People's Democracy

The Struggle Over The State

  Kartik Rai

"A REPUBLIC, a constitutional monarchy and a fascist dictatorship can all be forms of the rule of the bourgeoisie", as Christopher Hill the Marxist historian had once remarked. But these forms reflect differences in the class correlations upon which the bourgeois State rests. In other words, changes in the correlation of class forces, shifts in the balance of strength among the different strata of the ruling classes, also affect the form of the State even when its overall class-character remains the same. Since the working class cannot be indifferent to the form of the State, even when the ruling class alliance behind the State is one consisting of the exploiting classes, it follows that the form of the State, the mode of operation of the State, the balance between the constituting elements of the State, even of a State of exploiting classes, becomes a terrain of struggle.

This issue is understood very clearly in the context of bourgeois democracy. The working class is quite obviously not unconcerned or indifferent about whether the bourgeois State is a republic, or a constitutional monarchy, or a fascist dictatorship. In fact the working class fights for a bourgeois democracy in the form of a republic in preference to other forms of the bourgeois State, both because under such a bourgeois democracy it enjoys greater freedom to organize itself than under other forms of the bourgeois State, and also because the struggle for such a bourgeois democracy itself is dialectically linked to the struggle for socialism; it represents in a historical sense a transitional stage in the struggle for people's democracy and socialism.

But the point that the form of the State, the characteristic features of the State, even when that State represents class interests hostile to the working class, are nonetheless an arena of struggle for the working class, is valid in a more general sense than just the struggle for bourgeois democracy. Precisely because the form of the State and the characteristic features of the State change in response to changes occurring in the balance of underlying class forces, struggling against these changes in the form of the State is one way of struggling against the shifting balance of underlying class forces.

NEW PERCEPTION OF THE BOURGEOISIE 

This point is of immediate relevance in the Indian context. We are witnessing in India today, as indeed in other third world countries, very significant changes in the relationship between the domestic bourgeoisie and metropolitan capital (just as important changes are occurring within the latter involving the emergence to a position of dominance of a new form of international finance capital). While the period immediately following decolonization saw an effort on the part of the domestic bourgeoisie to chart out a relatively autonomous path of capitalist development making use of the post-colonial State, in collaboration with metropolitan capital but nonetheless relatively independent of it, the recent years have seen a shift away from this trajectory. The adoption of neo-liberal policies is indicative of the fact that the bourgeoisie thinks of this earlier trajectory as having reached a dead end from its point of view, and is now willing to integrate itself much more closely with the global order being ushered in by metropolitan capital. It sees its future much more closely linked with metropolitan capital. This perception entails a shift in the balance of class forces underlying the Indian State, and hence in the characteristic features of the Indian State itself. This entails permitting much greater influence to imperialist agencies over the Indian State itself, as an accompaniment to their greater influence over the economy and economic policy as representatives of the new form of international finance capital.

The implications of this greater influence are significant. At the time of independence itself, the bourgeoisie which had managed to retain its hegemony over the anti-colonial struggle waged by several classes, notably the workers and peasants, had staged a volte face: instead of carrying forward the anti-colonial, anti-feudal struggle to the point it had promised in the pre-independence period, it compromised with both imperialism and with feudalism and betrayed its own promises to the classes it had led. This betrayal however is now being carried further. Because of the big bourgeoisie's closer ties with imperialism, the State is now being further transformed, from an entity promoting a relatively autonomous bourgeois development in the country to one that promotes, champions and protects this new-found close link between international finance capital and the domestic big business, and hence, in the process, looks after the interests of international finance capital within the Indian economy. And since the pursuit of neo-liberal policies favoured by international finance capital brings misery, deprivation and hunger to the people, the State tends to take on in an explicit form an increasingly anti-people character.

PURSUIT OF NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMIC POLICIES

The tendency in other words is for the State to turn almost full circle. An entity brought into existence by the struggle of the people against imperialism is increasingly sought to be made a defender of imperialist interests against the people. It is imperative for the working class to fight this tendency. Indeed this tendency can be kept in check, and the drift towards neo-liberalism countered, only through the struggle of the workers and peasants. The struggle over the policies of the State, the struggle over the personnel of the State, the struggle over the ideological stances espoused by the State become an integral part of class struggle.

It follows that what is erroneously called "a retreat of the State" is in essence a transformation of the role, nature and form of the State, from an inheritor, no matter how shame-faced, of the legacy of the freedom struggle, and hence a defender of self-reliance, state capitalism and "national economic development through planning", to a defender of the interests of international finance capital and its alliance with the domestic bourgeoisie which is manifested through the pursuit of neo-liberal economic policies.

