This amounts to equating the aggression of US imperialism and the Zionist regime against Iran with the repression carried out within Iran by the theocratic, fascist regime ruling the country.

It cannot be whitewashed with the few words of condemnation against that aggression. This statement is bad.

The US-Zionist attack on Iran is an act of imperialist aggression against an oppressed country. It is unjust. The resistance of Iran is just. The theological fascist comprador character of the Iranian regime does not alter this essential nature of the war.

The peoples of the world must not just condemn US aggression. They must support Iran’s resistance war.

However, the just nature of this war does not mean that people in that country or worldwide must unconditionally support the Iranian ruling classes. Being dependent on the imperialist system there is a limit to their resistance.

Even now, they sustain with the backing of Chinese social imperialism and Russian imperialism. That is where their comprador character invariably takes them, to one or the other imperialist power. Their oppressive, exploitative nature prevents them from relying on the people.

We must see both these aspects. The Guardian letter fails to draw a firm line of distinction between the imperialist aggressor and an oppressed country. Repeating its failure to do class analysis, Vijay Prashad and the Monthly Review editors, equate the Iranian regime's resistance to US imperialism with anti-imperialism in general.

They state that “…Iran’s anti-imperialism has not been ‘hollow’ at all.” Its resistance is not 'hollow' but its 'anti-imperialism' certainly is. It fights, and is able to continue fighting, with the aid and support of two other imperialist powers.

Vijay Prashad and the Monthly Review editors can't, won't, see this. Blinded by their neo-revisionism they even brazenly place the Iranian regime's resistance on the same level as the historic People's War of Vietnam.

Their argument that, "...neutrality or a third space does not exist in the midst of a war of aggression.", falsely equates one with the other. A third space surely exists. It has been demonstrated in China by the CPC led by Mao Zedong during the Japanese aggression and in Bangladesh by Maoist revolutionaries during the Indian invasion.

The repression within Iran and the resistance put up against it from various political forces in that country must be situated within this frame. The repression and exploitation faced by the people in Iran, or by its political prisoners, is not some 'intersectional' matter. They are not being caught between two blades.

They are caught up in the global web of imperialist exploitation, plunder and oppression. Their immediate oppressors too, the Iranian rulers, are agents of this imperialist system, which is much more than US imperialism alone.

In a situation where their country is being attacked by US imperialism the communist revolutionaries in Iran have a two fold task. They should maintain their independence and initiative and unite with patriotic forces in mobilising the masses to resist imperialist aggression.

Along with that they should continue resisting attacks from the regime while demanding that it stops execution of prisoners and accede the democratic rights of the masses, to allow and ensure their broadest, active, participation in the national resistance war.

October 7 marks the first anniversary of the historic Al-Aqsa flood when the Palestinian armed resistance broke through Zionist defences and inflicted heavy damage on its military camps bordering Gaza as well as on the settler colonies that were situated there. Most importantly, this assault smashed the Zionist state’s arrogance, claim of invincibility and of superior security.

A retributive attack by the Zionist state was certainly expected. It decided to use that to totally wipe out Palestinian presence in Gaza by killing them in the thousands or expelling them. So, what followed was the most horrific, murderous attack on civilians, hospitals, media persons, even denying food and medicine to the Palestinians. Going by retrieved bodies, the total death toll reported by the Gaza health authorities comes to nearly 42,000, out of which nearly 20,000 are children.

But, according to a study carried out by Lancet, which is a renowned international medical journal, the total death toll would actually come to nearly 200,000. This was a report published in July 2024. They had arrived at this figure by calculating the number of people who could possibly have been buried alive in the debris left after bombing attacks, as well as deaths caused by the lack of medicines, food and unhealthy conditions due to the Zionist attack. Apart from this, nearly 100,000 have been severely wounded.

The declared aim of the Zionists was to destroy the Palestinian armed resistance, more particularly the main organisation Hamas and rescue the hostages taken by the Palestinian armed resistance when they launched their assault on October 7. What is the net outcome after one year of this horrific war? Just the day before October 7th, 30 rockets were launched from the northern end of Gaza into Zionist occupied Palestine, known as Israel. Remember, this northern region of Gaza is an area that has been repeatedly attacked by the Zionists from the air and ground from the very beginning. Again and again, they have forced the people residing in those areas to move out. Now, once again, they have launched a ground attack. And it is in the midst of this that you had those 30 rockets launched from this very area. This is the actual ground situation.

In the opinion of an ex-commander of the Zionist Army’s Gaza division, the ‘Israelis’ have lost the war. He points out that the Palestinian armed resistance is back again within 15 minutes of the ‘Israeli’ Army leaving any area that they seized and controlled. In other words, the control of the Zionists exists only so long as their army is present there. As soon as it withdraws, the Palestinian resistance is back in control. 15 minutes. not one day or even half a day. That shows that they were very much there. They are there among the people. All this displacement, this forced evacuations, all those things have simply failed to eliminate this armed resistance.

We know that a few months earlier, when there was a lot of discussion about a possible ceasefire, the spokesperson of the Zionist Army himself had clearly stated that the Hamas cannot be defeated. That this could not be a strategic aim of the war. Because it is an idea and you cannot defeat ideas. So what exactly was he meaning by that? He was pointing to this very fact that I just mentioned. That the Hamas is there, and the other armed resistance groups are there, among the people. They are embedded among the people.

They are part of the people. They are not an external force that has been positioned there. Therefore, so long as that idea of national liberation is alive and pulsing, no amount of military force can eradicate it. That is exactly what we are seeing here. It is a confirmation of what Mao had pointed out long ago. It is the people who make history. He had also pointed out, I will read that quote, “A weak nation can defeat a strong, a small nation can defeat a big. The people of a small country can certainly defeat aggression by a big country, if only they dare to rise in struggle, dare to take up arms and grasp in their own hands the destiny of their country. This is a law of history.” The Palestinian people have dared to do that and they are pushing ahead.

Of course, it is true that they are far from defeating the Zionists militarily. But they have delivered a very heavy political defeat. A political defeat of such an extent, I mean so powerful, that today the Zionist state stands isolated at the world level despite the backing of US imperialism and its allies. Despite this backing that it is getting, the support it is getting from the powerful media controlled by these imperialist countries, which are openly lying, covering up the harsh facts, refusing to even acknowledge the murder of nearly 20,000 children in Gaza by Zionist bombing. Despite all this sort of support, apart from the weapons, the money they get, they stand isolated. West Asia is never going to be the same again. Not just West Asia, the whole world. Because the oppressed peoples of the world have witnessed the heroic assault and the continuous armed resistance being put up by the Palestinian national liberation forces. They are seeing what is possible. Or rather, we should say that the world peoples have been reminded once again of what is possible if they dare to take their destiny in their own hands.

This political defeat is acknowledged by the Zionists themselves. Once again, I will read out a quote which came in a Zionist newspaper. It is from a political commentator, a Zionist political commentator. What he said was this, “October 7th has shattered the Israelis belief that the state will protect them.

Israelis belief that the Israeli state will protect them. That belief has been shattered by October 7th.” He continues, “It has eroded the diaspora Jewry’s assumption of unconditioned acceptance.”

What he means by ‘diaspora Jewry’ are the Jews who are there in America and Europe. Over a long period they have been integrated into those societies but all of a sudden that integration is now getting unravelled. Israel is now clearly identified as a Zionist state by the broad masses of these countries. Not only that, even Jewish rabbi, their priests, have been forced to come out and declare that Judaism is not the same as Zionism. That they are two different things. That is what this political commentator was pointing out.

So that is the real nature of the political defeat suffered by the Zionist state as a result of the Al-Aqsa flood, as well as the resistance that has been put up by the Palestinian national liberation forces over the past one year. And this defeat is not just of the Zionists. It is equally true of the US imperialists and their allies. Their claims of being democracies, their claims about respecting and ensuring the rule of law in international relations, all of this has been blown to pieces. The people of those countries are clearly seeing their duplicity.

Of course, it’s been known in most of the world earlier itself. People of the Third world have known it for long. They have experienced it directly, most of them. So there has been no confusion about the real nature of these imperialist powers. But now we see that even within the imperialist powers, among the broad masses, not just the basic masses, but even among the petty bourgeoisie, the middle classes, a clear awareness, a clear understanding of the duplicity of their governments has emerged. They see how their rulers speak one thing at one time, like for example, on the Ukraine war, and something totally different at another time, as in the case of the Palestinian war.

A good example of this was the recent incident where the Zionist air force bombed out a whole area in order to assassinate the leadership of Hezbollah. Four blocks, it is said, four blocks of Beirut city were destroyed in that bombing. Now, it’s a heavily populated city. One can well imagine the number of casualties, civilian casualties, that would have taken place as a result of this bombing. A few days later, we saw the Iranians retaliate with a ballistic missile attack, including on cities like Tel Aviv. They were targeting the Mossad headquarters. Apparently, it did not strike the headquarters as such. The hit was just adjacent to it. This was reported by the Western imperialist press as an attack on ‘a heavily populated area’. So you have ‘a heavily populated area’ in Tel Aviv, but when it comes to Beirut, it is only Hezbollah!

This sort of duplicity, this blatant lying and all these things are exposing the real nature of the media itself. And we see how critical voices are coming up in Instagram, Facebook and various other social media. This is now becoming so serious, so threatening to the ruling classes of these countries, that some of them, some of their representatives, have started demanding, quite openly, that more severe censorship should be imposed to prevent an opposite narrative from coming up. They are openly saying that they are losing control of the narrative. So that is the political defeat that has been suffered by these imperialist powers.

Apart from that, we have seen that a number of European countries, who were hesitating earlier, have now come out supporting the formation of a Palestinian state, recognizing the Palestinian state and establishing diplomatic relations with it. What is known as the Palestinian state is something that actually has nothing more than the status of a municipality. Yet these diplomatic this type of a Palestinian state. But even then that would be a major development. It would diminish the Zionist role in West Asia. That in turn would lead to more contention among the imperialist powers and more opportunities for the peoples of that region to regroup, for the genuine revolutionary forces to come up and to regain the revolutionary heritage of the peoples of that area. The Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Syrians, Jordanians, all of them had a revolutionary history. And in fact, it’s a very interesting thing to note, the huge infusion of migrant labour to the Gulf countries, especially from Kerala, was actually an outcome, a by product of a very conscious plan of imperialist forces to push out the left-inclined, socialist-inclined, Palestinian-Egyptian workers from the Gulf countries. Because at that time all these countries of West Asia were heavily influenced by leftist, communist ideas, socialist ideas. So the partial resolution, which is the most likely one in my opinion, would create room for a retrieval of that revolutionary heritage. If the conscious effort is there for the formation of proletarian vanguards, then they would actually be able to lead the masses in realising real liberation, total liberation, not just from national oppression but also from social and economic oppression, class exploitation.

(Transcript of a talk delivered on October 7, 2024, at an online meeting organised by ‘Nazariya’ editorial team to mark the first anniversary of the Al-Aqsa flood. It has been edited for clarity and style.)

https://ajithspage.in/wp/

Fascism comes from the attempt of imperialists and the Indian ruling classes to overcome critical challenges they face in the political and economical spheres. The explicit Brahmanism emerges from the particular legitimacy crisis of the Indian state. Its aggressive stance comes from the fascistic nature of the RSS. All are no doubt interconnected. That is why it is correct and necessary to speak of Brahmanic Hindutva fascism.

Recently the Comintern’s views on fascism and tactics to resist it have come under criticism from proponents of the ‘three way fight’. The State/ruling class, extreme rightist movements of which fascism is a part and people’s movements — these are the ‘three’ indicated by this view.

What did Georgi Dimitrov, the Comintern leader, say? “ The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie — bourgeois democracy — by another form — open terrorist dictatorship.”¹

The Executive Committee of the Communist International noted that fascism in power (is) “…the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”²

Dimitrov and the EC were speaking about fascism in power and its relation to a faction of the big bourgeoisie in imperialist countries, not about fascist movements. Hence the ‘Three way fight’ thesis’ criticism of those positions arguing that fascist movements are not ‘commanded’ by big bourgeoisie is besides the point.³

Moreover, though fascist movements are often opposed to the existing political setup and ruling class parties in their initial period, sooner or later they get the support of a section of finance capital and state machinery. They thrive and grow with such support. Mussolini was aided by British imperialism. Arguments about ‘relative autonomy’ of such movements tend to ignore or underplay this.

According to ‘Three way fight’ thesis: “…far-right movements, of which fascism is one tendency, are not merely shock-troopers of the most reactionary capitalists…they may collaborate with police or find common cause with some factions of capital. But they are system-oppositional forms of organising.” They challenge the status quo.⁴

In their period of formation and growth, fascist movements may challenge ruling class parties or clash with the state machinery. But that doesn’t make them system-oppositional. They never challenge State power, nor oppose the capitalist system or bourgeois rule. The three way fight thesis ignores, and thus covers up, the qualitative differences of the contradictions between the three poles, i.e., the ruling class/State, fascist movements and peoples’ movements. The contradiction between the former two can become antagonistic at times, but, essentially, it is non-antagonistic. Which is also why using the term system-oppositional to describe fascist movements is wrong. The contradiction between peoples’ movements and the other two is basically antagonistic, though it may become non-antagonistic with some sections among them, in some specific situations.

Pointing to the mixed class composition of fascist movements, the ‘three way fight’ thesis argues that fascism does not have an unequivocal class character. This fails to distinguish between class composition and class character. “The question of the class character of fascism must not be confused with the question of the class composition of the fascist mass movement. …the class composition of this movement is very mixed. The decisive thing is: what class policy does it pursue? Which class does it serve?” (From Kussinen’s Report to 13th Plenum of Comintern EC)⁵

The ‘Three way fight’ thesis argues that Dimitrov, drew a clear line between ordinary bourgeois governance and fascist State power. Hence the popular front line permitted communist parties to ally with non-revolutionary organisations as an emergency measure to prevent the rise of fascist states. The implication is that this promoted revisionism.

