What’s in a name?

Sometime back the editor of a leading business paper of India asked a well known leader of a communist party of our country, “Why don’t you change colour and become a social democratic party, as has happened in Western Europe?”

Do you know what the answer of the leader of the communist party was?

“In all but name, that change has already taken place.”

We are not surprised by the answer. We have maintained for a long time that both the leading communist parties, presently supporting and keeping UPA government alive, have completely given up communist ideology. Yet, they cannot give up their name because whatever support they enjoy among people is only because people have hope that someday they will fight for building a society free of oppression and exploitation.

As long as these communist parties are able maintain the illusion and hope among people, they cannot formally give up the name or ideology.

Their still bigger challenge is how to convince their cadre to give up communism in name even though it has been given up in practice. A large number of their members still have a deep love for communism. They have made huge sacrifices for the ideology they believe in. They still have fond hopes and dream of a new society. They want their party to work for building the society as per the communist beliefs. The leadership of these two communist parties does not have the courage to face their cadre when they tell them that their parties have already forsaken communism and become social democratic parties in essence.

So both these communist parties have taken the political duplicity to a level even higher than practiced by other bourgeois parties. Most bourgeois parties say one thing to the electorate and their vote banks and do what is in the interest of the ruling class.

Parliamentary communist parties have to oppose blatantly pro-bourgeois policies in front of public. They have to organize morchas and shout slogans to maintain their façade of communism and to tell their cadre that they will continue to oppose anti-people policies and measures of UPA government. But, inside the parliament and in their coordination meetings they directly or indirectly support the same anti-people policies. So, the opposition is only for the galleries. The opposition is only to the extent it does not disturb the current power balance. The red flag, symbols of hammer and sickle and the name communism come very handy to organize people to put up whatever show and wherever it is required.