Praxis Paper Series-1
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After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the disintegration of the mighty Soviet Union in 1990, bourgeois think-tanks and academia of the West reveled in hysteric caterwaul. The death of Marxism and Socialism was proclaimed; the age of 'meta-narratives' was finally over; the last oppressiveness of the 'modern' was finally over, and the 'post-modern' had, at last, begun! The hired hack of the imperialist Rand Corporation, Francis Fukuyama, trumpeted the ultimate victory of liberal bourgeois democracy and thus, 'the End of History.' However, a few years back in 2007, when Francis Fukuyama was in 'India Today Conclave' to deliver a lecture on the challenges before the 'New World' (which, of course, for the likes of Fukuyama, means a world with the Anglo-Saxon axis at the helm of the affairs and neo-con czars ruling the roost around the globe!), he opined that the most dangerous challenges before the liberal bourgeois democracy today are Maoism and Islamic Terrorism. Islamic terrorism is the Frankenstein created by Imperialism which does not have any systemic utopia to realize; it is the product of a reaction and therefore does not have any positive proposal for the future, except the fantasies of an imagined past. But why was Fukuyama so worried about Maoism, which according to him, was already a spent force almost two decades ago? If Socialism and Marxism were dead, why so many books, articles, etc are written every year to refute it again and again? Why the imperialist media is still untiringly waging its crusade against Communism and Bolshevik Revolution?
Now, the period of capitalist triumphalism is over; world capitalist system is submerged in the mire of the stubborn crisis which began with the subprime crisis in the US in 2007. The epicentre of crisis is shifting eastwards every year. By 2009 the epicentre of the economic upheaval had shifted to the European Union and taken the form of sovereign debt crisis which still plagues several European countries and especially Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal. In 2011, the epicentre shifted even eastwards and the growth rates of celebrated Eastern engines of global growth, China and India, recorded their all-time low in almost a decade. One could expect that in the coming 2-3 years the Asian giants will be caught in the whirl of imperialist crisis even more seriously. Every year the finance ministers of different countries claim that soon the crisis will be over; claims of recovery are made every now and then; but the crisis is proving too stubborn and systemic to go away. In such a situation of gloom, the imperialist bosses are reading Marx to understand the sheer lunacy of the capitalist financial system that they themselves have created! (Sarkozy was caught red-handed by the media, while reading 'Das Capital' when he was still the president of France!) The age of 'postmodernism', 'poststructuralism', 'post-…....'....seems to be over for the university academe worldwide; while some are claiming that they never were postmodernists, others contend that they subscribed to a version of postmodernism which was not hostile to Marxism; still others argue that they only learnt a thing or two from postmodernism to cure Marxism of 'economic determinism' and 'class reductionism', etc. They have, for quite some time now, been talking about a 'return to Marx', 'resurgence of socialism', 'revival of Marxism', etc, simply not realizing that Marx and Marxism had always been there all this while, when the ideological myopia had gripped the bourgeois academe and university intelligentsia; when the wave of skepticism had taken over even various communist revolutionaries and thinkers around the world and they were pondering over a revision of the Marxist theses; when, with the imminent arrival of 'crisis' following the fall of the USSR, various Left academicians and thinkers had gone on the 'philosophical vocation', in the words of Louise Althusser! That period is certainly over now. But what types of 'return to Marx' are in vogue these days? Are they really a genuine return to Marx? We will discuss these issues a little later.
Its clear as daylight now that the period following the fall of the Soviet Union has been a witness to the increasingly crisis-ridden and decadent capitalism. The world capitalist system now plunges into recession and slump at the drop of the hat. It is more prone to crisis than ever. The unproductive nature of capitalism has increased in an unprecedented manner and speculation and unproductive stock market investment rules the world economy. The excessively fragile nature of this terminally diseased system is demonstrated by the fact the now an individual broker-cum-speculator like George Sores can bring about a total collapse of the financial system and inaugurate a global slow-down. Evidently, capitalism has become more crises-ridden, moribund, misanthropic, and decadent than ever and it can only give war, destruction, starvation, ecological disaster, unemployment, malnutrition, homelessness and poverty to the people of the world. It has exhausted all its positive and progressive potentialities one and a half centuries ago and now it has reached a dead end. Rosa Luxemburg had once said that the humanity has only two alternatives: socialism or barbarism. Now, it can be said that the humanity has only two alternatives: Socialism or Annihilation.