This poses two questions:

1) Is there any clear distinction between ordinary bourgeois governance and fascist governance?

Yes, there is. In the normal functioning of bourgeois democracy the violence of the State is veiled. When summoned into action it is presented as an exceptional step called for by exceptional conditions; by a situation where the so-called ‘rule of law’ has been upset. Fascism subverts this notion. The exceptional is now made out as the common place. This then become the justification for continuous, open, state violence and the suppression of democratic rights. Not just state violence, the violence of fascist mobs against the ‘others’ too is legitimised as the new normal of social existence. A ‘rigid concept of life’ is made explicit as unbending norms of social behaviour and political life. All diversities get branded as defilement of an assumed ‘national ideal’. All dissent is stamped as treachery.

2) Does the move to a fascist rule lead to any new political situation? Will it provide new opportunities for the proletarian party?

Yes, it does. Parliamentary illusions of a large section of the masses get dispelled. Even ruling class parties and some sections of the State machinery become willing to cooperate, even if indirectly, with the Communist Party. The possibility of formal or informal front activity emerges at a broader level. As Kusinnen pointed out, “…revolutionary development is simultaneously hindered and accelerated by the fascist fury of the bourgeoisie.”⁶

The masses in imperialist countries definitely do suffer from suppressive State measures even under conditions of bourgeois democracy. But the suspension of electoral democracy and constitutionally assured rights, accompanied by the blatant suppression of democratic rights will stand out as a distinct event. Refusing to acknowledge this means loosing a tactical opportunity. It would be a ‘left’ opportunist error.

Comintern’s discussion and thesis on fascism and united front were focused on imperialist countries, where the opportunity for a revolutionary seizure of political power is not always present. The question of whether the anti-fascist struggle would lead to a revolution or not depended on many objective factors. In those days, electoral struggle was a widely applied tactics in imperialist countries. Hence the guidance to parties in that type of countries to take up Popular Front tactics in the electoral front in order to prevent fascist parties from coming to power.

But did the Comintern insist on forming such fronts as the necessary way to seize power? NO.

(It is ) “wrong to imagine that the united front government is an indispensable stage on the road to the establishment of proletarian dictatorship. Just as wrong as the view that fascist dictatorship is certain to be immediately superseded by proletarian dictatorship. Will the proletariat itself be prepared at the decisive moment for the direct overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of its own power? Or will the movement of the proletariat and the anti-fascist Popular Front at that particular stage be in a position only to suppress or overthrow fascism, without directly proceeding to abolish the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie?”⁷

The modern ruling classes of the oppressed countries quite often internalise elements of fascist ideology. It is blended with the autocratic, ‘rule by edict’ system of rule, commonly seen in the past under feudal regimes all over the world. This stems from persisting semi-feudal socio-economic and cultural relations seen in the Third world. As a result, even when forms of bourgeois rule like the parliamentary system exist, they are inherently flawed.

The seamless makeover from modern forms of bourgeoisie governance to feudal autocratic ones is a permanent feature in this type of countries. However, it manifests differently. In the urban centres, and particularly for the middle classes and upper classes, ‘the rule of law’ is the norm, mostly. But in the rural areas, and especially for those at the bottom most levels of society, law is given by the local oppressors. They are ably assisted by modern instruments of ‘lawful government’, like the police and local bodies like the panchayats. More often than not, their raw violence with all of its reactionary inhumaneness, is a permanent presence. It usually becomes the determining factor.

But in these type of countries too fascist moves towards suppression of democratic rights inevitably summons up broad mass resistance. This is a reflection of the growth of democratic awareness among the masses. It is an outcome of their own struggles as well as the awareness they have gained through the wider global flow of information. Therefore, though qualitatively different from those in imperialist countries, the possibility of forming broad fronts against fascicisation comes up in these type of countries too. This must be actively taken up in diverse fields, focusing on defending and expanding democratic rights of the people. These rights were won on the streets and they will have to be primarily defended on the streets. An outright fascist rule will put severe limits on these activities. But it will also open up new channels.

Let us now come to the specificities of the fascist threat we face in India. To do that we must first dispel with wrong notions about it. One such notion is that of ‘neofascism’ put forward by the CPI(M-L)Red Star. They claim that this is “ fascism under neoliberalism where old terms and practices connected with fascism have become irrelevant.” Yet there is no explanation about the new features of fascism or new tactics to be adopted. It says, “…neofascism propped up by the most reactionary, far-right sections of corporate capital, unlike the case of ‘classical fascism’ which was confined to Europe during the colonial period, has become transnational (cutting across both imperialist and neocolonially dependent Asian-African-Latin American countries) in tune with globalisation or internationalisation of capital and worldwide super-exploitation of the working class…”⁸

Is fascism in oppressed countries something seen only under neocolonial conditions? During the rise of fascism in the inter-war period in the imperialist countries almost all the Third world countries were colonies. There was no question of any faction of the local big bourgeoisie adopting a form of rule other than the one imposed by the colonial power. In semi-colonies this was possible. And fascism as a form of rule did emerge in some of them.The Blue Shirts Society, a fascist paramilitary organisation within the Koumintang, was part of the State. It modeled itself after Mussolini’s blackshirts. The New State established in Brazil by Getúlio Vargas (1937–1945) was another example. Moreover, the linkage made between globalisation and fascism in Third World countries by the Red Star is simplistic. How does this account for the fascist dictatorships that came up in the pre-globalisation period?

The fascism presently being promoted in India by the Sangh Parivar through the Modi government is an outgrowth of the reactionary foundations on which the Indian parliamentary system rests. By reactionary foundations I mean persisting semi-feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism unique to all oppressed countries. But that is not all. It also represents a further step in the ruling classes’ project to tackle and overcome the long-standing legitimacy crisis they have been facing for decades. Under the Sangh Parivar dispensation it has acquired a distinct aggressive hue and doubly venomous content. This makes it appropriate to name it Brahmanic Hindutva fascism.

Are we on the way to a Hindu Rashtra, as projected by the RSS? The answer to that lies in what we understand by this Hindu Rashtra. If it is considered to become real only when a formal, constitutional, declaration is made, then that is yet to come. But otherwise, it is already here. A de facto Hindu Rashtra is already here. It is the present, not the future.

Dictatorship in politics, service of imperialist and local corporate companies in economy, Hindutva hegemony in society, caste and patriarchal hegemony in culture — this is the nature of Modi’s RSS-BJP Central government. Sanatana Dharma (Manuvad) is its weapon. Establishment of Hindu Rashtra is its objective.

Fascism comes from the attempt of imperialists and the Indian ruling classes to overcome critical challenges they face in the political and economical spheres. The explicit Brahmanism emerges from the particular legitimacy crisis of the Indian state. Its aggressive stance comes from the fascistic nature of the RSS. All are no doubt interconnected. That is why it is correct and necessary to speak of Brahmanic Hindutva fascism. But at the same time we must also note that they emerge from distinctly different sources. This implies that the resistance must be multi-pronged.

Challenging the unitary identity that Brahmanic Hindutva fascism insists on with the actually existing manifold identities, undermining its singular narrative by bringing out and embellishing the democratic content of the many narratives of beliefs and mythologies thriving among the peoples, demolishing its pretensions of patriotism with the truth of its sell-out of the country and the predatory nature of foreign capital and, above all, presenting and promoting the vision of a society where liberty, democracy and equality can truly flourish and create the grounds for future leaps, this hideous threat can be confronted and defeated.

Notes

[1]https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm#s5

[2] https://washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1934-13th-plenum001.pdf

[3] https://materialjournal.net/notes-for-a-critique-of-dimitrov-the-orthodox-line-on-fascism-and-thepopular-front-strategy/

[4] Ibid.

[5] https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/171/)

[6] https://washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1934-13th-plenum001.pdf

[7]https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/unity.htm#s5

[8] https://redstaronline.in/2023/12/24/rising-tide-of-far-right-neofascsim-at-a-global-level-including-india-and-task-before-people-p-j-james/

(Notes for an online talk organised by bsCEM, Delhi. An earlier version can be seen at https://materialjournal.net/response1/. A video presentation of this text with voice over in Malayalam is available at https://youtu.be/fyEDcFvBCr0 and https://www.instagram.com/p/C9FU9SQuGLs/)

What about the socialised production of capitalism? Can it simply be taken over? Can the ‘up-to-date achievements of capitalism’ be taken over as part of it? This socialisation was engendered by the capitalist drive for profit. So isn’t it the case that it is stamped by this interest in each and every aspect?

Over the past several decades, substantial theoretical work has been done disproving accusations of Marx and Engels ignoring ecological issues. The writings of John Bellamy Foster and, recently, Kohei Sato, were outstanding contributions. Their excavations of the views of the founders of Marxism on environmental questions have been timely reminders of their thinking. Yet, this hasn’t settled the issue. Critics argue that these views were of insignificant value within the overall thrust of the Marxist framework. This, it is argued, is because that framework was firmly anchored in a ‘modernist’ mindset. It was something commonly shared with capitalism. This has also been described as a ‘Man of Reason’ discourse. It supposedly maintains ‘a fundamental optimism that mankind could direct and control its environment and destiny for the better, traduced in the idea of progressivism and rooted in the superiority of science’. Before we get into the specifics of such criticisms the record needs to be set straight. Humankind trying to ‘direct and control its environment’ has been a feature of its existence all along. More, it has been a crucial element in its historical progress from pre-historic times till now. It is by no means unique to capitalism or socialism. As for notions about supremacy over nature, the following words from Engels’ should be sufficient to clarify the Marxist position:

“Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human conquest over nature. For each such conquest takes its revenge on us. Each of them, it is true, has in the first place the consequences on which we counted, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel out the first…Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature — but that we, with flesh, blood, and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other beings of being able to know and correctly apply its laws.”1

The founders of Marxism have never entertained an uncritical appreciation of capitalist modernity. They did, quite correctly, highlight its world-historic transformative role. They were equally firm in exposing its ugly, deleterious impact on Nature and human society. They were being dialectical in their appreciation of the modern, without being ‘modernist’. Therefore, tracing back errors seen in later day Marxism and socialist practice on the environmental question to its founding views on capitalist modernity is baseless. Moreover, it contains the danger of promoting an a-historical view of the environment and issues concerning it.

But what about later day views and practice? Were they equally critical in their appreciation of capitalist modernity? The positive approach of the Bolsheviks to Taylorism has been cited by many to argue that they were not so. Lenin, in particular, has been accused of supporting the application of Taylor’s methods to boost productivity in the fledgling Soviet industrial sector. It is argued that this sort of uncritical adoption of capitalist techniques and organisation of production, inevitably led to ignoring their negative environmental implications, both in industry and agriculture.

Fred W. Taylor was one of the pioneers of what was described as the ‘scientific management of the labour process’. Using time-motion studies he measured the time used to perform different tasks and the exact movements involved in this. The aim was to determine the optimal positioning of tools and raw material, as well as sequence of movements. This was meant to reduce labour time and increase productivity. Taylor’s methods obviously became a hot topic among capitalist management circles. It was severely criticised by leaders of the Social Democratic parties grouped in the 2nd International. In 1913 Lenin wrote,

“The most widely discussed topic today in Europe, and to some extent in Russia, is the “system” of the American engineer, Frederick Taylor…Taylor himself has described his system under the title of “scientific”, and his book is being eagerly translated and promoted in Europe. What is this “scientific system”? Its purpose is to squeeze out of the worker three times more labour during a working day of the same length as before. The sturdiest and most skilful worker is put to work; a special clock registers — in seconds and fractions of a second — the amount of time spent on each operation and each motion; the most economical and most efficient working methods are developed; the work of the best worker is recorded on cinematographic film, etc. The result is that, within the same nine or ten working hours as before, they squeeze out of the worker three times more labour, mercilessly drain him of all his strength, and are three times faster in sucking out every drop of the wage slave’s nervous and physical energy. And if he dies young? Well, there are many others waiting at the gate! In capitalist society, progress in science and technology means progress in the art of sweating. The capitalist cuts his expenditure by half or more. His profits grow. The bourgeoisie is delighted and cannot praise the Taylors enough! The workers get a wage increase at first. But hundreds of workers get the sack. Those who are left have to work four times more intensively, doing a back-breaking job. When he has been drained of all his strength, the worker will be kicked out. Only young and sturdy workers are taken on. It is sweating in strict accordance with all the precepts of science.”2

Lenin was also a keen observer of the gain in productivity ensured by Taylor’s methods. In another comment he wrote,

“Capitalism cannot be at a standstill for a single moment. It must forever be moving forward. Competition, which is keenest in a period of crisis like the present, calls for the invention of an increasing number of new devices to reduce the cost of production. But the domination of capital converts all these devices into instruments for the further exploitation of the workers. The Taylor system is one of these devices.”

Furthermore, situating it in the overall dynamics of capitalism, he pointed out its limitations.

“…this rational and efficient distribution of labour is confined to each factory…The question naturally arises: What about the distribution of labour in society as a whole? What a vast amount of labour is wasted at present owing to the disorganised and chaotic character of capitalist production as a whole!”

He concluded by arguing that the

“Taylor system — without its initiators knowing or wishing it — is preparing the time when the proletariat will take over all social production and appoint its own workers’ committees for the purpose of properly distributing and rationalising all social labour. Large-scale production, machinery, railways, telephone — all provide thousands of opportunities to cut by three-fourths the working time of the organised workers and make them four times better off than they are today…And these workers’ committees, assisted by the workers’ unions, will be able to apply these principles of rational distribution of social labour when the latter is freed from its enslavement by capital.”3

This was written in 1914. That in itself would be sufficient to clarify that Lenin’s support for implementing Taylor’s methods in the Soviet Union wasn’t a post-revolution backtracking. This is apart from his all-round view of the matter seen in that comment, where he noted its possible use in a future socialist society. Lenin’s views after the seizure of power in 1917 is seen in his writing, ‘The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government’. He wrote,

“The Taylor system, the last word of capitalism in this respect, like all capitalist progress, is a combination of the refined brutality of bourgeois exploitation and a number of the greatest scientific achievements in the field of analysing mechanical motions during work, the elimination of superfluous and awkward motions, the elaboration of correct methods of work, the introduction of the best system of accounting and control, etc. The Soviet Republic must at all costs adopt all that is valuable in the achievements of science and technology in this field. The possibility of building socialism depends exactly upon our success in combining the Soviet power and the Soviet organisation of administration with the up-to-date achievements of capitalism. We must organise in Russia the study and teaching of the Taylor system and systematically try it out and adapt it to our own ends.

