Volume 4, No. 7, July 2003

The ‘Left’ Front Govt. of W. Bengal have completed 25 years of their uninterrupted rule. They very much boast of their success. The CPI(M) have already claimed that this is a unique incident in World history. According to them this is unique, as the ‘Left’ Front Govt. led by them have been continuing their rule in a State, while at the Centre a ‘bourgeois-landlord’ Govt. has been persisting. They have achieved this unique success by taking lessons from the practice of their revisionist predecessors and developed this further to the height of sadistic art. They have proved their skill in deceiving the toiling masses, flaunting red flag and mouthing revolutionary jargons. They have ardently been serving the interest of the comprador and foreign exploiters to suck the blood of the labouring people. They have been acting as a shield to this reactionary state machinery and doing their best to popularise it, as if the state has no class character! They are trying to make the people believe that this is a creative application of Marxism. And what they are doing is nothing but tactical moves to further the progress towards ultimate aim! This is a unique indeed! During this period they armed their ‘cadres’ (goons) to suppress opposition forces—be it a party of their own front or other forces. For the purpose they adopt all sorts of fascist methods. Though they are telling about People’s Democratic Revolution they have never taken a step to develop an alternative state structure to the existing one. On the contrary, they have nursed fascist goons to suppress the democratic aspirations of the people, which go against their pro-ruling class policies. Naturally, time and again the CPI(M)-led ‘Left’ Front has come down on revolutionary forces ruthlessly. The CPI(M) deployed their armed goons (cadres) along with the state armed forces and has unleashed all sorts of atrocities. Even then, the revolutionary forces like CPI(ML)(PW), MCC and KLO, an organisation of Kamtapuri people, have become a threat to the ‘Left’ Front Govt. and the ruling class. The CPI(ML)(PW) and MCC adopted the path of protracted people’s war and have been putting into practice those programmes to develop an alternative state structure to accomplish the new democratic revolution.

Consequently, the CPI(M), a protector of the existing state, and ‘Left’ Front Govt. under its leadership, once again resorted to atrocious measures to wipe out the CPI(ML)[PW]. They deployed the state armed forces, specially trained brutal anti-naxal forces and armed goons; guided them to adopt all sorts of brutal atrocities disregarding existing legal norms. The revolutionaries and the people under their influence have to face inhuman torture and terror. This resembles those dark days of the S.S. Ray-led Congress Govt. of the 70s. The democratic people of W.Bengal have come to the streets and raised their voice against these atrocities. In the face of this people’s protest the brazen-faced chief minister, Budha Bhattacharjee, a polit-bureau member of the CPI(M), assured the people that he would not allow those dark days of the 70s come back again. His Govt. would fight politically against the Naxalities. The State Secratary of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas, also declared that they would expose and fight the Naxalites politically. Yet, the CPI(M) and the ‘Left’ Front Govt. have further intensified repression, and to dupe the terrorised people, have placed before them some reform programmes.

Let them come out with their ‘political fight’ instead of this carrot and stick policy. In the meantime, the readers should know the policies of the CPI(M), the protagonist of ‘creative Marxism’. The CPI(M), at the time of its formation in ’64, took a somewhat different position from that of the CPI who supported the path of peaceful transition to socialism propounded by Khrushchov. The CPI(M) leadership for a time appeared to side with the Marxist-Leninists in opposing Khrushchov’s revisionist thesis of peaceful transition. The later events gradually revealed that their support to the anti-revisionist struggle was fake and was prompted mainly by their desire to seize the leadership by utilizing the revolutionary urges of the communist ranks. In their Party Programme, adopted in ’64, they have stated—The Party "strives to achieve the estabilishment of people’s democracy and socialist transformation through peaceful means. By developing a powerful mass revolutionary movement, by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary forms of struggle, the working class and its allies will try their utmost to overcome the resistance of the forces of reaction and to bring about these transformation through peaceful means." According to the oral explanation of the CPI(M)’s leadership, although the Party believes that the People’s Democratic Revolution can only be accomplished through violent means, the programme has been so formulated because of tactical reasons. It was however remarkable that their mockfight with CPI over the thesis of peaceful transition to socialism did not prevent them from keeping almost the same formulation as that of the CPI in describing the path for the seizure of political power. The cat was further out of the bag when , while repudiating the allegation against CPI(M) presented to the Parliament in a white paper by the Home Minister, Gulzarilal Nanda, their then General Secretary, Sundaraya, in his letter from prison, declared that the CPI(M) has no intention of preparing for an armed revolution and is committed to the peaceful and legal path for achieving its aims.

