[lbo-talk] Poll rout leaves India's communists a spent force

[Michael McIntyre]

I agree with the critiques of the CPI(M), or at least of its government in
West Bengal over the last fifteen years or so.  But I don't gloat over it.
What lessons are we to draw from this?  Are we to conclude that all
communist parties that achieve a degree of electoral success are bound to
become rent-seeking political machines?  If that's the case, then why don't
we just go all the way with Robert Bates or even Gordon Tullock, become good
public-choice theorists, and renounce the communist project entirely?  Or
shall we find some ad hoc bullshit excuse like the CPI(M)'s failure to break
with Stalinism, its gerontocratic leadership, or various faults of
individual leaders?  This was, at one time, a real communist party with a
mass base throughout India and a dominant position in two states with a
combined population of around 100 million.  The party's degeneration is a
disaster for the left, in India and out of it.

It was more or less by accident that I ended up studying India and Brazil in
grad school.  In both countries, real left parties with a mass base managed
to find some way not just to operate within the confines of capitalist
democracy, but to win.  Yes, the Articulção tendency within the PT has given
up on anything other than capitalist reforms.  Yes, the CPI(M) has
degenerated.  Get back to me when you're part of a left that has something
to degenerate from.  (and yeah, okay, I realize that this is misplaced if
you're not an amurrican).

MM

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Politicus E. <epoliticus at gmail.com> wrote:


> I will enter the fray in view of my contempt for the CPI(M).  It was
> my intent to enter the conversation about 'India's Hindu Party
> Reflects on Election Drubbing' but this aspect of the election
> outcome, I think, is the more significant.  Also, sorry for the
> double-posting.
>
>