third part
Post modern-opportunists and the communist party
Comrade Mao said that party is the most important and primary weapon which would wield the peoples
army and united front in order to liberate the people. He further said that party unity can be build only
with an ideological clarity. Comrade Mao said “Our Party will be better united on this basis, that is, on
the basis of our common understanding of ideology, politics and various policies.” Without ideological
centralism within the party there can not be a party to be called communist party. Such should be the
spirit of any organizer who wants to build a party. For a party organizer ideology should always come
first. A party organizer is the one who gives first preference to ideological work over all other work. In
context of our party, the work at ideological front have gained yet more importance. Because on one
hand we are facing the most severe deadliest assault on our party leadership while on the other hand the
opportunist-liquidation-revisionist elements are trying to turn the party into a meaningless organ
suitable for the ruling class. If we want to revive the party, if we want to liberate the oppressed and
exploited people from the murderous comprador feudal fascist onslaught then the only thing to cling
upon is M-L-M. We have to root out all the non-Marxist ideology and practices among us. If we cling
to our ideology then tomorrow if not today we will be victorious but if we for a moment became lazy
on the ideological front of our struggle then we will invite destruction of all that which our martyrs had
achieved through their bloods.
We have to remember that right opportunism is the main danger before us. Our CC-PB too had
recognized the right deviation as one of the reason for the setback. But some among the opportunist
section are parroting that left opportunism too is equally dangerous for the party. This emphasis on left
opportunism is basically a cover to hide their attack on the genuine Marxist line. For they have shifted
rightward to such an extent that correct Marxist path appears left to them. Regarding this comrade Mao
in an pamphlet titled ‘Things are beginning to change’ said “There are also a number of people whose
thinking errs on the side of revisionism or Right opportunism. They pose the bigger danger because
their ideas are a reflection of bourgeois ideology inside the Party, and because they yearn for bourgeois
liberalism, negate everything and are tied in a hundred and one ways to bourgeois intellectuals outside
the Party. Over the last few months, people have been criticizing dogmatism but have allowed
revisionism to go unchallenged. Dogmatism should be criticized, or else many mistakes cannot be
rectified. Now it’s time to direct our attention to criticizing revisionism.” Dogmatism is the reflection
of petty bourgeoisie ideology inside the party while the right opportunism is out and out bourgeoisie
ideology. Though left opportunism or dogmatic is dangerous and needs to be corrected immediately but
in the present condition when there is no left deviated political force in the country or at the world
level, its influence is minimal. The talk of left dogmatism comes up largely from the right opportunist
who wish to attack the correct Marxist line. The real enemy before us is the opportunist-liquidationist-
revisionist ideology. After having recognized the main danger, we must then mark its manifestation in
our party. The right opportunist trends/deviations finds their reflection in following manner:-
1. Attempt to make the party legal and open by deserting the ug life and the path of armed struggle
this they do by raising doubts on ug practice, they say that may be open work too is very
important and equally important to the ug work. They say that situation has changed, state has
become stronger therefore we must reflect seriously on our old form of work. (Here it is
important to note that they have neither said that one should desert the ug life nor have they said
that due to changed situation ug life and armed struggle is not possible)
2. Give importance to democracy at the cost of begetting the more important role of centralism in
the party method of democratic centralism. In the name of democracy they want to rob the
power of the higher committee to get the party line implemented at the local committee level.
They say that we will follow the HC but the HC should ask us before taking any decision
framing this as a pretext they will stop coordinating with the HC. They will swear on the name
of the martyred comrades that they are with the party and are only against the high handedness
of the HC. They say I follow the CC but the HC here is unfit to be followed.
3. They put more emphasis on the language, words, symbols, letters, inverted commas etc.. in
order to find the power gaps between the higher committee and the comrades/lower committees.
They say that the content wise the letter or whatever have been said is okay but the form of the
the language is highly problematic, that it is subjective, bureaucratic and authoritarian. Thus the
whole discussion is wished to be shifted toward the form of power in the language and the
bureaucracy inherent in it.
