Blog

• The Critical Crisis of Capitalism and the Challenges of Alternative

One thing is clear that without grasping the successes and failures, perfections and imperfections, strengths and weaknesses of the proletarian revolutions of the Twentieth century; we cannot talk of providing an alternative to capitalism in the Twenty-first century. However, today, precisely this is being done. The world capitalism is going through an unprecedented serious crisis. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the monopoly capitalism still had not reached the saturation point. A large part of the world was still not completely under the hold of capital; the capital still was not entrenched in every joint of the colonial societies. From the 1940s to the 1970s, following the process of decolonization, independence of countries, resolution of the national question, and end of the Second World War; there have been certain fundamental changes in the structure, strategy and general modus-operandi of imperialism as a whole. Today, the dominance of finance capital is far greater than the times of Lenin; the capital has become more parasitic, speculative, unproductive, and moribund than ever before. The world capitalist system has become more hollow, enfeebled, and sick than ever before. Despite its all military might, imperialism is facing terrible upheaval owing to its internal crisis. In the age of Globalization, capitalism is neither left with the possibilities of productive investments, nor are there enough opportunities left for the gambling of finance capital. The structure of capitalism is reeling under the burden of over-production and abundance of capital. However, despite all this, capitalism will not be relegated to the background of history on its own. To assign it to the garbage bin of history, an agent, an active force is needed which has a clear-cut alternative to the entire capitalist economy, society, politics and culture.

There has been no other ideology except Marxism which has presented a scientific and feasible outline of the alternative to capitalism. Various ideologies which talked of making capitalism more humane and advocated some reforms and patch-work in it, came to the fore and soon each one of them faded into oblivion. With each passing day of the existence of capitalism, all such ideologies are displaying their irrelevance more clearly.

However, today the working class movement through out the world is suffering from deep-rooted crisis and there are many challenges confronting its revival. In most of those countries, which are going to be the storm-centres of the future proletarian revolutions, the Marxist Communist revolutionaries, instead of learning critically from the revolutions of the past, suffer from the mentality of blind imitation. Most among them want to repeat the new democratic revolution led by Mao in China, in their respective countries. In 1963, the Communist Party of China, while presenting its position on the international situation, had said that, generally, in the ‘Third World’ countries, which included countries under direct colonial rule and newly-independent countries with indirect imperialist control, new democratic revolution will take place because there are semi-feudal semi-colonial or colonial semi-feudal formations in these countries and the bourgeoisie, that have come to power in the newly-independent countries are generally agents of imperialism and will assume a compromising stance towards indigenous feudalism. This was the exposition of a general line whose correctness or incorrectness can be debated. At that time, there were, in fact, some countries which had a similar situation or a situation resembling this. However, question can be raised as to whether such condition prevailed in India at that time or not. However, whatever be the case, from then till the 1990s, when even the last surviving colony got its independence, many changes have occurred in the structure of entire world. The question of national liberation has been fully resolved; the world capitalism has entered the phase of Globalization; in the relatively less developed and developing countries, which are not imperialists, the ruling bourgeoisie is not playing the role of comprador bourgeoisie in any way; the capitalist mode of production is clearly the most effective and dominant mode of production in the social formations of these countries. Therefore, these countries are not semi-feudal semi-colonial countries. These are backward but capitalist countries where the bourgeoisie is neither national (since it shares nothing in common with the masses) nor comprador (since it is politically independent and in a multipolar world while being economically and technologically dependent on imperialism as a whole, it is not the agent of any single imperialist country). The bourgeoisies of these countries acts as the junior partner of imperialism and together with it, is engaged in imperialist-capitalist plunder of the people of its country. It is nowhere written in any book of Marxism that the bourgeoisie can either be imperialist or national or else comprador; however, in most of the ‘Third World’ countries which have the potentialities for a durable proletarian revolution, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries consider the new democratic revolution, protracted people’s war and semi-feudal semi-colonial analysis as a question of ideology, which, in fact, is the question of the program of revolution, which has to be repeatedly enriched, updated and revised by the revolutionaries with the changing circumstances. The turning of the question of program into that of ideology has obliged them to shut all doors against rethinking on this question and this dogmatic Marxism, instead of being a scientific instrument of analysis, has become an alternative to thinking for them! This is the biggest problem the communist movement throughout the world is facing today. Today, clearly it is necessary to break free from the shackles of the theory of new democratic revolution and undertake the concrete analysis of concrete conditions of one’s country. Without this, there can be no resolution to the crisis confronting the communist movement.

