CHARU MAZUMDAR
From Liberation, April-June 1971.
(Certain units of the Party have attacked the Party line in respect of the recent events in Pakistan and distributed leaflets among the people under the name of the Party. They contend that the entire imperialist camp and the Indian expansionists have launched a war of aggression against Pakistan, that the Yahya Khan government, like Samdech Narodom Sihanouk, has been fighting a just war against them, that the Yahya Khan government represents the anti-imperialist national bourgeoisie of Pakistan, and that it should be supported. In order to remove the confusion that may have been created in the minds of the people by these leaflets, we are publishing below a statement by our leader Comrade Charu Majumdar—Editor, Liberation.)
It is the US imperialist plan to bring India and Pakistan together and mobilize them behind their war-plot. But this plan could not succeed because of the contradiction between India and Pakistan. That is why India was made to attack Pakistan in 1965 and, with pressure exerted on them, both the parties were forced to sit at the negotiating table at Tashkent. The Tashkent agreement was utilized by the Soviet revisionists for carrying on their propaganda that all wars could be settled in this way. The unity achieved at Tashkent was transitory while the contradiction between the two countries [i.e., the ruling classes] is rather permanent. So the US plan failed.
Taking advantage of the students’ democratic movement in 1969, the Mujibs captured leadership and demanded removal of Ayub Khan.[1] It was at this time that Mujib’s campaign for his six point demands became strong and, as a result, Ayub resigned and handed over power to Yahya Khan. So Yahya Khan’s coming to power was not the result of any bloody struggle waged by the national bourgeoisie. Since then, US imperialism has been making plans of creating internal troubles and the Indian government has lent its active co-operation to them.
Deshabrati and Liberation have supported the stand of the Communist Party of East Pakistan (Marxist-Leninist). The conclusions[2] that have been drawn from these writings (that appeared in Deshabrati and Liberation) are arbitrary and baseless. The Indian government has not yet declared war against Pakistan; actual war has not started. The Indian government has carried on sabotage and interfered in the internal affairs of Pakistan. So it is not proper now to state that Pakistan is waging a “just war”, though its struggle against all this sabotage and interference is surely just.
It is not the task of the Communist Party to support Yahya Khan even after foreign aggression has started. The task of the Communist Party is to fight foreign aggression by rousing the broad peasant masses through class struggle and to give the call for unity with Yahya Khan. Even on this issue of unity it should be borne in mind that the leadership must remain in the hands of the Communist Party, that is, this unity should be achieved in the interest of the broad masses. In the face of foreign aggression it is of the utmost importance that the Communist Party should lead struggles independently and on its own initiative and should build up its own army. At the time of foreign aggression the Communist Party must take upon itself the entire responsibility for leadership in the revolutionary war. The Yayha Khans would unite only when the Communist Party has succeeded in uniting the broad masses of the people through its independent work—work done on its own initiative — and has succeeded in building up its own army. That is why the Communist Party has to combat attacks on two fronts — foreign aggression from one side and the attack of the Yahya Khans from the other. China’s experience shows that, after the Japanese aggression in 1931, the Communist Party of China had to wage struggles against the Kuomintang and to resist the Japanese attack by undertaking the historic Long March. It was as a result of this that Chiang’s army rose up in revolt and forced Chiang to arrive at a compromise with the Communist Party. Though realizing the need for unity, Chairman Mao has given the greatest importance to this independence and initiative of the Communist Party. It was the Wang Mings and the Liu Shao-chis who, taking advantage of the unity with Chiang, raised the demand for merging the Red Army in Chiang’s army and for supporting Chiang. It is seen even today that, while the Palestine Liberation Organization has to wage struggles against Israel, it has also to fight against the Jordanian reactionaries, though a part of Jordan is under the occupation of Israel. Chairman Mao has taught us that national liberation war is, in essence, class war.
To put Norodom Sihanouk, the head of the Cambodian state and Yahya Khan in the same category is a serious deviation. Armed struggle under the leadership of the Communist Party is being waged in Cambodia against US imperialism and Lon No l, and Sihanouk is giving his full support to that struggle. Sihanouk has declared that the compradors and the landlord class are the enemies of the country against whom struggle must be waged. He has also declared that it is Communism that can achieve the liberation of the people. It is not only that under Yahya the Communist Party is illegal but he is also trying to consolidate his power by relying on the landlord class. And his weapon is extreme religious obscurantism. While he is fighting for his very survival against US conspiracies, he is also sending his men to wait upon the US imperialists; that is why they two are not of the same character.
In this document all the imperialist and social-imperialist powers are represented as one united bloc. This is in no way correct, for there is contradiction among imperialist and social-imperialist powers and they cannot resolve this contradiction by any means. In this era this contradiction is becoming more and more apparent everyday. That is why in his Statement of
May 20 Chairman Mao directed all the attack against US imperialism. In his Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China Comrade Lin Piao mentioned four major cotradictions, one of which is the contradiction between imperialism and social-imperialism and among imperialist countries.
In this document the note of interrogation has been put after the word “East” where the Communist Party of East Pakistan (Marxist-Leninist) has been mentioned. This shows disrespect for a fraternal Party and violates Communist internationalism.
June 29, 1971
Notes :
1. Ayub Khan was at the time President of Pakistan.
2. As drawn byAsim Chatterjee and his comrades, who claimed that the ruling classes of Pakistan represented by Yahya Khan and his military clique, which greatly depended on foreign imperialist capital, technology and huge ‘aid’, constituted the national bourgeoisie of Pakistan.
