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"The stories of freedom movements throughout time and around the world – their successes and failures – are a goldmine of experiences to tap in these challenging times. A deep feeling of oneness between Indian, African, African American freedom struggles, and anti-fascist movements around the world, drew Jawaharlal Nehru and my grandfather, Paul Robeson, into a lifelong friendship in the 1930s and inspired both families. The efforts of Vishwabandhu Magazine to ensure peace and democracy in India will surely spark new ways of thinking globally and help illuminate a path for many peoples and nations around the world." Susan Robeson, Writer; producer; director of Robeson Family Trust  "Today, humanity faces several existential threats; climate change, pandemics and even the prospect of nuclear war. Our current mechanisms of international cooperation and dialogue appear totally inadequate to meet these challenges, which require a new form of communication that transcends nationalist and sectional limitations. The Vishwabandhu initiative, which focuses on civilisational dialogues aimed at equity and welfare for all human beings, is one such small but welcome response. Let us wish this venture all success!" Ravi Bhoothalingam, Founder and Chairman of Manas Advisory “Sending Greetings to the founders, writers, and readers of ‘Vishwabandhu Magazine’ as well as support for its success from Philadelphia, PA USA — where the grass is not greener on my side of the Pacific nor Atlantic. I join many other comrades in welcoming this new and sorely needed web magazine for the purposes of expressing Ideas, relaying the News, and providing Discourse on and about ‘things that matter.’ I know all who cherish Peace, Love, Freedom, Truth, and Humanity will support Vishwabandhu’s success.” Catherine Blunt, Educator and Community Activist — Member of the Saturday Free School  "I feel encouraged that young persons across the continents are getting together to start a journal ‘Vishwabandhu’. It should provide a platform for intercivilisational dialogue. We are passing through critical times. In the midst of active hostilities, nuclear superpowers are referring to nuclear options in a casual way. That was not the case only thirty years ago. All international dialogue for reducing the nuclear arsenal stands suspended for decades. The UN looks like a helpless bystander. The real danger of climate-warming and the disastrous consequences that it is bringing in its train are sought to be fought within the systemic framework which has brought them about in the first place. Globalization, which has accelerated the existential threat to the survival of the planet, has exposed the double-talk: it only means seamless integration of markets across political and geographical divisions. Humanity has little place in it. Dialectics of history has produced a challenge to the system from within. The unipolarity is being challenged, although the nature of this challenge and the alternative system that it will shape into is not clear. For the alternative to emerge, the vast masses of people affected adversely have to make a beginning. The social, political and economic struggles they are waging at the nation - state level need to be set in a planetary context. The objective clearly is not merely survival of humanity and its cooperative co- existence with nature. It should be to assure dignity and full opportunities for self- development to every individual. The task is difficult as it is inspiring. That it has acquired a sense of immediacy casts a special responsibility on the youth. The task calls for a creative approach where struggles hone the analysis and analysis helps sharpen the struggles. The first requirement is that we rise above narrow bounds. Intercivilisational dialogue that "Vishwabandhu" aims at is a right first step, a timely initiative. I would be glad to associate myself with it and contribute my mite." In Solidarity, S.P. Shukla, former Finance Secretary and Ex-Ambassador to GATT, India.  "I feel honoured to be invited to send a message on the launching of the journal Vishwabandhu, inspired by thoughts and writings of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois. His name had become familiar in the early 20th century to many Indians both in South Africa and India through, among other sources, Indian Opinion, M.K. Gandhi's South Africa-based journal.
Dr. Du Bois, the United States-based pioneer of the Pan-African movement, who would later spend his days in Ghana, was an outstanding scholar and man of courage whose ideas illumined both his age and ours. He wielded vast intellectual influence especially over activists against racial prejudice, advancing the cause of human equality and dignity. Gandhi's personal contacts among leading African-American personalities included Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois. He had been repeatedly referred to in Gandhi‘s Indian Opinion in South Africa. In 1911 Indian Opinion carried laudatory references to Dr. Du Bois and his contribution. Gandhi, for his part, had been referred to in the pages of Dr. Du Bois‘ journal, Crisis, since at least the early nineteen twenties. Leading Indians and African-Americans kept themselves abreast of developments in each other's lands instancing, in a way, the implicit civilisational unity that both Dr. Du Bois and Gandhi would come to be associated with. For example, Dr. Du Bois and the Harlem radical Hubert Harrison had condemned the events surrounding the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, India, which occurred in April 1919. Dr. Du Bois' journal, Crisis, was the New York-based organ of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In March 1922, the month in which Gandhi was to be arrested, Crisis carried a five-page long appreciative article on Gandhi. The Crisis article referred to the massacre in Amritsar in 1919 and set out in detail the content of Gandhi‘s non-cooperation and boycott movement. Crisis went on to observe that an "... outstanding factor in Mr Gandhi‘s program is the idea and practice of non-violence or passive resistance. Like the principle of non-co-operation, it kills without striking its adversary."[1]. Years later, writing in 1957, Dr. Du Bois was to recall that "(w)ith the First World War came my first knowledge of Gandhi" [2]. Referring to the NAACP, Dr DuBois wrote, "I remember the discussion we had on inviting Gandhi to visit America and how we were forced to conclude that this land was not civilized enough to receive a coloured man as an honoured guest." Gandhi sent Dr. Du Bois a "love message" for Crisis on May 1, 1929. In the 1940s Dr DuBois made a reference to Gandhi‘s fast in jail in February-March 1943, which is "setting four hundred millions of men aquiver and may yet rock the world" while suggesting that such methods would probably not work in the West. At the beginning of 1945, Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois criticised the British colonial tendency repeatedly to detain leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. Syed Mahmud [3]. Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois referred to Gandhi in the context of resolving racial conflict especially in the American South, "If we .... solve our antithesis; great Gandhi lives again. If we cannot civilise the South, or will not even try, we continue in contradiction and riddle." [4]. He wrote that it may well be that real human equality and brotherhood in the United States will come only under the leadership of another Gandhi [5]. I am sure that the new publication initiative being started in the last week of August 2022, which while marking the death anniversary of Dr. Du Bois, is informed by his ideals, would meet the expectations of its inspired movers." Anil Nauriya, New Delhi, 27 August 2022 Anil Naurya is a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India, a historian and writer. [1] 'Gandhi and India', Crisis, New York, March 1922 [2] W. E. B. Du Bois, Gandhi Marg, Bombay, July 1957, Vol 1, Number 3, p.175 [3] W. E. B. Du Bois, Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1945, p. 32 [4] W. E. B. Du Bois, 'Will the Great Gandhi Live Again?', National Guardian, February 11, 1957, in David Levering Lewis (ed.), W E B DuBois: A Reader, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1995, p. 360 [5] W. E. B. Du Bois, Gandhi Marg, Bombay, July 1957, Vol 1, Number 3, p.177
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Anthony Monteiro  This essay is my initial effort to theorize a revolutionary synthesis of V.I. Lenin’s and W.E.B. Du Bois’ theorizing of paths to revolutionary democracy and socialism. This synthesis might be a theoretical guide for understanding a Fourth American Revolution. A revolution which builds upon the Third American Revolution, what is generally called the Civil Rights Movement. My central assumption is that a new qualitative level of theory is called for in this moment of crisis and what could become a new stage in the struggle for democracy and socialism. The United States of America is in what might be the most profound crisis of its history. The nation is divided in ways never seen. Polling data show 80% of Americans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction; 60% say the government is corrupt and does not represent them and 25% say they would support using arms to change the government. Most Americans disapprove of President Joe Biden's performance in office and less than 25% support his administration’s economic policies. The approval of the US Congress is below 20%. Few Americans trust politicians, government, the media, the courts, universities, or elites. The nation is becoming ungovernable. Gun violence has taken over major cities. The US population feels unsafe. Many socialists have abandoned revolutionary theory and become reformist linked to the Democratic Party. Some have retreated into sectarian debates about Marxism, the Russian revolution and other matters. Others claiming to advance the struggle against racism and for Black equality nihilistically trash the American revolution arguing that fascism was coded into America’s political DNA from the very outset. Claiming that the American Revolution was a counterrevolution, to uphold slavery, that the civil war was but another episode of a racist and ultimately fascist nation. Putting aside the logic of the many arguments about the past, these claims are about the present and the future. What they are saying is that there is no future for the American people. It justifies joining the ruling elites and the Democratic Party. They preach pessimism and nihilism. It continues a trend begun in the 1980’s where academics and public intellectuals abandoned working people. Most of the Left in the US is an anti-working-class extension of the US ruling class. Hence, their anti-capitalist protests are but a veil to hide their actual essence as apologists for the rule of neoliberal authoritarian elite. The theorists of these claims in turn say that the political, intellectual and financial elites are the most progressive and anti-racist part of the white population. They disparage every call for the unity of working people. It is argued that a US civil war is imminent. Some say we’re in a pre revolutionary situation. Most of the Left cannot figure out a way out of the crisis. Most of have written the working people off, claiming they don’t have the moral or political capacity to transform the crisis into a struggle for democracy and working people’s rights. However, this moment cries out for revolutionary theory which fits this moment. Such theory must accurately account for specificities of US history and the political and moral capacity of its people. It must address the logic of the formation of the US ruling class and the working class and the formation and history of the US state. A Dark and Tragic Landscape Most Americans are either unemployed, underemployed, poor, homeless or ill housed, hungry or ill-fed, uneducated or poorly educated, drug addicted, mentally or physically ill, and imprisoned. Life expectancy is in dramatic decline and suicides reach historic levels. Stranded populations of young, mainly white people, exist on precarious islands of drug addiction and homelessness, encamped in deindustrialized urban neighborhoods. Children and teenagers are experimenting with and becoming addicted to lethal drugs. Many overdose on them. Suicide has become a life choice for thousands of children and teenagers as an answer to overwhelming social and personal crises. Fear grips the people, forcing many to retreat from society and the struggle for change. Children and youth are in the deepest distress. They have been abandoned by our society that is driven insane by greed, the worship of obscene wealth, extreme materialism and war. For tens of millions of children and youth life is a long cold winter. This social, economic and political situation is unsustainable. For most Americans this is a dark and tragic landscape. The nation prepares itself for a great catastrophe. A Great Revolutionary Rupture and Leninism The greatest revolutionary rupture of modernity was the Russian Revolution. The great theorist of that revolution and perhaps of modernity was V.I. Lenin. The theory of the Russian Revolution is undoubtedly Leninism. Lenin proposed against most revolutionaries of his time that imperialism could break at its weakest link, rather than its core, and that Russia could be the vanguard of the world socialist revolution and the first seizure of state power by the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry. Lenin bent philosophy, history, theory and science to one aim, revolutionary struggle for power. However, the logic of the Russian Revolution must always be scientifically understood. What we learn from the Russian Revolution must be creatively and scientifically applied to other revolutionary processes, especially in the United States. For revolutionary theory to advance it is necessary to scientifically study the US, its history and the capacities of its people. In this respect the Du Boisian body of work is crucial. He produced works that are a foundation for revolutionary thinking and practice in the 21st century. They are among the most important works in US and modern intellectual history. Among them are, Black Reconstruction in America, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward An Autobiography of a Race Concept, Color and Democracy, The World and Africa, In Battle for Peace and Russia and America. They can be viewed as a single whole, with an integrity and commonality, and a single-minded commitment to revolutionary change. They evidence a revolutionary historiography, as well as epistemological and philosophical ruptures and relocations and a radical and creative sociology. He called Karl Marx the most important modern philosopher. He made no bones that much of his research considered Marx’s scientific discoveries. Du Bois, thus, creatively synthesizes Marxism, scientific socialism and investigations of America and world civilizations. His sociological and historical research introduces experimental methodological apparatuses. His sociological innovations are his way of getting at very difficult to discover truths. He deploys logics in unusual ways, seeking laws of social development and what he calls “uncaused causes.” He bends and revises Marxian assumptions geared exclusively to Europe; and explains how race, class and civilizational questions