Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians continues well into 2024, despite vocal condemnation by international human rights bodies and widespread public disapproval. After dedicating time to study the specific history of settler colonialism and resistance in Palestine over the past months, we expand our study to the history of capitalist imperialism to better understand the enduring systems of global hegemony and dominance that allow the genocide to continue unabated.

This series is for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of violent dispossessions that characterize the ascent of global capitalism and struggles for self-determination around the world—struggles which remain core to the socialist project. Across four sessions, this series examines foundational concepts, the role of national liberation within imperial power dynamics, and closes with a contemporary case study.

Our third session in the series examines “The National Question” – a question asked by socialists since the beginning of the twentieth century. Selected readings examine the role of nationalism in fights for political liberation, covering early anti-systemic movements in nineteenth century Europe, to 1974 on the eve of the Sixth Pan-African Conference, to the election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president in 2006, and finally America today.

Recommended readings listed below: Pages 54-77 in the Imperialism Reader

• “The Politics of Accumulation: Struggle for Benefits” From Historical Capitalism (Immanuel Wallerstein, 1983)
• “Aspects of the International Class Struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America” (Walter Rodney, 1974)
• “Indigenous Peoples and the Left in Latin America” (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, 2007)
• “Latin@s and the Decolonization of the US Empire” (Ramon Grosfogel, 2008)