The reason I find TRN's political trajectory "boring," as I said the other day, is because I think it's ultimately some kind of retro-fueled backwards thinking of failure dressed in NDN, garb and lingo. What do I mean by that?

It's simple really: MLism, which TRN is increasingly in all but name, and I think all other forms of Party-State "socialism" are historical failures. This is born out in a really banal way by the historical record.

All of the projects born of that kind of theory are dead, or have continued on as explicit capitalism. I don't really have any interest in moralistic takes about whether Stalin or whoever were "evil," but you have to look and think: "what did that kind of approach accomplish?"

And I think, to borrow a note from the Africana philosopher Lewis Gordon, that there is a "failure to understand failure" on the part of what I increasingly call "Late Leninism." This is especially pronounced in the Brezhnevite/Tankie historical perspective which is, generally+

only willing to see the collapse/dissolution of so-called "actually existing socialism" as the result of external plots rather than internal contradictions, or more generally contradictions of that whole model (such as how much the "socialist transition" retains capitalism).

There is no real examination, I think, of why those projects failed. Rather there is a constant conspiratorial looking for plots, from imperialists and the like, that drove those projects into dissolution. It's tired, it's old, and we don't need Native WWP or PSL type groups.

And I mean, there are other things as well. Leninism, in my experience, tends to propagate a really pathological internal culture and way of approaching those outside of the circle. This is inherently attached to various groups self-ascribed status as the "vanguard."

Because they self-ascribe to themselves the idea that they are the vanguard, the leading edge, the most advanced detachment etc. those who critique, those who ask questions, those who differ cannot be anything other than enemies, dupes, and agents.

In terms of TRN, you can see it in how they shut off or shut down dialogue with people who question or critique their line. Why would you dialogue with a counter-revolutionary? And if your ideology defines those outside your click as counter-revolutionaries...

You can it in how they formulate things. They recently proclaim, for example, that to be anti-communist is to be anti-Indigenous, which presumably, based on their actions, extends to other Native folks. The problem is in how they define "anti-communism."

What they consider "anti-communist" is insular, drawing a boundary around "communist" that surrounds them and their select allies. Only TRN are the real Native communists, and other Native radicals with critiques are therefor anti-communist and thus actually anti-Indigenous.

It kills dialogue before it can even begin. It's an organizational pathology born out of the assumption that you are the knife's edge vanguard formation. You, and only you, have the correct perspectives, and you cannot talk with or learn from others. They'll only whisper lies

Anyway, I could drone on about this forever. I got burned out from Leninism a while ago. Maybe I'm a little salty about it. I also don't pretend to have all the answers, much less the right ones, only my opinions. I'll leave it there.