The beginning is always beautiful

Quite a number of young men find Communism irresistible, but as they move deeper into their relationships disappointment invariably sets in. I was no different.

It is so because they gradually realise that the ideology doesn’t take into consideration human nature. It doesn’t see man as a fallen creature replete with weaknesses.

I too fell for the fabulous promises made by Communism. It spoke of everything we love to hear: no exploitation of the weak, no concentration of wealth, respect for people’s needs, recognition of merit and no chaos over religion. And words like “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” played the cherry.

The words were first heard at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The impact of such a phrase was unimaginable because they came from a man who decisively influenced history.

I saw the phrase scribbled on at least 10 walls in an Indian city.

I too fell for the fabulous promises...

Infatuation of any kind makes us do crazy things. I used up lunch money to buy Communist literature, thankfully, I didn’t fall sick.

When my mum heard about my obsession she gave me a mouthful. She said she didn’t approve of the ideology because it wanted people to keep away from God. My traditional grandmother disliked our cook who used to hoist a flag of the Communist party on the roof of his house on May 1.

Well, as I grew in years I could see Communism wasn’t spreading as fast as it was expected to. No doubt it had earned a certain degree of dignity for the common workers, but as a world power it was expected to have achieved a lot more and faster. That didn’t happen because serious questions were being raised about its feasibility at multiple levels and by influential world leaders. That it hadn’t considered an ideological quarter for human weaknesses was beginning to take its toll on the movement.

The soul of Communism— elimination of private property— was a huge challenge to man’s acquisitive instinct. In my humble opinion, it shouldn’t have overlooked the hard truth that not many landlords enjoy losing their land.

Well, the campaign began to develop cracks, somewhere dangerously wide. Its constituencies were witnessing pockets of protest.

Expectedly, one day an important gentleman declared the shelving of the belief, which undoubtedly was the first serious attempt at equality.

The declaration had a cascading effect, leaving the ideology with an uneven constituency.