The Ironies of Indian Maoists

[Kiev Communard]

An interesting article by Jairus Banaji on the development and modern state of Indian Maoist (Naxalite) movement. The author argues that, contrary to popular myths about "feudalism" as a main source of Indian agrarian insurgencies led by Maoists, it was precisely primitive accumulation and development of usury capitalism in the countryside that made many disadvantaged rural poor, mainly of tribal or Dalit background, turn towards Maoist politics, and the author concludes that, contrary to Maoists' own assertions, it is landless rural proletariat, rather than abstract 'peasantry', that constitutes a main revolutionary force in the 'Naxalite' regions of India.

http://www.sacw.net/IMG/pdf/The_ironies_of_Indian_Maoism_PDF_version_.pdf

[Dimentio]

That depends if you view the rural proletariat as peasants or not. In Britain, everyone who works on the soil are known as peasants, since Britain has a history of farmers who rent their land from the landlord. In Sweden, peasants (who had a high status in society and a place in the Riksdag) where defined by owning their own land (they made up about 35% of the population, while 50% were the landless proletariat, which worked for the peasants. Those numbers are from pre-industrial Sweden, in the 18th century.

How is it with land ownership amongst peasants in India. Do they generally own their own land, or hire it? Do they own it collectively or individually? I guess it's pretty diverse, giving India's size.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Mike Macnair did a series of rather critical reviews of that book in the Weekly Worker, of which in turn I responded re. my own criticism and my positing of Third World Caesarean Socialism as a strategic alternative:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxism-and-theoretical-t148941/index.html

[pranabjyoti]

That depends if you view the rural proletariat as peasants or not. In Britain, everyone who works on the soil are known as peasants, since Britain has a history of farmers who rent their land from the landlord. In Sweden, peasants (who had a high status in society and a place in the Riksdag) where defined by owning their own land (they made up about 35% of the population, while 50% were the landless proletariat, which worked for the peasants. Those numbers are from pre-industrial Sweden, in the 18th century.

How is it with land ownership amongst peasants in India. Do they generally own their own land, or hire it? Do they own it collectively or individually? I guess it's pretty diverse, giving India's size.
The problem with Indian peasants is the fact the machinery and tools used is very much primitive and the amount of land owned by most peasants is too small to apply modern machinery and the peasants too don't have the knowledge and capital to apply modern machinery. I can not say about the proper statistics at present, but most are either landless or owner of a small plot of land that can not produce enough to sustain the peasants family. There are many other complex social factors involved in the scenario.

[black magick hustla]

Third World Caesarean Socialism

wat

i need some of that shit you are always on you are probably always on a perpetual dream quest

[Queercommie Girl]

wat

i need some of that shit you are always on you are probably always on a perpetual dream quest

DNZ is a crypto-imperialist scum.

He deserves to be restricted and his Caesarean Socialism should be put into OI.

It's pretty ridiculous that some people here on RevLeft consider restricting "Stalinists" and social democrats, but not those who glorify imperialist oppressors of the ancient world, such as Caesar and Genghis Khan.

[Dimentio]

The problem with Indian peasants is the fact the machinery and tools used is very much primitive and the amount of land owned by most peasants is too small to apply modern machinery and the peasants too don't have the knowledge and capital to apply modern machinery. I can not say about the proper statistics at present, but most are either landless or owner of a small plot of land that can not produce enough to sustain the peasants family. There are many other complex social factors involved in the scenario.

I see, and peasants run bankcrupt and cannot pay their debts and therefore not move to the cities (even if many are moving to the cities to try their luck there)?

If that is a huge segment of the population, India is heading towards an explosion.

[pranabjyoti]

I see, and peasants run bankcrupt and cannot pay their debts and therefore not move to the cities (even if many are moving to the cities to try their luck there)?

If that is a huge segment of the population, India is heading towards an explosion.
It already put its feet on landmines. If there was laws like Albania, where citizen have training, then you will see the bloodiest civil war. If the Maoists of India will possess just 1/2 of the amount and quality arms like Libyan rebels, Indian army will be on disaster today.

[Tim Finnegan]

In Britain, everyone who works on the soil are known as peasants, since Britain has a history of farmers who rent their land from the landlord.
News to me. :confused: I honestly haven't heard "peasant" used in any modern context outside of references to the handful of crofters still kicking about the Highlands and Isles.


wat

i need some of that shit you are always on you are probably always on a perpetual dream quest

DNZ is a crypto-imperialist scum.

