A Critical Reassessment of the Socialist Experiments of the

twentieth century instrumental for Marxists today

March 25, 2012. ‘POLEMIC’, a discussion forum of intellectuals, activists and students organized a talk on ‘Socialist Experiments of the twentieth century, Capitalist Restoration and Problems of Socialism’ in Mumbai on Sunday. Abhinav Sinha, editor of the renowned hindi magazine ‘Muktikami Chhatron-Yuvaon ka Aahwan’ was the speaker on the occasion. Prashant, the convener of ‘Polemic’, Mumbai, while welcoming the audience , said that Polemic’s aim is to initiate an open ended discussion and debate on the real issues pertaining to the progressive movement and ideology today, and the problems of building a new revolutionary socialist alternative to the present oppressive and exploitative capitalist system. He then asked abhinav to express his views on the aforementioned topic.

                         

Abhinav, who has been active in the student-youth movement and labour movement for past twelve years and is researching on the new forms of working class resistance in the age of globalization, began his talk with a short discussion on the serious crisis that the entire capitalist order is facing today. People all around the world are taking to streets against vagaries of capitalism. However, these spontaneous movements have clearly failed to provide any alternative to capitalism. Various speculative philosophers like Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, etc are propagating a new fallacy in the name of communism and in fact it is the reiteration of the same old post-modernist attack on the revolutionary core of Marxism, that is, the concept of class, proletarian dictatorship, state, and revolution. Today, the revolutionary core of the Marxist theory must be defended against the onslaught of these new vagabond philosophers, who are being hailed by the western media as most innovative and 'entertaining' thinkers. Euphoric claims about ‘end of history’, ‘end of ideology’ etc notwithstanding, history has shown that Marxism is the only ideology that has been able to provide a scientific, practicable alternative to the predatory capitalist system. Therefore, in the present scenario one needs to once again make a critical assessment of the successes and failures of the socialist experiments of the 20th century, especially the Soviet socialism.

Further elaborating on this point, Abhinav said that communist revolutionaries must learn form the positive and negative experiences of the Soviet and Chinese experiment of socialist transformation. Socialism is a long transitional period between a class society and classless society. During this period too, classes, economic inequality, bourgeois values, rights and privileges are in the existence in society. During this protracted period of the socialist transition, for a very long time, the possibilities of capitalist restoration are present from the side of the old exploiting classes as well as the new bourgeiosie which comes into existence within the revolutionary party and state. This new bourgeoisie is generated from the continuing disparity between mental labour and manual labour, between town and country and between industry and agriculture. Therefore, under socialism the fundamental question is to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of proletariat. These three great inter-personal disparities have to be eliminated through perpetual revolution in the sphere of ideology, culture, art, psychology, politics and other spheres of superstructure. Under socialism too, the class struggle is the key link of the development of society. And here lies the unprecedented significance of the Great Cultural Proletariat Revolution, the epoch making contribution by Mao-tse-tung, and this is precisely where the Soviet socialism under Stalin failed. 

While Stalin defended the achievements of socialism in the Soviet Union and made unprecented advance in direction of abolition of private property, he failed to understand that even after the abolition of juridical forms of private property, the revolutionization of production relations has to be continued under the proletarian state, and merely developing production itself would not lead to a class-less society. Despite his incomplete understanding of Socialist construction, Stalin defended the USSR under his leadership, against the Nazi invasion and single-handedly won the war. His achievements were great despite serious mistakes that he committed. Winding up his talk, Abhinav said that the new editions of proletarian revolution can be created on the basis of this understanding and preparation can be made in advance to prevent various possibilities of the capitalist restoration. He added, however, that before that the communist revolutionaries around the world have to get rid of their dogmatism and reductionism and understand Marxism as a science

rather than a set of dead formulae.

Around 55 intellectuals, activists, and students attended the programme. The talk was followed by a session of open discussion. Various activists, intellectuals and students participated in the discussion, including Com. C. Shekhar, Mr. Das from CGPI, Mr. Praveen Nadkar from 'Jan Hastakshep', Trade Union activist Ms. Deepti Gopwatee, Com. Vijay Kulkarni from Lal Nishan (Leninvaadi), Com. Shyam Sonkar from Republican Panthers, Asif from IIT Bombay, among others.

Socialist Experiments of the Twentieth Century, Capitalist Restoration and Problems of Socialism

     Is there any viable alternative to capitalist system? What

 were the successes and failures of the Socialist experiments

of the 20th century? Why did they fail? Do we really need to

go beyond the Marxist Communism as some speculative

vagabond “philosophers” have claimed? What are the

problems of Socialism? Can we really organize the

revolutionary redemptive activity of the working class, in the

words of Walter Benjamin, in the 21st century within the

framework of Marxism?

