Marxism in the Modern World
Q. Now here, I believe, we of India — I use the collective deliberately, since evidently mention of Jawaharlal Nehru embarrasses you! — have discovered the new answers, or, at least, some of them, to the new problems of the changing times. First and most important of them all, as I see it, is the adoption of the Marxist approach, which in our case has gone through the Gandhian influence; to the imperatives of the new scientific and technological era. In this context, India can boast of having evolved, first of all, a new kind of Socialism and, secondly, a new way to Socialism, both of which attempt to create a synthesis between Capitalist democracy, on the one hand, and Communist dictatorship, on the other.
Now, sir, without indulging in flattery, I would like to say that this constitutes a very remarkable experiment which affects one-seventh of humanity directly and the rest of the world indirectly, but very vitally. Besides, it provides some answers to the problems raised by the new epoch of nuclear discoveries and inter-planetary advances.
This is one side of the picture. On the other hand, your noble but somewhat abstract Manifestos on this New Socialism, or Socialist Humanism, have put your followers in an ideological dilemma. The reason is that you have not defined the goals and objectives of Indian Socialism, nor fashioned the means or instruments. Nevertheless, I believe you now have sufficient experience of both to give us something like a definition. Could you?
A. You are constantly referring to Indian Socialism and to Manifestos on Socialism by me. Well, the truth is that I do not think of the problem particularly in terms of Indian Socialism, nor have I issued any Manifestos . . .
Q. I am referring to your speeches, your writings, your books like Whither India. They have been our Manifestos. . . .
A. Yes, I understand. But as I said, one cannot think of it particularly or specifically in terms of Indian Socialism, though I agree that each country has a particular genius, particular roots, and its social and economic structure is partly conditioned and moulded by these factors. To illustrate this, let us take the example of religion. Buddhism, for instance, spread to many countries from India putting on the garb as it were of each separate country. Chinese Buddhism, though derived from India, took on a Chinese orientation. So did the Burmese, the Japanese, etc. That means it was engrafted into the roots of the national soul or whatever you like to call it. In that sense, national characteristics have to be borne in mind in any study of political philosophies as you have to take into account the climate and other physical features of each country. The study of a tropical region in the context of economic production may well be different from that of a non-tropical country.
Q. That is so. I would like you to submit the Marxist analysis to the Indian situation as also other objective conditions to which you have made references before.
A. I was coming to that. In considering what may be called the economic or social philosophy, one learns, of course, a great deal from past experience; and I have always considered the Marxist analysis of the past very scientific and very illuminating. I do not agree with everything Marx says, but broadly I have found it useful and rational. Nevertheless, the fact must be remembered that Marxism was the outcome of the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in England, the early beginnings when conditions were rather peculiar and very special, conditions which have not been repeated elsewhere in the world and quite naturally so. Marx was influenced by the abnormal and, I should say, abominable conditions which prevailed in the first flush of industrialization when there was nothing like a democratic structure of the State and changes had to be made violently for the simple reason that they could not be made constitutionally or democratically. Hence his doctrine of revolutionary violence.
Now when we face the problem of production, change etc., dealt with by Marx, today, we have to think of them in the context of our own times, our own country and our peculiar circumstances and objective conditions. We cannot go back to conditions in early nineteenth-century England in which Marx functioned. It is our conditions that prevail and fashion our thought. The Marxist solutions follow a brilliant line. They may have been right and proper for the times and the problems which brought them into being, but you cannot remove them from their historical context and apply them to a century where different conditions prevail. That is one argument against dogmatic insistence on the Marxist solutions.
Secondly, the Marxist analysis of many things, historical forces and the like, was in vacuo a correct analysis. Let me explain what I mean. If you do not think of other forces coming into the picture, the direction of Marxist economy, which says that given such and such conditions, this or that will happen, or should happen, is logically correct. But the trouble is that Marx does not take into account other forces that might come into play in the future. That, of course, was not the fault of Marx. He saw the conditions as they were during his period and used them as the premises for his conclusions. Then other forces came in. The most important of them was political democracy which made possible peaceful change. Remember that in Marx’s time there was no political democracy, even in the so-called democratic countries, where the land-owning class was in the government. Now the mere fact of the vote coming in, even though it does not solve all problems, does make and has made vital differences. When everybody has a vote it becomes a power exercising certain pulls, certain effective pressures, in the direction of social change to an extent that Marx could not have conceived simply because the picture was not before him.
