(c) Lok Awaz Publishers 1996. No Part of this Publication may be reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher.
Comrades,
The present world situation is marred by the retreat of revolution, by a great offensive against communism, by an all-round anti-social offensive against the working class and broad masses of the people. The world is in profound crisis and the situation is becoming worse as U.S. imperialism carries out "peacemaking" for the creation of a unipolar world under its dictate. There are others who are pushing for a multipolar world, a world redivided by the imperialist powers, amongst themselves. Within this situation, the communists have a great responsibility to lead the working class for the victory of the revolution and socialism.
In India, as in many other countries, the situation is complicated by the deformation of the very notion of communist political work. Communist politics has been reduced to the level of either participating in the running of the state apparatus or directly contributing to the cult of violence, which the ruling classes are consolidating in India. The broad-scale criminalisation of the polity and the use of state terrorism as a matter of course, has deprived hundreds and thousands of people of their lives and liberties. This activity has restricted the scope of political action to the narrowest focus, even putting it in the hands of criminal elements. Increasing offers of positions and responsibilities within the state have broadened the role of some communists in justifying the criminalisation of the polity in India. The use of state terrorism in India and in many other parts of the world, coupled with certain communists' accommodation within the state machinery, are making it impossible for the communists to play their historic role as the vanguard of the working class. This historic role is further hampered by the failure of some communist parties and groups to recognise that the end of the bipolar division meant that there is one communist movement and o! ne struggle against all those who are conciliating with imperialism and the bourgeoisie. This, in turn, prohibits the working class from taking up its historic role as the builder of socialist society.
The cold war mentality of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" still prevails. Uninterrupted killings of people continue under various pretexts, be it the killings of a "Naxalite", "Maoist", "separatist" or "extremist" in India, and elsewhere, a "terrorist" or "Muslim fundamentalist" in Egypt, Algeria or the Middle East, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon without much of a protest from any quarters. Furthermore, state terrorism and individual acts of violence are justified when it suits the big imperialist and other powers, even against entire countries like Iran, Libya, Sudan, Cuba and some others who are condemned as promoting "international terrorism". U.S. imperialism and other imperialist powers continue to finance and arm their client states throughout the world with impunity, even to the point of military occupation of some countries like Haiti, and to the point of grossly distorting the situation and interfering and occupying Bosnia. They have gone from the stage of imperia! list "peacekeeping" to that of imperialist "peace-making" as a method to establish their dictate all over the world. Imperialist "peacemaking" and the notions of a unipolar or a multipolar world are factors for a cataclysmic world war.
The Indian capitalists, enamoured by the possibilities of a great advance internationally, are throwing all caution to the winds with their liberalisation program. They are introducing onto Indian soil the notion that society has no obligation towards anyone except themselves. The Indian capitalists are speaking the language most prevalent in the advanced capitalist countries. This logic declares that there is no choice but to reform the capitalist system in order to intensify exploitation to the extreme. They are speaking as if it is a fact that there is no alternative to intensifying the exploitation of the working class as the only path to prosperity. Equating their own prosperity with the well-being of all, the big capitalists and big landlords of India have launched a broad anti-social offensive. They are also promoting the use of communal violence and other diversions to divide the people so that they are not able to resist their offensive.
Today, on the eve of the 21st century, nobody can deny that people are born to society and society has a responsibility to look after their well-being. This corresponds to the modern definition of rights and is also one of the central aspects of Indian political thought. However according to present-day "Western" ideologues, society has no obligation to anyone except to the financial oligarchy. The so-called individual interest is given primacy over the collective interest and the general interests of society. This imposition of imperialist theories on the soil of India is creating grave complications. It is contributing to the further deepening of the capitalist crisis and causing great resentment amongst the people. The big capitalists and big landlords are using these theories to create a serious danger to the very well-being of the people and the future of society.
