Indian Communists Plan for Revolution
ATREYA
Secret instructions from Moscow, delivered at the Indian Communist Party Congress, indicate that the period of united fronts' is drawing to a close Indian Communists Plan for Revolution By...
...The downfall of Adbullah, approved by the Indian Government, has been justifiably labeled by the Indian Socialists as "an unholy alliance between conservatives and the Communists...
...imperialism are much alike . . . but it is the U.S...
...6. The "hard" left wing of the party is still the most reliable as far as Moscow is concerned, and Moscow will turn to it when the time is ripe for a showdown...
...which is the chief aggressor in the world arena preparing for a third world war...
...the primary task of the party was defined as combating that influence...
...The document continues: "While resorting to all forms of struggle, including the most elementary forms, and while utilizing all legal possibilities for mobilizing the masses and taking them forward, the Communist party has always held that, in the present colonial setup in India and in view of the absence of genuine democratic liberties, . . . replacement of the present state by a People's Democratic State is possible only through an armed revolution of the people...
...Unfortunately, the Government of India backed the Kashmir Communists in undermining Sheikh Abdullah there...
...The party will be able to give a clear and unambiguous answer...
...But this weapon alone cannot insure victory...
...They charged the Communists with "extraterritorial loyalties," a "petty-commissar mentality," and a belief in armed struggle...
...Many of the united fronts formed by the party since the 1952 general election have broken up...
...The Communists have been making successful inroads there for several years...
...Even publicly, there were hints of a new turn in Indian Communist tactics...
...yet, the left-wing amendment failed of passage by a hair's breadth, 109 to 105...
...Above all, said the General Secretary of the Indian Communist party, India "lacked the supreme advantage of China, namely a free and contiguous territory with the Soviet Union that enabled the Chinese to raise a liberation army...
...The discussion was as if India and the Communist party were in complete isolation from the rest of the world...
...3. It considers Gandhism's hold on the masses the greatest threat to its activities...
...This was the secret document which Harry Pollitt bore...
...Another factor militates for a tougher line in the future...
...The Communists confidentally told these two leaders that they were engaging in "base slander" of the type promulgated by "imperialists and feudal landlords," but that failed to satisfy them...
...It numbers in its ranks the leaders of the Andhra, Punjab and Pepsu parties, and some elements of the Bombay party...
...How strong is this left wing as compared with the "right" led by P. C. Joshi and the "centrists" led by S. A. Dange...
...This document was entitled...
...As the crisis matures . . . the question of when, where and how to resort to arms will be more and more forced on the agenda...
...This important condition now seems to be obtaining fulfilment in the state of Kashmir, which has a common border with Red China...
...After seven days, you discuss the U.S.-Pakistan pact, which is the most serious thing in the external situation in India...
...The emphasis at the Madurai Congress was on "the stultifying influence of Gandhism over the Indian masses...
...Not a Peaceful...
...Atreya, a prominent Indian journalist, described in The New Leader two years ago the threat of growing Communist influence in Kashmir...
...With hundreds of streams of partisan struggles merging with general strikes and uprisings of the workers in cities, the enemy...
...Any other party would have discussed it at once...
...Yet, there is a complete underestimation of the war danger and the fight for peace...
...they continue to hold their crucial positions in the party, so that they can assume greater roles when the party moves into the revolutionary stage suggested by Pollitt's memorandum...
...The party deplored the "tradition of particular forms of struggle . . . even inside the working class . . . the tendency to resist not with proletarian weapons of strike and other forms of collective class action, but with non-proletarian actions like satyagraha and hunger-strike...
...For example, the left wing wanted to amend a resolution naming American imperialism as the main threat to India...
...The answer given was that India's problems were different and called for different tactics...
...In any event, the developments in Kashmir offer new possibilities for Indian CP advocates of partisan warfare and insurrection...
...A few months ago, the Indian Communist chiefs had to answer rank-and-file queries as to why the party was not immediately pursuing the Chinese pattern of revolution and "national liberation...
...will face defeat and annihilation...
...Jaisoorya and G. M. Shroff...
...strikes, general strikes . . . uprisings in the cities led by armed detachments of the working class...
...This stand was vigorously opposed by party officials and by Harry Pollitt...
...This left wing is led by the followers of B. T. Ranadive, of "insurrectionary line" and Telengana notoriety...
...Joshi and Ranadive were both kept off the Central Committee, though their followers were represented...
