The Hindu : No place in CPI(M) for `Fourth World' theorists, says VS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 31, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

No place in CPI(M) for `Fourth World' theorists, says VS

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JAN. 30. The CPI(M) politburo member, V. S. Achuthanandan, has said that those who subscribed to the `Fourth World' theory would have no place in the CPI(M), the reference, apparently, to the ruminations on the possibility of a fourth world as different from the first, second and third worlds contained in writings of M. P. Parameswaran, one of the founder-leaders of the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP), and those CPI(M) members who subscribe to it.

In the second part of his article titled `Lok Sabha Polls and the Left', Mr. Achuthanandan has said that since the very argument was against the party constitution, programme and ideological positions, such persons could not be allowed to remain in the party. Allowing them to remain in the party would weaken the party's and party members' right to defend the party programme, he said.

The CPI(M) leader said the `Fourth World' theory, as admitted by its proponent himself, was just the presentation of a dream and that is precisely what makes it different from the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and other later Marxist ideologues. What they did was not to present their dreams and wishful thinking. They had always ridiculed the `utopias' of romantic socialists and their attempt had always been to separate and study the ground rules of social evolution using scientific methodologies.

They had studied the growth of capitalism and the objective conditions that would lead to post-capitalist production relations. They had always taken care to ensure that such scientific analysis was not coloured by their subjective likes and dislikes and dreams. In fact, any attempt to compare the explorations made by Marxist ideologues using tools of dialectical materialism and the dream scenes in the `Fourth World' would be childish because they belonged to two categories; one to the category of scientific inquiry and the second to the category of dreams.

If the `Fourth World' campaigners had remained satisfied with mere dreaming, there would have been no dispute about it. Instead, what they did was to replace Marxist-Leninist thought with their dream. The Communist Party could not but see this seriously. The fact was that their experiments did not even stop there. Their attempt was not to limit it to ideological polemics, but to put into practice and influence the process of planning and development. But, immediately after it was written, the party's defence mechanism had swung into action. E.M.S. [Namboodiripad] wrote about it and rejected it. But `they' tried to infuse their `dream theory' into different spheres of life in Kerala. As the `Fourth World' theorists themselves claim, PLDP (Panchayat- Level Development Planning) carried out under the aegis of IRTC [Integrated Rural Technology Centre] was the highest evolved form of this attempt.

One striking similarity between the World Bank model and `Fourth World' model is that both praise participatory democracy to the skies and run down representative democracy. Neither takes the class character of the State and its policies into the reckoning. The attempt of both is to keep out politics by keeping out these two factors. The solution that both models suggest for all problems is an apolitical decentralised participatory planning. The party cannot at any time or place agree with any of these, Mr. Achuthanandan said.

The CPI(M) politburo member asserted that the People's Plan Campaign implemented by the LDF Government was different from the World Bank model in its `form, content and details'. He, however, conceded that there might have been flaws in the People's Plan Campaign that was carried out. What is relevant is that the party does not approve of such deviations. As such, the party's attempt in future would be to implement decentralisation avoiding all deviations, the CPI(M) leader said.

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