Current Reflections on the Occasion of Isaac Deutscher’s Classical Biography
These reflections constitute a homage to all revolutionaries without exception who suffered from the great historical drama of seeing the socialist ideas of October 1917 thwarted. We do it with admiration and respect towards the Russian people who managed to carry out the first socialist revolution of history and to defeat fascism decades later under Stalin’s leadership; this very Russian people which, 130 years before also defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s military offensive.
As a ground, I have the experience of around 50 years of struggling for the sake of socialist ideas in the beautiful trench of the Cuban Revolution, a follower of both Fidel and Marti; that is, the first revolution of Marxist nature that has triumphed in the so-called West.
Precisely, on the first chapter of the criticism to Feuerbach, he is reproached by Marx and Engels for not taking the subjective factor into account.They say:
“The major defect of all the previous materialism – including that of Feuerbach – is that it only conceives things, reality, sensitivity, under the shape of an object or of contemplation, but not as human sensorial activity, not as a practice, not in a subjective way”.
Since the first years of the Revolution, Fidel and Che spoke to us about the importance of the subjective factor. Life has shown its value for the sake of the cause of human progress, it has also expressed that it influences, at the same time, on the historical stagnation and backwardness. A long list could be made showing it in practice, both in the positive and in the negative aspects. Stalin is one of the greatest examples of the latter; maybe he is the most important sample in the 20 th century of how subjectivity may impact history negatively. Bear in mind, as I express here, that the subjective is revealed in culture.
The basic lesson to be drawn out of all this history is to be found in the human fabric; that is, the subjective factor played a decisive influence in the tragic end of the so-called “real socialism” that, being so in such a simplistic manner, it lost all reality.
A key aspect revealed to us by the experience of the 20 th century, consists in the fact that Engels’ teachings were not learned in the USSR . He, with his huge talent and modesty critically expressed that both himself and Marx, when highlighting the economic content as determining, had forgotten the form and; therefore, the process of the genesis of ideas. Textually he expressed:
“There is only one missing point in which, usually, neither Marx nor I have emphasized our writings, and that is why we are all to be blamed on equal terms. What we insisted on the most – and we could not do it otherwise – was in deriving the basic economic facts, the political, legal ideas, etc. and the acts conditioned by them. And when proceeding this way, the content would make us forget about the form; that is, the process of origin of these ideas, etc. With that we grant our adversaries a good pretext for their mistakes and distortions”. [See C. Marx, F. Engels, Obras Escogidas, t. 3, p, 523, Editorial Progreso Moscu].
In the political practice represented by Stalin certain basic formal aspects of an ethical, political and juridical nature were overlooked, which resulted particularly serious because through them the real life is expressed of millions and millions of people who obviously have an impact on the course of history. When underestimating them, they were not given the proper attention or two major categories placed in the core of culture and the revolutionary struggles were relegated: the ethical and the juridical one.
In the former Petrograd and in Russia as a whole, in 1917, the most advanced political and social thoughts of the European intellectuality and the conditions of exploitation and misery of the Russian farmers and working class, to which the need for the struggle was added; that is, against imperialism, and at the same time, against what was represented by feudalism and czarism. In the former Russia up until February 1917, there had not been a triumphant bourgeois revolution, which had started in Europe over two centuries before. Feudalism, imperialism domination and the monarchical regime of the czars was the setting that nourished Stalin’s political training, of course, also influenced by Leninism; he welcomed it with the aforementioned cultural limitations. Stalin was a revolutionary, but he could not reach the dimension of a full socialist leader.
Unlike Lenin and other Bolsheviks, Stalin never lived or traveled around other countries of the old continent, nor was he nourished from the revolutionary wisdom of other regions of the world. Of course, he received Lenin’s influence, we should not deny it because it is a component part of the drama, but he did it based on the ground of the old Russian culture out of which, even opposing it, he was never capable of drawing socialist consequences valid for the world of his times.
Objectively, Europe by itself was unable to carry out a socialist revolution; the reasons would be the target of an analysis that goes beyond the goals of this present work. But in order to understand the culture of Marx and Engels deeply, particularly to apply it creatively, the intellectual tradition of the old continent needed to be undertaken because the forgers of socialism were its most consistent exponents in the 19 th century. They ended up being the legitimate successors of the revolutionary ideas of the former centuries expressed in the Enlightenment and the encyclopedia scholars. Out of this cultural fact, Stalin did not extract the due consequences. That is why; its universal reach was limited.