This problem is the internal problem of the communist movement. Besides this, the bourgeois media, cultural and intellectual tools too are continuously launching new attacks on Marxism, are trying to break Marxists from within, are producing motley crew of “radical” intellectuals with spontaneous motion through their hegemonic mechanism, who are consciously or unconsciously launching offensive against Marxism. In this age of information technology revolution, capitalism has deepened its psychological and cultural hegemony all the more through the means of TV, internet, etc. It is true that all these media provide an alternative to the revolutionary forces to subvert the hegemony of the bourgeois ideology (this is precisely the reason why the revisionist rulers of China have to block many websites, a few among these were propagating the ideas of Mao). However, today, due to their ideological immaturity, the communist revolutionary forces, in most of the cases are not in a position to subvert the ideological hegemony of capitalism! There is a need to build an entire revolutionary alternative media outside internet and TV too, which can continuously create obstacles and impediments in the whole process of production and reproduction of the bourgeois values and manufacturing of consent in favour of capitalism. In these terms, the revolutionary forces will have to erect the structure of their own alternative media. This subject cannot be dealt with in detail here.

• The “Challenge” of New Vagabond Philosophers to Marxism and their History and Geography

As an ideology, Marxism is facing no crisis. Whatever attacks are being made against Marxism, their names might be new, however, there is nothing new in their content. The “challenges” of postmodernism, post-structuralism, Orientalism, post-Orientalism, subalternism, etc have met their doom. In academic world too, today the talks of ‘return of Marxism’ is doing the rounds (though how much of it is Marxism, or something else, is a contentious issue!). At least, all ‘post- ‘ streams of thought are breathing their last in the state of comatose. However, there is a new current in form of speculative radical “philosophers” which is launching offensive against Marxism. It comprises of vagabond philosophers like Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, Jacques Ranciére etc. It is not without reason that we are referring to them as speculative and vagabond. They are really vagabond and speculative! Most among these talk about a new kind of Communism! Such a Communism which would not be Marxist! They contend that Communism is an absolute truth, whose absolute journey is continuing since the ancient times and Plato, Rousseau, the Jacobins and Marxist Communism of the 20th century are different relative points in this absolute journey and now we have left these points behind; this absolute journey of Communism has made the party and the state irrelevant and has come ahead of it; though class is not deemed irrelevant, but nowhere in the writings of these gentlemen, “outdated” concepts like class, class character of state power are present (Mr. Badiou)! Instead of the bourgeoisie, they use the term ‘the rulers’, and instead of the proletariat, they use ‘the multitude’ with great liking and enthusiasm; they like to speak about ‘the commons’ instead of capital, production, etc. (Messrs. Negri and Hardt and Mr. Žižek too)! There are some who do not claim to go further than Marxist Communism and neither claim to accept it; nor do they say anything clear regarding the need for the state and the party; every year as a rule, they change their position on the dictatorship of the proletariat too, however, they do hold that the Marxist Communism of the 20th century culminated in a catastrophé/disaster and that there is a need for a new kind of Communism and then they sing the same song sung by Mr. Badiou and Messrs Negri and Hardt (Mr. Žižek)! Then there are a few who go on to add that the proletariat/oppressed class/subaltern classes does not need any leadership or party; they favour the ‘self-education’ of the oppressed and assert that today a more radical idea than Marxism is needed because Marxism itself is totalitarian, repressive and reductionist (Mr. Ranciére)! Besides, there are a few who have resolved to be the slayers of all kinds of universality and maintain that all talk of universality, absoluteness, generality is in fact repressive, therefore, we must whole-heartedly engage in safe-gaurding the fragments; that is say, concepts like class, concepts like unity/solidarity of the proletariat are repressive in themselves and thus we must celebrate the fragments (Ms. Judith Butler, Mr. Laclau and Mr. Mouffe)! And in the end, there are some who without smashing the state power, without establishing a new revolutionary state power, have scrawled ten to twelwe theses on accomplishing revolution (Mr. John Halloway)!

