Against the Idiocy and Inanity of the Trot-Bundists and National Deviationists of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group
Abhinav
Recently, the Trot-Bundists of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group organized a seminar in Barnala, Punjab on ‘Marxism and National Question’. First of all, to readers who are unaware of this political moniker of “Trot-Bundism”. What is “Trot-Bundism”? It is a reactionary blend of already reactionary political trends of Trotskyism and Bundism. Even though the two trends appear to be quite unconnected and yet the national deviationists of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group have found a peculiar way to concoct the two. It appears that idiocy has its own way of “synthesizing” the worst elements of the most alien political trends.
The intellectual level of the leadership of this group, principally, Sukhwinder (editor of ‘Pratibaddha’ magazine) might surprise even those who are neophytes at Marxist theory. A detailed critique of his “understanding” of the very basics of Marxist science can be found here:
http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7585
http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7590
However, since we have already dealt with this group’s utter lack of understanding of basic Marxism, we will not dwell on it in detail here and the interested readers can go through the above links.
Here we will confine ourselves to the sheer idiocy of the leadership of this group on national question in general and national question in India in particular. First of all, let us acquaint our readers about the basic positions of this group on the national question and then we will deal with some of the following in some detail:
- The leadership of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ group believes that even without the oppression of the bourgeoisie of a nation, national oppression does happen and it is expressed principally in the form of inequality of languages and denial of federal rights in a multinational country.
- It contends that in present era, national question in a multinational country will be resolved directly by socialist revolution in the country.
- They believe that oppression of a language constitutes national oppression in all cases, even if the defining elements of national oppression is absent, namely, the oppression of the bourgeoisie of the nation in question and the root of national oppression as the contention between ruling classes of the oppressor nation(s) and the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation for control of the domestic national market.
- The Trot-Bundists argue that the disintegration of multinational states is a “law” according to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
- Communists must take a position on national question and today they must demand federation, reorganization of states along linguistic lines, autonomy for states, AND right to self-determination, in order to end national oppression.
- In India, according to the Trot-Bundists, all nations that inhabit its territory are oppressed by a big bourgeoisie that is “anational”; it has no national character, neither single-nation character nor multinational character. Thus, Gujarati, Maratha, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Odiya, etc. all are oppressed nations, just like Kashmir and the nations that live in the North-East of India.
- All dialects, Trot-Bundists believe, are actually languages and every language necessarily constitutes a nation. Thus, there is a Bhojpuri nation, a Maithili nation, a Pahari nation, a Braj nation, an Awadhi nation and so on. Notably, all dialects of Hindi are declared to be separate languages, but not all dialects of Punjabi! Hindi, according to them, is kind of an ‘artificial language’ concocted, among other factors, due to the machinations of the British imperialists and Hindu revivalist nationalists!
- The Trot-Bundists believe that Marxism became Federalist after Stalin! They argue that Stalin changed the classical Marxist-Leninist position on federalism in 1924 and turned Marxism into federalist.
These are some of the basic positions of Sukhwinder, the editor of ‘Pratibaddha’ and that of the entire ‘Pratibaddha’ group. We know that many of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist comrades would ask us: “why bother with such thoroughly anti-Marxist and idiotic positions at all?” The answer is that the communists need to deal with all the alien trends and tendencies within the movement, fight against all kinds of “left” and Right distortions of Marxist science and defend the revolutionary core of this science. We are duty-bound to refute such dangerous (even though amazingly asinine) deviations because, in the words of Marx, “to leave an error unrefuted, is intellectual dishonesty.”
Moreover, it was amusing to watch some of the so-called “Marxists-Leninists” who attended the seminar organized by ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group, opportunistically agreeing to the above non-sense propagated by the leader of this group or maintaining an opportunist silence on such baloney being circulated in the name of Marxism. These included representatives from Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra, Ajay Sinha (Don Quixote de la Patna, with whom readers of ‘Red Polemique’ are well-aware! See: https://redpolemique.wordpress.com/2021/05/18/ajay-sinha-aka-don-quixote-de-la-patnas-disastrous-encounter-with-marxs-theory-of-ground-rent/), Amit Akash of Krantikaari Naujawan Sabha (to understand the incorrigible anarcho-syndicalism of this group, read: http://dishasandhaan.in/archives/118), and representatives from ‘Desh Videsh’ Patrika (who believe in the thesis of neoliberal globalization as recolonization and talk about existence of ‘small feudalism’ in India, whatever that means!).
