It will be seen that there have really been two basic attempts at drawing up programmes for India’s democratic revolution – in 1951 and then in 1970. Though the 1964 CPI(M) programme effected some major amendments in the ’51 programme, it did not mark any fundamental rupture as we shall shortly see. This is of course not to deny the importance of the changes made in 1964 concerning the characterisation of Indian revolution (People’s Democratic revolution as opposed to the CPI thesis of National Democratic revolution), the nature of state-power in India (bourgeois-landlord alliance led by the big bourgeoisie as against the CPI thesis which excluded landlords from state-power and allowed only “considerable influence” to the big bourgeoisie) and certain other questions of strategic significance. But as we shall see, these amendments, while doing partial justice to the objective development of the situation and the surge in mass movements, could hardly transform the gradualist, collaborationist perspective it inherited from the CPI. These changes did nevertheless stand the CPI(M) in good stead in guarding it against the extreme right-reformist potential of the programme and saving the party from committing the kind of blunders the CPI and AICP or UCPI did.
Similarly, the 1970 programme too had certain Left sectarian traits and the changes we have brought about over the last three Party Congresses have helped us in steering clear of the anarchist or semi-anarchist tendencies latent in our movement. Among the major changes in our formulation have been the rejection of the thesis of Soviet social-imperialism, recognition of the relative autonomy and bargaining power of the Indian state and India’s dependent big bourgeoisie vis-a-vis specific imperialist powers albeit within a general framework of dependence on and subservience to world imperialism, and a clearer demarcation between strategy and tactics enabling us to free the question of forms of struggle from the strategic straitjacket of a Chinese-type revolutionary path. Thus, while the CPI(M) has sought to update and perfect the 1951 programme, we have been trying to develop a revolutionary programme on the foundation laid down in 1970.
It should also be noted that both these programmes emerged against the backdrop of peasant upsurges and militant popular struggles and intense inner-party polemics. But while the 1951 programme was born as a centrist compromise meant to take the party away from the road of Telangana, the 1970 programme was steeped in the revolutionary spirit of the Naxalbari uprising and enjoined on the party to spread the prairie fire of Naxalbari all over the country. Moreover, Telangana was called off just when it had started outgrowing its local significance to raise the question of political power[1], whereas Naxalbari became Naxalbari precisely because of its ability to raise the agenda of peasant uprising to the height of state-power. It is therefore not surprising that while the parties following the 1951 programme could never again come up with another peasant upsurge on the lines of Telengana or anything even remotely resembling the pre-51 peasant rebellions, the CPI(ML) has succeeded in bringing about a glorious revival and development of the tradition of Telangana from Naxalbari to Srikakulam to Bhojpur and even today the spirit is kept alive over large tracts of land in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
That the 1967-69 split was much more basic and decisive than the 1964 one is also amply borne out by the subsequent evolution of relations between the three parties. Despite the fact that the CPI(ML) has never hobnobbed with the Congress while the CPI went to the extent of supporting the emergency and forging all sorts of adjustments and alliances with the Congress and also that the CPI(ML) has never opposed or conspired against the Left governments in West Bengal and Kerala in a way the CPI opposed the CPM-led governments in West Bengal and Kerala in the late 60s and early 70s, even going to the extent of forging coalition governments with the Congress, the CPI(M) has felt no difficulty in making it up with CPI, even as it always looks for conditionalities and excuses to avoid joint actions with the CPI(ML). Moreover, while the premise of left unity between CPI(M) and CPI(ML) remains far from settled, the merger of CPI and CPI(M) has emerged as a living agenda for both the parties.
Note :
1. It was after the intervention of the Indian Army – apparently to clinch the integration of the Nizam’s kingdom with the Indian Republic but effectively to crush the peasant insurgency of Telangana – that the CPI leadership started developing cold feet. But while the CPI called off the rebellion, severe state repression was let loose on the communist base in Telangana. The Congress government sought to rationalise this repression in the name of ensuring a free, fair and peaceful poll in the 1952 general elections. Strangely enough, the three CPI leaders – Muzaffar Ahmad, AK Gopalan and Jyoti Basu – authorised by the Party to negotiate the release of Party activists before the elections appeared to be echoing the same line of logic when they called for the release of their arrested comrades to facilitate the disarming of the still armed masses and the peaceful holding of elections. Incidentally, the victorious communist candidate from Telangana, Mr. Ravi Narayan Reddy, who entered the First Loksabha with the highest number of voles in the 1952 election later denounced and slandered the armed peasant insurgency in a document titled. The Naked Truth of Telengana.