...The most interesting and most violent of these breakups was that in Hyderabad, which was led by the veteran fellow-travelers Dr...
...Do you realize why so much importance is attached to India in the present situation and its decisive role...
...2. The party is still a house divided...
...Italics supplied...
...British and U.S...
...These two attacked the party with all the spleen of disappointed lovers...
...There were 26 greetings from the rest of the world, but only that from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) was read...
...and Dr...
...It is necessary that the existing illegal apparatus of the party be strengthened enormously...
...The left wing opposed any complimentary references to Nehru and his government...
...Informed observers here drew the following conclusions from the party congress: 1. Indian Communism is not directed by Peking, but from Moscow, as always, through the agency of the British Communist party...
...Nevertheless, the future of the left wing is bright now, what with the Pollitt memorandum and the beginning of disappointments for followers of the "united front" line...
...The ability to zig and zag is not highly developed...
...Partisan war must be one of the major weapons in our armory, as in the case of all colonial countries...
...only through a revolution, through the overthrow of the present Indian state and its replacement by a People's Democratic State...
...But the "hards" were not punished...
...It says that the main objectives of the Indian CP are "the complete liquidation of feudalism, distribution of all land held by feudal owners among the peasants and agricultural workers, and achievement of full national independence and freedom...
...in floor fights between "softs" and "hards," the "softs" won out...
...Secret instructions from Moscow, delivered at the Indian Communist Party Congress, indicate that the period of united fronts' is drawing to a close Indian Communists Plan for Revolution By Atreya Bombay Authoritative documents now available show that the Indian Communist party, which has been publicly proclaiming a "soft" line, has received private instructions to intensify its preparations for full-scale insurrection against the Indian state...
...These instructions were brought to the Indian Communists from Moscow by Harry Pollitt, British Communist leader, a fraternal delegate to the Third Communist Party Congress which was held at Madurai from December 27 to January 3. Pollitt's memorandum, calling for the ultimate establishment of a "People's Democratic State" through partisan warfare and civil strife, was not read to the delegates, but was privately circulated among key Communist leaders...
...Publicly, they continued to do so at the Madurai Congress...
...Since January 1950, the Indian Communists have been parading as "constitutional" and singing the virtues of united fronts...
...I warn you," said Pollitt in a portion of his speech which the Communists did not publish, "that this must not happen again...
...These objectives cannot be realized by a peaceful, parliamentary way...
...G. M. Sadiq, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kashmir, is an avowed fellow-traveler...
...But a Revolutionary Party...
...The composition of the new Central Committee and voting figures throughout the Madurai Congress indicate that the three groups are rather equally balanced, with the "centrists" in control of the party apparatus...
...The CPSU(b) telegram is a call to action, to recognize the need of action for peace...
...Although Moscow has great expectations of the Indian CP, and the party itself considered Madurai a glowing success, the fact is that the party is a house divided, many of whose members lack the ideological sophistication apparent in older, larger Communist parties...
...It has to be combined with other major weapons...
...5. Kashmir is thought of as the Indian Yenan, the base from which the Communists hope to wage revolutionary warfare...
...It has clashed with the party leadership openly on several occasions, among them the Central Committee's limited but enthusiastic support of Nehru on such issues as Korea, Red China in the UN, and the U.S.-Pakistan pact...
...Ashref, who was appointed Educational Adviser to the Kashmir Government, is a card-carrying member of the Communist party...
...they declared that British imperialism, which held 80 per cent of the foreign capital in the country as compared to America's 4 per cent, was a greater threat...
...Remember, the greater the American danger and threat, the closer will the vacillating elements of the ruling class draw to America...
...This was strikingly illustrated when, at one point in the congress discussions, the left wing attacked a resolution which was clearly the Moscow line as a Trotskyist deviation...
...Publicly, he chastised the party delegates for "divided leadership," an "inexcusable lack of political preparations," and "the unheard-of absence of political and organizational reports by the Central Committee...
...4. So long as Moscow continues its present wooing of India and Indian neutralism, the Indian party will continue its overt "soft" line, while "mobilizing and strengthening" its existing illegal apparatus...
...Even inside the armed forces of the Government, the crisis will grow and big sections will join the forces of revolution...
...It is absolutely essential to combine the partisan war of the peasants and workers' uprisings in cities...
Vol. 37 • March 1954 • No. 10
