To wake up to anti-communist diatribe and barbs every
morning has become par for the course post 2014 but to have to see it from the
Liberal media never fails to fascinate. Of course, being a true Red blooded
Marxist, I shall attempt to speak on fact and not ad hominem on this piece:
Why the CPI(M) needs to begin its transformation by dropping the word 'communist' from its name
To the point of the Indian Communist Parties being Social
Democrats and not revolutionaries in the true meaning of Communism, this is a
debate that Ajaz does have an ideological point. Yes, in essence, the CPIM is a
social democratic party but Ajaz misses the point that a social democratic
party also needs to wear its ideology on its sleeve. Now, Ajaz implies here that
wearing your ideology on your sleeve is the problem because the Middle Classes
have an image of repression and oppression that has been fed to them by liberal
and bourgeois media. When I as a middle class person hear the word Communist, I
have an image of an ideology that is the only one equipped to counter fascism
and ensconces the alternative economics this world needs today. And in the end,
if the CPIM “Syriza-ed” what would that mean? What is the ideology of Syriza
anyway? Ajaz basically would like the Communist parties to be Liberals.
Thuggery and goonery of the Left! This is a famous one from
the Right wing that liberals love to borrow as well. Countering on fact, West
Bengal gave the Communists 7 terms of Rule. You cannot get 7 consecutive terms
of rule by intimidating people into voting for you. 2 times at best and after
that people will throw you out considering voting is done behind closed doors.
And the fact that Nandigram and Singur cause the downfall of the CPIM busts
that Intimidation Myth doled out by Liberal and Bourgeois writers.
Curiously,
Ajaz picks a convenient narrative to generalize and doesn’t look at Kerala and
Tripura that is an anachronism to that narrative, of intimidated voters.
But of course, our “peace-loving” liberals who imposed
emergency, dismissed the first democratically elected communist govt in Kerala,
imprisoned hundreds and thousands of the same “erudite” communist party leaders
during the emergency, and took out protest movements against Land Reforms in
Kerala, would like to point a finger at Communist violence, is it? Well, let
the murders of peaceful communists like Safdar Hashmi, the attacks by the RSS
in Tallasery in Kerala, and the number of bombings in the same state by the
right wing terrorists also tell us something. The Communists have lost more cadre
to the Liberals and Right Wing than both of the others combined. If that evokes
a reactive, combative spirit then well….we don’t have the might of the state
behind us to attack like the Right and Liberals. And as I always say on
Twitter, that combative spirit is what has kept the Red bastions free of the
Communal atmosphere that Liberals always love to flirt with.
Comrade Karat’s critique on the failings of the left to invoke
fervor in the middle classes is valid. I however would also add Prosenjit Bose’s
analysis and critique of the wrongs of the Left. But Ajaz got the focus wrong.
Communism is not an ideology of the Middle Class First Worldists-in-the-Third
World, nor of the Bourgeois Liberals, Nor the Petty Bourgeoisie. It is
essentially of the oppressed and working classes. That is the majority of India
at 700 million+ people that are hopelessly impoverished, and more that are less
than middle class facing a Neoliberal onslaught. So, let the middle classes
live in a bubble of their believing they are the bourgeoisie feeding on the
crumbs of the ruling classes. Time and Economic reality will turn them or burn
them.
And in the end after attempting to distribute the spoils of
war without the battle being over, Ajaz would have us believe that we
Communists are needed in the battle against Hindutva (I assume he meant all
religious fundamentalism but I wander into ad hominem…) Here Ajaz realizes that
it is only the Communists who fight against Fascism, a lesson that goes well
back to World War 2. The Liberals as they did then and they do now, want
Fascism, but not to take them out of power. This balancing act, incidentally,
is the reason for the Liberal downfall in India. There is no Liberal ideology
except to make sure that neither Left nor Right survives in enough numbers to
upset the Liberal Applecart. In India, the Liberals are more Right Friendly of
course because that is where the money lies, in pandering to the Corporate,
Upper Caste, and Upper Classes.
Let us just wrap this long series of paragraphs with one
thought, Communism is not a “dying” ideology. If that was true then it has been
over 20 years since the fall of the USSR and despite that Nepal just had a
Communist revolution. Greece, Spain, Portugal, Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos,
Nepal, all have Communist leaders in power or flavours of leftists to add to
the illustrious list.
A specter is haunting the world and that indeed is the specter
of Communism.
