How do you respond to this? It’s not something I’ve done a lot of research into, but it seems like one of the few critiques where you just say “critical support for the USSR, we need to learn from the past mistakes the soviets made and do better the next time around.”
I think this is just straight-up an inexcusable error/crime by the USSR. No need to defend it - simply say you agree, but that we need not repeat the errors they made. Point to other socialist states defending the right of minorities (China’s great) and then talk about how these things could actually be structured in our context. What does native independence/self-determination/landback actually look like under socialism?