

To most Communists it should be no secret that the US is a prison house of nations, that the US is not one single nation but many nations ruled by one settler-colonialist capitalist government; and that decolonization is a necessity and something that all Communists should advocate for. This is all well and good, and are all things that Communists should recognize and support, what is done far less often though is coming to an understanding of what all of this means for our struggle as it is today and how our perception of the United States is based primarily on a settler colonialist mindset that’s pushed in all mediums of our society. To most Communists it should be no secret that the US is a prison house of nations, that the US is not one single nation but many nations ruled by one settler-colonialist capitalist government; and that decolonization is a necessity and something that all Communists should advocate for. This is all well and good, and are all things that Communists should recognize and support, what is done far less often though is coming to an understanding of what all of this means for our struggle as it is today and how our perception of the United States is based primarily on a settler colonialist mindset that’s pushed in all mediums of our society.









Many Communists recognize that the US is a prison house of nations, many communists recognize the need for decolonization, but in my own experience few Communists, especially of the settler variety, follow these correct lines to their logical conclusions. By failing to do this, by failing to have a fully developed line/theory regarding this issue, they allow themselves to form incorrect theory and in turn commit many errors in practice; this is something that has to be corrected, and the first step in that is having a complete understanding of what all of this means for our present day conditions, in short, we have to decolonize our minds and our theory. Colonization is woven into the very fabric of our society, it is the basis for everything within our society, and though it was caused primarily by the class struggle, this colonization is the primary contradiction in our society. Mao talked about this phenomena in On Contradiction:









“When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position.”









Now, in this Mao was talking about imperialism specifically, when we think of imperialism by the US we look abroad, this is clearly a very large and important aspect, but also disingenuous and a part of our colonized programming by the settler state; if we want to understand American imperialism we have to look both abroad and here at home. The United States may not have created imperialism, but it has certainly perfected it, and it used its current territory as its testing ground before reaching the level of imperialism in the rest of the world that we see today; the United States is an example of imperialism run to its fullest and most logical conclusion, this is made clear when we begin to deconstruct what the United States actually is. When we look at the United States as a single nation we have a corrupted view of what the United States is in essence, the United States is not Germany, is not France, is not England, or any other modern European imperialist power. For example, the police in the United States resemble less the police force of these nations and are more similar to that of an occupying army, specifically in their interaction with the oppressed nationalities that make up the United States, but more broadly across all of the US as the entirety of the US is a prisonhouse of nations. They are the armed guards of the settler state, defending and enforcing its imperialistic aggression, they serve not only the capitalist class, but the entirety of the settlers, regardless of class. This is not to say that settlers, especially working class settlers, cannot be harassed, assaulted, or even killed by the police, but looking at it on an individual level is disingenuous when we are not individualists; as a collective whole the police force serve the interests of the settlers and enforce the white supremacy from which they directly benefit from. The police force in the US are more similar to the Imperial Japanese army in China than they are any other police force in other imperialist centers.









The same can be said for more than just the police, the United States is a settler state, and as such all of its institutions represent this. The government, on all levels, is less similar to the modern capitalist governments of other nations and are instead more similar to the colonial governments of another age. The government here, on all levels, is more similar to the Spanish colonialist government of Cuba, Mexico, etc. or the British colonial governments in North America, India, South Africa, etc. The government schools and education system are no different than the residential schools used to indoctrinate and assimilate Indigenous children, in the United States they are used to indoctrinate and assimilate all of its oppressed nationalities and give them a colonial mindset, to hide the essence of what the United States actually is.









The economic imperialism of the United States can be clearly seen when studying its history. Reconstruction in the South, even with its best intentions and promises, was not out of the kindness of the settler governments heart, it was first and foremost an act of imperialism towards an oppressed nation (New Afrika). Financial capital in the north exported money and capital into the mostly rural south/New Afrika in an attempt to industrialize and urbanize the south, they built railroads from the south to the north, they built factories, they built banks, etc. etc. Now, when this happens in European capitalist states we view this as an attempt to build up the economy of that nation, usually off of wealth and resources from imperialism in other nations, therefore this wouldn’t be considered imperialism within these nations. However, the US is not like these nations, the US is a prison house of nations, as such this should be seen for what it was, an act of imperialism. This has been done many times over, whether it be in the west/southwest (the oppressed nation of Aztlán), more obviously in Hawaii, etc.