To discuss all these questions

Polemic

invites you to a talk on

Socialist Experiments of the Twentieth Century, Capitalist

 Restoration and Problems of Socialism

Date: 25th March
Time:  2:30pm

Place: Shramik (Vincent Building) , Road No.-3, Lokmanya

Tilak Colony, Dadar(East), Mumbai

Speaker: Abhinav Sinha

(Editor, 'Muktikami Chhatron-Yuvaon ka Aahwan', New Delhi)

 polemic.mu@gmail.com

Background:

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1990, the entire

bourgeoisie wallowed in hysteric shrieks, proclaiming the ultimate victory of capitalism and

liberal bourgeois democracy. The hired hack of Rand Corporation, Francis Fukoyama

contended that liberal bourgeois democracy is the best that the humanity can hope to

achieve and therefore capitalism is the ‘end of history’ and rational-choice making liberal

bourgeois individual is the ‘last man’. However, in 2005 when Fukoyama visited New Delhi

to deliver a lecture he conceded that capitalism is faced with a grave challenge, and that is

Maoism! Apparently, he was obliged to eat his own words and liberal bourgeois democracy

now did not simply seem to him the end of everything. The recent years have shown it

even more clearly.

Now, it is a cliche to say that the entire capitalist order is tangled in the most serious crisis

after the Great Depression of the 1930s. Everyone knows it. Capitalism looks far from being

victorious and healthy. Working masses in even the advanced countries are on the streets

against the vagaries, chaos and anarchy of the capitalist economy and society; Eurozone is

submerged in the mire of sovereign debt crisis which is only the continuance of the

Subprime crisis which originated in the last days of 2006 in the US and then took the entire

global financial system by storm. In fact, the growth rate of the world economy has not

even touched the mark of 3 percent since the collapse of the Dollar-Gold standard in the

early-1970s. Clearly, the capitalist world is in a perpetual mild recession which breaks into

serious economic crisis at certain intervals. These intervals are becoming increasingly

shorter and that demonstrates that Imperialism is even more decadent, moribund and

parasitic than the times of Lenin.

However, there are broadly three kinds of responses to this crisis. One is the emergence of

popular and spontaneous anti-capitalist movements all around the world, especially in the

advanced western capitalist countries and relatively less-developed countries of Europe, like

Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc. These movements are spontaneous reaction of the masses of

these countries against the poverty, unemployment, homelessness, etc. These protests have

evoked a lot of enthusiasm in a section of the intelligentsia and academe. These

intellectuals and academicians are uncritically celebrating these spontaneous upsurges and

hope that these rebellions will automatically lead towards a better world.

Then there are intellectuals and thinkers who claim that the Socialist experiments of the

20th century showed that the project of Marxist Socialism has failed and ended in a

catastrophe, and that we need to go beyond the Marxist communism. Intellectuals like Alain

Badiou, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, etc. argue that there is a need for a

so-called ‘new type of communism’, which has moved beyond Marxism! Some say this

openly (like Badiou) and some say it the other way round (like Zizek), while claiming their

allegiance to the revolutionary Marxist theory. Though Trotskyites are different in their

ideological and political stances and manouvres, they, too, are trying to revive themselves

in the heat of the crucible of these spontaneous anti-capitalist protests.

The third type of response is that of the ML revolutionaries around the world. The ML

revolutionaries around the world are submerged in the mire of hopelessness and

pessimism. The source of this pessimism lies in their own dogmatism, incorrect ideological

understanding and programmatic position, and the lack/absence of a dialectical

understanding of the failure of the Socialist experiments of the 20th century. These ML

revolutionaries have found a new ray of hope in these movements. Most of the ML

revolutionaries of India also, are uncritically celebrating these anti-capitalist movements out

of their own sense of depression, frustration, pessimism and hopelessness.

Then there are various kinds of anarchists, nihilists, even right-wingers who are part of

these spontaneous upsurges. The anarchists are most active political component of the

present anti-capitalist protests. They had been hoping that these anti-capitalist protests will

prove the validity of their political arguments, especially, when even the Marxists and post-

Marxists are discrediting the Socialist experiments of the 20th century. However, they were

doomed to an anti-climax, as, sooner than expected, the Occupy Wall Street movement

dispersed.

