Polemics

Of Communist Movement and Multi-Party System
Harsh Thakor

The most controversial trend within the Marxist-Leninist Movement across the globe is a kind of witch-hunting, rather finding fault with Lenin, Stalin and Mao and deploying of the multi-party system. The chief proponent of this line are the Nepalese UPCN(M) and the Kasama group of USA. Mike Ely initiated the Kasama Project Group, a breakaway group from the RCP, USA. His writings slander the achievements of Stalin to a considerable extent, and even deride Lenin and Mao on many an occasion. The Kasama trend almost reduces Stalin to a non-Leninist and all Mao's contributions and achievements as an anti-thesis of Stalinism. lt is a virtual negation of the basic senets of Marxism.

True, Kasama project is one of the greatest ever Marxist-Leninist efforts to create a forum for debate, which has been lacking in the history of the Communist Movement for long, while making a historic contribution by launching outstanding debates on Maoist polemics . However such forces are forgetting the important contribution of Lenin on the vanguard role of the party of the Proletariat and the revisionist character of parliamentary democracy. In fact it was Trotsky who promoted the multi-party system and the institutions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. By promoting multi-party system the proletarian revolutionary centre of power is denied and in fact a Socialist State can be toppled. It's not inappropriate to recall the experiences of the Communist Movement in Nazi Germany or worldwide. It was the Leninist Party that promoted the building and consolidation of Socialist Societies in Soviet Union and China. Whether the Bolshevik Revolution, the Civil War, the collectivization era, the Soviet World War Victory, all these achievements were the result of the foundation of the Leninist Party. Similarly in China although Mao called for continuous Revolution under the dictatorship of the Proletariat he called for a revolt within a proletarian party structure itself. The sweeping victories of the Socialist Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were unprecedented in history and can be attributed to Mao's persistence with upholding the Leninist Principles of the Dicatatorship of the Proletariat. True, there were opposing factions of revisionist nature like Lin Biao, Liu Shao Chi etc, but the struggle against them through mass campaigns was led by the proletarian party. It was the revolutionary trend within the proletarian party that fought the Lin Biaost forces politically and the rise of Lin Biao or Liu Shao Chi cannot be attributed to the lack of a multiparty system. No doubt, it was defeated by Deng Xiaoping's rightist forces, but a multi-party system may have promoted such forces much earlier. In Soviet Union Stalin violated democratic centralism to a considerable extent and any dissent was put down. Mao, tried to correct this by initiating a broad mass movement of the Chinese masses against the reactionary forces, and got several members of the party to go through self-criticism and reform. It was historic that a mass movement was led within the very Communist Party, unlike in the Soviet Union. Mao had learnt from the Stalin era that a revolutionary movement was required even within a socialist system. Below is a debate between Mike Ely and Joseph Ball, on the multi-party system.

Mike Ely : First, let me say, as an introduction... that I don't believe that multiparty competitive elections are a form that all future socialist society need universally adopt.

I think that it is not possible to assert or assume any single form of state organisation. Capitalist politics have many forms—constitutional monarchy, electoral democracy, fascism etc. And I assume that socialism will have a great many diverse forms over its historical transition—and it already has had quite diverse forms already—starting with the Paris Commune, the Russian Soviets, the stages of Stalin-era state, and the many Chinese forms from Chingkang mountains to the Cultural Revolution.

But I am interested to see an experiment in such an electoral form in some future revolution—including the one that the Nepali Maoists want to initiate. Competitive electoral democracy may not be possible or appropriate in some countries or in some revolutions or in some moments—there may not be "other" parties able to participate in such a process. But I would not rule it out, either.

Besides competitive electoral democracy, there may be other radical forms of socialist democracy we should consider (or invent together with the people): commune forms, cultural revolution style formations, and perhaps even yet-unimagined forms made possible by modern communications.

I think there may also be future cases where a party-state remains the only option possible—though even there our experience shows we would need to incorporate radical new proposals for popular input and supervision.

(An example from history: In 1918, Lenin tried to have a coalition government with the Left Social-Revolutionaries, but that coalition broke down over signing a peace treaty with Germany. Then a Left SR shot Lenin. The assassin declared that Lenin was restoring capitalism and caving in to imperialism. In other words, you can try to have a broader approach, but sometimes you don't find viable partners in the actual political moment. Does Joseph Ball want to argue that this Russian attempt was wrong in principle, because the Left SR's were inherently a bourgeois party - rather than a quite radical peasant-and-middle-class party? Was Lenin violating the dictatorship of the proletariat by bringing them into the government? Was Mao wrong in bringing a wing of the left GMD into his 1949 government? Hasn't previous communist theory held that a worker peasant alliance in early USSR, or even a broader governmental united front in China can be a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat?)

Joseph Ball : "The proletariat has a common interest."