Also amazing is the fact that despite organizing the seminar in Punjab and despite the fact that Sukhwinder and the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group was known for engaging with communist revolutionaries of Punjab, no speaker from Punjab’s communist revolutionary organizations was invited! Neither from CPI (ML) New Democracy, nor from ‘Surkh Leeh’! Thus, handpicked organizations were invited and the communist revolutionary organizations/groups/parties of Punjab (which, according to Sukhwinder, is an oppressed nation!) were excluded from sharing the dais! We will explain why such bizarre things transpired in the seminar of ‘Pratibaddha’, in the end. Right now, it would suffice to inform the readers that the above five organizations (including Sukhwinder’s group) have been critiqued by us at different points of time for different kinds of alien tendencies that they represent, like economism, anarcho-syndicalism, trade-unionism, narodism and non-party revlutionism. The only thing that united the strange amalgam at this seminar was, curiously enough, a common enemy, namely, us, that is the organization represented by ‘Mazdoor Bigul’.
Anyhow, above are the basic arguments of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group, that they are repeating ad infinitum, ad nauseum, despite being critiqued and ridiculed for their inanities, not only by us, by various revolutionary communists. Shivani has already presented a comprehensive and thorough-going critique of this tendency and has shown how it represents a birdbrained mixture of Bundism and Trotskyism: http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7567
We will, therefore, confine ourselves to the critique of some of these asinine arguments and demonstrate to readers how and why this trend has achieved this bizarre feat. Let us turn to some of the aforementioned arguments of Sukhwinder and the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group and see the depth of imbecility that this group has come to be identified with.
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The first argument is that national oppression is possible without the oppression of the any faction of bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation. Lenin, Stalin, Mao and then learning from these great teachers, most effectively, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, the great Turkish Maoist revolutionary, have shown that the very concept of ‘national oppression’ becomes superfluous if no faction of bourgeoisie of the said nation is oppressed. The differentia specifica of national oppression is that the bourgeoisie of the nation in question is oppressed. Why? Nation came into being in the modern era with the advent of capitalism. Without emergence of a unified economy and market, common language, common culture among other things, we cannot talk about a nation. It is bourgeoisie that makes ‘the nation’ different from ‘the people’. Kaypakkaya has excellently explained this difference, from a classical Marxist-Leninist-Maoist perspective, while demolishing the Shafaq revisionists in Turkey, who were muddle-headed about these two concepts in the same way in which Sukhwinder is at sea regarding the two concepts (please read Kaypakkaya’s ‘The National Question in Turkey’: https://www.marxists.org/archive/kaypakkaya/works/ibrahim-kaypakkaya-sw-2014.pdf).
The oppression of the people (in the Maoist sense) is not the oppression of the nation in itself. Even where there is no national oppression, the people are oppressed by the reactionaries and ruling classes. It is precisely the oppression of bourgeoisie of a nation by a national oppressor(s) that makes that oppression a national oppression. Why? Because the very conflict between the ruling class of the oppressor nation and the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation begins with the question of control over the national market. In order to take control of the national market, the ruling class of the oppressor nation is obliged to destroy the political independence of the nation which begins with the subjugation of the bourgeoisie and then proceeds to envelop the entire nation, that is, other classes of the nation as well, besides the bourgeoisie.
