Obituary: Binay Sarkar (2025)

Obituary from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Binay Sarkar (24 January 1941 – 23 July 2024)

Binay Sarkar passed away 23 July 2024 in IRIS Hospital, Baghajatin, leaving behind a void that can never be filled. Born in Betalan, Bankura, West Bengal, to Dharmadas and Tarasundari Sarkar, he rose from humble beginnings to become a torch-bearer of knowledge, compassion, and courage.

He started his education at Kotulpur High School and later studied at Ramananda College, Bishnupur, where he eventually served as a Professor of Economics. His students remember him as not just a teacher but a guide who nurtured minds and inspired them to question the world.

Binay Sarkar had been a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) but left in the 1980s and was one of the founding members of the World Socialist Party of India (WSPI) in 1995. This dream was not born out of ambition but from his deep desire to awaken people. He wanted them to see a world where equality and justice could thrive. He spent his life spreading awareness about socialism. He urged everyone to understand the differences between Marxism and Leninism. He believed change was possible, even when only a handful stood with him.

He was a man of simple habits and profound thoughts. He loved books (and wrote a number as well as many articles) and spent his days trying to awaken people’s conscience. He wanted the world to understand that wealth and power were illusions, while kindness and fairness were the real treasures. Those who stood with him saw a man who never gave up on humanity, no matter how many times it disappointed him.

Binay Sarkar’s passing leaves behind more than memories. It leaves behind a mission. Those who stood with him, though few, carry his ideals in their hearts. His vision of a better world will not end with his death. Those who knew him will walk the path he showed and hold on to the hope he believed in.

To us, your fight is not over. We will carry it forward. You are not just missed; you are irreplaceable.

Abhishek Choudhury

Blogger's Note:

The accompanying picture is from when Binay Sarkar spoke at the SPGB's 1996 Summer School.

New Companion Party to be formed in India (1995)

Party News from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been in contact with a group of Socialists in India who will be holding a Conference in March at which they plan to form a companion Party of the World Socialist Movement.

We will be sending a delegation of two Socialist Party of Great Britain members to attend this Conference. Naturally, this will cost a sum of money. This is why we would like to make an appeal to any socialists who want to help spread socialist ideas in this part of the world to make a contribution towards the travel costs of this delegation. 

Please send any contributions (made payable to "The Socialist Party of Great Britain") indicating it is for this purpose, to:

The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.

Blogger's Note:

There was a report of that SPGB delegation to India in the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard.

SPGB July Events (2024)

Party News from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

SPGB Meetings (2024)

Party News from the January 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

To connect to a Zoom meeting, enter https://zoom.us/j/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on the screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

India (2003)

World Socialist Movement News from the October 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

In April a 15-page circular emanating from the e-mail address of the World Socialist Party (India) was sent to various people including ourselves. It contained various allegations against the Socialist Party of Great Britain and other parties in the World Socialist Movement, all based on the conspiracy theory that, with the end of the post-war boom in the early 1970s and the revolutionary possibilities this supposedly opened up, pro-capitalist elements had been infilitrated into the SPGB with the aim of diverting the working class, particularly in the non-European world, from learning about real socialism. The content and tone of the circular revealed that those who issued it did not have the same conception of internal party democracy as the other parties in the World Socialist Movement.

The SPGB Executive Committee sent a detailed and reasoned reply at the beginning of May, refuting the allegations and asking for them to be substantiated or withdrawn and for our reply to be put before the membership of the WSP (India). (For the full texts of the circular and our reply see, in particular, messages 2335 and 2441 at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/). No reply was received, and those responsible for the circular indicated through third-parties that none would be forthcoming. In these circumstances, at its meeting in September, the EC concluded that the people using the name and address of the WSP (India) had put themselves outside the WSM and called upon socialists in India, Including in particular expelled members of the old WSP (India), to reorganise themselves on a sound, democratic basis.

Blogger's Note:

I don't have the date immediately to hand but the World Socialist Party of India eventually rejoined the World Socialist Movement.

Appeal for funds for India (1998)

Party News from the June 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The World Socialist Party (India) is in the process of building a party headquarters in Calcutta.They need money to complete the building and also to equip it with office furniture, a computer, a fax machine and other modern methods of communication. The office is situated at 257 Baghajatin ‘E’ Block (East).Acharyya Prafulla Park, Calcutta 700086.

Donations can be sent via the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We will collect the money and forward it as a single sum so as to minimise bank charges.

Please send any donation to:

India Fund, Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Cheques should be made payable to: “The Socialist Party of Great Britain”.

Thank you in advance.

