“[A] collection of sharp theoretical essays, experimental political experiences, and thoughtful approaches to strategic and tactical questions, proves to be a rich accounting of revolutionary decolonial socialist praxis for our time.” Eve Mitchell, Unity & Struggle
A wide-ranging book, A Separate Star: Politics and Strategy for Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Colonial, and Anti-Imperialist Struggle records the thinking behind the Red Braid Alliance for Decolonial Socialism’s ambitious five-year experiment in community organizing with the singular goal of building the revolutionary power of subaltern people. Theorizing Red Braid’s experiences of struggle against eviction and homelessness, A Separate Star draws lessons and critiques from these specific experiences and broader historical revolutionary context, presenting challenging forms of revolutionary socialist politics and organization against the hegemony of settler colonial capitalism.
A Separate Star explores the class composition of Canada in the 21st Century; subalternity and class struggle in an imperialist and settler colonial society; decolonization and anti-colonial struggle; gender power and revolution; the limits of “white abolition” for ending white supremacy; and imperialism and the strategy of revolutionary defeatism. The result is a unique document that offers crucial political context and strategic lessons and proposals to confront the challenges that face anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, and anti-imperialist movements today. Red Braid’s record of their collective experiences and critiques casts a light that illuminates obstacles and potential pathways for newcomers to radical organizing as well as for fighters long engaged in struggle.
What People Are Saying
“Written with great humility, this collection of sharp theoretical essays, experimental political experiences, and thoughtful approaches to strategic and tactical questions, proves to be a rich accounting of revolutionary decolonial socialist praxis for our time. In A Separate Star, Red Braid captures several years of movingly self-reflective work, carving out a method that centers the self-activity of Indigenous peoples and “subaltern” layers of the working class. As an organizer, a communist and a theorist, I can say confidently that Red Braid has carried out the helpful task of documenting their group’s contributions, providing essential tools that will provoke theory and action for years to come. My only complaint is that I am left wanting more.” Eve Mitchell, Unity & Struggle
About the Authors
Red Braid Alliance for Decolonial Socialism was a revolutionary organization dedicated to building the sovereign power of Indigenous peoples and the autonomous power of the working class—in all their multiplicity. They practiced and advocated for a strategic unity between Indigenous peoples fighting for sovereignty through dismantling colonialism, the national struggles of peoples around the world against imperialism, and the working class for worlds without capitalism. Red Braid did not ascribe to any single revolutionary lineage, instead stretching to inherit analysis and strategy from the diverse and rich anti-colonial, anti- capitalist, and anti-imperialist experiences and projects of all our revolutionary ancestors, including struggles for Indigenous sovereignty, national liberation from imperialism and colonialism, and a wide range of socialist, communist, anarchist, and feminist experiments. Red Braid dissolved in Spring 2022.