Bangladesh: Tasks and Dangers

The student-led revolutionary uprising in Bangladesh ousted the abhorred Hasina and her party, the Awami League (AL), and paralysed the state apparatus, sending cops fleeing and forcing the army brass to the table. This was a tremendous victory that unleashed the built-up anger of the masses at decades of corrupt rule and a worsening economy.

However, the student leaders of the movement have put their faith in (and some have joined) the interim capitalist government of micro-financier Muhammad Yunus. This is not the way forward; it cannot address the problems confronting Bangladesh. Its purpose is to provide a democratic facade, restore order and change nothing of the underlying economic and social structure responsible for today’s situation.

The Tasks of the Revolution

Let us be crystal clear: the aspirations of the masses cry out for a fundamental change of the Hasina system. This means fighting against the way the entire country is run: women toiling in garment sweatshops and under horrible conditions, only to make superprofits for the imperialists and domestic capitalists; not enough quality and well-paying jobs for students; the masses working themselves to the bone to pay rising foreign debt to the IMF.

These are the burning questions that brought millions to the streets, and none of these will be addressed through policy changes or installing a more “democratic” face like Yunus to clean up Hasina’s mess, which in reality is the mess of administering capitalism in a poor country. Addressing each one raises the problem of how to develop the country.

Combating Corruption

The corruption and nepotism for which Hasina was hated are hardly unique to her rule; they are a defining mark of regimes of oppressed countries. The wretched neocolonial bourgeoisies serve as middlemen for the plunder of their countries. In Bangladesh the domestic rulers crush the masses to maintain the country as a sweatshop for the West. Corruption simply comes with the job. Look at India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar; or at South Africa, or Nigeria, or any other government in the Third World. All these governments are corrupt to the core. So long as Bangladesh is run on this model, it is impossible to end corruption.

Quotas or Merit: Fighting Over a Small Pie

The question of quotas that galvanised the student masses confronts the same problem: underdevelopment. The fight over jobs gets played out over quotas and merit. This is the case in all of South Asia. But this debate doesn’t address the central problem. Quotas exist because there aren’t enough jobs to go around, and the good jobs go to those from the dominant or more powerful groups: upper- and middle-class people.

The quotas for descendants of the War of Liberation were certainly nepotistic and an affront to the struggle of millions. Yet even without the 30 per cent quota, will the jobs crisis be addressed? Can the students who so heroically took to the streets to oust Hasina say that a merit-based system will provide them all with decent and well-paid jobs? No.

The truth is that countries oppressed by imperialism cannot develop to meet the needs of the broad masses. The need for quotas will exist so long as there are insufficient jobs; the solution for the masses is not to fight over a small pie that cannot possibly feed all mouths, but to grow the size of the pie. But this pie can only grow when the productive forces of society—land, factories, banks—are no longer under the control of the ruling classes whose entire function is to sell the country off to foreign financial interests.

Defence of Minorities Key to Revolution

A crucial question is the defence of the Hindu minority. It is to the credit of the student movement that when reports of violence against Hindus broke out, it organised the defence of Hindu homes and neighbourhoods. The attacks against some leaders of the AL that happen to be Hindu have put wind in the sails of Indian- and Western-backed media, who are using this to discredit the movement. This undermines the prospect of winning the Hindu masses across the border in India to the fight for the second liberation of Bangladesh.

Communal reaction spreads like wildfire in South Asia. It is therefore paramount that the danger of communalism not be downplayed as a “distraction” from the “real” questions, but addressed head-on and the defence of the Hindu minority integrated as a key aspect in the fight for working-class power. Only by championing the defence of Hindus can the Muslim masses win the support of Hindus in Bangladesh away from the “secularism” of the AL and turn them into fighters against the Hasina system, building Hindu-Muslim unity. Such a development has the potential to cut through the deadly communal polarisations throughout the entire subcontinent.

Bangladesh is rightly wary of Indian expansionism. Today, as Hasina is sheltered by the Modi government, there are real fears that this duo will try their utmost to undermine the development of the struggle. The Hindu-nationalist propaganda machine is busy labelling the July events as anti-India. The truth is that a Bangladesh where the oppressed overthrow an iron-fisted leader is bad news for Modi. A victory of the revolution in Bangladesh will galvanise the masses in India who are also suffering under the dictatorial Modi regime.

Reject Economic Blackmail

The liberals and bourgeoisie are clamouring about the rapid decline of the economy, using this as a cudgel against the masses. Yes, the economy is in dire straits. But the masses must understand that it is precisely the bourgeoisie that is responsible for the state of the economy. The bosses want to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible in order to open up the valves of profit. Enough! Instead of returning to the factories and the status quo, workers must defy this economic blackmail. As Lenin explained regarding the economic situation following the February Revolution in Russia: “The more imminent the debacle, the more essential is it that the bourgeoisie be removed.” Only the working class taking power can bring order to the economic chaos.

Workers Must Control Order

The priority of the interim government is to restore order and stability. This means the restoration of the cops and other forces of the state to keep the “peace” in the streets — i.e., crack down on future protests that threaten to get out of their control. The events of July showed whose side these forces are really on. It would be a gross injustice to the memory of martyrs to have these thugs back on the streets.

The masses have shown tremendous revolutionary initiative, maintaining social order and providing flood relief through their own means. They have now experienced and seen that another way of running the country is possible. They must build upon their initiatives, relying only on their own strength. Replace the police and army with working-class militias!

