Raj'at Pasand Adab Kya Hai?

Defining reactionary literature is far more difficult than defining progressive literature. This is because there is only one path to progress, whereas the paths leading backward are many.

A defining characteristic of human society is that the battle between the old and the new has raged in every era. The forces that participate in building the new are what we call progressive. Conversely, those that cling to old values, hinder the growth of the new, and seek solutions to the conflict between the old and the new in the past are what we call reactionary. Stated this simply, the concept seems quite ordinary, and even a reactionary would find it hard to deny. The real complication arises, however, when we define the exact nature of progress in a specific era and begin tracing the paths of reactionary thought. That is when hidden hypocrisies are exposed, and idols begin tumbling out of seemingly pious sleeves.

Now, the question is: who determines the paths of progress and regression? In a class-based society, this question is bound to arise. A dying class will never willingly describe its own demise as a stepping stone to progress. It will inevitably reject the historical claims of its subjugated subjects. It will denounce their philosophy and ideology, and it will brand their path to progress as a path of destruction. This is precisely why ideological wars between progress and reaction are fought. These conflicts are not confined to mere bickering, accusations of heresy and atheism, or slander and lies; they often end up stained with human blood.

On the surface, it may appear as though the domes of a church and a mosque, or a temple and a mosque, have collided. It may seem that two different faiths or ideologies have clashed, two civilizations have locked horns, or two nations are chanting war cries based on their racial and national distinctions. The reality, however, is quite different. While one might find many secondary causes for these conflicts, the fundamental cause is always the protection of economic interests. Since these economic interests are always divided along class lines, the philosophies of both progress and reaction ultimately represent class interests. Abstract philosophy cannot help us understand this phenomenon; it can only be grasped through concrete examples—examples drawn from our own time, our own environment, and our immediate surroundings.

In Pakistan, there is only one progressive movement. Its aims, objectives, and ideals are clearly defined, and it possesses a distinct class foundation. Yet, in this very same Pakistan, reactionary thought takes on countless forms. Some attempt to drag us back into the past in the name of Islam, while others raise the slogan of Islamic Socialism. Some champion bourgeois nationalism under the guise of one country, one nation, while others point us toward American-style democracy. There are even those who bypass all these stages entirely and propose fascism as the ultimate solution.

Whether these ideologies are reactionary or not can only be determined by examining the circles from which these slogans originate. The matter is quite simple: only a class with no future looks back to the past. Today, the future of workers, peasants, and the middle class shines like a crescent moon across half the globe. Amidst this light, only those whose vested interests are threatened will retreat into the darkness. There is an old proverb: Time once lost cannot be regained. They know this perfectly well, yet, wringing their hands in regret, they insist on pulling at the ropes of a bygone era. They do this to keep the values of the feudal system alive, to prevent the masses from moving forward, to maintain old social hierarchies, and to protect their institutional monopolies. Alongside all this, they desperately want to ensure that their ideological and emotional lives—which are entirely shaped by these outdated social values—remain unshaken.

This is the crux of the matter, no matter how heavily it is cloaked in convoluted philosophy. To justify this, they lean on the idealist philosophies of everyone from Plato to Bergson and Einstein. Reality is neatly divided into material and spiritual compartments. Material reality is declared mutable, while spiritual reality is deemed immutable. This same duality is applied to the concept of time: the time that passes is labeled spatial time, while the time that does not pass is called non-spatial time. Operating under this very philosophy, Allama Iqbal does not advocate for the return of a material reality, but rather a spiritual one. However, as we all know, the soul of a living human being cannot be separated from its physical body. How, then, is it possible that spiritual values—which were the byproduct of a specific material society and which departed from its body when that society perished—can now be reincarnated into a new body and a new society? This spiritual transmigration makes no sense to me, even if Allama Iqbal chooses to call it a Reconstruction.

The irony is that Iqbal himself seems aware of this. Whenever he senses a flaw or contradiction in his own reasoning (and sensing this contradiction is inevitable once one acknowledges the forward march of history and the mutability of matter), he lashes out at machines. He does this because it was the machine age that birthed the conflict between capital and labor—a conflict that today threatens not only the capitalist system but seeks to dismantle the very foundations of class hierarchy and exploitation. The possibility of dismantling this class-based foundation can only arise when we recognize the interconnectedness of material and spiritual values, and when we view their evolving nature through the lens of historical materialism. We must stop placing the divine canopy of the Shadow of God over the heads of rulers, and we must stop defining social relations through divine jurisprudence.