Within the circumstances of the retreat of revolution and the offensive against communism internationally, communists cannot confine themselves to merely reaffirming their belief in socialism and communism. On the contrary, they have to lead the people to eliminate these "Western" notions of society being peddled in India. Making offerings to the classics of Marxism-Leninism, and thereafter consoling the oppressed and exploited with incantations that their deliverance is just around the corner, does not bring honour to communism. Neither will it fill the space available nor will it broaden it to include the whole of society through revolution.
The space to oppose the anti-social offensive that is being carried out under the slogans of privatisation and liberalisation, is so broad at this time that the communists must be in the forefront of organising the working class and the broad masses of the people to put an end to capitalism, once and for all. Alongside this movement, communists must innovate ways to raise the level of political culture through the elaboration of Indian theory and the general line for the present period. Communists also have to seek ideological unity of the revolutionary fighting forces in a stepwise manner, bringing home to all that unity in thinking and action is the highest form of unity and is indispensable for lifting the society out of the crisis. They must also establish unity in action of all forces, a political unity irrespective of any ideological considerations.
Subjective factors are playing the main role in the continuation of the retreat of revolution. There are political organisations whose ideology and politics are to be blamed for this great debacle for the working class and broad masses of the people. One of the subjective factors in India that can be identified as aiding the retreat of revolution is the abandonment of revolutionary principle and the sectarianism of the most powerful parties and groups of communists and their collaboration with the state against the revolutionary elements. Another factor is their support for inter-imperialist geopolitics. By expanding their collaboration and role in the state machinery nationally, they treacherously worked against the revolution and became a subjective factor which contributed to the retreat of revolution.
However, this is not all. Instrumental in stopping the working class movement from taking advantage of the preceding period of flow of revolution was the success by imperialism, the world bourgeoisie and reaction in manipulating the revolt of the masses in their own interests. Such manipulation was facilitated by some communist parties degenerating into social-democracy throughout the world. Such a thing was also facilitated by those who became conciliators with social-democracy. Such treachery began in the Soviet Union and other countries which had long abandoned revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and had established a pseudo-socialist society.
The Soviet Union and the peoples fighting fascism had emerged victorious from the Second World War, and the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement had picked up great momentum while U.S., imperialism had taken up the mantle of Adolf Hitler to wipe out communism. Nikita Khrushchev and the revisionists and opportunists like J.B. Tito and others responded to the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of social life after the Second World War by abandoning the need for revolution and socialism.
As a starter, they launched a direct attack on the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism by denying its constant need for enrichment through applying it to the concrete problems of ongoing revolution and the construction of socialism. They did not even consider that theory in its different significant dimensions needed to be addressed and developed by resolving some of the problems that concrete conditions had thrown up. They reduced Marxism-Leninism to a phrase and filled the entire movement with a phrase and filled the entire movement with a euphoria about communism, that once constructed it would allegedly continue forever without much ado. Similar dangerous illusions were created about imperialism, that it has now become "peaceful" and will fall on its own. They also conciliated with social-democracy. They surrendered the people to U.S. imperialism, a feat that Adolf Hitler could not accomplish even through the most terrible war. They took no measures to deal with the real problems that confronted the theory of Marxism-Leninism as a result of the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of life, especially in the sphere of the economy and politics. They refused to establish any connection between theory and the definite practical tasks of the epoch.
In the most reprehensible manner possible, using gossip, half-truths and especially the prestige of his position, Khruschchev launched the most ferocious attack on the person of J.V. Stalin, rehashing and giving credence to all the accusations that imperialism, the bourgeoisie and world reaction had used against him and the revolutionary movement. In doing so, he made the people believe that attacking the personality of an individual is a legitimate way of assessing behaviour, especially after the death of that person. Without analysing the objective and subjective conditions and finding solutions to the problems being faced by the Soviet Union and Marxism-Leninism, Khrushchev filled the entire atmosphere with slander, innuendo and the most backward methods of bourgeois politics. An organisation or a person was to be identified as being a good or bad communist on the basis of whether they agreed with Khrushchev's attack on the personality of Stalin or not. The bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and opportunist habit of character assassination was introduced into the movement in place of dealing with the problems of revolutions and socialism.
