Betrand Russell on Communism

"Why I am Not a Communist"
by Betrand Russell

"I am completely at a loss to understand how it came about that some people who are both humane and intelligent could find something to admire in the vast slave camp produced by Stalin."

I n relation to any political doctrine there are two questions to be asked: (1) Are its theoretical tenets true? (2) Is its practical policy likely to increase human happiness? For my part, I think the theoretical tenets of Communism are false, and I think its practical maxims are such as to produce an immeasurable increase of human misery.

The theoretical doctrines of Communism are for the most part derived from Marx. My objections to Marx are of two sorts: one, that he was muddle-headed; and the other, that his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred. The doctrine of surplus value, which is supposed to demonstrate the exploitation of wage-earners under capitalism, is arrived at: (a) by surreptitiously accepting Malthus's doctrine of population, which Marx and all his disciples explicitly repudiate; (b) by applying Ricardo's theory of value to wages, but not to the prices of manufactured articles. He is entirely satisfied with the result, not because it is in accordance with the facts or because it is logically coherent, but because it is calculated to rouse fury in wage-earners. Marx's doctrine that all historical events have been motivated by class conflicts is a rash and untrue extension to world history of certain features prominent in England and France a hundred years ago. His belief that there is a cosmic force called Dialectical Materialism which governs human history independently of human volitions, is mere mythology. His theoretical errors, however, would not have mattered so much but for the fact that, like Tertullian and Carlyle, his chief desire was to see his enemies punished, and he cared little what happened to his friends in the process.

Marx's doctrine was bad enough, but the developments which it underwent under Lenin and Stalin made it much worse. Marx had taught that there would be a revolutionary transitional period following the victory of the proletariat in a civil war and that during this period the proletariat, in accordance with the usual practice after a civil war, would deprive its vanquished enemies of political power. This period was to be that of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It should not be forgotten that in Marx's prophetic vision the victory of the proletariat was to come after it had grown to be the vast majority of the population. The dictatorship of the proletariat therefore as conceived by Marx was not essentially anti-democratic. In the Russia of 1917, however, the proletariat was a small percentage of the population, the great majority being peasants. it was decreed that the Bolshevik party was the class-conscious part of the proletariat, and that a small committee of its leaders was the class-conscious part of the Bolshevik party. The dictatorship of the proletariat thus came to be the dictatorship of a small committee, and ultimately of one man - Stalin. As the sole class-conscious proletarian, Stalin condemned millions of peasants to death by starvation and millions of others to forced labour in concentration camps. He even went so far as to decree that the laws of heredity are henceforth to be different from what they used to be, and that the germ-plasm is to obey Soviet decrees but that that reactionary priest Mendel. I am completely at a loss to understand how it came about that some people who are both humane and intelligent could find something to admire in the vast slave camp produced by Stalin.

I have always disagreed with Marx. My first hostile criticism of him was published in 1896. But my objections to modern Communism go deeper than my objections to Marx. It is the abandonment of democracy that I find particularly disastrous. A minority resting its powers upon the activities of secret police is bound to be cruel, oppressive and obscuarantist. The dangers of the irresponsible power cane to be generally recognized during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but those who have forgotten all that was painfully learnt during the days of absolute monarchy, and have gone back to what was worst in the middle ages under the curious delusion that they were in the vanguard of progress.

There are signs that in course of time the Russian régime will become more liberal. But, although this is possible, it is very far from certain. In the meantime, all those who value not only art and science but a sufficiency of bread and freedom from the fear that a careless word by their children to a schoolteacher may condemn them to forced labour in a Siberian wilderness, must do what lies in their power to preserve in their own countries a less servile and more prosperous manner of life.

There are those who, oppressed by the evils of Communism, are led to the conclusion that the only effective way to combat these evils is by means of a world war. I think this a mistake. At one time such a policy might have been possible, but now war has become so terrible and Communism has become so powerful that no one can tell what would be left after a world war, and whatever might be left would probably be at least as bad as present -day Communism. This forecast does not depend upon the inevitable effects of mass destruction by means of hydrogen and cobalt bombs and perhaps of ingeniously propagated plagues. The way to combat Communism is not war. What is needed in addition to such armaments as will deter Communists from attacking the West, is a diminution of the grounds for discontent in the less prosperous parts of the non-communist world. In most of the countries of Asia, there is abject poverty which the West ought to alleviate as far as it lies in its power to do so. There is also a great bitterness which was caused by the centuries of European insolent domination in Asia. This ought to be dealt with by a combination of patient tact with dramatic announcements renouncing such relics of white domination as survive in Asia. Communism is a doctrine bred of poverty, hatred and strife. Its spread can only be arrested by diminishing the area of poverty and hatred.

from Portraits from Memory published in 1956

Jyoti Basu: An obituary

Jyoti Basu, politician, born 8 July 1914; died 17 January 2010. RIP.

