CHARU MAZUMDAR
[At a recent meeting of the revolutionary students and youths Comrade Charu Majumdar laid down before them their present tasks. We publish below the notes taken at that meeting. The notes are approved by Comrade Charu Majumdar — Editor, Liberation].
Translated from the Bengali weekly Deshabrati, March 5, 1970.
From Liberation, Vol. III, No. 5 (March 1970)
Learn to Propagate Common Ideas in Identical Language
Train yourselves in learning by heart and in propagating in identical language whatever the central leadership of the Party says directly or through the Party organs. This is the method of propaganda introduced into the great Communist Party of China by our Chairman on the basis of the experience gained in forty years of struggle. Otherwise, the tendency to have ‘many centres’ may gradually grow within the Party.
Leave Your Schools and Colleges and Plunge Into the Revolutionary Struggle
The boys and girls in our country are brought up through the educational institutions in a way that they look down upon the poor masses of workers and peasants, respect everything concerning the imperialist powers and become lackeys or agents of these powers. Moreover, in a man’s life the age between eighteen and twenty-four is the period when he can work hardest and can be most vigorous, most courageous and most loyal to his ideas. But the students and youths of this age group in our country are forced to pursue anti-people courses of study and try to pass examinations. This is why Chairman Mao has said that the more you read the more foolish you become. It will give me the greatest pleasure if you plunge yourselves into the revolutionary struggle here and now instead of wasting your energy in passing examinations. When the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution started in China, the Chinese youths and students also left their schools, colleges and universities. The educational institutions there began to function again after about two years — in 1968, that is, when the Cultural Revolution was victorious.
Revisionism is the Greatest Danger in This Era : Once Defeated It Reappears In New Form
In joining the revolutionary struggle the very thing you should understand is that revisionism is the main danger in the world today. Even when suffering defeats one after another revisionism does not relent but continues to launch new attacks in different ways. This is particularly true after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. You should, therefore, study Vice-Chairman Lin Piao’s Political Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China over and over again. When you do this, you will understand that revisionist renegades like Asit Sen, Nagi Reddy and company play their dirty role in every country and use the same tactics according to the stage of development of the communist movement.
In our country also, revisionism launched its first attack by using economist slogans after the Co-ordination Committee was formed. The forming of our Party in 1969 signified the victory of the revolutionary struggle against this revisionist attack. However, after the formation of the Party revisionism has again launched its attack both from the Right and from the Left.
Doubtism is Another Name of Revisionism Today
Today, revisionism is even using the ultra-Left facade to spread its poison. It is doing this in a manner so as to foster in the minds of Party comrades doubt, distrust and lack of confidence in one another, in the central revolutionary authority and in the revolutionary character of the broad masses of the people. “Doubt every one but yourself is an anarchist slogan and runs counter to the theory of people’s war, that is, Mao Tsetung Thought. This slogan has its roots in the bourgeois philosophy of self above everything, and has nothing in common with the philosophy of unconditional revolutionary sacrifice. This slogan befits a fascist organization and not a revolutionary Party like ours, which bases itself on mass line. Doubtism also breeds poly-centrism.
You should destroy here and now the germs of this doubtist thinking and propaganda. Never belittle the harm caused by such thinking and propaganda, because if their germs are left to themselves they will, in times of storms and darkness, gain strength and spread highly dangerous contagious diseases and thus harm the revolution.
Secretism is Still Another Name of Revisionism Today
Revisionism is today carrying out its attack from the Right also. It is trying to give currency to the philosophy of inaction and cowardice in the name of maintaining secrecy. You — the students and youths— should never forget that a Communist always hates to hide his views. Maintaining secrecy means keeping secret only your connections with the Party. But you should always dare to express your views and actively resist injustice and indignity. You should be courageous and prepared to make sacrifices, because you are revolutionaries. Don’t be worried about incurring unnecessary losses: leave that issue to be decided by the Party leadership.
Remember Chairman Mao’s words : “It is infinite joy to pit oneself against heaven and earth.”
Wherever you find the Party’s prestige being tarnished or the Red Flag— the flag crimson with the blood of martyrs —being subjected to indignities (no matter if it be the revisionists who fly it), you should oppose it tooth and nail even if you have to lay down your life for it. Never forget the glorious example of the thirteen heroic martyrs of Srikakulam.
