Q2. Is Marxism relevant in the contemporary times.

Give reason.
‘Marxism’ as a codified body of thought only came into existence
after Marx’s death in 1883. It was the product of the attempt,
notably by Marx’s lifelong collaborator, Engels, Kautsky and the
Russian theoretician Georgi Plekhanov (1857–1918), to condense
Marx’s ideas and theories into a systematic and comprehensive
world-view that suited the needs of the growing socialist movement.
At least three forms of Marxism can be identified. These are: •
classical Marxism • orthodox communism • neo-Marxism.
 
The most applicable form of marxism in contemporary times
happens to be neo-marxism. While Marxism – or, more usually,
Marxism-Leninism – was turned into a secular religion by the
orthodox communist regimes of eastern Europe and elsewhere, a
more subtle and complex form of Marxism developed in western
Europe. Referred to as modern Marxism, western Marxism or neo-
Marxism, this amounted to an attempt to revise or recast the
classical ideas of Marx while remaining faithful to certain Marxist
principles or aspects of Marxist methodology.
 
Two principal factors shaped the character of neo-Marxism. First,
when Marx’s prediction about the imminent collapse of capitalism
failed to materialize, neo-Marxists were forced to re-examine
conventional class analysis. In particular, they took a greater interest
in Hegelian ideas and in the stress on ‘Man the creator’ found in
Marx’s early writings. Neo-Marxists were thus able to break free
from the rigid ‘base/superstructure’s traitjacket. In short, the class
struggle was no longer treated as the beginning and end of social
analysis. Second, neo-Marxists were usually at odds with, and
sometimes profoundly repelled by, the Bolshevik model of orthodox
communism.
 
The year 1989 marked a dramatic watershed in the history of
communism and in ideological history generally. Starting in April with
student-led ‘democracy movement’ demonstrations in Tiananmen
Square in Beijing and culminating in November in the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the division of Europe into a capitalist West and a
communist East was brought to an end. By 1991 the Soviet Union,
the model of orthodox communism, had ceased to exist. Where
communist regimes continue, as in China, Cuba, Vietnam, North
Korea and elsewhere, they have either blended political Stalinism
with market-orientated economic reform (most clearly in the case of
China) or suffered increasing isolation (as in the case of North Korea).
These developments were a result of a number of structural flaws
from which orthodox communism suffered. Chief among these were
that while central planning proved effective in bringing about early
industrialization, it could not cope with the complexities of modern
industrial societies and, in particular, failed to deliver the levels of
prosperity enjoyed in the capitalist West from the 1950s onwards.
 
There is, nevertheless, considerable debate about the implications of
the collapse of communism for Marxism. On the one hand, there are
those who, like the ‘end of history’ theorist, Francis Fukuyama (1989,
1992), argue that th e ‘collapse of communism’ is certain proof of the
demise of Marxism as a world-historical force. On the other hand,
there are those who argue that the Soviet-style communism that was
rejected in the revolutions of 1989–91 differed markedly from the
‘Marxism of Marx’. However, to point out that it was not Marxism
but a Stalinist version of Marxism–Leninism that collapsed in 1989–
91 is very far from demonstrating the continuing relevance of
Marxism. A far more serious problem for Marxism is the failure of
Marx’s predictions (about the inevitable collapse of capitalism and its
replacement by communism) to be realized. Quite simply, advanced
industrial societies have not been haunted by the ‘spectre of
communism’. Even those who believe that Marx’s views on matters
such as alienation and exploitation continue to be relevant, have to
accept that classical Marxism failed to recognize the remarkable
resilience of capitalism and its capacity to recreate itself.
 
Some Marxists have responded to these problems by advancing
‘post-Marxist’ ideas and theories. Post-Marxism, nevertheless, has
two implications. The first is that the Marxist project, and the
historical materialism on which it is based, should be abandoned in
favour of alternative ideas. This is evident in the writings of the one-
time Marxist Jean-François Lyotard (1984), who suggested that
Marxism as a totalizing theory of history, and for that matter all
other ‘grand narratives’, had been made redundant by the
emergence of postmodernity. In its alternative version, post-
Marxism consists of an attempt to salvage certain key Marxist
insights by attempting to reconcile Marxism with aspects of
postmodernism (see p. 59) and poststructuralism. Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe (2014) accepted that the priority traditionally
accorded to social class, and the central position of the working class
in bringing about social change, were no longer sustainable. In so
doing, they opened up space within Marxism for a wide range of
other ‘moments’ of struggle, usually linked to so-called new social
movements such as the women’s movement, the ecological
movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the peace movement,
and so on.
 
Marxist and neo-Marxist theories have also been used to highlight
asymmetrical tendencies, and therefore deepening divisions, within
the modern global system. World-systems theory, devised in
particular by Immanuel Wallerstein (1974, 1984), suggested that the
world economy is best understood as an interlocking capitalist
system which exemplifies, at the international level, many of the
features that characterize national capitalism; that is, structural
inequalities based on exploitation and a tendency towards instability
and crisis that is rooted in economic contradictions. The world-
system consists of interrelationships between the ‘core’, the
‘periphery’ and the ‘semi-periphery’. Such thinking about the
inherent inequalities and injustices of global capitalism has been one
of the key influences on the anti-globalization, or ‘anti-capitalist’,
movement that has emerged since the 1990s. In these ways,
socialism in the twenty-first century may be reborn as global
anticapitalism (see p. 161), a trend that has been particularly
apparent since the global financial crisis. A resurgence of leftist
radicalism was thus evident in the upsurge of the Occupy movement,
which in 2011 organized demonstrations in some 82 countries
protesting against the dominance of ‘the 1 per cent’.
 
