Thirty-seven years ago in the night between 3rd and 4th April, 1979, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the elected prime minister and an iconic popular leader created by the 1968-69 upheaval, was assassinated through the gallows by the draconian dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq. Paradoxically, Zia ended up making Bhutto a historical symbol of struggle against oppression and exploitation. He left a legacy of struggle in his incarceration and death at the hands of US imperialist-backed military despot. Unfortunately, the subsequent Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leadership drifted away from that legacy, and today the PPP is in tatters. It stands at the crossroads of being eliminated as a political tradition of the oppressed, and its existence in media is only due to the lack of a mass alternative for the toiling classes.
The party’s socialist programme had been adopted at its founding conference in November 1967 at Lahore. It was a situation when after a decade of the military rule of General Ayub Khan; there had been rapid industrialisation, high growth rates and significant expansion of infrastructure. The main reason for this growth and industrialisation was the spin-off effects of the boom in the western and world capitalism. But instead of resolving the crisis, this Keynesian economic model sharpened contradictions within society that exploded with a mass volcanic eruption.
Bhutto having rejected policies of class collaboration with the ‘national’ bourgeoisie by incumbent left leaders had ended up with the proclamation of the socialist revolution rather than a democratic one asserted by the traditional left. It was this programme that went beyond the basic bourgeois democratic demands that made the meteoric rise of the PPP possible, and Bhutto evolved as a left tradition of the masses. However, that was not an isolated development confined to Pakistan. The phenomenon was witnessed in several other neo-colonial countries in the 1950s and 1960s where the communist parties and the established left leadership failed to come up to the revolutionary aspirations of mass movements, and the consequential vacuum of leadership was then filled by individuals and groups. These came up with socialist slogans and programmes transcending the existent economic systems, states and society. It is another thing that these populist leaders had neither the parties nor the strategy and ideological depth to carry out a socialist revolution. We witnessed such populist processes with Peron in Argentina, Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Soekarno in Indonesia, Salvador Allende in Chile and many others in ex-colonial countries. However, with the capitulation of the subsequent generations of these populist-turned-dynastic leaderships have put these populist movements into disarray.
These movements although are still present in the political spectrum in most of these countries but their clout seems to have faded. The other important factor is that being culturally primitive in some aspects, these movements in such societies with uneven and combined nature of development became personalised to a large extent. Hence, the transition of these parties into dynastic hierarchies was almost inevitable. Bhutto’s legacy is now facing the same dilemma due to the role of his successors who have tried to convert the PPP as part of the incumbent politics, system and the state.
However the PPP and other such hierarchical and populist parties are not the same as the traditional social democratic and communist parties of the advanced capitalist countries, as they have no real party structures, are devoid of internal democracy, and the leaders at different levels are nominated by the top leadership in a whimsical manner. Hence, they are not truly political parties in the classical sense. In fact, there are two PPPs. One is an openly bourgeois party with nominated officials and structures that can be used by the state and the ruling classes to quell mass movements in a period of impending explosion of the class struggle. The other is the PPP that has been in the consciousness of the downtrodden working classes who are burdened by the policies of this tradition, and have no other alternative on a mass scale that they could seriously consider for coming to power and resolving their burning problems. It is this real PPP this is endangered by the ideological drift and capitulation of the leaders. The PPP has been a symbol of unity for the toilers, and when they embark upon a movement, they have a collective platform and an avenue to converge in unity. However, this stature and relevance of the PPP is now dwindling.
The arguments of apologists of the compromised leadership, especially those who give it a left cover, are pathetic. To say that socialism is not needed with the change of the conditions is to add insult to the injury of the masses that are being devastated by this capitalism in decay. Yes, the conditions have changed but in what direction? As compared to the 1960s, the poverty, misery and deprivation of the vast majority of the population have worsened. If anything, the argument should go in the opposite direction. With the deep crisis of the economy, state and society, and the vexing conditions of the masses, socialism is much more necessary today than it was four decades ago. It is precisely because of the failure of the first PPP government under Bhutto himself to abolish capitalism that it was overthrown by a military coup in 1977. Even the most radical reforms with the existence of capitalist relations could not alleviate the misery and poverty of the masses. The lesson of the fall of Bhutto and the assassinations of the subsequent leaders shows that the half-hearted and ‘multiclass’ policies can only end up in tragedy and ruin. In Bhutto’s last testament, he wrote, “The class struggle is irreconcilable and it must end in the victory of one class over the other.” That is the real basis that kept his legacy relevant in the subsequent three and a half decades. Bhutto wrote this as “the lesson of his life and death.”
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s efforts to revive the PPP are half-hearted, and fettered in narratives of PPP leaders, and structured by his parents. His radical gestures are controlled and hesitant to come out with the programme of socialism. His stress on liberal secular slogans however radical they might be can only impress sections of the petit bourgeois. The masses are not interested in these issues. Their needs are food, clothing, shelter, health education and employment. The youth and the workers are yearning for a programme of a revolutionary change. The PPP inspite of having the founding documents based on revolutionary socialism is perhaps the only leadership that is evading even its rhetoric. Such lackadaisical approach cannot stop the downward spiral of PPP’s social base and revive the party’s fortunes. When the mass movement erupts again it can evolve a new tradition and party in those stormy events. After all the exploited masses have to redeem the unfinished revolution of 1968-69.
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at [email protected]