राजनीतिक पराजयवाद और नायकवाद पर केन्द्रित मेरी एक पोस्ट का कामरेड Shishir Gupta ने ढाई माह पहले अंग्रेज़ी में अनुवाद करके पोस्ट किया था ! जिन साथियों को अंग्रेज़ी में पढ़ने में अधिक सुविधा होती है, उनके लिए इसे यहाँ प्रस्तुत कर रही हूँ !

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Orphaned, Defeatist Social Democrats, Liberals and Parliamentarian “Leftists” in Search of a Hero
-- by Kavita Krishnapallavi

Character of the heroes/heroines of the history is not class-free. Every class has its own heroes, who are remembered by that class with love and reverence for their service to that class. In the special circumstances of the history, some of their steps may be in the interest of the other classes too, on an objective and immediate basis, but ultimately they are the theorists/strategists/political representatives of their own class only and serve it only. In this regard, the ruling class never gets confused. It always follows its heroes and tries to prove them as favorable to all people. Secondly, after the death of popular revolutionary leaders, it tries to prove them as its own hero by either pushing their ideas behind the curtains or by distorting them.

The historical figures of fascists are such disgraced and imputed characters of history that even after millions of attempts, they aren’t able to establish them as heroes in the psyche of the masses. That’s why they try to appropriate some leaders from the era of national movement, or from the period of bourgeois democracy of bourgeois rule and try to prove some others as more and more villain and anti-people. Such as, Hindutvavadi fascists of India sometimes try to appropriate Patel, sometimes Subhashchandra Bose, and sometimes even Gandhi, though they repeatedly try to establish Savarkar, Golwalkar, Godse etc., too in the psyche of the masses.

They especially target the Nehru-Gandhi family. There are two reasons behind it. One, as their only other competitor as a national party of the Indian bourgeoisie, its leadership is still in the hands of the Gandhi-Nehru family. Secondly, from right after the independence, some far-Right parties like Bharatiya Jan Sangh and Swatantra Party were advocating the policies of capitalist development by handing over the whole economic system to the private sector and by relying on the Western foreign capital—at that time, Nehru was implementing the policies of “mixed economy” (mainly to develop the basic and infrastructural industries requiring heavy capital investment) and “import-substitution industrialization”. But, this step by Nehru was necessary for the initial rapid development of the Indian capitalism and that’s why the whole capitalist class of India at that time stood not before the far-Right parties, but before Nehru. “Nehru’s socialism” was nothing but to develop a huge structure of the state monopoly capitalism. In fact, Nehru was only implementing the ‘Bombay Plan’ (Tata-Birla Plan) of 1942. At that time, none of the big capitalists of India had enough capital to start basic and infrastructural industries on their own. It had two ways: either it could have relied on the foreign capital to choose the path of capitalist development or develop the vast system of ‘public sector’ from the government treasury by squeezing the veins of the masses. Nehru chose the second path. Of course, the imperialist capital too had the freedom to extract surplus, but there were some resistive and protective walls too and the bourgeois power was successful in maintaining its control on the domestic market by taking benefit of the inter-imperialist rivalry and in defending its political freedom.

Mining, energy, railways, road, steel, engineering, chemicals etc. mainly remained under the public sector and its full advantage was taken by the other industries of the private capitalists and they accumulated immense amount of capital. Thus, in the disguise of socialism, the public sector essentially helped the private sector! And when there was enough capital in the private sector to invest in the basic industries, then the period of privatisation-liberalisation started in which the government started to sell public sector undertakings at meagre costs. Another reason for this was that by this time, the state monopoly capitalism, from its independent motion, had become stagnant and fallen prey to crises and this crisis was turning into the crisis of political system. This is the essence of the ‘Nehruvian socialism’ which is revered by many liberals and social democrats! Nehru was also the hero of the bourgeoisie of India and like every bourgeois government, his government was too the ‘managing committee of the bourgeoisie’. It was that period of the Indian capitalism, when bourgeois democracy, though limited and restricted, was present and this was the need of the bourgeois democratic system.

