The Future of Socialism By Ajit Roy (to the fond memory of Ajit Roy)

THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM

-Ajit Roy

The entire world is today discussing the future of socialism in the light of the contemporary developments in the Soviet Union, Poland, the countries in Eastern Europe and, above all, China. There is no dearth of prophets of doom, who are forecasting the demise of socialism and unfortunately there are trends within the socialist countries themselves who seem to be subscribing to this pessimistic view. I, for one, however, have no hesitation in making the statement with the fullest conviction that the future of socialism has become much brighter today than it ever was. I do not make this statement in a light hearted manner or to score merely a debating point, nor do I for a moment underestimate the gravity and depth of the crises that have enveloped all these socialist countries today and the deep roots the crises spring from.

The features and expressions of the ongoing crises in the socialist countries today are quite well known and every day some new symptoms intrude upon the world people.

To take the USSR first, the largest country within the socialist world and with the longest history of socialist reconstruction which was initiated by V. I, Lenin himself. The features of the crises in Soviet Union are well known. There is a deep crisis within the day-to-day life of the Soviet people a tremendous shortage of many essential goods including food, the run-down conditions of the health services, inadequate housing facilities and so on. Recently the Soviet leadership had to decide to import consumer goods and other necessities worth 10,000 million roubles to meet the critical situation facing the Soviet people. Another striking feature of the Soviet scene is the outbreak of industrial unrest including mass strikes by segments of the working class. Then, the growing tensions among different nationalities and ethnic communities of the USSR, sometimes taking very violent forms and leading to mass casualties and large scale destruction of property which have poisoned the internal relationship in this multi-nation union of socialist republics. Many of the constituent nationalities in the Soviet Union are today raising the demand for the severing of ties with the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev has characterised the present situation as one full of `painful, contradictory and intractable problems'.

Coming to the Soviet Union's next-door neighbour Poland the situation is even more critical, because the leadership of the Polish communist party, the Polish United Workers' Party, is today not only ousted from power; but it has been humiliated and politically marginalised. The ranks of the party are demoralised and they are deserting the party on a large scale. The governmental power has passed into Solidarity's hands, Only two communist members have been taken into the government and given the portfolios of defence and interior. They are in the cabinet on the sufferance and by the grace of Solidarity. At the end of four decades of power the communist leadership of Poland has saddled the country with a huge debt of 39 billion U.S Dollars owed to the US Government and other Western agencies, besides another 10 billion US Dollars worth of indebtedness to the Soviet Union. Galloping inflation, growing shortage of essential goods and services and flourishing black markets have come to dominate the Polish economic scene, while many factories are coming to a grinding halt for want of raw materials and essential spares.

In addition to the economic dislocation exposures of many historical crimes have added to the bitterness and hostility of the mass of the Polish people. The recent confirmation by the Soviet official agencies about the secret protocols under the Molotov A Ribentrop agreement, the massacre of thousands of officers and ours ranks of the Polish army in the Katyn forest- the rigging of the referendum which gave the' legal sanction to the coming of the Polish communists to power - all this has fundamentally alienated the majority of the Polish people from she communist regime and the PUWP.

The situation in the three Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, within the USSR is also taking an explosive form. The exposure of the historical fact that the incorporation of these three states in the Soviet Union was conditioned by a secret protocol signed by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany has shaken the legitimacy of their inclusion in the socialist comity of nations. The internal scene in these states has been marked by ethnic violence from both sides. During the Stalin period there were large scale repression and liquidation, besides mass deportation of the people of these three states, followed by occasional massacres of the Russian prisoners of war in the Nazi Concentration camps in the territories of some of these states. The indigenous people of these states are angered and embittered by fairly large scale immigration of ethnic Russians into their territories. Besides these, there have been many grievances relating to economic and cultural relationship with the Russian Federation.

Without going into the details, one should refer to the critical situation that prevails in the other socialist countries of Eastern Europe-acute economic crises, lack of democratic and human rights, inter-ethnic and inter-state conflicts and so on.