Then other and further democratic factors came into the picture, like trade union organizations, workers’ organizations, peasant organizations — all exercising powerful pressures upon the wealthy ruling classes in favour of what might be called the beginnings of economic democracy. The result was that the Marxist fear in the context of the Industrial Revolution that there would be greater and greater concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands, extending and widening poverty, did not really occur. These pressures — partly democratic, partly trade union and others that followed — had a powerful impact in limiting both. I do not dispute the fact that the economic tendency which Marx foresaw happened, but it was limited and inhibited all the time by these objective conditions.
There were new types of organizations growing in the political background which was changing, continuously and radically, on one side, accelerating the urge for social justice and the will to social change. On the other, the world was being revolutionized by really big and tremendous technological developments, of which nobody in the nineteenth century, Marx or any other thinker, could have had any awareness. These scientific and technological developments have in theory, you might say, solved the problems of wealth and production, bringing the goal of material prosperity within reach of all. That is, in theory at least, there is enough in the world to go round the entire human population, or enough can be produced in the world to satisfy every normal, primary want of humanity.
Marx was functioning at a time when the main economic question was one of the distribution of something that was not enough and this created all kinds of conflicts. The stronger and wealthier seized the most of what there was and the poor and the weak went to the wall . . .
Q. Survival of the fittest and Devil take the hindmost?
A. Yes, survival of the fittest. The point is that when there are shortages, these conflicts become sharp, but when there is a tendency to produce enough for all, those conflicts lessen. Now, at the present moment, the biggest apparatus of production is in the United States of America. I do not deny there is a huge difference between the American billionaire and others; but the fact remains that conditions of living there, their standard of life, etc., are very high. There is no proletariat of the Marxist conception in America.
Q. Don’t the Negroes fit into the Marxist definition?
A. They might. Yes, the Negroes might, a little more in the south than the north, but not quite in the Marxist conception. There, too, new conditions have not borne out exactly what Marx had prophesied would happen. Capitalism itself has changed, is changing all the time, though it sticks to its basic grab-instinct and tends towards monopolies and aggregation of economic power. But the urge for social justice is there even in the capitalist system.
What is important is that although the logical reasoning of Marx was correct, other factors have intervened. The sum of them — that is, these new factors and particularly the two features I have mentioned, of political democracy and technological advance — have produced a new set of conditions, and Marxism must be reviewed in this new context. They bring new problems and demand new solutions, completely new problems and solutions which Marx did not think of.
Q. You have mentioned political democracy and the technological revolution as the two main problems. Is there any other factor you have in mind, sir?
A. Probably one of the biggest of our problems, during the next decade or, maybe, after a decade, particularly in America and other economically advanced countries which are going in for automation in a big way, will be the problem of what to do with leisure. Now in an under-developed country like India this problem does not exist to the extent it does in the United States, Europe and particularly the more advanced Scandinavian countries and, of course, the Soviet Union. Its worst incidence is in America and it is bound to spread and intensify. You read about it all over the world in cases of youth delinquency and the general decadence of the moral fibre and spiritual discipline of humanity that somehow catches up with prosperous countries and societies. What is one to do with this new problem of the cultivation of leisure? For if we don’t tackle it, the result would be a sort of mental and moral exhaustion of civilization itself.
Q. I read that the Russians are already applying themselves to this problem in a scientific manner:
A. They are, they are, but in Russia too the same difficulties have arisen, though in a much lesser degree. I wonder if a problem like this can be tackled scientifically to the exclusion of other values. What appears to be wanting is — I do not know how to put it — except to say that it is an ethical aspect which might be wanting, some spiritual solution.
Q. Isn’t that unlike, the Jawaharlal of yesterday, Mr Nehru, to talk in terms of ethical and spiritual solutions? What you say raises visions of Mr Nehru in search of God in the evening of his life!
A. If you put it that way, my answer is: Yes, I have changed. The emphasis on ethical and spiritual solutions is not unconscious. It is deliberate, quite deliberate. There are good reasons for it. First of all, apart from material development that is imperative, I believe that the human mind is hungry for something deeper in terms of moral and spiritual development, without which all the material advance may not be worth while. Now the question arises: how to bring about the moral and spiritual standards? There is, of course, the religious approach which has unfortunately narrowed down to dogmas and ceremonials. The form or shell remains, while the spirit is lost. Do you get my meaning?
Q. I do, sir. Would I be right in saying that, religiously speaking, you are somewhat inclined towards Buddhism and the Vedantic faith in divinity permeating our universe?