From this understanding three things are made clear, 1. the US is an imperialist power not just outside of its borders but within its own borders. 2. We, as Communists, are fighting not just a war against the capitalist class, but a war against imperialism on our own soil. 3. Following all of this, the principal contradiction in the United States is not a class one, but an imperialist one like Mao had spoken of. Until the struggle against imperialism is won, the struggle for national liberation, the class contradiction becomes a secondary, rather than principal, contradiction. This has a dramatic effect on our outlook and tactics for organizing and the revolution as a whole, this also has an effect on how we must view the class system itself in the US.









Classes in the US must be viewed through the lens of imperialism, the working class in the US is not a single monolithic group, but divided between the settler working class and the ON(Oppressed Nationality) working class, the same is true for all other economic classes within the US. This understanding affects our tactics and organizing heavily. In the war against imperialism and the settler class which perpetuates and supports it, we must form united fronts with the ON of all classes which can be united with, primarily the ON petit bourgeois and lumpen proletariat. However, we must not make the mistake of assuming that the settler working class – as a collective, not on an individual level – are on our side in this struggle, they are still within the settler class, and as such they will, as a collective, side with the settler state against us. Did the Chinese revolutionaries attempt to unite with the Japanese working class as opposed to fighting the imperialist Japanese army? Of course not, because they understood that the principal contradiction between Japan and China was an imperialist one, and this contradiction prevented such a working class unity from being possible. Why then do we make the mistake in assuming that the opposite is true in our situation when the principal contradiction remains the same? This can only be the result of a superficial understanding of this issue, which leads to bad theory and bad practice as a result of a lack of proper investigation into the contradictions in the US.









With this understanding it becomes obvious that our organizing and mass work should take place in the oppressed colonies/nations within the US, we should not be making foolish attempts to unite the entirety of the working class, but instead the entirety of the ON class. Whether it be an ON factory worker, bodega owner, or gangbanger, they all have a vested interest in the national liberation of the oppressed nations and colonies within the US. The settler working class does not share this same interest, in fact it directly works against their principal interests as settlers. The most exploited and oppressed among the settler class may recognize that their liberation is tied up in the national liberation of the internal nations of the US, but as a collective whole, the privileged among them, they have been bought off by the settler bourgeois with things such as job security, promotions, benefits, stable housing, etc. etc. which rest on the imperialistic and parasitic relationship with the ON proletariat and lumpen proletariat who have been forced out of the economy due to their ON class standing. If the contradictions between the imperialist state and its internal, oppressed, nations becomes less intense, this may change. This has not changed for centuries however and I would not place my faith in it, primarily because as Marxists we do not rely on faith, we rely on objective fact and dialectical materialism. The objective fact is that there is an occupying force in the territory known as the United States, this occupying force is the settler class, this contradiction between the imperialist, settler, state and the oppressed nations within its borders is the principal contradiction today and has been for centuries, this is all objective fact. Mao showed us what to do in situations such as ours, he proved it in practice and we must take it and apply it to our theory and practice as well. Mao did not attempt to unite with the working class of the imperialist nation, he instead united with all classes within China, that could be united with, against this imperialist nation and its forces, as they all had a vested interest in resisting them. While doing this he made sure to build revolutionary people’s power to ensure that once the fight against imperialism was won, the Communist Party and the working class were in a position to seize power and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. For socialism to be achieved throughout all the oppressed nations that make up the US, we must first fight the war of national liberation, and while this war is being waged we must build people’s power and put ourselves in a position to ensure that once the class contradiction becomes the principal contradiction, that the working class is in a position to resolve that contradiction in its favor as well.