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The state is a special organization of force; it is an organization of
violence for the suppression of some classes. The question of the state
and its overarching roles in the present stage of world capitalism are
crucial questions of Indian revolution. Lenin castigated the people and
the parties swearing by Marxism but always evasive of the character of
the state in real life. He wrote disgustingly. "This (Marxian)
definition of the state has never been explained in the prevailing
propaganda and agitation literature of the official Social-Democratic
parties. More than that, it has been deliberately ignored, for it is
irreconcilable with reformism, and is a slap in the face for the common
opportunist prejudices and philistine illusions about the "peaceful
development of democracy".1
The rise of capitalism and the capitalist system soon after bestowed
upon the state the power of sole monopolizer of coercive sanctions and
physical and human resources. The constitution making exercise gave the
state two fundamental rights of eminent domain and police power. For the
struggle for democracy as well as the felt-need of a safety-valve to
diffuse the tensions the state arranged out-doors and windows as
elbow-room for individual in the Lockean sense. Here lies the difference
between the modern state and the states in the earlier stage. The
acceptance of groups, classes, communities, etc. as legitimate entities
within the national boundaries is symptomatic of leaving a space for
contest in various forms but the state as such was projected as
incontestable. The so-called society – centred state policy approach as
made by Mill and later pluralists, emphasized the need and scope of free
competition of groups and classes without endangering the state itself.
The so-called view of the welfare state preferred in the 1930s and
particularly in the post World War II, conceded the primitive role of
the state as dispenser of justice, relief and for the betterment of the
masses along side its regulative role over the people. Maintenance of
this regulative role implies the power over family, trade union,
revolting classes, ethnic groups, etc. simultaneously with the savage
power of marshalling of armaments, weaponry and armed forces.
Revisionism
Revisionism in India has assumed dangerous dimension. The CPI(M) the
main culprit in the game of electoral polities and grabbing the
springheads of money has turned into social fascists. Its polities of
compromise with the ruling classes and bowing to the MNCs, World Bank
and other foreign agencies along with ruthlessness to put down any
voice of protest with the barrel of guns smacks of its naked character
of social fascism. It officially uses the name of Marx and Lenin who
fought for the emancipation of the proletariat and other deprived
sections in the world, and thus tarnishes the image of those great
thinkers and dedicated practitioners. The whole party machinery is
devoted to creating an illusion that the existing system can be used
to serve the deprived masses in India. Its role as a social fascist
has been exposed like daylight when its cadres accompanied the
paramilitary forces to torture, to arrest, to spy on the revolutionary
peasants and even molest the peasant women in Midnapur, Bankura, and
Hoogly in 2002-2003. The recent panchayat polls and the ghastliness of
terror creating, murderous gangs of the CPM not even sparing the
‘Left’ Front partners, the RSP and Forward Block, have actually
established the fact that instead of decentralization of powers,
panchayats can be the most suitable means of the state to spread
corruption at grassroots. The villages are the arenas of class
struggle and revolutionaries concentrate on developing bases there.
The fascist fangs of the CPM are not only poised against
revolutionaries and would be revolutionaries, such fangs are
simultaneously poised for grabbing money pouring in from various
national and international sources in order to buy up criminals and
others for the smooth running of the party machinery.
The decades of revisionists’ taste for power in the class society
rotten to the roots and the shameless propagation of using India’s
parliamentary "democracy" for facilitating movements of the people
prove it beyond an iota of doubt that parliamentary revisionism using
Marx’s name is the main danger for the revolutionary movement in
India. It is ludicrous to preach the polities of using this
parliamentary machinery when polling figure itself, even if rigging
and all such measures are taken into account, shows a steady downturn
for the lack of interest of a big chunk of electorates in the very
casting of votes. And one can perceive the disillusionment of general
masses with the existing parties, yet many of them cast their votes
for the absence of powerful alternative. We have to establish this
alternative to the people by developing resistaince movement and
revolutionary power centers.
