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)].

It Is Time to Build Up a Revolutionary Party

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has adopted a political line which is basically anti-revolutionary, opposed to Chairman Mao Tse-tung's Thought and Marxism-Leninism and based on class-collaborationist and revisionist ideology. At its Madurai meeting the C.C. has made a declaration in favour of peaceful transition to Socialism and has chosen the path of the country's progress through parliamentary democracy.
Despite high-falutin polemics on the international ideological disputes, it has, in fact, wholly rejected the ideological stand of the great Chinese Party and the Thought of Chairman Mao. While keeping silent about the capitalist revival in the Soviet Union it has discarded straightway the postulate of Comrade Stalin's last writing, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., and has at the same time opposed the line of the great Chinese Party by its open declaration that the Soviet Union is still a member of the socialist camp. What it all implies is lending support to the revisionist Soviet policy on the Vietnam issue in the international sphere and discovering a progressive role of Soviet economic 'aid' and trade-relations and welcoming them. On the issue of peasant struggles the C.C. has adopted without any presence the Menshevik political line and ended by opposing the peasant struggle.
Naturally, the C.C. meeting at Madurai has dragged down the party to the level of a revisionist bourgeois party. Therefore, to the genuine Marxist-Leninists there remains open no alternative but to oppose this policy. Now that the Madurai Resolution has been adopted it is obvious that the Central Committee is not a revolutionary Committee. Hence it is the revolutionary duty of every Marxist-Leninist to declare war against this Central Committee. The ulterior motive of the conceited bombast in which the whole of the C.C. Resolution is couched is but to deceive the revolutionary section inside the party, and more, to act secretly as a stooge in the interests of U.S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism and Indian reactionary forces.
The only purpose the Marxist-Leninists have behind all ideological discussions is how to apply the ideology in the objective conditions existing in their own countries. An abstract discussion of ideological issues as such has no revolutionary significance because its truth is subject to test through its application in the particular context. The C.C. has discussed the international ideological issues as abstract concepts, and what it has done concretely in that respect has in reality led it openly to declare the Soviet type of revisionism as the only path for India, and hence its opposition to the great party of China.
Its bourgeois outlook reveals itself in its stand on the issue of nuclear arms stockpile. It has not explained the real character of the joint nuclear monopoly by America and Russia, but has only aired a semblance of criticism in this vein: "Why has not the Soviet Union exchanged with China the secret of nuclear science?" The nuclear weapon is being used today as the most formidable weapon in the fight for power in the international arena. Under such circumstances, the collaboration between America and Russia turns out in fact to be collaboration for world domination. This plain truth has been covered up behind much petty forgery. The C.C. has ignored an event like exchange of nuclear secrets between America and Russia and so, the logical conclusion to be arrived at there from has not been arrived at by it. The only reason is that it considers the international ideological dispute to be a conflict of national interests that occurs between bourgeois countries and so fails to understand its real significance. That is, it refuses to see that this struggle is, in truth, a struggle to preserve the purity of Marxism-Leninism-a struggle between the revolutionary ideology and the counterrevolutionary ideology.
By refusing to refer to the reactionary character of the Indian government and by pointing out that "the Congress party still holds considerable political influence among the people", it tries to beautify the reactionary Indian government before the people. By keeping silent about the countrywide mass upsurge it has refused to lead these mass movements and by its policy of continuing in the U.F. Governments it has indirectly supported every step taken to suppress the mass movements and justified these anti-people activities. Without the slightest attempt to analyse the class-character of the different partners of the U.F. governments it has unhesitatingly given the directive to win over these constituent parties in favour of the Communist Party Programme through persuasion. If this is not undiluted Gandhism, what else is? Words and phrases such, as class, class-interest, class-struggle and so on find no place in the C.C. analysis. That is to say, by discarding the Marxist outlook and cursorily inserting a few Marxian terms, the C.C. has in fact rejected the entire doctrine of Marxism-Leninism.
By spinning out the yarn that the Congress still retains a mass base, the C.C. has tried to exaggerate the strength of the Indian reactionary forces. They cover up the undeniable fact that the economic crisis of this government is ripening into a political crisis through mass upheavals and thus, they underestimate the strength of the people. When the weakness of the reactionary Congress government is clearly revealed even to the common man, the C.C. is trying its best to pacify the people by magnifying the strength of the government out of all proportions. This brazen canvassing in favour of the reactionary government would have put even the Congress to shame. Even when American imperialism and Soviet revisionism in spite of their giving all possible help are failing to revive people's confidence in the government, the C.C. like a faithful lackey comes forward in defence of this reactionary government. The C.C. has thus proved to be an ally and friend of American imperialism, Soviet revisionism and the Indian reactionary government.
