Amendments to the Draft Document on the Tactical Line of the Communist Party of India [1]

I.V. Stalin
(March 1951)

Introduction

The discussions in Moscow in early 1951 between the Soviet leadership headed by Stalin and the CPI leadership, S.A. Dange, Ajoy Ghosh and M. Basuvapunnaiah, were concerned with the elaboration of the Programme and Tactical Line of the Indian revolution. The meetings were considered necessary by the CPI in the light of the failures generated by the Ranadive and Andhra Committee lines in the previous four years. The Ranadive-Adhikari line under the influence of the Yugoslavs advocated a political line in which the democratic and socialist tasks of the revolution were immediately intertwined. Effectively this represented the pursuance of the perspective of socialist revolution in a semi-colonial dependent country. Stalin considered the line of socialist revolution to be dangerous for India and this had prompted the Cominform resolution of January 27, 1950, which stressed the democratic nature of the Indian revolution. Under Ranadive, moreover, the CPI had undertaken strike actions of the railwaymen which were way beyond their strength.

After 1935 when the policy of Popular Front was adopted in some of the imperialist and dependent countries the notion of direct socialist revolution was now passé. And after the Second World War Stalin and the Soviet party had developed the notion of People’s Democracy as the immediate task of the communist movement around the world as the road to socialism. This is evident from Stalin’s discussions with Harry Pollitt which suggested People’s Democracy as the immediate appropriate stage not only for Britain but also for other imperialist powers such as the United States and Canada. This is confirmed by the writings of W.Z. Foster and Tim Buck in this period as well in the works of the Soviet Marxist Leninist theorist, A. I. Sobelov.

The Andhra Committee upheld the democratic revolution but narrowly emulated the Chinese revolution by excluding the working class from its tactical line. Stalin pointed out that the Communist Party of China had the advantage of a friendly Soviet rear which saved the People’s Liberation Army from encirclement and destruction from the Nationalists. The Chinese were also beneficiaries of the liberation of Manchuria by Soviet and Mongolian troops. India had no such benefits and it had to compensate for this by organising the support of an armed working class. The overall perspective of both the drafts of the Programme and Tactical Line were based on the discussions of the Soviet leadership and the CPI leaders. Stalin in his suggested amendments stressed that the democratic revolution could not be done peacefully but though revolution. The most extensive suggestions related to the question of the use of individual terror by the Andhra Committee in the Telengana struggle. In his discussions with Stalin, Rajeshwara Rao sought to defend the practice of individual terror. Stalin countered his views by referring to the views of Lenin on the question. The national movement and the communists had terrorist components in India in the early twentieth century. Stalin from 1926 in his ‘Letter to Johnson’ had fought against the terrorist trend which had a retarding effect on the development of the mass movement. This fight by Stalin continued in the Moscow exchanges in 1951 and is equally relevant to the politics of individual terror in the countryside and towns which was initiated in India in the 1960s. The Programme and Tactical Line of 1951 was occluded by all major sections of the communist movement in the post-Stalin period. The consequence of this was the re-emergence of the parliamentary path and the complementary politics of individual terror. Effectively, all communist trends in India rejected the line of revolutionary parliamentism advocated by the Bolsheviks and Comintern. These problems were summarised, highlighted and criticised in the suggested changes to the text by Stalin. The Tactical Line was a closed document in the CPI. An open version of the Tactical Line was entitled Statement of Policy of the Communist Party of India. It was adopted by the Calcutta Conference and published for the first time in November 1951.

Vijay Singh

Not peaceful, but revolutionary way.[2]

1. The main immediate aims proposed in the draft programme of the Communist Party of India is the liquidation of feudalism, distribution of all land in the possession of the feudal elements among the peasants and the agricultural workers and achieving full national independence and freedom. These aims cannot be reached by peaceful, parliamentary way. These aims can be reached only by overthrowing in a revolutionary way the existing order in India and replacing it with a peoples’ democratic order. With this in mind the Communist Party will make all efforts to mobilize the peasantry and the whole working class against the feudal exploiter, strengthen the unity of the workers with the peasantry and establish on a national scale, under the leadership of the workers, a broad united front of all anti-imperialist classes (including the national bourgeoisie), sections, groups and other elements ready to fight for democracy [3], freedom and independence of India.