It is quite apparent now that the think-tanks of the Western capitalism are deeply concerned about the resurgence of working class movements, people's struggles and also of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces in the 'Third World' countries, which, it is worth recalling, Lenin had called the 'weak links' of Imperialism. From India to South Africa, Indonesia, Arab countries, Mexico and Southern and Eastern European countries, workers are spontaneously taking to the streets. India herself has witnessed a spurt in the working class militancy in recent years. From Gurgaon-Manesar, Yanam and Tirupur to Forbesganj, Ludhiana, Delhi and Gorakhpur, workers are waging militant movements for their rights. These spontaneous movements often peter out when they achieve some of their pecuniary aims, or when these aims seem to be out of reach for the moment. But, this much is certain that the lull which had gripped the working class movement for quite some time is over now. At the same time, the Indian ruling class is getting exposed in an unprecedented way due to its own internal contradictions. Anti-corruption crusades of Anna Hazaare and now Arvind Kejriwal symbolize and represent the petty-bourgeois aspirations of the urban upper middle class of India, which has fantastic imaginations about the good bourgeois citizen 'life in a metro', with no corruption, no slums, shopping malls, multiplexes, good governance, no scenes of poverty and destitution, etc. Needless to say, the fantasies of 'saint-capitalism' in all its versions have been historical failures and are destined to be so. However, the present internal contradictions among the different sections of the ruling class are exposing it to the last limits and there is nothing surprising in it; in each and every instance of economic and political crisis, the rulers fight among themselves like dogs! The media show of the likes of Hazaare-Kejriwal serves the present system by creating illusions of saint-capitalism, however, such illusions are not long-lasting. Secondly, such illusions do not affect the working classes much.
However, the resurgence of the Communist and working class movement is not threatened by the clown brigades of Anna Hazaare and Arvind Kejriwal. The most serious threat that the Communist movement has before it comes from within and not without.
We are living in an interesting period. The history of the contemporary world begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the USSR. These events form a watershed in the history of the modern world. Though, the socialist experiment of the USSR fell after the death of Stalin when in the 20th Congress of the Bolshevik Party, Khrushchev made his (in)famous "revelations" about Stalin (the recent researches by Grover Furr, Mario Sousa, Ludo Martens etc. have demonstrated the falsity of these "revelations") and propounded the theory of "three peacefuls" and initiated modern revisionism, the namesake socialist state (what had famously been termed as "actually or really existing socialism") existed in the USSR till 1990. In China too, with the defeat of the "Gang of Four", the Maoist line was defeated by the revisionist faction in the Chinese Party and then Deng Xiao Ping put forward his theory of "market socialism". By the early 1960s and then again in the early 1980s, the realization about the fall of the socialist experiments in the USSR and China was gaining ground among the Communist revolutionaries of the world, though there were extremely significant debates about the nature and characterization of social formation of the USSR after the 1950s between Paul Sweezy, Charles Bettelheim, Al Szcymanski, Raymond Lotta, etc. With the formal collapse of the Soviet Union, all illusions about the "really existing socialism" evaporated. As far as China is concerned, by the early 1990s, even a liberal historian like Immanuel CY Hsu, a pupil of JK Fairbank was asking the question, "Is China going capitalist?" Now, it is not even a question! Everybody knows that China has already gone capitalist, and even more capitalist than the openly capitalist neoliberal economies. In short, now there are no illusions about "really existing Socialism" whatsoever at least in the Marxist-Leninist circles of the world. It is useless to talk about Aijaz Ahmad, Prabhat Patnaik, Prakash Karat, who are talking about a peculiar Chinese road to socialism, or seeing a 'ray of hope' in the Bolivarian experiments of Latin America (which are nothing but combination of welfare states combined with modern Latin American variant of radical and progressive Bonapartism). We can leave such intellectuals with their feel-good fantasies about whatsoever.
