Beyond Red

an apostate on communism

Beyond

Red

an apostate on communism

P Kesavan Nair

Beyond Red

P. Kesavan Nair

Published by Pagan Books

Pagan Books

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Thevally, Kollam - 9

Kerala, India

First Published by Pagan Books in 2010

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Contents

Foreword

1. Russell foretells 1

2. The truth of matter 13

3. Unscientific dialectics 29

4. Crisis and classical philosophy 45

5. Uncertainty in history 57

6. The disoriented economics 69

7. Is Marxism scientific? 89

8. The red religion 99

9. The new class 111

vi

Bibliography

123

Foreword

B

writer, was the greatest critic of communism. He

predicted the failure of Marxism even when its

opponents were awestruck at the euphoria it created.

Unlike some intellectuals, who were afraid of being

branded as anti-humanists on criticising Marxism, he

had the sense to see through the theory, practice,

propaganda and swearology of communism.

This book is an attempt, a long-needed one in

Indian context, where Marxists have been able to

suppress all honest analysis of their theory with

fundamentalist zeal, to look for theoretical grounds for

the failure of communism and its attendant cruelties.

Like many totalitarian traditions, both religious and

political, the only freedom communism gives others is

the freedom to praise it. This book, originally written in

Malayalam, looks at this ideology from many different

angles—historical, political, theoretical and economical.

It is not an exact translation of the book. It is rather a

remake of it. Lack of comprehensiveness may be its

ertrand Russell, the well-known philosopher and

viii

demerit. But, it is something which cannot be expected

in a small volume like this. The book begins with

Russell’s’ foreboding of communism and then tries to

explore the ideological bases of communism such as

dialectical materialism, historical materialism and

Marxian economics and politics. A separate chapter is

devoted to its truth claim. A study of Marxism done along

atavistic lines always takes us to its Judeo-Christian roots.

A perceptive study cannot but notice the fact that, along

with Fascism and Nazism, Marxism is a faith system.

Hence, the chapter ‘The Red Religion’. Finally, an attempt

is made to find the ultimate beneficiary of communism.

The real beneficiaries of it, like many other totalitarian

and millenarian systems, are a handful of intellectuals

and clever men who, while enjoying every pleasure of

power, indulge in double speak, partly, to protect their

positions and, partly, to assuage their guilty conscience.

A criticism of communism need not be an apology

for capitalism. Capitalist economy is finding itself

strangely caught in the mire of its own motivation-profit,

and, despite the paean of free market economy by

practising capitalists and rightist intellectuals, is,

ridiculously, looking for protectionist help from the state.

In this context, the need for finding out alternative ways

of economic life has become unavoidable. In India, we

have got the economics of Mahatma Gandhi. In the West

many like Schumacher have reminded us of the need

for an alternative economic system. This book is also a

hope in that direction. A holistic vision of life is the

driving force behind this book. For a message for this

book—if a book needs one— I would like to quote Paul

Johnson, the British philosopher and historian. “We

ix

Beyond Red

should place experience before theories and people

before ideologies’’.

Many, directly and indirectly, helped me to pen

this book. Intellectual recourse has been duly

acknowledged in the bibliography, but a few who

provoked this book into being with their cerebral

challenges would like to remain in the backdrop.

Though I am not naming them, my gratitude is always

due to them.

PKN

Foreword

x

Russell foretells

B

and mathematician of twentieth century

disagreed with communism until the very end

of his life. He is a safe intellectual launching pad among

the few for an enquiry into communism, as a theory

and a political system. History proved his substantiated

disagreements with communism right. His first critique

of communism appeared in 1896. His opposition to

communist governments was stronger than his dislike

for the theory on which they were based. His book

ertrand Russell, the famous writer, philosopher

The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

his visit to Russia in 1920, most logically exposed the

great discrepancy between theory and practice of

Bolshevism. He prophesied that the Bolshevik

experiment would fail. His

born soon afterPortraits from Memory

contained the seminal essay ‘Why I am Not a

Communist’. The essay is set to discover answers to

two questions. Is Marxism true? Will its practice lead

us to greater happiness and peace? He concludes that

Marxism is not true and that it has given us only

miseries. The past history of communist governments

3

and movements has only supported this view.

Marxian concepts, which are based on dialectical

materialism and historical materialism, are increasingly

found to be incongruous with the philosophical

thoughts deriving from modern scientific enquiry. Marx

conceptualized dialectical materialism as something

governing the whole universe. To him, it was a force

controlling human history, independent of man’s will.

He gave it the same place as religions did to God.

Communists wrongly thought that dialectics was the

science of all sciences. Historical materialism, which

forms the basis of Marxist interpretation of history, too

is outdated. This history-jilted theory is the foundation

for the communist strategies and manipulations. Their

adherence to an unproven theory throughout history

is indeed fundamentalist.

Events throughout the Socialist Block have, time

and again, shown the wide gap between lexis and

praxis in communism. The fall of communist regimes

in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in Eastern

Europe is a good example of this. These incidents are

something fundamentally affecting Marxist theories.

Incidentally, Marxists themselves have insisted that

validity of a theory can be proven only through practice.

The collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern

Europe shows its lack of practicality. Capitalists too

accept the need for concord between theory and

practice in economic matters. If we want to make theory

and practice compatible, we need pre-planning based

on a definite theory, and also schemes and plans

ensuing from them. The relationship between theory

4

Beyond Red

and practice in Marxism is the same as a product and

it’s planning in capitalism. It is a process in which

communism and capitalism share things innerly. The

concept of utility upheld by communists in their

implementation of political theories becomes profit

motive in capitalism.

Whether in China, Russia or East Europe, the

practice of communism resulted in the absolutism of

party leaders and their personal gains. The communist

leaders wallowed in riches, corruption, pleasures and

squandering, Communism was, predictably,

institutionalized. China is now practising market

socialism. To put it simply, the economy is that of

capitalism while the political system is that of socialism.

In capitalism, monopolists control economy and

political system. Theoretically speaking, in Marxism,

it is the economic system that should determine the

political system. But, the Chinese Communist Party

talks about the determination of the economic system

by the political system! It is contradictions all the

way. No wonder, leaders of the Chinese Communist

Party run big businesses in China.

Lenin called imperialism the acme of

capitalism. As such, the main rivals of communists

should be the imperialists and they ritually single

out America as the arch imperialist. But, China has

been a friend of America on more than one count.

America gave China the status of Most Favoured

Nation. American capital has been in constant flow

into China. China has spread the red carpet for

many an American President. Under the banner of

5

Russell foretells

the Chinese Communist Party, capitalism is playing

its Chinese version in the country. It is wearing the

mask of communism there instead of its usual mask

of liberal democracy.

The much-trumpeted October Revolution in

Russia in 1917 was not a mass revolution. It was a

political coup by the Bolshevic Party under the

leadership of Lenin against the democratically elected

government of Kerensky at the end of the First World

War. Lenin and a group of standby intellectuals hailed

it as a proletarian revolution. By shortcut, later, Lenin

became the unquestionable leader of the international

Communist movement. After the Lenin era, Stalin

created the Commissar regime excelling the Tsarist rule

in totalitarianism, sacrificing even the old

revolutionaries. His behind–the-Iron-Curtain cruelties

beggar description. It is Nikita Khrushchev who dented

some peep-holes in the Iron Curtain by his confessional

speech at the end of the 20th party congress of the

Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU).

The real red terror became largely known to the

world only in 1980s. The writers and artists who were

daring enough to portray the ugliness of the communist

dictatorship were denounced as the enemies of the

proletariat. The 75–year old terror rule of the

Communist Party in Russia was broken not by external

enemies, but by the Russian people themselves. The

Lenin government also, which took over Russia, after

the Revolution, was a system for oppression. The

reign of Stalin, who succeded Lenin, saw the red

terror reaching its acme.

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Beyond Red

In a democratic set up, the right to free

individual development is measured by the

maximum opportunities available for self–

improvement. With the advent of Stalin, the

individual ceased to be in Russia. Under

communism, individuals’ likes and dislikes,

individuality and value of human life came to be

considered taboos. The individual became a sacrificial

lamb for the establishment of proletarian dictatorship.

The reasons for these should be searched for in Marx’s

concept of revolution. Communism offered greater

possibilities for absolutism than any other political

ideology. Marx and Engels have written a lot about

the possibilities and technicalities of revolution. Marx

regarded Paris Commune as a good example of what

revolution could be. He perfected his lessons about

revolution in his meditations on Paris Commune. He

wanted to demolish the existing governments and build

not–to–be opposed governments in their stead, which

would pave the way for dictatorship of the proletariat.

Naturally, all those who got power in the name of

communism became matchless dictators. Neither

workers nor farmers had any say in their governments.

The ruling class in communist countries grew into an

elite one. Communism, in effect, meant a monolithic

state structure. Its monolithic nature was the outcome

of its ideology.

The communists propagated the idea that

dictatorship of the proletariat was democratic rule by

the majority. There has not been a single example of a

communist regime belonging to the majority people.

7

Russell Foretells

The apology tendered by CPSU at the collapse of

the Soviet Union is interesting to note here.

The concept of ‘all people’ shrank into the

proletariat. The Party became the Central Committee

and the Central Committee was dwarfed into the Polite

Bureau. The Polite Bureau virtually became the party

secretary. The foundation stone of all these was the

concept of proletarian dictatorship and the

centralization of democratic process. The centralization

of democracy resulted in the centralization of power

in the hands of the party secretary and the preferred

comrades. This move made the Party deeply

hierarchical. Whatever came from high on were

dictums inviolable. Those on the lower rungs of power

were slaves of those on the higher rungs.

All communist promises turned out to be tricks

and trickeries. Wherever communists came to power,

there they established oppressive regimes. Communist

states were essentially criminal institutions. Theirs was

a rule of lawlessness. They unleashed terror and human

lives became cheaper than ever. Common men became

their enemies. In Russia, between 1825 and 1917,

under the rule of Tsar, 6321 people were killed for

political reasons. In 1918, within two months of the

declaration of red terror by Lenin, 15000 people were

condemned to death. For three quarters of the last

centuries, this continued to be the trend. During 1932-

33, in the famine that followed the Collective Farming

Experiment, 6000000 people are assumed to have

perished. In the purgation process initiated by the Party,

7, 20,000 people lost their lives. The period between

8

Beyond Red

1934 and 1941 witnessed the imprisonment of

70,00,000 men in the slavery camps euphemistically

called ‘Gulags’. When Stalin died these ‘Gulags’ had

an estimated ‘catchment’ of 2.75 million people. All

the communist regimes were masochistically cruel

towards their own people and those regimes excelled

the capitalist state by far in cruelty.

The former Soviet Union covered one sixth of

the earth. It was underpopulated and rich in natural

resources. It was the granary of Europe during the reign

of Tsar. Though the communist regime was far ahead

in the production of military equipment, nuclear

research and space science, it lagged behind in the

fields of industrial production and agriculture. People

were impoverished. Daily bread became dear. The

whole nation had to, notoriously, be queuing up for

everything. In Russia, more than 20 million people

were into black marketing. Even those men who

refused only to be on the breadline were brutally

suppressed. Workers and farmers got only chains. The

new world promised never came.

Those who rallied under the red flag in China,

Cambodia, North Korea and East Europe also met with

the same fate. The ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China

resulted in the mass murder of people. About 10 million

people were killed including Lia Shavoch who was

the second man in the Party. Some people put the figure

at 30 million. What is intriguing is that both the killers

and the killed were mostly communists. Some figures

talk about the death of 40 million people due to the

failure of farming and scarcity of food during the Mao-

9

Russell Foretells

led ‘Great Leap Forward’. The world has yet to count

the number of people mowed down in Tiananmen

Square massacre. In Cambodia communism

wallowed in heaps of human skulls and skeletons

collected in the infamous Killing Fields, constituted

for the purpose of mass murder by the communist

autocrat Pole Pot. Three million people were its

victims. Red Terror ran amuck in East Europe and

North Korea too. People in those countries were

made miserable and pauperized.

Communists suppressed all ideas and opinions

that were not theirs. Many talented writers and scientists

fled Russia. In the name of ideological hegemony, they

hunted down scientific theories and the scientists

behind them. Two examples from genetics are enough.

CPSU repudiated Gregory Mendel who was the

exponent of genetics and declared that it was a pseudoscience.

As a result, Russia is one of the most backward

countries in genetics. Marx’s worship of Charles Darwin

and Stalin’s perverted view of genetics, and political

partialities prevalent among the Russian scientists were

responsible for this. The Communist Party contrived a

customized version of genetics. The Russian scientists,

Biov and Vavilov, who made a lot of contribution

towards genetics, had to undergo a lot of political

persecution during the time of Stalin. Biov was the

father of molecular biology in Russia. In 1930’s, Biov

went to another scientist VN Slepkov for learning

purposes. With this, Biov began to face hard times.

The brother of Slepkov was the friend of the Marxist

thinker, Bhukharin, who was deadly against Stalin.

For this single reason, the students of Slepkov were

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Beyond Red

hunted down. Biov was arrested and exiled. He was

freed only when Krushchev came to power. Another

genius in genetics who had to face the music was

Vavilov. He was sent to a Siberian jail where he died.

His crime was that he had formed some genetic

principles of seeds on the basis of Mendel’s theory.

His experiments were not to the taste of the notorious

agricultural scientist T.D. Licenkov ,who was a

crony of Stalin. Licenkov misled Stalin into thinking

that the principles of Vavilov were anti-Marxist.

Under the cover of communist ideology, genetic

studies were removed from Soviet curricula and

books on the subject were confined to flames.

Genetics thus died out in Russia. Soviet Union had

to rue for it later. When agriculture sector all over

the world began to have abundance of food production

following the Green Revolution, Russia was being

shaken by the dry wind of scarcity. A country which

was rich in natural resources, had to depend upon even

India for food.

Marxism failed to take roots in West Europe

despite preexistence of allied thoughts. Marxism was

a continuity of Hegelian philosophy and Christian

tradition. In spite of it all, communism didn’t become

a force there. Though the political system prevalent in

the Western Europe was exploitative capitalism,

Communism could not spread there since the people

had enfranchisement and civic liberty. Neither could

communism make a head way in many countries with

highly developed capitalism. Russell says, “It was

poverty caused by imperialist exploitation that helped

communism to find a welcome in developing and

11

Russell Foretells

12

Russell Foretells

undeveloped countries”. It is poverty and hunger

that gave the ‘spectre’ of communism a chance to

move around. The only way to prevent it spread is

the eradication of poverty and deprivation. Russell’s

foreseeing was correct. Unfortunately, in India,

communism exported here became the opium of the

intellectuals. Here, they are hoodwinking the gullible

with its intoxication. Even intellectuals and writers

could not escape its stupefying power. Nehru’s eulogy

of communism subsequent to his visit to Russia provides

a sharp contrast to the skeptical and uncompromising

observations of an astute thinker like Russell.

