The Proletariat & polls! When you strike out dictatorship of the proletariat, even out of reasons of semantics, you orient a Marxist party in a certain way. Lenin too, in the 2nd Congress of the party had to fight the opportunists on including this clause in the party program. The opportunists were also opposed to the inclusion of the fight for the peasantry, thereby including them in the fight against the Czar & thereby the Revolution. So, whats new? In order to turn a Marxist-Leninist party into a non-revolutionary one, you wd need to weaken the trade union movement. It is subordinated to the interests of the owners, whose investment is paramount, as you have withdrawn the battle for alternative solutions to the neo-liberal trend, govt investment, workers & peasants cooperatives, etc. In order to subordinate the workers movements, you need to , over the years, create a anti-worker leadership, one who is pliant, sensitive to the interests of the owners, one who wd not take interest in creating a strong trade union movement. You also apply a brake on the growing peasant movement, dont follow through to the next stages of the land reforms, no infusion of capital in agri, no control over realisation to the farmers, no modernisation of the villages. You have the Kisan Sabha taken over by the middle farmers & the neo-bourgeoisie of the village, the mid to large peasant, educated, a school teacher or a professional or a business man. The one who no longer tills his land leads the peasantry. Movements for farmworkers, increases in wages is stopped, the org suffers. The revolutionary spirit of the times are throttled by planting student & youth leaders from the middle-class replacing the workers & the peasants.Obviously the passion to create a revolutionary student & youth movement is sucked out & just in a matter of years, we land up with a insipid, bureaucratic party, Add to this the pressure of including the Panchayat & Municipal candidates in the party & leadership, you have a huge party, deviated from the revolutionary path & therefore educating them into becoming Marxists-Leninists the last possible priority. The working class is displaced from the leadership of the party & so is the fundamental objective. Is it a surprise that lumpenisation, feudal mindsets, profiteering, etc took hold of the party or that Singur happened? Is it any surprise that a reactionary like Mamata got hold of the support of more than 50% of the workers, peasants, youth & students?? Is it any surprise that when the reactionary Mamata was on the decline, a worse reactionary, however, a well packaged force like the BJP gained at her & our expense.We had, over a few decades successfully turned the revolutionary people of Bengal towards reaction. No amount of media support or smart politics wd have saved us, as there is no way Marxists can win the packaging battle with the right! Never!! After all, our battle is against packaging, for substance! Some enlightened souls have turned this into a battle between parliamentary democracy vs the Revolution. In spite of the change talked about in the very beginning, the party is a Marxist-Leninist party. That itself is clear that it is revolutionary, that it shall establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, period. Revision will need a change in nomenclature, period! The current system of the Indian parliamentary democracy is a great tool in the objective of achieving the revolution itself. There is no doubt about that. The fight cannot be against it, but against turning this means into an end! Replacing the strategic objective with a tactic. This is the virus that affects us & everything else, incl the tragic loss some days back. Marxist Leninist parties cant win elections by fighting for it. We have to diligently do everything required of a revolutionary party & we shall win elections, not just here, but across the country!
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 16:17:44 +0000