There are two distinct ways in which this transformation of the State is sought to be achieved. The first is through the spontaneous operation of the neo-liberal regime now defended by the State, and the second through changes in the personnel and orientation of the State itself. Let us look at each of these.

Since an economy pursuing neo-liberal policies is necessarily exposed to capital flight, even when its currency is not fully convertible, governments become obsessed with the idea of preventing such flight, which can bring great harships for the people. For this purpose they work overtime to retain the "confidence of the investors": they adopt such measures, they employ such personnel, they make such statements and they espouse such fiscal stances which are to the liking of international speculators. Even when a government opposed to neo-liberal policies gets elected, both the sheer cost of capital flight that must occur in the interim before it sets up a regime controlling capital flows, and the sheer difficulty, in the face of imperialist opposition, of erecting a regime that would successfully control capital flows, pressurize it willy-nilly to fall in line and continue with the neo-liberal policies. The transitional difficulties of stepping out of neo-liberalism in other words are sufficiently daunting for most third world governments to make them persist with these policies.

IMPERIALIST INFILTRATION  

Imperialism however takes no chances. In addition to this spontaneous tendency of neo-liberal policies to perpetuate themselves, it actually ensures their continuance by infiltrating the State with its own hand-picked personnel who occupy vantage positions. Employees of the World Bank and of the IMF come to occupy positions of power in the Central Bank, in the Planning Commission, and in the ministry of finance, the last of which acquires a decisive and pre-eminent role within the government. Even when they are not exactly on lien from the Bretton Woods organizations, it is understood that they can move back when they desire. Other elements of the bureaucracy too which pine for a "World Bank posting" or an "ADB posting" take positions that would propitiate these organizations. The third world State in short gets transformed through the fact that its personnel develop a greater loyalty to the imperialist organizations than to the hapless people of their own country.

This process has been going on in India for quite some time. Virtually the entire senior personnel of the ministry of finance, which itself has got transformed from being merely one of several ministries into a "super ministry", consists of persons who are not just ex-employees of the World Bank and the IMF, but who keep migrating back and forth from the Indian finance ministry to the Bretton Woods institutions. When all this is added to the spontaneous tendency of neo-liberal policies to perpetuate themselves, we are clearly talking about a State that is, to a very great extent, in thraldom to imperialism. Not content with this much, those employees of the Bretton Woods institutions who happen to occupy key positions in the State, try further to induct more of their ilk to additional positions within the State. And this entire fifth column of imperialism infiltrating the State then makes every effort to survive electoral verdicts adverse to neo-liberal policies, to stay on, through a combination of coercion exerted from outside and fear of stock market crashes and capital flight, despite changes in government.

FIGHT FOR SOVEREIGNTY OF THE NATION-STATE

It is this phenomenon that the working class must fight. The fight for sovereignty of the nation-State, against imperialist infiltration therefore, is a part of the class struggle in the current epoch.

This is a point which a large number of otherwise well-meaning and even anti-imperialist intellectuals of anarchist, ultra-Left or post-Modernist persuasion miss. They are willing to criticize neo-liberal policies. They are willing to attack "liberalization, privatization and globalization", but they are not willing to defend the sovereignty of the nation-State; and this on two arguments: first, the State being an instrument of oppression, the working class should not concern itself with defending its sovereignty; and secondly, since any nationalism provides a fertile ground for fascism, defending the nation-State should be particularly objectionable from the point of view of the working class.

The first of these arguments misses the point that the working class cannot be indifferent to the form of the State, its specific nature,  just because its basic class character is hostile to the working class. The second misses the point that anti-imperialist nationalism, which is quite distinct from, say, Hindu chauvinism, is a progressive force in the context of the third world, a force that informed the freedom struggle and has become even more relevant today. Indeed Hindu chauvinism has never been anti-imperialist, and even today beleives in appeasing imperialism. Fascism, far from being an outgrowth of anti-imperialist nationalism, constitutes precisely a negation of anti-imperialist nationalism; it thrives precisely when anti-imperialist nationalism is passing through a phase of recession, and even by making anti-imperialism pass through a phase of recession.

The recent move by the Left parties against the inclusion of employees of the World Bank, the ADB, and private consultancy agencies of imperialist countries in the bodies set up by the Planning Commission constitutes an intervention in defence of sovereignty. To be sure, sovereignty has been so compromised of late that the reversal of this particular step would not mean its restoration; but it represents an initial intervention of great significance. The fact that a substantial segment of the bourgeois intelligentsia and of the media that articulates its views chose to identify anti-imperialism with xenophobia shows the extent to which this segment has distanced itself from the legacy of the freedom struggle and the aspirations of the people. But this fact makes the task of Left intervention even more urgent.