Workers Resistance

Author: Red Polemique

  • Why is Prof. Aijaz Ahmad so Shame-faced? – Part II

    Then Prof. Ahmad proceeds and concedes that one of the reasons for the collapse of “Social Europe” is also the surrender of social democracy in front of the neoliberal agenda. He opines that after the “collapse of communism” and “surrender of social democracy in front of neoliberalism”, anarchism has become the principal ideology of the protest movements. We come back to the point of anarchism later. We have already undertaken a brief review of Prof. Aijaz Ahmad’s thoughts on the so-called “collapse of communism”, however, his observations pertaining to social democracy are totally correct. The Labour Party in Britain, the Democratic Party in the US, Social Democratic Party as well as the French Communist Party in France, Social Democratic Party in Germany and in the similar way, various social democratic parties working in other countries of Europe with different names too, had openly surrendered in front of capitalism right since the 1960s. In Germany, France and Britain the betrayal of the working class cause by the social democrats can be traced back to the 19th century. Marx and Lenin have accurately depicted the betrayal and collapse of the social democracy in their works such as ‘A Critique of the Gotha Programme’, ‘State and Revolution’, ‘Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky’, ‘The Collapse of Second International’, etc. The observations of Aijaz Ahmad cannot claim any novelty. However, one fails to understand one thing. Why does not he apply this entire understanding of the betrayal by the social democracy and its surrender in front of the neoliberal agenda since the 1980s to CPM and CPI in India? What did the CPM do during its rule in the West Bengal if not surrendering in front of neoliberalism? Otherwise, incidents like Singur and Nandigram would not have occurred. And even if these incidents had not taken place, the policies of the Left Front government was implementing in the West Bengal were not much behind the policies of the Central governments of NDA or the UPA, even quantitatively. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee even went to the extent of claiming it openly that now the working class should follow the policy of class cooperation with the bourgeoisie! In such a scenario, if Prof. Aijaz Ahmad does not apply his analysis and understanding to the social democrats, that is the parliamentary Left in India, who belong to one of the most contemptible types of social democrats on the international scale, then one cannot regard it as naïveté or inanity of Prof. Aijaz Ahmad, but rather his opportunism or dishonesty.

    Now we can embark upon a discussion on the issue of anarchism becoming the hegemonic ideology in the new movements. Prof. Aijaz Ahmad is stating a fact. It is true that the anarchist forces are the most active component of the present movements and, in particular, spontaneous anti-capitalist movements going on in the European countries and the US. However, Prof. Ahmad does not provide any explanation of its causes. One of the main reasons for anarchism gaining hegemony in these movements should be traced back to the 1950s and the 1960s, when imperialist intervention by the social imperialist Soviet Union in the Eastern Europe led to the disillusionment with Socialism itself. That was the reason why the movements of students-youth, women and workers that took place in different parts of the world in 1968 and the various intellectual currents that emanated thereof, were demanding an ideology which would be even more “radical” than Marxism! What the Soviet Imperialism was doing in the name of Marxism gave ample opportunities to the imperialist intellectual agents to discredit Marxist ideology. It was the 1960s itself when all kinds of progressive utopia were declared to be parts of the domination project of the West, while bragging about post-industrial society, postmodern condition, etc. The values of modernity, reason, scientificity, etc. were discredited due to the misanthropic application to which capitalism had put them. The Enlightenment was accepted as the root cause of all evils and it was proclaimed that with the Enlightenment, the West began its project of establising domination all over the world. Marxism was decalared as the part of the project of the Enlightenment for world domination. So Lyotard postulated that all metanarratives, that is to say, all progressive projects of change are the remnants of the gone-by age of Modernity, and claimed that we have now entered the post-modern age when all these metanarratives have become meaningless; Michel Foucault informed that there is no escape from power, therefore any organized resistance of power is futile; if you resist power in an organized way, then that resistance itself will become a structure of power; that is why, any idea of organized people’s resistance is futile because when you resist in an organized way, you become subordinate to certain norms, and every concept of universal value, norm or generality is a concept of power. It is a repressive concept; if there is anything that you can do, it is opposing the concept of all kinds of norms, universal value and generality; this is essence of the Foucault’s entire method of thought. Thus, the process that attained its apogee during 1968 in Paris had more negatives than positives. In the process of reaction to and as a radical rupture from what revisionist, imperialist Soviet Russia did in the name of Socialism, things went to another extreme. Imperialism made good of this and succeeded in infiltrating its most decadent stream of thought, that is to say, postmodernism in the radical progressive movement. The birth place and the origin of postmodernity is the Paris of May 1968. In fact, here we find a strange and extremely dangerous blending of Anarchism, Nihilism of the 19th century, anti-humanism of Nietsche and Spengler, neo-Kantianism present in the theoretical science. post-industrial theory, and motley crew of various mystical Oriental streams of thought. The “ultra-radical” philosophers who had emanated from 1968 portrayed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution continuing in China during this period as a revolution against the Party, whereas, it was attacking the bourgeois headquarters established within the Party of the proletariat. So, this was how the things were turned upside down. The sins of the US and Soviet imperialism were blamed on the rationality and scientificity of Enlightenment and theory of Marxism, respectively. And all of this was done only to ultimately prove that liberal bourgeois democracy is the best system the humanity can ever attain; all of the other systems would end up in either communistic or religious fundamentalist totalitarianism! The same myth is being propagated by anarchists, Chomskyites, various Trotskyites in a different kind of terminology, nihilists in the anti-capitalist movements today. This is the role being played by anarchism in these people’s movements: that is, to deny agency to change. Prof. Ahmad neither says much about nor presents any analysis of the so-called “fall of communism”, actual surrender and selling out of social democracy to neoliberalism, and the ostensible origin of anarchism. It appears as if the place vacated by communism is being filled up by anarchism!

