The CPI/M

Guys, let's cut these old men some slack. These middle-class, academic Bengali do-gooders meant well. Marxism was the bomb when they were in college, can you really blame them for knowing Das Kapital by heart? And they had a social conscience: while firmly middle-class, they decided to work for the interests of the rural landless - and land reform has succeeded to a degree in West Bengal. While we spent our college-life thinking about how to be more cool, these guys actually spent it in creating a political revolution. Kudos to you, old men!

I really have a lot of respect for these men. They are solid, decent men. But there is more, of course. There is saying in Europe, "If you are not a Communist at 20, you have no heart. If you are a Communist at 30, you have no head." While I won't say these fish-eating men have no head, I will say they have been stubborn in not admitting the experiment of Communism has not off well in Bengal.

Now, I am no capitalist pig, I believe in many ideals of Communism: in social equality, in having a egalitarian society, and working towards a classless society. And if I had to enlist in a political party in West Bengal today, I would enlist in the CPI/M. These men are intellectuals after all. See the vengeance with which the Commies in China turned to a trade-based recovery? The choice is between that or the populism of Mamta Banerjee. I choose the intellectuals.

Now there are many challenges facing the CPI/M going forward. Firstly, the party is rife with 'dogma-heads' - ideologues so consumed by Marxist terminology they cannot think of reality in any other terms. They cannot see the connection between more shops and more jobs. They are an obstacle for the pragmatists - like the most important one, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya - who do see a way progress without selling out.

Later, more on Labor Unions, Land Reform, Leading an Industrial Recovery, and Fixing Elections. later..