“The Socialist Soviet Republic is faced with a task which can be briefly formulated thus: we must introduce the Taylor system and scientific American efficiency of labour throughout Russia by combining this system with a reduction in working time, with the application of new methods of production and work organisation undetrimental to the labour power of the working population. On the contrary, the Taylor system, properly controlled and intelligently applied by the working people themselves, will serve as a reliable means of further greatly reducing the obligatory working day for the entire working population, will serve as an effective means of dealing, in a fairly short space of time, with a task that could roughly be expressed as follows: six hours of physical work daily for every adult citizen and four hours of work in running the state.”4

In capitalism the Taylor method was being used to extract the maximum amount of surplus labour in order to increase profits. Lenin advocated its application in socialism in order to reduce the length of the workday. This would enable the workers to get involved in the running of the state. Though unstated, it would also enable them to engage in various types of social and cultural activities, allowing a fuller life. This was the crucial, qualitative, difference seen by Lenin.

It has been argued that Lenin’s subscription to Taylor’s methods was a temporary affair. It is seen as a response to the disastrous conditions existing in Soviet industry caused by the bitter civil war. There were several facets to this. The proletarian class as a whole was considerably weakened. It was reduced in numbers itself, due to the military demands of the civil war. In Moscow and Petrograd around 70 percent of metal workers who were considered the most conscious proletarians had been mobilised into the Red Army. This was largely compensated for by entrants from the peasantry. About 20 percent of all industrial workers between 1922 and 1925 were newcomers, most of them from the countryside. A good amount of indiscipline, shirking work, loafing and similar non-proletarian tendencies were seen in the workforce. They were partly caused by changes in class composition and partly by anarchist political influences.5 All of this led to serious hurdles in management. Thus we see Lenin arguing for absolute centralisation of factory management in the same essay:

“…large-scale machine industry — which is precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation of socialism — calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of people. The technical, economic and historical necessity of this is obvious, and all those who have thought about socialism have always regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism. But how can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one.

“Given ideal class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those participating in the common work, this subordination would be something like the mild leadership of a conductor of an orchestra. It may assume the sharp forms of a dictatorship if ideal discipline and class-consciousness are lacking. But be that as it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of processes organised on the pattern of large-scale machine industry.”6

This was not seen in separation or opposition to workers’ participation in deciding their conditions of work. Far from denying it, Lenin was explicit about the role of such participation in changing from ‘the discipline forced upon them by the exploiters to conscious, voluntary discipline.’ He argued,

“We must learn to combine the “public meeting” democracy of the working people — turbulent, surging, overflowing its banks like a spring flood — with iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning obedience to the will of a single person, the Soviet leader, while at work.”7

Thus, Lenin’s views were not just responses to the immediate situation, though that too was a factor. Some of the steps he proposed, like giving higher salaries to rehired bourgeois specialists, were indeed specifically addressing pressing demands of the time. Lenin clearly notes them as a necessary retreat imposed by the circumstances. But his advocacy for Taylor’s methods were long term. It was seen purely as a productivity enhancing tool. In his view:

“The possibility of building socialism depends exactly upon our success in combining Soviet power and the Soviet organization of administration with the up-to-date achievements of capitalism.”8

Taylor’s methods were seen as one of those ‘up-to-date achievements’. Hence he supported the formation of an institute devoted to the study of these methods and their application in Soviet industry. The Central Institute of Labour (TsIT) was set up to initiate research regarding the practical application in industry of progressive forms and methods of the organisation of labour and production. It was tasked with the training of cadres, and the reconstruction of machines and tools. It was headed by Aleksei Gastev. The first All-Russian Conference concerning the Problems of the Scientific Organisation of Labor (NOT) was convened in January 1921. The TsIT organised eight laboratories which involved themselves in the investigation of biological-physiological processes inherent in different industrial jobs.

Gastev was quite close to the Prolecult movement led by Lunacharsky, but not actually part of it. There was another group, advocating Taylor’s methods, known as the ‘Time League’ headed by Platon Kerzhentsev. The difference lay in emphasis. While the former was focussed on devising tools and methods to implement Taylor’s views in factories, the latter laid stress on educating the workers and enabling them to enhance productivity, albeit with Taylor’s methods. In the given context, pressed with the urgency to get industry running and increase productivity, the former easily gained more support from the leadership. The theoretical contributions of the latter were also acknowledged.

For Lenin, the matter was always part of a larger project, that of enabling the masses of the workers to truly become masters of Soviet society. We have earlier seen how he pictured the use of Taylor’s methods as a means to shorten the work-day and allow workers to engage in state activities. Writing in 1917, just months after the seizure of power and in the midst of a raging civil war, he forcefully expressed absolute confidence in the managerial capacities of the workers and argued for unleashing it to the fullest extent:

“For the first time after a century of labour for others… there is the possibility of working for oneself, and with the work based on all the achievements of the latest technology and culture.

“One of the most important tasks today, if not the most important, is to develop this independent initiative of the workers, and of all the working and exploited people generally, develop it as widely as possible in creative organisational work. At all costs we must break the old, absurd, savage, despicable and disgusting prejudice that only the so-called “upper classes”, only the rich, and those who have gone through the school of the rich, are capable of administering the state and directing the organisational development of socialist society.”9

The words ‘all the achievements of the latest technology and culture’ are notable. They are consistent with the Marxist view of human civilisational progress. It builds the future, transcending what has been surpassed. That is not a one-sided negation. The debate on Taylor’s methods, which emerged in the Soviet Union, was closely tied up to differences of outlook on this very question. Though Gastev was close to the Proletcult, opposition to Taylor was fierce from some of those within that movement itself. Bogdanov was prominent among them.

Bogdanov approved the efficiency aspects of Taylor’s methods. But he argued that the constant repetition of the same task would lead to a dulling of the senses and be counter-productive to the needs of advanced industrialism. Moreover it would create a rift in the working class, with the best workers extolled for heroic efforts and the average ones dismissed as idlers and loafers. Underlying all this was his firm view that the theoretical premises of science would have to be reworked and a proletarian science and culture consciously developed. Taylorist techniques and similar methods taken from capitalism couldn’t be simply taken over and used to build socialism.10 Evidently, this was quite in keeping with the Proletcult’s insistence on creating an ‘independent’ proletarian culture.

It is noteworthy that the NOT movement of the 1920s initiated research to eliminate the distinction between mental and physical labour, to reduce the division of labour. Information about its output and implementation would be quite useful in assessing NOT. It is also significant that NOT activities were put under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate, within a few years of its initiation. This was during the NEP. Lenin was getting increasingly concerned about the growing threat of the Soviet bureaucracy and the Inspectorate was seen as a check.

While the adoption of Taylor’s methods were seen as a means to enhance productivity by Lenin, for Gastev it had an altogether different dimension. He argued that it is absolutely necessary for the worker to machinise his manual labour, become machine-like in his gestures. The workers of the future would become like cogs in a vast machine. “…[t]his principle of the mechanisation or biological automatisation [of man] must go very far, all the way to his so-called mental activity.”11

Lenin’s response to this glaring mechanical view of the matter is not known. But it is highly unlikely that he would have agreed to it. One can surmise as much from his intervention in the debate about the trade unions. Vehemently criticising Trotsky’s argument for ‘militarising’ the trade unions, Lenin emphasised their role in ‘combating bureaucratic distortions of the Soviet apparatus, safeguarding the working people’s material and spiritual interests in ways and means inaccessible to this apparatus.’12 Though not part of that debate, Gastev’s view on ‘machinising’ the worker obviously blends with the ‘militarisation’ thesis. Around this time the struggle over the Proletcult’s vision of ‘creating’ an ‘independent’ proletarian culture, independent in all senses, was also heating up. Lenin criticised these views:

“…only a precise knowledge and transformation of the culture created by the entire development of mankind will enable us to create a proletarian culture. The latter is not clutched out of thin air; it is not an invention of those who call themselves experts in proletarian culture. That is all nonsense. Proletarian culture must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist, landowner and bureaucratic society.”13

By extension, this negated one-sided rejection of the norms and methods of capitalism and implied support for the TsIT’s efforts. It also clarified that what was needed was not just knowledge of methods employed by preceding social systems, but also their transformation. How far was this aspect addressed? One knows of the subotniks, voluntary unpaid labour done by workers on their own initiative, and the importance Lenin attached to these ‘shoots of communism’. Productivity was boosted through raising political consciousness. Though the subotniks were given wide publicity, one does not see the incorporation of its principles in the work of NOT. That was the case of the ‘stakhanovite’ movement too. Boosting productivity through precise determinations of labour processes appears to have remained separate from achieving this through raising political consciousness.

Evidently, while Lenin’s advocacy of Taylor’s methods was nuanced, that was hardly the case with its leading proponents in the Soviet Union. However, one doesn’t see evidence of this difference in stance and appreciation becoming explicit. Though the TsIT was wound up in the late 1930s there is no indication that this turn in policy was related to some new critique of Taylor’s methods. Even then, making a note of Lenin’s approach on this matter is still necessary. It indicated the possibility of Lenin deepening his understanding of the matter and arriving at a different position. This should surely be noted. But it shouldn’t prevent us from probing why that didn’t happen at that time. The pressures of that period are one important reason. But that is not all. Taylorist methods were not simply a matter of boosting productivity. Nor was its negative aspect simply one of aiding capitalist profit seeking. At a more basic level it was deepening the alienation of the workers. It was embedding, ever more firmly, this feature of capitalism in its production process.14 Why wasn’t this aspect being addressed in the debates on applying Taylor’s methods? Was Bogdanov trying to do that? It doesn’t seem so. He too was a proponent of Taylor’s methods, despite arguing that they couldn’t be simply taken over and applied.

This brings us back to the charge of ‘modernism’ we mentioned at the beginning. Does it really give a plausible explanation? No, even the slightest probing will reveal it to be facile. For instance, how does it square with the numerous measures adopted by the fledgling proletarian power, measures that don’t fit the frame of ‘capitalist modernity’? Specifically, in the matter of industrial management, the record speaks of large numbers of workers elevated to managerial responsibilities, of trade unions getting involved in management. These policies directly addressed the task of eliminating the contradiction between manual and mental labour. As mentioned earlier, we also know that handling of this contradiction was one of the issues dealt by NOT. If the acceptance of Taylor’s methods was simply a case of the Bolshevik’s infatuation with capitalist modernity then this shouldn’t have happened. Capitalism perpetuates the contradiction between mental and manual labour. And Taylor did all he could to present his methods as a means to achieve this.

What then underlay his acceptability? In my opinion it was anchored in the dominant Marxist conception about the resolution of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. As propounded by the founders of Marxism, this contradiction is that between socialised production and private appropriation. Its resolution is seen in the establishment of a

“… mode of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production: upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production — on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment.”15

The socialisation of production that took place under capitalism was considered as a historically progressive step. It gave birth to the proletariat and gave rise to a global economy.

“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

“The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.

…

“The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.

…

“But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.

…

“The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”16

What is seen in these words is the positive outcome of the socialisation of production — in the factory, national economy and at the global level. That is beyond doubt. However, its negative aspect is addressed solely from the angle of exploitation. The socialisation seen under capitalism is for satisfying the profit motive of capital. That is to be ended. Hence the resolution — end private appropriation of the surplus. Replace it with ‘a mode of appropriation… that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production’. What is its ‘nature’? It is social. These means of production can only be set in motion as part of a combine. Their very operation demands this. Yet capitalism restricts this through private ownership and private expropriation. This has to be ended through the nationalisation of the means of production in order to allow a social appropriation of the surplus. That would the mode of appropriation suited to the nature of the modern means of production.

This poses a question. Is it just a matter of replacing private appropriation with social appropriation? What about the socialised production of capitalism? Can it simply be taken over? Can the ‘up-to-date achievements of capitalism’ be taken over as part of it? This socialisation was engendered by the capitalist drive for profit. So isn’t it the case that it is stamped by this interest in each and every aspect? Marx has recounted how the development of modern industrial machinery was itself greatly spurred on by the capitalists’ need to control the workers. Can the work rhythm demanded by its operation be then considered purely as a technical matter? Shouldn’t the physical and spiritual needs of the workers be incorporated in the design of machinery and the production process it is to become part of? In short, shouldn’t the socialised production left over by capitalism be subjected to a radical restructuring, both in the factories and in society?

Marx and Engels were writing the texts quoted here at a time when capitalism was a mere speck in an ocean of feudalism and other historically outmoded social systems. With no feasible alternative in sight, they had ample reason to highlight its transformative role. The world needed more of capitalism, then. This was true for the Soviet Union too, in the early years after the revolution. In that situation, Lenin had unhesitatingly declared that state capitalism was much better and needed, compared to the existing situation of the economy. This, of course, as an interim step. The compulsions faced by the fledgling Soviet power lent added weight to inherited views on socialised production. This was the main factor underlying the acceptance of Taylor’s methods.

So far as the environment is concerned, the devastating impact of capitalist socialisation of production is all too apparent. The development of capitalist socialisation of production to its present heights of imperialist globalisation poses the question of restructuring it, even more acutely. Decentralisation and outsourcing of the production process across a number of countries is a notable feature of the present globalised world economy. While this gives super profits to imperialists and comprador corporates, it reduces the workers’ opportunities for struggle and puts heavy strain on the environment. Aggravated ravaging of resources and complex, costly chains of transportation in both production and consumption are prominent.

