From: haque@sunray.ece.clarkson.edu (Anisul Haque,,,)
Subject: Re: Failure of Socialism in Bangladesh
Reply-To: haque@sunray.ece.clarkson.edu
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:22:35 GMT

In article IG9@news.udel.edu, khaleq@brahms.udel.edu (Mohame Khalequzzaman) writes:
> In article <1992Dec21.193237.10554@news.clarkson.edu> haque@sunray.ece.clarkson.edu writes:

> >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.

Election results indeed doesn't reflect organizational strength. If you consider 
the persons who were elected with leftist tickets, you will see that most of 
them were elected because of their local popularity, not because of their 
political agenda. Shahjahan Shiraj, Rashed Khan Menon, Towaha etc do get 
elected from their respective constituencies in a manner similar to the election 
of Salahuddin Kader Chowdhury or late Sabur Khan. You have correctly pointed 
out that the popularity of the leftists were mostly among the Univ. students and 
that's why they couldn't make a statement outside University politics. The 
example of JSD only establishes my point that the lack of foresight of the leaders 
was the reason for the failure of socialism. In early 70's, JSD was a strong 
political force. Then look at them in the early eighties (before the fall of the 
eastern europe). What do we see! They are divided, fight among themselves and 
without a direction. Why? Because people like Rob and Jalil and S A Khan were 
their leaders. Fall of JSD had nothing to do with europe!  
 
> 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.

Again you justified my points. I argued that communists and Mullahs are just the 
two faces of a coin. As long as the leftists don't realize that Marxism isn't a 
religion, there is no hope for them. Muslims believe that Islam is complete and 
timeless and the socialists in Bangladesh look at their "own" Marxism with same 
attitude. Do you think it's right to consider one's own brand of Marxism as the 
complete and the final one, which is beyond any question and challenge? Isn't 
this the mentality shown by our leftist leaders? And I attribute the major reason 
of their failure to this factor. They have to understand that Marxism isn't a 
static theory but an evolving one which has evolved in more than one dirction 
and one has to find one's own interpretaion appropriate for a certain place, 
certain time.

> 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.

Being a Muslim-Hindu and a Christian (to that list you can add Budhhism and any 
other religion as well) is probably not that out of the line. Many people who 
consider themselves to be follower of the humanitarianism can be labelled like 
that.

Religion and communism has gone together in the South America. What about the 
Churches in Nicaragua and other places who believed in Liberation Theology? 
One of the reasons that communists were popular in the south America was that 
they had been endorsed by the church. Sandanista govt. had more than one 
priests in their cabinet.

>                                                             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.

Why do you think that communists HAVE to be aethists? Is it because Marx said so?
If we accept that Marx is subject to error (he was no prophet!), then Marxism 
should be open to new developments and that need not be branded as deviation from 
the origin. The major mistake Marx did in developing his theory is that he left 
the human psychology factor out. If someone now tries to incorporate that into 
Marxism, that can only help his theory. 
 
> Khaleq


Regards

Anisul Haque
Clarkson University

_____________________________________________________________________________________
           We didn't inherit this planet from our parents. It's 
                     been loaned to us by our children 
_____________________________________________________________________________________



Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.pakistan