There are many questions that the PPP leadership needs to answer in order to regain the confidence and support of the people and the glory that it has lost over the years.
The party is facing serious political, ideological and organisational crises. The main question is whether Bilawal and some of the party’s left-wing leaders will be able to turn around the PPP’s fortunes. Will Bilawal be able to play the role that his grandfather Z A Bhutto played when he was a young and charismatic leader? Mere use of old radical slogans and rhetoric will not be enough to attract the new layers of liberal and progressive youth and workers.
Bilawal Bhutto made a balanced, sober and passionate speech without mocking his opponents. But it will be wrong to compare Bilawal with his grandfather or even with his mother. Bhutto and his comrades were lucky enough to launch the party in the 1960s.
The 1960s and the 1970s were among the most radical eras of human history. Both the objective and subjective conditions were ripe for the creation of a radical left-wing and populist socialist party. The public were confident enough to take on the ruling classes. Trade union movements, student movements and peasant movements were strong. The working class was full of energy, courage and revolutionary zeal. However, these conditions did not exist when Bilawal partially took over the party. I will deal with this issue in the next article.
The PPP was formed 50 years ago as a populist socialist party. The party adopted a clear socialist programme. The PPP’s founding documents were unambiguous about it: “Only socialism, which creates equal opportunities for all, protects [people] from exploitation, removes the barriers of class distinction, and is capable of establishing economic and social justice. Socialism is the highest expression of democracy and its logical fulfilment”.
The party declared that establishing a classless society was its main objective and promised to transform society on socialist lines. But it decided to adopt the path of a democratic struggle as a means to bring change instead of following the revolutionary path to overthrow the capitalist and feudal order through a mass revolutionary movement.
Bhutto’s efforts to highlight the irreconcilable class struggle made him the most cherished leader in Pakistan and transformed the PPP from a small group of a few hundred people to the largest party in the country almost overnight. It was the promise of a revolutionary change that gave hope and courage to the oppressed.
Z A Bhutto became the popular face of the party. As a charismatic leader and an exceptional orator, he popularised the ideas of equality, democracy, constitutionalism, social and economic justice and socialism. His radical and populist left-wing rhetoric and people-centric agenda captured the imagination of the toiling masses.
It was ideologues, indigenous intellectuals and young activists – like J A Rahim, Dr Mubashir Hassan, Hanif Ramay and Bhutto himself – that played a key role in formulating the ideas that went into the party’s programme. In fact, the idea to form a popular socialist party was the brainchild of J A Rahim, a former civil servant and Marxist ideologue, who wrote most of the documents and literature produced by the PPP. He convinced Bhutto – and subsequently other socialist leaders and intellectuals – to form such a party.
J A Rahim, Dr Mubashir Hassan, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid and other student, trade union and peasant activists were the main architects who set the foundations for the PPP across various cities, towns and villages of Pakistan. They used various Maoist and Leninist organisational methods in this regard. These activists set up numerous party offices, formed youth, peasant and labour groups and struck alliances with radical left-wing student and trade unions. A combination of ideologues, intellectuals, organisers, agitators and mass leaders eventually emerged as a force to reckon with over a short span of time.
The working classes launched a mass revolt that challenged the exploitative system and the Ayub dictatorship in 1968-69. The mass revolutionary movement of workers, students, peasants, middle class intellectuals and activists not only shocked the ruling classes and the state apparatus but also surprised many left-wing groups. The PPP intervened and took part in this mass movement. Contrary to the generally fabricated perceptions, the PPP was organised on the streets, factories, campuses and farmlands during the movement.
The slogans and radical programme of the PPP weren’t the only elements that earned the confidence and support of the radicalised masses. The PPP’s participation in the real struggle of the people also drew supporters towards the party. The emergence of the PPP as a force for the oppressed classes wasn’t just a result of its electoral victory in 1970 but the political by-product of a mass upsurge. The party gained widespread support because of its struggle and its radical programme of socialism. The PPP first emerged as a party that highlighted the class struggle and then as an electoral force in 1970.
The PPP was launched on November 30, 1967. By the time the 1970 election approached, three strands emerged from within the party. First, the socialists wanted to take a more radical line. Second, the centre-left wanted a softer tone and a reformist line. Third, the right-wing democrats, the upper middle class professionals and the feudal lords wanted to give a democratic face to the party so the ruling classes could become a part of it.
It was a time of intense ideological and political discussions and debates to formalise a strategy and a future course of action. The slogans of the party’s 1970 election manifesto reflected these strands. Bhutto tried to appease the different trends. Socialism is our economy. Democracy is our politics. Islam is our religion (faith) and all power rests with the people. These slogans were the reflection of that internal ideological struggle that was taking place at that time.
