Polemics

‘Left to Right’
T G Jacob

After the victory of the Russian revolution, sometimes characterozed as the most cataclysmic political event of the 20th century, the global communist movement assumed great significance as the active agent of social changes. In fact, ever since the Communist Manifesto saw the light of the day in the late 19th century there has not been a moment of dullness in the dynamics of class struggle in its various manifestations. The ups and downs of this struggle are phenomenal but with national, regional and sub-regional specificities. The Indian case provides a highly educative discourse on this international movement on several counts. There is no dearth of studies too; from inside and outside the academies umpteen works have come out. The communist movement even now surprisingly remains a fertile field from which anyone can reap research degrees. And the number of research degrees reaped from this field is disproportionately large. Not only Indians but also European and North American scholars continue to be interested in the Indian communist movement. The trend, though a bit toned down now, is still very much alive.

Since its origins in the subcontinent during the early 1920s the movement has undergone innumerable organisational and ideological splits. This is of course a universal phenomenon. There are numerous sub trends in the international communist movement and many of these have been reflected in India too. Splits within splits are large in number but basic ideological trends linked to praxis can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

There are many Marxist ideological trends not directly linked to praxis. Many individual members symbolizing such trends may be active in the speculative theoretical field. Intellectuals belonging to the Trotskyite Fourth International and independent intellectuals belonging to the Western New Left schools are illustrations. Again, in South Asia itself there are examples of the very same trends leading large-scale insurrectionary rebellions aimed at the capture of political power. Sri Lanka and Mauritius during the early 1970s are examples. In India, such groups are mainly confined to intellectual exercises.

Transformation of proclaimed communists to social democrats or social democrats to communists is not a trend that originated in India. Like Marxism social democracy also has a European origin. In fact, it was the Marxists who became social democrats and vice versa in Europe. The same trend was repeated in India irrespective of serious systemic differences. This was thrown into focus during the late 1960s when a significant section of the communists proclaimed themselves to be the followers of the 'Eastern Marxist,' Mao Tse-tung, and plunged into armed struggle for overthrowing the given social system. In popular Marxist nomenclature the division was between 'revisionists' and 'revolutionaries.' In more realistic terms the division was between parliamentary Leftists and non-parliamentary Maoist militants. In the Indian Left this division still holds good. These two divergent political-ideological streams of the Indian Left have a mass base and active political programmes. Both have clear-cut programmatic divergences, which as such are irreconcilable being based essentially on the characterization of the state.

Internationalism, to be more specific proletarian internationalism, was a theoretical construct of the Marxists right from the time of Karl Marx himself. To put it simply, it meant that the interests of the working class all over the world are the same and any proletarian revolution is international in its essence. The formation of different Communist Internationals with member communist parties from different countries was an effort to coordinate and guide the revolutionary programmes in different countries. Accordingly, after the victory of the Russian revolution, Moscow and the ruling Bolshevik party became the centre of world revolution. Later, when there was a serious split in the international communist movement, the leadership of the movement became bi-polar. The communists of India also faithfully reflected this split. This internationalism, both of the Russian and Chinese varieties, was phoney in nature and served the sectarian national interests of the respective communist parties and countries.

It is ironic that even after the Chinese Communist Party abundantly exposed itself as composed of diehard Han Chinese nationalists and imperialists through its internal and external policies during the lifetime of Mao itself, the Maoists in India continue to profess by the class analysis propounded by him for the specific conditions of China more than seventy-five years back. This is a bizarre illustration of how deeply the dependency syndrome has got woven into the collective communist psyche in India. This is a question of fitting in available theories to subjective wishes, not developing theoretical contours on the basis of changing objective reality. It is a repeat of the suicidal policies adopted by the Communist Party of India during the most crucial period of the 1940s. At that time also theory was borrowed and made to fit into a totally different mould. Fundamentally, the Maoists are sticking to the same old methodology to comprehend the reality. This is the main reason why it is rational to club the militants and conformists in the common nomenclature of Indian 'Left.'

