Deepening Crisis of Indian Rupee

Deepening Crisis of Indian Rupee

In spite of three internationally recognised legendary economists being at the helm, there is deep crisis in the Indian economy and nobody knows what to do. Those who are in the seat of power, are holding international situation responsible for it and to hide their incompetence are citing example of the depreciation of the currencies of all the developing economies of the world. They have a simple solution, restraint and curtailment in consumption by the public. Those who are out of power, are holding responsible government's welfare policies and incapability to rein in corruption. According to them the solution of the problem is an early election and change of guards. And the leftists in their usual singsong are hammering the government responsible for its policy of liberalisation and corruption and according to them the solution for the problem is to establish socialism replacing capitalism.
People are at their wits' end. They are finding it difficult to make both ends meet, where to curtail. Those who are affluent, are already paying enough lip service, why should they curtail their expenditure. As far as demand for change of guards is concerned, people have already been fulfilling that very demand for last twenty five years, and know very well that power goes into the heads of those who occupy the seat of power and they enforce those very policies which are in the interest of capitalism. And socialism is being presented in umpteen different shades and flavours. There are as many different kinds of socialisms as there are left parties, and as many capitalisms. Every thing is in such a mess that people fail to understand as to which ism is to be removed and which ism is to be ushered in.
'Philosophers have interpreted this world in many ways, question is how to change.' 'Dialectical materialism based on scientific outlook' or the dialectical method to understand laws of nature and materialist interpretation of nature is the only modus operandi to understand every thing in this nature, from living world, human and human society to consciousness and the laws of development. Following this modus operandi 'Surplus value produced by human labour' is identified as the basis of the organisation and development of human society and the examination of the chronology of the development of the society since inception till date authenticates that identification as 'Historical materialism'.
It is impossible, for bourgeois intellectuals because of their prejudices, and for so called protagonists of Marxism because of their revisionist thinking, to understand that this eternal theory of natural laws is the core content of proletarian consciousness, that is Marxism. There are innumerable unanswered questions before the people, but why did the Indian Rupee had such a free fall is a million Dollar question, so it's examination is urgent.
There is only one thing which is universally required to convert natural resources in usable form for human consumption (in one step or in many steps), and that is human labour. Real value of any product is the congealed socially essential average labour (labour power expanded during specific period, depending upon social conditions and level of development),  which is integrated with it during production process.
With time collective knowledge of human society has kept on growing, and with this has kept on growing the division of labour and productive forces. With the growth of productive forces, the worker also starts producing, with in a given time, more value than that of the means which are needed by him to perpetuate his own life and that of the human race. In other words he starts producing surplus value. This surplus value accumulated in the form of products, collectively is the wealth of the society. But with the production of surplus value, the concept of individual property is also ingrained in the social consciousness and wealth started accumulating in individual hands. With this the purpose of production of usable goods for consumption and their barter was replaced by the purpose of production of commodities for trade and their exchange for money. Commodity is something outside the consumer which satisfies some need of the consumer, irrespective of whether that need arises out of the stomach or of the mind. Every producer is a consumer also in one form or the other. But in the exchange of commodities, besides the producer there appears in between a set of people, the intermediaries or the middle-class.
Value and capital are ideological entities, they do not have any physical entity of their own. Generally people lack theoretical thinking and understanding because of which they take price as value and property as capital. The value of a commodity is assessed differently by the consumer and by the intermediary. For the consumer the value is related to the utility of the product while the seller assesses the value of a commodity on the basis of the quantity of another product which he could get in exchange of a specific quantity of the commodity. Different products have different forms and utilities, therefore to compare exchange values of commodities, something is required which is universally inherent in all the products and can be used as a standard in terms of which values could be  compared, and it is nothing but the socially necessary average useful human labour. As the inherent labour is abstract, something is required which is tangible and socially acceptable as a standard measure of labour. Historically developed, money has played that role. To begin with the physical form of money was specific amount of precious metal, gold or silver, the value inherent in it was the value represented by the money. But with passage of time money certified by the state which had no relation with its own value assumed the role of the standard of exchange of commodities and the form of money became more ideological rather than physical. Common man started comparing the value of commodities on the basis of universally acceptable certified value of money instead of on the basis of congealed labour in them, and started considering the price of the the commodities as the value of the commodities.
Before money assumed completely ideological form, the exchange of congealed labour was in the physical form of sale-purchase of goods, but as the money assumed ideological form, along with physical form congealed labour started being exchanged in ideological form as assurances and contracts.
With the accumulation and concentration of wealth in the hands of the middle class and with scientific and technological development in the field of manufacturing, communication and transportation, the middle class started getting production done in an organised manner on its own terms transforming itself into bourgeois class. Because of better productivity and organised production, cost of production was reduced which made it impossible for the workers and artisans to face the competition and a new era started in the field of production. Now the worker did not have any accumulated labour in the form of any commodity in exchange of which he could get goods needed by him. For exchange the only thing left with the worker was his labour power and which he was compelled to sell for sustenance to the purchaser of labour power on the terms of the purchaser, and with this evolved the new form of workman, the proletariate. With complete control over production, by accumulated labour in the form of wealth, in place of inactive form of accumulated labour came into existence the active form of accumulated labour, that is capital. Appropriation of surplus value is also completed with the completion of the process of production-consumption. During the entire process, various forms of capital keep on appropriating a part of the surplus value.
Capital is entirely a social consciousness whose form is completely ideological and which embodies as property or money. By taking control of the labour power of the proletariat for a definite period, in lieu of accumulated labour or of an assurance of the accumulated labour to be acquired in future, capital expands by appropriation of surplus value produced by the labour and self-aggrandisement. Capitalist is a carrier of this consciousness and not its master. Core character of capital is to create ever new demands by affecting the individual consciousness of the consumer and to provide ever new products to satisfy those needs, and to appropriate surplus value at different stages in different ways during the process of production-consumption. Capital has converted everything into commodity, not only all that is available in the nature, but everything human and social to the extent of even human body, mind, sentiments and human relations also. The entity of a demand could be entirely ideological, therefore the limit of ever new demands coming up is entirely dependent upon social consciousness, but every commodity, even if it has to satisfy a purely ideological demand, can be produced on a material base only, and hence the extent to which such demands can be met is limited by the capacity of the society to exploit natural resources.
You may call capital by any name, industrial capital, mercantile capital, international finance capital, crony capital, fictitious capital or any other name that can be coined, but as a part of social consciousness, capital is synonymous of one thing only and that is, an ideological conscious entity which does not have any physical entity of its own but resides in the subconscious of human beings and whose inherent quality is self-aggrandisement by appropriating congealed labour in the form of surplus value. Those revisionist who say that capitalism of twenty first century is qualitatively different from that of twentieth century, they probably do not know that first capitalist state came into existence in Italy seven hundred years ago at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and capitalism had reached it's highest stage, imperialism, five hundred years ago.
Because of presence of money not only in physical form but in ideological form also as  assurances, presence of proletariat with division of labour as physical labour and mental labour, presence of surplus labour in the form of commodities capable of satisfying physical as well as ideological needs and in the form of instruments and objects of production physically and capital Ideologically, with in capitalist Socio-economic formation the economy has split into two parts. One is Ideological economy whose field of activity is in the ideological world, and the other is physical economy whose field of activity is the physical world, but there is no clear line of demarcation, yet the Ideological economy stands on physical economy only.
Because of its core character of more and more self-expansion through extraction  of surplus value from the process of production, capital tries incessantly to increase demand and supply. With in the physical-economy, because of physical laws, there are limitations on increasing the demands and supply, but with in the ideological-economy there is no limit to enhance demands, yet because the basis of the commodities which satisfy these needs is physical, therefore the supply of such commodities is not unlimited, and because of this, rational relationship between demand, supply and price ceases to exist.
By affecting the mentality of consumers in various many ways, capital creates ever new demands, and by acquiring labour power on the basis of assurances about the value to be made available in the future, produces more and more and continuously raises the purchasing power of consumers. For fulfilment of ideological demand pressure increases on material resources also. A situation comes when production is not able to meet the demands then prices of commodities start increasing and the assurance based value, that is the value of money in the hands of the people starts devaluing relatively. Apprehending further reduction the consumer tries to convert as quickly as possible the available assurance based value into physical assets. In spite of all efforts to bring situation under control, collective confidence in the assurances of the controllers of capital starts diminishing and a panic situation pushes economy into crisis. After some time the artificial value created by assurances gets out of the hands of the consumers and a new cycle starts.
Capital may be confined with in the boundaries of any nation state, but its nature and modus operandi remains same. All capitalist systems are destined to pass sooner or later through this cycle. People, because of lack of theoretical thinking, in general are not able to distinguish between physical and ideological dimensions of value and money, and in the increase of the prices of the commodities can not see the relative decrease in the price of money.
To deal with the problem arising out of non availability of a uniform standard for exchange of goods as the trade and commerce achieved international level with passage of time, first money started being traded on the basis of promissory notes of banks and then after Breton Woods Agreement in 1944 Dollar having been accepted as universal standard in international trade, leaving its physical form, money in its ideological form  has transformed itself into a commodity. With technological development and e-banking, money at national level also is assuming completely ideological form leaving its physical form. Economies, initially divided with in the boundaries of nation states, are transcending boundaries transforming into global economy and boundaries are becoming meaningless for capital and commodities.
In such a situation the depreciation in the value of money named Rupee, which itself has transformed into a commodity, or its devaluation in relation to Dollar is nothing surprising. And Non-Marxists and Revisionist-Marxists both are cursed not to be able to understand the depreciation in the value of the Dollar itself.