We must not attribute the chain of social cause and effect—which is inherently material—to non-social or immaterial causes. We must not treat abstract concepts as the driving forces of history. We should view social dynamics and historical progress not as the evolution of abstract thought, but as the evolution of human life itself. Idealistic concepts of evolution only create obstacles, preventing human beings from forging their own history. They strip humanity of the power to master its social conditions. They cast the perpetual shadow of Original Sin over the soul of the Son of Adam, leading him to view the Fall of Man merely as a state of seeking divine forgiveness. He turns his earthly existence into a mere transient journey. Even when he does turn his attention to material life—and why shouldn't he, since he too is made of matter?—he only wishes to use it as a stepping stone for his spiritual life. Naturally, the only person who can successfully exploit material life for such a purpose is the one who controls the treasures of life—the one who controls the means of production.

Today, many literary circles in Pakistan have fallen prey to this very spiritual philosophy. The individuals within these circles may not be capitalists or feudal lords themselves, but their personal lack of wealth does not weaken the class-based foundation of this philosophy. This is the philosophy of the ruling class that exploits human labor. It prevents the subjugated from rising up with their full might. In the name of spirituality, it seeks to preserve outdated social relations. To the extent that this philosophy teaches the acquisition of power, its true aim is to reinforce reactionary tendencies and class interests. This philosophy must be fiercely opposed in both literature and life, as it seeks to sustain the exploitative foundations of the feudal and capitalist systems. Even when this philosophy appears to oppose capitalism, its actual goal is to regress to a historical era before the conflict between the capitalist and the worker even existed.

This philosophy fails to comprehend the inherent conflict between capital and labor. Instead of advancing this historical contradiction to find a resolution in the future, it attempts to drag history backward. It also opposes capitalism because, during its peak and early vitality, capitalism fostered the growth of the material sciences and propagated materialism. It presented human existence through the lens of biological evolution. By bringing the class conflicts of human society to the forefront, it provided us with the opportunity to uncover the material causes behind historical evolution. In other words, it would be accurate to say that capitalism itself paved the way for the overthrow of the rule of fate. The reign of destiny could never have been dismantled until humanity developed the capacity to control its environment.

This capacity was provided by science and the material disciplines. It resides within the beating hearts of colossal machines. It lies at the very core of the atom. Why, then, is this spiritual philosophy acceptable even to the capitalists of Pakistan? They, too, preach fatalism and revivalist tendencies. The fundamental reason is that Pakistan's capitalists are the offspring of capitalism's old age. Consequently, let alone philosophy, wisdom, and education, they did not even inherit substantial wealth. Despite their modest capital, they largely function as middlemen. This could mean acting as brokers for foreign imperialism or for local feudal lords. When progressive forces attack this despicable role and challenge the imperialist system, these capitalists collude with imperialism to suppress them, ultimately demanding compensation from foreign imperialists for their reactionary efforts.

You will find this exact dynamic reflected in the writings of our local reactionary authors. Sometimes, acting as apologists for capitalism, they oppose socialism through the lens of bourgeois values; at other times, they oppose it under the guise of religious values. This is because today, both the feudal lord and the capitalist face a threat from only one source: the working class. Within this capitalist system, only the working class possesses the capability to dismantle the foundations of exploitation and liberate all laboring humanity.

In Pakistan, reactionary thought takes a very distinct form. It seems as though all the narrow alleys of reactionary thought eventually converge onto the grand highway of revivalism. However, reactionary thought does not simply exhaust itself in these forms alone. In the West, where capitalism reigns supreme and where it once waged a fierce crusade against the dogmas of the feudal system, reactionary thought is now rearing its head in entirely new ways. To understand this Western brand of reactionary thought, we must briefly examine its historical background.

The crisis-ridden era of capitalism began in 1825. This was the year when capitalism became engulfed in a global economic crisis. From that year onward, the system became plagued by recurring bouts of economic depression. Consequently, in 1828, the organized working class in France began to take up arms against the capitalists. This initial conflict soon manifested as a revolutionary working-class struggle across all European nations in 1828. However, the workers' revolution ultimately failed because its leadership remained in the hands of the petite bourgeoisie. Both the revolutionary struggle of the workers and its subsequent failure profoundly impacted not only French literature but the literature of all of Europe. For a century and a half prior to this period, the defining characteristic of literature had been its deep connection to social life.

