Crying in the Forest!

Ranganayakamma

In the Dandakaranya region, where Adivasis live, during the combing and firing by government armed forces (on April 16, 2024), 29 Adivasi men and women were killed, according to newspaper reports! Among those who were shot, the newspapers showed the faces of 27 people! Almost all their faces were drenched in blood!

As far as the Telugu states are concerned, since 1969 till now, there have been about “more than 3,000” encounters, according to one count. Rights organisations have confirmed that all these encounters did not occur because police and Naxalites really faced each other in battle; in fact, very few were genuine encounters. In such thousands of encounters, the one that happened on April 16 is neither new nor the last! Even just yesterday or the day before, encounters took place. On May 11, twelve were shot dead, and on May 13, eleven were killed. However, the new thing is this: in the past, that is, about 30 to 40 years ago, when encounters happened, at least in some places, people held protest demonstrations. Nowadays, such protests are not visible at all! Among the people of the plains, there is not even a minimal reaction, which is inhuman!

Someone may ask: “Are only the lives of tribals and Maoists valuable? What else can the police do except follow the government’s orders and perform their duty? If Maoists kill such police, is that justified?” The answer is: Maoists see the exploitative government as their enemy, but not the police! Maoists know that the police, too, belong to poor working families, that they do not have higher education or big jobs, and that they took up jobs to suppress revolutionaries only because the government ordered them. Therefore, they are not enemies. When the government orders the killing of Adivasis who live in forests, and the Maoists who unite them into struggles, revolutionaries have no choice but to confront the police in self-defence, do they?

Adivasis are labourers who live in forests in poverty. The forests they inhabit are being handed over by the government to corporate companies for mining and for setting up various industries! Why did the Maoists take the path of the forests? To unite the tribals, to awaken class consciousness in them, and to fight on their behalf! Not at all because the Maoists sought a livelihood for themselves. They came for an ideal! Even if there are mistakes in their thoughts, actions, or strategies, their main goal is to fight for the tribals! If one understands what that ideal is, would the police be able to remain in jobs where they fire upon such idealists and the innocent tribals?

The Maoists must self-examine one issue. “Why are the working-class people of the plains not responding to the deaths of the tribals, and to the deaths of those who lead them?” It is not enough to say something casually as self-criticism! For example, is the reason that youth are not joining movements as in the past simply because, due to globalisation, young men and women are rushing toward high-tech jobs and big salaries? But in the past, didn’t doctors, engineers, lawyers, and teachers also join revolutionary movements? Did not many people support as activists or sympathisers? Is it correct to say now that because of fear of government repression, the people of the plains are unable to express their protests? “Repression” has existed ever since “governments” themselves came into existence. Marxism says: ‘The state machinery is a tool created by the ruling class to suppress the ruled class!’ That exploitative state apparatus serves the ruling classes twenty-four hours a day, without pause. Whether elections are held, or heads of state die, or rains come, or summers scorch, or snow falls–this machinery continues its work.

There is an argument: “Governments are using advanced technology to track down and crush activists. That is why people cannot protest!” But if one looks at the history of the Vietnam revolution, for example, did Vietnamese people not defeat America, which used the most advanced technology of the time and rained bombs upon them?

Where lies the real problem? It lies in mechanically believing that “revolution means a few conscious people fighting on behalf of the masses.” Among the working people, there are many different sections, and they must be united in mass organisations and class organisations. Their initiative must be enhanced. Those organisations should not be run as the party’s pocket organisations. Revolutionaries seem to have had little realisation of this from the beginning. Another notion exists–that “squad actions are the armed struggle.” Even youths with no basic understanding of communist ideology have been taken into the party under the name of “militancy,” simply on the basis of their individual courage. Among such entrants, some have turned into traitors who kill party leaders in their sleep and then disappear. How much have they understood the importance of learning revolutionary theory from Marx’s fundamental work, “Capital,” and moving forward with its essence?

If they have declared that they will overthrow the government with arms, then discussions with that government are futile. But discussions must be held with fellow revolutionary groups, to the extent that unity can be built with them. If someone says this, they are told, “You have no knowledge of history.” Should they not correct many misunderstandings and start afresh from the beginning? Let us recall the words of Engels that guide activists in uniting working-class people.

