CHARU MAZUMDAR
Form Liberation, Vol. III, No. 2 (December 1969)
We differ from the programme of the revisionists on three questions :
First, we hold that the democratic revolution can win victory only through armed struggle, that is, through people’s war.
Second, the village is the centre and the peasantry are the main force of this people’s war. This people’s war is a peasant war.
Third, this people’s war can be victorious only under the guidance of Mao Tsetung Thought. This is why we have accepted Mao Tsetung Thought as the only tool both for our theory and practice.
We stand for unifying India and for recognizing the right of the nationalities to self-determination. In order to be able to grasp the significance of this slogan, we have to realize that our enemies are not weak. Imperialism and social-imperialism rank among the foremost industrial powers of the world. Thanks to the manoeuvres of the imperialists, Indian comprador-bureaucrat capital, though weak economically, is regarded as the leader of the national movement, while feudalism has continued to maintain its entrenched position in India for thousands of years. So, our enemies are not weak. But they can be defeated. This is so because ours is a country of 500 million people. A vast force will be generated once all the revolutionary forces of this country are united. It is possible to destroy our enemies with the help of this force.
Our Party is a Party of class struggle and our only task is to develop class struggle. And it is in the interest of this class struggle that we must recognize the right of nationalities to self-determination. This is so because imperialism ruled our country for two hundred years through its policy of ‘divide and rule’. By this the imperialists were able to create distrust and suspicion in the mind of every nationality about other nationalities. It is only by sowing the seeds of such distrust and suspicion that the imperialists could carry on their rule. Therefore, the working class must recognize this right of self-determination in order to dispel this distrust. Only when this is done, will it be possible to build the unity of all the revolutionary forces on a nation-wide scale and we shall be able to actively resist the divisive tactics of bourgeois nationalism.
We advocate introducing a system under which the administration will be carried on by revolutionary committees at all levels. This is a thing that did not form previously a part of the programme of democratic revolution. This is a contribution of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China. We are adopting it because we believe that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China is the third revolution that has influenced the world system. After the first revolution—the Great October Socialist Revolution — the democratic revolution of every country became part of the world proletarian socialist revolution. After the second revolution — the great Chinese Revolution — the revolution in every country can be victorious only by taking the path of people’s war. Exactly in the same way, today, after the victory of the third revolution — the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution — the democratic revolution of every country has become a component part of this Cultural Revolution. This is because no revolution of any country in the present era can win victory without fighting revisionism. Today, revisionism is the enemy of the revolution of every country and its weapon is bourgeois democracy. So, the democratic revolution must necessarily fight against bourgeois democracy, that is, against institutions like elections, parliaments, etc., in order to be able to move forward. Therefore, we can never make use of these institutions in carrying forward the democratic revolution today. We must carry on administration with the co-operation of the masses and through revolutionary committees which include their leaders and which are formed with their co-operation. We cannot say just now what the character of the revolutionary committees would be like. It would be bookish to talk of implementing in to the ‘three in one’ alliance which grew out of the Cultural Revolution of China. Our revolutionary committees will grow out of the experience of our struggle and we shall have to work out their form on the basis of that experience.
None of the three great revolutions — the great October Socialist Revolution, the great Chinese Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution — is a revolution of a particular country; on the contrary, each of them is a pillar of triumph of the international working class in its victorious march to conquer the world. Each of these revolutions has worldwide influence and the experience of each of these has enriched the arsenal of the international working class. After the October Revolution it was no longer possible for the bourgeoisie to lead any revolution, because they were frightened by the victory of this revolution. So, it was the working class which had to lead every revolution after the October Revolution. The victory of the great Chinese Revolution has frightened world imperialism. So, revolution in every country has to reckon with the reality of intervention by the world imperialist system. That is why the revolution in every country must learn the lessons of the Chinese Revolution and can be victorious only by taking the path of people’s war. Similarly, today, after the great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, revisionism, which has assumed the form of social-imperialism, has turned into the enemy of every revolution. That is-why no revolution in any country can win victory without fighting revisionism.
The new thing that we are saying is that we must unite with China and the Chinese Communist Party led by Chairman Mao and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao and that by uniting with it we unite with the revolutionary people the world over.