A lot has been written about Jyoti Basu since his demise on 17 Jan 2010. Almost all of these articles/columns have either heaped praises on Basu and glorified him, or they have been scathing indictment of Basu for letting down Calcutta & Bengal. Either way, these have been very biased in some way or the other.

To attempt to deny Basu his due as a leader of National importance is not only foolish, but also falls flat on its face when confronted with facts. The very fact that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rushed to Kolkata on Thursday to pay a visit to the AMRI hospital where Basu was battling for life speaks volumes about the communist patriarch’s relevance in Indian politics. As a matter of fact,the PM postponed the pre-scheduled Cabinet meeting to be able to visit Basu. Moreover,the Prime Minister offered to fly in experts from anywhere in India to treat Basu, if required.

Basu, even in seclusion forced by failing health, remained the poster boy of Indian communism. He was always the biggest crowd-puller for the CPI(M).The anxiety of his followers, the tears, the flurry of media activities outside the hospital and the air-dashing political royalty, mainly those from rival political outfits, vouch for it.

Jyoti Kiran Basu (the middle name was quickly dropped) was born into a well-to-do Hindu family. His father, a respectable doctor, was later horrified by Jyoti's choice of a political career, and even more by his choice of party. But the boy's early years were comfortably uneventful. He was educated in private schools and graduated from Presidency College, Kolkata, before sailing to Britain in 1935 to study law.

There, he became fascinated by leftist theory and practice. He attended lectures by Harold Laski, and got involved with the Communist Party of Great Britain. He wanted to join the party, but was dissuaded by its general secretary Harry Pollitt, who knew the young Indian could get into hot water if he returned to the British Raj as a known communist. Still, there was plenty of political work to do in London: Basu agitated for independence, and acted as a fixer for visiting dignatories, including Jawaharlal Nehru, arranging for them to meet leaders of the Labour party and the wider socialist movement.

Having qualified as a barrister at the Middle Temple, Basu returned to Kolkata in 1940. Almost immediately, he plunged into politics, becoming an organiser for the Communist Party of India (CPI), with the task of spreading the word among railway workers. It is a measure of his industry and effectiveness that he soon became general secretary of the rail workers' union.

In the meantime, British rule in the subcontinent was passing none too peacefully to its close. Basu, briefly imprisoned in 1945, was elected to the Bengal legislative assembly in 1946, the year before independence and partition, and immediately became leader of the communist opposition to the ruling Congress party. In the rough and tumble of West Bengal politics, Basu was an astute tactician, but he remained an essentially provincial politician with little prospect of advancement.

That changed in 1964, when the CPI underwent a dramatic split. It is often represented as a schism between nationalists who staunchly supported India in the brief but disastrous border war with China in 1962, and those who believed that it had been a war between socialism and capitalism. In reality it was a left-right split, with Basu in the former camp. He became chief of the CPM in West Bengal. At the last count there were at least 15 communist parties in India, ranging from mild left to raving revolutionary, but only the CPI and the CPM really count electorally.

Under Basu, the CPM built a formidable, some would say ruthless, state apparatus. It was denied victory in the state elections of 1972, which were shamelessly rigged by the even more ruthless Congress machine, but was swept to power in 1977.

Over the following 23 years, Basu achieved much, and failed quite often too. He brought reform to a largely feudal landscape, and his redistribution of land-wealth made him electorally invincible. Even better, he brought stability to a previously chaotic state. But rural reform was paralleled by urban stagnation. Kolkata remains the most lovable of Indian cities, but communist rule has denied it the new prosperity visible in other centres such as Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay). Nowhere is the stultifying effect of the regime more evident than in the Writers' Building, a relic not just of the Raj but of the East India Company, where legions of clerks, peons and other penpushers juggle endlessly with crumbling heaps of forms, dockets, chits and files, to no apparent purpose.

Basu remained an idol to the working class and rural peasantry, but in the end became a symbol of the statism which is so despised by today's MBA-brandishing classes. Had he become prime minister in 1996, he might well have restored prestige to that much-damaged office, through his honesty and other old-fashioned virtues. On the other hand, his instinct for hands-on control might have brought India's modern boom to a shuddering halt.

A steadfastly private man, Basu married twice. His first wife died after only 16 months of marriage. He had a long and happy second marriage with Kamal who predeceased him. They both doted on their son Chandan, who survives him.