MIM's reply to

The following speech was given by Russell Means in July 1980, before several thousand people who had assembled from all over the world for the Black Hills International Survival Gathering, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is [said to be] Russell Means's most famous speech.

[MIM remarks interspersed in text, October, 1997, and submitted to "Marxism Space"] [snip]

I should be clear about something here, because there seems to be some confusion about it. When I speak of Europeans or mental Europeans, I'm not allowing for false distinctions. I'm not saying that on the one hand there are the by-products of a few thousand years of genocidal, reactionary European intellectual development which is bad; and on the other hand there is some new revolutionary intellectual development which is good. I'm referring here to the so-called theories of Marxism and anarchism and "leftism" in general. I don't believe these theories can be separated from the rest of the European intellectual tradition. It's really just the same old song.

[MIM3 replies: The last persyn I heard saying this about Marxism being a European thing was standing under the VISA and MASTERCARD signs for her shop trying to sell T-Shirts criticizing Columbus.

If you speak with the members of the Iroqois Confederacy, you will learn that Marx obtained his ideas about communism from First Nation peoples. The only observations of communism that he could come in contact with were through anthropologists of his day who reported on First Nations. Hence, the notion that the origin of Marxism is "white" is already as false as the planet is whole.

But the idea that "American Indians" are NOT living in a European set-up already is idealist escapism. It is the very dualism that Means criticizes below, because everyone lives in this world NOW, and that world is capitalist for us within U.$. borders. We are NOT saying that it is necessary to quit with VISA and MASTERCARD. That is not the point. The point is to change the whole system or be careful about hypocritically attacking Europeanism.]

[Means continues:] The process began much earlier. Newton, for example, "revolutionized" physics and the so-called natural science by reducing the physical universe to a linear mathematical equation.

Descartes did the same thing with culture. John Locke did it with politics, and Adam Smith did it with economics. Each one of these "thinkers" took a piece of the spirituality of human existence and converted it into a code, an abstraction. They picked up where Christianity ended: they "secularized" Christian religion, as the "scholars" like to say - and in doing so they made Europe more able and ready to act as an expansionist culture. Each of these intellectual revolutions served to abstract the European mentality even further, to remove the wonderful complexity and spirituality from the universe and replace it with a logical sequence: one, two, three. Answer!.

This is what has come to be termed "efficiency" in the European mind. Whatever is mechanical is perfect; whatever seems to work at the moment - that is, proves the mechanical model to be the right one - is considered correct, even when it is clearly untrue. This is why "truth" changes so fast in the European mind; the answers which result from such a process are only stopgaps, only temporary, and must be continuously discarded in favor of new stopgaps which support the mechanical models and keep them (the models) alive.

[MIM3: If the truth appears to change too often or contradicts itself from moment to moment, that is usually the result of empiricism and pragmatism. See Mao's "Four Essays on Philosophy," to understand why empiricism and anti-theory lead in this direction. Ironically, Means complains about this but at the same time in the same speech he criticizes theory.]

[Means continues:] Hegel and Marx were heirs to the thinking of Newton, Descartes, Locke and Smith. Hegel finished the process of secularizing theology - and that is put in his own terms - he secularized the religious thinking through which Europe understood the universe.

Then Marx put Hegel's philosophy in terms of "materialism," which is to say that Marx despiritualized Hegel's work altogether.

Again, this is in Marx' own terms. And this is now seen as the future revolutionary potential of Europe. Europeans may see this as revolutionary, But American Indians see it simply as still more of that same old European conflict between being and gaining. The intellectual roots of a new Marxist form of European imperialism lie in Marx' - and his followers' - links to the tradition of Newton, Hegel, and the others.

Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain. Material gain is an indicator of false status among traditional people, while it is "proof that the system works" to Europeans. Clearly, there are two completely opposing views at issue here, and Marxism is very far over to the other side from the American Indian view. But lets look at a major implication of this; it is not merely an intellectual debate.