Therefore, (by deduction) it can only have one party. And further, it would be wrong to "split" into two parties. The bourgeoisie (which has rivalries and competing interests inherently) can have multiple parties, but we can have only one.

Further (by logical deduction from that initial assertion), a plan for a multiparty election under socialism must be a plan for allowing the supposedly overthrown bourgeoisie itself to repeatedly contest for power.

Then comes the second assertion: Allowing the bourgeoisie to organize and contest for power is inherently opposed to a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Finally, if you scan that list of assertions and deductions, you get presented with a conclusion that the plan for multiparty elections violates the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This is the line that states that we should adopt capitalist methods, such as multi-party elections but not rule out revolutionary proletarian means either. The fact is that you have to decide between the socialist line and the capitalist line. You cannot uphold both at once, though very many pretend to remember Hua Guofeng? You either want to suppress the bourgeoisie or you want to allow them to organise. You cannot simultaneously suppress an exploiting class while institutionalising its rights to organise and providing it with political rights.

In the 1980s, virtually all the British 'revolutionary' Left had this line of either joining the Labour Party or at least encouraging workers to join it. Their argument was always the same-they were doing it 'in addition' to preparing for revolution. Once the Labour Party made it clear they would root out all the Trotskyists, the British revolutionary Left melted like snow in the Spring sunshine. Its current existence is a small fraction of what it was in the 1980s. Why? Because it never was revolutionary at all. Once it's parasitic relationship with the Labour Party was finished it lost all purpose and its members, lacking any meaningful activity to pursue, dispersed. It never had been doing revolutionary work 'in addition' to its reformist work so with reformist routes blocked it simply dissolved.

The same is true of the UCPN(M) now its revolutionary governments are dissolved. It lives or dies on the basis of whether it can maintain itself within the framework of the comprador state in Nepal. Either it establishes itself as a big player in bourgeois politics there, or it is crushed by the bourgeoisie.

"It's sometimes claimed that the multi-party elections in this system will take place under the dictatorship of the proletariat. But this makes no sense at all. If it's a dictatorship of the proletariat how can you allow bourgeois parties to compete for power with the party of the proletariat? It is absurd to believe that elections could routinely take place between two parties both with a proletarian line. The proletariat has a common interest. It's vanguard should be encouraging unity not institutionalising a split so we can blindly copy bourgeois democracy. Multi-party democracy has a material basis in capitalism because different factions of the bourgeoisie have different selfish interests. Not so the proletariat. The proletariat has a common interest...’’

Russia in World War 2
Another point of debate was the role of Soviet Russia in the World War 2. Joseph Ball : Mike Ely's comments are so full of unproven assertions, derived from bourgeois slanders of socialism, that it is hard to know where to begin.

Mike Ely states—'When the Soviet army swept through Nazi Germany, there was systematic rape of German women —in retribution for the atrocities the Nazis had committed on Russian soil. Is that justified—or is it an example of how far that Soviet army had come from being a red army?'

Joseph Ball—Where is their evidence that there was 'systematic rape', i.e. rape sanctioned by the authorities as a whole? All the evidence is that the Soviet authorities wanted to prevent rape as they believed such behaviour discredited the socialist ideals that the war had been fought for. In Iraq the sexual humiliation of prisoners by the yanks was clearly state sanctioned. When the US advanced into Germany at the end of World War 2, 500 soldiers a week were being charged with rape.

The fact that the Red Army still had some of the bad characteristics of bourgeois armies is a great tragedy but this was the first attempt at socialism and Mao did address many such problems in his theories of the People's Army.

Mike Ely says 'What did it mean in the Soviet Union when the most lofty and revolutionary of the youth were organised to deport whole peoples and imprison hundreds of thousands with a great deal of arbitrary injustice? It is one thing to ask what became of those targeted, and it is another (also important) thing to ask what becomes of the revolution and the revolutionaries, if the revolutionary gun gets pointed too long and too often at large sections of the people themselves.'

Joseph Ball : These policies took place in the context of a Nazi invasion that was intended to either annihalate or enslave the Soviet people in its entirity. The Nazis used the familar tactic of divide and rule, offering the prospect of survival to some people if they would betray their comrades. It was necessary to use harsh measures to defeat this tactic. If the divide and rule tactic had succeeded, then the Nazis would have won and world civilisation would have been extinguished. The whole world owes the Soviet people and their leader, Joseph Stalin for their world-historic victory over the Nazis.

