The reasons why the experiment failed!

The ruling patriarch of CPSU, Gorbachov along with his communist wife celebrated fulfilment of their life dream and the Soviet Camp was declared dead by 1991. The ruling communist parties were disbanded without tears. Poland paved the way earlier on the whims of a Pope claiming affinity with polish nationality. Its trade union Solidarity proved the disgracing force. Chinese revolution had started moving to death much earlier but with crafty jargons none protested against. The point of agony is that the first experiment to build socialism in history collapsed without a fight and so easily. The termite within and the woodpecker outside worked in tandem. It was all well beyond any wild expectations; at least for those who were bred with an abiding faith in the wisdom of communist leadership backed by the historicity of the proletariat as a liberating force in history. Reasons for this collapse are varied and weighty but few are important to study in our context. Those who had supported the system in USSR from outside the ring were surprised to find billionaires overnight in Moscow, some even commanders of the Red Army and the worst form of individualism working within the wings of the whole structure despite long drawn campaign of 74 years there against it. The ruling Polit-Bureau was inhabited by Berias, Brezhnovs, Yeltsins and the like. Gorbachovs could easily find space in it. Not despairing, it is a sad commentary on the infallibility of the organisational principles of a communist party sanctioned by none other than Lenin and Stalin! How the people accepted this to happen in a society that was in turmoil for long in quest of new initiatives for social justice, is another aspect of the question that demands close scrutiny. A unique experiment in human history had started by a well-meaning leadership of communist party in Russia after winning the civil war thrust on their head by the overthrown forces of capital there. It was a crusade against the destructive force of capital in the society that dehumanises man! Apparently, it was a fight against capital after the October Revolution to establish socialism the place for labour to flourish! But what actually turned out to be? After a fight of long 74 years, it was capital that emerged stronger and pervading!! How and why it all happened under the benign shadow of a ruling communist party single-handed? The effort in building socialism was conducted by communist of Marxist -Leninist and Maoist or Ho-Chi-Minh faith. They were not fools either. Some of the brilliant brains had laboured hard to sharpen their intellectual and organisational tools. Still the experiment collapsed. The tenable answer requires honest and courageous search to face the truth. The leaders who were in command of this movement have not provided any reliable and convincing account of this failure so far. The realization on their part is seriously lacking of what happened and why. May be they are shy to face the bare truth or they are working still under certain illusions woven around by them in the past and have no courage to change the tack. It may be they are victims of their own past, tough events of 1991 require a thorough going investigation without prejudice. What is dished out so far in explanation for this abortive experiment is perfunctory. Society there in the old socialist camp reversed back with vengeance with a corresponding structure to support. The reversal brought back all those social relations that breed strife, greed, manipulations and crime in tail. It was brought about those who knew all about the dark features of capitalism in the past and present. Now, citing this failure, questions are raised on the very raison d etre of the need for such a change itself by various forces. This is one part. Another facet of the reality, however,

remains valid that capitalism has not the capacity to deliver. It is too destructive by nature. It has to be over-turned if society is to survive. This is the basic truth the abortive experiment in Russia or China cannot belie. In this situation that emerged one has to find out the answer to the query so that society can easily move out of this quagmire. Since, followers of communist creed in life were the staunchest forces who worked with exceptional zeal, grit and sacrifice to materialise the dream of a bright future for humanity, it is incumbent on them to search their own house first. Let us examine and face the facts squarely. It is the time. One unmistakable fact has emerged out of this abortive effort that it was this political leadership in toto that conducted this experiment proved unworthy of the trust and failed the people miserably. This is the first outstanding truth of an impassioned search. This class came out as nothing different from its historical parentage in the long run! When working with capital during the exercise to build socialism, with capitalist world around, the leaders could not remain immune from its magnetic pull. They themselves became its votaries finally and pulled the powers of state structure in its service by dubious means of practical politics. That brought doom to the system, which people in their simplicity believed and worked for almost three quarters of the last century. Issues that need study afresh In order to have a better understanding of such issues that need study afresh in the interest of basic change in social relations, it is incumbent that first we examine what type of world we are in and what we are faced with. To say in a word, it is a highly iniquitous and stratified world that is in perpetual strife for reasons not necessary to survive and advance. History worked in a sinister way. It played on a honest man. As a consequence, the workman who produces, finds himself at the tail end deprived even of two square meals a day despite strenuous labour while the idle man at the top wallows in wealth by sheer manipulating the system at will. The whole state apparatus