The truth of matter

P

time. Philosophy, mainly scientific philosophy,

is related to the development and evolution of

science, especially physical science. Advances in

physics and technology also change the concepts of

matter, which can completely change our own view

of the world. Modern physics redrafted the classical

views about space, time, matter and cause-effect. A

new concept of matter was formed. Reflections of this

new view were felt in philosophy too. Many time-tested

philosophical assumptions were proved to be wrong.

The two main streams in philosophical thoughts

are idealism and materialism. Materialists claim that

what is primary is matter and that consciousness is only

secondary. On the other hand, idealists stand by the

primacy of consciousness.

According to materialism, the things seen around

us and all the phenomena are material and the cosmos,

the sun, the earth, and various geo-physical and social

phenomena are material. They exist independent of

hilosophy is the intellectual quintessence of its

15

the consciousness of the observer. Materials are made

up of matter. Such materials form things seen around

us. and matter of which they are made is eternal. It is

not something created. Neither is it something, which

came into being out of some other force. What we

used to call consciousness is a special quality of matter.

So far as materialism is concerned, everything is

material. This aspect of materialism is the continuation

of ancient Greek materialist philosophy and that of

European classical physics.

The word ‘philosophy’ is western. The word

prevalent in India is

very special way. It means ‘to see’, ‘to perceive’. It is

basically a perception transcending both the senses and

the mind. Western philosophy is intellectual. So to

apply this Western term to Indian

historically and theoretically correct. So Indians ‘seers’

in this sense cannot be equated with Socrates, Kant,

Hegel, Feuerbach and others. Indian

emphasize on the dual concepts of idealism and

materialism. So, subjectivity and objectivity, as

enunciated in western philosophical thoughts, are

unacceptable to the Indian way of thinking. It does not

approve of the division of the world into the spiritual

and the material. They are not divisible, either. Spirit

is the subtlest form of matter and matter is the grossest

form of spirit. Body and soul are not two different things.

They are two poles of the same essence. Body is the

perceptible end of spirit and spirit, the imperceptible

end of body. As such, what is called God and Nature

is not two different entities. There is no conflict between

God and Nature. Nature is the gross side of God and

darshana. This term is used in adarshanas is notdarshanas do not

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Beyond Red

God, the subtle form of Nature. Nature itself in its subtle

dissolution becomes god. God itself becomes Nature

through gross manifestation. Nature is god manifest

and God, Nature unmanifest. It is a state of not being

dual. In the perception of Indian spirituality, man, God

and Nature are one and, hence, microcosm and

macrocosm are one.

The seed ideas of Western materialism can be

found in ancient Greek philosophy, the founders of

which were Thalus, Anaxmandir, and Anaximus.

Subsequently, Democritus tried to develop materialism

scientifically. The first Greek philosopher to introduce

atomic theory was Democritus. He opined that atoms

are the smallest indivisible particles of matter and that

they are inert and lazy entities moving in emptiness.

Everything in the world is made of atoms. Atoms

move because they are forced to, by some external

force. He brought into philosophy and science the

concepts of form and emptiness. According to Epicures,

another Greek materialist philosopher, everything in

the world including body, mind and soul are

constituted of atoms. He said atoms have different

shapes and mass. The Roman philosopher Lucritius,

who lived during the first century AD, developed

the Epicurean atomism further. Just until the

beginning of European Industrialism, Greek

materialism has not been able to exert considerable

pressure on philosophy.

The wave of the Industrial Revolution

materialist philosophy gave a boost. The compelling

force in the process was the developing classical

17

The truth of matter

physics. Classical physics was also essential for the

advancement of the political and the social system

of capitalism. The thoughts of philosophers like

Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, and

Spinoza acted as a catalyst for the advancement of

materialism. Newtonian physics and its concept of

matter also strengthened materialism. It led to a way

of materialistic thinking based on mechanical model

of the cosmos. All sciences and philosophical

thoughts, which, developed later in Europe, were

based on this Newtonian concept of a mechanical

world system. Everything in a Newtonian world

happens on a three-dimensional plane. To him, time

and space were absolute. He considered time and

space as separate dimensions. Just like Greek atomists,

Newton too regarded matter as inert. According to

Newtonian first law of motion, “every body remains

in its state of rest or in a uniform motion unless it is

compelled by an external force to change that state”.

He denied the fact that movement is the inherent

quality of matter. He also revived the Greek concept

that the whole cosmos was filled with ether. Newton

said that matter is hard, heavy and made of

indestructible particles. The concept of matter upheld

by both Greek atomists and Newton were the same.

The only difference between Democritus and Newton

was that Newton explained the force between atomic

particles. He called it gravitational force. Force and

matter are different. Both Newton and Greek atomists

failed to understand that motion is the inherent state

of matter and that both matter and force are not

differential. This mentality prevented us from exploring

18

Beyond Red

into the secrecy of matter.

Dialectical materialism is another branch of

materialism. This is the principle of communism;

communists call it modern and scientific. Marx

borrowed materialism from Feuerbach who was a

German philosopher. According to Feuerbach,

consciousness cannot exist outside and independently

of human body, because it is the quality of human

brain. In modem times, the kind of materialism, which

became most popular, is that of Marx and Engels. The

conspicuous ideological sources of Marxism were the

dialectics of Hegel, who was an idealist, and the

materialism of Feuerbach. Classical physics has also

influenced dialectical materialism. In his book,

Dialectics of Nature

following classical physics. Engels accepts the ether

concept of the Greek and that of Newton as such. To

accept the concept of ether means to say that the

velocity of light is not constant and that both time and

space are absolute. A cosmos where time and space

are absolute is unchangeable and motionless. The

strong influence of Newtonian physics is discernable

in dialectical materialism. In Newtonian dynamics,

force appears as opposite pairs; any force will have an

equal and opposite force and so has any action. In

Marxism too, opposites appear in such a way.

In the beginning of the 20th century, the world

famous Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernest Mach

questioned the materialist concept of matter. Mach

made it clear that the relationship between matter and

consciousness could not be explained in terms of

, we can see Engels blindly

19

The truth of matter

traditional materialism and dialectical materialism.

Einstein was guided by Mach in his formation of the

Theory of Relativity. The famous book

Empirio-criticism

arguments of Mach.

In this book, Lenin tries, in vain, to solve the

difference between the classical concept of matter and

that of modern physics. The Marxist intellectuals all

over the world hail it as a great work upholding and

effectively defending dialectical materialism. This work

contains Lenin’s philosophy of matter. “Matter is that

which exists independently of consciousness and

which is an objective reality reflected in

consciousness”. This definition develops matter into

an objective reality. Lenin’s concept of matter was a

simplification of the three-dimensional world perceived

by us. His definition of matter does not conform to the

concept of matter formulated by modern physics.

The Theory of Relativity and quantum physics

which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century

brought about revolutionary changes in science and

philosophy. It changed the inferences in science and

philosophy. It also changed the inferences and

conclusions of classical physics about time and space.

When Einstein established that both time and space

are relative in the place of the concept of separate time

and space, the concept of space-time continuum

emerged in science. World was proved to be fourdimensional.

It was something beyond the common

experience. The nucleus of the atom and the electrons

revolving around it were discovered. Nucleus was

Materialism andwas written by Lenin to refute the

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made of protons and neutrons, which were made of

quarks. Today, the number of sub-atomic particles is

above 200. The very expression of basic particles has

become irrelevant. The classical concept of

indivisibility of atom was proved wrong. The ‘intraatomic’

experiences defied the traditional materialism

and dialectical materialism. The base of the traditional

interpretation of matter was shaken. Both scientists and

philosophers are now convinced that the words ‘to

perceive, to know and to experience’ have deeper

meanings than we usually think.

The conclusion arrived at by Einstein following

his formulation of the Special Theory of Relativity in

1905 was that time and space are relative. Mass of

things increases when their velocity increases. When

the velocity increases, contraction in the direction of

motion and time slows down. The velocity of light is

constant. It does not change according to the speed of

the observer. The Theory of Relativity has proved that

there is no absolute time and that each observer has

got his own time. Einstein gave many examples for it

like the Twin Paradox, which may appear strange to

common logic. The famous equation E = mc

most noticeable outcome of his Special Theory of

Relativity. Just before the emergence of this equation,

scientists firmly believed in the duality of matter and

energy. This equation proved that matter and energy

are interchangeable. Due to the commonality of matter

and energy, mass of a thing will be increased by the

energy produced by its motion. A thing needs infinite

energy to reach the velocity of light. Einstein’s energymatter

equation has relevance not in physics alone. It

2 is the

21

The truth of matter

led us to a truth, which is capable of turning the

materialist philosophy upside down. It became clear

that matter is nothing but energy.

Our routine world is three-dimensional.

According to the Theory of Relativity, the real world is

a four-dimensional world of height, width, length and

time. That is, the world seen by us is the shadow of the

four-dimensional world. The Theory of Relativity says

that the observer has to travel as fast as light to know

the four-dimensional world. When an observer travels

as fast as light, his mass will become infinite and he

becomes a singularity. Singularity is a point at which

space-time curvature is infinite. Its density is also

infinite. Then, his body has zero size. Human body

cannot reach this condition. That means man cannot

see the real world. In singularity, past, present and

future become one. In that sense, singularity has no

yesterday, today or tomorrow. But, we take for granted

this three-dimensional world, which is really a shadow.

The age-long curiosity of man about atoms led

him to the exploration of the inner structure of atom.

Quantum physics shed new light on the inner world

of the atom. It disproved many of our traditional notions

about matter. The quantum revelations about matter

were not something, which could be confined to the

materialist ideas about matter. Quantum mechanics

deals with the motion of subatomic particles and the

core of quantum mechanics is the Uncertainty

Principle. The famous German scientist Heisenberg is

its exponent. According to his principle, the more

precisely we measure the position of a particle, the

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Beyond Red

less precisely we can measure its speed. Time and

energy too are such a pair. Uncertainty is an

unavoidable characteristic of the cosmos. According

to quantum mechanics, particles are in quantum state,

that is, in a mixed state of time and space. Hence, the

laws of quantum mechanics are not those of certainty.

They are the laws of probability. In the micro-world,

the objective description of particles is not possible.

The materialistic concept of matter deriving from our

horse sense is irrelevant in a quantum world.

If we want to observe a gross thing, a beam of

light reflected by it has to fall on the eyes, the

information of which reaches our brain. Observation

of gross things does not pose much difficulty. But,

observing subtle things like the electron is difficult.

Because, if we try to observe an electron through

microscope, we have to face the impediment called

Crompton Effect. The photons from electro magnetic

radiation, with the help of which we try to observe the

electron, will collide with it. As a result, a portion of

energy emitting from the photon will be transmitted to

the electron. It has two consequences. First the photon

will lose a little energy. Hence, its frequency is reduced.

A red shift takes place. It is called Crompton refraction.

Second, the velocity of the electron increases slightly.

So, it will change its position from the first place. In

short, when we try to observe electrons using rays, the

attempt itself causes the electron to change its

position. It changes its nature. The very observation

changes the observed thing. Here, the very attempt

to find out truth becomes an obstacle to the enquiry.

The ultimate truth eludes our sense observation.

23

The truth of matter

Thus, the objective description of the world based

on classical physics and dialectical materialism

becomes meaningless. In the quantum world,

separation between the observer and the observed

is meaningless. Things at atomic level can be

understood only as relations between processes and

measurements. In quantum physics, structure is the

manifestation of processes. A particle in an atomic

structure is the result of a process. The end of the

chain reactions that take place at atomic level lies in

the consciousness of the observer. The process of

measuring affects our consciousness. Measurement

is a mutual process. In the atomic world, observation

is not possible without affecting things. Scientist is a

person involved in the act of observation and also a

person affecting the properties of the observed

things. According to the world famous American

physicist John Wheeler, the most important feature

of quantum physics is the participatory nature of

the observer. That is why he suggests that in the act

of observation the word ‘observer’ should be replaced

by ‘participator’.

The most revolutionary aspect of quantum

physics is the wave-particle nature of light. It is called

the wave-particle duality of light. This was established

by the famous Double-slit Experiment. This experiment

underlines the relationship between the observer and

the observed. We cannot say whether light is made of

particles or waves before we subject it to any

experiment. We get what we look for in the experiment.

In other words, light can be said to be made of

particles when it is observed as particles, and waves

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Beyond Red

when it is observed as waves. Then only it becomes

real. All the observed things in the world from

extremely minute atoms to huge galaxies are made

of subatomic particle. Hence, nature and all things

in it are consciousness-dependent.

The particle-wave duality theory was

something capable of turning our concepts about

gross material things topsy-turvy. Particle is

something situated in a specific area. That is an

existence limited by space. But wave nature spreads

over both space and time. Hence, the particle means

the minutest constituent of matter. Matter is

quantified energy. The smallest unit of energy too is

the particle. Time and space becomes meaningful

when energy becomes matter. Particles are not in

reality matter but a time-space phenomenon looking

like matter. It is an energy pattern. Particles can be

defined as the gross form of energy. What is then

energy? In physics, energy is always identified with

some process or work. Energy is defined as the

capacity to do work. Particles move within the atomic

structure with near-velocity of light. They change from

energy to matter and vice versa. In this context, the

definition that energy is the capacity to do work is

relevant. The self-nature of work is motion. What is

here is mere motion. The being of an atom is the fast

motion of particles. According to quantum physics,

energy particles mean the space-time continuum for

motion. It is difficult to separate particles from process.

Matter is, in essence, a projection of the space-time

phenomenon. Space and time are relative. Whatever

relative is not eternal. So, particles are temporary

25

The truth of matter

phenomena, which come into being and then

disappear.

Science, which today explores into the subtle

world of atoms and subatomic particles with the help

of modern scientific equipment like particle accelerator,

is wonderstruck at the metaphysical qualities of matter.

It is particle physics, which developed during the

middle of the 20

that revealed the secrets of matter to us. When

subatomic particles collide in particle accelerators,

their mass becomes energy. In particle collision

experiments, the mass conservation rule of classical

physics is violated. But, the law of conservation of

energy has not been found violated in particle

collision. The best way to understand the relationship

between energy and matter is the particle collision

experiment. Experiments conducted in particle

physics have shown that mass is nothing but the

measurement of energy. On the basis of such

experiments, the mass of elementary particles is

measured in energy units. Particle collision

experiments have also made it clear that mass is not

something related to ‘matter-like things’. Scientists were

convinced that particles are not made of some basic

material and that they are energy packets. Particles

cannot be thought to be three-dimensional things like

a ball or a crystal of salt. They should be understood as

the fourth dimension of space-time continuum. Particles

are dynamic patterns of space-time. These dynamic

patterns or energy pockets are the base for the constant

atomic structures of matter. It is these structures, which

give solid form to matter. Thus, we come to know that

th century, as a branch of physics

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Beyond Red

gross things are made of solid matter. At the macro

level, this feeling is essential and useful. But, at micro

level, matter has no structure. Atoms are made of

particles. But, particles are not matter. Inside the

atomic world, we do not come across matter. What

we see there is dynamic energy patterns constantly

changing from one form to another. It is an endless

dance of energy.

