Marxism/Leftism sans any clue of structural change is as reactionary as Rightist parties

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My good friend Life’s Elsewhere has been doing a brilliant job (and I suspect wittingly and consciously rather than unwittingly) in bringing to the fore the major issues of the day in the sharpest possible manner and thereby helping me to hit at the nub of the problem rather than beat about the bush.

So far he has done this brilliantly with the Rizwanur Rahman issue and then the Nandigram issue when he, despite starting off from a point of general confusion and I have to admit as I have already admitted in these blogs before, a confusion that troubled me as well, gradually kept on highlighting the key issues – sometimes from the writings of other bloggers – to ultimately bring into sharp focus the real issue, namely the total economic and political bankruptcy of all shades of Marxists and their completely reactionary position.

I had mentioned in my previous post that the contradictions between the global rich and the global poor are coming to a head although we cannot see it yet, but West Bengal is a microcosm. His latest post Nandigram Reloaded: Dissenting the Gods has again brilliantly highlighted a letter from Prof Kunal Chattopadhya of Jadavpur University to global gods of leftism Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali although the letter is formally addressed to Tariq Ali alone. This completes the dialectical movement from the minor point of Nandigram to the major point of the global contradiction between the rich and the poor.

Please find below, at the end of this article, first Chomsky’s letter, followed by Kunal Chattopadhya’s letter, followed by letter on Nandigram by many Leftist intellectuals including Arundhati Roy, Mahasweta Debi, Rajarshri Dasgupta and many others.I dare them to come forward in open debate and not try to run away.

I was waiting for an opportunity to train my sights on the so-called extreme Left – the people who are fooling the poor the most – by adopting what appears to be the most revolutionary stance. They have been hiding behind their revolutionary rhetoric of armed revolution when it is nothing but pure and simple greed for political power and thereby was not enabling me to end the idealism and cheating of the Marxists once and for all by exposing their totally reactionary position.

Like Jaydrath in Mahabharata they were killing the innocent, often unarmed poor, the Avimanyus of today by hiding behind their oh so revolutionary blah blah blah about armed revolution. But Life’s Elsewhere like Krishna hid the sun for a few seconds so that Jaydrath represented by Prof Kunal Chattopadhya raised his head and exposed himself. By posting Prof Chattopadhya’s letter together with the original Chomsky, Tariq Ali statement Life’s Elsewhere gave me the opportunity to finish off the reactionary stance of these so-called extreme Left.

Extreme Left. My Left foot!

I am satisfied that I have killed him and the extreme Left.

I am repeating my comment at that site so that readers who may not be visiting that site but will visit this site will get to know what is happening. Initially I had not included the original letters of Chomsky, Prof Kunal Chattopadhya and others including Mahasweta Debi, Arudhati Roy and others. But when I found that their original reaction was to disappear from cyber space (see my friend Life’s Elsewhere’s comment below) I felt it was necessary to reproduce the entire debate here so that they cannot hide anymore.

I have also tried to present these views elsewhere. I again challenge all the great revolutionaries to come forward and debate instead of hiding behind this or that excuse. I am challenging their petty bourgeoisie egos and saying if you really love the poor then either love me or fight me – come out in the open and show that I am wrong or love me.

If you do neither then it proves you that you are neither pro-poor nor do you have the guts to come forward and argue that you are pro-poor and I am somehow anti-poor. Only the bourgeoisie will ignore me because they know they have neither the guts nor the content to argue with me. The proletariat and all those who try to represent the proletariat should have the guts to argue with me. So come forward and argue or accept my leadership.

Here I am launching an attack against all Leftism/Marxism that ignores the question of structural economic change and is only stuck in the sectarian and divisive politics of capturing political power without bothering about economic power and economic change.

I would like to see what defense these Leftists/Marxists including Maoists, Trotskyites, Leninists, Stalinists have against my attack.

Here is my comment:

Leninists, Stalinist, Trotskyites, Maoists and the CPI(M) are all reformist parties, all are non-revolutionary as none of them have any idea of how to bring about any structural change in capitalism, that is none of them have any idea as to (a) how to replace the system of private property by direct collective ownership of means of production by the association of workers, (b) how to do away with wage labor and generation of surplus value which takes place even if there is state ownership and the state determines prices and wages, (c) how to do away with the system of commodity production based on exchange values and instead create a system of non-commodity production that produces only products and services that humans need for existence and not arms and other destructive products and services that destroys human existence, that is how to produce only use values, (d) how to create a system of production and distribution based on the principle of each according to his ability to each according to his need, (e) how to create a system of distribution that does not require the market mechanism.

Have any of these reactionary running dogs of the bourgeoisie any idea of the economic problems of capitalism and how it makes rich richer and the poor poorer? Have they ever thought of how a new economic system can be created where this process is reversed and the poor become richer, the rich become porer and all become equal? Have they ever thought of a system of production where the antagonistic strife-ridden, tension-filled, employer versus employee stress is replaced by a system of non-antagonistic production where there is no employer and employee but only employer-employees combined in the same person, a new class of people, the communists?
Unless these quintessential structural problems are solved, capturing of political power by armed revolution or by democratic processes, revolution in one country or permanent revolution till all countries are freed etc type of questions are entirely meaningless since they deal with the question of political or superstructural change and do not, I repeat do not, deal with the question of economic or structural change.

Hence all these so-called Leftists, shame to them and their attempts to fool us, the poor, have stood Marx on his head and are claiming that political change or superstructural change can somehow precede economic or structural change – something that has never ever happened in history.

Because these Leftists are only bothered about political change and have bothered only about political change since the time of the failure of the Paris Commune they, including the venerable Marx himself, stopped being communist and became dogmatic parties and individuals (and thereby became lackeys of the bourgeoisie themselves wittingly or unwittingly) who have believed in the dogma that unit level structural change – namely establishment of direct collective ownership of means of production by the association of workers can never ever happen simply because the Paris Commune failed – they believe in the dogma that the failure of the Paris Commune represents some kind of absolute truth that was valid then in those historical conditions and will remain valid throughout history even if historical conditions change. And hence, they began to believe in the dogma that only capture of political power and establishment of state ownership is important not the more important structural issue of how to ensure direct collective ownership of means of production by the association of workers.

This dogmatic belief that political or superstructural change will somehow enable economic change at a later date is also a highly foolish one and what is worse is at the root of all Left disunity and in-fighting among the Left. At least Chomsky et al have pointed out (they are no good either but at least they have identified the main enemy – those who run and protect the military-industrial combine and not some shade of red as you fools (all shades of Marxists) want us to fool us into believing) that without broad-based Left unity across the world there is no way that the global power that leads global imperialism and global military-industrial capitalism can be defeated.

Hence, by moving away from the key issue of how to bring about structural change in the mode of production all Leftists since the time of the Paris Commune have stopped being revolutionary and are all nothing but bourgeoisie parties – they bother only about political power and not about structural revolutionary change.

