Independent  initiative  and united  front
(1935-39)

During 1930-34, the CPI proved to be much less mature in dealing with the Congress, its traditional contender for leadership in the freedom movement, than the situation and national mood demanded and so remained a peripheral force. In the period we are entering upon, this weakness was largely overcome — now it was the turn of the communists to grow apace, drawing nourishment from the national mainstream, thanks to a new UF line.

Rise of Fascism and the
Seventh Comintern Congress
The Congress And Parliamentarism
Growing Leftism in National Politics
And the UF Line
Agitprop And Party Building
During the Countdown to Second World War

 

Rise of Fascism And the Seventh Comintern Congress

If the early 1930s saw a high tide in the class struggle of workers directed against the bourgeois attempt to shift the burden of the “Great Depression” on to their shoulders, it also saw the most heinous imperialist reaction to both the workers’ struggle and the capitalist crisis. This was fascism, the undisguised terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most aggressive elements of finance capital. By 1935 it was firmly saddled in power in Germany and Italy and became a major threat in France, Austria, Spain etc. The fascists in every country spearheaded their attack, both at home and at the international level, against the working class, the communist party and Bolshevism. On October 25, 1936 the war-lords of Japan joined the Nazi Reich in signing the
anti-Comintern pact. The, need was increasingly being felt to develop, as an antithesis to fascism, a broad unity of all political forces threatened by it — most notably the communists, social-democrats (S-Ds) and bourgeois liberals. In France workers under the influence of S-Ds joined forces with the followers of the French Communist Party in repulsing the first major attacks of fascism in 1934. By contract in Austria, where the communists were numerically insignificant compared to the S-Ds who ignored the former's calls for joint action and took initiative too late, the fascists drenched a heroic workers’ resistance in blood. The experiences in Spain and other countries also underscored the need for a united proletarian front as the basis of broader alliance of all working people against fascism. While endeavours along these lines were going on, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations in September 1934, marking an advance in the unity of anti-fascist forces at international level.

Simultaneously with this anti-fascist polarisation in the advanced capitalist countries, a process in which communists took a leading part, in the colonial world also realisation was dawning on the communist parties that the line of absolute denunciation of the nationalist leadership, particularly its left wing, had paid no dividends.

The communist movement was in a sorry state in such countries as Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia etc. and even in China it suffered greatly from left sectarian mistakes. In the case of India we have seen how a process of rethinking and reversal of policies (starting with, as in Europe, TU unity) was proceeding haltingly within the limits of the Draft Platform of Action of the CPI and the Colonial Theses of the Sixth Comintern Congress.

These objective developments and lessons of class struggle naturally led to a distinct shift in the general line of international communist movement from left sectarianism to UF policy. The shift, beginning from 1933-34, assumed a complete shape in the historic Seventh Congress of the CI, held between July 25 and, August 21, 1935. The Congress discussed the achievements and mistakes or lackings of the post-Sixth Congress period, gave a detailed theoretical analysis of the genesis and class essence of fascism and put forward the slogans of a broad popular anti-fascist front on the basis of the proletarian united front in every capitalist country and a wide anti-imperialist united front in every colonial or semi-colonial country. Among the many speakers who elaborated on various aspects of this new line, the most distinguished was Bulgeria’s Georgi Dimitrov, the main architect of the Comintern’s new position, who spoke on “The offensive of Fascism and the Tasks of the CI in the Fight for the Unity of the Working class Against Fascism”. Together with his concluding speech, this became the most important document of the Seventh Congress. About India, Dimitrov had this to say :

  • “In India the communists have to support, extend and participate in anti-imperialist mass activities, not excluding those which are under national reformist leadership. While maintaining their political and organisational independence, they must carry on active work inside the organisations which take part in the Indian National Congress, facilitating the process of crystallisation of a national revolutionary wing among them, for the purpose of further developing the national liberation movement of the Indian peoples against British Imperialism.”[1]

The “Resolution on Fascism, Working Class Unity and the Tasks of the Comintern” adopted at the Congress contained a small section on “The Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in the Colonial Countries” (Text II20). The CPC leader Wang Ming in his speech entitled “The Revolutionary Movement in Colonial Countries” dealt with the Indian question in some detail. Though himself responsible for the continuation of a left-sectarian line in China after the disastrous Li Li-san line, he criticised the CPI for the same mistake. Apart from repeating what Dimitrov had said, he suggested a six-point outline of immediate programme for anti-imperialist struggle (see Text II21). Like Dimitrov, he also stressed the long-term ami of achieving proletarian hegemony in the national liberation movement. However, since there was no official delegate sent by the CPI![2] to return home just after the Congress and explain the great change in line to the comrades there, the impact of the shift was felt in India quite late. It was only in mid-1936, when the famous “Dutt-Bradley Thesis” reached India through the Inprecor of 29 February that the communist movement in our country woke up to it and began to readjust its policies accordingly. But before we come to that, we should see what was happening in the country’s national politics around this time.

Notes:

1. See Inprecor, 2 August 1935, p 971

2. General Secretary SS Mirajkar and SV Deshpande were arrested at Singapore en route to Moscow. The Comintern papers show one “Tambe” representing India. According to Saroj Mukherjee (see Bharater Communist Party O Amra, meaning the CPI And Ourselves; NBA, (Calcutta 1985); p 95) and some other sources, Tambe was Ben Bradley who had gone over to London after being released from Meerut jail.

 

The Congress And Parliamentarism

Just as the termination of the Non-Cooperation Movement had been followed by an intense debate over council entry, so the phased withdrawal of the CDM during 1933-34 led to a similar polemics within the Congress and outside it. Like the Swarajists of 1920s, leaders like MA Ansari, C Rajagopalachari, Bhulabhai Desai, Satyamurthi and BC Roy advocated work in the legislature not, as they claimed, from any constitutional illusions, but for preparing the people and the Congress organisation for the next phase of mass struggle. The opposition, though much milder this time, came from Gandhi, Sardar Patel and others who were for satyagrahas and reform work in villages. But unlike in the 1920s a third, left alternative pronounced itself — firm rejection of the the British trap to absorb the nationalist movement in that very colonial state machinery which it purported to overthrow, and continuation of extra-parliamentary mass struggle.

Thanks to Gandhi’s efforts, before the end of 1934 a patch-up was effected between the two sections of the Congress and the party decided to contest elections unitedly, as we have already seen. Then in August 1935 the British parliament imposed on the nation the notorious Government of India Act. The Act had two components. One, the “Federal Plan”, was an All-India Federation in the shape of a bicameral Central Legislature with representatives from (a) British Indian provinces — elected by about one-sixth of adult population there; (b) Princely States — nominated by their rulers; (c) Muslims and other minorities in British India — elected by these special electorates. Defence, foreign affairs, the Reserve Bank and railways were kept entirely outside the control of the Federal Legislature, while on other subjects too the Viceroy retained special control. The other component was — elected ministries in British Indian provinces controlling what nowadays we call “state subjects”. But here also, the Governors would retain special powers including vetoes. Even the indefinite promise of Dominion Status contained in Irwin's offer of November 1929 was conspicuous by its absence in the Act of 1935. As Linlithgow later commented, this Act was considered to be “the best way ... of maintaining British Influence in India.”[1]

The first component of the Act — the Federal Plan — fell through because the princes and the Muslims League declined to share power with the Congress as minority partners in the Central Government; as for the Congress, it rejected the proposal as a sham. But the other component was implemented by declaration of elections to provincial assemblies to be held in early 1937. With this the aforesaid debate reached a new stage: contesting the elections for propaganda purpose etc. was OK, but should the Congress form ministries if they got majority in some provinces? Nehru, Bose and the CSP leaders firmly opposed this and recommended council-entry for creating obstructions and making the working of the Act impossible. Rajendra Prasad, Vallabbhai, Rajagopalachari and others argued that since provincial ministries shall be elected anyway, it would be wise not to leave the field for the Liberals, the Muslim League and others but to form and utilise the ministries, as best as possible, in the cause of Swaraj. Once again there was patch-up at the instance of Gandhi: the Congress sessions at Lucknow and Faizpur (April and December, 1936) decided to go in for elections and to put off a decision on office-acceptance for the post-election period.