He deserves to be restricted and his Caesarean Socialism should be put into OI.

It's pretty ridiculous that some people here on RevLeft consider restricting "Stalinists" and social democrats, but not those who glorify imperialist oppressors of the ancient world, such as Caesar and Genghis Khan.
Isn't it funny that so many posters have come to the conclusion that DNZ is in some way objectionable, but no two actually seem to agree as to exactly why he is objectionable, or the form that his objectionableness takes, to the extent that these claims of objectionableness are very often mutually contradictory? :rolleyes:

[bailey_187]

DNZ is a crypto-imperialist scum.

He deserves to be restricted and his Caesarean Socialism should be put into OI.

It's pretty ridiculous that some people here on RevLeft consider restricting "Stalinists" and social democrats, but not those who glorify imperialist oppressors of the ancient world, such as Caesar and Genghis Khan.

DNZ just has a weird love for crazy theories, i dont think he actually wants to go and conquer Gaul

[ComradeOm]

That depends if you view the rural proletariat as peasants or not. In Britain, everyone who works on the soil are known as peasants, since Britain has a history of farmers who rent their land from the landlordNo, they're not. 'Peasant' is an archaic term in Britain

The peasantry have not been a significant class factor in Great Britain since the early 19th C at the latest. A combination of centuries of the enclosure movement (backed up by Acts of Parliament) and mass urbanisation, plus the Clearances in Scotland, ensured an almost complete abolition of small peasant plots. Their replacement was the emergence of large landowners, smaller private farmers and an underclass of agricultural workers. Or, as Hobsbawm put it: "We have no reliable figures, but it is clear that by 1750 the characteristic structure of English landownership was already discernible: a few thousand landowners, leasing out their land to some tens of thousands of tenant farmers, who in turn operated it with the labour of hundreds of thousands of farm-labourers, servants and dwarf holders who hired themselves out for much of the time. This fact in itself entails a very substantial system of cash incomes and cash sales"

[Queercommie Girl]

Isn't it funny that so many posters have come to the conclusion that DNZ is in some way objectionable, but no two actually seem to agree as to exactly why he is objectionable, or the form that his objectionableness takes, to the extent that these claims of objectionableness are very often mutually contradictory? :rolleyes:


And all of your word-play here has completely missed the point.

How could any genuine Marxist name a socialist tendency after a brutal imperialist slavelord dictator like Julius Caesar, who owned a massive number of slaves? If you glorify Caesar like that, where would you put Spartacus? How can someone like DNZ who dismisses the revolutionary legacy of Spartacus yet uphold a slavelord dictator like Caesar be a genuine socialist? Are you fucking kidding me?

Not to mention the content of his political programme does not even have the working class in the lead, which clearly shows that it is not genuine socialist.

[Tim Finnegan]

And all of your word-play here has completely missed the point.

How could any genuine Marxist name a socialist tendency after a brutal imperialist slavelord dictator like Julius Caesar, who owned a massive number of slaves? If you glorify Caesar like that, where would you put Spartacus? How can someone like DNZ who dismisses the revolutionary legacy of Spartacus yet uphold a slavelord dictator like Caesar be a genuine socialist? Are you fucking kidding me?

Not to mention the content of his political programme does not even have the working class in the lead, which clearly shows that it is not genuine socialist.
Firstly, I'm not sure in what sense, exactly, DNZ is "glorifying" Caesar. It's a reference to what he claims to be a characteristic or set of characteristics shared by certain political movements; would you say that a discussion of "Marxian" economics glorifies Marx?
Secondly, "Third World Caesarian socialism" isn't something which he has lent exclusive or even primary support for, it's just something that he's suggested as a step on the road towards communism in certain locales. Do remember, Marx himself advocated the furthering of the bourgeois state against feudalism, so it's not as if there's any commandant for Marxists to make a bee-line towards proletarian revolution.
Thirdly, I think that you could do with actually reading up on his idea, because, right now, you don't really seem very acquainted with what the term "Third World Caesarian socialism" actually refers to.