must be addressed if we are to understand the forward trajectory of history to socialism and communism. Du Bois’ oeuvre is, arguably, the most significant body of revolutionary thought produced in America. His thinking and research occurred in a time when the US had become the major capitalist nation, in the end, with an imperial and military reach that surpassed any of the previous imperialist nations. Let’s recall Lenin theorized from what Marx had discovered but applied it to a new capitalist epoch—the epoch of imperialism and finance capital—and to what was considered a “backward” nation. Du Bois was doing something similar, though not the same; he was applying Marxian conclusions to the imperialist epoch of capitalism but when the US was becoming the dominant capitalist nation. Du Bois, therefore, had to consider the conditions and grounds for democratic and revolutionary struggle in the US. While the arc of his work bends to this one aim, his Black Reconstruction in America is perhaps the work which best crystalizes his thinking on revolutionary change. Du Bois considered this work more than a historical description or mere explanation of past events, but as a scientific work that probed the patterns and laws of America’s social development and its potential for revolutionary change. It is a study of race and class, but in the end, it is a study of the class struggle in the US. As a scientific innovation Black Reconstruction stands alongside Marx’ Das Kapital and Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. It advances new science and new theory. Du Bois provides a body of research and theory that adds to and advances existing revolutionary theory, especially as it applies to the US. Du Boisian Sociology and Revolutionary Theory Du Bois was forced to develop science and theory that would address the burning questions of US history and especially where Black folk, the enslaved proletariat, stood in relation to the proletariat in general and the movement of American history. Du Bois like Lenin saw history as critical for any social understanding. History informs and contextualizes political and ideological events. However, Du Bois is a founder of modern sociology. Rather than privileging political economy, as Marx and Lenin did, Du Bois sees sociology to be the critical social science for understanding human complexity and human action. Du Bois’ sociology is multi methodological. Epistemologically he was a scientific materialist, believing there is an objective world and there is truth. It is as he said the study of man, but a study of humanity in all its complexities. Hence, while Du Bois asserts the importance of laws of society, he insists that alongside laws there is chance. Chance reflects the uniquely human, the unpredictable and possible in human behavior. In this respect, sociology provides a richer framework for understanding human beings than does political economy and its laws of economic behavior. As articulated by Du Bois sociology better explains race and racial oppression and its effects. It can better explain the relationships segments, groups and individuals in the working class, the function of race and racism with developed capitalist societies and the relationships between workers and other classes. Du Boisian sociology more accurately explains racial separation and oppression. The racial separation creates specific conditions of class and class struggle in the United States. Throughout his sociology Du Bois is always considering the capacities of people to act purposefully in order to change society. His sociological methods are always asking the question, “What is possible”, “What are human beings capable of”. In this regard his sociology has a dynamism to it, rather than static numbers counting. Most striking is his notion of double consciousness that is a social quality of Black people in the US. He asserts that Black people see the world in twos, through the lens of blackness and alternatively through the lens of the white world. This twoness impacts class consciousness among Black and white workers. Black Reconstruction consciously seeks to explain the laws of revolutionary change in the US. He uses the Civil War and Reconstruction as the concrete period of struggle. He starts Black Reconstruction with the chapter “The Black Worker”. From an explanatory standpoint, the Black worker is a sociological and historical category. It is a category of analysis and a concrete reality of American social geography. The explanatory category, the Black worker, suggests that the trajectory of the class struggle in the US is unavoidably connected to racial separation, racial identities and racial and class consciousness. The Black worker as conceived by Du Bois is specific and perhaps unique to American history. Furthermore, the Black worker is not just workers who are physical “black”, but a historically constituted part of the working class, who as slaves were an enslaved proletariat. Black workers thus have a specific history, but are part of the general history of the US working class. This social scientific category is necessary to explain American history, the class struggle as well as the struggles for democracy and Black civil and legal rights. However, to elevate this category to the level of a universal concrete Du Bois had to sociological study it in all its concreteness and manifestations. He concludes, after extended investigation, that much of the future of democracy and revolution in the US would pivot on the Black worker. It seems perfectly clear that a theory of the revolutionary and democratic struggles in the US can not avoid Du Bois’ sociological and historical innovations. His scientific discoveries are tied to his methods of doing social science which are connected to his sociology. His methods of empirical research, from which he gathers data and sociological facts, such as the actuality of racial separation, double consciousness, and the central role of the Black worker to the class struggle, are necessary to understanding class and race and the class struggle in the US. Du Bois’ sociological methods give us ways of seeing and explaining concrete conditions of working people and especially of Black folk. When applied to actual struggle Du Bois’ sociological methods gives a clearer understanding of working people than does political economy. Political economy explains large structures of economic and material production and reproduction of economic and class relationships. It fails to explain actual human beings, their limits and potentialities and the possibilities of human action. In other words, sociology better explains the complexities of the human factor in the processes of social change. Du Bois bends social science, as sociology, to the human in all its complexities and manifestations. His research and theorization present a more accurate understanding of the potential of social change. Du Bois on Civilization and Paths to Communism Du Bois’ writing on democracy, socialism and communism clarifies many of the aims of his sociology and historiography. In 1961 before leaving for Ghana to restart work on his Encyclopedia of Africa and to live his final days, he joined the Communist Party of the United States, declaring, “I believe in communism.” The father of Pan Africanism, the towering theorist of race, a vanguard in the anticolonial struggle, was, as importantly, one of the great theorists of communism. For the final forty years of his life, he theorized and rethought possible paths to socialism and communism. After a month in the Soviet Union in 1926 he wrote “If what I’ve seen is Bolshevism, I am a Bolshevik.” In an extraordinary conclusion Du Bois insisted that Asia and Africa’s advances to socialism and communism would grow the global economy and widen opportunities for all workers throughout the world. He inverts the idea that Europe would lift Africa and Asia. In an unpublished manuscript Russia and America, Du Bois applies his historical and sociological methods to understanding the concrete possibilities of communism as a social system. It is a defense of socialism in the Soviet Union, a theorization of the possibilities of socialism becoming a world system, replacing world capitalism, and socialist globalization coming through Asia and how the probable path to communism would witness an Asian leap through the centuries. However, the transitions from socio-economic backwardness to socialism and finally communism would require social scientific knowledge and sophisticated planning. All of this would bring forth a new epoch, a new world socio-economic system and new human civilizations. The prerequisites for communism were, he theorized, more readily grounded in the values of Asian and African civilizations, especially ones that had had socialist revolutions and established the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat. Du Bois thought creatively about questions such as forms of state power, including the dictatorship of the proletariat and the state of the entire people and what is today called the civilization state. He thought in new, unprecedented ways, about a new type of communism, (“a different kind of communism”) based on a new way of thinking, and forms of state power and people’s democracy rooted in Asian civilizational values. He creatively synthesized several modalities of social scientific, philosophical and historical investigation; comparing civilizations and their capacity to achieve communism. These interrogations have meaning in the 21st century; a century where Asia is overtaking the West and the US is confronted with domestic political instability and a rising crisis of government and bourgeois class rule. He saw the Russian Revolution in civilizational terms and as essentially Asian. He viewed it as the beginning of reclaiming the civilizations of the East as part of a march to communism, while the West on its own could only manage New Deal type social democracy. Hence, for the progressives and radicals in western nations their ultimate contribution to the forward march of human civilization was to fight for peace and against imperialist wars. The fight for peace is a form of mutuality and internationalism. Africa and Asia’s advances to socialism and communism, would create global circumstances for the working classes in the West to be pulled along by winds of revolutionary change coming from the East. The advances of the East create favorable conditions for revolutionary change in advanced capitalist nations. Du Bois and Lenin on Class Struggle and Civilization One of the towering accomplishments of Russia and America is Du Bois’ theorizing of the relationships between civilization, class struggle, socialism and communism. These issues are deeply important for the 21st century. The Russian Revolution became for Du Bois a concrete area of research in history and sociology. He studied the dictatorship of the proletariat as a form of people’s democracy and people’s defense of their revolutionary triumphs. Lenin, he said, is “one of the great men of this century” and a social scientist. “Lenin was not the sort of modern Sociologist, who boasted of his science, and did nothing to discover its laws.” Du Bois concludes “following Karl Marx, he saw the rhythm of history and determined to plan human life in accord with known knowledge” And therefore, “He studied not only the written word of history and economics, but the actual current deeds of living men.” He saw China, like the Soviet Union, as the nation where the same questions could be studied. Ruined by civil war, feudal relationships of production and foreign control, China, for him, remained indispensable to understanding the possibilities of communism. “Any attempt to explain the world, without giving China a place of extraordinary prominence is futile.” Speaking of a new socialist economic system in China after the Chinese Revolution, Du Bois says, “It would take a new way of thinking on Asiatic lines to work this out, but there would be a chance that out of India, out of Buddhism and Shintoism, out of age old virtues of Japan and China itself, to provide for this different kind of communism, a thing which so far all attempts at a socialistic state in Europe have failed to produce; that is a communism with its Asiatic stress on character, on goodness, on spirit, through family loyalty and affection might ward off Thermidor (counterrevolution -- AM); might stop the tendency of the Western socialistic state to freeze into bureaucracy.” He concludes, “It might through the philosophy of Gandhi and Tagore, of Japan and China really create a vast democracy into which the ruling dictatorship of the proletariat would fuse deliquesce: and thus, instead of socialism ever becoming a stark negation of freedom of thought and a tyranny of action and propaganda of science and art, it would expand to a great democracy of the spirit.” Critical to all of this is breaking the over-determination of capitalist laws of development over human social relations; they would be replaced with the laws of socialist development leading to communism and freedom. This, in Du Bois’ thinking, is the movement from Necessity to Freedom, from over-determination by the laws of capitalist development to full human actualization and the new human being. The great tragedy, however, for an emerging Pan Asian civilizational convergence, was that Japan “learned Western ways too soon and too well and turned from Asia to Europe.” Du Bois and Lenin on the Capacities of the Working CLass Du Bois’ and Lenin’s thinking intersects at a critical political/theoretical moment, i.e., could “backward” peoples leap to the vanguard of revolutionary struggle. For Lenin, could the “backward” Russian proletariat be the vanguard of world socialist revolution; for Du Bois could the Black proletariat lead the American working class and the democratic struggle and even build a democratic dictatorship of the Black proletariat in the US south after the US Civil War. Lenin answered that the small, relatively undeveloped and “backward” Russian proletariat could lead a socialist revolution. For his opponents in the powerful German Social Democratic Party and their followers throughout Europe, including Russia, the consensus was that Russia was too backward to either carry out a socialist revolution or hold on to it if they did. Lenin made a civilizational reposition of the Russian Revolution away from the European left and towards Asia. For Du Bois working class socialists like Eugene V Debs and others, understood class, class struggle and socialism in dogmatic and narrow ways. For him they did not understand the full scope and complexity of the class struggle, nor its relationship to racial oppression and the Black worker. Du Bois invents a wider worldview than normally associated with US socialists; one that when looked at today shows a more accurate path to socialism. Could it be, given the claims about the backward US working class, that we are confronted with questions that Du Bois in Black Reconstruction in America and Lenin in the essay “Our Revolution” engaged? The evidence of academic and journalistic arguments is that the consensus view is that the US working class, especially white workers are irreversibly backward. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction presents a defense of the historical role of the Black proletariat against claims that it was backward and thus a threat to civilization. He showed that the black worker had the capacity to be the main force fighting against slavery. He says 500,000 of them participated in what was a general strike by putting down their tools, refusing to work and leaving the plantations. He also showed that 165,00 of them joined the Union army and against the South. His conclusion was that Black workers were in the vanguard of the fight for their freedom. During Reconstruction he argued that a democratic dictatorship of the Black proletariat was possible in several states of the South. Lenin under different circumstances makes a similar argument concerning the question, how could Russian workers bring about a socialist revolution and how without the European working class could they hold on to it. He says, “[B]ut what about a people that found itself in a revolutionary situation such as that created during the first imperialist war? Might it not, influenced by the hopelessness of its situation, fling itself into a struggle that would offer it at least some chance of securing conditions for the further development of civilization that were somewhat unusual.” And then asks, “why cannot we begin by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way.” Lenin’s and Du Bois’ argument is that a “backward” working class could through struggle and given a historic crisis such as world war, civil war or economic catastrophe make a qualitative leap and in so doing not only throw off the chains of oppression but create conditions for a new civilization and new human beings. This, despite the existential terror of daily life. Du Bois makes a similar argument concerning Black workers. They were, he insisted, “everything African” and “a civilization in potentiality”; he theorized a new civilization might emerge from their struggle for freedom. Though forced into “backwardness” by oppression, they could free themselves and create a new civilization in the US. That remains possible. Du Bois and Lenin argue against the gradual freeing of the “backward” people by more “advanced” and enlightened classes. The intensity and catastrophic character of a crisis can propel the “backward” to the vanguard of humanity. Both Du Bois and Lenin argue that in making revolution the “backward” start the process of making civilization. Showing that backwardness is not absolute. As to the claim that the US working class is “backward”; Du Bois and Lenin would respond, the “backward” often leap forward through centuries to become the vanguard. Moreover, the class struggle can be viewed as a fight for civilization, for a new civilization; in specific moments of systemic crisis the class struggle is more than the class struggle. Upon the shoulders of “backward” people rides the future of humanity. This is what Du Bois concluded about the slaves and Black folk after slavery; it is what Lenin concluded about the future of the Russian revolution. If a working-class left is to emerge it must attack the idea that the US working class is irredeemably backward. Conclusion Finally, even as we consider the necessity of a new revolutionary synthesis, I believe it fair to say the dynamic part of the synthesis, especially for this moment in US history, is Du Bois’ theorizing. His thinking clarifies the paths towards democracy and revolutionary change in the US. His thinking lays bare what are the conditions and possibilities of a Fourth American Revolution. The emergence of a new and revolutionary Left depends upon understanding the vital necessity of a new revolutionary synthesis; a DuBoisian Leninist synthesis. Anthony Monteiro is a Du Boisian scholar, long time activist in the struggle for Black liberation and founder of the Saturday Free School in Philadelphia.
Jahanzaib Choudhry The world has undergone great geopolitical shifts in the past year. The unipolar order, constituted after the end of the Cold War under the leadership of the U.S. is definitively reaching its end. The US ruling elite very consciously realizes the danger of their grip on the world loosening. This elite is simultaneously faced with an international challenge from rising powers such as Russia and China who seek a multipolar world, as well as a profound domestic crisis emerging from a strong populist movement among impoverished American working people who seek an end to neoliberalism and endless wars. Trump and the American Ruling Elite To understand the thinking of the American ruling elite, it is first necessary to evaluate the presidency of Donald Trump which ended two years ago. The intense propaganda against Trump has made an objective evaluation of his presidency almost impossible. Yet, to see the movement objectively and move away from a subjective evaluation of Trump’s personality is to realize it was a populist, if contradictory, movement against the policies of neoliberalism and endless wars. The movement was a result of the terrible conditions of the American people produced by decades of war and globalization. U.S. life expectancy has “fallen off a cliff”. Decades of de-industrialization have created poverty, inequality and jobs that people don’t want. A major aspect of Trump’s platform was to move towards peaceful co-existence with Russia and North Korea. Even those who criticized Trump viciously like Noam Chomsky have admitted that he was the only major U.S. statesman making a sensible proposal on diplomatic negotiations with Russia. Thus the anti-Trump movement saw a range of disparate forces including Wall Street Bankers, NGO Activists, the mainstream media and the intelligence agencies unite with the singular goal of ending the Trump presidency. The Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 have completely disappeared over the past two years, pointing to the fact that these protests were in fact anti-Trump protests and had little to do with black lives. Similarly Trump’s own administration, and generals opposed his agenda from within. Trump’s account was blocked by Twitter during the elections and other social media companies like Facebook openly worked against him. While the American media has painted these figures as heroes, the fact remains that these were unelected unaccountable and extremely powerful individuals blocking the actions of a democratically elected leader. The candidate chosen to oppose Trump was Joe Biden, who as Vice President in the Obama administration had personally spearheaded a regime change operation against the independent government of Ukraine in 2014. The media participated in an intense anti-Russia campaign including peddling fake conspiracy theories about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election and suppressed news of his son Hunter Biden’s use of his father’s office for illicit international business deals. American “progressives” openly talked about a color revolution to topple Trump. Furthemore, serious allegations of voter-fraud emerged. All of this created the conditions where more than 40% of voters doubt that American elections were free and fair in the world’s foremost democracy! These domestic conditions set the context for the war in Ukraine that was to emerge during the Biden presidency. War in Ukraine Even relatively mainstream U.S. commentators have pointed out that the war in Ukraine can only be blamed on the U.S. and its NATO allies. The western elite believed the Russian economy had become too self-sufficient and the Russian state too independent under the presidency of Vladimir Putin. Rebuffed by attempts to be treated as an equal by the West, including a failed bid for Russia itself to join NATO, Putin moved to renationalise key resources such as its massive oil and gas reserves, pay off Russia’s foreign debt, and build strong ties with China and other nations of the Third World. After the disastrous US regime changes in Iraq and Libya, Russia became a key proponent of international law and national sovereignty including sending military support at the request of President Bashar Al Assad to oppose the West’s regime change project against the Syrian government. Washington increasingly saw Putin’s Russia as an obstacle to unipolar dominance of the world. Biden’s foreign policy priority became to induct Ukraine as a member state of NATO, including placing nuclear weapons on its territory crossing a public redline for Moscow and adding the final nail in the coffin of the promise made by the US to Mikahil Gorbachev that no former Eastern Bloc nation would be inducted into NATO. It must be remembered that after the 2014 coup, the Ukrainian government took an extreme anti-Russian turn and banned the Russian language, unleashed Neo Nazi militia to attack Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine, and shelled the Russian speaking areas of its own territory leading to the deaths of over 14,000 people over the following years committing war crimes in the process. Further, even though Russians pushed for a diplomatic solution to resolve their dispute with the coup government via the Minsk Accords, the Ukrainian government refused to implement these accords. The Biden administration was fully cognizant of the result of its actions and deliberately continued to push Russia to a point where it took military action. Hence a media campaign was stirred up saying the Russians would “invade” Ukraine, ignoring the myriad ways US policy had produced the situation in which Russia would be left with no other choice. The media campaign also ignores the blatant hypocrisy of the US’s destructive invasions during the so called Global War on Terror, ongoing military occupation of places like Iraq, and more than 900 military bases worldwide including several in Russia’s bordering nations. Yet, seemingly the whole of the West united in condemning Russia's lone military action at its own border and in self-defense. Effects on the Third World In total contrast to the Western hyperbole on painting Russia as the world’s most criminal nation, the third world has been very quiet and refused to accept this narrative. A UN General Assembly resolution was moved by the United States to condemn Russia’s military operation. While much was made of the number of governments that supported the resolution, the fact is that many major states in Asia and Africa abstained from the resolution. All major countries of South Asia including India and Pakistan, many major countries in Africa including South Africa, Algeria, Angola and Senegal as well as East and South East Asian countries like China and Vietnam abstained. These same nations also refused to cut off economic ties with Russia, especially its crucial energy industry in the face of massive sanctions on Russia by the US. The process that started after the cold war of Russia looking towards the west has now reversed. Russia is now looking away from the west and looking towards Asia. Russia and China have started a strategy of cooperation without limits. Russia’s ties with Iran have also greatly strengthened, a fact that the U.S. State Department considers a “grave threat”. At the same time, Russia is trying to expand its market for selling energy beyond Europe. It has offered discounts and trade in native currencies to countries as a way to incentivize transactions in the Third World. India has been a major partner who has taken up this offer for discounted energy. Recently the BRICS International Forum president announced that India-Russia trade will exclude the dollar entirely. The Indian government’s refusal to comply with US sanctions has been met with open criticism and threats of retaliation from the US State Department. Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan openly alleges that his removal via a vote of no confidence was orchestrated by the US State Department to prevent signing of agreements with Russia and to downgrade Pakistan’s relations with China. In effect, a new axis is emerging around Russia, China and Iran away from the dominance of the west. The role of South Asia, especially India, will be crucial in the global geopolitical shift, as will be the role of Africa. Finally, it is important to consider that the world is considering going to a post-dollar world. The U.S. dollar is an effective planck of western dominance which it weaponizes through sanctions. Russian and Western Economies The unilateral sanctions imposed by the West were expected to cripple the Russian economy and bring it to its knees. To the contrary, they have revealed the strength of the Russian economy due to its energy reserves and strong industrial sector. Western sanctions have had a limited impact on Russian oil production. Since the Russian special military operation began in February and was met by US sanctions, the ruble has reached a 7 year high. The Economist recently admitted that sanctions against Russia were not working. Putin’s domestic popularity has increased and is at a high 80%. In stark contrast, the US has seen perhaps the greatest fall in living standards in a single year in living memory. Inflation is at a record high as are prices for many essential items including fuel and food. Supply chain issues are leading to shortages. Massive amounts of money were printed since the pandemic, first to support corporations during Covid lockdowns then to fund the Ukrainian government’s war efforts. Biden continues to heavily weaponize and fund Ukraine. Biden’s approval rating is at 33% a record low for a president only in his second year in office. Recent polls show a majority of even his own party’s voters do not want him to run for reelection. The situation in Western Europe is even worse. German inflation has hit a 50 year high. Though Western Europe is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas, it is under immense pressure to reduce its intake due to US sanctions. Major European economies are facing severe economic contradictions due to following US sanctions. With Russia indefinitely suspending the Nordstream pipeline, the coming winter will see massive price rises for heating, likely leading to major unrest among the European populace. All of this points to a western ruling elite in crisis that is confronting intense discontent at home and an emerging multipolar world order globally. Furthermore, they are facing an economic crisis which may be even worse than the 2008 recession. Vladimir Putin in his speeches has started becoming more and more explicit. In recent speeches in St. Petersburg in June and Moscow in August Putin has castigated the US for think it was “God’s messenger on Earth” after the end of the Cold War and criticized the “neocolonial” mentality of “globalist elites” for not respecting the sovereign rights of various nation’s choosing their own paths to development. A bloc of non-Western powers led by Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Syria among others is pushing for a changed world order that reflects the interests of the majority of mankind, not a select global elite. The west is painting this struggle as the struggle between “democracy” and “authoritarianism”. These states, however, are asserting the democratic right of a people to choose their own destiny. It will be very important for all third world nations to pay particular attention to these global processes and not be misled by western propaganda. The objective conditions in the world have created the possibility of fulfilling the vision of the processes emerging from the anti-colonial struggle and the Non-Aligned Movement. It will require ideological clarity to be able to move the peoples of the world in the direction of such a vision. Jahanzaib Choudhry is a graduate student at Carnegie Melon University and a member of the Saturday Free School.
