Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Echoes and Intersections I 195
Central Jail. By the time both were released in 1946, the
war was over and arrangements for the British transfer of
power were under way.
During the 1940s, JP began to have increasing doubts
about the Soviet model, compounded by his disillusionment
with the CPI and its tactics. In "My Picture of Socialism;' in
1946, he emphasized that Marxist principles could not be
applied uniformly or dogmatically, without taking into consideration
India's specific history and conditions as well as
the changes in the world since Marx's death.51
In 1947, he cautioned in "From Socialism to Sarvodaya"
that "in a society where it was possible for the people by
democratic means to bring about social change it would be
counter-revolutionary to resort to violence" or coercion.
Socialism, for its existence, required the presence of democratic
freedoms. The dictatorship of the proletariat therefore
had to be abandoned on the grounds that it created "in effect
... the dictatorship of a bureaucratic oligarchy:'52
In his 1950 pamphlet "Democratic Socialism: The
Ideal and Method;' JP argued for the Significance ofhuman
values in "any scheme of socialist reconstruction:'
Socialism, he insisted, "could not be equated with mere
nationalisation of industry and collectivisation of agriculture.
It should mean the end of exploitation, injustice,
oppression and insecurity, equality of opportunity, and an
equitable distribution of the good things of life." And "if
under such an economy all political and economic power
is concentrated in the hands of a party oligarchy, irreplaceable
and self-perpetuating, there can be no socialism but its
suppression, no revolution but reaction." True, socialism