An interview with Comrade Ramesh, an activist of the Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency.
Militaant.com: Comrade Ramesh, first of all, we are very happy that you and the other comrades have finally reached a relatively safe place more than three years after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. We know you have endured many problems and challenges. We hope you can continue the struggle in exile with renewed enthusiasm and organisation.
Please explain a little about the history of the founding of the Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency. How was this organisation formed? What was the background of its activists? What did they have in common and what were their activities focused on? Especially your activities within the working class.
Comrade Ramesh: I thank all the comrades involved in the revolutionary, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency, who provided us with the opportunity for this interview.
As the comrades are aware, after about six years of continuous involvement in Afghanistan’s protest movement, the Afghan labour activists finally reached the conclusion that they must unite their activities in a revolutionary organisation and provide wider grounds for more involvement in labour struggles. This had two parts:
First, as a group of labour activists in Afghanistan, with the co-operation of experienced comrades of the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency, we were able to launch the Workers’ Action Committee of Afghanistan. This committee allowed us to increase our practical activities in relation to the situation of workers and intervention in the anti-war and anti-terrorist protest movements day by day. Also, using clandestine and semi-public methods, we organised protests against violence against women, children and religious minorities. The activities of the Workers’ Action Committee continued with the publication of the Kargar-e Pishtaz (Vanguard Worker) periodical under the suffocating conditions of the former regime and other reactionary forces. This journal contained content and reports of workers’ protests and strikes, and despite the very limited resources, we were able to distribute it continuously among the oppressed sections of society, especially the workers in the factories. This publication made efforts to organise independent workers’ organisations and included reports reflecting the committee’s worker activists’ ongoing activities. Many issues of this publication were published.
In addition, the Workers’ Action Committee of Afghanistan provided a suitable platform for revolutionary and democratic practical activities in the Afghan workers’ movement. This committee’s activists made many sacrifices under the very dangerous conditions of the former government to turn this committee into a specific and reliable base. The membership of the committee was formed through several important protest movements, one of which was the Enlightenment Movement (Jonbesh-e Roshanayee) after the brutal attack of the Taliban terrorist group [in May 2017] on ordinary people in the Zanbaq intersection, which resulted in the massacre of about 500 defenceless people. This movement later turned into the Resurrection and Change Movement (Jonbesh-e Rastakhiz wa Tagheer). During its protests, the regime shot dead a large number of demonstrators. The ISIS terrorist group, with the collaboration of the regime of the time, organised terrorist attacks against the protestors of the Enlightenment Movement and over 300 people were killed. We actively took part in both of these protest movements with our independent slogans. These two protest movements can be considered the most prominent interventions of the Workers’ Action Committee of Afghanistan. During these protests, our activists raised and proposed slogans against capitalism and imperialism among the protesters.
The second part, includes establishing the Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency. Its members were worker activists and revolutionary Marxists who not only believed in Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist principles but also the Leninist method of building a vanguard party like the Bolshevik Party which succeeded in October 1917 (the first and only workers’ revolution). And this move is a huge honour and pivotal turn for Marxist youth in the history of anti-capitalist struggles in Afghanistan.
As well as these, our struggle is focused on the fight against opportunist and counter-revolutionary deviations of all Stalinist, Maoist, reformist and other petty bourgeois organisations that were active in the past or present. By adopting flawed policies, these deviationist movements caused a lot of damage to the body of the Afghan workers’ movement, and our tendency was the first revolutionary movement based on the principles of revolutionary Marxism. And relying on the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and other true fighters, we became one of the staunchest critics of the existing deviationist tendencies in Afghanistan. Our tendency was launched through the initiative of the comrades inside Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency and was based on the Marxist Revival project. It can be safely said that it took significant steps to revive the workers’ movement in Afghanistan.
Militaant: What was the general atmosphere in Afghan society, especially in cities like Kabul, where you were active? We mean the general atmosphere of all movements, including workers, women, national minorities and the youth. In addition, we would like to know your assessment of other leftist and socialist tendencies and progressive organisations, as well as reformist and feminist groups, and the supporters of so-called “civil society” that are favoured by imperialism.