After World War II, particularly after the death of the great Stalin, imperialism aided by the internal reactionary revisionist forces succeeded in taking away all the achievements of the international working class. Imperialism dragged the world almost to a position similar to the one that existed in 1920 when there was only one socialist country in the world — the Soviet Union. Today, there exist in the world only socialist China and another small country, socialist Albania. There is no other socialist country. Yet we assert that this is the era of total collapse of imperialism and worldwide victory of socialism. This is indeed a fact. This is so because the revolutionary people the world over have accepted Mao Tsetung Thought and grasped the limitless power of people’s war, and the fighting masses in various countries of the world have already begun their sacred struggle to destroy imperialism with revolutionary determination and boundless confidence. That force may be weak today but the inexorable law of history is such that it will accumulate strength with the passing of every day until it becomes irresistible. This will destroy imperialism and social-imperialism in its victorious forward march.
This is an era of revolutions and as such, great upheavals will take place in different countries; even imperialism will come forward to lead the upheavals in various countries in order to deceive the masses. So, the compass of revolution in this era is the Communist Party of China led by Chairman Mao and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao. Whether one follows the Communist Party of China, Chairman Mao and Vice-Chairman Lin Piao is the only yardstick to judge a revolutionary. Every party, every struggle and even every individual has to be judged by this yardstick. Today, China is the centre of world revolution and the base area of the revolutionary struggle of every country. So, uniting with the Communist Party of China means uniting with the revolutionary people of the whole world.
In order to put this programme into practice we shall have to study constantly Chairman Mao’s Thought and sum up the experience of the revolutionary struggle of the revolutionary people of India. Our Experience
We learnt the following lessons from the Naxalbari struggle:
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1. The peasant fought not for land or crops, but for political power.
2. The peasant carried on armed struggle against the armed attacks of the counter-revolutionary state apparatus.
3. The peasant relied on the weapons that he himself made in order to carry on his armed attacks, and snatched away firearms with the help of these weapons.
4. The peasant relied not on others but stood on his own feet to carry on this struggle.
5. This struggle developed only by fighting against revisionism.
6. This fight against revisionism can be carried on only with the Thought of Chairman Mao and only when the peasant masses grasp Chairman Mao’s Thought and put it into practice. Four Questions
After the Naxalbari struggle came the struggle of Srikakulam. The latter has demonstrated that the peasant can carry on protracted war only through guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare is the peasant’s own mode of fighting. Even after one accepts the guerrilla warfare there still remain four main questions. The revolutionary peasants of India have solved these questions.
First Question : Where to start guerrilla warfare ?
The wrong conceptions regarding this question were that guerrilla warfare can be started only in mountainous areas or where there is jungle. Guerrilla war is the people’s war of the peasants, and Chairman Mao has taught us that people’s war can be waged only by relying on the masses; therefore, guerrilla warfare can be started wherever there are peasants. By waging guerrilla warfare in the plains the revolutionary peasants of India have demonstrated that it is possible to wage guerrilla warfare in the plains also, that it is possible to wage it wherever there are peasant masses.
Second Question : Is it possible to wage guerrilla warfare without mass movement and mass organization ?
The revolutionary peasants have demonstrated through their struggle that neither mass movement nor mass organization is indispensable for waging guerrilla warfare. What is indispensable is the dissemination and spread of revolutionary politics, that is, the Thought of Chairman Mao. And this can be done only by secret Party organizations. It is possible to wage guerrilla warfare and also to unite the masses by giving prominence to politics, by forming guerrilla squads through secret Party organizations and by using them against the class enemy. The spread of guerrilla ‘actions’ helps the broad masses to participate in the struggle. Mass organization and mass movement increase the tendency towards open and economist movement and expose the revolutionary workers before the enemy, which makes it easier for the enemy to launch attacks. Therefore, open mass movement and mass organization are obstacles in the way of the development and expansion of guerrilla warfare.
Third Question : On whom to rely for waging guerrilla warfare?
To this question the revolutionary peasant struggle of India has given the clear-cut answer that the development and expansion of guerrilla warfare is possible only by relying on the poor and landless peasants; no other class is able to wage this struggle. This is because it is the poor and landless peasants that have the most intense hatred against the feudal class. This class hatred of the poor and landless peasants can be roused by inspiring them with revolutionary politics — the politics of establishing the state power of the peasant masses. And it is only they who can develop the guerrilla warfare by conquering death, by undergoing boundless self-sacrifice and through the most arduous labour. Their class hatred helps them to remain steadfast in their struggle and they alone can bring about a high tide of revolution by uniting the whole of the peasantry. Our experience shows that wherever the petty bourgeois intellectuals tried to lead the struggle, guerrilla warfare failed to develop, the aims of the struggle were not pursued, guerrilla warfare could not be linked with class struggle, the ludicrous tendency to purchase guns in the name of collecting arms increased, resistance to attacks by police could not be organized and, what is more, even self-defence was not possible. The failures in big ‘actions’ generated frustration.