This relationship between literature and society had been established by bourgeois thinkers themselves. At that time, the bourgeoisie, armed with its historical mandate, was waging a war against the feudal system. They could not have fought this war without awakening human consciousness, bringing literature closer to life, and turning it into a mirror of their struggle. Consequently, the literature of the classical realist period, in particular, served as a true reflection of the social life of its time. It not only portrayed humanity within its environment but also demonstrated how that environment shaped human nature. However, the moment the working class began an organized struggle against the bourgeoisie, the latter began to retreat from this literary theory. They began to sever literature from social life. The Art for Art's Sake movement was a direct result of this effort. Yet, it was impossible for writers to completely detach themselves from social life all at once. The most they could do was distance themselves from the common working people and confine their focus to the bourgeoisie.

This is exactly what happened initially, and to their credit, they exposed the bourgeoisie with great courage. However, as their faith in the labor movement and the struggles of the working class waned, feelings of passivity, escapism, despair, and anti-populist sentiments began to take root in their lives. It is evident that when an optimistic vision of the future fades and faith in the power of the masses is lost, no path remains visible other than self-destruction and the spread of anarchy. In late nineteenth-century France, the Art for Art's Sake movement flourished under the influence of these very ideas. Ultimately, after 1890, the psychology of the new generation of writers became so diseased that it bred a profound self-loathing and a complete hatred for life itself.

In this context, I would like to present a brief excerpt from the writings of Paul Valéry:

There is a vast gulf between impression and expression. I possess the full capacity to understand and appreciate that which I have no power to articulate. I do not know how characters are created in a novel. Novelists present life, whereas my objective is to exclude life. This specific perspective of mine prevents me from forming a rational view on anything—be it the novel, history, or politics.

In England, Oscar Wilde held almost the exact same philosophy, having been deeply influenced by the French decadent writers. However, art for art's sake was merely a tactic to propagate reactionary ideas. To conceal this reality, they deliberately attempted to make their expression as obscure and difficult as possible. The clarity found in Flaubert’s style is absent among the decadents of the 1890s, because Flaubert had confined himself solely to the bourgeois class; he had not attempted to completely exclude life from his work. The same, however, cannot be said of Mallarmé and Paul Valéry. By escaping life and their external environment, they sought only to take the reader on a journey through the uncharted territories of the mind. Consequently, their poetry was reduced to the symbolism of dreams. This symbolic poetry—a poetry of morbid sensibilities, dreamscapes, and madness—eventually engulfed all of Europe. This phenomenon was not confined to poets alone; the attempt to escape life also manifested in novels. Thus, in a short pamphlet written in 1901, James Joyce declared that no man can become a lover of truth and goodness until he despises the masses. He argued that the artist, despite being able to utilize the masses, always keeps himself aloof from them.

This urge to despise the masses, to confine literature to morbid sensibilities and concepts, and to sever it from all of life's creative forces in order to drag it into a dream world, was not without meaning for the bourgeoisie. For the bourgeois class, this was an era in which they had grown weary of their physical luxuries and comforts. They were in search of beauty; they were in search of the soul. Yet, in the external world, both of these concepts had become meaningless to them. The goddess of beauty had transformed into a bloodthirsty demon, and the soul was infatuated with the romance of the ballroom. Now, they needed to dream; they needed to journey through the ethereal realm. Having committed suicide in the external world, the bourgeoisie now sought refuge in their internal world. This stemmed from their own personal experience: despite everything they had done to shape the external environment, they had ultimately remained beasts. It is this very realization that plunges them into psychological agony and drives them toward the metaphysical world.

However, before taking flight toward this metaphysical world, they still had to pass through a few more stages. For the sake of simplicity, you could identify this period as the few years just prior to the Great War. It was during this time that Freud introduced his psychological philosophy regarding the bourgeoisie and the middle class. Since a comprehensive critique of Freudian philosophy is not the objective here, I will only outline those principles that had a direct impact on literature. Freud replaced economic motives with the sexual drive as the primary force in the struggle of life, positing this drive as the foundation of all social phenomena. Consequently, in Freud's hands, the entire history of human struggle is reduced to the history of the struggle of the sexual drive. However, the very word struggle inherently implies a clash with opposing forces. Thus, in Freudian theory, this conflict manifests as a clash between the sexual drive and civilization.

Freud’s sexual drive seeks to express its vitality at the level of pure instinct, but civilization creates obstacles in its path. This is because one of the functions of civilization is to construct a new human nature. It is through civilization that humanity has mastered its own nature, continuously reshaping it. Because Freud rejects this perspective, his concept of the sexual drive remains perpetually at war with the forces of civilization.