Cde Ramesh: During the presence of NATO forces and US imperialism, which supported the Afghan regime for twenty years, a kind of fragile neoliberal democracy was created by the US. This allowed various movements, from the reactionary forums and activists in the name of women’s and workers’ rights, children and different social organisations, whether independent or dependent on the regime, to take shape under the banner of civil society. Of course, we should not forget that within that regime itself, Mafia figures and agents of terrorism and reactionary-Jihadis also existed and were active. These were themselves the most important obstacles to democratic political movements and caused terror and fear among these protest organisations and movements.
The various organisations and movements that were formed, fulfilled the goals of neoliberalism and capitalism that were linked to imperialism. The workers and toilers in Afghan society were gradually moving towards a more correct understanding of the character of the anti-people programmes of the regime and imperialism, especially US imperialism. But unfortunately, we are suffering from the absence of the revolutionary party that could organise this consciousness and become the revolutionary leadership of the protests of the masses. In the meantime, the leftist movements were involved in fleeting propaganda activities that had no continuity. Perhaps it can be said that the Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency and the Workers’ Action Committee of Afghanistan worked better than the other movements and despite the limited resources, were able to emphasise the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist issues and workers’ activities and to raise the general level of consciousness in society step-by-step.
Militaant: What effects did the disaster of August 2021 and the return of the Taliban to power have on the Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency, the workers’ movement and other movements and organisations?
Cde Ramesh: Overnight, the regime collapsed and President Ghani escaped.
Afghanistan once again fell into the hands of the Taliban terrorist group, and all the half-finished and fragile achievements of the imperialist formal democracy fell apart, and the era of reaction returned and was strengthened more than before.
All political activities, political movements and organisations, even elements of the former regime, fell apart and dispersed. The Taliban regime violated all basic civil rights, which had not been properly formed yet, and closed schools, universities and all educational centres to Afghan women, and banned any activity or criticism by individuals, institutions and political movements against this black, hollow and reactionary regime. All criticism was forbidden and wrongdoers were condemned to death.
Unfortunately, this situation meant that the Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency and the activists of the Workers’ Action Committee of Afghanistan could not continue their activities as before. Some lived a hidden life and some of them had to flee the country because they were threatened with arrest and death. But all these problems cannot and should not prevent our struggle for the realisation of the goals of forming the Leninist party and the working class seizing power. In any situation, by considering the security situation, revolutionary Marxists try to use different tactics to continue this fight. This struggle will continue until the victory flag of the proletariat is raised above the ruins of capitalism in Afghanistan.
Militaant: How do you assess the role of American imperialism and the Afghan bourgeoisie in this disaster?
Cde Ramesh: For many years, American imperialism was having diplomatic meetings with the criminal Taliban leadership in Doha, Qatar. While these Taliban leaders were subjecting the vast masses of the toilers, workers and defenceless people of Afghanistan to deadly terrorist attacks, imperialism was signing contracts and trading away the future of these toilers. It was the continuation of the same flirtations that finally led to the surrender of the whole of Afghanistan to the Taliban on August 14, 2021. Overnight, American imperialism, along with its allies, packed its bags and ran away – which in my opinion was more of a theatrical and predetermined escape. The whole world watched the events and disasters of the last fifteen days of August 2021, after the fall of Kabul, through satellite broadcasts. The flight of those dependent on imperialism and the terrified people. The whole world witnessed the historical events of the downfall.
We can clearly see the traces of imperialism in all capitalist and anti-worker policies in Afghanistan, especially in the last hundred years. The latest example, more than ever before, laid bare the enmity of imperialism against workers and the vast masses of toilers in Afghanistan. The workers and toilers of Afghanistan, along with the anti-capitalist campaigns, can never forget the role of their sworn enemy, which is imperialism.
Militaant: What do you see as the reason for the unpreparedness of the entire Left, the progressive forces and the so-called “civil society” against the disaster of August 2021? What lessons are there to learn – not just for you, but for all revolutionary Marxists in the world?
