By Harsh Thakor
Why inspite of 54 years since
Naxalbari uprising today the party and revolutionary movement remains
splintered-Harsh Thakor?
In spite of 54 years since
the epic Naxalbari uprising and formation of the Communist Party India
(Marxist-Leninist) (CPI (ML) the movement is hardly moving in the direction to
re-organise the party.
A series of conflicting and
opportunist trends and theoretical weaknesses are crippling the development of
an organised movement. This is disheartening when fascism of the Hindutva
variety has reached a height as never before.
Firstly, there is still lack
of clarity on the aspect of the principal contradiction and the main mode of
production. A protracted people’s war concept has not been devised in
accordance or with respect to the unique characteristics of
The Maoist trend in spite of
immortal sacrifices fails to evaluate subjective factors prevailing or rectify
practice of leading or working within mass organisations. Even if removing
necessity of upholding Maoism in practice mass organisations are still treated
like front organisations, without being awarded sufficient democratic identity.
After the recent action of killing of 22 Jawans launched
in Bastar in April I got a most insightful response from Comrade
Nimol Mazumdar .
Some observations:
“A. tactically they took the
operation in the wrong time. When there is a large mass movement going on in
one part of the country, which is largely peaceful, this kind of action can
give the government legitimacy to frame and violently overthrow the protest.
These actions could have also given the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a lifeline in the
state elections. Even if we don't think that BJP can be defeated through
electoral means, one should not give them undue advantage in the electoral
arena. But thankfully none of the above two incidents have happened yet.
‘B. Even in regards to
protracted war, we must look back at exactly what dividends the tactical
counter offensive campaigns (tcoc)
are paying to the Maoists. Are their mass bases increasing? Are they
infiltrating through the army ranks? Are they opening more liberated zones? I
don't think any of these things are happening. “
C. “The Maoists have shrunk a
lot in the last decade, they have lost a large chunk of their space in the east
of
D. “Their have been many
intellectuals and cadres of the party who have been arrested. The party had
failed to launch even a successful mass movement against those arrests. All
this shows their weakness in grabbing the issues at hand.”
E. “In a war, killings can
happen, but we must have a propaganda wing strong enough to make waves through
the masses and justify the actions. The Maoists presently lack that. Thus this
yearly tcoc is going in vein
every year. People are forgetting every year's action within a couple of
months.”
Although doing serious mass
work in urban areas and playing a major role in publishing
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist[1]
literature unfortunately the Rahul Foundation Communist League of India group,
staunchly defends its classification of India as a capitalist
society and refuses to even support democratic struggles of the landed
peasantry in Punjab terming, them as demands of the 'Kulaks' and antagonistic
to the rural landless labour. It had a similar stand to the rallies of Adivasis
in Maharashtra and all-India morcha of farmers in
The other Communist League of
India faction CLI (RC) group places more emphasis on revolutionary mass work
rather than propaganda but because of wrong theoretical understanding on mode
of production cannot play an overall positive role. The most positive tendency
of the CLI off the Ramnath section in
The trend that has destroyed
the very citadel or foundation of Naxalbari and acting most against
the revolutionary mass line today is the CPI (ML) Red Star group. No doubt it
is a progressive organisation in it’s own right and well-meaning and
flashed its pages of journal Red Star, morally against neo-fascism. However Red
Star group has resorted to complete open party functioning and dismantled the
centralist or Bolshevised structure of the party. Under influence of its
erroneous evaluation of
The CPI (ML) led by Viswam
accepts
The most progressive sections
in the non-maoist camp are the CPI (ML) New Democracy, the PCC-CPI (ML) and the
CPRCI (ML). Quantitatively New Democracy group is the largest and taking the
biggest initiative in the country to oppose the rising neo-fascism in
The mantle of
the legacy of principled struggle against open banner of the party was carried
on by the CCRI that later merged into the CPRCI (ML). Today the most correct
approach towards principled re-organisation outside the boundary of the Maoist
camp is by the Communist Party Re-Organisation Center of India (ML).
The Communist
Party Re-Organisation Centre of India (Marxist-Leninist)
or CPRCI(ML) is theoretically the soundest organisation,
particularly on practice in elections upholding that active political campaign
is the correct tactic today and not that of 'active boycott' or
'participation'. In it’s view subjective conditions do not prevail today to
undertake armed struggle with the state of the party weak and
splintered. It still has the largest following and most qualitative practice of
mass line in states of work like
Quoting
Comrade Hindol Mazumdar “When it comes to CPRCI(ML) I can guess many of
their comrades are at Tikri Border, however their silence even after almost a
year of protest is very strange. Given a chance, I'd like to participate and
work with them to understand where the problem is taking place. In my opinion,
the secret party organization makes sense. But your party shouldn't be so
secret that the prospective cadres do not even know the party's name! That will
only act as a hindrance. It can also be understood as your inability at taking
the job of party building seriously. Even a secret party organization should
come out with their analysis, with their propaganda, with their campaign,
posters etc regularly, that is the only way we can assess their stance, only
way we can say whether the party is veering towards economism/left wing
infantile behaviors.”
“However,
the
“Almost no
open activity that is their biggest drawback. Mass organizations cannot be the
be all and end all to revolutionary politics.”