The world of subatomic particles is dynamic

and in a flux. The experiments conducted in particle

physics over the last decades have proven that all

particles can change into other particles and the

structure of particles is inconsistent. Particles are

created from and disappear into energy. Modern

physics compel us to think that matter is unreal and

that what is perceived as matter is energy flow in

the form of vibrations. All matter is nothing but the

transformation of energy flow. This new philosophy

rejects the concept of matter formulated by classical

physics and all materialist concepts of matter

deriving from it.

The Theory of Relativity and quantum physics

declare that matter is not objective. Matter cannot stand

independently of consciousness. Philosophically

speaking, knowledge must include ‘the knower’

beyond ‘the known’. In the language of modern

science, in the act of observation, there is inviolable

relationship between the observer and the observed.

Observation and determination cannot be separated.

27

The truth of matter

Unscientific

dialectics

D

Marxism. Marx used dialectics as a means to

explain materialism. It is a collection of

unscientific and nonsensical concepts. The old and

etymological meaning of the word ‘dialectics’ is ‘the

art of rhetoric’ or ‘polemics’. The roots of Marxian

dialectics can be traced to the ancient Greek dialectics.

All the weak points of Greek dialectical thinking can

be found in Marxian dialectics too. Dialectics began

from the ancient Greek philosophic concept that, in

order to comprehend something, its opposite too is

needed. It evolved out of the thinking of Greek

philosophers like Heraclitus, Anaximander, and

Anaximenus. The modern practitioner of this dialectics

was the German philosopher Hegel. He stood for the

attainment of ‘absolute idea’ through the synthesis

emerging out of the conflict of thesis and anti-thesis of

ideas. He based dialectics on ideas. He subjected to

cogitation the continuing changes in the word of ideas.

He believed that progress lay in such changes in ideas.

Marx applied Hegelian type of dialectics to materialism.

ialectical materialism is the philosophy of

31

The three Laws of dialectics are; the Law of the

Interpenetration of Opposites, the Law of the

Transformation of Quantity into Quality and the Law of

Negation of the Negation. The idea of the unity and

struggle of the opposites and that of the negation of the

negation were introduced by Heraclitus. It was

Anaximander who introduced the prototype of the

Theory of the Transformation of Quantity into Quality.

Furthering the second principle of the theory,

Anaximander introduced condensation theory.

According to it, the sun, the moon and the stars are

formed by various degrees of gasification of air. Many

of the philosophical arguements raised by Hegel, the

modern guru of dialectics and Marx who succeeded him,

can be seen under the same labels in Greek philosophy.

There have been two concepts about motion from

the ancient times. One concept was that motion is

intrinsic to matter and the other one was that it was

induced. The concept that gained coin in Western

philosophy was the latter. The reason for it was the

influence of Greek philosopher Aristotle. He was the

first one to define motion in the world. According to

Aristotelian physics, things would move so long as some

external force is exerted on them. It means that motion

is not an intrinsic property of matter. He conceptualized

that the revolution of the planets and the sun was God –

induced. The Aristotelian concept of motion is still

influential in Western philosophy.

The next person, who tried to scientifically define

motion, was Isaac Newton. He defined matter as inert.

He said we need an external force to make a stationary

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thing move and also to bring a moving thing to a

standstill. He refused to accept motion as an intrinsic

property of matter. He claimed that it was God who put

the whole cosmos in motion. This attitude strongly

influenced dualism in Western philosophy. The concept

of motion upheld by both the Western idealists and the

materialists was the same, that is, the non-intrinsic nature

of motion in matter. But, in Asian philosophical systems

like Vedanta, Taoism and Buddhism, motion is

considered an in-built property of matter. According to

Vedanta, the cosmos is dynamic and always in a flux.

Since everything is in motion, the Indian seers called

the whole cosmos including the Earth

jagath. The word

jagath

cosmos, atoms to huge galaxies are in self-motion.

Interestingly, the modern physics supports the Asiatic

view on motion. The Theory of Relativity and quantum

physics support it. They made it clear that motion is an

intrinsic quality of matter and that it is the shape of its

existence.

According to dialectical materialism, motion is

caused by conflicts originating from the interaction of

things and also their opposites. This definition about

motion is not logical. The dialectics, which claims there

is nothing in the world which is not in motion, also

says that motion is caused by conflicts of the opposites.

This is self-contradictory. If there should be conflict

between the opposites, there should already be motion.

From where does it arise? How does it originate?

Dialectical materialists do not explain it. Likewise, if

we say motion is dialectical, that means everything

and every process in the world is dialectical. If opposites

means ever-changing and ever-moving. In the

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Unscientific dialectics

are universal, in every process there should be two

opposites. This is not true. Even linear motion is not

dialectical. There are no objective opposites in it. If we

say motion is the existential quality of matter and it is

caused by dialectics, then behind every pair of opposites,

there should be another one or two pairs of causative

opposites .Thus, the opposites will increase

geometrically. It is violative of horse sense. If there are

any opposites in dynamics, they are not in motion, but

in equilibrium. It is something against dialectics. Even

there, they are not Marxian opposites. For example,

when the angle between two vectors is 180

them opposites. But, dialecticians wrongly claim that

motion is dialectical.

The Marxists text books portray electricity as the

unity and struggle of negative and positive charges. The

relationship between positive and negative charges is

not conflictory. When we say that positive and negative

charges are the opposites, we are describing their

behaviour and motional directions in an electric field.

These opposites do not imply anything like ‘oppose’,

‘destroy’, submit, ‘avoid’ etc.

Besides, dialecticians describe the atom as the

opposites of positive and negative electricity. But, they

have not been able to explain the opposite of the electron.

Neither have they been able to explain the opposite

forces inside the nucleus of an atom. The dialecticians

oversimplify the atomic structure. Another example cited

by those believing in dialectical materialism in Marxist

text books is magnetism. They claim the north and south

poles in a magnet are opposites and that the relationship

o, we call

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Beyond Red

between them is dialectical. Since magnetic poles are

activated by the movement of electrons, we cannot say

the reason for magnetism is the conflict and unity

between poles and that they are in conflict and unity at

the one and the same time. Even if the poles in a magnet

are opposites, they should have a unitary and conflictory

relationship at one and the same time. If polar attraction

is the unity in magnetism, their repulsion should be

taken as conflict. But opposite poles do not repel each

other in magnetism. On the other hand, they attract each

other, resulting in mutually complementary, not

exclusory relationship.

Engels’

the basic text of dialectical materialism by the Marxists.

In it, he tries, in vain, to find an opposite force to

gravitational attraction. But, gravity is universal. It is of

attractive nature in the whole cosmos. If it should be

of binary nature, there should be a gravitational

repulsion. The very fact that gravity is attractive

everywhere refutes the claim that dialectics is universal.

The force between the earth and the sun is that of

attraction. The sun and the earth attract each other.

Engels regarded potential energy and kinetic energy,

light and darkness etc. as oppositional binaries. There

is no process of repulsion between potential and kinetic

energy. They are the two different forms of the same

energy. Light and darkness are not opposites, since

darkness is created by the absence of light. Nobody

can really see darkness; we can see only light. So the

difference between them is only subjective.

Engels in his

Dialectics of Nature is considered to beDialectics of Nature makes yet

35

Unscientific dialectics

another vain attempt to explain chemical science in

dialectical terms. It is a ridiculous attempt. For example,

the explanation that, when there is a unitary

relationship, oxygen and hydrogen combine to form

water and that when there is conflictory relationship,

water divides into oxygen and hydrogen, is not

sensible. Engels claims that the combination and the

division of chemical elements are opposites. This

chemical process explained in the light of atomic

theory, refutes any dialectical qualities in it. Such

chemical combination and division are not dialectical.

We do not need dialectics to explain the process in

which two things combine to form a third one.

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is not dialectical.

The Marxist claim that the Theory of Relativity supports

dialectical materialism is non-sensical. The Theory of

Relativity is not dialectical. For example, Marxists try

to define the theory as the dualistic relationship

between the constant velocity of light and the relative

velocity of other things. For them to be dualistic and

in oppositional relationship, they should be both

absolute and relative. Then only, the Theory of

Relativity can be called dialectical. But, dialectics

negates all absolute truths. So, relativity cannot be

considered the opposite of the absolute. The Theory

of Relativity, which considers both time and space as

relative, is not about relativity. Its basic concept is that

the velocity of light will be constant in the whole

universe. That both time and space are relative is only

one of the conclusions of the theory. According to

Herman Minkovsky, who was the teacher of Albert

Einstein, the Theory of Relativity is about the absolute.

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Beyond Red

There are no dialectical relationships in its concepts

about ‘dual paradox’, slowing of time, space–time

continuum etc. Neither is there anything dialectical in

quantum physics. The particle–wave nature of matter

and radiation has been used by Marxists to claim that

quantum physic is dialectical. It is wrong to portray the

particle and the wave as opposites. They have no

characteristics of the opposites in dialectics. Particles

and waves occur only logically since they avoid/replace

each other. But, mathematically, they are equal. In

quantum physics, particle-wave duality is explained in

mathematical terms. We do not create mental images

for mathematical equations. Wave is not the opposite

of particle. Particles and waves are complementary

properties of matter. Quantum physics uses both

particle and wave concepts to describe matter at micro

level. According to Neils Bohr’s complementary

principle, a thing would not have both wave and

particle nature at one and the same time and that they

show one of the property contextually. According to

the theory, both the particle and the wave are

complementary description of a reality. Hence

opposites are one. They are not objective. Dialectical

thinking, which discovered objective opposites in

classical physics, saw only logical opposites/paradoxes,

in quantum physics too. The dialecticians’ insistence

that the opposites should be objective stops here. It is

nonsensical to apply dialectics in the case of particles.

We cannot do that even in the simple properties of

particles.

In nuclear physics, electron is the opposite

particle of positron, and that of proton is anti-proton.

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Unscientific dialectics

Dialectics, which regards proton as the opposite of

electron is forced to view the positron too as the

opposite of the electron. It is undecided and

meaningless. There is no dialectical process in science

as claimed by Marxism. The rules formed by scientists

are not dialectical. So, they do not give any evidence

to support dialectics. Sartre’s opinion is that nature is

only non-evidentially dialectical.

Marxism meaninglessly categorizes dialectics

into main dialectics, unimportant dialectics, dialectics

which are oppositional, external dialectics and internal

dialectics. There is no point in thinking one is better

than the other one. There is no such dialectics in nature.

Dividing dialectics into external and internal ones is

confusing. The idea that, in certain circumstances, one

of the opposite sides of a phenomenon will form its

own opposite is not applicable anywhere in nature.

The idea that struggle is more important and decisive

than cooperation is not found either in organic or in

inorganic world. In organic world, metabolism and

catabolism, hereditary and congenial environment are

not opposites. If metabolism and catabolism are in

struggle, life cannot exist. Creatures are in cooperation

and co-evolution through congenial characteristics

acquired genetically. There is no struggle in evolution.

The Law of the Transformation of Quantity into

Quality in dialectics, which says that quantity becomes

quality, is unscientific and unreasonable. Properties are

the result of the internal structure of a thing.

Measurements related to a thing are the mathematical

information about it. The aspects of evolutionary nature

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Beyond Red

of structure are felt in the form of properties. Since inner

structures are of evolutionary nature, the difference

between quantity and quality is only subjective. This

rule in dialectics states that the change in quantity, when

it reaches a certain state, causes changes in quality. Since

quality is seeing quantity in gross form, this law is mere

periphrasis. Right from the time of Heraclitus, those

who believe in The Law of Transformation of

Quantity into Quality have quoted the example of

water. Water is, in normal state, liquid. If it is frozen

to 0

o Celsius, it becomes ice. If boiled above 100o

Celsius, water becomes steam. According to

dialectics, there will be changes in the chemical

properties of water in proportion to the changing heat.

Marxists use this even as an example of revolution.

In the liquid, solid and gaseous state, water does not

change its chemical properties. Liquid, solid and

gaseous states of water are mutually attainable. They

are only differences in state. The similarity between

the Periodic Law which states that the qualities of

chemical elements are the result of the repetitions of

their atomic weight and the Law of Transformation

of Quality are merely superficial. Because, the

change in atomic weight and the changes in

chemical properties are simultaneous. The Law of

Transformation of Quality is a distorted imitation

of chemical laws. When energy changes from one form

into another, properties change without affecting

quantity. Properties are not dualistic. The Law of

Transformation of Quality cannot be applied either in

organic or in inorganic world.

The third law of dialectics is the Negation of

39

Unscientific dialectics

Negation. This theory has nothing to do with reality. It

is an unscientific concept. In dialectical materialism

reason for motion and growth is the struggle

between opposites inbuilt in material things. The

dialecticians think that, in a pair of opposites, one

will get strengthened and the older one weakened

during the course of struggle. The emergence of the

new replacing the old is called negation by them. In

this new thing/force too, there will be opposites/

pairs, which will be responsible for its growth. This

is their supposition. One of those opposites/pairs will

try to sustain the existing thing, while the other one

will be striving for the emergence of a newer and

stronger thing. The dialecticians think that it will

occur. So this will negate the earlier negation. This

is the negation of negation. This law divides

transformation into phases. A phase is negated by

another phase coming after it. But it does not mean

more than the thing that one phase turns into

another. The Marxist textbooks use the example of

seeds and plants to uphold this theory. But it is quite

unsuitable. The change from tree to seed and then

from seed to tree is mere repetitive and cyclic. There

is no negation of negation in any changes taking

place in nature.

In philosophy, common concepts are called

categories. Marxist scholars claim that there are

dialectical relationships between the categories in

Marxism. But, there is no scientific evidence for it.

Such categories in dialectical materialism derive from

some wrong concepts. The main concepts in

dialectical materialism are the concrete and the abstract,

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content and form and cause and effect etc. What can be

imagined as having shape is concrete. That which lacks

such shape is abstract. In dialectics, concrete and abstract

are in dialectical relationship. In dialectics, the concrete

is the synthesis of many abstract things. Marxists believe

that the concrete and the abstract are dualistic on the

basis that the concrete is conceived in opposition to the

abstract and vice versa. We can say that they are different

and not opposites. In physical sense, the concrete will

not become the abstract, and the abstract, the concrete.

The relative differences in physical world are conceived

as opposites.

In dialectics, the totality of a thing or process, and

its components are called content. The way these

contents are arranged is called form. For example, if

we take an atom, protons, neutrons and their motion,

transformations, energy transmission, are together

called its content. The nucleus and electron with

different orbits is its form. In ordinary language, the

matter contained in things is called content. To say

that content and form are dualistic violate common

sense and is also confusing.

In Marxian concepts, the components of a thing,

its aspects and relations are its properties. In that sense,

form too is a property. Two propositions of a single thing

cannot be dualistic. As such, contents and form cannot

be in oppositional relations. Dialectics conceives the

metabolic and catabolic processes of life as content and

the organs responsible for it as form. Likewise, in

Marxism, productive forces are conceived as the content

of the social processes and production relations as their

41

Unscientific dialectics

form. Dialectics categorizes the same thing into content

and form. The claim that out of these opposites, content

matters more has no meaning whatsoever. There is no

form without content and no content without form. If

form and content are the two sides responsible for the

unity of a thing, how can we say that they are opposites?