The C.C. is trying to show that it does not recognize the leadership of any other Party. The bourgeoisie has always been saying that the Communist Parties toe the line of the Soviet Party. The C.C. is trying to counteract this bourgeois propaganda by declaring that it does not accept any other Party's directives or analyses. We, communists, believe in a single scientific doctrine, known as Marxism-Leninism, the thought of Mao Tse-tung. If we acknowledge the truth of a science, we must necessarily acknowledge the authority of those who have developed it. Those who had wished to be Marxists without being followers of Lenin were cast eventually into the cesspool of history. The Thought of Mao Tse-tung is today the highest form of Marxism-Leninism and those who are opposing this international Marxist authority are doomed to take refuge in the fold of imperialism.
India is a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. So the main force which can change the colonial condition in this country is the peasantry and their anti-feudal struggle. No change is conceivable in this country without agrarian revolution. And it is the agrarian revolution that proves to be the only path towards the liberation of this country. Not only has the C.C. maintained silence over this question of agrarian revolution, but the C.C. is determined to oppose the revolutionary struggles of the peasantry wherever they have resorted to them. What intense hatred for the militant peasant revolutionaries of Naxalbari, what glee at the temporary success of the repressive policy of the reactionary U.F. government, has found expression in the words of the C.C. spokesman! As befits a faithful agent of the bourgeoisie, they insist on a precondition: they must receive the guarantee of success before they will condescend to lend their support to the struggle.
Today the duty of each and every Marxist-Leninist is to oust the C.C. from the revolutionary front. That alone can release the flood-tide in the movements and pave the way towards the final victory. Far from being a partisan, this revisionist reactionary C.C. is an enemy of every kind of anti-imperialist, anti-colonial struggle. It is only by severing all ties with this C.C. and its evil ideology that a revolutionary party can grow and develop. The smashing of this bourgeois ideology is the only guarantee for the growth of revolutionary ideology. Without uprooting this reactionary ideology the Indian revolution cannot advance even a step. So, for all genuine revolutionaries in the party submission to this political centralism can only mean acceptance of bourgeois authority. Therefore, the primary precondition, without which it is impossible for a revolutionary party to grow, is to defy the centralism of this C.C.
The first task towards building a revolutionary party is the propagation and dissemination of revolutionary ideology, that is the propagation and dissemination of Mao Tse-tung's Thought. The only path of the people's democratic revolution is to build up revolutionary bases in the rural areas through agrarian revolution under the proletarian leadership and subsequently to encircle the urban centres by expanding these revolutionary bases; to organize people's liberation forces from among the peasants' guerrilla forces and to lead the revolution to victory by capturing the cities, that is, to put into practice the tactics of people's war as formulated by Chairman Mao. This is the only correct Marxist-Leninist line for the liberation of India. A vigorous campaign in favour of this line is to be launched not only among the party members and sympathizers but also among the broad sections of the masses. Only thus can revolutionary struggles and a revolutionary party grow and develop. Only by propagating this mass line we can make the people conscious of the hollowness of the bourgeois reactionary documents of the C.C. and overcome the influence of this reactionary leadership on the struggling masses. Chairman Mao teaches us that we must ceaselessly propagate this mass line on all fronts. This teaching has a special significance for India. That there are a large number of revolutionary workers in the party is true, but it is equally true that the party has over a long stretch of time been inured to the rut of revisionism and bourgeois pattern of activities. As a result, there persist among the revolutionary party workers old revisionist habits, which are reflected in the trend of economism in every sphere, in the manner of functioning characteristic of economism. The experience in our area has shown how, despite their acceptance of the revolutionary ideology, the old party organizers on the peasant front or in the workers' unions hesitate to propagate it among the masses and how, faced with a revolutionary struggle, they get panicky, lose all confidence in the masses and in many cases even choose the path of open opposition. This does not in all cases assume the form of open opposition but is reflected in their lack of confidence in people's strength and exaggeration of the enemy's strength. The harmful effects of the actions of such party workers can be effectively overcome provided there is a sustained campaign in favour of this mass line among the larger section of the militant masses around these party workers. In such cases, those workers who have in them a genuine revolutionary urge may overcome their weakness.
