Dear Editor,
I am privileged. Former President Donald Ramotar has placed me in the company of “middle-class Indians”, “CIA people” and “sophisticated brown and black Englishmen” (SN, 12/7/21). I wonder how he arrived at his categorizations. My humble beginnings were in an obscure little Berbice village, a family of 9, in a household where the soul breadwinner slavishly laboured for Bookers well past his retirement age, tired, broken and almost hopeless. The Cheddi Jagan sycophants who apparently have little or no dispute with my original piece on Forbes Burnham, appear to be experiencing a conniption and are circling the political wagon. We expect that; it’s not a surprise. We live in an age of information and misinformation. We have an obligation to go where the facts take us so that we can piece together the puzzle to understand the big picture. And that’s where President Ramotar’s missive is most puzzling.
President Ramotar’s admission that Jagan was a Marxist and his [Ramotar’s] forthwith dismissal of Cheddi’s dogmatism and his inflexible Pro-Soviet stance do not go far enough in defining the essence of the man (SN, 12/7/21). Despite gaps of omissions from Cheddi’s book and in his voluminous writings lodged at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, MI-5 files [which released information up to early 1961] revealed Jagan’s intimate links with the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and Billy Strachan, both pivotal in ensuring funding to the PPP from the Soviet Union through the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). The Jagans were totally oblivious of the fact that MI-5 intercepted their correspondences, bugged their phones, and tapped into private conversations held with CPGB Marxist theoreticians, Rajani Palme Dutt and Idris Cox. These revelations were not simply about Jagan’s Marxism. They revealed, unequivocally, a compelling loyalty to Soviet communism.
As early as 1951, when he attended the Berlin Youth Festival in East Germany, the 33-year old Jagan contacted the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s leadership seeking assistance (including a printing press and Marxist literature) after establishing his Marxist credentials. On August 9, 1953, two months before the Constitution was suspended, in a broadcast on Radio Demerara, Jagan declared that capitalism is doomed: “…in due course…into a higher and more efficient socialist system. Likewise, socialism itself will evolve into the higher communist stage of society…I am a great admirer of the Soviet Union…” These were the kinds of decisive factors that led to suspension of the Constitution in October 1953. Cheddi’s thinking since the late 1940s remained unfailingly synonymous, lock, stock and barrel, and almost totally aligned with the canonical pronouncements and any variants thereof, that emanated from the Soviet Union. These are the undeniable facts, as substantiated by Cheddi’s own voluminous writings and Central Committee speeches.
Cheddi’s dogmatically pro-Moscow posture and defense of Castro’s communist regime explains why, although the British initially preferred to support Cheddi over Burnham (certainly from 1957 to 1963), the Americans would eventually pressure a reluctant Harold Macmillan to change the electoral system after the June 1963 meeting with Kennedy. After 1957, Jock Campbell, the Chairman of Bookers, perhaps the most influential person with respect to BG affairs in the UK, and who clearly favoured Jagan over Burnham, made an important overture. Impressed by the policy of “Guianisation” of Bookers, Campbell made an offer to Jagan to allow his government, unions and local entrepreneurs the opportunity to become majority shareholders in Bookers. Profes-sor Clem Seecharan convincingly argued that this equation, given Campbell’s influence, could have been a decisive factor in the Colonial Office taking a more conciliatory position towards Jagan after the 1957 elections. Campbell was a close friend of Iain Macleod, the liberal Tory Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1959 to 1961. Jagan rejected the offer, twice, in 1958 and in 1960. Cheddi wanted full nationalization, which was entirely consistent with Marxist theory and praxis.
Castro and the Cuban Revolution emboldened Cheddi’s dogmatism. Cheddi was one of few political leaders who visited Cuba, twice, in early 1960, praising the Cuban Revolution and declaring Castro “the greatest liberator of the 20th century”. It was Cheddi’s imprudence that led to the bungling of his most important subsequent meeting with Kennedy [on October 25, 1961] where he affirmed great admiration for Khrushchev’s Russia, despite cautionary advice from Lloyd Searwar and the British attaché in Washington.