The factions of big bourgeoisie in an oppressed nation, namely a part of commercial and bureaucratic bourgeoisie might become a puppet, a collaborator or a comprador of the ruling class of the oppressor nation. However, the entrepreneurial and industrial bourgeoisie never becomes a comprador of the national oppressor(s) because it needs the national market for itself. Therefore, it has a national character, that is, an anti-imperialist character. It does not matter whether it fights against imperialism in a compromising manner or is not in a position to take the leadership of the national liberation movement or applies a tactics of pressure-compromise-pressure in order to wrest economic rights from the imperialists in a gradualist fashion before mounting a war of movement to assume political power. Whatever be the concrete situation, there is no denying the fact that this national bourgeoisie, howsoever potent or impotent, is part of the four-class alliance against national oppressor(s), that characterizes any national democratic revolution (or any democratic revolution for that matter).
In the absence of a sizeable industrial bourgeoisie, this role of national bourgeoisie might well be played by small entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and peasants, as history has shown us. The fact remains that the oppression of the bourgeoisie is the essential element in the fact of national oppression. In other words, without capitalism, there can be no nation and without the oppression of the capitalist class of the nation there can be no national oppression. To deny this is to deny the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist notion of ‘national oppression’ and liquidate the very concept by dissolving its specificity that distinguishes it from other forms of oppression. Those readers that are interested in looking at the quotes from Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Kaypakkaya on this question can refer to: http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7655
Further.
The leadership of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group argues on the one hand that the question of national oppression will be resolved by giving federal rights and autonomy to the states, linguistic reorganization of the states and decentralization and equality of languages (end of oppression by Hindi language). This is pure and simple reformism on the national question and thoroughly cultural-national autonomist and Bundist position, which Lenin and Stalin destroyed systematically as a dangerous tendency of corrupting the working masses with finely couched and refined nationalism; though, the version of Sukhwinder is neither ‘refined’ nor ‘finely couched’ but crude and vulgar, as one could have expected from a person of this intellectual and political level.
For Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, the political program on the question of national oppression is simply this: the right of the nations to self-determination including the right to secede. Period. The questions of federation or federal structure, equality of language, decentralization and autonomy become relevant only for the nations that have agreed to live together under a common state. In other words, when there is no national oppression and more than one nation have come together to form a common state, only then they can determine the question of forming a union, a union with federal structure, or a complete federation; the question of linguistic policy and contact language; the issues on which the authority will be centralized or decentralized. To ask an oppressed nation to demand federal rights, autonomy and equality of languages from the national oppressor(s) is mockery of the oppressed nation and a travesty of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist program on the question of national oppression. It is pure and simple reformism on the question of national oppression and a new, though intellectually-poor (nothing else can be expected from this group given the utter ideological-political bankruptcy of the leadership!) version of Bundism and Austro-Marxism of Bauer and Renner.
Would it not be a political obscenity of the worst kind for a communist to ask the oppressed nation of Kashmiris, Manipuris or Nagamese or for that matter the oppressed nation of the Palestinians to ask their national oppressor(s) for federal rights, autonomy and equality of languages? This is what Sukhwinder and his ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ group are proposing to the oppressed nations after so much hullabaloo about all nations of India being oppressed! So much for ‘taking position on national question’!
Sukhwinder does mention the right to self-determination at the fourth number in his list of panacea for national equality! However, the oppressed nations do not fight for federal rights, autonomy and equality of languages AND the right to self-determination! The very point of departure is the right to self-determination including the right to secede. Following the completion of this demand, the erstwhile oppressed nations might enter into a union or a federation or a confederation, on a common agreement on the questions of state structure, autonomy and languages. However, the Trot-Bundists of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group do not understand this simple truth: the demand for federation or federal rights is a bourgeois demand often raised by regional small bourgeoisie of different provinces or regions. For the proletariat, the demand is simple and straight-forward: unconditional right to self-determination for nations. All other questions are decided by the constituent nations of a federation or a union after the question of national oppression has been resolved effectively by genuine application of national right of self-determination. As the readers can see, the entire political prescription of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group is nothing but a mediocre and shoddy version of Bundism and Austro-Marxism of Bauer and Renner and reactionary reformism on the national question.