Obviously, this sort of socialisation of production is neither necessary nor sustainable. It would have to be uprooted, broken up, in a future society that gives due weight to environmental concerns. The rupture from capitalist forms of socialisation of production should be taken further within individual countries. Possibilities of decentralised economic models, stressing on self-reliance, must be taken up at the level of theory and practice. It should be linked with the elimination of major social divisions. Some beginning was made in the direction through Mao’s ‘Critique of Soviet Economics’ (as seen in the quotes given below) and new forms of social organisation in production that came up in erstwhile socialist China. They give direction for the future. They also demonstrated the viability of raising productivity through labour-friendly measures, keeping politics in command.

(Paper presented at the symposium ‘A day with V.I. Lenin’, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. 2024)

Notes:

1 The Part Played By Labour In The Transition From Ape To Man https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm

2 ‘A ‘Scientific’ System of Sweating’ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/13.htm

3 ‘The Taylor System — Man’s Enslavement by the Machine’ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/13.htm

4 ‘The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government’ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/mar/x03.htm

5 “The League Of Time” (Liga Vremia): Problems Of Making A Soviet Working Class In The 1920s’, Ulf Brunnbauer, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24659629.

6 Op cit.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 ‘How to Organise Competition?’ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/25.htm

10 From ‘Soviet Taylorism Revisited’, Zenovia A. Sochor, Soviet Studies, Vol. 33, №2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/151338

11 https://thecharnelhouse.org/2011/12/07/the-ultra-taylorist-soviet-utopianism-of-aleksei-gastev-including-gastevs-landmark-book-how-to-work

12 ‘Once Again On The Trade Unions’, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jan/25.htm

13 ‘The Tasks of the Youth Leagues’, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/02.htm#2.1

14 An exhaustive treatment of this aspect can be seen in ‘ Labor and Monopoly Capital’, Harry Braverman.

15 ‘Anti-Duhring’, F.Engels, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm

16 ‘The Manifesto of the Communist Party’, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

Quotes from Mao Zedong’s ‘Critique of Soviet Economics’:

“The cities of the future need not be so large. Residents of large cities should be dispersed into the rural areas. Building many smaller cities is a relative advantage in case of nuclear war.“

“Each country could concentrate its own manpower and material resources to develop its own most advantageous natural and economic conditions and departments with production experience and cadre. The respective countries would not need to produce goods which other countries could supply.

“This is not a good idea. We do not suggest this even with respect to our own provinces. We advocate all-round development and do not think that each province need not produce goods which other provinces could supply. We want the various provinces to develop a variety of production to the fullest extent, provided there is no adverse effect on the whole. One of the advantages Europe enjoys is the independence of the various countries. Each is devoted to a set of activities, causing the European economy to develop comparatively quickly. Since the time of the Chin, China has taken shape as a major power, preserving its unity on the whole over a long period of time. One of the defects was bureaucratism, under the stifling control of which local regions could not develop independently, and with everyone temporizing, economic development was very slow. Now the situation is completely different. Within the unity we want to work toward, the various provinces will also have independence. This is relative unity and it is relative independence.

“We champion having the provinces devote themselves fully to a set of activities under a unified plan for the whole country. Provided there are raw materials and markets, provided materials can be obtained and sales made locally, whatever can be done should be done to the fullest possible extent. Previously, our concern was that after the provinces had developed, a variety of industry, industrial goods (e.g., from a place like Shanghai) would in all likelihood not be wanted. Now it appears this is not the case. Shanghai has already proposed developing toward higher, larger scale, finer, and more excellent production. They still have things to do!

“I wonder why the text fails to advocate each country’s doing the utmost for itself rather than not producing goods which other countries could supply? The correct method is each doing the utmost for itself as a means toward self-reliance for new growth, working independently to the greatest possible extent, making a principle out of not relying on others, and not doing something only when it really and truly cannot be done. Above all, agriculture must be done well as far as possible. Reliance on other countries or provinces for food is most dangerous.“

This is not the first time the Palestinian people have launched attacks on the Zionist State. However the present offensive has some distinct features. They differentiate it from the earlier ones. All organisations which stand for the liberation of Palestine, all those that wage armed struggle against Zionist occupation, are participants in this war. Joint Operational Centres in which they are present are giving directions to the combatants. This unity started taking form at the time of the 2021 Intifada. Following that, armed groups with participants from various organisations, such as the Lion’s Den and the Jenin Brigade, emerged. They have been continuously launching attacks against the occupier. The numbers of such attacks have been steadily increasing.

The Hamas is guided by an Islamist ideology. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) upholds Marxism-Leninism. Various other national liberation forces of Palestine, including other Marxist-Leninist forces, the Hezbolla in Lebanon, Palestinian refugees in surrounding countries — all of them are participants in this war, directly or indirectly. Therefore, to characterise this war as one between Israel and Hamas or between Israel and Gaza is wrong. It is a new episode, a new phase in the national liberation war of the Palestinian people against Zionist colonial rule.

The participant organisations differ in their ideological views. But a common stand unites them. All of them reject the two nation solution. According to this plan, promoted by the US, there will be a country ruled by the Zionists, and another country allowing some territory for the Palestinians. This is not acceptable to those Palestinian organisations arrayed in battle. This imperialist scheme was accepted by the Palestine Liberation organisation (PLO) under Yasser Arafat’s leadership. The Palestinians were granted some amount of self-rule under the control of the Zionist state as a step towards that. Though the Palestinian Authority has its own flag and membership in the UN, in effect it is nothing more than Municipal rule. Its police has often been used to attack the fighting organisations and lock up their leaders and activists in prison. Even now this is what it is doing.

In opposition to this the organisations involved in the present upsurge stand for the complete liberation of Palestine. This is clearly stated in their slogan, “Free the nation, from the river to the sea”. This means from its eastern border along the Jordan river all the way up to the west, the Mediterranean sea. It means the complete destruction of the settler colonial state known as Israel. That is the declared position of these organisations.

The US imperialist-led camp claims that this will amount to a repetition of the genocide of Jews carried out by the Nazis. Hamas is the major participant in this united struggle. Since it upholds an Islamist ideology, there are some who think that this would be the inevitable outcome. What does the Hamas say?

Its document on general principles and policy, adopted in 2018, clarifies that its conflict is with the Zionist project and not with the Jews because of their religion. It states that the Hamas does not wage struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. In points out that it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their colonial project and illegal occupation. It reminds that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. It declares that Palestine will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilisational innovation.

The PFLP does not accept the Israel state. It too holds the view that a single Palestinian state is the only solution. It declares that its aim is the creation of a people’s democratic Palestine where Arabs and Jews would live without discrimination, a state without classes and national oppression, a state which allows Arabs and Jews to develop their national culture. The other organisations in this unity have positions similar to those held by these two prominent ones. None of them have the view that the Jews should be eliminated wholesale or driven away from that land. But they all insist that the colonial Zionist state be completely destroyed.

On the other hand, the ruling class of that country has tried its best to drive away all Arabs, right from the very foundation of their State. Whether it be the matter of human rights or of resources like agricultural land and water, they have always had the policy of discriminating against the Palestinians. They have repeatedly violated international agreements and continuously expanded Zionist settlements. They trample on the Palestinian’s cultural practices and religious beliefs. They continuously implement racist, apartheid policies. No matter which political party is in government this has been going on for decades. The Basic Law of that country clearly declares that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Furthermore, the right of national self-determination in Israel is stated to be unique to the Jewish people. On the one side, a racist, apartheid colonial ruling class. Its State. Its army. Imperialist powers support it by all means. (American imperialism contributes 300 crore dollars per annum to the Israeli State.) On the other hand, forces struggling to establish a liberated Palestine where all citizens can live without discrimination or oppression regardless of their religious beliefs. This is the political content of this war. Which side should someone standing for democracy and justice, standing for the liberation of the people, choose? The answer is quite clear.

A forceful reminder to the people of the world that they can overcome even the most sophisticated ultra modern technology and surveillance systems of the oppressors and hammer them — this is another distinctive feature of this war. Gaza is completely surrounded by barbed wire ‘smart’ fences, watchtowers and sensors to detect underground activity. There is total surveillance of all telephone communications and electronic signals. The Palestine liberation fighters overcame each one of them, broke through the border and delivered a powerful blow.

In the final analysis, victory is not decided by technology but by the determination of the people to fight and win. “Dare to struggle, Dare to win.” These words of Mao Tsetung have once again been validated in the valiant actions of the Palestinian fighters.

The world had already seen this during the Vietnam war and many other liberation wars. It is now seeing it in the ongoing people’s wars. There is no technology in the world that cannot be defeated by the determination and creativity of the masses. If someone thinks that the people cannot stand up to the sophisticated technology of the enemy, this is mere cowardice, defeatist thinking. Moreover, technology is not that insurmountable or unattainable today. The people can master it. TV shots of some Palestinian rocket launchers, seen during the initial stages of this offensive, are proof of this. They were something anyone could manufacture with material bought from a hardware store and a welding machine. The most advanced technology was overcome with some very basic stuff. Moreover it was made mass based. The backwardness in quality was overcome with quantity.

The Zionists were bragging about their ‘iron dome’, capable of tackling any missile attack. It would detect the launch of any missile coming towards Israel. A counter missile would be immediately launched and the incoming missile would be destroyed in the air itself. Yes, it had succeeded in doing this in the past. But this time what they faced was thousands of missiles. It was impossible to tackle all of them. Quite a number of them breached the ‘iron dome’ and hit their targets. How did the Palestinian liberation forces succeed in amassing this huge inventory of missiles? They didn’t have, couldn’t run, large armament factories. Neither did they have the resources. What they had was the masses. The impossible was made possible by the participation of the masses and their creativity. When this scattered potential was organised and centralised it became a massive force capable of breaching the enemy’s structure. Under its cover thousands of combatants succeeded in sweeping into territory held by the occupier and launching successful attacks. The fact that they were able to stay on there and continue the fight for some more days is noteworthy. They must have been reinforced with ammunition and fighters to replace those who died or got wounded in action.

After a day or two, stories started appearing in the Western press claiming that the Zionists knew about an impending attack but were intentionally keeping quiet. It is said that an Egyptian intelligence officer had informed the Israeli government that something big was cooking up in Gaza. They let it happen so that it could be used as a pretext for launching an all-out attack to destroy the Hamas completely. At a first look this appears to be an attempt to deny any creativity or potential to the oppressed; to cover up the abject failure of the oppressor’s technology. But let’s assume that this is true. Even then there is something basic here. All exploiting classes, everywhere and always, had and have the arrogant thinking that the oppressed do not have the capacity to launch a big attack against them. That is why, more often than not, they fail to prevent it from happening, even when they have some prior information. This is a weakness that stems from their class character.

The new leap in the Palestine liberation war has created a lot of alarm among the Jewish colonisers, particularly in the new settlements. This is the third distinct feature of the present war. This was becoming evident for some time. There is now a large surge in it. The numbers of Jews leaving the country have gone up in a very notable manner. The Zionist chief Netanyahu had said that the present war would change the face of West Asia forever. That it will certainly do. The scenes from the Tel Aviv airport that were telecast quite clearly proved that. The settlers have come from various countries. A large number of them have dual citizenship. In the wake of the new offensive of the Palestinian liberation forces the demand for passports of other countries has shot up. Those with dual citizenship are desperately relying on that to get out.

The Zionist State was all along claiming that Israel has been established as a refuge for the Jews from all over the world. In actual fact, the privileging of European Jews and discrimination against those from Asian and African countries is intrinsic to the Zionist State. Many of those who migrated there were starting to realise that the country was not actually ‘the’ promised land. And this was not only due to the Palestine national liberation struggle. Israel is one of the most unequal countries. The concentration of wealth in Israel is extremely high. For all the capitalist polish, economic control is overwhelmingly in the hands of some twenty Jewish families. They account for nearly 60 per cent of the country’s revenues. As with any other ruling class that finds itself in a trying situation, the Zionist ruling class has been encouraging extremely conservative religious forces. Netanyahu is an accused in a corruption case. He has formed his government by relying on these forces, hoping to wriggle out of the case against him. Legislation meant to to control and block any intervention by the Supreme Court have been moved with their support. These steps taken by the present rulers has led to a lot of discontent. A strong protest had emerged from among the Jews. Many Jewish youth had declared that they were not willing to serve as reservists in the army, as mandated by law. Dissatisfaction and disunity among the Jews were at a high level before the new offensive of the Palestinian liberation war was launched.

Netanyahu has attempted to use the offensive to overcome this difficult situation. He gave a call for an Emergency war cabinet in which all political parties would participate in a show of ‘national unity’. The Palestinian offensive has created an extremely tense situation within Israel. A broad unity has come up among Jews in reaction to it. Yet, despite all this he has not succeed as he wished. The largest opposition party has refused to join the war cabinet. It made it clear that it will not participate until orthodox religious parties are removed from it. Just a day after the Palestinian offensive, the editorial of Haaretz, the third largest circulated newspaper of Israel, declared that Netanyahu alone was responsible for the war. It argued that it was the direct result of the way he, along with his orthodox religious political friends, have been provoking the Palestinians. This indicates that the disunity persists. It also points to the depth of the divisions within the Zionist ruling class. It is quite possible that this has some links with differences some of the European imperialist powers like France have with the US. The offensive launched by the Palestine liberation forces has certainly strengthened Jewish public opinion in favour of defending Zionist colonial rule at all costs. On the other hand, the solid unity of the Jewish population exhibited in the past is not seen now. This too is a significant factor. The more the war drags on, the more its impact will be on its conduct.

The current Palestinian offensive has upset US’s West Asian policies. This is an important fallout, with extensive ramifications. For some years now, the US imperialists have been trying to get Arab countries to cosy up with the Zionist State. This was being promoted so that the US could reduce its presence in this region, in order to focus on containing China and Russia. During Trump’s presidentship the UAE and Bahrain were roped in through the Abrahams Accord. Under Biden Saudi Arabia was being pushed towards a similar pact. Biden’s move was also aimed at preventing the consolidation of the new-founded Saudi-Iranian ties, achieved under the aegis of China. The Saudis were on the verge of signing on. But the Palestinian offensive brought about a drastic change in the situation. Saudi Arabia’s rulers had to back out. More, they had to publicly denounce the Zionists as the instigators and cause of the war. The continuous bombing of Gaza and specifically on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital has forcefully shut the door to any pact with the Zionists in the near future.

