Occupy Wall Street: What Is To Be Done... Next?

By Slavoj Žižek 
24 April, 2012
The Guardian


How a protest movement without a program can confront a capitalist system that defies reform
What to do in the aftermath of the Occupy Wall Street movement, when the protests that started far away – in the Middle East, Greece, Spain, UK – reached the center, and are now reinforced and rolling out all around the world?

In a San Francisco echo of the OWS movement on 16 October 2011, a guy addressed the crowd with an invitation to participate in it as if it were a happening in the hippy style of the 1960s:

"They are asking us what is our program. We have no program. We are here to have a good time."

Such statements display one of the great dangers the protesters are facing: the danger that they will fall in love with themselves, with the nice time they are having in the "occupied" places. Carnivals come cheap – the true test of their worth is what remains the day after, how our normal daily life will be changed. The protesters should fall in love with hard and patient work – they are the beginning, not the end. Their basic message is: the taboo is broken, we do not live in the best possible world; we are allowed, obliged even, to think about alternatives.

In a kind of Hegelian triad, the western left has come full circle: after abandoning the so-called "class struggle essentialism" for the plurality of anti-racist, feminist etc struggles, "capitalism" is now clearly re-emerging as the name of the problem.

The first two things one should prohibit are therefore the critique of corruption and the critique of financial capitalism. First, let us not blame people and their attitudes: the problem is not corruption or greed, the problem is the system that pushes you to be corrupt. The solution is neither Main Street nor Wall Street, but to change the system where Main Street cannot function without Wall Street. Public figures from the pope downward bombard us with injunctions to fight the culture of excessive greed and consummation – this disgusting spectacle of cheap moralization is an ideological operation, if there ever was one: the compulsion (to expand) inscribed into the system itself is translated into personal sin, into a private psychological propensity, or, as one of the theologians close to the pope put it:

"The present crisis is not crisis of capitalism but the crisis of morality."

Let us recall the famous joke from Ernst Lubitch's Ninotchka: the hero visits a cafeteria and orders coffee without cream; the waiter replies:

"Sorry, but we have run out of cream, we only have milk. Can I bring you coffee without milk?"

Was not a similar trick at work in the dissolution of the eastern European Communist regimes in 1990? The people who protested wanted freedom and democracy without corruption and exploitation, and what they got was freedom and democracy without solidarity and justice. Likewise, the Catholic theologian close to the pope is carefully emphasizing that the protesters should target moral injustice, greed, consumerism etc, without capitalism. The self-propelling circulation of Capital remains more than ever the ultimate Real of our lives, a beast that by definition cannot be controlled.

One should avoid the temptation of the narcissism of the lost cause, of admiring the sublime beauty of uprisings doomed to fail. What new positive order should replace the old one the day after, when the sublime enthusiasm of the uprising is over? It is at this crucial point that we encounter the fatal weakness of the protests: they express an authentic rage which is not able to transform itself into a minimal positive program of socio-political change. They express a spirit of revolt without revolution.

Reacting to the Paris protests of 1968, Lacan said:

"What you aspire to as revolutionaries is a new master. You will get one."

It seems that Lacan's remark found its target (not only) in the indignados of Spain. Insofar as their protest remains at the level of a hysterical provocation of the master, without a positive program for the new order to replace the old one, it effectively functions as a call for a new master, albeit disavowed.

We got the first glimpse of this new master in Greece and Italy, and Spain will probably follow. As if ironically answering the lack of expert programs of the protesters, the trend is now to replace politicians in the government with a "neutral" government of depoliticized technocrats (mostly bankers, as in Greece and Italy). Colorful "politicians" are out, grey experts are in. This trend is clearly moving towards a permanent emergency state and the suspension of political democracy.

So we should see in this development also a challenge: it is not enough to reject the depoliticized expert rule as the most ruthless form of ideology; one should also begin to think seriously about what to propose instead of the predominant economic organization, to imagine and experiment with alternate forms of organization, to search for the germs of the New. Communism is not just or predominantly the carnival of the mass protest when the system is brought to a halt; Communism is also, above all, a new form of organization, discipline, hard work.