4. They despise any structure, they do not form a structure or if there is one then they deliberately
keep it authority-less and spineless by not linking it up with the HC. When confronted on this
question they say that when casually an issue can be resolved then what is the need for formal
meetings and reportings to the HC. They say that it is important to get the work done, structure
or no structure is a secondary aspect.
5. They oppose the party stand on gender and sexuality; they are for free love and free sex. They
are for sexual anarchism. They say that party's stand on sexual opportunism and LGBT question
is feudal and patriarchal.
After having noted the right opportunist positions on the above mentioned issues, now let us look at
what the post modern theoreticians have to say on these issues.
The first point which right opportunists raises has to do with the Butler`s idea of flux which she
borrowed from Foucault; many post modern theoreticians have written on this. Perhaps it is the
cornerstone of post modernism. Higher the mobility greater is the difficulty to locate the object, and
greater is the inability to define and fixate it. Such condition will weaken the concrete structure like
feature, it will create haphazard and randomness. The change for the post modern philosophy is always
a constant flux. It knows no stage and no leaps or bounds. Change means randomness and constant.
Driven by this logic of understanding a change, the right opportunist say that since the society has
changed the state has become more powerful we need to change accordingly and give up armed
struggle. This is an understanding based on randomness of change. This is what the idea of flux is in
Butler`s theory, change is a flow and is constant, but for a Maoist change comes from quantitative to
qualitative and that too through a stage and in leaps. All sorts of changes do not invite change in
strategy of Indian revolution. Mere quantitative change will not lead to qualitative shift in the society.
There has to be a leap. This leap is marked by stages. Without studying the leap and stage to keep on
parroting the change is nothing other than post modernist philosophy of change. One should not be
bewildered at the idea of change, any change what so ever has to be understood in terms of dialectical
and historical materialism which comrade Marx, comrade Lenin and comrade Mao had taught us; a
process will have stages in it, the study of these stages will determine the nature of the change and its
possible form and content in the future. Do these opportunists ever dared theorizing the leap and the
stage which they claim to have been reached by the society? No, they have not done any analysis to
back their claims all they have done is to be driven away by the wild influx of rubbish imperialist post-
modern philosophy.
The second issue has to do with the Foucauldian notion of power. Foucault said that power is inherently
oppressive and is everywhere. Hence in order to subvert the power any form of difference is celebrated.
This is usually in form of counter discourse, even though it may be illogical, baseless and meaningless
it has to be celebrated and uphold. Thus the right opportunist who do not accept the HC as an authority
for what so ever reason is actually driven by the Foucault logic that all power is inherently oppressive,
the comrades who instead of taking note of such indiscipline celebrates the difference of the right
opportunist with the HC are also driven by the same anti-authority trend, they believe that it is
progressive to subvert the power above oneself. The problem in this; is the anti authority concept that
comes directly from the post modern understanding on power. The claim that one accepts CC is
nominal because it is known that CC will not be the direct dealing organ hence the opportunist
language is used to masquerade the authority. In cases where CC became the direct dealing body these
opportunists claim that CC too has followed the path of HC or has become more rigid than the HC.
The philosophy of phenomenology and existentialism is the guiding light of our opportunists, they are
basically empiricist and struggles for radical bourgeoisie freedom and freedom to choose. Under the
pretext of being communist they struggle for bourgeoisie autonomy and right to practice one's political
line. Ultra democracy of the liberal bourgeoisie is radical freedom of the post modern era.
While the ultra democracy was the trait of anarchy, radical freedom is based on the concept of
subversion of power held within or without a structure. The subversion of the proletariat power is what
is intended when the right opportunist do not accept the authority of HC. But will this opportunist dare
subvert the feudal bourgeoisie power held by the state authority?