As for us, the revolutionary communists, despite all our differences, this much is clear: the first round of the proletarian revolutions and socialist experiments is over. The period of reversal and pessimism too, that followed this first round is in its later phase. We have rich and heroic heritage of the Socialist experiments of the 20th century; we also have the negative experiences of these experiments; after Mao's theory of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which put forward a scientific understanding of continuing the proletarian revolution during the protracted phase of socialist transition, perpetual revolution in the superstructure, eliminating the 'three great interpersonal disparities' to put an end to exchange relations, commodity production, and constant revolutionization of production relations even after the seizure of power; various communist intellectuals and organizations also have done the historical review and sum-up of these great experiments; however, we are far from having a complete understanding of the complexities of the protracted period of socialist transition. A critical Marxist appreciation of the Socialist experiments of the 20th century is essential for a resurgence of Communism. Objective conditions for such a resurgence are in preparation. However, the same cannot be said about the subjective forces. Here we can return to our discussion on the challenges of Communist movement, not only in India, but in the entire world.
Notwithstanding the systemic terminal crisis of world capitalist system, the communist movement itself is in the state of disintegration. The Marxist-Leninists around the world are scattered and divided over the most crucial questions. The case of India is no different. Even if we do not take the revisionist-reformist parliamentary Left into consideration (which would have been a sheer waste of time!), we have the burden of interpreting the present crisis of the Communist movement. Before we move on to a brief discussion on the crisis of the movement, we would like to make a clarification. A number of communist organizations, groups and intellectuals are today talking about a "crisis" in the Marxist ideology and science. We do not subscribe to this view. Most of the contemporary ideological attacks on Marxism have nothing new in them. First, let us talk about the attacks from outside the Marxist theoretic paradigm. The most important among the recent attacks on Marxism was the postmodernist offensive. This offensive has already been discredited. Originating from the ideological confusion and skepticism created by the Social Imperialism of the USSR in the late 1950s and onwards, this bourgeois stream of thought first claimed to be something "more radical and revolutionary" than Marxism. The milestone in the process of formation of this ideological trend was May, 1968 in Europe. Thinkers like Foucault, Ranciere, Lyotard, Derrida etc accused Marxism, and especially the Bolshevik variety of Marxism to be authoritarian and totalitarian. The notions of 'totality', 'generality' and 'universality' were attacked by these philosophers. Foucault claimed that the structures of power cannot be subverted by collective action, because any collective (class) action would be based on the notion of 'universality' and 'generality' and therefore will be 'oppressive'. The only way to subvert 'power' would be queer activism on the individual plane that would revolt against all conceptions of 'normal', 'general', 'universal' and 'total'. Thus, the concerted class action was denied agency by these philosophers in a variety of ways. For them, what needs to be emphasized was the notion of 'fragments' and 'particularity'. Later, this view was buttressed with new terminological devices of postcolonial thought, poststructuralism, Orientalism and 'linguistic turn' introduced by Spivak, Said, and Derrida. The most decadent phase in the journey of the post-modernist stream of thought came with the advent of capitalist triumphalism of the 1990s in the form of the likes of Francis Fukuyama. This was also the period when the academic trends which were the offshoots of this ideological stream, inadvertently coalesced with the Fascist/fundamentalist agenda of the right-wingers, for example, the Subaltern Studies in India. In fact, the entire postmodernist agenda apparently stood with the fundamentalist Right-wing in most of the countries by the 1990s. The claimed "radicality" and "revolutionary character" of the postmodernist, poststructuralist and Orientalist agenda had reached its political nirvana by the end of the 1990s. Various Marxist thinkers and groups have already shown that postmodernism, right from its inception, was nothing but a curiously reactionary amalgamation of the anti-Humanism of Nietzsche and Spengler, the postindustrial theories of the likes of D.Bell, the 19th century Nihilism, Anarchism, the neo-Kantian extensions of the Quantum theory and the neo-liberal ideology of the rising neo-cons. One of the political expressions of this ideological trend was the rise of the NGO politics which preached the 'celebration of fragments' and 'identity politics'. The main targets of attack were the notions of class, private property, economic exploitation, state, party and reality. Everything was the turn of language; reality was nothing but the subjective construction of mind of the observer. As expected, this trend soon lost steam and itself proved to be a lunatic subjective construction of the minds of decadent bourgeois intelligentsia. Their claim to novelty has now been thrown into the garbage bin of history. There is no need to refute them further. However, some political nouveau riche in India's communist movement have suddenly experienced a moment of epiphany! Completely ignoring (or may be they just do not know about them!) the already victorious critiques of these reactionary bourgeois ideological trends, these groups are contending that postmodernism, Quantum theory, etc have created an ideological crisis for Marxism! We can leave the task of "absolving" Marxism to them and move ahead. As Mark Twain once said, "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience!"