The protesters should beware not only of enemies, but also of false friends who pretend to support them, but are already working hard to dilute the protest. In the same way we get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice-cream without fat, they will try to make the protests into a harmless moralistic gesture. In boxing, to "clinch" means to hold the opponent's body with one or both arms in order to prevent or hinder punches. Bill Clinton's reaction to the Wall Street protests is a perfect case of political clinching; Clinton thinks that the protests are "on balance … a positive thing", but he is worried about the nebulousness of the cause. Clinton suggested the protesters get behind President Obama's jobs plan, which he claimed would create "a couple million jobs in the next year and a half". What one should resist at this stage is precisely such a quick translation of the energy of the protest into a set of "concrete" pragmatic demands. Yes, the protests did create a vacuum – a vacuum in the field of hegemonic ideology, and time is needed to fill this vacuum in in a proper way, since it is a pregnant vacuum, an opening for the truly New. The reason protesters went out is that they had enough of the world where to recycle your Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes for the third world troubles is enough to make them feel good.

Economic globalization is gradually but inexorably undermining the legitimacy of western democracies. Due to their international character, large economic processes cannot be controlled by democratic mechanisms which are, by definition, limited to nation states. In this way, people more and more experience institutional democratic forms as unable to capture their vital interests.

It is here that Marx's key insight remains valid, today perhaps more than ever: for Marx, the question of freedom should not be located primarily into the political sphere proper. The key to actual freedom rather resides in the "apolitical" network of social relations, from the market to the family, where the change needed if we want an actual improvement is not a political reform, but a change in the "apolitical" social relations of production. We do not vote about who owns what, about relations in a factory, etc – all this is left to processes outside the sphere of the political. It is illusory to expect that one can effectively change things by "extending" democracy into this sphere, say, by organizing "democratic" banks under people's control. In such "democratic" procedures (which, of course, can have a positive role to play), no matter how radical our anti-capitalism is, the solution is sought in applying the democratic mechanisms – which, one should never forget, are part of the state apparatuses of the "bourgeois" state that guarantees undisturbed functioning of the capitalist reproduction.

Due to their international character, large economic processes cannot be controlled by democratic mechanisms which are, by definition, limited to nation states.

The emergence of an international protest movement without a coherent program is therefore not an accident: it reflects a deeper crisis, one without an obvious solution. The situation is like that of psychoanalysis, where the patient knows the answer (his symptoms are such answers) but doesn't know to what they are answers, and the analyst has to formulate a question. Only through such a patient work a program will emerge.

In an old joke from the defunct German Democratic Republic, a German worker gets a job in Siberia. Aware of how all mail will be read by censors, he tells his friends:

"Let's establish a code: if a letter you will get from me is written in ordinary blue ink, it is true; if it is written in red ink, it is false."

After a month, his friends get the first letter written in blue ink:

"Everything is wonderful here: stores are full, food is abundant, apartments are large and properly heated, movie theaters show films from the west, there are many beautiful girls ready for an affair – the only thing unavailable is red ink."

And is this not our situation till now? We have all the freedoms one wants – the only thing missing is the "red ink": we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. What this lack of red ink means is that, today, all the main terms we use to designate the present conflict – "war on terror", "democracy and freedom", "human rights", etc – are false terms, mystifying our perception of the situation instead of allowing us to think it.

The task today is to give the protesters red ink.

• This article is based on remarks Slavoj Žižek will be making at an event at the New York Public Library on 25 April, ahead of publication of The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (2012)© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited

Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities

Interview with Basanta - Politburo Member of the Central Committee Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

1 – How is the recent situation concerning the two line struggle in your party? Have any of the most important contradictions been solved? (Here you can describe the whole situation about the positions of each side, on which we already have a general idea, but also underline the points that are agreed on.)

For a communist party, the two-line struggle is the source of its life. As an object does not exist without contradiction in it, a communist party too does not exist when there is no two-line struggle. However, the two-line struggle does not always have the same level but varies depending upon the content of the issues involved in it. The two-line struggle in our party has sharpened mainly after the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, which established the federal democratic republic of Nepal. Monarchy has been abolished from Nepal but not feudalism. Nepal is still a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country. External intervention is in the rise. The essence of the ongoing two-line struggle is centred on how to understand this situation and whether to continue with status quo i.e. the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition beautified by cosmetics of the democratic republic or continue struggling to establish People’s Federal Republic in its place.