Purba Chatterjee  The socialist ideal in India must reflect its unique objective conditions. India is the second most populous nation of the world, with vast diversity of religion, culture and language. Its economy is predominantly agrarian, and an overwhelming majority of its people live below the poverty line. Importantly, it is yet to recover from its long and brutal colonial past. As such, the essence of Indian socialism cannot be gleaned from a mere dogmatic reading of Marx, Engels and Lenin, nor can the Chinese or Soviet experiment be recreated in India. Insofar as socialism aims to uplift the workers and peasants and give them their rightful share in determining India’s destiny, any analysis of Indian socialism is incomplete without studying Gandhi, the great liberator of the Indian masses. Gandhi was the bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the Indian poor. As W.E.B Du Bois wrote in his review of Gandhi’s autobiography, “He studied Man. He travelled all over India and travelled in the dirty, crowded third-class so as to meet and know the masses. Probably no modern leader ever had so complete and intimate contact with and knowledge of the great mass of his fellows as Mohandas Gandhi. [1]” Gandhi’s vision of the modern Indian state was based on what he learned from his intimate engagement with the life worlds of the poor and working classes of India. While it is fashionable today to decry his views as puritanical, eccentric, and opposed to socialism, a careful study reveals that the essence of his beliefs carries the foundations of a socialist ideology that is specifically suited to the Indian context. For Gandhi, socialism underscored the ethical ideals of non-possession and service to humanity. Possession beyond one’s needs, especially when multitudes are deprived from even the humblest requirements, is akin to stealing. Every human being has an equal right to the basic needs of life and to a dignified and well-rounded existence. Every right an individual possesses however comes through the performance of duty--the duty of labour and service to his fellow human beings. It was Gandhi’s firm belief that enduring socialism could not be built by violent means. According to him, Bolshevism’s sanction of the use of force in expropriation of private property and maintaining state ownership of the same, foreshadowed its failure. However, he admired the tremendous courage of the Russian masses and their willingness to embrace great hardships for the sake of the noble Soviet experiment. He would write, “an ideal that is sanctified by the sacrifices of such master spirits as Lenin cannot go in vain: the noble example of their renunciation will be emblazoned forever and quicken and purify the ideal as time passes. [2]” Gandhi called for the destruction of capitalism without destroying the capitalist. The latter course of action would not benefit society. The wisdom of this becomes clear when we consider that an India impoverished by two centuries of colonial oppression, needed capital and industry to revitalise the economy and raise the living standards of its people. The struggle for freedom required a united front of capital and labour. Gandhi believed that the conflict of interest between the two could be resolved by the moral conversion of the possessing classes. He called on the wealthy to voluntarily become a trustee for the poor and place his surplus wealth at the disposal of the masses. The closest approximation of this ideal can be seen in present day China. In August 2021, President Xi Jinping declared that China had entered a new era whose guiding philosophy was common prosperity for all. This marks the end of the period of globalisation and market-based reforms that was adopted to bring forth rapid economic growth after the devastation of the cultural revolution. The current emphasis of the Chinese state is on increasing the earning potential of low-income groups, making regional development more homogeneous, revitalising the rural economy, promoting people-centred growth, and encouraging wealthy individuals and enterprises to return more of their earnings to society at large. The Chinese model demonstrates that a people’s socialist state can work towards a more equal society while coexisting with capitalists and enforcing a form of trusteeship of the rich. To Gandhi, the project of socialism was intimately linked to the task of raising the consciousness of the individual. This entailed furnishing the working class and peasantry with a substantive political education that allowed them to recognize their own dignity and worth to society. Just as capital is power, so too is labour, and only an enlightened worker would have the moral courage to stand up to those that tried to deprive him of the fruits of his labour. Gandhi believed that a revolution of values rooted in civilization was the basis for India’s freedom, not just from the economic exploitation of colonial rule, but also from the colonisation of the mind of Indians by western modernity. Civilization to him meant “that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. [3]” Western civilization prioritised material advancement over moral progress, held bodily welfare and comfort as the primary object of existence and enslaved humanity to money and decadence. It encouraged acquisitiveness, greed and conflict between men and between nations. In contrast, the emphasis of Indian civilization, according to Gandhi, was on the spiritual growth of man, the evolution of the human soul to higher ideals of truth and justice. “The supreme consideration is man”, he would assert, and in the moral transformation of the individual based on her ancient civilizational values lay the path to true progress for India. The centrality of the human being also formed the basis of Gandhi’s views on modern machinery. While not opposed to machines as such, he maintained that “The machine should not tend to make atrophied the limbs of men [4]”, whose development and well-being should be the primary concern of the industrial progress of any nation. He recognized that factories of mass production and imported machine made goods had taken away jobs from the working masses, and allowed a few to get rich on the backs of millions who were impoverished beyond sustenance. In a colonial economy, the profits accrued from modern machinery never found its way back to the worker, who laboured under dismal and often dangerous conditions for a mere pittance. The link between unemployment and poverty under colonial rule was painfully clear to Gandhi. He rejected the claim that the Indian working class was poor because it was ‘unskilled’, saying “It is my conviction that India is a house on fire because its manhood is being daily scorned, it is dying of hunger because it has no work to buy food with. Khulna is starving not because the people cannot work; but because they have no work. [5]” The path to India’s salvation, thus lay in rejecting the mad rush for mechanisation and instead developing her innumerable cottage industries, starting with the charkha. Gandhi wrote “A humanitarian industrial policy for India means to me a glorified revival of hand spinning, for through it alone can pauperism, which is blighting the lives of millions of human beings in their own cottages in this land, be immediately removed. [6]” To this he added the voluntary renunciation of foreign goods by every Indian as part of the struggle for freedom. On this question, Gandhi was opposed by Rabindranath Tagore [7], the great poet of India, who believed that given the low cost of imported cloth, asking people to buy local cloth amounted to seeking a lowering of their standard of living. Gandhi answered that the welfare of an individual could not be separated from that of his starving neighbour, who needed work. Rejecting the lure of foreign cloth would not just increase domestic employment, but also instil a sense of pride in Indians and reinforce feelings of community. Then as now, true India lived in her seven lakh villages, and Gandhi saw that the rural poor must form the foundation of her democratic ideal. The self-sufficient village community was the fundamental unit of the Independent Indian state envisioned by him. Each such unit was to be a complete republic - it would achieve food security, grow and spin cotton to clothe its inhabitants, have compulsory education for its children and maintain theatres, public halls and playgrounds for recreation and cultural enrichment of the people. All activities would be conducted on the co-operative basis, with every man and woman contributing their quota of manual labour and service to the collective. Inter-village relations would be based on non-competition and mutual cooperation, directed by the principles of ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (insistence on truth). The Indian state must not become a behemoth, Gandhi insisted, crushing under its weight the crores of peoples who constituted rural India. Instead, it must derive its authority from the village unit, in which the real power would be vested. He professed complete political and economic autonomy for each village, and with the village at its centre, Indian society was to be organised in “a series of ever widening circles, not one on top of the other, but all on the same plane so that there is none higher or lower than the other. [7]” Gandhi rejected the assumption that a return to village life was regressive and antithetical to the progress of humanity. He believed that the ideal village of his vision would produce a new kind of human being - intelligent, imbued with the spirit of service and sacrifice for the common weal, and modern in the sense of holding his own against anyone in the world. Assassinated in 1948, Gandhi did not live to see his ideal of the independent Indian state brought to fruition. Nehru, who Gandhi chose as his political successor, deeply respected his leadership and total identification with the masses. However, he differed with Gandhi’s vision for the independent Indian state, as a series of letters exchanged between themi in the late months of 1945 bring to light [8]. Nehru believed that India needed technical advancement and rapid mechanisation to meet the emergent needs of feeding and clothing its impoverished millions. He also did not see a purely rural economy to be in keeping with the modern world. Under his able leadership the Indian state made significant strides towards social justice for the Indian people and did much to uplift the depressed classes. Through planning, industrialization, land reforms and redistribution, and the nationalisation of banks, the foundation for a modern, sovereign state was built on the ruins of colonialism. However, in the last years of his life, Nehru began to recognize what Gandhi had foreseen - that the gains of industry and mechanisation had been slow to reach the rural poor. Speaking to parliament at the mid-term appraisal of the third five year plan, one of the very last speeches Nehru was ever to give, he said “I begin to think more and more of Mahatma Gandhi’s approach … however rapidly we advance in the machine age and we will do so—the fact remains that large numbers of our people are not touched and will not be touched by it for a considerable time. Some other method has to be evolved so that they become partners in production even though the production apparatus of theirs may not be efficient as compared to modem technique, but we must use that, otherwise it is wasted. That idea has to be borne in mind. We should think more of these very poor countrymen of ours and do something to improve their lot as quickly as we can. [9]” The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi provides for our times the example of a revolutionary leader who dedicated his life to achieving a deep understanding of his people and their aspirations. He studied Indian society and institutions with the sophisticated technique of a scientific sociologist. He believed that India had a duty to provide a radical