Lessons from AAP
Phenomenon
What are the lessons to be learnt from the election results in five
states and the rise of AAP as a potential alternative to Congress and BJP?
Everyone will analyse the events and draw his or her conclusions depending upon
one’s mindset and attitude. A dialectical approach will be different from a metaphysical
approach. While analyzing sequence of events on a short term basis, taking into
account only aspirations and actions of prominent individuals or common individuals
in general as the sole actors and overlooking the role and significance of
underlying class consciousness of groups and organizations, is a metaphysical
approach. On the other hand taking an integrated view of any event as an epoch
in the continuous historical process of development of human society and
considering both aspirations and consciousness of individuals as well as that
of their class, the motive force for their individual as well as collective
actions, is dialectical approach.
With metaphysical approach, by conveniently choosing facts and data, any
conclusion can be drawn. Since bourgeois analysts do not vouch for dialectical
materialism, this article will limit its critical examination to the
conclusions drawn by the leading communist party CPM, representative of left movement
in India, for whom Marxism and hence dialectical materialism is supposed to be
the guiding theory.
Marxism identifies human society or any organization as an organic
entity having life and consciousness of its own and not as a simple
conglomeration of individuals as bourgeois thinkers consider it to be. Engels
elaborated, ‘This
further development did not reach its conclusion when man finally became
distinct from the monkey, but, on the whole, continued to make powerful
progress, ............. owing to a new element which came into play with the
appearance of fully-fledged man, viz. society. (The
Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, Dialectics of Nature).
Society is not a biological formation like a human being, but is a socio-
economic formation having consciousness and other characteristics of life.
Humans and society have been growing side by side ever since the origin of
society, ‘The production of life, both of one's own in labour and of fresh life
in procreation, now appears as a double relationship: on the one hand as a
natural, and on the other as a social relationship’ as Marx noted in German
Ideology. Bourgeois thinkers consider history as a sequence of isolated events
resulting from the actions and ideas of certain individuals, while Marxism
takes a dialectical materialistic view of history, which is historical
materialism. Engels in his letter to J. Bloch explains this in the following
words, ‘According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining
element in history is the production and reproduction of real life.’
Marx in XVIII
Brumaire wrote, “Upon the different forms of property, upon the social
conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and
peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life.
The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out
of the corresponding social relations.” Therefore, while analysing respective
political activities of various classes, to overlook material foundation of these
classes, particularly their social position in relation to the production and
distribution of material goods, shall be a grave error. Any attempt to
understand and draw lessons from any political activity and historical event,
without considering the relative position of various classes in the economy, will
lead to erroneous outcome. Every class acts according to its class
consciousness and in the absence of clear understanding of the form and content
of class consciousness and their dialectical relationship, one can’t understand
and draw correct lessons from historical events. Marxism identifies the
sentiments, illusions, modes of thought and views of life as the
ideological-social-social-consciousness – ‘the form’ of social consciousness –
and the forms of property and social conditions of existence as the
material-social-consciousness – ‘the content’ of social consciousness. Lenin
had rightly summarised that ‘economics is the base and politics the
concentrated expression of economics.’
Engels points out, ‘LABOUR
is the source of all wealth, the economists assert. It is this next to nature,
which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth.’ (The Part
Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, Dialectics of Nature).
Human labour power transforms material provided by the nature with the help of
tools. Ever since society came into existence all production is social and not
individual. With ever increasing social and individual knowledge, men started
producing surplus, more than what was necessary to rejuvenate the labour power
exhausted during production. Disproportionate distribution of surplus cleaved
society into two classes, the producer-consumer and the appropriator of
surplus. With the development of the productive forces and the productivity and
with the division of labour, different interests in the sharing of social
production gave rise to conflicting interests in different forms and hitherto classless,
the society was transformed into class-society with different classes having
different relationship to the social product in the form of property.
On the basis of
private ownership of the three components of production process – the object of
labour, the instruments of labour and the labour power – Marx identified three
different modes of production; slave, feudal and capitalist. While economic
growth was necessitating integration of smaller societies into larger
societies, lust for appropriation of the surplus was sharpening irreconcilable
contradiction between the classes. ‘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.’ writes Engels and also ‘As
the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also
arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state
of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also
the politically ruling class’. History of cleaved human society is the history
of class struggle for the control of the means of production and surplus produced,
through the control of the state machinery.