So we are faced with a peculiarly difficult scenario. On the one hand, it has become clear as

daylight that the capitalist system and the liberal bourgeois democracy are not working.

People around the globe are taking to streets against this predatory system. The claims of

‘end of history’, ‘end of ideology’, etc. have been put to their proper place, that is, the dust

bin of history. Imperialism has become even more fragile, hollow, parasitic, moribund and

decadent in the age of Globalization and is persisting because of force of inertia. And yet, it

seems that there is no viable alternative to the capitalist system! The spontaneous popular

movements against the vagaries of global capitalist system have clearly failed to provide

any alternative, any scientific, practiceable utopia. The Marxist revolutionaries have no

clear-cut understanding of the Socialist experiments of the 20th century, their successes and

failures; there are post-Marxist thinkers who believe that there is a need for non-Marxist

communism; other left intellecuals have, mostly, nothing left in their minds. In such a

scenario, everyone who believes that there is a need for an alternative and there can be an

alternative, needs to ask himself/herself some questions.

Is there any viable alternative to capitalist system? What were the successes and failures of

the Socialist experiments of the 20th century? Why did they fail? Do we really need to go

beyond the Marxist Communism as some speculative vagabond “philosophers” have

claimed? What are the problems of Socialism? Can we really organize the revolutionary

redemptive activity of the working class, in the words of Walter Benjamin, in the 21st

century within the framework of Marxism?

These are the questions that everyone of us needs to answer, every person who is still

committed to change and who is not swept away by ideological speculations and

ruminations of the “free-thinkers”, who do not believe in the ‘end’ of everything, who can

still dream; who are not signatories of political and ideological skepticism and disbelief.

‘Polemic’ invites you to a talk by Abhinav Sinha on these very questions. He is editor of

well-known hindi magazine ‘Muktikami Chhatron-Yuvaon ka Aahwan’ and an activist and

researcher. The talk will be followed by an open discussion.

With Revolutionary Regards,

Polemic

Contact: Prashant- 09930490731,

Talk on 'Maruti Workers' Struggle: What went wrong?'

Talk on ‘Maruti Workers’ Struggle: What went wrong?' was successfully organised today at Students’ Activity Centre in Faculty of Arts, university of Delhi.Satyam Varma from ‘Bigul Mazdoor Dasta’ had been invited as the speaker. 

Satyam, a labour activist, and his group, Bigul Mazdoor Dasta was active during the Maruti workers’ agitation at Maruti’s Manesar plant. As is well known, the struggle launched by the Maruti Workers during the middle of this years, continued for almost two-and-a-half months. The workers’ major demand was the formation of an independent workers’ Union however, the struggle resulted in a failure, owing not only to the compromising stance taken by the workers’ leaders and their alleged backstabbing, but also because of long standing economists trends present within the workers’ movement itself in general. In his talk, Satyam gave an eye witness account of the struggle and underlined some of the issues confronting workers’ movement today. 

The militancy and spontaneous character of this struggle notwithstanding, Satyam pointed out that an uncritical celebration of working class spontaneity is problematic as certain strands within the workers’ movement tend to undermine the role of leadership, political vision and a well-thought out strategy and tactics by doing this. He also asserted that such trends were not new within the movement and had been present right since the inception of working class movement in India as well as the world. However, today it is more than necessary to counter such trends as Syndicalism, Anarchism and Economism because they have long been causing much harm to the working class movement. 

Abhinav of ‘polemic’ conducted the talk. Many labour activists and members of organizations interested in labour issues attended the talk. Paramjeet of PUDR kept position of PUDR and its involvement in the whole struggle. Anirban, a teacher from Delhi School of Economics underlined the role of vanguard and asked the question on what accounts the struggle can be called a failure. Dheeraj, a student from DU, Arya from Krantikari Naujawan Sabha, Prem Prakash of Karawal Nagar Mazdoor Union also commented and asked questions from Satyam. Satyam clarified Anirban and others that the failure of struggle will not be measured absolutely by the results but by the methodology and approach of organizations claiming to be vanguard of masses, the result very much depends on the objective conditions of struggle. The major failure in the struggle, he clarified, was firstly the illusion in workers of the concrete conditions of the struggle. Secondly, there was absence of concrete program to organize the struggle. Thirdly, there was no understanding of process of development of the movement. There is a large labour population in the whole Manesar area which was supporting the struggle but the union had no program to mobilize and organize them. Concluding his talk he said there is a huge population of workers and the whole mass fighting and struggling against the exploitation, the need is to organize them with a clear political vision and well thought out strategy and tactics.