Everyone in Our Party is a Revolutionary; Only Revolutionaries and None Else Can Remain in Our Party
What do I mean when I say that we should be vigilant against the enemy agents in the Party? Wrong political thinking and wrong methods of work are the enemies and you should be vigilant and see that such things do not get any indulgence whatsoever. No hidden counter-revolutionary can today stay for long in Chairman Mao’s Party or will be able to worm his way to the Party leadership, nor can any non-revolutionary come into this Party. For, this is the Party which does not offer any comforts or hope of self-aggrandizement. Ours is a country where the broad masses of the people are revolutionary. How can, therefore, our Party, enjoying as it does the support of millions of people, be a Party of non-revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries ?
Further, you should not forget that our Party was born out of armed class struggle and has been tempered and steeled in the flames of the revolutionary war. So, you should boldly and proudly assert, not once but repeatedly, that it is the central leadership of this Party — and only they — who have grasped Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and are applying the same correctly in this country, and that none else understands or can possibly understand even the A B C of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
Criticize Erroneous Work with the Sole Purpose of Strengthening This Revolutionary Party
It is quite possible for the revolutionary workers to make mistakes. You should criticize their wrong actions in order to help the comrades and to build the Party, but you should never criticize so as to destroy the Party— a thing which we had to do in the old party. The old party was a revisionist party, a counter-revolutionary party, and so our criticism there was directed to destroy it; but the new Party is a revolutionary Party, and so we make our criticism here with the sole purpose of building our Party. But if you find that mistakes are being made repeatedly, the first thing you should do is to investigate. In making this investigation you should also go to the masses outside the Party. Unless you do this, you have no right to take decisions about anyone.
Do not Think of our Party Forming Any United Front with any Group
Various groups are raising different revolutionary slogans and seeking to form a united front with our Party. You, the revolutionary students and youths, should not allow yourselves to be misled by this. Never forget that the real united front can only be one for carrying on revolutionary armed struggle. To form a united front on any other basis means opening wide the doors of our Party, the fighting Party of armed struggle, and allowing counter-revolution to flood it.
To Integrate with the Peasants and Workers is the Sole Hallmark of Revolutionary Students and Youths
The students and youths can become revolutionaries only when they integrate with the poor and landless peasants and workers, and not before that. And to be able to integrate, it is necessary to take part in productive work and do manual labour.
Cherish Firm Faith and Take Steps to Integrate
I would ask the students and youths never to allow their firm faith in certain things to weaken.
Have faith in the revolutionary traditions of India. The history of our country is a history of heroic struggles.
Have faith in the masses. The broad masses of our people have always struggled against exploitation and oppression.
Have faith in yourselves. Remember you are part of the revolutionary people.
Have faith in Mao Tsetung Thought. It is Mao Tsetung Thought that is today smashing the old world and building a new world.
Have faith in the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). This is the only Party that is applying Mao Tsetung Thought in our country and following the path crimson with the blood of thousands upon thousands of martyrs. This is why this Party can never take the wrong road.
So, you should have faith in the future.
First Step Towards Integration: Go to the Villages In Large Numbers
Form small squads of students of the schools and colleges in your locality. Each squad should have 4 or 5 students. Then make your programmes for going to the villages even when you have short holidays of only 4 or 5 days. No squad should be formed with girls alone. This is because girls would need some kind of shelter for spending the night. Each of you should take with him a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung. Take as little money with you as possible and other articles in a kit-bag. Once you go to the village you are not to seek comforts and good food or shelter. Rather, you should compete with one another in enduring hardships. You should not stop and stay at any one place except for spending the night. You should always be on the move and go from one village to another walking fifteen miles a day on the average. During the journey make acquaintance only with the poor and landless peasants, learn from them, read out quotations from Chairman Mao to them and acquaint them with Mao Tsetung Thought as much as you can. Tell them of the heroic tales of the revolutionary peasant war that is now raging in India.
You should remember that the work you are doing as students and youths is one of open propaganda. So, never try to contact any Party organization or comrade of any area during this journey through the villages.
Make this campaign a festive occasion all over the country.