Role of the Revolutionary Intellectual
In India, which has been subjected to imperialist exploitation for two hundred years, the intelligentsia have an important role to play. This is so because the broad masses of the poor and landless peasants in our country are unable to read or write. But in order to develop the revolutionary peasant war and bring firmness and steadfastness into the struggle it is necessary to spread and propagate Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung among the peasants, to help them go through again and again Chairman Mao’s “three constantly read articles” and take lessons from these articles, and to help them study everyday the “Three Main Rules of Discipline” and the “Eight Points for Attention” for fighters. Today, the intellectuals must undertake this task. Moreover, it must be remembered that these writings are necessary today not only to develop the struggle of the peasant masses. Whoever thinks in terms of revolution, be he a worker, a peasant or a petty bourgeois individual, must necessarily study these writings repeatedly and take lessons from them. Only in this way the level of political consciousness of the fighting masses will be raised. We shall be able to learn newer lessons and raise our cosciousness if we study these writings repeatedly linking them with the experience of life. Therefore, these are the only things for the revolutionaries to read. So, the revolutionary intellectuals must shoulder the responsibility of emphasizing the importance of these writings and creating the urge for learning lessons from them not only among the peasant masses but also among the revolutionary masses of all the other classes. It is only by working in this way that they will be able to apply the Thought of Chairman Mao creatively and develop as good communists. The revolutionary intellectuals must fulfil another task, the task of propagating among the peasant masses the experience of the revolutionary war that is now going on in various countries of the world, and of spreading and propagating the lessons of the great Chinese revolution among the peasants. It is only by carrying out these tasks that the revolutionary intellectuals can integrate with the poor and landless peasants and thus become good revolutionaries.
Fourth Question : How to start guerrilla warfare ?
To this question the revolutionary peasant struggle of India has given the answer that guerrilla warfare can be started only by liquidating the feudal classes in the countryside. And this campaign for the annihilation of the class enemy can be carried out only by inspiring the poor and landless peasants with the politics of establishing the political power of the peasants in the countryside by destroying the domination of the feudal classes. That is why the annihilation of the class enemy is the higher form of class struggle while the act of annihilating class enemies through guerrilla action is the primary stage of the guerrilla struggle. The annihilation of the class enemy does not only mean liquidating individuals, but also means liquidating the political, economic and social authority of the class enemy. The revolutionary peasant struggle of India has conclusively proved that once the guerrilla fighters deviate from the campaign of annihilation of class enemies, politics loses its place of prominence among them resulting even in moral degeneration of the guerrilla units. The petty bourgeois, the intellectual, the middle peasant or the peasant of any other class in the village is unable to assume leadership of this struggle, because the class hatred among them is not as intense as that among the poor and landless peasants. The poor and landless peasants can establish their leadership over the whole of the peasant masses only through the campaign for the annihilation of the class enemy.
The revolutionary peasant struggle of India has also conclusively proved that in order to be able to wage guerrilla warfare and to persist in armed struggle we must daily and constantly carry on struggle against revisionist ideas. We must evolve a new style of work through our struggle against revisionist ideas. Only thus can we fulfil the heavy responsibility that lies on our shoulders today. We must make our links with the revolutionary masses firmer and deeper at every stage of the struggle, must improve the level of our political propaganda and application of the Thought of Chairman Mao. We seek the co-operation of the masses not merely in struggle; we must adopt the method of holding discussions and exchanging opinions with the revolutionary masses in conducting Party work also and even in deciding the policy of the Party. We should not hesitate to accept the views of the revolutionary masses, because the Party has no interest other than that of revolution.
The fight against revisionism is not a matter of our inner-Party struggle alone, it must also be carried on among the broad masses. Creating a high tide in struggle depends on the extent to which we can spread the fight against revisionism among the broad peasant masses. Revisionism is the main enemy of this era. Therefore, the struggle against revisionism both inside and outside the Party will be our main struggle.
