This volume comprises a selected collection of representative writings of Comrade Vinod Mishra. The writings are drawn primarily from four sources: documents presented and adopted in party conferences and congresses; articles, written originally mostly in English, but also in Hindi and Bengali, for party organs; published and unpublished interviews, and booklets and prefaces to books published by the party press; addresses to seminars, conventions, inner-party and public meetings and party schools and congresses. The period covered runs from the post-Emergency rectification movement when the reorganised party began to emphasise mass political initiatives through the IPF phase when the still underground party played the role of the ideological-political centre and organisational core of an open and legal multi-dimensional all-India political front to the last six years following the party’s coming overground in the Fifth Party Congress held in Calcutta in December 1992.

The selection aims at bringing glimpses of VM’s vast world of Marxist theory and practice. Spread over a dozen different sections, the writings begin with the invoking of the India of VM’s dreams and end with a clarion call for the party of his passion. The compulsion to keep the selections within the bounds of one single volume has meant leaving out at least four to five articles for every piece included. Left out are his entire writings published in Hindi journals "Shramik Solidarity" and "Samkalen Janmat" and English periodicals "Voice of Alternative" and "People’s Front", extensive portions from various documents adopted in party conferences and congresses and minutes of Central Committee and Polit Bureau meetings and a host of other written records.

Even then, readers can clearly get an idea from the present selection about the great volume and variety of VM’s intellectual output during the twenty-odd turbulent years he steered the party ship. And more than that, what stands out singularly in every piece of his writing is the tremendous creative impulse whether we are reading the offbeat "India of My Dreams" or the editorials of Liberation and ML Update.

From the barely legible handwritten manuscripts of the 70s and early 80s produced on a war-footing for the underground press amidst the extreme uncertainty and rigour of underground life to the occasional late-90s articles composed directly on the computer at a relatively relaxed pace, the material environment surrounding his intellectual production did see occasional changes. But writing for him remained for ever a conscious act of class struggle and commanding the creative urge of the writer in VM was the tireless zeal of the revolutionary communist leader in him. In the revolutionary tradition of Marxism, he regarded the struggle of ideas and ideologies as a key component of class struggle and most of his political writings therefore tended to have a polemical character.

Thematically, these writings cover a vast ground, reflecting the long march of the party from a point when it virtually rose from the ashes in the 70s to its confident strides through the crucial ideological challenges of the 80s and 90s. Readers can get a clear glimpse of the steady evolution of the revolutionary line of CPI(ML) in simultaneous struggle with tendencies of both anarchism and ultra-left phrase-mongering on the one hand and capitulationism and petty liberal reformism of social democracy on the other.

At the centre of all his writings lie the party and revolution — not as abstract and perfect ideological products, but as intense and intricate processes of history and society. The party to him is both an organiser and organisation of the proletariat and revolution is both the goal and a growing possibility which informs and guides the continuing metamorphosis of the proletariat from its formative class-in-itself days to the developed class-for-itself phase through relentless contention with the bourgeoisie. Yet these are processes that do not abide by laws of linear progress. The course is zig-zag, the motion is spiral and progress comes more through jerks and breaks, ruptures and leaps than through the smooth constancy of a steady rhythm.

The communist party, VM believed, would lose its raison d’etre if it could not simultaneously prepare the proletariat for its role as the leader of the revolution and also be wielded as a mass revolutionary weapon by proletarian vanguards. Independent political assertion of the proletariat therefore remained the cornerstone of VM’s communism, and he always attached the greatest priority to the task of guarding this essence against every threat of possible dilution, distortion and derailment. For a communist party entrusted with the task of leading a democrtaic revolution in a country with a preponderant agrarian population, any neglect of the task of bringing about proletarian consolidation and a worker-peasant alliance under proletarian leadership can only reduce the proletariat and its potential alliance partner in the peasantry into a passive appendage of the political hegemony of the bourgeois-landlord combine. If this lack of assertion of proletarian independence reflects in a line of class collaboration and acquiescence to bourgeois politics in ordinary times, in crisis times it leads to a virtual state of paralysis. This tragedy was only too evident during the Emergency era in the 70s!

In several of his writings, VM comes back repeatedly to the party’s unfolding history and critically measures the evolution of the party line against the touchstone of practice without ever losing sight of its moorings in Marxism-Leninism. Sometimes urging expansion, sometimes calling for consolidation, he is always fighting for the overall quantitative growth and qualitative development of the party. He has a remarkable knack for every detail, but never misses the wood for the trees. Every aspect of the great mission of building a revolutionary communist party in India’s semi-feudal semi-colonial setting — from developing the appropriate style of work and a vibrant democratic atmosphere inside the party to striving for integration of theory and practice and promotion of greater participation of women at all levels of the party — received his careful and emphatic attention.

Deepening the study of Indian society in the complex interaction of its base and superstructure and thereby perfecting the party’s programmatic understanding of Indian revolution was another constant focus of his intellectual endeavours. While studying the developing situation and the maturing and surfacing of various contradictions and trends, he would always make it a point to follow every lead to go back to the underlying social reality so as to enrich the party’s strategic vision. This stands out in marked and refreshing contrast to the dominant left discourse which generally does not go beyond a superficial liberal and constitutional gaze. Whether it is on the question of caste and class, religion and secularism, tribal autonomy or women’s liberation, VM always brings his deep revolutionary Marxist insight to tear asunder both liberal illusions, commonplace or sophisticated, as well as the cultivated confusion of many an exponent of post-modernism.

In all his theoretical writings, VM stands for a creative integration of the universal revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism and Mao’s thought with the concrete Indian reality. This integration is of course a painstaking and continuing process and it can only take place in the backdrop of historical experiences of victorious revolutions, in Russia and China in particular. It was quite natural for communist revolutionaries in India in the 60s to begin with the Chinese model, all the more so because the official communist leadership in India had never paid serious heed to the lessons from China. The attempt to copy the Chinese model revealed most glaringly the peculiarities of the Indian situation and the task of later generations of communist revolutionaries was to suitably adjust and develop the programme and tactical line in consonance with these particularities. This was how, VM believed, revolution in India would evolve its own distinctly Indian path and model.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and collapse and crisis of the existing models of socialism could not but have greatly stirred VM. Among Indian communist organisations, the CPI(ML) was clearly in the best position to comprehend and withstand the Soviet debacle. While the CPI and CPI(M) were busy singing paeans to Soviet socialism even as the stagnation and degeneration of the Soviet system had begun to trigger its eventual collapse, the CPI(ML) remained all along openly critical in its assessment of the Soviet situation. Yet VM never took the we-told-you-so line of easy escape. In confronting the wave of post-Soviet bourgeois triumphalism, he never belittled the crisis facing the international socialist and communist movement by making it out to be a case of mere failure of applied Marxism. In the true Marxist-Leninist spirit of acknowledging the real problem, he went on to identify the challenge of making an in-depth study of the laws of motion of the socialist mode of production, a task, he saw as being comparable in its dimensions only to Marx’s historic study of the capitalist mode as in Capital.

In sum, VM’s selected writings represent a jargon-free, straightforward and self-critical autobiographical odyssey of the Indian communist movement in the last quarter of the twentieth century. As a post-Independence Marxist who read his Marx, Lenin and Mao in the spring thunder of Naxalbari and its roaring reverberations across the flaming fields of Bihar, VM was not burdened with any baggage from the London School of Social Democracy and the Gandhi-Nehru discourse of Congress socialism and Indian nationalism. His engagement with the Indian version of bourgeois democracy was that of a practical revolutionary forced to operate from within the system who however never allowed his analysis and vision to be limited by the ever narrowing horizon of bourgeois liberalism and constitutionalism. All his writings are therefore illumined by the remarkable clarity and sincerity of his revolutionary purpose.

His writings are also an object lesson in Marxist dialectics. It is his dialectical outlook which prevents him from becoming one-sided and dogmatic. He locates his objects of study in their relevant contexts and studies every aspect with remarkable objectivity. But this objectivity is not neutral and stationary, it is revolutionary and dynamic. The focus of his dialectics lies in grasping the small but developing positive aspect of every process and then turning the tables to transform it into the dominant and decisive aspect.

In his short speech at the funeral of Marx, Engels had used one single word as the most decisive description of the multi-dimensional and colourful creative personality of his departed comrade-in-arms. Marx was above all a revolutionary, Engels reminded his listeners. Later, Lenin also warned against the vulgarisation of Marxism. Robbed of its revolutionary core, Marxism would become lifeless and revisionist, he cautioned. VM was also above all a revolutionary and retrieving and enriching the revolutionary essence of Marxism was his most passionate and consistent mission.

The selected works of VM provide an abridged account of this unfinished mission of one of the greatest revolutionaries produced by the Indian communist movement. Pulsating with the spirit of a simmering revolution spilling over into the next millennium, these writings are dedicated to the onward march of revolutionary Marxism worldwide.

Dipankar Bhattacharya
General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

[Originally appeared in The Telegraph. From Liberation, January 1999.]

Other than politics which to me means the medium revealing the intricacies of society, I take a great deal of interest in cosmology where the universe unfolds itself in infinite space and time; where galaxies fast recede into the ever-disappearing frontiers of universe away from each other; where stars emerge, glow and explode to death; and where, quite apparently, motion is the mode of existence of matter.

Motion, i.e., change and transformation — always from a lower to a higher order — also, incidentally, forms the mode of existence of human society. No idea is absolute, no society is perfect. Whenever a society has been conceived as the embodiment of the absolute idea, shock waves emerging from deep within have shaken its very foundations. And then amidst the despair all around new dreams arise. Some dreams never come true as they are wild fantasies of the human mind, the ‘mind-in-itself’. The few which are realized are essentially abstract creations of the human mind, the ‘mind-for-itself’. Nonetheless, dreams, whether wild or plausible, have remained the source of human endeavour since perhaps the origin of humanity itself.

India of my dreams is essentially an integral India where a Pakistani Muslim won’t have to procure a visa in search of the roots of his evolution; where, likewise, for an Indian the great Indus Valley Civilisation does not fall in a foreign country; and where a Bengali Hindu refugee will finally shed the bitter memories of Dacca and a Bangladeshi Muslim will not be hounded as a foreign national in India.

Sounds like BJP? But then the BJP has only thrived upon the great division of the country — between a Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, albeit not so ‘pure’. As BJP continues to stretch this division to extremes with all the disastrous consequences, great thinkers will surely arise in all the three countries and remould the public opinion for a brotherly reunion. And, be sure, that will be the doomsday for the forces like BJP.

In the India of my dreams, a Ganga and a Cauvery, and a Sindhu and a Brahmaputra, will freely flow into each other and the morning shall dawn to the jugalbandi of great musical tunes of India. Some statesman will then compile his notes into a "Re-Discovery of India".

India of my dreams shall rise in the community of nations as a country which the weakest of neighbours shall not fear and which the most powerful country in the world shall not be able to threaten or blackmail. This India will rank among the first five countries of the world in economic prowess as well as in Olympic tallies.

India of my dreams shall have a secular state which shall rest upon the principle of ‘Sarva Dharma Varjite’ rather than ‘Sarva Dharma Sambhav’. While not interfering with an individual’s faith, the state shall actively cultivate the scientific and rational world outlook.

Religion, as has rightly been said, is the expression of man’s powerlessness towards his environment. Its abolition therefore demands a thoroughgoing change in the material and spiritual conditions of life where man can stand up to acquire mastery over his environment. Whenever the conservative philosophical systems have burdened the people as deadweights, there have always come up in India great reformation movements. And thus I dream of a great resurgence of rational ideas where the human essence alienated in the form of God shall retrieve itself. This great reformation of human minds shall accompany a social revolution where the producers of wealth shall also be the masters of their produce.

In India of my dreams, glorification of pariahs as dalits will end and dalits will cease to be a category. Castes shall dissolve into classes with each of their members having individualized expression.

In India of my dreams, women shall constitute 50% of representative assemblies. Love marriages will be the rule and the divorce easier to obtain. Children will not know any misery and looking after them will be more the responsibility of the state than parents.

In India of my dreams, every town will have its cafeterias where intellectuals shall have hot discussions over cups of cold coffee! There, some anguished souls can gaze through the plumes of rising smoke conjuring up images of their heart-throbs while many insatiable hearts can be captivated by the interpretations of varied works of art and literature. While no work of art and literature will be subjected to state censorship, smoking shall be strictly prohibited everywhere, except, of course, the coffee houses!

To return to the original theme, in India of my dreams, an Indian spaceship will wade through the deep space while Indian scientists and mathematicians will be working out equations integrating into a whole the fundamental forces of nature.

Finally, for me the mother of all dreams is a motherland where political liberty of each of its citizens will be valued most; where dissent will be considered legitimate and where Tiananmens of the system will be handled by the morally strong statesmen and unarmed forces of people’s militia.

India of my dreams is built upon the fundamental processes at work within the Indian society and for whose realization many like me are committed to the last drop of their blood.

[From Liberation, November 1990.]

Comrades and friends,

On behalf of the Party’s Central Committee I extend my warm greetings to all of you.

The whole country is today engulfed in flames. The so-called champions of national unity and integrity are all busy demolishing the nation. The poetry of unity of hearts is only chanted to perpetrate worse divisions. All talks of political solution to the problems of Punjab, Kashmir and Assam have stopped, while the fascist-communal ‘rath’ sparking off Hindu-Muslim riots is very much on the move. The whole controversy over Hindi has returned to reinforce the North-South divide, and large parts of North and Central India are caught in the throes of a simmering caste war. Amidst this all-pervasive pall of gloom, today’s rally indeed comes as a ray of new hope. Your full-throated slogans and the flutter of red flags all around are all carrying the single message to our beleaguered nation that the real issues are indeed something else. It’s a resolve of a common battle we all have to wage together. A warning to our rulers that while they are busy serving their narrow ends, we too have started arriving to stake our own claims.

Meanwhile, students in different parts of the country are all up in arms against reservation and the Mandal Commission recommendations. Some have even resorted to the extreme step of self-immolation. We are aware that some high priests of Brahmanical reaction are desperately trying to cash in on this popular resentment of the students to take the country back into medieval darkness. We are also aware of the vested political interests of the Congress, the BJP and the Devi Lal faction of the Janata Dal behind this anti-reservation uproar. Still, we believe that it is the students’ widespread indignation against unemployment and worries about their frustrating future which have driven them into the anti-reservation agitation. Till yesterday, these middle class youth were all captivated by the moral appeal of VP Singh, the messiah, but now that they have realised that he too is only another politician in the mould of the shrewd Chanakya, there can be no containing their resentment.

Just as we do not approve of those politicians who want to take revenge on the present-day progeny of Babar, we also reject those theoreticians who would punish the present-day offsprings of Manu for the crimes of their ancestors. We would again say that the government should have first fulfilled its own pre-election commitment of recognising "right to work" as a fundamental right and announced large-scale schemes of employment generation which could have inspired some hope among the students and youth. If the Mandal report were adopted against such a different backdrop, these young people could then have very well been mobilised in the fight for social justice and freed from the clutches of the Brahmanical high priests and the forces of political reaction. But this government failed miserably in inspiring any confidence in its seriousness in tackling the problem of unemployment or in promoting social justice. The Mandal exercise of VP Singh was nothing more than a calculated manoeuvre in his narrow factional game and it was exposed as such.

We would also say that the student-youth agitation has taken a negative turn. They should have spearheaded their movement not against the scheme of 27% reservation for the backwards, but for the recognition of their right to employment. That is why we have organised this rally around the slogan of ‘Kam do’ (give jobs) and we would appeal to the student-youth community to join the struggle for this fundamental right with all their strength.

We are definitely for reservation of jobs for dalits and backward castes. But this support of ours is not a support for VP Singh’s shrewd political moves. Neither is it a support for the Lohiaite theory where the concept of socialism has been degraded to the politics of backwardism.

Our support for reservation does not mean rallying the dalits behind the aggressive backward castes in the latter’s caste war. Neither does it mean subordinating the red flag to the green flag, the hammer-and-sickle to the wheel.

We stand for the independence of the red flag, we subscribe to the dream of hoisting the red flag on top of the Red Fort. We have made all sacrifices for fulfilling this mission and in the future too, we shall be never found wanting in making any number of sacrifices for this great cause of the Indian people. We have a formidable base among the dalits but it is a base developed also through a relentless struggle against the ‘dalitism’ of Kanshi Ram and Co. Our base is growing among the backward castes, but it is growing in struggle against the backwardism of Mulayam Singh and Laloo Yadav. The neo-Brahmins emerging from among the dalits are as much a target of our movement as the forwardised backwards. On the other hand, enlightened segments and poor people from among the upper castes are also joining our movement in large numbers.

We are not at one with those so-called progressives who hold that thanks to Nehru’s reforms our society has already been freed from feudal-casteist divisions and transformed into a modern society and that reservation will simply put the clock back. This is just not the reality of India.

We support reservation because we believe that through a lot of initial tension it will ultimately have a diminishing effect on the existing forward-backward schism, give a blow to the feelings of backwardness and forwardness and will bring about an element of equality among the forwards and backwards in their economic and political life as well as in the bureaucracy. And corresponding to the development of intra-elite cohesion in different castes, there will also grow a matching class solidarity among the people below. Any blow to feudal, obscurantist traditions, any measure of bourgeois-democratic liberalisation, however superficial, will definitely accelerate the process of class polarisation in the society, and as communists, as champions of class struggle, we welcome any such class division in the society.

It is our earnest appeal to all pro-reservation left forces that instead of trailing behind some VP Singh, some Ramvilas Paswan or Sharad Yadav, Mulayam Singh or Laloo Yadav, let us assert ourselves as an independent power; let us make the battle for reservation a part and parcel of our struggle for employment. It is at such critical junctures that we communists, revolutionary-democrats, have always found ourselves defeated in the Hindi belt. Either in the name of practicality we have fallen inactive before Lohiaites or casteists of different hues or just reduced our role to playing second fiddle to these diverse centrist currents. This is the reason why we have still not been able to strengthen the Communist, Left trend in this part of the country. Some of our friends are just repeating this good old mistake. Through IPF the left movement has reached a new height in Bihar and neither the dalitism of Kanshi Rams nor the backwardism of Lok Dals has succeeded in checking this remarkable advance. On the basic foundation of class unity and class struggle we have also started developing a new fighting coalition of dalits and backwards against the traditional Brahmanical hegemony. Let all the left forces make the most of this firm foothold we have secured in Bihar.

Regardless of whatever may be happening in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in our country the left movement, the communist party, definitely has a very bright future ahead. It is the Left who must also lead the battle for democracy. Once again we would like to reassure our friends in the CPI and CPI(M) that our struggle is not against you. We do have a number of differences on various questions of political line and policies, and we want to carry on healthy polemics on all these issues. In states where you are running state governments, we cannot but oppose and keep opposing your anti-people steps, for, being communists our entire commitment is to the masses and we cannot betray their interests. But when it comes to the questions of communalism, the anti-worker industrial policy of the government, escalating prices of all commodities of mass consumption, repression on your forces in Tripura or anywhere else, opposition to imperialism and the like, we are always in favour of united action with your forces. And we are unable to understand what prevents you from undertaking joint action with our movement. If despite thousands of differences you can have occasional adjustments with the Congress, you can have alliances with the Janata Dal, and even managing to work together with the BJP, why on earth should we -- we, who hold aloft the same red flag with the same inscription of hammer-and-sickle, who are fighting for the poorest of rural and urban toilers and do not fight shy of making any sacrifice in their interest, who are among the most consistent fighters against all political formations of the bourgeois-landlord alliance, be it Congress or the Janata Dal, BJP or the AGP -- be singled out as your principal enemy? We would appeal to the left ranks and their serious and sincere leaders to give a fresh consideration to this whole scheme of things. Many issues of the past have become irrelevant in today’s context. The world around us has undergone a lot of changes over the last twenty years. Let bygones be bygones, let us look forward to the future. In the conditions of today’s national and international environment, it is imperative for the CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(ML) to evolve ways to walk together for as far as possible. Any unity among our three parties will inspire a new hope among the masses, will give rise to a powerful resurgence of the left movement in this crisis-ridden country where the people are gradually getting disillusioned with all varieties of bourgeois alternative. Will Namboodiripad or Indrajit Gupta show the necessary courage to act on this demand of history?

Recently we have joined hands with our fellow forces of the revolutionary Left in West Bengal to unleash a united mass movement. Our movement in West Bengal is not only against the repressive, anti-people policies and measures of the Left Front government, but is, at the same time, trying to erect a solid wall of resistance against the right opposition, particularly against the Congress(I)’s desperate attempts to stage a comeback by cashing in on the growing mass resentment. We understand that this can be the only effective way to prevent East Europe from being repeated in West Bengal.

History has proved that the legacy of the revolutionary communist movement in India is best secured in the hands of our Party. To all comrades who have deserted us out of some abstract ideas, who have made mistaken moves in the vain hope of our disintegration, who have been led astray by their desperate dreams of a quick revolution or who have been pushed to this or that variety of liberal policies by the frustration of setbacks, it is our earnest appeal: face reality, rally under the red flag of our Party, our doors will always remain open for our dear comrades who have left us.

IPF is the other name for the most consistent movement for revolutionary democracy, which has sought to encompass not only the forces and struggles of the traditional Left, the struggles of workers and peasants, but all trends of democracy in India, be it a movement on issues of national minorities, women or environment, be it a campaign for religious reforms or civil liberties. Our Party is committed to this orientation of IPF for the independence of IPF. It is indeed a unique experiment in the history of Indian communist movement. It is our ardent appeal to all the forces of democracy who are not blindly anti-communist: Cooperate with us for the success of this experiment.

We have made a number of mistakes in the past, there may well be some more weaknesses and mistakes in all that we are doing today. We are always prepared to learn from our mistakes and history will always testify that we are not prisoners of any dogma.

When you return from this rally, each one of you will have to carry its message among still larger sections of the people, it is up to each of you to defend the dignity of the red flag, and build a new wave of revolutionary democracy with all your might. A wave which will really unite India, which will unite the will of all sections of the working people in the country, whatever be their language or nationality, caste or religion.

Long live Indian Revolution!
Long live the power of the people!

[From Liberation, January 1991.]

The euphoria is over. By its very nature a euphoria is always short-lived, and, if VP Singh could survive for nearly eleven months it is no mean achievement for a politician who has had no roots in Indian politics, more so in "opposition" politics. Ironically, the man who had excelled in the art of resignation, eventually earned the distinction of being the first prime minister who was voted out on the floor of Parliament.

VP Singh is gone. Shall he make a comeback soon or be reduced to an ideologue of peripheral politics? It is too early to predict anything on this score; let us confine ourselves to the age-old wisdom of "wait and see".

VP Singh repeatedly claims to have sacrificed his government for the sake of the high principle of secularism. His line of argument is that he could have saved his government by conceding the BJP’s demand. He is projecting himself as a martyr for the great cause of secularism and, describing the vote of confidence as a battle between communalism and secularism, he even appealed to the MPs to vote according to their conscience.

The pattern of voting, however, revealed that the battle-line or rather lines were drawn at different planes, and the party whip was defied by nearly half of his own party MPs. If VP Singh is to be believed, the overwhelming majority of the MPs sided with communalism. Then how can one explain the split in the Janata Dal, especially when Mulayam Singh and Chimanbhai Patel, who are facing the BJP’s wrath as well, have opted for the Chandrashekhar camp? Chandrashekhar, the new prime minister, too is talking in a similar tone on the secularism-communalism issue. Actually, had VP Singh conceded the BJP’s demand, his government would have fallen with still more disgrace. Because, in that case the Left would have been compelled to withdraw its support and the Chandrashekhar-Devi Lal camp would still have rebelled, and that too with a greater moral authority. There was no course open to him to save his government at that juncture. In fact, he tried his best to come to a deal with the BJP till the last moment, the promulgation of the controversial ordinance being a proof of this. VP Singh is telling only the politician’s truth, the truth that suits him best. However the real reasons behind his fall are different — very different — and are rooted deep in the social divisions, in the traditional rivalries between different political parties and between various factions within his own party. The balance of social forces, and as their reflection, that of political forces within the Parliament, weighed against him and brought about his downfall.

The whole phenomenon cannot be explained simply as the bourgeois politicians’ lust for power, by invoking questions of norms and morality, and by overplaying the role of money power. All this amounts to a layman’s understanding of politics and a liberal-moralist approach which fails to understand that political parties are not any artificial creations of some professional politicians, but are the inevitable and natural products of modern-day societies, through which (political parties) various classes and strata of the society articulate their interests and compete with each other for share in power. Individual politician’s lust, scramble for loaves and fishes, money power etc., can operate only within the parameters of realignment of social forces. Let us begin with an analysis of the VP phenomenon in Indian politics.

VP Singh should be given the credit for making a serious attempt to build a bourgeois alternative to the Congress at an all-India level. Being pushed to the opposition politics, he mercilessly renounced his Congress past, and projected himself as the inheritor of the anti-Congressism of Lohia and Jayprakash and thereby as the natural leader of the opposition. Starting as a recruit of Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency, his rise to UP chief ministership where his ruthless encounter campaign liquidated hundreds of youth belonging primarily to backward castes (incidentally, Mulayam Singh’s rivalry with VP Singh dates back to that period), then to an ardent advocate of economic liberalisation as Rajiv’s finance minister, and finally, his overnight transformation into the central opposition figure was in itself a wonder of Indian politics. He termed the Left as his natural ally and developed a good rapport with various non-party political formations and grassroots movements which had sprung up as antitheses to the Congress authoritarianism. He brought them all to the mainstream of political process. Most importantly, he successfully developed a National Front with important parties of regional opposition (to the Congress). He envisaged a political combination that would replace Congress not only in numerical terms in Parliament, but would also signal a new kind or political formation more suited to the present-day Indian conditions. His position within the Janata Dal was all along vulnerable as he was the commander of an alien army. The Janata Dal was an eclectic combination of several traditionally well-entrenched factions whose first loyalties were to their own chieftains rather than to the supreme commander. However, he hoped to keep the factional divisions in his own party within check by pitting one faction against another and, more importantly, by using his clout with the National Front allies against any challenge from within his own party. The BJP had no place in his original scheme of things and he carefully maintained a distance from it during the election campaign.

His AJGR combination worked well from Gujarat to Bihar. A good majority from the kulak lobby of backward castes as well as the old and new rural gentry of his own caste of Rajputs backed the Janata Dal. The Muslims, getting alienated from the Congress after the Bhagalpur riots and the controversial Shilanyas decision, voted for the Janata Dal. In Orissa, where the Janata Dal variety has all along been the natural opposition to the Congress, it gained the most from the anti-Congress wave. The Left recovered its positions in Bengal which it had lost to the Congress in 1984, and with some losses here and gains there, managed a fair representation in the parliament.

However, VP suffered his biggest setback in South India. The wave in South India was in direct opposition to the one in the North and was more sweeping too.

The electoral pattern in South India, which no one expected and which continues to puzzle political analysts, coupled with a satisfactory performance in Maharashtra, made Congress the single largest party Parliament.

The other unexpected development was the meteoric rise of the BJP. The BJP has always been a strong force in North and West India on its own and in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, it has traditionally been the main opposition to Congress. Every anti-Congress wave has meant its rise in those states. However, in 1989 elections, backed by its expanded network and by fully exploiting the Ram card, it surpassed the wildest expectations of its own leadership. Results have shown that it has expanded into several non-traditional areas as well and spread its wings among the peasantry and among backwards, dalits and Adivasis as well. The Left, the only consistent anti-BJP force, could do practically nothing to check the advance of the BJP in the Hindi belt and its slogan of ‘isolate BJP’ fell flat on its face. The BJP’s performance was more or less its own independent showing and the Ram card had yielded rich dividends.

Thus two adverse factors, first, the emergence of Congress(I) as the single largest party and thus its retaining the trump-card to exploit any situation to its favour, and second, the spectacular rise of the BJP, which fuelled its desire to play the trump-card, handicapped VP Singh from the very beginning. Moreover, deprived of the crucial support from his regional allies of the National Front within Parliament, his capacity to play down the factional squabbles within the Janata Dal was reduced to a minimum.

Here one must note the crucial difference between the objective placements and subjective ambitions of the BJP and the Left. Whereas the traditional strongholds of the Left such as Bengal and Kerala are areas where Janata Dal is virtually non-existent, the Left has no strong presence in the Janata Dal strongholds. The Left has virtually resigned itself to playing second fiddle to the Janata Dal in national politics and, whatever expansion it dreams of in the Hindi belt as well as in states like Andhra, Orissa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc., it does so only through following behind the tail of the Janata Dal and its National Front allies. The Left, therefore, can live in long-term harmony with the Janata Dal.

The situation is entirely different for the BJP. Its areas of operation overlap with those of the Janata Dal and its existence and expansion can only be at the cost of the Janata Dal. The rivalry between the two is an in-built objective phenomenon. Moreover, the BJP, driven by the aggressive Hindu Rashtra philosophy and backed by a well spread-out network of ideologues and propagandists and by the well-organised RSS cadre force, aspires to occupy the centre-stage in Indian politics. The rise of religious fundamentalism in Iran and Pakistan, collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, serious setbacks in the Soviet Union coupled with the church assuming a crucial role — all these have provided it a conducive ideological environment. Back home, its success in exploiting religion for political ends has emboldened its spirits.

The 9th Lok Sabha, a hung one, was quite reflective of the major contradictions of Indian society, and of the emerging trends. If the South versus North contradiction was reflected in the pro- and anti-Congress waves, the rise of Hindu fundamentalism was represented by the rise of the BJP. The traditional Left’s resigning itself to the subsidiary role vis-a-vis Janata Dal had become quite apparent. The Akali Dal (Mann) swept the polls in Punjab, the BJP and even the IPF got their representations on their own independent planks.

VP Singh was faced with a Hobson’s choice. There was no way he could form government without BJP support. Overnight the formulations were changed ostensibly on ‘people’s pressure’.

Realisation dawned on him that there is nothing called value-based politics, rather values are based on the contingency of practical politics and that politics is nothing but the art of managing contradictions. In a fine acrobatic feat, the Left which had hardly anything to differentiate between the Congress and BJP, ‘between cholera and plague’ as described by EMS, changed its slogan from one of isolating the BJP to collaborating with it. Attempts were made to differentiate between BJP, the political party, and VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, the communal outfits. Rajeswar Rao even talked of positive socio-economic content in the BJP’s programme. The slogan of national unity and integrity came handy in justifying this collaboration and indeed Advani remarked that BJP’s views on national unity, on Pakistan, Punjab etc. are more akin to that of the Left than that of the Janata Dal. In private, left leaders went on claiming the success of their strategy in forcing the BJP to be responsible to the government and thus putting a brake on its communal frenzy, while at the same time keeping it out of the government. History has shown that actually this was a political fraud perpetrated on the people. A definite illusion was spread regarding the BJP and people were kept off-guard.

It was sheer naivete to expect BJP to give up the very Ram card that had paid it rich dividends and to believe that it would faithfully serve the Janata Dal government in the fashion of the Left. The BJP had made its intentions very clear from the very first day when it refused to accord unconditional support to the Janata Dal government and Advani declared his intention of acting both as the brake and the accelerator of the government. Things have moved only in the predictable direction. If the Left fails to find an explanation there is none to be blamed but itself for the political naivete it exhibited, for its political pragmatism, for its crime of diluting the struggle against religious fundamentalism. I still feel that the best tactics for the Left would have been to allow the Janata Dal and BJP to form the government at the Centre, and to reserve the role of playing as "the accelerator and the brake" for itself. This would have refurbished the independent image of the Left.

VP Singh began the second round of his political career with politics-based values and with skills in managing contradictions. His very ascendancy to prime ministership was a result of the shrewd gameplan of pitting Devi Lal against Chandrashekhar. Every support exacts its own price and at a juncture, despite all his attempts, it became impossible to contain the irrepressible Devi Lal, Chautala and company. One crisis after another rocked the Janata Dal and, ultimately, he had to part company with Devi Lal.

He rushed to implement all the unimportant declarations of his manifesto with which the people at large were least concerned. On the major issue of Bofors, his government failed to come out with any further evidence. On the contrary, the period of his rule has only swung the pointer away from Rajiv Gandhi in the Bofors case.

On Punjab he failed to take any initiative and soon lost rapport with Akali Dal (Mann) taking Punjab back to square one. Militant activities rose to a very high pitch in Kashmir as a reaction to the crucial presence of BJP, with its avowed demand of scrapping Article 370, in central power. VP Singh sought to tackle the problem the BJP way through Jagmohan, and thus, all semblance of political process was destroyed in Kashmir.

The economic situation worsened further and prices rose to astronomical proportions. The economic problems of Rajiv Gandhi’s period have only been compounded further and in the background of the Gulf crisis, Indian economy stands at the brink of collapse with the dangerous prospect of India joining the list of debt defaulters.

VP Singh’s style of all-party consensus soon became a farce. Forced to operate within a grim economic situation, encircled by the Congress waiting in the wings on the one hand, and on the other hand,the BJP bent on playing a decisive role, and threatened by the emerging Chandrashekhar-Devi Lal gang-up from within the party, his survival instinct led him to a sudden declaration of implementing the Mandal Commission report. It was a clear attempt at carving out a political territory for himself, enhancing his position within the Janata Dal and putting all his adversaries on the defensive. As the events proved, he had grossly miscalculated and, eventually, the implementation of Mandal recommendations signalled his downfall. His social base among his own castemen, Rajputs, dwindled. Powerful Jats of Haryana, UP and Rajasthan and several other major castes which had hitherto formed social base of the Janata Dal in the Hindi belt shifted their allegiance and the Chandrashekhar-Devi Lal company shot back into prominence.

Students and youth, particularly in and around Delhi, felt badly betrayed by a man on whom they had reposed great faith as an ideologue and had been expecting some sort of enhanced job opportunities as a result of his promise of making the right to employment a fundamental right. Instead, they found in him a scheming politician who was robbing them of whatever little job opportunities that were there. Their utter sense of frustration was reflected in the form of ‘self-immolation’ by scores of middle-class and lower middle class young boys and girls — a form so unusual with youth. The implementation of the Mandal report did consolidate his position among certain major backward castes but in no way was it a new addition. On the other hand, he lost a considerable segment of social support and, then, this angry outburst of students and youth in the form of self-immolation posed a serious moral question before his continuation in the office too.

The powerful media went against him and the Congress, the BJP as well as the Chandrashekhar-Devi Lal group shrewdly exploited his predicament.

VP Singh’s line of argument was that certain backward castes had already attained sufficient economic and political clout — due to the green revolution etc. — and were eligible to get a proportional share in the higher echelons of bureaucracy. Historically, as they had been socially and educationally backward, they could not compete on the basis of merit for a long time and the only way to ensure their representation wss through job reservations.

He further argued that it was not only a question of social justice but more that of social harmony: "Within the family whereas the elder brother should continue to enjoy greater power and authority, he should also grant some right to the younger brother, involving him too in the decision-making process."

Limited by the vision of a bourgeois politician, his essential concern was to incorporate within the ruling system those sections of backward castes who had already attained sufficient economic and political clout, i.e., the representative interests of the kulak lobby. Championing these narrow class interests in the name of common masses and even, revolution, has always been the art of bourgeois politics! Of course, this process of integration is an objective natural process and VP Singh or no VP Singh, it shall go on — sometimes through tension, and at other times with some adjustments here and there. Supporting this measure from a very different premise of advancement of class formation within castes, class polarisation and class struggle is an altogether different thing, but taking VP Singh on face value, terming the implementation of the Mandal Commission as some sort of revolution and rallying behind him, is tantamount to political foolishness and renouncing the class position of communists.

VP Singh’s expectation of political polarisation on backward-forward basis at an all-India level cutting across party lines reflects the wrong and narrow understanding of Lohiaite politicians. He was behaving in a foolhardy manner when he expected a split within the Congress and BJP on these lines, while calling for a conscience vote. Forward-backward caste contradiction is definitely one of the major social contradictions in Indian society, and in some states, particularly in Bihar, it does decide the mainstream of politics, but this is not an all-pervading contradiction. Viewed in isolation, the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu symbolises the rise of backward castes against the forward castes, but then, the Tamil national identity, the South Indian identity, plays a still bigger role there. Dravid movement too has got divided into two major streams of DMK and AIADMK, and, in recent years the rise of other backwards like Vanniyars has been an important phenomenon.

Then again, backward castes do not operate as uniform single entities and are themselves engaged in internal rivalries even within Bihar. These often result in various alliances between certain forward and backward castes against such other combinations. In states like Bengal there is no distinct category of powerful backward castes and no forward-backward rivalry.

In UP, certain analysts believed Mulayam Singh to be the representative of the backward among backward castes, and he was supposed to be organising the poor and middle peasants against the kulak Jat lobby. By all accounts, be it on the issue of Mandal Commission or Ram Janmabhoomi, he was seen as the staunchest ally of VP Singh. However, traditional political rivalry reigned supreme here and VP’s attempts were objectively intended to carve out his own base in Uttar Pradesh at the cost of Mulayam Singh. The Mulayam Singh-Ajit Singh controversy too is a known affair and, essentially, the split in Janata Dal in UP is along the same lines. There is some substance in Mulayam Singh’s allegations that VP Singh through various manoeuvres did try to topple him. The Mulayam Singh-Chandrashekhar-Kanshi Ram alliance was taking shape in UP as against the VP-Ajit combine for some time and no serious political observer would have ignored the presence of the three on the dias of the 12th October central anti-communal rally. The rally was, at the same time, the indication of the sharpening factional struggle within the Janata Dal. Strangely, Messers Jyoti Basu and Indrajit Gupta, who too adorned the dias and sang laurels in praise of Mulayam, failed to notice the real politics behind this anti-communal fanfare. Modern political parties are not, and cannot be, simply the parties of backward or forward castes. Various caste and class combinations operate within them and their sum total reflects their bias towards a particular caste-class, more pronouncedly at particular junctures, and in essence only. Thereafter, they again move back to normalcy. For instance, the Hindu and forward caste bias is definitely the essence of Congress but it exhibits itself in a very complicated process.

The Mandal Commission did threaten the BJP in North India to some extent as it went against the latter’s drive towards Hindu unity. Its calculated move of Rathyatra and associating it with extreme positions was definitely a counter move. Advani had said that his arrest would prove disastrous. He proved prophetic. The VP government at the Centre fell, the Janata Dal split into many factions and the VP faction could ultimately retain power only in Bihar. The BJP has emerged as the main opposition in Parliament. Socially and politically the sum total of contradictions had already started operating against Mr.VP Singh. The withdrawal of BJP’s support was its outcome and provided the necessary catalyst for his fall. It was not simply the question of withdrawal of support by the 90-odd members of the BJP-Shiv Sena combine; it was, at the same time, the break up of Janata Dal and a new-found equation with the Congress.

The Chandrashekhar-Congress(I) combination essentially means the return of Congress rule through the back door. It is definitely an unstable alliance because Devi Lal and a section of the Janata Dal(S) cannot cooperate with Congress for long even if Chandrashekhar is absorbed within the Congress. We must therefore go to the masses both in anticipation of elections and for developing mass struggles.

VP Singh’s Janata Dal and the Left are back to the position of natural opposition, where we had already been waiting for them. To be sure, now there is greater scope for joint activities, collaboration and alliance between us and them, and, we must fully explore these possibilities. However, we must say some words of caution here. The menace of communalism and its representative party, the BJP, is no doubt threatening the very fabric of the Indian society. The left parties have made it the sole plank of their propaganda thrust. We must not forget that in practical politics this is a clever ploy to sell their line of trailing behind this or that bourgeois-landlord combination. The parallel efforts to unite and mobilise the masses on their basic issues, in democratic struggles and militant mass movements — the traditional and time-tested forms of the Left’s most effective challenge to fundamentalism and communalism — have been given a go by and they are not even considered as forms of struggle against communalism. Therefore, whereas the opportunist Left rests its hope on bourgeois politicians in anti-communal struggles, and keeps itself busy with facades like human-chains, seminars etc., fundamentalism continues to spread its tentacles into the minds of people at grassroots.

This ideological environment, the grim and hopeless economic crisis, the erosion of national identity built during anti-British struggles — all prop-up religious ideology as a force: Religion brings solace, Hindu identity appears as the only means of preserving national-identity and the BJP goes marching ahead towards its die-hard anti-communist and fascist goal. Revival of the Left’s legacy, its ideological and political offensive, its course of militant mass movements on basic and democratic issues is the only way to take on communalism. It is the backward social conditions, the lack of democratic consciousness, and economic desperation that provide fertile ground for the rise of fascism. The same conditions are also conducive to the advance of revolution provided the communists shed off all social-democratic and parliamentary illusions, if they dare to march independently and with the masses.

VP Singh and Laloo Yadav may go with us only to an extent. They and the BJP, now thrown into opposition again, may, step by step develop a rapport again under the banner of anti-Congressism. It began from Lohia who formulated this theory first in the 1960s and developed coordination with the then Jan Sangh. The same was repeated in 1977 within the Janata Party, and again in 1989 in a different form. While in opposition, they get closer, once in power they fall out. This is how the things stand. The CPI and CPI(M) are again spreading illusions about a decisive anti-Congress, anti-BJP secular combination having taken shape which can now only develop in a unilinear direction. If we allow ourselves to be misled by the appearances and place all our cards at the disposal of Messers VP Singh and Laloo Yadav, the Left would again be destined to suffer a rude shock. While keeping our doors open for any tactical, temporary and transitory alliances with secular and liberal forces of the bourgeoisie, let us march independently. The revolutionary situation has advanced in a favourable direction. The ruling classes are facing deep political instability. Instead of confining our activities within the bounds of parliamentarism and formalism, the time has come to boldly arouse the masses and daringly go in for militant mass struggles.

Let us hold high the banner of independence and of mass struggles.

[From Liberation, May 1993.]

Our Calcutta Congress resolved to intensify the efforts for left unity with the ultimate vision of a single Communist Party in India. In the last three months or so since the Party Congress, wherever I have gone, people concerned with our movement and mediapersons have repeatedly asked me about the prospects of such a vision and also about the concrete steps being taken in this direction. As reported to me, a veteran gentleman communist of CPI(M) in West Bengal has rejected the idea as being utopian whereas some others held that the idea, though likely to be resisted by old guards, is most likely to get wider support from the younger generation of communists.

In my talks with Comrades Harkishen Singh Surjeet as well as Indrajit Gupta, I tried to emphasise the point that in a calculated move the Sangh Parivar has penetrated into the bastions of the Left, viz., West Bengal and Kerala, whereas, the Left forces on their part have not been successful in the BJP’s strongholds in the Hindi belt. In the Left’s strategic thinking, too, the task of meeting the BJP’s challenge in Hindi-speaking states is assigned to the forces of centrist opposition and even the Congress(I), with the Left only playing second fiddle. This strategy, though successful to an extent in checking the BJP’s accession to power through political and parliamentary manipulations, is hardly effective in checking the growth of communal virus in people’s minds. There is just no popular mobilisation against communalism of the present variety which seeks to impose a fascist Hindu state on the overwhelming majority of laboring people. The whole Congress propaganda against communalism boils down to abstract preaching of communal harmony, while in real life, it appeases and collaborates with communal forces at every critical juncture.

I have serious doubts about the rationality of over emphasising the tactics of letting the Congress fight the BJP and, as its logical extension, of building a secular front with it. This may, in fact, prove counter-productive in the sense that it blunts the people’s consciousness, splits the ranks of democratic secular forces and weakens mass mobilisation against communalism.

Tactics of Secular Front

In one of his significant statements made in the recent AICC session, Mr.Narasimha Rao, the Congress president said, "Now, what is left with the BJP? Only religion. Take it away from them and the BJP will be nowhere." This means that the economic programme and foreign policy of the BJP have already been appropriated by the Congress. Only religion is left and they are going to appropriate that, too, now.

Before the demolition of Babri Masjid there were reports that bypassing the VHP the Congress(I) was planning to build its own bridges with the sadhus and mahants by assuring them that Ram temple would be built at the disputed place after obtaining a favourable judicial order. There is of course nothing strange in it. Right from the installation of an idol of Ram inside the Babri Masjid in 1949, which turned it into a ‘disputed structure abandoned by Muslims’, through the opening of the gates to shilanyas, successive Congress governments have only played a dubious and collusive role in the entire evolution of the Ayodhya controversy. Actually it was the fear of the Congress snatching away the initiative on the temple question that led the BJP to the desperate act of demolition. However, the game is on and in the name of building trusts and through infiltration and parallel moves within the sant community, the Congress is continuing with its tricks. Muslims in general understand this and that is why they feel deeply alienated from the Congress(I).

The point, therefore, is: how can a secular front with such a party strengthen any genuine struggle against communalism? To utilise the contradictions between Congress(I) and BJP or to pressure the government to take necessary administrative measures, is it really imperative to bring the Congress(I) into the fold of a secular front?
A secular front that opposes both the BJP variety of communal fascism and the Congress(I)’s communal manoeuvres can also link up this struggle with the struggle against new economic and foreign policies, for that forms the common basis of both Congress(I) and BJP. Such a secular front, thus, may gradually evolve into a broad democratic front. Differences do persist on the theoretical-political understandings on this issue and the struggle reflects itself sharply in common forums and joint actions where we and CPI and CPI(M) are all present. However, pressures from other political forces, as well as the fear of Muslim reaction, have so far prevented them from translating their line into action.

No one objects to building alliances with the Janata Dal and its various factions against the communal danger, but letting the Mandalised ideology gain supremacy at the ideological plane and projecting a Laloo Yadav or a Mulayam Singh as yugpurush can only be self-defeating in the long run. This will only go to prove that the Left has no answer of its own to the BJP’s challenge in the crucial Hindi belt and this will only render it irrelevant in the mainstream Indian politics despite all its bases in peripheral India, particularly when the BJP has shown its capacity to penetrate into those areas.

Independent Left Advance

If our recent initiatives in Uttar Pradesh and victories in some university elections have attracted all-round admiration and raised a new hope, it is solely because of the message it conveys that, if there is a firm resolve, the Left can definitely defeat the BJP in its strongholds. Most importantly, our victories symbolise not only the rejection of aggressive communal ideology of the BJP but also a positive negation of the Mandal factor. The UP university campuses were agog with anti-Mandal agitation which had deeply divided the student community. While accepting the rationale of caste-based reservations, we at the same time focused on the common issue of unemployment and received support from all sections of students.

While paying utmost care to seek united actions with the Janata Dal in Hindi areas, especially Uttar Pradesh, we stand for strengthening a parallel Left initiative. We may be a small force to begin with but this task is a strategic one and the present situation does provide enough scope for the Left’s advance. More so because after the demise of the socialistic idealism of Lohia and JP, an ideological vacuum prevails in these areas. Mulayam Singh or Laloo Yadav may provide a short-term answer to the BJP’s ascendance, but they have nothing to offer at the plane of ideology. The progressive democratic intelligentsia is looking for an ideological alternative as well as for the forces who are honest, dedicated and militant. Conditions are maturing for the emergence of new political forces and the Left can take the lead.

Our emphasis on the long-term strategic perspective is often branded by our ‘Marxist’ critics as isolationist policies which allegedly do not pay importance to the tactic of utilising contradictions and splits in the bourgeois camp. True, in pursuance of our strategic goal sometimes we do prefer isolation to surrendering independence in any socalled broad alliance but we never underplay tactical and even temporary alliances with the various streams of political forces representing the bourgeois opposition. Based on our independence and initiative we have been gradually and step by step developing our policies in this regard. Our range of joint action with the leaders in the camp of bourgeois opposition has definitely increased a lot.

When in one of my recent speeches I referred to the Congress dissidents and did not rule out the possibility of their future inclusion in any broad anti-communal alliance, many of our comrades were confused. But I think as dissidence in the Congress in growing and crystallising around the question of tactic regarding BJP, any broad platform against communalism like the Rashtriya Ekta Abhiyan perhaps cannot avoid the question of their inclusion. I don’t think this in any way dilutes the anti-Congress aspect of the alliance, rather it enhances the same.

In a nutshell, we do not differ with the CPI and CPI(M) on the question of a broad-based platform against the communal danger. Our difference begins with their attempts to use the obvious anti-BJP thrust of this platform as an excuse to develop an alliance with the Congress. We also oppose using this platform as a place for political intrigues and instead we emphasise mass mobilisation. Within the platform, we oppose surrendering the initiative to the forces of bourgeois opposition and eulogising the bourgeois heroes. As regards orientation, we do maintain that only a democratic state can be a secular state in the true sense of the term and hence struggle for secularism is at the same time a struggle for democratising the state. A secular front, therefore, for us is not a pragmatic tactics devoid of longterm perspective, rather it is, and it must be, part and parcel of the strategic task of building a democratic front in India.

Unity on People’s Issues

In our scheme of things we have always paid greater attention to joint actions on issues of people’s interests, be it the united move of Left parties on land question in Bihar or the joint trade union struggle against new economic policies. We have taken keen interest in broadening the arena of this common struggle to include students, youth, women and cultural forums. In this context, we heartily welcomed the proposal of expanding the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions to a Platform of Mass Organisations against new economic policy and communalism. This forum is primarily made of left-oriented mass organisations. Its central thrust is against the government’s economic policies and it invariably decides to go in for mass actions culminating into a Bharat Bandh. For all these reasons, such a forum can go a long way to strengthen the material basis for a political confederation of left parties.

However, we had our objections to the way communalism and the new economic policy were lumped together, thereby obscuring the central thrust of the forum. Given the main left parties’ constant attempts to save the Congress(I) government, to support it on crucial occasions and blunt the edge of anti-government mass movements as a caution against the BJP danger, one cannot but be apprehensive of the implication behind obscuring the main thrust of the forum.

Then again, such a platform of struggling organisations should not remain silent on the growing repressive nature of the state. One must never forget that all the draconian powers the state is arming itself with in the name of taming terrorism shall eventually be used against the people’s struggles. Hence, as the champion of consistent democracy, the Left is duty bound to oppose all violations of civil, human and democratic rights. Similarly, such a forum must take a firm stand on the issue of women’s oppression, particularly when rapes are committed in police custody, when rape becomes an instrument of class and communal oppression. We also feel that grassroots organisations in various corners of India are conducting a positive struggle to press for a people-oriented developmental strategy. In the present context, they are also raising their voice against IMF-WB dictated economic policies as well as communalism. Such forces must all be brought under the umbrella of the proposed mass forum. The Left must reorient its policies to include in its agenda the whole range of new issues which have come up in the last few decades of the developmental process. And for that the Left must not hesitate in developing interaction with such forces with a firm faith on its own ideology and organisational strength. On these and other questions we must continue our fight within the forum. While the emergence of a joint political forum against communalism and a mass platform against new economic policy is itself a pointer to the emerging pattern of unity among left forces, at the same time, the struggle between two tactics has permeated the sphere of joint activities.

We start with unity and continue the struggle to achieve a higher stage of unity. The future of the left movement in India depends on this unity-struggle-unity.

[From Liberation, September 1993. Excerpts.]

People’s Democracy (hereafter PD), the central organ of CPI(M), in its August 15 issue, while commenting upon our review of Rashtrlya Ekta Abhiyan (REA), has launched a veritable slander campaign against our Party. The same was published in other party organs as well, and in Punjab, where the Party doesn’t have its own organ, the story was planted in Punjabi Tribune. People’s Democracy laments the crass sectarian and juvenile approach of ‘Naxalites’ towards united platforms. The piece ends with a terse warning to us "to decide whether to be in the mainstream or to go back to old fringe politics".

Let us take their arguments one by one. The essential reason cited in our resolution favouring withdrawal from REA was the perceptible change in the concrete situation in which the main thrust should be shifted against the Congress(l) government at the centre. PD itself admits that "platforms like the REA will be formed from time to time according to the requirement of the concrete situations". Quite correct! Now, has not the concrete situation really changed? CPI(M) which had so far been busy bailing out the Congress government on the floor of the Parliament vis-a-vis the BJP was, though unwillingly, forced to become the prime mover of the no-confidence motion and vote along with BJP. PD, while defending CPl(M)’s refusal to defy prohibitory orders in the months of February-March "when the main thrust had to be against the Sangh combine" (emphasis ours), inadvertently admits that the priorities have changed now. "By insisting on a confrontation with the Government through defiance of prohibitory orders, the aim of the mobilisation against the communal forces would have been sidetracked", argues the PD. This is the argument of a liberal and not of a Marxist. Yet, here lies the implicit assumption that this self-imposed limit no longer holds good any more. The August 19 and September 9 programmes have amply demonstrated this. Mr.Political Commentator of PD, now with this change in the main thrust, what role do you envision for REA? PD doesn’t answer this question and thus the whole debate turns into a meaningless slander campaign. New Age (CPI’s organ) did try to answer the question, without however specifying the exact role of REA in the present condition. IPF made an alternative suggestion to let REA be run by prominent cultural and secular personaliles, with political parties helping from behind. There could have been a healthy debate on this question. But PD in its over-enthusiasm, to score a point over us, missed the main point itself. This juvenile approach of those who have reached the border of senility only evokes pity!

Coming to the review of the REA proper in the context of work in united platforms, PD has tried to erect a Chinese wall between a "wide spectrum" of forces and Left’s own fora. All this is just liberal bourgeois rubbish. A wide spectrum, a united platform to propagate liberal bourgeois values, to project the achievements of bourgeois parties! What then is the rationale behind the existence of the Left -- just to mobilise the masses and order them to clap to the histrionics of bourgeois buffoons? We firmly believe that unleashing mass initiative and spreading left ideology is crucial in any serious and genuine struggle against communalism and the Left must try to use a united platform to this end to whatever extent possible.

Victory of AlSA in UP university elections was an achievement not only for us but of the secular-democratic forces as a whole and this is how the entire secular-democratic spectrum throughout the country received it. It is an irony that a national platform against communalism preferred to ignore such a significant development in UP and refused to allow a speaker from AISA in the 14 April rally. Arguments like "they (IPF) also expect, with their limited strength, vis-a-vis others, to get more speakers than most other parties" are trifles introduced to sidetrack the real issue in question. We are not in the habit of haggling over number of speakers or frontline camera visions -- these are your exclusive preserves. It was the only time that we demanded an AISA speaker in view of the enormous significance of the UP election victory. We are accused of trying to manipulate this platform and are advised to propagate our achievements through our own fora. Fine! Then doesn’t Ram Vilas Paswan, going by the same logic, too have his own platform? Was he not allowed, nay, consciously handed over the stage to convert the entire show into Ambedkar birth anniversary celebrations? Laloo too has his own platform. How come he, without any mobilisation to his credit, so far as the rally is concerned, was allowed to sabotage the spirit of the REA rally for projecting his self-image? Com.Surjeet may not be able to look beyond Laloo Yadav in Bihar but we do recognise the fact that if Bihar has been relatively free from communal riots, the masses of Bihar and the left forces there have had a crucial role in it. In what way does emphasising the role of peasant masses in Bihar and students in UP go against the ‘wide spectrum’ or the December 19 declaration of REA, is beyond our comprehension.

The crux of the matter lies elsewhere. CPI(M) could never digest the AISA victory in UP university elections and the way it went to the ridiculous length of censuring the very news in its organs showed that it was shocked more than even BJP. And they have the audacity to brand us sectarians at that!

It is common sense that the main thrust of REA was against the Sangh combine. But not for nothing did it prefer to remain a front of only non-Congress secular forces. CPI(M) did propose inclusion of Congress in REA but it was rebuffed by the majority of the constituents. The months of March and April were crucial for anti-communal campaign but CPI(M) preferred to remain immobilised under the pretext of sidetracking "the aim of the mobilisation against the communal forces". Actually they were placing great hopes on Congress taking on the BJP, and for that, willingly submitted to the government ban on anti-communal mobilisations as well. It is totally false to claim that "this was discussed thoroughly and agreed upon by all constituents except presumably the IPF". Janata Dal and CPI were, till the last, quite willing to participate in REA Varanasi rally and only the last minute intrigue by CPI(M) made them change their decision.

PD also informs us that, "they [i.e., CPI(ML) and IPF] tried to inject issues outside the common charter in the convention of mass organisations and were rebuffed". This is a real piece of news to us, comrades! Speakers of our mass organisations drew a good applause from participants and it was only your partyman, presiding over there, who, flouting all democratic norms, tried to cut short the time allotted to our speakers.

For us the struggle for secularism is only a part and parcel of the struggle for democracy. If we are really serious in the struggle against communal forces, the partners of the secular front are duty-bound to evolve certain norms of democratic behaviour among themselves. If at the same time a Laloo Yadav engages in horse-trading of IPF MLAs and you organise a massacre of agrarian labourers belonging to IPF, what message does it convey to the people at large? You are wrong comrades. We do not rage at Laloo Yadav’s "splitting" our legislative group. One is absolutely free to change one’s ideas and, of course, join the party of his choice. We only demand that for the sake of elementary parliamentary morality these MLAs should have been asked to resign and seek a fresh mandate. This is a perfectly democratic demand and by rationalising Laloo’s anti-democratic behaviour, for the sake of pragmatic political gains, you are setting a very bad precedent. Well, we are grateful to you for your valuable advice as regards ensuring the political quality and education of MLAs but we will also be benefited if you share your experiences in dealing with the nexus of a certain MLA of yours with Rashid Khan, the satta don, and of a few of your ministers with unscrupulous industrialists in Calcutta. We, however refrain from posing the unpleasant question of 7 MLAs of Left Front -- the highest left formation according to Prakash Karat -- voting for Pranab Mukherjee in Rajya Sabha elections. Shouldn’t a party claiming itself to be the only communist party in India provide a better government than a "cabinet of thieves". Sorry for the wording, comrades, but this coinage has been attributed by press to Comrade Buddhadev Bhattacharya.

According to PD, "their making the CPI(M) the main target of attack is nothing but shades of the old Charu Majumdar thesis" and "the setbacks suffered by the group recently seems to have brought about a relapse to the old disruptive stand". PD is utterly wrong on both the counts. Not the setbacks but the very expansion our party underwent in recent months including, in West Bengal, has invited the CPI(M)’s wrath against us. At grassroots it is reflected in organising Karanda carnage (No problem for PD. In true tradition of suppressing what is unpleasant for the party it just blocked any reference to Karanda) and at macro levels launching a full- scale slander campaign aimed at isolating us from the mainstream of political activities. In UP recently CPI(M)’s state secretary issued a statement opposing Janata Dal’s parleys with IPF for joint actions and accused IPF of planning to advance at the expense of CPI(M). This unusual statement was denounced by all sensible persons including those sympathetic to CPl(M), and CPI state council passed a resolution condemning it. Actually CPl(M)’s slipping hold over the Left Front, and on the contrary, our growing interaction with the partners of the Left Front even in West Bengal have made the CPI(M) panicky and over-reactive to us.

If CPI(M) has come out as our main political-ideological adversary in the entire left-centrist spectrum, it is not because of some thesis of Charu Majumdar nor because of any of our choices. This is rooted in our respective histories, in our two opposite political-tactical lines, and in your frantic efforts to isolate, defame and even physically liquidate us. We neither have any desire to be in fringe politics nor do you have the capacity to isolate us from the main current. We firmly believe that there are saner voices within the CPI(M) who eagerly look for comradely cooperation between our two parties on a new basis of independent role of the Left; and any future realignment on these lines will definitely open up a new chapter in the Indian communist movement. After all, force of circumstances is much more powerful than the subjective wish of this or that leader.

[Speech at a convention on Dunkel Draft organised by CPI(ML) New Democracy on October 14, 1993. From Liberation, November 1993.]

First of all, I would like to congratulate the organisers of this convention for taking a necessary and timely initiative.
Well, now for nearly two years discussions have been going on Dunkel Draft and by this year-end the Draft is expected to be endorsed by GATT.

In the earlier stages, the Indian government tried to project a hard bargaining stance in the Uruguay Round. Subsequently the stand was mellowed down to extracting minor concessions on one or two provisions of the Draft. And now it seems the government is preparing to sign the Draft in toto.

Initially the possible acceptance of the Draft was explained as a compulsion forced by the circumstances. Now a list of advantages that are supposed to accrue to India is being dished out.

Some even advocate that the Dunkel Draft is loaded against Western countries. Those who are opposing the Draft are being branded as ‘fools’ and what not!

A certain farmers organisation representing the section of farmers who are expected to derive immediate economic benefits by tying up with MNCs, took to the streets demanding acceptance of Dunkel. Some vulgar Marxists are preaching the virtues of "free market" and ‘free trade" a la Dunkel. Some bourgeois buffoons have come out with a Dunkel Primer to teach the ‘innocent’ detractors of the Draft.

Anyway, there is one good thing with Dunkel. Being the key document propounding the new world order it has aroused a greet deal of discussion among intelligentsia. The debate has gradually percolated down to peasants who are becoming increasingly conscious of Dunkel’s harmful effects. This awareness is finding expression in farmers’ militant protests against the operation of multinationals, as the one we witnessed in Karnataka by Nanjundaswamy’s organisation. Uncle Dunkel is also helping middle and well-to-do sections of peasants to emerge out of the grip of Mandal and kamandal.

After a necessary and positive split in the coordination of farmers organisations a powerful section of them now considers the Left, particularly the revolutionary Left, as its natural ally. Shouldn’t we thank Dunkel for these developments?

A month or so back I had been reading Mani Shankar Ayyar’s Dunkel Primer in Sunday where he, in his characteristic jocular and arrogant manner, castigated Dunkel bashers. Anyway, I felt it would have been nice if someone from amongst us too had written a popular piece for better comprehension to our peasants! It may have already been done, or maybe, some people are working on it, I do not know.

Much has already been said or written on various provisions of the Dunkel Draft and here Com.Yatendra has already made a detailed elaboration. I would rather restrict myself to a few points:

1. As the world economy is at present dominated by transnational corporations, a concerted bid is on for a new world order. The process has further accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Accordingly, institutions like IMF, WB and GATT are trying to assume a new and offensive character. In the interests of transnational corporations, attempts are being made to do away with national frontiers. The Dunkel proposal is the key effort in this direction to enforce equal conditions of trade among unequal countries.

2. In the development strategy for countries like India, MNCs will be guiding the economic process from the top whereas voluntary organisations, taking over the welfare work, shall be preparing the masses below for the desired modernisation. The government’s role will be confined to that of a mere middleman and ruling politicians will turn into recipients of commissions, payoffs and kickbacks. This is the very scheme of neo-colonisation, which we have already witnessed in Latin America. The day is not far when ministers and heads of governments will be found indulging in smuggling and drug trafficking.

Finally I would like to make it clear that should attempts be made to reduce India into a banana republic, popular fronts and guerrilla armies will also not be far away

[Editorial in Liberation, July 1995.]

Countdown for 1996 parliamentary elections has begun. In the fast-moving political developments, men and events seem to be repeating themselves. The dialectic of the situation, however, makes them look farcical and even comical.

In line with the currently fashionable plank of social justice we have already had several backward chief ministers and deputy chief ministers, and a dalit vice-president too. Finally the miracle has happened and we are gifted with a dalit, and that too a woman, chief minister in the most populous of the Indian states — Uttar Pradesh. Ms.Mayawati is equally blessed by Vajpayee, Rao and Tiwari — the trio of the Brahmin lobby – and, this in itself is no less than a miracle. Mr.Kanshi Ram has got all his mathematics wrong. Enemy No.1 + Enemy No.2 + Enemy No.3 + Enemy No.4 is less dangerous than Friend No.1.

Mr.VP Singh, the Mandal messiah, is caught on the horns of a dilemma. If, on the other day, leaving ideological and political considerations apart, KR Narayanan’s ascendance to vice-presidentship was hailed as the victory of his social justice plank, and if Mr.VP Singh was thrilled at the prospect of having a dalit president in 1996, i.e., the year of Mr.Narayanan’s elevation to presidentship, there is no way he can denounce Mayawati’s accession to power. More so, he had been flirting with Kanshi Ram all these months.

The entire liberal framework, which visualised the unilinear development of dalit-backward alliance and was elated at developing a natural and effective antidote to communalism, has fallen apart.

And this precisely has given to the BJP a leverage in the coming battle. Its successive victories in Maharashtra and Gujarat and a generally improved performance in other states had already provided it the necessary morale-booster, and now, with the UP development it has clearly wrested the initiative.

It has already concealed its overtly communal, single-point agenda behind the facade of ‘Swadeshi’ and whereas the Left Front government is busy wooing multinationals and America, its government in Maharashtra is being credited with reviewing the Enron deal. Overcoming initial setbacks after the Babri Masjid demolition, the BJP has resumed its course exactly from where it had left off in 1990. Congress(I) too cannot be written off off-hand. Arjun-Tiwari group doesn’t seem to have taken off. Rao Congress is slowly but steadily bolstering its organisation and getting prepared to face the electorate on the plank of new economic and industrial policies — on which Narsimha Rao claims a national consensus (and indeed the edge of opposition to NEP has been considerably blunted due to the mad scramble among opposition-ruled states to implement them) — and a host of welfare measures on account of being in the government. Moreover, the threat of BJP assuming power is in itself a gain for Congress(I), for a large range of liberal opinion, including those from considerable sections of the Left, get horrified at the thought of Congress(I)’s disintegration — particularly in the absence of a viable alternative — and line up behind Congress in their bid of what they call "thwarting of the communal takeover".

It is in this dominant scenario of the threat of communal takeover versus retention of the old horse that talks of a third front have again occupied a prime place in the contemporary political agenda.

Going by historical references, one finds that in 1977 a grand anti-Congress unity had emerged in the course of opposition to Emergency and it did replace the Congress. Whereas the present-day BJP was an integral part of this alliance, major left parties were either hostile to it or maintained a friendly distance. In 1989 again a broad unity was forged in the course of movement against Bofors. The Left, this time, was much closer to NF whereas BJP emerged as an independent entity. Both the experiments collapsed under their own weight.

This time there is no movement worth the name, no point of convergence either. We have already discussed the double-edged nature of the ‘social justice’ or Mandal plank. The search for a third front in this context has begun with all sorts of confusing and opportunistic notes. If the CPI(M) Congress initiated the discussion from a ‘more dangerous-less dangerous’ premise, implying a sort of understanding with Congress against the BJP, Ramkrishna Hegde from within the Janata Dal has gone too far, suggesting that a coalition government of secular forces under Narsimha Rao’s leadership be forged to take on the danger of communal takeover. Knowing well that his proposal had no chance of winning acceptance either from Congress(I) or Janata Dal at this juncture, Mr.Hegde might have mooted the agenda, keeping in mind the post-election scenario. The JD president Mr.Bommai, by according "due respect to democratic dissent" within the party, has only kept the option open.

Here it must be kept in mind that the renowned socialist ideologue Mr.Madhu Limaye, prior to his death, did express his concern over Congress’ demise and advocated a changed approach towards Congress(I). One doesn’t know what a section of socialists under the spell of Madhu Limaye’s advice are contemplating.

Then Biju Patnaik lashed out at VP Singh branding him a stooge of Indira Gandhi, who was later kicked out by her son Rajiv Gandhi. Biju lamented that VP Singh’s casteist politics had destroyed JD and it was wrong on the part of JD to prop up VP Singh. Chandra Shekhar would have been a better choice, he opined. Though he had to retract from his statement under stiff pressure from VP cohorts, he has conveyed across his opinion hinting at the re-entry of Chandra Shekhar and Mulayam Singh at the cost of cutting down VP Singh’s image to size. The same reasoning advocates bringing DMK, MDMK and AIADMK, to the National Front and forging a winning electoral combination.

The economic policy resolution at the Bangalore camp of JD virtually endorsed the NEP and ridiculed the demand of "right to employment". Various other resolutions are merely ritualistic. Too many claimants of prime ministership busy invoking the plank of social justice to buttress their claims, reminds one of the proverb "too many cooks".

Thus no specific issue is clinched, no call for movement is given, no radical programme is advanced. Empty rhetoric, contradictory perceptions, opportunistic alliances and factional infighting are all that the only centrist party with a national standing has to offer!

The revolutionary Left, obviously, cannot be a party to these exercises. Left and democratic ranks everywhere are disillusioned and it is our foremost duty to first organise a national campaign against the threat to national sovereignty in the guise of globalisation, and against the danger of communal takeover. We shall specifically concentrate on the issues of increasing atrocities on dalits and other sections of the rural poor, increasing plight of workers and the right to employment.

[From Liberation, January 1996.]

Our Party as well as SUCI and PWP, besides CPI(M), RSP and Forward Bloc, were invited to attend the opening session of the CPI’s recently held Sixteenth Congress at Delhi and also to address its delegate session. The convergence of all these parties which together constitute the overwhelming majority of the left forces in India on a single platform gave rise to media speculation over their coming closer and some newspapers even reported a certain understanding that has supposedly evolved already among these parties. Responding to the queries of several correspondents and many comrades, I had to dispel this illusion and characterise the event just as a routine affair. I felt sorry for having to pour cold water on their enthusiasm but when the highly serious and complex matter of left unity is involved one perhaps cannot afford the luxury of playing with words.

Let us see how the whole question of left unity was addressed in the CPI’s congress. Readers are perhaps aware of the bitter polemics between CPI and CPI(M) on unity that often spills over into the bourgeois media. The CPI insists that the 1964 split was nothing fundamental and therefore was quite avoidable. On this premise, it calls for the merger of the two parties. CPI(M), on the other hand, reiterates fundamental differences of the 1964 split essentially on the characterisation of the Indian state and the Indian revolution which it claims remain valid even today. Hence, it demands a thorough revision of the CPI’s programme, and in the meantime, based on its superior strength and organisation, plans to split the CPI and win over its mass following. The CPI and CPI(M) also have certain differences on choosing their respective bourgeois allies in this or that state apart from different positions on regional autonomy movements in Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and the Northeast etc. Keeping in mind the CPI(M)’s allergy, the congress has decided to shelve the proposal of merger of the two parties for the present. "In the meantime", says the Organisational Report of CPI, "our Party ranks should not be allowed to be confused on this question as the CPI(M) has got its own intention." The report further stresses on the "Party’s independent identity and activity" and on highlighting the Party’s "principled stand on programmatic and organisational positions" vis-a-vis CPI(M)’s. Sheer instinct for survival has ultimately prevailed over the pious wishes of unity in a single party.

Moving on to the question of left unity, the congress placed the whole agenda in the immediate pragmatic context of the coming parliamentary elections, and as a consequence, the party congress which began with highsounding phrases of left unity ended with the electorally more viable resolve of unity with Mulayam Singh Yadav.

In a nutshell, the congress was nothing but an exercise at galvanising the Party for the coming parliamentary elections. Setting the tone in his inaugural speech, Comrade Indrajit Gupta said, "All those who are convinced that a left-democratic and secular government, based on a coalition of several parties with a minimum common programme, is not only desirable but realisable at the centre, should pool their resources and strive in a fraternal spirit for their electoral unity, which alone can bring about a change of power. Such a correlation of forces would be representative to the aspirations of the people, particularly to the poorer sections, and to the interests of the nation". Unfortunately for Comrade Gupta, no other left party except his own is convinced about this grand scheme.

However, this has hardly deterred the CPI congress from going through the laborious exercise of actually formulating the said programme which is said to be the minimum common one for all hues of the left, democratic and secular parties.

The range of democratic, and especially, secular parties is indeed the broadest. It extends upto Tiwari-Arjun Congress which is credited with "offering a principle challenge to the Prime Minister’s policies and style of functioning", as put by Comrade Gupta. The congress report self-critically laments having missed the bus in Uttar Pradesh by failing to align with the winning combination of SP-BSP in the last elections. It takes the state committees of Orissa and Manipur to task for federalism in ignoring the national council’s advice and backing the wrong horse. In contrast. Bihar and Andhra experiments are eulogised as the models of correct election tactics. Bihar committee is, however, criticised for insisting on contesting the Patna Lok Sabha by-election.

The party centre may still be concerned about the federalism of Tamil Nadu unit which continues to align with DMK. The stronger force in TN, however, is AIADMK and the political report hints that the Party is awaiting a favourable electoral strategy from it.

Now several of these so-called secular parties are running state governments and are actively pursuing the new economic policies. Naturally, they show little interest in any mass actions against the centre’s policies. Then again many of them have earned quite a notoriety in corruption scandals, in nurturing mafia-politician nexus, hobnobbing with casteist-communal and fundamentalist forces, and in perpetuating police atrocities on rural poor and dalit masses. The CPI congress report itself makes several critical references to these parties and their governments on similar counts.

How then does the CPI expect to unite them around a common minimum programme that stresses, among other things, withdrawal of all the repressive laws and ordinances, reform and overhauling of the police forces, all-out resistance to communal and fundamentalist forces, firm defence of the rights of SCs and STs, defence of the public sector, vigorous implementation of land ceiling laws, right to education and right to work, refusing tickets to persons with known criminal records, and unearthing black money etc.?

It goes without saying that if the CPI is true to the spirit of this minimum common programme, the broad range of the front will drastically narrow down as far as the number of parties, particularly strong parties capable of helping CPI to win a substantial number of seats, is concerned. It will, of course, expand the Party’s reach to the broadest range of people which, however, may not immediately deliver electoral fruits. The Party congress leaves no doubt so far as CPI’s priorities are concerned and therefore one is left with no other option but to conclude that the whole exercise of a minimum common programme is just an eyewash meant for public consumption. Fronts and alliances will continue to be made on the basis of seeking strong bourgeois allies who can deliver electoral bounties. That the Party in its quest for power may put its own minimum common programme into cold storage is evident from the concluding statement which says, "the minimum programme, when amplified, finalised and concretised, should correspond to the objective conditions and possibilities of the time." In other words, the minimum can still be minimised ad infinitum.

To proceed. One wonders where do we fit in into this grand scheme. The Report says, "A united Left within the NF-LF framework could have a galvanising effect on the election campaign and act as the cement and mortar of the ‘coalition’.

"It is therefore necessary that all efforts are made to persuade parties like SUCI, CPI(ML), Marxist Coordination Committee etc. to join hands with the CPI, CPI(M), FB and RSP in order to reinforce the position of the Left in the coming contest which will be crucial for the country’s future. They should be persuaded to give up their hostility to the Left Front government."

The whole exercise of left unity therefore boils down to the one-way traffic of ‘persuading’ us to operate within the NF-LF framework, obviously the framework as defined by CPI, and to give up ‘hostility’ to the LF government.

To say the least, this whole approach smacks of a big brotherly attitude which they have faithfully learnt from their past Soviet masters. There is absolutely no appreciation of our positions and no seeking of common points while recognising the differences, the only proper Marxist approach toward unity. The difference with the CPI(M)’s approach is merely the difference between ‘coercion’ and ‘persuasion’; we reject both the approaches with the scorn that they deserve.

What is this nonsensical talk about the ‘hostility’ towards the Left Front government? It may not be to their liking but we have a principled and historically evolved position of a revolutionary left opposition to the Left Front government. Differences on this score can only be resolved through principled polemics and in the course of political developments. No amount of persuasion by a benign big brother can resolve such matters. ‘Hostility’ does not define our relation with the CPI(M) and LF govt. as we have never hesitated to cooperate with the CPI(M) wherever and whenever possible. Even with regard to the LF govt., we have never hesitated to support it against Congress(I)-BJP machinations. Hostility bordering on hysteria is characteristic of CPI(M)’s approach towards us and CPI will serve the cause of left unity better if it applies its persuasive skills to CPI(M).

Comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik, while addressing the CPI’s congress, made it clear that left unity and parliamentary cretinism cannot go together.

We are of the firm opinion that, in the first place, the united Left should not bind itself to the NF-LF framework that is geared towards a coalition government at the centre. It should steer clear of any such government and at best offer a critical support to an anti-Congress anti-BJP formation. This implies putting pressure on such a government to implement a common programme of the Left to the maximum extent possible. The critical aspect must however be an active one and not a repeat performance of the Left’s role in 1989.

The form of unity of the Left at the present stage can only be in the nature of a confederation where individual parties are free to practice their own tactical lines in different states. The CPI is of course not wide off the mark when it insists that the 1964 split of CPI(M) leaders was avoidable. The way the two parties have been closely working together for 18 long years now, since 1977 — setting up coordination committees at all levels and following more or less similar tactical lines with occasional differences on choosing this or that partner in one state or the other or disputes over seats — much of the ‘fundamental’ is knocked out of the fundamental differences. Then with the CPI(M) usurping the CPI’s tradition of uncritically backing the formidable bourgeois allies like Mulayam Singh, Laloo Yadav or Chandrababu, both voicing in a similar pitch the chauvinistic rhetoric, both showing similar antipathy to the militant struggles of the rural poor and assiduously cultivating relations with the kulaks and striking right caste equations to snatch electoral victories — the merger between them is quite a logical proposition.
CPI(M) has already moved halfway ahead from its 1964 position of people’s democratic revolution under the leadership of the working class and is working for reforms jointly with the powerful segments of the bourgeoisie. CPI, on the other hand, has moved halfway back from its position of ushering in national democracy and socialism under the leadership of non-monopoly bourgeoisie as in the era of Soviet collapse and the new world order. Nehru and his brand of socialism have become irrelevant and hence, there are no takers for this theory.

CPI and CPI(M) may or may not move towards a merger but the historical relevance of the 1964 split would never be lost because one should not forget that revolutionary communists too were a powerful segment of the 1964 split which reached its true culmination in 1967.

The million dollar question, however, is how united is the CPI itself? Just prior to the congress, Comrade Chaturanan Mishra, a senior CPI theoretician, in one of his controversial articles wrote that India needs foreign help to become a strong economic power whereas USA and other developed countries want the Indian market. Hence, "this is the meeting ground and not the surrender of India to world imperialism." He went on, "Indian state still fighting foreign pressure as reflected in non-aligned nations’ meet in Delhi against social clause to be linked with foreign trade… In Marrakesh, India played an oppositional role at the time of the golden jubilee of the WB and IMF. India resists US pressure on the question of NPT and missiles… An impression is gaining ground that under the present government India too is succumbing to foreign pressure. In fact, there are many areas where India finds it difficult to resist foreign pressure."

The CPI congress has rejected this unabashed defence of the Narasimha Rao government and that is the positive side of the Congress preventing Party’s slide-back to the Congress(I) fold. But at what cost only the future will tell.

Sometime in 1993, a top CPI leader in a satirical tone asked me for the reasons behind the defection of some of our MLAs in Bihar. I replied that personal gains plus the social polarisation of backwards towards JD might have motivated the ideologically weak elements to make the switchover. I emphasised that our Party’s leading body in Bihar remains intact and none of these MLAs were Party functionaries of any consequence. He remained dissatisfied and told me "How can personal gains deviate communists, look at our MLAs". He asked me to probe deeper. I preferred to keep silent. Ironically, the very next day newspapers reported that CPI’s Uttar Pradesh State Secretary, who was also an MLA, crossed over to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s fold. Soon another MLA followed suit. I was, therefore, eagerly awaiting a deeper probe into the phenomenon in CPI’s congress report. The report informs us that they defected due to reasons of personal gain. Then the report goes on to generalise that such defections are nothing exclusive to CPI, they took place in many other political parties. Some secular parties are also splitting up. "This phenomenon can be understood in the background of the political flux that is taking place in the political parties as a whole." Fine indeed, but why in a communist party like yours? Is there no social rationale behind the political flux? The congress report has indeed talked about combating the influence of caste ideology etc. within the party but with a blunt refusal to make the distinction between the creamy layer and the rest among backwards hasn’t the Party capitulated to the very caste ideology of the Lohiaites? My enquiry remained unanswered. And how is the Party planning to avert such defections? Well, the most important lesson it has taken in UP has been its failure to align with Mulayam Singh. The moral one draws is this: to prevent the defection of a few, let the whole Party defect! Didn’t the recipe work quite well in Bihar?

[Speech at the Adhikar rally in New Delhi on 8 March 1996. From Liberation, April 1996.]

Comrades,

As far as I can see, I see only red flags. It is said that people create history and you have indeed done it here.

We had claimed that this rally would break the record, that this will be the largest-ever rally held by the Left, and you have proved it true. Breaking all the earlier records of this decade, you have created a new history here. (applause) Indeed the record set by today’s rally would be broken one day in coming years, but I can confidently assert that it will be broken by none other than the CPI(ML) itself. (applause)

Friends, we had appealed to you to surmount all difficulties to reach Delhi, and we witnessed that our comrades, and even a large number of people from the ranks of other left parties also, reached here in response to our call. For this rally we had a dialogue with left intellectuals, we asked support or help from all the democratic-minded people, and I saw that a great number of Left as well as democratic intellectuals came up with all kinds of help in organising the rally. It is due the contribution from you all that this mammoth rally of today became possible.

We hold that today our country is standing at a specific juncture, at a particular crossroads, from where it is looking for a new path. Perhaps, today is the last day of this Parliament, and on this day, people in their lakhs have come here — workers and peasants from all over the country marching on the streets of Delhi. They have thrown up a big question before this Parliament: what business has this Parliament conducted during the past five years? What have these so-called elected representatives in the Parliament done so far? This is a question to which this Parliament doesn’t have an answer. We have witnessed that during the past five years a minority government became a majority government by means of purchasing MPs from other parties. We also saw that a major section of ministers in this government got entangled in the hawala case; there are chargesheets against them and some of them are even behind the bars at present.

Friends, a question naturally arises: how can a Prime Minister, whose whole cabinet is involved in this corruption scam, be considered an honest person? Consequently, while the investigations are being conducted, our Party raised the demand that investigations by the CBI should be directed against the real ringleader. Well, investigations are being conducted against all others but why was the ringleader of this whole corrupt cabinet left out? The same demand has been raised here in this rally. Of course, I would congratulate Rao Sahib for one thing: when he saw his star going under the clouds, he said, I would get drowned but will take you all along with me too. (applause) Thus we have seen that all the established political parties — ruling class parties — got trapped in it; today it is being said that all are naked in the bath-house (hammam mein sab nange hain). Therefore, a new challenge has come up before our nation: which course will be taken by our country in this situation? I think today our country needs a new path and new forces; we are to shake off the burden of all these old forces from our heads, throw it into the dustbin; the new forces in India have to redouble their initiative to take hold of the reins of the country in their hands. And it is for this purpose that our Party has held this rally. The heightened scale of support we saw towards this rally proves, I must say, that our country desires to march ahead along the new path. Now it is our responsibility, the responsibility of the Left, to provide leadership to the people of the country.

Comrades, talks of many an alternative against this challenge are coming up. In the past few months we saw people saying that some honest bureaucrats would perhaps bring revolution in India. However, as you have seen it yourself, it is not possible. In the history of no country have the bureaucrats brought the revolution. Revolutionary change has always been brought about by defeating these bureaucrats. Then, some people started saying the Supreme Court will probably bring the change in India. The Supreme Court has taken some initiatives in Hawala or in other cases of corruption, and we certainly welcome it. But some questions still remain unanswered. In the recent past this very Supreme Court has given a verdict regarding Hindutva. During his election campaign, the Maharashtra Chief Minister had openly proclaimed that if they come to power Maharashtra will become the first Hindu state. During the court hearings everybody thought Manohar Joshi would lose his seat, and BJP-Shiv Sena even decided on a new chief minister. But, to the surprise of all, the Supreme Court instead came up with newer definitions of Hindutva and did not annul his election. And then in the telecom scam, when the whole session of the parliament had to be adjourned, when a great scandal was coming to surface, we witnessed with great surprise that when this issue was brought to the Supreme Court, a decision was given in a big hurry. Whereas normally such cases are heard there for a considerably longer period, in this hurried judgment, Sukh Ram was fully exonerated from the scam, and many a logic was put forward in favour of the Government’s telecom policy, in favour of privatisation etc. Therefore, I think, the view that revolutionary change in our country can be brought by the Supreme Court judgments is just a middle class dream, it can never be the ground reality. If there are forces which can bring revolutionary change in our country, they are workers and peasants, the teeming millions who have marched today on the streets of Delhi. They are the only forces who can bring revolution in our country (applause).

Comrades, today our ruling classes have got entangled in an acute crisis, and all sorts of issues are being raised in order to get rid of that crisis. BJP has once again decided to highlight the issue of Hindutva. Talks of war against Pakistan are being aired once again, tensions are being built up. I’d like to tell BJP: you have no monopoly over patriotism. We communists love our country and will remain in the forefront of the forces fighting for the freedom of the country, for its sovereignty. We’ll offer sacrifices to this cause more than any other force. (applause) We have known these Janasanghis from the very beginning; it is commonly known that they are American agents. Recently, the CIA has come out with an assessment that India will soon disintegrate. This is what the CIA is dreaming of, the Americans are dreaming of. We hold that if there is a plot to divide India and if there is any party implementing it, it is none other than the BJP. The way it is dividing the hearts of Indians with the slogans of Hindutva, the way it is dividing Hindus and Muslims, will eventually lead, one day, to the division of our country. Therefore I’d say that in the name of patriotism, these forces in reality are trying to divide the country once again under the instructions from the CIA. We must frustrate these attempts.

Friends, on the question of alternatives, there are talks of a third front. We have already said that we would like to forge friendship with all the left and democratic forces. But I must point out here that the Mandalite forces of social justice have reached their limits of progressivism. In recent times, in UP, under the rule of Mulayam Singh, the Uttarakhandi processionists were fired at in Muzaffarnagar, their women were raped. In this regard, Mulayam Singh at first issued the statement that all this was a lie and mere propaganda to bring down the morale of the police. In our country, as it becomes necessary to keep up the morale of the police, they are given the freedom to rape! This is the politics of the ruling classes. Later, when pressure was mounted in this matter, Mulayam Singh said that if the incident was proved he would apologise before the whole nation. The fact has now been proved but Mulayam Singh has not apologised before the nation, he has apologised only before the people of Uttarakhand. We hold that before taking any step of friendship it is imperative that he apologises before the whole nation for what happened at Muzaffarnagar, as it was his promise and our consistent demand as well.

Comrades, as regards the other big force that constitutes this third front, i.e., Laloo Yadav and his Janata Dal, the picture that has been projected before the country through the press, is not the truth of Bihar. If you go to Bihar and see for yourself what has taken place in the name of social justice: the creamy layer of backwards has also become a party to the plunder so far monopolised by the creamy layer of Savarnas. Today the animal husbandry scam is being talked about. The two persons involved in it are Jagannath Mishra and Laloo Yadav, and both are working overtime to protect each other.

Comrades, I want to tell you that there is an MLA belonging to our Party in Bihar, an elected representative of the people, a leader popular among the masses, and he has been incarcerated for the past six months. In Bihar, where numerous cases have been instituted against thousands of our comrades who are in the thick of mass movements fighting against feudal forces, we find that the government administration is invariably in alliance with those very feudal forces. At regular intervals massacres are taking place there, big incidents are taking place, but the administration has turned a blind eye to all this. And thousands of our comrades are either behind the bars, or warrants have been issued against them. They hope that through this repression they will uproot the CPI(ML) from the soil of Bihar. But look at the reality. I have repeatedly said that, and once again I repeat here: so far the bullet has not been manufactured, nor the gun has been assembled with which CPI(ML) can be uprooted from the soil. (applause) Nor have such notes been printed by which CPI(ML) leaders can be purchased. Comrades, we are alive, we are marching ahead! Thousands of our people have been killed, thousands have been put behind the bars, cases have been instituted against several more thousands, but despite all this, our movement and our strength are constantly increasing. And those parties who thought that trailing behind Laloo Yadav and his party would help them in gaining strength have been wiped out at the roots. (applause)

Well, friends, we certainly want the third front to take shape, we want all the progressive and democratic forces to join hands, but for that, first of all, we should look towards the masses, towards the forces of workers and peasants. Strength does not lie with a Mulayam or a Laloo or a Jayalalitha, it lies with the common people, with the workers and peasants; and we can march ahead on the basis of these forces. But first of all we must have the courage, only with that courage can we find out our friends to whom we can provide leadership, we would not have to tail behind them. Comrades, we hold that in politics we are compelled to make various kinds of compromises, we can forge friendship with this or that force here and there on this or that issue or for a short time even on national level we can forge a front with other democratic forces. I would like to proclaim that we do not believe in any kind of permanent front, we do not concur with the concept of a so-called secular alternative, the concept that asks for forging a permanent type of third front for all time, to be led by NF type of forces. We are not for any such permanent front for advancing the forces of left and democracy, for advancing the democratic movements. Surely we can forge front with this or that force for a short time but we cannot bind ourselves to a particular front permanently because this is a revolutionary politics. (applause).

Friends, a great challenge lies before us. We have appealed to our left friends throughout India: come, despite all the differences let us try to march in step. We would like to clarify that the CPI(ML) was born precisely to finish off the opportunism that had cropped up in the Indian left movement, and CPI(ML) can never compromise on this question. It is a basic question and if CPI(ML) compromises on this question, if it compromises with opportunism, it compromises the movement itself and there would be no need for CPI(ML) to exist. If someone thinks that any amount of pressure or big brother’s diktat would work in this regard, would divert our Party from its revolutionary goal and objective, all I can say is that he is living in a fools’ paradise. (applause) Of course, despite all the basic differences, we can work jointly on all the important issues before the country. On the Platform of Mass Organisations we have been working jointly for the past five years, and despite all the differences we can march jointly in the sphere of politics as well by raising political issues at the national level. To this end our Party will consistently endeavour — an effort we have been making for the past eight years and we shall carry on this effort for the coming eight or ten years. We have said that we will forge friendship and work jointly with all the currents of the left: whether they are comrades from CPI or CPI(M), or they are other people who have emerged from the Naxalbari stream, we will fight together on common issues. On this score our Party does not follow any sectarian approach. This has been proved by our participation in the Platform of Mass Organisations.

Of course, there will remain some basic differences. We are told to stop criticising Left Front Government in West Bengal. We would like to tell you all, particularly the enlightened people of Delhi sitting here, that in Bengal during the Congress regime of Siddhartha Sankar Ray, thousands of youth were killed in encounters — in cold blood. Leaders of our party like Comrades Saroj Datta and Charu Majumdar were also murdered in cold blood. Now the Left Front is ruling there for 18 long years, and they say it proudly that they have been ruling for 18 years. Well, you have ruled for 18 years and if you like it you may go on ruling for 88 years, we have no worries on that score. But we have one question. In the decade of the 1970s these massacres took place and your party has also accepted that these massacres did take place, that there was a fascist rule in those days. I just want to know whether during these 18 years of Left Front regime a single person responsible for these massacres has been sentenced for a single day? I want to know why the matter of investigation into the death of Saroj Datta, who was not only a leader of our Party but a distinguished intellectual known throughout Bengal, has been kept in abeyance? Even a memorandum containing signatures of ten thousand Bengali intellectuals was presented to Jyoti Basu, asking him to order the investigation, but till date nothing has been done in this regard. Now we raise these questions, which are not against CPI(M), these questions pertain to the future of democratic movement as a whole because those dark forces of Congress are raising their heads once again in West Bengal, once again Siddhartha Sankar Ray is back to Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee is gaining popularity there among the masses. Therefore we say, you have not punished a single person during 18 years of your rule, and it is the result of this that today these dark forces are once again striving to stage a comeback. So friends, we will keep on raising this demand, because this is in the interest of the left and democratic movement. It is not just for opposing this or that party, nor against this or that government. It is for the sake of democracy; this is why we talk of democratic revolution. The CPI(ML) will never leave aside even a single demand that is there for democracy, any demand on which the issue of democracy can be carried forward. We never care for whether we will get any seats, or our people will win or lose in the elections. (applause)

Comrades, today you have come to the Lal Qila. The dream of hoisting the red flag over the Lal Qila has been the long-cherished dream of Indian communists. This Lal Qila is the historic place from where in 1857 the bugle of the freedom struggle was blown — this is the same Lal Qila. Today, on the one hand, our country is being sold out to the foreign multinational companies and, on the other, within the country all the forces of hawala are selling out the country to moneybags and mafia. Previously we used to talk about MPs selling themselves to Tata and Birla, but today these MPs are selling themselves to any petty thug like Harshad Mehta whom nobody knew of before. Therefore comrades, once again we have to fight a battle for freedom of our country, communists will have to hold high the banner of patriotism. This is our responsibility. The battle that began in 1857 is still unfinished, it is continuing and we are to carry its banner. It is our duty and I would appeal to all the intellectuals, all the progressive intellectuals who are involved in various kinds of movements, that at this hour of crisis before the nation you should not limit yourself to only individual issues or movements. You all are quite worthy and competent and it is the need of the hour that all the honest intellectuals, all the honest people of the country, should join forces, come closer and proclaim: this country doesn’t belong to you moneybags, to you mafia or capitalists, or to you corrupt leaders; this country belongs to the workers, to the peasants, and to the intellectuals; this is our country, and we must have the right over this country. The reins of this country should be in our hands.

Comrades, you will have to fight this battle. You have come from fields and factories and after returning there you will have to plunge into struggles once again. Particularly, I would tell this to the comrades from Bhojpur who have reached here fighting courageously against all odds. Grenades were thrown at them. In Bhojpur, the struggle is very sharp. Within a month or so 12 people have been killed by feudal forces. Returning there you people will have to devote yourselves once again to the struggle, to carry forward mass struggles. But from this rally you must take the oath to rebut these feudal forces, to smash them, to wipe out the Ranvir Sena. (applause) Comrades, I would say that this is the message of the rally for the struggling peasants in Bihar. These feudal forces are a stigma on the whole country, they are posing hurdles in the path of social development, and they massacre common poor and innocent people. You are to stand courageously countering these forces.

And as elections are forthcoming, they may be declared any day. In these elections there is a great opportunity before you. Today most of the political parties stand exposed, their faces have been unmasked before the people, this is an opportunity before you to go to the people and tell them about the whole system, explain to them the character of all political parties and tell them that today our country has to march on a new path. And on that new path no other party than CPI(ML) can lead the people. Comrades, I am fully and firmly confident about it and I would repeat that after a few years we will again meet at this Lal Quila ground at Delhi, once again to break the record set by this rally.

Once again we shall meet here.

Inquilab Zindabad!

[ Interview by Ramji Rai, Editor of Lokyuddh. From Liberation, June 1996.]

How do you assess the present political situation?

The present political situation has demolished many myths. In the scramble for power, the BJP in an effort to manipulate a majority, sidelined all the issues that go to make up its specific identity. On the other hand, many would not have expected the pace and the ease with which the JD and the Left have established coexistence with Narasimha Rao’s Congress(I) and its direction of economic reform.

The emergence of BJP as the largest political party and the emergence of a common understanding among centrists, leftists, regional parties and Congress(I) for ‘secularism and economic reforms’, is a new juncture in Indian politics. At this juncture, the agenda of social justice has to be redefined and we have to rebuild the third force anew.

No political party could get a clear mandate in the parliamentary elections to form a government. Does this indicates some crisis of the ruling classes or its democratic vitality?

We communists have always been pointing to India’s multinational, multilingual and hence multidimensional cultural diversity as against the BJP’s Indian nationalism with Hindutva as its essential thread. National unity should be built on the progressive ideology of anti-imperialism, democracy and a modern state and not on archaic Brahminical values. The failure of BJP to gather majority in spite of presenting a moderate face and also the composition of the present Indian parliament confirms our understanding of Indian society.

Of course, there is a crisis. After the decline of Congress(I), we have witnessed the limits of the other centralised all-India political formations. Indian society may be a ‘great coalition’ but to translate it into a stable political coalition is a tough job, especially when there is no strong nucleus at its centre.

To get out of this dual problem, the process of experimentation shall continue and it is to be seen how long and how far can the institutions of parliamentary democracy bear it.

Political analysts and most of the bourgeois political parties are looking at this situation as the beginning of a new era of coalition governments and are modifying their tactics to suit these conditions. Does it not appear to you that Indian politics is going to pass through a phase of coalition governments for a long time to come?

There were talks of the phases of coalition governments in 1977 and ’89 too but those proved to be shortlived. This time the number of parties in the coalition governments is quite high but its largest constituent has only 42 seats. The BJP and Congress(I) are still the first and second largest parties and ironically both of them are outside the government, the former as an opposition, and the latter as a supporter of the government from outside. Both are pursuing the tactics of utilising the contradictions and splits in the United Front government to their benefit. That is why, to say that this experiment of coalition government will decide the general direction for the future, would be too premature a conclusion.

The CPI(ML) has commended the CPI(M) for not participating in the coalition government. But they have just followed their old policy, there is nothing new in it. So, why did tou congratulate them?

The pressure on CPI(M) to participate in the government was much more this time, and, as is known, one section of the leadership had already made up its mind to participate in the government. In such a situation, CPI(M)’s Central Committee’s decision to firmly stand by the party programme is indeed important. At the political level, the logical culmination of the straight line of ‘secular alternative’ can only be joining the government. On similar pretexts, CPI had in the past joined even the Congress(I) governments. The decision of the CPI(M) central committee acted as a brake against floating with the current. You might have seen that while CPI called this decision unfortunate, we welcomed it.

But many questions emerge after this decision, on which the CPI(M) has to clarify its position. For example, last time while getting into an understanding with the NF, LF had maintained its separate independent identity, but this time CPI(M) and other left parties have become constituents of the United Front. And since the government is of the UF, even without participation in it you will be equally responsible for the omissions and commissions of the government. The decision of the CPI to participate in the government has threatened the very existence of LF as a united bloc. Even more, Deve Gowda has been an ardent admirer of Narasimha Rao’s economic policies. From the very beginning the Congress(I) has been making the question of continuation of the economic policies the main condition for its support. Deve Gowda becoming the prime minister and Chidambaram the finance minister amounts to capitulating before this conditionality. The irony is that the Congress(I), though remaining outside, is pulling the strings of the government but the CPI(M), in spite of being a UF constituent, is unable to determine the direction of the government.

This very contradiction of the CPI(M)’s position is increasing the outside pressure on it to reconsider its decision on joining the government and, on the other hand, the internal demand to give critical support to the government by staying out of it is also gaining ground. We will welcome any such decision of the CPI(M) that maintains a distance with the Congress(I) along with the BJP.

Even this time the CPI(ML) failed to join any united front. Is this an indication of the failure of the Party’s united front policies or one of its drawbacks, or the inadequate development of a situation conducive to its policies? Do you feel the need for a rethinking on your united front policies?

Even now, considering the level at which we are working the main thrust is on building our strength. At the social level, our effort to build a united front with various classes and sections of the masses is continuing. This is a long drawn process and has no alternatives.

At the national level we have always identified ourselves with the camp of anti-Congress and anti-BJP third force and have always participated in joint actions. But at the organisational level, tying ourselves with any front will blunt our initiatives in various states and may prove suicidal for the Party. Even then we are continuously trying to develop tactics to properly utilise every division among and within our opponents to our favour, and in this respect, a scope for serious discussion is definitely there.

A front with any of the left or centrist forces could not be made. Even where the social bases are concerned, no success has been attained at forging a front with any section of the middle castes or middle class. How do you see this? What is your future strategy regarding this?

We did get support from some sections of the middle castes and middle classes, or else our progress in the three seats in Bihar, where we have polled more than one lakh votes each, would not have been possible. In these elections we laid emphasis on strengthening our class base. This was necessary due to the inroads being made by Janata Dal into our support base.

In the light of the jolt received by JD, certainly a conducive condition has been created to expand our influence among the middle castes and we have taken the decision to take up this task in a planned manner.

What kind of role does the current situation demand from the Left Front today? Will left forces be able to advance unitedly in this direction?

Left leaders must do away with their role of brokers between the centrist forces and the Congress(I) and raise their voice against communalism and the foreign-capital-based economic development. In Parliament, they should adopt the role of left opposition, demarcating themselves from the United Front. This is the feeling of the left cadres too. Whether the leadership of the left forces will unitedly proceed in this direction, only time can tell.

[This article, translated from Bengali, first appeared in the October 1996 special issue of Deshbrati.]

At the time of writing this article, a significant change has taken place in the Congress Party. Sitaram Kesri has replaced Narasimha Rao as the Congress president. It is not yet clear what implications this change will have on the reunification of the Congress. From Arjun Singh to VP Singh, all are talking of returning to the fold of the party. To what extent the existence of the Deve Gowda government is dependent on the changes in the internal politics of Congress can be understood from the fact that as soon as he heard the news of Narasimha Rao’s resignation, the Prime Minister rushed to his house and talked to him without aides for 45 minutes. According to newspapers, it was the 24th time that Deve Gowda met Rao in his house during the span of three and a half months of his tenure.

All eyes are set on the outcome of UP elections. Although Mulayam has been successful in getting a governor of his choice appointed to the state with a view to extract advantage in the event of a hung assembly, his defeat may usher in a crisis for the UF government as well. To put it differently, its dependence on the Congress would increase, and even the question of direct participation of Congress in the government may well arise. In all likelihood, the resignation of Rao has paved the way for that possibility. Given the situation, what will be the tactics of the Left? Maybe we shall soon face this question. However, for the time being we would limit ourselves to dealing with the attitudes of different leftist streams towards the present UF government.

Why this debate within the Left?

In the last Lok Sabha elections, none of the three main forces could attain majority. Besides, several regional parties and small political parties taken together, bagged a considerable number of seats in Parliament. In a hung Parliament, after the 13-day wonder of the BJP government had faded out, another novel phenomenon appeared on the scene. The United Front of 13 parties formed a government with the support of the Congress and, most unexpectedly, Deve Gowda became the new prime minister. On the question of participation in this government, difference of opinion was witnessed among the left parties, and moreover, debates also started within the parties as well. This debate assumed most intense proportions within the CPI(M), and then in the entire left movement, centring on the decision made by the CPI(M).

Here one must keep it in mind that the basic factor giving rise to the debate is the participation of CPI and CPI(M) in the United Front. In 1989 they were not part of the National Front, and the Left Front had a separate existence. It was the NF which had formed the government and the LF and BJP had supported it from outside, in the same way as, one can say, today Congress is supporting the United Front government. Although the CPI(M) theoreticians often portray their support at par with that of the Congress from outside, it is nothing but a half-truth. The independent existence and integral entity of the Left Front has been sacrificed at the altar of the United Front by joining it. The attempt to erect a Chinese Wall between the United Front and its Government is just a clever exercise in playing with words. You are an integral part of the government; the difference may only lie in direct or indirect participation. You are an important constituent of the United Front, yet you talk of supporting its government from outside! This is evidently self-contradictory. Just because the self-contradiction is so manifest, the CPI(M)’s decision not to join the government seemed quite unnatural and irrational to the people, and even the party’s central leadership stood divided on this question.

The CPI, without any delay, arrived at a decision to join the government. Some sort of opposition was of course there, but that was insignificant. After 1967, the CPI did join several non-Congress governments, and in the latter period even formed a coalition government with the Congress in Kerala. They have extended support to various Congress governments at the Centre, the height of which was their support to the Indira Government at the Centre during Emergency. Their supporting Emergency was the climax of the CPI’s line of transition to national democracy and socialism under the leadership of the ‘progressive section’ of the bourgeoisie. After making self-criticism in its Bhatinda Congress, however, the CPI washed off this stigma and adopted the line of maintaining a distance from the Congress. It is from then onwards that the relations between CPI and CPI(M) started improving. Between 1977 to 1996, the political cycle has completed a full circle and the CPI has again joined a non-Congress government — and that too at the Centre — a government which sustains precisely on the support of the Congress. However, this time the CPI(M) is not able to launch any forceful protest; on the contrary, it is itself divided on this question. The CPI theoreticians regard this as a victory of their line of national democracy. In a show of rare enthusiasm, Chaturanan babu asked the CPI(M) to re-evaluate their assessment of the Congress.

In the past, the CPI(M) has supported several policies of the Congress, a number of times it has also supported the Congress candidates for presidentship, and saved the previous Congress government at crucial junctures; nevertheless it never went into any formal relationship with the Congress. It supported the Janata government in 1977 in the context of anti-Congressism, although the then Bharatiya Jan Sangh was an integral part of it. Of course, its dubious role in toppling the Morarji government triggered a debate inside the party popularly known as the ‘July Crisis’. It also supported the National Front government in 1989 side by side with the the BJP to keep the Congress away from power. However, this is the first time that the CPI(M) is caught on the horns of a dilemma, because it has to support a non-Congress government which is itself critically dependent on Congress support for its survival.

The CPI(M) had hoped that Congress(T) or other rebel factions of Congress would bag a considerable number of seats and therefore the support of Rao Congress would not be required. However, in reality this did not happen. Even after the declaration of election results, Comrade Surjeet hoped that a major split would take place within the Congress and in that case branding these rebels as progressive sections of the Congress, a majority could be attained with the help of their support. But that too was not to happen. Ultimately, Deve Gowda had to plead in Rao’s court. Now the whole propaganda machinery of CPI(M) is busy brainwashing the rank and file, putting it in their heads that the Congress had no alternative but to support this government, that they have supported it unconditionally, and of course, on their own, that the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) has rejected the economic policies of Rao’s Congress government, etc. etc. In order to prove their political chastity their magazines are nowadays full of such subjective analyses.

