Towards Understanding The Tasks At This Moment (1)
In the first campaign of the international socialist movement a general lull or low ebb had set in after the fall of Chinese and Russian revolutions, more particularly speaking after the failure of the struggles for transition to socialism in these two countries; a phase of defeat had started; and the international working class could not yet decisively turn around, could not yet prepare themselves for the second campaign taking the lessons from the defeat. Sadly, for almost 3 decades the working class has been shouldering the burden of this defeat. A phase of distressing retreat and surrender has been continuing, which has been augmenting extreme passivity and frustration. On one side of this 'Defeat' there is the working class that is disarrayed and practically without any leadership. On the other side of the 'Defeat' there is the thus far winner, the capitalists-imperialists, who could consolidate their powers and prowess and so they are able to intensify their assault on the working class and toiling people all over the world with unhindered dominance and audacity to get themselves out of their crisis and fulfil their dream of super-profit. This defeat has not resulted from defeat in an open confrontation; this defeat meant an appalling decadence of the old communist parties, getting more and more distanced from the working class, sliding down the slope of reformism-revisionism and becoming puppets in the hand of the ruling classes. This defeat was not just the fall of Soviet Russia and China; this defeat signalled that the working class of the world has, in each country, lost their party, the embodiment of their united power. Not only that, they also lost their necessary tool or instrument in fighting practical economic struggle - the Trade Unions. Those turncoat parties handed over the TU-s to the capitalists. This defeat means that the working class could not resist this great betrayal.
We have seen many ups and downs in the history of the international working class movement. There were big defeats; but never before we have seen such a prolonged period of tremendous uncertainty and near-total rudderless condition worldwide in the sphere of working class movement. This 'present' is of course unprecedented. In the past cases of defeats we have seen the working class regrouping again and reasserting after each defeat taking lessons from the errors, limitations and weaknesses; they could keep a continuation of struggle-and-organisation keeping in tandem with the advancement the total movement they made. If the struggle temporarily got knocked down somewhere, from some other place some hands took the flag and kept it aloft high. The 1848 June revolt of Paris workers ultimately faced defeat and Paris was bathed with the blood of the workers who as a class first dared to revolt against the ruling class. But this defeat inspired the workers all over Europe, educated them, and made them conscious that they need to stand independently on their own class position separating themselves from the bourgeoisie. In the language of Marx the workers revolution of France got independent from the national level and got integrated with international workers revolution. The upsurge of workers activities in Europe since the 1850s had behind it the inspiration of the 'failed' 1848 too among many other things. Only after a gap of about 20 years the Paris workers made their own independent state Paris Commune, the first working class state. The workers themselves managed this state. The commune lasted only 72 days. The combined forces of bourgeoisie of France and Germany crushed the commune cruelly. Thousands became martyrs. The workers of Paris got defeated but the international proletariat got its first practical idea of its own state power. Here what should be added is that the defeat of the commune didn't demoralise the workers of Europe, rather, the Paris commune imbued the working class all over Europe with the zeal of struggle. The wave of class struggle was on a high tide that swept both side of the Atlantic coasts. The 1886 May event in the USA was crushed by the ruling class; workers were fired upon, worker-leaders were put on gallows. But that history of bloodstained struggle brought forth an unparallel enthusiasm within the working class the world over; they held high the flag of the great May Day. After the Russian revolution of 1905 got defeated the working class there had to retreat facing the severe state terror, but within 7 years the working class of Russia could pick up and spread both practical-economic and political struggle in all the industrial centres of Russia.