A few months before, when our CC meeting had just started, chairman Prachanda brought about a long interview in which he revealed so many things on the questions of line. In that interview he categorically said that there is no need now to make a new democratic revolution in Nepal, because the gap between the new democratic revolution and the socialist revolution has narrowed. The major part of it has already been accomplished and the rest can be accomplished when the socialist revolution comes in the agenda. He added that the major task before the party was to develop productive forces by creating conducive atmosphere for the donor countries. This way, he does not even stand in favour of national economy and the national bourgeois. In fact he has been integrated in the imperialist system. Dissolution of the people’s power, submission of the PLA into the hands of Nepal Army through a kind of coup on April 10, 2012, returning of land to the landlords, signing of anti-national treaties like BIPPA and other shameful treaties on water resources with India etc. have made Prachanda-Baburam clique stand in service of Indian expansionism, the regional watchdog of the US imperialism, and their puppets in Nepal. Through this process this clique has betrayed the nation and the class as well.

When the leaders nakedly surrender before imperialism and their running domestic agents, then the two-line struggle does not remain an issue of the party alone. Rather it becomes an issue of the nation and the entire oppressed people as a whole. It must be taken to the masses so that their anti-people and anti-national crimes could be unveiled. Hence, the two-line struggle which we are taking to the masses now is an ideological and political campaign to make the entire oppressed class, nation, sex and region stand by the side of revolutionaries and expose the right revisionists who betrayed the nation and people in the garb of Marxism.

The last Central Committee meeting has taken up a method to deal with organisational problems. First, no committee at any level will take decisions on the basis of majority and minority and second, if there is no unanimity then either ideological group will have right to organise their separate committee meetings, take decisions and implement in their own. In other words, every ideological group in our party is free to take decisions and implement them in practice. Democratic centralism is not active in our party now. The line struggle in the party is now openly taken to the masses. We think the synthesis of this whole process will equip us with deeper ideological grasp to lead the revolution forward.

2 – How is the situation with the People’s Liberation Army? Has the army been dissolved now?

When the formation of People's Liberation Army, Nepal was declared from its first conference in 2000, Chairman Prachanda had said that that PLA would be such a militant strength of the world proletariat that will prevent counter-revolution in the twenty-first century. Surprisingly, after 12 years on April 10, 2012, the "Supreme Commander" of the PLA, chairman Prachanda ordered the Nepal army to stage a coup against the very PLA he gave birth to by encircling their camp and forcing them to surrender. He claimed that it was a bold decision taken on his part but in fact it was a cowardly decision of capitulation before the imperialism, expansionism and various shades of reaction.

3 – How is the content or reflection of the two line struggle concerning the international relations of the party? What do you think about the critics of for example the Communist Party of India (Maoist)? Or other organisations who have similar positions?

Before the two-line struggle surfaced, the international communist movement was critical of our party line. Some parties criticised our party in open, just for example the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), Revolutionary Communist Party of USA etc. and some others placed their critical opinion internally. However, except a few revisionist parties most of the revolutionaries were critical of the line we had adopted then. But when the two-line struggle surfaced in our party the revolutionaries all across the world have shown ideological support to the revolutionary line and the revolutionary faction led by comrade Kiran. The criticism that came from various revolutionary parties was basically correct. And some of them were based on subjective understanding of the situation. However, those criticisms were helpful for our fight against revisionism and defence of revolution and revolutionary line.

4 – How does the opposition consider the Rolpa Congress in 2005? Has it played any role in the present situation?

Our party had held a Central Committee meeting, not the Congress, at Chunwang in Rukum, not Rolpa, in 2005. We adopted a new tactic of the democratic republic from that very meeting. We said it was a tactical shift. It was definitely a turning point from which we took a path of the Constituent Assembly and it has made us arrive at this point. Definitely, the Chunwang line has to do with the present situation to develop. But Chunwang too did not emerge from vacuum. So, we have to have a thorough summation of the past, which we have not done till now. In order to have a rich summation I think we must focus on the Chunwang Meeting, the Second National Conference and even before. And also we have to sum up our position on "The development of democracy in the twenty-first century".

