Against All Slanderous Campaigns of Capitalists - Imperialists Rise- up And Unleash Struggle In Defense of Communism and Communist Movement

                                                                                    Comrade.Shankar singh
Communism, the great ideology of mankind’s emancipation from all sorts of exploitation and slavery economic, political , cultural, ethical and moral and the great International Communist Movement, the torch- bearer are under severe attack of reactionary forces of all hues imperialists- capitalists and modern revisionists combined since decades now. Ever since these reactionary forces combinedly  making use nefariously of certain petty grievances of common people centering round some petty faults here and there of the administrative apparatus of the respective countries could bring about demolition of the working class state- powers in the then Soviet union and other small countries of East Europe namely Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Checkoslovakia, Yugoslavia and East Germany this attack against communism and International Communist Movement has assumed tremendous virulence in dimension and intensity.

Eventhough , inspite of the disastrous set back suffered by the communist Movement as a whole, the number of people who still feel pride in claiming themselves to be communists world-over will be in crores. But, it is tragic that not a single voice in defense of Communism and to fight back all those slanders labeled against communism is being raised from any corner. It is already long overdose that those who claim to be communists themselves rise with vigour to fight back all baseless and fabricated charges labeled against Communism, International Communist Movement and its most distinguished leaders Lenin-Stalin-Mao-ze-dong. Marxism- Leninism teaches that for the Communists responding to the international obligations must enjoy first priority over all other tasks and responsibilities. Communist Workers Platform as the party in making of the working class of India, conscious of its task acrude from this understanding of proletarian international obligation is to initiate this struggle on and from the historic significant.

Days on 7^th November 2011 synchomising with the observance of 94^thanniversary of the great November Revolution. Members of the Communist Workers Platform everywhere, single- handedly or collectively as situation demand, will hold meetings and collective discussion- sittings involving people as for as practicable and discuss elaborately to convince all good-intentioned people about the correctness and greatness of Communist ideology and movement and expose the falseness , the baseless-ness of the fabricated allegations made are being made against it by the bourgeois world.

For that we must first understand ourselves as to what did really happen wrong, if any , in the international Communist Movement and in those particular states of workers Rule concerned that were fabricated and coloured by bourgeois propaganda machinery as they liked , to mislead people against Communism-Socialism. It is also tragic that, not only the common masses, many honest and good-hearted communists as well, fell victim of such curious logic and belief that something utterly wrong must have happened, otherwise persons belonging to widely varying sections of society would not have joined thus the chorus against the Communists. 

It must first be understood clearly that every social revolution marks the end of one era, one system and the beginning of a new era, a new system. And, in every such revolution there is a ‘taking place’ of revolution and a culminating point of (attaining) victory of the said revolution. In between these two (points) lies the phase of transition from one to the other, during which the laws and features of the old society and system do continue to operate for relatively a long part of the phase, though in gradually diminishing shape and affectivity till the process of transformation reaches that nodal point wherefrom the elements of the next higher phase become dominant and stat showing themselves more and more pronouncedly. It is only appropriate then and there from to say that the change of character of the concerned entity – the society had taken place.

Lenin taught that ‘the primary question of every revolution is the question of state power. Accordingly, by successfully over-throwing  Czardom and the Kerensky government of Russian bourgeoisie from power and establishing the state of dictatorship of the proletariat there, the historic November Revolution did successfully accomplish only this Primary Task of the revolution there. All other  tasks to bring about real qualitative change of the entire society remained to be gradually completed during the transitional phase following this accomplishment of the primary task. 

To ensure smooth exercise of the power of the state in accomplishing those colossal tasks of bringing about the qualitative change of the entire texture of social life the dictatorship of the proletariat and semi-proletariat had to have all power concentrated in its hand, to be exercised dictatorially against the forces opposed to and objectively causing obstruction to transition from capitalism to socialism and democratically  to the forces in favour of the transitions. There could be no question about the democratic essence, the democratic content of this dictatorship of the protetariat. If democracy means Rule by the majority this dictatorship of the proletariat and semi- proletariat combine was unquestionably more democratic than the best democracy of any bourgeois state ever anywhere. Because the proletariat and semi-proletariat combinedly do form overwhelming major part of the population of any country anywhere in the world. Yet, the communists call it dictatorship and not democracy, as the bourgeoisie often claim its class-rule to be. Because “ the Communists disdain to conceal truth”. (Karl Marx)

So far as the then Soviet Union was concerned- eventhough,  there was no exploiting capitalist class in crude sense of the term, class struggle and its imperatively continued to exist.This may sound to be paradoxical to many but was an unquestionable truth. This is the most important matter that must be understood before entering into adjudging events that followed.