Meanwhile petty bourgeoisie Leftists like Trotskyite Prof Kunal Chattopadhya; the Maoists; the CPI(M) and other Stalinists; all other shades of red ad anuseum can debate, write, discuss, criticize this or that wing of left forces, vituperate on globalisation and its discontents, kill, rape and maim other leftists and us poor and prove how great Leftists they are. These Leninist, Stalinists including the CPI(M), Trotskyites and now the latest danger the Maoists concentrate all their energies on fighting other leftist forces instead of global imperialism and global military-industrial capitalism and they will go on doing so till we are all dead since if global imperialism and military-industrial capitalism is not overthrown in the next few years none of us are going to survive much beyond a couple of decades more.

Some of the richest capitalists will set up colonies on the Moon or Mars or wherever – they have already started thinking along those lines seriously as proved by the tremendous amount of earthly resources and effort that is now being devoted to the question of setting up space colonies but most people left on earth will be dead. There are several Hollywood movies (I can’t remember names offhand) which depict this possibility and I will quote from Benoy Majumdar’s poem “Kalpana” or “Imagination” the following two lines (my rough translation) -
Only what exists can be imagined.
Contrarily, whatever we imagine exists! -to claim that these movies provide further confirmation that the global bourgeoisie is seriously thinking along these lines. This is not an imagined danger, this is a real danger and that is the reason they the capitalists, are not bothered much about the environment, which of course, applies to you too as you too are all equally bourgeoisie parties.

If the Leftists around the world have any intellect left after wasting all their brain power on fighting other leftists for the last 150 years or so since the time of the Paris Commune they will have to give up their false, mad and vain search for political power, they will have to stop being just what all bourgeoisie political parties do, namely try to gain political power and in the process end up fighting among themselves.

Instead they should all unite, every single shade of red, put all their heads together and find solutions to the key economic issues, namely (a) how to do away with the capitalist economy and create a new economic system where workers can directly own means of production and where there will be no wage labor, prices, commodity production and market mechanism and (b) how to create an economic system which only produces use values, that is only goods and services we humans need for existence rather than guns and missiles and all the other things that can destroy human existence recognizing that since such production today constitutes nearly 40% of total global production, if such production is stopped globally the environmental problem will get solved almost overnight, as it were.

Although these 2 issues are very complex and all Leftists have to unite together with scientists and professionals from all walks of life to find solutions they should remember that the historical conditions in which the Paris Commune failed have changed radically and there is absolutely no need to hold on to dogmas that arose from the failure of the Paris Commune.

Some of the major changes that have taken place in the historical conditions since the time of the Paris Commune are as follows:
(a) it is today possible for workers to take charge of an industrial unit and run it themselves – workers have already done so in India at Kamini Engineering Works; could have done so at Kanoria Jute Mill but did not do so only because of dogmatism or deliberate cheating of the workers and I know that first hand as I was deeply involved in that movement, the conditions were excellent and ready made for taking over of that factory by the workers but was not done on the specious grounds that workers are not yet ready to run the factory by themselves so we still need the capitalists to do so (this is also the main reason why Kabir Suman got pissed off with the Kanoria leadership) – which really means the leadership was saying that we will need the bourgeoisie for ever and there will never be any communism; can do so at each and every industrial unit in the world like they did even in the United States (United Airlines) provided there is genuine left unity and workers unity – it should be remembered that workers throughout the world have today earned the democratic and political right to organize themselves politically into unions, hold demonstrations and bring to a halt all profit making demanding that the capitalist shareholders go away and leave the entire industrial unit in the hands of the united workers. The situation is not like the Paris Commune where workers did not have these rights and where they forcibly tried to hold on to one small territory so that the state could take repressive action and break the commune. Today if there is left unity such repressive action by the state is not possible against the working class as a whole. The state can take such repressive action only against such armed groups as the Maoists but can do nothing if workers of all industrial units unite peacefully without taking up arms and simply demand that they have had enough of the capitalists and all they want is that the respective factories in which they work be handed over to them or they bring all profit making (not production because then the capitalists will be repressive, will stop making wage payments etc) to a halt in guerrilla style – no strike but every single item produced will be somehow unmarketable (defective or innovatively made unusable according to actual concrete conditions obtaining for each production line) and it will be done by contribution of all workers down the production line so that no one worker can be pulled up and penalized, all will have to be penalized. Specific programs will have to worked out for specific conditions and the counter-production will have to done secretly – give me one specific condition and I will tell you thousands of ways this can be done and no worker can be hauled up although the entire production will be unmarketable. If there is sufficient workers’ unity the capitalist back can be broken for ever.
(b) Today it is possible to think out ways of linking peacefully united workers in factories with peacefully united peasants so that there can be direct exchange of industrial and agricultural goods between collective combines of workers and peasants, in Kanoria Jute such a situation obtained as the workers themselves were in many cases small and marginal land owners and came from some 80 villages around the plant and they could have organized themselves in a way that they could produce all their basic needs themselves – thus they could have created a liberated area within West Bengal without taking up arms and without giving the repressive state a chance to do anything about it simply by building up a collective self-sustaining economy across those 80 villages and the Kanoria Jute Mill – the conditions were really really excellent for this but did not happen simply because of dogmatic and idiotic leadership or because the leadership were actually getting paid by the bourgeoisie in some way,
(c) Today it is possible to think of ways to replace the market mechanism and replace it by a system of direct barter because it should be realized (provided you have any understanding of economics which is the key criterion for being a Marxist and any amount of learning in history or politics is of no use at all without knowledge and understanding of economics) that ultimately the key question of distribution is full information that tells producers what to produce and consumers what to consume – the market and price mechanism acts as a proxy for full information and serves to tell producers what to produce and consumers what to consume. State planners can never have this full information and so they were bound to fail and did fail. Today it is possible to think of ways how this proxy for full information can be replaced by full information itself – by linking producers and consumers through a global production information system where consumers key in their requirements, the computers process the information and tell producers in real time what needs to be produced and sent where. Large MNCs are anyway doing this on a global scale, all that needs to be done is to think of the entire world as one single MNC. All the techniques are now available for running such a world MNC. Consumer needs will be arrived at through social consensus at the unit level of human habitation (what can be called existential human habitations (EHH) which will be designed to take care of environmental and other problems – space does not permit full discussion but what I am saying is very much feasible and not utopian or woolly-headed at all since again pilot-scale experiments have been done in India (concept of eco-farms)and elsewhere in the world – in Canada for example – see my blog on Kana adivasis.) Needs will be determined on the basis of what each such community of workers (EHH) need for a decent existence not what they need to show off status – brands and other status symbols and unnecessary luxury items – but goods and services of daily use – all of equally high quality – and the computers will process the information to inform communities of producers what to produce where. The processing will be done on the basis of (a) which unit can produce what, (b) which unit can supply at lowest cost where cost is determined in terms of lowest use of energy, lowest trouble in transportation, and minimum use of materials, especially non-renewable resources, all being calculated in physical terms and not price terms. Human labor will gradually become free as all physical and tedious work can be done by automatons and robots and all humans can at last be freed from the problems arising from the division of labor and can all become writers and thinkers, poets and artists, scientists, researchers, engineers, doctors and programmers etc – that is all intellectual knowledge workers. This is possible because with the abolition of private property the problem of providing employment too will go away so that the present barrier that capitalists are facing in introducing large scale automation will not be there – change in relations of production will free the now fettered forces of production.(Do you Maoists know that or you have forgotten all that in your rabid greed for political power?) Please remember that I am merely pointing out what is today possible but was unthinkable at the time of the Paris Commune so I am not giving a ready-made final fully worked out solution but merely showing that if all people who want structural revolutionary change unite then it is possible to work out how to bring about the structural revolutionary changes that I have mentioned above.