5 – What does the opposition think about having a Party Congress? Is the fact of not having held a Congress for many years, one of the reasons that support the bureaucratisation inside the party?

Of course, not having a party congress for quite a long time, 20 years, is one of the reasons that support bureaucratisation inside the party. But, this is not the only and the principal reason. The main reason behind the present condition to happen is the ideological and political degeneration on the part of main leadership. Party congress can be helpful to resolve the problem and it should be regularised too. But, party Congress is not possible at present, not because we don't want it to happen, but because there is no conducive environment required to organise a thorough discussion on the questions involved in the two-line struggle.

6 – Do you think that the conflict can be solved without any split in the party? To what extend does the opposition would risk that?

It is the revolutionaries who want a strong party to make revolution. The revolutionary strength primarily is measured by the correctness of ideological and political line and secondarily by the dimension of organisation and material strength they have. Therefore, the revolutionaries must have a principal thrust in building a correct ideological and political line and then a correct organisational line that helps unite more in the party to strengthen its material base.

Chairman Mao has very explicitly shed light on who is the real splinter. He said they are the splinters who deviate from Marxism. The right revisionists deviate from the strategic vision of socialism and so they are the splinters. In this sense, Prachanda-Baburam clique is the splinter. Now we are waging a sharp two-line struggle to defend and develop a correct line. As a consequence, it is bringing about transformation in the comrades and strengthening the revolutionary pole. With the development of situation, the revolutionaries will reorganise and consolidate a revolutionary centre to lead the revolution forward and the revisionists will go after their way in the service of imperialism. Marxism and revisionism cannot go side by side for long in a communist party.

7 – What is the content of the definition of a 21st Century Socialism? What do both sides think about that?

Democracy of the 21st century is a new concept that our party had put forward in 2001. It is indeed a political methodology suggested to practice in the new democratic or socialist society to prevent counter-revolution. It focuses on a few points. First, it proposes to develop a political mechanism that ensures people's supervision and control in all the three fronts of party, government and army after the revolution has been completed. Second, multiparty competition should be guaranteed. Third, the main leadership should not involve in running day to day politics but should engage in the ideological and political works. Fourth, even the second and the third rank leaders should participate in the government not in recurrent but in rotational basis. Fifth, PLA should be small in strength but sufficient enough to train the masses and must not cut off its relation with them by stationing in the barracks etc. It suggests that it should be practiced in both new democratic or socialist society.

In the situation when revolution has not been completed and PLA has been dissolved the questions raised in the first, third, fourth and the fifth point do not have any sense at present. The remaining second point, the multiparty competition, has been extremely useful for Prachanda-Baburam clique, which is dressing in to practice parliamentary politics under the imperialist system. Therefore, the revisionist clique led by Prachanda and Baburam lauds it too much because it has been a useful tool for this clique to confuse the people and allure them towards multi-party system.

The revolutionary faction led by comrade Kiran has not comprehensively summed up this concept after two-line struggle broke out in our party. In general, we still think that this concept can help a lot to stop restoration of capitalism by the revisionists hiding in the communist party and the PLA can be saved from bureaucratization to defend revolution. But, this concept too divides into two. We can reach to a correct and comprehensive synthesis only after we accomplish new democratic revolution and put this concept into practice.

8 – When the CPN (Maoist) made the 12-point agreement and thereafter we supported almost every step of the CPN (Maoist) concerning the very useful manoeuvre of elections and the content of the agreement about how the arms would be kept and etc. We thought that it was riskful, but the bourgeoisie/imperialism would always present occasions to take up arms again, and it did so. Many times indeed. But the UCPN (M) insisted on keeping with the agreements, which were already broken by the other side (bourgeoisie) of the agreement, and which were not serving the revolution any more. What was the reason for this? Looking back from today, we are reconsidering our position concerning this. What would you say?