However, truth was revealed by none other than Mr.VP Singh, the most far-sighted bourgeois visionary in present-day Indian politics, when he claimed that a new phase of cooperation between the United Front and Congress has begun. He also said in very clear terms that irrespective of whatever one says, an unwritten national consensus has developed around the new economic policy. Deve Gowda’s statements supporting the new economic policy have been known to all for quite some time, and by no way was it an accident that Chidambaram, who had been personally involved in formulating the economic policy of Rao government, was made the new finance minister of India. We will return to this matter a little later.

Why did CPI(M) Not Join the Government?

Immediately after joining the United Front, as its natural corollary, pressure began mounting on CPI(M) to join the government and this reached to an extreme when Jyoti babu became the consensus candidate for the post of prime minister. The Party’s rank and file, its intellectual sympathisers and so many left-oriented people could not find any rationale behind losing this golden opportunity. The logic behind staying out of the government could not be digested by them because, firstly, the CPI(M) was already a constituent of United Front; secondly, they were getting the post of prime minister, so they could play a major role in policy formulation, and thirdly, every constituent in the 13-party United Front was in a minority, rather the left bloc of 55 MPs was the largest among them. Therefore, the traditional logic that they would not participate in the government if they were in a minority, and consequently not in the principal role in policy formulation, was irrelevant in this context.

This situation quite naturally intensified the division in the leadership and later it was known that the decision to stay out of the government was carried only by a margin of few votes. The logic behind not joining the government is understandable if the question were about the extreme dependence of this government on Rao Congress and consequently the compulsion of carrying on with the new economic policy, but in that case there is a question mark on the relevance of the United Front government itself. However, when the CPI(M) leadership is incessantly claiming that support by the Congress is unconditional, that they are forced because they have no alternative, and that the CMP has rejected the new economic policy of the erstwhile government, then the logic behind the CPI(M) staying out of the government is really beyond one’s comprehension. The points of debate in the party central committee have still not come out in the open, probably they will in the next party congress. We will, however, deal here with an opinion that disapproves participation in the government.

Explaining the rationale behind not joining the government, a well-known intellectual has written that had Jyoti Basu become the prime minister the fascist forces in their rage would have started a country-wide counter-revolution, the whole capitalist class would have gone on nation-wide strikes, and given the nature of the state power, it would have only sided with them. As because the necessary strength — including armed people’s militia — to face such an onslaught is not there with the CPI(M), there is no point in stirring the fascists’ nest. Well, such explanations only suit arm-chair academicians. Jyoti babu has been there as chief minister of West Bengal for 20 long years, never did we see any counter-revolution taking place there, on the contrary, the native and foreign capitalists have been proffering Jyoti Basu the character certificate of a ‘gentleman communist’. To put it squarely, the consensus on Jyoti Basu’s name was there not because of his revolutionary image, rather it was precisely because of his liberal image which is reasonably acceptable to the establishment. The same intellectual wizard has also asked as to what Jyoti Basu could possibly do by becoming the prime minister if he had to offer ministerial posts to so many thieves and thugs of the United Front, rather it would have only tarnished the image of CPI(M). But has not the CPI(M) for quite long time been sharing the same shed with these very persons and even hailing them as great democrats and even revolutionaries; and does not Basu have to face many such problems in the West Bengal government too with such ministers? How could CPI(M) get away from this infamy while remaining in the United Front?

The Centrist Position of Namboodiripad

It is learnt that ultimately the intervention by veteran leader EMS Namboodiripad became decisive in arriving at the Central Committee decision. From his recent articles in People’s Democracy and elsewhere, we can understand CPI(M)’s attitude on different questions and also the debate that is going on inside the party.

He has propped up his arguments on the basis of the twin premises of the united front policy of the Communist International and the line of the 1951 party congress to unseat the Congress government from power.

He holds that the present United Front is specific Indian experiment of the Communist International policy of united front of the working class with the forward-looking bourgeoisie. In his opinion, the United Front has been built up by two components: one, sections of secular and democratic parties who are, in class terms, representatives of progressive bourgeoisie; and two, the leftist and left-leaning parties who represent workers-peasants-toiling people. He does talk of a delicate balance between the two components; he has also mentioned a tug-of-war, and then expressed some doubts regarding the stability of the Front. However, in the euphoria over the United Front, this aspect has not been allotted much importance in his thesis. EMS informs us that on the question of new economic policy of the Rao government there was some vacillation within the Front but it was seriously thrashed out and only after rejecting that economic policy was the CMP formulated on the basis of consensus. Well, one will be tempted to conclude that now onwards the struggle will centre on ensuring that no deviation takes place from the CMP. But here is a catch. In the following line EMS informs us that the CMP still contains ‘within itself’ the remnants of anti-people and anti-national policies of the erstwhile Rao government. How strange! How come there was a consensus in that case? Did you make a compromise on the matter of principle? Or else, are those anti-people and anti-national policies part of your own programme too? In case you hold that in the concrete situation prevailing today this limitation of a democratic programme is unavoidable, then why don’t you have the political courage to say that clearly, and to defend the programme in its entirety? On the one hand, you are owning the programme as common, and on the other, you are terming some part of it as anti-people and anti-national; is it not a clear case of self-contradiction? It is in this self-contradiction that the content of CPI(M)’s political opportunism is hidden. Right from VP Singh to Deve Gowda to Narasimha Rao, all are talking of a consensus on the NEP and it is known to all that the basic orientation of CMP favours this policy, whatever little changes or reforms that have been made there are precisely in order to provide a human mask to the same policy. In no case do the representatives of the bourgeoisie in the United Front government represent the non-monopoly bourgeoisie against big monopoly bourgeoisie, nor has there been a split within the bourgeoisie along progressive and reactionary lines.

Whatever you may call them, forward-looking or progressive, the leadership of the United Front rests in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the motive force of which is the new economic policy of the big bourgeoisie. The fact that the left partners are capable of doing there nothing save raising a hue and cry on some trivial questions has by this time become evident on a number of occasions. EMS had better also mention there that the Communist International had repudiated joining such fronts or governments terming the same as class collaboration.

Moreover, EMS has described the United Front as a necessary phase for the evolution of people’s democratic unity. How would this transition be realised? In his own words, "Broad unity and fraternal struggle among the two contingents of the United Front and the Government will continually promote and strengthen the independent position of workers and peasants. This will in turn gradually develop proletarian hegemony. This is the process through which the present unity of left, secular and democratic forces will transform into people’s democratic unity."
Describing such a United Front — which is a product of sheer political exigency, which has come into existence not through any democratic movement (better not to forget that in the course of movement against new economic policy we leftists never received any help whatsoever from any of these forces), and which is of a very transitory nature and it is not sure where its various constituents will take shelter in the face of a bourgeois offensive — and its government as the precursor to and indispensable stage for people’s democratic front, is nothing but a shameless distortion of the revolutionary theory of Marxism. More importantly, EMS is viewing this transition as something like a straight line, a smooth process of broad unity and fraternal struggle, where there are no ruptures in the backdrop of intensifying class struggles, no sharp conflicts with the proletariat on the question of leadership. It all seems very much like an echo of the Khruschevite thesis of peaceful transition, of course presented in Gramscian language of accumulation of proletarian hegemony etc. Such liberal and meaningless phrases become the norm in a party where revolution becomes a proscribed word.

Mentioning the 1951 party line, EMS says that there it was decided to unseat the Congress from power through elections (here he describes as supplementary the mention of non-parliamentary struggle in 1951 line), therefore the principled position of CPI(M) has been: "while it is eager to replace Congress by another bourgeois government, it cannot participate in a government in which it is a microscopic minority."

According to EMS, CPI’s policy is class-collaborationist because "they are for joining the government even if they are in a microscopic minority."

Therefore, the difference here is not on the question of participation in a bourgeois government, not even on whether you are in a majority or a minority, but on whether the minority is microscopic or substantial. In the Marxist-Leninist principle mentioned by EMS himself, there is a provision for supporting a bourgeois government, but not for joining it. However, by introducing the category of microscopic minority he has brought down the difference between CPI and CPI(M) to a question of mere degree. When the government belongs to the bourgeoisie, it is but natural that communists there can only be in minority. Nonetheless if this minority is not just microscopic but a substantial one, EMS has no objection to join a bourgeois government.

From the above one can get an idea of EMS’s traditional centrist position between the two conflicting sides within the Central Committee, and moreover, it can also be understood how this position has for the time being succeeded in effecting a unity in the CC.

Thus, by introducing the concept of absence of substantial minority between the two opposite views -- not joining the bourgeois government supported by Congress versus joining the government and getting the post of prime minister on the basis of left being the largest bloc — EMS has on the one hand rejected the thesis of not joining the government, and on the other, also rejected the practicability of joining it. As the matter is just of difference in degree of minority, this time there is no such sharpness in the debate between the CPI and the CPI(M). Even the gentleman’s agreement between the two sides is worth noticing. Also worth noticing are a few statements by EMS:
"For the first time in the country’s history a united front of former Congressmen and communists has formed the government which is working on the basis of CMP."

"While all the 13 constituents of the UF are committed to defend this government against all attacks from wherever they come, and while one of the four left parties (CPI) has even joined the government, the three other left parties including the CPI(M) have opted out to support the government from outside."

Here it would be worth mentioning that EMS has repeatedly described UF as a united front of communists and erstwhile Congressmen. In his article which appeared in The Times of India, he has termed ex-Congressmen right from Acharya Kripalani, as true disciples of Gandhi and from there he has traced the legacy of cooperation between communists and the ex-Congressmen or true Gandhians. According to his analysis, today the true disciple of Gandhi bearing that legacy is Deve Gowda, and the United Front government symbolises the best of leftist and Gandhian legacy. While using these superlatives it seems to have slipped out of his mind that the political guru of Deve Gowda is none but the noted syndicate leader Mr.Nijalingappa. Overtaken by his zeal he just forgot that this front of communists (or ex-communists?) and ex-Congressmen is dependent on the present Congress for its existence and survival.

The Attitude of CPI(ML) Towards These Governments

A few words regarding the stand of CPI(ML) towards this government are also required here, because there is no dearth of confusion on this score both within and outside the Party. And it would be better to be clear that in the parliamentary arena our basic position is to play the role of revolutionary opposition. Be it the reactionary government of the BJP or the Congress, or the centrist government of Laloo or Mulayam, or the leftist government of CPI-CPI(M), there arises no question of change in this basic position.

But if we merely learn this basic policy by rote and apply it mechanically, we would fall prey to dogmatism and people will consider us fools. In order to apply this basic policy in the practical field we also require tactical flexibility. We will have to learn to differentiate between various situations, various governments and various issues. Often our parliamentary representatives may have to vote for left or centrist forces against the BJP or the Congress; if there occurs a polarisation between two opposite sides our representatives cannot just remain neutral, because that neutrality may help the main enemy and this may tarnish the image of our Party. In a transitory phase, starting from offering critical support to a centrist or left government we may step by step transform our role to that of an opposition, so that our position looks rational and comprehensible to the people.

These tactical steps taken in the arena of parliamentary politics often create confusion among comrades. A good many of them start taking tactical flexibility as opposed to the basic position of the Party, and on the other hand, there are many others who demand elevation of the specific tactics adopted at a particular juncture to the status of basic policy. Viewing our practice in the last few years, we can understand that although our representatives have voted in favour of centrist governments against the no-confidence motions brought on the floor by the BJP or the Congress, and though we have even offered critical support to a centrist government for a short period, in the overall analysis we have only played the role of revolutionary opposition, and in this respect the tactics of building an independent left bloc is an important element of our policy. As regards the Deve Gowda government, the first thing is that our representative did not join the United Front; he has criticised the government on all matters concerning alliance with Congress and spoken against each and every anti-people measure taken by the government. And, then, during the confidence motion when the whole house stood divided along secular and communal lines, in his speech our representative put forward his criticism expressing the apprehension that the new economic policy would continue, and voted for the government. This is to mean that he clarified that the support was critical. The point of our emphasis was that the Left should come out of the United Front and take up an independent position, building an independent left bloc. In the Bihar Legislative Assembly we have adopted the same position. In Assam too, the ASDC has refused to join the government, and starting from proclamation of their support to it from outside, they are, step by step enhancing their level of opposition by building an independent democratic bloc. We hold that in the specific situation of Assam it is better to advance in this way.

We shall always launch movements on all democratic issues as well as in the interests of the labouring people outside Parliament and legislative assemblies against these governments.

Limitations and The Question of Marginalisation

Nowadays some people are extremely worried that our Party continues to remain a marginal force and is not able to enter the mainstream. One gentleman, who once looked after the IPF Central Office but later retreated and got himself well-settled, and who is nowadays bringing out a magazine in which Mulayam Singh is eulogised and failures of Marxism are highlighted, has in an article, appearing in another magazine, written that CPI(ML) stands on the margin and will remain in the margin. His allegation against us is that in an age when the world has advanced greatly, we are still confined within the same old Marxism. Of course we do discuss many new problems, but we search for their answers in the same old formulations of ‘by now outdated’ Marxism. His further allegation is that, when others were involved in politics centring Mandal and reservation issues, we held a rally under the slogan of ‘daam baandho kam do’; or when others have abandoned the slogan of social justice it is we who are holding it aloft. In his opinion we are not marching with time, so we are doomed to remain a marginal force. Some comrades within the Party have praised the article, they also think we must somehow enter the mainstream, this isolation is no longer desirable.

In fact, in comparison to any other ML stream, our Party has, over the span of the past decade or more, made an all-round attempt to intervene in the mainstream of politics. Through establishing contacts with various streams of democratic forces throughout the country, joint activities with various streams of the Left at different levels, through attempts to utilise every debate or division among our political contenders in our favour, through organising nationwide campaigns and holding national rallies, through active intervention in the election process, etc., the Party is incessantly trying to expand its initiative. In the midst of ups and downs we have also gained some successes in this endeavour. Here one must remain clear about our point of departure while intervening in the mainstream of politics. Should one get co-opted into the ongoing stream of left-democratic politics? Or should one try to transform it? If we get co-opted into that stream, will it not become our fate to remain a marginal force forever? On the other hand, the task of transforming this stream is no doubt protracted and painstaking, but within this lies the great possibility of future when, breaking the present isolation, we can become the determining force of the mainstream.

We must keep it in mind that we represent the urban and rural proletariat, and although this class is overwhelmingly large it remains a marginal force in the present socio-political system. The question is that of bringing that class into the mainstream of politics through political mobilisation. In this endeavour, superficial political manoeuvres are not going to pay. The question is not at all of bringing the CPI(ML) or some ambitious personalities into the political mainstream in an abstract way.

When I talk about this class it does not mean that we shall remain confined only to them. In the phase of democratic revolution, the communist party should become the representative of all the sections of the people. When, after the Bathani Tola incident, Laloo Yadav, while highly praising our Party on the floor of Bihar Legislative Assembly, said it is the CPI(ML) which truly represents poor people, some of our comrades got very pleased. They did not understand the bourgeois conspiracy lying hidden behind this liberal praise; they are advising us to confine ourselves only to the rural poor and not attempt to represent other sections of the society. The ruling class first tries to finish us by means of repression, but when they do not succeed in that, they try to get us confined within our limited sphere, and for that, they often sing our praises too. We must break this limitation and reach out to all strata and sections of society, and represent their interests as well. Here lies the utility of various political tactics and joint activities with the object of forging a united front. All this should be done while keeping unflinching faith on revolutionary Marxism, upholding the revolutionary position of the Party and remaining consistent in the revolutionary movement. Only then there would be any significance of the legacy of CPI(ML), of the blood shed by thousands upon thousands of martyrs. If we rely on shortcut methods or superficial manoeuvres, the unity of the Party will get hampered and not only will we remain in the margin, there will be great disaster too.

Centring around the close relationship between United Front and Congress, the debate is bound to sharpen in the days to come and it is in the course of this debate that there lies the possibility of a new polarisation among left forces. Towards this objective we must build our own mass base through painstaking work, spread our propaganda far and wide by making it more rational and make an active intervention in the ongoing debate on the role of Left in the national politics. Today’s phase of preparation will, in a favourable turn of political events, usher us in the main position of the left-democratic stream.

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

Congress Decline

In the 1996 parliamentary elections, Congress(I), the main political party of the Indian ruling classes, was voted out of power. Its number of seats in parliament went down to a record low and subsequently most of its ministers, including the prime minister, were chargesheeted for involvement in one scandal after another. The government that introduced the new economic policy of liberalisation proved to be most liberal on corruption and was exposed as the most corrupt central government India has ever had.

The Congress today naturally stands thoroughly discredited. In particular, its marginalisation in UP and Bihar, the two most populous Hindi-speaking states of India has raised a serious question mark over any immediate prospects for its revival. Then there is unending factional strife and the threat of splits by important segments. By changing its leadership and invoking the Nehru dynasty, it is trying hard to refurbish its image but still there are no signs of its catching the popular imagination.

Although in terms of political influence and organisational network it is the only party that has an all-India presence, yet it does not appear to be anywhere near capturing the central power on its own.

In this sense the situation is quite different from what existed in 1977 and even in 1989. Therefore, the support that it has extended to the UF government is of a long-term, strategic nature. It hopes to play up the contradictions surfacing in the UF and seeks allies from the centrist and regional camps in order to muster a majority in the next elections. It does retain considerable manoeuvring capability to create confusion and splits in the so-called third camp of the left, centrist and regional formations and to stage a comeback in the form of a Congress-led coalition.

The BJP Threat

The BJP made important gains in the last elections. Still it was short of a majority which it failed to muster despite the best efforts. It has however succeeded in finding allies — other than Shiv Sena — in the BSP, Samata, Akalis and Haryana Vikas Party. It is desperately trying to win over some regional forces to tilt the balance in its favour and Atal Bihari Vajpayee even mooted the idea of a national democratic front. Somewhere along the line it has realised that it has reached its zenith and has not been able to expand much beyond northern and western India. Then it has its share of Vaghelas and Khuranas.

To enhance its credibility and acceptability, which got a drubbing after Babri Masjid episode, the BJP has adopted a two-pronged strategy. In the first place, it is trying hard to appropriate the legacy of the freedom movement by projecting itself as the heir apparent to the Gandhi-Patel tradition of Congress. This, it hopes, will help it make further forays into the Congress base. Secondly, it is trying hard to shed its bania-upper caste image and penetrate among dalits, backwards as well as other social groups who earlier formed the base of Charan Singh in North India. To this end, it advocates strategic partnership with parties like Samata and BSP and is projecting state-level leaders from other communities.

With its swadeshi plank it assures India’s industrialists of a better bargain with multinationals. And by harping constantly on the theme of ‘shuchita’ (purity) and ‘bhay-mukt samaj’ (terror-free society), it has managed to improve its stock considerably among sections of the intelligentsia and urban middle classes. But just as its earlier volte face over the Enron issue has taken the shine off saffron swadeshi, the ongoing political developments in UP, where Kalyan Singh has fallen back on the most brazen kind of horse-trading, including the induction of a whole array of criminals, have knocked the bottom out of its claim to being the only ‘party with a difference’. In fact, Kalyan Singh’s second coming in UP has been a great eye-opener since day one. He lost no time in trying to rake up the Ayodhya issue as soon as he assumed the chief minister’s chair, even as he stood chargesheeted as a key accused in the Ayodhya demolition case. Our comrades in U.P. raised a timely voice of protest by organising a well-publicised dharna outside the State Assembly even as Kalyan Singh was being administered his second oath of office.

In short, the rightwing shift of Indian polity that arose as a consequence of economic crisis and political turmoil of the late ’80s has found its centralised expression in BJP and a real saffron threat is for the first time looming large over India, a preview of which can perhaps be best seen in the second coming of Kalyan Singh in U.P.

The BJP’s agenda includes pursuing a chauvinist policy vis-a-vis India’s neighbours, particularly Pakistan, escalating the nuclear arms race, transforming India into a Hindu Rashtra where religious minorities will be treated as second-grade citizens, undermining the federal polity, unleashing brutal state repression and organising private armies of landlords to crush agrarian movements of the rural poor, militarily suppressing ongoing movements of national self-determination and crushing all sorts of dissent in intellectual, aesthetic and academic fields. In short, imposing a fascist dictatorship in India.

It must not be forgotten that the reigning chaos in the country, erosion of the credibility of institutions of parliamentary democracy, thorough degeneration of Congress, disintegration of the so-called social justice camp, devaluation in the Left’s ideological moorings and the failings of the present UF set up — all have created a wide space for BJP. In reality, the Indian ruling establishment is all set to welcome a BJP takeover by the next elections, if not earlier.

The UF Phenomenon

In a situation of political stalemate, a 13-party United Front took shape and, with Congress support, assumed power. Since then for a year and a half now it has been at the helm of affairs. Though the offer of prime ministership for Mr.Jyoti Basu was rejected by the CPI(M) Central Committee, Harkishan Singh Surjeet assumed the mantle of supra prime minister in the first phase of the UF government. The Congress, however, consolidated itself under a new president and in a superb coup it forced a change in prime minister and wrested the initiative. The language of the UF leaders, with regard to the Congress changed overnight. At present the UF government is running more by default than by design and Congress is waiting for the next opportunity to catapult itself into power.

The UF phenomenon has been described in several ways. Let us judge their validity.

In the first place, it is being said that the UF symbolises the advent of an era of coalition in Indian politics. Of course, with India’s multifaceted diversity asserting itself in full it may prove difficult for any single party to command enough majority and, in this sense, coalition age appears to have come to stay. But a coalition arrangement where both the major national parties, BJP and Congress, which together have nearly two-thirds of parliamentary seats, are out of power can only be an exception rather than a rule. Sooner or later either of the two will rally enough support behind them to run the government.

Secondly, the UF has been described as marking the advent of greater federalisation of polity, with regional parties enjoying considerable clout in running the central government. The role of regional parties in the Indian political system has indeed increased, particularly with the advent of the new economic policy. This policy, by relaxing central regulations, has given the states much freedom to directly invite private investments. State chief ministers are making a beeline to the West to attract foreign capital to their respective states. They are also competing among themselves to give tax incentives to the investors.

Public sector investment in the Ninth Plan (1997-2002) has been cut down to just 36% and the bulk of the amount is supposed to come from the private corporate sector. Private sector investment, even if it materialises, is likely to go to the profitable sectors and areas. This is bound to further exacerbate the imbalances among the states.

Powerful regional forces are quite averse to accepting statehood or autonomy demands raised by sub-national groups in their respective states. In most of the cases regional power groups are crucially dependent on landlord-kulak groupings and as such they are not keen on pursuing land reforms.

Therefore, looked at from the point of view of carrying out democratic reforms, federalism, in an absolute sense, is not all that golden in the Indian context. Moreover, the perspective on federalism differs for stronger and weaker states. The demand for a separate Khalistan in Punjab, or for that matter the Akalis’ demand that except for four items viz. currency, foreign affairs, defence and communications, all other powers be vested in the states, amounts to the secession of the successful. In the case of Assam however, the demand arises more from the neglect of the state by the rulers in Delhi.

Thirdly, the UF is projected as an anti-BJP, non-Congress front; a united front of workers-peasants and the progressive/forward-looking bourgeoisie; a unity which in the process of development of proletarian hegemony will transform itself into the cherished people’s democratic front; a union of the best of the left and the Gandhian legacies etc. These views have been expressed by none other than Comrade Namboodripad in the official CPI(M) organ. These were the opinions in the formative stage of the front when the CPI(M) leadership was busy spreading the myth that the CMP has rejected the new economic policy of the Rao government and the Congress support was unconditional and out of compulsion.

Since then much water has flowed down the Yamuna. The Congress has wrested the initiative and exercises greater influence on the UF government. The CPI(M) on the other hand feels marginalised and has become much more critical in its outpourings. Ironically, it is now the CPI(M) which has to remain in the UF out of compulsion!

It is not known how the CPI(M) leadership judges its earlier formulation but, all said and done, the hope of transforming the UF into a people’s democratic front has been belied and now it is just a question of political exigency.

Realignments and Shifts

Mr.V.P. Singh, the most far-sighted bourgeois visionary in Indian politics, recently made two important observations. One, a national consensus has developed around the new economic policies among all the major political parties. And two, an era of cooperation between UF and Congress has begun. He is perfectly right.

Stretching this premise to the realm of practical politics he has come out with a recipe that prescribes sharing of both the ruling and the opposition space in various states among UF partners, Congress and others belonging broadly to the social justice camp.

The basic fallacy of this argument is that it disregards the continuous process of conflicts, and hence changes, in the relative strengths of various parties which otherwise constitute the broad anti-BJP spectrum and it assumes a permanently subordinate role for the Congress at the centre. The Congress, still a major national party, cannot rest content with its present predicament. By making clear its agenda of opposing both the BJP and CPI(M), it plans to work on the centrist camp to overturn the UF applecart. It has already developed a rapport with RJD, is developing equations with Mulayam and is working assiduously to bring the TMC and DMK into line. Having forced the UF to tone down its initial criticism of Congress on issues of secularism and corruption, it hopes to refurbish its image, win over alienated Muslims and emerge at the head of an anti-BJP coalition by the next elections.

The anti-BJP, anti-Congress theme has already been watered down to an anti-BJP non-Congress plank and at least in the case of certain UF constituents it has further been diluted to an anti-BJP, pro-Congress stance. We, however, are strongly of the opinion that since both the Congress and the BJP continue to remain the two main all-India parties of the ruling classes, we must treat both as our primary enemies and remain firm in our anti-BJP anti-Congress orientation.

[From Liberation, January 1998.]

The first phase of the UF-Congress cooperation came to an abrupt end, even earlier than expected. Despite the cooling period allowed by the President neither the UF and the Congress could make it up among themselves nor could any other viable ruling arrangement take shape and thus within two years the nation has to face yet another general election.

Kudos to the UF for its firm refusal to submit to the Congress’ blackmail but unfortunately this brave act may prove to be its last united act. Some sections were willing to toe the Congress line even earlier and now, with the elections round the corner, they are contemplating an open or tacit alliance with the Congress under the pretext of special conditions in certain states. Similar considerations have led the major chunk of the JD in Orissa to embrace the BJP. Even Mr.Gujral — the UF Prime Minister — who refused to abide by the UF diktat on expelling RJD ministers from the cabinet — is seeking the blessings of Akali Dal to enter the Lok Sabha. Moreover, Laloo after his well-timed release is proving to be a major headache for the UF in general and the JD in particular.

Despite a Common Minimum Programme and common appeal, the UF appears a divided force without leadership and without orientation. As such, it is hardly likely to fire the popular imagination in the hustings as a cohesive political unit.

Though the Congress withdrew support on the Jain Commission Report, the significance of the report lies in nothing more than asserting the Congress dynasty and unifying the party around the same and thus providing a cause for the parting of ways with the UF.

As our Party’s Sixth Congress had noted, "...a coalition arrangement where both the major national parties the BJP and Congress, which together have nearly two-thirds of parliamentary seats, are out of power, can only be an exception rather than a rule. Sooner or later either of the two will rally enough support behind them to run the government."

Commenting on VP Singh’s formula of UF and Congress sharing both the ruling and the opposition space, the report said, "The basic fallacy of the argument is that it disregards the continuous process of conflicts and hence the changes in the relative strengths of various parties which otherwise constitute the broad anti-BJP spectrum and it assumes a permanently subordinate role for the Congress at the Centre. The Congress, still a major national party, cannot rest content with its present predicament. By making clear its agenda of opposing both the BJP and the CPI(M), it plans to work on the centrist camp to overturn the UF applecart."

The report had remarked, "At present the UF government is running more by default than by design and the Congress is waiting for the next opportunity to catapult itself to power."

This Congress tactic, apparently similar to the tactic vis-a-vis Charan Singh government in 1979 and Chandrashekhar government in 1990, however can lead to a very different outcome. This is the phase of Congress decline and the Congress at the most can aim at a coalition with the centrist camp where it may play a leading role. To achieve this goal the Congress will resort to tactical games.

As the Party Congress report described, "It (the Congress) hopes to play up the contradictions in the UF and seek allies in the next election. It does retain considerable manoeuvring capability to create confusion and splits in the so-called third camp of the left, centrist and regional formations and stage a comeback in the form of a Congress-led coalition."

It also said, "It (the Congress) has already developed a rapport with the RJD, is developing equations with Mulayam and is also working assiduously to bring the TMC and the DMK into line. Having forced the UF to tone down its initial criticism of Congress on issues of secularism and corruption, it hopes to refurbish its image, win over alienated Muslims and emerge at the head of an anti-BJP coalition by the next elections."

The entire exercise of interpreting the UF as a viable political alternative both to the BJP and the Congress, as a model coalition, as a secular and federal front and even the precursor of a People’s Democratic Front etc. was patently absurd. The alternative to Congress in 1996 elections, paradoxically, emerged in the shape of the UF-Congress cooperation because in the meantime the BJP had emerged as the single largest party inching closer to the seat of power. That political logic still holds true. The mid-term elections will prove to be a great leveller in reshaping UF-Congress relations. In the process both will undoubtedly go through major internal shakeups in the form of desertions, splits and new social equations but that will only strengthen the basis of cooperation between the UF and the Congress.

The biggest gainer of the present turmoil is of course the BJP. It has been able to wash away the stigma of ‘untouchable’ attached to it and has been winning new friends and allies. In the process, however, tall claims of ‘value based politics’ have been thrown to the winds. In its bid at usurping the Congress legacy, it is also appropriating the notorious Congress culture of harbouring criminals and super-corrupts.

It now has emerged as the first preference of the corporate world and as the Varanasi Congress report had pointed out, "the ruling establishment is all set to welcome a BJP takeover by the next election, if not earlier."

The BJP knows that this is the best chance offered to it and therefore it is moving at a breakneck speed to capture Delhi with the motto ‘now or never’. The confusing political scenario and the craze for stability coupled with the BJP capturing the bastion of UP and gaining an upperhand in Bihar through fostering criminal gangs like Ranvir Sena, have all made the saffron threat very real and left and progressive forces can only ignore it at their own peril.

The Varanasi Congress had pointed out, "We do recognise the threat of the saffron power taking over India. The collapse of the UF may well prove to be the catalyst for such an eventuality. Although the BJP has its own problems and internal rifts and has a limited reach as of now in many parts of the country, yet the threat is indeed real and we must not underestimate it. And if that happens, certain readjustments in policy may also have to be effected depending upon the concrete situation obtaining then."

While dealing with the bid for a temporary alliance with the Samata Party during the 1995 Bihar assembly elections, the Party Congress report had pointed out, "In practical politics, tactical alliances aimed at weakening our rivals may often be quite temporary. If this is lost sight of, the Party’s capacity for political manoeuvring and flexibility in tactics in the changing political situation will be seriously reduced."

This brings us to the all-important question of tactics of the Left in general, and our Party in particular, in the coming elections.

First of all, the so-called slogan of stability is a hoax and meant only for the forces of status quo. Indira Gandhi’s stability only led to excessive centralisation and Emergency. Narasimha Rao’s stability proved to be the most corrupt regime India has ever had. And the BJP’s stability will only lead to a Ram Mandir, destroying the secular fabric of Indian society and prove a morale booster to criminal gangs like Ranvir Sena. A loose and unstable kind of government based on UF-Congress kind of cooperation is best suited for advance of the left movement in India. Here the UF should be understood in broad generalised terms, which includes all kinds of centrist forces including those being cobbled up by Laloo Yadav in his so-called Secular Front.

Secondly, this necessarily demands an independent separate consolidation of the Left which may be in a better position to keep up pressure on such a government to extract as many concessions as possible for the people’s interests. Instead of hankering after participation in a bourgeois government and even seeking its premiership offered to an individual Mr.Jyoti Basu — whom the bourgeois world believes to be the right person in a wrong party — the Left should prepare itself for playing the role of democratic opposition at the Centre.

The leadership of the official Left, however, thinks otherwise. AB Bardhan is repeatedly insisting that Jyoti Basu would have made a better prime minister and under his premiership the UF-Congress cooperation would not have stumbled. How, only god knows! Surjeet, the other day, while castigating the Congress for its pressure tactics, took credit for the fact that the Left, despite its serious reservations on many issues, did not pressurise the government on any of them. What a shameless claim! Be it Chidambaram’s ‘dream budget’, or sitting over the agrarian labourers’ bill as well as the women’s reservation bill, the Left didn’t feel it necessary to put pressure on the government. The CPI(M) leadership remained totally preoccupied with ‘number games’ and ‘placating the Congress’ — i.e., political manipulation at the top — instead of taking up issues for a democratic mass mobilisation of the people. Social Democrats indeed will have to answer for their role in providing an unhindered free space to the BJP. At this crucial political juncture, when each and every political action is significant, they did not even hesitate to field a common candidate and vote along with the BJP against Rabri Devi — in complete disregard to the decision in the 17-party front — in the Bihar Legislative Council elections.

The CPI(M) leadership is preparing the party to accept participation in any future government and Jyoti Basu is once again ready to move over to Delhi, with bag and baggage. The debate on the tactics of the Left must therefore be intensified and we may hope to garner support from a section of the CPI(M) leadership.

In the coming elections, we shall have to gear up all our strength and undertake a massive independent all-India campaign reaching to the broad section of masses. We must contest in all our major areas of movement which symbolise the Party’s identity. Next, we should try to come to a political understanding and seat adjustments as far as practicable with our front partners in states like Bihar and Assam. And lastly, in vast numbers of constituencies where neither we nor our front partners are contesting, or where some front partners have entered into tacit alliances with the BJP, we shall support other political formations, except the Congress, against the BJP. And where a Congress candidate is the only viable candidate against the BJP, we should better keep our votes reserved.

For secularism, democracy and transparency!
Against participation in a bourgeois government — For a left opposition!
All against the saffron threat — All for polls!

[From Liberation, April 1998.]

The Fall of UF and the Rise of BJP

The Varanasi Congress had taken serious note of the looming threat of BJP coming to power at the centre. The report had said, "We do recognise the threat of saffron power taking over India. The collapse of the UF may well prove to be the catalyst for such an eventuality. Although the BJP has its own problems and internal rifts, and has limited a reach as of now in many parts of the country, yet the threat is indeed real and we must not underestimate it. And if that happens, certain readjustments of policy may also have to be effected depending upon the concrete situation obtaining then."

We said it in October 1997 when the UF government was still going strong with assured Congress support. In less than five months our apprehensions have come true. The report did underline the limited reach of BJP in many parts of the country and as the 1998 election results testify, its own strength in Parliament has not risen to any considerable degree. If we still considered the threat to be real, it was essentially due to our perception of a possible collapse of the UF that could prove to be the catalyst for such an eventuality. And that is precisely what has happened.

Ironically, Congress, the villain of the piece, which was primarily responsible for throwing the country into election turmoil again in less than two years, and, which appeared to be fast disintegrating under a powerful BJP onslaught, ultimately emerged unscathed. It not only maintained its tally, but also, inflicted a crushing blow to the BJP in Maharashtra and Rajasthan. This single fact did puncture, to a large extent, the moral authority of BJP to rule.

On the other hand, the UF, which went to the hustings on a common manifesto this time and with the halo of a martyr, amazingly found its strength depleted to half, and precisely the other half went over to the BJP camp.

The JD, the biggest UF constituent, was routed in Karnataka and its major chunk in Orissa crossed over to the BJD, the BJP ally. In a show of rank opportunism, the Prime Minister Gujral contested on Akali support and another stalwart, Mr.Ram Vilas Paswan, entered into a tacit alliance with Samata Party. The DMK-TMC combine suffered the most unexpected defeat in Tamil Nadu. Still when the BJP fell short of the magic figure, none else but the UF convenor Mr.Chandrababu Naidu extended a helping hand in a rare show of acrobatics. A few other UF constituents, viz. NC, AGP, have also made a decisive tilt towards the BJP. Every one of the BJP allies is citing the specific interests (compulsions!) of the respective states as the rationale behind their somersault. The cat is finally out of the bag. Specific regional interests had united them in the United Front and the same has now led to their parting of ways in a changed political situation. The secular principle was just a smokescreen manufactured by our social-democratic windbags.

It was a bad innings for the social-democratic Left as well, and the writings on the walls of Calcutta are quite ominous. Prior to elections, the CPI(M) leaders boasted of winning all the seats by capitalising on the split in the Congress. In fact they could just maintain their tally. The victory margin as well as the vote percentage witnessed a steep decline.

In an ostrich-like fashion, however, they continued to hope for a repeat performance of the 1996 scenario and quite earnestly prepared themselves to take over power at the centre. To salvage the hurt Bengali pride, Mr.Jyoti Basu announced his readiness to move over to Delhi. The desperate bid to undo the ‘historical blunder’ landed the CPI(M) in the morass of a ‘historical stupidity’. Well, to come back to the point, UF’s fall has been BJP’s gain both politically and numberwise.

Very few political analysts, however, have noted this direct relationship between the UF’s collapse and BJP’s ascendance to power. The reason is not far to seek. As BJP and Congress remain two main players, analyses generally remain confined to the BJP versus Congress framework.

Interestingly though, both the BJP and the Congress invoked the plank of a stable government and able leader. This was a direct indictment of the UF which became synonymous with instability and incompetent leadership. The people’s mandate, within the limits of its being manipulated by the ruling elite, went decisively against the UF this time. The post-election disintegration of the UF only confirms this.

Where did the UF Go Wrong?

Where did the UF go wrong and what are the implications of this collapse? From the Left’s point of view, probing these questions is quite important for deciding the future course of action.

First of all, the projection of the UF as an anti-BJP, anti-Congress formation — even its diluted version of anti-BJP, non-Congress front — has proved to be a social-democratic myth. In the same vein, the description of the UF as a transitory step towards the People’s Democratic Front, within whose ambit the unity and struggle between the working class and the forward-looking bourgeoisie will ultimately lead to the establishment of proletarian hegemony, has proved to be yet another social-democratic theoretical jugglery, essentially meant to rationalise their opportunist alliances. If anything, from ’96 to ’98, the transition of the social-democrats from the position of keeping the Congress out of power at any cost to the position of bringing the Congress to power by all means, is quite noteworthy.

Secondly, in the practical arena the UF miserably failed in pursuing progressive legislations. The bill on agrarian labourers remained pending and atrocities on dalits, including massacres in Bihar failed to elicit any response from the government. The ‘communist home minister’ kept himself busy with insurgency in Kashmir and the North-East and had neither the time nor the resolve to undertake any specific measure. And this, while the defence minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, vehemently opposed the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in order to appease the upper castes.

The UF did nothing to check ‘criminalisation of politics’ which had become a potent issue after the killing of Chandrashekhar. Neither did it take a single step towards resolution of the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi issue, nor did it take any measure to punish those guilty for the demolition. It made all sorts of compromises with the corrupt regimes of Laloo and Mahanta.

Thirdly, to stay in power, it sacrificed its first Prime Minister and therefore its show of bravery at a later stage on the issue of dismissing two DMK ministers did not cut much ice with the people.

One and a half years of UF regime will be remembered for Chidambaram’s ‘dream budget’ and the VDIS scheme. While the former, if one goes by the all-round decline in indicators of economic growth, remained a pipe dream, the latter was by far the most liberal offer to whitewash black money.

The UF, paradoxically, was seen as more friendly to multinationals though it was backed by powerful segments of the Left who excel in anti-imperialist rhetoric. With the darling of multinationals at the helm of financial affairs, the ‘nationalist’ plank was meekly surrendered to the BJP. The corporate world clamoured for a ‘nationalist government’ and a ‘level playing field’. And with the theme of Swadeshi, the BJP propaganda machinery was set in full steam.

The only strong point of the UF and its essential identity was its commitment to the principle of federalism. Slogans ranging from ‘more power to the states’ to ‘strong states and weak centre’ were raised. Well, the Centre did appear weak and unstable during the UF regime and it was defeated precisely on this score. Its strongest point proved to be its major failing. This underscores the essential characteristic of Indian polity. Whenever a strong centre tends to be authoritarian, powerful regional economic interests begin asserting themselves in opposition. In turn, however, when the centre appears weak and unstable, cravings for a strong centre assume prominence. The dynamics of Indian society can be related to the strong interdependence between the interests of powerful regional economic groupings and the imperatives of a unified national economy. The advocate of a weak centre, a qualification that logically made Chandrababu Naidu the convenor of UF, himself became instrumental in stabilising a strong centre led by the BJP government.

As political logic went against the UF, it had to go one way or the other. But this is not important. The moot point is that it failed to leave any imprint of its own that could be pursued for a future comeback.

The social-democratic Left oscillated between ‘historic blunders and stupidities’ but it never thought in terms of utilising the ‘historic opportunities’ that came its way. The concern of its ideologues was confined to prolonging the stay of the UF by all kinds of ‘go-betweens’, ‘compromises’ and ‘backroom deals’. Surjeet made the infamous statement that the Left did not pressurise the government to implement any left agenda, in order not to trouble the UF government. He expected the same from the Congress and other UF constituents. None obliged him. So the first ever central government in India backed by powerful Left segments, including a section heading important ministries, failed to leave any Left imprint whatsoever.

BJP Government — Threat of a Fascist Dictatorship

Every opportunist sin exacts its own price. And there stands amidst the debris of the UF, an overtly communal BJP government at the centre. After half a century of freedom, the central government is led by a party and a person whose roles in the freedom struggle were dubious to say the least.

And yet, wrong lessons are being drawn from this tragedy that has befallen India. A whole group of liberals including sections of left intelligentsia is lamenting the decimation of the ‘great institution that is the Congress’. This is an exercise in self-negation that rejects the history of anti-Congress struggles for progress and democracy.

The BJP government has won the vote of confidence and it pledges to run the government on a so-called national agenda. Atal Behari Vajpayee is repeatedly assuring the nation that as long as he is the Prime Minister, his government will not pursue any hidden agenda. This is a clever exercise of lulling the opposition to silence, splitting it and seeking more allies.

Some socialist and left intellectuals have already started arguing that BJP’s ascendance should not be equated to the rise of fascism. Some put in the argument that the economic basis of fascism as understood in a classical sense, is absent in India.

In the strict economic sense, it is true that the Indian bourgeoisie — a dependent bourgeoisie by itself — cannot pursue the Hitlerite agenda of grabbing the world market and seeking colonies. But is there anybody who is suggesting this? The Varanasi Congress report defined fascist dictatorship in the Indian context in the following terms: "BJP’s agenda includes pursuing a chauvinist policy vis-a-vis India’s neighbours, particularly Pakistan, escalating the nuclear arms race, transforming India into a Hindu Rastra where religious minorities will be treated as second-grade citizens, undermining the federal polity, unleashing brutal state repression and organising private armies of landlords to crush agrarian movements of the rural poor, unilaterally suppressing ongoing movements of national self-determination and crushing all sorts of dissent in intellectual, aesthetic and academic fields. In short, imposing a fascist dictatorship in India."

The internal dimensions of this dictatorship as well as its designs for emerging as the regional superpower are quite akin to what is popularly known as fascist dictatorship.

One must not forget that the BJP is indeed a party with a difference. Whereas all other political parties are independent entities in themselves, the BJP only enjoys an autonomous political space vis-a-vis the extra-constitutional authority of the RSS. The agenda precisely is that of RSS and the BJP, as its political tool, will invariably move in this direction. Besides, RSS has a wide range of networks and several other organisations to push through its agenda.

Towards a Confederation of Left and Democratic Forces

The march to fascist dictatorship cannot be halted by relying on the good wishes of the so-called moderate leadership of BJP or by the so-called moderating influence of BJP’s allies. A conglomeration of all kinds of discredited forces in the name of expanding the UF and rallying behind the Congress is no answer to the saffron menace.

We do not deny the need for a broader understanding between left and secular forces and the Varanasi Congress specifically called for ‘certain readjustment of policies’. The policy adjustment necessarily entails opposing the BJP government’s bid to pressurise, blackmail or dismiss the opposition governments; in joining hands against all kinds of communal onslaughts and undemocratic measures; in floor co-ordination in parliament and assemblies to checkmate the BJP’s gameplans etc.

But an outright alliance with RJD in Bihar or for that matter Left Front in West Bengal is certainly no answer to this complex problem.

Some commentators have chided the Left for blowing out of proportion the corruption issue against Laloo Prasad and its subsequent parting of ways with Laloo. Social-democrats are too eager to take this advice and go back to Laloo’s fold. But how is one going to account for the fact that it was precisely during the period of honeymoon between Laloo and the official Left that the BJP, otherwise a marginal force in Bihar, sprang to the centerstage? No high principles, but only the decline in Laloo’s seats and the serious drubbing that the Left received in the 1996 parliamentary elections in the face of a powerful BJP-Samata onslaught, led to a rethinking in the social-democratic camp and they decided to part ways.

Laloo’s regime has become synonymous with all-pervading corruption and all-round criminalisation. All democratic norms have been thrown to the winds and the State is in a state of prolonged economic stagnation. These conditions have indeed provided fertile ground for the rise of the BJP-Samta combine, which, apart from mobilising feudal and ‘upper-caste backlash’ has also won over major segments of backwards and extremely backward castes. In essence, it is not the Left’s opposition to Laloo’s misdeeds but the lack of it in a concerted and unified way that has left open much of the democratic space to the BJP and resulted in the Left’s own marginalisation.

Similarly, it is not our responsibility to defend the Left Front government when workers are deserting it because of pro-management policies; when labouring people on Calcutta’s streets are mercilessly thrown out of their meagre source of livelihood in order to appease the neo-rich and the multinationals.

Political alliances and electoral adjustments with the parties of bourgeois opposition can never form the cornerstone of the policies of a revolutionary communist party. We must primarily rely on mass movements to seek and widen our space in the democratic polity of India.

The BJP’s national agenda specifically targets students and youth. It aims at communalising their mindset through major changes in educational syllabus. The unemployment bogey is sought to be exploited by the BJP to launch the so-called ‘national reconstruction corps’, most probably the official version of RSS shakhas.

The Party therefore must accord top priority to mobilising students and youth against communalisation and pin down the government on its tall promises on employment.

The BJP is bound to dither on the women’s reservation bill and is all set to pursue all kinds of obscurantist agenda vis-a-vis women. Mobilising women against saffron is another major immediate agenda before the Party.

All mass organisations are to be invigorated to take up independent as well as joint initiatives with a wide range of left and progressive organisations to take on the BJP on every specific front.

The Party’s propaganda machinery needs to be streamlined to expose every policy statement and every specific act of omission and commission of the BJP government. No attack on democratic rights, on freedom of speech, and also no denigration of the institutions of parliamentary democracy by the BJP government should go unchallenged and unprotested.

And finally, as feudal forces everywhere are emboldened by the BJP’s ascendance to power, attacks on agrarian labourers and poor peasants and atrocities on dalit masses are bound to intensify. The Party will have to strengthen its combative preparations to foil all such attacks.

In short, this is the national agenda before all left and progressive forces to halt attempts at imposing fascist dictatorship in the country. And it is through this process of developing a heightened consciousness of the masses, and growing mass movements that we can advance towards a confederation of left and democratic forces — the truly transitory step towards the goal of building a People’s Democratic Front.

[Speech delivered at the seminar organised by Forum for Democratic Initiatives in New Delhi on 15 June 1998. The text of the speech was published in July 1998 issue of Liberation after slight alteration by the speaker in favour of publication.]

I don’t know how far the atomic explosions that took place at Pokhran have released nuclear radiation, but the fact that they have caused a lot of ideological pollution throughout the country is pretty clear.

Now there are several opinions regarding the reasons behind the explosions. Firstly, as Chaturananji has also pointed out, it was said while the atom bomb was exploded that Gautam Buddha smiled. At this rate Buddha will perhaps laugh to his heart’s content the day the bomb is used to kill millions of people. Some people argue that the bomb was used to diffuse the two human bombs viz. Mamata Bannerjee and Jayalalitha within the ruling BJP-led coalition. If the government of the day is governed by such irresponsible thinking, it really represents a great danger for the country. There is yet another opinion, which says that the tests were carried out to provide an alternative agenda to the fanatic BJP ranks that were dissatisfied at the postponement of the Ram Mandir agenda. Again this is a matter of great concern because you know that BJP ranks have a communal frame of mind; when they raised the slogan "Proudly say we are Hindus", it culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Today while centering around the bomb, once again Hindu metaphors of Shakti Peeth, Shaurya Diwas etc. are being invoked, I wonder where all this will lead to.

The slogan of Ram Mandir was targeted against Muslims and that of atom bomb is being directed against Pakistan. In this background, for the BJP cadres, belonging as they are to a party whose agenda does not make any distinction between nationalism and communalism and which takes an anti-Muslim orientation as its cornerstone, the atom bomb is nothing but a Hindu bomb.

All this ideological pollution that has come up along with the Bomb has engulfed the country’s skies and constitutes the dangerous fallout of the nuclear explosion. Still I would consider it secondary compared to the more dangerous portents of the bomb here on the ground. In the first place, I wonder where this ultra-nationalist frenzy, this jingoism unleashed through the tests will lead us to? Tensions in our relationship with neighbouring countries have been raised to a high pitch, war hysteria is being systematically built up, and we are indeed heading towards war preparations. Now, when you orient the whole thing towards nationalist frenzy, and, along with that when you step up military preparations, it has to have its fallout on national politics as well. That is what we witnessed in the wake of the first nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974, when just one year after that Emergency was clamped on the country. Therefore, a question justifiably comes up in our minds: how far will this building up of ultra-nationalist frenzy, coupled with the nuclear explosions, tolerate the democratic process that is still there in the country? And we again witness that arguments are being raised that our country needs a presidential system. They say the present parliamentary system does not bring stability to our polity, where elections are being held often, which is not a good thing, because it entails heavy national expenditure. And then they talk about the need for a great and able leader, a great personality. With all these middle class concerns and aspirations, attempts are underway to prepare the public mind to finish off the democratic process in the country and impose a dictatorial system. As I see it, this is the greatest danger that lurks behind the ultra-nationalist frenzy coupled with the nuclear explosions and tension building and war preparations against our neighbouring countries.

Secondly, I would like to point out that it is not a case of testing a single bomb. As a consequence of a nuclear test a whole nuclear stockpile has to be built up. During the past 30 years a whole project has been going on in the name of peaceful application of atomic power and enormous funds have been allocated under this head in successive budgets, an expenditure that has never been subject to public scrutiny and any kind of accountability. Gradually, a whole structure, a giant bureaucratic-scientific establishment has been built. And now there are attempts to militarise the whole national economy!

I would like to recall the following words of our Atomic Energy Commission Chairman, Mr.R Chidambaram, which appeared in a national daily few days back: "The sinews of science and technology which spur development, are also the foundation on which national security is based and without assured security, development falters. India needs to build up an industrial-military complex which can ensure security on the one hand and catalyse development on the other." Now this is a radically different hypothesis, a diametrically opposite vision of development, a drastic departure from the kind of vision on which developmental endeavours were being made for the greater part of the past 50 years. This new vision says to the extent you strengthen your industrial-military complex through building arms factories, atomic energy, bomb explosions, etc., you pave the way for development. This I feel is a dangerous proposition. Now it is being visualised not just as a question of testing one or two bombs or even of weaponisation, or for that matter, of manufacturing a number of bombs or missiles in isolation from our development strategy. It is not even being taken as a component of the development model, rather it has been made the central theme of the whole of our developmental thinking. The entire strategy of development will henceforth revolve around the industrial-military complex. This is the Chidambaram thesis of development.

This is extremely unfortunate and disconcerting. Scientists including Albert Einstein, based on whose theory the atom bomb was designed, were not pleased with this weapon of mass destruction. Even Robert Openheimer, the scientist who is known as the Father of the Atomic Bomb, opposed the making of the hydrogen bomb, calling it a weapon of unprecedented destruction. As a consequence, in 1953 the US Atomic Energy Department branded him a security risk. But here in India, as well as in Pakistan, we see that scientist-bureaucrats are addressing press conferences flashing victory signs and proudly proclaiming their preparedness that if ordered they can make bombs of still greater destructive capability. This I think goes against the whole spirit of science, against the spirit of knowledge. And I do feel sorry that every party is busy praising these scientists for their so-called great achievements. However, as far as I know, there are also a great number of scientists who have opposed this act.

Well, I wished to pinpoint the twin great dangers emanating from the bomb blasts — the danger posed to the democratic process in the country by the jingoistic frenzy which has been systematically whipped up, and the danger of militarisation of the country’s economy and developmental process emanating from the doctrine of a military-industrial complex.

A related question however arises as to what should be our approach to the bullying tactics adopted by the big powers vis-a-vis India and Pakistan! How rational and legitimate is it on the part of the five big nuclear powers, the P-5 or permanent members of the Security Council, to exert pressure on India and Pakistan to sign the CTBT, while the US Congress itself has not yet ratified the treaty? It is expected to ratify this treaty only in the year 2000. These countries have themselves built up huge nuclear stockpiles, and through hundreds of tests, have reached a stage where they can conduct further tests merely by computer simulation. Then, even in the CTBT there is a provision that if necessary, these countries can resume tests in their supreme national interests. When these countries mount pressure on us and on Pakistan to sign the CTBT, it is nothing but sheer hypocrisy. I think the peace movement should make these big nuclear powers, the P-5, its main target. Among other things, it also seems that the tests have opened up a new debate in the world around these old treaties. Doors of newer initiatives have opened up, people are demanding to know from these powers what program they have for nuclear disarmament. We think the peace movement in our country should link itself with this initiative.

Sometimes it happens that when things reach their extremes, they begin to turn into their opposites. Although India and Pakistan have made and tested bombs against each other, now that a parity has been reached and both are being made targets of sanctions, both are facing pressures from big powers, perhaps a historical opportunity has come our way when India and Pakistan can stand shoulder to shoulder. As we have already witnessed, offers of talks are being exchanged after the nuclear explosions and I hope that a new round of talks will begin, and with their own identities, the two countries may evolve a joint stand against the big powers. If this happens, it will certainly be a good beginning. Conditions for such an eventuality have indeed begun to ripen. However, till forces like the BJP remain at the helm of affairs in New Delhi, I am afraid, this process cannot gain much momentum. The conditions are there, but these governments in India and Pakistan may not be able to realise them. I particularly talk of the BJP government in New Delhi because its whole agenda is directed against Pakistan. The cause of peace and cooperation between India and Pakistan has got invariably linked up with the task of replacing this government. Addressing this seminar here are representatives of various political parties and various trends of thought, and I hope we will be able to fight unitedly against militarisation of the country and the growing danger to our democracy.

[Excerpts from the speech delivered at a seminar held on 4 August 1998 in Siliguri. From Liberation, September 1998.]

The Pokhran blast has provided the necessary impetus for a new phase of the anti-nuke movement and has enhanced the observance of Hiroshima Day. It has also provided a new fillip to all struggles aimed at total destruction of all nuclear arsenals on this planet. In the realm of anti-nuke movement we encounter a pacifist variety that opposes all atom bombs and all kinds of war. We do sincerely share their struggle. But we also need to understand the politics behind the bomb.

The blast in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was not so much for forcing Japan to surrender as it was for declaring the violent arrival of US into world politics, particularly Asia. This cruel experiment with Hiroshima was designed for realising this sinister US-ploy. And today we know what that has meant for us. So it is as important, if not more, to understand the politics behind bombs as the destructive potential of the bomb.

Today there is a lot of hype about the scientific expertise and technological finesse behind the production of the bomb. But the inventor of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, rated his achievement as moderate at best. He, along with many other scientists, raised voices against nuclear stockpiling and Einstein too had time and again expressed his agony. Einstein proposed a global kind of government, a supra-judicial body to somehow combat the nuclear threat.

In the history of development of arms, discovery of a strike weapon has always been closely followed by discovery of a befitting defence mechanism. What is special about nuclear weapons is that here the question of defence or deterrence does not arise. The only deterrence to an atom bomb is another atom bomb. That is why Hiroshima had sparked off a chain reaction with more and more countries taking the nuclear path.

The US today has a stock of seven lakh bombs and spends 35 billion dollars every year (or 96 million dollars a day) in maintaining the nuclear establishment there. The total amount spent by US in its nuclear programme in the last half century is around 5.5 trillion dollars. It is not easy to get a clear idea from this astronomical figure, even in our imagination. If you convert this amount into one-dollar notes and go on sticking them in series, it will produce a chain extending up to the moon and back!

The US is an imperialist country and draws a huge surplus through colonial and neo-colonial exploitation from all over the world and hence can bear this amount without many problems. But in the case of USSR (till 1989) which did not enjoy any such advantage, it was becoming gradually impossible to afford such a huge expenditure. And what we have seen is that the huge nuclear stock that they piled up to safeguard socialism from imperialist attacks ultimately proved to be counterproductive and did play a crucial role in dismantling the socialist system itself. It became impossible for a socialist state in the long run to satisfy the voracious need of the nuclear establishment. And in their attempt to do this, they perilously neglected the priority sectors of industry leading to a total distortion of the economy and ultimately to a defeat of socialism.

Back home, conducting nuclear tests was the first major step taken by the BJP government after it assumed office. It had certain motives and compulsions behind the decision.

So far as the immediate motives of the BJP are concerned, they have utterly failed to capitalise on this. They wanted to create nationalist frenzy inside the country, they wanted to threaten Pakistan and thus establish India’s supremacy over South Asia. Mao once called the atom bomb a paper tiger. I don’t know about the other bombs but in the case of India’s atom bomb his prophecy has indeed come true. They failed to rake up national chauvinism this time. On the contrary, they have faced waves of protest against it. So far, the term national chauvinism was found in the lexicon of the communists alone, more particularly in the lexicon of the CPI(ML). Even other left parties had stopped using this language for some time now. They used to join the bourgeois chorus on Kashmir against Pakistan. It is for the first time that large sections of the intelligentsia have written in newspapers against Advani’s provocative anti-Pak statements. There have been protests even in the parliament against the government’s chauvinism. Vajpayee too was found to be defensive in the parliament on such occasions. All these show that they failed to create a consensus, which they had expected to do. The VHP also had to beat a retreat from their programmes like the construction of Shaktipeeth etc. And after Pakistan blasted its bombs (one more than India did), cold water was poured on BJP’s total gameplan. BJP calculatedly cultivated an anti-China sentiment in the pre- and post-blast period in order to draw support from the US. But to its dismay, China and US issued a joint statement against the Indian blasts and India has been badly cornered in international politics. A few days back I saw the German Foreign Minister’s caustic remark about India and Pakistan commenting that these two countries which can’t supply food and drinking water to their own people and move from door to door with a begging bowl, are producing atom bombs. They thought that bombs would enhance their image but the opposite has happened. They are being mocked at everywhere.

The BJP has a good influence over middle class people. But while campaigning against bombs we have noticed a change. People themselves are now raising some pertinent questions like whether we can survive with a continuous belligerence towards our neighbours. They are holding the blasts responsible for unprecedented price rise, and the popularity curve of the BJP is declining fast. It is in this sense I said that the BJP’s immediate aims have not been realised and they are on the defensive.

But nuclear tests have a long-term aim and implication, which we must understand in its proper context. Their long-term aim is militarisation of the Indian economy. Now the Chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission, R.Chidambaram says that India has to build up a military-industrial complex. Once it is built up it will be the new strategy for not only defence but for economic development too. They have already started taking steps in this direction. This is the path treaded by America and Israel; this has to be India’s path too! When Indian industry is mired in recession the industrialists want to make their way to the defence industry and thus enhance industrial growth! This is the saddest part of the whole scheme. This means a huge chunk of the budget will be drained for militarisation, links between private capital and defence will grow closer and as a by-product civil life will be the worst hit. Betterment of civil society will no longer be the priority of the state; and the priority will be shifted to the industrial-military complex: industry for the army, industry for arms. This nexus among military bureaucrats, scientific bureaucrats and private capital — a new class nexus will strive to give Indian industry and economy a totally new direction.

The responsibility of the leftists is to expose this class reality besides opposing the blasts. They must unite with all and sundry in opposing the bomb, but the responsibility of educating people about this politics, this long-term aim of the BJP government, rests with the leftist forces alone. They must work hard to unite the anti-nuke movement on this basis.

[From Liberation, October 1998.]

Two weeks back, while commenting on the Panchamarhi Conclave of the Congress(I) we had written in ML Update, "The official Left, in particular, had pinned much of its hopes on the expected review of the economic policy in the conclave. They were eagerly awaiting some positive signals from Panchamarhi on this score in order to sell their line of close cooperation with the Congress(I). This was particularly important in the context of the forthcoming party congresses of both the CPI and the CPI(M) where a stiff resistance is expected against hobnobbing with the Congress(I)." And also that "Left leaders, however, felt cheated, since, barring some old cliches like ‘Garibi Hatao’ and ritual reiteration of Socialist pattern etc., Manmohanamics held full sway in the economic resolutions."

Now when the CPI’s Chennai congress is over, we hear this from the horse’s mouth. The Hindustan Times, dated September 19, quotes Mr.Bardhan as saying that "there were expectations from the Congress(I) that its Panchamarhi session would do a reappraisal of its policies. ...(But) the core issue of economic policy was not adequately attended to". However, this concern for economic policy is more for appearences rather than a major point of divergence between the official Left and the Congress(I). After all, the Common Minimum Program of the UF government had hardly come up with a different economic program. The moot point is that after the collapse of the UF experiment a new phase of collaboration between the Congress(I) and the official Left has indeed begun. The pace has, of course, slowed down because of inadequate gestures from Panchmarhi and the resultant inability of the leadership to sell its line of active collaboration with Congress(I). In the face of active resistance by a good number of delegates who opposed this policy of ‘manoeuvring at the top’ and insisted that there is no substitute to the hard work, the Chennai Congress had to restrict itself to the outside support to Congress(I) instead of any general alliance or a common secular front.

CPI(M) leadership, too, is moving along similar lines. Comrade Jyoti Basu is too enthusiastic about moving closer to the Congress(I) but, learning from the experience of CPI’s congress and expecting even greater resistance from its ranks in Calcutta the party leadership has started treading cautiously. Jyoti Basu absented himself in CPI(M)’s recently held rally at Delhi on the pretext of illness and Surjeet chose the occasion to come down on the Congress(I) as well. Well, in view of the lacklustre response from the rank and file and deep divisionss within the leadership itself, and, moreover due to Congress(I)’s own lack of enthusiasm to go the whole hog with the Left, both the CPI and CPI(M) leaders have decided to move slowly. But the essential message is clear. The rhetoric of the third front has been dumped unceremoniously and an era of closer cooperation with the Congress(I) has begun.

The wheel, thus, has turned a full circle. One remembers that just two years back the same left leaders were talking so big even on accepting support from the Congress(I) for the UF government. Then they defined Congress(I) support as one out of compulsion. Indrajeet Gupta even challenged the Congress(I) to withdraw support and then face the music. However when the threat of withdrawal of support did come, the UF meekly responded by sacrificing Deve Gowda. When the threat was repeated they showed the bravery of sacrificing the government rather than dismissing the two DMK ministers, a bravery they deeply repent now. The resultant mid-term elections brought the BJP to power, rejuvenated the Congress(I) and dealt a deathblow to the UF. The politics got polarised between the BJP and Congress(I) and the much-cherished concept of third front, the so-called transitory step towards the people’s democratic front etc., got a drubbing. The same DMK for whose sake the heroic sacrifice was made has come up with the novel idea of differentiating between the BJP government and the BJP as party. The same Mr.Indrajeet Gupta, in his inaugural speech at Chennai, advocated backing the Congress(I) in its bid for power as the ‘Left is weak’.

Congress(I) understands this dilemma of the Left and therefore gave a green signal to it in Panchamarhi without, however, diluting the thrust of its economic policy. At the same time it tried to distance itself with the Laloo-Mulayam duo. Apart from the concern to rebuild the party in its erstwhile strongholds of UP and Bihar and to win back its traditional upper caste and minority support, the move was cleverly aimed at removing any buffer between itself and the BJP.

Signals are thus clear. The opportunist Left is inexorably moving towards Congress(I) and in a sense this is the formalisation of their long-standing overt and covert relationship with the Congress(I). The anarchist Left on the other hand is aligning itself with the rich farmers’ lobby under its pet banner of non-politicalism on the pretext of saving the Indian agriculture from the onslaught of WTO regime.

The agenda for rebuilding the third front on a revolutionary democratic basis should be taken up by the forces of the revolutionary Left. There are enough social and political forces that will respond to this call in the changing political situation. Even in the CPI congress, the overwhelming sentiment was in favour of building a broader left alliance, which the leadership tried to derail by confining it within the ambit of so-called communist unity with the CPI(M). Erstwhile socialist forces are in a disarray after the Samata joined the BJP bandwagon and so are innumerable other forces that are all eagerly waiting for a fresh bid to rejuvenate the whole concept of the third front. We have already renewed our appeal for a left confederation and the ongoing campaign, "oust saffron, save the nation", must be transformed into a positive campaign for a Third Front.

[Excerpts from the last article of Comrade Vinod Mishra. From Liberation, January 1999.]

The changing international climate

The year 1998 had been one more tumultuous year in this era of great uncertainties. Amidst the reigning chaos, however, one may discern, through a deeper probe, certain subterranean trends that are most likely to erupt in major upheavals with the turn of the century.

Till yesterday the apologists of globalisation boasted that the ‘golden age’ of capitalism has come to stay and that they had answers to all the problems of the world economy. But 1998 changed all this. With the collapse of the Asian Tiger economies and the crisis fast spreading to Latin America, the panic button has been pressed. Now the shadows of a worldwide recession are looming large and the policy-makers at the IMF and the World Bank, unsure of themselves, are not coming forth with the usual prescriptions with any degree of confidence. Clueless about the causes and, therefore, of the solutions, global managers are hinting at various alternative options including the increased role of the state in economic planning. Till the other day this was anathema to the rabid proponents of neo-liberalism. Breaking the norm of the last decade or so, the Nobel prize in economics this year was awarded to Amartya Sen, the philosopher economist who advocates a safety net both for the poor and the rich in case ‘something goes wrong’. One wonders whether the spectre of the ‘30s and the need for advance redressal measures have prompted the Nobel Committee to prop up the Third World avatar of Keynes!

As a consequence of these debacles to the project of globalisation, the ideological and political climate of the world is changing once again. For the present, however, social democratic interpretations of Marxian thought is on the ascendance but the deepening crisis and increasing political action of the youth and the working classes, across the globe, provide favourable conditions for the regrouping of the forces of revolutionary Marxism.

Two tactics of the left in present national situation

The search for an elusive stability led to the snap poll at the beginning of the year but after hardly eight months, the political atmosphere is once again charged with the possibilities of yet another mid-term poll. The BJP that ridiculed the rag-tag coalition of the UF ascended to power on the strength of a still inferior version of the same. Its slogan ‘stable government and able leader’ has earned the distinction of the best joke of the year. A rejuvenated Congress under Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is threatening to unsettle the ruling coalition and at the same time marginalising the ‘third forces’ which had prospered at its ruin. This situation has once again brought to the fore the debate on the tactics that the Left should pursue.

With the collapse of the UF and the BJP’s coming to power, the opportunist wing of the Left immediately changed gear and started advocating an alliance with the Congress. In fact, even while the final results were pouring in, Comrade Surjeet started egging on the Congress to take the lead in forming the government. Though the support that the CPI(M) offered to a would-be Congress government was explained as a tactical move, the subsequent bonhomie between the two parties and the ideological colour imparted to this relationship by CPI(M) ideologues leaves no doubt that the two parties are heading towards a strategic cooperation. This move of the leadership was resented by the overwhelming number of delegates in the party congresses of both the CPI and the CPI(M) and even formal resolutions were adopted to launch a third front, that too, with the forces of CPI(ML) and the like, but the leadership appears to be bent upon following the old beaten course.

In the Sixth Party Congress that was held in October 1997, when the UF government was still in power, we had maintained that "in the present national political situation we must firmly pursue our anti-BJP anti-Congress orientation. However, we do recognise the threat of a saffron takeover of India and in such an eventuality, we may have to make certain policy readjustments to forge a broad anti-BJP configuration. These adjustments, however, must conform to the following three basic parameters: (i) Party’s independence and initiative must be retained; (ii) Congress must be isolated from any secular or democratic anti-BJP configuration; and (iii) we must continue to oppose all anti-people policies and steps of non-BJP non-Congress governments."

This could have been the only correct policy to follow by the party of the revolutionary proletariat and our Party consistently adhered to that.

The rejuvenated Congress is also threatening the existence of some major centrist parties and of late, they have also raised their pitch of criticism against the Congress. Analysing the recent assembly election results, some people are talking of polarisation of the political space between the BJP and the Congress, thereby terming the whole concept of the third front as irrelevant. This has terrorised the crisis-ridden third camp and of late efforts are intensified to cobble up a third front of essentially the old UF constituents. In the present concrete conditions such a front is only meant for improving their bargaining position vis-a-vis Congress.

Obviously our Party refuses to involve itself with such attempts. A floor co-ordination with the parties of bourgeois opposition and even temporary tactical alliances at certain times and in certain situations are permissible but any uncritical strategic association with them in a so-called secular or third front can not be the tactics of revolutionary communists. CPI had for long indulged in such tactics under the pretext of a dubious theory of ‘National Democraic Front’ and its search for the national bourgeoisie landed it in the lap of the Congress. While the Congress is still going strong, the CPI is fast becoming a museum piece. The CPI(M)’s formulation of a ‘Peoples Democratic Front’ via the so-called secular front is pushing the party into the clutches of the Congress. Quite logically so, because once the secular front becomes the last word in your tactics, who else but the Congress becomes your natural ally! But then there is no escape from CPI’s fate either.

In contrast we stand for building up a left pole as the core of the Peoples Democratic Front and therefore have called for a left confederation, a confederation that shall include all the forces of revolutionary democracy ranging from communists, socialists to various left-oriented forces of new social movements. Forces of radical democracy are rising from the grassroots and will be seldom found in the precincts of the parliament. Moreover, all the so-called secular forces are not necessarily democratic too and in many a case they are extreme rightist forces. They are also liable to change colours in favour of communal politics as and when it suits them. This is how the Congress behaved in ’80s and early ’90s and this is how Chandrababu Naidu behaved last year.

After the unceremonious demise of the UF we sent fresh proposals for a left confederation but the CPI and CPI(M) leadership rejected them. This was on expected lines as they were busy hobnobbing with the Congress. While the left ranks and the working people were battling together to make the 11 December strike a success, the CPI(M) leadership was conspiring at using the strike as a launching pad for the so-called third front with all kinds of discredited forces of bourgeois opposition who are otherwise strong supporters of the entire package of new economic policies. We, on the contrary, stand for developing this solidarity among the left ranks and the working people towards a left confederation.

The collapse of the UF and moreover, the failure to grow and worse still, the erosion of the base of CPI and CPI(M) in some states, have raised serious questions within them on tactics towards bourgeois opposition. Again there is strong resentment on joining hands with the Congress. Sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the left ranks as expressed in their party congresses, were for the Left to unite and act independently. The slogan of left confederation, therefore, reflects the aspirations of the left ranks as well as that of the broad masses of the working people.

It must be clearly understood that the slogan of left confederation is not just a pious wish to somehow bring all the forces of the Left under a common umbrella; on the contrary it is the specific tactical response of revolutionary communists to the UF-kind of opportunist tactics. We must therefore persist with this slogan and carry forward this battle between two tactics of the Left among broad left ranks and the working people and win them over to the side of revolutionary communism. It goes without saying that this is a long drawn process but this is an inalienable component of our historical struggle against social democracy. This tactic is, at the same time, the most effective antidote against anarchism because it is precisely because of the parliamentary cretinism of social democrats embodied in their ‘UF’ tactics that distracts the revolutionary youth from the organised left movement and facilitates their swelling the anarchist ranks.

Take agrarian struggles as the key link

We had been facing a very difficult situation in the rural areas of Bihar particularly in Bhojpur and Jehanabad districts due to attacks on our social base by the mercenary army of landlords. In December 1997 the Bathe massacre followed where over 60 people were literally butchered. This, however, also proved to be a turning point in the course of the movement. Apart from organising political protests, certain retaliatory actions were also organised and in the subsequent parliamentary elections we more or less succeeded in retaining and activising our social base among the rural poor. Of late, the Ranvir Sena is facing a sort of stagnation and disintegration owing to developing conflicts within its social following. On the other hand, the recently held ‘Reawakening’ rally of our Party in Bhojpur was a big success implying that the mass initiative has once again been released. But there is no room for complacency as the Sena’s striking force is still intact. We have still a long way to go in achieving the final victory over this nefarious Sena, which posed the most serious challenge so far to our movement in Bihar.

In line with the Sixth Congress decisions, agrarian labourers’ organisations are coming up in various pockets of our movement in Bihar and elsewhere. In Bihar, initiatives are being taken up to coordinate these units at the state level and one of the major tasks of the new year is to float a state level body. Organising the rural proletariat in their class organisation and developing their class consciousness is a major challenge before the Party in the agrarian revolution.

The old kisan sabha in Bihar still remains defunct but some efforts on organising broad masses of peasantry on a local basis and on local issues, are indeed being taken in some pockets. Pockets of peasant resistance have also been developing in parts of Bengal, UP, Andhra and Orissa. In Orissa, despite the demise of Comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik, the offensive of the landlords has been beaten back.

On the pretext of a crisis of Indian agriculture, owing to the increasing pressures from the WTO regime, social democrats are urging the rural poor to give up their struggles and rally behind the rich farmers. With similar arguments the anarchists too have floated a common platform with the rich farmers’ organisations. This is a classic example of two extremes meeting at a common point. Some ex-Marxists who have deserted the class viewpoint of Marxism, put the task of fighting against caste-discriminations as an end in itself. They therefore talk only in terms of caste categories, becoming prisoners of BSP kind of politics and virtually surrendering the leadership of poor oppressed masses to the privileged stratum of leaders coming from dalit and backward castes who in turn use the people as cannon fodder in extracting their share of the loot within the parliamentary establishment. Such trends, which were quite pronounced in ML circles in Andhra, have resulted in marginalisation of the movement and disintegration of some groups. In Tamil Nadu too this has created lots of confusion and is actually an important reason behind the movement not picking up despite lots of potential. In Bihar too similar ideas led to groups like MCC and PU becoming pawn in the hands of powerful backward caste groupings and the ruling party.

Castes are undifferentiated classes and therefore the fight against all caste discriminations, an inalienable component of democratic movements, facilitates the process of class differentiation in the entire society. As communists our primary concern is to consolidate the proletarian class forces emerging with a distinct identity amidst this great social churning and our Party is precisely doing the same. While all those who deserted us under the spell of the Mandal wave and in times of crisis of socialism, have degenerated into either ideologues or activists of the Lallo brigade, we stood our ground, organised our class forces, built up the communist party amidst the fire of mass movements and are gradually making forays into the citadels of so-called social justice forces. We must oppose all liberal ideas in the arena of agrarian struggles and firmly adhere to the Party’s class line. These struggles are the soul of the Party and from here only will emerge the mighty forces of the people, which will change the face of the country.

Go for all-round initiatives

In tune with our Party’s rich tradition of organising nation-wide campaigns against the principal enemy, we organised an ‘Oust saffron, save the nation’ campaign in the latter part of the year. Such campaigns are primarily aimed at imparting political education to the masses. At the same time they mobilise the entire Party to focus its attention on the central issue of national concern and thereby ensure the monolithic unity of the Party. And therefore, dilution of the national call in the name of its so-called creative application by a state unit or a mass organisation can not be permitted.

Though the campaign has ended, the exposure of various facets of BJP rule should go on unabated. We should particularly focus on its economic doctrine of wholesale globalisation and that of capitulation to international financial interests. Its gimmick of Swadeshi is thoroughly exposed and it is high time that the Left forcefully espouses the cause of a self-reliant economy. The 11 December action of the working class was a highly significant move in this direction. We have to take a much larger initiative among the working class where the ice has started melting and we have started getting a better response.

As the political situation is turning topsy-turvy and one can not rule out the possibility of yet another mid-term poll in the year 1999, the Party must remain fully prepared for any eventuality. Hence, all our mass organisations, particularly the youth front, should take bold initiatives on all issues of people’s concern and strive to march ahead of all others. The days of closed door conferencing are over. This is the time for all round initiatives. In history the issues of major significance are only resolved in the streets.

Strengthen the Party organisation

The Party Sixth Congress had warned, "Open and mass party, however, in no way means diluting the basic quality of a communist party, weakening its integral character and undermining its centralism and discipline. Hence, a consistent struggle against all sorts of liberal ideas that seek to transform the revolutionary communist party into a social-democratic parliamentary outfit is imperative." This warning, to say the least, has only become more relevant now.

A strong communist party firmly upholding the red banner of revolutionary Marxism, a powerful movement of the rural poor and an al- round initiative against the designs of the saffron power are the three major challenges before us in this year. Social democrats as well as anarchists of all hues are facing serious internal disorders due to faulty tactical lines and every advance we make will further destablise them and establish us at the head of the left movement. Such a development is absolutely essential for building a democratic front that is really a people’s alternative in contrast to various versions of bourgeois alternatives.

Comrades,

In 1998 we lost many important leaders and cadres who sacrificed their lives fighting class enemies. Assassins’ bullets snatched away from us Comrade Anil Barua, a member of the central committee, who was a widely respected personality in Assamese society and a comrade of supreme dedication to the cause of the Party and the people. And as the year was drawing to a close, Comrade Nagbhushan, one among the few great leaders that the Indian communist movement has produced in its nearly 75 years of history and whose death-defying spirit had become the symbol of CPI(ML)’s spirit of rising again and again from the ashes, departed from amongst us. On his deathbed, he declared, "In life and in death I meant for the Party and revolution." This is the true spirit of a revolutionary communist and let it guide us in striving hard to score greater successes in the days to come.

On Communalism
Exposing the Saffron Scheme: A Popular outline 

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fifth Party Congress.]

In the last few years India’s communal temperature has been rising unabated, and with the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent nationwide trauma that left over a thousand dead and many more injured, communalism has come to the top of the political agenda. A multitude of factors, viz., the collapse of the Nehruvian economic model, growing public disgust with the political systems, real and imaginary threats to national unity and the international environment of rightist and fundamentalist resurgence, have contributed to an atmosphere conducive to the upswing of communal ideology and politics. And the political opportunism practiced by the mainstream political parties — Congress(I), Janata Dal, CPI and CPI(M) all included — at one or other junctures in relation to the BJP has further fueled the latter’s growth.

It must be clearly understood that the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute is not a simple Mandir-Masjid dispute between Hindus and Muslims. The shrewd leadership of RSS and BJP has persistently projected the Babri Masjid as a monument of Muslim invasion of Hindu India, which deserves to be demolished to restore the Hindu glory. Ram Janambhoomi thus became a very specific symbol for the long-term RSS philosophy of a Hindu Rashtra, attracted a large audience from gullible Hindu masses and assumed the character of a veritable mass movement skillfully organised by the Sangh Parivar. Behind the facade of religion what really mattered was politics and ideology. The name of Ram carried the BJP to every nook and corner of the country and helped it become the main opposition party within a short span of time. And with the BJP in power in four states, the RSS immediately began to tamper with school syllabi to convert schools into centers for disseminating the ideology of Hindu Rashtra.

The BJP has thus boldly moved to fill the ideological-political vacuum created by the retreat of Marxist and various other socialist ideals, as well as the disgrace suffered by the Congress(l), to emerge as a communal fascist alternative.

Fascism, the representative ideology of the most Conservative section of the bourgeoisie and landlords, is by its very nature, aggressive. BJP is not a party which can rest content with power in one or two states. It is desperate to take the next leap to power at the Centre. It has therefore kept up the pressure on the issue of Ayodhya, organised demolition of the Babri Masjid and is now issuing fresh threats to overrun Muslim shrines at Kashi and Mathura.

The official response to this communal offensive has remained confined to invoking the liberal Hindu plank and having recourse to legal channels. The mainstream Left response too has never been able to cross this borderline and it finally culminated in the slogan Mandir bane, Masjid rahe — sab kanun ka palan kare. Had Marx been alive he would have commented that India is a country where all battles, whether among classes or concepts, end up in compromises. So also with secularism.

A lot of people are taken in by the other variant of BJP propaganda which that India is secular because Hindus form the majority. Implicit here is the suggestion that Hindu religion is tolerant and liberal in contrast to the fundamentalism supposedly inherent in Islam.

First of all, the turn of events at Ayodhya has convincingly exploded this myth. Once Hinduism assumed an organised character a la Vishwa Hindu Parishad with Ayodhya as the so-called Hindu Vatican, the mahants of Hindu religion came out as perfect zealots and fanatics like fundamentalists of any other religion.

Secondly, secularism has nothing to do with the so-called positive assimilation of all religions or sarva dharma sambhav — a connotation attributed to it by modern social thinkers of India under the pretext of Indianising secularism. Secularism essentially means the rejection of religion in organising the affairs of the state.

Thirdly, a secular state everywhere has been the product of a successful democratic revolution and the very compulsion of diluting the concept of secularism in India is nothing but another confession of the unfinished character of the Indian democratic revolution. The orthodox or liberal face of any religion assuming predominance is related to the stage of evolution of a civil society. Christianity passing from the stage of orthodoxy to liberalism or the supposedly inherently liberal Sikhism turning orthodox with the rise of Khalistan etc. are all examples of this social law.

Liberal Hindu intellectuals are shocked by the demolition of the Babri Masjid as it supposedly goes against Hindu tenets. At the same time, they wonder why the Muslim leaders do not give up their claim to this dilapidated structure, which anyway, was not a functional mosque. They conveniently forget that for the Muslims, too, the Babri Masjid had become a monument symbolising their identity and existence in the complex socio-historical conditions of India.

The alienation of the Indian secular intellectual from the man on the street and his consequent panic in the face of communal offensive has often led him to bank on the negativist strategy of pitting Mandal against Mandir. The strategy met with abject failure in the last elections.

There can be no denying the fact that to mobilise broad public opinion against today’s communal offensive, liberal values of both Hinduism and Islam as well as archaeological findings and legal verdicts should all be put to good use. However, wide propaganda of modern secular ideals from an independent left platform alone can provide the essential core of a counter-offensive. Moreover, the question of secularism should not be posed in contrast to the tasks of democratic revolution or to justify all sorts of opportunist political alliances in the name of a secular front. Rather it should be made part and parcel of the democratic revolution. Instead of having a secular front which may also take up democratic questions we must have a democratic front which has the formation of a secular state on top of its agenda, not just as an ethical question or as an affirmation of historical traditions, but as a question of practical politics, as an absolute pre-condition for building a modern India.

[Published serially in four parts in April, May, June and August issues of Liberation, in 1993.]

Sangh Parivar - Traitors to the cause of freedom

The role of the Communist Party in 1942 is a much maligned one and a few years back Mr.Arun Shourie searched through the archives to expose the socalled treachery of the CPI in that period, albeit with a few insertions of his own here and there. Admittedly, the Communist Party did make a tactical blunder in that period and almost all the communist formations of India accept that. Except this brief episode, communists remained an important segment of the freedom movement. Militant fighters for the cause of freedom were either inspired by the successful October Revolution in Soviet Union and the communist ideology or by leaders like Bhagat Singh and they graduated to communism in large numbers.

Savarkar, the first proponent of modern Hindutva, did play a heroic role in the early days of anti-British struggle. But since mid-20s, after becoming the leader of Hindu Mahasabha, he followed a clear line of compromise with the British, so much so that during the 1942 movement he asked the Mahasabha members in local bodies, legislatures and services to "stick to their posts and continue to perform their regular duties". The virulent anti-Muslim propaganda and the call to "Hinduize politics and militarize Hinduism" resorted to by Savarkar and his Mahasabha effectively meant full wartime collaboration with the British. (V.D. Savarkar, Historic Statements, 1957) Hedgewar, the founder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, worked within the Congress fold but his espousal of Hindutva only led to his and his organisation’s growing drift from the mainstream freedom movement.

The non-cooperation movement of the early 1920s — which represented the highest point of anti-British unity in the entire history of freedom movement and which was betrayed by Gandhi and the Congress leadership, who called it off in l922 — only drew a derogatory remark from Hedgewar: "As a result of the non-cooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi, the enthusiasm (for nationalism) in the country was cooling down and the evils in social life which that movement generated menacingly raised their head…The Yavan snakes reared on the milk of non-cooperation were provoking riots in the nation with their poisonous hissing". (Bhishikar, 1979, p.7)

In 1927, when the freedom movement showed fresh signs of revival and a powerful agitation developed against the arrival of the Simon Commission, the RSS kept itself strictly aloof and was rather busy organising its first training camp in Nagpur. September 1927 witnessed a communal riot in Nagpur and RSS was found deeply involved in the same.

In the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930, in the background of Congress adopting Purna Swaraj as the national goal in the Lahore Congress, once again the RSS was nowhere to be found. Hedgewar asked RSS shakhas to celebrate independence day -- 26 January 1930 as decided by the Congress -- through worship of the bhagwa jhanda (saffron flag). But in sharp contrast to the pattern prevailing generally all over the country, lathi-wielding RSS cadres were nowhere engaged in confrontation with the colonial police while observing the day.

Golwalkar took over as Sarsanghchalak after Hedgewar in 1940 and further perfected the anti-Muslim, pro-British thrust of Hinduism. Says Golwalkar, "The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger, which formed the basis for our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu nationhood and made many of the freedom movements virtually anti-British movements. Being anti-British was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the independence struggle, its leaders and the common people". (Golwalkar, 1966, pp. 142-43)

This, perhaps, is the most revealing exposition of the RSS’ definition of patriotism and nationalism. Strange as it may appear, this ideologue of Hinduism decries anti-British nationalism right amidst the rising tide of freedom movement to overthrow the colonial yoke. All the ‘nationalist, patriotic’ outcries and fervor of RSS were essentially directed against past memories of Muslim domination. For it, history had ceased to exist after Shivaji’s forays against the last great Moghul emperor, Aurangzeb. The British interlude only helped demolish the last remnants of Mughal rule and hence was an ally. Shivaji’s battle was to be continued till it culminated in Hindu Rashtra. The RSS emerged from Maharashtra with unmistakable Maratha overtones and it willingly played into the hands of British colonialists who always tried to sabotage the freedom movement by encouraging the Hindu-Muslim divide.

No wonder then that the RSS was nowhere to be found in the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1940-41, the Quit India Movement of 1942, the Azad Hind Fauz, the 1945-46 upsurges centering around the INA trials and the Bombay naval mutiny.

Today, the same history continues in changed circumstances. Once again when the country is facing a serious threat of neo-colonialism from the same old imperialist powers, the Sangh Parivar is ready at the masters’ service. Their nationalism and patriotism has nothing to do with opposing American supremacy and the IMF-WB’s and MNCs’ domination over India. All their fervour is directed against the symbols of Muslim rule which have receded well past into history. This not only serves to sabotage India’s struggle for a second freedom from economic subjugation and chronic threats to political independence as well as from the authoritarian establishment for a people’s democratic society, but also serves their imperialist masters, with their newly perceived Islamic threat after the collapse of the communist challenge.

Philosophy of Hindu Rashtra is borrowed from Nazism

RSS-BJP propagandists day in and day out accuse communists of borrowing a foreign ideology from a German named Marx while they themselves claim to be purely indigenous. However, it was none but a German (albeit of Austrian origin) again who deeply influenced Golwalkar in fashioning his ideology and organisation. The name of this German is Adolf Hitler.

Writes Golwalkar in his We or Our Nationhood Defined: "German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic races -- the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by."

Translation of this Nazism in India means that non-Hindu people must renounce every bit of their identity -- be it language, culture, religion…everything. In case they refuse to do so, Golwalkar may still allow them to stay in the country subject to the condition that they "wholly subordinate to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizen’s rights".

The whole RSS philosophy of Hindu Rashtra, therefore, is nothing but a borrowed version of the German Nazi state.

BJP’s gameplan behind turning Ram, the mythical hero, into a national hero

The popular epics, Valmiki’s Ramayana and Tulsidas’ Ram Charit Manas symbolise the victory of good over evil in a typical fashion, elevating Ram, the popular mythical figure, to the rank of an incarnation of God. Thus Ram belongs to the spiritual and religious domain for Hindu masses. Integrity of his character, Maryada Purushottam, and the standards of his rule, the Ram Rajya, are often invoked in popular parlance to emphasize moral virtues and social justice. None has ever thought of turning Ram into a national hero till the advent of modern Hinduism.

Savarkar, the founding father of the ideology of Hindutva, in his desperate search for a symbol of Hindu India, wrote, "Some of us worship Ram as an incarnation, some admire him as a hero and a warrior, all love him as the most illustrious representative monarch of our race." Since then, advocates of Hindutva have been harping on the theme of this ‘most illustrious representative monarch of our race’. Vijaya Dashami was chosen as the day for launching of RSS in 1927. The saffron flag, supposed to be the flag of Ram, was chosen as the flag of RSS.

Finally, Babri Masjid, supposedly built after demolishing a Ram temple, provided the Sangh Parivar with the perfect mix where Ram was pitted against Babar. The transformation of Ram from a cultural, religious-mythical figure to a national hero with arrows targeted against Muslim ‘invaders’ was thus complete.

If, Ravana of Ram Katha imprisoned Sita, the Ravanas of Sangh Parivar have imprisoned Ram himself for their political manipulation. Ram has to be freed from their clutches to restore him to the spiritual-religious domain of his worshippers.

The RSS repeatedly exhorts Muslims to look upon Ram as their hero and assures them that all problems would then be over. But this demand is not only highly arrogant and ridiculous in that it asks Muslims to renounce their faith and revert to idol worship — because in no other way can Muslims look upon Ram as their hero — it is also a retrogressive demand, particularly when several Hindu trends have advanced towards monotheism, looking at God in abstraction.

While, in contrast to other mythical figures, the epic of a dispossessed Ram sharing his life with otherwise inferior castes and defeating Ravana, the Brahmin king, with their help evokes a popular identification with him among the common masses, his appeal is still not uniform even among Hindus of different sects and regions. Some segments of Hindus, particularly from among dalits, are even critical of some of his actions which they feel smack of an upper caste syndrome.

Hindus and Muslims quite rightly look upon the heroes of first independence war in 1857 as well as the martyrs of anti-British struggles as their national heroes. The demand should be made upon the Sangh Parivar to exhibit the same spirit because despite Golwalkar Indian nationalism had its origins only in anti-British struggles.

The myth of Hindu pride

One of the popular slogans of the Sangh Parivar is Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain (Proudly say we are Hindus), exhorting Hindus to proudly proclaim their Hindu identity. According to the Sangh ideologues, the loss of Hindu pride was mainly responsible for the Hindus’ meek submission to successive foreign invaders. Therefore in order to retrieve Hindu pride it is all the more necessary to demolish the monuments of Hindu humiliation. The Hindu crusade, at the fag end of the 20th century, has thus begun with the demolition of the Babri Masjid and obviously the list runs longer to include masjids at Kashi and Mathura to the Jama Masjid and even the Taj Mahal.

Let us recount the history of evolution of Hinduism to unearth the essence of this so-called Hindu pride. Ironically, the first known invaders of India were none other than the Aryans themselves, who came from the Iranian highlands around the middle of the second millennium B.C. To buttress its claim of Hindu India, the Sangh Parivar is engaged in a grand design of falsifying history and disproving all known historical tendencies in dishing out new theories of Aryans being the original inhabitants of this country. This is utterly false. The original inhabitants of India were people of the Mohenjodaro and Harappan civilisation in the Indus valley — a civilisation higher than that of the Aryans. India’s pre-Aryan population was most probably Dravidian. The Aryan tribes were semi-nomadic pastoral tribes with a developed patriarchal clan system and military democracy. In other words, they were at a transitional stage from a pre-class to class society. From the Indus basin and Northwest, they gradually spread out to the Gangetic basin and Northeast. This advance, however, involved innumerable battles with the local population. This whole transitional phase is reflected in the Rig Veda and other Vedas.

The religion of the Aryans at this stage is termed as Vedic religion. In the early stages, Devas and Asuras were both Vedic gods, albeit belonging to two hostile camps. Later on, Asuras became evil spirits, the opposite of what happened to other Iranians. The local hostile tribes of Dravidians were personified as Rakshasas.

Vedic Aryans practised polytheism where gods representing forces of nature, particularly Indra, occupied the central position. There were no temples, no professional priesthood, and no concept of retribution after death. The idea of the soul’s separation from the body too had not developed by then. A varna system had come into being reflecting the emerging pattern of social division of labour. In short, Vedic religion was reflective of the transitional stage of Aryan society and it was more concerned with life on earth than after-life.

As Aryan tribes evolved into settled agricultural communities, a number of despotic, early slave-owning kingdoms emerged in the beginning of the first millennium B.C. At this stage, Vedic religion gave way to what is known as Brahmanism.

The Varna structure acquired a social rigidity and there emerged a separate social group of Brahmans — specialists in the Vedas — with a good deal of authority. The laws of Manu, in 5th century B.C., gave divine sanction to the varna and caste system and the Brahman caste was virtually deified. Vedic gods were relegated to secondary positions and new deities came to the forefront, Brahma being the foremost among them. As the local population gradually merged with the Aryan conquerors, their deities too entered the Brahmanic pantheon. With the development of a rigid caste system, gods too became caste gods. With the arrival of Upanishads, the idea of immigration of soul became dominant and the idea of karma became the theoretical foundation of reincarnation.

The Brahmanical period is also described as the Upanishadic period where six classical schools of thought developed. Vedanta, advocating the merger of Atma with Bramha, a profoundly mystical philosophy, was the mainstay of Brahmans. The kshatriyas, who had been competing with the Brahmans, sided with Sankhya, a philosophy closer to materialism.

Beyond the sphere of classical philosophy, there emerged materialistic philosophies of Charvaka and Lokayata which rejected even the existence of god. They were reflective of the common people’s rejection of Brahmanic domination.

Brahmanism was collapsing under its own weight and the broad masses of people in the form of unconscious protest against oppressive caste system started rallying behind the rival religious trends of Buddhism and to an extent Jainism by 6th and 5th century B.C.

Both these trends rejected the caste system as well as the organised priesthood. Buddhism, in the main, replaced Brahmanism and between 3rd century B.C. and 1st and 2nd century A.D. it even became the state religion under Maurya and Kushan dynasties. With its complex rituals, alienated from the masses, the Brahminic aristocracy was no match for the Buddhists’ populism.

In the course of its struggle with Buddhism, Brahmanism drastically reshaped itself under the leadership of Adi Shankaracharya. Thus began the phase of what is known as Hinduism. The Buddhists were the first to introduce the concept of temples. To overwhelm the masses, grand Hindu temples were built with huge idols of gods. Pilgrimage sites were introduced, and to ensure mass mobilisation, public ceremonies and religious processions were initiated. To bring gods closer to the masses, there came into being the concept of Avatars. Mythical heroes like Ram and Krishna were elevated to the status of avatars of god and thus were treated as saviours. Buddha too was incorporated as one of Vishnu’s avatars. Strange enough, while Buddhism spread far and wide and became a world religion, in the country of its origin it was virtually wiped out.

Hinduism essentially came to mean the preservation of the old caste system supplemented by new methods of influencing and controlling the masses. With the growth of social stratification, caste, ethnic and racial diversification and complexities of class relations, Hindus went on splintering into various sects, marked by unending mutual schisms.

While futile attempts for sarva panth sambhav — later translated as sarva dharma sambhav and proclaimed as the basis of Indian secularism — were made by some, in later periods there emerged religious reform movements, first under the impact of Islam, and then Christianity. Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya and a host of other reformers — making up what is known as the Bhakti Andolan in the Middle Ages — attacked the caste system and the complicated rituals of Hinduism. Kabir stands out as the most outstanding among all these reformers, who, on behalf of the common masses launched scathing attacks against the superstition and hypocrisy of the Brahmans.

In the British period, Raja Rammohan Roy, Dayanand Saraswati and Vivekanand were the major advocates of reform. They all championed the pantheistic philosophy of the Vedanta school and tried to get rid of the rigid caste system. However, each one of these trends ended up only adding another sect to Hinduism and nothing more. Hinduism, with its rigid caste system, supposedly with divine sanction, closed its doors forever and remained essentially a national religion. Buddhism, Christianity and then Islam grew into world religions. Vishwa Hindu Parishad therefore is a misnomer, a pretence, to project Hinduism as a world religion.

More than upholding a false Hindu pride, all progressive reform movements in Hinduism have tried to give Hinduism a liberal, modern outlook with particular emphasis on doing away with the rigidity of its caste structure. Hindu orthodoxy has all along resisted it more or less successfully on the strength of traditions and traditional institutions. Now for the first time, there has emerged a counter-movement under the auspices of the Sangh Parivar, which aims at annulling whatever effect the reforms have had. Those who are expecting a social reform in Hinduism out of the current upsurge of Hindutva are living in a fool’s paradise. This movement has so far offered us only wilful distortion of history, consolidation of the social and political clout of the sadhus and mahants, renewed aggressiveness of upper caste Hindus and of course a lumpen army of Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sainiks. This is what is being hailed by the ideologues of the Sangh Parivar as the upsurge of Hindutva, the rise of a Kshatriya cult in Hinduism on the lines of Khalsa, and, of course, as the assertion of Hindu pride.

Religion, as has been rightly said, is the expression of man’s powerlessness vis-a-vis his environment. Religious fantasies do provide illusions of breaking through the limits imposed by the environment and people, therefore, have always flocked to religion, particularly in times of distress. But illusions are only illusions, they can never replace reality. Invoking the Hindu pride and the super-human role of a monkey god, it is possible to demolish a dilapidated structure, kill and maim thousands of unarmed innocent people but not to resist the invasion of neo-colonial powers which is going on unabated, ironically with the complicity of the forces of Hindu pride.

The myth of ‘secular’ Hinduism

Another oft-repeated argument of the Sangh Parivar is that India is secular because Hindus constitute the overwhelming majority of the Indian population. Incidentally, this idea of equating the supposedly inherent tolerance of Hinduism with secularism also informs the official ‘secular’ opinion in India and hence the Hindu ethos is constantly invoked in all preachings of secularism in India.

Now, the present rise of Hindutva is marked by an alarming escalation of religious fanaticism in the Hindu masses, the growing clout of sadhus and mahants in the nation’s political life, a dangerous consolidation of all the dregs and scum of society in outfits like Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, a heightened spate of anti-Muslim pogroms, the open exhibition of communal bias by various wings of the state and increasing intolerance of every kind of dissenting idea in the academic world. This convincingly shows that a pure Hindu state can only mean the negation of democracy and secularism.

Secondly, several developed countries, where Christianity and Buddhism are dominant religions, are far more secular than India. Christianity in particular was quite an orthodox and intolerant religion — if one remembers the Inquisition — and in many European countries the church was a very powerful institution. In course of time, however, various trends emerged within Christianity and successful bourgeois revolutions led to the separation of the church from the state. In fact, the very concept of secularism, based on separation of religion and the state, arose from the successful bourgeois revolutions of the West.

Proponents of the supposedly inherent secular character of Hinduism, however, contrast it only with the supposedly inherent intolerance of Islam. This perception of Islam is shared by a vast majority of Hindu masses and therefore it is necessary to delve deep into the evolution of Islam.

In the sixth century, various tribes inhabiting Arabia were engaged in internecine clashes. The decline of the caravan trade and the consequent need for land was the major factor behind this. Islam as the movement for unification among warring tribes arose out of this socio-economic condition. Muhammad’s preaching advocating the merger of tribal cults and submission to the single supreme god — Allah — began in this historical situation. Chiefs of his own Koerish tribe as well as the merchant nobility were initially hostile to his ideas and he had to flee Mecca. People in the agricultural oasis of Medina, who were in conflict with the Mecca aristocracy provided a strong support base to Muhammad and with their help he eventually seized Mecca. With the emergence of Mecca as an important religious and national centre the Koerish nobility too not only accepted Islam, but even became its leaders.

Engels wrote that Islam was a religion intended, on the one hand, for city-dwellers engaged in commerce and craft and, on the other hand, for nomadic Bedouins.

Islam which had emerged as a national religion for Arabs soon turned into a world religion. By eighth and ninth century, Islam became the exclusive religion in the vast territory from Spain to Central Asia stretching to the borders of India. In the latter centuries, it spread on a larger scale to Northern India. Still later, it expanded to Indonesia, Caucasia and among certain peoples in the Balkan states.

Conquests recorded as holy wars for faith (Jihad) and arising out of the Arab need to unify and seize new lands did play a major role in the spread of Islam. But if people in many states like Byzantine and Sissamid empires did not offer any resistance, the reason being the terrible oppression suffered by them at the hands of local feudal lords. In the countries conquered by the Arabs, the obligations of the peasant populations — particularly those adopting Islam — was lessened considerably. In India the spread of Islam was facilitated by inhuman Brahminical caste oppression. The spread of Islam also has much to do with its simplicity, which made it attractive for the peasant masses in the patriarchal feudal states of the East.

Subsequently, the Muslim theologians and secular scholars have reinterpreted the commandments of Jihad. There have been attempts to reinterpret Hinduism as the religion with a holy book and Ram and Krishna as prophets of their times. Readers may recall in this context a recent debate in Muslim theological circles in Bihar where a certain Muslim scholar gave a call to withdraw the label of Kafirs on Hindus.

Islam has codified civil and criminal laws based on religious laws known as Shariat. Patriarchal tribal attitudes did influence the family ethics in Islam where women are subordinate to men. This is perhaps common to all religions. However, in the concrete social conditions prevailing in Arabia then, the Koran by condemning the cruel conduct of a husband towards his wife — and by specifying the woman’s property rights — the right to dowry and inheritance — did elevate the status of women somewhat.

Though Islam united people on a large scale under the banner of religion, the national and class contradictions went on intensifying in Muslim countries. This was reflected through the emergence of various trends and sects in Islam.

One of the earliest and largest among such trends has been Shiaism. It began as an internal struggle among the Arabs, as a struggle for power between Muhammad’s successors, but soon it developed into an expression of discontent of the Persians against their Arab conquerors. Shiaism till date remains the state religion of Iran. Most of the Muslims of the world, however, follow Sunnism. In the eighth and ninth centuries, Mutzilites — a sect among Sunnis — tried to interpret the Muslim doctrine in a rational spirit, maintaining that the Koran was a book written by the people and not created by god, and that man has free will. As against schools of thought based on literal interpretation of religions dogmas, certain schools of thought arose within Islam, which allowed for a more liberal interpretation of the doctrine and enjoyed support in more developed regions of the Muslim world.

Sufism grew within Shiaism but was also adopted among Sunnis. Adherents of Sufism did not pay much attention to superficial rituals and sought a mystical union with the divine. In the strict sense, they deviated from the Koran in their pantheistc perception of god. Initially they were persecuted by orthodox Muslims but later on a compromise was brought about.

In keeping with the era of democratic revolutions and anti-imperialist movements, radical changes occurred in Muslim traditions during the 19th and 20th centuries. In a number of Muslim countries the sphere of influence of the Shariat has been limited, legal norms have been secularised and the state separated from the hold of the Muslim clergy. In Turkey, in 1920s, democratic revolution occurred under the leadership of Kemal Pasha and after the establishment of republic radical reforms were introduced.

India provides a classical case of Islam’s coexistence with Hinduism, a religion with idol worship and many gods, for centuries. At the level of religious beliefs, there could hardly be any meeting point between the two, but at the grassroots, people from both religions share a common life, common aspirations, and many common beliefs. As the country was divided on Hindu-Muslim lines, obviously Muslims who remained in India would have a sympathetic attitudes towards Pakistan quite similar to the attitude of a Pakistani or Bangladeshi Hindu towards India. However, after Partition, the politics of Indian Muslims has generally veered around the Congress. To preserve its vote bank, the Congress went into political and social deals with Muslim fundamentalist forces often to offset the concessions it made to Hindu fundamentalism. This game had its obvious limits, and recent events have caused disillusionment of the Muslim community in relation to the Congress. Parties like Janata Dal have now jumped in to cash in on the Congress’ predicament, aligning, however, with the same fundamentalist forces.

The BJP’s advocacy of a Hindu state and its religious fanaticism is only, albeit negatively, strengthening fundamentalist forces among Muslims. Opposing bigamy or polygamy as part of progressive social reforms is one thing, but linking it with the growth of Muslim population is highly absurd. Having more children is an attribute of the feudal society and has nothing to do with religion. Polygamy is practised by a miniscule section of Muslims in India, and moreover, a little common sense can explain that given the ratio of male and female population, neither can this be the general phenomenon in a society, nor can it in any way account for population growth. The BJP’s concern for a uniform civil code and the rights of Muslim women is a big fraud and is only part of an overall attack on Muslim identity. Its jumping into the fray in the Shah Bano case only led to an orthodox Muslim backlash and caused a setback to a progressive social reform which otherwise had good support among Muslims too.

By advocating second-grade citizenship for Muslims in Hindu India, the BJP is only strengthening pro-Pakistan feelings among Muslims. Similarly, the demand for merging the Muslim identity with the Hindu ‘cultural’ identity is a direct negation of a composite Indian identity, notwithstanding the BJP’s trickery of equating Hindu identity with Indian identity. The Sangh Parivar’s ideological offensive shall only perpetuate and strengthen the myth of Pakistan among Indian Muslims.

