“Why build independent working-class power when we can reason with the bourgeoisie instead”, say CPI/CPI(M)!
“Left”-parties unite to lobby MVA for pro-people policies!
In yet another display of their “hope” from the bourgeoisie, the parliamentary left parties of Maharashtra have formally announced that they are uniting to demand -and here comes the funny part- the bourgeois opposition to adopt pro-people policies so that they can win elections and defeat the fascists. A state-level convention involving these “communist” parties was held in Pune on October 16th, which included representatives from CPI, CPI(M), the Peasants and Workers’ Party (PWP), Samajwadi Party(!) and the Satyashodhak Communist Party (SCP). The press release announcing the event stated that it will
“(…) remind the MVA that although it won 31 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 elections in Maharashtra, with the broad support of all anti-BJP-RSS forces in the state, the difference in the voting percentage between the MVA and the NDA in the state in that election was merely 0.4 per cent (44% to MVA, as against 43.6% to NDA). It will also caution the MVA to take inclusive and comprehensive steps to ensure that the coming Maharashtra assembly elections do not go the Haryana way.”
Such selfless behaviour! Political bankruptcy (amounting to political suicide!) aside, should it not be appreciated that these political parties have decided to forego their “electoral interests” and throw their weight behind the “liberal” bourgeoisie to defeat fascism? But alas, such is not the case. Electoral calculations are still very much in play! A subsequent paragraph in the statement explains: “The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA-INDIA Bloc) must declare alternative pro-people policies and must also adopt an inclusive approach to seat adjustments with all the progressive parties”
There you have it! “Inclusive approach to seat-sharing adjustments with all the progressive parties” – that is what they are really after! These parties have decided that the best way forward for “survival” is to become hangers on of the Thackerays Pawars and Akhilesh Yadavs of the country. Consider this: four leaders have been selected to hold discussions with the MVA – Jayant Patil, ex-MLC (PWP), Abu Asim Azmi, MLA (SP), Dr Ashok Dhawale (CPI-M), and Dr Bhalchandra Kango (CPI).
Abu Asim Azmi! Mankhurd-Govandi’s billionaire capitalist MLA from Samajwadi Party, whose past leader Mulayam Singh Yadav was honored with Padma award by Modi government, whose current lead honcho Akhilesh Yadav is a guest of honour at the Ambani wedding, and Azmi himself whose fifteen year tenure has seen Mankhurd-Govandi blossom from Mumbai’s swampy backwater to a hub of organized and petty crime, with the highest levels of hunger, malnourishment and poverty in the entire city, who openly justified demolition of jhuggis of the working masses, and perhaps in the entire state, is to lobby with the MVA for “pro-people” policies!!
Let us leave aside PWP, which raises a red flag but nowadays does not even call itself a communist party or a Marxist-Leninist party. To be fair to the CPI and CPI(M), their revisionism with the belief that the participation in bourgeois elections is the way to “revolution”, and their “theoretical” justification in Democratic revolution for their spinelessness, does give them a scope for argument. They believe that capitalism has still not established itself firmly in India (but fascism exists!) and that the country is still a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country controlled by monopoly imperialist capital. For example, the CPI(M)’s program states: “The nature of our revolution in the present stage of its development is essentially anti-feudal, anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly and democratic”. In other words, the CPI(M) is not opposed to the capitalist class as a whole! It is only opposed to the imperialist bourgeoisie and the monopoly capitalist class in India. The program goes on to explain how the non-monopoly capitalist class can join hands with the proletariat for revolution: “Every effort must be made to win them to the democratic front by a diligent and concrete study of their problems. No opportunity should be lost by the working class to render them support in all their struggles against both the Indian monopolists and foreign imperialist competitors.” The working class must engage in a diligent and concrete study of the problems of the capitalist class and support them in their struggles! They claim that based on this hilarious understanding, they are justified in collaborating with the regional bourgeoisie and their parties, and compromising with them for the sake of “democratic” revolution! This understanding has nothing to do with Marxism but is instead a shameful distortion of Marxism. Clearly, their practice does not today derive from revolutionary theory, but rather the theory derives from their spineless practice.
As early as 1879, Marx had identified reformism as a pernicious poison that threatened to derail the working class movement and advised the revolutionaries to dissociate themselves from the reformists. Critiquing Bernstein, he had written: “The program [for the reformists] is not to be relinquished, but merely postponed-for some unspecified period. They accept it-not for themselves in their own lifetime but posthumously, as an heirloom for their children and for their children’s children. Meanwhile they devote their “whole strength and energies” to all sorts of trifles, tinkering away at the capitalist social order so that at least something should appear to be done without at the same time alarming the bourgeoisie…. For almost 40 years we have emphasized that the class struggle is the immediate motive force of history and, in particular, that the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat is the great lever of modern social revolution; hence we cannot possibly cooperate with men who seek to eliminate that class struggle from the movement. At the founding of the International we expressly formulated the battle-cry: The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. Hence we cannot cooperate with men who say openly that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves, and must first be emancipated from above by philanthropic members of the upper and lower middle classes.”
The revolution for these parties is an abstract concept meant for some unknown future generation and not something which needs to be fought for and prepared for today. Today and the immediate future, for them, is a period of compromise, survival and peaceful struggle for whatever the system deems possible. If so-called “survival” is possible by compromising our integrity and revolutionary program by allying with the bourgeoisie, then so be it! says the CPI. The revolutionary workers and youth must reject these pseudo communist parties and maintain the political independence of the working class at all costs. As far as elections are concerned, they must put up their own candidates and use the opportunity for revolutionary propaganda.
To quote Marx again,
“Even when there is no prospect whatsoever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces, and to bring before the public their revolutionary attitude and party standpoint. In this connection they must not allow themselves to be seduced by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by so doing they are splitting the democratic party and making it possible for the reactionaries to win. The ultimate intention of all such phrases is to dupe the proletariat. The advance which the proletarian party is bound to make by such independent action is indefinitely more important than the disadvantage that might be incurred by the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.”
Fascism is a reactionary social movement. It cannot be defeated by elections alone. It is only a revolutionary movement of the working masses, led by the working class, that harbours the potential to fight it. The task today is to build such a movement. To fall into the lap of the moderate bourgeoisie and beg for seats and reforms is the most shameful display of political bankruptcy and treachery to the working class.
