After the first meeting of the CPSU(b) delegation headed by Stalin with the Indian delegation on 9th February 1951 in Moscow the CPI leaders set about drafting the Programme and Tactical Line of the Communist Party of India. Stalin made major suggestions on both these documents. The draft was prepared by S. A. Dange, Ajoy Ghosh, Rajeshwara Rao and M. Basuvapunnaiah in Moscow.

The CPI delegation sent the draft of the party programme to the Soviet party leadership on 15th February, 1951. This journal published this initial draft programme in April, 2014.

A number of comments were made Soviet leaders on the draft but most substantially by Stalin. The suggested amendments of Stalin are given below in bold type. We are grateful to N. Svetlov for locating the document and for translating from the Russian parts of the text and for his annotations.

1. When in August 1947 in Delhi the British imperialist rulers of India set up government in which the leading role belonged to the National Congress, and when the detested British viceroy and the British governors left the country, the people of India thought that it is the end of foreign rule in India and that India has achieved independence and freedom and that the government and the people, now in custody of the land and their labour, factories, our huge natural wealth and the people, could now build a contented life for the millions of inhabitants of our country. We could have begun to work for gradually eradicating poverty and guaranteeing everyone food, housing, clothing and minimum living facilities.

2. The functioning of the Nehru government in the four years that it has been in power has shattered the hopes of the masses in all aspects. The people have concluded by experience that the government of the National Congress, which came to power as a result of the heroic struggle of the people, has been actually brought to power in agreement with the British imperialists, as this was the government that had committed itself to defend and preserve the class of parasite-landlords and the wealth of the princely states in India, which have for centuries supported the foreign invaders and in consort with them looted our people and our country.

3. Five million workers are working in our factories, railways, mines, ports and plantations, are suffering as a result of a decline in their real wages, price rise, capitalist rationalisation and unemployment. Their struggle for higher wages and better conditions of life is drowned in the blood during firings and police terror. Their militant trade union organisations are being disrupted, split and suppressed by the government and its lackeys. Demanding increases in production in the name of the people, the government is creating even worse conditions of work for the workers and is only opening possibilities for the exploiters to increase their profits.

4. Millions of peasants, constituting 80% of our people, are weighed down by exploitation just as before. The fruits of the labour of those who possess land and can work it is expropriated by the landlords and the usurers in the form of enormous rents and high rates of interest. The peasants are further burdened with taxes by the state and are totally exposed to the anarchy of the capitalist market. But three fourths of the peasants do not own land. Those, who do not own land and do not find work, live in conditions of perpetual poverty. And those who do find work as agricultural workers or poor tenants in the estates of the landlords and money lenders, are forced to work as bonded labour or slaves and receive wages barely sufficient for the existence of their families. As a result the production of food stuff and raw material for industries is falling and that leads to a difficult food crisis in the country, hunger and death of millions of people. So far the government, headed by landlords and speculators, has been only talking of liquidating large farmer land holdings and is contemplating plans running into millions of rupees for compensating the oppressors of the people so that they may now be able to indirectly with the help of the state gather rent from the peasants. Just as the struggle of the workers, the struggle of the peasants for land, lowering of rent payments and taxes is being drowned in blood. Whole villages in the districts and regions are being subjected to military and police occupation just because poor peasants and landless workers are demanding land, lowering of rent payments, lowering of interest and also raising of* wages and establishing of better conditions of life.

6. Even the industrialists, factory owners and merchants are hurt by the policies of this government which is completely in the grip of financiers-monopolists, landlords, princes and their foreign British advisors working behind the scene. Distribution of capital investments, distribution of raw material, transport, allotting import and export licences – all of this is done by the bureaucrats in the government apparatus in such a way as to hurt the petty industrialists and traders and to help large monopolists who are in collusion with banks and syndicates of foreign companies*.

9. To all of this another fact needs to be added: that this monstrous government* in order to survive in the face of mounting dissatisfaction of the masses is suppressing all the civil liberties of the people, declares political parties and groups illegal, bans trade unions and other popular organisations, throws into jails and concentration camps thousands of workers, peasants, students, men and women. Policemen and bureaucrats who are helped by the local leaders of the Congress are being put in charge of agricultural areas. It is not surprising that in order to sustain such a police state the burden of taxes is being increased and more than 50% of the state budget is spent on the needs of the military and the police and also of jails and bureaucrats and not on food, clothing, construction of houses, education, health and better sanitation for the people.