Pakistan and the Pakistani myth among Indian Muslims was created because of the pronounced Hindu bias of India’s freedom struggle. And it continues to exist and draw fresh sustenance from the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva hysteria. True to their treacherous role in freedom struggle, they are repeating the same for the sake of splitting and weakening the Indian people’s resistance to the neo-colonial danger. The Sangh Parivar is once again at His Master’s Service, exactly when it is needed most.

However, the BJP is not going to have the last word on the future of Indian Muslims. New generations of Muslim youth no longer have any deep emotional attachment with Pakistan and are eager to carve out their space in India as Indian Muslims. They are quite receptive to the ideas of a secular state and recent events have brought them closer to the Left. Progressive and democratic intelligentsia among Muslims are raising their voice for democratic reforms within the Muslim society, stressing modern education and, particularly, elevation of the status of women. All secular forces must strengthen this developing current among Indian Muslims, which will lead to their becoming equal partners in deciding the destiny of India. Only a genuinely secular Indian state will destroy the very rationale of Pakistan, and if Pakistan still exists, be sure that the Indian Muslim youth will celebrate India’s victory over Pakistan in a cricket match with the same fervour as his Hindu brother.

In lieu of conclusion

In the month of March, a comrade handed me a questionnaire issued by the ABVP during the Benares Hindu University Students’ Union elections, with the request to write a ‘befitting’ reply. The questions were a mere rehash of oft-repeated allegations against communists, their foreign roots, their role in the Quit India movement, during partition and even during Emergency and so on and so forth. ABVP wondered what relevance Marxism had in India after the Soviet collapse. Wonder of wonders! ABVP was soon to get a befitting reply in Benares Hindu University itself!

The battle in BHU campus had clearly assumed ideological proportions and ABVP had to suffer a stunning defeat at the hands of AISA. The victory was an exclusive AISA victory as the student wings of CPI and CPI(M), Janata Dal, Mulayam, and even ex-Naxalites, were all working to ensure AISA’s defeat. The BHU victory came in succession to AISA victories in Nainital and Allahabad and attracted a lot of media attention.

Ideologues of the Sangh Parivar, who till the other day relished the ‘death’ of Marxism and boasted their expanding influence in West Bengal and Kerala as the corroboration of this fact were hard put to explain the resurgence of Marxism in the intellectual centres of Uttar Pradesh. Time was ripe for going over to a counter-offensive and thus the idea of this popular series was born.

Unfortunately, most of the writings against the Sangh Parivar’s communal philosophy were enmeshed in a liberal Hindu framework: extolling the virtues of Ram, invoking the themes of Hindu tolerance and Sarva Dharma Sambhav, and correspondingly, the liberal Hindu image of Gandhi and Vivekanand; and appealing to the conscience of communalists formed the mainstream of secular defence. Left leaders too joined in under the pretext of a new-found realisation of the role of religion. Even Nehru — so dear to CPI and CPI(M)-wallahs — became taboo and was silently replaced by Gandhi in secular left literature. Pseudo-secularism indeed!

True, the fascist connotation of Hindu Rashtra was as correctly identified as the need to build a broader unity of secular forces. But in the absence of a renewed thrust on the consolidation of a left core, this opened the floodgates of ideological and political opportunism as well. It goes without saying, that bereft of the cutting edge a counter-offensive, the whole secular propaganda may fall flat in face of a heightened communal onslaught. Who will then take up this challenge? The responsibility invariably falls on the Marxist-Leninists.

In course of our popular propaganda against communalism we questioned:

(A) The Gandhian methodology of invoking Hindu symbols, particularly Ram Rajya in the freedom struggle and held that it was the prime cause for Muslim alienation.

(B) Radhakrishnan’s definition of secularism as sarva dharma sambhava — which also became the official credo — and held that a modem state’s policy towards religion can only be sarva dharma varjite.

(C) The rationality of projecting Ram, a religious figure, as a national hero, and held that this status can only be attributed to the people’s hero Bhagat Singh.

(D) The validity of Hindu Rashtra as the unifying force for the country, and held that, if history is any guide, a Hindu Rashtra will surely disintegrate into multitudes of kingdoms. Symptoms of Maratha Rashtra of Shiv Sena developing side by side is an indicator of this.

(E) The role of the RSS in the entire course of the freedom struggle, including in 1942, in precipitating and supporting partition with the demand that entire Muslim population should be deported to Pakistan, in hobnobbing with Indira Congress during the days of Emergency, and held that RSS openly derived inspiration from Nazism, a foreign ideology.

(F) The RSS style of diffusing the target against the colonial masters during the freedom struggle by raising the Muslim bogey, and held that history was being repeated once again exactly when India was facing the serious threat of neo-colonisation.

(G) The anti-Pakistan axis of Indian foreign policy and held that a friendly approach towards Pakistan and a positive resolution of the bilateral dispute of Jammu and Kashmir are crucial to the improvement of the communal situation in India. We even proposed a commonwealth of independent states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In our build up of a counter-offensive we had pointed out that the most conservative bourgeois and landlord class and upper caste social composition of BJP, the increasing intervention of sadhus and mahants in civic and political life, the militant organisation of dregs of society in the garb of kar sevaks and hordes of upstart intellectuals bent upon falsifying history, organising hate mail and forcibly shutting down all dissident voices in academic circles combine to form a perfect mix for fascism.

Afterthought

The Babri Masjid has been demolished. Democrats of all hues have rightly demanded that for the sake of historic justice the Babri Masjid should be rebuilt there itself. The doubt, however, lingers on whether this will be possible or practical at this stage.

A makeshift Ram temple is already there and the way the Rao government is proceeding – in the typical Congress style of ‘delinking religion from politics’— and acting from behind only through Chandraswami and Shankaracharyas, the case of a Ram temple is getting strengthened. Who will take the credit — Congress or BJP — remains the only issue to be settled.

Ideologues of the Sangh Parivar had been repeatedly saying that Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute is not merely a religious one. As Babri Masjid, according to them, was the symbol of national humiliation, of Muslim invasion and rule over Hindu India, it is instead a question of national dignity.

Come on, for the sake of nationalism and patriotism why not build a national monument at the site? Neither the Babri Masjid, nor a Ram Mandir, a national monument in memory of the heroes of the first war of independence of 1857. After all, Awadh was the epicentre of this rebellion and building a national monument at Ayodhya can be a befitting honour to that history.

If Hinduism is just not a religion but a culture embracing all those who live in India, if Hinduism is equivalent to Indianness and if the Babri Masjid was demolished because it was a symbol of national humiliation, the Sangh Parivar should have no objection to raising a monument of national honour. Let the super nationalists and super patriots of Sangh Parivar accept this proposal and see how Muslims — the ‘anti-nationals’ — react to it. Messers Malkani and Govindacharya, are you listening to me?

Well, whether they listen or not, it is high time the secular and patriotic forces mooted this proposal, so as to prevent the building of a Ram Mandir there. A Ram Mandir will be a perpetual source of humiliation and alienation to Indian Muslims, and in this sense, a symbol of national disintegration. A national monument seems to be the only principled and practical demand at this stage and the nation must act, if necessary over the heads of all hues of die-hards, to avert a national catastrophe.

Introduction to the Report from the Flaming Fields of Bihar
Peasant Struggles in Central Bihar
From General Redistribution to the Nationalisation of Land
Main Features of the Peasant Movement
On Ranvir Sena
More on the Ranvir Sena 

May 13, 1986

If a colossal miscarriage^[1] allowed social-democracy to flourish in full bloom in the Indian communist movement, to be sure, social-democrats too had to pay a heavy price for their victory: doomed as an essentially regional force, they could never really make any dent in the Hindi heartland. What else can one infer from the CPI(M)’s total failure to make any headway in Bihar despite presiding over a full-fledged model of social-democracy in neighbouring West Bengal for no less than nine years in succession?

"Bihar is one of the most backward of Indian states, beset with rigid caste polarisations and devoid of any history of bourgeois reforms worth the name", argue Namboodiripad and Co.^[2] Well, these facts are as indisputable as the law — where social-democracy ends, revolutionary-democracy begins its journey. The same backward Bihar has proved to be a forward post of revolutionary-democracy, with the lowest rung of society being drawn into the vortex of peasant struggles. From the Pipra carnage to the Arwal massacre, blood-thirsty landlord-armies to trigger-happy paramilitary forces, protagonists of ‘total revolution’ to ‘His Majesty’s Opposition’ — none could enforce the ‘peace’ of the graveyard on the flaming fields of Bihar and none would be able to drive these unconventional actors to the backstage of historical action.

But, will the struggle of the Bihar peasantry really be able to blaze a new trail? Or, will it also go the way of all its predecessors, ending in a disaster or in a compromise halfway? Today this question is haunting all sincere Marxists as well as all who sympathise with the cause of revolutionary democracy. The present book is the first of a series of attempts to deal with precisely this question. But before we enter the main body of the book, let us have a glance at the crisscross pattern of the Indian communist movement and then examine the specific course of the Bihar peasantry.

The relations with the peasantry and with the bourgeoisie are two fundamental questions of tactics to be solved by the communist parties in backward countries with preponderant peasant populations. Way back in 1919, Lenin had advised the communists of the Eastern countries to work out their own strategy basing on the general lessons of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution. He had warned them that they might not get the answers to their problems in any communist book.

It was precisely this task that Mao Tse-tung undertook in right earnest while the leadership of the Indian communist party miserably failed to grasp its significance. Thus, while CPC succeeded in correctly solving the questions concerning the Communist Party’s relations with the peasantry and the bourgeoisie at various stages of China’s democratic revolution and went on to emerge as the leader of the national liberation struggle, thereby providing valuable guidelines for integrating Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of backward countries, the Indian communists could not develop any consistent line to deal with the two aforesaid problems. As a result, the Indian National Congress stole the show in India’s struggle for national liberation, while the communists came to be regarded as its appendage and even as traitors to the cause of freedom. True, there were various factors that did contribute to this failure. For instance, the colonial rule of the British bourgeoisie; the emergence and development of the Congress as a forum with a queer admixture of a highly developed democratic functioning on the surface (regular sessions, changing presidents, various crosscurrents coexisting and competing among themselves etc.) and the extra-organisational authority of Gandhi based on almost blind reverence at the core; the peculiar national, caste and communal issues; the conflicting pieces of advice from the Comintern and from certain Indian leaders guiding the Party from abroad etc. What was really strange, however, was that the dominant section of the leadership developed a line of thinking that put the Russian and Chinese experiences of revolution in general and Lenin and Mao in particular in contradistinction to each other, and concentrated all energies at pointing at differences in the Indian and Chinese conditions. What a great predicament! The Communist Party of India refused to learn anything from the great revolution in the biggest Asian country, which incidentally was our neighbour too, and from the thoughts of its undisputed leader Mao Tse-tung. It had nothing but ridicule for this great leader.

With the defeat of P.C. Joshi’s line and in the context of the rise and fall of Telangana (1946-51), there emerged three distinct lines in the Indian communist movement. The line peddled by Ranadive and Co. rejected the significance of the Chinese revolution, ferociously attacked Mao as another Tito and advocated the simultaneous accomplishment of the democratic and the socialist revolutions based on city-based working-class insurrections. Drawing its sustenance from Stalin’s initial suspicion about the Chinese revolution and Mao Tse-tung, this left-adventurist line, however, ended in a great fiasco.

The line of the Andhra Secretariat drew heavily from the Chinese experiences and the teachings of Mao in building the heroic struggle of Telangana. But the Andhra leadership, while successfully spearheading the movement against the feudal autocracy of the Nizam in conjunction with the Andhra Mahasabha, failed to tackle the complex question of meeting the challenge of the Nehru government and its army. It could not have possibly done that in the prevailing situation and therefore the two line struggle within the Party could not be taken to its logical conclusion. Nevertheless, Telangana remains one of the glorious chapters in the history of peasant struggles led by the Communist Party till date and reminds us of the first serious effort by sections of the Communist Party leadership to learn from the experiences of the Chinese revolution and to develop a comprehensive line for India’s democratic revolution, taking agrarian revolution as the axis.

The Nehru government embarked on the road to parliamentary democracy, paving it with populist reforms like the zamindari abolition. Telangana having already suffered a setback, objective conditions facilitated the dominance of a centrist line put forward by Ajay Ghosh and Dange. This line made a big issue of the differences between Chinese and Indian conditions and pushed the Party along the parliamentary road.

In 1957 the communists succeeded in forming a government in Kerala, which however, was soon overthrown while attempting radical agrarian reforms. That was a critical juncture in the evolution of the tactics of utilising parliamentary struggles. While experience re-emphasised the need for developing peasant movements and subordinating all parliamentary struggles to extra-parliamentary ones, the Party refused to learn its lesson and continued to proceed along the beaten track. In subsequent years, following the emergence of Khruschovite revisionism and the India-China war, the Party split into two. The Dangeite leadership took a national chauvinist position and began to peddle the theory of the so-called ‘peaceful road to non-capitalist development’. This line of national democratic revolution of the CPI transformed it over the years into an appendage of the Congress. For it, feudal remnants either do not exist in India or can be well taken care of by the Congress government itself.

The CPI(M), the other faction, went ahead with the centrist line. In the old Ranadive tradition it continued to pit Stalin against Mao and therefore did not wholly subscribe to Khruschov either. It does speak of people’s democracy, but the people’s democracy of its conception is more akin to the people’s democracies of the East European variety. It goes on to denigrate the experiences of the Chinese revolution and has nothing but ridicule for Mao Tse-tung Thought. In recent years, Basavapunniah, the chief theoretical spokesman for the CPI(M), has further intensified attacks on Mao^[3]. He has virulently attacked Mao’s philosophical position on contradictions and his tactics regarding the national bourgeoisie. Pointing to the differences between the Indian and Chinese conditions, the CPI(M) continues to preach the impossibility of partisan war in India, and has, once again started highlighting the old CPI appraisal of the Chinese revolution, according to which base areas and red army had played not much of a significant role in China, rather the massing of the Soviet troops in Manchuria during the Second World War had been mainly responsible for the victory of the Chinese revolution.

In their struggle against the national chauvinist leadership of the CPI, revolutionary communists allied themselves with the CPI(M). The Party went ahead with its parliamentary exercises, and, riding on the crest of mass movements, formed a United Front government in West Bengal through an opportunist coalition. The role of this government in suppressing the Naxalbari struggle exposed the revisionist character of the leadership and, by all standards, conditions were ripe for an all-out rebellion in the party. And rebellion it was — in West Bengal and Kerala the CPI(M) found its strength sufficiently eroded while in some states entire State Committees walked out in support of Naxalbari.

The spirit behind Naxalbari was the same as in Telangana, viz., the spirit of highlighting the role of peasant struggle in India’s democratic revolution, of drawing on the experiences of China and the teachings of Mao. However, the times had greatly changed. Naxalbari emerged against a new background: there was the great division in the international communist movement, land reforms and the democratic facade of the Congress had by then lost much of their earlier glamour, the country was facing a serious agrarian crisis that was being sought to be resolved through the imperialist strategy of green revolution, and to top it all, there was a grave political crisis as reflected in the first ever defeat of the Congress in the elections to many State Assemblies. In other words, Naxalbari emerged in a fine revolutionary situation when the ruling classes could no longer rule in the old way. It was a direct assault on the discredited and declining power. Moreover, this time the revisionist leadership of the party was also clearly on the other side of the fence, presiding over the police as it went on killing the peasants and the revolutionaries.

Different as the circumstances were, the impact was also different. Naxalbari did not stop at Naxalbari. With the building of, first, the AICCCR and then the CPI(ML), it spread like wildfire over many parts of India. The new revolutionary Party emphasised the scarlet thread that ran through Leninism and the entire course of its application in semi-colonial China by Mao Tse-tung. Making a clear break with the Indian variety of revisionism, it decided to incorporate, apart from Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung Thought too in its guiding ideology, and put greater emphasis on the similarities between the Indian and Chinese conditions. However, unlike some people who described themselves as Maoist communists, this new Party never declared itself as a Maoist party, but simply as the genuine Marxist-Leninist Party of India. To begin with, in its first steps on an entirely new course of Indian revolution, the new Party had no other option but to follow the Chinese model which at that time also provided the main form of struggles to the peoples of Vietnam as well as of other South-East Asian countries.

Telangana was resurrected in its spirit and colour. The air was charged with the slogans of guerilla war, red army and Yenan and the songs of the long march. The struggle spread to many parts of the country with West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh emerging as the main bastions. Thousands of students and youth jumped into the fray and revolution seemed so close. Naxalism, as a new brand of communist movement, became a national phenomenon and a new word in the political dictionary.

However, the euphoria was soon over. What had seemed to be the final enactment of revolution proved to be no more than a dress rehearsal. With hundreds having sacrificed their lives and thousands languishing in the jails, gloom set in, and as it always happens, it was accompanied by confusion, splits and disintegration. No one could be sure of the stand of this or that Party leader. People changed their positions unbelievably fast. Yesterday’s friends and close comrades became today’s adversaries.

For many, the dreams of liberation turned into veritable nightmares. Appeals were issued by leaders in jail, efforts were made to reorganise the scattered forces, but nothing could check the drift. History rolled on in its due course. For many participants of the movement it was simplify finished and finished for good, others continued to cherish the fond memories of the ’70s with the vain hope that a forceful repetition of the old slogans might resurrect the old situation as well, while still others based themselves on the naive assumption that the situation could be saved if only all the old fragments could be united somehow or other.

In its disorganised state, the movement gave rise to all possible trends and groupings and there ensued a protracted polemical war in the bitterest of fashions. All sorts of people, even those considered long dead or permanently silenced began to stage a comeback as though from oblivion. And with them came back the whole range of questions that were supposed to have been already resolved once and for all.

The point was how to revive the movement. Some felt it was enough to condemn the ‘line of annihilations’, boycott of elections and trade unions, and so on. Some even went so far as to condemn the CPI(ML) itself and thought that the answer lay in reviving the AICCCR.

In the period following Emergency, Charu Mazumdar was projected as a discredited revolutionary in West Bengal itself as the scene came to be dominated by SN Singh and his PCC. And then came the final blow from Kanu Sanyal who informed the world that the very struggle in Naxalbari was his brainchild, that it was he who had built it up, resisting Charubabu’s left-adventurist forays while Charu Mazumdar only destroyed it by overriding Kanubabu’s proposal of coming to a tactical agreement with the United Front government (perhaps in the old fashion of ‘withdrawal’ of the Telangana struggle by the then Party leadership in 1951).

While all this went on under the reign of social-democracy in West Bengal, and to a great extent, in Andhra too (the residual leadership in Srikakulam as well as the CP Reddy faction having already joined hands with SN Singh), Bihar had an altogether different story to tell. And to be sure, from much earlier periods.

As alternatives to the Gandhian strategy of freedom struggle and in contrast to it, if Bengal excelled in terrorism and in the ‘leftism’ of the Subhas variety and Bombay in the strikes of the working class, Bihar came up with a powerful Kisan Sabha movement right in the ’30s.

It was at Champaran in Bihar that Gandhi began his experiments with the peasantry, gradually evolving the strategy of mobilising the peasants in a peaceful, non-violent Satyagraha against British rule, while discouraging any movement against the ‘swadeshi’ zamindars. The peasants of Bihar did respond zealously to every call of the freedom struggle coming from the Congress leadership, but in each and every case they translated the restricted Congress call into an active, often violent, movement against the zamindars. The zamindars being the main social prop of British rule in India, the peasants naturally interpreted these calls in the language they understood. This objective contradiction of real life forced the interim Congress ministry of Bihar, which assumed office in the wake of the 1937 elections, to negotiate a written agreement with the zamindars, an event unparalleled in India’s freedom movement. By contrast, the Kisan Sabha movement, having begun as a wing of the Congress, gradually detached itself from the Congress and came under the fold of the revolutionary democrats, a sizeable section later joining the Communist Party. History clearly shows that during the Kisan Sabha movement caste-based polarisations had all receded into the background. Also the anti-Brahminical movements or Ambedkar-type dalit movements or the harijan cause of Jagjivan Ram could never find much favour in Bihar during the entire phase of the freedom struggle even as the CPI and the Socialists successfully developed a strong base. If the CPI still retains a powerful base, it is more due to the legacy of the Kisan Sabha movement and certain positive achievements in the 50s during the period of Telangana.

In the post-independence period, to prevent the outbreak of Telangana-type struggles, once again Bihar was selected as the focal point for Vinoba Bhave’s Sarvodaya strategy. An erstwhile Socialist and an activist of the Kisan Sabha movement, Jai Prakash became the chief exponent of Sarvodaya in Bihar. But the agrarian reality of Bihar prevailed over their high-sounding rhetoric, and with Bhoodan ending in a big fiasco, Vinoba returned to Wardha and, JP too, temporarily retired from public life. The retreat of Vinoba and JP was followed by the advent of the political crisis of the mid-60s, and it was against this backdrop that Naxalbari immediately found its echo in the Musahari block of Muzaffarpur district in North Bihar. But soon the struggle there suffered a setback and once again JP jumped into the fray armed with his neo-Sarvodaya strategy, which later developed into his famous theory of ‘total revolution’.

While JP went ahead with his avowed aim of combating the ‘menace of Naxalism’, revolutionary communists, too, continued with their attempts to develop peasant struggles in different parts of Bihar, though with little success in the beginning. But just when things seemed to be going exactly the Bengal way by the end of 1971, quite unexpectedly the Central Bihar districts of Bhojpur, and to a lesser extent, Patna started sending encouraging signals. Rooted deep in the prevailing social conditions, the struggle in Bhojpur and Patna began on a different note and there emerged a non-traditional indigenous core of leadership.

All the precious blood of our heroic martyrs spilt over the fields and factories, hamlets and lanes, torture chambers and prison cells all over the country seemed to rise high in the sky, and there appeared a red glow over Bhojpur. And, as subsequent years have proved, the glow was not that of a meteor, but that of a star, a red star that has come here to stay and shine.

The independent course of the peasant struggle and the Party’s attempt to impart consciousness to it went through a peculiar phase of unity and struggle. The Party worked hard to develop communist elements from among the peasant vanguards, always trying to check the spontaneous negative tendencies of the movement and give it an organised shape. There were, however, also strong attempts on the part of the Party to super-impose its set of dogmatic ideas regarding forms of struggle and organisation on the movement and, to be sure, these attempts proved counter-productive.

Finally, the Party-wide rectification movement in the changed political situation of the post-Emergency period helped to restore the balance and provided new momentum to the fledgling peasant struggle, and we arrived at the present phase of a widespread peasant awakening. Paradoxically, the victim of this entire development was S N. Singh^[4], who hailed from Bihar, and, that too from Bhojpur itself. The ghost of Charu Mazumdar chased him away from Bihar and in communist revolutionary circles in the state, he became the most discredited person.

Incidentally, the ‘credit’ for the first, and so far, the only fundamental division in the CPI(ML) goes to none other than the Bihar State Committee under the leadership of S.N. Singh. All other divisions are either artificial, temporary or of no great significance. Attempts have been made and are still being made to formulate a comprehensive ‘left’ line by certain groups, but no one can claim, as yet, to have developed such a line. Semi-anarchism is still at best a tendency debating over forms and methods of struggle and organisation, and a major section of those presently obsessed with this tendency will surely come back to the Marxist-Leninist fold as they gain more experience with the passage of time. In contrast, SN’s was a definite alternative tactical line advocating well-defined relations with well-defined social forces. That is why he was resurrected again and again and continues to assert even after his death at one pole of our movement. His essential difference with Charu Mazumdar began on the question of the relation with rich peasants. He emphasised unity with the rich peasants in contrast to CM’s emphasis on neutralising them through struggle. Subsequently, this line developed into that of unity with sections of the class of landlords and with the bourgeois opposition. (Bhaskar Nandy temporarily outwitted SN by theorising this unity on the basis of a totally different premise. However, SN soon withdrew himself from Nandy’s erroneous theoretical exercise.)

Later on, on the question of united front, SN and we both started from the same premise of developing a nationwide political alternative to the Congress rule. But the similarity ended here itself as SN chose to follow a totally different course, joining hands with JP, cultivating relations with the leaders of the Janata Party and a host of liberals, condemning the key role of agrarian revolution, end even going so far as to coin the now famous formulation that the proletariat may or may not lead the democratic revolution. True, under various pressures and compulsions, subsequently SN did have to compromise on many of his pronouncements, but these were more in the nature of tactics and did not affect his essential position.

We, on the other hand, stood for boldly expanding the peasant struggles which no doubt hit substantial sections of the rich peasants too who in Bihar do indulge in serious feudal practices. And precisely on the basis of these struggles did we work for developing the revolutionary bloc of the workers, peasants and the petty bourgeoisie as an alternative to the Congress rule even as we left the door open for tactical manoeuvrings with the parties and factions of the bourgeois opposition.

It is in the context of this struggle between the two tactical lines that the peasant struggle in Bihar developed and expanded.

Emerging as it did in a different setting of the international communist movement the peasant struggle in Bihar did not get open support from the Chinese Communist Party, and in the face of sharp factional divisions, it even failed to receive a sympathetic hearing, let alone necessary support, from various communist revolutionary groups in India. Here was a situation that was really vastly different from what obtained during the struggles of Naxalbari and Srikakulam. However, the movement has indeed gained widespread solidarity from many quarters. In fact, it would have been impossible to sustain the movement for all these long years, had it not been for the valuable guidance provided by many veterans of the Indian communist movement and important leaders of the united CPI(ML), the help and cooperation received from the communist revolutionary ranks belonging to different groups and from Marxist academicians, revolutionary-democrats, civil liberty organisations, truth-seeking journalists, noted cultural personalities and progressive Indian circles abroad, and the support extended by the Communist Parties of China, Nepal, Philippines, Peru and other foreign friends.

The current struggle in Bihar is expanding in districts which have a fighting heritage dating back to the old Kisan Sabha days. These are the districts where the incidence of big landlordism is low, but where landlordism enjoys a wider base, encompassing not only the ex-intermediaries but also erstwhile powerful raiyats. Compared to many other parts of Bihar, agriculture in these districts is marked by a relatively greater use of modern means, better transport facilities and a more pronounced market-orientation of the rural economy. The various agrarian issues that have come to the fore in these districts are similar to those which affect the rural poor all over India, viz., minimum wages, tenancy rights, occupation of vested, benami, communal and government lands, prevention of distress sale of crops, easy availability of various inputs at cheaper rates and so on and so forth. In short, the region to a great extent is a typical representative of the changing pattern of Indian agriculture.

Indian agriculture today is also facing a new type of crisis caused by the saturation of the strategy of green revolution and ‘overproduction’. And as a direct outcome of this crisis, there has emerged a new type of farmers’ movement in certain parts of India. In Maharashtra, in particular, it has found a fertile field as well as a powerful exponent in Mr.Sharad Joshi. The theoretical framework propounded by Mr.Joshi focuses on the contradiction^[5] between poor rural Bharat^[6] and rich urban India, stresses economic upliftment of the peasants as the cure-all for all the ills being faced by the country today, and concentrates exclusively on the single-point-demand of remunerative prices for agricultural produce. He does not believe that any substantial ground exists for major conflicts among different sections of the rural population, and it goes without saying that the peasants of his conception are none other than the rich and middle farmers. As to why he is not laying any particular stress on the agricultural labourers, Mr.Joshi holds that, first, any economic gains achieved by the peasants will automatically percolate to the former by way of higher wages, and second, the lowest strata of the people have never played the vanguard role in history in bringing about social transformation.

Despite his agitational mode of operation, it is this emphasis on rural development coupled with his insistence on non-party politics and his persistent anti-communist bias that has endeared Mr.Joshi to the Sarvodayites, who are perhaps in search of a new messiah after the departure of both Vinoba and JP.

So, one now witnesses a battle for supremacy between the East and West winds within the peasant movement, blowing respectively from Bihar and Maharashtra. In sharp contrast to the farmers’ movement in Maharashtra, the peasant struggle in Bihar has in its forefront the agrarian labourers, who are quite numerous, as well as the poor and lower-middle peasants, while sizeable sections of the kulaks including, in certain pockets, elements from certain backward castes, find themselves on the other side of the fence, as a veritable target of attack, at least in the present phase of the movement. But even as the movement lays the highest stress on thoroughgoing land reforms, it does also strive to incorporate the issues arising out of the crisis of green revolution, issues that affect large segments of the middle and upper-middle peasants.

The outcome of this battle between the two winds has not yet been decided, and the final sequences of what may prove to be a most fascinating epic-drama in the history of India have not unfolded themselves either. Still, when the unceremonious death of the poorest among the peasants in the unknown, unheard of, dingy, mud-tracked, tiny country-town of Arwal^[7] begins to shape the political crisis of the powers that be in Bihar, one can safely proclaim that the heroes have finally arrived on the stage.

Notes:
1. Setback in the first revolutionary upsurge following Naxalbari in the face of brutal repression.

2. This was the logic advanced by the CPI(M) General Secretary EMS Namboodiripad to explain its failure in Bihar.

3. See "On Contradictions – Antagonistic and Non-antagonistic" in the Social Scientist, September 1983

4. Quite interestingly, SN had at one time slandered the Bhojpur struggle as being guided and financed by Jagjivan Ram and later on, the dominant section of the PCC leadership also preferred to dismiss Bhojpur as a purely caste struggle. Late Comrade CP, during my [VM’s -- Ed.] talks with him, revealed how on persistent enquiries by the Chinese comrades about Bhojpur, Bhaskar Nandy had continued to repeat similar allegations. CP, however, differed with them and was even inclined to consider that annihilation, as practiced in Bhojpur, did have practical justification.

5. Interestingly, Mr.Joshi refers to Rosa Luxemburg in his support as against Lenin. He is also very much against Stalin’s tackling of the kulaks. However, his comments on Mao are not known.

6. To be fair to him, it must, however, be acknowledged that his rural Bharat does also include sections of the urban poor slumdwellers for instance, whom he considers as peasants driven away by poverty.

7. The infamous Arwal massacre of 1986 led to nationwide protests.

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fourth Party Congress, 1987.]

The movement in central Bihar covers seven districts: Bhojpur, Rohtas, Patna, Gaya, Jehanabad, Aurangabad and Nalanda. Our Party is the main leading force behind it. This phase of peasant struggles in Bihar with its genesis in the heroic struggles of Bhojpur and Patna between 1972 and 1979, represents the third milestone after Telengana in 1946-49 and the Naxalbari phase of 1967-1971.

The present phase of peasant struggle began in the rural areas of Patna in the early ’80s and soon spread to Nalanda and Jehanabad. A new awakening took place in Bhojpur, Aurangabad, Rohtas and parts of Gaya. The government replied with massive police actions, sometimes termed as Operation Task Force. Assisting the armed gangs of landlords, better known as private armies, undertaking certain administrative and economic reforms, mobilising the support of different political parties, particularly the CPI and Sarvodaya groups, as well as of the news media — thus the government made multi-pronged attempts to suppress the movement. In the face of these governmental measures and due to our own tactical mistakes, we suffered setbacks and losses in certain areas and had to make retreats and readjustments in many other areas of operation. On the whole, however, we successfully countered these measures and succeeded in disintegrating the private armies, restricting our losses to a minimum and retaining the initiative in our hands.

In essence, the entire struggle revolves around three issues:

(i) For an increase in the wages of agrarian labourers who account for 30-40% of the rural population in these areas. Now a considerable section of landowners does not engage in field labour because of feudal traditions as well as the availability of cheap labour. Obviously, the target range of this struggle becomes quite large and provides scope to reactionaries for caste-based mobilisation and formation of private armies. The form of struggle usually resorted to is strike which often develops into armed confrontations. We stand for boldly expanding strike struggles over large areas, if possible including several blocks of a district. This is essential for the development of class consciousness and class solidarity among agrarian labourers and as communists, it is the foremost duty of ours to organise this class, the most advanced revolutionary detachment in the countryside. Contrary to the liberal mode of thinking which prefers to avoid this struggle for the sake of so-called broad peasant unity, in actual practice, organising the strike struggle over a large area alone can break the reactionary alliance of landowners, and facilitate compromise with the middle sections.

(ii) For the seizure of surplus, vested and homestead land under the occupation of landlords, mahants and rich peasants; and distribution of the same among landless and poor peasants. In this struggle the target-range is narrowed down to the possible minimum. Generally, the middle sections possessing vested lands are spared and the course of persuasion and exerting pressure is adopted in the case of rich peasants. In the distribution of land, attempts are made to involve and unify the people. The seizure of lands, crops, ponds, and assertion over fishing rights in canals or rivers etc. often lead to armed confrontations.

In the whole process of seizure and distribution of land, acquisition of patta rights, organising the production, and finally, in preventing usurpation of the gains by dubious elements from among the people, the struggle generally tends to get blocked at one stage or another. There are, perhaps, more instances of failure than success. Of late, with the formulation of proper policy guidelines and stricter implementation, things however seem to be improving.

(iii) For the social dignity of dalits and backward castes. As it strikes at the root of feudal authority, this struggle tends to become quite intense and the entire range of upper castes of babusahebs, babhans and babajis becomes the target. On the other hand, such struggles draw support from almost all the classes of backward castes. There are always some exceptions though, from both the sides. Generally, in all the villages a small section of progressive people from upper castes cooperate with this struggle, while sections of backward castes join hands with reactionaries from upper castes. Under the impact of struggle over all these years, certain sections of upper castes in several areas have begun to change their traditional attitudes.

To effect a greater polarisation among people on class lines and to unite broad sections of rural population, we are trying to take up many other related issues as well, say, recording of tenancy rights, mobilising people against the corruption of block officials, etc. The question of corruption is linked with agrarian development, as the lion’s share of benefits is usurped by these officials in collusion with local reactionaries. Besides, action against dacoit gangs, certain village development works, relief measures etc. are also taken up to unite the broad masses of rural population.

We hold that only an integrated programme of struggles and activities on all such issues can ensure broad peasant unity under the leadership of agrarian labourers and poor peasants. We are often accused by opportunists of all hues of disrupting the broad peasant unity and of pitting agrarian labourers against peasants. By sacrificing the interests of agrarian labourers and poor peasants and by refusing to mobilise them in mass struggles, their class consciousness and class solidarity cannot be developed, nor can their leadership be established over the peasant movement. Naturally, the so-called broad peasant unity simply boils down to unity under the leadership of rich peasants. There is no middle way.

We still cannot claim to have altered the class and caste balance in our favour, but gradually we are heading towards building this unity on a new basis. In certain areas, middle peasants and middle sections of upper castes are also being mobilised under the banner of Kisan Sabha.

It must be mentioned here that the Party Consolidation Campaign was taken up quite seriously and effectively in these areas. Neglecting the task of party building, particularly during the phase of high tides in the movement, has been a common weakness in our Party’s history. And this has been the main reason behind long-term setbacks in many areas. Strengthening the Party is imperative for checking negative tendencies which appear in the course of the movement, for formulating correct policies and ensuring their implementation, for transforming the hundreds of activists brought into the fore by the movement into permanent assets of the Party, and of course, for continuing the struggle and raising it to ever higher levels.

Now, there is a certain trend of thought which belittles this role of conscious effort on the plea that it hampers the growth of peoples’ independent initiatives. In fact, it is not excess of conscious efforts but the lack of it which derails the struggle, strengthens a narrow peasant mentality, degenerates the fighters into bandits and bogs the struggle down in futile skirmishes, and ultimately blocks the independent initiative of the people. The MCC’s indulgence in caste war of attrition in parts of Aurangabad and the COC(PU)’s activities in certain parts of Jehanabad confirm this. We too have similar experiences in parts of Patna, Nalanda and Jehanabad. Fortunately, our Party organisation has, in the main, overcome such negative trends and Party work is now organised in a more rational way. And it was the Party Consolidation Campaign, which brought about the essential breakthrough in this regard.

In the course of our practice in the past few years many new features have come up in the movement which are being popularised in the entire region and the whole work is undergoing a certain reorganisation. Let us briefly discuss these changes and new developments in this chapter.

Forming Village Committees

We found that in a certain village in Bhojpur, local comrades were going about the formation of village committee in a way different from the formal one practised till then by the Kisan Sabha. The village was a local centre of struggle and while forming the village committee a new dynamic concept was introduced there. They vowed to turn the formation of the village committee into a festival of the masses, and step-by-step mobilised them in democratically electing their own committee. We have seen in our past experience that during the upsurge in the movement, people built up their own village committees as the centre of all activities. In contrast, the formation of village committees by the Kisan Sabha as its lowest unit appeared to be too stereotyped, too formal an affair. In many a case, the village committee simply turned into a village development body, devoid of class struggle and detached from the Kisan Sabha. Taking the cue from the Bhojpur experiment the Party subsequently improved upon the concept of village committee. The village committee came to be emphasised as the key to releasing the people’s initiative at the grassroots level, as a living mechanism for enhancing their democratic consciousness, integrating into their subjective consciousness the concept of revolutionary democracy. Militant movements or general political mobilisations of peasants do not resolve the problem of revolutionisation of the consciousness of the broad masses which would enable them to grasp the futility of the bourgeois organs of formal democracy. Village committees built upon the basis of developing class struggle and practising democratic norms to the core help the masses differentiate in concrete terms between our democracy and their democracy. Consciously oriented by the Communist Party, these committees may be transformed into revolutionary committees in the future.

Building Pockets

To fight the roving style of work of our organisers and strengthen the Party apparatus at the grassroots, we introduced the concepts of pockets. Every organiser is assigned a pocket of 10 to 15 villages by the Party committee concerned and there he is instructed to develop a Party unit and along with it an entire network of organisations so that even in times of white terror he can stay in his pocket, maintain contacts with the masses there and organise them in protest actions. He can leave the pocket only when so instructed by the Party Committee. This concept has lent more seriousness to the work of the organisers, increased the involvement of many organiser comrades who were earlier on the periphery of the Party organisation and also helped them plan and organise their work better. Such pockets are regularly assessed and classified accordingly. The number of pockets and of organisers making serious and successful efforts is increasing and in certain pockets strong Party units have already developed.

Reorganising the Peasant Association

Emphasis has been placed on organising peasant associations at block levels, first concentrating on a belt of 30 to 40 villages and then gradually spreading the work to the rest of the block. As the brunt of the most severe repression has to be borne by the local level peasant associations, a certain restructuring of their leadership has been felt necessary. It is not a wise policy to open all of one’s leaders before the enemy. They should, therefore, learn to function in a rather semi-underground way. On the other hand, they have been asked to launch extensive membership drives, mobilise masses in a big way during their conferences and interfere more and more in the affairs of Block offices so as to expose the real nature of the various reforms undertaken by the administration.

Peasant associations in some areas have also organised conferences of tenants and of middle peasants. At some places they have organised sittings with general peasant representatives from different villages, so as to learn first hand about their demands. At many places nowadays they storm the Block offices with hundreds and thousands of peasants and demand explanations from government officials, force government officials’ camps for relief and reforms to shift to poor people’s tolas (hamlets), and represent the demands of the masses on their behalf. Their slogan is: everything through the peasant associations. This has helped frustrate the government designs to subvert the organisation through distribution of meagre relief.

Organising Village Defence Corps

In comparison to earlier periods this aspect is now receiving greater attention. In certain areas large number of youth are organised in such forces. Armed with spears, they spell panic in the enemies’ hearts. It is they who play the main role in resistance struggles, in rescuing peasant leaders and in organising and protecting processions. These village defence forces operate under the command of village committees.

These are the forms of organisations at the lower level which since the beginning of the Party Consolidation Campaign, are being organised with greater emphasis and clarity. Charpokhri in Bhojpur, Islampur in Nalanda and Daoodnagar in Aurangabad are three areas where all the aspects of work discussed so far have been combined to a considerable extent. Many are the old areas of work where some of these aspects have been implemented and there have also emerged many new pockets of work in Rohtas and Gaya districts. In the districts of Nalanda and Aurangabad where the Party structure had been very weak for a long time, the district Party committee as well as the overall Party structure is now much better organised.

People’s Armed Forces

Not all comrades know that by the end of 1975 we were left with only one armed unit in Sahar, Bhojpur, and that this armed unit too had developed strong roving tendencies and that it had become difficult even for the political commissar to manage it. And subsequently, we had to disperse its members as individual organisers by the end of 1976. Another armed unit was then just in the making, centring Comrade Jiut in a new area of work. In Patna, too, only one armed unit was left and that too had reached the point of dissolution. The majority of leaders and cadres were either killed or arrested. White terror was prevailing all over our old areas and the masses were subdued. The remaining Party organisers, however, carried on the work defying harsh conditions and kept the flame of struggle alive. Without the Rectification Movement in 1977 and without the drastic changes in the political line in the 1979 Special Conference, there would have been no peasant struggle or armed struggle today. Armed actions with a new spirit were revived from 1977 onwards and, in terms of the number of armed units and firearms, in terms of scale of their operation, today we far surpass our earlier phase. Today’s village committees exercise much more authority than the revolutionary committees of those days and today’s red patches are far redder than the red areas of that time. This advance in real life has been rendered possible by our retreat in concepts, whereas the earlier advance in concepts meant retreat in real life.

Still, we prefer to call the revolutionary peasant struggle in Bihar as being at its primary stage. This means, we shall have to go a long way in changing the balance of class forces. We must preserve our forces, accumulate strength and step by step expand and raise the struggle to higher levels.

The state of our armed forces is dictated by this reality. For years, we made desperate efforts to build regular armed units in as big numbers as possible. Our experience shows that though many fighters came to join such units, eventually only some could stay. They were basically those who could be developed to the level of Party cadres. Despite all our efforts, the growth of regular and stable armed units remained quite slow.

Basing on these conditions, we decided to put emphasis on building local squads. Now, not much progress could be made in this direction because of our inability to concretise tasks for such squads in the new situation. To begin with, we discouraged the earlier practice of building squads for and through annihilations. Then the concept of armed propaganda squads was clinched and such local armed squads were defined as the link between regular armed units and village defence forces. Areas comprising 15-20 villages were demarcated where these squads would march as armed propaganda squads for a fixed period every month. Many fighters who could not stay in regular armed units were mobilised in these squads. Regular units maintain links with them and whenever necessary they are mobilised in armed action. They take action against local reactionaries and snatch firearms on their own initiatives. They also organise general village youth in village defence forces.

In the present phase of armed struggle, we feel that the main emphasis should be laid on these armed propaganda squads. They also provide the necessary infrastructure for regular armed units, and in future, regular armed units can be developed extensively recruiting forces from these squads.

In the last few years, our regular armed units suffered some serious losses at Kaithi (Aurangabad), Kunai (Bhojpur) and Gangabigha (Nalanda). Analysis of all these cases reveals that agents from within the villages concerned, supplied information to the landlords and from there it went to the police. We had remained in the dark about the activities of these agents and the whole concept of security of our armed units had revolved around remaining alert about the landlords and the known agents and, of course, undertaking nightlong vigil in the darkness.

After these incidents, agents in all the cases were punished with death. But these exemplary punishments have not, and could not have, wiped out the entire intelligence network of the enemy. Class struggle is a very complex process and our enemy is quite capable of recruiting its agents from our own villages. In the face of our sharp retaliations, the enemy network often gets snapped, but then it is soon restored in ways more shrewd and subtle.

Our concept of security had been too simplistic and outmoded for any modern war. Now we are laying emphasis on building our own intelligence network. We should cultivate sources within the enemy camp, and recruit trained personnel for specific intelligence purposes. Apart from a regular armed unit and an integrated system of local armed squads, any complete system of armed formation, even at this stage, must have its own intelligence network, sources for manufacturing and procuring components of firearms, a medical branch and a scout system. Only such a complete system can provide armed units with the necessary freedom in their movements and only then can they have adequate initiative in their operations. We consider it necessary that Party district committees in these areas must appoint a capable comrade at the district level to look after the building of this system. Armed units and armed struggles are not playthings and there should not be any casual attitude towards them.

At this stage of the struggle, the regular armed units should concentrate on organising decisive armed actions against powerful armed gangs of the landlords. They should also defend the masses in the face of police atrocities and mete out appropriate punishments to the erring police officials.

In conclusion, I must say that:

This is for the first time that Indian communists have succeeded in continuing the peasant struggle over such a long period, steadily expanding its frontiers.

This is for the first time that Indian communists have taken up all forms of struggle, legal and illegal, extra-parliamentary and parliamentary, armed actions and mass struggles, and made serious efforts to combine them, without surrendering one for the other.

This is for the first time that Indian communists have tried to tackle the problems of both caste and class struggle, dealing a heavy blow to caste oppression, simultaneously enabling dalits to raise their heads while uniting agrarian labourers, poor and middle peasants on their class demands.

This is for the first time that innumerable leaders and cadres have emerged from among the ranks of the rural poor and it is they who form the main core of the Party. It is they who organise and lead the work and struggle on all fronts. And broad sections of rural poor have been mobilised in direct political struggle of national importance.

And, this is for the first time that Indian communists have succeeded in defending the unity of the party organisation spearheading the struggle, despite all manoeuvrings of ruling classes, despite all disruptionist activities of liquidationists and semi-anarchists, despite all the stresses and strains of setbacks and losses. We have made drastic changes in our line and policies, we had serious differences and debates among ourselves, but we always acted unitedly in a firm, disciplined manner.

[Published in two parts in September-October and November issues of Liberation, 1993.]

I

Our agrarian revolution has three basic propositions:

1. It is a part of democratic revolution and the content of this revolution will be the liberation of countryside from feudal remnants.

2. In its social and economic aspect, this agrarian revolution will be a bourgeois-democratic revolution. It will not weaken but stimulate the development of capitalism and capitalist class contradictions.

3. Communists must support and lead this revolution in a most resolute fashion, and while not tying their hands to certain commitments, they must formulate their immediate demands to facilitate thoroughgoing cleansing of feudal remnants, or in other words, to achieve the maximum bourgeois democratic reforms.

Regarding the orientation of communist party programme, Lenin often approvingly referred to the following quote of Kautsky:

"The communist programme is not written for the given moment, as far as possible it should cover all eventualities in present-day society. It should serve not only for practical action, but for propaganda as well; in the form of concrete demands it should indicate more vividly than abstract programmes can do, the direction in which we can set ourselves without straying into utopian speculation, the better the direction in which we are advancing will be all the clearer to the masses — even to those who are unable to grasp our theoretical premises. The programme should show what we demand of existing society or of the existing state and not what we expect of it."

After the question of propositions of agrarian revolution and the orientation of the communist programme is settled, it will not be out of place to understand the crucial difference between the agrarian programmes of communist parties in developed countries and those in undeveloped or under-developed capitalist countries where feudal remnants continue to remain very powerful in the agrarian sphere.

To quote Lenin again: " In the West, agrarian programmes are written for the purpose of drawing those who are half-peasants, half-workers into the communist movement against the bourgeoisie; while in our countries such programmes are meant to draw the peasant masses into the democratic movement against the remnants of the serf-owning system. That is why in the West the significance of the agrarian programme will become all the greater, the more agricultural capitalism develops. The practical significance of our agrarian programme will decrease as far as most of its demands are concerned, the more agrarian capitalism develops, since the remnants of serf ownership this programme is directed against are dying out, both of themselves and as a result of the governmental policy".

This situation brings two options before communists that divide them into two camps of opportunists and revolutionaries. The opportunist section advocates spontaneity and even turns into an appendage of the government under the pretext of pressurising it to move at a faster pace. Some even go to the extent of advocating entrepreneurship on the part of activists to accelerate the process of agrarian capitalism; thus deserting the communist camp, they go to the non-political way of social reforms under the auspices of voluntary organisations and in collaboration with the bureaucracy.

The revolutionary section, on the other hand, advocates a radical agrarian programme to seize the political initiative and mobilise peasant masses for a speedy and thoroughgoing sweeping away of feudal remnants.

Here we must also remember that remnants of feudal relationship in the countryside are often closely interwoven with capitalist relationships and peasants, including even small peasants, are linked to this or that extent with the market mechanism where the state plays a mediator’s role through credits, subsidies, procurement, etc. Hence in the period of political changes it is often seen that the governments are able to split the peasants and weaken their revolutionary spirit by announcing certain concessions like waiving loans etc. In most of the cases, these are minor and insignificant concessions, and that too, to a small number of petty proprietors. The more the government reaches an agreement with the conservative section of peasantry, the more radical will be our demands with which to arouse the revolutionary sections of peasantry to move forward, while pocketing whatever little concessions are available to them.

Coming to the central demand of the peasantry, the question of general redistribution of land comes first. It must be kept in mind that this demand too is interpreted as socialist by the advocates of peasant socialism, i.e., those who consider peasants and not workers as the vehicle of socialist revolution. They imagine that by a general redistribution of land, small peasant production can be generalised and made a perpetual system. We reject this reactionary utopian idea of peasant socialism and point out that general redistribution will only facilitate capitalism, the differentiation of peasantry and the class contradictions. Still we support this demand because it contains the revolutionary element of sweeping away by means of a peasant revolt all the remnants of feudalism.

II

First of all, it must be made clear that nationalisation of land in bourgeois democratic revolution essentially means the transfer of rent to the state. It does not contradict the general democratic slogan of land to the tiller. Land is transferred to the tiller in both the cases of general redistribution and nationalisation of land as well. The question essentially relates to the form of ownership. In the former case, the ownership is transferred to the peasants, and in the latter, it rests with the state which allots the land to the tiller on a lease-basis for a definite period of time on a definite rent. In nationalisation all middlemen between the state and the peasant are abolished.

Nationalisation of land is often contused with socialisation of agricultural production. In socialisation not only land but all other means of production are nationalised and the cultivation is organised collectively in big state farms. It is obvious that what we are talking about is the bourgeois nationalisation of land which will do away with all feudal remnants, help organise the cultivation in a most rational way and thus accelerate the fullest development of capitalism.

Capitalism invariably reorganises the old feudal land ownerships. It does so, however, by different methods in different countries.

In Germany, the reshaping of medieval forms of landed property proceeded in a reformist way. The feudal estates were slowly converted into Junker estates. In England, this reshaping proceeded in a revolutionary violent way; but the violence was practised for the benefit of landlords; it was practised on the masses of peasants who were taxed to exhaustion and driven from the villages.

In America this reshaping went on in a violent way as regards the slave farms in southern states. There violence was applied against the slave-owning landlords. Their estates were broken up, and the large feudal estates were transformed into small bourgeois farms.

The view that nationalisation is feasible only at a high stage of development of capitalism has been consistently repudiated by Lenin.

Says Lenin, "Theoretically, nationalisation is the ‘ideally’ pure development of capitalism in agriculture. The question whether such a combination of conditions and such a relation of forces as would permit of nationalisation in capitalist society often occur in history is another matter. But nationalisation is not only an effect of, but also a condition for, the rapid development of capitalism. To think that nationalisation is possible only at a very high stage of development of capitalism in agriculture means, if anything the repudiation of nationalisation as a measure of bourgeois progress; for everywhere the high development of agricultural capitalism has already placed on the order of the day (and will in time inevitably place on the order of the day in other countries) the ‘socialisation of agricultural production’, i.e., the socialist revolution. No measure of bourgeois progress, as a bourgeois measure, is conceivable when the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is very acute. Such a measure is more likely in a young bourgeois country, which has not yet developed its strength, has not yet developed its contradictions to the full, and has not yet created a proletariat strong enough to strive directly towards the socialist revolution. And Marx allowed the possibility of, and sometimes directly advocated, the nationalisation of land, not only in the epoch of the bourgeois revolution in Germany in 1848, but also in 1846 for America, which, as he most accurately pointed out at that time, was only just starting its industrial development. The experience of various capitalist countries gives us no example of the nationalisation of land in anything like its pure form. We see something similar to it in New Zealand, a young capitalist democracy, where there is no evidence of highly developed agricultural capitalism. Something similar to it existed in America when the government passed the Homestead Act and distributed plots of land to small farmers at a nominal rent." (Lenin, Agrarian Programme of Social Democracy)

Marx never mentioned the underdeveloped state of capitalism in agriculture as an obstacle to the achievement of nationalisation. In his Theories of Surplus Value, Marx pointed out that the landowner is an absolutely superfluous figure in capitalist production, that the purpose of the latter is fully answered if the land belongs to the state.

Although in theory the radical bourgeois arrives at the repudiation of private landed property, in practice he is scared of nationalisation, as Marx pointed out, for two reasons.

Firstly, the radical bourgeois lacks the courage to attack private landed property because of the danger of a socialist attack on all private property, i.e., the danger of a socialist revolution.

Secondly, because the bourgeois mode of production has already entrenched itself in private landed property, i.e., that this private property has become far more bourgeois than feudal in developed capitalist countries. When the bourgeoisie, as a class, has already "territorialised itself", "settled on the land’, fully subordinated landed properly to itself, then a genuine social movement of the bourgeoisie in favour of nationalisation is impossible. It is impossible for the simple reason that no class ever goes against itself.

Speaking of Russia, however, Lenin says, "In all these respects the Russian bourgeois revolution finds itself in particularly favourable conditions. Arguing from the purely economic point of view, we must certainly admit the existence of a maximum of survivals of feudalism in Russia. Under such circumstances, the contradiction between relatively developed capitalism in industry and the appalling backwardness of the countryside becomes glaring and, owing to objective causes, makes the bourgeois revolution extremely far-reaching and creates conditions for the most rapid agricultural progress. The nationalisation of the land is precisely a condition for the most rapid capitalist progress in our agriculture. We have a ‘radical bourgeois’ in Russia who has not yet ‘territorialised’ himself, who cannot at present, fear a proletarian ‘attack’. That radical bourgeois is Russian peasant." (Ibid.)

Aren’t the Indian conditions similar to this description of Russian scene?

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress, 1997.]

1) To summarise, we find that the land question still remains the major question in many areas. However, as the degree of implementation of land reforms differs from one state to another, the general slogan of advancing land reforms also takes different forms in different states.

2) Establishing people’s control over common property such as minor irrigation sources (Ahar, Pokhar, Talab etc.), rivers and sandbanks etc. is a major agenda of struggle. Generally, feudals and mafia groups exercise control over them.

3) The questions of wages, equal wages for equal work for men and women, better working conditions, homestead land and pucca houses etc. are more or less common demands of the rural proletariat throughout the country. In the case of land grants it should be demanded that pattas should be issued in the names of both men and women.

4) Issues of corruption in panchayats, in block offices where money intended for relief to the rural poor or for the benefit of small and middle peasants is siphoned off by corrupt officials in league with powerful landlords and kulak groups who also control the political power are very important in popular mobilisation.

5) Tribal questions, whether they are reflected through the Jharkhand movement or in the movements of hill districts and other tribal areas of Assam, or in the girijan movement in Andhra Pradesh etc. are essentially peasant questions, and therefore usurpation of tribal land by usurers/merchants, rights over forest land and forest produce etc., are major questions in these areas.

6) Wherever the movement assumes intensity, private armies of landlords or the goons of the reactionary political parties resort to killing Party leaders and cadres and organise massacres of people. Police atrocities also invariably follow.

7) Anarchist organisations which are degenerating into money-collecting machines are indulging in a killing-spree of our cadres and people, and are using ultra-left rhetoric to the hilt to cover up their dubious links and their dirty mission of disrupting organised mass movements.

The following points merit serious attention:

A. We think that owing to considerable variations in the agrarian situation, a general peasant movement at national level, and therefore a consolidated all-India peasant body, would not have much of relevance. An all-India coordination body to exchange experiences and occasionally issue policy statements and organise seminars, workshops etc. is enough. Even in the states, district or regional level kisan sabha formations may have to play important autonomous roles, as in big states conditions vastly differ from one region to another. Demand-specific and area-specific peasant organisations may also play an important role in mobilising the broad peasantry.

Due attention should be paid to strengthening the organisational functioning of the kisan sabha at district and local levels. In many areas, kisan sabha membership falls much short of our influence among the peasantry and is often even less than the number of people mobilised in our programmes. Live functioning of the village committees holds the key to the vibrancy of the kisan sabha organisation, even amidst severe enemy repression. These committees should regularly convene village general body meetings of the peasant association, discuss the problems of the movement, and membership renewal — and even recruitment — should preferably be done in GBs. The village committees should be strengthened with the perspective of developing them as local organs of people’s power. Training local militias and building up of village self-defence squads should be undertaken in a planned manner.

A legal cell to take care of cases and a special team to maintain contact with comrades in jail need to be developed.

Where feasible, women’s cells should be formed within the kisan sabha organisations.

Contradictions among people may better be handled by local kisan sabha units instead of the Party directly plunging into them in the first instance. Otherwise there remains no authority to which aggrieved sections can turn to and this results in their alienation. Our experience shows that anarchist groups as well as forces like Ranvir Sena are quite adept in using such contradictions against us. Therefore, contradictions among people must be handled prudently and carefully and through the kisan sabha.

B. The question of agrarian labourers however is increasingly assuming greater importance in the agrarian scene as well as in national politics. The demand for central legislation relating to them is becoming a powerful one. The process of increasing capitalist penetration of whichever variety in agriculture — under the auspices of liberalisation and globalisation — will further push the question of agricultural labourers to the fore.

Moreover, as sections of intermediate castes are also emerging as important power groups, the agrarian movement can only find itself confronting increasingly wide-ranging sections of capitalist farmers and rich peasants. Movements of agrarian labourers, therefore, shall assume important political connotations. To prepare for the future, we shall have to organise a preparatory committee to study the issue in depth and explore the possibility of launching an agrarian labourers organisation.

C. When we get trapped in wars of attrition against private armies, the functioning of peasant associations or movements on peasant issues are left behind. Such a situation is of course forced on us and we can do little to avoid it. But how, then, to continue the functioning of peasant association is a paramount question which we have not been able to solve as yet. We repeatedly tried to use any lull period to activate such movements but no proper mechanism could be developed. Initiatives from state-level peasant association leadership at this juncture may be of crucial importance. And demand-specific organisations may come in handy to tackle such situations.

D. The spate of massacres that we faced in the last few years have raised many questions inside and outside the Party. The most simplistic formulation was provided by anarchists and a section of expert commentators living in the safe world of the media who opined that as CPI(ML) has given up the armed struggle and taken up parliamentary struggle, landlords are taking up the revenge for the 1970s, i.e., for annihilations carried out 25 years ago! This is highly mischievous and subjective thinking at its most absurd.

As Marxists we must understand that the emergence of a new breed of private army and the present spate of massacres are intimately related with the dynamics of present-day politics. If one probes deeper, one can easily see that the intensity of operations of private armies is concentrated mainly in areas where we have thrown up a serious parliamentary challenge to major ruling parties. Sahar and Sandesh assembly constituencies of Bhojpur and Mairwan and Darauli of Siwan are such areas. Even JMM (Mardi)-sponsored MCC killings in Bishungarh and the RJD-sponsored MCC massacre in that part of Chatra which borders Barachetti were shrewd moves to weaken our electoral prospects. As in both these constituencies we present a strong potential threat to JMM (Mardi) and RJD respectively. This is further confirmed by MCC’s march to areas of Barachetti just a few days after the Chatra massacre, and its threatening demands that the people leave Maley. This was immediately followed by RJD’s campaign in Barachetti asking people to desert CPI(ML). Targeting Bagodar is part of the same gameplan.

After private armies with the active connivance of the administrative machinery are allowed to perpetrate massacres, Laloo Yadav reaches those spots with the compensation packages and calls upon the people not to take up arms and instead take to education etc. It is in this way that the butcher and the priest complement each other. Whatever problems the anarchists may pose to the law and order situation they don’t pose any challenge to the political hegemony of the ruling classes. If in 1970s the call for election boycott was the expression of extreme revolutionary advance, in ’90s it has degenerated into extreme opportunist betrayal. This is how, dialectically, things transform into their opposites with the change in conditions. The election boycott slogan of anarchist groups has come in handy for shrewd bourgeois politicians. There are innumerable evidences of MCC and PU cadres actively mobilising votes for JD candidates in Bihar elections.

Then again it is totally false to suggest that we have given up the policy of armed resistance. The fact is that the general arming of the masses has today reached a much higher level than at any other time. In hundreds of villages in Bihar the regular exchange of fire has been going on through all these years of parliamentary politics. Thousands of our comrades including entire district committee leaderships have been warranted throughout the state for organising resistance and have to work in almost underground conditions.

In short, it is not our retreat but our advance as a major force challenging the economic, social and political hegemony of the forces of status quo that has led to these sharp attacks against us. It should never be forgotten that political initiatives, movements on popular issues and developing popular resistance are the key elements in taking up the challenge of the combined onslaught of feudal forces and the state. The point is not just to smash this or that sena by some method or other. More important is to raise the political consciousness of people, effect a change in social and political balance of forces and ensure the broadest mobilisation of the people in the process. Otherwise we will be reduced to being just a militant outfit. Yet, as protracted armed conflicts are an inalienable part of peasant movement in Bihar, Party must intensify its state of preparedness. In particular, decisive blows to the enemy are of crucial importance and armed formations must be organised at a higher level to deliver these blows.

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

Our struggle against Ranvir Sena has been going on for more than three years now in Bhojpur. In all, the Ranvir Sena has so far killed 162 persons out of which 20, including four local squad commanders and eight local activists were our Party members, 15 to 20 were attached to JD or Samata and there were a good number of politically neutral persons who were killed just because they were of dalit or backward background. In retaliation, around 76 Ranvir Sena activists and sympathisers have become victims of people’s anger. However, the main organisers of Ranvir Sena as well as their main armed core still remain intact.

This Sena has emerged as the most notorious and most ruthless private army of landlords in over 25 years of our movement in Bhojpur and the battle against it has proved to be quite protracted and tough. They have killed people with impunity, hurled grenades on our mass gatherings and even attacked our Party office. They have also planned to kill important Party leaders.

As the rural proletariat in Bhojpur has emerged as the ‘class-for-itself’ and, from a position of total marginalisation, has come to occupy the centrestage in the political process of this district under the banner of its Party, the CPI(ML), and since this has threatened the hegemony of both the JD and the BJP and exposed the ideological-political bankruptcy of CPI-CPI(M), an unholy alliance is quite natural. As the movement in Bhojpur has brought to the fore the class struggles of rural poor for political hegemony and the mass struggles of oppressed dalit castes for social equality, the feudal classes and castes have resorted to the tactics of mass terror, most brutalised killings of innocent persons including women and children. The form of struggle adopted by feudal classes is not an aberration but is dictated by the very dynamic of class struggle.

In political terms, we did make Bathani Tola a big agitational issue, from a militant assembly gherao to mobilising nationwide democratic opinion and ultimately forced the government to transfer the DM and SP and institute an enquiry. But at the grassroots, plans for smashing the main armed gang of Ranvir Sena could not materialise.

We have achieved primary success in arming people in innumerable villages. Militant sections capable of resistance have come up in many villages. The Party has conducted ideological struggle against three dependencies: 1) On higher varieties of firearms: the Party has instead stressed on reviving the old tradition of guerrilla actions where even with conventional arms an enemy equipped with more sophisticated firearms could be defeated; 2) On relying on the administration: instead we put stress on developing the capacity of people’s resistance; and 3) On instructions from higher committees: we have emphasised instead unleashing local initiatives within the broad policy framework, particularly with regard to swift retaliatory actions.

With the Ranvir Sena becoming stronger it began targeting Yadavs too. Gradually we have started changing the social balance by winning over sections of the Yadav peasantry and youth. This has led to some successful actions. We have stepped up our propaganda among Bhumihars too and now it appears that some cracks are deepening and conflicts among them are getting sharper. We carefully avoided opening up a second front against Rajputs and this to an extent kept their participation at low key. Certain recent initiatives on floods and other issues of relief taken by the Kisan Sabha have witnessed mobilisation on a broad scale. In a recent incident in Ara town, four persons kidnapped by Ranvir Sena were rescued and two Ranvirs were handed over to police.

Local people’s squads are gradually stepping up their offensive and the Ranvir Sena nowadays is not as quick in retaliating as earlier. However, developing an intelligence network and tracking down the main operators is still a neglected area of work.

[From the appendix to the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

This roving army of professional killers enjoyed overwhelming support from the Bhumihar caste of Bhojpur, from its castemen spread throughout Bihar and even from parts of Uttar Pradesh. Powerful government officials and politicians, cutting across party lines, helped it. It also drew a degree of support from the Rajputs of Bhojpur. Initially it was floated on the pretext of raising agrarian demands of kulaks, mainly on Congress’ initiative. But soon the leadership passed into the hands of BJP and it acquired the character of an armed outfit with the declared aim of liquidating Maley from Bhojpur. JD leaders were also hobnobbing with it, in its formative stages at least, and it took special care to build equations with Yadav kulaks against us. This political united front against us was manifest in 1996 parliamentary elections when the BJP-supported Samata candidate, and Congress as well as JD candidates, all competed with each other in garnering the support of Ranvir Sena. The JD MP, after victory, demanded the lifting of ban on it. It was visible again when they jointly launched a protest movement against the transfer of the DM and SP after the Bathani Tola massacre. CPI-CPI(M) played a very dubious role by conducting sustained propaganda that Maley’s exaggeration of the contradiction between labourers and farmers, its casteist politics and adventurist actions are to be primarily blamed for the rise of Ranvir Sena.

The Ranvir Sena’s propaganda theme against the Party adopted a clear BJP tenor when it accused Maley of being agents of foreign powers viz. China and Pakistan which is out to destroy the social fabric of Indian society, i.e. the caste-based social hierarchy, and vowed to eliminate red flag not only from Bhojpur but from the face of India. Its symbol too was saffron.

A positional war stretching for months went on in Belaur against invading gangs of armed landlords. The mood remained upbeat and a powerful demonstration in Ara rent the air with the cries of ‘Bihta and Ekwari have been smashed and now it is the turn of Belaur’.

In retrospect, many comrades feel that instead of just defending ourselves, had we gone on an all-out offensive to liquidate the armed gangs of Belaur, perhaps the Ranvir Sena could have been nipped in the bud. It is true that at that juncture however, we could not grasp the full implication of this phenomenon and saw the struggle at Belaur as a local phenomenon confined to the village. Caste mobilisation, however, was spreading quite fast and soon clashes began in many Sandesh villages and landlords in hitherto dormant Sahar villages too started exhibiting activism. They began killing all and sundry, while people’s forces confined themselves to selective targets.

Then came the 1995 elections and we won both Sahar and Sandesh seats, thereby for the first time challenging the political hegemony of landlords and kulaks. Though these two block have historically been our best strongholds in Bhojpur, we had failed to win there in the 1990 assembly elections. Our victory made the landlords and our rival political parties desperate. Tension continued to spread and in Ara town a grenade was hurled at our Mahadharna killing one comrade and injuring many others. This prompted a general call for retaliation against Bhumihars even remotely connected with Ranvir Sena, barring children and women. In a single day eight Ranvir Sena men fell victims to the people’s wrath. Killings and counter-killings went on, culminating in an attack by people’s forces killing nine Ranvir Sena supporters at Narhi, just prior to the 1996 parliamentary elections. At this juncture the administration proposed banning our Party and resorted to massive oppression. In 1996 elections however, we more or less maintained our dominance in Sahar and Sandesh.

In the meantime, the centre of conflict had shifted to in and around Bathani Tola. A movement for liberating Karbala land was launched in Karpahari and Nawadih and in the process two influential Rajput leaders became victims of people’s anger. Ranvir Sena organisers and BJP’s political leadership cashed in on their favourite communal card and effected a unity of Rajputs and Bhumihars. This eventually led to the Bathani Tola massacre. Local people’s squads had thwarted several such attacks on Bathani, Chauri and other nearby villages and a practice had developed of people from different villages rushing in to help each other. In Bathani Tola, on that fateful day, the local squad kept the attackers at bay but then a fighter was hit (he subsequently died) and they had run out of ammunition and were forced to make a retreat. Due to some confusions, reinforcements from other villages arrived too late. A powerful political protest movement was also launched on Bathani Tola including a fast-unto-death launched by our MLA Rameshwar Prasad.

Despite Bathani Tola, people were in fighting mood but swift and immediate retaliatory action could not take place owing to a lot of confusion. A direction-less situation prevailed and demand for higher firepower, for sophisticated arms, to fight the well-armed Ranvir Sena assumed prominence.

A daring attempt was made in one case to smash the armed gang of Ranvir Sena but it didn’t succeed fully. Any selective killing from the people’s side resulted in indiscriminate killing of many by Ranvir Sena. The intelligence network remained totally crippled due to high degree of caste polarisation; thus we were deprived of concrete information about the movement of their main armed core.

Ranvir Sena and its social base were jubilant and people’s morale went down. It was a situation of setback and as always happens this gave rise to confusion and debates. One particular view was that our slogan of smashing the savarna (upper caste) feudal dominance and our targeting of broad range of upper caste landowners had led to their high degree of caste mobilisation. This view seems to be an oversimplification and one-sided. Our slogans only reflected the objectivity of the existing characteristics of feudalism prevailing in Bhojpur. We did smash the upper caste mobilisation of Jwala Singh, and despite this slogan succeeded in neutralising a good section of Rajputs in Bihta by repeated explaining our policies of differentiation among different classes.

Actually, by the time the Ranvir Sena phenomenon began, we had already changed our slogan to opposing the communal-feudal dominance reflecting the political development of upper caste feudals switching over to BJP. There were excesses and they did play a role but in no case were they decisive. We conducted special propaganda campaigns among Bhumihars through propaganda leaflets and through peace campaigns, entering into honourable compromises with middle sections and organise seminars where Bhumihar intellectuals attended in large numbers. Despite all odds, the valiant comrades of Bhojpur have persisted in their struggle.

The earlier offensive of Ranvir Sena has now tuned into a stalemate. We have been gradually seizing back the initiative. But they still retain their main armed strength and have now declared their mission to be the assassination of the main Party leaders. They are still capable of creating trouble and organising massacres. Hence there is no room for complacency. We must keep up pressure to move into an offensive. The district committee, through detailed discussions and through a series of cadre conventions has reviewed the whole course of struggle against Ranvir Sena, strengthened its unity, and resolved to carry on the struggle till victory. Bhojpur has done it so many times and once again its gearing up to seize victory.

The Question of Women Liberation in the Perspective of Marxism
Antithesis of Caste and Class - An Orthodox Marxist Hypothesis
More on the Antithesis of Class and Caste
The Dalit Question
Whither Indian Muslims?
"Muslims should align themselves with the Left"
The Muslim Question
On National Unity
Oppose Army Action in Punjab! Safeguard National Unity!
An appeal to the Students and Youth of Assam
Mao and His Thought
On Anil Barua
Turn CPI(ML) into the Main Left Force in Assam
Autonomous State Movement in the Hill Districts 

[From Liberation, August 1993.]

Almost throughout the world, women liberation is still the slogan of the womankind. It indicates that half of the human race is still in chains. We talk of proletarian liberation, national liberation and peasant liberation. By national liberation we mean freeing a nation from economic and political tentacles of colonial and neo-colonial powers. A number of countries are free and in others struggle for liberation is going on. By peasant liberation we mean emancipation from feudal stranglehold. Peasants in many countries have emancipated themselves, and in others, they are struggling for it. By proletarian liberation we mean emancipation from wage labour. Proletariat has registered victory in many a country and in others they are in struggle. Women constitute part of nation, peasantry and proletariat; so they are participants to this or that extent in all these struggles. However, besides these struggles, women liberation struggle has its own specifics, its own autonomy.

As the question of women liberation is still there, it is obvious that woman is not free, she is enslaved. The entire fabric of the present society is woven in the interest of man. Concrete manifestation of this slavery enforced by man on woman is the confinement of the latter inside the four walls of a house and taking her for a procreating machine. Whereas proletariat, peasantry or nation can achieve emancipation only by destroying their respective antitheses, woman, however, can achieve the same not by destroying the man but by establishing human relationship between woman and man based on equality.

People say once there was a time when women’s household job was considered relatively more important; when the society was recognised as maternalist one. In that society there were no class divisions, no private property. Since iron implements were introduced into agriculture, one section of the mankind enslaved the other to usurp their surplus labour, i.e., turned them into proletariat and the society got thus divided into classes; private property came into existence; and it is precisely at this juncture male domination started to develop whereas social status of the mistress of the house continued to decline. The enslavement of proletariat and woman started at the same time and due to same reasons. Probably that is why there exists a natural similarity between struggles of these two oppressed categories. If woman enjoys freedom to the utmost degree anywhere, it is among the proletarians.

So many religious customs and rites were introduced, so many social codes were framed to make the woman accept her enslavement. In Hindu society, the husband was made parameshwar and wife was even forced to commit sati following the death of her husband. Today the era is much different and technological development has created conditions where the difference in physical capacity between man and woman no longer carries any meaning in the production process. Women in a large scale have come out of the confines of the house. Woman has scored much success in her liberation struggle. In our country too, many statutes have been framed, reforms have been undertaken, which have imparted a renewed momentum to the women liberation movement.

Woman’s struggle for equality is in fact a struggle to usher in a society wherein economic, social and political conditions to achieve that equality obtain. Such a society can only be a socialist society which eradicates private property and class divisions; where woman’s primary identity is derived out of her contribution to the society and not from her role inside the house; where woman exercises full control over procreation choice. Therefore, only under the guidance of communist thought can women liberation struggle accomplish its ultimate stage. When the feminist movement in the West realises that the collapse of socialism in Europe has resulted in weakening of their movement too, it underlines the inseparable link between socialism and women liberation.

Communist International had proclaimed in its programme social equality between man and woman in legal and practical life, revolutionary transformation of husband-wife relationship and family code, status of social work to motherhood, responsibility of nursing and education of children and adolescents to the society, and relentless struggle against all such thinking and traditions that enslave women.

This is the very programme of women liberation that determines your basic orientation even today.

1. Communist women organisation should, first of all, launch through magazines and verbal propaganda channels a crusade against all such traditions that enslave women. It is all the more necessary in today’s Indian conditions because under the facade of religion the most reactionary forces are attempting to confine woman inside the four walls, to re-establish time-old social and family values. Their backward march includes even eulogising sati custom. You must keep in mind that all the gods were created by man; before the gigantic idols of these gods women are rendered fainthearted and portentous. Even the goddesses were created by man. Woman must assume the role of a goddess in order to acquire the dignity of a woman, whereas the most incompetent husband is supposed to be parameshwar for a woman. All the moral codes have been framed by men and by attributing them divinity, women are compelled to observe the same.

2. Communist women organisation must launch relentless struggle to get progressive legislations passed for ensuring social equality between man and woman; however, still more important for them is to struggle for their implementation.

However progressive the laws may be, nothing is implemented by itself thanks to the feudal attitude of bureaucracy and social institutions. And judiciary is not an exception to it.

3. Communist women organisation will inspire women to struggle against their confinement inside the house. It will organise women in struggle against specific cases of oppression on women in their respective areas. During repression on mass struggles by autocratic forces of the society, it will target the specific oppression of women. In this way, women’s consciousness and militant mentality will grow step by step and women’s movement will confront the state power.

4. Communist women organisation must inspire women to enthusiastically participate in mass and political movements of workers and peasantry. No mass movement is worth its name unless and until a great number of women participate in it. Such participation does not preclude women liberation movement, rather it generates self-confidence among women and makes them aware of their own strength, leads them to forge a frank and spontaneous relationship with men, ushers a change quite unknowingly in domestic relations as well, and thus provides a wider basis to women liberation struggle.

5. Communist women organisation must extend support to each and every protest, big or small, by women, be it under whatever organisation’s banner. Bourgeois feminist movement too has a specifically positive role in our country, as it has to target feudal stranglehold and here only leftist organisations can be their natural ally. In the background of feudal-communal onslaughts, leftist women organisations forging a front with these organisations are certainly possible and inevitable too.

6. Communist women movement will also adopt the slogan of revolutionary transformation of husband-wife relationship and family code. After Russian revolution, Comintern had proclaimed in 1924: "Until old conventions of family and family relationship are not transformed, the revolution will remain impotent." Today Muslim women are stepping out of purdah to raise their voice against the traditional way of talaq and you must support them. I have learnt about democratic marriages in Bihar where marriage is performed in a simple manner sans purohits and all ostentations. Of course, it is good. But democratic marriage means for woman freedom of choosing her partner herself and sharing family responsibilities after the marriage. However, not to speak of these democratic marriages, even among the so-called revolutionary marriages performed within the Party, probably in most of the cases these policies are rarely observed.

7. Till now probably the progressive sections of men have played a role more important than that of women’s own struggles in instituting reforms undertaken for women’s progress. Communist women organisation has to fulfil a specific task of enhancing women’s own role, because ultimately woman has to achieve her emancipation herself. Even in our Party incidents of violation of women’s dignity do occur. There are reports of extreme misbehaviour by some male cadres against women. We certainly take measures against these cases through Party institutions. Still I feel that in this matter communist women organisation should play a role in exercising supervision over the Party and in creating pressure as well.

Save the natural division between man and woman, all other divisions are artificial. A specific phase of historical development had institutionalised these divisions, and another phase of historical development, which has already been ushered in, will put an end to them, and only when the relationship between man and woman, the two forms of human species will grow frank, spontaneous and fraternal the humankind shall be able to regain its lost oneness. The path towards this destiny will route through a revolution bearing the banner with inscriptions "socialism and women liberation" on it.

[From Liberation, April 1994.]

The Debate

India has been witness to a great social turmoil in recent years where the twin entities of caste and religion have played a major catalytic role. It all came to the fore after VP Singh-led Janata Dal government decided to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations on reservation of jobs to Other Backward Classes in 1990. Although Janata Dal came to power on a plank of anti-Congressism with a tacit support from BJP, the alliance soon ran into rough weather. And interestingly, the two became protagonists of two major socio-political movements in contemporary history of India. Pitted against each other, the movements were popularly known as Mandal and Mandir movements. Janata Dal, in the beginning, enjoyed a much larger support base in its crusade against corruption (Bofors). Its championing of Mandal to the exclusion of everything else, however, vastly eroded its support base and led to a whole chain of political crisis which eventually reduced it to a marginal force in Indian politics.

Mandal, if one were to believe the rhetoric of VP Singh and his cohorts, would usher in an unparalleled social revolution in India against the forces of statusquoism and obscurantism, the forces who were politically represented by Congress(I) and BJP.

In an ironic twist of history, Mandal recommendations were implemented by Congress(I) government taking, in the process, much wind out of the Janata Dal sails.

The crusader in VP Singh dies hard and now it is reduced to the ridiculous demand of a dalit President or a backward Prime Minister, irrespective of his/her ideological-political predilection. Then there is the gimmick of staying away from Delhi till a backward gets employment on the basis of reservation quota. The revolution thus has degenerated into cosmetic reforms and the movement into tokenism.

As regards reservation proper Janata Dal is now left with the options of opposing the creamy layer verdict and to pressurise for 10 per cent reservation quota for upper castes on economic criterion — a promise that V P Singh made to diffuse the anti-Mandal agitation. Neither of the options, however, can be pursued with any zeal for obvious reasons.

Political eclipse of Mr.VP Singh and his Janata Dal signalled the rise of Mulayam Singh and Kanshi Ram. Mulayam Singh claims himself to be the natural representative of backwards as compared to VP Singh, the outsider, and invoking Lohia he has couched his politics in a socialist phraseology with a greater force of inheritance and sincerity of purpose. Kanshi Ram, the rising star of dalit politics, on the other hand, invokes the legacy of Ambedkar. Armed with a radical dalit posture and anti-communist phobia he seems to be desperate to outsmart Ambedkar himself.

These dramatic events have exerted tremendous impact on Indian left and communist movement. While Mandal greatly eroded the communist base among backward peasantry in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, BSP virtually swept away the traditional dalit support of left parties in Uttar Pradesh. Under the circumstances a polemics has surfaced within the left and communist circles that calls for a new approach to the caste phenomenon in Indian society and, particularly in the backdrop of soviet debacle, to redefine the "orthodox" concept of class. Recent desertion of first-ranking leaders of CPI to Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, PWG Naxalites swelling the ranks of BSP in Andhra Pradesh and defection of some IPF MLAs to Janata Dal in Bihar bring out the gravity and the complexity of the situation.

Here I have before me a book titled Caste and Class Dynamics — Radical Ambedkarite Praxis written by one Dr. Thomas Matthew. The author makes interesting observations about the interrelations between caste and class. I shall try to unravel the puzzle of caste and class relationship in course of my critical analysis of the ideas presented in this book.

The author’s avowed aim is to achieve a synthesis of Marxism and Ambedkarism, which according to the author is "the only hope of the teeming millions of India". He takes up this stupendous job in a situation when "Marxian practice, at least the major versions, ended up in historic debacles at the world level" but "Ambedkarite praxis seems to move past its teething troubles in India". Still the synthesis is explained as "absorbing Ambedkarism in the Marxian framework" and not the opposite as one would have normally suspected from the above-mentioned contextual reference. The author’s Marxist antecedents are revealed in his acknowledgement of gratitude to Mr.K. Venu "without whose pioneering leadership in attacking Marxist fundamentalism and the concept of ‘revolutionary authority’ of leadership, it would not have been possible for me to question many Marxist dogmas". More of it later.

Ambedkar Re-examined

To proceed. The first part of the book deals with Ambedkar’s struggle against Gandhi and Gandhism. This struggle of great historical importance is narrated in Ambedkar’s book Congress, Gandhi and the Untouchables, an old copy of whose original edition the author could manage from a Delhi library. This fact is important as the author claims that there have been attempts at modifying and diluting its contents in subsequent editions.

The author claims that Dr. Ambedkar’s analysis and formulations on the ruling classes, Congress and Gandhism were quite different from the official Ambedkarite perceptions. Moreover, "his evaluation about the western parliamentary system and approving references to the Paris Commune and the soviet system exploded all theories that Ambedkar was anti-communist".

As it comes out, Gandhian approach was basically to undertake some reforms within Hinduism through what is called "constructive work" to secure the support of untouchables behind the savarna leadership of Congress in the freedom struggle. Ambedkar, on the other hand, strove for a radical restructuring of Hinduism to do away with caste system itself and to provide a political platform to the rising dalit aspirations. These two contradictory approaches of Gandhi and Ambedkar defined their relationship with each other, with other communities like Muslims and with the British Government.

Commenting on Gandhi’s economic philosophy Ambedkar wrote, "there was nothing new in the Gandhian analysis of economic ills as attributable to machinery and the civilisation built upon it. These were old and worn out arguments, a repetition of Rousseau, Pushkin and Tolstoy. His economics was hopelessly fallacious because the evils produced by the mechanised production system and civilisation are not due to machinery as such... They are due to the wrong social organisation which has made private property and pursuit of personal gain a matter of absolute sanctity... The remedy therefore is not to condemn machinery and civilisation but to alter the organisation of society so that the benefits will not be usurped by the few but accrue to all."

In his conflict with Gandhi, Ambedkar undoubtedly emerges as the foremost exponent of a radical socio-economic programme in the freedom struggle.

From Harijans to dalits — there lies the whole course of transformation in the self-perception of untouchables and none but Ambedkar had been the moving spirit behind this transformation. He was perhaps the first dalit leader, who combined with a fair degree of success the social awakening of dalits with their political assertion.

Ambedkar’s other major contribution was drafting the Constitution of independent India. He shared Nehru’s vision of a modern India and in a certain sense exhibited a greater insight than Nehru. In contrast to Nehru’s emphasis on discovery of India, he declared, "In believing that we are a nation we are chasing a great delusion. We can only attempt to become a nation-in the-making."

He opted for a constitutional state socialism, stood for a strong centre, and advocated an economic programme comprising nationalisation of land and its distribution among peasants for collective cultivation and nationalisation of key industries. He believed that such an economic programme backed by state welfare measures positively discriminated in favour of depressed classes will lead to the ‘annihilation of caste’, his ultimate goal.

His crusade for social liberation of dalits remained central to him and he parted company with Nehru when Nehru gave in to the conservative pressure on Hindu Code Bill! This further convinced Ambedkar that casteism was basic to Hinduism and dalits have no option but to break out of its fold.

And thus he embraced Buddhism which he interpreted in a modernistic sense hoping to herald a new socio-cultural awakening among dalits. In the realm of political action he envisaged the formation of the Republican Party as an independent democratic party of the oppressed classes.

Thus, Ambedkar’s crusade reached its crescendo. Unfortunately for him only his community of Mahars joined him in conversion to Buddhism and after his death his political movement represented by the Republican Party of India got splintered and appropriated by the Congress.

In class terms Ambedkar represented the petty bourgeois stratum of dalits that included the small-medium peasantry. Their particular socio-economic conditions were the basic roots of Ambedkar’s radicalism and also the source of his limitations. In given conditions he could only strive for a full-scale development of capitalism and a strong capitalist welfare state which shall be instrumental in breaking the age-old social immobility and inertia. His approving references to some aspects of communist practice and invoking socialist jargons only reveal his radical bourgeois democratic essence. This is not an indictment of Ambedkar. On the contrary, it places him high above many historical figures of his times who stood for a conservative path of capitalist development preserving the "Brahminical-Bania alliances" to use Ambedkar’s own phrase.

Ambedkar’s vacillations, compromises and ultimate recourse to a religious praxis too emanate from the same socio-economic conditions of his existence. The inherent limitations of a dalit petty bourgeois to chart out an alternative strategy of freedom movement forced him sometimes to enter into compromises with Gandhi and Congress and at other times to pin hopes on British. The alternative strategy could have been chalked out only by communists who represented the Indian urban and rural proletariat — a good majority of whom came from dalits. A close political alliance with radical bourgeois democrats of all hues must have been an inalienable part of the alternative strategy. Communist Party of India failed to undertake this responsibility. But that is another story.

Coming back to our author, he is found slipping into the quagmire of idealism while explaining the roots of Ambedkar’s vacillations and compromises. Listen to him: "It was the sincerity of purpose, the human weakness and ‘forget and forgive’ characteristic of the dalits, the oppressed, as opposed to the cunning and calculating nature of the Brahminical classes" that made Ambedkar adjust with Congress over and over again.

The author laments that "Ambedkarism remained within the confines of bourgeois democratic consciousness" for ‘it could not transcend the limit set by its peasant roots".

To transcend the limits which Ambedkar failed to do our distinguished author embarks on an adventurous theoretical journey. He starts with a queer analysis.

"Ambedkarism was not rooted in a class with total upward mobility permitting complete merger of the class or even individuals and small groups within the bourgeois system. It represented a peasant society in the process of partial proletarianisation and partial dispossession with an upper crust eagerness for upward mobility being frustrated. It was this phenomenon which destroyed all the efforts at alignment between the untouchables and the ruling bourgeoisie. This was why Dr. Ambedkar was repulsed from the ruling classes after each and every encounter with them. It provides the great potential of Ambedkarism to grow out of limits of bourgeois society."

Having thus established the potential, the author then takes at face value Ambedkar’s certain approving references on Marx, Paris Commune and Soviet system. Combined with Ambedkar’s denunciation of twin enemies of Brahminism and capitalism and his advocacy of "Socialist programme", all this is taken to symbolise Ambedkar’s journey towards communism. Even conversion to Buddhism is interpreted as an answer to the problems raised by Marxism in general and by its concrete application in India in particular. His religio-political praxis becomes a precursor to the Cultural Revolution and democratic resurgence within Marxist ideology and movement. "In some sense Ambedkar’s Buddhist resurrection presaged Mao’s Cultural Revolution". This is how our author lays the foundation of synthesis of Marxism and Ambedkarism and in later chapters accomplishes this feat with a great finesse.

In Search of A Pan-Dalit Unity

The author finds to his dismay that "immediately after Ambedkar’s exit the five-year plans were launched and ‘socialism’ was adopted by the Congress. The Kaka Kalelkar Commission was set up on reservation for the backward classes. Around the same time, Nehru’s Government organised the 2500th of Mahaparinirvana of Buddha at Delhi... Cooperation with Soviet Union also increased." A strange explanation is added thereafter: "Indian ruling classes dispensed with Ambedkar after making up with Stalin."

While analysing the post-Ambedkar scenario, the author rightly observes the process of upward mobility of various backward communities.

"In Kerala a numerically strong shudra community has been upgraded as a savarna group, particularly because the Brahmin-Kayastha-Bania population is very insignificant. The Nair community, which was considered a pollutant by the ‘gods’, is almost the ‘God on Earth’ now... Another untouchable community, Ezhawas, has made much headway in socio-economic and political terms."

What is true for Kerala is also true for other parts of India in varying degrees. Land reforms and various other measures of socio-economic upliftment coupled with different varieties of anti-Brahminical mass movements led to this upward mobility of several major backward communities. In Hindi belt, the credit goes chiefly to the Lohiaite socialist movement.

Every major socio-political upheaval in society is invariably accompanied by broadbasing of the social composition of the ruling classes. Post-British India could not have persisted with the old social alliance of British rule and hence the upward mobility of certain backward communities and appropriation of its privileged members within the ruling classes was an inevitable process. Apart from sharpening backward-forward polarisation in certain states, the process brought in its wake growing class-caste differentiation among and within hitherto backward communities. A notable development was the accentuation of conflict between dalits who were mostly agrarian labourers and intermediate castes of well-to-do peasantry who benefited most from the policies of agrarian development.

The author, however, ascribes the whole phenomenon of assimillation certain dalit castes, groups and individuals within the ruling system to the "manipulative" skills of cunning Brahminical ruling classes. By dalit castes the author implies the whole spectrum of untouchables and shudra castes — in official parlance Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes — and engages himself in search of a theoretical praxis that encompasses a pan-dalit unity. He finds it in Bahujan Samaj Party.

"The republican movement foundered on the question of a united front. The party was conceived as a movement of the Deprived Classes to become the ruling class, the political aim of Dr. Ambedkar. But this would not have been possible without alliance with the political forces representing the oppressed sections. Dr. Ambedkar could not give this direction and the party also could not evolve the strategy. If at all they aligned with others it was with the Brahminical ruling class parties. The alternative strategy was to visualise the party framework itself as a coalition of all the oppressed and exploited classes and communities. This, the Bahujan Samaj Party has done. The BSP thus becomes a major theoretical advance in Ambedkarite praxis. The BSP vision is a broader platform covering the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward communities and the minorities. It is the most powerful theoretical answer to the Indian ruling class politics of divide and rule."

Well, how far BSP can build and sustain this pan-dalit unity of author’s choice in the face of growing social differentiation is yet to be seen; but to present a pragmatic hotchpotch as a major theoretical advance over Ambedkar is the height of theoretical absurdity. By accusing Ambedkar of failing to give the direction of alliance with the political forces of oppressed sections and rather clinging with the Brahminical ruling class parties, the author is both guilty of ahistorical analysis of Ambedkar as well as distortion of facts.

The author who had just eulogised BSP with the "most powerful theoretical answer etc." in a perfect theoretical acrobatics immediately switches over to Janata Dal crediting it with the adoption of "same (BSP) platform" while putting forward "Mandal-Masjid plank". More so, the Janata offensive that came from above created much more furore than the Kanshi Ram crusade at grassroots. Moreover, "BSP’s partisanism hardly had any friends outside the dalit fraternity (emphasis added). It was a spectacular political feat that the Janata leadership was made to adopt specific and definite social justice plank that represented the common interests of all the oppressed communities. It was the militant socialist tradition of the North Indian belt which spearheaded this ideological coup de grace."

Mandal Mania

Almost assuming the role of Janata Dal’s spokesperson the author lists various achievements of Janata Dal’s social justice plank. Awarding Bharat Ratna to Ambedkar; organising his birth centenary celebrations; proportional plan allocation for rural areas, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; considerable relief to bonded labour, contract labour and agricultural workers; (proposed) relief for organised sector workers; (proposed) right to work as a fundamental right; major relief to peasants; (proposed) massive literacy programme, some breathing space to oppressed nationalities; determined offensive against communal forces on Babri Masjid issue, etc. Bihar Government of Janata Dal comes in for a particular praise because of its extending reservations to judiciary and implementing the principle of proportional allocation of plan funds to Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes. According to the author, "The Mandal agenda came on the heels of all these measures. The political slogans and the orientation became a real threat to the forces of status quo. "And hence the conspiracy by the ruling classes to dethrone and destroy the Janata Dal". Now the question whether the Mandal agenda came on the heels of aforesaid measures or at the cost of a radical socio-economic programme — particularly to sidetrack the promised right to work as fundamental right remains far from settled. Whether these political slogans and orientations were a real threat to the forces of status quo or a device to strike a balance in the power structure corresponding to the growing socio-economic and political clout of certain backward castes — this question too remains open to scrutiny. Adoption of Mandal recommendation by Congress Government only goes to substantiate the latter postulate. Janata Dal is only distinguished by its opposition to the creamy layer concept, exposing in the process its real essence.

Our author, however, regards Mandal as the central theme that polarised not only the Indian society but the communist movement as well.

"All these (Naxalite) movements rooted among dalits have supported Mandal reservation as a democratic measure whereas all the traditional communists rooted in the urban working class have opposed Mandal". "The traditional communist parties wavered and the CPI(M) leadership and even the Indian People’s Front, a Naxalite organisation, veered round to the ‘economic criterion’ principle of the Congress and the BJP."

This is a clear case of twisting the facts to suit one’s theoretical framework. CPI went whole hog with Janata Dal on Mandal issue and even went on record opposing the creamy layer verdict and the so-called economic criterion. CPI(M) never opposed Mandal recommendations and the economic criterion it talked of was in relation to stratification within backward communities and thus it welcomed the creamy layer verdict. Indian People’s Front never veered round to the so-called economic criterion. On the contrary, it took VP Singh to task for his advocacy of 10 per cent reservation for economically backwards among upper castes. It firmly held that social and educational backwardness alone can be the criterion for reservation.

Our Party did welcome the creamy layer verdict because any measure that articulates class differentiation among powerful backward communities can only be supported by Marxists. We know that conditions had matured for the restructuring of power structure and VP Singh only played a catalytic role in that. Thus we refused to endorse Mandal as a harbinger of any social revolution and went on exposing the hypocrisy of Janata Dal, a bourgeois-landlord formation, and zealously guarded our Party’s ideological-political and organisational independence.

Our Party stuck to its position despite a powerful backlash of backwardism, despite Janata Dal’s concentrated onslaught against us in Bihar and despite the price we had to pay in the form of defection of some MLAs to Janata Dal. With the Mandal euphoria over our Party is back to the course of rapid advance in Bihar while CPI which had tied itself to Janata Dal’s apron strings faces virtual decimation of its traditional mass base, the threat of disintegration and total loss of orientation.

The author is full of praise for PWG "which called for an Andhra Bandh to protest against the judiciary’s highhandedness in the matter... and Janata Dal leaders addressed public meetings supported by the PWG on the Mandal issue." The other Naxalite group that received compliments from the author is of course MCC which is credited with leading the "dalit resistance against upper caste tyranny in Bihar". We also find the mention of Satyashodhak Communist Party which, with Marx-Phule-Ambedkar as its philosophical guide, supposedly offers "an ideological challenge to the parliamentary communist movement".

The author thus reaches the final stage of his project synthesis and there he seems to have lost all the balance. Look at this gem: "While dalit songs of revolt reverberated in the heavens, the fire and fury of the (Dalit) Panthers, Naxalites and Militants (Khalistanis and Kashmiris) got a theoretical outline. It was this emerging unity of theory and practice that Ram Vilas Paswan tried to capture through Dalit Sena and Ambedkar Centenary Celebrations."

From Ambedkar to Kanshi Ram to Ram Vilas Paswan! It’s really a fantastic journey!

Caste-Class Antithesis

The author presents certain novel ideas about caste. "While Marx saw caste as the decisive impediment to India’s power and progress, they (Indian Marxists) took caste as a matter of superstructure... Caste being a production relation does not belong to the superstructure, but to the socio-economic base. The biggest theoretical failure of Indian Marxists has been their refusal to recognise caste as part of the substructure of the society." Now, in Marxist discourse, one has definitely heard of an economic base over which all superstructure lies but never of a socio-economic base. The author himself seems perplexed over relating caste to the social as well as economic base. The dichotomy is explained in the following way:

"Here one has to distinguish between caste as an institution of permanent division of means of production and profession and caste as an attitude of untouchability and discrimination. Caste contains both these aspects, the former belonging to the base and the latter to the superstructure."

In fact, egalitarian societies got split into class societies with the rise of economic surplus and since then history of all existing societies has been the history of class struggle. In pre-capitalist societies, however, inequalities generated by the surplus were adjusted through a social stratification known as social estates. Internal cohesion among existing clans blocked the class formation in a classical sense, and moreover, socio-political formations based on extra-economic coercion perpetuated the system of social estates. In India the stratification did assume a greater permanence owing to the divine sanction accorded to the caste system and more importantly due to the coexistence of a despotic central power with the self-sufficient village communities.

Classes are rooted in the mode of production and their respective economic conditions of existence put them in hostile conflict with each other and this accelerates the process of class differentiation in society. Social estates or castes, however, regulate the mode of distribution and thus block the formation of classes as a ‘pure’ category. Class struggle permeates each and every social and political movement and thus assumes a variety of complicated forms.

Modern capitalist society accelerates this process of class differentiation and for the first time conditions are created for the self-perception of classes and open class battles. In India too the advent of capitalism and large-scale manufacturing for the first time brought a breach between caste and occupation and there arose a new class of industrial proletariat. The first generation of the proletariat despatched to plantations, mining, textile, jute etc. overwhelmingly belonged to the untouchable and shudra castes and was later joined by the members of upper castes too.

Factories were thus also the social factories which carried the potential for annihilation of caste. The conservative path of development of Indian capitalism did slowdown this process of class differentiation. The parliamentary democracy gave a new lease of life to caste stabilisation as new dominant social classes fought their battles for share in political power by invoking caste equations. And the economism and parliamentarism practised by social democrats corrupted the vision of working class as the class-for-itself. Still, in comparison to the intelligentsia which remained overwhelmingly composed of upper castes, working class is the cauldron of melting caste identities. The new era of globalisation and liberalisation has started disorganising the organised sector of workers and it is once again rising from slumber to resume its historical mission.

So, class is the basic category. In certain historical situations it may express itself in the form of castes, in other situations the two may be interwoven, overlapping and at the same time criss-crossing each other, and in yet another situation castes are disintegrated to crystallise as classes. This is how the antithesis between two proceeds, until the caste as the regulator of mode of distribution stands annihilated.

Our distinguished author, however, feels otherwise. He condemns Indian communists for mechanically applying the European categories in the Indian conditions and questions the very search of industrial proletariat in India. "Indian industrial working class, which they (Marxists) took to represent the proletarian, is not in fact proletarian. It was also a class born with a silver spoon. It largely belonged to the upper echelons of caste hierarchy. It not only had landed property in the villages and towns, but also inherited intellectual property which the masses lacked. They were not the dispossessed proletarians who had nothing to lose but chains. They were a class whose militancy and radicalism was linked with the rich peasant consciousness and ended with the Kulakisation in Rural India."

The author makes a curious distinction between Indian and Western intellectuals. "Western intellectual has nothing other than his mental labour power. In India, knowledge transcends its domain of religion and philosophy and enters the phase of material production and society. Science, knowledge and skill get separated from physical labour and assume dominance in the production... Hence declassing of Indian intellectual becomes a very difficult task." Make a head or tail of all this meaningless talk if you can. Such an unabashed praise of western intellectual, however, does signify the ‘declassing’ of Mr.Author. Western intellectuals, the possessors of so-called mental labour-power(!), have been essentially bourgeois and petty bourgeois intellectuals engaged in the service of bourgeois society. Open class battles of working class brought a split among them and a section associated itself with the working class. Marx, Lenin and countless others represent that section. Proletarian revolutions, however, encountered, and continue to encounter, a tough resistance from their overwhelming majority.

In contrast, petty-bourgeois intelligentsia in India despite its vacillations and upper caste bias joined progressive democratic and left movements in far greater numbers. The Naxalite movement in particular effected the integration of a large number of petty bourgeois youth with the dalit landless labour.

The author is greatly concerned about educated dalits gravitating towards Brahminism and turning into dalit aristocracy fostered by the bribes and privileges from the state. In explaining this phenomenon he brings in the comparison of Indian dalit vis-a-vis the western proletariat! "While the proletariat fought to regain their mastery over the tools and products of labour which they possessed in the immediate past, the dalits had been dispossessed for generations. The pride, glory and honour were fresh in the memory of the revolutionary proletariat; but the dalit battle was to regain the human personality, which was lost over generations of slavery, untouchability and thralldom. The class was vulnerable enough to fall prey to ruling class stratagems of ideological subversion and cooption." A strange logic! Everything western is good, everything Indian is bad. How come then a whole stratum of labour aristocracy the social base of social democracy arose in the west? How come a dalits in revolutionary struggles played a consistent heroic role in India? A section of labouring people always get co-opted with the system and there is nothing East-West about that. In author’s analysis, the whole class of dalits, being "vulnerable enough to fall prey to ruling class stratagems", stands condemned. Ironically, it is to this class that the author accords the leadership to what he prefers to call "Dalit Democratic Revolution".

Dalit Democratic Revolution

For the author, ‘dalit’ represents all the castes and strata discriminated against by the Brahminical ruling classes. Thus, he emphasises a Dalit Democratic Revolution. Organised sector workers, intelligentsia, professionals belonging to upper castes can only be the wavering and undependable ally.

National bourgeoisie, however, constituting the emerging bourgeois elements of the backward classes and oppressed minority nationalities can of course be consistent ally, more so in the context of increasing globalisation and the growing grip of the Brahminical ruling classes over the centralised state.

Rural proletariat as well as proletarian sections in the unorganised and informal sectors belonging to dalit castes will be the leader. And of course, poor peasants or semi-proletarians as well as peasantry at large coming from dalit and shudra castes will be staunch ally.

The whole revolution has thus been turned upside down. Working class being the undependable ally whereas national bourgeoisie being the consistent ally. This revolution author claims will destroy the Brahminical social order and chart the path of genuine democracy. But the author here clearly evades the mention of social order — capitalist or socialist — that the revolution will establish.

The author thus arrives at the united front of all the backward classes and communities as against "class reductionism" and "working class centrism". This he proclaims, as the biggest breakthrough in the Marxist dogma. Biggest breaking through Marxism indeed!

Coming to the specific economic programme of Dalit Democratic Revolution, the author rejects Ambedkar’s programme of land nationalisation and its distribution to cultivators including the landless untouchables with special state assistance. The author argues that "dalits have realised that emancipation lies in ownership of land which means ‘power’ in rural India" and also "the Ambedkarite prescription of distribution of nationalised land by the state misses the essential element, people’s consciousness, that becomes a dynamic material force through direct dalit action for land". He advocates "agrarian revolution through land distribution at the instance of (!) landless and land-poor. Land should be distributed to the agricultural communities on the basis of their proportion in the population. The mode of organisation of production could be left to the democratic decision of the respective communities."

The author opposes the Ambedkar’s programme of nationalisation of key industries under the pretext that the state sector is always used in the interest of the ruling classes. He advocates rather privatisation of public sector by distributing public shares equally to the people.

The author fails to understand that it is only the industrial working class through its control over big industries which can undertake any radical agrarian transformation and also control and transform the national bourgeoisie and thus effect the transition from a democratic to socialist revolution. Leadership of working class is thus inbuilt in a new democratic revolution, new only because it shall pass over to socialism and doesn’t stop at capitalism. Rural and unorganised proletariat — attached as they are with the lower stage of mode of production can never effect this transition on their own. Their limitations are accepted by the author himself when he talks of land distribution only at the instance of landless and leaves the entire organisation of production to peasant communities themselves. It is just a programme of status quoism in the countryside to keep higher rungs of backward caste peasantry — staunch ally of Dalit Democratic Revolution in good humour.

State sector does serve the ruling classes no doubt, but it also raises the solidarity of working class at the national level and educates them in socialist consciousness in the sense that capitalist owner can be dispensed with and industries can be run by a paid management under working class control. That is why Lenin said that socialism is just a step ahead of state capitalism.

The broad united front, if at all it materialises, will inevitably transfer the leadership to the national bourgeoisie and shall only ensure the domination of kulaks of backward castes over the rural poor. The programme of Dalit Democratic Revolution is actually the maximum limit of the most radical of Janata Dal men and our author has not been able to transcend that limit.

Taking his cue from Ambedkar, the author had embarked upon building a model of revolution "on the grammar of caste society with the dynamics of class struggle". He only succeeded in building a model of reform at the full stop of class struggle with the statics of caste society.

Synthesis Par Excellence

The ambitious project synthesis was based on the one hand on rejection of economism, parliamentarism and the dogma of leadership of the industrial working class in Marxist theory and practice, and on the other on the rise of Ambedkarism from petty bourgeois peasant politics to the consciousness of liberation. In the process, first casualty was Marxism and then the radical economic vision of Ambedkarism on which alone Ambedkar, to a great extent, had based his hopes of dalit liberation.