The situation in China has now been revealed to be quite critical. The recent incident at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing is too recent to need any elaboration. The millions who paraded the streets and the squares in the Chinese Capital bore testimony to the deep discontent at least among the urban intelligentsia in the country. There was some evidence of working class disaffection in the somewhat limited participation of the workers in the Beijing demonstrations. There are not only allegations but also official confirmation of corruption in high places. The brutal massacre of the youthful demonstrators in the Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989 is a characteristic expression of the deep going crises of the Chinese polity today

All these disastrous developments naturally enough bring grist to the mills of those who hear the death-knell of socialism, and indeed Marxism, reverberating all through the socialist world. They gleefully shout to the communists and socialists ‘the bells toll for thee’.

Blinded by the hatred for socialism and human emancipation as they are, they cannot see that behind all these dark clouds the sun of socialism grows brighter and brighter.

Humanity the world over today gratefully thanks the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev for their long persistent efforts for bringing peace and disarmament to a world for decades under a death sentence hanging over its head because of the ever growing threat of a nuclear holocaust. Tony Benn, the British M. P and Labour Leader, recently told a Calcutta meeting about the steady advance towards dissolution of the rival military blocs that the Soviet moves promise the world today. He says that Gorbachev is more popular in Britain today than the British Prime Minister Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, whom he could beat in Parliament election from any constituency in Britain.

As a result of the changes taking place in the Soviet Union today the barriers between the communists on the one hand and the other socialists and progressives of all shades are breaking down. Stalin's crimes and dogmatic sectarian policies had helped the rightwing politicians in the capitalist countries to erect a wall of suspicion between the socialist countries and the Marxists in general on the one hand and large segments of the working class and progressives in the capitalist countries on the other. The new wind that is sweeping the Soviet Union is leading to the crumbling of this wall of suspicion and distrust.

The biggest and the most powerful agent of change today is -the twin programme of ruthless self -`criticism and undiluted regard for truth (glasnost) and the advance towards the extension of consistent democracy within the U S S R (Perestroika).

By exposing all the skeletons in the historical cupboard in the Soviet Union, they are taking steps that a 'murder' becomes impossible in the future. By extending democracy they are ensuring that the entire people stand guard over the future development of the Soviet society.

The Soviet leadership is taking steps to accomplish this task by drawing the public at large into the solution of the problems that concern the whole state. The Soviet Communist Party is voluntarily transferring power to the Soviets and putting itself under the public control through the elections of its members into the Supreme Soviet and local bodies. Gorbachev has declared that in a democratic society the party itself should be the epitome of the highest and the most consistent form of democratisation.

Most important, the Soviet working class, the, most fundamental base of socialism and the champion of human emancipation, is coming into its own as was witnessed in the recent mass strikes of coal miners in Ukraine, and Siberia. It is extremely heartening that Gorbachev recognises the true significance of the recent miners’ strikes.

However difficult the situation may appear to be in Poland right now, there are grounds to be quite hopeful about its prospects. In this country it is the determined and long-drawn struggles of the working class organised in Solidarity which have brought about the recent political changes. There is no reason to apprehend that the wheels of history will turn back towards capitalism in Poland. Through difficult trials and errors the Polish working class will surely move forward to a brighter future based on the collective ownership of the means of production and cooperative commonwealth of emancipated men and women in the coming days. 

“Socialism must win - has to win - in the interest of human survival and progress”. We all must realise that the alternative is the total destruction of life and civilisation.  We must understand the extremely sinister nature of capitalism today in the last decade of this century. Today about 500 MNCs have come to dominate the non - socialist part of the world. -The old conception of the two super powers has become obsolete-the main super power today is represented by the small number of MNCs who work within a framework of broad agreement. The national states all over the capitalist world and international agencies like the World Bank, IMF, The Asian Development Bank and so on have become faithful servants of these multinationals. In their quest for ever- increasing profits they are polluting the earth, water and air and fast wasting the irreplaceable resources of the globe. With their increasing recourse to robotisation and automatisation of the production processes they are threatening humanity with disastrous consequences - in the coming days.  If the multinationals are permitted to follow their course of development the vast majority of the world people would be deprived of opportunities of productive labour and would be made dependent on state doles for their subsistence; they will be controlled through mass media and turn into unthinking docile prisoners. In the mean time the economic and social policies pursued by the MNCs are gradually dividing the whole world into small islands of prosperity and abundance, of luxury and indulgence, on the one hand and oceans of human misery on the other. It is symptomatic of the future that hundreds of thousands of people in affluent west are gradually being pushed down into inhuman and degraded situation. Thousands of destitute are today floating around on the streets of New York, Paris and London.