Party News (1998)

Party News from the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Former Pupil

When we reviewed The Long Johns by John Bird and John Fortune in the March 1997 Socialist Standard we mentioned that at one time political satirist John Bird had been a member of the Socialist Party. In a recent interview John Bird has himself once again confirmed this. Asked if his political consciousness had been awakened by meeting members of the ruling class at Cambridge University he replied:

"Actually. I was a member of something called the Socialist Party of Great Britain at school for a while. You had to pass an exam, you known. You could not just join" (Evening Standard, 3 December).

India

"GP: Letter 30/11/97 reporting about a scuffle with a Maoist fanatic in a train compartment wherein during a debate he commented that Lenin was an "imposter" in defining Socialism. The enraged Maoist attacked him but immediately resisted by other passengers”—Extract from Minutes of Executive Committee, World Socialist Party (India). 12 December 1997 Meeting.

George Watkins b. 1918 d. 1997

George came into contact with the SPNZ in the detention camp for conscientious objectors during WW2. There C.P. Furey was giving lessons in Marxian economics. The scientific socialism immediately appealed to George who joined the Wellington Branch of the SPNZ in 1950. Active in the party until his death, George convinced many of us of the case for socialism through his enthusiasm, patience, knowledge, writing and teaching abilities; his wonderful wit and humour bringing joy to our lives. George gained a tremendous boost and much hope for the future when the WSP (India) was formed and wrote many letters of encouragement to the Indian party. He will be sadly missed by wife Ngaire, family, and friends.

Donations to the Socialist Party

The Party’s ability to pursue its objectives, energetically and effectively, is prejudiced by lack of funds. We manage on shoestring budgets when, with more resources, we could accomplish so much more.

We invite members and sympathisers to donate money to the Party’s General Fund. Please send donations (cheques and postal orders made payable to "The Socialist Party of Great Britain") or, preferably take out a regular Standing Order in favour of the Party, by writing to the Treasurer, The Socialist Party. 52 Clapham High Street. London SW4 7UN, asking for details and a form.

SPGB Discord Meeting: Coronavirus and vaccination in India (2021)

Party News from the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party Discord Meeting

Coronavirus and vaccination in India

Speaker: Abhishek Chowdhury (WSP India)

Friday 4 June 19.30 (GMT + 1)

What has been happening in India? Have Socialists a position on whether or not workers should get vaccinated? Lively discussion welcome.

All Socialist Party meetings, talks and discussions are currently online on Discord. 

Please contact the Forum Administrator at spgb@worldsocialism.org for details on how to join.

Climate Versus Capital: The Juggernaught of Profit (2019)

From the November 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Climate: up against the ‘growth machine’ of capital

In late September the climate crisis was in the spotlight. Friday 20 September was the first Global Climate Strike, with four million taking to the streets in 185 countries (reported figures vary). Protests continued over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon our comrades in the World Socialist Party of India held a rally on College Square, Kolkata under the rousing slogan ‘Save the Planet, Share the Earth.’ Then on Monday 23 September the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York opened with the eloquent appeal of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, followed by speeches of so-called ‘world leaders’ (‘national leaders’ would be more accurate), including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. More ‘world leaders’ spoke the next day at the 74th debate of the UN General Assembly.

The ‘world leaders’ proved that Greta was not far off the mark when she told them: ‘All you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.’ Reporting from ‘inside the messy, desperate chaos of the UN Climate Summit,’ Jeff Dembicki complains that their speeches were ‘blandly inoffensive’ (vice.com, 24 September). None dared name or confront the ‘elephants in the room’ – the corporations (Exxon, Chevron, Shell, etc) that since 2018 have invested $50 billion in new fossil fuel expansion projects or the Koch brothers and other tycoons who fund propaganda ridiculing climate science and calling global warming a hoax. None so much as mentioned the urgent need to complete the transition to renewable energy and leave remaining deposits of fossil fuel in the ground.

Dimitri Lascaris of The Real News had the following to say about the speeches delivered on September 24:

  ‘I was in the UN General Assembly yesterday. I must have seen fifteen world leaders come up to the podium. And every single one of them without exception talked about their credentials as champions in the climate fight without mentioning any of the things that they’re doing to undermine the battle.The last person to speak, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was crowing about the fact that in 2028, a decade from now, they’re going to stop producing energy from lignite [brown coal] in Greece. What he didn’t say … and what the mainstream media are not talking about is that the Greek government is actively promoting offshore drilling in the Aegean Basin in the Eastern Mediterranean… Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also spoke… He was crowing about the number of trees they planted in Turkey, but he has deployed his navy near Cyprus in order to secure control over offshore oil deposits and begin drilling there… These leaders are talking out of both sides of their mouths (video, 25 September) .’