    Then Prof. Ahmad points out the differences between the mass uprising of May 1968, Paris and the present people’s upsurge. These differences too are quite strange. The first diffence that Prof. Ahmad mentions is that the mass uprising of 1968 occurred during the ‘Golden Era’ of capitalism. Capitalism was not confronting any crisis then. This too is an artificial observation. The period of 1968 was one when the era of boom which began with the Kennedy’s reign, was reaching stagnation, and with the collapse of Dollar-Gold standard within merely 5 years, the crisis broke out, which had been building up for some time then. Therefore, this categorization of Prof. Aijaz Ahmad is not accurate. The second point that Prof. Ahmad enumerates itself is a sign of retreat of capitalism and imperialism in a sense. He points out that this was the period of national liberation movements and wars too. This was the decade when the process of decolonization progressed most intensively. This was the period when along with the freeing of direct colonies, imperialism was practising its new ways of control in the South American countries and was installing military Juntas. In fact, the factors contributing to the rise of mass upsurges during 1968 were many, for instance, situation of disillusionment with Socialism and Marxism arising out of the misdeeds of the Soviet imperialism; the people’s sentiment against the Vietnam War throughout the world; the birth of postmodernism as a reaction to the disillusionment with revisionist Soviet Union and imperialist US and Britain; the crisis of imperialism which was reflecting itself in decolonization and the Vietnam War; the insipiration that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China gave to people’s struggles in the entire world, though, the understanding behind this inspiration was incorrect and incomplete; the rupture of the Communist Party of China with the Soviet Union during the ‘Great Debate’, etc. However, what came out of this blending and churning of all these factors was in fact dangerous to the revolutionary proletarian movement. Prof. Ahmad opines that the people’s uprising that arose in 2011, leaving aside the exception of Latin America, had as its background the “total defeat” of Marxism. This too is a terribly confused as well as confusing statement! First of all, Prof. Ahmad should clarify what he means by the “total defeat” of Marxism; like us, he does not put “total defeat” in quotes! Secondly, what is being termed as the “defeat” of Marxism today had its seeds sown through the intellectual off-shoots of the people’s uprising of the same 1968! We don’t believe that there is anything such as the total defeat of Marxism, confronting us today. This is akin to making reality stand on its head. As a matter of fact, today we are witnessing the return of Marxism (if it ever left the scene!)! The bosses of the capitalist world as well as their intellectuals hacks too, are reading Marx in order to understand the crisis. In the various countries of the ‘Third World’, interest in Marxism has augmented and people are turning towards it. Even in the Westerm academic world too, where Marxism had become a shameful word ten-fifteen years ago and people were taking refuge in ‘post-’ streams of thought, there too, the ‘post-’ streams of thought are being assigned to the rubbish bins and Marxism is making a come back. In such a scenario, what Prof. Ahmad is referring to as the “total defeat” of Marxism can only mean one thing–the leadership of the present mass uprisings not coming into the hands of any Marxist force. However, this does not prove anything for the time being.