We can say that both content and form change. But,

form does not block the development of content. The

opposition between content and form of a thing is like

that between the left and right hands of a man. To give

another example, it is like the relationship between the

rubber content and the spherical shape of a rubber ball.

One of the most important enquiries in philosophy

is about cause and effect. In philosophy, a thing which

creates, or stirs another phenomenon is called the cause

and what results from that is called the effect. Relationship

is the emergence of two things for the creation of a thing.

Just like in other Marxian categories, in cause and effect

relationship too, Marxists place more emphasis on

cause. Dialectics says that the relationship between

cause and effect is dualistic. It is not right to say cause

and effect are not dualistic by any means. The main

feature of the relationship between cause and effect is

in chronological order. The so-called cause will have to

precede the effect. Effect cannot precede or synchronize

with cause. It always follows cause. Cause and effect

phenomenon cannot be separated from chronological

order. There is no cause and effect relation in scientific

equations. Simultaneous processes cannot be cause and

effect of each other. For example quantum mechanics

made it clear that intra-atomic phenomena cannot be

explained through cause and effect relationship. The

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motion of subatomic particles can be explained only in

terms of probabilities. The cause and effect relationship

at micro level is not consistent with the cause and the

effect in dialectics.

But Marx and Engels tried to project dialectical

materialism as the science of sciences. They also tried

to find dialectical relationships in mathematics, astrophysics,

physics, chemistry and biology. They claimed

that they found a dialectical solution for every

theoretical problem in nature and science. The

ideologues in the Soviet Communist Party claimed that

Lenin found an eternal solution in his book

Materialism and Emperio

by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. They went to the

extent of befooling the public with their claim that,

but for Marxism, there would not have been either the

Theory of Relativity or quantum physics. So far as the

Marxist ideologues were concerned, Lenin was a

philosopher who understood the Theory of Relativity

more than Einstein and quantum physics more than Max

Planck. To think that dialectics is applicable in all

branches of science is an idiotic thought because nature

does not produce any dialectical laws. We do not need

the glossary of dialectics to explain physical things and

phenomena. To follow the champions of dialectical

materialism, which has nothing to do with reality, is

the very negation of scientific spirit which Marxists are

supposed to be upholding.

Dialectical-criticism to every issue raised

43

Unscientific dialectics

Crisis and classical

philosophy

C

and economic systems evolving out of the

European Industrial Revolution. Both systems

uphold the motto of Industrial revolution ‘Supremacy

over nature’. The ideological sources of these twin

systems are the western classical, scientific and

philosophical thoughts, which have developed from

17th century onwards. Basically, the production and

consumerist patterns in both philosophies are the same.

Materialism became strong with the growth of

capitalism and communism.

In western classical physics and philosophy,

nature and man, mind and body are separate. They

presented a picture of endless conflict between man

and nature. They also declared that only the

knowledge, which is capable of increasing material

riches, is valid. Science was only a means to gain

supremacy over nature. The materialistic thinking grew

in strength through Bacon, Rene Descartes, Galileo,

and Marx within three centuries and began to have a

apitalism and communism are twin political

47

global impact. But, by the beginning of 20th century,

the ignorance of the classical thinkers, who stood for

the exploitation of nature, began to be questioned by

thoughtful scientists and philosophers. It was clear that

nature and man couldn’t be confined within the

structured western classical thoughts.

Galileo can be considered the originator of

classical science. It is he who linked scientific

experiment to mathematical language. He believed that

nature could be mathematically explained and that

there was nothing in the world that did not come within

the scope of mathematics. Galileo gave importance to

measuring weight, volume, number and motion of

things. Weight and measurement became the

fundamental characteristics of science right from the

time of Galileo. The shape, color and, taste and smell

of things generally became extraneous to scientific

experiments. Galileo’s stand was that only the

measurable qualities of matter should be included

within the scope of scientific experiments. Though his

stand helped the development of science, it, in another

way, affected the search for truth adversely. The study

about matter was confined to its measurable qualities

only. All those qualities of matter, which were not

measurable, were excluded from scientific enquiry.

Consciousness, intelligence, mind, thoughts and

feelings were outside the scientific enquiry. If we just

look at the past history of the scientific revolution, it

can be discerned that, science gave emphasis to

measuring, weighing and numbering material things.

Galileo’s mathematical concept of nature influenced

science considerably.

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When Galileo was conducting experiments in

Italy, Francis Bacon was inventing new experimental

methods in England. Bacon tried to establish that his

inductive method based on observation was better than

the Aristotelian deductive method. Baconian method

changed the very direction of scientific enquiry and

completely altered its character. He maintained,

“Nature is to be raped and enslaved and persecuted to

get the secrets out of her”. Bacon got this perverse

attitude from the witch trials of his time. He, as Attorney

General to James I, had to witness witch-trials. His

attitude towards women was the same as that towards

nature. Accordingly, the western classical philosophy,

which followed the footsteps of Bacon, became antinature

and anti-woman. The pagan Greeks and

Romans, who were the forefathers of Europeans,

considered the Earth a goddess. This tradition sustained

itself up to the 16th century. But, Bacon and succeeding

western philosophers gave up this divine concept of

nature.

Rene Descartes is one of the important

philosophers who shaped western philosophical

thoughts. He is called the father of classical western

philosophy. He gave new shape and form to the

western philosophy. Just like Galileo, he too thought

that the language of nature is mathematical. The key

to the secrets of nature was, to him, mathematics. He

formulated analytical geometry by combining algebra

and geometry. His mathematical genius was reflected

in philosophy. His book

his mathematical philosophy. Western scholars

consider this an introduction to western classical

Discourse on Method reflects

49

Crisis and classical philosophy

science and philosophy. He introduced both in classical

science and philosophy mathematical logic or

rationalistic inductive method. The first question he

raised was; “am I distinct from my body?” The

answer to this question was that body and mind are

two different things. He declared, “I think, therefore

I am”, i.e. ‘I’ is the mind in human beings. He

equated consciousness with mind and thought. To

him, both body and mind are in endless conflict. This

philosophical view of Descartes is known as the

Cartesian dichotomy. It brought into science and

philosophy opposites like body and mind, objectivity

and subjectivity.

Reductionism came into existence in Western

philosophy following this Cartesian view. It’s a belief

that anything or any phenomenon in the world can be

explained by studying the characteristic of its

constituents. For example, if we know the geometry of

a single area of the earth, we can know its total

geometry. To understand any complex system, what

we have to do is to analyze its parts. Reductionism, to

comprehend the stuff, of which the cosmos is made,

divides it into matter, elements, molecules and atoms

and finally into particles. If what we get last is particles,

they conclude that the universe is made of particles.

But, modern science does most agree with this. Neither

carbon nor hydrogen, the constituents of sugar,

possesses the sweetness of it. Sugar is sweet. Nature

cannot be fully understood either through analysis or

synthesis. Accordingly, in modern scientific

philosophy, the characteristics of the part are

determined by the whole.

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Descartes compared the cosmos to a machine.

He believed that the function of the cosmos is in

accordance with the arrangement of its parts. In his

lifetime, the best model of machinery was clock. He

regarded animals as clocks having springs and teethed

wheels. He compared human bodily functions to

levers, mechanical movement and hydraulic pressure.

He said “ We see man-made clocks fountains and mills.

They can move in various positions. I cannot see any

difference between the machines made by a craftsman

and various things created by nature”. Instead of an

idea of organic wholeness of the cosmos, Descartes

put forward an idea of a machine -like universe. The

Cartesian view of the universe did away with all the

social and cultural taboos against exploitation of nature.

It gave philosophical justification for the brutal

exploitation of natural resources. It was essential for

the advancement of capitalism. Scientific knowledge

became a tool for man to make himself the master and

owner of nature.

It was Isaac Newton who made Cartesian

viewpoint an established one. Newton was not just a

scientist. He was a philosopher, lawyer and historian.

He fused together the ideas of Copernicus, Kepler,

Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Compared to his coeval

scientists, his knowledge of mathematics was

uncommon. He discovered differential calculus to

explain the motion of solid things. He formulated a

general law of motion combining the laws of motion

postulated by Galileo, and Kepler. He applied these

laws of motion to all things in the galaxy. He came to

know that the power, which makes the sun attract the

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Crisis and classical philosophy

earth towards it, is the same as the one which causes

an apple to fall on to the earth. Thus, he formulated

the law of gravity with the help of mathematics. When

it was possible to explain gravity in terms of

mathematical language, the scientific community

accepted the Newtonian view of the cosmos. The

Newtonian cosmos was a big machine run in

accordance with mathematical laws. The model of the

universe postulated by Newton gave strength to the

mechanistic view of the cosmos. He compared the

world to a clock in his

world has to be compared to a clock. The cosmos is a

clock wound by the hands of God. There was a time

when things from big stars to small particles stood

motionless in great emptiness of the outer space. God

gave the first push and life in the cosmos. With that,

ended the responsibility of God. From then onwards,

the cosmos and things in it began to move in

accordance with clear laws. Nothing unexpected

happens there. Everything is predetermined. Thus,

nature began to work with clock-like precision.

In 18th and 19th centuries, Newtonian physics

and its mechanistic view of the cosmos continued its

triumphant march. John Dalton’s atomic theory, which

changed the history of chemistry, was based on

Newtonian physics. William Harvey’s theory of blood

circulation too derived inspiration from the mechanistic

view. He regarded each organ of human body as

various parts of a machine. He compared the heart to

a pump. The chemical scientist, Anthony Lavosiar

opined that respiration was a certain type of oxidization.

The belief that metabolic processes could be explained

Principia Mathematica. The

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in terms of physics and chemistry became strong.

Western medicine studied human body in accordance

with cellular biology and biochemistry. It believed that

any damage to human body could be repaired by

surgery and chemical treatment. The famous doctor,

George Engels said that human body is a machine and

that disease is a breakdown in the machine and that

the duty of the doctor is to repair it. But, doctors did

not realize that diseases could be linked to the mind

of the patients and also to the social and environmental

conditions in which they live. As a result, a system of

medicine, which gave more importance to the disease

than the patient developed in the West. The Freudian

psychological theories too came under the influence

of the Newton view.

Newtonian physics had its influence on

Humanities too. European intellectuals were virtually

intoxicated with it. The famous philosopher, John Locke

introduced the Atomistic Theory of Human Society.

He compared the individual, the basic component of

human society, to an atom. Locke tried to explain the

proportion of the society in the same way as the

chemical scientists described the proportion of

molecules and atoms. He reduced man to the status of

atoms. He compared social phenomena to chemical

reactions and the interpersonal relations to attractive

and repulsive forces in the universe. Another

philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, declared in his book

Leviathan

in the society. Newtonian physics crept into economics

and politics. Sir William Petty, who was the friend of

Newton wrote the book

that each person is in struggle with the otherPolitical Arithmatick on the

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Crisis and classical philosophy

basis of the perspectives of Cartesian and Newtonian

philosophy. It is Sir William Petty who introduced the

concept of labour value for the first time. Adam Smith

and Recardo got this theory from Sir William Petty.

Marxian concept of surplus value was the continuation

of the Labour Value Theory. Historical determinism is

the outcome of the scientific determinism of Newtonian

physics. Marxist theory of historical materialism is

indebted to the concept of historical determinism.

The mass production system brought about by

the Industrial Revolution made the hither-to production

concepts topsy-turvy. The industrial worker was

reduced to the status of a machine. His personal and

social relationships became meaningless. Workers

were alienated from their own products and labour.

Both man and society became machine-like. Families,

societies, industry and commerce were all built upon

the mechanical view of society. Newtonian metaphors

can be found in the administrative terms like state

machinery. Newtonian mechanical view won over all

political, economic and social systems. All systems

were centralized. In capitalism and communism,

governments were like the main spring in a clock,

which set in motion other parts. In both systems, power

and money are extremely centralized. In capitalism and

communist parties, those on the highest ladder of the

hierarchy enjoy absolute power. Words like liberal

democracy, democratic centralization are mere ruse

to conceal this centralization of power. The liberal

democratic system in capitalism is, though seemingly

egalitarian, indirectly, a cruel system to perpetuate

exploitation. The democratic centralization of power

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in socialist countries, which stood for equality, ended

up in totalitarianism and absolutism.

The mass production system followed in

capitalism and communism has led to the depletion

of both organic and inorganic natural resources.

Capitalism can survive only if it indulges in mass

production through creating and pandering to endless

desires. Communism too wants to mass-produce things.

Both capitalism and communism have the same model

of development. Both capitalists and communists think

that natural resources are endless and that they have

to be exploited. Though seemingly opposed to

capitalism, communism is another branch of the mode

of production ensuing from the Industrial Revolution.

What communists upholds against the profit-seeking

consumerism of capitalism is another consumerist

culture endorsing ever-increasing wanting. In reality

both capitalism and communism share consumerist

mentality equally.

The new philosophy emerging out of new physics

questions the very veracity of the western classical

thoughts. The new thought considers nature an organic

whole. It considers both body and mind indivisible. It

has compelled us to give up the classical thinking that

the observed things are independent of the

consciousness of the observer. A new awareness is

growing among scientists and philosophers. Biology

has gone beyond the frontiers of materialism. Genetics

is refusing to be tied down to Chemistry. Modern

psychology has started talking about the vast plane of

consciousness beyond the Freudian unconscious.

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Crisis and classical philosophy

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Modern medicine has become ready to abandon the

concept that body and mind are separate. New social,

economic and political systems based on holistic

thinking, have begun to rise. Actually, the alternative

to capitalism and communism will have to spring from

such ways of thinking.

Uncertainty in

history

H

by Marxists to interpret history wrong.

Historical materialism was formed out of

dialectical materialism. It came into existence through

the evolutionary development of classical physics and

philosophy. Classical physics and its philosophy

believed in determinism and mechanical nature of the

world. Historical materialism claims that there are

deterministic rules, which control human history. The

writings of Marx and Engels were written according to

this claim. As such, evolution from capitalism to

communism is inevitability. But, the present

developments show that it is not possible to build up a

socialist and communist society based on historical

materialism.

The laws of motion discovered and formulated

by Isaac Newton about 300 year ago laid the

foundations of classical mechanics. His laws of

motion were deterministic. The success of Newtonian

physics forced all other material sciences and

istory has proven historical materialism used

59

Humanities to accept determinism. All physical

phenomena were explained in accordance with

Newton’s mechanical laws. It helped scientists to

explain things from chemical bonding of atoms to

natural attraction of planets. These laws governing

the universe were considered unchangeable. It is

these laws, which became the foundations of the

mechanistic view of the world and determinism.

Newton compared the cosmos to a gigantic machine.

Newton claimed that whatever happens in it has a

deterministic reason and that out of them occur

deterministic effects.

