanist revolutionary, political leader, and theoretician, who served as the first President of Ghana and led his country’s struggle for independence against Britain, characterized neo-colonialism as “imperialism in its final and perhaps its most dangerous stage.” According to Nkrumah, in the introduction to his authoritative 1965 book Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism,

The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.

Neo-colonialism developed in the decades following the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the United Nations (1945), during the wave of decolonization that spread across Africa in the 1950s and ‘60s, when most African countries gained their independence from the colonial empires of Europe. Neo-colonialism is an outgrowth of capitalist imperialism, the contemporary world-system, in which a handful of advanced capitalist countries use their superior economic and military might to conquer and exploit colonies, and to bring less developed, economically dependent countries into their spheres of influence. Capitalism grew out of modern colonialism, and so did capitalist imperialism. From the mid-1400s to the late-1800s, the West-European colonial empires exploited Africa as a source of cheap slave-labor for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, developing their European mother countries and their “New World” settler colonies, while leaving Africa in a pre-feudal, slavery-based stage of development. But as capitalism developed in Europe, the old, indirect mode of exploitation was no longer sufficient to continue expanding and accumulating wealth. During the 1880s, the West-European colonial empires began a campaign called the “Scramble for Africa,” directly conquering every pre-colonial African state, with the exception of the Ethiopian Empire, amounting to 90% of the continent’s landmass. This “Scramble for Africa” was at the heart of the emerging world-system of capitalist imperialism. By the end of the 19th Century, the competing capitalist empires of Western Europe, Japan, and the United States of America had divided up most of the rest of the world into directly ruled colonies and indirectly ruled client-states. This competition resulted in a series of devastating inter-imperialist wars, the largest of which were the First and Second World Wars.

Following the Second World War, however, the U.S. Empire emerged as the unrivaled hegemon, beginning an era of unipolar imperialism that is only now, in the 21st Century, coming to a violent end. With the decolonization of most of the world by the 1970s, the imperialist powers shifted from direct control of their former colonies to indirect control through financial institutions. This is the situation suffered by most African countries, as well as most nominally independent, underdeveloped countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific, and southeast Asia.

In stark contrast to the “hegemonic and bullying practices” of the Western imperialist powers and their global financial institutions, the People’s Republic of China issues interest-free loans, meaning that borrowing countries can’t be debt-trapped by high interest rates, and issues loans on a mutual basis, without forcing borrowing countries to bend to conditions imposed by a foreign power. The PRC also frequently waives debts owed by African countries that are unable to repay Chinese loans. FM Wang’s promise to waive the interest-free loan debts owed by 17 African countries to China is not out of the ordinary for the People’s Republic of China; the promise is a typical expression of the Communist Party of China’s cooperative internationalism.

It is true that China, as a politically united and fully sovereign country that has a rapidly developing economy, augmented by some advanced-capitalist centers in its major cities, and maintains a powerful military, is more powerful than the African Union. The African Union, by contrast, has not yet achieved complete political unification, and its member states have not yet achieved true sovereignty, because they remain dominated by the West through neo-colonialism. Moreover, the whole African continent, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, has inherited a far more brutal legacy of colonialism than East Asia, and therefore must overcome far worse underdevelopment. It is also true that, especially since the 2010s, the PRC has taken on a leadership role in global development. However, in contrast to the Western powers, it is clear that the goal of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is not to use its economic and military power to colonize, exploit, underdevelop, and impoverish Africa.

It is also true that there will inevitably arise conflicts between Chinese capital and African labor. Capital and labor are always at odds; we Marxists call this contradiction. However, in those cases where open conflict has arisen from the contradiction between African labor and Chinese capital, the CPC has generally sided with African labor, punishing Chinese businesses that fail to uphold their promises. The contradiction between Chinese capital and African labor will take the form of struggle by the African proletariat against Chinese bosses, and we should always stand in solidarity with the proletariat. But the principal contradiction acting upon the African continent is the contradiction between Africa and Western imperialism.

Finally, it is true that the CPC committed grave injustices during the Cold War, such as invading Vietnam in 1979 and supporting the mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1980s. These actions stemmed from the Sino-Soviet Split, in which relations between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China deteriorated and turned hostile. The CPC falsely characterized the Soviet Union as “social imperialist” and the “main enemy” of the world’s revolutions; this was the CPC’s justification for entering into an alliance with the U.S. Empire — against the Soviet Union — during the Cold War. During the Cold War, the PRC actively undermined Soviet-backed revolutions in some Third World countries by providing support to counter-revolutionaries. In siding with the U.S. Empire against the Soviet Union, and by inventing and propagating the fiction of “Soviet social imperialism,” the CPC entered into an alliance with actual imperialism, and did immeasurable harm to liberation movements and socialist revolutions across the Third World.

