CPM resolution lacks clarity, say Left thinkers

KOCHI: Even though the details of CPM’s ideological resolution, released in New Delhi on Monday, were yet to flow in, Left intellectuals in the state were quick to say it lacked clarity.
The party’s claims that it will draw appropriate lessons from the experiences of China and Latin America in building an Indian model of socialism have apparently failed to convince many Leftist thinkers.
“It is important to know what those lessons are. China has taken a blatantly capitalist path, which can only lead that country to barbarism, and not socialism. And communist parties in Latin American countries seem to be emphasizing on `non-revisionist’ reforms and multi-party democracy. Now, which of these paths will the CPM take,” asks M P Parameswaran, one of the founders of the pro-Left people’s science movement, KSSP.
CPM leader M A Baby told TOI here that the party viewed the developments in China and Latina America “with excitement and anxiety”.
China had been able to achieve high levels of growth since the period of Deng Xiaoping. It has taken significant strides in poverty alleviation. But its policies have also triggered individual and regional disparities. Similarly, in Latin American countries where the Left has been in power, they have been able energize their economy. But more often than not, their opponents have returned to power and thwarted reforms, Baby said.
CPM, however, was unwilling to disown basic Marxist principles like proletarian dictatorship even when working with multi-party democracy, Baby said.
Political commentator and journalist BRP Bhaskar said even though more than 20 years had passed since the collapse of the communist regimes in erstwhile Soviet Union and East Europe, the CPM had been hesitating to review of its ideological position. “The ideological resolution the party has published lacks clarity, and does not reflect the complex and divergent realities facing India.”
CMP leader and Planning Board member C P John said the CPM seemed totally confused about the Indian revolutionary path and had been waiting for the revolution to happen as a “one-day event” without recognizing that it was a process. They are unwilling to accept the fact that national democratic revolution has been taking place in India since Independence.