LTTE versus Democracy

In my article Lasantha and Democracy in the Island of January 21 I argued that the LTTE is loosing the war because it practices dictatorship while the Government is relatively democratic, which fits in with the fact that in the modern era wars are invariably won by the more democratic side. I argued further that the explanation for what looks like an invariant law might be found in the fact that dictatorship usually goes with a weakened grasp of reality.

I have just come across excellent illustrative material to buttress my argument in Kumar David’s article The National Question: What next in the Sunday Island of February 15. He quotes from a paper entitled Alternative Conflict Resolution – the Case of Nepal by Dr S.Chandrasekeran, a retired senior officer of the Indian intelligence, which had been posted some days earlier on the website South Asia Analysis Group. The paper addressed the question why armed insurrection succeeded in Nepal whereas it failed in the case of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. The answer given was that the LTTE sought a purely military solution whereas the Nepali Maoists sought a political solution while waging their guerilla struggle. The answer is certainly a plausible one, indeed a valid one, but the material quoted from Chandrasekeran’s paper can equally support the hypothesis that the Maoists won because unlike the LTTE they were democratic and therefore prevailed against Nepal’s dictatorial monarchy.

I will now provide some extracts from Chandrasekeran’s paper as given in edited form in David’s article. “How does one explain the remarkable success of the Maoists in capturing power within a space of ten years? First and foremost the leadership had political skill. It understood that the military campaign had its limits and cannot go it alone without political initiatives at every stage. They were in touch with political leaders of all hues including those who were opposed to their campaigns and methods. Leaders at every level – village, district, and centre – were in touch with political leaders, bureaucrats and ministers; they even had a channel of communication with the Palace. The civilian leadership was in command. The PLA chief was fourth or fifth in the hierarchy and was accountable to the party politburo; the party commanded the gun.”

The strategies outlined above certainly suggest a democratic outlook, but the following is quite explicit that the Maoist organization was democratic, not dictatorial: “There was consensus in decision-making. They differed but at the end of the day, the party resolution was adhered to. The most important aspect was collective leadership; Prachanda was the supreme leader; but he never pushed down his decisions.”

The following is also relevant to my argument, “Though militarily strong and capable of prolonged war, they realized the futility of a military solution and instead supported the democratic movement. They encouraged the civic bodies to take the lead. Thus they were able to make the people’s movement a success in getting rid of the monarchy.”

It seems hardly necessary to labour the point that in Nepal a revolutionary movement organized along democratic lines, and following basically democratic strategies, prevailed against dictatorial monarchy, while in Sri Lanka the dictatorial LTTE lost its war against a relatively democratic Government. These can be taken as two recent examples showing that in the modern era wars are won by the democratic side.

It is an interesting question why the orientations of the LTTE and of the Nepali Maoists have been so different. Doubtless the latter profited greatly from the writings of Mao. Those writings show that while Mao was unimpressive as a Marxist theoretician, he was immensely impressive as a practical revolutionary focusing on the question of the strategies to be followed in coming to power. Those strategies were essentially democratic, focusing as they did on co-opting every group that might be sympathetic or useful to the revolution. The strategies of the LTTE were the very opposite. I wonder whether behind Mao’s strategies was the universalist vision of Marxism while behind Prabhakaran there was no more than tribalism, the politics of identity in which group interests predominate over the interests of the rest of humanity. It seems an interesting question. I merely pose it as an aside in this article without attempting an answer.

I will now provide a few details in substantiation of my point that dictatorship goes with a weakened grasp of reality. According to Chandrasekeran one of the reasons why the Nepali Maoists prevailed was that they understood the importance of India: “They never targeted India outwardly and left the Indian business community relatively free. Indian trucks were freely allowed in and out of the valley. They never abused the Indian leadership openly though in internal documents they referred to India as an expansionist power.” By contrast the LTTE butchered Rajiv Gandhi, which has come to be regarded – including by the LTTE leadership itself – as a monumentally egregious blunder. Had inner party democracy prevailed in the LTTE that blunder showing a very weak grasp of reality might have been avoided.

I have pointed out above that the Nepali revolutionaries followed the Maoist strategy of co-opting every group that might prove to be useful in furthering the revolution. It was a strategy followed successfully also by the Vietnamese and Algerian revolutionaries. In Sri Lanka the LTTE should accordingly have tried to forge close bonds with the Muslims who share common ground with the Tamils as both are minorities. The LTTE did try for some time, though on mistaken premises which I need not detail here. What is significant for my purpose is the LTTE response to anti-Tamil action by Muslim homeguards in the Eastern Province in collaboration with the STF. One response took the form of the mosque massacres in the EP, which were arguably meant to deter the Muslim homeguards from engaging in further anti-Tamil action. But the response also took the form of the eviction of over a hundred thousand Muslims from the North – Muslims who were not involved in any anti-Tamil action, and who in fact were unaware of what was going on in the EP. In what way did the LTTE profit from that outrageous eviction? In no way that any rational mind can identify. I hold that the explanation for that eviction was the dictatorial LTTE’s poor grasp of reality.

I will now give examples of Hitler’s weakened grasp of reality consequent to his acquisition of dictatorial powers. His basic program was to establish a global imperialist system under the domination of the Aryan race – a program that would not have seemed mad at all to many Westerners of his time. According to that program Britain could keep its empire while Germany established its power over East Europe and Russia, in the process making Germany the dominant power in Europe. Where he showed a weakened grasp of reality was in his expectation that Britain would come to acquiesce in that program, failing to grasp something that would have been understood by many intelligent German schoolboys of that time: for centuries Britain had shown that it would rather fight a war than allow the emergence of a dominant power in Europe, a fundamental of British foreign policy that had not changed during Hitler’s time.

Furthermore, under the influence of his Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Hitler convinced himself that Britain would not fight a war at that time however provocative his behaviour. He gave no importance whatever to the high level expertise on international relations available in the Berlin Foreign Office and chose to be influenced by the former champagne salesman Ribbentrop. When Hitler realized that Britain was about to declare war he exclaimed in stunned surprise “Now what?” and glared at Ribbentrop. Consequent to Hitler’s weakened grasp of reality Germany had to fight the war one and a half years before it was ready to do so.

A weakened grasp of reality was also evident in the nonsensical race theories that Hitler came to accept. According to those theories the Russians, like all other Slavs, were fit only to be slaves – that is to say, the people who produced supreme geniuses of the order of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky were fit only to serve the Aryan master race. It was that belief that led Hitler to invade the Soviet Union in the expectation that it would be quickly conquered, after which its vast natural resources would serve to make Germany invincible. By that time Hitler was evidently far too mad to remember what had happened to Napoleon. The invasion of the Soviet Union was the fatally decisive mistake that led to the downfall of Hitler and Nazi Germany

It has to be expected that after the final defeat of the LTTE a substantial proportion of Sri Lankans may want to see some kind of systemic change. It can hardly be denied that democracy has been malfunctioning in Sri Lanka, and that for the greater part of the time since 1948 we Sri Lankans have been ruled by fools. A veering towards dictatorship may therefore seem desirable to some Sri Lankans. In this situation we must bear in mind the dangers of dictatorship. We must also bear in mind the words of the great American journalist H.L.Mencken, “The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.”