Those pesky Indian communists...

Was just chatting to a young bloke from India. He showed me a pic of his parents house, posh looking gaff surrounded by idyllic scenery.

Obviously there is tons of poverty in India, so I asked him how much poverty there was in his area. He said not much, most people are middle class in the state he comes from, apparently.

Oh? Is it rampant neo-liberalism that's brought this about?

Apparently the area was feudal, but the people voted in a Communist government, and the Communists got rid of feudalism and poverty. They handed land to the peasants, and now the ex serfs/peasants are all middle class!

Google:

The state of Kerala has the highest Human Development Index in India and the highest literacy rate. It is the only state in India to have a bank in every village (not particularly communist, but never mind, handy I guess).

The government has sort of alternated Communist and non-communist since the early 1980s. Strikes and union membership are common. The main non-communist party is the Gandhi's INC, described by wiki .."the party has favored farmers, laborers, labor unions, and religious and ethnic minorities; it has opposed unregulated business and finance, and favored progressive income taxes. However, in recent years the party had adopted centrist economic and social democratic agenda. "

Now I have huge differences with the so-called communists in India, but I do like this story.

and now, some piccies


Communist parade

"Since its creation as a state in 1956 Kerala has been dominated by the world’s first democratically elected communist government."


35% are Muslims





all in all, a bit of a (*)(*)(*)(*)hole

 

downtrodden young communist children

 

So is this state really communist, by your narrow definition?

 

Such as?...

 

My definition is not narrow, my definition is that of Marx, who pretty much defined communism.

No of course Kerala is not communist. However it has had an elected communist government. They might not be 'proper' communists but they do seem to have made the place better than the rest of India. They distributed the land and created welfare etc. I believe in time much of the business will revert to the state eg when you die. As I said, unions and strikes are common, so we cant give all the credit to the politicians. The people have fought for a better life.

 

Differences? Well you cant build communism in one country let alone one state. Actually the communists have 3 states they are strong in, but they are never gonna build communism. Basically you have communists managing capitalism. In fact they lost the election this year, a shock result actually.
Unfortunately at a national level the communists (there are two communist parties actually) supported the Congress (INC).

The sad truth is that despite the nice story, the CPI(M) has acted as a strikebreaker on behalf of capitalism. Of course many of their members disagree with all that kind of thing. In fact in Kerala, the CPI(M) is a big private enterprise owner! They are basically a Social Democrat party going through the motions of being communist.

The main problem with all Communist Parties is that they believed in the Stalinist Two Stage Theory, which his that communists should work to establish capitalism in backward countries, with socialism being just a promise for the long term future.

In most countries they didnt manage to do what they did in Kerala, it proved impossible after WW2 for Stalinism to establish capitalism in Eastern Europe, China, Korea and Vietnam. They were not aiming for socialism they were aiming for capitalism, but it failed, so they all slid into copies of Russia, bureaucratic dictatorships.

In India they did manage to collaborate with capitalism, and in 3 states actually ran it as per Stalin's wish (which was actually to have nothing to do with socialism, and to stop socialist revolutions).

 

So does this area support itself entirely? I'd like more information, something to counter Greece.

 

Sorely lacking within the Western Left is any rational evaluation of the Soviet Union, a nation that endured a protracted civil war and a multinational foreign invasion in the very first years of its existence, and that two decades later threw back and destroyed the Nazi beast at enormous cost to itself. In the three decades after the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviets made industrial advances equal to what capitalism took a century to accomplish--while feeding and schooling their children rather than working them fourteen hours a day as capitalist industrialists did and still do in many parts of the world. And the Soviet Union, along with countries of the East block and Cuba provided vital assistance to national liberation movements in countries around the world, including Nelson Mandela's African National Congress in South Africa.Yes,the elimination of colonialism as well as the destruction of fascism is the merit of the "bureaucratic regimes".

So what the real socialism is to blame for? For the fact that it was not the land of the milk and honey?

 

You people should all revitalize my British Empire thread and stop being so afraid (if you're a conservative) of discussing western colonialism.

The best thing that ever happened to India was the British Empire - which the communists detested because it - the British Empire brought represenative democracy and the concepts of capitialism to that country.

 

Well, the people are well educated so they get jobs abroad and send money home. About 20% of the economy is money sent from people working overseas. There isnt much industry, agriculture is big.

 

Also brought the relegation of indians to second class citizens and poverty to the average indian.
Awsome for the brits none the less, and lets pretend indians had democracy, how stupid.
When the portuguese arrived in India it was one of the most developed countries of the world in that time.

 

nonsense

Russia was never socialist. You forget to mention

1. That Stalin killed millions, including all the socialists

2. That Russia tried to make sure Eastern Europe, Vietnam, etc became CAPITALIST.

3. That the regime collapsed back to capitalism as Trotsky predicted.

4. You mention Cuba. Funny how when Castro was taking over Cuba he wanted it to be like America, and the leaders in Moscow had no idea who he was. Yes they did influence the ANC, to avoid socialism, even though that was what the masses wanted.