    Another aspect of this very statement of Prof. Ahmad which creates even more confusion, is that in case of this so-called “total defeat” of Marxism, Latin America stands as an exception! Prof. Ahmad is badly infatuated with the discussions making rounds today regarding the building of the Bolivarian alternative in Latin America! Perhaps, he even considers as new kind of Socialist experiments of the 21st century, what we are witnessing in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. As a matter of fact, the trend amongst the Leftist intellectuals of reading out eulogies can be seen in different parts of the world today, declaring the state monopoly welfarist regimes of Chavez, Morales-style, has in its origin a sense of defeat. The regimes of Chavez and Morales have been proclaimed as the Socialism of the 21st century on the basis of their opposition to neoliberalism, welfarist policies, presence of people’s vigilance committees, etc, formed on the initiative of the masses, coming into existence of few popular people’s institutions and the hatred against imperialism. Though, it is an issue of altogether different debate and the fate of ‘Bolivarian upsurge’ would itself clarify certain questions in the times to come, yet, for the time being, this can certainly be said that the regimes born out of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ do not fulfill any of the criteria or norms which are considered as the touchstone of Socialism according to the science of Marxism. Here, we cannot discuss it further as this subject demands a detailed article. However, this much is pretty clear that the affection of Prof. Ahmad towards these regimes which have come into existence as part of the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America is an absolutely Social Democratic affection, in the background of which is the Welfarist policies of these regimes. There, neither the control of factories and mines is in the hands of the collectives of workers, neither private property has been abolished, nor the power to take direct political decision lies in the hands of the people. However, Prof. Ahmad appears to consider the ‘pink tide’ of Latin America as the new experiments of Socialism. What crosses the limit is the fact that Prof. Aijaz Ahmad ends up considering the World Social Forum as part of the people’s resistance against the neoliberal capitalism. Perhaps, he seems to forget the fact that the ex-President of Brazil (the country of Latin America which he does not consider a part of the ‘pink tide’ and believes it to be a part of the neoliberal tide) Mr. Lula had a major role to play in the formation of this forum. He also conveniently forgets that the funding agency ATTAC which lives off on the crumbs of French imperialists too had greatly contributed to the founding of the notorious World Social Forum. He also appears to have forgotten the exposure of dangerous imperialist conspiracy hatched by these imperialist voluntary organizations by various intellectuals like James Petras, Henry Veltmayer, Joan Roelofs, P.J. James, etc! Apparently, Prof. Aijaz Ahmad is unable to suppress his Social Democratic fascination, which is nothing except surrender in front of capitalism, sense of defeat and some kind of Keynesian and “welfarist” reformism within the confines of capitalism. Prof. Ahmad, while underlining the difference from 1968, at one instance casually concedes that the objective of the resistance movements of 2011 is to attain a better, more humane and reformed capitalism. In the case of the Arab Spring, the democracy of Western style has been turned into a fetish (according to Prof. Ahmad) and he is able to see a nostalgia for Keynes and even Proudhon in the movements going on in the US and European countries. Now this is an altogether a different thing that he himself suffers badly from this nostalgia!