Suresh Srivastava
1st September, 2013    

Enlightenment

Enlightenment

By the time I attained adulthood, I was convinced about reasonableness of Marxism. I had become well acquainted with words like Dialectical Materialism, thesis-antithesis, unity and struggle of opposites, quantitative and qualitative change, but I was quite ignorant about the practical use of these words. Only use of these words was in participating in arguments with petty-bourgeois mentality and half-baked knowledge, and to remain adamant till end.

Completely unaware about form and content and development process of self, I spent next thirty years without any realisation how time was flying. Because of utility of Marxist logic during arguments on social issues with leftist friends and in finding solution to personal problems, I continued to have a lively relationship with Marxism. After marrying away both children I thought I have fulfilled my responsibility. I had taken retirement from professional activities and during last thirty years for all my responsibilities towards all friends and relatives I had depended completely on Poonam and which she had been discharging so perfectly that I felt that in personal arena there is nothing left for me to do.

When accounted for last thirty years, my conscience pricked, 'what life have I lived, taken much much but repaid very little.' When assessed the economic-political-social environment, I realised everyone is fed up with the situation but can not visualise an alternative. Why is the Marxist theory, with which I have been so enamoured since my student days and which I have always found useful in finding solution for my personal problems, not been able to provide common people with an alternative? When I tried to figure out I found that the communist party vouching for that ideology is split into umpteen different forms, and leaders and followers divided into more than forty fragments don't even know as to which form of Marxism or Socialism is correct. Who is going to suggest the alternative to the common man? Many a right or left revised edition of Marxism is so much rife in the left consciousness that there is hardly any ground visible for the development of proletarian consciousness. While endeavouring to find a role for myself in this milieu, Lenin's famous pamphlet 'What is to be done?'' came to my mind, in the preface of which, warning against the revisionist trend permeating the left movement in Russia, he had written, 'we can make no progress until we have completely put an end to this period.'

Inspired by Lenin's advice organised Society for SCIENCE so that correct understanding of Marxism could be developed through discussions among socially conscious intellectuals. During these discussions it became clear that the understanding of the philosophical aspect of Marxism is completely missing among all the established left thinkers, economists, philosophers and writers claiming to be Marxist. Completely ignorant about the content, they take the form as the inner kernel, and in the literature that is being produced in the name Modernism and Post-modernism, discussion is limited only up to revolutionary practice, and discussions on theoretical content are not even visible. With this misconception neither can the proletarian consciousness be understood nor can any alternative be explored. After this realisation, with the objective to develop and share the philosophical aspect of Marxism, three years ago I started publication of Marx Darshan in Hindi. After translating many articles of Marx, Engels and Lenin, discussing their interpretation and writing many of own articles, I felt my understanding of Marxism has become thorough.

The theory about which Lenin had said," The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression", and the theory and the knowledge based on that theory about which Marx himself used to say, 'Whatever I have written there is nothing new, it is the collective knowledge of the human society accumulated over centuries', basis of that knowledge is the 'Scientific Outlook' which Karl Marx recognised as the innate property of proletarian-consciousness, apropos to material-social-consciousness of the proletariat class. During last ten years after my renaissance, I had become fully convinced about omnipotence and omni-relevance of that theory and knowledge, but there was one query, answer to which I was not able to figure out. I could understand the source of scientific outlook of intellectuals like me, but from where could the worker get that consciousness and scientific outlook was beyond comprehension, and I had an uneasiness within.

On 9th May 2013 I have returned from 40 days long sojourn abroad, and my intellect is brightened up by the light of new knowledge. The itinerary was finalised last year with the invitation of Poonam's niece's marriage. Large number of family members and friends living in America, Canada, England, Germany and Austria had been insisting that Poonam and I must spend some time with them. (Howsoever distant the relative might be, for Poonam he or she was always a family member, and for the relative it was impossible to remain untouched with this sentiment.) We had not many of them for years, and few of them even in decades. But everyone for certain had fond memories of those few moments which they might have spent with Poonam years or even decades ago. In these forty days whatever I saw, heard and felt, it cleared all the clouds of ignorance which all these years had deprived me of the dawn of wisdom after my renaissance.

With in the feudal economy and patriarchal society of Bundelkhand, in a backward city like Jhansi the atmosphere in our affluent family was significantly different from that in the family of all other relatives and friends. In spite of the presence of many servants in the house, my mother would not only do all her personal work herself but will extend helping hand to the servants in the kitchen and other household work, and will eat herself only after feeding all the servants or with them. In spite of all the affluence, needs of my mother were very limited and she was always satisfied with very little, always ready to help others physically, mentally and materially. And for my father will of my mother used to be above everything else. Some times under the influence of male psyche or ego, if he would take a decision against correct stand of my mother, I never saw him hesitating in accepting his mistake after some time. My father was a mathematician and philosopher besides being a successful lawyer and always encouraged me to put forward my viewpoint and logic. Bringing up by parents, progressive in practice, imbued me with the yearning for studying and understanding about socialism and Marxism.

After completing engineering education at I.I.T. Delhi, I was extremely happy to have found, as desired, an educated and extremely beautiful wife in Poonam. Everyone was enamoured by her celestial beauty. With in few days Poonam won everyone's appreciation and admiration. During family get togethers people would describe Poonam's beauty and behaviour and people would congratulate my mother for having a model daughter-in-law as per her wish.

But as one desire is satiated, a new one crops up, so I also started desiring that Poonam studied Marxism as I did and must participate in discussions over Marxism as girls in JNU and DU used to do. But Poonam had no interest in all this. Her ideal was my mother and the period of ten years before migrating to Delhi from Jhansi, Poonam utilised living with my mother and assimilating all her qualities.

Life went on smoothly amidst the educated and affluent class, with high education for career and a perfect wife like Poonam to live with, and I did not notice how thirty years passed in upbringing of the two children. Poonam and I were a unique example of unity in diversity. I was a declared atheist and Poonam's day started with ablution and worshipping in her temple with in the precinct of the house. In all rituals I had to participate with Poonam as her husband which I did gladly and that was enough for Poonam. Division of labour was also clearly demarcated. Whether it was a friendly get together or a family function, discussion on social issues was a must for me while during that period Poonam would be interested in satiating the taste buds of the guests with different tasty preparations. If I ever complained to Poonam why, with so many servants, she preferred to keep herself occupied with in the kitchen, her answer would be, "For discussions You are there, and the food will not be prepared on its own." And if I said that servants are there, then Poonam would render me speechless with her answer, "Guests are ours and not of servants." (I did not understand delitescent idea with in these words which I have understood now.)

In the family and social environment Poonam and I were complementary to each other and we were fully satisfied with our own and each other's way of life. If ever there was disagreement, then Poonam without any insistence would leave the matter to my sole discretion and would wait with this faith that in the end whatever I would do would be in the interest of everyone. And in the end I would invariably find that Poonam's view was correct. On every issue I always found Poonam with me. With my engineering education, capabilities and honesty, I was recognised among friends and relatives as a professionally and socially successful person and we both were happy with this recognition. In the journey of life there were occasions when I unknowingly would be drifting into the rat race for affluence. Poonam would not nudge me. But after some, with the change appearing in Poonam's behaviour, I would feel as if Poonam has slowly left my gently held arm saying, "This path is not ours. I would not be able to join you in this race." And Poonam without uttering a word would remind me my father's words that one who is not satisfied with little can not be satisfied with more. And this was the greatest support for our way of life.