Instead of wasting time, energy and human blood on endless and totally sterile debates on how to capture political power, if all people led by the Leftists start thinking of how to actually save the planet by bringing about the necessary structural economic changes then we have a very slim chance of bringing about these changes in the few years of time we still have in our hands. Otherwise, it is Armageddon for all of us!

The total futility of the debates in which Leftists are now stuck can be seen by the fact that the apparently highly well-informed and intellectual arguments of Prof Kunal Chattopadhya when stripped of all the intellectualism boils down to Maoists killing the CPI(M) or the CPI(M) killing the Maoists and we poor people left sucking our thumbs while global imperialism continues to destroy us and the world. No solution, only killing of one group of leftists by another group of leftists and leftists fighting among themselves in a vain bid to capture political power while imperialism goes on having fun.

And suppose we, the less learned and foolish intellectuals of the poor, become followers of Prof Kunal Chattopadhya and accept that since the Maoists are at least dieing and killing in the name of the poor we should all support them, pray what will the Maoists do after coming to power?

What is their economic program after revolution? What is their idea of communism and communist mode of production? Or should we not bother about that at all because our job is to die for the revolution so that our new Maoists bosses can come to power and become a neo-rich who will then begin to exploit us all over again as party bosses or state bureaucrats?

What is your idea of communism? State ownership – with no solution about market mechanism, about commodity production about all the structural ills of capitalism? So once again Stalinist Soviet Russia? Or is it the model of China that you want us to set up? Maoist China is worse than what Soviet Union was because if the learned Prof does keep track of any economics in case he has any time after keeping track of all the politics and history around the world of leftists killing other leftists, what do we have there? Pure unadulterated capitalism with all the poverty shifted westwards and a highly developed east coast where the multinationals that Prof Kunal so hates are ruling the roost and where there is only capitalism and capitalism. And after the United States, China now leads the race for destroying the world by following nothing but a military-industrial capitalist path of development which of course we, the poor have to forget about because highly intellectual and learned petty bourgeoisie professors demand that of us or our great gun-wielding Maoists heroes would force us to accept at gun point.

What happens to poor poor people like us, Sir? What happens to end of exploitation of our labor through wage slavery, Sir? What happens to rising inequality and uneven development, Sir? What happens to commodity production, business cycles, army of unemployed and of course blatant human rights violations, Sir? What happens to ending capitalism, sir?

So if we have to continue suffering under capitalism and head towards final destruction – final solution – at least the end will come less quickly and probably less painfully under the extreme rightists rather than the extreme Leftists (Maoists) because they the Maoists will demand sacrifices from us to fight and die on behalf of them first to get them into power and then die again because after all that fighting and bloodshed they will simply go ahead and further develop the existing status quo of capitalism.

So why sir in the “Name of Marx” are you petty bourgeoisie intellectuals working out various means of killing us quickly or slowly instead of uniting on our behalf, on behalf of the poor. Why the hell don’t you let Marx and his ill-formed ideas of socialism/communism go to hell since it was he who became our biggest enemy after the Paris Commune and derailed our party, the communist party into dogmatically believing that the poor and the workers cannot be given direct economic and political power because, of all things, the bourgeoisie will then kill us like they did in Paris Commune so that from then on we the poor and the workers have to take away power from our existing capitalist bosses and then hand over that power to the party bosses – the Leninist, Stalinist, Maoist and Trotskyite bosses whom we don’t even know because they have to stay underground lest they also get killed by the bourgeoisie. What rubbish!

Enough is enough and there is no time left. If you people are so bothered about us, the poor, then tell us what economic structural changes are you going to bring about after you make us die for you and hand over political power to you through the revolution (New Democratic is it you call it? Quite rightly so – new democratic it is – new capitalist rather), the great Maoist champions of the poor and please don’t give that old idiotic oversimplified solution of state ownership. Think up something else to fool us with since state ownership does not give us power over our means of production, nor does it end exploitation and wage labor, nor is it as such workable because state ownership and state planning is an unworkable alternative to market mechanism and we have checked that out in as many countries as you have fooled us into believing you and handing over power to you – we want to control our own destinies instead of replacing one ruling class by another ruling class of Maoist party bossess.

To cut out all the crap and debates and arguments please Prof Kunal Chattopadhya and all the other great Maoist heroes, please tell us what kind of economic system you want to set up after we die for you and help you to come to power after your revolution? We agree with you that the CPI(M) is Stalinist and is dangerous for us poor as they serve only their bourgeoisie masters but please show us how you do not serve the same bourgeoisie masters yourselves? Please show what economic system you have planned for us after taking over power? Is it the Stalinist system of Soviet Russia or the capitalist system of China? And please explain why we should shed our blood to help catapult you to power when the only economic system you can give us after coming to power is the failed Stalinist system or the pure unadulterated capitalism of China? Why should we die to change masters? Instead why don’t you stop in the “Name of Marx” killing us and let us die peacefully under existing capitalism? Why do we need to die once to set up neo-capitalism and then die a second time?

Also please explain why you running dogs of the bourgeoisie keep killing each other and deny us a proper platform for organizing ourselves to bring about structural economic change that would actually end capitalism – whether of the state capitalism variety or the market capitalism variety? Why do you keep talking of how some so-called leftists have killed some other so-called Leftist, here or in Nicaragua or in Timbuktoo when you don’t have the slightest idea of how to create a new economy – a communist mode of production? Why you want to fool us into believing that we should support your rabid desire to capture political power when you have absolutely no clue as to how to end the structural problems of capitalism? When you never spend even a single moment any day on bothering about the economics of how to organize production, consumption and distribution in a new post-capitalist economic system and therefore have absolutely no clue of what economic system you are going to set up after fooling us into supporting your rabid desire to capture political power? Why, pray why should we poor believe that you who spend all your day thinking of capturing political power and write long treatises of blah blah blah about which so-called leftist is killing whom and where – where that is the entire limit of your knowledge and you have absolutely no clue about economics and the problems of structural change and therefore are quite incapable of bringing about structural change and at the most can bring about only superstructural political change – why should we believe you with our lives and catapult you to power? What can you do for us except set up another Stalinist Soviet Russia or a capitalist China?

And please don’t argue that China is socialist and not capitalist – in that case all we can say is that your ignorance is extreme and you have no idea about the poor in China, about what MNCs are doing there, about how capitalists are getting richer by the day and the poor, poorer, how a country which once was the most egalitarian state is increasingly becoming as unequal as any other developed capitalist state, where now even agricultural land has been privatized and where everyday more and more state enterprises are being handed over to capitalists and where there is absolutely no difference between it and other capitalist states? What new ways will you and the Maoists find to fool us? Or are you paid agents of China?

