We must accept what is necessary according to our national and historical conditions. Ours is a democratic system functioning under the umbrella of the Indian Constitution. Inspired by the spirit of French socialism, our Constitution embodies freedom, equality, fraternity, self-respect, equal opportunities, and provisions for representation. It envisions a peaceful, transformative, and co-existential way of life.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels drew inspiration from French socialism. However, they departed from it by rejecting the multi-party democratic system and advocating instead for a single-party system led by the working class. Thus, French socialism is different, and Marxist socialism is different. In India, those who followed French-style democratic socialism with indigenous understanding include Ram Manohar Lohia, Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan, George Fernandes, Raj Narain, Madhu Dandavate, Madhu Limaye, B P MandL and many others—extending through the Janata Party, Janata Dal, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Biju Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, and others.

Those who followed Marx and Engels including CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML), Jana Shakti, People’s War, Charu Mazumdar, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, Maoists, Shibdas Ghosh, Tarimela Nagi Reddy, Puchalapalli Sundarayya, Ravi Narayan Reddy, Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, Omkar, and many more—representing a hundred years of history.

Marx and Engels themselves changed their views from time to time according to place, time, and circumstances. They drew from French socialism, Germany, and England. Likewise, we too must draw from multiple sources. A blind person needs two eyes; what we need is the welfare of the people and power to the people. There are many paths, many guiding principles, many ideologies—Gandhism, Ambedkarism, French democratic socialism, and Marxism which advocates a single-party system.

Gandhism, Ambedkarism, Buddhism, and Kanshi Ram’s path emphasize peaceful methods. Programs and cadres differ from group to group. Some believe all people must participate in movements; some believe the urban working class alone should lead the struggle; some advocate Bahujan movements; some stress struggles that rise from villages to towns. There are many approaches, with sacrifices, hardships, and failures in each. Those who work for the people and achieve something are saluted. Repressive and authoritarian government actions are condemned. Movements arise to protect human rights.

Regarding Maoist movements and their sacrifices, some have written—without the slightest sympathy for their entry into open public life—that it is “revolutionary cheese poured into capitalist ashes.” That is not humane. In any revolution, until victory is achieved, there will be sacrifices and failures. Those who sacrifice are honored as tragic heroes. This is universal. To belittle tragic movements is neither cultured nor civil.

While repression, encounters, and military campaigns involving lakhs of soldiers continue, the government labels entry into public life as “surrender.” That word should not be used by activists, sympathizers, intellectuals, or Marxists.

She is not from the working class but is a petty-bourgeois writer. She could not  write stories or novels rooted on the working class. Like reciting verses of the Bhagavad Gita, she quotes Marxist principles convenient to her arguments and personal life. She has not stepped beyond her petty-bourgeois existence. It is easy to advise others to do what one has not done oneself. Only those 
who carry the load know its weight.
 
Marx and Engels also changed their positions. Initially they opposed the Paris Commune uprising; after its fall—after the 72-day revolutionary government was crushed and thousands were killed—they upheld it and systematized its lessons, arguing for forming one’s own army. Democratic socialists did not accept this. India adopted democratic socialism; Gandhi described it as trusteeship.
  
The idea of building one’s own armed forces is questionable. Instead, one should win over the people and all sectors, including the army. That is why socialists did not approve of that idea. In 1857 in India, kings and soldiers together revolted against the East India Company; Marx and Engels hailed it as the First War of Indian Independence. Instead of insisting on forming a separate army, they could have said to win over the army as in India. Bangladesh recently demonstrated that no army can suppress people’s movements if the masses rise. Creating one’s own army reflects pre-democratic, monarchical, or dictatorial modes.

Marx wrote Capital applying Hegel’s logic. Hegel spoke of negation and sublation. Marx emphasized negation but neglected sublation—the idea that in social evolution, the old and the new coexist. By stressing negation, he theorized that the old must completely vanish, which led to opposition to democratic socialism and multi-party systems, and advocacy of a single-party system. We all know how single-party systems have evolved.

Petty-bourgeois leaders say that if workers follow their line, it is proletarian revolution. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao—all came from petty-bourgeois backgrounds; none were from the working class. Engels was an industrialist. Marxism-Leninism enabled petty-bourgeois leaders to come to power in the name of the working class.

Those who do not participate in production describe and analyze production relations and claim that economics determines everything. If economics alone determined everything, caste discrimination should not exist among officials in the same cadre—collectors, ministers, presidents. The caste and varna systems are political, economic, social, cultural, and structural systems that shape production relations, surplus value distribution, and control over production and distribution. These should be analyzed using the principles of Capital. That has not been adequately done.

Marxism has created a dependent psychology. Its theoretical strength works like gravity and inertia; it is hard to escape. Like a priestly system, people recite a few formulas, citing Capital, but do not apply them to caste structures or India’s self-sufficient village economy. They assume they understand Marxism and economics, but cannot apply it independently. This is dependency leadership. Hence the criticism: “When it rains in Russia, they open umbrellas here.”

To say revolution achieved nothing and dismiss it as “revolutionary cheese poured into capitalist ashes” is mistaken. Social evolution in this country will be decided by the people. The new moon will not wait for Marxism to arrive. People move forward with what is available. In India, they followed Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Ambedkar, Jinnah, and Nehru. Adivasis carried out 169 rebellions against the British without any formal ideology; Charu Mazumdar did not come there to instruct them.

Those who won yesterday can be defeated today by the very people who elected them. Public needs and awareness change with time. Parties cling to ideologies but revise their manifestos to attract voters. Activists entering public life also redesign their programs accordingly. This is a time of transformation, a paradigm shift. They reassess their lives and experiences; they must be given time. We should not assume everything is over. They will change. They will adopt what suits our conditions and strive to achieve the fundamental goals of the Indian Constitution.