By SJ Otto
Introduction:
Shanghai commune
dissolved. It testified that mere vanguard concept of the party was not an end
to itself and revolutionary democracy had to be built from below.
As an MLM/ Marxist/Maoist/ etc, I have to admit that I support the ideologies of Ajith, a
Maoist leader and theoretician of India and
Joma Sison, of the Philippines
By Harsh Thakor
Comrade Murali(Ajith) is most insightful and progressive but
fails to defend the cutting edge of the vanguard party and influenced by New
Left Marxist school. Displaying in depth mastery of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
polemics chairman Joma Sison refutes Ajith's doubting the authority of the
Leninist party. Sison at the very root attacks the trend which underestimates
role of vanguard party and succumbs to various petite bourgeois influences. Ajith
gives respect to views of Alan Badiou, etc. Morally Sison is critical of
Ajith's view, giving credibility to Post-modernists. My view is that a party
has to be developed beyond the pure Leninist or Maoist lines or evolve. Even in
the Cultural Revolution the masses could not check the party and the
This is Ajith's reply/ Questions and answers:
Q. In one of your writings I have seen you point out how the communist party is not the final word on all knowledge. It is not the party which has to carry out everything. This approach is something different from the understanding of the communist party we had till now; the party as the ultimate answer to everything, the completeness of all knowledge.
K.M (Ajith): Firstly, I’d like to point out that I’m not the first person to put this idea forward. It has come up from among Maoist circles quite earlier. There is thinking that the communist party or Marxism is the last word of everything, that anything and everything can be explained by it. Yes, it is true, one can understand everything in the light of Marxism, but it cannot replace them. For example, the laws of physics have to be understood in terms of the science of physics and established as such. It is not something we can answer with Marxism. Marxist dialectics can certainly play its role in analyzing the laws of physics and explain its conceptual positions. It can give a direction to this. Many scientists have done this. This issue, that the communist party is not something that should be doing everything, emerges from the basic positions of examining and synthesizing from them. He never said all of this was said by me for the first time. But he identified the contradictions in them, and in order to overcome that the communist movement itself. How did Marx, for example, develop his ideas? He did it by studying the various theoretical positions that were existing then, critically he supplied certain ideas. Marx and Engels came to know of Morgan’s and others new understanding after the theoretical positions of Marxism had been developed. And they accepted that, they never said that Marxism has given the explanation of Darwin’s evolution theory. Rather, what they said is that Darwin’s evolution theory confirms what we have said, it is an affirmation, or that Morgan’s anthropological findings confirm Marxist dialectical approach. In the Communist International, we have the words ‘we don’t want saviours from above’. The communist party can never become a saviour. Its duty is to make the people conscious, to be their guide, to function as the vanguard of the revolution. We must also keep in mind that all sections of the oppressed masses were made aware of their rights as human beings mainly through the activities of the communist parties. That is an irrefutable truth. Whether you look at Keralam or elsewhere, we can see that as a fact.
Q. Do you mean to say that a party assists or helps in bringing forward that sort of a political agency?
K.M: I’m not saying it is done only by the communist party, but the main role was that of the communist party. Whether India, Europe, America, or other third world countries, this is a fact. The role that the communist party played in building up the trade union movement in America is incontrovertible, unchallengeable. There are a lot of stories, historical records of the types of oppression they suffered to achieve this. But that is not today’s world. Through one’s own experiences, the changes that have taken place in the world, different sections of the people are quite aware of their own situation, the oppression they are suffering, of exploitation. It need not necessarily be a perfect understanding, but there is awareness. Some of my basic needs are being denied and I’m a person who is being oppressed, whether as a women, dalit, adivasi, or as religious minority. All these social sections are having this specific understanding of how their rights are being denied. All of this awareness is now existing in society and this is a good thing. The communists no longer have the task of going and making different sections of the people aware of the oppression they suffer. But then, the communists do have some duties in this regard. Because today, all of these forces are limiting themselves to their own issues and struggles. It is necessary to make them conscious that their issues cannot be resolved in that manner. It is necessary to make them conscious of the state, of political power and the central role of the ruling classes, and thereby attract them into the overall revolutionary struggle. Here too, there is a specific issue. Agitation on a specific issue, for example; a struggle against a mining quarry, a good chunk of participants would not have any interest in politics. Most probably they would not be interested in Marxist-Leninist-Maoist[1] politics at all. They woul d be understanding their struggle as an apolitical one. But what is their struggle doing in effect? What is the effect of that anti-quarry struggle in society? One effect is that it is preventing these anti-human, anti-people, anti-nature attacks. On the other hand, a new consciousness is created in society through the struggle. Whether or not they may be desiring this individually, subjectively, in effect they are becoming participants in creating a new democratic consciousness in society. They are participating in that, and that is something that a communist party should welcome.
Q. In one of your writings I have seen you point out how the communist party is not the final word on all knowledge. It is not the party which has to carry out everything. This approach is something different from the understanding of the communist party we had till now; the party as the ultimate answer to everything, the completeness of all knowledge.