Post modernism has large impact in our society, as the middle class population rises so will the hold of
the post modernism on the masses. In post modernism the enemy has got its most efficient weapon.
Earlier their weapon was bourgeoisie welfarism but the magic stick which post modernism has waved
can not be done by any other ideology. The imperialist Neo-liberal world order needs mass
consumption. Mass consumption is facilitated by credit system and digitization of market economy.
This makes consumption more and more an individual exercise based on individual choice, individual
likes and dislikes. Post modernism has completely found itself in conjunction with the Neo-liberal
world order. The sort of fluidity and randomness which their in the finance capital market is in their
philosophy. The material condition of today's market promotes hyper-individualism. Individual is
provided private market spaces (in form of amazon, flip-kart etc..), private wish list, money limitation
is also tempted to be set aside when one is asked to take loan or use credit card or play games or
download an app etc… But behind this facade in actual practice nothing remains private, everything is
constructed by the logic of imperial capital and its neoliberal needs. The fiction of freedom and choice
drives the ideological machines of market. This fictitious freedom and right to choice finds
resemblance in politics too.
The materiality of right opportunist denial of the authority of HC rests in the digital market economy
which the imperialist finance capital has produced. This market creates a fiction of individual choice
and radical freedom but to the imagination of petty bourgeoisie the concept of democratic centralism
appears as slavery because this calls fro a commitment toward ideology and collective. Therefore they
start their attack on the centralist part of democratic centralism, they distort the concept of democratic
centralism to imply that democracy is the essence in this and has to be primary in all aspects and time.
They view centralism as a power and their concept of power is same as that of the Foucault who
believes that all sorts of power are inherently oppressive. Here it is important to be reminded of
comrade Mao's in the pamphlet titled Rectify the party style of work placed a concrete position on the
question Democratic Centralism, speaking against the independence seekers, he said “They do not
understand the Party’s system of democratic centralism; they do not realize that the Communist Party
not only needs democracy but needs centralization even more. They forget the system of democratic
centralism in which the minority is subordinate to the majority, the lower level to the higher level, the
part to the whole and the entire membership to the Central Committee. Chang Kuo-tao asserted his
“independence” of the Central Committee of the Party and as a result “asserted” himself into betraying
the Party and became a Kuomintang agent.”
Opportunist have a very shrewd logic of playing with the two aspects of a contradiction, this they have
done right from the days of Bernstein to Larin, Martov times and presently the likes of Devji,
Venugopal are mastering this in our context. They say that “any contradiction have two aspects in it;
therefore one must consider both these aspects and while reaching to a judgment on the development of
the object/process/phenomenon one must not privilege one aspect over the other.” Comrade Lenin
termed this ‘sitting on two stools’. Considering the text per-se to some it might appear correct but here
is the shrewdness which we were talking about, this shrewdness got sharpened by empiro-criticism that
denies objectivity and partisan position and at the present times it got even more entrenched in the
opportunist philosophy by the post-modern logic of the likes of Foucault, Derrida, Butler and others
who say that fixation and determination of the identity of an object is an exercise of discursive power
and is oppressive in nature hence the opportunist learn not to fixate the dominant aspect within a
contradiction. The above quotation of the opportunist denies the concept of identity and places us at the
randomness and fluid post modern imaginary world; it denies dialectical and historical materialism
process in development of a thing. For it is true that a contradiction will have two aspects in each but
what leads to development of the thing is the question that which among these two aspect is principal,
this is what comrade Mao termed the ‘principal aspect of principal contradiction’.
Comrade Mao said “In any contradiction the development of the contradictory aspects is uneven.
Sometimes they seem to be in equilibrium, which is however only temporary and relative, while
unevenness is basic. Of the two contradictory aspects, one must be principal and the other secondary.
