Naxalbari and after: A Frontier anthology [2]

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Volume Two

NAXALBARI AND AFTER a frontier anthology Edited by Samar Sen Debabrata Panda Ashish Lahiri

Kathashilpa CALCUTTA 700 073

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December 1978

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EDITORS’ NOTE The planning of Yol. II has been a little different froim that of Vol. I.

Instead of maintaining a general chronological

order, the articles in the DEBATES section have been arranged topic-wise. heads :

This section has been sub-classified under two

Strategy and Tactics and Appraisal.

As in Vol.Ir

the articles have, in some cases, been edited. The articles in the section, DOCUMENTS, however, have been arranged chronologically.

A number of documents not

published in Frontier—one of them hitherto unpublished any¬ where—have been incorporated.

With the exception

of the

‘Immediate Programme’ the sources of all other documents have been clearly mentioned. In printing the ‘Immediate Programme’ we have mainly followed the translation supplied to us by Mr. Moni Guha, one of the editors of the journal, Proletarian Path.

Minor changes of language have been made in the text

by comparing this translation with a different one published in New Democracy No. 1 (March, 1972). Where there is no men¬ tion of the source, the date given at the end of the document is that of the relevant issue of Frontier.

Beyond certain

grammatical corrections, no liberty has been taken with the text. To enable the general readers to properly appreciate the significance of the documents included, a brief account of the background and the cross-currents of the Naxalbari movement is presented below. The history of the influence of Mao Tsetung on the Indian communist movement can be traced back to the Telengana armed struggle, 1946-51.

The communists of Telengana had

then, in the teeth of bitter opposition from the central leadership of the Communist Party of India [CPI], upheld the relevance of Mao Tsetung’s theory of New Democracy in the Indian con¬ text.

Since then, the communist movement in India under¬

went significant changes.

The undivided CPI later accepted

the path of peaceful transition to socialism as charted out by?

-the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] in its 20th Congress.

Discontent within the CPI came to a head with

‘India’s China War’ in 1962.

In 1964, the Party split and the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] was formed, which dubbed the CPI ‘revisionist’. In March

1967, in the Fourth General Elections, non-

Congress governments were formed in eight of the seventeen states.

The CPI(M) joined the United Front governments in

Kerala and West Bengal.

In May 1967, Naxalbari, till then

an obscure spot in North Bengal, suddenly became an object of widespread attention, with an armed peasant uprising. this, Charu

Before

Majumdar [CM] had written ‘Eight Documents’,

which, according to the leadership of the Communist Party of India

(Marxist-Leninist)

[CPI(ML)], formed later in 1969,

were the ideological basis of the uprising.

CM’s article ‘Carry

Forward the Peasant Struggle by Fighting Revisionism’, inclu¬ ded in this Volume, is the last of the ‘Eight Documents’.

In

his ‘Report on the Peasant Movement in the Terai Region’, Kanu Sanyal [KS], one of the chief architects of Naxalbari, gave an analytical account of the uprising. In a later document, ‘More About Naxalbari’, written from jail in 1973, Sanyal, however, pointed to some lacunae in his earlier report. Meanwhile, in an editorial ‘Spring Thunder Over India’, published in the July 5, 1967 issue of the People's Daily, the Communist Party of China [CPC] had come out in support of the Naxalbari peasant movement. All this had had its share in accentuating the contradic¬ tions within

the

CPI(M).

disowned Naxalbari.

The leadership of the CPI(M)

And the U. F. Government in West

Bengal let loose severe police repression. Then came the parting

of ways.

A large number

cadres of the CPI(M) and a section of the pelled from the Party. disbanded.

of

leaders were ex¬

The Darjeeling District Committee was

Thousands of members left the Party.

The dis¬

sident and the expelled members branded the CPI(M) leader¬ ship ‘neo-revisionist’ and started Deshabrati, a Bengali weekly, aud Liberation, an English monthly.

A ‘Declaration of the

Revolutionaries of the CPI(M)’ was issued by the All India Co¬ ordination Committee of Revolutionaries [AICCR], formed -on November 13, 1967, in Calcutta. The exodus continued to gain momentum.

In April 1968,

at the CPI(M) plenum held at Burdwan, West Bengal, the -draft ‘For Ideological Discussion’, placed before the members back in August 1967, was approved.

The draft criticized the

CPSU, but at the same time charged the CPC with interfer¬ ence in the internal affairs of the CPI(M).

The Jammu and

Kashmir and the Andhra State Committees opposed this draft. Some of the contentions of the latter were that the draft rejected people’s war as the universal form of struggle in back¬ ward countries like India and abandoned agrarian revolution as the principal line.

The Andhra State Committee walked

out of the CPI(M). With the Burdwan Plenum the breach was final.

On May

14, 1968, the AICCR enlarged itself into the All India Co¬ ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries [AICC¬ CR], under the leadership of CM.

On that same day were

issued the ‘Second Declaration’ and a ‘Resolution on Elections’. The process of consolidation of revolutionaries, however, made little headway.

A large section of the communists in

Andhra Pradesh formed the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Committee

[APRCC] in September 1968, which

acted as the Andhra State Committee of the AICCCR until February 7,

1969, when the latter decided ‘to part with the

Andhra Committee’ and to ‘maintain non-antagonistic relations’ with them as ‘friends and comrades outside the AICCCR’. The causes of the discord were that the Andhra Committee and Nagi Reddy were not unconditionally loyal to the CPC ; that instead of owning and glorifying the Srikakulam struggle, they accorded it at most a lukewarm support; that while

the

AICCCR considered boycott of elections a basic question for an entire period, the Andhra Committee maintainted, it was a tactical question.

Breaking

away from the AICCCR, the

APRCC adopted the ‘Immediate Programme’ in April 1969. On the other hand, the

AICCCR had decided to form

itself into a party, and the CPI (ML) was born on April 22y 1969. On that day, the Central Organising Committee of theCPI(ML) adopted the ‘Political Resolution’, and the hithertounpublished document, ‘Resolution on Party Organisation’. A year later, by the middle of May 1970, the Party held itsFirst Congress—which was termed the ‘Eighth Congress of the

CPI(ML)—the

First Party Congress

after

Naxalbari’

claimed to be in continuity with the seven congresses of the Indian communist movement prior to the formation of the CPI(ML). The ‘Political Organisational Report’ and Majumdar’s note ‘On Political Organisational Report’ were adopted at the Congress. Tremendous police repression led to the killing and arrest of a large number of cadres and leaders. In this context, CM wrote two ‘Notes’, specifying some concrete tasks in the rural and the urban areas. About the guidelines of the ensuing phase of struggle, CM left very clear indications in his ‘Last Writing’ before his arrest and subsequent death in police custody. All this time, Majumdar had been having ideological differ¬ ences with a number of prominent leaders. Parimal Dasgupta, Asit Sen, Promode Sengupta, Sushital Roy Chowdhury [SRC] —all of them had, at one time or another, lashed out at CM’s policies.

SRC’s document, ‘Problems and Crises of Indian

Revolution’ gives a glimpse of his points of difference with CM’s line. In September 1970, the Bihar State Committee led by Satyanarain Singh [SNS] had levelled charges of “Left” sectarianism against the Party Central Committee headed by CM. This subsequently resulted in the expulsion of the Bihar State Committee led by SNS, who later, on November 7, 1971 formed a new, parallel Central Committee. Things, however, came to surface with the ‘Open Letter* written by six prominent leaders from jail. In another docu¬ ment, ‘More About Naxalbari’ criticised CM. Lessons

written from jail, KS bitterly

In his document, ‘Hold High the Genuine

of Naxalbari’,

written in November

1975, Ashim

Chatterjee was also in complete agreement with KS’s line of criticism. Some of the major points raised by KS

were again

subjected to serious criticism by K. Venkaiah [KV], who had been one of the signatories to the

‘Open Letter’, in his

document ‘New Controversies in the name of More about Naxalbari’.

KV’s contentions have been supported by two

■other signatories to the ‘Open Letter’, Naga Bhushan Patnaik and D. Bhuban Mohan Patnaik. Meanwhile, disintegration had affected the APRCC too. Following the arrest of leaders like Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao in 1969, the

active

leadership had to be reconstituted.

This reconstituted leadership of APRCC, by then renamed the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Party [APRCP] ■came under fire both in jail.

in

1970 from Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao—

Replying to charges of ‘Left Deviation’ levelled

against them by Nagi Reddy and D.V.

Rao, the new leader¬

ship headed by Chandra Pulla Reddy [CPR] accused the former of‘Party-splitting activities and capitulationist policies’.

The

position of this group is contained in the document ‘The First Conference of the APRCP’. group SNS

Subsequently, in early 1975, this

merged with the Central Committee, CPI(ML) led by (vide ‘Unite to Build A Single

Party’).

The

Unity

Committee of the CPI(ML) also joined in, and the Central Committee, CPI(ML) led by SNS, came to be known as the Provisional Central Committee, CPI(ML).

The CPI(ML) led

by SNS opposes the ‘Gang of Four’, supports the leadership of Hua Kuo-feng and the Three Worlds theory. '‘Resolution on Elections’

Their document

reviews the stand of the AICCCR

and the CPI(ML) on the question of boycott of elections. The section which share of divisions. then became the

remained loyal to CM also had its

CM died on July 28, 1972 and Sharma General Secretary of the Party.

Mahadeb

Mukherjee [MM], a member of the Central Committee led by Sharma, formed a parallel Central Committee in late 1973. MM is known as the leader of the pro-CM pro-Lin Piao group of the CPI(ML).

Loyal to CM, the Bhojpur Committee along

with others that did not join the SNS-group had worked for some time with MM.

But when MM supported Lin Piao,

this Bhojpur Committee along with others dissociated itself

from the MM group.

This group supports Hua Kuo-feng and

opposes the ‘Gang of Four’

and is known as the pro-CM

anti-Lin group of the CPI(ML).

In November 1975, Subroto

Datta (Jahar), its first General Secretary, was killed by the police.

Since then, Vinode Mishra [VM] has been the General

Secretary of the group.

The documents, ‘Editorial, Desha-

brati' and the ‘Present Situation and Immediate Tasks’ reveal the positions of the MM-

and the VM-led groups of the CPI-

(ML) respectively. In addition to these we have included two other documents. One is that of the Maoist Communist Centre [MCC], formerly known as the ‘Dakshin Desk’ group, which never joined the CPI(ML).

Their document ‘How the people can be mobilised

in Guerilla Warfare’ CPI(ML).

gives their points of difference with the

The other is that of the Unity Centre of the Com¬

munist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) [UCCRI (ML)] entitled ‘On United Front’. UCCRI(ML) had its origin in the APRCC led by T. Nagi Reddy and D. V. Rao.

Many

groups formerly belonging to the CPI(ML) also joined it later. The three organisations—West Bengal Co-ordination Com¬ mittee of Revolutionaries [WBCCR] and the All India Prepa¬ ratory Committee, Communist Unity Centre (Marxist-Leninist) [AIPC, CUC(ML)] and APRCC merged together in April 1975 to form the UCCRI(ML).

During the Emergency, because of

differences within the organisation regarding the role of its General Secretary,

D. V.

Rao—most of the UCCRI(ML)

members outside Andhra dissociated themselves from D. V. Rao group and now function under the same name. The document is of this latter section.

An important inclusion in

the Appendix is Subroto Datta’s ‘One divides into two’. We have tried to make the representative as possible.

DOCUMENTS section as

Still, however, we lay no claim as

to the total representation of all the groups and of all their view-points.

We are also aware that shortcomings may have

crept in, not only because of the inexperience of the editors in this field but also because of the lack of a predecessor work of exactly this nature.

CONTENTS

DEBATES

Strategy and Tactics Indian Maoism—Two Shades ? —Mallikarjuna Rao

...

f

...

8

...

12

Letter—A Reader

...

21

The Srikakulam story—Narayana Murthi

...

23

Letter—A Kisan worker

...

27

...

28

Vote and Revolution—Arun Kumar Roy

...

37

Letter—Sudarshan Chatterjee

...

47

Letter—Morris Roy The general line in Colonial Revolution —Rafiqul Islam

Andhra Pradesh : Analysis of a Split ■—A Correspondent

Communists—Simple, Marxist and Revolutionary —Arun Kumar Roy

...

50

...

66

...

71

Individual terrorism & Marxism—Ashim Mitra ...

76

Letter—Chandranath Chakraborty

...

80

The Naxalite Tactical line—Abhijnan Sen

...

82

Naxalite Tactics in cities—Abhijnan Sen

...

88

CPI(M)’s Revolutionary Teaching—Digvijay On the Thoughts of Charu Majumdar —B. Upadhyay

Two Deaths (Letter)—S. Roy

...

96

Two Deaths (Letter)—Arun Majumdar

...

99

*«

100

Appraisal Naxalbari : between yesterday and to-morrow —Sumanta Banerjee

109

CPI(ML) : the twilight hour—A Correspondent Naxalbari and After : An appraisal •••

117

The Main danger—Baburaj

•••

129

‘The Main danger’—Prabhat Jana

•••

137

‘The Main danger’—Arun Goswami

...

145

—Prabhat Jana

148

What’s to be done'—K. G. Class Struggle—Moni Guha

•. •

152

Letter—Arun Goswami

...

155

...

157

...

169

...

177

•••

188

Declaration of the revolutionaries of the CPI(M) ...

193

Second Declaration of A1CCCR

...

196

Resolution on Elections (AICCCR)

...

201

...

203

It is time to form the Party (AICCCR)

...

227

I mmediate Programme (APRCC)

... ...

The main dangers and the main errors —Rafikul Hassan Continuity of Naxalbari—Bhabani Chowdhuri

DOCUMENTS Carry forward the peasant struggle by fighting revisionism—Charu Majumdar Spring Thunder over India —People's Daily editorial

Report on the peasant movement in the Terai region—Kanu Sanyal

Political Resolution, CPI(ML) Resolution on Party Organisation, CPI(ML) A Critique of the Political Resolution

231 251 263

(• • •

274

•••

275

•

285

...

291

...

296

Programme of the CPI(ML), Party Congress May 1970 Political Organisational Report, Party Congress May 1970 On the Political Organisational Report —Charu Majumdar Problems and Crises of Indian Revolution —Sushital Roy Chowdhury

How the people can be mobilised in Guerilla warfare

>m

313

...

318

...

319

...

320

...

322

...

326

...

347

The first conference of the APRCP

...

371

Present situation and immediate tasks

...

374

...

380

...

383

On the Situation and our Tasks

...

393

Resolution ‘On Elections’

...

400

On United Front

...

410

Editorial, Deshabrati

...

412

...

419

A note on Party’s work in Urban areas —Charu Majumdar A note on Party’s work in Rural areas —Charu Majumdar Majumdar’s last writing—Charu Majumdar Open Letter —Kanu Sanyal, Chowdhary Tejeswara Rao, Souren Bose, Nagabhushan Patnaik, Kolia Venkaiah, D. Bhuban Mohan Patnaik More about Naxalbari—Kanu Sanyal New controversies in the name of ‘More about Naxalbari’—Kolia Venkaiah

“Unite to build a single party’ —S. N. Singh,

P. Vasudeva Rao,

Ramanarsiah,

Chandra Pulla

Reddy Hold High the Genuine Lessons of Naxalbari —Ashim Chatterjee

Appendix One Divides into Two —Subroto Datta (Jahar) Index

DEBATES

Strategy And Tactics

INDIAN MAOISM—TWO SHADES ? MALLIKARJUNA RAO

The first recorded debate in the world communist move¬ ment on the legitimacy of Mao Tsetung’s theories as part of Marxism-Leninism took place in India in 1948-49 and the first open denunciation of these theories as alien to Marxism-Lenin¬ ism came from the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, B. T. Ranadive, in 1949. sectarian”

In the wake of the “Left

deviation at the Calcutta (Second) Congress of the

CPI, early in 1948, the Andhra communists, who were already leading an armed struggle of the Telengana peasantry, turned to Mao Tsetung’s New Democracy (published in 1944) in their •search for revolution based on a four-class alliance and the tactic of peasant partisan warfare.

Ranadive, who advocated

the new-fangled theory of the “intertwining” of the two stages of revolution and wanted the entire bourgeoisie to be fought, had to extend his polemic to reach the very source of the Andhra communist heresy—Mao Tsetung himself.

Ranadive

wrote : “...we must state emphatically that the Communist Party of India has accepted Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as the authoritative sources of Marxism. new sources of Marxism beyond these.

It has not discovered Nor for that matter is

there any communist party which declares adherence to the socalled theory of new democracy alleged to be propounded by Mao and declares it to be a new addition to Marxism.” Rana¬ dive was equating Mao Tsetung with Tito and Earl Browder when he said it was “impossible for communists to talk lightly about new discoveries, enrichment, because such claims have

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

2

proved to be a thin cloak for revisionism.”

VOL IP

The Andhracom-

munists were invoking Mao Tsetung in June 1948, when what now is regarded as Mao’s theories or known as Maoism had not been formalised under this nomenclature.

The Chinese

revolution had not yet triumphed fully and the People’s Re¬ public of China had not been founded when the Andhra com¬ munists hailed Mao Tsetung’s New Democracy and regarded him as a new source of Marxism. Twenty years later, the wheel has turned a full circle. Communist Party of India split into two in 1964.

The

The Com¬

munist Party of India (Marxist), formed in 1964, rejected at its Eighth Congress (December 1968) an amendment to its political

resolution

requiring it to accept

Mao

Tsetung’s

thought as the Marxism-Leninism of the present epoch. Later, in May 1969, its Politbureau suggested that the analysis of the world situation contained in the main document of the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of China had nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism. With this the polarisation in the Indian communist move¬ ment was complete.

The CPI and the CPI(M) constitute the

non-Maoist or anti-Maoist wing.

The Communist Party of

India (Marxist-Leninist), formed in April 1969, is the only organised Maoist party in India though it cannot claim to represent the majority of Maoists in the country.

The Revolu¬

tionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh as well as other formations have chosen to keep out of the new party. The Communist Party of China conferred “recognition” on the CPI(ML) by reprinting excerpts from its political resolution in the People’s Daily (July 2 1969).

But there are two principal

shades of Maoism in India—one represented by the CPI(ML) and the other by the Andhra Maoists. There is broad agreement among the various Indian Maoist groups on the international general line.

There is also broad

agreement among them on the stage of the Indian revolution, though the CPI(ML) identifies it as the people’s democratic stage [semantically this is in agreement with the CPI(M)’s] while

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

J

the Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh calls it the new-democratic stage. The first point of difference begins with the very beginning. The manner in which the CPI(ML) was formed has not met with approval of many of the Maoist groups.

The first coun¬

trywide co-ordination of Maoists took place in the form of the All-India Co-ordination

Committee of the Revolutionaries of

the CPI(M) in November 1967 and it included Maoists who had left the CPI(M) or had been expelled, as well as those still in the party.

The Co-ordination Committee was not a party^

or even the nucleus of a party, and its

sponsors

party and programme through a process of struggles.

wanted a

revolutionary

After the Burdwan plenum of the CP1(M) in April

1968, the majority of the party’s membership in

Andhra

Pradesh was in revolt and the Andhra Pradesh Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was formed.

It

sought affiliation to the All-India Co-ordination Committee a few months later. But in February 1969, following serious differences with the Andhra Pradesh unit, the All-India Co¬ ordination Committee disaffiliated the unit. Alongside, at the same meeting (February 1969), the AICCCR decided to go ahead with the formation of a new party, contrary to its own views earlier against any hasty step towards the goal.

For instance, in May 1968, the AICCCR, reviewing

the year since Naxalbari, renewed its call for building a “true communist party” in the course of Naxalbari-type struggles, for “revolution can not be victorious without a revolutionary party”.

But Charu Majumdar, the principal theoretician of

the AICCCR, was not sure that the time had come for the formation of a new party.

He wrote that “the primary condi¬

tions for building up a revolutionary party is to organise armed struggle in the countryside” and that a Maoist party cannot be formed merely by gathering together “the various so-called Marxists who profess the thought of Chairman Mao Tsetung and revolt against leadership of the party...” But in February 1969, the AICCCR leadership decided on

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

4

the immediate formation of the party.

VOL II

Its resolution said that

an excellent revolutionary situation existed in the country and there was growing unity of revolutionary ranks.

The political

and organisational needs of a fast developing struggle could no longer be met by a co-ordination committee because “without a revolutionary party, there can be no revolutionary discipline and without revolutionary discipline the struggles cannot be raised to a higher level.”

Its earlier idea that a party should

be formed only “after all the opportunist tendencies, alien trends and undesirable elements have been purged through class struggle is nothing but subjective idealism.

To conceive

of a party without contradictions, without the struggle between the opposites, i.e. to think of a pure faultless party is to indulge in idealist fantasy.”

Thus the CPI(ML) was formed

from above. Kanu Sanyal said at the Calcutta Maidan rally on May 1, 1969, that those who speak of building a party through struggle are indulging in petty-bourgeois romanticism. In contrast, the Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh (formerly the State Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries) believes in building a party in the course of revolutionary struggle.

It has taken a decision

in principle to form a party but thinks, as its journal, Jancisakti, made it clear, that revolutionary action should precede the formation of a revolutionary party. But the differences between the CPI(ML) and the Andhra Maoists relate primarily to the tactical line. The first difference is over the principal contradiction in India. The second differ¬ ence, obviously an off-shoot of the first, relates to the form of struggle.

Or, more specifically, to three sub-issues : Is guerilla

warfare the only form of struggle in the present stage in India ? Is there any need for mass organisation to carry on the demo¬ cratic struggle ?

Should a Maoist party be a secret organisa¬

tion ? These are the issues being debated within and among the various Maoist groups in India, including the Andhra Maoist group.

5

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

The CPI (ML)’s political resolution identifies the principal contradiction in India as between feudalism and the masses of the peasantry, and the immediate task as people’s democratic revolution, the main component of which is agrarian revolution to end feudalism.

“Comprador-bureaucratic capitalism and

United States and Soviet imperialism”, being the main props of feudalism, have to be fought too.

Some of the other groups

think imperialism is the main enemy and feudalism and com¬ prador bourgeoisie survive only with the help of imperialism. The Immediate Programme of the RCC of Andhra says that India is a “neo-colony” exploited by the U.S., British and Soviet imperialists and along with imperialism, feudalism also an exploiting force.

is

“The task of the new-democratic

revolution is to destroy imperialism, feudalism, comprador bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic capitalism i.e., the big bour¬ geoisie and then to establish a new-democratic State”. The CPI(ML)’s class strategy is one of a “revolutionary front of all revolutionary classes” according to its political resolution, which commends Mao Tsetung’s theory of people’s, war as the only means of struggle.

It says, “If the poor and

landless peasants, who constitute the majority of the peasantry,, the firm ally of the working class, unite with the middle peasants, then the vast section of the people will be united and. the democratic revolution will inevitably win victory.

It is the

responsibility of the working class as the leader of the revolu¬ tion to unite with the peasantry—the main force of the revolu¬ tion—and advance towards seizure of power through armed struggle.

It is on the basis of worker-peasant alliance that a

revolutionary united front of all classes will be built up.”

But

the party does not seem to be clear as to how to achieve the task of building a “revolutionary front of all revolutionary classes”. The CPI(ML)'s

documents

repeatedly

emphasise

guerilla

warfare waged by the peasantry against the landlords as the only form of struggle in the present stage of revolution.

There

is little mention of the need for mass organisations or for an agrarian programme as a concommitant of peasant struggle.

6

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

To go by published material, an article by Charu Majumdar in Ghatana Prabaha (Vol. II, No. 1) is revealing.

Rejecting

the ideas of a mass organisation, he advocates the building of a secret organisation

through

which

the poor and landless

peasants can establish their leadership of the peasant move¬ ment. “Obviously all the peasants do not at first wage guerilla war ; it is started by the advanced, class conscious section. So at the beginning, it may appear to be the struggle of a handful of people.

It is not the Che (Guevara)-style guerilla

war because this war is started not by relying on weapons but on the co-operation of the unarmed people.

So this

struggle could be started only by propagating the politics of seizure of power among the peasantry and this task can be achieved by the party unit formed of poor and landless peasants. The party unit can fulfil this task only by organising guerilla war by poor and landless peasants ...Guerilla war is the only tactic of the peasants’ revolutionary struggle.

This cannot

be achieved by any mass organisation through open struggle.” (Italics added) The main criticism by other Maoist groups is that the CPI (ML)’s line of thinking is opposed to Mao Tsetung’s thought because by considering armed struggle by the peasantry as the only form of struggle, it is minimising or even ignoring the role of the working class and the tasks in the urban areas and the role of mass organisations. As for the Andhra RCC, the emphasis is not on armed clashes with the landlords and the State authority through a handful of revolutionaries but on mass armed struggles. statement on armed struggle (July

A

1969) notes that “only

through mass revolutionary rallies, revolutionary organisation and mass armed struggle we can dissolve the present big land¬ lord-big bourgeois imperialist system.” The contours of the revolutionary front the Andhra RCC has in view are : “The working class will lead the united front. Along

with workers and peasants, middle classes and (the)

national bourgeoisie will also be in this united front”, to

7

IDEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

achieve the new-democratic revolution.

The line is based on

the inseparable relationship between the party, armed struggle and united front. A document, devoted to examining the RCC’s differences with the Srikakulam unit affiliated to the CPI(ML), on the conduct of the Girijan

armed struggle

in

Srikakulam tribal

tract, clearly declares that to begin guerilla struggle partici¬ pation of the masses is a necessary condition. programme is the basis of all peasant struggle. to the RCC, the starting, development,

An agrarian According

consolidation and

extension of all the struggles of the peasantry would have to be based on an “agrarian revolutionary programme”.

Liberation

for the peasantry means liberation from the landlord-imperia¬ list system. Though complete liberation is possible only after the establishment of base areas, seizure of power throughout India

and after

government, struggles,

the

establishment

“liberation

with the

the starting, of

of

a

new-democratic

begins with the starting of class

starting of anti-landlord struggles, with

the Agrarian

Revolutionary Programme”,

according to the document. On the call for boycott of elections the RCC’s Immediate Programme urges

action to implement the RCC’s earlier

decision to boycott the panchayat elections in Andhra Pradesh. It is not a mere question of the Revolutionary Communists boycotting the poll but one of persuading the people not to participate in the elections.

“To achieve this we must

mainly depend on the consciousness and organising capacity of the people.

No short-cut

methods are to be allowed

or treaded”, it warns, because “we must specify that the issue at hand is not mere boycott of elections by the people” but one of convincing them that people’s war is the path for them and that the village soviets and people’s committees would constitute the foundation of the “new people’s

democratic

revolutionary State” in the villages and provide the leadership ifor implementing the agrarian programme. The RCC thinks that its attempt to give a positive content

8

NAXALBARIAND AFTER

VOL U

to the slogan of election boycott at the grassroots level gives a new dimension to the concept of organising the peasantry for action.

Where the RCC commands the majority following in

a panchayat village, boycott of elections would lead to an unprecedented situation.

The majority will be outside the

government-sponsored panchayat committee and form their own parallel “people’s committee”. The people’s committees in the “boycott” villages will function in competition with the govern¬ ment-sponsored committees, the sanction coming from the majority of the people.

These committees will undertake law,

revenue, village defence (against attacks of landlords or govern¬ ment machinery) tasks and when the peasant struggles move to higher forms, would become the village soviets. These com¬ mittees would also work as the united front committees, initiate and carry out agrarian reform and will play their role in the armed struggle.

Revolutionary Communists would dominate

these committees and provide the leadership but these would have the participation of agricultural labour and the poor peasants and others.

As the movement goes ahead, a few

representatives of the rich

peasants might be taken in.

But

these committees are to have a clear class outlook and ideo¬ logy. The Immediate Programme clearly emphasises the role of mass organisations for the peasantry, working class, students and other sections of the people.

In contrast, the CPI(ML)

seems to have a distrust of mass organisations and urban areas in general. July 4, 1970

Letter Apropos Mr Mallikarjuna Rao’s “Indian Shades ?” (July 4)

Mr Charu Majumdar, in

Maoism—Two 1968, said that

“the primary condition for building up a revolutionary party is to organise armed struggle in the countryside.” Even in 1968,. armed guerilla struggle was started in Srikakulam and other

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

9

‘

parts of Andhra Pradesh. But Nagi Reddy and his groups, the principal initiators of the Revolutionary Communist Com¬ mittee of Andhra Pradesh, refused to join this struggle and in every possible way discouraged it. As the political and orga¬ nisational needs of a fast developing struggle could no longer be met by a Co-ordination Committee, the party was formed at the initiative of the struggling comrades. As Nagi Reddy and his group did not join the struggle and, in fact, opposed it, they were naturally excluded from the party. Secondly, Mr Rao has described the CPI(ML)’s stand about the principal contradiction in India as between feudalism and the masses of peasantry, but the ‘Immediate Programme’ of theRCCof Andhra, as described by Mr Rao, fails to present any concrete analysis of the principal contradiction in India. Regarding the building of a “revolutionary front of all revolutionary classes,” the CPI(ML) has made it clear that only in the course of struggle can such a revolutionary front be achieved. Further, Mr Rao said that contrary to the thesis of the CPI(ML) that guerilla warfare waged by the peasantry against the landlords as the only form of struggle in the present stage of revolution, the Andhra RCC’s emphasis is not on armed clashes with the landlord and the State authority thro¬ ugh a handful of revolutionaries but on mass armed struggles. But the problem, which I presume the Andhra RCC has for¬ gotten, is to establish red political power and base areas in the countryside. About this particular matter, the CPI(ML) said that armed guerilla struggle and annihilation of feudal lords and their henchmen is the only way. Is the accusation of the Andhra RCC that clashes with the landlords and the State authority are indulged in by a ‘handful’ of revolutionaries true ? Take the case of armed guerilla stru¬ ggle in Srikakulam, Mushahari, Lakhimpur-Kheri and DebraGopiballavpur which are going on under the leadership of the CPI(ML). The participation by hundreds of people in giving shelter and food, in collecting intelligence and information

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

10

VOL II

about the enemy’s position, guarantee of passage for retreat and advance of the guerillas and the participation of the peo¬ ple in the attack and celebration of victories after a successful attack, the functioning of the Krishak Samitis and People’s Courts—are all these manifestations of isolated actions by a handful of revolutionaries and virtual withdrawal from mass organisations ?

The establishment of red political power in

these areas is a clear indication of the fact that the CPI(ML) has done intensive political propaganda and mass work before any action. The Andhra RCC said that “only through mass revolu¬ tionary rallies, revolutionary organisation and mass armed struggle we can dissolve the present big landlord-big bourgeois imperialist system”.

But how will this mass armed struggle

against the landlord-bourgeois-imperialist The Andhra

system be effected ?

RCC lacks any cohesive analysis on this point.

Do they mean that a revolutionary mass upsurge with sponta¬ neity will be directed against the landlords ?

But then the

open nature of this struggle would expose the party apparatus and defeat the purpose of secret political propoganda by the party units. The Andhra RCC should learn the lessons of the Naxalbari upsurge which was something of a mass upsurge in which spontaneity and mass initiative far outweighed the planning and discipline of a revolutionary movement.

With¬

out proper politicalisation, military experience and discipline, the movement suffered setbacks in the face of police repres¬ sion.

The very open nature of the preparation for armed

struggle must also have exposed the party apparatus. Sanyal,

Kanu

drawing the necessary lesson, suggested that in the

next phase of struggle the revolutionaries will set up party units which will not only be armed but will also be “trained to maintain secrecy.”

Such units will propagate Mao’s thoughts,

-intensify class struggle and as guerilla units strike and annihi¬ late class enemies. They will follow the basic tactics of guerillawarfare as enunciated by Mao. statement of the RCC,

Significantly enough, in the

detailed by Mr Rao,

there is no

11

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

mention of the annihilation of class enemies.

Mao laid it

-down that the fundamental guiding principle of all military operations should be “war of annihilation.” The CPI (ML) never disregarded any mass organisation or economic movements.

As Mr Charu Majumdar has pointed

out, “...We do not say that we shall never wage struggles for economic demands.

What we say is that political propaganda

and building party organisations are the foremost and main tasks before us.”

(Fight against Revisionism, Liberation No.

11, Vol 2, September 1969.) Read also his “Our Party’s Tasks Among the Workers.”

Regarding the work in the urban

areas, the CPI(ML) has clearly given directions to launch demo¬ cratic movements in support of armed agrarian revolution in the countryside.

Contrary to the allegation that the CPI(ML)

is minimising or even ignoring the role of the working class, its Political Resolution said, “It is the responsibility of the working class as the leader and vanguard of the revolution to unite with the principal force of revolution i.e., the peasantry and to seize power by way of armed struggle.”

Mr Charu

Majumdar, in his article ‘To the Working Class,’ (Liberation, No. 5, Vol. 3, March 1970) said, “Today the masses of workers should think of the hundreds of millions of poor and landless peasants who have been exploited and oppressed for centuries and who now find their conditions unendurable.

The working

class can earn for itself a status of dignity in society, a status which it is entitled to as the producer of wealth, only by over¬ throwing the

crushing

burden of

exploitation...Once the

workers and the peasants, the producers of wealth, are united, a tremendous force will be

generated which will make it

possible to accomplish the People’s Democratic Revolution, and then to establish the socialist system in India by destroying the exploiters and the system of exploitation. It is the working . class that must shoulder the responsibility of realising this possibility and must assume the leadership.” How can political consciousness be instilled among the • working class who are

infatuated with

economism ?

This

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

12

will not happen automatically.

VOL JL

This can be effected only by

intensifying the armed struggle in the rural sector, by which the capitalist-agent nature of the CPM and the CPI will be exposed before the urban workers.

Reference may be made

to the penetration of the CPI(ML) among the working class of Jamshedpur, which has become possible only because of its armed guerilla struggle in the rural areas of Bihar. August 1, 1970

MORRIS ROY

THE GENERAL LINE IN COLONIAL REVOLUTION RAFIQUL ISLAM

Mao Tsetung’s leadership over the revolutionary war now being waged in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been firmly established through the experiences of the people themselves. The general principles of the Chinese path to revolution have been found to apply equally to all colonial countries and any attempt to

evade them has inevitably led the revolutionaries

to defeat or to capitulation. But that does not mean that all colonial revolutions must be carbon

copies of the Chinese revolution.

not permit this kind of ritual.

Marxism does

As Mao himself said :

“...how to turn Marxism into something

specifically

Chinese, to imbue every manifestation of it with Chinese characteristics i.e., to apply it in accordance with China’s characteristics, becomes a problem which the whole Party must understand and solve immediately.for the fresh and lovely things of Chinese style and Chinese flavour which the common folk of China love to see and hear.” (The Role of the National War)

Chinese

Communist

Party in the

13

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Similarly the Indian revolutionary must of necessity “imbue every manifestation” with Indian characteristics, and clothe the theory of revolution in Indian style and Indian flavour. The Red political power can exist in a liberated zone, and that such a zone must necessarily be created for protracted civil war, and that such a zone is an inevitable feature of ■colonial revolution, can no longer be disputed.

But the five

conditions listed by Mao for the emergence and survival of such parallel

Red power in China must be carefully studied,

and differences with our country taken note of, rather than— as a wag commented recently—“passing off dung-heaps in Sonarpur as mountain hideouts.” The first condition was China’s semi-colonial state and that she was under indirect imperialist rule—a -satisfied in the Indian situation today.

condition

fully

But Mao goes on to

qualify this condition with reference to “prolonged splits and wars within the White regime” (See Why is it that Red politi¬ cal power can Exist in

China ?).

Chinese revolutionaries

took brilliant advantage of these splits and wars.

Now, even

by stretching sophistry to its limit, one cannot find a parallel of the wars among the

Chinese warlords in this country.

The

splits and miniature coups of the Indian ruling classes hold no promise yet that an uprising will not immediately unite them. The sinister unity at all levels

from

suppressing Naxalbari and brutally

Delhi

to Calcutta in

murdering women and

children proves that the reactionaries also learn from experi¬ ence and the Indian rulers today need not behave as their Chinese counterparts did in 1927. Mao’s second condition refers to the strength of the bour¬ geois-democratic revolution in the areas where Red power rose, the formation of trade unions and peasants’ associations “on a wide scale” prior to armed uprising.

This is an aspect

almost entirely rejected by several groups, and notably, the CPI(ML).

Their resolutions refer

the “only” form of struggle.

to “guerilla warfare” as

(They attribute it to Lin Piao,

who had merely used the expression in the military sense.

14

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IT

describing guerilla warfare as the only method of mobilizing the masses when the people’s army is already in action.) They have repeatedly declared through their organs that they consider the economic struggle of the peasantry to be a “revi¬ sionist” diversion of revolutionary energy ; currently they are dubbing trade unions as part of the capitalist establishment. But Mao Tsetung never said that armed struggle is the “only” form of struggle.

He said :

“Our Party was able to co-ordinate directly or indirectly the armed struggle, the principal form of struggle, with many other necessary forms of struggle...the struggle of the workers, the struggle of the peasants (this is the main thing), the struggles of the youth, the women and all other sections of the people, the struggle for political power, the struggle on the economic front, the struggle on the espionage front, the struggle on the ideological front, and other forms of struggle.” (Introductory Remarks to the ‘Communist'. Italics added.) Thus, Mao Tsetung has been surreptitiously revised, the word “principal” has been removed and the word “only” slipped in ; and this has been done in order to justify the total rejection of work on all other fronts, the virtual withdrawal of our comrades from mass organisations, and the disastrous tendency, carefully cultivated, of “starting action” somewhere, somehow, even though no preliminary work has been done there to turn the “action” into a struggle for building abase area.

The precondition for Red political power in any area

is “peasant association” etc. according to Mao.

By rejecting

all frontal work, our comrades here have openly announced that they do not want the so-called “actions” to lead to Red political power.

Or they are trying to tell us that Mao Tse¬

tung is wrong and

that they have discovered a new method

of jumping over frontal work straight at armed struggle and Red power ! While Mao’s third condition'—the development of nation¬ wide revolutionary situation—obtains even more acutely today

15

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

'

in every country, the fourth and fifth conditions are cons¬ picuous by their absence in India : the existence of a Red Army, and a strong and correct Communist Party.

We have

no Red Army yet, and we have the beginnings of a Party that has already begun to revise Mao. But does this

mean that Red political power cannot be

established in India ?

Certainly not.

However, the condi¬

tions for the rise of Indian Yenans must be calculated from Indian conditions and the present epoch.

Herein is the first

necessity of looking for Indian characteristics, the study of peculiarly Indian contradictions. The CPI(ML) has once more solved misquoting Mao.

this

question by

It has declared :

“In the present stage, the principal contradiction in our country is between feudalism and our peasant masses.

In

this stage, the Indian revolution is the new type of democra¬ tic revolution—people’s democratic revolution...” (Translated from Bengali) Two misrepresentations

in

one paragraph !

Never has

Mao said that at a stage when imperialism is indirectly exploi¬ ting a country the principal contradiction is between “feuda¬ lism and the peasant masses.”

On the contrary, he explicitly

states that at such times the principal contradiction is between “the masses” on the one hand and “the alliance of imperialism and the feudal classes” on the other. Lin Piao also

(On Contradiction)

stresses “the Chinese people” as a whole,

and probably never imagined that anyone calling himself a revolutionary could distort this into “peasant masses.”

(See

Long Live the Victory of the People's War). Mao’s “masses” has-become “peasant masses” in our comrades’ formulation, and “the alliance of imperialism and feudal classes” has become simply “feudalism” ! country

and

How they can talk about a semi-colonial

in the same breath exclude all

reference to

imperialism as an enemy is a mystery. Furthermore, it is gross distortion of the thoughts of Mao to say that “in the present stage...in the stage of people’s

16

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

democratic revolution,” the principal contradiction constantly remains the same.

Mao has pointed out, how the imperialists

will inevitably pass into direct aggression and then the princi¬ pal contradiction of the previous period will become non¬ principal, and the contradiction between imperialism and the entire

people

will

become

principal.

To assert that the

“feudalism-peasant masses” contradiction will remain principal right through the stage of people’s democratic revolution is to deny that imperialism is bound to pass into naked aggression when its lackeys fail to suppress revolution. Why has it been necessary for them to replace Mao’s “masses” with “peasant masses” ?

Naturally to exclude all

other classes from the struggle, to deny the necessity of a democratic, revolutionary front, without which, Mao, there can be no revolution.

according to

It is obvious to any one that

the entire crisis in India springs from the feudal system. It is obvious that this system keeps about seventy per cent of the people of India deprived of purchasing power, with the result that industries retrench and close down, the worker is thrown out of employment, the student faces the prospect of starvation and the commuter that of losing his job tomorrow.

It is obvious that even

the smaller producers

can not market their goods and the shopkeeper can not sell his ware, as long as the vast majority of the people, the peasants, do not buy. It is obvious therefore that feudalism is the enemy not only of the peasants, but of all classes and therefore the broadest

possible front can be built against this common

scourge.

That is exactly what our CPI(ML) comrades have all

along rejected—the necessity of building a united front.

Hence

their abstruse, negative slogans scribbled on city walls :

Agri¬

cultural revolution is the way to liberty !

Naturally therefore

the petty bourgeois of the city fails to understand how the peasants’ struggle concerns him.

No one is bothering to tell

him that his job depends on the victory over feudalism, that he should join this struggle not to help the peasant to a plot of land, but for his own economic survival.

debates and documents

17

Why have our comrades, twice in one paragraph, tried to shield the role of imperialism in the forced backwardness of India ?

Why are they going to the length of revising Mao to

obliterate all references to “the alliance between imperialism and the feudal classes”,

when everyone knows the sordid

history of American fertilizer-factories to strengthen the feudals in India ? Everyone knows the disgrace of a Five Year Plan held up at U.S. orders. Everyone is familiar with the abolition of export duties on iron, manganese and jute, for the sake of American exploiters. Everyone knows the economics of food shortage so that the USA can sell wheat to India.

It is obvious that the feudal

economy in India is primarily in U. S, interests so that she remains

a

supplier of raw materials.

And therefore the

principal contradiction, according to Mao, even when imperia¬ list exploitation is indirect, is always between the people on one side and “the alliance between imperialism and the feudal classes” on the other, and never abstract “feudalism”. It is being frequently said that only during direct aggression by imperialism ( a phase totally ignored by ML theoreticians ) does imperialism make its appearance at one end of the con¬ tradiction ;

and that during indirect exploitation it is only

feudalism that is the enemy. Mao never said so. He said, even during indirect exploitation, imperialism is still the enemy, the Lidden enemy behind the feudal classes, but that during direct aggression by imperialism, “foreign imperialism and domestic reaction stand quite openly at one end of the pole...” Clear, one would think. The difference between the phases of indirect and direct aggression is not one of absence of im¬ perialism from the principal contradiction, but only that of whether it is hidden or “standing openly.” To the ML comrades, of course, all this has no meaning. To them the entire people’s democratic revolution can be com¬ pleted without any thought of imperialism. To them LinPiao’s clear instruction that any country that wants revolution, freedom and peace must necessarily aim its spearhead at U. S. imperiaVol II—2

18

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

lism, is nonsense.

VOL IP

To them, the Chinese Communist Party’s

repeated warning like the following are mere phrases : “Two outstanding facts since World War II are that the imperialists and

the

reactionaries

are

everywhere

reinforcing their apparatus of violence for cruelly suppress¬ ing the masses and that imperialism headed by the United States is conducting counter-revolutionary armed interventi¬ on in all parts of the world.” (The

Proletarian Revolution

and

Krushchev’s

Revi¬

sionism). The ML comrades are not interested in such assessments of the role of the imperialist “gendarmerie.”

They are sure there

will be no direct aggression, and while there is only indirect exploitation, feudalism is the only enemy ! But if we are aware of imperialism as the real master behind the feudals and the big bourgeoisie, we would at once be conscious of another major contradiction which is peculiarly Indian.

This is a multinational federation of States, and the

people’s struggle is increasingly assuming the form of asserting the right of self-determination, of struggle against the central power.

It is obvious that the principal instrument whereby

imperialism exploits India is the Central Government, and the retention at all costs of the federal structure is meant to serve the interests of imperialism.

The armed forces, with which a

parallel Red power must at once come into conflict, is under the control of the Centre, and even talk of secession can be puni¬ shed by 15 years in prison. tion

It is obvious that the disintegra¬

of this federation will immediately force the hidden

imperialist into the national

patriotic

open, and we shall enter the phase of war

Communist Party has Kashmiri people’s

against

imperialism.

The Chinese

repeatedly come out in support of the

rights and even the Telengana struggle.

Our comrades in Calcutta have merely repeated these declara¬ tions, but have scrupulously refrained from applying the lessons in the country at large.

They have nothing to say about the

Punjabi, or the Maharashtrian, or the Bengali people’s rights.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

19

In fact, the ML political resolution has not a word to say about national rights and the role of communists in a people’s struggle for self-determination, in spite of the clear general line of colonial revolution. If the communists fail to seize the leadership of these movements, the fascists will.

But the leading theoretician of

the CPI(ML) has declared in print that communists should not lead movements for national self-determination (.Deshabrati, May 30, 1968, P. 5).

What has this in common with

Mao’s teaching that “in the final analysis national struggle is class struggle” (See Peking Review, No. 16 of 1968, P.

13) ?

What has this in common with the general line laid down by the Chinese Party ? History has entrusted to the proletarian parties in these areas (i. e. Asia, Africa and Latin America) the glorious mission of holding high the banner of struggle against imperialism..., of standing in the forefront of the national democratic revolutionary movement...

It is of primary

importance for advanced members of the proletariat to work in the rural areas, help the peasants to get organized and raise their class consciousness and their national selfrespect and self-confidence. (General Line of the International Communist Move¬ ment, C.C., C.P.C., 1963.

Italics added)

But of course, if imperialism does not even exist in our assessment

of the whole period of democratic revolution,

naturally China’s lead will fall on deaf ears and the ML Party can set itself up against Mao Tsetung. But if at the present stage we recognise “the alliance of imperialism and the feudal classes” as the enemy,

and if we

are sure that direct aggression by imperialism is inevitable in the near future, a little more humility will assert itself, and we shall not have the audacity to reject outright the experi¬ ences of the Chinese Communist Party.

We shall then see

that the feudals in the Indian countryside can be exposed before the peasants not only as class enemies, but also as

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

20

VOL II

national enemies ; not only as exploiters, but also as traitors. All classes then will rally against the reactionaries, who are not only impoverishing the masses, but have also sold the country’s freedom to the imperialists.

Class struggle and

patriotic struggle will then merge into one, under the hegemony of the proletariat.

It can then take the road—a road already

taken spontaneously by the masses—of organized destruction of the federal structure that serves the interests of imperialism. Only in this manner can people’s democratic revolution be the continuation of the long freedom struggle against British tyranny.

Only in this manner is it possible to release a mass

upsurge of all exploited classes in defence of national interests. Only in this manner can guarantees be created for the emer¬ gence and survival of Red power in liberated zones in India. Armed struggle must be the spearhead of a vast movement of the masses, led by the working class, for people’s demo¬ cracy as well as national independence.

Without a people’s

army the people have nothing, said Mao. not created by so-called somewhere ;

the

Such an army is

mobile units “starting” something

guerilla grows out of the people and is

sustained by the people, sheltered and nurtured by them.

The

guerilla must symbolize the highest aspirations of the people in order that the people may rally round him.

In short, the

guerilla, and finally the soldier of the people’s army, must be the man who defends not only the people’s home, land, food, democracy, but also their “national self-respect.” The struggle in Srikakulam fills us with hope that the party which is leading it will sooner or later establish itself on the road to revolution which has been lit up by the thoughts of Mao Tsetung.

But their activities and quixotic tilts at Mao in

this part of the country stand in sharp contrast to the war-cry of the guerillas of Andhra. October 18, 1969

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

21

Letter Mr Rafiqul Islam distorts the political resolution of the CPI(ML).

This

resolution

clearly states that “the Indian

people will have to wage a bitter, protracted struggle against U.S. and Soviet social-imperialism too.

By liberating them¬

selves from the yoke of feudalism, the Indian people will also liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialism and comprador bureaucratic-capital, because the struggle against feudalism is also a struggle against the other two enemies.” Mr Islam in his translation tries to omit the question of U.S.

and Soviet imperialism from the original resolution and

starts his impeachment that the resolution guards and shields imperialism from the masses and he misquotes Mao to help him in his game. What Mao said was : “When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism.

At such a time, the contra¬

diction between imperialism and the country concerned be¬ comes the principal contradiction while all other contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position”.

Does it not prove

that before direct imperialist aggression, the principal contra¬ diction in China was between the feudal system and the great masses of the people ? The CPI(ML) leader, Mr Charu Majumdar, has also made it clear that the Indian people can liberate themselves by over¬ throwing the “four major contradictions in our country today, contradictions between the Indian people on the one hand and U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic-capital on the other”.

(Liberation, Vol. 3, No \).

Rafiqul Islam attempts to vulgarise the entire history of Marxism-Leninism on the question of national liberation in a semi-colonial

and semi-feudal country.

The question in India

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

22

VOL II

is one of peasants’ armed struggle under the leadership of the working class.

In 1925, Stalin,

in a speech concerning the

national question in Yugoslavia, said, “...the peasantry consti¬ tute the main army of the national movement—there is no powerful national movement without the peasant army, nor can there be.

That is what is meant when it is said that in

essence the national question is a peasant question.” these lines, New

Quoting

Mao Tsetung also says in his famous thesis On

Democracy—“...the Chinese revolution is essentially a

peasant revolution...” In spite of all these facts, Rafiqul Islam alleges

that

the

CPI(ML) has “nothing to say about the

Punjabi or the Maharashtrian or the Bengali people’s rights”. He takes a superficial approach to the problem, which fits parties like the DMK, Shiv Sena etc.

As Mao says, “In

the final analysis a national struggle is a question of class struggle.”

So when Rafiqul

Islam

raises the question of

Punjabis,

Bengalis and Maharashtrians without the question

of class,

it should be well understood which network he

belongs to. Again, Rafiqul Islam charges that the CPI(ML) is destroy¬ ing every possibility of building a democratic front and that it is abandoning and disturbing mass organisations in defiance of Mao’s instructions. organising mass

He starts abusing the CPI(ML) for not

organisations.

He starts with an apology

that as there is no Red army there cannot be any Red base. So the CPI(ML) should now organise mass organisations. This is the same old cry of the revisionists of all hues. Accord¬ ing to Mao, through guerilla struggles and guerilla activities a regular army and base area can be established.

He says,

“Thus the transformation of a guerilla zone into: a base area is an arduous creative process, and its accomplishment depends on the extent to which the enemy is destroyed and the masses are aroused.” The CPI(ML) will adhere to the teachings of Chairman Mao and will tell its cadres, “We are now living in a time when the principle of ‘going up into the hills’ applies ; meetings.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

23

work, classes, newspaper publications, the writing of books, theatrical performances—everything is done up in the hills and all essentially for the sake of the peasants.” A READER

February 7, 1970

Calcutta

THE SRIKAKULAM STORY NARAYANA MURTHI

The struggle in Srikakulam has been caught in the vortex of a controversy between a group of young enthusiasts encou¬ raged and egged on by the All-India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (now called Marxist-Leninist party) directly leading the struggle in Srikakulam on the one hand and the State Revolutionary Co-ordination Committee led by Mr T. Nagi Reddy on the other, guiding the struggle with his experience of the historic Telengana struggle. The trouble seems to have started when the All-India Com¬ mittee, while carrying on a discussion with the State Committee over the ideological and political issues, overran the State Committee, gave some local enthusiasts the status of a State Committee and asked it to take the

resistance movement

forward to the stage of an armed guerilla struggle without adequate preparation and without rousing the people to a level when they can act as an effective cushion against the onslaught of the police. It was, however, not merely the organisational controversy but the very philosophy of armed struggle itself that was involved. Here is a published interview with Mr T. Nagi Reddy about the points of difference : Q :

What are the main differences between the CPI(ML)

and the Andhra State Committee of Revolutionaries ?

24

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

A :

VOL IT

The first issue is the question of tactics in relation to

people’s war.

When does an armed struggle start ? It starts

only as a resistance to the landlord goondas and government repression and this resistance is in the form of people’s resis¬ tance.

Out of this resistance alone, resistance squads are to be

formed.

But the CPI(ML) does not bother about this aspect

of people’s participation as a form of resistance to landlord goondas and police repression.

Formation of squads even in

areas where there is no people’s movement at all is their methodology, which isolates the squads from the masses. The second difference :

People’s war always starts only as-

a form of resistance, not as a form of offensive.

Therefore, it

is a battle in defence of their demands, be it for land, be it for wages.

It is a struggle for economic demands, it organises

people to resist the landlord goondas and the government offensive and it is through this form of resistance that a real people’s army could be built up in future. But the method of the CPI(ML) has no relation to people’s demands and people’s struggles.

Without any such relation,

they go in for offensive actions against any and every landlord even in places where there is no mass movement of any type. To put it simply, for us it is a matter of resistance, and for them it is a matter of offensive. The third difference is on the question of other forms of struggle.

Even though armed struggle is a basic struggle and is

the most important struggle, it is not the only form of struggle in all places.

For example, if Srikakulam can go into armed

struggle to prepare the ground, organisation of people’s cons¬ ciousness towards armed struggle in other areas may have to be pursued. We will have to take to various forms of struggle,, according to conditions prevailing in particular places.

It

might be a question of wages for agricultural labourer or the question of share of tenants or a question of distribution of cultivable waste lands of the government or even a question of occupation of government lands which are under occupation of landlords or have been converted into seed farms.

In the:

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

25

process of these struggles for these demands, we would use various

methods

of

struggle

including the lowest form of

struggle such as signature campaigns, deputations and demon¬ strations, just as we participate in the labour courts and in the industrial tribunals in the cities.

Eventually, all these various

forms of struggle should be conducted in such a manner as to develop

better

organisation,

consciousness

of the

people

towards people’s direct participation on the question of land and other issues, leading to resistance against landlord and government repression. But the Marxist-Leninists do not believe in any form of struggle other than armed struggle in all areas, irrespective of the strength of the party or the people.

It is for this reason

that they gave the call for party units to form themselves into squads in the coastal districts and to take action against the landlords. This type of action, according to the Andhra Committee,, does not help build up a mass movement even in an area where such actions

take place.

Such actions are against the funda¬

mental principles enunciated by Mao in relation to peasants’ armed struggle. Q :

In this background, how do you evaluate the armed

actions in Srikakulam ? A :

Every action in the Parvatipuram Agency area and

Agencies of similar type is real people’s action on the basis of a movement, which has been built up over a number of issues including the basic question of land. People’s participation is evident there and action against landlords is selective. But in the plains areas, generally, there is neither a people’s movement nor people’s participation which can sustain those actions to develop a people’s movement there in future. Q :

Do you agree with the view of the CPI(ML) that the

Srikakulam armed struggle is a national liberation struggle ? A :

Not

every

armed struggle is a national liberation

struggle immediately, even though every struggle is an em¬ bryonic form of such struggle.

To characterise every peasant

26

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

struggle as a struggle for power and for national liberation is to divert the attention and consciousness of the people from the basic demands of the people.

National liberation struggle

becomes a fundamental form of struggle only after a series of peasant armed actions in various places get coordinated into a people’s army to fight for national liberation and People’s Democracy. Even Peking Radio has characterised the Naxalbari move¬ ment in Bengal as mainly an armed struggle of peasants for land and as an embryonic struggle for national liberation. Q :

Will actions of the Srikakulam type lead to armed

struggle ? A :

No.

There are two reasons :

Without a people’s

demand being focussed and people being organised to get those demands implemented by their own actions, mere actions by squads divert the attention of the people from the issues on which they will have to fight. Secondly, the people leadership of the

are their own liberators under the

Communist Party.

That means they them¬

selves must form part and parcel of the squads.

But the man¬

ner in which this is being implemented by the Naxalites makes the people feel that liberators are someone else and not them¬ selves.

They look to someone for liberation.

In consequence,

instead of taking to actions on the basis of their own unity and organisational strength,

they will look to others to do this job

for them and save them from the exploitation of landlords. The views expressed in this interview indicate that differences are pretty serious but very clear.

Attempts to discuss these

differences with the All-India Co-ordination Committee appear to have proved futile.

It is perhaps this that has made the

section led by Mr Nagi Reddy and like-minded people in other States including West Bengal to think in terms of forming another party.

It is a sad but stark reality.

September 20, 1969

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

27

Letter Mr T. Nagi Reddy cynically refuses to see the difference between

submitting

memoranda

and

armed

struggle for

liberation. These days, bourgeois reformists, including • revisionists of all hues, are caught in the vortex of a serious controversy over the governmental measures of repression and of economic reform while the heroism of hundreds of youth and thousands of peasants in Andhra Pradesh is being tested in the concen¬ tration camps at Nuziveedu, Musule, Narasaraopet (Guntur district) and in the forests and hills.

Only in a struggle against

the heavily armed police and in the concentration camps and bearing in their stride coldblooded tortures inflicted by the ruling classes, can the revolutionary mettle of the fighting people be tested.

This process will throw out the weakminded

from the revolutionary ranks. Unlike the Telengana peasant armed struggle of 1946-51 which stands apart for its monumental betrayal by the central leadership of the then CPI, the bright

feature of present

situation in Andhra Pradesh is that such leadership is kept out of the picture by the revolutionary people themselves. The points made by Mr Nagi Reddy

were

raised by

Marxist leaders in their resolutions on left adventurism or left opportunism of

August 1967.

The

whole controversy was

whether the Naxalbari peasants’ armed struggle could be treated as a struggle for liberation, whether an armed struggle could be resorted to before a phase of partial struggle, and parlia¬ mentary struggle etc. Apparently Mr Reddy wants to confuse issues with economism and reformism.

Contrary to international experience

and the experiences of the Telengana struggle Mr Reddy and his associates tried their best to

dissuade

the

Srikakulam

district comrades from overcoming economism and reformism and taking the road of armed struggle for liberation.

While

Mao Tsetung has taught that in people’s war, as in all wars.

28

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

attack

is

primary,

Mr Reddy

and

his

IF

associates started

teaching that people’s war is “a battle in defence” economic demands.

VOL

of people’s

International experience proved correct

and stands vindicated ; the Srikakulam peasants’ armed struggle is a struggle for liberation from feudalism and semi-feudalism ; though it was initiated in a small area with a small force, it has engulfed the whole of the district including the plains areas in Sompet, Bobbili and Takkali taluks. tracts in Telengana and

It has spread to Agency

to some plains in Visakhapatnam,

West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts. November 22, 1969

a kisan worker

ANDHRA PRADESH : ANALYSIS OF A SPLIT A CORRESPONDENT

Though the police sources are reluctant to say anything about the differences between the two groups of the State Revolutionary Communist Party led by Mr Tarimela Nagi Reddy, and Mr Chandra Pulla Reddy, party circles told this correspondent that while efforts were being made to bring about a rapprochement between all the revolutionary groups in the State, their party (The Revolutionary Communist Party of Andhra Pradesh) was on the verge of a split. The polemics in the party started mainly in the last part of

1970,

particularly between

Provincial Committee outside. look that

the

differences

the Jail Committee and the Though on the surface it may

between

the jail leaders and the

Provincial Committee started on the correct implementation of the ‘Immediate Programme’, in fact it had several other reasons. It may be recalled here that the members, realising that it was not possible for them to effectively function as PC and lead the party and the people’s movement from inside the jail.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

29

resolved to dissolve the PC and ceased to function as PC. They asked the Committee to

party outside to

form

a new Provincial

shoulder the responsibilities of the party and

the people’s movement.

Accordingly, a new PC (with the

remaining two members of the old PC and one new member) was proposed and the proposal was unanimously accepted in two separate meetings, one being the joint meeting of the forest area and of all the armed squads, and the other of representa¬ tives of the district committee of the plains area. came into existence in July, 1970.

The new PC

For a few months, close

co-ordination between the newly-formed PC and the arrested leaders was maintained. But by the end of 1970, the jail leaders began to circulate their own documents without consulting the PC, and belittling the armed struggle in the Telengana Agency area.

The jail leaders in their document ‘Left Devia¬

tion’ accused the PC that it had violated the line enunciated in the ‘Immediate Programme’.

Volumes of documents were

issued by both sides, each defending its stand. The

Revolutionary

Communist

Committee

of Andhra

Pradesh functioning outside the jail in a document ‘Defeat the capitulationist

policies of T.

Venkateswara Rao’, says :

Nagi Reddy and Devulapalli

All the comradely efforts to reconcile

with the jail leaders proved futile and the whole ideological discussion with them was of no avail. The jail leaders who are now on bail are openly criticising in public the revolutionary movement in the Telengana Agency area and have denounced it when the enemy was employing every means, political and military, to suppress the armed struggle and at a time when the situation demands the utmost unity in the party to strengthen the revolutionary people’s movement in the State. to sow confusion,

They tried

doubts and a sense of no-confidence in the

minds of party members and people about the future develop¬ ment of the people’s armed struggle.

“With fabricated baseless

charges and utter lies about the armed struggle and about the Provincial Committee leadership who were in the thick of the movement, the two leaders wrote documents and distributed

30

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IF

them from jail on their own without the knowledge of the PC and without any discussions in the party at any level.

In gross

violation of principles of party organisation and party discipline,, they established a rival PC inside jail and tried to form rival committees in the State and thus are trying to split the party and the people’s movement.” The document further alleged that the jail leaders never objected to the political line and to the principles of armed struggle followed by the PC though all the documents on poli¬ tical and ideological issues and on problems facing the armed struggle

prepared by it were sent to them.

Moreover, the

jail leaders upheld the armed struggle of the Agency areas of Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar districts in their docu¬ ment distributed in June, 1970, ‘Present Situation—Our Tasks’ and described the Agency movement as a “struggle being waged in self-defence of the cadre and to defend the people’s move¬ ment”, and also wrote in that document that “the movement had the people’s support and it did score many successes and that it was surging forward”, the present document claimed. The document at length explained the points of difference, between the PC and the jail leaders. About the split in the Indian ruling classes into pro-American and pro-Russian groups, the document said that India is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country subjected to neo-colonial exploitation by imperialists, especially by U.S. imperialists and Soviet

social-imperialists.

The Indian big bourgeoisie and

big landlord classes were split into pro-American and proRussian groups and the two groups were locked in a dogfight for power.

While political parties like the Syndicate Congress,.

Jana Sangh and Swatantra represented mainly the pro-American group, the private sector in India, the Indira Congress and her friends represent mainly the pro-Russian group, the public sector.

The Indian ruling classes were split on policies to be

followed and were beset with internal contradictions and as a result were getting weakened.

While it was the stand of the

PC, Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao held that there were

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

31

no differences among the Indian ruling classes on policies and they were not split into pro-American and pro-Russian groups. The jail leaders further argued that the Indira Congress itself did represent the whole of the Indian ruling classes—the big bourgeoisie and big landlords—and safeguards the interests of both American imperialism and Russian imperialism and thus they came to the conclusion that the Indira Government was an independent power, the document alleged. In this connection, the document quoted the views of the Chinese Communist Party and said that the view of the PC were in accordance with those of the CPC while those of Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao went against the CPC’s views. Due to the policies of exploitation pursued by the Congress for the last 25 years, the country is in the grip of serious econo¬ mic and political crises, the people of various classes are fighting against the policies of exploitation of the ruling classes; in different parts of the country armed peasant struggles have broken out under the leadership of Communist Revolutionaries. As a result of people’s struggles developing throughout India the ruling Congress party was split into two ; the ruling classes and their political parties are facing a serious political crisis and the political situation in the country is unstable. instability is a permanent one.

This

The document said that the

PC was of the opinion that a permanent political instability prevailed in the country. Contrary to this political estimation, Nagi Reddy and Ven¬ kateswara Rao argue that after the spectacular election victory of the Indira Congress, there exist no groups or split in the ruling Classes and that their differences have disappeared. They also argue that the instability which existed before the parlia¬ mentary elections of 1971 has changed into stability.

The PC

argued that the successes of the Indira Congress in the elections to Parliament and State Assemblies (by false promises, by using military and police forces and by making most opportunistic agreements with other political parties) did not alter the insta¬ bility among the ruling classes.

The conditions which created

32

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

the permanent political instability did not disappear with the election victory of Indira Gandhi.

The so-called stability is

only a temporary phase within the frame-work of the perma¬ nent political instability and this will not continue long. On the assessment of the revolutionary situation also the two groups give different accounts.

While the PC saw an excellent

revolutionary situation and its development day by day and felt that the “present revolutionary situation” nationally and inter¬ nationally was more favourable than the situation at the time of the Telengana armed struggle (1946-51), Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao said that the existing revolutionary situation was not more favourable “for armed struggle” than in that period. Though no auspicious day can be fixed to start armed struggle,

the

Revolutionary

Communist

Committee

in its

‘Immediate Programme’ fixed ‘muhurat’ for the start of such struggle.

“With the onset of the rainy season i.e. in the month

of June wexcan start the armed struggle...Rainy season provides the favourable climate for resistance movement,” the ‘Imme¬ diate Programme’

stated.

This fixing of ‘muhurat’ was ridi¬

culed by the CPI(ML), and PC later could note the mistake they committed.

Nagi Reddy and D. Venkateswara Rao in their

document ‘Left Deviation’ tried to defend the fixing of the date, saying that when they formulated the ‘Immediate Pro¬ gramme’ there was an exodus of

party

members into the

Marxist-Leninist Party and to stop it and give confidence to the rank and file of the party they had to fix a time !

But

later, Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao accused the Agency leadership for starting the armed struggle in the name of selfdefence “before the people were prepared for occupation and distribution of the land of landlords”.

The PC contested this

line of thinking and explained that the landlords and the government would not sit with hands tied till the people were prepared to seize their lands.

But at the same time, the PC

did not forget the importance of the preparedness of the people to come forward to occupy the landlords’ lands.

The

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

33

document explained, in the following lines, the PC’s stand on the issue : When the people launch mass struggle on their own issues against feudal exploitation, the landlords and the reactionary government come down heavily on the movement using the armed police to suppress it.

In such a case, if the people, in

defence of their movement, are prepared to resist the armed repression of the government with arms, the communist revolu¬ tionaries should lead such a struggle,

and must strive to

develop the movement which had started on partial demands into agrarian revolution.

If and when people are not prepared

to resist the brutal armed suppression and repression to which the people’s movement is subjected in the process of its deve¬ lopment, we must adopt necessary

tactics for self-defence of

the cadre and the mass movement to develop the movement Into agrarian revolution.

We have to decide upon the forms

of struggle for self-defence taking into consideration the degree of the preparedness of the people for armed struggle, their support, geographical conditions (contiguity) of the area con¬ cerned etc. In the forest areas of Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar districts, when mass struggles were developing against feudal and other exploiting classes, the reactionary Congress Government unleashed heavy police repression to suppress the people’s movement.

In order to safeguard this movement

and its gains and to save the cadre, the people and the party were forced to take up arms in self-defence. were formed.

So, armed squads

The party and the armed squads have put

forward before themselves the main task of mobilisation of people for armed revolution. The

document mentions

propagation

of revolutionary

politics of people’s war, mass mobilisation on their immediate issues, necessary actions against the enemies of the people who actively

oppose and

movement and

work against the development of the

self-defence

against the

police, as the main

principles that guide armed struggle at the given phase. Vol II—3

34

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

The document criticised Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao for the change in their attitude towards the Marxist Leninist Party from non-antagonistic to antagonistic. The April convention of the State Revolutionary Communist Committee decided to conduct political and ideological struggle against the “left sectarian” and “adventurist” policies of the Charu Majumdar group on the one hand and on the other to treat them as revolutionaries and to resolve differences with them by fraternal discussions on ideological and political issues. It was also decided to maintain non-antagonistic relations with them, the document added. The PC also claimed that its approach, in accordance with the decisions taken at the April convention, had yielded certain results and many people belonging to the CPI(ML) were in the process of rethinking and some of them had joined their party. But the jail leaders argued that the Charu Majumdar group should not be treated as revolutionaries and no attempt should be made for unity with them. The aim should be to defeat them, the document alleged. The PC felt that all legal opportunities, legal mass move¬ ments and mass organisations should be utilised for the development of people’s armed struggle. Civil liberties move¬ ment was also a part of the mass movement and it should help to strengthen the mass movements and armed struggle. It should expose and condemn the brutal repression of the government and should rouse the masses to demand the restoration of all civil liberties, including the release of the leaders. The PC said that it should not have any truck with revisionists and neo-revisionists even in the name of civil liberties movement. But Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao wanted to unite not only with the old and neo-revisionists but even with the reactionary elements in the name of fighting for civil liberties. They also wanted to make the release of arrested leaders the central issue of the civil liberties movement, the document said. The document severely criticised Nagi Reddy and Venkates-

35

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

wara Rao for commenting on Mao’s strategic slogan “political power grows out of the barrel of the gun” as simply a “figura¬ tively given slogan”.