5. You say they aided national liberation movements.

Funny that, considering the French CP leaders, in de Gaulles's government, got thankedd by parliament for helping preserve French colonial rule in Vietnam.

"The gratitude of the French bourgeoisie was evident when “French conservative politicians rose in the National Assembly during a crucial appropriations debate from March 14-18, 1947, to thank their own Communist colleagues and the Soviet Union for leaving France to fight its war in Indochina without outside disturbance.”"

Quoted in Bernard Fall, The Two Vietnams p196

 

Yes, Britain deliberately de-industrialised India.

 

No it is not,and your arguments show it:

At first,it's a bourgeois propaganda cliche.At second,how can the fact of repressions prove the the presence or the absence of one or another political system?

And after this you write:

How can capitalist regime "collapse back to capitalism"?

It's not clear what the talk here about.Cuba has the same political system as the USSR and countries of Eastern Europe had and you can't deny this fact.

It's not clear,too, how the gossip about the position of the French CP can disprove the fact of Soviet support of national liberation movements.This fact is well-known and it is wrong a thankless to refuse it.

You are fond of Trotskyism for nothing,there is a confusion in your head.

 

PC hogwash.

Challange me on my thread if you dare.

 

Britian dug holes all over India and the world for telegraph poles, irrigation ditches for farms, bedding for railroads, bedding for highways and roads, support trusses for bridges,

The communists dug holes all over the world for graves.

.......... the Rabbit knows.

Believe in the knowledge of the Rabbit.

 

...None of which has anything to do with depriving India of an industrial base -- which the British most certainly did. They feared that Indian industry would be too competitive and did not want to risk it.

 

What do you mean it's a bourgeois propaganda cliche? How many political oppositionists do you think he killed?

Socialism is democratic. Killing all the socialists is neither socialist nor democratic. If Russia was socialist, why kill all the socialists?

when did I say Russia was capitalist ffs?

Cuba has a similar system to what Stalinist USSR had, not as bad. But that wasnt what Castro intended. He never professed to be a communist until a year after the revolution, when Americas forced him to deal with Russia by attacking Cuba and cutting off the oil etc. Plus he had started to have difficulties with the bourgeois wing of his party.

Want some reading on this?

"Carlos Franqui was a heroic participant in the 26 July Movement and in the Cuban Revolution alongside Castro and Che Guevara. In the first period of the revolution he was responsible for ‘Castroite propaganda’ and was the organiser of the ‘Congress of Intellectuals’ in Havana at the end of 1967. Given that he was driven into exile by Castro’s behaviour his criticisms are naturally sometimes subjective and personal. Nevertheless they come from a ‘socialist humanist’ standpoint. In his book ‘Family portrait with Fidel’ he maps out the bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution "almost from its outset". He makes the following comment about Castro’s ideological position before the revolution:

"The questions people were always asking and continued to ask were: Was Fidel a Communist? Had he become a Communist? Is he a Communist? What was his plan? Was it really the Cuban situation – Cuba’s economic dependence and the US blockade – that threw Cuba into the clutches of the Soviet Union? No one thought Fidel was a Communist. I mean no one. We knew that Raúl Castro was a Communist, that Che Guevara was also, and that Camilo, Ramiro, Celia, Haydée, and some comandantes and other collaborators were Communists, too. But no one knew about Fidel, including me – who saw him at quite close range – and even his most intelligent enemies." 29"

http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/Cuba/cu2.html
loads more at this link

Also, the Eastern European countries, as I say, Stalin wanted them to be CAPITALIST. He wanted that for China, he wanted it for everywhere (except Russia).

A statement from French Parliament is not gossip. You can research it. The French CP and Russia tried to keep the Viet Minh down. Of course local CP's were involved in nationalist movements, and sometimes the Comintern backed them. In fact even the Viet Minh themselves tried to keep a lid on things at times.

"The Viet Minh had called for ‘restraint’ and negotiations. But the masses of Saigon had risen, with the Trotskyists, the Buddhists and some religious sects, together with many communists who could not accept the passive party line. Above all, it was the communist workers who joined in this uprising. One hundred and fifty French civilians were killed and the rebels held the working class suburbs for a number of days. However, the Viet Minh had officially withdrawn from Saigon, which allowed the rising to be crushed. As the French army replaced the British, it slowly reasserted its power in the south. The Viet Minh, as they retreated, hunted down and killed almost all the Trotskyists. Ho Chi Minh, in a report to the Comintern in July 1939, had stated that the Indochinese Communist Party had refused all offers of co-operation with the Trotskyists: “As regards the Trotskyites – no alliances and no concessions. They must be unmasked as the stooges of the fascists, which they are.”15 Yet in extremely difficult conditions the Trotskyists survived and “in the 1953 municipal elections… the Saigon Taxi Drivers’ Union… put up a Trotskyist candidate, who won handily.”16