Adoption of democratic republic as a tactic from Chunwang meeting in 2005 and the 12-point agreement that followed with Nepalese parliamentarian parties in Delhi have had an important role to play in this whole process. In the meeting it was unanimously agreed that this very tactic would help create a strong revolutionary base in the cities, a necessary precondition for people's insurrection to seize central power. We came to the cities to consolidate our strength. But, whatever we had gained during tumultuous ten years of people's war has gone out of our hand now. Recently chairman Prachanda has revealed what he had agreed with Indian expansionist ruling classes in Delhi before reaching 12-point agreement. In an interview to an Indian newspaper, The Hindu, on 16th of April, 2012, he says, "The journey that began in Delhi with the 12-point agreement has now arrived at a conclusion." He gave this interview to The Hindu right after he ordered the Nepal army to stage a coup against the PLA in the cantonments. It reveals the fact that Prachanda-Baburam clique had surrendered before their expansionist masters to get the 12-point agreement signed with parliamentarian parties.

Prachanda-Baburam clique said that it was a tactic to accomplish revolution. But it has been proved now that it was a tri-partite grand strategy that the Indian ruling classes, Nepali parliamentarian parties and the Prachanda-Baburam clique had designed to bring the Nepalese revolution to an end. It shows Prachanda and Baburam not only lied before the Nepalese toiling masses and the world proletariat but also conspired against them.

9 – The CPI (Maoist) criticises you, beside many other points, with not considering the position of the bourgeoisie in the correct way. As far as we understand, they say that the UCPN (Maoist) has put too much emphasis on the fight against feudalism (liquidation of the monarchy etc) but it has not with the bourgeoisie in the correct way, which has caused a never-ending agreement with the bourgeoisie. What do you think on this?

This is very important and timely question. Personally I think comrades of the CPI (Maoist) have raised their finger at a correct point. Although, our ideological faction led by comrade Kiran has not yet reached to a comprehensive synthesis, this is one of the political issues upon which the ongoing two-line struggle has rooted.

The new democratic revolution has two aspects, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist. These two aspects are inseparably integrated. But, in our party there were some differences in understanding this relation from the very beginning. Baburam, unlike other leaders, used to emphasize more on the struggle against monarchy than on the struggle against external intervention. Masses used to understand this as a pro-Indian stance. In addition to this, he had a wrong position that there should be a sub-stage of democratic republic prior to new democratic revolution. When the Phuntiwang CC meeting held in 2004 decided to intensify people's war with a slogan of national independence, Baburam seriously opposed this position. Consequently, the two-line struggle sharpened and attacks and counter-attacks like pro-Indian and pro-King between Prachanda and Baburam followed. Party reached at the verge of split. But, not later than one year in 2005 Prachanda and Baburam both stood dramatically at one point in Chunwang with a new tactic of democratic republic. In fact it was a big political victory for Baburam over Prachanda. Baburam, in that very meeting, said that he was absorbed in Prachanda and for the whole of his life he would never challenge but help him as a second man.

Now, we have arrived at the present scenario. Ever since Chunwang meeting, Baburam's line is leading our party. Now it is explicitly clear that it was not Baburam who was absorbed in Prachanda in Chunwang meeting but it was Prachanda who was absorbed in Baburam. When both of them agreed to adopt democratic republic as a tactic in form and the strategy in essence it was obvious for this clique to put emphasis on the fight against monarchy and have a long term compromise with Indian expansionist ruling classes and their puppets in Nepal.

10 – Don't you think that opposition was too late to understand party's sliding towards wrong direction?

It is not that we did not smell any wrong with our party leadership. We believed him more than necessary. It was our weakness. We are not too late but we were late too. Still we think it is a secondary aspect. The principal aspect is that revolution has been rescued from a big danger of right liquidation. When we were certain that revolution was in danger we raised finger against both line and leadership. In the long course of sharp two-line struggle we have a team of tested leaders and cadres and our revolutionary line is developing. Ultimately, Marxism will prevail over revisionism and the New Democratic Revolution will triumph in Nepal.

Interviewed by MLCP, Turkey

Basanta

Politburo Member of the Central Committee

Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

LEFT PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS ON CASTE

SANTOSH RANA

The producers produce the wealth of society and it is expropriated by the exploiting classes. This is a general feature of all class societies. However, the mode of expropriation of surplus is not same in all class societies.