This setback to US interests is the primary reason behind its deployment of a large naval and marine force along the Gazan coast. It was the main motivation behind the statement made by Biden in the immediate aftermath of the Palestinian offensive, where he threatened that ‘nobody’ should think of using ‘this situation’. Though the apparent ‘somebodies’ were Iran, Russia and China, his words were also directed against the Arab States. It was a warning against any thinking on their part of moving towards closer ties with the imperialist camp forming up under China and Russia. But the present strengths of these countries make the going rather complicated for the US imperialists. China has the capital and technological capacity sufficient to satisfy present West Asian needs. Russia has demonstrated that it can withstand the combined war effort of the US imperialist camp.

World anger exploded after the dastardly bombing on the Gaza hospital. Yet Biden took special care to save the Zionist State from blame. While the US goes all out to defend its Zionist watch-dog, it must also block the moves of contending imperialist camps in West Asia. It must manoeuvre to retain the allegiance of the comprador regimes in that region. Therefore, six days after the murderous bombing of Gaza started, US officials and others in the US camp started talking about ‘humanitarian’ concerns! Biden now claims that he has ‘convinced’ Netanyahu to allow relief material into Gaza from Egypt. That is twenty trucks for two million people! And all the while the rain of bombs continues. bombs containing the banned chemical substance, white phosphorus, have been used on a number of occasions. The Zionists are flouting all international laws on war conduct in such a brazen manner that even pro-US international bodies like the WHO are openly protesting. But the US imperialist camp is still restricting itself to appeals to the Zionist State and its army to be ‘professional’ in their actions. Meanwhile, in their own countries, they have unleashed their guard-dogs to attack all those who come out on the streets denouncing Zionist genocide of Palestinians and their occupation.

There are some progressive forces who support the liberation of Palestine. But they hesitate to take a stand on the ongoing war. This is because the Hamas, as well as some other organisations participating in it, uphold Islamic ideology. They are wrong. They are not giving prime position to the politics of the war. War is a continuation of politics. We must judge whether a war is just or unjust on the basis of its politics. This is the only scientific method to decide whether it is just or unjust and who is waging a just war. Of course, one must also consider the nature of the forces participating in a just war. But that is secondary when taking a position on that war. Even if a participant in a just war has violated some of the laws of war conduct, that will not change the nature of that war. If at all such violations have taken place they should be criticised after taking a stand supporting the just side. Otherwise, it will lead to passiveness, and worse, to an indirect support for the unjust side in the war.

Immediately after the offensive started, reports had come in the Western imperialist media about Palestinian combatants raping Jewish women and beheading children. Biden repeated this. Yet, soon enough a White House spokesperson had to admit that there is no such exact news. Whether it be the matter of rape or beheading children, media persons trying to trace the source of the story could not find anything. Apart from hearing that somebody had heard somebody hearing somebody else hearing etc. there was no witness about where exactly it happened and when. It is very clear that the story was consciously planted as part of the Zionist psychological warfare. The intention is to stir up hatred against the Palestinian liberation forces and, specifically, win over or neutralise the masses in Europe and America. The ongoing cover up of the inhuman massacre at the Gaza hospital is another example. It has now been clarified by <altnews.in> that the visual presented by the Zionists to ‘prove’ that they were not responsible was actually a manufactured visual from 2022! Visuals have been put out by the Palestinian liberation forces of some of their combatants mistreating Zionist prisoners of war. This is wrong. No crime of the Zionists can condone it. While criticising such deeds we must also keep in mind that this was not the general approach and this is not the official approach of the organisations participating in the war.

As for the matter of the attack on Jewish settlements we must first know the true nature of those centres. They are Zionist outposts. The settlers living there were not ordinary civilians. They are an armed population. All Jewish youth have to undergo compulsory military training. People living in the settlements have the right to bear arms and use them. They have used them to drive out Palestinians from their land and water sources. They have even killed them. In view of all these facts one simply cannot consider them as innocent civilians. They were and are an inseparable part of the Zionist State’s colonisation operations. They were getting all the benefits and privileges this gave. That is how they were living there. They were (and are) soldiers of the Zionist State in plain-clothes, not unarmed civilians. Therefore, they are legitimate targets of the Palestine national liberation war. Attacking them, terrifying them to drive them out, is a legitimate act of that war.

The majority of those who have died in Gaza were killed by Zionist bombs. International law on war conduct is very clear that the people of an occupied territory have the right to fight with arms in hand for their self determination. This is very clearly stated in the first protocol added to the Fourth Geneva convention. At the same time the occupying force has the responsibility to ensure that the occupied people have access to food, water, healthcare and proper habitat. They have the right to be protected against violence and enjoy basic human rights. The siege imposed by the Zionists on the people of Gaza, denying them drinking water, food, fuel and even healthcare essentials, is a clear violation of this international law. The justification given by them and their imperialist mentors is that Palestinian forces are launching rockets from civilian houses and they are using civilians as cover. They have to counter this and that is why civilians get hurt. Even if this is accepted as a fact it is still a violation of international law. The law states that the presence of an armed force in a building, or the doubt that members of an armed force are hiding in a building, is not a justification for launching an attack on that building.

What we see in all these instances is an open, recorded, violation of international law. On the contrary, the charges against the Palestinian combatants have either been disproved or remain unsubstantiated. The Zionists had issued orders demanding that all those in the northern part of Gaza should shift over to the south. This was first supposed to be done in 24 hours. The sheer impossibility of such a move triggered of worldwide criticism. The Zionists had to relax their deadline. But whether 24 hours or more this forced exodus still remains an impossibility. The biggest hospitals in Gaza are in the north. They are overflowing with the wounded, some quite critical. Even the WHO had to declare that their relocation to the south would amount to a death sentence. But then that is what the Zionists want. The more dead Palestinians, the better for them. They who pounce on anyone who even remotely suggests that the Holocaust figures are doubtful. And they have been consistently applying all the lessons they learnt first-hand from Hitler’s Nazi hordes, all the while hollering about the horrors they had to suffer. Gaza has become the present day Warsaw Ghetto.

The Palestine issue is a creation of imperialism. The import of Jews from the European countries to Palestine was carried out under the aegis of British imperialism. This region was inhabited by Arabs since centuries. There was a small Jewish population, mostly restricted to towns. As an outcome of the pogroms against Jews during the late 19th century and early 20th century in Czarist Russia and other European countries, many people migrated. But even then the Jewish population in Palestine never came to even one tenth of the total population. It is estimated that only 3% of the Jews of that wave of migrations reached Palestine. Nearly 24 lakh Jews had left Europe during this period. Of them the overwhelming numbers went to the US, nearly 20 lakhs. Later the Jewish population in Palestine started increasing. The main reason for this was the machinations of British imperialism.

Palestine was under the Turkish Ottoman Empire which was allied with Germany during the First World War. In order to get the Jews on their side the British made a promise known as the Balfour Declaration. It stated that the Jews would be allowed to settle down in Palestine. Simultaneously, the British were also aiding and guiding the guerilla war of Arabs against the Ottoman forces. They too were promised an independent country. Meanwhile, in secret negotiations with the French the British drew up a scheme to divide Ottoman controlled territories between themselves, once the war was over. Thus Palestine came under British control after the war was over. They adopted a policy of allowing Jewish migration at times and preventing it on other occasions, instigating conflicts between the Arabs and the Jews, and using them to strengthen their grip in that region.

The Nazi regime’s genocidal attack on the Jews created worldwide sympathy for their plight. The Zionist movement that had taken form in the inter-war years took advantage of this. It actively promoted the migration of Jews from Europe into Palestine. They went on to declare the establishment of Israel as a Jewish nation. Israel was established in 1948. The US and the Soviet Union led by Stalin supported this in view of the suffering the Jews had undergone under the Nazi regime and earlier pogroms. This was a mistake. The Soviet Union soon corrected it and began to give support to the Palestinian cause. But the harm caused by that mistake remained. The United Nations came forward with a proposal to divide the territory into two. But the majority of that land would have come under Jewish control. Quite naturally this was not acceptable to the Palestinians. Ever since then the Zionist State has expanded the area under its control, through wars with neighbouring Arab countries and through driving out Palestinians from their lands. Those remaining in Palestine have been forced into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Modi government came out with a declaration of support for the Zionist state immediately after the Palestinian offensive. It condemned that offensive as a ‘terrorist’ attack done by the Hamas, a ‘terrorist’ organisation. A few days later, mindful hat this support for the Israel state wouldn’t go well with Arab countries, a statement was issued by the External Affairs ministry which clarified that India’s support for the establishment of an ‘independent Palestinian country’ (ie. the two-nation solution) remains. This was a formal statement without any significance. Following the collapse of the Soviet social imperialist state the Indian ruling classes had started tilting towards the American camp. From that time onward they have been openly consorting with the Zionist State. Diplomatic relations were established with it during Congress rule. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister. This relation has been steadily strengthening since then. Under the Sangh Parivar rule through Modi it has become even more strong. The Zionist State continuously attacks the Palestinians over there. And here, with the support and protection of the Sanghi government, Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis are being attacked by Brahmanical Hindutva fascist goons spawned by the RSS. The similarity is not at all coincidental. Both of them are racist. Their ideologies of Zionism and Brahmanism are racist. The Zionist State has always been in the American camp. The Indian ruling classes are increasingly getting closer to it. This is also an important reason for both of them coming together. And let us not forget that while the Zionists are bombing civilians in Gaza, the Modi government was doing exactly the same thing here. It has bombed Adivasi peasants in Chhattisgarh thrice in this year itself.

All preparations are being made by the Zionists for an all out ground invasion of Gaza. They calculate that they will be able to carry it out and achieve the aim of totally destroying the Hamas. As a subsidiary aim, they would also try to push out a huge section of Palestinians into Egypt. But that’s not how things are going to happen. Hamas has already demonstrated its capacity to persist in the face of continuous ground attacks for days together. It does this by relying on an extensive network of tunnels. Since the struggle is now a united one with all fighting forces involved, the resistance power of the liberation forces will be even more hardy than before. The continuing missile attacks from Gaza, even after so many days, demonstrate its capacities and resilence. It will definitely try to prolong the war. Fighting in urban ruins always gives the defenders the upper hand as compared to an attacking force. It is clear that the Zionists will have to pay a huge price. As the days pass this will intensify the political differences among them. Moreover, the transformation of skirmishes along the Lebanon and Syrian borders into full-fledged war fronts can be expected. There are reports of missile and drone attacks on US bases in Syria. Iran has already declared that it will not remain on the sidelines while the Palestinian people are being butchered. There is every likelihood of the war turning into a major regional war involving various forces. The possibility of its turning into a wider world-level war also cannot be ruled out.

All the imperialist powers and bigger Third world countries are preparing for war. Yet none of them are interested in getting into a war right now. We can judge that from what is happening in Ukraine. But things always don’t go according to their calculations. The dynamics of world level contradictions can upset them. The massive offensive of the Palestinian liberation forces, smashing through the Zionist’s defences, has immensely enthused the oppressed all over the world. If the Zionists and their imperialist masters were to suffer heavy losses during the ground operation, what would be its impact in West Asia and throughout the world? It would be happening in a context of intensifying contention among two imperialist camps and in a world where exploitation, inequalities and oppression have reached extreme levels. The people’s forces, specifically the Maoist vanguards, are still weak. But the contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism is still strong and principal. The play of this contradiction is seen in the events unfolding in the Sahel region of Africa. Corrupt rulers propped up by French imperialism were toppled in a series of coups. Russian imperialism has played a role in this. But it would be foolish to reduce this to a matter of inter-imperialist contention. The overwhelming response of the masses to those coups reveal the popular groundswell utilised by the Russian imperialists in their manoeuvrers. One can expect something similar if the possibility outlined above were to actually become real. And if either Chinese or Russian imperialism were to make a significant gain in West Asia with its immense oil resources, can the US imperialist camp accommodate this?

What would be course of the Ukraine war if the Palestine liberation forces succeed in prolonging their struggle? How long can the Western imperialist powers continue to replenish both the Ukraine and Zionist armies? Between them, the Zionist State is strategically more important for the US imperialist camp. If waging two proxy wars becomes too strenuous one can well imagine a scene where Ukraine’s rulers are forced by their mentors to accept a ceasefire. A scale back on NATO’s planned expansion incorporating Ukraine is also quite possible. What would be the impact of this among the Ukrainian people? Among European peoples? The realisation that they were pawns in a bigger game, the exposure of the hollowness of imperialist declarations on defending Ukraine’s sovereignty at any cost, the realisation that the final arbiter is the interest of the most powerful imperialist and not the people — what would be the repercussions of all of this among the people?

Evidently the new phase of the Palestine national liberation war will set off reverberations extending far beyond the borders of Palestine. The task before the people’s forces is to keep this potential in mind. As Mao pointed out, “Either revolution will prevent war, or war will lead to revolution”. In either case the revolutionary forces have the task of taking the initiative and pushing ahead, fully confident of the immensely potent power of the people. If anything, the recent offensive in the Palestinian national liberation war convincingly demonstrates that this tremendous capacity continues to exist in the present world, awaiting to be unleashed in all its revolutionary splendour.

“Idealism always accuses materialism of being concerned only with the physical body, with material desires, of ignoring the spiritual side. However, even the religious experience is itself limited in its capacity to address the spiritual. We must go beyond it to satisfy the spiritual needs of human beings.

