The Gen Zs, as the veterans call them, wearing Che Guevara in their hearts, ducked through the narrow tunnels and escaped by an inch from the security forces on the third week of February 2021 when the oppressions intensified.
On the handrail of the skywalk in the very most central part of Yangon city, their proud banner flies, singing the Marxist hymn to the public for the first time in Burmese text with a literal meaning that says “Nothing to lose but strings of attachment.” This banner, which was put up anonymously, was an extract from poetic translation of The Communist Manifesto (1848) by an anonymous Burmese author for the Communist Party of Burma founded in 1939 — “The proletarians/workers have nothing to lose but their chains,” as pointed out by senior activists from 1962.
Presumably the first sighting of a Marxist quote during Myanmar’s Spring Revolution taken on 19th February 2021 by a citizen journalist. — via Twitter
Just the sound of the word ‘communist’ makes the elders of Myanmar tremble a bit as the country has suffered from the insurrection for the cause, even if its history was not seen as the bloodiest, and many scholars have prejudice towards the communist ideology, having witnessed the military’s calculated allegiance with two notoriously powerful left-winged authoritarian nations over the years. This 21st-century revolution of Myanmar has indeed originated from the rights to democracy being taken away from all the people; not from working-class struggles, they said.
Nonetheless, Marxist theories of class struggles became more and more prominent in the country, starting with the labour unions spearheading the revolutionary front in Yangon with tens of thousands of garment workers marching out on the road on 6th February 2021, which awoke the masses who were initially reluctant from brutal crackdowns experienced in the 1988 and 2007 uprisings still in their fresh memories. The labour unions are seen to be still holding the resistance grounds against crony capitalism suffering from unfair layoffs, workplace exploitations, and struggles for wellbeing due to keeping up with at least ten-hour work shifts while getting only the minimum wage (currently, Myanmar’s official daily wage of 4,800 MMK is equivalent to less than 1.5 USD as a result of extreme inflation). Activists on traditional Marxism claim that the labour strikes are a proof of the working class’s consciousness on worsening poverty stemming from economic sanctions and blacklisting of financial task force amidst pre-existing global recession from the COVID-19 pandemic — all pointing back to political instability.
Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar spearheaded the revolutionary front in Yangon with tens of thousands of garment workers on 6th February 2021 taken by a citizen journalist. — via Twitter
The Marxism take of the country is based not on wealth appropriation, but on not being able to separate itself from the capitalist world economy no matter how closed off it was or is relying on self-sufficiency at the moment. The business owners have been trying to keep the break-even point amidst the commodity supply chain crisis concomitant with the poor harvest from the previous season. Since many of the farmers were insolvent, some lost their farms, and a few even suffered brutalities or displacement. These struggles of citizens from a cash crunch, severe inflation, and loss of jobs and lands have not become a conflict between the proletarians and capitalists, but the starving civilians united against the autocrats — which a few leftists have highlighted as meeting Marx’s five-part theory.
Anti-regime protest in Yangon on 7th September 2022 by GSC. — via Twitter
Seeing the latest guerrilla protests go, where a banner held by the General Strike Committee led by infamous former student activists — a few of them known as neo-leftists — quoted Marx directly. The philosophy has once again sparked concerns both in favour and against it. But despite the fears, the non-academia public took the Burmese word, ‘strings of attachment,’ as familial or romantic attachments, and continued using the poetic translation text as a rallying cry for the resistance to avenge the unjust loss of loved ones. This quote, with or without the Marxist-communist context, seems to be widely accepted even among revolutionary figures, for example the well-regarded musician Thazin, wife of the executed Phyo Zeya Thaw who was a beloved rapper, youth activist, and ex-parliamentarian, displayed her new tattoo with the same text.
Speaking with a few youths who put down the pen and picked up arms as a defence, they are steadfast in the hatred of fascism, communism, nationalism, or any political school of thought which has historically been proven to favour, or may possibly favour an authoritarian regime. They have very little or no wish to be a part of the ruling class after this serving period, not even to get the slightest privileges for what they had to sacrifice, but to oblige the transitional justice for their extra-judicial mistakes without getting impunity and be done with the dark times. They collectively envision a future where people of any race, religion, or class live their days full of metta (love), fraternity, and freedom from fear of oppression.
One strategist who asked for anonymity said if he had to name the underlying ideology of this revolution, which is not bourgeoisie vs proletariat but military vs civilians, he would prefer Cohen’s definition of individual liberty and social equality oriented towards neo-Marxism over classic pro-communist utopianism. He underscored the earlier work of Marx in The German Ideology (1845), which said, “[in communist society] where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes,” for this argument on application of neo-Marxism under the assumption of Marx’s original vision as freedom and movement for social equality. This could even be seen as relevant to the nationalist ideology that the previous ruling pro-democratic party held onto — a comparative-historical sociology branch based on modernised neo-Marxism (Vujacic, 2014).
The debates come and go, but there is yet to be an actual settlement made on the philosophical part. It is for the people of Myanmar to set course and sail as no captain is holding the wheel. Will Myanmar’s citizens — the oppressed class longing for freedom — be able to resurrect Marxism in the form of a new approach? Or will a totally new movement emerge? Who knows?
Works Cited
Ko Maung & S. Campbell. (2022, February 18). Dare to struggle, dare to win: Workers’ resistance since the coup. Retrieved from Frontier Myanmar: https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/dare-to-struggle-dare-to-win-workers-resistance-since-the-coup/
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1988). Manifesto of the Communist Party. (F. Engels, Ed., & S. Moore, Trans.) London: William Reeves.
Marx, K.; Engels, F.;. (1845–1846 ). The German Ideology. In Marx-Engels, Collected Works Vol. 5. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
O’Hagan, T. (2015). Freedom: Political. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2 ed., Vol. IX, pp. 398–403). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Vujacic, V. (2014). The Development of Nationalism and Citizenship. In M. Sasaki, J. Goldstone, & E. Zimmermann (Eds.), Concise Encyclopedia of Comparative Sociology (pp. 321–330). Leiden: Bill.
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