Perhaps, you might have understood why we call these “philosophers” speculative and vagabond philosophers. They do not have any axis! Without going into their intentions, let us discuss the key points of their thought. If one pays closer attention, one finds that their radical stance, their impassioned talk, and claims of favouring a new kind of revolution notwithstanding, their target is precisely those very concepts that constitute the revolutionary core of Marxism. For instance, concept of class, concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, concept of the Communist Party as the vanguard of the class, concept of capital, concept of alienation and exploitation, etc. These vagabond philosophers either negate these concepts, or else distort them. In order to understand their false philosophical deceptions, one must look at their philosophical and political source. In fact, the source of most of these is the same as that of the postmodernist streams of thought–that is say, the movement of 1968, whose centre was Paris. The intervention by the Soviet Social Imperialism in the Eastern Europe and the experiences of the people in the sham socialist countries of Eastern Europe became the cause of prejudices against Soviet Socialism in the 1960s. In Europe, and particularly in France, there were many such political and philosophical thinkers who had made their ideological beginning as Marxists, however, later due to the experiences of the Soviet Imperialism, they became disillusioned with Marxism, because they could not differentiate between the revolutionary Marxism and revisionism. In addition to it, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution too was going on in China, which many in Europe took as ‘revolution against the party’! All in all, the outcome was that these so-called ‘new philosophers’ began to think of the theory of the party and the dictatorship of the proletariat as the root cause of all evils. Some of these branding Marxism as totalitarian, repressive, etc moved towards postmodernism such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, etc. There were some who began to talk a new kind of Marxism! Most among these were influenced by Althusser, Alexander Kojéve, and Jacques Lacan and some were even Althusser’s students. Althusser adopted a compromising position on the revisionism of the French Communist Party and Soviet Revisionism which led to some of his students to be free from his influence, such as Jacques Ranciére, Etiénne Balibar, Foucault, etc. However, most of these took Althusser’s mistake for the mistake of Marxism itself. The postmodernism was born in this very crucible of philosophical confusions and illusions, along with the influences of Nietsche, Spengler, Daniel Bell, Raymond Aron, Rostow, etc. And the present-day philosophers whom we are referring to as vagabond and speculative philosophers, too, originated from the same confused Paris of 1968. In fact, after the failure of direct attacks of postmodernism, the philosophical nomadism of these speculative and vagabond philosophers have once again targeted the revolutionary core of Marxism, while at the same time feigning to oppose postmodernism. Their terminology is different; the shamelessness with which postmodernism boasted about the ultimate victory of capitalism, absence of any alternative, support for the politics of identity, etc. would be considered as farcical and ludicrous now. That is why these new vagabond philosophers have assumed the gesture of apparent anti-capitalism and they undertake “a new kind of criticism” of capitalism, which itself demands a separate discussion! Today, people across the world are taking to streets against capitalism. This is not the period of the early-1990s when defeatism and pessimism reigned everywhere. At that time, postmodernism could sing the threnody of ‘end’ blatantly. Now the fate of any ideology which attempts to do the same can easily be gauged. Therefore, the intellectual apparatus of capitalism has given rise to new kind of “philosophers” with its natural motion and some among them are being touted as “most entertaining thinker”, “greatest living thinker”, etc while some others are being cororated as “most innovative thinker of the generation”, and what not! However, as we have already seen, the target of these new “philosophers” is same as that of postmodernism, postcolonial theory, etc. in the 1990s and early 2000s–the revolutionary core of Marxism. Today, the philosophical vagrancy of these vagabond philosophers needs to be severely criticized and the real anti-people character of their ideas needs to be clarified. We need to understand the real intent and objective behind their entire jugglary of words.

The world needs a clear alternative in clear terms, which can be provided and which is possible too, provided that, the revolutionary forces across the world counter the challenges from within and without in a correct manner. The anti-capitalist movements going on in the world at present are suffering from anarchism, celebration of spontaneity, and different kinds of alien tendencies. People have participated in these movements spontaneously out their hatred and disdain for capitalism. However, this hatred for capitalism is not enough; sponteneity is not enough; in a sentence, one can say that, merely anti-capitalism is not enough. The revival of anarchism and Chomskyism which these movements are witnessing, would prove short-lived, rather one can say that it has already started to prove short-lived with the dispersion within these movements. Anarchism cannot provide any alternative. We must provide a clear and coherent revolutionary alternative. And for this the proletarian revolutionaries across the world must abandon the weaknesses, dogmatism, axis-less thinking and surrenderism present within themselves and face these challenges, standing firmly on the principles of Marxism, on the science of dialectical materialism. Without revolutionary ideology, revolutionary party and revolutionary movement, no revolution is possible. Today, the proletarian revolutionaries throughout the world must undertake preparations to build a new revolutionary party, while freeing themselves from their ideological weaknesses and dogmatic understanding of revolutionary programme. This is the only way to get rid of the crisis of the movement.

