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Communist Internationalist - 2007

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Communist Internationalist: articles published by the ICC's section in India during 2007

Nandigram (West Bengal) - the latest variety of leftist barbarism

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This article is also available in the original Bengali translation [1] .


The leftist controlled capitalist government machinery has pounced upon the unarmed exploited masses of people and agricultural workers in Singur and Nandigram in the rural areas of West Bengal. The holy alliance of state armed forces and the cadres of the CPI(M), the predominant leftist political party of India have attacked the masses of exploited people rising against the government policy and practice of snatching agricultural land for setting up new industrial units and special economic zones giving special privilege and right to the capitalists to exploit the working class people as much as they please. This totally unprovoked attack on the masses of exploited people in the most barbaric way on 14th March, 2007 has led to killing and wounding of hundreds of those involved in the movement against land grabbing. The masses including women, children and even aged people have been most mercilessly, barbarously and indiscriminately beaten, tortured and shot by the police cadre combine. This height of barbarism and terrorism against the innocent exploited masses of people can not but arouse strong indignation in any sensitive and sane person. Words are insufficient to reflect properly the depth of this indignation.

These struggling people might have had the illusion that the leftist government dominated by the CPI(M), the biggest Stalinist party of India who never tires of taking credit for ensuring the democratic rights, dignity and well being of the downtrodden rural masses, will listen to their grievances and fulfill their demand. The political parties of the right and left of capital also have added to their democratic illusions only to use them as pawns in the struggle for increasing their parliamentary strength and political clout. But the task of the proletarian revolutionary is not to cash in on the sentiment and emotion and instigate it further. It is only to expose the root causes of the increasing problems of life and livelihood, reality of the world capitalism, class struggle and the struggle of other exploited masses of people such as the peasantry in the present historic situation.

The contemptible reality of Stalinist barbarism fully exposed

The CPI(M) has been ceaselessly and vociferously asserting that they have done enough for the rural poor, given them their ‘rights' and has been a pioneer in land reforms for the interest of the poor and landless peasants. This claim is not utterly unfounded but they have done this only to strengthen their rural base by implementing the program of land reform of the central capitalist state and government more thoroughly in West Bengal and then have politically utilized it to the fullest possible extent. They have utilized the plight of the peasantry to accumulate the necessary political capital to capture governmental power. This is one of the reasons for their being in governmental power continuously for such a long period of time through the ‘democratic' exercise. This has made them excessively arrogant also. They have now discovered that ‘their' West Bengal is far behind other provinces in ‘industrialization' and lost its past glory. So they have redoubled their efforts to go ahead and attract both ‘indigenous' and ‘foreign' capital as rapidly as possible. No industrialization or urbanization or setting up of SEZ s can take place without land. So they have been bent on land grabbing by any means including brutal terrorizing activities by state armed forces on the one hand and their political mafia gangs on the other. Thus they have let loose a reign of terror on the very peasants they claim to represent and defend, in the same way as the RSS in Gujrat in massacring the Muslims or the Congress goons in massacring the radical leftists, their family members and supporters in 1971 and the Sikhs in 1984 in Delhi and other places or the Siv Sainiks of Mumbai. In this they have taken the cue from their Chinese comrades who also captured political power long ago utilizing the misery of the peasantry and then after entrenching themselves in state power resorted to the steamroller of repression of the same peasantry for the sake of industrialization. According to some reports, the Chinese police barbarously attacked thousands of peasants, demonstrating against the state policy and practice of rapid industrialization reducing the peasantry into a pauperized mass, in the recent past. There have been 90,000 protest movements of the peasant masses in China in the last few years. This shows clearly that the whole left including the most radical and extreme variety in the same way as the right can go to any extreme to serve and save capital and use the grievances and problems of the people only to earn credibility. Both defend none but capital.

