Pakistani Writers Who Were Marxist- HouseofPakistan

Gone are the days when people shied away from the word “Marxism” like hell from incense. The time for jokes about the confused Marx, the womanizer Engels, and the unfortunate Western intellectuals who were bewildered by the voluminous Capital is over. The concepts of “private property”, “exploitation”, and “commodity-money relations” have become a daily, and for many painful reality. It was here that some people remembered Marxism.

Read about Pakistani poets and writers who were known for Marxism.

Western Marxism

However, in fact, they did not forget about him. The political and economic language of all the post-perestroika years were replete with concepts from scientific communism: “basis”, “superstructure”, and “relations of production”. It is interesting that all this subconscious Marxism was rather used and worn, however, it was sewn by the Mayak factory. The ideological storms of Western Marxism of the last fifty years have been for obvious reasons.

Russian Marxism

The study of Russian Marxism as part of the left movement in Russia in world historiography is in a special position and this position should be recognized as extremely unfavorable, although there is a huge number of published sources, special literature and archival materials.

Despite the long history and full-fledged renaissance of studies of other parts of Russian leftism populism, neo-populism, socialist revolutionaries, social democrats, Mensheviks, anarchists, constitutional democrats closely adjacent to the socialists and others the history of early Russian Marxism and Bolshevism has not yet experienced its adequate weight renaissance. In August 2017, the Tsiolkovsky Bookstore Publishing House published a book by M. Kolarov “From Marxism to Idealism and the Church (1897-1927).

Having put special attention to the historical language and the socio-cultural context of the creativity of our heroes as our research banner, talking about criticism, demythologization and “archaeology”. Least of all, we want to belittle the will of the heroes to self-development for the sake of their cultural and political memory and everyday life. But we know too well the price of ideological freedom to forget about its inevitable dependence on political lack of freedom, intellectual fashion, the filiation of ideas, books and newspapers to read. Strictly pursuing the idea of the predominance of internal, personal intuitions and resources in the evolution of the writer, defending a high degree of his spiritual independence from the surrounding intelligentsia.

Marxist and Art

Art, from a Marxist point of view, can be both as a part of the industry (the art industry), which some leftist Marxist theoreticians are now trying to reduce art in its entirety and as an ideology. However, it is important to realize at once that the arts are not homogeneous in this respect. We must largely attribute the evolution of architecture, for example, to the evolution of the art industry. And it should be considered in relation to the evolution of building materials, construction tools, financial combinations that grew up in different eras, etc.

True, next to this, one will inevitably have to talk about architecture as an ideology. It is impossible, even just looking from the Parthenon to the Cologne Cathedral, not to notice that it is not only about the evolution of technology. But it’s also about the evolution of class moods and ideals. Nevertheless, this ideology is inextricably intertwined with forms to such an extraordinary degree that it is absolutely inseparable from it.

Music

The situation is somewhat different with music. Here the dependence on material technology is incomparably less. Of course, it is possible and even necessary to fit into the history of music, the history of instruments, the history of the combination of instruments. But it is quite clear that here the instrumental side is only partly independent. A man from time immemorial to the present day is the owner of a wonderful instrument. And that is his voice, but he uses it in different eras in a completely different way. Many instruments remain comparatively still while music evolves to the extreme.

In any case, music is an entirely ideological art. It expresses in the subtlest way the psychological structure of the individual. It also shows the collective soul of each given people and each given epoch. And yet it is very difficult to separate content from form here. In the vast majority of cases, it is even completely impossible. Here one has to take a point of view that is not artistic-industrial and not instrumental. But still, it’s peculiarly technical, specifically musical-technical. And then the emotional content of music and – indirectly – its ideological content (on which, for example, Beethoven insisted) will turn out to be just as closely intertwined with this particular musical technique, as we saw it in architecture.

Visual Arts

The visual arts in the proper sense of the word, that is, painting and sculpture, are again in a new relationship in the sense of ideological content. True, in certain decadent epochs they lose their true base. The the base of figurativeness, the creative implementation of reality, and begin to strive towards non-objectivity.

One can even note a whole class in ancient cultures, when, for reasons sharply noted by Gausenstein, an architectural-like style dominates. That erases the pictorial style. But nevertheless, in the mind of everyone, when they talk about painting and sculpture, the idea immediately arises of paintings and statues as images, as objects. That more or less clearly give a kind of reflection of reality. What kind of reality is chosen as an object reflected by art, and how this reflection is made, what changes it undergoes, having passed through the creative soul of the artist, is the ideological side of art.

The general Marxist point of view finds the broadest application here. We do not mean to say that, speaking of the fine arts, it is necessary to completely separate content from form. On the contrary, I am ready to warn here against a corresponding passion for this. And, say, against the substitution of the history of painting for history, for pictorial subjects. But the fact remains unchanged. Ideology, which can be expressed in words, and laid down in concepts, is here evident and even to a large extent in the foreground.