(Concluded)

February, 2012.

The year 2011 has elapsed. Yet another year, imperialism and capitalism continued their death-dance of profit at the cost of human lives throughout the world. And in a more naked form than ever. In the age of Globalization, the capitalist system, critically crisis-ridden, continued to tear apart its remaining “welfarist”, “democratic”, “just and fair” masks, one after another. Its supreme masters, too, have now forsaken the efforts of justifying and legitimizing the capitalist system. Now they do not turn red when now and then, they have to accept that the capitalist system, through its spontaneous motion, generates unemployment, poverty, hunger, homelessness; however, together with this, they talk of the lack of any alternative. They contend that though capitalism cannot provide a better life to the majority of common toiling masses, but what can one do about it! They demonstrate the culmination of the Socialist experiments of the Twentieth century in revisionist, social-fascist dictatorships and the failure of various peoples’ protests and the gradual degeneration of the remaining Socialist states as the ultimate victory of capitalism. They argue that though the bourgeois democracy is not a just and equitable system, however, the Socialist states which claimed to provide an alternative, proved totalitarian and undemocratic! Therefore, according to them, the predatory, misanthropic character and profiteering of capitalism notwithstanding, the humanity today is left with only one alternative–bourgeois democracy! Weighing Socialism as well as religious fundamentalism and terrorism on the same scales, they assert, ‘look! You have nothing else to choose from except bourgeois democracy and various kinds of (communist or religious fascist) totalitarianisms!’

Various NGOs, living off on the left-overs of the imperialists too, speak the same language. Many voluntary organizations and non-governmental organizations have been deployed in the ‘Third World’ countries with the purpose of propagating the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism; that the bourgeois parliamentary democracy is the best political system, though it has only been able to bestow destitution, deprivation and destruction on the majority of the people; that the utmost one can do, while staying within the ambit of the preset bourgeois democracy, is to achieve some betterment through reform, patchwork, judicial activism, citizen’s advocacy and awakening the “initiative” of the masses (that is to say, free the government of all its responsibilities!)! If one speaks about a revolutionary, radical movement against the entire system which aims at seizing the power from the hands of the ruling classes and handing it over to the working masses through a revolution, they begin to frown! They hold that such attempts have failed and even if they have succeeded, they have culminated in a system far worse than the bourgeois democracy–that is to say, totalitarianism!

At present ‘totalitarianism’ has become a catch-word in various intellectual circles. Not only the NGOs, which directly thrive on the crumbs thrown to them by the state, are infused with terror of this totalitarianism, but various fashionable thinkers who consider themselves upholding more radical views than Marxism, Socialism, Communism and who talk about “a new kind of Communism”, too, are being consumed by the fear of this totalitarianism! Amongst these, perhaps there are some who are really terrified, somewhat like the character of Pastukhov in Fedin’s novel ‘An Unusual Summer’, who till the end is not able to decide whether to take the side of Bolshevik revolutionaries or not (because he considered revolution a beautiful object and was panic-stricken by the horror and ferocity of the Civil War), and then there are some who actually are not terrified but as pragmatism demands, are taking sides and if need be, changing sides too, just like Tsvetukhin, another character in the novel, was doing. (Sometimes I wonder why while reading the works of Slavoj Žižek, written during past one and a half decades, one is, all of a sudden, reminded of Tsvetukhin)! However, the strategy of presenting the false alternatives of (bourgeois) democracy and totalitarianism does not seem to be working out for capitalism now.

