Capitalist reforms cannot be implemented with a human face
The discrediting of CPI(M) rule is an inevitable result of following the path of managing the bourgeois state for more than thirty years. It is the logical conclusion of expanding the space for capitalism to grow in West Bengal, at the expense of the rights and livelihood of workers and peasants.
Capitalist reforms cannot be implemented with a human face
The discrediting of CPI(M) rule is an inevitable result of following the path of managing the bourgeois state for more than thirty years. It is the logical conclusion of expanding the space for capitalism to grow in West Bengal, at the expense of the rights and livelihood of workers and peasants.
Capitalist reforms cannot be implemented with a human face
The bourgeois media is attacking communism by presenting the CPI (M) and its conduct in Nandigram as an example of communism. The conduct of the CPI (M) and its leadership is not communist. It is a monstrous upside down rendering of communism. It is capitalist in essence and communist only in name.
Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee claims that his government in West Bengal is implementing capitalist reforms with a human face, better than any other government in the country. He has been lauded by the bourgeois media for many years now as a great champion of liberalisation and privatisation with a ‘human’ face. Today, the real face of the reform program stands exposed. CPI (M) as the architect of this path of development stands extremely discredited by the events of Nandigram and Singur. CPI(M) is using both state terror and communalism to defend the status quo and hold on to power, just like the Congress and BJP. Budhadev Bhatacharjee as well as his party have also not hesitated to whip up anti Muslim hysteria, by labeling various forces opposing his party’s SEZ program in Nandigram as Islamic fundamentalists.
The discrediting of CPI(M) rule is an inevitable result of following the path of managing the bourgeois state for more than thirty years. It is the logical conclusion of expanding the space for capitalism to grow in West Bengal, at the expense of the rights and livelihood of workers and peasants. Instead of squarely blaming capitalism and the so-called free market reforms, the bourgeois media wants to put the blame on communism.
It is a preferred tactic of the bourgeoisie to promote those who speak in the name of communism, while defending capitalism and imperialism. In this way, the working class movement is effectively subverted. This method was perfected during the Cold War period, when the Soviet Union became an imperialist superpower and committed crimes in the name of socialism and communism.
The bourgeoisie has for long been promoting the CPIM as the example of a communist party, which is “defending” the interests of workers and peasants, and running a government in West Bengal which is committed to providing “immediate relief” to the workers and peasants. The purpose of this propaganda is to disorient the working class, peasants and tribal peoples all over the country who are resisting the drive of the capitalist monopolies to reap maximum profits through maximum plunder of their land and labour. At the same time, the fact that the CPI(M) government is also implementing this kind of “development” agenda is being used by the bourgeoisie to tell the workers and peasants that there is no alternative to the privatization and liberalization program. It has added grist to the mill of the bourgeois propaganda that all those opposed to the agenda of the bourgeoisie are ‘against development’, are ‘extremists’ and ‘terrorists’.
The theory of scientific socialism teaches us that communists must organize the working class and people to overthrow the capitalist system, and establish in its place a system without exploitation of one class by another, and of one person by another. Basing themselves on this theory, communists everywhere work with the aim of replacing the bourgeois state with a state system wherein the working class and other toilers will be the rulers. They strive to ensure that the economic system satisfies the ever growing material and cultural needs of the working people, and not permit any space for capitalists to fulfill their greed by exploiting the labour of others.
Under no circumstances can communists defend the bourgeois state and the capitalist reform program. Under no circumstance can communists engage in double speak, pretending to fight the capitalist reform program where they are not in power and implementing the same where they are in power. This is what the CPI(M) has done and is continuing to do. It has emerged as the most hypocritical political force, bringing great defame to communism.
The leaders of CPI(M) are talking the same language as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, branding those who are opposing capitalist reforms as extremists and Naxalites. In a recent meeting of Chief Ministers with the Prime Minister on internal security, Buddhadev Bhattacharjee declared that those who opposed the Tata car project in Singur were a “front of left extremists”. He also claimed that there is evidence of Maoists organizing in Nandigram, presenting this as a justification for the terror unleashed by CPI(M) against its opponents there.
The leaders of CPI(M) have a long history of defending the bourgeois state from any threat posed by people’s struggles. They collaborated with the central government during the late sixties and early seventies, to crush the revolutionary Naxalbari uprising. They thereby gained the confidence of the bourgeoisie, as a party that could be trusted with state power. They collaborated with the central government in the eighties against the fighting peasantry of Punjab, branding them as terrorists. They have for long collaborated in the suppression of liberation struggles in Kashmir and in the North East, repeating the bourgeois line that such struggles pose a threat to the unity and integrity of India. They are continuing further on this path today, branding those who stand in the way of the capitalist reform program as being extremists and Maoists.
The result of CPI(M) rule in West Bengal is exposing the fallacy that the bourgeois state machine can be wielded in the interests of workers and peasants. It is also exposing the fact that the CPI(M) is no different from other bourgeois parties – whether it is the use of the ballot and the bullet, or of communalism and state terrorism, to make the working class and people submit to the rule of the bourgeoisie and its rapacious drive.