alternative to a world groaning under the tyranny of what he called the “monster-God of materialism”. He was never dogmatic in his beliefs however, and his thought continuously evolved in step with the movement of the masses. Nevertheless, he asserted that the ideal had to be worked out in theory and then used as a guiding light, a yardstick for measuring progress. While progress towards the ideal could be slow, it was not acceptable to lose sight of the goal. Neither was it acceptable to dismiss the ideal as impossible or utopian, as that would be an insult to the infinite creativity and potential of humanity. Gandhi had prophesied that western civilization, unless it underwent a moral transformation, carried the seed of its own demise. Today we are seeing this come to pass, as the west grapples with one of the most profound social, political and economic crises humanity has ever seen. This is most visible in the U.S. where a minority elite, morally bankrupt and contemptuous of physical labour, lives in obscene decadence while the majority of American citizens struggle to make ends meet. Unemployment and poverty is at an all time high in American society, and its community and educational institutions lie in shambles. Capitalism and liberal democracy, which the west has tried to export, both face an existential threat as suffering workers rise in revolt against the ruling elite. Western advocates of socialism focus on narrow identity politics and promoting ‘wokeness’, instead of a serious attempt at restructuring society and the economy. Ironically, they take great pains to clarify that theirs is a ‘democratic’ socialism, as opposed to the ‘authoritarian’ socialism of Russia and China. They either cannot or do not care to examine why there are no respectable jobs for the working class, and why the people of the richest and most powerful nation in the world are so poor and degraded. They ask the worker to be satisfied with handouts and charity, robbing him of his dignity. In the final analysis, democratic socialists stand for neither democracy nor socialism, but for maintaining the status quo behind the smokescreen of a false moral superiority. Even more alarmingly, today the west is gearing up for a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, a ‘Great Reset’ that threatens to enslave humanity even further to machines and technology, and end human life as we know it. Increased automation, elimination of schools to make way for virtual education platforms, algorithm-based generation of news, and more sophisticated surveillance and biosecurity measures for state control over the people, are only a few of its long list of diabolical designs. The intention behind this anti-human ‘revolution’ is clear- it seeks to eliminate the working class altogether, create a world system that serves only the ultra-rich, and fundamentally alter what it means to be human and how human beings relate to one another. These are dark times. The crisis of the west is more than just economic and political, it is a crisis of values, of a moral grounding of society. The people of the world are clamouring for a way out, for restoration of their humanity. The workers of the world want jobs, they want to earn an honest living and live with dignity. They want to give their children a substantive education and a meaningful future. They have to be lifted from poverty and illiteracy and given their rightful share in the building and running of their societal institutions. It is our moral imperative today to break with western models of democracy and socialism, and redefine the ideological content of these institutions so that they once again serve humanity. For India, this is a time for introspection and searching. We must not allow ourselves to be ideologically subservient to the declining West. We must revisit the essence of Gandhi’s socialist vision, and creatively reinterpret it for our times. Socialism and democracy in India has to be a bottom up process, and derive its authority from the working masses. The humble Indian peasant who sustains us with his life-giving labour, is deserving of the highest respect and privilege in society. It is the betterment of his lot that is the task at hand for India today. The project of socialism calls not just for economic planning, but also a revolution of values from a thing-oriented to a people-oriented society. In undertaking the monumental task of building true socialism in India, let us remember Gandhi’s talisman “Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. [10]” References[1] Du Bois, W.E.B., Review of Gandhi's Autobiography [2] Gandhi, M. K. Navajivan, 21 Oct. 1928; Young India, 15 Nov. 1928 [3] Gandhi, M. K. Hind Swaraj, 1909 [4] Desai, Mahadev. ‘A Student’s Four Questions’, Young India, 13 Nov. 1924 [5] Gandhi, M. K. ‘The Great Sentinel’, The Mahatma and the Poet, 2005 [6] Gandhi, M.K. ‘A Student’s Questions’, Young India, 17 Dec. 1925 [7] Gandhi, M.K. The Hindu,1 Aug 1946; Harijan, 4 Aug. 1946 [8] Letters 39, 40, 41 in The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Vol. IV) : Selected Letters [9] Nehru, Jawaharlal. 207, Selected Works, Series 2, Vol 84 [10] Gandhi, M. K. Mahatma Gandhi - The Last Phase, Vol. II, 1958 Purba Chatterjee is a post doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Saturday Free School. She is also an organizer of the Year of the Freedom Struggle, an effort to commemorate India's 75th year of independence in Philadelphia.
Archishman Raju  Both China and India have experience of long yesterdays of our past history and in our subconscious selves we carry the memories of hundreds of generations with all that they have to teach, of joy and sorrow, of strength and weakness, of wisdom and folly. Our waters run deep. We are not froth and foam on the surface, which vanish when strong winds blow. So we shall pass from the ever-changing reality of today to the reality of tomorrow, when we shall hold our own again, not subject to the whims of others. In that reality to come, India and China will hold together This opening quote by Jawaharlal Nehru, written in the middle of the Second World War, serves as the inspiration for this article [1]. Despite the difficulties that have since then inflicted on the relationship of these two civilizations, Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision was essentially correct and is extremely relevant for the future. World relations have moved far beyond the times when Nehru wrote this statement. Today, China is competing with the West ideologically and technologically. It is offering a model of an alternative social and political system that does not have to bend to the Washington Consensus. By 2050, China and India are projected to be the world’s two largest economies. The relationship between these two countries is hugely important for the future of the world. Thus, to see what kind of new future the world will witness, we must not just examine the trajectory of these countries, but further provide a positive vision for the future. To see what kind of global order they will shape requires that we see their founding moments in the modern era, and assess the visions that shaped those moments. In 1949, Mao Zedong announced to the Chinese people, “I hereby declare the establishment of the People’s Republic of China”. One year later, India was declared to be a sovereign democratic republic by its leadership. Two new nations were coming into existence and had to decide the character of the state which would govern their people. They had both been the outcome of two long parallel but very distinct struggles, a non-violent revolution in India against British imperialism, and the struggle against Western domination and Japanese imperialism alongside a violent civil war in China. The struggle against imperialism in India and China and the founding of the modern state constituted two great experiments in society, which has perhaps no parallel in history. Both countries had extremely large populations, of about 340 million and 550 million respectively at that time. Further, they had to govern a large land-mass of several million square km, with China about three times bigger than India. They had old civilizations and old traditions which had faced a shock from the entry of western colonialism. The drain of wealth and de-industrialization combined had further created a reactionary local ruling elite which collaborated with imperialism. These two revolutionary movements were thus faced with an enormous task of reconstruction, 1) Building the Economy, 2) Uniting the Country while dealing with the contradictions within society and 3) Fighting External Threats coming from Neocolonialism. The leadership of both of these movements chose to construct a socialist state and society to combat these challenges. Faced with crushing poverty, they both aimed to create a society that was free of exploitation. To understand these two experiments, it is necessary to more fully theorize the transition to socialism. Some theoretical considerations must be taken into account to truly understand the nature of this transition in India and China. First, one must see these transitions as part of a break from the system of world imperialism. This requires theorizing and understanding the true nature of the world system that oppressed the people of India and China. For this, we must refer to W.E.B Du Bois and his idea of a color line. Du Bois most fully theorized the idea of a white supremacist world system [2]. Du Bois was a great admirer of both the new China and the Indian Independence Struggle. He saw these two experiments as breaks in the chain of this system. Second, the transition to socialism can not be seen in purely economic terms. It is necessary to consider it in political terms and to examine the role of the state and the nature of political power. Even in Lenin’s writings after the Russian Revolution e.g. in “Left-Wing Childishness” and “On Cooperation”, Lenin was concerned with upholding the state even if economic concessions to private ownership were made. The question is not simply what forms of the economy exist in a society, but rather whether political power lies with the people or not and whether the state is responsible to the people. Finally, one must see the transitions in India and China as consistent with their civilizational heritage. That is, the socialist state in India and China would be a modern but non-European state. This requires going beyond the ideas of European enlightenment including its radical wing. The idea of a modern state that is distinctly non-European in character terrifies the western world. It is nevertheless an idea whose time has come. Theorists like Alexander Dugin and Zhang Weiwei have been emphasizing the non-European character of Russian and Chinese society which is reflected in the nature of their state. In opposition, theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Amartya Sen have tried to find European enlightenment values in Asian traditions and oppose the idea of any distinctly Asian values. I hold the view that distinct civilizations must be taken into consideration but further one must struggle for inter-civilizational unity. Further, I hold that the anti-colonial struggle has a pre-eminent place in terms of our interpretation of this civilizational heritage. India offers a very clear example of that in the ideas of Gandhi and Tagore. Finally, I reject the western conception that India belongs with the west because it is a “democracy”. Instead, I argue that there are different paths to democracy and socialism, and there are commonalities in the challenges and processes that shaped the Indian and Chinese transition to socialism. On the surface, the political path that they chose was very different. However, to see the Chinese government as being based on the Soviet model and the Indian government to be based on the western democratic model is a very shallow reading. Both sets of people were trying to establish a modern state which was compatible with