Published: Liberation, November 1967
Charu Mazumdar
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has adopted a political line which is basically anti-revolutionary, opposed to Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s Thought and Marxism-Leninism and based on class-collaborationist and revisionist ideology. At its Madurai meeting[1] the CC has made a declaration in favour of peaceful transition to Socialism and has chosen the path of the country’s progress through parliamentary democracy.
Despite high-falutin polemics on the international ideological disputes, it has, in fact, wholly rejected the ideological stand of the great Chinese Party and the Thought of Chairman Mao. While keeping silent about the capitalist revival in the Soviet Union it has discarded straightway the postulate of Comrade Stalin’s last writing, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, and has at the same time opposed the line of the great Chinese Party by its open declaration that the Soviet Union is still a member of the socialist camp. What it all implies is lending support to the revisionist Soviet policy on the Vietnam issue in the international sphere and discovering a progressive role of Soviet economic ‘aid’ and trade-relations and welcoming them. On the issue of peasant struggles the CC has adopted without any pretence the Menshevik political line and ended by opposing the peasant struggle.
Naturally, the CC meeting at Madurai has dragged down the party to the level of a revisionist bourgeois party. Therefore, to the genuine Marxist-Leninists there remains open no alternative but to oppose this policy. Now that the Madurai Resolution has been adopted it is obvious that the Central Committee is not a revolutionary Committee. Hence it is the revolutionary duty of every Marxist-Leninist to declare war against this Central Committee. The ulterior motive of the conceited bombast in which the whole of the CC Resolution is couched is but to deceive the revolutionary section inside the party, and more, to act secretly as a stooge in the interests of US imperialism, Soviet revisionism and Indian reactionary forces.
The only purpose the Marxist-Leninists have behind all ideological discussions is how to apply the ideology in the objective conditions existing in their own countries. An abstract discussion of ideological issues as such has no revolutionary significance because its truth is subject to test through its application in the particular context. The CC has discussed the international ideological issues as abstract concepts, and what it has done concretely in that respect has in reality led it openly to declare the Soviet type of revisionism as the only path for India, and hence its opposition to the great party of China.
Its bourgeois outlook reveals itself in its stand on the issue of nuclear arms stockpile. It has not explained the real character of the joint nuclear monopoly by America and Russia, but has only aired a semblance of criticism in this vein : “Why has not the Soviet Union exchanged with China the secret of nuclear science ?” The nuclear weapon is being used today as the most formidable weapon in the fight for power in the international arena. Under such circumstances, the collaboration between America and Russia turns out in fact to be a collaboration for world domination. This plain truth has been covered up behind much petty forgery. The CC has ignored an event like exchange of nuclear secrets between America and Russia and so, the logical conclusion to be arrived at there from has not been arrived at by it. The only reason is that it considers the international ideological dispute to be a conflict of national interests that occurs between bourgeois countries and so fails to understand its real significance. That is, it refuses to see that this struggle is, in truth, a struggle to preserve the purity of Marxism-Leninism-a struggle between the revolutionary ideology and the counterrevolutionary ideology.
Note :
1. The central Committee of the CPI(M) met at Madurai from 18 to 27 August 1967. In one of its lengthy resolutions it stated its differences with the Chinese Party “on certain fundamental issues”, e.g., the stage, strategy and tactics of the Indian revolution. According to it, it was “the industrial big bourgeoisie” that held “the leading position” in the Indian “State and government, and not be comprador element.”
By refusing to refer to the reactionary character of the Indian government and by pointing out that “the Congress party still holds considerable political influence among the people”, it tries to beautify the reactionary Indian government before the people. By keeping silent about the countrywide mass upsurge it has refused to lead these mass movements and by its policy of continuing in the UF Governments it has indirectly supported every step taken to suppress the mass movements and justified these anti-people activities. Without the slightest attempt to analyse the class-character of the different partners of the UF governments it has unhesitatingly given the directive to win over these constituent parties in favour of the Communist Party Programme through persuasion. If this is not undiluted Gandhism, what else is? Words and phrases such, as class, class-interest, class-struggle and so on find no place in the CC analysis. That is to say, by discarding the Marxist outlook and cursorily inserting a few Marxian terms, the CC has in fact rejected the entire doctrine of Marxism-Leninism.
By spinning out the yarn that the Congress still retains a mass base, the CC has tried to exaggerate the strength of the Indian reactionary forces. They cover up the undeniable fact that the economic crisis of this government is ripening into a political crisis through mass upheavals and thus, they underestimate the strength of the people. When the weakness of the reactionary Congress government is clearly revealed even to the common man, the CC is trying its best to pacify the people by magnifying the strength of the government out of all proportions. This brazen canvassing in favour of the reactionary government would have put even the Congress to shame. Even when American imperialism and Soviet revisionism in spite of their giving all possible help are failing to revive people’s confidence in the government, the CC like a faithful lackey comes forward in defence of this reactionary government. The CC has thus proved to be an ally and friend of American imperialism, Soviet revisionism and the Indian reactionary government.
The CC is trying to show that it does not recognize the leadership of any other Party. The bourgeoisie has always been saying that the Communist Parties toe the line of the Soviet Party. The CC is trying to counteract this bourgeois propaganda by declaring that it does not accept any other Party’s directives or analyses. We, communists, believe in a single scientific doctrine, known as Marxism-Leninism, the thought of Mao Tse-tung. If we acknowledge the truth of a science, we must necessarily acknowledge the authority of those who have developed it. Those who had wished to be Marxists without being followers of Lenin were cast eventually into the cesspool of history. The Thought of Mao Tse-tung is today the highest form of Marxism-Leninism and those who are opposing this international Marxist authority are doomed to take refuge in the fold of imperialism.