Fidel Castro, when talking on television on the occasion of the visit to Cuba by John Paul II, in January 1998, referring to the mistakes of the applied policy during Stalin’s times, underscored that:
“As a Polish man, the Pope witnessed the crossing of the Soviet troops and the creation of a socialist State under the principles of Marxism Leninism, dogmatically applied, totally disregarding the concrete conditions of that country, and without that extraordinary dialectical and political sense that Lenin used to have, capable of a peace of Brest-Litovsk, capable of a N. E. P. and capable of passing before, in an armored train, through the territory of a country that was in a war against Russia, facts demonstrating an intelligence, a capacity, a courage and a true political wit, that never ever stopped being Marxist”. [See Castro, Fidel. Appearance on Cuban television, January 16, 1998, Granma newspaper, January 20, 1998].
Lenin was reared within the revolutionary commotions of the Europe of his times and when studying the life of the founder of the Soviet State, it will be noticed that he enriched his knowledge with the huge culture and the active involvement within the settings of the different European countries, among which, those which gave birth precisely to the thought of Marx and Engels. The same happened with other paradigmatic examples such as Ho Chi Minh. The illustrious Viet-Namese man was a founder of the French Communist Party, he lived and worked in the United States , traveled to many parts of the world and in his homeland, received the impact of the French culture that had arrived imposing colonialism and was able to undertake it from his universal, Third World Asian autochthonous perspective.
The Leninist conceptions of the Russian Revolution stated the thesis that that country was the weakest link of the European imperialist chain. It was expected that the process started back in October 1917 in Petrograd would end up having an impact on the revolutionary outburst in Western Europe, beginning by Germany . That was not the case; the idea of the creation of socialism emerged in only one country. On the other land, Russia as an Asian-European country was part of the huge Asian world. This slogan could have a contextual value for a later moment of the October Revolution, but what nobody will be able to admit is that it was a correct revolutionary strategy for a whole century.
Lenin’s geniality to address these issues was extraordinary, but Stalin did not draw out of his texts the conclusions about the possibility and the need of linking the interests of socialism with the situation that was being generated ever since in the Asian countries and as a whole, in what later on we have called Third World.
Let us go to Stalin’s characterization made by Lenin, and it will be witnessed that he was a real prophet. In 1922 he said:
“I think that the key things in the problem of stability, from this perspective, are such members of the C. C. as Stalin and Trotski. The relations between them, the way I see it, enclose a great good half of the danger of that split that could be avoided, and to this end, according to my criterion, it would help to have the enlargement of the C.C. up to 50 and even 100 members”.
Comrade Stalin, being Secretary General, has concentrated a huge power in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use it wisely. On the other hand, according to what is shown in his struggle against the C.C. on the occasion of the problem of the People’s Commission of Communication Roads, comrade Trotski is not only remarkable by his great capacity. Personally, maybe he is the most capable man of the C.C., but he is too proud and too attracted by the purely administrative aspect of issues.
These two qualities of two outstanding leaders of the current C.C. may lead to the split unwillingly, and if our Party does not adopt any measures to avoid it, the split may come unexpectedly”. [See V. I. Lenin, Letter to the Congress, Moscow . Publications in Foreign Languages, / S.A. /].
The policy followed by Stalin during the gestation of World War II and his pact with Hitler is one of the cloudiest processes of his long career. Nazism was rejected by the peoples and particularly by the socialist and progressive forces. It placed these latter in a very difficult position, even in Germany .
Fidel himself points out, in the already mentioned speech that… “when talking with Soviet visitors, I used to ask them three questions: Why the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?, that took place in 1939, and I was about 13 years old (…) Why had they invaded Poland to gain a few kilometers of land?, land that was lost later on in a disastrous way in a matter of days (…) Why the war with Finland?, third thing I would ask them (…) Well, the international communist movement had to pay a very high price for that, the communities from all over the world, so disciplined and faithful to the Soviet Union and to the Communist International, that when it said: “This has to be done”, that was the case. Then, all communist parties of the world explaining and justifying the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, were isolating themselves from the masses”. [See Castro, Fidel. Cited speech].