Part – II
The PPP was formed in a period of intense ideological, political and class struggle in the country. The dominant political trend within the party – till 1973 – was radical leftwing, socialist and reformist.
The PPP introduced a series of economic and social reforms between 1972 and 1974. Between 1973 and1975, Islamic socialists and the reformist left dominated the party. The party started to move gradually towards rightwing policies from 1975 onward. While the PPP regime remained largely secular, progressive and anti-imperialist, its move towards the right continued until the 1977 elections. The party even deleted ‘socialism’ from the election manifesto of 1977 to appease right-wing voters and leaders.
In 1977, the PPP succumbed to the right-wing pressure. This didn’t mean, though, that it became the darling of the right wing. On the contrary, rightwing politicians and religious parties supported and financed by industrialists, petty capitalists, reactionary feudal lords and traders stung by Bhutto’s socialist policies became even more vehemently opposed to the PPP regime. However, by then, the party had all but alienated its leftist support base. Leftist workers, youth, intellectuals, activists and students were disillusioned and thus left the party. But the party was still popular enough to comfortably win a second term.
But Gen Zia toppled the PPP government and imposed a most repressive and reactionary dictatorship. He orchestrated a flawed trial and subsequently hanged the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, Z A Bhutto. The military regime did everything possible to destroy the PPP, but failed. The military intervention also cut across the right-wing move of the party, whose top leadership was either in prison or forced to go into exile.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto and young Benazir Bhutto led the struggle against the military dictatorship. This struggle once again radicalised the party. With no chance of an election in sight, and up against a stubborn and violent military dictatorship that was reaping the benefits of international support due to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the PPP’s leadership largely fell into the hands of young radicals and old guard of the party. Radical left-wing liberals and democrats within the party’s second and third tiers were at the forefront of the resistance against the Zia dictatorship. New leaders emerged in the party on every level; and party workers and leaders sacrificed a lot during this struggle.
Benazir Bhutto stamped her authority on the party during this struggle, becoming an icon of democracy and resistance. The PPP went through many highs and lows under her charismatic and courageous leadership. But the party once again moved to the right after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the right-wing turn of social democratic parties. Capitalists, big landlords and the right-wing petty bourgeoisie gradually became the dominating force in the party. Benazir Bhutto, though, still managed to maintain a certain degree of charisma and popular support among the toiling masses.
The PPP abandoned its radical past and socialist policies, and embraced the ideas of the market economy and neo-liberalism. Benazir adopted these economic policies, but never brutally implemented them. Under her leadership, the PPP was a social-democratic party with Pakistani characteristics; the party was never a social-democratic party in the European sense. This was a popular trend that emerged in many former colonised countries in the 1960s and 1970s.
The tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007 left the party without a popular and charismatic leadership. Her husband – and current co-chairperson of the party – Asif Zardari is not associated with any particular ideology. He is a pragmatist and strongly believes in power politics. Although he successfully completed his term, he lost popular support in Punjab – from which the PPP hasn’t recovered. Asif Zardari might be a clever and intelligent politician as far as power politics is concerned but he seems clueless and visionless when it comes to ideology. He has converted the PPP into a party of feudal lords in rural Sindh, which seems to only be interested in protecting the interests of a handful of people. I have no words to explain the present ideology of the party. I am not sure one can call it a centre-left or left-liberal party. The party is dominated by right-wing conservative pragmatic leaders belonging to the ruling classes. The present party is not even a shadow of its past.
There are only two trends in the party at the moment. One is the right-wing conservative pragmatic trend led by Asif Zardari, while the other is the liberal left or left-reformist democrats who are around Bilawal Bhutto. The liberal left is very weak and not yet in a position to challenge the hegemony of right-wing domination and to take the party towards a reformist and progressive direction. Asif Zardari is not in the mood to give a free hand to young and energetic Bilawal to lead the party on popular and radical slogans and programmes. Father and son made contrasting speeches at the Islamabad public gathering to celebrate the 50th founding day. Asif Zardari is a boring speaker without any substance and appeal. On the contrary, Bilawal has the charisma, passion and appeal to enthuse the audience. But he still lacks clarity. While he repeatedly declares he will make Pakistan a social-democratic society, he has not yet elaborated his exact position.
Bilawal Bhutto has a choice. He can choose the road of radical reformism in the footsteps of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders to challenge the political hegemony of the elite and the establishment, and to oppose a free-market economic agenda. Or he can stay stuck to the present policies of appeasement and collaboration. The choice is between the politics of change and the politics of the status quo. He needs to choose sides now.
Article first appeared in thenews.com.pk on 08 & 15-December-2017
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/253477-ppp-the-struggle-within-part-i
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/256178-ppp-the-struggle-within