Posted in Volume-2
-44_The Language Problem and IndiaIndex-46_Human Destiny

-45_Communism

Communism: What does it Mean

Communism: What does it Mean?

 

 

COMMUNISM, in India at least, has come to mean things which it was not the original or the main purpose of the word to imply. Communism meant "holding in common", that is to say, there is no private property, one can claim nothing as exclusively one's own-things are distributed, work as well as necessities, and one receives them, each in his turn, according to his need and desert, as determined by general planning. Let alone property, there are types of communism that speak of holding in common women and children even. In any case whatever one is given one possesses and enjoys only for the moment, there is nothing like permanent possession. All have equal right to all things. This is an ideal which I do not think many would care to adopt and follow. In India it appears the word "communism" has been taken in the sense of the régime of the common man. Not that there is any harm in this devia­tion of the meaning. If it is a convenient label or a battle-cry for the common man's right to exist, to have his just lebensraum, well, none can object and all should sympathise and help towards that end. But the mischief is that the common man adopted by communism has a restrictive denotation, it takes in only a section of the common man: it is used mostly, if not exclusively in connection with wage-earners and that too only of the category of peasants and workmen. A large section of the common mass, even of wage earners in a sense, is left out in the communistic scheme, at least not given the same importance as the other. School teachers, especially primary school teachers, small office-clerks, for example, are notless "common" or less unfortunate or worthy of succour. These form a genuine proletariat: only they have not yet been called upon to take part in the Dictatorship. 

Page – 292

Apart from this restrictive denotation, communism, in practice, has been given a restrictive connotation too which is more ominous and unhelpful. The communistic movement has become dynamic in so far as it is a movement for redres­sing grievances (although the methods employed at times it is alleged, are not as they should be, worthy of the civilised human being) in other words, it has been more or less negative in its work and outlook. The whole stress has been laid upon two items: (1) less hours of work, and (2) more wages – I do not mention better housing, medical aid, pension etc., which are auxiliary items. When workers were considered as no more than slaves under the yoke of the blind and brutal exploiter, these demands had a meaning: but they have lost much of their point in the changed circumstances of today.

Whatever the immediate necessity of such drastic negative procedures, true and abiding social welfare depends upon a deeper and wider planning. The aim should not be merely to look for grievances and deal with them piecemeal, but to create conditions in which such grievances do not arise at all, or are reduced to a minimum. For the economic well-being of the society, a just and equitable distribution of wealth is a sound policy, no doubt, but before that one must have wealth and enough of it. The stress should therefore be on increased production, "grow-more-food". The workers must consider themselves ministers to the goddess Lakshmi. To bring pros­perity to the commonwealth, to discover and marshal the resources, increase the output and thus help to raise the standard of life – that is the true role of loyal workers. But as it is, in the way they behave and act, at present they are consumers more than producers. To concentrate all attention and energy upon solely decreasing the hours of work and in­creasing the wages can have no other meaning. Leisure, rest, recreation are necessary, but that should not mean laziness, unwillingness to work, dissipation. One should be decently paid for one's labour, one must not be overworked, yes, but one must look to the other side also, one must bear in mind the capacity of the payer and the needs of the others in the society. Necessity is one thing, greed or selfishness is another. The greed to possess all the golden eggs at once sometimes leads to a disastrous procedure. 

Page – 293

The farmer proprietor, the bourgeois, the capitalist in a modern society, whatever charges of exploitation may be brought against them, are, each in his own way, precisely centres of production, of wealth increment. They are not merely and not always blood-suckers, and heartless profiteers. One need not rob, burn, kill them in a mad rush; they too can be utilised, their services placed at the disposal of the commonwealth. These are names which we may not like be­cause of unhappy associations in the past, but the realities, the types of forces they represent are, many of them, perma­nent features of Nature's economy. They come up in other forms and names. They have suppressed bourgeois bureaucracy in Russia, but it has reappeared in what is termed nowadays as the "managerial" system.

Be that as it may, if one demands a fair share of the riches of the commonwealth, one must lend one's hand honestly and whole-heartedly to its production. That is the line of true communism. Above all, one must cultivate the civic sense, the very primary thing one must have for a harmo­niously prosperous collective life, we have to learn again the first lesson of civilised living in these days when the brute and the vampire are seated in human hearts. We must not always clamour for selfish gains, gains for oneself, for one's class or community, or even for one's country. We must have a global view of the human society which is a complex and multifoliate organism. Many interests have to be served, many lines of growth have to be encouraged, liberty for contraries all in the framework of a wider harmony. The ancient Rishis in­voked the aid of the gods Mitra and Varuna for the establish­ment of that wide harmony, the builders of the new age too can do no better.

Page – 294