Rejoinder

Waning Creativity of Marxists
Hari Murthy

That There are valid rea sons for questioning the relevance of Marxism in present-day world was enough for Mr Saral Sarkar to jump the signal and pronounce "Waning Relevance of Marxism" in his article [Frontier, Vol 45, No 20, Nov 25-Dec 1]. In fact, he says, his interest in Marxism started taking downward curve in mid 1970s and now it is not his interest; he declares, the relevance of Marxism itself is waning. One has to wonder whether his interest in Marxism is on the path of decline because of increased or because of its irrelevancy in the changed conditions.

There is nothing to talk about Mr Sandip Bandyopadhyay’s article for the simple reason that except the quoted statement, he neither substantiates his statement nor scrutinizes Marxism. The entire article is all about his state where the sales of Marxist literature have gone down as people are not enthused to read Marxist books aftermath the fall of left front Government in May, 2011.

And as of Mr Sarkar, it is repetition of his pet theme on "Eco-Socialism". For a person, whose interest in Marxism is lost and the relevance of Marxism is lost, Marxist doctrines, namely, historical materialism, dialectical thinking, class analysis, base and superstructure notions are still important and relevant. Mr Sarkar thinks that the important foundations of Marxism are correct and valid except, perhaps, the concept of "Limitless Growth". Sarkar chides Bellamy Foster for defending Marx for all his basic positions have already outdated and become indefensible. Sarkar seems to overlpok his self-contradiction. Also not forget that Sarkar could unveil contradiction in Marx's position because Marx appreciates the role of Capitalism in increasing the power of productive forces and also condemns it for unleashing exploitation of labour and causing degradation of nature at the same time.

"Limit to Growth" and "Limitless Growth" are really relative terms whose meaning and scope depends against what background of objective circumstances and the context they are referred to. Sarkar is not satisfied because Marx had not done enough on ecology and he did not use the word "Eco Socialism".

Marxism is guide to action. It has given the mankind the scientific philosophy with whose help the natural phenomena, the social stages of development can be interpreted and understood. It has defined an approach that can be used to know the unknown.

Marxism says, through the doctrine of Historical Materialism, that society passes through stages, from lower to higher and from one after the other. They are obvious even to a novice. One should remember pre-historical stages, the savage, the serfdom, feudalism and capitalism were not pre-planned, not premeditated. These stages evolved as an outcome of interaction of human labour with nature. They were the offshoot of development of productive forces and relations of production. This is not true with Socialism. Though material conditions necessary for socialist stage are reared in the capitalist stage, it should be planned. Here comes the role of mankind’s consciousness because the necessary material conditions alone do not bring in Socialism lest there would have not been the talk of revolutions.

What was Marx’s prediction? Socialist revolutions should take place in highly developed capitalist countries. Why socialist revolutions did not take place in Britain, Germany, France and other European countries. The social democrats there had not played the role they were supposed to play. Instead revolutions could take place in backward agrarian Russia and China. Revolution took place in Russia because Lenin refused to follow copybook Marxism. Revolution could take place in China because Mao refused to follow copybook Marxism and Leninism. Let us not infer that what Lenin and Mao did was not Marxism. On the other hand they could precisely do what Marx had expected. Interpret the specific conditions correctly and draw appropriate strategies and programs and achieve them—is the lesson that needs to be drawn.

So, what lessons one can draw from the failure of Communists in waging the revolutions successfully. They treat Marxism as dogma, chant it everyday but fail to understand how to apply its principles to the specific conditions, the problems facing the people. How can anybody expect Marx to give directions from his grave as to how to save the planet. How anybody can interpret that Marx or Marxism is against planning things, planning resources of every kind? Marxism's sole purpose is to establish not only exploitation free society but also society free from evils arising out of mishandling of nature and its resources. If correctly understood, it embodies everything that is required for betterment of mankind. If Marxists are not doing anything on this front— ecological front—it is not the fault of Marxism. The people whom Sarkar addresses as Marxists are not only doing anything or enough on this front but many other fronts as well.

Saral Sarkar wants Marxists to take a few leaves from the book of Malthus theory of population. Population exploding exponentially and remedy proposed by Malthus is to pray to the nature to unleash holocausts which kill people in very large numbers and thus balance available resources and the needs of living human beings. He is not satisfied that country like China adopted one couple-one child norm.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 24, Dec 23-29, 2012

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