2. While resorting to all forms of struggle, including the most elementary forms and using all legal possibilities for the mobilization of the masses, and moving forward in the struggle for freedom and democracy, the Communist Party has always maintained that in present colonial order in India and in view of absence of any genuine democratic freedom legal and democratic opportunities are strictly limited and therefore replacing the existing order supported by imperialist-feudal order by a people’s democratic state is possible only by means of an armed uprising of the people. The concrete experience of the past 3 years of so called independent transition of power is only a proof of this assertion.

Combination of guerrilla warfare in the country with the uprising of the workers in the city.

3. Still, among the rank and file of our party incorrect and distorted views prevailed regarding the exact nature of the armed struggle and the form of such a struggle in order to achieve success. In the period since the 2nd Congress of the party the dominating tendency among the leadership was to ignore the colonial character of the economy of India, reject drawing any lessons from the experience of the revolutionary movement in China and other colonial countries, undermine the great importance of the peasant struggle to promote the view that general political strikes in the cities and industrial regions is the main tool of our revolution, that such strikes on their own would suffice to cause a revolt all over the country and would lead to the overthrow of the existing order.

Later, on the basis of misreading of the experience of the Chinese revolution, the another thesis that the revolution in India will develop along the same path as the revolution in China and that the partisan struggle will be the main or even the only tool in achieving victory was put up.

While the former thesis undermines the importance of the peasant masses and their struggle, the latter undermines the importance of the workers and their actions. Both the tactical lines were a result of ignoring of the particular conditions in India and the tendency of a mechanical comparison with other countries.

Both theoretically and practically these two tactical lines rejected the main objective of uniting the workers and the peasantry, rejected the aim of building a united national front on the only solid foundation of such unity, rejected the leading role of the class of workers in the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution.

4. In order to develop a correct tactical line it is necessary to reject these incorrect theses and to take account of all the particular conditions existing in India. India is a large country with a backward largely colonial economy and 80% of its population is dependent on agriculture. In such a country, a guerrilla warfare, as the experience in China shows, is one of the most potent means in the arsenal of the revolutionary movement and the Communist Party must make use of it in the struggle for national liberation. At the same time, we need to understand that there are factors, characteristic for India, which are such that the exclusive use of this means cannot lead to victory. A split in the national front in China in 1927 brought about a simultaneous split in the armed forces and in the beginning the Communist Party had 30,000 strong army.

Apart from this, an underdeveloped network of railways and other means of transport did not allow the enemy to quickly concentrate its forces against the regions occupied by the guerrillas. [4] Despite of these advantages that the revolutionary forces enjoyed, there were on numerous occasions encircled by the enemy. They were forced to break out of this encirclement and move to newer regions to escape annihilation in order to regroup their forces. Only when they moved to Manchuria and found a solid rear in the Soviet Union, the threat of encirclement was receded and could conduct a strong offensive that in the end brought about the liberation of China. So, precisely the support in the form of a powerful and solid rear provided by the Soviet Union had a decisive role in the victory of the tactics of a partisan war in the Chinese countryside.

5. In this sense the situation in India is different. Firstly, we do not have a ready guerrilla army and it needs to be created. The transport network in India is much more developed than in China allowing the government to quickly concentrate large number of forces against the partisans. And most importantly, the geographical location of India is such that we cannot depend on any friendly state which could offer a strong and solid rear.

This does not mean that there can be no partisan struggle in India. On the contrary, on the grounds of the above cited factors, a partisan struggle should be one of the main weapons in our arsenal as in all colonial countries. However, just this weapon alone cannot provide victory. It should be used along with other weapons – a general strike and revolt in the towns under the leadership of the armed units of workers. Intensive work should also be done among the armed forces of the government which almost totally consists of people from the oppressed and exploited sections of the peasantry that can be won over to the side of the revolution. Thus, combining these two principal [5] factors of the revolution, guerrilla warfare of the peasants and worker’s revolts in the cities, is absolutely necessary in India to achieve victory of the People’s Democratic Revolution.