A. Buddhism certainly provides a fascinating philosophy, full of practical achievements not only in the matter of religion, but art and even politics, as you can see from the records of Ashoka. The old Hindu idea that there is a divine essence in the world and every individual possesses something of it and can develop it, appeals to me in terms of a life force. I do not happen to be a religious man, but I do believe in something — call it religion or anything you like, which raises man above his normal level and gives the human personality a new dimension of spiritual quality and moral depth. Now whatever helps to raise man above himself, be it some god or even a stone image, is good, obviously it is a good thing and must not be discouraged. Speaking for myself, my religion is tolerance of all religions, creeds and philosophies.
Q. Not only tolerance, but I would go further to suggest that you aim at something like a synthesis of them all?
A. I may not be aiming at anything like a synthesis — that is, consciously — but it happens to be part of my make-up. I am somewhat like the old pagans who used to worship all the good and beautiful things of life and nature like gods and, just in case some deity may be left out and thereby feel offended, they created a special image dedicated to the Unknown God too! As you know four great religions have influenced India and continue to influence us, while we are fairly well advanced in the field of technology and industrialization without any visible conflict between science and religion. It might still be the high privilege of India to bring about such a synthesis.
Q. That is well put, sir — but I am afraid I have led you away from the main issue of our talk. We were on the problem of cultivation of leisure as one of the problems Marx could not have foreseen, and you were saying that it required more than a purely scientific or Marxist approach to tackle this problem?
A. Yes, it is really the problem of creating a fully integrated human being — that is, with what might be called the spiritual and ethical counterpart, of the purely material machinery of planning and development being brought into the making of man. Planning and development have now become an almost scientific and mathematical formula. Given a sound basis, they are bound to produce desired results in what is known as a welfare state with a self-developing economy. But is that enough really? I don’t think so. Even in states with highly developed economies material progress by itself appears to have failed to provide people with a fully integrated life. There is a vacuum. There is maladjustment. Once you solve the problem of employment, for example, the next and bigger problem becomes one of the employment of leisure itself. For as soon as man gets the material comfort he desires, something deeper inside him hungers for — well, something deeper, something spiritual and ethical.
And then, more than ever before, you come up to the problem whether the human being is sufficiently developed — mentally, morally and ethically — to use his leisure to advantage. This problem is always there, of course, but when he is working, when he is doing a job, involved in the struggle for survival, it may be a fierce struggle as in our country or a milder one in some advanced countries, it keeps him busy. But when his social and economic problems are solved, as they have been in the more developed countries, and automation relieves him of work too, then you come up in a big way against newer problems like juvenile delinquency, sexual outrages and crimes, alcoholism, destructiveness, anarchy and a hundred other viruses of spiritual sickness and moral collapse. The problem is that once a person’s physical wants are satisfied — that is, he’s got enough money, employment, a home and other essentials — then he ceases to have a sure function in life.
Q. He gets engulfed in a spiritual vacuum?
A. Yes, a spiritual vacuum, an emptiness of the spirit, the result of which is what you call the angry young men and women of our generation. It is not an unintelligent or delinquent generation. They are intelligent and basically sound, but there is something going wrong — maybe for want of the problem of economic struggle. Now coming back to the point, this aspect of the question could not be considered by Marx — that is, this type of development and the new problems and new conditions that would result.
Q. Still, sir, I maintain from personal knowledge of the Socialist countries that this particular problem is not so acute there as in the Capitalist democracies.
A. Broadly speaking, I imagine that such problems could be easier dealt with in a Socialist structure of society. I don’t say that the Socialist structure has all the answers for these new problems. I do not even know the answer, but I am sure it will gradually come. As problems rise, the answers come. Perhaps a new base of civilization will evolve adapted to the new age of science and technology and with it, will develop new ideologies and a broader philosophy. But I should think it would be easier to deal with such a situation which calls for new forms of collective life in a Socialist structure than in any other. But the fact remains, whether one has to deal with the atom bomb or our social structure or any other problem, one aspect that is becoming more and more important is the ethical aspect. You see, if we have the atom bomb or nuclear energy or space rockets; the main problem is how to use them. All these new discoveries take you outside the normal economic domain. You can’t argue about them in terms of Marxist economy or any other set pattern. There must be a new approach, a modern approach, a moral or ethical approach — I really do not know how to put it, but something of that nature. Otherwise there is no solution to this riddle. The whole thing degenerates into power rivalries which beset the development of our scientific and technological age. And this, in my opinion, brings us to the crux of the whole matter.