The year gone by has been full of upheavals for capitalism. Terribly stuck in the whirl of economic crisis, capitalism is increasingly becoming undemocratic, repressive and dictatorial. The present crisis, which happens to be the most terrible crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, has forced capitalism to cast aside its remaining “welfarist” masks. From the Subprime crisis to the present sovereign debt crisis, the way in which the capitalist state powers of various countries in the world have openly as well as directly intervened to safeguard the finance monopoly bourgeoisie, and by instituting massive cuts on the social public expenditure done on the people, bailed out banks and financial institutions which had been ruined due to their greed, avarice and lust for profit, it has clearly shown its partisanship. The students-youth and workers are taking to streets against the pro-capital policies of the governments of Greece, Portugal, Spain and even the US, Britain and France. The militant movement of the students against the cuts in public expenditure is going on in Chile. The historical context for the present upheaval in the Middle East has been prepared by the irresoluble crisis of capitalism itself since it has augmented the pressure on Imperialism to establish its hegemony on oil and natural gas resources of the Arab countries. The increasing pressure of imperialism coupled with the discontent of the people against the degenerated indigenous bourgeois state powers, naked repression, and poverty, unemployment and rising prices is giving rise to an explosive situation in the Arab countries. In countries like India and China, though no situation of countrywide uprising exists, however, there too, the frequency of workers’ movement is on the rise. Clearly, after a long period of frustration, despondency, darkness and illusory lack of alternative which had begun following the fall of revolutionary Socialist states of the Twentieth century, we are entering into the beginning of an extremely complex, difficult and protracted period of transition. In such a scenario, today it becomes incumbent upon the revolutionary forces, students-youth desiring change and workers of the country to answer many of intricate and serious questions. Without this, we cannot advance by merely celebrating the spontaneous anti-capitalist mass upsurges. Today the biggest question confronting us is the question of a consistent critical evaluation of the successes and the failures of the Socialist experiments of the Twentieth century.

• The Socialist Experiment in the Soviet Union and the Capitalist Restoration

The period from 1917 till 1976 was the period of great experiments of the world proletariat. The world became witness to the first-ever workers’ revolution in 1917. It was the first instance when the Marxist science, which had come into being as the essence and scientific review and sum-up of the historical experiences of the proletariat, was being put into practice. From 1917 till the death of Stalin in 1953, the proletarian state power remained firmly established in Russia and pulling Russia out of medieval darkness, it placed it in the ranks of the most advanced and powerful countries of the world. During this entire period, not only did Russia achieve economic progress but in terms of the indices of human development and standard of living too, Russia was ahead of any other country of the world. Unemployment, poverty, prostitution, illiteracy and homelessness were eradicated; and all of this was achieved by the Socialist Russia by enduring massive sacrifices and destruction during its victory over Fascism and Nazism. Before the commencement of the Cold War, the achievements made by Socialist Russia under the leadership of Stalin were recognized by even the western observers, reporters, intellectuals and researchers. The imperialist conspiracy of depicting Stalin as a demon and projecting Stalin-era Soviet Union as an undemocratic repressive country started off during the Cold War, which is going on till today. However, this historical truth cannot be reversed that the Socialist Revolution, in every possible respect, placed Russia, once referred to as ‘the lazy bear of Europe’, among the ranks of the leading countries of the world. The Twentieth century became witness to the unparalleled and fast-paced progress of Russia and this was made possible by Socialism itself. We cannot present a detailed analysis on the elimination of private property, collectivization in agriculture, industrialization, planned development, social equality and experiments in education and culture in Russia under Socialism in a single article. However, we would like to draw the attention towards some issues of fundamental importance.