Globalisation is driving the hunger for material goods and luxurious consumption to extremes. Cheap imitations of costly gadgets and clothes are now widely available. This craze thus engulfs even the poorest sections of society. Status and life’s fulfilment are measured by the number of ‘latest’ ‘branded’ gadgets and dresses one owns.
Simultaneously, the religious sphere too is thriving. The numbers thronging temples, churches and mosques greatly increase year-by-year. Youth form a large share. Poojas, yagnas, prayer meets, urs, pilgrimage — each and every ritual is multiplying. Apparently, all of this stand in contradiction to the galloping greed for material goods. Yet, in its essence, there is a striking similarity. Religion too is being consumed, much like a commodity. The thrust is on the ostentatious. There is less religiosity and more of glitter and pomp. The grander the better. Religious ceremonies are now ‘event managed’. Even the private act of prayer must be embellished with the latest accompaniments — flashy idols, LED lamps, 3D photos and more. This showiness is prominently seen even among those who lay claim to superior spirituality; a Sri Sri, for example.
Despite this booming, hedonistic, consumption, spiritual and material satisfaction remain out of reach. The more the greed for goods and fervent prayers, the greater the alienation. A dull feeling of lack remains and grows.
Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, an increasing number of people search for real spiritual solace. Often, this leads them to meditation. Meditation and the spirituality it promises is certainly more welcome than the religious commodities being peddled today. At the minimum, it can be a thankful diversion from the crass commercialisation of the spiritual. Even for the non-religious, meditation can give peace of mind, mental relaxation. For the religious minded it offers ‘godly bliss’. Neuroscience gives scientific understanding of the brain activity triggered off by meditation and explains its positive outcome. However, even this peace of mind, spiritual solace or religious bliss, is still problematic.
Meditation demands a withdrawal into oneself. This is a precondition, even if it’s only for the duration of meditation. Obviously, that cannot be sustained by those who lead an active life. The moment they return to that life they will be assailed by all the conflicts, tensions and needs of their ordinary existence. The state of affairs from which solace was sought through meditation awaits them. For arguments sake, let us assume that an individual who has attained meditative bliss will now be able to face up to this impassively. Even then, the material, social reality that gave rise to tensions and stress remains. All that has been achieved is the mental respite of an individual. Forgetting the contradictions of society, even if everyone were to achieve this state of mind, it would still be the respite of individuals. But the individual can only exist in union and contradiction with society since the human is a social being. Therefore, a sustained spiritual respite, either for an individual or for all, as individuals separately, is an impossibility.
Meditation allows one to attain a state of mind of feeling one with all others, with the world. Neuroscience demonstrates that this emerges from the promotion of activity in a specific region of the brain and the simultaneous muting of activity in another region related to self-reference. However, this state of mind, this sense of communion, would abruptly end the moment that person returns to his or her class, caste, gendered existence. To give an example, a capitalist may be in communion with his workers in the meditative state. But he cannot be so in normal conditions, while remaining a capitalist. To achieve such communion in real life, he must cease to be a capitalist. But that too won’t be a solution. So long as that society remains capitalist, this individual ceasing will only lead to the closing down of his factory. The condition of labour of that group of workers will be eliminated. They and their dependents would be thrown into misery. Rather than joining him in communion, they would be cursing their ex-boss.
To sum up, meditation can ease mental stress, grant spiritual bliss and give a sense of communism. But it cannot give a lasting resolution since it avoids addressing the material, social sources of stress and conflict. Besides this, in its Brahmanist version, it also suffers from a basic flaw.
Brahmanism presents meditation as a means for the ‘atma’ to become one with ‘paramatma’. It argues that one’s ego and desire are obstacles hindering this union. They must be eliminated. Therefore, the process of meditation advanced by Brahmanism is one in which desires are given up. This must finally lead to the elimination of ego itself. In this state of mind there will be no ‘I’ separate from the ‘paramatma’. The sense of ‘I’, as a separate entity, will be revealed to be a product of ignorance. The realisation that ‘I’ is only a part of ‘nirgunabrahma’ will be achieved.
For Brahmanism, the ego is a creation of ignorance about the ‘atma’ and its indissoluble relation with the ‘paramatama’ as a part of it. The ego is seen as the root cause of all emotional, psychological, spiritual problems. Its elimination is a pre-condition for the attainment of supreme bliss. Meditation is advanced as a means to achieve this. As noted earlier, neuroscience actually does show how meditation causes significant decrease in brain signals from regions associated with self-referential, egoistic thought. But, rather than proving Brahmanism’s claims, this scientific knowledge only goes to refute it. At the minimum, it shows that self-referential, ego-centred thought is brain activity. It has a material base. Therefore, it is not an illusion that has emerged from the identification of ‘atma’ with the physical body, as explained by Brahmanism.
What if the existence of this specific region in the brain and its activity is itself the product of such illusion? Can’t we then assume that not only self-referential brain activity but even the brain region where it takes place can eventually be transformed through meditation?
Science has identified regions in the human brain not seen in other animals. It has shown how they were later growths that came through evolution. Unlike animals, social and cultural practices have played a major role in the further evolution of humans and their brains. Engels’ points out the role of labour in this process. As a result of all this, the human brain has evolved into a complex, differentiated organ. Correspondingly, specific brain regions and types of brain activity have emerged, including those related to the ego. Every organism distinguishes itself from everything else, animate or inanimate. If it doesn’t do so, material existence, the reproduction and thriving of the species, would be impossible. Self-awareness has its roots in this. The human ego is an advanced type of self-awareness. It is structured and deeply influenced by social existence. It has evolved with the development of human society.
It is evident, then, that the elimination of the ego, as demanded by Brahmanism, is neither possible nor advisable. It is an inseparable part of human existence and consciousness. That does not mean that we should not concern ourselves with the ego. The human essence is an ensemble of social relations. One’s ego too invariably carries the imprint of these relations. In the present world, private property, exploitation and the relations of domination and oppression they give rise to, anchor the ego in selfishness. This definitely is a shackle on social consciousness. It hinders the struggle of radical change. We must address this through developing social awareness and consciousness. A sense of commitment to society, to the people, must be developed in close relation to the struggle to transform the society. This is not elimination of the ego as proposed by the one-sided viewpoint of Brahmanism. It is its transformation. It is the subordination of the self to the larger interests of the people. Selfless service to the people replaces self-seeking.
Controlling the mind through concentration, withdrawing one’s consciousness from sensory impulses, is necessary for advancing to the meditative state. However, the matter cannot be simply left at that. Brahmanism conceives lack of mental concentration as a products of the mind’s ‘fickleness’. The mind is pictured as a monkey on a fruit tree, jumping from branch to branch. Its ‘fickle’ nature is said to arise from attraction to external objects. To overcome this, one must control and concentrate the mind in order to draw the consciousness away from external objects and sensual desires towards the internal essence, ie the ‘atma’.

Evidently, in this perception, the ‘fickle’ nature of the mind is simply treated as an altogether negative characteristic to be rid of. Is that correct? If we examine the functioning of our mind we can trace out chains of thoughts. They usually lead us away from what we were thinking of at the beginning. Each thought is linked to the preceding and succeeding ones, somehow or the other. I hear a song. That leads my thoughts to the occasion when I first heard it. This reminds me of a person who was there. I then recollect a novel we were talking about. That brings to memory a character in that novel. I notice some similarities between that character and the person now sitting near me and so on. I started from a song heard in the past and ended up with the behaviour of somebody in the present.
All of these thoughts were either memories or immediate perceptions. One led to another through something they shared — either a context, outcome or characteristic. Within the brain these associations were made through synapses. A synapse is the connection made between brain cells. The brain has millions of brain cells. Most of them remain unused during the lifetime of an individual. But even the small share in use have the potential for a huge number of synapses. This is the material basis of the mind’s ‘fickleness’, its jumping from one thought to another. For Brahmanism it is simply a negative trait.
On the contrary, this quality of the brain and consequently, of the mind, lies precisely at the very base of human creativity and innovation. It has given humans immense capacity to go beyond perception and conceive of entirely new things. A computer functions with pre-set programmes. Even those with artificial intelligence function within some boundaries. But the human brain has no such limitation, other than its physical one. It can make totally new associations and come up with unique insights. The same objective reality can be subjectively appreciated and represented in diverse forms. The associative capacity of the brain gives us the ability to make abstractions. A large number of particularities can thus be subsumed under a universal category. Ironically, the very quality of the mind damned as negative by Brahmanism has allowed the conceptualisation of its own precepts! To sum up, we must certainly be able to concentrate our minds when required. But this must not be taken up in an absolutist manner, denying the positivity of its roving nature.
Whether ego or mind, in both the cases, Brahmanism projects a one-sided view that originates from its idealism. It is incapable of grasping the material basis of mental phenomena. Though, nowadays, it often tries to ‘prove’ its claims by drawing on advances of science, its arguments only serve to contradict itself. Even its highest claim about having the best understanding of spirituality, falls flat.
Marxism does not deny the spiritual side of humans. But it negates views that bracket the spiritual solely with religious belief. This Marxist position is substantiated by neuroscience. Electrical stimulation of a particular region of the brain brings up a state of mind identical to religious/spiritual feelings. The material underpinning of religious spirituality is thus revealed. Simultaneously, we are also educated that the religious experience is something real. It is not mere illusion or a product of ignorance as argued by rationalism. Marxism considers it to be a part of the spiritual mind of humans. Communion with fellow beings, morality, consciousness, the aesthetic sense and the contemplative mind, all of these too are part of the spiritual. It is inseparable from the social existence of human beings. It is not something given, some unique, permanently set human quality, but a product of historical development. The religious experience is only a particular form of expression of the spiritual.
One can surely prepare a long list of the negative fallouts of religious thinking. Yet, it is also undeniable that it has performed two positive roles, right from its origins till now. One was (is) as a moral adjudicator, serving the needs of maintaining, promoting and reproducing social cohesiveness and stability. The other, as a rationaliser, helping to make sense of the contrariness of human existence and its end in death. Thus, it has played a major role in the development, shaping and sustenance of humanity. Yet, it has not remained the same in its content or manner of expression throughout the ages. A very significant, qualitative change took place with the emergence of class society. Various types of social divisions such as class, caste, gender etc., exploitation and private property, shattered the material, social and spiritual communion of humanity.
In primitive societies, the rationalising role of proto-religions primarily dealt with the nature/human contradictions through worship of nature, animism and ritualistic magic. Forces of nature, animals, trees, mountains and so on were attributed super-human powers and worshipped. The aim was either to mitigate their life threatening powers or draw-out their supposed life-enabling qualities. In their moralistic role these beliefs addressed the needs of stability and cohesiveness of specific tribes vis-a-vis others. Kinships, blood relations, moral codes and so on were defined through totems and taboos.
Unlike this, in class societies, the dual role of religion must address sharp social contradictions. Most fundamentally it must deal with the harsh reality of the increasing aggrandisement of the few at the expense of the vast majority and the oppressions accompanying this. The social communion lost in real life must be recreated as a transcendental union mediated through some omnipotent power named as god, vital force or Brahmanism’s nirgunabrahma. As Marx noted, it must function as the ‘heart’ of a ‘heartless’ world. This is the strength as well as fundamental weakness of religion as a provider of spiritual solace in class society.
Religion certainly does offer solace in a world made inhuman by exploitation and all sorts of oppression. But, the more it does so, the more it becomes a prop, a legitimisation of this inhumanity. In the beginning, a new religion too may be suppressed by the ruling class. But that changes when it gains wider acceptance among the people. The rulers themselves start associating with it and become its believers and patrons. Over time it becomes a consciously sustained tool which helps keep the masses subdued and thus serves the task of maintaining the existent ruling order. Social divisions get replicated within it. It thus suffers an erosion in its capacity to be a salve for despairing minds. The conditions are thus prepared for a new interpretation, a new savant or a new belief system. Its roots lie in the spiritual, theological, philosophical crisis of the extant religion, all of which, in turn, have some very material undercurrents. The new religion too invariably follows the same path as its predecessors. The ‘heartless’ world can never really yield space to a ‘heart’ offering solace.
Idealism always accuses materialism of being concerned only with the physical body, with material desires, of ignoring the spiritual side. However, as seen above, even the religious experience is itself limited in its capacity to address the spiritual. We must go beyond it to satisfy the spiritual needs of human beings.
In his ‘Thesis on Feuerbach’, Marx criticised mechanical materialist thinking for failing to address the ‘active side’ of human existence. By this he meant mental activity, the inseparable relation between consciousness and human practice. He pointed out how this lapse has been capitalised by idealism to present itself as the sole representative and proponent of the mental, thinking side. Lenin, in his notes on dialectics, had made a similar observation. He noted how idealism has emerged from material life. It grasped one aspect of reality and then took it up in a one sided manner, thus cutting it off from the flow of life and causing it to shrivel up. Incidentally, this also shows that idealism is not just humbug. It has identified and tried to address a real aspect of human existence, even if it does so in an upside down manner, denying the primacy of matter.
These insights of Marxism help us understand the material base of the spiritual. For members of a primitive tribe, communion was conceivable only with others of the same tribe. Beyond that, no one was even worth consideration as humans. Today, such an attitude would be considered inhuman. Even if only at the conceptual level, all of humankind is now granted the right to a human existence. And this acceptance itself brings out in sharp relief the denial of minimal human conditions for billions of people by a tiny section. That evocative picture of Ayan Kurdi, washed up dead on a beach but bringing to one’s mind the playful time he could have spent on it, speaks volumes of the possible and its cruel denial. The cry of revulsion and anger, the tide of empathy that swelled up, showed us the immense dimensions of spiritual oneness thirsting for expression, as well as the material barriers choking it.
All religions teachers have talked about the power of love. Love for one’s fellow human beings is indeed powerful. But, as an African-American saying reminds us “When hunger steps in through the door, love flies out of the windows”. There is resignation to the cruel truth of the lives of the poor in these words. There is also pain, bitterness, at the enforced loss of love, of humanness. There is wrath. Should we soothe this spiritual dissatisfaction with mystic retreat into oneself or should we fan it up to energise ourselves in burning anger? We must hit out, hit hard, against the inhuman conditions of the existing world that deny us spiritual satisfaction. We must end this wretchedness. Only then can we proceed towards achieving ‘peace of mind’, the full blooming of human faculties, material and spiritual, to live as social beings — in communion with our fellow beings, our social selves.