Capitalist class, in crude sense of the words could be abolished and was really abolished just by proclamation of the decree or decrees. Like wise capitalist ownership over means of production could be taken over and was really taken over by passing order or orders by stokes of pen within minutes of taking place of the revolution. But the class , with all its characteristic features and impacts does not and in the case did not die then and there. Lenin, the Supreme architect of November revolution, in a sharply worded language, cautioned the communists and workers against falling prey to any such misunderstanding. He said; ‘the overthrown bourgeoisie must not be expected to give up their desire to again get restored themselves in power and if they get favourable condition for that this desire of theirs will turn into attempts at restoration’. (Language- Shankar Singh).

Communists in general after a lapse of about two generations gap and under the impact of continued advancement of the revolutionary process world –wide, over throwing of bourgeoisie from power in various countries of East Europe and Asia, successfully establishing people’s democratic or working class dictatorship in those, conveniently forgot that caution given by Lenin. They began thinking that, since classes do not exist visibly, question of class struggle continuing had already lost its meaning and had become irrelevant rhetoric. This sense and compliance in the minds of communists obviously had its effect as slackening down of the class struggle against the continued class interests, class- ideas, class-habit patterns of the over- thrown bourgeois class that were still existing and working in the society at various levels.

It was this superficial wrong understanding that found expression in shruschev’s proposal in the 20^th Congress(the first after death of Stalin) of the then Communist Party of Soviet Union that “ henceforth the state Soviet Union would have to be regarded as a state of  the whole people and not as a dictatorship of the proletariat class”. And, the general standard of ideological understanding in the Delegates attending the party congress did not find any wrong in that blantantly non-communist thinking and proposal of Khruschev. At a time when existence of class division and consequent class-struggle were very much objective realities there, this declaration tantamounted to one-sided withdrawal of the proletariat from that struggle and giving free scope to the bourgeois elements and forces till then existed concealed to play as they liked.

The dismandtling of erstwhile Soviet Union and other East European People’s Democracies was taken by many as proof of untenability of the ideology of communism itself. For them it proved that communism had failed. It is naïve to accuse bourgeois propaganda for creating such understanding among the people because it is only half-truth about what has happened. No body expects that in the midst of on-going world –wide struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat any failure of the proletarian side will not be taken advantage of by the opponent bourgeois side to reap maximum benefit from that. Bourgeois class has done their job well. We, the communists now must analyse, with a sprit of self- criticism, the role played by us, though unknowingly and unintentionally, in causing such erroneous notion among people in general and working masses in particular.

In describing the greatness and superiority of communism and the socialist society, it was building up, over the existing capitalist society we, the communists used to draw pictures of two words side by side. One that of the countries where working class, in alliance with other semi proletariat strata’s were in power and were engaged in advancing towards socialism headed by Soviet Union and the other, of the countries where capitalists imperialists were in power headed by Anglo-American imperialists. Then, we ( the Communists ) used to say to the workers, the people , “  Look at this Communist world-these socialist states where there is no more any unemployment, no beggar, no starvation, no body deprived of education and health services, no lock-out of industry no retrenchment of workers, no body there is without a house or shelter etc. etc.

And , then used to compare with these the conditions obtained in the world of capitalist countries, where all these social maladies were growing in alarming volume.

We, the communists all over the world used to practice this way as an easy way to make workers convinced of the gains in socialism and communism. We, the communists used to do so innocently, to just lessen our own difficulties to explain to the workers and the masses with little or no education about the then Soviet Union and those other states being only in the transitional phase and that to reach the stage of socialism the Soviet Union and those other states were yet to go a long way. It is this short –cut and easy way practiced by us-all communists – that boomeranged this way. When the state – structures in those countries, particularly of Soviet Union, collapsed, people took it to be falls of socialism – Communism proving communism to be a failed ideology.

