The recent decision by Guyana’s ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) at its 32nd Congress (May 3-5) to remove ‘Marxism Leninism’ from its Constitution has drawn expected responses from friends and comrades near and far, some claiming it harms the image of the party built and led by Dr Cheddi Jagan.
Dr Jagan was elected Premier of British Guiana in 1953 – as an admitted communist – 18 years before socialist Salvador Allende was elected in Chile; and Cheddi was elected President in 1992, after 28 years of naked dictatorship.
Cheddi’s American-born wife, Janet, was also elected as Guyana’s first woman President in 1997, a year after he died.
Strong nostalgia recalls the PPP as a bastion of Caribbean progressive political leadership and education about issues like: the Historical Role of the Working Class, How Socialism Differs From Capitalism and creatively-applying the rudiments of Marxist-Leninist theory to local political practice, including in trade unions and communities.
Early responses to the snippets of reports by media houses not interested in the explanations offered by PPP General Secretary and ex-President Bharrat Jagdeo have prevailed; and assessments of congress voting results have neglected what they say about how-much the party’s membership has changed since Janet died in 2009.
It was always clear, from the time he was elected President in 1999 — and during his 12 years in office – that Jagdeo, who’d by-then spent more-than-half his life in the Soviet Union, approached leadership differently.
But the PPP delivered in government under his leadership and its well-oiled election machine continued yielding victories in 2011, when Donald Ramotar, a former Editor of the World Marxist Review (WMR) in Prague, Czechoslovakia, was elected President after Jagdeo’s two consecutive terms outed from candidacy, thanks to the term-limit factor.
Handcuffed by the opposition having a one-seat majority in the National Assembly, Ramotar’s administration served only three-and-a-half years before the party was defeated in 2015.
But the PPP/C won again in 2020, returning to office in August that year, after the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled that the election results had been effectively hijacked – for all of five months – by the defeated APNU.
The PPP, now over-70 years-old, has outlived all other Caribbean political parties and entities that promoted study of Scientific Socialism and Marxism-Leninism – from the original Communist Party of Jamaica (CPJ) to the later Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ), from the Organization for Revolutionary Education and Liberation (OREL) to the New Jewel Movement (NJM) in Grenada, plus the string of progressive political entities and individuals in leadership position in governments before and after the Grenada Revolution of 1979.
But the growing and vibrant Caribbean anti-imperialist movement basically folded-up after the Grenada Revolution committed suicide in October 1983.
Dr Ralph Gonsalves in St. Vincent & The Grenadines, keeping his head above the post-Grenada water, drew criticism from extreme left-wing colleagues who had problems with him attending funerals clasping a Bible.
But just look at how ‘De Comrade’s Chapters-and-Verse knowledge of the Christian Holy Book has helped him explain the principles of Socialism at home, well-enough to now be, in 2024, the longest-serving CARICOM Prime Minister, leading an ever-victorious party and a state with diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Vladimir Putin insists the demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (or Soviet Union) was “The greatest mistake of the 20th Century!”
It also led to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) being effectively reduced to less-than a shadow of its former self, as did all the former ruling parties in the Soviet Republics and the global Socialist community.
It also leading to the demise of the Warsaw Pact and other international socialist alliances, while the European Union grew and the Western NATO Alliance remained intact and – the G-7 nations, the seven richest in the world, started filling the political and other gaps created by the USSR’s voluntary exit.
The few ruling communist parties worldwide today – including China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam — that might have chosen to maintain adherence to Marxism-Leninism in their Constitutions, each have their unique ways of surviving in today’s 21st Century global political concrete jungle.
However, having been elected by popular vote, progressive ruling parties’ successes are judged, not by their ideological adherence, but by their delivery record – and the extent to which they fulfil campaign promises.
Any party can call itself ‘socialist’ and ‘socialism’ can be flavoured, like with Europe’s ‘Fabian Socialism’ in the post-war era that also saw emergence of West Indian Labour Parties that preferred the ‘non-Soviet’ blend.
The ‘isms’ may come and go, but, like science, Capitalism and Imperialism will continue to exist as defined by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, respectively, whether one believes they exist, or not.
Likewise, Marxism-Leninism will continue to be available to all parties that may wish to learn how it was applied in the USSR and the former strong and powerful socialist community.
History has shown that building socialism is not easy in multi-party states where private sector funding for parties is unrestricted and unlimited and where national constitution’s guarantee (by requirement) permanent ‘Opposition’ presence in parliament, even where a party won all the seats contested.
The liberations movements that took office in Southern Africa now include leaders and families with immense wealth – and likewise in Latin America, where former fighters have converted to building businesses and depending on winning elections to survive politically.
Winning revolutions and elections are always the beginning towards the ultimate end – and like in all cases, the PPP will be judged by Guyanese citizens and voters more according to how it handles the nation’s growing new wealth, than how it describes itself.
And from all indications, under the popular leadership of President Dr Irfaan Ali, backed by Vice President Jagdeo and the CIVIC Alliance led by Prime Minister Mark Philips, the PPP is far from losing its winning ways.