In 1951 the Communist Party of India adopted two
documents – the Party Programme and the Statement
of Policy. Subsequent developments led to the abandonment of
the 1951 Programme since it contained many mistakes. But, the
companion document Statement of Policy was neither
reviewed nor revised. In the struggle against revisionism
inside the communist movement in India, the Statement of Policy came
under attack from the revisionists. The CPI (M) reiterated
its adherence to the basic postulates of the document, but for various
reasons could not incorporate the requisite changes in the changed
circumstances. After a discussion within the Central Committee of the
CPI (M) the understanding that emerged in relation to the document
could be finalised only in 1976. Since this was the period of
repression and Emergency rule in the country, the revised document
could not at the time be circulated to the party ranks. We are
publishing here a review of the Statement of Policy document
as was adopted in the year 1976.
Introduction
In april 1951, the central committee had released two documents, the
Draft Programme of the Communist Party of India and the Statement
of Policy to the party ranks, inviting suggestions and criticisms.
Both these drafts were adopted by the All-India Party Conference in
October 1951. They were again endorsed by the Third Congress of the
Party which was held between December 27, 1953, and January 4, 1954, in
Madurai. The Statement of Policy was also called by another
name, the Tactical Line, which deals with the perspective
path of the Indian revolution, and the building of the class and mass
movements and the Communist Party, in accordance with this perspective.
It is relevant to recall the historical fact that both the
above-mentioned party documents were the outcome of prolonged and
bitter inner-party discussions and struggle during the years 1947-51.
In the period 1946-1947, a number of militant, mass, anti-imperialist
and anti-feudal struggles erupted, as an integral part of the post-war
upsurge. The Warli tribal revolt in Maharashtra, the Tebhaga kisan
struggle in Bengal, the tribal armed resistance in Tripura, the
Punnapra-Vayalar and North-Malabar peasant struggles in Kerala and the
Telangana peasants’ armed struggle in the erstwhile princely state of
Hyderabad, were some of the most important struggles of that period.
Out of all these struggles, the Telangana peasants’ struggle not only
acquired the character of peasant partisan armed resistance against
forced labour, evictions and for land, but also shaped itself into
liberation struggle against the Nizam and his autocratic feudal rule in
the erstwhile state of Hyderabad. The Telangana peasant partisan war of
resistance, which began in the last quarter of the year 1946, lasted
till October 1951, when it had to be withdrawn due to the concentrated
and heavy military attacks of the Congress government as well as the
new political situation that had come to prevail. The Telangana armed
peasant revolt had risen to such heights as to be able to set up nearly
3000 village committees or Gram Rajyalu. These committees
virtually took over and retained in their hands, for more than a year,
the entire village administration until the military intervention by
the Indian Union government in September 1948. This military
intervention, though termed as a ‘police action’ against the
intransigent feudal Nizam of the state, was actually hastened with a
view to putting down the rapidly advancing armed struggle of the
Telangana peasants, led by the Andhra Mahasabha and the Communist Party.
The Andhra Provincial Committee of the CPI, which was in direct charge
of guiding and leading the Telangana armed struggle, had faced a number
of political, ideological, theoretical and organisational questions.
They bad to be seriously discussed and resolved. These issues related
to the stage and class strategy of the Indian revolution, to tactics
and the forms of struggle and organisation; to the perspective path of
revolution, i.e., whether it was likely to take the “Russian path” or
the “Chinese path” of development; to the specific role of working
class uprisings in cities and peasant partisan war in the rural areas;
to the correct understanding of the concept of proletarian hegemony,
etc.
The discussions and their conclusions were expressed in various
documents such as the Thesis of the Second Party Congress, the Note of
the Andhra Provincial Secretariat in June 1948, the document an
Strategy and Tactics in the Struggle for People’s Democratic Revolution
in India worked out by the then Polit Bureau, the Report an
Left-Sectarianism in the Organisational Activities of the Polit Bureau,
the Report on the Left Deviation inside the CPI, adopted at the June
1950 C.C. meeting, and a Note on the Present Situation in Our Party, by
the late Ajay Ghosh and the late S.V. Ghate. Differing views were
expressed on the different issues being debated. Most of these
documents are now in printed form published by the People’s Publishing
House as Volume 7 of the 1948-50 period. They are cited only to show
the stupendous nature of the inner-party discussions preceding the
preparation and adoption of the two key documents, the Party
Programme of 1951 and the Statement of Policy, otherwise
called the Tactical Line.
But the tragic part of the story is that before long, within two to
three years in fact, some of the basic postulates made in the Party
Programme of 1951 were found to be wrong and required correction. The
then dominant section of the C.C. leadership, instead of correcting
these wrong postulates that had crept into the Party Programme, began
to ‘correct’ them in an utterly Right-reformist and revisionist
direction. Exploiting the mistakes in the 1951, Party Programme and
drawing same totally defeatist and Right-opportunist lessons
from the defeat suffered in the mid-term elections of Andhra state in
March 1955, the C.C. leadership worked out a political resolution,
under the caption Communist Party in the Struggle for
Peace, Democracy and National Advance in June 1955, a resolution
that once again threw the entire party line into the melting pot, and
intensified the differences inside the party. The continued conflict
finally paved the way for the split of the party in the years 1963-64.
The enormity and the extremely grave character of the differences and
disunity that was prevalent inside the once united CPI during the years
1955-64 can be understood by those who witnessed the stormy scenes at
several meetings of the C.C. and National Council, besides the sharp
divisions witnessed during the Fourth Congress at Palghat and the Sixth
Congress at Vijayawada. It was in the November and December months of
1964, that, after the split, the two parties, the Right C.P. and the
CPI (M) adopted two different, new, Party Programmes. It goes without
saying that if the new Programme adopted by the CPI (M) is
Marxist-Leninist, the Right C.P. had worked out a Right-opportunist and
class-collaborationist Programme.
In the long period from 1951-52 to 1967-68, the Statement of Policy
was neither taken up for discussion in depth at any time nor
was its understanding sought to be translated into practice in building
the class and mass organisations and the Communist Party. In fact, the
thesis of peaceful transition to socialism, made at the 20th Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made a great impact on the dominant
section of the Party leadership, and the Statement of Policy
or Tactical Line was shelved and relegated to the background,
if not actually repudiated. In the place of the latter, the slogans of
1948-50 of the “Telangana Path”, “Chinese Path”, etc., new slogans such
as the “Kerala Path”, “non-capitalist path” and the like, came up for
discussion. The other section of the party leadership, though unable to
do anything regarding the Statement of Policy and in the
matter of orientating our work on its basis, was pledging its loyalty
to the Statement of Policy, treating it as a precious
treasure of the party.
Between January 1965 and April 1966 the majority of the leadership of
the CPI (Marxist) was detained under the Defence of India Rules, then
subsequently released. The C.C. meeting at Nurmahal, in the last
quarter of 1966, took up in its agenda, the working out of tasks on the
kisan, trade union and party fronts, in conformity with the new Party
Programme of 1964 and the Statement of Policy. The Tasks
on the Kisan Front, Tasks on the Trade Union Front, and Our
Tusks on Party Organisation, are the documents which were released
by the Central Committee during the 1966-67 period, and they manifest
our Party’s earnest attempts to orientate our current work to the Statement
of Policy and its guidelines.
It was precisely at this juncture that the Naxalite disruption arose
inside our Party, beginning in May-June 1967, and culminating in
May-June 1968, in sizeable sections of the party breaking away in
different states. The Naxalites challenged the Party Programme, the Statement
of Policy and the entire political line of the CPI (M) from
extreme Left-opportunist positions and demanded that the CPI (M) accept
the so-called Thought of Mao Zedong as the Marxism-Leninism of our
epoch. Our party was drawn into a furious political-ideological and
organisational struggle in defence of the Party Programme, Statement
of Policy and the general political line of the party, at a time
when it was striving its utmost to reorientate, the entire work of the
party on the lines of the new Programme adopted at the Seventh Congress
and the Statement of Policy or Tactical Line, which
had been put into cold storage during the fifteen-year period from 1952
to 1967. The Polit Bureau and the Central Committee firmly upheld and
expounded its Marxist-Leninist viewpoint on the Party Programme, Statement
of Policy and other issues, while sharply opposing and rejecting
the Naxalite line of thought on every score.
However, this positive defence of the Statement of Policy
against the Left-adventurist distortions of the Naxalites, did not
automatically mean that a collective and common understanding existed
on all the different propositions that had been made on the Tactical
Line document. The Tactical Line document as we pointed
out earlier, had neither been taken up for discussion at any time nor
its understanding sought to be translated into action in the building
up of class and mass movements and the party organisation, as long as
the united CPI was in existence. The new leadership which was forged
during the course of the inner-party struggle against the
Right-revisionist policies and practice of the leaders of the united
party, and which was elected into the new C.C. and P.B. of the CPI (M),
also did not and could not discuss the Statement of Policy,
afresh and collectively, to arrive at a correct and common
understanding of its different aspects. Subsequent developments inside
the P. B. and C.C. showed that a general understanding and acceptance
of the Tactical Line document was not enough to unify our
party or to orientate its work according to Tactical Line and
the revolutionary understanding it implied.
The Eighth Party Congress in December 1968 endorsed and reiterated the Statement
of Policy. While publishing this Statement of Policy,
the following Note was inserted as an introduction:
“The Statement of Policy which is being printed here was
adopted by the Communist Party of India at the All-India Party
Conference in October 1951. It accompanied a Programme for the Party
which was also adopted by the same conference. The Statement of
Policy was later endorsed by the Third Party Congress at Madurai.
“The Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has
reiterated this Statement of Policy.
“But the Statement of Policy, based as it is on the old
programme, contains some formulations regarding the stage, strategy and
class alliance of the Indian revolution which have since been corrected
by the Party in its new programme adopted at the Seventh Congress.
“The old programme describing the stage of the revolution as
anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, had advocated a General United
Front in which the big bourgeoisie was also to be a participant.
The present Party programme, correctly characterising the present stage
of the Indian revolution as the second, agrarian stage of the
revolution, directed not only against the landlords and imperialists
but also against the Indian big bourgeoisie, has laid down that the big
bourgeoisie has no place in the People’s Democratic Front.
“It is necessary to keep this in mind while studying
this Statement of Policy, which essentially deals with the
path of the Indian revolution.”
The above-quoted Note of Introduction, mentioning the changes made in
the new Party Programme, regarding the stage, strategy and class
alliance of the Indian revolution, exhorts party members with the words
that,
“It is necessary to keep this in mind while studying the Statement of
Policy which essentially ideals with the path of the Indian Revolution.”
This, was a clear admission on the part of our party’s central
leadership that it had neither given serious thought to the basic
changes in the Party Programme and their bearing on the Tactical
Line and its implementation, nor made any comprehensive assessment
of the socio-economic changes in our country that had come about in the
period after Independence, and their impact on the Tactical Line,
and implications for carrying on the day-to-day work of the party and
the revolutionary movement. Under these circumstances all our attempts’
to orientate our work to different class and mass fronts, and all our
efforts to concretise the Tactical Line in terms of the tasks
to be discharged in the day-to-day work of the party were bound to
suffer from inadequacies and even mistakes – all, in their turn,
leading to differences and disagreements in the party leadership over
the Tactical Line and the precise meaning of different
formulations in it. This is exactly what happened, forcing us to
undertake a discussion, in conditions of the Emergency, which had
severely restricted the legal possibilities for such a discussion.
The Salient Points in the Tactical Line
Before we assess the socio-economic developments during the
post-Independence period and the basic changes introduced regarding the
stage, strategy and class alliance in the new Party Programme of 1964,
and begin to integrate such an assessment with the Tactical Line
and its implementation, it is first of all necessary to narrate, though
briefly, all the salient points made in the document.
I. The immediate objective set forth in the 1951 Party Programme was
“the complete liquidation of feudalism, the distribution of all land
held by feudal owners among the peasants and agricultural workers and
achievement of full national independence and freedom. These objectives
cannot be realised in a peaceful, parliamentary way. These objectives
can be realised only through a revolution, through the overthrow of the
present. Indian state and its replacement by a People’s Democratic
State. For this the Communist Party shall strive to rouse the entire
peasantry and the working class against the feudal exploiters,
strengthen the alliance between the working-class and the peasantry and
build, under the leadership of the working-class, a broad
nationwide united front of all anti-imperialist classes, including the
national bourgeoisie, sections, groups, parties and elements
willing to fight for democracy, and for the freedom and independence of
India.” (Emphasis added).