Sectarian Tendency
Sometimes a sectarian tendency creeps into this struggle against revisionism. Our Party members must be vigilant about this tendency also. The form in which this sectarian tendency is expressing itself at present is the way of thinking among us that after the formation of our Party we have become the sole revolutionary force in the country. Of course, there can be no doubt whatsoever that ours is the only revolutionary Party in India. Naturally, this tendency weakens our reliance on the revolutionary class, which results in isolation from it. Let us cite an example. The decision to form a guerrilla squad was adopted at a certain baithak [group meeting] of poor and landless peasants. When the assembled poor and landless peasant youths raised their hands for enlisting themselves as guerrillas, the Party leader enlisted in the squad only those who were connected with the Party organization and did not admit the poor and landless peasants who were not connected with the Party organization, because he thought that the latter were not revolutionary enough. This incident clearly proves that this sectarian tendency exists in our struggle against revisionism. It has been seen on many occasions that we form the guerrilla squads only with those who are connected with the Party and do not enlist those revolutionary poor and landless peasants who happen to be outside the Party. Even in places where we are forming such guerrilla squads, the Party leaders have been found to be not enthusiastic in enhancing the initiative or raising the political consciousness of those new squads. As a result of this, these squads remain inactive in many cases. These are sectarian tendencies.
Many revolutionaries are breaking away from different groups and parties to join us. There may be hesitation on the part of our comrades to work in co-operation with them, because they were opposing us until recently. But this hesitation is a sectarian tendency. We must get accustomed to working in
co-operation with all others. But this does not mean that we should take those who are coming from other groups or parties directly into the folds of our Party; no, we are certainly not going to do that. This is because as a result of working in those groups or parties they have acquired many wrong and revisionist ideas which run counter to Chairman Mao’s Thought and these ideas cannot be rectified overnight. That requires experience, education and time, and in order to enable them to have experience and education we must work in co-operation with them. Only in this way can we educate them with new experience and transform them. So, in order to ensure that our main struggle against revisionism will continue to be firm and vigorous, we must also wage struggle against these sectarian tendencies.
Under cover of revolutionary phrase-mongering quite a few people are raising the question: Well, the Central Organizing Committee is all right and we obey it, but as for the other committees, we don’t recognize them. Though garbed in Left phrases this is a bourgeois individualist tendency, pure and simple, and as such, a revisionist tendency. Any attempt whatsoever to undermine the democratic centralism of the Party that is led by a revolutionary leadership strengthens only the reactionaries and harms the revolutionary struggle. We must keep in mind the fact that in this era of revolutionary struggles faith in the Party and faith in the masses are the only weapons with which we can overcome the severest trials in the course of the struggle. Lack of faith in the authority of the Party breaks the backbone of the struggle. This is why the reactionaries always spread slanders against the Party in an attempt to destroy that faith of the Party members. The history of the October Revolution has proved it; this has also been proved in the course of the Chinese Revolution. The imperialists tried to weaken the authority of the Bolshevik Party by depicting Lenin in a most vile manner; they tried to weaken the faith of the Chinese people in the Communist Party of China by ‘killing’ Chairman Mao time and again. The Soviet revisionists destroyed the authority of the Soviet Party by depicting Stalin in a most vile manner and succeeded even in usurping its leadership.
We must always remember that the revolutionary people of India repeatedly participated in the communist movement, fought, made immense sacrifice and laid down their lives. We are the inheritors of the glorious tradition which the heroic martyrs of Punnapra-Vayalur, the heroic fighters of Telengana and the fighting peasants and workers of every province of India established by sacrificing innumerable lives; we must be true to them and carry forward their tradition. The heroes of Kayur went to the gallows with the name of the Communist Party on their lips: it is that Communist Party which we represent. This Party has become today’s Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). In order precisely to carry forward that tradition it is necessary for us to sum up their great experience and create the most intense class hatred against wrong ideas.
Comrades, let us not forget that India, our motherland, is a country of countless martyrs and that the peasant masses of India have repeatedly fought and made enormous sacrifices. Therefore, we can possess a vast power and carry our revolution to victory if we rely on the fighting peasants and march onward resolutely. Repudiate all ideas that weaken the revolution and learn to recognize them as wrong ideas. Every tendency that overestimates the strength of the enemy is a revisionist tendency; learn to recognize it as such and fight against it. Learn to respect the revolutionary peasants of India, the poor and landless peasants of India. We can never be led into a wrong path if we have reliance on them.
Long live the Indian Revolution !
Long live Chairman Mao ! A long, long life to Chairman Mao!