Added to this material arrangement, the state develops and strengthens
its ideological apparatus concealing the hidden aspects behind all
constitutional rights of freedom and equality. The ideology of the state
and its organic intellectuals play a profound role in stabilizing the
existing system through multifarious ways in order to diffuse the
tensions and win the support of the masses. So along with the overt
threat of coercion and actual coercion the modern state has been greatly
successful in winning the consent of the people through its vast
ideological arrangements, institutions like legislative bodies, judicial
system, educational institutions, media, political parties, etc. And
when the powerful political parties with communist party signboards
plunge into the accommodative process of diffusing the discontent of the
masses with semblance of protestations on this or that issue the state
becomes the actual gainer as its legitimacy stands vindicated: as if all
grievances, problems, discontents, revolting tendencies can be solved
within the boundaries of the existing state.
This cushioning effect is eminently materialized by the
social–democratic parties in the modern states. The CPI and then the
CPI(M) are credited with this tremendous task in this sub-continent
called India. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engles boldly referred
to the spectre of communism reigning in Europe. After so many years of
this famous optimism the CPI, CPI(M) like parties can justly claim with
profuse pride: we have cast communism into a mould which is capitalist
and feudal-friendly. We can help crush revolts of the masses standing
faithfully by the side of the state and we can also proudly hijack the
programme of the militant struggles to the safe corridors of legislative
assemblies and the parliament.
To trek down the path of history, in England the Social Democratic
Federation started in 1885 by mostly defection of men and women of the
earlier Socialist League who threw themselves into the fray of
parliamentary action. It also had its object of collective ownership of
the means of production, distribution and exchange managed by a
democratic state. They also wanted palliative or temporary reforms of
the ills of the existing society. In the same line Fabian societies
emerged after 1882 and they developed a good following against Marxism.
George Bernard Shaw became one of its key figures. Such societies
preaching Fabian socialism were basically meant for legislative or
administrative measures in favour of collectivist theory of state and
municipal action for social reforms. Like the Social Democratic parties
the Fabian socialists too believed in the path of gradualism towards a
socialist system using the existing Parliamentary democracy
2. The present Labour
Party of England is also a successor to this Fabian society. The
dangerous culmination of this so-called socialist party is reflected in
the warmonger’s role of Tony Blair as the Labour Party Prime Minister in
the recent Iraq aggression.
Accommodative "Left"
A revisionist approach, or in other words evading any revolutionary
struggle, was the hallmark of the CPI. The First Party Congress held in
Bombay in 1943 declared, "the supreme task before our people is the
defence of the motherland" in the "closest co-operation with the
people of the United kingdom defending their independence and freedom
against the fascist axis …" 3
It is curious to note that the CPI in the whole period before the
Transfer of Power since the outbreak of — World War II accused the
bureaucracy of all wrongdoings and cleverly evaded the colonial power as
such. It even invoked the Party cadres to ensure British victory: "In
the threatened areas, communists must offer organized co-operation of
the people through their mass organization and party units to the
British or Indian troops for offensive as well as defensive preparation."4
This avoidance of attacking the colonial state and even holding out
unstinted support to the British army stemmed from the pure social
democratic position of rejecting the struggle for smashing the state
machinery and setting up of a revolutionary state.
The Tebhaga Struggle in Bengal and the Great Telengana struggle broke
out rejecting the right opportunist positions of many in the CPI
leadership. The withdrawal of particularly the Telengana armed peasant
struggle brought to the limelight the topsy-turvy of most of the CPI
leaders. It should however be mentioned here that despite the extreme
adventurist position of the Randive-led CPI in the second Party Congress
in 1948 voices were raised for "complete severance from the British
empire and full and real independence," "self determination to
nationalities including the right to secessaion. A voluntary Indian
Union, autonomous linguistic provinces" "abolitions of princedom,
landlordism without compensation," etc. 5
The Randive line ended in Randive’s ouster from the post of General
Secretary of the CPI and ultimately the leadership of the party was
grabbed by the people more interested in parliamentary politics.
The withdrawal of the Telengana struggle relieved the CPI leadership
from the trauma of armed struggle. A.K. Gopalan, who later became a
brain behind the CPI(M) programme and decision-making ordered the "fighting
partisans to stop all partisan action to mobilize the entire people for
an effective participation in the ensuing election to rout the Congress
at the polls." 6
It is noteworthy that the CPI leadership, despite plunging into
electoral politics, did not altogether stop raising some of the genuine
demands of the people. But the earlier bold announcements were steadily
climbing down with the acceptance of parliamentary politics.
