The United Front and the Revolutionary Party

The party that is not engaged in directing an armed struggle has no business in talking about a united front. This is because such a party is quite unable to build a united front on the basis of an independent and clear-cut policy. Consequently, it inevitably finds itself at the tail-end of things. A united front can be successfully built up only by directing successfully an armed struggle. The principal thing about a united front is that it is the united front of the working class and the peasantry. Only such a united front can unite the middle classes and can unite, even though temporarily, with all those with whom unity is possible. Only a revolutionary party can carry out this task. And in the present era the sole criterion to judge whether a party is revolutionary or not is whether the party is directing an armed struggle or not.
At present much hullaballoo is being raised in India over the so-called united front. This united front is, however, nothing more than the ganging up of some reactionary parties to gain power. The sole object of their ganging up is to capture the ministerial guddis. The so-called Left parties also are uniting, as they did in West Bengal and Kerala, with the same object in their view. That no Leftism brought them together has been amply proved by the actions of the cabinets which they formed. And what was the result of all this? In Kerala the Congress has been able to secure a single party majority in the municipal elections, while in West Bengal even the Jan Sangh has been able to increase its strength. The nine-month United Front rule in West Bengal has made it sufficiently clear that all the Left parties have united against the workers and the peasants and taken upon themselves the task of confusing the middle class. As it is no longer possible for the Congress to do this, the so-called Left parties have come forward to shoulder this burden in order to ensure that the reactionary forces can continue to wield power without difficulty. The Left Communist leaders have performed this task most faithfully. This is why Chavan is now having second thoughts about the Left Communists. This is clearly proved by the fact that Dinesh Singh [a member of the Central Cabinet - Ed. Liberation] hurried to Calcutta just after the Burdwan Plenum had started, sent for Jyoti Basu and had a secret meeting with him. In other words, the reactionary Congress rulers instructed Jyoti Basu & Co. to raise a storm over the teacup, if need be, but to avoid a split. What happened at Burdwan was merely the monkey-dance at the waving of the baton by the Congress masters.
Didn't we see how the United Front regime in West Bengal implemented the food policy formulated by the Congress? But when it came to owning up this dark deed, we found how without batting their eyelids, the firebrand revolutionaries, who adorned the U.F. cabinet, passed the entire burden of the crime on to the shoulders of Sri Prafulla Ghosh. One may ask, if as a member of the cabinet, Sri Prafulla Ghosh had the right to uphold and further the interests of a particular class, what prevented Sri Harekrishna Konar from upholding and furthering the interests of the poor peasants? The reason is obvious: the interests of the poor peasants run counter to the class-interests which Sri Harekrishna Konar and Co. represent. This shows that each and every constituent party of the United Front is an enemy of the oppressed workers and peasants. This explains why no real conflict ever developed in the United Front during its tenure in office. This United Front has been formed precisely on the basis of this class-antagonism towards the working class and the peasantry. In Bihar, U.P., Rajasthan and Madras, where the United Fronts have been formed on the basis of collaboration between the feudal classes and reactionary parties, it is not very difficult to understand the class-character of such fronts. One or two Communists of the Left or Right variety, who entered the cabinets formed by these United Fronts, have only exposed their class character. But it is necessary to have a close look at the United Fronts formed in West Bengal and Kerala in particular. This is because the Left Communists happen to be the largest constituent party in the United Fronts in both these states. This has clearly shown that the Left Communist Party as such is unworthy of being called Communist. They are merely the running dogs of the foreign and Indian reaction and of the Soviet revisionists. It was on behalf of the Indian and foreign reaction that Dinesh Singh came and warned Jyoti Basu not to expose their reactionary: character too much at the Burdwan Plenum. In this way the conspiracy of international revisionism was successful at the Burdwan Plenum. The revisionists of the world are congratulating themselves over the fact that they could, even if temporarily, at least do something to deceive the revolutionary masses of India. After this they are sure to launch an all-out attack against the revolutionary section of the Party and will infiltrate into and plant agents among the revolutionary ranks to sabotage the programme of action of the New Democratic Revolution at an opportune moment and to lower the revolutionary section in the estimation of the people . It is the tactics which international revisionism has mastered through practice over a long period. So every revolutionary must today study Chairman Mao's article Combat Liberalism and draw lessons from it. China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has taught us that to carry on an internal struggle is a task which we must undertake. To neglect this task will inevitably mean that the fruits of our work will be grabbed by the enemies of the revolution.
When a revolutionary party wants to build up a united front it must first of all make an analysis of the classes in the country. As we all know, our Revolution is a New Democratic Revolution. This is because the Democratic Revolution in our country has not been completed. The bourgeoisie is unable to carry this Revolution through to the end. In one or two small countries and under special circumstances the democratic revolution may win temporary victory under the leadership of the petty bourgeoisie, as happened in Cuba under Fidel Castro. But even there it is not possible today to accomplish the main task of democratic revolution, viz., the seizure of all power from the feudal classes and to develop capitalism fully on the basis of nationalizing all land. That is why Castro, with all his empty revolutionary phrase-mongering, does not care to interfere with land relations. This has forced him to keep his country constantly dependent upon and under the tutelage of a big power. This is the main lesson of the Algerian Revolution also. To think of making a successful revolution under the leadership of the petty bourgeoisie in a vast country like India is sheer daydreaming. Here the democratic revolution can be victorious only as the New Democratic Revolution. And what is a New Democratic Revolution? It is the revolution which can achieve victory only under the leadership of the working class in alliance with the broad peasant masses and by carrying on armed struggle against the foreign and Indian reactionaries. Who are the allies of the working class in this revolution? Basically, they are the entire peasantry, that is, the poor and landless peasants and the broad masses of the middle peasants. A section of the rich peasants may also take part in the struggle at a certain given stage. Apart from these, the toiling middle class will also be with the working class. These three classes are the main force of the revolution. Among these, the peasants constitute the overwhelming majority. For this reason, the revolution depends mainly on them. The outcome of our revolution will depend on the extent to which we can win this class over to the side of the revolution. Hence, the working class as the leader and the middle class as a revolutionary class must unite with the peasantry. It is precisely this unity which we call the united front. This is the only Marxist understanding of the united front.