Besides, as much as that may be your point, it isn't mine: that a lot of comrades here seem to have it out for DNZ, but most of them seem to have their own, privately-cultivated logic with only rather limited resonance, to the point where these criticisms often contradict each other to no insubstantial degree.

[Jose Gracchus]

And all of your word-play here has completely missed the point.

How could any genuine Marxist name a socialist tendency after a brutal imperialist slavelord dictator like Julius Caesar, who owned a massive number of slaves? If you glorify Caesar like that, where would you put Spartacus? How can someone like DNZ who dismisses the revolutionary legacy of Spartacus yet uphold a slavelord dictator like Caesar be a genuine socialist? Are you fucking kidding me?

Not to mention the content of his political programme does not even have the working class in the lead, which clearly shows that it is not genuine socialist.

Firstly: this ^ guilt-by-association brand of "argumentation" grows old. Are you going to try to lead witch hunts of Stalinists who support political figures who murdered more socialists than Suharto, or is this just a bat to beat people who have pissed in your cereal in this or that past debate with you?

Secondly, and on the other hand, I find Tim's argument to be lame itself. Does that imply each and every claim about DNZ's quality of politics should be dismissed at leisure since they not form some kind of spontaneous agreement or coherency? You'd be lucky to find that in reply to any political line you could want to criticize, from Proudhon to Marx to Kautsky to Trotsky.

Thirdly, you guys should stop derailing the thread. DNZ's post and link was only marginally about him stumping his private theories. There are actually substantive questions and critiques against Banaji's core thesis by Mike Macnair, though he does dismiss Maoist fantasies bearing no resemblance to the history of China, or substantive materialistic historical analysis anywhere else, either.

To whit, and in pursuit of trying to re-rail this thread:

Michael Macnair, Daily Worker [part 3] (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004278):

Concrete politics

It is finally now hopefully possible to return very briefly from this high level of abstraction and (as it were) satellite’s eye view of human history, to the concrete political.


Banaji’s argument, as I said in the first part of the review, denies transitions - at least prolonged ones - and transitional forms. It rejects ‘teleology’ without arguing the point, it seems (as far as I can tell from the work) because a theory which gives directionality to history would imply transitions and transitional forms. The political function of this theoretical analysis is to analyse India as fully capitalist without significant pre-capitalist survivals and thereby demolish a priori the ‘official communist’ stages theory and the Maoist theory of peasant war.


Banaji’s alternative approach is labour organising: as he says towards the end of ‘The ironies of Indian Maoism’, “The bulk of the Indian labour force remains unorganised into unions, and it is stupefying to imagine that a revolution against capitalism can succeed while the mass of the workers are in a state of near-complete atomisation.”[13 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004278#13)]


But suppose that there is directionality in history and there are transitions and transitional forms. It is then perfectly possible that the phenomena of the putting-out system or ‘formal subsumption of labour to capital’, debt-bondage, indentured labour and so on, which are found in late medieval through to 19th century Europe, and the reinvention of slavery as a colonial institution in the Americas, are indeed transitional forms: certainly, these forms have, in fact, been overthrown - and in countries which remained subordinate (as in Latin America and the Caribbean) as well as in imperialist countries like the UK and USA. Assume, then, that these forms are transitional. We then have to ask what their political implications are?


The first issue is the putting-out system and similar systems of ‘formal subsumption of labour to capital’. In this system, the producers remain formally owners of their means of production, but are in fact controlled by capitalist control of materials supplies, credit, and outlets for their products. The question posed in whether this regime produces what Marc Mulholland has called the proletarian ‘imaginaire’ which led Marx to suppose that the proletariat would tend towards collectivism.[14 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004278#14)] The answer is fairly clearly that it does not; and, in fact, it is pretty clear from Marx and Engels’ comments on the urban ‘Straubinger’ of their own day that they did not think it would. The case is a fortiori of sharecroppers and similar strata in the countryside, who have some partial access to petty household cultivation.
Second is the other side of the rural coin: the persistence of pre-capitalist religious forms (in Hindu India, that of antique, pre-feudal, religious forms) and of landlord classes which struggle to maintain some form of juridical subordination of their workforce over and above the ‘dull compulsion of everyday life’ and self-identify as members of one or another sort of religious or martial elite. Where in world history have claims of this sort been overthrown without a jacquerie, peasants’ revolt, Bauernkrieg, or forcible suppression of the old order by external conquerors (as in US-imposed land reform in southern Korea)?


