-Rajesh Tyagi/8.3.2018
After two statues of Lenin are demolished in Tripura by the supporters of righting BJP that had won the Assembly elections in the state recently, defeating the CPM, the largest Stalinist Party in India, the political atmosphere is charged with mounting tensions.
Ostensible pretext, that the rightwing miscreants have taken later to justify their act, is that Lenin has nothing to do with India. This apology, making an appeal to national-chauvinist sentiments of the politically backward mass among which fascists have an audacity, is merely a cover up for rabidly pro-capitalist realpolitik of fascists.
Needless to mention that Lenin was the greatest supporter for the cause of liberation of India from the colonial yoke of British Imperialism, while Sanghi fascists have a shameful history of rendering tacit support to British Colonialists and opposition to the liberation movement. This explains why fascists have never touched any statues of British rulers which have no dearth in the cities of India, despite their foreign origins alongside the oppressive role of these lords in India.
The hatred and apathy that fascists have towards Lenin, hardly has anything to do with his foreign origins, but is apparently based upon Lenin's own hostility to capitalism that the fascists defend and serve so maniacally all over the world. Fascists, are hostile to Lenin, not only in India but even more in Russia and in fact all over the world. In India, they despise not only Lenin but Bhagat Singh and everyone who opposes capitalism and stands for socialism.
While the young left cadres have responded to this blatantly fascist act with expected rage and fury, the Stalinist leaders have given a slothful response. None of them has gone beyond issuing routine press statement ‘condemning’ the incident. Even in their formal response, the Stalinist leaders, instead of defending Lenin and countering this fascist propaganda on an internationalist basis, have themselves invoked the core nationalist appeals that martyr Bhagat Singh was also follower of Lenin. Needless to say that the fascists hate Bhagat Singh no less than Lenin. Both Lenin and Bhagat Singh are core internationalists in their politics and perspective and none of them has anything to do with nationalism.
Enraged by the notorious fascist attack upon Lenin, seven students of Jadavpur University in Kolkata, members of an outfit ‘Radicals’, however, in retaliation to it, have blackened the face of the statue of BJP stalwart Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and damaged it amongst chanting of radical slogans hitting out at BJP for demolishing the statues of Lenin.
The Stalinist leaders were quick in condemning the act of the students, who were arrested and jailed, in order to save their own skins. None of these leaders has visited the students or has come to their aid.
Condemnation of the students by the Stalinist leaders is a shameful and rapacious act, consciously designed to cover up their own cowardice and lifeless passivity with which they themselves have responded to the incident.
The isolated and spontaneous action of the students, is the necessary fallout of the most unfavourable conditions created by the bogus Stalinist leaders themselves. For decades, these leaders have pursued the policies that have subordinated the workers and the youth to a variety of rightwing bourgeois parties and leaders that destroyed their independent initiative completely. In the name of ‘secular and democratic unity’ these leaders have headed off the centrality of the working class and even the last vestiges of any independent movement of youth and workers while binding them to the bandwagon of bourgeois establishment. Unable to wait endlessly, the disillusioned youth would naturally find its way to vent out its anger. The act of Jadavpur University students is one such response to the sterile and do-nothing attitude of their bogus leaders.
Condemnation of the young left cadres by the reactionary Stalinist leaders, is an outrageous act, no less severe than that of the fascists. This deserves to be condemned unconditionally by all of those inside the revolutionary left, who deem themselves on the side of revolution.
It were the Stalinist leaders who had pioneered the reactionary ventures to idolize Lenin, Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries. However, they fail to rise up to the defence of these statues as they come under assault of fascists.
The oblique purpose behind erection of the statues is to coalesce the great revolutionary ideas into stone. Idolisation of revolutionaries, is the apolitical expression of complete bankruptcy and the continues aversion to ideology, since Stalin had insisted to mummify Lenin and put his embalmed body in Lenin’s tomb despite resistance from Lenin’s wife Krupskaya, Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev and other Bolsheviks.
After demolition of Lenin’s statues, statues of Periyar, Ambedkar and Gandhi were also vandalised in various cities. Though the ruling elite is not hostile to Periyar, Ambedkar or Gandhi, rather accepts them as its own, yet the more hardcore elements among the ranks of BJP supporters, infested with virulent caste prejudices backed by a diehard rightwing ideology of RSS, refuse to budge. These demolitions have added fuel to the fire, triggering protests from followers of these reformist and liberal bourgeois leaders.
In the aftermath of the Tripura elections, that imposed humiliating defeat upon the Stalinists while putting the BJP to power, large scale violence has been carried out by the BJP cadres and supporters all over the state. 514 supporters of left have been brutally attacked, 1540 houses are looted or razed to the ground, 196 burnt down, 136 CPM offices are attacked, 64 burnt down and 208 are taken over by the BJP supporters.
The Stalinist leaders of the left have flown away, as they always do, leaving poor cadres at the mercy of fascists.