The united front can be built up only in the course of an armed struggle led by a revolutionary party. And only such a revolutionary party can unite the uprisings of various nationalities. The victory of the national struggles now being led by various petty bourgeois elements depends on how much such struggles develop into class struggles. Their complete victory will depend on how much class struggles can unite these national struggles. The revolutionary party must resolutely and unequivocally declare that we must firmly unite with these national struggles against the common enemy and that each and every nationality has and will have the full right to freedom and independence. A revolutionary party can unreservedly unite with the national struggles of the Nagas, Mizos and others on the basis of this principle. The precondition for forming such a united front, however, is that the nationalities must be carrying on armed struggle. Many people think that the Communist Party should lead the various national struggles and that the New Democratic Revolution can be accomplished through such struggles of the nationalities. This is an erroneous idea. The Communists should not be the leaders of national struggles. The Communists should, however, forge unity with the national struggles but the duty of the Communists is to develop class struggle and not national struggles. In order to prevent disruption of class struggle, the Communists must declare that every nationality has the right at self-determination including the right to secede. Such a declaration will assure the nationalities that by uniting they will not fall into the clutches of a new set of exploiters. And only when they feel assured of this, will they participate in the class struggle. We, Communists, can never become leaders of the national struggles, even if we try. By trying to become leaders we can only reduce ourselves into mere appendages of the petty bourgeoisie of various nationalities. But after we declare our attitude to the nationalities, we will find that as we march forward as the leader of class struggles, the character of the various national struggles itself will begin to change. And on the eve of victory every national struggle will ultimately be transformed into class struggle.
[From Liberation, Vol. I, No. 9 (July 1968)].

To The Youth and the Students

AFTER the death of the great Marxist-Leninist, Stalin, the Soviet revisionist renegade clique usurped the leadership of the state, party and the army and established a bourgeois dictatorship in the Soviet Union, the land of the Great October Socialist Revolution. This revisionist renegade clique has become the leader and focal point of the revisionists of the world. Naturally, after the establishment of bourgeois dictatorship, they have become the No. 1 accomplice of the imperialists; particularly, they have advanced far along the road of collaboration with the U.S. imperialists. This is because U.S. imperialism is today the leader of the imperialist camp, and is pursuing even more fiercely and widely the aggressive policies of the German, Italian and Japanese imperialists. The traitorous leaders of the Soviet Union are supporting these aggressive activities and even use Lenin's name to belittle them and are themselves carrying on colonial exploitation with various imperialist powers and, in particular, with U.S. imperialism. By acting in this way, the leaders of the Soviet state and party have turned into enemies of all liberation struggles of the world, enemies of the great Socialist China, enemies of communism and even of the Soviet people. In India also they are acting as No. 1 accomplice of U.S. imperialism and are directing the state power and exploiting the people of India. As in various other parts of the world, they are allies of the reactionaries in India and support them. That is why India's liberation struggle can win victory only by fighting against the guns of the Soviet revisionists and by hitting out at the Soviet revisionists' state power. This explains why the Dange clique and the neo-revisionist leadership have, by their actions, joined the Indian reactionary clique and have turned into enemies of all democratic movements. They consciously and zealously support the bourgeois and imperialist propaganda.
It is because of these world developments that the thought of Chairman Mao has emerged as the only Marxism-Leninism, Marxism-Leninism which he has greatly developed and enriched through the great proletarian Cultural Revolution. This is why the world has entered today into the era of Mao Tse-tung's thought. Therefore, the thought of Chairman Mao can be called Marxism of the era of the total collapse of imperialism.
So, the political task of the student and youth workers is to study this new and developed Marxism, the thought of Chairman Mao, and put it into practice. He who shuns this task can never acquire the knowledge about the principles of Marxism. They must, therefore, study the Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. As Chairman Mao has said, there can only be one criterion by which we should judge whether a youth or a student is a revolutionary. This criterion is whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants, does so in practice and carries on mass work.
The Quotations of People's War published by the Central Committee of the great Communist Party of China is now available with us, a Bengali translation of which has also been published. This book is meant for revolutionary workers and peasants. We should make this our propaganda and agitation material. Whether a worker is revolutionary or not will be judged on the basis of the number of workers and peasants to whom he has read out and explained this book.
We have seen how good agitators in the student movement, how even students who fought in the barricade over some student demand or political issue, subsequently sat for the I.A.S. examination and became administrators, that is, went over to the enemy camp. As Chairman Mao teaches us, only those students and youth who can integrate themselves with the masses of peasants and workers are revolutionaries; those who cannot are at first non-revolutionaries and may in some cases join the counter-revolutionary camp afterwards.
This is a lesson which we get not only from China but from every country in the world. From my own experience I can say that unless the revolutionaries in the towns and cities undertake this task, they will eventually become demoralized and degenerate.
The political organization of the youth and the students must necessarily be a Red Guard organization, and they should undertake the task of spreading the Quotations of Chairman Mao as widely as possible in different areas.
[From Liberation, Vol. II, No. 6 (April 1969).]

The People's Democratic Revolution of India

The victory of the People's Democratic Revolution in this country of 500 million people will lead to the inevitable collapse of world imperialism and revisionism.
The People's Democratic Revolution in this country can be led to a victorious end only in opposition to all the imperialist powers of the world. Particularly, we shall have to reckon with U. S. imperialism, the leader of world imperialism. U. S. imperialism has not only adopted all the aggressive features of pre-war Germany, Italy and Japan, but has further developed them to a great extent. It has extended its aggressive activities to all corners of the globe and has enmeshed India in its neo-colonialist bondage. The Vietnamese people are in the forefront of the struggle against this aggressive imperialism, which is raging in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The victorious Indian revolution will destroy this imperialist monster.