To say this is not to endorse the Naxalites against Banaji’s criticisms - or, for the reasons I gave in the first article, to endorse the ‘official communist’ policy of class alliance with ‘progressive’ capitalists. Banaji is undoubtedly correct that communist policy in India needs to begin with the organisation of the urban proletariat proper: in parties, unions, cooperatives, and so on. But precisely the difficulties of union organising imply - as they did for workers in many countries in the late 19th century - the centrality of political party organisation. And a political party cannot speak only to the concerns of the urban workers, but has to have things to say about ‘agrarian questions’. Banaji’s arguments seem to construct the conclusion that the problems of agrarian labour are simply identical to those of urban labour. It seems unlikely.

[Part 1] (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004237), [Part 2] (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004246)

Personally, I liked Macnair's review, though I am just as skeptical of the intellectual basis for its 'origins', as he is of Banaji's. He clearly is approaching this from the angle of is own "arch-partyist", "neo-Kautskyite" politics. This is bad when it projects a kind of "bourgeois to the core" bureaucratic conception of politics, which, in my mind, relegates working people to passive participants in his or DNZ's party schemes and programs. As a libertarian socialist, I believe in mass action, mass participation, authentic and real democratic control by the base. But Macnair and his review, plus some specific claims he digs out of Banaji, puts into question much of the strike-fetishization, and the excessive reliance on "point-of-production" conceptions of class relations and class politics. I think anyone looking to formulate class politics today needs to be able to do so in a way that deals with "next-day" supply-lines and deliveries - with factory-to-sale chains beginning with raw materials extracted by state-mines in Chile, manufactured to nearly the finished product in China, shipped across to the U.S., where distribution and sale, and attendant marketing and commercialization and financial acumen for the entire above process is fashioned, and finally sold. Luxembourg and Sorel dealt in a different time, and modern libertarian socialists and partyists alike need to consider the modern division of labor, modern nature of industrial production.

[Queercommie Girl]

Firstly, I'm not sure in what sense, exactly, DNZ is "glorifying" Caesar. It's a reference to what he claims to be a characteristic or set of characteristics shared by certain political movements; would you say that a discussion of "Marxian" economics glorifies Marx?


It doesn't matter. The words "Caesar" and "socialism" don't belong together. What can modern Marxists learn from a slavelord dictator from 2000 years ago? Not only was Caesar reactionary in his own time, but things have also changed so much that the class dynamics of today are totally different from the class dynamics of 2000 years ago, so that it is insane to think that something pulled from ancient Rome can be of direct use to socialists today.

Marxism may not "glorify" Marx as such, but to use Marx's name to label an entire political and philosophical system is certainly a sign of respect for Karl Marx. I certainly do not believe someone like Caesar deserves a similar kind of honour.



Secondly, "Third World Caesarian socialism" isn't something which he has lent exclusive or even primary support for, it's just something that he's suggested as a step on the road towards communism in certain locales. Do remember, Marx himself advocated the furthering of the bourgeois state against feudalism, so it's not as if there's any commandant for Marxists to make a bee-line towards proletarian revolution.
Marx said capitalism is relatively progressive compared with feudalism, but how is this relevant to DNZ's mad theories? He is not drawing inspiration from the bourgeois revolutions against feudalism, but from the actions of a slavelord dictator from 20 centuries ago.

Did Marx ever say Julius Caesar was relatively progressive to something? Not really.



Thirdly, I think that you could do with actually reading up on his idea, because, right now, you don't really seem very acquainted with what the term "Third World Caesarian socialism" actually refers to.
Yes, I have actually read his idea, and it is fundamentally flawed because it does not promote the workers acting as the leading class in the socialist revolution, not even on paper. And every genuine Marxist knows that if the working class is not in the lead, then it's not socialism. It might be "relatively progressive" compared with a few other things, but it's certainly not socialism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Firstly: this ^ guilt-by-association brand of "argumentation" grows old. Are you going to try to lead witch hunts of Stalinists who support political figures who murdered more socialists than Suharto, or is this just a bat to beat people who have pissed in your cereal in this or that past debate with you?