Talking out of both sides of the mouth – or ‘speaking with forked tongue’ – is an essential skill for the capitalist politician. You can hardly expect them to talk in the same way to the general public and to the capitalists whose interests they serve.

Painfully slow progress

Actual progress in the transition away from fossil fuels is painfully slow. With the aid of a good microscope you can detect it, but only if you focus on relative quantities. The proportion of the global power mix constituted by renewables (solar, wind, hydro) is about one quarter and inching upward, rising in 2018 by 0.8 of a percentage point to almost 26 percent. In Europe, the most advanced region, the proportion is 36 percent, in India, Japan, and the United States only 18 percent (all figures from the Global Energy Statistical Yearbook 2019, https://yearbook.enerdata.net).

In absolute terms, however, world output of all three fossil fuels is still rising. This is true even of coal: output seemed to peak in 2014, but is now again growing at the ‘modest’ annual rate of 1.3 percent, due in large part to expansion of production capacity in India and Indonesia.

As for oil and gas, a boom is currently in progress, led by the United States. US gas output ‘surged’ in 2018 by 11 percent, while world output rose by 5.2 percent, twice the historical trend. The boom is made possible by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – the notorious ‘fracking’ that if we live nearby destabilises our subsoil, poisons our drinking water, and shoots methane flames from our faucets. The filthy tar sands of Alberta, Canada are still being extracted, transported, and processed. And drilling for new deposits continues unabated at numerous locations throughout the world, from the Gulf of Mexico to the South China Sea.

Not just the fossil fuel corporations

It is right to emphasise the need to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. And yet this is by no means the only front in the struggle for human survival, nor are the fossil fuel corporations its only enemies.

Consider, for instance, the fires now burning through the forests that serve as our planet’s lungs – in Amazonia but also in other parts of Brazil and in Indonesia. These are not ‘wildfires’: there is good reason to suppose that they are set deliberately in order to clear the land for commercial activities. In Amazonia arson opens up land for the cultivation of soybeans, for cattle ranching, in certain places for mining. In the tourist area around Pinheira in southern Brazil a state park has been set aflame with a view to residential development on what is viewed as prime real estate (The Real News, 25 September). In Indonesia most forest fires are set in order to clear land for palm oil plantations. So capitalists in at least five distinct non-energy fields of profit-making enterprise are involved in laying waste these precious forests.

Or consider the melting of the Arctic ice cap. If we are to restore the planet’s climate system to a stable and livable equilibrium, then we must find ways to halt and reverse this process. Here again, however, capitalists in diverse fields of enterprise are salivating over the profit-making opportunities created by the melting of the ice – above all, shorter routes for shipping between Europe and Asia and extraction of many kinds of natural resources. In Greenland the retreat of the ice sheet has triggered a hunt for yet more coal, oil, and gas as well as for iron ore, nickel, aluminum, lead, zinc, molybdenum, niobium, tantalite, rare earth elements, gold, platinum, diamonds, other precious stones, and uranium (though the country’s parliament did block a uranium mining project near the capital of Nuuk).

Other forces standing in the way of effective action on climate are the military and the military-industrial complex. Neta Crawford, who teaches at Boston University, has analysed emissions of greenhouse gases by the US armed forces over the period 2001-2017. She found that the Pentagon is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions greater than those of many countries, including Portugal, Sweden, and Denmark. Weapons and military equipment use up enormous amounts of fuel. Aircraft are especially ‘thirsty,’ typically consuming 4-5 gallons per mile (not, be it noted, miles per gallon!).

Speaking of aircraft, even civilian air travel may have to be reduced, for the sake of the climate. That may not be welcome news to the capitalists who own airlines and aircraft manufacturing plants.

Up against the ‘growth machine’

These examples should suffice to show how broad a range of capitalist interests the struggle for human survival will have to confront and overcome. This is not to imply that effective climate action is against the profit-making interests of the whole of the capitalist class. Makers of solar panels and wind turbines obviously stand to benefit. And climate activists have had some success in winning managers of insurance companies over to their side.

It does not really matter to the executives of capitalist firms what they make, provided that they can sell it at a good profit. On the whole, however, they prefer to stick to the line of business to which they are accustomed and avoid incurring the costs of shifting to a new line. This is especially so in industries with vast amounts of sunk capital – that is, equipment that can only be used in the industry concerned. Coal, oil, and gas all fall into this category. 