[MIM3 replies: Again, we do not know of First Nations people that intentionally rejected technology while others were sick or starving. Indians took to the horse when it was domesticated. The above is not a cultural defense of First Nation integrity. It is the voice of the middle-class created by capitalism and comfortable with its own existence--a relatively recent and European-associated invention. Marx was for an increase in efficiency to cut down on conflicts over food, shelter, clothing and medicine. Show us how First Nations opposed that idea in history.]

[Means continues:] The European materialist tradition of despiritualizing the universe is very similar to the mental process which goes into dehumanizing another person. And who seems most expert at dehumanizing other people? And why? Soldiers who have seen a lot of combat learn to do this to the enemy before going back into combat. Murderers do it before going out to commit murder. Nazi SS guards did it to concentration camp inmates. Cops do it. Corporation leaders do it to the workers they send into uranium mines and steel mills. Politicians do it to everyone in sight. And what the process has in common for each group doing the dehumanizing is that it makes it all right to kill and otherwise destroy other people. One of the Christian commandments says, "Thou shalt not kill," at least not humans, so the trick is to mentally convert the victims into nonhumans. Then you can proclaim violation of your own commandment as a virtue.

[MIM3 replies: The greatest impetus or motivation for dehumanizing is PROFIT. Eliminate the causes of murder instead of praying to dualist Gods for Salvation. The very John Locke that Means just mentioned also believed in god, to such an extent that he based his political theory on it.]

[Means continues:] In terms of the despiritualization of the universe, the mental process works so that it become virtuous to destroy the planet. Terms like progress and development are used as cover words here, the way victory and freedom are used to justify butchery in the dehumanization process. For example, a real-estate speculator may refer to "developing" a parcel of ground by opening a gravel quarry; development here means total, permanent destruction, with the earth itself removed. But European logic has gained a few tons of gravel with which more land can be "developed" through the construction of road beds. Ultimately, the whole universe is open - in the European view - to this sort of insanity.

[MIM3 replies: Marx and Engels said the above long before Russell Means. See the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844." The difference is that Marx identified once again the contemporary cause of this state of affairs. The power of the capitalist class over the individual is what causes him or her to partake in a system not to his or her own environmental self-interest.]

[Means continues:] Capitalists, at least, can be relied upon to develop uranium as fuel only at the rate at which they can show a good profit.

[MIM3: As I was saying, this whole thing is really a de facto apology for capitalism.]

[Means continues:] That's their ethic, and maybe that will buy some time. Marxists, on the other hand, can be relied upon to develop uranium fuel as rapidly as possible simply because it's the most "efficient" production fuel available. That's their ethic, and I fail to see where it's preferable. Like I said, Marxism is right smack in the middle of the European tradition. It's the same old song.

[MIM3: This is simply untrue about Marxism. It is attributing humyn qualities to imaginary gods or "Mother Earth" that speeds up the alienation of the humyn from his/her own environment and creates division amongst humyns. We Marxists can deal with other atheists who refer to the material world and what to do about it, but try talking to a real fundamentalist Christian or authoritarian believer in any religion, and it is clear the whole point of some religions is to cut off communication and start war.

In a harmonious world, as Marx pointed out, the humyn has no self-interest in destroying the environment. It is only the class system which has this interest. The phony communists of the Soviet Union polluted. They were stuck in capitalist logic. Today's capitalists endure a shortening of their own lifespans to be richer, especially if they think they are dumping on someone else's backyard.

Meanwhile, Mao's feeding, clothing and de-toxifying the Chinese people was a huge leap forward. Yes, Mao got rid of drugs, the internal pollution. What spiritualist hocus-pocus ever did that? And how can we ever fight for our environment if our own individual minds are in a haze? Let's not forget the Opium Wars China had to fight and endure, because of European influence.