We shall be faced with such a situation in every area, for the party members cherish many revisionist ideas as they have long been accustomed to the revisionist way of functioning. They cannot get over them in a day or two: only sustained revolutionary practice can enable them to do so. The campaign in favour of this mass line of our party would draw into the fold of the party new revolutionary cadres from among the vast revolutionary masses outside the party. These cadres would by their vigorous revolutionary consciousness remove the inertia within the party and install a dynamic revolutionary energy.
It is only through long-drawn and hard struggles that the revolution in India can be brought to its successful culmination, since this vast country of fifty crore-strong populations happens to be a strong base of the imperialist powers and the mainstay of Soviet revisionism. So with the victorious completion of the revolution in India the doomsday of imperialism as well as of Soviet revisionism would fast draw near. Hence it is nothing strange or unnatural that they would rush in to oppose the revolution in India, the citadel of world reaction. In this situation, to think of an easy victory is nothing but wishful thinking. Nevertheless, our victory is certain, since this country spreads over a vast area with a population of fifty crores. So all the might of the imperialists and revisionists will fail to stop the tide of revolution in this country.
But revolution can never succeed without a revolutionary party-a party which is firmly rooted in the Thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, a party composed of millions of workers, peasants and middle-class youth inspired by the ideal of self-sacrifice; a party that guarantees full inner-party democratic right to criticism and self-criticism and whose members freely and voluntarily abide by its discipline; a party that allows its members to act not only under orders from the above but to judge each directive with full freedom and even to defy wrong directives in the interest of the revolution; a party which ensures voluntary job-division to every member who attaches equal importance to all sorts of jobs ranging from high to low; the party whose members put into practice the Marxism-Leninist ideals in their own lives and, by practicing the ideals themselves, inspire the masses to make greater self-sacrifice and to take greater initiative in revolutionary activities; the party whose members never despair under any circumstances and are not cowed by any predicament but resolutely march forward to overcome it. Only a party like this can build a united front of people of different classes, holding different views in this country. Only a revolutionary party like this can lead the Indian revolution to success.
The great ideal that Chairman Mao Tse-tung holds high before all Marxist-Leninists is bound to be realized. Only then can we bring into existence a new democratic India and this new democratic India will then resolutely march forward towards socialism.
[Liberation, Vol. I, No. 1 (November 1967).]

"Boycott Elections!" International Significance of the Slogan

THE year was 1937. German, Italian and Japanese fascism, the three advanced detachments of world imperialism, were conspiring to re-divide the world among themselves. German and Italian fascism intruded on the stage of Spain as active supporters of General Franco. The world working class came out in support of the united front government of Spain, and an International Brigade was formed with people who came from different countries. But unfortunately Franco succeeded in smashing the resistance put up by the International Brigade and in imposing his brand of fascism on Spain.
Just at that time, the Communist Party of China headed by Chairman Mao liberated a small area, Yenan, and stood up to oppose Japanese militarism. Not only that. It smashed all the boasts of Japanese militarism and began to create one liberated zone after another by rousing the poor peasants in the Japanese-occupied areas. These liberated zones not only survived the fierce Japanese attacks but also struck back hard at Japanese imperialism. At that time the Communist Party of China headed by Chairman Mao Tse-tung had not only to fight Japanese imperialism but also had to resist the reactionary Kuomintang government led by Chiang.
Then the Second World War broke out. The colonies of the older imperialist powers crumbled like a house of cards. The colonial people saw before their eyes how the so-called powerful imperialist powers fled before Japanese aggression like a dog beaten and with its tail between its legs. German fascism brought all the imperialist powers of entire Europe (excepting the British) under its heels through its superior military technique and strength. The old imperialist powers proved unable to meet the onslaught of fascism. With the entire industrial wealth and resources of Europe at their disposal, the power-drunk German fascists launched an aggression against the Soviet Union, the only state at that time where the working class held power. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by the great Stalin soon recovered from the initial shock of this treacherous surprise attack and mobilized the entire Soviet people, imbued them with the sacred determination to defend the country and smashed all the boasts of the German fascist hordes. The defeat inflicted on German fascism in the battlefield of Stalingrad ensured the victory of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Stalin. The example of the great Communist Party of China inspired the world's people wherever they were oppressed by fascism and they rose arms in hand to oppose fascism and established rural base areas in order to fight it. That is how world fascism was destroyed. After the war when the old imperialists tried to reestablish their exploitation and rule, the wrath of the people of the colonial world, who had been roused and had realized their own strength, spread like a wild fire and the flames of armed struggle spread through the colonies and semi-colonies. At the time when the Communist Party of China led by Chairman Mao was advancing towards a decisive victory, there emerged in India, Telengana, where, under the leadership of the communist revolutionaries, a peasant guerrilla force was formed, hundreds of thousands of peasants were roused with the spirit of revolutionary resistance, and hundreds of villages were liberated.
