After the Crushing Setback to the Stalinist ‘Popular Frontism’ in DU, the ‘United Front Policy’ in JNU Leads to Spectacular Victory for the Left!

- Ashish Devrari, Anurag Pathak & Sourav Bhattacharya/ 16.9.2018

Final results of the JNUSU Polls are out. United Left has given clean sweep, winning by comfortable margins, leaving its arch rival, far right ABVP, with frozen nerves, failing to secure even a single seat on central panel, in face of the left unity.

ABVP trailed behind the united left by 1179 votes for the post of President, 1579 for Vice President, 1193 for Secretary and 757 for Joint Secretary. Out of total 5185 votes, Left secured 2151, 2592, 2426 and 2047, while ABVP could secure only 972, 1013, 1235 and 1290 for these posts respectively.

Emergence of the Left as the sole achiever in polls, is no doubt a matter of pride and jubilation for us all.

Triumph of the Left, has come cornering all rightwing factions that include apart from ABVP, the BAPSA, NSUI and the Chhatra RJD.

The victory in JNU is the direct outcome of the United Front tactics employed under pressure of the young left cadres. Without this left unity no victory was possible. While the forces of the right remained divided as ever, the left got united, consolidating its vote and support. Polarisation of politics and votes between left and right, has gone to the advantage of the united left.

For long, WSP has agitated among the youth and students in favour of taking decisive break from all these rightwing factions and forging an independent bloc on the left. WSP has been consistently attacking the Stalinist leadership that again and again has attempted to bind the youth, students and workers behind the bourgeois rightwing parties and leaders, while at the same time refraining from forging left bloc on one or the other pretext.

The policy of United Front on the Left was advocated by Leon Trotsky, the co-leader of the Russian Revolution, during the German Revolution against Nazis. This policy was a great success till Social Democrats and Stalinists subverted the United Front with their sectarian policies that divided the working class and facilitated the rise of Hitler to power. After the irreversible debacle, Stalin argued for ‘Popular Frontism’ i.e. alliances between the left and the right. This reactionary collaboration, further destroyed the revolutionary wave all over the world.

Wherever this policy of ‘popular frontism’ has been put to practice, it created havoc for the left. Not to mention the innumerable examples of this devastation in history, the Stalinist betrayal of our freedom movement in 1942, is most glaring among all.

Recently, Stalinist leaders of CPI ML Liberation forced AISA to forge such a popular front with bourgeois rightwing AAP led CYSS in DU, while rejecting the demand of rank and file cadres for an alliance on the left. This opportunist policy, left the cadres in a desperate state, discouraging them from mounting a determined challenge to the forces of the right. This alliance between AISA and CYSS created a situation of utter confusion among the cadres, preventing them from seeing as to what they were fighting for and against whom.

In their zeal to secure a march over their left rivals, the sectarian Stalinist leaders inflicted yet another injury upon the left movement in DU. This injury has come not only in the form of a poll debacle, but a more as a lasting abyss among the left cadres that would prevent them from uniting in an iron front against the right and far right.

In JNU, the tremendous pressure from the rank and file members has compelled the party leaders to relent to the idea of a united front on the left. In this, the political agitation of the WSP has secured a palpable success. Yet, the leaders are not ready to draw any conclusion from this tactic of United Front. Torpedoing it, already the major parties of Stalinists- the CPI, CPM and CPI ML Liberation- in their recently held party congresses have adopted resolutions that pave the way to poll alliances with bourgeois rightwing parties like Congress, RJD, SP and BSP.

For the last many decades, the Stalinists have subordinated the youth and workers to such ‘popular frontism’ i.e. bourgeois rightwing alliances. This policy, advocated by Mensheviks during Russian Revolution and later by Stalinists, and opposed vehemently by Lenin and Trotsky, has resulted in complete political paralysis of the left.

JNU results are the live endorsement of the tactic of united front. The failed experiment of ‘popular frontism’ in DU, is again the endorsement, albeit in negative, of the policy of united front and blatant refutation of Stalinist policy of capitulation and tailism to bourgeois rightwing alliances.

