Communism, the great ideology of
mankind’s emancipation from all sorts of exploitations and slavery - economic,
political , cultural, ethical and moral and the great International Communist
Movement, the torch-bearer are under severe attack of reactionary forces of all
hues imperialists-capitalists and modern revisionists combined since decades
now. Ever since these reactionary forces combinely making use nefariously of
certain petty grievances of common people centering round some petty faults
here and there of the administrative apparatus of the respective countries
could bring about demolition of the working class state- powers in the then
Soviet union and other small countries of East Europe namely Poland, Rumania,
Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and East Germany this attack
against communism and International Communist Movement has assumed tremendous
virulence in dimension and intensity.
Even though , inspite of the
disastrous set back suffered by the communist Movement as a whole, the number
of people who still feel pride in claiming themselves to be communists
world-over will be in crores. But, it is tragic that not a single voice in
defense of Communism and to fight back all those slanders labeled against
communism is being raised from any corner. It is already long overdose that
those who claim to be communists themselves rise with vigor to fight back all
baseless and fabricated charges labeled against Communism, International
Communist Movement and its most distinguished leaders Lenin-Stalin-Mao-ze-dong.
Marxism- Leninism teaches that for the Communists responding to the international
obligations must enjoy first priority over all other tasks and
responsibilities. Communist Workers Platform as the party in making of the
working class of India, conscious of its task accrued from this understanding
of proletarian international obligation is to initiate this struggle on and
from the historic significant.
Days on 7th November 2011
synchronizing with the observance of 94th anniversary of the great
November Revolution. Members of the Communist Workers Platform everywhere,
single- handedly or collectively as situation demand, will hold meetings and
collective discussion-sittings involving people as for as practicable and
discuss elaborately to convince all good-intentioned people about the
correctness and greatness of Communist ideology and movement and expose the falseness,
the baselessness of the fabricated allegations made are being made against it
by the bourgeois world.
For that we must first understand
ourselves as to what did really happen wrong, if any , in the international Communist
Movement and in those particular states of workers Rule concerned that were
fabricated and coloured by bourgeois propaganda machinery as they liked , to
mislead people against Communism-Socialism. It is also tragic that, not only
the common masses, many honest and good-hearted communists as well, fell victim
of such curious logic and belief that something utterly wrong must have happened;
otherwise persons belonging to widely varying sections of society would not
have joined thus the chorus against the Communists.
It must first be understood clearly
that every social revolution marks the end of one era, one system and the
beginning of a new era, a new system. And, in every such revolution there is a
‘taking place’ of revolution and a culminating point of (attaining) victory of
the said revolution. In between these two (points) lies the phase of transition
from one to the other, during which the laws and features of the old society
and system do continue to operate for relatively a long part of the phase,
though in gradually diminishing shape and affectivity till the process of
transformation reaches that nodal point wherefrom the elements of the next
higher phase become dominant and state showing themselves more and more
pronouncedly. It is only appropriate then and there from to say that the change
of character of the concerned entity – the society had taken place.
Lenin taught that ‘the primary
question of every revolution is the question of state power. Accordingly, by
successfully over-throwing Czardom and the Kerensky government of Russian
bourgeoisie from power and establishing the state of dictatorship of the
proletariat there, the historic November Revolution did successfully accomplish
only this Primary Task of the revolution there. All other tasks to bring about
real qualitative change of the entire society remained to be gradually
completed during the transitional phase following this accomplishment of the
primary task.
To ensure smooth exercise of the
power of the state in accomplishing those colossal tasks of bringing about the
qualitative change of the entire texture of social life the dictatorship of the
proletariat and semi-proletariat had to have all power concentrated in its
hand, to be exercised dictatorially against the forces opposed to and
objectively causing obstruction to transition from capitalism to socialism and
democratically to the forces in favour of the transitions. There could be no
question about the democratic essence, the democratic content of this
dictatorship of the protetariat. If democracy means Rule by the majority this
dictatorship of the proletariat and semi- proletariat combine was
unquestionably more democratic than the best democracy of any bourgeois state
ever anywhere. Because the proletariat and semi-proletariat combinedly do form
overwhelming major part of the population of any country anywhere in the world.Yet,
the communists call it dictatorship and not democracy, as the bourgeoisie often
claim its class-rule to be. Because “ the Communists disdain to conceal truth”.