6. Guerrilla occupied areas would inevitably come up in various parts of the country as the crisis would deepen and the peasant movement would grow to the level of a revolutionary takeover of the lands and the grain reserves, thereby, paralysing and destroying local enemy forces. These regions and the revolutionary forces operating in these areas will always be under the threat of being encircled and destroyed by the enemy. Even the formation of liberated territories with armed units of their own in many parts of the country will not eliminate this threat as the regions themselves will be surrounded on all sides by the enemy forces. Therefore, a guerrilla warfare alone, independent of the fact that how widespread it will be, cannot lead to victory over the enemy under the present concrete circumstances in India. When the intensifying crisis will lead to widespread struggle and when the guerrilla forces in a number of areas will fight against the enemy, the workers in the towns and in the main branches of industry, particularly in transport, will have to play a decisive role. The offensive of the enemy on the guerrillas and against the liberated areas must be resisted and paralysed through massive strikes by the workers. If a broad surge of guerrillas will combine with the general strike and revolt of the workers in the towns, the enemy will not be able to concentrate its forces in any one area to defeat the revolutionary forces and will itself then face the possibility of defeat and destruction. Even among the armed forces of the government the crisis will intensify and large groups will join the forces of the revolution.[6]

Union of workers and peasants, as a prerequisite for victory.

7. Such a perspective demands extremely close unity of the workers and the peasantry and leadership role by the workers on the basis of such a unity. This unity is created in course of actions, boldly defending the demands of the peasants through direct support which will be given to the peasants by means of demonstrations and strikes. Leadership by the workers will be done not simply through the communist party, but primarily through direct massive actions of the workers in support of the demands and struggle of the peasantry. The class of workers is closest to the peasantry which sees it as its closest friend and ally. Many workers are natives of agricultural regions and are connected to the peasantry by innumerable ties. The actions of the workers do not only help in the ongoing struggle of the peasantry but also, as history of our national movement shows, inspire [7] the peasantry in the nearby regions, revolutionise it and help in attracting new masses of peasants into the struggle. In the present situation in India when all the classes and all the sections excluding a handful of exploiters are facing the threat of death from hunger and when the hatred against the government is on the rise, the actions of the workers on questions of decreasing food rations can be a great tool for revolutionizing [8] the whole population to give concrete form to expressing their discontent, for creating the unity in the actions and promoting the peoples movement to higher levels. While carrying on its struggle not only for its own demands, but also for the demands of all discontented classes and groups, especially the peasantry, and acting as the main defender of a genuine democratic movement, the class of workers acts like a leader of the revolutionary population and builds its revolutionary unity.

8. Therefore, of prime importance is creating political consciousness in the class of workers, of making it aware of its role as the hegemon, overcoming the present lack of unity of the class of workers, attracting to our side the majority of the workers in the main branches of the industry and building a strong movement of the worker class with underground committees in the factories and workshops as its core. The best and the most active elements must be brought into the party and preparatory work needs to be done for creating armed units of workers in major industrial centres. All of this requires intensive political propaganda work among the workers, patient daily work, leadership of the struggle for the immediate demands of the workers and creation of a strong trade union movement. Only a united class of workers and a class of workers aware of its hegemonic role can create unity.

Guerrilla warfare of the peasants.

9. In agricultural areas, the party needs to mobilize every layer of the peasantry against feudal exploitation including rich peasants and create unity among them on the support of agricultural worker and poor peasants who together constitute the majority of the population. Though the liquidation of feudalism and distribution of land among the peasants must continue to be our main slogan of an agrarian revolution during the whole period, we also need to formulate the immediate concrete demands for each province and for each region such as reduction of rent, just payment for agricultural products, abolition of feudal taxes and forced labour, a basic minimum for agricultural workers etc., and head the actions for implementation of these demands. The agrarian crisis is about to come to a boil, against the present government, that has come to power because of their support and has then betrayed them, discontent is all pervasive among the peasants. However, despite the widespread discontent against the government despite the frequent demonstrations by the peasants in many parts of the country, the peasant movement in the country overall is quite weak for now, and large sections of the peasantry are not yet engaged in active struggle because of lack of organisation and firm leadership. Our objective should be to overcome these weaknesses through persistent popularisation of our agrarian programme, by putting forward specific and easy to understand demands that can become the foundation for wide ranging actions by means of patient day to day work and correct leadership of the struggle for these demands and also by creating during this struggle a network of organisations of the peasants and of the agricultural workers with underground cells in the countryside as leadership and directive centres. Volunteer units consisting of military men-fighters and committed groups of peasantry need to be formed for the defence of the peasant movement against the enemy’s onslaught. These units will become the core of partisan units as the movement progresses and reach the stage of seizure of land and guerrilla warfare.