“I think they
are missing someone like Harbhajan Sohi. I have only known him from your
articles, but I think some of their leadership must get involved with party
building in a national scale full time.”
Today there is
a trend in the movement which openly projects the party banner to the masses
and emphasise importance of mass organisations. It is linked to groups
participating in the Parliament without sufficient development of the vanguard
party. Such groups participate on party plane in mass fronts which weaken the
democratic identity of the mass organisations. Often in the past this trend
disrupted the essence of unity of revolutionary mass organisations. In recent
programmes in
The other
crucial factor for setback in the majority of the groups was adopting tactics
of participating in parliamentary elections without the establishment of the
re-organised vanguard party. This is what led to CPI (ML) Liberation group
turning reformist, Red Star virtually out of the communist revolutionary camp
and Kanu Sanyal's Class Struggle group on its periphery. Without the adequate
laison participation broke the backbone of the components of the revolutionary
stream who entered into a series of formal or unofficial alliances with
bourgeois parliamentary or revisionist parties. Such embracing of parliament
blunted their class struggles from sharpening and made them more and more a
part of the parliamentary process like the Orthodox official left parties.
Often such groups in their propoganda morally stated that
The most progressive
contribution by any intellectual has been by Anand Teltumbde who is synthesis
the dalit or caste question with the Marxist Movement. In that light the
writings of Comrade Vir Sathidar were too very progressive. Even Comrade
Ajith(Murali) has made a great contribution in his analysis of Brahmanical fascism.
Teltumbde very boldly expressed his grievances of mechanical understating of
Indian situation and wishing to copy the Chinese experience in toto. He
expressed how much still infection of old Charu Mazumdar line still persists
and how the caste question is still grossly neglected. In
A most progressive happening
in the last 25 years has been the regularity of the publication of "Aspects
of India’s Economy” of the Research Unit for Political economy which has in
most classical or dialectical Leninist depth defined the neo-fascist economic
policies of the ruling parties and nefarious designs o break the
very back of their struggles. No journal has so illustratively analysed the
semi-feudal nature of Indian economy.
Authors like Amit
Bhattacharya have done great historical research work in books like ‘Storming
the Gates to Heaven’ , but given one-sided glory only to the Maoists and
praised or covered no other trend. Arundhati Roy, even in
if not Marxist has crystallised sparkle of Naxalbari in the age of neo-fascism,
as very few have done. Bernard De Mello wth remarkable consistency has given
Naxalbari the cutting edge, in spite of aberrations of failing to understand
semi-feudal nature of
I also credit fronts like
Bhagat Singh Chatra Morcha of Uttar Pradesh in initiating ‘Go to Village
Campaigns’, educating peasants on the aspects of agrarian revolution and
fascistic social order. It has with Inquilabi Chtra
Morcha undertaken many a cycle rally condemning saffron
and Brahmanical fascism.
To me the
understanding of the contribution of the Cultural Revolution in
I feel there is
a glaring weakness in taking Naxalbari politics to the working class or,
working as political fractions. There has been no development of the Chinese
thesis of capturing the cities from the countryside, with such vast penetration
of mechanisation. A proper self-criticism has not been made of why working
class struggles were defeated in Kanoria Jute Mills, Nellimarla rice
mill or even setback in Chattisgarh mines or displaced textile workers in
Mumbai. A strategy has not been developed of capturing the Unions from below or
building democratic structures from underneath.
When the fascist forces are
tightening their grip to their greatest height and the tentacles of
globalisation sharpening day by day the capacity of the revolutionary forces to
organise is diminishing day by day. Revolutionaries have to innovate methods of
struggle which can overcome the obstacles or traverse the barriers. Even if
recognising or upholding the Leninist vanguard party concept it must not be
done mechanically and work must be done to build it from below. A classical
Leninist party to me is not the order of the day. It’s urgent to develop the
Leninist or Maoist party to incorporate more revolutionary democratic elements
and integrate with more mass movements at large. One cannot blindly emulate the
Soviet or Chinese experience. Emphasis must be placed on building the party
from below and not from above. For the Trade Union movement the writings of Antonio Gramisci have considerable relevance.
Intellectuals must analyse a forum whereby principled ideological struggles of
communist revolutionaries could take place. The method of working as fractions
within yellow Trade Unions and capturing bourgeois unions is a very complex
subject with the great changes that have taken place in urban areas.
Revolutionaries have to imbibe lessons from Shankar Guha Nyugi in organising
mine workers in Chattisgarh. The most common trend was the detachment of the
proletarian politics and economist approach by groups all over
Theoretically the groups have
to not mechanically copy the Chinese path of Protracted People's War. Today the
revolutionaries can take abject advantage of the crisis of economic fascist
crisis. The resurgence of peasant movement against suicides and for
remunerative prices must be exploited to its full potential. Revolutionaries
still have to formulate new strategies of organising the peasantry with the
immense infiltration of imperialism and MNC's in agriculture. New strategies or
methods have also to be devised on the urban front with the vastly different
methods of production prevalent today which completely divide workers. The last
named has a most critical insight on how the pure orthodox vanguard party
concept has to be further enriched.
[1] Karl Marx, VI Lenin, (Владимир Ленин), Mao Tse-tung (毛泽东)
[2] Leon Trotsky (Лев Троцкий).
[3] Joseph Stalin, (Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин/ იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე სტალინი).
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