History revealed later, as an aggravating circumstance, that it worked this way despite the reports of the intelligence of his country about the fact that Hitler was preparing the offensive against the Soviet Union . However, it should be acknowledged that after the Nazi aggression, Stalin successfully led the counteroffensive. The Soviet people fought heroically, the Red Army made it up to Berlin in an ultra human effort in which millions of people died. The war was over with the victory upon fascism, but, at the same time, the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements were signed and conditions like these were created for the splitting of the world into two large spheres of influence. That did not turn out to be positive for socialism.
In the following years in which the Cold War was being unleashed, neither Stalin nor his successors managed to understand the forms and possibilities that the alliance among the societies of the Third World and socialism could have granted them because to do that, a universal conception of cultural grounds that they were lacking was needed.
In 1959, the Cuban Revolution triumphed founded on the national historical tradition and with a projection of Latin American, Caribbean and universal scope. Fidel and Che’s Third World theses meant, from then on, an attempt to change the bipolar world from the side of socialism.
For the true revolutionaries of the 20th century, the attack to the sky represented overcoming the established bipolarity for ever, from positions of the left and not of the right, as it was the case later on during the ’80s. The examination of the most important events of the ’60s shows that disregarding their diverse political nuances, they are characterized by the need of overcoming the bipolar world.
Let us see some of them: the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959; the Missile Crisis of October 1962; the tragic split of the international communist movement that triggered the breaking up between China and the USSR; the emergence and development of the Vietnam liberation war; the Angolan liberation war; the collapse of the colonial system in Asia and Africa; the birth and rise of the Movement of the Non-Aligned Countries; the growth of the liberation movements in Latin America; the Sandinista Revolutionary Movement; the military progressive movements in Latin America, particularly in Peru and Panama; the French May; the Czech crisis and previously the situations created in Hungary and Poland.
The heirs of Stalin’s work could not respond to this challenge because they were locked in the policy derived from the Yalta and Potsdam agreements and in the idea of the construction of socialism in only one country which after World War II had extended to several nations. Stalin’s successors could not tackle the dilemma because in 1956, after his death, when Stalinism was denounced for its crimes, a deep, radical and consistent analysis was not made of the nature and character of his regime. It could be said that then, it was not possible to do it and much less by those who had been born out of that policy; so, well; that was what happened. Today, 80 years later, not only is it possible, but indispensable, because as long as this is not done, the ideas of Marx and Engels won’t be able to emerge triumphantly out of the chaos they were dropped into in the 20 th century.
Later on, those who wanted to change the bipolar world were accused, from the perspective of socialism, as Fidel and Che did it in Latin America, of violating the economic laws; and in fact, the ones who did not take them into account were those who ignored that the development of the productive forces and the scientific progress would lead to going beyond bipolarity. The further course of events came to dramatically underline that, just the opposite, those who did not know the economic laws or tried to accommodate them to their conservative position were precisely, the ones who with the banners of socialism, would reject the Cuban revolutionary theses.
There are three major conclusions to reflect upon from this recently started century: The first, that this change was a need of the ever growing internationalization of the productive forces and, consequently, of the economic and political evolution of the world. The second, that as it was not done from the left, it took place from the right; and the third, that such change from the left could only be made by promoting the national liberation struggle in Asia, Africa and Latin America and by trying to link it with the ideas of socialism. That was the challenge that socialism had ahead of it.
Isaac Deutscher in his biography about Stalin, which is already a classic, points out that the Soviet leader substituted Marx’s idea about the fact that violence was the midwife of history, for the one who used to be the mother of history. The intellectual refinement to understand the subtlety of Marx’s definition was to be found, the way I see it, beyond Stalin’s cultural possibilities.
Precisely, the fundamental mistake of the revolutionary policy in the 20 th century, at best conditioned by Stalin, was in the fact that it marched divorced and separately from culture. Even in the case of the USRR, as it is known, it ended up in the most dramatic extremes. In Cuba – as we were indicating – we were immensely lucky to count on the wisdom of the greatest political revolutionary and the greatest intellectual of the 19 th century, that was Jose Marti. The unique teaching of the Cuban Revolution in these two centuries and currently consists, precisely, in having stated and enriched this relation. In it Marti’s and Fidel Castro’s uniqueness is to be found.