The CPI(M) programme also states that "even while keeping before the people the task of dislodging the present ruling classes and establishing a new democratic state and government based on the firm alliance of the working class and peasantry, the party will utilise all the opportunities that present themselves of bringing into existence governments pledged to carry out a modest programme of giving immediate relief to the people. It however, would not solve the economic and political problems of the nation in any fundamental manner. The Party, therefore, will continue to educate the mass of the people on the need for replacing the present bourgeois-landlord state and government headed by the big bourgeoisie even while utilising all opportunities for forming such governments of a transitional character which give immediate relief to the people and thus strengthen the mass movement." This clause gave concrete and practical expression to the CPI(M)’s neo-revisionism. Here again, the leadership tried to explain that though this paragraph has been inserted in the Party’s programme it should be considered as a tactics. But, the concrete practice of the CPI(M) in real life however provides a better explanation of the CPI(M)’s neo-revisionism in the guise of tactics. Implementing this clause of the Programme they formed governments in Kerala, W. Bengal and Tripura a number of times. They want to further this success and hope to form government at the Centre by achieving majority in Parliament. This is not a concoction. One may recall the speech of Jyoti Basu, the Chief Minister of West Bengal and a member of the polit-bureau of CPI(M) wherein he declared "We have formed government in West Bengal and Tripura. But it is impossible to solve any fundamental problem till we form government at Centre." Thus according to their revisionist logic the people should support them to achieve a majority in parliament and form a government at the Centre for solving the fundamental problems of the country. For the purpose, they always want to befool their cadres and the people and create illusions about the present state-machinery. Jyoti Basu in his article published in ‘Marxbadi Patha’, Nov. ‘81 has claimed success for transforming the old state-machinery in such a way as to be suitable for implementing his government’s pro-people new programmes. No doubt the CPI(M) leadership is more cunning than the CPI leadership. The CPI(M) leadership in practice follows the path of peaceful transition to socialism by parliamentary means but theoretically tries to blur the difference between revisionism and Marxism for hoodwinking the cadres.

What is proletarian revolution from the Marxist point of view? According to the Marxist teachers this is the violent break up of the old state-machinery by the exploited classes under the leadership of the proletariat. All the Marxist teachers did their best to expound this view and refute all sorts of distorted version of this view. The essence of all those distortions is to oppose the violent revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the exploited classes headed by the proletariat. The protagonists of these distorted versions of the Marxist views always put forward the theory of "peaceful transition to socialism" and try to make the people believe that the state of the exploiting class or classes need not be smashed and the old state machinery can well be used by the exploited classes.

Following in the footsteps of Bernstein and Kautsky, Khurushchov put forward the road of "peaceful transition" opposing violent revolution. In his report to the 20th congress of the CPSU it was stated that the winning of a stable parliamentary majority "could create for the working class of a number of capitalist and former colonial countries the conditions needed to secure fundamental social changes". Thus according to the Khrushchov-model, the central task of the revolution is to win a stable majority in parliament, instead of seizure of state power by smashing the old one.