Whenever fascist wave dominates a country, it attacks the working class, communists, progresssive intellectuals and all progressive ideologies with full force and tries to completely crush them. It tries to either end the remaining vestiges of the bourgeois democracy or reduce it to mere formalities, because fascists see bourgeois democracy too as an obstacle on the road to the naked-autocratic rule of the financial capital and they also think that the space that bourgeois democracy facilitates to the progressive forces, prevents the fascists from completely crushing them. The revolutionary progressive forces fight for the democratic rights of the masses while fighting against fascism, they expose and oppose the fascist attempts to end the bourgeois democracy, but they invariably oppose capitalism while opposing fascism and try to develop the anti-fascist struggle as a link to the anti-capitalist struggle. It means that they do not oppose fascism from the standpoint of bourgeois democracy, rather from the standpoint of proletariat revolution and socialism!

Hopeless and defeatist social democrats, liberals and parliamentarian “Leftists” and the commanders of “study rooms”- the bookish Leftist intellectuals, though they hate fascism, but they oppose it from the standpoint of bourgeois democracy, because the ideas and the project of proletariat revolution and socialism are not part of their agenda! They secretly think that now, socialism is not possible, so at least the bourgeois democracy should sustain, this is enough! They think that somehow the Nehru era, or even the Indira era should come back. They are ready to be content with the “Keynesian welfarist state” and even start terming it as socialism! Such incurable "gentlemen” these days are glad hailing the heroes of bourgeoisie as their own, and not only Gandhi and Nehru, but even proving Indira as a great leader, pro-people, socialist etc. While the bourgeoisie, in tune with the changing times, has dumped the portraits of its now-irrelevant heroes on the heap of garbage, these “gentlemen” on the other hand, have wiped clean the same portraits and have decorated their meetings with them and have started worshipping them all the time!

For example, I am seeing since this morning that some brainless “Leftist gentlemen”, being nostalgic and emotional, are commemorating Indira Gandhi! Some are terming her as socilalist for the decision of the nationalisation of banks and some for the slogan of “Eradicate poverty”, while some are happy with the fact that she disintegrated the enemy country! World knows how much of poverty was eradicated from the slogan of ‘Eradicate poverty’! And who will tell these idiots who don’t even know the basics of political economy that banks were nationalised so that the capitalists will get more capital for investment as savings and “advances” because of the reputation of government banks and people’s trust on them! Capitalist would make ten times more money from this money and the saver will get only 3-4 percent annual interest. Not only this, in many cases, the capitalist even gulps down the principal as well. Banks were nationalised purely to help the capitalists. In short, if the power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, then nationalisation can be nothing except a bourgeois step. Excuse me but those communists are donkeys who equate nationalisation with socialism.

Those who are praising Indira for disintegrating the “enemy country”, those morons do not understand that the ruling class creates the myth of “enemy country” out of its vested interests and gives rise to the wave of jingoism. From which moral ground, such people can oppose the tactics of instigating jingoist frenzy by Modi! Secondly, such people forget that people of Bangladesh themselves were struggling hard for their national liberation! India and Soviet Union supported the liberation struggle of Bangladesh against the ruling class of Pakistan out of their vested interests. Indira was no saint who gifted Bangladesh its freedom! Obviously, the Indian ruling class had its own interests! It is not understandable, how these half-witted liberals and social democrats, who consider Indira as a mother figure, forget the black-dark nights of emergency! It is true that Congress is not a fascist party and we cannot call Indira Gandhi as fascist! But this is certain that the immediate economic-political-constitutional crisis of the bourgeois system had turned her into a suppressive and autocratic ruler of the Bonapartist type! The extreme form of her Bonapartist autocracy was the emergency, which can never be forgotten!

(Originally in Hindi)