10. As the crisis grows, the movement and the unity, consciousness and organisation is strengthened, the strength and the influence of the party increases and as the enemy resorts to more and more ruthless measures to destroy the peasant movement, so will the question when and where to use arms become more and more important. As this question is a very important practical question, it is undoubtedly necessary that the party must come up with a clear and unambiguous answer.

It is necessary to understand that due to the large territory of India, different levels of consciousness of the masses and different levels of mass movements in different parts of the country, unequal intensity of the agrarian crisis and varying influence of the party itself, the peasant movement cannot develop at an even pace everywhere. Undoubtedly one must avoid untimely revolts and adventurist actions of any kind. At the same time it would be a mistake to assert that one should resort armed actions of a guerrilla warfare in a particular area only when the movement in the rest of the regions reaches the stage of a rebellion. On the contrary, as the movement progresses a situation may be created in some regions that will require armed struggle taking the form of a guerrilla warfare; for instance in the large topographically advantageous regions where the peasant movement has matured enough for seizure of lands, the question how to carry out such a seizure of land and how to defend the seized lands will become the most urgent question of the time. The Party thinks [9] that, in these conditions, the guerrilla warfare begun by the masses of the peasantry especially by the most oppressed and exploited on the basis of a genuinely mass peasant movement and strong unity under the leadership of the Party, combined with other forms struggle such as boycott of the landowners, mass refusal to pay rents, strikes by agricultural workers can, if properly carried out and directed, stir up and revolutionise the peasant masses in all the regions of the country and raise their struggle to a higher level.

As the guerrilla warfare progresses it must be combined with mass actions of the class of workers especially in neighbouring regions such as strikes and demonstrations. Begun on the basis of careful preparations and accounting for all possible factors the guerrilla warfare must be carried on with courage and perseverance and the accomplishments of the movement be defended by all means at our disposal.

At the same time the party must act with utmost flexibility when the superior enemy forces are concentrated against the guerrilla areas and the guerrilla forces face the threat of defeat and complete annihilation.[10]

Guerrilla warfare and individual terror [11]

11. Despite the offensive character of the guerrilla warfare, in our agitation and propaganda it is necessary to emphasize at first the defensive character of the guerrilla warfare, claiming that the goal of the guerrilla warfare is at the first place to defend the peasants from the attack of the government and its repressive organs, at the same time it is needed to pay special attention to the demands of the peasants they are fighting for and the atrocities of the government which forced the peasants to take up arms. It is necessary to point out that the government is responsible for the violence and bloodshed.

Guerrilla warfare is often confused with individual terror and at the same time it is claimed that individual terror is a part of guerrilla warfare and not only a part, but even the backbone of the guerrilla warfare. This is completely incorrect. Moreover, individual terror contradicts the essence and the tasks of the guerrilla warfare and it is completely incompatible with the guerrilla warfare. First, the task of the individual terror is to annihilate certain individuals and not to destroy the regime of feudal exploitation and people’s deprivation of rights, and the task of the guerrilla warfare is not to annihilate certain individuals but the hated regime during the protracted struggle of the masses of the people. Second, individual terror is conducted by certain individuals - the terrorists or small groups of terrorists who operate separately from the masses of the people and without connection to their struggle, and the guerrilla warfare is conducted by the masses of the people themselves and not by certain individuals, it is conducted with close connection to the struggle of the masses against the existing regime.

Since the individual terror is against the certain individuals and not against the regime, it creates the illusion among the masses of the people the harmful illusion that it will be possible to destroy the regime by annihilating its certain representatives, that the idea is not to destroy the regime but its certain representatives, that the main evil is not the existence of the regime but the existence of its certain most evil representatives which should be annihilated. It is clear that these sentiments which the individual terror creates can only weaken the fight of the government against the people. This is the first and the main harm which individual terror does to the people’s guerrilla movement.

