Among the many historical weaknesses of the communist movement in India, perhaps the most crippling has been its inability to produce a full-fledged programme for the Communist Party till 1951. In other words, the Party virtually spent the first two to three decades of its life without any clear and comprehensive programmatic guideline. This compares pathetically with the formative history of either CPSU or CPC. Both these parties had come to acquire a solid programmatic grounding early in their revolutionary journey. In Russia, Lenin had produced his brilliant analysis of development of capitalism by 1897 itself, that is years before the Communist Party could take on a really organised mass character. Mao’s analysis of classes in Chinese society, too, marked an early theoretical breakthrough in Chinese revolution.
In these two pioneering studies, the architects of the two greatest revolutions of the 20th century had already set out to accomplish what we call the creative integration of the universal truth or principles of Marxism with the concrete conditions of their respective revolutions. Wayback in 1899, Lenin had pointed out, “We do not regard Marx’s Theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the foundation stone of the science1 which socialists must develop in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life. We think an independent elaboration of Marx’s Theory is especially essential for Russian socialists; for this theory provides only general guiding principles, which, in particular, are applied in England differently than in Germany, and in Germany differently than in Russia”.[1]
Creative integration of the universal principles of Marxism with the concrete national reality or equivalently, independent elaboration of the general guidelines of Marxism in specific national conditions — while upholding this essential principle of a Party programme, Lenin also called for conscious introduction of the question of Party Programme into Communist polemics. He was emphatic that “… if the polemic is not to be fruitless, if it is not to degenerate into personal rivalry, if it is not to lead to a confusion of views, to a confounding of enemies and friends, it is absolutely essential that the question of the programme be introduced into the polemic. The polemics will be of benefit only if it makes clear in what the differences actually consist, how profound they are, whether they are differences of substance or differences on partial questions, whether or not these differences interfere with common work in the ranks of one and the same party. Only the introduction of the programme question into the polemic, only a definite statement by the two polemising parties on their programmatic views, can provide an answer to all these questions, questions that insistently demand an answer.”[2]
It is indeed a measure of bankruptcy of the Indian communist movement that it is marked by very little attempts at independent elaboration of the general guidelines of Marxism and the polemics in our movement too have more often than not been clouded by questions of a tactical or organisational nature lacking the clarity and seriousness that can come only with the conscious introduction of the programme question.
Prior to the 1964 split, the undivided CPI witnessed two major phases of inner-party debate, first during the 1946-51 period preceding the formulation of the first Party Programme and then during 1955-56. Yet, party general secretary Ajoy Ghosh had to admit in 1960, “Ideologically and politically speaking, we have been living from hand to mouth trying to tackle some urgent questions as they arise, evading basic questions and overall assessment. The result is drift, absence of direction and chaos …”.
By the admissions of its own leaders, the track record of the CPI(M) too has not been much different on this score. In a review of the 1951 Statement of Policy (legal version of the 1951 Tactical Line) published in The Marxist in 1985, Basavapunniah admitted that between 1951-52 and 1967-68, the SOP was neither taken up for discussion in depth at any time, nor was its understanding sought to be translated into practice in building the class and mass organisations and the Communist Party. During the 1967-69 split while the CPI(ML) challenged the entire Party programme and SOP, the Eighth Congress of the CP1(M) re-endorsed the SOP; but as Basavapunniah wrote in 1985, it was reiterated without giving any serious thought to the changes already carried out in the Party programme and their implications for the Party’s tactical line. Naturally, differences remained on the question of interpretation of SOP and the inner-PB discussions since 1969-70 and the inner-PB and CC discussions during 1975-76 in particular revealed that such differences even sometimes assumed the polemical character of the 1948-50 period, the so-called Russian Path versus Chinese Path.[3]
The debate continued even after the ouster of P Sundarayya and Basavapunniah too left the issue open in his 1985 article. He enumerated certain negative or adverse developments since 1951 which go against the SOP and also listed out some positive developments that would appear to compensate the adverse factors. The net outcome is that officially the SOP with its accent on urban and rural uprisings remain the tactical guideline of the CPI(M), but it has no relation to the party’s short-medium-or even long-term practice and perceptions.
A similar ‘dilemma’ can be seen at work on the question of party programme as well. The Soviet collapse and the East European debacle had taken the party completely unawares. It was not a question of error of judgement on one or two individual events, but it called for a re-evaluation of the CPI(M)’s entire programmatic understanding of the history of the Soviet Union and the erstwhile Warsaw Pact countries. The party however tried to escape its own theoretical responsibility by shifting the whole blame posthumously on the CPSU’s shoulders on the plea that it was the latter which had always exaggerated the crisis of the imperialist camp as well as the strength of the socialist bloc. But why did the CPI and CPI(M) have to buy the erroneous Soviet perceptions lock, stock and barrel?
Then there has been a sea change in the situation of our own country with the ruling classes bringing about a drastic change in economic and foreign policies without much of a hiccup. This relatively smooth turnaround in ruling policies should also have provoked the CPI(M) to take a fresh look at its understanding of the Indian state and the ruling classes, particularly the big bourgeoisie. The Madras Congress of the party did adopt a resolution on the need for amending the programme. A commission was also set up to prepare the draft amendments. But now the whole process has been stalled – possibly because several basic questions had started coming up – and the forthcoming Chandigarh Congress (scheduled for April 1995) is only expected to announce the met hodology as to how the changes are to be finalised!
Obviously, a vague, ambiguous and open-ended programme and tactical line allow maximum leeway to the CPI(M) to carry on with its politics of opportunism.
Notes :
- 1. Our Programme, Lenin, Collected Works (LCW), Vol. 4, pp 211-12.
- 2. A Draft Programme of Our Party, LCW, Vol. 4, pp 230-31.
- 3. The Statement of Policy Reviewed, The Marxist, Vol. 3,
July-December 1985, pp 25-83.