Dissent within a Socialist Society
A most important debate is the one initiated by Bob Avakian, of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. He feels that Socialist Society should allow for the greatest dissent and criticism. In Stalinist Soviet Union opposition was suppressed and in Mao's China there was unjust persecution of Intellectuals, Writers, Scientists and Artists who differed from the system. A strong personality cult also existed. The most important factor here is the issue of the minority over the majority. Theoretically, a Socialist Structure represents the dictatorship of the proletariat and thus, the press, cultural organs etc represent their cause. The experiment lies whether in such a state allowing for ideas that are considered reactionary, or poetry, music or novels which do not represent the proletarian cause or intellectuals who are critical of the Socialist System is progressive. One must remember the huge range of ideas that persisted within the Russian Socialist Movement like Plekhanov, Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev etc. In 1957 Mao initiated the hundred Flowers campaign, inviting criticism of the rightist forces, which led to tremendous dissent. Another very good example is the debate within the Revolutionary camp worldwide on Marxism as a whole. These include the ideas of Leon Trotsky and Che Guevera, or the New Left. For the development of any ism criticism is scientifically very important and Mao stated that Marxism feared no criticism. Remember how Marx analytically criticised Hegel. In fact Science developed on those lines. Max Planck discovered that the Universe was ever expanding, which Albert Einsten, the founder of the modern theory of relativity claimed was static. Similarly Bertrand Russel’s philosophical ideas could only be compounded through severe criticism. It was only free criticism, that paved the way for the thinking of the greatest exponent of modern Western philosophy. In the last Century the New Left made some valid criticism of the working of Socialist Systems, particularly on Intellectuals and the Cuban victory and experiment promoted their point of view. Jean Paul Sartre was the most prominent of this camp. One very important sphere which the Socialist Societies neglected was psychology, like the works of Sigmund Fred, Carl Jung etc. It is only by understanding bourgeois ideas or thought deeply that Socialist ideas can develop. In fact it was the allowing of free debate and dissent that developed bourgeois Democracy in England and France to such a great extent (as promoted by John Stuart Mill).

What supporters of Bob Avakian's ideas need to ask themselves is whether it would be correct to promote such works of writers like Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Roy Mededev in Russia, Milovan Djilas, or for that matter the works of Chinese dissident writers like those who supported the 1989 pro-democracy Movement in China. In the author's view the broadest amount of debate must exist within a Socialist System, but that must be to consolidate the dictatorship of the Proletariat and not to destroy it. True, the revisionists , intellectuals and artists were subjected to very cruel treatment, and wrongly persecuted by red Guards in China. However initiating open dissent and calling for open dissent with no systematic insulation may even lead to overthrow of the Socialist System paving the way for the victory of the revisionist forces.

Formation of Communist International
Another trend that has to be combated was that of prematurely forming a Communist International. This was promoted by the Revolutionary Internationalist Movemement (RIM). In India and world over there have been wrong trends towards this approach. One tendency embraces the formation of a Communist International, while the other CPI(ML) led by K N Ramchandran, promoted the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement in its early stages in 1980 and 1984 and blamed the Socialist CPC-led by Mao of neglecting the formation of a Communist International. It was the late Harbhajan Singh Sohi, who was the greatest protagonist of the Correct International Line and approach towards the formation of a Communist International. With Moni Guha, earlier he had pioneered the struggle against the 3 worlds theory advocated by Deng Xiaoping of China and attributed to Mao by several major components of the Communist Revolutionary camp. Below is a brief compilation of his views on the formation of a new International.

The Communist parties, practising proletarian internationalism have to exist. International Communist Unity and concerted action of Communist parties have to exist. The proletariat in each country fulfils its internationalist duty by striving for carrying out revolution. Since the fall of proletarian power in the CCP there is no Socialist base in the World. History remembers that despite the achievement of CPC under Mao, the party did not go towards establishing the Communist International or establishing an International Organisation. Instead it stressed for the Communist Parties of the camp to apply the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism in the concrete situation of their country. It emphasised that other countries should not copy the Chinese Experience in toto but apply the Chinese experience in accordance with their own condition. The main reason for the CPC's caution was Imperialism was devising through its local regimes new forms of neo-colonial rule and only a native communist party could analsye and review such situations. An outside force could not grasp the concrete reality. Here lies the necessity of political independence of each country's communist party. Chauvinistic tendencies may develop under Communist Parties. The more developed and advanced may act chauvinistically and deliver big-brother treatment to the less developed or successful parties.

The victory of a revolution in a country under the leadership of a Communist Party indicates that certain crucial contemporary problems of the revolutionary movement have been resolved by it, and thus the experience can be passed on to other Communist Parties. At present there is no such party in the World. The ideological political struggle against Opportunism within the revolutionary Camp is fierce and bitter in each country.

A dialectical process involving unity of Communist Parties is required. Mutual exchange has to take place. Actual experience should be shared, which would pave the way for more advanced forms of collective positions on issues and rallying of more forces worldwide. Mutual Exchange and Common stands, bilaterally and laterally, and multilateral platforms on the basis of the general line are required.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 28, January 20-26, 2013

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