If Sukhwinder and the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group wanted to say that they too believe that the first thing is the right to self-determination of nations, then they should present a concrete political program for all the nations of Indian multinational state, because they believe that all nations of this state are oppressed by an ‘anational’ big bourgeoisie (!). What is that concrete political program according to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist principles and political line on the national question? That is organizing the oppressed nations (including the national bourgeoisie!) for the struggle for right to self-determination including the right to secede. What is the original action call for the implementation of such a political program in a multinational country? It is the call for referendum! Now, the question is this: if Sukhwinder and ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group are actually giving primacy to the fight for the right to self-determination, why haven’t they raised this demand for all the oppressed nations in India (which includes every nation of India according to Sukhwinder!)? Why haven’t they at least raised the demand for national referendum in Punjab, that is, their own state? They are only raising the issues of federal rights and equality of languages! Isn’t this a glaring proof, once again, of the reformism and Bundism of this group on the national question? Isn’t this a proof of not only cowardice of the leadership of this group, but also low intellectual political level of the leadership of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group?
Now let us come to the question why we have called them Trotskyites on the national question, besides their Bundism. Let me clarify this with an illustration. Russia entered the stage of Socialist Revolution after February Revolution, as Lenin pointed out in the famous ‘April Theses’. However, Russia still had political control over all the oppressed nations of the Czarist Russia. What was the stage of revolution in these internal colonies of Russia, for instance, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, etc.? According to Sukhwinder, the stage of revolution in all these oppressed nations of the multinational state of Russia was directly socialist! Why? Because Lenin and Stalin had pointed out that in the stage of imperialism, the bourgeoisie has lost the potency to resolve the national question and since the reactionary imperialist bourgeoisie is not going to give the right to self-determination to the oppressed nations and that it was possible only during the pre-imperialist phase of capitalism! Thus, Sukhwinder confuses a historical evaluation with a political program! Such is the depth of inanity of this noodlebrain! Let us see in some detail the problem with his argument.
First of all, all the oppressed nations of erstwhile Czarist Russia completed the national democratic tasks first and then entered into the socialist stage. Sukhwinder is unaware of this fact and assumes that since it was the Great October Socialist Revolution that liberated these nations, these nations were already in the stage of socialist revolution! He is utterly incapable to understand the concrete historical facts of liberation of oppressed nations in the erstwhile Russian Empire after the October Revolution! Readers who are interested to find a succinct brief historical account of the resolution of national democratic tasks in these oppressed nations, can read this: http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7594
Secondly, the stage of revolution in the oppressor nation(s) is confused with the stage of revolution in the oppressed nations. In the oppressed nations, since the national question is not resolved and since the nature of strategic class alliance is still a four-class alliance including the national bourgeoisie and entire peasantry (including the rich farmers), the stage of revolution is still national democratic. It does not really matter whether a socialist revolution in the oppressor country gives the right to self-determination to this oppressed nation even before such a national democratic revolution and the national question is resolved, OR, the oppressed nation achieves the national liberation through a national liberation movement or a national democratic revolution. The immediate stage of revolution in the oppressed nations remains to be national democratic. It applies to oppressed nations where feudal relations in agriculture predominate as well as the oppressed nations where the feudal relations are only remnant (even though the peasant question might be there, as peasant question is different from agrarian question in general, as Stalin had correctly demonstrated). The example of the first kind is India before Independence and the example of the second is Palestine, where feudal relations have become near-extinct. However, in both cases, the national democratic task remains. Thus, Sukhwinder has no inkling of the blunder that he has committed: confusing the stage of revolution in the country which is national oppressor and the stage of revolution in the oppressed nations! Someone has rightly said that idiots who are unaware of their idiocy are most tedious, dull and irksome. Now, many comrades would say that this is ‘A B C’ of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; we understand that. However, when one is faced with the deranged cretinism of the likes of Sukhwinder and the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group, they are obliged to reiterate these fundamentals.
Third, while it is true that the reactionary bourgeoisie would not grant the right to self-determination to oppressed nations in the era of imperialism, it would be tomfoolery to assume that nations get the right to self-determination only when the imperialist bourgeoisie grants them this right. What the imperialists and reactionaries want does not determine the course of history! Did Algeria get the right to self-determination because France “granted” this right to Algeria? Or did Egypt get the right to self-determination because England granted this right to Egypt? No! There are dozens of examples where the erstwhile colonies achieved political independence and therefore the right to self-determination through a national liberation movement.