their own unique domestic condition. There were certain differences in the trajectory of Indian and Chinese societies that necessarily created differences in the form of the state, and in the kinds of challenges that they had to face. At the same time there were similarities in outlook as they struggled against common challenges. Every experiment faces challenges, it encounters difficulties and failures, but to ruminate on the faults is to miss the enormity of what was attempted, and the difficulties that stood in its way. Both states were the product of a century-long struggle for emancipation. Both states set out explicitly to create a socialist society as well as a new kind of democracy. Building Socialism: The Two Paths Much is made of the differences between India and China during the initial period of state building. These differences are amplified and stretched by western commentaries which see these two nations as fundamentally dissimilar. Yet, the first Indian ambassador to China, K. M. Panicker would note that New China represented the “culminating event of Asian resurgence”[3]. A comparison between the writings of Jawaharlal Nehru and the Chinese leadership in the years immediately following the creation of the new state and before Mao’s adventures reveal certain essential similarities in attitude towards the challenges the state faced. In 1950, Zhou Enlai would say that China’s “state-owned economy is still very small, and the private economy that is beneficial to the national economy and people’s livelihood has a certain positive role. It should be supported for its development.” [4] Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong in this early period put forward the idea of a slow transition to socialism, the need for constructing a new democracy, the need to discover a uniquely Chinese path to socialism and further the weaknesses in a society so bereft of capital and facing such extreme poverty. They emphasized land redistribution, the construction of cooperatives and the need for national planning. China decided to adopt a multi-party system with political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. They strove to develop a people’s democratic dictatorship. Jawaharlal Nehru came under intense criticism in India for not going fast enough. He ceaselessly tried to explain the need for a slow transition to socialism. He was, in principle, for nationalization of industry, but he repeatedly emphasized that the state did not have the capacity to handle all industries. Furthermore, he argued that fully nationalizing industry at an early stage would have inhibited the productive capacity of the nation, which it was so essential to build. Nevertheless, the Industrial Policies Resolution of 1956 laid down a series of key industries which would be state owned. One of the initiatives of the post-independence Indian state was the Planning Commission set up to constitute the Five Year Plans. To be able to plan in a society like India, it was first necessary to study it. It is for this reason that India established one of the world’s foremost statistical architectures to study society under the leadership of P. Mahalanobis. This remarkable attempt is little known but in fact was one of the first attempts to try to systematize the study of a former colony with the purpose of planning for its development. Zhou Enlai spoke with Mahalanobis on his visit to India and invited him to China. Subsequently, Mahalanobis visited China, lecturing and interacting with planners. In turn, several Chinese scholars visited India to understand the statistical method being used [5]. The Nagpur resolution of the Congress in 1959 put ceilings on land holdings and also heavily encouraged cooperatives in farming. The Indian government had been interested in implementing cooperative forms and had learnt from the Chinese experience in this regard. In 1957, an official Indian delegation visited China and closely observed the cooperative farming experience around the country. They made a very enthusiastic assessment of the success of Chinese cooperatives and laid down a set of recommendations for the formation of cooperatives in India [6]. India was a very diverse country which had been partitioned at independence. It constantly faced challenges of being divided based on linguistic or regional lines. China was a multi-ethnic country with a majority Han population but was also conscious of being divided along ethnic lines. Therefore, the constitution of India declares India to be a Union of States, not a Federation. Nevertheless, it gave a level of autonomy to the various states in its constitution. The Indian leadership worked out a unique solution to the contradiction of unity as well as diversity in the nation. The Chinese leadership also rejected the idea of a Federation instead choosing a people’s republic which would have multi-ethnic unity [4]. A necessary condition for building socialism was the question of peace. In this regard, the joint Panchsheel initiative that India and China came up with continues to be visionary. The five principles, mutual respect, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence did not just apply to India and China, but to international relations in general. As the two prime ministers said in their joint communique, “If these principles are applied not only between various countries but also in international relations generally, they would form a solid foundation for peace and security”[7]. These principles were later adopted at the Bandung conference and passed at the UN General Assembly. One should not underestimate the achievements in health, in literacy, in the building of scientific institutions and in the development of basic industries that were achieved in these two countries. Finally, the most important part of the building of a new society was the creation of a new man and a new woman. This was the golden age of culture when many of the great poets, writers and artists were created from the struggle and put forth the vision of a new human being. Difficulties and Challenges Both states however faced several challenges and difficulties in their initial experiments of socialism. Though much was achieved in India including the abolition of the zamindari system and implementation of a set of land reforms, the full land reform agenda was ultimately stalled. Similarly, despite the enthusiasm around cooperatives, elements of the Congress did not allow its implementation at the State level. Why could the Congress not fully implement its program? The first reason was the composition of the Congress itself which conducted various ideologically different wings in it, a fact that came to the fore after Jawaharlal Nehru’s death and the splitting of the Congress under Indira Gandhi. The second was the administrative apparatus, including the judiciary and the bureaucracy which did not support the program and actively opposed it in several cases. To this must be added the role of the media which was often heavily influenced by western commentaries and doomsday predictions about the country. These so-called pillars of democracy in fact often worked to actively inhibit true democracy in the country. The First Amendment to the Indian constitution and the debate between Jawaharlal Nehru and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee on the occasion is testimony to the difficulties the land reform agenda was encountering, and the need felt to curtail freedom of speech [8]. These contradictions played out even further during Indira Gandhi’s period. In China, on the other hand, there were attempts to accelerate the economic development of the country beyond what was possible. The resolution adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1981 evaluated the history of the 30 year period after the party took control of the state. After the party abandoned their initial line of a slow transition to socialism consistent with the objective nature of economic underdevelopment in the country and instead tried to subjectively accelerate development, it led to several errors “characterized by excessive targets, the issuing of arbitrary directions, boastfulness”. This led to Mao’s erroneous theory of continuing revolution and the near disastrous effects of the cultural revolution. The resolution of the eleventh central committee however holds the collective leadership to be responsible for these theoretical and practical mistakes, and particularly calls out “careerists like Lin Biao, Jiang Qin and Kang Sheng”. The resolution, in no uncertain terms, condemns Mao’s theses on the cultural revolution and calls it “entirely erroneous”. After the cultural revolution, the party had been reduced to such a weak state, that Deng Xiaoping was forced to make certain compromises to stabilize the party and continue its rule. India also faced several challenges from imperialist nations in this period, including the arming and development of Pakistan as a neocolonial hostile state at its borders, the weaponization of food aid, foreign-funded sectarian movements for balkanization. To this must be added, the assassinations of leadership which severely weakened the state. In this context, the India-China War must also be put down as an erroneous step initiated by Mao and must be understood alongside its erroneous foreign policy which supported reactionary forces in Chile, Bangladesh, Iran and Angola and aligned itself with the United States. Continuing and Completing the Old Vision Ultimately, however, to excessively harp on the difficulties of the post-colonial state is also to commit an error of not recognizing its achievements. The fall of the Soviet Union, along with two assassinations greatly accelerated the unraveling of the Indian state and it was forced into compromises with the West. Since then, that initial vision has not been fully recovered. However, to see these backward steps as a total destruction of the initial vision is itself reactionary and denies the achievements of the anti-colonial struggle and the effect it had on the Indian people. The world situation today carries distinct possibilities. The Chinese government has eradicated extreme poverty and is emphasizing the goal of “common prosperity”. The decoupling of the West with Russia, as well as its slower decoupling with China signals the creation of a new global economic system where the supremacy of the dollar will be broken. The Indian intelligentsia and ruling elite is at a cross-roads. Will it decide to align itself with the future, which belongs to the darker peoples of the world? Will it continue and complete the task of building a socialist society? Or will it continue its alignment with the Western “democracy” and imperialism. To commit oneself to the West at this time is to sink in pessimism and despair. To recognize the possibilities of Asia and Africa is to proceed with optimism, which derives from faith in the majority of the world’s people, and work out the trajectory of completing the vision of the anti-colonial struggle and the building of a socialist society with distinctly Indian characteristics. References [1] Nehru, Jawaharlal. Selected Works Series 1 Vol. 12 (December 1941-August 1942) [2] Monteiro, Anthony. "Time, Space and Race: On Clarence J. Munford's Race and Civilization." The Black Scholar 34.3 (2004): 53-65. [3] Panikkar, K.M. In two Chinas: memoirs of a diplomat. London, Allen, 1955. [4] Qian, Zheng. An Ideological History of the Communist Party of China Vol. 2, Royal Collins, 2020. [5] Ghosh, Arunabh. "Making It Count." Making It Count. Princeton University Press, 2020. [6] Patil, R. K., et al. Report of the Indian delegation to china on agrarian co-operatives. Planning commission, Government of India Press, New Delhi,, 1957. [7] Nehru, Jawaharlal, Selected Works Series 2 Vol 26 (June 1954-September 1954) [8] Singh, Tripurdaman, and Adeel Hussain. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India. HarperCollins UK, 2021. Archishman Raju is a contributor to and an editor of this journal.