Earlier in September 1945, the French Communist Party cell in Saigon had warned the Viet Minh, then trying to resist the French re-occupation of Saigon, that “any premature adventures” towards independence might “not be in line with Soviet perspectives”. In other words the French Stalinists did everything to prevent ‘disturbances’ such as revolts of the masses in the colonial world, in order not to disrupt the post-1945 attempt of Russian Stalinism to arrive at an agreement with imperialism to maintain the status quo. Fall explains:

“At home, the French Communist leaders in parliament (the Party chief, Maurice Thorez, was Vice-Premier at the time) did not block the first Indochina War budget and all the emergency measures connected with the prosecution of the first phase of the war. There can be no doubt that a Communist-provoked government crisis in the winter of 1946-47 would have brought a military crisis in Indochina and might have caused the war to end in a compromise because of lack of supplies and manpower on the French side.” 17

The gratitude of the French bourgeoisie was evident when “French conservative politicians rose in the National Assembly during a crucial appropriations debate from March 14-18, 1947, to thank their own Communist colleagues and the Soviet Union for leaving France to fight its war in Indochina without outside disturbance.” 18"

http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/vietnam/c1.html

 

Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th Century India: Mughal Decline, Climate Shocks and British Industrial Ascent*

"India was a major player in the world export market for textiles in the early 18th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had lost all of its export market and much of its domestic market, primarily to Britain. The ensuing deindustrialization was greatest c1750-c1860."

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...sg=AFQjCNGvnkEsI_JrLOueNho49m_PTZT7rw&cad=rja

 

Trolling?I decided at first that you're talking seriously.

 

I have no idea what that means. Answer my points.

 

The British Empire civilized India. India was a country in turmoil and hardly qualified as a country in the first place with inner warring factions of muslims and hindos being agitated in the early 20th century by communists. What the British Empire achieved in India was nothing short of a miracle and it set the stage for Indian independence which was a totally differn't story in how it was achieved with Britian oversseing it and absent from the country with all it's influance.

 

PC nonsense. The East India Trade Company made up of British soldiers built the industrial infrastructure of India that was always under turmoil from the religious factions of Islam and Hinduism. You've been PC brainwashed in school about the British Lion.

Your street corner sharing liberal friends detest the British Lion because of it's parliamentary system of government which gave the world democratic representation that lead to the very idea of self determination which led to the idea of the United States Of America.

Your associates are collectivist and socialist that supported the murderous beastly advance of totalitarian collective barbarism in the form of communistic socialism, the exact opposite of what Britain and it's democratic representative, free trade and free intuitionis produced.

 

the source I quoted was from Harvard economics department. It is stuffed with data. I live in Britain. All around are the old mills. We invented steam engines so we could make textiles cheaper, plus we had slavery to get cheap cotton from America, so we wiped out the Indian textiles trade so we could have it.

 

Really?But what for is this written,for example:

A lot of words beside the pont.A model flood.

And this is worse than the flood:

I realized what is the talk here about.In August 1945, after the expulsion of the Japanese Chinese troops entered Vietnam.At the same time Vietnam officially still remained a French colony.There was a question : which of the two evils is the lesser.Ho Chi Minh said then:"Do you understand what will happen if the Chinese will stay?Have you forgotten our history?When the Chinese came, they stayed here for a thousand years.French will be able to stay only for a time,but eventually they will have to leave us.But if the Chinese will remain,then they will never go away."Thus it was decided to support the return of the French as a lesser evil in 1945.So,at first,you have perverted the essence of the issue,at second,you have terribly inflated it.You issue a momentary question of tactics for a question of a permanent strategy.

You should not be a Solomon to understand a simple thing : nor Vietnam,nor Korea,nor Cuba,nor Egypt,nor other litlle and less developed countries had not a chance to survive without a strong external support against the colonial superpowers.It is needed only honesty to admit it.

And here is a statement in the spirit of Goebbels's propaganda:

Blatantly ignoring the fact that these countries became socialist.

What is all this if it is not a trolling?

I say that the countries of the Soviet block were socialist becouse there were eliminated private property, and hence the isolation of individual producers, commodity production, competition, anarchy and crises, unemployment and all other "amenities" of capitalism,becouse there were organized planned production and consumption in society on the whole.

I say that when people as smart, different, dedicated and heroic as Lenin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Ho Chi Minh and Robert Mugabe--and the millions of heroic people who followed and fought with them--all end up more or less in the same place, then something bigger is at work than who made what decision at what meeting.This means that the model of socialism that emerged in the 20th century was conforming to the laws of nature.