Tamil Translation of India’s Working Class and Its Prospects

We are happy to report that the RUPE publication, India’s Working Class and Its Prospects, has been translated into Tamil and published by Alaigal Veliyeetagam. The Tamil title is “India ulaikkum varkkamum athan ethir kaalamum” (Rs 330, 328 pp). It was released during the Chennai Book Fair (February 16-March 6).

The volume contains articles by a number of contributors on a range of topics:

— a discussion of the specific features of India’s working class,
— the conditions that result in bondage and migration of brick kiln labour,
— the leather industry and its workers,
— the conditions of garment workers,
— the effects of contractualisation and informalisation in the organised sector, and the scope for struggle in this situation;
— and the experience of organising workers in Chhattisgarh.

Contributors include:

Tathagatha Sengupta and G. Vijay,
Manali Chakrabarti and Rahul Varman,
Archana  Aggarwal,
Alok Laddha and T. Venkat,
Sudha Bharadwaj,
and RUPE.

For copies, contact:

Alaigal Veliyeetagam
5/1A, Natesan Nagar 2^nd St,
Ramapuram, Chennai 600089
Mobile: 9841775112
Email: alaigal89@gmail.com  

Copies of the English original are available with RUPE (rupeindia@yahoo.co.in)

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Looking Back at 100 Years of the Chinese Communist Party

Class Contradictions Characterise Each Phase

Wu Song[1]

The Communist Party of China (CPC) turned 100 in July 2021. In November 2021 it passed a resolution on its history. Twice in the past, in 1945 and 1981, it has passed resolutions on its history, which marked important junctures in the party’s development. So it is an appropriate occasion on which to reflect on its journey.

There is renewed interest among progressive forces worldwide regarding China. This is on account of developments both internal and external to China. Among the developments which have aroused interest are the following:

(1) Setting itself the goal of “Common Prosperity”, the CPC’s latest history resolution claims that China has recently “brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and created a miracle in the human history of poverty reduction”.

(2) Even as it has globalised, the Chinese state appears to have retained control over certain important elements of the economy.

(3) Among progressive circles, there is also interest in China’s claim to “ecological advancement” through what the history resolution calls “green, circular and low-carbon development”.

(4) Further, the Chinese government has recently taken steps against some well-known billionaires, leading to a crash in their companies’ share prices and consequently in their wealth.

(5) China has also become the target of US great-power strategy, with imperialist attempts to build a global anti-China coalition and to foment secessionist unrest in different regions of China. Progressive forces, on an anti-imperialist basis, have opposed this targeting of China. Some of them hope that China, with its increased economic and military strength, will emerge as an alternative pole against US global hegemony.

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Fall-out of the Ukraine Conflict on India’s Economy

The Problem Is Actually At Home

What impact will the war in Ukraine have on India’s economy? To understand this, we need to look at the state of the economy before the war.

It is already clear that India’s rulers will ascribe all the adverse developments of the coming period to the Ukraine war, an “act of God”, as it were. That provides them a ready alibi, and diverts from the already alarming condition of the people before the impact of the war. Indeed, as we shall see in an article to appear later on this blog, a sort of economic war has been underway in India, with countless victims, yet it is shrouded by a remarkable silence. The principal responsibility for the suffering of the people thus cannot be shoved onto world events; it lies principally with India’s rulers themselves, who have led the country into the present abyss.

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