This isn't about "guilt by association", it's a matter of class character. Why don't you tell me the exact "argument" for how a leader of the slavelord class 2000 years ago can be useful for working class politics today? What is the exact "affinity" between the slavelord and the working classes?

Basically, the burden of proof is on the side of those who want to advocate "Caesarean Socialism", not on me. They'd have to show how exactly is a 2000 years old slavelord dictator relevant to working class politics today.

Also, this has nothing to do with anything "personal". I might have had some run-ins with a few other people on this forum, but I have never had any personal issues with DNZ. It's only his political theory I'm disagreeing with. So save your pathetic attempts at trying to make a personal remark against me for someone else.

[Jose Gracchus]

Argument-from-"unappeasing-name" is a pretty lame excuse to continue derailing this thread. Maybe we could drop some of the self-righteous indignation and get down to the discussion of the class character of the farming classes described in the OP, and maybe get down to what class politics we find appropriate on that basis, vis-a-vis the Naxalite approach? Maybe that's time better spent than allowing DNZ's pet theories swallow up everything? How many people really take any of that shit of his seriously anyway? I think you're wasting time tilting at windmills, but that's just me.

[Queercommie Girl]

Argument-from-"unappeasing-name" is a pretty lame excuse to continue derailing this thread. Maybe we could drop some of the self-righteous indignation and get down to the discussion of the class character of the farming classes described in the OP, and maybe get down to what class politics we find appropriate on that basis, vis-a-vis the Naxalite approach? Maybe?

I'm not the one who first derailed this thread. I suggest you point the finger at no other than DNZ himself. The guy thinks his "Caesarean Socialism" is an answer to every thread here.

And no you are wrong if you think it is just a "name" issue. Obviously names are never utilised for no concrete reasons at all, if a particular name is used in politics there is always a serious reason behind it. Have you actually read some of DNZ's posts? He really does think there is something in how Caesar rose to the highest positions of power in Imperial Rome which can inspire modern working class movements.

So, back on topic: technically the poorest layers of the peasant class do include the landless poor. Also the term "peasant class" is more accurate than "farming class".

[Jose Gracchus]

I was using a value-neutral term, rather than presupposing either side of the debate. And I dispute your claim. What are the "peasantry" if by definition they include the landless rural poor? Are migrant fruit-pickers in the United States "peasants"? I think that's incoherent. You're basically trying to dictionary-definition whisk rural proletarians out of existence.

[Queercommie Girl]

And I dispute your claim. What are the "peasantry" if by definition they include the landless rural poor? Are migrant fruit-pickers in the United States "peasants"? I think that's incoherent. You're basically trying to dictionary-definition whisk rural proletarians out of existence.


That's only if you assume the "peasantry" and the "proletariat" are mutually exclusive categories, but they are not.

[Tim Finnegan]

Secondly, and on the other hand, I find Tim's argument to be lame itself. Does that imply each and every claim about DNZ's quality of politics should be dismissed at leisure since they not form some kind of spontaneous agreement or coherency? You'd be lucky to find that in reply to any political line you could want to criticize, from Proudhon to Marx to Kautsky to Trotsky.
Well, that's why it's important to draw the distinction between "argument" and "sardonic remark"; I didn't originally intend to put forward some argument- as you say, it was a minor point to start- but to indulge in a bit of eye-rolling at the vehement-yet-inconsistent reactions DNZ's comments so often produce. Unfortunately, we rather managed to screw that one up, so, consequently,

Thirdly, you guys should stop derailing the thread.This.


That's only if you assume the "peasantry" and the "proletariat" are mutually exclusive categories, but they are not.
That would suggest that "peasant" is a sociological category, which isn't particularly useful when pursuing a materialist class analysis.

[Jose Gracchus]

That's only if you assume the "peasantry" and the "proletariat" are mutually exclusive categories, but they are not.

Then what is the point of using the terms to refer to distinct classes? Maybe you should stop obsessing over terms, and try to explain to us when someone stops being a "peasant" or "staple-growing-person" or "whatever the fuck" in the sense of Engels' The Peasant War in Germany and opposed by many anarchists of the Russian variety [Kroprotkin, etc.] versus when they match the conception of the "proletarian" known to Marx and Engels, and how both figure into differing trajectories of materialistic history based on discrete class interests, with attendant specific ramifications in class politics?

Answer some questions, don't pass the buck to semantic word-games.