However, more serious are the attacks that are being made today from within the Communist circles. We can categorize these onslaughts in different types. Before we move on to this categorization, we would like to point out the fact that there is one thing that these "Left" trends share: the attack at the core of Marxism-Leninism. The principal targets of their attack are the notions of class, class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the need of a vanguard party, the Leninist understanding of the relationship between class, party and state. Again, these "insider" attacks cannot claim any novelty except at the plane of nomenclature. These are mixtures of good old 19th century Anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, the early 20th century neo-Kantian "Marxism", anarcho-syndicalism, operaismo of the Tronti-brand, council communism of Pannekoek and Mattick, and different shades of late-20th century non-party revolutionism.
The first category of the alien tendencies within the Communist movement today is the trend of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism. Various Marxist intellectuals as well as organizations today are claiming that the reason behind the failure of the 20th century Socialist experiments was that the party substituted the class; that the class dictatorship was replaced by party dictatorship; that the class was depoliticized and party took over all the power; the slogan of 'all power to the Soviets' became that of 'all power to the party', etc. These are not new allegations. Rosa Luxemburg, before rectifying most of her views regarding the Russian revolution and the Bolshevik Party, leveled the same charges against Lenin and his party; similarly, Kautsky in his protracted diatribe against the Bolsheviks used these very arguments; later Paul Levi, the Johnson-Forrest tendency of the Trotskyite movement put the same blame on the Bolsheviks; the tendencies of "left-wing" communism used to say same sort of things about Lenin and Bolshevism; and Tronti's operaismo, the European and especially Dutch autonome movement uses the same rhetoric. These arguments against the need of a vanguard party, or against the institutionalized leadership of the party in the initial phase of construction of Socialism had already been answered by Lenin in his devastating critique of "left-wing" communism, then during the controversy between the Workers' Opposition on the one hand and Trotsky and Bukharin on the other; and also his reply to Kautsky's criticism of Bolshevik revolution and party. Those arguments need not to be repeated here. The anarcho-syndicalist tendency within the Communist movement derives this conclusion from the experience of the Soviet socialist experiment, that it was the vanguardist party whose substitutionism should be blamed for the failure of socialism. Needless to say, this line of argument is grossly mistaken. Lenin argued in clear terms that the tendency to pit the party against the class is an anarcho-syndicalist tendency. First of all, the party is nothing but the advanced detachment of the proletariat; the embodiment of the proletarian ideology. Secondly, in the initial phases of the construction of socialism, and this especially holds true for less developed capitalist countries, the party will have to give institutionalized leadership for a long time to come; proletarian worldview and spontaneous working class consciousness are two different things; a considerable part of the working class is submerged in the petty-bourgeois consciousness up to its knee, to use Lenin's words; all forms of working class spontaneity cannot be celebrated from the proletarian standpoint; Lenin cautioned against the reification of working class spontaneity and contended that for a long time the party will have to provide institutionalized leadership; Lenin argued that the principal instrument of proletarian dictatorship is the party; we need not to quote here the famous metaphor of cogwheels and conveyor-belts that Lenin used to depict the entire machinery of proletarian dictatorship and the role of Soviets and trade unions in it. However, without answering the arguments of Lenin, without understanding the Leninist conception of the relation between the party, state and class, the new anarcho-syndicalists are rattling about the evil that the party is! Lenin also cautioned that if the class is not trained by the vanguard in taking decisions, then the party is bound to fall into bureaucratic deformities and bourgeois distortions; he realized that without a living relationship between the class and the party through the class organization of trade unions and organs of people's power, that is, the Soviets, the party will become alienated from the masses; he was also aware of the danger of economism that was prevalent not only in the Bolshevik party but also in the entire working class movement of Europe. He refuted time and again the fallacy of the theory of non-dialectical primacy of productive forces and argued that the rapid development of productive forces is not sufficient for the building of socialism; he was still looking for the solutions of the problems of socialism in the USSR when he died. This task was left to Mao who devised a complete Marxist theory of the socialist transition and the strategy and general tactics of proletarian revolution during the transition, with his concept of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is ironic that the French fashionable New Left tried to appropriate Mao by claiming that Cultural Revolution was a revolution against the party! Mao had made it clear that it was a revolution against the bourgeois