The end product of the strenuous exercise of his mental labour power spread over 140 pages and priced at Rs. 150 has been the hybrid of K Venu and Ram Vilas Paswan at the level of theory and of Janata Dal and PWG-MCC at the level of practical politics. Many many kudos to the author for laying bare this unholy alliance which we had been hinting at for long.

[Reply to Mr.Thomas Mathew’s rejoinder. From Liberation, January 1995.]

Mr. Thomas Mathew’s rejoinder (Liberation, November 1994) to my polemical article on the anti-thesis of class and caste (Liberation, Special Number, April 1994) to say the least, has only rendered more profound the absurdities contained in his book Caste and Class Dynamics: Radical Ambedkarite Praxis. Let me elaborate.

Synthesis Revisited

1. Mr.Mathew informs us that the synthesis of Marxism and Ambedkarism proposed by him was essentially the synthesis of Maoist idealism and Buddhist dialectics. Moreover, this synthesis is not only the only hope for the teeming millions of Indian people, as claimed by him earlier, but also for the entire humanity. A great leap forward indeed!

Well, Mr.Mathew can take me to task for the phrase ‘Maoist idealism’ which he really never used. With due apology, I would still insist that no other inference could possibly be drawn from his interpretation of Mao’s Thought. We are aware of Mr.Mathew’s drawing courage from K. Venu in denouncing Marxist fundamentals and in that perspective his exuberance for Mao’s so-called giving ‘pride of place’ to ideology as against ‘mechanistic practice of Western version of Marxism’ arouses genuine suspicions in the materialist minds.

Dialectical interrelation between the base and the superstructure is the cornerstone of Marxist philosophy. Still if Mao is singled out for praise for bringing into focus the superstructure’s action over the base or, in other words, giving ‘pride of place’ to ideology, the whole exercise appears more in tune with the anarcho-idealist mind-set of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia rather than any genuine appreciation of Mao’s Thought within the dialectical materialist framework.

Mao himself never insisted on more than the concrete application of Marxism-Leninism in Chinese conditions and he indeed retrieved the dialectical core of Marxist philosophy from under the overshadowing influence of Soviet metaphysics.

Overzealous exponents of Maoism the world over, however, invoke Cultural Revolution to pit Mao against Marxist fundamentals and denigrate him to the levels of a subjective idealist. Mr.Mathew does belong to the same breed.

Mr. Mathew also tells us that Ambedkar, who was supposedly under the influence of Western mechanistic materialism, ‘matured’ to Buddhist dialectics in the later part of his life.

Why did Ambedkar, who was well-versed with most modern thought processes in the West, prefer to ‘mature’ in Buddhist dialectics of antiquity instead of its highest development in that phase, the Marxist dialectics? A serious and in-depth probing of this question will reveal that Marxism and Ambedkarism represent two distinctly separate philosophical-ideological systems.

Undoubtedly, in the immediate context of India’s democratic revolution a Marxist programme of action can share a lot with the radical side of Ambedkarism. But the fusion of the two in a single philosophical-ideological stream is not only out of question but at times it may even degenerate into a reactionary endeavour.

Socialist Vs. Radical Bourgeois Vision

2. Mr.Mathew quotes me approvingly to show that Ambedkar stood for socialism and qualifies it with a rider that Ambedkar also believed that socialism can be brought about by the servile classes (untouchables and shudras) only after they become the governing classes.

I had made it clear that despite all limitations, Ambedkar vision was a radical bourgeois vision and it came out in bold relief in his struggle against Gandhi’s conservative bourgeois vision. In those days socialism was a catchword and exponents of progressive and not-so-progressive thoughts all preferred to call themselves socialists. It was so with Nehru and it was the same with Ambedkar. Mr.Mathew should know that the demand for land nationalisation as well as for the end of caste discrimination fall within the purview of radical bourgeois democracy and a full-fledged development of capitalism does have the potential to annihilate the caste. These are also important demands of the communist programme of democratic revolution because no real capitalist development is possible without doing away with the feudal fetters in a radical way. For a radical bourgeois, however, this is the end of the road. For a communist this only opens up the stage where the great class battle for socialism can be decisively fought and won.

Annihilation of castes in no way abolishes classes. On the contrary, it facilitates class formation, accentuates class polarisation and makes the class struggle open, broad and direct. This is not very difficult to understand when one looks at the western societies where we don’t find caste discriminations. This has only brought out the class struggle in a purer form.

If untouchables and shudra castes emerge as governing classes (castes), it is in no way going to bring socialism. A cross-section of these castes has already emerged as the governing classes in several Indian states. In most of the cases the dominant castes among them start exhibiting the same Brahminical traits towards those at the lower rung of the ladder. Then again, strong kulak lobbies have emerged from among backwards who show deep animosity towards agrarian labourers and poor peasants, mostly from among dalits. Mr.Mathew in his book had pointed out this upward mobility of certain shudra castes in Kerala and in his rejoinder too he talks of class differentiation among dalit-shudra peasantry. Grudgingly though, he had to admit that the national bourgeoisie of backward castes may not be a consistent ally in the changing global economic and political context. While welcoming this realisation, I do hope that Mr.Mathew should also understand that its counterpart, the rural bourgeoisie or kulaks of backward castes will also not be ‘the main force and the main ally’ of a democratic revolution.

The Class Nature of Ambedkarism

3. Mr.Mathew is up in arms against my characterisation of Ambedkar as a class representative of the petty-bourgeois stratum of dalits. Let us see how he himself characterises Ambedkar’s class position. He begins by recognising ‘petty bourgeois limits of Ambedkarism’ and then introduces a hypothetical assumption about the great potential of dalit petty bourgeoisie to ‘imbue proletarian values after successive frustrations of their bourgeois ambition’. Then the ‘maturing’ of Ambedkarism in the post-Buddhist phase and again in the post-Dalit Panthers phase leads Mr.Mathew to conclude that ‘Ambedkarism is torn between the dalit petty bourgeoisie and the dalit proletariat’. Mr.Mathew takes us back to pre-maturity, pre-Buddhist phase of Ambedkar which ‘represented the dalit proletariat rather than the dalit bourgeoisie.’ The ambiguity of statements and hypothetical assumptions resorted to by Mr.Mathew only proves that he is torn between the characterisation of Ambedkar as the class representative of proletariat and that of bourgeoisie.

Mr. Mathew’s laborious exercise only goes to prove my contention about the class nature of Ambedkar because the very vacillation in Ambedkar’s positions, which he talks about, is the fundamental characteristic of the petty-bourgeoisie. He should also be reminded of the fact that successive frustration of bourgeois ambitions of petty-bourgeoisie, dalit or otherwise, does not necessarily transform them into imbibing proletarian values. This often leads to despair and anarchism. Will Mr.Mathew, who places so much hope on the post-Dalit Panthers phase of Ambedkarism, ponder over the question: Where are Dalit Panthers of yesteryears?

I have said that Ambedkar’s vision was a radical bourgeois vision and this comes out in bold relief especially during his polemics with conservative bourgeois vision of Gandhi. The word ‘bourgeois’ has become so notorious in our country that people fail to distinguish between radical and conservative bourgeois visions and tend to overlook the fact that in our immediate context of democratic revolution, the radical bourgeois vision symbolises a revolutionary vision. I drew most of the flak from blind worshipers of Ambedkar on my characterising him as a ‘bourgeois’. I, on the contrary, by portraying Ambedkar as a radical bourgeois made a positive reassessment of him, put him high above his contemporaries and paved the way for a strategic alliance among communists and radical Ambedkarites. This point has been totally missed by Mr.Mathew.

The moot point that merits attention here is the critical assessment of Ambedkar upholding his revolutionary democratic ideals and at the same time recognising inconsistencies in his radical bourgeois vision. After all Sun Yat-Sen of China too was a radical bourgeois, though far more consistent than Ambedkar.

BSP Vs. Janata Dal

4. Mr. Mathew sticks to his formulation that the BSP concept of pan-dalit unity is a major theoretical advance over the Republican (Ambedkarite) practice and, of course, Janata Dal’s grabbing of the Mandal plank was a positive and effective adoption of the BSP framework of pan-dalit unity. Compelling circumstances, since the publication of the book, have forced Mr.Mathew to considerably tone down his euphoria for Janata Dal in general and Mr.Paswan in particular and merely confine to the ‘statement of facts’. But the facts prove otherwise too. BSP has since outwitted Janata Dal and Kanshi Ram has sidelined Mr.Paswan. Mr.Mathew is at a loss to explain the reverse gear.

The God that Failed

5. Mandal for Mr.Mathew symbolises his pet theme of dalit revolution in the making. But alas! The revolution derailed mid-way. His frustration is obvious. Earlier he had accused the mainstream Left, the so-called representatives of upper caste industrial working class, of opposing Mandal; now he appreciates CPI’s stand on Mandal and directs his wrath against us and the CPI(M) for our support to creamy layer verdict.

I don’t know how does he explain the CPI’ stand — as a party with far more entrenched roots than CPI(M) leave alone us, in the so-called labour aristocracy, or to use Mr.Mathew’s phrase ‘upper caste industrial workers’ — vis-a-vis Mandal, or for that matter the phenomenon of CPI, CPI(M) operating as the ‘natural ally’ of Janata Dal quite consistently in the Mandal regime of Bihar.

Our support to the creamy layer verdict, according to Mr.Mathew, amounts to supporting the economic criterion for reservations. This again means looking at the reservation as a measure of economic advancement. And further, this amounts to subserving to Gandhian approach of upliftment as against Ambedkarite approach of ‘participatory democracy and democratisation of the administrative machinery’. A deductive logic par excellence!

My own analysis of Mandal as quoted by Mr.Mathew himself speaks of ‘striking a balance in the power structure’; in other words, of ‘participatory democracy and democratisation of the administrative machinery’ by incorporating sections of backwards within the confines of the ruling classes. What else can a reform measure in the present socio-economic set-up lead to? By supporting the verdict of creamy layer, the layer comprising those who have more or less attained the capacity for the free competition and who will otherwise grab the entire quota reserved for OBCs, aren’t we trying to broadbase the range of participatory democracy and democratising the administrative machinery?

Aren’t we thus pressing for a radical element in the reform process? It is really strange to find a self-proclaimed representative of dalit proletariat so assiduously pursuing the cause of creamy layer. But then Mr.Mathew believes, of course in the world of his fantasy, that the Mandal struggle was led by SCs and the brunt of the anti-Mandal mania was also borne by them. He laments Left’s shortsightedness in missing this great opportunity of forging dalit-backward unity around Mandal and instead working for accentuation of class conflict between the rural proletariat and the kulaks of backwards.

First of all, I must say that this accusation doesn’t hold good for CPI and CPI(M). None can accuse them of accentuating class conflict between the rural proletariat and the backward kulaks. Had it been so they could never have had such a lasting brotherhood with Janata Dal. This accusation does hold good for us and Mr.Mathew may be surprised to know that the same accusation we daily encounter from our left friends, CPI and CPI(M) in Bihar.

Secondly, the dalit-backward unity envisaged by Mr.Mathew is strangely built around calling dalits to sacrifice their class interests vis-a-vis kulaks and fight, make sacrifices and even lead the cause of reservation for creamy layers.

Mr. Mathew should know that kulaks are quite capable of leading their own struggle and leaving a stooge of kulaks like Ram Vilas Paswan apart, dalits in general are not going to heed his advice. In the process Mr.Mathew only exposes whose class interests he has uppermost in his mind.

He, of course, raises a pertinent question. If the Mandal agenda was aimed at broadening the base of the ruling class by accommodating powerful BCs, was this agenda achieved even while excluding the creamy layer?

Mr.Mathew can rest assured that the court verdict will hardly dictate the social reality. The social reality will find out ways and means to circumvent the verdict and reduce it to tokenism. The verdict to keep the reservation limit to 50% is already bypassed by Tamil Nadu and some other states are to follow suit. The criterion formulated for creamy layer in states like Bihar and UP hardly leaves any creamy layer worth recording. The verdict on creamy layer only provides the Left an opportunity to enhance the class consciousness within caste communities and we haven’t missed this opportunity.

Class and Caste

6. Mr.Mathew readily agrees to my formulation that the class is the basic category rooted in the mode of production and then he immediately introduces the element of duality in the theoretical framework by declaring that castes too are rooted in the mode of production.

When Marx and Engels declared that history of all hitherto existing societies (except the primitive communist society) is the history of class struggle, they discovered a fundamental law of social development. It is, however, only in a fairly developed capitalist society that classes and the struggle among them appear in a purer form. In all other societies class struggle assumes highly complex forms. Marx himself made several studies to show how behind the facade of religious crusades, colonial expeditions, palace coups and conflicts among social estates etc., various class interests battled out against each other. Starting from this Marxist premise Indian communists shall have to penetrate the appearance of caste struggle to unravel the essence of class dynamics in our society. But the introduction of class-caste duality sabotages this study from the very start.

For me, the caste system itself was the product of a certain mode of production and the corresponding level of production relations. Class relations here assume the form of castes, which, in their turn, are given a divine sanction by priests. Their ‘permanence’, however, is determined primarily not by any divine sanction but by the static social organisation of the village community which again is the product of a definite level of productive forces. The caste and class here appear in an apparent harmony. This harmony of class and caste, this correspondence of base and super structure is apparent because the two are distinctly separate categories rooted respectively in the base and the superstructure, in the mode of production and regulation of distribution.

As the level of productive forces develops and the mode of production undergoes a slow change, the harmony is broken; class and caste, base and superstructure come into conflict, each trying to define the other. And you have a long transitory phase where class assertions become pronounced, and oddly enough, often manifest themselves in the vortex of caste mobility. The so-called permanence of division of means of production among different castes is shaken. Institutional banner of castes is, however, invoked by new modern economic classes to fight it out among themselves, for the share of power — both political and administrative. The instrument is old, but the content is radically changed. In this phase, the harmony of the first phase is negated and the classes and castes crisscross and overlap each other. This is also the phase of sharpening of the conflict between class and caste identities. Eventually, the historical movement shall negate this phase too and bring back the harmony and correspondence between the base and the superstructure, albeit in a higher form, when castes stand annihilated and class relations and class struggles appear in a purer form. This correspondence cannot just be brought about subjectively. As I had already mentioned, caste system was the product of a definite mode of production and the corresponding level of production relations. Its annihilation too will be accomplished at a higher level of productive forces and mode of production. I had said that the unfettered development of capitalism, which abolishes the extra-economic form of coercion, makes the class direct arbiter in the mode of distribution too, and thus has the great potential of annihilating castes.

For Mr.Mathew, however, caste system basically decided the production relations and permanently divided the means of production among different castes. Caste system and its permanence in his scheme thus appear a priestly conspiracy. While he agrees that the caste system performs the major function of the superstructure, viz. the regulation of distribution, he takes the crucial role played by the caste system in the domain of production relations — in other words, the superstructure acting upon the base — to mean that the caste too belongs to the base. This immediately raises the paradox what then happens to the other basic category of class and how does its relation with caste proceeds. Mr.Mathew doesn’t see the process of class formation, taking place in however rudimentary form, in the limited industrialisation that we have in our society. On the contrary, to him it only appears to have strengthened caste formation. In the case of pre-capitalist formations, in contrast to my formulation that class may express itself in the form of caste, Mathew advances the thesis that caste, combining economic and extra-economic forms of exploitation, takes the form of economic class. He further argues that in other historical situations it is not class and caste but economic and non-economic aspects of class which get interwoven. In other words, both class and caste have economic and non-economic aspects to them, both are basic categories rooted in the mode of production and thus there is no anti-thesis between them. The paradox is still not resolved Mr.Mathew. How then are the two categories basic in their own rights? How are they different from each other? The duality doesn’t take us anywhere and the only logical inference one can draw is that caste is the basic category that determines the class. Class is thus pushed up to the superstructure devised by the modern priests, the communists. The anti-thesis of caste system is the caste system itself and in the ensuing caste struggle, class stands annihilated! And this is the very theme of the so-called dalit democratic revolution of Mr.Mathew.

Annihilation of the Class!

In Dalit Democratic Revolution you don’t find proletariat as an integrated class but only as dalit proletariat and upper-caste proletariat. Similarly various classes of the peasantry as well as bourgeoisie are split up and stand opposed to each other on the basis of their caste affiliations. Mr.Mathew forgets that unlike castes, class is not and cannot be a fragmented entity. Factory system and capitalism has created the conditions for forging class identity of the proletariat and for that, apart from organising them for joint actions, a communist party must combat caste, communal, chauvinistic biases among different segments of the organised and unorganised working class.

Mr.Mathew doesn’t see the emergence of capitalism and the industrial working class as an anti-thesis to the caste system carrying the potential for its abolition. He even tends to forget that radical ideas including that of Ambedkar for annihilation of caste only emerged with the dawn of capitalism and in the course of interaction with radical bourgeois and proletarian ideas emanating from the West. He assumes that caste system which was devised subjectively can also be done away with by means of mere subjective efforts like some sort of Cultural Revolution. He fails to see any link between Ambedkar’s crusade against casteism and his advocacy of radical economic programme, and concludes that neither capitalism nor industrialisation is possible without annihilation of caste.

Proletarian leadership

Mr.Mathew harbours some strange notions about the Maoist concept of new democratic revelation. To my assertion that the essential difference between the old democratic revolutions of western countries and the new democratic revolutions in semi-colonial countries of the East lies in the fact that the later don’t stop at capitalism and pass over to socialism, Mathew comments that this is not a Marxist-Leninist understanding. Marxist-Leninist understanding, according to him, is that the new democratic revolution is led by proletariat. Fine, but what does this leadership of proletariat imply in terms of the new social order? Economic content of a democratic revolution, old or new, is, of course, bourgeois: it abolishes feudal remnants and paves the way for unfettered capitalist development. But in the semi-colonial countries, where the leadership of this revolution has historically fallen on the shoulders of the proletariat, a strong socialist sector too emerges side-by-side and the proletarian leadership ensures transition to socialism. This is how it happened in Mao’s China, and even a cursory reading of Mao’s thesis On New Democracy will substantiate all this.

The problem with Mr.Mathews is that his proletariat is dalit proletariat, rural proletariat, plus workers in the informal unorganised sectors standing in conflict with industrial proletariat supposedly from upper castes. Moreover, this dalit proletariat takes kulaks and bourgeoisie of backward castes as its main ally and the main force. With this ‘class’ configuration Mathew knows well that transition to socialism is neither possible nor desirable. He also knows that building socialism demands a strong proletarian state. His anarchist mindset, on the contrary, rejects the socio-economic role of the state. Hence, he prefers to remain non-committal to socialism and continues to evade the question of the new social order, sometimes alluding to Gorbachev’s Russia or Deng’s China and at times on the pretext of outgrowing Ambedkar’s statist prescriptions. Mr.Mathew must know that the so-called distribution of public share assets to the people on an equal basis is just another name for privatisation.

Mr.Mathew should also know that the vanguard role played by the rural proletariat and the poor peasants in Naxalbari was only guided by the proletarian world outlook carried to them by the communist party. Depriving them of this guidance and leadership simply amounts to bringing them into the fold of bourgeoisie. There is just no midway. The proletarian world outlook is essentially the world outlook of industrial proletariat. Its historical mission to march forward towards socialism and communism — mission to which this class is objectively destined, but only objectively. Subjectively speaking this class needs to be prepared for this mission by the communist party, in which this objective destiny finds its concentrated expression.

Mr.Mathew’s pet theme is exhorting dalits to fight for the interests of the creamy layer, the kulaks of the backwards. He justifies this on the pretext that rich peasants too are the main ally of the revolution. You are wrong again Mr.Mathew! Rich peasants as a class can at best be neutralised through the policy of unity and struggle. Only a small section of them may support the revolution whereas other sections will fiercely oppose it. In Indian conditions, with the greater development of farm sector we must remain prepared for a greater resistance on the part of kulaks.

Mr.Mathew agrees to the danger of the leadership of his alliance going over to the ‘national bourgeoisie’ and the backward caste kulaks dominating the rural poor. This, however, he generalises to the Maoist model and even declares that this danger has already struck our Party’s movement. I must only remind Mr.Mathew that had it been so in our movement, our Party, would have been a ‘natural ally’ of the Janata Dal in Bihar like CPI and CPI(M). Raising the red banner against the only Mandalised government of Janata Dal in Bihar is nothing but upholding the absolute class and political independence of the rural poor.

I had pointed out in my article that Mr.Mathew’s synthesis robbed Marxism as well as Ambedkarism of their radical spirits and what he achieved was a hybrid of K. Venu and Ram Vilas Paswan — the two renowned renegades of their respective streams. As it turns out, Mr.Mathew is least bothered about that and takes pride in the fact that his academic exercise has reflected reality to a great extent.

What is this reality? K.G. Satyamoorthy, ex-secretary of PWG, joining BSP and K.Venu, ex-secretary of CRC, joining KR. Gowri’s Democracy Protection Committee in Kerala — two cases of betrayal to the ideology of Marxism and to the cause of Naxalism — are cited by Mr.Mathew in support of his academic exercise.

In support of his thesis he also refers to our sharing of Ambedkar Jayanti platform with Ram Vilas Paswan on the 14 April 1993. First of all, it was a programme of the National Campaign Committee against communalism. Choice of the date and Mr.Paswan’s insistence on the same did make us suspicious about his motives and we repeatedly raised our apprehensions in the Committee, and we were given positive assurances in this regard. Still Mr.Paswan, flouting all democratic norms, virtually reduced the whole show to the Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations and Surjeet presiding over there took no heed of our objections. This was precisely the culminating point when we decided to part company with the National Campaign Committee.

Secondly, I must make it clear that sharing of platform with radical Ambedkarite forces or our people joining Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations in no way goes against our Party’s policy. We do regard Ambedkar as a radical democrat and we are very much for joining hands with radical Ambedkarite forces in our common democratic endeavour. Confusing this with the so-called synthesis of Marxism and Ambedkarism and equating it with the, renegacy of Satyamoorthy and K. Venu is the height of academic bankruptcy.

I hope Mr.Mathew will disregard the bitterness in polemics that may arise out of my choice of certain words.

I think I succeeded in nailing down Mr.Mathew to agree to the dangers of kulak leadership over the rural poor in his model. He proposes to combat this danger ‘by adapting the Maoist model to the specificities and dynamics of each society and epoch’. I still remain confused and hope that Mr.Mathew will seriously ponder over this question in order to achieve a ‘synthesis’ of our respective ideas.

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

The dalit question has emerged as a major question, particularly with the phenomenal rise of BSP. The BSP, after a good beginning in Punjab, registered a steep rise in UP, spread to MP and some other states. At one point of time it appeared set to take Andhra by storm and there it got a sympathetic response from various Naxalite factions. Radicals exempted them from their ban on conducting election propaganda in areas of their influence, a certain ML faction declared their open support to BSP in the elections, some ex-PWG stalwarts even joined BSP and a prominent ideologue even credited Kanshi Ram with correctly applying Marxism-Leninism and Mao’s Thought to Indian conditions! This is how the so-called dalit discourse entered the ML movement and sought to transform the class parameters of the movement.

Our Party firmly opposed these deviations and upheld the Marxist viewpoint that expanding the frontiers of class struggle can be the only point of departure for Marxists while they undertake class struggles against caste oppression and for the social equality of dalits. The Kanshi Rams take up these issues on the premise of negation of class struggle and ultimately end up preaching class peace and becoming part and parcel of the ruling elite. In areas of Bihar where dalit movements for social dignity and equality have become a part of the class struggle of the rural poor, BSP elements were truly exposed. They were found hobnobbing with Ranvir Sena, and subsequently the BSP itself made common cause with the feudal-Brahminical party, the BJP, in Uttar Pradesh. In Bihar we successfully prevented the intrusion of BSP into our areas of struggle, and in Uttar Pradesh we have taken up the challenge of restoring the old left bases of CPI which were swept away by BSP, back to the Left fold.

The BSP’s flirting with the Congress and the BJP and its consistent anti-Left attitude has helped remove illusions in progressive intellectual circles including among dalit intellectual circles. It still, however, enjoys considerable support among dalit peasantry and dalit petty-bourgeois sections in Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati’s stint in power and her symbolic acts like the Ambedkar Village scheme, installing statues of proponents of dalit liberation, renaming districts etc. after Ambedkar and others revered by dalit communities have stood her in good stead. In Punjab, the BSP developed a totally opportunistic alliance with the Akalis, a party of kulaks and reaped a good harvest in parliamentary elections, but in assembly elections when it contested alone it came a cropper.

In UP too the BSP faces problems in keeping its flock of MLAs together. Many of them were drawn to BSP from other parties — and interestingly a good many of them are from upper castes — just by the opportunity to cash in on its dalit vote bank, which Kanshi Ram traded with impunity. This is why the party insisted — even though it had to finally back out — on its demand for having one of its own men as the Speaker with the passing of the reins of chief ministership from Mayawati to Kalyan Singh. In spite of its subsequent withdrawal of support, the BJP has succeded in luring away at least a dozen BSP MLAs. The BSP’s forays into Southern, Western and Eastern India have so far failed to deliver.

The BSP at the grassroots level has developed a desire among the dalit castes for dignity, equality and share in political power. At the top, however, it developed a class of dalit elites who make a vulgar display of wealth and lead a decadent bourgeois life. The ultimate destiny of the BSP, which essentially represents the class interests of the above-mentioned dalit elites and the petty bourgeoisie, is absorption by the BJP or Congress(I). But the heightened consciousness of the broad dalit masses can definitely be mobilised under the red banner for wages, land, social dignity and political emancipation.

The dalit movement is in the process of reorganisation in Maharashtra, where the dalit outburst after the desecration of Ambedkar’s statue didn’t even spare established dalit leaders who had degenerated. A calculated move has been witnessed in recent times to denigrate Ambedkar and project him as having been opposed to Indian freedom. Of late, Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party too has started attacking Ambedkar. Meanwhile the BJP is seeking to appropriate Ambedkar for its communal ends. We must oppose these moves. In socio-economic terms, Ambedkar was much more radical than Gandhi, and even Nehru. Politically too, he was more conscious of the complexities of nation-building in India. Rather than trying to project himself as a national leader at the expense of everything else, he made a strong plea for making dalit emancipation an integral part of the freedom movement. And this is a question which India is struggling with even fifty years after independence.

The dalit question in the present context cannot be simply viewed as confined to dalit vs. Brahminical upper castes. Rising kulaks from among upwardly mobile intermediate castes, too, indulge in dalit bashing in order to scuttle the demand of the agricultural workers and poor peasants for wages and land.

In Tamil Nadu, widespread caste clashes in the southern districts between dalits and Thevars (a backward caste) with the state machinery openly siding with the Thevars, is an important reflection of this phenomenon. This phenomenon is also becoming pronounced in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Mulayam’s demand for the scrapping of the central act on preventing atrocities on dalits emanates from the same standpoint.

We tried to organise a Dalit Mahasabha in UP in order to actively intervene in the dalit discourse vis-a-vis BSP. This proved a non-starter and subsequently we decided to abandon this project. The correct policy would be to unite with radical dalit organisations and interact with progressive intellectual circles such as proponents of ‘dalit literature’. In Tamil Nadu we recently organised a convention in Tirunelveli against atrocities on dalits and developed a close rapport with militant dalit organisations. We must however be on guard against infiltration of dalitist ideas in our organisation.

[Inaugural address at the national convention titled ‘Whither Indian Muslims?’ organised by Inquilabi Muslim Conference. From Liberation, December 1993.]

Members of the Presidium and Friends,

History is replete with events, great and small. Yet some of these leave a lasting impact on society, as they unfold a whole series of processes at work. Demolition of Babri Masjid nearly one year back was one such incident. It is said that the BJP, through this act, defied the judiciary, the parliament and the law and order machinery — in short all the institutions of the state. Yes, this is true. Yet, the truth which is more glaring, rather more important is that the collective might of all the institutions of the state was rendered impotent in the face of aggressive Hindutva. The inaction and the hesitation displayed by the Prime Minister was not just an individual’s characteristic, as it is often made out to be; rather it was symbolic of, a reflection of, the impotence of the state itself.

Recovering from the trauma of partition, Indian Muslims were gradually adjusting themselves with the Indian socio-political system. Despite the recurrent eruption of communal riots, sometimes on larger scales, they had begun to repose faith in the secular character of Indian state. But the Babri Masjid demolition has shaken them to roots, while confronting them with the million-dollar question — how secular really is the Indian state? And along with this all those questions, which were supposed to have been resolved, have once again started haunting the Muslim mind.

It must be kept in mind that Jinnah’s Muslim nationalism arose not as an anti-thesis to Savarkar’s or Golwalkar’s Hindu nationalism, as the latter was too weak those days; rather it was in reaction to the Gandhi’s vision of Indian nationalism. The liberal Hinduism of Gandhi’s era gradually converted itself into an ultra-Hindu trend. In fact, Nehru’s charismatic personality only acted as a shield to the essentially liberal Hindu precepts of Indian nationalism and only perpetuated the myth of a secular state. Later, the rabid Indian nationalism espoused by Indira Gandhi convincingly proved that the borderline between Indian and Hindu nationalism was really very thin. And this was precisely the stepping stone to open advocacy of Hindu nationalism in the days to come. BJP flourishing on this fertile ground was thus the logical culmination of a long-drawn process.

The Congress government, by unlocking the gate of Ram Janmbhoomi virtually let out the communal genie and so far all efforts to put it back in the bottle have proved futile. India in its tryst with destiny stands at crossroads where one road leads straight to a fascist Hindu Rashtra, and the other, of course in a zig-zag course, to a modern secular state. We must advance towards a modem secular state and I hold that participation of Indian Muslims in this struggle is most important and necessary too.

In this context I want to mention one point. Jinnah’s nationalism laid the foundations of a Muslim state in Pakistan, but in consequence the Indian state too could not escape serious distortions, and depending on circumstances it oscillated between a liberal or a rabid Hindu variety. This is precisely the reason why the sundry institutions of state laid down their arms when Hinduism launched a full-throttle offensive. Hence, the struggle today is for building a genuinely secular state in India, a truly secular society, and for that it is crucial to get rid of distortions in the Indian state, which have crept in due to the anti-Pakistan axis of the Indian "nationalist" politics. That is why our Party believes in a confederation based on equality among India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Thus the struggle to build a secular state is also a struggle to form this confederation, because most possibly it is this confederation which alone can check the creeping in of distortions in the Indian state. Looking at the question at macro-level, therefore, this is an important task in the struggle for a secular society and state.

At micro-level the question of preservation of Muslim identity is an important component of the struggle for secularism. BJP’s concept of Hindu Rashtra demands submission of Muslim identity and intends to transform Muslims into a sect of Hinduism. It is only natural, therefore, for Indian Muslims to react as a community for preservation of their identity. Experience has also taught them that only the forces of the Left have stood firmly and honestly for secularism. In particular the forces of the revolutionary Left have given a strong rebuff to the Hindutva brigade. Therefore it is necessary to strengthen the ties between Indian Muslims and the left forces, and to institutionalise this growing relationship. You have certain apprehensions about the Left and I shall deal with some of them to clarify our position as regards Muslims.

If you regard Aligarh Muslim University as a symbol of your identity and oppose all attempts to change its minority status; if you demand a rightful place for Urdu in India; if you resent intervention by any external agency in matters of Muslim Personal Law our Party appreciates your feelings and supports them. Yet I must add that a large section of Muslim youth is sharing its academic life with Hindu students in several educational institutions and centres of higher learning outside the AMU. In large numbers they are learning Hindi and English. I have seen several young Muslim correspondents working for Hindi papers. Several publishing houses who were so far confined to publication of Urdu magazines are now also bringing out Hindi or English versions. There could hardly be a person who will object to this interaction of Muslim youth with the mainstream. As for the Muslim Personal Law, as far as my information goes, debates are going on within the community itself, especially on the question of women’s rights. I hope that this debate will be resolved in a progressive direction, in keeping with the changing times. It is an interesting paradox of our society that whereas among Hindus, with the rise of rabid Hinduism, the condition of women has only deteriorated — incidents of bride burning are on the increase and there have even been demands to revive sati --, in contrast, in Muslim society, however, the question of expanding women’s rights is under serious discussion.

Leaving aside Indonesia — which is not considered a mainstream Muslim country — Indian Muslims constitute the largest population of Muslims in any country of the world. Going by the historical situations in which you have lived within and the social conditions you are passing through, it is absolutely possible for Indian Muslims to emerge as the most progressive and dynamic contingent of Muslims in the world.

Though Indian Muslims constitute only 12 to 15 per cent of the country’s population, the way India has evolved over centuries, the way its civilisation, its culture has taken shape, you make half of Hindustan. It is my firm belief that you will shoulder half of the responsibility, of building a modern secular India in the days to come.

[Speech delivered at a convention titled ‘50 Years of Indian Independence and Muslims’ organised by All-India Muslim Forum in Lucknow on August 10, 1997. From Liberation, September 1997]

Brothers and Sisters,

The golden jubilee of independence is being celebrated with grandeur. But as far as people are concerned what is the real state of affairs? The number of people who live below the poverty line is almost equal to the entire population on the eve of independence. Among Muslims in particular 50-60% people live in extreme poverty. Over 50% of adult Indians are illiterate and among Muslims this percentage will be far greater.

So, an overwhelming majority of Muslims who make up more than 12% of Indian population live a life of misery and deprivation and 50 years of freedom hasn’t brought any notable improvement in their lives.

Pakistan and Bangladesh, erstwhile parts of India are now independent countries and Muslims there are in an overwhelming majority religion-wise. But in India, though their population outnumbers the number of Muslims in both these countries, they are a religious minority. In India overwhelming majority of people are Hindus and a deep-rooted mutual distrust and animosity persists between Hindus and Muslims.

Indian state is a constitutional state; that is, officially it has no state religion and it professes secularism with the claim of granting equal status to all religions. But the nature of state is determined more by the nature of the people composing it rather than by constitutional declaration. As Hinduism is the dominant religion in society, in real life it became more equal than others. People comprising the state, i.e. all its wings, be it executive, legislature or judiciary, are generally biased in favour of Hinduism.

State plays a dual role. On the one hand, it accords one or the other kind of privilege to Muslims in the name of minorities but, at the same time, it makes them feel the pressure in all the other spheres of society. Muslim response towards state is marked by a sense of alienation, of counterposing of his imaginary nationality to the real nationality.

So even in a constitutional state political emancipation of Muslims is not complete. We have seen how Congress, the party which Muslims trusted most, became impotent in face of aggressive Hindu onslaught. In the Calcutta AICC session the other day, they retracted from the earlier promise of offering an apology on Babri Masjid demolition and restricted themselves to just expressing grief. But what is so special about that? Even in 1992 when the mosque was demolished, I think they did express grief.

The United Front government too, which came to power on a secular plank and missed no occasion to cash in on the Babri Masjid issue, has so far not done anything concrete on the matter and even their promise in CMP of referring the matter to the Supreme Court under Article 138(2) remains unfulfilled till date. My point is that such is the pressure of dominant Hindu religion that even the constitutional state and the secular parties are rendered impotent.

We can easily imagine the fate of secularism when a party like BJP which openly advocates a Hindu Rashtra, i.e. a state which shall have Hinduism as the state religion, comes to power. The very identity of Muslim people will be at stake.

Now there are two ways to face this challenge. One is that of restricting oneself in one’s shell and counter Hindu fundamentalism with some kind of Muslim fundamentalism. This path, I think, will be counterproductive. The other path is to join hands with genuinely secular forces and fight for the establishment of a truly secular society in India.

The dichotomy between one’s identity as a Muslim and a citizen, or as a Hindu and a citizen, can only be resolved through a secular division between a political state and the civil society. This process has remained unfinished in India.

The crisis posed by Hindutva also brings a historic opportunity before Muslim masses to reassert their identity. Now what identity should it be? We communists are totally opposed to any imposition from above by the state against the wishes of Muslim people. But I think a lot of discussion is going on among Muslim intelligentsia circles on reassertion of identity in the modern context.

In this context, I think the question of status of women in Muslim society, the problems arising out of polygamy and divorce are crucial. In Muslim countries like Turkey and Tunisia polygamy has been banned and even in Pakistan and Bangladesh lots of restrictions are placed. So this is a question which I think enlightened sections among Muslims must seriously ponder over.

Now there are demands of reservation on religious basis as Muslims. But at the same time from among Muslims demands are coming up for effective reservations for backward Muslims listed in Mandal Commission. Even the demand for reservations to dalit Muslims is gaining momentum. So this question too merits serious attention.

In your bid to check Hindu communal forces you aligned with Congress and later on with different centrist parties but this strategy of short-term gains only complicated the problem.

New generations of Muslim youth are aligning themselves with the forces of the Left as they understand that the Left is the only consistent, secular force and also that the fight for secularism is part and parcel of a broader democratic transformation of the country as a whole.

The more the struggle for secular India proceeds, I think, the condition for a democratic confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will mature and we will be able to rectify the historic blunder of 1947.

Shukriya!

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

The Muslim question is very significant in our country. The religious persecution faced by the community gives rise to a peculiar minority syndrome which has been further reinforced by the rise of the forces of Hindutava. This syndrome defines the community’s response where the community starts imagining itself as a different nation altogether. Its response gets conditioned by the single parameter of communalism and it detaches itself from other movements for democratic reforms, against corruption, against criminalisation of politics et al. This also allows fundamentalist forces as well as ‘musclemen’ to usurp the leadership.

On our part, closer interaction with the Muslim masses and understanding their specific problems had been a major area of weakness. The Inquilabi Muslim Conference which we launched in Bihar helped the Party, to a significant extent, in developing linkages, understanding their problems and formulating our responses. Although by itself it couldn’t advance much and often failed to intervene in the debates within the community on the question of women, reservations for dalit Muslims etc., yet it helped to bring seriousness to the Party’s work among Muslims. Propaganda in Urdu, interaction with Muslim intelligentsia, and Party leaders addressing special conventions or gatherings have all got a fillip. This work, however, still falls much too short of requirements.

Our experiences show that in many areas in Bihar, CPI(ML) is getting a good response among Muslims and in answer to the question ‘Who after Laloo?’ CPI(ML) is often mentioned nowadays. We also developed a close friendly relation with the Lucknow-based All-India Muslim Forum and the Bihar branch of Indian National League. The response of young Muslim students of JNU and the Aligarh Muslim University towards AISA and their firmly siding with Chandrashekhar the martyr, against Shahbuddin the killer, is very encouraging and shows that Muslim students and youth are ready to break through the old pattern of Muslim politics and are drawing closer to left forces.

Laloo and Mulayam are no longer the undisputed heroes of Muslim society which is standing on the threshold of change and young students are the representatives of that urge. Bringing more and more of them into the Party stream has become an urgent task.

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fifth Party Congress, 1992.]

As communists of a country which earned its nationhood in the course of struggle against colonial rule and which still faces neo-colonial threats from imperialism, we do cherish national unity. Since its inception, CPI(ML) has declared the unification of India as its principled goal. We even envisage a confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to undo the partition of our great country. We have never supported the demands for a Khalistan or for an independent Assam.

National unity is surely a matter of concern for all major political streams, be it the ruling Congress, the BJP, the opportunist Left or revolutionary communists. The point is to draw sharp lines of demarcation among the various stands.

India is looked upon as a regional hegemonic power and a threat by almost all our small neighbours and this is not without basis. The entire official media project neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan, as always conspiring against India. The CPI and CPI(M)’s propaganda, too, runs along similar lines. We must understand that any imperialist conspiracy against India can only operate through our neighbours’ perception of the Indian threat.

Proletarian internationalism demands that communists oppose the national chauvinism of their own bourgeoisie. Devoid of this principled position, all the concern about destabilisation threats is bound to make communists subservient to bourgeois ideology and bourgeois interests.

Then again, in particular cases where the movements for separation enjoy popular support and have a whole history behind them they need prudent handling and special solutions.

Under the pretext of enforcing national unity from above, the Indian state has only been strengthening its reactionary apparatus, enacting draconian laws and legitimising fake encounters and mass killings. We strongly oppose this Bismarckian way of building national unity from above. We stand for building national unity from below where broadest possible autonomy shall be ensured for all national groups and national minorities. National unification of India on a democratic basis remains an important task of India’s democratic revolution.

[From Liberation, July 1984.]

Countrymen,

The despicable attack on the Golden Temple and the genocide of Sikhs by the Indian army has created more problems than it could solve. Whereas only an insignificant minority among the Sikhs formerly opted for ‘Khalistan’, now the entire Sikh Community desires the same. Whether in India or abroad, everywhere Sikhs are demonstrating against the Indian Government, Sikh soldiers of the army are rising in revolt in every cantonment, and in Punjab itself, the Sikh peasantry has joined in grim battles against the Indian army. Death tolls are rising and with each death attitudes are hardening further.

The Sikhs, who have always been upheld as the ‘builders of modern India’ and ‘staunch soldiers of national integrity’, have all of a sudden assumed the distinction of being an ‘unpatriotic’ lot in government propaganda. How did things come to such a pass? Who is the main culprit behind these unfortunate events? These are the questions haunting the minds of every sensible and patriotic Indian.

Dear Countrymen,

It was the wrong policies of the Congress Party led by M.K. Gandhi which led to the partition of our beloved motherland in 1947. And now, the policies of Mrs. Gandhi are leading the country towards further disintegration. Even after 37 years of formal independence and despite a virtual monopoly of Congress rule at the Centre headed by ‘strong personalities’, communal clashes, caste wars, regionalism, religious fanaticism and separatism are intensifying day by day. India, the sacred land of all of us who live here, has been turned into a Hindu India, an India which has become the hunting ground for foreign lumpen politicians and all the scum and dregs of society, a graveyard for the workers, peasants and youth who dare to fight for their rights, and a prison for religious minorities, backward nationalities and national minorities.

It was Indira Gandhi who, for her political ends, refused to hold any serious and meaningful dialogue with the Alkalis, and deliberately perpetuated the conflict between Punjab and Haryana and within Punjab between the Sikhs and the Hindus. It was she who, in her bid to counter the Akali Dal, first made a Frankenstein out of Bhindranwale, encouraged and abetted terrorism to check the emergence of any powerful people’s movement, and finally turned Bhindranwale into a martyr.

With Indira Gandhi at the helm of affairs, national unity is at stake. And the parliamentary opposition has proved itself to be a worthless lot. Their task is to go on denouncing Indira Gandhi in ‘ordinary’ times, only to stand firmly by Indira Gandhi in times of ‘crisis’. They have no independent voice and no effective programme of their own.

The task of maintaining communal harmony and defending national unity has fallen on the shoulders of revolutionary communists, all progressive people and genuine patriots. And this task is inseparable from the struggle for building a new India, a people’s India, a democratic India.

Beloved Countrymen,

Condemn the heinous attack on the Golden Temple, stand firmly by the aggrieved Sikh brethren and demand a speedy solution of the Punjab problem. Don’t be misled by the government and opposition propaganda of false patriotism. It will only hasten the birth of ‘Khalistan’.

In the past, we had believed the ‘brave’ words of the Congress and ‘Communist’ leaders and left all initiative to them, but in the end, we could not stop the partition of our beloved motherland.

Let us not repeat the same mistake once again.

India cannot be kept united by guns and cannons. Only the unity and solidarity in common struggles of the people of various communities can keep the country one.

With greetings,
11 June 1984

[From Liberation, December 1979.]

Our Party shares your concern and supports your struggle for preserving the identity of the Assamese nation, its language and culture. We support you in your struggle against mass unemployment among the Assamese youth and against other problems faced by the Assamese people.

It is quite true that a section of Bengali intellectuals suffer from a false sense of superiority and look down upon the Assamese people as backward and uncultured. This is a legacy of the past and a thing created by the British rulers.

The British followed the policy of drawing intellectuals of some particular nationalities closer by placing them in important executive posts and by other measures at the expense of other nationalities. Such policies they pursued at different places of India. This way, on the one hand, they won over considerable sections of some nationalities to their side, and on the other, created the impression among other nationalities that not they (the British rulers) but the favoured nationalities who were their enemies. This is how they created divisions among the people and ruled our country for so many years. It is only in the course of common struggle against the British rulers that the Indian people of different nationalities built up their unity.

So there is a history of Assamese-Bengali rift and there is also the history of their united struggle against the common enemy.

After 1947, the ruling classes have tried in thousands of ways to break up the fighting unity of the people and, as the enemy is now more disguised, it is easier for them to do so. When we got ‘freedom’ the motherland was cut into two pieces and after 32 years of ‘independence’ we face the endless rifts among different sections of people. In Assam, all the political parties have so far thrived on the Assamese-Bengali rift. In other parts of India, they thrive either on Hindu-Muslim divide or on caste issues.

Would any problem of the Assamese people be solved by driving out the Bengalis and Nepalis from Assam? No. It will only break the peoples’ unity, make them waste their energy fighting each other, and only imperialists and domestic reactionaries will derive benefit out of it. It will create more problems for the Assamese people than it will solve.

The migrations of large numbers of people from Bangladesh and Nepal or from one state of India to another have their own historical and social reasons, as there are reasons behind the migration of millions of Indians abroad to different countries of the world. In Assam itself, there are lakhs of Adivasi workers in tea gardens who came from Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. You cannot drive them away.

People do not leave their country or native place unless they are faced with the question of survival. It is in search of living that they are forced to move. You cannot neglect history, you cannot negate the social reasons. There are many things happening in this world regardless of whether you like them or not. The theorists of local nationalism in its ultra form are ignorant persons who do not understand anything about history or the laws of society, or else they are bogus. Whatever may be their intentions, knowingly or unknowingly, they are hampering the cause of the Assamese people, shielding the real enemy and covering up the real programme of action from the Assamese people.

Our Party makes high evaluation of the industrious Assamese people, their charming language and rich and varied culture, which all have their own particularities. We strongly oppose any sort of chauvinism which looks down upon the Assamese people and we stand for developing the Assamese culture in the new democratic direction. Our party keeps strong faith with the Assamese students and youth, who are simple, intelligent and brave. We honestly hope that they will seriously ponder over the problems, go deep and learn to distinguish between enemies and friends, and avoid being driven into the trap of the ruling classes.

A section of Assamese students and youth have already taken to the road of genuine progress and the rest will eventually follow them. The present events are very painful, but let us hope these will be a step forward in the education of a nation whose youth has suffered long from discontent and wants to raise its head.

Central Committee.
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
November 25, 1979

[This note, originally meant for an Assamese magazine, was written just on the eve of the military crackdown on the ULFA. From Liberation, January 1991]

On a fine summer morning way back in 1979, as I stood before the mortal remains of Mao-Zedong at his mausoleum in Beijing, my feet refused to move. Here lies, in eternal peace, the man who had changed the destiny of a quarter of humanity, ensured the world will never be the same again, and stirred a whole young generation in the late ’60s all around the globe. Head bowed, I stood deeply absorbed in thought, till the Chinese comrades signalled me to move. Well, a long queue was impatiently waiting behind us.

During my China visit, I traversed the whole course of Mao’s path to revolution -- from the Changsa mountains right up to the Yenan caves.

While the young Chinese guides retold the whole story of the Chinese Revolution, some of the veterans including old peasants narrated passionate accounts of their association with the flesh and blood Mao. Whatever de-Maoisation I could discern in my conversation with senior party leaders at Beijing, at the grassroots practically nothing had changed. Mao was still being worshipped as god. In China the stage had already been set for the ascendancy of Deng and with it for dispelling the myth around Mao, the great helmsman. However, I came back to my country with a renewed conviction on Mao, his revolution and his thought.

Our indoctrination in Mao’s thought began in those stormy days of the late ’60s when the Great Debate had given birth to the Cultural Revolution in China and Naxalbari in India. We read General Giap, Che Guevara, Regis Debray etc. and were fascinated by armed struggles of all kinds much in the same fashion as young comrades of ULFA in the present-day Assam, but ultimately settled for Mao’s thought and his agrarian revolution.

While in Behrampur Central Jail during 1971-72, I got hold of an illegally smuggled volume of Mao’s Selected Writings, and for some reason or other, despite daily searches, the administration never took the book away from me. Confined in the condemned cell 24 hours for months together I had nothing to do but to read the book again and again, truly memorising it. For the benefit of my comrades in neighbouring cells, I used to translate and read it loudly every evening. It was there that I understood the various facets of Mao, the philosopher, frontline strategist and supreme military commander.

In the Third World Mao’s thought has been regarded as the weapon in all revolutionary struggles against oppression, be it against imperialist domination or feudal domination on peasantry or the oppression of a national group within the country. It is quite in the fitness of things that ULFA, the representative body of Assamese national interest, has opted for Mao’s thought as its ideological weapon in its struggle against Indian super-national interest, in the same fashion as we are committed to Mao’s thought in our struggle for liberation of the peasantry from feudal yoke and for India’s complete freedom from the imperialist clutches.

Their faith in Mao’s thought leads them to battle for Assam’s separation from India, our faith in the same thought leads us to struggle for a unified, democratic and federal India where all varieties of national oppression will be done away with. Their faith in Mao’s thought has led them to provide a new turn to the erstwhile Assam movement, a left turn indeed, doing away with its anti-communist, anti-left, communal bias of the early ’80s. Our faith in Mao’s thought has led us to share, with equal concern and from the very start, the aspirations of the Assamese people to exercise control over their resources and their fear of losing their identity in the face of a radical demographic change.

Their faith in Mao’s thought has led them to build a well-knit armed organisation to take on the state. Our faith has led us to organise the broad-based resistance of labouring peasantry and eventually to take on the might of the same state power. Their faith has led them to rebuild the broader unity of the Assamese people who are splintering into various streams and sub-streams, often getting engaged in violent competition with each other. We too work for a broader unity of the people of Assam — a unity where there shall neither be any place for the chauvinism of the mainstream Assamese, nor shall tribal exclusiveness and separatism be encouraged. Whatever influence our Party exercises in the Karbi movement has only helped democratise the latter and promote its unity with the labouring people of all other communities.

Undoubtedly, young revolutionaries of ULFA are petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, and perhaps at present they cannot be anything else. However they have successfully brought a progressive transformation of the Assam movement and they represent the inexhaustible dynamism, courage and splendid organising capabilities of the Assamese youth. Will Mao’s thought, blended with the lessons they learn from real life, help them take the next logical step in communist transformation?

Comrades of ULFA have revived the legacy of Mao and his thought in this part of the country. I offer my red salute to them.

[Excerpts from speech at a condolence meeting in memory of martyr Comrade Anil Barua in Calcutta on 24 March. From Liberation, April 1998.]

....So many questions have arisen out of this (assassination of Comrade Anil Barua by ULFA). There are people who go on saying that regionalism is basically a question associated with the issue of self-determination of a nationality and hence must be supported. This is a valid proposition seen from the point of view of principles. But it is not necessary that every struggle for the self-determination of a nationality or for regionalism is a progressive one. There is no such formula. So the question of support or opposition, to these movements must be ascertained by judging their attitude towards democratic movements. What we see today is that regional parties like Telugu Desham, AGP, Akali Dal are all leaning towards the BJP, the rabid communal force. We have seen the Khalistanis and now we see the ULFA, for both of whom the target today is the left forces. Today these things are coming to the surface because there has been large-scale protests against Anilda’s assassination. But even earlier they have killed many workers of CPI-CPI(M). Activists of the PCC have also been killed. Their movement today has become dependent on funding from Tata Tea. Their camps are being organised in Bangladesh, Rawalpindi and Karachi. They are arranging international passports with elan and they are amassing funds of crores of rupees. And as these aspects in their movement gradually grow, they take a more and more anti-left position. The murder of Comrade Anil Brooah is a symptom which shows that ULFA is no more a democratic or progressive force. Hence their ‘Free Assam’ promises to be nothing but a fascist Assam.... They had declared after the elections that 53% of the Assamese population who voted in the elections are not Indian citizens and so don’t have any right to stay in Assam. They will have to leave Assam within a month. They have issued this order to at least 50 lakhs of Assamese people. Our Party will continue its struggle with greater vigour against this barbarism.

[Speech at the state cadre training camp organised by the Assam State Committee on the occasion of Party’s 29th anniversary at Guwahati on 22 April 1998. From Liberation, June 1998.]

The whole day you have been discussing many important questions including the autonomous state movement and the functioning of district councils. Well, in classical Marxist understanding as the democratic revolution is essentially a bourgeois revolution, i.e., it clears the way for rapid capitalist development, its leadership will invariably be provided by the bourgeoisie. However, the emergence of the proletariat as an organised force and its bid for seizure of power in the Paris Commune frightened the bourgeoisie. Since then it has given up its revolutionary role and instead opted for a peaceful evolutionary transformation of feudalism. Thus it ended up in an unholy alliance with feudal forces. It was at this juncture that Lenin stepped in and forcefully advocated for proletarian leadership of the democratic revolution. He argued that democratic revolution is the inevitable stage before we can pass over to socialism. And as the bourgeoisie is no longer capable of taking this revolution to its logical end, the historical duty has fallen on the shoulders of the proletariat. The Russian proletariat, then the Chinese and subsequently Vietnamese and others followed suit.

The question posed here in this camp relates to the advisability of the communist party leading the nationality — or to be precise national minority — movements. Well, these movements are an objective phenomenon in many parts of the country, particularly in Assam, and I would say it will be perfectly logical to lead them wherever the opportunity arises. Allowing the leadership to slip into alien hands and then waiting for the process to mature is too doctrinaire a method that leaves out the essential spirit of Marxism.

For some persons the movement loses its significance with their becoming MLAs, MPs, or even MDCs^[1] and acquiring houses and cars. But for a communist party the purpose is entirely different. We find that poor peasants participate in large numbers in national minority movements and they form its motive force. The communist party has to ensure that poor peasants are being organised, asserting themselves as a class, and getting politically conscious. Now if this is interpreted as taking some reform measures for the rural poor and giving them some financial assistance, it is a great folly.

We will also have to see which sections of people are crowding our offices. Are they contractors or poor people? What kind of people move around our leaders? Are they the contractors or the common people? If the former is true then despite all revolutionary phrasemongering our government is turning into a government for contractors.

In the phase of movement as well as at the early stage of government functioning, there^[2] were serious attempts to organise the rural poor. But currently we seem to have entered a phase of stagnation and this in turn has given rise to factional squabblings. It appears that there is a considerable erosion of communist spirit. During the phase of intensive movement same comrades worked with exemplary integrity, made sacrifices and led a hard life. I don’t say that as individuals they have become bad persons. The malaise seems to be far deeper. Actually, only a restoration of communist vision and organising the rural poor as a political class can restore unity and bring about a lasting solution to the problem of factional in-fighting.

Now some people seem to have taken only half-lessons from the glorious Karbi movement. They think that this is the easy route to become an MP, MLA or MDC. But they are terribly wrong. The Karbi movement didn’t grow so easily. There is a long history of hard and painstaking work by large number of cadres who organised the rural poor. Many people tend to forget that the movement was organised on the basis of a revolutionary ideology and it united with other democratic movements in the country. We don’t know much about other national minority movements; say, the Mishing movement. We only hear about some talks going on, some delegations visiting Delhi, some pact in the offing etc.. But what about the movement, about conditions there in the field of party building? Negotiations are okay, but if they are not backed by a powerful movement they are liable to end up in unprincipled compromises. The Karbi movement had skilfully combined the movement with negotiations and others should take lessons from it.

Let’s discuss the so-called progressive nationalism. Now for a long time you have been searching for these forces of progressive regionalism in Assam. Whomsoever we brand as progressive regionalist today turns into a reactionary tomorrow. Undaunted, we decided to turn progressive regionalist ourselves. Well, I think it is futile to search for a permanent category of progressive regional forces. Whichever regional force will join hands with us at any specific stage of our movement we shall brand them as progressive. And this characterisation will hold true till they remain with us. This perhaps demands a review of our tactical line.

We must pay primary emphasis on strengthening our own mass base. We have certain very strong points in Assam. We have a powerful contingent of modern workers in the oil and power sectors under the Party’s influence. A good beginning has also been made among tea workers who constitute quite a large segment of the working class in Assam. A few years back some people thought that it’s highly difficult to make inroads among the tea workers. Now I think they are convinced of the great potential of work there. A comrade from tea gardens has brought forward many complaints on this question. He said that they are working all alone, the Party committee of the concerned district is not extending any help. It is only interested in collecting the levy. Another comrade has put was a very relevant point: why our MP and MLAs do not raise questions concerning tea gardens on the floor of the Parliament or Assembly? Our MP joined striking dockworkers in Australia. That’s fine. But does he participate in workers movement here on the country’s soil or raise workers issues in Parliament? This is an important point and I think our MP and MLAs should take part in workers agitations. This acts as a morale booster for workers as well as puts the administration on the defensive. Then again we have a powerful women’s movement in Assam and it has a good influence among mainstream Assamese people. If apart from this we plan to extend our reach among the mainstream Assamese people, I think we should pay greater attention to the people at the lowest rung of the social order.

Finally, let me say something on the anti-terrorism front. It should be clear that we communists are not against terror in principle. We have to see this: by which forces the terror is being unleashed and against whom? You may also have to create terror against reactionaries when the situation so demands. Anti-people activities resorted to by organisations like ULFA belong to the category of criminal activities and should definitely be opposed. But if we go all out for launching an anti-terror front in general that will mean opposing all kinds of terror including the red terror and this will eventually boomerang on us. The loss of comrade Anil Barua is indeed tragic but we shall have to primarily target state terror.

In Assam there is a great potential for the Party’s development. Prospects of growing left unity have also increased owing to the changed political situation. We must exert all our strength to turn CPI(ML) into the main left force in Assam. Conditions for that have already matured.

Note:
1. MDCs are Members of District Council, the legislative body at district level.
2. The ASDC has been voted to power in the district council of Karbi Anglong thrice successively. Running the government at district level has thus become an important part of party practice in Assam.

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

Our Party enjoys a lot of credibility in the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and North Cachhar in Assam and new streams of youth continue to enlist in the Party and ASDC’s movement for autonomy which is free from chauvinism, unites a host of national minority groups under a single umbrella in an otherwise disintegrating Assamese society, and is inspired by high ideals of communism and has great potential to change the face of the North-east.

But we must understand that bringing the Party to the forefront does not mean only a change of banner. The Party’s role cannot be restricted to merely supervising council affairs and directing the autonomy movement. Rather, the Party must consciously concentrate on breaking through the confinement of the autonomy movement by focussing on the issues of the poor peasantry in the arena of land reforms. Only then can an independent Party base and staunch communist cadres be built up.

Being in power in the district councils for many years has created a lot of complications there. An easy-going lifestyle, nexus of bureaucrats-contractors-businessmen around executive members and MDCs, the Party and ASDC becoming appendages of the District Council, detachment from masses and the mass movements, factional infighting etc. are a few of these. Although we won the elections with a thumping majority still the moral authority of the organisation has gone down in public eyes. The present predicament of ASDC and the District Council raises the essential theoretical question of usurpation of leadership of nationality movement by the petty bourgeoisie and its gradual cooption within the bourgeois-landlord system.

    Fight Ideological Decay and Strengthen Party Unity
    State Cadre Meet
    Bihar Vikas Convention
    CPI(ML) Liberation Manifesto for 1995 Bihar Assembly Elections
    Scrutinising 1995 Bihar Assembly Elections
    Parliamentary Elections in Bihar, 1996
    Bathani Tola Massacre: Government Propaganda Vs. Hard Facts
    Bathani Tola Massacre and Media Cover-up
    Bihar Economy in a Death-trap
    Laloo’s Fall and the ‘Left’s’ Dilemma
    On Jehanabad killings This Battle must be Won

[Speech at the conference of party committee secretaries in Bihar. From Liberation, March 1994.]

Comrades,

Over a hundred of you who represent Party organisations in districts and blocks have gathered here. You all are Party leaders and with your united and determined efforts, you can once again change the conditions in Bihar. We are conducting a rectification movement in the Bihar Party organisation and I would like to remind you that this movement is being conducted at a time when by countering certain problems and certain losses we have improved our position and started moving forward. On the other hand, Janata Dal, for the time being our main contender in Bihar, is facing trouble from all sides. Till a few weeks back newspapers had been writing that CPI(ML)-IPF is disintegrating in the face of Laloo Yadav’s attacks. Now you know there is a change and one comes across the headings ‘Intensifying Red Offensive against Laloo Yadav’ etc. Particularly the recent elections and resultant political changes have deepened the crisis of the Janata Dal and this is going to have a big impact on Janata Dal in Bihar too.

So this is the specific situation, this is the ambience in which we have decided to launch the rectification movement.

It also clarifies that in the coming days our aim should be to hasten this process, to boldly seize the initiative and launch a powerful political movement. We have to make preparations for this and hence, it is imperative to build a united and disciplined Party organisation. The main aim of the rectification movement in my view, is to enable the Party to seize political initiative in the coming days. And we have already made a start in this direction.

The other important problem before us was to resolve the question of orientation to deal with the Janata Dal, to decide upon the issues and the mode of action. Gradually we have tackled that problem too. Be it the student movement, the movement for land reforms, or the autonomy of Jharkhand, we stand for integrating these different aspects into a single chain. Under the banner of struggle for democratisation of Bihar society we have tried to do exactly this. Now it is clear that this banner, this orientation can be quite effective in dealing with governments like Janata Dal. Already our efforts have hit at the ideological basis of Janata Dal and influenced its social base as well as its supporters in democratic circles. To an extent we have resolved the question of orientation and now various circles of public opinion too expect our Party to lead the democratic movement in Bihar in its new phase.

Our main contender is now deprived of any serious issue, with Mandal largely going to the background. Laloo Yadav who till the other day had been clamouring that IPF is finished, nowadays often telephones our comrades to plead for an alliance of Janata Dal, CPI and IPF for the next election.

So, this is the situation now when we launch the rectification movement. It is very important to understand this political perspective, the particular situation and the particular aim of this campaign. Already some comrades have underscored this necessity and I do feel that without this the rectification campaign will really have no purpose.

We need to unify our Party and make it a disciplined organisation. In this context, various wrong ideas prevailing in our Party organisation have been discussed in the document presented here. I think the question of pragmatism discussed in the document is quite important. We talk of land reforms, of peasant movement, of strengthening peasant association; but when we undertake the gherao of the Chief Minister at Patna, agitate against the government, a tendency appears which looks at all this merely as a move to overthrow the Laloo government, as an immediate struggle against a particular government. That is wrong. We must understand that the agrarian revolution, the peasant struggles form the crucial part of the revolution, the total change we talk about. A particular government comes and goes. The Laloo government, too, will not be there tomorrow, some other government will replace it. Our whole struggle, our agrarian struggle is not meant just to temporarily harass, or to create obstacles for, or to force the resignation on a certain government just to achieve a limited political aim. This must be deeply understood. It is true that immediate slogans directed against a particular government help us in mobilising the masses at a tactical plane, but if the whole aim of the movement is understood in the limited terms of overthrowing a certain government, it is here that an ideological distortion, namely pragmatism, begins. This makes peasant movements an occasional task. It is necessary to go on strengthening our peasant organisation and peasant movement. We often witness that our peasant organisation has become defunct and then it is again reactivised on the basis of certain tasks; why should it be so? We have to organise an agrarian revolution, then why does our peasant organisation often gets trapped in such a situation and then gets reactivised on the basis of certain slogans or against certain policies of the government or through gherao? I think this ideological distortion, this pragmatism somehow or other influences us in these matters, e.g., in taking peasant movements as a political pressure tactics. This may be the style of CPI and CPI(M). They have a friendly government, so from political necessities sometimes peasant issues become important to them and at other times not. But this cannot be our policy. Particularly in a state like Bihar, the peasant movement, revolutionary peasant struggles are very important and through them we have to undertake the revolutionary transformation of the whole society. This undoubtedly is a protracted struggle, and as you know, in this struggle our Party has not set any limits.

While ensuring the active participation of tens of thousands of peasants, the Party has vowed to take these anti-feudal struggles to their highest stage. This is so because this struggle is the key to transform the whole society. Therefore it is neither the question of using peasant struggles as a political lever against a certain government nor setting the limits beforehand. This must be clearly understood because any departure from these principles will only open the floodgates of pragmatism.

I want to emphasise that we are striving to unite all the movements we have been initiating so far — be it student movement or the movement for agrarian reforms or that for autonomy in Jharkhand — into an integral whole, which is nothing but the movement for democratisation of Bihari society, which in popular terms we define as the revival of the ’74 movement. Whatever happens to the Laloo Yadav government in the process is immaterial. This government might have to go down, or it might somehow continue in power. The important thing is the development of democratic consciousness among the people and the movement for democratic transformation of society.

This overall perspective must never be lost sight of. Criticism of the government, the movements against its drawbacks and the struggle against the government on immediate issues are of course important in practical politics. They do help in taking our message to the broad masses, for popular mobilisation. But if our ideological-political thinking gets bogged down in this immediacy, I am afraid we shall lose the very character of a communist party and degenerate into some general democratic organisation fighting for some immediate demands. In this context, the danger of pragmatism as pointed out in the document is most important and I must say that this pragmatism is the manifestation of ideological decay that our Party has undergone for a long time.

This ideological decay has other manifestations as well and the document has referred to them too. One of the manifestations of this decay we have seen in recent times when we participated in parliamentary elections and thus initiated a new experiment. We began with the aim of creating a new revolutionary model in the communist movement in relation to parliamentary struggles in and within the assembly. But as you know we suffered serious setbacks in our endeavours. Four of our MLAs were won over by the Janata Dal or in other words they got trapped in the net of parliamentarism and just sold themselves. In our Party history there have been big mistakes and serious setbacks, but perhaps no mistake or setback has downgraded the Party’s prestige before to such low levels as in the case of these defections. This considerably downgraded our prestige at the national level because people never expected that our MLAs will prove so hollow in their conviction. This is a black spot in our Party history. We have tried to erase this black spot and gradually we have been successful in taking the message to the people that ours is a Party of struggle, of movements, and once again we have refurbished our image to a large extent. But still a major question remains: why did this happen at all? If one says that these people were inherently like that and they should not have been given tickets, the question arises why were they then allotted tickets? If one says that a proper control could not be exercised over them, again the question arises, why did we fail to do that? So one cannot escape just by blaming these deserters; the question as to what the Party organisation had been doing all these years will have to be answered. I think a still deeper question is involved here. These MLAs getting trapped in parliamentary deviations is only the highest expression of the mentality that has gripped our organisation. I think this is the only proper way of looking at the problem.

We have seen that many comrades, even those who had been hard working Party cadres for long years, had started aspiring for a ticket to become an MLA or an MP. Not only new comrades but several old comrades too got infected with the parliamentary virus. And we also saw that in the entire organisation MLAs and MPs started enjoying much more prestige than the Party or organisation leaders. We all along tried to fight it out. We saw at many points that only MLAs and MPs are being called for mass meetings, Party and mass organisation leaders simply became non-entities. In society people consider MLAs and MPs as VIPs and this affected our organisation too. MLAs and MPs in such cases got conceited and for the rest of the cadres too, they became models to be emulated. So it was a trend affecting our entire organisation. We tried to counter it by saying that this is not proper, this is wrong. The prestige of the Party and organisation leaders should be at the top. But this hardly had any effect. Look for yourself, how serious, how grave was the problem that people did not seem to listen despite a struggle. In this sense, rather the desertion of these MLAs has helped in once again changing the atmosphere within the Party and consequently we have moved on to the road of struggle. All this still needs a deeper probe because MLAs and MPs are still there and in future their number will only increase. They are, of course, needed too and they have a significant role to play. How are we to establish the proper role of MLAs in the movement and at the same time establish the prestige and dignity of the organisation? This is a million-dollar question. Due to ideological decay, instead of establishing a positive model in parliamentary struggles we have made a negative beginning in Bihar.

This is a question the whole Party should ponder over. The whole Party must think as to when and how this ideological decay began in the Party. Several ideas have been put forward by comrades here during discussion and we must go for a comprehensive analysis.

This ideological decay brings disunity in organisational life. Therefore ideological decay and organisational disunity become two important problems which the Party shall have to overcome during the rectification campaign. This ideological decay, you see, is like the disease of tuberculosis that gradually eats up the whole body from within. The structure remains there, but from within the bacteria renders the body hollow. The same happens to a party affected by ideological decay. The external appearance, the outward structure remains intact, but from within the party gradually moves towards death, towards destruction. In my opinion, in some way, ideological tuberculosis had gripped our Party which led to such disturbances. The rectification campaign is a battle, a treatment against this ideological disease.

We also know that a person cured from tuberculosis emerges much stronger than before. Therefore, I am confident that we will seriously grasp the harmful effects of the bacteria within, of the tuberculosis affecting the Party body and overcoming them makes our Party healthier and stronger than ever before. …

These are some stray thoughts I wish to share with you on this occasion.

[Excerpts of speech delivered at a special cadre meeting of the Party on 27 August 1994 in Patna. From Liberation, November 1994.]

Comrades,

Seven months back we had a convention in the same place. At that time there was a view was that our Party was getting finished under the pressure of the MCC and the JD. Such ideas were floating in the newspapers. In the cadre meet we said that if you make determined efforts you can change the state of affairs in Bihar. We all united and with all-out efforts we organised the historic 18 March rally successfully. After the rally the newspapers changed their views and instead of saying that we were buckling under pressure from MCC and JD, they said that the illusions regarding JD were dispelled and that we were a force to reckon with.

So I want to reiterate that our cadres have the strength to stand united and make all-out efforts. The present situation in Bihar is that we can steadfastly advance towards revolutionary changes. Another thing seen during the period is that our leaders have developed a new work pattern. We have seen that this is a healthy workstyle because earlier we had undertaken the rectification movement for this very reason. Somewhere or the other we had seen a gap between the leaders and the cadres. Whatever work-style we developed during the rally should be followed rigorously.

All differences existing at various levels in the Party should be sorted out because alien forces take advantage of this and we have seen this in the past. That is why I would like to emphasise again that from top to bottom steel-like unity should exist.

You all have put forth your views on the document placed before you. Many good things came up. I believe the state leadership will discuss these points like the point raised by many comrades pertaining to the realistic and actual assessment of the political forces. If there is a mention in the document that JD(B) has been finished or it is of hardly any significance at the national level, this is not a correct assessment. They are still a strong opposition. Hence, if there is such a mention it should be corrected. If there is a mention about BSP like that then it too should be corrected. BSP is making inroads into Bihar. They are strong in UP and on the basis of that strength they will try to advance in Bihar. That is why we should be careful about them.

Regarding a political alliance with JD(G) and JMM many comrades have expressed doubts about the trustworthiness of these forces. Especially about JMM who in the past have hobnobbed with Congress. And also about the present situation of JD(G). I think the feelings of the comrades are correct. At present if such things like alliance with JD(G) or forming a government with them appear in the document then they should be removed. With JD(G) at the most there can be some adjustment over seats which can be discussed. Such an assessment is appropriate for the present. Some comrades have expressed doubts about the extent to which seat adjustment can take place or whether it will take place at all. I think that this doubt is also correct and that ultimately a political alliance may not come about. Even seat adjustment might not be possible. May be we will have to fight it out alone. We cannot rule out this possibility. That is why it will perhaps be better if on this matter the document speaks less on alliances. In fact, the possibility that we may have to go to the polls alone should also be mentioned. And we should be prepared for that. Yes, we will surely try to look for friends. But any political alliance or any prograrnme-related understanding may not be possible.

In Jharkhand, the second force there which could be called more progressive or left-leaning in a comparative way, the JMM (Mardi) group -- or, we can say, the Vinod Bihari Mahato group — is gradually going over to JD presently and has virtually dropped its demand for Jharkhand. Other forces like AJSU came up with big promises but eventually disintegrated or went into opportunist agreements here and there. There are two aspects to JMM. The way you talked about their leaders is correct. They are mafia elements and hooligans. But this is not how Adivasis see them in general. The people see them as the representative forces of Jharkhand. One question came up before us. That is, quite often they move closer to the Congress, or the Centre, which makes use of them. This is natural because of their class basis and their class situation. But there can be another side to this. We pose a direct question to them: you have to choose -- either the Congress or the CPI(ML). We are not talking about any such friendship where they can continue relations with Congress as well with CPI(ML) at the same time. If you have an alliance with the Congress then you cannot have any relations with CPI(ML). This is what we mean by friendship. In the all-party committee we told them this. When they started going with the Congress we broke our relations with them. In their conference, in their own way, they have also raised this issue. They have said, on the one hand, that they want a relation with CPI(ML). On the other hand, they are maintaining a relationship with Congress. In this we can hope that after getting a jolt from the Congress they will come over to us and debates will intensify within their own organisation. They had convened a people’s parliament where one person reported that he had invited Congressmen also to that parliament. This created resentment among many present there. To my knowledge, anti-Congress slogans were also raised. According to my understanding there is a debate among them on this question and some such forces opposed to Congress exist there. We want to continue to raise this question and if we cannot bring them towards us totally then at least there will be a split. This is not a question of friendship between JMM and Congress, rather it is a question of direct conflict between us and the Congress. Our efforts are to keep them away from the Congress and bring them closer to revolutionary forces. In this tug of war between the two sides, Congress pulls from one end and we from the other. So this is the substance of our tactics of joint front with them and we want to make an attempt.

Regarding JD(G) I want to clarify one thing. Nitish’s idea is that in the name of opposing Yadav excesses and Yadav domination he is uniting Kurmis and other castes. We don’t agree with such an idea. We are not in favour of making friends with other castes on the basis of their opposition to the Yadav caste. Since Yadavs are in large numbers in Bihar a large section of them are poor and middle peasantry. A big section of our forces — leaders, cadres and activists -- hail from the Yadav caste and we have our work among Yadav population in various places. And in reality we are the only Party that can challenge Laloo Yadav on the Yadav front. There is no room for any other party on this score. We are trying for a polarisation within the Yadav community. And we hope to make a new history by doing this. Because other parties have accepted that all Yadavs are with Laloo, they are resigned to the idea of thinking only of other castes. Our Party doesn’t think like this or we wouldn’t remain a communist party. We cannot go as per Nitish’s idea. We have fundamental differences with them. In fact it is the reverse. The way he is gathering Kurmi support, we have a struggle on this issue with the Kurmi kulaks.

In this context I want to say one thing. Last time on the questions of reservations, Mandal and backwardism, Laloo had created a wave and won the elections. It is true that he will make such an effort again. As the popular saying goes you cannot bath in the same river twice. There are many reasons for this. At that time their party had a national upsurge. It had national leaders. And now that party is finished. VP Singh is retiring from politics. They have a big problem before them. Hence they won’t be able to create a big wave this time. Whatever percentage of reservation they might talk about we would like to raise the question of creamy layer because they have always maintained that there is no creamy layer. We have always maintained that Laloo is the representative of the creamy layer and hence it is natural that he won’t accept it. But we would like to make this point that whatever be the percentage of reservation, the creamy layer has emerged from the backward castes which reaps all the benefits because in total the chances of employment are limited. Whatever possibilities exist will be taken away by the creamy layer. Whether they are Kurmis or Yadavs, a big section of any caste will never benefit from this. The extremely backward castes will never get anything.

Because Bihar has caste divisions and no party denies this division the question of creamy layer becomes very important for us. Every party sees this caste reality and on this basis decides its tactics. The only difference being that some parties like CPI and CPI(M) — become lackeys of JD on the basis of the present caste structure or natural contradiction in it. We also talk of caste but our efforts are always aimed at creating a split along class lines within the caste. It is another thing for those castes which cannot be split along class lines. There are some castes which wholly comprise poor peasantry and agricultural labourers. That is another thing. But wherever there are castes in which the scope for class polarisation is present we are to bring it to the forefront. And this is where communists differ from others. In this context, the idea of creamy layers might have come in the form of Supreme Court judgment but it is a helpful tool in our work. Because with this we can take the idea of division on class lines within various castes and make them understand it and prepare for a split. That is why wherever parties are denying the creamy layer we must raise the point of creamy layer so that we can bring the poor and middle peasantry of the backward castes towards us. For this they have suggested some parameters to identify the creamy layers. Likewise we should also suggest our own parameters to identify who are the creamy layers. You should think of this. Let the Party state committee work on this. We can begin with the wards of the MLAs, MPs and Class I officers etc.

Another question came up here. There was a view that since we had earlier given a call for a Left government we must try more for unity with the left parties instead of JD(G) etc. We have not strayed from our basic principle on this point. We too want left unity and have always wanted it. This has been our number one effort -- to come closer to other left forces and move forward with them together. We have not retraced our steps on this point. But no positive reply has come from the other side. Wherever and on whatever matter joint activity is possible, we would always join them. But in the concrete political situation of Bihar we stand opposed to each other. Regarding CPI(M), be it Dharbanga, Katihar, Nawada or Ranchi, in many rural areas we have had struggles with them and in some cases they have turned into bloodied struggles too. It may be different in other areas but in these rural areas of Bihar the CPI(M) has sided with feudal forces. That is why, seen from outside these are CPI(M) vs. CPI(ML) struggles, but seen in depth it is direct class struggle. The poor and landless peasants are with us and they are siding with the feudal forces.

We have made some political attacks on CPI. But the aim is not to abandon CPI. And we are not making these attacks with the decision that all is over with CPI. In fact, on the contrary, we have done this to intensify the debate that has surfaced within the CPI and we have made some gains. We have met some of their leaders and they have informed us of the debate within their party and also informed us about the demand of a section that without bothering whether we should go with Laloo or George we must first shake hands with CPI(ML). And both the parties must sit down and decide whom to go with. Our aim is to intensify this debate. Compared to CPI(M) which is rigid, the CPI position is often changing. Hence, it is not difficult for them to go here and there, sometimes with Congress and Aat other times with someone else. This opportunism which is the weakpoint of CPI is also the positive side of CPI. This is the hope that the CPI will make a somersault again. If our strength increases and it appears to CPI that Laloo Yadav’s position is shaky and that an alliance with us can be strengthened. Then it will jump from Laloo’s fold to the side of CPI(ML). That is why our dialogue with CPI should be maintained at all levels.

Another point was raised here by some comrades. That was with regard to lack of initiatives on our part on general but popular issues of affecting the masses like floods, diarrhoea etc. I think the comrade who made this point has made a positive criticism. The state leadership must think in details and we should become such a political force which can take initiatives on all the problems of the people of Bihar and that is why leaders must give statements on such issues and take out teams for assessing such situations. Or else we’ll have a one-sided identity.

Now the next challenge before us is the elections. We have a limited aim in this election. By limited aim I mean that we must for the time being get the status of a recognised party and we have to guarantee it in this election. In the last election, we required 1,400,000 to 1,500,000 votes for this status and we fell short by 400,000-500,000. So this time we have to complete this target. How many seats we get or fail to get is one thing. But the more important thing is if in the last elections our target was to get 1,000,000 votes this time our target should be to get 2,000,000. This is the target we need in order to acquire the status of a recognised party in Bihar. Because becoming a recognised party in a state makes a lot of difference at the national level. That is why I want to bring this before you as a challenge.

And finally I would like to reiterate steel-like unity. I am saying steel-like unity because when getting into a war special type of discipline is required. Before the war anyone can express his/her view, take part in the debates etc., but once the battles are on everyone must move the way the troops move.

[Excerpts of speech delivered at Vikas Convention (Convention on Development) in Patna. From Liberation, November 1994.]

It is not enough to say that there is only sluggishness in regard to the development in Bihar. The actual situation is that Bihar is moving backwards. This is Bihar’s special quality. The big public sector factories set up under the old economic policy are fast becoming sick. On the other hand, reinvestment of capital on the basis of NEP like in other states is not to be seen in Bihar. New or old, the results of both the economic policies haven’t been beneficial for Bihar. The state government corporations are incurring heavy losses. Bihar has the lowest per capita income in India. It also comes first in the percentage of people living below poverty line and this percentage is ever increasing.

The other thing we see here is that, be it royalty from coal, be it a grant from the centre or a World Bank aid, be it the salaries of employees and teachers, be it even their provident fund, all of this goes into running the government. In other words, there is not much internal generation of revenue.

The third speciality of this state is the nature of political leadership. The people exercising political leadership at present have no economic viewpoint for Bihar’s development. Politics is the reflection of economics, and hence, what we call as criminalisation of politics is actually the reflection of the criminalisation of the economy. The change that has occurred from Jagannath Mishra to Laloo Yadav has been reduced from the hegemony of criminal elements of the forward sections to the hegemony of the criminal elements of the backward sections. Even the tribal leaderships from Jharkhand have a pronounced mafia element in them. This process is on in all directions. And even the politicians have become a type of ‘class’ of their own. For the people of Bihar already loaded under the weight of landlords, kulaks and various types of criminals, here is another mountain load of trouble from the class of politicians. Capturing government jobs has become the focal point of all politics in Bihar.

The fourth speciality of Bihar is the complete degeneration of the democratic system, the elections are most violent and no elections for the panchayats and municipalities take place. The last one took place in 1978 and 2000 people died in it.

The fifth form of Bihar’s tragedy is the most wrathful forms of violence in the state. Killing of three-four people is no news nowadays. Only large-scale massacres make some news. This only goes to show the cheap value of human life in Bihar.

The rapid degeneration of cultural values is the sixth speciality of the state: educational anarchy, wheedling the state and the projection of political leadership as kings and demi-gods.

The cessation of growth in Bihar’s agricultural production is the root cause of all the other degenerations in the state. Even though, in Bihar, on one acre of land, compared to the national average, 70% more peasants, 120% more agricultural labourers and 65% more animal strength is put in, yet it is far behind the national average in produce. On analysing deeply we see that farming is essentially subsistence farming, i.e. production is only for domestic consumption and not for the market.

Why is it so? On a closer investigation of the institutional constraints we find that the basic problem is of land reform which even today is incomplete in Bihar. When Laloo Yadav came to power he said -- he in fact threatened — that he would take legal action against the 85 families who have land holdings above 500 acres and if need be he would nationalise the land. A circular on recording the lands of all landlords was also brought out by the state government. With the passage of time Laloo stopped saying such things and even withdrew the circular. But while Laloo was saying all this, Jagannath Mishra raised his objections to this. His first objection was that the recording process would consume thousands of crores, perhaps four thousand crore rupees. And secondly, all this would create social tension. We see that gradually Lalooji too stopped saying these things and also withdrew the circular. So, a historic agreement took place between Laloo and Jagannath Mishra, between JD and Congress. Or you can say that an agreement was reached between the kulak sections of the forwards and backward castes that we will not fight over the basic question of land: If we have to fight we will keep it restricted only to the fight over the reservation in government jobs. It is not good to fight over the basic question of land for it will cause social tension whose benefits will be reaped by the revolutionary forces.

There is a view from some intellectuals that land reform is no longer required in Bihar because whatever land reform had to take place is already over. The tenants among the a section of the forwards and a section of the backwards have all got possession of land and zamindari system has also ended. And now these intellectuals say that ‘Kisan Raj’ (in the context of the Laloo government) has arrived. And hence it would be dishonest to talk about land reform. And a view has also surfaced that the agenda of land reform can be taken up as a leftover, here-and-there, agenda but there is no need for enlarging it. There is a need for educating the masses so that a feeling of enterprising initiatives is awakened in them. Bihari youth should invest capital and set up industry instead of becoming a ‘Babu’. And they said all this was not caste-dependent but based on human qualities and it is required to nurture these human qualities. This should be done through training and education. And instead of cultivating only rice and wheat, potatoes should be cultivated and sold, fisheries should be encouraged etc. This is supposed to be the way for Bihar’s progress. I will say that such ideas, in whatever left form they come in, are all wrong. For you will see that the status-quoist forces present here, be it Congress or JD, they all in a roundabout way say that there is no need for land reform. If only we proceed with advanced farming in Bihar and if a little bit of training is given to the bureaucracy, then probably all the troubles of Bihar can be eradicated. So we understand that somewhere or the other all these arguments are all in favour of the status-quoist and government forces.

If we look at history we see that, in 1973, in Bihar, a seminar on land reform had taken place where Jai Prakash Narayan, was present along with many well-known intellectuals and many others. Various things were discussed and suggestions were given for what is to be done, especially by the Bihar government. The first suggestion that came up was that land records were not proper and that they needed correction, specially the recordings of the tenants was required. Secondly, there should be reform in tenancy whose ultimate goal should be making the tenants the owners of their own land. For this, if need be, the tenants should be provided with adequate funds to pay for the compensation. For the compensation, the government should provide loans to the tenants, which should be recovered gradually in instalments. These tenants should be able to do farming in a better way and their outstanding debts to the landlords should be cleared off with the help of low-interest loans from banks and financial institutions. The third recommendation that came up was that ceiling laws should be modified and properly implemented. Fourthly, special land tribunals should be formed and the cases should be transferred from the courts and speedily settled in these tribunals.

And recently, in 1991, a workshop on land reform took place in the same Patna where too various intellectuals participated among whom were some who had participated in the 1973 seminar. This workshop discussed what happened to the suggestions of the 1973 seminar in the last twenty years. They concluded that in Bihar the process of agricultural reform has not progressed at all. There was no progress on bringing in laws for limiting land ceiling and on distribution of the acquired land. In fact what happened was that the agenda of land reform was always pushed to the background by calling it irrelevant. This workshop again sent some new proposals to the state government hoping they would be implemented. The special recommendation was to set limits to land holding in a new way in which the presently followed classification of land into six types should be changed to three types. One, cultivated land which has a ceiling of 15 acres; uncultivated land with a ceiling of 22 acres and barren and waste land with a ceiling of 30 acres. Secondly, all concessions related to ceiling given to people holding land under private trusts and land possessed in the name of sugar mills, should be withdrawn. The third proposal was that land tribunals should be formed which the government had attempted but was stopped by the High Court. So it was suggested that permission be taken from the Supreme Court in its favour. The fourth point was that an ‘Operation Batai’ should be undertaken in Bihar similar to ‘Operation Barga’ in West Bengal. Even these proposals sent by well-known intellectuals were not implemented by the Bihar government.

So this position is not only ours. Well-known intellectuals of the country, all established intellectuals who want the betterment of Bihar, agree on this point that the process of land reform in Bihar is incomplete and completing it holds the key to Bihar’s development. Only forces like Jagannath Mishra and Laloo Yadav or broker-intellectual types say that there is no need for land reform in Bihar and newer technology in agriculture is the only panacea for Bihar.

The first and foremost thing is the question of agricultural labourers and they should receive their minimum wages. For this, before the farming season, local farmers, peasants, labourers, Kisan Sabha-like organisations of the masses and the officials of the administrative machinery should sit and decide the wages for the season. This should become a regular system because every year conditions change and new rates of wages are to be decided and their implementation should be guaranteed because they don’t get work throughout the year. So a guarantee for their work should be made and land provided for their housing. This should be the first programme. Secondly, fresh surveys should be carried out to record land and then not only should the land be distributed but collectivisation is also required so that farming can be done scientifically. Apart from this the rights of the tenants should be secured and they should be provided low-interest loans from the government institutions so that they can do farming in a better way and eventually be the owners of their own land. This should be our second programme.

The third programme is to strengthen the infrastructure of agriculture in Bihar like augmenting irrigation, renovating old canals and improving land for better productivity. The fourth agenda is the diversification of agriculture. Poultry farming should be started. The fifth point is that the traditional industries of Bihar like the jute mills, sugar mills or handloom units of North Bihar should be revived. The sixth point is that we must revive all democratic institutions like panchayats. And the seventh point I would like to make is that democratic organisations like Kisan Sabha are to participate in this whole process.

So I think that this programme is essential for the development of Bihar. But implementing it is not an easy task. For this we have to traverse a long path of struggle. In the first place, struggle has to be waged against the owners of land, or the rich Kulaks, and those who are associated with multiple businesses, and those who manipulate politics and run regional politics from behind. These three qualities were present in the notorious landlord of Bhojpur, Jwala Singh. On the one hand, he was the owner of a sizeable amount of land, on the other, he ran his various business ventures with black money from his underworld activities and coordinated the entire politics of that region. Such forces are present in all corners of Bihar and the first thing is to wage a struggle against them. Secondly, an extensive struggle should be waged against the corrupt bureaucracy. Thirdly, we have to wage a struggle against the class of politicians I mentioned earlier.

And the last thing I would like to say is that there is a need to end the educational anarchy rampant in Bihar. Instead of wasting time on ‘Charwaha Schools’, agricultural training institutes should be opened. In line with the needs of technology, in Bihar, unnecessary private high schools like those of Ramlakhan Singh Yadav and Tapeshwar Singh should be closed and converted into technical institutes instead. And in this context I would like to add that education should be secular and we should change these casteist educational institutions. Reservations should be made for the dalits excluding the creamy layer. This could be increased to 60-70% and in this a minimum of 10% reservation should be made for women because if the process of breaking the backwardness of Bihar has to be accelerated then women have to be put in the forefront of social development.

[Excerpts. From Liberation, March 1995.]

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has been conducting grassroots struggles in Bihar since 25 years, aimed at a revolutionary transformation of society. In order to reach out to the masses with a revolutionary democratic programme and give new momentum for the struggle for social justice it contested last assembly elections through IPF and is now contesting as a registered political party -- Communist Party of India (ML) Liberation.

For it, any electoral adjustment is subservient to the immediate and basic interests of the common people.

During the Janata Dal regime, it was only this party which played the role of revolutionary opposition and about 500 leaders, activists, and sympathisers have fallen to the bullets of the Laloo regime.

The central slogan of CPI(ML) Liberation for this election is:

Struggle against mafiadon for establishing democracy!

The Party reposes full faith on every peace-loving, honest member of the society who stands for development, above caste and religious barriers.

Our Priority

1. Re-establishing democracy in Bihar

The minority JD government which came to power in 1990 has throttled all democratic norms in order to save Laloo’s throne.

Out of 151 MLAs, about 140 MLAs have been promoted to the status of ministers or the equivalent of ministers. Even the socalled ‘independent’ MLAs with criminal background have been given a free hand.

Even as more and more people come to live below the poverty line, benefits for ministers have cost the state exchequer Rs.25 crores.

Whereas Jai Prakash Narayan had been trying for a change of heart for the dacoits of Chambal, Laloo has collected all the most infamous criminals and history-sheeters at the centre of power in Patna and Ranchi. This is how the socio-economic life of Bihar has been totally captured by the mafiadom. Last year there were 300 cases of kidnapping and almost all believe that they were engineered at the centre of power. During the last five years, elections to panchayats and nagarpalikas have also not been held.

The education system in Bihar has been corrupted by the education-mafia in Laloo’s coterie. In order to stall the upliftment of students, student unions have been banned and students’ movements made to brave the brunt of bullets and lathis.

Several cases of naked parading of women in the streets, repression on women, an incident of rape of a dalit woman by a JD leader or the rape of a minor girl of the minority community by another JD leader have come to light. Yet a state-level women’s commission has not been constituted.

The bill for autonomy of the Jharkhand region was finally passed after a lot of manipulation. Yet when it was passed, it was already too late for implementation.

Though the slogan of social justice was given for the dalits and backwards of Bihar, the government turned the state into a slaughter house for dalits. All previous records were broken so far as the matters of dalits are concerned. On those struggling for minimum wages, land and social dignity, police repression became the norm.

In Narhi, 7 dalits fell to police bullets whereas in Gaya and Matgarha dalit students were killed in fake encounters. The report on the Arwal massacre was suppressed by the government. The government has bargained the corpses of the dead with a meagre compensation only.

Till date the culprits of the riots of Bhagalpur and Sitamarhi go unpunished while some of the rioters and BJP people have been incorporated into the JD. The government is based on corruption, crime, autocracy and falsehood.

The Party is committed towards reviving the spirit of the movement of 1974 for the establishment of democratic norms.

In the years to come we will struggle

a) against booth capturing, electoral malpractices, for the guarantee of the right to vote for the dalit electorate;

b) against special privileges for ex-chief ministers and against the misuse of money from the government coffers;

c) for making the Assembly a meaningful platform for discussion on vital issues, for right to recall (of people’s representatives) and for making the people’s representatives responsible towards the electorate;

d) for timely and regular elections to institutions of people’s representation e.g., corporations, panchayats, unions etc.;

e) for constitution of state women’s commission and for special women’s courts;

f) for forest land and other lands, rights to formulate new laws and for an autonomous council, and finally an autonomous state for the Jharkhandi people;

g) for judicial enquiry into the massacres of dalits in Bihar and the murder of Comrade Virendra Vidrohi (poet) committed by JD and the MCC; and

h) for legal action against the culprits of the Bhagalpur and Sitamarhi riots and for legal action against the rapist of a minor Muslim girl, a JD leader.

2. For the revitalisation of the economic life of Bihar

The rate of development in the last 5 years has dropped down from 3.5% to 1.5%. The per capita income (per annum) of a citizen in Bihar has gone down from 1100 to 1091. There has also been a 30% hike in the unemployment. The non-plan expenditure has gone up and the government is eating up 80% of its present budget. Government employees and teachers go without salary. The state lacks an industrial policy and industry and business has shifted from the state. About 2 lakh posts remain vacant in governmental institutions and corruption is rampant in the system for employment.

The Bihar government has not put up any resistance worth the name against the anti-people policies of the central government that discriminate against Bihar. …

All its promises of land reform remained empty assurances.

We will struggle for revitalisation of the economy.

a) against the new economic policy and industrial policy of the central government and against the step motherly treatment meted out to the state;

b) for a fresh survey of land, for distribution among landless poor of land exceeding the ceiling limit, for recording of sharecroppers, for special land tribunals for disposal of land disputes;

c) for adequate wages for agricultural labourers, for, guarantee of employment all through the year, for availability of all essential commodities at low price;

d) for the modernisation of all old canals, for availability of water. electricity, fertilisers, insecticides at low price;

e) for revitalisation of all cotton mills, Ashok paper mill, Dalmianagar industry, sugar and jute mills that have been shut down;

f) for basic change in the system of sales tax. For protection of entrepreneurs and traders from the criminal nexus operating in this sphere; and

g) for the protection of those engaged in small trades against Rangdari. Against the deprivation of the daily bread of small traders and hawkers in the name of removal of encroachments.

3. Renaissance of socio-cultural life

We demand:

a) reservation be raised up to 60%, out of which 30% would be for women. In the light of the Supreme Court judgment the creamy layer of the backwards be determined and for the determination of reservation quota for extremely backward and backward sections of minorities;

b) that the literacy campaign be carried on as a movement to achieve total literacy in Bihar by the close of the century. To regulate and stop misuse of Charwaha Vidyalayas. To provide budget allocation for all educational institutions to enable them to run and for regularisation of the academic sessions; and

c) for putting an end to all forms of obscenity and feudal-brahminical culture of sycophants and to encourage pro-people cultural values.

The successful implementation of this programme is only possible through the establishment of a left-democratic alternative. It is for this reason that the CPI(ML) has entered the electoral battle.

In order to oust the symbol of mafiadom, the Laloo government, and to stop the Congress, BJP, Bihar Peoples Party, which are the representatives of feudal, casteist and communal forces of Bihar from utilising this opportunity in their favour and for establishing genuine democracy, the CPI(ML) is in the electoral fray with the following objective:

To struggle
* Against mafiadom, for establishment of democracy
* Against the system based on loot, for a comprehensive programme of development
* Against social degeneration, for socio-cultural renaissance.

(From Liberation, August 1995 Excerpts]

Writing on Bihar elections after nearly three months may appear strange but the delayed review has the added advantage of scrutinising various arguments and conclusion advanced by other analysts. Then, the alternative positions from within the Party that capitalise on the confusions in the Party ranks have begun taking shape only recently. All this necessitates a fresh look about our election practice and election results.

Let us first see how some analysts have reviewed our position. Mr.Chaturanan Mishra, a CPI ideologue, writing in a Hindi daily commented that whereas a large share of votes of CPI and CPI(M) came through their alliance with JD, only a small share of CPI(ML) votes came from its alliance with Samata Party. He wondered that CPI(ML) mached the number of seats gained by CPI(M). Mr.AK Roy in his much-published article lamented on the increased dependence of the Left on JD. In the same breath he branded CPI(ML) as 'defiant for refusing to be the ally of JD and then accused is of entering into unprincipled alliances with Samara Party and JMM, unprincipled because, as he felt, it was motivated by just the lure of seats and power.

Mr.Tilak D Gupta, an ex-Naxalite belonging to Parry Unity stream and now a journalist, wrote in Economic and Political Weekly: “The CPI(ML) group has reason to be satisfied with its electoral show though its performance fell far below is somewhat exaggerated expectations. Among all parties, the CPI(ML) had to face the maximum hostility from an administration organically connected with the big landwners. Additionally it had to face a situation where a substantial section the toiling rural masses, who have been mobilised by the party in agrarian struggles, opted for the Janata Dal in election time. Further the CPI(ML) fought the elections solely on its own strength compared to CPI and CPI(M). Given these circumstances, it may be said that the Pany did fairly well in a rather difficult situation.”

After handing out these compliments, Mr. Gupta adds, "Having said this, it need to be pointed out that the unprincipled attempt to forge alliance with the patently right-wing formation, though with socialist pretensions articulating the aspirations of non-Yadav landed interests, smacks of a kind of political opportunism so commonly witnessed in the Indian communist movement in the past. Besides, in its anxiety to defame and dethrone the Janata Dal, the CPI(ML) group along with the other opposition parties became to a certain extent supporter of, if not a willing collaborator to, the arbitrary and biased acts of the Chief Election Commissioner in Bihar."

TWO ALLIANCES: TWO TACTICS

Now let us see what all these statements actually mean. Mr.Chaturanan Mishra's analysis seeks to put CPI-CPI(M)'s alliance with JD and CPI(ML)'s alliance with Samata Party at par with only a quantitative difference, i.e., the share of votes accruing to them out of their respective alliances. He glosses over the qualitative difference in the very nature of the alliances themselves. While the former was an alliance with the party in power, the latter was with a party in opposition. Moreover, whereas the former was in the nature of absolute dependence, the latter signified absolute independence. This is clearly borne out by the fact that a large share of votes of CPI and CPI(M) were due to JD's support in contrast to CPI(ML)'s victories solely on its own strength. The alliance with Samata Party having been reduced to a token gesture and barring two or three seats with Samata candidates opposing us everywhere else, it is ridiculous to speak of even a small share of our votes coming due to Samata Party's support. It is even more ridiculous because Samata itself proved a total flop. Then again, equating CPI(M) and CPI(ML) on the basis of equal number of seats gained is a mockery of ground realities. Despite CPI(M)'s large share of votes coming through JD's support it is still less than half of our votes.

Two alliances, two election campaigns and two categories of votes secured were of qualitatively different nature and unless this is understood every election analysis will be nothing but superficial, at best a clever subterfuge to cover up one's own opportunism.

While the running thread from the beginning to the end in the first alliance was dependence and nothing but dependence on its bourgeois ally, in the second it was absolute independence of the party of the proletariat vis-a-vis its bourgeois ally. Whoever confuses this, wittingly or unwittingly is guilty off obliterating the basic difference between the election tactics of Social-Democracy and revolutionary communists.

Mr.AK Roy, who admits that the Left's election tactics of aligning with JD has only led to an increasing dependence on JD, doesn's answer the question what else than the lure of seats and power motivated the Left in aligning with JD? The loss of identity or increasing dependence on JD was built in the very process of their relationship with JD for the last five years and it was not say sudden development. If CPI(ML) preferred us remain defiant in the entire period in the face of all adversities and refused to be lured by the lust of seats and power, wasn't the question of principle involved here? The stoical silence maintained by the self-proclaimed moralist on the unprincipled alliance of his own outfit Marxist Coordination Committee with JD is quite intriguing to say the least.

As for our alliance bid with JMM and Samata Party we had all along made it clear that we shall never be part of any Samata-JMM government, and at best, only offer conditional support. Had any such situation emerged – chances of which were very remote from the very beginning – it was obvious that our Party, ingrained as it is in the battle for radical transformation, would have soon resumed its role of revolutionary opposition. A Samata-JMM government would have hardly accepted and followed our conditions. The question of lusting for power was ruled out from the very beginning. Now, what are the facts of our relationship with JMM?

In the first place, our relations with JMM didn't come up all of a sudden just on the eve of elections and for an opportunist sharing of seats and power. It began when Laloo Yadav made a somersault and rejected the demand for a Jharkhand state. Amidst a new spurt in the Jharkhand movement we participated with JMM in a joint forum. Secondly, as JMM still remains the foremost representative of the Jharkhand movement in parctical politics it is virtually impossible to deny having any relations with it. We made the relationship, however, conditional by demanding separation from Congress in any joint move. And we did walk out of the joint body when the JMM began hobnobbing with the Congress. Thirdly, except for some political statements expressing the desire for alliance from both the sides, no formal talks on alliance or seat sharing ever took place. And eventually, owing to its hobnobbing again with the JD during the crucial election period we decided to reject even a symbolic alliance with JMM. Later on, when they again came back, it was Samara Party which forged an alliance with them and we were never a party to that.

Will Mr.AK Roy tell us where the principle is sacrificed here? On the contrary, Mr.Roy who had been a foremost votary of a separate Jharkhand state, who was the moving spirit behind the formation of JMM on the premise of upholding local people's interests vis-a-vis Bihari outsiders and who went to the extreme of describing Jharkhand as the ‘internal colony of Bihar’, remained clinging to Mr. Laloo Yadav even after the latter adopted the typical ‘Bihar colonialist’ stand in relation to Jharkhand. Aher throwing away his principles to the winds, if Mr.Roy laments at the loss of identity of the Left, who is he blaming for that?

Now JMM is happily back in the fold of the National Front and through NF-LF combination the Left, including Mr.Roy, will again resume relations with JMM without, however, bothering to answer how principled this relation will be?

POLITICAL IMPORT OF AGRARIAN STRUGGLES

Mr.Tilak D Gupta compliments us for keeping our score card intact even when 'a substantial section of toiling rural masses who have been mobilised by the Party in agrarian struggles opted for Janata Dal in election time'.

First of all, I would like to point out that the overwhelming majority of our votes which remains comparable to our old performance five years back came from the same toiling rural masses who have been mobilised in agrarian struggles. The phenomenon of shift of such votes to JD was basically confined to the district of Jehanabad and to one or two constituencies of Patna district. The sharp decline of our votes did take place in Bikramganj and Barachatti – the seats we had won earlier – but the shift was mainly in the votes of middle sections who had voted for us last time. This time, whatever votes we got was exclusively from the landless and poor strata.

We, more or less, maintained our position in Shahabad zone, improved a bit in South Bihar and scored impressive advances in the North-western region. The debacle in Jehanabad is intimately connected to the serious organisational disorder there which again is related to the political disorientation, that is, a diversion in the mobilisation of the toiling people in agrarian struggles. This diversion again arose out of a situation where the Party was forced to take on the MCC-PU onslaught. It was part of a well-calculated strategy of Laloo Yadav to instigate these forces against us and all our efforts to settle the disputes through talks evoked no response from MCC and PU. Moreover, the administration's hostility was at its peak in Jehanabad.

It was only after elections that we could move a set of senior leaders to Jehanabad, unite the ranks and take up drastic organizational mearares to revamp the situation and return to the path of mobilisation of the tailing mases in the agranan struggles.

Jehanabad is a very specific exception and a typical example showing how the anarchins practically serve the cause of the ruling classes MCC-PU did succeed in damaging our Party to a great extent in Jehanabad to the advantage of JD, but could they develop any alternative political model based on election boycott? Their election boycott call took an adventurist turn and ultimately proved to be a total flop. Ground reports, as noted by several journalists, clearly proved that a large section of their cadres and supporters voted for Janata Dal. Politically, these groups were reduced to a nonentity at a time of sharp political fervour.

In contrast, our electoral support has essentially been the political reflection of the agrarian struggles being conducted by our Party. This fact is admitted by Mr.Gupta when he comments that, "Significantly, for the first time the CPI(ML) group bagged two seats in the North Bihar plains in the face of a pro-Laloo Prasad wave to indicate the growing spread of agrarian movement beyond the traditional Naxalite strongholds of South and Central Bihar".

This doesn't mean that I want to underestimate our weaknesses in Jehanabad. The Party should have stuck to its orientation of agrarian struggles despite extreme provocations and we singularly failed on that count in Jehanabad. The point I want to make is that the formulation that "a substantial section of toiling masses mobilised in agrarian struggles by the Party opted for Janata Dal in election time" is basically wrong. On the contrary it happened only in areas where the Party, for some reason or other, failed to pay proper attention to mobilising the rural masses in agrarian struggles.

Mr.Gupta has also talked of our "exaggerated expectation". It is true that our results were much below our expectation, we had been expecting 12 to 13 lakh votes and 10 to 12 seats to enable us to get recognition. This target was not far beyond the reach of the Party. Administrative hostility, "killing of a senior Party leader, abnormal delay in the whole election procedure that gave the major parties a lot of room for manoeuvring, Maharashtra-Gujarat election results that brought the sharp polarisation between JD and BJP and the rigging, etc. were in no way less important factors in affecting our election prospects to a considerable extent. We had pointed out at the very outset that we were strong in 25 seats where we hoped to be in the race. Out of these we won six, stood second in eight, and polled between 14,000 to 25,000 votes in the other ten seats. In Hilse, the 25th seat, countermanding of elections did greatly affect our prospects and Samasa Pany, which was nowhere in the race in the first phase, emerged the main challenger in the second round. In our original list of top 25 seats, of course, it was Barachatti in place of Bhore and that was the only anomaly. I have elaborated in detail to show that in face of these ground realities ous expectations can in no way be termed as "exaggerated".