Cde Ramesh: Unfortunately, Afghanistan’s Left, as the rest of the Left around the world, is in complete confusion today. We also have this sad experience. In Afghanistan, the Left developed in the traditional and Stalinist model. This was a blow against revolutionary Marxism. It caused a deep consciousness crisis for the masses, especially the youth. Some of them are still stuck with those same beliefs. Today’s Left in Afghanistan still sees communism through the viewpoint of the Khalq and Parcham factions of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, or through the Maoists’ perspective. Many young people think that the Left is the same as these and still believe those movements are Marxist, Leninist and communist.
In the past, when the political atmosphere was a little more open and the possibilities of fighting against capitalism and imperialism were more open, the deviationist and Stalinist policies of the Soviet Union produced anti-Marxist parties, under a left guise, which grew in many countries, and Afghanistan was no exception. This caused us to not be able to organise a Marxist political force during the last two decades so that the workers’ movement could, if the conditions were ready, help them take political power. In this way, yet again, a golden opportunity was lost and in the absence of the revolutionary party and the broad organisation of the masses, once again barbarism reigned and workers could not take power due to the absence of the revolutionary party.
The situation after August 14, 2011, also clarified another issue: that the parties and political movements that considered themselves Marxist, Leninist, and leftist, showed that they have absolutely no connection with the workers, toilers and the vast masses of Afghanistan, and they mostly consist of a number of conscious intellectuals, whose knowledge of Marxist and leftist issues is limited to studying them in Marxist books and pamphlets, and have never had “a hand in the fire” of protest movements and revolutionary and workers’ movements. The existing currents and concocted parties of Afghanistan’s left, like the fabricated and proxy parties in Iran and other countries, have no connection with the workers’ movement. These are created from above; they are separated from the workers’ movement and do not tolerate any criticism or dissent.
The Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency made many efforts to unify these movements in anti-regime activities, but considering our very small numbers and very limited resources, unfortunately, this will be a very long path. But we believe in the necessity of founding a vanguard revolutionary party, and the necessity of continuous intervention within the daily struggles of the working class, standing together with the workers’ movement of Afghanistan and are pursuing these goals.
The Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency, while participating in protests and strikes and emphasising unity of action, has always maintained that we must continue the struggle around a specific programme. But unfortunately, the proxy organisations that lack any roots in society, refused to accept this. They only base themselves on the principle of “I know everything” and today they suffer a terrible fate and their irrelevance to the workers’ movement and the people of Afghanistan was proven.
Militaant: What are your perspectives for organising in exile, especially now that your members are scattered?
Cde Ramesh: The members of the ARMT were involved in the struggles in Afghanistan from the beginning and fought in the tumultuous anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist fronts. The khatekargari.wordpress.com website shows our practical struggles. Our goals are clear and specific. The main tasks can be summarised as:
• Help to create independent labour organisations inside Afghanistan’s factories.
• Continue to organise and to struggle against the capitalist and reactionary Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
• Form clandestine socialist cells inside the factories and other workers’ associations.
• Prepare and build the revolutionary vanguard party consisting of worker-intellectuals and intellectual-workers.
• Organise the revolutionary vanguard party and move towards confrontation with the entire capitalist system linked with imperialism, especially US imperialism.
These are our overall goals for continuing the struggle. This perspective has not changed. The daily struggle of the ARMT members who live abroad is to continue to prepare the new tactics and realise these tasks. Our struggle will continue until the Afghan proletariat gains power and punishes the criminals who attacked the rights of the Afghan people.
The enemies of the Afghan people and the class enemies of Afghanistan’s workers should know that the Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency is their most stubborn and most irreconcilable enemy. We stand together with the revolutionary Afghan workers’ movement and rely on the traditions of revolutionary Marxism and the teachings of Lenin and Trotsky, the revolutionary leaders of the Russian October Revolution, and will continue our struggle.
We are not like the People’s Democratic Party, or the Maoists and other self-flattering petty bourgeoisie parties. We are Marxists. We are against all structures, foundations and the existence of capitalism. They should be afraid of our revolutionary organisation and character. Our goal is not to allow capitalism to breathe freely in Afghanistan. We are and will always be the true workers and toilers and anti-capitalist fighters.
Afghanistan Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency
20 October 2024