Poonam was extremely popular among all friends and relatives and hospitality was Poonam's way of living life. After shifting to Delhi thirty years ago, Poonam had started the tradition of inviting on Rakshabandhan all brothers and sisters settled in Delhi (we do not use the word cousin), to our house to tie Rakhi collectively. In the beginning the number of brothers and sisters of two generations was limited to ten or twelve, which has now swelled to thirty-forty in three generations. Every member eagerly waits for the whole year to celebrate, as a festival in our house, the tradition started by Poonam thirty years ago. Poonam had in memory birthdays and wedding-days of dozens of friends and relatives and would never forget to telephone and wish them on time. The cake did get cut on children's birthday, but Poonam laid down the tradition of cake-cutting on every servant's birthday also.

Every visitor and guest used to be a family member for Poonam. She would be as careful about the likings of suddenly arrived visitor, as she would be about those of mine or her children. Poonam would remember very well what the guest, even rarely coming in years, liked to eat and what he did not like to eat. In the event of something being limited, it was as normal as breathing for Poonam to cut into my or children's share and would share with everyone. To take out her children's chocolate from the fridge and hand over to the guest child was as usual for Poonam as sharing anything of one of her child with another of her child. In the initial stage when we did not have a separate guest room in the house or an air conditioner in it, Poonam would gladly leave her bedroom for the guest. When I did not approve of this, Poonam would cajole me, "The guest is hungry for our love and affection and not for food. Whatever we do is only an expression of our feelings."

Poonam was fond of cooking different kinds of dishes, delicacies and sweets. Idli, Dosa, Utappam, Gattey, Rasanjey, Phale, Kadhi, Dhokla, Chhole-bhaturey, Pao-bhaji, Chat-papri, Dahi-bhalley, Aloo-tiki, Gol-gappey, Samosey, Kachori, Gujhia, Malpua, Gulabjamun, Rasmalai, Gajar-halwa, Mewa-laddoo, Gond-laddoo, Besan-laddoo, Thikua, Gulguley, Pua, Cheela, Cake, Caramel pudding, Soufflé, all these we ate cooked by Poonam, and rarely got an opportunity to eat cooked by servants or from the market. Often a new guest and a new request and Poonam would cook everything herself with full dedication, and for fifteen-twenty people. Not only for guests and family members but for all the domestic helps. Everyone appreciated Poonam's cooking skills and expressed surprise how year after year same taste and appearance, and shape and size identical, whether it is Dosa or Gattey or Gujhia, Malpua, Gulabjamun or Mewa-laddoo. I always wondered that Poonam would cook without measure, with estimation and still how could she do everything with such a perfection.

Poonam was very meticulous and used to have a keen eye on even the smallest thing, and everything small or big was always in Poonam's knowledge. Poonam knew all the time exactly as to what was the number of eggs or lemon or quantity of vegetables in the fridge. At any given time what was the number of Gulabjamuns or Laddoo in the store, Poonam's information was never wrong. Poonam knew exactly when my shaving cream or razed blades or undergarments were going to finish, and everything would be replenished before I could say anything.

Eating habits, attire, housekeeping, conduct in social interaction, for everything in her walk of life, everybody was all praise for Pponam's elegance and proficiency. But there was something which used to make Poonam uneasy, and that was, praise for her skills, hospitality or conduct or personal criticism of someone in her presence. In any such situation she would leave the meeting and engage herself in some other work. If ever I or our children talked to her about this she would say, "Praising someone in his presence is flattery. Praise is when done behind the back" and, "Angels don't live on this earth. Everyone is born good, in due course of life one becomes good or bad with the environment. We should be grateful to people that they gave us opportunity to become good."

Ever since I constituted Society for SCIENCE, some times when I criticise her religious faiths (which Poonam did not like), and would say that she should get rid of her blind faiths and must develop a scientific outlook, then Poonam would retort, "Let it go! You and your scientific outlook! You will hold the blade and switch on the mixer or hang the immersion rod outside the bucket." Poonam used to have even smallest thing in her focus. She did not know any thing about construction and internal mechanism of household equipments. I used to do minor maintenance of these equipments myself. Many a time it would happen that I would be stuck with something and would not be able to get out for long, then Poonam would correct me, " you are turning the screwdriver in the wrong direction, it will open the other direction" or "Put that one first only then this can go in place." Upon understanding I would irritate on my carelessness, why I was not able to see such a small thing for so long, and how could Poonam understand while she did not know a thing about the construction or maintenance of the equipments. One more thing which had impressed me immensely and that was her putting the thread through the eye of a needle, without so much as looking at the end of the thread or eye of the needle. I have never seen anyone putting thread into a needle in that manner. I do not know whether she had learned the technique from someone else or had worked out herself. She would hold the end of the thread and the eye of the needle between her index finger and the thumb in such a way that neither the end of the thread wold be visible nor the eye of the needle. Then she would slide the needle to the other side and when the needle came out on the other side the thread would be through the needle. Everything would happen within blink of an eye and in the first attempt. I never saw needing a second attempt.

Diabetes caught Poonam in the youth itself. In the beginning it was managed with oral medicines, for about last twenty years she had started taking insulin. But there was no change at all in her daily routine. Hospitality, entertaining friends and relatives, festivals, celebrations, marriage functions in the families of friends and relatives, on every occasion Poonam would be so much engrossed in it as if she did not have an independent identity of her own. She would completely forget that she was diabetic and doctors have instructed her to be strictly disciplined about her meal timings. Poonam used to be in the centre of every celebration and ritual and everyone looked to Poonam for everything small or big. If ever I objected and said that she should forget about guests and must pay attention towards her disease, she would, "Who is born with immortality?" And if I ever tried my other argument, "In between caring for guests you don't have time for me", Poonam will retort back, "Then tell me what I have to do?" and I would be rendered speechless. Even after searchingly I would not find anything which Poonam might not have arranged for me well in time or might not have fulfilled my wish well before time.

During last two-three years Poonam's health had started deteriorating rapidly because of which the routine of morning walk and watering the plants was getting hampered. She would get tired earlier. She could not work standing in the kitchen as long as before. Diabetes had started affecting all the organs, but Pponam's thinking, way of life and enthusiasm had not changed. Poonam' conduct did not give me an opportunity to realise that her life was slipping out of our hands. I was busy in collecting material for Marx Darshan or participating in seminars, completely oblivious to Poonam's deteriorating health.

Marriages of children of three relatives came in November 2011 and Poonam with utmost vigour was participating in various festivities for seven days and nights as if those were the marriages of her own children. She did not let anyone have an inkling about her deteriorating health. We had already planned to go to Gujrat after marriages. Poonam for long had desired to go on pilgrimage to Dwarkadhish and I wanted to go to lions safari at Gir forest, so in third week of December completed that programme also.

On return found that Poonam's blood pressure was very high. We had planned to go to Thailand in the third week of January, so thought to have her thorough checkup done. On further investigation it was found that her creatinine level has increased alarmingly as compared to what it was in October and we started preparing ourselves mentally for a situation of renal failure. Dialysis or transplant, both options were considered. In spite of difficulties, legal hurdles and risks, we chose the option of transplant because the way daily routine and movements would be hampered in case of dialysis, which would be required every alternate day, would not be conducive to Poonam's life style. Visit to Thailand was cancelled and Poonam was admitted into the hospital and operated upon for making fistula in the left hand so that in case of emergency if dialysis was required it would make things easier.

After operation Poonam had grown very weak. Restrictions on food were increased. But there was no change in Poonam' daily routine worshipping after ablution and working in the kitchen for some time. What is the position of provision in the kitchen was in her knowledge all the time. Hospitality to suddenly arrived guests was still being done in the same old way, only difference that occurred was that Poonam started depending more on servants. Cooking vegetables for herself or cooking some selected delicacies she would still do with her own hands.

