And this is why cultural studies people shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near actual real-world politics. No interest in genuinely engaging with anything I’ve actually said, just a facile dismissal of any comparison between Eurocentric, modernity-obsessed political movements on the right and left because, erm, ‘the right are bad and the left are good’ or something?

I chose the Bolsheviks because they’re a good example of a well-meaning Leftist movement with real power that fucked it when it came to their attitudes both to “the past” and to the cultures and ecologies of the Indigenous peoples they came to rule over. I chose to invoke this example because what you wrote, from a “left” perspective, reminded me of that same attitude. And now I know I was bang on!

Still, least you managed to get in some insulting accusations about “projecting fantasies onto Indigenous people” and trying “to rewrite the past to fit an agenda.” Oh, and something about the “white man’s burden,” I presume because, what, I’m white? FFS.

The only one chatting breeze about Indigenous communities is the person who clearly doesn’t give a shit about colonialism unless it’s being done by evil white Europeans. Which suggests you need to get out of the house a bit. Shit’s changed since 1492.

The only one glossing over any past violence here is the person who clearly knows a lot more about the history of European settler colonialism than they do about the history of the USSR. And tbh if you think that most European imperialists weren’t desperately kidding themselves that the slavery and genocide they brought to the rest of the world (‘cos yeah, it’s amazing, but we actually agree on that point!) was about more than just “extraction, domination, and erasure” - that they weren’t endlessly harping on about “saving” less “modern” peoples and bringing “progress” to the rest of the world - then you have a very poor understanding of European settler colonialism, too.

Ah well. Good luck with your adventures in “cultural criticism.” Guess I’d better get back to my, erm, fetishization of Indigenous life :)