headquarters within the party, not the party itself. He resolutely believed that only party can be the principal instrument of proletarian dictatorship and all forms of working class spontaneity are not necessarily proletarian. The Shanghai Commune incident clearly demonstrated this fact. However, for the anarcho-syndicalist this was a mistake of Mao and here Mao drifted to the Right. In the USSR, after the death of Lenin the task of conceptualizing the problems of socialist transition was left unfinished; the only slogan that became the order of the day was to increase production as rapidly as possible; the development of productive forces was considered to be the way to reach communism, because communism could only be achieved when the stage of abundance has been achieved. But this approach exacted a heavy price in the negligence of aspect of revolutionization of production relations. The lopsided emphasis on the development of productive forces forced the soviet planning to use bourgeois experts, pay them high salaries; this approach privileged the experts; wage differentials increased; the gap between the mental and manual labour increased; the gap between agriculture and industry, and also between town and country increased. This buttressed the exchange relations, commodity production and the regeneration of bourgeois elements on "hourly basis"; these bourgeois elements developed a stronghold within the party. Stalin, till the end of his life, continued to incessantly fight against these bourgeois elements and bureaucrats; however, he had only been fighting against the symptoms; the real cause was a flawed understanding of socialist construction and protracted nature of socialist transition. In 1936, Stalin claimed that now there are no antagonistic classes in the USSR; there are only working class, poor peasantry and intelligentsia, who have to work together for the development of socialism. However, before his death, he had understood his mistake. But then it was too late to rectify things and the bourgeois headquarters had entrenched itself within the party. In the last phase of his life, Stalin was battling against the party bureaucracy and thinking on the problems of socialism. We cannot go in more detail regarding the problems of the Soviet socialist experiment, but this much is clear: the new anarcho-syndicalists in the communist movement are trying to present an oversimplified understanding about the failure of the 20th century socialist experiments by putting all the blame on the party, whereas, just the opposite is the truth: it was precisely the failure of the party to play its full role as the vanguard which provides institutionalized leadership to proletariat in getting organized as the ruling class, which acts as the guide of working class and trains it in taking political decisions, which is advanced detachment of the proletariat and absorbs the most advanced elements of the proletariat; which is therefore the embodiment of the proletarian ideology. The soviet experiment precisely demonstrates the fact that the role of vanguard is essential and inevitable. No class in history has ever ruled without the institutionalized leading role of its vanguard. Denying the role of the vanguard is like denying any agency to the proletariat.
The second "left-wing" trend is putting forward the same kind of arguments but in a different rhetoric. This trend is constituted more by individual intellectuals, intellectual groups and less by organizations or parties. These people in their attempt to "renew" communism are relying more on the philosophical ruminations of the so-called "new philosophers" and less on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The wave of these "new philosophers" was till recently in vogue among the fashionable "left" circles, however, now due to their own inconsistencies and hopping argumentative methodology is losing steam. Most of these "new philosophers" share their ideological-philosophical origins with the postmodernist thinkers, namely, the confused Paris of 1968. These thinkers also borrow a lot from the streams of old anarcho-syndicalism, workerism, and non-party revolutionism, however, they have put the old wine in the new bottle. The most prominent among these are Ernesto Laclau, Chantel Mouffe, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, etc. These philosophers, though in their own myriad ways, share their targets with the postmodernists (but they still claim to be "communists"): the notions of class, party, state, democracy and class dictatorship. Again, their "communisms" also are of different kinds! For instance, Alain Badiou in his 'The Communist Hypothesis' claims that 'Communism' is an eternal idea; the journey of this eternal idea is continuing since time immemorial and it has saw different milestones; for Badiou, Plato's 'Republic', Rousseau's 'Origins of Inequality', the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution constitute different moments in the journey of the eternal idea of 'Communism'; according to Badiou, the era of Marxian communism is over with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution; he contends that the revolutionary communist project is well past the notions of party, class and state; from this point, this theory of post-Marxist "communism" can be linked with the theory of Negri and Hardt. They have replaced the notion of capitalist-imperialist ruling class with 'empire'; the notion of revolutionary proletariat with 'multitude' and the notion of labour (the source of value) and nature with the concept of 'commons'. The categories of 'empire', 'multitude' and 'commons' obscure the most fundamental