is a happy collaborator of the rich that initially was designed to provide physical security from invaders, rouges and plunderers with a nominal share in the produce for this service as many others who helped them in the production process. Now this apparatus have assumed basically a regressive status of an all-pervading octopus over its citizens. Though administrative and judicial structures promise equal treatment in law, in practice these are increasingly shedding their neutral posture when the state is going openly in the interest of rich, idlers and manipulators. The powerful is at the neck of less powerful to gain bigger share in the pound of flesh in the market of butchers, extolling the virtues of competition while at times the deprived are victims of both. If someone joins the ranks of butchers employing tricks of trade, the system is happy to welcome. The deprived man winks in awe and thanks his or her fate for mere survival. Everyone is alone and stranger to the other fellow in the boat! It is true that such a situation has not come in a day. This is the outcome of a long journey. The marauders found their schema working fine. They could manage resistance of past and block its way for future, with an elaborate political system that worked nice. Mode of development The foremost question is the mode of development that was selected to take a nation ahead. This mode was to decide the future of society that was to take shape in its various ramifications. The leadership opted for a course of rapid industrialisation as a sure path of delivery and advanced a range of logic in its favour to earn back up of public opinion. For socialism it pleaded for state ownership over means of production and property instead of private ownership. None questioned it then.

In case of building socialism, the allurement of industrial path with intent for capital formation proved a fatal infatuation that built iniquitous world, as it does unfailingly under unabashed capitalism. It could have been avoided. A better alternative should have been devised. That was not done. However, the abortive experiment in no way mitigates the necessity for a basic change itself. It was a failure on practice. The issue remains on agenda. It proved a fatal folly to traverse on an alien path. It made the society hollow and fragile. This was the natural consequence of mindless industrialisation resorted to for achieving quick economic growth on western mode. The European paradigm of growth so selected for building socialism was totally unsuited to the object of building a different society free from exploitation, injustice and oppression and for social peace. Let it be remembered for good that European mode was the outcome of ruthless exploitation, internal and external plunder unbound with bloodshed in the countries of America, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Australia with the help of arms and trickery. Industrialisation nowhere came through without this internal or external plunder and bloodshed with destruction of family and its community in trail. The mode bore ill for the society they were building in the socialist camp. In history, socialist construction obviously ought to be free from all such ills. This aspect was ignored while choosing the path of development in this gigantic experiment of building socialism after the October Revolution. The internal expropriation and ruthless oppression reigned in USSR too for long. Apart, it contrived later a system of external expropriation under unequal economic treaties with other relatively under-developed socialist countries. The division of labour between contracting socialist countries was so crafted as to give edge to Russia in economic development. It played havoc in disrupting unity of nations under CIS after 1991. The present phase of structural transformation of global economy today is a natural culmination of a path that began its journey some three hundred years ago with the industrial revolution. It took shape for historical reasons in Britain, followed by other nations in Europe, with a common legacy of colonial expropriation. Mercantile capital at that stage pushed them to plunder other lands with all underhand means at their command that one acquires from a profession of ease like the one they had mastered. Deceit, treachery, outright murders and armed invasions were their weapons in this game. This was done all with single-minded zeal. They continued to flourish at the cost of millions after millions from subject lands, drawing upon the tremendous surpluses exacted heartlessly from colonised nations of the world with sheer force of a brute. Neither this was necessary, nor inevitable in its natural course of progress. Humanity could easily have survived and progressed without this brutal chapter in its history. But it did not. If Indians and Chinese could survive and survive with honour, in their past history without this ruthlessness laced with treachery on other nations, the Europeans did not bring anything extraordinary to the richness of humanity, except arrogance, brutality, deceit and bloodshed. Neither these are lands of abundance. European marauders brought perpetual strife and untold misery to their own populations along with death to millions after millions in other lands. Claims apart, bloodshed or violence, as a method can never make one progressive and civilised. Still they claim for both! European powers had succeeded in subjugating the entire African, Australian, American and South Asian countries by such methods. In North America and Australia the whole indigenous populations were ruthlessly exterminated and foundation of new white nations of European origin was laid. African and Indian slaves were yoked to produce wealth for these new settlers. Natural resources of the subject nations were ploughed in to grind the wheels of their industries with a captive market at hand in these lands of occupation for long. But in history, Europeans remain plunderers.