But the shocks of this present defeat are so profound, extensive and intense that the international working class couldn't call a halt to their retreat and regenerate its power in the last 30 years. In no countries the working class could build up a communist party in the true sense of the term. Undoubtedly one of the main reasons behind this is the nature of this defeat itself - simultaneous and universal in extent. After the Russian revolution and more so after the Chinese revolution when a third of the humanity could get themselves out of the direct domination of capitalists-imperialists, a revolutionary fervour spread over a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and communist movement flourished in many countries. In the post-Russian-revolution period the spread of the international working class movement reached such a vast expanse which was not there in the pre-Russian revolution era. And naturally the shock-wave of the defeat would be more widespread and far-reaching. But there are more significant reasons. Particularly speaking: the working class of Soviet Union and China did not get defeated confronting head on army of the capitalists-imperialists; they were defeated from within: (1) the leadership, the communist party itself, in both cases, glided down the slope of revisionism-reformism and directly or de-facto went under the control of the pro-capitalists and (2) the working class could not (or did not) resist the downfall. Probably the working class had lost its strength at some time earlier. Perhaps this is also the main reason behind the longevity of the present passivity of the working class, its getting disarrayed and remaining powerless.
Perhaps for these reasons it is taking more time for the working class to disentangle itself and reassert. And it will be a mistake if we assume that after the great collapse the resurgence will follow the same old paths already charted out in our history; perhaps we are to follow many zigzag paths, many unknown contours, we may have to go through much variety of forms and the pace cannot but be slow at the start. And we shall have to sum up the errors, mistakes, blunders of our past movement. This must be acknowledged at the beginning.
Then, what would be the guideline and map of our voyage facing the post defeat reality, a reality that could never before be conjectured let alone experienced. What should be the duty of the communists? What is to be done? Not only in our country, this question is a challenge to the communist camp of all the countries for last 30 years or so. Do we have the correct and singular (a total whole) answer or solution? Communist groups are divided in hundreds of segments/groups etc and each has its own ideological-political position which is to them the ANSWER of that grand question. And for each group its own position is correct and those of others are all wrong - otherwise their existence becomes questioned! On the other hand had the groups more or less same ideas and were their practices also more or less same (be those correct or wrong) they could go towards forming a party. Anyway, if for a single question there are numerous answers then the result would be what it is. Generally the workers are found to be indifferent to the groups. If we judge from the point of view of the 'verdict of history' we'll see that nobody has the answer to this important question (what is/are to be done), whatever one may argue from his/her own subjective point of view and go on practising along with any particular 'correct line'. Reality itself is a merciless examiner. Age of group politics is more or less 30 years. For those 30 years the groups are working resolutely clinging to their own 'correct lines' and trying to increase their strength - they are passing through splits and mergers - sometimes some temporary successes allured - but after all these years they are standing on the more or less same circle. For each of them, the extent of estrangement from the working class is now almost the same as it was 30 years back. On the other side, all the groups consolidated their organisational position and more and more adhered to their own lines, which contributed to increasing distance between them. What else can be the destiny of group politics!
It is undeniable that one of the reasons of alienation from the working class is subjective mistakes (or blunders), particularly the failure in adhering to class - politics, weakness in conducting ideological and political fight against the left and right deviations bequeathed from past and bunches of misunderstandings like placing the 'working class' and 'people in general' on a par etc. But there is an objective aspect too. That is: the near-total absence of spontaneity of struggle within the class, or, a prolonged condition of very low ebb of class struggle, due to the passivity and frustration in this post-defeat phase. This objective condition helped us all to gloss over each of our weaknesses, sectarianism, narrow visions and etc; rather this condition helped all the groups to retain their own narrow vistas, it never occurred to them that why the 'communist' groups could not, during this long 30-35 years, could not unite in a party, it did not compel them to seek the real reasons of defeat and to confront the reality in true sense.
But this condition has started changing. This is the case not only of our country but it is a world-wide phenomenon. Everywhere the condition is changing, although and of course with different peculiarities and particularities for each place. We must have to scrutinise and examine our past, but that we must strive to understand what the tasks would be for this concrete condition of today. This is the challenge before the communists. We are to take up the challenge keeping in mind Lenin's teaching: to determine tasks by concrete analysis of concrete condition.