“Where is the difference between these

comrades and the neo-revisionist party leader, Basavapunnaiah, who joked that “not only power but smoke also comes from the barrel of the gun” ?—the document questioned. The document also stated that immediately after the April convention (1969), Nagi Reddy brought before the then PC his request that he be allowed to get arrested because he could not lead underground life and because he had no confidence in himself to lead armed struggle.

The April convention had

decided that party membership should be given only to those “who are prepared to go underground”.

Nagi Reddy refused

to honour the party decision and remained legal till he got arrested while he was in a hotel in Anantapura, his native district, in September 1969 under the Preventive Detention Act. The document criticised Devulapalli

Venkateswara Rao,

the Secretary, for not taking steps to organise a secret under¬ ground party machinery and for not making any efforts to send the leading comrades in the plains areas underground.

He got

arrested in Madras eight months after the April convention without setting up any secret party machinery. “One is surprised to know that in the eight months before their arrest in Madras the two leaders never cared to visit the forest area where the armed struggle was going on and did not help the movement in any way.” “Even

after

putting forth these arguments and

openly

disowning the armed struggle in the Telengana Agency area, it is ridiculous for them to try to convince the cadre and the people that they are for armed struggle.

It is also ridiculous

for them to say that they are for armed struggle when they advocate unity with the revisionists and neo-revisionists but refuses any unity with other revolutionary groups which are leading armed struggle.” The document claimed that the movement

which

was

36

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL

II

started with one taluk had extended to nine taluks in the forest area of Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar districts and in hundreds of villages people occupied more than 100,000 acres of Reserve and other kinds of land.

In most of the

forest area, the people have ‘done away’ with setti (free labour), corruption and bribery of forest officials, contractors and patels (village officers) and freed themselves from the feudal exploitation of exorbitant rates of interest and nagu (debt in the form of grain).

People in the forest area are

freely enjoying and utilising the forest produce. “As a result of continuous propaganda of revolutionary politics and mass mobilisation on their immediate issues, poli¬ tical consciousness of the people is growing.

People see armed

-struggle as the only way for their liberation from the age-old and inhuman exploitation.

That is why a large number of

Girijan and other youth, men and women, are volunteering to join the armed squads. organised.

People’s village committees are being

The people are doing everything to support and

safeguard the armed struggle, braving the fascist method of suppression, inhuman torture and raping of women by the po¬ lice of the reactionary government.” The government has burnt down several villages in the interior of the forest area “to wean away the people from ■the extremist influence” and set villages in the pattern of Viet¬ namese ‘hamlets’. The

document

explained

the steps that the PC had

taken to safeguard party unity.

It had proposed to hold a

•State plenum of the party to discuss and resolve the political and ideological issues, and on the basis of the discussions and decisions to Venkateswara

elect a new PC.

Rao turned

down

But Nagi Reddy and

these proposals, the PC

-document added. It further alleged that the two leaders had formed a rival PC inside the jail with the arrested members of the old PC (except one secretariat member who criticised them for anti-party acti¬ vities and capitulationist policies and extended his support to

37

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the Agency area armed struggle and the PC) which they them¬ selves had dissolved.

“The two leaders gave a call to fornv

rival party committees in the State and thus caused a split in the party”. The PC solemnly declared that they would fight till the end1 and carry forward the armed agrarian revolution until the rea¬ lisation of the great hopes of ‘our martyr comrades’—the esta¬ blishment of New Democracy—and the PC would steadfastly adhere to and follow Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung Thought and implement the people’s war path. January 27, 1973

VOTE AND REVOLUTION ARUN KUMAR ROY

Universal suffrage, supposed to be no mean achievement' for a newly independent country like India, has become ans¬ werable, as is clear from the weariness writ large on the faces of the people during the election campaign.

Increased per¬

centage of polling does not indicate victory of the politics of polling but only greater consciousness and less inertia, narrow¬ ing the zone of the non-political. tion : this is

The vote means no revolu¬

the bomb the Naxalites have thrown in the

politics of India. History does not help much.

No country with universal

suffrage has faced revolution or handled “vote boycott”. Lenin opposed the 1905 Duma election no doubt, but only in the context of armed uprising, and there was no universal suffrage. However, when the “deliberative” Duma was replaced by the legistative Duma, Lenin considered its boycott a mistake in his Leftwing Communism, An Infantile Disorder.

“The

boycott of the Duma by the Bolsheviks in 1906 was, however,, a mistake, although a small and easily remediable one.”

38

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

And the Bolsheviks decided to take part in the elections to the Second Duma, though : “The Tsarist election law was, of course, anti-democratic. Elections were not universal.

Over half the population—for

example women and over two million workers—were deprived of the right to vote altogether. Elections were not equal.

The

electorate was divided into four curias : the agrarian (land¬ lords), the urban (bourgeoisie), the peasant and the worker curias.

Election was not direct but by several stages.

There

was actually no secret ballot.” {The History of the CPSU-B, page 89) Thereafter in Russia the struggle for the vote was com¬ bined with that for revolution as its logical continuation and conclusion so that even six months

before the November

Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks participated in the Soviet and Duma elections. In the pre-war Germany, the

communists

participated

several times in elections between 1920 and 1933 till that country was handed over to Hitler.

But the Comintern under

the guidance of Lenin and then Stalin never asked for the boycott of elections.

The communists were the chief architects

of the “Popular Front” ministry in France creating a revolu¬ tionary upsurge through elections,

though

slipped into capitulation under Petain. to the Civil War.

ultimately

that

In Spain, elections led

Even the liberation struggle in Vietnam

started not by boycotting vote but only when the referendum assured at the Geneva conference was denied.

The bour¬

geoisie believes in the vote so long as it serves its interest.

So

the USA opposed elections in Vietnam. There was no vote in Cuba and a dozen of people landed there to make revolution.

The same was the case with China

except that the civil war there was long-drawn.

But elections

were “treason” to the cause of revolution in France in 1968 when a near-insurrection fizzled out at a

poll which pulled

the country further to the right. To sum up : in Russia there was election and revolution ;

39

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

in Germany and France (pre-war) election and capitulation ; in Spain election and counter-revolution ; in Vietnam denial of election and liberation struggle ; in China and Cuba no election but revolution ;

and

in

France

election and no

revolution. So no easy generalisation is possible except that the vote is revolutionary if it sharpens struggle, reactionary if it dampens it. It is curious to note that Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao do not endorse the theory of “vote boycott” or counterpoise the vote with revolution.

In the article, “The Boycott,” Lenin

wrote : “It would be ridiculous to shut our eyes to realities.

The

time has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democrats must cease to be boycottists.

We shall not refuse to go into

Second Duma when (or if) it is convened.

We shall not

refuse to utilise this arena, but we shall not exaggerate its modest importance ; on the contrary, guided by the experience already provided by history, we shall entirely subordinate the struggle we wage in the Duma to another form of struggle, namely strikes,

insurrection etc.

In the

event

of election

taking place, it will be necessary to enter into an election agreement

with

the

Trudoviks.”.

(Selected Works, Vol. II, page 177) The Trudoviks were a petty-bourgeois group formed in 1906 in the First State Duma headed by the Socialist Revolu¬ tionary intellectuals.

So the tactics of the UF today have the

sanction of Lenin. Lenin even refuted the contention that the communists could not participate in a bourgeois committing

the

same

mistake

government

that the

French

without Socialist

Millerand made : “In France it was a question of socialists taking part in a reactionary bourgeois government at a time when there was no revolutionary situation in the country, which made it incum¬ bent upon the socialists not to join such a government ; in Russia, on the other hand, it was a question of socialists taking

40

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IB

part in a revolutionary bourgeois government fighting for the victory of the revolution at a time when the revolution was in full swing, a circumstance which would make it incumbent upon the Social-Democrats to take part in such a government in order to strike at the counter-revolution not only ‘from below’, from without, but also ‘from above,’ from within the government.”

(The History of the CPSU-B, page 77)

However, every time the objective should be clear.

The

Bolsheviks should join the Second Duma, for “History has shown that when the Duma assembles opportunities arise for carrying on useful agitation both from within the Duma and outside.”

(Selected Works, Vol. Ill, page 396)

And,

“The Bolsheviks did not go to the Duma for the purpose of carrying on ‘legislative’

work

with

the

Constitutional

Democrats but for the purpose of utilising it as a platform in the interest of the revolution. (The History of the CPSU-B,. page 94) Stalin was very harsh with those who refused to use the legal

cover available

number

to build up mass bases.

of Bolsheviks

demanded

the

“In 1908, a

recall of the Social

Democratic deputies from the State Duma.

Hence, they were

called Otzovists who started struggle against Lenin and Lenin’s line.

The Otzovists stubbornly refused to work in the trade

unions and other legally

existing

societies.

The Otzovists

were driving a wedge between the party and the working class, tending to deprive the party of its connections with non-party masses ; they wanted to seclude themselves within the under¬ ground organisation.The Otzovists did not understand that in the State Duma, and through the State Duma, the Bolshe¬ viks could influence the peasantry and could expose the policy of the Tsarist government and the policy of the Constitutional Democrats, who are trying to gain the following of the peasan¬ try by fraud. inside out.”

The

Otzovists

were therefore

“liquidators

(Ibid, page 143)

Lastly, Mao Tsetung’s thought also does not approve of vote-boycott.

According to Chairman Mao, revolution is the

41

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

product of counter-offensive retaliation by the masses that loses battles but wins war.

Mao’s concepts of “liberated zone” and

“people’s war” are also based on defensive battles.

The out¬

fitted shell is to be shattered by the developing content only in defence of its growth.

The idea is : the offensive of the

rulers provides the moral compulsion to the masses to rally behind the revolutionaries to strike back. repression, the more

So the more the

resistance and more struggle, and fish

would always remain in water.

On this footing, denial of

vote and not the boycott of it should be the starting point of the revolutionary struggle rallying the non-committed behind the party. In this respect Naxalites are more an Indian variety of the New Left of the West rather than a serious communist party,, and their vote-boycott slogan is the slogan of the offensive. The revolutionaries must create it by taking the initiative. bourgeoisie may not wind up its vote show, we have to it.

The smash

The very existence of exploitation is a perpetual offensive

of the ruling class. So, why await a new blow before striking ? Strike the iron while it is hot.

But now, times have changed.

The call of the day is : strike the iron by making it hot. boycott the vote, do not wait until it is denied.

So

Fifty years

back this would have been an “infantile disorder” in the words of Lenin or

“liquidators inside out” to quote Stalin, but with

man on the moon and one-third of the world under the Red flag, the whole thing deserves serious rethinking. scriptures whether

from Lenin,

Stalin or

Quoting

Mao has

little

meaning where the quantity of time has changed the quality of the situation.

Revolution is an international phenomenon,

and today international capitalism, in crisis and turmoil, is on the defensive. offensive.

So the

revolutionaries

should

swing

into

The defensive struggle on the Chinese model needs

a vast country, vast numbers of people and a vast period of time in possession.

But today everything is in a hurry. Speed

is the most important

factor.

With

war

technology the

“political technology” of the Establishment has also advanced;.

42

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

making it more elastic, manoeuvrable and shockproof. to be on the defensive is to invite defeat.

Now

It is suicidal to

wait for all the symptoms of an ideal revolution to appear before striking.

The non-committed mass is already commit¬

ted in favour of revolution as it has learnt from the historic events of the last fifty years.

So what is needed is not so

much generation of circumstantial pressure to set it on but to provide the new light and conviction.

Terror is the only

deterrent left

And power begets

terror.

with the Establishment.

And so power is to be smashed, and offence is the

best defence.

And so the vote must be boycotted.

Arms

are to be snatched, guerilla zones created and power captured. A shadow of benevolence is the biggest shield for the existing order, and the status quo is only disturbed when the brute comes out in its brutalised form as is the case in West Bengal with the army,

the CRP and the PVA Act.

Today, any

attack helps revolution, and so what is needed is the initiative to attack. The speed and vigour with which Naxalism has spread in India and the stir and impact it has produced speak unmista¬ kably of its vitality, and vitality is always associated with truth. Classical Marxism changed in the hands of Lenin ■“problems of Leninism” after Mao Tsetung,

and the

were answered by Stalin, and now

who knows this New Left may be the

real representatives of the

revolutionary communists out to

change the world in this rocket age while others are busy interpreting it ? So it is easy to negate Naxalism with the help

of classics

but it is not so easy to answer the questions it has raised, spe¬ cially on the vote and revolution. The modern State is a three¬ storeyed building : ministry, bureaucracy and the army. vote can change the ministry but not the others.

Despite po¬

pular swings the class-composition remains the same does the class character of the machinery.

The

and so

So even if the

ministry starts intensifying class struggle, the bureaucracy militia are bound to be at loggerheads with it.

and

And in no

43

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

time there would be an Indonesia or at least another Spain. In the ultimate analysis, State power means essentially the politics of the armed forces.

The vote cannot smash it.

the contrary it can only alert it. uniformed peasant.

On

Lenin called a soldier only a

This is true, but even that peasant is se¬

lected from the ruling section of the village society, conserva¬ tive in outlook and unenthusiastic about any radical change, that is, the stronger section of the society, the dominant minority always makes up the bureaucracy and the armed forces.

Mr Jagjivan Ram may be the Defence Minister but

the proposal to have a “Chamar Brigade” created furore and was strongly resented by the Establishment.

So there can be

only “Rajput Brigade” but no “Chamar Brigade”.

The per¬

centage of the backward Harijan, Adivasi and other sections of the society who create wealth by dint of their physical labour, is very small even among the sepoys.

So the Esta¬

blishment wants to part with neither the pen nor the sword. This is not the case with semi-feudal countries like India alone. In the U. K., the traditional birthplace of capitalism, Attlee may be the Prime Minister but the Army remains under Lord Mountbatten. However, this does not mean that the poorer strata of the ruling class constituting the militia are immune to class stru¬ ggle.

Militant peasant movements have no doubt an effect on

them, but the defection and disintegration of the militia starts only after it has been hammered and put to pressure by the people’s militia.

And the people’s militia cannot be formed

without starting partisan warfare.

Polls and partisan war are

poles apart. The difficulty with the vote is that it tells how to mobilise the masses but does not tell how to mobilise force. force is the midwife of any change.

And

What is more, elections

expose the party organisation before the enemy so that at any moment it can swoop on it.

And what is most important,

the vote is a non-class instrument and its users are bound to develop a non-class outlook and organisation.

Even if

44

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

everything goes alright, by the time state power is exclusively in the hands of the communists,

the

communists would

change into bourgeoisie, making fundamentally no change. Are not Marx’s nearest Social Democrats ruling Europe today living farther from Marxism ? The fundamental difference between reform and revolution is not the quantity of benefits available for society but the extent of structural change effected in society.

Reforms do not

change the ruling class but only induce it to tackle differently the ruled, may be, more

benevolently.

But revolution over¬

throws the ruling class first, substitutes it by another and then settles down for reforms as the new order of the new class of rulers with a new philosophy.

The struggle for the vote may

be carried to revolution, but the vote as such only empowers reform.

The very aim

differs.

Armed struggle aims

at

“through Revolution to Reforms,” while the vote “through Reforms to Revolution,” occurs.

but, for the latter, revolution never

The time needed for the quantity of reforms to bring

about qualitative changes amounting to a revolution in society through the vote and various legislation is sufficient to enable the old ruling class to adjust itself to the new wind, penetrate into the new ruling class and halt the march of quantity before it is transformed into quality to satisfy ideal conditions of classical Marxism.

Revolutionaries participate in elections to

“wreck the Constitution from within” but it mostly results in “wrecking the Party from within.”

The vote transforms the

Party before the Party transforms the State. Participation in the parliamentary system moulds the class character of the party.

The vote gives the party an essentially

middle class character, as a basic sophistication is needed to handle the rules, procedure and techniques of parliamentary politics. When the party approaches power, its class character changes to upper middle class.

And when it assumes power

the bourgeois and feudal lords penetrate and gradually usurp the leadership.

During the second UF government, many

jotedars turned Marxists

and butchered refugees in North

45

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Bengal.

One of the reasons why the land-grab movement in

India failed is that most of

the middle

landowners

are

communist leaders. In the ultimate analysis the struggle is between the domi¬ nant minority and the dormant majority.

Feudal lords, at

least many of them, would not mind if they are allowed to rule the society as capitalists, socialists, communists or revolutiona¬ ries.

What is important, they must rule.

They must have the

authority and amenities of the rulers in any system.

They

must get the time and opportunity to change the signboard and adopt the new code to rule in a new way.

The vote gives

them time.

The dominant

Reforms help in transformation.

minority remains dominant for ever.

To be precise, reforms

benefit the society from the top, while revolution from the bottom. them.

Reforms relieve the ruled, while revolution liberates The vote is the road through reforms.

What are the compulsions to discuss revolution today be¬ fore heading for the polling booth ?

The conditions for any

revolution, as Lenin put it are: (a) that the rulers should not be able to go on ruling as they used to ; (b) that the ruled, in their misery, despair and fury, should refuse to go on living as before ; and (c) there should exist a revolutionary party determined and able to seize the chance.

The very fact that a

midterm poll is to be held, the PVA Act had to be introduced, the CRP had to be called, indiscriminate shooting is resorted to, shows that the rulers are unable to rule in the old way— brutalisation is the barometer of their weakness.

Secondly,

the bourgeois system never necessitates direct intervention of the masses in social events but only indirectly through their representatives and an offer of choice in elections.

It may be

noted, changes of a minor nature can be accommodated in this way within the normal flexibility of the social system. But when the social base itself is to be changed, it requires direct participation of the masses.

In the words of Trotsky :

“The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct intervention of the masses in historic events.

The revolution

46

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL

II

is there in their nerves before it comes out in the street.” (The History of the Russian Revolution).

In India today,

the questions of land reforms, bonus or pay commissions demand direct action by the masses.

Gherao is the midwife

of social justice denied cunningly by the “rule of law”.

The

people have refused to be ruled in the old way. So the vote, if considered a type of war, is to be boycotted when the ruling class wants it and is to be fought when the ruling class wants to avoid it.

In this manner the vote in

Pakistan was revolutionary ; so it would be in West Bengal where the Establishment is hesitant.

In Tsarist Russia even

the limited franchise was revolutionary as it had to be snatched from the reluctant Tsar.

But in France under de Gaulle in

1968 the vote was reactionary as it was desired by the Esta¬ blishment to prevent the upsurge from becoming an insurrec¬ tion.

In India, whether the mid-term poll is revolutionary or

reactionary deserves some serious analysis, for here although a part of the Establishment under the Congress (R) has offered elections, only haltingly, as a leap in the dark, finding no wayout, the other section of the Establishment led by the SwatantraJana Sangh-Congress (O) distinctly opposed it and wanted an alternative government at the Centre instead, removing Mrs Indira Gandhi.

There was a clear indication of uneasiness

that the status quo might be disturbed. However, the duty of a revolutionary party does not end only in ascertaining the context for contesting polls. guide the contest. arms have their logic.

It must

Those who boycott elections and take up Those who boycott arms and take to

polls have their logic too.

But for those who would take up

arms, use the vote in the cause of revolution, the task is like “walking on razor’s edge.”

There should be a distinct differ¬

ence in the mode and code of the election campaign by the revolutionaries. Clearly the stress on the federal system instead of the present unitary one, curtailment of the power of the President, weakening of the Centre,

discrimination against West Bengal

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

47

etc. are not slogans that would polarise the people for the higher struggle ahead.

It may be noted that there is a funda¬

mental difference between India and Pakistan.

In a Marxist

definition of a nation, as clearly stated by Stalin, Pakistan can not be a nation because of the geographical discontinuity ; and so, the sooner it disintegrates the better for the develop¬ ment of the revolutionary forces.

So there regional autonomy

would focus the revolutionary cause, and a struggle for auto¬ nomy would soon change into a liberation struggle. is not the

But this

case with India where it will only strengthen the

hands of the reactionaries by inciting regionalism. The only slogan that can put this vote to the cause of revo¬ lution is the call to the people to reject the Constitution based on the right to property as the fundamental right and to substitute it by one based on the right to work fundamental

right.

This

will bring

as

the

forth a revolutionary

polarisation : on the one side people with property, and on the other people without work. All the political parties will be exposed.

As the Naxalites have divided Indian politics into

two—Vote or Revolution—the issue of private property would divide the parliamentary politics into two—Vote for Revolu¬ tion or Vote for Reform—and would turn this election into a referendum. March 6, 1971'

Letter Vote

and

revolution are not opposed to each

Rather adult franchise is an argument for revolution.

other. In his

preface to Marx’s The Civil War in France, Engels writes that universal franchise is “an index of the maturity of the working class.

It cannot and never will be anything more in the

modern State.”

On this and other statements of a similar

nature by Engels, Lenin comments in State and Revolution, “Engels repeats here in a particularly emphatic form the funda¬ mental idea which runs like a red thread throughout all of

48

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL

Marx’s works, namely, that the democratic

republic is

nearest approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat. such a republic without in the least setting aside the

II

the For

domina¬

tion of the capital, and therefore the oppression of the masses the class struggle inevitably leads to such an extension, deve¬ lopment, unmasking and sharpening of that struggle that, as soon as the possibility arises of satisfying the fundamental interests of the oppressed masses, this possibility is realised inevitably and solely in the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the guidance of the masses by the proletariat.” Then, it might be asked, why does the socialist revolution not take place in the democratic republics of Western Europe and why did it take place in autocratic Russia and semi-feudal semi-colonial China ?

The principal answer will be found in

that the imperialist Europe could avoid the revolutionary crisis bursting asunder by bribing a section of workers from its plunder from Asia, Africa and Latin America, while backward Russia and China could not afford to do it. The proletariat utilises democracy and the vote to hold the bourgeois to their word, to educate the minds of the masses for revolution, especially the backward strata of the population, to systematically expose those smug “Marxists” who

talk

of “exploring limited opportunities to give modest relief”, for under capitalist relations of production the so-called progressive measures

only

proletarianises the masses still more.

The

reasons why the communists go in for elections has been explained but it is clear that forming a government in a capita¬ list state is not one of them.

In his famous letter to Turati,

dated 26 January 1894, Engels warned socialists against parti¬ cipation in the government because that would completely para¬ lyse the revolutionary action of the working class they were supposed to represent.

While advocating united front with

the radicals and the republicans he said in the same letter “that from the very moment of victory our paths will separate ; that from the same day onwards we shall form a new oppo¬ sition to the new government, not a reactionary but a progre-

49

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

ssive opposition, an opposition of the extreme left

which will

press on to new conquests beyond the ground already won.” This is why Lenin in his Left Wing Communism,

An Infan¬

tile Disorder asking the German Communists to participate in elections, warned that “they should not at all strive to ‘get seats’ in parliament.”

The Indian ‘Marxists’ tediously chew

the cud over that portion of the book which is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. One might still argue that if they get more seats as they have won in West Bengal, can they help it ? Should they renounce them ?

The answer is that they get or are allowed to get

them because they adopt a petty-bourgeois standpoint on class struggle and revolution.

They try to show petty reforms as

partial realisation of socialism and succeed in bluffing for

a

while.

Second,

people

even this petty-bourgeois-dominated

parliament is not tolerated for long.

Because, behind the bulk

of petty bourgeoisie stand other classes and groups which come out more energetically and take the loudly-proclaimed assu¬ rances more seriously than the leadership likes. Since World War II, communists in various countries have participated in elections and governments, but nowhere could they

achieve dictatorship

of the proletariat or socialism.

Normally the communists may participate in elections but they must not join any government.

They can join the govern¬

ment in a State, not yet socialist, under special conditions. What are they ?

In The History of the CPSU-B (Arun Roy does

not properly grasp it) Stalin writes that the Social Democratic Party in

1905

should have joined a provisional revolutionary

government as the result of a successful uprising in order to carry the revolution to its conclusion.

Dimitrov, in his famous

thesis United Front and the Working Class, asked the commu¬ nists to support anti-facist united front governments but told them that they themselves should remain outside. The commu¬ nists are permitted to join a goverment, according to him, only on the morrow of revolution in order to distribute arms and subvert the bureaucratic State-machinery from within. Vol 11—4

50

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL lit

The boycott was one of the firmest traditions of the most eventful and heroic periods of the Russian revolution but Lenin warned that to regard the boycott slogan as being: generally applicable to every bad and very bad representative institution would be an

absolute mistake.

The slogan is a

specific slogan of a specific period and not an immutable tactic. What is the fundamental condition for proclaiming a boycott T Lenin wrote that the meaning of the agitation for a boycott was mainly to combat constitutional illusions.

The condition

for the success of the boycott was a “wide genuine rapid and powerful vise of the revolution.” SUDARSHAN CHATTERJEE

April 3, 1971

'

Calcutta

COMMUNISTS—SIMPLE, MARXIST AND REVOLUTIONARY ARUN KUMAR ROY

The three varieties of communists in India proclaim three lines and claim three cheers.

In the words of Lenin, “The

main question of every revolution is the question of State power”; and in the words of Stalin, “In the hands of which class or which classes is power concentrated, which class or which classes must be overthrown, which class or which classes must take power—such is the main question of every revolution”. According to the CPI, the State power in India is essentially concentrated in the hands of the national bourgeoisie—may be represented

by

Indira Gandhi—who are under increasing

pressure from the big bourgeoisie—may be represented so far by Morarji Desai—who are in turn progressively collaborating with foreign imperialists.

So the CPI advocates ‘National

51

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Democracy’ in which it would share power with the ‘first’ by displacing the ‘second’.

So, yesterday there was the Gandhi-

Desai Government, next would come a Dange-Gandhi Govern¬ ment and then a pure Dange Government.

This spells a

stepwise substitution process through partial struggles as the road to socialism.

As the national bourgeoisie have the State

power, there is bourgeois democratic freedom in the country, and the scope of parliamentary politics negates any need for extra-parliamentary methods and underground activities. The CPI(M) holds that the State power essentially rests with the big bourgeoisie and their junior partner—landlords— who are in the process of surrender to the imperialists.

The

national bourgeoisie, if any, are of only subsidiary importance. That means, both Desai and Indira Gandhi are only the two containers of the same content.

So the struggle will be not for

sharing power but for wresting power from the present ruling class and for putting the workers not as a partner but at the leadership as conceived in ‘People’s Democracy’.

But as the

reactionary big bourgeoisie have not yet surrendered but are in the process of surrendering, so there is still some bourgeois democratic freedom left, permitting a limited scope to parlia¬ mentary methods, though the laws of diminishing return have already started operating so far as constitutional means are concerned.

So the obvious line of action would be a. cautious

mixture of parliamentary and

extra-parliamentary methods

with the latter steadily increasing. The CPI(ML) differs with the CPI(M) intensely, but only in tense.

There can be no two opinions that the big bourgeoisie

are firmly saddled in the country but the process of surrender¬ ing has reached its end and they have in essence a comprador character.

There is no independent bourgeoisie ; so there is

no bourgeois domocratic freedom.

And so election is treason,

parliament a farce.

scope or utility of election

politics. tary.

There is no

The line of action should be solely extra-parliamen¬

The organisation is to be built only underground.

CPI Stand : Each of the three

varieties

seems equally

52

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

confident

about

the

correctness

of its stand.

VOL II

The Indian

bourgeoisie are the most sophisticated, powerful and consolida¬ ted “haves” in entire Afro-Asia, comparable only with those of Japan.

They not only hold small or medium-scale indus¬

tries, but also giant basic industries like iron and steel.

They

keep today an army of technical experts and run standard research institutions for indigenous development.

The biggest

of the Indian capitalists has the “accounted capital” of nearly Rs. 500 crores which is definitely a dignified figure.

Here

industrial capital has already combined with banking capital to give birth to big finance capital which is not only assertive on the native market but also out for international exploitation, i.e.,

assuming

a

small

imperialist

character.

The Indian

capitalists are out to set up industries like soap, textile, rayon and chemicals in the underdeveloped countries of Afro-Asia, and not less than Rs. 100 crores have already been invested. Are all these respectable achievements possible for a compra¬ dor bourgeoisie ? So, the CPI maintains, there may be inherent tendencies within the Indian bourgeoisie to collaborate with the imperia¬ lists as a junior partner but not to be their subordinates. Indian bourgeoisie accommodate many business interests,

The

desires of Western

but they are also in a bargaining position to

force some of their own desires on them.

Did not India play

an effective role in preventing Britain from joining the Euro¬ pean Common Market ? So foreign big business magnates have only some influence over Indian big business magnates but nothing more. Similarly, the latter have only some influence on the Indian State power but not control.

That, despite turns and twists, the grip still

remains with the national bourgeoisie is proved by the Five Year Plans and the increase in the share of the State sector in the national economy from one plan to another, nationalisa¬ tion of transport, the Imperial Bank, LIC, Banking, etc., and the continuation of the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956. The Planning Commission may not lead the country to socia-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

lism, yet

it

constitutes

53'

the

organised brain of the national,

bourgeoisie to find indigenous capital to counter the thrust of the big bourgeoisie and to complete the bourgeois democratic revolution.

That is why, at every annual general meeting of

Chambers of Commerce, the spokesmen of the big bourgeoisie pour venom on Planning Commission.

But the very fact that

despite the dislike of the Chambers of Commerce, the Planning Commission prevails is a clear indicator that the national bourgeoisie prevail over the big bourgeoisie in India. This economic analysis can also be substantiated by various political data.

India is no less than one of the big three of the

non-aligned world, flanked only by the UAR and outflanked only by Pakistan.

and Yugoslavia

Even our Minister without

portfolio always has one of the busiest foreign tour program¬ mes, indicating our political respectability.

India has always

maintained very cordial relations with the socialist braved Western

displeasure

world,,

from Suez to West Irian, and

earned praise for her peace efforts from Korea to Indo-China. India scrapped the VO A deal, refused a nuclear umbrella, opposed bases in the Indian Ocean, asked for the cessation of bombing of North Vietnam, aspired to fill the gap likely to be created by the probable British withdrawal from the Far East, and lastly sent her beaming Prime Minister to the top of Lenin’s tomb on no less an occasion than the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution.

What more do you want ?

CPI(M) and CPI(ML) Stands :

All this logic makes the

Marxists smile and the Maoists laugh.

They contend that it is

not the nineteenth, century, but the latter half of the twentieth. Gone are the golden days of capitalism.

It is the era of its

crisis and decadence which is a world phenomenon. Last year’s turmoil in France and the march of the poor in Washington indicate that the wealth of the West is not the barometer of its health.

Even the classical and assertive independent bourgeois

countries of the

West are moving towards inter-dependence

through various forms of economic bondage.

The house of

the West is a house with one pillar and that pillar is the USA..

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

54

VOL II

Between the socialist bloc and the USA, various capitalist countries constitute an intermediate zone, all dependent on the USA, though in various degrees—perhaps France the least. South Vietnam the most. In India, because of British colonial rule, the growth of an independent bourgeoisie could not take place in a real sense even during the independence movement when the bite of the internal class

struggle was less and emergence of capitalism

was a world phenomenon.

So, when the thing did not grow

properly when it should have grown, how can we expect its growth and development at such a late hour when Great Britain, our

previous master, herself is being called the 38th

State of the USA ? This theoretical analysis can be tested by examining the political economy of the country and

any such inspection

must start with a correct evaluation of the State sector. This sector as such does not carry much meaning if it is not clearly explained which class or classes control the State power. The State sector means socialism if State power remains with the working class ; it means “national capitalism” if it is in the hands of the national bourgeoisie, but it means only taking an industry from an individual capitalist and keeping it with a bureau of capitalists parading as the Government if the State power lies in the hands of the big bourgeoisie.

That the State

power vests in the big bourgeoisie is explained from the fact that even the State sector has been formed to serve them only keeping the real authority of the State in the hands of the big bourgeoisie.

This so-called State sector gives a unique handle

to tap the people’s money as a compulsory indirect tax which was in the

Second Five year Plan Rs.

11,000 crores, Third

Five year Plan Rs. 2,880 crores, and in the Fourth Plan expected to be Rs.

3,000 crores, to strengthen the position of

the big bourgeoisie by compensating the inherent weakness of the country’s capitalist

economy.

So, nationalisation of

the consumer goods industry, whether paper mill or sugar .factory, takes place only in cases of losing concerns which

5b

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

may be again handed back to the private owner after the take-off stage, i. e. after it again becomes profit-making. public sector may be started with

heavy industries which

require high initial capital but which, return on the capital in the beginning, private enterprise. these mammoth

The

because

of the low

do not attract any big

The design is also there to hand over public

sector

projects to the

capitalists after they become profit-making.

individual

Even bourgeois

philosophy permits the freedom to purchase shares or not, but here one must be a shareholder with no share in the profit or in the authority.

The sole purpose is to nourish the

limping capitalism and feed the inflated

officialdom or the

fooard of directors who come invariably from the class of the big bourgeoisie, sometimes being their direct relations. Secondly, the public sector may be utilised to corrode the very foundation of socialist philosophy by demonstrating its discouraging performance.

The public sector is

based on

socialist principles but in India it is governed by capitalist principles, so naturally it is found uneconomic, less efficient, wasteful and what not. torted

show

Ultimately, this discredited and dis¬

would make the people shudder at socialist

-economy. That the public sector is nothing but a political wing of the big bourgeoisie, that the State power is firmly concentrated in their hands, with the landlords as the junior partners, becomes obvious if one reads the Monopoly Commission’s report headed by Mr P. C. Mahalanobis.

Between 1947 and 1964 the paid-

up capital of the joint stock companies increased from Rs. 480 .crores to 1,400 crores ; even in 1960, five big capitalist families Tata, Birla, Mafatlal, Walchand and Mahindra, controlled 539 companies, and 10 leading Rs.

families in

1958 used to have

1,600 crores out of the total private capital of Rs. 2,300

-crores.

From 1953 to 1961, the Reserve Bank of India has

shown, while the top 10% of the people have increased their share of the national income from 28 % to 37%, for the bottom 40% it decreased from 20% to 13%.

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

56

VOL II

The same dismal figure of monopolistic concentration isalso visible in respect of land where, despite various caricatures of reform and legislation, 58% is concentrated in the hands of 10°/o of the top rural families while the bottom 20% of the agricultural families own less than 1% of cultivable land.

This

is besides the huge army of landless labourers who constitute less than 22% of the rural population.

Between

1950 and

1960 there was not even any marginal change in this abnormal picture of land concentration. The so called

controversies between the

Chambers of

Commerce and the Planning Commission are more a show than a reality.

On every precipitated issue where the big bour¬

geoisie mean business the Chambers of Commerce can get their object through ; think, for instance, of the dilution of the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956, the fertiliser deal, libera¬ lisation of import licenses, free hand in investment etc. The routine cry of the Planning Commission for land reform could not give land to the tiller because the big bourgeoisie did not want to annoy their junior partners, the landlords. The relation between the big

bourgeoisie and

foreign

monopolists comes out from economic data which show that the penetration of private foreign capital increased threefold, from Rs. 750 crores in 1960, out of which 64% was British and 27.6% American.

Britain increased her investment twofold

after “leaving” her Empire.

Today the percentage of foreign

capital in Indian economy is, mineral oil 97%, match box 90%, jute 89%0. Even our economic planning could not make us economic¬ ally

independent.

The

proportion

of

foreign

“aid”

has

steadily increased from the First Five Year Plan to the pro¬ posed Fourth constituting now, even officially, 30% of the total wished investment. Total investment in Rs. crores

I 2100

II 4800

III 7200

IV (For 65-66) 2225

57

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Foreign aid in Rs. crores 188

1049

%9.6

22.5

2200

669

While our foreign exchange reserve came down from some Rs. 1,400 crores, our foreign debt increased from nil in 1948 to, this day, Rs. 4,000 crores (U.S. Loans alone Rs. 2,600 crores) without considering devaluation. gross national income.

This is 35°/0 of our

It is calculated that 20% of our total

foreign exchange earning through our dwindling export market is sucked out as interest on our loans. The myth of a self-generating economy can be clearly exposed by examining closely each individual item.

At the

annual general meeting of the Indian Statistical Institute in Madras in December, 1956, Mr P. C. Mahalanobis explainedthe thesis of self-generating economy thus : Suppose we are im¬ porting six million tons of foodgrains a year, i.e. some 8% of our total production at the cost of foreign exchange, this would employ our people only in loading and unloading it.

If

instead, we would import 1 ton of fertiliser for 10 tons of food grains, we might have to wait for a year before we can use that fertiliser on the soil and get the additional crop but that would cost much less foreign exchange and employ a series of persons from port to field.

If, instead of importing fertilisers

we import all the equipment making a fertiliser factory to produce that additional fertiliser, we

would spend still less

foreign exchange and employ more people though we might go even further by machines.

importing fertiliser

equipment-making

This would produce the equipment first to make a

factory, employing more people at various stages and using even less foreign exchange but one will have to wait for eight years. those

Lastly, the best way would be to import only

machines

which

would

first

produce

the

machine

producing machines, i.e. multiply itself, which would produce the fertiliser equipment which would go to make the factory, and the factory would produce the fertiliser equivalent to the

58

NAXALBARI AND AFTER _VOL II

additional food to be grown in the field.

For this, one has to

wait for ten hard years, but the country will have a completely self-generating economy, giving large-scale employment and using minimum foreign exchange, and the food problem would be solved once for all. But twelve years (1956-68) after the ushering in of the Second Five Year Plan what has happened to this self-generating economy ?

Whether it is a steel factory at Durgapur or an oil

refinery at Barauni, each public sector industry has come to this country as a gift, not as a starting point of technological independence as was the case even in the era of evolution of a capitalist economy in Japan at the beginning of this century. Bhilai was the first steel factory in the public sector built by Russia, Bokaro will be the fourth one, also by Russia, but the contribution of indigenous ingredients and talent has not made any qualitative headway and the coming up of the fifth steel plant would depend again on the availability of foreign help. The same is the case with fertiliser.

Durgapur is the seventh

fertiliser plant coming under the State sector but it would require Rs. 13 crores foreign exchange out of a total invest¬ ment of Rs.

37 crores, i.e. in the same proportion as was

needed for the earlier units, while expert opinion says that not more than Rs. 2'25 crores of foreign exchange should be needed for a same-capacity plant at present.

Fertiliser Industry Total Investment

Foreign Exchange

31 Five year Plan

47

Trombay

25

55

13

55

Gorakhpur

18

55

8

55

Nahar Katiya

12

55

7

55

Neiveli

15-60

55

11-50

Barauni

35

55

18-40

Cochin

31-25

55

11-05

crores

17-5

crores

55

55

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

59

Steel Plant (II Five year Plan) Total Investment Rourkela ... Durgapur Bhilai Bokaro

...

50

crores

200

„

Foreign Exchange 20 crores

100

Steel Plant Expansion Rourkela Durgapur Bhilai

...

284

crores

133

crores

Between 1960 and 1966 Total Investment Iron and Steel Machine Tools Heavy Machinery ... Fertiliser [Source :

640 40 119 225

crores

Foreign Exchange 305 crores 27 81-5 100 5?

J?

Third Five year Plan]

Our dependence has become so bad that even today our whole Plan is drafted, not keeping in view the needs, either present or future, of the country, but the designs of others who are supposed to give us “aid” and our draft Plans always lead to foreign tours to finalise the pattern of invest¬ ment, i.e. fixing the proportion of light and heavy industries etc. With the Fourth Plan we have faced a climax—we are having a “Plan holiday” because we did not get the green signal from “outside”. The Indian Republic now is no more than a private limited company like the ICI (India) whose immediate management is the Chamber of Commerce while the real shareholders are across the ocean, exercising remote control. But things are not so simple as they seem, the Marxists caution. The spectre of class struggle may be sufficient to compress the big bourgeoisie into a coherent class but not

60

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL

enough to conceal their inherent cracks. tions at every step.

IE

There are contradic¬

First, there is the contradiction between

an individual monopolist and the group guiding the Govern¬ ment.

As pauperisation unites

divides the ‘haves’

the

so that even

‘have-nots’,

property

within the Chambers of

Commerce the members look at each other with suspicion despite repeated assertion of “solidarity”.

So, whenever the

bureau of the big bourgeoisie is forced to keep certain vital industries under its collective control in the name of the public sector, that puts all the constituent members under very uneasy strain, each fearing that the other will get the upper hand in the

melee,

endangering permanently their future, specially

when they are sure that this show is transitory while the rule of the big fish swallowing the small ones is an eternal truth of capitalist economy.

The second contradiction is between the

native big bourgeoisie and their foreign masters.

No doubt

the “subsidiary alliance” is certainly for survival, but in fixing the degree of servility there are always differences.

While

from this side there is an ambitious preference for the Britishtype of refined inter-dependence, from the other side invariably there is decisive insistence on the Saigon model. farce, even this limping public financiers who often

Though a

sector discomfits the foreign

look at these

heavy

industries as a

potential threat to their capital goods. The third contradiction is between the theory and practice of the public sector.

While it is still declared from the house

tops that it is an exercise in socialistic pattern, in practice it is designed to feed and strengthen the big bourgeoisie only. This is always dangerous specially in view of the socialist ideas. However limited the “liability” and however insignificant the authority, the unsuppressable fact that such giant industrial concerns can grow and run on the small savings of the people gives them a sense of respectability and confidence in their own means, always feared by the bourgeoisie. inherent

Moreover, the

contradictions within the big bourgeoisie and the

inevitable lack of individual interest render these concerns less-

61

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

•oppressive, giving the working class breathing time to consoli¬ date itself for struggle so that, paradoxically, in the public sector there is more labour unrest.

This again helps the

propagation of socialist ideas. The fourth contradiction and perhaps the most important one is that between the public sector units built with the help of socialist countries and those by the capitalist countries. The image of socialist construction combined with the efficiency of the industries made by socialist countries in India, the behaviour of their technical experts with the workers of this country, the liberal business terms and rate of interest, their readiness to take up heavy industries like Bokaro left by the USA, all this has constituted the biggest check on complete surrender by

the Indian bourgeoisie,

providing them with

bargaining power against the West, and by creating public opinion against such surrender. No wonder India sends Telco trucks to South Vietnam, sugar to the USA at the cost of Cuba and so on and so forth ; nevertheless

she

has always

kept good relations with the

socialist countries. India may be doubly obliged but the two sides are at loggerheads with each other preventing complete surrender to either side, because even in this changed context, among all the contradictions the maximum one is still that between the socialist and the capitalist world. And it is here that the Maoists thunder.

If the CPI logic

is a revolting over-simplification, the CPI(M) thesis is a dis¬ graceful deceit. The

Soviet

The pilgrimage to Moscow means nothing.

Union

and

all

the

East

European

countries

(Albania excepted) today constitute the revisionist world and cannot be taken as a socialist force.

What is more, the CPSU

is no longer a communist party and the Soviet Union has only become another imperialist country. an exploiter.

The Soviet Union is also

If Soviet participation in the State sector had

contributed really to a self-generating economy, after fifteen years we could have got Bokaro simply out of Bhilai without spending a farthing of foreign exchange, as was the case with

62

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL

IF

China whose production of steel today, after starting from scratch—she had

no

times that in India.

Jamshedpur before liberation—is four So, India is a neo-colonial country with

two masters, the USA and the USSR. The controversy is even more interesting in determining the actual strategy and tactics of Indian Revolution.

The

CPI have carefully put revolutionary means as an alternative in their programme, but even a cursory glance at their concep¬ tion of National Democracy shows that they do not actually mean it. The

stress

on

‘People’s

Democracy’

shows that

the

CPI(M) at least thinks that the road to socialism in India is noisy. When forcible overthrow of the ‘haves’ is still the general line for the emancipation of the ‘have-nots’, the question is how that overthrow is to be effected.

The Naxalites suggest the

Chinese way, i.e. concentrating in the remote villages, pre¬ ferably

encircled

by

hills

and

forests where the limits of

administration are the weakest, and then developing a people’s army for an armed showdown. should

work

underground,

In the town area, the party

concentrate

only

on

political

propaganda, and recruit cadres to be sent to villages.

Armed

political bases are to be established in villages to encircle the town,

the concentrated points

of reactionary might.

The

revolutionary rings would be gradually assertive around the reactionary

points

leading

to

their

ultimate

elimination.

Participation in elections is decried so as to focus attention on the harder path of armed struggle, to dispel illusions about bourgeois democracy and also to keep the organisation un¬ exposed, which is impossible in election campaigns. Though this path is straightforward, easily understandableand clear-cut, the Marxists reject it, pointing out its over¬ simplifying nature. China 1929.

India 1969 is qualitatively different from

In China, the parties, whether Communist or

Kuomintang, were formed with arms, but in India only on alms (subscription).

The people here are disarmed while the

63

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

ruling class operates through the military and police as a more or less smooth, centralised

power.

Communication facilities

are infinitely better here than in China.

There is hardly any

“remote village’' which the government machinery is unable to reach with its full

might within twentyfour hours.

More¬

over in the pre-war China there was practically no centralised industry but this is not the case here. like

pre revolution

India today looks more

Russia in the growth of the industrial

proletariat. In short, if the Communist party wants to seek a seclusion of the Chinese-type in India to-day, a Chinese-type revolution would not occur.

The party would be isolated from the people

and the current of political life. abstentionism.

Marxism never advocates

Why should we abstain ?

Why should we

boycott elections ? Though there are major elements of deception in bourgeois elections, they are not a farce. farce the

Had the whole thing been a

bourgeoisie would not have fought it so seriously,

spending crores of rupees through their agents. do polarise the

Even elections

people, politically dividing them into two or

more antagonistic groups, generally the have-nots favouring the left, the haves the right.

That is why every victory of the

left enhances the people's movement, making the ruling class panicky.

Even Naxalbari could become a reality and a political

force in India because the UF was in power.

There is a vast

difference in physical strength between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ of the country, discouraging the latter from any largescale showdown with the former beyond some economic bargaining.

By victory in elections the working class cannot

wrest power, it is true, but it can definitely weaken the grip of the owning class, creating

some additional

contradictions.

The Congress party of 1969 is qualitatively different from that of 1947.

And the weakening of the main pillar of reactionary

politics in India through four elections has definitely helped revolutionary politics, and this process of erosion must continue at least for some time.

^64

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

It is true, Lenin objected to the participation in the Duma election of 1905 in the and armed struggle. election

midst of a nationwide political strike

But he criticised boycotting the Duma

in 1908 and asked his party to participate in elections

even in February 1917, i.e.

eight months before the October

Revolution. That means the communists seldom

boycott

elections.

When the revolutionary situation comes it is the bourgeoisie who abandon elections or at least prevent the communists from participating.

This revolutionary situation can only be created

by aggressively participating in the various political avenues available ; by progressively widening the cracks and fissures of bourgeois society.

The party that cannot force the bourgeoisie

to abandon their deceptive democratic veil will be far from ousting them from power by inviting an open show-down. So the main task of the communists is neither to participate An elections nor to abandon them but to mobilise, politicise and militarise the people. adopted.

Any action contributing to this may be

The mid-term election in Bihar taught the people

armed mobilisation and exposed the ugly character of the owning class much more than any Naxalbari.

People have

realised that they need arms even to go to vote, that those who profess most by non-violence can adopt the worst form of violence if their interest is affected.

The main positive content

of Naxalite politics is its stress on the villages, and if one per cent of what is preached is practised that would fill a long¬ standing gap in Indian politics. The slogan “boycott elections” has also its progressive bearing if it does not aim only at discouraging the voters of the CPI(M), thus paving the way for the Congress to win.

This slogan, if used without malice

and with prudence, can very well engrave a big question mark in the people’s mind about the whole process and can show them that the owning class would never abandon its vested economic interests simply by losing in elections, and progressive forces remain unprepared, turn into an Indonesia, sparing nobody.

if the

India may very

well

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

65

The first UF Government in West Bengal created Naxal¬ bari ; the second UF Government has helped to create a third communist party.

So the Naxalites should perhaps be

:grateful to the UF or the Marxists or at least should not have much

to quarrel with them.

On the progress of one

-publicity of the other depends.

Naxalbari is a force and even

■Chavan is disturbed if the Marxists rule. curiosity if the Congress comes.

the

Naxalbari is a mere

So if the Marxists remain in

the cities and villages for general mobilization and for creating a specifically progressive political climate and the Naxalites go to the remote parts of the country to concentrate on serious politicalisation

and selective militarisation, then there is no

problem, as the two operating among different layers of people and zones would not physically meet each other to quarrel. Apart communist

from

possibilities

of mutual

movement, which may

come

adjustments

in the

as a compulsion

because of the sharp political polarisation, the correctness of individual lines can only be tested with the coming events.

If

the bourgeoisie still have the power to yield concessions, the present show of limping democracy would continue, the CPI(M) would come near to the CPI in its actions.

If the owning class

does not have the means, it would steadily start disintegrating and the political crisis would deepen, taking a fascist turn with all the consequences.

The CPI would be caught napping, the

CPI(M) would have to go underground, and the difference with the Naxalites would be lessened.

But if the country is already

an the neo-colonial stage, then at any time at one stroke the present balance would go and then the CPI completely and the major part of the CPI(M) would be eliminated and only the underground Naxalites would surface to direct the communist movement in India. aOctober 18, 1969

Vol II—5

CPI(M)’S REVOLUTIONARY TEACHING DIGVI JAY

In the

historical

background of

opportunism

and

the

struggle of two lines the attack* by Mr Basavapunniah (CPM) on the revolutionaries needs examination.

Although criticising

the CPI as well, his main attack is on the revolutionary Left. We do consider it necessary to expose the ‘Marxist’ arguments of Mr Basavapunniah in order to identify the opportunism where it really lies.

Mr Basavapunniah stated in his article

that : (a) the USSR and China represent respectively the right and left deviation in the international communist movement and their Indian counterparts are the CPI on the right and the ‘Naxalites of all hues’ on the left, with the CPM being the genuine Marxist party free of deviations. (b) although the bourgeoisie will never surrender power peacefully, the strategy of people’s war is not feasible in India as the counter-revolution has made enormous technological advance and has consolidated itself ; and (c) the Soviet Union is not imperialist even though the leadership has turned revisionist and there are serious mistakes, distortions and deviations in its policies. 1.

Nature of the Indian State The Right CPI’s position identifies the State as basically

progressive (anti-monopolist, anti-landlord and anti-imperialist) led by the national bourgeoisie ; it seeks to achieve socialism through joint hegemony of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat peacefully.

In other words, it sees no need for revolutionary

overthrow of the State.

The CPI is clearly revisionist and has

all but faded from the revolutionary front. *See “Revolutionary Techniques with Special Reference to India.” Social Scientist, June 1974.

6?

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

The real threat to the CPM position now, therefore, is not from the CPI but from the CPI(ML) and other revolutionaries. It is with this in view that Mr Basavapunniah develops his ‘critique’ of the Left.

He referred to ‘the Naxalite position’ on

the character of the State which, according to him, is that the State is a puppet of U.S. imperialists ; the bourgeoisie which is in power is comprador and a lackey of U.S. imperialism. He compares this to the position of the CPM, which holds that the State is a bourgeois-landlord one led by the bourgeoisie in alliance with landlords.

monopoly-

According to the CPM,

the bourgeoisie is also collaborating with foreign monopoly with a view to developing capitalism in India. Before examining the two positions further, it must be noted that Mr Basavapunniah’s position is grossly incomplete.

version

of the CPI(ML)’s

The CPI(ML)’s actual position

holds that the Indian State is semi-feudal, led by compradorbureaucratic bourgeoisie in the interest of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.

The CPI(ML) identifies

semi¬

feudalism as the main contradiction and claims that the bour¬ geoisie is incapable of independent development.

The CPM

holds that the bourgeoisie is capable of independent capitalist development in India. Let us briefly examine the nature of the industry leaders— the

monopoly bourgeoisie

which is

interested in ‘building

capitalism’ in India. Whether or not the monopoly houses represent independent capitalists depends on (a) the control of product and techno¬ logy ; (b) the extent of foreign participation in Indian industry ; and (c) the export and import relations and terms.

The extent

of foreign participation in Indian industry measured in terms, of reproductive capital is rather small (less than 1 °/0).

The

important thing, however, is not the quantum of capital but the amount

of control

it

exercises

on the products, processes

(technology) and the direction of growth.

The Indian mono¬

polists have now become the national counterparts of foreign monopoly which uses advanced technology for spreading its.

■68

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

influence.

VOL II

These linkages and an elaborate system of control

of the direction and nature of growth of several developing countries have been evolved by the imperialist monopolies over a period of time.

The system consists ot advancing ‘loans’,

‘grants’ and ‘aid’ to the government of the recipient country for encouragement of a particular pattern of industrial and agricultural growth there.

The pattern that is encouraged is

the one that subserves the needs of imperialism.

This reduces

the local monopoly bourgeoisie to mere users, promoters and clearing houses of foreign technology which is rapidly becom¬ ing obsolete in the country of their origin.

This technology

is still ‘advanced’ from the view-point of developing countries like India.

This has been amply documented.*

One may,

therefore, state that the monopolist bourgeoisie of the country has got its interests firmly linked with those of the imperialists. It would be wrong to consider the monopoly

bourgeoisie as

capable of independently building capitalism in India. Thus Mr Basavapunniah not only seems to ignore the real character of the State, he seems to want to mislead the cadre by referring to an incomplete statement of what he called the “Naxalites’ position”.

While the positions of the CPI and the

CPI(ML) are widely different, they are sharply defined.

The

position of the CPM on the other hand is not so sharply defined and is vacillating. 2.

Soviet Social-Imperialism and Ideological‘Independence’ of the CPM Mr Basavapunniah’s ideological confusion is not confined to

the question of the State alone.

He claims that his party is

neither pro-Moscow nor pro-Peking and will pursue its own programmes.

Once again let us see how the CPM leaders

have demonstrated their ‘independence’ in practice.

In 1967,

the Chinese leaders criticised (through the radio) the

brutal

repression of the Naxalbari uprising by the CPM Ministry. *See for instance Sau R.K. Problem and Prospect.

Indian Economic Growth :

69

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

This criticism was taken by the ‘Marxists’ as an ‘interference in the internal affairs’ of the CPM. They vehemently opposed the Chinese stand.

A year later, in 1968, when the Soviet Union

sent troops into Czechoslovakia to put down the movement there, the CPM leaders gave their unqualified support to the Soviet move which was opposed even by a section of the CPI. Evidently, according to CPM leaders, sending troops across the border is no interference, but ideological criticism through the radio is.

Such is the ideological ‘independence’ of Mr

Basavapunniah and the CPM leaders. The CPM leaders in order to assert their neutral stand ignore the facts and criticise the characterisation of the Soviet Union as social-imperialists.

Mr Basavapunniah argues that

since the means of production in the Soviet Union have still not regressed back to private control, it can never be imperia¬ list.

But there are some known facts about the foreign and

domestic policies of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union has

not only denied the Chinese access to nuclear technology and other help, it has collaborated with the U.S. in the ‘contain¬ ment of China’.

It has sought to impose the nuclear ‘non¬

proliferation treaty’ on other nations, specially China. On the domestic side, it is now known that the social recon¬ struction programmes suffer from revisionism.

The benefits of

socialist reconstruction in the Soviet Union are not shared by different social groups equitably.

The gap between the wages

of workers and other functionaries is not only there, monetary incentives have been reinstalled as desirable.

All these fit into

a pattern and one can state that revisionism has captured the leadership of the State. Revisionism, as Lenin points out, is “promoted by the bourgeois in working class movement which omits, obliterates and distorts the revolutionary side of Marxism and its revolu¬ tionary soul ; they push to the foreground and extol what is acceptable to the bourgeoisie”. Soviet Union today ?

Is this not the case in the

The bourgeoisie which has survived the

ruthless suppression by hiding within the party for decades

70

VOL II

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

has now captured power.

It has adopted the policy of colla¬

boration with U.S. imperialism in dividing the world into spheres of influence where each can effectively exploit the economic resources and the market.

It is for these reasons

that the Soviet Union which is revisionist is characterised as social-imperialists. 3.

Question of Tactic and Tasks Mr Basavapunniah has “exposed” a series of other issues

which he calls the‘fallacies’ of‘Naxalites of all hues’. These relate to the tactic and current tasks of Indian revolution. On the one hand he states that ‘he does not have any parliamentary illusion’ and believes that ‘the State power cannot be attained through peaceful means’,

on the other hand he states that

‘counter-revolution has unified itself, advanced technologically, militarily

and

has acquired

transport facilities’. possibility.

enormous

communication

and

Therefore, people’s war is no longer a

If one believes Mr Basavapunniah’s claim of no

parliamentary illusion, one may infer that the real determinants of people’s victory are the military hardware, transport facilities and

communication equipment.

This amounts to gross dis¬

respect to the people’s war waged successfully by the Vietnamese who have defeated the most sophisticated counter-revolutionary war

machine

in

the

Mozambique, Angola, •rules.

Similar

(Malaysia,

world.

People’s

war

liberated

Guinea-Bissau from fascist-imperialist

struggles

are on, in other places

Burma, Cambodia, Thailand) and

American countries.

has

in

several

Asia Latin

Ignoring such struggles would mean that

Mr Basavapunniah has come to believe more in technological hardware than in the people, despite his occasional lip service ■to the latter. Again, despite his reservation about the success of people’s war, he states that revolutionary conditions are not yet ripe in India.

One wonders

why he bothers about

revolutionary

conditions if he does not believe in the possibility of people’s war, to start with.

On the other hand, if he seriously thinks

.that conditions are not yet ripe for people’s

war,

he

may

71

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

have indicated his method of gauging the situation.

He lists

three places where armed uprising took place and was suppres¬ sed and uses these to substantiate his argument. It is interesting to note that the failure of two Ministries of the CPM has not convinced its leadership of the futility of elections whereas two examples

have

convinced Mr

Basavapunniah

about

the

unfeasibility of people’s war. Mr Basavapunniah

however

rationalises

his

theory of

continued participation in elections on the plea that “they don’t wish to give the bourgeoisie an alibi that CPM believes in the ‘cult of violence’ and is not striving to achieve political power peacefully.”

It was the CPM leadership which had the control

of the West Bengal Home Ministry (that is, control of the police force etc.), when the Naxalbari uprising took place.

And later

again during the uprising at Debra-Gopiballavpur (Midnapore). Mr Jyoti Basu deployed the BSF after the

police failed to

suppress the uprising and greatly appreciated the work of the BSF.

Brutal repression

of the uprising

and

slaughter of

cadres has certainly established the CPM leadership’s creden¬ tials with the bourgeoisie. April 12, 1975

ON THE THOUGHTS OF CHARU MAJUMDAR B. UPADHYAY

To begin with, although Charu Majumdar himself was responsible to a great extent in laying emphasis on ‘khatam’ or ‘annihilation’ as the only means to mobilise the peasantry [cf. his speech at the first congress of the CPI(ML) in 1970 : '‘Only annihilation can solve all our

problems’], in his later

writings he sought to restore the balance “the fundamental political power.

point

of class

by reiterating that

struggle is the seizure of

The fundamental point

of class struggle is

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

72

VOL IF

not annihilation, though annihilation is a higher form of classstruggle”

(Unpublished

note

written towards the end of

1971). During the same period, in another note to his comrades, he wrote :

“Today the landless peasant, the poor peasant

must be told about the need to attack the State machinery,. about our total politics.To tell them only about the annihilation of class enemies will be economism.” Unfortunately, the main aim, of creating base areas and mobilising the peasantry there around harvesting and other economic activities to enable them to taste the sense of power and inspire them to protect and enlarge those base areas, was lost sight of in the craze for getting rid of the

immediate

objects of reprisal—the notorious landlords and moneylenders. Yet, Charu Majumdar urged his followers on November

18,

1971, to rally all sections of the peasantry in the base areas for harvesting :

“The movement is to make even the backward

peasants participants in our

struggle.

Without conducting

this mass movement we can in no way realise our objective— the objective of making every peasant a fighter.”.

In a

warning against indiscriminate annihilation, he laid down the rules :

“This movement wiff be directed against the class

enemy, i.e. the jotedar class.

It will also be conducted against

such rich peasants as may be actively cooperating with the police.

All other classes are our allies in this struggle.”

The other issue which divided Charu Majumdar’s staunch followers from their critics in the movement in 1971-72 was the question of revolutionary authority, the former insisting that everyone would have to accept Charu Majumdar as the revolutionary authority, and refusal to do to treachery.

Charu

so would amount

Majumdar himself had a more sober

approach to the question.

In a letter to

some comrades in

Tripura at the end of 1971, he wrote:

“It is incorrect to

mechanically bring to the forefront the question of authority during any difference of opinions. back. of

That pushes the politics

We shall never impose authority through methods

commandism.

Comprehension of the

vast

number of

73-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

comrades gradually grows only through experience and political discussion.” Charu Majumdar also stressed the need for uniting with the other revolutionary groups towards the end of his life. In the well-known article,

‘It is people’s interest that is the

party’s interest’ (June 9, 1972), excerpts of which were carried by Frontier at that time, he reminded his comrades : those who

once practised enmity towards us will

“Even also in

special circumstances come forward to unite with us.

We

must have such largeness of mind as to be united with all such forces.” The slogan “China’s Chairman is our Chairman” which created a lot of resentment among revolutionaries here and embarrassment for the Chinese, was, as is fairly well-known among Majumdar’s close comrades, withdrawn by Majumdar towards the end of his life. Paradoxically enough, during the phase that followed the 1972

setback

and

Charu Majumdar’s

death, his devoted

followers courageously rebuilt the party and created bases, but ignored his last warnings and advice and went on stressing the same old divisive features that had split the movement earlier. The second congress of the party, held in December,

1973,

insisted on everyone accepting the revolutionary authority of Charu Majumdar, reiterated the slogan “China’s Chairman is our Chairman,” rejected talk of unity with other groups and laid emphasis on annihilation as the main means of achieving the goal. But in spite of these unfortunate

sectarian lapses, the

second congress was an important landmark.

The leaders of

the congress (most of whom have been arrested during the last few months), took up the challenge of rebuilding the party and

resuming the

situation

looked

movement at bleak.

a time

Charu Majumdar

when the whole had

died, the

central committee was in disarray, the cadres were either in jail or killed. and

From almost scratch, through patient discussions

contacts, the organisation was gradually

rebuilt.

An.

74

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

important

feature of the

new organisation

was

VOL II

the large

proportion of landless peasants and workers in the leading committees.

The leaders of the second congress throughout

1973-74 sought to implement Charu Majumdar’s directive : “Unless the

poor

and

leadership, however

landless peasants

much revolutionary

might be, they are bound to fail”

are elevated to possibilities there

(July

14,

1970).

The

success that they achieved was because of their firm adherence to this belief.

That the second congress could be held in a

village in Burdwan under the

protection of armed

peasant

guerillas is itself an indication of the progress made by these leaders of the CPI(ML).

(The first congress was held in 1970

in an office building in a middle-class locality in Calcutta.) The base in that village could be retained for six months, and when the police encircled it in June 1974, the entire population of the village, with guns, bows and arrows fought the police, managed to make a dent in the encirclement and make a safe passage for the guerilla squads to escape. participation.

This indicates mass

But Kamalpur was an isolated village.

The

base there could not be extended to the neighbouring areas, since there was little time to build up the organisation in the outlying

areas, as

well as

mentioned before—refusal

because of the sectarian

to unite with other groups, etc.

There were also mistakes of another nature. ..among the leadership

lapses

an over-optimistic

There was often evaluation of the

possibility of advancing rapidly and underestimation of the enemy strength. journals,

where

This attitude wishful

was

thinking

reflected

in the

often replaced

party

objective

reporting, the justification being the need to rouse the people by flowery and emotional language.

In fact, the party suffered

from the three mistakes against which Mao Tsetung warned the Chinese Communist Party during the revolution there— subjectivism, sectarianism and long-winded style of writing. Writing as early as 1967, asserting the primary importance of armed struggle, Charu Majumdar reiterated .time :

at the same

“One may naturally ask then whether the peasantry

75

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

should not wage mass movements for their partial demands in this period.

Certainly the need for such movements is

still there and will remain there in future. country,

and

segments.

the

peasantry

is

India is a vast

also divided

into

various

So the level of political consciousness can never

be the same in all

classes and

in all areas.

So there will

always be the possibility of peasant movements on partial demands and Communists will always have to take advantage of such possibilities.”

(Document No.

8—‘It is only by

fighting revisionism that the peasants’ struggle can be taken forward.’ 1967.) The need for such struggles has assumed more importance right now, when a fascist dictatorship, much more sophisti¬ cated than Hitler’s or Mussolini’s, is controlling the country. Any open platform,

however

minimal it

might be in its

effectiveness, should be utilised to fight for propagating the message of the revolution and mobilise the masses. Majumdar said :

“In spite of the

revolution, the peasants

As Charu

propaganda of armed

might decide

to

organise

deputation, and we will have to lead such struggles.

mass In the

era of white terror, we should never minimise the importance of such mass deputation, for it is the mass deputations which will rally more and more peasants round struggles.” ment No.

(Docu¬

8—‘It is only by fighting revisionism that the

peasants’ struggle can be taken forward’. strikes in the industrial areas,

1967.)

Workers’

movements for civil rights,

struggles for higher wages or land can thus be canalised into militant armed confrontation with the government. June 7, 1975

INDIVIDUAL TERRORISM & MARXISM A SHIM MITRA

Armed struggle is central to the whole idea of MarxismLeninism. tion.

To Lenin it was an object of passionate absorp¬

He said, “An

oppressed class which does not strive to

learn to use arms, to obtain arms, deserves to be treated as slaves”.

When Plekhanov, after the failure of 1905, categori¬

cally said, ‘they should not have taken up arms’, Lenin angrily retorted that, on the contrary, they should have taken to arms more resolutely, energetically and aggressively.

“Those who

do not prepare for armed uprising must be ruthlessly cast out of the ranks of the supporters of the revolution and sent back to the ranks of its enemies, traitors and cowards.” In a remarkable theoretical defence of guerilla fighting, Lenin said, armed struggle pursues two different goals... “in the first place the goal of the killing of individual persons, higher officials, and subalterns in police and army ; second, the confiscation of funds both from the government and from private persons.”

The common opinion about this struggle

of 1906, he described, old terrorism etc.

was that it was anarchism, Blanquism,

But he contemptuously treated them as

‘trite labels’. Killing of individual persons is not ipso facto a terrorist act.

Acts of individuals isolated from the

masses,

having no direct bearing on mass movement and insurrection, not ennobled by the enlightening

and

organising

idea of

socialism, in other words without politics in command, are inexpedient and harmful.

Referring to a political assassina¬

tion in Vienna, Lenin wrote to Franz Koritschoner on October 25,

1916,

“As regards the political assessment of the act, we

maintain, of course, our old conviction confirmed by decades of experiences that individual terrorist acts are inexpedient methods of political struggle”.

77

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

“Killing is no murder’, wrote our old lskra about terrorist acts.

We are not at all opposed to political killing but as

revolutionary tactics, individual attacks are inexpedient and harmful.

Only the mass movement can be considered genuine

political struggle.

Only in direct immediate connection with

the mass movement can and must individual terrorist act be of value....In Russia the terrorists (against whom

we always

struggled) carried out a number of individual attacks, but in December 1905, when matters almost reached the stage of a mass insurrection, when it was necessary to help the masses to use violence then were missing.

just at that moment the

‘terrorists’

That is where terrorists make their mistakes,”

said Lenin. Left CPI readers will harp Lenin understood it differently. dated February 3,

on mass movements ;

In a letter to Inessa Armand

1917 he wrote :

movement is not bad,

but

“The slogan of a mass

but it is not completely correct.

Be¬

cause it forgets the revolution, the conquest of power, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

N.B. this !

or more correctly

the support and development (at once) of every kind of revolu¬ tionary

mass

movement,

the revolution.

with

the

object of bringing near

Individual terrorist acts are not immoral as

such (mark the word inexpedient), rather necessary in a parti¬ cular juncture to help the masses to use violence.” In the exciting weeks and months after Bloody Sunday, Lenin had spent days in the library in Geneva studying tary tactics.

He had sent from Switzerland endless streams

of instructions with “Give every

mili¬

the

most

company short

detailed practical directions : and

simple bomb formulae.

They must begin their military training immediately in direct connexion with practical fighting action. Some will immediately kill a spy or blow up police station, others will organise an attack on a bank, in order to confiscate funds for the uprising.” A few days later he wrote on weapons : “rifles, revolvers, bombs, knives, brass knuckles, clubs, rags soaked in oil to start fire with, rope or rope ladders, shovels for building barricades.

78

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

dynamite cartridges, barbed wire tacks against cavalry. There were further precepts concerning passwords, the value

of

mobility and surprise, use of women, children, and old people, duties

of unarmed contingents who might disarm a lone

policeman or climb and shower troops with

stones, acid,

boiling water.” These were the features of partisan warfare in 1905-1906.. Naxalites claim to be attempting precisely these things in the conditions obtaining after 1966 to unleash the initiative of the masses for a violent struggle in the days to come.

“Partisan

warfare”, Lenin said, “is an inevitable form of struggle at a time when the mass movement has actually reached the point of insurrection and when fairly large intervals occur between the big engagements in the civil war.”