The radicalism of Mart’s revolutionary thought was accompanied by an intense and consistent humanism in the treatment to men and the people of the oppressive mother countries: The United States and Spain . About this ground, he made a unique contribution when convening to the necessary, humanitarian and brief war against the Spanish rule and, at the same time, not generating hatred against those who would oppose this highest purpose. This is a contribution that should be studied in the world by those who issue slanders against those who hope to have radical social transformations and also for those who intend to attain them with extremist procedures. The only way to make them triumph is promoting cooperation among human beings and ensuring their full freedom and dignity. This is the way to be consistently radical.
In Cuba the Marxism idea about violence was understood in the way in which it was conceived and carried out by Jose Marti and the best revolutionary tradition of our country. It taught us that together with the firmness of principles, and the struggle to attain social and political objectives, we should incorporate the Spanish and the North Americans to our objectives or, at least, to the understanding of our purpose. In Cuba the idea of “split and you will overcome” was radically defeated and the principle of uniting to overcome was established. That is a much more radical and consistent policy than that of the extremists.
About socialism we have very revealing judgments by Marti that show where the weak points of the policy carried out by Stalin were. Ferman Valdes Dominguez, his close friend from childhood, wrote him from Cuba about the works that he would conduct for the sake of socialism. The Apostle responded to his soul brother like this:
“(…) One thing about you I have to praise very much, and it is the loving care with which you treat; and your respect of man, to Cubans who are somewhere searching sincerely, with this or that other name, for a little bit more of heart-felt order, and that of indispensable balance in the administration of the things of this world: A hope should be assessed by its noble nature: and not by a small wart that human passion may put to it. The socialist idea has a couple of perils, as it is the case of so many others -the one of the foreign readings, confusing and incomplete- and that of the haughtiness and the pretended wrath of the ambitious ones, that in order o be raised in the world, they start out by feigning, so as to have shoulders to lift themselves upon, frantic advocates of the forsaken ones. Some of them go as the Queen’s beggars; (…) Others pass from madmen to chamberlains, as those spoken about by Chateaubriand in his “Memoirs”. But in our people it is so much the risk, as in more irate societies, and of less natural clarity: to explain will be our job, and smooth and deep, as you will be able to do it: the point is not to compromise the lofty justice for the wrong or excessive ways of asking for it. And for ever with justice, you and I, because the mistakes of its form do not authorize the souls of a good cradle to drop out of its advocacy (…)”. [See Marti, Jose, Obras Completas, t. 3, p. 168].
Since 1884, Jose Marti had written, on the occasion of Karl Marx’s death, an article which may help us to clarify what happened with socialism in the 20 th century. The Apostle said the following:
“See this great hall. Karl Marx has died. As he took side with the weak, he deserves honor. But the one pointing out damage does not do well, and is looking forward kindly to remedy it, but the one who teaches soft remedy to the damage. (…)” [Marti, Jose, O. C. t. 9, p. 388].
Further on he remarks:
“Karl Marx studied the ways to settle the world into new foundations, and woke up the ones that were asleep and taught them the way to knock down the broken props. But he was in a hurry and kind of in the shade, without seeing that they are not born workable, nor from the bosom of a people in history, nor from the bosom of a woman at home, the children who have not had a natural and laborious pregnancy. Behold, the good friends of Karl Marx, who was not only the titanic mover of the wraths of the European workers, but a deeper seer in the rationale of human miseries, and in the destinies of men, and a man eaten by the yearning of doing good. In everything that he himself would carry out, he would see: rebelliousness, a path to the heights, struggle”. [Ibidem].
The appreciation and depth that Marx’s thought had for Marti will be witnessed. As to the criticism he provides about extremism, it is necessary to bear in mind that then in New York , anarchist ideas were very confused with the Marxist ones. Engels, from Europe, would point out that in North America Marx’s ideas were not been implemented. It is accepted that both always warned against extremisms and the formulations by anarchists. About the idea that some men were launching themselves upon others, it should be taken into account, that back then, Marti was preparing a war that even though he hoped it would be necessary, humanitarian and brief, it would entail the obligatory armed confrontation.