II. the Tactical Line negates two wrong and
distorted ideas: “For a period, after the Second Party Congress, the
dominant tendency inside the party leadership was to forget the
colonial nature of India’s economy, to refuse to draw lessons from the
experience of the revolutionary movement in China and other colonial
countries, to minimise the importance of the peasant struggle and to
put forward the thesis that the political general strike in the cities
and in industrial areas is the main weapon of our revolution, that such
a strike will itself unleash countrywide insurrection and lead to the
overthrow of the present State.
“Afterwards, on the basis of a wrong understanding of the experience of
the Chinese revolution, the thesis was put forward that the
Indian-revolution would develop exactly in the same way as the
revolution in China and that partisan war would be the main or almost
the only weapon to ensure its victory.
“While the former thesis minimised the importance of the peasant masses
and their struggle, the latter thesis minimised the importance of the
working class and its actions. Both Tactical Lines were the
result of ignoring the specific situation in India and the tendency to
draw mechanical parallels with other countries.
“In theory as well as in practice, both Tactical Lines
amounted to repudiation of the key task of building the alliance of the
working class and the peasantry, repudiation, therefore, of the task of
building the united national front of which this alliance alone could
be the firm basis, repudiation of the leadership of the working class
in the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution.”
Hence it is necessary to discard both the above Tactical Lines,
in order to evolve a correct Tactical Line.
III. similarities and differences: The specific features of the Chinese
revolution are:
(a) “In China, the split in the United National Front in 1927,
simultaneously split the armed forces also and the Chinese Communist
Party had an army of 30,000 to start with.
(b) “Moreover, because of sparse development of railways and other
means of transport, the enemy found it difficult to rapidly concentrate
his forces against the areas held by the Communists.
(c) “In China different imperialist powers had different spheres of
influence, and different warlords were at loggerheads with each other
and could not combine and concentrate against the revolutionary bases.
(d) “Despite these advantages enjoyed by the revolutionary forces, they
were repeatedly encircled by the enemy. Time and again, they had to
break from this encirclement and threat of annihilation and migrate to
new areas, to build again. It was only when they made their way to
Manchuria and found the firm rear of the Soviet Union that the threat
of encirclement came to an end and they were able to launch the great
offensive which finally led to the liberation of China. It was
thus the support given by the existence of a firm and mighty Soviet
rear that was of decisive importance in ensuring victory to the tactic
of peasant warfare in the country-side inside China.”
In contrast to these conditions, the situation in India is different in
several respects.
IV. peasant partisan struggle is one of the most powerful weapons in
the armoury of the revolutionary movement in india: Do the different
conditions in India, when compared to China, warrant the conclusion
that partisan warfare has no place in India? No.
“India is a vast country, with a backward and basically colonial
economy and with 80 per cent of its people depending upon agriculture.
In such a country partisan struggle, as the experience in China has
shown, is one of the most powerful weapons in the armoury of the
revolutionary movement, and this weapon will have to be wielded by the
Communist Party as is the case with all colonial countries.
“Partisan areas will inevitably arise in various parts of the country,
as the crisis deepens and as the mass peasant movement rises to the
level of revolutionary seizure of land and foodgrains, paralysing and
wiping out the local forces of the counter-revolution. These areas and
the revolutionary forces operating in them, however, will continuously
face the danger of encirclement at the hands of the opponent.”
The partisan movement can be developed even in areas where
communications are well-developed, if the peasantry expresses its
readiness to enforce its demands by force. But when enemy encirclement
occurs, we will have to lead the partisan forces out of such
encirclement and join it with the partisan forces in another area, so
as to create the liberation forces of our own. This, of course, is
envisaged when peasant partisan struggles break out in various parts of
the country.
V. peasant partisan struggles alone cannot ensure victory: It will have
to be combined with the other major weapons, that of strike of the
working class, general strike and uprising in cities.
It is so because “even the coming into existence of liberated
territories with their own armed forces in several parts of the country
will not eliminate this danger because these areas will themselves be
surrounded by hostile forces from all sides. Therefore, partisan war
alone, no matter how widely extended, cannot ensure victory over the
enemy in the concrete situation prevailing in India. When the maturing
crisis gives rise to partisan struggles on a wide scale, when the
partisan forces in several areas are battling against the enemy, the
workers in the cities, in vital industries, and especially in the
transport system, will have to play a decisive role. The onslaught of
the enemy against the partisan forces, against liberation areas will
have to be hampered and paralysed by mass strike actions of the working
class. With hundreds of partisan struggles merging with the general
strike and uprisings of workers in the cities, the enemy will find it
impossible to concentrate his forces anywhere and defeat the
revolutionary forces but will himself face defeat and annihilation.
Even inside the armed forces of the government, the crisis will grow
and big sections will join the forces of revolution.”
In this connection, “we should bear in mind that the Chinese party
stuck to the peasant partisan war alone, not out of principle but out
of sheer necessity. In their long-drawn struggles the party and peasant
bases got more and more separated from the towns and the working class
therein, which prevented the party and the liberation army from calling
into action the working class in factories, shipping and transport to
help it against the enemy. Because it happened so with the Chinese, why
make their necessity into a binding principle for us and fail to bring
the working class into practical leadership and action in our
liberation struggle?”
VI. the role of the working class uprising and the correct meaning of
proletarian hegmony: The Tactical Line, the Statement of
Policy document, while pointing out how the weapon of peasant
partisan struggles alone or in the main, cannot ensure
victory, how “it is absolutely essential to combine two basic factors –
the partisan struggle of the peasants and workers’ uprising in the
cities”, and how important is the role of the working class and its
hegemony in the Indian revolution, highlights the following points:
India has a far bigger working class than China had during the course
of its revolutionary struggle, and it has a decisive role to play in
the Indian liberation struggle. In order to frustrate the attempts of
the class enemies – to keep the urban areas and industrial centres
under their control and thus to be able to crush the partisan
resistance and annihilate partisan areas and armed forces, the working
class in cities and key industrial centres will have to play the most
crucial role, through its direct actions and revolutionary
uprisings.
Emphasising the worker-peasant alliance and the correct meaning of the
concept of proletarian hegemony, the Tactical Line says:
“Such a perspective demands the closest alliance between the working
class and the peasantry and the realisation of working class leadership
in this alliance. This alliance will be built in action, by the bold
championship by the working class of the demands of the peasantry, by
the direct support given by the working class in the form of
demonstrations and strikes to the struggles waged by the peasantry. Leadership
of the working-class will be realised not merely through the leadership
of the Communist Party, but above all, through the direct mass action
of the working class itself in support of the demands and struggles of
the peasantry. Of all classes, the working class is looked upon by
the peasants as their closest friend and ally. Many workers come from
the rural areas and are linked to the peasants by a thousand and one
ties. Actions by the working class help not merely the existing
struggles, but also, as the history of our National movement shows,
inspire the peasants in the neighbouring areas, radicalise them and
help in developing new peasant struggles.
“In the present situation in India when all classes, all sections,
except the exploiting few, are facing starvation and when hatred
against the present government is growing, strike actions of the
working class on such issues as food, ration-cuts, etc., can be a most
powerful weapon to inspire the entire people, to give concrete forms to
their discontent, to build their unity in action and to raise the
popular movement to a higher level. By fighting not merely for its own
demands but for the demands of all discontented sections and classes,
especially the peasantry, by acting as the foremost champion of the
interests of the general democratic movement, the working class will
come forward as the leader of the revolutionary people and build their
revolutionary unity.
“It is of the utmost importance therefore that the party creates
political consciousness in the working class, makes it conscious of its
role of hegemony, overcomes the present disunity of the working class,
wins over the majority of the workers in the vital industries and
builds a powerful movement with factory and workshop committees as its
nucleus. The best and most advanced elements must be recruited in the
party. All this demands intensive political agitation in the working
class, patient day-to-day work, leadership of immediate struggles for
the winning of the concrete demands and the building up of a strong
trade union movement. Only a united working class and a working class
conscious of its role of hegemony can build National unity.”
Thus the Tactical Line pronounced its judgement on the then
prevailing confusion, controversy and mistaken notions about the
concept of proletarian hegemony: though it is absolutely correct that
the working class can exercise its hegemony through its political
party, i.e., the Communist and Workers’ Parties that are guided by
Marxism-Leninism, it is wrong and incorrect to equate or substitute the
leadership of the Communist Party for the leadership of the working
class.
The CPI (M) has clearly pronounced its stand on the path of the
People’s Democratic Revolution in its Programme which reads:
“The Communist Party of India strives to achieve the establishment of
People’s Democracy and Socialist transformation through peaceful means.
By developing a powerful mass revolutionary movement, by combining
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary forms of struggle, the working
class and its allies will try their utmost to overcome the resistance
of the forces of reaction and to bring about these transformations
through peaceful means.
“However, it needs always to be borne in mind that the ruling classes
never relinquish their power voluntarily. They seek to defy the will of
the people and seek to reverse it by lawlessness and violence. It is,
therefore, necessary for the revolutionary forces to be vigilant and so
orientate their work that they can face up to all contingencies, to any
twist and turn in the political life of the country.”
VII. the scope of peasant partisan actions: The Tactical Line
says: “As the crisis matures, as the unity, consciousness and
organisation of the masses grow, as the strength and influence of the
party develops and as the enemy resorts to more and more ruthless
measures to crush the agrarian movement, the question of when, where
and how to resort to militant resistance will be more and more forced
on the agenda. As the question is of immense practical importance, it
is absolutely necessary that the party is able to give a clear and
unambiguous answer to it.
“It must be realised that because of the vast area of India, because of
the uneven level of mass consciousness and mass movement in different
parts of the country, uneven acuteness of the agrarian crisis and
uneven strength of the influence of the party itself, the peasant
movement cannot develop at the same tempo everywhere. Premature
uprisings and adventurist actions of every type must be avoided but it
would be wrong to lay down that the armed actions in the form of
partisan struggle should be resorted to in every specific area only
when the movement in all parts of the country rises to the level of
uprising. On the contrary, in the course of development of the movement
a situation will arise in several areas which would demand militant
struggle in the form of partisan warfare; for example, in a big and
topographically suitable area where the peasant movement has risen to
the level of seizure of land, the question of how to effect that
seizure, how to defend the land will become a burning and live
question. The party is of the opinion that partisan struggle in such a
situation, undertaken on the basis of a genuine mass peasant movement
and the firm unity, under the leadership of the party, of the peasant
masses, especially the most oppressed and exploited strata, combined
with other forms of struggle, such as social boycott of landlords, a
mass no-rent struggle, agricultural workers’ strikes, alone, if
correctly conducted and led, have a rousing and galvanising effect on
the peasant masses in all areas and raise their own struggles to a
higher level.
“Wherever such partisan struggles develop they must also be combined
with mass actions of the working class, especially in the neighbouring
areas, in the form of strikes and demonstrations. Undertaken on the
basis of the most careful preparations and assessment of all factors
the partisan struggles must be conducted with the utmost boldness and
tenacity, defending the gains of the movement by every means at our
disposal. At the same time, the party has to act with the utmost
flexibility when overwhelming forces of the state are concentrated
against the partisan areas and partisan forces and they run into the
danger of defeat and total annihilation.”
VII. individual or squad terrorism is incompatible with partisan
struggle: The Tactical Line rejects the assertion “that
individual terrorism is a part of partisan struggle, and not even a
part but even the basis of the partisan struggle. This is absolutely
wrong. What is more, individual terrorism contradicts the spirit and
objective of partisan struggle. And it is absolutely incompatible with
partisan struggle. In the first place, the objective of individual
terrorism is to destroy particular individuals while not pursuing the
aim of destroying the regime of feudal exploitation and subjugation of
the people, whereas the objective of partisan struggle is not to
destroy particular individuals but to destroy the hated regime in a
prolonged struggle of the popular masses. In the second place,
individual terrorism is carried out by individual terrorists or by
small squads of terrorists, acting apart from the masses, whereas the
partisan struggle is carried out by the popular masses and not by
individuals, it is carried on in close contact with the struggle of the
masses against the existing regime.”
