Two Cheers for the CPSU
IT WOULD, I suppose, be unfashionable today to write in praise of the Soviet Communist Party, but since I have hated it ever since Stalin drew an iron curtain around the USSR , I think it is time I gave the CPSU its due as an honest chronicler of my times.
I sincerely think that the world, especially the Third World , owes the CPSU a debt which may never be repaid, and for which you and I and our children can never be sufficiently grateful.
The Great Revolution of 1917 fired the imagination of enslaved peoples in Africa , Asia , and Latin America , which sounded the death knell of Western imperialism in these three subjugated continents.
In British India , the Progressive Writers' Movement drew its inspiration from the 1917 Revolution, which was led by the Communist Party everyone is denouncing today. On November 7, 1981 , I wrote the following lines for an Islamabad newspaper:
. . . The many oppressed people in Asia and Africa , who threw of the Western colonial yoke in the aftermath of the Second World War , drew their inspiration from the intrepid struggle the Soviet people put up first against Czarist tyranny, and then against Hitler 's fascism. These two epic struggles changed the course of history and taught weaker peoples, exploited for centuries by Western imperialism, to stand up on their feet and resist and over-throw their oppressors. It would be no exaggeration to say, therefore, that the Russians determined the political course the twentieth century was to take.
The October Revolution, considering the impact it has left on the minds of men, is the single most important event of our century. . . . The 1917 Revolution was achievement enough. With the new State barely 25, however, it was invaded by what was then the greatest military power the world had known. Against the Nazi hordes, the Russians rose like one and rolled back the tide of fascism. In the process, they suffered like no people had suffered before them, and if most of Asia and Africa are free today, they must always remember that they might only have changed masters after World War II but . . . for the 20 million "heroic sons and daughters" who laid down their lives "to save their country's freedom and lay the foundations of ours. . . ."
I wrote these words nearly ten years ago and I repeat them today with greater conviction. But for 1917, there would have been no 1947 for us in India and Pakistan , and for the Great Patriotic War (1942-45) we might have been speaking German today or been exterminated altogether so that Hitler could manufacture his Super Race.
On both occasions, the Russians were led by the Soviet Communist Party, which is being maligned at home and abroad. Two cheers then, loud and clear, for the CPSU , for 1947, and for 1942- 45.
Why do I deny the CPSU the third cheer? I do so for the following reasons:
When Stalin ordered his troops into Berlin while the Allied forces were celebrating victory, he laid the foundations of the ugliest wall in history ever since man made the first brick. That's reason one.
The 1956 Soviet military intervention in Hungary . That's reason two.
When the Soviet Union intervened in Czechoslovakia in 1968 to overthrow Dubcek. That's reason three.
After the War, Soviet policies at home and abroad were based on fear. The CPSU locked itself against the world and against new ideas. It forgot Marx and Lenin . It was Marx who had said: "Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways but the point is to change it." and it was against change that the CPSU secured itself in the crumbling fasteners of an intrigue and incompetence-risen Kremlin.
The CPSU converted itself into a Church which out-orthodoxed the Greek Orthodox Church. Stalinism outlived the dictator by 33 years when Gorbachev appeared on the scene and called for Perestroika and Glasnost .
The year 1985 marked the beginning of the Second Great Soviet Revolution which bids fair to set the course the 21 st century is to take in either eventuality; if the process of democratisation is reversed, the new century will see the resumption of the Cold War ; if the forces of democracy establish firm control and consolidate Perestroika and Glasnost , the new century will usher in an era of peace, progress and freedom the world has not known hitherto.
No matter how you look at it, then, Moscow will, as it did in 1917, determine the course of events in this the last decade of the 20 th and the first of the 21 st century. I am not equating Mr. Gorbachev with Lenin , but the world will have cause to remember the former with a measure of respect even if he fails, and is replaced by lesser men like Czar Yelstin who has throttled the Communist Party and Pravda, in the name of democracy.
When I was at school, one question was often put to students: "Had Aurangzeb come in place of Akbar and Akbar in place of Aurangzeb, what would have been the impact on the course of history?"
I am tempted to replace Stalin and Lenin in the question quoted above.
The American journal, Across Frontiers , published the following song by the Czech pop group, The Plastic People, banned in Prague , in its spring issue in 1986:
They fear the old for their memories.
They fear the young for their innocence
They fear the school pupils
They fear the dead and their funerals
They fear the graves and the flowers
They fear the churches, the priests and the nuns
They fear the workers
They fear the members of the party
They fear those who are not in the party
They fear science
They fear art
They fear records and tapes
They fear plays and films
They fear writers and poets
They fear journalists
They fear actors
They fear painters and sculptors
They fear musicians and singers
They fear radio stations
They fear TV satellites
They fear the free flow of information
They fear foreign literature and journals
They fear technological progress
They fear printers, duplicators, and photocopiers
They fear typewriters
They fear phototelegraphy and telex
They fear direct dialling abroad
They fear letters
They fear the telephone
They fear letting people in
They fear letting people out
They fear the left
They fear the right
They fear the departure of Soviet troops
They fear changes in the clique that rule in Moscow
They fear détente
They fear disarmament
They fear treaties which they have signed
They fear their own police
They fear their own spies
They fear spies
They fear chess
They fear tennis
They fear hockey
They fear women gymnasts
They fear St Wenceslas
They fear Jan Hus
They fear all the saints
They fear Christmas gifts
They fear St Nicholas
They fear the rucksacks before the statue of Lenin
They fear the archives
They fear the historians
They fear the economists
They fear the sociologists
They fear the philosophers
They fear the physicists
They fear the doctors
They fear the political prisoners
They fear the families of the prisoners
They fear the evening
They fear the morning
They fear each day
They fear the future
They fear old age
They fear heart attacks and cirrhosis of the liver
They fear the little conscience they have left
They fear being in the street
They fear being in their privileged ghetto
They fear their own families
They fear their relations
They fear their old friends and comrades
They fear each other
They fear what they have said
They fear what they have written
They fear losing their positions
They fear fire and water
They fear wet and dry
They fear snow
They fear wind
They fear the heat and the cold
They fear quietness and noise
They fear light and the shade
They fear joy and sadness
They fear jokes
They fear those who are right
They fear those who are honest
They fear those who are educated
They fear those who have talent
They fear Marx
They fear Lenin
They fear our dead presidents
They fear the truth
They fear freedom
They fear democracy
They fear the charter of human rights
They fear socialism
Then why, in God 's name, do we fear them?
Change the tense-and ignore a few lines-and you will know what happened to the CPSU before Mr. Gorbachev appeared on the scene. This piece is dedicated to a young friend who was a revolutionary in his salad days.
Friday, August 30, 1991
