In the face of the heroic struggle and sacrifice of the people against Sheikh Hasina’s blood-soaked regime, the army chief and a powerful section of the reactionary ruling class deposed Sheikh Hasina and decided to reorganize power to stop this mass uprising. They have taken this step to ensure that the popular uprising does not in any way lead to a blow to their fundamental interests.

To protect the interests of imperialism and the domestic crony big bourgeoisie, the army wants to hand over power to a pro-US, bloodsucking, poverty-dealing interim government led by Muhamed Yunus and then to the reactionary butchers of the Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, imperialism’s paw-licking dogs, under the banner of elections. This fraud scheme of the ruling class is being joined by some other civilian tyrants and imperialist middlemen seeking a share of power. They are trying to make the people politically passive by extolling the student leadership and spreading slogans about “democracy and freedom”. In short, the country’s powerful reactionary ruling class is working furiously to consolidate a restructured regime.

The ruling class uses the bourgeois electoral mechanisms to lull the people into the false belief that it is they who are exercising power. By doing this, an idea is created in the public’s mind that they are the decisive power in the state system. But in reality such things are decided by the ruling class. Bob Avakian said in this context: “Elections: are controlled by the bourgeoisie; are not the means through which basic decisions are made in any case; and are really for the primary purpose of legitimizing the system and the policies and actions of the ruling class, giving them the mantle of a ‘popular mandate,’ and of channeling, confining, and controlling the political activity of the masses of people.”¹

It is necessary to understand that… “elections in this society are controlled by the capitalist ruling class. This ruling class dominates and controls the economy and on that basis it dominates and controls political power. Regardless of who is elected to office, this ruling class keeps its control of the state—the police and armed forces, the government bureaucracies, the courts and the rest of the legal machinery (the ‘injustice system’). Elections are used by the ruling class to trick those they rule over. At most, elections give the oppressed the ‘choice’ of selecting which group of oppressors will rob and torment them!”²

People need to understand who holds the real power. A change of individuals or groups in government does not change the state power and the existing relations of exploitation. We saw in the events of the Arab Spring how the struggle of millions of Egyptians was used first by the Islamic fundamentalists and then by the US-backed military to come to power and keep the people bound tightly to the global capitalist-imperialist system.

Armed force is the main pillar of state power, and the institutions of state power are entirely under the control of the ruling class. The army, BGB, RAB, police, intelligence agencies and other armed forces that served as the foundation and executor of Sheikh Hasina’s sixteen-year rule and the judiciary, and the prisons and bureaucracy that implemented Sheikh Hasina’s autocracy are the main instruments of state power. By using this state apparatus, the ruling class enforces relations of exploitation and oppression. It is this state apparatus that has carried out continuous disappearances, murders, torture, abductions, rapes, looting and evictions in the mountains and plains and that has brutally suppressed the people’s resistance. State power is still in the hands of imperialism and their domestic cronies, the big bourgeoisie who have forced millions of people into their hellish factories where their buildings collapse or people are burned to death. State power remains in the hands of those who destroy rural agriculture and turn millions of people into urban slums, endangering their lives. They have handed the people over to Islamic fundamentalists, who were just waiting to use the anger of the people against Sheikh Hasina’s brutal rule. These forces have consistently worked on people’s thinking based on their reactionary socio-political programs, strengthening their hold on political power. And now with the opportunity to participate in state power, they will force their old backward traditional relations, customs, ideologies and values more forcefully on the people with a vengeance.

People want freedom of expression, assembly, association, movement and the right to food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, work and political power and to determine the course of society. People need a fundamentally different society to free themselves from all forms of exploitation and oppression, and a fundamentally different state power that could free them from the brutal grip of the local ruling class and the hellish factories where their lives are crushed to make mountains of profits for the rapacious profiteering imperialists. People must be freed from the patriarchal systems of exploitation that keep women in chains of slavery. People need a society freed from the domination of imperialism and the exploitation of a crony ruling class, a society in which everyone is treated as a full human being, regardless of gender, race or religion. The people need a real revolution (not a Cuba or Venezuela). Revolution is not a minor reform, but a radical change in society. Revolution means the overthrow and dissolution of the existing oppressive state apparatus under the capitalist-imperialist system, and particularly the institutions of organized violence and repression, including its armed forces, police, courts, prisons, bureaucracy and administrative powers, and the replacement of concentrated centers of reactionary coercion and violence with new revolutionary institutions. 

There is no reason to trust the US-backed army and the BNP-Jamaat forces, whose hands are stained with the people’s blood. They will continue the capitalist-imperialist exploitation and oppression of the people, and intensify their aggressively backward religious thought. This ruling class will not prosecute the murderers of those who were killed by the army, police, BGB, RAB and other armed forces in the struggle against Sheikh Hasina’s blood stained regime. These armed forces are the manifestation of the monopoly of the state by the ruling class. BNP-Jamaat with the help of the state’s armed forces and the judiciary, prisons, bureaucracy etc. will enforce the rule of imperialism and the domestic crony ruling class over the people. They will never reveal their secret agreements with the imperialist states. 

We must not forget our history. BNP-Jamaat are proven public enemies. The special features of the rule of these reactionaries are the oppression of minorities (linguistic, like Biharis, ethnic, gender, religious, like Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other Muslim communities like the Qadiani, etc.), the intertwining of religion and state, and filling the education system with unscientific and religious superstitions, suppressing progressive thought and artistic, literary and cultural practices, and the severe oppression of women and LGBTQ people. All these are enforced by all the ruling class parties, but this is the special feature of the social and political programme of BNP-Jamaat.

The people cannot be liberated unless the existing state apparatus and its institutions are dismantled by a real revolution led by a revolutionary party armed with scientific theory and based on millions of exploited and oppressed people, and an entirely new state apparatus and institutions are established, there is a rupture with imperialism and the native crony ruling class is overthrown. Based on this understanding, foresight and vision, if a small number of people can unite and constantly expose the frauds and crimes of the ruling class and the workings of this brutal system to the people, then this small force could have a huge impact. The ruling class is currently divided and in temporary turmoil, and the people are challenging this long-standing system in the streets; the question of the country’s future is being debated in every tea shop. Think of the impact that even a small force can have if it can step forward based on a correct assessment of the country’s reality and exploit the cracks in society to start building a revolution! In a world threatened by genocide in Gaza, environmental disaster and even nuclear war in Ukraine, this small force could have unimaginable influence.

We call upon the people to move forward from their disillusionment and concentrate on building the truly revolutionary movement that they so desperately need. New Communism represents a giant leap in the scientific understanding of social reality and a path to fundamentally change the country through a real revolution. It is a science that exposes the class interests behind the various programmes and policies currently being implemented in the country. Only the people can equip themselves as the makers of revolution and the liberators of humanity based on a correct understanding.
 

Convict Sheikh Hasina for the crimes of the Awami regime! Return her and judge her! 

Prosecute the Awami leaders and officers and members of the army and police, including the IG, DIG, BGB, RAB and other state forces who were politically and militarily involved in the killings and gave the orders. 

Say no to the army’s reform, say no to military rule in the Chittagong Hills, say no to an interim government. No BNP-Jamaat, No Awami League, no electoral third party! It’s this whole system that must be evicted!

— Supporters of the New Communism in Bangladesh