Individual terrorism “creates in the minds of the masses a harmful
illusion as if it were possible to destroy the regime by destroying
individual representatives of the regime, that the main evil is not the
existence of the regime but the existence of particular and the worst
representatives of the regime whom it is precisely necessary to
destroy. It is clear that such a feeling created by individual
terrorism can only weaken the onslaught of the masses against the
regime and thereby facilitate the struggle of the government against
the people”
Individual terrorism leads to an undue minimisation of the role of the
mass movement and to equally undue exaggeration of the role of the
terrorists, who are alleged to be capable of securing the liberation of
the people by their own forces, independent of the growth of the mass
partisan movement. It is clear that such a feeling created by
individual terrorism can undermine the development of the partisan
struggle.
“The theory of individual terrorism comes to the front when the
revolution recedes. It is a reflection of weaknesses in the movement.
Whenever the revolution is rising and the masses themselves rise, the
theory of individual terrorism disappears from the horizon.”
IX. present partisan struggle to enforce demands: Partisan struggles to
enforce partial demands are not to be confused with partisan struggles
as part of liberation struggles.
The phrase or concept of the partisan form of struggle was understood
and used in the earlier discussions before the Tactical Line
document was worked out, in a particular sense, as part of liberation
war, especially as peasant guerrilla warfare. In a period of
revolutionary crisis, a series of armed clashes waged by worker
combatants or unemployed workers against the armed forces of the state
were characterised as partisan struggles connected with these armed
uprisings. The resistance movements conducted by the anti-fascist
forces during the Second World War were also termed partisan warfare.
The Telangana armed struggle which was conducted against the autocracy
of the Nizam from 1946 to September 1948, i.e., until the Indian army
intervened, was called partisan warfare, as it was an armed liberation
struggle against the rule of the Nizam. The Telangana struggle during
the 1948-51 period was also a peasant partisan struggle which was waged
in defence of the peasants’ gains made earlier.
The Tactical Line document, and the questions and answers
which are appended to it, have enriched our understanding. This phrase
partisan warfare has a much wider connotation. The clarification
incorporated in the Tactical Line makes it clear that the
peasant struggle even for enforcing a partial demand like reduction of
rent or against eviction, is characterised as a partisan struggle.
Sometimes, in our discussion, it is also described as “partial partisan
struggle”, i.e., peasant partisan struggle to enforce partial demands.
“Question: Is it correct to resort to partisan war in
one particular area where the conditions are ripe for it, even though
other rural areas are not ripe for it, and the workers are not ready to
support it with mass actions?
“Answer: Yes, you can and should resort to it. To
start or not, does not depend on us. It depends on the organisational
state of the masses and their mood. If the masses are ready, you must
start it.
“Question: Have we to take up partisan struggle only
when the stage of land distribution and establishing of village peasant
committees arises? Or can we take it up when the movement is still in
the stage of struggle for partial demands, for example, rent-reduction?
“Answer: The partisan struggle also has stages. It
starts with smaller demands – let us say, reduction of rent. It is not
yet a partisan struggle. If the enemy refuses to grant the demand and
the peasant is eager to win it by force, then partisan struggles can
start. True, it is not the struggle for seizure of land but only for a
reduction of rent, still it will be a partisan struggle.
Hence, it does not depend on us. If the masses are ready and eager, we
should assist them.
“Question: Can partisan warfare even of the most
elementary type be developed in areas where communications are
well-developed?
“Answer: Yes, when encirclement occurs, transfer the
best forces to another area. Lead out the armed forces so as to join
them with the armed forces in another area, so as to create a
liberation army of your own.
“Question: The aim of the partisan struggle must be
the liquidation of the enemy’s armed forces with the active assistance
of the masses of peasants. To kill individual oppressors with a view to
terrorising all the other oppressors and making them renounce their
oppression is terrorism. But I cannot understand the complete banning
of any individual action against any oppressor landlord, notorious
official or a spy, as a matter of principle, under the name of
terrorism. In my opinion, at times, it becomes necessary, in the
earlier phase of the partisan struggle, not in order to terrorise other
oppressors into renouncing their oppression, but to guard the safety of
the partisan squads. I am unable to understand how such actions make
the people passive. As I understand international literature, such
individual actions were conducted by partisans against German and
Japanese fascists in the occupied territories during the anti-fascist
war, and they are now being undertaken even in Asian countries where
partisan warfare is going on – Malaya, Burma, Indo-China, etc. If I
remember rightly, such actions were not only not banned by Lenin in his
article on partisan warfare; but on the contrary, be severely
criticised the Mensheviks who condemned them as anarchism. I seek
clarification on this point.
“Answer: The comrade says he cannot understand why
individual terrorism should slow down the action of the masses.
Individual terrorism is called so not merely because it is directed
against individuals or groups irrespective of the masses. Individual
terrorism creates the illusion that the main evil is not the regime but
individuals; that only if a few more are destroyed, the regime will be
finished off. What conclusion will the masses draw? That with the help
of terrorism of this type, it is possible to destroy the regime after a
long struggle. And if such conclusions are drawn by the peasants, they
will say, “No use developing the struggle against the regime. Our
glorious terrorists will do the job.” Such sentiments weaken the
onslaught of the masses against the regime. Therefore, it is harmful
and dangerous.
“Individual terrorism creates the belief that the main force lies in
the heroic terrorists and not in the masses. The role of the masses
becomes to watch and applaud. That means to cultivate passivity. Marx
and Engels taught that the liberation of the masses has to be won by
the masses themselves. That is what you ought to tell them. Different
results follow from individual terrorism. The masses look to the
terrorists as heroes and liberators.
The comrade’s reference to Lenin is without foundation. We can give him
articles by Lenin directed against individual terrorism. You must know
how hard Lenin hit the Mensheviks when the revolution was at an ebb and
they took to terror.
“The theory of individual terrorism comes to the forefront when the
revolution recedes. It is a reflection of the weakness of the movement.
When the revolutionary movement is rising and the masses themselves
rise, the theory of individual terrorism disappears from the horizon.
The comrade must bear that in mind.”
X. build a mass communist party based on Marxism-leninism: The Tactical
Line stressed the need to soberly and objectively estimate the
current situation at a particular period, so as to avoid both
adventuristic and reformistic tactics and action. It pointed to the
fact that the growth of the popular movement was lagging behind the
growth of popular discontent.
“This lag is due not merely to the repressive measures adopted by the
government but, primarily and above all, to the weakness of the party
and the existing disunity of the progressive forces. It is, therefore,
one of the key tasks of the party to forge the unity of the working
class, to unite the popular forces on the basis of a concrete
programme, and to grow into a mass party so as to be able to supply the
leadership which alone can extend the mass movement and raise it to a
higher level.
“It has to lead the masses in their day-to-day struggles, and take them
forward step by step so that the people, through their own experience,
come to realise the necessity and inevitability of the revolution.”
It concludes with, the following statement: “The fact is that if the
crisis bursts forth in the near future, the party in its present
disorganised and weak state will not be able to fully utilise it to
lead the people to revolution. It is not yet prepared to shoulder the
gigantic responsibilities that such a situation will place on it. It is
necessary, therefore, that the present weaknesses are overcome with the
utmost rapidity, the ranks of the party are unified and steps taken to
extend the mass base of the party and strengthen it, While recruiting
the best elements from the working class and other fighting classes
into the party and developing it into a mass party, it is necessary at
the same time to exercise the utmost vigilance against the swamping of
the party by elements that cannot yet be considered fully tested and
trustworthy, The system of candidate membership must be introduced for
this purpose. It is also necessary that while utilising all legal
possibilities, the existing illegal apparatus of the Party is
strengthened enormously.
“The building of a mass Communist party equipped with the theory of
Marxism-Leninism, a party mastering strategy and tactics, a party
practicing self-criticism and strict discipline and which is closely
connected with the masses, is a crucial task.”
XI. the two wrong estimates of the situation rejected: It is stated in
the Tactical Line that, “it would be gross exaggeration to
assert that India is already on the verge of armed struggle, that civil
war is already raging in the country, that the government, its leaders
and agents are already and completely isolated, and so on and so forth.
Such exaggeration leads to the advocacy of adventuristic actions and
the issuing of futile calls for action and pompous slogans which bear
no relation either to the existing level of mass consciousness or to
the actual maturity of the party, making it easy for the enemy to
destroy it.
“Equally wrong are they who through reformism see only the weakness and
disunity of the popular movement, the offensive of the enemy and
advocate a policy of retreat and ‘lying low’, a policy of regrouping
forces, eschewing all militant actions in the cities and countryside
for the present. Tactics based on such an understanding of the
situation will result in the worst type of reformism and make the party
trail behind the masses instead of leading them”
XII. lead the masses in their day-to-day struggle: The Tactical
Line document, while noting the fast-maturing crisis, the growing
mass discontent against the policies of the government and the weakness
of the popular movement and its unity to lead the people’s struggles,
calls for forging the unity of the working class and uniting the
popular forces on the concrete programme.
The Statement of Policy, while laying down the “path and the
perspective” of the Indian revolution, raises the question of current
tactics and gives the following answer:
“The question of the immediate, while certainly influenced by the
perspective, is not solely determined by it. It is also governed by the
assessment of the present situation. How far is the government
isolated, how far are the people disillusioned, how far are they ready
to struggle, are some of the questions that determine tasks and slogans
for them.
“The party must not preach the inevitability of fascism but utilise the
enormous volume of democratic opinion in the country to unite the
people to halt the growing drive towards fascism on the part of the
present government.
“Taking fascism to be inevitable or already in power, they would scoff
at parliamentary elections or fighting for civil liberties for which
broad sections of the people can and should be mobilised.
“We must fight the parliamentary elections and elections in every
sphere where the broad strata of the people can be mobilised and their
interests defended. We must be wherever the masses are and would like
us to be.”
It enjoins on the party to give the slogan that the present government
must go and be replaced by a popular government, representing the unity
of the democratic forces, a government that will break with the British
Empire and carry out the programme of agrarian reform and defend
democracy. It has to utilise the coming general elections for the most
extensive popularisation of its programme, for mobilising and unifying
the democratic forces, for exposing the policies and methods of the
present government. It has to lead the masses in their day-to-day
struggles and take them forward step by step so that the people,
through their own experience, come to realise the necessity and
inevitability of revolution.
The Tactical Line document ends with a stirring appeal to
organise the peace movement against the war danger from the
Anglo-American warmongers. It pinpoints the sectarian mistakes in the
conducting of the peace movement. It shows how “the peace movement is
not a pacifist movement, not a movement recording abstract support to
peace, but is a fighting movement for concrete action in defence of
peace and against the imperialist warmongers including those waging
colonial wars.”
Such were the salient points made in the Tactical Line document
of 1951. They were made after a serious inner-party debate which lasted
for three years during 1948-1951.
All the political-theoretical generalisations made in the Tactical
Line regarding the forms of struggle, organisation and the
perspective path of development of the Indian revolution are absolutely
correct, and hold good even today, though they were made more than
three decades ago.
A really revolutionary trade union, kisan and democratic movement and a
genuine Communist Party can be built in our country when the leadership
of the CPI (M) at different levels understands these tactical and
organisational precepts and orientates the work of the party on the
lines laid down in the Tactical Line document.
To sum up, whatever the modifications that are necessary and whatever
the enrichment that is required in the Statement of Policy of
1951, fulfilment of these tasks alone can ensure victory of the
revolution in our country. The building up of a united and
revolutionary working class movement, the organising of a powerful
kisan movement with special emphasis on agricultural labourers and poor
peasants, the forging of a durable alliance between the working class
and the peasantry and wielding of the two major weapons of peasant
partisan struggles and working class general strike and revolutionary
uprisings, the building up of a broad nation-wide People’s Democratic
Front and the assertion of working class hegemony over it, the building
of the Communist party which should be able to combine legal and
illegal work and build an illegal apparatus to be in a position to
withstand all the possible attacks of the class enemies, etc., are some
of the most important tasks that the Statement of Policy
enjoins on us to discharge.
Socio-Economic Changes and Their Impact
on Tactical Line
It is not enough to simply reiterate principal propositions contained
in the Tactical Line document, and once again to pledge to
stand by it. This we had been doing since our Seventh Party Congress in
1964. Nor is it correct to content ourselves with the fact that party
documents such as Tasks on the Party Organisation, etc.,
testify to our earnest efforts to orientate our work on the lines
indicated in the Tactical Line resolution, and there is
nothing more that needs to be done.