Weekly blood test became routine. Process for finding kidney donor and getting legal permission for transplant was also started. With sudden change in Poonam's sodium and potassium levels at the end of February 2012, dialysis became inevitable and on 28 February 2012 Poonam underwent her first dialysis. Poonam gladly accepted twice a week dialysis as part of the routine of her life. With in few days Poonam earned the recognition as the most pleasant, social, calm and disciplined patient in the dialysis centre.

There is a saying that misfortunes never come alone and that is what exactly happened with Poonam. On 1 March I was suddenly taken ill and after examination it was found that my gallbladder and left kidney have problems and both would have to be taken out. I was admitted into the same hospital in which Poonam was undergoing her treatment. The month of March passed in various investigations, three small/big operations and removal of gallbladder. Removal of left kidney with four small/big operations and struggling with post operative infection took away whole of April. After dialysis, staying back in the hospital during my stay in the hospital and subsequently at home, to take my care during my recuperation had become Poonam's first priority. But in the morning worshipping after ablution and then spending sometime in the kitchen was still part of the daily routine. With in few months legal formalities were completed and arrived November. Hospital gave date for operation after Diwali. Poonam's health was deteriorating continuously still engaging herself in the kitchen for two days, Poonam like every year this year also prepared all the delicacies for Diwali with her own hands.

Operation was done successfully on 19 November 2012 and after six days Poonam was discharged from the hospital and we all were very happy that her body has accepted the new kidney. With doctors' satisfaction Poonam was also assured about her life. But after few days due to little fever Poonam had to be hospitalised again. During investigation it was found that there was infection in urine but the graft was functioning perfectly well and doctors assured that infection had come under control. Since 10 December Poonam was kept in ICU to save from infection. On 13th morning after eating breakfast with daughter's hands, Poonam suddenly had convulsions and went into coma. After detailed investigation it was found that Poonam is infected with CMV and the situation had become critical. After being in coma for three days Poonam breathed her last on the morning of 16 December 2012. All family members and friends were in shock. Slowly we all accepted the truth that Poonam was no more amongst us.

It was becoming extremely difficult for me to come to terms with Poonam's loss. I was developing reclusion. I was not seeing any reason for living. Material for Marx Darshan's third issue of second year (July-September 2012) was somehow prepared during Poonam's illness, proof reading was also almost over but could be sent for printing only in January. The decision for stopping publication of Marx Darshan had already been taken and there appeared nothing worth doing in the Society for SCIENCE also. The plan for the foreign trip on which I was to go with Poonam was also cancelled. I cancelled the plan, which was finalised in June, to attend a marriage in the end of January in Ahmedabad.

The children impressed upon that for my own physical and mental well being it was essential that I get out of the house and participate in the two marriages. All relatives in and out of the country were also insisting that I must not cancel my programme. Everyone had been waiting for so long to meet Poonam and me and now in the changed situation everyone had a keen desire to meet me. Considering everyone's wish I realised that Poonam's way of life was collective and not individual and if it were Poonam in my place she would not have cancelled the programmes of participating in marriages. I had seen after the death of her father, my mother, my father and my brother (all these people had been very very dear to her), how she had participated in family marriages as usual, concealing her deep sorrow. So, in January in Ahmedabad and in April in America, I participated in both the marriages and at both the places met many relatives and friends. Everyone, young and old, had something or the other to express about Poonam's conduct and way of life, which gave a new perspective to my understanding of human being and human society.

Those who had occasions to spend even a little time, they still remembered every detail how affectionately Poonam took care of their even the smallest liking. And those who did not get such an opportunity, they, from what they heard about Poonam's behaviour from others, had formed Poonam's image as that of a role-model house wife. They had in their minds Poonam's image as a perfect person because Poonam's that conduct which they themselves consider valuable for human relations and the society, even if they themselves may not be able to conduct in that manner. "Never heard Poonam uttering, knowingly or unknowingly, anything negative," or "Poonam was as beautiful from inside as she was from outside" these were the words which I heard many a time during these meetings. Poonam might not be present physically, but in ideas she was present in the memories of the people everywhere.

During forty years of married life, Poonam gave me every kind of happiness and even after leaving has presented me with the most precious gift of lifetime. During these forty days whatever I have seen and heard of in terms of the sentiments and expressions of people towards Poonam, it has cleared my that doubt about Marxism for which I was mentally perturbed and which I had not been able to clear in years on the basis of my bookish knowledge. In people's expressions I could see their feelings towards Poonam in the light of which I could see that inner core of Poonam's consciousness which I could not see during forty years of my living with Poonam. Everyone said there was no show off in Poonam's behaviour, whatever she did, was uncontrived and unconditioned, her conduct was inherent, there was no dichotomy between her thinking and practice. I was fully satisfied with Poonam's conduct but could not realise that Poonam's conduct was not her deliberate behaviour but was an expression of her subconscious. Her behaviour was her habit, materialisation of her core consciousness. Now in retrospect I find that sometimes in some function in the hose of  some  relative or friend when Poonam without any inhibitions  would get busy with the affairs as if it was her duty and right also, I would worry if the host or his near ones took an exception to Poonam's informal approach then she might feel insulted, but such thought did not even flash in any corner of her mind.

Marx had written, "Man can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life." "The production of life, both of one's own in labour and of fresh life in procreation, now appear as a double relationship : on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relationship."

Marx identified human society not as a mere collection of individuals but as a conscious organic formation whose form is ideological and which manifests through organisation of humans. According to Marxism to properly understand human-consciousness and social-consciousness, their content and form separately and their dialectical relationships will have to be understood. Human sub-consciousness and material-social-consciousness of the society are inner kernels and conscious part of human-consciousness and ideological-social-consciousness are superstructures.

According to Marxism proletarian class is the most advanced class of the society because the basis of its material-social-consciousness is based on scientific temper. Earlier I was unable to figure out where from does the proletariat get his scientific outlook. How and why does the non-scientific outlook of the workers changes into scientific outlook after they have lost everything. Individually most of the proletariat are extremely ignorant, superstitious, orthodox, god fearing, polytheist and hero worshippers, then who provides the scientific outlook to the material-social-consciousness of the proletarians collectively as a class.

After foreign jaunt my viewpoint about Poonam has undergone complete transformation and in the light of this transformed outlook towards Poonam's behaviour I have found answer to all my hitherto unanswered  questions. Earlier in some nook of my innerness there was some kind of vainness regarding Poonam, conceit of being the husband of a very beautiful, proficient, skilled and esteemed wife, the thought that Poonam's all this is owed to me and as my wife she is my absolute monopoly. And that probably Poonam also thinks like this that is why I am on top in her priorities. But now I know I was wrong. I was special for Poonam, but only in a limited arena, as Poonam's husband and father of the children. But the arena of life is so vast that neither Poonam's nor my life could fit into that limited arena. By identifying her personal interests with her social interests, Poonam had made her behaviour so magnificent that in its arena speciality of being husband or father of children had ceased to mean anything. Her behaviour had the capacity to satisfy everyone. In her arena there was no place for conflict of personal interests. Expression of people's emotions testify this. Everyone says, "Never heard anything negative from Poonam's mouth, nor she ever had time to listen to such things."

Poonam was the embodiment of this human consciousness that 'for the security and continuity of human life, identifying personal interests with collective interests is essential, and the basis of human life is production by human labour power.' Scientific temper and scientific outlook is founded upon this very truth of nature. At personal level this truth is revealed continuously during the production process and this social consciousness which is based on scientific outlook is that Marx named as 'Proletarian class-consciousness.

With proliferation of the productive forces, man starts producing more than consumption and accumulating and with this comes into existence private property and the family. Organisation of the family is the genesis of slavery of women. With ownership of the means of life, the man acquires control over woman's labour power also. And control on labour power of one by the other is what is the basis of slavery. With private property germinates the idea that the basis of life is means of production and not human labour power and with this myth starts pollution of scientific outlook. When widespread this very idea becomes the core of social consciousness and then it becomes the cause of unscientific-outlook of millions of men and women. Slaves, serfs, artisans, even natural scientists continue to be the carriers of this wrong concept because they, for personal interests, in some or the other form consider private property as the means of production and of life. 

Out of special family circumstances, thousands of women like Poonam, as exception, because of the very basic productive activity of cooking food in their kitchen, have been for ages continuing to be carriers of the concept that the basis of human life is human labour and social cooperation and not the physical goods, the worker recognises that concept when in capitalism after having lost everything he is rendered proletariat and to continue his living he is left with nothing except his labour power to sell.