THE CONDITION IS CHANGING: TWO ASPECTS - STRUGGLE & ORGANISATION
Everything has a limit. This post-defeat inertness and mucked up state too has a limit of duration. The workers have started telling it by appearing in the arena. The real affair is like this: the dissolution and/or decay of the so called socialist camp and simultaneous putrefaction of the old communist parties in all countries, the general sense of frustration and passivity among the working class, the disarrayed class without any leadership, all these laid the path smooth for the capitalists-imperialists to run amuck their profit machine with maximum severity and cruelty; and these in turn is compelling, pushing the working class and other toiling people to resist, to fight. In India is mainly happening in the factory level, through spontaneous TU level struggle. The disarrayed and leaderless condition where the working class was put in after the defeat forced the working class naturally to take this course and this was also possible for them to do.
Not only the condition is changing in this aspect only that from inertness working class is moving towards struggle. A more important question is also being addressed by the workers. The workers are no more ready to accept those old bureaucratic TU bosses imposed on them as leaders; they are rejecting the old leadership, they are building up their own organisation, they are conducting the affairs of their own organisations tackling this in the face of tremendous odds and also they are conducting their fights. The reason behind this action of the workers lies in the fact that the workers have summed up their experience i.e. they learned from their experience independently what they can, without help of anybody. It is really difficult to find such workers who have not passed through the experience of old TUs, be they leftist or rightist, who have been putting the burden of attacks of the capitalists in the garb of compromise. It is indeed true that the workers could not yet built up their own organisations everywhere; rather most of the workers are still chained within the old TU-s. But it is an exceptional-possibility to find a worker who has faith on these TUs. The continuous attacks of the capitalists that they have been facing in real life have helped them understand that without united powerful struggle they cannot resist the attacks and without freeing themselves from clutches of the old organisations they can in no way build up such struggle. From this necessity the new organisations of the workers themselves are being built up. That is, this change has some objective basis and formation of new unions is not an accidental phenomenon, rather it is a trend. The attacks of the capitalists are pushing the workers to break the inertia of inertness and appear in the arena of struggle; and on the other hand the treachery of the old TU leadership, their compromise with the capitalists are pushing the fighting workers, from the real necessity of struggle, to organise themselves separately.
In the international level we shall see a yet another particular feature of change, particularly in Spain, Greece and Portugal and also in the USA. Also we are to observe the happenings in the Arab states, particularly Egypt. In these countries the struggling mass is not only the workers, but also people at large and hence there the form or appearance is different. Thousands and thousands of people of different aggrieved oppressed/deprived strata are pouring down on the streets against the govt policies and with their own demands and encircling govt offices, parliaments, occupying public places and etc with their pent up resentments. At first it took a major shape in Spain where thousands assembled in the open space of Puerto Del Sol of Madrid on May 15, 2011. This assembly grew in size and stayed on the streets for 28 days, then vacated the square on June 12 declaring 'we are not leaving, we are expanding'. The movement, thereafter, spread to other cities in Spain. Then Greece started getting rocked by assemblies of thousands of people on the streets and often sparks of clashes with police. Just before the incidents in Spain we saw 60,000 people marching in Portugal shouting slogans against govt austerity measures. We do not need details of the happenings as those are already well known. The question is: could we think of such situations just before 5 or 6 years? Could we think that in the USA itself, in the den of the biggest imperialist power, thousands of people including workers and people of varied profession would occupy public place and sit there for days and weeks and in spite of police repression 'occupy' spreading to nearly 70 cities in the USA itself? Needless to say that the 'occupying' movement in Europe and the USA got inspiration from the days of continuous sit-in in the Tahrir Square of Cairo, Egypt, where the continuous assemblage of thousands and thousands of protestor compelled erstwhile president Hosni Mubarak to resign.
It is noteworthy that these assemblies of people or mass movements were all spontaneous and virtually leader-less, i.e., no visually perceptible leadership body or organisation organised these movements. It goes without saying that there was no question of leadership of the working class exercised through an organisation based on proletarian politics because no such organisation or party was there anywhere. Those movements were not also led by any old established parties of any hue. An interesting question naturally comes: how was it possible for an assemblage of thousands and thousands of people to continue for such long duration of weeks or months if no 'organisation' in the sense of some sort of 'systematised network' was working? In real life we'll see that in those gatherings the Assembled people were somehow managing all the necessary functions of an organisation with the policy of collective decision making and collective implementation, which evolved due to the very nature of the characters or form of the movement. We have already seen that the workers in different factories have started to solve the problem of organisation from the necessity of fighting the attacks of the capitalists (the old organisations were there and also they were not there) by rejecting the old and building up their own separate unions.