The victory of the great Chinese revolution and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 conclusively proved the immeasurable power of People's War. The Communist Party of China based on Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung's thought, established the alliance of workers, peasants and other toiling people on a firm foundation and led the Chinese people to victory along the path of armed struggle This victory stirred up the people of the colonial world and armed struggle began to develop firmly in every colony in Southeast Asia. The victorious Chinese revolution clearly pointed out before the people of the colonies and semi-colonies the path along which they should advance to achieve victory. Then began the era of the total collapse of world imperialism. As world imperialism neared its final collapse, the revisionist leadership of the Communist Parties of the world began to betray the people's struggles. After the death of Stalin the Soviet revisionist renegade clique usurped the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the world's revisionist renegade cliques began to work jointly with a view to saving world imperialism from its destruction. The renegade traitors in India, who masqueraded as communists, were mortally scared at the victory of the Chinese revolution and withdrew unconditionally the Telengana struggle and took to the path of parliamentarism. After the twentieth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, in collusion with U.S. imperialism, spread disruption and confusion among the people of the colonies and semi-colonies wherever they were waging armed struggle. Chairman Mao has said that world imperialism today is like a house which rests on a solitary pillar U.S. imperialism. And so, the destruction of U.S. imperialism will completely smash world imperialism. This is why the traitorous Khrushchev clique extended its hand of cooperation to U.S. imperialism. And this is also the reason why Chairman Mao warned us in 1957 and declared that in the era of raging revolutionary struggles revisionism is the main danger.
The struggle against revisionism in the international arena, which Chairman Mao launched in 1962, brought a new wave of enthusiasm among the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists all the world over. The Communist Party in every country in the world began to seethe with incipient revolts against the revisionist party leadership, and revolutionary Marxist-Leninists began to close their ranks. The anti-imperialist struggle entered a new higher phase. Taking their place in the forefront of anti-imperialist struggle, the heroic Vietnamese fighters dealt blows at U.S. imperialism, the lone pillar of world imperialism. It became clear as daylight that the doom of imperialism was near.
Any hesitancy, ever so little, to recognize that the thought of Chairman Mao is Marxism-Leninism of the present era, cannot but weaken the anti-imperialist struggle. This is because it blunts the very weapon with which revisionism has to be fought. Chairman Mao has taught us that we cannot advance even one step to attack imperialism without hitting revisionism.
In the present era when imperialism is heading towards total collapse, revolutionary struggle in every country has taken the form of armed struggle; Soviet revisionism, unable to retain its mask of socialism, has been forced to adopt imperialist tactics; world revolution has entered a new higher phase; and socialism is marching irrepressibly forward to victory - in such an era, to take to the parliamentary road means stopping this onward march of world revolution. Today, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists cannot opt for the parliamentary road. This is true not only for the colonial and semi-colonial countries, but for the capitalist countries as well. In this new era of world revolution when victory has been achieved in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, it has become the main task of the Marxist-Leninists the world over to establish bases in rural areas and to build up, on a firm foundation, the unity of workers, peasants and all other toiling people through armed struggle. So, the slogans 'boycott elections' and 'establish rural bases and create areas of armed struggle,' which the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have advanced, remains valid for the entire era.
By adhering to the parliamentary road the revolutionaries the world over have allowed a formidable blood-debt to accumulate over the ages. The time has now come to settle this blood-debt. Hundreds of thousands of fallen martyrs call upon the revolutionaries: 'Strike hard at the dying imperialism and wipe it out from the face of the earth!' It is time to rebuild the world in a new way! Our victory in this fight is certain!
[Liberation, Vol. II, No. 2 (December 1968).]