Khanewal AMP

Many of you may already have read in the Urdu newspapers that CMKP Punjab President and Jamaat e Islami Kissan Board had a verbal altercation at the Khanewal Anjuman Mazarin Rally. Here is our version of events.

The Khanewal rally of the Anjuman Mazarin was attended by about 8,000 people (the tents contained an estimated 6,000 and there must be at least two thousand outside). Half the participants were women. This was a major rally of the AMP after the May crackdown. In the interrim many smaller rallies were organised including one in Renalakhurd.

The CMKP Punjab President spoke directly about a socialist revolution the program of the communist mazdoor kissan party. He also explained to the peasants the the military and the MMA were in collusion against the people of Pakistan and that in order to win basic and fundamental rights it would be necessary to carry through a revolution in Pakistan.

For sometime now the CMKP has been breaking this long held taboo in Pakistani politics where socialists have been confined to their own circles and they do not speak about socialism or communism in large public rallies or to the general public. The repression in the previous decade was such that most parties are afraid of calling themselves socialist or communist and especially of boldly taking their program to the people. Here in Pakistan the dominating form of revisionism is the practice of keeping socialism from the people. Even where socialists are involved in trade union or peasant organisations they seldom speak about their political ideas, concentrating solely on the lowest and most local direct economic struggle at the expense of the larger political program. Most are afraid of a reaction from the vastly more powerful right-wing religious forces and also from the enormous state. Socialism and specially COMMUNISM are words restricted to meetings of party cadres and intellectuals or circles where it is safe. These safe circles also imply that our movement is stuck in the same narrow circle mentality with all its petty squabbles.

The CMKP has consciously made an effort to get everyone on the left to become bolder and to take their program directly to the common people. To speak about Marxism-Leninism, about socialism about communism and about revolution. Some say that we are stupid, rash, and fool hardy. We believe that the workers movement cannot become a mass movement for socialism unless workers are educated about socialism. The economic movement does not spontaneously lead to an advanced political movement for socialism. The opportunists say they are hiding from the agencies, but this is complete rubbish. The agencies know who they are and even where they operate. Only the workers don't know what these parties are really fighting for. If the workers know what communism and socialism actually mean, they would embrace these views with open arms and our movement would break out of its circle mentality and become a mass based workers movement. The party must be hidden, true, but the program of the party, the ideas of socialism must be the most public ideas in society. The opportunists have parties that are exposed and programs that are hidden from the people. Its time to turn all this around.

That is why the CMKP is boldly taking Marxism-Leninism to the people. Naturally there is also a steady reaction that is building to its advances. First in the face of internal opposition. Those who broke from us, dropped "communist" from their name and colluded with the military and specifically the Water and Power Minister Aftab Sherpao. These were elements that were terrified of the religious-right and the establishment and want to curry favour with them by changing their colours. They have really disappeared into the political wilderness and for most of us have become entirely irrelevant.

And now an external reaction directly from the Jamaat e Islami. At the Khanewal Rally, viewing the popular acceptance of the ideas of socialism, the general secretary of the Kissan Board and the General Secretary of the Jamaat e Islami launched a verbal attack on the CMKP Punjab president and against socialism. The attack itself is totally irrelevant because it is was filled with complete political shallowness. But the fact of this verbal altercation forced everyone of the speakers to take a position. We are proud to say that the overwhelming majority of the speakers including Asim Akhtar (peoples rights movement) and Asma Jehangir (HRCP) defended the position of the CMKP against the JI. This is another step forward against reaction.

We must become bolder comrades.
We must speak about socialism communism, Marxism-Leninism, and abour revolution.
Most importantly, we must take these ideas to the masses of working people who will inevitably accept these revolutionary ideas and create a mass based movement.