    Following this, Prof. Ahmad reveals his opinion on the future of the forces who advocate revolution through the use of force. To negate the role of force in history, Aijaz Ahmad presents a peculiarly amusing specimen of philosophical acrobatics! He even reverts back to Hegel and digs out a quotation of Hegel. Hegel has at one instance said “history is necessity”. Prof. Aijaz Ahmad calls it a “realist” statement and juxtaposes it with this statement of 1968, “be a realist, imagine the impossible!” Then he attempts to convince us that this slogan of 1968 was in fact anti-Hegelian, because it does not consider history as a sequence of events determined by law of necessity, rather, it believes in making possible even those things which are impossible as per the law of necessity through subjective efforts. Anyhow, when Hegel referred to history as necessity, he meant to lay emphasis on the aspect of causality in history. Marx criticized Hegel on this account that he considered causality or necessity to be absolute (and in this sense, as divine or heavenly) and failed to understand its historicity. Marx understood all phenomena in its historicity and corrected this mistake of Hegel which saw all phenomena as absolute necessity. Since from the point of Hegel, every phenomenon can be justified as absolute necessity. In simpler words, things exist the way they do because that is the only way in which they can exist! Whereas, Marx believed that everything exists in its historicity and by grasping this historicity, things can be changed through the active and conscious subjective efforts of the collective agency. However, Prof. Ahmad has turned Hegel even more reactionary that he actually was! Even this does not satisfy Prof. Aijaz Ahmad and he has tried his best to appropriate even Lenin with his Social Democracy and reformism. He further states that he prefers Lenin’s formulae to Hegel’s! One feels good at this however this happiness proves short-lived because he goes even further and says that he puts Lenin’s formulae in his own words thus: ‘imagine the impossible, remain true to your dream, act on that portion of the impossible that is possible.’ (?!) Then what Prof. Ahmad says, performing a revisionist master-stroke, means that revolution through the use of force, establishment of workers’ state and building of Socialism in classical sense is impossible! What seems possible to him is the Bolivarian experiment of Latin America, where there is a mixture of “welfare” state, an enlightened Bonapartism and resistance to neoliberalism and imperialism from this very ground. So Prof. Ahmad prescribes practising the ‘possible’ portion of the ‘impossible’ of classical Socialism, while remaining ‘honest’ towards this ‘impossible’, that is to say, implementing the amalgamation of the welfarism of liberal enlightened Bonapartism and anti-neoliberal imperialism! This is political prescription of Prof. Aijaz Ahmad! And according to Prof. Aijaz Ahmad the crisis of the resistance movements throughout the world can be cured through this very prescription! If there is a transition from political issues to socio-economic issues in the Arab world, if the alliance of secular forces forming a joint front against imperialism and neoliberalism drives the Islamic fundamentalist forces to margins and resolves the problems of poverty, unemployment and inflation through the prescription of “welfare” state; if the people’s movement going on in American and European world too, while implementing the prescription of “welfare” state in an organized way through elections brings to power such a leadership which follows a true Social Democratic (revisionist) and Keynesian path; if the future movements in various ‘Third World’ countries follow the footsteps of the Bolivarian tide, the problem will be resolved! Once again, in the end of the article, while eulogizing the Occupy Wall Street movement he iterates that one has the feeling that one is hearing fragments of every language that the Left has spoken over the last 150 years! Now, Prof. Ahmad himself can best explain this, because a few paragraphs earlier he was emphasizing that how anarchism has become predominant in these movements owing to the decline of the Left, and the dominant ideology of the present anti-capitalist mass uprisings is anarchism! Anyhow, we cannot take up the task of enumerating all the paradoxes of Prof. Ahmad’s article because then we will be obliged to write a separate article!

    In the end, we can say that we did not expect such a weak and intellectually inconsistent article from Prof. Aijaz Ahmad. A few years ago, one could still have sensed the tension and dialectics between his intellectual honesty (his honesty towards Marxism as a political thinker and literary critic, whether one agrees or disagrees with his analysis) and political partisanship (his association with revisionist parties). However, this tension seems to be resolving itself now; what is saddening is that this resolution is inclined towards his political partisanship. The result is clear. This resolution appears to be at the cost of his intellectual honesty.

    His earlier works in the field of literary criticism and culture can still be counted amongst the examples of best defense of Marxism against the onslaught of postmodernism. In camparison to the soft and sometimes apologetic criticisms of Jameson and Eagleton, his criticisms of postmodernism appear sharper. However, his position in this article is a clear proof of his intellectual incisiveness being rendered blunt due to his increasing inclination towards revisionism. We can only regret it. It seems that Prof. Aijaz Ahmad is meeting the same fate which has already been met by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik. It was quite obvious. It is easy to be/appear Marxist in the arena of literature for longer duration. In Political Economy, due to greater insistence on scientific accuracy, one quickly attains salvation! One cannot ascribe this to the superiority of Prof. Aijaz Ahmad or the inferiority of Prof. Prabhat Patnaik; lets put the blame/give the credit to the specific characteristics of different subjects!

    (Concluded)

    Abhinav Sinha

    (February, 2012)

  • Why is Prof. Aijaz Ahmad so Shame-faced? – Part I

    One of the things that distinguishes any revolutionary Marxist is that he/she never conceals their views; moreover, he/she is not ashamed of the views they profess. Keeping in mind these criteria, one can ask Prof. Aijaz Ahmad that why is he so ashamed of his views? One can as well ask that why is he so despondent?