But , truly speaking was there communist Society that collapsed?- No.  The then Soviet Union was only on the path to communism –in the midst of a transitional phase called socialism and that too in its early stage when all laws and elements of capitalism were still at work more prominently than the newly introduced socialistic elements and features. Articles were being sold and purchased in the markets where market-laws as they operate in capitalism were still at work. Articles were still retaining their commodity character. Law of exchange value as it works in capitalism was still at work there. In over- all reading it was still a market economy there And , market –economy is the other name of capitalism.

Not that it was only in the urban or industrial sector of the economy that the laws of capitalist market economy were at work. Even in the agricultural sector it was so. We know that summing up the experience of war-communism the leadership of the then communist party  of soviet Union headed by lenin decided that in the rural sector the transition from capitalist agriculture to socialist agriculture would be carried in a gradual process through four stages systematically. In the history of Soviet Union it was recorded as NEP , the New Economic Policy. The stages would be thus from agriculture by individual peasants with their private ownership of land and tools-implements etc. to co-operative agriculture. The next stage would be to replace this co-operative farming collective farming by state farming the process of transition would be completed. Completing the transition to total state farming would only mean attainment of socialism in agricultural sector. Prior to that in both the stages of co-operative farming and collective farming, private-property interest  would continue to work though in subtle shape and gradually diminishing impact.

Now, what was the stage really attained by agriculture of the then Soviet Union in those days? It was in the stage of large-scale collective farming and not state farming as yet. So, viewing from this angle, collapse of soviet Union and those people’s democracies of East Europe can in no sense be taken as failure or untenability of Communism. To think of collapse or fall of a thing which was not in existence can be termed only as an exercise with absurdity.

Ever since, the ideology of communism, its philosophy Dialectical Materialism was established by Marx and Engels as a science (in full sense of the term ) of studying the laws governing the co-ordination among the contradictions operating in various sphere of material universe making it a co-ordinated whole and the working class movement struggling for emancipation from the yoke of slavery under capitalism did adopt the said philosophy as its guiding ideology, communism invited vehement opposition – storng enmity of all reactionary forces and vested interests in the society combined against it. It was but obvious since communist revolution, unlike all other revolutions preceding it in history of development of human society, aims at, not only to replace one form of class-division and class struggle by another form of class division and class struggle but to put an end to class division and class struggle altogether for good. As such, along with the capitalist-imperialists all other forces having vested interest in continuance of the remnants of various other earlier ( pre-capitalist) forms of exploitations too found common ground to oppose communism, specifically the anti-capitalist socialist revolution it envisaged.

But all opposition mounted by these reactionary forces from outside failed to resist the advancement of communist movement. Its ideological impact on the working class and toiling masses world-wide continued to go more and more strong until the emergence of the modern revisionist forces from within the womb of the communist movement itself.

Who were these modern revisionists? Is a question that needs clarification, even if briefly, here. The mention of the role played by these modern revisionists used to be made by different communist parties and leaders time to time , on the grave debacle suffered by the world communist movement, often carried a sense, as though , like imperialists and other reactionary forces these modern revisionists are also brought from outside to join strength to the anti-communist tirade. To think so is wrong and will not help us rather obstruct in grasping the correct lesson of this debacle to be derived. 

We must understand that the force termed as modern revisionists was produced and is still being produced from within the communist movement itself. As Lenin said; “ Revisionism is continuation of bourgeois thought in the labour movement”. How does it happen? Not necessarily under some plan made by some plan made by somebody such bourgeois thoughts are injected into the labour movement, meaning the communist movement,to work. No-it is not at all a phenomenon like this. 