The People's Democratic Revolution in this country will have to be carried through to a victorious end by actively opposing the Soviet Union- the lard of the great October Socialist Revolution. This is because the present leaders of the Soviet state, party and army have adopted a revisionist line and set up bourgeois dictatorship in their country. In collusion with the U. S. imperialists, they have extended their exploitation and established their domination over various countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In India, the Soviet leaders have become the chief peddler of U. S. imperialism despite their flaunting of the name of the great Lenin. With the help of their stooges (the Dange clique and the neo-revisionist clique), nurtured by themselves, the Soviet leaders are turning India into a field for their unrestricted exploitation and are deceiving the fighting masses, thus proving themselves to be the running dogs of U. S. imperialism and friends of the Indian reactionaries. The victory of the Indian revolution will not only bury Soviet revisionism and its Indian lackeys in the soil of India, but also ensure its death all over the world.
The People's Democratic Revolution in our country can be led to a victorious end only on the basis of the thought of Chairman Mao. The extent to which one assimilates and applies the thought of the Chairman will determine whether one is a revolutionary or not. Moreover, the extent of the revolutionary upsurge will depend on how widely we can spread and propagate the Chairman's thought among the peasants and workers. This is because Chairman's thought is not merely the Marxism-Leninism of the present era; Chairman has advanced Marxism-Leninism itself to a completely new stage. That is why the present era has become the era of the Chairman's thought.
The People's Democratic Revolution in India has to be directed against the bureaucrat and comprador bourgeoisie in the country and against feudal exploitation in the vast rural areas. Because forty crores of people out of the total population of fifty crores live in the rural areas in our country and because even today, feudal exploitation continues to be the main form of exploitation to which they are subjected, the contradiction between the peasants and the landlords in the countryside remains even today the main contradiction. This contradiction can only be resolved in the countryside through the establishment of liberated zones by the peasants' armed forces under working class leadership. This is the biggest and most important task that faces us today, for India is at present going through a period of revolutionary upsurge and this path pointed out by the Chairman is being increasingly accepted by growing numbers of peasants and revolutionary masses.
Our revolution has to be directed against the Congress government which represents the bureaucrat and comprador bourgeoisie and which, frightened by the post-war mass upheaval, came to terms with the imperialists with the help of the feudal lords. The leaders of the so-called Communist Party of India actively cooperated with these reactionary forces either in the name of making compromises or by open betrayal. They have disgraced the red banner which was dyed in the blood of the heroes of Kayyur, the fighters of Punnapra and Vayullur, the fearless heroes of Telengana and hundreds of martyrs of Bengal and other parts of the country. Today, all the political parties of India have turned into active accomplices of U.S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism and Indian reactionaries, and become enemies of the revolution. That is why the new democratic revolution in India can be victorious only under the leadership of the working class and by following the thought of the Chairman.
To organize this new-democratic revolution and lead it to victory we need a party of the working class, a Communist Party, whose political ideology will be Marxism-Leninism and its highest development-the thought of Mao Tse-tung. But how can such a party be built? Could we perhaps gather together the various so-called Marxists who profess the thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and revolt against the leadership of their party, and declare that a Maoist party has been formed? Certainly not. Because merely raising the banner of revolt is not enough to build up a Maoist party. These rebel comrades must apply in practice the thought of the Chairman and must thereby train up worker and peasant cadres. Only then can we claim to have made progress in building up a genuine Maoist party.
The old political cadres will no doubt be in such a party. But, basically, such a party will be formed with the youth of the working class, the peasantry and the toiling middle class, who not only accept the thought of the Chairman in words but also apply the same in their own lives, spread and propagate it among the broad masses and build bases of armed struggle in the countryside. Such a party will not only be a revolutionary party but will at the same time be the people's armed forces and the people's state power. Each and every member of such a party must participate in struggles in the military, political, economic and cultural spheres. We must immediately take in hand the task of building such a party. It may not be possible right now to build up such a party on an all-lndia basis but that should not discourage us. We must begin our work wherever we can build up such a party no matter how small that area may be. We must shed fears of being in the minority and advance with unshakable faith in the thought of the Chairman. Our task is in no way easy, but is extremely difficult. Our struggle will generate new enthusiasm in the minds of all the fighting people of the world. Only thus can we successfully help the heroic fighters of Vietnam. Only such a revolutionary party can successfully lead the armed struggle and build up the broadest united front-the two weapons with which the revolution can be led to a victorious end.
Those who think that our main task is to attract the great majority of the members of the so-called Marxist parties towards us and that a revolutionary party can be built up in this way, are consciously or unconsciously thinking of forming only another party for fighting elections. They forget that the members of these so-called Marxist parties, whatever revolutionary qualities they may still possess, have been accustomed to the practice of unadulterated revisionism and as a result of this practice, have lost many of their revolutionary qualities. They must undergo the process of new practice to become revolutionaries again. This is why a revolutionary party cannot be built up by relying upon the members of the old party. The new party must be built up with the fresh revolutionary youth of the working class, the peasantry and the middle class by educating them in the thought of the Chairman and through revolutionary practice.
The primary condition for building up a revolutionary party is to organize armed struggle in the countryside. Until this task is taken in hand all talk of revolution simply amounts to accepting revolution in words only. And so they are, as the Chairman has said, revolutionaries in words. But our party will be built up with those who are revolutionaries in deeds. Otherwise, the party will be reduced to a debating society, like the Burdwan plenum(*).
What happened at Burdwan? The Soviet ruling clique has become the number one enemy of the national liberation movements of various countries and is openly working for the destruction of the national revolutions; yet, people engaged themselves in a heated controversy at Burdwan over the extent of restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. To engage oneself in a controversy over the restoration of capitalism in a country where the proletarian dictatorship has already been abolished and bourgeois dictatorship established, is to confuse the people and to blunt the edge of struggle against the main enemy. So, what happened at Burdwan has gladdened the hearts of the revisionists of the world, and marks the success of the revisionist conspiracy. Not a single person attending the Burdwan plenum broke away from these revisionist traitors.