However, Sukhwinder, due to his utter ignorance of history of modern world, fails to understand this and, misunderstanding what Lenin and Stalin meant when they said that in the era of imperialism the reactionary bourgeoisie has lost the political capacity to resolve the national question, keeps repeating his nonsense ad nauseum. What is this nonsense? It is precisely the nonsense that leads Sukhwinder’s little sect of blind fools along with his own gracious presence into the shit-pit of Trotskyism. It is arguing that the national democratic stage should be skipped and the national democratic tasks and the socialist task would be accomplished in a single stroke by a Trotskyite ‘permanent revolution’. This is the Trotskyism of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group. Till such a revolution, Sukhwinder and his creed are content with demanding federal rights and equality of languages for the oppressed nations, including Punjab, whereas, if Punjab and all nations of India are indeed oppressed nations, the political task was to demand a referendum and fight for it and in the process organize the oppressed nation to struggle for national self-determination. Here, one can clearly see the depth of the asininity as well as reactionary reformist Trot-Bundism of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group thrown into relief.
As we can see, the position of this group on the national question is a stinking blend of Bundism and Trotskyism and hence the term ‘Trot-Bundism’.
Now let us turn to a few other halfwitted arguments of our Trot-Bundists.
According to the leadership of Trot-Bundists, the ruling class of India has no national roots or identity. Thus, it is neither ruling class of a single oppressor nation nor a multinational ruling bourgeoisie; it has descended on the Earth from some extra-terrestrial body! Any student of Indian history can only laugh on such a proposition. Indian bourgeoisie is a multinational bourgeoisie and has representation from all the nations and regions of mainland India, that is, India except Kashmir and the oppressed nations of North-Eastern states. The very formation of Indian bourgeoisie from 1870s to the Independence and then from the Independence till the 1970s and 1980s is demonstrative of the fact that the Indian bourgeoisie is a multinational bourgeoisie with representation from all nations and regions (for the so-called ‘Hindi belt’ is not a nation per se) of mainland India.
Since capitalist development is by nature unequal development, it is natural that the share of different sections (national or otherwise) of the Indian bourgeoisie are unequal and therefore a constant struggle goes on to increase that share. However, to conclude from this that the big bourgeoisie of India is anational would not only be ahistorical but also sheer lunacy. The fact is that this multinational bourgeoisie (which certainly has no national character in the anti-imperialist and pro-people sense) is the ruling class of India at present. The regional medium and small bourgeoisie in the states raise the demands for federal rights, linguistic reorganization and autonomy, because it is precisely through such demands that they constantly strive to get a greater share in the political power and economic might. And it is precisely these demands of the regional bourgeoisie that now Sukhwinder and his kith and kin are raising. In other words, advertently or inadvertently, ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group has become a palanquin-bearer of the regional small and medium bourgeoisie of Punjab. And it is precisely for this reason that they have supported the rich kulaks and farmers’ movement of Punjab, even though they passed last 15- 20 years opposing their principal demand, namely, the demand for MSP!
That is the reason why Sukhwinder is at sixes and sevens on whether to support MSP or oppose it! Therefore, in a workers’ meeting in Ludhiana he supported it and later in the editorial of his paper ‘Lalkaar’ called it surplus profit accruing to the rich kulaks and farmers, though not realizing that once he calls it surplus profit, he will be obliged to oppose it from a communist perspective. The reason why he made such a blunder is that it is only through our writings on the farmers’ movement and the agrarian question in India that he learned that MSP is indeed a monopoly price ensuring surplus profit to the agrarian bourgeoisie in the form of a monopoly rent, but he could not understand the concept of the Marxist concept of surplus profit due to monopoly price that increase the prices of the commodities. Such are the pitfalls of plagiarizing! Such is the situation of the intellectual buffoonery of the imbecile leadership of this group.
