Commemorating Comrade SN Tagore

 

    Comrade Saumyendranath Tagore (8th October 1901 – 22nd September 1974) understood well that fascism cannot be replaced with liberalism. In the ‘Preface’ to his book Fascism, he wrote, “In any previous epoch of human history, there had never been such a profound binary division within the human race as what we witness in our current era. The people within these two distinct camps can broadly be classified as either communists or bourgeoisie, and we can demonstrate this division through these two definitions. Those who aspire to dismantle the decaying capitalist society and are committed to establishing a new societal order are called communists. On the other hand, those who seek to preserve the foundation of the capitalist society, either for their self-interests or class interests, fall into the bourgeoisie category. Even though the bourgeoisie may consist of multiple parties, there exists no fundamental disparity among them; all these parties share the common objective of upholding capitalism. As the workers’ revolution draws nearer, these parties are bound to disintegrate and form fascist parties. The era of the liberal bourgeoisie safeguarding capitalism has long passed. They have no alternative but to discard the facade of liberal democracy and employ the police and the military to preserve capitalism. When imperialism is falling, and the workers’ revolution is developing, those inclined to protect capitalism must adopt the guise of fascism.”

    In another work, “The People’s Front or the Front Against the People,” he wrote, “The bourgeoisie can no longer be democratic and democracy can no longer be bourgeois. Democracy can exist and blossom only in its proletarian form.”

    From Lenin, Trotsky, and Gramsci, we must learn what fascism is and how to fight it. As Gramsci famously wrote in his “Neither Fascism nor Liberalism: Sovietism,” “The liquidation of fascism must be the liquidation of the bourgeoisie that created it.”

    We commemorate Comrade Saumyendranath Tagore on his death anniversary.