The prospect of winning elections so much obsessed the CPI that since
the first general elections it increasingly put in all efforts at
parliamentary politics. The extended plenum of the C.C of the CPI held
from 30 Dec.1952 to 10 January 1953 boastfully declared, "The
entire party went into election campaign" immediately after the
all-India party conference held in October 1951 and "Not only party
members but tens of thousands of supporters and sympathizers plunged
into the election campaign …" 7
In the same Plenum reference was made to the colossal burdens on all
sections of the people "including industrialists and merchants and
other class of common people."8
The above clearly included all the industrialists among the people, and
thus the CPI leadership’s sliding down with greater involvement in
parliamentary politics paved the way for its extremely rightist
revisionist policy in later days.
The Soviet Communist Party’s topsy-turvy after the death of comrade
Stalin in 1953 provided the handle to the majority in the CPI leadership
who had already done the necessary spade work for parliamentary
politics. The 3 rd Party
Congress held at Madurai in 1953-54 acclaimed the "significant"
role played by the Indian government "In a number of important
international issues."9
As is common place in parliamentary politics it also eulogized that
government on certain other policies.
After the 20 th Congress of
the CPSU the revisionist leadership of the CPI got emboldened by
Khrushchev’s political thesis of "fundamental social change" in a
number of "capitalist and former colonial countries" through "winning
a stable parliamentary majority backed by a mass revolutionary movement"
of the proletariat and other working people.10
It is worthy of mention that one third of the delegates in the Palghat
Congress was in favour of ‘general united front with the Congress.’
The CPI by then was apparently divided into three main factions, the
rightists, leftists and centrists with the rightists predominating. The
Telengana model of parallel power established through protracted armed
struggle was by then an event of the past and consigned to the back
burner. The Namboodripad led ministry in Kerala in 1959 provided the
alternative model of peaceful transition to socialism endorsed at the
1958 Amritsar Party Congress. It is an irony of history that many of
the present CPI(M) leaders criticized the Kerala model at that time.
If the 4 th Party Congress
decisively changed the course of CPI history by its overtly
pro-government slant, the 5th
Congress in 1958 showed the complete metamorphosis of the CPI leadership
shedding all overtly anti-state, anti-government policies of the 1946-50
period. The CPI led Kerala Government under Namboodiripad’s leadership
was projected as "the single biggest event in our national political
life." The assumption of power through elections by the CPI ministry
in Kerala appeared as a model and justification of the revisionist stand
of the Amritsar Party Congress policy, about the possibility of peaceful
transition to socialism.
Notes
1. V. I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, chapter II, In Marx Engels
Lenin, On the dictatorship of the proletariat, progress Publishers,
Moscow, 1984, P. 202.
2. M. Beer, The History of British Socialism, George Allen is Unwin Ltd,
London 1953.
3. Unity in Action for National Government, Political Resolution adopted
in the First party congress of the Communist Movement in India, Vol-IV
(1939-43), National Book Agency Private Limited, Calcutta, 1997, p- 586.
4. Ibid-P. 600
5. Political Thesis adopted at the second Party congress of the CPI, In
M. B. Rao (edited) Documents of the History of the Communist Party of
India, Vol III, 1948-50, People’s Publishing House, 1976, pp 85-87.
6. Crossroads, 26 October, 1951, In Mohit Sen (ed) documents of the
History of the Communist Party of India, Vol III, 1951-56, People’s
Publishing House, 1977, New Delhi, pp 59-60
7. The Extended Plenum of the Central Committee (It was held in Calcutta
from 30 Dec. 1952 to 10 January 1953) In Mohit Sen (ed). Documents,
Ibid- p. 199
8. Ibid, p. 201.
9. Political Resolution of the Communist Party of India, Adopted by the
Third Party Congress, Madurai, 27 Dec. 1953 to 4 Jan. In Ibid p, 295.
10. Quoted in the
Report of CPSU. The fourth party Congress Documents In Ibid p. 505
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