    Recently, Prof. Aijaz Ahmad has written an article in a distinguished English magazine ‘Frontline’ which can be regarded as a year review. In this article, Prof. Ahmad has expressed his views on the anti-capitalist people’s movements that took place last year, i.e., 2011. He has pondered over a viable alternative of capitalism, while in particular, analyzing the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement. These views demand a detailed review.

    In the very beginning of his article he contends that the year 2011 can be identified by two paradoxical phenomena–the irresoluble crisis of world capitalism, which unfolded itself in the most serious form since the 1930s on the one hand, and, the militant popular movements in different parts of the world against capitalism, oppressive regimes, and poverty, unemployment, rising prices and corruption, on the other. To begin with, there is nothing paradoxical in these phenomena. Clearly, these movements are different kinds of expressions of the restlessness and impatient yearning in search of an alternative of capitalist system. In the absence of any leading revolutionary force, these movements have found themselves in a blind alley. But as far as the question of Crisis and the resistance movements are concerned, there is nothing paradoxical about them. On the contrary, they are two sides of the same coin. In fact, if such movements are spreading to different parts of the world spontaneously, then it is only an expression of the fact that capitalism has reached its saturation point. Anyhow, Prof. Ahmad clarifying the objective of his article says that he intends to analyze the fate of these movements which came into existence as a fall out of the economic crisis. So lets talk about Prof. Ahmad’s interpretation of these movements and its conclusions.

    Prof. Ahmad holds that, politically, this year began in the last days of 2010 when in Tunisia a graduate youth who was a vegetable vendor, immolated himself against the repression and harassment by police. This incident provided an opportunity to the boiling hatred of the people against unemployment and poverty, as well as rising prices and corruption to erupt. Following this, a countrywide movement against repressive and exploitative character of state, the corrupt bourgeois regime of Ben Ali, and the gifts of neoliberalism, namely, unemployment, homelessness, poverty and rising prices started off. This movement resulted in the fall of the regime of Ben Ali in Tunisia. A fierce upheavel ensued through out the Arab world. Further in his article, Prof. Ahmad, while stating the reasons for this, retrospects the post-colonial history of the Arab countries and explains how the national bourgeois and anti-imperialist character of the regimes of Nasserite and Ba’athist parties degenerated and how the public discontent continued to grow in these countries after the inauguration of the neo-liberal policies. Prof. Ahmad gives an authentic account of how these bourgeois regimes degenerated and grew increasingly anti-people after the defeat of Egypt in the war against Israel, and how following Gen. Nasser, during the rule of Anwar Sa’dat, Egypt became an ally of the US-Israel Axis in the Middle-East. Moreover, Prof. Ahmad is again on target, when he contends that besides the repressive and undemocratic character of the state, the factors which were acting as a broader context during the recent Arab Spring, were in fact the socio-economic problems born out of the neo-liberal policies. However, after this Prof. Ahmad begins to gradually bare his pessimism.

    Expressing his disappointment, Prof. Ahmad argues that these militant popular movements notwithstanding, in the end, in all instances, the fundamentalist Islamic forces emerged victorious. Leaving the exception of Tunisia, everywhere after revolts and the fall of regimes, religious fundamentalist and Fascist forces, winning elections came to power. The Islamic fundamentalists prevailed in the elections in Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists have jointly secured majority); the regime established in Libya after the imperialist intervention, also, is religious fundamentalist; In Syria too, the religious fundamentalist forces are consolidating themselves with imperialist assistance within the popular movement against the Assad regime, though this movement is based on genuine issues. Prof. Ahmad is stupefied at the results of these popular movements based on genuine issues. The factors that he cites as the reasons for this are quite strange. He opines that the socio-economic issues like neo-liberal policies, inflation, food crisis, unemployment, poverty etc were dominant in these movements in the beginning, and the political (?) issues of undemocratic, repressive and oppressive character of the regime and barbaric and naked oppression by police and army were subordinate to it. However, as these movements progressed, these aforementioned political issues grew more significant and surprisingly, the religious fundamentalist forces began to represent the aspirations for the US-style democracy and civil liberty. Initially, the aspect of working class movement and trade union movement was prominently present in these demonstrations and in fact the origins of these protest movements can be traced in the trade union movement itself. However, later the demands for democracy and personal freedom by elite and middle class youth became predominant in the entire movement and religious fundamentalist forces, with the assistance of Imperialism (which, rightly felt the pulse of the changing times and withdrew its patronage from the repressive and degenerate bourgeois regimes) appropriated these movements while advocating democracy and civil and personal liberty etc.

