The PPP’s leadership and its fear of Marxism

May 15, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The PPP is cagey when it comes to constitutional change at the national level. Its General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo insists that any changes must be approved by the people themselves.

But when it comes to the changes to the PPP’s own constitution, the PPP did not see it necessary to have wide-ranging consultations at the level of the party’s groups, regions and county conferences on the issue of expunging Marxism-Leninism and references to socialism from the party’s constitution.  Such double standards are not unknown to the PPP.

It is a contradiction that the congress took a decision to expunge references to Marxism-Leninism and socialism from the party’s constitution while at the same time authorising the Central Committee to establish a team to review and update the very constitution and to report in one year’s time to County Conferences where the changes will be adopted.

The bourgeois class must have been extremely desperate to erase references to Marxism- Leninism and socialism from the party’s constitution. It could not wait on the outcome of the review and updating process. The main justification for expunging references to Marxism-Leninism from the party’s constitution is that such references are relics of the Cold War. At his post-Congress press conference, General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo confessed that the party had long moved away from the practices of Marxism-Leninism and socialism which he claims belongs to a different era.

The party has every right to decide to change its ideological position. But it should not arrogate to itself the right to claim that Marxism-Leninism belongs to a different era and has no relevance today. Bharrat Jagdeo would be too young to know but this very issue was debated 50 years ago: the issue of whether the ideas of Marx transcended time and place i.e. whether it was relevant to the present age and to non-European societies and societies much different from the era of Karl Marx. Walter Rodney addressed this very issue in a 1975 lecture entitled “Marxism and African Liberation’. The lecture was delivered in New York.

In that presentation, Rodney sought to answer two questions. Firstly, he sought to answer the question of the continued relevance of an ideology that originated within the cultural context of Western Europe during the 19th century, pondering its applicability to regions such as Africa, the Caribbean, and to black communities elsewhere. Secondly, he probed whether Marxism holds merit when transposed onto different societies and historical epochs.

At its 32nd Congress, the PPP/C effectively dismissed the relevance of Marxism-Leninism as applicable to Guyana today. It also dispensed with the ideology as not being relevant to this era. The leadership of the PPP and its delegates certainly did not benefit from the insights of Rodney on the relevance in time and place of Marxism. Rodney argued that Marxism can be viewed as both a methodology for understanding societies and as a revolutionary ideology. Rodney concluded that as a methodology, Marxism was independent of time and place and thus applicable to different eras and different societies.

But more fundamentally was that as a methodology. Marxism identified the role of classes in the evolution of society. Thus, it can be argued that Marxism as a methodology has value across time and place in terms of examining class relations.  But this is precisely the sort of methodology which the PPP is escaping from. Because the inescapable conclusion which will be drawn from a class analysis today of Guyanese society is that the gap between the various classes is widening and that the bourgeois class is monopolizing most of the benefits of the growing economy.

There is a school of thought that says that under Jagdeo’s neo-liberal economic policies, the primary beneficiaries have overwhelmingly been the capitalist class, which has seen its wealth and influence multiply. Jagdeo’s approach, it is said, not only favoured the capitalist elite but also facilitated the emergence of an oligarchic class, further concentrating economic and political power into the hands of a select few.

The present PPP does not wish for an interrogation of class relations in society. It does not wish for this happen because it will expose how rather than being working class in orientation, the present PPP has been a facilitator of bourgeois interests. Rodney also examined Marxism as a revolutionary and class-based ideology. In this regard Rodney argued that bourgeois ideology inherently serves the purpose of preserving the existing societal structure and economic system. It functions to uphold and reinforce the prevailing mode of production and the associated social relations. This ideology is fundamentally conservative, aiming to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate the interests of the dominant capitalist class.

Contrary to bourgeois ideology, scientific socialism takes a revolutionary stance, consciously aiming to dismantle the current system of production and its accompanying political relations. It recognises the interconnectedness between ideas and material conditions, asserting that socialist ideas emerge from the interests of the working class and are aimed at challenging and ultimately overthrowing the capitalist mode of production. By advocating for the transformation of societal structures and economic arrangements, scientific socialism seeks to create a more equitable and just society, where the means of production are owned collectively and utilised for the benefit of all members of society. The PPP is taking Guyana down the road to perdition. Instead of becoming a more equal society, Guyana under the bourgeois PPP government, is becoming a more unequal society. And decades from now, this country will explode in class conflicts – the legacy of the present leadership of the PPP.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, General Secretary, Marxism-Leninism, Peeping Tom, socialism

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