THE CHAMELEON HAS REVEALED ITS COLOUR
The Communist
Party of India -Marxist (CPI-M) one of the most deceitful Social Democratic
organization in the world, held its party congress in Delhi
between April 6 and 11, 2005
. The congress
assumes some merit of discussion for it being an affair where the party finally
shred all its pretension of being a working class Marxist Leninist party. While
the CPI had long ago abandoned its communist character sans name and red flag,
this time it was the turn of the 'big brother' to do so. Though both the parties
in reality had long abandoned the torturous path of revolution and mass
awakening for the comfortable life of parliamentary cretinist politics. The 18th
party congress has finally reveled CPI-M’s class colours.
CPI-M at the time of its formation appeared to be adopting a radical posture
than the then thoroughly de-radicalised CPI which under the leadership of Ajoy
Ghosh and co had started following the revisionist Soviet policy of peaceful path to socialism. The leaders who were to form the CPI-M at that time
sided with the radical elements of the Left movement and split the CPI. But
soon they reveled their true class characteristic when they also supported
the peaceful road. The party program adopted in 1964 said:
The Party strives to
achieve the establishment of people’s democracy and socialist transformation
through peaceful means. By developing a powerful mass revolutionary movement,
by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary forms of struggle, the
working class and its allies will try their utmost to overcome the resistance
of the forces of reaction and to bring about these transformation through
peaceful means."
Furthermore
CPI-M repudiated the path of armed struggle and destruction of the bourgeoisie
state. All these class betrayal steps were presented as tactical move to seize
power from within to the radicalized cadre. Thus since its foundation the
CPI(M) had been a supporter of the comprador bourgeoisie while disguising itself as a
Communist Marxist Party.
The party has regularly skirted issue of mass movement and mass uprising
again using left phraseology that the objective condition of India and
particularly the Hindi-speaking belt is not suitable enough for a Socialist
revolution. They had always maintained that they will not start any movement in
the Hindi heartland of Bihar and UP(two most important state of North India beset with rigid caste structure and feudal set up) their Logic: ‘Bihar is one of the most
backward of Indian States, beset with rigid caste polarizations and devoid of
any history of bourgeois reforms worth the name’.
But the same Bihar became the hotbed of Revolutionary activity and is still
holding the flag of revolution up and high. While the social democrats of India
viz the CPI and CPI M have been relegated to regional forces, the
revolutionary winds are sweeping the villages and the farms. They always
opposed the nationality movement being waged in the different parts of the
country just as their ruling class partners. As a result the party has been
steadily being marginalized as a regional force with their representation being
limited to the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, excepting these three
states they constantly have to beg to the bourgeoisie parties for mercy who
occasionally spare a few seats to them as alms to be their educated bard in
parliament and state legislature.
Discarding radical image for a more docile one, concentrating on how to get
near the seat of power rather than focusing on building a resistance of the
toiling masses has costed dearly to the Left movement of the country, where their sham policies are taken to be the idelology of entire communism.
The foremost issue for this party, that still christens itself as Marxist, is
how to stop BJP coming to power. For this it has allied with politicians like
Mulayam, Laloo who are not even a shade better than the BJP. Now it has been
bending backwards before the Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi – a face
representing the elite of the country. It does not find corruption to be an ill
before what it terms communalism of BJP though in Kerala it had an off-on
alliance with the Muslim League. But how do they fight communalism by allying
with the bourgeoisie outfits. The CPI-M has no reservation regarding the economic
policy of the Congress that virtually sold the country’s interest in the hands
of capitalist West, in the guise of liberalization. Why doesn't’t CPM want to
build a united front on the basic issues economic and social empowerment of the
working class with clear democratic anti-imperialist program – rather than
trying to unite against “communal forces…the social democrats have no answer…
The party has finally submitted before the imperialist capital. It has accepted
that it is not against Globalisation. To put a smoke screen to its renegade
policy it has divided the global capital into two FDI and the FII, whereas now
for the party FDI is to be supported while it will oppose the FII.
Well before the Congress the
atmosphere for the acceptance of globalization was set by the intellectual
hacks of the party. With the CPM being part of the Central power many seek to
bask in the glory of the newfound power. One of them, Prabhat Patnaik,
publicly advocated the need for a “practical rethinking on ‘left’ positions on
private enterprise, capitalist production and inflow of FDI by accepting the
realities of multiparty Indian parliamentary democracy”. Patnaik began to
mobilise a campaign from within the party circles by presenting his new thesis
in a CPM-backed publication at the directions of the leadership. So, not
surprisingly the document “On Certain Policy Matters” made it clear that “the
struggle for an alternative socialist order has to be based on the
revolutionary transformation of the existing order” and that this requires “an
engagement of the revolutionary forces with existing world realities with the
sole objective of changing the co-relation of forces in favor of socialism”.
After outlining the methods of the World Bank, IMF, WTO, etc, what the document
visualizes is not an outright rejection of these maneuvers of neo-liberal
economic interests, but a tactical engagement with them. “Engagement” means
nothing but collaboration as has been going on in West Bengal and the other
States it rules”.