    This entire analysis raises more questions than it answers. In fact, this analysis itself is an unsolved question. What is worth deliberating is the question how these movements, in the main, from being centred on socio-economic issues, became centred on political issues (though, this use of the term ‘political’ by Prof. Aijaz Ahmad tells quite a lot about his understanding; in other words, revisionism is an expression of degenerate economism itself, as Charles Bettelheim has rightly argued, and this vulgar use of the term ‘political’ clearly demonstrates it)? What really happened that these anti-system movements born out of the trade union movement were appropriated by Islamic fundamentalist forces. Prof. Aijaz Ahmad does not deem it necessary to answer these questions. Quite apparently, the answers to these questions would lead his analysis to a peculiarly inconvenient cross-road.

    In fact, the wall which Prof. Aijaz Ahmad is trying to erect between socio-economic and political issues was never even present in these movements. Right from the beginning the issues of repressive and oppressive character of the degenerate bourgeois state and those of unemployment and poverty born as a consequence of neo-liberal policies were intertwined in these movements. These regimes needed to maintain the condition of a police state, precisely for the reason that neo-liberal policies could be implemented without any impediment; in the Arab countries, the suppression of political, religious and personal civil liberties was not so much the reason behind the repression by the undemocratic bourgeois states as their will to openly implement the Washington Consensus. The ruling bourgeoisie in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Libya (though in somewhat different way), Syria was well-aware of the fact and still knows it that if they have to implement the neo-liberal policies, then they are obliged to maintain a condition of state terror to crush the popular resistance. If we do not look for the reasons and origins of the undemocratic and repressive political character of the Arab regimes in socio-economic background and their history, then we will be obliged to explain the reasons for the political character of such regimes through individual qualities of different rulers, or the different characteristics of various religions, or through the essentialization of the particular characteristics of different societies (it is noteworthy here that of late, some people in the vein of post-modernists are talking about something called ‘totalitarian communities’ which are inherently totalitarian and undemocratic!), that is to say that we will end up agreeing with Samuel Huttington on his infamous ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis! In that case, Prof. Ahmad should give up Marxism as a tool analysis (because, Marxism has never been important to him as a guide to action!), and he ought to take refuge in the patronage of Weber and Durkheim, etc! The people’s anger against the regime’s repressive character and condition of police state was inseparable from the popular discontent on the issues of quality of material life. They went hand in hand right from the beginning to the end. Prof. Ahmad concedes that he finds the task of explaining the relationship between the Arab Spring and its reactionary fallouts quite puzzling.

    This is because Prof. Ahmad fails to understand that the popular revolts in two Arab countries (Egypt and Tunisia) and partial revolt combined with imperialist intervention in one Arab country (Libya) culminated into regime change (please note, not systemic change), however, if as a result of these popular revolts the regimes fall but any revolutionary alternative, revolutionary ideology and revolutionary leadership fails to organize itself then a vacuum will be created. Certainly, in the absence of any revolutionary force, this vacuum will be filled by the reactionary forces. The same has happened in the case of the Arab Spring. The spontaneous revolts of the people against repression, oppression, exploitation, poverty, unemployment, corruption and inflation brought down the regimes of Mubarak and Ben Ali! However, there was no revolutionary communist force present in these countries to take charge of this objective revolutionary situation and then take it forward in the revolutionary direction, which had come into existence spontaneously. What should the people do till such a force is organized? Will the people wait? No! Certainly, the people would choose that alternative among all the available alternatives, which appears to be anti-imperialist; which would promise democracy; which would support its hatred against the US imperialism. The same happened after the Arab Spring. It is true that fragmented Left forces were present within these movements. Especially in Egypt, such forces were present with comparatively greater strength. However, some of them were liquidationists, some anarchists and trade unionists, others Trotskyites, and still others anarcho-syndicalists. Under the leadership of such forces no countrywide leadership could have been built and neither was it built. Today the Marxist-Leninist forces are in an extremely weak condition, and whichever are present, they too are fettered by the program of New Democratic revolution; they, instead of independently and critically undertaking a study of the production relations of their societies, the level of development of the productive forces and the character of the bourgeoisie, are trying to mindlessly implement the readymade and  hackneyed formula of New Democratic Revolution and protracted people’s war in their countries. The position of Trotskyites and Anarchists is far better than that of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries in the working class movement. Consequently, there does not seem to be any possibility of any revolutionary communist leadership getting organized in the near future. In such a situation, what else Prof. Ahmad could have expected? One wonders what might be the reasons for Prof. Ahmad’s bewilderment at the tragedy of reactionary forces gaining dominance. Prof. Ahmad is also sad for the Trade Union movement being upstaged from its leading position within the movement. However, this too was bound to happen because only a revolutionary party can provide a political alternative, not the trade union movement. However, these basic formulations regarding the science of revolution, too, are absent from the analysis of Prof. Ahmad. If at all there is something then it is the faint sobs of Prof.Ahmad on the dominance of the reactionary forces!

