Ever the clear-eyed realist, Lenin knew what the Revolution had failed to achieve. And this knowledge tormented him in the last weeks of his life.                                                       Vladimir Lenin in the summer of 1923 There is a photograph of Lenin in a wheelchair, from sometime in the summer of 1923, in which he is flanked on one side by his[Read More…]

The living Karl Marx was a dismal failure. He passed most of his life in poverty, dependent on the charity of the capitalist Friedrich Engels. His writings were never sufficiently in demand to earn a living. He had great difficulty in finishing anything, and the bulk of what he wrote he never saw in print. His revolutionary activities ‘came to[Read More…]

  Dear Comrade Dr. Pravat Ranjan Sethi, Thank you for your most knowledgeable reflections on revolutionary theory and practice.  I enjoyed them and benefited from them, as I am sure many others did as well.  I would like to respond by putting a slightly different perspective on the subject. First, revolutionary thought is always “dialectical” because the dialectic is inherently[Read More…]

Karl Marx was possessed of demonic genius that was to transform the modern world.  —Saul K. Padover (1978) For all the horrors committed in Marx’s name, the German philosopher has for more than a century struck an inspirational chord among workers and intellectuals disenfranchised by global capitalism. The development of Marx’s doctrine after his death first followed the course of a[Read More…]

There is a long standing debate as to whether Marxism played any role in the Dalit’s struggle for social emancipation and justice. The debate is characterized by two currents of thoughts one favours, advocates and project the communist system as an ideal landscape for the social emancipation and freedom of Dalits and another takes a view of communism as an[Read More…]

Marx was not aloof in the Bangladesh socio-economic-ideological-political reality. Incessant class struggle in the society along with development of ideas cropping up in the soil of class conflict was a home for Marx, the scientist-theoretician of the revolutionary proletariat. The society’s antagonistic classes compelled him to play a role in defining goals of the society, of the exploited in the[Read More…]

Quotes from Karl Marx’s works reverberated in the unprecedented 5-day long conference organized by the Asian Development and Research Institute (ADRI), participated by the delegates from 18 countries across the 5 oceans, held in Patna, the capital of Bihar that has witnessed many revolutionary and counter revolutionary movements and uprisings. Gist and the central message of the conference in one[Read More…]

  On the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth, this excerpt from “The Material Basis and the Method for Making Revolution,” a talk given by Bob Avakian in 2014, speaks to the turning point and significance of Marx’s contributions—bringing into being a scientific, materialist understanding of capitalism and of the potential for revolution to emancipate humanity. What Marx Brought to Light[Read More…]

[Part I] Lenin yet, about 150 years since his birth, creates controversy. Funny figures make funnier statements while a group of scholars, white, pink and “red” in color, continue condemning the Bolshevik leader – a bold show of class conflict in the areas of ideology and politics. This reality makes it an imperative to reiterate Lenin’s analysis and class position[Read More…]

Marx Bicentennial Lecture by Ravi Sinha at Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, March 16, 2018 etaddhastidarshanaivajatyandhah That is like people blind by birth viewing an elephant. (Shankaracharya’sbhasyaon Chandogya-Upanisad18.1)[1]   It was six blind men of Indostan, To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind. John[Read More…]

  It was 1830, the July Revolution forced abdication of king Charles X in France, and Louis Philippe became constitutional monarch. Twenty-eight years prior to this development in France, in 1802, the first factory law was introduced in England; and the law pertained to child labor. In the same year, John Dalton introduced atomic theory into chemistry. In the Congress[Read More…]

“The educator himself has to be educated”– Marx, Theses on Feuerbach. There is no confusion and hesitation is saying that established left parties have arrived to a deadlock with a lurking ideological stagnation. From CPI, CPM to CPI Maoist there is very much a visible political-ideological deadlock. CPI has become a non-relevant party who abandoned Marxist politics decades ago. Similarly,[Read More…]