This is an English translation of a Spanish handbook published five years ago. The author Marta Harnecker is a well-known revolutionary who was involved with revolutionary resistance against the CIA-Pinochet coup in her native Chile. In exile, mostly in Cuba where she wrote extensively on that country’s revolutionary process, she is now deeply involved with the revolutionary process in Venezuela.
It is obvious that she is writing for a Latin American audience and the experience she sums up comes mainly from that vast region. Starting from huge mass uprisings—she calls them insurrections—in various countries such as Argentina, she raises pertinent questions regarding their failure to seize power. Her diagnosis is that the heroic, spontaneous mass actions failed because they lacked ‘a political instrument capable of overcoming the dispersion and fragmentation of the exploited and the oppressed...’ This political instrument must be one that ‘can create spaces to bring together those who, in spite of their differences, have a common enemy; that is able to strengthen existing struggles and promote others by orientating their actions according to a thorough analysis of the political situation; that can act as an instrument for cohering the many expressions of resistance and struggle.’
‘And I envisage,’ she says, ‘this political instrument as an organisation capable of raising a national project that can unify and act as a compass for all those sectors that oppose neoliberalism. As a space that directs itself towards the rest of society, that respects the autonomy of the social movements instead of manipulating them, and whose militants and leaders are true popular pedagogues, stimulating the knowledge that exists within the people—derived from their cultural traditions, as well as acquired in their daily struggle for survival—through the fusion of this knowledge with the most all encompassing knowledge that the political organisation can offer.’
Development of such a ‘political instrument’ is and has been thwarted by ultra-democracy and bureaucratic centralist commandism. New militants and leaders of many large-scale movements have, as a reaction to bureaucratic centralism practised by many Left parties, have become highly suspicious of any centralism. Marta tries to allay these suspicions in two ways: first, by showing that movements cannot progress without a centralism that is well grounded in democracy, that respects and creates spaces for minorities; secondly; that a correct ‘political instrument’ would not seek to impose its hegemony but achieve it through the consent that emerges in handling all progressive social and political forces fairly, without impositions and capable of producing a totalizing vision that moves from everyday struggles to seizure of power.
The Left’s failure to harness the huge forces that seethe and boil in actions—large and small—against neoliberalism and other capitalist forces and what is to be done to achieve that is the true content of this inspiring book. The major sections in the book are descriptions of Left sectarianism, commandism and the failure to come to terms with the various new features of struggle in a globalized world.
She builds on her Latin American experience but from her evidence we find much that we can learn and reflect upon in South Asia. I found uncanny resemblances between that foreign experience and our own. The power of Marta’s generalizations render to us universal truths about the state of the Left movement everywhere. All activists should be aware of this book.
Vaskar Nandy
17 March, 2014
Malbazar, North Bengal
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Election Call of the CPI (ML)-PCC
A vicious combination of parliamentarians, military and civilian bureaucrats and very big capitalists have been sucking the life blood out of the Indian people through policies and the corruption of those policies. These policies have many dimensions but their combined message is to make the very rich richer and trickle some of the wealth down to the poor. Over the last three decades of the imposition of such policies by both the big parties that have ruled India alternatively, very little of the trickling down has taken place but the rich have gotten obscenely rich.
Amidst the din of false claims about lifting millions out of poverty, it is instructive to look at the new food security law. There we see that the government itself recognizes that nearly 75 per cent of Indians cannot afford to eat enough to sustain themselves. Some trickle down indeed! What we in fact have is a flood of unemployment, under-employment, low wage unregulated employment, unrestrained price rise in essential and other commodities, malnutrition and lack of healthcare, a farcical system of underfunded primary education, slums and rudimentary housing, and the forcible displacement of millions of rural and urban poor for the aggrandizement of big, comprador corporations.
The country has come to such a pass at full speed since 1991 when the existing export-led growth policy was sought to be strengthened by neo-liberal policies that accord with the dictates of US imperialism through the IMF, WTO and the World Bank. Since the big crisis of the world economy after 2008 our big growth story has dwindled to wishful thinking. More than that, the political system is crumbling, the bureaucracy is leaking through every pore, the judiciary is often exceeding constitutional limitations and is involved in some corruption and the armed forces have overruled executive decisions as in the case of the AFSPA.
The BJP and the Congress now face a general election in a few weeks from now. Both will tell lies and promise much. But the Indian people will not listen; they have not done so in the past and returned hung parliaments in which both the big parties managed to stitch together immoral coalitions with bribes and threatened prosecutions of tainted lesser players such as Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
This time around, the BJP hopes for a breakthrough by projecting as the future Prime Minister a man whose hands are dyed red by masterminding pogroms, riots and false encounters against Muslims. Backed by a formidable electoral machinery that has bought into a US company that specializes in black electoral propaganda and dirty tricks, this man Mody strides across India like a fuehrer who will save India by following the Gujarat “model”, which is neo-liberalism and crony capitalism at its worst.
The Congress also follows neo-liberalism and crony capitalism, but unlike Modi, it tries to temper the hardships caused by some pro-people policies such as MGNREGA, cheap rations through the PDS, the Right to Information Act, etc. But as the Congress approaches the current elections, it remains mired in a colossal corruption that has aroused the anger of the poor. The BJP is also tainted by similar corruption as in the coal scam and its alliance with the Reddy brothers and Yedurappa. In fact all parties big and small, including the parliamentary left, are mired in corruption. But the smaller parties have limited access to corporate and imperialist munificence and hence, they are far lower down in the corruption hierarchy.