Having said this, I must point out that exaggerated expectations were indeed there which banked upon superficial subjective factors like hoping to rope in the negative votes of upper casts, Samaa Party’s base among Kurmis, wherever Samata was not in the race, caste supports to individual candidates, etc. This wishful thanking narurally raised the expectations of seats from 25 to 30 and even more. This, I must remind you, was in no way the official Party position, but manifestations of petty bourgeois subjectivism and parliamentary cretinism which did affect a section of leaders and large sections of ranks. Every time elections are round the corner and by the time election fever rises to a high pitch a lot of people begin to cherish wild dreams and just refuse to listen to any sober assessment. This is a serious deviation which invariably brings in its wake frustration and despondency. The Party has to consistently fight this trend.

Mr.Gupta singles out for criticism our so-called unprincipled attempts to forge alliance with Samata Party which he feels is more to the right than JD – and this he equates with the political opportunism of the CPI and CPI(M) brand. Mr.Gupta had himself admitted that we conducted elections solely on our own strength compared to CPI and CPI(M). He has also conceded that our victories in North Bihar are an indication of growing expansion of agrarian struggles. In the case of alliance too, he differs from Mr.Chaturanan Mishra and AK Roy as he has referred to "unprincipled attempts" only knowing fully well that the alliance eventually was reduced to a token gesture. Now this reduction of the alliance to tokenism, in contrast to the "complete understanding" which CPI and CPI(M) entered with Janata Dal is itself symbolic of our Party's attaching utmost importance to upholding its absolute independence, absolute insistence on fielding its candidate in all centres of agrarian struggles including those where our Party has been historically entangled in struggles against Karmi kulaks, its firm refusal to act as junior partners of Samata Pany, to share a common manifesto, common programme and common campaign.

OUR RELATIONS WITH SAMATA PARTY

Regarding Samata Party, I quote what I had said in the August ’94 State Cadre Meet at Patna, “Regarding JD (George) I want to clarify one thing. Nitish, in the name of opposing Yadav excesses and Yadav domination is uniting Kurmis and other castes. We don't agree with such an idea. ... Large sections of Yadav in Bihar are poor and middle peasants. ... We are trying for a polarisation within Yadav community. ... We cannot go as per Nitish's idea. We have fundafamental differences with them. In fact it is the reverse. The way he is gathering Kurmi support. we have a struggle on this issue ... with Kurmi kulaks.” (Lokyuddh, September 15-30, 1994)

Then again in February 1995 when talks on seat adjustment broke downs, I wrote, “We tried for electoral adjustment with Samata Paany. Actually what we wanted was to win over this party to our side on an agenda of social change, keeping aside the politics of Laloo versus Nitish or the Yadav-Kurmi divide. However, we have not yet succeeded in this venture because the leaders of this party wish to come to power through manipulations based on caste. Rather they have tried to marginalise our party.

"For us communists, any adjustment with a representative of bourgeois democracy doesn't mean sacrificing our independence, nor can we help such at party to come to power at the cost of our development and expansion." (Lokyuddh, February 1-15, 1995)

Here again I must clarify that our relations with the HMKP of George Fernandes began several months before the split in JD when we entered in joint struggles to defend sovereignty. Still the Samata Party leaders in Bihar were averse to go in for any joint activity and alliance with us. They held several rounds of talks with CPI and CPI(M) and then with Anand Mohan. We made it clear that until they sever all connections with BPP, any alliance with us is ruled out. Only when they openly denounced BPP did a formal dialogue begin in the form of an intellectual seminar where differences between Nitish's perceptions and mine on the dalit question were clear to any attentive listener. There was nothing secretive in our relations with Samata Party. And it was precisely when they tried to reduce us to the status of a junior partner in the pattern of JD-CPI/CPI(M) relations and made winning potential as the criterion for seats distribution that we decided to break off the relation. We squarely pointed out to them that we shall be contesting all those seats which are politically important to us in the context of the needs of our movement. The victory or the number of votes are simply immaterial. Talks broke down and we decided to plunge into the battle single-handedly. It was only on desperate insistence of their central leadership at the last moment that we agreed to have a token alliance. A deep scrutiny of the whole struggle with Samata Party in the course of forging the alliance and its eventual reduction to a token alliance will reveal to any neutral observer that our tactics were based on the very negation of “the political opportunism so commonly witnessed in the Indian commmunist movement in the past.”

There is that nothing unprincipled in the whole process of concluding the alliance. Well, one may, of course, object to the very decision of forging an alliance with Samas Party on account of its class character etc. Herr one must not forget the stark realities of practical politics. We were the sole left opposition to the Janata Dal regime for the last five years. CPI and CPI(M) were with Laloo Yadav, and MCC and PU were bent upon eleminating us, Laloo Yadav had split our legislature group and we had lost four out of seven MLAs we earlier had. By invoking the Mandal plank he was slicing away our support among OBCs. A section of Party ranks had deserted us to join JD's bandwagon. The general impression was that JD and MCC were eating away our social base and Laloo Yadav arrogantly declared that the Party was finished for good. MCC-PU too were jubilantly making similar declarations. We were indeed encircled from all sides.

THE LENINIST TACTICS OF ALLIANCE

It was at this juncture that we took recourse to various measures to stave off the crisis and rejuvenate the Party. The first task of course was the intensification of agrarian struggles and extending it to new frontiers right up to the very bastion of Laloo Yadav in North Bihar. Secondly, we contrasted the slogan of social justice with the slogan of social change and held a massive party rally at Patna. Thirdly, to extend the battleline within the JD camp we invoked the spirit of the '74 movement, activised our student organisation to take up militant battles and called upon all democratic elements in the Janata Dal to rise against corruption and the betrayal of '74. We clinched the offer with George Fernandes as we sensed an impending split in JD. The split did materialise after a few months and the splitters walked out invoking the very plank of the 74 movement. In the context of ourselves facing the Janata Dal as the main adversary in Bihar, the tactics of utilising any split within it was totally justified, more so when we ourselves had played the catalyst role in aggravating the split.

Mind you, for the entire five years in our struggle against the JD government we never had any truck with opposition parties like the right-wing Congress and BJP. On our part, our first priority had always been to develop closer relations with the Left. We tried to clinch every such opportunity but the concrete political situation prevailing prevented our coming closer. With the change in situation now when the JD has obtained a majority on its own and CPI's willingness to share power has been shunned, the latter has been forced to sit in opposition benches. And once again, under political compulsion, the process of left unity has gained momentum.

Equating independence with self-imposed isolation may sound very revolutionary, however it is nothing but an infantile disorder that can only wreck the movement. Seeking mass allies even if temporary and unreliable and utilising every split in the camp of one's main adversary is an integral part of Marxist-Leninist tactics. Our bid for seeking alliance with Samata Party and JMM was only an implementation of this tactics and in the five year career of Laloo Yadav it was only for that brief period that we could turn the tables on him and force him to spend many sleepless night. Maintaining the absolute independence of the party of the proletariat within the alliance was a newer phase of Pany practice and CPI(M) emerged from that unscathed and with flying colours. Even our worst adversaries had to concede that CPI(ML)’s votes were based on its own strength and on the strength of the agrarian struggles of the rural poor.

The Sheshan Phenomenon

Here I must add that we did support Seshan’s moves to introduce ‘free and fair’ elections in Bihar, a state where the entire election process had been reduced to a mockery. We, however, knew their limitations. ‘Free and fair elections’ in an ideal bourgeois sense simply means doing away with the process of open coercion like booth capturing etc. In other words, it means a free play of capital in deciding the outcome. And therefore, ‘free and fair elections’ in a bourgeois society still remain bourgeois in their essential nature.

However, we never supported Seshan’s arbitrary actions in splitting and delaying the election process and we came out with the statement that it is all designed to help Congress(I). We also refused to make any joint representation to the Election Commission on election irregularities along with Congress(I) and BJP as suggested by Samata leaders. Therefore, it is wrong on the part of Mr.Gupta to accuse us of becoming the tacit supporters of other opposition parties on this count.

Facade of Laloo’s Charishma

Mr.Gupta attributes Laloo’s victory to his personal charisma, his identification with the common masses, his giving voice to the long-suffering silent majority, etc. Well, how has one to define his victory? It is a fact that except in CPI(ML) strongholds JD did get overwhelming support from the rural poor, and that the rural poor did get carried away by his demagogy, more or less in the fashion they earlier backed Indira Gandhi or back NT Rama Rao and Jayalalitha now. Our Party has hailed the assertion of rural poor in elections which only expresses their strivings for a dignified and better life. But this does not completely explain the full import of the victory of Janata Dal. Even if the allegation of administration’s active connivance with JD is rejected, none including Laloo Yadav has accused the Bihar administration of in anyway working against Janata Dal’s interest. Given that Bihar administration is organically linked with big landowners, as pointed out by Mr.Gupta himself, how does Mr.Gupta explain this strange behaviour of the administration vis-a-vis the messiah of the poor?

It should not be forgotten that a large number of JD MLAs are renowned criminals and several of them come from upper castes, particularly Rajputs, with notoriously feudal backgrounds. The other face of Laloo was revealed in garnering the support of upper caste gentry with the plea that only he can save them from Naxalite violence.

During his five-year rule, by distributing privileges and favours with impunity he won over several powerful feudal elements to his fold who originally belonged to Congress(I) and BJP. To win Muslim support religious fundamentalism was invoked to the extreme, and barring a few exceptions, the Muslim gentry too solidly backed Laloo Yadav.

In short, beneath Laloo’s individual charisma is hidden a social coalition of various power groups and landed interests of several dominant castes including a significant section of upper castes. If these social dynamics are not understood one is liable to be trapped in a one-sided, liberal and social-democratic interpretation of Laloo’s victory.

Laloo Yadav is nothing but the ruling class response to the growing revolutionary struggle in Bihar. This is the secret behind the support given to him by the administration as well as by the majority of dominant power groups: Laloo Yadav is quite conscious of his mission and one can find him simultaneously projecting himself before the upper-caste landed gentry as the alternative to the violent Naxalites. When he claims that Naxalites handed over guns to the poor and he has handed them books he exposes his mission of disarming the people mentally and physically in the otherwise highly violent and armed society of Bihar.

A comrade writing in Lokyuddh has ridiculed our election practice as a transition from area-wise seizure of power to area-wise seizure of seats. But a deeper analysis reveals that our electoral gains and our anti-feudal struggles are organically related. The areas where we won victories are the areas where the struggles were sharpest and, if the last three months are any indication, our victories have only gone to further intensify the pitch of struggle. In fact these areas represent the model of integration of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles par excellence. Despite our marginal presence in the assembly we were very much part of mainstream politics in Bihar for the past five years. The next five years will be no exception.

[From Liberation, June 1996.]

This time total valid votes polled in the state were 3,49,44,438 and this was 53.3 lakhs more than 1991. Janata Dal, which had fielded 44 candidates this time as against 33 in 1991, got 1,67,69,081 votes. In terms of absolute number this was 17,32,671 more than in 1991 but its percentage went down from 34.1 to 30.7. BJP, on the other hand, fielded only 32 candidates as against 49 last time. Not only did its total votes increase, the percentage too went up from 16.91 in 1991 to 20.77 this time. Samata Party, which was part of JD last time, fought in alliance with BJP and its 22 candidates polled 14.28 per cent of votes.

The only other party which increased its votes as well as the percentage was CPI(ML). This time it polled 7,31,000-plus votes out of 22 seats it contested. This is nearly 1 lakh 50 thousand more than the votes polled in 1991 from 17 seats. In the 15 common seats that we contested on both the occasions, this time we polled nearly 80,000 more votes and the rest 70,000 came from the other 7 seats, out of which 6 were contested for the first time and one Patna seat was recontested after 1989. The vote percentage marginally went up from 2.02% to 2.14%.

Congress was the biggest loser. Its votes went drastically down and the percentage fell to 12.40 from 23.89 in 1991. JMM which had polled over 13 lakh votes in 1991, got only half of that this time and its percentage went down from 4.83 to 1.85. CPI lost four seats and its votes from 8 seats it contested went down by over two lakhs from earlier 22 lakhs. In terms of percentage the fall was from 8.09 to 5.78 this time. CPI(M) which had polled 4 lakh 18 thousand votes in 1991 from two seats got only 2 lakh 76 thousand votes this time from the same two seats. In terms of percentage the fall was from 1.54 to 0.79.

Regionwise analysis of our Party’s performance shows gains in North Bihar, mixed performance in Central Bihar and decline in South Bihar.

In the Northern part, in a last minute decision, we decided to contest Muzaffarpur fielding Comrade Meena Tiwari as our candidate. She is the Party secretary there and had taken charge only a few months back. Though we polled nearly 2,648 votes, the vigorous election campaign in the area has given a new lease of life to the Party there. The spectre of Mushari has again started haunting the landlords there. Immediately after election, they, in connivance with some degenerated SNS group’s men (now operating under the banner of TND group), killed one of our promising comrades who had recently joined the Party from the TND group and played an active role in resisting the booth capturing by upper caste Samata goons. The killing gave rise to wide protests and the Sankalpa Sabha was attended by thousands of people. Class contradictions are sharpening once again in Mushari and both sides have begun preparations for the impending class war.

Earlier we had planned to contest Darbangha seat where we command a wider social base and could have scored at least 10,000-plus votes but due to certain organisational complications the district committee was not in favour of contesting. Thus, we dropped the idea and chose Muzaffarpur instead, as some sort of Party assertion in North Bihar was considered imperative.

In the north-eastern part, in Katihar parliamentary seat we doubled our votes from 4,621 to 9,934 this time. The Party had to launch a serious ideological struggle against the tendency of avoiding the contest in parliamentary elections and concentrating exclusively in Barsoi assembly seat. It appears that a Muslim social base, particularly middle and rich sections of them in Barsoi opt for a dual role of supporting powerful Muslim mainstream candidate in the parliament elections — this time Tariq Anwar of Congress(I) — whereas they extend support to our candidate in the assembly elections. In the absence of a powerful Party organisation this pressure tells on our comrades there and is the root cause behind the reluctance to contest the parliamentary election. We decided to seriously combat this opportunism as the primary condition for building Party organisation there, the votes secured were mainly of dalits and this had laid the foundation for the Party’s independent base there. The State Committee had made plans to organise a regional committee of Purnea-Katihar district and deployed a senior comrade to reorganise the work in these areas.

In Balia (Begusarai), the other North-East Bihar constituency where we contested for the first time, we polled 7,642 votes. The problems of organisational disunity has still not been fully resolved there though in elections comrades unitedly worked for Com.Yogeshwar Gope whose candidature helped the party to reach the widest sections of people.

In the north-western zone, comrades in Siwan fought a heroic battle against the heavily armed goons of JD Mafia don Sahabuddin. Five of our sympathisers laid down their lives defending the booths and at least two goons died in fierce resistance. Sahabuddin, with the active connivance of the district administration, captured over 500 booths in the entire constituency. This was mainly in three assembly segments where we didn’t have organisational network. In Mairwan segment, he failed to capture a single booth. In Darauli too there was tough resistance but they succeeded in capturing some 50 booths in one part of the constituency. On the election day, the whole of Siwan was virtually turned into a battlefield and it was for the first time that Sahabuddin met with stiff resistance. From 20,000 in 1991, we polled 1,09,000-plus votes this time.

In Gopalganj and Bagha parliamentary constituencies, we contested for the first time and polled 22,000-plus and 15,672 votes. In Betia (West Champaran), however, we polled only 4,368 votes.

In central Bihar, our votes went up in Ara, Jehanabad and Buxar constituencies. The total increase from these three major constituencies from 1991 comes to around 78,000. In Bikramganj, another important constituency, our votes declined by over 4,000, in Barh by nearly 1,000 and in Sasaram by nearly 2,000 votes. Sharp decline was however witnessed in Aurangabad where we lost nearly 24,000 votes and also in Nalanda where the decline was to the extent of 34,000 votes.

In Ara constituency, quite unexpectedly, our votes declined in two assembly segments of Ara and Budahara. JD scored 46,000 votes more than us and Samata too backed by the combined weight of upper castes as well as sections of Kurmi-Koeri backwards scored 5,000 votes more than us.

In Jehanabad, in Masaurhi segment of Patna district our performance improved a lot compared to 1995 assembly elections. This was essentially due to the consolidation of votes of landless and poor peasants. Even the dalit support base of Party Unity in many villages, for the first time, voted for our Party.

The shortfall in Bikramganj was mainly due to drastic decline in Karakat assembly segment where the feudal forces were on the offensive. In Hilsa segment of Nalanda, we have still not been able to recoup. Still, this time we organised a good campaign among Muslims in Biharshariff and obtained support from sections of them in an otherwise highly surcharged and heavily polarised voting between Samata (George) and JD-backed CPI.

In Aurangabad, our organisation is still passing through serious disorders and except for one or two assembly segments, the organisation stands virtually dismantled in the face of MCC killings and internal disturbances.

In all these areas however, special measures have already been initiated to revitalise the Party organisation.

In Patna proper, in the 1991 by-elections we supported CPI against JD which had polled 25,000 votes. On our own we polled 15,000-plus votes this time. The Party work in rural segments of the constituency had suffered a setback and due to shifting of forces for Ara and Jehanabad, not much attention could be paid to these areas. In the city, quite an effective campaign was organised and our comrades valiantly resisted state-sponsored booth capturing. Comrade Saroj Choubey, CCM, was severely assaulted by police when comrades protested against illegal detention of other comrades.

In South Bihar, from Gaya onwards our performance remained quite poor. Our votes declined by 10,000 each in Hazaribagh and Koderma constituencies and in Dhanbad too, where we contested for the first time, we could poll only 5500 votes.

Our recent initiatives on Jharkhand movement didn’t translate in enlarging our support base and ironically all pro-Jharkhand parties were virtually wiped out. The contest was mainly confined between BJP and JD, both of which are anti-Jharkhand. BJP virtually swept the polls in South Bihar.

This raises an important debate about the continued relevance of Jharkhand movement or at least its continuation in its old forms.

We did take a calculated risk by rejecting electoral pragmatism in deciding about candidates and fielded candidates more with the view to strengthen Party organisation and Party’s social base.

Election results have shown serious cracks in JDs social base and voices of dissent have started raising themselves within JD. Internal crisis within CPI and CPI(M) too has intensified.

This provides great opportunity to us to make bold advances to influence and win over these sections. The BJP-Samata combine is in an upbeat mood and a fierce competition lies ahead.

The Party state committee shall have to take vigorous political initiative on all fronts and this is the time to pool the collective energy of the entire rank and file in general and leaders in particular. In Bihar, times ahead are stormy but full of opportunities.

[This write-up was published in the form of a folder issued by the Central Committee, CPI(ML) on the Bathani Tola massacre.]

As you very well know, on 11 July the blood-thirsty killers of Ranvir Sena brutally massacred innocent people of Bathani Tola. 12 women and 8 children were murdered in cold blood on that fateful day. The abdomen of a pregnant woman was slit open. A little infant’s tongue was cut off before the tiny tot’s head was chopped off with a sword, another little baby’s fingers were severed from his hand. A new born baby cringing in its mother’s lap was butchered with a sword and their hut set ablaze. A girl in the prime of her youth was raped and her breasts chopped off before she was put to death. Among those injured, two little children lost their fight for life. No one can contradict the fact that such a degree of brutality is unprecedented in the history of independent India. Is it not necessary that we should know the historical background behind this heart-rending mass murder? After all, what is the reality underlying this brutal crime?

Govt. Propaganda — A Pack of White Lies!

It is imperative for you to know that the Ranvir Sena is banned since the last one and a half years and 3 police camps have been in existence in the vicinity of the Tola posing a facade of protection for the common people. The district administration had been time-and-again warned against the possibility of a big massacre. Yet no precautionary steps were taken while the policemen remained silent spectators to the gruesome orgy of blood. The Chief Minister visited the spot and suspended the local police for dereliction of duty but refused to initiate punitive action against the District Magistrate or the police chief. While the C.M. engaged in a lot of tall talks, in his private conversation with the press people he said ‘what else can be expected of them (Ranvir Sena) when the ML men conduct economic blockades’.

The Central Home Minister visited the Tola but seemed least interested in finding out the facts and details from the people of that area. Nor did he meet our Party representatives in Patna. Instead, on the basis of information gathered from the Chief Minister and the bureaucracy, he promised to modernise and streamline the Bihar Police and returned to Delhi, as though the ineffectivity of the police was due to lack of sophisticated arms. In his talks with press persons he is reported to have said such incidents are (and may continue as) an offshoot of the failure to implement land reforms in Bihar. While saying this it seems that the Home Minister had forgotten that the government in Bihar is being run by none other than the Janata Dal with the support of the CPI. Of course, the Home Minister blamed the Bihar administration, and according to a newspaper report he even spoke of its connivance in the incident. However, later, under pressure from Laloo Yadav, he went back on his words. Even after open indictment by the Home Minister and recommendation by the all-party committee to punish the D.M. and S.P., the Bihar government refused to take any action.

On the contrary, the same criminal administrators are trying to crush the peaceful movement of the people with lathis, water cannons and other terror tactics. People’s representatives sitting on indefinite hunger strike to press their demands are being put behind the bars. We are witness to a re-enactment of the Arwal massacre while the criminal of ‘Arwal’ fame, S.P. Kaswan shamelessly sticks to his position. No police action has been initiated against the Ranvir Sena while all the parties of the ruling classes are trying to save the Ranvir Sena even as they are laying the blame at our doors through all sorts of absurd logic and false propaganda.

Some of our so-called left friends have adopted a non-committal position. They fail to distinguish between the poor landless peasants and the feudal-Kulaks, they do not want to see the distinction between the dalits and minorities and the forces of Savarna caste-hegemony. Neither do they want to open their eyes to the communal hatred underlying the brutal and heinous character of the carnage, nor do they feel the urge to take to the streets even after seeing the cruel killing of new born babies and innocent women. Instead, they have been harping on the same note as the administration and are trying to misguide progressive opinion through false propaganda. In such a situation, it is necessary for us to acquaint you with the ground reality which has been little reported by the press.

Killer Ranvir Sena and the Unholy Political Nexus

The Ranvir Sena was formed two years back with the declared objective of protecting the crumbling edifice of feudalism from the fury of the revolutionary movement of poor peasants of Bhojpur. They challenged with all their might: "We will not allow Bhojpur to be turned into Russia or China; with our guns we will remove all signs of red flag not only from Bhojpur but from the entire country, we will re-establish the social system of our ancestors and revive the old customs and laws". From the day of its birth this Sena has put to death nearly one hundred innocent people in the Sahar and Sandesh blocks of Bhojpur alone, majority of whom are children, women, old and disabled people from the dalit, most backward and Muslim communities. Hand grenades were hurled at members of our Party sitting on dharna to demand administrative action against Ranvir Sena in Ara town. Similarly, grenade attack was made on a contingent of ML rallyists going for the March 11, Delhi Rally. Hundreds of people would have been killed if the grenade had exploded. In the beginning, the leadership of the Sena was with the Congress, later they switched over to BJP, and with this, the minority community became their specific target. The BJP leaders made hasty tours to their strongholds, and conducted several meetings after which the Ranvir Sena issued a written ‘Fatwa’ declaring support to the BJP. Copy of this Fatwa was placed in the Vidhan Sabha by the JD Govt. After the BJP-Samata tie-up showed its strong presence in Lok Sabha elections, all over Bihar the dominant upper castes and the feudal-kulak forces got a new lease of life and became extremely violent. Instead of countering these forces in a straight battle, the impotent leadership of Janata Dal went on appeasing them. Especially in Bhojpur district where the dalits and most backward sections are totally with CPI(ML) and where the Janata Dal openly sides with the feudal landlords in order to stop the CPI(ML) from growing, you will see Laloo Yadav openly sharing stage with criminal landlords. You will see the likes of JD MP and central minister Mr.Chandra Deo Verma demanding lifting of the ban order on Ranvir Sena while several leaders of the same party can be openly seen toasting with the criminal leaders of Ranvir Sena. This is the political backdrop behind the heightened morale of the Ranvir Sena and the connivance of the administration with it.

Backdrop of the Massacre

In the village panchayat elections of 1978, Mohammed Yunus, defeated the then mukhiya Kesho Singh and took his place. If we look at the incidents following this we will see that the victory of Yunus became a cause for permanent communal tension. The upper caste feudal psyche could not bear this defeat. They started taking revenge against the Muslims. First, they captured the road in front of the Imambara and then took over the Imambara itself. A case was lodged with the regional administrator on 13 August 91, who gave the charge for investigation to one of his subordinates. Though the report confirmed the encroachment, the administration did not take any decisive step against this. In 1992-93, the landlords destroyed the Imambara and burnt the flags after tearing them to pieces. An F.I.R. was lodged in the local police station and a case was filed. 13 days after the Bathani Tola massacre, on 23rd July 96, this case was decided in the court. The judgement says that there is no proof of any Imambara being there.

In the same way, the Kabristan land was also occupied. Mohammed Nayeemuddin filed a case against 14 people in 1993 and demanded that a boundary be constructed around the Kabristan. Due to shortage of money the case could not be fought till the end and was dismissed. But the encroachment continued as before.

The Ranvir Sena people had captured the Kabristan and Karbala land in Kanpahri (Sahar) and Navadih (Tarari). On 10 Jan 1996, Karbala Mukti Jan Jagran March was organised to protest occupation of this land. The Ranvir Sena men attacked the people who were coming from a meeting at Kanpahri. But their attack was resisted. The tension increased, yet the government did not make any effort to free the occupied land. Though Laloo Yadav declared that all burial land would be protected, nothing was done. In the month of Ramzan, on 25 April, Mohammed Sultan was killed and his body was not allowed to be buried in the Kabristan of Kharaon by the Ranvir Sena gang. Here also they were planning to murder several people but this was prevented after the body was taken to the adjoining village of Chatarpura and buried there. They still were not satisfied and attacked the Muslim tolas of village Kharaon and also other houses of ML supporters and looted their belongings. 50 families became homeless out of which 18 families were Muslim. Many of these families settled in Bathani Tola including that of Mohammed Nayeemuddin. But since the Masjid was located in the Ranvir Sena area they could not go for their Id prayers out of fear. Only with police bandobast could they offer their namaaz.

Still the tension did not subside. Now Bathani Tola had became a target and from the beginning of May to 11 July, the Sena goondas made 7 attacks on this Tola. The police remained inactive each time but the villagers chased the goondas through their own might. On 11 July, the Sena goons were successful and 5 members of Mohammed Nayeemuddin’s family were murdered and one infant died in hospital later. Mohammed Nayeemuddin and his wife were saved because they were not in the village at that time. Some say that the question of wages and land was behind the gruesome massacre but the reality is that this contradiction had been resolved one year back and there was no economic blockade in the village. The Shankar Sharan investigation team report also confirms this fact and the reality is that the struggle started only after this, so the propaganda that the massacre was a result of this contradiction is unfounded. Secondly, the manner in which the massacre took place points to an atmosphere of communal frenzy, hatred and vendetta; factually and logically, all indicators point to the communal character and backdrop of this massacre.

Our Efforts for Peace and the Attitude of the Ranvir Sena and the Administration

We have always been in favour of establishing peace. It is for this reason that, keeping in mind the aspirations of the peace-loving people, we began our peace initiative. On the occasion of the anniversary function of Swami Sahjanand Saraswati organised by Kisan Mahasabha in Bihta (Patna), we began our peace talks. Smt. Tarkeshwari Sinha and Shri Laliteshwar Shahi participated in the talks along with some respected personalities of the Bhumihar caste. From our side Central Committee Member and ex-State Secretary Com.Pawan Sharma was present. The talks were quite positive. Exactly two days after these talks the Party General Secretary issued an appeal for peace in a press conference at Ara. This appeal was well highlighted by the press. All peace-loving people welcomed it. We had also hoped for a positive answer from the Ranvir Sena. Next, we sent a message through a friend, who was mediating, that the Ranvir Sena should issue some statement so that we can proceed to the next step. The friend conveyed our message but the response was disappointing. Our peace effort had failed.

In order that we could take up developmental work in the area peace was urgently needed, so we did not give up our peace effort. This time we started again in a different way. We thought that we should create public pressure by mobilising public opinion. We also hoped that the administration would help us. In June ’96, we began a peace campaign by organising dozens of mass meetings in the main market as well as village chawls and told the people to came forward in this peace effort. In the meantime, contradictions between kisans of Ranvir Sena and our people in five villages were resolved. Through this campaign our issue of development gained seriousness and in Tarari block we started our Ghera dalo dera dalo movement. The movement was a big success.

In Ara, we organised a seminar centering the issue of peace, in which many respectable intellectuals and peace-loving persons as well as common people participated.

It is unfortunate that the Ranvir Sena showed little respect to the aspirations of the peace-loving people and retaliated with violence which continued all through our peace campaign. In this way our second effort also became unsuccessful. In a leaflet the Ranvir Sena appealed to the people to forsake this peace campaign and join the ongoing war. This may be the reason why the peace effort was rewarded through ‘Bathani Tola’.

Fight for Establishment of Democracy

The Bathani Tola massacre and the govt. response is a living example of how Bihar, the centre of democratic movement, is being converted into the graveyard of democracy. In this game, all the forces of darkness and retrogression have united — the forces that constitute the mafia and feudal vested interests.

We appeal to all progressive, revolutionary, democratic, socialist and left organisations and people to come together in this struggle for democracy and take it forward.

We have demanded that the administrative officers responsible for the Bathani Tola massacre be punished. If we fail to win this battle no one can stop criminals like Kaswan from multiplying and the police as well as the private armies from engineering more and more massacres like Bathani Tola.

We appeal to you to join this movement for justice through resolutions in meetings of intellectuals, through organising marches, sending telegrams to the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Governor and Chief Minister or issuing statements demanding punishment to the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.

[This abridged version of a write-up written for the September 7, 1996 issue of Mainstream, was published in Liberation, October 1996.]

(...) The massacre hit the headlines of national newspapers the very next day and several editorials and analyses followed in the leading dailies. Doordarshan played down the incident and took special care to add that in the war of attrition between the Ranvir Sena and the CPI-ML so far over 250 people had been killed. Newspapers that draw their ideological inspiration from the Sangh Parivar, in their editorials, cried themselves hoarse over the general state of lawlessness in Bihar and then went on to narrate the fascinating story of so-called parallel governments being run by left extremists in 23 districts of Bihar and clamoured for special para-military operations to curb them. An ex-Director of the CBI wrote on the same lines in The Asian Age. Several other newspapers wrote sensational stories about the vicious circle of violence and counter-violence where the basic difference between the massacres of women and children, of the old and innocent, as a weapon of mass terror employed by heavily armed feudals and the mass resistance of the rural poor for their self-defence and for their just rights was blurred. In a strange travesty of logic the victims themselves stood condemned.

It is well known that the CPI-ML (Liberation), different from some of the anarchist groups, is a mass political party which has six members in Bihar Assembly including two from the very areas where the massacre took place. In 1989 it won the Ara parliamentary seat and in the 1996 parliamentary election it polled 1 lakh 46 thousand votes there. The Party has led powerful mass movements of the poor peasantry and has organised some of the biggest political demonstrations of the Left in the capital cities of Patna and Delhi. The Party does not believe in senseless violence and takes recourse to any retaliatory actions only when they become absolutely indispensable. None dare accuse the CPI-ML of killing women and children or innocent people. Despite strong provocations it has always worked for defusing any caste backlash, and Bathani Tola was no exception.

Kanshi Ram as well as Ram Vilas Paswan, the two self-appointed spokesmen of the dalits, didn’t feel it necessary to even condemn the incident. VP Singh, the foremost votary of dalit empowerment, who found enough time and energy to visit Ramesh Kini’s family in Mumbai, maintained mysterious silence over the entire episode. No Muslim leader worth the name cared to visit the spot despite the fact that the Ranvir Sena is a frontal organisation of the BJP, that a considerable section of the victims belong to the Muslim community, that the immediate issue was the liberation of the Kabristan and Karbala lands and that the massacre had a strong communal overtone.

Indrajit Gupta, the Communist Union Home Minister, did fly to the spot and parroted the hackneyed phrase of lack of land reforms as the root cause of the problem and hence as the Home Minister he can hardly do anything. This liberty of theorisation when one doesn’t intend to do anything concrete is, perhaps, the prerogative of a Communist Home Minister. Gupta flew back to Delhi promising Central funds for the modernisation of the police force in Bihar and for raising new units of para-military forces as demanded by the Chief Minister and the police top brass. One wonders whether it was really lack of arms which was the cause behind the police inaction! In Parliament, the Union Home Minister announced the formation of a task force comprising retired senior police officials to probe into the causes of the rise of extremism in Bihar. There was no word or action against the district administration for their criminal neglect of duty and even the earlier norm of setting up a judicial enquiry to probe such grave incidents was given a go-by under the cover of generalisations.

Gupta’s reference to lack of land reforms as the root cause was much acclaimed by the liberal media as touching the crux of the problem. However, a close scrutiny will reveal that it was the most ridiculous of statements in the concrete context and with regard to its particular timing. One often reads editorials and social analyses that point to the lack of land reforms as the root cause behind the growth of Naxalism. Gupta was obsessed with the same ‘concern’ and hence handed out the usual recipe. In his misplaced zeal of scholarly adventure he failed to grasp that Bathani Tola was the reverse case of growing feudal backlash.

In Bhojpur in general, and the main village of Barki Kharaon near Bathani Tola in particular, people relying on their organised strength and increasing political might had already snatched reforms over wages and land. The feudal backlash, emboldened by the ascendancy of the BJP in the last parliamentary elections in Bihar, was precisely meant to snatch these gains and re-establish the savarna hegemony. Incidentally, Ranvir was a Bhumihar hero of yesteryear who fought against Rajput domination and, therefore, Rajputs were generally wary of joining the Ranvir Sena. At Barki Kharaon, the unity between the two castes was effected by the BJP elements using the convenient communal pretext as the current struggle there was over Kabristan and Karbala lands which have been forcibly occupied by savarna landlords; the confrontation has its genesis in 1978 itself when Yunus Mian defeated Kesho Singh in the panchayat elections for the post of mukhiya, and then the subsequent razing to the ground of the Imambara.

Bathani Tola is a typical case of open class war which, though rising at grassroots, is defined by the parameters of political struggle at the top, a typical case where caste as well as communal antagonisms — the two major social parameters of contemporary Indian society — are blended within the framework of class struggle. It is no accident that the revolutionary Left and the communal fascist forces of the extreme Right stand face-to-face in a headlong battle in this class war which has engulfed the entire district of Bhojpur and is fast spreading to other parts of Bihar. Neither is it incidental that with the outbreak of open class war the centrist and social-democratic forces have turned impotent often adopting a neutral position that only goes to benefit the predators.

This class war, which subsumes within itself the issues of caste and communal discriminations, is at the same time the negation of the post-modernist agenda for which the priority is the other way round.

The media cover-up as well as the silence of all the proponents of dalit and minority empowerment has to be seen against this backdrop. Yet the protest movement is on. Centring around the fast-unto-death of Rameshwar Prasad, the first member of the CPI(ML)-stream to have penetrated the Indian Parliament and presently an MLA from Bhojpur, on the demands of punishing the district administration and disarming the feudals in Bhojpur, growing numbers of progressive and democratic intelligentsia are raising their voice against the medieval barbarism perpetrated in Bathani Tola and the state’s inaction.

If the 25 years of the history of Bhojpur is any guide, the struggle has never stopped half-way here. The rural poor, compared to their position 25 years ago, have snatched socio-economic gains and have advanced politically to a considerable extent. No Bathani Tola is going to make them surrender even a small bit of their gains. The battle, therefore, goes on and shall continue till the last vestige of feudalism is ultimately razed to the ground.

[Speech delivered at the inaugural session of the conference of the Bihar Economic Association, Department of Economics, Patna University held from 29 to 31 January 1997. From Liberation, April 1997.]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Prior to me, the representative from the Right, Mr.Singh from the BJP, has spoken on the theme. I am perhaps the sole representative from the Left here. Well, Right is Right and Left is Left, still Left often proves right in matters of economy.

I have been asked to speak on the political economy of underdevelopment in Bihar. As the subject is economy, I would prefer to speak in English to convey my ideas better to the distinguished audience present here.

Bihar is underdeveloped, there can be no dispute over that. But so are several other states and regions of India. Then what is so special and specific about Bihar’s underdevelopment?

On the eve of independence, Bihar had the lowest per capita income among all the states, and that too lower by a wide margin, although it produced 8 per cent of India’s foodgrains, it was 4th among the states in terms of industrial output and the largest producer of coal and steel.

Now, after 50 years of India’s independence, Bihar is still the state with the lowest per capita income, barely Rs.10 or so on daily basis, which is less than one-third of Punjab’s, another predominantly agrarian economy. And if Dr.GS Bhalla, who spoke in this very conference day before yesterday, is to be believed, Bihar is the only Indian state where the per capita income has over the years actually declined.

This perpetual backwardness, this prolongation of Bihar’s underdevelopment, or better still non-development, deserves a comprehensive and in-depth study.

Bihar is caught in a trap, a poverty trap, in a vicious circle, and it is not going to be an easy job to break out from that.

Often, hopes have been generated, say in the ’50s, when the economy expanded at quite a satisfactory rate, as also in the latter part of the ’70s to mid-’80s, when total production of foodgrains had risen, and also the income from agriculture’s share had gone up by about 27 per cent.

In the ’90s too, statistics do show a high growth rate in foodgrains production as well as a real increase in area under HYV cultivation. Per hectare fertiliser consumption too has increased from 54.14 kg in 1989-90 to 64.51 kg in 1994-95. Household savings have risen considerably as witnessed in the astounding growth of non-banking financial institutions; take, for instance, JVG whose operational base is in Bihar. In the ’90s, hopes had particularly risen with the ascendancy of a social-justice regime, which in caste-class terms enjoyed the powerful backing of intermediate castes comprising mainly middle peasantry.

Now after nearly 7 years in power, the government is tottering under the biggest scam of the country, Bihar has entered into yet another phase of political instability, and Bihar is back to square one.

True, there are demographic and technological factors too that are responsible for Bihar’s underdevelopment. North Bihar has the second highest concentration of population in India after Kerala, but the whole area has no mineral resources. Moreover, it is a flood-prone area. Then coal has been largely replaced by oil and natural gas, and mica has given way to fibre optics. With this, Chhota Nagpur’s strategic advantage has also significantly declined.

Still, these are not the only factors responsible for Bihar’s underdevelopment.

One of the major dimensions of this perpetual backwardness is external, i.e. the status of Bihar’s economy vis-a-vis the national economy. Some people draw a striking parallel with the North-South divide on a global scale, where the South’s underdevelopment is closely related to the North’s development. One is the condition for the other. So is the case of Bihar in relation to the economy of few developed states. Several economists and social scientists have termed Bihar as an internal colony. Bihar has been the supplier of cheap labour and raw materials to agriculturally and industrially advanced states. Uniform pricing policy of coal and steel had taken away the locational advantages from the Chhota Nagpur industrial zone.

Then again, plan allocations until the advent of the Gadgil formula, were heavily tilted against populous states like Bihar and UP. Even after that, per capita plan allocation in the 7th Plan was Rs.622 for Bihar, less than the national average of Rs.920. Per capita investment from all sources — public and private — in Bihar has been lower than other states for over 30 years including the ’80s. Substantial part of the savings go out of the state. Investment of long-term institutional funds through IDBI and other such institutions, and UTI, LIC and GIC etc. is lowest in Bihar. Even in the phase of globalisation and liberalisation, the investment scenario is rather bleak here: Bihar got the lowest, just 0.14% of foreign capital investment from August 91 to May 96. In central plan outlays emphasis now has shifted to poverty alleviation and welfare schemes, where the element of capital formation is quite low.

A federal government at the Centre, though led by the same party that is ruling in Bihar, hardly inspires any confidence in terms of according any any preferential treatment to Bihar. The government is, on the contrary, more susceptible to the pulls and pressures of the powerful lobbies of advanced states.

To add insult to injury, in Bihar even half of the amount allotted to and in plans sanctioned is hardly spent due to callous administration.

Perpetual backwardness or the internal colonial status is, therefore, unlikely to be broken just by more allocation of central outlays or by waiting for the entry of foreign capital. Invoking the regional plank may be good politics for marginalised politicians, but it is bad economics indeed.

The impetus to break the vicious circle must come from within, generating vast internal resources. And here we enter into the other major dimension of the underdevelopment, the internal dynamics of Bihar economy.

Firstly, the arena of land reforms. Radical land redistribution is urgently needed to endow the land to enterprising small farmers. Small landholdings in the possession of small and marginal peasants should be given institutional backing to make them economically viable.

To enforce radical land reforms the political class must be prepared to go the whole hog, up to the nationalisation of all land and its redistribution to enterprising small farmers on lease basis. It is equally necessary to guarantee minimum wages to agrarian labourers both in relation to big as well as small farmers.

Secondly, the large amount of rural and semi-urban savings must be tapped by the state government agencies and redirected to farm-investments as well as building up infrastructure and improving social services.

Thirdly, pressure should be mounted on commercial banks in Bihar to improve their credit-deposit ratio and also for increased investment by term-lending institutions, the IDBI groups, LIC, GIC and UTI etc.

Fourth, the Centre should be pressurised for according preferential treatment to Bihar owing to its historical legacy of backwardness.

Only in the context of the internal vibrancy can the measures to attract capital, including foreign capital, for industrial development be meaningful.

India’s ruling establishment doesn’t bother much about the predicament of the common man in Bihar. With an expanding consumerism they can still sell the largest number of Maruti cars in Bihar. Patna witnesses the highest sale of premium brands of garments like Louis Philippe and Monte Carlo. Large savings from Bihar are channelised to build the fastest growing JVG empire. The best of Bihari brains can always be drained by JNU and Delhi University.

It is for the common people of Bihar and the intelligentsia, who are perturbed by the fact that nearly half of Bihar’s population goes to bed without food, to take the initiative to break the vicious circle. But you cannot expect it to be done by a political class which is deeply enmeshed in corruption, nor can it be achieved through a bureaucracy that is deep in league with the feudal forces.

An incorruptible political leadership with a grand vision for Bihar’s development that stands above the factional caste strifes of elites, coupled with the powerful mass initiatives at the grassroots, can alone break the shackles of poverty in Bihar.

Either you have a radical solution or continue with the perpetual backwardness, there is no middle-of-the-road option. There is no use crying oneself hoarse over the rise of extremism in Bihar. In history, extreme situations demand extreme solutions.

Sankat jab vikral ho jata hai, Mahabharat tab anivarya ho uthta hai! (When the crisis becomes colossal then a Mahabharat becomes inevitable!).

[From Liberation, July 1997. Excerpts.]

After the Governor’s sanction to CBI for filing a chargesheet against him, Mr.Laloo Yadav has lost the moral and political legitimacy to rule Bihar. With this the demand for his resignation has become much more vocal and broad-based: all sections of the Left and also a section of JD are demanding this. By all accounts, this is the beginning of his end. In this new situation, it is imperative to make a review of the Left’s positions.

The other day a prominent left ideologue in Bihar while writing a piece in The Times of India, invoked the famous Hamletian dilemma ‘to be or not to be’, to describe the Left’s attitude towards Laloo. He wrote that if the Left had earlier erred in trusting Laloo Yadav, it will be repeating the same mistake by riding on the crest of the anti-Laloo crusade. The reason: Laloo still enjoys a substantial mass appeal and BJP is well set to fish in the troubled waters. Though he welcomed the renewed initiative of the Left, he couldn’t resolve the riddle and ended up wondering who gains if Laloo goes?

By Left he obviously meant the official Left, including his own tiny group, who have been, in the proverbial ‘more loyal to the king’ fashion, tailing after Laloo all these years.

For obvious reasons he has omitted any reference to CPI(ML). It would have been too uncomfortable for him to accept that in the course of seven years of Laloo’s rule, the CPI(ML), from the start sounded strong warnings against reposing trust in a bourgeois leader, initiated exposure campaigns of this so-called Mandal messiah, charted out its own independent course of action and spearheaded a popular movement against his misrule. For this the CPI(ML) invited the wrath of official communists who were all enamoured by Laloo’s charisma, was branded as anti-Mandal, as putting a spoke in the wheels of progress and was even accused of collaborating with communal forces to bring the downfall of social justice regime. Very few people are aware that CPI(ML) was criticised more or less along similar lines by the far-left streams of the left spectrum. Official communists as well as official anarchists -- both ended up developing organic linkages with Laloo Yadav and he used them to the hilt in defaming CPI(ML) and even physically liquidating its cadres.

History, of course, had a different design up its sleeve. As the wheel has turned a full circle, ‘the messiah of the poor’ who enthralled the national audience by his rustic ways and who proclaimed himself as the kingmaker has been proved to be the kingpin of unscrupulous scamsters whose one-point programme was to loot the government exchequer for his personal ends as well as to keep a whole brigade of his cronies in good humour. Left spokespersons as well as mediapersons, in their bid to wash their hands off Laloo for glamourising him and to conceal the fact that they were taken for a ride, are trying to show that Laloo’s degeneration came up subsequently after he developed a lot of clout and became arrogant. This is a white lie. As the facts reveal he was involved in the fodder scam even during his tenure as the leader of opposition and he indulged in full-scale operations right after assuming power. The entire public show was nothing but a smokescreen to cover his misdeeds.

His anti-feudal credentials too were bogus. The composition of his clique — the 56 accused in the scam — is quite revealing and includes the names of notorious champions of upper caste feudal interests. His overt agenda was apparently to weaken the forward caste feudal grip over Bihar polity and to contain BJP but his covert agenda was to strike a power balance between elites of backward and forward caste groups and to contain the growing revolutionary left movement in Bihar. The intelligent representatives of the Indian ruling classes did understand this covert agenda and that is the sole reason why they backed him as a counter-weight in an otherwise explosive revolutionary situation in Bihar.

However, Laloo Yadav failed to retain his hold over the backward castes and the split in the shape of Samata provided an opportunity for BJP to project an alternative plank of forward-backward balance of power. On the other hand, the CPI(ML) refused to submit to the carrot-and-stick policy of Laloo and went ahead with the popular mobilisation of rural poor and dalit social strata. Laloo’s sway over them considerably eroded. Though this has been the bloodiest period in CPI(ML)’s history in Bihar where our Party faced the wrath of upper caste feudal mobilisation in Bhojpur, the combined forward-backward power groups’ killing-spree in Siwan and MCC-PU onslaught in parts of central and south Bihar, all aided and abetted by Laloo administration, still the Party stuck to its guns and never lost a chance to bring about popular mobilisation of the rural poor against Laloo’s regime. The Party organised the biggest ever mobilisation against the scam-tainted regime, which no other political party of the opposition could match.

After seven years of rule, Laloo ended up with the weakening of his own social base as well as his political manoeuvrability and, in the process, also marginalised his own left allies and destroyed the JMM which at least had played a buffer role in checking the growth of BJP. The BJP, on the other hand, considerably increased its clout and CPI(ML) too emerged as the mainstream Left. Laloo’s abject failure in pursuing his covert agenda to its logical conclusion has been the sole reason behind his becoming irrelevant in the gameplan of the ruling classes and in no way is his so-called crusade against the ruling classes — as claimed by himself and also hinted by the Left ideologue mentioned above — responsible for his being dumped by them.

Laloo has been a demagogue par excellence. As far as his attitude towards the Left is concerned, in one of his famous statements, he described the Left as an aberration and missed no chance in publicly humiliating his very own Left allies and the red flag. If the ‘Left’ still harboured all sorts of illusions about him and reposed all trust in him, it was essentially dictated by their flawed tactical understanding of relying on such forces to bring about the democratic revolution.

The new situation marked by CBI formalising the chargesheet against Laloo Yadav in the fodder scam brought about a new political realignment for which we had been working for years. A loose confederation of 15 left and democratic parties came up on our initiative demanding Laloo’s resignation. Though CPI and some others have been forced to join this configuration, they have a very limited vision of just Laloo’s removal and they hope to return to the old family with the expectations of a better bargain from the new political dispensation. Therefore, they are participating in the alliance half-heartedly, trying to block its consolidation by all possible means including secret and unscrupulous parallel moves with some of the constituents. The alliance therefore is very fragile and temporary in nature.

Still, its emergence has led to heightened expectations from the masses who are looking for a left-democratic alternative to Laloo’s regime. This was witnessed in their spontaneous and massive support to the 48-hour bandh call. Despite the fact that CPI officially withdrew from the second day of the bandh and the CPI(ML) had virtually to undertake the entire responsibility on its own, the bandh was a resounding success. Had the CPI shown the courage to accept the ground reality and acknowledge the fact that for all practical purposes CPI(ML) has emerged as the biggest left party in Bihar, a perception which majority of the partners in the front share, the alliance would have emerged as a strong contender to BJP in Bihar politics. Though the conditions have forced them to join hands with us they have not been able to reconcile with the reality. When news analysts wrote that CPI(ML) after seven years of consistent ideological struggles has emerged as the forerunner, CPI reacted vehemently.

Be that as it may, the whole course of the movement has established beyond doubt the moral authority as well as the ideological superiority of the CPI(ML). At the same time, CPI(ML)’s capability of independent mass mobilisation on a large scale, uniting diverse kinds of forces and taking up multifarious initiatives has drawn appreciation from many quarters.

The super-revolutionaries of MCC stand totally exposed as they have openly come out in support of Laloo Yadav. Party Unity has been thrown out of the living political process. Critical junctures in the political situation provide the best proof of the essentially non-political, anarchist character of such groups.

The situation in Bihar has definitely turned in our favour. Laloo’s era is drawing to a close and CPI(ML)’s political profile has extended to the entire length and breadth of Bihar. Middle classes too have started looking up towards us with hopes. But the road is still extremely tortuous.

BJP and CPI(ML) are engaged in a ‘snake and ladder’ game in terms of outsmarting each other and in retaining the initiative in the anti-Laloo movement. The BJP has obvious advantages, being a major national party and the darling of the ruling classes. Even their minor initiatives are widely covered in print and visual media, nationwide. On the other hand, even our major initiatives go unreported. They have a firm ally in Samata whereas our ally CPI is more interested in stabbing us in the back. Still we have always tried to match them point to point and the 48-hour bandh relegated them to the background. With Advani’s rath yatra entering Bihar, BJP is planning to regain the initiative and we have called upon the people to boycott the yatra. A new round of confrontation with BJP is inevitable with Laloo’s fall and the Party has to step up its role in countering this communal menace.

Movements to force Laloo to resign are almost a daily affair in Bihar. The Party is also trying its best to consolidate the 15-party alliance and provide a programmatic orientation to whatever extent possible. We aim at retaining this alliance as an oppositional bloc vis-a-vis the new dispensation that is in the offing. But this necessitates strengthening our independent initiative along with a consistent struggle against the official Left’s ‘to be or not to be’ dilemma. If the Left is to retain its initiative in the new situation then it has to take on both the fronts of pseudo-social justice and pseudo-nationalism.

[From Liberation, January 1998.]

The history of Bihar, for more than two decades, is replete with massacres. Massacres of rural poor of dalit castes by various landlord armies. In their desperate bid to suppress the ever growing rural poor uprising and to hold onto their caste-class privileges, the new classes of landlords and kulaks have frequently taken recourse to this terror tactics as a means to terrorise the whole mass of people. Yet the massacre at Laxmanpur-Bathe of Jehanabad on the night of 1 December is a case apart and it rightly shook the conscience of the nation in the 50th year of Indian independence.

In all 61 persons — two thirds of whom were children, women and old persons — were butchered to death in a cold-blooded operation at dead of night. All the victims belonged to the class of agrarian labourers and were dalits in the social hierarchy. In their struggle for socio-economic emancipation they had taken up the revolutionary banner of the CPI(ML).

The killers were men of the Ranvir Sena — an upper caste landlord army which enjoys the political backing of the BJP as well as support from a section of the RJD.

This time the target chosen was a village in Jehanabad that lies close to the districts of Bhojpur, Patna and Aurangabad. The essential purpose was to send the message across the whole of central Bihar. The time chosen was significant as the political crisis at the centre had matured and a caretaker government was in office. Thus, by effecting an upper caste mobilisation of both Bhumihars and Rajputs, it also symbolised the beginning of the political offensive by arch-reactionary forces. As reports suggest, this was the first of the trilogy of massacres before the elections. The other two are planned for the districts of Rohtas and Buxar.

The whole operation was meticulously planned. Professional killers were assembled from all neighbouring districts apart from Jehanabad. To create a record and grab the international news headlines, the number of persons to be killed was predetermined with the specific targeting of women and children. For a smooth operation, a soft target was selected where people were most unsuspecting, most unprepared and thus chances of resistance were zero.

A record was indeed created not only in terms of numbers but also in the measure of brutality and cowardice. Side by side, another record was created by the media, particularly in Bihar, which excelled in hypocrisy. From the very first day, Sangh Parivar propaganda machinery swung into action and the media began playing to its tune. A prominent journalist from Patna wrote in a national daily that it was the same old story of clash between Ranvir Sena and Naxalites, the only difference being that this time Naxalites were unarmed. How cleverly the cold-blooded massacre of women and children was rationalised as a routine kind of confrontation! The same journalist in subsequent write-ups tried to rationalise Ranvir Sena as an expression of peasant’s anguish against indiscriminate Naxalite violence. This attitude was common to the entire upper caste journalist fraternity barring a few exceptions. The long list of upper caste villages supposedly under the threat of Naxalite revenge were boldly displayed in newspapers and cock-and-bull stories of PWG squads entering into Jehanabad were dished out. The news analysis that began with Laxmanpur-Bathe invariably ended up with concern over general deterioration of law and order and demands for action against Naxalite extremists who dare to run parallel governments and even attack the police. The news of protests were underplayed whereas the fast by BJP leaders and Vajpayee’s visit were overplayed. All this was a well-orchestrated move to divert public attention from the Ranvir Sena, from its organic links with the BJP and to pressurise the state administration to divert its operations against the victims themselves.

It was the age-old story of pen against people with the only difference that this time the pen was directly attached to the bayonet! It goes without saying that the state machinery was too eager to oblige the ‘pen-killers’ and after a token operation against the Ranvir Sena — more on paper than on the field — the entire thrust has been diverted against people’s forces on the pretext of preventing any revenge.

Still the machinations of the whole range of mercenaries is not the last word in the rural poor’s march to liberty. The protest is growing fast and assuming larger dimensions.

On 5 December, the left and democratic alliance of 17 parties called for a Bihar Bandh. Incidentally the bandh was the first one after the Supreme Court’s infamous verdict imposing a blanket ban on all bandhs. The bandh was supported by a host of other democratic forces and it was an astounding success. The massacre was condemned by progressive public opinion all across the country and even abroad. Many prominent intellectuals joined the protest.

The massacre has generated immense class hatred among the rural poor, strengthened their determination to close their ranks, and led to the growing realisation that going over to offensive actions is the best way of defence. The Party’s rally in Arwal proved to be a grand success. Battle cries against Ranvir Sena rent the air. Thousands of young people were seething with anger and went back with the resolve to take the battle to the enemy’s own ground.

With the advent of the Ranvir Sena, the class war is no longer confined to this or that region of Central Bihar. It is engulfing the entire central Bihar. This has also created conditions for forging a broader class unity, a unity cemented by blood. The class war is also making irrelevant the false god of social justice, Laloo Yadav, who in his earlier incarnation had encouraged the growth of Ranvir Sena as a Machiavellian plot to wipe out our Party. In fact, it has turned into a Frankenstein for him and is threatening his own social base in the changed political environment of BJP’s growing political offensive. This has indeed created a favourable condition to effect a new social equation on our Party’s own initiative. The Party has intensified its offensive in various forms and in Bhojpur in particular certain actions, prior to and after the Party Congress, have helped unleash the initiative at the grassroots.

The challenge of Ranvir Sena, the perpetrators of ‘national shame’, has to be met. In the concrete context of Bihar, the interests of the revolutionary peasant movement as well as the national responsibility of halting the onslaught of the saffron army has merged into one and the same task — wiping out Ranvir Sena.

The rural proletariat has been shedding blood for its socio-economic emancipation and political liberty. It is our duty to organise people to avenge the death of their class brethren and for that we shall have to undertake the widest exposure campaign, particularly in view of media hostility; do away with all sectarian attitudes, unite all positive social sections and political forces and raise our preparations to a higher level to deal a crushing blow to this army of butchers, of cowards.

This battle can surely be won and must be won. This is the call of human progress, democracy and true nationalism. This is the call of the modern times.

    Evaluation of the Past
    How Did Our Party Evolve?
    CPI(ML) - The Firm Defender of the Revolutionary Legacy of Indian Communists

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Third Party Congress, December 1982.]

The question which has raised the fiercest of debates is the question of "annihilation" as formulated by Comrade Charu Mazumdar. It is argued that there is no Marxism in this, and that it is simply vulgar individual terrorism, which has only brought about losses. It is also said that armed struggle and mass struggle must be combined and that, therefore, the ‘annihilation line’ must be condemned.

Let us first deal with the question of combining armed struggle and mass struggle. The general repetition of this phrase as a panacea has no relevance for Marxists engaged in practical work. It remains a historical fact that all mass movements acquire newer forms in the course of their advance — constantly discarding the old and creating the new — and transformations as well as new alignments of new and old forms are thus observed. Our duty as communists is to take an active part in this process so as to develop suitable forms of struggle. As Lenin says, while not denying even a bit the necessity of force and terror on principle, we shall have to develop such forms of struggle in which direct participation of the masses has been assumed and this participation has been ensured.

Coming out of the bounds of neo-revisionism after the heroic Naxalbari struggle, and after engaging in some two years of revolutionary practice to build mass movements, communist revolutionaries of India faced such a situation and longed for a new form of struggle. It was in this context that, in the heat of the Srikakulam struggle, ‘annihilation’ based on mass support was formulated. This sought to combine the beginnings of armed struggle with the step-by-step mobilisation of the masses in struggles. And it was this basic orientation in Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s line, that of combining armed actions with mass struggles — with one aspect predominating at one time — which runs through his entire political line from the pre-Naxalbari days to the end of his life. Evaluating the successes and failures of his efforts is one thing, and very important too, for any real advance. But calling him a ‘terrorist’ is the height of absurdity and nonsense, and betrays a servile attitude. In the overall perspective of mass support this particular form of struggle, which was to be combined with mass movements, actually aimed at an areawise seizure of power. This struggle led to the formation of many peasant squads in different parts of India and also to a mass upsurge. This upsurge was sought to be organised through revolutionary committees by taking up certain programmes of agrarian reform while these squads were to be organised as units of the People’s Liberation Army by conducting guerrilla actions against police and paramilitary as well as military forces, thus heading towards red power. This, in brief, was the entire process and outcome of the ‘annihilation line’. Its achievements were many, and the existence of Bhojpur till this day bears testimony to this aspect. However, it had its negative side too, and with the passage of time this side became the principal one. In many areas annihilation was conducted as a campaign, with a lot of indiscriminate and unnecessary killings, and it got isolated from peasants’ class struggle so that no resistance could be built up against police repression, and our struggling areas were smashed. Overenthusiastic supporters of ‘annihilation’ — from Ashim to Dipak and finally Mahadev — raised these mistakes to the zenith and step-by-step formulated a left-opportunist line which did tremendous harm to the people and the revolution.

The period then was characterised as that of immediate and general revolutionary situation throughout the world and a general revolutionary offensive was planned. Such an overestimation of the revolutionary situation led to impetuosity and the state of subjective forces was not taken into account, thus exacerbating the mistakes. It is true that the revolutionary situation was favourable to us with the ruling classes engulfed in deep economic and political crises, and wherever possible the proletariat had to rouse the peasantry to armed struggle and make attempts to seize political power. However, the uneven development of Indian revolution was not seriously taken into account. Therefore, in spite of the general programme and basic tactical line being basically correct, due to the overestimation of the revolutionary situation and not taking note of the uneven development of the Indian revolution, the form of struggle and course of advancement suitable for some areas came to be generalised for every corner of the country, and as a campaign at that. These were certainly serious left deviations. And the objective law of development punished us too: mass upsurge got restricted to a few pockets and continued merely in a single area.

In this context, the declaration in our first Party Congress — "Class struggle, i. e., annihilation will solve all our problems" was definitely wrong. However, in certain pockets annihilation combined with mass upsurges, initial attempts at organising this upsurge through revolutionary committees with slogans of agrarian reform, and attempts to build red army out of guerrilla squads, remain glorious examples in the treasure-store of revolutionary experiences. And it was on this basis that the Bhojpur peasant struggle, initiated by the not-too-conscious communist revolutionaries and then organised by the Party leadership, emerged and was maintained during the hardest of times at the cost of the maximum of sacrifices — a struggle that is now developing in broader areas and in more diversified forms. And it is because of this glorious tradition that Charu Mazumdar remains alive in the hearts of millions of oppressed people of India, that his line is taken to symbolise the only revolutionary line in India. By contrast, many academic Marxists and opportunist leaders kept chanting on ‘combination of armed struggle and mass struggle’ but never succeeded in reaching the broad masses or in developing a single mass struggle of any importance — not to speak of armed struggle and the so-called ‘combination’. The pedantic attitude, displayed by some of the self-proclaimed Marxists, of doing everything and combining everything on earth, is not a solution but a travesty of solution — a purely academic exercise devoid of any concrete experience. The revolutionary line could acquire full shape only in a process and the Party while beginning with rejecting the old forms of struggle, could have brought about a new realignment of new and old forms only through a process.

As for the working class movement, Comrade Charu Mazumdar correctly pointed out the need of developing new forms of struggle without rejecting the old ones and developing political struggles while not rejecting the trade union struggles.

As regards the student and youth movement, he for the first time in the Indian communist movement put forth the question of integrating them with workers and peasants and for that it was necessary to bring them out of campus struggles. Students and youth most energetically responded to his call and he supported their movement against old values, old education and old culture. Moreover, while differentiating their movement from the Red Guard movement of the contemporary Chinese youth and from the ‘New Left’ of France, he showed its limitations, and asked them to integrate with its base — the peasant struggles. At the same time, he asked the intellectuals to make deeper studies of the 19th and early 20th century history of India — a task which has been taken up and carried forward by many progressive and revolutionary intellectuals.

Blaming the CPC analysis in those times for our mistakes or adopting a pedantic attitude of so-called ‘combination’ with the hope of avoiding all mistakes — both of these betray a sick mode of thinking. Any revolutionary upsurge is bound to give rise to right and left deviations: "right in not being able to break from the past" and "left in not being able to reckon with the present." Only we are responsible for our mistakes, and mistakes are unavoidable in any revolutionary upsurge. And, it is only on the basis of such mistakes that communists can learn and leaders as well as cadres are trained. There is no other way out.

The military form of annihilation battle, the military line, was meant to serve the political line and the entire revolutionary process was aimed at developing a revolutionary mass line. Propaganda of political power among the peasants: "peasants should be mobilised for liberating their own villages and be told that not landlords but you will become the sole authority in settling the matters of the village, the land will be yours, tanks will be yours, and, after the annihilation of landlords, the police will not be able to trace who tills whose land, and so on" — taking up their psychology and explaining in most popular forms to rouse them, was an important contribution of Comrade Charu Mazumdar. Such propaganda was just the opposite of revisionist propaganda. Comrade Charu Mazumdar formulated ‘annihilation’ not on the basis of negating the role of masses as cowards and regarding a few vanguards as "individual heroes", but rather on the basis of immense confidence on the tremendous creative energy latent in the masses. It is this spirit which permeates his articles all through, and hence the entire Party based itself on complete faith on the masses. Not a bit of this confidence is to be found in his opponents who out of distrust of the masses advocate fronts with this or that bourgeois party.

Bringing the landless and poor peasants to the front line of the country’s political life — a fact acknowledged by all bourgeois and revisionist politicians and economists when they say that Naxalism grew on the discontent of the rural poor — and putting agrarian revolution on the immediate agenda by piercing through the land reform measures of the Congress government, raising the level of thinking of communist revolutionaries and the Indian proletariat from tidbits of revisionist politics to the dream of liberation of the country, and joining hands with the international proletariat and oppressed masses, recruiting thousands and thousands of young people to the communist movement of India and creating the phenomenon of Naxalism which was born in Naxalbari but acquired a concrete and developed shape only afterwards (this is something which Kanu Sanyal does not understand and hence fails to find out the basic reason of his failure) as a nationwide political trend in India which continues to rise even from the ashes and even without Comrade Charu Mazumdar himself, and above all, building the CPI(ML), the revolutionary Party of the Indian proletariat — such are his major contributions and also the main content of his revolutionary line.

However, owing to over-estimation of the revolutionary situation, inadequate grasp of the objective Indian conditions, generalisation of the annihilation struggle, the splits and disorganisation of the Party, the ruling classes’ temporary stability following the Bangladesh incident and the Indo-Soviet military pact, we suffered very serious setbacks in the face of the enemy’s repression.

Comrade Charu Mazumdar realised that annihilation had been taken too far and that, in most cases, it could not be properly combined with mass struggles. So he assessed the situation of setbacks and disorganisation of the Party and called for building a politically united Party and a united front of labouring people, particularly those belonging to the left parties, against the Congress regime. He called for a united front based on united struggles in general — and not necessarily armed struggle as such — and emphasised taking up land reform measures in selected areas. This was clearly a policy of retreat under new conditions. But a planned and orderly retreat could not be organised. Firstly, because the retreat was still supposed to be a very temporary phenomenon so that the tactics were based on the hope of a resurgence of mass struggles very soon. And secondly, because the policy and methods of retreat were not clearly formulated in terms of various forms of struggle and organisation.

With setbacks in struggle, splits in the Party, and gaps in reorganising the Party Central Committee, the rank and file loyal to Comrade Charu Mazumdar handed over all authority to him for the temporary period of reorganising the Central Committee. This phenomenon was given a general character by some careerists around him, who harped on the concept of ‘individual authority’ to further their own interests, created hurdles in the work of reorganising the Central Committee, and ultimately betrayed the Party and Comrade Charu Mazumdar.

To sum up, the Party’s main mistakes were: it generalised the ‘annihilation’ form of struggle for the whole of India and took this up as a campaign, it failed to chalk out a consistent and thorough-going policy for combining this form of struggle with mass struggles in spite of an overall orientation and successes at certain points. And, even with the appearance of serious signs of setback, it did not succeed in arranging a planned and orderly retreat from military offensive to political offensive. These mistakes resulted from overestimating the revolutionary situation prevailing in India in the sense of understanding the situation as more or less of permanent upsurges, inadequate grasp of the concrete Indian situation, the wrong methodology of generalising particularities from subjective wishes, the infancy of the Party and the impetuosity on the part of the leadership as a reaction to revisionist betrayal.

With the martyrdom of Comrade Charu Mazumdar, things took a complex turn, and only after 5 years, i.e., in the year 1977, was it possible to really begin the process of seriously rectifying the mistakes.

After Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s martyrdom, Sharma and Mahadev floated a central committee of the Party on 5-6 December, 1972. With the Lin Piao episode, they parted ways in early 1973, and each in the name of his central committee indulged in unprincipled condemnation or eulogisation of Comrade Charu Mazumdar to further their own factional interests. Mahadev in particular resorted to all sorts of absurdities and, in the name of ‘safeguarding the purity of every word of Charu Mazumdar’ put the Party against the CPC and intensified actions divorced from peasant struggles. In this way he caused great damage to revolutionary forces, particularly in West Bengal, and finally destroyed himself.

At this moment of crisis, comrades of Bihar State Committee and the newly-organised State Leading Team of West Bengal shared their experiences of fight against the Mahadev-Sharma clique. They also exchanged the experiences of new upsurge in Bihar and of reorganisation in West Bengal after serious setbacks. Meanwhile, comrades of Delhi also joined in this process. Then under the leadership of Comrade Jauhar, the Central Committee was reorganised on July 28,1974. At that time peasant struggles were going on in Bihar, particularly in Bhojpur and Patna areas, and efforts for reorganising peasant struggles were on in West Bengal. To guide and lead these struggles and to overcome the setback, the urgent necessity of a centre was felt. With the distortions of Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s line by Mahadev, Sharma and Co., the need to defend the revolutionary essence of his line became the supreme task. The new Central Committee’s proclaimed aims were: a) defending the revolutionary essence of Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s line; b) uniting the Party politically on this basis; and c) unifying the communist revolutionaries of India.

At that time the area of work under this Central Committee was confined to Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi and a minor part of UP. After some time, many comrades of Assam joined it, too. In those days, comrades in Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were also working among the peasantry, conducting some militant struggles and fighting against trends resembling to those of the Sharma and Mahadev cliques. These comrades were organised in Party committees at various levels. Comrades from Tamil Nadu, in particular, were united under the State Party committee. But the reorganised Party centre could not establish contacts with them which prolonged the process of reorganisation with a revolutionary orientation. In all parts of the country revolutionary movements were being crushed and many of the comrades were either killed or arrested. After some time the central committees of both Sharma and Mahadev also disintegrated and collapsed. In these conditions, formation of the Central Committee was the only way open to us for uniting the Party forces with a revolutionary orientation and for carrying on efforts of building up peasant struggles.

With the formation of the Central Committee, peasant struggle in Bihar got a new fillip. Some armed actions and peasant struggles were also organised in Ghazipur and Ballia districts of UP and in Naxalbari of West Bengal. Comrade Jauhar always held supreme the interests of the Party and the collective leadership of the Central Committee. He personally guided the Bhojpur peasant struggle, put forward the task of building outstanding organisers and commanders who would organise and lead into military actions the forces that were coming to the forefront of the fiercest class struggle, and emphasised the need of launching attacks on mobile enemy forces by army squads so as to break encirclement operations of the enemy and raise the people’s morale. He termed these areas of struggle as the basis of an anti-Congress united front.

However, the Central Committee in general and Comrade Jauhar in particular had much of metaphysics. Guided by a formal and subjective approach, they indulged in the wrong practice of not taking the overall situation into account and of generalising the particular. So Comrade Jauhar in his philosophical article "One divides into two but two do not combine into one" mechanically interpreted a ‘correct line’ as having only the basic and the developing aspects. This further blocked the way for any rectification of our mistakes on a theoretical level. Again, he formulated attacks on mobile enemy forces as the beginning of mobile warfare and generalised it for all places — this was a mechanical upgradation of annihilation which gave rise to a wrong military line. It is true that at many places the people were organised under the leadership of revolutionary committees in heroic resistance struggles against the attacks of police and landlords were also developed. Yet no thoroughgoing and consistent policy for developing mass movements could be formulated. And the negative effects of these wrong ideas started manifesting themselves in the shape of serious losses in different areas and petering out of mass initiative on a broad scale. In November 1975, Comrade Jauhar was martyred in the battlefield of Bhojpur. There are certain unscrupulous fellows, who in their attempt to destroy our Party, eulogise Comrade Jauhar as the leader of Bhojpur to deny his most important role of reorganising the Party and restoring collective leadership and democratic centralism in the Party, but for which the Bhojpur struggle could not have existed. In this way they only insult the great revolutionary leader just for their factional interests.

The Second Congress of the Party, held in February 1976, played an important role in uniting the revolutionary forces to encounter severe enemy onslaughts. But it only confirmed the existing political line and so, during the whole of 1976 we just maintained the Party organisation and the struggle in the hardest of times. Over this entire period of 1974-76, our main drawbacks consisted, firstly, in our failure to link up with the anti-Congress upsurge of students, youth, and all sections of people of Bihar (the leadership of this upsurge was later captured by JP and it degenerated into impotency) and secondly, in our failure, when the movement collapsed with the arrest of leaders and repression on the masses, to provide a new guideline to organise the remnant forces. Although we maintained the political line of building an anti-Congress united front and upheld our areas as models of the same, we could not link this with the actual anti-Congress mass upsurge. This so happened because we had a mechanical conception of the development of united front on the basis of what Comrade Charu Mazumdar had said and we refused to analyse the concrete way in which things were actually developing beyond that mechanical framework. This lesson had an important bearing on our future course.

With the inception of the year 1977, many significant changes appeared in the international and national situations as well as in our movement. Contacts were re-established with comrades of Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Kerala, thereby providing an all-India shape to our Party. During the Emergency, all fronts had been more or less quiet barring the struggles led by us bravely facing the hardest of times. So Bhojpur hit the headlines as soon as censorship of the Press was removed. By 1976, the dialectics of practice had clashed violently with the metaphysics in theory and, given the required conditions, the Party was poised for a major change. It all began with ‘rectifying the wrong ideas in the Party’ concerning armd units only; but, linked with major national and international changes and a resurgence of peasant struggles, it gradually developed into a full-fledged rectification campaign throughout the Party.

This, in brief, is how we look at the past — how we evaluate our basic achievements and major faults. There are many other minor aspects which either had been dealt with in the ’79 Party Conference, or have no relevance for the present. Our analysis points out how different approaches in evaluating the past had led to the emergence of different liquidationist and anarchist trends in our movement and also how we are now combining our lessons of the past with the needs of the present in advancing the revolutionary cause.

[Excerpts from the popular outline of Party history was published in three parts in May, June and July 1993 issues of Liberation.]

Amidst the Great Debate in the international communist movement in the early ’60s, the first division occurred in the CPI in 1964 and the CPI(M) was born. Popularly the CPI was known to be pro-Russian and CPI(M) as pro-China. The CPI was characterised by its line of national democracy which meant that anti-imperialist anti-monopoly sections of the the Indian bourgeoisie — the national bourgeoisie represented by the Nehru-led Congress — shall take the lead in India’s democratic transformation and the Communist Party’s task is to back it against the monopoly sections of the Indian bourgeoisie and, at best, to play the role of a pressure group against the vacillation of the national bourgeoisie. The CPI(M), on the other hand, was characterised by its line of people’s democracy which rejected any alliance with the Nehru Congress, putting stress on building popular mass movements, and peasant struggles in particular.

Regarding the path of revolution, the CPI advocated gaining a majority in Parliament as the only viable option, the CPI(M) accepted only a limited role for parliamentary democracy where communists may assume governmental power at most in certain states. And such power, the CPI(M) argued, should be utilised to make people conscious of the limitations of the bourgeois state system and thus to sharpen the class struggle. Hence the slogan "Left government is the weapon of class struggle."

Revolutionary communists were naturally all part of the CPI(M) when the division came in 1964. Since its inception, however, the CPI(M) leadership started exhibiting vacillations on each of these questions and therefore an inner-Party struggle ensued right from the beginning. The well known Eight Writings of Comrade Charu Mazumdar best epitomise this struggle from 1965 to 1967. With the formation of the first United Front government in West Bengal, revolutionary aspirations of the rank and file rose everywhere and land struggles broke out in different parts of West Bengal. In Naxalbari area in particular, this struggle rose to higher levels and confronted the state machinery. Under threats from the central government, the CPI(M)-dominated government resorted to bloody suppression of the movement in order to save the government. This sparked off protests throughout the Party. While several state committees like those of U.P., Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir walked out of the Party, many others like AP, Bihar and West Bengal suffered major splits at all levels.

Communist revolutionary forces first organised themselves in the All-India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) which later evolved into the CPI(ML). The CPI(M) suffered yet another split in the early ’80s when followers of the erstwhile general secretary, P. Sundaraiya, disassociated themselves from the Party to form the MCPI. The CPI(M) continues to face minor splits and every time the question revolves around the 1964 programme. In its first phase, the CPI(ML) began with the rejection of all bourgeois institutions and gave a call to wage armed struggle for building base areas on the classical pattern of Chinese revolution. The Indian communist movement had long been debating the relevance of the Russian path vs. the Chinese path, and this time it was decided to clinch the issue once and for all without stopping midway as in the wake of the Telangana struggle.

The CPI(ML)-led armed struggle in the late ’60s and early ’70s will be remembered in the history of the Indian communist movement as the most serious attempt so far to organise armed revolution in India. This saga of valour where thousands and thousands of Party leaders and cadres, including the topmost leadership sacrificed their lives at the altar of the Indian revolution forms an important heritage of Indian communist movement that must be cherished for the sake of future attempts. The armed struggle however suffered serious setbacks and the Party too got spilt into umpteen factions. All attempts to revive the movement along the old lines and also to unify the Party proved futile. Several factions got submerged into the mire of opportunism and degeneration while a few evolved into full-fledged anarchist groups, People’s War being the foremost among them. It was only our faction which kept aflame the torch of Naxalbari in Bhojpur of Bihar in the most difficult periods and when virtually all other groups got disintegrated, it reorganised itself step by step and after a painstaking struggle for over a decade revived the Party and the movement once again on a national scale.

Our Party, basing itself on Marxist dialectics, had learnt that a movement is never revived on the basis of old slogans. The Party also made a deep study of the new phase the movement had entered and took particular note of the fact of its reemergence in Bihar, a Hindi-speaking area. In the course of reorganisation, the Party developed and adopted a set of flexible policies and tactics, made gradual and cautious adjustments with bourgeois institutions and initiated several new and bold experiments. To get rid of serious anarchist tendencies, the Party emphasised its roots in the Indian communist movement and decided to carry forward the struggle between two tactical lines within the mainstream left and communist movement in a new form.

To develop effective resistance against the opportunist tactical line, it has also displayed the flexibility of appropriating within the revolutionary framework certain popular slogans of the mainstream Left. Our Party has done it successfully while upholding its principles, preserving its independence and maintaining its unity. This has facilitated a greater interaction with other parties of the Left and forging closer ties with them. In the process, left ranks, disgusted with their opportunist leadership, have been increasingly coming under our fold.

With the Calcutta Congress, our Party has reached a new stage and a much greater role is demanded from it in the field of Marxist theory as well as in terms of unification of the Indian left and communist movement and most importantly in consolidating the left core within nationwide democratic struggles.

Review of CPI(M) and CPI(ML) Positions on Major Questions

International Communist Movement: The CPI(M) which had started with a pro-China identity, soon developed the theory of equi-distance from both Soviet Union and China. Though no socialist camp existed after the Sino-Soviet split, it continued to uphold the socialist camp led by Soviet Union. The Party did oppose Khruschev revisionism but it refused to accept Mao’s theory regarding dangers of capitalist restoration in socialist countries through a process of peaceful evolution. The CPI(M) went on supporting the superpower status of Soviet Union and its social imperialist attacks like invasion of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. This "export of revolution" was justified by CPI(M) leaders as proletarian internationalism and they moved quite close to the Brezhnev regime, considered by far the most corrupt regime in the history of the Soviet Union.

It rejected all criticism of the Soviet Union as imperialist propaganda and harped constantly on the theory of CIA machinations and other external threats to Soviet socialism. Having rejected on the theoretical plane Mao’s brilliant analysis of peaceful evolution towards capitalism from within the socialist society, the Party perhaps had little other option. But all its theoretical jugglery stood exposed in the face of the collapse of socialism in Soviet Union. And it was not merely a collapse of socialism, the whole Soviet empire collapsed like a house of cards in face of the nationalist upsurge in the East European countries.

The collapse of Soviet Union has also brought about the collapse of the CPI(M)’s excellently balanced theory of equi-distance and the party has now moved closer to China. And in relation to China it is again repeating the same ‘proletarian solidarity’ where an incident like the Tiananmen tragedy is described and understood as resulting from external causes and CIA machinations.

Though the CPI(M) leaders now sometimes talk of certain internal causes behind the Soviet collapse, they have singularly failed to grasp the dynamics of capitalist restoration. At the level of practical politics, they have not been able to grasp the crucial link between hegemonic acts of the Soviet superpower and its eventual disintegration along nationalist-ethnic lines.

In the Great Debate, our Party firmly supported Mao’s positions against Khruschev’s revisionism and in true internationalist spirit it supported a socialist China. Our support to China may have suffered from over-enthusiasm but it had nothing to do with any sort of export or import of revolution, for Mao always sharply criticised the Soviet Union on this very question. Similarity, our criticism of the Soviet Union and its social-imperialist acts may have suffered from excesses in describing the whole system as social-imperialism and in holding the Soviet superpower as the more dangerous between the two superpowers. However, our criticism of Soviet Union on the question of capitalist restoration as well as our opposition to its hegemonic activities has been vindicated by subsequent history.

China, today, is not engaged in any debate over Marxist fundamentals, nor is it facing any imperialist encirclement. The Indian ruling classes too are no longer hostile to China. It is engaged in new experiments of building socialism which need to be studied carefully and critically. Moreover, after the demise of Soviet Union the question of socialist democracy has assumed much greater importance and a socialist system today must excel over bourgeois democracy. For all these reasons, we believe in judging China independently as one of the socialist countries making experiments with socialist economy suited to Chinese conditions. While broadly supporting Chinese socialism, we do reserve the right to criticise one or the other of its specific policies, particularly on the question of socialist democracy. We have definitely and correctly moved somewhat away from China. We believe however that this may set a new pattern of fraternal relations among Communist parties, more frank and more open.

In the new world situation, the general line of international communist movement (ICM) can only be that of extending support to socialist countries and the working class movements in developed capitalist countries, opposition to imperialism in general and US imperialism in particular, and upholding the decisive role of the liberation struggles of Third World countries. The course of events has compelled communists throughout the world to veer more or less around such a general line of ICM.

Two Tactics of People’s Democracy in India

In the early ’60s a great debate raged in the Indian communist movement regarding the programme of the Indian revolution popularly known as the struggle between NDR (National Democratic Revolution) and PDR (People’s Democratic Revolution). The line of national democratic revolution was influenced externally by the Khruschev thesis of non-capitalist path of development and internally by Nehru’s espousal of mixed economy. This line, which relied on the national bourgeoisie’s (i.e. Nehru-led Congress’) anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly, anti-feudal role and hoped for India’s eventual transition to socialism with the help of passive Soviet aid to the Indian public sector, was officially adopted by the CPI and it turned the Party into an appendage of the Congress. In contrast to this the line of PDR insisted on taking the Congress as the main enemy, considered Nehru’s mixed economy to be nothing but a euphemism for capitalism and emphasised that strong feudal remnants still remained the main obstacle to India’s development. The CPI(M) leadership opted for PDR but its positions were vague from the very beginning. For example, it said that with the attainment of India’s freedom one stage of democratic revolution was over. This can only mean that the anti-imperialist aspect of democratic revolution is basically completed whereas the anti-feudal aspect still remains. It was this formulation that led to the party’s branding of India’s foreign policy as progressive with internal policies remaining reactionary. The party, therefore, supported India’s foreign policies for a long time, more so as these policies coincided with the Soviet foreign policy perceptions. It was only when the myth cherished by the party about the Soviet Union taking on the might of America collapsed like a house of cards that its illusions about India’s anti-imperialist policy too received a cruel setback. Since the ’80s, India has been increasingly taking openly pro-imperialist positions in foreign policy. While the CPI(M) finds itself hard-pressed to explain this transformation, these overt changes in India’s foreign policy have firmly established the CPI(ML) position that anti-imperialism continues to remain the foremost task of India’s democratic revolution.

The revolutionary section in CPI refused to get carried away by the nationalist hysteria against China in 1962 and even in 1965 during the Indo-Pakistan war, left communists condemned the ruling classes. However, since the 1971 Bangladesh war the CPI(M) has turned an ardent supporter of the lndian ruling classes’ approach towards neighbouring countries, particularly towards Pakistan. It refuses to recognise that being the biggest country in the South Asian region, India does cherish regional hegemonic ambitions. Supporting the chauvinism of one’s ruling classes has always been the most characteristic feature of revisionism everywhere. A firm and consistent opposition to the regional hegemonism of the Indian ruling classes must therefore be an integral item on the agenda of India’s democratic revolution and it goes without saying that a party pursuing national chauvinistic policy can never lead the democratic revolution.

The CPI(ML) has all along opposed all manifestations of Indian domination over its smaller neighbouring countries and we consider this as the litmus test of proletarian internationalism, a test much more crucial than supporting Cuba, South Africa or Palestine.

The CPI(M)’s formulation about the Indian bourgeoisie was that it is increasingly compromising with imperialism. Implicit here was the assumption that the Indian bourgeoisie is essentially an independent bourgeoisie with only traits of vacillation and compromise. Like the CPI it also harboured the illusion of the public sector playing the role of a countervailing force to the private sector controlled by the big bourgeoisie and started supporting nationalisation measures, like bank nationalisation resorted to by Indira Gandhi, as something of a struggle against the big bourgeoisie.

These positions led to political cooperation with the Congress at several critical junctures, like siding with Indira Congress against the Syndicate, supporting the Congress candidate in the last presidential election, and the recent advocacy of an anti-BJP secular front with the Congress(I). With the new economic policy of the Indian government pursued at the behest of the World Bank and IMF, questions were raised once again within the CPI(M) about the essential character of the Indian bourgeoisie. In its last congress, a proposal even came to designate the Indian bourgeoisie as comprador, which was rejected by the leadership.

The party’s whole opportunism revolves around the formulation of "utilising the contradictions within and among the ruling classes to change the social balance of forces". The scope of this utilisation was highly exaggerated, so much so that it became the party’s main focus. This has led to the party’s submergence deep into the quagmire of bourgeois politics and political intrigues, and its important party leaders remain busy negotiating with and mediating between the upper layer of bourgeois politicians.

In the realm of tactics, the CPI(M) paid the greatest of attention to developing alliances with regional and centrist opposition parties like DMK, Telugu Desam, Janata Dal, Akali Dal etc. At the altar of such alliances, it sacrificed the struggles of poor peasants against the kulak classes who form the main social basis of such parties. Nowhere, therefore, is the party to be found in the forefront of either anti-feudal struggles or the newly developing class struggles in the countryside. The very basis of the people’s democratic revolution has thus been thoroughly undermined. The whole thrust of the party’s democratic programme has just been reduced to general democratic phrases like federalism, more power to the states, decentralisation of power to panchayats and so on and so forth.

The CPI(ML), on the other hand, redefined people’s democracy on the basis of Mao’s guideline of New Democracy. It characterised India as a semi-colony, meaning thereby that although imperialism does not directly control the state power in India, it still has enough clout to influence and direct the policies of the Indian state. And it does this through the Indian bourgeoisie which is basically dependent in nature. All its relative independence – its bargaining capacity between different imperialist powers — is subject to this overall framework of dependence. It has therefore been the firm belief of the CPI(ML) since its inception that the Indian bourgeoisie is no longer capable of bringing about any substantial democratic transformation and the proletariat should take the leadership in its own hand. Ours has been a constant endeavour to expose the hypocrisy of the Indian rulers, both in their external relations as well as internal policies. This has enabled our Party to maintain the strict line of demarcation with the Indian ruling classes and to emerge as the champion of consistent democracy.

The CPI(ML) has all along put utmost emphasis on anti-feudal struggles in the countryside, as well as on the class struggle of agrarian labour and poor peasants against kulaks in the post-green revolution phase.

The CPI(ML) has taken up all issues of democracy from civil rights to federalism and has sought to build the broadest possible democratic alliance. But while so doing, it has always laid stress on maintaining its class independence and political initiative.

In our current polemics with the CPI(M), our sharp criticism is against tailism and our consistent emphasis is on independent left assertion and on left unity based on class actions of workers and peasants — these are not questions of abstract principles or just some tactical measures. These are the essential ingredients of our preparation for People’s Democratic Revolution and unless one grasps this, one can never grasp the struggle between the two tactics of people’s democracy in India.

Parliamentary Cretinism Vs. Parliamentary Struggles

The debate among Marxists and revisionists over the peaceful transfer of power through obtaining a majority in bourgeois parliament is quite old. This debate was supposed to have been settled long back, after Lenin effectively demolished the arguments of Bernstien and Mensheviks. Moreover, in real life too, whereas revisionists in Western Europe degenerated into social-democrats and turned into appendages of the bourgeois political system, the communists in Russia and China led successful revolutions. The question was, however, revived once again in the early ’60s by Khruschev under the pretext of the ‘new situation’ characterised by a radical change in balance of forces with the emergence of a mighty socialist camp. It was argued that socialism, thus, was quite capable of defeating imperialism in a peaceful competition and therefore new opportunities had also opened up before communists to strive for a peaceful transition of power through parliamentary means. The threat of a nuclear war was also invoked to justify the ‘peaceful competition’ and the ‘peaceful transition’.

In India, the CPI was found to be a readymade taker of this line of thought and it officially adopted what is called the parliamentary path where sole emphasis is placed on winning more and more number of seats in parliament and eventually to gain a majority and thus power. Parliamentary majority remains as elusive to CPI as ever. Meanwhile the very citadel of ‘peaceful competition’ has crumbled and CPI has virtually been reduced to a social-democratic party.

Marxist-Leninists the world over rejected the parliamentary path propounded by Khruschev and in India this had been a major factor behind CPI(M)’s split from CPI. CPI(M) advocated combination of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. It rejected the possibility of gaining power through a parliamentary majority. Gaining power in certain states through elections was considered a plausible option. The condition was that the party must go into the government only where it was the leading force or at least capable of influencing the course of the government. The governmental power here was distinguished from the state-power and the specific task of the party was to explain to people about the limitations of the governmental power within the bourgeois state system. It was presumed that this will enable the party to raise the political consciousness of the masses and prepare them for an onslaught against the bourgeois state. It was precisely in this sense that a left government will serve as the weapon of class struggle.

Experiences of the communist government in Kerala in 1957 had shown that the central power would not allow such a government to function and this would further provide an opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of the parliamentary system and, thus to clear the ground for people’s democratic revolution.

This was how the party ranks conceived the division between CPI and CPI(M) as regards parliamentary struggles.

The CPI(M), riding on the crest of a powerful mass movement, and amidst revolutionary rhetoric did come to power in West Bengal in 1967. The coalition proved short-lived. The success in 1969 too could not last long and the state was put under a reign of white terror till 1977. The present Left Front government came into power in 1977 due to a peculiar turn of events in national politics, when ironically mass movements in the state were subdued and the CPI(M)’s party organisation was in an immobile state. Since then in the last 16 years or so the ruling Cong(I) at the Centre has stuck to the rules of the parliamentary game and there has hardly been an occasion when any serious attempt has been made by the central power to overthrow the Left Front government. Slogans such as ‘Left Front government is the weapon of class struggle’ and the rhetoric of confrontation with the Centre have been silently dropped from the party’s vocabulary. Instead of exposing the hypocrisy of the bourgeois parliament, the emphasis has now shifted to extolling the virtues of ‘people’s representative institutions’ and highlighting the unique model of retaining power for such a long spell within the bourgeois state system. The way the party is flirting with various bourgeois formations to increase the number of seats in assemblies and parliament, and even contemplating the share of power in central government through the NF-LF combination, clearly shows that the party is well entrenched in the parliamentary path.

Revolutionary communists at Naxalbari raised the banner of revolt with the first signs of CPI(M)’s parliamentary cretinism becoming apparent, and subsequently CPI(ML) was organised which rejected the parliamentary path. Within the CPI(ML), however, the debate over rejecting parliamentary struggles altogether had never stopped. Incidentally, this has also been a major contentious issue among Marxist-Leninists all through the communist movement in the international arena. The CPI(ML) has always rejected the parliamentary path, i.e. seizure of power through obtaining majority in the bourgeois parliament. But on the utilisation of parliamentary struggles it has evolved, in due course, a comprehensive and flexible approach. The CPI(ML) bases itself on the Marxist-Leninist premise of combining parliamentary struggle with extra-parliamentary struggle, where the latter plays the primary role. At the same time, as Marxist-Leninist tactics, the Party neither rules out boycott of elections in the situation of revolutionary upsurge nor negates the possibility of according elections a very special role in times of retreat. More so, when Indian objective conditions do provide the possibility of forming communist-led governments in this or that state, it is imperative for the Party to explore this opportunity and provide an alternative model of a left government that shall really function as a weapon of class struggle.

In the debate on Russian Vs. Chinese path, the Party opted for the Chinese path, which meant that the red political power should be estabilished in the countryside and through building a powerful red army to encircle and eventually liberate the cities. As the Party embarked upon this course, it was obvious that participation in elections was out of the question for the entire stage of revolution and thus election boycott was given a strategic connotation.

After more than a decade of experiments with the Chinese path, the Party summed up its experiences and came to the conclusion that it was wrong to blindly copy the classical Chinese model in Indian conditions. The point is to integrate Marxism-Leninism and Mao’s thought to concrete Indian conditions. As there was no parliament in China there was no question of parliamentary struggles there. Indian conditions are different and therefore while it was correct to boycott elections in the earlier phase of advance and in the particular context of charting out a new revolutionary course, Indian communists cannot and should not reject the parliamentary struggle forever. Thus the election boycott was made a tactical question. The Party continues to put primary emphasis on the countryside and on developing the militant resistance of peasantry. In a certain political situation such vast areas backed by the might of people’s armed forces may develop into parallel power centres, drastically altering the balance of forces at the national scale.

The Party firmly rejects the parliamentary path and in its recently held 5th Congress it has reiterated that in the final analysis only armed struggle shall decide the outcome of Indian revolution. Based on this fundamental premise, the Party will continue to experiment with various forms of combinations of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles in different stages of revolution, in order to chart out the Indian path of revolution.

[A popular booklet published in 1991.]

Emergence of the CPI(ML): The Opening Up of a New Road

In the course of a protracted struggle between its opportunist and revolutionary wings, the Communist Party of India underwent its first split in 1964 and a new party was formed in the shape of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). It did not however take long for the revolutionary wing to realize that the leadership of the new party had been seized by the centrist trend of the movement, which was bent upon pursuing the same opportunist course. An inner-Party struggle ensued throughout the party. However, in a concentrated form, it was conducted by Comrade Charu Mazumdar through his famous Eight Documents, written between 1965 and 1967.

Marked by a nationwide outburst of mass movements, this was also the period that saw the first major turn in post-1947 Indian politics. In West Bengal, the CPI(M)-dominated United Front was swept to power and the party leadership completed its transition to the opportunist strategic course. As its antithesis, the revolutionary wing went beyond the parameters of inner-Party struggle and strove to orientate the mass struggles, the peasant movement in particular, towards the revolutionary strategic course. The peasant uprising in Naxalbari, organised by the Charu Mazumdar-led wing of the Party precipitated the first showdown between the two strategic perspectives and tactical lines within the CPI(M).

True to the tradition of social-democratic betrayal, the party in power responded with bullets, and the simmering revolt within the party spread like wildfire. With revolutionary communists throughout India detaching themselves from the party and rallying around the emerging centre, the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR), the CPI(M) suffered its first major split. The formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) on 22 April, 1969, gave an organised and centralised shape to this new centre. The CPI(ML) held its First Congress in Calcutta in May 1970 and Comrade Charu Mazumdar was elected the General Secretary of a 21-member Central Committee.

The history of the next two years is a saga of heroic sacrifices unparalleled in the annals of the Indian Communist movement. Following the pattern of the Chinese revolution serious attempts were made to develop guerrilla war, a red army and base areas in selected areas in the countryside. Backing it up was a powerful movement of students and youth, particularly in West Bengal and the city of Calcutta, which sought to challenge the entire foundations of the ideology of the Indian ruling classes that had begun to take shape with the advent of the so-called Bengal Renaissance.

However, despite its amazing revolutionary spirit and intensity, this first phase of the CPI(ML) movement could not provide detailed and comprehensive solutions to the complex problems of revolutionising Indian society. Amidst unprecedented state repression, the movement soon faced a disastrous setback.

The Mid-70s: Keeping the Party Alive amidst Splits and Confusions

By the middle of 1972, the Party had suffered almost total paralysis. The entire central leadership was virtually decimated. The remaining Party forces were all lying scattered and fragmented. And on the question of the Party’s line, there was confusion all around.

At this juncture, a new Central Committee was organised on 28 July, 1974, the second anniversary day of Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s martyrdom. The committee consisted of only three members — Comrade Jauhar, the General Secretary, and Comrades Vinod Mishra and Raghu (Swadesh Bhattacharya). This new CC enjoyed the allegiance of the reorganised State Committee of Bihar, which was at the helm of the growing peasant movement in several blocks of Bhojpur and Patna districts, the newly formed State Leading Team of West Bengal, which was struggling hard to keep alive the Party, and a section of comrades in Eastern U.P. and Delhi.

Soon, however, the Party again suffered a major setback as many of its leaders, cadres and fighters got killed in police encounters in Bihar. In November 1975, Comrade Jauhar, the Party General Secretary, too, died a martyr’s death fighting an enemy offensive in a Bhojpur village. Comrade VM then took over as the General Secretary, and in February 1976, the Second Party Congress was held in a village in Gaya district of Bihar. The Congress elected an 11-member Central Committee with Comrade VM as the General Secretary. It is this Party which has, in the course of time, come to be known, after the name of the Party Central Organ in English, as the Liberation group of CPI(ML).

Till 1977, we continued to follow essentially the old line with a particular emphasis on conducting armed guerrilla attacks on police and paramilitary forces and organising people’s political power through revolutionary committees. Successive efforts were made to step up the movement in Bhojpur and Patna districts of Bihar, in Naxalbari and in Bankura district of West Bengal and in Ghazipur and Ballia districts of U.P. But heroic actions and great sacrifices notwithstanding, the line was clearly left-adventurist in character, and it failed to unleash mass initiative on any significant scale. Neither could the Party consolidate the gains of our tremendous efforts.

For the people all over the country, those were the dark days of extreme repression institutionalised through the Emergency. And our heroic resistance, particularly in Bhojpur, objectively became a part of the anti-Emergency people’s movement. Theoretically too, the Party did adhere to the concept of building an anti-Congress united front, though this could not be translated into practice.

However, at a time when the CPI had aligned itself with the Congress, the CPI(M) was rendered totally ineffective and other factions of the CPI(ML) were lying in complete disarray, ours was the only group in the entire Left camp which had kept the red flag flying even in the trying conditions of extreme repression. Naturally, when the curtain was finally lifted in 1977, the red star over Bhojpur and our small group drew the attention of revolutionaries all over the country and also of the rejuvenated Indian media. Meanwhile, Party work had spread to Assam and Tripura and now comrades from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala too joined the Party. By 1979, our Party had taken on an all-India character.

Drawing New Strength through Rectification of Old Mistakes

In 1978, the Party launched a rectification movement. It had all begun with the limited purpose of correcting just the style of work, but the spirit of rectification did not spare the political line. Great changes began to occur in the Party line and practice which were formalised in a Special Party Conference held in a village of Bhojpur in July 1979. The conference decided to initiate open mass activities through mass organisations.

At this juncture, the polemics within the movement was sharpened between the two trends represented by our organisation and the group known as the Provisional Central Committee (PCC). The PCC, an opportunist conglomeration of various factions, had won a lot of acclaim and support for the alacrity with which it had started rectifying all past mistakes. Its central figure, Mr.Satya Narain Singh, had deserted the movement in 1970 itself and begun to hobnob with bourgeois politicians. During the Emergency he advocated tailing behind Jayaprakash Narayan; in 1977 he worked out a deal with Charan Singh, the then Union Home Minister, asking the Naxalite prisoners to come out of jails by signing bonds abjuring violence; and finally ended up as a champion of unity with anti-Congress kulaks and big bourgeoisie.

We pointed out from the very beginning that the whole premise of PCC is liquidationist and what it actually intends to ‘rectify’ is the essential revolutionary spirit of the movement. We also predicted that this opportunist alliance of disparate factions would not last long. However, as the PCC put up a show of unity and initiated long overdue changes in forms of struggle and organisation, it did succeed initially in attracting a large number of revolutionary forces to its fold. But soon it got trapped in a maze of absurd propositions supplied by its own self-styled theoreticians and split into more factions than it had united.

Meanwhile, the unified and organised rectification campaign undertaken by our Party had begun to deliver results. With the initiation of various open forms of mass activities, the militant resistance movement of the peasantry started reaching new heights both in terms of expansion and intensity, and revolutionary elements started crossing over from the PCC to our Party. That was the end of the challenge from PCC.

The other liquidationist exercise was made by Kanu Sanyal, an important leader of Naxalbari. He openly denounced the CPI(ML) and its heritage and pleaded for a revival of the pre-CPI(ML) coordination phase. He could however mobilise only some leftover elements and could never pose any serious challenge to our organisation.

It is in the struggle against these liquidationist onslaughts that we eventually emerged as the biggest group of the CPI(ML).

Formation of IPF: A New Leap in Political Assertion

Meanwhile, the Party had started feeling a desperate need to assert its presence on the national political scene. In the wake of the failure of the first non-Congress experiment at the Centre and the restoration of the Indira regime, there had begun a national debate on a national political alternative, and we decided to launch a mass political organisation to intervene in this ongoing debate from a revolutionary democratic premise.

Serious attempts were made at both bilateral and multilateral levels to seek the cooperation and participation of other communist revolutionary (CR) organisations in building such a forum. A meeting of thirteen CR organisations including almost all the major factions of CPI(ML) was convened by our Party in 1981. That remains the first and last attempt for unity of the movement. At the same time, we embarked upon large-scale interactions with the emerging intermediate forces of non-party mass movements. All these efforts finally culminated in the formation of the Indian People’s Front through a three-day conference from April 24 to 26, 1982, in Delhi.

In December 1982, the Party organised its Third Congress in a village in the Giridih district of Bihar. This Congress was fairly representative in character and it elected a Central Committee of 17 full and 8 alternative members. The CC re-elected Comrade VM as the General Secretary. After a fierce debate, the Congress gave its green signal to the tactics of participation in elections. However, it reaffirmed the Party’s resolve to grasp the peasant resistance struggles as the key link, and to keep all our parliamentary activities subordinated to extra-parliamentary mass struggles. The 1985 assembly elections in Bihar were the first polls contested by the Party, of course, under the IPF banner.

The formation of IPF opened up new vistas of political initiative and advance before the Party. Organising mass rallies and demonstrations in various state capitals on almost all important political issues soon became an integral part of our Party practice. From the realm of abstraction the Party had taken its first major step into the realm of concrete political action, drawing for the first time the broad masses in political struggles based on the Party’s minimum programme. While the communist party’s leadership over the mass political organisation (MPO) was ensured through the party’s political guidance and by despatching staunch communists to various leadership positions, the MPO facilitated broader interactions with various streams of social and political forces, thereby helping the party in extending its influence and broadening its own social base.

As a particular form of united front in the shape of a popular people’s revolutionary party, the IPF symbolises one of our Party’s rare achievements in the annals of the Indian communist movement, both in the realm of theory and practice. It has earned its own place in Indian politics, and all practical political activities of the Party are routed through it.

Fourth Party Congress and the Call for Left confederation

The Fourth Party Congress was held in January 1988 in a village in Hazaribagh district of Bihar. In keeping with the changing situation and its own enhanced understanding, the Party radically revised various outdated ideas and stereo-typed positions, thus clearing the way for entering and reshaping the mainstream of Indian politics. Giving up the tiresome phrase of unity of communist revolutionaries, that is the Naxalite groups, it resolved to initiate interaction with the main left parties and advanced the call for a left and democratic confederation. The Congress elected a Central Committee of 21 members, and the CC, in its turn, elected a 5-member Polit Bureau with Comrade VM as the General Secretary.

The CPI(ML) movement of the ’70s had by now split into two distinct trends. One, represented by our Party, retrieved Marxism-Leninism through a thorough and consistent struggle against anarchist deviations, both in theory and practice, and brought the Party back to the course of the communist legacy, revolutionary mass struggles and full-fledged political initiatives. The other, represented by a host of groups like the Maoist Communist Centre, the Second Central Committee, Party Unity and some factions of PCC perfected anarchist deviations into a full-fledged theoretical framework. Within the CPI(ML) movement as a whole, this anarchist challenge has consolidated itself in the last few years and poses the main challenge before the Party’s advance.

However, within our Party, in the course of struggle against anarchist deviations we had to wage a serious struggle against liquidationism. The liquidationist trend raised its ugly head immediately after the Fourth Congress. Beginning from a right capitulationist standpoint, this trend tried to obliterate the Party’s essential difference with the opportunist Left. But it did not stop here and soon moved over to the point of obliteration of all differences between revolutionary and liberal democracy. Encouraged by the developments in Soviet Union and East Europe, it even demanded renunciation of Marxism and the Communist Party itself and advocated an out and out reformist programme. Its chief proponent is currently engaged in social investigations to produce a databank to help developmental programmes of the government and private agencies.

Our Party resolutely fought back this liquidationist tendency and frustrated all attempts to split the Party. Truly speaking, the Party witnessed a qualitative development in the years after the Fourth Congress. In the 1989 parliamentary elections it succeeded in sending the first Marxist-Leninist representative to the parliament and in the assembly elections of 1990 it was able to form a sizeable legislature group in the Bihar Assembly.