In fighting for our survival as a species, we are ultimately up against the mindless and heartless ‘growth machine’ that has come to dominate our world. Socialists call this machine capital. Endless expansion is intrinsic to capital, which Marx defined as ‘self-expanding value.’ Capital is an inhuman and anti-human machine, even though it is human action that originally set it in motion, keeps it running, and will soon – let’s hope – bring it screeching to a halt.

Stefan

Road-map to Socialism (2017)

From the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

• ‘Win the battle of democracy’
• ‘Do away with private property’
• ‘Abolish the wages system altogether’
• Achieve abundance for all and inscribe on the banners:
• From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!

Capture parliaments by electing majority socialist MPs (actually Socialist delegates) mandated to pronounce: Annulment of all property and territorial rights whereby all that is on and in the Earth becomes the common heritage of the whole humanity.

• Socialists are not against persons, but against capitalism.
• Socialism has never and nowhere been tried at all.
• When it will be done, it will have to be established worldwide.

World socialism can be established only in a peaceful and democratic way, by means of collective understanding, numbers and organization of the working class. However, if any minority group obstructs initiation of socialism, socialists will be entitled to use force to counter it. But force does not necessarily mean violence. Working class force, or power, is born out of the union of knowledge based on the materialist conception of history and an independent organization of the working class. It is numbers, understanding and solidarity that constitute its real force. The working class is the majority – 95 percent of the population. It is only the working class who perform all work in capitalism. Therefore its power is not violent.

Winning elections does not weaken the argument for using this power, applying force, in the event of obstruction; rather it strengthens it. On the other hand,  applying force against an elected government, without taking the first step of declaring the legal defeat of capitalism through its own constitution, is not only futile, but also undermines the fact that it is the class-conscious working class that is the majority. 

To win the battle of democracy, after understanding what we are going to do, where the danger lies, what and why socialism, has a double advantage: (a) we can show that there is a majority for socialism by sending a majority of delegates (not merely representatives) to the parliament, and (b) in case there be any attempt from any corner to block this mandate, the socialist majority has the legitimacy to use other means. This tactic of social change via democratic means is free from violence and certain.

Arriving at the majority and, with it, instead of reforming capitalism and running its administration socialists will get set about its abolition; they will not accept any administrative posts of capitalist society before arriving at the position of its abolition. The task of socialist delegates is not to help run the capitalist governing process, but to incapacitate the process itself, to facilitate the abolition of capitalism by the immense majority of socialists. Because, socialists neither support nor oppose the reforms of capitalism. Their only and immediate aim is to establish socialism.

Without informed majority participation in order to reach at a democratic decision in the interest of all the conception of vote and democracy is meaningless. We need participatory democracy.

Socialists do not place any trust political leaders, since the existence of leaders means the existence of followers and both remaining drowned in political ignorance. Leader/follower relation is anti-democratic. Organization and leadership are not the same thing; there can be organization without leadership. Leadership is not necessary when an organization is democratic. The immense majority of people of society can create socialism consciously in their own interest and with their own initiative.

A socialist party does not require a leader, socialists are all equals.

The World Socialist Party has organization, but no leadership. This organization is carrying on political class struggle as a vigilant guard of one most appropriate and pertinent explanation first put forward by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904.

In Marxian conception ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ are synonymous. Marx and Engels  used the two terms alternatively to mean the same thing –  post-revolutionary participatory democratic socialist administration of things – affairs of life – in lieu of the   capitalist administration of men. In Marx’s view the principle of communism or socialism is: From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

• See: The World Socialist Party (India) INTRODUCTION.

New Pamphlet: The Road to Socialism (2018)

Pamphlet Review from the May 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Companion Party in India has just published a new pamphlet, History of Universal Suffrage: The case for turning universal suffrage into human emancipation.

These days it would be difficult to find any intelligent person in the developed world opposed to universal suffrage. However in nineteenth century Britain, universal suffrage (the right for all adults to vote in elections) did not exist. Extending the franchise (those allowed to vote) was opposed by notable Tory politicians including both Prime Ministers William Pitt the Younger and the Duke of Wellington (who quelled the Chartist rebellion), Edmund Burke, but also erstwhile Liberal Lord Palmerston.

This pamphlet is a wide-ranging overview of both the history of this and a socialist polemic making the case in favour of universal suffrage. There is a focus on Britain, but there are also chapters on universal suffrage in America and India and reference to suffrage in other countries around the world. Marx and Engels’ writings on the subject are excerpted too.

In 1831, out of a population in Britain of 24 million, only 478,000 were allowed to vote. Mainly these were landowners with property worth at least forty shillings rent a year, a law dating back four hundred years. Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester had no MPs, and electoral corruption was rife. Women could not vote on the same terms as men until 1928.