The inner-P.B. discussions since 1969-70, and the inner-P.B. and C.C.
discussions during 1975 and 1976, in particular, revealed that sharp
differences of opinion existed in interpreting different postulates of
the Tactical Line document, sometimes assuming the polemical
character of the 1948-50 period, the so-called ‘Russian Path’ vs the
‘Chinese Path’.
The Tactical Line document when it was formulated in 1951
was discussed in the C.C., reported to the state committees and adopted
by the Special Conferences in 1951. It has been referred to from time
to time and explained by individual comrades to state and district
committees and in party schools also. The Tactical Line was
defended against Naxalite distortions, and it was in that background
that the Eighth Congress of the Party endorsed it. But yet the
understanding of it has not been deep going. Discussion in depth by the
party leadership of the document, the bearing the subsequent basic
changes in the Party Programme had for it and its implementation, the
impact of the socio-economic changes in the country after 1951 and
their implications in carrying out the day-to-day work of the party and
the revolutionary movement have not taken place, making it incumbent on
us to do so now to unify the party and to orientate our work on the
lines laid down in the Statement of Policy. Otherwise all
earlier resolutions of our C.C. and the party dealing with this
subject; will be liable to different interpretations, some emphasising
particular aspects of the Tactical Line and others
disagreeing with such an emphasis.
Such a discussion of the Tactical Line is additionally
emphasised because of two very important factors, namely, the
socio-economic developments during the post-Independence years, in
particular the changes on the agrarian front, and the vital changes
introduced in the new Party Programme of 1964 on the stage, class
strategy and nature of the Indian revolution, sharply diverging from
those made in the 1951 Programme. These changes will have to be
correctly assessed and analysed as they have a direct bearing on the
two principal forms of struggle advocated in the Tactical Line.
Principle Changes Effected by the 1964 Programme
Where the stage of the Indian revolution was described in the 1951
Programme as the “revolution of the general united national front”
against imperialism and its feudal allies, the Programme of the Seventh
Party Congress defines it as essentially the agrarian stage
or People’s Democratic stage with the agrarian revolution as its axis.
Where the 1951 Programme defined the class strategy or class alliance
of the revolution as one comprising the “working class, the peasantry,
the toiling intelligentsia, the middle classes as well as the national
bourgeoisie” including the big bourgeoisie, the new Party
Programme advocates the class alliance of workers, peasants, middle
classes and the non-big bourgeoisie, excluding the entire big
bourgeoisie from the alliance and placing it as the force which stands
in the forefront of violent opposition to revolution.
Where the 1951 Programme characterised the nature of the revolution as
only anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, the 1964 Programme characterises
it as not only anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, but also
anti-monopolist.
Where the 1951 Programme put the demand for “the confiscation and
nationalisation of all factories, banks plantations, shipping and
mining owned by the British in India, without raising the
slogan of confiscating all foreign capital; such as that of
the U.S., German or Japanese monopolists; the new Programme raises the
slogan of “taking over all foreign capital in plantations, mines, oil
refineries and factories, shipping and trade” including “the
nationalisation of all banks and credit institutions and other
monopolistic industries.”
Thus the target of attack is not only British capital, but all
foreign capital and big or monopolistic Indian capital.
According to the new Programme, our revolution is not only in
irreconcilable opposition to feudal landlordism and foreign monopoly,
but together with them, it is opposed to the big bourgeois class which
is heading the state and collaborating with foreign finance capital, in
alliance with feudal and semi-feudal landlordism. Naturally, under
these circumstances the People’s Democratic Revolution comes into clash
with the state power headed by the big bourgeoisie of India.
Thus the Indian big bourgeoisie, which was considered by the 1951
Programme as an ally of the workers and peasants in the struggle
against feudalism and foreign capital, according to the new Programme
has been found to be allying with feudalism and collaborating with
foreign capital, hostile to the workers, peasants and other democratic
forces.
Can one say that the above changes in the class alliance for the
People’s Democratic Revolution will have no negative impact on the two
principal forms of struggle envisaged in the Tactical Line
for attaining the victory of the revolution?
They are bound to have some unfavourable effect on both the peasant
partisan struggle and the urban workers’ uprising, though it cannot
alter the basic content of the Tactical Line and the
perspective given therein.
Changes in the Agrarian Sector
One of the important development that needs a proper and correct
assessment, is the changed agrarian set-up under the rule of the
Congress Party during the last 35 years.
Nearly ten years ago, the C.C. in its document, Tasks on the Kisan
Front, had the following to state:
“However, the bourgeois agrarian programme aims achieving certain
limited objectives, it seeks, in the main, to reform the old-type
feudal landlordism by inducing the landlords to break up and partition
their big estates among their kith and kin, to sell some of their
‘surplus’ lands to the peasants and to take to personal cultivation and
supervision of their farms more and more through employing hired labour
and farm servants, instead of unrestricted renting out of their lands
to the tenants as practised earlier. It also attempts at creating a
narrow stratum of rich peasantry who, together with the new-type
landlords, can become not only the new political base of the
bourgeoisie in the countryside but can also produce the limited surplus
of foodgrains to supply the Government for feeding urban centres.
“….They are not aimed at transforming our agriculture into a modern
capitalist enterprise; but are intended only to modify and reform the
earlier forms of crude feudal exploitation, and superimpose on it
capitalist forms and relations.
“The Congress agrarian reforms created and extended a new-type
landlordism which combines in itself both the features of capitalism as
well as feudalism; they created a ‘tenant’ who combines in himself the
features of the serf and the wage worker; and they created a rural
wage-labourer, who, as a pauperised peasant, forced by circumstances,
is tied to the village and farming and has no other go than to accept
any miserable wage-rate his rural employer is willing to pay. His
struggle for better wages is inseparably linked with the struggle for
the abolition of landlordism and for land to the tiller, because no
appreciable improvement in the way of securing better wages is possible
without breaking the land monopoly and drastically reducing the huge
number of the pauperised peasant army. All these aspects will have to
be borne in mind while formulating the programme on the agrarian front
and building the revolutionary kisan movement, which strives to unite
the entire peasantry in the fight against landlordism.
“The present countryside somewhat resembles, in a way, what was
described by Lenin in the year 1901, regarding Russia. He observed that
in the modern Russian countryside ‘two kinds of class antagonisms exist
side by side; first, the antagonism between the rural workers and
employers and the second, between the peasantry as a whole and the
landlord class as a whole. The first antagonism is developing and
becoming acute, the second to a considerable degree already belongs to
the past. And yet, in spite of this’, it is the second antagonism that
has the most vital and most practical significance for Russian
Social-Democrats at the present time.’ It is on these lines that our
Party was called upon to make a concrete study of the class changes
brought about in the countryside, assess them properly, and work out
its agrarian strategy and tactics”. (Paras 8, 9 and 11 of “Tasks on
the Kisan Front.)
This does not by any means imply that the present-day conditions in our
rural areas are exactly the same as in Russia of 1901. But, at the same
time, the contradiction between the peasantry as a whole and
landlordism continues in our agrarian conditions.
After the above statement was made, the Congress Government with its
pressure tactics on landlords, through the enactment of new land
ceiling laws, by the introduction of some amendments to the old land
ceiling and tenancy legislations and by repeatedly raising the slogan
of land reforms, has enabled the landlords to evict tenants’ more and
more, to further partition the land among their kith and kin, to sell
some portion of their land at good prices, and to increasingly take to
“personal cultivation” and intensive agriculture and modern farming.
There has been a further rise in the percentage of agricultural
labourers among the rural households. Millions of tenants, protected
and tenants-at-will, have either been evicted outright and thrown into
the army of landless or forced to purchase the land rights, paying
varying prices to the landlords. The so-called “Green Revolution” has
helped the landlords and the rich peasants in the main to benefit from
the loans granted, the fertilisers supplied, the high-yielding
varieties of seed provided, and several other so-called rural
development programmes.
The changes effected in the agrarian set-up under the Congress rule
since 1946-47 can thus be summed up as:
Reduction in the old form of land concentration in the hands of
zamindars, jagirdars and big landlords, even though 35 to 40 per cent
of the land is still concentrated in the hands of five to six per cent
of the top landlords.
Eviction of millions of tenants thrown into the army of agricultural
labourers and tenants-at-will. Only a section of the tenants could
become owners of a certain portion of the land on which they had been
working as tenants, by paying compensation, or by purchasing at a price
lower than the market rate. Today’s tenants are mostly
“tenants-at-will”, with no legal record of rights, and, neither so
conscious and organised as to demand ownership of the lands they are
cultivating, or to enforce even the legally fixed rent, viz.,
one-third, one-fourth or one-fifth of the produce, as the case may be.
Nearly 50 per cent of rural households today own no land at
all, or only tiny pieces of land which are totally inadequate to eke
out a livelihood, and who consequently are forced, in the main, to
earn their livelihood by hiring themselves out to others – rich
peasants, landlords, etc. They fall, into the category of agricultural
workers, handicraftsmen and those engaged in village services.
Another 15 per cent or so of the present rural families come under the
category of middle peasants who own from two to five acres of
wet land, or ten to twelve acres of dry land. They and their families
do manual labour on their land, employ a cowhand for tending cattle and
hire some agricultural labourers in seasons when there is pressure of
work in agricultural operations.
Those who own five to ten acres of wet land or ten to twenty acres of
dry land constitute some ten per cent of our rural households
and are to be defined as rich peasants. They and their
families do manual labour on their farms, but also employ a
considerable number of wage labourers and farm servants. They normally
not only have enough for their consumption needs but are also able
secure some surplus which can be converted into capital. This is the
basic division and class differentiation, with some variation occurring
from state to state, and region to region.
In this given structure, it is evident that the middle and rich peasant
households which constitute 25 per cent of the total rural households,
will not be moved by the slogan of abolition of landlordism and the
distribution of their land among the agricultural workers and poor
peasants, though the slogan remains the central slogan of the agrarian
revolution, not only because it is in the interests of the agricultural
workers and poor peasants but also because it is in the objective
interest of the peasants in general, and the country as a whole.
The agricultural labourers and poor peasants, who are land-hungry and
respond to the slogan of land distribution wherever they are organised
and led, have not yet the confidence to go into action for the
expropriation of landlords’ land and its distribution among the
agricultural labourers and poor peasants. They are mostly moved
into action for the occupation of waste lands, Government lands and
forest lands. Even the occupation of the so-called surplus lands of the
landlords, over and above the ceiling laws, could be undertaken only
when the state Government of the United Democratic Front in West
Bengal, under the influence of the CPI (M), restrained the police from
going against the fighting peasants. The experience of Kerala shows
that the agricultural labourers and poor peasants who are drawn into
the struggle for land, are inclined to occupy Government and forest
land, but are not yet prepared to seize even the surplus land of
landlords on a big scale.
The ruling Congress Party, utilising its hold ever the state and
Government during the last three and a half decades, has been able to
draw a sizable section of the peasantry into its political fold and
disrupt the peasant unity that had prevailed prior to the winning of
political independence. It is true that this peasant unity which
existed centred around the rich and middle peasants, unlike the peasant
unity which we seek to forge on the basis of the agricultural labourers
and poor peasants. The Congress Party’s hold on the village panchayats,
block samitis and zilla parishads is being utilised to perpetuate
division and disruption among the peasantry. This type of hold on the
peasant is not to be ignored and brushed aside, as the general
ideological hold of the bourgeois-landlord classes on the peasantry –
it is disruptive of peasant unity, and prevents sections of the
peasantry from fighting for the realisation of anti-feudal and
democratic demands.
The foregoing material goes to show that the
Congress agrarian reforms during the last three decades, though they
did not abolish landlordism and give land to the landless, succeeded in
disrupting whatever peasant unity was built in the earlier decades
around the central slogan of abolition of landlordism and land to the
actual tiller.
The- phenomenal increase in the number of landless, which has nearly
doubled under the Congress rule, the continued concentration of 35 to
40 cent of the land in the hands of five to six per cent landlord
households, the growing and large percentage of our people – as high as
50 per cent – in the category that falls below the poverty line; the
poverty, hunger and misery of the great majority of our people and the
consequent fall in the purchasing capacity of the people; the deepening
economic crisis and, above all, the aggravation of the agrarian crisis,
additionally emphasise the urgency of the agrarian revolution.
