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Escalation in Afganistan: Wrong, Imperialist, Intolerable

Interview: An Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India

Posted by Mike E on March 29, 2008

farmernadigram.jpgThis is an interview with G.N. Saibaba, the Deputy Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an All Indian Federation of Revolutionary People’s Organisations. He is 40 years old and was born in Andhra Pradesh, a state in southern India. The new Norwegian party Rødt [Red!] conducted this interview in early December when Saibaba was in Norway for the memorial service for Tron Øgrim. The interview was conducted in English. Thanks to the Fire on the Mountain blog for posting it.

Red!: If someone said to you that the Maoist movement in India is a marginal movement that is mainly operating in very backward, lowly populated areas, and it has been doing so for over thirty-five years without getting anywhere, what would be your answer?

Saibaba:The Maoist movement in India is not confined to the backward areas. It’s a vast movement, and includes the “developed” areas. Maoists work both in the countryside and the cities. The government says that the Maoists are active in 15 out of 28 states. And these include the major states. The Union Home Ministry says that 167 districts out total 600 districts in the country are covered by Maoists. This is a little less than 1/3 of India.

The Maoists in India follow the New Democratic Revolutionary method proved successful in China under the leadership of Mao. This method follows that the revolutionary movement must put priority on working in the areas where the state is weak. The Maoists work in the backward regions to smash the local reactionaries’ power and establish people’s power. They build revolutionary mass bases in these backward areas. This doesn’t mean that they don’t also work in the cities. In fact, in the Congress of the CPI (Maoist) held in January/February 2007, they decided to increase their work in the urban areas. They have produced a new document concerning work in the urban areas that analyses the work done in the last thirty years. This document sets out a strategy for developing the work in the urban areas.

The backward regions in the country are essentially semi-feudal and there is not much capitalistic development. The Maoist Party selected these areas for guerrilla warfare. The armed struggle is considered as the main form of struggle. In order to develop the main form of struggle the Maoists concentrate their work in the backward areas. The struggle in urban areas is secondary and complimentary. The work of the party among the working class in the urban areas helps develop proletarian leadership for the struggle in the backward areas.

naxalwatch1.pngAt the same time the Maoists participate in developing a huge movement in the urban areas among the intelligentsia, students, women and the middle classes. Maoist cadres and leaders who have been working in the urban areas also are arrested, harassed and killed.

Maoists also work among the coal miners in a big way. There are vast coal mines in many regions in India. You can see, the Maoists work in many industrial areas all over the country, though their concentration of work proceeds from the rural areas.

In fact the CPI (Maoist) leads the single largest mass movement in India. The Central and local governments’ response is an indicator to the vastness of the movement. The Central Government has formed a Coordination Centre together with 14 state governments. They are cooperating to mobilise security forces and to gather intelligence about the movements of the Maoists. They have armed a huge military network. They have monthly meetings of this Centre. A large number of military forces are engaged against the Maoist movement. This also indicates the strength of the Maoist movement.

The Naxalbari uprising in 1967 that beckoned in the new revolutionary wave ended with splits into many groups. The splitting up of revolutionary communist forces lasted from 1972 to 1997. It is only after 1997 that the revolutionary communists started uniting. Two major parties who were waging armed struggle united in 1998 and the final unity took place in 2004 when the CPI (Maoist) was formed with the merger of MCCI and CPI (People’s War). Because of the splits the movement couldn’t grow faster before 2004.

(See notes for more on these trends)

Red!: How do the Maoists respond to accusations of being dogmatists, and not being willing to learn from the defeats of socialism in the 20th century?

Saibaba: The Maoists are creatively and in a genuine way implementing the Marxist principles to the concrete conditions of India. They don’t blindly copy from China or Russia. At the same time they are aware that the socialist projects in China and Russia were defeated by the capitalist roaders. They apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in a practical way for India. If one calls carrying armed struggle dogmatism, then one is moving away from class struggle in an impoverished country like India. Armed peasant struggle is the basic struggle, because 70% of the masses have been forced to remain with and depend on agriculture and backward relations of production. In such a situation where a vast majority don’t have a public democratic space, they will not be able to fight the fascistic ruling classes without arms. But armed struggle is also being waged creatively and practically. Armed struggle doesn’t mean the annihilation of the class enemy. Armed struggle is a form of class struggle where the oppressed classes assert their power and organise themselves by taking away power from the feudal and pro-imperialist comprador capitalists.

Armed struggle under the leadership of Maoists also means re-appropriation of the sources of livelihood by the wretched of the earth from the dominant and powerful classes. It also means building alternative institutions the people’s power. So in this way the armed struggle is redefined and practiced with Bolshevik spirit of giving all power to the soviets. Without armed struggle no resistance can be built in countries like India and the resistance that has been built up in the previous years cannot be retained. The armed actions against the state forces and feudal forces are carried out to protect the movement and in self-defence and self-assertion of the exploited classes.

The Maoists believe that the demise of socialist construction in Russia and China was mainly due to the revisionist line that developed within the respective Communist Parties of those countries. The capitalist-roaders in Russia and China captured power back from the working class because those parties could not guard against the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the proletarian parties. The failure of the socialist projects have taught important lessons to the international proletariat in carrying forward the class struggle against the bourgeoisie in various countries and the monopoly bourgeoisie at the international level. In no country in the world has class struggle succeeded without armed struggle.

Red!: How many soldiers do the Maoists have approximately?

Saibaba:The Indian Government says 28,000, but the number may be much higher. The areas of their influence look much wider than what the Government estimations indicate. Also there is a vast people’s militia working at the village level. The militia is basic and primary in relation to the People’s Liberation Army as per the strategy of the CPI (Maoist).

Red!: Have there been any peace talks between the Maoists and the authorities anywhere?

Saibaba:There were peace talks in 2004. The Government of Andhra Pradesh invited the Maoists for peace negotiations. The Maoist Party always maintains that they are never averse to political negotiations with their opponents on the issues of people’s struggles, but no negotiations are possible on their central political line in terms of strategy. One round of peace talks were conducted in Hyderabad for about a month. This was facilitated and supported by the prominent intellectuals of the region. The Maoists said in the negotiations that if the government was willing to solve the problems of the people for which they had been fighting in the last thirty five years, they would welcome the change. They discussed the basic problems of the people. A ceasefire agreement was signed by both sides before the political negotiations began. The government said that they wanted to close the first phase of the negotiations and also said that it would implement the agreed upon points. And the Maoist leaders who negotiated went back underground. They waited for the implementation of the agreed points. The Government violated the ceasefire, started hostilities on the Maoists and killed several hundred Maoists, including leading cadres. This process revealed before the eyes the people how the reactionary rulers are not ready to solve the problems of the people.

Red! : Do the Maoists have any base areas?

Saibaba:The People’s War has not reached to the level of base areas yet. But it has almost reached this level in several places. In these areas where base areas are under construction, people’s governments at local level are functioning. The People’s governments are functioning in several hundred villages.

Red!: There is news that the Central and State Governments launched attacks against the Maoist positions in Andhra Pradesh, and that they have been driven out of most of the areas. Doesn’t this show that when the ruling classes want to, they can defeat the Maoists militarily, and that it is only a question of tactics from the enemy’s part, when it decides to smash the Maoists?

Saibaba:In the last decade more than two thousand Maoist cadres have been brutally murdered in Andhra Pradesh. There was a concentrated attack particularly after the peace negotiations. When the Maoists saw that they were facing larger losses of forces, they retreated from certain areas, and deployed them in other areas. There is a temporary setback in some areas in Andhra Pradesh for the Maoist movement, but they are trying to revive these areas. The Central and State governments use vigilante groups in a huge way to infiltrate the Maoist areas and smash them. The vigilante groups worked more effectively for the governments in breaking the Maoist resistance in some areas of Andhra Pradesh.

The movement is not merely a military movement. It is a political movement involving the masses. So the Maoists are not facing and confronting the Indian military forces just militarily but more politically so they have a vast mass base. It is not possible for the government to smash the movement because of massive popular support. The temporary setbacks are not uncommon in revolutionary movements. But the mature revolutionary movements could recover from such setbacks quickly from time to time.

Red!: Are there any revolutionary forces that are trying another strategy than protracted people’s war in India?

Saibaba:Yes, for example CPI (ML) New Democracy and a few other CPI (ML) groups. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections (elections to the Union legislature i.e. the Parliament) in 2004, CPI(ML) Red Flag and a few other CPI (ML) groups took the initiative to form a united front of revolutionary communists basically to fight elections.

The Maoists consider them to be the right deviationists but not revisionist. They are progressive, but not on the right revolutionary path as per the Maoists. But Maoists are not averse to work with them in mass work.

Red!: India is a big country. In some areas there are civil wars, in other areas there is not much unrest. At the same time most parties are regional, not national. Are there revolutionary organisations in all the states of India?

Saibaba:The unrest is everywhere. Take for example Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These two areas are poverty-stricken areas. But there is not a single revolutionary party exists in these regions. The unrest takes place in these regions many shapes. Sometimes mass militant movements arise. But the major problem is that the revolutionary subjective forces are not working there. These are two large states, but there is no history of revolutionary communist parties in these areas, mostly NGOs work in these areas. They are often foreign funded. But the objective situation is very much ripe for armed struggle in these areas as well. It is simply the question of spread of revolutionary forces to these regions that is awaited.

Red!: What is the percentage of people living in the cities? How many of these have employment?

Saibaba:30 percent of Indian population live in urban and semi-urban areas and 70 percent in the countryside. Overall, about 77% of the people live on Rs. 20/- a day i.e. half a US dollar a day on an average. Unemployment is rampant in every part of India.

Red!: Officially India is growing at a GDP growth-rate of almost 10%. You contest this figure. Why?

Saibaba:At the moment the growth rate is around 9% as per the Government’s declaration. Only 0.5% percent of the workforce, which is engaged in the service-sector, is contributing 55% to the GDP. And 70% of the workforce, which is in the rural agriculture sector, is contributing with only 19% to the GDP. And 3% of the work force is engaged in the manufacturing sector. These figures from the government tell us that the vast majority of the people’s share in the GDP is very minute. Right now the growth rate figures are based to a large degree on speculative capital, which includes foreign investment. So the growth rate is both illusive and fragile. The calculations for the growth rate are also based on falsehoods. If these figures indicate anything, we understand that the top 10% is amassing the wealth with crudest exploitative methods.

Red!: In the Philippines there is a combination of People’s War and at the same time the party supports people’s parties that stand for elections, in Nepal the Maoists stood for elections to parliament in 1993, then they boycotted the elections and started a people’s war, and now they are in parliament. Isn’t it possible to combine people’s war and parliamentary work in such a vast and diverse country as India?

Saibaba:The history of the development of the Communist Movement in India in the last 40 years shows us that those Communist Revolutionary Parties that did not choose the strategy of People’s War, but chose the theory of people’s resistance first, before the initiation of People’s War or that chose to combine people’s resistance and parliamentary politics, gradually slipped into either right deviationist or neo-revisionist path.

People’s War is the main strategy, whereas standing for elections of the Parliament is a tactical question. The Maoists are not in principle against the elections, but doing this must facilitate the strategy of People’s War. The Maoists consider the question of participation in Parliamentary elections as part of the tactics which has a strategic importance. So they don’t see any immediate possibility of participating in elections. The Parliamentary institutions are highly discredited ones among the people in India. In the imagination of people at large, if one is participating in elections one is the enemy of the people who comes to rob them. The Maoists boycott elections and concentrate on building alternative people’s power and people’s institutions. In India the Maoists have no immediate plans of using this tactic.

Red!: Isn’t it possible to develop both legal struggle and underground struggle in the cities and larger urban areas, also including working in the Parliamentary organisations?

Saibaba:The Maoists do work in the urban areas among the working classes and the middle classes. This has secondary importance in relation to the main strategy of the revolutionary line. The primary importance is to develop the armed struggle in the villages among the peasants as the main force, and with the working class ideology in the leadership. This means not just the physical workers but those of the people who acquired the proletarian ideology and without property of their own. Maoists do combine legal and the illegal struggles as far as the struggles create space to operate and basically understand that more and more militant struggles create this space. Whatever there is any democratic space, it’s being used to the maximum extent possible. But the ruling classes don’t allow the use of legal means and different institutions of democracy always. Participating in elections is not the only way to participate in legal and urban spaces. Even boycotting elections is a highly political activity, which is another way of participating politically within the given democratic space that exists in India.

First of all, the Maoists are concentrating on gaining power for the people to build people’s democratic revolutionary institutions. When this is achieved in large areas, they will get more space in the urban centres.

Red!: Is employment growing?

Saibaba:The employment rate is not growing, it is standing still. But the real employment rate has declined very much, for several reasons. The economic surveys tell us that one million small industries were closed in the last few years, and this made a huge loss of jobs. Then land being acquired from the farmers is also responsible for unemployment. The small peasants and landless peasants have lost their jobs in a big way.

Only IT-industry and some service industry are growing. But these are sectors where a miniscule number of people are employed. Employment in manufacture sector is on decline. The government doesn’t show these figures. The independent intelligentsia produce alternative figures on both the growth rate and unemployment. There is a huge controversy about the official figures about employment situation in India. On the whole, there is a decline in the employment growth rate, side by side there is decline in real wages of workers.

Red!: Is India an imperialist country or a semi-feudal, semi colonial country?

Saibaba: India is not an imperialist country. The reason is that India is under the clutches of the imperialist powers. India’s ruling classes exert little amount of power in international politics. To a great extent, it is acting under the dictates of the US imperialists. At the same time India has expansionist designs. Imperialist powers can control other countries, while expansionism is a desire to expand without the ability, to the neighbouring countries and try to exploit them and bully them.