In some lines after the beautiful, humane and deep description that Jose Marti made about Kart Marx it is pointed out:
“Here there is a Lecovitch, a man of newspapers; check the way he talks: there come to him reflections from that tender and radiating Bakunin: he begins to talk in English; he turns to others in German: “Da! da!” his fellow citizens respond enthusiastically from their seats when he talks to them in Russian.
The Russians are the whip of the reform: however, these impatient and kind men, stained with wrath, are not yet the ones who, should provide the new world with a foundation: they are the spur, and they come right on time, as the voice of consciousness, that might fall sleep: but the steel of the incentive does not fit well for a founding hammer”. [Ibidem].
All this was what Stalin lacked. He did not understand that the steel of incentive was not enough to build a new society.
Deutscher in his celebrated biography about Stalin remarks:
“Here we suspend the story of Stalin’s life and work. We do not shelter any hope that we may draw final conclusions out of it or shape up, based on its basis, a judgment worthy of confidence about man, his achievements, and his failures. After so much climax and anticlimax, Stalin’s drama, now hardly seems to approach its completion; and we do not know into what perspective his last action could place the previous ones. What seems to be absolutely established is that Stalin belongs to the lineage of the great revolutionary despots, the same one that Cromwell, Robespierre and Napoleon belonged to”. [See Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin biografia politica, Polimica, Instituto del Libro, La Habana , 1968].
We may agree with the comparison of Cromwell, Robespierre and Napoleon though remarking the following reflection:
Robespierre died tragically defending an ideal that turned out to be impossible during his times, the purest ideas of the forgers of the French revolutionary thought of the 18th century. The rise of the bourgeoisie kept him from doing it. Napoleon paved the way legally and politically for the French bourgeoisie and paradoxically enough, he weld the path for the feudal-bourgeois alliance that made up the capitalist politics in the 19 th century. Cromwell also managed to forge a positive way for the English bourgeoisie and left possibilities open for a further rise.
Stalin did not reach these goals in terms of socialism; nor could he encourage the socialist revolution in Europe and in the world; nor could he consolidate it in the USSR . In Russia , there was a reverse movement towards capitalism seven decades after the October Revolution in new and radically different conditions, and that backward movement is marked, among other factors, by Stalin’s serious mistakes that lacked the necessary historical vision and stature.
So we may draw the conclusion that Stalin’s time is absolutely finished and that the perspectives of a new era are to be found before our eyes. If Stalin belongs to the category of revolutionary despots, we will have to learn the lesson: It is impossible with them, to open a path to a socialist society in a lasting way, needing love and culture to be built.
It is evident that if the revolutionary despots managed to open the way for capitalism, the construction of socialism cannot be made under the leadership of a despot. He was charged with cult to the personality; I however think, that what was missing was rather a great socialist personality, what was lacking was what the Cuban Revolution does have, Marti´s revolution, retaken by Fidel, which is settled in the very best of the patriotic tradition of our people with a really universal sense.
As a final conclusion derived from what has been stated, and particularly from what we were saying at the very beginning, experience teaches us about the importance of the so-called superstructure categories. Behold one of the indispensable keys to discover what happened and to find ways for socialism in the 21 st century.
The economy operates through them, between one and the other there is a dialectical relationship. If the social and natural evolution is marked by the inseparable relation between form and content -as Engels said- then it will be understood that the rigor, seriousness and passion with which forms are treated, are in the core of our revolutionary duties. Morality is closely connected with the social issue and with the law systems. These categories: morality, social issue and law system constitute the central core out of which philosophical research works can be conducted and to set up the valid legal and political practice to find new ways of socialism. Anyways, the issue of culture and particularly that of the role of subjective factors take on a practical significance because it is projected on the needs of ethical, juridical principles and in the forms of going about politics.
For the success of any transforming endeavor, it is indispensable to articulate political practice and culture. The victory and continuity of the Cuban revolution confirm the validity of this reasoning. A deep reflection about this issue is in order in our days.
The breaking up of the links between culture and politics was, undoubtedly, in the very roots of the serious setbacks undergone. In Latin America, the tradition of our homelands sustained the hope to a culture of emancipation and multinational integration which the liberator Simon Bolivar referred to and which Jose Marti called the moral republic of America . The major trend of that culture was anti-imperialist and its fundamental roots are in the working and exploited population. The most immediately important thing for the revolutionary politics was and still is, to encourage that tendency. And this can and should be done guaranteeing the involvement of intellectuals to the emancipating endeavor that is to be found in the most revolutionary aspect of our spiritual evolution.