Even as the tactical debate of 1934-36 progressed from the question of poll-participation to that of ministry-making, a definite rightist consolidation was silently taking place in the Congress leadership as a reaction to the growing leftward shift in the national politics which could not but be reflected in the Congress itself (See Text VI27 for a CPI pamphlet “To All Anti-Imperialist Fighters” (December 1936) which correctly catches the mood of “Gathering Storm”). Gandhi the great tactician got Nehru elected to Congress presidentship both at Lucknow and Faizpur and himself stood aloof from electoral politics, concentrating rather on “constructive wor”. Nehru was then at the peak of his socialist rhetoric and he gave vent to it in numerous public speeches and writings. The Working Committee nominated by him included three known socialists — JP, Narendra Dev and Patwardhan. His call for a “joint popular front” against imperialism and many of his others proposals (e.g., collective affiliation of TUs and Kisan Sabhas to the Congress) were welcomed by the CPI. The election manifesto and provisional agrarian programme drafted under his guidance did contain some progressive demands, such as reductions in revenue and rent, agricultural income tax, partial waiver of loans, fixity of tenure etc. All these invoked a protest manifesto signed by 21 big guns of business led by Walchand Hirachand (May 1936, i.e., just after Nehru’s Lucknow address), as well as a resignation threat from seven Working Committee members headed by Patel, Rajagopalachari and Rajendra Prasad (June 1936).

But there were saner people both in politics and in business. Gandhi moved in to diffuse the crisis in the Working Committee by forcing a compromise on Jawaharlal, while in the business community this role was discharged by the most far-sighted of Indian businessmen — GD Birla. The above-mentioned manifesto denounced socialism as a threat to property, religion and personal liberty, but Birla sharply criticised this in a letter to Walchand: “It is curious how we businessmen are so short-sighted. ... It looks very crude for a man with property to say that he is opposed to expropriation in the wider interest of the country ...”; so this should be left to “those (like Gandhi — Ed.) who have given up property” and to help themselves the business community should strengthen those opposed to Jawaharlal within the Congress. To Thakurdas he wrote just after the Lucknow session : “Mahatmaji kept his promise ... he saw that no new commitments were made. Jawaharlalji’s speech in a way was thrown into the waste-paper basket because all the resolutions that were passed were against the spirit of his speech ... Jawaharlalji seems to be like a typical English democrat who takes defeat in a sporting spirit. He seems to be out for giving expression to his ideology, but he realises that action is impossible and so does not press for it.”[2]

Thus it was that the Indian capitalist class, growing “In the Shadow of the Mahatma” (to borrow the title of an excellent book by GD Birla), learned to appreciate the limits as well as the value of Jawaharlal’s socialism, which would draw very large crowds in the election meetings the latter conducted throughout the country. Nehru soon emerged as the most popular Congress leader after Gandhi. Though he was still against office-acceptance and the Congress was still undecided about it, Birla knew what was what. As early as in April 1936, he assured an anxious Thakurdas : “The elections which will take place will be controlled by ‘Vallabbhai Group’, and if Lord Linlithgow handles the situation properly, there is every likelihood of the Congressmen coming into office.”[3]

And this was exactly what happened about a year later. The tremendous success of the Congress in the February 1937 elections (absolute majority in five provinces, near-majority in one and quite a good standing in two others) created great pressure on Nehru and Gandhi and made them acquiesce to the popular demand for government formation. In the AICC session of March 1937, JP proposed total rejection of office, but was badly outvoted. Congress ministries were formed in Central Provinces, Orissa, Bihar, UP, Madras and Bombay in July 1937 and later in NEFA and Assam. Thus started a unique experiment in the history of national movement in India : combining movemental with the governing role; working the 1935 parliamentary with extra-parliamentary work and the constitution in deed while rejecting it (in favour of Puma Swaraj) in words; governing the provinces with very limited powers while opposing the Central Government, the real seat of power; and balancing various class interests and other (communal, regional, casteist etc.) interest groups while ultimately representing and consolidating a definite class base. And if the contradictory parameters of this experiment and of the entire course of debates leading upto it conjures in the reader’s mind a comparable experiment in the communist movement that started two and three decades later, that only proves the blood relation between nationalism and communism in India.

Congress becomes the junior Raj

To start with, the Congress ministries evoked tremendous mass enthusiasm. The national flag, the national anthem and the nationalist leaders in State assemblies and secretariats — the latter now giving orders to bureaucrats and police officials who tortured and imprisoned them only the other day — greatly boosted the morale of the freedom movement. The Congress ministries curbed the arbitrary powers of the police and CID, promoted freedom of the press, expanded civil liberties and democratic rights, released political prisoners including many patriotic terrorists. Communists enjoyed somewhat greater freedom for their activities though the Congress ministries and leaders did nothing to put pressure on the Central Government to lift the ban on the CPI. Despite regional variations (for examples, the Madras and Bombay governments arrested and harassed socialist and communist leaders from the very beginning), this was the general picture during the first few months. Congress membership rose several times within a year and there was a great advance, as we shall see, in workers’, peasants’, youth and cultural movements and organisations. The positive impact of the Congress capturing office also included a massive growth in the movements against princely autocracy and for responsible government, agrarian reform and other reforms in most of the Princely States.[4]

But it was not for these that Birla had contributed Rs 5 lakhs to the Congress election fund, with others of his tribe also making handsome donations. At the initial phase, certain measures of the Congress ministries, such as the urban property tax and sales tax on cloth levied in Bombay to compensate for the loss of excise duty caused by prohibition of alcohol and the recommendations of Labour Enquiry Committees in UP and Bihar in favour of extended TU rights and improved labour welfare did create some apprehensions in the minds of industrialists, but only for a short while. As soon as the workers in Bombay, Madras and elsewhere came forward to snatch their just demands, the Congress ministries came up definitely on the side of the capitalists, just as they did to protect zamindars from a new high tide in peasant militancy. About these we shall discuss under separate subheadings, here we take only a broad overview of the contradictory tendencies through which the Congress rediscovered itself in the new role of the British Raj’s junior partner.

