In the Context of the Centenary Year of the Bolshevik Revolution 1917 (Also called October Revolution 1917) in the Russian History, one short book of just 73 pages, which can be freely downloaded at Marxists.org is worth reading. Here is link: Click here to go to https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf, for downloading the book.. For those Readers who do not have time to look into this 73 page book, can study this Book Review by Reddebrek Jun 24 2017 at his blog. Link: Click here to go to https://libcom.org/blog/whatever-happened-dear-old-lenin-24062017 and study the Review. The Review is titled: "Whatever happened to Dear old Lenin?". The Article has quite a large number of quotes from the "State and the Revolution" by Lenin, and the Essayist's observations, many of which are reasonable when viewed from a 2017 Environment. Of course, we all of us are, lettered and thinking individuals, with individual freedoms to think and express in the way we like.
ybrao-a-donkey's personal views which are not intended to be imposed on others
In my youth, and early middle age, I used to be a great Admirer of Lenin, his being the first person to have tried to 'reproduce in action' the precepts of Karl Marx and Frederic Engels. It is the case of "Great Expectations" which ought not to have been hoped for from Pioneers of Movements.
What has particularly disappointed me, in Lenin's Administration?
I thought that Lenin would implement the Communism / Marxism / Socialism (or whatever Marx and Engels have advocated / dreamed of), in its true spirit, at least substantially. But it did not happen.
Example
I thought that Lenin would completely nationalise Agriculture, and make into a State Enterprise, in which peasants, agricultural workers, landlords (kulaks) of the pre-revolution days will be Employees of Equal Pay and Equal Rank. I expected that both the profits and risks/losses from agriculture would go to the State. But, it didn't seem to have happened. Instead, he had introduced a system of targets of production to peasants, and purchase of their produce at State stipulated prices. That meant, the risks of agriculture, he had asked the farmers to bear. Though theoretically, the peasants could keep with them the production made by them in excess of State-imposed targets, that could never have happened because targets were too steep, and unattainable even in the best of Crop Years.
This system might have helped the Urban Organised Labor, the 'Blue Eyed Boys' of the Soviet Dictators, by providing them cheap agri-products procured from the peasants and supplied by the State, at the cost of peasants.
Can you correlate this to what is happening now (2017) in India, and some other countries, including some European countries?
Ans; Though ostensibly there are some benefits intended to come to rescue of farmers, such as Crop Insurance, Minimum Support Price Mechanism, Construction and Maintenance of Market Yards, Ever-rising prices of Agri-Inputs in spite of Input Subsidy Schemes etc., the most important missing element continues to be RISK MANAGEMENT which the small and marginal farmers are ill-equipped to handle. These risks are of myriad types such as vicissitudes and vagaries of monsoons, pests, excess domestic production, dumped imports at prices less than the domestic costs of production, from overactive exporting countries under the pretext of commitments to WTO-GATT and Free Trade Agreements, to name a few. The problems of small and marginal farmers are compounded by their inability to keep their produce(s) at home till prices change in their favor. Consequently, they are forced to sell their produce at below-cost prices, while hoarders and blackmarketeers who purchase from the peasants pocket super profits arising out of upward price changes.
One major difference we can see between the conditions of the Euro-American-ANZ farmers, and the Indian farmers, is that EurAmANZ farmers do not commit suicides, whereas Indian farmers commit suicides regularly, harassed and abetted by Private money lenders. Another important difference is, in India, we have millions of 'oral-tenant farmers' that is their leases are not rendered into writing by means of lease agreements with land-owners. That means we get three types of farmers:
1) 'On paper-farmers' and 'Real Farmers'. On paper-farmers (Absentee Landlords) collect all the benefits which Governments extend to farmers from States' and Central Exchequer. In this class, we get Government Employees, Private Executives, Professionals, Politicians, et al., apart from genuine Land-Lords who cultivate lands with tractors and machinery.
2) Real farmers (oral tenants who are not recognised by State) are left to their fate.
3) Mixed- farmers: Marginal farmers who own very small pieces of land say less than 2.5 acres which they themselves cultivate, and to support their livelihood, they take on oral leases additional, say 3 or 4 acres o land to supplement their activity.
This is a 1000 page subject, though even if I write the 1000 pages, nobody will read. This is the first of the 10 parts series, which I intend to write.
To come back and continue adding / deleting / modifying. सशेष. ఇంకా ఉంది.