But even these imperialist designs are not according to the wishes of the ruling classes of India, but according to the wishes of the imperialists. India exercises its expansionist desires by becoming an instrument in the hands of the USA at present. The USA is manoeuvring India to get control over the neighbouring smaller countries for an overall control over the geopolitical interests of the USA in South Asia. Examples are Sri Lanka and Nepal. India is being used to suppress the LTTE’s just struggle for Tamil national liberation in Sri Lanka. The relationship between the USA and India can be compared with the hegemony of Israel in the Middle East. Now the US wants to use India to suppress the Maoist movement in Nepal though at present clandestinely. India has occupied Kashmir and North-Eastern national territories like Naga and others peoples by brute military force.

Red!: Is the class struggle in India more intense now than 20 years ago?

Saibaba: The poverty levels in India have increased. In 1947 there were no suicide deaths of farmers. From 1990s onwards the suicide deaths of farmers have started in a big way. Why did they start in the 1990s? It’s because agriculture, which employs the largest section of the population has been neglected drastically. The poor peasantry is not able survive in this sector largely depending on the highly exploitative private credit system. About 150 000 farmers committed suicide in the last ten years. There are hunger deaths in many areas. People are eating wild roots and leaves in vast areas of deliberately underdeveloped areas. In fact we can see that we have several areas at the same level as the sub-Saharan African countries in India today. All this is happening particularly after the aggressive pro-imperialist globalisation started at a large-scale in India.

The working class is the most beleaguered class in our country. They have lost their rights. The fresh sections of workers emerging from the peasantry classes cannot join the labour aristocratic class. The organised sector very small compared to the unorganised sector, where collective agreements and labour laws are followed to an extent is fast diminishing.

But also ordinary people are more conscious of the already existing struggles in other areas. The class contradictions are sharpened because the resources are going into the hands of fewer and fewer after the globalisation process started around 1990. This process amasses of wealth in a very few hands.

Some welfare reforms introduced by the ruling classes in the decades of sixties and seventies were dropped and the government is leaving everything to the market that is led by the imperialist forces directly allied by the subservient domestic capitalists. This also increases the intensity of the struggles.

Red!: Since the beginning of the 1990s the ruling classes in India have pursued a neo-liberalistic policy of deregulation and privatisation and globalisation. How do these changes effect the situation for women?

Saibaba: There is nothing liberal about the neoliberal policies. These policies have been implanted since the time of Nehru in India. The so-called Nehru socialism is full of pro-imperialist globalisation policies. But then of course there is a marked difference between the earlier phase and the phase started since the 1990s. The difference is that globalisation is the aggressive phase of imperialist onslaught. Globalisation is the globalisation of aggressive monopoly capital in the absence of socialist block in the world, and also because of imperialism’s own in depth crisis. More and more, the burden of this crisis is being shifted on to the shoulders of the third world countries. As a result of the extreme exploitative conditions under the process of globalisation, the first section of the people who are facing severe difficulties are the Adivasis, the landless and poor peasants, the workers, the religious minorities particularly the Muslims an overwhelming majority of whom are among the country’s poorest and in all these sections and classes the women are affected first of all.

Women are of course affected hardest. When workers are retrenched the women go first. Second, in the dwindling conditions of employment, women don’t get new jobs as the job market is rabidly patriarchal. The extreme patriarchal oppression that exists in India is a result of both deviant capitalism and semi-feudalism. Women are forced to look after the families, particularly the children, when sources of livelihood decline. As a result, women eat less now, feed their children and look after their households. Today, there is more malnutrition among women, working in hard conditions both at home and outside. They get lower wages than men. Though equal wages is the law in the country, nobody follows it.

The sex ratio in the country is fast becoming a gulf, with the actual number of women decreasing in compared the numbers of men. Female foeticide is a growing phenomenon. Hundreds of cases of female foeticide are recorded in the hospitals. So now women are the biggest section joining the struggles, standing at the forefront and joining all struggles. More than 30 percent of the members in the Maoist party are women. Even the biggest bourgeois party in the country will not have such number of women. In some areas like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand the percentage is higher.

Red!: You say that displacement is the major issue in India. That there are six different kinds of displacement: Special Economic Zones, mining, new industry, new big dams, beautification of urban spaces and infrastructural corridor projects and others. You say that the forced displacement is based on expropriating approximately 12% of the land. Most of this land is also very fertile. Can you explain why displacement is the main issue, and not poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and so on?

Saibaba: 70% of the people depend on land or agriculture directly or indirectly. The major source of employment is agriculture. When land is taken away for these projects the people have no other source of income. So, one of the major ways that people are becoming unemployed is through dispossession of land. This in fact renders both the landed people and landless poor jobless. The rehabilitation packages announced by the government for those who lose land, never work. The rehabilitation is never implemented. So all the problems like malnutrition, poverty, unemployment and so on, are rooted in the process of dispossession of people of their sources of livelihood, by displacing them from their land, forests and other habitats.

Red!: Why can’t the displaced peasants get new jobs in the modern sector?

Saibaba: The displaced are from those sections that are silently forced to remain illiterate. They don’t have the necessary skills for industrial work – - particularly the kind of industry that is being set up with high imperialist technology. On the other hand, even if a small section is eligible for industrial work, they don’t get jobs because the industries being set up are technology-intensive and they don’t employ many people. The machines are brought from the imperialist countries. These machines require highly skilled labour. So there is no space for the disposed to get jobs in the industrial sector that is supposed to be growing. Then there is a small possibility of employment in the IT-sector or services sector, but not the manufacturing industry. In the urban areas there is already a huge section of educated unemployed, who will get a small number of jobs in these industries, but not the rural displaced.

Red!: What do the Maoists in India consider to be the main lessons to be learnt from the defeat of socialism in the last century, when it comes to the question of the relationship between the communist party and the rest of society?

Saibaba: The Indian Maoists feel that what happened in Russia and China still has to be analysed further. They think that in future the international Communist Revolutionaries have to come together and study the failures more concretely. One of the reasons for the failure of the socialist construction projects could be that the parties had not been able to devise mechanisms to check the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the Communist Parties. But of course in China the Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Mao was developed to check the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the Communist Parties. But it remained at an experimental level at that time after the death of Mao. More and more devices, political and ideological have to be developed within the revolutionary Communist Parties to check the extraneous class ideologies from creeping into the Communist Parties. Each of the countries of the world today needs to establish firm proletarian parties.

Unfortunately in many of the European countries as well as in some of the third world countries today, extraneous class ideologies have been creeping in, in the name of “21st century democracy,” “liberal organising principles” and acceptance of a “multiparty system.” Even within the policies of the Communist Parties, the need today is to drive them towards Bolshevisation, Leninist Parties which can lead the proletariat to victories in the process of which lessons can be drawn from the earlier failures which should be understood as temporary setback for the world proletariat in the long historical onward march.

Red!: What is the root-cause for differences among the Communist forces in India?

Saibaba: Within India the differences among the Communist Revolutionaries are not simply differences among their leadership. They reflect the different class bases of these parties, the nature of their petty-bourgeois leadership, their attempts to take their parties into non-proletarian class ideologies by leading mostly legalistic struggles. The sharp class struggles simply cannot depend on legalistic means of struggles and survive in the face of the highly fascistic reactionary classes. In India, some such parties have made their bases among the rich and middle peasantry which mostly has petty-bourgeois and liberal attitudes by which they try to protect their legal space. Some others have built a party simply with urban petty-bourgeois sections. Others who have been building parties with the propertyless poor and landless peasantry including Adivasis and working class are able to go ahead in developing formidable class struggle.

So the differences are based on concrete physical conditions in the classes they root in their struggles. There is a need today for the coming together of all these small sections of such Communist Parties to ally with the Maoists, but unity is only possible if they change their orientation towards genuine proletarian line and base their work among the working class, the poor and the landless peasantry.

Red!: Are there any lessons to be learnt on the question of women’s’ liberation from the defeat of socialism?

Saibaba: If we look at the present situation of the emancipation of women, the patriarchal structures are to be studied in depth by the practicing Marxists in the movements. Now in India more and more concentration is paid on the patriarchal structures from the women cadres of the Maoist Party. One is the institution of reproduction itself, which is highly discriminating against women. Within the Maoist revolutionary practice this has become a major question along with other specific problems for women. These problems have not been completely grasped. Not enough mechanisms have been found to check the discrimination of women within the revolutionary process. One major thing is that women continue to be under patriarchal structures just because they are women. So the new revolution must pay attention to the specificities of this special oppression. The second important point is that complete emancipation of women is not possible within the capitalist system.

But we should also be aware of the fact that if the proletariat takes over power the patriarchal structures would not automatically disappear. This is a major problem. One must have specific attention to the institutions and structures that remain. Women have to fight a revolution within the revolution. In India there will be many more revolutions within the revolution as we have a peculiar oppressive form called caste. One example we have before us for the revolution within revolution is the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China under the leadership of Mao. But India has to tread a more torturous path. Mao called for a thousand revolutions to completely root out the bourgeois ideology. I understand all such attempts of revolution within the revolution are complimentary and patriarchy and caste system or say, racism has to be looked at from this angle. A quick and simple solution is not possible. A revolutionary has to be patient.

But this doesn’t mean these revolutions should wait till the proletariat captures power. In India we think that Cultural Revolution has to start now even before the success of the New Democratic Revolution. But such an attempt taken unmindfully will degenerate into a Post-modernist ruse, like most liberal humanist projects relapse into Post-structuralist obscurantism. This task is possible only in the hands of a firm proletariat Party after it acquires confidence of the revolutionary masses in a country. Otherwise, such attempts will end up in mere anarchism.

The women have their own structures and organisations within the CPI (Maoist). They have their own conferences and committees. They are part of the general conferences and have separate meetings in connection with these.

The rule is that if a woman and a man are equally competent then a woman is given priority in leading any particular revolutionary committee. There is also special education for women so that they develop faster, special camps and special trainings are devised. In the Maoist Party most women that are party members do not have children on their own choice, but if particular women want to have, she can have a child and the party will help her. The period her child-bearing not be discriminated against. There are well developed policies about these questions in the Maoist Party of India.

Red!: Is there are revolutionary situation in India today? What about the rest of the world?

Saibaba: There is an extremely favourable revolutionary situation in India and also in all the “third world” countries. In each of these countries, the domestic crisis is growing while international crisis is also growing. The “third world” countries need not wait for any third world war to accomplish their revolutions. There may not be a Third World War in the classical sense, even though Bush promises one. The conditions of war exist in different ways.

The world is already in a type of war, but its shape is different now. For example, the US is fighting a military war against the people of Iraq and an economic war on the people of India, and both varieties of wars kill the people in the same magnitude. So why does the US need to declare war on India when the Indian ruling classes are willing to facilitate everything for the imperialists? The growing contradictions among the imperialist forces can quickly change from collusion to conflicts. The background is already prepared and the revolutionary situation is already ripe. It is the subjective forces of the communists that have to take advantage of the situation and strengthen their forces.

The ruling class hegemony will be crushed in no time if the imperialists don’t come to their rescue in each of these countries when the revolutionary masses organise themselves. Similarly, a break in the imperialist chain anywhere will catch like wildfire and the irreversible collapses of the imperialist/monopoly bourgeois rule in the West will follow the suit. The proletarian parties in Europe and other parts of the West should prepare the ground before for this impending and indispensable eventuality soon

4 Responses to “Interview: An Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India”

  1. Jaroslav said

    GN Saibaba said (my emphasis):

    People’s War is the main strategy, whereas standing for elections of the Parliament is a tactical question. The Maoists are not in principle against the elections, but doing this must facilitate the strategy of People’s War. The Maoists consider the question of participation in Parliamentary elections as part of the tactics which has a strategic importance. So they don’t see any immediate possibility of participating in elections. The Parliamentary institutions are highly discredited ones among the people in India. In the imagination of people at large, if one is participating in elections one is the enemy of the people who comes to rob them. The Maoists boycott elections and concentrate on building alternative people’s power and people’s institutions. In India the Maoists have no immediate plans of using this tactic.

    How might this apply to the US? It was pointed out in the 9 Letters that RCPUSA is the only one who takes imperialist politicians at their word, everyone else thinks they’re [politicians] a bunch of liars. This is similar to Saibaba’s description of Indians’ attitudes toward politicians there. Also the 9 Letters talks about partisan base areas where people would relate to each other in a new way. This is similar to Saibaba’s description of Indian Maoists’ strategy of building alternative people’s power (although, this can be done at a higher level in base areas during PPW, than in US pre-rev process).

    People on this site are debating Obama & how to relate to this phenomenon of some mass support for him & his electoral ambitions. Despite his demagoguery, isn’t it still true that most of the oppressed masses in the US view politicians as lying, untrustworthy, shits? Certainly it is also true that many have real illusions, & express their desire for ‘change’ through electoral means. But out of these two mass sentiments, I think everybody here agrees that we should encourage the former & decrease the latter. Wouldn’t anything short of boycotting go against this?

    My main point, which is what stuck out to me in reading the quote from Saibaba, is that we’re not starting from nowhere: there is definitely a lot of mass sentiment against bourgeois politicians as a whole, both in India & US.

  2. On June 16th Comrade Harbhajan Singh Sohi expired.An outstanding Architect of the mass line who fought for the cause of the mass line till hs last breadth.Below i wish to publish some of the salientr features of his theory and practice.
    Compilations on Mass Line (In Tribute to departed Comrade Harbhajan Sohi and to Devullapali Venkateshwara Rao on 25th death Anniversary)

    Part1.Internal Line Struggle

    1.Genesis of the Struggle against Charu Mazumdar line

    Please add this information to the compilation son the mass line.