But this task cannot be fulfilled unless the revolutionary working
class and its Communist Party undertake sustained and deep-going work
among the peasant masses. It requires the creation of a new awakening
and awareness on the part of the peasants in general, and the toiling
and exploited in particular, to build peasant unity, united
organisation and a united movement, on the basis of a new heightened
class consciousness. It demands intense efforts on the part of the
proletariat and its political party to dislodge the bourgeois-landlord
political-ideological hold on the peasantry, and win it as its firm and
reliable ally in the struggle for the
People’s Democratic Revolution.
Though the slogan of the complete abolition of landlordism and
distribution of land gratis among the agricultural labourers and poor
peasants, continues to be the central slogan of the agrarian revolution
for the entire stage of our Peoples’ Democratic Revolution, taking into
account the structural changes effected by the Congress agrarian
reforms, taking serious note of the existing state of organisation,
level of consciousness and degree of unity among the peasantry, this
central slogan remains today still a propaganda slogan.
Until and unless the basic slogan of abolition of landlordism and
distribution of land among the landless and the poor peasantry becomes
a slogan of action, the peasant movement will not be able to
reach the level of partisan struggles on such a scale and intensity as
to enforce partial demands such as reduction of rent, against eviction,
for the abolition of forced labour, etc., as visualised in the Tactical
Line. Even there partial demands have serious limitations under
the present changed conditions, viz., when tenancy, rents, forced
labour, etc., no longer exist in their old form, scale and intensity.
In the light of all these developments, the kisan movement led by our
Party, while projecting the slogan of seizure of landlords’ land and
its redistribution as the central propaganda slogan, and while
organising struggles for waste lands, forest lands, and the so-called
“surplus” lands under the ceiling acts, will have to channelise many
other agrarian currents. These concern the question of wages for rural
workers, the issues of rent reduction, abolition or scaling down of
peasant indebtedness, fair price for agricultural produce, reduction of
tax burdens, abolition of landlord and police zoolum, against
corruption, etc., so that all these currents can be harnessed into one
powerful agrarian stream. Otherwise, the maximum peasant unity,
isolating the handful of landlords and their hirelings cannot be
achieved, nor peasant partisan forces be able to move among the
peasantry like fish in water. The guerrilla areas will not be able to
survive and liberation areas and liberation forces cannot be created.
In this connection, it is necessary to recall what the Party Programme
has stated:
“The agricultural labourers and poor peasants who constitute 70 per
cent of the rural households and are subjected to ruthless exploitation
by landlords, by their very class position in present day society, will
be basic allies of the working class. The middle peasantry, too, are
the victims of the depredations of usurious capital, of feudal and
capitalist landlordism in the countryside and of the capitalist market,
and landlord domination in rural life so affects their social position
in innumerable ways as to make them reliable allies in the democratic
front.
“The rich peasants are another influential section among the peasantry.
The agrarian reforms have undoubtedly benefitted certain sections of
them and to some extent, they gained under the rule of the
post-Independence regime. They aspire to join the ranks of
capitalist-landlords and by virtue of their engaging agricultural
labour on hire for work on their forms, they entertain hostility
towards them. Nonetheless, heavy taxation, high prices for
industrial goods, and inflation, constantly harass them so as to make
their future uncertain. Subject to the ravages of the market under the
grip or the monopolist traders, both foreign and Indian, they come up
often against the oppressive policies pursued by the bourgeois-landlord
Government. By and large, they can also therefore be brought into
the democratic movement and retained as allies in the People’s
Democratic Revolution.”
With the aggravation of the economic crisis, the feudal and semi-feudal
exploitation of the peasants, the oppression of the peasants by the
monopolists, both Indian and foreign, have increased the gap between
the prices of agricultural produce and the prices of inputs and other
industrial commodities. All this makes it possible to build a powerful
united peasant movement – a unity built around the rural labourers and
poor peasants, and mainly based upon them.
The Tasks on the Kisan Front, released in April 1967, shows
the Party’s efforts to assess the development taking place in the
agrarian front. While exposing the Congress land ceiling and
emphasising the need to unite different sections of the peasantry on
different issues facing them, it was stated:
“Experience has proved that the efforts to solve the problem of
redistribution of land through legislations, fixing ceiling on
landholdings, are totally ineffective. The landlords and their
hangers-on are clever enough to bypass all such legislation, to keep
with themselves the bulk of their lands. Our Party and the kisan and
agricultural labour organisations should not therefore, allow
themselves to be fooled by the idea that the basic slogan of ‘Land to
the Tiller’ can be realised through adoption and implementation of
legislation fixing ceilings on landholdings. Our Party should
ceaselessly educate the peasant and agricultural labour masses that the
basic slogan of ‘abolition of landlordism without compensation and
giving land to the agricultural labourers and poor peasants free of
cost’, is to be realised through the mass action of the entire
peasantry. In fact, these struggles for the realisation of their basic
demands are a part of the main revolutionary struggle, the struggle for
the establishment of a People’s Democratic State.
“It is, however, possible, for strong, militant and well-organised
movements of the poor peasants and agricultural labourers to force the
unwilling Government and landlords to distribute fallow lands to some
extent. It is also possible, through effective mass struggles, to
prevent the eviction of tenants from the land they are cultivating, and
to achieve land for house-sites for the rural poor, free of cost, to a
limited extent. Such struggles against evictions and for the
distribution of fallow lands will so strengthen the forces of agrarian
revolution that the revolutionary redistribution of land will be
possible at a subsequent stage. These struggles, therefore, are of
particular interest to the agricultural labourers’ and poor peasants.
Directed as they are against the landlords and the Government, no
stratum of the peasantry is opposed to it; Those middle peasants who
are holding lands under landlords as tenants are, in fact, interested
in the anti-eviction struggles. There is, therefore every possibility
of making these struggles the united struggles of the entire peasantry.
It is, however, the agricultural labourers and poor peasants who are
immediately and directly interested in them. These struggles, therefore
can succeed only if the mass of agricultural labourers and poor
peasants are actively drawn into them and the widest democratic support
is built for them.
“It should also be realised that, while the agricultural labourers,
poor peasants, middle peasants and rich peasants have their different
(and sometimes even conflicting) interests, there is something which
unites them all unity against landlord oppression and the anti-peasant
policies of the bourgeois-landlord state, led by the big bourgeoisie.
On a series of questions like taxation, prices, allocation finance for
projects and so on, conflicts develop between the urban and rural
sectors of the economy, conflicts also develop between the landlords
and rich peasants and the big bourgeoisie, on a number of issues. All
these conflicts being within the framework of the class alliance of the
bourgeoisie and the landlords, they invariably attempt to resolve them
“peacefully”, i.e., within the framework of their solidarity as against
the proletarian strata. Undue emphasis on these conflicts would;
therefore, lead the Party to Right-opportunist mistakes. It would,
however, be equally wrong to dismiss these conflicts within the class
alliance of the ruling classes as of no significance. Occasions may, in
fact, arise when these conflicts among the various strata of the ruling
classes can be so utilised as to isolate the big monopolist bourgeoisie
– the strongest partner of the ruling class alliance, the most ruthless
enemy of the proletarian and semi-proletarian strata. This,
however, depends on the extent to which the agricultural labourers and
poor peasants are organised and brought into action, both on their own
specific slogans and on the general slogans of the peasantry as a whole.”
While striving our utmost to forge all-in peasant unity against
landlordism and the bourgeois state power, we should always guard
against the Right-reformist deviation of basing our kisan movement on
the middle and rich peasantry, instead of building the united peasant
movement around the agricultural labourers and poor peasants.
Certain other Developments that Need to be Assessed
So far, we have tried to briefly point out the changes made in the
Party Programme of 1964, departing from the 1951 Party Programme, and
the changes that have been brought about by the Congress reforms on the
agrarian front – both of which have a direct bearing on our perspective
Tactical Line.
Before we attempt to study the impact of these changes on the Tactical
Line and its implementation, there are other developments which
too need to be taken into serious account if our Party is to really
orientate its work on the lines chalked out in the Statement of
Policy.
(a) In the Tactical Line document, while comparing and
contrasting the favourable and unfavourable factors between China of
1927-49 and India of 1951, it was stated that in China, “because of the
sparse development of railways and other means of transport, the enemy
found it difficult to rapidly concentrate his forces against the areas
held by the Communists”, while “the transport system in India is far
more developed than in China, enabling the Government to swiftly
concentrate big forces against partisan forces.”
This was stated fully 34 years ago. Today, the entire transport system,
road, rail, air and other communications have developed manifold, thus
enabling the Government to even more swiftly move its armed forces
against the workers’ and peasants’ struggles, no matter whether they
are in the rural or urban areas. The continuous state of war with
Pakistan since partition, and the three wars fought with it in 1947,
and 1965 and 1972[sic. The war with Pakistan took place in 1971—editor
Revolutionary Democracy] ; the border clashes between India and
China since 1959 and the border war with it in 1962, and the tribal
revolts such as that of the Nagas, Mizos, etc., were fully utilised by
the Congress Government to develop the transport system in every nook
and corner of the country. Today, unlike in the years 1947-50, the
entire police forces – Special Armed Constabulary, Border Security
Force, Central Reserve Police Force, etc., are fully equipped with
telecommunication facilities.
(b) If, during the years 1947-50, the strength of the Indian army was
around two lakhs or so, today it is nearly one and a half million or
fifteen lakh strong, including the Border Security Force. It is one of
the most modernised armies, next only to those of the developed
imperialist states in the capitalist world. Together with the different
categories of the constabulary, the armed personnel of the Government
of India total anywhere around two million men, who constitute a
formidable force of organised violence against the struggles of the
workers, peasants and other exploited sections of our people.
(c) Our class enemies, the big capitalists, landlords and the
imperialists, drawing upon the innumerable lessons from the post-war
revolutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America, have been systematically
and constantly perfecting the weapons of counter-revolution, enormously
enriching the most cruel techniques of counter-insurgency. In this
regard, the Congress Government in our country is not lagging behind.
So far as our Party is concerned, it remains a helpless victim at the
hands of the class enemies, and not even a systematic study of these
“counter-insurgency” techniques could be undertaken up to now, let
alone the setting up of even a counter-espionage nucleus at the C.C.
level to study the enemy’s ingenious forms, methods and technical
devices, and devise ways and means to counter them and overcome them.
(d) The old, hated “Arms Act”, imposed by the British imperialists, is
still operative in politically independent India, even 38 years after
the transfer of power to the Congress Party. Not even one per cent of
our people have any opportunity, to learn what the butt and barrel of a
gun are, let alone having any knowledge of the multiple sophisticated
weapons of our time.
(e) The big bourgeoisie, which was visualised in the Tactical Line
of 1951 as an ally of the working class in the struggle against
imperialism, has now not only ceased to be an ally and turned out to be
the enemy in the forefront, but it has secured one additional
advantage that was not contemplated in 1951. In its pursuit of the
capitalist path of development in alliance with landlordism and in
collaboration with foreign monopoly capital, it is now able to utilise
the contradiction between the socialist and imperialist worlds, and to
bargain with both in its efforts to build capitalism. Thus the
socialist aid, which enables the bourgeoisie of the newly independent
countries to resist imperialist pressures, is also being used as a
weapon to strengthen itself in its struggle against the working class
and the other toiling people. This new factor and its impact on the
advance of our revolutionary working class movement will have to be
studied in detail.
These factors which impose additional difficulties in the
implementation of the Tactical Line will have to be overcome.
A correct appreciation of all these factors alone will enable us to
give serious thought to the entire question, i.e., taking the
perspective Tactical Line seriously, and working out the
immediate tasks on different fronts in such a way that they dovetail
into the Tactical Line and the perspective laid down in it.
The apprehensions expressed by some of our comrades that the listing of
all the unfavourable factors which have come into operation would
result in either pouring cold water on the perspective Tactical
Line or its virtual abandoning in favour of the classical
urban-based working class insurrection, are unfounded and unwarranted.
Since the issues that we are here dealing with concern the art and
carrying out of the Peoples’ Democratic Revolution; every new
technological factor introduced in the field of warfare will have to be
duly taken into account and assessed. That is what Marx, Engels, Lenin
and Stalin were doing.