What made the Europeans do what they did in history? Nothing, but zeal for industry coupled with trade and commerce did this trick on human history through individualism as its philosophical thrust. For personal gain, these marauders plunged the society in turmoil. It affected the very nature of man in a highly structured society with inequality built in. To justify this, it is claimed that inequality is inherent in nature. Again, it is claimed on their behalf that man is selfish by nature. Fact is otherwise. Before the sway of mercantile capital man had never been so. Industrial revolution alone, coupled with trade and commerce as profession of ease fashioned him or her thus. By nature man is human, by design one is made crooked to reap riches for some. This is history. It is an irony that the new state in Russia, after 1917 opted for a mode of development that brewed social strife. It plunged whole hog to transform an agrarian society to an industrial one, hurriedly with means of social production in possession of the state with a low-cost economy. It was different in this respect from capitalist economies, which rest on high-cost cycle. The effort in Russia was led and controlled by the ruling communist party providing a further legitimacy to this captivating slogan for others to follow. Industry was placed in the centre of development and consequently agriculture became subservient to it. Simultaneously, farming also was transformed from a family-labour or community-labour based affair for a large-scale industrial concern with individual as its basic labour -unit. Since, basically, this is a model that developed and flourished on large-scale internal and external expropriation, it could not be otherwise in Soviet Union, as also in other so-called socialist countries, though direct external expropriation in their case was not possible. Naturally, these countries, including Soviet Union had to bear the resultant effects of this model in spite of the fact that means of production were in command of the state. The first result of this mode there appeared in the growth of individualism, free from the will of man. This growth was not subject to the mode of ownership over its means. Post facto, this conclusion is sharp and explicit. Similarly, the question of distribution of this social production was important to determine the outcome. In the Soviet experiment the privileges that go with the rulers and a system of graded distribution was crafted, which not only maintained but widened the gap in entitlements for their labour between different sections of society. The intellectual labour got supremacy in determination of entitlements over physical labour. A privileged class of aristocracy got strengthened, knowingly or knowingly there which entrenched itself in the portals of power. And the division took the form of one class against the other. But none seems to have taken this lesson despite the disastrous consequences society suffered from. On first opportunity in 1991, a well-entrenched group of capitalists -Mafiosi, including many Red Army officers of high ranking with considerable accumulation and clout, emerged as if out of the blue. They led the political leadership in decision-making process to their advantage. The nexus between the newly emerged capitalist class and the state structure was there for all to see and feel that proved decisive in over throwing the experiment out of the window at an opportune time of their choice. 1. Communists must learn few harsh truths In addition to the question of the mode of production and distribution, the questions relating to social and administrative structure are important to study where the fault line passed through. First is the question of organisation that claimed representative character to rule the countries of experiment. The state and the political party as its instrument are the two important constituents of this establishment to rule. In world history, first state in the hands of proletarians - Paris Commune after throwing off the rule of bourgeoisie on March 18, 1871, had collapsed on May 28, 1871. Let us believe

the argument for a moment what some Communist teachers say that this first collapse was primarily for want of its class organisation and lack of maturity. The second experiment - more costly but hilarious, called the great Socialist Revolution of 1917, had heralded epoch-making events in history. Here, apart from some elementary mistakes in theory, it apparently stood betrayed firstly by its own claimed class organisation in communist party of Soviet Union. Events proved that beyond doubt. If Paris Commune failed for lack of organisation then, the second one failed because of the organisation! It raises a question about the utility of an organisation itself in relation to change in society? This is the first stark truth of the present day situation one has to face. In addition, the disheartening slackness on the part of proletarians as a class when this organisation failed them to deliver is a sad story of this episode. This happened after over 70 years of protestations of faith by its leaders on the invincibility of the organisation, in the destiny of working class as also its