So, if we rely on the revolutionary force inside the party we shall never be able to build up a revolutionary party. We must lay our main stress on the hundreds of thousands of young people outside the party. Only then can we build up a genuinely revolutionary party and establish revolutionary bases of armed struggle.
Comrades! A great responsibility rests on us. All the reactionaries of the world have turned our country into their base and are using it as the centre for destroying the liberation struggles of Southeast Asia. They are trying to use India as their base for supplying cannon-fodder for their aggression against the great Chinese people. It was precisely this that the renegade Kosygin, Tito and Chester Bowles conspired about with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi recently. So, to make revolution in our country is a great international responsibility. This is exactly why the little spark of Naxalbari brings joy and enthusiasm to the fighting people of entire Southeast Asia, to the leaders of the great Chinese Party-the leaders of the world revolution and to the revolutionary peoples of the entire world.
A most sacred international responsibility lies on our shoulders and we absolutely must fulfill it. There is no doubt that this would demand heavy sacrifices from us, but what revolutionary ever feared to make sacrifice?
Chairman Mao teaches: We must dare to fight and dare to win. He is still with us. Victory shall be ours!
Long live Chairman Mao Tse-tung!
A long, long life to Chairman Mao!
Long live India's new-democratic revolution!
[This article was published in the Bengali weekly Deshabrati of May 16, 1968. It appeared in Liberation, Vol. I, No. 8 (June 1968).]

Srikakulam? Will It Be The Yenan of India?

Not even full two years have passed since the Naxalbari struggle started; yet, within this period, its sparks have spread to different States of India. And in Srikakulam in Andhra, the fire they have started is fast developing into a forest-fire.
Here, in the midst of a jungle surrounded by hills, I am sitting in a room on a hill-top and before me are seated about a score of young men. They are not well-known or renowned men, nor men who enjoy all-India fame. But they are men who are young, men who dream. They dream of liberating the tens of crores of peasants who have been exploited and oppressed through the ages, they dream of liberating them from the yoke of exploitation, from the murky depths of ignorance, from grinding poverty, from hunger. They believe in making revolution. They are firmly convinced that only an armed peasantry can make the revolution victorious. They have come from various districts of Andhra? From Srikakulam, from Nalgonda, Warangal and Adilabad districts in Telengana, and from the districts in Rayalaseema, and they represent the majority of the districts of Andhra. They dream dreams, but they are no idle day-dreamers. All of them have left their hearth and home and live and work among the peasants and observe secrecy. It is they who have built up the Srikakulam struggle? The struggle that has filled the hearts of the revolutionaries of India with joy and confidence. The events of Srikakulam have made the conviction firmer than ever that India will create her own Yenan in no distant future. It is they who have built up the peasant struggle in the Koraput district in Orissa. The brutal repression carried on by the frightened reactionary government failed to suppress the struggle. Nor could they touch the leaders of the struggle. And it is they who constitute the Andhra State Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries.
A report prepared by the Srikakulam District Committee was placed at the meeting. It is not for me to judge whether there are errors and shortcomings in the report. The comrades of Srikakulam have published that report and placed their experiences before the Communist revolutionaries of the whole country. They are men who have no interest other than that of the revolution. That is why they do not fear criticism; on the contrary, they have invited criticism. In this report they have recorded their valuable experiences of the Srikakulam struggle and have tried to draw conclusions from them. In the report they have forcefully asserted that there can be no compromise with opportunism. Such compromises with opportunism do not add to the strength of the revolutionaries but weaken them. A firm class-unity can be built only through struggle against Right and 'Left' opportunism.
They have analysed the nature of opportunism in Andhra, marked out those who represent this opportunism and have taken upon themselves the responsibility of carrying on struggle against them.
At this meeting they have resolved to build up a revolutionary Party in the whole of Andhra? A Party that bases itself on the thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. They have declared that everything that is happening in Srikakulam today is based solely and entirely on the thought of Chairman Mao. That explains why Srikakulam has become the sole criterion for the people of Andhra to judge who is a revolutionary and who is not. And Srikakulam serves today as this yardstick not merely for the people of Andhra but for the people of the whole of India.
As I said before, these comrades are no idle day-dreamers. So, they are not thinking of winning victory the easy way. They realize that attacks are sure to come and that they may even have to suffer serious set-backs. They are quite aware of that danger and are preparing to face such eventualities.
They are convinced that to carry on revolutionary struggle, they must have a revolutionary Party. That is why they have put the task of building such a Party before everything else. At the same time they also realize that a task of such a revolutionary Party will be to imbue the Party members and the people with the spirit of sacrifice. Chairman Mao teaches us: "Wherever there is struggle there is sacrifice, and death is a common occurrence." So, in order to win victory in the revolution, the revolutionary cadres must be able to make sacrifices. They must sacrifice their property and belongings, sacrifice comforts, sacrifice old habits and aspirations after fame, rid themselves of the fear of death and give up ideas of seeking the easy path. Only in this way shall we be able to train and prepare the revolutionaries to conduct a hard, difficult and protracted struggle. Only in this way can we inspire the people to make great sacrifices, who then, with tremendous blows, will smash all the power and might of imperialism, revisionism and the Indian reactionaries and thus win victory for the revolution.
It is after a long time that I have attended a meeting like this of Communist revolutionaries where they have taken the vow to sell out their properties and donate the entire sum thus obtained to the Party fund. In this meeting alone promises were made to rise about a lakh of rupees in this way. The slogan: "Let us build Srikakulams in the different areas to support the Srikakulam struggle!" instantly changed the atmosphere of the meeting and the very air in the room seemed to have been electrified All the comrades present resolutely declared that they would build Srikakulams in Telengana, in the districts of the Rayalaseema region, in the whole of Andhra. At that moment, throbbing as it was with the vigorous, bright spirit of revolutionary ardour, one thought repeatedly haunted me? The thought of the heroic revolutionaries of Telengana who had laid down their lives fighting. I was thinking that the sacrifice of those glorious fighters has not been in vain; for India's Yenan will be created here. The meeting ended in the midst of great enthusiasm.