While Freud’s philosophy opened countless avenues for reactionary thought in literature, it also provided a logical justification for the savagery of fascism. Fascism seeks to reduce humanity to a mere product of emotional impulses. It portrays warfare and racial prejudice as humanity's eternal and immutable nature, while dismissing civilization, culture, science, and wisdom as the fragile contrivances of the intellect. Call it a mere coincidence that the Nazi regime exiled Freud from his homeland, yet Freud’s philosophy, in the hands of D. H. Lawrence, continued to strengthen the roots of fascism. D. H. Lawrence did not merely employ Freudian philosophy in his novels; he also attempted to practice it in his actual life. Fleeing from civilization and modern society, he went to live among the indigenous peoples in Mexico.

But this was only one component of Freudian philosophy. His greatest discovery was the realm of the unconscious. For Freud, the world of the unconscious is entirely distinct from the conscious world. It is not a world governed by the conventions of civilization and culture. Rather, it is a world driven by the instinctual urges of the sexual drive, where everything is mysterious and grotesque. The unconscious is the stage for a drama of sexual desire, where every character is a symbol and every scene is a tale of romance. Consequently, when this drama is transferred into the conscious world through memory, it loses its original narrative. In the contemporary era, various literary movements focused on depicting the unconscious have drawn inspiration from this philosophy. The question remains: why, ultimately, is this philosophy reactionary?

The answer is quite simple. Literature is a conscious creation; the writer gathers its raw materials from the external world through their intellectual faculties. Literature internalizes these elements, only to externalize them once again. No literary creation can possibly depict concepts that are entirely divorced from external reality. Therefore, when an artist presents a symbolic tale of the unconscious, they are deliberately attempting to distort obvious reality, twisting it into something grotesque. This philosophy has proven highly beneficial for the capitalist class, as their primary endeavor has always been to present a distorted version of reality. They seek to present it in such forms and styles that it becomes difficult to recognize and comprehend. By evading reality, they aim to present a fiction of the internal world where every image is inverted, chaotic, and bewildering.

I am not merely making this up on my own. The writers of the unconscious have themselves admitted to this. Indeed, both André Breton and Herbert Read have defined the literature of the unconscious by stating that the function of Surrealism is to transform chaos into wonder. This chaos belongs to the bourgeois system, which it seeks to transform into a spectacle of astonishment so that the root causes of this chaos cannot be traced back to the external world. In doing so, the true face of this chaos remains unrecognized, and the secret of its actual story remains concealed.

By the time of the Second World War, this philosophy had spread so pervasively across all capitalist countries that it seemed as though every writer had been afflicted with Freudian hysteria. However, during the Second World War, when progressive forces dealt a severe blow to this aging harlot (that is, the capitalist system), the bout of hysteria subsided somewhat. After all, a slap in the face is one cure for hysteria. Consequently, in the current era, psychological fragmentation is no longer seen as astonishing. Mice no longer scurry through the subconscious. Instead, an entirely different philosophy is being manufactured—a new philosophy that advocates a return to ecclesiastical and religious dogmas. Its goal is to dismantle the social and class consciousness of the workers, and to render the epic of human greatness and progress as meaningless. Ultimately, the purpose of this philosophy is to promote fatalism.

Writers like Somerset Maugham, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, André Malraux, and Jean-Paul Sartre are propagating this very philosophy. However, the capitalist system is well aware that this philosophy alone will no longer suffice. Merely spreading apathy and inaction is not enough to hold back the rising tide; therefore, new methods of prevention and containment must be devised. Consequently, at the conferences of the united nations of Europe held in The Hague and Paris, a decision was made to sell out national sovereignty and patriotism in exchange for dollars, all to combat a shared threat. These conferences were presided over by Mr. Churchill and Mr. Blum, and many writers participated in them, with André Malraux being particularly noteworthy. Naturally, this political conspiracy was bound to cast a reflection on literary movements. As a result, today, the philosophies of Pan-Europeanism and Cosmopolitanism are being championed with immense vigor.

This so-called new awakening and new organization have been brought into existence precisely to wage war against the power of the people by selling out national sovereignty and patriotism. If possible, their aim is to drag humanity back to the Middle Ages, thereby finding a justification to establish fascist tyranny. In this context, consider what André Malraux desires. In one of his speeches, he states that our experience shows that the values of Europe are not those of progress and rationality. Rather, the strength of the West lies in embracing mystical and mysterious forces.

Here, too, you witness the same phenomenon: countless avenues of reactionary thought are converging onto the highway of revivalism. By turning away from science and progress, they are clinging to ecclesiastical dogmas; by fleeing from the future, they are attempting to seek refuge in the caves of the past. This is simply because, today, there is only one path to progress, and that path leads forward. Naturally, anyone who refuses to move forward—no matter how much they distort reality, how much they obfuscate the truth, or how much they preach class conciliation—is ultimately forced to look backward. I have presented this brief historical sketch so that you may understand reactionary thought in the light of its political causes and class interests.