Many people think that the CPI (M) has been degenerated and corrupted due to its prolonged privileged existence in the governmental power. But this is based only on the immediate experience. The CPI(ML), the CPI(M), the CPI and all other Stalinist, Maoist and Trotskyists Parties have their historical line of predecessors in the social democratic parties of the second international which rejected the proletarian internationalist, revolutionary line in the time of the first world war and thus went over to the camp of capital, actively crushed the international revolutionary wave in Germany in 1919, assassinated Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebnecht and Leo Jogishes, the leading proletarian revolutionaries. Those very predecessors played the leading role under the leadership of Stalin in transforming the Communist international which was created as the vanguard of the world proletarian revolution into the vanguard of counterrevolution. The Stalinist counterrevolutionary vanguards propagated the biggest historical lie that there was socialism in Russia, which was nothing but a particular most repressive and exploitative variety of state capitalism. The Stalinists, Maoists and the Trotskyists called on the international working class to join the imperialist war with the slogan of anti fascism and joined the democratic imperialist camp against the fascist imperialist camp. Thus, these parties rejected in deed the internationalist line of asking the working class not to take sides in the imperialist war and intensify class struggle against the attacks of capital in each part of the world. In the same way as the fascists, all of them were responsible in alliance with the democratic imperialist powers for the massacre of millions of working class and toiling masses of people. Almost from the very beginning the CPI, the immediate predecessor of the CPI (M) was situated in the capitalist counterrevolutionary terrain led by Stalin, Mao and company. So, the history of their betrayal of the cause of the working class and the exploited has started from the 1930s. But the essence of their state capitalist, counterrevolutionary, repressive and exploitative character was not exposed for quite a long time in the conditions of the deepest counterrevolution and its profound political ideological impact on the working class and exploited masses of people. The present historic course of class confrontation, rising combativeness and coming to class consciousness in the situation of permanently intensifying crisis of decadent capitalism has been an important factor in compelling them to unmask themselves and show their ugly, stinking inner essence.

Are the other political parties and groups real friends of the peasantry?

The CPI (M) repression and barbarism has provided immense political opportunity to the oppositional political parties and groups, including all the right wing and extreme left wing groups. Even the left wing groups of the ruling left front has got an opportunity to batter the CPI(M) big brother and assert themselves more confidently. There seems to be a cutthroat competition among them to prove who the best friend and defender of the peasants are.

All of them are doing their best to establish the CPI (M) as the only villain and culprit. They are shouting at the top of voice against the ‘fascist repression of the CPI(M)' on the peasant masses. They are thus asserting their democratic credentials and trying to set up a united democratic front against the ‘fascist' CPI(M). They are very much eager to rally the working class and the exploited peasantry behind their democratic movement and thus strengthen their political position in the next round of the electoral circus. Thus, their sole aim is the accumulation of sufficient political capital pretending to be the best friend and savior of the peasantry and utilizing their genuine grievances and the repression of the present leftist government on them.

All of them are trying their best to hide the fact that while in governmental power they will also be compelled to resort to the same or more barbaric repression against movements of the working class and exploited masses of people resisting the attacks of the capitalist system on their living and working conditions. This does not depend on the goodwill of this or that party but it is the compulsion of the material conditions of capitalism in this historical phase. Capital can live today only by increasing the exploitation of the working class and exploited masses of people.

These oppositional political parties are also generating false hopes in a populist way in the exploited and struggling masses of people. According to them the strong arm, extremely barbaric method of the CPI (M) is at the root of all evils and the problems will be solved if that party is compelled to go out of governmental power. Thus, they are focusing the attention of the people only on the persons killed or injured by the police cadre combine. This is of course extremely tragic. But we must never be blind to the fact that in the last two or three years 20 to 30 thousand peasants owning agricultural lands of various sizes have committed suicides in various parts of India and particularly in those parts where agriculture is most developed and thus most integrated into the global market. But those pretending-to-be-friends of the peasantry are focusing the attention only on the political will of this or that government and deliberately hiding the determining material conditions of world capitalism in this phase.

Aggression of the capitalist system

We should take into account the history of the coming into being of the capitalist system from the womb of the pre capitalist mode of commodity production and exchange.

We should remember also that in the course of the development of the capitalist mode of production millions of small producers of commodities and peasants have been dispossessed of their land or means of production. In fact the capitalist mode of production can exist and develop only by constantly devouring the pre capitalist producers of commodities and small owners of means of production. These people could not maintain their old mode of production and existence in the face of the cheap capitalist commodities, which served as the economic bullets that could destroy all Chinese walls of resistance of the pre capitalist states and producers. However, in the vigorously rising and expanding phase of world capitalism in the nineteenth century those persons evicted from their livelihood could easily be integrated into the capitalist system of production.

On the contrary, this is not the situation today in this historical phase of permanently intensifying crisis of capitalism, which is being forced by the material conditions to exclude more and more people from its system and throw them out into the horrible hell of unemployment, misery, pauperization and precarious living and working conditions.