Most notable has been the success of the IPF-sponsored mass rally in the capital on 8 October, 1990. It has reinforced the undying relevance of revolutionary Marxism and illustrated the growing stature of the revolutionary Left in the national political scene. The massive demonstration of lakhs of people has also triggered off a realignment of forces in the Left camp. It has brought to the fore the struggle between the two tactical lines and the two premises of Left unity: whether the Left should count upon the bourgeoisie and bourgeois institutions for a democratic transformation of the Indian society and polity, or it should strive to take the lead itself and rely exclusively upon mass struggles.

A large number of forces from the CPI and CPI(M) in Bihar, UP and West Bengal are crossing over to the banner of revolutionary democracy, while formal relations are being developed with almost all the main parties of the Left, and avenues explored for developing joint actions and a left confederation.

Grasping the Basic Differences between the CPI(M) and CPI(ML)

It may be useful here to reiterate the basic differences between the CPI(M) and our Party. The opportunist course in the Indian communist movement is identified first by its characterisation of the Indian bourgeoisie. In the garb of various kinds of jugglery of words and phrases, it essentially emphasises ‘national’ character of the Indian bourgeoisie, thereby highlighting the latter’s potential for leading anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles and effecting a democratic transformation of the Indian society. This theory has led to exaggeration of contradictions between the private and public sectors, and advocacy of tailing behind different bourgeois-landlord parties, sometimes in the name of an anti-fascist front and at other times in the name of democratic or secular fronts.

In the international arena, the principal contradiction, according to the opportunist course is the contradiction between (U.S.) imperialism and (Soviet) socialism. Extended to the domestic scene, this principal global contradiction only rationalises the theory of the so-called anti-imperialist character of the Indian bourgeoisie, for the latter has always maintained close ties with the Soviet bloc.

Thirdly, and as a corollary to its understanding of the Indian bourgeoisie’s character, the opportunist course refuses to organise the broad masses of labouring peasantry as the main force of democratic transformation. On the contrary, it has developed an understanding with the kulak lobby, an understanding that lies behind its stable political relationship with various regional parties.

Finally, as the offshoot of the first three points, the opportunist course heavily relies upon the existing bourgeois institutions for bringing about urgent social reforms in the country. This has paralysed the opportunist Left with what Lenin calls parliamentary cretinism.

In contrast, the revolutionary course has always emphasised the comprador character of the Indian bourgeoisie, underlining thereby that it is the task of the proletariat to lead the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles and that reliance upon the bourgeoisie would take us nowhere. Its understanding of the primacy of the contradiction between imperialism and the Third World has also prompted it to test the ‘anti-imperialism’ of the Indian bourgeoisie on the independent touchstone of regional solidarity and commitment to the Third World cause, rather than by the degree of its closeness with the Soviet bloc. It views agrarian revolution as the axis of democratic revolution and puts the main emphasis on organising militant mass struggles of agrarian labourers and labouring peasants. And in opposition to parliamentary cretinism, it relies primarily upon extra-parliamentary struggles.

These are the essential contours of the struggle between the opportunist and revolutionary wings. We can call it a continuation of the polemics between the Menshevik and Bolshevik tactics in Indian conditions.

The CPI(M)’s development from 1964 to this day has only confirmed its journey along the opportunist course. With the CPI making some tactical adjustments in its positions and international differences taking a back-seat, and the two parties moving in unison on almost all major questions, the very rationale of the 1964 split is today faced with a big question mark. On the other hand, the CPI(M) is facing a fresh round of dissension and almost all the dissident forces coming out of the party are accusing the party leadership of deviating from the 1964 programme, thereby depriving the ’64 split of all its political rationale.

The revolutionary position, on the other hand, was stretched to the opposite extreme. The comprador character of the Indian bourgeoisie was extended to mean a total rejection of any tactical alliance with any section of the bourgeoisie. The international outlook, too, suffered a distortion with blind adherence to the theory of three worlds, which was raised to the absurd height of prescribing a global front against Soviet social-imperialism in collaboration with all sorts of pro-US forces, including even the US itself under certain circumstances. Agrarian revolution was visualised strictly along the Chinese lines, and primacy of extra-parliamentary struggles was interpreted as permanent exclusion of the entire stream of parliamentary struggle. These perceptions did work to an extent in a situation of revolutionary upswing, but desperate attempts to stick to these slogans even under vastly different circumstances of a real retreat of the movement could produce nothing more than empty anarchist phrase-mongering.

Multifarious Activities and Growing Resumption of Open Party Practice

To take up the challenge of defending Marxism-Leninism in the face of the continuing deep crisis of socialism and renewed bourgeois offensive, the Party in its July 1990 Special Conference in Delhi has decided to resume open functioning after nearly twenty years. Accordingly, its central and state organs have started appearing openly; Party banners are displayed in open rallies and demonstrations, seminars are being organised in defence of Marxism and a widespread campaign has been launched to impart primary Marxist education to more and more people and recruit large number of elements emerging out of mass struggles into the Party.

The Party has also launched its all-India trade union wing named the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) and is planning to coordinate the activities of its state-level peasant associations through a national body. On the student front, a national-level organisation has already been initiated in the form of All India Students’ Association (AISA) while on women and cultural fronts too, building national-level organisations is on the agenda for the coming years.

The Party has also built up a propaganda network through its own organs, through IPF organs and through popular democratic periodicals like the Patna-based Hindi weekly Samkaleen Janmat. In 1986, it had brought out a Report from the Flaming Fields of Bihar — an analytical review of the developing revolutionary peasant movement of Bihar in the light of changing agrarian and social conditions in the state. The book was widely acclaimed in revolutionary and academic circles in India and abroad. Currently, the Party is engaged in making an in-depth study of the history of the Indian communist movement, which it proposes to publish in five volumes.

The Party has developed a mass political organisation called the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) in the national minority region of Karbi Anglong in Assam, and guides all its important activities including the running of the autonomous district administration. While we pay particular attention to the special problems of national minorities and appreciate the genuine grievances of various nationalities, dalits and backward castes, and religious minorities, we are strongly opposed to the marginalisation of the overall movement and strive for the unity of the overwhelming majority of the Indian people and of India as a country.

The Party continues to pay the highest attention to building revolutionary peasant struggles and organising armed resistance against the attacks by private armies of the landlords and kulaks as well as the state. Constantly raising the level of revolutionary consciousness, mobilisation and militancy of the masses at the grassroots is the motto of our Party and it is the only guarantee against all kinds of opportunist, social-democratic and bureaucratic deviations.

Fraternal Ties Based on Self-reliance and Mutual Non-Interference

The Party has maintained close fraternal relations with the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) from the mid-1970s onward. These relations have been based upon the spirit of mutual respect and learning from each other while strictly maintaining the policy of mutual non-interference and our commitment to opposing all expressions of Indian hegemony.

At the invitation of the Chinese Communist Party two delegations of our Party visited China in 1979 and 1980. We have also been maintaining comradely relations with the Communist Party and democratic organisations of the Philippines and Peru. There are now greater prospects for expanding our relations with friends abroad and we do look forward to developing warm friendship and solidarity with communist parties and revolutionary democratic movements across the world.

However, we have always upheld and shall continue to uphold the cardinal principle of self-reliance. We have consistently and consciously refused and shall continue to refuse all kinds of financial support from any foreign source or from various foreign-funded domestic voluntary organisations. We refuse to be dictated to by any party and have always worked out our plans, policies and actions exclusively on the basis of our own study of the Indian conditions.

CPI(ML)-Liberation: True Inheritor of India’s Revolutionary Communist Legacy

In view of the facts that the CPI(ML)-Liberation is the only CPI(ML) group

(a) which has maintained its continuity and unity since its reorganisation in 1974;

(b) which has got an all-India organisational network covering Assam, Tripura, West Bengal, southern Orissa (Koraput-Ganjam area), coastal Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, southern Kerala, Bangalore, Bombay, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar;

(c) which has held regular Party Congresses and Conferences up to regional and district levels and is run by duly elected bodies at different levels;

(d) which conducts regular Party education and rectification and consolidation campaigns to raise the level of consciousness of Party ranks and ensure their increasing involvement in the running of various Party affairs;

(e) which has regular central organs in English and Hindi backed by a network of state organs in regional languages, Party pamphlets and various periodicals;

(f) which practises various forms of struggle ranging from armed resistance to parliamentary agitation and runs a whole set of organisations varying from the secret and the underground to the widest possible open mass organisations, conducts mass activities on all fronts and in all spheres of life and undertakes joint action with political forces of different kinds, combining them all into a growing current of mass struggles; and

(g) which maintains fraternal and friendly relations with communist and democratic movements of several countries,

we claim ourselves to be the true inheritors of the revolutionary wing of the Indian communist movement in general and the CPI(ML) in particular, as the Party, representing and acting on behalf of the CPI(ML).

IDEOLOGICAL RESOLUTIONS
Anti-Autocratic Front
More on People’s Front
CPI(M)’s Tactics of Government Formation in States
On Building A Left and Democratic Confederation
More on Left Confederation
On Party’s Political Tactics
Marxism will have to be defended through its enrichment
"Marxism needs a work comparable to Das Kapital…" 

[Adopted at the Fifth Party Congress.]

1. The CPI(ML) firmly upholds the banner of the Great October Revolution of 1917 led by Comrade Lenin in Russia. This was not only the first successful proletarian revolution in the world, it also brought about a new awakening in Asia. Though, after 75 years, the revolution is defeated, its historic significance can never be obliterated.

2. The CPI(ML) reaffirms the crucial role played by Comrade Stalin in building socialism in Soviet Union and in defending the Soviet Union against fascist aggression.

Stalin, however, had a lot of metaphysics in his approach and this was the main source of his grievous mistakes. During his period, inner-party democracy as well as socialist democracy in society suffered from gross distortions.

3. The CPI(ML) stands by the struggle conducted against modern revisionism by Mao Zedong and the CPC in the Great Debate of early 1960s.

Comrade Mao’s theses regarding the existence of class struggle in socialist society end its reflection within the communist party; the danger of capitalist restoration and the as yet undecided nature of the struggle between socialism and capitalism have been borne out by history. Mao’s thought thus developed in negation of both Stalinist metaphysics and Khruschevite revisionism and put Marxism-Leninism back on the rails once again.

Mao’s struggle had a great impact on the Indian communist movement. His thought contributed a lot to the emergence of our Marxist-Leninist party in struggle against all the Indian variants of modern revisionism.

4. In order to revitalise socialism, the Soviet Union in the post-Breznev period was in crying need of a thorough transformation of its superpower status, restructuring of its rigid economic structure and rebuilding of its socialist democratic institutions. That is why when Gorbachev embarked upon Perestroika and Glasnost, he received overwhelming support from communists, progressive forces and democratic people throughout the world. However, it turned out that Gorbachev had been operating within the framework of liberal bourgeois ideology and economic-political collaboration with western imperialism. The CPI(ML), therefore, denounces Gorbachev as a renegade.

5. The CPI(ML) is firmly against any international centre and any super party. In international affairs, it believes in following an independent policy based on its perception of the international situation. While welcoming the Chinese efforts to normalise and improve relations with Vietnam, we cannot but criticise the Chinese foreign policy response to the Gulf War.

6. The CPI(ML) does not rule out the possibility of a proletarian state with a multi-party system in Indian conditions. Its nature and form can, however, only be decided in the course of practice.

7. The CPI(ML) considers it to be the Party’s foremost duty to rise in defence of Marxism which is now facing an all-out attack by the world bourgeoisie, to retrieve its revolutionary essence and to enrich it further in course of accomplishing the Indian revolution.

[Excerpts from the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Third Party Congress, Dec.1982.]

The present situation of India, which is giving rise to a revolutionary crisis, is also marked by a parliamentary and constitutional crisis. The Indian constitution and parliamentary democracy in India were by no means the result of any bourgeois democratic revolution and so never had the vitality of bourgeois democracy. However, to whatever extent the facade of democracy might have been maintained in relatively peaceful periods, in times of strain it was thrown overboard and utilised in the interests of the ruling party. At present when the Indira autocratic clique has reduced these institutions to a mockery and is even proceeding towards a presidential system, bourgeois intellectuals and bourgeois opposition parties are making a great hullabaloo. It appears that the entire orientation of democratic struggles of the Indian people is to safeguard the sanctity of bourgeois constitution and bourgeois parliament. Various brands of alternatives are being peddled, everyone is claiming that he alone is capable of maintaining the sanctity of the constitution and parliament. The CPI(M) revisionists have also come up with their brand of national alternative based on the governments run by them and have named it Left and Democratic Front. In the Vijaywada Congress held this year, they declared, "The struggle for the building and realisation of Left and Democratic Front starts in conditions in which neither the CPI(M), nor the working class is accepted by others as the leading force. They are accepted as important partners and equal partners only. With the growth of the unity of these forces and the struggle for the realisation of the programme put forward, the weight and influence of the working class will certainly increase but this will be a far cry from the leadership of the working class which is achieved under a quite different correlation of forces." This clearly reveals that the CPI(M) has entirely discarded the programme of people’s democracy led by the working class which is a ‘far cry’ to it and in the name of the transitory stage of ‘Left and Democratic Front’, what it advocates is safeguarding the ‘purity’ and sanctity of the bourgeois constitution and parliamentary democracy. For this purpose it proposes to form governments with opposition parties not as a leading force, rather as an equal or, at least, important partner.

We, of course, will always oppose any attack by autocratic forces on any democratic right of the people, even nominal or formal ones, but any transitory phase towards people’s democracy can be termed transitory only if it helps the masses cast away illusions of parliamentary democracy. Even the participation of communists in bourgeois parliaments is meant to break it from within and not to safeguard and strengthen it. It is evident that the CPI(M)’s transitory phase is transitory towards submerging itself in the ocean of parliamentary democracy and is the renunciation of people’s democracy. And this formulation, on which it is at one with the CPI with only minor differences, brings about the unity of the two parties’ concepts of People’s Democratic Revolution and National Democratic Revolution via the Left and Democratic Front. On other matters of foreign policy, the CPI(M) has already traveled back to the CPI’s line and with LDF, major differences on tactical line are also removed. That is why the two parties, with the expulsion of Dange, were never so close as today.

Under these conditions, communist revolutionaries of India should resolutely hold high the banner of people’s democracy and devise the forms and methods of advancing towards this goal. In the present situation, when many non-party forces are coming up and a widespread urge and struggle for democracy is developing even on the part of bourgeois intellectuals, it is the duty of the Party of the proletariat to come forward with its banner of ‘National Alternative’ in forms and slogans which are acceptable to, and capable of uniting, the broadest sections of the democratic forces. Definitely such a forum must be mainly extra-parliamentary, depend on people’s struggles for its expansion, consolidation and victory and must only include the social forces of democratic revolution, i. e., the working class, peasant classes, intellectuals and progressive sections of the bourgeoisie. This front will also make adjustments with parties and mass organisations of the bourgeois opposition in democratic struggles without, however, joining with them in a single programme-based front. Such scope for adjustment may also be there with certain individuals in these parties as well as with some of these parties on particular issues of anti-imperialist struggles. Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist and other revolutionary parties and organisations, democratic mass organisations and patriotic-democratic individuals will be the component parts of this front. This front must include the democratic-patriotic sections of Indian people living abroad, must support their struggles against racial and other discriminations and through them must also widely propagate abroad every anti-democratic act and repression on the people of India.

The front must also learn to skillfully utilise the contradictions among the ruling classes, to project itself as an alternative against all sorts of bourgeois and revisionist combinations and within the front, the Party of the proletariat must always be consistent in fighting liberal-bourgeois tendencies to make the front a non-political one, a routine or parliamentary one, a front of social reform, of unprincipled compromises with sections of ruling classes etc. and provide it a clear direction towards militant mass struggles and the ultimate goal of seizing political power.

Originally, we had the idea of building a front with forces other than workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie only after building at least a few areas of red political power. For, areas of red political power are the concrete manifestations of worker-peasant unity. However, in practice things turned out differently. We have not been able to build up or maintain areas of red political power, but for 15 years the Party of the proletariat has been conducting battles to this end and now we find that two trends, two objective facts leading to the same democratic goal have emerged. On the one hand, there are the areas of resistance struggles of the peasantry — more or less stable — the areas where red terror is exercised over the class enemies, in certain pockets of Bihar and perhaps Andhra; and many such areas were built up elsewhere but either they perished or suffered setbacks and are in the process of reorganisation. On the other hand, there is a trend of democratic movements of vast sections of the Indian people, movements coordinating various sections of the people and even of nationwide character. Take the case of the 19 January strike, or even the recent Bihar Press Bill. Has it not become an all-India issue? Not only journalists but all other sections of the people are raising voices against this Bill. They are doing so because they feel that it is an attack on freedom of expression. Today the press is censored, tomorrow nobody will be allowed to speak. And hence this trend of democratic urge, of democratic struggles. Now there are opposition parties, revisionists and selfish people who will try to divert these movements. And therefore the proletariat must step in. For 15 years, it has been with the peasants, organised and led them in revolutionary struggles which were unprecedented in breadth and scale and today it maintains areas of resistance struggle. And therefore these two trends must be combined. There must come up an all-India people’s front basing on the areas of resistance struggle.

Why should this front base itself on the areas of resistance struggles? Because such areas of resistance struggle are built up only on the basis of radical agrarian programme and without a radical agrarian programme there can be no proletarian leadership. Moreover, these areas of resistance struggle should serve as a model for united front work. ...

Some people ask what these intermediate forces are. By intermediate forces we mean those who are intermediate between us and the ruling classes. In different forms and forums they are organised as petty-bourgeois leaders of the working class, nationality leaders, civil libertarians, bourgeois intellectuals, even some religious and oppressed caste leaders etc. It is quite natural that they will vacillate; sometimes they may come to us, sometimes may even send telegrams to Indira Gandhi. Now, how are we to be blamed for that? We have already said that they are intermediates. They have non-party ideas. What is this ‘non-party idea’? This is an anti-socialist bourgeois idea as Lenin says. And communists will fight this idea. Still non-party organisations are there and truly speaking, the whole of the democratic revolution from appearance will bear a non-party stamp — a front stamp. But within it the struggle between proletarian and bourgeois ideas, between parties inside and outside will go on and that will determine the essence of the matter. The Party will maintain its independent areas of struggle and also work within the front.

Now it is true that this front is based on resistance struggles and its expansion and development will help develop armed struggle and base area building. But how will this front proceed, in what form will it develop? What are its laws of development? On this question, we are in the midst of experiments. Initially, we have built up a front with certain sections of communist revolutionaries and intermediate forces from many parts of India. This is a great achievement for a small Party. In contrast to the CPI(M)’s tactics of forming governments in states, this front should come up with its slogan of people’s government — the slogan of a genuine democratic republic. The time many come when this front may have to advance the slogan of a provisional revolutionary government to convene a constituent assembly based on popular representation. The question of provisional revolutionary government brings forward the question of insurrection. Through organising insurrections from above, the Party plans to combine class struggle from both below and above. In this context comes the question of utilisation of parliamentary elections. The election question at a certain time may be linked up with insurrection and then you will be forcing elections on the government. In other times, when there are no prospects of slogans for a constituent assembly and provisional revolutionary government getting popular for a long time, you may think of utilising elections, while in other prospects you should not.

[From Liberation, January 1984.]

By now it has become well-known that our Party’s idea of building a people’s front at the national level has come under equally sharp attacks from both liquidationist and anarchist points of view. The liquidationist point of view opposes it on the ground that the front, in its bid to challenge authoritarianism/fascism practiced by Indira Gandhi, excludes sections of comprador bourgeoisie and the parliamentary opposition from its ambit; while the anarchist viewpoint is opposed to building any political front as such in the name of upholding the ‘basic line’ of smashing the old state machinery. This is an instance of both these ‘extreme’ viewpoints converging in their opposition to the idea of building the front. Here we shall deal with the criticism of our Party line made by a Party faction, Central Organising Committee (Party Unity), in its journal Party Unity (August 1983 issue). Their criticism, we believe, originates from the anarchist point of view and, in the process of critically reviewing the same, we hope to further elaborate the theoretical propositions that guide the building of the people’s front.

Why a National Political Front?

The COC(PU) claims to have risen above narrow localism and agrees that to organise and lead the masses in democratic mass movements of partial nature on a national scale different national forums of transitory nature can and should be formed. (emphasis added)

What happens to these national forums ‘after the intensification of class struggle to a certain degree and with the attainment of necessary conditions for People’s Democratic Front’ (PDF)? This question remains unanswered.

To proceed. The PDF ‘emerges in course of time with a revolutionary programme of action and armed struggle as the main form of struggle’, and further, it ‘may act as the forum for leading partial struggles on a national scale too’.

On the question of building PDF, COC(PU) claims to have rectified the Party’s line in the ’70s on two counts. Firstly, they have rejected the rigid condition of ‘red political power in at least a few areas of the country’ and replaced it by ‘extensive areas of armed struggle in the countryside, though the areas may not be liberated zones’. Heaven only knows the difference between these two conditions. If we possess ‘extensive areas of armed struggle’, is it not but natural that a few of them will turn into red ones, or to put it the other way, without developing a few red areas, is it at all possible to spread armed struggle to extensive areas?

Secondly, they advocate a ‘comprehensive policy’ of united front as opposed to the ‘narrow policy’ envisaged in the Party line of the ’70s. This comprehensiveness is defined thus: "to unite with various political parties and forces, including those belonging to the parliamentary opposition camp, to fight ESMA, NSA, Press Bill, price hike, capitulation to the ignominious conditions imposed by the imperialist power bloc etc."

To sum up, either you have national forums including the parliamentary opposition, to organise and lead democratic mass movements of partial nature on a national scale or a PDF with extensive areas of armed struggle as the basis.

As far as the PDF is concerned, by their own admission, conditions have not matured yet and one can safely presume that they are not likely to mature at least in the near future. Now, our Party has simply refused to worship spontaneity under the excuse of ‘conditions have not matured’; it has also refused to remain content with a national forum to lead democratic mass movements of partial nature. The fact of the matter is that although we lack extensive areas of armed struggle, we do possess quite a few areas of peasants’ resistance struggle in different parts of the country. We do exert great ideological and political influence over many sections of the Indian people. If we, the revolutionary and democratic forces of India, decide to join hands and formulate an urgent programme of political action, we can indeed become an important force. We can make effective moves to isolate the parliamentary opposition including the revisionists from the mainstream of democratic struggles, we can leave a revolutionary democratic imprint on the general democratic movement, and we can forcefully project our alternative views on burning questions of national politics. And in this way we can move one step towards building PDF. Mind you, one step towards PDF and not PDF itself. This one step should concern itself not just with mass movement of partial nature on a national scale, rather it should stress the independent political mobilisation of the masses and nationwide political struggles.

Learning from the past and living in the present, our Party has decided to march one step towards the future, and this one step has caused all the controversy. And, all phrase-mongering about PDF not withstanding, in the real life of the present, one can well discern the convergence of liquidationist and anarchist viewpoints in sacrificing the political initiative against autocracy to the bourgeois opposition and in remaining content with national-level forums together with the parliamentary opposition to organise and lead democratic mass movements of partial nature on a national scale.

The people’s front we envisage shall draw its forces exclusively from the social support of New Democracy. This is a question of principle. The banner of patriotism and national unity will only help it win over masses from the fold of the big bourgeoisie and big landlords and also to gain support from enlightened landlords and some bourgeois intellectuals. However, issue-based joint activities with parties and mass organisations of the bourgeois and revisionist opposition are never ruled out. What forms these will take, how are the contradictions among them to be utilised, what rifts can be created among them, what changes will take place in smaller parties and particular individual leaders with the passage of time — these are all things to be decided by the tactics pursued by the front regarding them. We have very little experience in this regard and it is obvious that there will be certain mistakes. We shall learn from them and go on perfecting our policies.

The Front and Base Area

Reviewing the history of peasant struggles since Naxalbari, we find that the armed peasant struggles — whether in Naxalbari, Srikakulam or Birbhum — did not last for more than a year or two. And by 1976, except perhaps Bhojpur of Bihar, all other areas of peasant struggle had suffered setbacks. It was only after 1977 that these efforts were revived afresh to develop such areas and, thanks to adjustments in the Party line, the areas of peasant struggle are now lasting for much longer periods. In the Patna-Gaya-Bhojpur belt of Bihar, peasants’ resistance struggles have been maintained with advances here and retreats there. The peasant upsurge in the Patna-Nalanda-Gaya region in particular has assumed unprecedented proportions in recent years. Such efforts are being made in many other places of India by us as well as by other factions of the Party and there are important successes too.

Still, even in the most advanced areas of peasant struggle in Bihar, we cannot venture to turn them into base areas in near future. On the questions of unity with middle peasants and overcoming caste prejudices to win over large sections of the middle and upper middle strata of the dominating castes of landlords, we are yet to achieve any significant breakthrough. We also have a long way to go in mobilising the masses politically and turning the class and social balance in our favour before we take up the task of raising armed struggle to a higher phase and building base areas. It is heartening to note that comrades of the COC(PU) faction in Jehanabad have decided to shed some of their initial absurd notions and have come to certain practical conclusions. One of their sum-ups published in the ctober 1982 issue of Party Unity says: "The nature and level of armed activities must correspond with the existing level of mass movements and help to advance mass movements further," and, "at present the movement in general is being waged on partial issues. It is therefore imperative at this stage to mobilise the broad masses of people by taking advantage of the legal opportunities as well as by skilfully utilising the different contradictions in the enemy camp." Therefore, as regards extending armed struggle to wider areas, or in other words, taking decisive steps towards building red areas, the demand, at present and also for a long time to come, is to preserve our forces, develop them step by step, and attain a major breakthrough in turning the balance of class forces in the areas of struggle, in our favour. This is a point on which all serious revolutionaries of India, who refuse to go the Nisith-Azizul way despite all provocations, share a common opinion.

However, this realisation itself is not sufficient. Building base areas or extending armed struggle to wider areas requires a favourable national situation too. In China, as Chairman Mao put it, the continuous conflicts and war among different sections of the ruling classes was a vital condition for the existence and development of red areas. Conditions are different in India.

Inheriting a central colonial state apparatus, the Indian ruling classes, through a parliament, have by and large been able to contain their contradictions within limits. Universal suffrage and formal institutions of bourgeois democracy have also had a soothing effect on the people’s rebellions and provided a fertile ground for the growth of social democracy. From time to time the existing political system has gone through sharp stresses and strains and the revolutionary and democratic forces have stepped in to utilise this situation. In the present period conflicts are developing among sections of the ruling classes, new social forces are demanding a new balance in the power structure, the air is charged with cries against separatism and for national integration, regional parties are asserting themselves vis-a-vis the national parties, and communal and religious tensions are developing. The conflicts are increasingly becoming unmanageable within the framework of existing institutions and debates on centre-state relations, unitary versus federal character of the state, transition to presidential form of government, etc., are various manifestations of the political crisis which is shaping up in the form of a constitutional crisis.

Instead of remaining a passive onlooker in this period of growing political crisis, the Third Party Congress firmly decided to actively intervene in the national political scene so as to turn the balance of social forces in favour of revolution and endorsed the idea of building a people’s front.

Comrades of COC(PU) agree that the two trends as discussed in the Party Congress report (resistance struggles of the peasantry and democratic movements of various sections of Indian people -Ed.) are running parallel in contemporary India. But they disagree with the Congress declaration that the two trends must be combined. Now, what does this combination mean? Building base areas in the countryside is the central task of our Party and never for a moment will the Party slacken its efforts on that score. And a people’s front shall precisely revolve around this task. Building a political front at the national level is not a deviation from building base areas; on the contrary, taking the circuitous route through a people’s front is perhaps the only way to advance the same in the concrete conditions prevailing in India.

The people’s front, in its ultimate programme, definitely incorporates the programme of New Democracy (if only you have enough patience to look at it and make it a principle to indulge in criticisms only after authentic reading). It has declared extra-parliamentary struggles as the main form of struggle and that surely includes armed struggle. However, as it has to begin its journey in the conditions prevailing around it — conditions which are not matured, by your own admission — at present, it has to emphasise on political mobilisation for immediate political and economic reforms, concentrate on exposing the hypocrisy of government concessions and the outwardly democratic forms of awarding them, and declare that, on its part, it will prefer peaceful methods of struggle, but what course the people’s movements ultimately take will depend on the government’s attitude towards them. Whatever shift it will be able to effect in the correlation of class forces on a national scale will provide a new impetus to the struggle for building base areas, and the changed conditions, in their turn, will demand that it puts more and more emphasis on its maximum programme and adopts militant measures — to the extent of leading insurrections and armed struggles and smashing the old state machinery — to achieve that. In this process, the people’s front will transform itself into a full-fledged People’s Democratic Front. This must be the basic orientation of the front according to our Party Congress.

This is the crux of the matter which certain people, victims as they are of their past, just refuse to understand.

The Front and Election

The incorporation of the term ‘parliamentary struggle’ in our Party programme has been attacked most virulently by the COC(PU) critique and it has predicted our Party’s definite ‘submerging into the mire of parliamentarism’. Well, the history of the Indian communist movement is replete with such instances of degeneration and the people cannot be blamed for having apprehensions about our Party in this regard. In a certain sense we too have such apprehensions. But then, how does one do away with such a danger? By reverting to widespread guerrilla actions and forming revolutionary governments overnight? Mahadeb Mukherjee went in for all-out guerrilla actions and the Nisith group formed a revolutionary government — still all this only accelerated their submerging into the mire of the worst kind of opportunism. We do not want to dig into the past, yet it is quite well known that your sympathies lay with these persons against us.

Wherein does the remedy lie then?

In the ’7Os we had raised the great banner of ‘boycott of elections’ and consequently plunged into developing armed struggle and building red areas. That great upsurge had violently challenged, for the first time in the post-47 India, each and every existing institution of our so-called bourgeois democracy, and had striven to develop alternative centres of people’s power. Herein lies the great significance of that great upsurge and it could have never been possible without the slogan of ‘boycott of elections’. This part of our history represents a glorious tradition of our Party and the martyrs and we have all along upheld this tradition much to the chagrin of the renegades who malign the great heritage of our Party in the name of rectifying past mistakes.

However, our revolution was defeated and all of us had to make adjustments with institutions of the society in which we live. Now, some amongst us rushed to make adjustments with the first signs of setback; they degraded the revolutionary traditions and disgraced the revolutionary martyrs and even threw the great red banner of CPI(ML) overboard. They are renegades who shamelessly crawled to surrender to the enemy. We rightly hate them despite their claims of being ‘the first in rectifying the mistakes and rectifying them completely and thoroughly’. There are others, the revolutionaries, who fought till the last, who never surrendered to the enemy and fell to the ground while fighting. They now find themselves in different conditions and are forced to make adjustments with the existing institutions of the society, they are now regrouping their lost forces and biding their time for the final onslaught. They do it hesitatingly, and step by step, and for this they have to face no less ridicule from different quarters including yours. Their present tactics represent the continuation and logical development of their old tactics.

It is a futile theoretical exercise to decide our tactics regarding the parliament on the basis of its character, i.e., whether the parliament is a semi-colonial one or similar to the one in an independent bourgeois country. Your task of exposing and smashing the parliament does not become any less important because the parliament is semi-colonial, particularly when it provides a favourable subjective condition for the growth of revisionism. Our tactics towards the parliament can only be decided on the basis of the presence or absence of conditions of upsurge.

The question of Marxist approach to parliament is basically a tactical one. It is supposed to assume strategic dimensions in a semi-colonial country where it is presumed that immediate revolutionary situation always exists enabling the communists to go in for building base areas. However, it should be borne in mind that after the Chinese revolution, not only revolutionaries but world imperialism too has taken its lessons. It has made India its showcase-cum-laboratory for experiments. Combined with the particularities of the Indian conditions, the conspiracy of world imperialism and lots of other factors, including the degeneration of socialist Russia into social-imperialism, have led to the maintenance of the parliament and other such institutions for a much longer period than in other countries of the Third World. While the basic path remains basically the same, in many of its particular tactics, however, the Indian revolution cannot be a copy of the Chinese revolution, if only for the simple reason that we are making revolution in India of the ’80s and not in China of the ’40s. Considering all these factors and the situation in particular, which all serious revolutionaries agree is not that of immediately going all-out for building red areas, it is necessary that we reconsider our tactics regarding elections. At least on principle this should be regarded as a tactical question. While readjusting our general tactics in conformity with the actual situation we must, however, decide about the particular tactics regarding elections by giving due weight to the specific character of the Indian parliament in contradistinction to those of the West. Recognising the election issue as a tactical question does not mean rushing for elections immediately and everywhere indulging in all sorts of unprincipled compromises. By its negative examples in this regard, the PCC acts as a good teacher. Adjustment in policy does not mean renunciation of revolutionary struggles and pursuing, as in the West, a policy of work inside the parliament and preparing for nationwide insurrection for a very long period of time.

For the time being when you do not have the alternative model of people’s power nor can you go in for the same immediately, if you are to raise the political consciousness of the people to the point of grasping the politics of seizure of power, you can ignore the negative way of doing that only at your own peril. Your representatives go to the enemy parliament and, through their speeches inside and other propaganda outside, you expose the parliament, i.e., you explain to the masses which particular combination of the ruling classes rules through the parliament and how. This task can well be carried out from outside. However, if properly organised, communist representatives working inside can particularly sharpen the exposure campaign.

You may well give a call for boycott of elections, but that immediately demands from you to go all-out for armed struggle, for building base areas. In theory you can live in your own utopia, but in practical politics there is no midway. If on the one hand you call upon the people to boycott elections and on the other hand describe the stage of the movement as that of partial struggles (on whatever scale), you are deceiving yourself, indulging in mere sophistry and in this case your boycott call will be just a passive one and for all practical purposes, it will make the people follow this or that bourgeois party.

An underground party concentrating its energy on developing areas of peasants’ resistance struggle, a people’s front emphasising extra-parliamentary struggle as the main form of struggle, utilisation of election campaigns for the sole purpose of exposing the real intentions behind the government measures like concessions and reforms, and subordination of all participation in election to the goal of unleashing mass initiative and developing mass movements — these are the conditions that can check a party’s degeneration into the mire of parliamentarism. There is no short cut and left phrasemongering will only hasten this degeneration.

Mere repetition of the ‘basic path’ will not take you anywhere near the goal. It is time for new experiments. And healthy polemics among the communist revolutionaries will pave the way for real advance and the genuine Party Unity worth the name.

Dear leaders of COC(PU), when tracks are submerged in flood waters, sometimes to go north, you are forced to board a southbound train and travel upto a point. We do not know if there are any serious differences between left phrasemongering and left pretensions (the COC critique has charged us with left pretensions but absolves us from left phrasemongering). If there are any, you are guilty of both.

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fourth Party Congress, Jan.1988.]

Here we shall deal with the CPI(M)’s tactics of government-formation in states and its concrete application, with particular reference to the classical case of the Left Front government in West Bengal.

The CPI(M)’s programme on the formation of such governments is that (1) in conditions arising from mass movements, governments may be formed in different states under the Party leadership. This tactic is a transitional form of struggle; (2) such governments will undertake certain reform measures intended to improve the people’s living conditions. This tactic will help people rise in struggle for a better future; and (3) through the experiences of running such governments people will get educated about the limitations of the bourgeois-landlord system.

When this programme was formulated, the Party was not quite sure about the prospects of stability of such governments, hence the programme only referred to some welfare measures through which people were to be roused in struggles for a better future. The question of formation of such a government at the Centre was ruled out and that marked a big difference with the CPI, for which the road to revolution was exclusively a parliamentary one centering, in concrete terms, around the formation of a government at the Centre in tandem with progressive sections from within the Congress.

After 1977, however, the CPI(M) found itself in a paradoxical situation. Not only did it succeed in forming state governments in the three states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, this time, as against the 1967-1969 period, the government in West Bengal went on to stay in power for a full decade, winning a handsome victory in elections for the third time in a row. And if nothing extraordinary happens, the Tripura government, too, is all set to record its third successive victory. And after a lapse of five years, the Left-Democratic government is also back again in Kerala. From 1977 onwards, there have been no such extra-constitutional steps on the part of the Central government, or by the ruling classes, to overthrow these governments and the rules of the parliamentary game are being observed, more or less.

This uninterrupted rule in West Bengal for over a decade has put additional burdens on the ‘transitional government’. Undertaking certain welfare measures and educating the people about limitations of the bourgeois-landlord system did not prove sufficient and the Party concentrated on the demand for more money and power from the Centre and for restructuring the centre-state relations. For the last ten years, this had been the central slogan of the Party, the core strategy for working out a united front of all state governments irrespective of their political colour (Mr.Jyoti Basu often unites with many Congress Chief Ministers too). The justification given has been that the Centre discriminates particularly against West Bengal and that, with more money and power, the state government can indeed do much more for the people. This propaganda often borders on the nationalist propaganda that Bengal and Bengalis are deprived of their due share, and cooperation is sought even from the Congress(I) MPs and MLAs from West Bengal to fight unitedly against the Centre for Bengal’s interest, the recent alliance with Ashok Sen being a case in point.

Again, the responsibility for the ‘industrialisation’ of Bengal has also fallen on the shoulders of the state government. For this, the government had to seek collaborations with domestic monopoly houses and foreign multinationals, while discouraging strikes and militant workers’ movements. And this ‘responsibility’ has become still heavier as West Bengal has been suffering from a serious crisis on the industrial front. The phenomenon of industrial sickness is fast spreading in the state.

Unfortunately, however, there is no way the working class can take up the job of industrialisation on its shoulder in the present conditions. Only monopolies and multinationals can undertake the job now and hence the whole message boils down to a call for maintaining industrial peace, and it goes without saying that this has radically transformed the character of the CITU in West Bengal. The workers’ defiance of this CITU diktat has often been met with a heavy hand by the state government. And the cumulative result of this policy has been the party’s growing isolation from the working class as manifested in the successive election results. The party, however, preferred to explain away the defeats of almost all its trade union stalwarts in the 1984 parliamentary elections by pointing to the abnormal wave that followed Indira’s assassination. And the defeats in several working class constituencies in the 1987 assembly elections were attributed to the so-called caste, communal and Hindi chauvinistic sentiments prevailing among the non-Bengali workers. Forced by the objective conditions of its existence, the Left Front government is behaving increasingly like the managers of a capitalist economy; worse still, it has taken upon itself the job of crisis management.

The responsibility of presiding over the administration and state machinery, and of tackling the agitations of various dissatisfied sections of society like the junior doctors, engineers, national minorities, apart from sections of workers and peasants, has fallen on the shoulders of the government. This job has forced the government into the unpleasant course of strengthening the police administration and defending police officers and their high-handed approach. It has the same conventional approach in dealing with mass agitations, asking for more and more CRPF from the Centre to quell the Gorkha agitation and then invoking the same anti-terrorist act which it had vowed not to invoke in West Bengal.

In the countryside, the CPI(M), however, still enjoys overwhelming mass support and has even succeeded in expanding its social base. It brought about certain agrarian reforms through Operation Barga, panchayats and various relief measures and experimented in agricultural development through government support to the small holdings. All these measures could and did have only one effect, given the prevailing economic structure, namely, an impetus to the development of capitalist agriculture.

A CPI(M) theoretician had this to say about the rural scene in the state in the Sharadiya Deshhitaishi, 1987:

(1) Economic disparity and income gaps could not be reduced in the countryside.

(2) In every area, one finds cases where Bargadars have voluntarily given up their land to the landowner, and poor peasants who receive pattas lease out land to middle or rich peasants on yearly contracts.

(3) The process of peasants losing their land and joining the ranks of the landless could not be stopped, rather it has assumed complex forms.

(4) The tendency of hiring labour has increased. There has been a sharp increase in the number of agrarian labourers and their regular gatherings at railway stations and village market sites, offering their labour-power for sale, have become a familiar scene.

These are all symptoms of the growth of a capitalist economy, of the growth in income and consolidation of position of modern jotedars, rich peasants and capitalist farmers. Our own studies confirm that while the old type of landlordism and semi-bondage conditions of labourers have been seriously affected, capitalist economy has got a boost. The lion’s share of loans from cooperative societies as well as other credit and input facilities are being grabbed by capitalist farmers. The concrete agrarian programme of the CPI(M) has become a balancing exercise: facilitating the growth of rich peasant economy and periodically allowing some increase in the wages of agrarian labourers. The middle peasant economy is facing stagnation. On the whole, the CPI(M), at the all-India level, is nowadays putting greater emphasis on unity of all peasants including rich peasants, and on the demand for remunerative prices.

The important question, however, is: What makes these governments remain in power all these years, with the ruling classes observing the rule of the game and allowing these governments "to raise the consciousness and organisation of people, to make them aware of the limitations of the bourgeois-landlord system"? The CPI(M) leaders have the readymade answer that it is the fighting consciousness of the people of Bengal. They never discuss the other part of the story: the new and improved tactics of the ruling classes of allowing such governments to function.

Undoubtedly, the Left Front in West Bengal enjoys mass support and the Congress(I) is still a discredited and disorganised force (although it should be kept in mind that the Congress still single-handedly polls nearly 40% of votes in elections and a shift of only 5% will tilt the balance in its favour), and this is an important reason for the ruling classes to allow it to go on. The Left Front, for the very reason of its mass support, is a better bet for ensuring industrial peace. As regards its posing dangers to the hegemony of the ruling classes, suffice it to say that the moderate programme of some welfare measures to improve the people’s living conditions is actually the programme of almost every government in India. Only rates of implementation may differ here and there. The only different thing that the CPI(M) preaches, is educating the people about the limitations of the bourgeois-landlord system. The ruling classes do not mind this education on limitations. In real life, however, the long-term continuation of such governments educates the people more about the unlimited possibilities of parliamentary democracy. Education on limitations of the state system has gradually been transformed into, first, education on the limited power of state governments and then on limited funds!

The strategy of the ruling classes in the present phase is not to hatch conspiracies to topple these governments — something the CPI(M) leaders want the masses to go on believing — rather the strategy is to bring constant pressure to bear upon them so that they become a responsible government. And this precisely has been the central theme of all bourgeois propaganda on this question. They have learnt from experience that this pressure will work on the CPI(M). The bourgeois-landlord system does have that great flexibility and this is precisely what is happening with the Left Front government. This is the essential question which the CPI(M) never raises.

From running responsible state governments, the CPI(M) has had no other option but to take the next logical step in its programme: government formation at the Centre where all power lies. With three state governments in hand and the crisis of the Rajiv Gandhi government intensifying, conditions were mature for the party to indulge in the next round of theoretical acrobatics. In the words of Jyoti Basu, the chief idol of the West Bengal experiment and the main architect of the new line, "The CC has not only demanded resignation of the Rajiv government and the holding of fresh elections, it has also talked about the formation of an alternative government. In the resolution adopted by the CC, there are clearcut indications about the nature of such a government."

He then goes on to quote the CC resolution: "The CC is of the opinion that the people of our country want a government having a secular outlook; a government dedicated to combat communalism, determined to fight authoritarianism, protect democracy and eradicate all corruption; a government which stands for proper centre-state relations, for non-alignment and for defending world peace; a government which will defend national unity, oppose imperialist forces seeking destabilisation; a government which will provide remunerative prices and immediate relief to the unemployed and those getting inadequate wages."

And then Jyoti Basu declares, "Our Party will provide all help for the formation of such a government".

This unity of secular forces, this government of a "secular front", according to Jyoti Basu, is "neither a people’s democratic front" nor a "left and democratic front". He then goes on to assure party members that "we have not deviated from our basic aim (of formation of a people’s democratic front), nor shall we ever deviate from it."

However, there can be no escaping the fact that this "secular front" is a new addition to the CPI(M)’ s tactics. And the way they are trying to forge special ties with VP Singh and making constant appeals to Congress MPs and to the "silent majority" within the Congress to rise up for secular ideals and break away from the Congress, betrays the whole essence of this "secular government". It represents the CPI(M)’s moving very close to the CPI’s position of forming a coalition government at the Centre with ‘progressive’ (read secular) sections of the Congress via the parliamentary road. And the circle is thus complete.

[From Liberation, November 1988.]

Our Party’s Fourth All-lndia Congress has put forward the slogan of building a left and democratic confederation. This slogan has been put forward in a situation when, after a long time, the left movement in India is poised on the threshold of a major breakthrough. On the essence and the process of realisation of this slogan our Party Congress says, "In the present phase, our relation with the CPI(M)-led alternative can only be that of struggle first and unity second. And this aspect of unity does envisage co-operation in the Rajiv Hatao movement to whatever extent possible. Now, in the process of political development, in the face of direct attacks by the Centre to overthrow Left Front governments and an upswing in the revolutionary struggles of the people and consequent strengthening of our forces, the situation may undergo a drastic change. Struggle may become the secondary aspect and unity primary, and conditions may mature for developing a broad left and democratic confederation on an entirely new basis".

Let us analyse this slogan of the Party Congress from various aspects.

First, we must see what should be the Marxist approach in formulating a slogan. Should our slogan demand only what can be achieved at that particular moment with that particular balance of forces or should it correspond to the developing trends irrespective of whether the demand contained in it is immediately realisable or not? Should our slogan concern itself with only the practicability of the given moment or should it take all the possible developments into consideration? The Marxist approach teaches us that we should fix our political objective at the furthest point we can foresee towards our orientation — towards the ultimate goal we want to reach. That is to say, our slogans should be realistic and while they must contain the concrete tasks of the present, they should also contain guidelines on the direction of our advance. To restrict our slogans, our tasks, to just what is achievable at a given moment is pragmatism, which has nothing in common with Marxism. Similarly, slogans totally cut off from reality and based on subjective wishes are nothing but political gambling. "Communists represent the future within the present" — this celebrated saying of Engels should be our guide in formulating slogans. We must distinguish ourselves from the revisionists, who represent only the present within the present, as well as from the utopians, who negate the present to indulge in colourful dreams of the future. We must ensure that the broad masses can understand our orientation from our slogans.

I feel that our slogan of building a left and democratic confederation is consistent with this Marxist approach. This slogan, on the one hand, has provided impetus to our present attempts of developing interactions and joint activities with various left and left-of-centre parties, and on the other, it has underlined our orientation of revolutionary democratic alternative as opposed to the ‘Left Front-government-centric left and democratic alternative’ of the social democrats. Our slogan of building a left and democratic confederation on a new basis — on the basis of militant mass movements — may not be realised exactly the way we generally tend to think, but it will undoubtedly give rise to a new polarisation among left and democratic forces. Exactly how this polarisation will develop — this we cannot fully predict at this moment. But this much is certain: it will get us one more step forward in the struggle for revolutionary democracy.

The question that naturally arises here is whether one recognises the basic difference between the left and democratic alternative proposed by the CPI(M) and our concept of revolutionary democratic alternative or not. Once we recognise this difference, the competition between the two concepts has to be considered primary, and the joint activities get subordinated to that competition. Debates may take place, and may be necessary too, regarding our specific tactics towards the Left Front governments. But any attempt to confuse the fundamental difference in the name of unity with the CPI(M), in the name of assessment of the Left Front governments, is bound to prove suicidal. Our recent experience shows that whoever has tried to confuse these fundamental differences in the name of practicality, has lost his Party spirit and revolutionary spirit, to become a victim of various liquidationist tendencies.

Does the dialectical process of development, which we have envisaged as creating the possibility of the emergence of a left and democratic confederation and which we have tried to reflect in our slogan, constitute a real thing? This is a question that demands deep study and analysis.

What is the historical basis of our slogan? The CPI, the CPI(M) and the CPI(ML) constitute three trends of the once united Communist Party. In 1964, that Party was split into the CPI and the CPI(M), centring on the slogans of national democracy versus people’s democracy. Within the CPI(M), struggle between the two tactical lines of people’s democratic revolution -- the opportunist line and the revolutionary line -- was being waged from the very beginning. This struggle over tactical line took definite shape in the concrete clash between the Naxalbari struggle and the United Front government, and our Party, the CPI(ML), was born. This struggle between the two trends, the opportunist and the revolutionary, still continues today in the struggle between social democracy and revolutionary democracy.

The situation, in the meantime, has undergone a lot of changes. The Indian ruling classes are no longer haunted by the spectre of red governments, the Left Front governments. They no longer consider the prolonged existence of these governments as a threat to their class interests. On the contrary, these governments are increasingly being used against mass movements. So, those who still dream of revolutionary propensities in these governments are living in a fool’s paradise. However, as a natural culmination of this process, these governments have become vocal in demanding major reforms of the present political superstructure within the parliamentary arena. Through this political struggle the CPI(M) has been able to expand its mass base in West Bengal and Kerala and has succeeded in mobilising many new forces, particularly the youth. The CPI also has been forced to distance itself from the Congress and to take to some movements. Hence, the political initiatives that the left parties have taken on the "Rajiv Hatao" issue have increased the prospects of joint activities with them.

Now, let us consider the process of evolution of our Party. In an intermediate period, New Left and anarchist ideas had gained much currency in our Party. These ideas were gradually alienating the Party from its roots in the soil of the country, from the mainstream of the communist movement. This process would have culminated in the liquidation of the Party itself. Even today, various groups are continuing with these ideas, and consequently, have been reduced to marginalised political formations. Some have degenerated into academic circles, some have taken recourse to nationality or minority-based movements, while some others have become anarchist groups in the name of conducting armed activities in some remote and isolated forests and mountains. What is worse, they have accepted this state of affairs as their destiny. Without an all-lndia perspective, without participation in the ongoing nationwide political movements, merely local or partial struggles, however militant, do not bear any significance for communists. In the course of fifteen years of hard work, we have been able to build a centralised, unified Party from a fragmented state, overcoming our one-sided ideas of struggle and organisation we are trying to combine various forms, and overcoming the confines of localism we are trying to forcefully assert ourselves as the trend of revolutionary democracy in the nationwide political struggles. Coming back from the brink of liquidation the CPI(ML) has got a new lease of life. This situation has increased the scope of interactions with various left and democratic forces, has created conditions for normalisation of relations and conducting joint activities with leftist parties at various levels, and has made our propaganda, aimed at influencing their mass base, more realistic. Instead of indulging in petty bourgeois revolutionism that rests content with simply negating the CPI, the CPI(M) or the Left Front governments, we have made our criticism more concrete. Even earlier we had talked of building broad left unity from below, but could not make any headway, because this needs some agreements from above as well. This development of tactics can effectively advance the cause of developing left unity from below. With the deepening of the revolutionary crisis, the broad left masses, as a historical rule, will be attracted towards the revolutionary stream; various leftist parties, or major parts thereof, will also be forced to take steps that indirectly go in favour of revolutionary democracy. If we continue our attempts to create conditions for left unity from this day, we will be able to keep the initiative in our hands in building the confederation in future.

Our slogan reminds us of the fact that we are the revolutionary trend within and not apart from the left movement in India, opens up vast revolutionary prospects for us, and demands that we plunge ourselves with all our might into translating those prospects into reality.

What is the relevance of our slogan in the present situation? We find that both the political combinations of the ruling classes, the Congress and the National Front, are trying to utilise the left forces. While the Congress is at its old game of playing the card of maintaining national unity and opposing communalism to split the left forces and turn them into passive allies, V.P.Singh is trying to rally the leftist forces behind him declaring that ‘leftists are my natural allies’. In the past, the CPI made a blunder in allying with the Congress in the name of anti-fascist alliance, and it would be just as serious a blunder today to join the National Front bandwagon in the name of a federal and secular alternative. The need of the hour is to strengthen the left alliance and to try and create polarisations within the National Front on the basis of our independent assertion. The National Front is an unstable political formation and among its constituents, the Janata Party and the Lok Dal are facing severe internal crises. So, independent initiatives by the left forces may well result in their emergence as a strong opposition force. We can popularise this propaganda campaign based on the slogan of confederation among the left-leaning masses.

Moreover, there is a growing tendency among the Left Front partners to assert their own identity independently of the CPI(M) and even to openly criticise the anti-people steps of the Left Front government. The CPI, in different states, is trying to develop its programmes separately from the CPI(M). All these partners are generally coming forward to promote interactions with us, even in West Bengal. Even in the CPI(M) there is a tendency at different levels to normalise relations with us. The slogan of confederation is bound to give a boost to these tendencies.

To sum up, from the Marxist viewpoint, from a historical perspective as well as from considerations of the present political situation, our slogan of building a left and democratic confederation is definitely appropriate. But if the leading core of all these activities, the Party, gets weakened by any means, if the task of building independent mass movements is neglected, we will not be able to advance this cause. So, let the call of the day be: Smash all evil designs to weaken the Party, increase manifold our own independent mass base and advance boldly in the struggle for building a left and democratic confederation.

[Translated from Deshabrati, October 1989 Special Number and published in Liberation, January 1990.]

Our Party’s Fourth Congress identified the assertion of the left forces as an important aspect of the present-day Indian politics and put forward the task of rallying the left forces as an independent political force vis-a-vis the bourgeois opposition in the fight against the Congress. The left forces were called upon to take up the challenge of providing political leadership to the bourgeois opposition rather than tailing behind it. The call for building a left and democratic confederation, as issued by the Party Congress, was a bold initiative in this direction.

This call and consequent concrete political tasks, on the one hand, opened up the prospects of interactions and unity with the other two major left forces, the CPI and the CPI(M), and on the other, raised our historic struggle against them to a new level.

The left confederation is nothing other than a united front. Since the CPI, CPI(M) and the CPI(ML) have been envisaged as the principal partners in this united front, in the final analysis one cannot deny the possibilities of changes and transformations within all the three parties in the course of conflicting political events and trends, of their coming closer to each other, of revaluation of the historic splits of ’64 and ’67 and of eventual reestablishment of a single unified communist party of India. However, these are the possibilities of a distant future, and to ponder over them at present can only result in abstraction in theory and diversion in practice.

At the moment, the slogan of left confederation has only raised the contention between the three parties to a new plane. New, because it is for the first time that the struggle against social democracy has been elevated from the level of abstraction to that of a concrete tactical line, because the contention would now be directed towards wide interaction and a united front.

The slogan of left confederation demands clear-cut answers to the following questions:

1. What should be our specific relation with the CPI and the CPI(M) at the present stage?

2. What should be our attitude on the question of forming leftist governments in states and particularly, towards the Left Front governments led by the CPI(M)?

3. What should be our starting point with regard to the confederation and how are we to consider it?

Here, I would like to put forward my views on these questions.

At the very outset, we should keep in mind that we are in no position to say the last word on the political behaviour of social democracy. Are they mere agents of the bourgeoisie and other reactionary forces and enemies of mass movements, or are they natural allies of the communists and of mass movements? Perhaps it is not possible to answer this question in terms of a simple ‘yes’ or a straight ‘no’. In different historical stages they have played, and are likely to play, quite different roles. That depends on objective conditions, political developments, the balance of forces among different sections and strata of their leadership and on conscious endeavours by the communists from outside.

We may take the example of the CPI in this context. From 1964 to 1977, its development followed a process that gradually led to its becoming an appendage of the Congress, forming coalition governments with it and ultimately becoming the only supporter of the Emergency. For all practical purposes, it became difficult to distinguish it from the Indira Congress. To act as agents of the capitalists in trade union movement, to collude with the class enemies against communist revolutionaries in the countryside and the like became their hallmark. The events of 1977 saw the party in a crisis of existence and from then onwards, the party began moving away from its old position. For this, it had to undergo an intense inner-party struggle. Dange, Mohit Sen and Kalyansundaram were expelled. Adopting an anti-Congress position, they strove to return to the mainstream of leftism. Debates started inside the party regarding the basic programme too. At present, they are also trying to initiate some mass movements. They have launched movements against the Telugu Desam government in Andhra Pradesh despite opposition from the CPI(M), have decided to oppose, and, if necessary, even launch movements against certain policies of the Left Front government while remaining a partner in it, and have come forward to develop relations with us. In their theory and practice there are still some aspects, which can once more make them tilt towards the Congress. It may be that they want to utilise their relationship with us merely as a bargaining counter vis-a-vis the CPI(M) in the Left Front. Nevertheless, perhaps nobody can deny that there is a significant difference between its role in 1977 and that in 1989.

The developing interaction between the CPI and us demands institutionalisation of the relation between the two at various levels. On the other hand, they are already having a close institutionalised relationship with the CPI(M). Despite opposition from the CPI(M), they have decided to develop relations with us but, on the other hand, they are putting constant pressure on us to change our attitude towards the Left Front and to become a partner in it. It remains to be seen whether they succeed in their attempts to act as a mediator between the CPI(M) and us or find themselves in a deeper crisis under the pressure from two opposite sides. The improvement of our relation with them would be primarily determined by the next stage in the process of their evolution.

The CPI(M) is the largest left party and they are leading governments in two states. On the basis of this strength, they have in recent years, secured an important place in national politics as well. They consider themselves as the natural leader of the Indian Left and to them, the Left Fronts under their leadership are the only concrete form of left unity. The two state governments led by the Left Front occupy the central position in their tactical line and it is on this basis that they strive to achieve a polarisation in national politics. In their language, the concrete expression of this polarisation is a united front of the left, democratic and secular forces.

Barring West Bengal and Kerala, where the CPI(M)’s leadership is an established fact, on the national level their independent strength is limited and they can, at best, only form a strong pressure group. In national-level parliamentary politics, they will have to remain only an opposition force. They could have advanced significantly in unleashing a nationwide wave of mass movements on the basis of their strong position in parliamentary opposition. But they are not willing to take this revolutionary path. They prefer other ways of increasing the strength of their party.

They want to portray the increase in their parliamentary strength through political alliances with the Telugu Desam in Andhra, the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the Janata Dal in the Hindi belt as the strengthening of the left forces. The CPI(M) leadership knows well enough that every single seat in the assembly or the parliament won in this way is won at the cost of corrupting the political consciousness of the masses and weakening their potential for revolutionary movements. To facilitate the institutionalisation of this increasing political alliance with these giants of bourgeois opposition, who, in their own spheres, represent the same bourgeois-landlord combine, a theory of secular front has been put forward by joining the word ‘secular’ with ‘left and democratic’. This appears to be nothing but an inverted repetition of the CPI’s practice of alliance with the Congress.

It is evident that the CPI(M) won’t have a leading role in this secular alternative. Therefore, what should be its position in it, and if this alternative replaces the Congress to form a government at the centre, whether it should join it or support it from outside — such questions have become the subjects of debate within the party. Nevertheless, in their programme of extending the frontiers of bourgeois democracy at the present stage of the ‘people’s democratic revolution’ — a programme which, in concrete terms, is centred around restructuring of the centre-state relations — they have accepted the bourgeois opposition as their natural leaders and themselves have become the latter’s natural ally. Hence, at the present stage the CPI(M) does not consider the forces of revolutionary democracy — forces that do not find any potential for radical extension of bourgeois democracy in the bourgeois opposition and instead depend on the broad masses of poor and toiling peasants in the countryside – as left forces at all. Rather, they are considered as anarchist forces divisive to the ‘peasant unity’. This is only natural, as our struggles in the countryside inevitably strike at the social base of their secular allies.

Our slogan of left confederation reflects the objective contrast between the two tactical lines. In such a situation, struggle remains the principal aspect of our relation with them. This slogan will, of course, help us concretise and sharpen our polemics with them and, on that basis, increase our interactions with their cadres and the masses under their influence. At this stage, there is practically no immediate possibility of any large-scale joint activities or institutionalisation of relations with them. However, joint activities have taken place in Bihar even at state level and elsewhere at local levels. Some recent experiences have shown that in West Bengal too, it is possible to normalise relations and even launch some joint activities with their cadres at local levels. Everywhere they began with an all-out attempt to isolate us and oust us from their strongholds by force. But wherever we succeeded in politically defeating these attempts and survived, their attitudes have gradually changed and the relations have been somewhat normalised. This process can definitely be carried forward. However, for any radical change in their attitude we will have to wait for further political developments. The conditions for changed relations in the future can only be created by this groundwork done today at lower levels. To think that we can skip this hard, painstaking and long-drawn process of the groundwork and change the attitude of our traditional rival like the CPI(M) merely by means of certain slogans or tactical handling is utopia, pure and simple, particularly since it is still in a stage of political ascendancy and the leadership has succeeded in creating an illusion of success of their tactical line among their cadres.

As an answer to the second question, one can say that in the process of parliamentary struggles the question of forming a leftist government in certain states may arise and we may utilise such a scope. The Fourth Congress has made this important addition to our tactical line.

So far, this question had been a taboo in communist revolutionary circles. As soon as we raised the question, there was a hue and cry all around and we were damned. The last bastion of demarcation with social democracy was now gone! And inside the Party, from the same premise, but from the right extreme came up the question: now why don’t we join the Left Front as a partner?

The question of forming governments in some states as the highest form of parliamentary struggle has been present in the Indian communist movement since as early as 1957. Even in the inner-party struggle prior to Naxalbari, the revolutionary communists did not reject the tactics of forming governments. In fact the Party was united regarding utilisation of such governments for furthering mass movements. Conflicts arose only when the CPI(M) leadership used the United Front government to crush the Naxalbari movement. The period after that was for us a period of open revolutionary struggles when parliamentary struggles were discarded, and the CPI(M), too, did not get any chance of forming government in the face of fascist terror.

In this particular form of struggle, we must proceed with extreme caution and only step by step. That’s why the Fourth Congress has provided only some general guidelines on the question and has left more specific considerations for the future. At what stage of development of the revolutionary movement should we raise this question; for example, what are the different prospects in this regard in Bihar at present — the Party should start deliberations and debates on these questions. However, as the Fourth Congress has laid down, we will develop our practice on this question only on the basis of a dialectical negation of the Left Front governments led by the CPI(M).

It is of course true that the opposition-led state governments have a role to play in opposing the Congress regime at the Centre and in creating a breach, however small, in the Indian state machinery as a whole. But, such circumstances also create conditions for a widespread mass awakening, don’t they? One can understand the logic and the necessity behind a non-left government’s attempts to divert this mass awakening towards regionalism; but when a left government too follows the same method, we cannot but oppose it in spite of its ‘Left’ label.

For these reasons, to extend critical support to the Left Front governments in their anti-Centre movements and to play the role of revolutionary opposition in the internal affairs of the state — this has to be our basic stand on this question.

Now comes the third question. We have talked of the left confederation concretely in the context of the Rajiv Hatao movement. Despite the same slogan, the left forces have an approach qualitatively different from that of the bourgeois opposition; the leftists want to combine the Rajiv Hatao movement with the mass movements on the basic demands of the people; the alliance of the Left with the bourgeois opposition is only issue-based, temporary — it is precisely to assert this independence of the left forces vis-a-vis the bourgeois opposition that the left confederation becomes necessary.

In popular consciousness, the difference between the Left Front and the National Front is being perceived only in terms of their willingness or unwillingness for an alliance with the BJP. This is restricting the independent identity of the Left merely to the question of communalism.

Our propaganda should be on the following line: our alliance with the CPI(M) in this confederation is definitely possible, as we have already recognised a certain relevance of the Left Front government in the national perspective, we support the anti-Centre struggles led by these governments and we have no hesitation whatsoever in resisting any conspiracy by the Centre to dismiss these governments. Our opposition to the anti-people activities of this government inside West Bengal or the CPI(M)’s opposition to our peasant struggles in Bihar — these may remain issues of polemics within the confederation. Gradually these differences can be further narrowed down and the confederation can be further consolidated. We should start, and it is definitely possible to start, from the minimum common points that already exist between us.

We have seen in Bihar that while we have stuck to our attitude towards the Left Front governments and the CPI(M) to theirs regarding our peasant struggle, joint activities have been possible even at the state level. Even a proposal is being discussed among all the three parties that the left parties like the CPI, CPI(M) and IPF should, while engaging in joint activities with the bourgeois opposition, have a separate institutional arrangement among themselves. The seed that is being sown in Bihar today may very well grow into a left confederation in the coming days.

The initiative for this left confederation will obviously come from the Hindi belt in general and from Bihar in particular. The new political initiative that we took seven years ago through the IPF is ushering in a resurgence of the Left in the concrete conditions of the Hindi belt — we are already getting indications of this. In the most important part of the country, in the nerve-centre of the Indian politics, where the left movement has traditionally been weak, a new wind has started blowing today. This region alone can become the meeting ground of the three main currents of the left movement. The phenomenon of a large number of cadres and masses under the influence of the CPI and CPI(M) joining the IPF in UP and Bihar is a form of this confluence. The beginning of joint activities at first with the CPI and gradually with the CPI(M) is the second form of this confluence. This trend will undoubtedly develop further and it is here that the foundation of a left confederation at the national level — in which our independence and initiative will be guaranteed — will be laid.

Though it may sound paradoxical, the dialectical truth is that the revolutionary comrades of West Bengal can contribute in building this confederation only by going the opposite way, i.e., only by holding aloft the banner of revolutionary opposition against the anti-people policies and activities of the Left Front government.

[From Liberation, October 1991.]

The Strategic Perspective

Indian People’s Front or the Communist Party? Let us begin with this question which is currently under wide discussion both within our Party and in outer circles. Some comrades feel that when the Party was working underground, the IPF did have a relevance as its legal apparatus. But with the Party increasingly coming out into the open, the need for a separate legal apparatus has withered away. Prakash Karat, the CPI(M) theoretician, in his polemics with us raised the same question: "The future relationship between the CPI(ML) and the IPF is problematic. As the CPI(ML) is moving to become an open Party with legal functioning, what will be the purpose of running IPF when the same CPI(ML) is its leading and guiding force?"^[1]

We are familiar with the other view which demanded the dissolution of the Party itself as all its practical programmes were being taken care of by the IPF.

Our Party has consistently held that both the Party and the IPF are needed. The moot point is how to divide and how to combine the tasks of both.

Let me elaborate. As a communist Party, our task is to organise the urban and rural proletariat and accomplish the socialist revolution. In popular terms, to abolish the rule of capital and transform private property into public property. The road to socialist revolution everywhere passes through democratic revolution, and as democratic revolution in our country has remained unfinished, indecisive, we must pay utmost attention to its completion. Recent reversals that socialism has suffered worldwide further confirms that hasty steps in building socialism bypassing the tasks of democratic revolution do not bring us any extra advantages.

In India, capital has developed immensely in its modern industrial forms and has also penetrated substantially in agriculture. Exploitation of labour does take the capitalist form in many a case. We do find all the modern institutions of bourgeois democracy – the constitution to parliament based on adult suffrage to a judiciary. One can easily call for a socialist revolution. But this is only one side of the coin.

On the other side, medieval relics, feudal and semi-feudal institutions, reactionary Brahminical caste system, religious fundamentalism, all symptomatic of the old system and the bureaucracy deeply attached to it remain enormously strong and they all add up to capitalist exploitation. Capital, otherwise a purely democratic institution, here in India makes alliance with the reactionary forces of the old society.

Moreover, the abject dependence of Indian capital on international finance capital is the other characteristic feature of Indian capital.

All the modern bourgeois institutions turn into a mockery at the grassroots. The whole environment seriously degrades the development of class consciousness and retards the growth of political thought among all sections of the people, and it becomes extremely difficult to organise even the urban and rural proletariat and build their solidarity on communist lines.

In such a situation no real fight for socialism can be fought for without first achieving general democratic demands and completing the democratic revolution. And, as no section of the bourgeoisie is in a position to lead this struggle for democracy in a thoroughgoing and consistent manner, it is the historic duty of the proletariat and its Party, the Communist Party, to take the lead. Through this struggle, a quite protracted one, the Communist Party only creates and facilitates conditions for a decisive struggle for socialism.

In Russia, the most backward European country and broadly a semi-feudal country, Lenin repeatedly emphasised this point and formulated the concept of revolutionary democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants. This Leninist idea was successfully translated by Mao in China, a country which, apart from being semi-feudal, was semi-colonial too. He advanced the concept of four-class dictatorship (viz., workers, peasants, petty-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie) and called it New Democracy.

From what we have discussed above, two things come out in bold relief. First of all, we need an independent and consistently principled communist party, which is not only the sole guarantee of the victory of socialism, but also imperative for the decisive victory of democratic revolution itself.

Secondly, we shall never forget the importance of democracy, and more than any other, should champion the cause of democracy. We must always strive to unite with all the forces of revolutionary democracy against the autocratic system, against all feudal and semi-feudal institutions, against the reactionary caste system, religious fundamentalism etc., in short, against the old system.

By revolutionary democratic forces we mean those who accept the democratic programme of the communist party and are firm and active in revolutionary actions, but lack the class-consciousness of communists. These forces are heterogeneous in character and remain at different stages of transition towards socialism and communism. To begin with, they often appear in a host of non-party forms or act as pressure groups within certain political parties. They have the potential of evolving as revolutionary democrats. Acceptance of the communist party’s democratic programme should not be understood as necessarily a formal acceptance and agreement with them and it may be an unwritten fighting agreement. It is our duty to identify such forces, help them in their evolution as revolutionary democrats and forge a fighting unity with them.

IPF symbolises this effort of our Party. More so, IPF is not simply an organisation mechanically built by our Party, rather it grew in the course of powerful democratic movements and assumed a distinct character of its own.

In the concrete conditions of ours all attempts to develop a separate democratic party by revolutionary democratic elements so far have not borne fruit. We keenly watched the experiments of a non-party political formation by Swami Agnivesh, emergence of a National Coordination of Farmers’ Organisations, and even the Democratic People’s Front. None could evolve into an independent democratic party with which we could make a fighting agreement, and, oscillating between revolutionary and liberal democracy, in concrete political situations, they joined various factions of the Janata Dal.

A large number of revolutionary democratic elements did come over to the IPF and it became a common front for Communist Party and a large number of non-party democrats who came over to it from various political streams. We are of the firm opinion that if IPF persists with its programme and activities, in the changed political situations fresh streams of democrats from various parties, particularly Janata Dal will join its ranks. In the subsequent stages IPF will have to redefine its slogans, adopt a more flexible approach, make necessary adjustments in its programme and structure in order to broaden its social base and this is all natural in its process of growth. But it definitely has a bright future ahead.

The Struggle between the Two Tactics

Let us make it clear at the very outset that Naxalism is neither any special trend nor do we intend to make it one. The entire bourgeois propaganda and also the CPI(M) propaganda depicts Naxalism as something special, something alien to the mainstream communist movement of India, something of the nature of a ‘New Left’. As Naxalism developed into a popular revolutionary movement in the ’70s, it was obvious that various petty-bourgeois revolutionary trends joined it and some even tried to transform it into a special, a ‘New Left’, trend. After a period of setbacks and scores of splits eventually these petty-bourgeois trends got separated and they subsequently matured into anarchism whereas the main part of the movement reaffirmed its identity as the revolutionary wing of the Indian communist movement.

The communist movement in all countries, at least till the revolution is over, always gets divided into revolutionary and opportunist wings and India can be no exception.

Our entire first generation of leadership emerged out of the protracted struggle between the two tactical lines within the Indian communist movement in general and the CPI(M) in particular. Comrade Charu Mazumdar, the founder of our Party, repeatedly pointed out that we are the inheritors of that Communist Party under whose banner communists fought the heroic battles of Punappura-Vyalar, Tebhaga and Telengana and embraced martyrdom.

However much we are dismissed as ‘New Left’ we have been and shall always be the revolutionary wing of the Indian communist movement as against the opportunist wing represented by the CPI(M).

Individuals have deserted us and we cannot rule out such desertions in the future too. But the trend we represent can never be liquidated as it is deep-rooted in the history of nearly 70 years of the communist movement in India and is reinforced by the objective conditions which are crying out for a revolutionary solution.

Let us move to the main topic. The CPI(M)’s tactical line is composed of three elements which the leadership tries to eclectically combine into one whole.

Firstly, it considers the Left Front government in West Bengal as the most advanced left formation in the country and considers creation and stabilisation of this model as their main achievement.

Secondly, it places top priority on the broadest unity of the left and secular forces i.e., Janata Dal and NF, to fight a Congress(I) comeback and counter the BJP’s communal challenge.

Thirdly, it considers defending national unity as the priority task of the Left and under this pretext it enters into formal or informal alliances with Congress(I) and the BJP.

How should we judge the CPI(M)’s tactical line? On the basis of the main achievement, top priority or the priority task? Let us turn to Mr.Prakash Karat for help.

Says he, "The CPI(M)’s tactical line must be judged as to whether it is successful at this juncture in mobilising a bulk of the bourgeois opposition parties on the secular platform which can help in political alignments shaping up to counter the Congress(I) manoeuvres to split the opposition and to fight the serious menace of the communal consolidation behind the BJP-VHP." Prakash^[2] wrote this prior to October ’90. We will resist the temptation to deal here with the "success" or otherwise since then, as this is beyond the scope of this paper.

Put in simple terms, Prakash says and CPI(M) believes that, the main tactics of the Left is to ‘create’ pressure on the parties of bourgeois opposition to resist the BJP’s communalist danger. If the platform is essentially a secular one and if the bourgeois opposition’s essential character is secular, it is obvious that the entire mobilisation is directed against communalism represented by BJP. As Congress is not regarded a communal party the logical extension of this tactics will be widening the secular platform by incorporating Congress(I) or at least a powerful section of it.

At this particular moment, forced by political circumstances, they are doing precisely this. The entire tactic emerges out of the strategic understanding that as India is at the stage of bourgeois democratic revolution, it is obvious that the bourgeois opposition will have to take the lead in fighting against the old forces of fundamentalism and obscurantism. The Left is weak and is destined to remain weak at this juncture and the maximum it can do is to pressurise the bourgeois opposition to go forward. In the crucial Hindi heartland, the party envisages its advance only as the tail-ender of the Janata Dal and the same is repeated in relation to Telugu Desam in Andhra and the DMK in Tamil Nadu. Its fortunes are thus tied up with the rise and fall of the bourgeois opposition in the rest of India except in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, where there has been no bourgeois opposition worth the name. These traditional strongholds of the communist movement were built up only in the course of independent left assertion and powerful mass movements for decades.

Day in and day out we are abused by CPI(M) and its junior brother the CPI of belittling the danger of Congress(I) and BJP. The fact is that in its entire history CPI(ML) never entered into any overt or covert deal with either the BJP or the Congress(I). This ‘credit’, however, goes to our friends in the CPI and the CPI(M) and this is why they are rightly termed as ‘opportunists’. Their whole exercise at accusing us of belittling this danger is aimed at justifying their tactics of tailing behind the Janata Dal. Similarly, we are accused of overlooking the danger to national unity. This again is an exercise to rationalise their pacts with the Congress(I) and the BJP. We are further accused of not differentiating between bourgeois parties of different colours and considering all of them as a single reactionary mass. All these accusations are slanderous, aimed at covering up the tailism of their tactics.

Our lone Member of Parliament abstained from voting in the confidence vote sought by the VP government in November ’89, precisely because the government was propped up by the BJP. The same member did vote for the government when it was threatened by the Congress(I)-BJP combine. We did vote for the Laloo government in Bihar in the face of Congress(I)-BJP opposition, did it on principle and not because we were forced, as Prakash alleges. Our lone MP in this Parliament too voted against the confidence motion sought by the Congress(I) government.

We do differentiate between bourgeois parties and that is why we have participated in joint struggles with parties like Janata Dal against the Congress(I) and the BJP.

The point is that we make one more differentiation between the forces of bourgeois democracy, i.e., between liberal and revolutionary democracy. We strive to free the forces of revolutionary democracy from all the liberal illusions and win them over to the revolutionary fold. This is the essential difference between the revolutionary and opportunist tactical lines, between the policy of independent left advance and the so-called mobilisation of the bulk of bourgeois opposition parties on a secular platform, between the strivings for establishing proletarian hegemony on a democratic revolution and the tailing behind the bourgeois opposition. The struggle between these two lines will decide the outcome of the Indian revolution and obviously the Hindi heartland has the ideal settings for the resolution of this debate. Let us sum up this debate on political tactics with what Lenin said on two tactics:

"...the main fallacy of Menshevism as a whole was the fact that it did not understand which elements of the bourgeoisie can, together with the proletariat, carry through to the end the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia. The Mensheviks even now go astray by thinking that the bourgeois revolution must be made by the "bourgeoisie" (bourgeoisie in general, irrespective of "colours"!) while it is the function of the proletariat to help it. ... The Bolsheviks have asserted, and still do, that the only firm and reliable ally the proletariat can have in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution (until that revolution wins) is the peasantry. The peasants are also "bourgeois democrats", but entirely different in "colour" from the Cadets or Octobrists. ...These "bourgeois democrats" are compelled to fight against the very foundations of landlord power and the old state authority connected with it. ...Therefore in their tendencies — which are determined by what they are compelled to do — these bourgeois democrats are revolutionary democrats." (From How Comrade Plekhanov Argues about Social Democratic Tactics)

The main opposition in our ranks to any alliance with any bourgeois party comes with the argument that as Communists it is our basic duty to expose all the bourgeois parties and, thus, how we can go into any, even temporary, alliance with any of them. Let me quote Lenin again, " to expose all bourgeois parties is the duty of the socialists in all countries and at all times. ...It is in a period of bourgeois revolution that to say "expose all bourgeois parties" means saying nothing, and indeed, saying what is not true; for bourgeois parties can be seriously and thoroughly exposed only when particular bourgeois parties step into the foreground of history." (From How Comrade Plekhanov Argues about Social Democratic Tactics)

Our Tactics in Relation to Liberal Democratic Parties

In states like UP and Bihar, historically, the socialist trend had a strong presence. In course of time and through a highly complicated process of amalgamation with several political streams, it now stands as Janata Dal and enjoys a considerable influence among peasant castes. It upholds the liberal democratic values in its pronouncements and a large section of democratic intelligentsia and, of late, Muslim minorities are also under its influence. All this makes our interaction with it inevitable. Lenin said "only those who are not sure of themselves can fear to enter into temporary alliances even with unreliable people; not a single political party could exist without such alliances."

There are of course two ways of effecting any alliance. One is the opportunist way pursued by the CPI and the CPI(M) which does not give any class analysis of liberalism and democracy. Be it the ‘socialistic’ slogans of Congress in earlier phases, the grand secular phrase-mongering of Mulayam Singh Yadav or the ‘social justice’ of VP Singh-Laloo Yadav and co., opportunists applaud them to the skies. This approach bases itself on good intentions, kindness and on fine declarations and nice slogans of the bourgeois politicians.

The revolutionary way neither bases itself on the reliability of bourgeois politicians, nor can it expect them to give up their phrase-mongering and shrewdness, which constitute their very soul. It bases itself on the class analysis of liberalism and democracy, identifies to what extent, objectively, a particular bourgeois politician or party can go with it and seeks cooperation in the actual field. And instead of devising a criterion of a good and kind bourgeoisie worthy of concluding agreements with, "supports", as Lenin said, "any, even the very worst bourgeoisie, to the extent that it actually fights autocracy". He further said, "such support is necessary in the interests of achieving the independent social-revolutionary aims of the proletariat." (From Working Class and Bourgeois Democracy)

In the eleven-month rule of the Janata Dal at the centre, we played the role of the only Left opposition in the Parliament, the role we continue to play in the Bihar and Assam assemblies as well as in Parliament. In the Mandal campaign we refused to join the bandwagon despite all the euphoria created in Bihar, and even when the broad democratic majority was overshadowed by the liberal illusions of ‘social justice’ spread by Janata Dal, we held aloft the independent banner of revolutionary democracy. We refused to give unconditional and uncritical support to the Mandalised politics of Janata Dal and exposed its limited class aims, its betrayal of ‘the right to employment’ and the social injustice perpetrated under its patronage against the most oppressed sections of the people.

If in the ’89 elections, the phenomenon of Muslim minorities coming out of the fold of Congress(I) and aligning themselves with the left parties and the Janata Dal was surely an indication of secularisation of Muslim politics, in ’91, by contrast, Janata Dal leaders entering into an unholy pact with the forces of Muslim fundamentalism only strengthened the grip of such forces on the Muslim masses. From the left and democratic camp, even at the risk of isolation, we were the only ones who exposed this murky side of the Janata Dal.

The point I want to emphasise is that our Party has never let down the banner of revolutionary democracy, and unlike the CPI, has refused to give up our consistent principled positions just for the sake of a parliamentary seat with the help of Janata Dal.

The situation, however, has taken a radical turn. The Congress is back to power at the centre, the BJP has further strengthened its position and the Janata Dal is back to its traditional role of opposition and back to its strongholds. We shall now have to explore the prospects of joint moves with it against the Congress(I) and the BJP.

It should be kept in mind that the Janata Dal is a heterogeneous party and various trends and factions operate within it. Whatever joint actions and temporary alliances we develop with it, our basic aim should be to split it and develop a closer relationship with factions and elements inclined towards revolutionary democracy.

Our Tactics towards Dalits and National Minority Movements

Diverse kinds of political forces have emerged in different states and regions of India and we shall have to decide our specific approaches towards them.

For example, the BSP, a party championing the cause of dalits has, by now, acquired a stable base in Uttar Pradesh. Its leadership is staunchly anti-left, politically rank opportunist and represents primarily the interests of the dalit bureaucracy. For the broad dalit masses, who are at the same time landless poor peasants, it has nothing concrete to offer. It has, however, raised the aspirations and militancy of dalit masses who have all the potential to take up revolutionary democratic orientation. We shall, therefore, have to revise our tactics towards BSP, explore the possibilities of entering into a temporary alliance on definite issues, and, in the process, to influence and win over the positive sections.

We may adopt a similar attitude towards PMK in Tamil Nadu. Though it has an anti-dalit overtone, still it signifies a break in backward caste mobilisation and from traditional Dravidian politics.

Our experience in Karbi Anglong, at a very small level though, in combining the question of tribal autonomy with economic and social transformation of the society itself is worth mentioning here in some detail.

ASDC, a common front of communists from among the same nationality and the democratic elements of the nationality movement, emerged through a popular mass movement. The movement was directed against the corrupt rule of the Congress(I)-controlled district council. Incidentally, the Congress there, too, champions the cause of an autonomous state. The movement, from the very beginning, had an element of class struggle in it, comprising primarily the broad majority of landless, poor and middle peasants pitted against mahajans, landlords and other reactionary elements patronised by the Congress(I). The reactionaries, too, in the majority of cases, belonged to the same nationality. The movement was led by the communist elements who received communist education under the overall impact of ML movement and later translated it into the Karbi movement and not vice-versa. Elections to the district council were won amidst the rising flames of powerful and militant mass movements, where victory over the reactionary elements was first won in the social arena. Since then, efforts have been going on to deepen mass work, enhance the democratic values and sharpen the class struggle. Free from chauvinistic overtones, ASDC has extended its influence over other national minorities, brought about a polarisation among Biharis and draws support from sections of Bengali and Assamese people of the region.

In our Party’s tactics, ASDC is sought to be used as a launching pad to provide a revolutionary democratic orientation to the other tribal autonomy movements of Assam and North-East and for democratic restructuring of the Assamese society itself instead of just remaining confined to the district council. It is this full-fledged political role of the ASDC and its ever-increasing influence over the other sections of the people and other regions which provides it a distinctive feature.

The question naturally arises in the light of the experiences in Karbi Anglong as to whether we should make a fresh appraisal of our tactics towards Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and other such movements.

Comrade A.K. Roy was mistaken when he thought that Jharkhand, the state of tribals, whose society contains the features of primitive communism, would itself transform into a Lalkhand. In the process he could only give birth to a primitive bourgeois Sibu Soren.

The point is to transform the Jharkhand movement into a Lalkhand and that can only be done by developing the elements of class struggle in the Jharkhandi society and uniting with the democratic elements against the reactionary elements within JMM. Only a strong communist party, having a strong communist group among Jharkhandis, can successfully pursue this tactics.

JMM itself has been toning down its demand for a Jharkhand state, to a state confined to the Bihar districts only and then again to some sort of autonomous region within Bihar. It is divided among powerful sections differing in their attitudes towards the political forces and towards the contradictions in Jharkhandi society. Our Party’s influence too has been growing in the area and we are now placed in a better position to take up the policy of active intervention which does not rule out temporary alliance with JMM or factions within it.

In Uttarakhand too, where the BJP has vastly improved its position, we shall have to revise our tactics to check its growth by actively posing the demand of a separate state.

The Tactics of Forming Governments at Local and State Levels

Marx had said that we must prepare not a government party but an opposition party of the future. We firmly adhere to this principled position. In Indian conditions, however, opportunities do arise at local and even state levels for communists to form governments in collaboration with other democratic forces through winning a majority in elections. In our tactical line we have not ruled out this tactic, and, have kept it in consideration even if as an exception. This tactic, however, has to be made a part of raising mass movements to a broader and higher level.

In CPI(M)’s tactical line, this tactic is of cardinal importance for changing the balance of forces to raise the level of mass struggles and for expanding its influence at an all-India level. They have also succeeded in forming governments in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. The Left Front government in West Bengal is now running for more than fourteen years at a stretch. This record of a sort, otherwise a tremendous achievement in itself, has ironically produced a serious theoretical crisis for the party.

Contrary to the pronouncements and expectations of the CPI(M), the most advanced left formation has singularly failed to create any impact even in the bordering states, what to speak of the all-India level. Every victory of it in West Bengal seems to further diminish its all-India relevance and makes it more and more an exclusively Bengal phenomenon.

In the Hindi belt, it seeks expansion only as an ally of the Janata Dal, parroting their slogans. The only achievement of the Left Front government it projects is the containment of communal forces. With the BJP making its strong presence felt in Bengal, this propaganda too has suffered a setback.

The CPI(M) theoreticians while waxing eloquent on the achievements of the LF government in Bengal, refuse to evaluate the role of this supposedly ‘most advanced left formation’ as a launching pad, as desired by their own tactical line.

Their predicament resembles what Engels had described in the Peasant war in Germany: "The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme Party is to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the realisation of the measures which that domination requires."

The leader of the extreme party will have to, according to Engels, "advance the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises and with the assurances that the interests of that alien class are its own interests. Whoever finds himself in this false position is irrevocably lost."

Don’t we hear daily the interests of Tatas, Birlas and Goenkas in opening industries in Bengal being projected by the Left Front leaders as the interests of the labouring people of Bengal?

Prakash Karat admits that the West Bengal experiment is a social-democratic one, as the socialist way is not possible in that state under the bourgeois-landlord system. He implores us to understand that within the scope and limits of such state governments, it is forced to collaborate with foreign and Indian monopoly capital. He admits that there are failures and shortcomings in other fields. Prakash accuses us of treating the Left Front government virtually just as another non-Congress(I) government and demands from us just critical support, a positive attitude, so to say.

Dear comrade, we are well aware of all the limitations. We never expect this government to play any revolutionary role. By making ‘more power to the states’ the sole plank of national intervention and making common cause with the non-Congress(I) governments you yourselves have degraded this government to the level of any other non-Congress(I) government.

Still, we do support you in relation to the Congress(I) and its manoeuvres, be it in elections or in anti-centre struggles. We are always ready to extend you critical support on any of your positive measures. But, as revolutionary communists, we will be failing in our duty if we don’t expose the myth of the so-called most advanced left formation and don’t oppose the anti-People measures resorted to by this government. We will be committing a crime to the Indian revolution if we fail to point out that the Left Front experiment began in West Bengal by crushing the movement of Naxalbari peasants led by a section of the Party itself and therefore, such governments can never provide an impetus to the mass movements, and instead, can only dampen its spirit.

History has proved that fourteen long years of ‘most advanced left formation’ has failed to create any impact outside Bengal, whereas ironically, the Naxalbari movement, although crushed in Bengal, spread at an all-India level, carved out a base for itself first in Andhra and then in Bihar despite extreme repression and scores of splits. The movement even created an impact in Nepal and rejuvenated the communist movement there, a fact grudgingly accepted by Comrade Surjeet himself.

Election Tactics

Whenever elections come, all hues of liberals start accusing us of belittling the danger of the Congress(I) and the BJP and advise us to refrain from contesting elections so as not to split the opposition votes and instead, offer unconditional support to the liberal opposition. This argument finds a receptive chord among petty-bourgeois intelligentsia surrounding our Party and some sections within the Party. We are advised to settle for a seat or two in the bargain, because after all, it the seats which matter.

We have repeatedly explained that our election tactics are nothing special, they are only the application of our general political tactics to a particular case. Moreover, more than a formal consideration of the arithmetical possibility of splitting the votes, we must rather visualise the political possibility of this happening. This election too proved that the arithmetical prospect of the victory of the Congress(I) and the BJP due to our contesting the elections was mechanical. If at all any such things happen they are only exceptions. Had we succumbed to the liberal pressure we would have missed the opportunity of conducting massive independent political propaganda and creating conditions for future advance. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to face similar accusations from Mensheviks who charged them of overlooking the Black-Hundred danger. Lenin replied, "everywhere in all countries the first independent entry of the social democrats in an election campaign has been met by the howling and barking of the liberals accusing the socialists of wanting to let the Black-Hundreds in.

"....by refusing to fight the cadets you are leaving under the ideological influence of the cadets masses of proletarian and semi-proletarians who are capable of following the lead of the Social-Democrats. Now or later, unless you cease to be socialists, you will have to fight independently, inspite of the Black-Hundred danger. And it is easier and more necessary to take the right step now than it will be later on". (From Bloc with Cadets)

He also said "A joint list (with cadets) would be a crying contradiction to the whole independent class policy of the Social-Democratic Party. By recommending a joint list to the masses we would be bound to cause hopeless confusion of class and political divisions. We would undermine the principles and the general revolutionary significance of our campaign for the sake of gaining a seat in the Duma for a liberal! We would be subordinating class policy to parliamentarism instead of subordinating parliamentarism to class policy. We would deprive ourselves of the opportunity to gain an estimate of our forces. We would lose what is lasting and durable in all elections — the development of the class consciousness and solidarity of the socialist proletariat; we would gain what is transient, relative and untrue — superiority of the cadet over the Octobrists." (Social-Democrats and Electoral Agreements)

Comrade Lenin repeatedly emphasised the absolute independence of the communist party in election campaign and said, "it must under no circumstances merge its slogans or tactics with those of any other opposition or revolutionary party...Exceptions to this rule are permitted only in cases of extreme necessity and only in relation to parties that fully accept the main slogans of our immediate political struggles.

He also said, "In the cities, where the working class population is mostly concentrated, we must never, except in cases of extreme necessity, refrain from putting up absolutely independent social-democratic candidates. And there is no such urgent necessity. A few cadets or Trudoviks more or less (especially of the popular socialist type) are of no serious political importance, for the Duma itself, can, at best, play only a subsidiary secondary role."

In our concrete conditions, our main areas of struggle in the countryside fall in the same category.

Our election tactics have firmly upheld Lenin’s teachings and this is only worthy of a Marxist-Leninist Party.

As election tactics are nothing but the application of general political tactics to a particular case, it is obvious that the political alliances which are built up in the course of extra-parliamentary struggles will naturally find expression in seat adjustments and other electoral agreements. And on this score we have always tried to be as flexible as possible within the limit of our principles.

Formation of A Left Bloc — The Only Viable Tactics

We have a protracted struggle ahead. The coming together of the three main communist streams, smaller left parties, Naxalite factions and grassroots movements who give up anarchist perception and join the political struggle, revolutionary democratic sections from the Janata Dal, dalit, minority and nationality movements, and the revolutionary petty-bourgeois and bourgeois intelligentsia will give rise to a left bloc or what we call a left and democratic confederation. With the withering away of the Soviet bloc in the international arena, and the new economic policy of the Congress government which revealed the abject dependence of Indian capital on international finance capital and with the public sector losing its role of commanding heights, opportunists are facing the worst theoretical crisis of their career. It is now hard to defend ‘imperialist versus socialist bloc led by Soviet Union’ as the principal contradiction, to applaud the ‘progressive’ foreign policy of the Indian government, to uphold the national character of the Indian bourgeoisie and the role of public sector in contrast to the private monopoly houses. The third formation of the LF-NF combine, which had started dreaming of coming to power at the centre — the CPI having already declared its eagerness to join the government and the CPI(M) preparing itself to "cross the bridge" — suffered a rude shock in the elections. The Left finds it hard to go with the Congress and also uncomfortable in the company of the truncated bourgeois opposition. Perhaps attempts will be made to search for secular forces within the Congress to widen the secular platform. But the compulsion of the situation will force it to adopt more and more independent position and resort to popular movements against the economic policies of the government.

Emergence of a left bloc is necessary and inevitable in the course of Indian democratic revolution which in turn will change the whole course of the revolution itself. The basic orientation of our political tactics is directed towards achieving this goal, conditions for which are maturing day by day.

Lenin had said in relation to the Russian bourgeois democratic revolution, "In this revolution the revolutionary proletariat will participate with the utmost energy, sweeping aside the miserable tailism of some and the revolutionary phrases of others. It will bring class definiteness and consciousness into the dizzying whirlwind of events, and march on intrepidly and unswervingly, not fearing but fervently desiring the revolutionary democratic dictatorship, fighting for the republic and for complete republican liberties, fighting for substantial economic reforms in order to create for itself a truly large arena, an arena worthy of the twentieth century in which to carry on the struggle for socialism."

At the fag end of the twentieth century we only need to replace this with the twenty-first century, but for the rest what Lenin said equally applies to the Indian proletariat.

Note:
1. The reference is to the protagonists of the liquidationist trend which arose in the Party Congress in 1988.
2. "CPI(ML)/IPF – Quest for a Left Role" by Prakash Karat, The Marxist, October-December, 1990.

[Inaugural address at the Central Party School, June 1994.]

Dear comrades,

I welcome you all to the Central Party School. As you are aware, our Party, over the years, has cultivated the habit of a comprehensive and creative study of Marxism-Leninism and all throughout ’80s, although working in underground conditions, we organised Party schools from central down to the grassroots levels. In these schools the study of both Marxist classics as well as the socio-economic conditions of India were undertaken. This has been an important weapon in the hands of the Party to integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of India and thus enrich the Party line and unite the whole Party around it. This aspect of vigorous ideological-theoretical work undertaken by our Party is little known outside and that is why outside observers are often baffled by the smooth transition our Party has made from one stage to another. Many people don’t know that while conducting political activities through IPF, the Party structure was kept intact from top to bottom, not simply as a scheme of work division but more importantly as the ideological-theoretical guide to the whole course of the movement. Those who maintained that the Party has been sacrificed at the altar of IPF are at a loss to explain the present situation when Party has taken over the entire political command without a hitch.

A month or so back, I met a comrade from an ML faction. He had a lot of criticism against our Party but he praised us for what he called the expertise in Party building. Actually it is neither a question of organisational skill, nor of the charisma of individual leaders, but of taking the ideological-theoretical work as the key link of Party building that has enabled us to advance the cause of Party building amidst the all-round political confusion and organisational chaos in the ML movement. This is something unique to our Party, a fine tradition which we must cherish and preserve.

As you know, the study of Marxism has long been abandoned in the CPI. Soviet propaganda material was the only literature in currency there, and after the Soviet collapse the whole propaganda network of CPI has simply collapsed. In the CPI(M), it had always been a regimented study with heavy doses of metaphysics. There is just no scope for any independent and creative study of Marxism or for any ideological-theoretical debates within the party. Ultra-left groups have nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism. As regards their adherence to Mao’s thought, they first detach it from its Marxist-Leninist roots and then pick up certain quotations of Mao in isolation from the whole body of Mao’s thought and interpret them conveniently to suit their own idealist-anarchist thinking.

In contrast, our track record is far better, but I don’t think all is well in our Party too. Particularly in the last year or two there has been a certain decline on the ideological plane, and the theoretical level of the Party has generally gone down. I think if a survey is made here of comrades present in this school, in all likelihood it will reveal that a good majority of comrades have hardly touched the classics in recent times and perhaps the majority among them will blame the pressure of day-to-day work for this predicament.

If I correctly remember, one of our major aims while opening up the Party had been to take on the renewed bourgeois challenge to Marxism. We shall perhaps all agree that whatever has been done in this regard is precious little compared to the challenge ahead. Now, when the Party is poised for a rapid expansion and we have called upon all communists to join CPI(ML), the ideological-theoretical consolidation of the Party has assumed a new urgency. Moreover, in an environment where the different branches of Party practice are assuming more and more independent status with their increasing volume of work and full-fledged separate structures, any neglect of ideological-theoretical work is bound to give rise to one-sided and metaphysical way of thinking. Ideological-theoretical work is like the life-blood of the Party without which the Party shall be reduced to a lifeless body. It is like the engine of the Party ship without which the Party ship will aimlessly float in the vast ocean without ever expecting to reach the shore. This Central School is expected to make a fresh beginning in this regard, and in the coming months, the school system must be expanded to the grassroots.

Our Party has completed 25 years of its life. Since 1993, when it started functioning openly, the Party’s influence has spread far and wide and by all accounts, we have entered a new phase; rather a decisive phase of Party’s advance. I say a decisive phase because precisely at this moment both the right-opportunist tactics epitomised by the CPI(M)-led Left Front government and the left-opportunist tactics of immediate seizure of power practised by People’s War group have been caught in a blind alley and are showing definite signs of decay and degeneration.

The LF government experiment in West Bengal, even after 17 years of its existence at a stretch, has not only failed in generating any impact on worker-peasant masses of the country, it has also failed to achieve its other declared objective of effecting a restructuring of centre-state relations. It has failed to provide any alternative economic policies and, despite tall claims of providing left and democratic or secular alternative, has failed in arresting the consolidation of Congress(l) rule at the centre. On the negative side, the Left Front rule has virtually turned into a mechanism to consolidate the bourgeois-landlord rule in West Bengal and opened the floodgates for all sorts of opportunistic socio-political alliances by the party at the national level. CPI(M)’s obsession with power in West Bengal has led it recently to vociferously champion the Poll Reforms Bill in league with Congress(l).

On behalf of the revolutionary left camp, it is only our Party which has evolved a comprehensive critique of the theory and practice of the Left Front government. While we criticise and oppose its anti-people and anti-democratic acts on all fronts, we lay particular emphasis on effecting a split in its rural social base on distinctly class lines. Karanda1 confirms that its Achilles’ heel lies there. Moreover, in a dialectical negation of the social-democratic practice of government formation we have raised the question of a left government as the genuine instrument of class struggle. It must be understood that like all the lines of demarcation in nature and society, the one between Marxist and revisionist tactics too keeps on shifting and is determined by concrete conditions. In the concrete conditions of today, upgrading our tactics on government formation is the best way to deal a severe blow to social democrats and win over their mass base and rank and file. The rest is all phrase-mongering, which won’t touch even the fringes of social-democratic influence. It’s not a mere coincidence that despite its limited strength in West Bengal, it is only our Party among all other ML groups that has carved a niche for itself in the mainstream politics of West Bengal. Defying all pressures we have consistently upheld our principled position of left opposition to the government in West Bengal and opposed CPI(M)’s opportunist theoretical and political positions on almost all fronts.

Within the left movement in India we are regarded as the other pole in contrast to CPI(M). We have earned this distinction without for a moment sacrificing the cause of the left unity. Our tactic vis-a-vis CPI(M) represents the continuation of the historic struggle against social democracy, albeit on a higher plane. With each passing day more and more revolutionary communists are able to grasp our tactics as the only viable, effective and broad-based challenge to the social democratic experiment which has reached a dead end while our Party is in a position to take new and bold initiatives. This is one aspect I have in mind when I say that our Party has reached a new phase, a decisive phase of its advance.

Since our unity efforts in general and with the Andhra group led by Sitaramayya in particular failed in early ’80s, Party reorganisation proceeded along two different lines. The Andhra group, which was highly critical of Charu Mazumdar and the annihilation line, put emphasis on legal and mass activities. In collaboration with certain factions operating in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra it went on to organise a central body of federal nature which popularly came to be known as the CPI(ML) People’s War Group. It did make a promising start by developing powerful mass organisations of rural poor and of students but it soon relapsed into full-fledged dalam activities. Its theoretical-political positions were never very clear and were popularly perceived as armed militant actions for redressal of grievances, particularly of tribal people. But at the political-tactical plane they can only be comprehended as attempts to set up base areas of red political power. We need not repeat here the whole story of its metamorphosis into an anarchist group. Suffice it to say that this group at present is suffering from serious ideological dissensions and organisational splits and reports suggest that the leadership is contemplating major tactical changes to wriggle itself out of the impasse.

By late ’70s, however, our Party, on the other hand, had realised that the first phase of direct revolutionary onslaught is over, and any immediate call for building red army and base areas by raising armed struggle to new heights will be nothing but left adventurism. While continuing to put primary emphasis on developing the mass peasant movement including armed resistance wherever necessary, we decided to make full use of legal and even parliamentary opportunities to expand our influence among broad masses, to take up united front activities to seek new allies from various strata of Indian people as well as to utilise the contradiction within the enemy camp.

While developing the whole range of tactics suited to the concrete Indian conditions as well as to the specific stage of the revolutionary movement we had to struggle against liquidationist tendencies within our Party — which advocated the renunciation of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the communist party in favour of a vaguely defined left ideology and a left formation, which opposed the basic class approach in peasant movement and which favoured turning our Party into an appendage of Left Front or Janata Dal variety of government – and the Party had also to consistently struggle against all manifestations of parliamentary cretinism. Our policies were vehemently opposed by the whole crowd of petty-bourgeois revolutionaries who accused us of betraying the cause of revolution, and sometimes branded us as the agent of Deng Xiaoping and at other times as official naxalites. Our Party firmly and unitedly rebuffed this ultra-left onslaught and exposed the real worth of left opportunists who subsequently degenerated into full-blown anarchists, practised the worst kind of political opportunism and some even indulged in brutal killings of common people and communist cadres.

To recall the historical experience let me quote Engels from the preface to The Class Struggles in France: "(after the defeat of 1849) vulgar democracy expected a renewed outbreak any day. We declared as early as autumn 1850 that at least the first chapter of the revolutionary period was closed and that there is nothing like crisis. For which reason we were excommunicated, as traitors to the revolution, by the very people who later almost without exception, made their peace with Bismarck — so far as Bismarck found them worth the trouble".

Writing on the new form of struggle in the new phase Engels said, "And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in the number of our votes it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us concerning our own strength and that of all hostile parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion for our actions second to none, safeguarding from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness — if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage it would still have been much more than enough. But it did more than this by far. In election it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and further it provided our representatives in Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament and to the masses without, with quite other authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings....

"With this successful utilisation of universal suffrage, however, an entirely new method of proletarian struggle came into operation, and this method quickly developed further. It was found that the state institutions in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, offer the working class still further opportunities to fight these very state institutions."

It happened in Russia too where after the failure of 1905 revolution Lenin reorganised the party for legal and open activities and for participation in the Duma. In the Russian party too, left opportunist trends emerged at this juncture which accused Lenin of betrayal and equated Bolshevism with boycottism. Lenin firmly repudiated these trends, branding them as infantile disorder and stressed the need for cautious adjustment with state institutions.

Left adventurist mistakes in China led to loss of almost all the base areas and a considerable section of Red Army and forced the CPC to undertake the Long March. Left opportunists blamed Mao for betrayal when he developed the line of united front with Chiang Kai-shek against Japanese imperialism.

I refer to all these historical instances only to reiterate the fact that the revolutionary struggles in every country pass through different phases of advance and retreat, and therefore, the policies and tactics of the parties should be readjusted accordingly. This is the whole essence of Marxist thinking on tactics as well as the art of leadership. Dogmatically following the tactics suited to a different condition and calling for a direct struggle even when the situation demands reorganisation of the Party and of accumulating strength, means walking straight into the enemy trap.

It was quite right for us to start with the Chinese model because that was the only available blueprint for revolutions in semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries. But in the course of our own experiences of last 25years and also with the better understanding of specific aspects of Indian society, it is only natural to make necessary adjustments and modifications in the Chinese model to evolve in course of time the Indian path of Indian revolution. Dogmatic adherence to Chinese path negated the very essence of Mao’s thought. Mao had to carry on a firm struggle against Chinese dogmatists who despite severe losses were bent upon blindly copying the Russian model in Chinese conditions. The famous formulation of Mao on the integration of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of China arose only in the course of this struggle.

Many people are unaware that our Party line has grown in course of serious struggles against these left opportunist trends and while their activities have increasingly reduced to squad activities, we have increasingly expanded the scope and sweep of mass revolutionary movement of peasantry and the activities of our armed resistance groups have become an integral part of the same. Now with the anarchist course followed by the PWG running out of steam, our Party stands on a firm ground to unite revolutionary communist forces around the correct line. This is the other aspect of what I refer to as a decisive phase of Party advance.

As I see it, social democracy represented by the CPI(M) remains our chief ideological adversary within the left movement in general and anarchism represented by PWG, our chief ideological adversary within the ML or Naxalite movement, in particular. A proper combination of ideological-political struggles against both these trends is imperative for building a revolutionary communist party in India.