Now, we must examine how the struggle between progressivism and reactionary thought unfolds on the literary front within a class-based system, and how the battle between the old and the new is waged. We must see how the rising class has historically fought, and continues to fight, against the dying class.

It is clear that, in our view, the concept of progress is fundamentally social. We first attempt to determine the extent to which humanity has developed the means of production to improve its existence. We look at how much production has increased and how it has been organized within society. It is this very human struggle that not only expands the resources of civilization and culture but also transforms them into the collective property of the people. For it is human labor alone that gives birth to cultural values, whether that labor belongs to a slave, a peasant, or a worker. By freeing the ruling class from the physical toil of production, these laborers provide them with the opportunity to erect the towering edifices of civilization and culture. The ruling class, in turn, formulates laws and establishes the machinery of the state. It creates and propagates philosophy and literature.

To the extent that these civilizational efforts strengthen the foundational forces of culture, technically advance the means of production, and eliminate scarcity and economic disorder, culture not only continues to progress, but its values also become more accessible to the working masses. Conversely, when these civilizational efforts fail to strengthen the foundational forces of culture, fail to advance the means of production, and fail to eliminate scarcity and disorder, cultural values not only remain alienated from the working masses but actively become an obstacle to social progress. Instead of expanding human freedom, they seek to keep humanity enslaved. And to the extent that the working masses fight against these obstacles and this systemic disorder, the culture of the ruling class attempts to paralyze them by adopting ever-new guises.

Because the ruling class holds power over civilizational resources, it is in a position to interpret external realities however it pleases and to disseminate these interpretations among the general public. This process is not entirely conscious; it operates on an unconscious level as well. Once the human mind accepts certain values as absolute truths, it continuously uses those very values as a benchmark to pass judgment on the shifting or deteriorating forms of external reality.

It is upon these very principles of progress and reaction that we attempt to evaluate the highest cultural values, the most subtle ideas, the most complex philosophies, and the most beautiful literature. Naturally, this scientific perspective of ours does not summarily reject all the culture and literature of the past. Our approach is strictly critical: we reject reactionary elements, even if they were produced during a progressive era of a given age, and we embrace progressive elements, carrying them forward toward a new synthesis. This, then, serves as the fundamental principle of our critical evaluation. However, this alone is not enough to identify all the various trajectories of progress and reaction. Human history has always moved in highly complex and contradictory ways. It has breached the fortresses of slavery, stagnation, and inertia under the most peculiar and unexpected guises. It is this very complexity that necessitates further explanation.

Since the earliest days of his existence, man has struggled through collective social effort to understand the laws of nature and gain mastery over its forces. This is because humanity is the only living species that has become the creator of its own sustenance. Man could not have become this creator without possessing the knowledge of creation, nor without understanding the physical forms of objects and the secrets of their transformation. This struggle has fostered the development of both the physical and social sciences, with man learning through practical experience. Therefore, only knowledge that can withstand the test of practical application can attain the status of creative knowledge and true science. All intuitive, illusory, speculative, and purely mystical forms of knowledge that cannot prove their validity in the realm of action—and which lie beyond the boundaries of human experience—are excluded from the domain of true knowledge. Understanding the laws of nature means only one thing: that by operating within these laws, we can achieve our desired outcomes through human action and endeavor. While it is possible to achieve our desired results all at once, the closer we draw to this ultimate destination, the more concrete our knowledge becomes.

Since we have acquired all this knowledge through life experiences and learning, the sources of our knowledge are our physical senses, which are governed by the machinery of a material brain. Beyond these, we possess no other source of knowledge. If our literature, in accordance with its historical trajectory, does not align closely with these means of perception and understanding, then it is false and reactionary. If our literature opposes the material pursuits and physical sciences of its time, it is reactionary. If our literature portrays the laws of nature as being beyond human comprehension and perception, it is reactionary. If it depicts humanity as utterly helpless in the face of its own creative powers, it is reactionary. If our literature prevents human progress by presenting the social laws of a specific era as eternal and absolute, it is reactionary.

