Asian Marxist Review – Editor’s Note – Spring 2008

The explosive events of the last few months in Pakistan have demonstrated the raging lava of mass anguish underneath the surface. These unraveling convulsions refuse to ebb or slow down. The tumultuous welcome procession of more than two million people at Karachi on 18^th October last year for Benazir Bhutto sent shock waves through the corridors of power in Islamabad and their masters in Washington. The sheer size of this human mass that came out to show Benazir a glimpse of their miseries, deprivation and their will to transform this rotten system began to radicalize her. And this pressure kept on mounting throughout her electoral journey across Pakistan.

Ultimately the pressure became unbearable for the more reactionary sections of the state. Benazir was assassinated in the cross fire of the political conflict between the different sections of the crisis-ridden Pakistani state. The violent mass reaction to this gruesome act terrified the ruling classes and the strategists of US imperialism. Their fear forced them to unite. The elections of February 18, contrary to the propaganda of the media, were the most meticulously and selectively rigged in Pakistan's history. This blatant manipulation by the state was carried out with the connivance of the so called contending political parties' leaderships. The probable coalition government will also be the result of this deep fear of the bourgeois leaders of the rising tide from below. The masses know they have been treachously cheated. They shall not wait for long. The coalition of political parties representing antagonistic class interests will be in throes of instability and turmoil right from the start. It will collapse sooner rather than later. The wave of bombings and suicide attacks has recommenced with a monstrous ferocity. The economy is crumbling. Its deficits are unprecedented even by Pakistani standards. The inflation, price hikes and poverty are increasing more rapidly than ever. The common inequality and drudgery are exacerbating the pent-up anger and hatred amongst the masses. Islamic parties have been routed; the shameless sycophancy of the nationalists towards imperialism has totally discredited them. The non-issues of ‘constitution', ‘judiciary' and ‘civil society' have become irrelevant in the intense hunger, poverty, shortages and sufferings of the uncivil society. Pakistan is on the verge of revolution or reaction, civil war or a class upheaval, socialism or barbarism.

And so is the whole region. The extreme socio-economic crisis of capitalism, perpetuated by imperialist aggression, has made turbulence and turmoil a social norm. Every move of the imperialists and their local surrogates, whether on the political, diplomatic or military fronts to quell the crisis, backfires. The brutal Israeli bombing and maiming of Palestinians in Gaza has turned the so-called peace plan into tatters. The official visit of Ahmedinijad to Baghdad is a shameful diplomatic defeat for the Americans. The incursions of the Turkish Army into northern Iraq have exposed the impotence of imperialism. Defeat is staring the NATO forces in Afghanistan in the face. They are on the verge of beating a retreat. China's economic ‘miracle' has created the greatest inequality on the planet. With 22% of world's population, India breeds 46% of world's poverty. The Congress regime, supported by the Communist Party leaders, has raised the military spending to astronomical levels in this poverty-stricken miserable country. From Bangladesh to Japan, every society in East Asia is drenched in crisis. Every passing day the turmoil is further aggravated.

On 18^th October and on the eve of the 27^th December last year the masses vented their wrath in diverse forms. Such mass outbursts will be repeated in one country after another in the days and months ahead. It only needs a Marxist leadership and a revolutionary method, to give it a clear direction, courage and destination. On 18^th February, the Industrial zone of Karachi, Pakistan's Petrograd, was littered with red flags, revolutionary slogans and songs and socialist banners for the first time since 1972. The Marxist forces were making their revolutionary presence felt on the political horizon. This can now only move forward. History and human civilization have to advance. A socialist victory in any country at this terminal stage of the class war shall overcome and transcend frontiers, religious hatreds, nationalist prejudices and other reactionary manifestations imposed by the ruling classes in the last period to perpetuate their criminal rule and the horror without end that is capitalism. No borders, no walls, no state and no reactionary might will be able to stop this advance. Socialism has to become the ultimate destiny of mankind. It is the only way for the survival of the human race.