For example, the following passages from Engels would show how the
questions of warfare and its techniques were subjected to close study
and discussion from time to time.
Answering the view of the opponents of the proletarian revolution that
“the militant proletariat had been finally buried with the Paris
Commune”, Engels as late as on March 6, 1865, observed:
“The recruitment of the whole of the population able to bear arms into
armies that henceforth could be counted only in millions, and the
introduction of fire-arms, projectiles and explosives of hitherto
undreamt of efficacy, created a complete revolution in all warfare.
This revolution, on the one hand, put a sudden end to the Bonapartist
war period and ensured peaceful industrial development by making any
war other than a world war unheard of or cruelty, and absolutely
incalculable outcome and impossibility. On the other hand, it caused
military expenditure to rise in geometrical progression and thereby
forced up taxes to exorbitant levels and so drove the poorer classes of
people into the arms of Socialism.”
Thus it was shown that though certain unfavourable conditions
temporarily retard the advance of the proletarian revolutionary
movement, certain other favourable factors come into play to counteract
them.
Writing about the German bourgeoisie and its fear of working class
victories in elections, and how they seemed to prefer facing an open
rebellion of the working class, Engels said:
“For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had essentially changed.
Rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades; which
decided the issue everywhere upto 1848, was to a considerable extent
obsolete.
“Let us have no illusions about it: a real victory of an insurrection
over the military in street fighting, a victory as between two armies,
is one of the rarest exceptions. And the insurgents counted on it just
as rarely. For them it was solely a question of making the troops yield
to moral influences which, in a fight between the armies of two warring
countries, do not come into play at all or do so to a much smaller
extent. If they succeed in this, the troops fail to respond, or the
commanding officers lose their heads, and the insurrection wins. If
they do not succeed in this, then even where the military are in the
minority, the superiority of better equipment and training, of single
leadership, of the planned employment of the military forces and of
discipline makes itself felt...
“But since then there have been very many more changes, and all in
favour of the military. If the big towns have become considerably
bigger, the armies have become bigger still. Paris and Berlin have,
since 1848, grown less than fourfold, but their garrisons have grown
more than that. By means of the railways, these garrisons can, in
twentyfour hours, be more than doubled ... The arming of this
enormously increased number of troops has become incomparably more
effective. In 1848, the smooth-bore, muzzle-loading percussion gun,
today the small-calibre, breech-loading magazine rifle, which shoots
four times as far, ten times as accurately and ten times as fast as the
former. At that time the relatively ineffective round shot and
grape-shot of the artillery; today the percussion shells, of which one
is sufficient to demolish the best barricade. At that time, the
pick-axe of the sapper for breaking through firewalls; today the
dynamite cartridge.
“On the other hand all the conditions of the insurgents’ side have
grown worse. An insurrection with which all sections of the people
sympathise will hardly recur; in the class struggle all the middle
strata will probably never group themselves round the proletariat so
exclusively that in comparison the party of reaction gathered round the
bourgeoisie will well-nigh disappear. The ‘people’, therefore, will
always appear divided, and thus a most powerful lever, so
extraordinarily effective in 1948 is gone...
“Does that mean that in the future street fighting will no longer play
any role? Certainly not. It only means that the conditions sine. 1848
have become far more favourable for the military. In future, street
fighting can, therefore, be victorious only if this disadvantageous
situation is compensated by other factors. Accordingly, it will occur
more seldom in the beginning of a great revolution than in its further
progress, and will have to be undertaken with greater forces.”
(Introduction to “The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850”)
On another occasion, Engels, writing to Bebel on November 18, 1884,
about the German Government’s demand on the Social-Democratic Party to
declare that in no circumstances would it resort to force, reasserts
that “indeed no Party has renounced the right to armed resistance, in
certain circumstances, without lying. None has ever been able to
relinquish this ultimate right... To require an unconditional
declaration of this kind from such a party is sheer absurdity.
“For the rest, the gentlemen can keep calm. With military
conditions as they are at present we shall not start our attacks so
long as there is still an armed force against us. We can wait until the
armed force itself ceases, to be a force against us.” (Emphasis
added).
These are cited only to show that issues such as the forms of struggle,
the state of the armed forces, technical developments and the new mode
of arms, etc., were the subject matter of repeated discussions by the
founders of Marxism-Leninism. It would be folly on our part to shut our
eyes to the difficulties, on the alleged ground that these difficulties
might be used by some as an excuse to run away from the real path of
revolution. Our job is to be in constant search for the ways and means
to overcome such difficulties, and to find out from time to time the
vulnerable points in the enemy’s camp, and to make full use of them to
compensate for the weak spots on the revolutionary front.
Factors which can compensate the unfavourable developments
1. If the Tactical Line noted the fact that “India had a far
bigger working class than China was having during her march to
freedom,” the number has more than trebled since then, with the marked
growth of certain key and heavy industries and the development of huge
urban complexes. This is the first biggest asset, and it should be
fully utilised in the People’s Democratic Revolution in every respect.
2. The big percentage of agricultural labourers whose numbers too have
nearly doubled during the last three decades, is not only a valuable
asset to the working class and its Communist Party in organising
agrarian revolutionary struggles, but also proves extremely useful in
effecting the transition to the next, socialist stage of our
revolution. In the matter of conducting peasant partisan struggles,
too, the 50 per cent of agricultural labourers who together with the
poor peasants constitute 70 per cent of the rural households will prove
an invaluable asset, provided they are organised, awakened and united.
3. The sizable growth of the middle classes, both as white-collar
employees in government offices, public undertakings, banks, LIC and
the like, and in several institutions under the private sector, is a
new development. They, mainly as wage-earners and as vocal sections of’
our people, are a valuable segment of our revolutionary forces. The
role of this middle class, unlike in the developed capitalist
imperialist states, is much more militant and revolutionary. A
well-organised industrial and factory working class movement will be in
a happy position to organise and lead this big middle class as its
close ally.
4. The armed forces, which have expanded several fold since
Independence, intended for the use of suppressing the revolutionary
forces as pointed out earlier, have another important aspect. The
mercenary army that was organised by the British rulers was a compact
and handpicked one, recruited mainly from the so-called martial races
and from other backward and tribal areas. The growth of the three wings
of the armed forces, i.e., the army, navy and air force, together with
their modernisation and expansion, etc., is forcing the Government to
come out of the former, narrow framework and recruit more and more
educated people as also people belonging to different big and small
nationalities, the main mass being, from the peasantry.
5. A more favourable international situation: The international
situation today is far more favourable to our revolution than was the
case in 1950. The correlation of class forces on a world-scale has
shifted in favour of the forces of peace, democracy, national
independence and socialism. The world imperialists have not only lost
their political control over their former colonies, but also face
sharpened opposition from the non-aligned countries, mainly on the
economic front; and this they face at a time when the capitalist world
is under the grip of a serious crisis, and the countries of the
socialist system are registering big, economic, industrial and material
advance and achievements. Though the disunity in the world communist
movement and the socialist camp is today preventing the world
revolutionary forces from taking full advantage of the world capitalist
crisis, and in some measure even the existence and growth of the
powerful world socialist system in a third of the world, the latter is
objectively helping the unleashing of different revolutionary currents.
While nothing the adverse impact of world communist disunity on the
revolutionary movements of different communist contingents in the
world, we should draw positive inspiration from the big advances that
are being made by the socialist countries, the national liberation
movements and the working class movements in the capitalist countries.
The socialist world’s share of world industrial production which was
about 25 in 1951, is now 40-45 per cent. The Soviet Union produces more
steel, oil, coal, cement, milk and sugar than the USA. In missiles and
nuclear weapons, in naval strength, the Soviet Union has acquired
parity with the USA with advantages in certain fields.
Peoples’ China has emerged as the third great power in the world after
the USA and the USSR. With an annual production of 30 million tons of
steel, 80-100 million tons of oil, 40 million tons of coal, 290-300
million tons of foodgrains, it is able to supply the minimum needs of
its 900 million people. It has by its own efforts become the third in
nuclear might and has modern weapons, a navy and an air force, capable
of defending itself against any foreign aggression.
The most significant and world historic event during the last 30 years
is the final and total victory of the Vietnamese people over U.S.
imperialism after 30 years of bitter war, and the reunification of
their country. This has been followed by the victories of the peoples
of Lao and Kampuchea.
The Cuban revolution has won and the first socialist state in the
Western Hemisphere has been established and is continuing to develop on
the very doorstep of U.S. imperialism.
All of Africa has become politically free and bitter battles are being
fought by the peoples of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa against the
while [Sic. should be “white” editor – Revolutionary Democracy] racist
regimes there.
The West Asian countries are today preventing an Israeli expansion and
U.S. domination over the vast oil resources of the region.
The working class and democratic forces are more doggedly fighting
their monopolist rulers in the capitalist countries. This is reflected
in the great increase in working class strikes in these countries and
in the growing influence of Communist Parties in countries like Italy,
France, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Japan.
6. Finally, the most important factor that has developed in favour of
our revolution and its perspective path of development is the 38-year
rule of the bourgeois-landlord government and its bankrupt path of
capitalist development. If the people in 1951-52 had great illusions
about the newly-won independence and the Congress promises of a
“welfare state” and the “socialistic pattern” of development, the
situation today is vastly changed, rapid disillusionment and growing
mass discontent being the order of the day.
The economic crisis in India, an integral part of the world capitalist
crisis, has in its turn introduced a crisis in the
bourgeois-parliamentary system. The earlier imposition of the
Emergency, the virtual banning of all legal activities of the
Opposition parties, their trade unions and other class and mass
organisations continues in other forms today. The bourgeois Opposition
parties and groups which were, from time to time, able to mislead the
popular discontent and frustrate the growth of the Left and democratic
forces and the fructification of their united front, stand more and
more exposed as no real and genuine alternatives. The people suffering
under the despotic, one-party rule of the Indian National Congress are
beginning to look upon our Party and its political line as the genuine
and only alternative to the Congress misrule. Thus, the situation today
is far more favourable to our Party and its perspective path of
revolution, provided our Party rises to the occasion, utilises the
opportunities that are present before us, and concretely and correctly
estimates the current situation to work out suitable slogans and forms
of actions that step by step will lead us to the implementation of the
perspective Tactical Line to achieve victory in the
revolution.
The Tactical Line and the current controversies on it
The question arises as to why the Tactical Line or the Statement
of Policy and the revolutionary tactical and organisational
concepts it contains, remained unimplemented all these years.
It is also asked whether the Tactical Line and all the
postulates it contains are still valid, or whether the many
developments that have taken place during the last 35 years invalidate
one or several propositions in it ?
Criticism is also made of the work on the kisan, trade union and Party
organisational fronts not being in conformity with the lines laid down
in the Statement of Policy.
Some express doubts whether reformist, revisionist and parliamentary
illusions do not still persist amongst us, thus preventing our work
from being orientated to the Tactical Line and its
perspective.
Some of these questions have already been answered in the foregoing
pages, but they will bear a brief summing up.
The serious political-ideological differences and the disunity that
plagued the united CPI during the years 1955-64, and the
Right-opportunist outlook that was present in the dominant leadership
of the C.C. and the National Council, certainly played a big role in
virtually shelving the Tactical Line, till the Party split in
1963-64. In reality, it was not merely on programmatic issues, on the
stage, strategy and nature of the Indian Revolution that there was a
sharply divided opinion, but divergent views on the Tactical Line
and the perspective that it embodied did also play a big part in this
prolonged inner-party struggle. In a word, the so-called “peaceful
path” projected by the 20th Congress of the CPSU, and the clash of
opinion in our Party over this Right-reformist thesis cannot be
separated from our inner-party struggle over the Tactical Line.
Thus there was a struggle between the years 1955 and 1964 inside the
united Party. This part of the Party’s history cannot be ignored or
overlooked.
Coming to the period following our Seventh Party Congress in
October-November 1964, with the majority of the central and state Party
leaders detained under the DIR, there was no opportunity to attend to
the task of working out the lines for different class and mass
organisations, in accordance with the Tactical Line till the
last quarter of the year 1966. It was precisely during 1966-67, that
earnest efforts were made in this regard, and the Tasks on the
Kisan Front, Tasks on the Trade Union Front, Tasks
on Party Organisation and the New Situation and Party’s Tasks
were worked out by the P.B. and C.C. Every one of these above-mentioned
resolutions of our C.C. contains serious and forthright attempts to
orientate our mass work to the Tactical Line.