These principles were not fabricated in advance. They have emerged only through practical criticism. However, they cannot be accurately applied unless we examine the social, political, and economic conditions of a specific era, analyze the material and class foundations of intellectual struggles, and identify the new and old forces at play. This is because many elements of the past have lost their meaning today, and attempting to revive them in practice is reactionary. While these elements may have supported progressive forces in their own time, it does not mean their support was absolute. Often, they aided progress while simultaneously harboring contradictory tendencies. Even a materialist thinker like Darwin could not entirely free himself from the influence of bourgeois intellectuals. The complexities of history are such that we must remain exceedingly cautious and critical. The focal point of this critical perspective is human liberation—freedom from the enslavement of one's environment, and the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

Writers of every era have written about humanity. However, if a writer has not written in a way that expands the boundaries of human freedom, brings triumph to human life, and awakens human creative powers—but has instead written in a manner that perpetuates human enslavement, paralyzes creative faculties, reduces the struggle of life to weakness and regret, and turns the golden sweat of labor into the sweat of shame, bowing man's proud head in a spirit of servitude—then it must be said that such literature cannot be progressive. This holds true regardless of how strongly the constraints of the environment might justify it.

The question now arises: what should our perspective be if the literature belongs to a dark era—a time when physical sciences were heavily policed, and the ruling class continuously sought to keep the heads of the subjugated bowed? The answer is quite clear. Human society has never been, nor can it ever be, entirely static and stagnant. There have certainly been times when progressive forces grew exceedingly weak and sluggish, and darkness overwhelmed the environment. Yet, humanity has always continued to crawl toward progress, even if it had to adopt the path of rebellion and negation to find its way. The histories of both Europe and Asia have witnessed eras where the old order, along with the ruling class that upheld it, rotted away in stages of decline, putrefaction, and darkness. Yet, the new forces capable of dismantling that system to introduce a new order and new values had not yet come into existence.

Under such circumstances, the mere attempt to pierce through this darkness, to strike a blow against this ominous fortress, to reject its laws, to escape the web of metaphysics, to utilize one's physical senses, to yearn for material pleasures, and to reject the spirit of servitude—all of these constituted the path of progress. To the extent that the literature of such an era embodies these elements, it reflects progressive tendencies; and to the extent that it introduces opposing concepts alongside them, it is reactionary.

In Europe, the literature of the Renaissance waged a similar war against Christian monasticism and ecclesiastical philosophy. This very struggle facilitated the embrace and advancement of Greek philosophy. Thus, when Renaissance man emerged from this darkness in the fourteenth century, his first act was to acknowledge his own greatness and cleanse his heart of the sorrow of a distant paradise. The greatest contribution of Renaissance literature is that it liberated medieval man from his spiritual prison, allowing him to explore material pleasures and physical sensations. It gave humanity the courage to approach those sins the mere mention of which would set rosary beads trembling. This was a voice of protest against a spiritual philosophy that negated the physical body. It was a rebellion against an ecclesiastical theology that was entirely speculative and unscientific, completely detached from physical senses and human experience. It was not merely a voice of protest, but a direct assault on the fortress of spiritual philosophy in which the sons of Adam had been held captive.

It is not as though our own literary history lacks attempts to demolish this fortress. In Persian literature, the pagan life philosophies of the *Gabr* and *Tarsa*, Greek sciences, the rationalist movement, and the struggle to reject orthodox *Sharia* played a massive role in attempting to tear down this fortress. However, these efforts only succeeded in weakening the fortress; they could not completely destroy it because the physical sciences failed to flourish in this land. The local merchant class could not rise as a challenger to the monarchy in the way the European bourgeoisie did. And just as it began to stretch its limbs, foreign imperialism paralyzed it. This is why, until a new sun rose over the land of Russia and its workers liberated their country's marginalized masses—until they breached the fortress of the capitalist system—the people of our land, prior to 1918, could not declare that:

Tor dalin fitrat-e-insan ne zanjirein tamam

Doori-e-jannat ko roti chashm-e-Adam kab talak

[Human nature has shattered all its chains;

How long must Adam's eyes weep for a distant paradise?]

Today, as the subjugated and oppressed people across the globe shatter the chains of their slavery, reactionary forces are awakening their own terrifying and horrific past. Writers in capitalist countries are once again attempting to impose upon our minds the concept of a helpless, oppressed, and imprisoned humanity. Ezra Pound degrades human beings to a level even lower than plant life. André Malraux rejects the values of progress and science, preaching fatalism instead. Jean-Paul Sartre seeks human freedom in the negation of life. T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden are driving humanity back toward church dogmas, while Sosaat portrays man as even more dangerous than Machiavelli’s fox. He reduces human beings to mere victims of biological instincts, where the only function of the intellect is to sharpen their claws.