    The turning point in Andhra Pradesh was the rejection of the C.P.M’s central committee ideological draft by a majority vote. The Communist Revolutionaries organized the ideological debate utilisng certain advantageous conditions. The State plenum adopted a detailed resolution with 158/231 supporting it.Comrade T.N and Chandra Pulla Reddy were the architects of the resolution.Thhe C.P.M leadership earlier evaded the ideological debate in 1964 at the same time there were various points of view reflected in the 1964 Calcutta Congress.In June 1966 they presented a note to the C.C but later discouraged this by allowing the state committees to publish only’the authoritative pronouncements of fraternal parties./’The 1967 documents of the C.P.M adopted neo-revisionist postions.
    The C.R’s of A.P. organized themselves into a secret organization by March 1968.Thhey organized similar committees below. Which conducted the anti neo-revisionst struggle,o rganizationally consolidating the forces that rallied with the revolutionary politics and guiding the peoples movement with the aim of revolution.
    However the internal struggle against neo revisionism at the all –India level lacked any co-ordination and centralized leadership. There were several different types of approaches.

    On November 13th 1967,under the leadership of Comrade Charu Mazumdar the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries of India was formed.
    They professed
    a.develop and co-ordinate militant struggles at all levels ,especially peasant struggles.of Naxalbari Type
    b.develop militant struggles of the working class
    c.wage ideological struggle against revisionism and popularize Mao Tes Tung Thought.d.To develop a revolutionary programme.ona correct tactical line.
    On May 14th 1968 the A.I.C.C.R came out with a declaration claiming that all those revolutionaries still in the C.P.M must be disqualified from consideration, and all those who still think there is scope for inter-party struggle must be condemned. Interestingly the organ Liberation refuted this stating that avenues had to be allowed for differences and that it was premature to rule out such comrades .Interestingly, although from the beginning ,the AI.C.C.R.leadership showed trends of left adventurism,the Andhra Comrades under the banner of the Andhra Pradesh Co-ordination Committee met them and even joined them.This took place in November 1968.Earlier in June 1968 the CR’s of A.P formally broke away.comrade T.N was the convenor.In August of that year the A.I C.C R had formed a Naxalbari Solidarity Committee and wee carrying a slanderous campaign against the A.P.C.C.C.R.,propogating that the Andhra Comrades were revisionsists.
    In the final analysis 3 major differences came out.
    a.the left adventurist A.I.C.C.R. line viewed the struggle against neo revisionism as a task of only organizing the top leaders or the most advanced elements of the C.P.M.The A.P.C.C.C.R felt thee was need of organizing the entire party ranks.
    b.The A.I.C.C.C.R negated the mass line and exhibited romantic and petit bourgeois tendencies when they propogated armed struggle with no relation to the people’s consciousness.The concept of ‘annihilation of the class enemies’ was propogated.
    The A.P.C.C.C.R stressed that a mass agrarian revolutionary Movement should be built up propagating the concept of agrarian revolution and relating it to the land question. They also stressed on implementing the mass revolutionary line of the Telengana Armed Struggle. It also questioned AI.C.C.C.R’s understanding of the area of Srikakulam becoming a liberated base area. Encircled by a well –knit transport and communication system thee was a long way to develop it into a liberated base area. Simultaneously they propagated that there were vast potential areas where armed struggle could be developed. and a strategic planning was required.
    c. A.P.C.C.C.R propagated the need of building necessary forms of struggle and organization.and the need to combine mass form sof struggle with armed struggle.The A.I.C.C.C.R.totally neglected this aspect.
    d. A.P.C.C.C.R opposed the line of ‘Boycott of parliamentary Elections’ as a strategic path.’ Elections was a question of tactics and one of the several llegal forms of struggle. In an Interview with Blitz Comrade T.N stated ‘Revolutionaries take part in the elections and legislative bodies to expose their fraudulent character and convince the masses of the revolutionary path.T.N told Swedish Journalists ‘WE can go in for armed struggle in a really a large area and still sit in parliament in other areas when armed struggle is not going on’. Comrade T.N went on to make a most significant statement in an interview with Swedish Journalists: The difficulties are of course our own mistakes during the last 16 years, which have naturally led to condition of disorganization. To be frank we are not organized in the way we ought to be if we are to function in a revolutionary way. We have created an illusion among the people about parliamentary action, organized the communist party’s machinery in a parliamentary way . The old unselfish tendency has gone to waste ,the old hard work has vanished. We must re-build.T hat is the greatest difficulty.” If we had been carrying on the working class Struggles in the revolutionary way during these 16 years ,we could probably also have used the parliament, ven if agrarian revolution was taking place in other areas. India has many different organizational revolutionary requirements. As for the future we must wait and see how things develop, how successful is our organisation’s work and how effective is the co-ordination of all these struggles. Then we must consider the various tactical possibilities open to us.
    After the break fro the C.P.M. the A.P.C.C.R sent cadre and leadership to the forest area of Andhra Pradesh in Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar, and East Godavri districts. Although people were being organized in mass struggles on economic demands in Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar areas,in other areas activity was still at the level of propoganda.In Eat Godavri area particularly god work was done. However ,overall,there was a long tortuous road ahead in developing a consistent and extensive agrarian revolutionary Movement.
    The Andhra Pradesh Communist Revolutionaries stood in the forefront of combating left opportunism. These were the main differences between them and the Srikakula District Committee(D.C.) which follwed Charu Mazumdar and the A.I.C.C.C.R.
    a. The first one was over the question of carrying out armed struggle with relation to land.The district Committee believed that mass land struggle was not needed .
    b. Secondly the D.C belived that actions of armed squads would mobilize the broad masses.
    c .Thirdly,the D.C rejected the idea of of advanced training in guerilla war and proposed that in he course of battle all warfare would be learnt.
    d.Fourthly the D.C believed that only armed struggle was necessary.
    Comrade T.N in an interview explained 3 important points
    a..That Armed Struggle starts only as resistance to landlord goondas and govt.repression This resistance will be in the form of peoples mass resistance. However the C.P.I.M.L rejected this and resorted to isolated squad actions.
    b.In T.N’s view Peoples War starts only as a form of resistance ,not as an offensiveTHe C.P.I.M.L opposed this .
    c. Comrade T.N advocated the use of various forms of struggle in accordance with the prevailing conditions.The C.P.I.M.L rejected this and only gave emphasis to armed struggle.
    By 1969 an agrarian revolutionary movement had developed ina small pocket of Kondamodalu agency area of East Godavri District under the leadership of the A.P.C.C.R.T he vast masses of the Girijans were drawn with the perspective of the mass revolutionary line. Comrades made a systematic study of the condition’s of people’s life and the forms of exploitation and oppression Extensive political propaganda was carried out against the moneylenders,forest officials,forest contractors,landlords and officials. People were organized on the basis of partial issues. To land issues. People were organized into various organizations like the girijan Sangham, Mahila Sangham, youth Organisation Etc. Earlier Comrade Chandra Pulla Reddy had insisted on armed struggle for self-defence and disagreed with Comrades T.N and D.V.He felt that the enemy would not be quiet until the people consciously realize the need of adopting he form of armed struggle.’ Armed Struggle for self-defence can be started by armed squads only formed by the party cadre .He formulated that’The peasant masses could only come forward to seize thel and of the landlords after they gain the confidence in the military strength of the armed squads. Subsequently Chandra Pulla Reddy left the AP.Committee and formed his own group.the A.P.C.C.R.was now under the leadership of Comrade T.N and Comrade D.V.(Devullapali Venkateshwara Rao)
    led by Comrade Charu The A.P.C.C.R made protracted efforts to tread the mass line. While in jail, the leadership concentrated on political and ideological work and wrote documents in criticism of revisionism, left opportunism, left devation within the Party’Right Opportunist trend within the party’ and Fundamental Line and question of Unity” Efforts were made to initiate the mass line and a paper” Proletarian Path’ was brought out together with Comrades from West Bengal.The Andhra Comrades developed relationships with the Srikakulam Comrades (inside jail).A series of steps was planned to develop political and organizational unity.Relations were established with Comrades like Kanu Sanyal and Souren Bose..Talks took place with Comrade Satya Narayan Singh but in no time the Andhra Comrades rejected merging with his organization. The A.P.C.C.C.R preapared draft Programme Path and Constitution for Unity Talks.There were only 4 organisations in the Unity Conference. They were A.P.C.C.R, West Bengal Coordination Committee, North Zone Committee and West Bengal Communist Unnity Centre.
    In April 1975the birth of the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India took place. It was inaugurated by Comrade D.V Rao. The unity conference adopted a resolution on martyrs, programme, path, method of work, constitution and a statement on unification…
    .
    . Struggle waged by Comrae Harbhajan Singh Sohi of the Punjab Co-ordinatin Commitee

    THe struggle agaisnt the Charu Mazumar left Adventurist line was led by the Punjab Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries which was earlier a part of the Punjab CPI (ML) led by Jagjit Singh Johal which upheld the Charu Mazumdar left adventurist line. However the Ferozepur Bhatinda Committee went out of the Punjab CPI (ML) affiliated to Charu Mazumdar’s all India Group. They brought out a document stating that the Charu Mazumdar line was in contradiction to Mao’s thesis of People’s protracted war. (Please refer to article on The Proletarian Mass Line for details.)
    On June 20th, 1969 a meeting of Communist revolutionaries was held to discuss the issue of the formation of the party. The 2 questions to be discussed were whether it was justified to form it, and were appropriate methods used? The meeting concluded that the present circumstances were wrong. The party organisation was to be formed from the leadership that emerged from the struggles.
    The Punjab co-ordination committee issued this press statement “Due to political differences we break our relationship with C.PI.M.L. In Punjab their activities are left adventurist. They oppose the process of people’s protracted war. We do not want to be arrested in self-destructive tendencies.”
    The Punjab co-ordination committee issued this press statement “Due to political differences we break our relationship with C.PI.M.L. In Punjab their activities are left adventurist. They oppose the process of people’s protracted war. We do not want to be arrested in self-destructive tendencies.”
    In 1974 the Punjab Co-ordination Committee published a document why they demarcated themselves from Charu Mazumdar’s CPI (ML):1. Since the socio-economic conditions differ and political consciousness varies from place to place, the revolutionary movements have to pass through various stages, and different tactics would have to be used at various places.
    2. To ignore open and legal struggles is left adventurism. These will contribute to the development of armed struggle.
    3. Annihilation of class enemies leads to the emergence of feelings of hero worship and retards revolutionary initiative.
    4. To ignore partial and economic struggles is dogmatism. The working class will have to pass through various phases of struggle.
    5. Mass organisations will have to be formed such as peasant, worker and student organisations.
    6. Although the rural areas are the main areas of struggle the movement cannot exclude the mass organisations in urban areas.
    7. Individual annihilations do not comprise people’s war. The CPI (ML) is too simplistic about it.
    8. The CPI (ML) ignores the fact that the People’s democratic revolution will occur under the leadership of the proletariat, particularly the industrial working class.
    2.Communist Revolutionaries and Elections
    -Elections-It is fascinating that although this compiled work below is from the 1989 Organ of the Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India it was 32 years ago that a similar resolution was passed on the stand in the March 1977 elections.(After the Emergency) by the D.V Rao led U.C.C.R.I.(M.L).This stand refute active boycott and participation through advocating revolutionary no –participation. Today the roots of left sectarianism and right opportunism lie in these stands.Groups from the Chandra Pulla Reddy origin like New Democratic,the C.P.I.(M.L)Liberation Group and he current C.P.I(M.l) led by Kanu Sanyal have capitulated because of participation.The C.P.I.(Maoist)still upholds ‘active Boycott’ tacticsand infact considers it a strategic path.It gives no role to participation in elections at any point of he struggle.From the 1980’s the D.V section openly participated in electins while the Miuktigami group in retrospect supported participation and condemned the the 1977 resolution as sectarian.
    Comipled From Journal Comrade no 5 December 1989There can be 3 tactics deployed in The elections. Either you adopt the tactic of ‘ active boycott’ or that of participation.,or that of ‘active political campaign.’In all cases the political campaign should consist of

    a.exposing the uselessness of he present parliamentary institutions.

    b. explaining the impossibility of achieving political liberty and social emancipation by parliamentary methods and

    c .Explaining the necessity of armed Struggle in the form of protracted Peoples War centered around the agrarian question and of establishing he organs of peoples power,i.e of peoples democracy. The crucial aspects should be made are to the people by integrating hem with examples of the pat and present experiences and by concrete exposure of the deception of he ruling classes, their institutions and political parties. The only difference I his regard of implementing the basic tactics are the slogans of action they give an he pace which with theory work. Slogans of action have to be allotted in accordance to level of revolutionary movement at a given time.

