Socialism has met with an inglorious end

Thanks to a confused and politically opportunistic leadership

C P Bhambhri

The collapse of the erstwhile systems of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s has had a devastating impact upon traditional socialist parties in India and Europe. The leading lights of Indian socialism like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan have completely abandoned socialist ideology and enthusiastically adopted the worst kind of casteist politics. Socialism has thus been replaced by the completely regressive ideology of casteism.

The key element of socialist ideology is a belief that rigorous development of modern socio-economic productive forces in society will lead to the establishment of a new egalitarian social order. But, the tall leaders of socialist movements in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have vigorously contributed to the total underdevelopment of these two states, by equating backward caste based politics with economic backwardness and underdevelopment.

The 1990s have seen the great traditions of the Congress socialist party of the 1930s — as represented by Acharya Narendra Dev or Mr S M Joshi — being completely perverted by their successors. Some Indian socialists have even abandoned secularism and joined hands with the forces of Hindutva. George Fernandes, a great trade union leader, today sits with Hindu communalists and believes he can influence public policies for a progressive social agenda by joining backward-looking forces.

In Europe, new socialist parties in many countries have — since the dawn of the 1990s — started talking the language of market fundamentalists, language which has in the past been associated with conservative parties of private property owners. Prime Minister Tony Blair of England and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany have given a new social content to their Labour Party and Social Democratic Party respectively. This ‘Third Way’, which is described as “social market economy”, is based on public-private partnership. The New Labour completely rejects the previous socialist model which is alleged to have given rise to a “dirigiste state” and inefficient state owned economic industries. During the June 2001 election campaign Mr Blair campaigned on the basis of the slogan “We accept market economy, we do not accept market society”. Chancellor Schroeder of Germany, like his British counterpart, believes that public sector undertakings should go to the market and social public services like health, education and transport ought to remain in the purview of the state.

Why has the socialist alternative to market based capitalism come to an inglorious end in Europe? European socialists maintain that their societies have entered a post-industrial stage, one in which the 21st century will experience technology-knowledge based development; one where the ‘new economy’ will dominate over the ‘old manufacturing economy’. As a result of this changeover, the old anti-capitalist trade unionism of skilled and semi-skilled workers has become a thing of the past. Further, globalisation has “de-territorialised” economic operations, therefore country and industry specific trade unions no longer remain a determining factor.

Interestingly, while European socialists have explained their acceptance of ‘market forces’ as an attempt to adapt to a very different kind of capitalism, Indian socialists have not offered any explanation for their abandonment of socialist ideology. Let me attempt to do so. Indian socialists are in total disarray for at least two reasons. First, in the 1990s Indian socialists bid farewell to their ideology and embraced the ideology of political opportunism. The practitioners of socialist ideology became men of clay and power hungry self-seekers. This happened when the traditional communist parties foolishly supported the casteist politics of Mr V P Singh.

Since the communists tied up with the protagonists of Mandalised politics, they could neither oppose casteist politics nor could they practice them as casteist politics is a natural opposite of socially progressive communist ideology. As a result, communist parties got completely marginalised in UP and Bihar. C E M Joad, a British writer had perhaps met the Chandra Shekhars, George Fernandes, Mulayam Singh Yadavs and Laloos when he wrote “socialism is like a hat which has lost its shape because everybody wears it”.

A second explanation for the total confusion among Indian socialists is their failure to renew ideology, to ask new questions about the fast-changing Indian and global reality. At least the European socialists are engaging themselves in an intellectual exercise of adaptation, but Indian socialists are busy making or breaking ministries. The latter have failed to reckon with a new social reality — that the powerful Indian middle class has turned against the state-led economic model of planning.

A very important plank of Indian Marxists has been that if the Indian market is deep-ended, the need for foreign capital will get marginalised. Indian Marxists argue that by creating purchasing power in Indian villages, the crisis in the Indian economy can be overcome. One of the corollaries of this logic is that the unfinished programme of land reforms should be completed so that the rural masses benefit from a rejuvenated rural economy. Is Mulayam Singh Yadav or Laloo Prasad Yadav or any other ally of the communists committed to radical land reforms in UP and Bihar? The answer is in the negative because now it is the backward-caste middle peasantry which is a roadblock to any restructuring of land relations. How can the communists ally with the messiahs of new vested landed interests?

Indian communists are suffering from a mismatch between their ideology and the politics of their allies who do not accept the communists’ ideological planks. Socialism has been let down by the socialists themselves — they have no one else to blame. Socialist ideology does provide a framework for future progressive and egalitarian social order but its practitioners in India are living for the present political games of power.