The farmer's struggle (not merely peasants) has completed its first significant lap. It steadfastly raised the banner of revolt against corporate-government. Ultimately the PM had to tread back and scrap the farm laws on November 19. Although apparently the upcoming electoral battle in several states, crucial to the BJP, may seem to have cast its shadow, undeniably the underlying cause of backtracking was the determined farmer's struggle. But the big capitalist-government combine is waiting in the wings for another opportune time. This has become amply clear from the Agriculture Minister's statement only a few days later--we have gone one step back to move two steps forward and moreover even from the fact that the government has talked of forming a committee to iron out the issues. Hence the struggle against Corporate or big monopoly capital is far from complete yet.
With that a number of questions also remain to be pondered upon. More than a year back on 23rd December 2020 Surkh Leeh, the mouthpiece of a communist revolutionary organization, in a Facebook post put forward a very important rider regarding this farmer's movement. In that early phase of the farmer's movement in a post Surkh Leeh cautioned about a shortcoming of the farmer's movement-'The current farmer's struggle is experiencing a pinching absence of firm support by the working class. The farmer's struggle would have been strengthened manifold, had the working class been struggling itself.' 'It was the working class that would have proved the major boost for the farmers who are sitting on the Delhi borders with their horns locked against Modi government'. Surkh Leeh thus put forward--the necessity and significance of relation of working class struggle with the farmer's in their recent struggle against the three farm laws that were enacted in favour of the big, monopoly, capitalists.
Before going into that, the first question is, is the struggle against domestic and imperialist big monopoly capital a question of merely defeating and repealing these farm laws? In fact even without the laws the process of capitalist reform has been continuing unabated. The eviction of small peasants from land, the rule of money through traders, middle-men, the exploitation of agricultural labourers at paltry wages, contract farming have continued in the rural countryside. Over and above that more and more capture of trade in crops by the big capitalist houses, establishment of private silos and granary, mechanization in cultivation process resulting in rising unemployment, is being continually pushed ahead and made way by the governments all these years. Recently the Adani Capital has entered into an agreement with State Bank India to act as NBFC agents for giving loans to farmers for agricultural machinery.
Quite significantly, just after the farmer's struggle ended with the scrapping of the farm laws, immediately another struggle erupted in numerous regions of Punjab even before the farmers could get back home. This was the struggle of the agricultural labourers, landless and poor peasants and rural poor always under tremendous penury, without jobs, without land. As their issues are different from the peasants and farmers they were involved in their separate struggle with demands of land, end to usury and debt-trap, guarantee of regular work, PDS, etc… By their very condition of existence they are victims of most extreme form of attack on their livelihood by the rural exploiters---capitalist farmers, landlords, rich peasants and also various forms of feudal exploiters such as absentee landlords, money-lenders, arhtiyas, and traders. So laws or no laws capitalist exploitation is spreading through numerous measures adopted by the government and also oppressive feudal remnants still exist. The capitalist-landlord ruling class and their government have merely dropped a law but not the policy of establishing big capital's domination and control on agriculture along with each and every other sphere of economy. Thus even from the Green Revolution regions where the farmer's struggle emerged, there were other sections in separate struggles of their own not merely against the three farm laws but even against the already prevailing capitalist and feudal exploitations on them in their rural countryside. They even have their separate organisations for that struggle.
Apart from such regions in the Green Revolution belt of Western UP, Haryana, Punjab and some other states like Maharashtra there are vast regions consisting of millions of peasants, share-croppers, landless poor who are also oppressed by this capitalist-landlord system. They are oppressed mainly by strong presence of feudal remnants amidst very slow capitalist development. There, lack of capitalist development has kept these masses stranded amidst backward conditions of cultivation. The same capitalist system ruins their lives by remaining hand-in-glove with those feudal elites. Absentee landlords, benami landowners holding substantial amount of land still exists who are rich, non-peasant sections living by extracting from poor and large-scale landless share-croppers who lead wretchedly poor lives. Land reform programmes of the government in itself is limited. Even that limited reforms had been blocked. A large multitude of these poor, landless, share-croppers are compelled to remain unemployed, getting at most few days of work in lowly paid MNREGA or other odd jobs. Grant meant for even 100 days MNREGA and other so-called social welfare programmes are cornered by the rural elite landed vested interests Thus although the capitalist class is the leading class in the prevailing ruling system that exploits and oppresses the masses throughout the country, in the rural countryside, it is tied up in many ways to the oppressive feudal elites and are taking a course of a slow, painful process of transformation to capitalist production keeping the interests of the feudal elites in mind.
Compared to this varied scenario of the different nature of exploitation in the country-side, the recent farmer's struggle was only against the three laws, against the domestic and imperialist big, monopoly capital's planned acquisition of agricultural sector cultivation. That is why the prominent demands in this struggle were limited to legal guarantee of MSP, the opposition against the dismantling of government mandi and procurement system, those issues from which the large surplus producing rich farmers and upper sections of rich peasants benefitted. It wasn't against all kinds of the capitalist and feudal forms of exploitation of the rural poor toiling masses as a whole. The attacks on the toiling peasants, the agricultural labourers, and rural poor are all part of the total attack of the capitalist-landlord ruling classes that are in power running the ruling system. In order to stop such attacks for all times this very system of rule has to be demolished. That can only bring about a decisive win for all the rural exploited sections.
