"The News" reviews Pakistan's Other story - The 1968-69 Revolution

"The News", the English edition of the Pakistan newspaper, The Jang, has published a review of "Pakistan's Other story - The 1968-69 Revolution".

Revolution now!

Lal Khan’s new book Pakistan’s Other Story has been published on the 40th anniversary of the movement against Ayub Khan. The introduction of this book has been written by Alan Woods, the world-renowned Marxist revolutionary and a comrade and personal friend of the author.

In the first chapter, Lal Khan narrates the revolutionary movements that took place in France, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, the USA and several other countries in those turbulent times. He explains in detail the war in Vietnam and the revolutionary repercussions of USA’s imperialist aggression.

The author blames the derailing of these revolutions on the traditional leadership of the worker parties. Khan asserts that the policy of divide and rule imposed by the British imperialists was used in connivance of the local elitist to deviate a movement of national liberation that was radicalising rapidly and the rule of capital was being threatened with a glaring possibility of a socialist revolution on the agenda.

The third chapter deals with the situation in the aftermath of the partition and the failure of the nascent ruling classes of Pakistan to develop the economy and institute a stable bourgeoisie democracy, paving the way for country’s first martial law. The chapter defines the patterns of socio-economic developments under Ayub Khan’s dictatorship. According to the author these uneven developments sharpened the contradictions in society that exploded into the mass revolt of 1968-69.

In the fourth chapter the actual events of the revolutionary uprising are narrated in detail. Lal Khan interviewed more than a dozen leaders and activists who participated in the movement and narrates their experiences in the book.

The book also deals with the 1971 war and analyses the 68-69 revolt. The author insists that the reason of the upsurge was socialist in nature because the existent property relations were challenged. Factories were occupied, the youth and workers refused to pay fares in trains and buses, in the countryside the peasant movements seized land estates and there were other similar acts that graphically showed that the movement’s aim was the overthrow of capitalism, feudalism and imperialist exploitation. There were clear indications that the mass revolt was striving for collectivised ownership of the modes of production and the commanding heights of the economy.

Lal Khan asserts that the ruling classes of India and Pakistan even went to war to diffuse the threat of the revolution spreading throughout the subcontinent.

Lal Khan also writes about the role of the left leadership and the ideological confusion and theoretical mistakes they made that led to the revolution bypassing them. Marxism, Trotskyism, Maoism and Stalinism as ideologies are explained and thoroughly analysed.

Khan also writes about the rise of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the phenomenon of populism is reviewed from a historical and social perspective. Khan looks at the reasons of the military coup against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the imposition of the dictatorship from a Marxist perspective. The imposition of the Musharraf dictatorship, its demise and assassination of Benazir Bhutto are also touched upon. Lal Khan presents, through charts, facts and figures the crisis of the present regime, the crumbling economy, the insurgencies raging in different parts of the country and the dismal conditions of social and economic life of the masses.

He ends the book with a grim analysis of the present regime and the intensification of its crises and rise of even greater instability. Lal Khan asserts revolutionary socialism as the only solution to the present crisis. He explains how the capitalist system can be overthrown and what steps can be taken by socialist revolutionaries to salvage society from this abyss. The author has elaborated the concrete measures to be adopted to end poverty, misery, disease and backwardness. What course the revolution will take and the methods, theory and strategy necessary to ensure a Socialist victory.

Source: "The News"