What prompted the franchise to be extended was not a benevolent change of heart, but rather the legacy of the French Revolution, events such as the Peterloo massacre and the popularity of the Chartist movement for electoral reform.

It is fair to say movement towards universal suffrage was welcomed by Friedrich Engels. Engels called it ‘one of the most powerful weapons, particularly in the sphere of organization and propaganda. Universal suffrage provides us with an excellent means of struggle’.

Engels however was careful to add a cautionary caveat ‘universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the present-day state; but that is sufficient. On the day the thermometer of universal suffrage registers boiling point among the workers, both they and the capitalists will know where they stand.’

Karl Marx regarded participation in parliamentary elections as imperative for socialist parties. He helped draft the programme adopted by the predecessor of, and retained by, the French Workers Party which included the statement: ‘such organization must be pursued by all the means which the proletariat has at its disposal, including universal suffrage, thus transformed from the instrument of trickery which it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation.’

It is also worth mentioning that in the US women did not achieve equal suffrage until 1920 and the experience of discrimination faced by African-Americans in relation to voting until 1965. In what is now the world’s biggest democracy, India, new property restrictions to voting were introduced in 1935 and universal suffrage achieved only in 1948. The pamphlet correctly observes that ‘our ruling class did not gift universal suffrage to us.’

The pamphlet is broad in scope and liberally peppered with useful quotes and references. Suffragettes were lightly covered and one Socialist Standard article that was not quoted was ‘Suffragette Humbug’ (June 1908, also appearing in Socialism or Your Money Back). It contained the excellent quote ‘The Socialist is in no quandary as to why the many are poor … Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to an end; and for us that end is Socialism. And were the workers to understand rightly their position and their policy, the political freedom they now possess would enable them to achieve their emancipation irrespective of sex.’

DJW

(To order a copy send a cheque for £4, postage included, made out to ‘The Socialist Party of Great Britain’ to Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN; or by Paypal to spgb@worldsocialism.org).

Three Days in Calcutta (1995)

Party News from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new party advocating world socialism was founded in Calcutta at the beginning of March when a previously existing organisation, the Marxist International Correspondence Circle, publishers of the Bengali-language Lal Pataka, adopted the principles of the World Socialism Movement and changed its name to the World Socialist Party (India). 

Two delegates from the Socialist Party of Great Britain were present at this conference. One of them, Richard Donnelly, gives his impressions.

The streets of Calcutta are alive with the harsh throb of poverty and desperation. To visit Calcutta for the first time is to experience the sharp pain of human helplessness in the face of such deprivation.

In Sealdah railway station families sleep on the concourse, counting themselves fortunate not to have to face the relentless onset of the monsoon that has to be endured by the pavement dwellers outside.

I have felt the unforgettable rage of seeing young women suckling their young on the pavements of these filthy streets, where dead dogs lie rotting in the sun and rats scamper in the rubbish heaps in competition with human beings.

It was amidst these awful scenes, where starving children follow you from street to street begging for a few coppers, that I arrived at Bankim Jatterjee Street for the inaugural meeting of the World Socialist Party (India).

There I heard young men speaking of threats of violence, of loss of jobs, hounding of their parents, and their pledge to work for World Socialism. It was the most crushing indictment that I have ever heard of the money-grubbing, self-aggrandisement of all reformist parties.

Truly, to have been in that hall was to be proud that you were part of a movement that said "To hell with reformism, we are dedicated to win this planet for World Socialism."

Those days, from 1 to 3 March, may not have been "three days that shook the world", but they have undeniably shaken the writer of these so inadequate words.

Richard Donnelly

News from India (1996)

Party News from the April 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our companion party in India, the World Socialist Party (India), founded last year, is as active as ever. They report that one of their members campaigning amongst agricultural workers at Bahalalpur (West Bengal) was attacked by local “Communist Party of India (Marxist)” thugs. He was punched and his wrist watch and a tape cassette of a socialist meeting were smashed. Such tapes are proving very popular and our Indian comrades are planning to produce and distribute more.

At its January meeting the Executive Committee of the WSP(I) passed a resolution condemning “the violent attack and intimidation inflicted on our political campaigns and comrades by ruffians, goons and hirelings of the CPI (M) and urges upon all who stand for democracy, especially belonging to the World Socialist Movement, to politically raise the voice of condemnation against any such violence anywhere, using whatever meagre democratic means they do have at their disposal”.