All these reactionary writers are mobilizing the horrific traditions of the past in the service of reactionism. This phenomenon is not confined to Europe; it is occurring in India and Pakistan as well. Today, Hasan Askari and his associates are not merely raising the slogan of art for art's sake; rather, they are attempting to reduce human beings to the level of animals. By portraying man as an absolute beast incapable of mastering his environment, they seek to drown him in a spirit of subservience. Hasan Askari has declared cruelty and ignorance to be the eternal and inherent characteristics of humanity. The entire essence of reactionism is concealed within these two words. According to this view, man must embrace ignorance so that he is stripped of human intellect, consciousness, and the values of progress and science. He must commit cruelty to attack the progressive forces within his own country; he must commit cruelty to invade neighboring nations; and he must commit cruelty to serve the interests of the dollar in a Third World War.

Why is it that the dark philosophies of the Middle Ages have now embraced the reactionary philosophies of capitalism? The fundamental reason is that humanity is currently fighting a war of liberation, after which it will finally be free from the subjugation of both other humans and its environment. It is evident that in this war between progress and reaction, in this clash between the old and the new, all concepts and philosophies of human slavery are destined to be obliterated. This is not merely a war between two political blocs. It is a war between freedom and slavery; it is a battle for the greatness, pride, determination, and conviction of humanity. Waged against those vile beasts who treat human beings as passive tools and seek to shatter their resolve and pride, this is a war to dismantle the very foundations of exploitation. This is precisely why all the reactionary philosophies and literary theories of the class system—which historically propped up exploitation in their respective eras—are now rushing to the aid of the capitalist system.

Now is the time for us, standing against the enemy ranks, to recognize our true guide. We must awaken our past, seek out its progressive traditions, and find the human being who, though riddled with wounds, refused to accept slavery. We must seek out that ironclad strength of resolve and conviction which, even under the shadow of the gallows, continued to declare: If I am granted life again, I will walk this very same path. We must seek out that truth which, breaking free from the confines of the written page, continually asserted its own reality... And we can only accomplish this task under the leadership of the working class, for this class is not only the custodian of the future but also the protector of human intellect and consciousness. Today, the capitalist system is dismantling human intellect and consciousness, preaching instead bestial instincts, a spirit of subservience, and lustful, neurotic impulses. In stark contrast, only the global working class and the new man of Soviet Russia and China stand as the guardians of intellect, consciousness, science, and progress.

It is because of these realities that the various forms of reactionism are not only being unmasked but are also being cornered into a dark, narrow alley. And as their stench and filth are increasingly exposed, the pure gold of our progressivism shines ever brighter. Our future is growing more radiant. Rest assured, the only one who denies and opposes the progressive traditions of the past is the one who lacks faith in the future and holds no love for it.

Therefore, I consider any brand of revolutionary thought that seeks to indiscriminately obliterate the past to be a form of reactionism itself. Such an ideology advocates revolution for the sake of revolution and sees nothing but utter desolation in the past. However, while we do reject certain elements of the past and gradually detach ourselves from them, our approach is different. We reject only the reactionary elements of the past. We selectively gather its progressive elements and carry them forward to forge a new qualitative change. And to the extent that we take a revolutionary leap in this endeavor, we simultaneously separate ourselves from the past. This is precisely what is meant by leaping from the old to the new.

If you wish to identify other forms of reactionism not explicitly mentioned in this essay, their absence here does not mean they are not reactionary. This essay has only discussed fundamental principles. If you reflect upon it, you will see that these very principles can also be used to evaluate the reactionary trend of formalism. Formalism obstructs the accurate representation of reality; it becomes a tool for propagating reactionary ideas; it prevents literature from drawing nourishment from the wellsprings of life; it stops literature from becoming the property of the masses; and it actively avoids serving life. However, maintaining literary beauty and standards does not necessitate falling into the trap of formalism. It is an accepted fact that literary standards cannot be determined by mediocre writings. They can only be established by works of the highest caliber, and it is here that we must look toward the guiding lighthouses of all centuries.

Defining reactionary literature is far more difficult than defining progressive literature. This is because there is only one path to progress, whereas the paths leading backward are many.

A defining characteristic of human society is that the battle between the old and the new has raged in every era. The forces that participate in building the new are what we call progressive. Conversely, those that cling to old values, hinder the growth of the new, and seek solutions to the conflict between the old and the new in the past are what we call reactionary. Stated this simply, the concept seems quite ordinary, and even a reactionary would find it hard to deny. The real complication arises, however, when we define the exact nature of progress in a specific era and begin tracing the paths of reactionary thought. That is when hidden hypocrisies are exposed, and idols begin tumbling out of seemingly pious sleeves.