None of the leaders and parties of the bourgeois or Stalinist opposition has any program to offer against the mounting offensive of the fascists.
Even in the states of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, where Stalinists have ruled for decades together, they have failed to raise any force to counter the fascist surge. Instead of mobilizing the workers and youth into defence formations, training and arming them, Stalinists have relied upon the police, state and the strength of the bourgeois political parties. The fact goes that the Stalinist leaders themselves are scared of the idea of arming and training the workers and the radical youth.
Whenever Stalinist leaders speak of fascism, they make dubious appeals to defend the bourgeois democracy and the Constitution, intriguingly attempting to bind back the workers to the establishment of capitalists of which the fascists are integral part and over whose head they are keeping their boots.
Having no illusion in the state and law, fascists have organized themselves into a para-military force- the RSS- training their cadres in regular ‘Shakhas’ and amassing huge caches of arms. With state power also falling to their hands, fascists have emerged as a formidable force.
Any further illusions in the capacity, will or politics of the Stalinist leaders, would be fatal to the cause of the revolution.
While recording our unreserved appreciation for the young bravados of Jadavpur University in Kolkata, who ventured to answer the fascists in the language they speak and understand, we must add that the heroic but isolated acts are no real answer to fascism and they do not offer a political solution as they cannot pose any serious challenge to the fascist onslaught, being no match to their strength. We must also reject the false idea being advanced by the Stalinist leaders for an alliance with bourgeois parties, under the banner of ‘Secular-Democratic Front’ to counter fascism. Any such ‘popular frontism’, as we experienced in the past whole century, would only reinforce capitalism and fascism. These popular fronts are clever maneuvers to subordinate the workers and the youth to capitalist establishment, its parties and the leaders and have no use for the cause of revolution. We outright reject any alliances either with Congress or more rightwing opposition parties.
Ostensible pretext, that the rightwing miscreants have taken later to justify their act, is that Lenin has nothing to do with India. This apology, making an appeal to national-chauvinist sentiments of the politically backward mass among which fascists have an audacity, is merely a cover up for rabidly pro-capitalist realpolitik of fascists.
Needless to mention that Lenin was the greatest supporter for the cause of liberation of India from the colonial yoke of British Imperialism, while Sanghi fascists have a shameful history of rendering tacit support to British Colonialists and opposition to the liberation movement. This explains why fascists have never touched any statues of British rulers which have no dearth in the cities of India, despite their foreign origins alongside the oppressive role of these lords in India.
The hatred and apathy that fascists have towards Lenin, hardly has anything to do with his foreign origins, but is apparently based upon Lenin's own hostility to capitalism that the fascists defend and serve so maniacally all over the world. Fascists, are hostile to Lenin, not only in India but even more in Russia and in fact all over the world. In India, they despise not only Lenin but Bhagat Singh and everyone who opposes capitalism and stands for socialism.
While the young left cadres have responded to this blatantly fascist act with expected rage and fury, the Stalinist leaders have given a slothful response. None of them has gone beyond issuing routine press statement ‘condemning’ the incident. Even in their formal response, the Stalinist leaders, instead of defending Lenin and countering this fascist propaganda on an internationalist basis, have themselves invoked the core nationalist appeals that martyr Bhagat Singh was also follower of Lenin. Needless to say that the fascists hate Bhagat Singh no less than Lenin. Both Lenin and Bhagat Singh are core internationalists in their politics and perspective and none of them has anything to do with nationalism.
Enraged by the notorious fascist attack upon Lenin, seven students of Jadavpur University in Kolkata, members of an outfit ‘Radicals’, however, in retaliation to it, have blackened the face of the statue of BJP stalwart Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and damaged it amongst chanting of radical slogans hitting out at BJP for demolishing the statues of Lenin.
Condemnation of the students by the Stalinist leaders is a shameful and rapacious act, consciously designed to cover up their own cowardice and lifeless passivity with which they themselves have responded to the incident.
The isolated and spontaneous action of the students, is the necessary fallout of the most unfavourable conditions created by the bogus Stalinist leaders themselves. For decades, these leaders have pursued the policies that have subordinated the workers and the youth to a variety of rightwing bourgeois parties and leaders that destroyed their independent initiative completely. In the name of ‘secular and democratic unity’ these leaders have headed off the centrality of the working class and even the last vestiges of any independent movement of youth and workers while binding them to the bandwagon of bourgeois establishment. Unable to wait endlessly, the disillusioned youth would naturally find its way to vent out its anger. The act of Jadavpur University students is one such response to the sterile and do-nothing attitude of their bogus leaders.
Condemnation of the young left cadres by the reactionary Stalinist leaders, is an outrageous act, no less severe than that of the fascists. This deserves to be condemned unconditionally by all of those inside the revolutionary left, who deem themselves on the side of revolution.
It were the Stalinist leaders who had pioneered the reactionary ventures to idolize Lenin, Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries. However, they fail to rise up to the defence of these statues as they come under assault of fascists.