Needless to say there is difference between the workers' separate TU-s and those some sort of provisional 'organisations' developed from the need of conducting the abovementioned mass-gatherings. And if we look from the perspective of development of class struggle and look into the question of organisation and struggles, undoubtedly the creation of workers' own independent unions are far more significant and important, particularly in this phase of post-defeat condition. But in spite of differences there is some similarity too. That similarity is that behind the building up of both the types of 'organisation' lies the same objective reason - the prolonged prevalence of party-less condition, where the old parties have degenerated and the new party of the working class has not yet emerged anywhere. And for the same reason the emerging spontaneous struggles of the workers and people in general, be that the mass protest gathering in Europe, America and Arab-world countries or the workers factory level resistance struggle (in some case industry level too) - both are bringing in forefront the need of the unity of advanced members of the class, the necessity of a real class party of the proletariat; but side by side, if we examine deeply, we'll see that these struggles are also supplying the building materials for the future party objectively. To be able to recognise those materials and to help them develop are very important tasks today which will also contribute to the struggle of party building in future.
But we can envisage that there exist a bunch of ideological-political questions will try to block the way of taking up these tasks or even thinking of taking up those tasks. These obstacles are there within the old prevalent frame of thinking of the communists of today. The main axis of this frame of thinking is that without the intervention of the working class party or the advanced detachment of the working class, without their leadership, it is impossible for the spontaneous struggle of the working class to develop on its own and to try to look into the importance or significance of those struggles with respect to the development of class struggle is not commensurable or compatible with Marxism-Leninism. It should be remembered that the change in condition that we discussed was not caused by any party, the workers and the masses of people brought forth the change. It is also a fact that the mass stirrings that have occurred in many parts of the globe were not under the leadership of the working class. Naturally absence of some definite direction or orientation is also marked. Several persons affiliated to a few communist groups might have participated in these movements, but still the people at large were unprompted and leader-less. Most probably we also cannot say that working class presence was predominant. So the prevalent frame of thought among the communists can naturally give rise to some and confusions. Do these rudderless mass stirrings bear any significance from the point of view of development of class struggle? Will these mass-struggles not fall in the trap of bourgeois ideology at the end of the day? Will they not end ultimately succumbing to some paltry reforms? On the other hand, the new trend among the workers, that of rejecting the old TU-s and creation of their own independent organisations and their fights, will these not remain in the narrow boundary of trade union struggles if they do not have a definite direction, the direction of revolutionary class struggle, or if a communist party is not there? And etcetera...
Let us move ahead a bit more. We talked about a defeat and that defeat is the defeat of the (first advance march of the) international socialist movement. So naturally the aim of the communists, world over, is the reawakening of the communist movements in all the countries. Theories of Marxism-Leninism and the history of international working class movement have taught us that only the united organisation of the advanced detachment of the working class or, in other words, the party can lead the class advance to this goal. Marxism also teaches us that communist movement gets its concrete manifestation through the fusion of Socialism and working class movement. Only the communist party can implement this fusion and develop class struggle to struggle for socialism. This theoretical framework invariably raises the necessity of party building for organising and leading the working class for the struggle for socialism. There is no question regarding this, the question lies elsewhere. Does Marxism teaches us that whatever be the condition or time, the workers can never make any advancement in class struggle themselves, that they cannot sum up the experience of their struggles and take lessons and develop their organisations and struggles to an extent? We got positive answer to this questions (that the workers can) from Marxist theory and also from the lessons of workers' struggles in the past in different countries. We are refraining from discussing that here because this magazine has carried and is carrying discussions on this particular topic in other articles in the last issue and in this issue too and we are discussing here basing on the premise that we discussed there. What is more, the role of 'party' in general is not the agendum here. What is the role of the party in view of these struggles or whether the party will try to influence these struggles in the proletarian line are also not in our purview as no such party exists today. Rather, at this juncture it is more important to understand that a change of condition has been taking place since last few years, or more particularly, spontaneous struggles of workers and other toiling people have started to manifest themselves showing that they have shaken off the long lasting frustration and passivity ignoring or rejecting the old leadership and also they have started to solve the problem of organisation on their own; it is more important to identify the future trend of development that are present within these current movements - so that the divided or fractured communist revolutionary camp can chalk out their tasks regarding these movements - of course keeping in mind that a group or a combination of groups cannot do what a party can do, moreover, it doesn't matter at all whether some group or other think themselves as the Party.
