Modern Communism and the Political Legacy of Hardial Bains - Part 1: Introduction

August 24, 2002 marks the fifth anniversary of the death of Hardial Bains, the founder and leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). Hardial Bains had a significant impact on the communist movement, not only in Canada, but also in India, Britain, Ireland and the United States. He was active in the communist movement during the entire post-war period, a period during which the communist movement suffered enormous setbacks and defeats, and his insights into the source of those setbacks constitute a valuable legacy for those who believe that socialism and communism still represent the future of humanity. For that reason, Modern Communism considers it important to highlight some of the contributions that Hardial Bains made to the storehouse of communist thinking and will attempt to do so in a series of articles under the above title.

We wish to emphasize that this series neither attempts to be a political biography of Hardial Bains, nor can it be considered an exhaustive treatment of the subject. Following the events of 1989-90 in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Hardial Bains began work on a systematic critique of the international communist movement during the entire post-war period. He hoped that in doing so he could shed some light on the roots, both internal and external, of the setbacks for the communist movement that he had witnessed during his lifetime as a communist activist and leader. It was his plan that the Seventh Congress of CPC(M-L) would elect a collective leadership capable of taking over the day-to-day organizing work of the Party, leaving him free to devote himself entirely to the researching and writing of this political critique. Tragically, he died a mere two months prior to the scheduled date of the Seventh Congress and his life's work remains unfinished.

There is an unfortunate tendency amongst supporters of significant political personalities to become sentimental after their deaths and paint them as being larger than life. In the opinion of Modern Communism such a practice has its place in religious movements, not political movements. It dehumanizes human beings and converts them into icons. In a very real sense, it trivializes the lives of such individuals and makes the goals for which they fought unattainable by "mere mortals".

Hardial Bains ridiculed such practices throughout his life, insisting that this was not the era of individual heroes, but the era of the collective. He opposed any notion that his position as First Secretary of the Central Committee of CPC(M-L) represented anything more a division of labour within the collective, a position which carried with it extra responsibilities, but not extra rights. He often ridiculed the concept that there could be an individual "leader" of the Party, insisting that the sole leadership of CPC(M-L) was its Central Committee. On those occasions when he allowed himself to be described as the national leader of CPC(M-L), he made it clear that this was merely a concession to the political psychology of the Canadian people, who have been taught to think of parties only in terms of "leaders" and "followers".

We mention these facts only because they reflect the profound political philosophy which Hardial Bains arrived at over the course of almost five decades of fighting for what was best in humanity. He believed passionately in the unlimited potential of human beings freed from the shackles of capitalism and class society and his political philosophy was based on this and nothing else. He stressed that theory and ideology must always serve politics and that politics must always serve the emancipation of humanity.

It was this passionate love for humanity, not as an abstraction, but as living, breathing human beings, that inspired Hardial Bains to challenge everything - every tradition and every idea. He considered it especially important to constantly challenge the accepted dogmas of the communist movement. He firmly believed that a communist movement, communist party or individual communist who feared criticism was not worthy of the name. And he applied this principle first and foremost to his own party, CPC(M-L) and to himself. To him, criticism-self-criticism did not mean waging polemics against another party or individual. Rather, it was the scientific method of peer criticism applied to the field of politics. His criticisms could be sharp or gentle, as the case warranted, but they always had the purpose of rooting out defects and deficiencies in political practice and not the humiliation or destruction of individuals. To him, rectifying one's errors was the most sincere form of self-criticism

During the early 1990s, Hardial Bains posed a number of very serious questions to the comrades of CPC(M-L). He asked how it was possible that the communist movement, a movement historically associated with the struggle for freedom and democracy, could be turned into its opposite. How could it allow itself to become identified with concrete walls, restrictions on intellectual freedom and political persecution? He warned comrades against trivializing this question. He pointed out that, while it was true that the propaganda of the cold warriors deliberately falsified conditions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and engaged in all kinds of subversion and sabotage, blaming external pressures alone for the failure of socialism was both simplistic and dangerous. How did the Soviet communists manage to alienate an entire generation of intellectuals, when the best and brightest in any society have always been attracted to communism? How was it that the communists allowed careerists and bureaucrats to highjack their societies and destroy socialism? Why did the old communist movement fail to deliver a qualitatively superior form of democracy? Why did socialism fail to free the productive forces and surpass the capitalist world technologically? He pointed out that the answers to these questions were crucial if the communist movement was to renew itself and remain relevant to the struggle of the peoples for emancipation, democracy and social progress.

In the months prior to his death, Hardial Bains made a number of important speeches which answered many of these questions in a practical way. He spoke about the challenges facing CPC(M-L) and the communist movement in general, and he outlined the features of a modern communist party. In those speeches he stressed the principle of dialectical materialism that nothing can remain the same; everything must either renew itself or die. And the communist movement is no exception to that rule. He emphasized that any communist party, including CPC(M-L), which does not constantly renew itself, which is content to rest on its laurels or spout the dogmas of the past, is already dead and unworthy of the title of Communist.

This is the legacy left to the communist movement by Hardial Bains. During the remainder of this series of articles we will attempt to trace the origins of Hardial Bains' political philosophy and his conception of a modern communist party. It is our hope that in doing so we can make a contribution to the ongoing discussion within the broader movement concerning forms of organization and democracy.