Obviously, this requires to be done with both culture and information about the origin and history of the Latin American history. To do so, wisdom and a clear understanding of the role of the subjective factors in the history of civilizations are needed, which was precisely what was overlooked in the socialist political practice. As it is revealed from the historical practice after Lenin’s death and after Stalin, a vulgar, tough materialism was imposed, which paralyzed the enrichment and updating of the ideas of Marx and Engels. That would require, as it was indeed done by Mariategui, from his Indian-American perspective, an examination of the role of culture from the historical materialist viewpoint, but whoever got involved in this was fought against as a revisionist. That is how the possibilities of arriving at a deeper level of the ideas of the classics were paralyzed.
Addressing a conception as the one we are stating would bring its own difficulties when trying to make a raid into complex ideological problems, but which turn out to be absolutely smaller, if compared to those entailed by overlooking the need of attaining the relation of trust between revolutionary politics and the huge and ever growing mass of intellectual workers.
To sum it up, if fluid relations are not established between revolutions and the cultural movement, the processes of change will never succeed. The point is not just a cultural matter, but rather something that is basic for the political practice. In order to know how to do revolutionary politics we need to undertake the mobilizing importance of art and culture, and to understand that the foundations of our redeeming ideas are to be found in them.
Deutscher had said it in his book in a very eloquent way and I think it is the major conclusion to which we may arrive theoretically as far as Stalin is concerned:
“In this disdain for the material factors in the big political processes the major weakness of its vigorous but limited realism would be found”. [See Deutscher, Isaac, cited work, p. 420]. An exemplary teaching for those who claim to be realists.
Disregarding what they call non-material factors; that is, those of a subjective nature, we won’t be able to find the new routes because they impact history objectively and materially. The reader should relate these words with what Engels used to say self-critically and that we mentioned at the beginning. Let us never forget that man and his society are also part of the material reality of the world – to say it in the language that was so used by socialists- that is, of nature, to express it in Marti’s way, let us remember that verse by Marti: Everything is beautiful and constant, /Everything is music and reason, /And everything, as a diamond, /Before light it is carbon. [See Marti, J. O. C. Versos sencillos, t. 16, p. 65].
In 2005, any revolutionary politician should examine the history of the 20 th century based on the huge culture accumulated without any type of sectarism whatsoever at all, and searching for the essence of the revolutionary ideas in the best of man’s millenary history.
Somebody, during the perestroika times, asserted that Marx would be left as a cultural issue. I thought: And does he think that is too little? To find new ways, the one of culture requires to be found. There is no other practical political choice; and, he who does not believe that won’t be able to contribute to the making of revolutions in the 21 st century.
I want to underline that I dedicate these words to all those communists and revolutionaries who fought for the sake of socialism, stayed faithful and witnessed the tragic end of socialism with pain, particularly to those from the peoples of our America . Those who feel the cause of human justice in a radical and universal way in their hearts and have an in-depth look, should acknowledge -as Marti emphasized- that Marx deserves honor because he took side with the weak, and people should be increasingly more aware of him and his loyal companion Frederick Engels who constitute the highest expression of the philosophical and social thought of Europe in the 19 th century. The fanatic deniers of Marxism are not post-modern, but pre-modern and have not been able to analyze the deep roots of what happened with Stalin.
The Roman wisdom, in the framework of a slave society, of course, would point out that whatever was left as a legacy after death, could be accepted for the sake of the inventory; that is to say, after determining that it would not be affected by the payment of the debts of the deceased. In the 21 st century, men will improve the socialist practice, and based on the committed mistakes, they will be compelled to implement the necessary tools in order to transform the world; and they will not be able to do it by throwing the socialist inheritance into a broken sack. That is why; I have recommended the youth to consciously undertake the socialist practice of the 20 th century for the sake of the inventory. We will not give up the legacy of Marx, Engels and Lenin and the socialist ideal of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, but let us undertake it after a deep assessment of what happened. Only with the thought of Marx, Engels and Lenin will we be able to carry out this task. But not only of them.