However, since the end of the Cold War, the Communist Party of China has pursued an international policy guided by its Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, enshrined in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China: (1) mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, (2) mutual non-aggression, (3) mutual non-interference in internal affairs, (4) equality and mutual benefit, and (5) peaceful coexistence. In accordance with these constitutional principles, the CPC has pursued what it calls “South–South cooperation” — a reference to the “Global South,” a broad catch-all for most of the world’s underdeveloped and developing countries.

In sum, the nature of China–Africa cooperation is not neo-colonialism, but mutual development through internationalist South–South cooperation.

The Basis of China–Africa Solidarity

South–South cooperation, as pursued by the People’s Republic of China and partnered countries and intergovernmental bodies through the Belt and Road Initiative, has the effect of weakening the influence of the Western imperialist powers over Global South countries and the world’s markets. This stands to benefit both China and Africa.

The founding mission of the Organization of African Unity, now carried forward by the African Union, was to liberate the African continent from colonialism and to eliminate all surviving vestiges of colonial rule. Pan-Africanists sought to develop a politically united, self-reliant, and prosperous Africa, and to thereby achieve true political and economic independence from the Western imperialist powers that had colonized, exploited, and violently oppressed Africa for centuries. The OAU also sought to end the regimes of white-colonizer minority-rule that then remained in some African countries, such as South Africa and Zimbabwe. Towards these aims, the member-states of the OAU, and now the African Union, have fostered closer cooperation on Africa’s economic development, towards the goals of African self-sufficiency, peace, the elimination of poverty, and the achievement of ecologically sustainable prosperity. Especially during the 1990s, the OAU sought closer cooperation with China. By fostering internationalist China–Africa cooperation, pan-Africanists hoped to free the continent from its dependence on the financial institutions of Western imperialism, and to thereby liberate Africa, once and for all, from neo-colonialism.

The African Union continues to advance the pan-Africanist vision of a sovereign, self-reliant, democratic, pluralistic, and truly United Africa, and therefore objectively represents a progressive force, with immense revolutionary potential. For it is only through pan-African unity that the African continent can self-emancipate, at last throwing off the shackles of imperialism, carry forward sustainable economic development towards the eradication of poverty, secure the right to self-determination for all the indigenous peoples of Africa, repair Africa’s ecology, eliminate war across the continent, and establish a truly democratic African society. It is only by connecting and developing African industry and trade that the continent can break free of its imperialist chains. All the indigenous peoples of Africa have a shared destiny, not because of any “biological” features, but because of a shared history of oppression and a shared future of liberation.

Communists on every continent owe their solidarity to the pan-African struggle and the struggle of all imperialized peoples against neo-colonialism. 

At the same time, South–South cooperation, including China–Africa cooperation, is an integral aspect of the CPC’s mission to develop an advanced socialist economy in China, in accordance with the strategy of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. These efforts have become increasingly unified under the Belt and Road Initiative. The 2018 Beijing Declaration, unanimously adopted by the member-states of FOCAC, explicitly centers the Belt and Road Initiative in the future of China–Africa cooperation.

This process has been termed “alter-globalization” by some economists. In actuality, it is nothing more or less than the inevitable decay of unipolar world imperialism, led by the United States of America, giving way to the formation of a multipolar world. As emerging imperialist powers like the Russian Federation and the monarchies of the Arab Gulf increasingly break with and challenge American hegemony, the power of the American imperialist axis will decline, and world imperialism will again become fractured by inter-imperialist competition and war. The post-Cold War order is finally coming to an end, one crisis at a time.

Capitalist imperialism is now on its last leg. New imperialist powers will emerge, but the whole capitalist-imperialist world-system is already crumbling, and its final demise is inevitable. For five centuries, the development, expansion, and accumulation of capital has depended on the opening of new markets through the conquest of new territories, the establishment of new colonies, and the most brutal exploitation of billions of colonially oppressed people.

But we live in a rapidly decolonizing world. The colonial and formerly colonial peoples of the world are pursuing independence and sovereignty through self-reliance; self-reliance, through development; development, through cooperation — this time, on a mutual and internationalist, rather than an unequal and imperialist, basis. Africa is marching towards unification, and united, will never again be conquered or enslaved. Former strongholds of American imperialism across Asia, Africa, and even Europe are daily undermined by the ascendance of China and its Belt and Road Initiative. The oppressed of Latin America are rebelling against a century and more of Yankee imperialism. Even the U.S. Empire, the world-imperialist behemoth, is not safe: The oppressed of this country demonstrated in 2020 our preparedness to bring the enemy state to its knees. The oppressed masses of the U.S. Empire are consciously realizing that in order to secure our own liberation, we must fight for the liberation of the Third World.

The death knell of imperialism has been sounded. Without a world to carve up among themselves, without colonies to plunder, the capitalist empires will be drawn further into competition with each other, and the era of multipolarity, of inter-imperialist wars, will resume. From our historical vantage-point, we can confidently predict that the next inter-imperialist “World War” will be the last.

Death to imperialism!

Long live African unity!

Long live Chinese socialism!

Long live China–Africa cooperation, friendship, and solidarity!