But the haze in the mind does not come only from chemicals. Nazism which Means mentions above prospered in a spiritual haze, with appeals to emotion, not science. Nazism triumphed over Marxism in Germany and to see it was to recognize that irrationality won over reason. There was no arguing with these classes of people seeking benefit from imperialist war. Hitler was a Christian viewed as the persynal servant of God by German Christians at the time. He himself was also interested in the occult and mystical. In other words, ideas truly dehumynizing can only develop in a completely inaccessible mist, a fog of genocide where basic social connection and the interweaving of life is severed.]

[Means continues:] There's a rule of thumb that can be applied here. You cannot judge the real nature of a revolutionary doctrine on the basis of the changes it proposed to make within the European power structure and society. You can only judge it by the effect it will have on non-European peoples. This is because every revolution in European history has served to reinforce Europe's tendencies and abilities to export destruction to other peoples, other cultures and the environment itself. I defy anyone to point out an example where this is not true.

[MIM3: We agree with the above unless he considers the Russian Revolution European. The principal contradiction on a global scale as Mao described is between the oppressor nations and the oppressed nations. Progress hinges on the favorable resolution of that knot. With the exception of some Irish, Albanians and other non-imperialist Europeans, MIM does not care for the worker struggle of Europe. It is a struggle of parasites, bought-off workers.]

[Means continues:] So now we, as American Indian people, are asked to believe that a "new" European revolutionary doctrine such as Marxism will reverse the negative effect of European history on us. European power relations are to be adjusted once again, and that's supposed to make things better for all of us. But what does this really mean?

Right now, today, we who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation are living in what white society has designated a "National Sacrifice Area." What this means is that we have a lot of uranium deposits here, and white culture (not us) needs this uranium as energy production material. The cheapest, most efficient way for industry to extract and deal with the processing of this uranium is to dump the waste by-products right here at the digging sites. Right here where we live. This waste is radioactive and will make the entire region uninhabitable forever. This is considered by industry, and by the white society that created this industry, to be an "acceptable" price to pay for energy resource development. Along the way they also plan to drain the water table under this part of South Dakota as part of the industrial process, so the region becomes doubly uninhabitable. The same sort of thing is happening. The same sort of thing is happening down in the land of the Navajo and Hopi, up in the land of the Northern Cheyenne and Crow, and elsewhere. Thirty percent of the coal in the West and half of the uranium deposits in the United States have been found to lie under reservation land, so there is no way this can be called a minor issue.

We are resisting being turned into a National Sacrifice Area. We are resisting being turned into a national sacrifice people. The costs of this industrial process are not acceptable to us. It is genocide to dig uranium here and draw the water table - no more, no less.

Now let's suppose that in our resistance to extermination we begin to seek allies (we have). Let's suppose further that we were to take revolutionary Marxism at its word: that it intends nothing less than the complete overthrow of the European capitalist order which has presented this threat to our very existence. This would seem to be a natural alliance for American Indian people to enter into. After all, as the Marxists say, it is the capitalists who set us up to be a national sacrifice. This is true as far as it goes.

But, as I've tried to point out, this very "truth" is deceptive. Revolutionary Marxism is committed to even further perpetuation and perfection of the very industrial process which is destroying us all. It offers only to "redistribute" the results - the money, maybe - of this industrialization to a wider section of the population. It offers to take wealth from the capitalists and pass it around; but in order to do so, Marxism must maintain the industrial system.

[MIM3: Dualism leads to simplistic criticism from the vantage point of Absolute Ideas. Here Means offers no alternative except an implied dismantling of industry. It is again the pipe-dreaming we are talking about, the comfortable opinion of a persyn situated in the middle-class, not the view of someone who needs a house or a shirt on his/her back.]

[Means continues:] Once again, the power relations with European society will have to be altered, but once again the effects upon American Indian peoples here and non-Europeans elsewhere will remain the same. This much the same as when power was redistributed from the church to private business during the so-called bourgeois revolution. European society changed a bit, at least superficially, but its conduct toward non-Europeans continued as before. You can see what the American Revolution of 1776 did for American Indians. It's the same old song.