Marx noted in his
letter to P. Annanikov, “...... the petty bourgeoisie will be an integral part
of all the impending social revolutions” and “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”.
Only this dialectical materialist approach can lead to the correct analysis and
understanding of the nature of various social movements and the role of various
sections in each one of them and to draw correct lessons from the recent
happenings we need to understand the role played by the bourgeoisie at
different stages of development during last one hundred years.
Since the beginning
of last century, Indian freedom struggle apparently was a fight of native people
against the foreign rulers, but in reality it was a class struggle between well
entrenched feudal and emerging nationalist bourgeois classes. On the feudal
side were the landlords and comprador bourgeoisie in the form of trading
partners of English bourgeoisie and on the other side was emerging nationalist bourgeoisie
supported by the peasants and workers. As time passed, with industrialisation
and national and international historical developments, comprador bourgeoisie switched
side and took control of the freedom movement.
The conflict of
interest between petty bourgeoisie and feudal has existed since the beginning
of the independence movement but it became significant at the end of the first
quarter of the last century when big bourgeoisie switched sides and took
control of independence movement. In the new situation petty bourgeoisie was
also divided into two sections. One went along with the big bourgeoisie,
putting struggle for political independence in the focus with the demand of
Purn Swaraj and pushing workers struggle for economic emancipation on the
backburner, and the other proceeded to usher in socialist (utopian) revolution
in the footsteps of Soviet Revolution. First section became integral part of
Indian National Congress and the other, besotted with the success of Bolshevik
movement constituted the Indian Communist Party. A communist party is supposed
to be the vanguard of proletarian struggle for emancipation of humankind, and
is capable of successfully leading the peasants and workers in their struggle because
it is armed with the most revolutionary scientific world outlook i.e. Marxism.
But during one hundred years of communist movement in India, the working class
movement seems to have been going on a roller coaster ride and at present seems
to be at the lowest ebb so much so that AAP is being perceived, even by the CPI
and CPM, as the alternative to Congress and BJP led alliances, which the
communist parties were being perceived till now. "In the assembly polls,
the AAP has become a viable alternative to the Congress and the BJP. We have to
watch and see the party's (AAP) political programmes, policies and plans before
supporting it," Prakash Karat told reporters during the CPI-M's Central
Committee (CC) meeting in Tripura in December 2013. This compels one to
critically analyse, whether the proletariat is still not enlightened enough to
lead the peasants and workers for a qualitative transformation or the self
styled Indian communist parties are really not equipped with the revolutionary
scientific world outlook known as Marxism and hence are not capable of guiding
the working class movement correctly.
After independence,
bourgeoisie which embarked on development of capitalism in India, in its
competition against foreign capital was able to garner support of working class
using the nationalist sentiment, and developed an alliance with feudal to share
the natural resources. At the time of independence, India’s level of industrial
development was very low as compared to that of the developed nations, and so
were the expectations of the people also. Since the imperialist loot was put to
an end, the three classes, feudal, bourgeois and capitalist, living off the
surplus produced by the peasants and workers, could live in harmony because
they could get their share in accordance with their aspirations. Hence, Indian
National Congress which started as the representative of national bourgeoisie
and peasants and workers, after independence started protecting interests of
Indian Capitalism, against external capitalism, taking along feudal and petty
bourgeoisie. Initial years after independence saw unbridled growth of Indian
capitalism reaching its highest stage – imperialism.
History of the third
quarter of the century, after independence, is the history of development of
Indian capitalism to have full control of Indian sub-continent and then to its
highest stage of imperialism. Once Indian capital was fully integrated with
foreign capital, it did not require any trade barriers by the state as it required
during the third quarter of the century and the government gradually removed
all barriers for free movement of money and material in line with the global
market demands. Last quarter of the century is the history of this transition.
Also to meet its
global requirements, it started encroaching into the domain of feudalism to
control natural resources and to recruit unprecedented army of wage earners
from amongst the peasantry and the artisan. New situation brought to the fore
the conflict of interests among different classes. True to its character petty
bourgeoisie joined hands with feudal lords in latter’s conflict with the
capitalist. Different classes started organising their own political parties
for the control of the state machinery in line with their economic interests.