The first and primary basis of this metamorphosis lay in the emergence of the Congress as expert managers of the affairs of the future ruling classes from the corridors of political power. In the agrarian sector, the role of Congress ministries lay not only in protecting landlords from increasing peasant militancy by the free use of Section 144, police pickets and police firing etc., but more importantly, in a moderate reform programme that would safeguard the zamindari system in return for small concessions (like security of tenure and reduction/stability of rent) to appease mainly the rich and middle peasants. Nehru and others who often clamoured about zamindari abolition did not press for it when the party was in power. It was, however, in the industrial sector and in the realm of overall economic management that the Congress held out a great promise even with its very limited powers. While some simple steps like the policy of placing government orders, as far as possible, with swadeshi concerns brought in higher profits, there were other, more important long-term measures too. Thus when the sugar industry (like many others) faced the crisis of over-production around the year 1937, the UP and Bihar governments not only recommended but also ensured the formation of a syndicate by putting pressure to bear on some dissenting manufacturers of sugar. Again Gandhi's Harijan carried a series of articles against what it called “the menace of India Limited”, i.e., the subsidiaries of foreign companies (as mentioned at the beginning of Part IV) which put up a very tough competition; and in April 1939 VN Gadgil moved a resolution in the Central Legislature echoing the protests of FICCI on this issue. But the most important of all was the conceptual advance that was started in this period towards ‘socialistic’ planned economy. When Subhas Bose as the Congress president set up in late 1938 the National Planning Committee (NPC) headed by Nehru, leading industrialists warmly, welcomed it, and closely associated themselves with its work. From the capitalists’ point of view, the economic rationale was quite strong. A point had already been reached in the country’s industrialisation where no further progress was possible without huge investments in basic industries and infrastructural facilities - for which the Indian bourgeoisie was as yet neither capable nor willing (because of the risks involved, the long gestation period etc.) - and which could therefore be set up only under “state planning”, i.e., with people’s money for the capitalists’ benefit. Thus started, along with the political experiment of ministry-making under British paramountcy, the economic experiment of utilising ‘socialist’ steroids for a flabby colonial capitalism. The conceptual foundation was now being laid for the famous Bombay Plan of 1944 and then the “Mixed Economy” of independent India and in the process, Nehru the ‘socialist’, Nehru the visionary of modern, industrialised India, was emerging as the capitalists’ pet even more than the aging, saintly Bapu,

A modern political party, however, does not come to power merely by serving the dominant classes. To be sure, the Congress did much to broaden its own social base. Extension of democratic rights has already been mentioned; social welfare measures for advancement of the conditions of untouchables, betterment of health and sanitation facilities, expansion of primary education etc. were also taken care of by the Congress ministries. But there was at least one constituency where the Congress lost much of its support base — the Muslims. The factors responsible for this included : strained relations with the Muslim League following the rejection of its offer for a coalition government in UP, which the League utilised in a barrage of anti-Congress propaganda; the total failure of Congress ministries to check communal riots; the active involvement of many Congressmen with organisations like the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha during the 1930s whereas they were debarred from membership of the Muslim League; and so on. But the loss in Muslim support was partly compensated in another field. As we have just seen, during this period the party made a bold bid to expand its influence to the Princely States — not by head-on collisions with their repressive rulers, but by satyagrahas and bargainings from a new position of strength. All these constituted the second element in the process of the Congress becoming a ruling party.

A third element, and one that posed the most difficult dilemma for the provincial ministries, involved the question of how to deal with the growing popular movements fanned by economic hardships as well as by enhanced but rarely fulfilled expectations. In many cases popular intervention indeed took up novel and “intolerable” forms (to cite just one example — soon after the formation of the Bihar ministry, a peasant rally at Patna marched Straight into the assembly house and occupied it for some time, with the security forces helplessly looking on). After some initial hesitations, particularly in those cases where the Congress activists and mass base were involved, the new rulers hardened their stance. An AICC resolution in September 1938 condemned those, “including a few Congressmen”, who “have been found in the name of civil liberty to advocate murder, arson, looting and class war by violent means”. Nehru and Gandhi saw the danger of alienation associated with free use of the repressive machinery. So they sought, in private, to restrict it while discouraging popular militancy — but with little success on both counts.

The inherent contradictions of the Congress’ new status were thus getting intensified with every month in office. Clearer identification with bourgeois and landlord interests were alienating workers and peasants, the initial zeal for welfare programmes and mass contact campaigns soon petered out, and the tough stance on law and order was leading to a rapid disillusionment and a further leftward shift of the genuine pro-people forces within the movement. Finally, corruption and privilege-seeking spread like anything. Gandhi and Nehru, visibly perturbed over all this[5], were looking for a honourable way out, and that was provided by the world war which broke out in September 1939. The CWC requested Viceroy Linlithgow to clarify Britain’s war aims relating to India and to immediately establish full democracy in India as a pre-condition for the Indian people’s support to the war efforts of the allied powers. But the Viceroy promised nothing more than a consultative committee. This was construed, and rightly so, as a national humiliation and in protest, the CWC on October 23 asked the Congress ministries to resign. Many of those in office were not prepared for this, but sensing the people’s mood they too fell in line. All the Congress ministries quitted office without delay.

The curtain was thus brought down on a historical dress rehearsal: for the Congress, to emerge as India’s ‘natural and legitimate’ rulers and for the British, to effect a smooth transition to neo-colonialism; the actual show would commence in a decade. But was the people of India mere spectators?

Far from it. During the period (1935-39) when the Congress was busy entering councils and making ministries, they forged ahead on all fronts of anti-imperialist movement — in many cases under the leadership, or at least influence, of a reinvigorated Communist Party of India.

Notes:

1.   See Modern India, op. cit., p 338

2 For details of the Birla letters, see Jawaharlal Nehru A Biography Vol. I 1889-1947 by Sarvepalli Gopal; Oxford University Press (Bombay, 1975) pp 209-12 and Modern India, op. cit., pp 345-46.

3.   Modern India, op. eft., p 348

4.  It was these movements, developing from below, that brought the States within the ambit of the national mainstream in spite of both the British policy of nurturing these citadels of feudal autocracy as counter-weights against the nationalist movement and the complimentary Congress policy of non-interference in the affairs of these States. Although praja mandals had come up in the early twenties under the impact of Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement and the All India States” People”s Conference (AISPC) had been set up in 1927 as a body seeking to coordinate civil libertarian activities, these remained largely cut off from basic peasant and tribal grievances. Neither the AISPC nor the Congress demanded abolition of privy purses and integration of all States with the rest of India. Even as late as in the Haripura session (February 1938), the Congress ‘expressed only moral support and sympathy to the States’ people’s movements and refused to be directly involved with them. But with militant movements (details later) developing in Mysore, Hyderabad, Travancore and some other States during late 1937 through 1938, the Congress could wait no longer. From the end of 1938, Gandhi, Vallabbhai and Jamnalal rushed to Rajkot and Jaipur to try out peaceful satyagraha. In 1939, the Tripuri session of the Congress formally declared its changed policy of “increasing identification ... with the States’ peoples” and Nehru was elected president for the Ludhiana session of the AISPC.