Do Not Fail in the Most Important Test During this Campaign
The poor and landless peasants of the villages will not at first take you seriously at all; moreover, their attitude towards you may even be rather unfriendly. It is natural that they should look upon you with distrust. But it will not do for you to become impatient or down-hearted at this, because this is the most important test you are required to go through. When you face it, you should remember that the poor and landless peasant whom you come across today is the Babulal Biswakarmakar of tomorrow. In the days to come these poor and landless peasants will shine like bright stars giving inspiration and lighting up the way forward for the revolutionaries. So, you should be genuinely proud and consider yourselves fortunate in getting acquainted with them and be sincerely respectful to them. Only when you have done this, can you think of having passed your admission-test as revolutionaries.
Start Building Red-Guard Organization and Integrating with the Workers as soon as You Return from the Village
Our Party holds that the organization of the students and youths can only be a Red Guard organization. The students and youths should now organize Red Guard squads in muhallas (localities) and in schools and colleges. Make one of the squad members the commander and take a specific area for the squad’s work. Assemble all the students and youths in the Red Guard squads.
The Red Guards of today will later become fighters of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of India. The PLA not only destroys the enemy on the battlefield but also propagates politics and ideology, helps the masses to establish revolutionary political power, arms them and takes part in their productive work.
The Red Guards, however, will only carry on the struggle in the field of political propaganda and mobilize the students and youths in support not only of the poor and landless peasants but also of the workers.
Whenever the workers in the cities launch any struggle or strike, the Red Guards should rally behind them only to support their struggle. But the Red Guards are required not to express any opinion whatsoever about the workers’ unions or the union leaders, nor will they make any speech. This support, this expression of solidarity of the students and youths, will itself create considerable enthusiasm among the workers. Later, the workers themselves will come to the schools and colleges and to the muhallas to tell stories of their struggles.
After this, the Red Guards should start doing intimate political propaganda among the workers and building revolutionary cadres. Select one or two workers for this purpose. As soon as they accept the revolutionary politics, bring them in contact with the Party.
In future, whenever there is any clash between the workers and the police, the Red Guards and the students and youths must rally in support of the workers and take part in the clash alongside them, even if the Red Guards be only a few in number.
Start a Revolutionary Propaganda Campaign On the widest scale During this Summer Vacation Against the Imperialist Anti-China War-Plots
The students and youths and the Red Guards have to shoulder, today, a most important responsibility in carrying on revolutionary propaganda with a view to frustrating imperialist war-plots. Go in your thousands among the peasant masses in the villages and among the working class in the cities during the ensuing summer vacation. Ours is the only Party in the world to declare boldly : “China’s Chairman is our Chairman!” and to give the call: “Chairman’s China may be attacked, so let us hasten the work of revolution!” These are calls for struggle against bourgeois nationalism and its accomplice — revisionism. It is you who have to uphold and carry forward these two slogans through to the end by implementing them, till the imperialist war-plots against China are reduced to ashes in the flames of revolution.
You should repeatedly explain to the people that the imperialist powers are, today, exhausted, while the strength of the people is incomparably greater. This is why if the imperialists and social-imperialists launch their aggressive war against the great China and the revolutionary people of the world, the revolutionary war in our country will be less long-drawn than we expected. It should also be explained to the people that the so-called extraordinary power of the nuclear weapons is a sheer lie propagated by the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie knows well that it is not possible to prevent the revolutionary war from spreading with the help of their armed forces alone and that the only way to prevent it is to spread the poison of revisionist thinking. That is why you should spread the struggle against revisionism at an accelerated tempo. You should do it so that the masses realize that this is the time to deal blows to the enemy.
This great campaign should not be a temporary one and then given up, because once the war starts, bourgeois nationalism would again try to raise its head.
The students and youths of Bengal have a glorious tradition. So, if you carry out this task of yours conscientiously, I can assure you that the PLA will march in the sprawling plains of Bengal by the beginning of 1971, if not in 1970.
Red Guards Should be Prepared to Meet Fascist Attacks in the Cities
The Red Guards should always be prepared to counter-attack whenever other parties dare to attack our Party in the cities. This is very necessary.
Red Guards Should Adopt Guerrilla Methods in Launching Counter-Attacks
Whenever the fascist hoodlums dare to attack us, Red Guard groups — five or six Red Guards in a group — should launch counter-attacks from a very close range, swiftly and without making any noise, and thus crush the morale of the fascist hoodlums.