At the Indian and international levels the Left had always been characterized by ideological and political schisms which point at a basic characteristic of the theoretical foundations. Marxism had always been characterized as 'scientific' by its proponents directly implying that its analysis of social processes and the results envisaged approach the validity of experiments and results in modern physical sciences. Dialectical materialism is thus enthroned as a 'scientific' method of unquestionable validity. It never struck the apologists of this perspective that the basic theoretical formulations in physics itself remain as contentious and indeterminate as ever.

In truth, Marxism is a specific method to understand social processes rather than representing some irrefutable method. Like any social science method it is subject to divergent interpretations. It is this interpretative nature of Marxism that inevitably results in organizational fissions. And its interpretations come nowhere near the laws of physical sciences or even natural sciences. Though it is fundamentally atheistic in nature its easy amenability to interpretations puts it in the same basket as theistic religions and their principles. This is ironical but a fact. A Joseph Stalin or a Pol Pot cannot be viewed simply as aberrations. It is highly probable that they sincerely believed in the 'scientific' validity of their actions. A Trotsky might have done the same thing in Stalin's place. In this context it becomes a methodological, philosophical question. The interpretations of the principles of Marxism can be so varied that they can be used as apologies for capitalism/imperialism while mouthing proletarian revolutionary slogans. It is also quite possible that the practitioners of this dual face do not see any contradiction between the two faces.

In the realm of political economy, there is no qualitative difference between capitalist/imperialist political economy and Marxist political economy. This is not only because Marxist political economy is a direct product of the development of capitalism as a revolutionary change from the earlier social system(s). More importantly, it is because both implicitly believe in the theory of productive forces. Marxist economics was only against the private ownership of means of production, not against the compelling role of the development of productive forces in social transformation. This is precisely the reason why in the countries where communist political revolutions were engineered the new leaderships were at a loss when it came to constructing socialism. They had to resort to what is called state capitalism, which is a far cry from socialism. Instead of the 'withering away' of the state what happened was the enormous strengthening of the same as a coercive, arbitrary and complex apparatus of all-round oppression. The alienation of the producing masses from control of social processes remained as severe and crippling as ever. The theory and practice of socialism still remains an unknown equation for the Marxists. What was deemed as the means of establishing a socialistic society, resulted only in the creation of a new ruling class. The history of all the countries where revolutions occurred points this out very clearly. Not only was a new class of exploiters created but the management problems of gigantic state capitalism compelled the state capitalist 'socialists' to revert to privately owned enterprises and businesses with all its attendant issues of unemployment, anarchy of production, gross inequalities and so on. Present-day China and Russia are in the highest deciles of the global corruption and inequality indices.

The classical capitalist development model thrived on three important sources of accumulation: accumulation at the cost of the primary sector internally, colonial loot and the extraction of surplus value through exploitation of the propertyless industrial working class. In the so-called socialist societies too the very same sources of capital accumulation were resorted to. There is nothing very original with Stalin's brutal collectivization drive or Deng's de-collectivzation mania. Both were guided by the capitalist theory of productive forces emphasizing the fastest growth of capital accumulation, which can only be at the expense of the large mass of the people, primary sectors of the economy, and politically less powerful regions. The erstwhile Soviet Union continued to be a prison house of nations like its predecessor and China continued to be an imperial power after the revolution. Both Lenin and Mao were realistic enough to explicitly recognize this systemic continuity from the past. Marxist political economy and theories of social management had no real alternatives to offer.