11. In order to thwart the growing unity of the people, mainly the unity of the worker class with the peasantry, the unity of all the classes that are interested in removal of this government of landlords, princes and big capital collaborating with the British imperialists, the current government is also using means other than police repressions.

12. Aware of the desire of the masses of the people to make our country completely independent of British imperialism, the government has declared India as a republic. But not desiring in deed to cut its ties with imperialism it has shamelessly declared the republic a part of the Empire.

Staying on in the British Empire is not just a formality, as it is being stated, by playing on the contradictions between England and America for its own benefit, the government of India essentially follows the foreign policy of British imperialism. Though it supports peace and is against nuclear bomb under peoples’ pressure who do not want war and strive for peace, it did not dither to provide medical help, albeit nominal, to American forces in Korea; it allowed British imperialism to conscript Gorkhas and Sikhs for suppressing the independence struggle of the Malayans. It made available air strips to French airplanes in India on their way to the People’s Republic of Vietnam to conduct war against this republic. The Indian navy acts as a part of the British navy under British command and the key positions in military apparatus the Ministry of Defence are occupied by British advisors. If the autonomy of the armed forces of the country is a sign of its sovereignty and independence then it must be said that our independence in decisive measure still remains in the hands of British imperialism.

13. The British imperialists, before hiding their rule behind the mask of the new government of the Congress drowned the country in Hindu-Muslim enmity and riots, and later divided the country into two states – India and Pakistan. The imperialists in this manner weakened the economy of India in agriculture and that of Pakistan in industry. This has resulted in quarrels between the two countries to the extent of undeclared war between them and dependence on so-called “independent third party” i.e. the imperialists.

The division of the country allowed the Congress government to drown the just demands of the people in the hysteria of Hindu-Muslim war. This division gave the government the opportunity to allocate money, which could have been used* for improving the conditions of living of the people, toward armaments. It also made possible for it to buy armaments from the British imperialists who desire nothing else but to sell low quality commodities and services to account of its sterling debt to India and Pakistan and deprive our people of machines and basic commodities.

16. The fact that according to the constitution of India the right to vote has been provided to all the adult population and that it can be exercised and will be exercised by the people but to declare that the elections in accordance with constitution alone will put an end to the domination of the landlords and the capitalists in the country and to the imperialist domination over their lives is to deceive the people. Provision of the right to vote to the adult population is a sign of maturity of the class of workers and the people and is one formal element of democracy, but it cannot give voice to* the real will and the real interests of the oppressed masses as long as the land does not belong to the peasants, but to the landlords, as long as the power of the landlords and the capitalists keeps the people** in subjugation in the fields and in the factories, as long as the power of capital*** over the press and the means of propaganda poisons the people**** through lies, as long as the power of money uses religion, caste quarrels and conflicts to divide the people and weaken it, as long as the bureaucracy and the police ban political parties, suppress civil liberties and even jail people who were elected as representatives to legislative bodies for their views and their honest work.

It is typical, that by signing a number of agreements with England and America, the government has made the property of foreign owners in our country sacrosanct, creating for them the guarantee that it is not possible to interfere with their incomes and these can be withdrawn from the country freely according to the wishes of the owner. And this happens at the same time, when the government refuses to give the guarantee to the citizens against the arbitrary treatment by the police and against the robbing by the usurers and black marketeers.

Thus while the constitution guarantees the domination of the landlords, princes and imperialists over our economy, land and capital, it does not provide any guarantee of life and freedom for our people and only limits itself to false virtuous declarations. This constitution is not and cannot be called a true democratic constitution*. It is a constitution of the state of the landlords and capitalists tied up with foreign, mainly English, imperialist interests**.

19. In the face of these facts, the Communist Party of India believes it is her duty to came to help the people and lay those practical tasks, that practical programme, which the Communist Party of India defends and which must put in force* the working classes of India if they wish to came out of the deadlock into which they have been forced by the present Government, if they wish to attain their freedom and happiness. In the present stage of our development the Communist Party is not demanding the establishment of socialism in our country. In view of the backwardness of the economic development of India and of weakness of the mass organisations of workers, peasants and toiling intelligentsia our Party does not find it possible at present to carry out socialist transformations in our country. But our Party regards as quite mature the task of replacing the present anti-democratic and anti-popular Government by a new Government of People’s Democracy, created on the basis of coalition of all democratic anti-feudal and anti-imperialist forces in the country, capable of putting an end to the disenfranchisement of the people, of giving land to the peasants gratis, of protecting our national industries against the competition of foreign goods and of insuring the industrialisation of the country, of securing a higher standard of living to the working class, of ridding the people from unemployment and thus placing the country on the wide road of progress, cultural advancement and independence.