Accordingly, if we know the time and place of

a thing in the universe, we can easily predict its

future place and time. For example, if we know the

time and position of the present movement of the

Earth in the solar system, we can precisely predict

where and when it will be in, say, six months. The

discoveries in astronomy during that period also

buttressed up Newtonian determinism. Edmond

Halley, who was Newton’s friend and a scientist,

discovered, while going through astronomical data,

in the light of Newtonian mechanics, that, there is a

comet which appeared repeatedly in every 75 years

and that it would appear again in 1758. As predicted

by Halley, the comet, which was later named after

him, appeared again. With this, determinism of

Newtonian physics reached its apogee.

The French mathematician Laplace, excited by

the success of Newtonian physics, put forward scientific

determinism in the 19th Century. He argued that

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there was nothing unclear or uncertain in the

cosmos. He believed in the complete deducibility of

the world. He claimed that everything in the cosmos

could be predicted in accordance with Newtonian

physics. Laplace, thus, tried to perfect Newtonian

physics. His theory of the solar system was based

upon the Newtonian laws. He also studied all the

phenomena related to gravity. The tremendous

success Newtonian physics had in explaining things

in astronomy led to its being used to explain other

phenomena. In the wake of the success of

Newtonian physics, almost all scientists in 19th

century believed that the whole cosmos worked in

accordance with the Newtonian laws. They regarded

the Newtonian laws as the basic laws underlying

Nature. Laplace went a step further than others. He

claimed that even human behaviour could be

scientifically predicted using scientific determinism.

The philosophy, which evolved out of Laplace’s

scientific determinism, influenced all fields of

knowledge. People like Adam Smith and Ricardo, who

wrote their economics in conformity with the free

economy of capitalism and also Karl Marx, who

considered history deterministic, came under its

influence. One of the basic sources of Marxian

historical materialism is determinism. At the very

beginning of 19th century, doubt had arisen about

the veracity of the determinism of Newtonian

physics. Newtonian model of the universe was a

simplified one. The conundrum of three planets in

planetary movement in the solar system was a muchdebated

one. It was not possible to predict the

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Uncertainty in history

behaviour of three planets and the sun in the distant

future in accordance with the Newtonian concept

of universal gravity. In the case of one planet, it was

possible. If we take the example of, say, the Earth,

the Jupiter and the Sun, we cannot say correctly how

the movement of the Jupiter will influence that of

the Earth. Henry Poincare, a nineteenth century

mathematician, observed that the deductibility of the

Newtonian theory of gravity went wrong when all

the planets and satellites in the solar system moved,

attracting one another disturbingly. But, his

observations did not catch the attention of

astronomers for a long time. Neither could

Newtonian physics explain the laws of

thermodynamics formulated in connection with the

then- invented steam engines. Besides, the findings

by Maxwell about electrodynamics didn’t follow the

laws of determinism. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

too was inconsistent with the deterministic

principles.

The uncertainty of the universe disturbed great

scientists like Einstein. His famous dictum that ‘God

does not play dice’ reflects this completely. He believed

uncertainty in the universe was of temporary nature.

He tried to prove that particles are subject to

determinism and that they have precise and

determinable speed and velocity. But, the ‘quantum’

behaviour of the light proved the Uncertainty Principle

true. The Hidden Variable Theory was one formulated

by Einstein to overcome the principles of uncertainty.

Though the scientific community, mesmerized by the

intellectual achievements of Einstein, accepted the

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theory, later it was proved that the theory did not

go well with physical reality. The EPR experiment

was intellectually and theoretically proposed by

Einstein to refute the Uncertainty Principle.

Following the advancement of technology, the

particle physicist John Bell in the middle of the 1960’s

conducted this experiment successfully. The result

was not what Einstein had expected. The experiment

proved that Nature followed the quantum principles,

which were not amenable to common sense. The

Uncertainty Principle made it clear that even God

cannot determine the speed and velocity of particles.

In the last century, another challenge against

determinism arose from the Chaos Theory. It was

one of the intellectual revolutions of the mid - 20th

century. The theory became a reality with the

introduction of digital computers in the 1960’s. Chaos

pervades the whole universe. In some systems, chaos

is the unpredictable action, which, depending upon

its initial state may appear or disappear. The boiling

of water is an example. If we place a cork in the

water, it will move here and there. We cannot predict

in which direction it will move. But in an artificially

created phase, the order behind the movement of

the cork will unfold. The hallmark of the chaos is

the concealing order. The Theory of Chaos has

influenced physics, engineering, biology, medicine,

economics, politics, sociology, linguistics, and

philosophy. It demolishes the claim of the classical

physics that there can be precise predictions. The theory

implies that if there is a slight change in the initial

condition of a thing or system, it may cause far-reaching

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Uncertainty in history

changes in its future behavior. It is found in nonlinear

systems. ‘Linear’ means here ‘proportionate’.

For example, take the distance a thing covers at a

constant speed in direct proportion to the time it

takes to cover the distance. The graph, which links

both distance and time, is on a straight line. All the

phenomena in the world are non-linear. The

bouncing of playing balls, the movement of

pendulum, which were considered linear in

Newtonian physics, are, in reality, found to be

showing non–linearity. A non–linear clock may

work unpredictably and without any order.

According to the Theory of Chaos, a slight change

caused to a particle’s position and velocity may bring

about big changes. In 1980, Lawrence, who is the one

of the greatest climatologists in MIT proved that any

slight movement in the atmosphere could create great

repercussions. He called this phenomenon ‘Butterfly

Effect’. If a group of butterflies in Kerala flap their wings,

it may cause changes in the climate in New Delhi.

Even a small disturbance can be a factor decisive in

controlling weather conditions. In this network of

interconnectedness, any small change taking place,

somewhere can have its chain reaction somewhere

else. What is problematic about this is that the

phenomenon cannot be repeated. The incidents caused

by the flapping of wings by the butterflies next time,

will be different. But, they will still have effect on the

climate. That’s why weather forecasts are so

undependable. Chaos is an area where complete

predictability is impossible.

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Historical determinism is an outcome of

scientific determinism. Marx’s historical materialism

is based on historical determinism. Marx tried to

tabularize history with a mechanical and determined

nature of a train timetable. Marxist concept of

historical determinism has been proved to be idiotic

dogmatism. What is Marxian concept of history? In

human history, productive forces and, and

production relations have been in constant conflict

and productive forces are always growing. They

need changes in production relations. When the

existing production relations in the society create

impediments to productive forces, the former will

break down and, in the stead of old production

relations, new ones helpful to productive forces will

emerge. This will result in new social relations. That

is how social system like primitive communism,

slavery, feudalism and capitalism emerged one by

one. Capitalism witnessed progress, which was

unprecedented. Now its growth is impeded. So a

new social set up called communism has to arise.

That is inevitability. This is Marx’s theory of

historical inevitability. According to his theory,

proletarian revolution was imminent in Britain and

Germany where capitalism was highly advanced.

But, revolution took place in Tsarist Russia, which

was industrially the least advanced. The October

Revolution of 1917 was not a mass revolution; it was

a coup in which a group of disgruntled soldiers and

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Uncertainty in history

a small group of revolutionaries usurped power from

Tsar.

It had no continuity or any historical

evolutionary nature of Marxian concept of history.

It brought in state ownership of property under the

aegis of Communist Party in the place of the

degenerate private ownership of property in the

Tsarist Russia. Finally, the whole property in Russia

went into the hands of the communists. Under the

communists in Russia, nationalization of property

did not take place. The property not only didn’t get

nationalized in effect but it became centralized as

well. Property became alien to the society. The whole

production means in the nation were nationalized

and centralized. That became the basis for the

centralization of power. The centralization of power

in Russia led to fascism. A large of number of people

had no say in the government. The old feudal system

changed into a new one led by the party lords.

The communists could gain power in China

and Eastern European countries not as a result of

any historical evolution. At the end of World War,

East European countries were militarily taken over

by Russia. They established communism there.

China was a feudal country with no possibility of

any large-scale proletarian presence. By the end of

1980’s, communism disappeared from many eastern

European countries and Russia. The present China

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Uncertainty in history

is politically communist and economically

capitalistic. The socialization of property or power

has not taken place in China. According to Marxian

ideals, a theory has to prove itself through practice.

Then, these developments show the failure of his own

pet theory.

The experiences in Russia and European

countries and the so-called remaining communist

countries have shown that historical determinism

stands completely rejected. Upholding historical

materialism, when it signally failed to stand the test

of time, is standing in the way of social progress.

The fact that Marxist theory of inevitability of

revolution has fallen flat rankles in the mind of

Marxist intellectuals. Obsessive prophets of a

redundant theory are mere impractical dogmatists.

The disoriented

economics

M

anti-nature and detrimental to the existence

of human race. Economics is a social science

dealing with the production of wealth, its distribution

and transaction. Western economics developed

within the confines of western classical physics. As

a result, modern economics failed to view

environmental, economic, and social problems

organically. Economics didn’t take into account the

relationship between man and other beings. Economists

say man progressed through his relentless struggle

against nature and that it is his duty to exploit nature

itself. Marx went a step further and wrote. “All the

philosophers have, hitherto, interpreted nature. Our

aim is to change it”. The attitude reflected in

Marxism is the same as the capitalistic view that we

have to rob nature for our benefit even if it means

destroying the rhythm of nature. Both capitalist and

communist economists believe that increase in

productive forces implies the need for excess

odern economic theories, by and large, are

71

production. In both economic systems, the criterion

to measure the standard of life is annual

consumption of goods. Their motto is to increase

consumption through increase in production.

In both capitalist and communist countries

consumerism increased. Marx didn’t differentiate needs

from greed. Craze for consumption of goods, was the

same in capitalist and communist countries. They failed

to discern the danger behind the concept of maximum

consumption. A good example is the production of

energy. They are simply interested in how to maximize

the energy production. The source does not matter.

They are not worried about whether they are renewable

or not. Their only aim is maximum production. Modern

economists’ aim of increasing production and

consumerism has resulted in social inequality, inflation,

unemployment, concentration of wealth, energy crises,

and environmental catastrophes.

Modern economics failed to imbibe the holistic

vision brought about by the revolutionary changes in

modern scientific philosophy. The economic principles

of both capitalism and communism have not been able

to rid themselves of the influence of classical

economics. They are based on materialism,

development and competition. They promoted avarice,

selfishness, and conflicts in the society. They threw to

winds all sense of morality.

Old economic system had regarded nature as

divine. It stood against usury and also ensured

reasonable pricing of products. Black-marketeering and

hoarding were traditionally considered unrighteous.

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Those who were involved in black-market and

hoarding were severely punished. The production

system of the time gave importance to social needs.

The total needs of the society were taken care of by

the participation of the whole community. Food,

clothes, house and other things had only utility value.

The phenomenon of market began in the 17th

century England. Then it spread globally. The global

market is a modern version. Transition of goods was

prevalent even the in the Stone Age.

Until the beginning of the Industrial

Revolution, market was a place only for the local

transaction of goods. Commerce had a divinity of

its own. There was no monetary transaction. Metal

coins were used only for taxation.

The advance in production as a result of the

Industrial Revolution also increased the desire for

greater profit. Property meant something solid in one

way or other. A man’s property was calculated on the

basis of the land or gold he owned. Material property

became the measuring rod in a man’s life, and

materialism became rampant in the society. In industry

and commerce, dishonesty increased. New social,

economic, and cultural institutions came into existence

in conformity with the new industrial and commercial

environments. New theories on production,

distribution, transition, monetary transactions, were

formulated. Profit and profiteering, which is the

hallmark of capitalism, became rampant in society. The

Catholic and the Protestant Churches in Europe gave

silent permission to the advancement of capitalism.

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The disoriented economics

The European culture became anti-environmental

and male-centered

Modern economics was born against this

backdrop and it is only three hundred years old. It

began in Britain. It was Sir William Petty, a close friend

of Newton, a musician and Professor of Anatomy at

Oxford, who laid the foundations of modern

economics. His famous book on economics

Arithmetic

Newtonian views. It was Petty who introduced the

Theory of Value of Labour. He established that the value

of a product is worth the labour needed to produce it.

John Locke strengthened the base of Sir William Petty’s

economics. Locke introduced Atomistic Theory of

Human Society. Locke also tried to introduce Newton’s

Atomic Theory into the world of economics. In Locke’s

opinion, the price of a product depends upon demand

and supply. The price will be varying according to the

changes in demand and supply. There is no certainty

that value and price will be the same at a particular

moment.

If price is greater than value, the production of a

particular product will increase and its price will

decrease and vice versa. In the long run, it will become

equal to the average value. Supply and demand theory

was consistent with Newtonian physics. Petty and

Locke tried to make economics, which is a social

science, a pure science like physics and mathematics.

It divorced economics from its social relevance.

The book

and written by the Scottish economist Adam Smith

Politicalwas written on the basis of Cartesian andWealth of Nation published in 1776

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accelerated the tempo of the capitalist economic

system. It was this book, which gave market

economy its philosophical base. It inspired the

Industrial Revolution in Britain. Adam Smith

describes in detail how the wealth of a nation

increases and is distributed. Smith made it clear that

the base of production is human labour and natural

resources, and that the wealth of a nation depends

upon the productivity of its people. He emphasized

the need for introducing large-scale machines to

enhance production. He also explained that market

is an invisible thing and that it protects the interests

of producers and consumers and it causes increase

in the production. Instead of consumption meeting

production, it will be the other way round, he says.

He tries to substantiate that it is the free market that

determines the price as result of the equilibrium of

demand and supply. Smith’s economic theories were

based on the equilibrium, motion and objectivity of

Newtonian physics. He justified the capitalists

amassing capital, since it is needed to enhance

production. His theories were congenial to the

unlimited exploitation of natural resources and

exploitation of the workers.

At the beginning of 19th century, economist

David Ricardo compiled all the economic theories

existing thereunto. He was a multimillionaire

stockbroker. The work that influenced him most was

The Wealth of Nation

that economic growth would be stunted at a certain

stage due to the limited nature of the land and also

due to the increase in the cost of production of food.

by Adam Smith. He predicted

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The disoriented economics

He further developed the economic theories of Sir

William Petty and Adam Smith. His theories are

responsible for the growth of capitalist market. He

also reasoned that it was natural that there should

be the rich and the poor. His economics was one

which justified the 19th century colonial expansion

and exploitation by the western powers.

The two types of economics, which came into

existence after Ricardian economics, were welfare

economics and utopian economics. Their aim was to

reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots

through social welfare activities and legislation.

Utopians set up factories and mills on cooperative basis,

offering workers less hours of work, higher wages,

insurance and scope for entertainment and

accommodation. They gave importance to moral,

spiritual, and artistic values of workers. But, their

experiment was a failure. The failure was, according

to Marx, due to the incongruity of their plan with the

socio-economic conditions of the society. Marx was

indebted to the Utopians for his ideas. Interestingly,

many of the economic, social and environmental

policies introduced by the welfare and utopian

economists still have relevance.

Karl Marx predicted that the collapse of

capitalism was inevitable and that socialist order would

evolve out of such a collapse. It was a mere prophesy.