(From the collection ‘Critiquing Brahmanism’, Foreign Languages Press, Paris and Kanal Publication Centre, Kochi. A new edition, with an introduction by Vara Vara Rao, is being published in January 2023.)

Establishing a regime in Kiev that won’t allow anti-Russian moves, preventing the expansion of the NATO, bringing about a new security/peace treaty in Europe that will ensure the interests of Russian imperialism — such are the political aims of Putin. In opposition to this, US imperialism is trying to create a situation where Russia cannot fulfil its aims without occupying the country, or is forced to carry out military intervention continuously. The coming days will show us who will succeed. Meanwhile, lakhs of humans will die, be wounded, maimed, made homeless, jobless. Hideous misery awaits them. Crores of rupees, money and assets, are being burned up in this imperialist contention. Money which was absent when it came to tackling a microscopic virus, to treating its victims, now flows in abundance to rain death. Imperialism means war and it always kills; either way.

Over the past several decades, US imperialism has been trying to focus its forces against China. It insists that the European powers should shoulder the bulk of Europe’s security needs. It continuously complained that they are not doing enough in sharing NATO expenses. Trump went a step ahead and declared that it wouldn’t really matter if NATO was dissolved. That was in line with the views of a section of the US ruling classes that America should either resolve or cold-storage issues it had with Russia in order to confront China. But this isn’t feasible. It could possibly lead to the US loosing its grip over Europe altogether. The NATO wasn’t meant to check the Soviet Union alone. It also had the aim of keeping Germany under control. That remains. For some time now, France has been demanding the formation of a European defence force. If the NATO is dissolved, a European military organisation lead by France and Germany could take form. It may possibly come to an accord with Russia. The expansion of the NATO favoured by the US keeps this possibility too in mind, apart from that of encircling Russia. It cannot be abandoned, particularly with a re-assertive Russia around. Russia is the main threat for East European countries. Germany and France won’t suffice to meet this threat. They need America for it, and hence, the NATO. The US has tried to capitalise on this in order to keep the NATO active while reducing its own financial and troop burden in Europe. The Ukraine crisis and war has upset this to a great extent.

Moreover, Biden’s policy of avoiding a direct military role, starkly in contrast to all the noise he was making, will certainly give rise to misgivings. Whether and how much the US can be relied on will be central in this. This is taking place not so long after Trump declared against the NATO. It could be a spur for many European countries to come the conclusion that it may be better to have a deal with Russia instead of relying on American military might. Well before the war had started, both Germany and France had stated that Russia had legitimate security concerns that need to be addressed. After the war commenced France has seized a Russian merchant ship. Reversing its decision of not supplying lethal equipment, Germany has started supplying them to Ukraine. Apparently this looks like it is submitting to US pressure. However, it could also indicate an attempt by these countries to secure their initiative in Europe, capitalising on the concerns that have come up over US policies.

The US has been put in a situation where it is forced to divert its attention from the perceived immediate task of targetting China, at least for some time. Simultaneously it also has to face the problem of not being able to fully concentrate on Europe. So why did Biden take this turn? Does it merely indicate the compulsions of circumstances? Or was it adopted wilfully, quite aware of possible consequences? There are reasons to doubt as much. As we noted earlier, Biden had declared that US troops would not be deployed in Ukraine at the very moment when Putin was amassing his military on the borders. Was this done to egg on Russia into war, trap it there and thereby retain control over Europe while weakening the alliance between China and Russia? Calculations on the possible resistance that could come up in the Ukraine could have been a factor in making this ploy. Though the share of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers are quite significant, a large number of them consider themselves as Ukrainians. When the people of the Donbas had separated, Putin tried to carry out something similar in the Russian majority southern parts of Ukraine. He failed. Therefore, the US rulers may well have concluded that the national sentiment and defence triggered of by a Russian invasion would transform into a resistance quite unexpected by Putin. The whole affair would also serve to tighten up the NATO. These factors may well have been those guiding Biden in his choices.

However, there is strong opposition to it within the US ruling classes itself. Trump, who has now praised Zelensky, was earlier congratulating Putin. That was not just another instance of his crazy, erratic behaviour. It reflected the thinking of a weighty section in the Republican party. They may have shifted their public stance in view of the worldwide opposition to Russia’s invasion and the repercussions a pro-war stand may have on the upcoming elections in the USA. Whatever that may be, confronting China remains the focus of the US’s global political, military strategy.

Though not yet a member of the NATO formally, Ukraine has already established a formal ‘friendship’ with it. War games with NATO participation have been staged in it repeatedly. In a recent one, the stated mission was training to ‘regain territory lost due to separatists supported by a neighbouring country’. That couldn’t be more obvious. The success of Azerbaijan, with its small armed force, in seizing back Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia by deploying drones provided an important guidance for this war game. Putin must have decided to act without delay in view of these developments. He may also have calculated that the US wouldn’t take much interest because of its preoccupation with China.

War is a continuation of politics. Countries wage war to realise specific political aims. Establishing a regime in Kiev that won’t allow anti-Russian moves, preventing the expansion of the NATO, bringing about a new security/peace treaty in Europe that will ensure the interests of Russian imperialism — such are the political aims of Putin. That is why he is repeatedly saying that Russia has no intention of occupying Ukraine. In opposition to this, US imperialism is trying to create a situation where Russia cannot fulfil its aims without doing that, or is forced to carry out military intervention continuously. The coming days will show us who will succeed. Meanwhile, lakhs of humans will die, be wounded, maimed, made homeless, jobless. Hideous misery awaits them. Crores of rupees, money and assets, are being burned up in this imperialist contention. Money which was absent when it came to tackling a microscopic virus, to treating its victims, now flows in abundance to rain death. Imperialism means war and it always kills; either way.

It is beyond question that the Ukrainians hate Russian invasion. Yet, till today, one hasn’t seen any indication of this people’s opposition coalescing as armed resistance independent of the Zelensky regime. If the war gets prolonged, if the people are forced to live under Russian rule in regions it occupies, this will definitely emerge. Moreover, even if Putin succeeds in setting up a puppet regime in Kiev, Ukraine will not know peace. We can surely expect resistance and guerilla war against it. Thus, no matter what, Russia is going to get trapped there. Powerful anti-war sentiments and protests have come up in that country. This is particularly noticeable among the youth. The jingoist Russian nationalism fanned up with the active involvement of the Russian Christian church has failed in blocking this. These protests will give further impetus to the resistance in Ukraine. It will also weaken Ukrainian chauvinism encouraged by Zelensky and his allies. Thus, the war has engendered a new political awakening in Russia. If the war gets prolonged, if Putin fails to achieve his war aims within the expected time, if the resistance in Ukraine becomes strong and inflicts heavy losses on the Russian army, it may well cause the end of his rule.

The world is entering a period of great disorder. In the past, for a long time during the contention between the two superpowers — the US led imperialist camp and the Soviet social imperialist led camp — the people of the world used to be inspired by the political and diplomatic interventions of socialist China and Albania and the revolutionary message given through this. The revolutionary struggles that continued or came up even after the restoration of capitalism in China played that role at the world level. Today there are no socialist countries. Revolutionary struggles led by communist parties are few in number. The international communist movement is still weak. Therefore, turning this disorder towards revolution is a strenuous task. However, there is something else too. This is the change that has taken place in the consciousness of the masses. The change which has come about as a result of their experiences during the Covid pandemic needs particular mention. In both the developed countries and 3rd world countries, the incompetence of the rulers and their inhuman approach was sharply exposed. The people came to see that this, rather than the virus itself, had far more to do with the loss of crores of lives. There is thus a widespread thinking in the world that the rulers can’t be trusted, that the truth is beyond what is stated by them. An anti-government, anti-ruler sentiment, opposition, is seen in many countries. Quite often it transforms into agitations. In this situation, while the opposing sides are making differing claims, if the communist forces, the progressives, pay attention to exposing the narrow imperialist interests underlying these claims and alert the people, they will quickly understand the truth. Though these forces are in a weak state they will be able to turn this disorder in favour of revolution. There is every possibility to do this. They must proceed in a direction that will make this real through correct political positions and practice. Tailing behind either of the contenders means losing this opportunity. (01–03–2022)

(Views expressed are personal. This article, to be published in the upcoming issue of ‘Towards a New Dawn’, was posted here in view of its urgency.)

“It is not the task of the Communist Party to support Yahya Khan even after foreign aggression has started. The task of the Communist Party is to fight foreign aggression by rousing the broad peasant masses through class struggle and to give the call for unity with Yahya Khan. Even on this issue of unity it should be borne in mind that the leadership must remain in the hands of the Communist Party, that is, this unity should be achieved in the interest of the broad masses. In the face of foreign aggression it is of the utmost importance that the Communist Party should lead struggles independently and on its own initiative and should build up its own army. At the time of foreign aggression the Communist Party must take upon itself the entire responsibility for leadership in the revolutionary war. The Yayha Khans would unite only when the Communist Party has succeeded in uniting the broad masses of the people through its independent work — work done on its own initiative — and has succeeded in building up its own army. That is why the Communist Party has to combat attacks on two fronts — foreign aggression from one side and the attack of the Yahya Khans from the other.”

from ‘Pakistan and the Role of the Communist Party ’June 29,1971, Liberation, Volume 4, № 4

K. Murali (Ajith)

The real issue of the Ukraine war is the contention between US imperialism and its allies on the one side and Russian imperialism and Chinese social imperialism on the other. It represents a tactical move on either side towards imposing a resolution of the contention between the attempt of the latter to setup a new imperialist order and of the former to preserve the existing one.

Putin’s army has invaded Ukraine after much preparation. The United States and its allies have declared it as an outcome of Putin’s imperialist ambitions and a move to restore the boundaries of the former Soviet Union. On its part the Russian government has stated that they have no intention of occupying Ukraine. This ‘military operation’, it says, is intended to end the attacks by Ukraine on the republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. Along with that Russia says it wants to destroy the Nazi forces who are now politically dominant in Ukraine and demilitarise it. The Russian rulers claim that they have no goals beyond these.

While these are the stated positions, the acts of these powers are quite at variance. Though Putin claimed that he is sending in his military to protect the Republics in the Donbas region, the Russian army launched its attack all over Ukraine. Latest reports indicate its moves to capture the capital, Kiev. On the other hand, while the US and its allies have spoken a lot about defending Ukraine’s sovereignty, they haven’t matched it with their deeds. A few days before the invasion started Biden had expressly stated that the US would not send its troops in the event of a Russian attack. This was almost like waving a green flag for Russian invasion. Though economic sanctions have been enforced after the war started, this stand was reiterated by him. The position of the other NATO members is identical. They have clearly stated that their support will only be in the form of military aid.

A close look at the economic sanctions will show that they are not so effective. Russia owns one of the largest financial reserves in the world. Its economy has improved. A financial transaction system, to some extent capable of handling exclusion from SWIFT, is also said to be in place. Moreover it has the support of China. Quite possibly it will be able to weather the sanctions. This is known to those enforcing them.

One can get an idea of the real nature of these sanctions from the Nord 2 gas-line issue. Germany has now frozen its commissioning. But, another pipeline, the Nord 1, has been operational since 2011. It too passes through the Baltic sea and takes Russian gas to Germany. It is still operational and so too are the pipelines passing through Ukraine. Most of the East European countries depend on Russian gas and these haven’t been affected by the sanctions.

The contradictions between European powers and the US too have played a role in the actual watering down of sanctions against Russia. America is keen to make them stop getting gas from Russia and switch to US, Canadian sources. Though touted as a means to break dependence on Russian gas the real intention is to tighten Europe’s dependence on the US and open up a new market for them. Germany and France are not willing to go with this.

Ever since the break up of the Soviet Union, US imperialism has been trying to establish absolute domination over Europe. Earlier it was contained by the Warsaw Pact controlled by Soviet social imperialism. Europe is decisive for world domination. Who gets to control it is crucial. This was something pointed out by Mao Tsetung long ago. Towards the fag end of Soviet social imperialism, Russia had agreed to the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact on the assurance that the NATO wouldn’t be expanded eastwards. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union into a number of independent countries, US imperialism ignored this undertaking and started expanding the NATO. Its aim was to ensure that Russia would be contained forever. Since then 14 new countries have joined the NATO, all from East Europe. Though a number of them are also members of the European Union, they are closer to the US.

The US imperialists concluded that their ‘American century’ had truly begun, with no one capable of standing up to them remaining. They arrogantly declared that they are the sole power with total hegemony over the world. Driven by this thinking they unleashed war and aggression all over the world, including in Europe. This was done unilaterally, with the message that those who wanted to join could come and opposition would be simply ignored. It was done without even trying to get formal acknowledgement from the UN. It attacked Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and many other countries. The NATO was transformed into a military intervention force operating under US command all over the world, outside of UN supervision.

However, the resistance it encountered in these countries upset these aims. It couldn’t succeed in forcing its diktat and getting out. It got trapped in endless wars. Utilising this situation Russia and China built up their strengths. China became an imperialist country. Overcoming its weaknesses Russia too regained much of its power under Putin. It began to resist US expansion into East Europe and other parts of the world. The wars in Georgia, Azerbaijan and its armed intervention to protect the Assad regime in Syria were examples of this reassertion. Its aggression in Ukraine is a continuation of this policy.

Weakened by the Iraq, Afghan wars, US imperialism and its allies were not in a position to resist Putin. Moreover, over this period Russian imperialism and Chinese social imperialism set up bodies like the Shanghai Co-operation and BRICS. They started to build up an alternate international financial institutional set up, paralleling the US-controlled IMF and World Bank. China became prominent as source of finance and investment for 3rd World countries. Ignoring US opposition, many countries in Europe started to join it in its international ventures. Though China is still behind the US in economic size its growth potential is far greater. As a result of all of this, a multi-centred world imperialist system, quite beyond the sole control of the US, has emerged. What we see in Ukraine is the contradictions of this global system playing out, the compulsions of this global system.