Increasing the rate of profit is the only mantra and concern of the capitalist system and the political parties of the left and right of capital. This is being more and more difficult with the passage of time. So the capitalist factions are engaged in cutthroat competition in the sectors in which there is possibility of maximum and very quick profit. This is why the process of relocation of industrial production and outsourcing is gaining momentum. The European and American capitalist factions are shifting part or whole of their production process, outsourcing many of their activities in those areas of the world where there is enough skilled and very cheap labour power. This is at the root of the ‘shining' of India and the dazzling growth of China in these days. This ‘industrialization' in the phase of senile global capitalism cannot but increase enormously the capitalist demand for land. Thus, the development of the real estate has become a very profitable sector now around urbanized concentrations almost everywhere in the world particularly in the rapidly growing economy of China, India etc. Thus, in the same way as the gold rush of the past, there is now a land-rush all over India, leading to increase of land prices rapidly and speculation on land is being resorted to for making a quick buck. It is impossible for the peasantry to resist this apparently invisible capitalist aggression on their means of livelihood. Thus millions of peasants are losing their land in this ‘normal' economic process of the dying capitalist system bent on continuing its historically needless and destructive existence by hook or by crook.

Moreover, the rural economy has been thoroughly integrated in the global capitalist economy. The tentacles of the market octopus have brought all sectors of the economy under its suffocating grip. Thousands of small peasants find themselves in a very helpless, precarious and perplexed situation confronting the impersonal, essentially uncontrolled forces of the global capitalist market including those of the nation state. This pushes them towards the road either to suicide or to sell their ‘good earth'. Thus, the destruction of the peasantry is unstoppable so long as the senile capitalist system exists. This is impossible for any capitalist state, government or political party whatever good dreams it may like to dream or sell to the distressed peasantry on the verge of destruction.

False Alternatives

Both the government and the oppositional parties are offering false alternatives to the exploited masses of the hapless peasantry. The leftist government is trying to sell the idea that their beloved ‘industrialization' will generate enough jobs for those who are losing their means of livelihood. This is nothing but an outright bluff. The ruling CPI (M) asserted not very long ago that the recent spurt of economic growth in various parts of India is a jobless growth, which is of course a fact. But how in case of West Bengal this generalized fact of growth all over the world today can be totally reversed and can become by some leftist miracle a jobful growth.

The oppositional parties are asserting that if the peasants are not forcibly dispossessed of their land their problems of living will be solved. On the basis of the above analysis of the dynamics of the capitalist production and market in this historic period it is clear that this is not only false, regressive but also pushing the peasantry to a blind alley to remain sucked up in the precarious pre capitalist state of existence to be used as political cannon fodder whenever necessary.

Hence, there is no solution worth the name within the present capitalist system.

The only way towards solution

In fact, there is no question of choosing the solution by any of the abovementioned false alternatives. There is also no question of choosing between this leftist government or any other more radical leftist or supposedly more democratic government. Most radical land reforms advocated by the most radical leftists and Maoists providing land to all tillers and thus creating innumerable small owner peasants is also no solution . As the global capitalist system is the real culprit and the root cause of the intensifying problems of life and livelihood of the working class and exploited people all over the world, the only task is the ousting of this barbarous monster lock, stock and barrel everywhere in the world. If this task is not fulfilled the very existence of humanity as a whole will be more and more at stake with each passing day. So the political milieu outside the grip of the leftist and rightist political apparatus of capital and the new generation questioning the existing capitalist system who have been deeply moved by the extremely barbarous attacks on the exploited peasantry and spontaneously come forward in their support and risen against the repression should think about the real alterative i.e. the ousting the world capitalist system. Only the international working class is capable of carrying out this historic task victoriously. Herein only lies the real possibility of liberation of all other exploited masses of the toiling people. Therefore, they have no other way but to rally behind the revolutionary working class, which will be their only real friend.

Geographical: 

  • India [2]

Political currents and reference: 

  • Maoism [3]

Terrorist violence in 'Peace Express'

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Terrorists attacked the sleeping passengers in the Smajhauta express or the ‘peace express' in the late night hours of 18th February07. Several coaches of the express train were set on fire 100 kilometers away from the Indian capital by the incendiary devices planted by terrorists. 67 persons including many children were killed on the spot. 15 persons were injured, 12 of them very seriously. Most of the killed are reported to be Pakistani nationals.

Every sane person can not but condemn this abominable, barbarous act.