    Boycott is a higher form of struggle which is associated with imminent direct revolutionary action of the masses against the state and with setting up of organs of political power . For this,the party of the proletariat should have established it’s leadership over the revolutionary movement and prepared itself, politically and organizationally ,to lead the people’s armed struggle along with setting up suitable organs of political; power. Without this the boycott slogan will become meaningless, and futile as far as the realization of it’s full revolutionary potential is concerned. It will lead to cynical attitudes amongst the people.
    On the other hand for adopting the revolutionary utilisation of participation in election as legal form of Struggle, the emergence of revolutionary democratic elements is a necessity. It need a proletarian party organization to train and control a cadre team for his specialized activity, to organise a legal front without liquidating the illegal party structure, and to link and co-ordinate the activities of its members in these institutions with the direct revolutionary struggles of the people.Othrwise it will blunt the class –consciousness of the people, blur he political demarcation between the party of the proletariat and the ruling class political parties and will be a weapon in the hands of the ruling class forces to defeat he proletarian vanguard.
    At present a unified, effective and influential party is lacking Comunist revolutionaries are only in the formative stage-in the sage of re-organisatin. In most areas ,any Communist Revolutionary Organisation is yet to establish it’s identity,I the field of organization and mass -political influence.The level of political consciousness and organization of the people is lagging behind their actual practice of struggle or the objective potential for evolutionary struggle.F or asimilar reason,the emergence and development of revolutionary democratic elements is delayed .It is because of this situation that he present acute political crisis is not being converted into a revolutionary crisis. A general mood of distrust of leaderships and cynical indifference to political affairs and developments that a further hurdles are being created..
    But or this circumstances the C.R’s could have in condition of great turmoil adopted the tactics of ‘Active Boycott’ and and called upon the revolutionary forces to carry out he agrarian revolutionary programme, conducted armed struggle and set up alternative organs of peoples power. In other times ,under adverse political conditions they could have participated in the electins as a tactical ploy.
    Toady there are 2 serious deviations. The first one is that of carrying out ‘Boycott’tactics without the scope of direct revolutionary mass action and setting up of parallel organs of political power. The second is of using participation tactics without the proletarian party,sufficient mass opolitical influence and other necessary organizational means.It will organizationally lead to liquidationsim and politically to tailism
    The only possible campaign is that of ‘Active Political Campaign’.They must build mass revolutionary struggles They must urge the people to rely and concentrate on their own struggle movement and organization-building to prepare for direct revolutionary mass action against the ruling classes and their institutions of political power.
    In the campaign the Comunist Revolutionaries should analyse the specific features which get manifest in ruling class politics and their manouvres in elections. Eg Warring factions of ruling classes and their political representatives.T he uselessness of parliamentary institutions must be explained as well as parliamentary methods. The political objective of the working class movement and the democratic revolutionary movement led by it should be projected.
    The campaign should consist of
    A.Contracting the professed programmes of the ruling class parties with their actual practice and with the bitter experience of the peole in regard to their worsening economic conditions.
    b. Explaining that the root cause of the economic misery is that of the semi –feudal, semi-political economy and The autocratic state structure , and that without eliminating the root cause there is no hope for meaningful change.
    C .Explaining the people to depend o their own organized strength and struggle, and have no illusions of false talk of civil librties .The people must be explained the need o establish their own political power .
    d. Pushing the proletariat and other sections to to pursue heir just revolutionary struggles, to build up their respective mass organizations and united Front organizations to be able to raise heir struggles to a higher plane and establish their own rule. Peoples Democracy to be executed through genuine representative institutions of the people-the revolutionary organs of political power.
    e. Explaining the road masses the features of he new people’s republic that they are fighting for, in the interests of the various revolutionary classes.
    In the present day context 2 points are of exceptional importance. The first one is.
    a.Exposing the nefarious role of ruling class parties in utilizing communal sectarian divisons among the people, explain the connection between the electoral needs of the party and the lives of the masses and tell the masses about the need to rebuff such dirty manouvresof the ruling class parties.

    It is interesting to quote Comrade Tarimala Nagi Redy in 1969 when speaking to an Swedish Journalist.

    “’Revolutionaries take part in the elections and legislative bodies to expose their fraudulent character and convince the masses of the revolutionary path.T.N told Swedish Journalists ‘WE can go in for armed struggle in a really a large area and still sit in parliament in other areas when armed struggle is not going on’. Comrade T.N went on to make a most significant statement in an interview with Swedish Journalists: The difficulties are of course our own mistakes during the last 16 years, which have naturally led to condition of disorganization. To be frank we are not organized in the way we ought to be if we are to function in a revolutionary way. We have created an illusion among the people about parliamentary action, organized the communist party’s machinery in a parliamentary way . The old unselfish tendency has gone to waste ,the old hard work has vanished. We must re-build.T hat is the greatest difficulty.” If we had been carrying on the working class Struggles in the revolutionary way during these 16 years ,we could probably also have used the parliament, ven if agrarian revolution was taking place in other areas. India has many different organizational revolutionary requirements. As for the future we must wait and see how things develop, how successful is our organisation’s work and how effective is the co-ordination of all these struggles. Then we must consider the various tactical possibilities open to us.

    3.Mass Organisations and the Part-A document formulated by the U.C.C R.I.M.L led by Harbhajan Sohi in the late 1970’s.

    Mass Organizations and the Party
    This is a document circulated by the U.C.C.R.I(M.L)Nagi Reddy Group in Punjab in the early 1980’s or it’s ranks.(published in Comrade no.8-1991).In many instances organizations like C.P.I(M.L)-Party Unity Group,Maoist Communist Centre,C.P.I.(M.L)Peoples War Group Etc were unable to properly handle the contradiction between mass organsiations and the party and efforts were even made to impose Mao Tse Tung Thought on the mass organizations.(eg.RadicalStudents Union or All India league for Revolutionary Culture)They converted mass organsiations into Front Organizations, unable to completely give them their separate identity. In contrast groups like Chandra Pulla Reddy –SatyaNarayan Singh or Vinod Mishra’s Liberation group exhibited economist tendencies in mass organizationThe document may have weaknesses as it is virtually confined to Punjab. However it has relevance for the Indian Movement, even today.It is interesting how the Chinese Communist Party dealt with their youth Organization-the Communist Youth League.At one stage (during the first agrarian revolutionary war in 1927-1937)they totally opposed using the mass platform to propogate Marxism –Leninism(not naming it a ‘Communist’Youth League) but at he time of the Anti-Japanese War thought it was necessary.

    Introduction
    From the inception of the Communist Revolutionary Movement till today,sharp differences have cropped up on different occasions among Communist Revolutionaries on the role and importance of mass organizations ,their formation ,their relationship with the party,and the methods by which the party should work in these organizationsIn the initial stages of the movement the ‘left’adventurist sections,described mass organizations as “an obstacle in the way of revolution.”Only after the erroneous line had been defeated and the importance of mass organizations established did their followers of such thinking change their viewpoint.(earlier such sections claimed mass organizations as ‘revsionsist’,economists’and ‘renegades of the armed struggle.’)
    However even when such Comunist revolutionary sections started participating in mass organizations they imposed party politics on mass organisationsT hey confused the party with the mass organization and use the mass organization platform to promote party ;politics..
    Thee was sharp ideological political struggle and certain Comunist Revolutionaries even wanted to dismantle such mass organizations.Mass Organisations were turned into forums of direct party politics and efforts were made to impose Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thougt on hem.They even termed the Punjab Students Union,a bourgeois organization and they attempted to convert it into a Communist Youth Leaguewhich openly adhered to party politics.
    Though at present this trend has receded it’s political infection survives.This pamphlet reflects on the important points concerned

    a.Rise and development of mass organizations.
    The process of emergence of mass organizations belongs to that period of social development in which the capitalist system developed itself after it’s victory ovr the feudal system. Even though during the pre-capitalist stage small crude forms of mass organizations were taking shape in an isolated manner,the process of their development as a widespread phenomena is predominant in the capitalist era.The large-scale capitalistic production created suc h objective conditions as were favourable for the workers/labourers to get united,moving along te path of class struggle. Earlier production used to take place in smaller ,localized and almost self-reliant units;this prevented different sections of working people ,involved in the production process from coming close toeaxch other,a nd uniting themselves as a class with self-consciousness.Large-Scale production permanently broke all the ties of the workers ,thus uniting them against the exploiter class.
    A mass organization is a group of organized people who,judged from the aspect of their standing in the given production system, or from the aspect of occupation, objective interests and working conditions,ae uniform,a re said to comprise a mass organization. For instance, a factory of workers: All workers work in the factories owned by capitalitsThey earn heir wages by soling their labour power. Finaly they seek emancipation from the capitalist rule ,and for that purpose build a common organization of workers, that is called a mass organization of workers.
    Like workers,employees,students,agricultural workers,peasants,shopkeepers,alos have their mass organizations.The workers belonging to different categories alo belong to different mass orgaisations i.e railway,shipyard ost and telegraph workers.This si because there are factory Unions belonging to different trades.Trae Union Organisations alos establish joint centres for common struggles,which atre known as trade Union Federations or Centres.

    b.Role of Mass Organizations and Difference in functioning with that of a Party Organisation

    The mass organization are an instrument for the revolutionary party to approach the maximum number of people, bringing them into the organized movement and imparting them the preliminary understanding and experience which may enable them to gars[p and absorb the revolutionary propaganda.T hey play the role of a transmission belt between the party and the people. That brings the people closer to the party and connects them with it. It helps the party reach a large number of non-party masses outside it’s fold.With it’s help the party kindles and influences various fields of class Struggle.
    Comrdae talin writes:The overwhelming majority of these organizations are non –party, and only some of them directly adhered to the party,or constitute offshoots from it.All these organizations under certain conditions ,are absolutely necessary for he Working lass for without hemit would be impossible to consolidate the class positions of te proletariat in the diverse spheres of struggle.for without them it would be ipossible to steel the proletariat as the force wose mission isto replace the bourgeois order with the Socialist Order.
    Thus mass organizations include in them vast sections,I large numbers,who still remain inaccessible to the Party of the Working Class,who are yet not prepared to accept he direct leadership of the party.The mass organizations attract thse peole into mass struggles and impart them with organizational and democratic awareness. They work as nurseries for producing such primary fighters of the class struggles.They thus work for producing the seedlings of the revolution and a fertile ground for the expansion of the Communist Party and the Movement.
    Comrade Lenin stated “The development of the proletariat did not, and could not ,proceed anywhere in the world without trade Unions, through reciprocal action between them and the party of the Working class. The Trade Unions remain an indispensable “school of communism’ and a preparatory school that trains proletarians to exercise their dictataorship.
    It is very important to differentiate between a party and amass organization.A mass organization is a organization for the partial struggle of the working class,t he party organization is an organization for basic struggle. A mass organization fights for immediate interests,t he partial demands of a section of a class;the party fioghts for the attainment of revolutionary transformation.
    Only those sections can join the party who are politically conscious and are prepared to plunge themselves into a basic struggle. Only he most advanced and conscious sections of the working class ,who understand the ideology and politic s of the class viz,the communists alone can constitute its members. While,since amass organization is a struggle or immediate and partial interests, which even a common worker is aware of ,even the most backward sections of the concerned class can constitute it. n ordinary worker can join them.
    The party of the working class must maintain it’s political ideological firmness to play the role of apolitical guide. This norm is violated by ‘left’ adventurist sections who impose their ideology as well as revisionist parties wo impose partymembership on a ordinary non-conscious striker.The ‘left’adventurists when they force ‘Mao Tse Tung Thought’on a mass organization, close the doors for for ordinary sections. In any section or class there remains a section who have different political views and are not willing to accept the ideology of the working class. When mass organizations have party politics imposed on hem the non-party sections, feel deprived and step aside from the mass organization.It is reduced to an arena of pro-party sections alone.
    Thus party understanding must never be imposed o mass organizations in toto and the party must use the idioms of the masses.Instead of Marxist Leninist Terminology and formulations, a terminology should be derivated to reach out to he broad masses.
    A party o he working class has to lead an allrouind struggle ,an thus has to establish leadership overall the fields and classes thata re essential for the revolution. It’s range of leadership is quite widespread. The mass organization has a limited range,and needs to only relate to it’s own class or section.
    The minimum political programme of he party is o overthrow the exsiting clas rule based on exploitation and o[pression, and to replace it with a rule in which the working class has predominance.I t has to build a Communist Society.While a mass organization ,being an organization for partial demand,has for immediate programme the struggle for attainment of partial demands of tat class or section, wheras it’s highest goal is to convert itself into a fighting contingent of the motive forces of the revolution,by developing itself into an organization of a concerned class or section.
    It is imperative for the party to to target every anti-people class rule.I t should command the standpoint of the revolutionary movement and stand by the overall revolutionary politics. The mass organization has to maintain a mass character and expected to raw political elements.
    The Party must at all times assert it’s political positions and stand up with the courage of steel in the most adverse times It must always defend proletarian politics. The mass organizations act within the existing system. They,are expected to move taking he objective conditions and their strength into account.
    The party is a tightly-knit organization with iron discipline,I ntegrating theory with practice,and is abused on the most politically advanced section s of the working class,.It must adopt underground and secretist style of work. Only then can it protect itself from the onslaughts of the state A lose and open party is inviting danger..In contrast a mass organization is an open organization. It thus cannot adhere to as strict a discipline as the party .It is a comparatively lose organization.

    Relation between a party and a mass organization
    While providing leadership o a mass organization he party of the working class does not find it difficult to retain a separate identity of it’s own as the champion of the overall interests of the working class. It provides its leadership from the overall standpoint of the revolutionary movement .During the current struggles of peasants the party through it’s propaganda provides them with a correct direction regarding the intention of both of the contending sides, the peasants an the govt,their reliable and vaccilating allies and opponents, the favourable and unfavourable conditions etc. The party maintains it’s separate identity as the champion of he basic interest of the working class by making the peasant movement more vigilant of the deception and allies of the opportunist political forces, exposing the anti-peasant nature of he state structure and the need and methods of destroying the prevalent system./The party leads from the overall revolutionary standpoint in connection with the making of a common cause with those allies of the peasant movement who can stand up with it against the common enemy.
    On different occasions ,the concerned mass organizations may adopt hat part of the party’s propaganda that suits their given level and need .Through sustained and repeated propaganda by the party,the imageof the party being for them is increased, and the party’s leadership gains credibility.The mass organizations respect the party’spropoganda and more advanced sections are developed from them.
    The party must introduce politics that matches with the level of political consciousness that exists in amass organization.The masses must be able to assimilate that level of politics.T he quantity and quality of politics has to be analysed.
    Comrade Stalin writes;Non –party organisatins,trade Unuiions and co-opratives etc.should be officially subordinated to the party leadership.It only means hat membersof he party who belong to these organizations an are influential should place their utmost energy to persuade these non-party organizations to draw nearer to the party of he proletariat in their work and voluntarily accept it’s party leadership.
    The party politics must not be imposed The politics introduced should be on par with the average level of consciousness of amass organization member.Excess of politics introduced will violate the democratic spirit.
    Several people perform the functions of a party and mass organization activist. Withi a mass organization a party member must work within her discipline of that mass front. They will have to abide wit the same norms as non-party members doNow they have to wok under the identity o amass activist. The need of the mass organization becomes the need oF the party itself.
    Party activists can alos have dual identity in a mass organisation.They function as party members,within the discipline of the mass organization.
    Sometimes conflicts occur when more than 2 political forces act within one organization. Here the norms of the mass organisatin concerned must not be violated even if political struggle exists.If norms are violated such mass organisatins become areanas of party politics.Political groups of conflicting trends should avoid dragging politics or differences into the mass organization. Onl;y those differences should be resolved which are compatible to the understanding of the members of the mass organization.Only he differences of the politics the masses can assimilate should be debated.
    The dominating faction of amass organization should not behave arrogantly, and not take decisions that are prejudicial against the political interests of another faction. Similarly, the minority faction should not resort to unorganisational methods .
    A Front organization is one that openly identifies itself with the party.The distinction of a front organization fro an ordinary mass organization is that the mass sections accept the leadership of the party. In a revolutionary movement for long phases the the situation for running mass organizations as front organizations dose not arise.Comrade Lenin stated “If we in Russia today, after two and ahalf years of unprecedented victories over the bourgeoisie of Russia and the ntente,wee to make’recognition of the dictatorship’ a condition of trade Union membership ,we would be doing a very foolish thing, damaging our influences amongst the mases.,and helping the Mensheviks.We must convince he backward element,s to work among them, and not to fence themselves of from them with artificially childish ‘left’slogans.
    The party must always handle the contradiction between the mass character of the mass organization and the political content and not impose the politics of advanced political content.
    When the direct leadership of ther party would not become a bar in joining the organizations, and when ,despite this a factor even the backward sections may be willing to join them, then it is allright for such organizations to work as Front organizations.

