Sikhism vs communism

The basic objection Sikhism has to a Communist society, or to a socialist society is in principle the same. The ideals of socialism, as a theory are embodied in the ideas of equality, freedom and fellowship. A socialist state is a state which translates these moral ideas into the economic life of its citizens, to man, both, as a consumer and a producer. It is here that the basic disease arises. To translate these eminently desirable ends into action, coercive means of necessity have to be devised and the agency for it is the state. State is merely an abstract term, and not a supra-individual entity as Hegel thought and taught, which thought has become the corner-stone of the modern socialist and communist societies. It is when the apparatus of the state comes to fall into the hands of a class of citizens, who then tend to consolidate themselves into a permanent and self-perpetuating layer of the society, that those characteristics of modern socialist societies arise to which Sikhism is basically opposed. Most of the modern political theories, whether those of socialism or of welfarism tacitly assume the legitimacy of the concept of state as a supra-individual entity to which obedience of the individual is due and for which an individual may be sacrificed. This assumption is the root cause of the tyrannies which are anathema to Sikhism, for, those who suspect socialism as a bridge to totalitarianism are not altogether mistaken as the realities of con¬temporary world show. Socialists are impressive verbal champions of freedom, but their actions destroy freedom. With increasing state ownership and control over the economy, Trotsky’s warning will come true: “Formerly, the rule was that he who does not work shall not eat, but now the rule is, he who does not obey shall not eat.”

- Sirdar Kapur Singh (Social implications of Sikhism)