Were not the unpre¬

cedented violent food struggle of 1966, the general strikes that swept West Bengal and India, the Congress debacle in the 1967 elections, the minority Left CPI victory in Kerala and West Bengal, sure signs that the mass movement had reached the point of armed struggle ? confrontation

Was not the recent armed

between CPM-led peasants at Alladpur and

Congress hoodlums a sure index that we are in the midst of civil war ?

This phenomenon is not perceptible in the case of

India as whole, but it exists. The argument that Naxalite activities disorganise the mas& movement must be regarded critically. struggle,

accompanied

Every new form of

as it is by new dangers and new

sacrifices, inevitably disorganises organisations which are un¬ prepared for this new form of struggle.

Lenin again said : “It

is not partisan actions which disorganise the movement, but the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such action under its control.

Being incapable of understanding

what historical conditions give rise to this struggle, we are incapable of neutralising its noxious aspects.

He continued

“...What we have said about disorganisation also applies to demoralisation.

It is not partisan warfare which demoralises

but unorganised, irregular, non-party partisan acts.

We shall

79

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

’

not rid ourselves of this most unquestionable demoralisation by condemning and cursing partisan actions, for condemnation and curses are absolutely incapable of putting a stop to a phenomenon which has been engendered by profound eco¬ nomic and political causes.” Moreover, “A Marxist stands by class struggle and not social peace...Any moral condemnation of civil war would be absolutely

impermissible from the standpoint of Marxism”.

{Partisan Warfare).

In 1906, a large number of actions were

taken by the vagabond elements of the population, the lumpen proletariat and anarchist groups ; but Lenin never condemned them from a high moral standpoint ; on the contrary, he went into the essence of the problem and noted its significance : they were the product of powerful economic and political causes.

It was not in anybody’s power to eliminate these

causes or to eliminate the struggle. When Plekhanov published his Our Differences, Engels wrote to express his approval of the contents but his dislike of the intolerent

attacks on

the

revolutionary

wing of the

Narodniks ‘the only people who are doing anything in Russia at present.’

He was pleased that the Russian Social Democrats

accepted so much of his and Marx’s doctrine but he never ceased to disapprove of their relegating the courageous and revolutionary Narodniks to the lake of fire and brimstone, “with other reactionaries”.

Stalin urged the workers to be

on guard against economic terror, then (1906-1907) very much prevalent in

Georgia for it would

recoil upon organised

labour. But when the local ‘liberal’ newspaper—the mouth¬ piece of the oil magnates, began to preach morals, he retorted with an angry philippic on the wretched condition of the oil proletariat which accounted for their despair and violence. He scorned a Menshevik suggestion that socialists should up to a point cooperate with authority in preventing economic terror. By its own

means

and in its

own

interests

the

proletariat should curb despair and sporadic violence, Stalin concluded, but it would never denounce the culprits to the

80

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

authority.

Here people

who celebrate

Engels’

VOL II

birthdays,

people who call themselves ‘Stalinists’ are doing the exact opposite. The bourgeoisie and their servants accuse Naxalites of resorting to terror. 1649, and 1793.

The

bourgeoisie have forgotten

Terror was just

their

and legitimate when the

bourgeoisie resorted to it for their own benefit againt feudalism. Terror becomes monstrous and criminal when the workers and poor peasants dare to use it against the bourgeoisie and the feudalists. Terror is just and legitimate when used for substituting one exploiting minority

for another exploiting

minority. Terror becomes monstrous and criminal when it begins to be used for overthrowing every exploiting minority, to be used in the interests of the vast majority. and legitimate against the Naxalites

Terror is just

but is monstrous and

criminal when the Naxalites return it. Not that the Naxalites are not committing grave mistakes— the

so-called

cultural revolution, the reckless tactics in a

number of cases are wasteful of human life and energy.

These

must be corrected through merciless criticism and self-criticism. All the difficult dilemmas of partisan warfare which Russia, China, Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, the European resistance in the Second World War had to grapple are there.

But people

should understand that mistakes are being committed in course of revolutionary work. August 7, 1971

Letter The article “Individual Terrorism and Marxism” is an effort to idealise the Naxalites. The lengthy quotations from Lenin, being so very out of context, help in no way to prop up the argument he advances. Can any one draw a parallel between the situation in Russia in 1905 and the situation now in India ?

Individual terrorism,

divorced from mass movement, seen in Europe during the

81

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

19th century and in Russia during the early part of the 20th century, at a time when Marxism was being developed in practice, cannot be compared with terrorism today, after the experience of so many successful revolutions.

In the Indian

situation a tremendous scope is opening up not only in West Bengal and Kerala but in all movement, more effective

the States to develop mass

and broadbased, on a scale not

witnessed before. During half a century in India we have seen the activities of terrorists ; they showed their mettle in devotion, idealism, self-sacrifice and heroism drawing admiration from and applause of the educated people but they could not arouse the masses or build up revolutionary bases. much inferior even though •ideology.

In fact, they are

claim to follow.

The stuff of the Naxalites is

they profess to follow a superior nowhere near the ideology they

They professed rejection of the parliamentary

path and gave the ‘boycott election’ call but in practice they joined hands with the CPI,

Congress (O) and Congress (R) to

defeat the CPI(M) in the

elections.

And how

could Mr

Mitra show his reliance on elections where he said, “the Congress debacle in West Bengal in the 1967 elections, the minority Left CPI victory in Kerala and West Bengal (were) sure signs that the mass movement had reached the point of armed struggle” ?

If the fundamental premise is wrong, one

mistake leads to successive mistakes.

“Boycott of elections”

is a wrong slogan and it will be equally wrong to rely on the election results as an indication of the maturity of the revolu¬ tionary situation. Naxalites

do not understand in what situation

Lenin

formulated “boycott of election” as a correct policy and in what situation he advised participation in the Duma elections. For the same misconception the advancement of the struggling people in West Bengal and Kerala is taken as a surer sign of the maturity of the revolutionary situation for the whole of India.

This

misconception is due to a mechanical approach

do try to repeat the experiences of other countries in India Vol II—6

82

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL ID

without having any consideration for the peculiarities of the Indian situation.

Naxalites claim to follow the Chinese pathi

but in actual practice they have even perverted the Chinese formulation.

The essence of Lin Piao’s thesis is to organise

the masses to organise

guerilla warfare but the Naxalites.

controverted it as “organise guerilla warfare to organise the masses.” CHANDRANATH CHAKRABORTY

August 21,1971

Behala, Calcutta

THE NAXALITE TACTICAL LINE ABHIJNAN SEN

The tactical line of mobilising and rousing the peasantry through “annihilation

of class enemies” which was finalised

around April 1969 had, however, been taking shape for quite some time.

One of the first important attempts in this regard

was made by Kanu

Sanyal in his “Report on the Peasant

Struggle in the Terai” (Deshabrati, Oct. 24, ’68). The report dealt not only with the tactics actually the

employed by the

revolutionary peasants

of

Naxalbari,

Kharibari

and

Phansidewa areas but

made some general observations about

the tactics to be employed in the next phase of the struggle. The broad strategic objective of the Communist revolu¬ tionaries who launched the Naxalbari struggle is to liberate the countryside by waging a protracted people’s war and then encircle the cities.

Naturally, one of their principal tactical

problems relates to the mobilisation of the peasants for armed struggle and creation of liberated areas.

Kanu Sanyal des¬

cribed in detail the way the peasants were drawn into the struggle and how they set up an embryonic form of people’s, power in a limited area.

83*

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

The process of politicalising the peasants of the area had. started quite a few years ago. under the leadership launched demands.

a

The local Peasants’ Association

of the revolutionaries had in the past-

number of struggles on partial and economic

A qualitative change came in March

1967, when,

the Peasants’ Association of the Siliguri sub-division called, upon the peasants to launch a struggle for the seizure of politi¬ cal power.

Specifically the peasants were urged to establish

Ihe control of the peasant committees on all the affairs of the village, to get organised and armed for smashing the resistance of jotedars and other reactionaries, to break the monopolistic hold of jotedars over land and redistribute them peasant committees. peasants

held

through

In response to this call, thousands of

numerous group discussions and meetings,

formed branches of peasant committees and armed themselves. As Sanyal noted, since every small struggle of the peasants had in the past encountered armed repression, the slogan, ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ had a magic effect in organising them.

Thus, after the peasants

had been

aroused and organised they went ahead to implement the decisions of the Peasants’ Association. The ten principal activities of the peasants listed by Kanu. Sanyal give an idea of the methods by which the decision was implemented.

The first

to strike at the

achievement of the peasants was

monopolistic land-holding of the jotedars

which is the basis of the latter’s political, economic and social dominance. The land of the whole of Terai was “nationalised” for redistribution among peasants.

The second, third and

fourth categories consisted in the destruction of all records and papers concerning debt, and seizure of foodgrains, livestock and other properties of the jotedars for redistribution among the people.

The fifth was public trial and execution of jote¬

dars known for their oppressive past or of those who resisted peasant struggle.

Their other achievements, according to Kanu

Sanyal, consisted in the building up of a village self-defence force armed with home-made and captured

weapons

andi

84

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

replacement of bourgeois-feudal power by people’s power. One thing that comes out clearly from Sanyal’s report is that although initiated by the revolutionaries of the Peasants’ Association, the Naxalbari movement was something of a mass upsurge in which spontaneity and mass initiative far outweighed the planning and discipline required of a revolutionary move¬ ment. Without proper politicalisation, military experience and discipline, the movement suffered setbacks in the face of police repression. The very open and public nature of their decla¬ ration and preparation for armed struggle must also have exposed them too much before they could get sufficiently organised. Perhaps that is why Kanu Sanyal suggested that in the next phase of struggle they would set up party units which will not only be armed but will also be “trained to maintain secrecy”. Such party units will propagate Mao’s thoughts, intensify class struggle and “as guerilla units strike and annihilate class enemies”. They were also expected to participate, with the people, in production whenever possible. A conference of the revolutionary peasants of the Naxalbari area held in September 1968, reaffirmed the line suggested by Sanyal—the building of party units to propagate Mao’s thoughts, intensify class struggle and launch guerilla attacks on class enemies, police informers and even the army, if such opportunity arises. So far the sole concern of the party unit, it had been thought, was associated with armed struggle for the seizure of political power. However, Charu Majumdar had by that time just come up with some additional sugges¬ tions about the tactical line. In an article entitled “To the Comrades” (Deshabrati, August 1, 1968) he said, “the com¬ rades who are working in peasant areas, while engaged in propagating politics should not minimize the necessity of placing a general slogan on economic demands. Because, with¬ out drawing the large section of peasants into the movement, backward peasants cannot be brought in a position to grasp politics or keep up their hatred against class enemies”. In another article published in Deshabrati (October 17, 1968)

85

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Charu Majumdar further elaborated on the problem of mobi¬ lising the backward sections of the peasantry.

While insisting

on the necessity of secret political propaganda by the party so as not to prematurely expose it to repression, he, however, pointed out that backward peasants would be late in grasping politics under this method.

“And for this reason”, he wrote,

“it is and will be necessary to launch economic struggles against the feudal classes.

For this reason it is necessary to lead

movements for the seizure of crops, the form of the struggle depending on the political consciousness and organisation of the area.”

He further stated that “without widespread mass

struggle of the peasants and without the participation of large sections of the masses in the movement, the politics of seizure of power would take time in striking roots in the consciousness of the peasants”. This line of launching mass struggles for economic demands did not, however, quite fit into the tactics of secret politicalisa¬ tion by underground and armed party units.

Implicit

in

Majumdar’s writing was that both these methods of arousing the peasants would continue simultaneously.

But the open

nature of the mass struggle for economic gains would expose the party apparatus and defeat the purpose of secret political propaganda by the party units. mid-1969 when,

This dilemma was resolved in

drawing on the teachings of Lin Piao that

“guerilla warfare is the only way to mobilise and apply the whole strength of the people against the enemy”, Majumdar said, “the revolutionary initiative of wider sections of the peasant masses can be released through annihilation of class enemies by guerilla

methods and neither mass organization

nor mass movement is indispensable before starting guerilla war”

(Quoted in Deshabrati, April 23, 1970, p. 11).

Later,

he further clarified his stand to mean that mass struggle for economic gains would follow guerilla action, not precede or accompany it.

In his ‘A Few Words on Guerilla Action’

(Deshabrati, January

15, 1970) he explained in detail how

after some preliminary propaganda work for the seizure of

«6

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

power has been done by the party unit, small guerilla bands would be formed in a completely conspiratorial way for striking down the most hated class enemies.

After the first action has

taken place, political cadres would start whispering around innocently about the advantages to be obtained when the oppressors have left the area in fear or have been liquidated. Then the peasants could enjoy undisturbed the land and wealth of the village.

Many peasants would now be shaken out of

their inertia and encouraged to join the struggle.

“When

quite a number of offensive ‘actions’ have taken place and the revolutionary political line of annihilating the class enemies has been firmly established, only then the political cadres would give the general economic slogan ‘seize the crop of the class enemy’.

This slogan will achieve miracles.

Even the most

backward peasant would now join the struggle”. The long way that has been travelled by the revolutionaries since the Naxalbari struggle can best be guessed by comparing Kanu Sanyal’s report with that of the Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Border Regional Committee of the CPI(ML) on the DebraGopiballavpur struggle published in Deshabrati, April 23, 1970.

As the report self-critically admits, initially the revolu¬

tionaries of the area had a vague notion about a Naxalbari-type of armed peasant uprising and they hoped that guerilla bands would emerge out of armed clashes for the seizure of crops. But in practice they could not adopt any specific programme other than propagate the politics of seizure of power through armed struggle. Rather by resorting to pure economism and public demonstrations at places they exposed the organization and invited repression. was in the doldrums.

The movement for the time being

It was only after Charu Majumdar had

given the line of starting guerilla warfare through annihilation of class enemies that they could break out of their inertia, it was stated.

On August 21, 1969, the Regional Committee of

the CPI(ML) met at Soormuhi and decided upon launching an annihilation campaign against class enemies.

As the report

said, the very first armed action which was not even successful

(DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

87

^released the floodgates of peasant initiative, which could not nave been possible by their propaganda work.

“With every

action mass initiative and class hatred of the peasants started growing and so did rise the level of their political conscious¬ ness”.

Simultaneous

process.

After

two

political propaganda also helped the months

of guerilla

offensive against

jotedars, in November 1969,

thousands of peasants, it was

claimed, rose up

Under the leadership of the

party,

armed

in arms.

peasants seized all the crops of oppressive

jotedars and those of enemy

agents..

disarmed and fled the villages. courts to try the oppressors.

Many jotedars were

The peasants set up people’s

They secured the return of all

their mortgaged property from the moneylenders. The jotedars who stayed on agreed to abide by the dictates of the peasants who fixed the wage for khetmajurs (landless labourers).

Shop

prices were also fixed by them. In the wake of this came brutal police repression. .But, as the report says, “after the taste of liberation they had, any amount of repression would not be able to rob the peasants of their dream of bright days of liberation in future.”

Faced with the encirclement and sup¬

pression campaign by Eastern Frontier Rifles, the guerilla squads dispersed over a wider area and carried on their anni¬ hilation campaign simultaneously with political propaganda. The way the struggle in Gopiballavpur, Debra and Baharagora started and developed sets it apart from the Naxalbari struggle.

In Naxalbari, thousands of peasants responding to

the call of the Peasants’

Association

sprang into

action,

•concentrating mainly on the seizure of land, the basis of feudal domination. launched

In the Gopiballavpur area the

by small guerilla squads.

struggle

was

By delivering lightning

blows at the class enemies they created a sort of power vacuum in the area into which thousands of peasants moved in, seized •crops and properties and set up peasants’ rule.

Kanu Sanyal

stressed at the end of his report the necessity of thoroughly •carrying out revolutionary land redistribution.

But the report

«on the Gopiballavpur, Debra and Baharagora struggles sum-

88

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

marised above does not mention this aspect.

VOL II

Rather than

formal redistribution of land the emphasis seems to have been placed on the actual control of the peasant committees on village affairs including appropriation of crops.

Compared to

Naxalbari, this struggle appears to be much more disciplined and planned.

It is claimed that the “Red power” which came

into existence, even if temporarily, helped to politicalise and enthuse the peasants.

Political consciousness of the peasants

has, in fact, been raised to such a level that the police as well as the administration, as admitted even by the bourgeois press, find the local people totally non-cooperative and often hostile. All these perhaps explain why the struggle in Gopiballavpur has survived and continues to develop in the face of massive repression. July 4, 1970

NAXAL1TE TACTICS IN CITIES ABHIJNAN SEN

In the present article an attempt is made to trace in bare outline the evolution of the CPI(ML) tactical line in cities. Back in 1967, when no tactical line had yet taken shape, the Naxalites vaguely stated that their task would be “to develop militant, revolutionary struggles of the working class and other toiling people,

to combat economism and to orient

these struggles towards agrarian revolution”

(Declaration of

the revolutionaries of the CPI(M) in Liberation, December, 1967).

In conformity with this line, attempts were made to

organise students and to some extent workers for demonstra¬ tions in favour of the

Naxalbari peasant struggle. About the

same time, Charu Majumdar spoke in greater detail about their task in cities.

Tie was most enthusiastic about the students-

whose lack of self-interest, courage and dedication “make then*

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

an asset for the revolution”.

89 First of all he wanted them to

integrate themselves with the peasants and propagate revolu¬ tionary politics.

But “those

villages at present

who are unable to go to the

he said, “should engage in doing propa¬

ganda work among the workers in the cities. Their aim should be to organise democratic struggles in the cities in support of the peasant struggles in the villages” 1967, P. 87).

(Liberation, December

There was as yet no programme for the students

or for the workers.

At the Democratic Convention in Calcutta

on March 22, 1968, the nature of the democratic struggle in the cities was spelt out in greater detail.

Apart from waging

struggles in support of the peasants, the workers were called upon to build militant organisations for the defence of their own class interest.

It was decided to launch struggles against

the PD Act, automation, retrenchment, lay-off, lock-out and police repression and for food and trade union rights.

Charu

Majumdar, however, put the greatest emphasis on propaganda work by the students and youth whose political organisation “would inevitably be Red Guard organisation”.

Their task

would be the widest possible dissemination of quotations from Chairman Mao.

(Deshabrati, May 2, 1968.)

Nevertheless, throughout 1968 and up to the birth of the CPI(ML), the students supplemented their agit-prop work with movements for partial demands, of their own and the people in general.

Processions and demonstrations were organised

against the tram-fare rise and rise in food prices.

The draft

political programme of the revolutionary student-youth move¬ ment published in Deshabrati, February 20, 1969, elaborated on the reasons for waging partial struggles. Revolution, it said, cannot succeed with the help of a handful of advanced elements of students and youth.

But it is difficult to draw in numerous

backward elements by simple political propaganda.

To unite

and lead this section of students and youth into joining a revolutionary movement it is necessary to wage struggle for “food, employment, education and culture” and direct all the discontent and anger of the youth to the path of long-term

90

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL

revolutionary struggle.

II

At every stage of such struggle they

would follow such tactics and

carry on propaganda in such

a way that there is a mass participation by students and youth and they would become

more

active and politically

conscious. But as the Naxalites were moving in the direction of forming a party, there was a noticeable tendency to make a distinction between the work of the ideologically advanced activists and students and youth in general.

Replying to the

charge of neglecting mass organisations and trade unions made by breakaway Naxalites like Parimal Dasgupta, Charu Majumdar said, “if everyone concerns himself with building mass organi¬ sations, who is to build the underground party ?

Do we

expect the mass organisations to organise the agrarian revolu¬ tion ?”

(Ghatana Prabaha, May 1969.)

Elaborating further

on the tactical line among workers he said that if one has to imbue the workers with revolutionary politics it has to be done Through the propaganda activity of party units from

outside

unions, for “the working class will never realise the necessity of agrarian revolution through its movement for economic demands”.

Trade

unions, he said,

become a school for

political education when there is no revolutionary situation, when the capitalist class appears very powerful and the work¬ ing class considers itself to be very weak. trade union movement

At this time the

creates self-confidence

among

the

workers and they also learn about tactics of struggle.

But

when the situation is revolutionary, when every struggle is fast turning into a violent clash, trade unions are not enough to tackle such a situation.

In a revolutionary situation, the party

is the class organisation of the workers.

Particularly in a

country like India, Majumdar said, where the principal centre of revolution is in the countryside, the responsibility of the party is greater and the task of building party organisation among the workers extremely urgent, for without this party organisation

the working class cannot perform its duty of

heading the revolution.

91

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

A new line about the students was given by Majumdar in ■an article entitled ‘Party’s call to the youth and students’ (Deshabrati, August 21, 1969).

In this article he recalled the

glorious tradition of the militant youth of the country.

“At

every stage of India’s struggle for national freedom, the youth and students of India made enormous sacrifices, carried the *call of freedom to the villages, resisted police repression, and discontinued their study and voluntarily destroyed the pros¬ pects of building a career for themselves in order to become wholetime political workers”.

Now, it is the task of the

revolutionary students and youth to shoulder the important task of propagating revolutionary politics.

But one obstacle in the

path of their taking up wholeheartedly the revolutionary cause is the college union. “These college unions”, he said, “cannot solve any problem of education that confronts the students. On the other hand the college unions fail to provide leader¬ ship to the youth and the students in their revolt against the existing education system.”

By encouraging a sort of econo-

mism the student unions blunt their revolutionary edge.

As a

result, “the union leadership in most cases, is found to sink deep into the mire of opportunism, and careerism begins to develop among them while the temptation of staying on in leadership drags them into all kinds of opportunist alliances and thus destroys their revolutionary morality.”

The article

ended with an impassioned call to the students and youth to integrate themselves with workers and peasants. The tactical line in cities, as it had evolved in the past two years, was very briefly noted in the draft organisational report ■ circulated after the formation of the CPI(ML) in April 1969. Since the party was to be a secret organisation, launching of mass or democratic struggle was by implication ruled out. The draft said that “though the party should learn to utilise all possible legal opportunities for developing its revolutionary activities it should under no circumstances function in the open”. Whether front organisations should be created for this [purpose was not made clear- either.

It was briefly noted that

92

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

the party will give

VOL IE

first preference to work by which the

working class would be prepared

“to assume the role of

leadership of our revolution, rather than carry on economic and cultural activities in cities”. The most clear-cut and comprehensive statement of CPI(ML) tactical line regarding the workers was made only in March 1970.

The reason why the central leadership had been

silent so long on this, Charu Majumdar explained, was that unless politics was firmly grasped by the workers the new tactics of working class struggle could well degenerate into militant economic struggles.

After the comrades have gathered some

experience through political work, time was now considered opportune for laying down the new line.

This new line mark

a departure from the earlier position of total rejection of trade unions.

Charu Majumdar, of course, reiterated his stand that

the party would neither build nor capture trade unions.

“But

trade unions are there and will be, mainly under the revisionist leadership.

Struggles would also be waged through trade

unions and since struggle is the nature of the worker, he will also join in this.

We cannot oppose any struggle whatsoever

waged by the workers against the class enemy. be petty-bourgeois idealism.

That would

We will not make them depen¬

dent on us in any struggle waged by the workers for economic demands or against any attack by the employer ; we will encourage them with politics to take independent initiative” (Deshabrati, March 12,

1970).

The party

cadres

would

concentrate on building secret party units through propaganda work. If this work succeeds in developing self-confidence and initiative among workers, some of them would go forward to give able leadership to the trade union struggle and also fight the revisionists there, but it should be ensured that the workers themselves donot develop revisionist tendencies. Although the party would “encourage the workers in any struggle we will always have to tell them that today tools like general strike or strike in factories have become largely blunted for tackling the blows of the organised employers (like lock-out.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

lay-off, closure etc.)

93

Today we will have to advance not in a

peaceful, bloodless way but in paths such as gheraos, clashes with the police and the employer, barricades, liquidation of enemies and agents—according to the situation.”

The workers

will also learn new tactics through such struggles.

The party

will pay special attention to the organisation of agitation or other kinds of struggle in support of the workers if they are attacked.

They will not clash with fellow-workers if they raise

revisionist slogans in such a movement.

It will help to cement

the solidarity among the workers. Another thing, Majumdar wished the party to do, is to develop self-respect among the workers. Whichever party he may belong to, the worker always has suffered from the humiliation of slavery.

If through political propaganda, a sense of prestige

can be rekindled in him, he will grow into a daring firebrand revolutionary. even his life.

He will transcend the fear of losing his job and If retrenched, he will become a good organiser

in the city or will join the peasant struggle in the village. However, after the CPI(ML) tactical line in the city began to take shape by March this year (1970), Calcutta and other towns of West Bengal saw scenes that did not seem to tally with the line.

The students started hit-and-run attacks on educa¬

tional institutions, burning pictures of Gandhi and hoisting the red flag atop schools and factories.

Although there was no

published theoretical justification of this movement Deshabrati continued to support the students’ action.

It was only in a

special edition of Deshabrati (August 15, 1970) that Charu Majumdar came out with an explanation of this line of move¬ ment.

The way he has justified the attacks on Gandhi and

other bourgeois leaders and the hoisting of red flags indicates that these were more a spontaneous movement than something chalked out and led by the party.

The students, he said, are

making “a festival of breaking statues” and in factories the workers are making a festival of hoisting the red flag, enjoying the sense of fear among employers and helplessness among the police and military.

The students and youth, according to

94

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL

him, are doing a correct thing.

IF

A revolutionary education

and culture cannot be created without destroying the colonial" education system and the statues erected by the comprador bourgeoisie.

But he has taken care to remind that this move¬

ment is neither unique nor self-sufficient.

It is not a move¬

ment like the Chinese Cultural Revolution for demolishing the superstructure.

It is born out of the revolutionary tide that

has been created in the countryside.

“The students and youth

have become restless for the sake of the agrarian revolution and they are striking blows at the statues of those who had always tried to pacify the armed struggle of the peasant masses.. So this struggle of the students and youth is a part of the agrarian revolution.” at the base and

The peasant armed struggle is striking

in the process encouraging attacks on the

superstructure which in turn is helping the destruction of the base.

In short, Majumdar says that the present movement is-

an offshoot of the peasant struggle and though not a permanent feature, “in this age of inevitable collapse of imperialism,” he said, “the revolutionary tide would swell and burst again and again into India’s countryside.”

While thus approving the

students’ actions in the cities, Charu Majumdar has warned them against neglecting the primary task of integrating with the workers and peasants.

In an oblique reference to their

city action, he said, it is easy to do one or two revolutionary things but very difficult to remain a revolutionary for ever. This can be done only by integrating oneself with the poor and landless labourer.

Thus, while taking an approving notice

of student innovations, he asks students and youth to go back to their primary task, that of agit-prop. However, a most serious aspect of Naxalite activities in cities—“annihilation” of police and military personnel—has not so far been adequately explained in CPI(ML) publications. But the course of events since April this year leading to the death of more than a dozen policemen indicates that this pro¬ gramme enjoys top priority on the Naxalite agenda in the city. It is not possible to determine at which stage this type of action

95

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

'

in cities was planned but it can be seen as a sequel to clashes between the Naxalites and CPI(M), and Naxalite attacks on educational and other institutions leading to encounters with and torture by the police. It was in March 1970 that Charu Majuradar while talking to a group of students and youth urged them to be “always alert to retaliate against” any party that dared to attack CPI(ML) comrades.

As to the methods of attack he said that in order

to break the morale of “fascist gangs” they should go in a group of 5 or 6 and launch “swift, guerilla-style attacks from a very close quarter”

(Deshabrati, March 5, 1970).

The

slogan that henceforth became very frequent was “Take re¬ venge for every murder of our comrades”.

Following the

death of some leading Naxalites in Srikakulam, peasants were exhorted to take revenge for this by murdering landlords. Finally, in July it was announced that the “Calcutta District Committee has decided to take revenge of the murder of the heroic comrades in Andhra and West Bengal by annihilating police, CRP and blackmarketeers and capitalists” brati, July 9-16, 1970).

{Desha¬

In his latest instructions to the CPI-

(ML), Charu Majumdar has approvingly noted that “students of cities and workers...are striking at the police force and killing police officers”. Thus the present action against the police in the cities is presented more as one of supporting action for struggle in the countryside and resistance to police repression in the cities than one designed to achieve a particular strategic objective. Although blackmarketeers and capitalists have been included in the list, the party has not explained how this would be fitted in with the tactical line evolved earlier.

However, the fact

that intelligence agents and Special Branch police are special targets of Naxalite attack indicates, perhaps, a desire to shut off the “eyes and ears” of the State power—a thing which is being attempted in the countryside. October 3, 1970

Letters TWO DEATHS Comrade Sushital Roy Chowdhury died last week and so did Comrade Ashu Majumdar. They died because of the dangerous and destructive line put forward by a section of the CPI(ML) leadership.

They

have used the blind, dedicated, passionate allegiance of our petit bourgeois youth to lead the party into a line where death is the only reward and blood the only sign of success. Roy Chowdhury died fighting against this line, dar died implementing it.

Sushital

Ashu Majum¬

Both died because of it.

The CPI(ML) carried the seeds of ‘Left’ and Right devia¬ tion from its birth.

This was inevitable.

Right opportunism

wag'the main danger. It still is, except that one must remember that in revolutionary times, during passages of revolutionary advance, after every success in the battle against revisionism— right opportunism manifests itself in the guise of ‘left’ adven¬ turism and tries to wreck the party. CPI(ML) the signs were there.

In the

beginning, in the

But they were few : isolated

bits of unreason, sudden short bursts of fanaticism,

over¬

reliance on conspiracy, a tendency to stick to the city, repeated instances of directing appeals mainly to youth and students rather than directly to the toiling masses, thereby shifting the emphasis.

These piled up and collected and a whole range of

“theories” appeared.

The “theory” began, qualitatively, by

describing the mechanics of individual achieved by a conspiracy.

assassination to be

In the beginning, this was to be a

take-off point, a link between political propaganda and orga¬ nisational work and the formation of guerilla forces and libera¬ ted zones.

This was in March

1970.

In April/May it was

raised to the level of being the only way, the only link.

Im¬

mediately thereafter it was announced to be the strategy for all the stages of the People’s Democratic Revolution.

Those

.DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

97

who accepted this theory in March failed to see that by making conspiracy the

only method of organisation, by placing the

conspiratorial organisation outside the control of the party unit and by narrowing the definition of‘annihilation’ to mean tonly the slitting of throats—this ‘theory’ was fundamentally against Mao Tsetung Thought.

The rapid success of this

.line—measured in terms of throats slit—made all questions evaporate or appear revisionist.

As long as the pre-conditions

laid down by the original article were maintained, “successes” were few and the sphere of activity remained confined to the village, the deviation was not alarming. correction.

It was capable of

But then came the city ‘actions’ followed by the

*eity annihilations.

New ‘theories’ began to gush forth from

rthe fountainhead : 1.

The theory that all Indian bourgeoisie were comprador.

2.

The theory that all intellectual

or

petit

bourgeois

Headers of the past respected by the present society were agents of imperialism. 3.

The theory that more you study the more stupid you

become. 4.

The theory that destruction of

statues

and

schools,

colleges, laboratories was correct, revolutionary and akin to the great proletarian cultural revolution of China. 5.

The theory that one activist represents his entire class.

Thus the participation of one landless poor peasant in one annihilation means that the entire landless poor peasant mass is ready to participate in the annihilations. 6.

The theory

that propaganda, organisation

unnecessary, that only by annihilation would achieved. 7.

are

all these be

Annihilation must come first.

The theory that oppression is necessary

tionise the people. enemy

etc.

must

to revolu¬

Also the theory that every murder of the

be paid back by a murder.

Instant revenge

became the credo. 8.

The theory that the urban petit bourgeois youth need

mo longer go to the villages. Vol II—7

By destroying statues, schools,

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

98

VOL IF

colleges etc. they were integrating with the rural masses. 9.

The theory that in India, in the present age, city and

village, town and countryside are the same, indivisible.

The

work in both is the same, tactics in both shall be the same. The only work in the cities is armed guerilla attack. 10.

The theory that Comrade Charu Majumdar is the

only authority, only he understands Mao Tsetung Thought, that he is the Party, that he must be obeyed unconditionally and not to obey him is not to be a communist. 11.

The theory that to attack only when one is sure of

winning is revisionist. 12.

The theory that the rich peasant is an enemy and can

be annihilated. Sushital Roy Chowdhury fought all this.

His hopes and

revolutionary discipline kept him silent for a long time.

Then

when he began to speak he was insulted, isolated and abused as a centrist, a revisionist, a coward. Ashu Majumdar made up for his inexperience by his fiery zeal, his fantastic courage and his capacity to organise.

He

obeyed the Party. In this obedience he put everything he had ; in the end, his life. But to what purpose ? It is time the people and the revolutionaries asked this question.

What happened ?

Why do so many fear us ? Why

whenever there is an unreasonable murder do all of us tremble and hope that it was not the work of ‘our boys’ ? the working class who will lead our revolution ? roused peasantry ?

Where is

Where is the

Where is the People’s Army so flauntingly

announced in 1970 ? Why did so many vote so overwhelming¬ ly in spite of all the threats, the bombs, the pipeguns ?

Shall

we be blind to all this ? Now, this leadership, decimated by arrests, death and expul¬ sion, is again changing its line.

Economic work among the

peasantry, concentration upon the urban classes ( working ), building of rural bases, downgrading of annihilation of the class enemy—all these are being put forward.

But there is no

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

accompanying

99

analyses, valuation, self-criticism.

Thus this

leadership goes on, sowing confusion and reaping

death.

Sushital Roy Chowdhury and Ashu Mazumdar were the latest harvest. S. ROY

March 20, 1971

Calcutta

As the elder brother of Ashu, I knew him a bit personally. It is a blatant lie that his obedience to the party was blind. His devotion to the party’s cause was the product of critical judgment—this I know for certain. He was an active worker of the CPM on the peasant front and his disillusionment with the CPM came through his field experiences.

He had ideological discussions

with

Ashim

Chatterjee for months together while he was an activist of the CPM, and still was not convinced of the line advocated by the Co-ordination Committee of the Naxals.

Before he left the

CPM, he wrote to me once, “we shall have to build up genuine communist party which India lacks as yet. tough job

We know this is a

demanding many of our lives, because we shall

confront the most dangerous enemy in the CPM and Con¬ gress—both shall co-operate with each other to crush us by any means...If I die, I know that mother shall be very much upset.

But I have decided to pursue a difficult path.”

he wrote from underground as early as 1968.

This

He left the

CPM much later and joined not the CPI(ML) but the new Co¬ ordination Committee constituted by the remaining members of the original Co-ordination Committee.

In the middle of

1969, he joined the CPI(ML) after much critical evaluation of its line.

This narration of his political life is necessary be¬

cause Mr Roy sought to paint Ashu as a Naxal of blind obedi¬ ence. ARUN MAJUMDER

April 3, 1971

Santiniketan

Appraisal

NAXALBARI : BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW SUMANTA BANERJEE

The Naxalbari movement that began as a heroic upsurge, although abortive, back in May 1967, now seems to be domi¬ nated by citybred adolescents.

Some think that the rot set in

when the centre of the struggle shifted from the countryside to •Calcutta, that the revolutionary organisation which it sought to ■•create has been rapidly swallowed by the routine of Bengali middle-class political life. Yet, if we return to the source of the Naxalbari movement, we may find that the spring is still ready to spout.

The prob¬

lems that gave birth to the movement are not only a living reality but are fast maturing into crisis and may throw up a series of similar uprisings in the near future. The United Front Government may congratulate the people ■of West Bengal on their rejection of the Naxalite call for the boycolt of elections, but it has yet to find an answer to the fun■damental question brought to the fore by the Naxalbari up¬ rising and also by its own experience during its nine-month regime in 1967.

The question is :

how far can parliamentary

reforms bring West Bengal nearer to the radical solution for which the country’s basic problems have been crying out ? To begin with, Naxalbari movement threw a fierce light on cobwebbed, discreetly shadowed corner of India’s socio-econo¬ mic life—the world of the landless labourers and sharecroppers fast being reduced to one of the landless.

The mass of these

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

101

people, looked down upon by leftist parties, dismissed till re¬ cently as serfs beyond redemption from the influence of the landed gentry, remained at a distance from the main current of political struggles. According to a Government of India survey, out of 16*3 million agricultural labour households in 1956-57, 9'4 million did not possess a strip of land for supplementary

occupation..

About 4‘35 million were attached labourers contractually tied up with prosperous peasants. In spite of the appalling exploitation, little has been done among agricultural

labourers by the communist parties com¬

pared with their trade union activities in the trade union fields. The Kisan Sabhas remain dominated by the middle peasantry. The organization of the agricultural labourers is almost non¬ existent. It goes to the credit of those among the communists, now known as “extremists”, that they had the foresight to realize that any revolution in India would have to be spearheaded by the rural proletariat who, more than the industrial urban wor¬ kers, fit into the role assigned by Marx for the revolu tionary proletariat of 19th century Europe—“the workers have nothing to lose but their chains.” In under-developed countries like India, the rural prole¬ tariat

consisting of the landless and sharecroppers are the

worst exploited. The industrial proletariat, particularly in thepublic sector today, suffers less as a result of the manipulative capacity of the trade unions to wring some palliatives for them from the management or the State.

In 1950-51, an

agricultural labourer family’s annual per capita income in West Bengal was Rs 160 against Rs 268 of an industrial labourer’sfamily ( Dr. B. Ramamurti—Agricultural Labour). Quite understandably, the industrial workers

are not so

much concerned with the acquisition of political power as with gaining a fair share of economic wealth.

On the other hand*,

a change in the lot of the agricultural worker is bound up with the basic question of changing the entire rural econom ic set up

102

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

which is at present sustaining the growth of economic wealth in the urban pockets. It may be argued that the U.F. Government, on assuming power in 1967, proposed to alleviate the sufferings of the landhungry cultivators, but that the impatience of the Naxalbari “extremists” compromised those plans. But let us here pause to ask what the U.F. Government could have done or can even now do, to solve the problem in the existing administrative frame-work ?

Its aims would not

go beyond what E. M. S. Namboodiripad said about land re¬ forms on the eve of the second general elections.

He hoped

that the installation of an alternative Government in Kerala would be followed by “legislative measures providing for pre¬ vention of evictions, rent reduction, fixation of ceilings, distri¬ bution of surplus and waste lands, etc.—measures which are so modest in their character that they do not go beyond what has been agreed to in the Land Reform Panel of the Planning Commission” (Agrarian Reform—a study of the Congress and Communist approaches, 1956). How are these to be implemented in West Bengal ?

The

condition under which agrarian legislation, including ceiling laws, are enforced, are not only determined by the omnipo¬ tence of the bureaucracy, but the opposition of vested interests, the jotedars and rich peasantry who at every stage take the help of some law or other to block or delay the implementa¬ tion of legislation unfavourable to them.

The classic case is

that of the fate of the Zamindari Abolition Bill enacted by the Bihar Assembly in

1948.

How successful the zamindars of

Bihar were in obstructing its enforcement is related by the American scholar, Mr Daniel Thorner, who, visiting Bihar in 1956, found : ‘Eight years after the Bihar Legislature voted its acceptance of the principle of zamindari abolition, the majority of the zamindars of Bihar were in legal possession of their land (D. Thorner—The Agrarian Prospect in India). While the decision to enforce agrarian legislations through popular committees as envisaged by the U. F. Government

'DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

103

might eliminate to some extent the distorting control of the bureaucracy, what can effectively cripple the recalcitrant group of rural vested interests, who can always fall back in case of any emergency on the sacrosanct legal system, riddled with lacunae and moth-eaten by time ? it needs reconsideration.

As for the law on ceiling,

The present

law

presupposes a

ceiling on existing holdings that would preserve the small and middle landholders and rich peasants.

Since more than 60

per cent of the land-holdings in India are under 5 acres, the fixation of the ceiling at 25 acres in West Bengal might lead to further concentration of the land in the hands of landlords and the rich peasantry

through

the bankruptcy of small

peasants forced to sell their lands. The U. F. Government, therefore, would be required to carry out a law inherited from its predecessor—a landlordbourgeois ruling clique.

The purpose of the law was to con¬

vert the landlords and rich peasants into land-owning farmers of the capitalist type . In spite of a ceiling granting adequate breathing space to the rich peasantry, the latter lost no

chance to cheat the

government of the surplus land it owed to the West Bengal State under the Estates Acquisition Act. undertaken

at

the

instance of the

According to a study

Research

Programmes

Committee of the Planning Commission, about 105,000 acres might be estimated to have been transferred mala fide during 1952-54 for evading ceiling restriction.

(Land Reforms in

West Bengal by S. K. Basu & S. K. Bhattacharya) As a result, till 1965, the State government was able to secure 7.76 lakh acres as surplus, out of which 4.35 lakh acres were leased out on a year to year basis to the peasantry.

This

would hardly be enough to satisfy the West Bengal peasants’ land hunger. Even holding,

after the

they

become

owners

condition of the

of tiny, un-economic

peasantry

will not improve

perceptibly, because the old feudal structure of the rural society will remain the same, marked

by the age-old exploitation by

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

104

VOL IIP

traders, moneylenders and monopoly capital in the form of unequal exchange between town and country. The measures of the U.F. Government, therefore, however benevolent they might be, will not change the basis of the social structure of the Bengali village, which alone can guaran¬ tee the success of any land reform. It is in this perspective that the Naxalbari uprising assumes importance. It was not a movement for the occupation of land as made out to be by some of its friendly critics, but went beyond the limited aim of land redistribution by giving the call for the seizure of power.

The plan, according to its

leader, Mr Kanu Sanyal, was to smash once for all the village feudal society and create peasant bases to run the administra¬ tion.

No wonder, one of the main aims of the movement’s

10-point

programme was to cancel the hypothecary debt,,

lying like an incubus upon the landless labourer and daily growing upon him.

(Kanu Sanyal’s Report on the Peasant

Movement in Terai, November 1968) This task the U. F. Government would have found difficult to accomplish, clogged as it was by constitutional and legal inhibitions.

Since it accepted the premises of the bourgeois.

State-order, constitutional limits, parliamentary procedure, etc. —to wrest power, it now finds itself difficult to bypass them. In this context, the next important question raised by the Naxalites deserves notice—the problem of working with an administration which is a legacy from the past, which assures a very perfect conservation of anti-people,

out-moded ideas.

With its enormous bureaucratic and police organization, with the host of officials, this appalling parasitic machine enmeshesthe body of Indian society like a net and chokes all its pores. During the nine months of its stay in office in 1967, theU.F. Government found itself being swamped into the morassof the present administrative system.

This time it may atone

for its past mistakes of not removing notorious officials byoverhauling the administration, particularly the disreputable police force.

But its powers are limited by the Constitution,.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

10S

drawn up under the duress of the British imperialists.

We

have seen already how the position of the Governor was used by the Centre to subvert the United Front Government. Thus a pathetic paradox becomes inevitable in the actions of the U.F. Government. It has to swear allegiance to the holy Constitution at every breath to gain permission from the Centre to rule West Bengal.

At the same time, it has to demand

amendments to the provisions of the Constitution to bring about radical changes in favour of the people. As a result, we

are entertained at intervals with hair¬

splitting debates about the powers of the Governor

and

exchanges

of idle

Speaker and the

phrases interpreting the

contradictions of the Constitution—all quite far away from the problem of starvation. The other stumbling block is the legal system.

The stock¬

pile of archaic law is still exploited by the ruling class in defence of anti-people measures.

An anti-democratic judg¬

ment becomes sacrosanct once it is delivered. to public protests. provide

the

It is immune

How can the U.F. Government hope to

minimum

relief to

the

people, without first

smashing up this holy order ? The Naxalbari movement has also rescued from the abyss of oblivion and negligence another aspect of our socio-economic life—the fate of the tribal population—and has drawn atten¬ tion to their revolutionary potentialities. In the 1951 census, the Scheduled tribal landless labourers formed 6.3°/0 of the total landless population.

The figure rose

to 10.6°/o in 1961, indicating their growing impoverishment. The

primitive

custom

of bonded

labour is still a practice

among them. As pointed out earlier, the question of organizing the land¬ less has been neglected so long.

The tribals who form a

major part of them naturally shared the same neglect. Yet, from the political point of view, the tribals have a militant tradition.

It is significant that peasant rebellions in

the eastern zone of India have always been spearheaded by the

106

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

tribals, right from the early days of the British rule. The Kols rebelled in 1831-32 against the distribution of their lands among the rich Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in Chotanagpur. 1855.

The famous Santhal

rebellion

took place in

The Sardari agitation began in Ranchi against compul¬

sory labour in Mundas

rose

1887. against

Under the leadership

of Birsa,

the

and Christian

Hindu

landlords

the

missionaries of Ranchi in 1895. Coming to recent times, during the Tebhaga movement in Bengal in the forties, the Hajangs of North Mymensingh con¬ tributed a great deal to the success of the struggle. The analysis made by Mr

Kanu Sanyal

and others of

Naxalbari’s revolutionary potential was therefore not so wide of mark.

But then what went wrong ?

According to Kanu

Sanyal, some of the reasons for the failure of the uprising were “the want of a powerful party organization, failure to have a firm mass base and absolute ignorance of military science.” (The Report on the Peasant Movement in Terai) It is clear that the rebels minimized the repressive power of the State. force.

There was no preparation to face a ruthless military

The Naxalbari

facing the army.

rebels did not even have a chance of

Police action, and that too a

half-hearted

one, thanks to the then U.F. Government, was enough to make them collapse. The same mixture of naivete and ingenuousness marked the operations in Wynaad in Kerala.

If they were not a calculated

effort by agents-provocateur

to sow disillusionment among

future

betrayed

revolutionaries,

romanticism

by

they

their

a certain amount of

dream of conquering State power by

bows, arrows and spears. The isolation from the rest of the people of the country was also another factor that hastened their

defeat.

As the

absence of response to the Naxalite slogan of boycotting the elections was to prove later, the people are willing to support the communists with their votes, but are not yet prepared to take to arms in their defence.

107

'DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

But still one has to start somewhere and the leaders of the Naxalbari

uprising

deserve

praise on

that

score.

Their

followers in Calcutta are perhaps only parodying their heroism. These splinter groups owe their popularity not to the fact that they are more consistently revolutionary, but to the fact that the situtation is not.

Besides, how do they explain away the

fact that the Naxalites showed very little activity during the hated PDF-Congress regime or Governor’s rule in West Bengal, but as soon as the U.F. assumed power they have come back to the arena ?

Why are they reluctant to launch militant

actions, with the exception of Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, in States run by Congress governments ?

Their slogan of

boycott of election and choice of U.F.-run States for staging uprisings may be ideologically motivated, but do they not objectively help the bourgeois-landlord ruling clique at the Centre ? But despite all this, Naxalbari will remain an important landmark in the annals of Indian revolution which is still journeying through purgatory.

For one thing, it has served

as a catalytic agent by compelling the complacent communist parties, and the U.F. Government of West Bengal in particular, to recognize the basic conflict in the country and to shed the illusion of solving it through peaceful transition to socialism. It is yet to be seen, however, whether they have courage to follow up this realization by action. The two communist parties in West Bengal are in an over¬ whelming majority in the Government.

The “red spectre”

continually conjured up by the bourgeois-landlord clique has finally appeared in West Bengal.

But it has appeared not in

blood-tattered dress, across the barricades, but in the uniform of ‘order’, in spotlessly white dhoti and kurta, in the plush chamber of the Legislature.

Therein lies the rub.

Will the communists in the Government continue to be reluctant to upset the Indian apple cart and prefer the comfor¬ table parliamentary road, or will they try to accentuate the polarization ?

108

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

The polarization has already set in.

VOL IE

It was reflected in

West Bengal in the disintegration of the PSP, elimination of Swatantra Party and the Jana Sangh and in the pattern of voting in the rural areas.

It will take a sharper form in the

coming inevitable clash with the Centre. hitherto unaffected ever political

The Indian army,,

by any internal political upsurge (what¬

alignment it may have, will be Jana Sangh-

oriented, because of the concentration of people from theHindi belt in its ranks), will prove an obedient tool in the hands of the Centre to crush any movement in West Bengal. The forces of reaction within the State also should not be minimized.

A combination of the rural vested interests, indus¬

trialists and the bureaucracy, backed by the Centre, could be a formidable threat to any Leftist State government.

The Right

reactionary forces are not idle and judging by the growth of the RSS, it is evident that they are thinking in terms of a future armed confrontation. In these circumstances, the necessity of preparing

the

masses for direct confrontations with the vested powers needsno emphasis.

In the absence of any such organized prepara¬

tion, the hungry and the impatient may break into blind, in¬ coherent revolts, bereft of conscious purpose, or premature disorganized Naxalbaris, get crushed and explode again—thusinitiating a long drawn out process of destruction of the present social system. The future of any communist movement in West Bengal therefore will have to be marked by a subtle combination of parliamentary activities, of legal and underground machinery and of course, by building up mass bases in the countrysideparticularly. May 17-24, 1969

CPI(ML) : THE TWILIGHT HOUR A CORRESPONDENT

Back in 1967, breakaway communist revolutionaries from the CPM fanned out in the villages to mobilise the peasant masses for armed revolution. At the same time they began discussion on setting up a genuine communist party in India. As an aftermath of all these was formed the All India Co¬ ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) in 1967 and the CPl(ML) in 1969. Identifying the Indian society “semi-colonial and semifeudal”, the new leadership identified “imperialism, socialimperialism, big comprador bourgeoisie and big landlord class” as the main enemy of the people and called upon the masses to establish a dictatorship of workers, peasants, petty bourge¬ oisie and even a section of the small and middle bourgeoisie. To do this it was necessary to form a “democratic front of all these classes under working class leadership”, it said. But this united front cannot be established unless armed struggle spreads and red political power is established at least in some areas of the country. For the development of armed struggle and the creation of base areas it was said to be necessary to mobilise the people, particularly the rural masses, and to draw them into the armed struggle. But the level of popular consciousness being uneven, the peasantry cannot be roused unless mass movement based on economic demands in launched—(Deshabrati, August 1, 1967). While stressing that secret guerilla action should conti¬ nually go on, it was said that even among the revolutionary classes there would be an advanced section and a backward section. While the advanced section would take to revolu¬ tionary politics quickly, the backward section would be slow to respond. “And for this there is and there will remain the necessity of economic movement against the feudal class. For

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

110

VOL IF

this there is necessity of crop seizure movement.” (Deshabrati, October 17, 1968 ) Briefly then the CPT(ML)

political line was that guerilla

warfare was basically a higher again is the outcome of the

form of class struggle which

economic and political struggle.

To make the people conscious of armed struggle, mass struggle should be launched and efforts made to draw the vast mass of the peasantry into it.

Different economic and political stru¬

ggles should be carried on, but simultaneously Mao Tsetung Thought should be propagated, as only through this can gue¬ rilla war be started and the base area created. In accordance with this programme, armed struggles were launched under the CPI(ML) leadership, in the Srikakulam Agency area in Andhra Pradesh, Debra-Gopiballavpur area near the Bengal-Bihar-Orissa border region, in Lakhimpur Kheri in upper U. P., in Mushahari in the Muzaffarpur dis¬ trict of North Bihar and in other isolated parts of the country. Of these the most prolonged and most bitter were the struggles in Srikakulam and in the Gopiballavpur area.

And the ups

and downs in the party’s fortunes in these areas bring out clearly the initial strength and subsequent degeneration of its leadership. The struggle in Gopiballavpur began in 1969 with the killing of a jotedar and forcible seizure of crops.

Immediately

the struggle caught on and about 40,000 people came forward to join the crop seizure campaign.

But the then CPI(ML)

leadership, instead of hailing this outburst of popular enthusi¬ asm, denounced the crop seizure movement as blatant revision¬ ism on the ground that it exposed the secret party organisa¬ tion and its armed units to repression.

(Quoted in “The

Bright Path of Red Chingkang is the way of the Indian Peo¬ ples’ liberation”, Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Region Committee of the CPI(ML), P.

14).

Charu Majumdar laid down

how

guerilla squads should be formed and class enemies annihilated. “Secret guerilla squads should be formed”, he said “in a cons¬ piratorial manner by recruiting guerillas from landless and

111

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

poor peasant classes through individual propaganda among them; each of these

guerilla squads should, on the basis of

specific investigation, annihilate class enemies by launching sudden attacks ; the guerillas by conquering death by means of annihilation of class enemies will develop into new men ; each of these new men must be able to acquire a base for himself ; Army”

put together, they will form the People’s Liberation (Quoted in the Report, P. 9).

From the outset, the CPI(ML) leadership was concerned with the problem of linking the mass struggle based on econo¬ mic demands with the line of armed struggle and secret poli¬ tical organisation.

In his report on Terai, Kanu Sanyal had

said that they did

not have the organisational experience re¬

quired by a revolutionary struggle, though they had the peo¬ ple’s backing.

Later, the leaders of Debra-Gopiballavpur in a

report admitted that they had no practical experience raising guerilla squads through mass movement April 25,

1970).

of

(Deshabrati,

Ironically, these leaders who subsequently

criticised Charu Majumdar for his line of annihilation had stated that it was only when Charu Majumdar gave them the line of annihilation of class enemies that they could break the people’s

inertia

{Deshabrati, April 23,

1971).

Initially

Charu Majumdar said that both these forms of struggle should be waged simultaneously but it was found that the mass movement exposes the underground party undermines the armed struggle.

apparatus

and

So in 1969, Majumdar said

that the revolutionary initiative of wider sections of the pea¬ sant masses could be released through annihilation of class enemies by guerilla methods and neither mass organisation nor mass movement was indispensable for starting guerilla war {Deshabrati, April 25, 1970).

Elaborating on this further,

he said that mass movement should follow armed struggle and not precede or accompany it {Deshabrati, January 15, 1970). Later, swinging still leftward he declared that mass move¬ ments were impediments to armed struggle and should be dispensed with.

“Mass organisation and mass movement”.

312

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

Majumdar said, “increase the bias for open

VOL II

movements and

economic movements, expose the revolutionary organisations to the enemies and, as a result it becomes easy for the enemy to launch attacks.

Hence mass movements and mass organi¬

sations are an impediment to the development and expansion of guerilla warfare” (Quoted in

“The Bright Path of Red

Chingkang is the way of the Indian People’s liberation,” Report of the Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Region Committee of the CPI(ML) P. 14). This changing attitude towards mass organisation sets out clearly the CPI(ML) leadership’s course of deviation from the party programme and its practice.

Mass struggle has a cru¬

cial role, as otherwise the politics of seizure of power would take time to strike roots, and arms, instead of politics, would command the party and the struggle.

But as in the period

between late 1969 and 1970 the leadership was groping for an answer to this crucial question, the emphasis was being shifted from mass movement as a link between guerilla action and the people, to the guerilla action only. and Liberation during the

The issues of Deshabrati

period were full of slogans like

“organisation first, then struggle—this is a wrong notion,” “every class enemy must be annihilated” ; and instruction on “how to form guerilla units in complete secrecy and in a com¬ pletely conspiratorial manner and how to begin annihilation of class enemies through guerilla action” appeared frequently in the party journals (Quoted by the late Sushital Roy Chowdhury in “Resist the line of adventurism”).

City action reflected this

deviation also. Though no specific programme for urban areas was given in the party programme, it was said that the party should carry on mass work and wage mass struggle among the city workers so that trained worker cadres can be sent to the village and for this the party must build up secret organisation in the cities

(Quoted by Sushital Roy Chowdhury).

But the

party activities in the urban areas did not conform to this line. Mass movement was discarded and guerilla action against the -class enemies and State apparatus was launched to create red

iDEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

terror in the cities.

113

Agitation against the U.S. invasion of

Cambodia in 1971 was put off and the cadres were exhorted to kill police personnel. Simultaneously, educational institutes, libraries and laboratories were attacked in the name of a democratic

and cultural revolution.

But soon the party

suffered serious reverses in the Debra-Gopiballavpur

area.

Even after annihilation of 120 class enemies the peasantry did not come to its help and the party became isolated.

A large

number of its cadres and important leaders were either killed or arrested by the police.

A similar fate also overtook the

party in the Srikakulam Agency area ; at least 150 of its members, including some top leaders, were killed and nu¬ merous others arrested. Summing up the failures of the line of annihilation and ■conspiratorial politics, the members of thd Border Region Committee self-critically admitted five serious mistakes.

First,

in spite of repeated annihilations the poor and the landless peasants did not join the guerilla squads.

Those

who came

initially left the squad and those who remained became com¬ pletely isolated from the people.

Second, the poor and the

landless peasants with families did not support the line for long.

Third, contrary to the leadership’s expectation, the

panicking class enemies did not flee the area and in fact, those who ran away came back in strength.

Fourth, this line attrac¬

ted the student youths, the middle classes, robber bands and lumpen proletariat of the area.

Fifth, the line did not work

in areas of intense feudal exploitation, but struck roots where petty-bourgeois ideas predominated.

[The

Report of the

Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Border Region Committee oftheCPI(ML) P.

15, 16] Elsewhere in the report, it was pointed out

that the same

observations held good for the urban areas also where it was '“rejected by the working class as a whole and found acceptable by the student youths and petty bourgeoisie”,

{ibid. P. 16)

During the time, some important changes also occurred in the CPI(ML)’s theoretical formulations. Vol II—8

It can indeed be said

114

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IE

that these deviations in Naxalite activities were a sequel to more basic and fundamental changes that had occurred in. the CPI(ML) leadership’s analysis of the revolutionary condi¬ tions in the country as well as the international situation. late 1970,

In.

Charu Majumdar, drawing on the Peking Radio

declaration that “every point in India is on the verge of ex¬ plosion,” said that the theory of uneven development of revo¬ lutionary conditions is not applicable in the present-day condi¬ tions in India.

In his “Call of the November Revolution,.

March Forward by Crushing Centrism” he formulated his new line thus : “Power will be captured in the villages first and when in that struggle the people’s army has encircled cities, power will be captured in cities.

But in this era of victory of

the world revolution and fast and complete collapse of im¬ perialism, to apply this war strategy.in the specific conditions of India, the land of 500 million, it should be borne in mind that the cities

do not remain idle when the people’s war

has begun in the villages ; in people’s war village and city are one and undivided.”

(Deshabrati, November 7, 1970).

Following this theory of even development of urban and rural areas, the

urban cadres were exhorted to intensify the

class struggle in the cities by annihilating class enemies and any talk about the

necessity of defence and conservation of

revolutionary force in the face of police repression was called a bourgeois vice, (ibid) However, the party’s setback in the struggle and the deci¬ mation of its ranks created dissension within it and a number of important leaders fell out with Charu Majumdar and his associates.

In September,

1970, the Bihar State Committee

submitted a resolution on party activities and bitterly criticised the central leadership.

Later, the leaders of U. P., Punjab,

and a section of West Bengal leaders joined hands with them. Accusing Charu Majumdar of Left adventurism, the Bihar State Committee said that Majumdar and his close associates in defiance of the

Central Committee resolution, had advanced

the thesis that rich peasants, all capitalists and traders were te>

115-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

be annihilated, that the People’s Liberation Army would march, throughout West Bengal by

1970-71 ; that the Third World

War had begun ; that comrades should forget all ideas of selfdefence, and attack and destroy all enemies ; and had advanced the slogan of cultural revolution. The Bihar Committee said that the moment these slogans were advanced by the General Secre¬ tary of the party, Left opportunism became the main deviation of the party.

(“The Problems of the Indian Revolution and

the Neo-Trotskyite Diversions” P. 33 ). On the question of the rich peasant, Charu Majumdar

said

that “rich peasants in our country indulge in exploitation.. Therefore our relation with the rich peasant will be the relation of struggle” (quoted in “The Problems of Indian Revolution and

Neo-Trotskyite

Diversions”,

P. 39).

But the

Bihar

Committee pointed out that since the aim of the CPI(M L) was. a bourgeois democratic revolution and the purpose was to forma united

front, capitalism or capitalist property in general

should not be attacked at this stage. drawing

on

Mao’s

observation

on

The Bihar Committee, rich peasants in “The

Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party”, said that a big portion of rich peasants would support the revolu¬ tion and another would stay neutral ; only a small section which had benefited from the reactionary hands

with the

enemies.

The

Bihar

State would join-

leaders claimed that

following the party programme, they had adopted this attitude in the Mushahari struggle and were able to neutralise a sizeable section of the rural bourgeoisie. Struggle

Against

Left

[“The New Upsurge and the

Opportunism”,

the CPI(ML) Bihar

Committee’s resolution ] Differences also arose on Charu Majumdar’s analysis of the national and international situation.

Majumdar

had said

that in these days of decaying imperialism it would be wrong to insist on the uneven nature of the Indian revolution and on the need for protracted people’s war.

But the Bihar leaders

pointed out that this assessment was based on a wrong analysis of the objective conditions of the Indian revolution.

For,

116

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II

though the Indian bourgeoisie were beset with a weak capitalist economy with traits of feudalism and under the influence of imperialism, it was firmly on the saddle politically.

Besides,

the Indian revolution was weak and the revolutionary party, the CPI(ML), was at a nascent stage and had no base area. In this situation it would be wrong to minimise the importance of protracted war and base areas in the villages and discard other forms of struggle in the cities.

“At this stage’’, the

Bihar resolution said, “the character of work in villages and cities will be different.

In the cities the party will have to

work underground for long, must acquire strength, draw the urban mass towards the revolution and carry on defensive armed action. sive action.

Only in villages the party will undertake offen¬

The city work will supplement the armed struggle

in the village”.

(“The New Upsurge and the Struggle Against

Left Adventurism”, the CPI(ML) Bihar Committee’s resolu¬ tion) The same leadership

also

pointed

out

that

the central

leadership, by equating self-destruction with the communist ideal of self-sacrifice, had asserted that any emphasis on selfpreservation would inevitably encourage revisionism within us (quoted in “The Problems of the Indian Revolution and the Neo-Trotskyite Diversions”, P. 73).

Implied in this attitude

was the tendency to underestimate the enemy’s power and •overestimate the power of revolution.

The Bihar resolution

said that every effort should therefore be made to check this dangerous tendency.

“Our line should be the line of active

self-defence, the line of self-defence to attack and destroy the enemy.” The Bihar Committee submitted its paper in September 1970, with a lequest ior a meeting.

The central leadership

under one plea or other deterred the meeting.

However, in

view of the losses the party had suffered during the past two years, more and more leaders came out in support of the Bihar Committee s ciiticism of the party and pressed for a fresh •Central Committee meeting.

Even the leaders of the Bengal-

117

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Bihar Border region who had initially stood by Charu Majumdar published

an inner-party document in which they self-

critically reviewed the party activities and

admitted failure.

But the most moving self-criticism came from Sourin Bose, a Central Committee member, in the form of a letter from the prison cell.

Sourin Bose said, “Our entire tactical

line is-

wrong and the international leadership’s criticism regarding this is absolutely correct.

We are suffering from a petty-

bourgeois impatience, so we have assumed the objective condi¬ tions for revolutionary situation as spontaneous political cons¬ ciousness of the people.

So by avoiding the difficult path of

class struggle, we have found a short cut to revolution in the name of originality and to make it attractive to the cadres we have added, mechanically, some slogans of proletarian cultural revolution.

But what is the result ?

Today we stand isolated

from the broad sections of poor, landlord and middle peasants., from the working class we are permanently isolated”.

NAXALBARI AND AFTER : AN APPRAISAL PRABHAT JANA

The armed struggle of the Naxalbari peasants upheld thetruth that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun and‘ marked the beginning of the Indian revolution.

It showed the

revisionists in their ‘true light’—lackeys of imperalism, socialimperialism and domestic reaction, whose sole mission is to divert the people from the path of violent revolution.

It

correctly assessed the stage of the Indian revolution and the role of the peasant in it.

It successfully aroused the masses *.

led by Communist Revolutionaries, the peasant masses, armed with whatever they could lay their hands on, took part in the struggle and tea-plantation workers there and in neighbouring

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

118

areas actively supported them. confiscation of the jotedars’

VOL II

The economic struggle for

lands

and

cancellation of the

peasants’ debts was closely linked with the political struggle for the overthrow of the reactionary ruling classes.

Here,

legal struggle was combined with illegal struggle and the mass organization of peasants was linked with and led by the under¬ ground party organization—the organization of the Communist Revolutionaries who had rebelled against the revisionist leader¬ ship of the CPI(M). Though the political line of the

Naxalbari struggle was

correct, it suffered a setback chiefly because of the smallness of the area,

inexperience of the

peasants, their

revolutionary leaders and

inability to spread it to wider areas and to

develop an appropriate military line.

It was a temporary

■setback but no defeat ; rather, it marked an advance for the revolutionary forces of the country as a whole.

It aroused

people in various places, from theTerai region in the northeast of India to Kerala in the southwest and Kashmir in the north¬ west and helped to unite a majority of the Communist Revo¬ lutionaries of the country.

Thousands of them rebelled against

revisionism and chose the path of armed struggle.

Many went

to the rural areas to educate the peasantry in Mao Tsetung Thought,

the

science

of revolution

’Colonies, and to organize them.

in colonies and semi-

The support of the Commu¬

nist Party of China was of immense help in bringing the Communist

Revolutionaries

together,

first,

within the

All

India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries and then within the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). kulam,

Sparks of armed struggle flew from Naxalbari to SrikaMusahari,

Lakhimpur-Kheri, Debra-Gopiballavpur-

Bahar agora, Punjab, and later to different parts of West Bengal, especially Birbhum.

Naxalbari did promise a new dawn.

But the dawn did not break.

The darkness of reaction

blotted out the first streaks of light.

The ruling classes and

the minions of the law may congratulate themselves on their performance, but it is not their efficiency in perpetrating dia-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

119

bolical crimes but the weakness of the Party’s line that is to blame for the present defeat and disarray of the revolutionary forces. It is the Party line that determines success or failure of revolutionary struggles. The richest source of strength for revolutionary wars lies in the people.

“Only by mobilizing the masses of workers and

peasants, who form 90% of the population, can we defeat im¬ perialism and feudalism.”

This Maoist teaching was applied

in Naxalbari and Naxalbari proved to be a turning point.

But

later, from about the end of 1968, this lesson was ignored and Ihe Communist Revolutionaries were gradually led away from the path of Naxalbari.

A “left” opportunist line that was

gradually introduced from about this time did immense harm. What were the concrete manifestations of this “left” oppor¬ tunism ? First, in the name of combating economism, the party abandoned the mass line.

Instead of trying to forge close

links with the masses through different mass organisations and different forms of struggle dictated both by their immediate and long-term interests, the Party led by Charu Majumdar withdrew from all mass organisations like peasant associations, trade unions and youth and student associations, and from all mass movements on the plea that they breed economism, dubbed them revisionist and described them as obstacles to the growth and spread of revolutionary struggle.

This marked

an abrupt change in the line of the Communist Revolutiona¬ ries.

That the usefulness of mass organisations and mass

movements had been acknowledged would be evident from the resolution on trade union work, adopted

by the All India

Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries in its session of May 1968, and from various writings published in its journals, including those of Charu Majumdar.

But, from

1969, the Party gradually withdrew into its own shell and relied not on the masses but on small, secret squads of van¬ guards for waging revolutionary struggle. It is true that mass organisations and mass movements have

120

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IT

for a long time been utilized by reactionaries and revisionists in the interest of class collaboration and for blunting the revo¬ lutionary consciousness of the people.

To confine mass orga¬

nizations and mass movements within narrow, economic bo¬ unds was certainly economism.

It was not the mass organi¬

zations and mass movements but the Right opportunist and revisionist leadership of the CPI, the CPI(M) and other socalled socialist and communist parties that were to blame. Even now revisionists of all hues are busy trying to divert all mass struggles and the wrath of the people along peaceful, constitutional channels.

While people, even their own sup¬

porters, are driven away from their homes, robbed of their jobs or assassinated by the police, they take upon themselves the task of organizing petitions and prayers to the ruling classes. Nevertheless, to

withdraw from mass organizations and

mass movements is to be guilty of “left” opportunism.

It

actually means abandoning the patient and painstaking politi¬ cal struggle and arousing the masses and winning them over from the influence of the counter-revolutionaries and ends in a fatal divorce between the underground Party and the people, between the revolutionary vanguard and the masses. In a country like India, the main force of the revolution must be the peasantry and one of the main tasks of the Party is to arouse the peasants.

It is necessary to link closely the

peasants’ struggle for land and for annulment of debts with the struggle for seizure of power.

It was “left” opportunism

on the part of the CPI(ML) to issue a call for a struggle for seizure of power in, rural areas without linking it with the peasants’ loans.

struggle

The

for land

peasants

were

and

cancellation of

aroused

and

the

usurious movement

gained in intensity and acquired a mass character only in those areas where and when the two struggles became one and inseparable. From about the middle of 1969, the CPI(ML) began to withdraw its cadres from trade unions and all other mass or-

121

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

ganizations.

In practice it also withdrew from mass move¬

ment on international issues.

The mass line that had been

followed in Naxalbari was abandoned.

