Skip to main content

How Left is Right


Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled against Putin in June this year and he died in a plane crash in August. Under normal circumstances, his death wouldn’t have taken two months after his rebellion. Putin’s Russia is not going through normal circumstances, you know.

Putin is a Communist. But his hero is Peter the Great, Russia’s first Emperor. Peter’s statuette adorns Putin’s private spaces. What Peter did to his own son is quite like what Putin did to his closest friend Prigozhin. Peter’s son rebelled against him and then defected and escaped to Vienna. That was in 1716, just to remind you. Peter lured him back to Russia promising security. When the young man reached the ‘security’ promised by his father, he was tortured to death.

Putin had given all assurance to Prigozhin that his rebellion would be forgiven. Call it political strategy or diplomacy or sheer trickery, whatever you like. Karma too, if you prefer.

Putin is the ultimate product of Communism. Dictatorship is the natural outcome when too many people decide to live together as a single community. Vasudaiva Kutumbakam is good in scriptures. All men are equal only in certain philosophical ideologies. Put ten people together as one single community and see what happens in a week’s time. They will raise hell.

 Communism is just another dreamy ideal. Like Thomas More’s Utopia where there was no money because the citizens shared everything from meals to whatever was produced. Jesus, who inspired More, was probably the first Communist. He told his followers: “If you have two coats, give one to him who has none. He who has food is to do likewise.” [Luke 3:11]

The early Christians did just that. Read this passage from Acts 4. “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had…. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”

That is just what Communism is. A society without class divisions or government. Yeah, no government either. A government is needed only in a society that is not guided by the ideals that Communism upholds. The basic principle of that Communism is: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

You give your best to the society and the society will give its best to you. Simple. Ideal. Paradisical.

It was tried in too many places from the ancient Christian Rome to Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China. And it failed everywhere. Including the Pope’s Rome.

The God That Failed is the title of a book written by six eminent writers, including George Orwell and Stephen Spender, all of whom were Communists once. These great thinkers all gave up Communism eventually upon realising its impracticality.

Who likes to work like a donkey: from each according to his ability? Whose needs are circumscribed by the society: to each according to his need?

George Orwell’s allegorical novel Animal Farm gives us the most vivid picture of what happens in a Communist society. The sincere workers perish like cretins and the cunning creatures rule like Putin. Or like Xi Jinping or Kerala’s Pinarayi. Greed, not need, is what drives humans. Greed for power, for wealth, for delights.

The Communists in Orwell’s Animal Farm end up as greedy, ruthless and selfish capitalists. The difference between Peter the Great and Valdimir Putin is only in children’s textbooks. Adults know how to behave more intelligently than Prigozhin. Communism is good in textbooks only. In actual practice, there is little difference between the left and the right. How different is India’s Right from Russia’s Left?

PS. I would never have written a post like this had it not been for S who wanted me to write on Communism for reasons known only to her. It is just a coincidence that my last post too was in response to a similar request.

 

 

Comments

  1. Thoughtful post as always. Communism is just a charade and while the capitalists aren't saints, i'll atleast respect that they're "honest" about their greed :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, not only honest they boast about it and flaunt it in Forbes and such places.

      Delete
  2. Hari OM
    Yup, the human critter, no matter how intelligent, is driven only by that programmed cell for 'survival' and no matter how we wrap it up and eulogise, society is still and ever will be survival of the fittest... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now for a note on Socialism please! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. A perfect sandwitch made of Lava and smeared with cyclone,,👏👏👏

    ReplyDelete
  5. Last years made me despise everything that is remotely connected to communism. Be it here or outside. However I agree with you about Vaisudhaiva kudilbakam being not a possible scenario .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Communism is also a kind of religion with its tall promises. That's why it becomes so despicable to thinking people.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...