Caste is a specific feature of Indian society. Indian feudalism took the specific form od caste-feudalism in which the specific role assigned to a person in social production is determined by the Varna or Jati in which he or she is borne. It does not allow individual mobility. Only the higher Varnas had the access and right to education and thus had the monopoly over the production process while the lower Varnas, later divided into hierarchical strata had to bear the burden of labour. Even when there was no private ownership of land and other means of production, the upper Varnas could expropriate the surplus through their control of the state. After the system of private ownership was introduced, the upper castes monopolised the ownership of land and other means of production. Fpr millenniums, the contradiction between the upper caste landlords and the low caste peasantry remained the motive force in the development of society. The lower castes have, in course of time tried to evolve new religious practices to get rid of Brahminical domination. When Christianity and Islam arrived in India, their message of universal brotherhood and equality attracted the lower castes and many people were converted. However, the institution of caste was strong enough to continue even among the converted people. In India, someone can change his religion in a day, but it is not possible to change his caste in thousand years. Sometimes, whole castes or parts of them are found to move up or down the hierarchy but there is no scope for individual mobility.

Capitalist relations of production started developing in India even before it was colonized but that process was thwarted due colonial plunder. The British colonialists encouraged the formation of a class of from among the upper castes (mainly Hindus) some of whom were compradors of East India Company. Ruthless plunder by the British and the landlords turned India into a land of permanent famines. Mediaval India reached her excellence on the basis of a well planned combination of agriculture and handicraft. Colonial plunder destroyed both of them. Thus the home market was destroyed and with it, the opportunities for development of capitalism. The capitalist class that was born was bound to be dependent on imperialism not only for capital and technology but also for market. The big capitalists in to-day”s India are big enough even in global scale but have not overcome this dependent character.

I read Marx’s observation that “Caste is the greatest integument to India’s progress” in the sense that caste, in all its manifestations has to be abolished for all-round development of democracy. Some of the sanctions of caste like that against inter-dining and untouchability have lessened to some extent in the sixty years after independence. Industrialisation and migration of labour force has caused it. But in case of marriage, endogamy is still the rule, some exceptions being found among the middle classes. But as far as the participation of the people in social production is concerned, the low castes are still engaged in labour-intensive low-paid jobs. Due to the policy of reservation for SC and ST during the last sixty years a small section among the SCs and STs have got entry into middle class jobs but this has not changed the overall picture. Actually the backlog of two thousand years cannot be cleared by affirmative policy of sixty years and that too, taken half-heatedly. Moreover, other democratic steps like land-reform and universal education and health-care have no been taken.

How long to continue with the policy of reservation is a question frequently asked. The logical reply to this question is that reservation should continue as long as the lower castes, tribes and religious minorities are not adequately represented in all spheres of social activity. The reservation policy in India has been obstructed by the government and the judiciary. The verdict in Balaji case is the most glaring example. A powerful mass movement should be built to ensure that Scs, STs, OBCs and religious minorities get reservation in proportion to their share in the population.

There is a misconception prevalent among certain quarters that abolition of caste-based discrimination will automatically lead to a class-less society or a society without exploitation. This is a totally wrong view. Abolition or weakening of caste will encourage the growth of capitalist relations of production and the polarization of society into two great warring classes-the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There is a complaint from Left circles that the upper sections among the Dalits and Adivasis have been more benefited from the policy of reservation. The observation is correct but why should a Marxist complain about it ? If the Adivasis are polarized into Adivasi bourgeoisie and Adivasi proletariat. A Marxist should accept it as the maturing of condition for a socialist revolution.

After the Mandal Commission was formed in 1978,the Commission went to different states and sought their opinion. The CPI(M)-led government in West Bengal formed a one-man committee and within a month, it gave its report that “ there are no backward classes in West Bengal”. This reflects a total lack of understanding of Indian society on behalf of the CPI(M) and even after their setback in West Bengal, there is little evidence that they have rectified their mistakes. The Marxist-Leninist groups, in general, have a better understanding of the situation and have mobilized the Dalits and Adivasis against caste-oppression and state-terror. But, they too, have failed to take up the issues of reservation. The need of the hour is that the M-L forces should join hands to build a country-wide movement with the demand of proportionate reservation for SCs,STs, OBCs and minorities and raise their voice against the 50% ceiling imposed by the Supreme Court. To start with, they may unitedly raise their voice for implementation of recommendations of Ranganath Mishra Commission recommendations.