In the decade of the 1920’s, Julio Antonio Mella and the founders of the first Communist Party of Cuba rescued Marti’s program from the forgetfulness or underestimation it had fallen into, during the first few years of the neocolonial republic. Today, in 2005, with the thought of the Cuban Apostle and his ultra-democratic program; we, Cubans, can strengthen the socialist fibers in our country and contribute to rescue them from the discredit and the isolation they were led to by the political practice that was generated after Stalin.
Translation: Alberto Gonzalez Rivero
SOURCE: Cubarte April 13, 2007
Radical Notes 
The Growing Revolt Against Disposability
New dimensions of resistance to corporate globalization in India
Aseem Shrivastava
“It’s a terrible thing to be a worker exploited in the capitalist system. The only worse thing is to be a worker unable to find anyone to exploit you.” – Joan Robinson
A May Day disruption
We were visiting Badli, a village of some 11,000 people, in the district of Jhajjar, Haryana, about 30 kms west of New Delhi’s International Airport. We were there to begin our research on the impact of the 25,000-acre Special Economic Zone (SEZ) planned in the area by Reliance Industries. Like in so many other parts of India where resistance to corporate plans is building up, farmers in the area have organized themselves into a Kisan Jagrukta Samiti (Farmers Awareness Committee) to battle Reliance.
It was May Day. The sun was harsh. Thus, the big meeting had been organized in the main Chaupal of the village. It was housed in a large quadrangle, the size of half a hockey field. The meeting was being held in the covered area which occupied half the courtyard. At least a few hundred farmers from about 20 villages were present. Dressed in white kurtas, and sporting turbans of the same shade, they looked at us with eyes wizened by the years. Being representatives of their respective panchayats, they were all elderly, their noble faces all bearing the stamp of long years of labor under the sun. This being patriarchal Haryana, there were no women present, apart from three of us, visitors from Delhi.
An army Captain from the area (who had taken early retirement in order to organize the villagers) had invited us to witness the May Day commemoration. Farmers were also expected to deliberate on the matter of the expected displacement in the wake of the acquisition of land by Reliance.
However, there was more than an understandable level of tension in the air. The Captain informed us that we could expect some trouble from local henchmen who had been bribed and instructed in advance to disrupt the meeting.
The meeting began and the pradhan of a neighboring village began proceedings with a five-minute denunciation of the SEZ policy of the government. In particular, he expressed regret and anger that the government was acting as the bichaula (land broker) for a private corporation, tempting farmers here, scaring them elsewhere, to sell their land for industrial development.
Barely had the pradhan finished his speech when a group of about 20 young men from the area, dressed very differently from their elders (in colorful shirts and trousers), suddenly appeared next to us and began telling us that most farmers were happily willing to part with their lands, that the men who had organized the meeting had already sold theirs and were now wanting Reliance to pay a higher compensation. As the next speaker on the podium began to make his speech they started heckling from the side, ultimately succeeding in shouting him down. They tried to provoke a fist-fight. Fortunately, they did not get the desired response.
The Captain and the elders decided wisely to suspend the meeting instead of beginning what would surely have turned into an ugly brawl. When we inquired into the identities of the thugs, it turned out that they were boys from the local area, many of them from Badli itself. Reliance had turned young and restless villagers into commission agents. It seems they had been given some petty sum of money and liquor the previous night to disrupt the meeting of the elders.
Who had paid them off? Local agents of Reliance, it turned out. They had also been promised “jobs” with the company once the SEZ came up. No interviews, no consideration of merit, skill or qualifications. It seemed that promises, backed with some small change, was enough to buy out the restless youth, eager for urban excitement.
After the meeting was adjourned, a much truncated number of farmers met a few kilometers away at the house of one of the local leaders. We were also invited to this small conclave. From what we heard there, this is the preliminary picture of the situation that appears to be emerging.
Hamari matribhumi (our mother earth)
There is resentment amongst the farmers, even among those who have large holdings. Some of them are very angry. “Why don’t they find barren land far from here? What business does the government have to play broker?”