historical role, including its allies. This is the second important question to face squarely. A few words here, in explanation, may be necessary. Marx was the first to underscore signal importance of Paris Commune in human history. He had followed events surrounding the commune with keen interest of a genius to draw lessons dispassionate ly and equip working peoples in their battle for emancipation from the grinding wheel of brutalizing capital and its dehumanizing state, despite its democratic veneer. According to him, among other factors responsible for the collapse of this first proletarian experiment in holding state power and wielding it for its benefit, communards of Paris had failed to retain it for want of their class organisation and utilising the force with necessary resoluteness. The victorious proletarians of Paris Commune had lost direction of the thrust in absence of this organisation, Marx had explained. According to Marx, this class organisation was necessary to guide and direct communes affairs with singleness in approach and guard against detractors with requisite firmness to face onslaught of an organised and armed classresistance of the defeated bourgeoisie. Reading this historical writing on the wall, Marx with his compatriots plunged into organising the first International of workingmen and garnered a full crop of varied experiences to formulate certain basic principles of direction. One was his ruthless exposition of state as a class-organ of oppression against the people. This exposition was classic in approach and forthright in denunciation. From all counts, it may be summarized as the first principal contradiction between people and the state as long as class institution lasts. When Lenin came on the political scene, he devoted with a single-minded zeal to the problems of a revolutionary organisation of the proletariat that could answer the requirement, particularly in context of the then Russia, that was reeling under the shadow of a terrorist state and a movement to oust this Czarist tyranny, which was engrossed in war. Russia by then was a country with almost no democratic atmosphere. He delineated the struggle ideologically from terrorism to a revolutionary practice for state power. Lenin is, thus the first father figure of this science of a revolutionary organisation to challenge the class rule of capital of his time, under the peculiar conditions available then in Russia. He had not only underlined the importance of an organisation in class context, its revolutionary content too, with a hard-core cadre base in attendance, was also focused. With a single-minded zeal Lenin worked for capturing state power replacing the old. He pleaded for a centralised state. While Lenin plunged to make his party as a dependable instrument to run the state structure there he, practically sidetracked this first principal contradiction between the people and the state. He pleaded for a ruthless state machine

during the transitory stage of socialism describing it as the dictatorship of the proletariat contra-posing to one dictatorship of capital. Curiously, among four principal contradictions that he enunciated to focus primary attention of the movement worldwide, during this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution this first principal contradiction of the present day society did not find place in his scheme of things, leaving the essence from Marx out. It blinded reason against ruthless state oppression not always justifiable. The whole democratic process remained thwarted. People, in the process were disarmed ideologically and organizationally against the might of the state. This is another important lesson that need be learned out of this experiment in building socialism. On hindsight, it may be said that overlooking of this contradiction in society certainly was one of Lenins most devastating disservice to the science of socialism as a tactician that led to the disaster later. He placed much of his heart on the service of a state to deliver during this phase of socialist construction without any tangible check on its fangs. Instrument of struggle turned into instrument of rule There is another aspect of this question. It is assumed that the communist party is the sole vanguard representative of the proletariat as its instrument of struggle. The constant struggle for survival against the rule of capital and later against the state till it withers away, is its raison d etre. Two presumptions are valid: during transitory phase of socialist construction, class antagonism persists with rigour and the state continues to remain as a repressive organ with massive powers. The third aspect was ignored that the ranks of working class remain part of the ruled. In the event when its vanguard - the communist party, is turned into an institution to rule rather than its organ of struggle during the socialist stage, consequences for a disarmed class would be disastrous. This happened in Soviet Union as also in other countries of socialist faith. The leadership ignored and the class forgot that even during this stage, the first principal contradiction between the people and the state persists. It will remain so till the state