Now, the question is: who determines the paths of progress and regression? In a class-based society, this question is bound to arise. A dying class will never willingly describe its own demise as a stepping stone to progress. It will inevitably reject the historical claims of its subjugated subjects. It will denounce their philosophy and ideology, and it will brand their path to progress as a path of destruction. This is precisely why ideological wars between progress and reaction are fought. These conflicts are not confined to mere bickering, accusations of heresy and atheism, or slander and lies; they often end up stained with human blood.

On the surface, it may appear as though the domes of a church and a mosque, or a temple and a mosque, have collided. It may seem that two different faiths or ideologies have clashed, two civilizations have locked horns, or two nations are chanting war cries based on their racial and national distinctions. The reality, however, is quite different. While one might find many secondary causes for these conflicts, the fundamental cause is always the protection of economic interests. Since these economic interests are always divided along class lines, the philosophies of both progress and reaction ultimately represent class interests. Abstract philosophy cannot help us understand this phenomenon; it can only be grasped through concrete examples—examples drawn from our own time, our own environment, and our immediate surroundings.

In Pakistan, there is only one progressive movement. Its aims, objectives, and ideals are clearly defined, and it possesses a distinct class foundation. Yet, in this very same Pakistan, reactionary thought takes on countless forms. Some attempt to drag us back into the past in the name of Islam, while others raise the slogan of Islamic Socialism. Some champion bourgeois nationalism under the guise of one country, one nation, while others point us toward American-style democracy. There are even those who bypass all these stages entirely and propose fascism as the ultimate solution.

Whether these ideologies are reactionary or not can only be determined by examining the circles from which these slogans originate. The matter is quite simple: only a class with no future looks back to the past. Today, the future of workers, peasants, and the middle class shines like a crescent moon across half the globe. Amidst this light, only those whose vested interests are threatened will retreat into the darkness. There is an old proverb: Time once lost cannot be regained. They know this perfectly well, yet, wringing their hands in regret, they insist on pulling at the ropes of a bygone era. They do this to keep the values of the feudal system alive, to prevent the masses from moving forward, to maintain old social hierarchies, and to protect their institutional monopolies. Alongside all this, they desperately want to ensure that their ideological and emotional lives—which are entirely shaped by these outdated social values—remain unshaken.

This is the crux of the matter, no matter how heavily it is cloaked in convoluted philosophy. To justify this, they lean on the idealist philosophies of everyone from Plato to Bergson and Einstein. Reality is neatly divided into material and spiritual compartments. Material reality is declared mutable, while spiritual reality is deemed immutable. This same duality is applied to the concept of time: the time that passes is labeled spatial time, while the time that does not pass is called non-spatial time. Operating under this very philosophy, Allama Iqbal does not advocate for the return of a material reality, but rather a spiritual one. However, as we all know, the soul of a living human being cannot be separated from its physical body. How, then, is it possible that spiritual values—which were the byproduct of a specific material society and which departed from its body when that society perished—can now be reincarnated into a new body and a new society? This spiritual transmigration makes no sense to me, even if Allama Iqbal chooses to call it a Reconstruction.

The irony is that Iqbal himself seems aware of this. Whenever he senses a flaw or contradiction in his own reasoning (and sensing this contradiction is inevitable once one acknowledges the forward march of history and the mutability of matter), he lashes out at machines. He does this because it was the machine age that birthed the conflict between capital and labor—a conflict that today threatens not only the capitalist system but seeks to dismantle the very foundations of class hierarchy and exploitation. The possibility of dismantling this class-based foundation can only arise when we recognize the interconnectedness of material and spiritual values, and when we view their evolving nature through the lens of historical materialism. We must stop placing the divine canopy of the Shadow of God over the heads of rulers, and we must stop defining social relations through divine jurisprudence.

We must not attribute the chain of social cause and effect—which is inherently material—to non-social or immaterial causes. We must not treat abstract concepts as the driving forces of history. We should view social dynamics and historical progress not as the evolution of abstract thought, but as the evolution of human life itself. Idealistic concepts of evolution only create obstacles, preventing human beings from forging their own history. They strip humanity of the power to master its social conditions. They cast the perpetual shadow of Original Sin over the soul of the Son of Adam, leading him to view the Fall of Man merely as a state of seeking divine forgiveness. He turns his earthly existence into a mere transient journey. Even when he does turn his attention to material life—and why shouldn't he, since he too is made of matter?—he only wishes to use it as a stepping stone for his spiritual life. Naturally, the only person who can successfully exploit material life for such a purpose is the one who controls the treasures of life—the one who controls the means of production.