People's Democracy

THE SCURRILOUS ANTI-COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA

Once Again Haunted By The ‘Spectre Of Communism’

 Anil Biswas

THE spectre of communism appears to be yet haunting the ruling classes of Europe 157 years after Karl Marx and Friederich Engels had pointed to this phenomenon in the Communist Manifesto.  Back then Europe was witness to the phenomenon of the early crystallisation of the working class movement at the height of which the working class was able to set up the Paris Commune, seeking to set up the first working class state.

Since then, the spectre of communism continues to worry and disturb the European ruling classes and their lackeys in the corporate media.  The most recent outburst, born surely of panic as much as hatred, against communism came out in the proposal raised by the Swedish representative on the political affairs committee of the European Council wherein the ‘crimes’ communism was to be have been condemned.

In the face of worldwide protests by the communist and socialist parties as by the Left political force, the Council of Europe backtracked, certainly a strategic move, and choose not to press for the placement of the proposal.

The Council of Europe is the product of the so-called ‘cold war’ launched by the imperialist camp against the socialist bloc led by the former Soviet Union in the wake of the Second World War.  Formed in 1947, the council has been consistent in trying to stem the tide of socialism from sweeping across Europe. After 1989, the council’s principal aim has been to ensure that capitalism gets to be entrenched in the former republics of the Soviet Union and in the former socialist bloc nations.

What was the compulsion that drove the council into acting out a scurrilous campaign against communism?  Three factors apparently drove the council to go in for a planned campaign for denouncement of communism.

First, the younger generation should ‘know’ about the ‘crimes of communism.’  Second, the move would make those who sympathise with communism, ‘see the light.’  Third, and most important, the anti-communist propaganda would encourage the anti-communist elements within socialist countries.  The council’s leadership would also believe that the ‘prime crime’ of communism has been to project the theory of class struggle for this theory ‘propagated violence’ and is anti-thetical to ‘both democracy and human rights.’

INEVITABILITY OF CLASS STRUGGLE 

Karl Marx and Friederich Engels as the progenitors of the theory of communism and scientific socialism projected class struggle as the driving force of history.  Historically, as Marx and Engels pointed out, class exploitation had occurred through the ages and had served as the basis of slavery, feudalism, and capitalism.  State was the product of class antagonism, and it perpetuates class exploitation in a class-divided society through its laws. The dominant classes use state as the weapon of exploitation.

Marx and Engels spoke about a society free from class exploitation, had posited that such a construct followed the historical inevitability, and can be a possibility through waging class struggles.

In a social set up overwhelmed by class exploitation, there is no way one can expect democracy to function.  Whatever little there is by way of democratic norms comes out of the womb of class struggle and is never a merciful gift of the ruling classes. 

We communists firmly believe that there are three forms of class struggle.  First, there is the economic struggle where the working class resists and struggles against the encroaching moves by the ruling classes to deny them of full wages and to take away their hard-earned rights.  An excellent example of this now would be the worldwide struggle against liberalisation by the working class and the working people.

The second form of class struggle is the political struggle, for economic struggle alone can never change the character of exploitation, not can it end exploitation.  Capture of state power alone can lead to a change in the correlation of production relationship.  Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Party of the working class and of the working people, struggle is waged in various forms, in and outside of the parliament towards the ultimate aim of winning of the state power by the working class.

The third form of class struggle is ideological.  The world of thought, the world of culture, and the world of ideology are dominated by the ruling classes.  The right to information is severely manipulated to ‘feed’ the ‘right’ information to the people.  The so-called mainstream information and media is a domination of 10-15 corporate capital institutions.  The push is towards propagating a ‘liberal’ economy, a consumerist lifestyle, and a process of de-politicisation. 

It is the duty of the working class and the working people to resist this domination in the world of thought and to relentlessly campaign for progressive thought, higher values, and certainly a higher form of social construct which is free of exploitation. Class struggle in the ideological world is thus a veritable necessity in the achievement of the ultimate task.

