How Honest Are We?

This critique is written as a reflection on the state of young activists within the Left

By Sufi Laghari

This critique is written as a reflection on the state of young activists within the Left. Hopefully, by debating these issues, we can develop a more constructive approach to solving the problems within our organizations.

We live under the dominance of a capitalist economic system, one that, due to neoliberal policies, isolates individuals from the collectiveness. And here we are young people from the oppressed classes of a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist, and semi-colonial country, who have never witnessed the kind of revolutionary politics where leaders carried red flags from village to village, street to street, and city to city. We’ve never seen the romance of leftist student movements, where students, relying solely on their own strength and organization, could shut down the capital, where they took bullets to the chest and embraced death. We’ve never endured the horrors of prisons, torture cells, or the pitch-black nights of oppression. We lack the experience and resilience to become true revolutionaries.

Meanwhile, we read and listen to these so-called “big names” the intellectual class, and leaders who once shouted for revolution in their youth but eventually settled in the comforts of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe. From their cushy homes and halls, they mock us, saying, (Look how far behind you are! Here we have social democracy, human rights, what do you have other than complaints?). And when these nostalgic old men feel an occasional twinge of conscience, they send a few thousand dollars a month to fund groups of unemployed, hungry young people in the Third World, getting them to chant revolutionary slogans and buy their books, all while fueling divisions and distractions for the past thirty years.

These same elders then foster opportunism among us young people. Meanwhile, the state completely dependent on imperialist forces, has become a butcher to its own citizens. Unemployment and inflation are strangling the middle and lower classes. The system drains critical thinking from the youth and fills them with careerism and self-interest. Electronic and social media have amplified competition and popular culture, providing a new playground for distraction.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the ’90s, a wave of despair spread through leftist circles. Yet, the truth is that the USSR had already started drifting towards revisionism in the 1960s after Stalin’s death.

Under the guise of “enlightenment,” self-proclaimed intellectuals in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Peshawar, and Quetta have turned knowledge into mere content for YouTube and Facebook. They appear their presences to say, “Today, I read this book, and I loved this one sentence,” then proceed to present absurd, baseless theories that have nothing to do with the real conditions of society. Their reward? A flood of digital applause in the comments.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the ’90s, a wave of despair spread through leftist circles. Yet, the truth is that the USSR had already started drifting towards revisionism in the 1960s after Stalin’s death. But our “red elders” remained caught up in their Moscow-loyalist and China-loyalist terminologies, donning Mao caps and puffing cigars while chanting about revolution, meanwhile Neo liberal think tanks were systematically embedding their economic model across the world. Intellectuals latched onto postmodernism, championing the idea that “everyone has their own truth, their own narrative.” This celebration of extreme individualism diverted our Left away from revolutionary action and trapped it in the dead-end of social movements, burdening young activists with an NGO-driven intellectualism that rusted our revolutionary edge.

Read: Pakistan’s Missing Left Wing

As a result, the previous generation lost its youth, while those of us born between 1990 and 2005 lost our childhood. By the time we reached our teenage years, we were trapped in endless debates about “who was right and who was wrong.” Instead of critically analyzing the Left’s history to understand our present and shape our future, we were handed pamphlets debating whether Mao was wrong, Stalin was cruel, or Trotsky betrayed the revolution. So we, a handful of aware young people divided ourselves into tiny ideological silos, carrying remnants of patriarchy, conservatism, and reactionary thinking, all while pursuing our personal interests.

And what were these interests? A selfie with a well-known leader, a research project under a famous professor, strategies to expand personal influence, finding romantic partners within activist circles, or shouting “Red, Red will rise (لال لال لہرائے گا)!” just to paint ourselves as heroes. But can we really blame these young activists? They only imitate what they see leaders, professors, and intellectuals advancing their own careers in the same way.

Caught in these self-serving games, we leave the real revolutionary struggle far behind. Our actions dishearten and alienate the sincere professors, thinkers, and lifelong activists who have genuinely sacrificed for the cause. That’s why, in today’s leftist organizations, young activists driven by popular political culture, chase heroism and personality worship, treating organizations as platforms for personal gain. This is why most organizations remain confined to a few major cities, with just a handful of young activists standing outside press clubs, holding placards in the name of workers and peasants, while intellectuals sit in cafes, throwing around complex Marxist jargon like a game, too hesitant to dirty their hands with real grassroots work.

The celebration of extreme individualism diverted our Left away from revolutionary action and trapped it in the dead-end of social movements, burdening young activists with an NGO-driven intellectualism that rusted our revolutionary edge.

Meanwhile, the obsession with popularity has intensified. Some want to gain fame through fiery speeches and slogans, others dress in suits and speak English to appear as intellectuals, and yet others rush to become professors to secure the same privileges they see established academics enjoying.

But in all of this, we forget one crucial truth: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Gramsci, Fanon, all these revolutionary thinkers were not just theorists. Their knowledge and philosophy were deeply rooted in practice, organizing, working alongside the people, learning from them, and leading from within.

And yet, here we are consumed by popular culture, disconnected from the masses, unable to understand that real revolutionary work means going village to village, city to city, street to street, living among the people, learning from them, educating them, and organizing them. Instead, we dismiss this real work as a waste of time, seeking shortcuts to prestige. When organizations don’t serve our personal ambitions, we curse them, tarnish their reputation, and hop to the next one, repeating the same cycle.

Read: Politics in Pakistan: Disconnected Dots

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Suffyan (formerly Sufi Laghari) is a researcher and activist pursuing an MPhil at NIPS (National Institute of Pakistan Studies), Quaid-I-Azam University. Holding a Bachelor’s in Anthropology from the University of Sindh, his research focuses on left-wing student politics, social movements, and marginalized communities in Sindh. Previously, he served as Central General Secretary of the (NSF) National Students Federation Pakistan and worked as a Research Associate at LUMS University Lahore.