Literature

But most of all ideology is dominant in literature. This is clear. Literature is the art of the word, and every word to a greater or lesser extent expresses a concept. The word is primarily and par excellence the language of the intellect. From the original language, the language of emotions, only exclamations and interjections have been preserved. And this emotional side in the language is more evident in the rhythm of words, in the rises and falls of the voice, accompanying facial expressions and gestures.

Abstract and Concrete Nature of Words

Of course, words can eventually give an idea of a highly specific and concrete image. But the interesting thing is that the word cannot even give images by itself. Each word individually is already an abstraction that has lost its artistic concrete features. And only a certain combination of words can express concreteness.

If we take the phrase “a little white and green-haired birch tree, similar to a mermaid who is being married,”. And analyze this very concrete phrase with a touch of poetry. Then we will see that each word individually remains abstract, but, superimposed one on another, they give a more or less concrete image and, by means of comparison, add to this image others that are originally alien to it, thus creating a certain bridge.

Literature is, first of all, the printed word, and here we do not dwell on recitation and singing, oratory, etc. The printed word, therefore, can go beyond pure concepts only through the above combinations of words, and even rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, and similar devices. Poets and Novelists have a better chance of getting away with their ideals.

Initially, almost all of them were more or less mnemonic in nature. They were used in order to give an easy-to-remember look to the well-known content that is being translated into a literary work. But the very fact that regular rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc., make it easier to memorize a certain combination of words rests on the fact that these methods impart a certain regularity, externally organizing this material. And the correctness and organization of the perceived material are in themselves powerful aesthetic principles.

Literature and Music

This purely formal aspect of the matter makes literature related to music. If someone listened to a poem or good prose in a foreign language and did not understand the content at all, he could nevertheless perceive the external beauty of the sound. However, as in music, so even more so in literature, one can separate this external beauty of sound from the nature of the content.

To some extent, although less than a musician, the artist-writer has the ability to convey through the outwardly formal and, in essence, sound characteristic of his work, that emotion, that passion that lies under his words, which in themselves can express only a concept. Concepts, of course, are infinitely diverse. They often signify purely emotional facts and phenomena.

From this point of view, prose can also convey, so to speak, certain experiences with hot words, and yet even the hottest words remain icy concepts outside the above methods: a definitely concretizing combination of words and certain musical processing of them. Although less than a musician, he has the ability to convey through the outwardly formal and, in essence, the sound characteristic of his work, that emotion, that passion that lies under his words, which in themselves can express only a concept.

Concepts, of course, are infinitely diverse. They often signify purely emotional facts and phenomena. From this point of view, prose can also convey, so to speak, certain experiences with hot words, and yet even the hottest words remain icy concepts outside the above methods: a definitely concretizing combination of words and certain musical processing of them.

Famous Pakistani Poets and Writers who were Marxists

Ustad Daman

Ustad Daman initially presented as a feature of the battle for freedom from the British government. The sonnets he composed are still generally cited in Punjabi; his beliefs were strictly Marxist.

Ammar Aziz

He is a poet and filmmaker who has won the Fipresci award. He is a left-wing activist with strict policies against the hierarchy. His movies and poems make that very much.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz

There is no way you have not heard of the great Faiz Ahmad Faiz. He is one of the pioneers when it comes to poetry in Pakistan. A writer of both Urdu and Punjabi. Of Course, you might know about the workers unions and trade unions Faiz was part of. Marxism was something that ran confidently in his veins. Which was one of the reasons why he was in prison for four years.

Ameen Faheem

A huge left-wing figure in Pakistan. He may be more known for his role as a politician than as a poet. The man has been a politician since 1970 but originally he was more interested in becoming a poet. Although he was a mystic poet he did dabble in the world of Marxism.

Habib Jalib a Marxist

Another revolutionist poet from Pakistan. He opposed martial law and the state of Authoritarianism, a true Marxist. Even the legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz called him the poet of the people. Because of his marxism, he went to jail several times.

Gul Khan Nasir

Known in Balochistan as the king of kings when it comes to poetry. Through his Marxist beliefs, he pursued journalism and worked as a politician as well. Writing poems in more than 4 languages makes him the most versatile poet in Pakistan. And like all the other Marxists he also went to prison for almost 15 years of his life.

Ahfazur Rahman a Marxist

So finally Mr. Ahfazur Rahman. Fighter for the freedom of the press, he fought valiantly for the rights of journalists in Pakistan. During the Zia-ul-Haq military dictatorship, when they literally killed journalists in the streets for raising even an eyebrow, he wrote several books to combat the authority of Zia-ul-Haq. Journalists always used to uphold his Marxist beliefs.

Conclusion

If the Marxist deviation is given to us by our proletarian origin of the revolutionary practice of the best years of our life. However, one should not think that it is impossible to educate talent in a Marxist way. This is quite possible. And therefore, a Marxist writer can learn a great deal from Marxist literature in all of its above-mentioned parts. Whatever you may think of Marxism. Good or Bad it does not change the fact that many of our heroes, poets and writers were Marxists who stood firm on their beliefs to fight the oppression faced by the authority