Reinventing Zulfi Bhutto

By Lal Khan

Socialism for most of the stalwarts of the PPP of that time was more of a slogan than its scientific understanding, application and theoretical clarity. This directly affected organisational structures and prevented the growth of steeled cadres

For the PPP, with all its factions and groups, the birth and death anniversaries of its leaders have become the mainstay of its political activity and perhaps the only. With the passage of time, as the PPP leadership drifted more and more away from its founding socialist ideology and compromised with the capitalist system, the theoretical, political, policy and programmatic issues were systematically sidelined. The ‘cult’ of the leader has been constantly built up and magnified at the expense of ideology. Even the political interactions in the party have been curtailed to the infinite gestures of praise for the leaders.

January 5, 2014 marks the 86th birth anniversary of Chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The party leaders at different tiers of the party cut birthday cakes. Quite a few are those who were fervid collaborators with Bhutto’s executioner Ziaul Haq. Some distributed sweets rejoicing Bhutto’s murder. Hardly anyone reminisces the ideals that made Bhutto a legend. The programme he gave through the PPP to the masses to win their hearts and minds is opportunistically ignored. The party’s founding documents have been abrogated and the elementary reasons of the PPP’s meteoric rise to become the largest party of the country, almost overnight, have been distorted and ridiculed. The crucial role of the party’s ideology has been replenished by the virtues and acclaim of the individual personality. The form has replaced content.

It was also the character of the epoch and the revolutionary ferment of the period that played a vital role in making the PPP a tradition of the masses for generations. The surging movement and the radical sway of the masses were rapidly transforming Bhutto himself. His genius was that he palpated the pulse of the masses better than most. While the traditional left was toying with the idea of a bourgeois democracy, Bhutto gave the programme of revolutionary socialism. He understood the impact of the economics of a decayed capitalism that ended up concentrating wealth in few select families whilst impoverishing a vast majority of the population. More importantly, he comprehended how and why the young and a virgin proletariat became class conscious and its aspirations of eliminating its exploitation, and transforming the system. Although the party was created in the turbulence of a revolutionary storm and gained a mass base at lightening speed, it was also the reason for the lack of a more solid ideological nurturing and unanimity of the party rank and file. Socialism for most of the stalwarts of the PPP of that time was more of a slogan than its scientific understanding, application and theoretical clarity.

This directly affected organisational structures and prevented the growth of steeled cadres who could take up the tasks posed by the revolutionary challenge the movement had thrown up. The ideological diversities, ambiguities and wrangling of different currents created a vacuum for the formation of the cult of a leader to maintain unity of the party. That was the main reason why the bourgeois state debilitated by the defeat of 1971was able to engross the PPP in its structures. The repressive state was so fractured that it could not have been able to crush a revolutionary insurrection if PPP had adopted that course. The cult of the personality enabled Bhutto to balance conflicting and contradictory pressures. On the one hand he attempted to placate the state, landed aristocracy and religious fundamentalist and on the other the working class and the peasantry.

Bhutto paid a heavy price for carrying out half a revolution. The capitalists and the elite that were bruised by Bhutto’s nationalisations and radical measures struck back with a vengeance. Imposition of the vicious Zia dictatorship and the ultimate assassination of Bhutto was not just a vendetta of the system against the mass challenge of the 1968-1969 revolution but also the real fear of the Bhutto and PPP’s ability to mobilise the masses on to the streets and dangers this would have posed to the vested interests of the ruling classes. US imperialism in particular connived with the Islamic fundamentalist Zia in Bhutto’s murder and the onslaught of political Islamic counter revolution that Zia brutally carried out with harrowing repression, torture and atrocities against the youth and the workers of this country.

Incarcerated in his death cell, Bhutto went through another thorough introspection. The conclusions he drew are of historical significance. The main lesson he learnt from this experience of his life and death was unambiguous — class struggle was irreconcilable. That is what he wrote in his last work ‘If I am assassinated?’. This was in fact his last testament. The subsequent leaders of the party have not just erased this but consigned founding documents and policies to the dustbin and consciously failed to organise the party for the task of emancipation of the oppressed masses. Rather, they took the mass appeal and the traditional base of the party for granted and used it for accumulating wealth, perks and power. They even joined the chorus of the right wing that socialism was a utopia.

Once again, all hopes are being focused on another dynastic scion, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. In his speech on his mother’s death anniversary he made some radical overtones. His stance against privatisation has not been against the policy but against the individuals who would benefit from this plunder of national assets. In a recent article, Bilawal openly espoused free market economics and capitalism. The current discredited leadership of the PPP, despite a resounding defeat in the May 2013 elections, has failed to draw correct lessons. The populist gestures, hairstyle resembling that of Zulfi Bhutto and practising his body language will not go that far to bring the PPP to its popularity ratings of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The form has to be given content. Adopting its socialist and revolutionary origins are necessary to reincarnate the party’s historical relevance and a militant mass base. Rather than going in the opposite direction condoning this rotting system, its founding programme — with necessary fine-tuning for the current epoch — has to be put forward. Even more radical and far-reaching measures are indispensable today to transform a system that has deteriorated from what it was in 1967 when the founding documents were written.

The PPP cannot afford to take its mass traditions for granted as shown by its recent experience. This is a dynamic relationship and when the previous traditions become redundant and crumble, from the ashes new mass political traditions arise with the resurgent fresh waves of class struggle.

The futile attempts to reconcile classes within society and the failure to implement far reaching radical reforms within the confines of capitalism were the main cause of Bhutto’s demise. Without its revolutionary overthrow there cannot be any salvation. In Zulfi Bhutto’s last words, “The writing is on the wall”