I consider myself fortunate that I had the opportunity to live with such a wonderful person who throughout life continued lavishing happiness on all and sundry and in her death has gifted me with the knowledge for which I had been searching agonisingly for all these years. This my effort to share that knowledge with all others is my real tribute to Poonam.

Suresh Seivastava

9810128813

15, July 2013

(Author is president of Society for SCIENCE and chief editor of quarterly Marx Darshan

Why Indian Communist Parties fail to understand Marxism?

Why Indian Communist Parties fail to understand Marxism?
After Marx's death when someone asked Engels, "Whom will you call a Marxist?" Engels replied, "Marxist is not one who can quote Marx. Marxist is one who, in every situation can think in the same way as Marx would have thought in the given situation." To comprehend Engel's characterisation of a Marxist in entirety, one has to understand what is that 'way' which Marx followed in his thinking, and also that two persons, depending upon their attitudes, may think similarly in one situation but may think differently in another situation. Attitude of a person is result of the historical development of the thought process of the individual and is always in a state of continuos flux. Thus a person may be Marxist at one time yet may not be a Marxist at another time. And therefore one is not a Marxist because of his personae but is because of his way of thinking at any given time about any particular issue. In the preface of 'Anti-Duhring' Engels wrote, 'But Theoretical thinking is an innate quality only as regards natural capacity. This natural capacity must be developed, improved, and for its improvement there is as yet no other means than the study of previous philosophy.'
People, because they do not understand the philosophical foundation of Marxism, accept someone's claim of his being a Marxist on the basis of some of his thoughts and when a person is identified as a Marxist they accept all of his thoughts on face value as Marxism and fail to recognise self contradictory core content in his ideas. When such a person is in a position of authority and wields influence on the material life of a large population, he creates a large submissive following in his footsteps producing milieu accepting non-Marxist ideas as Marxism.
To find the correct answer to the question posed herein, we need to understand what is the 'Marxist way of thinking' and how people develop attitude which fails them in understanding Marxism in its entirety.
Thinking process of human mind is the processing of two kinds of information, one freshly received through sense organs and the other already existing as knowledge in the brain stored through previous processing. Processing is also at two levels - voluntary or conscious and involuntary or sub-conscious. Information already existing in the brain decides how the new information will be processed and stored. As a natural process the new information after processing becomes part of the stored information and in future plays a role in processing of subsequent information. This is a continuous process and starts right at the inception of human brain and continues till the end of the life of the brain.
At the inception their is no previously stored information and for few years the processing is only at involuntary level, simply an instinctive activity which is not just biological but is social also as the brain continuously gets information from the social environment in which the person is living and growing. Subsequently as brain circuitry is developed the processing of information starts working at voluntary level also and an individual starts becoming conscious of his thoughts and ideas. Now with voluntary processing of information also coming into picture, the hitherto simple activity of thinking process becomes more complex, and thinking process is not just a conscious phenomena (as is generally thought), but becomes a combination of sub-conscious and conscious phenomenon.
The way receiving, filtering and processing of information coming in and already existing takes place at sub-conscious level, is what constitutes the habit of mind or attitude of a person. In the absence of deliberate conscious effort, it is only the attitude which determines the thinking process and hence is responsible for the inertia of the attitude of a person. A deliberate conscious effort alone, by a person himself, can overcome this inertia and bring about a change in his attitude.
Human society is a 'Socio-economic formation' constituted by people instinctively coming together to preserve their life by producing the means of life individually and collectively, and to perpetuate their species by combined activity of procreation and social upbringing. Consisting of human beings endowed with consciousness who are combined ideologically rather than physically, human society is an organic entity which is only consciousness, an ideological form without any physical form of its own. (Normally, being incapable of theoretical thinking, people fail to comprehend that consciousness is the core content of this organic formation and collection of humans is only the superstructure. This organism is not a physical formation, it is an ideological formation). Akin to sub-conscious and conscious aspects of human consciousness, 'Social-consciousness' also has material-social consciousness and ideological-social consciousness.
Human-consciousness and social-consciousness complementing each other continuously develop and enrich each other's knowledge. Continuously proliferating knowledge incessantly enhances the productive forces and with increased productivity individual demands also multiply both at physical as well as at mental levels. But the basis of these demands continues to be the material conditions of the society as well as of the individual. Because of the natural and historical reasons the material conditions in different regions become different and so also become the demands. In pursuit of raising means to satisfy these demands people start organising themselves into groups or organisations sub-consciously and consciously also. These groups again are organisms, subsets within the larger society. Here also the core of the consciousness of the group or organisation is the underlying idea to achieve the common objective and all conscious efforts are for the pursuit of common goal.
Any individual, knowingly or un-knowingly is member of various groups or organisations, many of which may have conflicting interests. Consciously an individual may choose differing acts at different times, but sub-consciously he continues to be an element of the organisation which continues with pursuit of underlying objective irrespective of the act of individual member. In this sense organisations are not dependent on any particular individuals, not even leaders, as is commonly believed. Organisations produce, choose and discard their own leaders, suiting the organisation's needs.
With the increase in productivity of the society, people started producing more than what was required to fulfil their needs or in other words they started producing surplus. With the production of surplus, people developed two antagonistic interests in the activity of producing collectively and sharing the produce to fulfil their respective demands. One was to have a share commensurate with the labour put in and other was to usurp the surplus produced by others. These interests being related to the very life and existence of an individual, affect the consciousness of an individual more at sub-conscious level rather than at conscious level. These antagonistic interests divided the society into two classes - one the working class, the class providing labour for production and other the bourgeois class, the class of appropriators of surplus produced. On the basis of two antagonistic material-social consciousnesses, the two classes develop their own ideological-social-consciousnesses consisting of ideas and myths which may appear to be unrelated with their class interests. Depending upon differing modes of production the two classes also get divided into different subsets and groups. Ideological-consciousness of these different subsets and groups may appear to be different but the basis always remains Material-social consciousness of either of the two classes. Because of antagonistic interests in the material production, activities of the two classes take the form of class struggle. Engels had written, 'this society has involved itself in insoluble self-contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.'  This is how 'The State came into being'. Over a period 'the state', acting as an arbiter, turned out to be the most powerful institution and to have the control of state turned out to be the the most important goal in the class struggle.
In medieval times the economic activity of the bourgeois class was limited to trading of commodities, but with further development of productive forces, this class started acquiring the means of production and getting commodities produced at mass scale. Small scale production of artisans could not compete with the mass scale production of bourgeoisie and the artisans ultimately had to sell their instruments of production for survival. This rendered artisans without any means of production and subsistence except their labouring power alone which could be sold as a commodity. This was a qualitative change in the history of mankind, giving birth to two new classes, the capitalist and the proletariat.
The capitalist class, being interested in appropriation of surplus by purchasing labour power rather than labour, developed its own material and ideological social-consciousness - to camouflage the truth with myths, 'equality before the law' being the most significant myth.
 The proletariat, because of his material conditions realised the truth that material life of the society is produced collectively by human labouring power only and developed a new material-social-consciousness - to see the truth free from any myths, the 'Scientific world outlook'.
The petty-bourgeois class with its material-social-consciousness, an overlap between the antagonistic classes, continues in existence for long and acts as a buffer between the antagonistic classes. Continuously burgeoning capital throws many petty-bourgeois in the ranks of proletariat. Members of this class osmotically keep diffusing into capitalist or proletariat classes and are carriers of an ideological-social-consciousness, hybrid of those of the two classes, 'The Utopian-socialism'.
 Marx came on the scene when capitalistic mode of production had overshadowed all other modes of production, capital was transcending state boundaries and transforming into international finance capital and capitalism was reaching its highest stage in the form of imperialism. Middle class intellectuals embedded with petty-bourgeois-consciousness were sifting and putting forward many ideas in the field of philosophy and political-economy to explain the cause of miseries of mankind and to find ways for deliverance. Marx, with his scientific approach to philosophy, was able to correctly identify the dialectics of nature and grasp the form and content of the Socio-economic formation - the Human Society. He summarised and documented the material & ideological social consciousness of the proletariat class as 'Scientific world outlook'. Marx was opposed to naming of this consciousness of the proletariat class as 'Marxism', and resisted for 30 years but ultimately agreed, in 1872 before the Hague Congress of The International, for it to be named as 'Marxism'.
In the era of highest stage of capitalism Parliamentary democracy based on adult suffrage turned out to be the highest form of government as it helps sanctify the myth that all are equal. Various groups organise themselves into political parties for acquiring control of state through control of parliament.