  3. In Tribute to Comrade Harbhajan Singh’s outstanding contribution to polemics of International Line

    Compilation of Work on Massline-Part2(In Tribute to departed Comrade Harbhajan Sohi)

    International Line

    This is a Compilation of Notes on the International Line of the U.C.CR.I.(M.L) Nagi Reddy Group led by Com.Harbhajan Sohi that fought against wrong trends in the Communist revolutionary camp.The compiler of this work does not profess it as the absolutely correct line neccessarily but feels it has historic significance,making valid points.Please publish.

    .

    I suggest you comple 2 sections from The Comrade.One on the Internal line as compiled and the other on the International Line.You may abreviate them but please highlight the main points.Notes compiled from the Document titled ‘In Defence of Marxism-Leninism MaoTse Tung Thought and General Line of the International Communist Movement.”adopted in the conference held in January 1982 by the U.C.C.R.I. (M.L) led by Harbhajan Sohi(split from whole group in September 1979) in 1982-It is 28 yaers since the U.C.C.R.I.(M.L)led by Harbhajan Sohi held it’s special conference after there was a split in 1979..

    The conference refuted the fact that it was a policy of Comrade MaoTseTung’s by underling tat Mao had never advocated it. The theory propogated that the 2nd World -West European countries and Japan were allies in the International revolutionarystrugglea against the hegemony of the Superpowers.

    :In this pernicious theory termed as ‘The theory of 3 Worlds” the middle forces(2nd World Countries like West European countries and Japan)have dual character and are given the role that the national bourgeoisie is given in a semi-colonial country. This force at no given stage of its development have some potential for playing a role in the revolutionary movement to a certain extent, under certain condition. Even when a tactical alliance is launched by revolutionary forces with a section of enemy forces against the principal enemy, this section dose not lose it’s enemy character or posses ‘dual character.’ By attributing dual character o these imperialist powers he ‘three worldists’ change the fundamental contradictionj of between the 2nd rate Imperialist powers an e 2 Imperialist superpowers.It no more remains an anti-imperialist contradiction,imperialism at one pole of this contradiction gets transformed into something of a higher order ‘hegominism. The 3 worldists state :The 2nd world Countries exploit the pressed nations and are at the same time bullied y the superpowers. They have a dual charater ,and stand in contradiction with both the first and third worlds. But they are still af force in the 3rd world and can win over or unite with in he struggle against hegemonism.

    According to such caricaturists of Leninism,it is not a question of making a distinction between the chief hegemonistic power and secondary hegoministic powers and making use of the contradicton between the 2,but the question of handling a new fundamental contradiction between the hegemonistic imperialist superpowers and allegedly anti-hegemonist imperialist powers so as to unite he latter in the world-wide struggle for overthrowing hegemonism which turns out to be the target of world proletarian revolution I it’s present anti-hegemonic sate of development,preceding the stage of Socialist Revolution for overthrow ofworld Imperialism..

    Even if the east European countries and Japan have a thousand and one ties with the United States and face the menace faced by Soviet Social Imperialismtheir objective struggle against the over-bearing U.S.Imperialism it o attain ‘equal partnrship’,So long as U.S.A,continues it’s policy of control they will not cease the struggle against such control and for equal partnership.This ‘equal partnership’ is being sought in the predatory imperialist alliance for perpetuating and intensifying oppression and exploitation of under-developed countries, and contending with Social Imperialism for this neo-colonial loot. U.S Imperialism, seeks through it’s policy of control, to limit the scope of Imperialist contention and loot o part of these powers, they,through their struggle against such control seek to enlarge the scope, and the friction between the 2 sides,o n this score, is just another dimension of thefundamental contradiction between U.S.A and these countries as Imperialist powers.

    This year when Zaire was repelling the armed invasion of Soviet Union ,France supported them logistically. Could the entry of French Imperialist troops,in Zaire, with the help of Belgium, and America, to boost up the efforts of the lackey Mobutu clique be called supporting 3rd world’s struggle against hegemonism’.If Cuban trroops,East German and Soviet Union military advisors were engaged in building up military forces of the lackey N.A .T.O clique of Angola in repelling South Africa Armed Invasion masterminded by U.S Imperialism thy were supporting third world struggle against hegemonism.

    Mao had said “referring to the phenomenan of intensifying contention among imperialist powers:Their embroilment is to our advantage.We,the Socialist Countries, should pursues the policy of consolidation ourselves and not yielding I a single inch of land.W e will struggle against anyone who makes us do so.We certainly will support the anti-imperialist struggles of the people in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the revolutionary struggle of he people o fall countries.

    ‘As for the relation of Imperialist Countries and ourselves ‘they are among us an we are among them; support the peoples revolutions in their countries and they conduct subversive activities in ours. We have our men I their mist Our assessment of the international situation isthat the embroilment of the imperialist countries contending for colonies is the greater contradiction. They try to cover up contradictions between themselves by playing up their contradictions with us. We can make use of their contradictions lot an be one in this conection. This is a matter of importance for our external policy.

    The 3 worldists give the status of sovereignty and political independence to several nations of Asia ,Africa and Latin America where independence was merely a ‘transfer of power’ and thus under estimate or ignore neo-colonialism.In a great majority of former colonies independence sa superficial and virtually transferred to another ruling Comprador bourgeoisie class tied to Imperialism.Even popular nationalistic regimes were replaced with reactionary regimes.

    The 3 worldists defend he lackey reactionary state power in the 3rd world Countries by stating hat “By excercising the state power in heir hands, the independent 3 rd world countries have gained broader arenas and more means to carry on their struggle than in the past.T his glorifies the political role of he states of this region.

    Through the eclectic method of knocking together ,into a hybrid whole ,phenomena of different order or differentiating phenomena of essentially similar nature,I nto qualitatively different categories,the ‘3 world theorists’, mutilate the fundamental contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations and he fundamental contradictions between the various imperialist powers, transforming he reactionary ruling clique in underdeveloped countries into the main anti-imperialist force and the imperialist ruling cliques in highly developed capitalist countries into an anti-hegemonistic force All the revisionist acrobatics of the ‘3 worldists are meant or selling their line of unadulterated class collaboration and tying up of the proletarian and other evolutionary forces to the boot laces of the ruling cliques of the 3rd World an the 2nd world ,both for renouncing revolutionary tasks concerning the struggles against unjust criminal inter-imperialist war.

    Teng Xiaoping called for uniting with U.S Imperialism in the struggle against Soviet Social Imperialism,terming the latter as he principal enemy. The differentiation between U.S Imperialism and Soviet Social Imperialism is a distortion of logic. They say that U.S Imperialism has over-reached itself and all it can do at present is to strive to protect it’s interests and go over o the defensive in itr’s strategy.How can it go on the defensive if it seeks exclusive hegemony in contention with Social Imperialism. In the criminal imperialist operation of forcible redivison of the world, where each superpower seeks to realize exclusive world hegemony ,the circumstance of U.S Imperialism having to fight in a state of strategic defensive, that is,having more to exert in retaining and consolidating it’s earlier huge colonial exploits than I seizing new territories,does in no way change the predatory character of its endeavour before and during the outbreak of imperialist war. A superpower may deploy an offensive strategy or go over to the defensive in it s overall strategy, the imperialist striving for seizing or retaining colonial possessions through military means is equally predatory in both cases.It gives no scope to International proletarian revolutionary movement for meting out differential treatment to Soviet Social Imperialism and U.S Imperialism.

    There is another absurd analysis where the 3 world theorists feel that U.S Imperialism has been exposed in the eyes of the World people, but Soviet Social Imperialism pretends to be a liberating Socialist power ,thus it is more dangerous. However is is a Marxist Leninist tactic o treat the politically less exposed enemy as te ‘primary target’ and the notoriousone as the secondary target..(3 worldists say that progressive World opini is already familiar with he true nature of U.S Imperialism and will go o fighting ai but that is not the case with Soviet Social Imperialism which wears a mask of being Socialist)Even if as some military experts claim that he Soviet Union has a marginal military edge, this would hardly have ay significance as the capability or role of either of them as a aggressive imperialist superpower would not be reduced and would be irrelevant to the formulating of policy of the international proletarian movement.

    Line after pro-democracy Student Movement in China(Comrade -August 1989)

    Another significant aspect of study was the stand adopted by ‘the Comrade “. on the student movement in China in Tiennamen square I I 1989 and it’s approach to the Soviet Union in 1991.It highlighted the factional struggle between rightist factions within the C.P.C which were trying to win over and win over he student sections. In it’s view he movement lacked a proletarian leadership.

    “The student protests raised slogans against corruption and for “democracy” No organized proletarian leadership was present. Thus the reactionary elements could divert he unrest into a reactionary “Democracy”movement. The bitter faction between the 2 rival factions within the C.P.C for power between Zhao Ziyang an he Deng Xiaoping clique and the contradiction between the erstwhile Soviet Social Imperialism and American Imperialism influenced it.Workers economic demands were sidetracked.eg.price ries and unemployment.

    True large sections of workers joined the agitation and the ‘Internationale’ song was sung. One cannot blame the students as they were fed o the propaganda of he rightist Zhao Ziyang forces.T hey were hardly aware of the gains in Socialist China where democracy was paractised to the greatest extent.The student protest were at their peak in 1985 directed against price rise, corruption, nepotism of officials ,Japanese economic invasion etc. Ultimately however they were diverted into political reform an lacked proletarian revolutionary content.

    This so called democracy movement is anti-communist, reactionary and counter revolutionary THe dissenters were utilizing he growing disaffections amongst the people-students in particular against the Deng clique. This disaffection mainly urban based. The peasantry hardly participated. The confused and misled student community and sections of the working population were drawn into it. The various twists and turns and ups and downs of the movement show the leadership’s links with the various contending imperialist powers and within the feuding capitalist factions of the C.P.C.itself.Fang Lizhi tc acted as Chinese Sakharovs .”

    China was a Socialist State from 1956 to 1978 before Deng Xiaoping reversed policies of the state.In the Maoist era the Working class was given every avenue to assert it’s democratic right and we must remember the Big character posters that came to the forefront in the cultural revolution. Corruption,unemployment and price-rise was hardly a issue in the Maoist era.I the cultural revolution corrupt officials were openly punished)In the Maoist era mass movements such as those in the Cultural revolution represented those aspirations of the Working class while in the Student Movement it expressed mainly those of the rival rightist Zhao Ziyang faction represnting Western bourgeois democracy.

    Line after Collapse of Soviet Union as a Superpower(Compiled from Comrade-April1992 and February 1991))

    . Only in a situation of sharpened Imperialist contention for world markets or spheres of influence would differentiating U.S Imperialism have tactical significance. The U.S, economy also has several problems . “The present day U.S Imperialist aggression proceeds as a part of the overall offensive of imperialism against the oppressed countries. Although at present there remains only one superpower in operation,it would be inappropriate to conclude ht a new uni-polar world has emerged. T he balance of forces and alignments among the imperialist powers have not crystallized, their mutual relationships are in a state of flux and their respective moves are essentially tentative. Only after such a crystallisation and it’s relative stabilization takes place would one be on solid ground to talk about the International World Order and about any polarity.I n the current situation, the aspect of contention has been temporarily relegated to a secondary position. Despite U.S Imperialis’s leading role,the struggles of the oppressed peoples and pressed nations have to be direct as a matter of policy ,not against U.S Imperialism in particular, but against Imperialism as such.

    .

    After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Comrade asserted:A section of Communist revolutionary forces is getting engaged in analyzing and debating the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariatand the cause of capitalist restoration in the erstwhile countries ,and is ending up with he verdicts of the alleged mistakes of Comrades Stalin and Mao. That is tantamount to affirming in practice the very link between the recent developments in revisionist countries and he past practices of Socialism which need to be refuted, and so lends credibility to the propaganda plank of the bourgeoisie.