At the end, it is necessary to reiterate that the struggle for reservation is only a part of the general struggles and other important issues like struggles for land reform and against eviction, for remunerative prices of agricultural produce and against anti-labour policies of the government. Actually, these struggles are complementary to each other and they should be combined with the aim of building a new democratic India.

THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION

V.I. Lenin

1. IMPERIALISM, SOCIALISM, AND THE LIBERATION OF OPPRESSED NATIONS

Imperialism is the highest stage of development of capitalism. Capital in the advanced countries has outgrown the boundaries of national states. It has established monopoly in place of competition, thus creating all the objective prerequisites for the achievement of socialism. Hence, in Western Europe and in the United States of America, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of the capitalist governments, for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, is on the order of the day. Imperialism is forcing the masses into this struggle by sharpening class antagonisms to an immense degree, by worsening the conditions of the masses both economically – trusts and high cost of living, and politically – growth of militarism, frequent wars, increase of reaction, strengthening and extension of national oppression and colonial plunder. Victorious socialism must achieve complete democracy and, consequently, not only bring about the complete equality of nations, but also give effect to the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to free political secession. Socialist Parties which fail to prove by all their activities now, as well as during the revolution and after its victory, that they will free the enslaved nations and establish relations with them on the basis of a free union – and a free union is a lying phrase without right to secession – such parties would be committing treachery to socialism.

Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state disappears, but this will take place only in the process of transition from completely victorious and consolidated socialism to complete communism.

2. THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY

The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on a single front; but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e., battles around all the problems of economics and politics, which can culminate only in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.

It would be no less mistaken to delete any of the points of the democratic programme, for example, the point of self-determination of nations, on the ground that it is “infeasible,” or that it is “illusory” under imperialism. The assertion that the right of nations to self-determination cannot be achieved within the framework of capitalism may be understood either in its absolute, economic sense, or in the conventional, political sense.

In the first case, the assertion is fundamentally wrong in theory. First, in this sense, it is impossible to achieve such things as labour money, or the abolition of crises, etc., under capitalism. But it is entirely incorrect to argue that the self-determination of nations is likewise infeasible. Secondly, even the one example of the secession of Norway from Sweden in 1905 is sufficient to refute the argument that it is “infeasible” in this sense. Thirdly, it would be ridiculous to deny that, with a slight change in political and strategical relationships, for example, between Germany and England, the formation of new states, Polish, Indian, etc, would be quite “feasible” very soon. Fourthly, finance capital, in its striving towards expansion, will “freely” buy and bribe the freest, most democratic and republican government and the elected officials of any country, however “independent” it may be. The domination of finance capital, as of capital in general, cannot be abolished by any kind of reforms in the realm of political democracy, and self-determination belongs wholly and exclusively to this realm. The domination of finance capital, however, does not in the least destroy the significance of political democracy as the freer, wider and more distinct form of class oppression and class struggle. Hence, all arguments about the “impossibility of achieving” economically one of the demands of political democracy under capitalism reduce themselves to a theoretically incorrect definition of the general and fundamental relations of capitalism and of political democracy in general.

In the second case, this assertion is incomplete and inaccurate, for not only the right of nations to self-determination, but all the fundamental demands of political democracy are “possible of achievement” under imperialism, only in an incomplete, in a mutilated form and as a rare exception (for example, the secession of Norway from Sweden in 1905). The demand for the immediate liberation of the colonies, as advanced by all revolutionary Social-Democrats, is also “impossible of achievement” under capitalism without a series of revolutions. This does not imply, however, that Social Democracy must refrain from conducting an immediate and most determined struggle for all these demands – to refrain would merely be to the advantage of the bourgeoisie and reaction. On the contrary, it implies that it is necessary to formulate and put forward all these demands, not in a reformist, but in a revolutionary way; not by keeping within the framework of bourgeois legality, but by breaking through it; not by confining oneself to parliamentary speeches and verbal protests, but by drawing the masses into real action, by widening and fomenting the struggle for every kind of fundamental, democratic demand, right up to and including the direct onslaught of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, i.e., to the socialist revolution, which will expropriate the bourgeoisie. The socialist revolution may break out not only in consequence of a great strike, a street demonstration, a hunger riot, a mutiny in the forces, or a colonial rebellion, but also in consequence of any political crisis, like the Dreyfus affair,1 the Zabern incident,2 or in connection with a referendum on the secession of an oppressed nation, etc.