This successfully negated the immediate necessity to direct every communist's attention towards solving the problems in revolutionary theory created by the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of social life. The attacks on the life and work of Stalin infected the entire movement with this disease of gossip and slander, and the dilettante habit of striking a posture of being the most virtuous and the most militant communist, without having made any progress in the objective world. Khrushchev abandoned dialectical philosophy and replaced it with an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements.
Khrushchev also abandoned by sleight of hand the fundamentals of Marxism and replaced them with anti-Marxist pronouncements that had no relevance to the guiding of the complicated struggle in the Soviet Union and solving the problems of the development of socialism. He isolated the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism from its guiding role in life and denigrated it using the attack on Stalin as the leading edge. He exaggerated, one-sidely, the role of the objective factor, the intervention of sound management techniques and efficiency, in the economy. Old relations of production were re-established under slogans of "advanced socialism" and "production indices". Anarchy of production was soon to replace the regulating role of the dictatorship of the proletariat in all spheres from the economy to politics and culture.
Socialist planning does not pertain merely to the setting of production targets in different sectors of the economy. It mainly involves the raising of the role of the masses in the running of the economy, politics and culture, that is, the uninterrupted revolutionisation of the relations of production. Without the people fighting for their interests within the socialist system on the basis of harmonising the individual interests with those of the collective, and the individual and collective interests with the general interests of the society, it is not possible to have the revolutionisation of the relations of production as the sole guiding aim of socialist planning. Such a problem could only be solved by bringing revolutionary theory on par with the situation faced by the economy, politics and culture.
In the sphere of economic theory, there was a need to put the role of the working people in the first place in determining everything in the realm of production, including distribution. In the sphere of political theory, there was a need to revolutionise the political mechanism so that people could directly participate in governing themselves. In the sphere of philosophy, it was required that the role of dialectical philosophy, in which the "conservation of this mode of outlook is relative; its revolutionary character is the only absolute dialectical philosophy admits", be brought forth right into the centre of socialist life with the human factor and consciousness playing the leading role in all developments.
Lenin had beckoned the Marxists and had called upon them not to "debase our revolutionary science through dogma to the level of mere book dogma" But for Khrushchev this guideline meant nothing. He concocted a whole series of "theories" totally divorced from the life of the Soviet people. These theories were to mask his inability and unwillingness to deal with problems of revolutionary theory and the difficulties faced by revolution and socialism in the Soviet Union and internationally. He reduced the program and conclusions of Marxism to absurdity.
In place of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the proletarian power in which the working people begin to govern themselves, Khrushchev spoke about the "state of the whole people." In place of improving the quality of the communists and the proletarian revolutionary transformation of the world, Khrushchev spoke about "peaceful co-existence" as the highest achievement of the epoch. One can imagine what sort of Communist Party it would have been, and what sort of communist would have militated in such a party--these communists "of the party of the whole people", this Communist Party of the "state of the whole people" languishing in "peaceful co-existence" with imperialism.
At this time, during this period of retreat of revolution, the program and conclusions of Marxism-Leninism are coming under attack from two sides: from the right, which has lost all hope of revolution and is adjusting to the demands of the world bourgeoisie for privatisation and liberalisation; from the left, which denies Marxism its essence, dialectical philosophy. The left is active in the manner of the right, picking up statements from the past in order to avoid reflecting on the astonishingly abrupt changes in the conditions of social life which have recently taken place. Both right and left meet in the muddle of worshipping the past in order to enshrine and sanctify their inability and unwillingness to tackle the present. They refuse to recognise that there is one communist movement to which the main danger comes from all those who are conciliating with social-democracy.