A PROLONGED PARTYLESS SITUATION: WHAT DOES IT SHOW
However, from the behaviour and real functioning of the groups operating here in India it becomes evident that they have conferred the role of 'party' on each on their own groups; i.e. the conscious role expected from a party at any given moment is what they try to emulate from their group position; as if the difference between party and group is just quantitative, not qualitative, or as if the difference lies in the area or extent of influence, which for the party is larger and for the group it is localised in some pockets. Those groups (perhaps almost all) who give recognition to the fact that a stirring has started within the workers, that the workers are appearing in the arena of struggle brushing aside their erstwhile passivity, be that in the arena of TU struggles, i.e. who recognise that a change has been occurring in the objective condition, and who want to take up tasks based on this assessment of concrete condition, but when at the same time those very groups simultaneously believe theoretically that the workers cannot develop their spontaneous struggles to higher level, it can be assumed that their conscious role in this concrete condition de facto means 'to develop the segregated struggles of the workers to an united countrywide struggle of the working class against the attack of the ruling class and to organise the workers as a class'. But is that possible by any group? Or otherwise, what other roles or tasks those groups are thinking of? We don't know. Is that - to make some workers class conscious and incorporate them within their own organisation? But we all have been performing more or less this same task for the last 30 - 40 years! As there is some stirring now among the workers they might get some marginal 'successes' in this job. But will the painful isolation from the working class be bridged by this? If the groups want to implement the tasks or 'conscious role' that they are thinking now, in regard to the present stirrings among the workers then they must face the truth that its precondition is they must unite to form a party. Here they will also have to face another bitter truth that why they could not build up a party in the last 30 years. If they really think that without the intervention of communist intelligentsia the workers are helpless and powerless and, on the other hand, if they think that it is un-Marxist to consider that the workers can sum up their social experiences, they can take lessons from that, they can advance towards building their class-power on their own at least to some extent, then they must recognise this cruel fact that they have nothing else to do than to persist their group existence staying alienated from the working class and keeping themselves aloof from the present stirrings among the class, to sustain somehow their 'communist consciousness' and to wait for some 'dream come true' future. Or, otherwise they will have to tilt towards non-proletarian (rightist) politics from the obsession of getting closer to the people.
We said that it doesn't matter whether a group think itself as a party or not. Really it doesn't matter for the workers as they are today. But it matters for the groups themselves. Actually comrades are confusing the relationship of party and working class with that of groups and working class. From the Bolshevik revolution and the history of the international working class movement thereafter we have an idea of what a Leninist party is. In the case of the degenerating-degenerated old parties there had been deviations in the form and content of the relationship of party and the class as far as Leninist lesson is concerned, but we may not enter in that discussion now and only surmise that if the idea related to party is superposed on a group then invariably a self-contradiction develops. And what suffers is the formulation of concrete tasks of the groups at the concrete condition of this objective reality. Particularly, when the workers after the shocking defeat, the resulting disarrayed condition of the class, are trying again to raise their heads in spite of some blurredness in vision, the groups will fail in determining their tasks in this concrete condition, and it is not just a conjecture, in reality we are seeing this. When we talked about workers raising their heads again we did not only mean that they are appearing in the arena of struggle, but also mean that the workers are also building up their own organisations, both these aspects ate to be taken account of. Anyway, as the front rank soldiers of theoretical-political battles of the working class it was expected from the communists that when the workers are trying to move ahead bit by bit the communists will try their best to help the workers, to nourish their fights, to help the workers to advance towards searching a conscious direction. But sadly if the groups forget the reality that they are groups, that they are estranged from the class and assume what is not real, and formulate tasks as if they are a Party and try to pull the workers to some 'pure and correct' class position repeating from memory the old known 'formula prescriptions' from books, i.e. if we want to substitute objective reality with our subjective wish or mode of thinking then not only that will be unfortunate but also it is doomed to fail. Reality has pitted the communists against a rough and tough reality of this post-defeat condition and they will have to experiment with various uncharted ways if they really want to contribute to the restoration of the glory of the international communist movement - if the communists want to oppose this as un-Marxist then they must be ready to answer why with all their know copy-book formulae they could not build up a party in all through these three decades. Or, can they not realize even now how tremendous and catastrophic the defeat was!
