Marxism and Neo-Marxism

Although Marxism no longer has the power and status that it enjoyed during the 20th century when it was the dominant ideology of the communist world, it continues to exert considerable influence on social and political movements in the global era. Marxism is both an important intellectual tool for understanding the contemporary global processes as well as an active political force in most parts of the world.

The immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 produced such a climate of [Page 1124]triumphalism in Western liberal democracies that it was difficult to engage in an objective discussion on Marxism. At the start of the second decade of the 21st century and two decades after the new capitalist regimes in Russia and eastern Europe came to power, the situation became a bit different. In these two decades, the debates on globalization—both of capitalism as well as the wider phenomenon of global communications and transnational issues—intensified, with Marxists playing a major role in them. The rising trend of people's movements all over the world, with people asserting their democratic rights against all forms of domination, characterized the new historical period. The global economic meltdown of 20072009, which was the most severe crisis experienced by the Western capitalist systems since the Great Depression, recast some of the earlier debates in political economy and facilitated a more balanced discussion at the global level.

The new environment for a stock-taking of Marxism was also characterized by major new entrants outside Europe and North America into the old streams of debates on Marxism. The Communist Party of China, which had made innovative departures in the course of its leadership of the Chinese Revolution from 1919 to 1949 and had carried out the Cultural Revolution of 1967 to 1977, both under the leadership of Mao Zedong, repudiated the Maoist development path and launched an unprecedented reform strategy in 1978. Initiated by Deng Xiaoping and described as socialist market economy, it achieved remarkable economic successes in the 30 years of sustained growth of the Chinese economy. China's development experience raised many new questions in Marxist political economy. Then there were two unique revolutions—one in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and another in Nepal—which manifested in different ways where the leading communist forces declared their commitment to what they called “socialism in the twenty-first century.” Chavez was engaged in trying to transform Venezuela within the constitutional framework. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) ended its 12-year-old guerrilla war in 2006 and participated in an elected constituent assembly to draft a constitution. In India, the communist movement had a large presence in two streams of politics: one stream taking part in the parliamentary process and remaining in power for a long time in state governments such as those of West Bengal and Kerala, and another stream engaging in armed struggle in vast areas of central India. Thus, centers of theoretical discourse on Marxism were no longer predominantly located in the West. Today, we see vast zones of Marxist practice and much theoretical work, either based on them or critiquing and reflecting on them as well as on global issues, which have acquired greater significance than ever before.

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