COLLECTIVE MASTERY IN KERALA Chi Minh, at the 2nd Congress of the Vietnam Workers' Party in February 1961, condemned bureaucratism and commandism in socialist Vietnam, for the bureaucratic attitude "shows in fondness for red tape, divorce from the masses of the people and reluctance to learn the experiences of the masses,' while commandism did not allow the people to 'work on their own initiative and own accord."5 In Vietnam, the spirit of popular initiative was captured in the party's phrase 'collective mastery' (lam chu tap the), which, as explained by Secretary General Le Duan, meant "to build a comprehensive system of social relations reflecting more and more fully the mastery of the working people. [It is] a state organised by the working-class and the working people themselves to exercise their right to collective mastery, a state that is really of the people, by the people and for the people, through which the Party exercises its leadership over society."6 The Party does not dominate social relations, but, as Le Duan noted, it "always starts from the aspirations, interests and degree of consciousness and understanding of the masses."7 If the means of production are to be held collectively (in aii institution known as the state), then how does the communist movement ensure that the people hold it collectively, and that a bureaucracy of office-holders not become the de facto executive of social life? That the communist movement has faced up to its limitations in the face of this challenge is a tribute. Even if Che Guevara is not a polished theorist, his work on volunteerism and of the morality of the communist often does more for the movement than many a well-crafted essay on the nature of political economy. In the vise of imperialist embargoes and other machinations, the socialist states that struggle in the realm of necessity have attempted, unevenly, to create the means to devolve power through such instruments (in Cuba, for example) as the voluntary work brigades and the consejos de trabajo (work councils).8 These experiences are tests for Marxism, especially in an age when imperialist globalization snatches the vestiges of sovereignty from nation-states and tries to effect monumental decisions in the boardrooms of corporate finance.9 If the socialist states feel beleaguered, those regions within a non-socialist state where communist or socialist parties are in power experience the pressures in a sharper fashion. In India, the experience of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura shows us that the Left Front perforce must work within constraints set by the central government, who are not only prejudiced against the Left, but who enjoy immense power as a result of weak