[Die Neue Zeit]

He clearly is approaching this from the angle of is own "arch-partyist", "neo-Kautskyite" politics. This is bad when it projects a kind of "bourgeois to the core" bureaucratic conception of politics, which, in my mind, relegates working people to passive participants in his or DNZ's party schemes and programs. As a libertarian socialist, I believe in mass action, mass participation, authentic and real democratic control by the base. But Macnair and his review, plus some specific claims he digs out of Banaji, puts into question much of the strike-fetishization, and the excessive reliance on "point-of-production" conceptions of class relations and class politics. I think anyone looking to formulate class politics today needs to be able to do so in a way that deals with "next-day" supply-lines and deliveries - with factory-to-sale chains beginning with raw materials extracted by state-mines in Chile, manufactured to nearly the finished product in China, shipped across to the U.S., where distribution and sale, and attendant marketing and commercialization and financial acumen for the entire above process is fashioned, and finally sold. Luxembourg and Sorel dealt in a different time, and modern libertarian socialists and partyists alike need to consider the modern division of labor, modern nature of industrial production.

We discussed this over the weekend, comrade. If there's extensive rotation, random selection, etc. especially if the number of historically selected officials in proportion to the party citizenship is very high, how can that be "relegating working people to passive participants in party schemes and programs"?

By the very definition of the Central Limit Theorem, it is "mass action, mass participation."

[Die Neue Zeit]

Argument-from-"unappeasing-name" is a pretty lame excuse to continue derailing this thread. Maybe we could drop some of the self-righteous indignation and get down to the discussion of the class character of the farming classes described in the OP, and maybe get down to what class politics we find appropriate on that basis, vis-a-vis the Naxalite approach? Maybe that's time better spent than allowing DNZ's pet theories swallow up everything? How many people really take any of that shit of his seriously anyway? I think you're wasting time tilting at windmills, but that's just me.

I already did "get down to the discussion of the class character of the farming classes described in the OP." It's a very simple question: Are they tenant farmers or sharecroppers, or are they actually farm workers like Cesar Chavez and sovkhoz workers?


I'm not sure about the validity of Banaji's argument about rural proletarians, even if Maoists do tend to throw around the word 'peasant' quite loosely. Small tenant farmers and sharecroppers are no rural proletarians, as opposed to industrial farm workers.

Who bears the "business risk" may or may not be a key factor in class definitions. I'm aware that it is in the interests of corporate agriculture to share as much of the "business risk" as possible with the little toiler, yet there are fundamental relations that can't be changed just because of "business risk" shifts.

Banaji basically said that these guys are farm workers despite all the risks. In more developed countries, there are definitely the "false self-employed" (comrade Zanthorus), but these folks don't own or control any means of production. Tenant farmers and sharecroppers still own means of production (sickles and such, and land plots for the latter), and the Indian farmers described are indeed primarily a mix of tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

Meanwhile, one person's "class politics we find appropriate on that basis" is another person's "thread hijack," "thread derail," etc.


Yes, I have actually read his idea, and it is fundamentally flawed because it does not promote the workers acting as the leading class in the socialist revolution, not even on paper. And every genuine Marxist knows that if the working class is not in the lead, then it's not socialism. It might be "relatively progressive" compared with a few other things, but it's certainly not socialism.

That's because Maoism's "workers as the leading class" even in a demographic minority is cheap rhetoric. Third World Caesarean Socialism dispenses with this cheap rhetoric and also burns bridges with minoritarian civil war against the majoritarian petit-bourgeois mix of tenant farmers and sharecroppers (and the blind faith that a proletarian demographic minority in power can do otherwise).

[red cat]

That's only if you assume the "peasantry" and the "proletariat" are mutually exclusive categories, but they are not.

There are several conditions that lead to identification as the peasantry. For example, the class demand of a landless peasant after takeover by the revolutionary forces in many underdeveloped parts of India is to acquire land as private property. But the demand of an agricultural worker, in tea or coffee plantations etc. will be the same as that of the working class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Acquiring land as private property is for tenant farmers only (with crop fixed rent contracts).

For sharecroppers (by "sharecropper," I include those with small private land and agricultural MOP but who have to meet quotas by a national marketing monopsony like the Australian and Canadian Wheat Boards), it may be replacing sharecropping with favourable crop fixed rent contracts (selling all amounts above the quota at their preferred prices).