Before the elections, the two big parties are trying to augment their alliances, but without much success. The smaller parties are mostly regional in scale no matter what their national aspirations are. It is not clear which way they will go after the elections. Certainly, if they unite they can stitch together a government that excludes both the big parties. But the chances for such unity is remote, given the rivalries for votes among them, viz. Mayavati vs Mulayam, Mamata vs CPI (M), etc. What will probably happen is a hung parliament that will add to the forces disintegrating the Indian state. Even that is better than another five years of the NDA or the UPA.
What should the people of India do under these circumstances? The first principle should be to not vote for either of the two big parties. Second, when the choice is only between the NDA and the UPA, the people must vote for the Congress in order to keep out the shameless forces of communalism and crony capitalism, a heady mixture that breeds fascism. Third, among the regional parties, the people should opt for those that have shown no inclination to join the NDA in any post-poll alliance, but the general principle should be to vote for them according to their chances of defeating the two big parties. In West Bengal, the BJP is a force in a few constituency such as Krishnanagar, the forces in contention should be judged according to the balance of forces and either of the two major parties, the CPI (M) and the TMC should be supported to defeat the BJP. The same applies to the Congress strongholds. The TMC and the CPI (M) have track records of authoritarian, violent rule so there is not much to differentiate between them. Where they are in direct combat, if there are no people’s forces fighting the elections, the people should exercise the “None of the Above” option to record their dissent. In all constituencies where genuine people’s forces such as many ML and genuine national and socialist forces, the people should vote for them to accumulate forces for further struggles.
But under no circumstance should the Fascist forces led by Nanrendra Modi and the NDA achieve power in Delhi.
Amidst the din of false claims about lifting millions out of poverty, it is instructive to look at the new food security law. There we see that the government itself recognizes that nearly 75 per cent of Indians cannot afford to eat enough to sustain themselves. Some trickle down indeed! What we in fact have is a flood of unemployment, under-employment, low wage unregulated employment, unrestrained price rise in essential and other commodities, malnutrition and lack of healthcare, a farcical system of underfunded primary education, slums and rudimentary housing, and the forcible displacement of millions of rural and urban poor for the aggrandizement of big, comprador corporations.
The country has come to such a pass at full speed since 1991 when the existing export-led growth policy was sought to be strengthened by neo-liberal policies that accord with the dictates of US imperialism through the IMF, WTO and the World Bank. Since the big crisis of the world economy after 2008 our big growth story has dwindled to wishful thinking. More than that, the political system is crumbling, the bureaucracy is leaking through every pore, the judiciary is often exceeding constitutional limitations and is involved in some corruption and the armed forces have overruled executive decisions as in the case of the AFSPA.
The BJP and the Congress now face a general election in a few weeks from now. Both will tell lies and promise much. But the Indian people will not listen; they have not done so in the past and returned hung parliaments in which both the big parties managed to stitch together immoral coalitions with bribes and threatened prosecutions of tainted lesser players such as Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
This time around, the BJP hopes for a breakthrough by projecting as the future Prime Minister a man whose hands are dyed red by masterminding pogroms, riots and false encounters against Muslims. Backed by a formidable electoral machinery that has bought into a US company that specializes in black electoral propaganda and dirty tricks, this man Mody strides across India like a fuehrer who will save India by following the Gujarat “model”, which is neo-liberalism and crony capitalism at its worst.
The Congress also follows neo-liberalism and crony capitalism, but unlike Modi, it tries to temper the hardships caused by some pro-people policies such as MGNREGA, cheap rations through the PDS, the Right to Information Act, etc. But as the Congress approaches the current elections, it remains mired in a colossal corruption that has aroused the anger of the poor. The BJP is also tainted by similar corruption as in the coal scam and its alliance with the Reddy brothers and Yedurappa. In fact all parties big and small, including the parliamentary left, are mired in corruption. But the smaller parties have limited access to corporate and imperialist munificence and hence, they are far lower down in the corruption hierarchy.
Before the elections, the two big parties are trying to augment their alliances, but without much success. The smaller parties are mostly regional in scale no matter what their national aspirations are. It is not clear which way they will go after the elections. Certainly, if they unite they can stitch together a government that excludes both the big parties. But the chances for such unity is remote, given the rivalries for votes among them, viz. Mayavati vs Mulayam, Mamata vs CPI (M), etc. What will probably happen is a hung parliament that will add to the forces disintegrating the Indian state. Even that is better than another five years of the NDA or the UPA.
What should the people of India do under these circumstances? The first principle should be to not vote for either of the two big parties. Second, when the choice is only between the NDA and the UPA, the people must vote for the Congress in order to keep out the shameless forces of communalism and crony capitalism, a heady mixture that breeds fascism. Third, among the regional parties, the people should opt for those that have shown no inclination to join the NDA in any post-poll alliance, but the general principle should be to vote for them according to their chances of defeating the two big parties. In West Bengal, the BJP is a force in a few constituency such as Krishnanagar, the forces in contention should be judged according to the balance of forces and either of the two major parties, the CPI (M) and the TMC should be supported to defeat the BJP. The same applies to the Congress strongholds. The TMC and the CPI (M) have track records of authoritarian, violent rule so there is not much to differentiate between them. Where they are in direct combat, if there are no people’s forces fighting the elections, the people should exercise the “None of the Above” option to record their dissent. In all constituencies where genuine people’s forces such as many ML and genuine national and socialist forces, the people should vote for them to accumulate forces for further struggles.
But under no circumstance should the Fascist forces led by Nanrendra Modi and the NDA achieve power in Delhi.
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