We have mentioned it before the condition created by the defeat of the international communist movement is an unprecedented one. This can be viewed by observing the picture of the continuity of the communist parties in different countries. In our country that CPIM was created by split of the CPI and then CPIML was created by the split of the CPIM. Though, those who participated in the inner-party ideological-political struggle but didn't join the CPIML did not recognise CPIML. Let us put aside that debate. Anyway, within a very short time span the CPIML was splintered but no party was created from this fission. Meanwhile, those who didn't join the CPIML had already formed several groups, and those who posited themselves against a bunch of left lines of CPIML they themselves consolidated in several groups. Of course, some left-wing groups united some years ago and formed CPI (Maoist). We will discuss about its ultra-left trend somewhere else some other time. So, no party taking anti-revisionist-reformist and anti-left-deviation position did develop; rather the communists got splintered into groups be within CPIML or outside and that condition is still prevailing. Since the early days of the Second International, when parties started developing in various countries never such a situation like our present one was seen where the continuity of party was such broken.
But more painful is the question that why this break could not be bridged in so many years. Does the reason lies solely in the subjective sphere like ideological weakness or deviations or confusions; or are there some additional objective reasons at work also, like estrangement or alienation or separation of the groups from the class, so to say, the retreat of the international working class movement after the severe defeat, or, in other words, the absence of spontaneous workers struggle? Anyway, if we accept the explanation that due to severe state-terror the inner-party struggle against left deviation within the CPIML could not be done in organised and proper manner and various dispersed and fragmented fractions of the party that conducted their struggle eventually led to formation of separate groups and it might be taken as natural or even a unavoidable scenario. But in that case it will also have to be accepted that the group position was just a transient and temporary stage in the process of formation a new party from an old one. But the groups couldn't do justice to this fact or the historical role indicated by this fact and thus they have made their very group existence questionable. It is true that in the post defeat phase history was only limping forward slowly, but '35 years' is not a little time. It is not unknown to us that a working class party does not mean just an agglomeration of some communists; rather, party means the presence of an organised detachment of advanced class conscious workers of a particular country and that means the presence of a mass base. This is a far away thing; the unfortunate fact is that the communist revolutionary camp could not yet create a rudimentary structure of a party. No visible sign of even a very slowly emerging ideological-political convergent trend is there among the communist revolutionary camp. Instead of merging into a single party, the groups gave permanence to their separate identities. And if we look closer we'll see that with this permanence there arose yet another: a permanence of estrangement from the working class; this was as if a congenital, which formerly associated with CPIML permeated to the groups also. But it is also a fact that the defeat-struck workers' passivity fortified this permanence. A natural outcome of this long-lasting estrangement is a state of political-organisational impasse or confinement; and a routine propaganda work among a narrow 'base' of people, conducting trade unions activities in some dozens of factories at most plus some ideological-political studies and discussions which are often unrelated to concrete reality cannot put an end to this stuck-in-a-narrow-boundary like condition. The present reality is a proof of this. And if we dare to confront the truth we can also understand that this estrangement is the reason behind the constant split-merger-split-merger ... cycle among the communist revolutionary groups. But the experiences of last 30 years show it amply clear that if we continue with the thought that party will be built by ideological unity among the groups then we shall only it us against reality. However, it will also have to be clarified that if we think that the reasons behind the failure to unite the groups are the sectarianism of the group-leadership and weakness or sometimes apathy in carrying out ideological struggle or if we try to find the reason in the subjective domain only then also it will be erroneous, because we are to take in account the objective factors too, like the estrangement from the class, long-lasting absence of spontaneity in struggles etc in the aftermath of defeat. Rather, if we delve deeper we'll see that this defeat has placed the task of party building the main and central task as the first precondition of reawakening of the communist movement; while on the other hand both the conduct of the present groups plus the subjective and objective reasons behind the failure in party formation lie within this defeat.
