Political Resolution of The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

This was one of the two resolutions adopted by the AICCCR on 22nd April 1969-the other one was the resolution on organization, printed in this Volume as an appendix on the basis of which the CPI(M-L) was formed.

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 parliamentary 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 with regard to the stage, nature and character of our society, state and government. While rejecting 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 capitalists, and that its government is a lackey of US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. The abject dependence of Indian economy on ‘aid’ from imperialist countries, chiefly from US imperialism and Soviet revisionism, the thousands of collaboration agreements, 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 society.

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 per cent of the rural population, the back-breaking usurious exploitation, the ever-growing evictions of the poor peasantry coupled with the brutal social oppression — including lynching of ‘harijans’, reminiscent of the mediaeval ages — and the complete backwardness of the technique of production clearly demonstrate the semi-feudal 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 seventy-five comprador-bureaucrat capitalists, the utilization of the state sector in the interest of foreign monopolies and domestic big business, and the unbridled freedom of the landlords to plunder and oppress the peasantry with the help of the state machinery— 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 US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism on the Indian state, the dovetailing of its foreign policy with the US-Soviet global strategy of encircling Socialist China and suppressing the national liberation struggles, 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 Government to the Soviet armed provocation against China, the tacit approval of Soviet aggression against Czechoslovakia and its active collaboration with the US imperialists against the national liberation struggle of Vietnam clearly show that the Indian Government is a lackey of US 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 the 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 capitalism being the other) of imperialism in our country, the Indian people will have to wage a bitter, protracted struggle against US and Soviet imperialism too. By liberating themselves from the yoke of feudalism, the Indian people will liberate themselves also 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 US imperialists and their chief accomplice, the Soviet revisionists, are facing increasing difficulty in their dirty efforts to redivide and enslave the whole world. The growing intensity of the armed struggles in countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America for national liberation is destroying the very foundations of imperialist rule.

A new upsurge of struggles of the working class and the toiling peasantry has overtaken the capitalist countries and the reactionary ruling classes are facing insoluble contradictions at home.

An unprecedented wave of struggle of the Afro-American people against racial oppression coupled with working class action is dealing powerful blows at the rule of the monopolists 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 miracles of socialist construction. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat in every sphere of life and created conditions for the emergence of the socialist man. The victories of the cultural revolution have culminated in the triumph of the historic Ninth National Congress of the great Communist Party of China. The Thought of Chairman Mao is winning ever new 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 entered 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 enmeshed in a deeper economic and political crisis than ever before. Contradictions between imperialism and the people, between feudalism and peasants, between capital and labour, and between different sections of the ruling classes are growing sharper and sharper everyday. As 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 US and Soviet imperialists, and their Indian compradors, the working class, the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie are victims of growing pauperization and unemployment. At least ninety-five per cent of our people can no longer endure the poverty and wretchedness that are now their lot and are impatient for a fundamental change. At the same time a dog-fight is going on between different sections and parties of the ruling classes, that have linked their fate with that of the US, 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 US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, feudalism and comprador-bureaucrat capital.

Armed peasant struggles, which started in Naxalbari, have now spread to Srikakulam, Mushahari and Lakhimpur Kheri and are spreading to ever newer areas. Recently, the peasant revolutionaries of Kerala staged a heroic revolt. The revolutionary struggles of the Nagas, the Mizos and the Kukis, who have risen arms in hand, are also dealing hard blows at the reactionary regime. The resistance of our people, both in the rural and in the urban areas, is fast developing and bringing about a new upsurge in the agrarian revolution — the main content of the democratic revolution.

The reactionary ruling classes are resorting to brutal repression in order to beat back the rising tide of people’s struggles. They are rushing 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 draconian legislative powers to crush the class struggles. At the same time every effort is being made to divide 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. National chauvinism is being fanned against Socialist 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 opposition from various nationalities. Equality of all nations and national languages is being denied.

In such a situation when revolutionary struggles are advancing 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’ governments as “organs of struggle,” by raising the slogan of “providing relief to the people,” they are trying to create illusions among the people in order to blunt their revolutionary consciousness and divert them from the path of revolutionary struggle. These ‘United Front’ governments are in essence the answer of the reactionary ruling classes to the challenge thrown out 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 guerrilla struggle is an adventurist slogan.” There is no doubt now that these lackeys of foreign and domestic reaction are only trying their best to dampen the revolutionary spirit of our 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 reachery, between the proletarian revolutionary ranks and the bourgeois reactionary leadership. An appraisal of party history will show that the leadership has always acted as conscious traitors to the revolutionary cause of our people. It will also show that the revolutionary ranks failed to overthrow the treacherous leadership earlier because of their inability to make a concrete analysis of the classes in Indian society and of their role in the Indian revolution.