Since the individual terror is conducted not the masses of the people but by certain individuals - terrorists who operate separately from the masses, individual terror leads to excessive underestimation of the role of the mass movement and the same overestimation of the role of the terrorists who supposedly are able to achieve liberation of the people by their own hands independently from the growth of the mass guerrilla movement. It is clear that these sentiments which are created by the individual terror can only cultivate the passivity of the masses of the people and undermine the development of the guerrilla warfare. This is the second and the main harm which individual terror does to the revolutionary movement.

To sum up: individual terror undermines the possibility to develop the guerrilla struggle of the masses and it should be rejected as harmful and dangerous.

It is necessary to strengthen the Party.

12. Despite the great revolutionary surge among the masses during the last 3 years and despite the numerous mass actions that occurred and are occurring, it will be an great exaggeration to state that India is on the verge of a revolutionary revolt, [12] that there is already an ongoing civil war in the country, that the government and its leaders and the agents are already completely isolated etc. etc. Such an exaggeration inevitably leads to ignoring of concrete tasks confronting the party, to organisation and propaganda of adventurist actions, [13] to futile calls for action and proclaiming of pompous slogans that have no relation either to the existing level of consciousness of the masses or to the real ripened situation. In practice it results in the self- isolation of the Party that makes it easy for the enemy to destroy it. Its result is that the masses go over to the socialists and other subversive elements.

Equally wrong are those who view, through the lenses of their reformism, only the weakness and lack of unity in the peoples’ movement and the offensive of the enemy, and preach the policy of retreat and “waiting”, the policy of regrouping their strength and rejection at present of all armed actions in the towns and the countryside. The tactics, based on this understanding of the situation will result in the worst form of reformism and will lead to situation in which the Party follow behind the masses instead of leading them.

13. The reality of the situation is that the crisis is quickly growing, under its influence the masses are being revolutionized and a period of large scale clashes lies ahead. The fact the government has not fulfilled even a single obligation promised to the people, the inability of the government to solve even a single problem – especially the problem of agrarian reform and food supplies for the people – all of this rapidly shatters illusions and already the majority of our people view the existing government as a government of the exploiter classes, as a government of landowners and capitalists. The majority of the people thinks that the government can be changed and a genuinely people’s government be elected without resorting to armed revolt but through general elections, but in the struggle for day to day demands – sufficient pay, just prices for agricultural goods and restoration of ration cards system etc. – hundreds of thousands of people are beginning to act in all parts of the country. The growth of peoples’ movement still lags behind the growth of discontent among the people and only a small part of the people is drawn into the real struggle against the government. This lagging behind is a result of not only repressive measures by the government, but above all a result of a weak Party and the existing disunity of the progressive forces. Therefore, one of the main tasks of the Party is to strengthen the unity of the working class, unification of the people’s forces based on a concrete programme and building of a mass party so that the Party can provide leadership and only such leadership can unite and expand the mass movement and bring it on to higher level.

The Party must put forward the slogan that the present government must be dissolved and replaced by a peoples’ government that represents the unity of the democratic forces, a government that will cut ties with the British empire and which will bring about the programme of agrarian reform and democracy. It must use the forthcoming general elections for widely popularising its programme, for mobilisation and unification of democratic forces, for exposing the policies and methods of the present government. The Party should lead the masses in their day to day struggle and take them forward step by step so that the people on their own experience are convinced in [14] the necessity and inevitability of an armed revolution. The Party must not speak about the inevitability of fascism and instead use the huge resources of democratically inclined people in the country to unify the people and retard the strengthening course toward fascism taken by the present government. Through patient and systematic day to day efforts, by openly fighting for the demands of the people, by correct leadership of the concrete struggle of all the layers of the people, the Party shall grow and be able to fulfill its role as the organiser and leader of the people’s democratic movement.

14. Therefore, we should stop these endless debates being carried out in our Party during the course of this year on the question of the Chinese path, on the question of how to conduct an armed struggle. Such debates lead to disorganisation in the Party, dilute its strength and deprive the masses of leadership just at a time when they need leadership of the Party the most. Debates on these questions conducted openly as the case has been till now reveals all our plans to enemy and makes it difficult to implement them.

