Which Way Did Papa Turn?

THE Warsaw Bloc disintegrated. The Soviet Union broke up. But the Indian Left managed to shrug away the obvious existential crisis all this generated. Now comes the 15th congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), where everyone ups and gives the green flag to market economy. Massive privatisation of state-controlled enterprises, with only a few strategic areas remaining in the public sector, is what has been proposed. And though new Chinese supremo Jiang Zemin maintains it's all still socialism, few would disagree that Marx, Lenin or Mao may have had a different thing in mind. With the Russians gone, and the Chinese now deserting, is it time for the Indian Left to do a radical rethink?

"It will have a significant impact on Left thinking in India," agrees CPI leader and Rajya Sabha MP Gurudas Dasgupta. He feels that although Jiang's reforms are a departure from basic Left thinking, there's nothing sacrosanct being violated here; everything, after all, has to be in tune with ground realities. "In today's world, market economy and market forces can't be wished away. The Chinese are the best judge of what's better for their economy and what will improve living standards of the people. What China is doing is a recognition of the realities that exist today. And this isn't new;

Lenin recognised existing realities within Communist thinking. So what's new?" For China, this massive privatisation drive is the latest step in the reforms process that the late Deng Xiaoping began. The results are clear. China's average GNP growth between 1953 and 1982 was about 4.2 per cent, as against 8.7 per cent for Taiwan. But post-reforms, China is averaging an annual growth of 10 per cent—higher than that of Singapore (8.3 per cent), Taiwan (6.3 per cent) and South Korea (7.7 per cent).

But all was clearly not well. More than 70 per cent of China's 370,000 state-controlled units are in the red and the government and the banking sector are saddled with an estimated $250 billion in bad loans to these companies. China's state sector employs over 113 million workers but economists say up to one-third of them could be excess baggage. And Chinese economist Huang Xiang sounds remarkably like a World Bank official when he says: "The more centralised the system, the more rigid it is; the more rigid the economy, the lazier the people; the lazier the people, the poorer they are; and the poorer they are, the greater the need for centralisation, forming a vicious cycle."

Chittabrata Majumdar, general secretary of the CPI(M)-affiliated CITU, thinks that drawing a comparison of Chinese theories and development with India would be wrong. "The Chinese are putting their own country first. The privatisation they have in mind differs considerably from what people in India understand by the term. Whether private entrepreneurs or foreign investors, in China, the party is in overall control. They are assigned specific sectors where they can invest up to a specific point and it's on the government's terms. In India, the case is quite different." China, he thinks, is in a state of transition and policies are often changed rapidly; they still have problems of unemployment and lack of big capital.

Interestingly, Robin Majumdar of the Congress-affiliated INTUC, agrees. "The Chinese are gradually accepting every feature of the market economy. I don't find anything substantially new in the 15th party congress deliberations. But they've implemented their reforms effectively, unlike us; we've not made up our minds about just what we want, how far we want to go. No wonder they get more investments and command greater interest abroad."

Many within the Left, though, admit that without the Soviet Communists around and China beginning its long march towards capitalism, the time has perhaps come for an overhauling of Leftist thinking in India. "Left thinking in India is stagnating today and needs to be restructured," says Dasgupta. "It's time for a major remodelling of our thinking and our understanding of realities in India." But despite his endorsement of the new Chinese philosophy, Dasgupta feels reckless privatisation is bad; rather, a strategic coexistence of the public and private sector could be the right answer.

But is the orthodox Indian Left ready to change a la the Chinese? Says CPI's Charubrata Ray: "We definitely oppose the proposed layoff of workers, whether here or elsewhere. But our commentators who greet the changes in China so gleefully should understand that, overall, the socialist principle remains: even if thousands of workers are jobless, there's a safety net for them. Can you imagine this here?" But according to reports, many Chinese workers from moribund PSUs may not be getting access to the safety net. Thousands are being forced to fend for themselves since their factories can't pay them. The number of labour protests has risen by 50 per cent in one year to hit 3,000 in 1996 alone.

It's clearly soul search time.