Revolutionary Marxism, like industrial society in other forms, seeks to "rationalize" all people in relation to industry - maximum industry, maximum production.

[MIM3: The above statement is simply untrue. Marx called for production in line with the self-interests of workers. Killing themselves with pollution is not the self-interests of workers. It is the self-interest of capitalists and middle-classes to distort what Marx said, however.]

[Means continues:] It is a materialist doctrine that despises the American Indian spiritual tradition, out cultures, our lifeways. Marx himself called up "precapitalists" and "primitive." Precapitalist simply means that, in his view, we would eventually discover capitalism and become capitalists; we have always been economically retarded in Marxist terms. The only manner in which American Indian people could participate in a Marxist revolution would be to join the industrial system, to become factory workers, or "proletarians," as Marx called them. The man was very clear about the fact that his revolution could occur only through the struggle of the proletariat, that the existence of a massive industrial system is a precondition of a successful Marxist society.

I think there is a problem with language here. Christians, capitalists, Marxists. All of them have been revolutionary in their own minds, but none of them really means revolution. What they really mean is a continuation. They do what they do in order that European culture can continue to exist and develop according to its needs.

So, in order for us to really join forces with Marxism, we American Indians would have to accept the national sacrifice of our homeland; we would have to commit cultural suicide and become industrialized and Europeanized.

At this point, I've got to stop and ask myself whether I'm being too harsh.

[MIM3: It's not harsh so much as analysis based on a pipe-dream, that the world will go without industry. To even conceive that is a sign of the dualist sickness. Oh sure, it's opposite of some other sicknesses, but still a sickness. Those of us who conjure spiritual realities far removed from material reality are the ones creating justifications for genocide. The farther one's spiritual ideas are from reality, the more violence is necessary to achieve them. In some cases, it may even be self-inflicted violence. We hear some Quaker- brainwashed Indians say they would rather die than give up their spiritual view of the world and they would rather their whole people die as well. That is dualism of the destructive sort. If it were truly indigenous thought, indigenous people would have died out tens of thousands of years ago.

Right now the fastest way to generate clothing and shelter is still industry. Denying those humyn needs is a sign of dualist sickness, trendy with the Euro-Amerikan middle-classes.]

[Means continues:] Marxism has something of a history. Does this history bear out my observations? I look to the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union since 1920 and I see that these Marxists have done what it took the English Industrial Revolution 300 years to do; and the Marxists did it in 60 years. I see that the territory of the USSR used to contain a number of tribal peoples and they have been crushed to make way for the factories. The Soviets refer to this as "the National Question," the question of whether the tribal peoples had a right to exist as people; and they decided the tribal peoples were an acceptable sacrifice to industrial needs. I look to China and I see the same thing. I look to Vietnam and I see Marxists imposing an industrial order and rooting out the indigenous tribal mountain people.

I hear a leading Soviet scientist saying that when the uranium is exhausted, then alternatives will be found. I see the Vietnamese taking over a nuclear power plant abandoned by the U.S. military. Have they dismantled and destroyed it? No, they are using it. I see China exploding nuclear bombs, developing nuclear reactors, and preparing a space program in order to colonize and exploit the planets the same as the Europeans colonized and exploited this hemisphere. It's the same old song, but maybe with a faster tempo this time.

The statement of the Soviet scientists is very interesting. Does he know what this alternative energy source will be? No, he simply has faith. Science will find a way. I hear revolutionary Marxists saying that the destruction of the environment, pollution, and radiation will be controlled. And I see them act on their words. Do they know how these things will be controlled? No, they simply have faith. Science will find a way. Industrialization is fine and necessary. How do they know this? Faith. Science will find a way. Faith of this sort has always been known in Europe as religion. Science has become the new European religion for both capitalists and Marxists; they are truly inseparable; they are part and parcel of the same culture.

[MIM3 replies: It is better to have faith in people than spiritual forces. For this reason Mao referred to the people as god in a metaphorical story, "The Old Man and the Mountain."]

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