and necessary questions of revolution: who is the enemy, exactly? Who are friends of the revolution? Who will play the role of the vanguard? Is there any need of the vanguard party? In the works of Negri and Hardt, capitalism becomes an impersonal power; you know what symptoms to criticize; but you do not know what forces to fight, how to fight, whom to organize and how to organize? Allegorically speaking, Slavoj Zizek is to this fashionable "left" circle of "new philosophers" what Paris Hilton is to the fashionistas of the world! His position is very difficult to criticize, because he follows the law of 'unity of opposites' in a bizarre fashion! Every year, and sometimes many times within a year, his positions changes to the diametrically opposite to his previous position; so one can put forward critiques of his many positions! His curious blend of Hegel, Lacan and Marx is sometimes useful in cultural criticism, but politically, most of the times, it is not very useful. Sometimes, he drifts towards the non-party non-Marxian radical passivism of the Negri-Hardt and Badiou, at others, he might appear (and claim, too!) to be a Leninist; however, when one goes through what he calls "Leninism", they do not know who to feel sorry for: Zizek, Lenin or themselves? Notwithstanding the differences in colour and flavour of the philosophical loitering of these vagabond philosophers, one thing becomes crystal clear, when one is through their obscurantist, Monty Python-type terminology and gets a grip on what they are really saying: they not only share their intellectual origins with the postmodernists but also their targets. Their target is the ideological core of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Postmodernists were products of the era of capitalist triumphalism (immediately after the international defeat of Socialism) and the post-Marxist and allegedly Marxist "communist" vagabond philosophers are products of the era of capitalist pessimism, which also coincides with the period when there seems to be a lack of any viable, practiceable revolutionary "utopia". In the name of resurrecting the revolutionary current, they are actually denying any agency to revolution. We cannot present a comprehensive critique of these "new philosophers" here, however, there is definitely a need to present a cohesive Marxist-Leninist critique of these philosophers, which exposes the core of their ideology.
The third category belongs to the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary parties and groups of India and also other countries. We believe that the ML movement is in the process of disintegration. Right now, there is no such thing as, what used to called as the "ML camp". In the 45 years following the Naxalbari upsurge, what we have seen is not the emergence of an all-India revolutionary party, but the further disintegration and scattering of what was left after 1975-6. Secondly, the entire ML movement is plagued by a crisis on three accounts: its ideological position is incorrect, its programmatic position is outdated and its cadre force is not organized on the Bolshevik principle and vacillates between the extremes of openism and undergroundism; revolutionary massline is lacking. As far as, the ideological position is concerned, their understanding of the most advanced development of revolutionary Marxist theory, that is Maoism, is incorrect. Most of these groups do not have a coherent and complete understanding of the theory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. For them, the epochal contribution of Mao was the theory of New Democratic Revolution and Protracted People's War. On this basis, most the ML groups use the term 'Mao Tse-tung Thought'. It is not clear why CPI (Maoist), and especially those who belonged to the PWG faction, began to use the term 'Maoism' since the unity between PWG and MCCI, though their arguments does not show any qualitative leap in their ideological understanding? In our opinion, the greatest contribution of Mao was the theory of GPCR and on the basis of this very contribution we must call the latest phase of development of Marxist theory as Maoism. Lenin's contributions were called Leninism, because it was the Marxism of the era of Imperialism. Lenin put forward the strategy and general tactics of proletarian revolution in a new historical era, that is, the era of imperialism. We are still in the era of imperialism. Then why one should use the term 'Maoism'? In our opinion, this era of imperialism is overlapped by the protracted historical era of Socialist transition which began with the Paris Commune of 1871. Mao stipulated the strategy and general tactics of proletarian revolution in the era of Socialist transition, when the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established. The theory of New Democratic Revolution, in our opinion was the extension of the Leninist theory of People's Democratic Revolution in the specific and peculiar conditions of China which constituted a new reality, a semi-feudal semi-colonial social formation. The theory of protracted people's war was the path of revolution that suited to the peculiarities of Chinese Revolution. However, these are not the contributions, on the basis of which the contributions of Mao could be termed as 'Maoism'. However, the theory of GPCR is the epochal contribution of Mao as it explored the dynamics of class struggle in a socialist society and the strategy to continue proletarian revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here too, we cannot go in further detail, however, we are completely open-ended in this understanding and ready to discuss the nuances of our position.