So, the

inevitable

happened : the divorce between the underground Party and the masses of workers and peasants gradually became complete and the revolutionary vanguard became easy targets of the re¬ actionaries for arrest, torture and assassination. Another manifestation of “left” opportunism was to equate class

struggles

with “the

battle of

annihilation of

class

enemies”. It was insisted that “the battle of annihilation of class enemies”

was the only form of struggle at this stage and

party cadres were instructed to form small squads of poor and landless peasants in a secret, “conspiratorial” manner—-secret from the

people and secret even from the Party units not

accustomed to underground conditions of work—and to carry out annihilation of hated class enemies one after another. Politics of seizure of power was to be propagated, not widely,, but with the sole purpose of carrying out successful annihilation of individual class enemies.

It was argued that “the class

struggle, that is, this battle of annihilation, could solve all the problems facing us” ; it would unleash

the initiative of poor

and landless peasants, carry, the struggle forward to a higher stage, raise the level of the people’s political consciousness,' create new men, build the People’s Army, ensure the creation of stable base areas and bring about a revolutionary upsurge ending in a countrywide victory. These arguments were not based on any concrete analysis of the conditions in this country but were wholly subjective. Because of the lack of a dialectical approach on the part of the CPI(ML) leadership, the ‘battle of annihilation of class enemies’ has, instead of solving any of our problems, made them much more difficult than before. landless

peasants was roused

and

The initiative of poor and the struggle reached a

higher stage only in those areas where the struggle for the confiscation of the jotedars’ land and other possessions and for cancellation of usurious loans was combined with the stru*

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

122

VOL II

ggle for seizure of power—for instance, in Naxalbari in 1967 and in Srikakulam and Musahari.

On the other hand, when

the class-enemy-annihilation line was imposed, it gradually dis¬ organised the revolutionary forces, snapped their links with the people, and led to the degeneration of the struggle in some areas and to the suppression of the militants by the police and the army.

Instead of raising the level of the people’s

political

consciousness, this line actually spread demoralization among them.

Whatever people’s army appeared in an embryonic

form is today faced with extinction.

Neither any ‘stable’ (or

unstable) base area nor any countryside revolutionary

upsurge

-could be created by the class-enemy-annihilation line. In his writing Some Questions concerning Methods of Leadership, Mao Tsetung said :

“However active the leading

group may be, its activity will amount to fruitless effort by a handful of people unless combined with the activity of the masses.”

He also said :

“Communists must never separate

themselves from the majority of the people or neglect them by leading only a few progressive contingents in an isolated and rash advance, but must forge close links between the progressive elements and the broad masses.”

(The Role of the Chinese

Communist Party in the National War) The Party leadership did not heed this warning, ignored the teachings of all great Marxist-Leninists and mistook terrorism for revolutionary violence.

Naturally, terrorism practised by

groups of its militants failed to accomplish what the revolution¬ ary violence of an aroused people can. The Party leadership believed that annihilation enemies could be carried on, one after another, in

of class an area

(some of them would be killed and some would flee), the rural .areas could thus be liberated from class enemies

and Revolu¬

tionary Committees, organs of people’s power, could be esta¬ blished there.

The very existence of the State machinery, the

purpose of which is to protect the class enemies and their regime of oppression and exploitation, was overlooked and the Tact that organs of the people’s power could not be established

123

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

an any area without contending with the State machinery was ignored. To equate secret annihilation of individuals with guer¬ rilla war is not correct.

Guerilla war can be waged only by

relying on the people and their active help and co-operation. But annihilation of class enemies is carried out secretly, “conspiratorially”—without involving the people.

Guerilla war is

war between the People’s Army and the enemy’s armed forces ; it is a form of people’s war.

So there is a basic difference

between guerilla war and secret assassination of individuals. Why do Marxist-Leninists reject individual terror, secret assassination of individuals, as one of the main forms of stru¬ ggle ?

This is not a question of abstract morality.

It is not

certainly immoral to annihilate certain mass-murderers—men responsible for the murder of many workers and peasants. But, in using individual terror—in special cases, the Party should be guided not by its own wishes but by the wishes of the masses and by a proper analysis of the actual conditions at the given time and place. individual

terror—secret

As a main form of struggle,

assassination

of

individuals—

does tremendous harm to the cause of revolution instead of

helping it.

First,

it diverts the Party from the path

of class struggle, from the path of people’s war. bourgeois subjectivism to

It is petty-

dream of creating mass upsurge

through individual terror by a handful of militants.

Secondly,

this belittles the enemies’ strength from the tactical point of view.

A handful of militants isolated from the people can

easily be suppressed by the enemy.

This terrorism endangers

the Party’s very existence, severs its links with the masses and renders all political work impossible.

Lenin said :

“In

principle we have never rejected, and cannot reject terror. Terror is one of the forms of military action that may be perfectly suitable and even essential at

a definite juncture

.in the battle, given a definite state of the troops and the existence of definite conditions.

We, therefore, declare

em¬

phatically that under the present conditions such a means of

124

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IF

struggle is inopportune and unsuitable ; that it diverts the most active fighters from their real task, the task which is most im¬ portant from the standpoint of the interests of the movement as a whole ; and that it disorganizes the forces, not of the government, but of the revolution...Is there not the danger of rupturing the contact between the revolutionary organizations and the disunited masses of the discontented, the protesting, and the disposed to struggle, who are weak precisely because they are disunited ?

Yet it is this contact that is the sole gua¬

rantee of our success.”

(Where to Begin)

From about the middle of 1970, the annihilation of police¬ men, spies, bureaucrats, corrupt traders and petty millowners became the main form of struggle in urban areas.

In the

course of this struggle even traffic constables, educationists, judges, trade

union leaders and leaders of different political

parties

attacked

were

and

some

of

them

annihilated.

Instead of working underground in urban areas for a long time to co-ordinate the struggle of the workers and other working people with the struggle in the countryside, the Party’s mili¬ tants rushed into head-on collisions with the enemy’s organised forces of violence. and great heroism.

The Party cadres showed utter selflessness But the inevitable happened : while a

large section of the people were antagonised, thousands of cadres were tortured, maimed and imprisoned and several hun¬ dreds—both leaders and cadres—died. The Party militants were involved in another bloody stru¬ ggle.

The political struggle between the CPI(ML) and the

CPI(M) degenerated into a tragic feud—-a war of

annihilation

between the cadres and supporters of the two parties—a war that bewildered the people and served only the interest of the ruling classes.

The CPI(ML) failed to distinguish between the

CPI(M) leadership and the large section of its cadres and supporters, did not wage any persistent political struggle to win over the latter and did little to try to stop this mutual, senseless killing. It is right to rebel against the education system in our

125

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

country, which is semi-colonial and semi-feudal.

Today, chaos

reigns in the educational sphere because of the utter rottenness of the system.

But as

Mao Tsetung said,

it

is always

necessary first of all to create public opinion, to do work in the ideological sphere.

But when CPI(ML) cadres and lumpen

elements systematically attacked schools and colleges

with

bombs, destroyed their officees, laboratories and libraries and set some of them on fire, the Party leadership supported all these anarchic nonpolitical acts instead of guiding this revolt along a political channel and doing some work in the ideologi¬ cal sphere.

Thousands of teachers felt that they were the tar¬

gets of this attack. It was also right to rebel against the long dominance of the cultural and political influence of the leaders who represented comprador-cum-feudal

class interests.

The “heroes” of the

so-called Bengal Renaissance, able representatives in the realm of culture and

education of the new comprador-cum-feudal

class fathered by the British rulers, were British colonialists spiritually country in its imperialist

and

fetters

found at

a

children of the salvation

time

of the

when

India

was being rocked by anti-imperialist and anti-feudal peasant uprisings and imperialism

the

First

War of Independence.

of many great national

leaders,

The anti¬

who

flouri¬

shed in this century, was indeed sham while their role as se¬ rvitors of imperialism or fascism was quite real.

The new

democratic politics and culture of the working class, the pea¬ santry and the petty bourgeoisie, led by the working class, can not win in the struggle against the pro-imperialist and feudal politics and culture that still dominate the life of the country without unmasking its real character. But the manner in which the revolt took place, the burning of portraits and smashing of statues, bewildered and shocked the petty bourgeoisie which has been brought

up

to

and political leaders.

revere

the

pro-imperialist

Compared with the enormity of the

task, very little was done in the ideological sphere. case, too, the

cultural In this

Party failed to guide the revolt along

the

.126

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

correct path and this

failure was fully exploited

VOL IF

by

the

enemy. Thanks to the Party units, the activities of gangsters and hoodlums were curbed to a great extent in many areas and people enjoyed some sense of security.

But some oppression

was perpetrated on the people in the name of the Party in some areas.

In a few areas the local Party committees, on

their own initiative, took measures to stop it, but in most areas nothing was done to check it or to demarcate the Party from the elements that were utilising its name for their own sordid ends. Early in 1971, the slogan that those who would seek votes (for election to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly) and those who would cast their votes were to be annihilated, was raised in some areas.

Even the political struggle for boycott of

elections and against parliamentarism degenerated into a‘battle of annihilation.’

This was another extreme and dangerous

manifestation of “Left” opportunism. It was wrong on the part of the CPI(ML) leadership to characterize all other political parties as parties of the ruling classes.

Different small parties represent the interests of the

small and the middle bourgeoisie or the interests they may help the ruling classes and go against the interest of the people at certain times, but there are also contradictions between them and the ruling classes.

To see only one aspect, the aspect of

their unity with the ruling classes, and to overlook the other aspect, their contradictions, is contrary to dialectics and, so, un-Marxist. The All India

Co-ordination Committee of Communist

Revolutionaries had expressed the hope in a resolution adop¬ ted in May 1968 that its contradictions with the groups that believed in armed agrarian revolution and professed loyalty to Mao Tsetung thought would remain non-antagonistic.

But,

later,these groups were unjustly abused as agents of imperialism and international revisionism on the ground that they were opposing annihilation of class enemies.

This was a manifes-

127

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

tation of extreme “left” sectarianism. Indeed, an extreme “left” sectarian line that isolated and weakened the revolutionary forces, was pursued by the Party. classics was discouraged and

Even the study of Marxist

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung

thought was made to degenerate into a cult of ‘bhakti\ into a blind, unquestioning faith in the revolutionary authority of a leader, and similar anti-Marxist trash.

All this was the work

of a petty bourgeoisie with a long feudal tail. The emergence of “left” opportunism during the last three years was perhaps historically inevitable.

Isn’t, as Lenin poin¬

ted out, anarchism infrequently a sort of punishment for the opportunist sins of the working class movement ?

In this,

country the Communist Party never became the party of the working class nor was its Marxist-Leninist ideological founda¬ tion ever firm.

Both in ideology and in composition it re¬

mained overwhelmingly petty bourgeois and trailed behind the pro-imperialist, compromising bourgeoisie.

The CPI, as well

as the CPI(M), led not even by a labour aristocracy but by a petty bourgeois-and-landlord or ex-landlord aristocracy, has throughout its

long life, pursued a policy not of class struggle

but of class collaboration—a policy of treachery against the people.

At particular places and particular periods there have

been revolt against right opportunism, for example, in Telengana in the forties.

But right opportunism has dominated the

communist movement in this country.

Revolt against right

opportunism started along the correct path in Naxalbari.

But,

afterwards, in the course of the bitter struggle against right opportunism, this revolt degenerated into “left” opportunism, a punishment for the many right opportunist sins, hypocrisy, servility and treachery of the communist movement in this country. When we are

criticizing deviations, it would be wrong to

suppose that the entire work of the last five years was utterly fruitless and all wrong, and had no positive aspect. can

be

more untrue.

Nothing

The work of the last five years has a

positive aspect of immense significance.

What is that aspect ?

128

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

First, the Naxalbari peasant struggle, as we have said before, marked a turning point in India’s history.

In view of

the long reign of right opportunism in this country, it was no easy task for the revolutionaries and peasants of Naxalbari to uphold the great truth that force is the midwife of the old society pregnant with a new one.

No force on earth can

wipe out the new revolutionary force that Naxalbari repre¬ sents. Second, the Naxalbari struggle could begin only by raising high the banner of Mao Tsetung Thought and by waging a bitter fight against revisionism and right opportunism.

For

the past few years Communist Revolutionaries have carried on an uncompromising

struggle against sham parliamentarianism

and other manifestations of revisionist ideology and politics as well as against revisionist practices. Third, it was the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries that unmasked for the first time in India the character of Soviet revisionism.

The CPI(ML) also

exposed the real character of the “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.’ Fourth, the CPI(ML) has waged struggle against bourgeois chauvinism and upheld proletarian internationalism.

When

all reactionary and revisionist parties tried their utmost to poison the minds of the people with hostility and hatred for socialist China, the CPI(ML) carried on almost single-handed a struggle against the anti-China campaign.

It also exposed

and denounced the Indian expansionists when they invaded and dismembered Pakistan. Fifth, the brief history of the CPI(ML) is the history of struggle, heroism and self-sacrifice.

The cadres and leaders of

the Party never hesitated and do not hesitate to lay down their lives in the interest of the people.

Here lies the basic differ¬

ence between the leaders and cadres of the CPI(ML) and the revisionists. the

latter

When the former are essentially self-sacrificing are essentially self-seekers and careerists.

CPI(ML) has set examples—examples of courage to

The fight,

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

129

•self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause of revolution—at a time when sham

militancy,

rank opportunism, careerism

and

servility masqueraded as socialism, communism and Marxism in this country. May 12—19, 1973

THE MAIN DANGER BABURAJ

Let us examine how much reasonable are the criticisms -raised against the CPI(ML).

Before going into these problems

we should know how to evaluate the correctness of a theory. Chairman Mao has taught us how human knowledge develops ■dialectically from the perceptual stage to the conceptual stage and how the correctness of the conceptual knowledge thus acquired is tested in the course of revolutionary practice (see ‘On Practice').

When we evaluate on these lines we can see

that almost all the theories have to be modified during the •course of revolutionary practice in order to suit the objective conditions.

But we have to be very careful before reaching a

judgment on the correctness of a theory, because sometimes the theory (conceptual •implemented.

knowledge)

may

not

be

correctly

So the failure may not be due to the incorrect¬

ness of the theory.

That means we have to pinpoint the actual

reasons for the failure.

If the failure is due to the improper

implementation we can correct it.

If the implementation is

.correct and even the theory fails to achieve the anticipated result, then the theory itself is wrong. abandon

that

theory.

Instead

of

Then we have to

taking

this dialectical

approach many of the critics of the Party line seem to be very eager to put the blame everywhere except where it belongs. First of all let us take the problem of mass organizations and mass movements for the fulfilment of the economic de-

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

130 mands of the peasants and

the masses.

VOL IF

The question of

whether the struggle is for political power or for economic de¬ mands

is

closely linked with this problem.

So we shall

consider both together. From the very beginning these two formulations were dividing the revolutionaries in India who revolted against the revisionist leadership of the CPI(M) and took up Mao Tsetung Thought as the guiding force.

The leaders and followers of

the Naxalbari struggle proposed that “militant struggles must be carried on not for land, crops, etc.

but for seizure of

political power” (Charu Majumdar, “One year after Naxalbari struggle”, Liberation).

Kanu Sanyal wrote in his “Report on

the Peasant Movement in the Terai

Region” (Liberation,

November 1968) that the struggle in Terai was “not for land but for State power”. the

revisionist

This is a fundamental question, and

thinking which has been prevailing in the

peasant movement for the last

few decades, can only be

combated “by solving this problem”. formulation was very clear.

The reason for such a

The experiences of the past have

taught the people a very valuable lesson that without political power in their hands they could achieve nothing and that they could not retain the gains even if they could win any. true

that

the

peasants may

not

It is

be having any scientific

knowledge of political power, but they know one thing, that isr there are the police and the armed forces and other machinery to safeguard the interests of the landlords and other exploiters^ It is because of this knowledge acquired from bitter experiences that the peasants in India take a kind of fatalist attitude and do not become enthusiastic in various struggles.

So it is

evident that the peasants can be aroused en masse only in the ultimate struggle for political power. On the other hand, another section in Andhra Pradesh held that the first thing to do was to mobilize the people for land and other economic demands.

“Fertile land and fruit

gardens that - had been grabbed from Girijan peasants are still in the hands of landlords.

People have been anxious to take

131

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

them back.

We must prepare them to occupy these lands.

This process must start with the first rains” Programme’,

Revolutionary

Andhra Pradesh).

Communist

(‘Immediate

Committee

Along with this they proposed

of

to start

armed guerilla struggle, that too as a defensive tactic.

But

after three years’ patient and painstaking work among the people, they made a self-evident analysis.

A relevant portion-

of that document (published in Frontier, July 29, 1972, as a summary of a part of a document released by the RCC Andhra Pradesh) is interesting :

of.

“The fact that the peo pie in

Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam districts did not come forward to occupy the lands of landlords showed our over¬ estimations on this issue as stated in the Immediate Program me ...The people will occupy landlords’ lands in extensive areas when they become conscious and

have

confidence in the

strength of our armed squads in resisting the government's armed forces and when they are confident and determined that they can and will defend and retain those lands...We should not forget that mobilization of the people in extensive areas for the purpose depends on their readiness

and our

work for the armed struggle, on the confidence that can be created by the strength of the armed squads .” added) This conclusion is to be taken

(emphasis

into consideration not as

speculation, but as a proved fact tested in the course of re¬ volutionary practice.

This clearly shows that the formulation

drawn by the Naxalbari comrades was quite correct. no new information. Telengana struggle.

This

had

been

This is

proved during

the

This is what had happened in China.

While we stress that the peasants’ armed struggle is mainly aimed at the seizure of political power, it does not mean that it has no relation with the struggle for economic demands ; because the struggle for the seizure of political power itself is aimed

at the fulfilment of

the

the peasants, especially land reform. related.

economic

demands of

Both are inseparably

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

132

VOL II

Now, the problem is how to rally the people behind this struggle for the seizure of political power.

The Party Pro¬

gramme adopted at the first Congress in 1970 says : “The path of India’s liberation as in the case of all othei colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries is the path of People’s War.

As Chairman Mao has taught us, The revo¬

lutionary war is the war of the masses ; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them." The working class can wage a successful people’s war by creating small bases of armed struggle all over the country and consolidating the political possible

power

of the people.

only by developing guerilla

This is

warfare which is and

will remain the basic form of struggle throughout the entire period of our Democratic Revolution.

No one can find any¬

thing wrong with these formulations. During the course of protracted people’s war waged in China,

Vietnam and other countries, it was proved

guerilla

warfare

that

is the most suitable form of struggle

mobilize the entire strength of the people.

to

But it is to be

remembered that mobilizing the' people using the tactic of guerilla warfare is entirely different from mobilizing the people through mass organizations and mass movement for economic demands.

This had been misunderstood by many.

And the

revisionists and the neo-revisionists of all hues are capitalising this

misunderstanding

treacherous ends.

among

the rank and file for their

The problem of mobilizing the people by

integrating with the basic masses and raising their level of consciousness through politicalisation and waging armed struggle is not at all a matter to be solved through theoretical dis¬ cussions,

but

through

revolutionary

practice.

The

most

important peculiarity of guerilla struggle is that, as it does not follow the conventional laws of war, a very few guerillas can keep a larger contingent of enemy forces at bay arranging ambushes and launching surprise attacks with all kinds of help and cooperation from the people.

Thus, while regular con¬

ventional warfare does not call for direct involvement of the

133

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

people, guerilla warfare cannot be waged without the full co¬ operation of the people.

During this process—the dialectical

development of the initial embryonic forms of armed struggle into a kind of armed mass upsurge—there may appear different and hitherto unknown forms of mass struggle. This kind of mobilization of the people through armed struggle has nothing to do with the open mass organizations and mass movements. In short, the Party line is never against a mass line, on the contrary it stands for a revolutionary mass line, while it opposes the revisionist mass line of open trade unions and kisan sabhas which breed economism. The next problem is the tactical line of annihilation of class enemies.

Charu Majumdar never equated the annihilation of

class enemies with guerilla war.

On the contrary he had cor¬

rectly defined it as a starting point of guerilla war.

In his

speech at the Party Congress introducing the political-organiza¬ tional report, he explained : “It must be understood that the battle of annihilation is both a higher form of class struggle and the starting point of guerilla war. “1.

There are two deviations on this point.

Some comrades agree that annihilation is the starting

point of guerilla war, but they do not agree that it is a higher form of class struggle.

It should be borne in mind that only

through the development of class struggle can all the problems be solved. “2.

There are other comrades who carried on class strug¬

gle—the struggle for the seizure of landlord’s land and pro¬ perty—but did not wage the battle of annihilation. cadres became degenerate.

They were lost.

So the

The comrades

missed the point that annihilation is the starting-point of gue¬ rilla war.”

(Liberation, June-July, 1970)

This was a correct formulation. Here annihilation has been defined as a connecting link between class struggle and guerilla war.

But Majumdar never equated it with guerilla war.

He

had repeatedly reminded the revolutionaries to rely on poor landless peasants to carry out annihilation.

In the initial stage

134

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

when the revolutionaries were groping for a line that would coordinate armed struggle with the class struggle of peasants, this line was actually helpful in arousing the peasants. The later critics of this line themselves had stated that “it was only when Charu Majumdar gave them the line of annihilation of class enemies that they could break the people’s inertia” (Frontier January 13, 1973). It is to be admitted that this line did not work as had been envisaged by Charu Majumdar. The failure of this line was mainly for two reasons. First, the petty bourgeois adventurists who had flooded the rank and file of the Party took this line of annihilation as their own and did not heed the directives of the leadership to rely on the basic masses. Actually annihilation was i ntended to be carried out in the villages only after tho¬ rough investigation and correct class analysis of the area through which the politics of annihilation can be propagated among the masses. But in many areas such patient work was not performed. The petty bourgeois comrades were not patient enough to study the significance of the line. So in many areas the battle of annihilation degenerated into mere manifestations of petty-bourgeois revolutionary impetuosity. The second and most important reason for this failure was the lack of a clearly worked out plan to develop the battle of annihilation into a proper guerilla war. Of course, Charu Majumdar had pointed out that members of the annihila¬ tion-squads would ultimately form the PLA. But such state¬ ments were very vague. A clear-cut military line was necessary for this purpose. A detailed plan had to be chalked out in order to guide the dialectical development of annihilation into people’s war through a series of confrontations with the armed forces of the State power. Instead, stress was given only •on the battle of annihilation and mere repetition of this battle was encouraged. So, when the ruling classes adopted the usual policy of ‘‘encirclement and suppression”, the revolu¬ tionaries could not withstand the suppression and they were virtually wiped out. From this it is clear why the peasants at

135

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

•this stage became very lukewarm and indifferent to the revolu¬ tionary movement.

They knew that the annihilation of class

enemies alone cannot smash the political power of the ruling class.

They were very conscious of the strength of the State

machinery.

But in the beginning they expected that the armed

struggle against the class enemies would be continued directly against the armed forces also and so they supported the move¬ ment.

Still they were sceptical on this point and at last their

fear proved to be correct.

Here lay the most important weak¬

ness of the party line which resulted from the absence of a correct military line.

Revolutionaries

have to admit this

mistake and correct it in their future work. A serious discussion on the role of the PLA and its for¬ mation took place inside the party in 1971 ; but it was too late to link it with the battle of annihilation which had already been launched in 1969. Prabhat Jana alleges that the annihilation squads were ^‘secret from the people”.

This is a very attractive phrase used

by the revisionists of all hues to divert the people from the path of armed struggle. Under the present conditions in India, no activity connected with armed struggle can be conducted in the open,

This is the case especially after Naxalbari struggle.

That struggle opened the eyes of the ruling classes and they have taken the Naxalbari movement as a serious challenge to their existence.

So they have extended their vigilant arms

wherever there is any sign of a revolutionary movement. Hence anybody who has devoted himself to the path of armed •struggle to fulfil the cause of Indian revolution cannot but ■choose the underground conditions of work.

Those who are

interested in this matter can read William Hinton’s Fanshen for a very detailed account of revolutionary activities in an enemy-occupied village of China.

There the revolutionaries

had to work under conditions of the utmost secrecy.

The

fundamental, qualitative difference between the revolutionary activities in enemy-occupied areas and those in liberated areas can clearly be seen in this book.

At present, in India, almost

136

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IB

all the villages should be considered as enemy-occupied areas. But in many areas revolutionaries have committed seriousmistakes, not caring to observe underground

activities

the strictest principles of

and they contributed much to the

setback. The circumstances compelled the Party and the revolution¬ aries to adopt secret and illegal methods of work.

For exam¬

ple, Party organs like Liberation, Deshabrati and Lok Yudh were published legally until

April,

1970, when the police

attacked the offices and printing presses and arrested the comrades. So the Party was compelled to publish these organs illegally.

Almost in every field this was the experience.

Jana has correctly pointed out that “though the political line of the Naxalbari struggle was correct, it suffered a setback chiefly because of the smallness of the area, inexperience of the revolutionary leaders and peasants, their inability to spread it to wider areas and to develop an appropriate military line.” But he concludes that the struggles is chiefly

reason for the failure of the later

“Left Opportunism” manifested in the

abandonment of the mass line and adoption of an annihilation line.

At the same time he points out, “The initiative of poor

and landless peasants was roused and the struggle reached a higher stage only in those

areas where the struggle for the

confiscation of jotedars’ land and other possessions and for cancellation of usurious loans was combined with the struggle for seizure of power—for instance in Naxalbari in 1967, and in. Srikakulam and Musahari.”

We know, as in Naxalbari, the

struggle in Srikakulam and Musahari also was suppressed and suffered a setback. been aroused.

Why ?

Not because the people had not

Then it is very clear that as in the Naxalbari.

struggle, all the later struggles suffered setbacks mainly because of lack of a correct correct political line.

military line which could reinforce the In short, we can conclude that the set¬

back is not due to the “Left Opportunism” of the Party line and that the political line of the Party was in the main correct, though it could not be implemented correctly.

137'

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Then, what is the main danger ahead ?

Is it “Left Oppor¬

tunism” as has been charged by Kanu Sanyal and others in their alleged letter ? the main danger. the routine

Not at all.

Right opportunism remains

Once the revolutionaries are brought into

cycle of open mass movements they can never

return to the path of armed struggle.

But this time, in the

1970s, revolutionaries are not going to be betrayed ; because they have the valuable lessons of the 1950s behind them. History will never repeat itself in the same way. June 16, 1973

‘THE MAIN DANGER’ PRAVAT JANA

What is class

struggle ?

comprises both economic sections

As Lenin said,

class struggle-

struggle and political struggle by¬

of people in a society organized

as classes.

“These

two forms of agitation (economic and political)”, said Lenin, “are inseparably bound up with each other in the activities of the Social-Democrats like the two sides of a medal. economic and political agitation are

equally

Both

necessary for

the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat,, and economic and political agitation are equally necessary in order to guide the class struggle of the Russian workers, for every class struggle is a political struggle”. Vol. I,

Moscow, 1946, P. 135).

Lenin wrote :

In

(Selected Works,

What is to be Done ?^

“The workers’ organisations for carrying on

the economic struggle should be trade union organisations ; every Social-Democrat should, as far as possible, support and actively work inside these organisations”. Instead of running away from mass

organisations and mass movements,

Communist Party,

according to Marx,

the

Engels, Lenin, Stalin

and Mao, should send its cadres to participate in and lead

138

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

them, and should at the same peasants with seize power.

revolutionary

time

VOL II

imbue workers and

politics and prepare them to

One of the central questions in their teachings

was the question of the relationship between the economic and political struggle.

“The Communists”, to quote from

the Communist Manifesto, “fight for the attainment of the immediate

aims,

for the

enforcement of the

momentary

interests of the working class, but in the movement of the present they also represent and take care of the future”. They taught that while the economic struggle has tremendous importance and must in no circumstances be avoided, politics must have primacy over economics. Is the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of class struggle not valid in a semi-colony like India ?

Mao Tsetung did not think so.

In Problems of War and Strategy, where he distinguished between the path of revolution followed in a capitalist country and that followed in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal

country like

China, he categorically said that, though “in China war is the main form of struggle and the army is the main form of organisations”, “other forms such as mass organisation and mass struggle are extremely important and indeed indispensa¬ ble and in no circumstances to be overlooked”—both before and after the outbreak of war—and that their purpose should be to serve the war. Why do mass organisations, like trade unions and peasant associations, often fail as they have so far failed in India ?

To

quote Marx, “They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipatio n of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system”.

{Value, Price and Profit ; our italics)

What is our experience in India ?

The revisionist parties

like the CPI and the CPI(M) limit the role of mass organisa¬ tions to one of fighting for the immediate interests of the working people, i.e., to one of fighting against the effects

of

139

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the system instead of simultaneously trying to organise the people for the revolutionary overthrow of the system itself. On the other hand, the leadership of the CPI(ML) drew, at one phase, an artificial dividing line between the economic and the political struggle, withdrew from mass organisations and mass movements and gave a call for armed struggle for seizure of power.

The two lines—the revisionist and the ‘left’ oppor¬

tunist—ran parallel and did not meet and both led to disasters. But it is the organic connection and close interweaving of the economic and the political struggle that can arouse, unite and organise the people for the highest form of class struggle—the revolutionary overthrow of the ruling classes and seizure of power by the people led by the proletariat.

History shows

that those who refuse to link up the struggle for the working people’s immediate versa,

interests with the final goal, and vice

sabotage the struggle for liberation of the working

people and play into the hands of the ruling classes—willingly or unwillingly. What is guerilla warfare ?

It is a form of people’s war,

which can be waged only by involving the people in the war. It presupposes the existence of people’s armed forces. Mao Tsetung said,

As

“It (guerilla warfare) is the indispensable

.and therefore the best form of struggle for the people’s armed forces to employ

over a long period in a backward country,

in order to inflict defeats on the armed enemy and build up their own

bases”

(Introducing ‘The Communist’).

It is

wrong to call secret annihilation of individual class enemies the starting

point of guerilla warfare.

According to

the

instructions of the Party leadership, an intellectual comrade ^‘should go to the village and whisper into the ear of a poor peasant with [revolutionary]

potentialities,

to assassinate such and such jotedars ?’ should be selected, one group”.

‘Is it not good

Thus the guerillas

by one, secretly and organised in a

This group was to be

formed

‘conspiratorially’,

secretly from the people and secretly even from the Party omits not accustomed to underground work (Charu Majumdar,

140

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL ID

“A Few Words on Guerilla Action”). This tactic has nothing to do with guerilla warfare or people’s war as it does not rely on an aroused people for carrying on the struggle. actually anarchistic,

terroristic and can be

for a short while.

It is

employed only

It is contrary to Marxism-Leninism-Mao

Tsetung Thought to describe it as a higher form of class struggle and the beginning of guerilla war, for it is neither. Who has said that democratic land reforms can be carried out in areas other than liberated ones ?

But it is necessary

to mobilize the masses of the peasantry on the basis of an agrarian programme and give a call for a struggle land and liberty.

for both

The theory that militant struggles must be

waged not for land but for State power is a symptom of an infantile disorder.

It is preposterous to draw an artificial

dividing line between the struggle for land and the struggle for State power and to theorize that the struggle for power must precede the struggle for land. of understanding evident that the

to assert,

as

It is an incredible lack

Baburaj does,

“So it is

peasants can be aroused en masse only in

the ultimate struggle for power”.

(Our italics). In 1905-06

and, again, in 1917, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party gave the call for a

struggle

for

both land

inextricably woven together) swept Russia.

and

liberty (the two

and huge peasant movements

In China also, the CPC issued the same call

and they were successful.

Has Baburaj not heard of the

Hunan peasant movement ?

Liberation wars cannot be led

to

victory

movements. out

except

in the

background of such vast peasant

Listen, then, to Chairman Mao as he details

the reasons for the emergence and survival of Red poli¬

tical power in China.

“Second, the regions where China’s

Red political power has first emerged and is able to last for a long time have not been those unaffected by the democratic revolution, such as Szechuan, Kweichow, Yunnnan and the northern provinces,

but regions such as the provinces

of

Hunan, ICwantung, Hupeh and Kiangsi, where the masses of workers, peasants and

soldiers rose in great numbers in the

141

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

course of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1926 and 1927.

In many parts of these provinces trade unions and

peasant associations were formed on a wide scale, and many economic and political struggles were waged by the working class and the peasantry against the landlord class and the bourgeoisie”.

(‘Why is it that Red Political Power can exist

in China ?’) Baburaj seems blissfully ignorant of the history of class •struggle in his own country.

Many big mass movements have

swept India from time to time, though this country is

yet to

be liberated. The only Marxist-Leninist way of arousing and mobilizing the people is class struggle, that is, both economic and politi¬ cal struggle of the oppressed workers and peasants organised as classes.

Anything contrary to this is opposed to Marxism,

Leninism and Mao Tsetung Thought.

“This kind of mobili¬

zation through armed struggle”, says Baburaj, “has nothing to do with the open mass organizations and mass movements”. It is granted that armed struggle can mobilize people, but can armed struggle be launched without some kind of political mobilization of the people ?

And can this mobilization take

place through political propaganda alone or through struggle ?

class

Armed struggle for seizure of power is one of the

highest forms of class struggle.

Can one conveniently skip

the lower forms of class struggle and issue a call for one of the highest forms without mobilization, without making orga¬ nised preparations?

To do so means

belittling the enemy

not only strategically but also tactically and this is what ‘left’ opportunism amounts to.

Marxism-Leninism as well as past

experience has proved that secret assassination of class ene¬ mies by secret squads cannot successfully mobilize the masses. This ‘theory of excitative terrorism’, as Lenin called it, is no new modification of Marxist-Leninist theories—a modification which Baburaj’s ‘conceptual The Russian Narodniks

knowledge’ seems to demand.

and their successors, the Socialist-

Revolutionaries, had tried the same path and Lenin founded

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

142

and strengthened the Bolshevik Party this alien and dangerous trend.

VOL II

by ruthlessly fighting

It was hostile to Marxism as

it belittled the role of the working class and the role of the masses, severed links between revolutionaries and the people, and disorganised the forces not of the government but of the revolution.

Only in those cases where it helps to raise their

morale and where it serves it has

the cause of people’s war (after

actually started), the use of individual terror is not

only justified but necessary. Some people

fail

word ‘annihilation,’

to

understand the meaning

as Chairman Mao used it.

misunderstandinng on

of the

To allow no

this point, Mao Tsetung wrote in a

parenthesis in his book On Protracted War : the enemy means to

“.to destroy

disarm him or ‘deprive him of the

power to resist’ and does not mean to destroy every member of his forces physically.” Baburaj

writes :

“From the very beginning these two

formulations [whether the struggle is for political power or for economic demands] were dividing the revolutionaries in India who revolted against the revisionist leadership of the CPI (M).” etc.

No, till

1969 all of them including Charu

Majumdar were unanimous in stressing the necessity of linking the economic struggle with the political struggle and in empha¬ sizing the importance of open mass movements.

Reference

to the writings in the Party journals, especially Charu Majumdar’s articles,

such as ‘The Peasant Struggle must be carried

forward by combating revisionism’, ‘To Comrades’ and ‘Build up the Peasants’ class struggle through class analysis, investi¬ gation and practice’ may conclusively prove that Baburaj is entirely wrong.

It was in 1969 that Charu Majumdar came

to the conclusion that mass organisations and mass movements bred economism and stood in the way of developing

armed

struggle. In “One year after Naxalbari struggle”, Charu Majumdar wrote : “It is the first time [sic !] that the peasant waged a movement not only for his petty demands but also for State

143

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

power”

(our italics).

Kanu SanyaFs Terai Report describes

how the peasants of Naxalbari were mobilized and the struggle was launched for the implementation of three main slogans : (1) Implement the decisions of the Peasant Committee in all affairs of the village, (2) Organise and arm yourselves to smash the

resistance of jotedars and village reactionaries, and (3)

Break

the

jotedars’

monopoly

of landownership and start

redistribution of land through the Peasant Committee.”

Both

Telengana and Naxalbari struggles were mass movements led by mass organisations (which, again, were led by communists) and developed as struggles for both land and liberty. Naxalbari was destined to suffer a setback. cause there was no Marxist-Leninist

Party

to

Why ?

Be¬

spread

the

struggle to wider areas, no PLA and no United Front. correct military line alone would not have helped.

A

Yet, if the

analogy is permitted, Naxalbari marked an advance for the people of India as

the

Paris

advance for the world proletariat.

Commune

had marked

an

What was needed was to

draw correct lessons from the Naxalbari experience.

Though

the All-India Coordination Committee of Communist Revo¬ lutionaries started on the right path, the class-enemy-annihila¬ tion line and the line of abandonment of mass organisations and mass struggles were afterwards imposed.

Srikakulam and

Mushahari, where the peasants had been mobilized through both economic and political struggles, were suppressed be¬ cause of this wrong line.

Instead of implementing the class-

enemy-annihilation line in small areas, which soon snapped the links between the revolutionaries and the masses of those areas, painstaking class struggle should have been carried on in wider areas to mobilize the people, to unite them in various organisa¬ tions and to build up self-defence and other forces of the people.

To fight and defeat the enemy, who is militarily much

stronger in the beginning, the people have one weapon—unity and organisation.

Without rousing the dormant strength of

the people and achieving their unity in an area large enough for the armed struggle to be sustained and for the new revolu-

144

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

tionary force, helped by the people in other parts of the country and the world, to grow from small to big, from weak to strong, any precipitate call for armed struggle is destructive not of the enemy but of the revolutionary force.

In Srika-

kulam, Mushahari, Gopiballavpur, Birbhum etc., the new¬ born revolutionary forces were faced with disasters for two reasons among others : (1)

the call for armed struggle was

premature in the sense that these areas of struggle were small isolated

pockets

which

the

enemy could suppress without

much difficulty ; and (2) the armed struggle took the form mostly of individual terror,

which assigned a role to the

militants but almost none to the masses.

It was a case of

‘active

theorizing about

and

passive

people’.

The

empty

“dialectical development of annihilation into people’s war” (!!) —a nice string of high-sounding words signifying nothing— would be amusing, if the subject we are dealing with was not so serious. To defend the indefensible, Baburaj felt it necessary to invest a myth—correct political line formulated by the leader¬ ship and incorrect practice of it by the cadres.

He has blamed

the cadres as impatient “petty bourgeois adventurists” who were responsible for annihilation” revolutionary

“into

the

degeneration

of “the

battle of

mere manifestations of petty-bourgeois

impetuosity.”

Two

questions

arise :

First,

does the role of the leadership consist only in formulating correct policies and not in guiding their implementation ?

If

the practice proved wrong, why was it not corrected in the course of three years ?

Second, if the policies were wrongly

implemented, how is it inferred that the policies were correct ? What revolutionary practice proved them right during the last few years ? One would have expected a noncombatant armed strugglewallah to have more respect for truth and more respect for the combatants who feared neither hardship nor death to carry out the directives of the Party leadership. its directives ?

What were

One may refresh one’s memory by reading

145

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

once again Charu Majumdar’s

i‘A few words on Guerilla

Action’, ‘Make the 70s the Decade of Liberation’, several rousing appeals to avenge the brutal murders of comrades by the police, etc. degenerated

If “in many areas the battle of annihilation

into

mere manifestations

of

petty-bourgeois

revolutionary impetuosity”, why did the Party journals syste¬ matically and ecstatically applaud them ?

Did not the Party

leadership even hail every urban action of the petty-bourgeois militants ? “What the students and youth are doing, is without any shadow of doubt just and proper.”

(Charu Majumdar,

‘Forge closer unity with Peasant Armed Struggle’, Liberation, August 1970).

If the line was correct, why, in the course of

the last few years, did not the workers and peasants rise in their millions, take up “the battle of annihilation” and push "“the petty-bourgeois adventurists” to the background ? What then is the main danger ?

“Is it,” Baburaj asks,

“‘Left-Opportunism’, as has been charged by Kanu Sanyal and others in their alleged letter ? Not at all. remains the main danger”. actually say ?

What

Right opportunism

did that ‘alleged’ letter

“We”, it said, “must be very careful against

revisionism, while

fighting

have become the

main danger inside the

present.”

(Our italics).

against Left

deviations,

which

Party for the

Why has Baburaj dropped out the

words “inside the Party for the present” ? July 21,

1973

‘THE MAIN DANGER’ ARUN GOSWAMI

Mr

Jana

has

made

helpful

observations

about

class

struggle. But his remarks about the ‘guerilla actions’ conducted by the

CPI(ML)

are

one-sided.

Although

the collective

activities of a class are of greater importance, the individual Vol II—10

146

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IB

activities also constitute a part of the entire class struggle. Workers unnecessarily

move to

and fro to reduce working

time ; land labourers slow down work in the absence of landowners ; debtors play many tricks with usurers. many such examples. these

are

nothing

Undoubtedly, class

There are

All these are done individually. but

class struggle against

Yet

exploitation.

struggle gains proper momentum when

the individual activities

are organised into collective activities

of the class to the proper degree.

It may also be mentioned

that at a point when class struggle takes a qualitative leap instead of gradual quantitative transformation, only a handful of individuals actively

participate at the very initial

stages.

Charu Majumdar never asked for the entire affair of ‘action* to be kept a secret.

He instructed that propaganda should

be launched among the should be familiar

peasants in favour of ‘action’, one

with their opinions ; but he wanted to

keep the actual programme a secret because the enemy was tactically strong.

The aims of actions should be well explained

to the people and they should be organised up to a degree required for the initiation of struggle and for facing immediate consequences.

To

demand organisation up to the

degree before ‘action’ is mechanical,

highest

because only through

protracted guerilla warfare can the people be organised strong enough to win final victory.

It is also childish to demand

that the programme of action should be known to all before¬ hand.

That denies the very conception of ‘guerilla’ war.

Whether the ‘secret assassinations’ are justified or not is not a matter to be worked out without any knowledge of the concrete conditions.

If these are executed to carry forward

the main class struggle of the

peasantry and are matched

with the level of consciousness of the people involved, then they are justified ; otherwise not.

The line of killing of the

jotedars produced some bad effects only because it was taken as the central form, and not as a part of the entire class struggle. There is a lot being said about mass organisations and mass movements.

But how to translate these principles into work

147

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

-

How can a party which is carrying on armed activities against the Government and whose members and cadres are being killed or jailed if exposed, combine with its basic illegal activities ?

open and legal activities

This problem, I think, is yet

to be solved and Pravat Babu sheds no light on it. time of Naxalbari white terror was not so fierce.

At the In those

days it was possible even to maintain an almost legal organi¬ sation like the CCCR which, in essence, was the party. the picture is different.

Now

So while criticising the CPI(ML) ’s

policy regarding mass line, one must state how to combine open, legal and mass activities (in an area which is not liberated, i.e. under white repression) with illegal and vanguard activities. Otherwise, it will lead us straight to economism and legalism.. Armed struggle will be opposed in the name of maintaining open fronts.

Any armed revolt against the present regime

will be termed as the acts of “agents provocateur” to suppress “movements for democratic rights etc.”

There is yet another

possibility.

be

Underground

cadres

may

exposed to the

enemy in the name of performing open activities. request

Pravat

Babu

to say

something

about

May I

the actual

procedure by which the illegal party, CPI(ML), can take part in mass organisations, mass movements, and lead them ? Another thing. movement is

The CPI(ML) never said

possible

before the

formation

that no mass of red areas-

What they said was that through the vast mass movements of the past the Indian people have been educated to a degree from where the only logical conclusion of mass struggle is guerilla war.

So now the task of revolutionaries is to develop

guerilla war and there is no need to repeat the lower forms of struggles.

That new form of class struggle i.e. guerilla

war, will draw a few people at first.

But

through gradual

advance, broad sections of the people will gather around it and only then again.

there is need to conduct

mass

movements

One may or may not agree with this view.

But it is

not honest to distort a party’s views. Mr Jana does not agree with Mr Baburaj that the reason

148

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

for the setback is the mistakes not of the party line, but of the party cadres.

It is doubtful whether a total setback through¬

out the country can result only from the mistakes of the cadres. But it is equally doubtful

whether a party can be made so

rigid that the cadres can translate its central directives into work absolutely without any distortion. usually

maintains

its

contacts

with

The central authority low

levels

through

intermediate chain which, in the case of an underground party in a vast country like India, is very long. are bound to occur as a natural law.

So, distortions

There may be even

political swindlers in intermediate positions who distort the party’s directives willingly and submit false reports to centre.

the

A party requires some time to recover from these

difficulties.

Not to realise this is idealism.

Even in a strong

party like the CPC, Liu Shao Chi and other swindlers did great harm to the party and the people in the name of the party (before they were kicked out.

What, according to Mr Jana,

should be the view of a revolutionary about these ? he hate Liu & Co.

Should

for the misdeeds, or should he blame

Chairman Mao for his ‘overall responsibility’ ?

Whether there

are mistakes committed by the central leadership of the CPI (ML) is another question.

But how cap one rule out the

possibility that there may be evils and errors committed at intermediate and lower levels even if the central line is abso¬ lutely correct ? August 11, 1973

WHAT’S TO BE DONE ? K. G.

The statement by Mr Jana that in Naxalbarithe legal struggle was combined with illegal struggle is not accurate. In any zone once armed struggle started, there was no scope for legal stru¬ ggle against the enemy.

The enemy will never allow such

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

action.

149

)

Besides, to quote Chairman Mao, “it is necessary to

create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter¬ revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry.” Jana criticised “the weakness of the Party’s line

that is to

blame for the present defeat and disarray of the revolutionary forces”

without examining the non-communist process

of

the formation of the CPI(ML) which was the root cause of basic weakness of the Party’s line.

During the process of

formation of the CPI(ML), the ideological and political line was not thrashed out, the strategy and tactical line was not drawn up and communist organisational principles were not followed.

The

result

was

non-functioning

of the

party-

committee system, and the writing in instalments of policy and tactical line

of the Party by Comrade Charu Majumdar, and

this led to “the present defeat and disarray of the revolutio¬ nary forces”.

Comrade Charu Majumdar formed the Party

with groups and individuals who had no clear conception of Mao Tseiung Thought, as most of them did not integrate themselves with the peasants and workers.

In this connection

it should be mentioned that Comrade Ashim

Chatterjee’s

group which was vehemently opposed to the Deshabrati group and later

on to the CPI(ML), joined the CPI(ML) uncon¬

ditionally as soon as Peking supported the formation of the CPI (ML). I do not agree with the contention that “to withdraw from mass organisations and mass movements is to be guilty of left opportunism”.

Neither do I agree with the simplification

that “it actually means abandoning the patient and painsta¬ king political struggle and arousing the masses and winning them over.and ends in a fatal divorce between the under¬ ground Party and the people”.

First, even after withdrawal

from “mass organisations” and so-called “mass movements”, patient and

painstaking ideological and political struggle can

be continued and the

masses can be aroused.

The vital

150

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

question is whether the Communist Revolutionaries are among the massses and with the masses on the basis of “class-line” and mass line.

The present situation demands that Commu¬

nist Revolutionaries must

remain underground

among the

masses and imbue them with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.

They must take the leadership of the

so-called

mass organisations, that is, open and legal trade unions and peasant associations.

But they should organise the masses

and organise resistance struggle with the help of armed gue¬ rilla squads, when necessary, against all sorts of tyranny, repre¬ ssion and exploitation—things which the so-called mass move¬ ments have never done for the last 50 years. At Kanksha (near Durgapur) the Revolutionary Commu¬ nist workers never joined the so-called peasant association and mass movement.

Remaining underground, they propagated

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and then tried to organise resistance struggles against oppression, tyranny and exploitation.

Of course, a revolutionary peasant organisation

has evolved in the process of armed struggle, an organisation fundamentally different from the mass organisation envisaged by Comrade Jana. It is also incorrect to say that “it was wrong on the part of the CPI(ML)

leadership to characterise all other parties as

parties of the ruling class”.

Since these parties serve the

interests of the ruling classes and suppress and resist revolu¬ tionary armed struggle, they certainly represent the classes.

ruling

The argument that these parties are not the parties

of the ruling classes as “there are also contradictions between them and the ruling classes” is not at all tenable.

Will one

refuse to call the Congress (O) a party of the ruling classes just because it has some contradiction with the latter ?

Con¬

tradiction with the ruling classes does not make a party anti¬ ruling class, because this contradiction is not the basic con¬ tradiction, not to speak of the principal contradiction.

The

policy and tactical line pursued by the CPI(M) and the co¬ operation it gave the Government for the past few years also

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

151

‘confirm the contention that there is no basic contradiction between the CPI(M) and the ruling classes.

G. D. Birla’s

comment that “we have plenty of choices” on the election results of 1967 should remove any illusion about these parties. As

for

economic struggle, to imbue the workers and

peasants with revolutionary politics and prepare them seizure of power, Lenin said :

for

‘‘The conception of economic

struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its political •sense” (Collected Works, Vol. 5, P. 413). masses with

political consciousness,

For rousing the

Lenin prescribes that

“class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers” ( P. 422, Ibid). This does not mean that the Communist Revolutionaries will not participate in the economic struggle of workers and peasants. Comrade Jana’s emphasis on mass organisation and

mass

movement and all kinds of cultural media to arouse the people will only retard the progress of building of rural revolutionary base areas. neous.

His very conception of mass movement is erro¬

He calls the Hunan peasant movement as a specta¬

cular mass movement and on the same breath mentions big mass movements of India.

What Chairman Mao said about

the Hunan peasant movement was : “The second period, from last October to Jauary of this year, was one „action (emphasis mine).

of revolutionary

Within four months

(it) brought

about a great revolution in the countryside, a revolution out parallel in history”.

with¬

Can Comrade Jana tell us what

•“revolution without parallel in history” was achieved by the big mass movements in India ? Mao never calls the peasant movement of Hunan a mass movement, he always calls it a “revolution”, “revolutionary .action”.

The “revolutionary action” of Hunan must not be

152

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IIP

confused with the mass movements for economic gains in India. The building of rural revolutionary base areas is the pri¬ mary, principal and central task of the hour. August 18, 1973

CLASS STRUGGLE MONI GUHA

Mr Arun Goswami has introduced some interesting points in his ‘The Main Danger’ (Frontier August 11).

In defence of

the “guerilla actions” of the CPI (ML) as an individual form of class struggle, he says, “workers unnecessarily move to and fro to reduce working time ; land labourers slow down work in absence of landowners ; usurers.

There are many such examples.

individually. Although

debtors play many tricks with

the

Yet

these

are

nothing

CPI(ML) and its

All these are done but

leader

class struggle”. Charu Majumdar

declared khatam as the highest form of class struggle, Mr Goswami, while remaining completely mum over this, says, “ Although the collective activities of a class are of greater importance, the individual activities also constitute a part of the entire class struggle.”

As theft, according to Marx, was

the first form of protest against property, it certainly ‘‘‘cons¬ tituted a part of the class struggle” ! cited

One could have also

the collective activities of the Luddites as a justification

of his “collective activities of a class are of greater importance” than individual activities. Indeed the theory and practice of class struggle can be extended to an absurd extent and debased. signs and symptoms

Such attempts are

of unconscious, primitive, elementary

and crude forms and modes of protest, which Marxist-Leninists do not glorify.

153

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Every year many a landlord or jotedar are killed by many a peasant.

This has been happening since the advent of the

landlord-peasant system and will continue to happen.

The

blind hatred and rage of the peasant has an element, a potent factor of class hatred, but in itself it is not class struggle. Class struggle must represent the needs and requirements of the interests of the class as a whole and the needs of the particular given historical stage of the class struggle.

This also must

be conducted as an act of class for itself and not as an act of class in itself.

So long as the organised agrarian revolu¬

tionary movement on the basis of an over-all

agrarian revolu¬

tionary programme with a concrete line of implementation

led

by a truly working class party fails to capture the imagination of the overwhelming peasantry, the blind, elemental but impo¬ tent rage

of individual peasants will explode.

this is justified

and at times laudable.

Undoubtedly,,

But when half-baked

Marxist-Leninists come forward to organise and initiate such blind, elementary, individual outbursts of peasants and theorise them as the

highest form of class struggle, Marxist pundits

cannot but say that these have really nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism or

with

class

struggle.

The

Marxist-

Leninists being the most consciously organised body represent¬ ing the class interests of the revolutionary classes as a whole organise the class struggle to the needs and requirements of given historical stage

and combat these elementary, crude,

primitive, unconscious and impotent outbursts and “first forms of protest”.

Instead

of glorifying these forms as the highest

form of class struggle, they help the people to fight

back with

such forms and methods that may lead them to the fulfilment of the needs and class struggle.

requirements of the given historical stage of

It is not enough to recognise all forms of class

struggle, firstly because a lower form of class struggle, at a certain time of development, may become the weapon of the reformists

and revisionists ;

secondly, because all forms of

class struggle may not reach their logical conclusion in accor¬ dance with the interests

of

the

proletariat.

Recognition,,

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

154

VOL II

organisation and glorification of those forms of class struggle which do not culminate in the establishment of the joint dictatorship of the revolutionary

people under

proletarian

hegemony—in spite of being “class struggle”—do not promote the needs and requirements of the class struggle of a given historical stage. Of course, this does not mean that the Marxist-Leninists repudiate khatam altogether, or repudiate it on moral consi¬ derations.

Marxist-Leninists judge it from the point of politi¬

cal necessity of the class struggle.

They do not resort to

khatam as a movement, as an episode, but as an auxiliary to mass movements, as an incident.

Lenin said, “as revolutio¬

nary tactics, individual attempts (of assassination) are both impractical and harmful.

It is only a mass movement that

can be considered a real political struggle. Individual terroristic acts can be, and must be, helpful, only when they are directly linked with the mass movement”. Class struggle existed in society before Marxism came into being.

Class struggle is not the invention or discovery of

Marx and Engels.

Class struggle of the

working class

and

revolutionary people are organised and conducted not only by Marxist-Leninists but also by the right revisionists and ‘left’ adventurists and by the bourgeoisie and

landlords.

From

this, it is clear that the Marxist-Leninists can neither support nor glorify all forms of “class struggle”. Let struggle.

us

go

deeper

Mr Goswami’s theory of class

He cannot possibly deny the element of class struggle

in the 1932 Harijan Gandhi.

into

movement

for temple-entry,

led

by

The Harijan landless peasantry joined this movement

almost en masse and rightly demonstrated their class hatred. Why did the Communists criticise it ?

Because the landless

peasants were then organising themselves together with the poor peasantry in order to rise in revolt against the landlords. Already in U. P. a big revolt had broken out.

Gandhi deflec¬

ted the spontaneous and anti-landlord movement of the land¬ less and poor peasantry by resorting to hunger-strike and

155

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

launching the temple-entry

movement.

In spite of having

elements of class struggle, in spite of its collective character, one would not be in a position to support or glorify such a class struggle as it served the interests of

the

exploiting

classes. Another example. procession of 1966 ?

Can one justify and glorify the silent It had a strong element of class struggle

and protest, but stronger was the conspiracy of the “commu¬ nist” misleaders to throw cold water on the rising tide of the revolt of the people. Some people see ‘class struggle’ in the trickery of reducing the working time of a worker and slowing down of work by a day labourer, but fail to see the other side, that is, the sympto¬ ms of parasitism in it.

In fact, in the exploitative society of

‘give and take’, there are some bad habits, the vices of decay, of parasitism, among even a section of workers and toilers, not to speak of non-manual workers.

The habits of shirking

burdens, getting something out of nothing by trick, the habit of reducing working time by subterfuge and trickery are signs of growing parasitism as well.

These habits and practices

should and must be fought by class-conscious workers and by a working class party and not glorified as a form of class struggle.

The revisionist and reformist trade union leaders

indulge this parasitism of the workers and office employees and this base opportunism is now an accepted normal feature of the trade union movement.

This is one of the ideological

bases of revisionism. September 8, 1973

Letter Mr Moni Guha has misinterpreted some of my words •(September 8).

I did not say that khatam should be the

highest form of class struggle and that there was nothing wrong in the “annihilation campaign” of the CPI(ML).

What I said

was that khatam can be a part of the entire class struggle, if

156

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

wisely combined with other forms.

Another thing, Comrade

Charu Majumdar termed khatam as a higher, highest form of class struggle.

VOL II

not as the

Sadly, Mr Guha lashes out at

the distorted theory. In a class-society, different forms of class struggle, starting from the “primitive and unconscious” to the developed and wellorganised forms, exist.

Marxists should find out the mains¬

tream of class struggle and try to have a firm grip on it.

But

that does not mean that they should boycott the other forms totally.

Marxists should combine every possible ‘low’ and

‘primitive’

form

of class

struggle

with

the

main forms.

Revisionism occurs when the movement is confined to low levels

when

a

high

level could be achieved.

That is why

Marxists do not deny the necessity of organising terror, econo¬ mic work, legal work, but oppose terrorism, economism and legalism.

It is not fair to compare the killing of jotedars with

theft or Ludditism.

Communists should organise those forms

of class struggle which arise from the desires and needs of the people.

Nobody claims that theft or Ludditism can solve the

problems of the people as a whole. But liquidating some tyrant exploiters often becomes a necessity of the people. Mr Guha mentions the Harijan affair in such a manner as to hint that at the time of Naxalbari, some genuine Marxists were organising great mass movements but that the damned Charu Majumdar and his followers foiled their attempt by adopting the line of khatam.

While some people were

busy

lecturing or organising reformist movements, Charu Majumdar went ahead and tried to make revolution.

The movement led

by him shook the ruling classes and aroused new hopes in the oppressed people of our country. also committed.

Naturally, mistakes were

Communists do not glorify wrong theories.

But they have to glorify many a movement based on totally or partially incorrect theory for their basic content of revolutionaryclass struggle.

That is why Marx greeted the Paris Commune

and Radio Peking welcomes many spontaneous and revisionistled movements in India.

It is a pity that some Marxist pun-

157

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

dits

cannot

find

the

basic

content

of revolutionary class

struggle in the post-1969 activities of the CPI(ML). Mr Guha teaches us new lessons of Marxism by mentioning that the attempts of the workers to reduce working time reflect parasitism.

He conceals the fact that in the present exploita¬

tive system the toiling people (except for a few lackeys of the ruling cliques) have little chance to become parasites.

To

reduce working time by trickery may be fun to some intellectual parasites, but it is a question of life and death to the toilers who are compelled to exhaust themselves and die through overwork.

Communists have a compulsion to support them

in this struggle.

To be more sincere and industrious under

the existing production relations means to grow more surplus for the profiteers and a call for this is issued not by Marxists but by fascists.

Communists should judge labour, sincerity,

morality etc. not as abstract concepts, but on strict class basis. They should teach the people to be sincere and industrious not to the exploiters, but to people and the revolutionary authori¬ ties.

The crime of revisionists is that while accepting the

people’s right to be ‘dishonest’ and‘destructive’ with exploiters, they do not promote the sense of serving the people.

Thus

they lead people to be dishonest and destructive to each other and this sharpens the contradiction among the people. ARUN GOSWAMI

September 22, 1973

Calcutta

THE MAIN DANGERS AND THE MAIN ERRORS RAFIKUL HASSAN

Any revolutionary criticism of the CPI(ML) has to have to its credit a close study of the tactics of the ruling classes in India—its evolution and present phase—vis-a-vis the exploited workers, peasantry,

the lowest section of the middle class etc.

158

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

in order to have a positive idea of what can be and should be done for mobilising people for revolutionary armed struggle. On the basis of such a positive formulation of revolutionary tactics, one should examine whether mass movements of the trade union type can deliver the goods or whether the line of annihilation as an instrument of class struggle can achieve any revolutionary purpose or whether, broadly, one can explore the reasons for the setback the CPI(ML) suffered. During the colonial period, the Indian ruling classes—the landed interests and the bourgeoisie of a comprador nature— had a common front with British imperialism against the working class and peasantry.

But the Indian ruling classes

sought to cover up this main contradiction by demonstrating—through its political wing, the Indian National Congress—their concern for freedom.

Demand for freedom was hence the

result of two tactics adopted by the Indian ruling classes—one being to pose themselves as liberator of the exploited Indian people and thereby corner those who aspired, at least theoreti¬ cally, to rally the exploited working class and peasantry against the common front consisting of imperialists and their Indian henchmen ; and the other being to snatch some concessions from their imperialist master in the form of greater elbow room for exploiting the Indian people.

The Indian ruling

classes’ demand for freedom was destined to reduce itself to the demand for a greater freedom of exploitation of the Indian people, not to assert its independence from the clutches of British monopoly capital for independent economic develop¬ ment. Gandhi entered Indian villages earlier than the communists did and his entry was backed by the feudal interests and by a peculiar blending between religious obscurantism and peoples’ immediate aspirations for economic relief.

Again

among the industrial workers the communists engaged in trade union movement could hardly initiate any revolutionary pro¬ gramme and as a result, with the help of the British colonial power, the Indian ruling classes could contain the working

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

159

class movement within the periphery of economism and isolate the communists from the exploited people by opening their own trade union front. It is true that the amount of involvement with mass move¬ ment that the Indian ruling classes had allowed themselves, contained little economic programme and whatever programme they had was never operated. The Congress Agrarian Re¬ forms Committee made heroic recommendations, but in practice these were set aside while framing the programme of land reform in various States after getting power in 1947. The Bombay plan of 1944-45 or the recommendations of the National Planning Committee did contain many revolutionary policy implications for independent industrial development in India, but since 1947, the big bourgeoisie have started chang¬ ing their tune and during the Five Year Plans, the collabora¬ tion between Indian comprador capital and British/American monopoly capital became the mainstream of industrial develop¬ ment. Before transfer of power, ruling classes used to talk many progressive things just to win the confidence and loyalty of the people to their fake concern for the immiserised working class and peasantry ; but after the transfer, they took off their masks and every economic effort initiated and sponsored by the State power sought to stabilise the rural feudal interests or the interest of big business-cum-foreign monopoly capital. The land reform measures hit the middle peasantry, swelled the ranks of the poor peasantry and landless labour, enriched the big peasantry-cum-jotedars. The pattern of industrial development enhanced threefold the prosperity of big business and made the small manufacturers more and more dependent on the big business houses who were for all practical purpose the indigenous importers of foreign monopoly capital, its know-how and products. In a sense, this period—the period between the late forties and the late sixties—was a period when the dominant section of the ruling classes was not involved in any mass movement of any significance. As a result, this was again the period when

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

160

VOL II

various sections of the ruling classes who were not properly rewarded by the dominant section as represented in the Indian National Congress resorted to occasional mass movements with a view to securing a higher number

of seats in the

Assemblies or Parliament. This explains how the one National Congress broke into so many opposition parties like Swatantra, PSP, Jana Sangh, Kranti Dal etc.

During the

same period,

the communists also flourished as a parliamentary party—a party respectable to the establishment of the ruling classes. But the situation gradually worsened when the economic crisis started engulfing the entire sphere of economic life of the country.

The ruling classes—their dominant sections—as

represented by the leadership of the Congress—became more and more isolated and a series of storms in the form of mass movements swept the entire length and breadth of the country. It is certainly during this period that the Indian ruling class confronted disunity among

themselves in the severest form.

There was further rift among the ruling classes, the dominant section as presented by the Naba (Indira) Congress started paying attention to mass movement with slogans of nationalisation, ‘Garibi Hatao’

and socialism.

The Indian ruling classes re¬

framed their two tactics—the tactic of having socialist precepts along with adopting the severest repressive measures against revolutionaries in particular and militant sections of the people in general. What lessons do we derive from our experiences of open mass movements in India ? History clearly demonstrates that during the colonial period or its aftermath every mass organisation (including the party organisation of the communists) becomes in essence a pettybourgeois vote catching organisation or an organisation of appeals, petitions, memoranda or protests and every open mass movement has to move within the confines of partial reliefs—economic, political or social. colonial days,

It is true that during

communists held themselves to be a different

species simply because they held Marx in high esteem and

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

161

talked a lot about class violence for overthrowing the British Raj and its Indian clients, while Gandhi and Nehru had been promising miracle through ‘non-violence’.

The communists

were repeatedly outmanoeuvred by the faithful and cunning agents ol the colonial power.

The great Tebhaga movements

in Bengal or elsewhere in India under the stewardship of the communists usually started with a bang, contained many spora¬ dic revolutionary upsurges of the peasantry, but ended after repression with a whimper—whimper for the end of repression, tor the release of prisoners.

Within a few years the retired

veterans of the CPI may celebrate the 50th anniversary of the heroic Tebhaga movements with Tamrapatras in hand notwith¬ standing the fact that in 90 per cent of Indian villages, the real sharecroppers are not entitled today even to the one-third share (two-thirds being the objective of the movement) of their culti¬ vated produce. After the British colonial power handed over its machinery of exploitation to the Indian ruling classes, the mass move¬ ments did not change their form or content. worsening of the economic situation, the

With a steady

mass movements,

however, continued to gain momentum and the momentum reached its climax in the sixties. During this period, the ruling classes in India were off their feet and tremendous repressive measures were required to quell the spontaneous upsurge of the masses for immediate economic relief.

It is true that the

repressive measures adopted by the ruling class did not always pay the expected dividend, their isolation from the masses was indeed accelerated, their political power base developed many crack within itself, their tactic of cheating the exploited masses with the help of trumpeted welfare measures in the form of planning, nationalisation etc. got a big jolt, their tactic of ruthless exploitation had indeed to reckon with open opposi¬ tion from the

masses.

All the social

democratic

parties

including the CPI (M) and the CPI were rewarded during this period of crisis of the ruling classes. On the one hand, the mass movements conducted by the Vol II—11

162

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

opposition parties had a

VOL IF

tendency to assert themselves in

spontaneous violence and they

suggested in no

uncertain

terms that in India the objective situation for a revolutionary armed struggle existed ; on the other hand, such open mass movements were

proved to be a channel

through which

people’s wrath against the ruling classes could be driven into a blind alley.

Indeed, when the open mass movements led to

armed uprisings of the peasants and workers (as in Hajang, Telengana, Kakdwip,

Nadia or Narayangunge, Jamshedpur,

Howrah, Kulti, Calcutta etc.) both the repressive machinery of the State power as well as the social democratic leadership of the movement sought to attack them from without or within. The handy excuse of the social democratic leadership has always been that the time for total uprising is not yet mature ; or that the violence of the masses is the handiwork of anti-socials let loose by the ruling classes with a view to disrupting the peace¬ ful democratic character of the movement ; or the people’s outburst against the misrule of the ruling classes was used to justify electoral

candidature of social

democrats for State

power. We all know how hundreds and thousands of militant peasants or workers had to shed their blood in order to yield a magnificent electoral victory for the communists or other social democrats. The revolutionaries in India cannot escape the conclusion that open mass movement now has become, in fact, the tactics of the ruling classes to deceive people burdened with a growing economic crisis, because without this the ruling classes have no other path of political survival. This is obvious after the Naxalbari movement when for the first time in Indian history, the exploited masses thundered their determination for the seizure of State power.

The ruling

classes, though caught somewhat unawares by this develop¬ ment at the initial stage, replied effectively by changing the tactics they had followed between 1947 and 1967. They revived their two tactics

the tactic of annihilating with meticulous

ruthlessness the Indian revolutionaries, and the other tactic of

163

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

making their political forum—Congress or Naba Congress— the nucleus through which all mass movements should be can¬ alised.

The Congress had to be the platform for the exploited

masses in order to prevent them from the path of armed revolution. The tremendous accentuation of the economic crisis com¬ pelled the ruling classes to experiment with the revisionist model of counter-revolution in the country.

Such compulsion

united the Indian comprador bourgeoisie with Soviet socialimperialism without sacrificing an iota of unity between Indian monopoly capital and U.S. monopoly giants*. In such a situation,

the Indian

revolutionaries cannot

depend on the tactic of open mass movement while the same tactic is used by the ruling classes to maintain illusions about the system, to propagate masses.

lies and exercise deception on the

On the other hand such tactic is likely to expose the

revolutionary nucleus of armed struggle, to confuse the masses when revolutionary actions are to be speeded up from under¬ ground.

Above all, the tactic of the revolutionary forces can¬

not be similar to that used by the ruling classes, because the purports of the tactics are to be opposite in nature.

This is

more true particulary when armed gangsterism is the accepted policy of the ruling classes against mass movements—open or secret—and more slogans of socialism, anti-Americanism, anti¬ capitalism or anti-feudalism are raised from their political platform in order to cover up the machinery of exploitation promoted and encouraged by the ruling classes.

Revisionism

cannot be fought with revisionist weapons, for its death the revolutionaries require revolutionary weapons. Hence the question arises : how to organise revolutionary counter-offensive against

the revisionist

model of counter¬

revolution as practised by the ruling classes in India ? The CPI (ML) under the leadership of Charu Majumdar held that because the pivotal reasons for mass movement are the unlocking of mass initiatives for revolutionary activities and opening of enemy-free areas for consolidation of revolutionary

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

164

VOL II

forces, annihilation of class enemies with the help of the poor¬ est sections of exploited people can break the inertia of the people, accelerate their revolutionary enthusiasm, initiatives and struggle-oriented organisations. People’s armed struggle against the State power being the fundamental postulate of people’s war and the organisation of people’s armed forces being the dialectical necessity of the forces of revolution (confronting the armed forces of the ruling classes) the policy of class annihila¬ tion is supposed to be the crucial instrument of class-struggle, of huge mass mobilisation against the armed terror of the ruling classes and of setting up of enemy-free mobile areas where revolutionaries could consolidate their guerilla preparations for the higher stage of class struggle i.e. armed seizure of power. Asa tactical measure, the line of annihilation explodes the myths around the omnipotence of State power, terrorises those revisionists who as a matter of virtual performance resort to open mass movements in order to prevent people from the path of revolutionary armed struggle and earn something in return from the ruling classes. Because the line of annihilation of class enemies has two ends in view—arousing mass initiative towards a revolutionary end and exploding the almighty image of the State power—not all members belonging to the class enemies but only those picked up by the revolutionary peasant committees in villages and the revolutionary committees in towns should be dealt with by armed guerilla squads of three or four members through planned but secret ambushes.

