Bangladesh is a densely populated country in South Asia. With a population of 174 million people, it is the eighth most populous country in the world. The country is largely agrarian, with possibly half of the population working in agriculture. Rice is of course the primary staple food crop, as well as wheat and corn, referred to as maize. The cash crops include tea, coffee, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco and jute, otherwise known as burlap.
Yet it also has a considerable amount of industry, especially textile mills, sugar factories, fertilizer factories, cement factories and aluminum works.
These industrial plants are of vital importance, as they employ a great many workers, proletarians. It is these workers who are about to play a key role in the revolution, which Bangladesh is now experiencing.
It is the students who are ‘’spearheading’’ the revolution. It started when they called for the abolition of the ‘’quota system’’, in which thirty percent of all government jobs, go to the descendants of the ‘’freedom fighters’’, those who won the war of independence in 1971.
The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, denied this request, and ‘’cracked down’’ on the protesters. This involved the use of wide spread violence, on the part of the police and military, which resulted in the death of numerous people. As well, a great many student leaders, and members of opposition parties, were arrested. In addition, a country wide curfew was imposed, along with an internet blackout. The fact that Hasina was referring to these protesters as ‘’traitors and terrorists’’, did not endear her to them.
These measures did not have the desired effect of ‘’quelling the protests’’. On the contrary, the protests ‘’spiralled into a campaign of social disobedience, all across the nation, worsening by the day, with more and more people joining the students’’, according to the journalists.
In fact, the student led protests spread all across the country, so that all ‘’common people’’, workers and farmers, from all walks of life, young and old, joined the students in demanding the end to the quota system.
This placed a great deal of pressure on the government, so that the quota system was annulled. Perhaps it was thought that this would satisfy the protesters, as their demands were being met. It most certainly did not. Instead, their demands merely changed, increased to that of demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.
To those of us who are ‘’conscious people’’, which is to say Marxists, Communists, this came as no great surprise. After all, according to Marx, ‘’Reforms are a byproduct of revolutionary motion. They merely serve to strengthen and further the revolutionary movement’’.
It is estimated that in the capital city of Dhaka alone, a ‘’crowd’’ of possibly four hundred thousand people defied the curfew, and marched on the ‘’most highly guarded residence in the country’’, the private home of the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.
The journalists report that the ‘’mob’’ ignored the police, military and armoured vehicles, and ‘’stormed the home of Prime Minister Hasina’’. Those who were guarding that building, rather wisely decided to ‘’step aside’’.
In a state of shock and disbelief, with mere minutes to spare, Hasina was able to jump on a helicopter and escape to India. Rather than facing the people she has been ‘’leading’’, for the last fifteen years, she chose to seek political asylum, in a foreign country.
Even though she was allowed to enter India, it is not clear that she is entirely welcome. The ‘’Indian Intelligence Services’’ have placed Hasina in ‘’protective custody’’, and moved her to an ‘’undisclosed location’’. She has been granted permission for an ‘’interim stay’’. (Bear in mind that interim means temporary)
Other countries also, are ‘’less than enthusiastic’’ about accepting her. The United States has rescinded her passport, and the United Kingdom has reportedly ‘’shut its doors’’, at least temporarily.
By contrast, Bangladesh is certainly anxious to welcome her back! They have even requested that India arrest Hasina, and send her back, so that she can face criminal charges.
As a result of this revolution, the curfew has been lifted, and all previously arrested ‘’protesters’’ have been released from jail. They even succeeded in dissolving Parliament.
Into this ‘’power vacuum’’, an ‘’interim government’’ is being created, with Mohamed Yunus as the ‘’chief advisor’’. He is a very popular figure, an ‘’entrepreneur, banker and economist’’, the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, for ‘’pioneering the concepts of micro credit and micro finance’’.
It is perhaps not too surprising that the army has plans of their own. The Army Chief of Staff is calling for people to have ‘’faith and trust’’ in the army, as the army promises to ‘’protect the lives and property of people’’, to ‘’bring peace and harmony back to the country’’, to ‘’stop the violence, murders, looting, hooliganism and protests’’.
In other words, the Army Chief of Staff wants to crush the revolution!
These plans include taking over the interim government. As the Army Chief of Staff stated, ‘’Now we will form an interim government and continue our work to lead the country. The country is witnessing a period of revolution right now. I have invited all the leaders of the political parties. They came here and we had a good discussion. We have decided to form an interim government. Through the interim government, all the functioning of the government will take place.’’
From this, it is clear that the army and all ‘’opposition parties’’, plans to replace the rule of Hasina and her political party, with their own rule!
The leaders of the revolution have made it perfectly clear, that they are opposed to the plan of the army, to seize power! As they stated, ‘’We do not want a military government, this is not just the end of the tyrant Hasina, we are going to ensure a citizens government….We were ignored by authorities when we were protesting peacefully to reform the quota system. They thought that the students would get tired after protesting for two days. But because they were mistaken, it is no longer a quota reform protest. It’s been turned into a protest to reform the state. The state must take responsibility for all those who have been killed and injured so far…. what we need is a citizens charter, we need a civilian government, and we are going to ensure it’’.
It is clear that the Bangladesh revolution is far from over! Now that Hasina has been removed from office, the common people have now secured some democratic rights, and not just on paper.
We can compare this to the revolutionary situation which existed in Russia, immediately after the Emperor, Czar Nicholas was overthrown, in February of 1917.