It may also be the other side covering more expenses (seed, fertilizer, weed control, fuel, etc.):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping#Sharecropping_agreements

[Jose Gracchus]

We discussed this over the weekend, comrade. If there's extensive rotation, random selection, etc. especially if the number of historically selected officials in proportion to the party citizenship is very high, how can that be "relegating working people to passive participants in party schemes and programs"?

By the very definition of the Central Limit Theorem, it is "mass action, mass participation."

And as we've talked, you think class struggles don't exist outside or beyond "institutionalization." I just do not agree with your bureaucratic conceptions, and I think party "citizenship" is a white elephant which will never work, nor will random selection for offices. I fundamentally disagree with you on these things, and find them naive and alien to historical working-class politics. I don't think some funny scheme thought-up in pure abstraction by petty bourgeois elements outside the class will successfully market it to the class, and with this magic bullet scheme, achieve struggles. That's alien to the working class history I've studied.

As for the rest, yes, I do think you consistently ruin threads by completely derailing them into discussions of you pet theories, which drown out any real discussion of Banaji's core thesis and disputing it. Though I do appreciate bringing up Macnair's criticisms and was hoping we'd get into the meat of them, vice Isuel's wind-mill tilting at heretics who bring up the wrong historical figures, and must be denounced for moral impurities. The main issues being what defines a rural proletarian versus other formations? What are the historical class characteristics of rural proletarians? Do they differ from urban proletarians? What about "peasants"? How are modern tenant farmers or sharecroppers different from peasants?

[Queercommie Girl]

Then what is the point of using the terms to refer to distinct classes? Maybe you should stop obsessing over terms, and try to explain to us when someone stops being a "peasant" or "staple-growing-person" or "whatever the fuck" in the sense of Engels' The Peasant War in Germany and opposed by many anarchists of the Russian variety [Kroprotkin, etc.] versus when they match the conception of the "proletarian" known to Marx and Engels, and how both figure into differing trajectories of materialistic history based on discrete class interests, with attendant specific ramifications in class politics?

Answer some questions, don't pass the buck to semantic word-games.

I'm playing "semantic word games"? Are you fucking kidding me? Personally I don't even think this particular thread is very meaningful since essentially it's just criticising the Maoists in India for "using a wrong term". The Maoist programme in India may have certain problems, but simply not using certain terms isn't really among them.

Besides, I have no real interests in seriously answering your post any further because you seem to have a personal axe to grind against me, for some inexplicable reason.

[Queercommie Girl]

That's because Maoism's "workers as the leading class" even in a demographic minority is cheap rhetoric. Third World Caesarean Socialism dispenses with this cheap rhetoric and also burns bridges with minoritarian civil war against the majoritarian petit-bourgeois mix of tenant farmers and sharecroppers (and the blind faith that a proletarian demographic minority in power can do otherwise).

"Workers as the leading class" isn't just a Maoist doctrine, it's an element shared by all Marxist tendencies.

It's very simple. You fail to understand that a socialist revolutionary programme is not just about "being successful". It's also about "being successful in the right way". Your programme offers a possible way to engage in a successful revolution against the "status quo", but it does not put workers into the leading political position, hence if workers wish to actually lead they would need another revolution, hence your programme is fundamentally not socialist. Not every revolution against the "status quo" is necessarily socialist or indeed even progressive in character at all.

Political success by itself means nothing. Success in a wrong way is the same as political failure.

[Queercommie Girl]

Are you going to try to lead witch hunts of Stalinists who support political figures who murdered more socialists than Suharto,


No I don't think Stalin killed more socialists than Suharto. I'm not a Stalinist and I always believe he made many mistakes, but I don't completely reject Stalinism either partly because I'm very skeptical regarding Western bourgeois sources on the Soviet Union that try to demonise the Soviet regime as much as possible.

But then again suppose hypothetically I really do believe that Stalin is just a "Hitler-like" mass murderer that the Western media always portrays, then obviously I will be completely anti-Stalinist, and I find it weird that any self-proclaimed "socialist" would still support him in any way. Are you trying to suggest that somehow socialists should not basically completely oppose a Hitler or Suharto-like political figure, in principle? WTF?