Such acts are to have no veil of

secrecy, in fact they should be intensely propagated but what is sought to be kept secret is the identification of particular guerilla members who conduct those acts.

This requirement

of secrecy is presumably sought for two reasons : (a) to avoid the identification of the annihilators by black sheep even within the ranks of the poor and exploited people and (b) the realisa¬ tion that to the exploited masses only the facts of annihilation are necessaiy to louse their initiatives, to achieve their mobili¬ sation, to spontaneously decide their friends and foes, but not

165

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the identification of members who perform the acts (particu¬ larly at a stage when the organised guerilla forces are consti¬ tuted by a small number of people and the stage of People’s Liberation Army has not yet been reached). In practice, what results have the CPI(ML) movements achieved ?

One must admit that a tremendous revolutionary

enthusiasm was created at the initial stage of class annihilation. The entire administrative structure proved a flop, the poor and exploited people particularly in the villages had a taste of their hegemony, may be for a brief period.

The movement chal¬

lenged many of the value-axioms of the intellectual establish¬ ment of the ruling classes.

The movement of the CPI(ML)

demonstrated that the communist revolutionaries, though hand¬ ful in number, constituted a force to reckon with and that without preparedness to dedicate their own lives, no amount of knowledge of Marxist classics can prepare a true communist. And above all, without revolutionary practice, no programme for armed struggle can be framed if revolutionaries remain confined within

the cobweb

of revisionist-type open mass,

movements. These are the positive lessons of the movement.

The

failure of the movement can be accounted for by its harmful deviations and lack of foresight. Annihilations became the be-all and end-all of revolutionary activities, later dubbed by Charu Majumdar himself as a ‘new kind of revisionism’, and the entire line of annihilation got a petty-bourgeois twist, particularly in the towns and cities, bybeing reduced to a narrow partisan violence of the revisionist type.

In the absence of a concrete programme for revolution¬

ary class struggle to be raised to a higher level step by step in the industrial and urban middle-class areas and the line of annihilation being implemented in a narrow

partisan manner

(which in fact helped lumpens, professional anti-socials to enter the ranks)—a manner usually practised by all the parties of the Establishment, the revolutionaries lost the sympathy of the lower middle-class, faced a gap between them and the industrial

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

166

VOL II

workers, the poor people of urban areas who otherwise could be their warmest friends.

Even those among the leaders of

the CPI(ML) who did not like such petty bourgeois adventur¬ ism in towns and cities were advocating the absurd line of sending revolutionary youths to the villages and could not suggest any programme for towns and cities. The line of send¬ ing urban youth

to the villages became absurd because it

prescribed no revolutionary activities in the towns.

Exchange

of cadres between towns and villages was required to be accomplished only at a maturer stage of people’s war, when the leadership of the working class over the peasantry was to be harnessed, at least, at the level of revolutionary cadres. The line however was not accepted.

Charu Majumdar opposed

this premature line but stopped short of giving any revolution¬ ary programme

for towns

and

cities.

In this way, the

movement was destined to be heading towards a collapse and the leadership, by supporting all actions of petty-bourgeois adventurism in the name of arousing the spontaneous classhatred of youths had in fact been tailing behind the events. The revolutionaries’ tively more successful.

movements in the villages were rela¬ One has to admit that in Debra-Gopi-

ballavpur huge mass mobilisation took place under the leader¬ ship of the party.

There was prima facie success in unlocking

revolutionary enthusiasm

and initiative among the poor and

landless peasantry and in rallying a sizeable section of even the middle peasantry as supporters.

The experiences of Srikaku-

lam were initially the same, although the experiences in Mushahari and Monghyr were slightly different. indeed the experience in Birbhum.

The same was

That the line of annihila¬

tion could be used as an instrument of class struggle at the very start for mass mobilisation, for accelerating the initiatives of the exploited people was evident in most of the rural areas where the programme was sought to be implemented.

But the

political and economic programmes prior or subsequent to annihilation were not implemented everywhere.

Only in some

areas vesting of land with revolutionary peasant committees

167

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

took place, that too in a half-hearted fashion.

The organiza¬

tion of production brigades and village resistance groups in the rural areas could not be built up because of excessive preoccu¬ pation with annihilation and its after-effects.

Whatever econo¬

mic programme the party had in the villages could not be implemented presumbly because there existed still a lingering fear of economism in Charu Majumdar and the leadership of the CPI(ML). In the rural areas the setback came mainly from the lack of a proper military line that should have

been developed to

protect the poor villagers against the programme of encircle¬ ment and annihilation launched by the State armed forces. Non-implementation of economic, political and organisational programmes of the party expedited the setback. reasons, the party, during that phase,

For obvious

faced a number of

controversies within its leadership and ranks on the appro¬ priate nature of base areas (whether they should be mobile or fixed in mountainous regions),

on the

nature

and

class

composition of the PLA, on the question of adopting military tactics against the organised forces of the State power.

Side

by side, the party had to face sustained attacks by the State armed forces on the cadres. There were many petty-bourgeois errors as a result of decentralised action decisions by party units as the State armed forces unleashed terrible repression on the poor villagers and urban supporters.

All this combined

to precipitate setbacks in both towns and villages. The setback should not be attributed to withdrawal from open mass movements and open mass organisations.

It is

fundamentally due not to the line of annihilation as such, but to its being petty-bourgeois in nature in the absence of a proper military-political line and appropriate economic pro¬ gramme. *The compradorial nature of the bourgeoisie is not at stake under the Soviet model of non-capitalist path of econo¬ mic development.

Though nationalisation and State trading

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

168

VOL II

are the main features of the Soviet model of socialist path, a Third World country is considered “liberated” from the strings of imperialism, if it is ready to fake a synthesis between the political and economic requirements of the Soviet revisionist clique and the activity of private or public monopoly capital. It is reduced to a three-way alliance : the alliance between State capitalism and private monopoly giants in an under-developed country—a result of feeble contradiction between comprador and his foreign masters ; the second alliance is between State capitalism of an under-developed country and the U.S. private* monopoly or the Soviet State monopoly—a result of strong unity between the comprador and his foreign masters ; and the third alliance is struck between all the ruling classes of in¬ digenous or foreign origin against the exploited masses of the* under-developed country in the form of division of spheres of activity among the respective ruling classes.

This three-way

alliance itself suffers from a contradiction—apart from others— between U.S. monopoly capital and the Soviet State capital. This contradiction helps the comprador bourgeoisie in

its

manoeuvres against both, in order to satisfy its narrow class aspirations, and any dent etc.

between the U.S. imperialism

and Soviet social- imperialism geoisie of the Third World.

alarms the comprador bour¬

In fact the contradiction between

the two world monopoly giants, the USA and the USSR gave rise

to the politics of ‘non-alignment’, a platform for

having ‘aid’ from both the giants, its initial architects being Nehru,

Nasser and Tito. But the recent

Nixon-Brezhnev

summit has given a big jolt to the comprador bourgeoisie of the Third World countries and that explains why the important

beneficiary

of the

U.S.-Soviet

most

conflict i.e. the

Indian ruling classes and their able spokesman Indira Gandhi could not conceal their concern at the success of the summit and had to warn so many times that no division of spheres among the giants should take for granted the Third World i.e. the comprador bourgeoisie of the Third World countries, if the scheme of share of the loot from exploitation of the masses &

169

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

those countries is framed without the concurrence of the com¬ prador bourgeoisie

of India or any other

country.

Such

utterances, though they sound patriotic, reveal, in fact, the helplessness of the prostitute monopoly capital of the Third World countries. September 29, 1973

CONTINUITY OF NAXALBARI BHABANI CHAUDHURI

The present situation in India is full of revolutionary possi¬ bilities.

Yet how different it is from the situation a decade

ago. There was the spring thunder over Naxalbari, an upsurge in revolutionary struggles. There was an urge for revolutionaryunity sweeping away all obstacles.

The CPI(ML) was formed.

Big struggles were conducted under its banner.

But that the

process of revolution is tortuous became evident early in the seventies.

Then began a period of severe setback from which

the revolutionaries are yet to recover.

Today the lack of unity

among them is as distressing as the situation is otherwise promising.

Workers and peasants are bursting forth in anger

against increasing oppression and exploitation.

But struggles

under revolutionary leadership are too fragmented to make any appreciable impact on the country as a whole. Eleven years after

Naxalbari

and

nine

years

after the

CPI(ML)’s birth, the question, therefore, persists : What was wrong ?

To this some revolutionary groups and founding

members of the CPI(ML) give the challenging reply : The formation of the

CPI(ML)

itself.

Since

the predominant

revolutionary practice of the post-Naxalbari period is associa¬ ted with the name of the CPI(ML), how one views the forma¬ tion of the CPI(ML) becomes so very important.

If it was

basically wrong, the CPI(ML) can at best be our teacher by negative example.

But if it was basically correct, the summing

170

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

up of the experiences of the past decade

VOL II

becomes a valuable

weapon for defending the positive gains and fearlessly correc¬ ting mistakes, for deepening our knowledge of Indian society, State and classes, for developing correct strategy and tactics. The splitting up of the CPI(ML) into several groups and the continuing setback seem to give some strength to the view that the party’s formation itself was basically wrong.

But is

the view acceptable ? The first argument of the supporters of this view is : The CPI(ML) was formed not on the basis of the line practised in Naxalbari and proved ‘correct’, but on the basis of the line initiated in the adjacent Islampur-Chaterhat area and proved ‘wrong’ in practice.

The ‘correct’ line depended on mass

organizations and mass struggles and created the peasant up¬ surge in Naxalbari.

The ‘wrong’ line relied on secret combat

groups for actions apart from the masses and led to the ‘isola¬ tion’ of Communist revolutionaries in Islampur-Chaterhat. Their argument no doubt draws

attention to deviations

from the mass line within the revolutionary the

past

decade.

They

also

correctly

movement during point

out that the

revisionists and neo-revisionists look at the peasant problem as a ‘merely economic problem’ and the left adventurists deny the agrarian programme itself ; the ‘correct’ line is the linking of the struggle for land and the struggle for seizure of power. But the basic weakness of their reasoning is revealed when one considers their contention that the Naxalbari

peasant struggle

developed by fighting against both ‘right’ and ‘left’ deviations. The Argument, in effect, evades the question : What was the main ideological fight on the peasant question at the stage of Naxalbari ? nism ?

Was it against economism preached by revisio¬

Or, was it against negation of the agrarian programme

preached by left adventurists ?

In the past few years new light

has no doubt been thrown on the history of Naxalbari showing how the Naxalbari peasant upsurge occurred in the process of implementing the programme of seizure of land at the stage of -agrarian revolution.

This is a valuable addition to our know-

171

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

ledge

and

constitutes

a warning against separation of the

struggle for land from the struggle for political power.

But

all this should not make us forget that at the time of Naxalbari the main ideological economism.

fight on the peasant question was against

Without this

ideological fight the struggle for

land in Naxalbari could not have been raised to the level of seizure of power.

Forgetting this aspect of history today may

even lead to a relapse into revisionism on the peasant question. Secondly, supporters of the view formation was wrong argue : piracy’

that the

CPI(ML)’s

It was the result of the ‘cons¬

of a group of political ‘self-seekers’ which from the

beginning acted in their sectarian interests.

Who constituted

the group and how did they succeed in the ‘conspiracy’ ? answer given is : and

practised

The

The group consisted of those who initiated the

‘left’

line in Islampur-Chaterhat, who

utilized the glorious role of the Naxalbari peasant struggle to establish within the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) ‘one and only one individual’ as the creator of Naxalbari, who ‘hurriedly’ formed the CPI(ML) to ‘perpetuate’ the breach in revolutionary unity caused by the

AICCCR’s

‘subjective’

assessment

of the

Naxalbari struggle. This argument confuses the ideological struggle against subjectivism and sectarianism by raising the bogey of a cons¬ piracy without proving it.

A conspiracy within the Commu¬

nist movement can only be enacted through repeated violation of all norms of democratic centralism and the group accused of conspiracy must have degenerated to such an extent that it was beyond correction.

Did the comrades working in Islampur-

Chaterhat hide their politics from other comrades ?

They did

not. Even from the account of those who differed with them it is clear that the

Islampur-Chaterhat comrades had gone

into practice after full discussion other comrades.

of their differences with

Are the bitter critics of Islampur-Chaterhat

comrades unaware of a

process of

correction of mistakes

committed during the CPI(ML) movement, even though some-

172

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

what belated and piecemeal ?

VOL I?

Are they unaware of the later

writings of Charu Majumdar, warning against confining the struggle any more to attacks on class enemies, urging initiation of land reform party’s

in areas of armed peasant struggle under the

leadership,

and emphasizing

the need

for broadest

possible unity against the ruling classes on the basis of stru¬ ggle ?

If the CPI (ML) was the result of a conspiracy, such a

process of correction could not possibly have been initiated. Critics of the lslampur-Chaterhat line should realize that only when they free their mind of the bogey of conspiracy would they be able to carry on effectively the ideological struggle against ‘left’ deviations manifested in a subjective view of the role of the individual apart from collective practice and in sectarianism in relations with groups of Communist revolution¬ aries.

They would then appreciate that if sectarianism was

partly responsible for the failure to unite all groups of Commu¬ nist revolutionaries at the time of the formation of the CPI (ML), some of these groups also took too long a time—even after

Naxalbari revolted against the CPI-M leadership—to-

realize that it is the right as well as the duty of proletarian revolutionaries to rise up ‘in revolt’ against a leadership which has proved itself out and out revisionist.

Were not some of

these groups, though critical of the CPI-M, still trying to dis¬ cover the basis of a revolutionary party in the CPI-M’s pro¬ gramme as late as 1968 ? The third and final argument of those who consider the CPI (ML)’s formation wrong is : The CPI(ML)’s creation and ‘subsequent events’ once again prove that one of the main causes of the ‘deplorable outcome’ of the Indian Communist movement is the class origin of almost the majority of leader¬ ship at all levels.

The leadership, it is stated, comes from the

‘impetuous’ petty bourgeoisie, the class of conservative petty peasant producers with their narrow outlook and the class of decadent landlords with their

‘anarchist’ viewpoint.

The

‘honest section’ within the Communist movement seeking the correct path during revolutionary upsurges, big or small, has-

173

(DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

been led into subjectivism because of their ‘impetuous’ class character and ‘anarchist’

outlook and have been victims of

adventurism in trying to mechanically apply the rich experience of other countries. Petty-bourgeois impetuosity is admittedly one of the main causes of deviation from the correct path, of adventurism based on subjective ideas, and of unnecessary losses.

But we should

not fail to note that petty-bourgeois impetuosity in India is partly at least a reaction against reformism within the Com¬ munist movement.

We should not also fail to note that much

of petty-bourgeois impetuosity here is generated by the dead weight of a stagnant philosophy of a caste-ridden society.

But

the revolutionary process is ruthless at crucial moments and at such moments petty-bourgeois impetuosity turns into its very opposite—frustration.

As one of those petty-bourgeois join¬

ing CPI(ML) movement without necessary tempering in class struggle, this writer has personal experience of how he and some others of petty-bourgeois origin—propagandists of an adventurist line based on queer subjective notions of liberated areas—became so much frustrated during a moment of trial that they lost all sense of distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, enemies and comrades.

But with all this said

and done, petty-bourgeois influence on the Communist move¬ ment can not be wished away. Undoubtedly India has a much larger proletariat than was the case in pre-revolutionary China and fresh blood from the working class should be continuously injected into the Communist movement.

But peasantry is the

main force of the people’s democratic revolution and therefore, petty-bourgeois influence on the movement will continue for a long time to come.

In an underdeveloped country, moreover,

the educated from among the petty-bourgeoisie groaning under different forms of oppression will feel the urge to carry Marx¬ ism to the uneducated masses.

Therefore, merely pointing out

the petty-bourgeois origin of many Communists as a weakness is not enough.

The problem is one of transforming the class

outlook of Communists of petty-bourgeois origin.

A

new

174

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IS

process was started when the post-Naxalbari movement usher¬ ed in a fresh style of work with emphasis on class analysis, investigation and integration with peasants

and

workers.

There were certainly serious deviations from the style.

But

those from the petty-bourgeoisie who have not deviated from this style are still on relatively firm ground. The basic weakness of the theory of the conspiratorial origin of the CPI(ML) is its inability to explain the particular significance of the Naxalbari peasant upsurge.

The peasant

upsurge of Naxalbari certainly did not drop from heaven. Without the long history of class struggle in Naxalbari the up¬ surge would not have been possible.

But to say that mass

organizations and mass struggles created Naxalbari is saying half-truth. How do we explain the leap :

the transformation

of the struggle for seizure of land into the struggle for seizure of power ?

How do we, above all, explain the revolt against

the neo-revisionist leadership, the revolt which made all the difference with Telengana ?

Is it not a fact that the Siliguri

sub-divisional peasant convention had given the prior call for establishing the

authority of the peasant

committees, for

getting prepared to resist with arms the repression that would inevitably be let loose by the United Front Government of West Bengal and other ‘reactionary forces’ on the Naxalbari peasants struggling against feudalism ?

Since the CPI-M was

the largest constituent of the Front Government, did not this call mean a

revolt against

the neo-revisionist leadership ?

Wherefrom did the convention get this consciousness to break the grip of revisionism ?

The answer is given by Charu

Majumdar in his poetic language : “The Indian people were about to be steeped in the mire of revisionism, at that moment came Chairman’s clarion call—revisionism is the main danger today. We listened to his message with attentive ears, then we began searching our hearts.

When in 1962 Chairman Mao

began using his pen against modern revisionism led by Soviet revisionism, we found our path.

When during the Cultural

Revolution, Chairman declared in thunderous voice : it is right

17*

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

to rebel against

reaction,

we

found

courage, we found

tremendous strength to stand on our own legs, we ignored the revisionist Party leadership, we independently of building up the armed Without this

took the path

struggle of the peasant masses.”

consciousness on the part of the

Naxalbari

leadership, Naxalbari could not have been the first conscious application of Mao Tsetung

Thought on the soil of India.

During the great Telengana struggle, Andhra comrades had no doubt realized that the Indian revolution would in the main be

similar to

Chinese

revolution.

But in the

historical

conditions then obtaining, an open revolt against ‘organizatio¬ nal slavishness’ is why

imposed from above was not possible.

Naxalbari is a

Telengana.

continuation and

That

development of

That is why it has been a decisive break with

parliamentarism. Once we realize that the armed peasant struggle of Naxal¬ bari marked decisive break with parliamentarism, we also recognize the continuity between Naxalbari and the creation of CPl(ML).

The continuity is simply the continuity of rejec¬

tion of parliamentarism and adoption of the path of armed peasant struggle. Grasping this today is not essentially a problem of identi¬ fying this continuity with any particular CPI(ML) group. several groups—big and small—are poles apart.

The

At one pole

are groups which combine professed adherence to

armed

peasant struggle with practices like begging for election adjust¬ ments with reactionary parties—which smack of parliamen¬ tarism at its worst.

At the other pole are groups which are

steadfast to armed peasant struggle under the most trying . conditions but refusing to face reality and correct mistakes boldly, and are shrinking.

But this does not detract from the

essential political continuity of Telengana, Naxalbari and the birth

of

CPI(ML).

And without recognizing this

there cannot be any genuine revolutionary unity. April 29, 1978

basis,

DOCUMENTS

CARRY FORWARD THE PEASANT STRUGGLE BY FIGHTING REVISIONISM [This is the last of the “Eight Documents” written by Mr Charu Majumdar between 1965 and 1967.

The

article has been translated by us from the original in Bengali.]

In the post-election period our apprehensions are being proved correct by the actions of the Party (CPI-M) leadership itself.

The Polit Bureau has directed us to “carry on the

struggle to defend the non-Congress ministries against reac¬ tion”.

This suggests that the main task of Marxists is not to

intensify the class struggle, but to plead on behalf of the Cabinet. to

firmly

So a convention of Party members was convened establish

economism within the working class.

Immediately thereafter, an agreement for a truce in industry was signed at the Cabinet’s initiative. not to resort to gheraos.

Workers were asked

What could be a more naked

expression of class collaboration ?

After giving the employers

full right to exploit, the workers are being asked not to wage any struggle. Immediately after the Communist Party joined the Government that was installed as a result of a mighty mass movement, the path of class collaboration was chosen. The Chinese leaders predicted long ago that those who had remained neutral in the international debate would very soon take to the path of opportunism.

Now, the Chinese leaders

are saying that these advocates of a neutral stand are in reality revisionists and they would soon cross over to the reactionary .camp.

In our country we are experiencing how true is this

prediction. class.

We have witnessed the betrayal of the working

To this is to be

added the

announcement

of the

Communist Party leader, Harekrishna Konar. In the beginning he promised that all vested lands would be distributed among Vol 11—12

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

178 the landless peasants. buted was slashed.

VOL IB

Then the quantity of land to be distri¬ In the end he informed that the existing

arrangement would be left undisturbed this year.

Remission

of land revenue was left to the mercy of junior land reforms officers

(JLROs).

The

submitting petitions.

peasants

were shown the path of

They were further told that forcible

seizure of land would not be permitted.

Harekrishna Babu is

not only a member of the Communist Party’s Central Commit¬ tee, he is also the Secretary of the Krishak Sabha in West Bengal.

It was in response to the call of the Krishak Sabha

led by him that the peasants had waged a struggle for recovery of vested

and benami

land

in

1959.

In the interest of

landowners the Government had resorted to repression had given decisions in favour of

and

eviction, yet the peasants

had not given up possession of land in many cases and had stuck on to the land on the strength of village unity. the Krishak Sabha

leader support

becoming a Minister ? was that get it ?

vested land

their

Did

movement after

No. The meaning of what he said, would be

re-distributed.

Who will

On this point the JLROs would seek the Krishak

Sabha’s views.

But would such views be accepted ?

assurance has been given by Harekrishna Babu.

No such But if the

JLROs reject the Krishak Sabha’s views, the peasants would under no circumstances be permitted to occupy land forcibly. Harekrishna Babu lost no time in making himself clear on this point.

What is this ?

Is it not acting like a bill-collector of

the government and jotedars ?

Even Congressmen would

not have dared plead on behalf of the feudal classes so unash¬ amedly.

Therefore,

leaders would

obeying the

mean blindly

instructions of the Party

accepting the

feudal classes’'

exploitation and rule. So the responsibility of the Communists is to expose the anti-class and reactionary role of this leadership to Party members and the people, to hold on to the principle of intensifying class struggle and march ahead.

Suppose, the'

landless and poor peasants accept Harekrishna Babu’s proposal and submit petitions.

What will happen then ?

Some of the

179

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

vested lands are no doubt fallow, but most of it is cultivable land.

There

are peasants

in

possession

of such

lands.

Today, they are enjoying the land by virtue of licenses. they are giving

a share to jotedars.

Or,,

When that land is re¬

distributed, it will inevitably result in frictions among poor and landless peasants.

Taking advantage of this, rich peasants

will establish their leadership over the entire peasant move¬ ment, because as the rich peasant has opportunities for can¬ vassing, so also he is a partner of feudal influence.

Therefore,

Harekrishna Babu is not only trying to forsake the path of struggle today, but he is also taking steps so that the peasant struggle may not become militant in future also. Yet we have adopted the programme of a people’s

demo¬

cratic revolution and the task of that revolution is to carry out land reforms in the interest of the peasants.

Land reform in

the peasant’s interest is possible only when we are able to put an end to the sway of feudal classes over the rural areas.

To

do this, we shall have to seize land from the feudal classes and1 distribute it among the landless and poor peasants.

We

shall

never be able to do this if our movement is confined to the limits of economism.

In every area where there has been a

movement for vested land it is our experience that the peasant who has got possession of vested land and secured the license is no longer active in the peasant movement. reason ?

What is

the

It is because the poor peasant’s class has changed

within a year—he has turned into a middle peasant.

So,

the economic demands of poor and landless peasants are no more his^ demands.

Therefore, economism

causes a breach

in the unity of fighting peasants and makes the landless and poor peasants frustrated.

Advocates

of economism

every movement by the quantity of paddy in maunds land in bighas that the peasant gets.

judge or of

Whether the peasant’s

fighting consciousness has increased or not, is never their yardstick.

So they do not make any effort

sant’s class consciousness. be waged without

to raise the pea¬

Yet we know that no struggle

making

sacrifices.

Chairman

can

Mao has-

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

180

VOL II

taught us that where there is struggle, there is sacrifice.

At

the initial stage of the struggle the strength of reaction must be greater than the

strength of the masses.

struggle will be protracted.

Therefore, the

Since the masses are the progre¬

ssive force, their strength will increase day after day but as the reactionary steadily.

forces are moribund, their strength will decline

So, no revolutionary struggle can be successful unless

the masses are roused to make sacrifices.

From this basic

revolutionary outlook, economism leads on to the blind alley of bourgeois outlook.

This is what the Party leaders are

trying to achieve through their activities.

A review of all our

past peasant struggles will show that the Party leaders have imposed compromises on the peasants from above. Yet it was the

responsibility

of

Party leadership

to

establish

the

fighting leadership of the working class over the peasant move¬ ment.

They did not do this before, they are not doing it

even now. bureaucracy.

Now they are suggesting reliance on laws and the Lenin has said that even if some progressive

legislation is enacted but bureaucracy is given the charge of implementing it, the peasants will get nothing. So, our leaders have gone a long distance off the revolutionary path. Agrarian revolution is the task of this very moment ; this task cannot be left undone, and without doing this, nothing good can be done for the peasants.

But before carrying out

agrarian revolution, destruction of State power is necessary. Striving for agrarian revolution without destroying State power means outright revisionism.

So, destruction of State power is

today the first and principal task of peasant movement.

If

this cannot be done on a country-wide, State-wide basis, will the peasants wait

silently ?

No,

Marxism-Leninism-Mao

Tsetung Thought has taught us that if in any area the peasants can be roused politically, then we must go ahead with the task of destioying State power in that area. as peasants

liberated area.

This is what is known

The struggle for building up this

liberated area is the most urgent task of the peasant movement today, a task of this moment.

What shall we call a liberated

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

area ?

181

We shall call that peasant area liberated from which

we have been able to overthrow the class enemies.

For buil¬

ding up this liberated area we need the armed force of the pea¬ sants.

When we speak of this armed force we have in mind

the arms made by the peasants.

So also we want guns.

Whe¬

ther the peasants have come forward to collect guns or not is the basis on which we shall judge whether they have been politically roused.

Wherefrom shall the peasants get guns ?

The class enemies have guns and they live in the village. Guns have to be taken forcibly from them. their guns to us voluntarily. guns forcibly from them.

They will not hand over

Therefore, we shall have to seize

For this, peasant militants will have

to be taught all tactics, right from setting fire to the houses of class enemies.

Besides, we shall secure guns from the armed

forces of the Government by attacking them all on a sudden. The area in which we are able to organize this gun-collection campaign shall quickly be transformed into a liberated area. So, for carrying out this task it is necessary to propagate extensively among the peasants the politics of building up armed struggle.

It is, moreover, necessary to

and secret militant groups for conducting campaign.

organize small

the gun-collection

Simultaneously with propagating the politics of

armed struggle, members of these groups will try to success¬ fully implement specific programme of gun-collection.

Mere

collection of guns does not alter the character of struggle— the guns collected have to be used.

Only then will the creative

ability of the peasants develop and the struggle will undergo a qualitative change.

This can be done only by poor and land¬

less peasants, the firm ally of the working class.

The middle

peasant is also an ally, but his fighting consciousness is not as intense as that of poor and landless peasants.

So he cannot

be a participant in the struggle right at the beginning—’he needs sometime.

That is why clv>s analysis is an essential task for

the Communist Party.

The great leader of China, Chairman

Mao Tsetung had, therefore, taken up this task first and was able to point out infallibly the path of revolutionary struggle.

182

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

So the first point of our organizational work is establishing the leadership of poor and landless peasants in the peasant move¬ ments.

It is in the process of organizing peasant movement

on the basis of the politics of armed struggle that the leader¬ ship of the poor and

landless peasants will be established.

Because, of the peasant classes, they are the most revolutionary. A separate

organization of agricultural labourers will not

help this task.

Rather, a separate organization of agricul¬

tural labourers encourages

the trend towards trade union

movement based on economism and intensifies conflicts among peasants.

The unity of the allied classes is not strengthened,

because in our agricultural system the exploitation of feudal •classes is foremost.

Another question that comes up in this

very context is that of compromise with small owners. shall be the Communists’ outlook in this regard ?

What

In regard

to compromises we shall have to consider whom do we sup¬ port.

So, we cannot support any other class as against them.

In the peasant movement (in India) the

Communists have

always been compelled to give up the interests of poor and landless peasants in the interest of the petty-bourgeoisie. weakens the fighting

This

determination of the poor and landless

peasants. In regard to middle and rich peasants also we should have different stand.

If we look upon rich peasants as middle

peasants, the poor and landless peasants will be frustrated. Again, if we look upon middle peasants as rich peasants, the fighting enthusiasm of the middle peasants will diminish. So, the

Communists must learn to make class analysis of

peasants in every area in accordance with Chairman Mao’s instructions. Again

and again the unrest among the peasants of India

has burst forth.

They have repeatedly sought guidance from

the Communist Party.

We have not told them

that the

politics of armed struggle and the gun-collection campaign constitute the only path. class, the

This path is the path of the working

path of liberation, the path of establishing a society

free from exploitation.

In every State throughout India the

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

183

peasants are today in a state of unrest, the Communists must show them the path.

That path is the politics of armed

struggle and the gun-collection campaign.

We must firmly

uphold this one and only path of liberation.

The great cultural

revolution of China has declared a war on all kinds of selfish¬ ness, group mentality, revisionism, tailism of the bourgeoisie, eulogy of bourgeois ideology—the blazing impact of that re¬ volution has reached India also.

The call

of that revolution

is—“Be prepared to resolutely

make all kinds of sacrifices,

remove the obstacles along the path one by one, victory shall be ours.”

However terrible the appearance of imperialism,

however ugly the snare laid by revisionism, the days of the reactionary

forces

are

numbered,

the

bright sunrays of

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought shall wipe off all darkness. So the question naturally arises :

Is there no need for

peasants’ mass struggle on partial demands in

this

era ?

Certainly the need is there and will be there in future also. Because India is a vast country and the peasants are also divided into many classes, so political

consciousness cannot

be at the same level in all areas and among all the classes.

So

there will always be the opportunity for and possibility of peasants’ mass movement on the basis of partial demands and the Communists will always have to make full use of that opportunity.

What tactics shall we

movements for objective ?

partial demands

The basic

adopt

in

conducting

and what shall be their

point of our tactics is whether the

broad peasant class has rallied or not, and our basic objective shall be the raising of the class consciousness of the peasants— whether they have advanced along the path of broadbased armed struggle.

Movements based on partial demands shall

intensify class struggle.

The political consciousness of the

broad masses shall be raised.

The broad

peasant masses

shall be roused in making sacrifices, the struggle shall spread to newer areas.

The movements for partial demands may

take any form but the Communists shall always propagate the

184

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IF

necessity of higher forms of struggle among the peasant masses. Under no circumstances shall the Communists try to pass the type of struggle acceptable to the peasants as the best. In reality the Communists shall always carry on propaganda among peasants in favour of revolutionarry politics, i.e., the politics of armed struggle and gun-collection campaign. Des¬ pite this propaganda, the peasants will possibly decide to go on mass deputations and we shall have to conduct that movement. In times of white terror the effectiveness of such mass deputa¬ tion must in no way be underestimated, because these mass deputations will increasingly draw peasants into the struggle. Movements on partial demands are never to be condemned but it is a crime to conduct these movements in the manner of economism. It is a crime, moreover, to preach that move¬ ments on economic demands will automatically take the form of political struggle, because this is worshipping spontaneity. Such movements can show the path to the masses, help deve¬ lop clarity of outlook, inspire in making sacrifices. At every stage of struggle there is only one task. Unless that task is done, the struggle will not reach the higher stage. In this era that particular task is the politics of armed struggle and the gun-collection campaign. Whatever we may do without carrying out this task, the stfuggle will not be raised to the higher stage. The struggle will collapse, the organization will collapse, the organization will not grow. Similarly, there is only one path of India’s revolution, the path shown by Lenin— building up the people’s armed forces and the republic. Lenin had said in 1905 that these two tasks must be carried out wherever possible, even if these were not feasible in regard to the whole of Russia. Chairman Mao has enriched this path shown by Lenin. He has taught the tactics of people’s war and China has attained liberation along this path. Today that path is being followed in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaya, Philipines, Burma, Indonesia, Yemen, Leopoldville, Congo, in different countries of Africa and Latin America. That path has also been adopted in India, the path of building the

185

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

people’s armed forces and the rule of the liberation front which is being followed in Naga, Mizo and Kashmir areas.

So the

working class will have to be called upon and told that it must lead India’s democratic revolution and the working class will have to carry out this task by providing leadership to the struggle of its

most firm ally, the peasantry.

So, it is the

responsibility of the working class to organize the peasant movement and raise it to the stage of armed struggle.

The

vanguard of the working class will have to go to the villages to participate in armed struggle. working class.

This is the main task of the

“Collect arms and build up bases of armed

struggle in rural

areas”—this is called the politics of the

working class, the

politics of seizure of power.

We shall have

to rouse the working class on the basis of this politics.

Orga¬

nize all the workers in trade unions—this slogan does not raise the political consciousness of the working class.

This does

not certainly mean that we shall not organize any more trade unions.

This means that we shall not get the Party’s revolu¬

tionary workers

bogged in trade union activities—it would be

their task to carry on political propaganda among the working class i.e., to propagate the politics of armed struggle and guncollection campaign, and build up Party organization.

Among

the petty-bourgeoisie also our main task is political propa¬ ganda and propagation of the significance of peasant struggle. That is to say, on every front the

responsibility of the party

is to explain the importance of peasant struggle and call for participation in that struggle.

To the extent we carry out this

task, we shall reach the stage of conscious leadership in the democratic

revolution.

Opposition to this basic Marxist-

Leninist path of the Party is coming not only from revisionists. The revisionists are taking

the path of

class-collaboration

straightaway, so it is easy to expose them. But there is, within the Party, another kind of opposition ; they admit that revo¬ lution can be made envisage that the

only through armed struggle.

But they

path of armed struggle can be taken only by

spreading the democratic mass movement throughout India-

186

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

Before that, small or even big clashes can take place, but seizure of power is not possible.

They hope that as regards seizure

of power, India will go through some version of October revolution. In regard to India they mechanically apply their bookish knowledge of how the October revolution became successful.

They forget that there was the February revolution

before the October revolution ; the bourgeois parties had come to power and there was power in the hands of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ soviets also. Because of the existence of this dual power, leadership of the working class became effective and only when in these soviets the petty-bourgeois parties handed over power to the bourgeoisie did it become possible for the working class to accomplish the October revolution. They do not analyse the objective conditions They do not take lessons from the struggles waged in India.

of India.

that are being

The main cause of success of the Russian

revolution was the correct application of the tactics of the united front.

The question of united front tactics is equally

important in India too.

But the tactics of India’s democratic

revolution will be different in form.

In India also, in Naga,

Mizo, Kashmir and other areas, struggles are being waged under petty-bourgeois leadership. In the democratic revolution, therefore, the working class will have to march forward by forming a united front with them.

Struggles will break out

in many other new areas under the leadership or petty-bourgeois parties.

of bourgeois

The working class will also enter

into alliances with them and the main basis of this alliance will be anti-imperialist struggle and the right to self-determination. The working class necessarily admits this right, together with the right to secession. Although those who dream of revolution in India along the path of October revolution are revolutionaries,

they are not

capable of providing a bold leadership because of their doctri¬ naire outlook.

They do not realize the significance of peasant

struggles and

thus unconsciously become propagandists

cconomism within the working class.

of

They are unable to assi-

187

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

milate the experiences of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

A section of them becomes disciples of Che

Guevara and fails to emphasise the task of organizing the peasantry, main force of India’s democratic revolution.

Con¬

sequently, they inevitably become victims of Left deviation. So we shall have to pay special attention to them and help them gradually educate themselves.

Under no circumstances

should we be intolerant in regard to them.

Besides, there is

amongst us a group of revolutionary comrades who accept the Chinese Party and the Thought of the great Mao Tsetung and also accept that as the only path.

But they view the book

‘How to be a good Communist’ as the only road to selfcultivation and are consequently led into a serious deviation. The only Marxist road to self-cultivation taught by Lenin and Chairman Mao is the path of class struggle.

Only through

tempering in the fire of class struggle can a Communist be¬ come pure gold.

Class struggle is the real school of Commu¬

nists and the experience of class struggle has to be verified in the light of

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and

lessons have to be taken.

So the main point of Party educa¬

tion is application of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism in class struggle, arriving at general principles on the basis of that experience and taking back to the people the principles summed up from experience. the people to the people’. education.

This is what is called ‘from

This is the basic point of Party

These revolutionary comrades are unable to realise

this fundamental truth of Party education. commit

idealist

As a result they

deviations in regard to Party

education.

Chairman Mao Tsetung has taught us that there cannot be any education apart from practice. learning’.

In his words, ‘doing is

Self-cultivation is possible only in the process of

changing the existing conditions through revolutionary practice. Revolutionaries of the world unite ! Long live the revolutionary unity of workers and peasants ! Long live Chairman Mao Tsetung !

SPRING THUNDER OVER INDIA

[Editorial in the Peking PEOPLE’S DAILY of July 5, 1967,

reproduced in the

LIBERATION,

No. 1. ]

A peal of spring thunder has crashed over the land of India.

Revolutionary peasants in the Darjeeling area have

risen in rebellion.

Under the leadership of a revolutionary

group of the Indian Communist Party, a

red area of rural

revolutionary armed struggle has been established in India. This is a development of tremendous significance for the Indian people’s revolutionary struggle. In the past few months, the peasant masses in this area, led by the

revolutionary group of the Indian Communist

Party, have thrown off the shackles of modern revisionism and smashed the trammels that bound them.

They have seized

grain, land and weapons from the landlords and the planta¬ tion owners, punished the local tyrants and wicked gentry, and ambushed the reactionary troops and police that went to suppress them, thus demonstrating the enormous might of the peasants’

revolutionary

armed struggle.

All imperialists,

revisionists, corrupt officials, local tyrants and wicked gentry, and reactionary army and police are nothing in the eyes of the revolutionary peasants who are determined to strike them down to the dust. The absolutely correct thing has been done by the revolutionary group of the Indian Communist Party and they have done it well.

The Chinese people joyfully applaud this

revolutionary storm of the Indian peasants in the Darjeeling area as do all Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people of the whole world. It is an inevitability that the Indian peasants will rebel and the Indian people will make revolution because the reactionary rule has left them with no alternative.

India under Congress

rule is only nominally independent; in fact, it is nothing more

189

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

than a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country.

The

Congress

administration represents the interest of the Indian feudal princes, big landlords and bureaucrat-comprador capitalists. Internally, it oppresses the Indian people without any mercy and sucks their blood, while internationally it serves the new boss, U. S. imperialism, and its number one accomplice, the Soviet revisionist ruling clique, in addition to its old suzerain British imperialism, thus selling out the of India in a big way.

national interests

So imperialism, Soviet revisionism,

feudalism and bureaucrat-comprador capitalism weigh like big mountains on the back of the Indian people, especially on the toiling masses of workers and peasants. The Congress administration has intensified its suppression and exploitation of the Indian people and pursued a policy of national betrayal during the past few years.

Famine has

stalked the land year after year. The fields are strewn with the bodies of those who have died of hunger and starvation.

The

Indian people, above all, the Indian peasants, have found life impossible for them.

The

revolutionary peasants

in

the

Darjeeling area have now risen in rebellion, in violent revolu¬ tion.

This is the prelude

to a violent revolution by the

hundreds of millions of people throughout India.

The Indian

people will certainly cast away these big mountains off their backs and win complete emancipation.

This is the general

trend of Indian history which no force on earth can check or hinder. What road is to be followed by the Indian revolution ? This is a fundamental question affecting the success of the Indian revolution and the destiny of the 500 million Indian people.

The Indian revolution must take the road of relying

on the peasants, establishing base areas in the countryside, persisting in protracted armed struggle and using the country¬ side to encircle and finally capture the cities.

This is

Mao

Tsetung’s road, the road that has led the Chinese revolution to victory and the only road to victory for the revolution of all oppressed nations and peoples.

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

190

VOL II

Our great leader, Chairman Mao Tsetung, pointed out as long as 40 years ago :

“In China’s central, southern and

northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back.

They will smash all the trammels that bind them and

rush forward along the road of liberation.

They will sweep

all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves.” Chairman Mao explicitly pointed out long ago that the peasant question occupies an extremely important place in the people’s revolution.

The peasants constitute the main force

in the national democratic revolution against imperialism and its lackeys ; they are the most reliable and numerous allies of the proletariat.

India is a vast

semi-colonial

and

semi-

feudal country with a population of 500 million, the absolute majority of which, the peasantry, once aroused, will become the invincible force of the Indian revolution.

By integrating

itself with the peasants, the Indian proletariat will be able to bring about earth-shaking changes in the vast countryside of India and defeat any powerful enemy in a soul-stirring people’s war. Our great leader, Chairman Mao, teaches us : “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally for China and for all other countries.” The specific feature of Indian revolution, like that of the Chinese revolution is armed revolution fighting against armed counter-revolution.

Armed struggle is the only correct road

for the Indian revolution ; there is no other road whatsoever. Such trash as “Gandhi-ism”, “parliamentary road” and the like are opium used by the Indian ruling classes to paralyse the Indian people.

Only by relying on violent revolution and

taking the road of armed struggle can India be saved and the Indian people achieve complete liberation.

Specifically, this

191

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

is to arouse the peasant masses boldly, build up and expand the revolutionary armed forces, deal blows at the armed sup¬ pression of the imperialists and reactionaries, who are tempo¬ rarily stronger than the revolutionary forces, by using the whole set of flexible strategy and tactics of people’s war personally worked out by Chairman Mao and to persist in protracted armed struggle and seize victory of the revolution step by step. In the light of the characteristics of the Chinese revolution, our great leader, Chairman Mao, has pointed out the impor¬ tance of establishing revolutionary rural base areas. Chairman Mao

teaches us :

In

order to persist in protracted armed

struggle and defeat imperialism and its lackeys, “it is impera¬ tive for the revolutionary ranks to turn the backward villages into advanced, consolidated base areas, into great military, political, economic and cultural bastions of the revolution from which to fight their vicious enemies who are using the cities for attacks on rural districts, and in this way gradually to achieve the complete victory of the revolution through pro¬ tracted fighting.” India is a country with vast territory ; its countryside where the reactionary rule is weak, provides the broad areas in which the revolutionaries can manoeuvre Indian proletarian

freely.

So long as the

revolutionaries adhere to the revolutionary

line of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung’s Thought and rely on their great ally, the peasants, it is entirely possible for them to establish one advanced revolutionary rural base area after another in the broad backward rural areas and build a people’s army of a new type.

Whatever difficulties and twists and

turns the Indian revolutionaries may experience in the course of building such revolutionary base areas, they will eventually develop such areas from isolated points into a vast expanse, from small areas into extensive ones, an expansion in a series of waves.

Thus, a situation in which the cities are encircled from

the countryside will gradually be brought about in the Indian revolution to pave

the way for the final seizure of towns and

cities and winning nation-wide victory.

192

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

The Indian reactionaries are panic-stricken by the develop¬ ment of the rural armed struggle in Darjeeling.

They have

sensed imminent disaster and they wail in alarm that the pea¬ sants’ revolt in Darjeeling will “become a national disaster”. Imperialism and the Indian reactionaries are trying in a thou¬ sand and one ways to suppress this armed struggle of the Darjeeling peasants and nip it in the bud.

The Dange rene¬

gade clique and the revisionist chieftains of the Indian Commu¬ nist Party are vigorously slandering and attacking the revolu¬ tionaries in the Indian Communist Party and the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling for their great exploits.

The so-called

“Non-Congress” government in West Bengal openly sides with the reactionary Indian Government in its bloody suppression of the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling.

This gives added

proof that these renegades and revisionists are running dogs of U. S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism and lackeys of the Indian big landlords and bourgeoisie.

What they call the

“Non-Congress government” is only a tool of these landlords and bourgeoisie. But no matter how well the imperialists, Indian reaction¬ aries and the modern revisionists

may co-operate in their

sabotage and suppression, the torch of armed struggle lighted by the revolutionaries in the Indian Communist Party and the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling will not be put out. single spark can start a prairie fire.”

“A

The spark in Darjee¬

ling will start a prairie fire and will certainly set the vast expanses of India ablaze.

That a great storm of revolutionary

armed struggle will eventually breadth

of India is certain.

sweep across the length and Although

the course

of the

Indian revolutionary struggle will be long and tortuous, the Indian revolution, guided by great Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung’s Thought, will certainly triumph. [Reprinted from Liberation, Miscellany No. 1]

DECLARATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARIES OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST) November 13, 1967 An excellent revolutionary situation prevails country with all its classical symptoms Comrade Lenin.

as

now in our

enunciated

by

But the neo-revisionist leadership of the

CPI(M) has betrayed the people and the Party.

They have

betrayed the cause of the Indian Revolution. Despite all their revolutionary phrase-mongering it has now ^become crystal clear that these renegades have chosen the path ■of parliamentarism and class-collaboration and have shelved for good the revolutionary struggle for political power. great trust reposed in them by revolutionary the

latter

in

their glorious struggle

shamelessly betrayed.

comrades when

against

repudiated the leadership of the Dange

The

clique,

revisionism has

been

The process of betrayal had, of course,

started before the organisational split came.

The split itself

was brought about not on the basis of ideology, but artificially, through the instrumentality of Dange letters in order to pre¬ vent consummation of the inner-party struggle into a genuine split, which these neo-revisionists feared most.

They, however,

succeeded, though temporarily, in their game ; this bunch of conspirators was able to incorporate surreptitiously into the the Party’s Programme formulations alien to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung’s

Thought.

By disowning, in the name of

independent analysis, the neo-colonial nature of our country and its semi-feudal, semi-colonial character

as well as the

strategy and tactics of democratic revolution following there¬ from, they indirectly indicated that what was being built up in India was an independent capitalist

economy and that the

Indian big bourgeoisie had not exhausted its anti-imperialist role, and thus they managed to discard Comrade Mao Tse¬ tung’s great blue-print for world revolution,

specially for the

revolutions in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Vol 11—13

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

194

VOL II

as presented in a concentrated form by Comrade Lin Piao.With regard to the world Communist movement, their attitude of “non-committal” non-partisanship was a camouflage for their

support to Khruschov revisionism.

Thus, nationally

and internationally, the seeds of Titoism were cunningly sown,. which in course of time sprouted forth into the

notorious

Madurai resolutions. It is profitable to recall here that since the inception of our Party, its leadership has been usurped at different phases by revisionists, adventurists and opportunists.

As a result,

glorious class battles fought by revolutionary comrades and people under our Party flag have again betrayed.

and

again

been

The blood of invaluable cadres of the Party has

flown in profusion in many a sanguinary class battle,

and

many a significant victory has been won, of whose fruits,.. however, the fighters themselves were deprived, thanks to the treachery of the persons at the helm of the Party.

Time and

again revolutionary elements inside the Party have conducted intense and principled inner-party struggles ; time and again they have risen in open revolt ; time and again international Communist leadership

has come forward to help and guide

our Party ; and every time the opportunist usurpers of the party machinery—both of the ‘right’ and of the ‘left’—have treated these inner-party battles and ' fraternal offers of help and

advice

from

the

international leadership with utter

cynicism and insolence. Naxalbari came as a Party and country.

turning point in the history of our

The revolutionary comrades of Darjeeling

district of West Bengal rose in open revolt against the Party’s revisionist leadership and politics as well as against the orga¬ nisational slavery

imposed by this leadership.

earlier inner-party

struggles, this revolt was accompanied by

revolutionary practice.

But unlike

It is a typical peasant war modelled on

Comrade Mao Tsetung’s Thought and led by communists and working class, opening

up the real and only way to India’s

democratic revolution.

This great class battle of Darjeeling.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

195

peasants at once received the warm fraternal care of the leader of world communism—the Chinese Communist Party led by Chairman Mao Tsetung and at once it galvanised long-simmer¬ ing inner-party

struggles

into

open

revolutionary revolt.

Simultaneously, Naxalbari unleashed militant and armed peasant battles in different parts of the country, sometimes spontaneous and sometimes led by revolutionaries.

But one of Naxalbari’s

great contributions to the Indian Revolution is that it has stripped naked the leadership of the Party and of other parties mouthing revolutionary slogans and has laid bare before the eyes of the world the utter hollowness of their revolutionism. They even openly joined hands with Indian reactionaries to crush this revolutionary peasant base with utmost military and police brutality. Comrades must have

noted that revolutionary

peasant

struggles are now breaking out or going to break

out in

various parts of the country.

It is an imperative revolutionary

duty on our part as the vanguard of the working class to develop and lead these struggles as far as possible.

With

that

end in view all revolutionary elements inside and outside the Party working rather in isolation today in different parts of the country and on different fronts of mass struggle must co¬ ordinate their activities and unite their forces to build up a revolutionary party guided by Marxism-Leninism, the Thought of Mao Tsetung.

After the final and decisive betrayal at

Madurai the situation brooks no delay.

Hence, this urgent

need for co-ordination. So we, the comrades of different states,

who have been

thinking and lighting on the above line, have decided after meeting in Calcutta to form an All-India Co-ordination Com¬ mittee.

On behalf of this Committee, we declare that its

main tasks will be : (1)

To develop and co-ordinate militant and revolution¬

ary struggles at all levels, specially, peasant struggles of the Naxalbari type under the leadership of the working class ; (2)

To develop militant, revolutionary struggles of the

196

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

working class and other toiling people to combat economism and to orient these struggles towards agrarian revolution ; (3)

To

wage

an

uncompromising ideological struggle

against revisionism and neo-revisionism and to popularise the Thought

of Comrade Mao Tsetung, which is Marxism-Leni¬

nism of the present era, and to unite on this basis all revolu¬ tionary elements within and outside the Party ; (4)

To undertake preparations of a revolutionary

pro¬

gramme and tactical line based on concrete analysis of the Indian

situation in the

light of Comrade Mao

Tsetung’s

Thought. Naxalbari has shown us the way to the Indian people’s democratic revolution as much as it has unmasked the true face of the neo-revisionists at present controlling the Party. Now it is time to act and act we must, here and now. time we start building a really revolutionary party. responsibility rests upon us

It is

A great

and we must shoulder it as true

revolutionaries and try to prove ourselves worthy disciples of 'Comrade Mao Tsetung. We call upon the revolutionary comrades still within the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to repudiate openly the nec-revisionist leading clique and its politics and openly to join hands with us who are striving

to build a genuine

Communist Party in our country. [Reprinted from Liberation, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 1967]

SECOND DECLARATION May 14, 1968 I Translated from the Bengali version of the Declaration ]

The All India Co-ordination Committee of Revolutionaries of the Communist Party of India ( Marxist), in its first session held on the eve of the first anniversary of the Naxalbari peasants’ struggle, reviewed the events subsequent to its first

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

197

session held six months back and decided to issue a new declaration in consideration of the changed situation.

It was

also decided that henceforward the Committee would

be

called the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries.

The declaration is as follows :

Exactly a year ago the nor’wester with all its fury burst over India and proclaimed throughout the world that a new era had begun in India’s history.

Inspired by

Marxism-

Leninism and Chairman Mao’s Thought and led by the com¬ munist revolutionaries, the heroic peasants of Naxalbari rose in revolt with arms in their hands to smash the chains of slavery.

Once again they showed that the parliamentary path

which all sorts of revisionists, overt or covert, had been treading,, had become altogether outmoded.

Since that day the message

of Naxalbari—the message of armed peasant struggle under the leadership of the working class—has reached villages in remote areas of India and under its inspiration many a peasant struggle has begun in different parts of the country.

While,

on the one hand, this event has caused panic in the minds of U. S. imperialists, Soviet revisionists, the Indian big landlord class,

comprador-bureaucrat

bourgeois

class

and

their

stooges, the renegade Dange clique and neo-revisionists, on the other hand, the toiling people of India and all the revolu¬ tionary elements irrespective of their party affiliations have greeted this event with hope and exuberance.

To them Naxal¬

bari is a path—the path which is brightly illuminated with Chairman Mao’s Thought—the path which is the path of liberation of all colonial and semi-colonial people—the path along which the Chinese Revolution is victorious. A little over twenty years ago India was a colony of Britain today India has been turned into a neo-colony of some impe¬ rialist powers, the principal of them being the United States and the Soviet Union.

The U. S. imperialists, the most

aggressive enemies of mankind, are also the worst enemies of the Indian people. now complete.

Their neo-colonial grip over India is

The traitorous Soviet ruling clique who have

198

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

re-established bourgeois dictatorship in the first Socialist State of the world are to-day actively collaborating with the U. S. imperialists and they have turned India into a neo-colony of both the United States and the Soviet Union.

India is a

perfect example of the entente into which the U. S. imperia¬ lists and Soviet neo-colonialists have entered to jointly esta¬ blish hegemony over the world. The increasingly growing economic and political crisis is the

result

of

extreme

the

ruling

classes

and acute contradictions between

and the

people.

In the

present

era

capitalist-imperialist system is heading towards final collapse. In the semi-colonial and semi-feudal India, the contradiction between imperialist and neo-colonial powers and the people, the contradiction between feudal classes and the and

the

contradiction

capital and the acute form.

working

between class

peasantry

comprador-bureaucratic

have

assumed

the

most

Today, U. S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism,

the big landlord class and the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeo¬ isie of India are the principal enemies of the Indian people— these are like four

mountains weighing heavily on the backs

of the Indian people. The People’s Democratic Revolution can succeed only by overthrowing enemies.

the

direct and

Under the

indirect rule

of these four

leadership of the working class, the

peasantry—the principal force in the revolution—will have to develop revolutionary base areas in the countryside, carry on a protracted armed struggle, encircle the cities from the villages and in the end occupy them and win countrywide final victory.

On the basis of the alliance of the working

class with the peasantry will be built the united front of the working class, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

The success of the Indian Revolution

will depend on how much the revolutionaries and the people have been enthused by Chairman Mao’a Thought which is the highest development

of Marxism-Leninism of our time.

The foremost task of all the communist revolutionaries is to

199

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

propagate and spread the Thought of Mao Tsetung. enemies of the Indian people

can be

The

overthrown not by

conspiratorial methods but only by pursuing a mass line. It has been our experience that revisionists of all varieties— the Dangeite traitors or the neo-revisionists—are lackeys of U.

S.

imperialism,

Soviet

neo-revisionism

and domestic

reactionaries and are undoubtedly the enemies of the Indian people. At Burdwan, the neo-revisionist leaders put a final seal of approval on the anti-Marxist revisionist ideological political line ; but faced with opposition

of revolutionaries and the

people they became more cunning before.

The

opportunists

and wicked than

alone—and

not

the

ever

Marxist-

Leninists—can remain inside the Party—a Party which rejects Marxism-Leninism, Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Thought and adopts the parliamentary path, discarding the path of revo¬ lutionary violence.

It has become all the more clear after

the Burdwan Plenum that like the Dangeite traitors, the neo¬ revisionists too have joined the counter-revolutionary camp, and with

Marxism-Leninism on their lips they are actively

striving to disrupt from within the agrarian revolution that is being

launched.

Those

who,

instead

of severing all

connections with them, still think that there is yet some scope left for

inner-party struggles, are

creating

illusions anew

amongst the anti-revisionist fighters and are creating obstacles to their unity. Today India has a position of vital importance in the counter-revolutionary world strategy of U. S. imperialists and Soviet neo-colonialists. They have reduced India to a powerful bastion of reaction in order to conduct war against the revo¬ lutionary forces of India, to defeat the great and glorious war of liberation of the Vietnamese people, to smash the wars of liberation of other nations and peoples of South and SouthEast

Asia

and

to

attack

the

socialist

China ;

and

the

reactionary ruling class of India has been eagerly, enthusias¬ tically and actively co-operating in these schemes of theirs.

200

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL I?

To achieve these designs, the Soviet betrayers, hand in gloveswith the U. S. imperialists, have increased their supply of military hardwares to the Indian reactionaries. jet bombers and

submarines are

among

Supersonic

those hardwares.

They have set up MIG-factory and missile bases on the soil of India and have been trying to secure marine bases for their warships in the Andamans and Nicobar islands. is divided into two camps.

World today

The U. S. imperialists and their

chief accomplice, the Soviet neo-colonialists, are the leaders of one camp ; socialist China and Chairman Mao are the leadersof the other camp. The present era is the era of Chairman Mao Tsetung.

This is the era when imperialism is on the verge

of final collapse and socialism is advancing victory

worldwide.

Assured

towards

final'

is the victory of the Indian

people who are a contingent of the great anti-imperialist army of the world people against imperialism, its accomplices and* agents. At this historic moment we once more appeal to

the-

revolutionaries in all parts of India, to all those who have accepted Chairman Mao’s Thought to consolidate their forcesand to co-ordinate their struggles so that the victory of the Indian Revolution is hastened.

Come, let us rally under the-

red banner of Chairman Mao’s Thought, apply his Thought in the concrete conditions of India and organise Naxalbari-type struggles and thus build up a genuine Indian

Communist

Party ; for, without a revolutionary party revolution cannot achieve victory. We, on this occasion, appeal to all those revolutionaries who firmly believe in Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Thought and have

revolted

against the

revisionist

and

neo-revisionist

leadership but are still maintaining separate group-identity, to disband their groups and join the All India> Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. They should realise that today existence of separate groups is harmful to the cause of the Indian Revolution. The day of final destruction of imperialism and its chief

201

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

ally, the revisionists, is drawing

near.

The victory of the

Indian Revolution will take us closer to that

great

day.

Chairman Mao in his most recent statement has predicted : It can be said with certainty that the day of complete destruction of colonialism, exploitation, and

the

imperialism and all systems of

complete liberation of all exploited

nations and peoples of the world is not far off. [Source :

Three Documents of the AICCCR (in Bengali)

published by Deshabrati Prakashani, Calcutta.]

RESOLUTION ON ELECTIONS (A statement issued by the AICCCR.) May 14, 1968 [Translated from the Bengali version of the Resolution] ‘‘Following the completion of the Chinese Revolution there is a tide of national liberation movement in various countries, and Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Thought—which is MarxismLeninism in the era of rapid collapse of imperialism and rapid progress of socialism—has made its appearance. bourgeois parliamentary

As a result,

institutions having already become

historically obsolete, are now

obstacles to the progress of

revolution in general, and, in particular, to the progress of revolution in

semi-feudal

and

semi-colonial

countries

like

India ; for, a country like India is not bourgeois but feudal. From their experience of the past twenty years people have realised this bitter truth that as an alternative to the path of armed struggle as parliamentary hastens

the

path

developed keeps

by Chairman Mao in China,

intact

process of destruction.

the chain of slavery and Particularly from their

experience of the last ten months during which the revolu¬ tionary struggle of Naxalbari a more important lesson.

was

born, they have derived

They have seen with their own eyes

that the communist and socialist hypocrites are partners of this conspiracy of the ruling

class.

in

reality

They have

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

202

VOL II

seen with their own eyes how the betrayer Dange clique and the neo-revisionists have preached class collaboration while mouthing revolutionary jargons, how they have tried to give a fresh lease of life to the parliamentary path and have tried to create illusions anew in the minds of the people regarding that path.

At the behest of their masters they have sought to

destroy the revolutionary peasant struggle of Naxalbari—not only the Naxalbari struggle but also the struggles of all workers, peasants and other toiling masses.

In the background of the

past twenty years of the satanic Congress

rule, people have

learnt from their past ten months’ experience that the betrayer Dange clique, the neo-revisionists and other left parties are, in fact, part of the reactionary ruling classes of India—all of them are their faithful agents and have been safeguarding their interests.

Because they have donned the garb of ‘leftists’, they

have been performing all the more effectively this task of safeguarding their interests.

But our people have begun to

learn from their own experience.

Their illusion regarding

the parliamentary path—their illusion regarding

elections and

ministries is being quickly

revolutionary

shattered.

Their

consciousness is continuously on the rise. “After the great Chinese Revolution, we are living in a revolutionary era of rapid collapse of imperialism ; we are now in the midst of a great revolutionary upsurge.

The traitors

have betrayed the great struggle of Telengana.

But today

Naxalbari has made its appearance on the horizon.

Naxalbari

came as a turning point in the history of India’s revolution. Naxalbari has dug the grave of parliamentarism in India. People of India had so long been submerged in the mire of parliamentarism.

Now they have seen the

light.

Now they

have realised that the path of Naxalbari is the only path of their liberation. The reactionary ruling classes and their agents —the betrayer Dange clique and neo-revisionists, standably become panicky over Naxalbari. of Naxalbari

So, lest the spark

turn into a prairie fire they

peddling elections.

have under¬

are desperately

203

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

“So, comrades, our call is : ‘Down with Elections’.

We

call upon all the revolutionaries and revolutionary masses to raise this slogan, ‘Boycott this Election’.

By raising this slogan

foil the mischievous counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the reactionary ruling classes and their agents, the betrayer Dange clique and neo-revisionists.

But at the same time we must not

forget that this mere negative slogan of ‘boycott’ will not take us very far.

Simultaneously we must have concrete tasks.

Side by side with the ‘boycott’ campaign, people have to be organised and rallied under the banner of Chairman Mao’s Thought, along the path of revolutionary class struggles, and efforts must be made to build up Naxalbari type of movements —such movements as will help us march ahead along the path of the People’s Democratic Revolution.” [Source :

‘Three Documents of the AICCCR’ (in Bengali),

published by Deshabrati Prakashani, Calcutta.]

REPORT ON THE PEASANT MOVEMENT IN THE TERAI REGION September, 1968 KANU SANYAL

After about 18 months, we the communist revolutionaries -of the Siliguri subdivision met at a convention on 15 September 1968 under quite unfavourable conditions. Why am I speaking of unfavourable conditions ?

This is

because during these 18 months attempts have been made to crush the revolutionary peasant movement of the Siliguri sub¬ division and to annihilate the communist revolutionaries there through ‘encirclement and

suppression’

campaigns.

Who

started the campaigns of ‘encirclement and suppression’ ? 22 May 1967, the leaders of the

14-party

United

On

Front

Government led by Ajoy-Jyoti-Harekrishna-Biswanath threw hundreds of peasants and workers

into jail

and

inflicted

204

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IJ

physical tortures on them, had their homes looted by the police and shot, bayoneted and killed 15 peasants, including men, women and children, with a view to crushing the revo¬ lutionary peasant movement. The leaders of the 14-party United Front were unable to prevent their fall, even though they had submitted slavishly to Indira Gandhi, the political boss of the comprador-bureau¬ crat bourgeoisie and the feudal landlords and jotedars.

This

is because the Congress party, the political organisation of the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlords, toppled the 14-party U. F. Government after having made that govern¬ ment do what it (the Congress party) needed.

It dismissed

the U. F. Government in order that it might use the U. F. again whenever necessary to serve its purpose.

The ‘encircle¬

ment and suppression’ campaign that the reactionary U. F. leaders had started on 25 May 1967 against the revolutionary struggle is being

followed up by the regime of Dharma Vira,

the governor, as clearly shown by the murder of Comrade Babulal Biswakarmakar, who was shot dead on September 7 this year (1968). We met at a convention under unfavourable conditions like these with a view to assessing the experience of the revolutio¬ nary peasant struggle of the last 18 months and carrying this struggle forward firmly along the path illumined by the Thought of our beloved leader and great teacher, Chairman Mao. Naturally, we shall place our views before the comrades on the basis of the lessons that we have drawn from the heroic struggle of the Terai peasants. We have not yet been able to learn well the Thought of Chairman Mao.

So there will be shortcomings in our views.

We shall learn anew from the discussions of the comrades. The importance of the peasant question The greatest Marxist-Leninist of our present era, Chairman Mao, has taught us :

“The present upsurge of the peasant

movement is a colossal event.

In a very short time, in China’s

205

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

•central, southern, and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back.” Chairman Mao further teaches : “Every revolutionary party, •every revolutionary comrade, will be put to the test, to accepted or rejected as they decided. natives.

There are three alter¬

To march at their head and lead them ?

behind them, gesticulating and criticising ? their way and oppose them ?

be

To trail

Or to stand in

Every Chinese is free to choose,

but events will force you to make the choice quickly.” The truth of these words of Chairman Mao, of every single word of it, has been fully borne out once more in the struggle carried on in our area.

Why has the peasant movement of

terai region proved to be an event having more far-reaching •consequences than even an earthquake ? Ours is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, 80 percent of whose population live in the villages.

The contradiction

between the people of our country and feudalism is the princi¬ pal contradiction.

The

comprador-bureaucrat

bourgeoisie,

the landlords and the jotedars have been carrying on their rule and exploitation

through

their political

organisation, the

Congress party, by protecting fully and developing imperialist interests and by covering up the basis of feudalism with legal coatings.

So the peasants are the basis and the main force of

the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle. Unless peasants are liberated it is impossible to achieve the liberation of all other oppressed classes. The terai peasants are a part of the peasantry of our country.

Seventy percent of the terai peasants are poor

and landless, 20 percent are middle peasants and 10 percent are rich peasants.

These heroic peasants dealt merciless blows

to the obsolete and rotten feudal elements—the jotedars, land¬ lords and usurers.

The

State

apparatus of the comprador-

bureaucrat bourgeoisie, landlords and jotedars is preserving the feudal system by force and carrying on an armed rule. Inspired by Chairman Mao’s teaching, “Political power grows

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

206 out

VOL II

of the barrel of a gun,” the heroic peasants opposed this

armed rule with armed revolt. The peasants of terai not only dealt a fierce blow at feuda¬ lism, they also expressed their intense hatred for the imperialist exploitation of India, specially the exploitation by U. S. imper¬ ialism, swept into the dust the political, economic and social authority, dignity and prestige built up in the villages by the landlords and jotedars, who represent feudalism, and establi¬ shed the rule of the peasant through their armed revolt. struggle has

shown the

committee That

is

why

in

the

the

villages

Naxalbari

path for the liberation of India’s

oppressed classes. We have seen how the criterion for judging political events changed as soon as the struggle of the heroic peasants started and thus proved how true are the teaching of Chairman Mao. The struggle made it clear as daylight who, in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country like ours, is a revolutionary and who is a counter-revolutionary, who is progressive and who is reactionary, who is a Marxist and who is a revisionist, and which political party wants to advance the cause of democratic revolution, that is, the agrarian revolution, and which party wants to cover up the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system in order to preserve it. Starting from foreign radio broadcasts and newspapers which

upheld

the

imperialists to the villages—everyone struggle in the terai.

interests

of the

bourgeoisie

and

the

man-in-the-street in the cities and the chose sides on the issue of the peasant Not even one of the political

parties,

which never tire of talking about workers, peasants and Mar¬ xism, could maintain its previous position. The struggle of the terai peasants tore open their masks and forced them to take sides.

The struggle of the heroic peasants showed that all

the leaders of the 14 ‘left’ parties, including the so-called Marxist party, who had managed to secure ministerial guddies for themselves, were serving the

State of the comprador-

bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlords, like the Congress party.

207

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

The struggle made it clear that, like the Congress party, the leaders of the 14 ‘left’ parties, including the Dangeite clique and Sundarayya & Co., revolution,

are enemies of India’s democratic

that is, agrarian revolution.

The struggle of the

terai peasants proved that the agrarian revolution can be led to success only by waging a relentless and uncompromising struggle against them. The struggle of the terai peasants acted as a midwife in the revolutionary situation prevailing in India.

That is why

a single spark of the Naxalbari struggle is kindling widespread forest-fire everywhere.

In a word, the struggle of the heroic

peasants has brought to the forefront quite forcefully the role of the peasants in India’s democratic revolution overcoming the fierce and active opposition put up by all the reactionaries and revisionists. Establish the Peasant Committees and get organised The Siliguri subdivision peasant convention gave out the call to—(1) establish the authority of the peasant committees in all matters of the village, (2) get organised and be armed in order to

crush the resistance of jotedar’s monopoly of

ownership of the land and redistribute the land anew through the peasant committees. The convention further declared that the peasants’ struggle against feudalism would have to face the repression of all reactionaries, be it Indira Gandhi’s government in New Delhi or the U. F. government in West Bengal.