Neither did this farmer's struggle contain all sections of even the toiling peasantry and rural poor but rather on the contrary it had many diverging tendencies within itself. Earlier we have seen about the struggle of the agricultural and rural labourers which had been already continuing separately behind the scenes of farmer's struggle for quite some months. Even the poor peasants who most of the year are also compelled to work as agricultural labourers apart from their small plots of land were involved in this.
Within the farmer's struggle itself the farmers, landowners, even the rich peasants who make their share of profit from their capitalist and other older forms of exploitation, they got involved against the farm laws as they were disgruntled over the attempt by corporate big capital to grab away their place for control over rural economy and exploitation. These rural rich wanted to keep their hold over exploitation and keep their means of profit secure. Hence they were against corporate big capital's acquisition but by their very position as rural exploiters could not be against capitalism as a whole. In fact they were not even the main fighting force of the long struggle at the camps. While for the lower section of the toiling peasantry who toil by putting in their own labour and are not exploiters of other's labour, their daily struggle is for their survival and thriving on their own labour. Therefore only sections of middle, upper-middle peasantry participated in large masses in the farmer's struggle. The year long struggle was possible mainly because of this active struggling role and pressure of the large masses of middle peasantry, a large section of whom were mobilized by several revolutionary organisations. Although it is a fact that these farmers, rich peasants and the sections of middle peasantry got united proving their strength in the struggle by compelling the government to scrap the three farm laws, but they had diverging interests. Obviously it follows that a struggle of such motley sections could not bring about a decisive win against the various kinds of exploitations on them. Further the majority rural mass of agricultural labourers, rural workers and poor peasants were having a token presence. As we have already seen most of them were outside of this struggle involved in a separate movement of their own. Thus the farmer's struggle was not an all-encompassing struggle of all the exploited peasantry and agricultural labourers against this capitalist-landlord system as a whole. Hence it is quite natural that the recent farmer's struggle could not become a plank for the launching of a wider struggle of the peasantry and other rural poor for liberation from all kinds of exploitation.
Surkh Leeh while proceeding in the article has gone to the extent of saying, 'The present situation in the farmer's struggle is asking for these weaknesses of people's movement to be removed'. 'Close alliance with the working class would lend new temperament to organization, discipline, consciousness and preparedness of these struggles. The situation is crying to speedily accomplish these tasks lying ahead of the people's movement'. Thus even Surkh Leeh hinted at the importance of working class struggles for future people's movements but didn't spell out the leading role required from the working class, specifically for a bigger and wider movement of peasantry for liberation from all exploitations they face.
The fact is that for the rural masses, the huge mass of toiling peasantry and the agricultural labourers and poor, their struggle against exploitation could not remain confined to a position as that of the farmer's struggle. Hence naturally the idea of accomplishing the strengthening and boosting of any struggle with the help of the working class cannot merely be through such struggles as the recent farmer's struggle. It cannot be because it has been a struggle composed of divergent and opposite sections of the countryside. It has to be something completely different, on a different, higher plane. For the working class to really play its role the context is much bigger. Firstly it has to be the struggle against all feudal remnants in order to proceed in the direction for complete liberation from capitalist exploitation. Hence for a decisive win over the capitalist-landlord system behind it, tied in so many ways to the feudal forces still prevailing, it must be able to thoroughly expose the exploitative system in order to defeat it. A decisive struggle must be against the whole exploitative capitalist-landlord system. Secondly, what follows is in order to achieve that it cannot be a struggle of opposing, diverse sections or of only certain sections of the rural masses as the recent farmer's struggle. For such a struggle what is needed is a separate unity of all the exploited, toiling sections of the peasantry and the agricultural labourers.
How will that be accomplished and who will do that? Here comes the role of the working class. That role is to not just to 'boost' this type of heterogeneous farmer's struggle but lead the struggle of the exploited sections against all forms of exploitation in the capitalist-landlord system. It is the struggle of the toiling peasantry led by the working class. The working class by its own struggle against capitalist-landlord ruling system raises the call for revolutionary change of the system encouraging the toiling peasantry as a whole to rise up against feudal remnants that oppress the peasantry and also arouse the poor peasants, agricultural labourers against all forms of exploitation--capitalist and feudal. Further, by arousing the toiling, exploited peasantry, the working class struggle plays the role of a leading centre drawing these sections towards a joint alliance of working class and peasantry against the ruling system as against the efforts of the rich peasants and capitalist landlords to woo them away along a path of merely reforming the existing exploitative system. Then only the ground is prepared as Surkh Leeh said, 'The farmers struggle would have been strengthened manifold, had the working class been struggling itself.' It would not simply be boosted but become organized on real class line on to struggle along the path of class struggle and the working class as the leading force in struggle against firstly the feudal remnants leading the peasantry and then against capitalist exploitation leading these rural worker and toiler masses towards liberation from these.