The unprecedented and astounding experiments and progress of Socialism notwithstanding, owing to the economistic deviation in the Socialist experiment of Russia and in the understanding of the Communist Party of Russia on Socialist construction, the bourgeois distortions and bureaucratic tendencies present within the party could not be checked. Russia remained a Socialist country during the life time of Stalin, because under the leadership of Stalin, the character of the state power remained proletarian and Stalin tried to eliminate various bourgeois and bureaucratic tendencies through proletarian instinct and viewpoint. Stalin cannot be criticized precisely for those very “reasons” for which he has been criticized during the past six decades by people like Roy Medvedev, Isaac Deustcher, Leon Trotsky and the hireling intellectuals and media of the Imperialist countries. If the task of crushing the bourgeois conspiracies and intrigues against the workers’ state by Stalin generates fear and anxiety in the parasites and leech of the bourgeoisie, then it comes as no surprise. Certainly, many a times excesses were also committed. However, because of being surrounded by imperialism from outside and opponents and conspirators of the Socialist experiments within the country, and even within the Party, Stalin never got time to stop for a while and deliberate. However, this is also true that there was economism present in Stalin’s understanding of Socialist construction. This weakness has been present in the whole of European working class movement since the times of Marx. Marx, Engels and Lenin had continued struggle against this trend. However, despite this, its strong influence remained even after the Bolshevik Revolution. This trend believed that following the establishment and consolidation of the proletarian state power and legal abolition of private property in both agriculture and industry, Socialist construction would merely mean the rapid development of the productive forces. Owing to this non-dialectical stress on the development of productive forces, there always remained more emphasis on industry in the economic planning of the Soviet Union. When the danger of Fascism was hovering then extracting surplus from agriculture and pouring it into the industry was compulsion of the Soviet Union, because without chemical, big mechanical industries and production and purification of metals, the Soviet Union could not have built the war machinery needed to fight Germany. However, owing to the greater stress on the development of the productive forces, in normal conditions too, the policy of less emphasis on agriculture and more emphasis on industry would have been pursued, because there is a material and natural limit to the development of productive forces in agriculture and the pace of development of productive forces too is low, whereas in industry, the productive forces develop with a much greater pace and theoretically, there is no material and natural limit to their development. Therefore, there was always greater emphasis on industry than agriculture, which increased all the more under the exceptional circumstances of war. Thus, the understanding of the Soviet Party under the leadership of Stalin was that the stage of Communism can be arrived at through the rapid and unlimited development of the productive forces because when the stage of abundance is reached, only then the Communistic principle of ‘from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs’ can be put into practice. Therefore, in 1936 itself, when the collectivization of agricultural farms came to an end and private property was abolished, Stalin declared that now there are no antagonistic classes in the Socialist Soviet Union; workers, peasants and intellectuals together have to advance towards communism. However, clearly the mere abolition of the juridical forms of private property does not amount to accomplishing the task of the transformation of bourgeois production relations. Undoubtedly, it is the prerequisite for the transformation and without it; any talk of transforming the production relations would be meaningless. However, even after the collectivization of ownership, complete transformation of the relations of distribution had not taken place; even after the coming into being of collective farms and industries, production of goods as commodities was still in existence and therefore, exchange relations, too, were in existence; the level of development of the process of political decision-making by the masses on their own was low; the task of the gradual elimination of the role of political leadership of the party, particularly the condition of providing the institutionalized leadership was not even in the initial stages; the elimination of the gap between the mental labour and manual labour, town and country, and industry and agriculture still remained. Besides, the influence of the bourgeois ideas in the fields of culture, education and psychology was strongly present. The bourgeois rights were still in existence. From industry to agriculture, the specialists enjoyed privileges. The managers, technocrats and supervisors in factories, mines and even collective farms got privileges, facilities as well as more salaries. Generally, these people who enjoyed bourgeois privileges based on the disparity between mental and manual labour, industry and agriculture, and that between town and country were the organizers, commissars etc of the Communist Party. This class continuously consolidated its position during the period of Socialist construction in the Soviet Union. On the one hand, Russia was advancing in terms of development of productive forces, development of the standards of living and collectivization, on the other hand, this privileged class was striking deep roots within the party. Stalin, gradually, was grasping this. However, he could not evolve any clear understanding of its causes. And particularly, when his analysis was this that in 1936, there were no antagonistic classes in the Soviet Union, he could not have arrived at the key link of the problem. Till the time he recognized this reality, that the Socialist transition will be a protracted period and during this entire period, classes will exist, and the key link to understand the development of the society will only be class struggle, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie had firmly entrenched itself within the Party. In the last years of his life, Stalin undertook various measures to break the hold of this bureaucratic class, however, before he could have systematically advanced these efforts, he passed away in 1953 and with Khrushchev’s coming to power, the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union began and by the time of the Twentieth Congress of the Bolshevik Party in 1956, the revisionism of Khrushchev had firmly and decisively consolidated its position within the Party. In the recent years, the research done by people like Grover Furr, Mario Sousa and Ludo Martens has shown that throughout his life, Stalin fought against the bureaucratic and bourgeois elements within the Party, who using the authority of Stalin’s name, were disgracing both Socialism and Stalin. However, since Stalin failed to understand the nature of class struggle during the Socialist transition, therefore, he could not perceive the ground which generated such elements.

