Carry Forward the Banner of Communism 1 CARRY FORWARD THE BANNER OF COMMUNISM PROVASH GHOSH Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) 2 Carry Forward the Banner of Communism Carry forward the Banner of Communism First Published : 22 November, 2011 2nd Print: 10 March, 2012 Published by : Manik Mukherjee Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) 48 Lenin Sarani, Kolkata 700013 Printed at : Ganadabi Printers and Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 52B Indian Mirror Street, Kolkata 700013 Price : Rs. 5.00 Carry Forward the Banner of Communism 3 Publisher’s Note Comrade Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI(C) spoke at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Congress of the Party on 25 November, 2010 at Mahajati Sadan, K olkata. The full text of his speech was published in our english organ ‘Proletarian Era’, 12 December, 2010. The speech is now published in a book form. 22 November, 2011 Manik Mukherjee 48, Lenin Sarani Member, Polit Bureau Kolkata-700013 SUCI (Communist) 4 Carry Forward the Banner of Communism Carry Forward the Banner of Communism 5 CARRY FORWARD THE BANNER OF COMMUNISM Comrades, We all know with what a noble and revolutionary object and by conducting what an arduous, difficult and tortuous struggle with firm determination and strong commitment to the revolutionary ideology and the oppressed people of India and the world, our leader, teacher, guide and a great Marxist thinker of this era, Comrade Shibdas Ghosh founded this party in 1948 and in the process elaborated, concretized, developed and further enriched Marxism-Leninism. Till his death in 1976 he had led, developed and guided this party. Then Comrade Nihar Mukherjee, a life-long revolutionary, the closest compatriot of Comrade Shibdas Ghosh, took up the responsibility of leading the party and under his leadership the party grew further. We also know history has bestowed upon our party a great responsibility at this critical hour of human civilization. The responsibility assigned to me, I know, is not an individual responsibility, but a collective one. On the basis of collective guidance, advice and cooperation of the members of the polit bureau and central committee, 6 Carry Forward the Banner of Communism of all the comrades here and outside, and the class conscious proletariat of our country, I have to perform this responsibility. I can assure you I shall continue, intensify and heighten my struggle to acquire the required standard with all of your cooperation and guidance. Comrades, we all see that world imperialism- capitalism is continuing to be in a dying condition. In fact it is writhing in the grip of the ever deepening, ever widening, ever lasting crisis. Whatever measures the capitalists-imperialists take to come out of the crisis, those are creating more problems for them as was observed by Comrade Shibdas Ghosh long ago. He said ‘‘So, it is giving birth to crises, one after another. One measure is taken by the bourgeoisie to come out from, to get out of the impasse of a crisis only to re-enter into a much graver crisis.’’ Since the days when capitalism reached the stage of moribund capitalism, that is imperialism, the rulers have taken recourse to colonialism, neo-colonialism, two world wars, many regional and local wars, militarization of the economy, protectionism in trade, so-called free trade and globalisation, outsourcing of business processes, dumping, currency manipulation etc., one after another, but none could solve the basic irreconcilable contradiction and endemic crisis of capitalism- imperialism. Now, the condition of the world capitalism is just like a drowning man struggling to catch a straw. The crisis is now so all-pervading that even if Adam Smith, Ricardo, Keynes to present-day bourgeois economists are brought together to find out solutions, they too are to fail. Carry Forward the Banner of Communism 7 Take the example of USA, the chieftain of world capitalism. During the last 3 years, 10 million or one crore workers have been retrenched in USA. More than 40 million people now live there below poverty line. This is only the official report. Its dollar empire is crumbling, self-proclaimed master of the unipolar world is tottering. Similar is the condition in Europe. Most of the European countries are suffering from sovereign debt crisis. Now and then, the imperialist- capitalist leaders are found to be huddled together to discuss ways to solve the crisis. In front of the camera they shake hands with each other with smiling faces, but each one has his knife up the sleeves, waiting to backstab the other at the opportune moment. Each one strives to snatch other’s market. This is going on. Depression of the market is continuing. Occasionally, the rulers try to console themselves and declare that recession is receding. But soon the state of the economy stares at their faces and they are compelled to admit that it is a fragile recovery, anemic recovery. They are afraid to withdraw economic stimulus package or the ventilation supporting a dying patient. Now it is evident that neither