(Karl Marx)
So far as the then Soviet Union was
concerned-even though, there was no exploiting capitalist class in crude sense
of the term, class struggle and its imperatively continued to exist. This may
sound to be paradoxical to many but was an unquestionable truth. This is the
most important matter that must be understood before entering into adjudging
events that followed.
Capitalist class, in crude sense of
the words could be abolished and was really abolished just by proclamation of
the decree or decrees. Likewise capitalist ownership over means of production
could be taken over and was really taken over by passing order or orders by
stokes of pen within minutes of taking place of the revolution. But the class,
with all its characteristic features and impacts does not and in the case did
not die then and there. Lenin, the Supreme architect of November revolution, in
a sharply worded language, cautioned the communists and workers against falling
prey to any such misunderstanding. He said; ‘the overthrown bourgeoisie must
not be expected to give up their desire to again get restored themselves in
power and if they get favorable condition for that this desire of theirs will
turn into attempts at restoration’. (Language- Shankar Singh).
Communists in general after a lapse
of about two generations gap and under the impact of continued advancement of
the revolutionary process world –wide, over throwing of bourgeoisie from power
in various countries of East Europe and Asia, successfully establishing
people’s democratic or working class dictatorship in those, conveniently forgot
that caution given by Lenin. They began thinking that, since classes do not
exist visibly, question of class struggle continuing had already lost its
meaning and had become irrelevant rhetoric. This sense and compliance in the
minds of communists obviously had its effect as slackening down of the class
struggle against the continued class interests, class- ideas, class-habit
patterns of the over- thrown bourgeois class that were still existing and
working in the society at various levels.
It was this superficial wrong
understanding that found expression in Khrushchev’s proposal in the 20th
Congress(the first after death of Stalin) of the then Communist Party of Soviet
Union that “henceforth the state Soviet Union would have to be regarded as a
state of the whole people and not as a dictatorship of the proletariat class”.
And, the general standard of ideological understanding in the Delegates
attending the party congress did not find any wrong in that blatantly
non-communist thinking and proposal of Khrushchev. At a time when existence of
class division and consequent class-struggle were very much objective realities
there, this declaration tantamount to one-sided withdrawal of the proletariat
from that struggle and giving free scope to the bourgeois elements and forces
till then existed concealed to play as they liked.
The dismantling of erstwhile Soviet
Union and other East European People’s Democracies was taken by many as proof
of untenability of the ideology of communism itself. For them it proved that
communism had failed. It is naïve to accuse bourgeois propaganda for creating
such understanding among the people because it is only half-truth about what
has happened. Nobody expects that in the midst of on-going world –wide struggle
between the bourgeois and the proletariat any failure of the proletarian side
will not be taken advantage of by the opponent bourgeois side to reap maximum
benefit from that. Bourgeois class has done their job well. We, the communists
now must analyse, with a spirit of self- criticism, the role played by us,
though unknowingly and unintentionally, in causing such erroneous notion among
people in general and working masses in particular.
In describing the greatness and
superiority of communism and the socialist society, it was building up, over
the existing capitalist society we, the communists used to draw pictures of two
words side by side. One that of the countries where working class, in alliance
with other semi proletariat strata’s were in power and were engaged in
advancing towards socialism headed by Soviet Union and the other, of the
countries where capitalists imperialists were in power headed by Anglo-American
imperialists. Then, we ( the Communists ) used to say to the workers, the
people , “ Look at this Communist world-these socialist states where there is
no more any unemployment, no beggar, no starvation, no body deprived of
education and health services, no lock-out of industry no retrenchment of
workers, nobody there is without a house or shelter etc. etc.
And, then used to compare with these
the conditions obtained in the world of capitalist countries, where all these
social maladies were growing in alarming volume.
We, the communists all over the
world used to practice this way as an easy way to make workers convinced of the
gains in socialism and communism. We, the communists used to do so innocently,
to just lessen our own difficulties to explain to the workers and the masses with
little or no education about the then Soviet Union and those other states being
only in the transitional phase and that to reach the stage of socialism the
Soviet Union and those other states were yet to go a long way. It is this short
–cut and easy way practiced by us-all communists – that boomeranged this way.
When the state –structures in those countries, particularly of Soviet Union,
collapsed, people took it to be falls of socialism – Communism proving
communism to be a failed ideology.