Basically, the economics of capitalism and communism

are the same. All Marxist thoughts are a continuation

of western classical philosophy, economics and

political science. Marxian economics was founded on

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the economic theories of Adam smith, Ricardo and

Robert Owen. Marx was reputedly thorough with Adam

Smith’s

that Marx learnt many things about capitalism,

which were responsible for the plight of the

proletariat. The source for the Marxist concept of

alienation of labour also is derived from this book.

The Theory of Surplus Value–the process of value

changing into price–is from the theories developed

by Adam Smith. It was Ricardo who formulated the

proto-type of Marx’s Theory of Surplus Value. In

Marxist economics, there is a great difference in the

value of labour power and labour. The value of

labour is the money a labourer needs for him and

his family to live in accordance with the average

standard of life. It is that price that capitalists give

to workers by way of wages. Marx called the

difference between value of labour power and the

value of the actual labour surplus value. Capitalists

collect the surplus value and turn a part of the

surplus value into capital in order to create further

surplus value. Marx came to believe that the

contemporary trouble with capitalism is the taking

away of surplus value. He also believed that finally

capitalism itself would collapse. Marxists think that

the theory of surplus value of Karl Marx is an eternal

truth. When new scientific technology is applied to

production and labour becomes mental, The Theory

of Surplus value will not stand as such. The role of

land, labour, capital and other things in production

has changed. Nature plays an immense role in capital

production. Surplus value cannot be created without

The Wealth of Nation. It was from this book

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The disoriented economics

natural resources. When he calculated the value of

a product, Marx did not take into consideration the

value of natural resources. According to Marxism,

production relationships will change when

productive forces change. Every social system has

got its own production relations. It was assumed that

the present day capitalist production relation will

change and a socialist production relation will come

in its place, which will change into communist mode

of production, that is, productive forces will be

increasing resulting in the increase in production.

Marx came to this conclusion due to his false belief

that man and Nature are separate and that natural

resources are limitless. Marxist thoughts are related

to the thinking system of Simon Furier. The concept

of Proletarian dictatorship has been borrowed from

the French thinker Babeuf. The slogan ‘workers of

the whole world unite’ comes from Karl Shaper. Even

the word communism does not belong to Marx. This

word was first used by the followers of Robert Owen,

who was a utopian socialist.

During the world slump from 1929-1933, in

order to bail out capitalist social system, John Maynard

Keynes, a British economist, introduced some new

economic theories. Keynes’ economic theories

justified overproduction. He stood for the continuous

growth of production and overproduction and the

consumption needed for it. In his opinion, the greater

the production of wealth, the more will be the benefit

of the poor. He claimed that the rich would be forced

to spend the wealth amassed by them which would

benefit the poor. When wealth increases materially,

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a part of it will trickle down to the poor whether the

rich like it or not. Thus, the gap between the rich

and the poor will be narrowed down. So, he opined

that the process should not be blocked until then.

Modern capitalist governments give scriptural

sanctimony to such Keynesian concepts. Almost all

capitalist economists are the followers of Keynes. But

experiences show that his economic theories are

wrong. In the last century the gap between the poor

and the rich countries and that between the poor and

the rich has increased. In 1960, the average per capita

income of 20% of the richest people of the world was

30 times greater than that of 20% of poorest in the

world population. By 1997, it increased 86 times.

Inequality almost doubled. The wealth of world’s 3

richest men is greater than that of the total income of

35% of world’s poorest countries. The proportion of

the poor men to the rich people is staggering. If the

2% of wealth of rich men is spent, that is enough to

meet the expenses needed to provide primary

education to all the students of the world. The real aim

of capitalist economists including Keynes is to make

the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The economics of capitalism and communism

have unusual similarities. They aim at technological

and economic development. The lust for universal

economic development and growth is stronger in

communism and capitalism than in any other ideology.

One of the greatest problems facing the world is the

discrepancy between unlimited wants and limited

resources. We cannot make a limited thing an unlimited

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The disoriented economics

one. Modern economics of all hues try to make what

is finite infinite. It has been proven that since natural

resources are limited, uncontrolled and unlimited

production is not possible. This attitude of unlimited

production is one philosophically inspired by

Newton’s views. If we want to achieve the

communist goal of ‘to each according to his needs’,

productive forces have to increase indefinitely. Both

the capitalist and communist economists believe in

the infinite possibilities of science and technology.

The developmental attitude of America and the

former USSR was the same. Both show unnecessary

interest in large-scale production. They were growthintoxicated.

Economic growth is important for

progress. But, development at any cost is anti-nature.

There should be a dynamic equilibrium between

growth and depletion. Production and consumption

must be consonant with Nature. The serious impact

of continuous development and growth has begun

to be felt on our planet. The sources of natural

resources are fast getting depleted.

The world famous geologist King Hubert in

1950 presented data on the depletion of natural

resources. Both capitalist and socialist economists

derisively called him a mad man. He studied the

relationship between the production of nonrenewable

resources and their depletion worldwide.

In his opinion, the production of petroleum will peak

by the end of 20th century and it will, gradually,

decrease and peter out. The production of coal will

stop by the end of 21st century. There will be a time

when natural gases, ores, forest and fish and even

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oxygen will be depleted. Even if we discover an

alternative to fossil-based fuels, it will not stop the

depletion of the latter. Our present-day reckless

development will destroy the sources of metal, food,

oxygen and ozone which are necessary for our

survival. If the overexploitation of water continues

at this rate by the middle of this century, sources of

potable water will be dried out. Future wars will be

fought for water.

The history of the latter half of the last century

was something that justified the stand and the

warnings of Hubert. Those who thought seriously

about man and nature became convinced about the

perils of the developmental model introduced by

communism and capitalism. In 1972, the group called

The ‘Club of Rome’ published a study entitled ‘the

Limits to Growth’. Rulers in capitalist and communist

countries ignored it. The first World Congress to

discuss the deteriorating environmental condition

was held in 1972 in Stockholm. Though it took many

decisions, capitalist and communist countries refused

to heed to the imminent doom. The Environmental

Summit held in Nairobi in 1982 pointed out the fast

deteriorating condition of the world. It took better

decisions and dispersed. Yet, the capitalist and the

communist blocks continued their assault on nature.

Nature’s revenges too became more intense. Even

the mainstream scientists had to acknowledge

problems like global warming, changes in climate

and holes in ozone layers as real phenomena. They

were forced to acknowledge that development will

be impeded if the lustful exploitation of natural

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The disoriented economics

resources is going on. Thus, in 1992, a world Earth

Summit was held in Rio di Generio. But, the

resolutions of the Summit were countermanded by

America. Developed capitalist countries have not

done much for the protection of the world

environment. The Summit for Sustainable

Development was held in Johannes Burge in 2002.

This gave enough indications that if we did not solve

world ecological crisis, the very existence of human

race would be in trouble.

Another crisis crying for world attention is

population explosion. The increase in population will

result in the depletion of natural resources. The

problems of population cannot be solved by continuous

growth of economic development. The present annual

rate of world population is 1.9%. So, world population

will be doubled every forty years. World population

will be 12 billions in 2045. In 2085, it will double. If

population increases at the present rate, man will stand

shoulder to shoulder in 2600. Though the countries

have become aware of the dangers of overpopulation,

they have not been able to reach a consensus on how

to bring it to zero level. There are biological, social,

economic and psychological reasons for it. The best

way to reduce population growth is to increase the

standard of living globally. The present global growth

of population is uncontrolled and unbalanced.

Population is growing uncontrollably in

undeveloped and developing countries. The social

backwardness caused by the colonial exploitation is

one of the reasons for it. Even now, these countries

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are being subjected to cruel exploitation by developed

countries. Their poverty, deprivation and ecological

crises can be remedied only by global economic

justice. For this, we need redistribution of global

wealth. But the profits-seeking developed countries

are against it. The Marxist economists have adopted

a negative attitude towards population growth.

Communists theoretically oppose Malthusian theory

of population growth. Both Marx and Lenin rejected

Malthus’ theory.

The economic systems, which depend

excessively on energy and natural resources, are capitalintensive.

They are not labour-centric. Natural

resources are extracted from Nature. The more

mechanized it is, the more it reduces employment

opportunities. Labour will be substituted by capital.

The economic system which is centred around energy

and natural resources is an inflated one. It will not create

wealth in the long run. It is detrimental to the society

and the environment. The best example is capitalcentered

farming,. Naturally, it has to be mechanized.

It will consume more energy. In order to increase

agricultural production, a lot of chemical fertilizers,

pesticides have to be used. It may give temporary

increase in agricultural production. But, it will gradually

destroy fertility of the land and biological diversity. It

also reduces role of labour. The chemical fertilizers

and pesticides used for agriculture come back to us

through food and other ways putting our health in

danger. Gradually, such farming will do away with

farming itself.

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The disoriented economics

Capitalism and communism are overconfident

about the limitless possibilities of science and

technology. They are mad about it and think that

political, economic and ecological problems can be

solved through scientific technology. Rulers think

energy crises can be tided over through the

dangerous nuclear technology and international

differences, through nuclear bombs. But, such

technological solutions are endangering local and

global ecosystems. The technologists dream of

nestling on other planets to stay the nights if our

present ecosystem is endangered. Their craze for

science and technology makes them think technology

is the panacea for everything. It is because of the

influence of the classical philosophical thought that

science is an absolute truth.

In 20th century, capitalism developed into

colonialism and imperialism. The history of capitalism

is one of wars. The wars and brutal genocide indulged

in by the imperialist forces are endless. In the Second

World War alone, 50 million people were killed and

an equal number maimed. The Persian Gulf is, now,

aflame with wars for petrol. The main culprit for

ecological disasters and poverty are the imperialist

forces, whether economic, political or religious.

Imperialism is, globally, putting in jeopardy

economic, food, health, and ecological and social

safety of common man. It can also stand in the way of

individual development. Imperialism of any type can

be instrumental in the destruction of indigenous

cultures. The culture of capitalism is basically

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consumerist. It has won over all other cultures

globally. Communism which was introduced as the

alternative to capitalism was in effect state

capitalism. What was implemented in the former

Soviet Union is the utility theory of capitalism.

Communist rule, which lasted for 75 years, brought

about indescribable ecological disasters like

Chernobyl nuclear disaster and drying up of the

Aral Sea. The social condition in Russia was pitiable.

The Soviet Union at the end of communist rule was

one plagued with social evils like bureaucrat

corruption, black market, and helplessness of people,

increased mortality, infant deaths, alcoholism,

prostitution and drug abuse. Poverty, famine and social

inequalities were rampant in Russia.

In China, the state is being fast made capitalist in

the guise of communism. One of the slogans put

forward by the Chinese Communist party is ‘to make

money is a holy act’. China is simply trying to outsmart

America in production, as once the Soviet Union tried

to do. To them the political cat of any hue is welcome,

as long as it catches rats. The red cat has long ceased

to be a necessity. The gaps between the haves and

have-nots is widening in China. In the world labour

market, Chinese workmen are the least paid. The

number of people flowing into towns in search of jobs

is increasing in China. Things, like jobs, food health

system and education do not come under fundamental

rights. The ecological condition of the country too is

mind-shattering. Almost all important rivers are polluted

with chemical and organic waste. The culture growing

and being encouraged in China is capitalist. Other

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The disoriented economics

socialist countries like Cuba and Vietnam are highly

undeveloped. The condition of North Korea is the

worst. The common man is suffering under the yoke

of totalitarianism combined with poverty there while

the ruling men are running after the pomp of nuclear

and missile technology.

The economic ideas developed and upheld by

the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi offer an alternative

to the dehumanizing economics of capitalism and

communism. Gandhian economic thoughts are based

on Indian philosophy. It is quite different from the

economics based on production and consumption.

Gandhiji said, in this world, there is enough to satisfy

everyone’s needs but not enough to satisfy a single

man’s greed. His economic view is that development

should be based on renewable natural resources. In

Gandhian economics, both power and planning are

decentralized. Development is carried out with the

cooperation of people. It is an economics giving

importance to humanitarianism. The world famous

thinkers like Schumacher, Fukuoka, Rachel Carson,

Fritjof Capra have put forward an alternate economic

system to the modern economics. Most of their

economic thoughts are based on Buddhist philosophy.

Schumacher’s

philosophy. Natural resources are fast exhausted. If the

present trend continues, they won’t last longer. Instead

of big industrial units, we should have efficient smallscale

units. Science and technology should aim at

providing machines and technology suitable for such

units. Large-scale production responsible for

Small is Beautiful reflects this

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The disoriented economics

unemployment should be avoided as far as possible.

Production can be sustainable only if all are

employed. This is how social inequality can be

reduced. The new technology should be eco-friendly.

Anti-nature technology should be eschewed.

Natural resources should be used only in such a way

that their depletion will be made up by natural

process. Thus, a system which has got an organic

relationship with nature and man needs to be

established. Maximum quality life through least

consumption and proper living are its characteristics.

The perceptions of Fukuoka, Capra, Schumacher and

thinkers like them are consistent with Gandhian

economic thoughts. They all consider nature and

man indivisible. Only a kind of postmodern

economics with an organic view of nature and man,

as perceived in Indian philosophy, and which will

emerge as an alternative to the dualistic modern

economics and which will consider Nature divine,

can save humanity.

Is Marxism scientific?

I

historical materialism are called scientific. Like the

19

theory scientific. He believed that the laws of

dialectical materialism govern nature. He considered

it a compendium of eternal laws. Marx, who

declared that the only thing, which does not change,

is change itself, tried to confine his thoughts within

the radius of dialectical materialism. As a result,

Marxism became a condensed belief system. Lenin

claimed that Marxism is scientific, true and eternal.

The word ‘science’ is a much-misunderstood

one. Many people think that science is something

absolutely true. When we place the word science

before any field of activity, that field becomes a

universally accepted one. For example, we usually

talk of scientific farming, investigation, socialism and

cookery etc. As if by magic, they are considered to

be without blemishes. But, modern science does not

give such infallibility to science. By science, what is

n Marxist textbooks, dialectical materialism andth century thinkers, Marx too wanted to call his

91

meant is the knowledge about matter and various

physical phenomena. It is observing things,

classifying them and also explaining things on the

basis of those observations, and formulating

principles and theories for them, and predicting

about new things and phenomena on the basis of

earlier theories. Scientists also modify them in the

light of new discoveries. Scientists conduct new

searches with the aid of scientific equipment like

telescope, microscope, spectroscope, particle

accelerator and computers. Scientific enquiry is

external .It forges ahead studying external things and

analyzing them. That is an endless process. It was

Francis Bacon, the 17th century British writer and

thinker, who, for the first time, told about how a

scientist should examine and find out natural laws.

According to his theory, scientists formulate a

hypothesis or common principle on the basis of the

data collected through observation. They explain them

systematically. Thus, it becomes a scientific theory.