In the lack of any intellectual political rigour and capability, the leadership of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group has resorted to all sorts of cheap tricks, but in the crudest manner. For instance, Sukhwinder blatantly presented false quotations from the Constitution of the Soviet Union to prove the Soviet Union was a federation! Shivani has effectively demonstrated that in order to smuggle his petty-bourgeois federalism, Sukhwinder has shamelessly misquoted from the Soviet Constitution and also distorted quotes from Stalin. Readers can read about this suicidal misadventure of Sukhwinder here: http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7837
Thus, Sukhwinder is not only a reactionary reformist Trot-Bundist on the national question and a plagiarizer with silly fate but also a dishonest person and a liar who blatantly misquotes from a historical document like Soviet Constitution and distorts quotes from great teachers, without ever apologizing for such a low-level cheap misdeed. It is kind of a slander against Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
This is not the only instance where Sukhwinder has misquoted and misinterpreted great teachers or from great historical documents. In his latest speech in the Baranala seminar too, Sukhwinder doltishly repeated that all multinational states are bound to disintegrate and it is a “law” and this “law” was discovered by none other than Stalin! This is the trade-mark style of Sukhwinder: first invent a most hebetudinous idiocy and then superimpose it on one of the great teachers! What is the truth? The truth is that Stalin never said such a thing. What Stalin said is that under capitalism, generally speaking, there can be no ‘national peace’ because there will always be oppressed national minorities and there will always be oppressed nations in all capitalist countries, including the single-nation-state as well as multinational states. Stalin is not simply talking about multinational states. He is talking in general about capitalist countries and arguing that due to the reactionary nature of bourgeoisie in the era of imperialism, in general, there will always be national strife. That such strife would necessarily lead to disintegration of multinational states as a matter of law and formation of nation-states (which according to Sukhwinder will be the heaven of national peace!), is never and nowhere said by Stalin. It is the invention of the poor and asinine mind of an intellectual midget, suffering with severe inferiority complex and fear of polemic, for reasons still unknown to us.
This is how Sukhwinder distorts the writings of great teachers, misunderstands them, intentionally misquotes and misrepresents them. Any communist would not allow such intellectual imposters to get away with such intellectual somersaults because there is a large population of youth interested in Marxism and which become unsuspecting victims when the tsunami of idiocy is conjured up by vacuous blabbering of the likes of Sukhwinder and his kith and kin in the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group.
We have constantly been exposing this intellectually bankrupt trend of national deviationism of a particular kind because, while it is exceptionally asinine, it is still dangerous. It will only weaken the class struggle of the proletariat of all nations, create segregation between them by demands for “separate language schools” (another of the dangerous demands of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group) or “making Punjabi language compulsory for private and public employment in Punjab” (yet another anti-workers’ nationalist demand of the ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group) and the like, will confuse progressive youth of Punjab which has a lot of revolutionary energy and potential and pollute their minds with their Trot-Bundist nonsense. It is true that any Marxist of Punjab who is acquainted with writings of great teachers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and other great communist leaders like Kaypakkaya on the national question, would not spare a single minute on this politically and intellectually fatuous trend. However, the new and fresh progressive elements who have become interested in Marxism due to their tendency to rebel against injustice and their solidarity with all exploited and oppressed masses, often become victim of such idiots.
The readers would do well to remember that these are the same idiots who also acted as covidiots and claimed that Covid-19 is nothing, but a seasonal flu and it is a conspiracy of the multinational pharma corporations! What will be produced by such intellectual midgets in any area of theory and politics, can easily be gauged.