    These comrades have hardly thought over what the alleged mistakes were of Stalin and Mao and the relevance of their reviews of the available theory and practice of Socialism to heir task of countering the bourgeois propaganda. It is not clear which target group they have in mind- ,which can hardly be the common masses of the people. Analysis and debate concerning the Theory and practice of socialism amongst Communist Revolutinary forces s necessary. However open debate is for correcting or refuting ideological deviations and not for seeking unanimity of views between contending sides.A so called friendly public debate serves only to ad to the confusion of the people. It actually hides the character of the conflict of views behind it’s friendly signboard thus lowering the guard of the revolutionary masses against hostile ideological tendencies, secondly it invariably projects a lot of loud-thinking and tentative stands of the participants. Organised Communist Revolutionaries are expected to provide reliable leadership to the democratic revolutionary movement o he India people, can not afford too such a thing.

    The current offensive of the bourgeoise is against the concept of the Leninist party, especially the class distinctive politics and the democratic centralist organization of the party.The Communist revolutionaries should come out in defence of the party concept, but give greater attention to the building o the party. That would be he most appropriate step in countering the bourgeoisie propaganda offensive.

    The class enemy would train it’s guns at the dicatatorship of the proletariat, the party and the great revolutionary leaders. The class enemy’s frenzied attacks should make the Communist Revolutionaries better appreciate these precious assets and prompt them to grasp, defend and promote the same vein more firmly.They should never look back and only The criticism of the revolutionary masses, for the advancement of the revolutionary cause, should prompt Communist Revolutionaries to analyze and ponder over any faults and defects and where it lies.

    . “The C.R movement must show sympathy to those section s that strive to fight their ideological drift,however their curiosity and anxieties cannot be allowed to distort the sense of proportion and priority of the organized movement.”

    Today, when forces like the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement are taking ecclectical stands, the defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat is essential.R.I.M.like forces have found errors in Stalin and even distorted aspects of Comrade Mao’s line.

    On the Question of Approach to Formation of a New Communist International(compiled from Comrade Dec 2003)

    1..The vanguard the Communist parties , practicing proletarian internationalism have to exist. International Communist Unity and concerted action of Communist parties have to exist. The proletariat in each country fulfils it’s internationalist duty by striving for carrying out revolution.

    2.Carrying out revolution in one’s own country and striking at imperialism worldwide are distinct though inter-related he 3rd International took p this task .Unfortunately it dissolved itself in 1943 when it found that it’s form was no longer suitable

    3. Ever since the dissolution strong efforts have been made to establish proletarian internationalism with their own revolutionary practice. This was initiated by the C.PC from it’s lessons of a protracted Peoples War.It valiantly ought the revisionism of Kruschev.

    Since the fall of proletarian power in the C.C.P. there is no Socialist base in the World. History remembers that despite the achievement of C.P.C under Mao ,the party did not go towards establishing he Communist International or establishing an International Organisation. Instead it stressed for he Communist Parties of the camp to apply he universal truths of Marxism-Leninism in the concrete situation of their country. It emphasized that other countries should not copy the Chines Experience to-to but apply the Chinese experience in accordance to their own condition.

    The main reason for the C.P.C’s caution was a .Imperialism was devising through its local regimes new forms of neo-colonial rule and only a native communist party could analsye and review such situations. An outside force could not grasp the concrete reality. Thus he necessity of political independence of each country’s communist party.

    The victory of a revolution in a country under he leadership of a Communist Party indicates that certain crucial contemporary problems of he revolutionary movement have been resolved by it ,and thus the experience can be passed on to Communist Parties of othe Countries.At presnt there is no such party in the World..The ideological political struggle against Oppurtunism withi the revolutionary Camp is firce and bitter in each country.

    A dialectical process involving unity of Communist Parties is required. Mutual exchange has to take place Actual experience should be shared, which would pave the ay for more advanced form s of collective positions on issues and ralying of more forces worldwide. Mutual Exchange and Common stands,bilaterally and laterally,,and multilateral platforms on the basis of the general line are required

    Today in India and in other Countries the reorganization of he Communist Party is still in the process of being realized It is crucial to struggle to implement the correct line and establish its content with opportunism. In this process Communist revolutionaries have to strive to achieve unity on the basis of settling various line questions in connection with the revolutionary practice of the masers of the Indian people

    b.Chauvinistic tendencies may develop under Communist Parties .The more developed and advanced may act chauvinistically and deliver big-brother ttreatment to the less developed or successful parties.

    .

    On question of United activities against Imperialism.

    Wrong tendencies.-This is particularly important in the light of events like M-R-4 which are struggling against the offensive and the tentaclespf Imperialism and globalization.There have been strong defective tendencies in the handling of anti-imperialist activities

    .

    1.Artificially inflating mobilization.

    This leads to the wrong political emphasis of trying to increase the number of participants in mass actions through non-revolutionary method sof mobilizing people. Sections of Communist Revolutionaries seek to push people into mass actions merely by influence of certain mass leaders ,or the discipline of he mass organization under the leadership,.What is really needed is to increase the people’s participation in these mass actions with a revolutionary perspective is to make strenuous efforts to disseminate anti-imperialist consciousness among the struggling people through a difficult and protracted process of political education and propaganda linked to their life-experiences and concrete struggles. Some comrades concerned are very eager to make people quickly join the anti-imperialist movement ,so they adopt short-cut methods.

    Tendency to feel nothing can be done singe-handed. Due to scarcity of numbers certain comrades that work can only be implemented in a front with other organisatins.True unity is an urgent objective but it an lead to overdependence on just united activities Communist Revolutionaries and diverts attention from he principal task, namely the development of the anti-imperialist consciousness movement.

    The most important task of the Communist Revolutionaries is to expand the relatively developed layer of he people which is he core of the anti-imperialist movement. This layer serves as the main base of political mass actions now organized by communist revolutionaries.

    The main form of activities I are pressing class demands and make each section of people understand how the imperialist policies are hurdles in the achieving of every specific demand of that section.

    The 2nd form is that of organizing special mass campaigns ,pressing anti-imperialist political issues. Here the communist revolutionaries propagate how any specific imperialist policy is detrimental to the interests of all sections of he people, and thus al section s of people need to unitedlys truggle against Imperialism. Efforts are needed to reach sections opposing neo-colonial dominaton.

    A very important factor is the mass platforms must be made distinct from the party organizations. There is a strong tendency that believes that the image of their party organization will be negatively affected if he content of anti-imperialist policy I projected by any joint platform is deficient.

    Thy have the notion that their party organization is directly accountable for the performance of thejoint platform. Thus they impose a higher political content or higher level of activities onto he joint platform.

    The Organisational set-up or united activities is a major factor. There are various violations of discipline united mass platforms where political organizations wish to impose their content.

    To one extent or the other the practice of mutual co-operation and Unity among various CR organizations carries on with certain positive and negative features. The experience of this practice can indicate to what extent there can be real-struggle unity or united activity on any political issues between the concerned organizations ,and on that basis what level of political content the united activities can undertake. The political content and organizational discipline of the common platform should be determined on those experiences. It cannot be determined on he basis of formal; political agreement between the concerned organizations nor merely under compulsion of the objective need for united action.

    Real Struggle Unity among several organizations participating in united activities can be at various levels .Thus only a single platform for united activities of all these organizations is needed. Where the formal political agreement among certain C R.organisations may be of a higher level but real struggle-unity is at a lower level ,the structure of he common platform should be relatively loose.

    Nature of Cadre force deployed.

    Certain cadre force should be specifically deployed t should have a certain level of skill. This is because there would be several people unrelated to the democratic revolutionary movement, but having some level of anti-imperialist Consciousness. They may not be able o accept Communist revolutionary activists as their leaders. Thus activists have to be more flexible and imaginative, while themselves having a solid grasp of orientation.

    Wrong tendencies include organizations trying to push through elements of their maximum understanding ,instead of trying seriously to thrash out minimum common understanding. for the specific purpose of the joint platform. They misuse the stage of the joint platform, ,by propagating their own views.

  4. Mass Line Revolutionary Struggles
    written in tribute to the death of Comrade Harbhajan Sohi last month..The revered Comrade played a major role in these struggles.

    Background

    The reactionary communal Khalistani fascist movement advocated the liberation of Sikhs and a separate state tobe carved out for the Sikh people. Khalistani ideology advocated a separatetheocratic state based on all the tenets of Sikhism.
    Jagjit Singh Chauhan was the founder of this movement in the late 60’s
    abroad. Natively from Punjab he had settled abroad, and in Britain formed
    Sikh religious groups advocating a new state for the Sikhs.The Khalistani dictates included a ban on cigarettes, a ban on eating meat,a ban on drinking liquor, a ban on beauty parlours, prohibition againstshaving and compulsion of women to wear Salwar Kameez. The people had toobserve the Khalistani code in all ways of life.

    In Punjab the Akali Dal represented the religious Sikh politics through the
    Akali movement which had its origin in the Singh Sabha movement of the late
    1920’s which tried to communalise a secular anti-imperialist movement. To
    divert it, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak committee was formed with the
    blessings of the British.
    The Akali movement professed the Anandpur Sahib resolution that converted
    several democratic issues into Sikh demands. Democratic demands of the
    people like the arrest of the Jodhpur detenues, the sharing of river waters
    with Haryana, the transfer of the capital from Chandigarh to Amritsar, and
    the punishing of criminals during the Delhi riots were taken up as religious
    issues.
    From the early 80’s to the early part of the 90’s the state of Punjab was
    ravaged by Khalistani terrorism. Communal fascists were a great threat to
    the people’s democratic movement. The Akali Dal represented the Sikh
    communalists while the Congress represented the Hindu communalism. Both
    parties used the communal terrorists against each other.

    Indira Gandhi created and patronized Bhindranwale, a Sikh communal fanatic,
    to electorally defeat the Akali Dal. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale belonged to
    a Sikh fundamentalist sect which opposed the electoral Akali Dal politics.
    In the earlier phases the Akali Dal patronized the Sikh fundamentalist
    forces, harbouring several terrorists in religious temples. However when the
    contradiction between the Khalistani liberation and Akali Dal ideology
    became acute, the Congress won Bhindranwale to their side to de-stabilise
    the Akali Dal, the ruling party.

    It is significant that here a great role is played to the importance of maintaining the correct role of the mass organization with he party and the need of building mass resistance and not merely deploy armed squad actions. In the period of the Khalistani Movement the U.C.C.R.I.(M.L) Nagi Reddy Group(later became C.C.R.I. after merging with the Revolutionary Communist Party of India led by Takra in Punjab ) in Punjab displayed outstanding theoretical clarity .It led outstanding examples of mass revolutionary resistance and building of mass line.(One of the most outstanding examples in the history of the Communist Movement in India)It played a major role on the formation and functioning of the anti-repression and anti-communal Front . Below are compiled struggles from their revolutionary journal(taken from Comrade no.5 –Dec.1989) when the organization was known as he U.C.C.R.I.(M.L)Nagi Reddy Group. It effectively answered the trend that promoted armed squad actions ,replacing mass resistance.(It may not be the mass line in I totality )Today similarly armed squads of the C.P.I(Maoist),however sincere they are actually implement the line of the ‘annihilation of the class enemy’ to a great extent,carrying out military actions in place of mass armed movements.(They lead a big movement in Andhra Pradesh,Bihar,Jharkand and Dandkaranya but their line is vitiated by left adventurism)

    In such a demanding situation our organization and some revolutionary Groups took a clearcut and resolute stand against Khalistani and State terrorism. We stepped up the propaganda campaign against them. However a mere propaganda campaign was not enough o combat the Khalistani terrorists it was necessary to build a great number of checkpoints,in the form of revolutionary mass resistance centres to stem the tide of communal fanaticism and of both kinds of reactionary terrorism. The weak and divided revolutionary movement was the stumbling block I taking any worthwile initiative ion this direction.

    So to pool and organize every bit of resentment and anger of all the positive forces against communalism and reactionary terrorism,the building up of a platform was the crying need of the hour.The “Front against Repression and Communalism’ was the need of the hour.

    Our organization had played a most important role in the formulation and policy of the Front and in planning it’s structure. Our organization circulated a position paper on this issue. The position paper became the basis of the common programme of the Front which was approved by participating groups..In this programme Hindu and Sikh Communalism are equal enemies of the Front.Similarly Khalistani and State terrorism should be equally opposed.Congress Rulers, all groups of Akali Dal,Khalistani terrorists and Hindu ommunalists such as Shiv Sena are the criminals responsible for Punjab’s tragedy. Communist Revolutionaries, democratic forces,secular-minded people,who agreed with he programme were included.The policy of taking Khalistani and State terrorism as equal enemies has a very important implication. The implication is that for the security of their life and property from Khalistani fascist gangs,people should not rely on the state security forces. People have to prepare themselves mentally, organizationally and materially to resist it militarily. There should be no reliance on police guards for the security of the functions of the Front and Front leaders should reject armed licenses .A special emphasis should be placed on the recruitment of fighting elements of the people into volunteer force. The Front formulated this policy ” Don’t have any hopes from the govts, for defence make your own arrangements.”

    Wherever the front Units seriously implemented their work groups of young volunteer have emerged to bar any risk in the fight against Khalistani terrorists and have played a vanguard role in the defence of the movement against Communal terrorism At many places, where Khalistani terrorists had banned rallies and demonstrations against them, there the Front Units, basing on their volunteer force, defiantly challenged this ban and successfully organized public functions. During the social reform campaign,of the Khalistanii terrorists the Front prepared the people for self-defence. The Khalistani gangs were threatening the people with a death sentence to impose their programme with regards to dress, diet,cultural customs. Gangs of Khalistanis were disrupting he social life of the people e.They marched on the streets with naked swords in their hands. Humiliating and thrashing Hindus an Sikhs. Here are some struggles of significance.