India is a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. So the main force which can change the colonial condition in this country is the peasantry and their anti-feudal struggle. No change is conceivable in this country without agrarian revolution. And it is the agrarian revolution that proves to be the only path towards the liberation of this country. Not only has the CC maintained silence over this question of agrarian revolution, but the CC is determined to oppose the revolutionary struggles of the peasantry wherever they have resorted to them. What intense hatred for the militant peasant revolutionaries of Naxalbari, what glee at the temporary success of the repressive policy of the reactionary UF government, has found expression in the words of the CC spokesman! As befits a faithful agent of the bourgeoisie, they insist on a precondition: they must receive the guarantee of success before they will condescend to lend their support to the struggle.
Today the duty of each and every Marxist-Leninist is to oust the CC from the revolutionary front. That alone can release the flood-tide in the movements and pave the way towards the final victory. Far from being a partisan, this revisionist reactionary CC is an enemy of every kind of anti-imperialist, anti-colonial struggle. It is only by severing all ties with this CC and its evil ideology that a revolutionary party can grow and develop. The smashing of this bourgeois ideology is the only guarantee for the growth of revolutionary ideology. Without uprooting this reactionary ideology the Indian revolution cannot advance even a step. So, for all genuine revolutionaries in the party submission to this political centralism can only mean acceptance of bourgeois authority. Therefore, the primary precondition, without which it is impossible for a revolutionary party to grow, is to defy the centralism of this CC.
The first task towards building a revolutionary party is the propagation and dissemination of revolutionary ideology, that is the propagation and dissemination of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought. The only path of the people’s democratic revolution is to build up revolutionary bases in the rural areas through agrarian revolution under the proletarian leadership and subsequently to encircle the urban centres by expanding these revolutionary bases; to organize people’s liberation forces from among the peasants’ guerrilla forces and to lead the revolution to victory by capturing the cities, that is, to put into practice the tactics of people’s war as formulated by Chairman Mao. This is the only correct Marxist-Leninist line for the liberation of India. A vigorous campaign in favour of this line is to be launched not only among the party members and sympathizers but also among the broad sections of the masses. Only thus can revolutionary struggles and a revolutionary party grow and develop. Only by propagating this mass line we can make the people conscious of the hollowness of the bourgeois reactionary documents of the CC and overcome the influence of this reactionary leadership on the struggling masses. Chairman Mao teaches us that we must ceaselessly propagate this mass line on all fronts. This teaching has a special significance for India. That there are a large number of revolutionary workers in the party is true, but it is equally true that the party has over a long stretch of time been inured to the rut of revisionism and bourgeois pattern of activities. As a result, there persist among the revolutionary party workers old revisionist habits, which are reflected in the trend of economism in every sphere, in the manner of functioning characteristic of economism. The experience in our area has shown how, despite their acceptance of the revolutionary ideology, the old party organizers on the peasant front or in the workers’ unions hesitate to propagate it among the masses and how, faced with a revolutionary struggle, they get panicky, lose all confidence in the masses and in many cases even choose the path of open opposition. This does not in all cases assume the form of open opposition but is reflected in their lack of confidence in people’s strength and exaggeration of the enemy’s strength. The harmful effects of the actions of such party workers can be effectively overcome provided there is a sustained campaign in favour of this mass line among the larger section of the militant masses around these party workers. In such cases, those workers who have in them a genuine revolutionary urge may overcome their weakness.
We shall be faced with such a situation in every area, for the party members cherish many revisionist ideas as they have long been accustomed to the revisionist way of functioning. They cannot get over them in a day or two: only sustained revolutionary practice can enable them to do so. The campaign in favour of this mass line of our party would draw into the fold of the party new revolutionary cadres from among the vast revolutionary masses outside the party. These cadres would by their vigorous revolutionary consciousness remove the inertia within the party and instill a dynamic revolutionary energy.
It is only through long-drawn and hard struggles that the revolution in India can be brought to its successful culmination, since this vast country of fifty crore-strong population happens to be a strong base of the imperialist powers and the mainstay of Soviet revisionism. So with the victorious completion of the revolution in India the doomsday of imperialism as well as of Soviet revisionism would fast draw near. Hence it is nothing strange or unnatural that they would rush in to oppose the revolution in India, the citadel of world reaction. In this situation, to think of an easy victory is nothing but wishful thinking. Nevertheless, our victory is certain, since this country spreads over a vast area with a population of fifty crores. So all the might of the imperialists and revisionists will fail to stop the tide of revolution in this country.
But revolution can never succeed without a revolutionary party – a party which is firmly rooted in the Thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, a party composed of millions of workers, peasants and middle-class youth inspired by the ideal of self-sacrifice; a party that guarantees full inner-party democratic right to criticism and self-criticism and whose members freely and voluntarily abide by its discipline; a party that allows its members to act not only under orders from the above but to judge each directive with full freedom and even to defy wrong directives in the interest of the revolution; a party which ensures voluntary job-division to every member who attaches equal importance to all sorts of jobs ranging from high to low; the party whose members put into practice the Marxism-Leninist ideals in their own lives and, by practicing the ideals themselves, inspire the masses to make greater self-sacrifice and to take greater initiative in revolutionary activities; the party whose members never despair under any circumstances and are not cowed by any predicament but resolutely march forward to overcome it. Only a party like this can build a united front of people of different classes, holding different views in this country. Only a revolutionary party like this can lead the Indian revolution to success.
The great ideal that Chairman Mao Tse-tung holds high before all Marxist-Leninists is bound to be realized. Only then can we bring into existence a new democratic India and this new democratic India will then resolutely march forward towards socialism.