Even after that disastrous meeting, Cheddi still convinced himself that the US would provide assistance for “rapid economic transformation” of the former colonies. He arrived at this conclusion one month after meeting President Kennedy, when he was made aware of an interview Kennedy gave to Aleksei Adzhubei, who was the editor-in-chief of the Soviet newspaper, Izvestia, and son-in-law of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev. The PPP publications, including its monthly Thunder, unabashedly made it clear that they accepted the USSR and Cuba as their guiding north stars, to be emulated. The suspension of the Constitution and US intervention later were “short-term setbacks”, as so eloquently expressed in Cheddi’s book: “History and time are on our side” . La lucha continua. Entire villages, including obscure ones like ours, would turn out to watch silent black and white short films on VI Lenin, as young Indians, donned in Che Guevara t-shirts, were enlisted to indoctrinate the downtrodden and trusting masses.
The indignation evoked by those who reacted to references made to Cheddi’s lack of religious and cultural moorings missed the point. Jagan described a demeaning experience of caste prejudice during his formative experience in Georgetown during his sojourn at Queen’s College. He was deeply humiliated at the hands of an upper caste Kshatriya Hindu family when he was made to sleep on the floor although there was a spare room with a bed in the house. That experience, among others, alienated Cheddi from all religious canons, apparently for good. It deterred him from having any kind of religious or cultural sensibilities. It was Eusi Kwayana, a former cadre who provided organizational support during Cheddi’s early political career, who discussed this issue with VS Naipaul.
In fairness, Kwayana’s perspective was NOT that Cheddi should have embraced Hinduism, as the sycophants aspire to uphold. Rather, Kwayana intimated that had Cheddi possessed a modicum of religious sensibilities, even in some attenuated fashion, or if he had an inclination to any such cultural orientation during his formative years, he might not have totally embraced as virtual gospel Marxism-Leninism, as prescribed by the USSR. Ramotar must know that while Marxism was the epiphany of “total knowledge” as Cheddi confessed to Naipaul, and, as his communist friend, Richard Hart, told Frank Birbalsingh, it was Cheddi’s devotion to his ideology that kept him going during 28 years in Opposition. Soviet-style Marxism-Leninism, ironically, became like a religious conviction, one that gave way to ideological inflexibility and tragic political mis-judgments that have had catastrophic repercussions for the country, particularly the loss of most of its best and brightest of all races, to the capitalist countries.
Moses Bhagwan, former Chairman of the youth arm of the PPP (Progressive Youth Organisation) from 1962 to 1965, who was expelled for not adopting the Soviet line told Professor Birbalsingh that “Janet in particular and the leaders of the party were pro-Russian”. Bhagwan questioned whether Jagan’s Marxism-Leninism could resolve all of Guyana’s social problems, including its racial dilemma. The Jagans used their Marxist creed and loyalty to the Soviet Union to sustain an organization which survived primarily on the racial/ethnic loyalty of Indians. It was certainly not the promise of Marxist socialism that glued Indians to the PPP – it was racial fears of Burnham’s PNC and unadulterated admiration for Cheddi. It cannot be emphasized enough that Indian support for Cheddi was purely racial/ethnic – not ideological, after the split in 1955. The most serious indictment of Jagan’s devotion to Soviet communism, was the “flight to freedom”, as Jagan’s loyal supporters (yes, Burnham’s too!) migrated to imperialist metropoles around the world.
The legacy of Cheddi Jagan must be considered in its totality. The goliath David who put the West on trial became a victim of his own doing – not only because of his political naïveté, but because his primary inspiration was driven by an incontestable loyalty to Soviet-style Marxism. It was a mindset fully established since the late 1940s. Both Jagan’s and Burnham’s legacy must own up to what they bequeathed us – among which is a divided nation where race/ethnicity remains a primary political variable.
After Jagan officially joined the world communist movement in 1969 in Mos-cow, the PPP was represented on the editorial board of the World Marxist Review. The journal internationalized the core values of Soviet communism [subsidized and maintained a Soviet chief editor]. Donald Ramotar, a protégé of Cheddi, became Jagan’s representative on its editorial board for eight years. He certainly has acquired experience in propaganda on a grand scale. Ad hominem attacks, embedded in his missive, have always been an even greater talent of his. I leave the former President with these words: Satyameva Jayate – The Truth Always Wins.
Sincerely,
Baytoram Ramharack