The fact is that if there is going to be a crisis very soon, the Party in its current state, being disorganised and weak, cannot fully utilize the crisis to carry the people toward a revolution. The Party is not prepared to carry the huge responsibility that such a situation will put on it. Therefore, the present weaknesses should be overcome as soon as possible so that the rank and file of the Party are united and measures are taken to broaden the mass base of the Party and strengthen it. While drawing in the Party the best elements from among the workers and other classes involved in the struggle and transforming it into a mass party, it is also necessary at the same time to be very alert to admitting elements in the Party who are still not considered to have been adequately checked out and to be trustworthy. For this purpose we should have a system of candidature to membership of the Party. Using all legal means it is also necessary to decisively strengthen the illegal apparatus of the Party.

The fight for preserving peace.

15. One of the most important task for the Party in our country is the task of mobilising the Indian people for defending peace. As it is one of the largest and most densely populated countries of the world and one that occupies key position in South-East Asia, India must play a key role in the struggle [15] against Anglo-American war mongers and for maintaining peace. The task of the Communist Party is to see that India plays this role.

Forces of peace in our country are potentially quite great. And these forces are becoming stronger. The love and admiration for the Soviet Union is widespread in all the layers of the population including the middle class intellectuals. The liberation of China and its rise as a great power, the methods which are helping the peoples’ government of China to successfully solve the food problem, famine, floods and illnesses make a great impression on our people. Equally strong is the mood in the country against the American aggression in Korea and so widespread are sentiments of sympathy for the Korean people that even the most reactionary newspapers were forced to criticize the Americans. These unqualified sentiments among the masses and other factors have forced even the government of Nehru to oppose the most ugly evil doings of the American imperialists (threat of use of atom bomb, declaring Peoples’ China as the aggressor etc.).

16. The Party, however, as so far has not been able to convert the widespread striving toward peace into a great movement for peace because, as regarding other questions, our approach to the question of peace was extremely sectarian. The movement for peace mostly remained just a movement limited to the supporters of the party, trade unions and the peasants’ organisations under our influence. The platform for peace was used for the general attacks on the government in regard to any problem and for popularising the struggles conducted by the Party only. This has inevitably resulted in restricting the scope of the peace movement and in the fact that all the people for whom peace is dear were not won over as fighters for peace. It is only lately that we have started to move away from this damaging method.

The other manifestation of sectarianism was that we could not connect the question of peace with other key questions confronting the peoples, we could not show the connection of the course taken toward war and increasing defence budget of the Nehru government with rise of prices of essential goods, budget cuts in education, unsatisfactory situation in the housing sector and increasing offensive on civil rights etc.

It is extremely important to reject all forms of sectarianism so as to expand the struggle for peace that will have wide support. The growth and expansion of the national liberation movement helps the cause of peace. The growth of peace movement also helps in expanding the national liberation movement. In this manner these two movements should be developing closely linked to each other, one strengthening the other. The peace platform is wider platform. It should and can include all supporters of peace, all the elements that for one reason or the other are against war and are ready to oppose all measures meant to start and spread war.

17. The peace movement should correctly assess the foreign policy of the Nehru government regarding peace and take up correct position regarding all particular manifestations of this policy.

Though the peace movement should support all [16] measures of the government that create obstacles to the war mongers (for instance, Nehru’s statement against the atomic bomb and his vote against the American proposals in the UN condemning China), but at the same time point out the vacillating and half-hearted policies of the government and conduct a resolute struggle to mobilise the masses for a consistent policy of peace.

In reality the policy of the Nehru government cannot be called a peace policy. Essentially it is a policy of manoeuvering between the main enemy of peace, the United States of America and their junior partner England, on one hand, and the peace-loving countries, on the other hand. [17] Nehru is afraid of the consequences of a world war and therefore defends the policy of ‘moderation’, a policy of ‘not going to far’. At the same time the Indian government continues to be an active member of the British Commonwealth of Nations which is a partner of American imperialism in its aggressive wars. The Indian government has not condemned the aggressive American war in Korea, has not renounced its support to the illegal UN resolution sanctioning this aggression. It has not condemned British imperialists that are waging a war in Malaya, on the contrary, have allowed to recruit Gurkhas for the war against the Malayan people. It has not condemned the French aggression in Vietnam and continues to provide the corresponding services to French imperialists who are transporting their troops and military material.