As the time came for me to leave, I suddenly felt sad. Who knows whether I shall again meet these comrades? They are revolutionary comrades who are dedicated and not afraid to make even the supreme sacrifice. They are going back from this meeting to plunge into the struggle again, and nobody knows who would survive. But one thing I know? The people of India will never forget them.
Suddenly the India that is enveloped in darkness vanished, and I saw before me my motherland India? A vigorous, throbbing India, sparkling in the bright sunshine? People's Democratic India, Socialist India!
Srikakulam is fighting valiantly, tomorrow the whole of Andhra will join the fight. Confirmation of this I received on the morning I was coming back. Newspapers on that day reported that one class enemy was killed in an attack by the peasant guerrillas.
Srikakulam forges ahead, irresistibly.
March 6, 1969
[Respected Leader Comrade Charu Majumdar visited Andhra Pradesh (Srikakulam especially) after the February 1969 meeting of the AICCCR. On his return to Calcutta, he wrote this article, which, translated from the Bengali original, appeared in Liberation, Vol. II, No. 5 (March 1969).]

One Year of Naxalbari Struggle

Full one year has passed since the peasant struggle in Naxalbari began. This struggle is different from all other peasant struggles. Where is the difference? Peasants have always struggled against various injustices and oppressions. This is the first time that the peasants have struggled not only for their partial demands but for the seizure of state power. If the Naxalbari peasant struggle has any lesson for us, it is this: militant struggles must be carried on not for land, crops etc., but for the seizure of state power. It is precisely this that gives the Naxalbari struggle its uniqueness. Peasants in different areas must prepare themselves in a manner so as to be able to render ineffective the state apparatus in their respective areas. It is in Naxalbari that this path has been adopted for the first time in the history of peasant struggles in India. In other words, the revolutionary era has been ushered in, and this is the first year of that era. It is for this reason that the revolutionaries of all countries are heartily welcoming the Naxalbari struggle.
India has been turned into a base of imperialism and revisionism, and is acting today as a base of reactionary forces against the people struggling for liberation. That is why the Naxalbari struggle is not merely a national struggle; it is also an international struggle. This struggle is difficult, and the path we have chosen is in no way easy or smooth. The path of revolution is difficult, not smooth or easy, and difficulties, dangers and even retreats will be there. But the peasants who are fired with the spirit of the new internationalism have defied all this and refused to submit. They continue to persist in their path of struggle.
Our experience during the last one year shows that the message of this struggle in a small area has spread to every corner of India. Each one of the existing political parties has opposed the Naxalbari struggle, yet the people are thinking in terms of this struggle and are coming forward to take the path charted by this struggle. The heroic leaders of the Naxalbari struggle are still living and the reactionary government, in spite of all their attempts, has not been able to destroy them. These shows how true are the words of Chairman Mao: "All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying but in reality are not so powerful."
The Chairman has said, "The complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off."
Let us march forward to usher in that brilliant sunshine of liberation!
[This article appeared in the Bengali weekly Deshabrati of May 23, 1968. It was published in Liberation, Vol. I, No. 8 (June 1968).]

On Some Current Political and Organizational Problems

In the article which Parimal Dasgupta has written on the Czechoslovak event and in his letter to the editorial board of the Deshabrati, he has placed the recent happenings in Czechoslovakia on the same footing as the Hungarian event of 1956. In Hungary, at that time, counter-revolutionaries from outside infiltrated into the country and joining forces with the reactionaries inside, attempted to occupy the country. They carried out a large-scale massacre to finish off the revolutionary comrades with a view to imposing by force the capitalist system. At that time, Hungary was still a socialist country. Referring to the Hungarian events of 1956, Chairman Mao pointed out: "It was a case of reactionaries inside a socialist country, in league with the imperialists, attempting to achieve their conspiratorial aims by taking advantage of contradictions among the people to foment dissension and stir up disorder." That is why the intervention of the Soviet government there was justified and it fulfilled the task of helping to defend socialism in that country. But now in 1968, when the Soviet Union has committed aggression against Czechoslovakia, neither the Soviet Union nor Czechoslovakia is a socialist country? Both having degenerated into capitalist countries. That is why the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union and other East European countries is nothing but an out and out imperialist aggression. So, to place these two events on the same footing means denying the fact that the Soviet Union has degenerated into a social-imperialist country, and endorsing the Soviet imperialist aggression against Czechoslovakia as a correct action, an action to defend socialism.
Parimal Dasgupta, in his article, has sought to make out that reaction hatched a plot to destroy socialism in Czechoslovakia. The truth is, capitalism had already been restored in Czechoslovakia, and it was the Czechoslovak ruling clique which, with the active collaboration of the Soviet revisionists, did so after destroying socialism there. So, to try to look for the existence of a reactionary plot there means supporting the Soviet imperialist aggression.
Parimal Dasgupta has found the points raised in the Deshabrati editorial (of August 29, 1968) [3] strange, but has not cared to indicate what particular issues he has in mind. There is, however, one issue that he has not raised in the article he has written, the issue of US-Soviet collaboration. In the article he points only to US-Soviet conflict but has failed to show that it is within the framework of US-Soviet collaboration. No wonder he finds the points raised in the Deshabrati editorial strange. There is enough ground, therefore, to believe that what he finds baffling and strange is that anyone should find US-Soviet collaboration behind the Czechoslovak event. The fact that the Soviet aggression took place with the knowledge of Johnson has little importance for him. This is because he either rejects or fails to understand the fact that Soviet social-imperialism, in collaboration with US imperialism, is striving to dominate the world. This leads to one thing? to deny in effect the fact that the Soviet Union is a social-imperialist country. This is why he did not hesitate to use even the propaganda materials supplied by the Soviet Union to bolster up his own argument. No wonder Deshabrati's editorial seemed laughable to him.