    I he area of our party work ‘A’ Our main party activist was a mass leader. During Operation Bluestar the area had become a battleground between the followers of the terrorists and the village people. A gang of Sikh fanatics wanted to usurp the land of a Hindu temple and turn it into a Gurudwara.This attack was repulsed by village people under our party leadership. In a nearby town a gang of Sikh fanatics obstructed a demonstration organised by our comrades and challenged the leader of the demonstration. The accompanying volunteer squad attacked the gang with firearms and repulsed the fanatics. Within a short period of time the police searched the Gurudwaras throughout Punjab.(Operation Bluestar)fter Operation Bluestar our main activist was put on top of he Khalistani hit list,and became the convener of the Front of the area. The Khalistani gangs Social reform program was in full swing and even paralysed the Barnala State machinery. The Front Unit of the are announced a conference and demonstration against the Communal gangs.2000 people participated and about 1600 people marched through town mostly armed with conventional weapons. Loudspeaker extensions were even arranged o other suitable places in he town from sympathizers who dared participate ion the Front’s demonstration .The mass defiance attacked the Khalistani gangs like a spear thrust through them .

    The Sikh Communal gangs retaliated by organizing their area level conference and invited Baba Joginder Singh. The gang beat up 2 Hindu Shopkeepers on the plea that they sold bidies. In retaliation the village people thrashed he gang. The Participants of the Sikh Communal conference participating left the venue and reached the place of the incident now again became aggressive but seeing he preparation of the village people got scared Eventually they retreated to the Conference venue.This was the first time in Punjab when the Sikh Communal elements had to eat humble pie .Some months later the Front Unit of the area had to deny strenuous police efforts to prevent their meeting. Inspite of police arrests and terrorisng the Front held a succesful programme.

    When this news reached Town ‘B’ another political centre of the area, followers of he Front asserted that an armed march should be held to confront the social eform campaign .Within a few days,about 200 volunteers of the Front armed with conventional weapons organized an anti-Khalistani demonstration. As assault he Front’s militant activities2 Hindu Shopkeepers beat up a gang of Sikh fanatics. This faith in the Front was shown when the shopkeepers did not contact he police but went to he Front office. This closeness was earned at the time of Operation Bluestar when our comrades circulated hand-writtten material via rooftops A free public kitchen was organized in a locality of labourers who were starving due to unemployment. After Operation Bluestar the front Unit organized programmes involving all sections,like milkmen, electricians, cooks ,rickshaw pullers tenthouse owners Etc.

    IN town C an armed demonstration was held y 1500 people which was confronted by Khalistani terrorists and the Police forces. The brave Front activists successfully held the demonstration and repulsed the State terrorists and the communal terrorists.

    I Village d a successful political cum cultural public function was held where Hindus and Sikhs participated.

    The greatest show of strength was when 8000 people participated in a Front demonstration.

    Observations :

    Our correct policy enabled us to win over trading sections who were difficult to reach through revolutionary democratic organizations. We effectively fought the trend that wished the Front to emerge into communist evolutionary Centre instead of a mass resistance Front. Thus we could reach vast sections of victim s of communal fanaticism and reactionary terrorism,. We also fought the trend which insisted that the Font do any joint activity with any political party who agreed to its common programe. We asserted that the platform should not be used to project the image of party leaders .There was a left tendency to do joint activities with mass organizations an thus attach them as Front organizations.T his is a form of imposing oneself upon the people.

    The Front also answered those forces with defective political understanding with defective mass approach and incorrect work methods who hardly advanced their wok beyond a propaganda routine. They advocated retaliatory armed actions by armed squads of revolutionary groups.We answered this on a practical plane by organizing mass level resistance from scratch. against Communal fascist gangs.

    In areas where we were strong we worked with the perspective of building checkpoints. Against the Khalistani onslaught W e built mass revolutionary resistance .We organized defensive armed demonstrations where we had a solid mass base and organizations in different sections-particularly among the basic masses o the people. Defensive armed actions or red terror may be organized as an activity supplementary to the peoples mass resistance basing on it and advancing it.

    In our Weak areas we worked in mentally and emotionally preparing the people.for the impending eventuality.

    We also won sections who dared identify with the Front We helped them build their separate platforms.

    According to Chairman Mao’s teachings, when the enemy attacks us it means we are on the right track. Leaders of Front Units wee put on the hit lists of terrorists,while on the other hand the police have raided the Front’s office at some places and arrested its leaders and activists.

    Contrasting Platforms

    The ‘Front against repression and Communalsim’could not be a front comprising of the revolutionary democratic organizations belonging to respective organizations as the issue was beyond the scope of mass organizations. It could also not be a Front comprising of political organizations belonging to the Communist Revolutionary Camp, as the issue had a broader mass appeal for the involvement of such braoder sectionsof democratic,secular and non-communal forces,whose participation in the Front would not be possible ,if it comprised of the Communist Revolutionary forces based on Marxism-Leninsim Mao Tse Tung Thought..

    The Front against Repression and Communalism, Punjab could not only maintain it’s existence ,despite several ups and owns ut function successfully implementing it’s common plan of action for years. It undertook highly successful propaganda campaigns in various parts of the state on a mass scale ,but could also mobilize the people at various places in great numbers in actual opposition and resistance to communal fascist terrorism and state terrorism, and was able to create ,during the trying times, several exempelary centres of revolutionary mass resistance against e dual reactionary monster of terrorism.The greatest achievement was organizing a state level function in the darkest days of Khalistani and state terrorism on July 10th 1987.

    In contrast ,The Revolutionary Unity Centre formed by Comrade Gursharan Singh(famous revolutionary dramatist and supporter of the Communist Movement) was based on a declaration that professed Marxism –Leninism –Mao Tse Tung Thought as its guiding ideology,and the unity among Communist revolutionary forces as it’s goal. It allotted no specific programme. It’s pogramme was vague and non –specific .Importance was not give to revolutionary mass resistance. Only mere propaganda campaigns could be taken up or seminar type activities ,where the speakers would declare their latest political positions ,and contradict each other.(Held a state-wide rally from March 23rd to April 8th in 1987 opposing State and Khalistani terrorism commemorating Shaheed Bhagat Singh) The Revolutinary UnityCentre in contracts could not unify any 2 of it’s constituents .Being communist Revolutionary Centre it became an arena of conflicting trends interpreting Mao Tse Tung Thought differently. Several groups did not consider each other revolutionary and openly accused each other of being revisionist. Some of it’s constituents upheld he Socialist Revolution as their goal. Thus the formation of a revolutionary United front was contradictory because a centre forged with the specific goal of unity among different Communist Revolutinary Sections cannot be be the same as one created for a revolutionary democratic Front.. Secondly how could he upholders of the Socialist revolution as a goal agree with the upholders of the New democratic revolution. There was also a tendency to allow or invite the ‘Paigam’ group in the revolutionary camp which upheld the Khalistani

    Movement.It was simply inviting those who the revolutionary forces labelled as ‘traitors’ or ‘revisionists’ to come into the front .Considering that there was such a severe debate on he polemical level amongst Communist Revolutionary groups it was virtually impossible for the Centre to be effective on the mass political plane.

    It is interesting that the main advocate of this Centre the C.P.I(M.L)Resistance or Chandra Pulla Redy Group led by K.Ramchandran opposed the front claiming that mass organizations were needed for taking up partial and economic issues and the party should undertake political activities.It claimed that the formaton of such affront was alien to Marxis Leninism.We held that this was a totally unmarxist formulation.Communists can never consider mass organisations stood be purely economic ones.This was a most eclectic formulation. Mass Organisations play a mass –political role I the revolutionary movement and in specific situation s mass –political platforms have top be built.

    1993 Sewewala Martyrs Conference(report from Punjab Compiled from Comrade no 12 –Decembr 1993)of the C,C.R.I)-This report was made by acorrespondentwho interviwed a organizer of he C,C.R.I.which had ben formd in 1988.(merger of 5 groups)

    On April 9th 1991 Megh Raj Jagpal Singh, Karam Singh, Pappy, Gurjant Singh and 9 other Front activists were massacred in Sewevala in Faridkot district. To commemorate their death a statewide protest took place which culminated in a 10,000 strong rally in Sewewala where people assembling from allover the state, armed with traditional weapons as well as raising anti-Khalistan and anti-State slogans were mobilised. A self-defence barricade was made against the Khalistani terrorists and police protection was opposed. Echoes of the revolutionary spirit reverberated in the hearts of the people assembled like a light radiating over them. It appeared like a huge red flame had lit the Sewewala village. The martyrdom of the Sewewala Martyrs wrote a new chapter in the history of the Indian Communist Movement.

    The decline of the Khalistani Movement was significant but as far as village Sewewal was concerned none of the local acomplies of the Khalistani gang,its harbourers, or known supporters were even arrested,interrogated or beaten.Infact the local accomplices of the Khalistani gangs were freely roaming all over the lace.An open and Known Khalisatni Group went on intimidating and terrorizing the villagers
    2 years later a commemoration programme was launched which depicted a classic example of mass line.After a considerable study of the political situation it was decided to launch a commemoration programme for the Sewevala martyrs.The Harijan basti region was where the programme was launched .

    The respective sate-levellaeding committee of the Front and the C.C.R.I undertook a comprehensive and concrete analysys of the prevailing situation before deciding on the holding of he function in Sewewala.The Khalisatni terrorist movementwas on the wane ,but all the objective conditions necessary for it’s resurgence existed, and it was far from bein totally crushed.In view of our organized persistent resistance ,we presumed the Khalistani forces would not attack Sewewala.Moreover,fearing retaliatory attacks,the local accomplices of the terrorists can hardly co-operate. Elaborate and tight security arrangements would further dissuade the terrorists from undertaking such a venture.e The situation is very tough and challenging.It has a huge revolutionary potential for he advancement of he anti-communal,anti terroris democarti Struggle as wella s for agrarian revolutionary movement.The bold and daring activities of the revolutinay democratic movement can isolate the Khalistani elements and wi over the dalitand landless classes.A good section of the Jat middle peasntry can be won over.
    After reaching a general consent of villagers and the residents of the Harijan Basti a secret meeting of 7-8 pro-party militants was held.The local mass militants were bitterly critical of the inadequate security arrangements at the time of the massacre ,2 years previously and felt humiliated but they shared their intense hatred for the Khalistani terrorists.The political activist of the revolutionary group made a self-critical appraisal of their earlier approach which reduced their anger and brought them closer to the revolutionary Group.He pledged that now the masses would be organised to enable them to receive much stronger self -defence and Front leaders would be far more vigilant of enemies.A list of potential allies and enemies A list of potential allies and enemies was drawn out.A calculated action programme was chalked out to win over the maximum support of the Harijan Basti.
    The survey of the village revealed that Khalistani terror broadly existed over both the landed and landless peasantry.Only a small section of the Landed peasantry sympathised with the Front and even these sections would not openly identify with the Front Programme.The rest of the peasant households remained neutral.The Harijans were unwilling to take the risk again.However,as a result of their social class the Harijans were easy to win over.I t was now decided to deploy a plan of work whereby the advanced elements of the youth would be won over followed by the middle and backward layer.This plan proved most fruitful,as a great section of revolutionary youth were won over.
    However the Harijan elders were reluctant to join .The Front organised family meetings to combat this obstacle as well as promised greater security plans for them at meetingsWeapons were displayed in the basti for this purpose..The Front giving concrete examples explained what revolutionary resistance to the 2 pronged Khalistani and State terror was about giving vivid examples of their experience.The class hatred of such families was strengthened by this method.The Harijans were explained how they would be liberated from the tyranny of the rich Sikh Landowners and Pro0Khalistani Sections.During these meetings each participant was allotted a particular duty after being assesssed.Male members were given duties involving preparations, while women and children were allotted the task of obtaining information about the enemies. In less than 2 weeks ,almost the entire Harijan Basti supported the Front. However a self-styled leader of the basti as well as Pro-Khalistani elements opposed the programme stating that they would lathi charge the programme.Enraged section of the Youth retaliated trying to give those reactionary elements a sound thrashing but the Front curbed them explaining them to adopt a correct approach.
    Khalistani elements mainly belonging to the Jat peasantry continued to threaten this programme through terror methods over villagers.They carried out a campaign of deliberate lies against the Harijans inciting class hatred against the Dalits.The landed peasantry were told by these elements that the Harijans would snatch their lands.They also spread rumours that an attack similar to the one at Sewevala would take place and hundreds would be killed.
    Now the Front organisers concentrated on winning over sections of the Jat peasantry.Unfortunately when a group of Harijan youth went on a propaganda campaign the communalised sections of the Jat Peasantry misbehaved and tore up their pamphlets and posters.However the youth kept calm and thus foiled the attempt of these reactionary forces in creating a clash between the Jat peasants and the Harijans.After this incident 2 contrasting events took place.One section of Harijans were depressed by the aggressive behaviour of the Jats.They wanted to postpone the programme.However another section were outraged and were impatient in holding the programme.This attitude was predominant in the youth who stated that there was no need to win over the Jat peasantry to hold the programme.
    Now all efforts were concentrated on the mobilisation of the Harijan basti.A huge range of family meetings took place.There was now even a great response from women.
    After this state-wide preparations were made for the programme-the State Committee of the revolutionary organisation issuing a leaflet explaining the history of the Punjabi masses in combating the communal terror and the State terror. On March 21st a mass meeting of activists was held to pay homage to the Sewewala Martyrs and chalk out plans for the conference on April 9th.A 10 member preparation committee was elected which facilitated this propaganda in labour colonies.A shaheedi conference was held on April4th on April 4th to pay homage to the heroes where 800 people participated. The families of 2 martyrs of the Sewewala massacre were presented with momentoes.
    A massive security programme was launched by the Front.The Harijan masses of the basti played a major role in gathering information about the role of the enemies. The women and children played a major role in this. They made a thorough study of the enemy’s moves ,motives and movements. The deployment of adequate and proper weapons was given emphasis. However the emphasis was given on the broad masses asserting their right to self-defence.Trained volunteers were also to play an instrumental role.2 dozen youth of the basti associated themselves as guards ,couriers and vigilance keepers as well as spying on the enemy.
    A day before the programme security was installed on the roofs of the exterior of the basti .Trained volunteers manned them. Barricades were installed in the lanes and by-lanes to prohibit the entry of suspicious elements. The Barricades were provided cover by armed volunteers positioned on rooftops. All security posts were covered with a special signal system A network of couriers was organised which raced from one spot to the other exchanging information. All posts had their own commanders and an operational zone operating under a unifying a higher command.
    On the day of the programme, entry was entitled only by identity passes. A Harijan Dharamshala staged the programme.Slogans such as “Down with Khalistani and State terrorism “and “Long Live the Sewewala Martyrs “were painted on the boundary walls of the building.The ground was decorated with red Flags and a bed of red sand. Amidst flower petals name plates of martyrs were placed. A community kitchen served cooked and sweet packed rice to the participants. From the home village of martyred comrade Megh Raj Baghtuana, a contingent of 70 men, women and children carrying red flags and escorted by girl volunteer reached Sewewala.The women participants numbered more than 150 in the conference. By 12 o’clock,3,000 people had arrived, more than2/3 from the agricultural labourers,industrial labourers,electricity workers and other working sections. Leaders Amolak Singh and Jaspal Jassi adressed the gathering. At 12.30 the Family members of the martyrs came on stage.Amolak explained people the anti-people nature of the Khalistani terrorists and the State. He explained how the Jat peasantry (Middle Sections of the peasantry)had fallen victim to the Khalistani poisonous propaganda.
    2.05 was the exact time of the attack on the Sewewala Martyrs 2 years previously. At that time perhaps one of the most emotional scenes in the history of the Communist movement in India.
    The winning over of the Harijan peasantry was a great achievement but the inability to influence the Jat Peasantry was a major setback. The front issued an ordinary appeal to the Jat Peasantry.The front projected it’s pro-people policies and explained that the Khalistani elements were only trying to poison their minds with lies and false propaganda regarding the Front. It was explained that such elements were trying to wedge the gap between the Jat peasantry and the Harijan labourers.However as these programmes took place ,reports took place about the movements of suspected terrorists. This became a major threat and security was strengthened. The Front persuaded supporters to contribute a day’s labour in donation. While the harvesting was taking place a bunch of suspected elements were tracked. A red Alert was issued .At night such elements were observed near a Harijan basti.An attack was anticipated and the volunteers resorted to firing to thwart the suspected elements.Again there was a totally contrasting reaction between the Jats and the Harijans.The landed Jat peasantry took it as an attack on the Harijans against them as a provocation while the Harijan peasantry defended the firing of the volunteers .The latter were now more confident of repulsing attacks by class enemies.