The demand of this period of the retreat of revolution is first and foremost the elaboration of the definite practical tasks of the epoch. The other is to resolutely and persistently uphold the foundations of Marxism, that is, to uphold contemporary Marxist-Leninist thought and the program and conclusions of Marxism. In order to be true to the two fundamentals, the most important and crucial task in front of all Indian communists is to set all other considerations aside and plunge into the work to develop theory, establish the general line, build the political unity of the people and lift society out of the crisis. The unity of the Indian communists will emerge in the course of this work and a single vanguard party of the working class will arise on the soil of India.
The immediate task of the CGPI is to ensure that this is achieved.
We know very well that merely hoping that this or that party will keep the flame of revolution alive, in this case CGPI, leads to indifference to the task of elaborating theory, working out the general line, building political unity and lifting society out of the crisis. Furthermore, it contributes to the deepening of the divisions amongst the communists and obstructs the way towards political unity. It leads to submission to the liquidationist pressure. A thousand and one diversionary actions have originated from the communists of different kind over a period of thirty years or so since the split in the Community Party of India became inevitable during the 1962-64 period. It took place at that time precisely because the communist movement was diverted from taking up the problems of revolution under those conditions.
Those who engineered that split should be asked to explain exactly what they achieved by doing so. By providing clarity on this crucial question they could contribute to the unity of the communists during this period of the retreat of revolution. The leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), for from hedging on the subject and behaving in an arrogant and sectarian manner even during these conditions, should do most of the explaining. They should be asked to explain the consequences of the split by analysing the present conditions and elaborating their theoretical positions and the general line, and thus contribute to the political unity of the people. They must give up their worn-out tactics of seeking unity only from the top as has been advanced in the electoral program of the Third Front and as they have always done in the past. They will have to also abandon the standard refrain that the working class must wait as the conditions do not exist for the workers to carry forward their revolution at this time.
The critical task is to build the political unity of all workers and people of the middle strata who are opposed to the existing state of affairs, especially to the criminalisation of the polity; to the role of the army and security forces in suppressing the people and establishing the cult of violence; to the use of state terrorism; to all the attacks on the freedoms of the people; and most importantly, who stand for the economic well-being of the workers and broad masses of the people. Declarations of allegiance to this or that principle, or this or that phrase from the classic of Marxism-Leninism, without seeking the same afresh from the objective and subjective conditions that confront the people, will not contribute to progress whatsoever.
Comrades, CGPI does not equate the retreat of revolution with the end of revolution. The theory of Marxism is as valid today as it was when Karl Marx discovered it. The retreat of revolution does not mean that the major contradictions of the epoch have disappeared. The epoch remains that of imperialism and proletarian revolution, as Lenin defined it. However, the theory of Marxism-Leninism has to be developed to illuminate the course of practice and it needs to be re-examined and refreshed as the movement in history, the constant changes in things and relations, brings forth fresh experiences and new discoveries. Modern definitions have to be developed that are in tune with the requirements of social progress at this time.
India is one of the most populous countries on this earth. It possesses revolutionary traditions that are a fertile ground for the rise of enlightenment and the flourishing of communist ideas. At the same time, the forced impoverishment and backwardness of the masses cannot but impel the communists to restore their unity in step with the requirements of this period. For India, it is not the end of history but its beginning in the modern sense. It is the communists who in the course of working within the concrete conditions of India, will make history, a history of opening the path for the progress of society. It will be futile for people to turn towards anyone else, as only the working class is the most thoroughgoing revolutionary class, and communism is the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class. Skilfully keeping away from any diversions, communists must make use of every force available in the objective sense for the progress of society, and use everything from our theory to ensure that it happens.
Communists the world over are taking stock of their objective and subjective situations and Indian communists are a detachment of this work. Without this assessment it will be impossible to bring about the deep-going revolutionary transformations necessary in India and throughout the world. Indian communists, in carrying out their own activity in India and supporting the same everywhere in the world, are an indispensable detachment for the emancipation of the world working class. The very notion of supporting the same struggle everywhere is fundamental to proletarian internationalism.
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