[Marxism] The Brittle Left

[Marla Vijaya kumar <marlavk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Comrades,
I am bugged by some nagging questions for quiet
sometime:
1. Why is the leftist movement so brittle, that it
simply breaks to pieces so easily?
2. Why can?t Marxists tolerate even a slight
difference in thought and action?
3. Why do Marxists consider those from whom they have
recently separated bigger enemies than the class enemy
himself?

I do not deny that we should understand and interpret
Marxism in the right scientific perspective, but it
does not mean that everyone who subscribes to Marxism
should have the same interpretation or follow the same
programme of action. But we Marxists immediately brand
slight deviations from our thought with bombastic
names and start prolonged arguments that have little
practical sense other than to convince ourselves that
we have put up a strong argument. We are prepared to
destroy in a matter of few months, decades of work in
building leftist movement by splitting the movement.
>From the sixties onwards, the Chinese considered
Soviet Union to be a bigger enemy that US itself!
In contrast, the bourgeois parties are more flexible
in accommodating different opinions. People can
express differing opinions, but they are united in
implementing their party?s agreed programme of action.
Does it mean that the class interests of the bourgeois
is more cohesive that the proletarian parties and the
class which  they are supposed to represent?

I can cite the example of BJP in India. The fascist
outfit RSS is its mother organization. There are other
Hindu fundamentalist groups such as Bajrang Dal, VHP,
SJS and the Shiv Sena. The degree of schizophrenia
differs but they are all basically fundamentalist.
They are all prepared to work together and discuss and
settle differences of opinion and policy in-camera,
rather in the public. Even if there is a rupture that
is big enough to spill out (like the recent spat
between LK Advani, BJP president and the RSS), they
come together soon enough to cover their differences.
In contrast, the split in the Indian Communist
movement continued from the 1960?s onwards like an
un-controlled chain reaction, almost throwing the Left
into oblivion. Only when the BJP had grown into a
major political force and captured power at the
centre, did wisdom dawn on the main leftist parties,
the CPI, CPM, RSP and the Forward Bloc to come
together and atleast contest the elections together
without mutual contests. Even today, they can not
agree on joint political campaigns on people?s
problems. Each party will put up its own meek show. Of
course I do not deny that they had conducted some
joint campaigns, but they few and far in between and
there much scope for improvement.

Is this brittleness a virtue that is destroying the
very cause?
Vijaya Kumar marla



        
                
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