5.   Nehru wrote to Gandhi in April 1938, i.e., even before the completion of a year in office : “... the Congress ministries are working inefficiently. ... They are adapting themselves far too much to the old order and trying to justify it. ... What is far worse is that we are losing the high position that we have built up, with so much labour, in the hearts of people. We are sinking to the level of ordinary politicians who have no principles to stand by and whose work is governed by a day to day opportunism. ...” About a year later, Gandhi told the Gandhi Seva Sangh workers : “I would go to the length of giving the whole Congress organisation a decent burial, rather than put up with the corruption that is rampant.” (Cited in India’s Struggle For Independence, Ed. by Bipan Chandra, op. cit., p 339)

 

Growing Leftism in National Politics And the UF Line


The second half of the 1930s has been widely acclaimed as one of the richest periods in left politics in India. Workers’, peasants’, students' and cultural movements took giant strides in a fine combination of the movement for national emancipation and those for socio-economic emancipation and progress. The general leftward shift was reflected in a remarkable expansion of the INC, the growing militancy of its ranks and local leaders and the consecutive election of the two most known ‘leftists’ — Nehru and Bose — to the presidential chair of the Congress. Nehru’s fiery ‘socialist’ speech at the Lucknow session and his role as Congress president as mentioned earlier both reflected and contributed to the growing left mood. All this found a continuity in Subhas Bose, who even contributed a few write-ups to the communist weekly National Front.

Another mark of the leftward shift was evidenced in the rapid growth of the CSP. At its second conference held in Meerut in January 1936, the party held out a warm invitation to communists to join the CSP. The response was lukewarm at first, but when the new UF line reached India, the CPI enthusiastically grasped the opportunity to develop left unity and at the same time work within the Congress.

It was in this particularly conducive political setting that the communist movement in India finally embarked on a new course of struggle combining national and class demands. The first clear-cut call for the application of the UF tactics in the form of work within the Indian National Congress was put forward in an article in the Inprecor, March 9,1935, that is well before the Seventh Comintern Congress. Criticising the CPI for its isolation from the anti-imperialist struggle, the article recommended that mass organisations under communist influence should obtain “collective membership” in “local organisations of the Congress ... while preserving their independence and face”. This would serve to “counter-balance national-reformism” and provide “a certain field of legal activity”. Of course, slips might occur and there might be tendencies towards renunciation of the struggle against “national-reformist conciliators”, regarding which the Party “must exercise a genuine check-up”. But the crucial need of the hour, as the concluding sentence pointed out, was : “it [the CPI] must learn in Bolshevist fashion how to rally and consolidate the masses who still stand at the crossroads between the revolutionary struggle and the impasse of national-reformist conciliation”. The very next month, The Communist came up with a lead article — “The Present Situation and Our Tasks” — which continuing the attack against “national reformism and its ‘left’ agents”, conveyed the main points of the Inprecor article.

The best-known programmatic document of the period — the Dutt-Bradley thesis — appeared in the Inprecor on February 29,1936 (Text VIIg). basing itself on a ECCI document entitled “Suggestions on the Indian Question”, the thesis put forward the following salient points:

  • An Anti-Imperialist People's Front must be forged on the basis of (1) “a line of consistent struggle against imperialism” and (2) “active struggle for the vital needs of the toiling masses.”
  • The Congress can play “a foremost part” in realising this Front, or may itself get transformed into one, but at the moment it is miles away from it as regards programme, constitution, leadership and activity.
  • To start with, therefore, it is necessary to establish joint bodies of the National Congress with “all the existing ..... TUs, peasants' unions, youth associations” etc. at all levels and also to encourage “collective affiliation” of these anti-imperialist mass organisations with the INC.
  • The “Congress machinery” must be thoroughly democratised, so that ordinary members can freely raise issues and move resolutions, all committees and office-bearers are elected, and so on; in short, the organisation should run “on the principles, not of personal dictatorship, but of democratic centralism”.
  • “The dogma of ‘non-violence’ should be omitted. The entire emphasis should be placed” on mass movements, class organisations and on linking up the workers’ and peasants' immediate struggles with “the political anti-imperialist struggle”. While a “sharp ideological struggle” was needed for this, that “should not be allowed to split the national front”.
  • A left bloc should be immediately formed within the Congress comprising CSP-men, trade unionists, communists and other left Congressmen on the basis of “a minimum programme” of consistent anti-imperialism, development of mass struggle and mass organisation and a “fight for changes in the Congress constitution, policy, organisation and leadership”. The CSP must play “an especially important part in this”.
  • In the forthcoming elections, this left bloc or “anti-imperialist bloc” should field its own candidates with the just-mentioned “minimum programme” as its platform. For this purpose it should seek seat-adjustments with the existing Congress leadership or, if possible, contest “as a group with their specific programme within the Congress panel” — in either case “cooperating with the Congress candidates in other constituencies who run on the [Congress’] official programme”
  • While continuing the propaganda for Soviet power, communists should put forward the immediate slogan of “a Constituent Assembly based upon a universal and equal franchise and direct and secret ballot.” At the present stage, this should become the “central slogan of action ... of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front, uniting all the partial and immediate struggles in this central political fight.”

Permeating the entire thesis was a very sincere urge for UF with the national mainstream, having as its core a closer alliance with yesterday’s worst political enemies — the left-wingers. The CPI fully endorsed the thesis[1] and by the middle of 1936 laid out a meticulously formulated new path of advance. The most instructive concretisation of the new UF line was to be found, as regards the Party’s political tactics, in the electoral policy and, as regards the organisational shape of the Front, in the proposals for collective affiliation and joint bodies. A very well-written PB circular for Party members (Text VII9) and a couple of editorials in the July 1936 issue of the The Communist (Text VII10 and VII11) clarified the Party’s position and proposals in the following terms:

  • “The CP considers the slave constitution worth only one thing — blowing it up.” Still, it is against boycott, for thereby “we isolate ourselves from the masses and allow a free hand to our enemies and friends of imperialism.” The banned Party should therefore “use the legal opportunities provided by the elections” for popularising the Party’s slogans and for furthering the extra-parliamentary mass movement against imperialism.
  • The CP proposes three draft electoral platforms — one for communist candidates; another for “socialist and revolutionary anti-imperialist candidates; and still another for Congress candidates in general”.
  • The electoral UF is to be regarded as one of the building blocs of the anti-imperialist People’s Front. It will be based on “People’s Election Committees”, elected by the masses at local, city and district levels, through which the campaign for the UF platform should be conducted. In all these activities, the local TUs, peasant unions, youth leagues, Congress committees and CSP bodies must be actively mobilised.
  • On the controversial question of office-acceptance, the Party feels that wherever possible the Congress should form ministries “to carry through their major election pledges within a stipulated short period of time and actively help the development of the mass movement outside.” In all likelihood this would force the Governors “to assume dictatorial powers, dismiss the ministers, dissolve the legislatures” and this would lay bare the true face of the sham constitution (i.e., the Government of India Act, 1935, under which the provincial governments were to be elected — Editor) before the broad masses and rouse them to higher level of anti-imperialist struggle. But since at the present moment the office-acceptance slogan is being identified with the greedy rightists whereas “the Anti-Imperialist sentiment of politically conscious people is expressing itself as the Anti-Ministry slogan, Anti-Ministry is part of the platform of all left nationalists and other Anti-Imperialist elements”, the CPI does not press for what it considers the correct tactics. In public it endorses the unified left position of anti-ministry and privately urges the CSP and other left friends to consider the possibility of a revolutionary application of the office-acceptance tactics.