Those who consider the Soviet Union as a socialist state cannot but find Deshabrati's editorial laughable. But then, why should it seem so laughable to Parimal Dasgupta? Does he stand by the May Declaration (1968) of the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries? Did not that Declaration point out that the Soviet Union had already degenerated into a social-imperialist state? Why, therefore, the editorial should appear so laughable to him? Since it does appear so to him, the question naturally arises: Does he at all support the stand taken by the Communist Party of China? Does he, so to say, support the leadership of Chairman Mao Tsetung? Does it not follow from what he wrote in his article and from what he chose not to write, and also from his remarks, that he does not support the stand taken by the Chinese Party and Chairman Mao's analysis of the nature of the Soviet Union? In his article he has criticized Soviet revisionism and described the process by which the Khrushchev clique usurped power in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin and restored capitalism there, but has failed to draw the conclusion which he should have drawn? The conclusion that the attack on Czechoslovakia is an imperialist aggression. Were he able to see this as an imperialist aggression he would also have known that even the resistance of the bourgeoisie of a country against aggression has a revolutionary role and that the proletariat of that country is called upon to work for unity with that bourgeoisie. When faced with Japanese aggression, the Communist Party of China led by Chairman Mao correctly adopted the programme of united front and united with Chiang Kai-shek (Sian incident). Chairman Mao pointed out that Chiang Kai-shek was closely linked with the British and the US imperialists who did not want Japan to occupy China. But, on the other hand, Wang Ching-wei, closely linked as he was with Japanese imperialism, followed the policy of abject surrender to and cooperation with the Japanese, and thus turned into an enemy of the Chinese people. Because he failed to see that the Soviet attack was an imperialist aggression, Parimal Dasgupta was unable to welcome the resistance that developed in Czechoslovakia against it; he slighted the resistance and considered it to be an expression of a struggle of the reactionary ruling clique for a share of power. It is true that no mass resistance led by a correct party has developed as yet; but it does not follow from this that we can slight or look down upon whatever resistance has developed. We must never forget that such resistance is an expression of the principal contradiction of the Czechoslovak people.
His inability to see the fact of Soviet social-imperialism lands him in a position where he equates the standpoint of the Deshabrati editorial with that of the reactionary parties like PSP, SSP etc. But how can one overlook the fact that this inability to see the fact of Soviet imperialist aggression has brought Parimal Dasgupta's standpoint very close to that of the CPI (M)? Instead of condemning Soviet armed aggression against Czechoslovakia, Parimal Dasgupta, in his article, sought to be neutral and sat in judgement to portion out the guilt between the two? The aggressor and the victim of aggression. This amounts to shirking the revolutionary duty towards the Czechoslovak people and to refusing to attach importance to the heavy burden of new exploitation and indignity that were heaped on the Czechoslovak people by the Soviet aggression. What revolutionary, worth the name, can ever think of adopting such an attitude? On the contrary, such an attitude perfectly fits one who is going to turn a traitor to the people's cause sooner or later. Don't we find that only those who have turned traitors to the people's cause are the ones who have come out in support of the Soviet aggression? It is, therefore, most unfortunate that Parimal Dasgupta should have chosen to act in the manner he has.
It appears from the frequent hints that he dropped that Parimal Dasgupta had quite a few things to say about the working of the State Co-ordination Committee (West Bengal). But unfortunately, busy as he was with the strike in the State Electricity Board and unable as he was to attend meetings of the Committee for quite a long period of time at a stretch, his criticism could not be thoroughly discussed at the State Co-ordination Committee. There can be no doubt whatsoever that, if he could attend the Committee meetings his criticisms would have been heard and thoroughly discussed, making our differences clear. Such discussions help develop our political education. We feel unhappy that such discussions could not be held, and it is he who is to blame for this.
Parimal Dasgupta and others have formed a rival Co-ordination Committee on the State level and have also published a document. In the document they have stated that certain allegedly erroneous trends, conceptions and deviations have appeared among the communist revolutionaries, and have also described what these errors are. They have discussed their viewpoint only briefly and this makes it very difficult for us to understand them.
They have stated that work in the cities is being neglected and that there is a trend which refuses to participate in trade union activities and have stressed the necessity of building mass organizations.
The question is: if everyone concerns himself with building mass organizations, who is to build up the underground party organization? Do we expect the mass organizations to organize the agrarian revolution? Certainly, no one is thinking like this, and it is correct not to think like this. It is precisely for this reason that the All India Co-ordination Committee (AICCCR) has laid the utmost stress on building underground party organizations. Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers chose not to criticize this stand of the AICCCR openly and preferred to lay stress on the work of mass organizations instead, that is, on open work. They also speak of class organization and class struggle in the peasant movement. There are different classes within the peasantry, namely, the poor and landless peasant, the middle peasant and the rich peasant. It is not clear which class or classes they have in mind. Again, if they take the entire peasantry as a single class and try to build organizations accordingly, these will inescapably turn into organizations like the Kisan Sabha led and dominated by the rich and the middle peasants. Moreover, such an attempt on our part will strengthen the tendency to carry on open movements through those open mass organizations inevitably turning us into another set of leaders of revisionist mass organizations. The leadership of the poor and the landless peasants over the peasant movement can be established only if we build underground Party organizations among the peasant masses.
Further, they have sought to discover Che Guevara-ism in our peasant movement. This leads to repudiating the necessity and inevitability of guerrilla war in the peasant movement. Obviously, the peasantry as a whole does not participate in this guerrilla warfare. What happens is that the advanced class-conscious section of the peasant masses starts the guerrilla war. For this reason, guerrilla war, at its initial stages, may appear as a struggle of only a handful of people.
However, this kind of guerrilla war has nothing in common with what is advocated by Che Guevara? The guerrilla war which is waged by the petty bourgeois intelligentsia without the peasant masses. The guerrilla war that we speak of, on the other hand, is initiated by the class-conscious elements of the poor and landless peasants and can be led and carried on only with the active cooperation of the poor and landless peasant masses.