Engels: ‘The time has passed when a handful of conscious individuals could lead sudden attacks and revolutionary struggles on behalf of the unconscious masses. When the question is of transforming the social system completely, the working people themselves must participate in class struggle! They must already understand what the problem is and what they are fighting for! For the people to understand what must be done, prolonged and continuous work is necessary.’

If such work does not happen even now, the people will sink into despair. It will not be only the Adivasis, but for all the people, it will remain nothing but the cry of the forests.

(Andhra Jyothi, 16-5-2024. Translation: B R Bapuji)

II
Capitalist Curses Must End!

After reading the article “Revolution… Must End” by V V Subrahmanyam (Andhra Jyothi, August 16), which hurled curses against Marxism, this author felt compelled to respond.

First, listen to the curses that the author hurled against Marxism:

(1) Marxism is “a medicine more harmful than the disease!” “A poisonous drug!” In any industry, under any owner, the profit extracted in the form of money, without any labour of his own, from the value of the workers’ labour–this exploitation of labour is the ‘disease!’ Marx’s teaching is that people must understand this exploitation, oppose it, and free themselves entirely from it. But the author brands this teaching as a ‘harmful medicine’–and yet, in his entire article, he never once utters the phrase ‘exploitation of labour’. (2) Marxism is “a perverse doctrine!” (3) Marxism’s path is “a highway to downfall!” (4)Marxism is “a political theory of deceptive logic!”

Thus runs the list of curses against Marxism, which demands the abolition of capitalist exploitation of labour.

In the past, there have been other Subrahmanyams abroad who cursed Marxism in the same way. For example: (1) Raymond Aron, a Subrahmanyam of France, wrote a book against Marxism, calling it “The Opium of the Intellectuals.”(2) Gaetano Mosca, another Subrah-manyam from Italy, in his book “The Ruling Class” (page 518), accused Marx of spreading “destructive hatred between classes on every page of Capital.”

Four years ago, this writer wrote a small book titled “Answers to Criticisms against Marxism” about such attacks by Subrahmanyams of other countries. Now, briefly, here are the answers to Subrahmanyam of Rajahmundry:

1. The critic says, “No revolution ever happened in the way Marx predicted.” But was it carried out the way Marx advised? If it wasn’t, how can one say his teaching failed? The revolutions in Russia and China were merely the first few steps in that direction. The main problem was that the Communists there did not grasp Marxism deeply enough, nor spread it widely enough among the working people. That is not a flaw in Marxism itself.

2. The critic makes a baseless argument that in the Communist Manifesto, Marx said that revolution would come automatically, as if by itself. But what did Marx and Engels actually write in the Manifesto? “The workers must form themselves into a class! They must overthrow bourgeois rule! They must seize political power! The first step in the workers’ revolution is for the working class to become the ruling class, and to expropriate all capital—all means of production—from the bourgeoisie!” Where then did they ever say, as the critic distorts, that “revolution will come by itself”?

3. The critic laments: “Perhaps Marx hated no one as much as he hated capitalists!” But should one worship, or hate, a class that survives only by exploiting labour?

4. The critic praises “the method of bringing in capital, creating wealth, and achieving development.” But who creates wealth? Workers! And who receives it in the form of profit? The capitalist class!

5.   Finally, the critic offers what he thinks is wise advice: “Since both capitalists and workers are necessary for social progress, we should avoid injustice between them, but it is foolish to think of eliminating any one class.” Do capitalists gain from the workers or face injustice? Do workers get justice or injustice from the capitalists? Capitalists and workers are not the same. Capitalists do not labour. They live by robbing the labour of workers in the name of ‘profit.’

The path that Marxism shows to solve the problem of exploitation of labour is: in society, all people must perform all kinds of labour according to their ability, and use the products according to their needs. Then there will be no division into ‘capitalists’ and ‘workers’; there will be no classes at all. All will become “Associated (collective, cooperative) producers”.

Finally, using the same adjectives employed by the critic, Marxism gives the wise advice to the critic: cut off at once the ‘harmful, poisonous, perverse, and deceptive bond’s that capitalism tied around your neck like a ‘mangalsutra’!

The critic concludes, “Revolution must end!” But what must really end are not revolutionary efforts, but capitalist curses! To borrow a Telugu saying, ‘curses by the capitalist cat cannot break the milk pot sling of Marxism, hung above!’

[Translation from Telugu by B R Bapuji]

Back to Home Page

Frontier Autumn Number
Vol 58, No. 14 - 17, Sep 28 - Oct 25, 2025