The only reason I'm not an anti-Stalinist is because frankly I don't trust the Western bourgeois historical sources on the Soviet Union. Otherwise I would have joined the large section of members here on RevLeft who are completely anti-Stalinist.



or is this just a bat to beat people who have pissed in your cereal in this or that past debate with you?
And this kind of personal ad hominem slurs have nothing to do with any real arguments, and they are really pathetic and cheap, not to mention annoying and not cool at all.

[Hit The North]

I'd ask comrades to avoid bad tempered hectoring of each other in this thread as it raises important and interesting questions about how we define modern India and the classes within it and, consequently, the correct political orientation for the workers movement in India.


Originally Posted by Iseul http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2081515#post2081515)
That's only if you assume the "peasantry" and the "proletariat" are mutually exclusive categories, but they are not.
If we want to be scientific then this cannot be the case. A peasant is not merely someone who extracts their living from agricultural labour. They have specific social relations to the means of production which distinguishes them from the proletarian who is completely alienated from the means of production. The balance of these relations in the countryside is one way in which we define the nature of the mode of production. So it is rather an important question as to whether, as the OP article argues, India is a modern capitalist society deformed by combined and uneven development; or, as the Maoists argue, a semi-feudal society in which the peasantry is preserved as an important and leading class.

[Queercommie Girl]

If we want to be scientific then this cannot be the case. A peasant is not merely someone who extracts their living from agricultural labour. They have specific social relations to the means of production which distinguishes them from the proletarian who is completely alienated from the means of production. The balance of these relations in the countryside is one way in which we define the nature of the mode of production. So it is rather an important question as to whether, as the OP article argues, India is a modern capitalist society deformed by combined and uneven development; or, as the Maoists argue, a semi-feudal society in which the peasantry is preserved as an important and leading class.

If you know the reality on the ground in countries like India, you would know that there is no sharp distinction between "agricultural labourers" and "poor peasants".

P.S. Not all Maoists believe that India today is still literally a semi-feudal country in terms of its economic base. (Though everyone would agree that feudal elements, e.g. the caste system, is still present in the political superstructure) Like Trotskyists, there are many different groups of Maoists.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't think some funny scheme thought-up in pure abstraction by petty bourgeois elements outside the class will successfully market it to the class

You're responding to a working-class poster. :confused:


The main issues being what defines a rural proletarian versus other formations? What are the historical class characteristics of rural proletarians? Do they differ from urban proletarians? What about "peasants"? How are modern tenant farmers or sharecroppers different from peasants?

Rural proletarians need to be on wage or salary, and if somehow they're on "self-employment" income need to have self-employment deductions for tax purposes rejected by the tax authorities. One factor of this rejection has to do with the false "self-employment" providing services mainly to a single company. I don't see this with Banaji's examples.

Because of the characteristics above, I don't see any real differences between urban and rural workers, other than where they work.


"Workers as the leading class" isn't just a Maoist doctrine, it's an element shared by all Marxist tendencies.

But workers didn't dominate the CPC. Peasants did. Ditto with most Maoist parties in the Third World.


hence if workers wish to actually lead they would need another revolution

Explain the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." Also, the Soviets came up with the "national-democratic revolution" (more Maoist than Mao were Brezhnev, Ponomarev, Chirkin, etc.) in which a second revolution in the future was necessary.

[red cat]

P.S. Not all Maoists believe that India today is still literally a semi-feudal country in terms of its economic base. (Though everyone would agree that feudal elements, e.g. the caste system, is still present in the political superstructure) Like Trotskyists, there are many different groups of Maoists.

All major groups of Maoists consider India as a semi-feudal country. The mistake we often make when we think of semi-feudalism is that we somehow think of it as literally half-feudal or with a large amount of subsistence farming etc. But the idea of semi-feudalism is much more flexible than that. For example, the left-wing of the national bourgeoisie of India is very small and insignificant as compared to China, and many middle or even small businessmen are practically compradors. A significant portion of the Indian feudal lords has also acquired capitalist characteristics since the 1980s. So there is also a much greater role of the Indian working class in the revolution. But all these fit well into the concept of semi-feudalism.

[Tim Finnegan]

If you know the reality on the ground in countries like India, you would know that there is no sharp distinction between "agricultural labourers" and "poor peasants".
Could you elaborate on this point?