A new type of Leftism is emerging, the Bolivarian alternative

"We are trying to find an alternative path for our own development"

The Left Front in West Bengal entered its 30th year in power on June 21. In an interview to The Hindu, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee speaks of the changing perspectives over the last three decades, the new Left alternative being considered, and the path it is expected to determine. Excerpts: Marcus Dam

The main thing I would like to emphasise is that this is an un-travelled path and we have to frame our policies on the basis of our understandings, our political philosophy, and our readings of the objective situation in the country... We are very conscious that we are just a State and can't treat West Bengal like a sovereign country. We have to work within the framework of the general economic policies being pursued by the Centre.

We are closely observing the developments taking place all over the world; changes that are taking place in China and Vietnam, on one side, and in Latin America, on the other. In the latter, a new type of Leftism is emerging and an interesting idea is also emerging — that of the Bolivarian alternative. We are trying to learn from what these countries are actually going through; in their economic polices, and in political terms what is the alternative as well as how they are fighting the political and military hegemony of the USA. This is one experience.

But you have been increasingly looking at China and often cite it as an example of a successful economy.

That is the second experience — China and Vietnam. They learnt lessons from the failures of the Soviet Union that stemmed from being totally cut off from world economy, its highly centralised command economy, and also the absence of the concept of market forces. These countries have decided that this command system does not work, that they will have to ensure different forms of socialist economy including allowing private capital and foreign investment in the country, and will have to join world trade.

Are we looking at an economy being increasingly driven by market forces in this era of globalisation?

Some people think you have to only follow the market economy. But we don't think [the] market economy is omnipotent. Yet we can't just bypass the market. In our case we allow market forces to operate but we also know that it marginalises the poorer sections of the society. As a Left government we have to take care of these people. We will also have to take care of the workers who have lost their jobs following the closure of factories — something which is a national phenomenon. We are trying to give them some allowances, provide them training programmes. In certain cases we are trying to reopen the factories like we have Dunlop Ltd. and Jessop.

We also have to seriously do something for the workers of the unorganised sector like construction workers, bidi workers. Real estate business is booming, townships are coming up but the interests of construction workers need to be protected. We have come up with a new law to protect unorganised workers and announced Provident Fund benefits for them. This is another aspect to the Left alternative — to protect the interests of farmers, the workers, those in the unorganised sector and backward sections including the tribals and ethnic minorities.

In a civil society you must have close contact with many democratic institutions, experts' and professional bodies. Earlier, communists used to think, as might have been in the case of the erstwhile Soviet Union, that communists know every thing under the sun. This is not right.