    The conference also set abase for the winning over of sectns of the middle peasants and thus create an alliance beween the Jat and the Dalit sections.A platform was also created to build the evolutionary mass organsiation of the landless labourers.
    The great achievement of the martyrs conference was that a most favourable situation was turned into a favourable situation reminiscent of the Vietcong who heroically defeated the American forces in the Vietnam war.The campaign also effectively answered the question of the mass revolutionary line over the line of squad actions.A n earlier supporter of Squad actions stated”What we achieved here can not be achieved by a squad action.”Another Student leader stated”Mass revolutionary line is invincible and armed squad action cannot substitute it”.A volunteer Student Group stated”We have gained a valuable experience in the mass revolutionary line.”The polemics the Communist Revolutionary Organisation applied in the building up and holding of the conference was comparable in correctness to the polemics of Comrade Mao before the Chinese revolution.The policy of learning from the masses and then educating them and learning correct ideas from the masses was meticulously applied.

    In the phase when hey were combating he Khalistani militant in the late 1980′ s the organization built a superb struggle network that spread rom village to village. The fact that it created bastions of mass military resistance is a complement as a result of dedicated planning, preparing the masses and the correct method of working within a mass organization.Party Politics was never imposed on the Front.It could also reach other sections like trading Communist and teachers-so integral to the mass line.With great precision it evaluated the strengths fo the ememy and the masses co-relation with them.(studied the level of political consciousness of the masses) It’s theoretical explanation of polemical issues is brilliant in the light of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse ung thought.Simlar situations took lace during the Chinese Revolution in the light of assessing the strengths of the enemy in co-relation with that with the masses and the kind of mass –political platform needed to be built.

    Succesful May Day Programme(Punjab)

    2 revolutionary Groups in Punjab decided that on May day besides projecting their political understanding the aspect of Unity and solidarity of trade Union forces should be emphasised.The following steps were decided.
    1. Approach All Communist Revolutionary Groups to issue joint Statements and leaflets,wallposters Etc.in the name of political organisations to propogate May Day message.
    2. The editor of their mass political paper should approach other revolutionary democratic papers to publish a joint May Day editorial.
    3. On the level of Mass Organisations our mass leaders should approach all pro-people Mass Leaders under the influence of other democratic forces.All the participant forces should sought out a minimum common understanding which is to be projected from such platforms
    4. If in any place joint platforms are not possible, various mass organizations should demonstrate together towards the end of their separate May Day Functions.
    Implementation
    In one industrial City ‘A’ we had a known mass organization of amongst Industrial Workers. And influene among railway workers.At a representative meeting of various mass organizations of industrial workers, democratic Rights Organisation,roadway workers,Textile Workers and Railway Workers,telephone employees,and hospital employees.It was decided that all these organisations would have their separate May Day functions and culminate proceedings with a joint demonstration.Center of Indian Trade Unions,the upper Echelons of the All India Trade Union Congress and the H.M.S backed Out.However the local representatives of those mass organisations wished to join the front.
    Before May Day a propaganda programme was launched.A troupe of about 50 workers and some industrial workers performed a march in an industrial Area.On 30yh April, a troupe of about 100 workers marched through half a dozen Industrial areas.35to 40 workers interspersed a wrestling show.
    On the 1st May Morning,slogan shouting workers arrived from various industrial areas and assembled at the office.After a brief flag hoisting ceremony the workers marched to the main industrial Area.After preparatory gate meetings in colonies,a group of 70 to 80 Railway workers organized 70 to 80 torch -light procession.In the joint function 800 people,comprising Industrial Workers,railway workers,telephone employees, roadway employees,Nepali workers,Women and Students and democratic Rights activists held a rally.The rally pased by the rally held by the C.I.T.U (Trade Union Front of Revisionist C.P.M)Rally.The organisers of that function started giving revolutionary slogans in order to hold up their participants and to prevent them from being won over by the Revolutionary Democratic Forces.Sensibly, the leadres of the demonstration of revolutionary forces avoided a tussle thus raising a feeling of solidarity with the audience of that function.
    In another town ‘B’the Communist Party of India had a stronghold. The Communist Party of India member had won 3 assembly elections from this constituency. Here there was ony one mass organization under our leadership comprising of technical workers of the electricity board. Our organization of electricity workers gave a call to organize a solidarity committee in support of he struggling doctors .TheC.P.I-C.PM left parties sabotaged 3 meetings demonstrating solidarity to the struggling doctors As the result of a correct method of work revisionist trade Union leaders were isolated and pressurized to form a solidarity committee of 21 Organizations. Earlier there had been a major tussle between the the mass revolutionary Forces and the Revisionists. The Communist revolutionaries had an organisation of electricity workers which gave a call to organise a general solidarity committee in support of the Struggling Doctors. The Revisionists tried to sabotage 3 meetings involving this struggle. Most of the Organizations in the Solidarity committee were attached to the revisionist parties.In the May Day programme,the Union of technical workers of the Electricity board gave a call for joint May Day celebrations. A meeting representing 16 mass organisations was called to finalize the programme.Revisionist leaders intervened in their meeting and reflected their undemocratic approach. They tried to foil all Unity Attempts. Ultimately 2 May Day platforms emerged-one led by the Communist Revolutionaries and one led by the Revisionists. The revisionists organized programmes to sabotage the Communist Revolutionary Programme.In the tussle the revolutionary forces captured 11 mass organisations from the Revisionists. The May Day function of the Revolutionary Forces had a revolutionary influence on the toiling people..The Communist Party of India also dominated the Trade Union Politics of the Region. However the Communist revolutionary Organisation distributed a leaflet to all mass Organisations of workers and employees jointly on May day. Fearing the influence of revolutionary onslaught on the people they launched a major mobilization campaign for the first time. Normally they would never bother to carry out a mobilization campaign. Competing with the revolutionary organisation for the first time the Communist Party of India was forced to do so. On the day of the function the revisionists were not able to attack the revolutionaries. This was because the Communist revolutionaries projected a creditable pro-people image in the ranks of members of mass organisations.A few mass Organisations left the C.P.I.platform and joined the revolutionary ranks! In 2 small -scale factories workers were divided. A section of them joined the section of revisionists and another joined the Communist Revolutionaries.

    In town C a C.P.I.leader of he area ad won 3 assembly elections fro this constituency As a result of his the C.P.I had a major influence on the Trade Union Movement. .A bitter struggle was going on between our trade Union leaders and he one’s of the C..P.I.Inspite of this the Trade Union platform of the two n supported us and circulated aletter To the leaders of alL the mass organizations to join the May Day programme.The propaganda campaign of our mass organizations had a postive effect o the rank and file of he mass organizations attached to the revisionist trade Union Centre of the town.The revisionist leaders tried to counter this influence and tried to wean over cadres against participating. Meetings wee organized to dissuade hm from participating in the May Day programme of revolutionary fores.T hey organized an alternative campaign with wall posters,wall writings,stickers and banners.Usually,there MAy Day programme was merely performing the rituals and devoid of any propaganda or mobilization but this time facing competition from the revolutionary forces they had to act positively to attract the workers. Normally the C.PI would never organize.
    Five Mass revolutionary mass papers under the initiative of a political organization of India published a joint May Day message. This was the first time so many revolutionary papers supporting different lines gave a joint Statement. With another political group a joint poster was pasted. The mass paper of the Inquilabi Jantak Leh’ issued a special May Day supplement supporting the mass revolutionary line. A joint May Day poster was also issued by 5 different revolutionary Organisations.
    All the campaigns proved that there was a pressing need of developing revolutionary Centers of the Working Class which would consistently follow, the right trade Union policies and demolish the revisionist trade Union Centres.Although revisionist parties dominate the trade Union movement, there grip over trade Union activities and ranks is weak. One section of workers remains with the revisionists for petty political gains while the other bigger section belongs there as a result of no alternative revolutionary Centers of the Working Class.

    This was a major lesson to revolutionary forces in winning over forces from the revsionsit camp I he trade Union Movement.

    Anti Communal Struggle in Bihar.Mass Line trend
    in 1989 during the Bhagalpur riots a campaign depicting the revolutionary mass line against Hindu Communalism and minority Fundamentalism took place. The Hindu revivalist campaign in India had its roots in the JanSangh and th R.S.S just after independence. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad a communal Hindu Front led by the Bharatiya Janata Party wishing to build a movement for Hindutva carried out a brick worship campaign at Ayodhya.Even the left Front Parties and the Janata Dal allowed this. The Congress which had claims of being secular sent 5 lakh Ramshilas to villages all over the Country to win votes!Infact they were the source of communalism as in 1986 Rajiv Gandhi entered the Ram Janmabhhoomi in Ayodhya(God Ram’s birthplace)temple and advocated Ram Rajya.Infact he was the first person to open the doors of the Babri Masjid.The Vishwa Hindu Parishad propagated that the Babri Masjid Mosque should be destroyed and a temple built. Ordinary people were diverted from their socio-political issues like Price Rise. The Riots were a necessary instrument for the Ruling Classes to defend themselves from the people’s wrath at their economic conditions.
    In Bhagalpur 100’s perished in the riots. More than 25,000people were rendered homeless. The left Parties and the newly elected Janata Dal led no pro-people resistance and infact to win votes let brick worship and communal propaganda take place.There were some heroic mass struggles waged by Communist Revolutionaries.
    In Rasaunk in Khagaria District an anti-riot organisation was formed .Plans were made to launch anti-communal demonstrations. A wall writing campaign took place raising the following slogans which were also propagated in various towns and villages.
    1.All Religious minded people of India are the Children of the same Mother India. That is why in 1857 they fought collectively against the Britishers.
    2.Fearing the Unity the British created disunion in the Country twice, in 1923 and in 1945to47-ultimately dividing the Country.
    3.In 1947 there were 25 crores in the treasury of India,wheras at present the same India has a burden of a loan of 85,000 Crores of Rupees.
    4.The American and Russian block are inciting riots through the medium of many organisations.
    The Administration first refused a demonstration. The people went door to door mobilising people for a general assembly. In the harmony meeting 200 people attended consisting of Hindus and Muslims.12 Speakers spoke and people from both the communities embraced each other. A 21 member Communal Harmony team was formed. The following resolutions were passed.
    1.The Babri Masjid Controversy should be resolved locally in Ayodhya through some social gathering or court.
    2.The controversy should not be allowed to be a national controversy.
    3.No activity should be allowed inciting riots.
    4.Any Individual caught inciting riots should be punished in a Social Panchayat.
    5.Any native or foreign money bag, whether he be an exporter of capital, a state Leader, A mullah capitalist, or a landlord ,all want to save themselves from the wrath of the masses, to rule and divide the people.
    The following slogans were raised
    1.Hindu,Muslim,Sikh and Christians are Brethrens.
    2.Stop the Communal Riots
    3.Stop converting religious beliefs into riots.
    Such leaflets prevented riots from taking place.
    In Jamalpur in Mungher district similarly people organised anti-communal demonstrations brave team of intellectuals were responsible for this. A ‘Peace and Harmony committee was formed and a demonstration was organised.Anti-Communalism posters were put up. These activities prevented riots.
    Lastly ,when anti-social elements of Godargama planned to massacre the Muslims of Mohinderpur Punarvas in Begusurai district ,the Harijan masses openly opposed this under a Comrade and got prepared to fight to death to protect the Muslims. The reactionary forces were forced to flee.l

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