The principal aspect is the one playing the leading role in the contradiction. The nature of a thing is
determined mainly by the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect which has gained the dominant
position”. The opportunists have drifted right from this line of philosophy, Martin Hidegger is their
teacher. It was he who said that being is nothing but an exercise in language. Derrida said that being is
a fiction which language has created. With this sort of understanding where is the room left for the
contradiction within a being, the development of stages in the process of developing the being.
After having discussed the philosophy of contradiction which the opportunist propounds now let us
come to the third issue before us, the question of language, signs, words etc.. Let us look at Lyotard, the
post modernist who says that language becomes the game where the person with more resource often
dictates the truth. Derrida says language is a tool to control and terms it violent hierarchy to come out
of this Derrida suggest deconstruction that is reading in the text what the author may or may not have
implied this he says can be done without inquiring about the intention of the writer because according
to Derrida the author is dead. This theory provided support to the opportunist politics.
They started deconstructing the language of the HC. Without caring to understand the intention/motive
behind the language they went after the symbolic expressions. This satisfies their opportunist needs.
None other than Foucault himself termed Derrida writing as “terrorist obscurantism.” Foucault said of
Derrida, “he writes so obscurely you can’t tell what he’s saying, that’s the obscurantism part, and then
when you criticize him, he can always say, “You didn't understand me; you’re an idiot.” That is the
terrorism part.” Derrida employs the oldest trick of Sophist school of philosophy. This explain the love
for Derrida in opportunist camp. Using Derrida one can subvert any logic and lead it to a meaningless
jugglery of words and symbols. Opportunist use this for their own end. They attack the correct political
line in the party through this weapon, they say that the language is dictatorial and hence content of
whatever is being said losses its meaning.
Since several of the communications with these opportunist happened to be through letters, some of our
comrades develop this understanding that the practice of letter writing had in fact complicated the
issue. They think that communication through letters created confusions and miscommunications which
can be settled only by personal meetings. Such an understanding too has some traits of post modernism
in it. The problem is not in the letters, for we all know that the history of communist movement
throughout the world has recorded the best use of letters to guide the movement and comrades involved
in it. The problem is in the political line of the opportunist, in the service of which they use post-
modern language to target the party's political line and leadership.
Another very serious issue which the opportunists of our time raises is on the question of structure.
Their stand on this is nothing but post structuralism in disguise of Marxism. Post structuralist believe
that in the traditional society power was centralized and arranged within the structure. The consider
structure as inherently powerful, exclusive and hence oppressive. Against which they plead individual
choice and radical freedom. Therefore they do not build any structure let alone attack them to
deconstruct it. When applied to communist practice we get opportunist who do not hold party meetings,
who do not form any new structures, who deliberately keeps structure amorphous. By this they ensure
that power does not get centralized inside the party structure and the only power which keeps on
centralizing and become ubiquitous will be the state power the ruling class power while the proletariat
power which is with the communist party is allowed to decay. What remains in place of the communist
party is an individual dictatorial stand, the bureaucracy vested in an individual without any
accountability or responsibility who claims to be all correct; in such a process an individual replaces
the collective. Thus we see how post modernism strengthen the bourgeoisie political line within
communist movement.
The last issue in this series has to do with theory on ‘gender’ and sexuality by post-modernists. The
famous slogan of the post modernist in this regard is “more sex more freedom”. Nothing explains their
stand more clearly than this. Post modernist particularly Foucault attacked the Victorian modern notion
of ‘gender’ and sexuality. He defined ‘gender’ as social construct later on another post modernist
known for the infamous queer theory held that ‘gender’ is a performance and it can take any shape
depending on personal experiences. The use of the word ‘gender’ instead of the biological word sex
was considered progressive. While the use of sex was considered biological determinism and
modernist. ‘Gender’ stood for the fluidity and randomness in post modern philosophical outlook, it
provided room to the Neo-liberal market logic. Changing gender according to the choice of an
individual became a common sense. Here too the focus was individual choice and radical freedom to
exercise it.
This explains why Butler keeps saying that one should always question ones gender identity, doubt it
and redefine it. Material reality was completely negated; what one is left with is fiction and abstraction.