20. The sovereignty of the people, i.e. the concentration of all power in the country in the hands of the people. The supreme power in the state must be vested entirely in the people’s representatives who will be elected by the people and the subject to recall at any time upon demand by the majority of electors and who shall constitute a single popular assembly, a single legislative chamber.

21. The restriction of the rights of the President, in virtue of which the President and persons authorized by him will be deprived of the right to promulgate laws, which have not been passed by the Legislature. The President shall be elected by the Legislature.

22. Universal, equal and direct suffrage for all male and female citizens of India who have attained the age of eighteen years in all elections to the Legislative Assembly and to the various local government bodies; secret ballot, the right of every voter to be elected to any representative institution, payment to people’s representatives, proportional representation in all elections.

23. Local government on a wide scale and with wide powers through people’s committees. The abolition of all local and provincial authorities appointed from above (e.g. governors, magistrates, commissioners etc.)

24. Inviolability of person and domicile; unhampered freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, strike and combination; freedom of movement and occupation.

25. Equal rights for all citizens irrespective of religion, caste, sex, race or nationality.

26. The right of all nationalities to self-determination. The Republic of India will unite the peoples of the various nationalities of India not by force but by their voluntary consent to the creation of a common state.

27. Reconstitution of the present artificial provinces or states with the dissolution of princely states into the national states according to the principle of common language. The tribal areas or areas where the population is specific in composition and is distinguished by specific social conditions or constitutes a national minority will have complete regional autonomy and regional governments.

28. Right of the people to receive instruction in their own national language in schools; the use of the national language in all public and state institutions. The use of Hindi as an all-India state language will not be obligatory.

29. The right of all persons to sue any official before a People’s Court.

30. Separation of the state from all religious institutions. The state to be a secular state.

31. Free and compulsory primary education for the children of both sexes up to the age of fourteen.

32. Replacement of the police by militia. The elimination of the mercenary army and the establishment of the national army and navy on the basis of general conscription.

33. The establishment of the people’s health service with a wide network of medical centres and hospitals all over the country designed to liquidate the centres of cholera, malaria and other epidemic diseases in the country.

The agriculture and the peasant problem are of primary importance to the life of our country.

We cannot develop agriculture to any considerable extent and provide the country with food and raw materials because the impoverished peasantry deprived of land is unable to purchase the most elementary agricultural implements and thus to improve their farming.

We cannot develop our national industries and industrialise our country to any considerable extent because the impoverished peasantry constituting 80 percent of the population is unable to buy even a minimum quantity of manufactured goods.

We cannot make our state stable to any extent because the peasantry living in conditions of semi-starvation receive no support from the Government, hate it and refuse to support it.

We cannot improve the conditions of the working class to any considerable extent because hundreds of thousands of hungry people forced by poverty to leave the countryside for towns swarm the “labour market”, lower “prices of labour”, increase the army of unemployed and thus make the improvement of the living standards of the working people impossible.

We cannot work our way out of cultural backwardness because the peasantry living in the conditions of semi-starvation constituting the overwhelming majority of the population is deprived of any material means to give education to their children.

In order to get rid of all those evils and get our country out of cultural backwardness it is necessary to take land from the landlords and to hand it over to the peasants.

To achieve this it is necessary:

34. To hand over landlords’ lands without pay to the peasants and to legalise this reform in the form of special land law.

35. To ensure a long-term and cheap credit for the peasants to enable them to purchase agricultural implements and the necessary seeds.

36. To ensure Government assistance to the peasants in the improvement of old and the building of new irrigation systems.