The resolution, Tasks on the Kisan Front, called for
conscious efforts to develop the kisan movement in some compact and
contiguous areas. Similarly, the Calicut Resolution, Our Tasks on
Party Organisation, of November 1967, again called for kisan work,
especially among agricultural workers and poor peasants, round the
industrial and educational centres, to larger and larger areas in a
contiguous belt, and to consolidate scattered kisan areas and
contiguous areas, trying to link them up with the nearest industrial
and educational centres. The plan to develop the revolutionary movement
in certain compact areas, zones or territories and the attempt to see
that such areas, zones, territories were linked up with one or other
big urban centre or industrial city was correct.
To underrate the significance of this effort in any manner neither does
justice to the Tactical Line, nor to our parry’s efforts to
translate it into action.
In the middle of 1967, with the rise of naxalism, and its
left-adventurist political-tactical line, the party’s attention was
once again side tracked into defending the Tactical Line and
its revolutionary content from the left-adventurist and terrorist
distortions of it by the naxalities.
It was an integral part of our party’s struggle to defend and uphold
the Tactical Line and its revolutionary content. To lose
sight of all this or to gloss over it, and on that basis to advance the
criticism that all our shortcomings or failures in not succeeding in
building up the kisan, trade union and party organisation on the lines
laid down in the Tactical Line, is because of our
“revisionist hangover” and “parliamentary illusions” is neither correct
nor objective. From this, it does not follow that all the
right-revisionist and left-adventurist tendencies amongst us are
completely liquidated, that parliamentary and legalist illusions have
totally disappeared and there is nothing more to be done to re-educate
and remould our party in the spirit of the new Party Programme and the Statement
of Policy.
In reality, the differences in the interpretation of different
formulations in the Tactical Line have been cropping up in
the course of our struggle to orientate our work on different tactics
from time to time, which have to be dovetailed into the perspective Tactical
Line.
The resolutions of the C.C. on the kisan front, i.e., the Tasks on
the Kisan Front, are a clear expression of our Party’s struggle to
liquidate the reformist and revisionist weaknesses in the kisan
movement, led by our party.
It is an effort to reorientate our outlook in building the united kisan
movement, the building up of the movement based on the agricultural
labourers and poor peasants, departing from the past practice of mainly
basing it on the middle and rich peasantry.
Similarly, the need for peasant unity, not the old peasant unity based
on the middle and rich peasants, but the unity of the agricultural
workers, poor, middle and rich peasants, based on agricultural
labourers and poor peasants, is sharply emphasised.
The agitation, propaganda and activity on the kisan front, during the
last few years in most of the States where our kisan movement exists,
conform largely to the lines laid down in the above-cited resolution.
In so struggling to reorientate our kisan work, if old reformist
mistakes still persist or new left-sectarian mistakes creep in, the
Party leadership at different levels will have to correct them, keeping
constant track of them. The very weak state of the present organised
kisan movement in our country, its splitting up under different
political parties and groups and the Congress Government’s disruption
and suppression of kisan struggles, have imposed many limitations on
our party’s struggle to organise it on revolutionary lines. Also, we
cannot afford to forget the fact that the kisan movement our party is
heading today, is a part of the old united kisan movement built under
the leadership of the united CPI, and all the weaknesses that it had
inherited cannot be liquidated as quickly and as thoroughly as we wish.
But all efforts must be made to liquidate this legacy as quickly as
possible.
Despite all these difficulties our party’s efforts to correct the
earlier mistakes on the kisan front have registered some progress in
West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar,
Tripura, and some other States.
Tactical Line and its Application to Trade Union Movement
The trade union front, it is true, cannot be treated as just one of the
several class and mass fronts of any Communist Party, since it is
the political party of the working class. Though Communists in
India have been working in the trade union movement for the last half
century and more, our political influence in the class as a whole, and
in the organised trade union movement as such, remains very weak.
As regards our work on the trade union front, it must be stated that,
as on other fronts; we were not starting on a clean slate. Although the
formal split in the communist movement took place in 1964 when we broke
away from the right-revisionist party, we continued to work in the
AITUC, led by the right C.P. and carried on a prolonged struggle with
them – their revisionism and class collaborationist policies – for six
years, with a view to preserving the unity of the trade union movement.
It was only when we found it impossible to unleash mass struggles of
workers by continuing to remain in the AITUC that we decided to form a
separate organisation. In April 1970, a preparatory meeting was held in
Goa and the CITU founded in May 1970.
Despite this break with the AITUC, when it called a conference of
central trade union organisations in May 1971, three months after the
parliamentary elections, we were instrumental in evolving a common
platform of unity and struggle and forcing the formation of a steering
group for evolving steps in furtherance of that platform. That unity
was disrupted when the AITUC and HMS sabotaged its functioning and
finally deserted it and formed a national coordination committee of
trade unions under the auspices of and with the blessings of the
Government. It was after that, that we formed the UCTU.
Our independent activity, coupled with the pursuit of the tactics of
united front had led to many strike struggles on our own, and also
united struggles, frustrating the attempts of the
class-collaborationist leadership of the INTUC, AITUC, HMS to prevent
struggles. Not only were there local and factory-based struggles, out
statewide strikes in a number of industries like textiles, jute,
engineering, sugar took place. This period also witnessed all-India
strikes of cement workers, loco and running staff and of all railway
workers. For the first time in the history of India, there was an
all-India general strike in all industries in support of the railway
workers’ strike.
The role of the CITU in these developments has been such that it has
come to be looked upon by the mass of workers as the most militant
trade union organisation, while the Government and employers treat it
as their enemy number one. We have become the foremost trade union
organisation in the states of West Bengal and Kerala, and the most
effective among all the trade union organisations in Tamil Nadu and
Rajasthan. Our organisation has spread to new areas – Delhi, Western
U.P., Haryana, the coalmines of M.P., Bhilai, Jamshedpur, etc. These
facts must be kept in view while discussing the understanding and
application of the Tactical Line document to the trade union
front.
However, in spite of all these developments during the last few years
since the founding of the CITU, it must be remembered that the
organised working class under the CITU represents only a minority of
the organised working class in the country, that too only in key and
vital industries, leave alone the whole working class in the country.
This broad generalisation on the CITU is not enough and will probably
hold good for a long time to come. What we must concretely assess now
is the CITU strength, its membership and influence in relation to the
total workers, (i) in different states, (ii) in the different
industrial centres in the states, (iii) in key and vital industries in
the states as well as on an all-India scale; we should also assess the
CITU strength in relation to the strength of other trade union
organisations affiliated to the AITUC, INTUC and others, as well as
non-affiliated independent unions. Without this, we will be carried
away by our subjective desires and not by objective realities. Without
an objective assessment we will be dragged into wrong tactics in the
course of developing working class mass actions, building trade union
unity overcoming the present divisions.
It was precisely to overcome this above-mentioned weakness and several
other shortcomings; that it was stated in the document Tasks on
the Trade Union Front:
“The working class as a class can play its historic, political class
role in the people’s democratic revolution if the trade union struggle
wherein it gains its initial consciousness, trains it, disciplines it
and raises its consciousness to discharge its political obligations”. (Tasks
on the Trade Union Front para 2.)
“For the Marxist-Leninist Party the tasks on the trade union front do
not comprise only the Tactical Line of running the trade
unions as organs of daily struggles for the effective defence of the
economic interests of the working class under given conditions. While
defending daily interests, they aim at organising a disciplined working
class with revolutionary Socialist consciousness” drawing it nearer to
the Party, with its best elements joining the Party in hundreds,
enabling the class as a whole to play its historic political role in
the revolutionary struggle.” (Tasks on Trade Union Front, P.
1, para 4).
While attaching vital importance to the defence of the daily interests
of the working class, and the building of its mass trade union
organisation, it measures its own success and the success of the
working class movement by the level of revolutionary consciousness
created during the course of these struggles, the advance of the
Marxist-Leninist Party among the workers, and the extent to which
the Party is able to exercise its leadership over the trade union
movement, (Tasks on the Trade Union Front, page 2, line 14-21
emphasis added)
Working Class Hegemony
It is necessary to remember that one of the major issues on which we
fought the revisionists is the hegemony of the working class – the
precondition for the victory of the democratic revolution. While the
revisionists discarded it, we stuck to the Leninist concept.
Secondly, the passages quoted above from the Tasks on the Trade
Union Front emphasise the nationwide role of the working class,
its trade union movement and the forging of its unity. That means the
entire class has to be organised and united. Its trade union unity must
be brought about. In the course of the struggle, political
consciousness has to be roused. The majority of the workers in the
vital industries, as a class – not only in priority areas – is to be
won over.
In developing working class hegemony in the Indian revolution, our
struggle for trade union unity has a vital role to play. The struggle
for trade union unity is the preliminary struggle for preparing the
class hegemony of the leading class. The struggle for trade union unity
through the application of united front tactics has to be seen in this
light. Its role should be clearly grasped. A failure to understand the
class role leads to undermining the struggle for the unity of the
working class.
The C.C. resolution on Tasks on Party Organisation of
November 1967 had stated; “Thirdly, in our choice of fronts, priority
is for the working class and students in cities, and agricultural
labour and poor peasants in rural areas. In the working class, too, the
priority is for key and major industries, and then the scattered
small-scale or household industries.” This is the correct orientation
of the Tactical Line document.
While we attempt to concentrate and build the trade unions in key
industries, we must also build the movement industry wise, state wise
and on an all-India basis. The two do not conflict with each other, and
in fact, should go together. In this, the importance of developing the
movement in contiguous areas and regions should be kept in mind.
Further the trade union pockets and movements our party inherited when
the CITU was founded do not fit into a neat scheme of priority areas
and industries. This has to be kept in view in developing the movement.
We have to take this understanding and examine whether any formulations
made in subsequent documents conflict with or are capable of giving a
different understanding. We have also to take into account life
experience. Examined in this light, if any corrections are necessary,
they must be made.
The Muzaffarpur resolution of the C.C. of 1973 stated: “Our tactics in
the face of the uneven development of the movement must be to
consolidate and extend to contiguous areas from the existing states,
and develop these as wider and wider mass bases, while in the weaker
states or areas, select the key centres or fronts to begin with, and
link up with the, majority strong centre till we have a wider area
where we can really function as a powerful mass and political force.”
It is also stated, When we are concentrating on key industries, we
begin first with the key industries in the priority areas and develop
neighbouring peasant belts before we try to spread and extend
the organisation even in these key industries on a statewide basis.”
It is again stated: “In the name of developing a statewide trade union
movement, even in the key and basic industries, it is no use the Party
dispersing its energies throughout the state. Trade union work in that
priority area means beginning with the key industries and spreading to
other industries in that area, spreading among the peasantry all
around.... Work among the railway and road transport or other strategic
industries means priority to those industries in these areas, and
expansion of these throughout the state gets secondary importance,
after other fronts in the priority areas have been looked after, and in
no case at the cost of other fronts in the priority areas.”
In the above-cited passages from our C.C. Resolution of Muzaffarpur, of
March 1973, there are certain ideas and formulations which give the
wrong meaning of counterposing the importance of work in compact areas
and zones to that of extension and expansion of our trade union work,
industry wide and state wide. These will have to be corrected.
There have been some views and criticism regarding the shortcomings and
drawbacks in our party’s work on the trade union front. Such views and
criticism fall into three broad categories.
The first is about the shortcomings and weaknesses that are
common to the trade union movement in the entire country, in which our
Party is able to assume leadership for only a small part. These
shortcomings pertain to the issue of building the party in
the trade unions, developing kisan work around the industrial centres,
raising political consciousness among the working class, working in
reformist trade unions, organising of secret party units in factories
and trades, etc. Further these weaknesses are a legacy of the long
past, and it requires patient and prolonged work to overcome them. That
cannot be achieved as long as our influence on the trade union movement
in the country is confined to a few, pockets in some states, a few
branches of industries and concerns in the whole Indian Union, and a
minority of the industrial working class. The fact that many such
shortcomings and weaknesses still persist in the working class movement
led by the CITU does not automatically and necessarily follow that it
is so because of the incorrect understanding of the perspective Tactical
Line and the role of the working class visualised in it. These are
long-term tasks on the trade union front, and sustained and prolonged
work, with a correct Marxist-Leninist understanding alone can overcome
them.