(CPM’s 18th Congress Gives Open Support to Globalisation, Peoples March, Vol :
6, No. 6, June 2005)
The
CPM-led front bowed to the policies of the UPA. The Common Minimum Programme,
is nothing but an eye wash a continuation of the policies of the previous
regimes which has led to mass suicides by the peasants and disappearance of
jobs while bolstering profits.
The POLITICAL RESOLUTION adopted at the Congress virtually endorsed the on going
Liberalisation program saying:
Review policies of
liberalisation including WTO agreements to strengthen self-reliant economic
growth; streamline and strengthen public sector in core and strategic sectors;
promote non-monopolistic industrial growth, encourage medium and small-scale
industries. Ensure adequate resource mobilisation by increased direct taxes,
recovery of tax dues and curbing black money. Foreign capital investment to be
based on national priorities and requirements of advanced technology. Regulate
capital flows.
No where
it said about quitting WTO the symbol exploitation or launching a mass movement
against the policy, but it just wanted a few superficial changes while accepting the
core issue.
Even before the party Congress treacherousness of CPI-M became evident when
they remained a silent spectator when privatization of crucial sectors was
introduced. They gave a silent support to the new patent act – that intends to
severely harm the indigenous research and development particularly in the
pharmaceutical sector. Every one knows that the patent act was being forced to
change by the imperialist powers to throttle the competitive advantage that
this country has in medical arena vis a vis the companies from the First world.
The new labour act is heavily biased towards the capitalist and against the
workers. The new bill sought to reverse the gains made by the working class
after decade of struggle and hardship in which several leaders and workers gave
supreme sacrifice.
The CPI-M wants to emulate the China model. China not of Mao but of Deng. It
has the travesty to define China still as a socialist country:
China’s rapid economic growth
and all-round progress has led to its emergence as a major power in the
international arena. China has been registering over 9 per cent GDP growth
annually in the last decade, making it the fastest growing economy in the
world. The Chinese government and the Communist Party are engaged in tackling
the problems of unemployment, regional disparities and the rise of corruption
which are a product of China’s rapid growth and engagement with the global
capitalist system.
The
present UPA govt’s decision to open the insurance sector to 26% foreign capital
(that is further going to be increased this to 49%) and the government’s
decision to reduce its equity in public sector banks to 33% together with
allowing 20% foreign equity into Public Sector banks, much of India’s money
wealth has already been handed over to the foreign powers. The Manmohan Singh
and his coterie, has been taking steps to completely hand over the entire
banking sector, both public and private, to the foreign investors thus
mortgaging the entire Indian economy to the imperialists. Leaving the
economy and the vast majority of the poor to the mercy of the machinations of
the international finance capital. India is fast becoming the banana republic a
stooge in the hands of the marauding capitalists whose sole motive is profit
profit and more profit.
What happened in South East Asia is before us. The much touted "Asian Tigers" who had mortgaged their entire finance and ecomomc sector in the hands of international financial swindelers overnoght turned into "pussy cats" The Indian ruling class has also started its sojurn on to the same path....Life of millions are at stake.
The “leftist” who have left all pretensions of being a defender for the rights
of the proletariats have been hand in glove with the agents of imperialism and
comprador bourgeoisie parties.
One has to look at some of the major issues rocking the country – The IMF
-WB-WTO asked to look into the labour laws agro subsidy and FDI policy The UPA
government’s responded by further reduction of subsidies, a heavily diluted and
pro capital labour law, greater freedom for FDI in every key sector and an
amended patent act that is bound to pave the way for unmitigated MNC control
over all our economic resources, and the myth of the Left’s increased profile
quickly falls to pieces. The two budgets of the UPA government so far have
borne all the usual neo-liberal hallmarks, measures like hefty concessions for
big corporations, lucrative bounties for the affluent consumer and steep hike
in allocation for the military-industrial complex.
On foreign policy issue the UPA government has accepted to be a tool in the
hands of the US led international coalition of the imperialist power. It has
openly supported the Israeli expansion against the Palestinians, and was even
contemplating to send troops to Iraq in support of the imperialist aggressors,
which they had to back out in face of growing mass unrest. To all this issue
the party just lodged a token f protest which never bothered the ruling class,
in fact had they wanted they would have threaten to withdraw the support to the
government but that would have meant sacrificing their newly found power and
lavish lifestyle.
Conclusion
The influence of CPI(M) is stagnant and it is fast becoming a regional player
like umpteen number of regional outfits that have mushroomed in every part of
the country. In the vast Hindi states it is fast becoming irrelevant with its
support base going either to the casteist outfits or to the radical left. Even
in terms of votes gained it has shown a steep decline all over the country. Its
gain in the present parliament is more of a result of opposition to Congress
–BJP policies rather than endorsement of its programs/policies. It has lost its
power to rally the unoragnised working class and peasants because of its tailsm
and endorsement of the present regimes exploitative rules.
Like CPI which is fast reaching its nemesis CPI-M has started to traverse the
same path. It is now the time for the radical Left to unite and help this party
of comprador so called Leftist to reach its final destination---to the rubbish
bin of history.