COMRADE V I Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary was observed in the Party central office at Delhi on April 22. Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the CPI(M) placed flowers at the bust of Lenin in the office premises. Yechury said that the anniversary would have been celebrated throughout the country by mobilising millions of people, as was done during the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution and 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx,  but due to the Covid-19 pandemic the people are celebrating it in their homes by reading Lenin, sharing his pictures and also holding virtual meetings on the social media.

Yechury later held a live session on the social media both in English and Hindi describing the relevance of the day. He spoke on the life and works of Lenin and described him a great philosopher and an epitome of struggle for human emancipation.

Yechury said the elementary truth is that the pandemic may not distinguish between human beings but the capitalist system does and today the manifestation of capitalist loot and abject poverty is making lives of majority of the people more vulnerable. The danger today is that those who are deprived of shelter, food and work and likely to suffer more.  The CPI(M) has asked the government to ensure cash transfers to the poor and to ensure that food is distributed to everyone.  Else, he said, we may have a situation where non-pandemic deaths may almost match the pandemic deaths in the country. This has brought the ugly face of class divided society to the fore.

Yechury spoke of the works of Lenin and made reference to his seminal work- ‘imperialism the highest stage of capitalism’. Raising a question as to why Lenin was able to embark on this sort of work, he said that Lenin was able to grasp the essence of Marxism and was able to internalise it, which provided him the capacity to write theoretically and work practically in almost all endeavours of life, from science, to philosophy to politics and so on. The most brilliant part was his assessment of the contradictions developing and coming to the forefront.

Lenin, Yechury said, was able to develop Marxism and understand the development of capitalism to another stage- imperialism. It is here that he gave the slogan of ‘hit at the weakest link of imperialism’; and a blow was struck in Russia and led the October Revolution.

Yechury also mentioned the contribution of Lenin towards understanding reality and said that the living soul of Marxism is ‘concrete analysis of concrete conditions’. This is what was essentially grasped and internalised by Lenin. But not just an individual, Lenin was able to build a vanguard of the working class and its allies. The Party of the working class was so enmeshed with the people that the slogans of the party were assimilated by the people. Yechury said only arriving at correct conclusions is not enough; these have to be practically implemented and that is what Lenin was able to do.

Yechury also made reference to the post Soviet era and mentioned how it is important to grasp the concrete conditions developing in the world today. The neo-liberal form of exploitation in the world for maximization of profit for accumulation of capital is the order of the day. Under globalisation, there are native partners to globalisation in the country, who are also part of this exploitation and hence a firm alliance of worker-peasant along with other allies has to be developed to build an alternative.

Yechury said the present order is also pregnant with crisis and waiting for a rupture for a new order to set in. But what was true during Lenin’s era remains valid even today; capitalism does not fall by itself, it has to be thrown out. Yechury also made reference to the subjective factor, i.e., building and strengthening a revolutionary party which is linked to the people to use such a situation for advancement.