Here I must say a few words about our tactics in parliamentary struggles. There is no denying the fact that this has brought into our own organisation serious unhealthy bourgeois tendencies. It was shocking to find people squabbling for tickets, entering into all sorts of opportunist alliances to manipulate victory, and then many of the elected representatives clamouring for money, fame and bourgeois privileges and eventually several of them betraying the Party to join ruling parties to serve their personal ends. Communist conduct, Party principles and Party discipline were all thrown to the winds in a most shameless manner and all this brought a lot of disgrace to the Party. This shows that the significance of the Party’s election tactics has not gone deep into the body of the Party organisation and, moreover, the Party organisation has proved quite weak in enforcing Party discipline over the parliamentary group. The Party has to go much farther in utilising elections and parliamentary institutions in concrete Indian conditions but if the present situation continues, any further experimentation is fraught with dire consequences. I have already quoted Engels on utilisation of election platform and here I refer to Marx’s address to the CC of the Communist League:

" ... That everywhere workers’ candidates are put up alongside of the bourgeois-democratic candidates, that they should consist as far as possible of members of the League, and that their election is promoted by all means. Even where there is no prospect whatsoever of their being elected, the workers must put up their own candidates in order to preserve their independence, to count their forces and to bring before the public the revolutionary attitude and Party’s standpoint. In this connection, they must not allow themselves to be seduced by such arguments of the democrats as, for example, that by doing so they are splitting the democratic party and making it possible for the reactionaries to win. The ultimate intention of all such phrases is to dupe the proletariat. The advance which the proletarian party is bound to make by such independent action is infinitely more important than the disadvantage that might be incurred by the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body." Comrade Lenin too has repeatedly stressed this communist tactics vis-a-vis bourgeois-democratic parties in election and defined the role of communists as that of revolutionary opposition in the parliamentary arena. This must undoubtedly be our starting point.

The question of seat adjustments or electoral alliances and even participation in governments at the state level shall all come up while pursuing parliamentary struggles in our conditions. Such and other questions must always be decided on the basis of upholding the Party’s absolute independence and broadening the scope and sweep of revolutionary mass movement. Although India too is semi-feudal and semi-colonial like pre-revolutionary China, the power structure of the Indian ruling classes is vastly different from that of China and this very difference is reflected through the Indian parliamentary system. The growing phenomenon of caste, religious and regional mobilisation and the growing diversity of political forces sharing power at different levels, point more and more to the representative nature of the parliamentary institutions in the sense of power-sharing arrangements among diverse sections and strata of the ruling classes, as well as the growing strains within the system itself. The situation also provides scope for revolutionary democratic forces to effect a breach within the system to this or that extent and this opportunity must be fully utilised to bring about a mass upsurge for revolutionary democracy. There is simply no alternative to this tactics in the present phase of our movement.

It must be understood that the Party’s election tactics is part and parcel of its overall tactics of developing revolutionary mass movements and is no way a means for career building of individuals. Hence the Party can and must rely on tested comrades in pursuing this tactics to a successful end.

Building the broadest possible democratic front is a strategic task before our Party. Our relations with sections of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democrats have developed in recent times. This is perhaps the era of synthesis! We are trying to develop a theoretical framework of unity between revolutionary communist and radical socialist forces, drawing from the past history of cooperation during freedom struggle and emphasising the new round of cooperation after Soviet collapse and consequently the renewed offensive of imperialism. Ironically, our call for a left confederation has turned into a struggle against the CPI(M)’s hegemony over the left movement. The CPI(M)’s premise of united activities with us, as formulated in their Congress documents, was essentially based on our ‘rectification of mistakes’; in other words, our moving closer to the CPI(M)’s positions and hegemonic fold. As subsequent developments belied their expectations they went back to their old line of trying to isolate us by all possible means. I think it is always better if people shed their illusions and encounter the realities as it is. We need not worry much about the CPI(M)’s vehement opposition to us. This too has its positive contribution to our growth. The CPI(M)’s earlier attempts to dismiss and isolate us have come to nought and the fresh attempts are also doomed to fail. And in future, with the turn of events, our relations will be resumed on the basis of equality and recognition of differences. Only that will be a healthy and principled unity. We have to patiently work towards bringing about such a change.

A few words about the international communist movement. The collapse of Soviet bloc and the far-reaching changes in China have drastically changed the scenario of the international communist movement. The old division between pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese parties, a legacy of the Great Debate of the ’60s, has become irrelevant. The Soviet collapse, however, has brought about a reorganisation of communist parties and communist platforms in Russia as well as in several East European countries. These parties are reassessing their past, particularly the harmful effects of revisionism. On the other hand, several ML parties the world over which emerged during the stormy days of 1968-70 and sustained themselves have also been analysing the ultra-left deviations they had suffered from. This has created a favourable situation for the parties belonging to both the streams coming closer. This typical phenomenon was reflected in the recent international seminar held under the auspices of the Workers’ Party of Belgium where more than 50 parties and groups belonging to both the erstwhile streams as well as ‘independent’ streams participated. Our Party too was represented there and extended its cooperation to such coming together.

We think that reducing the concept of the unity of the International communist movement to simply the unity of ML parties who uphold Mao’s Thought, and that too a particular interpretation of it, is too sectarian an approach and unsuited to the present conditions.

I think it is necessary to reiterate our attitude to China as it remains a great source of confusion and polemics. In our opinion, building of socialism should not be viewed in abstraction devoid of concrete conditions of the country concerned and the concrete times. Building socialism in a backward country like China and in conditions where socialism does not exist anywhere except in a few small socialist countries and there are no prospects for any proletarian revolution for a fairly long time to come in any advanced capitalist country, is a specific problem. So it is not the question of building socialism in general that ought to be discussed; rather building socialism in China in the present-day conditions that must be the point of departure for any meaningful discussion. These considerations only lead us to appreciate the general orientation of Chinese reforms. There is no question of supporting each and every measure of CPC and Chinese government. The support to the general orientation at the same time implies our serious concerns over the risks involved and, of course, criticisms of the policies which we consider harmful to the general interests of socialism and the international communist movement.

We are neither in favour of a China- or CPC-centred international communist bloc nor are we eager to join any international formation that makes condemnation of China its central concern. This I think sums up our attitude to China as well as to the international communist movement.

We are living in times when almost all the basic tenets of Marxism are being challenged and declarations are being made about the end of history. This reminds me of Marx who in his Poverty of Philosophy wrote some 150 years back, "When they say that the present-day relations — the relations of bourgeois production — are natural, the economists imply that these are the relations in which wealth is created and productive forces developed in conformity with the laws of nature. Thus, these relations are themselves natural laws independent of the influence of time. They are eternal laws which must always govern society. Thus there has been history, but there is no longer any."

So bourgeois philosophers and economists had declared the end of history much earlier. But still history progressed and Marxism played a guiding role in its advance. Marx had challenged the eternity of bourgeois relations of production and through a rare scientific insight shown that these relations too, like earlier relations, are but transitory in nature. The eternity of change lies at the core of Marxist philosophy and all future attempts to change the world shall only draw sustenance from Marxism. Marx in his grand treatise Das Kapital had exposed the exploitative basis of bourgeois relations of production. He wrote in his Wage Labour and Capital, "Even the most favourable situation for the working class, the most rapid possible growth of capital, however much it may improve the material existence of the worker, does not remove the antagonism between his interests and the interests of the bourgeoisie, the interests of the capitalists. Profits and wages remain as before in inverse proportion.

"If capital is growing rapidly wages may rise, the profit of capital rises incomparably more rapidly. The material position of the worker has improved, but at the cost of his social position. The social gulf that divides him from the capitalist has widened."

Despite all the changes in the structure and organisation of production, the exploitative basis of the bourgeois relations of production, the extraction of surplus value remains intact and if anything, the social gulf between imperialism and dependent countries on the international scale and between the proletariat and bourgeoisie within the developed capitalist world has only widened. And hence the antagonism, the motive force that continues to propel the history forward.

And yet the proletarian struggle has suffered setbacks, socialism built over a large part of the globe has suffered reversal. Hence, mere reiteration of faith in Marxism, in the victory of proletariat, is not enough. Marxism can be defended only through its enrichment.

By the time Marx’s study of British capitalism, the most ideally developed country of capitalism, the base material for his Das Kapital was complete, free competition had started giving way to the monopolies. The stage of finance capital, of monopoly capitalism, replaced competition within the country by competition among capitalist countries for the world market. And thus arose the phenomena of world wars and of proletarian revolution breaking the imperialist chain where it is weakest. And then again the rise of a single economic, military and political bloc of imperialism led by USA and the defeat and subsequent collapse of socialism in the prolonged cold war.

This interrelation, in the background of structural changes in capitalist production owing to scientific and technological revolution and virtual stagnation in the socialist economy, opens up new fields of study and investigation for Marxist theoreticians the world over. Communists have before them over seventy five years of experience of building socialism. One learns only through one’s mistakes and hence the study I mentioned shall essentially bea study of the political economy of socialism, comparable only to the dimensions of Das Kapital.

Note:
1. The village in Burdwan district of West Bengal, where six of Party comrades – all agrarian labourers who had come over from the CPI(M) fold – were brutally killed by CPI(M) goons on 31 May 1993. At least thirty others were seriously injured and the entire garib para (poor people’s hamlet) was raged to the ground.

[Interview by Kalpana Wilson of South Asia Solidarity Group taken in March 1994.]

Can you explain how you see the current so-called crisis of socialism which has followed the collapse of the Soviet Union?

I essentially think that socialism itself is not a complete or stable system. Socialism is meant to be a transitory system, between capitalism and communism. So it is a very specific phenomenon. It does have certain features of communism — the society which is to be established — and it retains certain features of capitalism in the sense that what Marx calls ‘the principle of distribution’ remains essentially the same — to each according to his work. For example, in a socialist system, say there is a factory which is supposed to be representing ownership by people. A worker there, on the one hand, has the feeling that he is part of the people, so in a sense he is the owner of the factory as well. On the other hand, because he receives according to his work, he feels that he is a wage worker. So this duality operates in the worker’s consciousness.

As far ownership is concerned, on the one hand, it is ownership by the whole people; on the other hand, this ownership is managed through state ownership, (because the state still exists in a socialist society) and exercised through officials appointed by the state. So the ownership aspect also has a duality and is liable to degenerate into bureaucracy. This duality of both workers and ownership is characteristic of the transitory society.

There is also the fact that we have been experimenting with socialism in backward countries, not advanced capitalist countries. Productive forces are backward and you cannot establish any higher system of ownership immediately. Different kinds of ownership exist: ownership by the whole people, ownership by the collective, small private enterprises... only gradually can you move to another stage. Commodity relationships, money, all this not only continue but it has a role to play because capitalism has not exhausted itself. A lot of exchange is really commodity exchange, market exchange. For example, exchange between enterprises owned by the people and enterprises which are collectives — enterprises at different stages — is essentially commodity exchange. Because of this particularity of socialist society and especially of socialism in backward countries, socialism has both possibilities — it can advance towards communism or it can slide back towards capitalism.

Originally the conception had been that a socialist society will be established and after some time it will go over to communism. But later there were theoretical developments in Marxism, Lenin started saying that this transition will take a long time, and then in China Mao said that it’s still not settled whether capitalism or socialism will win, it may take hundreds of years. This change came about because of the particular conditions under which socialism had to be built. And formulations started appearing about the existence of class contradictions, class struggles in socialist society, whereas the original proponents of Marxism had envisaged socialism as a classless society. So I feel that Marx’s original thesis only gives a general outline, because his whole conception was based on the analysis of a capitalist society, and that too in abstraction, the perfect capitalist society. In concrete terms even a very highly developed capitalist society doesn’t conform to Marx’s ideal standards. So you can’t even say that the study of capitalism is complete because capitalism is still present and it has evolved very fast, it has not run its course. And more importantly, the study of socialism and the economic laws of socialism is still at a very primitive, primary stage. Because of all this I believe that Marxism, for its retrieval now, requires what in popular terms I call a new Das Kapital. The time is ripe for that. The basics are there, they will continue to operate, but the study of capitalism remains uncompleted. Even when Lenin studied monopoly capitalism, he too had the conception that this monopoly capitalism was the last stage of capitalism and it was moribund and would collapse. But you can see that monopoly capitalism has taken new forms and continues. So new studies are needed. Then there is the [need for a] study of the economic laws of socialism, with the experience of 75 years in Russia and later China... so I feel Marxism needs a work comparable to Capital, particularly because all the experiments with building socialism are going on in the backward countries — in China, Vietnam and so on. If socialism as a transitory society has to continue for hundreds of years, that means you can’t see commodities, money and markets just as a liability, and start taking steps to overcome them. Rather, even in a socialist society they may require development, they may require a particular utilisation for advancing the cause of socialism itself. It’s not something which has to be just dispensed with or a necessary evil which you have to go through. Planning is supposed to be a socialistic phenomenon and we saw that capitalist society used planning to check the anarchy of production with which capitalism is associated. So similarly, communists will have to think about how to utilise commodities, money and markets to build socialism in a positive way.

There is one more point that Marx made when he said that socialism was a transitory system: he said that proletarian dictatorship was an absolute necessity. So I feel that in case where proletarian dictatorship is weakened, the chance of that transitory system slipping back to capitalism is obvious. For example if we look at the Soviet Union we find that before its collapse, the economic model was more or less a traditional socialist one. All belonged to the state sector; privatisation and foreign capital were virtually absent. But they started losing proletarian dictatorship from Krushchev’s period itself, and from there we find that somewhere the gateway to capitalism was opened. In contrast I feel that Mao studied this danger of socialism going back to capitalism, the potential for reversal which the Russians denied was possible.

With the concept of Cultural Revolution — the Cultural Revolution was conceived not for tampering with the economic laws of socialism, not for bypassing backward productive forces and building some sort of advanced communist production relations — actually Mao wanted to strengthen proletarian dictatorship. And proletarian dictatorship is another name for broad people’s democracy of 90%. And he this tried to build through the Cultural Revolution: dictatorship over the few and democracy of 90%. And the Cultural Revolution had that emphasis — big character posters, mass enthusiasm etc. Socialist countries like Russia, East European countries…by proletarian dictatorship they understood just the dictatorship. The other part, that means democracy for 90%, this question of socialist democracy was not perceived as an integral part of proletarian dictatorship. So other forces took up the question of democracy. In China also, this question has always been there and Mao’s was the first attempt to generalise this democracy under socialism. Tiananmen again represented the desire for democracy, and I think every ten years, or five years or seven years, we are witnessing some big people’s movement, and if you don’t take it up from within a socialist framework it will be taken up within a bourgeois framework.

Anyway the Cultural Revolution was an experiment with that. It is true that certain petty bourgeois social forces emerged and the whole Cultural Revolution was derailed, and some people started tampering with the basic economic laws of socialism, trying to develop some sort of higher relations. The Party, which has to be the instrument of this, got disorganised. So it ended in failure. But my point is that it raised certain very important questions of socialist democracy. It did create a lot of enthusiasm among masses although it could not be organised properly and that was a problem.

At present in China they are carrying out economic experiments and keeping intact the Communist Party’s leadership — this is something I do appreciate and as an experiment it is worth watching and studying. But the other aspect, the desire for democracy, is also present. China will witness some sort of democratic movement once again. A country cannot just survive on economic statistics. And there I think the lessons of the Cultural Revolution will again be useful, for the sake of reference at least. So this is how I see this whole crisis of socialism or problems of socialism.

Can you elaborate on experimentation with the market in the Indian context, how might the CPI(ML) attempt to carry this out?

You see in China, even during the stage of democratic revolution Mao divided the bourgeoisie into two categories — the compradors and the national bourgeoisie, something for which he was also highly criticised. Comprador bureaucrat capital he named them. They were a target of revolution. Mao experimented on two things: one was the alliance with the peasantry, and in that process he transformed the peasantry into a revolutionary force. This was a new contribution to Marxism, to the strategy of revolution at least. And the other aspect was his alliance with the national bourgeoisie. While building socialism from democratic revolution he saw the transformation of the national bourgeoisie step by step as a long term process. Instead of just expropriating them he tried to utilise them and transform them. And he was condemned for that wasn’t seen as true socialism. But I think in Indian conditions too this question will be of great importance. China’s national bourgeoisie was very weak and not that significant. In India by the time the revolution becomes victorious I think it is quite possible that there will be a split in the bourgeoisie and that we will have to contend with a section which has been transformed into a national bourgeoisie. And that national bourgeoisie will be quite a force in Indian conditions. Even in the alliance with the peasantry, among the middle peasants, or farmers, a big section has emerged who have capitalistic tendencies. On the political front while attempting socialist transformation handling these forces and even utlising them for the sake of socialism — these are particular questions we are facing in India.

Some people say that as the ruling bourgeoisie in India is comprador, and comprador means agents of imperialism, so state power in India rests with imperialism. When the CPI(ML) was being built and its programme was being drafted, in 1969-70, we differed with that. We said this is wrong. We think that Indian state power rests with the Indian bourgeoisie and landlords. That is the whole essence of the transfer of power — it’s not just technical. In class terms they operate within the framework of imperialism but state power rests with them. Those who see imperialism as controlling the Indian state have the formulation that India’s principal contradiction is with imperialism, so they say an anti-imperialist broad front is what is necessary. Well, we do have a basic contradiction with imperialism, but that is in an external sense — the nation vs. imperialism. But internally we don’t see this as the principal contradiction.

Now the question naturally arises — what is the actual character of these compradors? We said that this too has to be looked at in a new way. If you just think of them as agents, very crudely formulated, this is not correct. We said that the Indian bourgeoisie operates as a class, different sections many have links with different countries but there is a common thread. Indian compradors have a single strategy, and they enjoy a degree of relatively independence, which is maintained by utilising the contradictions between different imperialist countries, and having relations with the Soviet Union. This was not independence in an absolute sense, they are not free from imperialist control. But by locating state power in the hands of the comprador bourgeoisie and landlords, and acknowledging their capability for maneuvering or operating some sort of independent position, our Party tried to depart from old formulations, and to conform more with the real situation.

Now that the Soviet Union has collapsed and the Indian bourgeoisie is developing closer relations with the West and the IMF/World Bank, the suggestion has come up again that India has lost it political and economic sovereignty, it has more or less turned into a neo-colony, state power is now in the hands of imperialism, and therefore imperialism vs. the Indian nation is the main internal contradiction now, so we should go for the broadest possible united front against it. People have started saying that earlier the Soviet Union had been playing a balancing role, and on the basis of its relations with the Soviet Union Indian could bargain with Western countries, but now that the Soviet Union has gone it can no longer do so. True, with all these changes in the situation and in India’s polices, overall imperialist penetration has really gone deep. But I still think that he Indian bourgeoisie has that relative independence. It is not finished. One can talk of the ‘threat to India’s political sovereignty’, ‘threat to Independence’ for popular mobilisation in a broad anti-imperialist front. But this shouldn’t be taken in a very literal sense. The Soviet Union is gone but there are still contradictions between imperialist countries. So India can try to diversify its relations in a different way. The whole tactic of utilising the contradictions to whatever extent possible still remains. Its relationship with the Soviets was not based on any socialist ideal, it was just a bargaining lever. The may try this with Russia also if they can, and with Japan, Germany etc., because India’s bourgeois economic relations are so diversified, and imperialists also have their contradictions, their crises, their competitions. So maybe this bargaining capacity, this utilisation of contradictions, this relative independence is more restricted now but I don’t think that it has gone. State power remains with the Indian bourgeoisie. It is necessary to grasp this because otherwise the internal contradiction is ignored.

I’ll give you one practical example, say here in Bihar. Now Bihar is a backward state, with a lot of feudalism and struggles over land and so on. So we are taking up land struggles and even the CPI and CPI(M) are also trying to take up these issues. The government here, Laloo Yadav’s Janata Dal government, is not in a position to take up land reforms. It doesn’t have the political will, or the structure. So what are their tactics? All of a sudden they have started talking about ‘Dunkel’ saying Dunkel is a very dangerous thing, it is against peasants etc. In this way they are trying to develop relations with CPI and CPI(M). And CPI and CPI(M) are also not in a position to carry on land struggles to any serious extent. Because when you take up land struggles seriously, then so many tensions, armed confrontations start developing. It’s not easy to solve things just in a legal way. They want to avoid this situation, but they also want to maintain their revolutionary face. Just then Laloo comes up with Dunkel, and he becomes a champion of anti-imperialism! But why is he bringing all this up? The man understands nothing about Dunkel — he just said that Dunkel is a donkey so he had a procession of donkeys and so on! And in Bihar’s context I don’t think that Dunkel will have that much impact because capitalist farming is not that developed. Of course, we are also for taking up this question, and are doing so even in Bihar. But the way they are bringing it up, the whole purpose is to dilute the internal contradiction. And CPI has also started joint activities with the Janata Dal on Dunkel, and has given up the land struggle. This is something we have to be wary of. My point is that while the danger is of course there — and we are trying for a broad front — if you come to the conclusion the India has already turned into a Banana Republic, we have internalised the contradiction with imperialism, internal contradictions are of no importance and we must have all kinds of alliances, and that determines you practice, I don’t think that is correct in our context.

Your were talking of the possible emergence of genuine national bourgeoisie. From where would it emerge? And what would be its contradictions with the rest of the Indian bourgeoisie?

The search for a national bourgeoisie has been a very serious problem for the Indian communist movement. Because form the very beginning under Soviet influence the CPI started saying that now India has a national bourgeoisie which is an anti-imperialist force. Sometimes Nehru was seen as the representative of this force, sometimes some other person. As a result the whole emphasis turned to developing relation with the national bourgeoisie and CPI started saying that they would be playing the leading role. This weakened the communist movement. Our point of view is that instead of carrying out a search beforehand and seeking their representatives, let this question be resolved in course of the struggle. Let us go on with our movements, anti-imperialist movements as well as anti-feudal struggle, and there let us see which forces eventually come up and join hands with us. CPI(ML) has done that from the beginning and essentially I still believe the same thing.

In one sense you may be able to distinguish the national bourgeoisie as the small and medium bourgeoisie: ideologically they don’t have anything national about them, but objectively they may be forced to operate as national because it is not possible for imperialism to satisfy everybody. But if you start searching for political representatives of the national bourgeoisie, you may even come to the conclusion that the RSS is such a representative because of its call for ‘Swadeshi’ and against Dunkel. Even some sections of Bombay businessmen have opposed GATT and Dunkel and the entry of multinationals to India.

But the national bourgeoisie is not something which is just there and you have to search for it and find it. Rather we started from the formulation that they are all compradors and let us see if from among the compradors, in the course of anti-imperialist struggles, a national bourgeoisie emerges. In this sense the national bourgeoisie has to be created.

We started off talking about democracy. In this context what is the practice of the Party and the relationship between the Party and mass organisations?

As far as mass organisations are concerned we thought that they should be more than just party wings. Different mass organisations represent different sections with their own characteristics. For example, a student/youth organisation has it own dynamism, its own way of operating, its own sentiments. If the party makes certain formulations and the organisation is asked to operate within the bounds of that, that may kill the whole vitality, initiative and dynamism of that organisation. Similarly, women’s organisations have particular forms of operating, they face specific forms of oppression and therefore their forms of expression will also be different. Therefore they have to be allowed to operate relatively independently. We felt that the mass organisations of CPI(M) in particular are more like party wings. And that has been the traditional Russian or even Chinese practice. Mass organisations just become paper organisations. They only count in terms of their membership — 40 lakhs, 50 lakhs. There is a lot of interference in their programmes. So this is one thing we have tried to experiment with – giving them a lot of freedom, accepting their particularities or rather encouraging them. This was one thing, and secondly, we also thought that there should be a dialectical relationship where on the one hand the Party leads them and on the other they act as a sort of watchdog on the Party itself. Even when you are not in power certain strains and tendencies like bureaucracy do emerge within the Party.

Now, for example, suppose some Party cadre has misbehaved with a woman, the Party committee has discussed the matter and fearing a reaction has just suppressed the whole thing. The complaint goes to the women’s organisation. They take up the matter and put pressure on the Party that this is wrong. We see this as a good thing because often within the Party system things may not be seen from the women’s point of view. The particular woman concerned may not be in a position to articulate her feelings, to protest the injustice. But if the women’s organisation takes up the case then naturally the Party has to face pressure.

To whatever extent we get some power, for example, in the district council in Karbi Anglong or maybe in the future in some government, we emphasise that peasant associations and other organisations should operate independently and they should put pressure on the officials, on the Party. That is our vision of mass organisations — on the one hand encouraging their independence so they can properly reflect the characteristics of the sections they represent, which will give them vitality and dynamism. The Party should only confine itself to providing leadership and on the other hand the mass organisation should act as a watchdog for the Party.

One of initiatives which has been very striking has been the formation of the Inqilabi Muslim Conference which was one of the first times that the Left in India has been prepared to organise round a religious identity.

We took up this matter because recently the country has been divided on this basis: Hindutva and Muslims as its target. They started saying that Hinduism is more than a religion, it is a socio-cultural category. So they say that Muslims are also a part of Hinduism because they live in India — historically and also culturally. They use the word ‘Mohammediya Hindu’ and say, Muslims can go on living in India if they give up their separate identity and become part of a broad Hindu formation, then we are ready to accept them as Mohammediya Hindus. They also said that Sikha, Jains, Buddhists are also Hindus. Some worship god — one god, ten gods, crores of gods, or no god at all, yet all are Hindus! Hinduism is a broad socio-cultural category in India and all should be a part of it including Muslims. And their willingness to do this is a test of their patriotism and nationalism. So this was the particular attack, the demand that Muslims should give up their particular religious, cultural, and social identity. It was an attack not just on religion but also socially and culturally. Muslims were threatened as a community. Naturally the reaction was on a community basis. Now this Muslim reaction had one fundamentalist element — the counterpart of the BJP. But other Muslims felt that this would not be correct in a country like India where Muslims are a minority and 80-85% of people are Hindus. So in Indian conditions they felt that secularism is better.

It is not that bourgeoisification has occurred among Indian Muslims and from that position they are talking about secularism. Their religious beliefs are against the concept of a secular state. But the concrete Indian conditions encouraged them to go for secularism.

Secondly, Muslims have developed a friendly relationship with the Left. They may be in this or that bourgeois party for the sake of elections but generally a feeling has come up that the Left are genuinely secular. Earlier on sections of Muslims were with the Left, there were progressives, communists. Many important communists were Muslims, and many Muslim workers participated as a class. Then there were progressive intellectuals, many progressive cultural workers. But for the community as a whole this sort of a positive approach to the Left is something new. Earlier sentiments had been very much in favour of Pakistan. But now there is no desire for any further division of the country.

So these were the changes. Muslims were under attack as a community, then they had this support for secularism and a friendly relationship with the Left.

We wanted to consolidate this relationship. But how to give it an organisational form, an institutional shape? That was the whole idea which gave birth to the Inquilabi Muslim Conference. It was necessary to take into account the community aspect and the Inquilabi aspect. The idea behind it was not to strengthen Muslim exclusiveness, rather to articulate Muslim interests against the BJP etc. Importance was attached to organising social change within the Muslim community. So Inquilabi is not Inquilabi against the BJP, but Inquilabi within the community. That is why we placed a lot of emphasis on raising the question of Muslim women’s position. This is a question which has come up from within the community.

Student Demos in Beijing and their Aftermath
The Question of World Peace
Let Us Hold High the Banner of Marxism-Leninism
The Politics of War
Imperialism, Socialism and the Gulf War
On the Developments in Soviet Russia
On the International Situation
"Communism is not the philosophy of poverty, it is the philosophy of abundance"
A Death Heavier than the Himalayas!
REMEMBERING MAO: You Shall Remain Our Chairman Forever
Deng Xiaoping - The Maverick Departs
World politics and Economics in the Era of Globalisation 

[Statement of the Polit Bureau of CPI(ML). From Liberation, June 1989.]

On the Recent Happenings in China

The CPI(ML) expresses its deep concern over the events in China. As reports indicate, a large number of students and innocent citizens got killed in the army operation in Tiananmen Square. Such a tragedy in a socialist country is really unfortunate and we share the grief and shock expressed by progressive and democratic people the world over.

The CPI(ML), however, has also noted that western capitalist countries in general and US imperialism in particular are trying to fish in troubled waters. The USA, in league with certain anti-Marxist and anti-socialist elements in China has been desperately trying to block any negotiated settlement of the issues involved and doing its utmost to pit the pro-democracy movement against the Chinese socialist system and thus to avenge its historical defeat of 1949.

Current reports from China do indicate that the situation there is fast returning to normal and the spate of rumours circulated by western press agencies and uncritically picked up by the Indian media are in most cases mere gossip.

We appeal to the Indian people to remain on guard regarding the ulterior motives of right reactionary forces in India, who, capitalising on a certain Chinese tragedy, are actually aiming at the Indian left movement and are planning to reverse the emerging possibility of a leftward shift in the Indian peoples’ democratic struggles.

We hope that the CPC will now deeply analyse the root cause behind the popular movement for democracy and initiate necessary political reforms to satisfy peoples’ heightened aspirations for democracy. We also hope that China will review the entire gamut of its relationship with the USA and intensify efforts to strengthen unity among the socialist countries.

We are confident that the imperialist dreams of taking China back to the pre-1949 period will never succeed and the Chinese Communist Party and China’s socialist system will emerge victorious and vibrant after the end of the present turmoil.

June 8, 1989

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fourth Party Congress, January 1988.]

On December 8, 1987, President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signed a pact in Washington which is aimed at eliminating an entire category of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles. We share the jubilation of the people of the world and welcome this pact. This agreement, though quite insufficient in terms of quantity of nuclear arsenal (only 4 per cent) it seeks to eliminate, signifies a good beginning and has been made possible due to the combined impact of a variety of factors, viz., the economic crisis in the USA and the imperative need for economic rationalisation in the USSR, the hazards of nuclear technology at a point of its development as witnessed in certain leaks in American nuclear plants as well as the infamous Chernobyl accident, the growing intensity of peace movements in Western Europe and the USA, and, of course, the peace offensive launched by Mikhail Gorbachev, and so on and so forth.

As a word of caution we must reiterate here that the premise of peace offensive as outlined by Gorbachev in his November address, visualising an imperialist system without the danger of war, without militarisation of the economy and without neo-colonial exploitation, a capitalist system peacefully competing with a socialist system, presents imperialism in rosy colours, and hence cannot be accepted. The struggle of the people of the Third World against neo-colonial exploitation and domination, peace movements of European and American peoples, working class struggle against the militarisation of their respective economies, and political and diplomatic initiatives of powerful socialist countries will ultimately create condition for the destruction of the imperialist system and only with its destruction will the danger of war be finally resolved.

[From Liberation, March 1990.]

Human history has entered the decade of the ’90s. The last year of the last decade witnessed a series of tumultuous events in socialist countries, Eastern Europe in particular. The bourgeois world is rejoicing over these events and in a well-orchestrated move the bourgeois media has once again pronounced, perhaps for the third time this century, that communism is dead. Intellectuals everywhere have started wavering and deserting the communist parties. This phenomenon has had its impact on our Party too and the liquidationist trend within the Party, which began with questioning the relevance of CPI(ML), is now spreading doubts over the science of Marxism-Leninism itself. Its adherents are now ashamed of calling themselves communists and prefer to be known as ‘democrats’. Under these circumstances it is the bounden duty of all genuine communists to hold high the banner of Marxism-Leninism, defend it against all attacks from liberal bourgeois circles and at the same time critically examine the failures of communist parties and the Socialist system and enrich the science of Marxism-Leninism answering new questions and facing new challenges.

CPI(ML)’s Stand Vindicated

In contrast to the other two communist parties, viz., the CPI and the CPI(M), who till the other day held the Soviet and East European socialist models to be exemplary and sung praises in their favour as a routine matter, the CPI(ML) since its inception has been highly critical of these systems. It is true that we went to extremes in criticising them but our essential criticism of bureaucratic distortions of economic and political life, denial of socialist democracy etc. has stood the test of time.

The CPI(ML) was the only Indian Communist Party which unequivocally condemned sending Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush a popular uprising, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the Russian-backed Vietnamese invasion in Kampuchea. Never did we retract from our principled positions on these questions and history has testified that we were correct.

We refused to join the Chinese Communist Party in its advocacy of an anti-Soviet front including American and pro-American forces. Time and again we expressed our reservation on Chinese policies and emphasised the necessity of an ideological campaign against the influx of liberal bourgeois thoughts while interacting with the West.

It was against the backdrop of Gorbachevian reforms in the Soviet Union, which brought into focus the degeneration of the socialist system in Russia during the Brezhnev period and critically reexamined the policy of sending troops to Afghanistan, that we decided to review our earlier position of branding it as social-imperialism.

As we pointed out in our Fourth Party Congress held in 1987, our mistakes did not lie in criticising the essential degeneration of socialism during the Brezhnevian period in Soviet Russia but in altogether negating the possibilities of change from within the Party and the system themselves.

We, however, continued to criticise the superpower status of the Soviet Union and pinpointed Gorbachev’s policy of painting imperialism in rosy colours and undermining the interests of Third World countries. Adherents of the liquidationist trend were swayed by the Gorbachevian gospel of a peaceful civilised imperialism and aspired to delete all references critical of the Soviet Union.

Despite an all-out malicious campaign against Stalin in the Soviet Union and the whole bourgeois world depicting the Brezhnevian regime in Russia and its counterparts in Eastern Europe as Stalinist, we refused to join the chorus. We believed and still believe that a strict differentiation should be made between Stalin’s and Brezhnev’s periods. We continue to abide by Mao’s evaluation of Stalin that his mistakes were outweighed by his achievements.

First of all, in over 70 years of building socialism in Russia, Stalin’s period still stands out in bold relief. From a backward peasant country Russia was put into the front ranks of industrialised countries of the world. This is the period of most rapid economic advance in the entire Soviet history so far and it was on this might that the Soviet Union withstood an all-out Nazi onslaught. Branding this historical period as a criminal period is a travesty of history. By contrast, the Brezhnev period were marked by stagnation all around.

Secondly, as regards Eastern Europe, it is true that the communist regimes there were installed on the strength of the Red Army, but we must not forget the fact that in those days the communist parties of East European countries were in their period of ascendancy and the popular fronts led by them were the only ones resisting Nazi occupation. In most cases the bourgeois-landlord governments of these countries had either capitulated to the Nazis or fled. By contrast, Brezhnev’s sending troops to Czechoslovakia was intended to crush a popular revolt against an unpopular regime.

Thirdly, it is true that in Stalin’s period itself seeds were sown of a superpower-dependent relationship between Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Party’s relationship with other parties assumed the distorted shape of leading party versus led parties. However, till then there was a popular acceptance among others about the leading role of Soviet Union and the CPSU emanating from the immense prestige it enjoyed in the communist fraternity. It was not an imposed relationship as in the Brezhnev period.

Fourthly, there was no allegation of corruption, luxury and nepotism against Stalin and the communist leaders of his period, whereas one finds such allegations galore regarding Brezhnev and his cohorts throughout Eastern Europe.

We do not think that the theories of Trotsky or Bukharin would have taken Russia anywhere near building socialism in the conditions obtaining then. The most serious mistake in Stalin’s period was the serious distortion in inner-party struggles resulting in a personality cult around him at the cost of serious erosion in party institutions. As a logical consequence, and backed by the excessive centralisation of the economy, the party and government bosses acted as bureaucrats and the institutions of socialist democracy suffered a serious reversal. In retrospect, this was the price the CPSU and the Soviet society had to pay in "building socialism in one country" and in a situation of a world war. It was only expected that when the situation returned to normal the party leadership should have concentrated on rectifying these errors. But in the Brezhnev period they were continued, repeating what was a historical tragedy as a farce.

We refuse to subscribe to the theory that the East European debacles are rooted in the ‘unnatural process’ of communist parties coming to power there. Any extension of this logic will make Soviet and Chinese socialist societies too appear ‘unnatural’ as they do not correspond strictly to Marx’s original predictions of the advent of socialist revolutions first in highly developed capitalist countries.

We continue to believe in the Leninist dictum that communist parties must seize any opportunity coming their way for capturing political power and then rebuild the society.

Distortions in Soviet Russia, China or Eastern Europe should be sought in the process of exercising proletarian power and not in the seizure of power itself.

Bureaucratic distortions of economic and political life resulting from excessive centralisation and serious erosion of institutions of socialist democracy are as real as the fact that generally speaking it is possible to rectify them through an economic restructuring and political reform movement from within the party and the system themselves. The positive phenomenon of economic restructuring and a drive against corruption in China and glasnost and perestroika in Russia bear testimony to this fact.

The East European Case

Apart from the distortions in the communist parties and the socialist system, the problems in Eastern Europe were further compounded by the fact that communist parties there were heavily dependent on the Soviet Union and the anti-Russian nationalist sentiments arising out of a sort of superpower-client relationship were quite acute. This did result in deeper alienation of communist parties from the masses and the rise of the church and a host of other opposition forces giving vent to nationalist sentiments.

It was in this context of a strong undercurrent of popular resentments in Eastern Europe that glasnost and perestroika in Soviet Union came as a great morale booster. The Soviet Union too could no longer continue the uneasy relationship and more importantly the changing pattern of Soviet society made it imperative to bring about similar changes in Eastern Europe. It was an objective compulsion as otherwise the two societies could not possibly continue to interact in any meaningful way. The Soviet priority was obviously to bring about changes through reforms in the communist parties, but Gorbachev knew the risks involved and he found it worth taking. The Soviet pronouncement that it will not repeat the Czechoslovak operation provided the vital external condition which led to the explosion. It is nobody’s case that changes in Eastern Europe were engineered by the Soviet Union in any conspiratorial way. Quite possibly the pace of events and the emerging mediums of change have gone beyond its anticipation. While, still a superpower-client relationship is basically maintained between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, East European countries now enjoy a greater degree of independence and manoeuvrability vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. It must be kept in mind here that changes in Eastern Europe including their opening-up to the West are quite compatible with the present Soviet policies. Gorbachev is quite correct when he says that changes in Eastern Europe are not detrimental to the interests of socialism, meaning Soviet socialism. "Eastern Europe can always rely on Soviet Union" declared Gorbachev in his new year address and of course it would continue to do so.

Rumania’s case stands apart in the entire scenario. Ceausescu had long been following an independent policy vis-a-vis Moscow and had already considerably opened up to the West. He did have a strong base of his own. Despite the popular discontent against his dictatorial rule, the involvement of army in his ouster and subsequent killing makes it more a battle within the top layers of society than a popular rebellion from below.

Moreover, the specific Russian interest in Ceausescu’s ouster, the Soviet response to the Rumanian events and subsequent improvement in relationship do point an accusing finger towards Moscow.

Anyway, capitalism cannot solve the problems of East European countries, the countries having a lower rate of capital formation. In contrast to Western Europe, socialism is more ‘natural’ to East European countries. The capitalist road will only bring misery for the broad masses of people and make these countries vulnerable to neo-colonial exploitation.

Secondly, barring a few exceptions, communist parties through a series of internal changes have managed to retain a cardinal role. In countries where they have failed to do so, the new breed of rulers are finding it difficult to dismantle the socialist economic system. Certain measures of the Polish and Hungarian governments are bound to be unpopular with the masses.

The next cycle of change resulting in a better combination of socialism and democracy is not far off.

The New Debate

Gorbachev’s premises of a peaceful, civilised imperialism without neo-colonial exploitation, of nations, states, and continents coming together, of cooperation with American imperialism ostensibly for world peace etc. are creating suspicions among the communist parties, democratic organisations and people of the Third World. Third World countries are the worst victims of neo-colonial exploitation and the sermons telling them to dilute their struggle against imperialism are being interpreted as betrayal of their interests by Soviet Union. The coming together of the two big powers thus constitutes a threat to the vital interests of the Third World countries. Thus, we are in for a fresh round of great debate between the CPC and the CPSU. We, being the communist party of a Third World country, and in accordance with our opposition to Gorbachev’s theory of imperialism made in our Fourth Party Congress itself, perhaps earlier than anybody else in India, cannot but side with the representative parties and organisations of the Third World. However, we must continue to have a positive evaluation of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, and support the Soviet Union’s measures directed towards disarmament and world peace. On the other hand, we still maintain that apart from a concerted drive against corruption and ideological-political education, there is much left to be done in the field of political reforms in China. We must shed the comprador mentality of blindly following this or that ‘leader party’ and their charismatic leaders. Neither should we mortgage our brains to Western media think-tanks. Basing ourselves on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and taking as supreme the interests of our country, our people and our Party, we shall independently judge the formulations and specific acts of other communist parties.

Consolidation of the Communist Party Versus Expanding the Democratic Front in Our Country

Since Khrushchev, the Soviet Union has been advocating passing over to socialism skipping the capitalist stage with Soviet help for the developing countries of the Third World. Politically it meant communist parties forging broader alliances with the ruling ‘national bourgeoisie’ against imperialism and monopoly capital. In concrete economic terms, it meant developing the public sector with Soviet help, which was projected as the bulwark against private sector that would enable these countries to pass over to socialism. CPI’s entire concept of ‘National Democracy’ was based on this premise and to an extent CPI(M) too followed a similar course. The CPI(ML) since its very inception exposed the myth of the public sector and showed how it will only generate bureaucratic capital working in alliance with monopoly capital.

Soviet theoreticians have now come to the conclusion that the public sector generates inefficiency, waste and bureaucracy. Now the new model they advocate for the developing Third World countries is what they call ‘democratic’ or ‘civilised capitalism’. It goes without saying that this new prescription is in line with the needs of the changing patterns of their own society. Once again there is a call for forging broad alliances with the forces representing this ‘civilised capitalism’. One wonders whether CPI and CPI(M)’s new-found love for VP Singh is in tune with this prescription. Well, this is one line of turning towards people’s democracy!

We on our part, on the basis of Mao’s teachings on New Democracy, have been trying to develop a democratic front. Our whole concept of a democratic front or a people’s revolutionary party is derived from the principles of Marxism-Leninism, more correctly from its integration with concrete Indian conditions, its programme is derived from a revolutionary democratic premise as a transitory phase to socialism, and its leading nucleus is formed by none other than the Communist Party itself. Our experience in the last few years of building such a front in India has been marked with a degree of success. Particularly in Bihar, the front keeps on attracting a large number of leftists and democrats from the ranks of other parties. We have also succeeded in combining various forms of struggle to an extent including making a breakthrough in parliamentary struggles.

It is at this stage that we find a strange theory developing from within the Party, a theory having got a fillip from recent East European developments. This theory calls for liquidating the Party, euphemistically put as "Party coming out into open in the form of IPF". The communist party should be replaced by a democratic party, or as some prefer to say, a ‘left formation’, is their constant cry. Why this sudden outburst against the Party despite obvious successes to its credit, despite its successfully developing a democratic front, or a democratic party if you like? The reason is not far to seek. The ‘democratic party’ or the ‘left formation’ conceived by these fellow-travellers essentially follows a liberal bourgeois programme and quite obviously the communist party is no longer compatible with this scheme of things as it always strives to impart a revolutionary democratic orientation. To justify the need for a liberal democratic party, this theory travels in the opposite direction. First, the struggle against imperialism is diluted and for all such liberals Gorbachev is the guru whose gospels about imperialism, about states, nations and continents coming together etc., are taken uncritically. As far as the other enemy, feudalism is concerned, the feudal remnants can be eradicated step by step through legal measures by a bourgeois government itself. Revolutionaries only need join such a government or, at the most, put some popular pressure on the government.

Upholding the great red banner of Marxism-Leninism, strengthening the CPI(ML) and expanding the democratic front remain the strategic tasks before us for the entire decade of the ’90s.

[From Liberation, April 1991.]

‘War is nothing but the continuation of the political process by other means’ — Karl von Clausewitz.

After the cold war, when Fukuyama was declaring the ‘End of History’, even he perhaps could not have dreamt that history would resume its course so soon.

Already it is about a month since the Gulf war started. George Bush feels that this is the last war after which a new international order will be established. In the eyes of Saddam Hussain this is the mother of all wars which will result in the resuscitation of the Arab countries and the liberation of Palestine. What will happen is yet to be seen, but it is certain that the motive behind this war is not merely the liberation of Kuwait. This war is the reflection of the present world contradictions and alliances and at the same time also the medium for the realignment of relations. War is a frenzied dance of death and devastation, but sometimes war becomes inevitable in history and imparts dynamism to history. The Gulf war in a real sense is indeed a new beginning of history.

The year 1990 was the year of the defeat of socialism and the triumph of imperialism. In East Europe ‘liberal democratic values’ emerged victorious against totalitarianism. Socialism was breathing its last in Soviet Russia. After the Tiananmen shock, China was pushed into a defensive position in the face of a Western offensive. The non-aligned movement lost all its relevance. World capitalism under the leadership of the USA unfurled its banner of victory and after many decades the world once again looked unipolar.

The new international order advocated by George Bush simply means US domination over Third World and its resources. In the proposed US defence budget for 1991, the allocation on account of the controversial ‘Star Wars’ has been raised to 4.8 billion dollars from 2.9 billion dollars last year. The budget statement refers to the reduction of the nuclear threat from Soviet Russia, but justifies this enhancement on the plea of probable missile attacks by Third World countries.

From this American perspective on the new international order, it is quite natural that the USA would not tolerate aggression on Kuwait by Iraq. Countries like the USA and the UK consider the right to West Asian oil their birthright. The fall of the US agent, the Sheikh of Kuwait, coupled with the rise of Iraq again as a strong country and its dominance over 20% of oil resources were indeed direct blows to the new international order. America was only too eager for a war and certainly it was a fine commentary on the unipolar world that the Security Council of the United Nations behaved like a slave of the USA; more than the European countries, all countries belonging to the US alliance joined the multinational army and this also included the Arab countries like Syria, Morocco and Egypt; Pakistan sent troops and India supplied fuel to the US military aircraft; Germany and Japan provided financial assistance; Soviet Russia offered moral support and China remained mysteriously silent. The political initiative was completely in the hands of the USA and Iraq was alone, absolutely alone. Barring some small countries like Yemen and Cuba, none raised a voice of protest against America. In spite of all these however, Iraq had decided to fight. By linking up the Palestinian question with the Kuwaiti issue and by resolving its old enmity with Iran, Iraq completed its preparation.

The war has been going on with all its cruelty. Iraq now faces the most horrible bombing in history and this has laid bare the ugly face of Western civilisation. All the remnants of the centuries-old Mesopotamian civilisation between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, historic cities like Baghdad and Basra and holy places of the Islamic civilisation several centuries old are being razed to the ground. Hundreds of children, women and ordinary citizens are being killed. The West’s fascination for high-tech has made this devastation a thrilling game on the television screen. The unseemly talk of US leaders and the language of the Western media clearly reflect their attitude of apartheid — an attitude of nothing but contempt for the aspirations, civilisation and culture of the impoverished countries of the Third World.

On the whole, the is the picture of the unipolar world America has been dreaming of.

However, a dream is after all only a dream. The American generals who had earlier claimed that victory would be theirs within six days have not yet mustered the courage to launch the ground attack. There have been reports of a high tide in mass demonstrations in many countries of the world in support of Saddam and against the USA. One country after another is being compelled to change its position and the rift within the multinational alliance is widening.

Saddam Hussain may very well be defeated in the war, but he has to a large extent been successful in linking up the Palestinian issue with that of Kuwait. Now any peace proposal shall have to consider the Palestinian problem. Even if Saddam were defeated, the Arabic nationalism aroused by him will continue to haunt America even in the days to come. Basing on this, France and other European countries will go in for independent political initiatives which are bound to come in conflict with US interests. The present phase of peaceful US-Soviet relations may also turn into one of hot peace. And the anti-American wave which is now sweeping Third World countries will definitely assume a new political complexion.

Whatever may be the outcome of the war it is definite that the US dream of a unipolar world will be buried in the Persian Gulf itself

[From Liberation, April 1991.]

In my article, The Politics of War I mentioned that the current war is the reflection of present day world contradictions as well as of alliances and at the same time it is also a medium of changes in the correlation of forces.

In the last few years the Soviet Union has clearly been on the retreat from a superpower status, in its confrontation with the USA — the retreat euphemistically called a peace offensive. Moreover, Soviet theories on imperialism and the organic linkages it has been developing with the West have clearly put it against the interests of the Third World. For all practical purposes, from the very beginning the Soviet Union willingly played a subordinate role in the American gameplan in West Asia. Theoretically we knew all this and had been it putting forth squarely. Soviet attempts at the last phase to come out with a peace plan, a plan which was nothing but organising Iraqi surrender, was a meek attempt to keep a role for itself in the post-war West Asia. The Americans were well aware of the essential Soviet impotency. They rejected it.

The Soviets only responded with a curtailed version and, this being rejected again, they fell in line with the Americans. I wrote the article on the very day when the Soviet proposal came and I knew that was the end of Saddam’s resistance. Therefore, I referred to Saddam’s possible defeat, instead of our earlier focus on Iraq turning into another Vietnam, and concluded with a sketh of the probable realignments of forces after the war. I never had any illusions about the Soviet role. The Soviet Union had already gone down to the logical end of the position they adopted. Our comrades had not mentally adapted themselves to the changed Soviet role despite our much earlier analysis of the same. The war has only brought out the real Soviets. On the other hand, after the war a new concern is visible in the Soviet Union and gradually, as I wrote in my article, the peace with America may take a turn towards hotting up of relations. It befits the CPI and the CPI(M) to be too critical of the Soviets as they placed a lot of hopes on it. We should better watch for new turns, if any, in its relations with America.

As regards China, expecting any special role from it as a socialist country in the present international relations is a farfetched imagination. For long it has shown that it is not interested in any such role of replacing the Soviet Union. Well, as a Third World country it did demarcate itself from the Soviets and abstained from voting (in the UN, on certain resolutions moved by the US — Ed.) and tried to be in line with other Third World countries. In its bid for economic construction it has developed multifarious relationships with the West and after Tiananmen it has lost its offensive edge vis-a-vis the West in international relations and its emphasis has been to normalise strained relationships. In the conditions in which it had enmeshed itself during the last years, it was not possible for it to suddenly come out with too radical a position. That is why I said that the war has only brought into the open the real existing relationships among different countries. We knew all this theoretically but old illusions die-hard and when the facts of life only confirm the things, we are still taken aback and try to draw satisfaction by pouring out emotional outbursts. In my opinion the moot point is to keep watch over the changing pattern of relations because I am sure the Chinese and for that matter many countries are deeply concerned about the threat of the American new world order and the war has given rise to a wave of rethinking everywhere. It will take some time before the new relations start taking shape.

One is free to be as critical of Russia or China as one likes, because it does not contradict our Party line. Even if some comrades organise a protest march outside the Chinese embassy I shall have no objections. But I shall remain content with a dispassionate analysis of international relations because matters of world history are judged in decades and not in years.

[From Liberation, October 1991.]

The last bastion of communism in Europe has crumbled. Desperate last-ditch attempts to save it through a coup d’êtat have only hastened its doom.

There was a time when the spectre of communism haunted Europe and now the spectre of Europe is haunting communism everywhere. Will the demise of communism in Europe affect the future of communism in Asia too? How long can China withstand the capitalist onslaught? How does it all affect the Indian communist movement? These and many other questions are haunting the minds of communists and Marxist academicians of our country and are becoming major questions of public debate.

Let us start with an analysis of the events in the Soviet Union. The setback for socialism in the country of the first successful proletarian revolution, in the country of great Lenin, is indeed a most shocking event for communists. For weak-hearted communists it may well provide grounds for dejection and desertion. But for the Marxist-Leninists it only reveals the protracted and highly complex nature of class struggle in the international arena — the struggle between socialism and capitalism.

There is no use blaming American designs or individuals like Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The essential point is that while capitalism overcame the setbacks after the Second World War and renewed itself, the socialist system at a certain stage of its development began failing to deliver the goods and stagnated. It was being rejected by the people themselves including the working class. The socialist chain was put under tremendous strain and it broke at the point where distortions were severest — first in East Europe and then in Soviet Russia.

To defend the socialist Soviet Union from imperialist aggression a huge nuclear arsenal was built up. Achieving military parity with the USA, and even surpassing it, had become the sole motto of the socialist state. In the process, the peculiar phenomenon of a hegemonic superpower built on socialist economic base had emerged. Ironically, when the crunch came, not even a single shot was fired and the Soviet Union’s transformation became a classical case of ‘peaceful evolution’. The mechanical transplantation of the basic contradiction between the two systems of imperialism and socialism into the principal contradiction between two blocs in the present stage gave rise to the phenomenon of super leader, super party and superpower which definitely had its genesis in Stalin’s period itself. As a natural corollary to those absurd ideas, the socialist bloc underwent a split as Mao refused to subscribe to this theory and China refused to accept Soviet domination. Militarisation of the Soviet economy left vital gaps in the sector of primary and essential commodities and people were fed with false statistics. Socialist democracy was given the go by, no dissidence of any sort was tolerated and, in return, people were served the illusions of ‘developed socialism’, ‘primary stage of communism’ and of a superpower syndrome often reminiscent of the great Russian chauvinism. Under cover of all this, a communist party and a regime grew which was detached from the masses and was corrupt and degenerate.

The socialist economic base could not sustain this superpower structure for long and the Soviet Union was already sitting on a volcano by the middle of the ’80s. Gorbachev initiated reforms to salvage the situation, but it was already too late. His perestroika and glasnost brought far-reaching changes in Eastern Europe, kindled national aspirations within Soviet Union and unleashed a host of social forces within the Soviet society and soon a pole emerged around Yeltsin demanding full-fledged restoration of capitalism. Western powers got a fertile ground for meddling in Soviet Union’s internal affairs. All the efforts of Gorbachev to tame the forces unleashed by himself proved futile and one after another he had to surrender his positions with the fond hope of striking a harmonious balance. Economic rejuvenation of the society remained a far cry and he had virtually to beg before the Western powers for assistance and in return offered them one political concession after another. As a net result, his own position went on weakening and that of Yeltsin grew stronger. With all the political and constitutional changes the communist party had already been pushed to the sidelines. With its old formation it became out of tune with the multi-party parliamentary democratic system. Gorbachev mooted the idea of a social-democratic party and opted for a new union treaty.

It was at this point of time that the much-discredited coup came. We don’t have with us all the facts to judge what really prompted the coup leaders to act and what went on behind the scene.

But to brand them as hardliners and conservatives is wrong. They were all Gorbachev’s handpicked men, the products and the mainstay of Gorbachev’s reforms. When the entire cabinet is found to betray the President, the more logical explanation seems to be that it was actually the President who betrayed the trust placed in him. They expected Gorbachev to halt at a point and use the emergency powers he himself had obtained to arrest the drift. They felt that the time had come but Gorbachev, becoming victim of his own creation, refused to oblige. The abrupt rupture left no other option but to seize power through a coup. The coup was destined to fail because Gorbachev was still the leader of pro-perestroika forces and the coup leaders remained a vacillating tiny and incoherent group from the very beginning. Yeltsin sensed the crack and stood in valiant defiance. The coup collapsed and masses flocked over towards Yeltsin, the hero. A dejected Gorbachev returned to find his social base eroding fast and he himself being forced to surrender vital positions to Yeltsin. A weakened central power accelerated the process of disintegration and the three Baltic republics have, for all practical purposes, separated from the Soviet Union. Yeltsin whipped up an anti-communist hysteria. After remaining for a few days virtually under the dictates of Yeltsin, Gorbachev has started making moves for his consolidation vis-a-vis Yeltsin. His moves to disband the communist party are actually the preparation for launching a social democratic party as per his original scheme, now in a roundabout way. To be sure, major sections of the Communist Party will transform themselves into the Gorbachevian scheme. In the coming days it will be interesting to watch how the cooperation and rivalry between the two representative personalities of the present Soviet society advance.

We do not know how the Marxist-Leninists of Russia will regroup themselves. We also don’t know how the ‘hardliners’ and ‘conservatives’ are going to react and what sort of dramatic developments are still in the offing. But we do know that for the second edition of the November Revolution in Soviet Union we shall have to wait much longer.

In over a century, from France to Germany to Russia, the centre of the communist movement has decisively shifted to China now and of course, India will be the other country most keenly watched.

Now a few words of polemics. The CPI(M) theoretician Mr.Prakash Karat^[1], citing our positive evaluation of the 28th Congress of the CPSU, accused us of turning totally pro-Gorbachev and pro-Russia from the totally anti-Soviet position of our earlier days. They take credit for criticising Gorbachev from the very beginning. Let facts speak for themselves. In the great debate we sided firmly with the CPC’s position and criticised the Khruschevite thesis. We never believed in the ‘equi-distance theory’ and sided resolutely with Mao and China. We took Mao’s thought as our guideline, which in international relations opposed the thesis of a leading party, which put the Third World versus imperialism as the principal contradiction in the present day world, and which opposed the superpower hegemonic status of the Soviet Union. Not the metaphysics of Stalin but the dialectics of Mao, was our philosophical guide and it helped us to understand the existence of class struggle in a socialist society and also the danger of capitalist restoration. We did commit mistakes and sometimes went to the extremes but our basic premise has withstood the test of history. The CPI(M), on the other hand, ridiculed Mao’s philosophical thought, applauded the superpower status of Soviet Russia and backed to the hilt the Czechoslovak, Afghan and Kampuchean invasions. The CPI(M)’s basic premise has proved to be subjective despite some correct criticisms of this or that mistake.

We were the first to criticise the 2 November speech of Gorbachev in the harshest of terms, in our Fourth Congress document in January 1988 itself. The CPI(M) opened its mouth much later — only after visits to Moscow. All along we have been severely critical of Gorbachev’s approach towards imperialism. Regarding Gorbachev’s ideas on class struggle etc., we termed him as nothing else but a sophisticated version of Khruschev. We welcomed Gorbachev’s measures in dismantling the superpower status of Soviet Russia and bringing democratic reforms within a highly authoritarian system. If the CPI(M) still harbours illusions about the Brezhnevian model of socialism, it should not forget that the model had reached its saturation point and was bound to collapse. Gorbachev only acted as the catalyst of history. One should also not forget that it was the same Brezhnevian regime which supported the Emergency and the authoritarian regime of Indira Gandhi in India. As regards the 28th Congress, in the then balance of forces within the Soviet Communist Party, we only supported Gorbachev against Yeltsin and it was nothing more than that. We knew that the search for ‘genuine revolutionary communists’ of our imagination in present-day Soviet Union is subjectivism, pure and simple. The search leads the CPI(M) to pin their hopes on Ligachev & Co. and the 28th Congress exposed their real worth.

Now if we don’t support the coup it is only because we know that howsoever satisfying it may appear to our senses, in conditions obtaining in Russia, the coup did not enjoy even a minimal popular support. If we don’t make any hue and cry over the American interference in Russian internal affairs, if we don’t weep for the demise of the Communist Party there, it is because there is no voice being raised against all this from within the Soviet Union. We cherish socialism, but as a social system it can never be imposed on a people. If the Soviet people, after 74 years of experience with socialism, have decided to reject it, how can we advocate its imposition through army, KGB and martial law? When there was still time left to check the drift nothing was done and all criticisms were just branded as CIA-inspired both by the Soviet leadership and their henchmen in India. In the concrete conditions now we can only support the lesser evil against the bigger one and wait for a favourable turn of events when communists will be able to seize back the initiative. This can be the only Marxist approach. All the rest are hysteric cries, cries in the wilderness out of sheer frustration.

China is different from the Soviet Union in many respects and particularly due to its strong ‘Maoist’ legacy. Socialism, of course at a primary stage, survives there and enjoys popular support despite the unfortunate events in Tiananmen Square and despite several distortions. We should not try to keep people’s faith in socialism intact by presenting a golden image of China, the method which the CPI(M) is now well set to adopt. This is not only factually incorrect, it is counter-productive too. We should tell the people the reality and educate them about the zigzag course of the struggle between socialism and capitalism.

When the CPI(ML) began its journey, in its perception only China the tiny Albania were socialist countries and yet it never dampened our spirit to dedicate ourselves for the democratic and socialist transformation of our country. In India where the struggle for democracy against the old system is the main agenda, the future of the communist movement is definitely bright. Whatever concern is there relates to the rule of Left Front government in West Bengal where reactionaries may try to whip up anti-communist hysteria exploiting the misdeeds of the Left government. We hope that the CPI(M) leadership will be more tolerant to criticisms, mend its ways and join hands with the revolutionary communists in defence of Marxism and in the mass movements.

Note :
1. "CPI(ML)/IPF – Quest for a Left Role" by Prakash Karat, The Marxist, October-December, 1990.

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fifth Party Congress, December 1992.]

1. In the last five years or so, the world has witnessed events of truly world-historic significance. As the twentieth century draws to a close, contrary to Lenin’s expectation of a worldwide victory of socialism, world capitalism seems to have emerged victorious over socialism after 75 years of bitter struggles.

This has even led Mr.Francis Fukuyama, a noted bourgeois ideologue, to declare the end of history in the sense of history understood as ‘a single, coherent evolutionary process’. According to Fukuyama, ‘no higher social form than liberal capitalism can be conceived of’ and ‘the sources of inequality will increasingly be attributable to the natural inequality of talents, the economically necessary division of labour and to culture’.

Any tension within this system of capitalism and liberal democracy, Fukuyama tells us, will arise henceforth not from class antagonism, ‘but from liberal democracy’s tendency to grant equal recognition to unequal people’. Will such tension again lead to the eclipse of liberal democracy by fascism which is based on differential treatment to unequal people? Fukuyama is silent on this, but with the demise of Socialism in Europe, Nazism is definitely on upswing in Germany, France and Italy, this time targeting the immigrant population.

2. The end of the Second World War was at the same time the beginning of a cold war between the USA and Soviet Union which later came to be known as the contention between the two superpowers. The two military blocs of NATO and Warsaw Pact faced each other in Europe in a contention which gave rise to an unbridled arms race and stockpiling of nuclear bombs capable of destroying humanity several times over.

3. The paramount importance and centrality attributed to this contention between imperialist and socialist blocs by Soviet leaders invariably demanded the lining up of all socialist countries, communist parties and Third World movements behind the Soviet Union. In real life, this gave rise to a split in the socialist camp. The Czechoslovak invasion in 1968 and the subsequent evolution of the concept of limited sovereignty turned the East European countries into Soviet satellites.

4. The Soviet Union, acting as a superpower, soon overstretched itself. Locked in perpetual tension with China, it incurred the nationalist wrath of East European countries, entered into military pacts with several Asian and African countries and finally got embroiled in Afghanistan.

Internally, the socialist system in Soviet Union had long lost its vibrance and became ossified. The process of decomposition had started long back, but it all lay hidden behind the bloated ego of a superpower. The bubble had to burst some day. With the loosening of the Soviet grip by the middle of ’80s, East European countries, one after another, started going out of the Soviet orbit and, by implication, against the Soviet prototype of socialism in their countries. With the superpower status in shambles, there wasn’t any more bond left, which could hold together the Union itself.

5. The changes in Romania, Yugoslavia and Albania too preceded or followed the collapse, albeit each in its own way. The so-called phenomenon of Euro-communism succumbed to the first winds of change and bared its social-democratic essence. Pro-Soviet communist parties in almost all the European countries overnight switched their allegiance to various shades and varying degrees of social democracy. The CPSU itself, like the proverbial dinosaur, had lost its capacity to move. It produced its own Frankenstein in perestroika and glasnost.

6. Germany emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the post-cold war period. East Germany was taken back into the fold of West Germany and its head of state, Honecker, is now awaiting trial in a German prison. The new, ‘unified’ Germany has taken a keen interest in instigating the break-up of Yugoslavia. In short, the post-war checks and balances against Germany have all collapsed and German economic and political clout is again on rise, both within and without the framework of EEC.

7. The ’80s also saw the consolidation of Japan as an economic superpower second only to the United States. Backed by this economic might, Japan is now striving for an active political role in the international arena. This is clearly indicated, among other things, by its advocacy of restructuring the Security Council in order to get a permanent seat in the Security Council and its recent act of amending its constitution to send its troops beyond the country’s frontiers to Cambodia on a UN peace mission. With the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the consequent weakening of the US umbrella, Japan has embarked on an ambitious programme of militarisation. Its defence budget is now the third largest in the world.

8. Alongside Japan, the Asian tigers — South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan — have also recorded a spectacular economic advance. They are now being closely followed by Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Together they account for 10 percent of the world trade. In contrast to the declining economies of America and Britain, Asia is being projected as the mega-market of the ’90s.

9. China has emerged as the latest powerhouse of the global economy with an annual growth rate which is projected to surpass that of Japan and Korea in the ’90s. Backed by this growing economic strength, China is also gearing up for an active role in world politics as part of the developing world. Conducting a 1,000 megaton nuclear test, joining the NAM as an observer, normalising relations with South Korea in anticipation of Japanese advance and, more recently, signing an agreement with Iran for the sale of a nuclear reactor ignoring US objections — these have been some of the major Chinese initiatives in recent months.

10. The United States, the ideological victor of the cold war, is now trying to institutionalise its global domination through what it euphemistically calls the ‘new world order’. The war it fought in Iraq was meant to convey this specific signal. Latest American actions in Iraq only confirm that the pretext of freeing Kuwait under UN mandate was just a cloak to shield its real intentions. However, the American supremacy is facing challenges from many quarters and its ambitions notwithstanding, in real life it is only a superpower in decline.

11. The present epoch is still best characterised as that of imperialism and proletarian revolution. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the Soviet bloc, the contradiction between socialist and capitalist countries no longer remains a major world contradiction as an independent category. The contradiction between imperialism and the Third World, on the other hand, is only sharpening. Just as Soviet attempts to establish its hegemony over the socialist camp had only helped cause a split among socialist countries, its attempts to subordinate the Third World’s contradiction with imperialism to the socialism-imperialism dichotomy too had only resulted in a division in the Third World, thereby weakening and distorting its anti-imperialist role. Now freed from the Soviet factor, as the Third World has to wage its own struggle against imperialism, it also shows a better spirit of unity and determination. Pro-Soviet countries within the Third World have surely suffered a temporary erosion in their bargaining power, but in a world marked by growing inter-imperialist contradiction they are fast readjusting their relations and regaining their lost strength. Moreover, all the remaining socialist countries belong to the developing countries of the Third World and stand in contrast to imperialism primarily in that capacity. In the present historical period, the contradiction between imperialism and the Third World therefore remains the principal or central contradiction.

[Excerpts from the address to the CPN(UML) Congress. From Liberation, April 1993.]

Yesterday when a document was being read out from the dais of this Congress questioning the very relevance of Marxism and Communist Party, we heard loud protests from many a delegate. I have indeed been greatly moved by this live display of anger and hatred, especially by my young communist friends of Nepal, towards such alien ideas.

I am not concerned here with any particular document of your Congress. I am referring to a trend which has afflicted the entire international communist movement. The liquidationist trend, against which our own Party too has had to wage a very serious struggle in the recent years. Today every communist party must conduct an unrelenting battle against this trend of liquidationism. I have also been impressed by the patience and tolerance shown by the same comrades in appreciating the other documents. Without such a live interaction of ideas and approaches, we cannot really give a crushing defeat to our enemy, a fitting rebuff to our ideological adversaries.

Of course, socialism is passing through a phase of serious crisis and, my comrades, it will not do to underplay or belittle this crisis. It will not do just to reaffirm our faith in Marxism and say that Marxism is invincible. The point is to find Marxist answers to present-day problems. The point is to retrieve the revolutionary essence of Marxism. I do not agree with those who say that communism is in crisis because workers in certain countries today enjoy better standards of living. Those who understand communism as the philosophy of poverty only display the poverty of their own philosophy. Communism is really the philosophy of abundance. Communism presupposes the abundant availability of material goods to ensure full satisfaction of human needs

The Scientific and Technological Revolution which is working wonders in today’s world is only creating necessary material conditions for humanity’s inexorable march towards communism. The development of automation has the potential to obliterate the difference between manual and mental labour. The grounds are being laid, all we have to do is to wrest control of the means of production from the capitalists and imperialists so that productive forces can grow unhindered and undistorted.

Today you have made a lot of progress. In South Asia, yours is the only communist party which has come so close to forming its own government. All of us in India and Asia — why only Asia, in the world communist movement — have great hopes on your Party. We do hope you are able to reach your goal with unity and courage. Our very best wishes for that grand success. Red Salute.

[Homage to Comrade Madan Bhandari. From Liberation, June 1993.]

In the early hours of 17 May when I was in Patna, several comrades came rushing to me to draw my attention to the small report in Patna papers about a jeep accident in Nepal involving Comrade Madan Bhandari and Comrade Jeevraj Ashrit. On enquiring over the phone, we learnt Comrade Bhandari’s body was yet to be located. With lots of apprehension and little hope, I left for Varanasi.

But the message received on 19th dashed all hopes and, leaving my meeting behind, I flew to Kathmandu on 20th noon. The CPN(UML) leadership briefed me about the mysterious circumstances of the accident in the airport lounge itself and from there I went straight to Dashrath Rangashala to pay my last respects to the remains of the two great leaders of the contemporary communist movement of Nepal. Streams of people kept on visiting the place all day and night with tears in their eyes. I also visited the two grief-stricken families.

Just a few months back, I had gone to Kathmandu to attend the Congress of CPN(UML). By the time I left, the Congress was in its concluding phase and despite his obvious preoccupation with the Congress deliberations he came to see me off at the airport. That was my last meeting with him. I had never thought of visiting Kathmandu in such a short period and on such an occasion.

Earlier, after his being elected the General Secretary of CPN(UML) we had a long discussion in Patna for several days. We had another chance to meet in Delhi for a few days when he invited me to have the next round of discussions in Nepal. Relations between our two parties date back to the late ’70s and we had regularly been conducting central-level discussions. Ours has been an ideal fraternal relation where we exchanged our views and experiences on various matters without ever interfering in each other’s affairs. Our two parties evolved more or less on the same pattern, and in some respects of mass work their Party did precede ours.

Com. Bhandari personally came to our Calcutta Party Congress and also addressed the mass rally after the Congress. In his speech in our Party Congress he nicely put forth the necessity of bringing the Party’s role to full play and concluded by saying that we have been friends through hard days and shall remain friends forever. He was quite right.

He became quite popular with our comrades during his stay in Calcutta. In his demise, our Party has lost a great internationalist friend.

I found him a man imbued with self-confidence and a noble sense of dignity and honour.

The day before I left Nepal after attending the CPN(UML) Congress, he came to me with a newspaper in hand which carried the report of an Indian communist leader’s advice on the Tanakpur issue. He was quite agitated to see such blatant interference in his party’s internal matter. All these memories of a friendly face, of a bold and dignified personality kept haunting me through the night of 20th May.

The funeral procession was scheduled for the next day, the 1st of May. As the government of Nepal had decided to extend national honour to the departed leaders, a military band offered salute to the dead bodies and led the procession. In my life, I have never seen a funeral procession of such magnitude with unending waves of people from all walks of life surging from all sides to have a last glimpse of their leaders. It appeared as though the entire Kathmandu city had come out on the streets. Controlling this human sea was an uphill task and volunteers forming a human chain had a tough time regulating the surging waves of the masses.

Thousands and thousands of people lined the two sides of the entire route of the procession and there was not even an inch of space left on the rooftops and balconies of the roadside buildings from where women showered flowers and sprinkled water over the procession. It took the procession nearly four hours to reach the cremation ground. Comrade Emil from the Communist Party of the Philippines, Comrade Surjeet from the CPI(M), Comrade Farooqi from CPI, myself as well as leaders from the Nepal party followed the procession in a truck. Com.Emil and myself had come prepared to march on foot but according to the arrangement, we too had to board the truck. Emil was all along protesting this arrangement and eventually we decided to get down from the truck after informing Com.Madhav Nepal. We covered the last leg of our journey on foot marching with the processionists.

In my short speech at the cremation site, I pointed out that few years ago when Nepal was passing through a great historical turning point, the communist movement needed a theoretician who could integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete conditions of Nepal; the democratic movement of Nepal demanded a leader who could fearlessly uphold the banner of consistent democracy; and the Nepalese nation wanted national figures who could boldly champion the national interests and aspirations of Nepal. In Comrade Madan Bhandari, all the three requirements found a unified answer and herein lay his unique contribution. I paid homage to the fallen comrades and expressed my heartfelt sympathies to their bereaved families on behalf of our Party.

Finally the pyre was lit and the flames started reducing the mortal remains of the two leaders to ashes, the ashes that were now to be distributed to different parts of Nepal. I stood then in silence, lost in my memories when someone reminded me "It’s all over, comrade!" On our way back, the Filipino comrade told me about similar funeral processions he had watched back home – the processions of Aquinas and one of their TU leaders. We discussed how Chris Hani and Madan Bhandari have proved in their death that communism remains the most popular ideology for the downtrodden people of the world.

When in his speech at our Calcutta rally, Comrade Bhandari had accused the Indian press of blacking out and distorting their news, many of our Comrades felt that he should have, preferably, refrained from criticising the press. Soon I was astonished to see the Indian press just ignore the historic party congress of CPN(UML). And now we have seen the height of self-censorship when the Indian press chose to maintain a total silence on the biggest ever funeral-procession in Nepal. I don’t know whether the Indian press is prompted by anti-communist prejudices or by hatred for a man who stood for his country’s interests against Indian ambitions, but l can now appreciate Bhandari’s outburst against the Indian press.

The journey of Comrade Bhandari has come to an end. But it symbolises the beginning of a new journey for his Party, the CPN(UML) and I am confident that the Party will overcome the shock and turn it into strength in the coming days, dashing the fond hopes of its detractors. The unanimous election of the new General Secretary, Comrade Madhav Nepal, is a pointer to that.

[Speech at a seminar on Mao organised by the West Bengal state committee of the Party in Calcutta on December 26, 1993. From Liberation, February 1994.]

On the occasion of Mao Zedong’s birth centenary, throughout the country a lot of discussions are going on, hosts of articles are being written and many functions are being organised. This new-found interest in Mao generates a lot of hope. Even those who till the other day believed that socialism, born out of the womb of capitalism, can never go back to capitalism but can only grow into developed socialism and thereafter into communism and those who ridiculed Mao’s study On Contradiction, are now acclaiming Mao’s Thought on contradictions. These discussions, these debates are indeed of vital importance.

It is true that some people will try to incorporate Mao in their framework of social-democracy whereas some others shall try to adjust Mao and his thought with their idealist-anarchist ideas. Still, this debate, this discussion on Mao will eventually help in a comprehensive and correct understanding of Mao and his thought. This is all the more necessary because in the Indian communist movement the question of Mao and his thought has always been a debatable question and without a correct and unified idea on that, the Indian communist movement cannot be advanced to the next stage. For all these reasons, I welcome the discussion and debates on Mao that has begun on his birth centenary.

In the beginning of the decade of the ’70s Calcutta walls were filled up with a strange slogan; "China’s Chairman is Our Chairman". Young people in their thousands voiced this slogan as the symbol of revolutionary defiance. The slogan was subjected to harsh criticism, as being contrary to the national spirit, to patriotism. Even Mao is supposed to have expressed his disapproval of the slogan. Later on our Party too withdrew the slogan. And yet a crucial question remains unanswered: how come tens of thousands of Indian youth opted to express their revolutionary enthusiasm through such a slogan? They were not less patriotic than any one else, neither were they short of nationalist spirit. In thousands they sacrificed their precious lives with the dream of the liberation of the motherland. Why then did they opt for this slogan? In other words, how did Mao, China’s Chairman, got transformed into a leader of world revolution? How did he become, for the youth of different countries and for revolutionary people everywhere, their very own, their symbol of hope? To find an answer, one has to trace the historical situation of that period.

In the decade of the ’60s, all of a sudden, Soviet leadership began to say that after the emergence of the atom bomb everything has changed; so a new thinking is required in all respects. Imperialists are now armed with powers that can liquidate millions upon millions of people, and even destroy the earth. Therefore, no more class war, no more national liberation war. In short, nothing that would provoke the imperialists. Moreover, they called for a new definition of Marxism in this ‘new age’, the atomic age. This was how modern revisionism emerged from the Soviet Union. Mao took up the cudgels on behalf of revolutionary communists and declared that no weapon, irrespective of its destructive power, can change the fundamentals of human society. People and people alone are the motive force of history and not the atom bomb. When imperialists were raising the bogey of the atom bomb to halt the progress of revolutionary struggles throughout the world, it was Mao who made the famous declaration -- the atom bomb is nothing but a paper tiger. Mao’s bold assertion at that juncture inspired confidence in oppressed people everywhere and provided the necessary impetus for carrying forward their struggle.

Mao had also said that a small force can gradually accumulate strength and defeat a big force. Thus, when under revisionist influence Marxism’s survival was threatened, Mao reassured the people of the world and thus transcending the frontiers of China, he became one with the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and of the whole world for that matter.

The emergence of Mao’s thought has a history behind it. Marx and Engels had dreamt of a proletarian revolution, the revolution which in their view would begin from developed capitalist countries and then the victorious proletariat would liberate the oppressed people of colonies and semi-colonies. In real life, however, revolution did not take the direct route. Proletarian revolution first broke out in Russia. Lenin too had expected the Russian revolution to ignite the flame of revolution in countries of Western Europe. That too did not come about. Lenin, therefore, emphasised the organic linkage between the Russian revolution and the national liberation struggles of colonies and semi-colonies. He grasped the objective shift of the center of world revolution towards Asia. He advised the communists of the East that they could not possibly know their way from Marxist books and must explore it themselves basing on general principles of communism and, of course, the rich experiences of the October revolution.

The emergence of Mao’s thought was thus no accident. As the center of revolution had moved to the East, to Asia, emergence of a revolutionary theory from there was a historical inevitability. It could have been in India as well. Anyway, it emerged from China and Mao was the product of this historical necessity.

Mao explored the revolutionary potential of the peasantry in China, a semi-colonial country, and even organised a red army to accomplish the revolution. This role of peasantry in the history of proletariat was an outstanding contribution to the treasure of Marxism. Building an anti-imperialist front on the basis of national consciousness was another major contribution of Mao.

In the process of establishing his thoughts Mao had to conduct bitter ideological struggles within his party as well as against the Comintern. In a protracted struggle eventually he established his line, ideology and his thought.

Mao had great respect for Stalin. He hailed Stalin as a great revolutionary leader. But at the same time he and only he pointed out the ideological roots of Stalin’s mistakes. When Stalin was being slandered all around, when he was being branded even as a criminal, Mao underlined his contributions to the building of Socialism. While pointing out the ideological roots of Stalin’s mistakes Mao unhesitatingly said that Stalin had a fair amount of metaphysics, or one-sidedness, in him.

While building socialism in China Mao opposed blindly copying the Soviet model. He opposed the imposition of the Soviet Party as a super-party and, most importantly, he opposed the super-power status of the Soviet Union. He had repeatedly emphasised that a socialist country—no matter how strong it became—should never assume the airs of a super power, should never interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and should not occupy other countries by sending armed forces. When the Soviet Army was roaming around from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan under the pretext of defending socialism, Mao resolutely opposed this super-power attitude and said that if a socialist country starts behaving like a superpower its socialism no longer remains genuine socialism.

Mao not only opposed Khruschevite revisionism but also criticised Stalinist metaphysics. In our Party’s opinion, for a comprehensive understanding of Mao’s thought, it is imperative to understand both these aspects.

Mao repeatedly pointed out that the contradiction between capitalism and socialism is far from resolved. This struggle will go on for many years to come, may be a few hundred years, and thus the question who will win is yet to be resolved. Soviet leadership claimed that socialism can only grow into developed socialism and then into communism. Mao said no, this is wrong. This was yet another major contribution of Mao in the field of Marxist philosophy and theory.

He had also pointed out how exactly a socialist country may transform itself back into capitalism. He opined that class struggle exists in socialist society too and there remains a bourgeoisie. This bourgeoisie organises itself within the communist party, and capitalist roaders emerge from within the Party headquarters. Later on events in Soviet Union have corroborated his analysis. Socialism’s retreat to capitalism and the capturing of Party headquarters from within by capitalist roaders occurred in Russia in exactly the way Mao had predicted. And this is the basic reason for the growing attraction towards Mao’s thought particularly after Soviet collapse.

Summing up the experiences of various socialist countries Mao tried to resolve this problem of great importance. This led to what is known as the Cultural Revolution in China. The Cultural Revolution ended in a failure and finally some persons, who were in no way communists, seized power in the Party. Eventually in 1976 Mao had to declare the end of the Cultural Revolution and bring back Deng Xiaoping. In the first analysis, the aim and purpose of Cultural Revolution remained unfulfilled and in many a case produced opposite results.

Anyway, the questions which remained unresolved do create conditions for the development of Mao’s thought. In the history of revolution at every phase certain questions remain unresolved and they in turn provide certain conditions for the future development of Marxism-Leninism. Success comes only after repeated failures. The Cultural Revolution failed but this is not the main thing. The important thing is that Mao pinpointed the real questions and made an attempt to resolve them. The danger has been proved real and future attempts by Marxists-Leninists in resolving these questions will bank heavily upon the essence of Mao’s efforts.

So many people nowadays are evaluating Mao. That is definitely needed. But I feel the time has still not come to say anything final on the comprehensive evaluation of Mao. The Soviet communist party had made their own assessment of Stalin but Marxists-Leninists of the world had rejected that. Similarly, I don’t consider CPC’s evaluation of Mao as the last word. Well, CPC’s evaluation is of course a part of any comprehensive evaluation of Mao. But Mao didn’t belong just to China. Marxists-Leninists of the world will evaluate him and for that history has to wait for some more time.

Today’s need is to evaluate the Indian communist movement in the light of Mao’s Thought –- to ponder over the reasons why we failed in advancing the Indian revolution, instead of evaluating Mao on the yardstick of correctness of one’s own Party line, it would be better if one’s own Party line is judged by the yardstick of Mao’s Thought.

It is not that Mao committed no mistakes. Those who dream of revolution and strive for this in revolutionary struggles are liable to commit mistakes. Those who never go in for struggles can of course claim that they never committed mistakes. Marx, Engels, Lenin – everyone of them made mistakes. But their mistakes were the mistakes of great revolutionaries. Even through their mistakes they succeeded in carrying forward the revolutionary consciousness of people. Mao’s mistakes should also be judged from this viewpoint only. History does not remember those who claimed to have always been correct. History remembers Marx, not Lassalle or Bernstein, history remembers Lenin, not Plekhanov and history remembers Mao and not Liu Shao-chi.

In 1968 when we embarked on the path of revolutionary politics in college life, we had used the word Chairman Mao in the editorial of the college magazine. There were only four or five of us in those days. The reactionaries organised many students and burnt our magazine Vanguard. We protested with the slogan "Mao is the great leader of world revolution". Later on, when arrested, we were mercilessly beaten up for possessing Mao’s books. In jail, somehow I managed to smuggle in Mao’s Selected Writings and everyday I would read it myself and translate it for the benefit of other comrades in jail. This was my favourite task in those days.

In 1979 when I reached China across the mountains, the de-Maoisation process had just begun there. We visited all the important places of the Chinese Revolution and had intimate talks with veteran peasants as well as many other people. We had developed the feeling that the Chinese people and the broad Party ranks have great faith in and respect for Mao and Mao can never be erased from China.

Standing before the body of Mao lying in state, I whispered to myself: Chairman Mao, you shall remain our Chairman for ever – though not as China’s Chairman, but as our guide to the path of Indian revolution.

[From Liberation, April 1997.]

‘It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it caught mice.’ About this famous statement of Deng the only official clarification offered so far has been that the cat referred to was yellow not white.

Deng Xiaoping, the last link in the chain of veteran revolutionaries of China, remained a controversial figure all through his political career spanning over 70 years. The debate, whether Deng was building socialism or capitalism in China, remains inconclusive; still, there is no disputing the fact that under his command China indeed emerged as a major world economic power within a period of just 10 to 15 years. The pace of economic development in China has been described as unparalleled in world history — a miracle — and experts believe that within a decade or so China is poised to become an economic superpower, next only to the United States.

In the post-Chinese revolution phase, differences began to crop up between Mao and Deng on the all-important question of socialist construction. Deng believed that in the phase of socialist construction, the contradiction between the backward productive forces and the advanced production relations constituted the principal contradiction of Chinese society. In other words, without the rapid development of productive forces advanced production relations cannot be sustained and thus socialism will remain a utopia. Accordingly, along with Liu Shao Chi, he advocated primary emphasis on the development of productive forces. As for the production relations, they should correspondingly be developed step by step.

Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, new China made rapid progress towards building socialism and by the early sixties a powerful socialist infrastructure did come into being. In the next stage of development, inner-Party debates got intensified and eventually led to the cultural revolution. Deng was branded as the ‘Capitalist-roader No.2’ after Liu Shao Chi and was sent off to a factory far off from Beijing to work as an ordinary worker. Deng is reported to have made self-criticisms at least twice and even confessed that he was indeed a capitalist roader.

Nevertheless, the ideals that had motivated the Cultural Revolution, viz. preventing the dangers of capitalist revival, cultivating the advanced socialist consciousness and the making of a socialist man etc. remained a distant dream and after a prolonged spell of ten years, Cultural Revolution ended in a fiasco. Ironically, the most vocal proponent of the Cultural Revolution, Lin Piao proved to be a conspirator, who plotted a coup d’etat aimed at assassinating Mao and seizing power. The credit for foiling Lin Piao’s gameplan goes to Chou Enlai, considered otherwise a moderate in the parlance of cultural revolutionaries. Deng was recalled by Mao but his return proved to be a short-term affair. After the departure of Chou, the machinations of the notorious gang of four once again led to his ouster. After Mao’s death and the subsequent exposure of the gang of four, Deng made a dramatic comeback and thereafter there was no looking back. Till his end he remained the supreme leader of China.

He advanced the theory of the primary stage of socialism, quite a protracted stage indeed, and drastically restructured production relations and opened China for massive inflow of foreign capital and technology. He created special economic zones based on the premise ‘let some areas develop first’.

The western capitalist world widely acclaimed his policies of economic reforms. The West was euphoric over the prospects of eventual political reforms which would destroy the monopoly of the Communist Party rule in China and usher in multi-party parliamentary system.

Deng, however, proved to be a die-hard in this respect. He did not hesitate to mercilessly crush the clamourings for bourgeois political reforms at Tiananmen Square and for that the bourgeois media dubbed him as the villain of the piece.

Deng has built the super-structure of modern China only over the foundations of a socialist infrastructure built under the charismatic leadership of Chairman Mao. Committed to the rule of the Communist Party and the goals of socialism, both Mao and Deng were outstanding personalities of 20th century and both played their historical roles to the hilt. Yet the million dollar question posed by Mao ‘Which will win, socialism or capitalism?’, could neither be resolved by Mao’s Cultural Revolution nor by Deng’s agenda of socialist modernisation. The quest for its resolution shall continue to haunt China of the 21st century.

Deng Xiaoping performed the unique feat of getting rehabilitated, that too twice, in his lifetime. Like the proverbial cat, no matter white or yellow, he ‘had nine lives’.

Liberation pays tribute to the last great man in the series of historical personalities who shaped the 20th century.

[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

The collapse of Soviet Union and the end of Cold War led to a unipolar world. This was reflected in the Gulf War when all the major imperialist powers rallied around US in a grand alliance. However, this proved to be temporary. When the US wanted to enact the second edition of the Gulf War in September 1996, the alliance cracked. Russia criticised it openly, France registered its protest, China conveyed greetings to Saddam, the Japanese advised restraint and even US’ Arab allies turned the other way.

Internal differences are quite manifest on the question of expansion of NATO. From 1991 onwards, i.e. with the end of Cold War, France and Germany began mooting the idea of a pan-European security arrangement. The US is apprehensive that once Germany, on its own or with France, becomes hegemonic in Central Europe it may reach some agreement with Russia over excluding the US from Eurasia. To prevent the Europeans from forging an independent strategic entity, the US embarked on an eastward expansion of NATO and pushed through its unilateral decision as to which countries were to be admitted. The eastward expansion of NATO is an important way to keep Europe tied down to the US and assert America’s unipolar dominance. Moscow was opposed to this expansion of NATO but had to accede in exchange for economic incentives and a NATO-Russia permanent joint council where it will have its say in NATO decisions without veto rights.

Although the US talks of ‘positive engagement’ with China, in practice it doggedly pursues the policy of containment of China. China is deeply worried over the expansion of NATO in Europe and the growing strategic activism of US in Central Asia, which borders China to the west. To break out of the encirclement, apart from strengthening their nuclear and conventional capabilities, the Chinese have rapidly boosted their strategic cooperation with Russia. The joint communique issued after the summit meeting of Russian and Chinese leaders vowed to create an equal partnership aimed at strategic interaction in the 21st century and building a multipolar world. This development is of crucial importance as it is for the first time that the two big powers have openly questioned American hegemony and talked of a multi-polar world.

China is putting enormous pressure on Japan to exclude Taiwan from the ambit of Japan’s recent military alliance with the US. China has been strengthening its economic and political ties with East Asian countries and in a gathering of East Asian leaders the Chinese premier talked about a ‘new international economic and political order’ opposed to the ‘irrational western order’. The Chinese are invoking the national plank in a big way and have started taking more active and vocal role in world politics. Hong Kong’s unification has boosted both the economic strength of China as well as its nationalist plank.

Lenin had said that it is perfectly possible for imperialist countries to forge an alliance for the "peaceful" division of some region. "But the question is whether such alliances will be permanent and eliminate friction, conflicts and struggle in every possible form.

"The only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence etc. is a calculation of strength and the strength does not change to an equal degree, for the even development of different undertakings, trusts etc. is impossible.

"General alliances, therefore, are like periods of truce in a war. Peaceful alliances prepare the grounds of war and in their turn grow out of war; one conditions the other."

A unipolar world is thus an anachronism. The objective process is leading towards multipolarity where Europe and the China-Russia axis may emerge as important poles apart from the US.

The US is bent upon exercising its hegemony all over the world. It continues to pursue policies like the economic blockade of Cuba which began in the ’60s, economic sanctions against Iraq and Iran and bullying China, Russia and Japan. It is engaged in trade wars with European countries. And it meddles in the internal affairs of a host of countries including India. And for these purposes it uses international financial and trade institutions as well as the UN which, of late, has become an instrument pursuing US policies.

For small and weak countries therefore, the national question continues to be of paramount importance in this age of globalisation.

In US strategy India fits in as a countervailing force against China. Indian foreign policy response is quite vague on this question. Though, of late, Sino-Indian relations have considerably improved, there is a strong pro-US lobby in India which raises the bogey of China’s expansionist designs, makes a hue and cry over the Tibet question, presents China as India’s main trade rival etc.

We did welcome India’s refusal to sign NPT and CTBT because, as a sovereign country, India should have the freedom to decide its course and not succumb to US dictates. But the threat of a nuclear race hotting up in South Asia is looming large before us. Despite the Gujral doctrine promising good neighbourly relations and despite making a beginning in talks with Pakistan, nothing concrete is expected to emerge. Outstanding problems between India and Pakistan, including the Kashmir dispute, can only be solved within a broader framework of cooperation that includes developing SAARC as a powerful regional economic bloc and concluding a bilateral NPT with Pakistan. India should also explore the potential of strategic cooperation with China in order to accelerate the process of multipolarity. But it is highly unlikely that India’s present ruling dispensation, attached as it is with numerous overt and covert ties with West, will tread this path.

The impact of globalisation is already being felt in Europe where the unemployment rate has gone up to 11% (in absolute terms 20 million persons are without jobs), a figure comparable to that of the pre-Second World War Great Depression. France, where the unemployment rate has reached 12%, is the worst hit. This coupled with a drastic reduction in social welfare has given rise to waves of protests and strikes.

The election outcome resulting in the Left’s victory in France or the voting out of ruling parties in several other European countries is essentially a backlash against liberalisation and globalisation. The recent victory of the socialist coalition in France is perhaps most significant. It has come in the wake of a decisive popular resistance by the French working class defeating attempts to place the economy on a Thatcherite path, as well as rightwing anti-immigrant legislation with racist overtones. By contrast, there is hardly anything socialistic or social-democratic about the victory of the New Labour in Britain. The term New Labour is essentially a misleading euphemism for what should be called New Conservative. Any euphoria over the so-called leftward shift in Europe would thus seem to be patently misplaced.

The European Monetary Union and the introduction of a single currency, Euro, by 1 January 1999, doesn’t hold any promise for the working class. On the contrary, individual countries in their bid to attain a competitive edge in an integrated Europe are further tightening the noose around the workers. Thus the working class is opposed to the whole exercise of unification and is organising major protests.

The economies of the republics of the erstwhile USSR and Eastern Europe are still trapped in their transitional trauma which is now threatening to grow into a kind of permanent paralysis. The so-called neo-liberal panacea has failed miserably in resolving this crisis. This economic reality has found its political reflection in the popular dissatisfaction with the new post-socialist regimes in these countries. The replacement of Soviet puppet regimes by Western puppet regimes in these countries has met with an early collapse, and in many cases ex-communists who appear to be more rooted in the soil, have come back sans the communist tag.

This year in Russia millions of angry workers demonstrated demanding immediate government action to pay back wages, procure jobs and restore social services. In the first stirrings of class action since the collapse of the socialist system, over 10 million workers participated in strikes.

The crisis of neo-liberalism is also evident in country after country in Africa, Latin America and Asia. This has given rise to a lot of dissension among the high priests of neo-liberal orthodoxy and Japan has reportedly begun to question the wisdom of the neo-liberal package of macroeconomic stabilisation and structural adjustment. The recent resurrection of the state in the neo-liberal discourse — redefining the crucial role of the state in the economy was the focus of this year’s World Development Report released by the World Bank — is said to be a fallout of this divergence between the US and Japan. Now in the wake of the recent currency turmoil in South-East Asia, this difference is becoming accentuated and coming out more strongly into the open with Japan calling for curbs on currency speculation and proposing a $100 billion monetary fund for Asia. The IMF, in its recent Hong Kong meet, has strongly opposed these Japanese proposals insisting on a single source of conditionality.

Unemployment in the USA remained at the rate of 6% but the proportion of low-wage service sector jobs has increased. Jobs are being created but many are temporary jobs without any security and without a future. Japan which till recently was paraded as the model of economic progress — and Indian capitalists missed no opportunity to preach to their workers about the cooperative attitude of the Japanese workers that is supposed to have worked wonders in Japan — has lost much of its shine. Gone are the heady days of the ’80s when Japanese companies seemed unstoppable. Seven years after the boom in the stock markets, Japan is in deep trouble. All attempts at overcoming the slump have had only a moderate effect. The US goes on pressurising Japan to deregulate its economy and open its markets for American goods. While Japan has entered the phase of political instability, the communist party there has significantly improved its presence in the last elections.

The Asian ‘tiger’ economies, assiduously projected as the model for developing countries, are now caught in a web of crises. South Korea’s growth rate is slowing down and its trade balance is upset. It was already rocked by the student protests against the stationing of 37000 US troops in South Korea. Now workers have come onto the streets. Tens of thousands of workers have marched on the streets of Seoul and other cities against a new labour law that makes it easier for employers to fire their workers. Thailand’s external debt has mounted to $90 billion, exports have declined and its current account balance has turned negative. This led to a free fall of the Thai currency whose tremors soon reached South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. A loan of $16 billion — of which, interestingly, $1 billion was committed by China — was arranged by the IMF to bail out Thailand but currently a fresh round of currency turmoil has engulfed the region. The Tigers have started showing signs of tiredness and in the coming years militant working class actions are bound to intensify.

In fact, a run on Third World currencies and sudden flight of capital resulting in a debilitating impact on the economy, first witnessed in a very acute form in the case of Mexican meltdown, is becoming a wider phenomenon rendering many Third World economies highly vulnerable in the era of globalisation. On the whole, in seven years of globalisation the growth record of the world economy has remained lacklusture — the average growth rate in this period being lower than the rate in the 1970s.

The Chinese Puzzle

Only the yuan, the Chinese currency, held steady amidst the recent currency turmoil in East Asia. This shows the strength of China’s economic fundamentals as well as its financial mechanisms, which do not give much scope to speculators. Its economy is growing at the rate of average 10% a year. China’s trade surplus stands at $16 billion whereas foreign exchange reserves have crossed the $200 billion mark. Foreign debt is meagre. China has attracted huge amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) — about 80% of which comes from overseas Chinese.

Although state-owned enterprises still employ the bulk of the 170 million-strong urban workforce, their share in the total industrial output has fallen to less than one-third, down from over three-quarters in 1978 when reforms began. State-owned enterprises are in deep crisis and it is reported that hundreds of thousands of workers have gone unpaid for months. The huge amount of money lent by the state banks to ailing state enterprises has risen to $120 billion last year. Much of the borrowing, however, went just to pay wages. Reform of the state sector has been the foremost agenda in the just concluded congress of CPC. The capitalist sector is making giant strides and China is at a crossroads.

The Chinese Communist Party has coined the term ‘socialist market economy’ based on the premise that within an overall socialist framework, viz. communist party rule and state control over planning, finance etc., the market can be guided, controlled and put to use for building socialism. This they call the primary stage of socialism, and it is expected to continue for the next fifty years till China attains a per capita income level comparable with moderately developed capitalist countries. This revision of the classical Marxist theory on socialism is what is known as Deng Xiao Ping’s theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. The genesis of this theory can be traced back to the two-lines struggle in the CPC since the 1950s.

We do acknowledge the enormous difficulties in building socialism in a single country, and that too in a backward Asian country.

We also refute the methodology that discusses the question of building socialism in the abstract, as an ideal utopian model that can just be transplanted anywhere, anytime by sheer will power. Instead we look at socialism as a society evolving out of contradictions of capitalism, evolving as a natural process of history and therefore adopting myriad forms in different contexts and different countries.

Still, the whole perception of socialist market economy appears to be highly controversial and in view of the fact that the Chinese economy is becoming overwhelmingly capitalist, regional imbalances and rich-poor divide are growing, a whole new class of neo-rich is coming up and corruption is becoming quite rampant, we cannot but feel seriously concerned about the future of Chinese socialism.

Learning the ABC of Marxism
"Retrieve the Revolutionary Core of Marxism"
Vladimir Ilich Vs. Rosa Luxemburg -- A Study Based On Lenin’s Writings 

[A popular introduction prepared for Party schools. From Liberation, June 1990.]

For the last 7 or 8 years the Party CC has been making efforts to cultivate the habit of study in the Party and turn the system of Party schools into an integral part of the Party body. Selected batches of cadres were enrolled in central Party schools and state and other Party committees too conducted schools at their respective levels. It was expected that all these measures will not only raise the level of knowledge and understanding of the entire Party, but shall make study a regular habit as well. How far has this aim been achieved? Everyone shall perhaps agree that the degree of success has been quite low. A few comrades have continued with studies, more due to their own inclination and the rest have gone back to their old status.

Now there are certain fundamentals of Marxism, ABC of Marxism and if you don’t know them you are liable to be put into the category of illiterate Marxists. I think the number of such people is quite large in our Party. Among those who may be called literates, again the majority has hardly crossed primary standards. The majority of our senior leaders and cadres too cannot claim to have entered the university of Marxist education.

This is a very sorry state of affairs and shows that a good majority of our comrades are either working blindly or working according to their whims. If you work blindly, i.e., faithfully memorising the slogans and implementing to the letter the instructions coming from the top, you run the risk of missing their spirit and you may never develop a creative practice. And if you work according to your whims, you are sure to go against the Party’s ideas, plans and line. Both the situations are equally harmful for the Party and people’s interests.

Now, I find some people quite happy as their main field of activity is the front organisation and they feel here they don’t need to study Marxism. Barring a few exceptions I don’t think front leaders and cadres nowadays pay any attention to studying Marxism. The level of many has even gone down and this is one important reason for the recent emergence of non-revolutionary practices on the part of a section of its leaders and cadres. These comrades failed to understand that the entire concept, programme and tactics of this front is derived from nothing else but Marxism-Leninism, from its concrete application to our concrete conditions. To succeed in its mission, the most advanced and revolutionary class must appear as the leader of the whole society. Communists must have to compete with and ultimately replace the bourgeoisie from its coveted position of natural leader of the society. United front, whatever form it takes at any particular juncture, is precisely the medium through which a Communist Party achieves this goal. Therefore, strategy and tactics of the united front i.e., the ability to transform the aims and slogans of the most advanced class into those of all the classes of the people, is the most crucial aspect of Marxist theory and practice. Communists who constitute the nucleus and backbone of the front organisation cannot acquire this ability if they remain illiterate Marxists.

A large number of new forces have been joining the front and the Party organisation. They are not only illiterate in the Marxist sense, many coming from CPI, CPI(M) etc. have even got a negative education.

The other day I met a comrade who had packed all his baggage including two bagloads of books and was all set to leave the Party — in his words, taking an indefinite leave from the Party, for the sake of study. This comrade — a young, promising and good practical worker — was very disgusted as he felt that there was no proper atmosphere for pursuing studies in the Party. He also felt that the Party was encouraging blind practice and as a host of complex questions remain theoretically unresolved, the present successes may prove illusory and in the long run we will run into a solid wall.

I tried to argue with him and persuade him to remain within the Party. He was an intelligent fellow and had already prepared his counter-arguments in anticipation of whatever logic other people were going to putforth. Hence I failed in my persuasion, and moreover, my rate of success in persuading comrades to refrain from deserting the Party has always been very poor. Anyway, that is another story.

Undoubtedly, the basic position of this comrade is wrong. His ambition is to develop as an academician and not as a Party theoretician.

By no means do I want to belittle the all-important role played by academicians, and truly speaking, without the useful research work undertaken by them, without the conflict of ideas, which invariably takes shape first in the realm of academics, it is virtually impossible to build upon the revolutionary theory. Still, academicians have their own limitations — their conclusions lack clarity or thrust and are often confusing and wrong. It remains for revolutionary theoreticians and political leaders of the proletariat to formulate the course of action. The bourgeoisie can afford a division between theoreticians and ‘practicians’, but for the proletariat, its leaders have been Marx, Lenin, Mao etc., the philosophers, economists and political leaders all combined into one.

In our Party history we have witnessed individuals and groups who made a mechanical division between theory and practice. In their opinion, first there should be a long period of study to derive a ‘correct’ political line and then the period of ‘correct’ practice would begin. Well, history has proved that all these people could reach nowhere after years and years of study; instead they ended up with more confusion than they had at the beginning. Revolutionary theory could only be advanced by those who remained in the thick of practice and learned from their mistakes and failures. Does it mean that everything that the comrade said was wrong and deserves only condemnation? I don’t think so. In my opinion he was quite right when he said that a lot of complex questions are crying out for theoretical solutions and if they are not urgently taken up we may in the long run crash against a solid wall. He did touch a sensitive nerve of ours when he pointed out the lack of proper atmosphere for studies.

It you agree with the above-mentioned assessment of the state of affairs in the Party, you will readily welcome the Party Central Committee’s plan to launch a mass literacy campaign for educating the entire Party membership in the ABC of Marxism.

To proceed. One question that may be asked, and quite legitimately too, is while socialism is facing a crisis worldwide and questions are being asked about the relevance of Marxism itself, won’t your emphasis on studying Marxist fundamentals reinforce orthodoxy?

Well, the crisis of socialism in general and the East European developments in particular demand a comprehensive analysis from all possible angles — changes in the world balance of forces, powerful socio-economic factors operating in Europe as a whole, the role of Soviet perestroika, the wrongs committed by the communist parties etc. etc.

But I think all this still does not touch the most fundamental reason of all. After the setbacks suffered by communists in East Europe, many expected a swing in favour of socialists, the exponents of ‘socialism with democratic principles’ as against ‘dictatorship’, who had been historical rivals of communists in Europe. That has not come and all efforts of erstwhile communists to reform and reorganise themselves as social democrats failed to retrieve the situation. Ascendancy of centre-right political combinations, the increasing role of the Church, and direct calls to go back to capitalism are all that is happening in East Europe. In concrete reality, therefore, socialism with all its varieties in different East European countries has failed and the democratic revolution, people’s democracies, the rule of the proletariat have only paved the way for the return of capitalism and the political rule of the bourgeoisie. Only the materialist conception of history, propounded in Marxist fundamentals, can provide a solution to this puzzle. Marx had said, "If the proletariat destroys the political rule of the bourgeoisie, that will only be a temporary victory, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in 1794, so long as in the course of history, in its ‘movement’, the matured conditions are not yet created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and thus the definitive overthrow of bourgeois political rule. The reign of terror in France, could only serve, therefore, to clear away from the soil of France, through its powerful blows, the remnants of feudalism. The anxious and considerate bourgeoisie would never have completed this task in decades. The bloody action of the people thus only prepared the way for it. Similarly, the collapse of the absolute monarchy would have been temporary, had not the economic conditions for the rule of the bourgeois class already ripened. Men do not build themselves a new world out of the fruits of the earth, as vulgar superstition believes, but out of the historical accomplishments of their declining civilisation. They must, in the course of their development, begin by themselves producing the material conditions of a new society, and no effort of mind or will can free them from this destiny". (Die Moralisierende Kritik... 1847). Moreover, the host of analyses appearing in liberal bourgeois and Marxist media have so vulgarised Marxism that refreshing the Marxist fundamentals has become our imperative need. For example, I had been reading an analytical article on East European developments in Economic and Political Weekly written by an academician — a regular contributor. He eventually drew the conclusion that communists there failed to understand the strong impact of religion on people’s minds and failed to properly utilise it. Continuing, he went on to praise Gandhi’s methods of making popular use of religion in the independence struggle and advised communists to learn a lesson or two.