K.M (Ajith): Firstly, I’d like to point out that I’m not the first person to put this idea forward. It has come up from among Maoist circles quite earlier. There is thinking that the communist party or Marxism is the last word of everything, that anything and everything can be explained by it. Yes, it is true, one can understand everything in the light of Marxism, but it cannot replace them. For example, the laws of physics have to be understood in terms of the science of physics and established as such. It is not something we can answer with Marxism. Marxist dialectics can certainly play its role in analyzing the laws of physics and explain its conceptual positions. It can give a direction to this. Many scientists have done this. This issue, that the communist party is not something that should be doing everything, emerges from the basic positions of examining and synthesizing from them. He never said all of this was said by me for the first time. But he identified the contradictions in them, and in order to overcome that the communist movement itself. How did Marx, for example, develop his ideas? He did it by studying the various theoretical positions that were existing then, critically he supplied certain ideas. Marx and Engels came to know of Morgan’s and others new understanding after the theoretical positions of Marxism had been developed. And they accepted that, they never said that Marxism has given the explanation of Darwin’s evolution theory. Rather, what they said is that Darwin’s evolution theory confirms what we have said, it is an affirmation, or that Morgan’s anthropological findings confirm Marxist dialectical approach. In the Communist International, we have the words ‘we don’t want saviours from above’. The communist party can never become a saviour. Its duty is to make the people conscious, to be their guide, to function as the vanguard of the revolution. We must also keep in mind that all sections of the oppressed masses were made aware of their rights as human beings mainly through the activities of the communist parties. That is an irrefutable truth. Whether you look at Keralam or elsewhere, we can see that as a fact.
Q. Do you mean to say that a party assists or helps in bringing forward that sort of a political agency?
K.M: I’m not saying it is done only by the communist party, but the main role was that of the communist party. Whether India, Europe, America, or other third world countries, this is a fact. The role that the communist party played in building up the trade union movement in America is incontrovertible, unchallengeable. There are a lot of stories, historical records of the types of oppression they suffered to achieve this. But that is not today’s world. Through one’s own experiences, the changes that have taken place in the world, different sections of the people are quite aware of their own situation, the oppression they are suffering, of exploitation. It need not necessarily be a perfect understanding, but there is awareness. Some of my basic needs are being denied and I’m a person who is being oppressed, whether as a women, dalit, adivasi, or as religious minority. All these social sections are having this specific understanding of how their rights are being denied. All of this awareness is now existing in society and this is a good thing. The communists no longer have the task of going and making different sections of the people aware of the oppression they suffer. But then, the communists do have some duties in this regard. Because today, all of these forces are limiting themselves to their own issues and struggles. It is necessary to make them conscious that their issues cannot be resolved in that manner. It is necessary to make them conscious of the state, of political power and the central role of the ruling classes, and thereby attract them into the overall revolutionary struggle. Here too, there is a specific issue. Agitation on a specific issue, for example; a struggle against a mining quarry, a good chunk of participants would not have any interest in politics. Most probably they would not be interested in Marxist-Leninist-Maoist[1] politics at all. They woul d be understanding their struggle as an apolitical one. But what is their struggle doing in effect? What is the effect of that anti-quarry struggle in society? One effect is that it is preventing these anti-human, anti-people, anti-nature attacks. On the other hand, a new consciousness is created in society through the struggle. Whether or not they may be desiring this individually, subjectively, in effect they are becoming participants in creating a new democratic consciousness in society. They are participating in that, and that is something that a communist party should welcome.
This is the Assessment of Joma Sison:
"It is a cheap line and method of argumentation to
straw figure the Communist Party as an entity posing as a know-everything and
do-nothing entity. Such a party would be, ultimately, a failure incapable of
the great achievements of Stalin and Mao in socialist revolution and
construction. Communist parties are successful when they perform the role of
vanguard ideologically, politically and organizationally and succeed in leading
the masses by learning from them and arousing, organizing and mobilizing them
to take power and build socialism. Both vanguard party and revolutionary masses
are needed. One without the other cannot make revolution. In taking the mass
line, the genuine and successful communist party avails of MLM as the guide and
adopts the correct policies and decisions on the basis of getting and analyzing
the facts from the history and
circumstances of the masses and then in the course
of political struggle there is a two-way interactive and dialectical
relationship of the party and the masses mutually benefiting from advances in
knowledge and revolutionary practice. In organizational terms, centralism is based
on democracy. Information is accumulated from the masses and analysis and
decisions are made through inner Party democracy that is always subject to
verification in successful revolutionary practice and effective relations with
the masses. Ajith is correct when he says that the revolutionary movement must
fight the caste system even before being able to seize state power and indeed
after seizure of such power and overthrow of the counterrevolutionary state the
conditions become even better to fight and defeat such a deep-seated and long running
caste system thoroughly not only in terms of economic and political realities
but also in cultural terms in which backward ideas, habits and customs persist
and must be dealt with through steady revolutionary education and cultural
revolution. Indeed, he is eclectic. He overvalues the pseudo-Marxists of Paris and thereabouts who
depreciate the revolutionary role of the vanguard party of the proletariat and exaggerate
their own fragmentary and shifty petty bourgeois subjectivist viewpoints. I
refer to the "posterior petty philosophers" who love to put in the
prefix "post" to any term in order to sound as if they are talking
something new and profound above terms already well defined by successful
Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. By the way, I am critical of both the
revisionism of PCF and those who criticized or repudiated it since the 1960s
but who did not build a new communist party that was correct ideologically,
politically and organizationally. In the era of imperialism, proletarian
evolution can advance and win only if there is a communist party capable of
leading the revolutionary masses in an all-round way. To depreciate the very
necessary role of such a party is to peddle anarchism and petty bourgeois subjectivism.
[1] Karl Marx, VI Lenin, Mao Zedong. The name Friedrich Engels is also cited here.
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