Class struggle is not a crime: it is the inevitable and necessary social process towards social transformation.   

CAPITALISM’S ‘GIFTS’ TO THE WORLD

The earliest ‘gift’ of capitalism to the world was colonialism with its hydra-headed forms of rapacious exploitation, of killings, of displacements, and of wanton destruction.  European powers like Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, and Britain went on a spree of loot-and-kill in the Americas, in Africa, in Asia. 

Slave labour was ‘imported’ from these countries to form the base of European capitalist production.  Over the years, colonialism produced wars and ravages of the extreme kind. The communists stood by the exploited people, and as Lenin pointed out, the emancipation of the European working class would see the emancipation of the colonies across the world.

Capitalism has given the world extreme forms of poverty, especially in what became the Third World countries.  Under the exploitative drive of neo-colonialism, the so-called developed nations indulged in rapacious economic exploitation in the lesser-developed nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Capitalism’s gift to the world has been fascism and Nazism.  Fascism is very much a product of capitalism and fascism was the most barbaric form of weapon used by the ruling classes of Europe to resuscitate the moribund European capitalism. Fascism meant a nightmare for the working people of the world, especially of Europe where this inhuman ideology was allowed full play by the ruling classes.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic was able to defeat fascism, albeit at a terrible cost, and after making enormous sacrifices.  The defeat of fascism, whose 60th anniversary is being observed this year, saw the quick unchaining of the third world countries with the colonial system trodden underfoot.  In Asia,, between 1945 and 1955, no less than 15 nations were born and of them was India. The carefully constructed colonial empire of the Europeans collapsed after the Soviet triumph in the Second World War.

WHAT IS THE TRUE FACE OF GOBALISATION?  

Globalisation is nothing but an imperialist world system. As capital accumulates and is centralised, it is deployed to earn more and more profit through domination and exploitation. As the internationalisation of finance capital takes place, capital intent on speculative profit would not bother about national barriers and would move freely across the globe.

The extraordinary capital accumulation of the MNCs adds to the process of globalisation of capital. Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO provide the leadership in this exploitative drive.  The aim is to clamp down once again an economic colonialism over third world nations.

Because of globalisation of finance capital, science and technology is used to strengthen the process of loot to satiate the urge for super profits.  Natural resources are exploited in a rampant manner. Mechanisation is employed to replace man. Environment is degraded.

Globalisation has caused a tremendous amount of job loss. It also fosters what is called a process of job loss growth on the strength of speculative capital. Globalisation causes social and economic differentiation to increase perceptively.  Currently the poorest 20 per cent of the world’s population own less than one percent of the world’s resources and wealth.  

The gap between the rich and the poor assume yawning proportions.  Poverty has increased rapidly in the majority of the nations. The millennium goals, as the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias recently pointed out at the UN prove as elusive as before. The process of globalisation itself has given rise to a deep-seated crisis that will prove its own undoing.

The ruling classes seek to perpetuate this inequitable, exploitative system called globalisation of capital via political and military hegemony.  The economic burden gets to be shifted to the groaning shoulders of the third world countries.  Marx pointed out very aptly that should capital find surety in gathering 100 per cent profit, it would become desperate enough to commit crimes of every kind and take every form of risks even if it caused the capitalist to face the gallows.

A drive is ‘on’ via globalisation of capital to clamp on the post-USSR world a unipolar construct. The US imperialists give the leadership. With a military budget that equals 50 per cent of the military expenditure of the rest of the world put together, the US is going on a spree of conquest and domination: Afghanistan and Iraq are the latest victim of this lust for hegemony.

The member nations of the Council of Europe as much as the US are the leading perpetrators of this barbaric drive at world domination. These violent criminal elements raise today slogans against communism and socialism. 