The intensification of national oppression under imperialism makes it necessary for Social-Democracy not to renounce what the bourgeoisie describes as the “utopian” struggle for the freedom of nations to secede, but, on the contrary, to take more advantage than ever before of conflicts arising also on this ground for the purpose of rousing mass action and revolutionary attacks upon the bourgeoisie.

RESOLUTION ADOPTED AT THE CONVENTION ON IMPLEMENTATION OF RANGANATH MISHRA COMMISSION IN KOLKATA ON 9 APRIL 2012

The religious minorities in India are victims of deprivation, discrimination and suppression. If democracy is to be meaningful, all communities must get equal opportunities in all spheres of life and the discrimination against the minorities must be abolished. The Sachar Committee had brought out an objective picture about the condition of the Muslims in the country. The Ranganath Mishra Commission has dealt with the problem of all minorities. It should be noted that the Ranganath Mishra Commission has not treated only the Muslims, Christians and Buddhists as minorities but also has treated the Hindus as minorities in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Mizoram and Lakhadiv.The Commission has recommended several measures for upliftment of minorities.

The Commission submitted its report before the Central Government in 2007. But it is unfortunate that neither the Central Government nor any state government has taken any step towards implementation of recommendations of the Commission. This convention is putting forward the demand to implement the recommendations of the Ranganath Mishra Commission .It is also resolving to build a state-wide movement with the above demands and co-ordinate this movement with similar movements in other states.

The recommendations of the Ranganath Mishra Commission are manyfold. It is natural that its implementation will be a long-drawn process even if the government has the best of intentions. Keeping this in mind, this convention is putting forward the following immediate demands. These demands will also test the intentions of the government.

1. Reserve 15 % of jobs and seats in educational institutions under central government ( 10 % for Muslims and 5 % for other minorities.)

2. In the states, reserve jobs and seats according to the share of the minorities in the respective states. In West Bengal,reserve 30 % of jobs and seats for the minorities (25 % for the Muslims and 5 % for other minorities)

3. Those communities among minorities whose Hindu counterparts have been treated as SC or ST should also be treated as SC or ST. For example, the Rajbanshis are treated as SCs in West Bengal. But those Rajbanshis who have been converted are not treated as SCs. They,too, should be treated as SCs. There are many such examples in the country.

4. All minorities, except those who will be classified as SC or ST should be treated as OBCs. While giving them reservation, the economically weaker sections among them should get the preference. But if the quota of reservation is not fulfilled by candidates from lower income groups, then those reserved seats should be opened to minorities of higher income groups..And, under no circumstances, should they be opened to majority community.

In order to build a state-wide movement with the above demands, this convention is appointing a Preparatory Committee in the name of SANJUKTA SANKHYALAGHU SANRAKHAN MANCHA. The names of the members of the committee are given below.

This convention is empowering the Preparatory Committee to make arrangements for a demonstration in Kolkata on 7th May 2012. The Preparatory Committee will organize campaigns in the districts, The expenses of the movement will be borne through collections from friends and well-wishers.

Members of the Committee
Miratun Nahar
Ayesha Khatun
Santosh Rana
Vaskar Nandy
Dilruba Sarkar
Tezarat Hossain
Manisha Banerjee
Khidir Bux
Md Tajmul Haque Dulal
Idris Ahmed
Akram Hossain
Abul Hossain
Taufiq Alam
Munshi Abul Kashem
Debashis Chowdhury
Fireze Hossain
Saleha Begum
Abdus Sukkur
Anwar Hossain
Samudra Dutta