From everyone according to his needs to everyone according to his capacity....It was this particular sentence I stumbled upon in a book by Ashok Mehta, a one-time socialist, that marked the beginning of my tortured romance with Marxism.
Unlike countless others disillusioned, I am hanging to my faith in the power of the Left ideology of some variety, by the skin of my teeth.
And there was this news item about Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua. Eminent writers accused him of betraying the revolution. The immediate was provocation was the harassment of Ernesto Cardenal, an 83-year-old icon of the Sandinista revolution.
It was a minor case, revived after three years. He was fined for insulting someone in the course of a dispute. That pries is threatening to go to jail instead of paying the fine which, he says, is a case of vendetta by the Ortega regime.
That is less disturbing than the actual accusation of the Catholic priest-turned-revolutionary. He has damned Ortega a thief who runs a monarchy made up of a few families in alliance with the old Somoza interests.
While I always greet criticism from the Right as yet another justification of the path the Left has schosen, this kind of a denunciation, almost a cry of despair, proves unsettling. Despite Stalins and Pol Pots, one more hero biting the dust shakes your faith like never before.
It was coming of course, as in many other cases. Ten years ago his adopted daughter accused him of sexually abusing her. I lost track of the case midway. Then when he was on his way back to power he supported ban on abortion in order to win Catholic votes. And the latest is the last nail.
And how much the more naive among us had agonised over the fall of the Sandinistas in the '80s,
it was a brutal toppling game of the CIAs. The regime was virtually bled to death. When he agreed to a peace deal, face elections, one thought a new chapter was opening in the history of the Left. But he lost, unexpectedly. It was a free and fair poll, all right. And he bowed out in tears. We all cried with him.
Later we learnt, Cuban-style agricultural methods were introduced to catastrophic effect, and individual freedoms were trampled. The inflation rate ballooned to 30,000 percent. Shortages, rationing, civil repression and ''states of emergency'' were the norm.
Still his comeback meant perhaps he had learnt his lessons, I thought. Apparently he learnt lessons of a different kind.
I was almost on the point of e-mailing my son, already skeptical of many of my cherished beliefs, saying this is the end now. I didnt finally, but only for lack of time!
The Left in India doesn't give you much hope. There is even a character down south who is accused of large-scale corruption and mafia tactics.
What then? Go back to basics. Go back to Marx. His vision remains the noblest the human mind ever conceived of. Go back to Lenin, though he might have committed mistakes, allowed crimes to be committed in the name of revolution, besieged as he was, on all sides, by the marauding forces of the imperialists. Still he was a genuine revolutionary. Never sought anything for himself. Leninism under Lenin by Kaufman is a relatively objective critique of the man and his administration.
Go back to them, learn what they stood for and what they did, for all their warts and then see how to put together the pieces again.
Anyone talking about iron bowl socialism should be seen a dinosaur these days, when Ayn Rand is worshipped, covertly and overtly.
My only satisfaction is that murderous Ronal Reagan and his willing colloborator Margaret Thatcher have fallen to Alzheimer's.
But that is only a small solace. Reactionaries are on the rampage eveywhere. All the more reason why someone should raise a clenched fist of defiance, like Arundhati Roy, take on all anti-people forces with gusto.
Join whatever is left of Left, whatever type of Left, wherever you are comfortable fitting in and carry on as best as you can. Only when the line becomes totally immoral and unacceptable, come out of it and try elsewhere! What options we have after all?
The refrain of the Internationale says, This is the final struggle/ Let us join together and tomorrow/ The Internationale/ Will be the human race."
There is no such thing as finality in human evolution. We have to keep fighting in our own respective ways.
If we dont we will die the ignoble death that Bharati portrays so grimly. No, we should not.
Woman/man is capable of being better than what we have found to be the case thus far.
Unlike countless others disillusioned, I am hanging to my faith in the power of the Left ideology of some variety, by the skin of my teeth.
And there was this news item about Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua. Eminent writers accused him of betraying the revolution. The immediate was provocation was the harassment of Ernesto Cardenal, an 83-year-old icon of the Sandinista revolution.
It was a minor case, revived after three years. He was fined for insulting someone in the course of a dispute. That pries is threatening to go to jail instead of paying the fine which, he says, is a case of vendetta by the Ortega regime.
That is less disturbing than the actual accusation of the Catholic priest-turned-revolutionary. He has damned Ortega a thief who runs a monarchy made up of a few families in alliance with the old Somoza interests.
While I always greet criticism from the Right as yet another justification of the path the Left has schosen, this kind of a denunciation, almost a cry of despair, proves unsettling. Despite Stalins and Pol Pots, one more hero biting the dust shakes your faith like never before.
It was coming of course, as in many other cases. Ten years ago his adopted daughter accused him of sexually abusing her. I lost track of the case midway. Then when he was on his way back to power he supported ban on abortion in order to win Catholic votes. And the latest is the last nail.
And how much the more naive among us had agonised over the fall of the Sandinistas in the '80s,
it was a brutal toppling game of the CIAs. The regime was virtually bled to death. When he agreed to a peace deal, face elections, one thought a new chapter was opening in the history of the Left. But he lost, unexpectedly. It was a free and fair poll, all right. And he bowed out in tears. We all cried with him.