I am sorry Prof Kunal Chattopadhya and your ilk – all you can do is to try and fool us into believing that you are any better than the Stalinist, running dog of the bourgeoisie CPI(M). You are worst because instead of even giving some temporary relief you simply want us to suffer even more and die even more quickly so that you can come to power and then again continue with your capitalism becoming a new bourgeoisie? You are worse because the CPI(M) is at least open about its support of the bourgeoisie, its wooing of MNCs, its total disdain for the poor, its out and out anti-people and anti-poor policies. But you are liars – you want to confuse and fool people that you are true revolutionaries when all you want is political power. Once in power you too like China, the former erstwhile states of the USSR and Vietnam before you will invite American capital for purposes of “economic development”, for going on with the bourgeoisie mode of production since you have no clue as to how to set up a post-capitalist, exploitation-free egalitarian communist mode of production where we the poor, the workers can actually enjoy real economic and therefore political power.

If you have any clue of a communist mode of production show us one single document on your economic policies instead of saying blah, blah, blah ad nauseum about your political programs – we are not interested because we know political change can never precede economic change – it has never ever happened in history and you are not God that you have the ability to change the laws of social dynamics.

Everybody who has read the early Marx – before Paris Commune and before he started introducing all kinds of anti-working class ideas into his theories such as state ownership, capture of political power first before economic change which directly contradicts his own brilliant discovery of historical materialism and which thereby completely negated the gains of this discovery for us, the working class – know that is so. So, why are you trying to fool us into believing that historical materialism is wrong and instead the idiotic idea of political change preceding economic change which is what you want us to believe in so that we fall for that and think those trying to capture political power before first organizing us economically are revolutionaries and thus catapult them to power?

We are not interested in your politics and your power games at our expense. Show us how your economic thinking and your proposed mode of production is not essentially capitalist in nature and will actually free us from 10,000 years of slavery to private ownership of property.

Show us how you are going to bring about structural change in relations of production (or have you forgotten what that means in your rabid greed for political power?) and create a communist mode of production.

Till such time you can do that all your learning and intellectualism will still remain totally reactionary and bourgeoisie in character and are nothing but Brahminical attempts at fooling us. You will still remain as much a running dog of capitalism and the bourgeoisie mode of production as any other party – BJP, Congress, TMC, and yes the Stalinist CPI(M) as well.

And in case you are truly revolutionary then work to build a broad-based global unity of all landless laborers and unemployed people, wage earners (from top managers who have not yet become a part of the property owning shareholding and landholding classes to the lowest paid wage earners), small and marginal farmers, small and tiny business owners and self-employed people and adopt an economic policy to wage war against the ruling classes by bringing to a halt their profit-making, by hitting the bourgeoisie where it hurts most instead of killing our own brethren – poor people coming from working class and peasant families who have been forced to become policemen or soldiers to earn a living – stop fooling us into believing they are our class enemies while letting the real class enemies go totally unscathed.

Also spend time on thinking out how to create a new economic system that is structurally different from either state capitalism or market capitalism.

By the way, even if we accept your philosophy of mindless killing as a way to revolution why don’t your big champions of the poor, the Maoists, kill any of the top industrialists and bourgeoisie ideologues and politicians? Why do you only kill poor people on specious grounds that they are supporters of some “reactionary” political party, or police or army etc.?

Why do you kill only the poor? Why do you kill poor supporters of the CPI(M)? They are also agents of the bourgeoisie? It is still somewhat understandable if you kill the top leadership of the CPI(M) because it is they who lay down policies, may be get paid for making the party a running dog of the bourgeoisie etc., but what about poor peasants and workers who join that party in good faith thinking that the party is leftist?

Why do you always kill poor people, why don’t you have the guts to kill at least a few top industrialists the people who actually work out all the bourgeoisie policies including political policies of unleashing terrorism here or there, some inhuman fundamentalism here or there and so on? Even if you kill a few of these top guys everyday, you can at least terrorize and paralyze the capitalist system and make some impact on the system but how are you pro-poor when you kill only the poor? At least by killing industrialists you can claim to be at least pro-poor anarchists since you can’t claim to be communist revolutionaries as you do not have any clue as to how to build an alternative communist economic system? Just stop fooling us. Period.

P.S. Jaydrath has exposed himself. In times of war this happens. He is none other than radicalhypocrite whose total ignorance of economics and yet know-all attitude I had exposed earlier. Kunal happens to be radicalhypocrite who lives in a dream world of his own. I have already exposed this dreamworld earlier. I am reproducing his open letter to Chomsky and others of the New Left including Tariq Ali

I am also reproducing Chomsky’s letter to those people who walked against the CPI(M) on November 14, followed by another letter by these scoundrels on the same issue. I am really disappointed that the signatories include Arundhuti Roy. I am such a great admirer of her writings. And wouldn’t mind openly declaring my love for her. The signatories also include many other people whom I personally know or know from their writings and they are people whom I have always admired and loved because they love humanity, they do try to love us the poor. I do not doubt their integrity.

But they have been foolish and it is high time that they start bothering about structural economic change. Revolution is right in front of us – we can change here and now. But we have to realize what we have to change. It is not political power. It is a question of economic power – in the factory and yes in the household as well. Read my new page on Thesis on Marx. But unfortunately none of these people have bothered much about the economic and structural question. They should if they want any real structural revolutionary change. They should get over the mistakes committed by even Marx after the Paris Commune. The situation has changed. Think differently!

Here is first Chomsky’s letter, followed by Kunal Chattopadhya’s letter, followed by letter on Nandigram by many Leftist intellectuals including Arundhati Roy, Mahasweta Debi, Rajarshri Dasgupta and many others. I dare them to come forward in open debate and not try to run away. Intellectuals sicken me and I have no patience with them or their gobbledygook. But  here is a gem from Kunal’s letter that fully reveals his class character. He writes with regards to Singur: “Why did the government not tell the Tatas to go and negotiate directly with the peasants so that they could get whatever benefits they were able to wrest?” So, he wants the free market system to determine what the peasants acting individually will get from the Tatas – he thinks individual peasants can strike a better deal than when a government negotiates on their behalf. If they had negotiated individually would they have got even the little they got or would it have been a repeat of the story happening all over India where industrialists are almost paying zilch to take over land? Beware of these revolutionaries who are out to cheat and fool!

 

   Letter from Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Howard Zinn and others:

To Our Friends in Bengal

News travels to us that events in West Bengal have overtaken the optimism that some of us have experienced during trips to the state. We are concerned about the rancour that has divided the public space, created what appear to be unbridgeable gaps between people who share similar values. It is this that distresses us. We hear from people on both sides of this chasm, and we are trying to make some sense of the events and the dynamics. Obviously, our distance prevents us from saying anything definitive.

We continue to trust that the people of Bengal will not allow their differences on some issues to tear apart the important experiments undertaken in the State (land reforms, local self-government).

We send our fullest solidarity to the peasants who have been forcibly dispossessed. We understand that the government has promised not to build a chemical hub in the area around Nandigram. We understand that those who had been dispossessed by the violence are now being allowed back to their homes, without recrimination. We understand that there is now talk of reconciliation. This is what we favour.

The balance of forces in the world is such that it would be impetuous to split the Left. We are faced with a world power that has demolished one state (Iraq) and is now threatening another (Iran). This is not the time for division when the basis of division no longer appears to exist.