Evidence of a revival of socialism can also be seen at the national
level. In some cases, radical leftist parties have come from seemingly
nowhere to challenge mainstream parties of both the centre-left and
the centre-right. For example, Syriza (the Coalition of the Radical
Left), founded in 2004, became the largest party in the Greek
parliament in elections in January and September 2015, its chairman,
Alexis Tsipras, becoming prime minister. In Spain, the far-left party
Podemos (We can), founded in 2014, gained the third largest number
of votes and the second largest number of seats in the 2015
parliamentary elections. In other cases, upsurges of radicalism have
occurred within established parties of the centre-left. In the UK,
Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran of the Labour Party’s hard left, emerged as
the surprise victor in the party’s 2015 leadership election, while in
the USA Bernie Sanders, a self-declared socialist, was only narrowly
defeated by Hillary Clinton in the contest to become the Democratic
nominee in the 2016 presidential election.
 
In a nation like India, the vision of Karl Marx has enough relevance
due to deep-rooted class and caste discrimination. His renowned
work with Friedrich Engels is on the contradictions of capitalism.
Capitalism’s profit-making tendency eats up surplus labour and
makes overproduction inevitable. This means capitalism keeps facing
recurring crises.
Application of Marxism involves, first to grasp the existing
contradictions, major/minor and hostile/non-hostile and the
composition of existing social forces, in accordance with the Marxist
principle, i.e. the principles of historical materialism. Then the
related, important and in my opinion, most difficult task is to
translate; adopt and adapt these principles into a particular historical
context and work out strategies to organize and agitate the
oppressed for their emancipation. Among the old generation Indian
Marxists, Acharya Narendra Dev made genuine attempts to translate
and interpret the principles of Marxism in the Indian context with
reference to Buddhism. He was the founding President of Congress
Socialist Party (CSP) founded in 1934, had individual members of the
banned Communist Party of India (CPI) on its membership list. In fact
this period of the anti-colonial struggle has been an inspiring phase
of freedom struggle, from the view-point of the Indian left, in terms
rise and growth of organizations and movements of peasants;
workers and students.
 
 In India, there was no ‘epoch of bourgeoisie’ to split the society in
two hostile camps’; ‘a manifold gradation of social ranks’ in the form
of hierarchal Hindu caste-order, effectively caste slavery that still
exists, though in the process crumbling down under the pressure of
continuously accentuating march of Dalit scholarship and the
consequent assertion, hence the audacity of arrogant and violent
reaction. The cracks had begun in my early student days, in 1960s-
70s, but were only microscopically visible. Hence the appropriate
application of historical materialism would have been, to take note
of this existing realty. Caste and caste-conflict for of manifestation of
class-struggle are not just imagination are things of the history but a
living reality. There is no scope in terms of time and space to deal
with caste-class debate. This is just to point that the vacuum left by
communists was filled by Ambedkerites of various varieties and
process of the radicalization of identity politics which played a
positive role in instilling the self confidence among the oppressed
castes. But it has already played its historic role, it must march ahead
from class-conflict into class-conflict.
 
Theoretically, the left variety of parliamentary Marxism is trapped in
the quagmire of no return. Its methodology needs an “epistemological
break” if it wishes to restore and consolidate the essential doctrines of
Marxism. A new tradition has to be built, based on the changing
forces of societal complex and state power, and existential
experiences directly linked to new modes of production, of class
alienation, of organization and strategy. This tradition needs to respect
the various streams of Marxist analysis which has flooded the
theoretical market, find the reasons for its origin, its deviations from
the established current, and seek more practical solutions based on
humanism.
Reductionism, in a constitutional stagnation, is inevitable; it is the
comfort of political hypocrisy clothed in mechanical, simplistic
assessment of reality. Reductionism is categorical. It cannot transcend
its own wall, its own fortress of pseudo rationalization, divorced from
genuine self – introspection.
The communist movement in India, however, is not in a mood or
position to enter into the trauma of self-realization
 
Both the official communist parties (CPI & CPI (M) are at their peak of
passivity, theoretically bankrupt, divorced from revolutionary praxis.
The cobweb, in which it has entered, can now only expand further,
till the point of Hegelian totality, when the cobweb, itself would
transcend the dichotomy, break apart, and create, perhaps, another
Telangana or Naxalbari. Till that time. There can be only a further
elongation of postponement
 
Marx’s writing is more relevant today than it ever was. One must
read him right, though. Marx expected to see capitalism end during
his lifetime. For this reason, he did not spend much time on what
might delay the end and what the world might be like in between.
We must do that thinking instead of him, with the tools he provided
and as we need to, update them.