So all their repre¬

ssion must be resisted by force of arms and and by carrying on a protracted struggle. The call of the sub-divisional peasant convention instantly created a stir among the revolutionary peasant masses. How did the revolutionary peasants of terai translate this call into action ?

To put this call of the conference into effect

the revolutionary peasants first of all laid stress upon the task of creating the armed groups of peasants in the villages.

In

every village we heard the words “political power grows out

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

.208 of the barrel of a gun.”

VOL II

This is because every single struggle,

however small, whether for stopping usury or another issue has been invariably met with lathis and guns.

That is why

this call worked like magic in organising the peasants. Almost all the villages got organised during the period from the end of March to the end of April

1967.

Whereas,

previously, the membership strength of the Kisan Sabha could not be increased beyond 5,000, the membership now jumped nearly to 40,000.

About fifteen to twenty thousand peasants

began to do whole-time work and built up peasant committees in villages. The young men of the villages who had never been seen in the front ranks of the Kisan Sabha now occupied the place of veteran peasant cadres.

With the speed of a storm

the revolutionary peasants, in the course of about one and a half months, formed peasant committees

through hundreds

of group meetings and turned these committees into armed village defence groups.

In a word, they organised about 90

percent of the village population. completely changed all our Chairman

Mao

creative power.

teaches

This action of the peasants

old ideas

us : “The

about

masses

organisation.

have boundless

They can organise themselves

and concen¬

trate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy.” We came to realize more profoundly the significance

of

this teaching of our great teacher Chairman Mao from this action of the terai peasants. The great Lenin said : masses.” during the

What it

“Revolution is a festival of the

means in reality

was witnessed by

struggle of terai peasants.

us

While the so-called

Marxist pundits, Indira Gandhi and all and

sundry were

rending the skies with loud talks of national integration, we found how the revolutionary activities of the peasants united all the peasants irrespective language and caste.

of their

nationality,

religion,

The revolutionary peasants, through their actions, made their decrees the law in the villages :

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

209

1. A blow was dealt at the political, economic and social structure in the villages based on monopoly land ownership which dragged the peasants more and more into the depths of pauperisation. ‘No, not the deeds and documents—what is required is the order of the peasant commitee’, declared the peasants. They marked out all the land in the terai with their ploughshares and made it their own. They declared that all land which was not owned and tilled by the peasants them¬ selves was to be redistributed by the peasant committees. By carrying this out in practice, they struck a blow at the main political and economic basis of the jotedars. The old feudal structure that had existed for centuries was thus smashed through this action of the peasants. 2. All the legal deeds and documents relating to the land had been used to cheat them. They held meetings and burned all the receipts, acknowledgments, plans, deeds and docu¬ ments. 3. The jotedars and moneylenders, taking advantage of the poverty of the rural folk, got them committed to unequal agreements relating to the mortgage of land and bullocks. The peasants declared all such agreements as well as the huge burden of interest imposed on them null and void. 4. The hoarded rice which is used as capital for carrying on usurious and feudal exploitation was confiscated by the peasants and distributed among themselves. Apart from this hoarded rice, other things like oil, atta (coarse flour), bullocks, cows, a huge number of domesticated animals owned by jotedars, agricultural implements, even articles meant for their personal use were confiscated and*distributed. 5. All jotedars in the villages who were known for a long time as oppressors and those who tried to oppose the peasant struggle were all subjected to, open trial and sentenced to death. 6. The wicked ruffian elements andTlunkeys who were used to preserve the political, economic and social authority of the jotedars in the villages and those who co-operated with the Vo 1 11—14

210

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

police were all brought to open trial.

In some cases, death

sentence

fellows

was given ; in

others,

the

were paraded

through the village streets with shoes strung around their necks and with fools’ caps on their heads so that they would not dare commit crimes in future. 7.

Realizing that their struggle against the jotedars, the

landlords and the moneylenders would be subjected to armed repression by the State apparatus, they armed themselves with their traditional weapons like bows and arrows and spears as well as with guns forcibly taken away from the jotedars and organised their own armed groups. 8.

Lest the general administration of the villages should

suffer, they arranged

for night

watch and shouldered the

responsibility of running the schools in a smooth way.

The

peasant committees announced that severe punishments would be awarded in cases of theft and dacoity and took measures to inflict such punishments in some cases. 9. tionary

In every area they created regional and central revolu¬ committees

and established

the

peasants’ political

power. 10.

They declared the existing bourgeois law and law

courts null and void in the villages.

The decisions of the

regional and central revolutionary committees were declared to be the law. In addition to these ten great tasks the peasants also did many other things which wiped out of the villages the old feudal system that had existed for centuries.

How intense was

the class hatred of the peasants can be seen from the fact that during a raid on the houses of two jotedars, which lasted for two days, they not only ate up the cooked food of the jotedars but also helped themselves to the meals prepared with all other foodstuff left there.

In this struggle we witnessed the

festival of the revolutionary peasants overthrowing feudalism. Whenever the peasants became conscious of any short¬ comings during these revolutionary actions, they at once came to the peasant committee for their rectification.

This means,.

21 i

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the peasant committees were not something imposed on them. On the contrary, these committees were wholly their own. That is why the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai was able to hit the jotedars and the vested interests. The leadership of this struggle was, naturally, in the hands of the landless peasants, who were the most militant section of the peasantry.

The reason why these revolutionary actions

could become so far-reaching and so vast in their sweep is that the leadership of the struggle was in the hands of the poor landless peasants, who constitute 70 percent of the peasantry. After the conference, it was the poor landless peasants who realised before all others that the resolutions of the conference were beneficial to their own interests more than to anyone else. It is only because of this that the work of organising the move¬ ment assumed such a broad and militant form.

From the

experience of their own life the poor peasants realised that any compromise with feudalism would more miserable than before.

make their future even

That is

why, in their fight

against the jotedars, the moneylenders, the ruffians and the police

it is

the poor peasants

who

have not shrunk from

making sacrifices ever since 24 and 25 May, 1967.

The truth

of this is being proved even today through struggles. Just after the conference, the middle peasants, who cons¬ titute 20 percent of the peasantry, looked with suspicion at the call given by the conference. the first phase of the struggle.

So, they were not active in

It was only when they came to

realise that their interests would be served by the struggle and that the main target and enemy of the struggle was the jotedars, landlords and moneylenders that they came forward.

With

the joining of the middle peasants the sweep of the struggle increased manifold and it grew even more intense. The rich peasants, who constitute only 10 percent of the village population, at no time thought the declaration of the conference interests. carry on

and this struggle

to be beneficial

t o their own

Rather, they, particularly those rich peasants who feudal exploitation in considerable portions of their

212

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

land, apprehended that it meant danger for them.

VOL II

So, after

the conference they took the role of critics and opposed the struggle in the first phase and sometimes even acted as spies for the jotedars.

But as soon as the middle peasants joined

the poor peasants,

their

After the jotedars and

movements

underwent

a change.

the wicked people had been punished

and they

had fled to the towns and business centres, the rich

peasants

gave up the path of

opposition and criticism and

began to demand justice from the peasant committees.

And

the peasant committees considered every case on its merit and did justice to them.

As a result, the rich peasants generally

became neutral and even took an active part in the struggle in .quite a few instances. The small jotedars split into two sections in the course of the struggle. One section, comprising those jotedars, who were able neither to develop themselves as they desired owing to the oppression

by the government of the comprador-bureaucrat

bourgeoisie and the landlords nor to maintain their existing standard of living, took part in the struggle.

Another section,

comprising those who realised that it was not possible for them to resist, turned inactive hoping to take revenge in future. The struggle of the heroic peasants of terai demonstrated through practice how to build peasant unity, though, it must be admitted, the task was often found to be not at all easy. Real peasant unity

can be built only by not making any

■compromise with feudalism, only by intensifying class struggle against it and by directing the spearhead of attack against it. The peasants proved this in practice.

A look at the past and

the present revisionist Kisan Sabha convinces one that intense class struggle against feudalism can never be developed by convening such conferences as the “jute cultivators conference” or by avoiding class struggle for the sake of unity.

A vigorous

class struggle against feudalism not only helps to build peasant unity but also guarantees the establishment of the peasants’ political power through such peasant unity. learnt from the peasants of terai.

This we have

215

debates and documents

AI1 the so-called left parties joined the Congress party in their mad crusade to vilify the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai.

But all their vilification can never hide the fact that

the peasants of terai have overthrown feudalism root and branch, a feat which could not be done through any legislation or any other thing during all these hundreds of years. Our great teacher, Chairman Mao, teaches us : ‘I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, and army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy.

It is good if we are attacked by the enemy,,

since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue : it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work”. The truth of those words of Chairman Mao has been vindicated through practice during the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai. Armed Struggle—not for land, but for the State power The struggle of the terai peasants is an armed struggle—not for land but for State power.

This is a fundamental question,,

and the revisionist thinking, which has been prevailing in the peasant

movement for the last few decades, can

only be

combated by solving this problem. From the bourgeois parties and newspapers to the leaders of the so-called Marxist party, all have been saying the same thing, that it is quite just for the peasants of terai to struggle for land but that the acts like arming the peasants and the forcible taking away of guns are dragging the struggle into a wrong path.

By making this one statement all the bourgeois

and petty-bourgeois parties, including the Congress and the so-called Marxist party, have ranged themselves on the same side and made themselves agents of India’s ruling classes. We all know that every class struggle is a political struggle

214

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL It

and that the aim of political struggle is to seize State power. Chairman Mao teaches us : “The seizure of power by armed force, settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution.

The Marxist-Leninist principle

of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries”. In our country also, we can succeed in overthrowing the regime of the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlords only by arming the peasants and by building up guerilla groups and a regular armed force. The peasants of terai have taken up exactly this work, and this is the reason why all the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, including the Congress and the so-called

Marxist

party, have become so furious. The so-called communists derssed up as Marxists have unmasked themselves by hitting away at this.

They want to

keep the anti-feudal struggle pegged to the question of mere distribution of land.

Like all other

bourgeois

and petty-

bourgeois parties, the so-called Marxist party also looks at the question of land distribution from the standpoint of social injustice towards the peasants.

This is what they have been

doing in reality, whatever may be their subjective motivation. That is why they become panicky whenever they see armed peasants or hear the slogan ‘Vietnam's path is our path*. And they stage like a true bourgeois the farce of setting up committees distribute land.

with

pro-jotedar

bureaucrats

in

order to

It would be relevant to mention here what our respected leader. Comrade Charu Majumdar, had told us. “Whatever

He said,

little concession the U.F. government may be

able to give to other classes, it is not possible for them to give any concession whatsoever to the peasants”.

We set

down this statement in our local election review but were not able to realise its

significance at that time.

But later the

peasant movement in terai has cleared up our thinking. As in the other States of India, the peasants of terai are

BEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

also being

oppressed by

215 the

regime of the

bureaucrat bourgeoisie and feudal jotedars.

comprador-

And this oppre¬

ssion is carried on in the villages by preserving the political, economic, social and cultural structure that serves jotedars and through feudal exploitation.

The heroic peasants are

every day realising this in their lives.

That is why they

accurately hit at the proper place. The first thing the peasants of terai did was to arm them¬ selves and then they carried out the ten great tasks and wiped out at a stroke the old feudal system that had continued for centuries.

Furthermore, relying on the armed revolutionary

strength, they established a new political power, that is, the rule of the revolutionary peasant committees in their area. By carrying out these ten great tasks the heroic peasants have taught us that the struggle of the peasants is not merely a struggle for land.

On the contrary, in order to end the

monopoly of land ownership and feudal exploitation of the landlords in the villages, which are being preserved by the Congress

party,

the

political

party of the

bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords, the political,

economic,

comprador-

with the help of

social and cultural structure

that

serves the landlords, a new political, economic, social and cultural

structure

political power.

must

be created by establishing a new

This political power can be established by

arousing and arming the peasants, by organising

guerilla

groups, by creating liberated areas, by building a regular armed force, and by protecting and expanding this force. Such a political power, no matter in how small an area it is estab¬ lished, is the embryo of the future people’s democratic State power in India. It is never possible to overthrow the rule of the compradorbureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords, who have come to terms with imperialism, without arming the peasants in the anti-feudal struggle, without building their guerilla and regu¬ lar armed forces.

This is so because in our country, the

feudal landlord class is the main social base of the imperialist

216

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

and comprador-bureaucrat bourgeois peasants are

the

VOL II

exploitation, and

the

main force and the basis of this struggle.

Herein lies the distinctive feature of the Naxalbari path, that is, the Naxalbari struggle.

It is precisely because the Naxal¬

bari struggle is not merely a struggle for land that it could not be stamped out. Without this consciousness, matter how

any struggle for

land,

militant it may be, is militant economism.

no Such

militant struggle for land generates opportunism in the peasant movement and demoralises the majority of the fighting section as happened during the struggle for seizing the benami lands. Such militant economic movement leads one into the blind alley of revisionism.

This means, in other words, becoming,

consciously or unconsciously, a bourgeois

reformist.

The

bourgeoisie try to gain this object of theirs, sometimes through their laws and sometimes through a Vinoba Bhave. When they fail in this, they depend on the present-day social-democrats who disguise themselves as Marxists. in common with this.

Marxism has nothing

In short, the question of making the

agrarian revolution victcrious in our country is not

the same

as the question of ensuring social justice to the peasants. United Front and its leadership in the Anti-feudal struggle An important aspect of the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai is its success in gaining the support of the tea-garden workers and other toiling people and, thus, intensifying the struggle still further by building a united front in the anti-feu¬ dal struggle.

This is the most important task.

The struggle

of the heroic peasants of terai has solved the problem. The terai peasants began their struggle against the compra¬ dor-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords, who have come to terms with imperialism, have prettified feudalism and are carrying on their rule and exploitation through the Congress party, which is their political organisation.

The fact that the

reactionary leaders of the so-called United Front were able to

217

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

install themselves on the ministerial guddies did not change the class character of the State. While the

heroic peasants of terai were

smashing

the

foundations of feudalism in the villages by performing the ten great tasks, the tea-garden workers realised from their innate class consciousness that this class struggle was a struggle to overthrow the rule of the Congress party, which represents the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords.

That

is why the tea-garden workers could not be kept away from the struggle of the peasants in spite of the fact that the unions of tea garden workers were mainly controlled by the so-called communists. From their own experience of class struggle, the tea-garden workers of terai realised that the peasants were their most faithful friend and ally.

That is why they not

only participa¬

ted in the struggle of the peasants but were in the forefront of the struggle.

They went on strike and arming themselves

they have taken part in every struggle since 24 May 1967. The struggle of the terai peasants helped the tea-garden workers to come out of the mire of trade unionism and economism. This happened in spite of the fact that the so-called communist trade union leaders were opposing the struggle. this anti-feudal struggle there grew up a peasant

alliance under the

leadership

of

And from

genuine workerthe

tea-garden

workers. At the present time, every anti-feudal armed struggle is certain to be opposed by imperialism. tances today to

bear this out.

There are many ins¬

In the propaganda

carried on by the bourgeois papers,

representing

being

different

imperialist interests, by the Voice of America and by the BBC, we are witnessing this opposition in an embryonic form.

The

object of their propaganda is to crush the struggle without delay, and the reactionary U. F. leaders are diligently working to this end under the leadership

of the Congress.

As

soon

as the anti-feudal struggle of the workers and peasants of terai grows more intense, it will have to face direct opposition from.

J218

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

imperialism.

VOL II

All the anti-imperialist strata and classes will

then naturally join the alliance of workers and peasants. The struggle of the heroic peasants of terai has taught us the lesson that a united front, of all anti-imperialist anti-feudal elements that can be united, can be built only on the basis of worker-peasant

alliance carrying on armed

struggle.

united front of workers and peasants can never

be

This built

through any so-called ‘turn to the villages’ or by taking a few demonstrations towards the villages. Any other front that can be built is the United Front of Ajoy-Jyoti-Harekrishna-Jatin, which can function as ministers or bureaucrats within the existing bourgeois structure which is unable to give leadership to the

but

people’s democratic

revolution. The question

of leadership of this front has also been

solved.

No so-called Marxist can lead this struggle or this

front.

This front will be led by the political party of the

proletariat—a party which is armed with the theory of MarxismLeninism, Mao Tse-tung’s thought, the highest development of Marxism-Leninism in the present era—a party having its own army and able to build a united front of workers, peasants, and petty-bourgeoisie and of all those who can be united. Only such a party can successfully lead the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle. Our Deviations and the Lessons we learnt Taken as a whole, internationally and nationally, the revo¬ lutionary situation in our country is excellent.

The armed

struggle of the peasants of the Siliguri subdivision has begun after the fourth general elections at a time when Anglo-U.S. imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, finds itself in an acute crisis and the quarrel between

the imperialists

has

become bitter, when the U.S. imperialist capital is unable to rely fully on the influence of the Congress party in matters of investments, when all the hoax of economic planning of the Congress party, the organisation of the comprador-bureaucrat

219

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

bourgeoisie and landlords, is falling into pieces, when the people are suffering from the effects of an acute economic crisis and when people’s lack of confidence in the Congress has become even more pronounced, as reflected in the ending of monopoly rule of Congress ministers in eight states. We know that we must adopt an offensive tactic in our struggle when the enemy is beset with crisis and internal quarrels, and must adopt the tactic of advancing our struggle gradually when the enemy has gained some stability.

Judged

from this standpoint, the struggle of the peasants of terai is just, timely and beyond reproach. Why have we failed, though temporarily, to advance the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai ? lack of a strong

party

organisation,

The reasons are :

failure to

rely whole¬

heartedly on the masses and to build a powerful mass base, ignorance of military affairs,

thinking on old lines and a

formal attitude towards the establishment of political power and the work of revolutionary land reform.

We must always

bear in mind Chairman Mao’s teachings in discussing these matters. He teaches us, “New things always have to experience difficulties

and setbacks as they grow. It is sheer fantasy

to imagine that the cause of socialism

is all plain

sailing and

easy success, without difficulties and setbacks or the exertion of tremendous efforts.” By the lack of a strong party organisation we mean absence of a party which is armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism and its highest development in the present era, Mao Tsetung’s thought, which is closely linked with masses, which does not fear self-criticism and which has mastered the Marxist-Leninist style of work.

It is true that the revolutionary comrades of

the Siliguri subdivision led by our respected leader. Comrade Charu Majumdar, were the first to rise in revolt against the revisionists.

But this does not mean that we fully assimilated

the teaching of our great teacher, Chairman Mao.

That is,

while we accepted the teachings of Chairman Mao in words, •we persisted in revisionist methods in practice. Though it is true

220

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL I®

that the worker and peasant party members of terai were in a majority inside the party and that there was party organisa¬ tion in almost every area, yet in reality the worker and peasant comrades were led by the petty-bourgeois comrades and the party organisation in every area actually remained inactive. The party members were all active at the beginning of the struggle but they were swept away by the vast movement of' the people.

We did not also realise that the party had a

tremendously significant role to play in advancing firmly the struggle of the heroic peasants.

As a result, whatever might

be the role the party members played spontaneously at the beginning of the struggle, it was afterwards reduced to nothing in the face of white terror.

To belittle the role of the party

in the struggle is nothing but an expression of the old revisio¬ nist way of thinking.

The party played no role in matters-

like deciding what are the needs of the struggle at a given moment, giving political propaganda priority above every¬ thing else, advising the people about what they should do when the enemy attacks, preparing the people politically to meet the moves of the enemy, and developing the struggle step by step to a higher stage. We did not even politically assess, nor did we propagate among the people, the significance of the ten great tasks per¬ formed by the heroic peasants.

As a result, there developed

among us opportunism and escapism ; and even the fighting comrades began to show signs of lack of firmness. So, we are of the opinion that we must carry on a sharpstruggle against the revisionist way of thinking and fulfil certain definite tasks.

These tasks are : to form a party unit in a

given locality and elect its leader ; to train these party units, which must be armed ones, to observe secrecy.

The tasks of

the party unit will be to propagate the thought of Chairman Mao in a given locality and to develop and intensify class struggle in that locality ; to act as a guerilla unit and attack and eliminate class enemies by relying wholly on the people ; and, whenever possible, to take part along with the people im

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

221

the work of production.

We have now started implementing

the above programme. We were unable to raise the struggle firmly to a higher stage because we failed to rely wholly on the people and to build a powerful mass base.

We now admit frankly that we

had no faith in

peasant

the

heroic

masses

who,

swift

as a storm, organised themselves, formed revolutionary peasant committees, completed the ten great tasks and advanced the class struggle at a swift pace during the period from April to September 1967.

We did not realise that it is the people who

make history, that they are the real heroes, that the people can organise themselves and can amaze all by their own completely new style of work. Tribeni

We failed to realise that comrades like

Kanu, Sobhan Ali, Barka Majhi,

Babulal

Biswa-

karmakar and the ten peasant women of Naxalbari are the real heroes and organisers and so we failed to move forward. Though we repeatedly recognised this in words during the period from April to September 1967, in reality, however, we, the petty-bourgeois leadership,

imposed

ourselves

people.

peasant

masses

Whenever the

initiative and

heroic

wanted to

took

the

The reason is we did not

nor did we ever try to understand, the action

of the masses. revisionist

the

do something, we of the petty-

bourgeois origin opposed them. understand,

on

On the contrary, under the influence

habits

they should go.

we arbitrarily

set limits

of old

as to how far

This resulted in thwarting the initiative of the

masses and blunting

the edge of the class struggle.

Having

worked in a revisionist party, we were used to bourgeois laws and conventions and so tried to convince the masses about what was right and what was wrong.

So, when the people wanted

to attack the police, we prevented them on the ground that our losses would be heavy.

We looked at the people’s attitude

towards the jotedars and the police from the angle of bour¬ geois humanism.

Asa result, we failed to organise the large

masses, who numbered more than 40,000, and were thus unable to build a powerful mass base during April and May 1967.

222

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

Therefore, during the second stage of our struggle, we have resolved, we must link ourselves with the needs and wishes of the people, go to the people with boundless love and respect in our heart and integrate ourselves with the people. We must learn from them and take the lesson back to them again through practice. anything from above.

In other words we must not impose Mistakes may be made owing to this,

but it is possible to correct such mistakes.

The most impor¬

tant thing is—never to allow the initiative of the masses to be suppressed.

Our duty is to develop their initiative.

Ignorance of Military affairs and old way of thinking The struggle of the heroic peasants of the Siliguri subdivi¬ sion was not a movement to realise certain demands in the old sense. This was a struggle to establish a new political power, the peasants’ power in the villages after abolishing feudalism there.

So, we shall discuss the reason for our failure in this

struggle both from the political and the military viewpoint. Chairman Mao teaches as : tigers.

“All

reactionaries are

paper

In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying but in

reality they are not so powerful.

From a long-term point of

view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are really powerful”.

If, in any struggle, we happen to over-estimate the

enemy’s strength politically, victory in that struggle.

it will never be possible to gain

In other words, if we do not have,

from the strategic viewpoint, the courage and firmness required to defeat the enemy, we shall inevitably face defeat.

If we

fail to realise that in the final analysis it is the people who are powerful,

we shall be able to achieve victory in any

struggle. It is this consciousness that lends firmness to the struggle, urges one to make supreme sacrifice without fear and teaches one to undergo all kinds of hardship in order to win victory. We believed that we had assimilated the teaching of Chair¬ man Mao.

But the course of the struggle made us realise

how superficial was our understanding.

Today, our continued

223;

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

participation in the struggle makes us feel with every passing day that this teaching of Chairman Mao has to be realised anew every day, every moment and this realisation has to be tested through our own practice.

The day when this realisa¬

tion is translated into reality, we shall be able to shatter the much boasted strength of the armed forces of India’s reacti¬ onary government and march forward undeterred. The encounter with the police on 24 and 25 May 1967 and the action of the people in coming forward undauntedly both during and after the shooting down of unarmed

peasant

women by the police, and the boundless heroism and selfsacrifice of Comrades Tribenu Kanu, Sobhan Ali, and Barka Majhi—how can we explain all these things if not by the fact that they are the expressions of that realisation ?

And we

of the petty-bourgeois origin failed to recognise this very thing and so, at times, either under-estimated or over-estimated the enemy’s strength. In the first phase of the struggle, we under-estimated the enemy’s strength and thought of everything in the old way, and being in a revisionist party we indulged in idle

day-dreaming.

Sometimes we imagined that ‘the U.F. cannot go so far’ or that "it will be difficult for it to go so far’.

On the one hand,

we view the revisionists from a purely petty-bourgeois standpoint while, on the other, we under-estimated the enemy’s strength and kept the people unprepared in the face of the enemy, that is, we did not prepare the people regarding the measures that the enemy was likely to take.

This is nothing

but

revisionist attitude. Again, when the people were ready to launch attacks on the

enemy,

subjectively

we

over-estimated the enemy’s

strength and

magnified the likely effects of such attacks.

The

people fought with determination and created model heroes whose heroism we belittled.

As a result, the people found

themselves in disarray in the face of widespread terror, the intensity of the struggle diminished and escapism increased. Comrade Babulal Biswakarmakar, by sacrificing his life on 7

:224

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

September this year has enjoined on us to advance along the path pointed out by Chairman Mao. This is a struggle to seize State power and as such, it demands of us to prepare the party and the people militarily to the fullest extent.

Chairman Mao teaches us : “Without

a people’s army the people have nothing”.

We have come

to realise the truth of this teaching of Chairman Mao deeply through the struggle in terai.

Though we had known as

soon as the struggle started it would be met with suppression by the Central Government and the reactionary leaders of the West Bengal U.F. Government, yet we failed to take the programme of action which should have been taken eventually. We had a wrong understanding of Chairman Mao’s teaching in that we turned strategic defence into passive defence. When all the population armed themselves, the jotedars, the vested interests and wicked persons fled from the villages, we concluded that we had already created the base area. We mistook the armed police for the armed force and adopted the tactic of resisting and attacking by means of broad mass mobilization as the main tactic of our struggle.

The one or

two small armed groups which were formed to take away forcibly guns from the jotedars were not recognised by us as the main instrument of struggle.

On the contrary, we assumed

that guerilla groups would eventually grow out on the basis of the spontaneons actions of the broad masses.

In many cases,

fooled by the display of revolutionary ardour in vagabonds, we made them leaders for organising armed groups.

Again,

when we found armed rich peasants and a section of small jotedars

by

the

side

of armed poor peasants and middle

peasants, we concluded that together they constituted the united armed force of the entire peasantry.

We totally forgot that

the rich peasants and that section of the small jotedars could desert to the enemy at the first opportunity.

We learnt in the

course of the struggle that a few rich peasants and small landowners might take an active part in a big struggle that was raging.

But as soon as counter-revolutionary terror started,

225

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

these people quickly desert to the enemy camp spreading fear among the poor

and middle peasants.

In short, our total

Ignorance of military affairs is the root cause of the temporary setback in our struggle. What we have learnt from the terai peasants is that we must deeply study the political and military theories of Chairman Mao, apply them in practice and then study them again.

Our

^greatest responsibility is to make arrangements for our worker and peasant comrades to study the thought of Chairman Mao. Furthermore, we have learnt from the experience of our struggle that the armed groups

formed, after arousing the

people in the villages and arming them, will become the village .defence groups. We must acquire knowledge of guerilla warfare by arming the peasants with conventional weapons (bows and arrows, spears etc) and by organising assaults on the class enemies. We are to build up liberated zones gradually by forming peasant guerilla groups and by carrying on their activities.

It

would not be possible either to form guerilla groups or to carry on their activities for long if we do not, at the same time, persevere in building liberated zones also.

We must keep in

mind the fact that only the liberated zones or those areas which can be transformed into liberated zones form the rear of the guerillas.

We must lay utmost stress on building a people’s

armed force. centrally

To build a people’s armed force we must form

organised groups

of armed guerillas.

These, we

think, will be the embryo of the people’s armed force. In some other areas, again, we may try to organise armed peasant revolts and build the people’s armed force comprising those armed peasants who have risen in revolt. In forming the guerilla groups

or

the

central guerilla

group we must lay utmost stress on the class standpoint.

We

have come to realise that only the poor and middle peasants must be the basis of forming the guerilla groups. Our failure in establishing the revolutionary political power .and in carrying out revolutionary land reforms blunted the Vol 11—15

226

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

edge of the class struggle both during and after the struggle. The revolutionary peasants accomplished two tasks through mass mobilisation.

They are : formation of central and zonal

revolutionary peasant

committees and distribution of land.

And we turned exactly these two things into a most formal affair. it.

Our petty-bourgeois day-dreaming was at the root of

We never seriously considered how deeply significant were

these two tasks. Had we treated these two tasks seriously and carried on political explanation campaign among the masses about their significance, had we been able to develop the initiative of the people to participate in carrying out these two tasks by educa¬ ting them, they would have remembered for a long time the gains which they themselves had won through struggle and would have fought unflinchingly in order to retain these gains. As regards distribution of land, our policy was to confis¬ cate the land fully and distribute the same entirely. We did not give any

importance to this work also.

As a

result, in many cases the rich peasants prevented this task from being carried out under various pleas.

In many other cases,,

the top section of the middle peasants, being in the leadership in some cases, managed to divert the emphasis from the confis¬ cation of land to making raids on jotedars’ houses, and thus deprived this work of its importance.

In some cases again,

there developed acute contradictions between the poor peasants and the middle peasants in matters of distribution of land. In spite of all these mistakes, the people have been defen¬ ding heroically the fruits they won through their struggle. Therefore, we have taken the decision that, of the ten great tasks of the peasants, we must attach the greatest importance to these two

tasks and turn them into a weapon for our

propaganda. [ Reprinted from Liberation, November 1968 ]

IT IS TIME TO FORM THE PARTY Following is the full text of the resolution adopted unanimously by the All India Co ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries on February 8, 1969. A little over 18 months has passed since the revolutionary peasant struggle was launched in Naxalbari

under the all-

conquering banner of the thought of Mao Tsetung.

And it

is more than a year ago that the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was formed under the inspiring leadership of the Naxalbari comrades. During

this

period,

though

brief,

the Co-ordination

Committee has, no doubt, made significant achievements in dealing powerful blows at all reactionary ideology, including revisionism and neo-revisionism, and in spreading the flames of agrarian revolution.

This period has witnessed the victori¬

ous march of Chairman Mao’s thought, the acme of MarxismLeninism in the present era, which is winning new adherents every

day.

agrarian

It

is during

revolution

have

this period that spread out

the

flames

from Naxalbari

of to

Srikakulam in the south and to Mushahari and Lakhimpur Kheri in the north.

It has been the period when the peasant

revolutionaries of Kerala have staged a heroic revolt that has shaken the whole of India.

It has also been the period of the

bursting forth of the revolutionary liberation struggle of the Adibasi people in Chotanagpur and its uninterrupted advance. It is also in this period that the national liberation struggles of the Nagas, the Mizos and the phase.

Kukis have entered a new

The reactionary Indian Government has become a

stooge of U. S. and Soviet imperialism and a dead-weight on the Indian people.

And so the resistance of the Indian people

both in the countryside and in the cities—among the working class and the petty-bourgeois masses—is growing fast and is creating a new upsurge in the agrarian revolution which is the

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

228

VOL II

main content of the Democratic revolution in India today. The revolutionary struggle of the Indian people to achieve emancipation from the yoke of imperialism, Soviet revisio¬ nism, feudalism and

comprador-bureaucrat

capital has now

reached a new height. In this excellent revolutionary situation, when the people of India have finally embarked on the road of revolution, all the parties of the ruling classes,

including the various revisi¬

onist parties, are feverishly trying to strengthen the parlia¬ mentary illusions.

The call of “Boycott Election” issued by

the Co-ordination Committee has exposed the hollowness of parliamentarism and the

counter-revolutionary character of

the revisionist and neo-revisionist parties. It is a heartening fact that within the last one year, revolu¬ tionaries from Assam to Maharashtra have united under the banner of the All India Co-ordination Committee and all the centres of revolutionary peasant struggles are linked with one another through this Committee.

The reactionary ruling

classes and their counter-revolutionary agents, including the revisionists and the neo-revisionists, who pinned their hopes on the disunity within the revolutionary ranks, have been sorely disappointed. the

revolutionaries

The growing unity within the ranks of despite

the

obstacles

created

by the

reactionaries of all sorts proves that we have overcome the main impediment to the formation of a revolutionary party in India.

The Co-ordination Committee has thus served as

the first indispensable link in the chain—the process of forming a Marxist-Leninist Party in India. However, the experiences of the last one year have also made it amply clear that the political and organisational ne$ds of the fast developing revolutionary struggles can no longer be adequately met by the Co-ordination Committees. struggles have to be led and manner.

These

co-ordinated in an effective

The entire revolutionary forces have to be fully

roused and organised to consolidate and extend the existing .areas of struggle.

The rich experiences of these struggles

229

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

'’

have to be analysed and assessed, generalisations have to be made and lessons drawn in order to lead these struggles along the correct line.

These struggles cannot develop to a higher

stage and a revolutionary authority cannot grow if we depend merely on local initiatives.

Without a revolutionary party

there can be no revolutionary discipline and without revolu¬ tionary discipline struggles cannot be raised to a higher level.. Only a revolutionary party can infuse revolutionary discipline, the spirit of self-sacrifice and death-defying abandon.

So, for

taking these struggles forward, it is essential to form an allIndia Party and a centre recognised by all revolutionaries. The All India Co-ordination Committee was set up to help this process of forming a revolutionary party and this was set down in the very first Declaration.

In the absence of

such a Party, comrades in the areas of struggle have come to look upon the Co-ordination Committees as Party Committees and expect them to function in the same manner.

But the

Co-ordination Committees cannot fulfil the complex political and organisational tasks arising out of the present stage of revolutionary struggles.

At a time when Communist revolu¬

tionaries all over the country have given priority to the task of building revolutionary bases in the rural areas, at a time when the slogan of revolutionary class struggle is rending the sky, it is our immediate duty to form a revolutionary Party without which the advance of revolution is sure to be impeded. Chairman Mao teaches us :

“If there is to be revolution,

there must be a revolutionary Party.

Without a revolutionary

Party, without a Party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolu¬ tionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs”. Idealist deviations on the question of Party building arise as a result of the refusal to recognise the struggle that must be waged, within the Party. be formed only after all

The idea that the Party should

opportunist tendencies, alien trends

NAXALBARl AND AFTER

230 and undesirable

elements have been purged through class

struggles is nothing but subjective idealism. Party

VOL II

To conceive of a

without contradictions, without the struggle between

the opposites, i.e., to think of a pure and faultless party is indulging in mere idealist fantasy. us :

Chairman Mao has taught

“Opposition and struggle between

ideas of different

kinds constantly occur within the Party ; this is a reflection within the Party of contradictions between classes and between the new and the old in society. tions in the Party and no

If there were no contradic¬

ideological struggles to resolve

them, the Party’s life would come to an end.” Revisionism is

bourgeois, counter-revolutionary ideology.

The inner-party struggle between revolutionary ideology and counter-revolutionary ideology will continue so long as classes exist.

It is

through an

uncompromising struggle

against

revisionism and other alien trends that the Party shall grow and develop. Fortunately for us,

we are living in an era when the

thought of Mao Tsetung when the great

is winning victory after victory,

proletarian cultural

initiated and led by

revolution,

Chairman Mao, has

personally

gained

historic

victory in China and has immensely enriched the treasure-house of Marxism-Leninism, when Chairman Mao is still living and leading the world proletarian forces in the final struggle for complete victory of

Socialism all the world over.

We are

confident that with the active co-operation of all the revolu¬ tionaries of our country we shall succeed in building a Party in the revolutionary style capable of leading the Indian revolu¬ tion through to complete victory. It should be borne in mind that ours is a new great era of world revolution and that the responsibility of the Communist revolutionaries of India, a contingent of the world communist movement, is tremendous.

All the imperialist powers of the

world headed by the U. S. imperialists and the Soviet socialfascists are trying to win a fresh lease of life by exploiting the .500 million people of India.

They are also trying to use

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

231

Indian people as cannon-fodder in a war to destroy Socialist China, the base of the world revolution.

By carrying the

Indian revolution to victory we shall not only end the brutal exploitation of the vast masses of our country but also hasten the collapse of world imperialism and revisionism and thus help in building a radiant future for ourselves and mankind.

for all

We must unite with our class brethren who are

waging heroic struggles in Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia and various other countries of the world and forge that

great

bond

of internationalism—that internationalism

which has been given noble expression by Chairman Mao in the great proletarian cultural revolution. A stage has now been reached when the formation of the Communist Party brooks no further delay.

The Party should

immediately be formed with those revolutionaries as the core who are

building up

and

conducting

revolutionary

class

struggles. This Party composed of revolutionary cadres, steeled and tempered in the fire of class struggle, shall play its historic role in leading India’s People’s Democratic Revolution to victory,

in

carrying it forward to the completion of the

Socialist Revolution and in helping to bring about the total oollapse of world imperialism and revisionism. [Reproduced from Liberation, Vol 2, No. 5, March 1967]

IMMEDIATE PROGRAMME | Adopted by the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Committee at its convention held on April 10-12, 1969.] We, the Communist Revolutionaries who have broken from revisionism, are striving for the victory of Indian revolution in accordance with Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought. India is a neo-colonial country. feeing

subjected

to

the

The Indian people are

neo-colonial

exploitation

of the

American imperialism, the British imperialism and the Soviet revisionism. Together with imperialism, feudalism is the main

232

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

exploiting force in the country.

VOL 15

Seventy to eighty percent of

the population live in the countryside. They are being subjected to various forms of feudal exploitation. In view of these condi¬ tions the Indian revolution would be completed in two stages. Today we are in the stage of New Democratic Revolution.. Immediately after the completion of this, the stage of Socialist Revolution would begin.

Since there are two different stages,,

the tasks of these two different stages would also be different. The task of the New Democratic Revolution is to establish the New

Democratic State in the country by smashing impe¬

rialism, feudalism and comprador and bureaucrat bourgeoisie i. e., the big bourgeoisie.

The task of the Socialist Revolution

is to establish the Socialist

system by

abolishing

private

property. For the successful completion of the New Democratic Revolution, which is our immediate task, we should formulate a general programme.

In the stage of the New Democratic

Revolution the basic points of the general programme would remain unchanged. These basic points are : 1.

The comprador and the

the big bourgeois

bureaucrat bourgeois i. e.r

feudal State should be smashed.

In its

place the New Democratic State should be established. 2.

Feudalism

should

be

abolished.

The

land of the

landlords should be distributed among the poor peasants

and

the agricultural labour. 3.

The foreign capital as well as the capital

of the com¬

prador bourgeosie and bureaucrat bourgeoisie in collaboration with it in the industries and banks should be confiscated. 4.

For the working class, increment of wages, reduction of

working hours

and other facilities should be secured and the

problem of unemployment should be solved. 5. The middle class people should be given the guarantee of employment. 6.

For defence of the country the existing mercenary

army should be abolished and a revolutionary people’s army should be built up in its place.

233-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

7.

The basis of the foreign policy should

be the forma¬

tion of a united front against the world imperialists, especially American imperialism and British imperialism and its colla¬ borator, the Soviet social-imperialist clique.

India should be

party to this united front. 8.

Various nationalities in the country should have the:

right of self-determination. 9.

All types

of unequal treaties should be abrogated.

India should quit the ‘Commonwealth’. 10.

Anti-imperialist and anti-feudal

and culture should be promoted.

education,

science

The problems of unem¬

ployment among the middle class people should be solved. 11.

Integration of the country should be based on com¬

plete independence and democracy. The revolutionary programme based on these eleven points would constitute the New Democratic gramme. enough.

pro¬ is not

We should also have a revolutionary path in order

to achieve this programme. the

revolutionary

Having a revolutionary programme alone

parliamentary path

This path is totally different from of revisionists.

One of the main

aspects of Mao’s thought is people’s war

The essence of the

path of people’s war is to

establish guerilla bases in the

countryside, to encircle and liberate the cities tely liberate the country.

and to ultima¬

It is the task of the revolutionaries

to apply the path of people’s war to the revolutionary practice in India and to carry it through to the end. The formation of a United Front is very important for the successful completion of the Indian revolution. Front should be

formed against imperialism, feudalism and

their collaborator, the big bourgeoisie. of the proletariat, working class,

This United

Under the leadership

this United Front should be formed of the peasantry,

middle

class and the

national

bourgeoisie. Unlike the electoral united fronts of revisionists, this would be

a Front for struggle which would emerge and

develop in the

course of revolutionary struggles and armed

struggle for liberation.

.234

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

To build and develop the United Front for the implemen¬ tation of the programme of people’s war and the New Demo¬ cratic Revolutionary programme, a Communist Party capable of applying Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought to the revolu¬ tionary practice of India should be built. This should be a Communist Party formed of the revolutionaries. The revolu¬ tionaries of today should come forward to build such a revolu¬ tionary Party. We should realise that this Party should be totally different from the revisionist parties that have betrayed the Indian revolution. It is with this basic understanding we should formulate a clear cut programme suited to the present conditions. We have already stated that this general programme of ours would be such that it would be applicable for the entire stage of New Democratic Revolution. Following the path of people’s war, we are and will be implementing this programme in different regions. The vital aspect of this programme is to liberate the villages, encircle the town and then gradually liberate the urban areas. We should, in accordance with this, formulate our programme for rural and urban areas. The mass movement of the Agency areas of Srikakulam district has reached the stage of armed struggle. The mass movement in the forest areas of Warangal and Khammam districts has passed ordinary legal confines. The peasantry, especially the landless poor peasantry and the agricultural labour, is coming forward not only to occupy the forest banjars but also to reoccupy lands illegally grabbed by the landlords. Hundreds of militants from these classes are participating in the day to day activities. In the Agency area of East Godavari district, the Agency peasantry is coming forward to fight for the abolition of the muthadari system and to reoccupy the lands illegally grabbed by the landlords. The movement is spreading to the neighbouring areas of Vishakhapatnam Agency, Bastar area, Karimnagar and Adilabad districts. During the months of July and August last year, there was a tremendous mass upsurge in the plains areas of some

debates and documents

235

districts adjacent to the forest areas and reached the stage of confiscation of foodgrains from landlords. continues.

This position still

The mass movement in Khammam and Madhira

taluqs of Khammam

district and Janagaon and Manukota

taluqs of Warangal district is thus marching forward, reaching the stage of direct

resistance against

the landlords.

The

movement in Nalgonda district had been subjected to a severe government repression and once again the peasantry is getting prepared for struggles. Our Immediate Programme With the peasantry constituting more than 70 percent of the population in our country, the agrarian revolution would play the main role in the New Democratic Revolution.

The

abolition of feudalism and the distribution of land to the tiller is the main task of the agrarian revolution.

Together

with this, the emancipation of the rural masses from

all

forms of feudal exploitation would be the main task of the agrarian revolution.

In Andhra Pradesh, the land belonging

to the landlord class and the government is mainly in the following forms : 1.

The landholdings of the landlords cultivated through

farm servants. 2.

This is known as self-tilling.*

The lands cultivated by the tenant-farmers paying the

rent in the form of grain or money to the landlords as well as the lands cultivated for landlords by some of these tenantfarmers. 3.

The pastures and other similar categories of lands.

4.

Temple and endowment lands under the occupation

of landlords. 5.

The

cultivable

government

banjar

lands.

(This

includes the government banjar lands under the cultivation of landlords. ) * For the sake of clarity, the term ‘self-tilling’ is introduced in place of self-cultivation, the term originally used in the English version of the document.

236

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

6.

VOL IF

The forest lands needed for the cultivation by the

peasantry. The land issue could be solved only by re-distribution of these

lands to the poor and landless peasantry and

agricultural labour.

the

Therefore, the communist revolutiona¬

ries in different parts should study the land issue and carry on, among the people, especially the peasantry, the propaganda about the importance as well as the urgent need for the land re-distribution. While thus carrying on the propaganda, we should, from now on, make the preparations for the occupation of lands by the peasantry in the next year. occupied immediately,

All the land that should be

would come in for cultivation from

June, this year. Therefore we should take detailed decisions as to the areas, villages and the lands that should be occupied, and prepare the peasantry from now on. We should, for the present, concentrate only on the big landlords, the main enemies of the people. It is only these big landlords that we should keep in view when we occupy the lands under ‘self-tilling’.

Keeping the question—of whether

all the lands under the item ‘self-tilling’ should be distributed or not—open for discussion, it is essential to distribute the land to the extent available. Where there is no preparedness among the poor peasantry and the agricultural labour, the distribution of the lands under ‘self-tilling’ and the pasture of landlords, the land that the landlords had grabbed from the poor peasantry and agricultural labour illegally or with nominal compensation or towards debts, can be restored to the people belonging to the respective families in case they still remain poor peasants or agricultural labour*

But owing to this there should not arise a situation

where some would get such land while some would not.

We

should, in such a situation, see that others do also get a portion of such land.

Thus it should be possible for all the

poor peasants and agricultural labour to get the land equally (inclusive of the land they have already in their possession).

237

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

At present, we are only concentrating on the lands of the big landlords.

The question of ceiling would arise at the time

of distributing the landlords’ lands.

We should recognise the

land needed by a middle peasant who cultivates the land by himself as the maximum ceiling limit. may differ from area to area.

It is possible that this

As the agrarian revolution

advances, it would as well become necessary to distribute a portion of the land from the small landlords also.

In such a

situation, depending upon the needs of the agrarian revolution, it is to be decided as to where and how the distribution should be carried out. We should trace out the temple and endowment lands under the occupation of the big landlords (they are often concealed) and make preparations for their distribution among the poor peasants and agricultural labour.

We should, wher¬

ever possible, take it up as an immediate problem. The common people are not in a position to make use of common banjar lands as well as forest lands since a major part of these lands is under the occupation of the landlords. The cultivable lands from among them should be distributed among the poor peasants and agricultural labour.

The rest

of the lands should be taken over by the people. The poor peasants and the agricultural labour would need cattle and other implements for the cultivation of lands thus distributed.

At the time of land distribution itself, the cattle

and the implements of the landlords should also be distri¬ buted among such of those that are in need of them. Moneylending,

Nagulu, Khandanalu,

abolished in whatever form they may exist.

these

should be

But it is only on

the big landlords, moneylenders (shahukars)

and the rich

peasants, who carry on exploitation in this way, that we should concentrate.

The common people would lose the credit faci¬

lities if we are also to concentrate on petty individual money¬ lenders.

It would be necessary to promote the credit facilities

to a certain limited extent till the liberated areas are established and credit facilities are

arranged for

the people.

fore, credit facilities are permitted in such

There¬

a way that they

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

238

VOL IE

continue on reasonable rate of interest, either the bank rate or

the lowest reasonable rate in vogue

in the respective

regions. Besides, forced labour (vetti), tips, tilling of land (of the landlords without any payment) by the peasants with their own cattle and such other feudal exploitation should thus be abolished in whatever form they may exist. We should mobilse the people on all other problems because of which the rural people are facing difficulties owing to the domination of

landlords.

We

should

concentrate

on the

problems

specially in villages where the conditions of the people are the worst.

The conditions of the people in some villages

may be better than those in other villages owing to the work of the Party over a number of years.

But it would, howeverr

be wrong not to mobilise the people into struggle on the presumption that the

conditions of the people in all other

villages are also better.

The problem of toddy-tappers is

serious in the Telengana region.

The degree of exploitation

by the Govt, contractors (who include local landlords) is very high.

They are

put to untold sufferings due to corrupt

practices of the Govt, officials.

Against this exploitation we

should organise and lead them into struggles on the slogan of “Tree to the tappers”.

We should carry on

propaganda

among them that their problems would be solved only with the establishment of the New Democratic Government and that for this the path of armed struggle should be taken up. Similarly, the agricultural labour and the poor and middle peasants in all the regions are sites.

suffering for want of house

We should take up this problem.

This is a programme

which should be extended to all parts of Andhra Pradesh. Now let us work out a programme on problems pertaining to different regions. Forest Areas The importance of forest and mountainous regions would be crucial in the people’s war. the enemy is weak but

In these regions not only

also these are areas favourable for

239'

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the

people’s

guerilla

squads to carry on resistance against

the armed forces of the enemy for a long period and are ideal for establishing guerilla base areas. The landlords, the money¬ lenders, and the forest

officials are exploiting the ordinary

people and the Girijans inhabiting the forest and mountainous region in ever

so many ways.

In these regions, the

masses have become conscious and are revolting against the government and the exploiting classes. struggle is a prelude to it.

Srikakulam Girijan

In all these areas, especially in

the forest areas of Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar, the land with irrigation facilities as well as a major portion of the fertile cultivable land is in the hands of the landlords. For the purpose

of grazing, usually hundreds and thousands

of cattle belonging to these landlords are left off in the forest itself.

They earn lakhs of rupees in the cattle-trade. Besides

the distribution of banjar lands, under the occupation of government as well as landlords, among the poor peasants and agricultural labour, we should, in these areas, carry on a struggle for the fertile dry lands as well as the irrigated lands under ‘self-tilling’

of the landlords and distribute them. The

cattle, available in thousands, should also be distributed. For this, we should Ploughing

should

make preparation

commence with the

from

now on.

commencement

of

monsoon. In the coming months, the contractors would employ the people as coolies to move out the forest produce.

We should,

therefore, intensify the struggle on the question of coolie rates in the next month.

Thus,

by intensifyng

the

mass

activities, we should, by the end of April, advance the move¬ ment to a higher stage.

In this period, a good amount of

work has been done to organise and mobilise the Girijans in the Agency area of East Godavari district.

The muthadari

system, the worst kind of feudal exploitation, is in practice in this area.

The remnants of it are also found in the Agency

area of Visakhapatnam.

The people themselves should go in

for revolutionary actions to abolish this system.

240

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

The fertile lands and the fruit gardens that were grabbed from the Girijans are in the hands of the landlords. people are very eager to take them back.

The

We should prepare

the people for occupation of these lands.

The occupation of

land should commence with the commencement of monsoon. By allotting the land

needed by the Girijans for podu

cultivation, we should create opportunities for their cultivation. The government, grabbing away the lands from the Girijan peasantry, is raising coffee and other big plantations. should study the problem of these plantations. examine these

this

gardens

problem, taking into account that

We

We should

the extent of

needs to be distributed,

in order to

solve the land problem of the peasantry. All the corporations set up for the purpose of purchasing forest produce are nothing but a means for the exploitation of the people and for filling the pockets of the people’s wealth.

officials with the

They should, therefore, be abolished and the

Girijans should be given the opportunity of freely selling to whomever they wish to. We should not, while implementing this programme, per¬ mit Girijan and non-Girijan discrimination.

Rallying all the

non-Girijans, including poor and middle peasants, a United Front with the Girijans should be formed and the struggle carried on.

The division on the basis of Girijans and non-

Girijans would only prove helpful to the enemy.

This applies

equally to different tribes among the Girijans themselves. The tips, forced labour (vetti) and bribes to the forest officials and employees have ceased by now.

We should not

permit them in any form or to any extent. Plains Areas There are dry and wet lands in the plains areas.

To this

day, the exploitation and atrocities of the landlords continue to be a serious problem in the dry lands.

The food problem

is a serious problem here.

Vast areas of banjar lands are

available for distribution.

There are opportunities in these

241

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

areas to organise and mobilise the people on ever so many problems such as land, coolie rates, food problem, and against the domination of landlords and so on. Despite the fact that in terms of armed resistance this area is less favourable than the forest and mountainous regions, it would be wrong to conclude that this area would not be useful for resistance. Under the present conditions, a limited guerilla resistance would be possible even in these areas.

Though it

would take time for an incessant resistance to take off in these areas, these are highly important since they include areas adjacent to forest areas and the Telengana area where the armed struggle was carried on in the past.

It is very essential

to develop revolutionary movement in these areas in order to send the cadres and procure help needed in the forest areas. Wet Lands In view of social conditions and geographical features, there are no possibilities for immediate development of guerilla resistance here in these areas.

Yet from these areas cadres,

funds and other help should be sent to the areas of resistance. Ceaseless class struggle against the exploitation of the people should be carried on in these areas.

These areas should also

he liberated gradually. Here, among the struggles of the agricultural labour as well as the struggle against the general domination of the landlords, we should mainly concentrate on the struggles of the agricul¬ tural labour and the tenant-farmers.

We should launch strug¬

gles for the abolition of Government Farming Societies and for the distribution of lands under their control among the poor peasants and agricultural labour.

We should study where the

possibilities for developing such

struggles exist and make

efforts to develop the struggles there. Political Propaganda We should propagate, while implementing the above pro¬ gramme, that the people are waging struggles for their liberation, Vol 11—16

242

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

that the liberation could be achieved only through their armed struggle and that the people should seize the political power into their own hands.

We should make them realise the fact

that we could seize the political power only through the path of people’s war.

Despite the fact that the need for achieving

a People’s Raj safeguarding the gains achieved through the struggles and that for our liberation from the exploitation of the exploiting classes is being propagated, a comprehensive political propaganda is however not being carried on.

We

should especially propagate the politics of armed struggle much more extensively than what we are doing now.

We should

carry on comprehensive propaganda about the revolutionary struggles going on in different parts of the country as well as the Srikakulam struggle.

In addition to the propaganda by

our cadres through speeches, we should organise local cultural squads and carry on propaganda through them. Boycott Panchayat Elections—Establish Village Soviets Panchayat elections

are due in the month of May.

have resolved to boycott them.

We

We should immediately take

steps to implement this decision.

We should give no room

for entering the Panchayat Boards by back-door methods. Our experience has proved that in the anti-feudal struggles the Panchayat Boards could not be the instruments in the hands of the people.

It is because even in the villages where

we had been a majority in the Panchayat Boards during this period, the landlord class got only weakened.

strengthened and not

What is more, by way of collection of taxes and

other means, the Panchayat system has only proved helpful for the further strengthening of ruling classes. We should, from now on, make the people realise as to how the Panchayat system and the election system is proving useful for the ruling classes as a cover to safeguard their power.

We

must convince the people that they should not participate in the elections and thus make them boycott.

We should make

the people, especially those who follow us, boycott the elec-

245

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

tions.

For this we should strictly rely on the consciousness

and the organised strength of the people. resort to any shortcut methods.

But we should not

We should make it clear to

the people that it is not merely boycotting the elections, that there is the path of people’s war for them to follow, that it means establishing the Village Soviets and the People’s Com¬ mittees, that it is under their leadership that we should implement the agrarian revolutionary programme and that these are the foundations for the New Democratic revolutionary State. (There will be no change in our programme despite the postponement of the Panchayat elections for the present.

We

should carry on an extensive propaganda about the need for boycotting the elections.) We should, in all the villages of the forest areas where

wo

are working, mobilise the people to boycott the elections.

In

the villages where the elections are thus boycotted, the question of how to manage the affairs of the village would arise.

Then

all the people, the adults of the villages, should assemble and elect the People’s Committees. These Committees should assist the people in all problems connected with the life of the people.

In the plains areas, District Committees should take

steps to boycott the strong.

elections in the villages where we are

Boycott by the revolutionaries alone does not mean

the boycott of elections.

In the village, where the elections are

thus boycotted, the People’s Committees elected by all the people should come into being.

These Committees should

function as alternate committees to the government Panchayat Boards. These would be the Committees empowered by the people.

They should provide leadership in all the affairs of

the village and stand by the people.

They should implement

the agrarian revolutionary programme. They should take the responsibility of law, revenue, defence of people and so on.

These Committees should be prepared

to carry out the given responsibilities at the given stage.

As

the struggle reaches the higher stage in the countryside, the People’s Committees would transform into Village Soviets.

244

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

Against the feudal system and the elections, the Village Soviets and the People’s Committees would act as United Front Committees to launch and successfully conclude the agrarian revolution.

In these Committees, led by the revolu¬

tionaries and dominated by the poor peasants and agricultural labour, the others who rally round us should also be given proper representation.

As the agrarian revolution advances,

a few of the representatives, especially of the rich peasantry can also be given representation. These Committees should have a clear-cut class and politi¬ cal outlook.

We should educate them in the understanding

of the path of people’s war and develop their political cons¬ ciousness.

We should not permit the opportunists, careerists

as well as the representatives of the rich classes to join these Committees. Volunteer Squads With the mobilisation of people on the boycott of elections, on food problem and the problem of forest areas, the problem of people’s self-defence would arise. the volunteer

squads.

have

been

already

For this we should build

In the forest areas where the people

mobilised into struggles, the volunteer

squads should be organised on a large scale.

All the youth of

the villages should be the members of these squads.

One

squad if it is a small village, and as many squads as necessary depending upon the feasibility of work if it is a large village, can be organised.

Each of these squads should have a com¬

mander and an assistant commander. cally

conscious and disciplined.

these posts.

They should be politi¬

They should be elected for

For the purpose of self-defence the ordinary

volunteers can use any weapon that is locally available.

They

can have sticks only if they cannot procure any other weapon. These squads should assist the Village Soviets and People’s Committees in the implementation of their decisions.

In case

of attacks from the armed police and military, these squads must assist the people in all possible ways.

245

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

The volunteer squads should be organised not only in the villages where the Village Soviets exist, but also in the villages where the People’s Committees exist.

Only when there is a

volunteer squad, can the activities of the People’s Committees be carried on effectively,

the decisions can be implemented,

and confidence in the Committees can be created among the people. We should, in a simple language, educate the volunteer squads in our political line, path of people’s war and current politics.

The party should take steps for this. Local Squads

The government armed police attacks would begin with the implementation of agrarian revolutionary programme. this the resistance should also begin.

With

For this it would be

better to have local squads along with the regular squads. Depending upon defence needs, these squads could consist of seven members.

They can arm themselves with bows and

arrows, spears and axes. Usually the local enemies are terrified by the very sight of the people and the volunteer squads.

These bullies are still

more terrified if there are local squads.

It should be the task

of local squads to deal with the people’s enemies, who cannot be dealt with by the people and volunteer squads.

The local

squads should provide leadership in the mass actions against the landlords.

They should render necessary assistance to the

regular squads.

They should be given good military training

and political education. Mass Organisations We mobilise the people for the implementation of the agrarian revolutionary programme.

We should recruit these

masses into the peasant organisations. should not, for this purpose,

As in the past, we

print membership books and

collect membership fees. In the meeting of the village people, we should, by show

246

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

of hands decide as to who are willing and who are not willing to join.

We should take all those who are willing to join.

All those people who join thus should elect the People’s Committees and Village Soviets. We

should also hold meetings among the women and

organise them.

This task would be easy where there are

female comrades.

The women should also join the men and

fight in the agrarian revolutionary struggle.

For this they

should be recruited into the women organisations in the same manner as above.

They should also be gradually recruited

into the volunteer squads, local squads and the regular squads. In a situation when there is severe repression, and when it is not possible to openly recruit

the

people

into

the mass

organisations, the cadres should go door to door and recruit the members secretly. Intensify Mass Activities We

should, in the next month, intensify our activities both

in the forest areas as well as plains areas. these

By May, not only

activities should be intensified and the Village Soviets

and the People’s Committees formed—and these should start functioning—but we should also get prepared for counter¬ attacking the landlord class. mass activities

that we

revolutionary programme.

It is at this higher stage of these

should

implement

the

agrarian

For this we should politically and

organisationally get prepared from now on. Extend to New Areas At

present

the

movement is, to some

extended to areas adjacent to the pace is very slow. for it. We should

forest

extent,

areas.

being

But

the

The shortage of cadre is the main reason

quickly bring the Vishakhapatnam

Agency

area which is adjacent to East Godavari into the movement. We should cover the centres and areas left in Khammam and Warangal

districts.

We should

intensify

our activities in

247

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Karimnagar and Adilabad districts.

The units of the revolu¬

tionaries have already begun to function in these areas. Steps are being taken to begin mass activities in Mahabubnagar district. In Rayalaseema district, it is decided to convene a meeting of the district leaders and intensify the anti-feudal struggles. Steps are being taken in this direction.

We should also begin

to intensify the activities in other districts. Work in Cities Notwithstanding the fact that our units are functioning in the cities, we are not putting well-concentrated work here. Even though the forest areas are of importance, it is not correct to leave out the cities.

The armed struggle that we

are conducting should have the support and solidarity of the urban working class.

The help of the transport workers as

well as the workers of various other branches of industry would be needed for the transportation of materials and other technical assistance.

We should give proper importance to

the students as well as to our work in the cities.

Influenced

by the revolutionary ideas, today’s students and youth are being fast attracted to Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought. Ours is a path of people’s war, i.e., to liberate the villages and then to liberate the cities.

For this we should carry on

Dur work in cities from now on.

At the same time we should,

on the one hand, smash the enemy’s plans to suppress the peasant

armed

struggle,

and should, on the other hand,

prepare the Party and the people to seize political power by the time we liberate the cities.

We should, keeping this in

view, plan our work in cities. Support the Srikakulam Armed Struggle An armed struggle is going on in Srikakulam. releasing a separate

document

We are

explaining as to how this

movement has developed and what are the problems that arose in the course of the development of this movement.

248

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

We should take lessons from the experiences of Srikakulam movement.

We should carefully study the experiences that

the comrades are gaining at present. from these experiences.

We should take lessons

We should pass on our experiences

tothe comrades taking part in that struggle. We should not only support the Srikakulam armed struggle but should also attack the vile propaganda that the enemies are carrying on against it. Consolidate the Organisation of the Revolutionaries We should have well-organised and disciplined organisa¬ tion to implement the programme explained above, to build a revolutionary movement through it and to carry on the armed struggle.

Even though the State

Committee

and

all

the

District Committees work as Co-ordination Committees, they are often taking majority decisions and are functioning as Party Committees. Should we,

the

revolutionaries,

and

our Committee

function like this as Co-ordination Committee ?

Or should

we, based on the principle of democratic centralism, go in for the organisation of the Party ? This is the point of dis¬ cussion now. We are unable to centralise our activities due to the lack of discipline and concentration in the nature of Co-ordination Committees. character.

As a result, they are not acquiring revolutionary

In the areas where the Committees observed disci¬

pline and functioned as Party Committees, the revolutionary movement acquired a definite form and is marching forward.. Since our activities in other areas are being confined to mere discussions, they are not taking the form of mass movements. In view of these experiences, our Co-ordination Committee hasdecided to take necessary steps for building up the Party. In the light of this decision the Party building is going on in the struggle areas.

The Committees are deciding as ta

who should be the Party members. activities

To carry on the Party

effectively, the Area committees

and

the

Zonal

249

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

committees

have

been

constituted

and

are

functioning.

Necessary steps are being taken for the functioning of these units

in

accordance

with

the

principles

of democratic

centralism. The Area committees have been formed and are functioning in the Jangaon, Mulugu and Khammam area of Warangal and Khammam

districts.

We

should further

consolidate

and

develop them so that they would be capable of leading the armed struggle.

Further, we should take steps for all the

units in all the districts to function in accordance with the principles of democratic centralism.

Only then

could

the

necessary conditions for building the Party be secured. These steps are necessary for the future advance of the revolutionary movement. The question, as to who should be recognised as party members, still remains a problem.

As our cadres accept the

path of people’s war, we should mainly examine as to whether their practice is in accordance with it or not. From the time we began our work in the struggle areas to this day, we should examine the

activities of each of the cadres and decide as to

who should be and who should not be given the membership. Those

who

necessarily

be

should

be

whole-timers.

given

membership

need

not

But they should be prepared

to go underground when there is repression.

The membership

of those who are not whole-timers should be kept secret. We should see

that the

Party members through their

exemplary and revolutionary work, emerge as members of the Village Soviets and People’s Committees as well as the leaders of the regular squads, local squads and volunteer squads. Get Prepared for Armed Struggle It is our opinion that we should, after quickly completing the political propaganda, mass mobilisation as well as the above tasks on the organisational front, get prepared for the armed struggle by the coming monsoon. first drizzle,

We could, with the

begin the land distribution programme, the main

250

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

item of the agrarian revolutionary programme.

VOL II

By co-ordina¬

ting the guerilla warfare with this, a strong and broad mass base would be secured for the struggle. favourable period for resistance.

The rainy season is a

During this period—by the

land distribution and the functioning

of the Village Soviets

on one side, and organising the resistance

on the other, by

implementation of all of them simultaneously, the revolutionary movement would be strengthened and it would be in a position to withstand and march forward in the face of the enemy’s counter-offensive that would follow.

The comrades should

bear it in mind and march forward. As part of these preparations, a militant mass mobilisation against the landlords becomes necessary summer season.

in the end of the

Such a mobilisation would prove helpful

for the launching of the armed struggle. Comrades : Today there are favourable conditions for the implemen¬ tation

of the above programme.

The

ruling

classes are

frightened out of their wits at the activities of the revolutiona¬ ries. Because of this they are resorting to ruthless repression. At such a time

any complacence on our

part

would

be

unpardonable. In accordance with Mao’s thought, the liberation struggles are going on against imperialism, feudalism and reactionary forces in various parts of the world.

Following the path of

people’s war, the liberation struggle has

also started and is

advancing in Thailand. In China, the Communist Party under the leadership of Mao

has

victoriously

concluded

the

cultural

revolution,

liquidated revisionism and is marching forward. Taking advantage of all these favourable conditions, we should, along the path of people’s war, strive to take the agrarian revolution forward. forward.

Only then could we

Long Live Mao's Thought. Long Live Peasants' Armed Struggle.

march

POLITICAL RESOLUTION Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) April 22, 1969 The events of the last eighteen months since we repudiated the neo-revisionists, prove beyond doubt the correctness of ■our stand.

They prove that the line of rejecting the parlia¬

mentary path and adopting the path of revolutionary struggle is wholly correct.

During this period, the people of India

have seen the rank opportunism of all the bourgeois and revisionist parties and their total political bankruptcy.

They

have lost faith in all the bourgeois and revisionist parties and are convinced of the utter futility of the parliamentary path. Indian Society : Semi-Colonial and Semi-Feudal The events have also confirmed the correctness of our assessment as regards the stage, nature and

character of

our

rejecting

society,

state

and government.

While

the

revisionist understanding, we stated that India is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, that the Indian state is the state of the big landlords and comprador-bureaucrat capitalism and that its government is a lackey of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. on

“aid”

from

The abject dependence of Indian economy imperialist

countries,

chiefly

from U. S.

imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, the thousands of collaboration

agreements,

the

imperialist plunder of *our

country through unequal trade and “aid”, the utter dependence for food on P. L. 480 etc, go to prove the semi-colonial ■character of our country. The increasing concentration of land in the hands of a few landlords, the expropriation of almost the total surplus produced by the toiling peasantry in the form of rent, the complete landlessness of about 40% of the rural population, the back

breaking usurious exploitation,

the

ever-growing

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

252

VOL IE

eviction of the poor peasantry coupled with the brutal social oppression—including the lynching of harijans, reminiscent of the mediaeval

ages, and the complete backwardness of

the technique of production clearly demonstrate the semifeudal character of our society. The fleecing of the Indian people by extracting the highest rate of profit, the concentration of much of India’s wealth in the hands of seventyfive

comprador-bureaucrat

capitalists,

the utilisation of the state sector in the interest of foreign monopolies and domestic big business and their unbriddled: freedom—all go to prove that it is the big landlords and comprador-bureaucrat capitalists who run the state. The political, economic, cultural and military grip of U. S.. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism on the Indian State, the dovetailing of its foreign policy with the U. S.-Soviet global strategy of encircling Socialist

China and suppressing the

national liberation struggle, the recent tours of Latin America and South East Asia by the Indian Prime Minister to further the interests

of this counter-revolutionary strategy, the total

support given by the Indian Govt, for the Soviet armed provo¬ cation against China, the fascist approval of Soviet aggression against Czechoslovakia and the active collaboration with the U. S. imperialists against the national liberation struggle of Vietnam clearly show that the Indian Govt, is a lackey of U. S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism. The rising tide of the peasant struggles in various parts of our country is further confirmation of our stand that the principal contradiction in our country at the present phase is between feudalism and the masses of our peasantry. The Indian revolution at this

stage is the

democratic

revolution of a new type'—the People’s Democratic Revolution —the main content of which is the agrarian revolution, the abolition of feudalism in the countryside. To destroy feudalism,, one of the two main props (comprador-bureaucrat capital being the other) of imperialism in our country, the Indian people will have to wage a bitter, protracted struggle against.

253

©EBATES AND DOCUMENTS

U. S. and Soviet social-imperialism too. By liberating them¬ selves from the yoke of feudalism, the Indian people will also liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialism and comprador-bureaucrat capital,

because the struggle against

feudalism is also a struggle against the other two enemies. Excellent Revolutionary Situation The international developments that have taken place in the recent period vindicate our stand that a very excellent revolutionary situation prevails in the world today.

The U.S.

imperialists and their chief accomplice, the Soviet revisionsts, are facing increasing difficulty in their dirty efforts to re-divide and enslave the whole world.