Signatories

Noam Chomsky, author, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; Tariq Ali, author, Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope and editor, New Left Review; Howard Zinn, author, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress; Susan George, author, Another World is Possible if, and Fellow, Transnational Institute; Victoria Brittain, co-author, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back, former editor, Guardian; Walden Bello, author, Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire, and Chair, Akbayan, the fastest growing party in the Philippines; Mahmood Mamdani, author, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and the Roots of Terror; Akeel Bilgrami, author, Politics and the Moral Psychology of Identity; Richard Falk, author, The Costs of War: International Law, the UN and World Order After Iraq; Jean Bricmont, author, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War; Michael Albert, author, Parecon: Life After Capitalism, and editor, ZNET; Stephen Shalom, author, Imperial Alibis: Rationalizing US Intervention After the Cold War; Charles Derber, author, People Before Profit: The New Globalization in an Age of Terror, Big Money and Economic Crisis; Vijay Prashad, author, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.

***************************************************************

An Open Letter to Tariq Ali
> Posted on www.sanhati.com
>
> By Kunal Chattopadhyay, Radicalblogger
> http://kunal-radicalblogger.blogspot.com/
>
> Dear Tariq,
>
> When I was a very young radical, still a Maoist rather than a Trotskyist,
> it was your name, rather than that of Ernest Mandel, or of anyone else,
> that we came across, here in our part of India. There are still older
> comrades in West Bengal, who talk about a certain period of Fourth
> International history, in terms of “in those days of Tariq Ali”. This
> is why, a statement, even though signed by Chomsky, Zinn and others, along
> with the man who seems to have carried out the coup, a gentleman named
> Vijay Prashad, becomes most painful because you are among the signatories.
> As you once wrote in one of your wonderful books, about another comrade of
> yours, ‘there was fire in his belly in those days’. Perhaps we have all
> grown older, but some of us have refused to grow “wiser”.
>
> I read, and re-read, with a growing sense of wonder, shame and above all
> anger, “the statement that some of you have signed. If you are
> uninformed, what gave you the authority to issue a pompous statement based
> on that lack of information? I write to you, because I consider you a
> comrade who has committed a mistake in signing this statement.
>
> Right at the beginning, you write:
>
> News travels to us that events in West Bengal have overtaken the optimism
> that some of us have experienced during trips to the state. We are
> concerned about the rancor that has divided the public space, created what
> appear to be unbridgeable gaps between people who share similar values.
>
> Who are these people who share similar values? Just what do you know about
> the values shared by those in governmental authority in West Bengal? You,
> and those others amongst you, who made trips here, met some of the
> CPI(M)’s intellectuals, who put on a special face for foreign
> delegations. But as someone who has known Marxism for longer than I have,
> you know well that it is never possible to judge people solely by what they
> say about themselves. When someone uses words like democracy, even
> socialism, anti-imperialism, unless you know the context, unless you know
> exactly what their political practice is, you cannot assume that they say
> those words in the same way that you, or someone else does.
>
> So let us begin by looking at values. Just a small example of values. When
> the Singur –Nandigram issues began blowing up, Medha Patkar, who happens
> to be one of India’s most respected social movement activists, someone
> who has therefore been vilified by parties and governments across India,
> extended her solidarity for the militant people. CPI(M) leaders took
> umbrage. CPI(M) State Secretariat member (and Central Committee member)
> Benoy Konar, in a speech, called on women to show Medha Patkar their
> buttocks. When Medha tried to go to Nandigram, her car was blockaded, and
> some people, supporters of the CPI(M), indeed followed Konar’s advice and
> showed Medha their buttocks. I could quote dozens of newspaper and
> television reports, but most clippings I have are in Bengali, so I give you
> the url of Medha’s own report.
>
> I dare you, or any of your co-signatories, with the exception of Mr. Vijay
> Prashad, to come forward and assert that you share similar values as these
> people.
>
> I am sure, that once this open letter is circulated, it will also be
> trivialized by the murders who are posing as leftists and persuading you to
> sign on behalf of them. So let me say that this is not the only issue I am
> talking about when we say values. I will be talking about political outlook
> and values in other ways. But Tariq, in the most extreme days of the IMT
> line, when talking about guerilla warfare, did you ever call on your
> comrades to do unto political opponents, that which Benoy Konar suggested
> and that which his followers obliged by doing?
>
> If by values you mean left wing values, you would have to define more
> precisely what sort of leftism you are talking about. CPI(M) leaders and
> their government here in West Bengal are deeply wedded to a very
> authoritarian form of bourgeois democracy. I will be able to mention only a
> few cases below. But perhaps the clearest evidence is this – despite the
> fact that in the period 1971-1977, the Congress in power used utmost
> brutality, had people illegally arrested, tortured, many actually killed,
> in three decades in power, the CPI(M) led government has failed to carry
> though the prosecution of a single police officer of that era.
>
> In your statement, you present a euphemistic comment, saying that you are
> concerned about the rancor that has divided the public space. The
> “rancor” that you talk about is the result of a long period of
> violation of civil liberties, of brutal repression of political opposition
> and massive use of party cadres as thugs. The most respected civil
> liberties organization in West Bengal , the Association for the Protection
> of Democratic Rights, has recently been targeted by the chief minister, who
> claimed that the APDR is a Maoist outfit. The crime of the APDR was that it
> has consistently argued that everyone has political and civil rights, and
> these cannot be circumscribed without threatening all of us.
>
> Let me again give some illustration. Attacks on the Maoists, especially the
> organizations CPI(ML) Peoples’ War, the Maoist Communist Centre, and
> after they merged, the CPI(Maoist) have been massive. Anyone suspected of
> being a Maoist has been arrested, even without real charges. And why is
> someone suspected? In Medinipur district, an activist of the APDR was
> arrested as a suspected Maoist, on the strength of material found in his
> possession. Such material included a copy of George Thompson’s From Marx
> to Mao-tse Tung. I still have a copy at home, and I am wondering when it
> will be my turn to be arrested. In Kolkata, a man was arrested on suspicion
> of being a Maoist, and he was so traumatized by police action, that he
> committed suicide. (Ananda Bazar patrika, 9.7.2002). Four days after Ananda
> Bazar Patrika wrote about this, the CPI(M) daily newspaper, Ganashakti,
> reported that Benoy Konar told journalists, in reply to a question on
> whether the police had overstepped the boundaries of human rights, that it
> is difficult to determine the boundaries of human rights. In addition,
> Konar treated the media to the homily that the baton of the police is used
> as a repressive apparatus. (Ganashakti, 11.7,02). In 2002, the Chief
> Minister said that the KLO in North Bengal or the Maoists elsewhere were
> holding up development. So the priority for development was used to justify
> violence on them. The Home Minister’s budget speech for 2002-2003 seeking
> additional funds for the police highlighted the commitment of the state to
> modernisation of the police for counter-insurgency; at a time when the
> government’s debt burden had risen to 7500 billion rupees. (Amit
> Bhattacharya, ‘Duhsomoy: Ganatantra, Manabadhikar O Paschimbanger
> ‘Sangbedanshil’ Sarkar’, in Bartaman Lokayatik, 2002-2003, Nos. 3-4
> and 1-2, pp. 238-270 . See especially pp. 245-7; and also Ananda Bazar
> Patrika, 7.8.2002) .
>
> There has been a long, very long trail of state and party sponsored
> violence. The APDR has regularly listed cases. Two comrades, members of the
> Nari Nirjatan Pratirodh Mancha (Forum Against Oppression of Women,
> Kolkata), Mira Roy and Soma Marik, have written a booklet, Women Under the