All this has created pre-conditions for really global united actions, embracing the developed and the underdeveloped parts of the capitalist world. The alternatives that face humanity today is either socialism or barbarism and destruction. The most fundamental message that Karl Marx proclaimed 150 years ago that capitalism will historically develop the productive forces of society to such a high level -that it will be incompatible with a private ownership and control over the means of production has become too glaring today to be ignored by humanity except at the peril of total degradation of humanity, to a subhuman level.

So, socialism must win-socialism has to win.

But this victory of socialism cannot and will not come through any mystical decree of destiny. There is no question of pre-determined certainty. The victory of socialism has to be won by global struggle of conscious human beings through an enlightened human praxis.

Against this background the theoretical ballons now being floated by certain academic circles both in the Soviet Union and China about the so called ‘Public capitalism’ and ‘Social Capitalism’ are really dangerous. They embellish the sinister character of capitalism today, dominated as it is by a handful of powerful MNCs and all its sinister implication; instead of rousing the vigilance of the world people these false theories lull them into complacence and acquiescence. A very important task that faces the Marxist revolutionary socialist the world over is to expose and demolish these harmful theories. (Based on a lecture on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary celebrations of the Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, Madurai on September 10, 1989).

My Memories of Ajit Roy

MY MEMORIES OF AJIT ROY

I was very happy to read Gabriel’s brief obituary of Ajit Roy.  Along with Gariel and Bass there are many many people who will remember Ajit Roy for his deep friendship and warm heartedness.  Ajit Roy came to us not only as a Marxist but as a deeply human and honourable person.  He earned a great respect and appreciation for his qualities as a person, intellectual and a Marxist.  He lived a very simple life.  In spite of moving all over the world and being recognized as a great intellectual who inspired scores of people, big and small, he lived a very simple of life with bare necessities.  I had visited him along with our mutual Dutch friend in Koltkata before he moved into his Salt Lake city flat.  This Dutch friend was totally bowled over after seeing the house and the life style of Ajit.  He did not expect Ajit to live in such simplicity.  “Could he not earn some advantage of his friendship with so many people, his intellectual position and his work to acquire a better place to live in?” he remarked.    This visit has made an indelible mark on both of us as we were able to penetrate into the person of Ajit Roy beyond his intellectual acumen and his position among the international intelligentsia.   In his very simple life style there was a great luxury of books and magazines in his house.  His store of books was slowly edging the members of the family to a cramp accommodation.  When he moved to the simple flat at the Salt Lake City his books had to be given one of the only two bed rooms there were in the flat. 

I met Ajit Roy for the first time in 1976, soon after the declaration of Emergency in India.  This was a very critical phase in Indian politics and for the left in particular.  We were very eager to listen to his analysis of the situation of emergency.  While many felt Indira Gandhi had turned fascist, he tried to warn us of a wrong characterization of emergency as a fascist phase.  His view was if we equate Indira Gandhi’s emergency with emergence of fascism then we may mistake the fascist forces to be democratic and get misled into supporting the real fascist forces.  He drew a clear distinction between authoritarian rule and a fascist rule.  While he tried to show us the pitfalls of the Indian economic and political situation he always showed us the brighter signs of emergence of people’s movements in different social sectors.  He was confident that people’s power would defeat the emergency of Indira Gandhi.

After the collapsed of the Soviet Union we had invited Ajit Roy for a workshop in Penukonda, Andhra Pradesh.  There were other Marxists friends who participated in the workshop.  Many of the Marxists believed that it was the end of the dream for socialism.  They felt that Socialism is a utopia and capitalism is here to stay.  They held that we should make best of capitalism to improve the lives of the poor within this system.  Ajit Roy relying on the methodology of dialectics tried to convince people that “the history does not end with capitalism and the socialist path is not identical with the path that the Soviet Union had followed”.  It was a historical necessity for the Soviet era to end so that a search for new path for socialism would begin.