The Communists after being involved in the communist movement by joining the party of the proletariat, signing its pledge, symbolic of his or her commitment for the cause and willingness to be a communist, require to conduct, under the guidance of the leadership of the party a systematic struggle to change himself or herself, from within, from a product of the bourgeois society a person carrying all senses and understandings derived from the bourgeois society into a communist in the real sense ideologically, culturally. This struggle of oneself to be freed from the impact of the thoughts and thought processes of the bourgeois society in which he or she was born and brought up and to replace those, not superficially but essentially, by new proletarian thoughts and thought process is not so easy a struggle to be owned by simple wish. That can only be won by carrying determined efforts by involving one self in the working class struggles sincerely trying to play both the roles of leading those and learning from those. Those who fail to conduct this struggle for whatsoever reason, remain communists on record but essentially filled up with all bourgeois thoughts and thought processes. It is these elements in the communist parties who are categorized as modern revisionists. Modern because after the old batch of such revisionists. Modern because after the old batch of such revisionists got defeated and smashed through the successful accomplishment of November revolution the new batch of such revisionists have come up afresh in recent i.e. modern times meaning post second world war period. Hence the name was modern revisionists.

How these modern revisionists do cause harm to the labour movement meaning the Communist Movement? Let us look at an historical example.

Before the twentieth congress of the then Communist Party of Soviet Union there were reports from different parts of the country (Soviet Union) received by the leadership that a common kind of stagnation was working in the production sector of the economy. Soviet productions were neither increasing in quantity nor improving in quality. Having found this report to be true the communist leadership had to take steps, as corrective measures, to culturally re imbibe the workers more, to make them understand more clearly the supreme responsibility they bore as pioneer of the world socialist revolution they started through November revolution which demanded of them to make soviet Union mighty enough to act an invincible bastion of the struggle for emancipation of the toiling people throughout the world.

But Khruscheve the fore-runner of the modern revisionists, with bourgeois way of thinking dominating in his mind concluded from the said reports, that Soviet workers were not finding interst to increase production since they were not paid more remuneration or any extra benefit for producing more. So, he proposed to decide introducing system of paying incentive to workers as was practiced by the capitalists world over-more production, more remuneration. And , as regards improving the productions qualitatively he concluded that the job-security enjoyed by the Soviet workers that irrespective of whether or not he or she improved or increased production he or she would not have to suffer penalization of loosing job under any circumstances, might also have worked to make the workers careless in improving his or her capability. So, khruschev proposed to introduce the system of penalizing the workers- empowering the management to throw the workers out of job if they are found to have not worked properly. Thus started the return journey of restoration of capitalism in the then Soviet Union after the death of stalin.

And , it is due mainly to low level of ideological understanding of the general delegates attending the said party congress, all those unworthy proposals of khruschve got passed easily. This in turn left for the future communists the all important lesson to remember that in a situation of continuously emerging newer complexities, lowering of level of ideological understanding may often wrought have.

The tasks the communists are to fulfill during this phase of transition from capitalism to victory of socialism i.e. communism are highly complicated and risk- associated too. A clear understanding of the same is likely to make all honest and good-intentioned people shed their bias against the communists and be sympathetic for the cause communists are fighting for.

Under capitalism the communists fight for and teach the workers to fight for ‘equal pay for equal work’ in sphere of the trade union movement. This happens to be one of the important major issues of trade Union struggle since capitalists in general do practice discriminatiory behavior to different sexes and age-groups of workers. But, the communists know that the concept of ‘equal pay for equal work’ is only a bourgeois concept of equality reflecting the bourgeois market law of exchange of equal value.

As such to prepare the same workers mentally to adopt the communist sense of equality engrained in the concept to each according to his (or her) need, the communists, during this transitional period are to make the same workers forget what they were taught during capitalist period. Slightest lack in artfully carrying this task with the danger of causing severe reaction in the masses.

Similarly, to enthuse the workers to join and strengthen the struggle for socialism the communists are to tell the workers elaborately about the benefits they would be able to enjoy in Socialism. And, millions and millions of workers, thus enthused, participate in the struggle and make revolution succeed in doing it most important primary task of overthrowing the bourgeois state and establishing in its stead the sate of proletarian dictatorship.

But, the communist know that even the workers struggle for socialism, as long as the enthusiasm and urge for the same spring from their desire or charm of getting this or that economic or other benefits, is nothing else than a kind of economic or other benefits , is nothing else than a kind of economic opportunities struggle. During the period of transition from capitalism to victory of socialism the workers were to be freed from this sorts of economic opportunities ideas and taught that socialism has to be established, as the necessary scientific solution of the social problems created by the developed productive forces vis-à-vis the existing production relation in the society. They benefits, whatsoever may come, would come as objective result, not to be aspired for by  the workers.