No Support to the Interim Government!

Bangladesh today faces the question that confronts all revolutions: which class will run society? Workers, backed by the poor peasants and revolutionary students, OR the interim government, followed by combinations of reactionary bourgeois parties who finally see their shot at political power after 15 years of Awami rule? In order to fulfil the aspirations of the masses, the revolution must put the working class in charge of the country, or the situation will descend into reaction. To go forward, revolutionaries in Bangladesh must apply the lessons of the Russian Revolution, which are essential to advancing the struggle.

The first and most important lesson is to effect a complete political break with the interim government and all forces that conciliate it. The Yunus government is an agency of the ruling class and support to it can only strangle the revolution. In periods of revolutionary upheaval, as in Bangladesh today, the ruling classes stand to lose everything. Thus, given the opportunity, they will regain the initiative and crack down on the masses that dared challenge their rule. The interim government is precisely the kind of opportunity the ruling class needs to stabilise, clean its house and summon the forces of counterrevolution in order to secure its position. Unless there is a decisive break with this government and all wings of the movement that conciliate it, the aspirations of the masses will be betrayed.

Left Lackeys of Yunus

However, most of the left is doing the opposite. The Left Democratic Alliance (LDA), an electoral coalition of half a dozen socialist and communist parties, presents itself as an alternative to bourgeois parties. Putting aside the fact that it is completely irrelevant, it places complete trust in the Yunus government, calling on it “to lead the country with the spirit of the popular uprising” (Dhaka Tribune, 11 August). As we have explained, any trust in the interim government can only strangle the revolution. These spent leftists sully the banner of communists by routing revolutionary sentiments back towards the road of capitalist stability. There is nothing communist about placing faith in the interim government.

Dangers of Left Unity

There are those that oppose the interim government. One example is the Revolutionary Student-Youth Movement (RS-YM), a Maoist organisation. They explain that the Yunus government is backed by the imperialists and that “[t]his revolution cannot succeed without the leadership of the working class, and without it, the emancipation of the masses—especially workers and peasants—is impossible” (yenidemokrasi34.net, 22 August). This is correct.

However, they undermine their opposition by proposing a “Provisional People’s Government” of anti-fascist and anti-Awami forces and representatives of all classes, professions and communities. In other words, they would like a government that includes the “progressive” wing of the bourgeoisie. But as we have explained, the entire crisis in Bangladesh today is a result of the rule of this class as a whole. It is not about the sentimental ideas in the heads of individual capitalists, but their social role in society. The Bangladeshi bourgeoisie is materially rooted in and benefits from the current economic structure of the country and its subjugation to imperialism; it cannot solve the basic problems that brought the masses out into the streets.

It is not enough to oppose the Yunus government alone, but to oppose all conciliation to the bourgeois order. To go forward, the revolution must make a decisive rupture with this class. The RS-YM, proceeding from the correct position of opposing the Yunus government, ends up conciliating it by painting the bourgeoisie in bright colours, looking for its progressive wing. This is akin to opposing Miliukov in favour of Kerensky in the Russian Revolution.

Of note is the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI). They have made a substantial intervention in the West regarding the events in Bangladesh. They write much that is correct: opposition to the Yunus government, the importance of the working class, to place no trust in the bourgeois state which will “rob the people of victory”, that the masses “must trust only in their own power” and continue “until power is transferred to the students and working masses” and that the entire Hasina system must go. We agree with all of this.

Yet it is necessary to draw critical attention to the RCI because on the left, they come closest to the tasks of the revolution, only to duck from the main problem when it stares back at them. The entire question boils down to the immediate and practical tasks of revolutionaries regarding Bangladesh: to fight for a political split within the movement along the line of class independence. Concretely, right now, this is posed in terms of the attitude to the interim government, which stands as the main obstacle to the advancement of the revolution. And on this question forces on the ground are divided, with a majority supporting it in one way or another.

The most urgent task is to convince those that subjectively want to fight for a fundamental change in Bangladesh that such a change cannot come through trusting in Yunus. In short, the task of revolutionaries today is to wage the same fight as Lenin in April 1917 to rearm the Bolshevik party through a complete split with the Provisional Government and its conciliators in the entire labour movement.

And this is precisely where the RCI fails. Their programme for Bangladesh, while formally correct, is not used to split the left on class lines. While they point out that the students were wrong to support the Yunus government, their polemics on this question directed at the rest of the left are non-existent. This is because the only perspective they offer for building a revolutionary party is to join the RCI; not to split and regroup the left on a revolutionary programme—which is the only way to build a real working-class party that can finish the revolution.

The question of a political split in the movement along the lines of no conciliation to the bourgeoisie is the decisive question on which the revolution will either go forward or break its neck. Unity of the left based on conciliating the Yunus government is the greatest danger facing Bangladesh today.

Onward to the Second Liberation of Bangladesh!

The Bangla masses have opened the door to the second liberation of their nation, but success is by no means certain. The movement faces all sorts of perils, all of which can be reduced to the subordination of the working masses to the bourgeoisie. We say to revolutionaries in Bangladesh and the diaspora: look to Lenin! Amidst all the upheaval in Russia, he was not afraid to be a minority of one and even split with the Bolsheviks on this question. What is crucial today is that such a Leninist pole exists and be willing to make this fight. This is the central lesson of the October Revolution for Bangladesh today.

Ebarer shongram poorno shadhinotar shongram! This fight is the fight for complete liberation!