Long before Khrushchov, Lenin refuted this revisionist theory of "peaceful transition to socialism" put forward by the leaders of Second International. Bernstein, the defender of the political system of modern bourgeois society advocated that this society "should not be destroyed but should only be further developed" and that "we are now bringing about by voting, demonstrations and similar means of pressure reforms which would have required bloody revolution a hundred years ago." Like Bernstein, Kautsky also championed the parliamentary road and opposed violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He maintained that in the modern democratic state there is "no more room for armed struggle for the settlement of class conflicts" and that "It would be ridiculous...to preach a violent political overthrow." He therefore prescribed "the aim of our political struggle remains, as hitherto, the conquest of state power by winning a majority in parliament and by converting parliament into the master of the government." Lenin criticising these leaders of the Second International said, "Only scoundrels or simpletons can think that the proletariat must win the majority in elections carried out under the yoke of the bourgeoisie under the yoke of wage-slavery, and that it should win power afterwards. This is the height of folly or hypocrisy; it is substituting voting, under the old system and with the old power, for class struggle and revolution."

Considering all these revisionist distortions of Marxism, Lenin correctly pointed out that "the struggle for the emancipation of the masses of the toilers from the influence of the bourgeoisie in general, and of the imperialist bourgeoisie in particular, is impossible without a struggle against opportunist prejudices about the ‘State’." In his celebrated work, ‘The State and Revolution’ Lenin clearly exposed all the opportunist prejudices about the ‘State’ and restored the revolutionary doctrine of Marx on the State. The state is a machinery for class rule ie. a machinery of oppression of one class by another. Criticising Kautsky, who accepted the state as an organ of class rule and as a product of irreconcilable class antagonisms but did not recognise the importance of smashing the old state machinery, Lenin stated that "the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class." So the central task of every proletarian revolution is not only to take up arms but also to destroy the apparatus of the state power created by the exploiting classes. This apparatus of the state power can be of no use to the exploited classes and they have to substitute it by their own which can only be built up by undertaking revolutionary methods. The most important lesson which was drawn by Marx from the experience of the Paris Commune was that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes."

Further, Lenin explained that a democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained control of this very best shell, it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change, either of persons or institutions, or of parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic, can shake it. In this, universal suffrage acts as a cover of bourgeois rule. Only the revisionists, the distorters of Marxism, can hope that through universal suffrage the majority will can be expressed and realised. Two institutions, the bureaucracy and a standing army, which are the most characteristic of the state machine, have also been developed, perfected and strengthened by the exploiting classes in the course of development of class struggles. In this era of imperialism the growth of these two apparatus is unprecedented irrespective of the form of bourgeois state. The chief component of the bourgeois state machine is the armed force and not the parliament. So long as the bourgeoisie controls the military-bureaucratic apparatus, the proletariat cannot smash the old state machinery by obtaining a majority in parliament. The proletariat has to arm the people, build up the armed organisation of the people and smash the old state machinery and substitute it by their own one.

Particularly, in this era of imperialism, which is distinguished as Lenin stated "by a minimum attachment for peace and freedom and by a maximum and universal development of militarism" the violent revolutions have become even more indispensable as proletarian revolutions would not only have to face the violent suppression of the domestic reactionary ruling classes but also have to guard against armed intervention by imperialism.

The CPI(M) and its partners not only ignore the lessons of the successful revolutions of Russia and China but also confuse the people regarding the central task of the revolution. The central task of every proletarian revolution is the seizure of state power, of smashing the old one by violence and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat or of the exploited classes under the leadership of the proletariat. In Russia before the February Revolution, Soviets of workers and soldiers were set up as an alternative organ of power of the toiling people. During the course of revolution Soviets of workers’, agricultural labourers’ and peasants’ deputies were formed throughout the country, from top to bottom, as a substitute to the state of the exploiting class. At the same time they had to arm the people and organize people’s armed forces such as the ‘Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet’, ‘Uprising Detachments of Revolutionary Soldiers’, ‘Red Guards’ etc. In China due to it being a backward country, the party of the proletariat from the very beginning had to pay great attention towards the formation of the armed forces of the people to combat counter-revolutionary violence. The red army and the village militia were formed in the course of struggle. As an alternative organ of people’s power ‘Soviets’ were set up throughout the country. Theory apart, the concrete experience of the successful revolutions indisputably demonstrate time and again that for their emancipation, the exploited classes should have to arm themselves, build the armed forces and form their own organs of power to substitute the old ones. These are the positive experience of successful proletarian revolutions.

