The Delusions of a Pakistani Marxist

Lal Khan, editor of the Asian Marxist Review and so on, in the Daily Times, on Bangladesh:
(emphasis added)

Revolutionary upheaval on a class basis had erupted in both East and West Pakistan in 1968. The state was hanging in midair as a revolutionary wave swept across the country. Power was there to be seized. Lack of a revolutionary leadership prepared and determined to carry out a socialist revolution, necessary for a victorious class struggle, led to the derailing of the movement onto nationalist lines. Even then, as military aggression was being defeated, in liberated areas, people’s soviets, with JSD, communists and left nationalists in the leadership, were taking control. A new order was coming into being that threatened the whole system. Fear of the revolution spreading to West Bengal and beyond persuaded the Indian army to enter East Bengal. The defeated Pakistani army was salvaged for another occasion by its supposed foe and transported to prisons in India to subsequently return home. The Indian and Pakistan elites were and are terrified of a revolutionary transformation. War was waged to divert it. The US seventh fleet anchored with marines on board in the Bay of Bengal to intervene in case the Indian army failed to crush the burgeoning revolt. The bourgeois nationalist government based in Calcutta was installed under Indian patronage. Capitalism was saved. People continued to suffer its exploitation and repression.