SOME INTROSPECTION
So far we discussed the past thirty years' experience to comprehend it, to some extent, from one direction. Now we'll have to look farther back. Definitely speaking, we are to assimilate the true and necessary lesson of the defeat so that we can chalk out our tasks in this condition, i.e. the changing condition.
Firstly, it goes without saying that this defeat is not the defeat of revolutionary struggles of a county or two; it is a defeat of the international proletariat vis-?-vis power of the capitalists-imperialists. It is well known to us that the movement unfurled by the Russian and then the Chinese revolution with such an intensity and extent - which is termed as the first campaign (in the true i.e. military sense) of the world socialist movement - that movement suffered a serious setback by the fall of Soviet Russia and China, a disastrous condition emerged within the international proletarian movement and retreat set in which vis-?-vis the forward march or campaign appeared as the defeat. But do the fall of revolutions of these two countries and the restoration of capitalist rule in these two countries (and also in the Eastern European countries) mean defeat of the international working class? However, it is also true that revolutions in Russia and China happened in the course of the development of struggle of international proletariat and as parts of it. So will it be correct to envision the capture of state power by the working class in Russia and China as equivalent or synonymous to the victory of the international working class? We cannot avoid this question - as to why such a situation happened just in the wake of the fall of Russian and Chinese revolutions. The international movement of the working class advanced through three internationals, traversed a long way through many ups and downs. Why and how that great movement collapsed like a house of cards the moment the Russian and Chinese revolution got defeated? How and why reformism became dominated over working class parties or communist parties the world over? So, do the reasons behind the collapse of the Russian and Chinese revolutions were not within some failings of communists of just these two countries, rather they lie within the weakness (or deviations) of the international working class movement as a whole? No doubt, to solve this we need a combined effort of the communists, and it is necessary for the reawakening of the movement. From that perspective at least some important necessary points may be examined here in this essay.
We have seen that the experiences of Russia and China are of two different kinds. It is true that the capitalist restoration in both these countries did not take effect through armed counter-revolutionary wars. Rather in both the countries this happened through the usurpation of the leading communist party. The capitalist roaders within the topmost echelon of the party could take over the control and leadership of the party from within. In case of Russia, it happened peacefully, openly in front of mass of the workers, unhindered; as if the class, which through an armed revolution seized power from the bourgeoisie, willingly handed over the power to the bourgeoisie. Needless to say that the usurpation of the party or its degeneration did not happen all on a sudden; or the class character of these two states did not change just one fine morning. This degeneration had started in Russia in the fifties of the last century when the Communist Party of Soviet Union declared from its congress, the path of peaceful transition, peaceful coexistence etc and started brisk march in the line of revisionism-reformism abandoning revolutionary line and deviating from working class internationalism. No struggle was there within and outside the party against this and it led to its natural destiny - leadership of revisionism-reformism took predominance over the party, degeneration of the once glorious CPSU to a bourgeois party and resurgence of capitalism in Russia. Most probably, no one in the communist revolutionary camp will demand that s/he has the total knowledge of reasons of fall of Russia, neither will we. But in relation to the revival of the advancement of class struggle after the defeat and for the sake of this discussion we shall focus on two aspects here. (1) The Fall of Russia and China are in essence victory of revisionism-reformism and revisionism-reformism is now placed as the main danger and impediment in front of international working class movement and workers' struggle and the communists in various countries; this danger has became more intensified and terrible than before. (2) On the opposite or other side of passivity of the working class is the over-dependence of the class on the Party and erosion (or burial) of own class consciousness, class sense. We noticed that the party was usurped by the bourgeoisie and the class did not show much reaction, did not or could not build up resistance. How could it happen that the Russian proletariat, who once by giving up thousands of life, by their immense sacrifices evicted oppressive tsarism and the bourgeoisie and seized power in their hand through their glorious revolution, founded their own independent state, themselves silently relinquished power? Then, had the