This inhuman system can be ended when a specific alternate to the system is set up and which can work as the weapon of freedom and independence.  The bourgeois system cannot be reformed: it needs to be replaced.  Socialism is the way towards an alternate society free from exploitation. The choice, as Fidel says, is between barbarism and socialism.

THE ALTERNATIVE IS SOCIALISM

Why is socialism the alternative?  Albert Einstein had once said that the bane of capitalism was that it brought about the fall of both the individual and of the society.  The source of this state of affairs was the anarchy of the capitalist society. Private capital becomes concentrated in the hands of the few. The capital-controlled political system keeps apart the electorate and the parliament. The capitalists control also the media, as well as education.  This terrible system can be uprooted only though the establishment of socialism.

Marx and Engels associated socialism with class struggle and gave it the shape of a political programme.  Socialism took the shape of a society and a state when the USSR was established through the November revolution.  The Soviet Union was the first instance in the world of a working class state and a working class society.  The transformation of the Soviet Union into a powerful socialist state ready to tackle the onslaughts of imperialism was accompanied by the flourishing of revolutionary activities in science, arts, and culture.

Already a great inspiration to the people of the Third World struggling to gain independence, the Soviet Union’s triumph over fascism, followed by the Chinese revolution, the victory of Vietnam over US imperialism, the struggle of the DPRK, and the historic success of the Cuban revolution brought about historic changes in the international scenario. The success of the socialist countries in the realms of health, food, education, shelter, clothing, and in poverty eradication stirred the working people of the world. The welfare state, too, was formed in the western countries as a direct fallout of the socialist revolutions.

Yet, there occurred a debacle of socialism in the Soviet Union as in the east European bloc nations.  There are two aspects to the issue.  World capitalism was able to counter the disaster it faced following the triumph of the socialist revolutions by flourishing of the productive forces while expanding the market.  The latter endeavour was done through neo-colonialism. 

Socialism was able to chalk out a heady progress in terms of development.  Nevertheless, the crisis of capitalism was not an automatic process. The overestimation of the power of socialism and the underestimation of the power of capitalism caused harm to the process of objective analyses.  It was thought wrongly that socialism would develop in a linear fashion until a communist society free from exploitation will be established.  In the present state of socialism, the international contradictions would become sharper and capitalism would try its best or worst to recapture lost ground.

In the present stage of complex, and long lasting, struggle, the triumph of world socialism depended on two factors: the success that could be registered in terms of socialist construction; the correlation of class forces nationally and internationally, and the correct, objective evaluation and understanding of the situation.

The trend to belittle the enemies within and without of the socialist countries flowed from an incorrect analysis of the objective situation. In addition, the potency of the power of socialist countries was overvalued. The situation precluded the task of looking hard at the real problems facing the socialist countries, and encouraged an overlooking of the need to continuously renew and integrate the strength of the socialist bloc.

Socialist democracy is of a much higher order than capitalist democracy. In a socialist country, the working people are given an objective basis of implementing democracy. In a socialist country, democracy must be deeper and more widespread than that in a capitalist set up.  The people in a socialist country must not only be given the democratic right, but also afforded the opportunity to exercise it.  There was a perceptible lacuna in this regard in the Soviet Union and in some other socialist countries.

As the productive force develops speedily in a socialist country, there is need for making the economic administration appropriately up-to-date and rapidly, too.  The unwillingness to go to newer and higher stages, and the lack of ability to employ transformations and alterations, would cause economic stagnation to develop.

This happened in the Soviet Union.  Socialist reform was not undertaken when due. On the other hand, under Gorbachev, the socialist ownership of the means of production and centralised planning themselves were unceremoniously abandoned.  Under the impact of the  ‘bourgeois gods of the market economy’, steps were continuously taken to weaken the socialist economy and as a result, socialism faced a debacle.

There was a persisting weakness also in strengthening the collective ideological consciousness of the people in a socialist set up.  Socialism can flourish based on the continuous heightening of the overall consciousness of the people. This imperative task was neglected.  A situation ultimately arose when the enemies of socialism within and without the country were able to wreck socialism. 

