Two years have passed since we started this magazine, a new kind of initiative in a city like Bengaluru that is one of the biggest investment hubs in India witnessing an ebb in left movements. Despite the legacy of anti-caste struggles (DSS), militant working class movements, anti-globalisation farmers’ struggles, the city remains heavily politically sanitised at this moment.
In a moment of such setback, where the tide of the times is not there to push us forward, Spark* has been an initiative to bring the intentionally obscured ideas of New Democracy to the students and youth. To repeatedly bring the message loud and clear that students, workers, peasants, and common masses, all have the same enemy to fight, the forces of feudalism, imperialism, and domestic big capitalists, the same ones that subject them to propaganda regarding an imaginary enemy. Be it education, healthcare, employment, housing, sanitation, or environment, there is direct assault on people’s rights in every sphere. Exploitation of people has reached such a fever pitch that we are seeing spontaneous outbursts frequently. In these places, the state is reacting in a high-handed manner, trying to stifle their movements. But how long can such a rule really continue? How long can it be allowed to continue?
We are going through a period of severe economic and political crisis. With the worldwide crisis that US imperialism is under, big capital is being forced to devise newer methods to get out of the economic slump i.e., the ‘old ways’ are getting harder to maintain. Thus, we see a rise of far-right, fascist governments all over the world. With the rise of Russia and China in the world imperialist order, we also see inter-imperialist conflicts sharpening worldwide, stark effects are seen in Ukraine and the Middle East. Objectively, the revolutionary situation is ripening with the rising discontent of the people in the dependent nations. Although, it must be conceded that there is a setback in the world Communist movement in this phase, that is getting reflected in the domestic situation.
In the recent past two serious people’s uprisings happened in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In both cases we saw how the pent-up anger of people stemming from a crumbling economy found expression through uprisings in which lakhs participated. What went amiss however, was the presence of a strong Communist party, that could not only lead the uprising, but also arm the masses with the politics of state and revolution that a people’s state is only possible through complete smashing of the exploitative state machinery and building a new democratic state instead. As a result, in both places we saw reformist governments cropping up that are continuing the same class-based exploitation of the people with the ruling classes remaining the same. In other words, a revolution is realised when objective conditions (economic crisis, popular discontent etc.) and subjective forces (communist parties, professional revolutionaries etc.) come together to complement each other. In absence of any of these two, we would probably go only a short distance towards a better society or even backwards. In an analysis of the series of uprisings that rocked France in the post French revolution (1789) years, Marx showed how all these uprisings only strengthened the capitalist state machinery since at no point was it actively smashed by the rebels. There exists a parallel with our neighbours.
There is no reason to think that a situation similar to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka would not crop up in India just because our Hon’ble FM Nirmala Sitharaman continuously assures, ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong’ here. We also need to fight against the idea that Congress will emerge as a saviour in this situation, given its current and past records. Rather, the message of a radical left alternative has to reach the masses.
As an ideological initiative we feel that at this moment, our task is to make a network of more and more student-youth willing to walk a path towards this radical change, armed with the politics of revolution, not reform, and who would be willing to dedicate their lives to this cause. They will take this politics within the spontaneous people’s movements and connect it with the broader struggle for a New Democracy. In this process, our magazine is but a small step to take this politics to them, so that we can seek the solution together.
Now, it’s time to acknowledge the endearing support of our readers, both moral and financial, in helping us continue this initiative. This is not just a non-profit framework, rather we continue to subsidise every copy of Spark* to keep it within the reach of general students.
You and us together will keep Spark* living and thriving till it becomes a prairie fire.
Long live revolution!