Ram Mohan Rai  Fifth Non Aligned Summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka The decades of the 1960s and 1970s were tumultuous times for the history of South Asia. On the one hand, Jawaharlal Nehru’s policies were influenced by the Soviet Union but he also gave cognizance to his personal friendship with John F. Kennedy, the President of the US. The Cold War was at its peak. Pandit Nehru wanted good relations with India’s neighboring nations, especially China. His visit to China and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai's visit to India pushed forward a new mutual understanding in the region. On the world stage, India’s role as a leader of the policy of non-alignment and disarmament was widely appreciated. At the level of the Asian continent, the slogan of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai and the signing of the Panchsheel agreement by the leaders of India and China had added new dimensions to their friendship. However, this time was also defined by appearing divisions in the world communist movement. The situation reached a point where the two big Communist nations of the world, Soviet Union and China accused each other of being revisionists and expansionists. This split caused bitterness in world relationships to emerge. In 1962, the Indo-China War, caused by a border dispute, not only divided the World Communist movement into two parts, but also had a huge effect on the Communist Party of India. For the first time in World Communist History, the Communist Party of one country split into two because of disagreements on being pro-Soviet or pro-China. Not only did the communist movement split, but the war also caused the heightening of regional tension. This had a severely adverse impact on the enlightened personality of Pandit Nehru and ultimately on 27 May, 1964, this messenger of peace met his untimely end. After his death, one of the leaders of India’s freedom struggle and a close confidante of Pandit Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri took over the responsibility of the country. From the economic point of view, the country was especially weak in food production. At the same time, America wanted to increase its military influence in South Asia. The lack of resolution in the Kashmir issue was a big reason for the bitterness between India and Pakistan. This issue alongside America’s ambitions to increase its influence in this region led to the war between India and Pakistan in 1965. In reality, this war was part of the Cold War that was being fought at the world level. Pakistan’s military commander General Ayub Khan was desperate to remain in power and could not find a better excuse than war. Simultaneously, the Indian leadership was also relying on American weapons in the name of self-defense. The end result of war is only destruction and this effect could be seen in both the nations. This war caused both nations to start hoarding weapons in the name of security and fear and this began to be prioritized over fulfilling the basic needs of their citizens. Both nations spent a big part of their budget on weapons and the army. What could be a bigger tragedy for nations beset by hunger, disease and unemployment, that their energy was being used in accumulation of weapons rather than ending them. The Tahskent agreement was certainly able to bring about a temporary peace but the bitterness that was created then remains intact today, 58 years later. Even amidst these circumstances, conditions were created to see world peace, non-alignment in international relations and socialism as a national alternative. This was on the initiative of Pandit Nehru’s daughter and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by stopping privy purses of princes, nationalizing 14 banks and involving the state in the production and procurement of essential grains. The right wing faction of their party was very frustrated with her and expelled their own Prime Minister from their party. Indira Gandhi received overwhelming support from the people for her policies and she started the Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty) campaign. Her popularity among the people was at its peak and no political leader needs to concern themselves with anything more. India’s fame as a principled nation was also reaching new heights on the world stage. It was directly challenging American Imperialism and Chinese expansionism. Both countries were unhappy with India’s support of the Soviet Union. They wanted to force India to change its policies. India was surrounded from all four sides -- by China in the north, Pakistan both in the East and West, and by the Americans at the Diego Garcia military base to the south of Sri Lanka. There was thus an intense effort to weaken India. Pakistan’s general Yahya Khan’s military rule had crossed all limits of cruelty in the farthest part of their own nation, East-Pakistan (present day Bangladesh). Tired of their atrocities, about 1 crore Bangladeshi refugees had reached India. At such a time, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi toured several different nations asking for help but had to face disappointment everywhere. However, the Soviet Union not only helped India but both nations signed a treaty for 20 years of economic and military cooperation. After the Premier of the Soviet Union, Kosygin and Indira Gandhi signed this agreement, India not only defeated pro-American Pakistan in 1971 but also liberated East Pakistan and helped establish a democracy there. The rise of the newly emerging Bangladesh not only changed the geographic makeup of the Indian subcontinent but also established new political equations. 25 years after the establishment of Pakistan, for the first time a democratic government came into being under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This constitutional government declared Pakistan to be a sovereign, democratic and socialist nation. The Shimla agreement between the two nations of India and Pakistan also improved their bilateral relations. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman established the Socialist Republic of Bangladesh and vowed to make Bangladesh a principled neighboring friend of India. In that same year, in mid-term general elections, the Congress party came to power with a huge majority under the leadership of Indira Gandhi. No party had seen such a majority in Indian parliamentary history. Indira Gandhi gave concrete shape to her Garibi Hatao slogan through the 42nd amendment to the Indian constitution which declared India to be a democratic, secular, socialist republic. In the Island of Sri Lanka, far south of India, Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s party was also elected to power through their slogans of socialism. In the first few years of 1970, the entire Indian subcontinent was socialist, secular and democratic. The communist parties of all these countries played an important role in the establishment of the government and the direction of their policies. In 1968-70 itself, under the leadership of chairman S.A. Dange, the Communist Party of India provided guidance in policy to Indira Gandhi. Under the banner of shared policies, many of the party’s former leaders were made ministers and given important ministries. In Sri Lanka, The Communist Party made a Common Minimum Program with Bandaranaike and got an absolute majority by creating a broad front. It was in this time that she implemented progressive measures like land reform legislation, laws for urban development as well as the nationalization of tea plantations. In Pakistan, the Bhutto government ended the ban on the Communist Party who later joined with the People’s party to make national policies. His party announced the nationalization of heavy industries like steel, iron, cement etc. and also declared a new labor policy. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman expanded his party Awami League and merged with the Communist Party to form the Bangladesh Krishak Shrami Awami League (Bangladesh Peasant Worker People’s Party). Many Communist Party leaders were part of the government he instituted. His government also nationalized heavy industries and legislated land reforms. The mutual relations between these four countries in South Asia were at a high point. Bangladesh was first recognized by Bhutan, and then India, Soviet Union and other nations supported it fully. In 1974, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto himself visited Bangladesh and recognized it. He put forth a proposal of peace and friendship, forgetting past bitterness. In 1973, India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi went to Colombo and in 1974, Srilanka’s president Sirimavo Bandarnaike came along with President Tito as the chief guest to India’s Republic Day parade. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited again on the occasion of Sri Lanka hosting the non-aligned summit in 1976. This was a golden age for the Indian subcontinent and this was unacceptable to the reactionary imperialist forces. The then American President Nixon and Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger were so furious that they used disgraceful words for India Gandhi. The role of the intelligence agency, CIA, began to increase in this region at a frightening pace and the first victim of their actions was Prime Minister Sheikh Mujib when in 1975 he was killed along with his family in a military coup at his residence in Dhan Mandi, Dhaka. The second victim was Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto who was also removed from power through a military coup and then hanged in 1979 on trumped up charges of murder. India also saw a period of anarchy for a long time which ended in the 1984 brutal assasination of Indira Gandhi while she was Prime Minister. The changing circumstances also led to the downfall of the progressive government in Sri Lanka and the ensuing ethnic violence not only made several Sri Lankan leaders but also former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi its victim. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America seized the chance to bully and impose its unilateral policies. The business of loot and exploitation was and is being conducted under the name of liberalization, privatization and globalization. America’s former president George Bush’s statement, ‘You are either with us, or against us,’ led to the birth of a unipolar military, economic and political order. The chain started with Sri Lanka, then Pakistan was brought in line, and India and Bangladesh will not be able to escape this hegemony. Is it possible to prevent this? Is an alternative system possible? This question is for everyone and the answer remains to be found. Along with this is also the question of whether socialism has failed entirely, or it is merely the experiment of socialism in the Soviet Union which has failed. Ram Mohan Rai is General Secretary of the Gandhi Global Family, as well as a long time activist based in Panipat. He is also involved in initiatives such as the Agaaz-e-Dosti Yatra, the Association of Peoples of Asia and is the founder of the Nirmala Deshpande Sanstha. This article is translated from the original which is below. भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप में समाजवाद, धर्मनिरपेक्षता और लोकतंत्र राम मोहन राय सन 1960-70 के दशक दक्षिण एशिया के इतिहास के लिए बहुत ही उठल - पुथल के रहे। एक तरफ भारत में तत्कालीन प्रधानमंत्री प0 जवाहरलाल नेहरु की नीतियाँ बेशक सोवियत संघ से प्रभावित थी वहीं वे अमेरीकन राष्ट्रपति केनेडी से अपनी व्यक्तिगत मैत्री को भी तरजीह दे रहे थे। शीत युद्ध अपनी चरम सीमा पर था. प0 नेहरू अपने पड़ोसी देशों विशेषता चीन से भी अच्छे संबन्धों के आकांक्षी थे. इसीलिए उनकी चीन यात्रा और वहां के प्रधानमंत्री चाऊ एन लाई की भारत यात्रा ने इस पूरे क्षेत्र ने एक नए आपसी सम्बन्धों को विकसित करने का काम किया था। विश्व स्तर पर निशस्त्रीकरण एवं गुट निरपेक्ष आंदोलन के नेता के रूप मे भारत की भूमिका सर्वत्र प्रशंसनीय थी। एशिया के स्तर पर हिंदी-चीनी भाई भाई और दोनों देशों के नेताओं द्वारा पंचशील की नीति पर सहमति ने आपसी दोस्ती के नए आयाम प्रस्तुत किए थे। साथ-2 यह वह समय भी था जहां अंतर्राष्ट्रीय कम्युनिस्ट आंदोलन में दरारें भी सामने आने लगी थी। हालात यहां तक आ गए थे कि अब दुनियां के दो बड़े कम्युनिस्ट देश सोवियत संघ और चीन एक दूसरे को ही संशोधनवादी तथा विस्तारवादी कह कर आरोपित कर रहे थे। यही वह समय था जब आपसी रिश्तों में कटुता का समय आया।
