HYDERABAD: Prominent historian Dr Mubarak Ali has called for bringing about significant change in society by eliminating hereditary and dynastic politics and feudal system.

Basic issues of people would remain unresolved as long as real, people’s democracy was not established in the country, he said.

Dr Ali was speaking at a seminar on socialist revolution organised by the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) at Sindh Museum on Wednesday.

He said: “People must wage a struggle to bring about real democracy in order to resolve their problems.”

The new generation, which was more enthusiastic, hard-working and talented, would hopefully play its role in bringing positive change in society, he said.

He threw light on the struggle for socialist revolution in historic perspective and said that although Karl Marx had died, 100 to 150 people visited his grave daily and remembered his tremendous services to society.

He said that Lenin brought socialist or communist revolution on Oct 17, 1917, which impacted the entire world. It was Russia which compelled forces of France, United Kingdom and Israel to retreat after they had jointly attacked Suez Canal, he said.

He said that Russia always supported smaller countries while Europe and imperialistic states destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries and kept them in chains by doling out to them colossal loans.

Progressive Writers Association Pakistan general secretary and a former director of Pakistan Study Centre at Karachi University, Prof Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, said that communist revolution was an experiment in changing the foundations of society and creation of a totally different society which was not based on exploitation.

He said that Soviet Union served as a shield for smaller countries which protected them from American and other Western policies of annihilation as people saw them. After the collapse of Soviet Union, the smaller countries became vulnerable, and Iraq, Libya and other countries were ravaged by American imperialism, he said.

He said that the state’s failure to fulfil its commitment of social welfare resulted in sudden collapse of a glorious experiment that Soviet Union was.

Member of politburo of Communist Party (KKE) of Greece Giorgos Marinos said that comrades and activists of CPP were struggling for the rights of working class which was facing capitalist system of exploitation and anti-people policies of governments.

He said: “We bear the brunt of attacks of forces of reaction and obscurantism that are a product of the rotten system and serve its needs for the repression of the labourers and people’s movement.”

He said the violence of bourgeois power confirmed analysis of the communists about the dictatorship of monopolies. This conclusion also emerged from the experience of KKE which faced over its 100-year history illegality, dictatorships, imprisonment and exile, torture and executions and murders of thousands of communists.

“Bourgeois democracy is in the service of the few, the exploiters, while socialist democracy is in the service of many and it can satisfy the expanding popular needs,” he said.

CPP secretary general Imdad Qazi who presided over the seminar said the socialist revolution consisted of four main responsibilities, including free and quality education for all, food for all, specially focusing on pregnant women, employment for all and houses for all married couples in society.

Meanwhile, a good collection of Sadequain paintings about socialist revolution titled ‘Saga of Labour, In the Memory of Heroes’ and others were also put on display in the auditorium by the nephew of Sadequain, Sultan Ahmed.

Earlier, CPP took out a big rally from Hyderabad railway station to the press club.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2017