withers away. None can wish this first contradiction away. By pushing it under carpet, due vigilance over vagaries of state was shut down. The people having no ideological clue in such a dark corner took these vagaries of brute force as some degenerated deviations from individuals. This brought disaster. It can be said without hesitation that in communist or socialist parties the concepts of dictatorship of proletariat and democratic centralism both have bred arbitrary conduct. This has led to total unaccountability of the leadership, marring zeal and initiative of the cadres. Fear reigned instead lest one is overhauled for disturbing state function. It is another truth we can ignore at our peril, as we did in the past. Another legacy from Lenin of many formulations and postulates under the science of organisation which bear birth-marks of those conditions under which the genius and his compatriots worked, apparently were stretched to copious length by succeeding generation of leaders. They found meanings in formulations and postulates from the teacher to justify arbitrary conduction, meaningless secretiveness with no accountability, capping creativity of individuals by taking the concept of centralism to absurd length and pushing democracy out of the window. The false logic which communist leadership has been guilty to build up for itself in a parrot like fashion - taking shelter very often in quotation mongering of this authority or the other, using them more like icons has to be rejected. This weakness world over in the communist movement has sapped it of its creative zeal of late, with disastrous results.

It is time, perhaps to probe how the movement came to such a sorry pass in spite of all scientific formulations from the genius this time or the other and sapped it of breath. It is another important fact we have to face, even if bitter. One feature however, comes out sharply as characteristic of Lenin in his whole conduct that distinguishes it from the current affliction. As a practical man, Lenin in his lifetime proved more dynamic and versatile than his successors. He had the capacity to re-read his book in changed circumstances creatively. In this respect, it may be said; the breed of pos t-Lenin leadership has not proved to be much worthy pupils of the teacher to take the right legacy to new heights, capable enough to answer queries of their times. One instance is relevant to the question of organisation: Lenin castigated the resolution adopted by the Third Congress of Third International on organisation in 1921 as totally out of place to follow. The remarks of Lenin on this resolution in the very next Congress of International in 1922 are not mere rhetoric to pass by. Similarly, one should give attention to his remarks about his pamphlet What is to be done, when the question on organisation is studied. The said resolution and the booklet cannot be taken as something final on the subject for generations after generations as communists are doing to this day as something sacrosanct worldwide, though Lenin had himself warned them on these two documents. This is another truth we have to face. Blurred Vision The betrayal by its organisation apart, specifically speaking by its leadership, the communist movement suffered for want of initiative and clearly a lack of vision from the working masses to safeguard its own class interests when enemy struck or when its so-called leadership led astray. This happened when its vanguard in communist parties consistently proclaimed that they are educating the workingmen to raise their ideological standard and inculcate proletarian culture worldwide ever since its victory in 1917. It is another truth we have to face. A deepgoing probe into the cause that killed this initiative and blurred the vision of the class is necessary when its vanguard ruled the affairs over almost seven decades in succession. Though communist leadership throughout has sworn about developing a scientific bent of mind among the people, more so its cadres, yet the fact remains that in its quest for uniformity in thinking, it worked for regimentation, intentionally or otherwise. Next stark truth is this regimentation of thought, which the leadership of communist parties generally was found habitually guilty to resort with disastrous consequences. It seriously affected the level of intellectual growth within the movement in particular and society in general. It is found that the leadership habitually grows panicky about dissent of any sort in its quest for this uniformity. Such stratification bore ill for its health. In the circumstances, a fresh look on concepts that were made the basis of the aborted attempt during twentieth century is the agenda if fundamental change in society is honestly pleaded. Let us examine few of such formulations or postulates and their meaning to the society. Apart from the understanding about state and political party as an institution are important subjects of study. The issues of violence and dictatorship of the proletariat, the forces of change i.e. the concept relating to the characteristic of the proletariat as a class are such questions that require uninhibited study to reach formulations afresh.