Left needs life - Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathna

Monday, 20 April 2015

In India a discussion on the decline of the Left, has attracted media space in almost whole of India. While the masses move into very critical positions, throwing the main parties in to turmoil, the Left was unable to give them a way out. One cold say the situation is such that people are looking for instance solutions, and they were reluctant to go into theories of Marxism. There may be an ounce of truth in that suggestion. But it cannot explain the who truth. That is, the Left has failed to intervene in the debate that has attracted all types of intellectuals and street militants. This is true in Lanka as well. Ok, the traditional Left and the JVP did participate in the political campaign, which resulted in the victory of Maithree. But what will be the next step and how could they participate in the coming Parliamentary elections. Remnants of old left including Vasu are searching for a way out by joining Mahinda in a complex coalition. No doubt it will be an instrument of fascistic gang that determines to fight back with all the venom it could collect. Still, they are rich and have connections in many organizations and backed by certain multinational companies.

In India the left ruled West Bengal and Tripura for so long and held power in Kerala for numerous terms. However the Left has been unable to showcase its model of development as an alternative, in this period. Of course, as a regional power one could not give a development programme to the nation. On the other hand with regional parliamentary power, communists should throw a revolutionary challenge to the Indian power center. It is wrong to dismiss such ideas as far left. Most certainly the constituents of the Left Front need to re-establish their independent positions in national politics. The Left has tried to form a non Congress-non BJP ‘Third Front’ with regional parties at various junctures in the past. If it is unable to revive itself as a group with a serious way out for the suffering people, it wouldn’t even be capable of being an integral part of a ‘Third Front’. Already parties based on minority nationalities and oppressed communities, such as Janatha Parivar and the Dravidian parties would be more than willing to ally with radical fascist styled bourgeoisie parties. The Left must realise that if it wants to be successful in electoral politics; to come to power then it should sacrifice revolutionary programme for a popular image. For this, it has to not just retain support among the proletariat and other oppressed groups, its traditional base, but also attract voters from other sections. To attract the petty bourgeoisie, a powerful national leader should be promoted. It is a major challenge that the parliament oriented Left is facing at the moment. In India findings of a post-poll survey during the 2014 elections indicate that no leader from the Left Front was among the ten most preferred/popular choices for the post of Prime Minister. Many members of the CPI (M)’s top decision-making body, the Central Politburo, have not contested a popular election; they’ve only contested student body polls. The Left needs to find a leader who can lead them at the national level.

In Lanka we see that the JVP is trying to promote Anura Disanayake as a gentlemanly leader who could be acceptable to the petty bourgeoisie masses in a national poll. This has created the rift between the JVP and the break away Frontline socialist party. Latter accuse that the JVP has taken an opportunist line abandoning the revolutionary perspective. Nevertheless the JVP participated in the National Executive Committee to direct the government, to carry out the democratic anti corruption programme promised during the presidential election campaign. As claimed even by the JVP, both UNP and SLFP are bourgeoisie parties and their promises on democracy and corruption are only partially valid. Hence it is futile to blame them and cry out about their insincerity. Unfortunately Anura has forgotten that once he was a cabinet minister of a government led by the SLFP. Latter, directly supported the election campaign of Mahinda in 2005. On the other hand the radical break away groups from the LSSP and the SLCP are already tied to the government led by Maithree and Ranil. Some are paid helpers of the President, while others are working for cabinet ministers including the PM, Ranil Wickremesinghe. On the whole, it will be very difficult for all these leaders to portray a tangible left leadership to the country. They have to make substantial explanations as to their past activities. One thing common to all these leaders is the fact they opposed the leadership of Mahinda in the last period, of about one year. But they have no real explanation as to how and why Mahinda rule differs from the other bourgeoisie governments.

In India researchers have observed that there has not been any significant decline, in the proportion of the working class groups, in the electorates dominated by the left. Thus, the deterioration in the Left’s performance is primarily due to a decrease in support among these groups. There is a similar trend even in West Bengal as the Trinomial Congress had a lead of more than 10 percentage points over the Left among skilled and semi-skilled urban workers and agricultural laborers. This trend is more so in Lanka. In general Political parties have a core group of traditional voters who mostly support them in elections. In election times Parties try to expand their support from among this group while extending their appeal to the floating voters. As per estimates made in India in 2014, slightly less than three per cent of the voters identify themselves as the traditional supporters of the Left. This figure is almost equal to the overall vote share of the Left Front which indicated that it only got votes from its traditional supporters; it failed miserably in attracting the swing voters, even in West Bengal and Kerala. Inspite of zig- zag movement of the JVP, in Lanka too so far, there is no significant growth for in the support base.

The gradual decline in the Left’s vote share reflects its shrinking support base. The parliamentary strategy of the left has not led to any gains for the left parties, while new radical parties and groups suddenly emerged to gain victories. In south Asia too the left has to orient towards mass actions progammes and the vision of over throwing the ruling corrupt bourgeoisie system, in order to become acceptable to the radical masses.