The real issue of the Ukraine war is the contention between US imperialism and its allies on the one side and Russian imperialism and Chinese social imperialism on the other. It represents a tactical move on either side towards imposing a resolution of the contention between the attempt of the latter to setup a new imperialist order and of the former to preserve the existing one. Ukraine’s sovereignty is not the issue for the US or its allies. Neither is the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics for Russia. Both the contenders are solely interested in improving and consolidating their positions in their global contention.

We must distinguish the national interests of the Ukrainian people and the people of the Donbas republics from those of these imperialist powers. At present these interests are subordinated to the moves of these powers. Yet they still have their own objective existence. World experiences teach that there is every possibility of their gaining an independent role.

The Ukraine had played an important role in the formation of the Soviet Union. Its self-determination was denied under the Czars. The Russian revolution acknowledged it and made it real. 17 per cent of the Ukrainian population is ethnically Russian. Russian culture and literature have been influential since centuries. Hence there is a sizeable population of Russian speakers. While Russian was the official language of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian was compulsory in the schools. This was a result of the Leninist approach on national languages and cultures. Putin, with his imperialist chauvinist arrogance, has condemned this policy. In his view the weakening of the Russian empire built by the Czars by recognising Ukraine as a nation, and accepting Ukrainian as a distinct language, were two ‘crimes’ committed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. According to him Ukraine had never existed before that and Ukrainian was only a dialect of Russian. Thus the contradiction between this hegemonic design of Russian imperialism and the just national interests of the Ukrainian people is a factor in this war. However, though the aspiration for national resistance is surely evident, it has still not carved out its own space, distinct from US imperialism and the Ukrainian rulers who are acting as its pawns.

After gaining independence, the new rulers of Ukraine adopted an oppressive policy towards national minorities. In the name of strengthening national identity, they actively promoted the worst type of national chauvinism. The use of Russian was banned. Earlier a law permitting the use of a language spoken by a local majority as the local official language was in existence. This was annulled in 2014. This national oppression went to the extent of even banning Russian artists, cultural acts and music. All of this had a diehard Rightist political content. A Ukrainian Nazi leader who had actively collaborated with Hitler’s forces against the Soviet Union, during the 2nd world war was acclaimed as a national hero. Evidently, all of these policies and acts caused great unease in Russian majority regions of the country. The feeling that separation is inevitable if their language and culture is to be sustained became strong. This, further stoked up by Putin’s regime, got actualised as the separatist movements in Luhansk and Donetsk. This too is a factor in this war. Russia is utilising it. Similar to the national resistance of the Ukrainian people, the national resistance of the Russian national minority too has yet to carve out its own space.

These contradictions are different from those among the imperialists and their pawns. One of the poles in them are the people. Hence they contain the potential for a different direction. Even while suffering from the national oppression of the Ukrainian rulers, a large number of the Russian speakers of that country consider themselves as Ukrainians. Their roots in that land go back for generations. For the Ukrainian speakers too, Russian language and culture is not something alien. The chauvinist policies of the rulers affect their cultural, social lives too. Ukrainian identity is one in which Russian elements are interwoven. Any attempt to forcibly remove them or to deny that it has an existence separate from the Russian goes against the interests of the people. They do not accord with objective reality. The root of this discord lies in the opposition between the interests of the people and those of their exploiters, oppressors. That is why one can say with confidence that the objective grounds for its expression still exists. The anti-war demonstrations taking place all over Russia are proof.

But that is not the dominant nature of the overall situation. Though the just interests of the different national peoples are part of this war, the contention between imperialist powers is what stands out. At present this is the principal aspect to be taken into account. The revolutionaries, progressives, should not side with either side. That is not how they should express solidarity with the people of Ukraine or of the Donbas. Instead, they should expose the interests of the imperialist powers and raise their voices to end this imperialist inspired war.

The genuine people’s forces in Ukraine and the Republics in the Donbas, should raise the banner of a united struggle for a new socialist country that will guarantee the self-determination and democratic rights of all national minorities in Ukraine. They should thus differentiate themselves from the aggressor, Russian imperialism, and also from the ruling classes represented by the US pawn Zelensky. The people’s forces in Russia should step up their opposition to their own ruling class, demanding the cessation of the war and withdrawal of Russian troops. This is the only way by which a new pole, a revolutionary pole, can be established. (28–02–2022)

(Views expressed are personal. This article, to be published in the upcoming issue of ‘Towards a New Dawn’, was posted here in view of its urgency.)

The recognition of the need to seize power and the decision to get on with that task. That was what gave content to the political declaration made by the people of Paris. That was what made their political declaration real. Minus it and there is no Commune. Conversely, singling out the proletariat’s reliance on its own resources as the political act that mattered most dislodges the act of seizing power from its prime position. It guts revolution of … revolution. The promised disincorporation remains as false as that of the fake left.

In a piece on the Paris Commune recently published in the Monthly Review (May 2021), Alain Badiou concludes thus, “Today, the Commune’s political visibility must be restored by a process of disincorporation: born of rupture with the left, it must be extracted from the leftist hermeneutics that have overwhelmed it for so long.” The ‘left’ indicated by Badiou is the parliamentary left. The one that acts as a buffer, softening or swallowing up the revolutionary energy of the masses. It is the fake left.

Badiou’s demarcation will be welcome to those striving for a systemic rupture from the existing state of affairs. His caustic observations on the fake left’s deployment of the commemorative stance to gut events or uprisings of their revolutionary content are apt. We, in India, are all too familiar with such rituals staged by the parliamentary left.

Yet, despite the disincorporation (to use Badiou’s word), despite the vehement opposition to empty commemoration, despite his insistence for a “real political declaration”, one fails to see what exactly is being posed as the opposing pole. Badiou writes that we must, today, “…take up the challenge of thinking politics outside its subjection to the state and outside the framework of parties or party.” Let’s leave aside the matter of the party for now. What would this politics be, separated from concern for political power? After all, the state is merely its embodiment. And where would such a politics demarcate itself from the parliamentary lefts’ pretensions of struggling for political power?

The uniqueness of the Paris Commune no doubt lay in the new form of state power it established and proposed for the whole country. But that was consequent to its seizure of political power. Without this as the foundation, without the ‘storming of heavens’ so eloquently described by Marx, the Commune would not have materialised. Now that would seem like a statement of the obvious. Could anyone possibly deny it? Apparently not. But then, appearances can be deceptive too. Take the case of the “real political declaration” Badiou demands. The decision of the Parisian proletarians “… to deal with the situation solely on the basis of the resources of the proletarian movement.”, instead of handing over the destiny of the uprising to the politicians of the fake left, this is the type of political declaration he seeks. It surely is a political demarcation. But where did it come form? What prompted this rupture from the previous practice of tailing the fake left? There can only be one answer here — the recognition of the need to seize power and the decision to get on with that task. That was what gave content to the political declaration made by the people of Paris. That was what made their political declaration real. Minus it and there is no Commune. Conversely, singling out the proletariat’s reliance on its own resources as the political act that mattered most dislodges the act of seizing power from its prime position. It guts revolution of … revolution. The promised disincorporation remains as false as that of the fake left.

Hence the reminder of the CPC led by Mao Zedong on the occasion of the centenary of the Commune, “To persist in revolutionary violence to smash the bourgeois state machine and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, or to maintain the bourgeois state machine and oppose the dictatorship of the proletariat — this has been the focus of repeated struggles between Marxism on the one hand and revisionism, reformism, anarchism and all kinds of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology on the other, the focus of repeated struggles between the two lines in the international communist movement for the past hundred years.”

Badiou notes that Marx praised the Commune for its steps leading to the dissolution of the state, yet deplored its weakness in acting decisively against its enemies. That, to him, reveals an ambiguity, because to act as Marx desired would have meant acting as a state. This begs the question, wasn’t the Commune a state? Badiou himself admits as much when he goes on to talk about the quest for new forms for a proletarian state, initiated by the Commune. Where then is this ambiguity he criticises? In its elaboration he has argued that “…the party realizes the ambiguity of the Marxist account of the Commune, gives it body. It becomes the political site of a fundamental tension between the nonstate, even antistate, character of a politics of emancipation and the statist character of the victory and duration of that politics.” This raises a fundamental question. The fulfillment of a politics of emancipation, understood as the emancipation of all humanity, would certainly have to inscribe a state-less society as its necessary corollary. But can the transition to this end, the process to achieve it, be carried out without a state? If one accepts that classes will continue to exist even after the proletariat succeeds in its revolution, that a new bourgeoisie will emerge, then the answer would be clear. The proletariat will need its state, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its politics of emancipation cannot be ‘anti’ state, even as it digs away the grounds necessitating a state.

In the midst of all this muddle, or rather despite it, Badiou still demands careful thought. He has touched on a vital truth revealed in hitherto seen experiences of the communist project. The party had indeed become the political site of a fundamental tension. But it’s not the one he talks about, the supposed tension between nonstate and statist characters the party has to assume. This false posing arises from his premises. He assumes that Marx’s evaluation was flawed because of the notion that “…the question of power … was the order of the day” during the Commune’s existence. No, that precisely was the question throughout. Power to defend itself against its enemies. Power to sustain, extend and proceed towards its stated goal of eliminating all exploitation. This dual nature of the power it had to wield lay at the root of the tension Badiou notes. It is generic to all dictatorships of the proletariat. This is not an ambiguity. It is a contradictoriness, a dialectic, born from the very character of proletarian state power. It is given by its class character.

“This new Commune, which breaks with the modern state power…The antagonism of the Commune against the state power…The Communal Constitution would have restored to the social body all the forces hitherto absorbed by the state parasite feeding upon, and clogging the free movement of, society.” — these words used by Marx to describe the characteristics of the Commune captured its uniqueness. Yet they were not complete. We see an indication of this in the words of Engels, where he notes that the Central Committee’s handing over power to the Commune so soon after its establishment was an error. He was drawing attention to the need to maintain centralisation in policy and execution even after power is seized and the new state is established. But the institutional form this would take remained to be identified. We see that it remained so even when Lenin was writing the ‘State and Revolution’. The early debates in the Soviet assembly, while the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were still present, also confirm this. Lenin was then confidently speaking of how any one of the parties represented in the Soviet could come to ‘government’ by gaining a majority. This belief was rudely swept aside by actual class struggle. Imperialist intervention, civil war, the switch over of the Mensheviks and other forces to the side of the counter-revolution — the actual course of events pushed the Bolsheviks to the only possible solution … the exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat through the party.

That is how Lenin put the matter. He said that, after two years of real experiences of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Bolsheviks had to tell the International that the dictatorship of the proletariat has to be exercised through the party. Note that he records it as a factual observation, as something necessitated by the situation. It is not presented as a conclusion derived from theoretical analysis. The initial expression of what Badiou chooses to describe as the ‘party-state’ can perhaps be seen in those words of Lenin. To do justice to his critique, Badiou ought to have probed the circumstances that made it the answer to the challenges faced by the fledgling state. He could then have examined the question of whether its later theorisation as the necessary form of proletarian rule was justified — not speculatively, but firmly placed on the real grounds of the harsh demands of class struggle.

To be a state, yet one that aids in the preparation of its own withering away, this is the uniqueness of the proletarian state. This lies at the root of placing the party at its very core. Every state, being the instrument of specific class interests, must necessarily have institutions that ensure the continuity of those interests. In the feudal monarchies it was the royalty, the kingship. In bourgeois rule it is the permanent army and bureaucracy. The proletarian state too needs an army and bureaucracy. But it cannot rely on these forces as the instruments that will ensure continuity of its class interests. No matter how different their functioning, in their essential nature they will still remain as powers alienated from the masses. The party system becomes the only institution capable of fulfilling this need. It has to both lead and be part of the state to realise it. The vanguard party and the mass organisations and forums it leads comprise the party system. The grounds for the bureaucratisation of this institution lie in their ‘being part of the state’. But that cannot be made a reason for avoiding this role. The actual demands of continuing the class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat won’t allow it.

With the bitter experiences of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union before them, the Chinese communists tried to bring back the lessons of the Commune as live practice. That much was already indicated in the May 16 circular. But was the eventual formalisation of Revolutionary Committees as the new form of power an abandoning of Commune principles? Was it a closure of the revolutionary parenthesis as Badiou argues? To answer that one would have to answer Mao’s question to Chang Chun Chiao and the Shanghai comrades, “Where would they place the party?”. It wouldn’t do to avoid that vital question. As for the form, wouldn’t its revolutionary credentials be better attested to by the line followed, by the consolidation of ‘great democracy’ for the people seen in the new Constitution, by the deepening of a materialist understanding of the factors underlying the threat of capitalist restoration?

Badiou has problems with the party and what he calls the ‘party-state’. In his view, that structure marked, determined, the ‘first initiative’ of the communist project. Later, as was seen in his essay on Trump, one sees him accepting that, if not the Leninist party, some sort of an organisation is needed. In his words, “… we must certainly open the question of the organisation in the sense of some organisation that must stay near the movement, with the idea of the movement and which controls the state, which has the power to control the state, to exercise a sort of popular dictatorship over the state.” The essay on the Commune moves away. One could identify several reasons for these flip flops. Among them, his ambivalence on the concrete sense of seizing power stands out. One sees quite a lot of talk on revolution, but the necessary means of carrying it out, the armed struggle, does not figure there. This was seen in this very article on the Commune. Where one fails to recognise the centrality of armed struggle in the proletariat’s quest to seize power and retain it, the role and significance of having a vanguard party to lead and sustain it will inevitably be missed. The movement of the masses is surely vital. But it cannot replace the vanguard. True, we cannot simply be satisfied with hitherto existing models of the vanguard. Today we need to go beyond the Leninist model and apply the principles and methods of the ‘Maoist party’. That, however, is not a negation of the vanguard concept. It wouldn’t do to dismiss it as a hangover of ‘retrogressive statism’.

*The Monthly Review editors refused to publish this response on the plea that ‘…it does not suit the magazine’s present needs.’