The so-called Communist Party of India (Marxist) is part of the government coalition in West Bengal State and its leader has been mentioned as a future possible Prime Minister of India should the Congress Party lose the next elections. Apparently, he has a reputation for not being dishonest. He personally may not have been involved in any financial scandals but his party spreads the lie that Russia used to be socialist and employs intimidation to maintain control of its clients, i.e those whose votes it tries to keep in return for minor personal favours. 

Visit from India (1996)

Party News from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Binay Sarkar, from the World Socialist Party (India) in Calcutta, visited Britain in July mainly to speak at the Socialist Party Summer School in Birmingham.

Speaking before an audience of 60 or so, he traced the origins of Marxism in Europe and of the anti-reformist but pro-electoral stance of the parties of the World Socialist Movement. He explained that the "Marxism” which spread to Asia after the First World War had not been genuine Marxism but Leninism; which meant that those there who called themselves Marxists thought that Marx really had stood for the formation of a minority, vanguard party to lead the workers and take power in their name, and they regarded the Bolshevik coup in Russia in November 1917 as a model socialist revolution and accepted Lenin’s theory of imperialism according to which the struggle in the world is not between workers and capitalists but between imperialist and anti-imperialist states. This was beginning to change slowly, with the growing realisation that not only had Russia and China been state capitalist but also that the Russian and Chinese Revolutions had been state capitalist revolutions; one sign of this was the emergence of the WSP (India) from people who had previously been in the Communist Party and in Left Communist groupings.

Comrade Sarkar spoke at other meetings in London and Manchester, on the results of the recent elections in India (no real change, even though there were now some "Communist” ministers) and on the development of capitalism in India (not doing very well). He also met members and sympathisers in Bolton, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

When he returned to India on 18 July after his successful speaking tour, he took with him a collection of books and pamphlets, gifts from the Socialist Party and members for their party library.

We take this opportunity to thank those who responded to our appeal and donated a total of £454, which made this tour possible.

Socialism in India (1995)

Pamphlet Review from the June 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Manifesto of the World Socialist Party (India)

This is the 14,000-word manifesto adopted by our companion party in India at its founding Conference in Calcutta in March. It sets out in clear terms the socialist analysis of the artificial scarcity of the profit system, the rise and fall of state capitalism in Russia and elsewhere, and why nationalism, religion and leadership are incompatible with socialist principles.

The manifesto begins by explaining the political route which the authors took before coming to adopt the principles and analyses of the World Socialist Movement. After leaving the Communist Party of India (Marxist)— the governing party in the Indian state of West Bengal for some years now—in 1982 the group eventually became part of the so-called “Left Communist milieu" who trace their origin back to those early members of the Communist International criticised by Lenin in his pamphlet Left Communism, An Infantile Disorder.

From 1989 on the group began to reject two key assumptions of this milieu. First, that “in 1917 the working class in Russia made a political revolution led by the Bolshevik Party" but which soon went off the rails and ended up as state capitalism due to the mistaken economic policies adopted by the Bolshevik leaders. Second, the need for a transition period "administered by workers' councils with labour vouchers". The Manifesto clearly expresses this rejection: the Bolshevik coup was not a workers' revolution of any kind and had nothing to do with socialism: "Bolshevism or Leninism is state capitalism and by definition all questions of Leninism are state capitalist".

Labour-time vouchers are rejected as being "a form of economic rationing with exchange" since inevitably such vouchers would begin to circulate and so become money, whereas socialism is a society of abundance in which there is no need for any general unit of account: "Abundance does not have a measure of measures. For us its only measure is satisfaction of needs." In fact, a long section is devoted to producing the statistical evidence to show that once the artificial scarcity and organised waste of capitalism are eliminated, enough food, clothing, housing and other material goods can be produced to allow every single person on the planet to live decently and for the implementation of the principle of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”.

The WSP (India) regards the Indian unions as not being genuine trade unions in that "unlike Europe and America, most of the big trade unions have been organised from above more as fundraising, vote-catching political subsidiaries of self-seeking 'leaders' than as spontaneous grass-root, independent and autonomous organisations of the working class to defend their economic interests". Because of this, and especially the fact that rival unions are linked to rival political parties and used to serve their ends, our Indian comrades say that Socialists in India cannot work within them but should instead seek to encourage workers to organise democratically outside them on the basis of regular general assemblies and recallable delegates. Since clearly they have a better knowledge of the situation in India then we do, we willingly defer to their judgment. In any event, the trade union question is one over which Socialists can, and do, have different views.

The Manifesto can be purchased from us at 52 Clapham High Street. London SW4 7UN (£1 post paid, cheques payable to "The Socialist Party of Great Britain"). It will also be available in Bengali, the world's sixth language. when supplies arrive from India.

