While Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were executed on March 23, 1931, no less than 31 communist leaders and organisers of the working people were facing a farcical trial under the so-called Meerut Conspiracy Case. Among the arrested communist leaders were also three British communists – Benjamin Francis Bradley, Phillip Spratt and Lester Hutchinson – who were working shoulder to shoulder with their Indian comrades in a common mission to organise the Indian working class. The Meerut communists used the trial as an effective platform for exposing the real nature of the British rule in India and propagating the communist goals of revolution and national independence. The trial invited international opposition and under pressure from British trade unions and the international working class movement in general, the High Court had to reduce the absurd prison sentences declared earlier by the sessions court.

This was also high period of the second major Gandhian exercise in waging a mass political struggle, the Civil Disobedience Movement. While pressure was mounting inside the Congress for launching a decisive struggle for complete independence, Gandhi served an 11-point ultimatum to the British rulers on 31 January, 1930. Interestingly, it did not include the demand for granting even Dominion Status to India, let alone complete independence. Gandhi defended the 11 demands on the ground that they would facilitate wider spread of the movement and greater involvement of larger sections of the society. Five of these were common democratic demands (of course, with a Gandhian tinge): 50% cuts in army expenditures and civil service salaries, total prohibition, release of all political prisoners, reform of the CID and changes in the Arms Act to allow popular control of issue of firearm licences. Three demands catered to specific aspirations of the Indian bourgeoisie, viz., lowering of the rupee-sterling exchange ratio, protection of Indian textile industry and reservation of coastal shipping for Indians. The other two pertained primarily to the interests of the landed peasantry: 50% reduction in land revenue and abolition of salt tax and government monopoly in salt. Conspicuously absent were any specific demands of the working class and the landless rural poor!