The growing intensity of the

armed struggle in Asia, Africa and Latin American countries for national liberation, is destroying the very foundation of imperialist rule. A new upsurge of struggle of the working class and the toiling peasants have overtaken the capitalist countries and the revolutionary ruling classes are facing an irreconciliable contradiction at home. An unprecedented wave of struggle of the Afro-American people against racial oppression that erupted with working class action is dealing powerful blows at the rule of the monopolis¬ tic classes in the United States. The revisionists, headed by the Soviet Union, are also confronted with an acute crisis and the people in the countries ruled by them are rising in, revolt against the restoration of capitalism and national subjugation and for the restoration of the dictatorship of the proletariat. On the other hand, Socialist China is performing a miracle of socialist construction.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolu¬

tion has consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat in every sphere of life, has created conditions for the emergence of the socialist man.

The victories of the cultural revolution have

culminated in the triumph of Mao’s Thought, the victories of Ninth National Congress of the great Communist Party of China.

The Thought of Chairman Mao is winning ever new

254

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

victories. The international class struggle has grown more intense than before and the doom of imperialism and all other reaction is near.

The world has created a new era in history—

the era of Chairman Mao’s Thought. The events of the last eighteen months have also proved the correctness of our view that the revolutionary situation in India is quite excellent.

Today, the ruling classes are enme¬

shed in a deeper economic and political crises than ever be¬ fore.

Contradictions between imperialism and the people,

between feudalism and the peasants, between capital and labour, and between different sections of the ruling classes are growing sharper

and sharper everyday.

The feudal fetters on the

masses of our peasantry have not yet been smashed and as a result of the intensified exploitation of our people by various imperialists, headed by the U. S. and Soviet imperialists and their Indian compradors, the working class, the peasantry and the petty-bourgeoisie and unemployment.

are victims of growing pauperisation At least ninetyfive percent of our people

are so hard hit due to poverty and wretchedness that they can no longer tolerate it and now they are impatient for a funda¬ mental change.

At the same time, a dog-fight is going on be¬

tween different sections and parties of the ruling classes that have linked their fate with that of the U. S., Soviet or British imperialists. Everywhere in India, the people are rising in bitter struggles to remove the four mountains that weigh upon them heavily. These mountains are U. S. Imperialism, Soviet Social-Imperia¬ lism, Feudalism, and Comprador-Bureaucrat Capitalism. Armed peasant struggle, which started in Naxalbari, have now spread to Srikakulam, Musahari and Lakhimpur Kheri and are spreading to the new areas.

Recently, the peasant

revolutionaries of Kerala staged a heroic revolt.

The revolu¬

tionary struggles of the Nagas, the Mizos and Kukis, who have risen with arms in hand, are also dealing hard blows at the reactionary regime.

The resistance of our people, both in

rural and in urban areas, fast develops and brings about a

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

255

new upsurge in the agrarian revolution—the main content of the democratic revolution. The reactionary ruling classes are resorting to brutal re¬ pression in order to beat back the rising tide of people’s struggles.

They are rushing their armed forces and police

personnel to the areas where armed struggles have broken out. Police firing, lathi-charge, tear-gassing, arrest and detention without trial have become the order of the day.

The ruling

classes are everyday arming themselves with all sorts of ‘demo¬ cratic’ legislative power to crush the class struggles.

At the

same time, every effort is being made to deceive the people and disrupt their struggles.

Communalism, casteism, provincialism

and all types of parochialism are being pressed into service to destroy the growing unity of our fighting people. chauvinism is

being fanned against

Socialist

National

China

and

neighbouring Pakistan to dupe the people and suppress their struggles.

In the name of national integration, the ruling

classes are trying to impose Hindi in the teeth of stiff opposi¬ tion from various nationalities. Equality of all nations and national languages is being denied. In such a situation when revolutionary struggles are advan¬ cing rapidly and when the ruling classes are making frantic efforts to suppress them, the revisionists and neo-revisionists have come forward to serve as the lackeys of imperialism and domestic reaction.

By presenting the so-called ‘United Front’

govts, as “organ of struggle”, by raising the slogan of “pro¬ viding relief” to the people they are trying to create illusions among the people in order to blunt their revolutionary consci¬ ousness and divert them from the path struggle.

of

revolutionary

These “United Front” govts, are in essence the

answer of the reactionary ruling class to the challenge thrown by the

people.

The neo-revisionists have been shouting that

“time is not yet ripe for revolution”, “the people are not yet prepared for it”, and that “the slogan of armed guerilla stru¬ ggle is an adventurist slogan.”

There is no doubt that these

lackeys of foreign and domestic reaction are only trying their

256

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

best to dampen the revolutionary spirit of our

VOL II

toiling people

in order to save their masters from the fiery wrath of the people. Struggle between Two Lines in the Party The history of the Communist Party of India is the history of struggle between the line of class struggle and the line of class collaboration and treachery, between revolutionary ranks and the bourgeois, ship.

the

proletarian

reactionary leader¬

An appraisal of the Party history will show that the

leadership has always acted as conscious traitors to the revolu¬ tionary cause of our people.

It will also show that the revo¬

lutionary ranks failed to overthrow the treacherous leadership earlier because of their inability to make concrete analysis of the classes in Indian society and of their role in the Indian revolution. With the great victory of anti-Fascist war, in which the Soviet people led by Stalin, played the most outstanding role, and the glorious victory of the Chinese people led by Com¬ rade Mao Tsetung, over Japanese imperialism, the fascist im¬ perialist powers met with their doom, thus severely weakening imperialism as a whole.

The world-shaking victory of the

great Chinese Revolution under the wise leadership of Com¬ rade Mao Tsetung breached the imperialist front in the East and the world balance of force underwent a change.

It is

during the anti-Japanese War of Resistance that Comrade Mao Tsetung’s theory of People’s War was fully developed: it charted a new path—the path that all the peoples of colonial and semi-colonial countries like India must pursue, to liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialist and domestic re¬ action.

A storm of revolutionary struggles raged over various

countries of Asia where the people followed the road indicated by Chairman Mao, the road of People’s War.

The pent-up

wrath of the Indian people found expression in a widespread, heroic revolt against the rule of the imperialists.

Led by the

working class, India’s peasantry took to the path of armed

257

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

struggle : the peasants of Punnapra-Vayalar put up resistance against the reactionary armed forces, the peasants of Telengana rose with arms in hand against the rule of the feudal lords, the peasants of Bengal waged the Tebhaga struggle against feudal exploitation.

There was an upsurge of working class struggle

all over the country.

The revolt spread even among the ranks

of the police, the Army and the Navy.

But the revisionist

leadership acted as the lackey of the imperialists and the domestic reactionaries and

betrayed

Alarmed at the revolutionary

these

great

struggles.

upsurge, imperialism struck a

deal with the Congress that represented comprador capital and feudalism in India. direct rule

The country was partitioned, the

of the imperialists changed

into

their indirect

rule. Together with all other political parties of India, the revisionist leadership

committed this treachery against the

people. The Second Congress of the Party witnessed the revolt of ranks

against

the

sordid betrayal.

The

Ranadive

clique

utilised these revolts to seize the leadership of the Party.

The

Secretariat of the Andhra Provincial Committee which was then leading the Telengana struggle, correctly pointed out that the Indian revolution could win victory only by following the road blazed by China, the road of People’s War.

The Ranadive

clique opposed this correct formulation of the Andhra Secre¬ tariat and adopted the Trotskyite theory of accomplishing both the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution at one •stroke.

Thus, this clique diverted the attention

of the Party

ranks from the agrarian revolution—the basic task of the •democratic revolution.

Sectarianism led the Party members

into adventurist actions.

Though the Ranadive clique followed

this wrong and suicidal policy,

the peasant revolutionaries

of Telengana did not deviate from the path of struggle. advanced

They

this struggle forward by adopting the tactics of

guerilla war.

The Ranadive clique formally abandoned the

sectarian line when they were forced with a revolt of the ranks. The just intervention of the international leadership helped Vol 11—17

258

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

this process.

VOL II

But the same treacherous policy was restored

with the adoption of the programme of 1951 The programme and the tactical line of 1951 were adopted on the understanding that the Indian big bourgeoisie has a dual character.

By this dual character was meant that the

Indian big bourgeoisie has an anti-imperialist role as well as a proneness to compromise with imperialism.

In other words,

the Indian big bourgeoisie is regarded as the national bour¬ geoisie.

Though Comrade Stalin said as early as 1925 that

the section of the Indian bourgeoisie which is big and powerful had already deserted to the camp of the imperialists and had formed a bloc with them, yet, while swearing by the name of Stalin and adopting a programme of national uprising, the treacherous leadership

of the Communist Party depicted the

big bourgeoisie as the national bourgeoisie.

This enabled the

revisionist leadership to describe the Indian State as an inde¬ pendent bourgeois state.

Though they held that the Indian

Govt, is the government of the landlords and the big bourgeoisie closely linked with imperialism, they put forward the theory that the big bourgeoisie is the most powerful element in this combination and that it is they who are building the Indian State as an independent bourgeois state.

Taking advantage

of this theory, the Dange clique adopted the political line that feudalism

no longer exists

developed in agriculture.

in India and that capitalism has Thus, Nehru was described as the

representative of the progressive bourgeoisie.

The

Dange

clique adopted a liquidationist policy as they held that India’s national democratic government would be set up by forming an alliance with the bourgeoisie.

At the same time,

they

preached that the more Soviet ‘aid’ India received, the more secure would be India’s freedom.

That is, Soviet ‘aid’ would

enable India to move out of the orbit of imperialist domina¬ tion.

We learn from the experience of the great Chinese

Party that in 1927, after Chiang Kaishek’s rise to power, the Chinese Trotskyites

declared that the Chiang Kaishek

clique had overthrown imperialism and feudalism and were.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

259

preaching the path of independent capitalist development. The Right opportunist Chen Tu-Hsiu followed this Trotskyite line. They held that with the completion of the democratic revolution, China had entered the stage of socialist revolution. They raised the demand “Set up the National Assembly”, opted for legal movement and deserted the path of revolutionary struggle. They were opposed to all kinds of revolutionary struggle and were expelled from the Party. The treacherous revisionist leadership of the CPI followed the same path and opposed every kind of revolutio¬ nary struggle. They forced Telengana’s revolutionary peasants to surrender arms and stabbed the struggles of the peasants in the back wherever, in India, they rose in revolt. When, in 1962, the Indian Govt, launched an aggression against the Chinese frontier guards, the treacherous role of the Dange clique was clearly exposed before the Party ranks. The Party members rebelled against the renegade Dange clique. Taking advantage of their revolt, the Ranadive clique again seized the leadership of the Party, as in 1948. Even in the programme adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Party in 1964, they depicted the Indian State as an indepen¬ dent state. Assuming that the Indian big bourgeoisie had an anti-imperialist role, they declared that Soviet ‘aid’ would safeguard India’s freedom and lead to the sharpening of the contradiction with U. S. imperialism. The same Trotskyite theories had been adopted in the programme of the Seventh Congress too. By describing the Indian revolu¬ tion, instead of directly calling it socialist revolution, the Ranadive clique had resorted to trickery. No sooner had the Seventh Congress been over than it was declared on behalf of the Polit Bureau that the Party would pursue the legal, parliamentary path. So, no revolutionary party but another bourgeois party emerged out of the Seventh Congress. And this Party has today forged unity with world reaction by allying itself with the renegade Dange clique and has become a Party hostile to the Indian masses—an instrument for

260

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

suppressing the liberation struggle of the Indian people. this period has witnessed increasing collaboration Soviet and U. S. Imperialism.

Yet,

between

The Soviet renegade clique is

opposing every national liberation struggle in the world and has tightened its neo-colonial grip on

India.

Despite

all

this, the Ranadive clique not only sing praises of the Soviet Union as a ‘Socialist State’ but are also loud in praise of Soviet ‘aid’.

Though the character of the Indian big bour¬

geoisie is essentially comprador and bureaucratic, the Ranadive clique propagate that they are and thus try to

make

India’s

appendage to the bourgeoisie.

independent and sovereign revolutionary

struggle an

By under-estimating the feudal

-exploitation of the peasant masses they belittle the importance of the agrarian revolution and seek to lead

the

peasant

struggles alongthe path of compromise. So, the most important task today is to build up a revolutionary Communist Party armed with Marxism-Leninism,

and the Thought of

Mao-

Tsetung. Today, the sparks of Naxalbari have spread to many parts of India and will soon spread to newer and newer areas. Without overthrowing the enemies of the Indian people—U. S. imperialism,

Soviet social-imperialism,

India’s

comprador-

bureaucratic capitalism and feudalism, there can be no solution of any of the

problems of the Indian people, the reign of

darkness over India cannot be ended, nor can India advance one step along the road of progress.

Task before the Revolutionary Party While this revolutionary Party has been formed in India, it should be borne in mind that the Indian Party may commit both Right and ‘Left’ deviations because the Party of India’s working class has never before given serious consideration to the role of the peasants in the agrarian revolution. Mao has taught us, “Who are our friends ? of the first importance for the revolution.

Chairman

This is a question The basic reason

why all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to

261

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

attack real enemies.

A revolutionary Party is the guide of

the masses and no revolution ever succeeds when the revolu¬ tionary Party leads astray. achieve

To assure that we shall definitely

success in our revolution

and shall not lead the

masses astray, we must pay attention to uniting with our real friends in order to attack our real enemies.

To distinguish

friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society and of their respective

attitudes towards the revolution”.

If the poor landless peasants, who constitute the majority of the peasantry, the firm ally of the working class, unite with the middle peasants, then the vastest section of the Indian people will be united

and the

democratic

revolution

will

inevitably win victory.

It is the responsibility of the working

class as the leader of the revolution to unite with the peasantry —the main force of the revolution—and to advance towards seizure of power through armed struggle. of the worker-peasant

It is on the basis

alliance that a revolutionary united

front of all revolutionary

classes will be built up.

As the

Party of the working class, the Communist Party must take upon itself the chief responsibility of organising the peasantry and

advancing

struggle.

towards

seizure

of power

through

armed

To fulfil this task the revolutionary Communist

Party must study

Chairman Mao’s Thought, for it is only

Chairman Mao’s Thought that can bring the peasant masses into the revolutionary front and Chairman Mao’s theory of Peoples’ War is the only means by which an apparently weak revolutionary force can wage successful struggles against an apparently powerful enemy and can win victory.

The basic

tactic of struggle of the revolutionary peasantry led by the working class is guerilla warfare. the Chairman’s teaching :

We must bear in mind

“Guerilla warfare is

basic but

lose no chance for mobile warfare under favourable condit¬ ions''.

Our tactics as described by Comrade Lin Piao are :

“You fight in your own way, we can win and move away

we fight in ours. We fight when when we cannot”.

The task

262

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

of the Party of the working class is not merely to master tactics but also to rally all the other revolutionary behind

the basic programme

of

the

classes

agrarian revolution.

The revolutionary Party will be able to carry out this task only when it educates itself in the

Thought of Chairman

Mao, adopts the style of work taught by him, and practises self-criticism. It is the delay in India’s democratic revolution that enables U.

S. imperialism and Soviet sccial-imperialism to unite the

reactionary forces of the world and to oppose the liberation struggles

in different

countries of the world.

The U. S.

imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are using India as a main base for carrying out their strategy for joint domination.

world

India is also the centre of conspiracies against

Socialist China, the base of world revolution, the hope of the exploited people of

the whole world.

That is why it is not

merely the patriotic duty of the Indian people to accomplish the I ndian revolution, it is also their internationalist duty. The international significance of the Indian revolution is very great.

Great Lenin dreamt of the day when revolutionary

India would unite with revolutionary China and bring about the collapse of the world imperialist system.

That is why at

the time of the formation of the Party, the Indian revolutiona¬ ries must resolve that they shall unite with the great people of China and thus forge unity with the liberation struggles of the various countries, that they shall build up a revolutionary united front and destroy world imperialism and accomplice,

modern revisionism.

its

chief

Chairman Mao has given

the call : “People of the world unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common

enemy,

accomplices.

It can be said with certainty that the

complete

U. S. Imperialism and

its

collapse of colonialism, imperialism and

all systems of exploitation, and the complete emanci-

263

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

pation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off.” Our task is to prepare ourselves to respond to this call. [Reproduced from Liberation Vol.2, No. 7, May 20, 1969]

RESOLUTION ON PARTY ORGANISATION Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) April 22, 1969 Background Our Political Resolution has already made it amply clear how at each critical stage of our National Liberation struggle the leadership of the Party consciously betrayed the revolu¬ tionary cause by dragging the Party into the morass of Right Opportunism and Left Sectarianism.

We have seen how the

Party leadership betrayed the great armed struggle of the Telengana peasantry, the struggle of the people in the Native States, the great Tebhaga and Bakasht peasant struggles in North India, the great mutiny of the R. I. N. ratings and other sections of the armed forces.

We have seen how the

Party leadership recoiled in dread at the sight of the great anti¬ imperialist and anti-feudal upsurge that engulfed the whole of India in the post-war years, the upsurge that was part of the world-wide high tide of national liberation struggles delivering devastating blows against imperialism and their lackeys, thus shaking the entire edifice of the imperialist rule in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

We have seen how the Party leadership

consciously worked in post-war years to transform the Party from the weapon of class struggle into the weapon of class collaboration, from the general staff of revolution into a docile stooge of reaction, from a revolutionary Party into a legal and parliamentary Party and from a Party of proletarian inter¬ nationalism into a national chauvinist Party.

The bloody re¬

pression unleashed on the heroic peasant masses of Naxalbari

264

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IJ

by the Revisionist leadership was the final act of treachery which completely unmasked their ugly and counter-revolutionary face.

A careful analysis of the Party history proves beyond a

shadow of doubt that there was nothing accidental in these betrayals of the Party leadership as they have refused to learn from the great armed struggle of the Chinese people who were conducting the most longdrawn and the bitterest war of liberation in the hitherto known history against imperialism and their lackeys.

These betrayals could take place because

the leadership took care to see that the Party was not rooted among the toiling people, especially among the working class, and the peasantry.

They could take place because political

consciousness of the ranks was deliberately kept at a low level. However, the history of the Party also proves that time and again the Party ranks have risen in open revolt against the policies of betrayals by the leadership and have been constantly fighting for a thorough revolutionary and proletarian inter¬ nationalist line in both theory and practice. have played a glorious

role in

The Party ranks

unleashing and conducting

the above-mentioned struggles and have kept the flames of class struggle burning throughout India’s struggle for emanci¬ pation from imperialism and feudal bondage.

The rank and

file of the Communist Party have stood at the head of bitter class struggles and have borne the brunt of bloody repression and thousands of

them

Indian revolution.

There is nothing accidental in this pheno¬

menon either.

fell martyrs to

the cause of the

It was natural that fired by the highest ideals

of Communism and closely linked with the suffering masses, the Party ranks represented the revolutionary urges of the people throughout this period. To sum up, it can be safely said that the history of the Communist Party of India has been the history of ceaseless struggles between

the bourgeois stand-point and the prole¬

tarian stand-point, between the bourgeois line and proletarian line and between the bourgeois reactionary leadership and the proletarian revolutionary ranks.

265

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

It must also be emphasised that the revolutionary struggle of the Naxalbari peasantry represented the final break of the revolutionary ranks from the counter-revolutionary leadership and the formation of the All India Co-ordination Committee of the Communist Revolutionaries was the first link in the chain process of building a truly revolutionary Communist Party in India.

Inspired by the invincible Thought of Chair¬

man Mao and drawing lessons from the Great Chinese Revo¬ lution, the All India Co-ordination Committee have

been

conducting heroic armed struggle in many parts of the country, particularly in Srikakulam, Lakhimpur Kheri and other places. The bankruptcy of the parliamentary path has been proved and the treachery of the Revisionists and Neo-revisionists has been exposed considerably.

The last eighteen months have wit¬

nessed the unification of the revolutionaries of India on all the essentials of Party Programme, thus placing the immediate formation of the Party on the agenda, as Chairman Mao tea¬ ches us : “If there is to be a revolution, there must be a revo¬ lutionary Party.” The Ideological Political Unification The building of a revolutionary Party is, first and foremost,, the ideological

and political building.

The

neo-revisionist

leadership of the Party could easily befool the revolutionary ranks simply by deferring the ideological and political ques¬ tions to a secondary place and putting the organisational tasks in the first place.

Most of the revolutionary cadres were

swayed away by wrong notions about Party unity and legality and thus played into the hands of the revisionist gang.

We

must now draw a proper lesson from this mistake and must give first place to ideology and politics above everything else. The ideological and political building of the Party today means : i) That we all accept Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought as the guide to all revolutionary activity and apply their general truths to our concrete conditions.

We all pledge to become

266

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

true disciples of Chairman Mao, the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our era. ii)

We must attain unanimity regarding fundamental prob¬

lems raised during our struggle against revisionists of all vari¬ eties and also regarding the mistakes made by most of the revolutionaries. iii)

We must attain unanimity regarding the essential points

of our Party Programme, namely, the nature of Indian society, the primary task

and perspective of Indian revolution, the

motive force of our revolution and the path that we have to traverse, that is, on the general plan of Indian revolution. The unanimity that we have arrived at is being summarised in another resolution and the whole of the Party has to be educated and united on that basis. The Party of Armed Revolution The revolutionaries of India have now arrived at a common understanding regarding the futility of the parliamentary path, the parties which were organised on the basis of parliamen¬ tarism have sunk to the level of reaction and counter-revolu¬ tion all over the world.

Our experience, like the experiences

gained by many other parties, shows that the so-called inter¬ weaving of parliamentary

and non-parliamentary paths, in

practice, amounts only to the degeneration of the Party into a parliamentary party, into the position of appendage to the reactionary

ruling classes.

In present day India, the

big

landlords and the big bourgeoisie have found out a new device for hoodwinking the people, i. e. by setting up non-Congress Governments

with revisionists and

of all descriptions.

reactionary

politicians

Under such conditions, great pulls and

pressures of parliamentarism are bound to creep up again and again. All these pressures and pulls have to be combated most vehemently so that we are able to lead the Indian people on the path of revolution. Revolution.

So, our Party is the Party of Armed

No other path exists before the Indian people

267

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

but the path of Armed Revolution. It must be understood that the Party cannot be built in isolation from armed struggle. The Rural-Based Party The revolutionaries have also assimilated the truth that the path of armed revolution is the path of the People’s War.

In

the conditions in India, Asia and all other semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries in Africa and Latin America, it is first and foremost a peasants’ war against feudalism.

Therefore, the

first and foremost task of our Party is to rouse the peasant masses in the countryside to wage guerilla war, unfold agra¬ rian revolution, build rural base areas, use the countryside to encircle the cities and finally to capture the cities and to liberate the whole country.

Thus, in the present day phase

of Indian Revolution, the centre of gravity of our work has to be in the villages. So our Party, in the first instance, has to be a rural-based Party and not a town-based Party. The Secret and Underground Party A revolutionary Party, to be able to conduct a longdrawn armed

struggle,

cannot and must not remain a legal Party.

It must function with the utmost secrecy and keep its main • cadres

underground.

Though

the

Party

should

learn to

utilise all possible legal opportunities for developing its revolu¬ tionary activities, it should under no circumstances, functon in the open. We must assimilate the teaching of Comrade Lin Piao, which has also been confirmed in our recent Sonapet struggle, ■‘Guerilla warfare is the only way to mobilise and apply the whole strength of the people against the enemy.”

The coming

period will be a period of fast developing guerilla struggle throughout the vast expanse of our country and the Party is called upon to conduct and lead them confidently. the Party

should

Therefore,

concentrate, in the main, on developing

guerilla forms of armed struggle and not waste time and its

268

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

energies in holding open mass meetings and forming kisan sabhas in the old style. A Party of New Style According to Chairman Mao, the Marxist-Leninist style of work essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practising criticism and self-criticism.

It means that our Party, while persisting in

the ideological and political line has to evolve a mass line on the basis of ‘taking from the masses and giving to the masses’ and must constantly raise the level of its understanding. It also means that it has to evolve a proper method of criticism

and self-criticism.

The cadre has to be educated

through self-criticism by the leadership.

In criticising

the

mistakes of the cadre, the policy of ‘curing the disease and saving the patient’ will have to be constantly worked out. It is in this way that our Party is going to be a Party of the new style. Developing Teams of Revolutionary Leadership All these tasks can be performed only by a leadership which

is

advanced in theory and boundlessly loyal to the

historical mission of the proletariat.

Absolute devotion to

the cause, contact with the masses, ability to find out one’s bearings and observance of discipline independently are the first and foremost criteria on the basis of which the teams of leadership should be reorganised at all levels.

We should not,

in the least, hesitate in ‘getting rid of the stale and taking in the fresh’.

It will be the incumbent duty of these leading

teams at different levels to work out the method of ‘combining general with the particular’ and of ‘combining with the masses’.

leadership

It means that those who refuse to take

active part in revolutionary activities and refuse to leave the cities and go to the rural areas to organise red bases of agrarian revolution should, in no case, be allowed to remain members of these leading teams.

Every member of these

269

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

leading teams, in whatever post he is, should be entrusted with the task of particular guidance to a selected area and to get personal experience therefrom.

Exceptions to this rule

may be granted only from the point of view of the Party’s requirements

and

the requirements

of the

armed struggle

and from no other angle. It means that the leading teams are to be organised only by professional revolutionaries, only by those who are ready to give up every other interest but the revolution. While organising such leading teams, care must be taken to bring in all the professional revolutionaries in the Co-ordi¬ nation who accept and implement the main line put forward by our Political and Organisational resolutions. It may take some time and great energy in organising the kind of leading teams that our Party requires. difficult job.

It will be a

Much explanatory work will have to be done,

traditional boundaries based upon

administrative units

of

our committee will have to be changed. But these committees or leading teams of leadership cannot perform their

jobs

unless the criteria set for the teams are strictly applied and the method

of

leadership

enunciated

by

Chairman

Mao

properly inplemented. Recruitment of Party Members It is under the guidance of such committees that proper -enrolment of Party membership has to be conducted. While enrolling the membership of the Party, all notions :about mass

membership of the Party should be combated.

A revolutionary Party does not become a mass Party by virtue of its large number of members.

Such is the criteria

-fixed by revisionists and parliamentary parties.

A revoluti¬

nary Party becomes a mass Party by virtue of its mass line, by virtue of its closest links with the masses, by virtue of its being merged

with

the

masses.

quality that is essential and Party.

It is not the number but the primary

for a revolutionary

270

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

We will enroll only such members in our Party who accept Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought as a guide to action, who accept all the essential points of our Party Programme and the organisational line set forth in our Political and Organisa¬ tional

resolutions,

participate in daily

activity

under

the

discipline of some of the Party organisations and give financial aid to the Party according to their capacity.

Those comrades

who are unable to fulfil these primary conditions of Party membership

but have stood with us in revolt against the

revisionists, will certainly not like to degrade our Party to the level of social-democracy by lightening these conditions and we are fully entitled to expect that they will remain our best sympathisers and helpers.

We are confident that with the

rising tide of revolution, innumerable young elements from the working class,

peasants,

and fighting especially the

poor peasants and other toiling sections will join our Party readily fulfilling all the conditions of Party membership.

It

must be our constant endeavour to bring them into the Party organisation and turn them into the finest cadre. Elements from the petty-bourgeoisie, who take the standpoint of the working class and integrate themselves with the basic masses will also be welcomed.

But those who belong to the exploiting

classes, bad characters etc, should in no case be allowed to join the Party. No nation or class has ever attained its liberation without braving the storms and fulfilling the quota of sacrifices.

Our

Party and its members have to play an exemplary vanguard role by their perseverance, courage, initiative and sacrifices. They must place the interests of the Party and the people above their personal interests. Democratic Centralism Our Party will be organised on the principle of democratic centralism.

To conduct a revolutionary struggle, establishing

iron discipline in the Party is indispensable. condition

to

establish

But the first

iron discipline in the Party is by

271

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

creating an

atmosphere of democracy and establishing demo¬

cracy under central

guidance.

Only by constantly

giving

correct line of guidance, only by constantly getting familiar with the lower bodies and with the life of the masses, only by taking firm and

well-considered decisions and only by

promptly transmitting those decisions to the lower bodies, getting them thoroughly

discussed and helping the

lower

bodies in finding out methods of implementing them can the democracy under central guidance be developed

and

the

authority of the leadership established. This is the proper way of establishing the authority of the leading bodies.

This is the proper way of developing innumer¬

able successors of revolution by unleashing their initiative. Fight wrong conceptions and alien trends The bureaucratic

methods

employed by the bourgeois

reactionary leadership of the Party during the entire period of our Party’s existence, coupled with their meanest craftiness have terribly shaken the confidence of the Party ranks and, as a result, tendencies

all have

sorts of idealist, grown in them.

anarchic and

autonomist

The apprehension of a

possible re-emergence of a bureaucratic leadership has been utilised by various petty-bourgeois groups who are assiduously compaigning to prevent the building up of a revolutionary Party in India.

All sorts of anti-Marxist ideas and concepts

like ‘historical inevitability of groupism at this stage’, ‘the Party growing automatically out of struggle’ and leaving the task of building the Party to spontaneity in the name of building the Party from below and general varieties of ‘poly-centrism’, being preached by these groups.

are

On the one hand, they claim

to preach the Thought of Chairman Mao and support the Naxalbari path and on the other, they deliberately work to sabotage the building of a revolutionary Communist Party in India which alone can lead a revolution through to the end. Hence the building up of the Party means, on the one hand, to declare a relentless war against the bureaucratic methods

272

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

of leadership still prevalent among us at various levels and on the other, to expose and annihilate the alien, idealistic, anarchic and autonomistic concepts being preached by these groups. It is only by exposing and thoroughly smashing these alien concepts

that

those

honest

revolutionaries

who

are

still

following these groups can be won into the Party. There must be complete clarity in our minds in the methods of our leadership, in the style of our work and in our day to day practical life.

Revisionist methods, habits and practices

still dominate and they can be eradicated

and revolutionary

proletarian methods, habits and practices

can grow only by

constant

endeavour

participation in

to

remould

ourselves through active

revolutionary struggles and subjecting our¬

selves to criticism and self-criticism. Ours is the real Communist Party of India. the word

‘Marxist-Leninist’

after its name

(It will affix -to denote its

differentiation from the parties running under the leadership of the Dange clique and other neo-revisionists.) This is the Party of the proletariat and it represents the true aspirations and policies of the revolutionary class. This Party will give first preference to ideological and political building rather than to organisational structure. This Party will take as its first task the training of revolu¬ tionary cadres in revolutionary activity. This Party will be a Party of armed struggle and will be a rural-based Party in the first instance and will give first preference to the building of revolutionary base areas in the countryside rather than work in the cities in the present phase of the revolution. This Party will give first preference to prepare the working class to assume the role of leadership

of our

revolution

than to carrying on economic and cultural activities in the cities. This Party will give first preference to the task of organising leading teams of the

Party than to the enrolment of the

Party members on a mass scale.

273

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

This Party will give first preference to the quality

of

membership rather than to the quantity. This Party will be organised on the basis of democratic centralism but it will give first prefernce to the task of unlea¬ shing democracy under centralised guidance rather than to the formal discipline. This Party will develop a mass line and will be the first on criticism and self-criticism. It is in this way that we take our first organisational steps towards rebuilding the Party. The All India Co-ordination Committee sets up the Central Organising Committee from its midst with those of its members leading the armed struggles as its guiding force. The Committee appeals to all the State units and all other units to discuss this resolution along with our Political resolu¬ tion and to send us their points and suggestions within the next two months. It appeals to all its State Committees to set up State Organising Committees and Committees for

different areas

in the same manner, strictly adhering to the criteria set forth for the leading teams.

It is only under the

strict guidance of

the State Organising Committees that the members of the Party will be enrolled. It appeals to all revolutionary comrades to unite ideologi¬ cally and politically and to shoulder the rebuilding the Party.

responsibility

of

It is on the basis of this discussion and

some experience of functioning of the Party that the Central Organising Committee will place before a Party Congress the drafts of the Party Programme and the Party Constitution and take further steps towards Party building. We earnestly appeal to all State Units of the Co-ordination Committee to

prepare reports of the conditions of the masses

and self-critical reviews of their functioning so that a consoli¬ dated review of all-India developments may

be placed before

the Congress and necessary decision may be taken on that basis. Vol 11—18

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

274

VOL If

We are fully confident that our Party, led by invincible Thought of Chairman Mao and trying to become his worthy disciple, will be able to lead the revolution through to the end.

A CRITIQUE OF THE POLITICAL RESOLUTION [We mention below some of the major criticisms of the Political Resolution of the CPI(ML), contained in the 18-point document, reportedly placed before the Party leadership in June 1969 by a section of cadres of Howrah District, West Bengal, who subsequent to their expulsion from the Party, later formed the LIBERATION FRONT—a group which, even after that, accepted the CPI(ML) as a revolutionary party. Ed.] 1)

Although it is a fact that the revolutionary section of

the Indian people has

discarded the parliamentary path, it

would be incorrect to suggest that people as a whole have lost all faith in all the bourgeois and revisionist parties, or they no longer harbour any illusion about the parliamentary path, or they are eagerly waiting for a fundamental and radical transformation of the socio-political system. 2)

At present, clearly visible is the unity—and not disunity

—amongst the ruling classes that have identified their interests with imperialism. 3)

The principal contradiction in the present phase of the

Indian revolution is the contradiction between feudalism and the Indian people and not that between feudalism and the peasantry. 4)

It would be wrong to draw a strict parallelism between

the experiences of the CPC and the Communist movement in India while refering to some deviations from the correct path committed by the Party leadership. 5)

Maintaining silence over the need to form a political

‘base area’ may provide incentive to form “roving guerilla bands.” 6)

Notwithstanding

the correctness of the formulation

that under the leadership of the working class the principal

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

275

tactic of the revolutionary peasants is guerilla war, it is wrong to maintain that there is no need for mass movements, mass organisations and class struggles. 7)

The contention that the major part of India’s wealth is

in the hands of 75 comprador capitalists is not correct as feudalism still constitutes the main enemy of the Indian people and the largest part of India’s wealth is still under the control of the feudal lords.

Moreover, taking the banking and public

sectors into account, this contention is far from correct in the light of the data published by the Monopoly Enquiry Com¬ mission, 1965.

PROGRAMME of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

Adopted at the PARTY CONGRESS held in May 1970 1.

Our beloved country is one of the biggest and most

ancient countries of the world inhabited by 500 million people. Ours is an agrarian country, a country of the peasant masses, hard-working and talented.

They

have rich revolutionary

traditions and a glorious cultural heritage. 2.

The British imperialists conquered India and estab¬

lished their direct rule some 200 years ago and since then the history of our country has been a history of ceaseless struggles waged

by

imperialism

the

heroic

and

Independence in

feudal

Indian

peasantry

oppression.

The

against First

British War

of

1857, a war fought by the peasantry and

rebel soldiers, turned into a conflagration engulfing the whole of the vast country, inflicting many humiliating defeats on the imperialists and shaking the very foundations of the alien imperialist rule.

This great uprising of the Indian people

failed owing to the betrayal by India’s feudal princes. 3. Since then India has witnessed innumerable armed peasant revolts.

However, these revolts failed as there was

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

276

VOL II

no scientific theory and no revolutionary leadership capable of leading them to victory. 4.

The Indian bourgeoisie, comprador in nature, inter¬

vened to divert the national liberation struggle from the path of revolution to the path of compromise Beginning

from

the

Champaran

and

peasant

surrender.

struggle,

the

Gandhian leadership representing the upper stratum of the bourgeoisie and feudal class, with its ideology of ‘ahimsa’ ‘satyagraha’,

passive

resistance and ‘charkha’,

sought to

tailor the national movement to serve the interests of the British imperialist rule and its feudal lackeys. 5.

The Great October Revolution brought the ideology

of Marxism-Leninism Party of

India was

opportunities, the

to our country and the born.

However,

despite

Communist tremendous

leadership of the working class could not

be established over the national liberation struggle as the leadership of the Party refused to fight Gandhism and the Gandhian leadership and to take to the path of revolution. The leadership refused to integrate the universal

truth of

Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of Indian revolu¬ tion.

It refused to integrate the Party with the heroic masses,

chiefly the revolutionary peasantry, and to forge a revolutio¬ nary united front.

It refused to learn from the great liberation

struggle of the Chinese people led by the CPC and Chairman Mao Tsetung and to take to the path of armed struggle. 6.

On the contrary, the leadership of the CPI consciously

trailed behind the leadership of the Congress and betrayed the revolution from the very beginning.

The leaders of the

CPI were agents of imperialism and feudalism.

Despite the

treachery of the leadership, the Party ranks stood with the suffering people, led many class battles and made

untold

sacrifices for the cause of the Indian proletariat. 7.

The smashing defeat of the fascist powers at the hands

of the world people led by the Soviet

Union

under

the

leadership of Great Stalin and the world-shaking victorious advance of the Great Chinese liberation struggle under the

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

277

leadership of Chairman Mao brought about a new alignment of forces

the

world

over.

Imperialism

was

very

much

weakened and the national liberation struggle of the colonial people surged forward like a torrent throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, threatening to sweep imperialism and its lackeys away. 8.

An unprecedented revolutionary

the Indian sub-continent too.

situation overtook

The mighty movement for the

release of ‘Azad Hind’ prisoners, powerful anti-imperialist demonstrations by students all over India, the great Tebhaga and Bakasht struggles, the anti-feudal struggles in the princely states, the powerful struggle of the P&T workers, the armed revolt of the R.I.N.

ratings along with rebellions in the Air

Force and the Army and the police revolt in Bihar, the great solidarity actions of the working class and the beginning of the historic armed peasant struggle in Telengana brought the imperialist rule in India almost to the verge of collapse. 9.

Faced with such a situation, the British imperialism

pressed into services its tried agents—the leaders of the Indian National Congress, Muslim League and of the CPI with a view to crushing this revolutionary upsurge of the Indian people.

The

country was

partitioned

amidst

communal

carnage and the Congress leadership representing the compra¬ dor bourgeoisie and big landlords, was installed in power while the British imperialists stepped into the background. The sham independence declared in 1947 was nothing but a replacement of the colonial and semi-feudal set-up with a semi-colonial and semi-feudal one. 10.

During these years of sham independence the big

comprador-bureaucrat

bourgeoisie and big landlord

ruling

classes have been serving their imperialist masters quite faith¬ fully. British

These lackeys of imperialism, while preserving the old imperialist

exploitation,

have

also

brought U. S.

imperialist and Soviet social-imperialist exploiters to fleece our country. 11.

They have mortgaged our country to the imperialist

278

naxalbari AND AFTER

VOL II

powers, mainly to the U. S. imperialists and Soviet socialimperialists.

With

the weakening of the power of British

imperialism the world over, the Indian ruling classes have now hired themselves out to U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.

Thus instead of two mountains, British

imperialism and feudalism, the Indian people are now weighed down under the four huge mountains, namely, imperialism headed by U. S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, feuda¬ lism

and

comprador-bureaucrat

capital.

turned into a neo-colony of U. S. social-imperialism. by these

Thus, India has

imperialism and Soviet

The ruthless exploitation and oppression

four enemies

of the

Indian people have created

unprecedented miseries, sufferings and calamities. are struggling on the brink of death.

Millions

Several millions go

hungry, naked, houseless and unemployed. 12.

In the name of ‘national integration,’ these enemies

of the people have been suppressing the genuine rights of all the nationalities and national and religious minorities.

The

right of self-determination is being denied to the Kashmiris, Nagas and Mizos.

Equal status to all the national languages

is being denied and Hindi is being sought to be imposed on the people by them. 13.

Our country is the country of the peasant masses

who constitute over 75 percent of its population.

They are

the most exploited people of our country living in conditions of semi-starvation and

absolute

pauperisation.

In

India’s

semi-feudal economy, 80°/o of the land is concentrated in the hands of the 20% of the landowners, i.e., ‘rajahs', landlords and rich peasants, while the starving peasantry constituting 80% of the rural population has no land or very little land. 14.

The landless and poor peasants have to turn over

50% to 90% of their annual harvest in the form of rent to the landlords.

The extortionate usurious capital continues to fleece

the peasants. Eviction of peasants is the order of the day. Social oppression on scheduled castes including the lynching of Harijans, reminiscent of the middle ages, is continuing unabated.

279

©EBATES AND DOCUMENTS

15.

The semi-feudal land relations have transformed our

■country into a land of perpetual famine, as a result of which millions of people die of starvation every year. 16.

In brief, out of all the major contradictions in our

■country, that is, the contradiction between imperialism and social-imperialism on the one hand and our people on the other, the contradiction

between feudalism and

the

broad

masses of the people, the contradiction between capital and labour and the contradiction within the ruling classes, the one between the landlords and the peasantry, i. e., the contra¬ diction between feudalism and the broad masses of the Indian people is the principal contradiction in the present phase. 17.

The resolution of this contradiction will lead to the

resolution of all other contradictions too. 18.

While preserving and perpetuating the semi-feudal

set-up,

the

big comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and big

landlord ruling classes have become pawns in the hands of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. 19.

The phenomenal increase in the total quantum of

foreign

capital,

the

heavy

remittances of profits

abroad,

thousands of collaborationist enterprises, total dependence on imperialist “aid, grants and loans” for capital goods, technical know-how,

military

supplies and armament industries for

building military bases and even for markets, unequal trade and P.L. 480 agreements have made U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism the overlords of our country. 20.

U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism have

brought the vital sectors of the economy of our country under their

control. U.

S. imperialism

collaborates

mainly

with

private capital and is now penetrating into the industries in the state sector, while Soviet social-imperialism has brought under its control mainly the industries in the state sector and is at the same time trying to enter into collaboration with private capital. 21. U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism do everything

possible

to foster the

growth of

comprador-

280

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

bureaucrat capitalism for continuing their unbridled exploita¬ tion of the Indian people. 22.

The much-trumpeted “public sector” is being built

up by many imperialist exploiters for employing their capital and for exploiting the cheap labour power and raw materials of our country. The public sector is nothing but a clever device to hoodwink the Indian people and continue

their plunder.

It is state monopoly capitalism i. e., bureaucrat capitalism. 23.

With their octopus-like grip on India’s economy, the

U. S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists control the political, cultural and military spheres of the life of our country, 24.

At the dictates of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-

imperialism, India’s reactionary ruling classes pursue a foreign policy that serves the interests of imperialism, social-imperialism and reaction.

It has been tailored to the needs of the global

strategy of the U. S. imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists to encircle Socialist China and suppress the national liberation struggle raging in various parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, of which Vietnam has become the spearhead. India’s aggression against Socialist China in 1962 and her continual provocation against China since then at the instance of U. S, imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, her support to the Soviet attack on China, her tacit approval of Soviet aggression against

Czechoslovakia,

her dirty role in supporting U. S,

imperialism against the Vietnamese people prove

beyond a

shadow of doubt that India’s ruling classes are faithful stooges of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. 25.

These hard facts irrefutably prove the semi-colonial

character of our sociely, besides its semi-feudal character. 26.

As the obsolete semi-feudal society acts as the social

base of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and as it facilitates also the plunder of our people by compradorbureaucrat capital, the problem of the peasantry becomes the basic problem of the Indian revolution. 27. to

Therefore, the basic task of the Indian revolution is

overthrow the rule of feudalism,

comprador-bureaucrat

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

28V

capitalism, imperialism and social-imperialism. mines the stage of our revolution.

This deter¬

It is the stage of demo¬

cratic revolution, the essence of which is agrarian revolution. 28.

It, however, is not the old type of democratic revo¬

lution but a new type of democratic revolution,

People’3

Democratic Revolution, as it forms a part of the 'world socia¬ list revolution, ifshered in by the Great October Revolution,, and as such, it can be successfully led by the working cla§s alone and by no other class.

The working class is the most

revolutionary class and the most organised advanced detach¬ ment of our people. 29.

This revolution will establish the dictatorship of the

working class, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and even a section of the. small and middle bourgeoisie under the leader¬ ship of the working class.

They, together, constitute the over-

w helming majority of the Indian people.

It will be a state

guaranteeing democracy for 90 percent of the people and enforcing dictatorship over a handful of enemies.

That is why

it is People’s Democracy. 30.

The main force of the democratic revolution led by

the working class is peasantry.

The working class fully relies

on the landless and poor peasants and firmly unites with the middle peasants and even wins over a section of the rich pea¬ sants while neutralizing the rest.

It will be only a tiny section

of the rich peasants that finally joins the enemies of the revo¬ lution.

The urban petty-bourgeoisie and the revolutionary

intellectuals of our country are revolutionary forces and will be a reliable ally in the revolution. 31.

The small and middle bourgeoisie, businessmen and

bourgeois intellectuals are vacillating and unstable allies of the democratic revolution.

They will now support, then oppose

and sometimes even betray the revolution.

Their dual role in

the revolution arises because of their contradiction as well as unity with the enemies of our revolution. 32.

Thus, in

order to carry the democratic revolution

through to the end it is necessary that a Democratic Front of

282

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

all these classes is built up under the leadership of the working class. 33.

This Front can, however, be built up

when worker-

peasant unity is achieved in the course of armed struggle and after Red political power is established at least in some parts of the country. 34.

It must be understood that the working class can and

will exercise its leadership over the People’s Democratic Revo¬ lution through its political party, the Communist Party of India (M-L).

It also performs its vanguard role by launching

struggles on political issues, both national and international, by solidarity actions in support of the revolutionary classes, mainly, the revolutionary struggles of the peasantry and by sending its class-conscious vanguard section to organise and lead the peasants’ armed struggle. 35.

The path of India’s liberation, as in the case of

all other colonial and semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries, is the path of People’s War. us, “The Revolutionary war

As Chairman Mao has taught is the war of the masses ; it

can be waged only by mobilising the masses and relying on them.” 36.

The working class can wage a successful People’s War

by creating small bases of armed struggle all over the country and consolidating the political power of the people.

This is

possible only by developing guerilla warfare which is and will remain the basic form of struggle throughout the entire period of our Democratic Revolution. 37.

As Comrade Lin Piao has pointed out,

“Guerilla

warfare is the only way to mobilise and apply the entire strength of the people against the enemy.” Guerilla warfare unleash the initiative Indian

people,

alone can

and rouse the creative genius of the

make them perform miracles,

function in

various ways and can enable them to effectively co-ordinate 'those ways.

Thus guerilla war alone can expand the small

;bases of armed struggle to large, extensive areas through mighty waves of People’s War and develop the People’s Army which

283

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

will overthrow the reactionary rule of the four mountains in the countryside, encircle and capture the cities, establish the People’s Democratic Dictatorship all over the country and resolutely carry it forward to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Socialism. 38.

The People’s

Democratic State will carry out the

following major tasks : (a)

Confiscation of all the banks and enterprises of foreign

capital and liquidation of all imperialist debt. (b) and

Confiscation of all land belonging to the landlords

their

redistribution

among

the

landless

and

poor

peasants on the principle of land to the tillers ; cancellation of all debts of the peasantry and other toiling people. facilities

necessary

for

development

All

of agriculture to be

guaranteed. (d)

Enforce eight hours a day, increase wages, institute

unemployment relief and social insurance, remove all inequa¬ lities on the basis of equal pay for equal work. (e)

Improve the living conditions of soldiers and give land

and job to the ex-servicemen. (f)

Enforce better living conditions of the people and

remove unemployment. (g)

Develop new democratic culture in place of colonial

and feudal culture. (h)

Abolish the present educational system and educa¬

tional institutions and build up a new educational system and new educational institutions

consistent

with the needs of

People’s Democratic India. (i)

Abolish the caste system, remove all social inequalities

and all discrimination on the religious ground and guarantee equality of status to women. (j)

Unify India and recognise the right of self-determi¬

nation. (k) (l)

Give equal status to all national languages. Abolish all exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous assess¬

ments and adopt a consolidated progressive tax system.

284

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

(m) People’s political power to be exercised through Revolutionary People’s Councils at all levels. (n) Alliance to be formed with the international proleta¬ riat and the oppressed nations of the world under the leader¬ ship of the CPC. 39. The Democratic Revolution in India is taking place in the era of Mao Tsetung when world imperialism is heading for a total collapse and socialism is advancing towards world-wide victory. Our revolution is a part of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which has consolidated socialism and proletarian dictatorship in China into the reliable base area of' the World Revolution. Our revolution is taking place at a time when the great Ninth Congress of the great, glorious and correct CPC—the Congress of unity and victory—has tremen¬ dously inspired the international proletariat. It is taking place at a time when the CPC, headed by Chairman Mao and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao, is leading the international proletariat to fulfil its historic mission of emancipating the whole of mankind from the rule of imperialism and reaction and establishing Socialism and Communism on this earth. We are a contingent of this great army of the international proletariat. 40. The CPI(M-L) is placing the Programme of People’s Democratic Revolution before the Indian people and dedicates itself to this great revolutionary cause. The Party is confident that the granite unity of our people with all socialist and oppressed nations, particularly the Chinese people, will bring about the victory of the Indian revolution, which as Chairman Mao has predicted, “will end the imperialist reactionary era in the history of mankind” and will ensure the world-wide victory of Socialism. [Reproduced from ‘Mass Line', Vol. 2, No. 36 Sept 13, 1970],

POLITICAL-ORGANISATIONAL REPORT

Adopted at the PARTY CONGRESS held in May 1970 Our Congress is taking place at a time when U. S. imperia¬ lism is continuing open and naked aggression on Cambodia and expanding the war of aggression throughout Indo*China with the sheer logic of an aggressor, reminding us of the days of Munich.

This attack can easily be termed as the

beginning of the Third World War, as the march of the Hitlerite hordes on Sudetanland was the beginning of the Second World War. But the world situation today cannot be understood only in the light of the aggression and aggressive designs

of U.S.

imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism for, unlike Munich, a new thing has emerged under the leadership of the great CPC and China.

The

three

Indo-Chinese peoples have

united and presented a united front against the U.S. aggressors. This marks a great victory of the Indo-Chinese peoples and serves as the key to the understanding of the present world situation.

Our struggle against imperialist warmongers must

take note of this new danger of aggression and the great victory of the Indo-Chinese people. In our country also, the Indian Government under the cover of national defence are feverishly preparing for an aggressive war to serve the needs of the

global strategy

imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.

of U.

S.

Soviet and U. S.

specialists are actually controlling the entire defence organisa¬ tion of our country and this pressure of war efforts is breaking down the entire economy and throwing the country into an abyss of permanent and severe economic crisis.

But in the

Indian situation a new thing also has emerged which marks the victory of the people : it is the peasants’ armed struggle under the leadeship of the CPI (M-L).

Within a year, this struggle

has spread far and wide—from Assam to Kashmir—and has engulfed more than

12

states

of India and has

already

286

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

become a motive force of history.

VOL II

The puppet character of

the present regime and the hollowness of the parliamentary system are becoming clear to the entire people and the bitter class struggles are shattering the myth of Gandhism and the “peaceful professions” of the present regime.

The bitter class

struggles have exposed the butcher nature of the present re¬ actionary Government, the necessity of the battle of annihi¬ lation against these butchers is felt by the vast masses of the people and the struggle is spreading to rural areas with tre¬ mendous vigour. The emergence of the Party—CPI(M-L), is the victory of the revolutionary people of India and also the victory of the all-powerful Thought of Chairman Mao on the soil of India. Equipped with the great Mao Tsetung Thought, this revolu¬ tionary peasants’ armed struggle has already become an in¬ vincible force which the imperialists, social-imperialists and native reaction cannot suppress. That this onward march of the armed revolutionary struggle of the peasantry will continue unabated and that the struggle will spread to all the states of India is not only the truth of history but has already become the reality of history. In order to achieve victory, we must pay attention to the building of our Party—CPI(M-L).

This task is the most im¬

portant, most immediate and most sacred task of the revolu¬ tionary people of India.

We must build up our Party among

the landless and poor peasants and on this alone the revolutio¬ nary striking power, of the Party and the revolutionary people, depends.

The working class and the petty-bourgeois cadres

must integrate themselves with the landless and poor peasants and this task of integration cannot be over-emphasised.

The

history of our inner-party struggles shows that centrism is the vilest weapon of the revisionists and we must fight all signs of centrism.

Centrism undermines the revolutionary politics and

makes the fighter defenceless. With the peal of the spring thunder of the Naxalbari struggle came a turning point in the history of the Indian

287

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

revolution.

When revisionism seemed triumphant and the

whole of India was steeped in darkness, Comrade

Charu

Majumdar, who organized and led the Naxalbari struggle, analysed correctly the character of the Indian society and state and the great role of the peasantry in India’s democratic revolution, upheld Chairman Mao’s great teaching : “Political power grows out

of the barrel of a gunf and applied Mao

Tsetung Thought to the concrete conditions of India for the first time in India’s history.

The Naxalbari struggle led by

Comrade Charu Majumdar marked the beginning of the rout of revisionism in

India—the

beginning

of the

victorious

onward march of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India. The leadership

provided by him since then has kindled the

flames of armed

peasant guerilla struggles in Srikakulam and

Andhra and

spread those flames to eleven other states in

India. The battle between the two lines was fought bitterly in the Co-ordination

period

on

issues like boycott of elections,

characterization of Soviet revisionism as social-imperialism and the fight against economism.

The bitter fight over these issues

led by Comrade Charu Majumdar, strengthened and conso¬ lidated

the

expansion

revolutionary

to

new

Lakhimpur Kheri.

areas

ranks

and this resulted in the

of struggle like Mushahari and

Another major struggle inside Co-ordina¬

tion was fought and won on the question of the formation of the Party.

The intellectuals’ resistance to democratic centra¬

lism, the metaphysical understanding of a “pure” Party, the worship of spontaneity as reflected in ideas like “building the party through armed struggles and from below” were among the many expressions of the wrong line which was defeated and the Party was formed marking the victory of Chairman Mao’s line on Party building. After the formation of the Party, which consolidated the victory of the revolutionary line over the revisionist line, the struggle between the two lines entered a new stage.

The

revisionist line sought mainly to undermine the authority of

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

288 the Party,

encouraging

VOL II

polycentrism inside the Party, to

attack the correct political line of the Party in the name of mass organizations and mass movements for economic de¬ mands as pre-requisites for the development of guerilla stru¬ ggles, to encourage big and spectacular actions for the deve¬ lopment of peasants’ armed struggles and to rely upon the petty-bourgeois intellectuals for the development of peasants’ armed struggles. The successful battle against this wrong line has spread the struggle from one State to another and the peasants’ armed struggles are rousing the working class and petty-bourgeois intellectuals and thus a new stage is opening when the peasants’ armed struggles will create waves of mass uprising engulfing the vast land of ours in a conflagration and the Party will be required to lead this revolutionary upsurge into a nation-wide victory of revolution. Though we are a small Party now, we can fulfil this sacred task if we raise our study and application of Chairman Mao’s Thought as embodied in the “Quotations” and the “Three Articles” to a new height, entrench ourselves deeply among landless and poor peasants and integrate ourselves with them, promote the landless and poor peasant cadres to higher res¬ ponsibility, study and concretely apply the correct thesis of Vice-Chairman Lin Piao : “Guerilla warfare is the only way to mobilize and apply the whole strength of the people against the enemy”, realize and apply methodically the correct thesis that the annihilation of the class enemy is the higher form of class struggle and the beginning of guerilla war and People’s War, and realize that the class struggle, i. e., this battle of annihilation, can solve all the problems facing us and lead the struggle to a higher plane, raise the political consciousness of the people to a higher stage, create conditions for the emergence of a new type of man, the Man of Mao Tsetung era who fears neither hardship nor

death, develop the People’s Army and

can thus ensure the formation of a permanent base area.

This

battle of annihilation liberates the people not only from the

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

289

oppression of the landlord class and its State but also liberates them from the shackles of backward ideas and removes from the minds of the people poisonous weeds of self-interest, clan interest, localism, casteism, religious superstitions, etc.

Thus

this battle of annihilation can bring the East Wind of splen¬ dour and glory of Man. The politics of seizure of political power can alone rouse bitter class hatred among landless and poor peasants and only by putting this politics in command, the battle of annihilation can be raised to a new height. The revisionists all the world over are trying to unite the •groups who are parading the name of Chairman Mao and fighting Mao Tsetung Thought in the name of Mao Tsetung by seeking to arrest and denounce this battle of annihilation. ■So any idea of unity with these groups means the liquidation •of the main plank of our struggle and submerging the entire Party in the morass of revisionism. Our comrades must keep in mind that entirely through ■our own efforts we have been able to create a new situation in India when the ruling classes and their parties are openly quarrelling with one another in a downright dog-bite-dog manner, when stable governments have become a thing of the past and when vast masses of people are coming into the arena of struggle and creating a new and

better situation for

the revolutionaries to carry on their struggles.

Our Party’s

call : “China’s Chairman is our Chairman, China’s path is our path”, our call against any aggressive war against China and our call to turn the ’70’s into the decade of liberation have gripped the

imagination of the masses, particularly, of the

revolutionary youth and won a victory over national-chauvi¬ nism and revisionism and have opened up a new era of greater victories.

Our battle of annihilation has linked

together our

two sacred tasks—the task of liberating our country and the people and the international task of ending imperialism and imperialist war—and has created the material basis, that is, the ■emergence of the new man, for fulfilling these great tasks. Vol 11—19

290

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

* So, our Party should continue this battle of annihilation in a more determined and concerted way, create newer and newer areas of operation, depend upon unsophisticated arms, which alone can release the initiative of the landless and poor peasants and develop the struggles in mighty waves, continue the political campaign in a purposeful way to develop this battle of annihilation, try continuously to draw in fresh forces from among the landless and poor peasants and know how to rely upon them,

concentrate on ‘one area, one unit, one

squad’ basis, direct their entire work to fulfil the main task of the period, try constantly to improve the political level of the people, help the fighters study “Quotations” and the “Three Articles”, link the fighters with the work of production and draw them inside the Party. Comrades !

Imperialists,

social-imperialists

and

native

reaction are hatching plans to launch fiercest attacks upon us when preservation of our main force and our leadership will depend upon how deeply we dig in among the people.

So

the method of work evolved by Chairman Mao should be studied and applied methodically and conscientiously by our leaders and cadres, because that alone can ensure the preserva¬ tion and victory of our revolutionary struggles. The world is progressing at a breathtaking speed towardsthe final emancipation of Man under the leadership of Chair¬ man Mao ; our struggle in India, too, is developing at an inconceivably fast speed.

The victory of the Indian Revolu¬

tion will certainly banish forever imperialism and imperialist war from the face of the world.

Our comrades must always-

feel this great responsibility that is on us, must develop the internationalist spirit of becoming one with the fighters of the world under the leadership of Chairman Mao.

This feeling

will give them immeasurable strength to carry on this great responsibility history has placed on us. Let

this

Congress

revolutionary cadres people.

usher

in

greater

unity among the

and greater victory for the great Indian,

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

291

Let this Congress give new strength to the cadres to end the age-old sufferings of the Indian people, rouse our cadres and the people for greater sacrifice to change this India of darkness into an India of brightness and brilliance. Chairman Mao is there, victory is ours. Long live the Indian Revolution ! Long live the CPI (M-L) ! Long live Chairman Mao !

A long, long life to Chairman Mao !

[Reproduced from 'Mass Line', Vol. 2, No. 36, Sept. 13, 1970]

ON THE POLITICAL-ORGANISATIONAL REPORT Comrade Charu Majumdar's Speech introducing the Political-Organisational Report at the Party Congress

(based on notes taken at the congress) In the present world situation there are two important, phenomena. On the one hand, there

is U. S. imperialism’s naked

aggression against Cambodia.

The U. S. imperialists have

thrown away all pretences and invaded Cambodia. Their logic is Hitler’s logic—the logic of all aggressors. They cannot wait any more, they can no longer talk of peace. Now they will attack one country after another.

So this is the beginning of

the Third World War. On the other hand, the revolutionary united front of the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, under the leadership of China, has been built up to fight the U. S. aggressors. The unity of the three Indo-Chinese peoples has been achieved. This is a great thing in world history, which did not exist when Hitler’s Second betrayal.

World

hordes War

marched was

across

preceded

by

Sudetanland.

The

Munich—by great

But now the united front of revolutionary peoples

292

NAXALBARl AND AFTJER

under the leadership of China is taking shape.

VOL II

So this is the

great beginning of the defeat of imperialism and the great beginning of the victory of the world’s people. The same kind of phenomena exist in India also.

India’s

reactionary ruling classes are making frenzied preparations to suit the global strategy of U. S. imperialism and Soviet socialimperialism. China.

They are hatching criminal war plans against

But the emergence of the C.P.I.(M-L) has changed

the internal

situation in India.

The

armed

revolutionary

peasant struggle led by the C.P.I.(M-L) has motive force of history.

become the

We must take into account not only

the offensive of the ruling classes but also the counter-offensive of the revolutionary people. Our cardinal tasks,

therefore, are : to build up the Party

and to get it entrenched among the landless and poor peasants. The building up of the Party means the development of the armed class struggle.

And without armed class struggle the

Party can not be developed and can not entrench itself among the masses. The struggle

between the two lines is there within the

Party and will continue to be there.

We must oppose and

defeat the incorrect line. But we must be on our guard against centrism. Centrism is a brand of revisionism—its worst form. In the past,

revisionism was defeated again and again by

revolutionary elements but centrism always seized the victories of the struggle and led the Party along the revisionist path. We must hate centrism. On the question of boycotting elections, Nagi Reddy said :

“Yes, we accept it but it sliould be restric¬

ted to a certain area at a certain period.

We shall participate

in elections where there is no struggle.”

This is Nagi Reddy’s

line.

This

is

centrism.

We

have

fought

against it and

■thrown the Nagi Reddys out of our organization. Soviet social-imperialism, some say : are revisionists.

“The Soviet

But how can they be imperialists ?

that development of monopoly capital ?”

Regarding leaders Where is

These are centrists.

We have fought them and thrown them out of our Party.

So

295

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the centrists raised the questions of trade unions and “working class based party” when armed clash is to be developed by relying on the peasantry.

We fought Asit Sen and company

on these lines and threw them out of the Party. We must not only distinguish between the correct and the incorrect line but also find out the centrist position

and

smash it. Now the centrist attack is coming from inside the Party. On the questions of using fire-arms, the dependence on the petty-bourgeois intellectuals and the battle of annihilation, the Party is facing centrist attacks. It must be understood that the battle of annihilation is both a higher form of class struggle and the starting-point of guerilla war. 1.

There are two deviations on this question :

Some comrades agree that annihilation is the starting-

point of guerilla war but they do not agree that it is a higher form of class struggle.

It should be borne in mind that only

through the development of class struggle can all the problems be solved. 2.

There are other comrades who carried on class struggle

—the struggle for the seizure of landlords’ land and property —but did not wage the battle of annihilation. became degenerate,

they were lost.

So the cadres

The comrades missed the

point that annihilation is the starting-point of guerilla war. Class struggle will solve all other problems—the problem of building liberated bases and the problem of building the revolutionary army. We have tried to develop the army in some areas without: class struggle and have failed. battle

of

annihilation—the

Without class struggle—the

initiative of the

poor

peasant

masses cannot be released, the political consciousness of the fighters cannot be raised, the new man cannot emerge, the people’s army cannot be created. struggle—the battle

Only by waging class

of annihilation—the new man will be

created, the new man who will defy death and will be free from all thought of self-interest.

And with this death-defying

294

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

spirit he will go close to the enemy, snatch his rifle, avenge the martyrs and the people’s army will emerge.

To go close

to the enemy it is necessary to conquer all thought of self. And this can be achieved only by the blood of martyrs. That inspires and creates new men out of the fighters, fills them with class hatred and makes them go close to the enemy and snatch his rifle with bare hands. We have poured much of our blood in Srikakulam and we have spilled much blood of the enemy. exists there.

Yet the class enemy

Unless we throw the class enemy out of the

land, a new consciousness, a new confidence cannot arise.

We

cannot then go close to the enemy and snatch his rifle.

It is

the class struggle that can solve this problem of building the people’s army. The

annihilation of the class enemy—this weapon in our

hands—is the greatest danger of the reactionaries and revisio¬ nists all the world over.

So the leaders of world revisionism

are trying to contact the various groups which pay lip-service to Chairman Mao and the CPC and are trying to unite them to oppose the battle of annihilation of the class enemy.

We

refuse to unite with these groups because they are opposed to annihilation of the class enemy, to class struggle and so, are enemies of the people. Why am I against taking up fire-arms now ?

Is it not our

dream that landless and poor peasants will take up rifles on on their shoulders and march forward ?

Yet the use of fire¬

arms at this stage, instead of releasing the initiative of the peasant masses to annihilate the class enemy, stifles it. guerilla fighters start the battle of

If

annihilation with their

conventional weapons, the common landless and poor peasants will come forward with bare hands and join the battle of annihilation.

A common landless peasant, ground down by

age-old oppression, will see the light and avenge himself on the class enemy.

His initiative will be released.

In this way

the peasant masses will join the guerilla fighters, their revolu¬ tionary enthusiasm will know no bounds and a mighty wave

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

295

of people’s upsurge will sweep the country.

After the initia¬

tive of the peasant masses, to annihilate the class enemy with bare hands or home-made weapons, has been released and the peasants’ revolutionary power has

been

should take up the gun and face the world.

established,

they

The peasant with

his rifle will be the guarantee of the continuation of the pea¬ sants’ revolutionary power. Comrades, the peasants’ suffering has reached a stage when they can no longer endure it.

If we can show them the way,

there is not a single point in India where the peasants will not be roused to action.

There is the possibility of a tremendous

upsurge in India if we consciously work for it.

Guerilla war

■can be waged through the battle of annihilation in every village in India. ble.

So, start as many points of armed struggle as possi¬

Don’t try to concentrate.

where.

Expand anywhere and every¬

This is one principle to be followed.

principle is :

The other

Carry on the battle of annihilation of the class

-enemy. All the revisionists, all the groups

taking the name of

Chairman Mao, are attacking us on this issue of the battle of annihilation.

So, comrades, anyone who opposes this battle

of annihilation cannot remain with us.

We will not allow

him to remain inside our Party. One can see how the revolutionary armed peasant struggle is rousing the other classes.

Look at Calcutta.

The revolu¬

tionary struggle of the youths of Calcutta surges forward under the impact of the armed peasant struggle. in Calcutta is also rising.

The working class

And I hope there will be revolu¬

tionary upsurge of the working class not only in Calcutta, but in all other cities of India.

This is bound to happen.

The

■situation in the cities will then change completely. Comrades, let a vigorous armed peasant

struggle rage all

-over India after the victorious conclusion of our Congress. Then a spontaneous mass upsurge in the wake of the armed guerilla struggle will come as an avalanche, as a thunderbolt. It is sure the Red Army can be created not only in Srikakulam

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

296

VOL II

but also in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, With these contingents of the Liberation Army, the Indian peasants will march forward and complete the revolution. Three factors guarantee the victory of the revolution.

First,

the revolution that has been delayed by more than twenty years brooks no further delay.

Second, the revolution is

taking place in the era of the total collapse of imperialism and the world-wide victory of Socialism, the era of Mao Tsetung Thought.

Third, we have been able to hold this Congress

despite severe repression. Comrades, let us march forward.

The ’seventies will surely

be the decade of liberation. [Reproduced from Mass Line, Yol. 2, No. 36, Sept. 13, 1970J

PROBLEMS AND CRISES OF INDIAN REVOLUTION SUSHITAL ROY CHOWDHURY

{November, 1970) [Translated by us from the original in Bengali ] A lesson of the history of the international communist movement is that the genuine communist movement has to advance by waging struggle against the two kinds of deviation,, the “Right” and the “Left”.

From the history of the interna¬

tional communist movement it is again found that after the “Right” errors are corrected, the “Left” errors are liable tocrop up.

Whenever an

individual or the Party

advances-

from one success to another there is the danger of “Left” deviation.

This is

because arrogance may develop in the

wake of enthusiasm caused by success.

On the other hand,

in times of failure, there may be a trend towards pessimism and depression. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, it has been found that even when the struggle against “Right”1

297

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

devtation continues, some persons raise “ultra-Left” slogans with an ostentatious play of words, try to create disunity of the proletariat with classes which are its allies and thus try to lead the entire struggle astray. From the history of the international communist movement it is found that in general the centre from which these two deviations originate lies within the Party leadership.

From

the history of our Party also we know that our experience is no exception to this. So Marxism-Leninism-Mao

Tsetung thought

teaches

us

that the members of the Communist Party should remain ever vigilant and alert in this regard.

All the ordinary members

of the Party must use their brains and must always exercise careful supervision over the leadership.

In the question of

leadership, Chairman Mao’s teaching is that the leadership must always be modest ; the higher the post, the greater the modesty required of an incumbent.

In case of leadership it is

a question of principle whether one is modest or arrogant ; because to err is human. Right from the aggression of China by India in 1962 when the Party at the manoeuvring of the leadership deviated from proletarian internationalism, many an ordinary member in our Party started becoming conscious of the danger of revisionism. This generated a feeling amongst many of us that we must, start armed struggle.

After March 1967 when the historic

peasant struggle burst forth in Naxalbari, this awareness within the ordinary Party members as well as the struggle against revisionism were raised to a new

level.