सन 1962 में भारत-चीन सीमा विवाद के कारण छिङे युद्ध ने न केवल विश्व स्तर पर कम्युनिस्ट आंदोलन को दो हिस्सों में बांटा वही उसका एक बड़ा प्रभाव भारत के कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी पर भी पड़ा और विश्व कम्युनिस्ट इतिहास मे पहली बार एक देश में दो कम्युनिस्ट पार्टियां एक दूसरे को सोवियत समर्थक और चीन समर्थक के नाम पर पार्टी लाइन मे मतभेद की वज़ह से विभाजित हो गयी। न केवल कम्युनिस्ट आंदोलन पर वहीं युद्ध के कारण क्षेत्रीय तनाव में भी वृद्धि हुई। पंडित नेहरू जैसे उदात्त उजले व्यक्तित्व पर इसका गहरा विपरित असर पड़ा और अंततः 27 मई, 1964 को यह अमन का फ़रिश्ता इस दुनियां से ही कूच कर गया। उनकी मृत्यु के पश्चात देश को भारतीय राष्ट्रीय स्वतंत्रता आंदोलन के पुरोधा तथा पंडित नेहरू के अनन्य विश्वासपात्र श्री लाल बहादुर शास्त्री ने कार्य भार सम्भाला। देश आर्थिक दृष्टि से विशेष तौर पर खाद्यान्न उत्पादन में बेहद कमजोर था। दूसरी ओर अमेरीका दक्षिण एशिया में अपने सामरिक प्रभाव को बढ़ाना चाहता था। कश्मीर समस्या का निदान न होना भारत और पाकिस्तान के बीच कटुता की एक बङी वजह थी। एक तरफ य़ह समस्या और इसके साथ-साथ अमेरीका की इस क्षेत्र मे प्रभाव बढ़ाने की महत्वाकांक्षा ने सन 1965 के भारत और पाकिस्तान के बीच युद्ध को जन्म दिया। वास्तव मे यह लड़ाई उस शीत युद्ध का हिस्सा थी जो वैश्विक स्तर पर लङी जा रहीं थी। पाकिस्तान के सैनिक शासक जनरल अयूब खान अपनी सत्ता को बरकरार रखने के लिए युद्ध से अच्छा मौका नहीं ढूंढ पा रहे थे वहीं भारतीय नेतृत्व भी आत्मरक्षा के नाम पर अमेरिकन हथियारों से सुसज्जित था। युद्ध की परिणिति तो सिर्फ तबाही ही होती है और इसका असर भी दोनों देशों में देखने को मिला. यह ही वह बुनियाद रहीं की दोनों देशों में एक दूसरे से डर एवं सुरक्षा के नाम पर हथियारों की होड़ और जमाखोरी अपने नागरिको के रोजमर्रा की जरुरतों की अपेक्षा बड़ी हो गयी। दोनों देश अपने बजट का एक बड़ा हिस्सा हथियारों और फौज पर खर्च करने में जुटे थे। इससे बड़ी त्रासदी किसी भी भूख, बीमारी और बेकारी से घिरे देशों के लिए और क्या हो सकती है कि अब उनकी वरीयता इन्हें समाप्त करना न होकर हथियारों की होड़ में शामिल होना था। ताशकंद समझौता बेशक एक अस्थायी शांति का मसौदा तैयार कर पाया परंतु इन दो देशों के बीच जो कटुता पैदा हो गयी थी वह आज भी 58 वर्षो के बाद हूबहू बरकरार है। इन हालात के बीच से ही ऐसी परिस्थितियां पैदा हुई जिसमें विश्व शांति, गुटनिरपेक्षता को अंतर्राष्ट्रीय रूप मे एवं समाजवाद को राष्ट्रीय विकल्प में देखा जाने लगा। इसकी शुरुआत भारत में पंडित नेहरू की बेटी एवं तत्कालीन प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी ने पूर्व राजाओं के भत्ते बंद करके तथा 14 बैंकों के राष्ट्रीयकरण तथा आवश्यक खाद्यान्न नियमन कानून बना कर किया। उनकी पार्टी का दक्षिण पंथी धङा इससे बेहद परेशान रहा और उन्होंने अपनी ही पार्टी के प्रधानमंत्री को पार्टी से निष्कासित कर दिया। इंदिरा गांधी की नीतियों को व्यापक जन समर्थन मिला और उन्होंने देश में गरीबी हटाओ अभियान की शुरुआत की। उनकी लोकप्रियता शिखर पर थी और किसी भी राजनेता को इससे अधिक किसी भी वस्तु की जरुरत भी नही थी। वैश्विक स्तर पर भी भारत की ख्याति प्रखर होती जा रहीं थीं । वह सीधे तौर पर अमेरिकी साम्राज्यवाद और चीनी विस्तारवाद को चुनौती दे रहा था। दोनों देश भी भारत की सोवियत संघ समर्थक नीति से खुश नहीं थे। वे चाहते थे कि भारत को अपनी नीति बदलने के लिए मजबूर किया जाए । भारत की चारों तरफ से घेराबंदी की जा चुकी थी। एक तरफ चीन, दूसरी तरफ पाकिस्तान और नीचे श्रीलंका के पास डिएगो गारसीयाँ में फौजी अड्डा बना कर उसे कमजोर करने की भरपूर कोशिश थी। पाकिस्तान में जनरल याहया खान के फौजी शासन अपने ही दूसरे हिस्से पश्चिमी पाकिस्तान (वर्तमान बांग्लादेश) में क्रूरता की सभी सीमाएं लांघ चुका था। उन्हीं के अत्याचारों से तंग आकर लगभग एक करोड़ बांग्लादेशी शरणार्थी भारत प्रवेश कर चुके थे। ऐसे समय में तत्कालीन प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी ने मदद के लिए विभिन्न देशों का दौरा किया परंतु हर जगह निराशा ही हाथ लगी। इसके विपरीत सोवियत संघ ने न केवल मदद की पहल की बल्कि दोनों देशों ने 20 वर्षो के लिए आर्थिक तथा सैन्य मदद की एक संधि पर भी हस्ताक्षर किए। सोवियत संघ के तत्कालीन प्रधानमंत्री कोसीगिन तथा इंदिरा गांधी ने इस संधि पर हस्ताक्षर करके सन 1971 की भारत -पाक जंग में न केवल अमेरिका समर्थक पाकिस्तान को पराजित किया वहीं वहां सैनिक सत्ता से मुक्ति करवा एक लोकतांत्रिक पाकिस्तान की स्थापना में भी मदद की। नव नवोदित बांग्लादेश के उदय ने तो पूरे भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप की न केवल भौगोलिक संरचना को बदला वही नए राजनीतिक समीकरण भी वज़ूद में आए। पाकिस्तान की स्थापना के लगभग 25 वर्षों बाद पहली बार एक लोकतांत्रिक सरकार जुल्फिकार अली भुट्टो की अगुआई में वज़ूद आई। इस संविधानिक सरकार ने अपनी प्रस्तावना में पाकिस्तान को एक सार्वभौमिक, लोकतांत्रिक, समाजवादी गणराज्य बनाने की घोषणा की। दोनों देशों में सम्पन्न हुए शिमला समझोते ने इनके आपसी रिश्तों को भी बेहतर बनाने का काम किया। बांग्लादेश में भी बंग बंधु शेख मुजीब ने अपने देश को भारत का एक अच्छा पड़ोसी मित्र बनने का संकल्प कर अपने देश को सोशलिस्ट रिपब्लिक ऑफ बांग्लादेश की स्थापना की। सन 1971 के उसी काल में भारत में आम मध्यावधि चुनाव में इंदिरा गांधी के नेतृत्व में कांग्रेस पार्टी भारी बहुमत से सत्तारूढ़ हुई। भारतीय संसदीय इतिहास मे कभी भी पार्टी को इतना बहुमत नहीं मिला था। इंदिरा जी ने गरीबी हटाने के अपने संकल्प को मूर्त रूप देते हुए भारतीय संविधान में 42 वाँ संशोधन कर भारत को लोकतांत्रिक, धर्मनिरपेक्ष, समाजवादी गणराज्य की घोषणा की थी। भारत के सुदूर दक्षिण का समुद्र में द्वीप राष्ट्र श्रीलंका में भी श्री मावो भंडारनायके की पार्टी भी इन्हीं समाजवादी नारों व विश्वास के साथ सत्ता में स्थापित हो चुकी थी। 1970 के पहले वर्षो में पूरे भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप में समाजवाद, धर्मनिरपेक्ष और लोकतंत्र समर्थक सरकारें गठित हो चुकी थी।` इन सभी देशों की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टियों की सरकार गठन और नीति निर्धारण करने में अहम भूमिका रहीं थीं। वर्ष 1968-70 में ही भारतीय कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी के अध्यक्ष कामरेड ऐस ए डांगे के नेतृत्व में इंदिरा गांधी को भरपूर नीतिगत मार्गदर्शन प्रदान किया। पार्टी के कई पूर्व नेता एक नीति के अंतर्गत सरकार के अनेक मुख्य पदों पर बतौर मंत्री बनाये गये। श्रीलंका में कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी ने भंडार नायके के साथ न्यूनतम कार्यक्रम को आधार बना कर एक व्यापक मोर्चा बना कर चुनाव लड़ कर पूर्ण बहुमत प्राप्त किया। उनके इसी काल में भूमि का हदबंदी कानून, शहरी मकानों का एजेंसी कानून एवं चाय बागानों के राष्ट्रीयकरण के प्रगतिशील कार्य हुए । पाकिस्तान मे भी भुट्टो सरकार ने कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी पर से प्रतिबंध समाप्त किया और पार्टी ने उनकी पीपल्स पार्टी के साथ मिल कार्य योजनाएं बनाई। भारी उद्योग जिनमें इस्पात, लोहा, सीमेंट उद्योग शामिल थे का राष्ट्रीयकरण कर नई श्रम नीति की घोषणा की । बांग्लादेश में तो प्रधानमंत्री शेख मुजीब ने अपनी पार्टी आगामी लीग को विस्तार देते हुए वहां की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी के साथ मिलकर बांग्लादेश कृषक श्रमिक आवामी पार्टी की स्थापना की तथा अनेक पार्टी नेता उनके साथ सरकार गठन का हिस्सा रहे। उनकी सरकार ने भी भारी उद्योगों का राष्ट्रीयकरण कर भूमि सुधारों को लागू किया । इस दौरान दक्षिण एशिया के इन चारों देशों में आपसी सम्बंध पराकाष्ठा पर रहे । बांग्लादेश के निर्माण के बाद सर्व प्रथम भूटान ने उसे मान्यता दी उसके बाद ही भारत, सोवियत संघ और दूसरे देश आगे आए जबकि इन सभी देशों का पूर्ण समर्थन इसके साथ था । जून, 1974 में पाकिस्तान के तत्कालीन प्रधानमंत्री जुल्फिकार अली भुट्टो स्वयं बांग्लादेश गए और उन्हें मान्यता देते हुए विगत की कडुवाहत को भुलाते हुए अमन और दोस्ती का प्रस्ताव रखा । सन 1973 में भारत की प्रधानमन्त्री इंदिरा गांधी कोलंबो गयी और इसी तरह से सन 1974 के भारतीय गणतंत्र दिवस की परेड में मुख्य अतिथि के रूप मे श्रीलंका की प्रधानमंत्री श्रीमाओ भंडारनायके युगोस्लाविया के राष्ट्रपति टीटो के साथ भारत आयीं। श्रीलंका में सन 1976 में गुट निरपेक्ष सम्मेलन का आयोजन हुआ जिसमें प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी दोबारा वहां गयीं । भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप के लिए वह एक स्वर्णिम युग था परंतु ऐसा सब कुछ विकास विरोधी साम्राज्यवादी ताक़तों को कतई मंजूर नहीं था। तत्कालीन अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति व निक्सन और विदेशमंत्री हेनरी किसिंजर इतने बौखलाए कि उन्होंने इंदिरा गांधी के लिए बहुत ही निंदनीय अपशब्दों का प्रयोग किया। खुफिया एजेंसी सीआईए की भूमिका इस पूरे क्षेत्र मे खतरनाक ढंग से बढ़ने लगी और उनकी साजिशों का पहला शिकार बने बांग्लादेश के प्रधानमंत्री शेख मुजीब जब सन 1975 मे उन्हें उनके ढाका स्थित धान मंडी स्थित निवास पर एक सैनिक विद्रोह करवा परिवार सहित मरवा दिया गया। अगला शिकार पाकिस्तान के प्रधानमंत्री भुट्टो थे जिन्हें भी एक सैनिक विद्रोह करवा सत्ता से हटाया गया फिर हत्या के अनर्गल आरोप लगा कर सन 1979 मे फांसी पर लटका दिया गया। भारत मे भी अराजकता का माहौल एक लंबे अर्से तक चला और जिसकी परिणिति वर्ष 1984 में प्रधानमंत्री रहते इंदिरा गांधी की नृशंस हत्या थी। बदलते हालात में श्रीलंका में भी प्रगतिशील सरकार का पतन हुआ और फिर वहां की जातीय हिंसा ने न केवल श्रीलंका के अनेक नेताओं की अपितु भारत के पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री राजीव गांधी को भी अपना शिकार बनाया। सोवियत संघ के पतन के बाद तो अमेरिका की एकतरफ़ा दादागीरी को अपनी मनमानी नीतियां लागू करने का अवसर मिला है। उदारीकरण, निजीकरण और वैश्वीकरण के नाम पर लूट और शोषण का धन्धा पुरजोर है। अमेरिका के पूर्व राष्ट्रपति जॉर्ज बुश का कथन जो हमारे साथ नहीं है वह हमारा विरोधी है की धमकी ने एकतरफ़ा सामरिक, आर्थिक तथा राजनीतिक व्यवस्था को जन्म दिया है। श्रीलंका में शुरुआत हुई है, पाकिस्तान लाइन में है तथा बांग्लादेश और भारत बच नहीं पाएंगे. क्या इससे बचा जा सकेगा? क्या वैकल्पिक व्यवस्था सम्भव है? यह सवाल सबके है अभी जवाब खोजना बाकी है। यह भी सवाल है कि क्या सोवियत संघ में समाजवादी प्रयोग असफल हुआ है अथवा पूरा समाजवाद। |
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January 2025
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