This kind of guerrilla war has nothing in common with the kind advocated by Che Guevara for the further reason that this kind of guerrilla war is launched not by relying on arms and weapons? so characteristic of a Che-type war, but is launched without arms and by relying confidently on the cooperation of the masses. Precisely for this reason, this war can be started only through an intensive propagation of the politics of seizure of political power among the peasant masses. And this work can be performed only by the Party units among the peasantry? Units that are composed of the poor and landless peasants. And these Party units can carry out this task only by organizing guerilla war of the poor and landless peasants. We must remember that the poor and landless peasants can establish their leadership over the peasant masses only by conducting a guerrilla war. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic for carrying on peasants' revolutionary struggle. And no mass organization can ever accomplish this through open work.
It follows from the above that the tactic adopted by Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers with respect to the peasant movement is completely opposed to the line laid down by Comrade Lin Piao. They seek to give a new explanation of the politics of the Naxalbari peasant struggle. A new explanation  but why? Is it not because they have ceased to consider the conclusions and politics of Comrade Kanu Sanyal's Report on the Naxalbari struggle as correct? They do consider them as not correct, and so it is no wonder that they should feel the need for seeking a new explanation. According to them, Comrade Kanu Sanyal's evaluation of the Naxalbari struggle is based not on Mao Tsetung Thought but on the theory of Che Guevara. That they should at all think like this is because they do not think of guerrilla warfare and are unable to comprehend its significance and importance.
Another point they have raised is that the four main enemies of the Indian people are being considered and their importance judged in isolation from one another. This naturally leads to the question whether by pointing out the principal contradiction between the Indian masses and their enemies we are isolating it from other fundamental contradictions and laying undue emphasis on it. Of course not. No doubt there are four main enemies and that they must be defeated and eliminated. But in order to defeat and eliminate them we must first find out the principal contradiction and then apply our main force to resolve that contradiction. Only thus can we eliminate all our enemies. Not to find out the principal contradiction is to negate the main aspect of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and to open the gates wide for Right and 'Left' deviations. In India, as we know, all sorts of deviations raised their head because the problem of finding out the principal contradiction was consistently ignored. Now, it seems Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers have opted to act in exactly the same old way.
Lastly, the question of building mass organizations? About which Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers seem to be greatly concerned. Now, what do we mean by mass organization? As Lenin has said, even the trade union organization represents a united front of different ideologies among the workers. And as such it is the ability of the Communist Party to act independently that determines the way this united front will work. The extent to which organized revolutionary cadres are present in a mass organization and whether these revolutionary cadres are propagating revolutionary politics independently or not? These two things determine whether a mass organization is a revolutionary one or not. We all know how, during the period when we were suffering most under the spell of revisionism, we built numerous mass organizations and also Party units inside them. But we functioned the Party units merely to supplement the trade union work. As a result, we were unable to win the workers over to our political views, even to our revisionist politics. All those who have done trade union work have the bitter experience of how the workers rallied round the communist leaders in order to win their economic demands and yet how they voted for the Congress Party during the parliamentary elections.
We must understand that the members of a trade union do not necessarily turn into communists simply because its leader happens to be a communist. The Party units have to shoulder a great responsibility. They must independently propagate the revolutionary politics, that is, the politics of agrarian revolution, among the working class in order to inspire them with it. They must do so, because the proletariat will never be able to grasp the necessity of carrying out agrarian revolution by waging its struggle for economic demands. The politics of agrarian revolution must be brought to the proletariat from without, from outside the trade union struggle. For this, we require revolutionary worker cadres, equipped politically, that is, equipped with the Thought of Chairman Mao. And such cadres can be brought up only through underground Party organizations.
Trade unions serve as training schools for the proletariat only when there is no revolutionary situation in a country and when the bourgeoisie appears to be quite strong and the proletariat considers itself very weak.
In such a situation trade union struggle creates self-confidence among the workers and increases their confidence in struggle and they learn the tactics of fighting in the course of their struggle against the bourgeoisie. In this way trade union struggle becomes a training school for the proletariat.
But in another situation, that is, when a revolutionary situation prevails and when any struggle rapidly develops into an open clash with the state power? in such a revolutionary situation, the Party organization becomes the only class organization of the proletariat. Particularly in a country like India, where the main centre of revolution lies in the rural areas, the Party is called upon to shoulder much heavier responsibility and the task of building Party organizations among the proletariat becomes most urgent. This is so because the proletariat cannot play its leading role without the Party organization. So, when we say that a revolutionary situation now prevails in India, it necessarily follows that in India, our task today is to build underground revolutionary Party organizations and not mass organizations. It is this underground Party organization that will lead the class struggle. We must remember what Chairman Mao has taught us: "Never forget class struggle" Only through such class struggles can the broad masses of workers feel the necessity and inevitability of smashing the existing state apparatus and realize that an agrarian revolution is necessary in order to seize state power. Only thus can the proletarian leadership be established over the agrarian revolution.
Instead of emphasizing the need for building underground Party organizations, Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers have put the emphasis on the need for building mass organizations. By acting like this, they are actually trying to avoid the task of building revolutionary Party organizations.
The politics that Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers are preaching through their writings and their 'Co-ordination' is most harmful to the revolutionaries. This is so because with their revolutionary phrase-mongering they are rendering every single target of attack of the revolutionaries vague and indistinct. They are inventing arguments cloaked in revolutionary guise in order to induce us to drift along with the old revisionist current, to let ourselves be carried away by the old revisionist way of doing things to which we have been so long accustomed.
On the Czechoslovak event Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers weakened the anti-revisionist struggle by not arousing hatred against the Soviet social-imperialists. In the present-day India when the revolutionary masses, after rejecting the parliamentary road, have begun to take to the new road? The road illumined by the Thought of Chairman Mao? Parimal Dasgupta and others are trying to divert the masses from that new road and to drag them back to the parliamentary road. And they are doing all this in the name of Chairman Mao and behind a revolutionary facade.
At a time when we have begun building the revolutionary Party, we must defeat this harmful, politics. Unless we defeat it, the Party will not be able to advance along the correct revolutionary path and will not be able to master the revolutionary style of work as taught by Chairman Mao. That is why all revolutionaries must actively fight against the political views of Parimal Dasgupta and his fellow-travellers.
