As I write, there is a situation akin to dual power in Bangladesh, the country in which I spent the first 16 years of my life. Some of these years overlap with the reign of the brutal Sheikh Hasina, whose regime has been swept away in a matter of weeks by the heroic students and workers of Bangladesh. But the revolution has gone even beyond this. There are committees of students and revolutionaries which are taking over functions of the state. These committees are cleaning up the streets and keeping them safe, defending Hindus from pogroms, ensuring functioning of the hospitals and rooting out corruption in the old state apparatus. What the Bangladeshi bourgeois failed to do for the entirety of my lifetime, the Bangladeshi masses have done in a matter of weeks. I encourage all comrades to read the analysis published by the RCI to understand how such an amazing process unfolded.
As the same analysis points out, however, the crisis of Bangladesh doesn’t only contain the potential for a workers’ republic in South Asia. The crisis also contains the potential for new dangers, primarily due to a lack of clarity on where to go next on part of the leaders of the revolution. The prestige and authority of the revolution is now concentrated among the leaders of the student movement, which produced the vanguard and the martyrs of the movement as a whole. Through a campaign of deception, the old corrupt state apparatus is trying to coopt these leaders so that the revolution can be pushed back into the channels of bourgeois “democracy”. There is a real danger that some of the student leaders, who have played such a heroic role, will give up their place in history for ministerial portfolios. Some student leaders have already made the mistake of lending their authority and prestige to the bourgeois faction led by Dr. Yunus. The comrades of the RCI have warned against this danger and are doing their best to work with the movement to clarify perspectives and program for the Bangladeshi revolution.
For those of us organizing in Canada, there are lessons in this. Firstly, never underestimate the power of the working class when it moves. It has achieved miracles in Bangladesh and it will do so here in Canada. Secondly, look at the impact a genuinely revolutionary student movement can have on society. The participation of the working class is the decisive element in this revolution but the leadership has been supplied by the student movement. This alone should motivate comrades to redouble our efforts to spread Communist influence within the ranks of the students. Thirdly, even the most heroic leaders can go astray without clear ideas and perspectives. Imagine if the student leaders in Bangladesh had been Marxist cadres who had a clear understanding of the nature of the bourgeois state. Instead of lending their authority to this or that wing of the bourgeoisie, they could have used the negotiations to expose the sham of bourgeois “democracy”, to call a congress of the revolutionary committees and to take power in the name of the revolutionary masses. It’s no exaggeration to say that a Soviet Bangladesh would be on the agenda if this were the case. This should spur us to not only study events in Bangladesh but also the fundamentals of Marxism such as Lenin’s State and Revolution. Finally, we in Canada (and the USA) live in a country with a large Bangladeshi diaspora which is actively following these events with great enthusiasm. Our comrades in Britain have been warmly welcomed by the Bangladeshi community in London due to our support for the revolution. This is now creating import links between the RCP in Britain and the revolutionary elements of the diaspora. We need to look for every opportunity to replicate this.
A situation like the one in Bangladesh is inevitable in Canada. Unlike the revolutionaries in Bangladesh, however, we in Canada have the privilege of having a bit of time before the decisive revolutionary battles break out. We must use this time to not only grow but educate ourselves. Without a Marxist education, we too risk giving up our place in history for crumbs from the master’s table. But with such an education, there won’t just be dual power in Canada. There will be workers‘ power, Soviet power, a Soviet Canada, a Soviet North America and Soviet Republic of the whole world.