Documented here, particularly in the second editorial (Text VII11), is a rare example of a communist party working out and placing before all left elements a correct political tactic and yet withholding it for the sake of broad left unity against the Congress Right. Of course, no surrender of principles was involved. “That the policy outlined by us cannot be pursued is our fault” — the Party frankly admitted — “... if we had formulated our above policy [i.e., ministry-making from a revolutionary perspective — Editor] in time ... we would have succeeded in making it generally acceptable ...” For a Party just emerging out of a prolonged and bitter isolation from the national mainstream, this could be the only correct course. The accent on unity (while not relinquishing friendly debates) helped restore the acceptability of the CPI among the different left-leaning nationalist forces and yielded rich political harvests for the Party in the next few years. As Text VI28 would show, the three draft electoral platforms (see above) prepared by it were also fine examples of UF work.

While the new UF line was enthusiastically accepted in general, an important debate broke out on the particular policy of a campaign for individual enrolment (of workers and others under the influence of the CPI) with the INC. The proposal came from the CSP and was accepted by the CPI as a supplement to the main method of collective affiliation of TUs etc. Some leaders, however, strongly objected to individual enrolment. The logic was that workers can be expected to play a radicalising role inside the Congress only if and when they join it as a body organised in their primary class organisation; otherwise they would only trail behind the bourgeois leadership of the Congress. The best spokesman for this view was “Moonje” (a pseudonym of SG Sardesai) whose “Thesis Against Individual Enrolment” was published in the August 1936 issue of The Communist, along with an article containing the official line[2] and a rejoinder to Moonje’s thesis by “Ali” (Michael Scott), supporting the official line. A powerful document explaining the official line was presented also by “Nirmal” (PC Joshi). The debate was decisively concluded by a PB circular, which clarified that individual enrolment was being recommended as “only one of the means to intensify the agitation and strengthen the demand for collective affiliation from the inside the INC platform” and gave a detailed explanation of all the ideological as well as practical-political questions involved. To give the readers a fair view of both sides of the debate, we reproduce extracts from Moonje’s thesis, Nirmal’s document and the PB circular on “Individual Enrolment to INC” (Texts VIII4, 5 and  6  respectively).

Beneath this debate there was a more fundamental, though less pronounced, conceptual difference. Starting with the Dutt-Bradley thesis there developed a trend of analysis which, while criticising the Congress programme, constitution and role of restraining mass struggles, avoided specifying the bourgeois class character of the INC, as if that was a thing of the past. This was perfectly understandable in UF appeals, but in documents and write-ups meant for the Party members this omission certainly gave quarters to CSP-like illusions. The Dutt-Bradley thesis had stated that the INC itself might, “by the further transformation (i.e., in addition to the positive transformation which, according to Dutt-Bradley, had already taken place — Editor) of its organisation and programme”, become the anti-imperialist people’s front; and taking the cue from here, a lead article in The Communist, September 1936 (Text VII12) portrayed Nehru and “the whole leftward tendency which his leadership represents in the Congress” as “a tendency which springs up from below, from the mass of exploited workers in towns and villages”. Moonje in his thesis lashed out at the “Royist illusion” of viewing the INC as “essentially a people’s organization” — an illusion “which, due to its supposed acceptance by comrades Dutt and Bradley in their recent article, has assumed serious importance” — and declared : “For us ... there can be no question of broadening the INC into an anti-imperialist organisation.” Moonje fully endorsed the UF tactic in recognition of the fact that “the platform of the INC can be made the means of rallying the masses for a genuine struggle against imperialism” and that “a given appeal from the INC platform inspires and sets in motion a hundred thousand time more persons than what it can from any other platform”, but at the same time warned against “the liquidationist danger inherent in this tactic”.

If the simultaneous publication of Moonje’s thesis and Ali's rejoinder[3] in the same issue of the Party organ vouched for a healthy inner-party democracy, centralism was enforced with the PB circular No. 4 (Text VIII6). It rejected Moonje’s opposition to individual enrolment but did not uphold Ali's rejoinder and put forward a whole set of practical guidelines for UF work to suit the varying conditions of different provinces — guidelines which reflected not tailism but a determination to infiltrate the Congress as speedily and effectively as possible. But this was not to be at the cost of independent political assertion : “It is only in proportion of our independent activities that our work inside the INC will prove effective while ... our work inside the INC will become today one of the most potent means of strengthening and extending the base of our independent party and united front work”. Finally, it was clarified that the idea behind individual enrolment was “not to strengthen the Congress as already [the] anti-imperialist front of the people but to strengthen the anti-imperialist wing within the Congress and launch a broad-based revolutionary struggle out of which alone can the People’s Front emerge. ...” (emphasis added).

From early 1937, the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front (AIPF) began to be called the United National Front (UNF) to stress the inclusion of the national bourgeoisie in it. Here again the cue came from an article published in the Inprecor, November 7,1936, entitled “The United National Front” and signed by Harry Politt, RP Dutt and Ben Bradely “For the CC of CPGB”. The writers chose the expression “middle classes” for the Indian bourgeoisie (the euphemism could be justified on the ground that Marx and Engels in many places had used this expression to connote to the bourgeoisie in medieval or backward capitalist conditions) which must be drawn into the UNF and declared : “Every effort must be made to make the INC the pivot of the UNF”. In the March 1937 issue of The Communist was published a PB statement — “For the United National Front” and in June appeared an article strongly defending the PB statement and taking pains to prove that the UNF did not, as some “confused” ranks wrongly (!) believed, mean “something wider in scope than the AIPF” — that both referred to “one and the same thing”. As Text VII13 would reveal, however, this article and another companion article actually sought to show that, “crushed from above (i.e., by British imperialism — Ed.) and pushed from below, the Indian bourgeoisie was swinging leftward” and that, therefore, “the class composition of the UNF is visualised as very broad embracing all classes of the Indian people including large sections of the Indian bourgeoisie barring the small top knot section of the pro-Imperialist bourgeoisie and the big landlords and Princes”, The idea of a “Toilers’ Front” mooted by some comrades was rejected as a “sectarian tendency”.

So this was the shape of the Party’s UF line just on the eve of the Congress assumption of office. How the line was put into practice during the tenure of the Congress ministries, i.e., the little more than two years upto the Second World War, constitutes a new chapter of the story subdivided into two sections : (a) relations with the CSP and other left forces and (b) political tactics vis-a-vis the Congress as a ruling party at provincial level.

Broad left unity as the core of United Front

Shortly after the invitation to join the CSP reached the CPI, the latter prepared a 16-page theoretical “Note on the CSP”. Tracing the historical background of its emergence from the 1920s and analysing the current trends within it, the Note concluded that "The CSP represents today a radical tendency within the Congress and cannot be described as a Party. It is a platform which mobilises elements opposed to the present leadership of the Congress and its policy. ... Briefly, the Party has remained a propagandist body popularising only general anti-imperialist demands ...” The Note recommended “joint mass action on specific demands of toilers”, but resented the “absence of basic organizations” as a hindrance to “building up the United Front.”

