Comparative Analysis: Marxism in Soviet Union and India

Marxism has been and continues to be an ideology that many aspire to achieve in its purest form. Often, this aspiration manifests in the form of political parties that appeal to the masses through a shared feeling of injustice, exploitation and a need for change. This application of the communist state has differed from case to case and has adapted itself to create different versions of itself (Leninist Marxism, Mao-Marxism etc). A comparative discussion of these applications reveals important similarities and differences in the structure of socialist states. One such comparison would be the Bolshevik Party of Russia or what is today known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1917) and the Aam Aadmi Party in India (2012). This discussion

The Bolshevik Party’s power was based on the support of the Russian proletariat. Its ideology was based on Marx’s theory of the stage development of modern society- from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and finally to capitalism. The Bolsheviks believed that all power should belong with the Soviets. Soviets were made up of workers and peasants organizations whose party membership ( members were diverse from Independents to Mensheviks to Socialist Revolutionaries to Bolsheviks) was less important than the fact that they were the body that represented the proletariat and the peasantry’s needs in the USSR. They were elected by their co-workers in order to best politically represent the community and its needs. This was to create a clear power hierarchy that was based on the Marxist theory of the worker government. The Aam Aadmi Party, on the other hand, believed that the safeguards provided by the constitution of ‘equality and justice for all’ had been breached. They believed that India’s political and economic elites had taken advantage of their position at the expense of the common man. Thus came about the name of the party- the Aam Aadmi Party or the Common Man Party. Even through its election symbol of the broom, which symbolizes the dignity of all labor, AAP aligns itself to the Marxist message of the importance of the