What is the experience of revisionist practice, which followed the path of peaceful transition to socialism through parliamentary means? After the Second World War, the leaders of the Communist Party of Chile ardently followed the revisionist path. In lieu of few ministerial posts in the Gongales Videla Government in 1946, they took the path of class conciliation. These revisionists argued that it was necessary to "increase production" and to support a government for immediate demands. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile boasted that the workers had enthusiastically responded to the call for increasing production and solving their problems by making full use of the necessary procedures. He also noted with satisfaction that the workers are resorting to strike only as an exceptional measure. The leadership also assured the bourgeoisie that the party would make all possible efforts to settle the problems between the employers and the workers in an amicable manner. All these efforts of conciliation however ended in vain and they had to quit office and face the terror of the ruling classes. Despite such bitter experiences the revisionist leaders of the Communist Party of Chile refused to give up their wrong understanding about the bourgeois state machinery. Thus they continued to pit themselves against class struggle in order to prevent its culmination towards civil war. In September, 1970 the ‘United Popular’, an united front of the Communist Party of Chile, the Socialist Party and the Radical Party, headed by the revisionists, formed the government after achieving victory in the elections. In January, 1971, one of the Secretariat members of the Communist Party of Chile described this achievement as a "new creative contribution to the history of the struggle for emancipation of the workers". Being obsessed with opportunist prejudices about the ‘state’ they did not even hesitate to glorify the Chilean Armed Forces. In May 71, Allende, the leader of the Communist Party of Chile, declared before a gathering at Conception University that "You have read, as I have, the book of Lenin ‘The State and Revolution’. I have studied it many times during my lifetime and we find in it the theoretical conception about the armed forces that the revolutionaries like Lenin have. But Chile is going through a stage which is glaringly proving how different our Armed Forces are." Even four days before the coup-de-tat he repeated that "the government has insisted on the fact that the Chilean reality cannot be distorted with a false antagonism between the people and the Armed Forces." The Communist Party of Chile as we can see, in fact, disarmed the people by creating illusions about the bourgeois state machinery and propagating petty bourgeois prejudices about the state. Being more concerned about retaining governmental power, they were anxious to maintain the laws and institutions of the bourgeois state and to ensure that they were not smashed by the people in the course of their revolutionary activities. They demagogically mobilized the masses, but never dared to violate the limits of the existing laws and institutions. Experience shows that the Communist Party of Chile was as much afraid, as the bourgeoisie were, of the revolutionary initiative of the people. As a result of all these ‘creative contributions’ to the theory of class collaboration, the Chilean people on 11th September ‘73 ultimately became victims of a military coup-de-tat. During the six months, after the coup-de-tat 30,000 people were butchered and more than 1,50,000 people were thrown either in the jails or in the concentration camps. The painful Chilean experience must remain a grim reminder about the futility of the path of peaceful transition. Same was the experience of the Indonesian people, acquired in course of pursuing the revisionist line under the leadership of the Indonesian Communist Party. In 1959, the Indonesian Communist Party in its 6th Congress adopted a new party programme. It was stated in the parliament and other institutions of the state had been reformed and instituted according to the people’s will. In such a modern democratic Indonesian state, the new programme declared, the proletariat could play its historical role. It was also emphasised that the proletariat should have to endeavour continuously for realisation of the possibility of fundamental social transformation through peaceful means. In their 7th Congress of 1962, the Indonesian Party leaned further towards the revisionist line of peaceful transition to socialism. Suffering from revisionist illusions, they thought that the programme for immediate demands of the people can be best implemented by the National Coalition Government and the balance of power within it can be changed in favour of the people without armed revolution. Further, the Indonesian Communist Party maintained that the state machinery of the landlords and comprador bourgeoisie could be utilized to serve the interests of the people. These illusions of the party leadership about the anti-people state machinery were also instilled into the people. Due to these revisionist ideas of the party, inspite of its large number of members (having the largest number of membership for any communist party not in power) and supporters, failed to rouse the people to initiate armed resistance against the brutal terror unleashed by the lndonesian Army in Oct, 1965 after capturing state power through a coup-de-tat. In the absence of armed resistance the whole country was terrorised by the atrocities of the state machinery and the people had to pay more than one million lives as tribute to the revisionist interpretation of Marxism.