Crocodile tears of bourgeois leaders

Bourgeois leaders all over the world including the prime ministers and presidents of both India and Pakistan are displaying their indignation against this ‘horrendous tragedy', ‘act of heinous crime', ‘dastardly and cynical terrorist attack'. Both these capitalist states have killed thousands of exploited people and workers in uniforms in all the imperialist wars they have fought against each other since their very birth as imperialist twins in 1947 and these two fractions of the bourgeoisie caused the death of masses of innocent people in the riots they provoked for creating the conditions for their birth as separate states in 1946. USA, Japan and other fractions of the western bourgeoisie, the loudest protagonists of humanitarian values and human rights today have killed millions of innocent people in the two imperialist wars solely for advancing their imperialist interests and are still continuing their mission of mass murder and destruction. All of them always try to focus our attention on who the perpetrators are and wherefrom they have come and are getting material support. Simultaneously they are trying to derail us in the process of coming to consciousness about why these barbaric acts of terrorism and war against terror are proliferating in these days. Their sole concern is to accumulate as much political ideological capital as possible from such barbarous acts with the only aim of strengthening political ideological offensives against imperialist rivals. The behavior of the highest political leadership of both India and Pakistan has shown clearly how brittle is the ‘sanjhauta' or peace between the two bourgeois fractions and how much suspicious they are about each other. The Indian government has rejected the proposal of the Pakistani government for joint investigation of the crime. In the first meeting of India Pakistan joint anti terror mechanism in Islamabad the Indian government is reported to have given the Pakistani government the lists of its nationals involved in various terrorist attacks in India including the attack on the Samjhauta Express. On the other hand Pakistan claimed that the nationalist rebels of Balochistan and Sindh are being helped from across the border. In spite of the possibilities of exaggeration by both sides these accusations against each other can not but have profound material basis in this historical phase of world capitalism. The Pakistani authorities have airlifted all its citizens seriously injured in the blasts and undergoing treatment in a renowned Delhi hospital only a few days after the blasts saying ‘ the victims can not be further traumatized' and ‘why should anyone interrogate victims?' Thus the Pakistani government has ensured that no witness is left in the Indian hands and the question of their immediate medical treatment relief and nursing has been pushed to the background. According to senior Indian government officials ‘India has been put in the predicament of now having to explain to Pakistan how its citizens lost their lives in India'. According to a text in the OUTLOOK, a sophisticated weekly of the Indian bourgeoisie, of 5th March07 this blast will allow ‘Pakistan to exploit a huge window of unexpected opportunity'. The former foreign minister of fundamentalist party led government has asserted that India has lost the ‘strategic initiatives'. Thus the calculation of sordid imperialist interest is predominant in both sides, the apparent concern for the dead or injured is nothing but a means for that. This is and can not but be the hard reality everywhere in the world whether in world trade center, London, Madrid, Beslan, Bali, Mumbai, Malegaon, Karachi, Baluchistan or Bagdad.

Why further intensification of barbarism

As days are passing by barbarism is manifesting its hellish essence in more and more horrifying and atrocious forms. In this advanced phase of decadence of world capitalism the tendency of everybody for himself and each against all has become predominant leading to increasing lawlessness, chaos and disorder in international relations. The imperialist conflict among all the states has intensified and is bound to intensify more and more each passing day. The conflict among the factions of capital within every state is also bound to intensify further. All the social conflicts also can not but be more and more aggravated in every country. This provides the fertile breeding ground of terrorists and terrorism. These terrorist groups are then utilized by capitalism in its national factional fights or international imperialist conflicts. These terrorist attacks against each other have the possibility of culminating in the war on terror or threat of the same of the more powerful against the less powerful. This again gives a new thrust to the terrorist attacks. There can be no end to this vicious circle in this historical phase.

Historically and generally secret terrorist attacks have been the means of warfare of weaker opponent bourgeois or petit bourgeois forces against the stronger enemy. It does not of course mean that the stronger forces do not resort to this. On several occasions the Pakistani bourgeoisie has been defeated in open frontal war against its principal imperialist rival, the Indian bourgeoisie. It has suffered the most humiliating defeat in the 1971 war which led to the cessation of Bangladesh. Since then secret low intensity war of attrition through terrorist methods have occupied a very important place in the overall imperialist strategy of the Pak bourgeoisie. The frequency, intensity and the barbarity of these terrorist deeds depends of course on the evolution of the world imperialist situation.