This brought into the arena regional political parties based on cast, language,
religion and other localised issues and their ‘identity politics.’
History since the
beginning of the twenty first century is the history of the struggle between
Indian capitalism in league with the global capitalism on one side and on the
other side feudalism supported by petty bourgeoisie, true to its class
character. At national level Congress with its ideology of laissez-faire represents
the economic interests of capitalism and BJP with its ideology of ‘old is gold’
and ‘small is beautiful’ represents the interest of feudalism and petty
bourgeoisie. All regional parties move on the fringes of these two national
parties. The peasantry and the working class is left in the lurch at crossroads
confused and stupefied by the presence of umpteen numbers of self styled
communist outfits and their assurances of respective brands of socialism.
Lessons to be learnt
from the emergence of AA Party led by Arvind Kejriwal and the overwhelming
support it is getting will depend upon the answers to the two fundamental
questions. First is, why the communist parties, the parties of the proletariat
have failed to lead the peasants and workers to pose an alternative to Congress
and BJP and the second is, will the AAP movement lead to some qualitative
change in the direction of emancipation of the exploited classes or will it
fizzle out like the earlier movements led by J.P. and V.P. Singh. Answers to
these questions will show the way forward.
To delve into the
first question let us summarise the role of the CPI or subsequently of all its
offshoots. During the independence movement CPI was fighting against British
Imperialism but refused to form a joint front with the Congress calling it to
be in league with British Imperialism but after Germany attacked USSR during WW-II,
CPI started supporting British calling the war to be one against fascism. After
independence CPI started supporting Congress policies in the name of Nehruvian
Socialism, while in fact the policies were to strengthen Indian capitalism by
protecting it against world capitalism. Later when Indian Capitalism started
integrating with world capitalism and Congress turned its policies against feudal
and petty bourgeois interests, CPI and CPM went against congress and supported
JP movement which was a petty bourgeois movement in league with feudal
interests. At the beginning of the 21st century, in the XIII Lok
Sabha when BJP gained upper hand against Congress, the Left Front led by CPM
switched sides and started supporting Congress in the name of fight against
communalism. In the XIV Lok Sabha Congress came back to power with the support
of the Left Front and embarked upon its strategic alliance with international
capital. When the government signed Agreement 123, Left Front had no option but
to withdraw support from Congress. Before elections to the XV Lok Sabha, CPI
led by CPM tried to persuade all other local parties to join hands as a third
front against Congress and BJP both. But by now they had completely lost their
credibility. They were not taken as reliable partners who were apt to switch
sides at first convenience. Peasants and workers lost faith in them as their representatives
and were seen like any other regional petty bourgeois party so much so that
they were dumped at the hustings and the masses voted for representatives of various
other political parties.
This is the history
about which Engels had warned in his famous book ‘The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State’, in which he had very aptly defined true
character of a bourgeois state under representative democracy. ‘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, recognize 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.’ The
results of all elections at the centre or in the states clearly show that the
representatives of bourgeois and feudal classes are being voted by the
oppressed classes and that the oppressed classes are not enlightened enough.
But more important is
to find the reason why Communist parties have failed to enlighten the masses,
while it is the foremost and most important task for leading working class
successfully in its struggle. If we pay attention to warnings by Lenin and Mao,
the picture becomes quite clear. While in exile and fighting against revisionism,
on Marx’s 90th birth anniversary, Lenin had warned, ‘Whoever does
not understand the inevitable inner dialectics of parliamentarism and bourgeois
democracy—which leads to an even sharper decision of the argument by mass
violence than formerly—will never be able on the basis of this parliamentarism
to conduct propaganda and agitation consistent in principle, really preparing
the working-class masses for victorious participation in such “arguments”. And Mao
in his famous pamphlet, ‘On New Democracy’ had warned about the character of
bourgeoisie. “When confronted by a formidable enemy, they united with the
workers and peasants against him, but when the workers and peasants awakened,
they turned round to unite with the enemy against the workers and peasants.
This is a general rule applicable to the bourgeoisie everywhere in the world.” In
the light of the observations of Engels, Lenin and Mao, the history of 90 years
of communist movement in India lays bare the fact that the communist parties
are deeply infested by petty bourgeois consciousness and have been behaving like
petty bourgeois parties since the very inception.