At that time, the capitalists seized power, and established a democratic republic. This provided the common people, workers and family farmers, referred to as peasants, with some democratic rights, if only on paper. Yet it did not provide them with much more.
They remained largely poverty stricken, hungry and cold, still at war with Germany and the Central Powers, longing for ‘’peace, land and bread’’. Their new government responded with an abundance of promises. Nothing else. Sound familiar?
Yet Lenin, who was in exile, was able to return to Russia, in April of that year. He found that, as a result of the revolution, there existed a ‘’dual power’’ in Russia. On the one hand, there was the state power of the capitalists, as was expressed in the government, and supported those capitalists. On the other hand, there was the ‘’Soviet Power’’, in that Soviet means Council, which represented the common people, the workers, military personnel and farmers.
The ‘’state power’’, of the Soviets, was almost as strong as that of the capitalists! For that reason, the capitalists dared not arrest Lenin, as soon as he stepped off the train, much as they desired to do so.
The fact is that revolutionary motion frequently gives rise to Soviets. It is a spontaneous creation of working people. They first appeared in Russia, in the first revolution of 1905. They reappeared in 1917. They have since appeared in numerous other revolutions. It is entirely possible that they have also been created in Bangladesh.
Assuming that is the case, then those Soviets are the nucleus of a new state power. These may take the shape of Soviets of Workers, Farmers, Military and possibly Intellectuals. It is these Soviets which are destined to assume power in Bangladesh.
As yet, the leaders of the Bangladesh revolution are not speaking in class terms. They are speaking merely in terms of democracy, and that is certainly a step in the right direction. Now they have to be made aware that democracy is nothing other than a method of class rule! It is a form of government in which one class, in this case the ruling class of capitalists, subjugates all lower classes! The classes of workers and farmers. For that reason, no democratic republic can be inclusive! The government can represent only the class in power!
In this case, the ruling class is that of the capitalists, technically referred to as the bourgeoisie. The ‘’lower classes’’ include the family farmers, also known as peasants, and the working class, technically referred to as proletarians.
This brings us to that which the protesters refer to as a ‘’civilian government’’. This is really a ‘’state apparatus’’, or a ‘’state machine’’, to put it in popular terms. Such an apparatus has been set up, by the ruling class of capitalists, in order to crush the ‘’lower classes’’, the workers and family farmers. This apparatus includes that of the police, military, courts, prisons and other ‘’coercive institutions’’.
It is not at all surprising that the Army Chief of Staff wants to quell the revolution, to restore ‘’peace and harmony’’. As part of the state apparatus, one which supports the ruling class of capitalists, the leaders of the Army are most emphatically counter revolutionary!
Incidentally, by contrast, the ‘’rank and file’’ members of the military, the ‘’enlisted personnel’’, and not just those of the army, also tend to be revolutionary. Not too surprising, as most of them are workers and farmers.
Now to return to the fact that the leaders of the army want to seize power, to ‘’form an interim government’’.
Their plan is to seize control of the existing state apparatus, which was abandoned by Hasina, as she fled the country.
It should be noted that this ‘’state apparatus’’ is treasured, by the capitalists! Even the Crown Jewels could not be more highly valued! Or protected!
Now with Hasina ‘’out of the way’’, this has created that which is referred to as a ‘’power vacuum’’. She may be gone, but she left behind the ‘’state apparatus’’! It is still very much intact! Just waiting for someone to gain possession!
It is this supremely valuable state apparatus which is now ‘’up for grabs’’! The leaders of various political parties, as well as the leaders of the army, are determined to seize control of that apparatus, and set themselves up, as the new rulers!
This is to stress the fact that the existing state apparatus, which has been established by the capitalists, with the sole purpose of crushing the working people, cannot be used for any other purpose! It must be destroyed! Smashed!
It is up to the revolutionaries to smash the existing state apparatus, as it cannot be used to crush the capitalists, after the revolution. Yet their resistance will ‘’increase tenfold’’, after they lose power, as they make every effort to ‘’restore their paradise lost’’, according to Lenin.
For that reason, a new state apparatus is required, to be established after the revolution. This apparatus is known as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! Lenin explains this supremely well in his master piece, State and Revolution.
To put this book in historical perspective, it was written in the summer of 1917, in preparation for the Russian Great October Socialist Proletarian Revolution, of that same year. That revolution was successful, because it followed the advice of Lenin.
Now it is up to the leaders of the Bangladesh revolution to become class conscious, to raise their level of awareness,to become aware of the revolutionary theories of Marx and Lenin.
They can then bring that revolutionary awareness to the ‘’common people’’, the workers and family farmers, or at least to the most advanced strata of those classes. Those advanced members will in turn explain it to the less advanced.
In this way, the Bangladesh revolutionaries will secure their ‘’citizens government’’, one which will ‘’hold accountable’’, those responsible for the death of so many innocent people. There is no other way! The existing state apparatus cannot be reformed!
Although this is indeed a ‘’tall order’’, it is nowhere near as difficult as it once was. A careful reading of the essential works of Marx and Lenin will be sufficient, at least for the present. At a bare minimum, State and Revolution, by Lenin, is absolutely required. That work is readily available on the internet.
A proper understanding of that work will ‘’pave the way’’ towards a successful Bangladesh Great Proletarian Socialist Revolution.
With Fraternal Revolutionary Communist Greetings,
Gerald McIsaac
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 