Ajit Roy was born on 14 November 1920.  He did his high school and college education in Dhaka district of the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). He was a student of the Dhaka University from where he did his graduation and post-graduation in Economics. However, he did not appear for the final MA exams.

Ajit Roy’s ancestors were landlords in Dhaka district for several generations. However, due to prolonged litigation between two sections of the family, by the time Ajit Roy’s father had reached his adolescence, most of the property was gone. His father had to fend for himself all the way. He became a school teacher and was widely admired and respected. Ajit Roy’s parents were unusually modern in their outlook and extremely secular.  Ajit Roy and his siblings (two elder sisters and one younger brother) grew up in a very liberal family atmosphere.

Ajit Roy joined the Communist Party in 1940 and became its full-fledged member in 1941. He was Vice-President of the Provincial Students’ Federation during 1945. He became a party journalist in 1946, first as a reporter and then as a member of the editorial board of the party’s Bengali organ, Swadhinata. In 1946, under the direction of the late P C Joshi, the then General Secretary of CPI, along with another comrade, he was sent to Pune to meet Gandhiji and take his interview.

In 1949 he was expelled from the party as he opposed the Left sectarian line adopted by the party under the leadership of B T Ranadive. He was readmitted to the party after a couple of years as the political line of the party changed under a new leadership. Ajit Roy was elected as a member of the Calcutta District Committee of the CPI in 1955.

In November 1962 there were sharp differences within the Communist Party.  In July 1964 the break away faction of the Party formed themselves into a new Party, The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in a meeting in Tenali, Andhra Pradesh.  Ajit Roy was the saddest person when the Communist Party India was split.  He did not believe in two communist parties working for socialism.  He strongly argued within the CPI against the split and emphasised the need to remain united. He believed in the inner party democracy and open discussion within the party.  He held that all difference among the members could be addressed.  He even went to the extent to assert that the health of the party would be proved by living with differences of opinion within its members.  Though occupying a good position in the party he chose to remain outside the communist party rather than join any faction of the party and become party to the split in the party.

Immediately after the split in the party with a small group of comrades he started a monthly review under the name “The Marxist Review” and argued his position against the split. The Marxist Review was an independent political venture – that continued till 2004. 

Ajit Roy used his independent position to interact with all Marxists within the party and outside the party.  He had great hopes from the left oriented action groups in India and constantly interacted with them.  He worked incessantly for a non sectarian politics. 

In the fifties he was also associated with the Indian Statistical Institute. In the early eighties, Ajit Roy joined the Rome-based Permanent People’s Tribunal, a successor to Bertrand Russel Tribunal, as a jury. He also came in touch with the Communist Parties of Italy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.

Ajit Roy considered himself a true Leninist but he did not consider Leninism as a dogma.  Lenin evolved politics from the specific economic and political situation in Russia.  He believed that the Marxist needed to have flexibility to evolve politics from the situation in India in the context of International politics.  He understood that Lenin had an advantage of success of Russian revolution through which Bolshevik came to power.  But later revolutionaries had to face defeats and repression.  Antonio Gramsci was one such revolutionary who had come out with insights relevant to the situation of defeat of revolutionary struggle in Italy.  Inspired by Gramsci’s experience and insights, Ajit Roy believed that the civil society has a greater role in the transformation of the society than just the so called vanguard revolutionary party.  He analysed different civil society members’ movement across the world and drew lessons of the relevance of civil society.  Unless there is consensus among the civil society revolution will be a dictatorship.  Unless the party is deeply rooted in the society and involved in the task of building such consensus among the civil society it will be a sterile party that will produce only violence and bloodshed.  His great appreciation of Gramsci’s ideas resulted in he writing a book on Gramsci in Bengali.

Long before the Soviet Union had moved away from Stalin Ajit Roy had exposed Stalin and his dictatorial policies.  He was very critical of the succesive presidents of the Soviet Union but was hoping that someone would emerge in Soviet Union who would bring it to the right path.  He welcomed very enthusiastically Gorbachev’s attempt at Glasnost and Perestroika.  He had given lectures to several gatherings on the essence of Gorbachev’ policies and he thought it would open up the Soviet society and bring about political freedom so that the civil society will go along with the development of the Soviet Union.  Ajit Roy did not consider Gorbachev at fault for the breakup of the Soviet Union.  He was convinced that Mr. Boris Yeltsin brought about the ruin of Soviet Union.