Their position on dialects and languages is even funnier. According to them, all dialects are actually language or potentially language and only due to oppression by some other language, they fail to achieve their full-fledged development as languages. Those who are acquainted with Stalin’s pathbreaking writing on the question of language can only laugh at such a proposition and even scientific linguists (not postmodern vernacularist hacks!) would find it hard to maintain their composure on hearing such nonsense. Therefore, according to the linguistic identitarianists of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group, except Punjabi dialects (!), all other dialects of all other languages should be treated as separate language and, also, constituting a separate nation (!) because every language gives rise to a different nation. Thus, the historical and political definition of what a nation is, as given by Stalin, is trashed by the Trot-Bundist and is replaced by a linguistic identitarianist and culturalist definition of a nation. The very process of formation of a nation is grounded historically in the motion of capitalism, that is, emergence of capitalist mode of production and a unified market in the modern era. Only with this historical background can a language become a basis of a separate national community. And the very phenomenon and concept of national oppression emerged due to competition for markets between the bourgeoisie of different nations, clash between the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries or ruling class of the oppressor state on the one hand and the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations on the other. Without this economic and political dynamic of capitalism, there can be no talk about national oppression or national liberation. National oppression in most of the cases also results in the oppression of the language of the oppressed nations. However, linguistic inequality in and by itself does not constitute national oppression. Lenin makes this point perfectly clear in ‘One Step Forward Two Steps Back’, when he supported Martov’s refutation of the similar linguistic logic being presented by the Bundists (see Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 7, Progress Publishers, p. 229).
We cannot even go into the details of all the idiocies and inanities of this Trot-Bundist group here. Those readers who are interested to see a comprehensive critique of this trend on national question in particular, can read Shivani’s long article on them here: http://ahwanmag.com/archives/7567
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It is noteworthy that representatives from IMK, KNS, PRC CPI (ML) and Desh-Videsh magazine opportunistically assumed a silence on these out-and-out reactionary and reformist position on the national question presented by Sukhwinder and the Trot-Bundists in the Barnala seminar. Do they also believe that all nations of India are oppressed? If yes, why do not they demand for a national referendum in all states? If yes, why do not they accept that all these nations are still in the stage of national democratic revolutions? Why do not they organize these oppressed nations for a fight for national liberation against Indian state? The same that they would do and support in Kashmir or North-East? If, just like Kashmir and oppressed nations of North-East, West Bengal (from where KNS comes), Uttarakhand (from where IMK comes), Bihar (from where Ajay Sinha comes and since he agrees with Sukhwinder that all dialects of Bihar are separate languages and constitute separate nations), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, etc. are oppressed nations, then why do not they begin the kind of national liberation struggles in these oppressed nations, just like they would have done in Kashmir and the oppressed nations of North-East, had they had any presence there?
BECAUSE, most of these opportunists know that what Sukhwinder is saying is utter nonsense, but they must form an alliance against a common enemy, namely, us. Tragically enough for them, such opportunism on ideological-political issues is the worst kind of opportunism and it ultimately leads to liquidation of such organizations which exhibit such opportunism. It is precisely for this reason that Sukhwinder and the Trot-Bundists did not invite, not only us, that is, the ‘Mazdoor Bigul’, but also did not invite revolutionary communist groups of Punjab as speakers in the seminar, even though the seminar was held in Punjab which has presence of strong revolutionary communist organizations from the organization associated with ‘Surkh Leeh’ to New Democracy and others. The reason is that comrades from these groups would have caught the Trot-Bundist bluff of this intellectual puny, Sukhwinder, and showed to him that now he should abandon the program of socialist revolution and accept the program of national democratic revolution! But how could Sukhwinder do that? He had been in bitter debates with these groups arguing (and rightly so!) that India is in the stage of socialist revolution because it is politically independent (therefore national question is resolved) and it is not semi-feudal but a capitalist country, though a backward capitalist country. And this how Sukhwinder found himself between Scylla and Charybdis!
We can go on about the various Hobson’s Choice-situations that Sukhwinder and the Trot-Bundists of ‘Pratibaddha-Lalkaar’ Group have created for themselves and, due to these, are meandering around shamed-faced in Punjab. However, that is not our purpose here. Our purpose here was to explain to common political readers, what elements constitute Trot-Bundism as an asinine but dangerous political trend for Punjab and how Barnala seminar organized by ‘Pratibaddha’ became an ideologically-politically vulgar, scurrilous, smutty and obscene striptease of such asinine but dangerous political trend, in which representatives of IMK, KNS, Don Quixote de la Patna (Ajay Sinha) and representatives from Desh Videsh magazine opportunistically wallowed around in a strange self-deprecating amenomania.