The Communist party
of India was organised by few Indian bourgeois intellectuals in Tashkent in
1920 just after the success of Bolshevik revolution. Lenin, while working on
his programme for building Bolshevik Party, in his famous pamphlet ‘What is to
be done’ had noted, ‘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.’ Subsequent history of a century of the
communist movement in India shows that the founders of CPI did not have proper
understanding of Marxism and the party started with a bourgeois-consciousness
and not proletarian-consciousness and is still continuing with the same trend. Vacillating
attitude at various crucial stages of the movement and subsequent fragmentation
of the communist party into number of communist parties is a testimony to the
bourgeois outlook of various communist outfits in India and the reason for
their failure to recognise the contradictions between various classes during
independence movement, after independence or after opening up of the economy.
One should not be
surprised that masses do not identify various communist parties differently
than other petty bourgeois regional parties. In their struggle for freedom from
exploitation, during last half a century, working class has been voting for
parties of feudal and capitalist classes. As usual they are following intellectuals
from petty bourgeois class who have failed to educate proletariat about
scientific socialism. Lenin had explained that socialism does not come into the
proletarian consciousness from within, it has to be brought in from outside by
the intellectuals from the bourgeois class. The Utopian Socialism was brought
in by the intellectuals from the petty bourgeois class and so will have to be
the Scientific Socialism. The masses have refused to choose CPI or CPM and
instead have been falling for leaders like J.P., V.P. Singh and now for Arvind
Kejriwal and will continue to do so till Scientific Socialism is not imbibed
into proletarian consciousness.
Now first question
having been answered, the answer to the second question is straight forward.
The AAP movement, in the absence of a scientific ideology, will fail as a
cohesive political party and will disintegrate, sooner than later, as it
happened with J.P. and V.P. movements.
So what are the
lessons to be learnt and what is the way forward.
In ‘What is to be
done’ Lenin wrote, ‘Class political consciousness can
be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside
the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and
employers’ and ‘Without a sense of theory among the workers, this scientific
socialism would never have entered their flesh and blood as much as is the
case.’ These are the lessons to be learnt by those who claim to be vanguard of
proletarian movement in India. Unfortunately all communist parties seem to be
in a hurry for a socialist revolution and are not prepared to devote time to
educate themselves and the workers about the theory. They quote Marx’s comment in
‘Theses on Feuerbach’ that ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world in
various ways; the point is to change it’ and also an extract from his letter on The Gotha Programme, AEvery step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.@ to ward off the criticism of their opportunism. Condemning such
revisionists, Lenin clarifies, ‘To repeat these words in a period of
theoretical disorder, is like wishing mourners at a funeral many happy returns of
the day. Moreover, these words of Marx are taken from his letter on the Gotha
Programme, in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation
of principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then enter
into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow
any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical Aconcessions@. This was Marx=s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek-in his name to
belittle the significance of theory.’ Lenin further warned emphasizing the
importance of the theoretical struggle, ‘Without revolutionary theory there can
be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at
a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an
infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.’
And what is opportunism. Opportunism is revisionism in practice,
revisionism of left or right. Lenin in his valuable pamphlet ‘Marxism and
Revisionism’ has very rightly defined revisionism in the following words, ‘ “The movement is
everything, the ultimate aim is nothing"—this catch-phrase of Bernstein’s
expresses the substance of revisionism better than many long disquisitions. To
determine its conduct from case to case, to adapt itself to the events of the
day and to the chopping and changing of petty politics, to forget the primary
interests of the proletariat and the basic features of the whole capitalist system,
of all capitalist evolution, to sacrifice these primary interests for the real
or assumed advantages of the moment—such is the policy of revisionism.’ And the
whole history of left movement - from CPI to Maoists - and the latest statement
of General Secretary of CPM testifies this.
And the way forward is same which was shown by Lenin a century ago. ‘….,
but the confusion and vacillation which constitute the distinguishing feature
of an entire period in the history of Russian Social-Democracy [read Indian
communist movement]; ………….., also acquires significance, for we can make no
progress until we have completely put an end to this period.
Suresh Srivastava
9810128813
15 January, 2014
