MARXISM AND INDIA 49 originality. While the other papers in the issue have sought, with varying degrees of depth and seriousness, to analyse and dissect the weaknesses of the communist movement in terms of ideas and concepts broadly accepted and employed by the Indian communists, Joshi has introduced ideas and criteria which appear to be, at least to the present writer, quite new and original. More, behind Joshi's elaboration of the new concepts, one senses the articulation of a reformist intellectual-nationalist trend as opposed to the revolutionary proletarian-internationalist essence of Marxism. Hence, his exercise needs to be challenged. From close acquaintance with P G Joshi and his considerable volume of critical-analytical writings, the present writer is fully aware of Joshi's sincerity of purpose and honesty of intention. But the chain of his ideas which dovetail into almost a system has nothing in common with Marxism. Divorcing Politics from Philosophy For instance, in Joshi's view, there can and should be "Marxism as an intellectual force, independent of the narrower Marxism of sectarian political groups", and there are different kinds of Marxism such as (i) 'political' Marxism, that is, the strategy and tactics of the capture of ' apolitical power by the party of the proletariat, and (ii) "Marxism as a philosophical movement—as the continuation of the critical spirit of Enlightenment and as the stimulation of a higher level of critical self-consciousness". Joshi hold^ that the concept of politics in the truly Marxist sense is "the extension of culture and ethics to the political sphere" and that the "role of the political party as an intellectual force should not be subordinated to its role as a mere instrument for the capture of power". Marxist doctrine is of course built up of philosophical, economic and political components. But Marxism as a system of Marx's views and teachings is characterized by a "remarkable consistency and intergrity'5 whose "totality constitutes modern materialism and modern scientific socialism as the theory and programme of the working-class movement in all the civilised countries of the world../91 Notwithstanding its momentous contribution to the sphere of philosophy, the Marxist system does not permit its division into 'philosophical' Marxism and 'political' Marxism, nor can the intellectual force of Marxism be in any way distinguished from its political impact. For, in a truly Marxist exercise, philosophy guides politics and politics enriches philosophy at every step, just as the intellectual force of Marxism strengthens its political impact and the political impact of Marxism adds to its intellectual force. Indeed, philosophy (intellectual comprehension) and politics or practice (revolutionary action) are organically inter-related in the Marxist world view, as is repeatedly stressed in Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, On the subject of the inter-relation of philosophy, politics and economics, Gramsci, Joshi's favourite authority on Marxist theory, savs: If these three activities are the necessary constituent elements of tlic