Throughout

country the communist revolutionaries severed with revisionists themselves.

and

the

connections

neo-revisionists and began

asserting

On the one hand, they went to the villages and

devoted themselves to the task of rousing the peasants ; on the other hand, for the reorganisation of a genuine Communist Party they took initiative in establishing contacts and holding discussions with

one another.

Through this

process was

formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

298

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

However, in different States of the country a number of ’Communist

revolutionaries

continued

to

maintain

their

independent group existence and to make efforts to build up armed struggle.

The Party declared

that

the ideological

differences with them will be non-antagonistic in character. As soon as the Naxalbari peasant upsurge took place it was greeted and blessed by Mao Tsetung, the leader of the international communist movement, and the great Communist Party of China. Immediately after

its formation, the CPI(M-L)

recognition of the international leadership.

earned

For natural and

justifiable reasons, the communist revolutionaries of Darjeeling district

earned

respect

of the

communist

throughout the country for these successes.

revolutionaries Naturally in all

these successful developments the leading role of Comrade Charu Majumdar earned recognition within the Party.

Right

at the moment of the formation of the Party he was respect¬ fully chosen for the highest post without any dissent. The peasant struggle of Naxalbari did not only inspire the revolutionary members of the Party,

it also enthused and

inspired the sympathisers and a large section of people under the Party’s influence. After the formation under

its

banner.

of the

After

the

CPI(M-L) they formation

assembled

of the Party the

peasants’ armed struggle began to expand rapidly with the help and co-operation of these sympathisers and the people. Groups of communist revolutionaries outside the Party too developed

armed

peasant struggles in some areas of the

country. In May 1970, the Party Congress of the CPI(M-L) was held with success.

The successful holding of the Party Cong¬

ress even in the face of policies of severe repression pursued by the exploiting classes and their government aroused much enthusiasm amongst the Party members, people and sympa¬ thisers throughout the country. omits were formed.

A large number of guerilla

In the real sense, the phase marking

299

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

the beginning of

guerilla war was reached.

spread to the urban areas. initiative and activity successful

influence

In particular it generated new

amongst

development has

Its

students and youth.

been

brightened

with

This new

examples of self-sacrifice set by Party members from martyr Babulal to Comrades Panchadri peasant masses.

and Nirmala and by the

Today the ruling classes and other political parties are passing sleepless nights because of the CPI(M-L).

It has be-

•come the focus of the new hope for the common man through¬ out the country.

The task before us is to raise our struggle

to a new phase—to

advance along the path of the most

arduous struggle for developing base areas.

In other areas

our responsibility is to intensify the class struggle of the peasants and to raise the armed struggle to a higher phase. It is a matter of deep regret that at this moment of our success, in the name of developing MaoTsetung Thought, such principles and policies are being introduced in our State and such ideas are being circulated as are nothing but ultra-adven¬ turism.

Unless the ordinary members of the Party become

aware of these ideas and policies and make an effort to change them, the progress of revolution as a whole will suffer. What are the concrete manifestations of these adventurist ideas and policies ?

The line, policies, strategy and tactics of

people’s war formulated by Chairman Mao Tsetung are inter¬ connected and constitute an integral whole.

These are appli¬

cable to and have relevance for all countries. “Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory of people’s war is not only a product of the

Chinese revolution, but has also the

characteristics of our epoch.Mao Tse-tung’s thought is a • common asset of the revolutionary people of the whole world.” (Lin Piao : Long Live the Victory of People's War P. 116) Explaining the theory of People’s War, Comrade Lin Piao showed that these (lessons) are :

(a) Go on fighting with the

people’s war in perspective ; (b) Correctly apply the policy of the united front ;

(c) Establish base areas in the countryside,

300

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

relying on peasants ; new type ;

VOL II

(d) Develop the People’s Army of a

(e) Apply the strategy and tactics of people’s

war in all spheres of work ; (f) Grasp the principle of selfreliance. The class enemies of the people are organised ; the state machinery is in their hands.

In the beginning the strength of

the people is unorganized.

The protracted war is a process

of organizing the people, rallying them and arming them. Long-drawn efforts are necessary to weaken the enemy forces gradually and to expand gradually the people’s forces. Quite correctly our activities began in the perspective of this protracted war.

“In India this revolution can triumph

only if we wage protracted and arduous struggle.

Citing the

fact that imperialism and social-imperialism will come forward to arrest the revolution in India, it is contended that it is. nothing but a blind flight of imagination to think of easy victory in this situation.”

(Deshabrati)

But at one time suddenly an idea began to be circulated that our struggle would not be that much protracted.

In the

manner of an astrologer it was forecast that we need not wait beyond 1975 for the success of the revolution.

Undoubtedly,

the style of work that established itself under its impact was one of getting quick results. At the commencement of the Second Civil War in China,. Chairman Mao wrote : our friends ? the revolution.

“Who are the enemies ?

Who are

This is a question of the first importance for The basic reason why all previous revolu¬

tionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends against the real enemies.”

(Analysis•

of the Classes in Chinese Society, March 1926). In explaining the theory of people’s war, Comrade Lin Piao has first shown : “In order to win a people’s war it is imperative to build the broadest possible united front and formulate a series of policies which will ensure the fullest mobilization of the basic masses, as well as the unity of all the forces that can be united.”

(Lin

Piao : op. cit. P. 25) In explaining the theory of people’s war

301

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

Comrade Lin Piao has given the first place to the task of building the united front. It is on the basis of this teaching that we have determined the allies and enemies of our revolution. imperialism,

The enemies are

social-imperialism, big comprador

bourgeoisie

and the big landlord class. In our Programme we have defined the objective of our revolution :

“This revolution will establish the dictatorship of

the working class, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and even a section of the small and middle bourgeoisie under the leadership of the working class.” we have said :

“They, together, constitute the ovewhelming

majority of the Indian people.” success of revolution, “Thus,

As regards these classes As the condition for the

we have stated in the Programme :

in order to carry the democratic revolution through to

the end it is necessary that a democratic front of all these classes is built up under the leadership of the working class.” The united front does not develop overnight. tion of the front is but a process.

The forma¬

As conditions for the suc¬

cessful building of the democratic front we have correctly stated :

“This front, however, can only be built up when

worker peasant unity is

achieved in the course of armed

struggle and after Red political power is established at least in some parts of the country.” Chairman Mao teaches us that the aim and object of the revolution are at one with the general principle which will regulate all the activities of the revolutionary party. known as the political line.

This is

This general principle must have

to be reflected in all the policies of the party. Then it is clear that from the beginning to the end the policies cannot be allowed to go against the Party’s general principle. Otherwise a deviation from the political line occurs. But what sort of attitude is being taken towards the ally classes in our activities ?

“They will be forced to come to us”.

“We need not bother about them.”

Frequently without any

second thought such policies are being adopted as are hitting

302

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

them also.

VOL IE

The so-called principle of annihilation is being

applied to many traders, teachers and many individuals of such types. Chairman Mao has repeatedly said :

“The revolutionary

war is a war of the masses ; it can be waged only by mobili¬ sing the masses and relying on them.”

(‘Be concerned with

the Well Being of the Masses, Pay Attention to Methods of Work’, January 27, 1934). He has further said : We are against issuing orders by depending only on a handful of persons. In starting people’s war the first question that has to be faced is how the people, especially the peasant masses, can be aroused

within

the

shortest

possible

time.

This rousing

involves developing the initiative of the peasants in regard to different aspects of waging people’s war. Chairman Mao teaches us :

Every comrade should be

taught to arouse and develop the consciousness of the people in conformity with their levels of conscionsness, to help them get organised gradually on the principle of sincere volunta¬ riness, and to help them conduct step by step all the necessary struggles warranted by the internal and external conditions of definite time and place. Our correct policy was given as follows :

“Guerilla war

is basically the higher stage of class struggle and class struggle is the sum total of economic and political struggles.

While

propagating politics, comrades working in peasant areas should never minimise the necessity of raising a general slogan on economic demands.

Unless the

broad peasant masses are

involved in the movement it will not be possible to bring the backward peasants to the stage of grasping political propaganda, and their hatred against the class enemies cannot be kept alive.” (Deshabrati, August 1, 1967) The first lesson to remember, therefore, is : we must not impose

anything

upon

the

masses against

their wishes.

By forgetting this principle we shall land ourselves in many deviations.

Such

Castroism etc.

deviations

may

be

called

sectarianism.

303

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

“Unless the peasants are made to participate in broadbased mass movements, it will naturally take time for the politics of seizure of power to strike firm roots in the consci¬ ousness of the peasant masses.

As a result there may be a

trend towards putting arms instead of politics in command. Areas of peasants’ armed struggle can be developed only by successfully

applying, under political leadership,

weapons—the

(Deshabrati, October 17, 1968)

advanced and backward sections even within

the revolutionary classes. revolutionary

four

peasants’ class analysis, class struggle, inves¬

tigation and practice”. “There are

the

The advanced section grasps the

principles quickly and

the backward

section

naturally takes longer time to absorb political propaganda. That is why the necessity of waging economic struggles against the feudal class exists and it will be therein future also. Hence the need for the

movement for seizure of crops.

The form

this struggle will take in an area will depend on its political consciousness and organisation”, (ibid) From the

above quotations from

Deshabrati it is seen

that at this phase the ideological concepts that guided our policies were briefly as follows : Guerilla war is basically a higher form of class struggle and

class struggle is the sum total of economic and political

struggles.

As a condition to make the peasants conscious of

the politics of seizure of political power,

efforts must be

made to develop the peasants’ mass struggles and mobilise the broad peasant masses (in these struggles). and political struggles must be waged. that we must

Various economic Simultaneously with

propagate Mao Tsetung Thought ceaselessly.

Only then will it be possible to begin the guerilla war and build up base areas and peasants’ armed struggle. In the process of striving to build up peasant movement with the object of developing (raising it to the level of) armed struggle, ideological concepts entirely opposed to the ones mentioned above were :

were smuggled in.

Their

manifestations

.304

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

Guerilla units have to be formed “in a completely secret manner,” “by a wholly

conspiratorial

method” ; we must

begin with elimination of the local class enemies by such guerilla units adopting “the method of guerilla action”.

True,

mention was made of the need for propagating the politics of seizure of power prior to actions ; “but it would be wrong to put too much stress on the importance of carrying on an intensive propaganda before starting the guerilla attacks”. In this way will be created the initiative (of the masses) and mass actions, “and the flames of people’s war will engulf the whole of the countryside”. This meant that there could be only one

meaning of

‘annihilation’ or ‘elimination’ of class enemies—an interpreta¬ tion, undoubtedly, opposed to Chairman Mao’s Thought. Those who have gone through Chairman Mao’s works attentively will have observed that in his various writings, the words ‘annihilation’, ‘wiping out’ and ‘to destroy’ are used synonymously.

‘Annihilation’ may mean ‘to kill’ in particular

circumstances, but not always.

Chairman Mao says : “.

to destroy the enemy means to disarm him or ‘deprive him of the power to resist’ and does not mean to destroy every member of his

forces

physically.”

{On Protracted

War,

May 1938) However, on the basis of ideological concepts inspiring it, the movement since Naxalbari has been divided into two phases.

If the concepts of these two phases are compared,

the change becomes clear : (1)

Instead of mobilising the broad peasant masses in

broad-based mass movements, form guerilla units by a cons¬ piratorial method. (2)

Previously it was said that once class struggles were

developed by forming the Party units, these Party units would be transformed into guerilla units.

In the second phase it

was said on the contrary that the intellectual comrade would fotm a guerilla unit by recruiting some one (poor peasant) ■without any knowledge of the Party unit. Instead of carrying

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

305

■on political propaganda for a long time and striving to build up class struggles, it was argued that it would be wrong to put too much stress on the importance of intensive propaganda. If only the four weapons—class analysis, class struggle, investigation and practice—were applied successfully, it was said previously, peasants’ guerilla action would create mass initiative and mass action and kindle the flames of people’s war.

But only a little later, guerilla action itself came to be

regarded as guerilla war.

Whenever any action took place in

any district or any State, it was suggested that guerilla war had spread. Such statements naturally had adverse effects on the minds •of the comrades.

A leaflet distributed by a local committee

in an important rural area even went to the extent of suggesting that “We shall be organised first then we shall fight—this is wrong.”

This leaflet contained such impractical slogans as :

“Annihilate all the class enemies.”

Of the two—“political

propaganda” and “annihilation of class enemies”—the former was given up at one stage in the process. It came to be argued that “action itself is propaganda.” Thus there was infiltration of bourgeois thinking. Previously it was written in iDeshabratV (September 4,

1969) :

“Another manifestation of bourgeois

thinking (i.e. revisionism—S.R.C) is to exaggerate the impor¬ tance of actions and to deny the importance of political propa¬ ganda.

This is what Chairman Mao has called ‘militarism’.”

Exactly the same outlook was reflected in the activities in the urban areas.

True, activities in urban

detailed in the Programme.

areas are

not

But from the theory of people’s

war it is evident that for a long time the Party’s task will be to build up base areas in the countryside and make use of them for encircling, and finally, capturing the cities. This is the path of the Chinese Revolution.

Our policy in regard to the

cities was determined in conformity with this path.

“In the

enemy-occupied cities and villages, we combined legal with illegal struggles, united the basic masses and all patriots, and ^divided and disintegrated the political power of the enemy Vol 11—20

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

306

VOL II

and his puppets so as to prepare ourselves to attack the enemy from within in co-ordination with operations from without' when conditions were ripe.”

(Lin Piao : op. cit. P. 53)

Moreover, the line laid down by Chairman Mao in regard to the work in urban areas is as follows : To build up the proletarian base of the Party, to build up all mass struggles which are just and

advantageous for us, to conduct all these

struggles with restraint and thus to preserve our strength and wait. In our Programme

we have said : “It (the working class)

also performs its vanguard role by launching struggles on political issues, both national and international, by solidarity actions in support

of the revolutionary classes, mainly, the

revolutionary struggles of the peasantry and by sending its class conscious vanguard section to organise and lead the peasants’ armed struggle.” From what has been said above, anyone with commonsensewill realise that our first major tasks in towns should be : (a)

to conduct

extensive mass work among the prole¬

tarian masses in towns so that cadres from among workersmay be sent to the villages ; (b)

to

build up

solidarity movements in towns

with'

workers’ participation ; (c)

to build up secret

Party

organisations with select

cadres so that this work may be conducted lor a long time. These tasks can be

performed if the Party’s proletarian

base is built up and the Party branches are formed in factoriesin important districts. programme in towns.

These are the primary tasks of our

But what did happen ?

It was decided to organise a mass-

demonstration in support of Cambodia. The programme was abandoned.

Instead the impression was given out that in

our country it was not necessary to wait for a long time in. towns as had been the case in China.

We need to create Red

terror in towns also and for that it was immediately necessary' to start the campaign

of

annihilation directed against the:-

307'

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

class enemies and the state machinery.

All this was said in

the name of the new international and national situation, denying the character of uneven development of the revolu¬ tionary situation.

The

sensitive students were exhorted to

accomplish the democratic and cultural revolution simultane¬ ously ; the ‘Luddite”-type

action of destroying educational

institutions, libraries and laboratories, in the name paralysing the educational system was begun.

Needless to say, there was

no discussion in the Central Committee on the subject before introducing this method in urban areas. It has already been mentioned how the necessity of the perspective of protracted war was belittled and how the idea gained currency that quick result should be aimed at. This line of thinking was encouraged by the wrong assessment regarding the Third World War. The U.S. aggression against Cambodia was regarded as the mark of the beginning of the Third World War. It was Comrade

Majumdar who gave this thesis.

Of

course the Party and the Party Congress were influenced by this assessment.

But it is also a fact that after Chairman

Mao’s statement of May 20 * had been broadcast, Comrade Satyanarain Singh of Bihar drew our attention to the wrong assessment and wrote a few letters to the General Secretary for rectifying the mistake—the Report of the Congress was yet to be published.

He had requested not to publish the relevant

portion. The General Secretary did not act as requested. The Marxists’ assessment of the international or national situation is not unrelated to their practical tasks.

The style of

work was influenced by the assessment as regards the begin¬ ning or otherwise of the Third World War. The Party’s politics and organisation are closely inter¬ related. Wrong politics is inevitably reflected in organisational *

Hailing the Joint Declaration of the Summit Conference of the

Indo-Chinese peoples, Chairman Mao issued a solemn statement on May 20, 1970, supporting the struggle of world’s people against U. S. imperia¬ lism. The statement was issued under the title, ‘'People of the world,. Unite and Defeat the U. S. Aggressors and All their Running Dogs.”

308

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

matters.

This is the law.

VOL II

In our state, simultaneously with

the increasing leftist trend in politics, its predominance in organisational matters is also becoming pronounced day by day.

Some of the concrete manifestations of this trend are

given below : (a)

Mao Tsetung Thought teaches us that the rejection

of the principle of strengthening of the leadership of the Party Committee means the establishing of authoritarianism.

Marx¬

ism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought teaches us that “The Party Committee system is an important Party institution for ensur¬ ing collective leadership and preventing any individual from monopolising of the conduct of affairs.” the Party Committee System ).

(On Strengthening

Chairman Mao Tsetung has

repeatedly warned us against the trend of monopolising of the conduct of affairs and solving of important problems by any individual and ttee nominal.

making the membership of the Party Commi¬ But all the members who are regular readers of

‘Deshabrati' must have observed that many an

important

policy has been published as “Comrade Charu Majumdar’s” exhortation.

In most cases even the State Secretary was not

informed beforehand—he also could come to know of it only through the newspaper.

Even the request to issue these

instructions in the name of the State Committee was rejected. The latest example was Comrade Charu Majumdar’s decla¬ ration on the formation of the People’s Army.

Even the

“formation of the People’s Army on the soil of India” was not considered in the Party Committee, nor even in the Politbureau, nor even in the State Committee ! of such a situation ?

Can anyone think

Is it not the principle of placing an indi¬

vidual above the Party Committee ? (b)

At one time it was observed that Comrade Charu

Majumdar was sought to be established as representing the authority and as its only interpreter in India [Shashanka’s *

*'Sh^shanka'was the pen-name of Saroj Datta, the then Secretary of West Bengal State Committee of the CPI (ML).

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

observation

309-

published in Deshabrati.)

Many a member of

the Central Committee had objected to the publication of such articles. Comrade Charu Majumdar

also expressed his

view that “publication of such articles was not correct”.

It

was also proposed that the Party Congress Report should describe him as the sole authority of Mao Tsetung Thought in India.

Quite justifiably many

comrades

opposed

it.

The

Party (Congress) acknowledged his leading role—the role on which there was never any difference of opinions within the Party.

But even after that, some responsible comrades in

Bengal continued to project him as the authority.

Is not this,

proposal to appoint him the sole authority ridiculous ?

Mao

Tsetung Thought teaches us : “Knowledge is a matter of science., and no dishonesty or conceit whatsoever is permissible. What is required

is

definitely

(On Practice).

the

reverse—honesty

and modesty.”

Mao Tsetung further teaches us : “To learn is

no easy matter and to apply what one has learned is even harder,”' “This

process of knowing is extremely important ; without

such a long period of experience, it would be difficult to under¬ stand and grasp the laws of an entire war.

Neither a beginner

nor a person who fights only on paper can become a really able high-ranking commander ; only one who has

learned

through actual fighting in war can do so.” (Strategy of the Revolutionary War in China). Only from 1967 onwards we have begun to learn to study and apply correctly Mao Tsetung’s Thought and his theory of people’s war.

Within such a short time is it not opposed

to the Party principle of collective leadership to propagate things such as ‘the only interpreter’ etc. ? To

what level has “authoritarianism”

reached today ?

Some of the most responsible leaders placed ultimatum before the ordinary members of the Party, such as these : Charu Majumdar’s Party.

“This is

Only those who would obey him

unconditionally will remain inside the Party.”

Is it not the

policy of “commandism” that accompanies left deviation ? (c)

In this State, anyone expressing dissatisfaction (over

310

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

the policy) or anyone criticising in any manner (the policy of the Party) is being labelled as “revisionist” or “centrist”. And

such

acts

are

being

performed by Comrade Charu

Majumdar himself and by many in responsible positions. it encouraging ideological struggle ? threat ?

According to Mao

Or, is it shelving it under

Tsetung Thought,

struggle is the “soul of the Party”.

Is

ideological

Then is not this gagging

tantamount to severing the Party from its soul ? (d)

The Bihar State Committee, in a document submitted

sometime ago, drew the attention to the “Left” (deviationist) trend inside the Party.

The document together with Comrade

Charu Majumdar’s replies to the questions raised therein were circulated inside the Party.

Our State Committee has given

its verdict that it is a “revisionist document.”

But it is very

surprising that the document in question has not even reached many units.

Even a Politbureau member who stays very

near to the General Secretary—within a stone’s throw—was not given the document.

Should it be called the honest way

of conducting ideological struggle ?

In this article, without

making any comments on the said document or on Comrade Charu Majumdar’s comment on it, I want only to point out that Comrade Majumdar concluded his comment with, “This is vile”, as is known to all who have gone through it. question naturally arises—whether Comrade

The

Majumdar was

commenting on any enemy document or that of criticisms of a State Committee of the Party ? Is not such reaction resulting from criticisms levelled by Party members an indication of .impatience inherent in “Left” deviations ?

Is it the correct

method of conducting ideological struggle ? Chairman Mao teaches us : “If there were no contradictions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party’s life would come to an end”. August 1937). (e)

(On Contradiction,

Militarism in the policy usually casts its shadow over

organisational matters too.

Those who take part in “action”

twill form the Party Committees—the Party is being reorga-

311

fDEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

nised thus.

The Party is the Party for “actions”.

The Party

built on the ideology of armed struggles has been reduced to a (terrorist Party. (f)

“We should carry on constant propaganda among the

people on the facts of world progress and the bright future ahead so that they will build their confidence in victory.”

By

this, Chairman Mao never intended that there should be any exaggerated propaganda.

Chairman Mao also says :

“At the

same time we must tell the people and tell our comrades that there will be twists and turns in our roads.” king Negotiations, Oct. 7, 1945).

(On the Chung¬

In the pages of Deshabrati

one comes across many instances

of exaggeration.

A few

among those are being mentioned here. (1)

The “actions” the students and youth are conducting

in educational institutions are said to be comparable to the May 4th Movement of 1919, of China. (2)

In the immediate past, hoisting of Red^flags over the

(factories and educational institutions were said to be comparable to the historic Kharkhov movement. (3)

It is

peasants have teaches us :

claimed

that

in

Bengal

joined the guerilla

thousands

units.

of poor

Chairman

Mao

“In all mass movements we must make a basic

investigation and analysis of the number of active supporters, opponents and neutrals and must not decide problems subjec¬ tively and

without

basis.”

(Methods

of work of Party

the masses. (3)

Turn in everything captured. The Eight Points for Attention are as follows :

(1)

Speak politely.

(2)

Pay fairly for what you buy.

(3)

Return everything you borrow.

(4)

Pay for anything you damage.

(5)

Do not hit or swear at people.

(6)

Do not damage crops.

(7)

Do not take liberties with women.

(8)

Do not ill-treat captives.”

[“On the Reissue of the Three Main Rules of Disci¬ pline and Eight Points for Attention—Instruction of

the

General

Headquarters

People’s Liberation Army”

of the

Chinese

(October 10,

1947),

Selected Military Writings, 2nd ed., P. 343. ■—Editors J

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

399

'

Those who are willing to join the regular army must be admitted.

We must find out the creative method of speedily

educating them

politically.

Then only we shall be able to

preserve them and the regular army will grow into a vast force. From our

experience we have seen that where struggles

have been confined to the stage of annihilation of class enemies only, and where we have not been

able to establish

the

revolutionary committees as the State power of the masses by strengthening the People’s Liberation Army, the reactionary government

has distributed lands of the annihilated

class

enemies amongst the peasant masses and thus made sinister efforts to complete our land reforms with a view to blunting the edge of fighting consciousness of the peasant masses for seizure of power.

Therefore, in addition to developing our

struggle, seizing crops under the leadership of revolutionary committees, reducing rent in general and redistributing the lands of the annihilated class enemies, we must undertake the responsibility of total land reforms area-wise. Under the impact of armed peasant

struggle, today the

working class is holding its head high in different areas and is coming forward to discharge its responsibility as leader of the revolution.

We have been able to build up Party organi¬

zations within the working class in various basic industrial undertakings. adequate.

But our

work

among workers

is not

yet

Within the working class we must further intensify

the struggle

against the petty bourgeois outlook.

Only in

this way can we get from the working class good organizers who will rally the broad working class, the poor people and the petty bourgeoisie of the urban areas in the resistance struggle and will perform the role of worthy political advisers of the People’s Liberation Army in the villages. Our base areas are symbols of the united front of workerpeasant-middle class masses opposed to the Congress regime. It is by consolidating and

extending these that the united

front will be consolidated and

developed.

Gradually

non-working sections of the people will also unite with us.

the

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

400

VOL II

These base areas are also the bases of our cultural revolu¬ tion.

So, the People’s Liberation Army

transformed into a cultural army

will have to be

as well, repudiating, on

the cultural question, all revisionist points of view opposed to class outlook—opposed to armed struggle.

In this way

alone the struggle initiated by the revolutionary youths and students against the feudal-imperialist culture will be united with the

revolutionary

struggles of the peasants

and our

people’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal culture will develop vigorously. [Source :

Liberation

(Bengali),

a mouthpiece

of this

group, Vol. 1 No. 1, February 1976.]

RESOLUTION ‘ON ELECTIONS’ [ The following is the document {Draft) of the CPI{ML) led by Satyanarain Singh,

dated April 3, 1977.—Ed.]

The Central Committee, having reviewed the Party line ‘on elections’, has come to the conclusion that the line of total and general boycott of elections during the entire period of People’s Democtratic revolution is a line contrary to MarxismLeninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and is an outcome of the Party’s over-reaction to revisionism and subjective and meta¬ physical approach. The Party, particularly the Central Committee, confused the parliamentary path as peddled by the revisionists with participation in and utilisation of the parliamentary institutions by the revolutionary Marxists for exposing the real nature of bourgeois parliaments, for educating the backward sections of the people about the necessity of armed struggle for the over¬ throw of their enemies,

for organising and mobilising the

broad masses in revolutionary struggles and for wrecking the bourgeois parliament from within.

The parliamentary path

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

401

peddled by the revisionists is to go to establish the so-called parliamentary democracy in India as an “instrument of peo¬ ple s will” and

advocate the “peaceful path” to socialism or

the path of “peaceful transition”.

The revisionists’ conception

is to gain a majority in parliament, capture the government and effect basic social transformation without demolishing the existing

reactionary

State

machinery.

The revolutionary

Marxists, on the other hand, believe in utilising the elections for mobilizing the people for revolutionary overthrow of the enemies of the people from power by smashing the reactionary State machinery, for overthrowing bourgeois democracy and establishing people’s democracy and socialist democracy.

The

parliamentary path peddled by the revisionists and revolu¬ tionary utilisation of the bourgeois parliament are not same thing.

the

The Central Committee in its over-reaction to

revisionism, wrongly bracketed the two entirely mutually anta¬ gonistic concepts and adopted the line of total and general boycott.

The impetuosity of accomplishing the revolution

on the morrow to our resolve led the CC

and the whole

Party to a negative and harmful line of boycottism.

It led to

boycott of elections, boycott of partial and economic struggles and boycott of mass organisations and threw the entire Party and the revolutionary movement off its correct rails.

In our

enthusiasm to draw a sharp line of distinction between Marxists and the revisionists, the CC and the Party threw away the baby with bath water. Even after the CC and the Party rectified its line of boycott •of economic and partial struggles and of mass organisations, even after it upheld and practised the tactics of combining the legal with the illegal, open with secret and other forms of struggle with armed struggle, the line of total and general boycott of

elections

was

continued

on the

basis of the

erroneous understanding that to utilise parliament was the same as taking to the parliamentary path and giving up the path of People’s war. The CC, victim of subjectivism and voluntarism, negated Vol 11—26

402

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II'

the Leninist conception that utilisation of the parliament or participation or non-participation in elections or in bourgeois parliament was a matter of tactics, that it was part of the tactics of combining legal with illegal and there cannot be an absolute approach to this question as it was a question of tactics and when to participate in it or when to call for a boycott depen¬ ded upon the level of consciousness of the people, degree of their organisation and strength and the striking capacity of the Party. Comrade Lenin narrated the experience of the Bolsheviks and observed : “...it has been proved that participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament even a few weeks before the victory of the Soviet republic, and even after such a victory,, not only does not harm the revolutionary proletariat, but actually helps it to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be dispersed ;

it helps their

successful

dispersal and helps to make bourgeois-parliamentarism ‘poli¬ tically obsolete’.

To refuse to heed to this experience, and

at the same time to claim affiliation to the Communist Inter¬ national, which must work out its tactics internationally ( not as narrow or one-sided national tactics, but as international tactics), is to commit the gravest blunder and to retreat from internationalism while recognizing it in words.” [Lenin :

Left-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975 P. 54]

Thus, participation in bourgeois parliament before and even after the victory of the Soviet Republic, in order to prove to the backward masses the utter futility of such parliaments, to facilitate its successful dissolution and to make it politically obsolete for the masses was correct tactics for the Bolsheviksr according to Lenin.

The line of total and general boycott

of elections upheld by the Central Committee was thus a total rejection of Leninism on this question. Lenin repeatedly has spoken about the political conditions in which to participate in elections.

Writing

elections or not to participate in

about the

boycott of Duma in August

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

403

1905, Lenin observed thus :

“At that time the boycott proved

correct, not because non-participation in reactionary parlia¬ ments is correct in general, but because we correctly gauged the objective situation which was leading to the rapid trans¬ formation of the mass strikes into a political strike, then into revolutionary strike and then into uprising.

Moreover,

the struggle at that time centred around the question whether to leave the convocation of the first representative assembly to the tsar, or to attempt to wrest its convocation from the hands of the old regime.

When there was no certainty, nor could

there be, that the objective situation was analogous, and like¬ wise no certainty of similar trend and rate of development, the boycott ceased to be correct.” [Lenin :

Ibid, Pp. 20-21]

Bolsheviks linked the question of participation or boycott of Duma or elections to a particular combination in the situation. The boycott was

correct when revolutionary

strikes

were

turning into an uprising, when Soviets as people’s organ of power had begun appearing and when revolution was on the verge of breaking out.

The revolutionary tide was reaching

its zenith. Similarly, pointing out the reasons justifying participation in bourgeois parliament, Lenin observed : “Even if not ‘milli¬ ons’ and ‘legions’, but only a fairly large minority of industrial workers follow the Catholic priests—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landlords and kulaks (Grossbauern)— it undoubtedly follows that parliamentarism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory for the party

of the

revolutionary

proletariat

precisely for the purpose of educating the backward strata, of its own class, precisely for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden, masses.

ignorant rural

As long as you are unable to disperse the bourgeois

parliament and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work inside them precisely because there you will still

404

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

find workers who are doped by the priests and by the dreari¬ ness of rural life, otherwise you risk becoming mere babblers.” [Lenin :

Ibid, Pp. 52-53]

Thus, Lenin points out the conditions in which it is obliga¬ tory on the part of the revolutionary proletariat to utilise elections and the bourgeois parliaments to work within them. As long as revolutionaries lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other

type of reactionary

institutions, they must work within them. However, the CC ignored the scientific tactics laid down by Lenin and adopted a disastrous tactic of boycotting all elections irrespective of the level of the revolutionary move¬ ment, the level of consciousness of the people and the degree of their organised strength. The CC, in order to justify its departure from Leninist tactics, used all sorts of arguments to defend its “Left” slogan of general boycott.

The CC in its various documents {Revisi¬

onist Onslaught, The Indian Revolution and Its Path and other documents) laboured hard to prove that Leninist tac¬ tics with regard to participation in bourgeois parliament was no longer applicable to the present day India.

The CC took

shelter behind the argument that world capitalism was

no

longer in the stage of decennial crises but in the stage of per¬ manent crisis, that the Indian p'eople had already sufficient experience of the elections since 1952 or even earlier and were convinced that in India elections were based on bogus votes and not on real votes, that there existed no lull in the revolu¬ tionary struggles and that it was in the phase of incline.

The

CC, in one of its documents, categorically stated that parlia¬ mentary democracy was not only historically obsolete but also politically obsolete in India. to boycott elections.

Hence the decision of the Party

There has never arisen a situation in

which the boycott could be a correct slogan. majority of people have yet

Overwhelming

to get disillusioned from the

elections, their struggle has yet to reach the stage when they could have the strength to sweep away the bourgeois parlia-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

405

merits and other reactionary institutions. movement is still in its infancy.

The revolutionary

The areas of revolutionary

mass struggles are microscopically small in size in such a vast country as ours.

Even when the country was passing through

post-Naxalbari upsurge, the level of

consciousness

of the

people, their organisation and strength had not reached to that stage when they could sweep away the parliament. organs of people’s power were yet to be born. mentary democracy—though politically outlived itself.

historically

The

The parlia¬

obsolete

had

not

People were making use of it and

participating in the elections and this was not only the case with the backward strata of the people but for the whole people, except the people of those areas where we had deve¬ loped good movement and where they followed us loyally. What was politically obsolete to the revolutionary Marxists had not yet become so for the masses, for not only for a substantial minority of our people but for the millions of our countrymen.

The CC confused the relationship of the

leadership with the masses.

Can the basis of outbursts of

mass peasant struggles from Naxalbari, the militant waves of siudents’ struggles and working class struggles in several parts of the country be taken as the emergence of the stage when combining the legal with the illegal, parliamentary with the extra-parliamentary, the open with the secret, and other forms of struggle were regarded as contemptible and counter-revo¬ lutionary ?

The subsequent elections also, even the one held

in 1971 after the severe setback suffered by the revolutionary people in 1970-71, did not move us to the realisation of the reality that revolution had suffered defeat, that revolutionary forces had to be revived, strength had to be created and accumulated in order to prepare the Party and the revolutio¬ nary forces for a rapid advance.

The boycott of elections to

the Loksabha in 1977 (March) was the most serious blunder as it prevented the Party from emerging as a much stronger force.

The

bankruptcy of the line of general boycott, the

total absurdity of it can be realised from the fact that it was

406

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

overthrown not only by masses, but by overwhelming majority of revolutionary cadres as well.

In this respect, the election

verdict of 1977 is also a convincing victory against the line of general and total boycott of elections advanced by the Party. a

Comrade Lenin teaches us :

boycott

of the

bourgeois

“We did not proclaim

parliament,

the

Constituent

Assembly, but said—and from April (1917) Conference of our Party onwards began to say officially in the name of the Party—that a bourgeois republic, with a Constituent Assembly is better than a bourgeois

republic without a Constituent

Assembly,- but that a “workers’ Soviet republic, parliamentary,

is

better

republic.

and peasants’ ” republic, a

than any Without

bourgeois-democratic,

such

careful,

thorough,

circumspect and prolonged preparations we could not have obtained victory in October 1917, nor have maintained that victory”. [Lenin : Ibid P. 15]. The CC could have taken the lesson from Lenin and stated that

a big bourgeois-big

democratic

rights

and

landlord

regime

with bourgeois

institutions was better than a big

bourgeois-big landlord regime without bourgeois democratic rights and institutions but the people’s democracy was the best. Even this mistake might have saved us from the ridiculous position in which the CC landed itself in March 1977.

In this

election we even failed to correctly estimate the urge of the people against the fascist dictatorship of Indira Gandhi and therefore failed to play a positive role in the 1977 elections. The CC in its effort to overcome Lenin’s objection to the line of general and total boycott of elections took shelter behind the argument that since India was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country and not a capitalist country, there existed no democratic rights and that elections on the basis of adult suffrage and secret ballot had no relevance for the revolutionary people. and

The material reality of the existence of parliament

people’s participation in elections were just ignored or

wished away as it might create illusions in the minds of the people and divert them

from the path

of

people’s war.

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

407

It was argued that if the Party participated in elections it would deviate from the path of armed struggle.

While it

was correct to think that in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal coun¬ try the base of bourgeois democratic liberties as parliamentary institution is weak, but this was only one aspect of the reality, the other aspect being the existence of the bourgeois parlia¬ ment with adult suffrage

and secret ballot.

The elections

could have been used right since the outbreak of the Naxalbari struggle to take our programme and path to the vast millions of our countrymen, and revolutionary

movements

developed by combining the legal with the illegal were simplv not considered at all.

The existence of parliament in a semi¬

colonial semi-feudal country was summarily dismissed as use¬ less despite the express provisions in the June 14 letter of CPC regarding combining parliamentary with extra-parliamentary. Since, there existed no parliament in China for the CPC to make use of, we refused to take the concrete reality of a parliament in India and fell a victim to metaphysical approach. The CC based itself not on facts but on fancy. The CC, in order to overcome the discomfiture caused by Lenin, took shelter behind the argument that it was not a period of lull but of revolutionary upsurge and that the tactics of participation in election did not apply.

Our conception of

an upsurge was that even if there was a lull in this period, it would be of a very short duration.

In one of our documents,

we had stated that the revolutionary upsurge which had app¬ eared in post-war India was still continuing.

Although we

recognized the possibility of a “temporary lull”, for all practi¬ cal purposes, the CC has been a victim of the theory of perma¬ nent upsurge.

And, that is one of the main reasons why even

after the serious setback of 1970, even after the caution of the 10th Congress of the CPC that Leninism was the Marxism of the era and that Lenin’s theory and tactics were valid today, we refused to move out of our fancy world.

The conception

•of permanent upsurge has been damaging the Party’s links with the masses and leading to voluntarism in practice.

Even

408

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL IF*

after being smashed, the revolutionary situation became more and more excellent and the boycott continued ! The CC, in its attempts to overcome Lenin’s admonitions to those who believed in general and total boycott irrespective of the conditions, took shelter behind the fact that since armed struggle had emerged, the parliament, assemblies or local bodies would cause hindrance to its development and expan¬ sion.

It was not taken into account that though the peasants

rose in mass struggles taking arms against the feudals in several pockets of the country, areas of armed resistance were micros¬ copically small, the number of regular squads were still very small and they too acted mainly in self-defence and for more time they organized the people in struggle on the basis of their immediate demands, and we had a long way to go in emerging as a national political force of any significance in the country and that we had to work hard, and utilise all legal opportuni¬ ties to educate and mobilise the people for agrarian revolution and for the path of the people’s war.

And, for such an objec¬

tive, the parliamentary institutions had to be combined with the extra-parliamentary and other forms of struggle had to be waged to supplement the armed struggle that was emerging in some small pockets in the country.

But the CC counterpoised

the utilisation of elections of the parliament against armed struggle, thus ignoring the dialectical

unity between other

forms of struggle with armed struggle. The CPI(ML) has committed grave mistakes in the sphere of applying Marxist-Leninist tactics in Indian conditions, which have caused much harm to the cause of the people (by the line of general and total boycott of elections irrespective of condi¬ tions).

The CC is mainly responsible for the continuance of

this “Left” line for such a long period, although this line was continuously opposed by

several communist revolutionaries

both inside and outside the Party. The CC committed “Left” deviation on this question be¬ cause it failed to apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of Indian revolution.

It became a victim of meta-

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

409f

physical approach and abandoned Marxist dialectics. Besides, it should be noted that the wrong line on elections was the product of over-reaction to revisionism and its manifesta¬ tions—legalism, parliamentarism and reformism. Such has been the ideological source or root of this “Left” deviation. The social root was the very preponderance of the petty bourgeoisie in the party ranks as well as in the leadership of the Party. The urban petty bourgeoisie, the ruined artisans and impoverished peasantry and its mood of dejection and impetuosity cast their reflections and the Party became a victim of impetuosity of the petty bourgeoisie. Such has been the social basis of our “Left” deviation on this issue. The historical root of this deviation was the long domina¬ tion of revisionism in our party. The cadres and the leader¬ ship of the CPI(ML) had seen how before the split, the CPI(M) had degenerated into an election machine, into a completely legal, open and reformist party and how cadres had got infa¬ tuated with all the views of bourgeois parliamentarians. This past history created a feeling of aversion against parliamentary elections in the minds of revolutionary cadres and leaders who not only lacked maturity in Marxism but also lacked sufficient experience of revolutionary struggles. The absence of parlia¬ mentary institutions in several countries of Asia also had its impact on the minds of the cadres and leaders of the Party. In conclusion, the CC views that participation in a parti¬ cular election or its boycott should be treated as a question of tactics. And this should be decided on the basis of the concrete situation existing at the time of that particular election, depen¬ ding on the consciousness of the people, the level and organised strength of the people’s movement. Comrades should realise that the aim of participation in or the boycott of a particular election is the same, namely, the advancement of the revolu¬ tionary movement through different methods. Therefore, the Party should decide its attitude to any election, whether to ther parliament or assemblies or local bodies, on the eve of eachi election on the basis of the conditions laid down by Lenin.

410

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II

The CC is placing this resolution before all the Party units for discussion.

After gathering the opinions of the Party on

this question, the CC will take the final decision on this. [ Source :

“Red Flag” (edited

by Satyanarain

Singh),

Bulletin No. 2]

ON UNITED FRONT [This is a section of the Chapter ‘The National Situ¬ ation’, taken from the ‘Political and

Organisational

Report’ of the UCCRI(ML), adopted at their first Central Conference in July, 1977.—Ed.] United Front :

Democratic and National

...the basic contradictions in Indian society in the present stage of revolution are :

(1) between the masses of the people

and feudalism ; and (2) between the nation and To resolve the first

imperialism.

contradiction, we have to build up a

broad democratic front (people’s democratic front) based on the alliance of all those classes who have a contradiction with the feudal-comprador capitalist classes and launch the armed agrarian struggle to overthrow them. This is the four-class alliance of the workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie against the internal enemy, with the worker-peasant alliance as the main axis. Civil war will arise and develop in both phases of the New Democratic Revolution, during armed agrarian

revolution as

well as during the struggle for national liberation.

When im¬

perialism launches an attack on our country, either directly or through its lackeys, the principal contradiction becomes that between imperialism and its domestic reactionary

lackeys on

the one hand and the broad masses on the other. The question of forging a United Front with a section of •the ruling comprador classes in the event of a rival section of

411

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

these classes capitulating wholly to one or the other super¬ power, in a bid to turn India into a neo-colony, has arisen recently during the emergency.

Our understanding on this

is that in the first phase, i.e., the agrarian phase of the New Democratic revolution, that is, before imperialism launches a war of aggression on the nation, the question of forging an alliance with a section of the comprador ruling classes does not arise.

These comprador classes are the principal and

immediate target of the revolution.

In certain specific condi¬

tions and on certain specific issues it may be possible to have a tactical arrangement for a while, with one or the other section of these classes, for we must seize any opportunity of utilising the contradictions between the ruling classes, dividing them and weakening them in every way we can.

But at no

time in this phase can we modify our basic agrarian revolu¬ tionary programme against these classes as a whole, or enter into any binding or long-term alliance with them. Our basic task in the first phase of the revolution is to build the four-class alliance, the broad democratic front of the masses of the people on the basis of agrarian revolutionary progra¬ mme.

But to do this successfully, we must realise that even

in this phase, the anti-imperialist struggle must be linked with the anti-feudal agrarian revolution. When imperialism launches a war of aggression on the country, there is a split in the ruling classes, and the section which does not want to lose its semi-colonial status and be¬ come a neo-colony of the aggressive super-power, comes over to the side of the patriotic and democratic forces who must now launch the war of national resistance against the foreign enemy.

This is the second phase, the phase of the National

United Front against imperialism, when the question of forging an alliance with the ‘patriotic’ section of the compradors be¬ comes necessary in order to isolate the native traitors and their masters.

However, this alliance with the ‘patriotic’ compra¬

dors is also temporary and lasts only until the enemy is defeated, after which the section again becomes the principal

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

412 interal

enemy of the democratic

VOL II

revolution (as in China

after the defeat of Japanese imperialism—when the civil war against

the

comprador classes as a whole had yet to be

fought to the finish).

EDITORIAL, DESHABRATI [This is a translation of the editorial of the March ’78 issue of Deshabrati, the Bengali organ of the pro-C. M, pro-Lin Piao group of the CPI(ML) led by Mahadeb Mukherjee—Ed.] Today we are living in the era of the victory of world revolution, of the people’s offensive.

Our respected Comrade

Mahadeb Mukherjee, the great Central Leadership, has taught us that the characteristic of this era is the victory of MarxismLeninism-Mao Tsetung

Thought.

That is why we witness

that as a result of the successive blows dealt by the liberation struggles of the

revolutionary

masses, well-armed with the

weapon of Mao Tsetung Thought, and—faced

with

maddened and

final

imperialism is battered,

collapse—it has

bewildered.

become

In its desperate

furious,

bid to save

imperialism from its imminent final collapse, world revisionism is carrying on disruptive acts of sabotage within the revolutio¬ nary war in different countries of the world, adopting various sinister tactics in a vain attempt to wean away the people from the path of armed struggle.

That is why Chairman [Mao]

has taught us that revisionism is the

main danger of the

present era. Summing up the experience of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,

our respected leader Comrade

Majumdar drew the lesson struggle against

that

today

without

Charu

waging a

revisionism, revolution in no country can

move even a single step forward.

So we see that the people

of the world are boiling with hatred against revisionism in every country and are taking the mask off its face.

Our

413

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS

respected leader Chairman’s

Comrade

Charu

leadership the

Majumdar said, “Under

revolutionary

struggles of the

world today have merged into a great confluence.”

That is

why our national and international tasks today have become inseparable.

So we find in the international sphere today

that the most modern revisionism has adopted the sly tactics of opposing Chairman in the name of Chairman.

Attacking

Comrade Lin Piao, the able successor and close Comrade-inarms of Chairman Mao, it has attacked Chairman Mao and Mao Tsetung Thought and is thus carrying on the last-ditch battle to resist the world-conquering march of the people’s war.

Similarly,

in

the national sphere also we

find the

revisionists of various hues—paying lip-service to Chairman Mao—are attacking Chairman’s Thoughts on the soil of India by attacking our respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar, who has successfully applied Comrade Lin Piao’s politics, and are trying to drag the Indian

masses from the path of armed

peasants’ struggles into the mire of revisionist struggles.

In

this respect, all the revisionists are birds of the same featherright from the CPI(M) down to the most modern representa¬ tives [of revisionism], Kanu—Souren—Ashim. In the history of revolutionary struggles in India, Naxalbari is the spring thunder, Naxalbari is the beginning of armed peasant revolutionary war,

of establishing

Peasants’

Raj,

Naxalbari is the first successful application of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India. whose

creator

Majumdar.

is

our

So,

respected

Naxalbari is a politics

leader

Waging a resolute struggle

Comrade

Charu

against nearly 45

years’ revisionist past, it was Comrade Charu Majumdar who for the first time determined the method of application of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India—and the result was Naxalbari.

That spark of Naxalbari has today assumed the

proportions of a prairie fire which has engulfed the whole of India.

It is to lead this revolutionary war that our respected

leader Comrade

Charu Majumdar has personally created the

CPI(ML), the symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the

414

NAXALBARl AND AFTER

Indian masses.

VOL II

It is at the cost of the arduous struggle and

great sacrifice of thousands of martyrs that the path of Naxal¬ bari, the politics of our respected

leader

Comrade Charu

Majumdar, is today established as the only path of liberation of the Indian masses.

And that is why revisionists of various

hues do not have the guts to oppose Naxalbari straightaway, that is why they are opposing Naxalbari donning the garb of Naxalbari,

trying

to dismiss the politics of Naxalbari [by

denying] its great creator.

That is the reason why we find

that the ‘officially recognized party of Naxals’ (Satyanarain— Santosh) have come out in the open bazaar,

trading the

martyrs’ name in order to shield their ugly traitors’ faces. But today it is clear as daylight to the people of the whole country that Naxalbari means armed struggle, that the CPI (ML) is the weapon for establishing Peasants’ Raj, and that the martyrs are great fighters in that armed struggle for seizure of power.

So, in trying to peddle the rotten stuff of election

politics, with the martyrs’ names on their lips, and displaying the signboard of the CPI(ML), they are now being disgraced by the masses ; when it was becoming difficult to get things done through them, entered the scene.

great

men

like

Kanu-Souren-Ashim

These people have started dancing to that

tune quite shamelessly.

Treading upon martyrs’ blood, they

have thrown away the signboard of the CPI(ML), and today they lie prostrate before Jyoti Basu.

They talk of the necessity

of reviewing the situations, and immediately announce their decisions to start everything anew.

In this process they are

seeking to negate the history of the last ten years’ armed peasant revolutionary war.

It is indeed a treat to watch these

great men play political volte-face.

It was this Kanu Sanya!

who once on the Maidan declared that Charu Majumdar was the leader, that it was Comrade Charu Majumdar who had, combating revisionism, applied Mao Tsetung Thought in Naxal¬ bari. It was he [KS] who had then warned the Indian masses against those seeking to smash Comrade Charu Majumdar’s Authority.

And then in ‘More About Naxalbari’ he suddenly

415

DBBATES AND DOCUMENTS

discovered that in Naxalbari Charu Majumdar’s politics had not been applied—a point he probably forgot to mention earlier.

A shim, the

propaganda-in-charge

of

this

Kanu

Sanyal, is today posing as a great commentator of the Indian revolution.

This A shim Chatterjee once said that it was at the

feet of Comrade Charu Majumdar that they had learnt how to start guerilla warfare.

It was he who once declared that

even if there was no one to stand

by

Comrade

Charu

Majumdar he alone would do so till the last, he alone would apply Comrade Charu Majumdar’s teachings to the letter. O Great Men !

don’t think any of us has forgotten what you

said in those days.

So, your sayings today are beyond doubt

remarkable examples of political volte-face.

Wasn’t it you

who had issued a firman for sacrificing the armed struggle of the East Pakistan CP(ML) at the altar of Yahya ? you have the cheek to accuse of having

“led the

And today

Comrade Charu Majumdar

proletarian movement into disarray” !

You have shed so much tears for Comrade Sushital Roy Chowdhury. But the fact cannot be erased that it was you who had then demanded the expulsion of Comrade Roy Chowdhury from the Party. And it was in opposition to you that Comrade Roy Chowdhury had remained in the Party under the instruc¬ tion of

the

respected leader Comrade Charu

Majumdar,

and continued as a member of the Polit Bureau of the Party of our respected leader

Comrade Charu Majumdar.

you have set about organizing under the

leader Comrade

proletarian movement ing

our

proletarian movement

patronage of Jaya Prakash Narayan, that U.S.

Agent, and Jyoti Basu. ted

the

Today

And you people accuse our respec¬

Charu Majumdar of into disarray.”

having “led the

Excellent !

Malign¬

respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar and

praising, in the same

breath,

Jaya Prakash Narayan—that

U. S. Agent—and Jyoti Basu, you have made it clear whose class interests you are safeguarding.

In

the

international

sphere the most modern revisionism has, under the pretext of attacking

Soviet

social-imperialism, taken the

path of

416

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

collusion with U. S.

VOL II

imperialism, the No.l enemy of

the

people of the world, and is trying in vain to save world imperialism from destruction. national version of this.

What you are doing is just a

It is therefore crystal clear that you

are out to peddle your stuff in the political bazaar with the blessings of Jaya Prakash Narayan and as an appendage CPM.

But that would cut no ice.

years’ experience of armed

of

Tempered in the last ten

peasant revolutionary war and

anti-revisionist struggle, the Indian masses have today learnt perfectly well to distinguish the fake from the genuine. liberation struggle of the of an upsurge today.

The

masses is bursting forth in the form

The politics of our respected leader

Comrade Charu Majumdar has struck deep roots in the soil of India.

Under the personal guidance of his worthy successor,

respected Comrade Mahadeb creating, defending

and

Mukherjee,

the struggle for

developing liberated areas in the

villages of India under the CPI(ML) leadership is intensifying. Grasping the setting up of Revolutionary Committees as the main task, the work of establishing Peasant Raj in rural areas is proceeding at great strides.

The spark of the liberated

area of Kamalpur-Kalinagar has turned into a prairie fire and spread throughout the country.

The whole country is

today on the threshold of liberation.

Under the impact of

the successive blows dealt by the struggles of the revolutionary masses, the

reactionary clique of rulers and

out of its wits. inner

exploiters is

Today they are torn asunder as a result of

contradictions

and

dog-fights

amongst

themselves.

Their dream of building a powerful centre has been smashed today.

Today the masses are bursting forth in anger every¬

where.

All the deceptions practised by revisionism are to¬

day being exposed rapidly ; no mask, however attractive, can today confuse the masses.

The path of betrayal in the name

of Naxalbari has today become bankrupt. pected leader Comrade Charu

Today our res¬

Majumdar is well-established

as the great guide of liberation among the masses of India. So whoever today opposes Comrade Charu Majumdar, opposes

417

©ABATES AND DOCUMENTS

his politics, will be hated and punished by the entire country. So we are today recalling again the great call of our respected leader, Comrade Charu Majumdar : “Our work of establishing people’s political power will be our active line of action against these traitors”.

So

let us grasp firmly the politics of our

respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar, the great Autho¬ rity of Indian revolution, the politics of Chairman Mao and Comrade Lin Piao ; let us hold aloft the banner of CPI(ML), the Martyrs’ Party led personally by respected Comrade Mahadeb Mukherjee—the worthy disciple of our respected leader who is the helmsman of the present Indian revolution ; let us bury imperialism,

feudalism and revisionism—national and

international—by completing the task of creating, defending and developing

liberated

areas in

the process of

establishing

peasants’ liberated governments through setting up of Revo¬ lutionary Committees in villages ; let us, by liberating India, hold aloft the red banner of the politics of Chairman, Comrade Lin Piao and our respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar, defend

Chairman’s

revolution.

Yol 11—27

China, and carry forward

the

world

APPENDIX

‘ONE DIVIDES INTO TWO’ (February 1, 1974)

subroto datta (Jahar) [ The author of this article was reportedly killed in a clash with the police in Bihar.

As the article

was received late, it is being published as an Ap¬ pendix.—Ed. ] Class struggle will continue in class-divided society. class struggle has its reflection within the Party.

This

As a result,

the dialectics of two thoughts operates both inside and outside the Party.

One is the correct line, another, the wrong line,

i. e., one is the revolutionary line, and the other, the counter¬ revolutionary and revisionist line.

Any two-lines

struggle

ultimately is the struggle of two world outlooks : one is the proletarian outlook, and the other, the bourgeois outlook. In other words, one is the outlook of dialectical materialism, and the other, the outlook of idealism and metaphysics.

The

outlook of each and every reactionary power and revisionists is idealism and metaphysics.

Dialectical materialism is the

outlook of the proletariat. Within the Communist movement of our country, a struggle between two outlooks was going on.

At that time, the revo¬

lutionary peasant upsurge of Naxalbari took place under leadership of Comrade Charu Majumdar.

the

It was because of

the revolutionary peasant upsurge at Naxalbari that dialec¬ tical materialism won in theory and practice, the developed role of the proletariat guiding it.

The victory of the dialecti¬

cal materialistic outlook was possible by struggling against and completely defeating the outlook of idealism. After Naxalbari, the struggle between the two lines and the two outlooks has reached a developed stage.

The correct

{revolutionary line of our respected and dear leader, Charu

420

NAXALBARI AND AFTER

VOL II1

Majumdar, has been established within the Party and among, the people through revolutionary practice in recent years. From 1962, he was the representative of a correct revolution¬ ary line.

He was the first person who boldly declared in 1962,.

“The Indian Government has attacked China and so we should oppose this war.”

From

1962, particularly from

1967, he wrote the historic eight documents.

1965 to

These are

documents of uncompromising struggle against the revisionists and set forth the revolutionary theory of New Democratic Revolution of India.

Comrade Charu Majumdar integrated

the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thou¬ ght with the concrete realities of Indian revolution, upheld a revolutionary theory and formulated a correct revolutionary line for Indian revolution. The representatives of the wrong line within the Party opposed the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar from the beginning.

Ashim—in his document on the national ques¬

tion—completely failed to distinguish between ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, in criticising the Party line, i. e., the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar.

After that, ‘Soumya’ opposed (the line)

from inside and then, going outside the Party, circulated a big document in the name

of ‘Ajoy’.

The main thing in that

document was the philosophical theory of China’s Khrushchev, Liu shao-chi.

‘Soumya’ propagated that bourgeois revisionist

philosophical theory in the name of dialectical materialism. That was his little difference with Ashim.

Then, what was the

philosophical theory which he propounded in the name of dialectical materialism ?

That was the theory of China’s

Khrushchev, Liu shao-chi—‘combine two into one’. words, ‘Soumya’

In other

saw two aspects, ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, in the

correct revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar.

In reality, the

two lines in the Party are : one, the correct revolutionary liner of Charu Majumdar,

and the other, the wrong line which is-

the reactionary, revisionist line.

This is the correct philoso¬

phical theory of dialectical materialism, i.e., ‘one divides into»

two’.

appendix

4211

‘Soumya’, with his revisionist philosophical theory searched* for and failed in finding ‘wrong’ on all the questions in our Party line, the line which was the correct revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar. then

The revisionists, modern revisionists and

Nagi-Pulla-Asit-Parimal-Satyanarain-Ashim-Souren etc.

—all the revisionists of various hues—attacked the Party line on this particular question. The pedlar of the revisionist line that came next, ‘Sharma’,, hiding his own

bourgeois outlook, searched for and failed in

finding ‘wrong’ in the revolutionary line of Comrade Charu Majumdar—all this in the name of‘self-criticism’and‘with¬ drawal’ (of slogans).

This was also nothing but the outlook of

‘combine two into one’. “One trend covers another trend.”

After the Tenth Cong¬

ress of the great Chinese Communist Party, the anti-Party clique, the supporters of Lin, Mahadeb (Chotda) and company,, took an anti-Chinese revisionist line from the moderate point of view.

They also—with an outlook of idealistic philosophi¬

cal theory ‘combine two into one’—are searching for ‘wrongy in the correct Chinese Party line after saying‘Red salute to the Tenth Congress’ and ‘The Great, Glorious and Correct Chinese Communist Party’. for

It is nothing but a vain search

‘wrong’ in the proletarian revolutionary line of Chair¬

man. ‘One divides into two’ and ‘combine two into one’ consti¬ tute the struggle of two lines and two outlooks.

Everyone is

speaking of ‘one’ and ‘two’, but from two outlooks. Then, what is ‘one divides into two’ ?

Feudal society

divides into two-—peasants and landlord class—whereas dia¬ lectics is permanent.

Feudal rule would be repudiated and

then peasant rule would be established.

The peasant class

divides into two—on the one hand, the poor and illiterate,, and on the other, the most daring, kind and bold in their spirit of sacrifice.

The landlord class divides into two—on

the one hand, the living tiger to murder and exploit the pea¬ sants, and on the other, the paper tiger.

The proof is that the-

•422

NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II

peasants are annihilating them and their destruction is certain. The world situation is also ‘one divides into two’—the danger of war, and revolution, the main trend. Then, what is ‘combine two into one’ ?

To search for

‘good’ with the ‘bad’ within the feudal society ; to search for ‘bad’ with the ‘good’ within the peasant class ; to search for ‘good’ with the ‘bad’ within the landlord class. Today, the ped¬ lars of this idealistic philosophical theory are searching for ‘wrong’ even within the correct revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar.

Then, tomorrow they would search for ‘wrong’

within the Thoughts of Chairman.

But today, in the violent

revolutionary conditions, the consciousness of the Party com¬ rades and the people has developed.

So tomorrow is far

away, they are being flushed out today. Today, we have to annihilate this idealistic philosophical theory : ‘combine two into one’ and establish the dialectical materialistic theory of ‘one divides into two’. Today we have to understand what it would be if we apply ‘one divides into two’ in the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar.

Not ‘wrong’ and ‘right’.

dialectics between two ‘right’ (aspects),

Then what ? It is the the dialectics between

the ‘basic’ truth and the ‘developed’ truth, the dialectics between the truth of today and the truth of tomorrow.

In this way we

proceed, society proceeds, revolution and the revolutionary line develop. Comrade Saroj Datta said : The task to be done at twelve must be done by twelve, the task to be done at one o’clock must be done by one o’clock, task to be done at two o’clock by two.

The revisionists can cry out that the line is

changing ; the reason is that they see everything from the dogmatic outlook.

They do not understand the development.

In the field of class-struggle also we have to understand ‘one divides into two’.

Our basic line is the great line of

‘annihilation of the class-enemies’.

After Magurjan, annihila¬

tion is one kind of economism, so we have to snatch the rifle. After rifle-snatching, it is not only mere snatching, we have to fuse it : that is, annihilation, rifle snatching and shooting.

To-

423

APPENDIX

day we should attack not only the enemy’s standing force but the mobile enemy also : that is, annihilation, rifle snatching, shooting and attack on the mobile enemy.

This is develop¬

ment, this is the dialectics between one ‘right’ and another ‘right’. Revolutionary line is not a static thing. which proceeds towards dialectics,

It is a science

and develops.

We all

should understand this. The experience of our practice is also ‘one divides into two’ : the experience of victory or moving forward, and the experience of defeat.

If we isolate ourselves from the revolu¬

tionary line of Charu Majumdar we will be defeated.

And if

we follow the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar whole¬ heartedly we can move forward and would gain victory. That is why Charu Majumdar has directed us to grasp the outlook of dialectical materialism and to refute the outlook of dogmatism and metaphysics.

We should grasp ‘one divides

into two’ and refute ‘combine two into one’. The future of the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar is also ‘one divides into two’. line is certain.

The victory of the revolutionary

But it should proceed by destroying the revi¬

sionist line of various hues. Our future is also ‘one divides into two’.

“Future is.

bright but the way is tortuous.” [Received through Post—sent by The Red Guards]

INDEX

AICCCR : 3, 23, 26, 99, 109, . 118, 171,

119, 126,

128,

147,

197, 200, 201, 203,

78, 81, 88, 95, 99, 118, 120,

108,

124, 127, 130,

150, 151, 161,

172, 174,

227, 264, 326, 328, 333,

177, 193, 196, 333-35, 337,

388-90

339, 344, 413, 416

Albania : 61 annihilation

Cambodia: 285, ( khatam ) :

10,

11, 71, 72, 86, 94, 95, 98, 110,

111,

113,

121,

122,

123, 124, 126, 133-36, 145, 152, 154, 166,

155,

156,

164,

167, 288-90, 293-95,

291,

306,

307, 313, 394 Chatterjee, Ashim : 99,

149,

413, 414, 420 Communist Party of China : 2, 12, 18, 31, 74, 122, 148, 187,

115, 118, 195, 250,

304, 305, 315, 323, 328,

253, 258, 274, 284, 285,

388-90

295, 298, 313, 322, 324,

APRCC :

2-10,

28, 29, 32,

34, 131, 231

326, 327, 333, 372, 379, 383, 387, 394, 395, 407

APRCP : 371,372, 381

comprador-bureaucratic capi¬

Basavapunniah, M. : 66-71

talism : 5, 21, 51, 52, 67, 97,

Basu, Jyoti : 71, 203, 218,414, 415

108, 125,

158,

159,

163,

167, 168,

189, 197, 198,

Birbhum : 118, 166

204, 205, 206, 214-17, 228,

Biswakarmakar, Babulal : 204,

232, 251, 252, 254, 257,

221, 223, 299, 375, 392

260, 276, 277, 278, 280,

Bose, Souren : 117, 413, 414

301, 323, 375, 377, 381,

boycott of elections : 7, 8, 37-

382, 410, 411

50, 62-64, 70, 71, 81, 107,

Congress : 33, 63, 64, 65, 78,

126, 203, 228, 242, 243,

81, 99, 102, 107, 150, 158,

287, 292, 400-409

159,

C.P.I : 1,

12, 27,

163, 177,

178, 188,

50-52, 61,

189, 192, 204, 206, 207,

62, 65, 66, 67, 69, 81, 120,

213-18, 257, 277, 320,332,

126,

333, 344, 372, 395, 399

161, 259, 276, 277,

330 C.P.I ( M ) : 2, 3, 12, 51, 53, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66-71, 77,

Cultural Revolution : 80, 94, 97, 117, 174, 183,230,231, 253, 284, 296, 394, 412

Dange, S. A [Dangeites] : 51, 192,

193, 197,

198, 202,

203, 207, 258, 259, 272,

Konar,

Harekrishna :

177,.

178, 203, 218 Lakhimpur-Kheri :

'Datta, Saroj : 308, 375, 422

118,

Datta, Subroto : 419

375

9,

110

227, 254, 265, 287'

Debra-Gopiballavpur : 9, 71,

Lenin, V.I. : 1, 37-43, 45, 47,.

86, 87, 110, ill, 113, 118,

49, 50, 53, 63, 69, 76, 77,

375, 389

78, 80, 81, 122,

127,

151,

184, 187,

193,

Desai, Morarji : 50, 51

154, 180,

Deshabrati :

208, 262, 329, 341, 343,

19, 82, 84, 85,

86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 109112,114,136,149,201,203,

364, 402-409 Liberation :

300, 302, 303, 305, 308,

112, 130,

309, 311, 315, 320, 411

192,

Dimitrov, G : 49

11, 21, 88,

89,

133, 136,

145,

196, 230, 319, 323,

324, 400

Engels, F : 1,47, 48, 79, 80, 154, 328, 342, 364

Lin Piao : 13, 15, 17, 82, 85, 194, 261, 267, 282, 284,

Gandhi, M.K [ Gandhi-ism ] :

288, 299, 300, 301, 306,

93,154, 158,161, 190, 276,

323, 368, 379, 386, 391,

286

393, 411, 413

Gandhi, Mrs. Indira : 30, 31, 32,46, 50, 51,

160, 168,

Lok Yudh : 136

204, 207, 208, 372, 395,

Majumdar, Ashu : 96-99

396

Maoist Communist Centre :

Ghatana Prabaha : 6, 90 Ghosh Suniti : 374 Guevara, Che : 6, 187 Immediate Programme : 5, 7, *'

Liu Shao-chi : 148

313,318 Marx, Karl : 1, 39, 44, 47, 48, 79, 101, 152, 154, 156, 160 Misra Vinod : 393

8, 9, 28, 29, 32, 131, 231-

Mukherjee, Mahadeb: 412,416

250

Musahari : 9, 110, 115,

118,

Indian Express (The) : 349

122, 136, 166, 227, 254,

Janashakti: 4, 349

287, 375

Karimnagar : 30, 33, 36,131, 234, 239, 247

Nagi Reddy, T :

9, 23,

26-

36, 292, 372, 374

Khammam : 30„ 33, 36, 131,

Namboodiripad, E.M.S. : 102

*

234, 235, 239, 246, 249,

Nehru, J. L :

373

New Left: 41/ 42

161, 168, 258

Patnaik; D. B. M : 347

122, 136, 166, 227, 234,.

Patnaik, N.B : 347

239, 247, 248, 265, 287,.

Peking Radio : 25, 156

294, 295, 356, 375, 376

Peking Review :

19, 114

Stalin, J.V. : 1, 22, 38-42, 47,.

Plekhanov, G. Y. : 76, 79

49, 50, 79, 80, 256, 258,.

principal contradiction : 5, 9,

276, 329, 364

15, 16, 274, 279, 373, 382, 410

Tebhaga

movement :

106,

161, 342

Pulla Reddy, C. : 28, 371,385

Telengana : 1, 23, 27-29, 32,

Ranadive, B. T. : 1, 257, 259

35, 131,

Rao, Chowdhary Tejeswara :

202, 238, 241, 257, 259,

326

162,

174,

175,

263, 277, 328, 359, 376,

Rao, D. V. : 30-36

386

Red Flag : 410

Tito, Marshall : 1, 168, 194

Roy Chowdhury, Sushital :

Trotsky, L [ Trotskyite ] : 45,.

96, 98, 99, 112, 325, 415 Sanyal, Kanu : 4,

10, 82-84,

86, 88, 104, 106, 110, 130,

257-59, 367, 369 UCCRI(ML) : 410 U.S. Imperialism : 5, 17, 21,

145, 203, 347-49, 351-53,

30,31,67, 168, 189,

192,

357-60, 363, 370,386, 387,

197-200,

227,

390, 413, 414

230, 231, 250,252-54, 259-

206, 218,

Singh, Satyanarain [SNS] :

260, 262, 277-81, 285, 286,

307, 385, 400, 410, 414

291, 292, 300, 301, 307,

social-imperialism : 5, 21, 30, 31, 67-70, 109, 117, 163, 168,

227,

230,

251-254,

313,

372-73, 375-77, 380-

382, 393, 416 Venkaiah, Kolia : 326

260, 262, 277-81, 285-87,

Vietnam : 53, 54, 61, 70, 80,

290, 292, 300, 301, 372-

132, 184, 199, 214, 231,

382, 393, 395, 415

252, 280, 291, 394

Srikakulam : 7, 8, 9, 20, 2328, 95, 107, 110, 113, 118,

Warangal : 30, 33, 36,

131,.

234, 239, 246, 249, 373

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