Challenges before the political Left
VENKATESH ATHREYA
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A Latin American perspective of the crisis facing the Left today and the hope for an alternative to capitalism
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REBUILDING THE LEFT: Marta Harnecker; Daanish Books, 26 B, Skylark Apartments, Gazipur, Delhi-110096. Rs. 395.
Nearly 20 years ago in 1991, in the wake of the disintegration of the USSR, which had been preceded by the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe from late 1989 through 1991, there was an unprecedented display of triumphalism by the ideologues of the capitalist global order, epitomised by Fukayama’s book, The End of History. The current global economic and financial crisis of capitalism shows how short-sighted the triumphalism was and how premature the celebrations of the ideologues of neoliberal capitalism were. The crisis of capitalism has opened up possibilities for a more progressive and democratic restructuring of the global order as well as for the advance of progressive forces in many countries. In a sense, the Latin American upsurge of recent years in Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Nicaragua and elsewhere, not to mention the survival of tiny Cuba in the face of the most brutal blockade for five decades now, seems to have anticipated the global turn of events. However, the new situation also poses difficult challenges for the political Left.
Crisis of capitalism
The volume under review has great relevance in the present context. The book is in three parts. The first reviews the changes in the global order since 1945. The decade following the long crisis of capitalism from 1917 to 1945 (which saw two debilitating world wars, with the decade-long Great Depression in between), was marked by the weakening of the Imperial powers, the emergence of a powerful socialist camp and a massive wave of decolonisation, all three developments providing some space for relatively autonomous capitalist development in some of the newly independent countries and for a general advance of Left political forces globally. However, the situation changed dramatically from the late 1970s with the rise to dominance of global finance capital, and a reassertion of global control by the advanced capitalist world. By the end of the 1980s, the mighty USSR had greatly weakened and socialism seemed to be on the retreat almost everywhere. The first part of the book reviews these changes and recognises their enormity. However, it also points out that popular discontent with the neoliberal order was growing across the world. It explores the possibilities of creating an alternative to this order which would be based on a broad anti-neoliberal social and political bloc, and highlights the need to rebuild the Left so that it can bring all democratic forces opposed to the neoliberal order together.
Political instrument
The second part of the book deals with the complex and contentious issue of what would be the best political instrument for achieving the goal of bringing about the desired political and social transformation. The author admits the many negative historical experiences of the Left in developing such an instrument and highlights the dangers of copying the classic Bolshevik form of party organisation and political practice in the changed historical circumstances. But she also points out that the political party is an absolutely necessary instrument for challenging the enormous power of the ruling classes, both ideologically and organisationally. She argues for a new political culture on the part of the Left, eschewing sectarianism even while conducting principled ideological and political struggles, and engaging in debates pertaining to these tasks. In the third and final part of the book, the author poses the question of whether the Bolivarian revolution, as the experiment in Venezuela has come to be called, is truly a revolution, and answers it in the affirmative after examining its processes and achievements. This part also has an insightful discussion of the role of the Left in local government in Latin America, and of the complex relationship between reform and revolution.
Eurocentric frame
This is a book well worth reading for political activists on the Left grappling with the challenges of political mobilisation under difficult circumstances in what is clearly a long haul. It is a pity, however, that this book has remained largely Latin America-centred, and the theoretical and ideological debates have stayed within a Eurocentric frame. The enormously rich experience of the Indian Left, led by the CPI (M), running Left governments with limited powers in states, which together cover a population in excess of 120 million while simultaneously fighting neoliberal policies across the country, does not seem to have informed the discussion in the book at all. The fact that the Indian Left has won repeated popular mandates in elections (spanning more than three continuous decades in the case of West Bengal) within a political dispensation characterised by the enormous role of money power is one whose significance is realised rather less widely than it deserves to be. The discussions on the Left in Latin America will greatly benefit from a careful study of the experience of the political Left in India.
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