The second concerns setting up statewise, countrywise and
industrywise federations which are not in a position to really and
effectively function; the organising of unions separately, under the
CITU where it is neither desirable from the angle of, trade, union
unity, nor from the angle of their desirability under the conditions of
growing repression; and the functioning or otherwise of the T.U.
sub-committees and fractions, etc., in accordance with the lines laid
down by the C.C. on this subject.
The third viewpoint and criticism relates to the concept of
proletarian hegemony, its interpretation and the means and methods of
achieving it in the concrete conditions obtaining in our country. It
other words it pertains to the correct application of the concept of
combining the two major weapons of struggle in our revolution.
In the views and criticisms cited above, the last one is very much
germane to the discussion of the Tactical Line, and the
differences that have appeared over it.
The Tactical Line and the Statement of Policy
documents, while laying down the perspective path of the People’s
Democratic Revolution in India, have negated the two perspective paths
that were projected and debated during the years of 1948-51, namely,
the so-called Russian path and the Chinese path. The Russian path was
understood as the capture of power in the cities and urban centres
through political general strike and armed insurrection, and then
proceeding to the liberation of the vast rural areas. The Chinese path
was understood as the creation of liberated areas and liberation armies
through prolonged peasant partisan warfare, under the leadership of
Communist Party, and then proceeding to the liberation of the cities
and urban centres.
If the advocates of the Chinese path contemplated prolonged peasant
partisan struggle as the major weapon for the success of the Indian
Revolution, the opponents of the Chinese path and the advocates of the
Russian path contemplated the political general strike and
revolutionary uprising of the working class to capture power in the
cities and urban centres as the major weapon for the victory
of the Indian Revolution.
The Tactical Line document of 1951 rejected both schools of
thought, on the grounds that in the specific Indian conditions neither
of these two weapons alone could become the major weapon for
a successful revolution, only a combination of both.
The Tactical Line not only rejected the two “paths”, but also
the specific role allotted to the working class and the peasantry by
the advocates of the respective “paths”. It observed that if those who
believed in the Chinese path relegated the role of the working class to
the background, the others who upheld the Russian path ignored the role
of the peasantry in a colonial or semi-colonial country such as India,
with a huge peasant population suffering under feudal and semi-feudal
oppression.
Thus the Tactical Line postulates the perspective path of
tactics as the combination of peasant partisan struggle and urban
workers’ uprising, while specifying the role of both the working class
and peasantry, under the specific conditions prevailing in India.
Thus, it is quite evident that the perspective Tactical Line,
which negates the political general strike and armed uprising of the
workers as the major weapon for the success of the,
revolution, does not rule out general strike and revolutionary uprising
of the working class during the course of the revolutionary struggle
for power, visualising it to take place only at the final stage
of the capturing of political power.
Our party, while adhering to the basic postulates made in the
perspective Tactical Line document worked out in the year
1951, must also take into account the big socio-economic developments
that have taken place in our country during the years since then, and
work out its tasks in conformity with the, perspective projected in the
Tactical Line document.
Since the possibility of either a short and swift attack, as was the
case in the Russian revolution, or a prolonged peasant partisan warfare
for twenty years and more like in the Chinese revolution cannot
materialise in the specific Indian conditions, we should strive to
combine both the weapons for the success of our revolution.
The economic crisis and its maturing, the widespread development of the
revolutionary movement in the working class, peasantry and other
exploited masses, the building of a powerful and steeled Marxist party,
the building of the people’s democratic front, the successful
utilisation of the legal possibilities combined with illegal
activities, and, the two major weapons of workers’ uprising and peasant
partisan struggle – all these constitute the components of the Tactical
Line.
Any lopsided stress on one or two of the above-mentioned aspects, to
the neglect or virtual negation of other, equally important aspects, is
bound to undermine the very basis of the Tactical Line, and
its living spirit.
Weakness in the T.U. movement
Despite the advance registered in the trade union movement during the
last few years after our split from the revisionists, it is a fact that
serious weaknesses persist, and without overcoming these the working
class cannot play the role of hegemon, nor can the democratic movement
be developed widely, which alone will create the basis for a successful
revolutionary struggle. These weaknesses have been earmarked long ago
in the Tasks on the Trade Union Front and repeatedly
emphasised in CITU documents.
The working class movement in the country is badly divided, and it is
not yet sufficiently organised even on a trade basis. A big section of
it is still under the influence of the ruling Congress party and other
petty-bourgeois parties. The level of political consciousness is very
low, and even the section that is organised under the CITU, and on
which there is the general political influence of the CPI (M), cannot
be described as having socialist consciousness.
We have not yet succeeded in organising auxiliary units and regular
party units from amongst those who are under our Party’s general
political influence. Unless the working class under the leadership of
the CITU succeeds in uniting the class on a much bigger and wider
scale, and makes big advances in politicising the class and building a
strong Communist Party out of it, the revolutionary tasks enjoined by
the perspective Tactical Line can never be fulfilled. Our
party must make redoubled efforts to liquidate these grave shortcomings
on the working class front.
In general, the trade unions under our leadership have not yet
succeeded in rousing even that section of the working class to take up
the issues of the peasantry, without which there can be neither
worker-peasant alliance nor working class hegemony. Many workers come
from the rural areas and are connected with the peasants by a thousand
and one ties. If they are made conscious, they can organise the
peasantry in those areas. That this is possible has been shown by
experience. A serious effort must be made to appoint developed
class-conscious working class cadres to discharge this task.
Secondly, the Tactical Line document explains not only that
the building of the close and firm alliance of the working class and
peasantry requires the working class to champion the demands of the
peasants, but also that it comes out in actions in support of the
struggles of the peasants. This has been repeatedly emphasised in the Tasks
on the Trade Union Front, Tasks on Party Organisation
and in the documents of the CITU.
“But barring rare cases like the Bombay” working class collecting
sizable funds for the relief of the Maharashtra peasants when the State
was going through a severe famine, and the jute workers of West Bengal
in their conference taking up in a big way the issue of the price of
raw jute to the growers, nothing much has been done.
Thirdly, very weak also have been our efforts to raise the
consciousness of the entire working class under our influence regarding
the general political situation in the country and the tasks it has to
perform in this regard in relation to the objective of a people’s
democratic revolution. Repeatedly, the trade union documents have
pointed out the weakness of “economism” in the trade union movement and
the need to politicise the workers. Any yet this weakness persists both
in the section under the influence of the CITU, and the far larger mass
of the working class as a whole.
The deepening and expanding of the popular movement in general, is
necessary for the widespread development of partisan struggles, city
uprisings and successful revolution.
This cannot be brought about without the working class championing the
cause of all sections of the people, their demands, and actions, and
actively supporting their struggles.
These weaknesses are due to the weaknesses arising out of lack of
consciousness, born out of the reformist outlook that persists despite
our break with the revisionists. A serious and sustained struggle has
to be carried on against this hangover of the revisionist outlook,
economism, etc., and these shortcomings quickly overcome by the party
at all levels.
Development of the movement on wide scale
The Tactical Line document stated: “It is one of the key
tasks of the Party to forge the unity of the working class, to unite
the popular forces on the basis of the concrete programme and to
grow into a mass party so as to be able to supply the leadership which
alone can unify and expand the mass movement, to raise it to a higher
level.”
This means that for the successful overthrow of the bourgeois-landlord
government, for the success of the revolutionary movement, the party
must have the support of the people. The basic condition is the widest
possible mass base from which to operate.
After we founded our Party in 1964, then came out of jail, after the
general elections, we worked out The Tasks on Party Organisation,
in November 1967. In that initial stage, taking into consideration the
tremendous uneven development of the Party and its mass base, the
document directed that the movement be built in compact and contiguous
areas.
Since that document was written, the mass movement has grown in West
Bengal and Kerala. It is the strongest force and has a wide mass base
in these two States. In Tripura also, the Party has a wide mass base,
but it is a very small State.
This development frightened the government. It unleashed semi-fascist
terror in West Bengal and savage repression in Kerala and Tripura.
For long, from 1942-43 in fact, the Congress party has been hostile to
the CPI. Following Indian Independence in 1947, the ruling Congress
party began furious attacks on the communist movement in India. This
antagonism was further aggravated, concentrating its main fire against
the CPI (M) after it broke away from the CPI in the 1963-64 period.
Anti CPI (M) front-building has become a part of class strategy.
The defence and further progress of these advance movements requires
the extension of the movement to ever new areas, new states and
industries. This has become an urgent necessity.
The development of the mass base in the other states requires the
intervention of the party, as effectively as possible, in the popular
movements that have been developing there and are bound to develop in
the future.
The document of 1967 as well as the organisationa1 resolution by the
C.C. at Muzaffarpur were the first attempts to orientate our current
work on different fronts, on the lines of the perspective Tactical
Line. These documents were prepared without either a collective
discussion of the Tactical Line or arriving at a common
understanding. We cannot therefore stick to every formulation made, or
adhere to the letter of the position regarding “priority areas” or
“strategic areas” without making provision for the possibility of
developing our movements and expanding influence on a wide scale,
through intervention in the struggles which break out because of
objective conditions.
The Tactical Line document directs the creation of a wide
mass base all over the country, and the organisation of the working
class on an all-India basis, winning over the majority in the strategic
industries all over the country. Experience has shown that in the face
of semi-fascist terror, it is impossible to defend and expand advanced
movements without all-India support.
It must be realised that mass struggles are breaking out in various
places where we are weak. In the absence of our party, other
reactionary parties take the leadership of these struggles preventing
the orientation of such struggles towards democratic revolution. It is
essential that the party’s links with these struggles be established in
order to help them spread further and politically influence the masses
involved, in the direction of the democratic revolution.
It is in this connection that widespread political propaganda and
development of the movement by the party in the country as a whole, not
only in the priority areas and strong states, becomes a must.
It must be realised that at present the growth of the popular
democratic movement lags behind the growth of popular discontent. While
discharging its tasks on the trade union and peasant fronts, and while
intervening in popular struggles when and, where they break out, the
party has to give due attention to organising and leading the movements
of students, youth and women.
These weaknesses must be quickly overcome.
The Tactical Line document also deals with the need to build
a mass party for successfully carrying out the people’s democratic
revolution. Its implications for party-building are dealt with in a
separate document.
The 38-year rule of the bourgeois-landlord government, the policies it
has pursued in pursuit of the path of building capitalism in
collaboration with foreign monopolists, and in alliance with feudal
landlordism, have all landed the country in a very deep crisis. They
have led to a tremendous intensification of the exploitation of the
people. Mass unemployment, poverty and misery have grown. As a result,
the conflict between the people and government has intensified. The
policies and measures that the government has taken in its attempt to
get over the crisis only aggravate the conflict.
Further, these policies have led to intense conflicts between the
ruling party and all other bourgeois Opposition parties, and in-fights
inside the ruling party as a continuous feature. The government had
earlier to declare a state of internal emergency when it did away with
all freedoms, abrogated the rule of law itself. Vast sections who
hitherto had remained unaffected by political developments, were
enraged by these developments. All this has opened-up vast
opportunities for developing the democratic movement on a far wider
scale, for fulfilling the tasks laid down in the Tactical Line
document.
In concluding the discussion on the perspective Tactical Line
and its implications, bearing in mind the possible course visualised of
the development of the People’s Democratic Revolution in our country,
the key importance of the combination of peasant and workers’
uprisings, adhering to it and accordingly building our working class
and peasant movements and the Communist Party, we must also be prepared
for every contingency.
Many developments which we cannot foresee at the present stage of our
movement may confront us. In what kind of national and international
situation the Indian revolution will break out, how the nationalities
problem shapes itself if the present path of capitalist development is
allowed to persist for long, we cannot predict with any precision and
exactitude. We can only, and must orientate our work to building the
class and mass movements in the country, building the party and forging
the people’s democratic front for the People’s Democratic Revolution.
***
Published by Rajendra Prasad On behalf of NATIONAL BOOK CENTRE 14, Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001 and printed at Progressive Printers, C-52-53, D. D. A. Sheds, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase I, New Delhi-110020
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