Anybody can determine its scientificality through later

experimentations and observations. This new accretion

to the existing scientific knowledge is valid only if it

conforms to the earlier time-tested scientific laws. If it

is disproved by earlier laws, it is discarded and the

new ones accepted. This method of formation of a

specific rule through observation and applying them

to all future possibilities is called inductive method by

Francis Bacon. During the same period, the French

mathematician, Rene Descartes presented the theory

of mathematical logic. It is another method of scientist

enquiry. He was of the opinion that all sciences are

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precise and certain, clear and evidential knowledge.

They are fully knowable and doubtless. The

experimental method introduced by Isaac Newton

combing inductive method and mathematical logic

became the basis for the later development of Eurocentric

scientific enquiry and discoveries and

inventions. According to this method, if a hypothesis

yields the same result even after repeated experiments,

that hypothesis is given the status of a theory. The

classical physicist regarded such theories, which

evolved out of repeated experiments as absolute truth.

For examples, the laws of Newton were thought to be

unchangeable. Until the very end of the 19th century,

nobody dared to question the infallibility of the term

scientific. But, the meaning of the word scientific in

20th century differs from that in 19th century. Both

the Theory of Relativity and quantum physics proved

the concept of absolute truth wrong.

The scientist who talked most vehemently

against the infallibility of science in the last century

was the Austrian thinker and scientist Karl Raimond

Popper. His contribution to the philosophy of science

is great. He said scientific laws are not unchangeable.

He refuted the claim that what is scientific is

infallible. In his opinion, to say that something is

scientific is to mean that it can go wrong at any

moment. Even established laws, which have not

been proved wrong for a long time, are not absolute

truths. He pointed out that the infallibility of science

is an old story. He called this Falsification Theory.

Acceptance of a scientific theory is only

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Is marxism scientific?

temporary. It can be proven wrong at any moment, even

if it has survived experimentations previously. Again,

even when a theory is proved to be true a thousand times,

it cannot be held to be something absolute. What makes

the scientific different from what is non-scientific is this

tendency of science. Only those things that could be

proved wrong have the right to be called scientific.

Falsification is the hallmark of science. What is

unscientific has not such a fate.

Practically, a new theory is formulated on the basis

of the extension of an old theory. For example, when

the motion of the Mercury was observed, it was found

to be differing from the prediction made on the basis of

the Newtonian laws. It was also observed that its motion

was in consonance with Einstein’s principles. This gave

Einstein’s principles a boost. The epochal experiment

conducted by G. Michelson and Morley shattered the

whole Newtonian principles. It proved the constancy

of the velocity of light. It was against the Newtonian

laws. For this single reason, scientists were forced to

reformulate the whole physical laws.

The history of science tells that the superstructure

of science is not built upon any absolute truth. A scientific

theory, like anything else, has limitations.What is special

about modern science is that it recognizes this fact.

Science cannot take into consideration all

interconnections while formulating a theory. It usually

takes into account only important interconnections. In

Newtonian physics, the resistance of air is not generally

considered. In particle physics, the impact of gravity is

not considered. This is how scientific experiments are

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conducted. They move from one general model to

another. Einstein’s laws were more advanced than

those of Newton. Two objects which are in relative

motion can be described by the laws of both Newton

and Einstein. But, Einstein’s principles are more

accurate. Many long-established scientific principles

had to be modified in the course of science. The most

famous among them is the concept of ether. Modern

physics virtually began by rejecting the concept of

ether. What resulted in the rejection of the concept

of the ether was the disagreement prevalent among

the scientists about the nature of light. We take

sunlight for granted. But, how it travels to earth was

mysterious; common men were not interested in

such matters. But, scientists had to find out the

answer. They raised many a doubt. In reality, the

search for finding out the nature of light went a long

way in the emergence of modern physics.

In the middle of the 19th century, Michael

Faraday and Clack Maxwell developed the electromagnetic

theory. They made it clear that light is an

electro-magnetic field moving through space in

waves. Maxwell’s approach predicted the nature of

light precisely. It was better than the Newtonian

concept. But, even Maxwell could not answer some

questions properly. If light is electromagnetic waves,

how can it travel through empty space? In our

experience, and also according to the wave theory,

waves need a medium to travel through. When

waves move through water, they disturb it and make

it move up and down producing waves. Sound waves

also need air or something as medium. But, light travels

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Is marxism scientific?

through empty space. What is the medium, which

vibrates when light travels through? This question led to

the formulation of the concept of ether by some scientists.

They were of the opinion that the whole world was filled

with the invisible medium called ether. Light travels

through this medium. They attributed many imaginary

qualities to ether. For example, ether is a thing weightless

and elastic. Water waves disappeared due to friction.

But, light does not cease to be while traveling. So, they

thought that ether was a frictionless thing with complete

elasticity. The belief that light cannot travel without the

aid of a medium was a deep-rooted one until the end of

19th century.

It was Albert Einstein who categorically declared

that there is no such a thing as ether. He further said

that light was by itself a physical phenomenon and that

it did not need a medium for transmission. It does not

need a medium to move through, because it is not only

a wave, but also a particle. It was made clear that light

can travel through space since it was both waves and

particles. When it was established that light is both

particles and waves, the old concept of ether was given

up. We cannot deny the possibility of Einstein’s Theory

of Relativity too being declared inaccurate in future. Every

new scientific principle was a bettering of the old one.

Every new law takes us further into the secrets of the

universe. Modern physics makes it clear that not only

scientific laws but also scientific experiments are mere

approximations.

Many scientific explanations formulated to

describe a phenomenon have been falsified and given

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up on examination. Those explanations, which survive

experiments one by one, are more universally accepted.

In a sense, science is a series of such speculated

explanations and their rejections. The truth is that there

is no theory, which will survive all experiments for all

the time and which will never be rejected.

Marxism, as such, is not a science but a belief

system. If it were a science, it would have undergone

changes. If we examine its history of 150 years, it can

be seen that neither its principles nor its categories have

changed.

Nobody has changed its hypotheses.

Epistemologically too, Marxian principles are

mechanical and incomplete. To put it in other words,

Marxism is a mere ‘ism’. It can instill insane and blind

belief in its adherents simply because it is an ‘ism’.

Science is an open thought, and a continuation of

thought. If thought is dynamic, it will lead to new

thoughts. If it is stationary, it becomes old. ‘Ism’ is not

a flowing thing. It is motionless like stagnant water.

No new thought is possible in an ‘ism’. Scientific

thoughts always change. Every new thought will be

better than the old one. Communism, which is the

political system of Marxism, had to face a crisis in Russia

and East European countries, simply because it was an

‘ism’. To say that communism which evolved out of

the physical conditions of the world which prevailed

150 years ago, is completely true even today, is

unscientific and unreasonable. To think that we can

build up a political system on it is a mere illusion.

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Is marxism scientific?

The red religion

I

intelligent clue to the answer can be found in the

subtle observation of the famous Indian writer and

political commentator, OV Vijayan. He once wrote.

“Marxism is a western thought. It is a continuation of

western classical thought. Though atheistic, Marxism

is a branch of Judeo-Christian culture. Marx is a

f Marxism is not a science, then what is it? An

Charvaka

Judeo-Christian culture”. Russell called Marxism a

Christian heresy. In his opinion, communists’ belief in

the dictatorship of the proletariat is a superstition. He

regarded Marxism as a religion based on materialism.

Marxism is the belief system of the communists.

Communists quote Marx and Engels to explain

anything and everything. As far as communists are

concerned, dialectical materialism is the ultimate

principle–something which is absolutely true. They

follow it just like a religious faith. They have been trying

to impose it on others. Just like the Judaic religions,

communism too is intrinsically intolerant towards other

(a traditional name for an atheist in India) of

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belief or philosophic systems.

Both in childhood and adulthood, Marx had been

influenced by Judeo-Christian beliefs and rituals. This

influence is reflected throughout his writings. Many of

his linguistic expressions have been taken from Jewish

and Christian scriptures, in which he was well-versed.

He cannot be, naturally, blamed for it. Nobody can

live and think in an intellectual vacuum. Every thinker

is indebted to old and contemporary ones. Ideas are

the continuation of what is old. That is something

unavoidable. Karl Marx was born in a wealthy Jewish

family. His father was an advocate. Germany was

notorious for its anti-Jewish stand. Jews had been barred

from employment in Prussia. In order to escape the

ban, Marx’s father adopted Protestantism. In 1824, he

baptized all of his six children. Marx’s adolescent

poetry and essays were fraught with Jewish and

Christian imagery. His collection of poetry

Poems

Marx was making a secular version of Judeo-

Christian concepts. He uses almost all concepts found

in Christian theology. Such Christian concepts as the

Advent of Christ, revelations, chosen people, last

judgement, the Kingdom of God and martyrdom are

reborn in his writings. Anybody having any touch with

the communist movements cannot but feel those things.

In communism, the proletariat are the chosen people

and the leaders of the various communist movements

are the messiahs. They believe that those party messiahs

will build heaven for them. In that sense, Lenin, Stalin

and Mao are messiahs and prophets. Some

Savageis an example.

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pronouncements by Karl Marx resemble those of the

Talmud and the Bible. “History is the history of class

wars”. “Philosophers have only interpreted the world”

“Let the rulers be shocked by the communist

revolution”. The language of the Semitic religions is

revelatory in nature. It is supposed to be something

straight from God, which is, to the believers, the

ultimate truth. Just like that, dialectical materialism was

the ultimate truth for Marx. It was equal to God’s laws.

This accounts for the revelatory ring in Marx’s language.

Both Judaic religions and communism believe

in determinism. So, the followers have no right to

question their belief systems. Since Judaic religions

depend upon predeterminism and communism on the

determinism of dialectical materialism, in Christianity,

the second coming of Christ and, in Communism, a

classless society is inevitable. The structure of

communist movements is similar to that of the Christian

Church, especially the Roman Catholic Church. The

structure of both is monolithic. The reality is that

monolithic nature of the Church and communism result

from their philosophic similarities. Power in both

systems is centralized. If all power is centered around

the Pope in the Catholic Church, it is centred around

the party secretary in communist parties.

There is similarity between the activities of

Christian missionaries and those of communists. The

party has got full-time workers just as the Church has

its priests and nuns with life-time commitment to

conversional missionary work. The communists show

the same zeal to spread their ideology, as the

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missionaries do to propagate Christianity. To the

followers, the Bible and the Manifesto are infallible.

Conversion to communism is the same as religious

conversion. In both cases, you have to disown your

past and believe either in the Bible or dialectical

materialism, as the case may be.

The Church believes that you need martyrs to

build the Kingdom of God, whilst the Communist Party

needs them to establish a classless society. For both,

martyrs are essential and immortal. They exhort their

followers to embrace martyrdom and to convert others

to their causes. Such people as have been ready to

sacrifice their lives are eulogized as martyrs. Just like

the Judaic religions, the communist party too has its

own scapegoats .No other party in the world has been

as lavish as the communist party in sending their

followers to martyrdom. The Church has approved

violence for achieving the Kingdom of God, while

communists have done the same to bring out

revolutions. The communist preceptors exhort their

followers not to brook those devils blocking the way

to socialism. They think those not subscribing to

Marxism have to be forcibly made to do it. The mass

murders that took place in the countries where

communists came to power are reminiscent of mass

murders in crusades and jihads intended to cleanse

the society of non-conforming and ideologically

differing elements. Even their own leaders, who dared

to deviate from the ‘true’ path, were branded as

‘reactionaries’ and butchered as in the schismatic and

internecine wars fought among the Muslims and the

Christians. They claim that they are the liberators of

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humanity. Prototype of this liberation concept lies

in Judeo-Christian culture. Liberation concept of

Judaic religions is different from that of Indian

religions. The Jewish spirit behind Marxism can be

found in the form of his revelatory statements about

the inevitability of revolution. To Marx, revolution

is the destruction of the government run by a

minority of the capitalists, and establishment of the

proletarian dictatorship. The chosen people are

raised from the lower social position to the highest.

If the Jews’ is the Kingdom of God, Marx’s is a

communist state. In communism, dialectical

materialism replaces Jehovah. To Karl Marx, the chosen

people are the western proletariat. The traditional

Jewish revelations are conspicuously discernable in the

masquerade called Marxism. Russell aptly observes

that, as St. Augustine induced Jewish structure into

Christianity, so Marx structured communism along

Jewish lines. He wants us to discern the similarity

between communism and Judaism through the

following comparisons; Jehovah-dialectical

materialism, messiah-Marx, chosen peopleproletarians,

the Church-communist party, second

coming-revolution, hell – punishment for criticism,

kingdom of God – communist society. These

similarities can be further extended; saints - top

party leaders, martyrs – party men killed or

sacrificed, holy days – martyr’s day, celebrations –

party celebrations, excommunication - expulsion

from the party, holy scripts- writings of Marx and

Engels, priests- party leaders, blasphemy- criticizing

Marx and the party, Christian denominations-

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various communist parties, devil- misinterpreters of

Marxism.

If we carefully look at the political rituals of

the communist party, we can see that they are mere

repetitions of the Judeo-Christian rituals. Some

mausoleums built for communist leaders in some

countries remind us of primitive Judeo-Christian

traditions.

Marxism, which was severely critical of

Christianity, had the same basic structure as

Christianity. They differ only in contents. Though

Marxism is, thematically, opposed to religion, it can

evoke and satisfy the same primitive religious

inspirations in its adherents as are found in the Judaic

religions through its structural and ideological

similarity.

Revelatory religions have two sides – faith based

on theology and emotion sustaining it. The above

glossary used to pinpoint the characteristics of Judaic

religions, show belief as content and emotion as the

driving force. The respect evoked in the party towards

Marx is the same awe believers have towards Jehovah.

Communists hate those who criticize Marx and his ‘ism’

with the same hatred as the adherents of Judaic religions

have toward the deniers of their God . Christianity has

many denominational divisions. Similarly, Marxism has

Russian, Chinese and East European versions and also

communist groups mutually contending in the name

of political puritanism.

According to revelatory religions, God’s reality

is revealed only to true believers. Those, who

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Beyond Red

misinterpret Marxism, are like the followers of Satan who

are out to lead the believers in Marxism astray from the

true path. Religions have benefited priests most, just as

the party has benefited the leaders. Both the priests and

the communists leaders have control over material things

to their advantage.

Christianity became the official religion of Europe

when Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity out of

political compulsions and appointed himself as the Pope.

It is mainly he who made Christianity an organized force.

Thus, the whole Europe was forcibly christianized.

Constantine virtually became a Caesar-Pope, both the

religious and the secular head of Europe. Christianity

began to control the secular affairs of the people. It

insisted that man should interact with God only through

the Church. The Church also declared that no ruler who

refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Church

had the right to hold power. By about 18th Century, it

was the Church that had controlled all that is political,

economic and cultural in Europe. Christianity, under the

guise of spirituality, pervaded the material life of man.