The debacle of socialism was never due to the weakness or the incomplete nature of the fundamental principle of Marxism or of Communism.  The disaster occurred rather because of the departure from these principles, because of the deviation from the revolutionary content of socialism, because of the incorrect comparative evaluation of socialism and world capitalism, because of a wrong mechanistic and sectarian misinterpretation of the scientific tenets of Marxism, and because of series of severe weaknesses in the task of socialist construction.

The experience has imparted lessons for the world socialist movement.  A worldwide discussion and debate is going on as to how should socialism be enriched with higher political-ideological apparatus. Socialist countries are currently engaged in taking up and implementing reforms that suit the concrete needs of the countries. The socialist countries are involved also in the task of consolidating socialism and socialist construction through ensuring that productive forces flourish and develop. This is especially necessary in view of the near-monopolistic hegemony that imperialism currently exerts on both capital and technology.

China is a pertinent example here of socialist construction.  Centering around the thesis that socialism can be set up in China with Chinese characteristics, the Communist Party of China has gone in for socialist market economy and planning; it has also decided in favour of using foreign capital for purposes of development of infrastructure and economy.  The Communist Party of China has in addition chosen to develop individual and joint economic sector parallel to the state sector.

The fructification of the policy has been a vast improvement in the standard of living with less and less people lagging behind and dwelling below the poverty level. Over the past two decades, in particular, the central planning for the economy has produced unprecedented success in different sector of the economy and society.  The experiments that the Communist Party of China is engaged in have attracted the attention of the world.

SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE   

A look at the world political map will surely answer the reasons why the Council of Europe has suddenly gone in for a mordant attack on communism and socialism.  The echoes of the ‘triumph of neo liberalism and capitalism’ were yet to die down when around the globe resistance against the process started.  Nearly every day, some or other form of demonstrations are taking place, protesting against globalisation and liberalisation.

The working class has organised themselves across continents to raise the Red banner of protest against the forays of international capital.  The demonstrations drawing in millions of people held at Seattle, Cancun, Genoa have attracted the attention of the world.  Waves of strike actions have overwhelmed such developed capitalist nations as Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Australia.  The Latin American and African countries have seen protest movements against the doings of the multi-national corporations.  The principal content of these movements is the rejection of globalisation, privatisation, and liberalisation.

There has been a marked upswing in the intensity and depth of anti-war movements across the globe. The occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, in particular, met with massive demonstrations almost everywhere in the world.  The demonstrations have condemned and rejected the US-British collaboration over a policy of world domination through waging war.

In the political map, we see evidence of change.  In Germany and Spain, the electorate has given a drubbing to the ruling coalitions of the right and the centre-right. The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela has found echoes across the continent of Latin America in the anti-imperialist ALBA.  The Left has moved relentlessly forward in such countries as Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.  Fidel’s Cuba serves as the hub of activities and the heads of states of Latin America unabashedly acknowledge el commandante as the shining example of anti-imperialist struggle.  In India, the Left has made strides and the present Congress-led Indian government cannot move without the Left’s support.

Ten years ago, it was announced that ‘Marxism is dead,’ and that ‘Communism has no future.’  Following a short period of confusion, the communists across the globe are engaged in regrouping.  International contact has been augmented.  In the biggest struggle against imperialism and neo-liberalisation, the communists occupy the forefront.  The communists have re-established themselves in many former socialist republics of Europe.

The Europe of the rich and the imperialists tremble in fear of communism. The ill-gotten attempts of the Council of Europe merely prove that scientific socialism is far from dead, and in fact, communism has created newer areas of struggle worldwide.  The communists surge forward at the head of massive movements across the globe against the onslaughts of imperialism and neo-liberalisation.  The ruling classes of Europe is haunted again by the ‘spectre of communism.’ The world is moving towards socialism for socialism is the future.