The revisionist party, the CPI(M), do not take lessons from the experiences of the Chilean and Indonesian practice of revisionism. They have further developed it, to avoid those painful episodes, and to share the spoils of the rulers. They have been putting themselves more and more in the service of the ruling classes. They are now acting as political representative of a section of the ruling classes and trying their best of create illusions about the state which was created and developed by the colonial power, as an embodiment of violence. The main objective of the British imperialists was to continue and perpetuate their exploitation. Like all colonial powers, the British Imperialists had to depend more and more on violence and it was obligatory on their part to continuously strengthen the armed forces and the bureaucracy. Consequently, a super-imposed and alien colonial state machinery utterly disproportionate to the indigenous socio-economic development, came into existence. The British imperialists, cunning as they were, also undertook numerous reforms to divert the ongoing anti-imperialist movements to the path of parliamentarism and legalism. This top-heavy and alien state machinery has been inherited by the Indian ruling classes, headed by the comprador bourgeoisie. They not only maintained that repressive colonial state machinery but also have strengthened it more and more to suppress the struggles of the exploited classes for their emancipation.

Since transfer of power, every genuine people’s movement has to face the ruthless suppression of that state machinery. Time and again, people’s organisations have been outlawed and many draconian laws have been enacted and implemented by force to curb the democratic rights of the people and to drown the revolutionary struggles in a pool of blood. Even then the Indian revisionist parties like the CPI(M) and their partners preach that the working class can, even before the present authoritarian rule is overthrown, cooperate with the reactionary ruling classes to carry out welfare measures that surpass ordinary reforms. They simply seek to disarm the people politically by claiming that the parliament can be converted into the master of the system. They also claim that they have had the unique experience of utilising the present Indian state machinery for the purpose of serving the interests of the exploited classes. Like the Chilean and Indonesian revisionist leaderships, the CPI and the CPI(M) leaderships have also taken the path of class conciliation and are almost solely concerned about retaining their governmental power in a few states. (But unlike them they are not butchered as they have completely joined the ruling classes of the country.) For this purpose, they call upon the working class to increase production and restrain the movements and struggles within the limits of the existing laws. It is therefore no wonder that these revisionists have directed their trade unions to settle all labour problems through the government machinery and to resort to strike only as a last weapon. The state governments led by them have time and again assured the ruling classes that they are only interested in implementing the "modest programme of giving immediate relief to the people" by strictly limiting themselves within the existing constitutional framework. These revisionist-led parties do not find any necessity of arming the people, but their governments make more and more budget provisions for the strengthening of the state machinery especially of bureaucracy and police forces. It is only natural that the armed forces have been deployed by these governments on several occasions against the movements of workers, peasants, nationalities and other sections of the democratic people. What more can a government do to further and perpetuate the exploitation of the comprador and foreign exploiting classes? What more can these parties, pretending to be revolutionary, do to rob the exploited classes of their initiative by disarming them politically? So it is quite natural, that these revisionist parties have been allowed to remain in the governmental power in some states by the ruling classes headed by the comprador bourgeoisie.

These sham Marxists — CPI(M), CPI — have been following the path of Scheideman, the infamous German socialist who shared governmental power and killed Leibknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and hundreds of revolutionaries. The leaders of the CPI(M), the party of Scheidemans, have drenched their hands by the blood of hundreds of revolutionaries and democratic people, and are continuing to do so. What more can a representative of the ruling class do?

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