    Then Prof. Ahmad steers his ship of analysis from the coast of Africa, via the Pacific, to that of American protest movement. He rightly points out that at present the people in entire American continent are on streets against the anarchy and uncertainties of capitalism. People have rejected the neo-liberal policies of bailing out the banks, forsaking welfarist policies and disinvesting from education and health. The same is true for Europe. The centre of gravity of the crisis has shifted from the US to Europe for the time being and its fall outs can be seen in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and France and even in Germany. He opines that how the “social Europe” had been at the centre of the dream of European Union, however, owing to the implementation of neo-liberal policies right from its inception, the “banker Europe” or “financial Europe” has become its centre today, and, now when neo-liberalism has reached its point crisis, the people has rejected it. Here too, Prof. Ahmad is arguing like a classical revisionist and social democrat. To take his point about “social Europe” seriously is rank foolishness or revisionist chicanery! All of us know that the dream of European Union was, in fact,  nurtured by liberal bourgeois thinkers and particularly Social Democrats, in a specific phase, for equitable expansion of welfarist policies in the whole of Europe. At that time too the dream of United Europe was not a dream of Socialist United Europe; that time too, it was the dream of a “Welfarist State Capitalist United Europe”! One can easily understand as to why Prof. Aijaz Ahmad is remembering with such nostalgia this airy-fairy Keynesian dream and mourning his heart out on its corpse! Anyhow, Prof. Ahmad proceeds to the Occupy Wall Street movement after he is done with his bereavement on the destruction of “social Europe”.

    Prof. Ahmad is in raptures on Occupy Wall Street Movement. Presently, he blames weather for the fact that this movement has gone into deep slumber! And then goes onto say that, “they are hibernating for the winter, but they will have their spring.” The sentiments of Prof. Ahmad can be comprehended by this literary ornamentalism. He contends further that the common thread in all these movements is that they are all anti-neoliberalism. This too is quite amusing. All these movements are either referred to as “anti-finance capital”, “anti-bank monopoly”, or “anti-neoliberalism”; everyone refrains from calling them simply anti-capitalist. The above-mentioned adjective suggest that people are not anti-capitalist, but they are just against the present form of capitalism! That is to say, if the “golden era” of the 1960s is back which was characterized by “welfarist” bourgeois state, then there would be no problem; if the dictatorship of banks and financial institutions ceases to be, if the state takes up the responsibility of providing employment or unemployment allowance, and that of education and health then everything is alright. We can conveniently forget about Socialism, equality, workers’ state, etc! Prof. Ahmad too seems to be ready for that. Time and again he has criticized neoliberalism and talked about the socio-economic problems arising as a consequence of neoliberalism. However, we cannot see him discussing Socialism and Socialist experiments of the past as its alternative, anywhere! At one instance he does take the name of Socialism, but, he pours in all the strength at his disposal for doing so! And having taken the name of this accursed phrase with lot of exertion and perspiration, he is terribly embarrassed! He opines that people are experimenting with new forms of resistance after the fall of the Soviet system, and they have not yet found the form of resistance which is appropriate for the emancipatory project in the Twenty-First century. He, straining his lungs, somehow says that lets, for the time being, provisionally call this alternative “Socialism”.