To analyse and understand formation and functioning of any political party correctly, the form and content of the entity is to be understood properly. It is necessary to address the entity not as a simple physical collection of individuals, but as a social formation - a consciousness residing in the sub-conscious and conscious minds of its members. It is an organisation brought into existence with conscious efforts of its members who are bound together by a common objective of achieving control of state machinery by acquiring control of institutions of political power. As the members are individuals with consciousness operating at sub-conscious and conscious levels, the consciousness of the organisation also operates at two levels. In their efforts to achieve the common goal, the members formulate their strategy guided by the ideology they believe in. Since the belief works at the sub-conscious level of the members, the ideology constitutes the sub-conscious part or core content of the consciousness of the group, and all conscious efforts constitute the conscious part or the form of the consciousness of the group.
Capitalist class is interested in the perpetuation of relations of production between capital and wage labour and does not want any interference by the government in the market economy. Therefore the guiding ideology of capitalist parties is laissez faire and in their functioning they follow the principle of complete freedom. Petty bourgeois, because of his social position, is a socialist and economist at the same time. Hence petty-bourgeois parties are interested in ushering in 'Utopian Socialism' and are guided by the concept of welfare state 'taxing the rich to help the poor' without changing the relations of production. In accordance with their petty-bourgeois ideology, their parties in their functioning follow the principle of controlled freedom, in other words freedom at the discretion of the leadership.
Proletariat class, because of it's scientific world outlook is interested in creating a classless society by changing relations of production and ushering in 'Scientific Socialism'. Therefore Marxism is the guiding theory of the party of the proletariat and in its functioning the party of the proletariat must act as an entity with clear thought and complete harmony in ideas and action. A communist party is a social formation in which its members are supposed to be bound together with common objective of achieving control of state machinery so that material conditions could be created which will lead to a classless society. According to Marxist tenets a communist party is supposed to be the vanguard of the working class in its struggle, and must continuously wage movements to increase the awareness of the working class and to forge their unity for success in their struggle.
In line with its objective and role, communist party must be interacting organically with the working masses and also with the society as a whole, to get feed back, strategise and guide mass movements. Because of hostile environment in its class struggle, it is absolutely essential that the members of a communist party must think and perform in utmost coherence and unison. And this is possible only if members have a scientific outlook and are guided by a theory based on scientific outlook, that is Marxism. Lenin with a thorough knowledge and understanding of Marxism, while organising the Bolshevik party, developed the policy and practice of 'Democratic Centralism' wherein the party members are well versed in Marxist ideology, centres of duty and authority within the party are congruent and relation between various centres is democratic. In the absence of scientific outlook there can be neither democracy in policy formation and delegation of authority, nor can there be self discipline.
In India, after the 1857 uprising was quelled, there was a lull for 50 years, and at the beginning of 20th century the need for independence from British rule started capturing the imagination of Indian youth. Industrial development and capitalism in India were in nascent stage and so was the proletariat. Hence Indian freedom struggle was dominated and controlled by petty-bourgeois intellectuals. In India this was the period when middle class bourgeois youth, romanticised by utopian socialism and enamoured by the stories of nationalist revolutionary martyrs all over the world, was seeing himself as emancipator and redeemer of downtrodden.
Till Word War-I the Indian bourgeois intellectuals were inspired by various movements of Europe and America and in the beginning Indian freedom movement had two main streams emerging out of hero worship without any understanding of the dialectical development of Indian society. One was influenced by heroes like Abraham Lincoln and concept of Democracy and followed a policy of peaceful negotiations with the Raj. The other was influenced by nationalists like Garibaldi and Mezini and believed in violent overthrow of the Raj without any concept of new nation state.
While commenting on Proudhon's book 'Philosophy of Poverty', in his letter to P. Annanikov, Marx had noted that 'the petty-bourgeois will be an integral part of all the impending social revolutions.' 'In an advanced society and because of his situation, a petty bourgeois becomes a socialist on the one hand, and economist on the other, i.e. he is dazzled by the magnificence of the upper middle classes and feels compassion for the sufferings of the people.' 'He is at one and the same time bourgeois and man of the people.'
In 1902 Lenin in his famous pamphlet 'What is to be done' had observed, 'Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little, and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical significance and its practical successes.'
After World War-I, with the success of the socialist revolution in Russia, the petty bourgeois intellectuals started looking towards Soviet Union as their role model which is clear from Bhagat Singh's writings, and a third stream with a utopian idea of socialism started emerging as is clear from the re-naming of Hindustan Republican Association as Hindustan Socialist Republican Army. Enamoured by the success of October Revolution and romanticised by Utopian Socialism, a group of few middle class intellectuals decided to lay foundation of Communist Party of India and in 1920 organised themselves in Tashkent as CPI (according to CPIM) with the objective of overthrowing the British rule and ushering in a Soviet Revolution in India. CPI claims 1925 Kanpur conference as the birth of Communist Party of India. Mentality of these intellectuals finds correct depiction in Marx's and Lenin's observations, and corroboration in Bhagat Singh's confession just before his death. ('Up to that period I was only a romantic idealist revolutionary' and 'I studied Bakunin, the anarchist leader, something of Marx, the father of communism'). These middle class intellectuals organised the communist party with little or no theoretical knowledge of 'Marxism' and hence in later stage in life majority of them drifted away from Marxism.
This group consisted of members bound by an objective of capturing state power to establish Utopian Socialism and were guided by their petty-bourgeois-consciousness. Unfortunately world communist movement was always infested with revisionism and the six years of Second World War provided revisionism sufficient ground and time to flourish and gain strong foothold. CPI also continued unflinching practice of organising workers and peasants, asserting their revisionist understanding of Marxism to be correct theory. In the absence of any conscious effort to correct its misunderstanding, revisionism got more and more entrenched in the consciousness of its ranks and files giving rise to hero worship, completely in line with its  petty-bourgeois consciousness.
After split in the international communist movement in sixties, and with Nehruvian socialism, CPI found both internal and external environment, conducive to the continuance of its petty-bourgeois consciousness and hero worship. During and after sixties CPI and communist movement saw many splits, but all were only because of the ego and personal feuds within the leadership and not for any ideological differences, and that is why they have not been able to resolve their differences even after 50 years. It is not surprising that the two main groups, CPI and CPM have been fighting for political power together as left front and waging all struggles jointly but refuse to unite as a party.
From the very inception leadership of Communist Party of India has been in the hands of bourgeois intellectuals whose understanding of Marxism was devoid of philosophical content. Contrary to its claim party's theoretical understanding is based on bourgeois consciousness and praxis is based on action, theory being put in the back seat. Whether in organising working class movements or in building the internal structure of the party, it's stress was only on action and not on developing correct understanding of Marxism. Because of bourgeois overtones the policy of 'Democratic centralism' assumed the form of iron discipline in practice. Party members were required to follow the diktat of the central leadership without questioning. Over a period of time the party was caught in a vicious circle which it is finding difficult to come out of.
When the Communist Party of India was founded, capitalism was in its infancy and ideological consciousness of the working class was dominated by feudal and bourgeois consciousness. Party inducted members from petty-bourgeois class who took leaders being Marxists for granted. In due course the party developed submissive followers who in turn consolidated sycophancy. Even after fifty years of independence more than 80% of the population is living within an environment of  feudal or petty-bourgeois economy. This has provided perfect internal and external conditions for the party or its splinter groups to transform the party into an organisation of sycophant followers and vainglorious leadership, instead of the vanguard of the working class - a communist party of highly enlightened politically conscious Marxists.
More than a century ago Engels wrote, "The highest form of the state, the democratic republic, ............ is the form of state in which alone the last decisive battle between proletariat and bourgeoisie can be fought out – the democratic republic no longer officially recognises differences of property." "And lastly the possessing class rules directly by means of universal suffrage. As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will it, in its majority, recognise the existing order of society as the only possible one and remain politically the tail of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing. But in the measure in which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same measure it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand."
Thus, core consciousness of all groups vouching for Marxism is petty-bourgeois consciousness and hence in practice they all continue to 'remain politically the tail of the capitalist class, it's extreme left wing' and will not be able to help proletariat mature towards its self-emancipation.
While fighting against revisionist trend in Russian communist movement, Lenin in his famous pamphlet, 'What is to be done?', had observed 'but the confusion and vacillation which constitute the distinguishing feature of an entire period in the history of Russian Social-Democracy ................... also acquires significance, for we can make no progress until we have completely put an end to this period.' His observation is equally relevant to 90 years of communist movement in India which has been in the grip of left and right revisionism and nothing can be done until this is put to an end completely.
Need of the hour is a group with sole objective of bringing enlightened Marxist intellectuals together to disseminate correct understanding of Marxism. Only practice of this group in line with Marxist theory ought to be limited to develop and spread correct knowledge of Marxism. It can not and ought not do any thing more than this. Once correct understanding of Marxism is widespread amongst people, there will be enough carriers of  proletarian consciousness and that will be the genesis of the vanguard of the working class emancipation.

