Politics, Culture and Socialism

The period from the beginning of the First World War until the end of the Second was one of acute crisis for world capitalism: apart from the two horrendous wars, it also witnessed the Great Depression which was the most acute economic crisis till then in the history of capitalism. It is not sur- prising that a very substantial section of the intelligentsia in virtually every country believed that the world had entered a period of ‘general crisis of capitalism’ from where there could only be a transition to socialism. This period brought acute distress to the working people everywhere, not only in the advanced countries but also in the third world. In India, for instance, while the Great Depression caused great absolute impoverishment of the peasantry, the long-term stagnation in foodgrain production under the colonial regime combined with the impact of military spending during the Second World War caused a massive increase in food prices, which precipi- tated the Bengal famine of 1943 that claimed three million lives.