From: khaleq@brahms.udel.edu (Mohame Khalequzzaman)
Subject: Re: Failure of Socialism in Bangladesh
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 02:49:54 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.193237.10554@news.clarkson.edu> haque@sunray.ece.clarkson.edu writes:
>In article Duw@news.udel.edu, khaleq@brahms.udel.edu (Mohame Khalequzzaman) writes:
>
>>                                                                Socialist
>> and Communists could be an alternative, since most of them a some sort of
>> economic plan (socialist model) and their plans generally favor economic 
>> development for poor (Bangladesh being on of the poorest countries needs
>> a plan which is capable of changing the fate of its poor people).  The problem
[stuff deleted]>
>I don't think the failure of socialist model in the East Europe has much to do 
>with the failures of socialism in Bangladesh. The socialist parties in Bangladesh 
>were bound to fail regardless of the fate of socialism in the East Europe.

I disagree.  There is no question that the socialists are in bad shape in
Bangladesh more than ever before following the fall of Eastern Europe.  In the
Parliament election of 1986 CPB alone won 5 seats.  Jasod (JSD fractions) won
a few seats (I can't remember the number, and I don't like to throw any claim
without mentioning the source), if I'm not mistaken NAP won couple os seats
also.  Toaha (Sammayabadi Dol) won a seat.  Over all popularity of leftists
was much stronger, especially among the Univ. students.  All of us know that
wining election doesn't reflect the organizational strength.  This situation
has drastically changed in today's Bangladesh.  For example, in 1991 election,
5-party allience won only 1 seat.  The student wings of the socialist-oriented
parties are barely surviving on campuses.  Before the fall of Eastern Europe,
most of the Univ., except Ctg, had left-oriented student cabinets.  For example,
Rahshahi Univ. student cabinet was won by a remote group called Chhatra Moitri.  Can they win today.  What about Chhatra Union's traditional stron hold at BUET?Didn't Dhaka Univ. had student cabinet headed by JSD student League (Manna-Akhter, Akhter-Bablu, etc.)  Today most of the Univ. and colleges have either BNP 
front of Mujibbadi front.

The very existence of CPB is at stake.  Most of them are joining Awami League.
Pro-chinese leftists (many of them) either have joined PGP (Present Government 
Party, I mean whatever is happen to be the PGP).
>
>In my opinion, despite significant popularity, the socialists parties in Bangladesh 
>failed to make a statement because their leaders were mostly copy cats. There were 
>very little difference between them and the Mullahs. They considered Marxism more 
>as a religion than as a political and economic philosophy. Our leftist leaders found 
>the preaching of Communism very exciting, but they didn't have the foresight to 
>integrate those teachings into Bangladeshi context. Rather they used to look up to 
>their guardian angels in Moscow, Beijing, Havana or wherever else. History has 
>proved that copying the politics of one country into another doesn't work and hence 
>they failed. Since the communist world was divided into many blocks and since our 
>leaders were merely following one of the schools, it's not surprising that they 
>were divided into so many fractions.

Even though the communists were divided, they were more popular than any
fundamentalist party before the fall of Eastern Europe.  Since communism 
preaches internationalism and has a common philosophic base, Marxism-Leninism 
and Mao's thoughts, there bound to have common goal - the dictatorship of
Proletariat - a society free of class explotation.  I don't think it is possibleto preach real socialism, yet not to embrace this philosophic ideology.  As par
as adapting socialism to suit a local culture and history goes, of course it
is necessary.  Lenin himself suggested that without taking into account the local values and culture no country will succeed with socialism.  But you have to
understand that it does not mean that one can deviate from the basic principle
of socialism and yet can claim to be socialists.  It is pretty much like
the way we have adapted any religion in different parts of the world.  Do
you think the rituals of Muslims in Bangladesh are the same as those in the
Middleeast?  Or dress code, behavior, culture etc. in the Middle-east are
very different from those inour part of the world.  Yet all Muslims stick
to the same principles of Islam.  For example, the Muslims in Bangladesh 
bow their head and touch the feet of elders to show respect, which is a
reflection of our subcontinental tradition.  The Muslim women in Pakistan 
generally don't wear sari, because they think it is Hindu dress, but our 
women don't think it is Hindu dress.  With communism it is the same.  If
one has to implement communism correctly then they have to stick to its
principle, while adating to local traditions.

>Moulana Bhasani tried to interprete socialism in his own way, where he combined 
>socialism and religion together and NAP became an important political force in 
>Bangladesh, although later in the 60's their popularity were overshadowed by the 
>nationalistic movements of AL.

Moulana Bhasani's party was merely a sheter for leftists.  It was not a party
that embraced Marxism-Leninism as their ideology.  Moulans preached Islamic
ideas also, which are in direct confrontration with communist  ideology.
You can't have both together.  It's like saying that some-one is a Muslim-Hindu
and Christian at the same time.  Whether or we like it is a different thing,
but religion and real communism can't go hand in hand.  This is the real
problem for socialists in Bangladesh and elsewhere that even the communists
can't separate religion from state for the fear of being labeled infedals.
As a result, what we see in many country is not a real socialism but a
hybrid of socialism and religion.  The failure of socialism is really not
the failure of the ideology, rather it is the failure to implement it the way
it was originally proposed.  It is the deviation from the origin.


Major problem of socialist politics in Bangladesh is the lack of a unified
analyses of the political and economic situation in Bangladesh.  This lack
of consensus among the socialists is partly because most of the 40 or so groups
are not truly socilists in their understanding and philosophy but in name
they are socialists.  Which of the groups follow the real socialist doctrine is
a matter of a lengthy debate, which I don't think I can get into.  But one thing
is true, until the fall of Communism most of the parties in Bangladesh had
embrace the ideology of socialism in their manifesto in order to gain popular
support.  It means that socialism was a popular concept to most of the people
in politics in Bangladesh, whether or not they believe in it is a defferent issue.  For example, Awawmi Leaguge adapted socialism to sppress the socialist
movement, so did JSD, NAP, CPB, etc. etc.  Now we know that most them didn't
have the political character to embrace socialism.  That is what did most of the damage to the socilist movement in Bangladesh.  As Mao correctly said "The red
banner will destroy the red banner".  

Khaleq

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