In the Twentieth Congress, Khrushchev indulged in open slandering against Stalin and tried his utmost to discredit his great leadership. Following this, Khrushchev began the task of systematically destroying and breaking the great institutions, values and structures of Socialism. This task was further taken ahead during the period of Brezhnev and Kosygin. The moment Russia, departing from Socialism, took the road to capitalism, from a Socialist country, it transformed into a social imperialist country and entered into rivalry with the US, the other super-power of the world. The Soviet imperialism displayed its various feats in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, besides many countries of Africa. And the stigma of all these misdeeds sullied the name of Socialism since the Soviet Union was still Socialist in name. The people in the country took time to comprehend the departure to capitalism. People found it hard to believe that the party of great Lenin and great Stalin was destroying all the achievements of Socialism one after another. As Soviet Socialism got transformed into a state monopoly capitalism, problems like unemployment, poverty, and homelessness started raising their heads once again in the country. The revisionist party of the Soviet Union tried to maintain the high level of productivity through a social fascist kind of control over the workers and the common working masses. Each and every protest of workers and the common toiling people was mercilessly suppressed. The criticism of party as well as of state was impossible; it was a crime. Nobody could speak against the state power. The state power kept a close watch on even the personal and private lives of the citizens. The reason being that the Soviet revisionist were always haunted by the fear that as the people would comprehend their reality, they could face greater opposition and protest. Therefore, the revisionist power used a social fascist kind of control over the people. Owing to being namesake Socialism, the charge of these undemocratic activities too was leveled against Socialism and Marxism. After 1956, the bourgeois media projected the social imperialist role of the Soviet Union on the international level and its social fascist role against people within the country as the dictatorship of the proletariat. And till today the imperialist media and the hired intellectuals of imperialism, citing the entire period after 1956 as the example of the dictatorship of the proletariat, juxtapose it against the bourgeois democracy and claim that the bourgeois democracy at least gives relative civil liberty!