The most critical aspect of post modernism is its attack on logic, rationality and reasoning while
simultaneously privileging emotions, feelings, desires and pleasures. Butler in troubling gender uses
the concept of queer to define anything that subvert the prevailing power matrix. The word queer is an
ambiguous term to place in it anything that the market can imagine or that can be bought in the market.
But some section of right opportunist have no problems with it. They consider queer theory as an
adjunct of Marxism. Many of the opportunist intellectuals like Hardt and Negri have started saying that
pleasure is the part of productive force and hence the definition of queer and the concept around it will
be a liberating concept for the productive forces. Such vulgarization of Marxism was never done
before. Perhaps never before was the hold of Marxism on the people was so weak as it is now.
Quite contrary to the prevailing post-modern understanding on sex and sexuality, our party held that the
word gender or queer is post modern imperialist sponsored pro market bourgeoisie concept and hence
must be opposed instead the word sex which in itself is used as a depiction for the biological as well as
the social aspects of sex should be used. Besides, it also held that sex change will be considered only
when there is some material biological conditions leading to the desire for sex change in the absence of
which the desire for sex change is basically a market driven imperialist sponsored post modern
ideological trends.(Considering the lack of a clinched position on the question of sex change our party
does not give permission to its member to change their sex but the position which we have just stated is
a general position for the the people and cadre alike, for this will remain our guiding principle even if
the right to change sex is granted by the CC). Besides this firm stand, the party moved ahead in its
struggle against imperialist anarchic sexual practices. It defined sexual opportunism. Sexual
opportunism was defined as opportunism in the field of sexual practices; sexual intercourse devoid of
proletarian ideology. A sexual opportunist is driven by spontaneous, petty bourgeoisie, imperialist
driven, post-modern logic of pleasure and joy. The post modernists intellectuals promote such sexual
practices while the opportunist clinches to such practices, for when the politics is twisted life's every
aspect follows the twist. And in every twist the ideology of post-modernism hold the opportunist.
United they march and united shall they fall. The post-modern opportunist have no place inside the
party of comrade Marx, comrade Lenin and comrade Mao's legacy. They have to be purged for the
party to revive its work.
Conclusion
Opportunism as a political trend/deviation/line inside a communist party is the reflection of the ruling
class ideology. It is more dangerous than the enemy's bullet and the method to root it out from our party
is active ideological struggle. We need to reconsider our thoughts on class struggle. Many of our
comrades had this illusion that armed struggle is the only form of class struggle. It is correct that armed
struggle is the highest form of class struggle but if we become liberal at ideological front and do not
consider the struggle at this front as part of class struggle then we are bond to lose the struggle at armed
front. No one knows this truth better than the ruling class therefore it is most active at the psychological
level. The ruling class in their desperation to attack the proletariat ideology has found a new weapon in
form of post-modernism. This is a weapon sharper than that of the empirio-criticism of 20th century. To
defeat it we need to sharpen our understanding on M-L-M. If we are able to locate the post-modern
trends within our party structures then we will weaken the opportunists and trends of opportunism.
Only active ideological class struggle will help us in this struggle to root out post modern opportunist
trends within the communist movement. The enemy is on a massive campaign to wipe us out both
physically and ideologically. At such times we remember comrade Lenin who said that “Against us,
against the tiny groups of socialists hidden in the expanses of the Russian ‘underground,’ there stands
the huge machine of a most powerful modern state that is exerting all its forces to crush socialism and
democracy. We are convinced that we shall, in the end, smash that police state, because all the sound
and developing sections of our society are in favor of democracy and socialism; but in order to conduct
a systematic struggle against the government, we must raise revolutionary organization, discipline, and
the technique of underground work to the highest degree of perfection.” These words of comrade Lenin
explain our central task at the present time, with firm conviction on M-L-M let us march ahead toward
the bright future before us.
the end
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