With the rise of economic crisis
in the West, more and more people are taking a look back at Karl Marx’s
writings to find loopholes within the current capitalist system. On the other
side, the third world countries like ours have continuously experimented with
Marxist ideology to take us out of poverty. However, we continue to fail.
Through this article, I try to reason the failure of communists in Nepal to
bring about a significant change owing to their misunderstanding of following
four major aspects.
a. Issue of Productive Forces
In his book, A Contribution to
the Critique of the Political Economy, Marx writes, “No social order is ever
destroyed before all the productive force for which it is sufficient have been
developed and new superior relation of production never replaces older ones
before the material condition for their existence have matured within the
framework of the old society.” This statement has a pretty direct meaning i.e.
a society cannot evolve a newer system of production until the old system has
reached its final stages of development.
Marx in his interpretation of
transformation of a feudal state to a bourgeois state argues that the
capitalist mode of production took over only when the best of feudal
innovations failed in fulfilling the then social needs. In Nepal, where
capitalist mode of production has not developed even a fraction of what the
developed nations currently have in disposal, it will be contrary to Marx’s
belief to advocate for an immediate shift to a communist state.
Most of the third world communist
movements have ignored this very fact to their own peril. Countries like USSR,
Cambodia, North Korea suffered from famines and death of millions. Ironically,
with the Maoist insurgency, it was the case of destroying already available
infrastructure of development (tagging them as bourgeois development) pushing
the country even further down into the path of regression.
b. Ignoring Marx’s “Workers of
the World Unite!”
Marx, in his book A Critique of
the German Ideology, writes “…. and furthermore, because only with this
universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men
established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the
"propertyless" mass (universal competition), makes each nation
dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put
world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones. … The
proletariat can thus only exist world-historically, just as communism,
its activity, can only have a "world-historical" existence.”
Marxists of third World countries being the
most oppressed; revolted first even with little or no help from the working
class in developed states. However, the results have always failed to outcast
Marx’s predictions as quoted below.
Marx elaborates in the same
passage, “Without this, (i) communism could only exist as a local event (eg. Likes
of N. Korea and partly Cuba where the economy is isolated from major capitalist
nation’s) ; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed
as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred
conditions surrounded by superstition (countries like Greece, Spain etc, where
massive protest against austerity measures take place but fails to yield result
to their favor as they don’t coordinate across nationalities) ; and (3) each
extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. (eg. In China where its
involvement in the global trade meant the ruling communist party had to reform
to capitalist mode of production)”
In the above pretext, the
Nepalese communist movement which is fragmented on its own backyard is sure to
fail to ignite a world movement resulting Nepal being one of the above three
possibilities.
c. The real issue regarding
religion
“Religion is the opiate of the
masses.” say that to my mom and she will never agree to it. The communist
leaders of Nepal have chosen to neglect this issue of religion in fear of
losing out to populist sentiments.
Engels with regard to religion
writes in his book ‘Socialism: Utopian
and Scientific’, “His (i.e. the recently risen bourgeois class) interest was to
get as much and as good work out of them( i.e. the working class) as he could;
for this end, they had to be trained to proper submission. He was himself
religious; his religion had supplied the standard under which he had fought the
king and the lords; he was not long in discovering the opportunities this same
religion offered him for working upon the minds of his natural inferiors, and
making them submissive..”
We can co relate the above saying with how the
autocratic regime of the Shahs and its subsequent ancestors survived for so
long ; ironically gaining popularity among the oppressed class itself. For
decades, the Hindus (majority of Nepalese) and other religious outfits have
been fed by the ruling class with the religious stories and myths were King
have been the savior and ruler of the nation. The monarchies that ruled Nepal,
by making itself the guardian, promoter and representation of the religion
itself maintained within the psyche of the Nepalese a deep sense of acceptance
towards the king. The kings, though most acting like Indra and Ravan continued
to portray their image as that of Ram, which in sense has served as ‘opiate’ to
the common people.
The failure of the communist
revolutionaries to spread such messages into the mass has left Nepalese society
marred by caste based discrimination, allegation of witchcrafts to women of
lower class strata etc. These social aberrations are sadly backed by the same
tactics of the upper class to make the lower working class ‘submissive’ by
using the weapon of religion.
d. Lack of empowerment in the
working class and its subsequent effect
Engels referring to English
working class writes, “in 1884, the extension of household suffrage to the counties
and a fresh redistribution of seats…considerably increased the electoral power
of the working-class, so much so that (working) class now furnished the
majority of the voters.” Same could be
implied to the post 2063 Constituent Assembly election where a call of change
especially by those of the lower strata of Nepalese society resulted in
elevation of the Maoist. However just like what Engels had feared parliament
became a ‘capital school’ to teach tradition i.e to make the working class
continue respect the higher classes. Thus, the new working class which got elected
into the CA could not play important role during major decision taking moments. Instead
the major decisions were taken by the same old leaders of NC and CPN (UML) (most
of whom had lost elections) and the rising bourgeois class within the UCPN
(Maoist) and the Madhesi forces.
Unless the working class is empowered
via strong education and political knowledge, elections of any sort will mean
that new working class leaders will in Engels words continue to keep up the ‘ornamental
caste of drones’(i.e. the formal feudal/royal power centers and established
middle class members) to dictate the day to day affair of the state, which
means even another CA election maybe fruitless in securing rights of the
working class.