The Pakistani bourgeoisie was forced to be a part of the US led alliance for war against terror in the wake of the attack on the world trade center in 2001. But since then the evolution of the international imperialist situation particularly after the 2003 Iraq war, has led to the gradual weakening of the US imperialism. This has made the international imperialist situation more uncontrollable giving a further boost to the tendency of everybody for himself and each against all. According to the Statesman of 3rd March07 ‘ in getting tough guy Dick Cheney to ....threaten to slash development aid to Pakistan, the Bush (mal)administration has finally woken up to....Musharraf's duplicity on terrorism.' In this context it is worth taking into account Musharraf's remarks, ‘we are not so vulnerable that anybody can exert pressure on us'. This reflects on the one hand the evolving situation of the US being more and more bogged down in Afganistan and Iraq and consequently further weakened and on the other of the growing tendency of lesser imperialist powers to act on its own caring less for what the US reaction will be. This particular international imperialist situation may have given a new boost to the cross border terrorist activities supported, aided or abetted both by the Pakistani and Indian bourgeoisie. This latest heinous terrorist crime has given the Pakistani bourgeoisie highly valuable and powerful political ideological weapon for launching a vigorous political diplomatic offensive against the Indian bourgeoisie and corner it in the ‘international community'. It can prove that it and its citizens are victims of terrorist attacks taking place in the Indian soil and the Indian authorities have failed miserably to prevent the attacks. It may also help it to some extent to brighten its own tarnished image as a haven for various sorts of terrorist groups. Thus it is quite likely that the Pakistani state might have allowed this attack to take place if not directly provoked it, in the same way as the US bourgeoisie behaved in the attack on the world trade center. According to the Pakistani foreign office spokesperson no Pakistani national can be involved in this attack as the attack is against the Pakistani citizens. The implication of this is very significant. Thus it is quite clear that the capitalist states be it USA, Pakistan, India or any other, care a straw for the life of their own citizens when they act for safeguarding their respective imperialist interest. The evolution of the international situation is most likely to give a further boost both to terrorist attacks on masses of working class and toiling people and the above tendency of aiding, abetting or allowing terrorist attacks. So our existence will be more and more at stake with the passage of time if the capitalist system continues still further in the phase of decadence.

Loud shouting about peace

This time the dominant factions of both the Pakistani and Indian bourgeoisie is shouting loudly about peace. According to The Statesman of 22.02.07 the Indian president said , ‘we should not allow this tragic event to affect our common quest for normalization of relations between India and Pakistan.' This sentiment has been reciprocated by the top political leadership of Pakistan also. But the history of these two imperialist twins conveys the totally opposite message since their very birth. They have come into being out of the womb of imperialist conflict and fought several imperialist wars against each other since their birth. There can not be any real peace and ‘normalization of relations' between any two capitalist countries and factions particularly in this historical phase. Today war has become permanent and the condition of existence of capitalism. The peace process can only be the particular phase of the permanent imperialist conflict when it is not manifested through open frontal war but limited to political, ideological and diplomatic offensive against each other, low intensity war of attrition through terrorist acts and all out preparation for the next bigger confrontation. For sometime the Pakistani bourgeoisie has been compelled to pursue the strategy of avoiding open frontal confrontation and establishing its peace loving credentials. The Indian bourgeoisie has also been forced in present situation to mask its aggressive postures with gestures of peace. So this peace process and any peace , if there be any at all in this historical phase, is bound to be very superficial, partial, contingent, conditional, temporary and unstable. Both the Indian and Pakistani ruling factions are pretending that their beloved peace process is being thwarted by the terrorists and using the opportunity for putting the blame on each other's shoulders. Thus this show of concern for peace and loud shouts about it , are meant only for derailing the proletariat in the process of coming to consciousness.

Working class is the principal victim

 

In all the terrorist attacks and war against terror working class people have been the overwhelmingly principal victims. They have been killed in hundreds and thousands in the WTC, London tubes, Madrid trains, Mumbai, Malegaon trains, ‘peace express', Kashmere, Iraq, Afganistan, Serbia, Bosnia, Israel, Palestine etc. Simultaneously with these fatal attacks on the lives of the working class people, attacks on the living and working conditions are being and will be more and more intensified.

Mystifications - the most dangerous enemy

Bourgeoisie is never tired of hiding the reality and mystifying the working class as it knows very well that a conscious, organized and globally united working class only can successfully execute the death sentence of the decadent capitalist system. So they are trying their best to rally the working class behind their program of terrorism, war against terror and ‘peace initiatives'. Working class will have to disdainfully reject all these bourgeois maneuvers, struggle to clarify its class positions and class terrain and firmly stick to that.

Working class struggle is the only way out

Working class is the only class capable of putting an end to the capitalist system and thus save humanity from total extinction. Working class will have to intensify class struggle against the intensifying attacks of capital on the living and working conditions wherever they are. These struggles will have to be self controlled, extended across sectors, unified not only in the territorial level but also in the global level, politicized more and more and directed towards decisive confrontation with the capitalist states and their total destruction.

Geographical: 

  • India [2]
  • Pakistan [4]

Recent and ongoing: 

  • Terrorism [5]

Source URL:https://en.internationalism.org/ci/2007

Links
[1] https://bn.internationalism.org/content/singur-nndiigraam-baampnthii-brbrtaar-saamprtiktm-udaahrnn [2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/61/india [3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/maoism [4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/144/pakistan [5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/terrorism