CHARU MAZUMDAR
From Liberation, April-June 1971.
One year has passed since our Party Congress. One year has passed also since Chairman Mao made his historic Statement of May 20. Chairman Mao’s Statement has enthused the revolutionary masses the world over, inspired them to undergo more arduous labour and sacrifice and has strengthened the self-confidence in the minds of the fighters. During the past one year the great peoples of the three countries of Indo-China have won great successes and defeated US imperialism. US imperialism is in the throes of a difficult crisis. US imperialism will not accept defeat; true to its nature, it is repeatedly trying to start the conflagration of a world war.
In our country also, the struggle has become considerably widespread and has struck deep roots among the masses during the past one year. The peasants’ armed struggle in rural areas have roused the students and youths in towns and cities. The struggle of the students and youth have taken the form of a great mass movement and has dealt blows at the colonial system of education. Investigations into the history of our country in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have increased as a result of the struggle of the students and youths and the Party comrades belonging to the intelligentsia have done much valuable work. The students and youths have set glowing examples of self-sacrifice. The working class has led many successful struggles for upholding its dignity and against repressive policies. The armed struggle in villages has spread to wider areas. With the snatching of rifles by a squad of poor and landless peasants at Magurjan, the process of building up the People’s Liberation Army has begun. With a view to arming the guerrilla force, the campaign for collection of guns has started on a big scale. In many places in the countryside Revolutionary Committees have been set up and these Revolutionary Committees have taken up the task of distributing among the landless and poor peasants the land of jotedars who have been killed or have fled. They are laying stress on the necessity of keeping up production and of holding on to the produce. The Revolutionary Committees are building up the village militia, administering justice and trying to effect a general reduction in rent. Through these activities the Revolutionary Committees are establishing themselves as people’s State power. In order to strengthen the People’s Army we must make our campaign for collection of rifles more widespread and vigorous. In this respect also, the efforts to develop the initiative of the poor and landless peasants must continue, the leadership of the poor and landless peasants in the campaign for collection of rifles must be established. This is because the People’s Liberation Army is a weapon of class struggle and this Army will make agrarian revolution successful.
As our struggle in the past one year has advanced, it has also suffered setbacks. Many of our leaders in Andhra and Punjab have laid down their lives and become martyrs after a heroic struggle. In Andhra many leaders have been arrested. In Punjab we have got over the difficulties and have penetrated deeper among the poor and landless peasants. But in Andhra we have not yet been able to tide over the difficulties. As there are victories in struggles, so there are defeats. Taking advantage of our temporary reverses in Andhra, revisionism raised its head within the Party. The path of revolutionary self-sacrifice was described as the path of suicide and the issue of self-preservation was raised. Instead of giving importance to the problem of unity of poor and landless peasants with middle peasants, emphasis was laid on the unity with rich peasants. These are the main aspects of the Bihar Committee’s document. All this is revisionist thinking. Revisionism opposes armed struggle on the plea that good cadres would be killed thereby. By such talk, revisionism indirectly helps counter-revolutionary violence. It hides from our view the man-killing system, the fact that the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system of our country is daily thrusting tens of millions of poor and landless peasants, workers and poor petty bourgeois helplessly towards the grave. In order to change the system we must be imbued with the mantra of self-sacrifice and be resolute in carrying on armed struggle in a determined manner. Revolution in our country can become successful only through agrarian revolution and to make the agrarian revolution successful we must entirely depend on the poor and landless peasants. In the interest of revolution itself the poor and landless peasant will seek to make the middle peasant his firm ally in the struggle. Only in this way can the firm unity of the peasantry be built up. If we now lay stress on unity with rich peasants, the Party’s class line will become weak and the struggle will, as a result, lose its determined character.
Did the Andhra comrades commit no mistakes? They might have made mistakes and in the course of a struggle many a mistake is sure to be committed. We must learn from the mistakes. The Andhra comrades are making a review and we shall all learn from them. But the revisionists are attributing the reverses in Andhra to the entire Party programme. There are many ups and downs along the path of armed struggle; we shall not deviate from our objective if we have faith in the masses and have faith in the Party.
At the initial stage of the trouble in East Pakistan many did not observe the chauvinist activities of the Awami League nor did they observe the shameless interference of the Indian Government in the internal affairs of Pakistan. As a result, they took a wrong decision. Subsequently, those who noted the Indian interference failed to see the reactionary character of Yahya and went on propagating that the Party’s only task was to extend full support to Yahya. They could not realize the importance of the determined efforts of the EPCP(M-L)[1] to build up class struggle in this difficult situation. Consequently, the line they adopted was entirely a liquidationist line. Our Party has very correctly raised the slogan “Stop interference in Pakistan.”
The importance of our political work is increasing as our struggle is becoming more widespread and intense. The political level of the Party workers will have to be raised and the political consciousness of the masses has to be developed; only then shall we be able to combat successfully the different manifestations of revisionism and to raise the morale of the fighting masses.
May 20, 1970
Note :
1. Communist Party of East Pakistan (Marxist-Leninist).