Suresh Srivastava
15 June 2013

Democratic Centralism – A Marxist View

Democratic Centralism – A Marxist View

Suresh Srivastava

In June 2009, after the electorate decided not to buoy the left-ship, the left intellectual which was basking on the deck of the left in the glory of UPA1 did not take a wink to desert the sinking ship. One can understand the desertion of the vexed deprived but panic of the self-styled Marxist navigators is beyond comprehension. The flag bearer for a proletarian revolution in India, the CPI(M) as usual did the introspection to bolt the stable after the horse bolted. It is unfortunate that Communist Party of India since its inception and all its fragments have till date not been able to understand the immanent problem. A subject can and does comprehend the content of an object by perception of its form. Only a mind with scientific temper and scientific outlook is capable of eliminating parallax between comprehension and perception.    

The CPI(M) sees problem of communalism as political & social praxis of authoritarian and conservative forces of an ethnic group asserting superiority of their religious and social praxis over and against other ethnic groups, that is as social relation only between ethnic groups apart from production relations and not as a strategy of bourgeoisie to fragment the unity of working class and quell the class struggle. As a consequence in 2004 it propped up Congress to ascend to power replacing NDA. In spite of CMP, UPA continued with same policy of liberalization which Congress started in its Narsimhawtar and NDA followed religiously. Left was happy with the lollypop of NREGS and allowed Congress to complete the process of Agreement 123 before withdrawing support. Because of its wrong understanding of communalism, the Left could not present, during 2009 also, before the electorate, an alternative for the bourgeois parties led by Congress on one side and by BJP on the other and as a consequence got the drubbing in 2009 election.

When CPI(M) was creating hype about communalism, as a prelude to support Congress post forthcoming election of 2004, in February 2004, through a published article I had warned that considering communalism apart from imperialism and supporting Congress will be suicidal for the Left. In September 2007 through a letter to Com. Prakash and a published pamphlet I had warned the Left not to proceed on Agreement-123. In January 2008, before 19^th Party Congress of CPI(M), through a letter to Prakash and a published pamphlet I had suggested that all left parties who claim to be Marxist, must sit together to decide a common minimum programme and structure a Third Front to present an alternative to Congress and BJP and as the largest party CPI(M) must take the initiative.

Because of its mindset the Party fails to comprehend what many, like I, outside the party are able to.

In Jan-Mar 2010 issue of The Marxist, Prakash has written an article ‘On Democratic Centralism’ responding to criticism from Prabhat Patnaik, Javeed Alam and Prabir Purkayastha. Prakash in these three articles sees a criticism of his party’s praxis of democratic centralism and hence has focused on defending democratic centralism, but again in a metaphysical manner, focusing on trees at the cost of neglecting the woods, I mean the ideology. I see in the three articles not the criticism of democratic centralism per se but the demand for a different kind of socialism, different from what was practiced in USSR and is being practiced in Peoples Republic of China. There may be different kinds of Utopian Socialism but I fail to comprehend how could there be different kinds of Scientific Socialism. (As I know the three authors are believers in Marxism and are not pseudo leftists). They probably see one form of socialism with ‘proletarian dictatorship’ and a different form of socialism with ‘people’s democracy’. And the problem again is with mindset. They are trying to see the cause of failure of socialist state in Soviet Union in the visible form of functioning of the CPSU with democratic centralism and Soviet State as dictatorship of the proletariat and not in the immanent deviation from Marxism by the CPSU.

Enamoured, with the concept of bourgeois democracy deeply ingrained, their whole exercise is to arrive at the conclusion that the genesis of the failure of socialism is the control regime and the panacea is praxis of democracy, apropos bourgeois democracy, both by the party as well by the state. Having their intellect glued to bourgeois democracy, all the three authors fail to envision the immanent misconception about scope of Marxism.

Prakash, his party not yet controlling the Indian state, just needed to defend the functioning of his party on the principle of democratic centralism which he does well and exempts state from this principle. The cause of any failure, if there is one, is attributed to few structural problems here or there and more to factionalism. 

Let us deal chronologically with the postulations of the four accomplished masters of Marxism.

Prabhat starts with call for ‘Re-envisioning Socialism’ ( Economic & Political Weekly, November 3, 2007) and through his discourse he tries to lead the reader to believe what he already believes, that while capitalism objectifies people, socialism frees people and hence people’s political praxis is the core characteristic of socialism. He concludes that ‘the vision of October revolution was a state that unleashed the political praxis of the working class but the actual political institution that came into being was a highly centralised dictatorship of the party, which eventually brought about a depoliticisation not only of the working class but also of the party itself’ (ibid, p-45), hence today socialism must be based on different foundation. And what is that different foundation; nothing but people’s political praxis. But will that not be a bourgeois democracy. Even after a proletarian revolution society continues to be class society for many decades, in deeds as well as in thoughts of the people. In a class society where vast masses are still poor and uneducated, people’s political praxis is praxis ‘OF’, ‘BY’ and ‘FOR’ the bourgeoisie and that is nothing but bourgeois democracy. And a revolutionary party which is capable to successfully lead a proletarian revolution will not and must never agree for people’s political praxis a la bourgeois democracy. So to resuscitate his metaphysical concept Prabhat resorts to the oxygen of scientific discussion. ‘Free scientific discussion is like oxygen for a revolu­tionary party; without such discussion it cannot survive.’ Paradoxically scientific temper and outlook is not what is required for such discussion, ‘but such free discussion in turn requires not just complete intellec­tual freedom, but also the existence of a multiplicity of opinions (which in turn en­tails a multiplicity of political parties)’ (ibid, p-46). And now with multiplicity of political parties, he stands, completely exposed, in support of bourgeois democracy.  

Javeed is already convinced that democratic centralism is negation of democracy, still starts with the premise ‘Can Democratic Centralism be Conducive to Democracy’ (EPW, September 19, 2009) and uses all kinds of examples and claims to build up a case to prove what he is already convinced, a completely metaphysical approach. He sees the absence of democracy in erstwhile socialist states, as universal phenomena and then to find the cause he singles out democratic centralism for critical look. He does not hide that he is already convinced about what he is trying to prove even though his arguments may not be very convincing. ‘Democratic centralism (DC) being the generally accepted principle of the internal organisation of the CPs needs to be singled out for a critical look. By now it seems to me quite clear, that DC, in the way it stands, provides one such structural condition for the throttling of democracy inside the CPs’ (ibid, p-37). Javeed follows in the footsteps of Prabhat by considering the laid down regulations in a communist party as the essence of centralism. He sees only what he wants to see and knows only what he wants to know. He does not know ‘if Lenin did or would have recommended DC as a necessary and universal principle’ (ibid, p-38). but Lenin knew and every Marxist would know that organizing a communist party on the principle of democratic centralism is based on the scientific understanding that any highly developed organic structure like a communist party can function and sustain only with democratic centralism. 

            Prabir tries to describe in detail different problems afflicting the left movements in different parts of the world and at different levels – national, state and municipal - converging on the problem afflicting his mind, i.e. ‘And finally, what is the left vision of a new socialist state’ (The Journal, Vol. 1, Aug 15, 2009, p-29), exposing his mindset that scientific socialism as envisioned by Marx and Engels and explained by Lenin, Stalin and Mao through practice is wrong and a new concept of socialism is needed. His need for a new kind of socialism arises out of what he sees superficially and not as a natural consequence of development of relations of production. Prabir wishes that left forces unite, but by giving up principle of democratic centralism and not by ironing out ideological differences. ‘if a reunification of the left is to take place, as many have argued and some of the parties abroad have carried out, the problem is that different parties here have different operational structures. (ibid, p-32).   