the socalled social security nor the consumer credit network could solve the market crisis. Rather measures of economic stimulus, tax reduction of corporates, gradual reduction of social security fund allaction, wage freeze, wagecuts, job cuts, excessive defence budget to feed militarization of economy, and the wider network of credit have led to unprecedented sovereign debt crisis, inflation, price rise, unemployment problems resulting in all round recession in all imperialist-capitalist countries. World 8 Carry Forward the Banner of Communism capitalism is gasping. But we know it will not die automatically. In nature, natural laws operate and accordingly changes occur. But in human society depending upon the contradiction between productive forces and production relation, the laws of development operate differently. There is a role of human consciousness, which sometimes accelerates and sometimes retards the process of development. In class divided societies while productive forces strive to develop, the obtaining production relations work as brake. The necessity appears to change the production relation in order to remove the fetters to development of productive forces. Objective necessity reflected in human mind through the process of interaction is translated in the form of human consciousness, i.e. leaping from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. The question — when the production relation will be changed — depends upon the role of the productive forces, particularly the human aspect of the productive forces i.e. upon the labouring people. So long they are not conscious enough, are not subjectively prepared, capitalism will not die automatically. It will continue to generate crisis after crisis, bringing in its wake untold sufferings to the people in all aspects of life, i.e., economic, politics, culture and ethics. The fallout is not only seen in ever increasing unemployment, retrenchment, inflation and price rise, cultural ethical degeneration but consequent upon the government’s economic stimulus to the corporates from public exchequer, there is further attack in the form of tax hike, wage cut; slashing of budget allocation in public service schemes as well as Carry Forward the Banner of Communism 9 further fascization of political set up trampling down minimum democratic norms and ethically dehumani- zation of people. You see that the present capitalist crisis has also evoked popular protests in USA, Europe and other countries. In France, Spain, Greece, Britain and other countries, spontaneous waves of workers’ and people’s movements and strikes are surging forth. These are unprecedented. Here the role of the vanguard is essential. Long back Great Lenin pointed out that trade union movement does not automatically develop into revolutionary movement. Trade Union movement only provides trade union consciousness from within, revolutionary political consciousness is to be brought from without. That is the task of the vanguard. That is the task of the real Marxist party. But we know the world communist movement today is passing through a very difficult period. In the past also the world communist movement had faced many serious problems and reverses since the proclamation of the historic Communist Manifesto in 1848. Great Marx had to disband the First Communist International due to the subversive role of the anarchists led by Bakunin. Great Lenin had to dissociate himself from the Second Communist International due to the degeneration and treachery of the social democrats. Later, we know, Lenin founded the Third Communist International after the successful socialist revolution in Russia which established a society without class exploitation for the first time in human history. We know how Great Stalin like a rock defended, protected and developed socialism in Soviet Union, defeated the fascist forces in the Second World War, how under his 10 Carry Forward the Banner of Communism leadership world communist movement had spread throughout the world and anti-imperialist struggles in the colonial countries got momentum. We also know Comrade Mao Zedong, another great communist leader, made chinese revolution successful through a long and tortuous historic battle. But, it is painful that since the later half of 1950’s, modern revisionism led by renegade Krushchev began to surface in the world communist movement. The sway of modern revisionism ultimately led to the counter-revolution in East Europe, Russia and China. As a result, the world communist movement has suffered tremendously from confusions, frustrations, disarray and disintegration. But, here, we the leaders & workers of SUCI (C) though felt serious pain at this development, we did not succumb fall victim to confusion or pessimism, because we were armed with the thoughts and teachings of Comrade Shibdas Ghosh. He, way back in 1948, could foresee some dangers brewing in the world communist movement and accordingly prepared our mind to face any eventuality. Further, he denounced the formu-lations of 20th congress and had warned “it will open the floodgate of revisionism”.