Why is there is no human approach to environmental issues from the Leftists? It is certainly not that the issues are insignificant or minor. On the contrary, the issues are gigantic and highly threatening. Though not yet fully articulated there is a realisation that it is the unbridled growth of productive forces guided by greed that is responsible for the snowballing environmental disaster. But the Marxists, who proclaim themselves to be the inveterate enemies of the capitalist system, are nowhere in the fight for environmentally sustainable development as against ecological devastation. This is certainly not an accident. In fact, wherever they exercise political power they are equally reckless in creating environmental hazards, whether it is the case of converting lush farmlands into barren agents of pollution through industrial development, promoting the blatant forms of neo-colonial international tourism, or advocating disease spewing agricultural production processes that promote and generate super profits for global capital. Here again one finds no essential difference between Leftists and Rightists. The emphasis is on the fastest growth of capital accumulation/ productive forces. Everything else is dispensable on this altar of the development of productive forces. Nature for both the Marxists and global capitalists is an inanimate storehouse of wealth that has to be conquered, exploited and exhausted in the present; it is not a live, dynamic phenomenon that has to be cherished for not only the present but the future too. Marxists are in the frontlines of those abusing the advocates of a symbiotic relationship between humans and Nature as 'anti-development' and backward looking. On this count there is absolutely no difference between a rapacious global capitalist and a Marxist ideologue. Here in India there are any number of examples to show this ideological affinity and unity of interests.

Taking the specific case of India, the millennia old system of caste as a social management mechanism deserves special attention. Of course, like everything else, the caste system is also subject to changes. At the same time, the perniciousness and resilience of this system is such that all the reform movements against it had either been co-opted or smashed. This happened to Buddhism and Jainism, two powerful challenges to the caste system. It also happened to the modern monotheistic religions and has also happened to communism which denies religion in theory and practice.

During the pre-1947 period, when the communist movement was trying to build up a mass base among the working class and peasantry with the declared objective of revolutionary transformation of society, there were also several other significant movements geared to political independence and social transformation. A good section of social and political thinkers including M K Gandhi saw caste as a highly divisive force retarding the movement for political independence. Many thinkers like Phule, Periyar, Ambedkar and Rammanohar Lohia saw caste as a vicious, at the same time unique, social institution the smashing of which was considered as a pre-condition for any genuine independence and social progress. But the CPI, the ‘vanguard’ party of the working class and peasantry, took a highly simplistic position regarding caste. For it, caste as an institution did not deserve any special consideration because the socialist revolution/ development of productive forces will automatically result in the demise of the same. The bankruptcy of borrowed formulations became nowhere more evident than in the case of tackling the caste system. At the same time, this approach necessarily resulted in the metamorphosis of the communist parties themselves becoming casteist. The derogatory expression 'Brahmin communists' is very popular, and justifiably so, among the oppressed castes and communities. On the ground level, it is not uncommon to find these castes and communities becoming the foes of the communist parties when they venture to fight for their basic civil, democratic, human rights.

The present political structure of India is a colonial legacy put in place in the interests of the colonial bourgeoisie. The leading force fighting for political independence itself recognized this reactionary nature of the imposed political structure, though it pre-dominantly represented the interests of the developing all India bourgeoisie that originated in the shades of colonial capital and was in alliance with the feudal, casteist vested interests in the countryside. The political structure inherited represented the amalgam of these classes/castes, and the political leadership naturally came from the same class-caste alliance. The strength of the all-India bourgeoisie is based on the all-India market and this in turn is crucially dependent on the political structure for its maintenance and growth. This is precisely why any challenges to the present political structure become most threatening to the ruling classes. The nationality question in this country of subcontinental dimensions is probably the most serious threat to the ruling classes, and it is perpetually forcing the political leadership into a crisis mode. The communists accepted without dissent the unitary Constitution that paid lip service to federalism, though prior to that they were supporting the communal division of the country and the self-determination of nationalities based on languages and territorial integrity. On this most basic question, the communist approach was always a bundle of irreconcilable contradictions.

[Exerpted form the introduction of ‘Left To Right’, Decline of Communism in India, by T G Jacob. Published by Empower India Press, 2/1A, Jungpura A, First Floor, New Delhi 110014, Price Rs 400.00]

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 32, February 17-23, 2013

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