• Problems of Socialism and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Mao presented a detailed analysis of the causes behind the fall of Socialist experiment and capturing of the party by revisionism in the Soviet Union. During the lifetime of Stalin itself, Mao had presented a few criticisms of the Socialist experiment of the Soviet Union. Mao’s deliberation on the problems of Socialism began with the criticism of Soviet Socialism itself. To evolve his own thought on this, Mao caught hold of the loose ends of Lenin’s thoughts. Before his demise in 1924, Lenin had begun to think on the problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union, as well as in general. Very few people are acquainted with this fact that it was Lenin who first used the term ‘cultural revolution’. However, Lenin was not able to evolve the entire concept of Cultural Revolution as yet. Though he did point out that there are bourgeois distortions and bureaucratic deformities present in the Soviet Socialist state power; he had also said that the presence of private ownership and petty production in the field of agriculture as well as the private trade is a constant source of the reproduction of the bourgeois elements; besides, he also reminded that the struggle between capitalism and socialism is going to be long drawn out and which will win of the two in the first round will only be decided by a protracted historical period; Lenin believed that along with the development of productive forces, continuous emphasis should be laid on the aspect of Socialist education and the building of a new Socialist man. Without this, the task of Socialist construction could not be taken ahead and neither can one advance in the direction of communism. However, Stalin could not grasp the loose ends of Lenin’s thoughts. Rather he fell prey to the economistic deviation present in the European working class movement, that is to say, the mistake of laying emphasis only on the development of the productive forces in the Socialist construction. Consequently, he could not correctly understand the entire character and nature of the Socialist society. Mao further advanced the analysis left by Lenin and evolving it qualitatively, developed a consistent understanding of the Socialist transition, and in addition to it, propounded the epochal theory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Today, only the theory of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution can be a suitable gateway for the proletarian revolutionaries to the task of preventing capitalist restoration during the Socialist transition and further evolving the theory of advancement towards communism. Mao stated that the Socialist transition is a protracted historical period during which the class struggle itself is the key-link for the proletarian revolutionaries. The proletariat would have assumed power in a Socialist society, however, the bourgeoisie would be present in the society and would keep on trying to regain its lost paradise. Mao pointed out that the task of the revolutionary transformation of the production relations begins, and not ends with the legal abolition of the private property, because legal abolition of the private property merely resolves the question of ownership. It neither completely resolves the question of distribution, nor the three great inter-personal disparities present in the entire process of production and distribution, that is to say, the contradiction between mental and manual labour; the contradiction between the town and the country; and the contradiction between the industry and agriculture. Till the time these inequalities are present, bourgeois privileges remain; exchange of goods remain and in this manner, goods do not exist merely as use values (that is to say, for use only) but rather as commodities; the class of party commissars and organizers endowed with bourgeois privileges, creates a new kind of bourgeoisie within the party and established bourgeois headquarters within the party; the class of specialists, managers, supervisors becomes a privileged strata in the society and colluding with the bourgeoisie present in the party creates a force which has contradiction with Socialism and the proletariat. These elements, owing to their class nature and behaviour, create impediments in the path of every Socialist experiment, hatch conspiracies and continuously look for opportunities to overthrow the proletarian state. If an all-round proletarian dictatorship is not exercised on these classes then they will ultimately overturn the proletarian state power and transform it into a capitalist state. Mao put forth that in order to prevent the capitalist restoration, the revolution has to be continued perpetually. In a Socialist society, the gap between manual labour and mental labour, town and country, industry and agriculture remains in the society; bourgeois privileges exist; the fight of the proletariat against all these is not merely a fight against capitalism. The fight of the proletariat against these is a great epochal struggle against the four thousand years of class society. For this, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is needed. That is to say, to continue the proletarian revolution in the sphere of superstructure, i.e., in all the fields like culture, education, art, psychology, literature, politics, habits, values, beliefs, etc; that is to say, the gradual abolition of the aforementioned three interpersonal disparities in all these fields through perpetual propaganda, struggle and propaganda; to enforce all-round dictatorship of the proletariat on the bourgeoisie; to cleanse the party of bourgeois garbage at regular intervals through criticism-selfcriticism and rectification campaigns etc; to continuously establish the authority of the principles of Marxism-Leninism among the masses; the gradual abolition of modes of petty production; to lay emphasis on increasing production, however, not in the manner in which the gap between manual and mental labour, town and country, and industry and agriculture aggravates all the more. Therefore, Mao raised the slogan ‘grasp revolution, increase production’! Mao asserted that although in the contradiction between the production relations and productive forces, historically the productive forces are decisive, however, after the revolution, following the establishment of the proletarian state power, the aspect of revolutionary transformation of the production relations becomes dominant. The character of a social formation is identified by the character of the production relations. A consistent understanding of the Socialist construction and transition cannot be achieved without correctly understanding the dialectics between the production relations and productive forces. Mao, soon after the commencement of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, had said that even after this, it will still take a long time to determine whether it is capitalism or Socialism which triumphs in the first round in China. To ascertain the ultimate victory of Socialism, many cultural revolutions will be needed. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was still in progress in China when Mao passed away in 1976. The capitalist roaders in the party had not been fully vanquished, though the Cultural Revolution had considerably weakened them. Following the demise of Mao, a powerful struggle ensued in the Party in which, because of a few middle roaders and liberals, capitalist roaders succeeded ultimately. The four leaders representing Mao’s line were arrested by the revisionists and imprisoned. They were branded as anti-Mao conspirators and this was propagated through out the country. A sizeable section of the honest cadres present in the party too could not correctly comprehend these changes. The middle roaders had a big role to play in this as well. Ultimately, the proletarian state power was subverted under the leadership of Deng Xiao Ping, and by 1978, the revisionists had consolidated their victory. However, it is only because of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution led by Mao that the revisionist power in China cannot rest peacefully even today. Every year, there is repression, arrests, and killings of Maoists in China; workers take to streets time and again; now and then the students and youth launch movements against the social fascist Chinese state. The forces that were active in the movement on the Tiananmen Square in 1989 too, comprised of few such students and youth who were opposing the repressive attitude of the undemocratic revisionist social democratic state and were demanding democratic space, however, a large section of workers and a section of students too was opposing the ‘market socialism’ of Deng Xiao Ping and the systematic destruction of the revolutionary institutions of Mao’s Socialist China. Whatever be the case, in no way, a single great proletarian cultural revolution could have ascertained the survival of the Socialist experiment in China. Mao knew of this fact before-hand and perceived the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as a perpetually continuing process, and not as a single step or an event. Scientifically, it could not have been guaranteed whether such a process could have succeeded in continuing in very first attempt. Its imperfections and failures notwithstanding, the first experiment of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution enriched the understanding of the proletariat on the problems of Socialism and their resolution.  The theory of the great proletarian cultural revolution is the most advanced development of the Marxist science, and without its understanding, the proletarian revolutionaries in the Twenty-first century can neither combat capitalism before revolution and nor can they safeguard the proletarian state power against its conspiracies after the revolution. Certainly, the contributions of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution cannot be fully explained in a small article. The theory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is not a closed-ended theory, and it is not that, it does not need to be further developed. This theory has only opened a doorway to understand and resolve the problems of Socialism. It is only a beginning to think with correct approach and correct methodology in the right direction.

(To be continued…)

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)