Many of the farmers who have sold their land are regretful, especially since land values are rising sharply in the area and they feel that they got a raw deal. “What are Rs.15 or 20 lakhs an acre when in nearby Gurgaon the price has shot up to Rs. 2 crores an acre?”, Mani Ram, a local peasant asked. Reliance wishes to take over 22 villages in Jhajjar and 18 in Gurgaon.
“Reliance agents are getting false affidavits made from farmers, saying that they need money for their children’s education, that their land is barren: banjar zameen. It’s interesting what they call banjar zameen: last year it produced 15-20 quintals of wheat! You can check the records at the revenue office”, Azad Singh of Badli told us.
Azad Singh was also skeptical of what people like him could do with the compensation money: “What we know best and have done all our lives for generations is farming. How do they expect us to change our occupation at this stage and run some sort of business? In any case, it should be our decision, not theirs. Why should we be condemned to disposability by people willing to shove some money into our pockets? If a hungry man is faced with a mound of cash and a plate of food, what will he pick?”
Most farmers are very reluctant to sell their land. Land is the only source of security and insurance in an agrarian context. While the company has targeted 25,000 acres – before the recent change in policy which has capped land acquisition for a single project at 5000 acres – accretion to the Reliance kitty has stalled for sometime at about 7000-8000 acres. There have been no sales of late.
Moreover, the land Reliance has acquired so far is in the form of far-flung plots. Reliance would clearly need the help of the Haryana government to achieve contiguity. In fact, The Times of India (May 2) reports that business lobbies are already asking the government to reconsider its recently announced policy amendment of not facilitating land acquisition for corporations, arguing that the government needs to step in at least to acquire the last 10% of the land, assuming corporations have themselves purchased the rest.
A resistance movement like in West Bengal?
“And what will happen to those who do not own any land and work for daily wages on your fields?”, I asked Azad Singh. “Who can say? They are the most disposable of all”, he replied. There is an attempt by the farmers to draw the landless classes (30% of the population of the villages according to them) into their struggle. However, there did not seem to be enough of an effort to involve them. For instance, all the men present for the May Day meeting were farmers with land, some with a lot, some with little. There is a heroic attempt in the Samiti poster to accommodate the interests of the Scheduled Castes: it makes the demand that Reliance should give each of their families a plot of land in the SEZ! The Samiti poster also makes the demand that Reliance be leased the land by farmers rather than taking full possession of it.
It remains to be seen how/whether such disparate class-caste groupings jell together, even if the resistance is evidently building up. “There will be no SEZ construction here, we are not going to allow it”, the pradhan of Badli, Mahavir Singh said. “There are politicians who forget to wipe their faces after dipping them into malai(cream). Their days are numbered.”
A Haryana Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti has been set up. One of its goals is khumbha ukkhado (pull out the electricity poles that Reliance has already begun putting in close to the KMP Expressway that is coming up close by). “Nandigram ki fasal taiyyar hai” (the crop of Nandigram is ready), Mahavir Singh told us.
Larger lessons
The SEZ issue is at a crossroads. On the one hand, it is evident that the corporations cannot acquire all the land in most cases without governments coming to their rescue, taking recourse to the “public interest” clause in the Land Acquisition Act. Contiguity is a sine qua non for an SEZ and can’t be ensured without the help of the state, given the fragmentation of landholdings in the Indian countryside. On the other hand, following Nandigram the state has had to back off and say that it does not want to assist corporations in the process of acquiring land.
From the point of view of those becoming dispossessed, the issue is a vexed one too. On the one hand, the government’s role as a broker is very unpopular. On the other, if the government backs off, the land mafia takes over, as we saw happening in Badli. What should the government do? It must obviously align its coercive apparatus with the protection of vulnerable farmers and their land. This is also the least likely thing to happen. Thus, conflict is inevitable.
In the larger perspective of corporate globalization, the experience of the Indian countryside is repeatedly bringing out the historical truth that the resistance to it is coming more from those who globalization (thanks to its labor-displacing technological armour) is making redundant, rather than from those who will have the opportunity of getting exploited by global capital. The numbers of those – peasants, sharecroppers, agricultural workers, tribals, Dalits and others outside the organized sector of the economy – exceed by orders of magnitude those industrial and high-skilled workers who can catch a tumbling crumb from the table of galloping growth. It is they who are more likely to challenge the corporate juggernaut that the elites have unleashed.
Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.