Ajit Roy vehemently campaigned for disarmament and against nuclear weapons.  To put an end to the arms race he wanted the Soviet Union to unilaterally disarm itself.  He had faith that if Soviet Union disarmed itself of nuclear arms there would be no attack on Soviet Union from America and the Capitalist block and the Soviet Union would become stronger.   Disarmament by Soviet Union would take the sting out of the American arms.  His analysis went further.  He believed that America used USSR as an excuse to go for massive production of arms.  But the real purpose of  American arms production was to solve the crisis within the American Capitalism.

Ajit Roy has authored around 10 books in English and a few in Bengali. He also used to contribute to the Economic and Political Weekly.   

“The Management Accountant”, Calcutta has this to say about Ajit Roy’s writing.  “Ajit is among those rare breed of Indian Intellectuals who would form their conclusion on the basis of a serious study of the facts of the Indian situation and not try to fit the facts into their pre-conceived notions.”

I would like to mention a few of his books.

“ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA SINCE INDEPENDENCE” (1961)

“PLANNIN IN INDIA – ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROBLEMS” (1965).

“ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF US FOREIGN AID” (1966).

“A MARXIST COMMENTARY  ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN INDIAN – 1951-1965” (19670)

“THE MONOPOLY CAPITAL IN INDIA” (1976).  Monopolistic developments at the apex of the so called organized sector of the Indian economy attracted attention of Indian economists decades ago.  But invariably the commentators noted one aspect of the phenomenon only – centralization – and generally considered the whole thing as some sort of an abnormality.    Ajit Roy’s “Indian Monopoly Capital – a Brief Outline, published in 1953 was the first analytical work on this phenomenon based on a comprehensive Marxist methodology.  He revealed that Indian monopoly capital, as well as its somewhat abnormal features, were the normal outgrowth of capitalist development in the specific historical conditions.  For the last quarter century Roy has continued his investigations into the phenomenon and has published the results periodically in the form of papers, articles, and even chapters in his various works.  In this volume, he has brought together the more important results of his continuous study.”

“ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF GARIBI HATAO” (1973).   The Sunday Hindusthan Standard, Calcutta comments on this book “... the mass of factual data presented and the sharp and penetrating analysis of the effects of many of the current policies of the government will prove of great value.”  Economic Times, Bombay comments, “The author quotes extensively from published reports to show the appalling dimensions of mass poverty...”

“POLITICAL POWER IN INDIA – NATURE AND TRENDs”, (1975)  Commenting on this book, Iapan, Canada says, “In contrast to what passes in the name of social science in India today, Ajit Roy’s timely study is both welcome and stimulating.”  The Economic Times, New Delhi states, “Ajit Roy rightly argues that emergency and administrative measures cannot solve economic problems which demand structural change and hence political action.  In this context, his prognostication would seem to have some relevance.”

“INDIA IN THE ‘SEVENTIES’” (1978).

“EURO-COMMUNISM”,

“ASPECTS OF WORLD POLITICS”.

“On Marxists Theory and Practice, from Stalin and Mao to Gorbachev and Deng” (1992)  “The collapse of the mighty Soviet power, enjoying the loyalty of vast masses the world over with dedicated communist at the van, has deep roots going back to the Bolshevik Revolution.  The predicaments of China today is reflected in her professions of loyalty to Marxism apparently contradicted by the subjection of the Chinese people to growing exploitation by international capital and budding bourgeoisie, accompanied by the even like the Tiennmen tragedy of June 1989.  Many differences not withstanding, there is a profound identity at the roots of the crisis in the Soviet Union and China – in the absence of an adequate base of a self acting working class.  This runs through the selected analytical studies made between 1976 and 1989 and presented here by the well Marxist writer and editor of the Marxist Review.  Concurrently there emerges from these analyses a robust faith in an early regrouping of socialist forces the world over based on a renewed understanding of Marxism.

Ajir Roy was a regular visitor to Bangalore and gave innumerable lectures to the activists who used to come to the Indian Social Institute, Bangalore for training.

Ajit Roy was a very close friend and a mentor for me and my family.  We will treasure the memory of the moments he spent with us in our place.