The oblique purpose behind erection of the statues is to coalesce the great revolutionary ideas into stone. Idolisation of revolutionaries, is the apolitical expression of complete bankruptcy and the continues aversion to ideology, since Stalin had insisted to mummify Lenin and put his embalmed body in Lenin’s tomb despite resistance from Lenin’s wife Krupskaya, Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev and other Bolsheviks.
After demolition of Lenin’s statues, statues of Periyar, Ambedkar and Gandhi were also vandalised in various cities. Though the ruling elite is not hostile to Periyar, Ambedkar or Gandhi, rather accepts them as its own, yet the more hardcore elements among the ranks of BJP supporters, infested with virulent caste prejudices backed by a diehard rightwing ideology of RSS, refuse to budge. These demolitions have added fuel to the fire, triggering protests from followers of these reformist and liberal bourgeois leaders.
In the aftermath of the Tripura elections, that imposed humiliating defeat upon the Stalinists while putting the BJP to power, large scale violence has been carried out by the BJP cadres and supporters all over the state. 514 supporters of left have been brutally attacked, 1540 houses are looted or razed to the ground, 196 burnt down, 136 CPM offices are attacked, 64 burnt down and 208 are taken over by the BJP supporters.
The Stalinist leaders of the left have flown away, as they always do, leaving poor cadres at the mercy of fascists.
None of the leaders and parties of the bourgeois or Stalinist opposition has any program to offer against the mounting offensive of the fascists.
Even in the states of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, where Stalinists have ruled for decades together, they have failed to raise any force to counter the fascist surge. Instead of mobilizing the workers and youth into defence formations, training and arming them, Stalinists have relied upon the police, state and the strength of the bourgeois political parties. The fact goes that the Stalinist leaders themselves are scared of the idea of arming and training the workers and the radical youth.
Whenever Stalinist leaders speak of fascism, they make dubious appeals to defend the bourgeois democracy and the Constitution, intriguingly attempting to bind back the workers to the establishment of capitalists of which the fascists are integral part and over whose head they are keeping their boots.
Having no illusion in the state and law, fascists have organized themselves into a para-military force- the RSS- training their cadres in regular ‘Shakhas’ and amassing huge caches of arms. With state power also falling to their hands, fascists have emerged as a formidable force.
Any further illusions in the capacity, will or politics of the Stalinist leaders, would be fatal to the cause of the revolution.
While recording our unreserved appreciation for the young bravados of Jadavpur University in Kolkata, who ventured to answer the fascists in the language they speak and understand, we must add that the heroic but isolated acts are no real answer to fascism and they do not offer a political solution as they cannot pose any serious challenge to the fascist onslaught, being no match to their strength. We must also reject the false idea being advanced by the Stalinist leaders for an alliance with bourgeois parties, under the banner of ‘Secular-Democratic Front’ to counter fascism. Any such ‘popular frontism’, as we experienced in the past whole century, would only reinforce capitalism and fascism. These popular fronts are clever maneuvers to subordinate the workers and the youth to capitalist establishment, its parties and the leaders and have no use for the cause of revolution. We outright reject any alliances either with Congress or more rightwing opposition parties.
We must not be scared by the scare-crow of fascism as it does not and cannot extend the frontiers of strength of capitalism. Nonetheless, fascism is the terrorist social movement of capital, that threatens to destroy the movement of the working class and impose a naked fascist dictatorship blocking all possible avenues of development of revolutionary movement. We must therefore fight for a correct policy to contain fascism, remove it from the power and smash it.
The task before the workers and youth is not to defend any farcical bourgeois democracy, as the Stalinists propose, or the Constitution already gutted by fascists to drain, but to launch an impeccable fight for a workers’ government supported by billions of toilers in opposition to the bourgeois democracy. To do this they must mobilize themselves against the existing danger of fascism. They must organize themselves in ‘Red100s’ en-masse in each locality, factory, University and everywhere, wherever it can be done. They must rise to smash fascism and capitalism and take power in a revolution!
If the workers and youth rise to this occasion they will earn great respect and would surely and forthwith secure a huge following even among the petty-bourgeois mass in cities, towns and villages. If they fail to rise, they would be condemned by the history to utter contempt!
The task before the workers and youth is not to defend any farcical bourgeois democracy, as the Stalinists propose, or the Constitution already gutted by fascists to drain, but to launch an impeccable fight for a workers’ government supported by billions of toilers in opposition to the bourgeois democracy. To do this they must mobilize themselves against the existing danger of fascism. They must organize themselves in ‘Red100s’ en-masse in each locality, factory, University and everywhere, wherever it can be done. They must rise to smash fascism and capitalism and take power in a revolution!
If the workers and youth rise to this occasion they will earn great respect and would surely and forthwith secure a huge following even among the petty-bourgeois mass in cities, towns and villages. If they fail to rise, they would be condemned by the history to utter contempt!
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