The Communist Dilemma in India
BHARGAVA, G. S.
The Communist Dilemma in India Despite popular gains, party congress reveals ideological confusion By G. S. Bhargava New Delhi Highlight of the special congress of the Indian Communist party,...
...The party's attitude toward parliamentary activity has also undergone several changes...
...The Five-Year Plan projects, the party came to believe, had a progressive potential, particularly because India is an underdeveloped country...
...In 1958, again emboldened bv their good showings in the Delhi and Rajya Sabha (Upper House) elections, as well as by the dissension in and defections from the Congress party in West Bengal, Andhra, Punjab and other places, the Communists have once more asserted: "Increasingly isolated from the advanced democratic masses, corroded from within by dissensions and factional squabbles, the Congress is in a state of political and moral decline...
...An anti-Congress front was not the answer...
...In 1951, the conflicting camps were held together by a program which, it was claimed, had Stalin's blessings...
...But in 1956, according to a booklet by the party's general secretary entitled The Two Systems: A Balance-Sheet, the parliamentary form of government was preferred...
...Since then, though, the Congress and PSP have been coming very close to one another...
...Nehru's Government was characterized as landlord-capitalist rule headed by big bourgeoise...
...This must become an important part of the activity of the party and of mass organizers wherever we work...
...These recurring shifts in Communist policy are a result of the rank and file's uncritical acceptance of the lines handed down by the leadership...
...Moreover, Communist literature produced after Palghat conceded that the Congress party had consolidated its position...
...But this was just beginning to dawn upon them, and the line that emerged was much the same as that taken in the Election Manifesto...
...At Amritsar, the following was decided: "By developing a powerful mass movement, by winning a majority in Parliament and by backing it with mass sanctions, the working class and its allies can overcome the resistance of the forces of reaction and insure that Parliament becomes an instrument of people's will...
...others stressed cooperating in the projects...
...In effect, however, it contains the tame admission that the Government's policies at home and abroad are basically sound and need to be supported...
...From events at Amritsar, it is also clear-that the Communist attitude toward the Five-Year Plan has undergone a change...
...Still, the basic question of whom the Communists should ally themselves with remained unanswered at Amritsar...
...The party's unexpected success in the 1952 general election was undoubtedly responsible for their boldness...
...By 1954, when the Madurai congress was held, it was apparent that the program had little relation to reality and sharp differences of opinion emerged...
...Consequently, the Communist leaders in these two areas had sought some sort of alliance with the Praja Socialist party, while in Kerala the Communists remained bitterly opposed to the PSP...
...They were particularly convinced that a political crisis was close at hand, and that the replacement of the Congress Government by a "government of democratic unity" was an "eminently practicable proposition...
...At the Madurai congress in 1954, the Communists had begun to realize that they were using the wrong approach...
...We have to participate in them, actively and effectively, combat corruption, inefficiency and bureaucratic practices, help to implement and run them in such a way that maximum benefit is secured for the people...
...But, at the 1956 congress in Palghat, the Communists reversed themselves...
...But at a June 1955 meeting, the Central Committee admitted the "limited gains" of the first plan and welcomed the second plan's framework...
...As a result, a resolution was adopted at Palghat which said: "The tendency to keep away from schemes and projects sponsored and run by the Government must be given up...
...a fight against unjust taxes interfered with implementation of the plan...
...Even at the 1954 congress, held in Madurai, the Communists were reserved in their criticism of Prime Minister Nehru's management of external affairs...
...it was no longer in the throes of a maturing political crisis...
...The last party congress, held in Palghat in 1956, reacted in the same manner to official policies, though the approaching general elections made the Communists cover up their "softness...
...This is merely an attempt to fish in troubled Congress waters, however, for the real Communist attitude toward the Congress party long ago changed from uncompromising opposition to shadow boxing...
...One was bound up with the other...
...Nevertheless, in practice Communists found it difficult to reconcile general opposition to the Government with cooperation on specific issues...
...To understand the evolution of the Communists' attitude toward the Government, one has to go back to the 1950-51 period...
...Some Communists stressed fighting the "unconcealed hostility" of the Government toward the working class...
...it was no longer a tool of the imperialists...
...At the time, too, the Comin-form endorsed the view that Nehru was at the head of a "Government of the imperialists, the princes and landlords, the big monopolists and financiers, the speculators and black marketeers...
...Even in West Bengal and Andhra, the party lacked sufficient strength to replace the Congress party unilaterally...
...The party policy also created another dilemma: How was cooperation with the plan's projects to be squared with the fight against the methods used to raise funds for the plan...
...During last year's general election campaign, the Kerala Communists toyed with the idea of a covert adjustment with the Congress, and actually succeeded in turning the lat-ter's wrath against the Socialists...
...The Palghat formula, which was a compromise, ruled out mere anti-Congress fronts and extended the scope of electoral alliances to the Congress party...
...So this Communist strategy in Kerala has not worked either...
...Since then, the differences have been exacerbated, but the party seems to feel it can stand ideological confusion so long as it keeps gaining strength...
...For since 1950 internal differences have become too deep to be composed by normal exchanges of opinion...
...But, except for a few stray cases of Congress leaders joining front organizations like the Peace Council and the Asian Solidarity Committee, the Congress party as a whole rejected joint political action with the Communists...
...The Communist Dilemma in India Despite popular gains, party congress reveals ideological confusion By G. S. Bhargava New Delhi Highlight of the special congress of the Indian Communist party, which met last month in Amritsar, was the adoption of a resolution hacking the ruling Congress party's foreign and domestic policies...
...This question of cooperation with the Government on specific issues has long been a bone of contention within the party...
...Then the party's Election Manifesto accused New Delhi of "national betrayal" and declared that the Constitution was the instrument of a "landlord-capitalist state...
...At first glance, because of the rhetoric employed, the resolution appears to be the quintessence of opposition ideology...
...The June 1951 policy statement said "the road that will lead us to freedom and peace will be found elsewhere" than in parliamentary activity...
...The first plan (195155) was at first dubbed an imperialist or war plan...
...Now, "realization of the targets of the Second Five-Year Plan in a democratic way" is the top item in the party's ten-point program...
...Actually, this is not such a new or novel development...
Vol. 41 • May 1958 • No. 19
