Marxism has been in the news recently with our governing political party, the PPP, finally removing it from its constitution on the ground that it’s an ‘ism,’ a relic of the past. There are good reasons, other than immediate political gain or convenience, for removing Marxism-Leninism from the PPP’s constitution which I have advocated in these columns in the past. In any event, the PPP, seeking to preserve the baby while throwing out the bathwater, declared full-throated adherence to the working class and its interests, did not succeed in exorcising Marxism from its constitution.
It was Marx who identified the working class as a distinct group with a specific role separate and apart from other classes and required an independent political entity to represent its interests. Political parties and trade unions purporting to represent “workers” interests have proliferated as a result, some drifting into social democracy. Professor Eric Hobsbawm, a leading authority on European history, has suggested that this was Marx’s most important legacy. The PPP, therefore, as a “working class party,” unwittingly identifies itself in a fundamental sense as an heir of the Communist Manifesto, even as it seeks to extricate itself from his embrace.