When the communists started entering the CSP on individual basis from around the middle of 1936/naturally they put the stress on building up the “basic organizations” at local and district levels. This along with their advanced role in joint struggles began to get them leading positions at all levels despite stiff opposition from some leaders like MR Masani. A political debate developed when in early 1937 the CPI adopted the UNF concept to include the national bourgeoisie. The CSP denounced this as betrayal of Marxism and was in turn accused by the CPI of  “left sectarianism”. It was indeed odd for the CSP, which had from its very inception in practice carried the UF line to the extent of becoming an organic and permanent part of the Congress, to adopt this left posture in theory. Anyway, by early 1938, unity-and-struggle with the CSP became a major plank of the Party’s theoretical and practical work. Editorials and other write-ups in the weekly National Front were frequently devoted to this purpose, as Text VI29 would show. Serious comradely polemics were conducted by both sides. Thus we find both the National Front and the monthly New Age carry on a prolonged “discussion” on Masani's article “A Lesson From France”, where he attacked Dimitrov’s political positions, particularly the latter’s alleged insistence on “domination of the CP” as the basis of communist-socialist unity in Europe. In Text VIII7 we reproduce extracts from a serialised article by Ajoy Kumar Ghosh, which clarifies the principled basis of the communist approach to unity: “unifying the two major socialist forces that have developed with the national and working class movements and have remained apart because of the mutual isolation of these movements” (emphasis in the original).

As regards practical work within the CSP, the best available document is a business-like “plan of work” dated 9.5.1938 (Text III20). Systematising the UF work through “contact committees” at all-India and some provincial levels, overcoming the sectarianism and other defects of CPI ranks in some places, utilising local organisation like the Labour Party in Calcutta the Radical Workers League in the Central Provinces (both under communist influence) in the broader scheme of left unity, dealing with Masani’s endeavours to weed out the communists — these are some of the question discussed. In all the diverse conditions obtaining in various provinces, the singleness of purpose stands out: develop mass action and promote left unity on that basis, curb the rightist lobby within the CSP, achieve and/or consolidate communist majority in CSP bodies at different levels.

This inner-Party circular fell into the hands of Masani who published it in September under the title “Communist Plot against the CSP”. Masani raised a high alarm but general secretary Jayaprakash Narain (who was mainly responsible for the invitation to communists two years ago) still opted for unity. Relations were, however, getting more and more strained. Already in the Lahore conference of CSP (early 1938) the communists placed an alternative panel for the election of the National Executive which was voted out by a slender margin. IP's panel was carried, which “gave the communists no less than one-third of seats, including a couple of positions as Joint Secretaries”[4]. After heated discussions the CSP decided not to allow any further entry of communists in its ranks, but did not expel the existing ones. In order to secure the expulsion of communists, Masani, Ashok Mehta, Achyut Patwardhan and Rammanohar Lohia resigned from the CSP executive in May 1939. This demand was to be met, as we would see in Volume II, a year later in the Ramgarh conference of CSP.

The alliance with the CSP earned the communists very high dividends. In the standard literature on the subject, the organisational gains are accorded pride of place — the placement of communists on “vantage positions” of the CSP — e.g., Sajjad Zaheer (Joint Secretary of the CSP and later General Secretary of the Pakistan Communist Party), EMS Namboodiripad (another JS of the CSP; his later career is well known), Dr. ZA Ahmed, AK Gopalan, P Sundaraya, P Ramamurthi and so on. As the names themselves suggest, the entire infrastructure of the CPI in south India Was built up in course of CSP practices. Through the CSP communists also secured, by 1939, as many as 20 seats in the AICC, with many of them firmly installed in major provincial posts (like Mian Iftikharuddin, the president of the Provincial Congress Committee of Punjab). But far more vital than the organisational posts was the political benefit: the isolation from the national movement, overcome in theory during 1936-37, was terminated in real life in course of the new UF practice with Left Alliance at its core. The growth period of WPPs came back, sans the surrender of the communist banner which had stigmatised that period. The danger of dilution of the Party’s political independence remained, but broadly speaking the Party succeeded in preserving it. Before we proceed to examine the Party’s UF practice vis-a-vis the Congress, the record of CPI-Royists relations needs to be updated.

Starting with the countrywide textile strike of early 1934 jointly sponsored by Royists and communists, united actions gained some momentum in the second half of 1930s. But the process was hampered by two factors — (a) Roy’s drift towards Jacobinism until he finally declared in 1940 that Indian Communists should “raise the banner, not of Communism, but of Jacobinism”[5]; and (b) the Royists’ increasingly harsh criticism of, and finally their group-by-group resignations from, the CSP (calculated to discredit the party as effectively as possible) in mid 1937.[6] Given this political perspective, little more than some localised joint actions was possible between the CPI and the Royists. Of course, polemics continued on both sides, as can be seen in Text VII7 (“Royism in Action”, an article in The Communist, May 1937) and the appendix to Text VIII (extracts from a Royist manifesto published in 1935).

Notes:

1.   14-page Polit Bureau statement appeared id The Communist, September 1936 along with the full text of the Dutt-Bradley thesis. The statement acclaimed the thesis by declaring that “no political document has evoked such an enthusiastic response from all the anti-imperialist elements”. Evidently this was an over-statement to conceal the normal initial confusion and resistance to the new line, as recorded in some other documents (see Text VIII4). It did not, however, take long for the entire Party to broadly accept the new line, since a good section of Party leaders and ranks had already in 1933-35 embarked on a journey beyond isolationism. We do not reproduce the PB statement because it contains nothing new apart from some rather unseemly personal praise of comrades Dutt and Bradley.

2. “The National Congress and the Immediate Tasks of Indian Communists” by Swadesh Priya.

3. We do not reproduce Ali's rejoinder because it hardly makes any new point not covered by other write-ups reproduced by us — Ed.

4.   See The Communist Party of India A Short History by MR Masani, Derek Verschoyle (London, 1954), pp 69-71

5.   Cited by John Patrick Haithcox in Communism and Nationalism in India Princeton University Press, (1971) p 171.

6.   The main logic behind Roy's declared aim of “liquidating” the CSP was that the latter tended to divide Congressmen into socialists and non-socialists, thus hampering the unity of all radical nationalists as against the rightists.


CPI And the Congress : 1937-39

Having already studied the experience of Congress ministries, we can now take up the important CPI documents on this score and on relations with the Congress in general. The general approach adopted by the CPI, as laid out in the “Draft Thesis on Congress Ministries and Our Tasks” (Text VII14), was to put popular pressure on the ministries (from both outside and inside the legislatures, mainly the former) for fulfilling the election promises in letter and spirit. The repressive measures were to be actively repulsed by utilising "the anti-police and anti- bureaucracy sentiments of the Congress-minded public, and always enlisting the sympathy of the Congress rank and file ...”. As an editorial note in New Age of January 1938 reaffirmed, the CPI “joined the Congress [not] as a matter of grace but as apart of our policy to develop it into the United National Front of the Indian people.” (see Text VI30).

The Haripura Congress session (February 1938), to which the CPI issued a manifesto upholding the role of workers’ and peasants’ struggles in the UNF and criticising pro-zamindar, pro-capitalist tendencies in the Congress, saw Bose smoothly succeed Nehru as the Congress president for 1938. The next month New Age came out with the lead article : “Haripura — A Step Forward”. “It was an instance of the entire national ranks, from the extreme right to the extreme Left, closing together in the face of the onslaught of British imperialism.” — the article observed. But this unity was only skin-deep. When in January next year Bose recontested for the post, he came up against stiff opposition from the rightist lobby which put up Pattabhi Sitaramayya. There was a tough contest in the AICC voting held in Calcutta. Bose was re-elected by 1580 votes against 1377, with CSP and CPI members voting en bloc for him. Gandhi made his oft-quoted remark that Sitaramayya's defeat was “more mine than his”, and the rightisl backlash began with 12 leaders like Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel etc. resigning from the working committee chosen by Bose. The crisis came to a head at the Tripuri session of the Congress held on 8-12 march 1939. The CPI published a series of articles prior to and just after Tripuri, clarifying its stand on the strife within the Congress in the context of the current national and international situation. “Tripuri Must Sound the War Drum”, declared the New Age in February. The article supported Bose while highlighting the need for unity (see Text VI31). The support continued in the article “The Congress Must Decide”, written by BF Bradley just on the eve of the session but published in the March issue of New Age which came out just after the session. “There is no time for delay”, Bradley warned, “Tripuri maybe the last Congress session before the war breaks out.” And he added : “Chamberlain is walking hand in hand with Hitler to defeat democracy wherever it exists. And one of his first steps will be to smash the movement in India that, by electing Subhas Bose, is laying such urgent claim to democracy in India.”

