Asian Marxist Review, Summer 2009 - Editor’s note

The latest edition of the Asian Marxist Review is shortly coming out. Here we provide the editorial statement, which outlines the plight of the workers and poor of the South Asian subcontinent, but also points to the movement in Iran as confirmation of the enormous potential for revolt among the masses.

The mass upheaval in Iran has once again demonstrated the discontent and revolt simmering beneath the surface in societies plagued by the crisis and decay of capitalism. And it is not just Iran. The crash of financial capital hitting the real economy has brought disaster and devastation for the toiling masses around the world. In the year 2009-2010 the number of children that will die due to hunger and disease in South Asia will rise from 40 million to 50 million. More than 50 million workers in heavy industry will lose their jobs.

Still these figures do not explain the excruciating misery and suffering of the already impoverished billions, especially in the former colonial countries. In countries like India, in spite of high growth rates of around nine percent in the last five years, the population living below the income of less than half a dollar per day has risen from770 million to 836 million. Now with the growth rates plummeting, these impoverished souls will have to cope with an unprecedented disaster.

Pakistan’s growth rate has fallen from an average of 6.5% under the tin-pot Musharraf dictatorship to 1.8% under the present ‘democratic’ dispensation. Electricity outages and water scarcity have further added to the agony of the oppressed. Insurgencies and wars in Swat, Waziristan, Baluchistan and other areas of Pakistan, have resulted in innumerable deaths of the poor peasants, women and children in these regions.

The U.S. aggression in Afghanistan and North West Pakistan has failed to “eliminate” the reactionary Islamic fundamentalists and destroy their networks. Instead, like the military operations of the Pakistan army, they have killed thousands of innocent civilians and brought havoc by destroying small hamlets and towns.

Millions have been displaced and the numbers are further rising. Most of these refugees are sweltering in the scorching heat and miserable conditions of the camps. Yet the war is far from over, and these millions have nowhere to go, having lost their dwellings and with no hope of a future even to give then an imaginative solace.

In Gaza and the West Bank the Palestinian masses are embroiled in a vicious quagmire of endless suffering. The two state solution, that was a non-starter from the beginning, is now in shambles. The Cairo speech of Obama is no respite for the misery and agony of the masses of the Middle East.

In fact, this was the third ideological retreat on the part of the imperialists in a short historical span of just twenty years. In 1989 they came out with the famous Fukuyama thesis of the “End of History”. Then the crisis, war and turmoil led them to adopt Huntington’s doctrine of the “Clash of Civilisations” to perpetuate the imperialist exploitation and domination. Now Obama has come up with the idea of “Reconciliation”. It is doomed from its inception. With the chances of recovery of the U.S. economy put off as far away as 2019 by “The Economist” magazine, the burgeoning economic crisis will play havoc with society and the conditions of the masses. More turmoil, conflict and conflagration wall ensue.

The false illusion traded by the “experts”, that high growth rates in China and India will pull the world economy out of this deep recession has been shattered by the events in these very societies. Unemployment and poverty has meteorically risen further aggravating the crisis in the Asian economies.

India faces a Maoist insurgency in several eastern states including Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Andra Pradesh. It is gaining strength and now has started to hit industry and the economy, that is most worrying for this regime that has based itself on foreign investment and “neoliberal” economic doctrine.

The defeat of the CPI-M and the Left Front in the May elections is yet another confirmation of the historical decadence of the Stalinist theory of two stages and popular frontism. In the absence of a viable revolutionary alternative, the tendency of the youth moving towards guerrilla movements is nothing new. In some of these states the conditions are so terrible that some hamlets do not have drinking water, but Pepsi kiosks from which the impoverished masses cannot afford to buy the cold drink!

But the fall of the Maoist regime in Nepal, and the failure of their coalition with the bourgeois parties, has been a setback for the Maoists in India. The blind alley of the CP Stalinists and the futile insurgency of the Maoists have put the youth and workers in India in a desperate situation. They are yearning for a revolutionary way out from this abyss of misery, poverty, disease and bloodshed.

However, this situation prevails almost everywhere. Even a modest Marxist organisation could gain a mass basis in the stormy events that impend. The movement in Iran shows the potential. With a correct ideology, methods and strategy, a revolutionary leadership with an iron will and determination could lead such a movement to the overthrow of capitalism through a socialist revolution. Such a profound transformation in any major country would inevitably initiate revolutionary movements in one country after another. This is the only way forward for the survival of human culture and civilisation and the emancipation on humankind.