With the great victory of the 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 Comrade Mao Tse-tung, over Japanese imperialism, the fascist imperialist 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 Comrade Mao Tse-tung breached the imperialist front in the East and the world balance of forces underwent a change. It is during the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance that Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory of People’s War was fully developed : it charted a new path — the path that all the people of colonial and semi-colonial countries like India must pursue to liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialism and domestic reaction. 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 struggle ; the peasants of Punnapra-Vayalar put up resistance against the reactionary armed forces; the peasants of Telengana rose 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 these great struggles. Alarmed at the revolutionary upsurge, imperialism struck a deal with the Congress that represented comprador capital and feudalism in India. The country was partitioned. The direct rule 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 the ranks against the sordid betrayal. The Ranadive clique utilized this revolt 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 Secretariat 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. They carried this struggle forward by adopting the tactics of guerrilla war. The Ranadive clique formally abandoned the sectarian line when it was faced with a revolt of the ranks. The just intervention of the international leadership helped this process 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 bourgeoisie 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 Comrade 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 independent bourgeois state. Though they held that the Indian Government 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 does no longer exist in India and capitalism has developed in agriculture. 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 domination. We learn from the experience of the great Chinese Party that in 1927, after Chiang Kai-shek’s rise to power, the Chinese Trotskyites declared that the Chiang Kai-shek clique had overthrown imperialism and feudalism and was treading 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 movements 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 revolutionary 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 Government launched an attack 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 this 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 have depicted the Indian state as an independent state. Assuming that the Indian big bourgeoisie has an anti-imperialist role, they have declared that Soviet ‘aid’ will safeguard India’s freedom and lead to the sharpening of the contradiction with US imperialism. The same Trotskyite theories have been adopted in the Programme of the Seventh Congress too. By describing the Indian revolution as the second stage of the People’s Democratic Revolution, instead of directly calling it socialist revolution, the Ranadive clique has resorted to trickery. No sooner had the Seventh Congress been over than it was declared on behalf of the Polit Bureau that the Party did not entertain any thought of armed struggle and 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 suppressing the liberation struggle of the Indian people. Yet this period has witnessed increasing collaboration between Soviet and US imperialism for joint world domination. Bourgeois dictatorship has been set up in the Soviet Union. In collusion with US imperialism, the Soviet revisionist 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 sings praises of the Soviet Union as a ‘socialist state’ but is also loud in praise of Soviet ‘aid’. Though the character of the Indian big bourgeoisie is essentially comprador and bureaucratic, the Ranadive clique propagates the lie that they are independent and sovereign and thus tries to make India’s revolutionary struggle an appendage to the bourgeoisie. 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 along the path of compromise. So, the most important task today is to build up a revolutionary Communist Party armed with Marxism-Leninism, the Thought of Mao Tse-tung. Today the sparks of Naxalbari have spread to many states of India and will soon spread to newer and newer areas. Without overthrowing the enemies of the Indian people — US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, India’s comprador-bureaucratic capital 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 is 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 peasantry in the agrarian revolution. Chairman Mao has taught us : “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. The basic reason why all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies. A revolutionary party is the guide of the masses and no revolution ever succeeds when the revolutionary party leads them astray. To ensure that we shall definitely achieve 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 real 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 and 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. It is on the basis of the worker-peasant 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 organizing the peasantry and advancing towards seizure of power through armed struggle. 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 People’s 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 guerrilla warfare. We must bear in mind the Chairman’s teaching “Guerrilla warfare is basic but lose no chance for mobile warfare under favourable conditions.” Our tactics as described by Comrade Lin Piao are “You fight in your own way, we fight in ours. We fight when we can win and move away when we can’t.” The task of the Party of the working class is not merely to master these tactics but also to rally all the other revolutionary classes behind the basic programme of the 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 US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism to unite the reactionary forces of the world and to oppose the liberation struggles in the different countries of the world. The US and Soviet imperialists are using India as a main base for carrying out their strategy for joint world domination. 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 Indian revolution, it is also their internationalist duty, The international significance of the Indian revolution is very great. Great Lenin dreamed 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 revolutionaries 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 its chief accomplice, modern revisionism. Chairman Mao has given the call :

“People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, US imperialism, and its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation 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.

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