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
