The Struggle (political organisation)

The Struggle (Urdu: Tabqati Jeddojuhd) is a Trotskyist organisation in Pakistan. It is the Pakistan section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). Its leader and best known theoretician is Lal Khan. The Struggle is the largest section of the IMT.

The Struggle defends the legacy of Marx, Engles, Lenin and Trotsky and seeks to spread their IDeaS within the Pakistani labour movement. To do so, The Struggle forms a Marxist tendency within the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). While criticising what it sees as the bureaucracy of the PPP and its ties to the bourgeoisie and the feudalists, it campaigns for the return to the founding ideas of the party, namely the overthrow of capitalism and the transformation of Pakistan into a socialist society. It demands the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy under workers' control, the eradication of unemployment and free accessible education, among other demands.

At the same time, The Struggle does independent work. It has been ACTIVE in the worker's movement through the Pakistan Trade Union DeFence Campaign (PTUDC), while also being involved in the student movement. On April 1, 2008 they had their 27th congress which was the largest ever, claiming to have 2000 people from all over Pakistan taking part.

In 2002 one member of The Struggle, Manzoor Ahmed, ran as a candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party with a clear socialist program and was elected to the National Assembley. Manzoor lost his seat in the 2008 elections; the IMT claims this was due to electoral fraud. He subsequently took a job as mediator for labour disputes, which the leadership of The Struggle felt was incompatible with building a left opposition within the PPP and led to his expulsion.

This has allegedly led to a split, the size of which is disputed. The Communist Party of Great Britain claim that half of the Pakistani Section of IMT went with Ahmed. The IMT, however, claims that the total membership of the organisation remained AbOUT the same, and treats the issue as one of expulsion of a few members and not a split.

See also

  • Marxism
  • Trotskyism
  • International Marxist Tendency
  • Ted Grant
  • Lal Khan

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