News From India (2015)

From the October 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter sent to the Calcutta paper The Statesman.

In the evening of August 23 in the Sunday Discussion Meeting of our party, the World Socialist Party (India), we read with interest the Saturday Statesman, August 22, article ‘Relevance of Marx’ written by Professor Gargi Sengupta (see here). It is really heartening to note that a nineteenth century communist revolutionary, Karl Marx, is being revisited by the 21st century mainstream press to find answers to the present-day woes and worries. Hopefully, this signals the beginning of Marx’s media-ride in India too.

This happens because, as Marx and Engels themselves observed, ‘consciousness can sometimes appear further advanced than the contemporary empirical conditions, so that in the struggles of a later epoch one can refer to earlier theoreticians as authorities’ (The German Ideology). ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past’ wrote Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

In her appreciation in defence of Marx, Gargi Sengupta has rightly claimed that ‘Marxism enables us to understand the nature of the capitalist crisis,’ and also that ‘Marx believed that human development requires a cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of production.’

She has excellently pronounced, ‘The overall significance of religion may have declined, but the family, the schools, and the capitalist controlled mass media continue to brainwash the working class and prevent them from realizing their true destiny’.

Her observation: ‘From a global perspective, a class-based analysis is still relevant,’ holds up one of the basic principles of Marxism. She defends Marx for ‘making a very fundamental contribution’ whereby ‘He placed human beings and their conscious, purposive activity – human labour – at the centre of his analysis’ and also for a ‘unique contribution’ – the role of ‘class struggle’ in ‘human historical development’. She is right in pointing out that ‘Marx’s writings still evoke interest across the world. … Marx’s writings can throw light on the problems of our age’. Simply because, as Marx viewed, ‘The nature of capital remains the same in its developed as in its undeveloped form’; and ‘Production of surplus value is the absolute law of this mode of production’(Capital, Volume I).

Actually, Marx is more relevant today than ever before.

This said, I would like to comment on a couple of inaccuracies in Professor Sengupta's article. She says, ’Marx visualized the remedy in violent revolution followed by decades of civil and international warfare.’ This is a half-truth. True, in his early years Marx held a ’violent revolution’ view. However, eventually and finally he arrived at the following conclusion: ‘Proletariat – organized in a separate political party. That such organization must be pursued by all the means which the proletariat has at its disposal, including universal suffrage, thus transformed from the instrument of trickery, which it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation’ (written on about May 10, 1880, printed according to L'Egalité, no. 24, June 30, 1880, checked with the text of Le Précurseur).

Secondly, in portraying capitalism as only a ‘private enterprise’ system she has missed the yardstick of defining state capitalism – the defining characteristic of which is state ownership and control of the means of production and articles for distribution. As a result she is mistaken in recognizing the erstwhile so-called ‘communist’ dictatorial and despotic state capitalist regimes of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. How could there be ‘the eclipse of communism’ when communism (socialism the same) has nowhere and never been attempted at all? Just what happened in these countries was appropriately described in 1918 by Fitzgerald of the Socialist Party of Great Britain: ‘What justification is there, then, for terming the upheaval in Russia a Socialist Revolution? None whatever beyond the fact that the leaders in the November movement claim to be Marxian Socialists’ (Socialist Standard, August 1918).

Binay Sarkar

‘Bandh’ Strikes: Not the Answer (2015)

From the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

A statement on the one-day general strike tactic, commonly applied by political parties there, from the World Socialist Party of India.

In this era of capitalism's decadence the general strike (or ‘bandh’) for more reforms or mere protest is futile. It has lost its edge. Its usefulness has become ineffective vis-à-vis world level productive abundance. It is not the answer to the problems produced by the potential and from time to time actual ‘epidemic of overproduction’ (Communist Manifesto) that is prevalent today.

During its rising phase capitalism, i.e. the capital/wage labour relation, was spreading out by swallowing up antiquated pre-capitalist economic relations and transforming the feudal social classes into two great modern antagonist classes – the minority collective capitalist class vis-à-vis the majority collective working class – or as in recent parlance 1 percent vs. 99 percent. Feudal relations of production were giving way to the capitalist relations of production. The capitalist class got the working class to help them to accomplish their historic assignment of socio-economic and political change, which had been effectively accomplished by the beginning of the last century.

