Published : Liberation, March 1969
Charu Mazumdar
CHAIRMAN Mao has taught 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 revolutionary 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.”
The Naxalbari peasant struggle has developed only because the party organization of the Terai region followed this teaching of the Chairman and tried to spread it among the peasant masses. The peasant struggles in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra have broken out only by depending on the teaching of the Chairman. Revolutionary authority cannot grow if we depend only on the local initiatives for developing all these struggles along the same path and to a higher stage. As a result, the struggles will fail to develop to a higher stage. For taking these struggles forward it is necessary to build an all-India Party and a centre recognized by all revolutionaries. Self-imposed discipline is essential for building up this centre. This discipline cannot of course be imposed from the above; it must be voluntary. The All-India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was set up with this purpose in view and this was set down in the very first Declaration. It is by following the leadership of the Co-ordination Committee that revolutionaries in different states of India have tried to build up peasant struggles on the Naxalbari line and succeeded in doing so in many parts of the country. This has led to the formation of a centre accepted by the revolutionaries. That is why the international leadership has been reminding us time and again of the importance of building up a Party. We too realize today that it is no longer possible for the Co-ordination Committee to lead these struggles on the correct line. Therefore, we must have a revolutionary Communist Party which will be an all-India organization. It is by following its lead that the revolutionary communists of the different states can advance along the path of class struggle. The All-India Co-ordination Committee is not, of course, the perfect weapon of class struggle, for the Co-ordination Committee can function only on democratic principles, does not recognize any kind of centralism and so fails to rouse the sense of discipline among the revolutionaries. All the forces of class struggle cannot be centralized without awakening the sense of revolutionary discipline. As a consequence, the struggle loses its edge. The Chairman has taught us : “Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.” Unless we build up a revolutionary party, discipline will remain slack and, as a result, we shall not be resolute enough to make supreme sacrifices, shall be unable to surmount the obstacles to attain victory. That is why, at a time when revolutionary communists all over the country have given priority to the task of building revolutionary bases in the rural areas and have taken up the work of uniting the entire peasantry, at a time when the slogan of revolutionary class struggle is rending the sky, it has become our urgent duty to build a revolutionary party. We shall be hindering the advance of revolution if we confine ourselves within the Co-ordination Committee and shall fail to fulfill the heavy responsibility that has now fallen on the shoulders of India’s communist revolutionaries. It should be borne in mind that the world has now entered a new era of world revolution and that our responsibility in this era is very great. All the imperialist powers of the world, whether the US imperialists or the Soviet social-fascists, are trying to win a fresh lease of life by exploiting the five hundred million people of India. They are not content with merely exploiting, but are trying to use the 500 million people of India as cannon-fodder in a war to destroy the great Chinese Republic, the base of the world revolution. That is why our revolutionary duty has assumed such great proportions. By making the revolution we shall be able not only to end this brutal exploitation of the vast masses of our country but also to deal a staggering blow to world imperialism and revisionism, By uniting with the great Chinese Republic we shall unite with the liberation struggles of every country of the world. This will forge the unity of the vast forces that will be able to smash world imperialism and revisionism. By completing the democratic revolution, we shall be able to march towards victory in the socialist revolution, and the prediction of the Chairman will come true :
“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.” The dream the two young men dreamed in 1848 will be fulfilled at the end of the twentieth century. For mankind this twentieth century will bring a new promise the promise of communism. The vast forces that will be unleashed will change the face of the whole world. That we are building this radiant future will awaken our sense of responsibility. Our class brothers are waging the struggle in Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia in the various countries of the world. Uniting with them all, we too shall forge the bond of great internationalism that internationalism which has found a glorious expression in the great proletarian revolution initiated and led by Chairman Mao.
Refusal to recognize the inevitability of struggle within the Party will give rise to idealist deviations. Chairman Mao has taught us : “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. If there were no contradictions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party’s life would come to an end.” As we committed revisionist deviations in the past, we shall have to wage struggles against revisionism both within the Party and outside.
In this age revisionism is counter-revolutionary ideology. That is why the inner-party struggle the struggle between revolutionary ideology and counter-revolutionary ideology will continue. “Unity, struggle, unity” this means that counter-revolutionary revisionism must be fought and defeated. Only then unity is possible but that unity is not lasting. New contradictions will arise, revisionism will try to appear in new forms. That is why struggle has to be waged at a new level.
The All India Co-ordination Committee played an important role in uniting communist revolutionaries and in building up revolutionary struggles. But if there is any vacillation to form the Party after that stage is over, the source of it must be traced to idealist thinking. Under the influence of idealism, consciously or unconsciously, we are trying to build a party that has already rid itself of opportunism and revisionism. This outlook is wholly idealistic and has nothing to do with dialectical materialism. The Party will develop through constant struggles both against the enemy outside and against alien trends within. Through these struggles the Party will grow in strength, act as the vanguard of the revolution in order to serve the people, transform itself and transform the whole society.