Because of a fragmented and shortcut study of Marxism many people think that Marx failed to understand the important role of religion and just dismissed it as the ‘opium of the people’. In fact, Marx presented a very comprehensive view of religion. Let me quote from him,

"Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral affection, its solemn complement, its general basis of consolation and justification.

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." (Marx-Engels Correspondence)

Had any materialist in the entire history of materialist thought ever presented such a comprehensive view on religion? Petty-bourgeois revolutionaries in their fashionable approach simply dismiss religion. Recently, I read a poem in Janmat where the meaning of religion is explained in the crudest possible terms and I think it will get a lot of claps from many of our comrades. You may enjoy that liberty in poetry but it’s harmful if translated in theory.

Religion is an inverted world consciousness, based upon the negation of man’s natural existence and nature’s human existence. Marx said, "Once the essence of man and nature, man as a natural being and nature as a human reality, has become evident in practical life, in senses experienced, the search for an alien being, a being outside man and nature (a search which is an avowal of the unreality of man and nature) becomes impossible in practice. Atheism, as a denial of this unreality, is no longer meaningful, for atheism is a denial of God, and seeks to assert by this denial the existence of man. Socialism no longer requires such a roundabout method; it begins from the theoretical and practical sense perception of man and nature as real existences. It is a positive human self-consciousness, no longer a self-consciousness attained through the negation of religion, just as the real life of a man is positive and no longer attained through the negation of private property (communism). Communism is the phase of negation of the negation, and is consequently, for the next stage of historical developments, a real and necessary factor in the emancipation and rehabilitation of man. Communism is the necessary form and the active principle of the immediate future, but communism is not itself the aim of human development or the final form of human society." (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts)

Dismissing religion and carrying on struggle against it in the negative style of atheists are wrong. Similarly, all talks of making use of it for a modern socialist transformation of society are humbug. East European socialism failed to free people from the uncertainties of life, could not make them conscious as makers of their own destiny and instead degenerated into an oppressive system. This is the essential reason behind the lingering influence and perhaps the revival of the Church.

I don’t say that it’s simply a matter of explaining away the East European developments with the help of fundamental Marxist concepts, and that Marxism itself doesn’t need an enrichment, learning from experiences of all these years. My point is that in the process of historical advance it has often happened that mankind has rediscovered the fundamentals of original revolutionary thought and then improved upon them. I am confident that socialist thought will soon witness a new phase of renaissance and that will surely be based on resurrection of Marxist fundamentals.

When we talk of fundamentals of Marxism it should not be understood as reading a few books and memorising a few principal formulations. Deciding our approach towards study is the most important question, and on that rests success or failure of our whole campaign.

I have often seen that some people have their own ideas on certain questions and they read Marxist literature just to find support for those ideas. Perhaps one can always manage to extract suitable quotes in favour of any idea. We talk of Marxism as our guide to action but in reality we make it tail behind our ideas and actions. I think while studying we should start from the premise that our natural, spontaneous ideas are, in general, petty bourgeois in nature. It has to be so because bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideas are the dominant ideas in society and our world outlook, including that of worker comrades, is bound to be deeply influenced by them. While studying Marxism one should study it in contrast to one’s own ideas, and through a process of mental struggle, make a conscious effort to transform one’s own world outlook. Mao said in relation to China, "there are many comrades in the Party who have joined the Party organisationally and not ideologically". I find it even more true in our case. There are many comrades whose bodies are in the Communist Party, whose souls are dedicated to revolution, but whose minds live in the realm of the liberal-bourgeois world of ideas.

I shall illustrate the point by narrating a few examples.

I find many comrades are taken in by bourgeois propaganda and start harbouring illusions about this or that pronouncement of governments on, say, alleviating poverty etc. Liberals go on propagating that it is just a question of will, the political will in carrying out reforms etc.

Let us see how Marxism approaches this question.

Marx said, "The convention had for a moment the courage to order the abolition of pauperism not indeed ‘immediately’,.... but only after entrusting the Committee of Public Safety with the preparation of the necessary plans and proposals .... what was the result of the convention’s ordinance? Only that there was one more ordinance in the world, and that one year later the convention was besieged by starving weavers.

"Yet the convention represented a maximum political energy, power and understanding.

"No government in the world has been able to make regulations concerning pauperism immediately, without first consulting its officials. ... Insofar as states have concerned themselves at all with pauperism, they have remained at the level of administrative and charitable measures or have sunk below this level.

"Can the state act in any other way? The state will never look for the cause of social imperfections in the state and social institutions themselves! ... Where there are political parties, each party finds the source of such evils in the fact that the opposing party, instead of itself is at the helm of state. Even the radical and revolutionary politicians look for the source of the evils not in the nature of the state, but in a particular form of the state which they want to replace by another form.

"The state and the structure of society are not, from the standpoint of politics, two different things. The state is the structure of society. Insofar as the state admits the existence of social evils, it attributes them to natural laws against which no human power can prevail, or to private life which is independent of the state or to the inadequacies of the administration which is subordinate to it. Thus in England poverty is explained by the natural law according to which population always increases beyond the means of subsistence. From another aspect, England explains pauperism as the consequence of the evil dispositions of the poor, just as the king of Prussia explains it by the unchristian disposition of the rich, and as the convention explains it by the sceptical, counter-revolutionary outlook of the property owners. Accordingly, England inflicts penalties on the poor, the king of Prussia admonishes the rich and the convention beheads property owners.

"In the last resort, every state seeks the cause in adventitious or intentional aspects in the administration and therefore looks to a reform of the administration for a redress of these evils. Why? Simply because the administration is the organising activity of the state itself.

"The contradiction between the aims and good intentions of the administration on the one hand, and its means and resources on the other, cannot be removed by the state without abolishing itself, for it rests upon this contradiction. The state is founded upon the contradiction between public and private life, between general and particular interests. The administration must, therefore, limit itself to a formal and negative sphere of activity, because its power ceases at the point where civil life and its work begin. In face of the consequences which spring from the unsocial character of the life of civil society, of private property, trade, industry, of the mutual plundering by the different groups in civil society impotence is the natural law of the administration." (Economic Notebooks)

The other day I had a discussion with a comrade who felt that Marx’s concept of division of society into classes, of class struggle, seems unfounded. He argued that Marx talked about proletarian leadership etc. but you see workers appearing most conservative and seeing nothing beyond their economic interests. The comrade is wrong in attributing to Marx the credit of dividing the society into classes and inventing class struggle. Marx himself said, "No credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society, nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle of the classes and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes." (Marx to Weydemyer, March 1852)

Marx’s credit lies in discovering the class which would ultimately put an end to all classes including itself. This class is the proletariat, which is the only class objectively placed to accomplish this mission. Marx further said, "If socialist writers attribute this world-historic role to the proletariat, this is not at all... because they regard the proletarians as gods. On the contrary, in the fully developed proletariat, everything human is taken away, even the appearance of humanity. ... It is not a matter of knowing what this or that proletarian or even the proletariat as a whole conceives as its aims at any particular moment. It is a question of knowing what the proletariat is and what it must historically accomplish in accordance with its nature". (The Holy Family)

I found a comrade, whose integrity and sincerity for the Party and revolution is beyond question, to be deeply influenced by the Gorbachevian hypothesis of ‘peaceful and civilised imperialism’. This comrade failed to understand that he belongs to a country which is in the Third World, a country whose main external contradiction as a nation is with imperialism. A theory which advocates mitigating of this contradiction, and advocates toning down the struggle of developing countries against imperialism, is harmful for our national interest. Why is it that communist parties, various popular movements and many a national leader of the Third World have refused to ditto the new thinking of Gorbachev? It’s so because they are the conscious representatives of their national interests. This comrade of ours is taken in by liberal bourgeois propaganda and is not a conscious representative of the contradiction between imperialism and the Indian nation which forms one of the pillars of our Party programme.

I found several comrades who were carried away by the mass character of parties like AGP and Telugu Desam and movements like those of Sharad Joshi and Tikait and even advocated either joining these parties and movements or copying their programmes. They see the masses in their fold and their militant forms and forget all about the class nature and the goal of these parties and movements. It is quite an irony that while left and progressive sections of the people throughout India see a new hope in our movement in Bihar, primarily because it bases itself upon the most oppressed and most revolutionary classes in the countryside, because its mass character and militancy is being consciously directed towards the definite political goal of revolutionary democracy, a section of our own comrades ridicule their own movement and spread illusions about movements led by alien classes which advocate non-party, apolitical anarchism or certain partial economic and political reforms in the system.

Some of these comrades advocated supporting the Janata government and they even wanted us to join it. They got deeply influenced by the democratic pretensions of the Janata government and its emphasis on the rural sector etc. They felt that struggle against feudal remnants etc. could well be accomplished by a Janata Dal variety of government and we just needed to act as a pressure group. This theory could not stop here and, as the next logical step in its advance, questioned our emphasis on the rural poor and their militant mass movements. The theory ended with the negation of the Communist Party itself, and with the advocacy of a loose democratic formation pursuing the peaceful parliamentary path and essentially playing second fiddle to the Janata Dal and the social-democratic Left. They went to the extent of ridiculing the Naxalbari movement and ridiculed the ideas of independent left assertion and revolutionary democracy.

Well, these comrades failed to strictly adhere to the Marxist class approach. A Communist Party in rural areas can only base itself upon the rural poor and strive to win over the middle peasantry. Our stand towards the Janata Dal government etc. should be decided from this class standpoint only. Janata Dal’s social base in the countryside is essentially led by kulaks with whom the rural poor find themselves in sharp contradiction. In fact, this is the major and growing contradiction in rural India. As we base upon the rural poor and primarily champion their interests, our relation with the Janata Dal cannot but be primarily that of struggle. Now it is true that the middle peasantry too is following this kulak lobby, and as such they form the base of parties like Janata Dal. As we have to win over this middle peasantry, and gradually make it shift from the fold of kulaks and turn it into an ally of the rural poor, we have to go in for some sort of interaction with Janata Dal too. This makes our relation with them a complex affair of unity and struggle, where undoubtedly struggle plays the main role. These objective realities at class levels, we have tried to reflect in our political relationship towards Janata Dal, in our approach towards its government. As CPI and CPI(M) deny or belittle the contradiction between the rural poor and the emerging kulak lobby -- as is most glaringly exhibited in their condemnation of our movement as the struggle between workers and ‘peasants’ -- they advocate class peace in the countryside and hobnob with the kulak lobby.

Their unconditional support to the Janata Dal government, and to Telugu Desam and DMK governments, is quite compatible with their class approach. In the present objective conditions, generally speaking, the middle peasantry is following the kulak lobby and it rallies behind either centrist political parties or behind its ‘natural leaders’ like Tikait and Sharad Joshi. Thus its turning towards the Left depends upon the intensification of its contradictions with the kulaks. Recent experiences in Bihar show that to an extent we have been able to extend our base among sections of the middle peasantry. Improvements in our policies and approach are definitely needed but the whole process is bound to be slow and along with our direct efforts, we will have to take recourse to united front activities wherever possible with peasant organisations that are springing up here and there. If the Marxist class approach and the ground realities are forgotten, and if a communist just wishes to copy a Tikait or a Sharad Joshi for the sake of a quick and short-cut process, I am afraid he will not only fail in this endeavour, rather in the process, he will also lose his social base among the rural poor. Politically, too, he will end up just as a lackey of the bourgeois and social-democratic parties. A few people who left our Party advocating similar lines have already degenerated to that extent.

All such comrades have failed to develop as conscious representatives of the class interest we champion, and have become victims of deceptive liberal bourgeois and social-democratic propaganda.

Then there was a woman comrade in the Party, very active for the women’s cause. She was quite a promising and sincere comrade whom we expected to develop as a woman leader. But in the realm of ideas half her time was consumed in discussing the problems of freedom of love. She developed an affinity with a petty-bourgeois women’s organisation championing an extreme variety of feminism. We tried to explain to her that all these feminist movements are movements of a tiny minority of women, and, by pitting women against men within the democratic movement, they objectively play a disruptionist role. We pointed out to her that if thousands and thousands of labouring women enthusiastically and actively participate in the mainstream democratic movement led by our Party, this itself is proof enough that the cause of women’s liberation forms an important aspect of the movement and again the movement in turn has a liberating effect on womenfolk. When, in Bihar, women form over thirty percent of a 50,000 strong procession, it goes without saying that the basis of a mass-based women’s movement should be sought from within the broad democratic movement. Of course, you need to investigate how exactly the movement at the grassroots reflects and champions the women’s cause and how it creates a liberating impact on them. You need to investigate and formulate these and develop an autonomous women’s organisation. ‘Autonomy’ itself implies that your independence is relative and must be enjoyed as an integral part of the movement. Extreme feminists instead pit the ‘autonomous women’s movement’ against the broad movement for democracy. We explained it all to the concerned woman comrade, advised her to put aside for a while her firebrand variety of feminism, as it would only bring isolation from the women themselves and rather move to step by step keeping in mind the level of consciousness and state of organisation of women. Isn’t this the common practice of all communists? Isolated from the masses we are doomed and to move along with the masses, to raise their level of consciousness step by step, don’t we adjust with various institutions of society which we, in the final analysis, intend to break? Even participation in election — is it not an adjustment? However, all our explanations failed to create any impact and matters came to such a pass that we had to expel this woman comrade from the Party as her extreme feminist ideas were found to be incompatible with the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism.

I have discussed the importance of study, emphasised the study of Marxist fundamentals and put forward the correct approach towards study. I have also referred to several examples to show how some honest and sincere practical workers came into conflict with Marxism and the Communist Party because they neglected study and refused to transform their world outlook.

This transformation is a long drawn process and hence study must be a regular affair. Otherwise, as happened with these comrades, wrong ideas go on accumulating till it becomes impossible for one to transform oneself.

As one of my colleagues correctly pointed out, high thinking is always associated with plain living and, I would add, with modesty.

I hope that practical workers who often avoid study on the pretext of pressure of work would learn a lesson or two from these negative teachers. In the present literacy campaign we have tried to adopt a popular approach. Senior Party leaders have prepared a series of popular essays on various topics. And after we get your suggestions and criticisms, the Party Central Committee plans to publish improved versions of these essays as permanent study material.

[Speech delivered at the concluding session of the Central Party School held in October 1996. ]

The School is coming to an end. Though we do not decide Party policies in such schools, yet these discussions have an important role in the process of their formulation. In this respect, quite a few important questions have been raised and discussed here. In 1994 Party School I had expressed some ideas on the ‘crisis of Marxism’ and I would like to proceed with the same.

In nearly 150 years of its history, Marxism has passed through two or three periods of crisis when its very rationale has been questioned. Every time Marxism could overcome them and march ahead with a new vigour. Now, at the fag end of the 20th century, it has once again been pronounced dead. The crisis this time is indeed quite serious as it is accompanied by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the land of the first successful socialist revolution, the land of Lenin. The Soviet model came to be identified as the real embodiment of Marxism and hence its collapse naturally triggered off the old debates all over again. The Chinese model, which had claimed to be an alternative one, has lost much of its shine due to various reasons and the other remaining smaller socialist states hardly inspire any confidence.

Well, the first thing that should be kept in mind is that Marxism arose in the process of analysing the contradictions of capitalism and it provided the only comprehensive and profound critique of capitalism. Marxism, as the doctrine of class struggle, will surely lose its relevance in the classless society of communism, but till then it shall continue to remain the guiding ideology in transforming the capitalist world and experimenting with various possibilities of socialism. In a certain sense, the collapse of the Soviet Union indeed signifies end of a history, but every end at the same time symbolises a new beginning, and it is in this context that we have resolved to retrieve the revolutionary core of Marxism, and at the same time, to sharpen our tools for analysis, criticism and change.

In this School in particular, a lot of discussion has taken place on postmodernism. Postmodernism does not simply question the validity of Marxism or Socialism, rather it rejects the whole era of modernity, the era which began with the advent of modern classes of bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It rejects the entire age of Enlightenment and all the grand projects of emancipation of the mankind. It brands these projects as grand narratives which, in their bid to drive the society towards pre-ordained goals, only end up in establishing totalitarian political systems. Postmodernists also refuse to acknowledge any class or human solidarity cutting across the ‘imagined communities’ of race, gender, caste, ethnicity etc.

During the course of our discussions here we have also learnt about recent scientific theories. Some comrades might have found them quite difficult to comprehend. You may not go for all the details, yet as Marxists it is necessary to keep track of the latest in scientific theories. Quantum Mechanics says that the matter at sub-atomic level does not follow the laws of general mechanics and even the form of its existence at that level is quite puzzling. Determination of its various characteristics like position, momentum etc. is not only quite uncertain, it is also affected by the act of observation.

A certain philosophical interpretation of this scientific theory, quite popular in the West nowadays, questions the very basis of materialism, viz. the existence of matter or the objective world independent of the mind. Armed with the concept of ‘virtual reality’, the western world is witnessing a renewed interest in eastern mysticism where the objective world is described as Maya — an illusion. In the European renaissance the authority of the Church was challenged and the march of science posed a serious threat to the so-called divine codes. When Europe emerged out of the Dark Ages and the Age of Enlightenment began, 2000-year-old Greek philosophy was retrieved. The dialectics of the Greek philosophers was enriched by Hegel, a great philosopher of modern times and was subsequently put on a materialist basis by Marx. The march of science has again inspired some people to dig into the philosophical roots of ancient days and, ironically, they have come out with eastern mysticism. In the School we have tried to unearth linkages between the neo-idealist offensive in philosophy and postmodernism in social sciences.

As some comrades have pointed out, it is true that ‘new social movements’, or speaking in more general terms, movements on sectional issues, existed well before the advent of postmodernism. Actually the importance of postmodernism lies in the fact that it has given a new meaning and a new basis to these movements. Postmodernism absolutises their autonomous growth. It does so because for postmodernism the very agenda of analysing capitalism as a system is absurd.

The First Crisis of Marxism

While dealing with the all-important question of ‘crisis of Marxism’ in the present phase, it won’t be out of place to refer to the earlier phases of crisis. Here I would like to refer to the first crisis that Marxism was faced with in the late 19th and the early 20th century, the period that gave rise to the phenomenon of revisionism.

Capitalism faced an acute crisis at the fag end of the 19th century. The nature of the crisis was classical in the sense that all the parameters of the crisis were in excellent conformity with the Marxist visualisation. This period also witnessed the growth of the working class movement and of social democratic parties (as the communist parties were known in those days). In particular, in Germany, the Party grew rapidly.

As the crisis dragged on, capitalism gradually overcame it, but in the process, it radically transformed itself. Earlier it was free capitalism whose motto was free competition. This had resulted in the anarchy of production. Now capitalists entered into agreements with each other and cartels, trusts etc., which were at a rudimentary phase during Marx’s lifetime became the overwhelming norm. Capitalism acquired a stability, workers’ wages improved and parliamentary democracy flourished. The earlier enthusiasm among Marxists regarding the impending collapse of capitalism now gave way to despondency. Marxists, including Marx, have always behaved overoptimistically at every phase of capitalist crisis. This is very natural and has its own dynamic role in shaping history. But Marxism, as a rigorous scientific thought process, has only marked the historical tendency of social development from capitalism to socialism. Marxism, in contrast to other utopian theories of socialism or moral society, doesn’t proceed from a grand project of subjectively conceived socialism and then attempt to transform a society to conform to that model.

On the contrary, for Marxism, capitalism moves towards socialism precisely due to the motion of its own contradictions and because these contradictions can finally be resolved only in socialism. Capitalism also produces objective conditions, viz. a concentrated form of large-scale production, the class of proletariat etc., for a changeover to socialism. This, however, doesn’t mean that society by itself, spontaneously, without any conscious subjective effort, would pass over to socialism. Marx made the famous remark, "the point is to change the world".

After Marx died, Engels enjoyed immense authority and Bernstein and Kautsky, two German communists, were quite close to him. In his last writings, Engels made certain self-criticisms. In March 1895, only a few months before his death, Engels wrote, "History has proved us, and all those who thought like us, wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the continent at that time was not by a large measure ripe for the elimination of capitalist production; it has proved this by the economic revolution which since 1848, has seized the whole of the continent ... and has made Germany positively an industrial country of the first rank" ... "History has done even more; it has not only merely dispelled the erroneous notions we then held; it has also completely transformed the conditions under which the proletariat has to fight. The mode of struggle of 1848 is today obsolete in every respect, and this is a point which deserves closer examination on the present occasion."

According to Engels, given the scale of modern armies, the old tactics of street fighting, surprise attacks, etc. had become outdated. Quoting statistics from the gains of the German Party in parliamentary elections, he stressed upon making intelligent use of the universal suffrage. Engels concluded, "The irony of world history turns everything upside down. We the ‘revolutionists’, the ‘overthrowers’, we are thriving far better on legal methods than on illegal methods and overthrow. The parties of order, as they call themselves, are perishing under the legal conditions created by themselves ... whereas we, under this legality, get firm muscles and rosy cheeks and look like life eternal."

Engels advocated a change in tactics, in the specific context of Europe and in a particular period of capitalist development there. Starting from the same premise, Bernstein, however, advocated the revision of the strategy itself and thus he is rightly called the father of revisionism.

Bernstein argued that contrary to Marx’s prediction, concentration of production has progressed extremely slowly, and moreover, small-medium enterprises are not eliminated by large-scale production. Moreover, with the formation of cartels and trusts, capitalism has developed a system of self-regulation and thus averts any acute crisis. He further argued that society’s polarisation into two extreme classes has not taken place, and not only has the middle strata not vanished, the number of capitalists, property owners and shareholders has only increased.

He felt that the political institutions of modern nations have become democratised, putting a check on the exploitative tendencies of capital and eroding the basis of class struggle. In countries where parliamentary democracy is dominant, the state can no longer be seen as the organ of class rule. Therefore, Bernstein argued that workers should no longer strive to seize power through revolution, rather should concentrate on reforming the state.

In 1895, in the introduction to The Class Struggles in France, Engels expected a rapid decline of capitalism by the end of the century and hoped that even the legality devised by the bourgeoisie for its power could be successfully used against it by the working class.

Just one year later in 1896, Bernstein questioned the final goal itself and confines himself to just ‘day-to-day movement’. Marx, in Capital, had dealt with the phenomenon of joint stock companies and Engels recorded the phenomenon of cartels and trusts. Cartels were the confirmation of concentration of capital at a higher plane and proof of the ‘bankruptcy’ of free competition as the basic principle of capitalism. What Bernstein saw as decentralisation, self-regulation and democratisation of capital turned out to be monopolisation of the highest order, with the separation of ‘ownership’ and ‘management’ grew a whole class of parasitic bourgeoisie which thrived on speculation, an aggressive colonial policy and the rivalry among imperialist power blocs leading for the first time to the phenomenon of world war. Lenin dealt with all this in his Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Expropriation of small and medium capital too is a regular affair where big capital transforms them into ancillaries. It does thrive again in new fields and new production processes, where again in due course, big capital stretches its hand.

As far as parliamentary democracy is concerned, looking at it just as a fraud devised by the bourgeoisie to befool and entrap the working classes is too simplistic an idea. It is as foolish as assuming that religion was a conspiracy devised by priests to befool the masses. Parliament was not there in other periods of human society. This form of governance emerged only during capitalism and thus it is the specific form of the rule of the bourgeoisie. In feudalism, the exploitation took the form of extra-economic coercion and correspondingly the political superstructure sanctioned special privileges to the king and the feudal gentry. In capitalism, exploitation operates through and within the production process itself in the form of surplus value. The political superstructure of parliamentary democracy is quite compatible with ideal capitalism.

Marx wrote in The Class Struggles in France: "The comprehensive contradiction of this constitution^[1], however, consists in the following: the classes whose social slavery the constitution is to perpetuate, proletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie, it puts in possession of political power through universal suffrage. And from the class whose old social power it sanctions, the bourgeoisie, it withdraws the political guarantees of this power." This is the essential contradiction of the bourgeois constitutional state — whereas everybody is brought into political life through universal suffrage, this sovereignty of people is only a formal one, the real interests continue to be dictated by the class antagonisms.

In contrast to revisionists who saw in the republic the resolution of the basic antagonism, Lenin argued that precisely because of the above-mentioned self-contradiction, it provides the best terrain for open class war.
So this is how the debate of Marxism proceeded against revisionism, and in the process, Marxism rejuvenated itself in the shape of Leninism.

On the Tactics of Revolutionary Opposition

Next, I would like to comment on certain questions that have come up in the discussion here. One comrade has opined that the tactics of revolutionary opposition is not suitable in the context of slow growth of the revolutionary movement. This tactics should rather be applied in the conditions of upsurge. I think there is a basic flaw in this argument. ‘Opposition’ is a parliamentary category and revolutionary opposition is the specific tactics that a revolutionary communist party adheres to in parliamentary struggles. In times of revolutionary upsurge, revolution itself and not the revolutionary opposition will be the immediate agenda before the Party. In other words, during revolutionary upheavals parliamentary struggles may become obsolete and quite possibly election boycott or even dispensing with the bourgeois parliament may become the Party’s action slogan. Obviously, when there will be no parliamentary struggles or even no parliament, the category of opposition too, revolutionary or otherwise, shall cease to exist. This is quite easy to understand. It is only in the present conditions, when the parliamentary struggles acquire quite an important position in Party’s tactics, does the question of revolutionary opposition arise and this determines Party’s basic orientation in parliamentary struggles. There should be no confusion on this score. Its application, however, becomes quite a complex affair with growth in electoral support of the Party and its parliamentary strength.

Well, using parliament as a propaganda platform is a common refrain and there can be no dispute on that. In real life situations, however, you confront a whole range of practical problems. There comes up the question of seat adjustments and election alliances with what is called ‘like-minded parties’, another parliamentary term. Then there is the question of forming blocs within the parliament. Our representatives there have to take definite stands on specific issues and bills and participate in voting. We have to seek allies and also distinguish between various bourgeois formations. Should our representatives confine themselves to moving adjournment motions, rushing to the well of the house and staging walkouts? Or should they also engage in business-like discussions, move amendments, demand constitutional reforms and put forward alternative drafts in the form of private member’s bills etc.? What would be their role as members of various parliamentary committees as well as the constituency-level planning and developmental bodies? All these things belong to the domain of reforms and the moot point is to perform all these roles within the ambit of revolutionary opposition. This is a million-dollar question on which hinges the whole future of the Party.

Is There a Parliamentary Path to Revolution?

The fundamental mistake that leads the communist parties to the royal road of parliamentary cretinism, popularly known as degeneration, is negating the essential bourgeois character of the parliament and forgetting that the given parliament is nothing but the political superstructure of the bourgeois society. If you consider the parliament just a fraud, an artificial creation of exploiters devised to befool the masses, you’ll actually be fooling yourselves and no one else. It is so because such simplistic ideas will prevent you from studying and analysing the dynamic of the bourgeois society and thus devising specific slogans and tactics. You’ll end up in dismissing and abusing the parliament in harshest of terms without, however, making any impact on its health. Such phrasemongerings are aptly called infantile disorder.

On the other hand, it is more serious a deviation if the parliament is considered a non-class or supra-class institution where the proletariat has just to enter, attain the majority and then wield it for the socialist transformation of the society. The parliament operates within the ambit of the bourgeois constitution and is attached in a thousand and one ways to the strings of capital. It is well-nigh impossible for the proletariat to attain a majority in the parliament, and we have seen through our experience how the whole election system is tilted in favour of strong power groups and moneybags and how tough it is for revolutionary Left to win a seat.

Still, this is not my main contention. For argument’s sake, even if it is presumed (in certain exceptional situations let us grant this as a real possibility) that the proletariat can attain majority in the parliament, the question still remains as to whether the socio-economic enslavement of the proletariat can be done away with, or in other words, can the foundations of the bourgeois society be altered in any fundamental way. Marxism answers it in the negative. The best of communist governments with the noblest of intentions can only undertake certain reforms in the bourgeois system and nothing more than that. The proletariat cannot use the given, readymade state machinery to achieve its mission. The old state has to be smashed and new state machinery has to be created. This declaration as recorded in the Communist Manifesto, reiterated after the bitter lessons of Paris Commune and elaborated in Lenin’s State and Revolution remains the cornerstone of the Marxist theory of state. Incidentally, even in a socialist society which operates on the principle of "from each according to his capacity, to each according to his work", the element of bourgeois right does persist and Lenin once even described the socialist state as bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie. Only with the principle of "from each according to his capacity, to each according to his need" can the bourgeois right be dispensed with altogether. But that means ushering in a communist society where the state itself withers away.

So the whole debate about parliamentary Vs. extra-parliamentary path of revolution is irrelevant simply because there doesn’t exist any parliamentary path. Proletarian revolution essentially means dispensing with the bourgeois state including the parliament. Obviously therefore, there cannot exist a parliamentary road to revolution. It can only exist on the basis of the very rejection of the essence of revolution. The proletarian revolution creates a proletarian state along with its own representative assembly. This representative assembly shall bring to full play the democratic participation of broad masses in running the state affairs and combine within a single entity the legislative and executive functions of the state; in short, a new political superstructure that corresponds with the new society.

The whole communist tactics about parliament revolves around its utilisation to this or that extent and in the process creating conditions for its eventual negation in favour of a qualitatively different form of representative assembly.

Peaceful Vs. Violent Revolution

The question of peaceful or violent revolution has of course been discussed in Marxist tactics but this is a very different question and has nothing to do with the so-called debate of parliamentary Vs. non-parliamentary path. Peaceful revolution, an exceptional and the rarest of the rare possibilities has been given due thought in Marxist theory of revolution and in certain special circumstances of the balance of class forces. Marx talked of such a possibility in America when the standing army and bureaucracy had not taken shape there. Lenin envisaged such a possibility during the February Revolution. Such a possibility also arose in China after the successful conclusion of the anti-Japanese war and Mao advanced the proposal of ending the civil war and forming a coalition government with Chiang Kai Shek. None of these possibilities, however, materialised into actuality. Still, in the realm of theory, Marxism does not altogether reject this possibility.

Here it must be understood that a peaceful revolution is not synonymous with a parliamentary coup. This still entails dispensing with the bourgeois state lock, stock and barrel. If revolution would have succeeded peacefully in Russia in February, would its significance have been any less than the October Revolution? Moreover, the actualisation of this possibility, if at all that takes place, is crucially dependent upon the maximum state of preparedness of the proletariat including its armed might to take on the reactionary challenge. Devoid of this preparation peaceful revolution is a utopian dream that will only result in a more severe bloodbath of the proletariat as witnessed in Indonesia and Chile.

Therefore, when our Party programme talks of peaceful revolution as an exceptional possibility, it should neither be equated with ‘parliamentary path’, nor should it be interpreted as any slackening in the state of preparedness. In fact, the more a party is prepared to go all-out for the non-peaceful option, better can it utilise any possible situation of a peaceful changeover. Peaceful revolution is equivalent to the enemy surrendering without a fight and one can easily imagine how exceptional this would be, and at what level of our preparedness it can be possible.

Now some people first turn the exceptional possibility of peaceful revolution into a generalised one. And then equate peaceful revolution with the parliamentary path and spread the illusion that the proletariat by gaining parliamentary majority can alter the basic foundations of bourgeois society and usher in socialism. All this is rubbish and nothing but revisionism.

CPI(M) Vs. CPI(ML)

We face a whole barrage of criticism by so-called ML factions who accuse us of giving up almost all the original ML positions and moving towards what they call neo-neo-revisionism. They accuse us of revising the Party programme to the extent of making it almost the same as that of the CPI(M) and speculate that we are preparing to merge into the CPI(M). Some charge us of craving to join the Left Front for sharing its spoils and brand us as official Naxalites. They have been predicting all this for so many years now but how do things stand today? Neither have we joined the Left Front nor merged into the CPI(M). On the contrary, we have revived the Party at the national level, reestablished it as a major trend in the left movement and emerged as the principal rival to the CPI(M)’s hegemony in the left camp. And all this we have accomplished on the strength of powerful movements of rural poor in the countryside where we are facing the wrath of powerful feudal forces, their private armies, the police and the political establishment, right from the BJP to the CPI(M). In majority of the cases, this resistance struggle assumes militant and armed dimensions with the participation of broad masses. This is the essential spirit of Naxalbari and I reiterate that our Party, and our Party alone, is carrying it forward.

Anyway, with the changing times and changing context we have indeed made major revisions in our tactics. This is perfectly natural and rather the sign of a living organism. Every living body reacts to the changing environment and adapts itself accordingly to continue to live and grow. Only dead bodies don’t react to the changing environment, or in other words, a living body that fails to adapt itself gradually becomes extinct.

I must insist that we have only revised certain of our slogans and tactics but our strategic perceptions remain the same. Naxalbari continues to remain our guiding spirit and whatever tactical changes we make, they are made within its revolutionary framework. We have made tactical changes in our Party line, first of all because objective conditions have made them imperative, and secondly, because they put us on a favourable terrain to expose the fallacy of CPI(M). For example, instead of rejecting the possibility of communists forming government at state levels in certain states, in certain cases, we have raised the debate to the level of two possible utilisations of such a government. One, to act as the centre of mobilisation of workers and peasants, of playing the role of revolutionary opposition vis-a-vis the central power and of precipitating the crisis of the bourgeois parliamentary system, and the other, of gradual absorption into the bourgeois-landlord system, the path of social-democracy of CPI(M). This debate on tactics at this juncture, when due to a long stint in power the LF government has lost much of its shine and is increasingly exposing its reactionary features, is of crucial importance in enforcing a new polarisation within left ranks.

Naxalbari had made the fundamental division between revolutionary and opportunist wings of Indian communist movement. No one can obliterate this fundamental division. But mere repetition of all this is not going to help us in any way and is likely to degenerate into abstract phrasemongering. Necessary tactical changes that our Party has made have helped us, after a long gap, to regain initiative against social democracy at the ground level.

The social-democratic practice of CPI(M) is heading towards a blind alley and its contradictions are increasingly coming to the fore. Take the recent case of serious division in the party leadership over the issue of joining the UF government, or the ongoing debates on the characterisation of UF, on the party’s tactics of aligning with bourgeois parties, on the party’s stagnation in the parliamentary arena and failure to advance in the Hindi belt, on tactics towards regional autonomy movements etc. All these point to the developing fissures in the party. All this demands raising to new levels the ongoing polemic between revolutionary and opportunist wings of the Indian communist movement and thus affecting a new polarisation among left ranks. Our Party is doing precisely that and tactical revisions have stood us in good stead on this score.

I don’t say this is going to be an easy affair. Social democrats too make adaptations to ensure their unity and influence revolutionary ranks. The struggle that began from 1967 thus goes on and will assume newer and complicated forms and will also determine our relations with the CPI(M) [or sections within the CPI(M)] in the coming days. What shape this relationship will assume in practical terms is difficult to foretell but one thing is certain — that CPI(M) and CPI(ML) shall continue to remain principal ideological adversaries in the Indian communist and left movement, each trying to outdo the other. This I think sums up our vision vis-a-vis social democracy.

Note:
1. The republican constitution produced by the French Constituent Assembly after the revolution of 1848.

(From Liberation, November 1988)

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was an outstanding figure in the Polish and German working class movement. She was the leader of the left wing of the Second International. Rosa was one of the sponsors of the International Group in Germany, subsequently renamed the Spartacus Group and then the Spartacus League. She was one of the leaders of the revolutionary German workers during the November 1918 revolution and took part in the Inaugural Congress of the Communist Party of Germany. Rosa was arrested and murdered in January 1919.

Relations between Rosa and Lenin present a very complicated picture. They engaged in bitter polemics over the specific questions of the Russian revolution but shared the common platform of internationalist revolutionary social-democracy. Both waged a staunch struggle against the renegades of the Second International during the imperialist war. Lenin paid rich tributes to Rosa describing her as one of the finest representatives of the Third International.

Of late, there has been a good deal of revival of Rosa Luxemburg in Western Marxist circles. In our country too, representatives of various trends of thought are frequently making use of Rosa’s writings in support of their own concepts. Sharad Joshi, the leader of the farmers’ movement, refers to Rosa’s The Accumulation of Capital to prove his point that the realisation of surplus value produced in industrial sector is possible only through internal colonisation of the agricultural sector.

According to some socialist authors, the bureaucratic distortions in Soviet Russia, most glaringly revealed through Gorbachev’s reforms, owe their origin to the ‘undemocratic process’ of seizure of power by Bolsheviks in November 1917 and to the Leninist methodology of putting excessive emphasis on centralism, an apprehension expressed by Rosa in her manuscripts written in prison in 1918.

Then again Rosa is extolled for her opposition to Lenin’s ‘ultra-centrist’ approach to party building.

In short, behind this revival of Rosa Luxemburg, there appears to be a conscious attempt to pit Rosa against Lenin. We must, therefore, have a look at the multi-faceted relationship between Rosa and Lenin — their sharp differences as well as their internationalist proletarian unity — and see how it evolved in different phases of the international working class movement.

1. Rosa Luxemburg in her famous book Die Akkumulation Das Capitals, published in 1913, contradicted Marx and advanced the thesis that surplus value produced in the capitalist sector is realised in the pre-capitalist sector through the mechanism of colonisation of backward regions and countries.

Let us see how Marx visualised the realisation of surplus value. According to Marx, the total product of a capitalist country consists of the following three parts: (a) constant capital, (b) variable capital, and (c) surplus value. Furthermore, Marx distinguished between the two major departments of capitalist production, namely, Department I where the production of means of production takes place, and Department II where articles of consumption are produced.

Now, only a part of the surplus value is embodied in articles of consumption; the rest is contained in the means of production. The surplus value embodied in the means of production is ‘consumed’ by capitalists themselves, and takes the shape of constant capital for extended reproduction. This is the essence of the capitalist mode of production where at the end of every cycle constant capital increases and unlimited expansion of productive forces takes place. The home market, in capitalist society, grows not so much on account of articles of consumption as on account of means of production. This is what is called Marx’s theory of realisation.

Growth of foreign market is a product of historical conditions which appeared at a certain epoch of development of capitalism. Introducing the role of foreign trade means nothing more than considering a few capitalist countries together, instead of a single country. This does in no way effect the essential process of realisation.

As far as the peasantry creating a market for capitalism is concerned, it does so only to the extent that it is differentiated into classes of the capitalist society, namely the rural bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat. These classes are very much part of the same capitalist society. If the capitalist farming sector develops at a slower pace than the industrial sector, and if serious imbalances prevail in the prices of industrial and agricultural commodities, this is related to the theory of formation of capitalist society and has nothing to do with the theory of realisation in capitalist society.

Lenin, while referring to a review of Rosa’s book which appeared in Bremer-Burger Zeitung, wrote to the editor, "I am very pleased to see that on the main points you came to the same conclusion as I did in the polemic with Tugon-Bernovsky and Volkstumler 14 years ago, namely, that the realisation of surplus value is possible also in a "purely capitalist" society. I have not yet seen Rosa Luxemburg’s book but theoretically you are quite correct on this point. It seems to me, though, that you have placed insufficient emphasis on a very important passage in Marx, namely, where Marx says that in analysing annually produced value, foreign trade should be entirely discarded. The "dialectics" of Luxemburg seems to me (judging also from the article in Leipziger Volkezeitung) to be eclecticism’’. (Vol. 43, Jan. 1913). And again in a letter to L.B. Kamenev (Vol. 35) Lenin wrote, "I have read Rosa’s new book The Accumulation of Capital. She has got into a shocking muddle. I am very glad that Pannekoek, Eckstein and O. Bauer have all with one accord condemned her, and said against her what I said in 1899 against the Narodniks.

2. Rosa Luxembourg in an article entitled The National Question and Autonomy, published in 1908-09 opposed the right of nations to self-determination i.e. the right to secede. Countering Kautsky’s idea that the national state is the form most suited to present day conditions ... and that the multinational states are always those whose internal constitution has for some reason or other remained abnormal or underdeveloped, Rosa wrote, This ‘best’ national state is only an abstraction, which can easily be developed and defended theoretically, but which does not correspond to reality". She put forth arguments to the effect that the ‘right to self-determination’ of small nations is made illusory by the development of the great capitalist powers and imperialism.

Lenin in his polemic with Rosa pointed out, "For the question of the political self-determination of nations and their independence as states in bourgeois society, Rosa

Luxemburg has substituted the question of their economic independence". (Right of Nations to Self-determination, Vol. 20.)

Lenin referred to Asia and showed that the only country where the conditions for the most complete development of commodity production have been created is Japan, which is an independent national state.

Lenin said, "The national state is the rule and the ‘norm’ of capitalism, the multinational state represents backwardness or is an exception". (ibid.)

Rosa objected to the demand for independence of Poland from Russia, and argued that Poland had made rapid industrial development, precisely because its manufactured goods were marketed in Russia. She instead opted for autonomy for Poland, that too as an exception.

Lenin said, "If in a country whose state system is distinctly pre-capitalist there exists a nationally demarcated region where capitalism is rapidly developing, then the more rapidly that capitalism develops, the greater will be the antagonism between it and the pre-capitalist state system, and the more likely will be the separation of the progressive region from the whole with which it is connected not by "modern capitalistic", but by ‘Asiatic despotic’ ties" (ibid.).

Rosa objected to the inclusion of clause 9 (which dealt with the right of nations to self-determination) in the RSDLP programme, saying "Clause 9 gives no practical lead on the day-by-day policy of the proletariat, no practical solution of national problems".

On the question of ‘practicality’ Lenin had this to say: "The bourgeoisie always places its national demand in the forefront. and does so in a categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle. Theoretically, you cannot say in advance whether the bourgeois democratic revolution will end in a given nation seceding from another nation, or in its equality with the latter; in either case, the important thing for the proletariat is to ensure the development of its class. .... That is why the proletariat confines itself, so to speak, to the negative demand for recognition of the right to self-determination, without giving guarantees to any nation, and without undertaking to give anything at the expense of another nation. This may not be ‘practical’, but it is in effect the best guarantee for the achievement of the most democratic of all possible solutions" (Ibid.).

Rosa was carried away by the struggle against nationalism in Poland and in her anxiety not to assist the nationalist bourgeoisie of Poland, rejected the right to secession in the programme of the Marxists in Russia. Supporting the right to secession, according to Rosa, is tantamount to supporting the bourgeois nationalism of the oppressed nations.

Lenin pointed out that the bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this that we unconditionally support. At the same time, Lenin stressed, we must oppose any tendency towards national exclusiveness.

Lenin added, "It is not difficult to understand that the recognition by the Marxists of the whole of Russia, and first and foremost by the great Russians, of the right of nations to secede in no way precludes agitation against secession by Marxists of a particular oppressed nation, just as the recognition of the right to divorce does not preclude agitation against divorce in a particular case" (ibid.).

For Lenin, however, "the right to self-determination is an exception to the general premise of centralisation. This exception is absolutely essential in view of reactionary Great-Russian nationalism; and any rejection of this exception is opportunism (as in the case of Rosa Luxemburg); it means foolishly playing into the hands of reactionary Great-Russian nationalism. But exception must not be too broadly interpreted. In this case, there is not and must not be anything more than the right to secede." (Letter to S.G. Shahnmyan, Vol. 19).

Lenin and Rosa, both being Marxists, were at one on the question that all the major and important economic and political questions of a capitalist society must be dealt with exclusively by the central parliament of the whole country concerned, not by the autonomous bodies of the individual regions. Lenin said, "Marxists will never, under any circumstances, advocate either the federal principle or decentralisation. The great centralised state is a tremendous historical step from medieval disunity to the future socialist unity of the whole world, and only via such a state (inseparably connected with capitalism), can there be any road to socialism". (Critical Remarks on the National Question, Vol. 20).

Lenin emphasised that in advocating centralism Marxists advocate exclusively democratic centralism. Democratic centralism demands local self-government with autonomy to every region having any appreciably distinct economic and social features, populations of a specific national composition etc.

In a letter to Shahnmyan (Vol. 19) Lenin wrote, "Right to autonomy? Wrong again. We are in favour of autonomy for all parts; we are in favour of the right to secession (and not in favour of everyone’s seceding). Autonomy is our plan for organising a democratic state. Secession is not what we plan at all. We do not advocate secession. In general, we are opposed to secession". According to Lenin, "The principle of centralism, which is essential for the development of capitalism is not violated by this (local and regional) autonomy, but on the contrary is applied by it democratically, not bureaucratically. The broad, free and rapid development of capitalism would be impossible, or at least greatly impeded, by the absence of such autonomy, which facilitates the concentration of capital, the development of the productive forces, the unity of the bourgeoisie and the unity of the proletariat on a country-wide scale; for bureaucratic interference in purely local (regional, national and other) questions is one of the greatest obstacles to centralism in serious, important and fundamental matters in particular’ (Critical Remarks on the National Question, Vol. 20).

On this premise Lenin castigated Rosa for her insistence that the demand for autonomy was applicable only to Poland and only by way of exception, and asked, "Why national areas with populations, not only of half-a-million, but even of 50,000 should not be able to enjoy autonomy, why such areas should not be able to unite in the most diverse ways with neighbouring areas of different dimensions into a single autonomous ‘territory’ if that is convenient or necessary for economic intercourse?" (Ibid.).

3. In 1903, after the second Congress of RSDLP, on the one hand, the Party was formally united, but on the other, it split into ‘majority’ (Bolsheviks) and ‘minority’ (Mensheviks). Immediately after the Congress the principles involved in this division were obscured by squabbling over co-option. The minority refused to work under the control of the central institutions unless the three ex-editors were again co-opted. In this fight, which lasted for two months the ‘minority’ used the weapons of boycott and disruption of the Party. The minority refused even to accept Lenin and Plekhanov’s proposal to put forth their point of view in Iskra, the central organ of the Party, and resorted to personal insults and abuse against members of the central bodies autocrats, bureaucrats, gendarmes, liars etc. They were accused of suppressing individual initiative and wanting to introduce slavish submission, blind obedience and so on. Plekhanov, though he condemned the minority’s anarchistic viewpoint, came out with an article What Should Not Be Done where he said that fighting revisionism did not necessarily mean fighting the revisionists. He further said that one should not always fight the anarchistic individualism so deeply ingrained in the Russian revolutionary, that at times some concessions were a better way to subdue it and avoid a split. Lenin could not share Plekhanov’s view and resigned from the editorial board. Minority editors were co-opted. Lenin’s offer to conclude peace on the basis of the minority keeping the central organ and the majority the central committee was rejected. The minority conducted its entire fight in the name of ‘principled’ struggle against bureaucracy, ultra-centralism, formalism, etc. It was at this juncture that Lenin wrote his famous book One Step Forward, Two Steps Back and analysing the Congress debates showed that the new division between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was only a variant of the old division into the proletarian revolutionary and intellectual-opportunist wing of the Party.

Rosa Luxemburg’s sympathies lay entirely with Mensheviks and she criticised Lenin’s book as a clear and detailed expression of the point of view of ‘intransigent centralism’. Rosa felt that there were no two opinions among the Russian Social-Democrats as to the need for a united Party, and that the whole controversy was over the degree of centralisation. She condemned Lenin for advocating ‘ultra-centralism’ and stressed that centralisation should be gradual.

Lenin in his reply to Rosa Luxemburg pointed out that controversy in the Russian Party "has principally been over whether the Central Committee and Central Organ should represent the trend of the majority of the Party Congress or whether they should not....does the comrade consider it normal for supposed Party Central Institutions to be dominated by the minority of the Party Congress? Can she imagine such a thing? Has she ever seen it in any Party?" (Vol. 7).

"Comrade Luxemburg fathers on me the idea that all the conditions already exist in Russia for forming a large and extremely centralised Party. Again an error of fact. Nowhere in my book did I voice such an idea, let alone advocate it. The thesis I advanced expressed and expresses something else. I insisted, namely, that all the conditions already existed for expecting Party Congress decisions to be observed, and that the time was past when a Party institution could be supplanted by a private circle. I brought proof that certain academics in our Party had shown themselves inconsistent and unstable, and that they had no right to lay the blame for their own lack of discipline upon the Russian proletarians. The Russian workers have already pronounced repeatedly, on various occasions, for observance of the Party Congress decisions (Ibid.)

Lenin charged Rosa with ignoring the concrete facts of struggle in RSDLP and indulging in abstraction, thereby perverting Marxian dialectics.

Afterwards, however, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky were won over to the point of view of the Bolsheviks. Lenin said in 1909, "They were won over because the Bolsheviks upheld, not the letter of their own, definitely their own factional theory, but the general spirit and meaning of revolutionary Social-Democratic tactics." (Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and God-Building, Vol. 16).

4. The 1905 revolution in Russia brought to the fore the practical experience of Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In contrast to the Mensheviks, Rosa immediately realised its significance and made a critical analysis of the same in meetings and in the press.

5. Rosa and Lenin again in 1913 on the question of the approach towards liquidators parted ways.

Rosa considered that what was going on in the Russian Party was nothing but the chaos of factional strife. She blamed the Leninist group for being most active in fomenting split. Rosa felt that differences in the Russian Party did not preclude the possibility of joint activities and it was possible to restore unity through agreement and compromises. She made a proposal on similar lines to the International Socialist Bureau in December 1913.

Lenin sharply differed from this opinion and reiterated that what was going on in Russia in no way resembled the chaos of factional strife, but was rather a struggle against liquidators. Lenin claimed that it was through this struggle only that a genuine workers social-democratic Party was being built up and already the overwhelming majority of class conscious workers — four-fifths of them — had been won over to the Party position.

In his report to the Brussels Conference, Lenin quoted from the 1908 Party resolution which had defined liquidationism as, "an attempt on the part of some of the Party intelligentsia to liquidate the existing organisation of the RSDLP and to substitute for it an amorphous organisation acting at all cost within the limits of legality, even at the cost of openly abandoning the programme, tactics and traditions of the Party". (Vol. 20).

Lenin further said. "Nowhere in Western Europe has there ever been, nor can there ever be, a question of whether it is permissible to bear the title of Party member and at the same time advocate the dissolution of that Party, to argue that the Party is useless and unnecessary, and that another Party be substituted for it. Nowhere in Western Europe does the question concern the very existence of the Party as it does with us i.e. whether that Party is to be or not to be.

"This is not disagreement over a question of organisation, of how the Party should be built, but disagreement concerning the very existence of the Party. Here, conciliation, agreement and compromise are totally out of question.

6. With the advent of the imperialist war, Kautskyites, who dominated the Second International and the German Social-Democratic Party, took the social-chauvinist position and advocated support to one’s own bourgeoisie in the predatory war. Rosa Luxemburg came out strongly against this line and called German social-democracy a stinking corpse.

When in Russia Mensheviks sanctioned Kerensky’s offensive Rosa severely condemned them for diluting the internationalist content of the Russian revolution.

Lenin hailed Rosa as a great internationalist and both worked together towards the formation of a new International, after the collapse of the Second International.

7. Rosa had certain apprehensions about the November 1917 revolution where Bolsheviks seized power. She had her reservations about the process of seizure of power, which she felt was undemocratic, and about the Leninist mode of excessive emphasis on centralism. Rosa felt that it would stifle the initiative of the workers from below and would give rise to bureaucratic distortions. Such views are contained in her manuscripts written in prison in 1918.

However, Clara Zetkin, who knew Rosa very closely, has testified that after her release from prison in December 1918, she had realised that her views were wrong and were based on insufficient informations.

8. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht conducted a sharp political struggle against social-democratic traitors in Germany, reorganised the German Communist Party and stood at the forefront of the November 1918 revolution in Germany.

On Jan. 15, 1919 Rosa and Karl were murdered in cold blood by the white guards with the connivance of the government of Social-Democrats.

In a protest rally following their murder Lenin gave the following speech, "Today the bourgeoisie and the social-traitors are jubilating in Berlin — they have succeeded in murdering Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Elbert and Scheidemann who for four years led the workers to the slaughter for the sake of depredation, have now assumed the role of butchers of the proletarian leaders. The example of the German revolution proves that democracy is only a camouflage for bourgeois robbery and the most savage violence. Death to the butchers."

In 1922 when Paul Levi, a German Menshevik, planned to republish precisely those writings of Rosa Luxemburg where she had differed with Lenin, Lenin commented that Paul Levi’s intention was to get into the good graces of the bourgeoisie and the leaders of the Second and the Second -and -half-Internationals.

Lenin wrote, "We shall reply to this by quoting two lines from a Russian fable, ‘Eagles may at times fly lower than hens but hens can never rise to the height of eagles’. Rosa Luxemburg was mistaken on the question of the independence of Poland; she was mistaken in 1903 in her appraisal of Menshevism; she was mistaken on the theory of accumulation of capital; she was mistaken in July 1914, when, together with Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Kautsky and others she advocated unity between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; she was mistaken in what she wrote in prison in 1918 (She corrected most of these mistakes at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919 when she was released). But inspite of her mistakes she was and remains for us an eagle. And not only will Communists all over the world cherish her memory, but her biography and her complete works will serve as useful manuals for training many generations of communists all over the world. ‘Since August 4, 1914, German social-democracy has become a stinking corpse’ — this statement will make Rosa Luxemburg’s name famous in the history of the international working class movement. And, of course, in the backyard of the working class movement, among the dungheaps, hens like Paul Levi, Scheidemann, Kautsky and all their fraternity will cackle over the mistakes committed by the great Communist". (Notes of a Publicist, Vol. 33).

This is the best tribute to the memory of Rosa Luxemburg and it sums up everything.

Strengthen the Party Organisation
Make All-Out Efforts to Achieve a theoretical Breakthrough
On Consolidation Campaign
The Struggle Against Liquidationism
Refurbish the Party Organisation! Revitalise the Ties with the Masses!!
"We must make serious efforts to build up the Party organisation"
Develop a Correct Style of Work to Develop the Party
Let us resolve to emerge through this congress as a united, confident and strong party of national liberation and people’s democracy!
Put the revolutionary left in the driver’s seat of the left movement 

[From Liberation, December 1979.]

At present we are confronted with the task of Party building under certain new conditions. To understand these conditions a brief historical review of Party building is required. During the initial period of Party building we conducted struggle against revisionism-from-right on the question of basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and won over thousands of vanguards from the influence of revisionists. The Party rejected most of the old forms of struggle which were current in the Indian Communist movement and tried to develop new forms of struggle corresponding to the onward march of the revolution. The Party also mobilised the masses in revolutionary struggles at different places and to different degrees.

However, a large number of masses still remained under the influence of revisionist parties. After a few years, confusion and division occurred in our own ranks and the Party lost its unified all-India character. Quite a large number of factions developed mainly on a regional and state basis. The revolutionary wing of the Party could remain organised only in a few states. In recent years when efforts for uniting the Party ranks on an all-India level began, the first round was won by the opportunists. However, thanks to the rectification movement and the correct tactics adopted by the Central Committee, gradually we gained the initiative. Now, in the second round, where does the situation stand? Opportunists are clearly disintegrating and only our Central Committee has emerged as the firmly unified centre of the CPI(ML) which has an all-India character and is leading the armed struggle resolutely.

Naturally therefore, it is attracting the Party ranks everywhere. Our contacts with the masses are now more widespread and we are moving with thousands of masses in different places. However, the larger mass followings are still enjoyed by the opportunists and revisionists of different colours.

In the present situation when the ruling classes are facing serious political and economic crisis and are heading towards frontal battles with the people, the revisionists are getting rapidly exposed.

So the situation is favourable for us to win over the large mass followings of revisionists. Our All-India Party Conference (1979) has rightly directed us to shift our emphasis from the struggle of vanguards in coordination with hundreds, or in some cases at most with thousands, of masses (This was a particularity of our past struggles. It must be pointed out here that this situation was inevitable in the course of development of revolutionary struggles. And our point of view that the concept of the masses is related to the different stages of struggles is quite different from the point of view of those groups who never open their mouths without talking of ‘masses’ but are in reality small cliques of intellectuals with no mass following at all, and also different from those groups who temporarily mobilise a greater number of masses in the struggles for reforms, conducted in such a way that it only helps in blunting the revolutionary consciousness of the masses.) to the relatively bigger mass mobilisations with at least tens of thousands and develop this further to lakhs and millions. For this purpose ideological struggle on basic principles and propaganda are not sufficient. We shall have to get closer to the broad masses, understand their mood, join their struggles and patiently help them to come to the realisation on the basis of their own experience. In this context the struggle against revisionism from the ‘Left’ assumes great importance. ‘Left’ phrase-mongering which reflects complete failure to analyse concrete conditions must be resolutely opposed inside the Party if we are to mobilise the whole Party for the tasks before us.

[Excerpts from the concluding speech at the Central Party School in 1984-85. From Liberation, March 1986.]

The Central Party School marks a further advancement, after the Rectification Movement, in the same direction. At that time we were concerned with getting various mistakes and deviations rectified; in the process many debates ensued and important developments in the Party line took place; and all these were concluded at a certain stage through Debates on Party Line. Now our endeavour is to raise the debate among the communist revolutionaries (CRs) to a new plane — to a thorough and open-minded study of the newly-emergent questions, to a lively debate on these questions. And this is why the questions set to you were framed in a rather provocative manner — in such a way as to force you to think anew. Of course, even after conducting a thorough research, a fresh probe into the questions, you might well arrive at the same old formulations, but it won’t do to start from the premise that we must refute the new formulations because these are ‘attacks’ on our Party line. In fact, without discarding such a wrong approach it is not possible to achieve any new theoretical breakthrough. So the new formulations given to you were presented as serious and genuine opinions forcing you to think anew. And, as some of the papers submitted by you amply demonstrate, our attempt to provoke you has borne fruit: some new ideas and concepts have emerged, though not yet in a final shape.

In the past we had in our Party some outstanding revolutionary intellectuals who had been veterans of the inner-Party struggle since the days of the undivided CPI and CPI(M). Later, they were martyred, or dissociated themselves from the mainstream after the setback. Today, we, who have taken up the task of reorganising the Party, don’t have amongst us any such stalwarts from the glorious past of our movement. So we are faced with the challenge of building a new theoretical contingent from the practical cadres themselves. Of course, in this process such stalwarts will emerge again, for in our India there has never been any dearth of great personalities, but for the moment it is on us practical cadres that the responsibility for theoretical breakthrough lies. And since we are practical cadres, the practical responsibilities will also continue to increase day by day. And since we are still a party of young people, we must exert ourselves still more, we must fully utilise our enormous untapped potentials. We must undertake greater theoretical tasks simultaneously with more practical jobs: this is what the objective situation demands of us at present.

Now, wherein lies the great importance of a major theoretical breakthrough on our part? As you know, none of the other CR groups is serious enough about Party-building as a conscious process involving the entire ranks, cadres and leaders. As a result, the field still remains open for the CPI(M) to assert as the only organised, disciplined, communist party. Against this we are trying hard to make ourselves, a disciplined, united, mass party with an all-India character: on this score as well as on the score of militant revolutionary struggles our Party has greater achievements and favourable factors compared to all other CR groups. But these efforts and these favourable factors will go in vain if we fail to powerfully tackle the major theoretical problems facing India today, to find convincing answers to these questions. On this score we are beginning to take organised initiatives so that on behalf of the third camp, on behalf of the CPI(ML), we can throw up a strong theoretical challenge to the CPI(M).

And this is all the more important because in India the possibility of yet another major split in the CPI(M) — one involving the leadership as well as the ranks cannot be altogether brushed aside. Of course, the CPI(M) is a dead force, but nothing in the world is absolutely dead. Hence, it may so happen that the multitude of conflicts, pressures, failures etc. which the CPI(M) is subject to, may ultimately add up to and culminate in a situation where a living section out of the moribund party comes forward to unite with, to combine with the living CR forces in one form or another, while some sections of the CRs get stuck and degenerate. It is we who will have to create the conditions for such a breakthrough by such means as taking various all-India initiatives and major theoretical offensives. While building up our theoretical contingent, this perspective should not be forgotten.

We should remember that theoreticians are produced not by Party Schools but by sheer hard labour. Renowned Marxist theoreticians emerged as theoreticians by dint of great determination: barring a few, most of the revolutionary theoretical leaders did not have any particularly bright academic background either. On the other hand, Party Schools may have a negative impact also: it may generate a sense of dependence on the School at the cost of self-study, which is always the main thing. If you are really determined to assert yourself as a theoretician, then you will do it, no matter whether you are in a Party School or not. Painstaking self-study and bold determination to achieve theoretical breakthrough — these are the decisive factors, these are the real things.

[Summary of talks with several Party committees. From Liberation, November 1986.]

1. On Intensifying the Political and Ideological Education of the Party Rank and File

There is a danger of the school system degenerating into formalism. Statistics of the number of classes and lessons are good and fine, but that’s not the main thing. Whether or not the ideological and political level is raised — this is the main question. In any campaign, formalism creeps in and there is the need to be on your guard.

Through these classes we aim at developing a Marxist-Leninist understanding to study and analyse various social phenomena; how classes behave, how class interests operate and so on.

For example, in one area, peasants were under the CPI(M)’s influence. Our comrades tried to win them over through abstract propaganda about CPI(M)’s revisionism, parliamentarism etc., but failed. People at large act from their class interests and when this or that party appears to be reflecting their interests, they follow them. Nobody is born a CPI(M), a Congress or a DMK person. Now, as the CPI(M) in that area, in the long process of its stint with power, started compromising with the landlords and moving closer to rich peasants, the contradiction intensified within its erstwhile social base. Our comrades who were already having their independent organisation and movement grasped this contradiction, took up the issues and slogans affecting broad peasant masses and strove to develop joint activities with the lower-ranking CPI(M) cadres and masses under their influence. This time they succeeded. Gradually people shifted their allegiance and came over to us.

Now you will often find many petty-bourgeois intellectuals, a good number of them quite honest and militant, attracted more towards ‘left-wing’ organisations like CRC, PWG etc. It is so because the petty-bourgeoisie by its class position is more inclined to anarcho-syndicalist ideas. The working class and the peasantry are, by their very nature, not averse to politics, thanks to their close integration with reality. Hence, you will not find any lasting influence or mass base of such groups or for that matter of grassrooters among working class and broad peasant masses. You cannot simply win over these intellectuals from the fold of such groups through sheer polemics. Only when more and more independent political initiatives and powerful mass movements develop will these intellectuals change sides.

Many people attribute the AIADMK’s influence in Tamil Nadu to MGR’s charisma. A deeper analysis will reveal that if a good majority of poor and middle classes support this party, they do feel that some of their interests are fulfilled by it, or at least they have that expectation. On the other hand, AIADMK’s basic class position always clashes with its efforts to maintain and develop a broader social base.

We must understand these realities and develop our slogans, tactics and movement accordingly. This is the way we should move in practical politics so as to intensify the internal contradiction between the social base of these parties and their basic class position.

If you act only from your heart, your emotions, you will only land up in condemning these parties. And as emotions do not last long, do not get transformed into material force, ultimately the whole thing will degenerate into self-condemnation. You will have to act from your mind too and evolve concrete policies and tactics, slogans and styles, so as to expose these parties in concrete terms and disintegrate them by helping the masses learn from their experiences and ultimately win them over.

The majority of people in our movement act from their hearts and not from their minds. As a result, in terms of revolutionary phrases they are the first, but in terms of mass following they are the last. The masses continue to remain under the influence of reactionaries, social democrats and regional chauvinists. What is more serious, some people are least bothered about this, they are not ready to change any of their slogans, no matter whether the masses follow them or not! These people seem to believe that revolutions are made by words and not by the masses. This is what is called left phrase-mongering.

The study of Marxist classics will help you grasp the objective laws governing the society, the movement of classes and their struggle.

It will help you in perfecting your slogans, policies and tactics starting from realities and not from subjective wishes.

2. On Firmly Establishing the System of Democratic Centralism

Democracy within the Communist Party is somewhat different from what is commonly understood by this term. It is democracy under centralised guidance. The Party Central Committee decides when and on what questions debates and discussions should be allowed. Otherwise, the Party will degenerate into a debating society. The CRC group is an extreme example of ultra-democracy. They carried on their so-called two-line struggle endlessly, claiming themselves to be true followers of the Cultural Revolution and asking everyone to debate and debate. What’s the outcome? They have disintegrated into a number of factions. Some of them are now debating whether Marxism is correct or not, others say that the Leninist concept of ‘democratic centralism’ is wrong. Many people feel that CRC is a very democratic organisation. There is a flaw in this argument. Ultra-democracy is something which the petty-bourgeois intellectuals may prefer but then you cannot have an organisation. There cannot be an organisation without centralism. In the early ’70s, a friend of mine told me that this concept of ‘individual subordinating to the organisation’ and ‘minority submitting to majority’ was very humiliating and he claimed that the Cultural Revolution had abolished this by declaring that ‘truth often rests in the minority’. I told him that you cannot have an organisation then.

This man who subsequently deserted the Party, now runs an ‘Internationalist’ centre. But alas, he is alone in his mission!

The Party line is decided in the Party Congresses. Prior to that, debates and discussions are conducted on all aspects of the Party line. Now once things are decided in a Party Congress, the whole Party must implement those decisions. Again there will be a Congress, there will be debates. In the meantime too, on questions of new policies and tactics, and on questions which are treated as experimental ones, debates and discussions are always conducted, and opinions gathered. Decisions are taken on majority-minority basis and the minority is allowed to keep their views reserved.

Now some people say, your Party is not democratic enough and that is why you have not split. Your consistent unity shows that you are not democratic. The CRC, the PCC and others are always splitting because they are democratic. Some others say, you are united because you keep your ranks in the dark, you don’t educate them politically, you don’t allow them to read the literature of others or to come in contact with others; and your leadership is based on an unprincipled unity between two, or perhaps three, factions who otherwise hold extremely divergent and opposite positions.

You know this is all rubbish. Actually, these people indulge in such fantasies only to justify their own anarchism, their own failure to build a party based on democratic centralism. All these groups dread centralism and use the Cultural Revolution and Mao as a smokescreen for their own anarchism.

Some people claim that SN’s basic contribution was upholding democratic centralism against CM’s bureaucratic authoritarianism. If that were so, why did he miserably fail to develop a united party? Why did his PCC split whenever any issue came up for debate? And how is it that those who stayed with CM ultimately succeeded in developing a united party? Actually, what SN fought for was ultra-democracy and went on to hit at the basic tenet of centralism, and that too in a period of extreme repression. CM had quite rightly emphasised that democracy was not a plaything for a Party engaged in life-and-death struggle. He had correctly laid stress on centralism in periods of white terror. Basically speaking, he was correct. Now it’s true that certain deviations had come up with centralism being over-emphasised. But in spite of this, genuine and serious revolutionaries did remain with CM and gradually overcame the deviations and under a different set of conditions, democracy was brought back to full play. But the singular failure of SN clearly demonstrates that he was fundamentally wrong and that his struggle was not for democracy but against centralism.

We have been successful in establishing democratic centralism in the main. Still some wrong tendencies do exist in our organisation. In the case of mass organisations we do stand for their independent role and functioning, and as regards cultural organisations we do support their autonomy. But some Party persons in these organisations misinterpret this independence and autonomy. Well, you can say they opt for ‘separatism’. Independence and autonomy are weapons for uniting with larger and larger number of people, for developing creativity and skill in your work. You can term this independence as ‘relative independence’. But ‘separatism’ is different: it demands the right to violate the Party line, the Party’s guidance and Party discipline.

Nowadays many people violate Party decisions, they prefer to be called ‘dissidents’. They are critical of every step, of every idea which comes from the Party leadership under the pretext that they were not consulted. I know some members who want all the rights of a Party member but are not ready to shoulder any responsibility given to them by the organisation. If anything goes against their will, they will simply not obey it.

The primary requirement of membership is that you must fulfil the responsibility entrusted upon you by the organisation. While deciding upon this responsibility you must be consulted and your assent obtained, but once decided you must carry it out with all sincerity. If this minimum Party sense is not there you are not eligible for membership and therefore for the rights of a Party member.

These are a few manifestations of ultra-democracy. You should not brand each and every problem as the manifestation of ultra-democracy. Some reports say that not taking up hard work is ultra-democracy. When we began our struggle against liquidationism, I remember one report finding liquidationism in coming late to meetings or in somebody falling asleep during some serious talks. I am afraid this may not be correct. If you brand everything as ultra-democracy you may well miss the real target.

However, centralism is based on democracy. If discussions and debates are disallowed in the Party, if a regular system for gathering various opinions and consulting various persons is not there, if undue interference goes on in every tid-bit affair of mass organisations, then centralism will turn into bureaucracy.

Again, if you do not have correct policies, if there is no timely guidance, if there are no rules, no proper divisions of work, then also centralism and discipline cannot be established.

And last but not the least, enforcement of centralism and discipline is closely related to the stature of the Party leadership in the eyes of the ranks. If there is widespread resentment below, if confusion and dissent abound, then the root cause must be sought in the leadership. If leaders do not have a good grasp of the situation and of Marxism-Leninism, if their lifestyle and their attitudes smack of decadent bourgeois culture, if they are not modest, sober and hardworking, if they do not enjoy spontaneous love and respect from the ranks, their simply holding a high post in the Party hierarchy will not be of any use. Only when the core of leadership is mature and dedicated and therefore enjoys high prestige, is it possible to enforce organisational discipline. Otherwise, all such attempts will only be counterproductive. All dissidence, therefore, should not be considered anti-Party and everywhere we should not try to solve the problem by using the stick of discipline and sharp criticism. I do think that at some places some leaders and certain Party committees have considerably lost their prestige. And this is the primary problem to which we must address ourselves during this consolidation campaign. This is not to weaken the centralism of the Party but to really strengthen it. I emphasise centralism, because many new comrades don’t understand its necessity and more so, because all around you anarchist groups are bent upon weakening the centralism which the Party has built up through hard efforts all these years. Moreover, for an underground Party which is already operating under conditions of extreme repression in certain areas, and the situation in other areas may anytime take such a turn, centralism is absolutely important.

3. On Consolidating the Lower-level Party Organisations

Truly speaking, lower-level Party organisations are all in a shambles. Well, we do have a Central Committee and a number of Central Departments. State Committees, too, function more or less regularly and on a stable basis, but when it comes to committees at regional or still lower levels and to units and cells, you won’t find any proper Party system with any degree of regularity and stability. This situation is also responsible for much of the confusion and anarchism below and serves as a veritable breeding ground for the bureaucratic attitude of leaders, for the concentration of power in a few hands and decision-making by a few brains.

To alter this situation, the CC has directly addressed itself to the RCs and asked them to submit their periodic progress reports straight to the CC. In the first phase of consolidation, Party cells, units and committees were formed everywhere, but by now many of them have again become defunct and comrades realise that this is a formal way of doing the things. Learning from experience, comrades are changing their methods. At many places they are combining the process of forming study groups with that of forming cells and units. They are putting emphasis on developing first the organisers and nucleus elements around whom these lower-level Party organisations will be formed.

The system of developing Party committees on a factory, institution, office and university basis has not made much headway, neither have the Party cores in mass organisations been stabilised. Still, the exclusive system of having area-based Party committees is still in vogue. Leading cadres have not paid much attention to this aspect of party building and the old pattern continues. This is so because many people are yet to appreciate the full significance of the radical changes that have taken place in our Party’s activities and the diversification of its work in various fields. The old Party pattern is no longer capable of keeping command over the entire work: either the Party remains cut off from the whole stream of work, or a few leaders rush everywhere issuing commands and making undue interference. Much of the work is now in the legal sphere and many new faces are getting attracted towards the Party. The old pattern of Party organisation cannot cope with all these new developments. The new pattern must have a completely underground and illegal nucleus at the core surrounded by a vast network of Party units, cells and groups, many of them operating in semi-legal and some even in legal conditions. Strengthening the lower-level Party organisations does not just mean forming many more committees, units and cells; rather the idea is to make these bodies active and effective in their varied fields and forms of operation. This aspect has been totally neglected so far.

4. On Concentrating Work in Particular Areas

Here the question is of not merely concentrating work within specified geographical boundary, rather it symbolises a particular style of work, ‘conscious area of work’, if you will. Most of the reports indicate a spontaneous style of work, running behind the events. Somewhere jewels are stolen from some temple, or an issue has come up concerning Cauvery waters, and you rush to develop movements. Here you are running after events, and activists developed on the basis of this style of work will be seasonal activists of a partial nature. In the wake of some major events they will become active. At other times they will lie dormant.

‘Concentrated areas’ should be developed as models of a particular style of work where you have conscious plan and programme, a longterm perspective, policies and tactics, a style of work where you have activists undertaking day-to-day mass work. If you have this infrastructure, you can take timely initiatives to meet any swift turn of events.
In many reports I find no mention of any policies and plans of work. If you had some policies, firstly, what experiences have you gathered through their implementation? And secondly, does this experience demand any change in policies? On these questions, many reports prefer to remain silent, and this is the greatest drawback in our style of work. At many places, either there have been no policies and plans, or they have remained only on paper. Working blindly means working on the basis of wrong policies. If you have no correct and conscious policy, you have wrong policies, spontaneous policies, and you are not alive to the dangers inherent in following such a course. Consolidation of a Party committee always revolves around the policies it makes and implements and a constant review of these policies. Leaders again have not paid sufficient attention to this aspect. Their job is to concentrate on particular areas or fields of work, develop policies, analyse typical cases, and guide the whole organisation in the light of these experiences.

To add a conscious element to the spontaneous struggle of the people — it’s for this purpose that a Communist Party is there, otherwise it loses its raison d’être.

5. On Strengthening Class and Sectional Organisations

It is through these organisations that the Party maintains closest living links with the masses. The task of these organisations is to take up the most primary demands of the masses, daily expanding their links with the latter.

We have observed that in their bid to develop themselves as state-level or all-India bodies, these organisations have lost much of their dynamism and their links with the masses at the grassroots have become rather loose. At many places they have just been made dummies of the mass political organisation, thanks to our over-enthusiastic efforts to instantly transform partial struggles into political ones. Maintaining the correct interrelation between the class and sectional organisations, on the one hand, and the mass political organisation, on the other, is crucial to the development of both. The two should actively help each other, but one should not try to play the other’s role. Whereas the mass political organisation is to be strengthened first at the national and then at the state level, class and sectional organisations must be strengthened first and foremost at the local and regional levels and then at the state or national level.

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fifth Party Congress, December 1992.]

In the Fourth Party Congress, we had envisaged drastic changes in several of our policies and resolved to effect necessary changes in the Party structure. A section of comrades, however, felt otherwise. According to them, no amount of restructuring could have possibly imparted a fresh lease of life to the Party and the best course left was to bid farewell to the communist party in favour of a democratic party or at the most, a liberal left formation. "If this is termed liquidationism, then the seeds of this liquidationism have already been sown in almost all the central committees of the communist parties the world over in this era of scientific and technological revolution", proclaimed one of the advocates of liquidationism. He was right. Liquidationism indeed it was, and under the spell of Gorbachevian reforms it did assume international dimensions.

Several communist parties in Europe, Eastern Europe in particular, began disbanding or transforming themselves into social democratic parties and the phenomenon reached its climactic height with the demise of CPSU. The CPC could thwart it only at the cost of a big social turmoil and the Italian and some other parties faced vertical splits.

Our own battle against liquidationism too proved quite stormy. The idea to liquidate the Party had surfaced first within the pre-Fourth Congress Party Central Committee itself. But the debate did not come up in the Fourth Congress and for quite some time after the Congress too, the liquidationists kept shying away from any full-fledged political debate. In fact, while the original protagonist chose to silently withdraw from the Party, several others continued to sow confusions among Party ranks and chose to operate in a clandestine, cliquist fashion, spreading canards against the Party leadership. Of course, subsequently they all had to come out in the open, denouncing Marxism and socialism, eulogising capitalism, ridiculing revolutionary struggles and pursuing their individual careers in government and semi-government agencies while preaching the gospel of reforms.

This struggle, first of all, helped us in standing firm in the midst of the great crisis of socialism and the accompanying all-out bourgeois offensive against Marxism. Our Party has been the foremost in India in upholding the banner of Marxism-Leninism and in rising in its defence and for its retrieval.

This struggle enabled us to carry forward Marxist education within the Party and to restructure and revitalise the Party organisation. The long spell of stagnation and slow growth in Party membership was broken and the Party witnessed a qualitative jump in membership.

This struggle enabled us to firmly uphold the banner of independent left assertion, consistently oppose the tailism of the mainstream opportunist Left and bring out the struggle between the two tactical lines in Indian left movement into sharp focus. At the same time, we could exert increasing influence on the left-leaning ranks of various parties and groups, developing, step by step, close cooperation in movements with the parties of the mainstream Left without compromising or sacrificing our principles.

Although the Party has scored a decisive initial victory against liquidationism, the struggle is far from over. The present ideological environment provides quite fertile ground for the rise and growth of liquidationist ideas. Liquidationism essentially means erosion of the Party spirit which again is not an abstract thing, but is embodied in the Party’s revolutionary principles and in its integrated organisational structure. Compromising these principles and treating the Party as a federal body will only weaken the Party’s fighting capacity and encourage centrifugal tendencies.

The apprehension that the struggle against liquidationism will weaken the struggle against the other harmful tendency of anarchism is quite a misplaced one and betrays a mistaken understanding of the Party’s evolution. The whole practice of our Party has always been directed towards overcoming all the anarchist remnants of our past and making the Party’s tactical line correspond more and more to the concrete conditions of our country. This practice can, however, just get derailed if a sharp ideological struggle is simultaneously not carried on against liquidationism.

Looking at the struggle against these two erroneous trends metaphysically and seeking their eclectic combination will lead us nowhere. The error of judgement on the part of a thinking section of the Party in the struggle against liquidationism came precisely from their failure to grasp this crucial link. Real life has proved that a decisive struggle against liquidationism has not taken the Party back to anarchism. It has rather facilitated our forceful entry into the arena of practical politics with all its ramifications. Persons with die-hard anarchist world outlook, if not reformed, have only deserted us and in many a case they have joined the liquidationist camp. In the coming days, the Party shall go on making bold experiments in the arena of practical politics and hence, dialectically, there will be a greater need for exercising consistent vigilance against liquidationism within the Party body.

[Editorial of Liberation, April 1995.]

This 22nd April, Party will be celebrating its 26th anniversary. It is surely an occasion to reiterate our commitment to the basic principles and the general orientation of the Party. But if we merely confine ourselves to this ‘reiteration’, commemoration of the anniversary will be reduced to a ritualistic affair. In my opinion, emphasis should better be placed on deeply and critically probing the reason behind our slow, uneven, and at times, distorted growth.

We must not behave like dogmatists who refuse to constantly review their practice and cling to outdated and worn-out formulations almost as blind religious faith. We have vowed to develop the Party line as the living embodiment of Marxism-Leninism’s integration with concrete Indian conditions. This demands a strict scientific approach where theoretical premises are tested in practical observation and accordingly modified. Mao Tse-tung has repeatedly said that practice is the sole criterion of truth and this statement can’t be overemphasised.

Moreover, the strength of communists lies in realistic assessment of the objective situation, in being bold in making self-criticisms and daring to face the worst situation and change them. And for this they hardly need any intoxication. They derive their energy from their dedication to the supreme cause of communism and from their conviction of the progressive movement of human society. I find a certain comrade associated with one of our Party organs always projecting our achievements in the superlative degree. He found the echo of French revolution in one of our modest Party rallies! I have several times pointed it out to him but he seems to believe that such high doses are imperative to keep up the morale of Party ranks.

Every time when elections are round the corner some people start cherishing wild dreams. During the recent Bihar elections, one comrade told me about his grand plans to secure victory in his constituency. I reminded him that the Party never asked him to manipulate victory there. Isn’t it enough if you poll countable number of votes? He did not like my pouring cold water over his wild aspirations. Results, however, show that the comrade has failed even to secure a countable number of votes.

Looking at the current round of assembly elections from Andhra to Bihar it can definitely be said that the tactics of election boycott (even raised to the level of strategy by certain groups) was a total flop. In their desperation to embrace it against the wishes of the masses they first resorted to adventurism, and later on, succumbed to the worst kind of political opportunism. In contrast, our Party organised a vigorous election campaign and at least succeeded in sending a powerful communist group to the Bihar assembly. So much for our success.

But in many parts of Bihar as well as in Andhra and Orissa we fared badly. The number of votes polled in many constituencies reflects a longterm stagnation in our work and in some areas even an erosion of our social base. This is a matter of serious concern and raises many a question about the state of affairs in the Party organisations of the concerned areas. In some areas the Party organisation was found to be engaged in factional feuds while in general Party’s vibrant mass line was replaced by an uninspired routine style of work. Alienation from the masses, detachment from their day to day struggles, and in certain areas, arrogant cadres riding roughshod over the masses etc. paved the way for the intrusion of other political parties in the very core of our mass base. No high-sounding propaganda and opportunistic compromises can ever substitute hard mass work and that was reflected in our poor showing at the hustings in those areas.

Elections are a good indicator for measuring the extent of your mass support and at the same time the degree of opportunism hidden within you.

Analysis of election results has helped in bringing us back to our senses and in identifying our weak spots. It is high time we take corrective measures to revamp the whole Party organisation, inject afresh spirit in the body of the organisation and pursue a lively mass line. It is in this context our proposed organisational conference assumes importance where we expect to effectively deal with such organisational problems. Yet, the question of organisational disorder and alienation with the masses also has a political-tactical aspect to it which is, perhaps, crucial. The growing pattern of progressive political discourse in the country concerns itself with the assertion of dalits, backwards and religious and national minorities. The Party is yet to formuate an active communist response to the same.

As regards United Front practice, if the IPF had reached a saturation point, our efforts to develop a political dialogue with a wide range of grassroots movements has not yielded any concrete results either. The Political relations that we developed with HMKP, Samata Party, SUCI and similar left groups don’t seem to have any bright prospects. The Platform of Mass Organisation could not be raised to the level of political cooperation and has become defunct. Our relations with CPI-CPI(M) have furher become tense owing to their following the new economic policy in Bengal and subservience to JD govt. in Bihar.

Thus, our Party is confronted with the twin tasks of consolidating its own class base and, at the same time, expanding its support base to various cross-sections of people. This necessitates formulating an active response to the social ferment proceeding before our very eyes and to seek political cooperation with the mass allies from the left and democratic camp.

The national scene unfolding before us promises a grand battle between Congress(I) and BJP for wresting the central power in the impending parliamentary elections. A third front having the potential to overturn the applecart of both the leading contenders is yet to take shape. We can neither align with BJP against Congress(I) nor support Congress(I) against BJP. We shall, of course, lend our all-out support to any emerging third front at the national level. It is very difficult to define the exact form of our relationship with such a front at this stage, and with CPI(M) bent upon preventing our emergence on the national political scene, the task is still more complex.

While we go on discussing ways and means to play an effective role in national politics, the entire Party must concentrate on rebuilding itself and its relation with the masses.

Let this 22nd April be dedicated to serious introspection and rejuvenation of the Party organisation.

[Excerpts from certain observations made during intervention in the course of debates at the Diphu Conference, August 1995.]

I think the main issue is that there is a particular problem with our Party. I can say that there is a sort of a trend where people feel if political things are correct the organisational things will naturally, automatically, sort of spontaneously, follow. This may be because of the ‘excessive political character’ of our Party or because of a particular way our Party emerged. Neglect of organisational things has been a particular hallmark of our Party. And every time we talk of consolidating the organisation, every time we talk of doing something concrete in the organisational sphere, we face resistance. People start saying that if politics is okay then everything else will naturally and automatically follow. Of course, as communists we all know that if our political line is correct, our political intervention is proper, it does provide lots of advantage in the Party’s expansion. But I think it should not be made that automatic. Organisational problems do constitute an independent entity, organisation is an independent category. And to streamline the organisation, perhaps, we need to take some specific measures, some specific decisions and sometimes special conferences even. So only to fight this trend we are having this Organisational Conference.

Every time we talk of an organisational conference, of tackling organisational questions as an independent agenda, people have lots of resistance. Even in this Conference suggestions came that the Conference should be renamed. Somebody said it should be renamed as the Ideological-Organisational Conference. So I think this has been a particular problem in our Party. This particular trend dilutes the organisational question in the name of politics and political struggle and thus trend puts politics and organisation in contrast to each other. More often it takes the form of phrase-mongering.

I have often found that people who are not serious on organisational questions, who are not serious about Party building, people who are not doing serious Party and organisational work, are often found to ‘preach’ politics. Especially some of these phrases like: ‘Why do you talk of organisation?’, ‘Only politics’ etc. So politics often becomes sort of a scapegoat, a sort of an excuse. I think to counter and fight this trend and to instill seriousness we must make sincere efforts to build our Party organisation and for that we have called this Conference. We have the document before us and we have discussed all sorts of issues and we will have to go back with a particular massage. Now if this dilution remains set in our thinking, then we can do nothing to streamline and strengthen our Party organisation.

Now on the question of democratic centralism there is a debate. So many things have been said. I think the most important point was: the right for legitimate opposition, i.e., a bloc sort of thing, as a method to unify different factions and different parties in India into a single large Party. It is better if one sticks to the formulation that this is only one way of uniting different left factions and left parties into a single communist party. Well, we have a difference here. For the unification of left factions and communist parties we already have a different idea, viz. left confederation. We have already started conducting talks about that. In spite of all the existing differences among different parties, we can make this experiment for a broader unity of left confederation. But within a single communist party if we try to make that experiment…so far the experiences have proved to be negative. There has been the PCC which tried to operate on that basis. And all such tricks of unification in the communist movement and the ML movement on the basis of bloc operation and legitimised opposition have all ended in fiasco.

They have only given rise to more groups than they had united. In contrast to that if you look at our Party’s history and experience we never went for unity on that premise. But still comrades from different groups and different parties have always been coming to join our Party. If you check up our Party membership you will find a good percentage of them — I think their numbers may perhaps surpass the number of comrades who were originally with us in 1974 — have come from other parties. And those large number of comrades who have come from different groups and parties like PCC, CPI, CPI(M) and other parties, have all united under one democratically centralised party and are carrying on discussions. I don’t think there are any problems in the Party functioning in this regard and, in this formation which we are leading, it has been possible to unite comrades coming from different streams. Some factions have even dissolved their organisations and united with our Party. That way we have been able to unite a good number of left and Naxalite revolutionaries with our Party. This has been our history. This has been a more stable unity than other unity efforts which have been taken so far by any other group in India. If we are to go for the premise of proceeding with unification on the basis of legitimised opposition, our experience so far has proved it wrong. And I think we have a better alternative in the concept of left confederation for broader unity. But still, from this point of view, the debate can continue.

There is another point I want to make on the question of democratic centralism. What we said in the document was that Party leaders and Party committees should not unnecessarily intervene in the functioning of mass organisations which means allowing them to develop on their own. But that is generalised by some comrades that if this is the case, then higher Party committees should also not intervene in the affairs of lower Party committees. I think these two cannot be equated. Party-mass organisation relations are very different. The Party and mass organisation are separate entities. May be we participate in mass organisations but they are a separate entity, they have their own separate character. We have already given an amendment that mass organisations should elect their leaders themselves in their conferences. And that way mass organisations will develop independently. So the relation between mass organisation and the Party is a very different thing qualitatively than the relation between two Party committees, higher and lower committees, of the same Party. I think these two things must not be confused, must not be equated.

As far as the Party’s centre is concerned, I must say, well, minority obeys majority. That is one principle which we follow. Within the Party committee minority accepts the majority. That is natural. Then again lower Party committees are subordinated to higher Party committees. That is also very natural. Very much understandable. The individual is subordinated to the organisation. This is also quite understandable. But the fundamental point of democratic centralism is that the whole Party is subordinated to the CC, an additional formulation which often some comrades forget. This is perhaps the most important one. And this says that the entire Party is subordinated to the CC. And this way the whole relation is reversed. The entire Party means a big majority while the Central Committee is a minority of 25 members. This is very unusual. This is very different. And this is the whole crux of communist party’s democratic centralism. Unless this is understood perhaps you cannot understand the full concept of democratic centralism in its integrity. Therefore the CC’s intervention, not just in the lower committee but even in the case of any member, any committee, any cadre, anywhere, anytime… this is perfectly allowed in the communist party. This is what a communist party is. Without this centralism, without this unity, there can neither be an iron discipline, not can we fight out the enemy in the serious class battles. This ‘majority’ subordinating itself to the ‘minority’, is perhaps the most crucial aspect of communist party’s democratic centralism. And therefore, any attempt to create any confusion or dissension against Party CC is very harmful. And challenging the CC’s right to intervene here and there, to say it cannot do this and it cannot do that etc., are just not allowed in the communist party. This is a very peculiar case. One may like it. One may not like it. But once we have decided to become a member of a communist party, we have to accept that the Party CC is not just like any other higher Party committee. The state committee does not have that much authority over all its ranks. Nor any other local committee. This is a very special right accorded to the Party CC. This a very particular aspect of communist constitution. And I think any attempt to confuse this will be very harmful for the Party.

[From an article published in Lokyuddh to commemorate the martyrdom of Comrade Charu Mazumdar on 28 July 1972. Self-translated excerpts of the article was published in English in Liberation, September 1998.]

Comrade CM had drawn an important line of demarcation between the cadres of the revisionist and the revolutionary parties. Whereas the former keep on waiting for the instructions from above, the latter take their independent initiative and creatively implement the instructions that come from the leadership. For this a revolutionary cadre must be of an enterprising type and he/she should have a firm command over the situation in his/her area. This however is not possible without a deep-going social investigation. Comrade Mao had once remarked that "no investigation, no right to speak". Without questioning the ideas that repeatedly clash with the practice at the ground level, without asking ‘How’ and ‘Why’ on every phenomenon, how can human knowledge move forward? How can new heights be scaled both in theory and practice with ‘yes sir’ kind of communist cadres?

The other important aspect of work style is the style of concentrated work. We shall have to continuously expand the frontiers of the mass movement, take all possible political initiatives at the state and national levels. All this is beyond dispute. But if one has to achieve any concrete results, some particular area will have to be concentrated upon. Otherwise all efforts may go in vain and the practice will not be raised to any higher levels.

In the recent elections we saw that in areas where concentrated work was going on we performed better than earlier. On the contrary, where, in Mao’s words, the work style of ‘visiting the garden on a horseback’ was being followed, our performance went down.

You may be in-charge of an area or a mass organisation, there must be a particular aspect to your practice apart from the general aspect. This particular aspect is virtually your laboratory where as a scientist you undertake ever-newer experiments, test your ideas at the level of practice and then generalise your conclusions. From general to particular and again from particular to general, this scientific work style is the Marxist work style.

Along with the general political and the agitational mobilisations, putting special emphasis on new elements continuously emerging in the course of mass movements, bringing them within the periphery of Party education and the Party organisation, building Party activist groups and the Party branches at the ground level and activating them are the essential components of the communist style of work. A work style in which these elements are missing is nothing but revisionist work style based on the assumption that ‘movement is everything but the aim is nothing’. Ever broadening the scope of the movement but at the same time activating the Party organisation at the grass-roots level — unity of these two apparent opposites is the essence of the communist style of work.

Our march towards organising the Party at the national level and developing a strong and dynamic Party infrastructure at the lower levels will be the real tribute to Comrade CM.

[Inaugural address to the Sixth Party Congress in Varanasi. From Liberation, November 1997.]

Comrades and friends,

The Sixth Congress of CPI(ML) is being held at the close of the 20th century, the century which witnessed major upheavals of world-historic significance: the rise of imperialism, two successive world wars, the rise of socialism and the end of the colonial era, and finally the collapse of Soviet system and the advent of globalisation. The century is marked by tremendous advances in science and technology, with humankind developing weapons of self-destruction on the earth while at the same time embarking on colonising the outer space; and so also there have been rapid strides in exchange of information and goods that have made the world look like a global village.

The ongoing processes of gigantic socio-economic transformation were reflected in the best of human brains and consequently this century witnessed great clashes of ideas and ideologies and also the emergence of titanic personalities.

The imperialism that arose in the early years of the century, became discredited by the middle of it and now, in the closing years, is seeking to redeem its prestige in the guise of globalisation. If the old imperialism gave rise to a class of ‘coupon clippers’ who thrived on speculation in the stock markets, globalisation has led to the emergence of a whole class of currency speculators who find a respectable representation on the IMF board. The enormous growth in currency trading has created a huge mass of ‘world money’, aptly described as the ‘virtual money’. As an economist noted, "It fits in none of the traditional definitions of money, whether standard of measure, storage of value, or medium of exchange. It is totally anonymous. But its power is real." This money has total mobility, because it serves no economic function. The volume of this money is so gigantic that its movements in and out of a country have far greater import than the normal flows of finance, trade or investment. Once a national economy, like that of India, gets fully integrated into the global economy, years of hard-won economic gains can be wiped out by just a few weeks run on its currency.

The domination of this ‘virtual money’ symbolises complete detachment of capital from its productive functioning. It further reinforces the parasitic nature of present-day global capitalism. And hence, even though the 20th century closes with setbacks for world socialism, the coming century is sure to open with the resurgence of new ideas, new forces and new movements for a better world order, for a new edition of socialism.

Passing on the unfulfilled dreams and unfinished projects to the next millennium, the 20th century is coming to a close. Let us resolve to enter the 21st century, via this Congress, as a united, confident and strong party of international communism.

The Sixth Congress of our Party is taking place in the year 1997, when our country is celebrating the golden jubilee of its freedom from the yoke of colonial rule. For the masses of Indian people, this historic moment has hardly been a moment of spontaneous rejoicing. By the 50th year of its independence, India’s very political sovereignty stands threatened under the powerful onslaught of global sharks, and internally, freedom has turned into an exclusive privilege of a whole class of ruling elite — it is their freedom for loot, plunder, corruption and criminalisation.

Institutions of bourgeois hegemony are pitted against each other: judiciary against the political class, political class against the bureaucracy, bureaucracy against the political authority, parliament against the judiciary, Election Commission against the government etc. All the institutions are competing against each other for enlarging their respective autonomous space and the end result is loss of credibility of each.

The golden jubilee of India’s freedom was celebrated in this environment of all-pervading chaos. Intellectuals, nationwide, engaged themselves in wide-ranging discussions and the national parliament organised an unprecedented four-day session to decide the national agenda. There were frantic calls for a second freedom struggle, even for a war against criminalisation, corruption and illiteracy. But all this proved to be a ritualistic exercise and the nation remains as directionless as ever.

Indian rulers have developed a national consensus on liberalisation and globalisation, which Chidambaram, the Union Finance Minister, justifies on the plea that Indian people desire a high quality of living and the right to choose. According to him, "Earlier, the choice was limited between Ambassador and Ambassador, and between Indian Airlines and Indian Airlines." This makes it obvious what kind of people he is talking about and, moreover, exposes the whole class essence of liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian variety.

Responding to the debate over ‘computer chips Vs. potato chips’, Mr.Chidambaram replied: "As long as it (foreign investment in any form and in any sector) brings jobs, creates income and generates wealth, it is okay."

Chidambaram, the foremost darling of the multinationals and Indian bourgeoisie alike, reflects the economic philosophy of the current UF government that has emerged as a major votary of liberalisation far surpassing the earlier Rao regime, and its Common Minimum Programme is nothing but across-the-board consensus among ruling elite of all hues.

This craze for a right-wing solution to India’s mounting problems has only bolstered the morale of fundamentalist forces and a real saffron threat, for the first time, is looming large over India. Here in Uttar Pradesh, the nerve centre of India and the most populous of Indian states, Kalyan Singh’s return to power in UP has also meant the return of Ayodhya on the national agenda. Moreover, the phoney issue of Chitrakoot has been added to it and clear anti-dalit signals have been issued.

BJP’s ascendance to power twice in U.P. has clearly demonstrated that if somehow this party manages to wrest the central power, it will pose the biggest threat to whatever is left of India’s secular polity, to democratic institutions, to progressive movements, to intellectual, aesthetic and academic freedom, to struggles of the rural poor, to social equality of dalits and women as well as religious and national minorities and to friendly relations with neighbouring countries. We have before us the all-important agenda of forging a militant solidarity of all democratic-secular forces to thwart the communal-fascist takeover of India.

Let us resolve to emerge, through this Congress, as a united, confident and strong party of national liberation and people’s democracy.

This Congress is taking place in the thirtieth year of the great Naxalbari uprising, the uprising which symbolised a decisive rupture with deeply entrenched opportunism in the Indian communist movement and which, for the first time in 40 years of the communist movement in India by then, brought agrarian revolution on the immediate agenda. In the face of brutal state repression, several times the movement appeared almost finished, but every time it rose like the proverbial phoenix.

The social change that was pioneered by Naxalbari got a fillip in the decade of 90s leading to new social and political equations. Amidst the process of great social churning and consequent political instability, old slogans are fast losing their relevance and the heroes are in no time turning into villains.

An all-round crisis is developing before our very eyes and the nation is crying for a new, radical and unconventional solution. With the opportunist wing of the communist movement becoming part and parcel of the ruling central establishment, the responsibility to lead the left movement exclusively falls on the shoulders of the revolutionary Left. This, at the same time, provides us with the best opportunity that has ever come our way to dislodge the official Marxists from the driving seat of Indian left movement.

The new invariably replaces the old — this is the inexorable law of history. Let us resolve, through this Congress, to emerge as a united, confident and strong party of social justice and revolutionary change.

The period after the last Party Congress has been the bloodiest in our Party history since the reorganisation. In a spate of killings perpetrated by the state, the state-sponsored private armies of landlords, as well as the thoroughly degenerate gangs of anarchists, we lost more than two hundred Party cadres and sympathisers. Infants were butchered, women raped and killed, and men, old and young alike, murdered in worst possible medieval fashion. Promising young comrades were shot dead while making speeches or leading agitations, grenades were hurled on mass gatherings, Party offices were attacked and thousands were put behind bars - all in a desperate bid to stop the march of CPI(ML).

We have forgotten neither the memory of our heroic martyrs, nor the identity of the killers. Nothing, absolutely nothing can stop the onward march of CPI(ML). Let us resolve to build, through this Congress, a united, confident and strong party of martyrs’ dreams and enemies’ nightmare!

[Concluding speech at the Sixth Party Congress. From Liberation, November 1997.]

Comrades,

Our Sixth Party Congress is coming to a successful conclusion. First of all, I would like to say that the presence of the foreign guests here has indeed boosted our confidence. The communist movement is always an international movement. It gives me great pleasure to say that our foreign guests here represent the various forms of experiments of the Marxist-Leninist ideology worldwide. Their presence in our Congress signifies the growing international relations of our Party. It also indicates the fact that inspite of numerous differences that may exist between communist parties, they should keep interacting and learning from each other.

So, I once again, on behalf of the newly elected Party’s Central Committee welcome our foreign guests.

Comrades,

Over the last five days we have debated over many a thing. Differences surfaced on several issues. Sometimes the debates were quite sharp. Elections took place and comrades participated in it. While some comrades won, others lost. But I would like to say that it has been a tradition of our Party to debate and discuss quite openly and frankly in our Party conferences and congresses. In this process, it could well be the case that some grievances crop up, some comrades feel hurt, but still we are all comrades of the same Party. We have the same goal and the same principles. If need be, we are committed to sacrifice everything for this goal, even our lives. Where such a communist bond is there, I think, any such conflict or bitterness cannot be permanent. Hence, I have the full confidence that when we step out of this hall we will once again, shoulder to shoulder, march alongside each other in the struggle to change the future of the country with the same warm camaraderie, with the same rock-like unity. This has been our Party’s tradition and shall remain so in the days to come.

Comrades,

You know that our Party had split in the ’70s. Many factions emerged. In the last 25 years we have seen the disintegration of these groups, witnessed the continued process of splits within them. In contrast, since 1974, with the Party’s reorganisation, our Party, the CPI(ML) Liberation, has never faced any split in its organisation. Our unity continuously kept on strengthening. This stands as a puzzle for many. While all the other Naxalite groups have been continuously dogged by splits, what miracle has enabled CPI(ML) Liberation to maintain its unity? And specially in the present times we see that the crisis is deepening within CPI(M), the social democratic party, with which we have the primary contention for the leadership of the Indian communist movement. Their leadership is seriously divided over the party’s tactical line. In this context our Party assumes special importance.

The fundamental reason behind our strong unity is that we have always held high the glorious traditions of the communist movement of our country. From the Naxalbari movement of 1967 to the movement of the ’70s, inspite of all the deviations and mistakes, we have never negated them. We have always given due regard to our legacy. We have neither rejected the great struggles and sacrifices of our communist revolutionaries nor the leadership of Com.Charu Majumdar. We always held high the dignity of our martyrs and of our great leaders. But at the same time we have always learnt from our mistakes. We have openly criticised our mistakes and incorporated new experiences in our Party line. Holding high our legacy and making necessary readjustments in Party line in consonance with the demands of the present — I think our Party has combined these two tasks in the correct way and this has been the foremost secret of our unity.

At the same time, since the time of reorganisation of our Party, we have striven to develop a full-fledged Party system. From top to bottom, from the Central Committee to the lower-level committees, we have built up a complete Party system. We have developed a collective leadership at all levels and have regularly organised our Party congresses. Whenever required we have organised all-India Party conferences. And this system ensures that the Party is not dependent on any single individual. It doesn’t function on the whims and charisma of any individual. In the course of our long practice, many experienced comrades have come up and a strong unity exists between them. Our Party’s Central Committee is not a collection of several factions but it is an integral body. No faction of any type exists in it. Our Party leadership consists of experienced comrades who have in a long process gained confidence of the Party ranks and of the masses as well. They constitute our Politburo and our collective leadership. I think, these are the reasons, the essential secrets that have for the past 25 years maintained and strengthened our unity. I do believe that the new Central Committee will keep alive this tradition of ours. The confidence that more than 700 delegates coming from all the parts of the country have reposed in the new Central Committee and the new responsibility that you have entrusted to us — I promise you that the new CC will fulfil these responsibilities with all the dedication and skill at its command and the members of the CC will always stand in the front ranks of all the struggles of the people and of the Party.

Comrades,

We are aware that there lie great challenges before us. We face attacks from various quarters. In this Congress we have resolved to face all these challenges. But this is also the time when a lot of opportunities have come our way. This is a period of challenges as well as opportunities. We have to face all the challenges and make full use of the opportunities. This Congress has given us the responsibility to dislodge the social democrats from the driving seat of the left movement in India and establish the leadership of the revolutionary Left over the same. Our entire Party has to accomplish this mission and the present times are the best times because the social democrats nowhere stand at the forefront of mass struggles as they have become part and parcel of the ruling establishment. That is why making full use of this opportunity, we have to move with full force to fulfil this responsibility which has been our historic mission since the Naxalbari movement.

Apart from this, comrades, the challenge posed by the feudal armies, be it Ranvir Sena or other such feudal armies, who think that they can wipe out our Party with the might of guns, by killings and massacres, has come up as a big challenge for us. We have to tackle this challenge with full self-confidence. We must understand that their frenzied attacks do not symbolise their future, their strength. Rather they are the last-ditch attempts of the dying feudal forces.

Comrades,

This Congress has resolved to forcefully take up the armed challenge of feudal forces like Ranvir Sena. The congress has repeatedly emphasised its resolve that the Party will mobilise all its forces to give a crushing blow to such forces. It has resolved that the Party will not hesitate to adopt all means that are necessary to crush these forces. We have accepted this challenge and we must ensure their defeat on the battlefield. In the past too, many private armies had come up but in face of people’s resistance none could survive. We must have complete confidence that these newly emerged Senas too have no future and CPI(ML)-led mass struggles and people’s wrath will ensure the end of these Senas. This is the second challenge before us.

Thirdly, the Congress has resolved to bring all progressive and democratic forces, the forces fighting for human rights to a common platform on an all-India scale. We have to establish at an all-India level, a genuine democratic front. Such a democratic front that can, in a true sense, become a magic wand for the Indian revolution. Except CPI(ML) no one else has the necessary moral authority and political vision to accomplish this task.

The Congress has placed before us three tasks, viz. to establish the leadership of the revolutionary communists in the Indian left movement, to boldly face the challenge of the feudal armies and wipe them out, and thirdly, to unite in a common thread various struggles of progressive and democratic forces, the forces struggling for human rights, for regional autonomy of national minorities and Adivasis and for democratic rights of various dalit and backward communities, forming a broadbased democratic front. I am confident that this congress will inspire the entire Party to fulfil these tasks. Lastly, we must not forget that hundreds of our comrades have sacrificed their valuable lives for the advance of the Party and the revolution.

This Congress is the occasion to transform our grief into strength. Let us resolve that the unfulfilled dreams of our martyrs will remain alive in our eyes. And we shall not rest content till these dreams materialise.

Long live the memory of our martyrs!
Long live revolution!
Inquilab Zindabad!