Contention of the three authors is that socialism needs to be redefined and new kind of socialism can be defined and practiced only by giving up the principle of democratic centralism.

Prakash as general secretary of CPI(M) has to take up cudgels to defend democratic centralism because that is what his party is supposed to practice. He does this with utmost zeal but he resorts to the same metaphysical approach with which the detractors have tried to dismiss the principle of democratic centralism – looking at the form only and overlooking the content.

His characterization that the ‘party organisation has to be one which is equipped to wage the political, ideological and organisational struggle against the powerful State and the dominant ruling classes’ and hence ‘the key issue would be whether the party is equipped to organize and lead the working class and the revolutionary mass movement?’ (The Marxist, XXVI 1, Jan-Mar 2010, p-5) reveals that he is totally engrossed with the exterior. And in the process he commits the grave error in defining the internal structure by ‘recruiting the advanced sections of the working class into the Party who can be made politically conscious and hence constitute the vanguard’ (ibid). To play its historical role as vanguard of the revolution, a communist party, for recruitment of its cadre, must restrict recruitment to highly motivated and politically conscious individuals well equipped with scientific outlook because that is the basic requirement for efficient functioning of an organization committed to the principle of democratic centralism. And, because of his metaphysical approach he fails to identify the element which, in democratic centralism, causes ‘minority to abide by the majority decision’. Bourgeois democracy also requires the minority to abide by the majority but fails to cause that happen.

When the detractors harp that democratic centralism was evolved for Russian revolution and is applicable to that kind of situation only, Prakash, out of his misconception about the foundation of democratic centralism, starts dancing to their tune. ‘While it is true that democratic centralism was evolved by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party …………. It is not the Russian party alone which faced attack and it was not the Russian revolution alone which was sought to be suppressed by foreign intervention. Every revolution in the 20th century underwent the same process of repression, counterrevolution/civil war and foreign intervention.’ (ibid, p-7). Q.E.D.

After filling pages of examples and arguments, Prakash shows that a communist party is all the time under attack physically and ideologically, whether it is a revolutionary class struggle or a parliamentary democratic struggle, and hence for a communist party democratic centralism, which was evolved during Russian revolution, is a must. He has not elaborated on the principle of democratic centralism except his claim that ‘Democratic centralism promotes collective decision making and collective activity; it allows for freedom of thought and unity in action’ (ibid, p-5). But that is what the bourgeois democratic parties also claim about their democratic functioning. Congress also allows complete freedom of thought even to the extent of brick batting, ‘chappal’ throwing and fisticuffs during discussions and shows total unity in action taken by the high command. So where is the difference?

            Authors seem to have wrong concept about a communist party. They see a communist party as just a group of people, motivated in various different ways who have joined hands together to create a classless society. ‘in the Salkia Plenum, the CPI (M) called for the development of a mass revolutionary party. This has to be built up on the basis of the principles of democratic centralism. Without democratic centralism, only a mass party can exist.’ (ibid, p-17).  Knowing very well that a ‘mass party’ can not function with democratic centralism, the plenum called for development of a ‘mass revolutionary party’. A mass party can not be a revolutionary party and a revolutionary party can not be a mass party. What a fallacy to have a ‘mass revolutionary party’. Even after a proletarian revolution, for many decades, masses in general neither participate in politics nor qualify to be member of a communist party.

            It is highly unfortunate for the Indian proletariat and also for masses in general that the general secretary of their vanguard party knows very well that ‘the proper exercise of democratic centralism depends crucially on the political-ideological level of the party members’ and that ‘paucity in this level can result in limiting democratic involvement in discussions and policy making’ (ibid, p-19). yet ‘for the CPI (M), the choice is stark: no mass revolutionary party without democratic centralism.’ (ibid, p-20).

According to Marxists ideology and also as shown in practice by Lenin, Stalin and Mao, Communist Party is a highly developed living organic entity whose elements themselves are highly conscious and motivated individuals who are intertwined together into an arrangement by way of cohesion of scientific world outlook known as Marxism, and is the vanguard to usher in a revolutionary political-economic-social order for emancipation of humanity. Like any other highly developed living organism a communist party must have its own rules for function within and rules for interaction with exterior including permeance for sustenance and growth.

Let us understand the foundation and function of democratic centralism.

As an organic entity Communist party must have its own thought process to generate ideas which will be conducive for its efficient functioning and will guide its various organs to function in complete animated coordination. It must have a very efficient communication process for exchange of information and ideas between its various organs and elements within and without and for this it must have a functional system capable of taking care of any pollution, distortion and attenuation of information and ideas. Lastly but not the least it must have equally efficient system to put strategies, which are developed ideas, into practice through its various organs and units and to receive feedback about the outcome of its actions so that proper course correction could be done to keep it on track towards its goal. The modus operandi for a communist party, an organism, at the highest level of consciousness, has to be unique to meet the unique requirements of this organism. Let us see the unique requirements before we can understand the modus operandi.

The organism has to work in a complex environment, very friendly on one end to very hostile on the other extreme; very friendly willing to amalgamate, the hostiles fighting to annihilate and the intermediaries vacillate. The goal, ‘to usher in a revolutionary political-economic-social order for emancipation of humanity’ can not be achieved in one quantum jump. The long tortuous path must be covered inch-by-inch making great strides achieving new goalposts one by one. Hurdles getting bigger and bigger, the organism must acquire ever increasing strength through string of successes. All this requires a panoptic and microscopic perspective and intellect of highest order to evolve clear strategies (set of developed ideas) for all occasions which must be pursued with single mind by the agile dexterous mammoth that is what a communist party is.

How the party can meet its internal and external requirements? By modus operandi which will ensure that its monad constituents singularly and collectively meet the requirements. Now as the constituents themselves are intelligent living individuals with independent physical and mental functions, they ought to be aware about their subjective and objective role and must consciously all the time subjugate their personal interest and thinking to the collective interest and thinking of the organization and must integrate with collective functioning. Metaphysical views coalesce into non-scientific tempers which give rise to bourgeois tendencies and factionalism in the organization. Factionalism can not be controlled by bourgeois democratic methods compelling the minority to abide by the majority decision. It can be rooted out by regular discussions about various aspects of Marxism as scientific philosophy and purge of metaphysical views.   

Marxism is a scientific philosophy and as Marx said that important is not to interpret the world around but important is to change it and so he laid down the guideline to affect the desired change. Lenin’s greatest contribution is that he not only understood the guideline correctly but created the organism which is required to affect the change that Marx had in mind. And also that he created this organism in an environment that was highly non-conducive for creation of such an organism i.e. in a feudal society with rudimentary stage of capitalism, whetted its finesse and led it to strike the winning blow to the massive feudal bourgeois state. For this he laid down the principle of the modus operandi for such organism so that others could emulate. That principle is what ‘Democratic Centralism’ is. And Mao proved the efficacy of the principle by producing required organism in an even more primitive society and demolishing the feudal imperialist colossus following the principle of ‘Democratic Centralism’

Fundamentals of ‘Democratic Centralism’ are,

1.            Guiding philosophy of the party is Marxism and every member must have scientific temper so that he could understand the dynamic nature of Marxism and use it in real life situation.

2.            Members must be highly motivated so that they could subjugate their personal interests and likes and dislikes to the larger interest of the organization.

3.            Members must freely express their views and opinions during the process of discussion to evolve views, ideas and strategy of the organization and at the same time ought to be conscious that evolved views, ideas and strategy are of the organisation and there is nothing like minority or majority view.

4.            Every member must be responsible jointly and severally to ensure implementation of decisions taken by the organization at different levels and if a member feels that he held a view which is not congruent with the view of the organisaton, it is his responsibility to ensure that his practice does not adversely affect the implementation of the decision.

5.            It must be continuous endeavour of every member to develop unanimity in every matter so that organisation could function with single mind.

            If CPI(M) wants to be the vanguard of proletarian revolution in India, it has no option other than to implement the policy of ‘Democratic Centralism’ in letter and spirit and the choice is stark: purge the bourgeois and pseudo-left elements.

Suresh Srivastava

June 2010

+91-9810128813

 (Author is President of Society for SCIENCE and publishes Hindi quarterly magazine मार्क्स दर्शन)