Programmatically too, the ML camp's position is outdated. They are still sticking to the general line of 1963 and believe that India is a semi-feudal semi-colonial or neo-colonial formation; the Indian bourgeoisie is comprador; feudal production relations are dominant in agriculture and servile labour is the dominant mode of existence of labour in the agricultural sector. Most of these claims do not match with the material reality. In our opinion, India is a backward, but capitalist country. The dominant mode of production in the Indian social formation is capitalist mode of production; conceptually speaking, capitalist relations in agricultural have developed through the 'Prussian Path' and since the late 1950s, the ruling Indian bourgeoisie had achieved the transformation of the feudal relations into capitalist relations in the main, though feudal remnants remained. The Indian bourgeoisie is not a comprador bourgeoisie in our view, as no industrial bourgeoisie can ever be comprador; every industrial bourgeoisie needs market and it cannot afford to be comprador. 'Semi-feudal semi-colonial' and 'comprador' are specific and particular categories of Marxist political economy clearly explained by Mao; one cannot use these categories according to their whims and fancies. It is like cutting one's feet to match the size of the shoe! Indian reality betrays the outdated and dogmatic programmatic understanding of the ML camp. The peculiar kind of post-colonial (not 'postcolonial'!) backward capitalism of India has given rise to a bourgeoisie that is neither national, nor comprador and nor imperialist. There is no book of Marxism that claims that there can be only these three kinds of bourgeoisie! In our understanding, the Indian bourgeoisie is a 'junior partner' of Imperialism (not one or two imperialist countries or axes); it is politically independent and economically dependent; there is symbiotic relationship between this political independence and economic dependence; sometimes, the one seems to be the dominant reality, while at other occasion, the other; as a result, sometimes there is an optical illusion that the Indian bourgeoisie is behaving like a comprador; but one can provide equal number of instances when the Indian bourgeoisie has gone against the imperialist pressure and interests. And only one occasion is sufficient to prove that whatsoever be the case, but this much is sure that Indian bourgeoisie is not comprador! Comprador bourgeoisie does not have any character of its own. It rules on behalf of Imperialism and carries out each and every of its diktats. In our opinion, India is in the stage of Socialist Revolution, but a new kind of Socialist Revolution, because the element of change is dominant in the new versions of Socialist Revolutions. They will be different on a number of fundamental accounts and issues from the Bolshevik Socialist Revolution and the socialist revolutions that were expected in the 19th century Europe. Therefore, we propose to call it New Socialist Revolution. We cannot elaborate on this point right now, but we would appreciate any discussion on this question. We are open-minded on these formulations too and ready to engage in friendly and revolutionary debates and discussions.
As far as the cadre force of the ML camp is concerned, most of it is honest, courageous and committed. However, this much is not sufficient. The organizational principle of Bolshevism is not implemented in most of the groups and parties. As a result, the revolutionary massline is not implemented and thus the resultant vacillation between openism and undergroundism.
What has been termed as 'Red Star over India' by Jan Myrdal is a far cry from what Edgar Snow called 'Red Star over China'. Such irresponsible parodical comparisons create a lot of confusion and conceptual problems. The line of CPI (Maoist) in our opinion is a "left" adventurist line; it does not believe in revolutionary massline. The tribal areas where the loot and plunder of natural and human resources by the corporates is underway, it is not a matter of choice or ideological motivation for the tribal population but a matter of existence; they have to fight, if they have to live; in this, the CPI (Maoist) is providing a courageous leadership; however, this so-called 'red corridor' cannot be transformed into a countrywide revolution. There is a huge industrial working class in India that has been left at the mercy of the revisionist and corporatist trade unions of the social democratic and fascist parties. This working class is 22 crore strong. The agricultural working class is 32 crore strong according to the government data. The 54 crore strong proletariat is left as a political grazing ground for the bourgeois and revisionist parties; in such a situation, a 'red corridor' in the tribal areas, that are experiencing the most naked, most barbaric and predatory form of loot, plunder and capitalist accumulation, cannot be sufficient for the cause of Indian Revolution. Indian state cannot be subverted from this programme, from this path. At most, such a trend can create a law and order situation for the state, and it will continue to exist in a post-colonial backward capitalist country where the most advanced form of capitalist accumulation in some areas is curiously accompanied by the most barbaric forms of 'primitive accumulation'; such a trend will continue to exist until there is the resurgence of a new revolutionary communist party with a correct ideological, programmatic and organizational understanding. The trend of 'left' adventurism is the dialectical other of the trend of parliamentary reformist revisionist left (the rightwing deviation of Marxism) and it creates false hopes and ungrounded optimism among a section of population, and especially, the revolutionary youth driven with the romantic imaginings of revolution and revolutionary movement. But in the end, such hopes are shattered and worst kind of defeatism and pessimism grips the masses. It has happened in the past and given such understanding and line persists in the ML movement, it will happen again. In the long run, such an adventurist line, despite its honesty, sacrifice and courage causes more harm than benefit.