The left bloc that emerged in JNU was not in fact a poll alliance simpliciter between SFI, AISF, AISA and DSF, but more an alliance of the left students, of youth that sympathises with and supports the cause of socialism. In this lies the whole nub of the great prospects for the present and future movement of the left.

Whatever be the ostensible claims of different factions, the truth goes that all rightwing parties and groups had contested this election to damage and defeat the left.

For example, the intervention of the RJD was only meant to divert the anti-fascist votes away from the left, through narrow caste channels.

Similarly, BAPSA, the Ambedkarite student faction has assisted only in the division of the votes on the left.

Needless to mention that the Ambedkarites could gain feet on the soil of JNU as the Stalinists have capitulated to Ambedkar, a bourgeois rightwing leader, in an opportunist maneuver to woo dalit students through caste based appeals. The opportunist policy has backfired into big loss of support to the left among a section of students hailing from oppressed castes.

In the same way, ABVP could gain a foothold in JNU as instead of launching a fight against nationalism and capitalist nation state, breeding grounds for fascism, the Stalinist leaders had continued to adhere to them and bind the youth and students to their bogey. While turning their backs completely upon socialism and revolution, these fake leaders upheld bourgeois democracy and pledged for its defence, uninterruptedly. 

The results of resounding victory in JNU as a sequel to united front tactics must not only be compared with flawed policy applied in DU polls but it must be inquired as to how much more could yet have been fetched and added to this victory, had certain blunders in policy would not have been committed. These blunders, above all include the capitulation of Stalinist leaders to Ambedkarism, Nationalism and their flirting with bourgeois democracy, instead of fighting against them for gaining political influence over the students, appealing to their class instincts. 

Marxists must not look for short term, pragmatic gains and opportunistic poll alliances but must wage a war upon the whole bourgeois rightwing establishment, aiming for strategic conquests of the future. 

Task before the Marxists, is not to relent before alien trends but to defeat them and win over their followers to our side. Marxists must not appeal to the youth on sectarian basis of caste, community, region or gender, but must mobilize them on the basis of class and class politics. We must outrightly and unhesitatingly reject all identity based movements and must fight for taking out youth and workers from their pernicious influence to the side of Marxism.

Victory of the left in JNU acquires special importance as it has appeared amidst surrounding pressures from all sides- the right and far right political forces, the police, the City and University administration; all had mustered their forces to defeat the left unity and secure a win for the rightwing ABVP.

Far right ABVP, student arm of the ruling Hindu Chauvinist BJP, desperately and repeatedly attempted to foil the elections by hooliganism and violence, but the same was rebuffed by the students, under the united left. While appreciating the resistance offered by the young comrades to the ABVP goons, we must underscore the need for armed defence against fascism. Fascism hoot cares for electoral mandates. It tramples down all mandates under military boots. Serious challenges are thus in the offing. 

Students must give paramount importance to this aspect as for the future battles it would acquire more and more significance. We must prepare ourselves for the coming battles against fascist thugs. We must prepare to engage and crush them in street fights. We must learn the lingo that fascism listens to- the lingo of force. In this, we must link the factory and campus. This in turn, may become a model and a nucleus for an armed resistance against fascism, all over the country- on campuses, factories, colonies, towns and villages.

The victory in JNU is the result not only of the correct tactics of a United Front that consolidated the vote and support for the left, but also of a wave against the rightwing politics that stands thoroughly exposed with coming to power of the hindu supremacist BJP. 

However, we must not have illusions in the centrist Stalinist leadership that has a track record of impeding the radicalisation of the youth and smothering the revolution. Separately or together, they will only raise the tricolor higher and higher and would reconcile between the revolution and counter revolution, between Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar. They will continue to sing for bourgeois constitution and sow illusions in the capitalist democracy. They will remain hostile, as ever, to the socialist perspective and proletarian internationalism while at the same time remaining committed to bourgeois nationalism.

While applying the political tactics of a united front on the left, to crush the far right and isolate the right, the real challenge before us is to forge a genuine political leadership in the shape of an international Marxist Party of the working class. 

Youth and students, thus must turn away from the centrist, capitulationist Stalinist politics and towards the perspective of permanent revolution that had constituted the foundations of the October Revolution.