But, truly speaking was there
communist Society that collapsed?- No. The then Soviet Union was only on the
path to communism –in the midst of a transitional phase called socialism and
that too in its early stage when all laws and elements of capitalism were still
at work more prominently than the newly introduced socialistic elements and
features. Articles were being sold and purchased in the markets where
market-laws as they operate in capitalism were still at work. Articles were
still retaining their commodity character. Law of exchange value as it works in
capitalism was still at work there. In over- all reading it was still a market
economy there And, market –economy is the other name of capitalism.
Not that it was only in the urban or
industrial sector of the economy that the laws of capitalist market economy
were at work. Even in the agricultural sector it was so. We know that summing
up the experience of war-communism the leadership of the then communist party
of Soviet Union headed by Lenin decided that in the rural sector the transition
from capitalist agriculture to socialist agriculture would be carried in a
gradual process through four stages systematically. In the history of Soviet
Union it was recorded as NEP, the New Economic Policy. The stages would be thus
from agriculture by individual peasants with their private ownership of land
and tools-implements etc. to co-operative agriculture. The next stage would be
to replace this co-operative farming collective farming by state farming the
process of transition would be completed. Completing the transition to total
state farming would only mean attainment of socialism in agricultural sector.
Prior to that in both the stages of co-operative farming and collective
farming, private-property interest would continue to work though in subtle
shape and gradually diminishing impact.
Now, what was the stage really
attained by agriculture of the then Soviet Union in those days? It was in the
stage of large-scale collective farming and not state farming as yet. So,
viewing from this angle, collapse of Soviet Union and those people’s
democracies of East Europe can in no sense be taken as failure or untenability
of Communism. To think of collapse or fall of a thing which was not in
existence can be termed only as an exercise with absurdity.
Ever since, the ideology of
communism, its philosophy Dialectical Materialism was established by Marx and
Engels as a science (in full sense of the term ) of studying the laws governing
the co-ordination among the contradictions operating in various sphere of
material universe making it a co-ordinated whole and the working class movement
struggling for emancipation from the yoke of slavery under capitalism did adopt
the said philosophy as its guiding ideology, communism invited vehement opposition
– strong enmity of all reactionary forces and vested interests in the society
combined against it. It was but obvious since communist revolution, unlike all
other revolutions preceding it in history of development of human society, aims
at, not only to replace one form of class-division and class struggle by
another form of class division and class struggle but to put an end to class
division and class struggle altogether for good. As such, along with the
capitalist-imperialists all other forces having vested interest in continuance
of the remnants of various other earlier ( pre-capitalist) forms of
exploitations too found common ground to oppose communism, specifically the
anti-capitalist socialist revolution it envisaged.
But all opposition mounted by these
reactionary forces from outside failed to resist the advancement of communist
movement. Its ideological impact on the working class and toiling masses
world-wide continued to go more and more stronger until the emergence of the
modern revisionist forces from within the womb of the communist movement
itself.
Who were these modern revisionists?
Is a question that needs clarification, even if briefly, here. The mention of
the role played by these modern revisionists used to be made by different
communist parties and leaders time to time , on the grave debacle suffered by
the world communist movement, often carried a sense, as though , like
imperialists and other reactionary forces these modern revisionists are also
brought from outside to join strength to the anti-communist tirade. To think so
is wrong and will not help us rather obstruct in grasping the correct lesson of
this debacle to be derived.
We must understand that the force
termed as modern revisionists was produced and is still being produced from
within the communist movement itself. As Lenin said; “Revisionism is
continuation of bourgeois thought in the labour movement”. How does it happen?
Not necessarily under some plan made by somebody such bourgeois thoughts are
injected into the labour movement, meaning the communist movement, to work.
No-it is not at all a phenomenon like this.
The Communists after being involved
in the communist movement by joining the party of the proletariat, signing its
pledge, symbolic of his or her commitment for the cause and willingness to be a
communist, require to conduct, under the guidance of the leadership of the
party a systematic struggle to change himself or herself, from within, from a
product of the bourgeois society a person carrying all senses and
understandings derived from the bourgeois society into a communist in the real
sense ideologically, culturally. This struggle of oneself to be freed from the
impact of the thoughts and thought processes of the bourgeois society in which
he or she was born and brought up and to replace those, not superficially but
essentially, by new proletarian thoughts and thought process is not so easy a
struggle to be owned by simple wish. That can only be won by carrying
determined efforts by involving oneself in the working class struggles
sincerely trying to play both the roles of leading those and learning from
those. Those who fail to conduct this struggle for whatsoever reason, remain
communists on record but essentially filled up with all bourgeois thoughts and
thought processes. It is these elements in the communist parties who are
categorized as modern revisionists. Modern because after the old batch of such
revisionists got defeated and smashed through the successful accomplishment of
November revolution the new batch of such revisionists have come up afresh in
recent i.e. modern times meaning post second world war period. Hence the name
was modern revisionists.