working class surrendered all the responsibility of exercising that power to the party, which was the leader of the revolution, on the basis of their faith, confidence and dependence on the party? Did the soviet power become, de facto, party's power? Or, Russia, being a backward country and surrounded by imperialist encirclement, where practical necessity gave rise to concentration of power in the party's hand and a transition to proletarian dictatorship in all aspects of state power that had started under the leadership of Lenin somehow derailed in the middle of the journey? Besides, another important question is: did the Russian proletariat or its advanced section loosen control over their party? We are facing such a bunch of questions, and it is not the case that we have all the answers. But in full view of the working class their once treasured party would denounce revolutionary path and go over to reformism and there would be no resistance - this fact at least show it that between the class and the party already by then a separation had occurred. This separation or distancing must be the ostensible reason as to why the CPSU could smoothly change track from a proletarian position to bourgeois line. The Russian experience left behind for us this lesson that if the working class do not stay organised and also at the same time active, dynamic, ready and waiting and on the other hand if the communist party cannot stay integrated with the class, if the process of getting verified and corrected by the working class gets weakened and if the party fails to draw in sustenance from the class continuously, then the party cannot combat the shrewd encirclement of bourgeois ideology just by internal ideological struggle and stay solidly on the proletarian foundation easily, that is an almost impossible proposition to happen.
The fall of Russia and that of china are often bracketed together, though the Chinese experience is different and this difference is very important in the light of the discussion made above. This history is not unknown to us the when the degeneration of CPSU and its deviation from Marxism-Leninism had started, the CPC led by Mao upheld the banner of proletarian ideology and conducted a vigorous fight against revisionism-reformism in the international plane and simultaneously that fight was against the capitalist roaders within the CPC leadership who were trying to take control over the party - a fight which we did not see in Russia. But we shall see that the main characteristic of the difference or separateness lies elsewhere. That is this fight did not take place only inside the CPC but also it took place outside the party. Mao and his comrades fought this ruthless battle to save the party taking along with them workers and toiling masses all through the country and hence this great unprecedented fight that grabbed the attention of world proletariat could be carried on for 8 - 10 years. This fight was not victorious. We saw that while fighting the influential pro-bourgeois force and right-ism within the Party backed by the imperialists a section of the leadership went to ultra-left position which in reality strengthened the revisionist-reformists or capitalist roaders or right-ism in general and during the mid-70s of the last century the control over the party and the state power went in the hands of the pro-bourgeois forces.
In the history of international communist movement the Russian experience is important, as it was a severe blow on (or setback for) the advancing international communist movement, but more important was the experience of Chinese defeat with respect to our present position, not only because the CPC led by Mao gave a gallant and unprecedented fight upholding the flag of Marxism-Leninism, but also because after the deviation of CPSU the last illuminating torch in the international scenario blew off. In real terms if we are to draw a line between the advancing campaign and defeat of the international communist movement then perhaps it will lie here, i.e. the time when the CPC net with failure in their anti-revisionism-reformism fight. In practical sense, thereafter no communist party was there anywhere worthy of its name, i.e. a united party which is upholding the flag of Marxism-Leninism fighting properly against revisionism-reformism and ultra-leftism. This condition is still continuing. However we must focus on the most important positive side of the Chinese experience now. That is: in case of CPC the fight against reformism-revisionism was not limited in the bound of the party, the masses of workers were not kept as passive onlookers or viewers outside the stage; rather the masses of workers took it as their own fight and came on the stage of action to fight their battle. If they were not there it was well nigh impossible to conduct such a fight against the rightist within the topmost echelon of the party for long 7-8 years. Now this experience of fight is very relevant for the groups who are largely isolated from the working class; particularly so when the workers have started appearing in the arena spontaneously breaking their longstanding passivity.
From this perspective let us look into the happenings in our country.
[to be continued]
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