Therefore, apart from mobilising the population against the threat of atomic war, in support of the Stockholm and Warsaw Appeals, one of the main tasks of the peace movement in India is to unite the people against political actions of the Indian [18] government that help and facilitate colonial wars being conducted by the imperialists from America, England and France against the peoples of South-East Asia. The peace movement is not a pacifist movement and not a movement for just registering a general support for peace. It is a movement for concrete actions for defending peace and against imperialist war mongers including those waging colonial wars.

18. The supporters of peace must wage a struggle against all attempts to sow enmity toward the Peoples’ Republic of China. They should explain to our people that the liberation of Tibet is not a threat to peace but decisive blow to war mongers. They should support the heroic actions of the Chinese volunteers who, having thwarted the plans of the American war mongers directed to enslaving the Korean and the Chinese peoples, have strengthened the cause of peace in the whole world.

19. We should also fight against all war propaganda directed against Pakistan by pointing out that the increasingly tense relationship between India and Pakistan are a result of the imperialist manoeuvers and that it plays into the hands of the enemies of the peoples of both the countries. We should demand decisive cutting down of military budget and a policy of peace and close alliance between India, Pakistan and Ceylon.

20. The supporters of peace should carry out decisive struggle against the defamation of the Soviet Union and against all those who are trying to show the consistent peace policy of the Soviet Union as a policy of war and aggression. Based on the clear and bold statement of comrade Stalin in his answer to the question of the correspondent from ‘Pravda’, we should concretely expose the real war mongers and follow the shining example of the Soviet Union, which is putting in all its energy and resources toward the further betterment of the life of the people and is leading the whole of progressive humanity in the fight for preservation of peace. A strong friendship between the peace loving peoples of all countries should facilitate to save the world from the threat of war. [19] The people of India must play a big role in establishing such a friendship - this fact must sink into the consciousness of the whole people.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 11. D. 311. LL. 164-185.

Translated by Pavlov, corrections by I.V. Stalin translated by N. Svetlov. The term ‘guerrilla warfare’ has been used instead of ‘partisan struggle’ used by Pavlov. Small corrections were made to his translation.

Endnotes:

1 In the upper left corner typed ‘Translation from English’ and stricken out by blue pencil.

2 Here and after added by I.V. Stalin with regular pencil.

3 Before ‘democracy’, Stalin added ‘people’s’, then struck it out.

4 Written instead of ‘communists’.

5 Written instead of stricken out ‘The presence in totality of these three’

6 The following paragraph was stricken out: «7. Both these theses held by the party – the thesis of a general strike leading to a revolt in the countryside, as well as the one that simple expansion of the partisan struggle will lead to victory – need to be rejected. It must be realised that only when the peasant movement grows into a partisan struggle in several parts of the country, only then this struggle can be combined with strong mass general strikes of the workers that will paralyse the enemy and result in a rebellion in the towns under the leadership of the armed units of the workers and when under the impact of a mass movement and as a consequence of our direct activities among the masses, the armed forces will begin to waver and large number of them will break away and join the people – only then will the victory of the revolution be guaranteed. The task of the Communist Party of India is to work with a clear objective of leading the masses in the towns as in the countryside in their day to day struggle for concrete demands and direct their movement toward this aim in a planned and agreed manner».

7 Written instead of stricken out ‘galvanises’.

8 Written instead of stricken out ‘galvanising’.

9 Written instead of stricken out ‘We hold the view’.

10 The following paragraphs were stricken out and instead paragraph 11 was written anew by Stalin:

“13. We need to, in our agitation and propaganda, emphasise the defensive nature of the partisan struggle, pay special attention on the demands that the peasants are fighting for and on the atrocities that have forced them to take up arms. It is necessary to point out that it is the enemy who is responsible for the violence and bloodshed.