Obviously at present in the absence of that leadership of the working class the leadership in the recent farmer's struggle was still in the hands of the influential rich peasants and farmers and not the poor peasants and agricultural labourers. With the latter rural poor, lowermost toiling sections not organized separately and not allied under the leadership of the industrial working class this is nothing but quite natural. Even if all these varied sections of farmers and peasants of the whole country unite acquiring much bigger strength they may become victorious against big corporate capital but even that win will not be a victory abolishing capitalist and all forms of exploitation. It will only further entrench the already existent rich, exploiter sections in rural economy. The struggle by such forces cannot bring decisive and final victory over neither feudal nor capitalist exploitation of all kinds. Actually there are only two paths. One is in which the mass of peasantry is led by rich farmers, rich peasants and the other is led by the working class, its revolutionary class party along with the rural agricultural labourers and poor peasants. The former is the path of further strengthening and establishment of capitalist class relations in the villages while the latter is the path of elimination of feudal remnants, capitalism and passing over to establishment of power of the working class and rural proletariat and the poor peasantry. The former is the path of slow, painful reforms for ultimate capitalist rule and the other for revolutionary transformation from below. It is the latter path in which the peasants or specifically the exploited section of peasantry and agricultural labourers, guided by the working class will be able to take the course of sweeping away the feudal remnants and advance towards the task of abolishing capitalist domination for good. Undoubtedly only in such a situation of absence of that role of the working class it becomes true as Surkh Leeh said, any struggle of the toiling peasantry and the rural agricultural labourers and workers in order to liberate themselves from capitalist and feudal forms of exploitation will be 'experiencing a pinching absence of firm support by the working class'. Such a struggle of the rural exploited sections is not being seen now and in fact for such a struggle to emerge the agricultural labourers and poor peasantry must get organized independently. For that the presence of a real revolutionary working class party and its class struggle as a political force in society is of utmost necessity. Otherwise these sections are incapable of organizing independently. Thus all these make up the forces against capitalist exploitation with the working class in particular playing the crucial role. Anyone serious about advancing the struggle to bring an end to capitalist domination throughout society must thus make out in unequivocal terms who are the real friends, the real allies in this struggle.
Surkh Leeh has pointed it correctly at this condition that the working class is presently in an unorganized and fragmented condition. Probably they will also agree that especially important is the fact that after the betrayal of the established left the working class itself has been derailed from the path of class struggle and class unity. But Surkh Leeh even after acknowledging the weakness of the working class at present has gone on to state further, 'The present situation in the farmer's struggle is asking for these weaknesses of people's movement to be removed. Although, the gap could not be filled instantly right in these days; however, the revolutionary forces must exert their energies to fulfill this task for sake of future struggles. Close alliance with the working class would lend new temperament to organization, discipline, consciousness and preparedness of these struggles.' We would ask Surkh Leeh--are the revolutionary forces really entrenched in any way in the working class and are capable of arousing the working class? More importantly is the fact whether the immense significance of the leading role of the working class with regard to movements of the other toiling masses are being recognised by them in reality. The most obvious expression of that recognition in practice would have been the act of helping the working class to primarily achieve unity of its advanced sections throughout the country independent of reformist politics, paving the path for formation of its own revolutionary party so that it can play its real historic role? Is that being done or are all such forces dividing whatever few advanced workers they are able to draw near them to get them enrolled in numerous fragmented revolutionary organizations having little impact on working class struggle? Capitalism is an exploitative system based on private property. The working class working collectively in socialized production is the social force which firstly prepares the ground for sweeping away the remnants of feudalism and then gets organized to bring an end to capitalist exploitation based on private ownership of means of production and exploitation. In this capacity the working class is the only force which leads firstly the peasantry against feudal remnants and then further advances the struggle with the rural agricultural labourers, and poor peasants and even sections of middle peasants to abolish capitalism. But that depends firstly on the working class getting themselves organized as a class in society. Then only it can proceed along the path of class-struggle, strengthening the struggle against various kinds of bourgeois inclinations and deviations in order to develop unity and consciousness of those forces that can rise to defeat not only a few measures and laws adopted by the ruling class but the whole capitalist-landlord system that prevails particularly in backward countries like ours. Only revolution can ensure a decisive win. Putting this forward in unequivocal terms is the very important need of the hour--the need, urgency for working class-politics.
It is undeniable that the recent farmer's struggle has raised the banner of revolt, however limited it be, breaking the long lull, thus preparing in some way the ground for further sustained rise of the exploited classes against the exploitative system. The workers have to seize the opportunity. Unless the workers start rising against the attack on them, unless they start uniting as representatives of a class by overcoming past betrayals and fragmentation, the 'pinching absence' (not of mere support and boosting only but of leadership) will persist. A real revolutionary party of the working class is the urgent necessity now-- real class party that can lead the other toiling masses along the real path to liberation out of the mounting attacks on their livelihood and rights. We hope Surkh Leeh recognises that role.
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