At the Tripuri session itself, communists were faced with a very difficult situation. The communist members of the AICC placed a draft resolution stressing “Unity And Struggle” (see Text VI33), but this had only propaganda value. Govindaballav Panth, acting on behalf of the consolidated rightist lobby, moved a resolution which reaffirmed faith in Gandhian policies and asked Bose to nominate the Working Committee “in accordance with the wishes of Gandhiji”. The resolution was passed without opposition from CSP and CPI members. Bose continued his effort, which he was making since January, to win Gandhi’s confidence but in vain. A president without a working committee, he was forced to resign in late April. On May 3 he formed the Forward Bloc and carried on the struggle for a more militant line of action against British imperialism from within the Congress. This led to his ouster from the mother organisation in August 1939.

Why did the communists not throw in then- lot with Bose at Tripuri and after it? Because they were not prepared to sacrifice the long-term unity in the UNF for the sake of a showdown that was destined, given the actual balance of power-blocs within the Congress, to result in a split and reduce the not-very-consolidated left bloc to a splinter group. Later developments bore out the correctness of this position. Bose with his Forward Bloc really became an adventurist splinter group. At the moment, however, there was much confusion and dissension in the ranks of CPI and other militant forces and the Party had to explain its position in a number of articles, from which we reproduce a few excerpts in Texts VII15 and 16. From these excerpts it would be evident that with the utmost emphasis placed on unity, the struggle against Gandhian leadership reached on all-time low. This was best theorised by SG Sardesai when he wrote in National Front (April 30, 1939) : “They [the Leftists] have exposed the shortcomings of Gandhism sufficiently in the past. With the new strength at their command the tune and opportunity have come for them to weld even Gandhism with the new nationalism ...” (Text VII17)

So this is where the UF line came to in 1939. The general approach was evident also in the specific policies on worker’s and peasant’s fronts : the AITUC and the AIKS were asked to operate strictly within the limits of inviolable unity with the Congress (see documents like IV A12 and IV B6).

 

Agitprop And Party Building

The process of Party reorganisation started in late 1933 (see the chapter from Fragmentation to Reorganisation in Part IV) progressed through the next two years amidst severe repression. After the arrest of general secretary SS Mirajkar at Singapore on his way to Moscow for the Seventh Congress of CI, Somenath Lahiri of Bengal informally took up the charge in the absence of senior leaders like G Adhikari, Muzaffar Ahmad etc. (they were still behind the bars). Towards the end of 1935 a Central Committee session was held in Nagpur. N Zambekar and S Jaymant (Bombay province) PC Joshi and Ajoy Ghosh (UP), P Sundaraya (Andhra, then included in Madras province), Dr Ranen Sen and Lahiri (Bengal) were among those present. Lahiri was arrested in early 1936 while working at the Party Centre in Bombay. At a brief session of the Central Committee held at Lucknow in April 1936 (i.e., at the time of the Congress session), PC Joshi was elected general secretary and this ended the stop-gap arrangements for this crucially important post continuing over the past two-and-half years. According to Dr Ranen Sen, a Political Bureau was also elected, comprising Joshi, AK Ghosh, G Adhikari and RD Bharadwaj.[1] Joshi led the Party in effecting a smooth transition to the new UF line, successfully organised a stable leading group around himself, and held his post for long twelve years.

PC Joshi shifted the Party Centre to Calcutta. The Communist was regularised and its circulation increased. The reorganised CC made a fervent appeal to all Party members as well as “all Communists and Communist groups outside the Party” to unite in the Party on the basis of principled discussion and debates, and where that was not immediately possible, to pave the way to party unity through UF work (see Text III17). Such appeals had been made also in the past, but the two instruments necessary for the realisation of the same was lacking : a correct political line capable of enthusing all anti-imperialist fighters and a powerful, energetic central leadership. These being available now, a rapid growth in Party activities and membership was reported from everywhere. In Madras province Amir Hyder Khan had been working painstakingly for building up the Party from pre-1934 period, but it was only during this period that the party spread throughout south India thanks to work in the CSP. This process and the most important document on it (Text III20) has already been discussed towards the end of the chapter Growing Leftism ... And the UF Line. In Bihar the Party was founded by Sunil Mukherjee on the basis of the Purnea peasant movement. In Punjab the Party organisation progressed under the leadership of Sohan Singh Josh and gradually future leaders like Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Zainul Abedin Ahmed and Satyapal Dang came into its fold. The same story was repeated in other regions also. Among political prisoners in the Andamans and elsewhere, study of Marxism and communist literature had been spreading since 1933-34 and a very large number of them — particularly from Bengal — progressed from patriotic terrorism to communism thanks to the new line of the Party. Among these recruits, many became prominent leaders, such as Mani Singh (later leader of the Bangladesh party), Bhowani Sen, Promode Dasgupta etc. A Number of brilliant students from well-to-do families became communists in England around this period and actively joined the movement when they returned home. Dr. ZA Ahmad, Sajjad Zaheer and Jyoti Basu were among them, to name a few. Some recruitment was also made from different left groups like the Labour Party in Bengal.

Along with expansion, care was taken also for restructuring and consolidation. The neto Political Bureau issued a “Circular On Party Reorganisation” in August 1936 which laid out detailed plan for this (Text III18). Special emphasis was placed on collective functioning of leadership, scientific division of work and formation of auxiliary cells (in addition to regular ones) for new recruits.

A very important role in the Party's growth was played by the expansion of what was called agitprop (agitation + propaganda) instruments in those days. In addition to a boom in leaflets, pamphlets and public speeches by communists working in the Congress and various mass organisation, a new stage was reached in the party’s magazine network. The weekly National Front began to be published from Bombay (where the Party Centre had been shifted a few months ago) since February 1938 and became the Parry's most successful news-magazine upto that time. It could not openly identify itself to be a CPI organ, but played that role with its wide coverage and authoritative articles by Party leaders. The editorial board was composed of Joshi (chief editor), Adhikari, Ghosh, Dange and Muhammaduzzafar. A theoretical monthly entitled New Age with SV Ghate as editor was also started about this time. Its periodicity could not be strictly maintained and it was discontinued in the middle of 1939. A number of magazines in Indian languages were brought out or restarted, such as Ganashakti in Bengal, Prabhatam in Malayalam, Kranti in Marathi, Navasakti in Telgu and Janasakti in Tamil.

