Daily Times

The gruesome incident in which a Christian couple was beaten to death and their bodies burnt in the brick kiln where they worked for allegedly desecrating a Quran in the town of Kot Radha Kishan, symptomises the malaise that is ripping apart the decayed social fabric. The victims were only identified by their first names, Shama and Shahzad. The sickness plaguing society, the black reaction choking social and cultural life is being pulverised by these lumpen religious vigilantes. It is not just the religious minorities but also the working classes and the poor of this tragic land who have been suffering the brutalities of this capitalist coercion ever since Pakistan’s inception.

The misfortune is that with the unravelling of the capitalist crisis, the travails, miseries and naked oppression of the masses have worsened. The toilers and youth of this land have yearned for a change for generations. Sections of the deceptive and callous political elite have even promised them ‘revolutions’ but these demagogies by false prophets have turned out to be one treachery after another. However, it is also a historical fact that this land has witnessed genuine revolutionary movements that challenged this barbaric system and power was within the grasp of the workers and youth. It merely required a Bolshevik party and leadership to achieve a socialist victory.

The first 10 days of November mark the anniversaries of colossal events that changed the course of history for the world and Pakistan. Forty-six years ago, on November 6, 1968, Pakistan was swept by a revolutionary upheaval that could have transformed the system. In a conspiracy of silence, this brilliant revolt of the oppressed masses has been distorted and pushed into oblivion by the dominant right-wing intelligentsia and even so-called left-liberal historians. Some have described it as merely an anti-Ayub agitation, some as simple strikes for workers’ and students’ demands and others as a struggle for democracy against dictatorship.

It was none of the above. It was a mass uprising of the young and virgin Pakistani working class that created a revolutionary situation. Its character was socialist, challenging the existing order – a dictatorship – and the political superstructure but, above all, existing property relations. The fresh and raw proletariat very rapidly acquired a steely determination and a collective consciousness for workers’ ownership and democratic control of industry, the economy and society. For 139 days, the ruling classes and their state were suspended in mid-air and actual power was in the hands of the workers, students and poor peasants in the streets. The might and surge of this revolution overthrew Field Martial Ayub Khan, the strongest ruler ever in the history of Pakistan, on March 25, 1969.

In his parting speech, he declared, “This is the last time I am addressing you as president of Pakistan. The administrative institutions are being paralysed. The mobs are resorting to gheraos (sieges) at will and to get their demands accepted under duress.” He went on to say, “It is my desire that political power should continue to be transferred in a constitutional manner. In the conditions prevailing in the country, it is not possible to convene the National Assembly. Some members may not even dare to attend the Assembly session. It hurts me deeply to say that the situation now is no longer under the control of the government. All state institutions have become victims of coercion, fear and intimidation. Every problem of the country is being decided on the streets.”

Pakistan today is portrayed as a bastion of fundamentalism, terrorism and extremism. The theocratic creation of the country, the direct and indirect despotism by the military, violence, repression, lawlessness, crime, fraud, corruption, intolerance, persecution of minorities and instability are some of the factors that paint Pakistan and Pakistanis as odious throughout the world. A large section of the new generations within Pakistan have a similar appraisal of the situation. The Islamic fundamentalists’ ‘solution’ is to go back to the dark, pre-medieval ages. The imperialists and their stooges in Pakistan claim that liberal democracy and ‘good governance’ are the solution. However, the masses in Pakistan have had agonising experiences of both of these solutions. Time and again the oppressed masses have risen in revolt with fierce volcanic eruptions of workers, peasants and the youth to get rid of capitalist exploitation, feudal drudgery, obscurantist terror and imperialist repression. The 1968-1969 movement stands out above all these uprisings, as it came close to winning a socialist victory. The new generation of the youth and workers in Pakistan have a mission to accomplish, a historic pledge to redeem.

The 97th anniversary of the victory of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which forever changed the course of human history, was on November 7. In a gigantic and unprecedented experiment it proved that it was possible to run society without capitalists, feudal landlords and moneylenders. Despite the aggression of 21 imperialist armies, tremendous objective difficulties and obstacles, the abolition of market mechanisms and the introduction of the planned economy revolutionised the productive forces and laid the basis for a modern economy. The US journalist John Reed, who witnessed the events of the revolution first hand, wrote in his epic book Ten Days that Shook the World: “No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is an undeniable fact that the Russian revolution is one of the greatest events in human history, and the rule of the Bolsheviki is a phenomenon of worldwide importance.”

This revolution appropriated power from a minority set of oppressive classes and transferred it to the overwhelming majority of the labouring classes in society. The process of the overthrow of the bourgeois state and capture of power by the leading party of the proletariat involved the massive conscious involvement and participation of the vast majority of toilers. It is the only successful revolution that took place on classical Marxist lines. Lenin explained what real change this revolution ought to bring. He wrote in December 1917: “One of the most important tasks, is to develop [the] independent initiative of all the working and the exploited people generally, develop it as widely as possible in creative organisational work. At all costs we must break the old, absurd, savage, despicable and distinguishing prejudice that only the so-called upper classes, only the rich, and those who have gone through the school of the rich, are capable of administering the state and directing the organisational development of society.”

What this revolution really meant for the oppressed classes was described in an inspiring anecdote by John Reed on the eve of the revolution: “Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital, immeasurably more splendid by the night than by the day, like a dike of jewels heaped on a barren plain. The old workman who drove the wheelbarrow held in one hand, while with the other he swept the pavement, looked at the far gleaming capital and exclaimed in an exulted gesture, ‘Mine!’ he cried, his face all alight. ‘All mine now! My Petrograd!’”

(To be continued)

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com