How these modern revisionists do
cause harm to the labour movement meaning the Communist Movement? Let us look
at an historical example.
Before the twentieth congress of the
then Communist Party of Soviet Union there were reports from different parts of
the country (Soviet Union) received by the leadership that a common kind of
stagnation was working in the production sector of the economy. Soviet
productions were neither increasing in quantity nor improving in quality.
Having found this report to be true the communist leadership had to take steps,
as corrective measures, to culturally re imbibe the workers more, to make them
understand more clearly the supreme responsibility they bore as pioneer of the
world socialist revolution they started through November revolution which
demanded of them to make soviet Union mighty enough to act an invincible
bastion of the struggle for emancipation of the toiling people throughout the
world.
But Khrushchev the fore-runner of
the modern revisionists, with bourgeois way of thinking dominating in his mind
concluded from the said reports, that Soviet workers were not finding interest
to increase production since they were not paid more remuneration or any extra
benefit for producing more. So, he proposed to decide introducing system of
paying incentive to workers as was practiced by the capitalist’s world
over-more production, more remuneration. And, as regards improving the
productions qualitatively he concluded that the job-security enjoyed by the
Soviet workers that irrespective of whether or not he or she improved or
increased production he or she would not have to suffer penalization of loosing
job under any circumstances, might also have worked to make the workers
careless in improving his or her capability. So, Khrushchev proposed to
introduce the system of penalizing the workers- empowering the management to
throw the workers out of job if they are found to have not worked properly. Thus
started the return journey for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet
Union after the death of Stalin.
And , it is due mainly to low level
of ideological understanding of the general delegates attending the said party
congress, all those unworthy proposals of Khrushchev got passed easily. This in
turn left for the future communists the all important lesson to remember that
in a situation of continuously emerging newer complexities, lowering of level
of ideological understanding may often wrought have.
The tasks the communists are to
fulfill during this phase of transition from capitalism to victory of socialism
i.e. communism are highly complicated and risk- associated too. A clear
understanding of the same is likely to make all honest and good-intentioned
people shed their bias against the communists and be sympathetic for the cause
communists are fighting for.
Under capitalism the communists
fight for and teach the workers to fight for ‘equal pay for equal work’ in
sphere of the trade union movement. This happens to be one of the important
major issues of trade Union struggle since capitalists in general do practice discriminatory
behavior to different sexes and age-groups of workers. But, the communists know
that the concept of ‘equal pay for equal work’ is only a bourgeois concept of
equality reflecting the bourgeois market law of exchange of equal value.
As such to prepare the same workers
mentally to adopt the communist sense of equality engrained in the concept to
each according to his (or her) need, the communists, during this transitional
period are to make the same workers forget what they were taught during
capitalist period. Slightest lack in artfully carrying this task with the
danger of causing severe reaction in the masses.
Similarly, to enthuse the workers to
join and strengthen the struggle for socialism the communists are to tell the
workers elaborately about the benefits they would be able to enjoy in
Socialism. And, millions and millions of workers, thus enthused, participate in
the struggle and make revolution succeed in doing it most important primary
task of overthrowing the bourgeois state and establishing in its stead the sate
of proletarian dictatorship.
But, the communist know that even the
workers struggle for socialism, as long as the enthusiasm and urge for the same
spring from their desire or charm of getting this or that economic or other
benefits, is nothing else than a kind of economic or other benefits , is
nothing else than a kind of economic opportunities struggle. During the period
of transition from capitalism to victory of socialism the workers were to be
freed from these sorts of economic opportunities ideas and taught that socialism
has to be established, as the necessary scientific solution of the social
problems created by the developed productive forces vis-à-vis the existing
production relation in the society. They benefits, whatsoever may come, would
come as objective result, not to be aspired for by the workers.
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