    Here the Prof. Aijaz Ahmad’s entire thought process as a social democrat has been exposed. First of all, he is spreading an illusion. If you are talking about the fall of the Soviet System, and you are not clarifying whether you regard this fall in 1956, when revisionism consolidated its power decisively in the Soviet Party within the three years Stalin’s demise; or, in 1990, when the state monopoly capitalism of the Soviet Union, which had become social fascist internally and social imperialist for the rest of the world, fell down due to its internal contradictions; then you are spreading a misunderstanding. You talk about the fall of the Soviet System in general terms, in passing. This creates a situation of terrible confusion. If you accept that the capitalist restoration began in 1956 itself, then you can also analyze the contradictions of the state monopoly capitalism which continued in the name of Socialism during the next 35 years, and also can analyze those factors and mistakes which occurred in the period of Stalin due to which revisionism and social democracy succeeded in consolidating their power within the party and the Soviet Union, from a Socialist country and workers’ state (certainly, with various bourgeois distortions and bureaucratic deformities)  transformed into a capitalist country and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Needless to say that classical private property capitalism was not restored in 1956 itself in the Soviet Union and it was a compulsion of the bourgeoisie to function as a state monopoly capitalist, because, in the view of the sentiments that the people had for Socialism, it was impossible to establish open naked capitalist relations immediately. However, under state monopoly capitalism, the institutions and values of Socialism were destroyed one by one in the Soviet Union. Civil liberties and democratic rights were snatched away one by one. The generation that had been a witness to the positives of Socialism was slowly grasping the things going around. The generation which matured during revisionism began to hate Socialism itself. When the wave of Perestroika and Glasnost gained momentum, the sickest values of western capitalism penetrated in the Soviet Union in the name of openness and liberalism. In the name of the US-style freedom and democracy, nudity, vulgarity, obscenity swept the entire cultural scene. After 1956, Socialist institutions were systematically erased and destroyed from economy, society and culture in the Soviet Union.

    Without the description of this entire process, if you casually talk about finding new forms of resistance after the fall of the Soviet System, in the terminology and style of New Left, post-Marxist, vagabond philosophers of myriad kinds, then how would it be interpreted as? Certainly, you too, in the vein of axisless thinkers like Badiou, Žižek, Halloway, Butler, Mouffe, Laclau, Negri, Hardt are proclaiming the present day world to be a post-Communist world. Your words amount to mean that you consider the Socialist experiments of the Twentieth century to be mistakes that ended in catastrophé and disaster, though they did looked promising at a certain moment. Then why don’t you profess it openly? Why are you saying this the other way round? A true Marxist is afraid of the conclusions of his analysis! Neither does he conceal them! Nor is he ashamed of them! However, the truth is that these are, in fact, not the conclusions of your own analysis! This is simply an expression of your belief. If your own despondency, pessimism and opportunism do not allow you to reach any revolutionary conclusion, only then you utter such things. Today, it is quite fashionable to pronounce judgement on the Marxist Communism of the Twentieth century without analyzing the successes and failures of the Socialist experiments of the Soviet Union and China, due to the so-called new vagabond philosophers. It seems that Prof.Aijaz Ahmad too has become an advocate of this fashion! He is blending his own social democracy, Keynesianism and pessimism with the axisless thinking of these new philosophers. That is the reason why one cannot decide what Prof. Aijaz Ahmad ultimately intends to say, even after reading his article completely and repeatedly? However, you do take an impression on your mind. And that is that in the age of neoliberalism and Globalization, there is no viable alternative of capitalism at present! He rejects the Socialist experiments of the Twentieth century without any critical analysis; though, he still wants to call the entire emancipatory project “Socialism” (with great sorrow and a lot of reservations!)! However, according to him we need to find “new forms” of Socialism! There is no denying the fact that in view of the important changes in the modus operandi of capitalism, there can be a need to make some changes in the strategies and general tactics of the working class movements; nor can anyone deny the fact that after a critical analysis of the socialist experiments of the Twentieth century, their negative aspects should be done away with and positive aspects be adopted. But, first of all, you deem the entire experience of the Twentieth century as worthy of abandoning, rejecting it, and without establishing any critical relation with it, you talk of moving ahead and looking for the so-called “new forms”! Needless to say, that you cannot organize any kind of redemptive activity of the working class. You can only rhetoricize, lament, beat your breast about this.

    (To be continued…)