We would like to end on a few notes on the way to be taken for the resurgence of the revolutionary communist movement and organize a new revolutionary communist party.
We believe that today there is the need, more than ever, to defend the revolutionary content and core of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, because earlier it had been targeted by open reactionary bourgeois theories like postmodernism, postcolonial theory, etc. Now, it is being targeted by ostensibly radical philosophers who either claim to be Marxist, or post-Marxist communists, rather, we should say, postmodernist bourgeois philosophers camouflaged as revolutionary thinkers. Secondly, we need to fight against the anarcho-syndicalist, anarchist, liquidationist, non-party revolutionist, economist trends within the communist movement. These trends tantamount to what the "new vagabond philosophers" have been saying; ultimately, it targets the need for the vanguard, dictatorship of the proletariat, the notion of class, etc. Notwithstanding intentions, such trends in the Communist movement are causing much harm to the revolutionary cause, not only in India but around the world. There is a need to emphasize the Leninist party principle because, today, it is needed more than ever. Thirdly, we believe that the programme of New Democratic Revolution and the general line of 1963 has become a fetter for the forward march of Communist movement, not only India but in all countries which can be called the 'hot spots' of proletarian revolutions, turning into 'flash points'. We need to break this fetter and commit ourselves to a creative, independent and critical Marxist study of the social formation of India; it is not the negation of the 'two stage theory' and drifting to the Trotskyite formulation of 'permanent revolution'; we are just saying that the first stage was over with the resolution of the national question by national liberation movements and consequent capitalist transformation of agrarian relations through 'Prussian Path'; now, the question/agenda that we face today is of New Socialist Revolution. Fourthly, we must oppose and criticize the "left" adventurist line; it is doing a lot of harm which will be discernible only when the harm has been done. And lastly, it is needless to say that we must incessantly struggle to expose the revisionist Communist parties like CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML) Liberation, SUCI, etc. They have already been exposed to a considerable extent, however, they still play the role of the last line of defence of the capitalist system and they become especially relevant at the times of the capitalist crisis. Their trade unions have depoliticized a considerable section of the working class movement and plagued it with syndicalism, economism and trade unionism. They must be opposed and exposed at every possible instance.
We believe that the new revolutionary communist party cannot be organized through a process of party formation, that is, through the process of unity talks and bipartites between ML parties and organizations. We say this because dead organisms do not interact. If the party could be built through the process of party formation, it would have been built in the 45 years following the Naxalbari upsurge. It could not be built because the leadership composition of the ML movement has largely become political opportunist; the policy composition is incorrect and the cadre force in not conditioned according to the Bolshevik party principle. We believe that now party building has become the dominant factor in the organization of a new revolutionary communist party and party formation has become secondary. New communist elements need to be recruited, educated and trained; a new communist centre needs to be developed through this way; only such a new communist centre with fresh communist elements can develop the potential to morph into a revolutionary political magnate or blackhole which would attract the honest communist cadre in the movement. This is the long and difficult path, but this is the only path that we have. We are open to debates and discussions on this issue.
We conclude with the hope that this first paper in the 'Praxis Paper Series' would provoke, incite, invite and involve every communist who is still not swept away by the wave of skepticism, calls for revisions (not development!) in Marxism, agnosticism and cynicism; who is still committed to the cause of proletarian revolution; who has still not forgotten the science of revolution. We heartily invite all such comrades for warm, frictional and revolutionary comradely debates and discussions. Let hundred flowers bloom, let thousands of ideas collide!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Long live revolution!
Down with imperialism and capitalism!
With Revolutionary Greetings,
Polemic