> left Front rule: Expectations Betrayed, where violence on women have been
> discussed extensively. Not all are cases of political violence. In many
> cases, we have seen how rapists have been defended by leaders of the ruling
> party. For example, in August 1991, a young woman had been arrested from a
> hotel in Kanthi, where she had registered with a male friend. She was then
> raped by the police. Virtually defending the police, Acting Chief Minister
> Benoy Chowdhury told the West Bengal Assembly that she had registered under
> an assumed name with a male friend. In other words, since she was a
> presumably unmarried woman “gone bad” it was fair enough if the police
> had a little fun with her. Values I share with them? No thanks.
>
> Violence over Singur and Nandigram are not unrelated to the foregoing. At
> one level, they reflect the culture of violence supported by the ruling
> party. At another level, they reflect the submission to neo-liberal
> globalization, even while a huge rhetoric is floated abroad for the
> consumption of international left-wing intellectuals. After all, we boast
> of an intellectual chief minister capable of quoting noted poets as part of
> his political spiels. So he needs the endorsement of intellectuals.
>
> You write, “We continue to trust that the people of Bengal will not allow
> their differences on some issues to tear apart the important experiments
> undertaken in the state (land reforms, local self-government).” Since the
> signature is mostly of leftwing persons, and since in particular I am
> writing to you, a well-known Marxist, I trust the signatories, and
> especially you, know that there is no unified and homogeneous people. I am
> sorry if I have to spell out such truisms. But in these days of triumph of
> neo-liberalism, this kind of woolly-woolly, non-class language is being
> resorted to, even by those whom I have always treated as charter members of
> the class struggle camp. West Bengal is part of India, and India is a
> bourgeois state with an economy where extremes coexist. From the latest in
> Information Technology in Sector V of Salt Lake, it will take you just
> about two and a half hours by car to get to Nandigram, where you have
> plenty of poor peasants eking out a living much as their grandparents did.
> Not that there has been no change, no development, but that has been
> limited development in a backward capitalist economy. Since the current
> conflicts seem minor to you, compared to the “important experiments”,
> let us look at those experiments briefly. As I am not writing a treatise, I
> do not intend to write for long pages, nor to provide extensive footnotes.
> It is however necessary to question fundamentally the false claims of the
> West Bengal Government, that you seem to have swallowed hook, line and
> sinker.
>
> Some years back, when the PRC had just started its trek back to class
> collaborationist politics, a comrade in the PRC named Franco Grisolia wrote
> to two of us, asking for a note on the CPI(M) led government, as well as
> CPI(M)’s support to the UPA at the center, because this model was being
> held up by supporters of Bertinotti to justify their turn to the right. So
> Soma Marik and I wrote a longish essay, The Left Front and the United
> Progressive Alliance, one version of which was published in Italian, and
> another version, in English, was put up in the website of our comrades of
> Socialist Democracy, Irish supporters of the Fourth International.
>
> Just one paragraph from that essay will reveal an interesting story: “The
> key issue of land distribution, in fact, tells an interesting story. In
> 1967, and again in 1969, two short-lived United Front governments had been
> formed. There had been a mass upsurge, and huge land seizures and
> distribution. OF ALL the ceiling-surplus land vested with the state since
> 1953 (when the West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act was passed) and the year
> 2000, as much as 44 per cent of this land (6 lakh acres) was obtained in
> the five-year period between 1967 and 1972, thanks to the energetic
> initiatives of the two United Fronts; another 26% (3.5 lakh acres) had been
> acquired earlier. In the last 20 years of Left Front rule only 1.53 lakh
> acres were acquired, which amounts to almost a quarter of what was achieved
> during the very short UF regime and almost a half of what was obtained
> during the 14 years (1953-1967) of Congress rule.” The two United Front
> governments saw an active left, and one moreover facing a serious challenge
> from the emerging Maoist forces who eventually became the CPI (ML). Land
> reform at that time was based on popular initiative, not bureaucratic
> measures. The collapse of the governments clearly taught the CPI (M) a
> lesson – to wit, do not rock the boat of the bourgeoisie and their
> partners if you want a long stint.
>
> As for the important local self government experiments that you talk about,
> what, really, is significant? The three tier panchayat system has been in
> operation in other provinces as well. Digvijay Singh, the Congress chief
> minister of Madhya Pradesh, took measures to extend it to the level of the
> individual village. Despite much talk about panchayats being organs of
> self-rule of peasants, rich peasants and teachers formed the bulk. And
> given the fact that the poorer classes seldom were able to let their
> children finish secondary education, let alone college, teachers came from
> rich peasant families, or from non-agricultural families. A survey in one
> of the districts, Purulia, further showed that real help was received from
> the government’s developmental projects by a significant part of the
> rural rich, using their positions in the panchayats. (Prabir Bhattacharyya,
> ed, Anva Artha 19: Bamfront Sarkar—Ekti Mulyayan, Calcutta, May 1985,
> pp.11-14.)
>
> You next write:
>
> “We send our fullest solidarity to the peasants who have been forcibly
> dispossessed. We understand that the government has promised not to build a
> chemical hub in the area around Nandigram. We understand that those who had
> been dispossessed by the violence are now being allowed back to their
> homes, without recrimination. We understand that there is now talk of
> reconciliation. This is what we favor.”
>
> This paragraph was drafted by/ is based on arguments by someone who is a
> dab hand at creating confusions that eventually aid exploiters, but is at
> the same time able to pull the wool over the eyes of leftists who are a
> little away from the scene. “We send our fullest solidarity to the
> peasants who have been forcibly dispossessed.” Exactly which groups are
> you talking about? Evidently not those of Singur, since the next sentence
> clearly talks about Nandigram. In Singur, a colonial era law was used to
> dispossess peasants, to hand over land to one of India’s major capitalist
> concerns, the Tatas. Even if we accept, (as I do not, as I hope you still
> do not), the logic of the “free market”, why should a supposedly
> progressive government use a colonial law to dispossess peasants for the
> benefit of a capitalist group that is so rich that it can bid for and win
> in a battle to control a First World company? Why did the government not
> tell the Tatas to go and negotiate directly with the peasants so that they
> could get whatever benefits they were able to wrest? Moreover, perhaps your
> informants forgot to tell you, that there were vast numbers of share
> croppers, agricultural labourers, as well as people in various industries
> and transportation sectors in and around Singur, for whom the rich
> agricultural land of singur mattered. Thus, people in the potato industry
> (for Singur grows potato) lost out. People transporting potato lost out.
> Wage labourers lost out. And these, the proletarian sections, have received
> what compensation? The answer, dear Tariq, is zilch.
>
> So let us pass on to Nandigram. There, your statement is extraordinarily
> damaging. If it had come from comparable intellectuals in India, I would
> have used stronger language. I suppose that ignorance lets you partially
> off the hook. What is sad is that you think it perfectly legitimate to
> issue a statement even though you are ignorant about the details.
>
> There have been two charges of being dispossessed. On 6th January, 2007,
> CPI(M) thugs attacked peasants, and the retaliatory violence drove out a
> number of them. A further lot left of their own, fearful of the situation.
> They all stayed in a place called Khejuri. The CVPI(M) has claimed high
> figures – sometimes mentioning 1500, sometimes 3000. No independent
> investigation has proved this. Several of us went to Nandigram after the
> CPI(M) attack of 14 March, when 14 persons, at least, were murdered, and at
> least four women were raped. At that time, our investigations suggested
> that the total number of CPI(M) supporters forced to leave Nandigram were