[This article, originally in Bengali, entitled 'Parimal Babur Rajniti' (Parimal Babu's Politics), appeared in Ghatana - Prabaha, Vol. II, No. 1. This translation was published in Liberation, Vol. II, No. 9 (July 1969).]
NOTES
1. This refers to an article "After Hungary, Czechoslovakia" by Parimal Dasgupta in which he made known his assessment, different from and opposed to the stand taken by the West Bengal State Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries and the revolutionary journal Deshabrati in regard to the Soviet social-imperialist aggression against Czechoslovakia.
2. This refers to the letter (dated 31.8.68) which Parimal Dasgupta addressed to the editorial board of Deshabrati. In it he stated that he was feeling "worried and uncomfortable" over the editorial of Deshabrati (of August 29, 1968) on the Czechoslovak event. According to him, this editorial endorsed the standpoint of reactionary parties like SSP, PSP etc. Such stand, according to him, "has caused grave harm to our politics". He sent his article ("After Hungary, Czechoslovakia") with this letter with a request to publish it in Deshabrati. His request was, however, turned down.
But his article was published in the above issue of Ghatana-Prabaha.
3. This refers to the editorial entitled "Rise Up in Protest against the Barbarous Soviet Aggression against Czechoslovakia", which appeared in Deshabrati on August 29, 1968. In it the social-imperialist nature of Soviet aggression was exposed and sharply condemned

Long Live The Heroic Peasants of Naxalbari!

The social system that exists in India is semi-feudal and semi-colonial. So the democratic revolution in this country means agrarian revolution. All the problems of India are related to this one task. On this question of agrarian revolution there has been difference of opinion in Marxist circles from the beginning of this century and among Marxists the struggle between the two policies-the one revolutionary and the other counter-revolutionary-continues. The Mensheviks side-tracked the question of State power and searched for a solution in municipalization. Lenin declared a crusade against it and said that it was not possible to solve the problem by side-tracking the question of State power. He showed that however progressive the legislation framed by one might be, the present State structure could not implement it. The condition of the peasant will remain the same. That was why he said that only the democratic State of workers and peasants, led by the working class, could solve this problem. Only the other day, even the Soviet Party writer, Yudin, while criticizing Nehru's Basic Approach, said that Nehru had not till then been able to solve the peasant problem. He challenged Nehru to show, in practice, how this problem could be solved in a peaceful way and added that Nehru would fail to do so. History has proved that, far from solving this problem, Nehru was not able even to bring about an iota of change.
After the twentieth congress of the Soviet party, the door to revisionism was opened wide and, as a result, the Soviet State has been transformed from a Socialist State into a capitalist State. By making the theory of peaceful transition to socialism-adopted at that twentieth congress-their basic guiding principle, the revisionists of our country are shouting loudly that the peasants' struggle for land is a struggle for realization of economic demands and that it is adventurism to talk of the State machinery. What strange similarity between the words of Dange and Basavapunnia!
What strange cooperation between Biswanath Mukherji and Harekrishna Konar! This is not accidental since its source is one and that is the Menshevik counter-revolutionary ideology. That is why the cunning rulers of the Soviet State have repeatedly declared that it is only by using fertilizers, improved seeds and agricultural implements that India's food problem can be solved. It is in this manner that they are coming forward to save India's reactionary ruling clique; they are concealing from the masses the basic and effective way of solving India's food, unemployment, poverty and other problems. This is because the Soviet State is today collaborating with British-American imperialists and has been turned into a State which exploits the masses of India. With the help of the native bourgeoisie the Soviet Union is also trying to invest capital in our country. In the sphere of trade and commerce with our country it has come to enjoy special facilities. That is why the arguments of the reactionary ruling clique are pouring out from the mouths of its spokesmen in a continuous flow and at an uninterrupted speed. That is why, as a collaborator of Britain and the U. S. A., the Soviet State also is our enemy and it is by taking shelter under their wings that the reactionary Government of India weighs like a corpse upon the shoulders of the masses. But even then Naxalbari has been created and hundreds of Naxalbaris are smouldering. This is because on the soil of India the revolutionary peasantry is heir to the heroic revolutionary peasants of great Telengana. The then Party leadership betrayed the heroic peasant struggle of Telengana and it did so by using the name of great Stalin. Many of those who are occupying the positions of Party leaders today were a party to the act of betrayal on that day! On bent knees, we will have to take lessons from those heroes of Telengana, not only to have strength to carry the red banner of revolt but also to have faith in the international revolutionary authority. What boundless respect they had for the international leadership-the name of Stalin made them place their lives fearlessly at the disposal of the reactionary government of India. In all ages and in all climes this revolutionary loyalty is necessary for organizing revolutions. We must learn from the experience of the heroes of Telengana: we must take the mask off the face of those who oppose Marxism-Leninism by using the name of Stalin. We will have to snatch from their hands the Red Flag dyed with the blood of hundreds of workers and peasants. The traitors have, by touching that Flag with their hands, stained it.
Naxalbari lives and will live. This is because it is based on invincible Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. We know that as we move forward we shall face many obstacles, many difficulties, many acts of betrayal and there will be many setbacks. But Naxalbari will not die because the bright sunlight of Chairman Mao's Thought has fallen on it like a blessing. When Naxalbari receives congratulations from the heroes in the rubber plantations of Malaya who have been engaged in struggle for 20 years, when congratulations are sent by Japanese comrades who have been fighting against the revisionist leadership of their own Party, when such congratulations come from the Australian revolutionaries, when the comrades of the armed forces of great China send their greetings, we feel the significance of that immortal call, "Workers of the World, Unite", we have a feeling of oneness and our conviction becomes more strong and firm that we have our dear relations in all lands. Naxalbari has not died and it will never die.
[Translated from the Bengali original, which appeared in the autumn 1967 issue of Deshabrati, it was published in Liberation. Vol. V, No. 1 (July 1971-January 1972)].