Sir,
Sir,
I am writing to express my opinion which is that the statement of the CC of the CGPI dated 8th December 2011 on the eve of the 63rd Anniversary of the signing of the United Declaration of Human Rights entitled "Clash of human rights versus monopoly capitalist “right to maximum profits”!" is a remarkable theoretical contribution to contemporary Marxist-Leninist thought.
This statement has come at a time when the world wide campaign by the US and capitalist-imperialist states against Communism has been continuing with the claim that it is the opposite of human rights, and have been claiming that capitalism and its democracy stand for individual freedom and political rights. This is a continuation of the cold war legacy, where it was posited that in the bi-polar division of the world, it was somehow the US and its orbit that stood for 'liberty' and 'freedom', while the Soviet Bloc and China which stood for the opposite.
The events of the last two decades have exposed the true and ugly face of the capitalist-imperialists, who have wrecked country after country with their insatiable thirst for world conquest, and with the capitalist democracies in each country carrying out unprecedented crimes against their own peoples. The bourgeoisie in each of their countries have enriched themselves on an unparalleled scale at the expense of the working masses, which have experienced precipitous decline in their standards of living.
The statement has pointed out that our party has through the present period, and the one preceding it has heroically defended the cause of human rights by refusing to kowtow to bourgeois pressure, and to the pressure to defend atrocities against peoples and countries irrespective of whether it was in the name of defending this or that ideology, or the interests of this or that bloc. The issue of human rights thus stands at the important cross roads of practice and theory, which must be rooted in the ground reality which unfolds. The issue of human rights today has appeared today as a defining issue as its negation has taken place at the hands of the bourgeoisie which places the right to maximize profit and rights of capital above that of any human right. In particular it is the bourgeoisie that has been championing the notion that the state has no duties, except of maintain peace and conditions requisite for capital to reap maximum profit.
In this regard, let us consider the issue of human rights, which in the book of any one with a grain of conscience would include the right of all human beings to a decent life. The arguments in favour of the status quo offered by bourgeois economists are that it is not possible to provide for everyone, without which there can hardly be any content to human rights. By calling the bluff of these economists, the CGPI has done itself proud.
These aspects which had been proposed as an amendment to Article 4 "…the state must ensure each person protection against criminal encroachments on his rights; provide the conditions preventing a threat of death from starvation and exhaustion" [as quoted in the statement] was opposed by the western Second World War victors, as they must have sensed that it would be precisely they who would renege on these duties of the state.
Thus the theoretical contribution of the statement has been to bring to the centre stage the issue of human rights and duties of the state at a time when states have reneged on all their duties except to be at the dictate of capital. The conclusion of the statement which further advances the theory is in the articulation that "The struggle for human rights must be directed at replacing capitalist democracy with a modern proletarian democracy, with a new Constitution that enshrines the inviolability of human rights, along with enabling legislation and ENFORCING MECHANISMS to make sure they are never violated in practice under any pretext." [emphasis added].
I remain indebted to the CC of the CGPI for its heroic stand on the matter.
Sincerely,
A. Narayan, Bangalore