37. To cancel peasants’ debts to moneylenders.

Our national industry suffers not only from an extremely low purchasing power of the peasants but also from the fact that it is exposed to competition on the part of foreign goods in the country. Foreign countries pursuing dumping policies flood the country with cheap goods whereas our manufacturers having no support on the part of the Government try to shield themselves against competition by increasing pressure on the working class, by worsening its conditions. But the industries cannot develop if the living conditions of the workers deteriorate, for a hungry and moneyless worker cannot be an adequate factor for the development of modern industry. This circumstance is another reason of the insufficient development of our national industry. To break through this vicious circle it its necessary to guard our national industry against the competition of foreign goods, to launch an all industrialisation of the country and to improve the conditions of the working class. The Communist Party of India considers that to achieve this it is necessary:

38. To provide for the protection of the national industry against the competition of foreign goods in the country by promulgating appropriate laws.

39. To develop the national industry and to prepare conditions for the industrialisation of the country without sparing any efforts and resources of the state to achieve this end.

40. To improve radically the living and working conditions of workers by fixing a living wage, introducing an eight hour working-day, social insurance at the expense of the state and capitalists against every kind of disability and unemployment, by the establishment of labour exchanges working in association with Trade Unions, by the establishment of industrial courts, by the recognition of the Trade Unions and the right to collective bargaining.

In spite of the much-advertised statement that the British have left our country, it is a fact that a large number of factories and workshops, mines and plantations, shipping and banking in India are owned by the British capitalists who annually draw hundreds of millions of profit from them. With this power over our economic life and their ties and partnership with big capitalists in our country who are collaborating with them, the British imperialists from behind the scene and their collaborators hamper the development of our industries and thus perpetuate our poverty.

We cannot be a strong and prosperous country until we are industrialised on a wide scale; but industrialised to such an extent we shall never be until British capital exists in India, for the profits of British enterprises are taken out of the country and we are unable to use them to expand our industries, until the big national capitalists – their collaborators keep us tied to the Empire.

Moreover, one has to take into account numerous British advisers with whom our navy, our army, police and other punitive organs teem.

To become a truly independent state, India has to break off with the Empire, to put an end to the domination of the British capital in the country’s economy and to get rid of the British advisers.

Therefore the Communist Party of India considers necessary:

41. The withdrawal of India from the British Commonwealth of Nations and the British Empire.

42. The confiscation and nationalisation of all factories, banks, plantations, shipping and mining owned by the British in India, whether in their own name or under the signboard of Indian companies.

43. Removal of British advisers in India from the posts held by them.

India needs peace and peaceful development. She is interested in peace and economic cooperation with all states. In this respect Britain is not an exception if she only proves capable of carrying on economic cooperation with India on the basis of full equality. India is not interested in the spurious play between peace and war carried on by the present Indian Government, What India needs is no okay but a firm and consistent policy of peace. Still less is India interested in the wrangling in which the Indian Union and Pakistan are engaged and which is not counteracted on the part of the present Indian Government.

The unbalancing of the integral economy of India caused by the division of the country, the strife between Pakistan and India, which enables the reactionary ruling circles to divide the people, will be overcome by a firm alliance of friendship and mutual assistance between India and the state of Pakistan. Such a friendly alliance must include the state of Ceylon also.

The economy of Ceylon is dependent on and complementary to that of India. Quite a large section of its people are formed from Indian (mainly Tamilian) plantation and other workers, who have migrated to Ceylon. The Ceylonese and Indian landlords and traders incite the Indian and Ceylonese workers against each other to gain their selfish ends. The absence of an alliance is utilised by the imperialists and their henchmen to sow discord among all these states and to sow hatred among their peoples, leading to the eviction of millions of people from their homelands. Only a firm alliance and friendship can defeat this game of imperialists and the reactionary ruling circles of these countries.

Therefore, the Communist Party of India considers it necessary to guarantee the following:

44. Honest and consistent policy of peace with all states which stand for peace.

45. The policy of economic cooperation with all states, capable of carrying on economic cooperation without any discrimination whatsoever on the basis of full equality.

46. The policy of alliance and friendship with Pakistan and Ceylon.

The Communist Party of India puts this programme before the people of India, in order that they may have a clear picture of the objective they are fighting for.

Our Party calls upon the toiling millions, the working class, the peasantry, the toiling intelligentsia, the middle classes as well as the national bourgeoisie interested in the freedom of the country and the development of prosperous life – to unite into a single democratic front in order to attain complete independence of our country, the emancipation of the peasants from the oppression of the feudals, improvement in the life of all working people, to bring about a major forward stride in our agriculture, a major forward stride in our national industry and secure the cultural advancement in our country*.