> around 300. The APDR twice sent teams to Khejuri, and suggested a figure of
> around 350. Out of these, some 35 had clearly been identified by peasants
> in Nandigram as active elements in the so-called cadre force of CPI(M) ,
> i.e., the gun toting criminals who eventually carried out the November
> attacks to “reconquer” Nandigram. Now, in the first days, tens of
> thousands fled. Over the last few days they have trickled back, after
> having pledged loyalty to the CPI(M). So there is no recrimination,
> provided you have the 100% support for the CPI(M).
>
> You write that you understand that the government has promised not to build
> a chemical hub around Nandigram. This specific reference comes as a
> surprise. Because it is actually once again a case of your walking into a
> trap. First, the chemical hub, and a number of similar proposals, are all
> of the same type – calls to build SEZs. If SEZs are built, who will they
> benefit? They will not follow even India’s far from excellent labour
> laws. Secondly, the chemical hub, wherever built, is going to be an
> environmental disaster. Finally, and most crucially, the West Bengal
> government never formally promised not to build the chemical hub in
> Nandigram. What they said was that it will not be built in Nandigram if the
> people do not want it. Now, after the CPI(M) conquest,( for that is what it
> was, it was not even the state apparatus going in, but armed forces of the
> major party of the Left Front), what if people are compelled to say that
> yes, they do want the chemical hub? Let me remind you, that the CPI(M) is
> among the world’s largest surviving parties of Stalinist origin, and
> while the Moscow tie is long gone, the Moscow style has been retained —
> but in the service of capitalism. Today’s (21st November) newspapers
> already carry a news about how peasants have been forced to give written
> apologies to the CPI(M) in order to go and work in their fields.
>
> You talk of reconciliation. Between whom do you wish for reconciliation?
> Now that the CPI(M) has actually conquered the territory by force, would a
> humble acquiescence, given the inability to do anything else, be treated as
> reconciliation? Perhaps a little more detail about who the cadres were and
> how they fought the peasants would come in handy. Cadres — local
> criminals mostly involved in robbery cases — for the operation were drawn
> from Chandrakona and Garbeta zonal committees. Also, cadres were sent from
> Narayangarh and Keshiary areas. Another group of around 250 armed CPM
> supporters and criminals came from the villages of Punishol at Onda and
> Rajpur, Taldangra in Bankura.
>
> Sources said criminals were given money in advance and given a free-hand to
> bring whatever they could from the empty homes once the operation is
> complete. Sources said one such group that has returned to Onda came with
> motorcycles.
>
> The Bankura group reached Nandigram after travelling by train and then
> road. The group boarded trains and allegedly got off at Balichak, four
> stations after Kharagpur, and then headed towards Nandigram via Khejuri in
> the guise of daily wage earners. They take the same disguise when they go
> to Bihar and Jharkhand to collect arms, sources said.
>
> Most of these people are suspected to be running arms smuggling rackets.
> The arms used in the recapture operation are believed to have been supplied
> from these suppliers.
>
> Another cache of arms came from Purulia where party workers had received
> arms to combat Maoists. It is also suspected that the arms gone missing
> after the Purulia arms drop are with CPM supporters and were smuggled to
> Nandigram.
>
> The coal mafia from Burdwan is also believed to have played a key role in
> the operation. The money from the mafia is believed to have supplied funds
> for the operation, helped in procuring ammunition and hire vehicles that
> carried the armed men to the interior areas as the attack progressed.
>
> In your final paragraph, written in bold type in the version I received,
> you write:
>
> “The balance of forces in the world is such that it would be impetuous to
> split the left. We are faced with a world power that has demolished one
> state (Iraq) and is now threatening another (Iran). This is not the time
> for division when the basis of division no longer appears to exist.”
>
> So here we get the motivation that led you to write the letter. You do not
> wish for a split in the left in the face of resurgent US imperialism. Let
> me go back several years. As you are aware, the Fourth International had
> been great supporters of the Nicaraguan Revolution, and we, here in
> locally, tried our best to campaign for Nicaragua. At one stage, when
> Halima Lopez Sarkar was appointed the Nicaraguan ambassador to India, the
> CPI(M) decided to take up the campaign for Nicaragua. Of c ourse, with
> their incomparably bigger force, they could do much more. But when I had a
> talk with a Sandinista comrade who came here, he accused us of being
> sectarian to the CPI(M). I pointed out that our problem was simple – the
> CPI(M) would not even let us do any united front work while retaining our
> independent political stance. So even if we accept, as you obviously do,
> that the CPI(M) is a legitimate part of the left, how would we be able to
> avoid a split? In emails where what passes for debates, CPI(M) supporters
> are not only abusive towards us, but even to RSP or forward Bloc, partners
> of the CPI(M) in the Left Front who have been critical about Nandigram as
> well as the CPI(M)’s sudden volte face over the Nuclear Deal.
>
> Yet you are confident, that it is we who are impetuously causing the split.
> Tariq, the split is decades old. The CPI(M)’s idea of political hegemony
> is simple – bash everyone on the left till they genuflect before you. But
> according to you and your fellow signatories, the basis of divisions no
> longer appears to exist. If by this you mean that Nandigram’s resistance
> has been smashed, that armed terrorists of the CPI(M) have silenced the
> peasants, you are of course right. The basis however exists, because we
> have been unable to accept what was done.
>
> Your argument, that in the face of the US, we must not fight the CPI(M),
> can be extended to every tin pot dictator who takes a formal anti-US stand.
> Meanwhile, the CPI(M) led government constantly strives to welcome
> multinationals, it fights tooth and nail in defence of globalization. In
> lieu of several more pages of details, I offer you the URL of Sanhati
> (Solidarity), an anti-globalization website. Here you will find plenty of
> discussions about the Left front government and globalization.
>
> Nonetheless, you will say, what about the Left and its ability to influence
> the Government of India, or its ability to bring out millions in
> demonstrations? Once more, even accepting your premise that when you say
> CPI(M) you still say Left (would you make the same concession for the right
> wing of the old Italian CP?) , why can we not oppose the CPI(M) on other
> issues? Or are you saying, that in the face of the US war threat, all class
> questions inside India disappear? Are you saying that those who are in
> government and are implementing World Bank-IMF dictated economic policies
> are such valiant fighters against imperialism that we must accept the
> loving pats they give us, even through their guns? Would demobilizing
> militant fighters be then the best road to militant anti-imperialism? I
> never learnt that from Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg or Mandel.
>
> Long years of defeat and retreat have made many of us cautious. I agree
> that the power of US imperialism is greater than it was. But I firmly
> believe that we can best contribute to the anti-imperialist struggles by
> consistent anti-capitalism at the point of our existence. When I joined the
> Trotskyist movement, nearly three decades back, this was clear to me. This
> was clear to me even before that, when I understood the meaning of Che’s
> call to create two, three, many Vietnams. And yes, on 14th November,
> despite attempts to turn the protest demonstration into an “apolitical”
> show by some high profile figures, there were banners and posters, like the
> one that said, Nandigram is Bengal’s Vietnam, or the poster where Marx
> says, “Not in My name.” Don’t, please, call for a cession of the
> struggles of toilers in Marx’s name, and don’t claim that bourgeois
> reformism, like some land distribution, some registration of sharecroppers,
> or panchayat elections, make West Bengal a planet apart. Stand by those who
> have been murdered, and their comrades, and don’t call for a
> reconciliation between defenders of the ruling class who use sophisticated
> Marxist sounding jargon, and the crude, unsophisticated, but militant
> fighters who resist them.
>
> With comradely greetings
>
> Kunal Chattopadhyay
>
> Professor of History
> Jadavpur University
> Fourth Internationalist since 1980