Later we learnt, Cuban-style agricultural methods were introduced to catastrophic effect, and individual freedoms were trampled. The inflation rate ballooned to 30,000 percent. Shortages, rationing, civil repression and ''states of emergency'' were the norm.
Still his comeback meant perhaps he had learnt his lessons, I thought. Apparently he learnt lessons of a different kind.
I was almost on the point of e-mailing my son, already skeptical of many of my cherished beliefs, saying this is the end now. I didnt finally, but only for lack of time!
The Left in India doesn't give you much hope. There is even a character down south who is accused of large-scale corruption and mafia tactics.
What then? Go back to basics. Go back to Marx. His vision remains the noblest the human mind ever conceived of. Go back to Lenin, though he might have committed mistakes, allowed crimes to be committed in the name of revolution, besieged as he was, on all sides, by the marauding forces of the imperialists. Still he was a genuine revolutionary. Never sought anything for himself. Leninism under Lenin by Kaufman is a relatively objective critique of the man and his administration.
Go back to them, learn what they stood for and what they did, for all their warts and then see how to put together the pieces again.
Anyone talking about iron bowl socialism should be seen a dinosaur these days, when Ayn Rand is worshipped, covertly and overtly.
My only satisfaction is that murderous Ronal Reagan and his willing colloborator Margaret Thatcher have fallen to Alzheimer's.
But that is only a small solace. Reactionaries are on the rampage eveywhere. All the more reason why someone should raise a clenched fist of defiance, like Arundhati Roy, take on all anti-people forces with gusto.
Join whatever is left of Left, whatever type of Left, wherever you are comfortable fitting in and carry on as best as you can. Only when the line becomes totally immoral and unacceptable, come out of it and try elsewhere! What options we have after all?
The refrain of the Internationale says, This is the final struggle/ Let us join together and tomorrow/ The Internationale/ Will be the human race."
There is no such thing as finality in human evolution. We have to keep fighting in our own respective ways.
If we dont we will die the ignoble death that Bharati portrays so grimly. No, we should not.
Woman/man is capable of being better than what we have found to be the case thus far.
5 comments:
What about the murder of Sergei Kirov, Leon Trotsky, and the thousands of others killed in the Gulag labour camps?
Lenin just stood & watched while Stalin continued to commit atrocities against everyone remotely suspected to have opposed the state. "Red terror" is as bad as "American-state sponsored terror" and you should not be supporting by-standers like Lenin just because they got the theory right and failed in practise
And what about Lenin's last testament, his criticism of Stalin & Trotsky was quite feeble, but even that the Communists didn't allow, they banned the book. Now, they even deny that such a book existed.
And what about Lenin's personal life?
You should be a revolutionary in all spheres of life. He had mistresses, just as Stalin did.
And what is worse his mistress, who was a piano teacher, lived in the same apartments as his wife.
And what about the large-scale ethnic deportions to the arid, wastelands of Siberia, just because Stalin didn't want any opposition. Didn't Lenin turn a blind eye to everything that Stalin had done?
hi rachel,
first yrs is a mishmash of fact, fiction and canards. Still my responses.
Lenin stood by and watched Trotsky killed in Gulag camp? nonsense.
he was killed much later around the time of World War II, when he was in exile in Mexico.
Kirov's murder was around 1934, presumably murdered by Stalin's agents and anyway ignited the terrible purge of all the big names in the Bolshevik party.
Obviously Lenin could have had nothing with these things!
But he did keep quiet/endorsed Red terror tactics when the capitalist west had unleashed a terrible war on the fledgeling socialist nation.
excesses were there, no doubt. he was shot at in 1918. civil war, famine. feudal lords, the west, it was a terrible time. Lenin did authorize mass terror.
But it was all against those who were trying to sabotage the revolution. and never for personal gains, not even for power.
his health steadily deteriorated.
Lenin’s health had already been severely damaged by the strains of revolution and war. The assassination attempt earlier in his life also added to his health problems. The bullet was still lodged in his neck, too close to his spine for medical techniques of the time to remove. In May 1922, Lenin had his first stroke. He was left partially paralyzed on his right side, and his role in government declined. After the second stroke in December of the same year, he resigned from active politics. In March 1923, he suffered his third stroke and was left bedridden for the remainder of his life, no longer able to speak.
after that Stalin took over. he was extremely unhappy, but cdnt do anything.
as for Inessa Armand, the affair is very hazy, but from what you see
chk this
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE4D81E3EF93AA15757C0A9649C8B63
nothing horrid. some affair. its not as if it was double-timing that made life difficult for everyone around. it was all discreet.
I repeat Leninism under Lenin by Marcel Leibman presents a most balanced critique of the man.
Its available fr Amazon.com
He had his failings, some of his tactics were questionable, but he was not a powermonger that Stalin was and his sole interst was the interest of the working class as he saw it.
Sir,
I didn't mean Trotsky was in any labour camp. I know he got assasinated in Mexico. I'm sorry that line was incoherent
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