14. For the party to carry on the partisan struggle in genuine and correct bolshevist way so that the partisan struggle becomes a weapon of the revolution, it is necessary that the position of the party toward individual terror is fully explained. The communist party is irreconcilably against individual terror in any manifestation. Any attempt to show the tactics of individual terror as a tactic of partisan struggle, any tendency to equate these two tactics and any tendency to blur the difference between the two – each and every such tendency must be severely opposed. It is necessary to clearly understand that any sort of armed action is not a partisan struggle even if it is carried out by a unit that consists totally of peasant combatants and even if such actions are organized by party cells.

15. In a partisan struggle, the masses are the active participants, heroes and creators of their own history. Partisan struggle is a product of the mass movement and is directly tied to this movement, and in the concrete conditions of India of our time it manifests itself when this movement reaches a particular stage of seizure of land and grains stocks and also the stage of rebellion in the regions under consideration. The partisan struggle should not be conducted in isolation from the masses, not in a manner that the masses play only the role of a passive sympathizer that provides food, shelter and information. On the contrary, partisan actions should be combined and conducted with the aim of conducting other forms mass actions such as seizure of lands, abolition of rent payments, active boycott of oppressors of the people. Only a partisan struggle combined inseparably with such a mass movement can develop and expand and instill revolutionary confidence in the people.

16. Partisan actions, contrary to individual terror, are undertaken not to liquidate a particular oppressor or this or that “marked” landowner or police officer. The objective of the partisan actions is defending the peoples’ movement, disorganisation and destruction of the forces that want to destroy the movement. These forces may be the armed forces, police units, fascist armed bands like the bands of internal security. The task is to destroy these forces in parts through a series of engagements and sudden attacks, seize their arms, liquidate them and render impossible their operations against the people by breaching their transport , and thus create such conditions that in favourable situation the partisan dominated regions could become liberated zones and the partisan units become a liberation army. In contrast to these genuine partisan actions, the fine edge of individual terror is directed against particular oppressors of the people. Particular oppressors - landowners and police officers - are “marked” and separate armed individuals or units organize their liquidation. The aim of such actions is to terrorize other oppressors and force them to stop oppressing the people. As the experience of all countries show such actions never achieve this objective. Such actions make people passive instead of making them active and are futile and harmful in every way.

17. In the process of encounter between the peoples’ partisan forces and reactionary forces of the enemy, individual oppressors including the most hated ones may be killed, but such killings are not the objective of partisan actions. In the liberated areas peoples’ courts will try and punish individual oppressors for crimes committed by them, but this is not the same as organizing actions specifically with the aim of killing one or the other oppressor.

18. Since such is the nature of the partisan war, and since such are its objectives, it is necessary to understand that partisan struggle is an extremely serious matter and cannot be started without adequate political, organisational and technical preparations, without a careful assessment of the concrete conditions in the country in general and a given region in particular. Just as the party should not allude to the existing weakness of the peoples’ movement in the whole of the country as an argument to reject all partisan actions even in areas where the conditions are favourable for such actions, it should, presently, conduct partisan war in a flexible manner and to strengthen the peoples’ movement in general.

19. The party can achieve this and develop the mass movement to the level of a partisan struggle at the national level and a general strike of the workers leading to a revolt only if it will, at any given moment, correctly assess the national-political situation, if it will reject subjectivism and will not accept the desirable as reality, if it will not confuse opportunity with reality, and if moreover, it will keep in mind that the objective conditions are not sufficient and that there should also be the subjective factor – a mass party, which has deep roots among the masses, in particular among the class of workers, a party in which they have confidence and one that can lead them to the victory of the revolution.”

11 Written by Stalin’s hand and then typed in typewriter. On p. 173 there is a handwritten note ‘To the Progra[mme] of the Com[munist] Par[ty] of Indi[a] March 3d 1951’

12 After that words ‘and revolution’ were stricken out.

13 After that words ‘in isolation from the people’ were stricken out.

14 Changed from ‘about’.

15 Changed from ‘battle’.

16 After that the word ‘special’ was stricken out.

17 Written instead of stricken out ‘the American and the British imperialism’.

18 Changed from ‘present’.

19 After that ‘and’ was stricken out and the sentence divided into two.

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