*******************************************************************

Response to Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn et al on Nandigram

We (the undersigned) read with growing dismay the statement signed by Noam
Chomsky, Howard Zinn and others advising those opposing the CPI(M)’s
pro-capitalist policies in West Bengal not to “split the Left” in the
face of American imperialism. We believe that for some of the signatories,
their distance from events in India has resulted in their falling prey to a
CPI(M) public relations coup and that they may have signed the statement
without fully realising the import of it and what it means here in India,
not just in Bengal.

We cannot believe that many of the signatories whom we know personally, and
whose work we respect, share the values of the CPI(M) – to “share similar
values” with the party today is to stand for unbridled capitalist
development, nuclear energy at the cost of both ecological concerns and
mass displacement of people (the planned nuclear plant at Haripur, West
Bengal), and the Stalinist arrogance that the party knows what “the people”
need better than the people themselves. Moreover, the violence that has
been perpetrated by CPI(M) cadres to browbeat the peasants into submission,
including time-tested weapons like rape, demonstrate that this “Left”
shares little with the Left ideals that we cherish.

Over the last decade, the policies of the Left Front government in West
Bengal have become virtually indistinguishable from those of other parties
committed to the neoliberal agenda. Indeed, “the important experiments
undertaken in the State” – the land reforms referred to in the
statement – are being rapidly reversed. According to figures provided by
the West Bengal state secretary for land reforms, over the past five years
there has been a massive increase of landless peasants in the state due to
government acquisition of land cheaply for handing over to corporations and
developing posh upper class neighbourhoods.

We urge our friends to take very seriously the fact that all over the
country, democratic rights groups, activists and intellectuals of
impeccable democratic credentials have come out in full support of the
Nandigram struggle.

The statement reiterates the CPI(M)’s claim that “there will be no chemical
hub” in Nandigram, but this assurance is itself deliberately misleading.
This is the explanation repeatedly offered by CPI(M) for the first round of
resistance in Nandigram – that people reacted to a baseless rumour that
there would be land acquisitions in the area. In fact, as the Chief
Minister himself conceded in the State Assembly, it was no rumour but a
notification issued by the Haldia Development Authority on January 2, 2007
indicating the approximate size and location of the projected SEZ, which
triggered the turmoil.

The major factor shaping popular reaction to the notification was Singur.

Singur was the chronicle of the fate foretold for Nandigram. There, land
was acquired in most cases without the consent of peasant-owners and at
gun-point (terrorizing people is one way of obtaining their consent), under
the colonial Land Acquisition Act (1894). That land is now under the
control of the industrial house of the Tatas, cordoned off and policed by
the state police of West Bengal. The dispossessed villagers are lost to
history. A fortunate few among them will become wage slaves of the Tatas on
the land on which they were once owners.

While the CPM-led West Bengal government has announced that it will not go
ahead with the chemical hub without the consent of the people of Nandigram,
it has not announced any plans of withdrawing its commitment to the
neo-liberal development model. It has not announced the shelving of plans
to create Special Economic Zones. It has not withdrawn its invitation to
Dow Chemicals (formerly known as Union Carbide, the corporation responsible
for tens of thousands of deaths in Bhopal) to invest in West Bengal. In
other words, there are many more Nandigrams waiting to happen.

In any case, the reason for the recently renewed violence in Nandigram has
been widely established to have nothing to do with the rumour or otherwise
of a chemical hub. Print and visual media, independent reports, the
governor of West Bengal (Gopal Gandhi) and the State Home Secretary’s
police intelligence all establish that this round of violence was initiated
by the CPI(M) to re-establish its control in the area. We all have seen TV
coverage of unarmed villagers barricaded behind walls of rubble, while
policemen train their guns on them.

With the plans it has for the future, regaining control over Nandigram is
vital for the CPI(M) to reassure its corporate partners that it is in
complete control of the situation and that any kind of resistance will be
comprehensively crushed. The euphemism for this in the free marketplace is
‘creating a good investment climate’.

The anti-Taslima Nasreen angle that has recently been linked to the
Nandigram struggle against land acquisition is disturbing to all of us.
However, we should remember that it is largely Muslim peasants who are
being dispossessed by land acquisitions all over the state. There is a
general crisis of confidence of the Muslim community vis-à-vis the Left
Front government, inaugurated by the current Chief Minister’s aggressive
campaign to “clean up” madarsas, followed by the revelation of the
Sachar Committee that Muslim employment in government jobs in West Bengal
is among the lowest in the country. While we condemn the attempts to
utilize this discontent and channelize it in sectarian ways, we feel very
strongly that it would be unfortunate if the entire anger of the community
were to be mobilized by communal and sectarian tendencies within it. Such a
situation would be inevitable if all Left forces were seen to be backing
the CPI(M).

This is why at this critical juncture it is crucial to articulate a Left
position that is simultaneously against forcible land acquisition in
Nandigram and for the right of Tasleema Nasreen to live, write and speak
freely in India.

History has shown us that internal dissent is invariably silenced by
dominant forces claiming that a bigger enemy is at the gate. Iraq and Iran
are not the only targets of that bigger enemy. The struggle against SEZ’s
and corporate globalization is an intrinsic part of the struggle against US
imperialism.

We urge our fellow travellers among the signatories to that statement, not
to treat the “Left” as homogeneous, for there are many different
tendencies which claim that mantle, as indeed you will recognize if you
look at the names on your own statement.

Mahashweta Devi
Arundhati Roy
Sumit Sarkar
Uma Chakravarty
Tanika Sarkar
Moinak Biswas
Kaushik Ghosh
Saroj Giri
Sourin Bhattacharya
Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay
Swapan Chakravorty
Rajarshi Dasgupta
Anand Chakravarty
Apoorvanand
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Nivedita Menon
Aditya Nigam

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