Until that juncture, despite ongoing exploitation and periodical economic crises – booms and slumps – the working class had benefited from some overall rise in real wages at the expense of profits in this phase. Thereafter, despite periodical rises in real wages in times of booms, their relative wage i.e. their share in the total global wealth they produce in relation to that of the capitalist class, has tended to fall. From then onwards the task of making history has become the exclusive responsibility of the working class, since the productive forces have outgrown the capitalist relations of production, signifying that the way of life under capitalism has grown old, antiquated, causing extreme inequality, harrowing austerity, unrelenting impoverishment, abysmal poverty and dehumanizing suffering for members of the great producer class. You cannot rejuvenate capitalism with its own rules, but can only understand it; it is anachronistic; it has become utterly reactionary; it has to be done away with lock stock and barrel; it has to be abandoned on the dumping ground of history.

The wasted century of Leninism

The working class, the class that has the power (pending unity) and the means (organisation and ballot) to change the world, has transiently lost their revolutionary vision and wisdom generally in the blind alley of Leninism, and in the quagmire of leftism. They have, for now, due mainly to the Leninist distraction, forgotten about the responsibility which history has conferred upon them. Leninism has been a deadly infectious blight over all revolutionary principles and messages of Marxism which declared: ‘the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class’ (Communist Manifesto). Leninism has utterly distorted the lessons of history and kept the working class under the servitude of capital in general and of all-powerful overweening dictatorships in particular. Up until now this class-collaborationist ‘vulgar socialism’ (state capitalism) has stolen over a century from genuine socialism’s life. As far as human freedom is concerned, a century has been lost.

So, now without further delay, the working class has to tear off the snare of Leninism- reformism, ruthlessly criticise and reject all reformist maneuvers as useless and organise world socialist parties and groups everywhere for self-emancipation and thereby the emancipation of the whole humanity from the clutch of the division into classes. The working class is the producer class; we produce, store and distribute everything needed to sustain society; we secure, defend, protect and run the society and the state. Then why should we beg anything from our exploiter and oppressor parasites who actually are takers, and not givers? We can get everything we need simply by taking possession of the entire affairs of life. We have to become class-conscious and united for socialism here and now. Why should we settle for anything less when abundance is knocking at the door? Abundance for all, that is socialism. However, the task of taking possession of abundance remains pending. Its historical taker – the working class is still lacking this revolutionary will. Hence decadence.

Unsold stocks

The all-round application of science and technology has created potential abundance and, from time to time, unsold overstocks at world level, on the one hand, and devastating unemployment on the other. Then goods remain unsold; means of production and machines remain idle, while work-hands remain jobless. This situation has become a regular problem for the global capitalist class. In their ultra-modern factories, farms and workplaces a continually decreasing number of workers are daily producing huge amounts of goods and services and adding to the already existing potential and actual plenty.

Under this circumstance a bandh can sometimes actually bring some relief for the capitalist class, by helping them to relinquish at least a part of their overstocking, and in two ways. Firstly, as the people have to live on during the strike period, when shops too are closed, they will require to buy and store food and all other necessaries for consumption whereby a part of the overstocking will be sold out before the strike begins; secondly, during the strike period production will remain suspended making no further addition to the stocks. Moreover, the daily wage workers, i.e. the lowest strata of the collective working class become hard hit owing to their loss of wages; they become more impoverished. Further, a bandh called by the leaders of some minority group, party or parties (as is often the case) boils down to an imposition on all, including those disinclined, hence is undemocratic. In addition, during the strike period people have to remain confined at homes due to absence of any transport, but the capitalist government bosses are at liberty to move about and deploy the armed forces as they deem necessary.

Beyond reformism

Therefore the working class has to raise their consciousness and organisation, beyond and above their ongoing conservative, defensive and reformist state, to revolutionary consciousness and organisation, breaking through the barriers of reformism. They ought ‘to win the battle of democracy’ (Communist Manifesto) through political class struggle. They ought to turn themselves from their present status as a class-in-itself into a revolutionary class-for-itself as an independent political party and peacefully and democratically seize political power state-wise and worldwide. They must self-organise and take decisive political action via universal suffrage, via ballots sending mandated and re-callable MPs as socialist delegates to the parliaments to make the one historical declaration: annulment of all property and territorial rights and all that is on and in the Earth will become the common heritage of the whole humanity.

The basis of the society that Marx envisaged as going to replace capitalism will be: ‘an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common’ (chapter 1 of Capital); ‘a co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production’ (Critique of the Gotha Programme); ‘abolition of private property’, ‘the Communistic abolition of buying and selling’, ‘the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production’ (Communist Manifesto); and ‘abolition of the wages system’ (Value, Price and Profit). In short, a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless, leaderless society based on the common ownership of the means of production and articles for distribution.

Binay Sarkar