Abstract
This is a book of introspection—about the very political and cultural meaning and relevance of the Marxist tradition of revolutionary thought in the present times. This is also a book about an ongoing intellectual conversation that friends and colleagues continue to have with sociologist Anjan Ghosh, who is no more. The conversation continues among friends who are fired by similar hopes and ideals.
The volume is divided into three sections—revolutions, translations and reconsiderations—but there are overlaps in thematic concerns among the contributors. The tone and the backdrop are set by a trenchant evaluation of the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Paresh Chattopadhyay. Chattopadhyay marshals a series of arguments and facts to successfully depict that the Bolshevik hegemony had little to do with the working class. It was rather a minority revolution. The vanguards, under the leadership of Lenin, hijack power and coerce the people to the dictatorship of individuals. The working peasants are sidelined and exploited. Soon, the Bolshevik–labour relations too turn conflict-ridden and repressive. In this act of bourgeois power grab, negation is never converted to determination, as has been imagined in the Hegelian tradition. Chattopadhyay’s central claim, that the 1917 revolution never produced the material conditions for a new society and therefore failed the central tenets of Marxism, is taken up by others in the first section. Sanjeeb Mukherjee explains the effects of the overarching hegemony of the party over a whole society, whereby the key organs of the state are merged with the communist party. This he calls ‘partyarchy’. This is a dystopian world of surveillance, coercion and power grab. Mukherjee, however, cautions that he is not making an anti-intellectual claim in favour of any authentic revolutionary class or condition. Socialism simply has to have a diverse enough ambit and context in order to take root. In the final essay in this section, Partha Chatterjee provides us with a balanced evaluation of Maoism in India, which he feels is at once a spectre and a dangerous reality to other political options. The essay concludes with a caution that mere tactical and populist insurgent moves and the arithmetic of coalition politics will not be able to take the hegemonic might of the political right.
The second section concerns cultural practice and revolution. Again, all the four essays are powerful internal critiques and piercing evaluations about what constitutes socialist art practice. Aditya Nigam emphasises a certain left practice that is closer to the people: what he calls ‘puranic’ Marxism, as opposed to the esoteric world of ‘shastric’ abstractions. As examples of such aesthetic practice, he extensively discusses the works of Muhammad Iqbal and Nazrul Islam. In a short but brilliant essay, Prodosh Nath carefully reads Akhtaruzzaman Elais’ novel Khoabnama to show that changes in production relations may not necessarily translate into any real social transition. Sudipta Kaviraj expands the idea of left aesthetic practice by including the likes of Tagore and Satyendranath Datta in what he calls the reception of a centre-left sensibility in Bengal. He particularly commends the artistic genius of Salil Chowdhury in helping expand the horizon of gauchiste art reception. Moinak Biswas takes up the difficult aesthetic question of form and reality in films and film criticism that deal with change and revolution during the 1970s. Against realist austerity he places withdrawal and imperfection, allegory he places contra topicality, and the subjective (relations) to the other side of personal-experiential. Timelessness must be drawn out of contemporary time itself in revolutionary art practice. That is only possible if artists and critics are attentive to the play of the formal and the real, detachment and involvement.
The final section offers us fresh insights into new realities and the continued relevance of left revolutionary thinking and mobilisation in such conditions. Gyanendra Pandey is at once hopeful and worried about new radical democratic assemblages and identitarian conflagrations. Pranab Kanti Basu foregrounds the climate of financialisation and growth which he thinks can only be tackled if the revolutionaries embed themselves within the lifeworld of the community. Anup Dhar also takes up the question of community and state and the issue of underdevelopment and land. He directs us to the real in Marx and the significance of reading the Asiatic in Marx. The fine essay by Bibhas Bagchi highlights the generative tension between desire and revolutionary politics. He feels that revolutionary thinking must be cognisant of social institutions and human subjectivity. The final essay in the volume by Anirban Biswas concludes with hope on the renewed rise of socialism.
There are certain distinct threads in the volume which must be highlighted. On the one hand, there is a sense of renewing the bond with the people, which stands severed at this point of time. There are overlapping concerns among multiple contributors who see Marxism as humane and capacious in scope. The emphasis is on political practice and on developing a larger sense of solidarity. Mere tactics will not do. Neither will abstract thinking make any difference in bringing people closer to classical Marxist ideals. The other significant thread in the volume underlines the necessity of taking an imaginative leap—aesthetically and politically—which is currently missing in left thinking. In some contributors, this strain seeks a ‘constitutive outside’ in revolutionary action. A yet third line of exposition hopes to renew and map the connections between forgotten revolutionary ideas and practice with current moments of ruptures and mobilisations. Again, well-grounded strategies with long-term impact are emphasised.
Indeed, the whole volume comes across as a deeply introspective enterprise. To those interested in left revolutionary thinking and mobilisation, the importance of the volume lies in providing an honest appraisal about the very idea and scope of leftward thinking and action in the contemporary world. There is no panacea. Resolute action and collective thinking may help. The friends and colleagues of Anjan Ghosh have indeed offered him a fine tribute.