Asia

The multi-million reception for Benzir Bhutto last week, and the subsequent terrorist bomb attack, revealed more clearly in one day all the deep contradictions of Pakistani society than anything else could have. The hopes and aspirations of the masses have been aroused, and they want solutions to their problems. No matter what happens in the days, weeks, and months to come, revolutionary storms loom large on the horizon.

We have just received this report from the Pakistani Marxists who intervened massively in the welcoming rally to receive Benazir Bhutto. Their ideas connected with many people on the rally. Unfortunately all this was cut across by the suicide bombings. The comrades turned their attention to helping the wounded. On Monday we will be publishing a lengthier analysis.

The dalits, the “untouchables”, of India are not one homogenous bloc. Within them a bourgeois layer has risen and aspires to be a part of the bourgeois class as a whole. With this aim in mind they promote the idea that the dalits as a caste need their own “dalit party”. To do this they try to isolate the dalit proletariat from the rest of the Indian working class to promote their own selfish interests. Here Rajesh Tyagi explains that what is needed is proletarian unity across the caste barriers.

The long post-war economic boom in Japan explained the relative political stability of the country. But since the 1980s things have changed. Now we are seeing its economic decline emerge as political instability, with the masses looking for an alternative to the status quo. The latest developments confirm this.

This article, written in 1998, looked at the severe crisis that was affecting Japan, with big falls in investment and thus in productivity, rising unemployment and falls in the real level of wages. The Liberal Democratic Party started losing support; the Democratic Party emerged in an attempt to prepare a bourgeois “alternative” to the fall of the LDP, while on the left the Communist Party was doubling its forces.

We often hear of the brutal conditions that workers have to suffer in underdeveloped countries. Here we have an example of a famous multinational, Unilever, which is making huge profits while paying starvation wages and using draconian measures when the workers dare to protest. Send messages of protest and let these workers know they are not alone.

When the CPN-Maoist joined the coalition government in Nepal after the revolutionary events last year, the media, the imperialists and last but not least the Nepali ruling class proclaimed a new era of peace and prosperity. This was never going to be the case and now, not even a year after the formation of the government, the Maoists have left the government and Nepal is heading back down the road of crisis.

More people have been killed in Myanmar (Burma) as the military try and hold back the wave of protest. But pressure is building up on the regime. Whether it will clamp down firmly or move in the direction of negotiations depends on the power of the movement in the coming days.

The sudden steep increase in the price of fuel in Myanmar (Burma) in August pushed the already impoverished masses beyond the limit. Now a mass movement threatens to overthrow the rotten military regime. But the lack of a genuine workers’ alternative has left a vacuum into which the bourgeois opposition are stepping.

What started as an argument and scuffle between a group of army officers and students watching a football match has ended up as a widespread movement of the youth in Bangladesh, followed by curfew and sever repression, which has only served to spread the movement throughout the whole country.

Just One Day Comrade (Sehari Saja Kawan) is one of many poems written by a well-known Indonesian poet Wiji Thukul about the strength of workers’ unity. Through the power of his words, he has inspired many youth and workers to fight against the oppressive capitalism.

The influence and strength of the Marxists in Kashmir continues to grow apace. Testimony to this is the fact that around 800 attended the regional conference held last Sunday, September 9. This all bodes well for the future revolutionary events.