As for Marxism, it played the reverse role. Communism,

when it came to power through the October Revolution

of 1917, instead of confining itself to the political and

economic aspects of Russian people, unnecessarily

interfered in the inner life of the people. In other countries

too, communism preyed on the religious life of the

people. History proved that communism couldn’t

continue to interfere in the religious life of the people

for long. In the countries where communists brought

about revolutions, concealing their material mentality,

they could not impose it on the spiritual life of people in

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The red religion

the post-revolutionary days. Developments in Russia and

elsewhere bear witness to this.

Though communism structurally resembles

Judaism and Christianity, it has no ethics of its own.

Even revelatory religions, in spite of their theologicallyinduced

intolerance, are based on the principles of their

own sense of righteousness, mostly borrowed from the

ethics prevalent in the respective societies in which

they originated. Religions have made their contribution

for building human civilization by their emphasis on

truth, love, renunciation etc, though much blood has

been shed in their name following the rise of theology

and propagation. But, Marx’s way was one of negating

not just God, but the whole ethical way of living. To

him, the first principle was matter. His philosophy said

only matter and body were true. He portrayed the

concept of God and ethics as products of materiality

of the world. Marx did not uphold the value of truth

and love. To him, morality is the by-product of

economic structures of a society. Neither does he

believe that great qualities like love, cooperation,

courage, honesty etc have any permanence in human

character. So he rejected spirituality. Communists’

repudiation of ethics and morality resulted in power

hunger, cheating, deception, and violence being the

hallmark of communist experiments. For the very

reason, communism could not realize its dream

anywhere. Besides, it stood in the way of knowledge,

seeking and searching for truth. Communists believe that

ends justify the means.

Marx was ignorant about the non-Judaic religions.

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Beyond Red

Hence, his thoughts do not encompass Chinese or Indian

religions. He had only contempt for the Vedas and

Vedantic philosophy. He described Indian seers as fakirs

fumbling the word

imagery are quite western and Judeo-Christian. The first

image in the Communist Manifesto is from European

sorcery- that of a spectre. Manifesto begins with the

sentence “A spectre has been haunting Europe–the

spectre of communism. The Pope, the Tsar, Meternick

and French radicals are compared to exorcists. Spectre

has been a standard metaphor of western literature right

from the Middle Ages. ‘Haunting’ taken from sorcery is,

again, a theme in western writings.

Just like the religious heads, Marx too was

intolerant towards his opponents. He would say to

those who dared to criticize him. “I will annihilate you”

He insisted that the search for truth, knowledge and

reason, should be in accordance with his method. His

theories did not evolve out of his personal experiences.

His works including

comfort of the British Museum. He had no direct

interaction with workers, capitalists, and feudal lords.

In the words of the famous, British thinker and historian,

Paul Johnson, Marx had not set his foot even once in a

factory, mine or some other production institutions.

All his works were not based on observation, but were

intellectual. There have been criticisms against the

statistical data used in

not up-to-date, but compiled 30 years earlier. Evidences

to this effect had attracted the attention of scholars at

Cambridge in 1880 itself. Marx wrote his works falsely

thinking that dialectical materialism is an absolute truth.

brahma. Marxian metaphors andDas Capital were written in theDas Capital. The data used were

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The red religion

110

Beyond Red

As a result, Marx presented his belief not from the point

of view of a scientist but from that of a theologian.

Consequently, Marxism came to be evolved into a mere

belief system.

The new class

I

communists came to power, it can be seen that

working class has not benefited from power.

Ultimately, the beneficiaries of the so-called communist

system were a new group. This new group has risen to

power all over the world in communist parties which

have gained power or are likely to get power.

This new group can be called the new class. The

real class interests protected in communist system are

those of this class. Though Marxism is supposed to be

a philosophy based on proletarian rule, what it created

in reality is not something proletarian.

The makers and the interpreters of Marxism were

from the wealthy class. They were the inheritors of their

own bourgeoisie tradition. Karl Marx’s father was an

advocate born in a rich Prussian Jewish family. Marx

married Jenny West Falon, who belonged to the

princely class. His companion, Frederic Engels was an

industrialist in Manchester. Almost all well-known

communist leaders all over the world belonged to either

f we examine the history of the countries where

113

rich families or the upper middle class families.

The post-revolutionary government in Russia

was not proletarian. When the new system was

established in Russia, the bureaucrats, who were the

servants of Tsarist regime sneaked into it in disguise.

Even among the top party leaders, there were the

erstwhile supporters of Tsar. They occupied key

positions in the government. This new class, who

held various positions in the Party, military and

secret service, got big houses, cars and undertook

foreign trips, and got subsidized foreign goods from

state-run stores. The most fattened bureaucracy the

world had ever seen belonged to Russia. As was in

the Tsarist Russia, so was in the communist Russia.

What transpired in Russia was not anything taught

in the textbooks of the Revolution.

The communist government in Russia followed

the same conventions of Tsarist regime. Even the Soviet

Communist Party was infected with bureaucratic

misrule. Things are not different in China too.

Bureaucrats and technocrats control both the Party and

the State in China. In the case of corruption and bribery,

China excels all other countries. The number of rich

men and capitalists is on the increase in China. Many

of them belong to the party or the ruling class. There is

no membership restriction for capitalists in the Chinese

Communist Party. The condition in other communist

countries too was almost the same. In all countries with

communist presence, the power is in the hands of this

new class.

The socialist concept of governance has opened

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Beyond Red

up endless roles for this new class. The smooth

running of the government needs scientists,

intellectuals and technicians. Naturally, jobs, which

require special skills, will require intellectuals. Giving

equal wages to workers, engineers and managers is

not practical even in socialism. Actually it can be

seen imprinted in the basic principles of socialism.

There is a tinge of inequality in the very socialist

principle of ‘each according to his ability’. It is clear

that people, who are skilled and have special

knowledge and abilities, will have to be paid more

in any form of economy. That is, a technician will

always get more wages than a worker. In the old

Soviet Union, there were great differences in the

wages paid to common workers and technicians.

According to statistics published in 1970, a factory

worker was paid 200 rubles while a technician, 8000

rubles per month. The socialist slogan of ‘each

according to his ability’ was a clever way of

protecting the interests of technologists, technocrats

and intellectuals.

The classless society visualized by Karl Marx was

not realized any where in the world. Hence, we lack

data on a communist society. Even in communism,

equality is impractical. According to Marx, communism

means ‘from each according to his means and to each

according to his needs.’ For the realization of this,

means of production have to be enhanced limitlessly.

Marx thought that, once productive forces were freed

from the shackles of capitalism, they would increase

more and more. He conceived no end to it. Neither

did he prescribe any radical change from capitalist way

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The new class

of production. He believed in the infinite possibilities

of science and technology. The limited nature of natural

resources and world ecological crisis have clearly

proven that such limitless development is not

possible.

It is not possible to give such luxuries to all

people without endangering life on the earth. Even

if it is possible, there will be still problems with the

nature of wants of people. The needs of a

management expert are different from those of a

worker. His needs will be greater. If a worker needs

a hammer and spanners, a management expert will

need a computer, a library and such other things.

Communism is an envy-free dream heaven where

some people will be satisfied with lesser needs and

others with greater ones. In the Soviet Union, before

its fall, every member of the Polite Bureau had two

palaces – one for the summer vacation and the other

for the winter vacation and these palaces were

provided with luxury cars and servants. They were

protected by the military. These things show that

the advantages of socialism and communism

benefited party leaders, technologists and

intellectuals more than anyone else.

It is the upper class intellectuals who create

problems in all societies and social movements. When

they are denied power and positions they give form to

new social movements under the guise of social

progress. Karl Marx, the prophet of communism is a

very good example. He was a follower of Hegel when

he was a student at Bonn University. Hegelian thinkers

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Beyond Red

criticized the traditional German philosophy and

beliefs, which displeased the German authorities. The

authorities banned the German Hegelians from

occupying positions in universities. They fired the

Hegelian thinker Bruno Bover from the University

of Bonn. The Hegelians protested against it. They

formed a new organization. Marx became an active

member of this organization. Marx and other

Hegelians put forth a new progressive Hegelian

Theory. Those developments created problems for

Marx who wanted to join as a teacher in the

University of Bonn. This exasperated his opposition

to the German Government. But, like other

Hegelians, he was not strong enough to oppose the

state directly. That is how they chose proletarians

as a force to put into practice their theories. It does

not mean that they made the workers part of their

movement. They were simply discovering the muscle

power in the working class. Thus, in its very

formative period, Marxism was centred around the

subtle interests of the new class called upper class

intellectuals.

Even in our national movement, such

tendencies emerged. During our Freedom Struggle,

both the rightist and the leftist movements were led

by intellectuals. They were the people left out in the

national main stream. The leftist intellectuals later

became communists. The communist party virtually

came into being in India by the leftist opposition to

the Civil Disobedient Movement led by Mahatma

Gandhi. Leaders like Lokamanya Tilak,

Gopalakrishna Ghokhale, Mahatma Gandhi,

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The new class

Jawarlal Nehru, Subash Chandra Bose, Sardar

Dallabhai Patel, Jaya Prakash Narayanan, Abdul

Kalam Azad, Lala Rajpat Rai and Rajaji were

gigantic figures in the Indian Freedom Movement.

When compared with them, communist leaders like

M N Roy, Abani Mukharji, Musafar Ahammad, S A

Dange, Shinkaravelu Chettiyar were mere pigmies.

None of these communist leaders was as scholarly,

magnanimous humane or democratic as our national

leaders. In the state of Kerala where communism

is, still, a nostalgic force , the communist party was

mostly led by intellectuals from feudal class. E M S

was born in Elamkulam Mana, which was one of

the richest feudal Brahmin families in Kerala.

Communist leaders in Malabar province like E M S

or K. Damodharan had none of the respectability

enjoyed by the Nationalist leaders like C. Shankaran

Nair, M P Govinda Menon, Abdul Rahman Sahib,

K P Kesava Menon and Kelappaji. In Tranvancore,

communist leaders never enjoyed the mass support

national leaders like Pattom Thanu Pillai, C Kesavan

and T.M. Varghese had. It was when the feudal

intellectuals and leaders in the National Movement

felt left out that they decided to form the communist

party and leftist movements in India. They began

their political career questioning Gandhiji and the

National Movement. One of the first works by EMS

was

ideology.

Socialism purports to liberate productive forces

from bourgeois social relationship. Both capitalism and

communism aim at large scale production. In order to

Gandhi and Gandhism opposing Gandhian

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Beyond Red

maximize production in socialist order, the state

needs intellectuals, comprising brilliant scientists,

and technologists. Lenin’s first socialist step was to

bring around bourgeoisie experts to socialist side. All

leaders in the countries where communist

revolutions took place belonged to the upper class.

In Russia, Lenin picked up and trained intellectuals,

who were professionally interested in politics. Even

now, in socialist countries, the leadership is provided

by intellectuals who were political careerists. In

almost all communist countries, communist parties

were led by intellectuals. Though communist parties

claim to be workers party, the workers have never

had much say in the leadership of the parties, with

their having only a doted presence. Today, Indian

communist parties too are led by such intellectuals.

In capitalism too intellectuals have much

importance. But, this fact is acknowledged by the

capitalists. Under capitalism the capital of joint stock

companies is accumulated through shares. Capitalists

become administrators of others’ capital. Executives

working in multinational corporations and big

industries are too intellectuals. Ordinary workers

cannot even imagine their salary and perks. The policy

decisions in capitalist countries are heavily influenced

by monopoly companies and their experts. In capitalist

governments too key positions are occupied by

professionals and intellectuals. Intellectuals in India

from industrial and commercial institutions offer a good

example. Professional intellectuals have crept into the

leadership of almost all national parties. They are not

the people who have come to occupy party positions

119

The new class

through any people’s struggle. Neither have they any

touch with the common man’s life.

It may be noted that in the post-revolutionary

Russia, the power was usurped and held by a handful

of intellectuals led by Lenin. Neither common men

nor the proletariat had any say in the government. The

proletariat was only figuratively described as the

vanguard of the mass movement for a classless

society. As observed earlier, the proletariat practically

shrank into the party and the party into the Polite

Bureau and the Polite Bureau into the party secretary.

The whole leadership became mere a coterie around

the party leader. Eventually, a new class of clever

party leaders, intellectuals and bureaucrats emerged.

They became the new owners in the Soviet Union.

The workers and farmers who formed the majority

of population were in trouble. The proletariat did

not come to power there. Democracy by the

oppressed workers did not materialize. The power

was usurped by a minority of political exploiters.

They were mostly the clever intellectuals. At no time

in history have the oppressed people come to powers

as a result of social changes. According to Marxism,

five stages of social evolution are primitive

communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and

socialism. Each of these contains its own internal

contradictions. The class war in slavery is between

slaves and their owners. In capitalism, capitalists and

workers fight each other. Marx claims that, hitherto,

the history of the world has been the history of class

struggles. But, in the history of the world working

class they have not been victorious in class war.

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Beyond Red

Slavery was replaced by feudalism, not because

slaves were successful in the class war. Likewise,

feudalism was replaced by capitalism, not because

in the struggle between feudal lords and serfs, serfs

became victorious. So there is no guarantee of the

proletariat winning the class war against capitalists.

When the struggle between slaves and masters was

over, a new class called feudal lords emerged and

replaced both slaves and their masters. Feudalism was

replaced by capitalism when a new force called

capitalists emerged. In the struggle between

proletarians and capitalists, those who will emerge

successful will not be the working class, but a new

class.

It is the rise of this new class which we saw in

the erstwhile Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China.

In a sense, Marx himself has predicted this in the

Introduction to the Communist Manifesto that the class

struggle will result in the complete reorganization of

the society or the common destruction of the struggling

classes. When he says those classes fighting each other

will perish, it means the disappearance of both classes.

But he fondly believed that in the case of the proletariat,

this law would not work and that the working class

would be ultimately successful. But, it was not realized;

nowhere in the world was the dictatorship of the

proletariat materialized. The so-called proletarian

regimes were not proletarian, but party dictatorship. It

was a political oligarchy by a small minority of party

leaders. A new class was assuming totalitarian power

for the supposed benefit of the working class. Such

regimes in the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe

121

The new class

collapsed due to its internal contradictions. This is

what is happening in existing communist countries.

The replacement of one social order by another

is not due to any class struggle, but the changes in the

mode of production. Both capitalism and communism

believe in the endless possibilities of science and

technology. Basically, the mode of production in

capitalism and communism is the same. It is

determined by modern science and technology. The

driving force is scientific technology. It depends

upon human intelligence. Intelligence is the base for

all kinds of exploitation. So, the dictum that the haves

exploit the have-nots is not completely true. It has

to be corrected thus; the intelligent exploit the

unintelligent. Capitalists have become capitalists, not

on the strength of capital alone. He also has

cleverness. That’s why Mahatma Gandhi said

“Capitalists have not only wealth but also

cleverness”. The leaders in the socialist countries

could suppress the people, because they were as a

class more intelligent and clever. In reality, the proleft

intellectuals are this new class. Socialist regimes

have always been run in the interest of this new class.

They did not protect the interests of either working

class or farmers. In socialism too, ‘a few spoonfuls’

have been the lot of the poor.

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Beyond Red

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