Since 1936 the Party was functioning in a semi-legal manner, but it kept up the pressure for legalisation. JP Narayan and PC Joshi issued a joint call to observe March 20,1938 as an all-India on this demand. Swami Sahajanand were among those who issued messages supporting this call (see Text III19). But the ban on the party continued, to be lifted after some three years under a completely different set of circumstances.

Note:

1.   See the Bengali book Banglaye Communist Party Gathaner Pratham Yug (The First Period of Party Building in Bengal), published by Bingsha Satabdi (Calcutta, 1981).

 

During the Countdown to the Second World War

From the early 1930s, a series of aggressions and interventions — by Italy in Ethiopia, by Italy and Germany in the Spanish Republic, by Japan in China, by Germany in Austria, then Czechoslovakia and finally Poland —, slowly but steadily pushed the world to a new great war. The responsibility lay not only with the fascist aggressors and the Japanese militarists, but also with other imperialist powers which had been pursuing a policy of shameless appeasement with an eye to egg nazi Germany on to aggression against the USSR. The specific events relating to the Second World War are too well known to be recounted here, and we go over to a brief discussion of CPI's position on war and peace and the communist movement during the 4-5 months just before the world conflagration began in early September, 1939.

Anti-war mobilisation

The CPI for a long time past had been carrying on anti-war propaganda. For instance, an article on this topic in The Communist, April 1937 observed : “... active opposition to war preparations by the masses, and the mobilisation of the masses to fight for peace is the essence of our tactics. And for us, in India, this activity, this dynamic attitude towards the question of peace, is closely united with the building up of the Anti-Imperialist UF.” Also there was a regular flow of materials expressing international anti-imperialist solidarity, particularly with China (see Text VI32 for a June 1930 appeal: “In Aid of China”; in the 7 August, 1938 issue of National Front we find a front-pager “For Peace and Freedom” high-lighting the “resolutions passed at the Peace And Empire Conference presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru and held on 15 and 16 July 1938 in London”). When the Congress sent a medical mission on China in 1938, Dr Ranen Sen (then a CCM of CPI) was selected along with Dr Kotnis and others, but had to be replaced by Dr Bijoy Bose when Sen was denied a passport because of his revolutionary credentials. The Indian communists drew great inspiration from the Chinese struggle, as evident from items like “Strenghten UF in India — Says Mao Tse Tung” (Text VI35), “A page from the Auto-biography of Mao Tse Tung — As told to Edger Snow” (NewAge, March 1938) and so on. That the Party had a specific “Peace Policy for India” based on a concrete assessment of the war situation even in early 1938 is to be found in P Sundarayya’s article in National Front (Text VI34). On 30 April, 1939 the National Front came out with a front-page joint statement by JP Narayan and PC Joshi: “May Day is People’s Day”, which highlighted the slogans of “All support to the USSR” and “Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Front”. In order to counter the government’s army recruitment campaign, the communists and socialists in 1938 raised the slogan “Na ekpai, na ek bhai” (not a pie, not a man for war). Starting from Punjab, the main catchment area for the British Indian army, the slogan was spread to other parts of the country.

The communist opposition to war and to India being dragged into it was generally shared by the majority of Congress leaders. There was a broad national consensus that unlike the First World War, there must be no unconditional support this time to the British war plans. At home, however, the Congress ministries were rapidly becoming more repressive and corrupted and the CPI’s endeavour to forge a fighting unity between the Congress and workers’ and peasants’ class organisation met with success only at lower levels. Conflict between the compromising right-wing and the left wing within the national movement was growing sharper. As the editorial in New Age, May 1939 (Text pointed out, “while disruption from the right continues to be the main danger for the national front as a whole, the greatest and the specific danger of the Period within the ranks of the Left, come from the disruptive, provocative tactics of the ultra-left sectarians.” Party members were therefore called upon to concentrate attack on the pseudo-revolutionary “alternative leadership theory” while at the same time guarding against “opportunist deviation in our own ranks.” The main political thrust was laid down in the following words :

  • “The fight for the hegemony of the proletariat consists in its coming out as the builder of the united front ... the working class and peasant organisations must constantly come forward to initiate new campaigns, new programmes, fresh scheme to organise the Congress in the new direction, as democratic units heading and developing the struggle of the people ...”
The Left Consolidation Committee

A Left Conference was held in Calcutta in February 1939, where supporters of Bose (who commanded a great majority in the BPCC) and Roy assembled together with communists and socialists. United mass programmes against imperialism, for release of political prisoners and for democratic liberties were taken up. Well known communist intellectuals like Gopal Halder and Benoy Ghosh worked in the editorial staff of Forward Block, while Subhas contributed appreciative messages/articles to the National Front. Thus Bengal was already acting as the main bastion of the united Left when, after the formation of the Forward Bloc (FB, May 3), JP Narayan and PC Joshi issued a joint call for united activity by different left forces. Explaining the CPI position, the New Age in June 1939 urged for “a common plan of action by mutual agreement ... in order that disruption may not develop in the Left camp itself, it is absolutely necessary that one section does not try to gain at the expense of another, that all agreements are voluntarily and strictly adhered to, that the Parties to Left unity may maintain their independence and integrity ...” (see Text VII19). Bose insisted that the FB itself be accepted as the broad platform for the united Left, which would then evolve a programme acceptable to all but would function on the basis of majority. Naturally the communists and socialists rejected this proposal for merger into a left nationalist party. After a brief stalemate, the Left Consolidation Committee (LCC) was formed in June as a confederative body uniting the CPI, CSP, FB, Royists and the Kisan Sabha and functioning on the basis of unanimity. The Committee included Bose, JP Narayan, PC Joshi, Roy, Swami Sahajanand (representing the Kisan Sabha), NG Ranga and others, with Bose as convenor.

This welcome step was, however, taken at too critical a juncture in national politics (which demanded bold and specific political action on the part of the united Left) and with-too little political understanding among the constituents (which made such united action immensely difficult). The result was that fissures developed in the LCC as soon as it took the first major political offensive against the compromising tendency in the National movement. The occasion was provided by two AICC resolutions passed in late June — one prohibiting Congressmen to offer satyagrahas without prior approval of the PCC concerned, while the other one made the Congress ministries independent of the PCCs. The LCC unanimously decided to observe July 9 as a day of national protest against these resolutions. The Congress president Rajendra Prasad threatened disciplinary action against any such step. The demonstrations did take place, but Roy backed Out at the eleventh hour. So did the four CSP leaders (Masani, Lohia, Mehta and Patwardhan) who resigned from the CSP executive in protest against the official line of uniting with the communists and working inside the LCC. These leaders and Roy was severly criticised by the CPI, but soon the CSP as a whole came out of the LCC. Bose was suspended from primary membership of the Congress for the July 9 demonstrations and BPCC, of which he was the president, was replaced by an ad-hoc body. The CPI disapproved of Bose's headlong clash with the Congress high command and began to take a lukewarm attitude to the LCC. Towards the end of 1939 they abandoned it and the curtain came down on the first experimental institutionalisation of Left unity.

But the CPI had by itself already won recognition as the most advanced — small yet growing — contingent within the national mainstream. While expanding its base among workers and peasants and maintaining the ideological-organisational independence, it moved forward with a very broad political vision:

  • “The major class division is between Imperialism on the one hand and the Indian people on the other, the greatest class struggle today is our national struggle, the main organ of our struggle is the National Congress.”

(General secretary PC Joshi in April 1939, see Text IV B7)