English

- Dipankar Bhattacharya

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it”: Karl Marx (5.5.1818-14.3.1883) had reached this conclusion quite early in his life when he was still in his late twenties. Till his last breath he worked relentlessly to this end, producing the richest and most inspiring legacy of human endeavour geared towards both comprehending and transforming the world we live in. From the Communist Manifesto, jointly produced with his lifelong comrade-in-arms Friedrich Engels in 1848, when he was only thirty, to his magnum opus Das Kapital (Capital), which was published in full only after his death, Marx remained steadfast in his spirit of ‘ruthless criticism of all that exists’ – ‘ruthless’, as he said, ‘both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and ... of conflict with the powers that be’!

This spirit of ‘ruthless criticism of all that exists’ and the indomitable resolve to change the world put Marx in conflict with most governments of his day. Exiled from several countries of Europe he eventually made London his home. In those days, London was also the capital of the world’s most advanced capitalist country and the biggest colonial power\ in the world. Sitting in London, Marx immersed himself not only in study, research and writing but also in promoting revolutionary working class movements across the world and building international solidarity among them. He played the central role in launching the first international organization of the working class (the International Working Men’s Association) and developing it as a united platform of several ideological streams active in the international working class movement during those formative years. From the anti-colonial revolt of 1857 in India to the Paris Commune of 1871, he keenly watched, analysed and encouraged the stirrings for freedom and socialism in every part of the world.

In his study of society Marx treated the classes as the central actors and their struggles as the core drivers of social development. The classes that rule in a society do so not only by their control over resources and material production but also over the state and its laws and repressive machinery and the realm of mental production or the production and regulation of ideas. “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force,” wrote Marx in his celebrated work ‘The German Ideology’ way back in 1845. The Marxist framework of class struggle thus challenges the domination of the ruling class from every angle – economic and political and also social, cultural and intellectual.

The ruling idea in the era of capitalism is the idea that mystifies capital as something eternal and natural, magical and invincible, that glorifies the bourgeoisie or the capitalist class as the most civilized class, and bourgeois rule as the most superior and democratic. All through his writings Marx tore apart this mask, analysing every contradiction that challenges this claim of bourgeois rule being natural, permanent and supreme, laying bare the hitherto unknown laws of motion of capital that inevitably lead to periodic crises, and exposing every hypocrisy that seeks to sell bondage as freedom, war as peace, plunder as prosperity, devastation as development. It was through this actual motion of existing social forces and this constant battle of ideas – and not on the basis of some abstract principles or utopian dreams – that Marx visualized humanity’s march towards socialism and communism, towards complete human emancipation.

During his lifetime and since his death, time and again Marx has been declared irrelevant and obsolete. But every time he has come back, with every successive generation discovering some new light in his writings, helping it to try and understand and overcome the problems of the day. For bourgeois triumphalists who believed they had finally managed to bury the ideas of Marx with the collapse of the Soviet Union, history proved a cruel teacher. No sooner had they proclaimed the end of history, than global capitalism encountered a massive shock. Dogged by the most protracted and severest crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, today even bourgeois thinkers are once again returning to Marx to make sense of the present state of chaos and churning.

While Marx is widely known, respected and studied by large sections of progressive and thinking Indians across ideological streams, he is also widely misunderstood and misrepresented. Both apologists and opponents of colonialism argue that Marx had seen British colonialism as a progressive intervention of history in a stagnant and backward India. There can perhaps be a no bigger misreading and misrepresentation of Marx’s views about India. Marx was very clear that capital did not operate only in the apparently legally regulated environment of capitalist countries; he was very much alive to the reality of colonial plunder and violent accumulation of capital from across the world, which in fact had created the conditions for capitalism to emerge. He was keenly aware that “If money comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt” (Capital, Volume one, Chapter 31: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist).

In the specific context of India, Marx was a trenchant critic of the barbarity of British colonial rule, its loot and torture, clearly acknowledging that “the misery inflicted by the British on Hindustan is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindustan had to suffer before ... The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked” – Marx wrote this in June 1853 in his dispatch “The British Rule in India” for the New York Herald Tribune. At the same time, for Marx, the village communities in India were no idyllic islands of peace and prosperity, rather they were contaminated by the distinctions of ‘caste and slavery’, and castes were “decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power”.

He was clear that “All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people,” and he wrote this in July 1853 when the British rulers were claiming credit for the launch of the railways in India as a revolutionary development. In the same dispatch titled “The Future Results of British Rule in India”, Marx went on to argue that “The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Indians themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether.” Marx thus posits the question of complete Indian independence in July 1853, four years before sections of Indians rose in revolt to wage India’s first war of independence.

It is also often heard that Marx despised religion as ‘opium of the masses’ and called for a ban on all religions. This again is a selective simplification, if not a mischievous mis-representation, of Marx’s ideas on religion. The expression ‘opium of the people’ comes at the end of a paragraph which reads thus: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Marxism has therefore always focused on changing that ‘heartless world’ and its ‘soulless conditions’, and insisted on treating religion as a matter for the individual, strictly separating it from the state and public affairs administered by the state.

As we observe the bicentenary of Marx’s birth, we are being ruled in India by a bunch of the most bigoted and obscurantist rulers who seek to address ideological debates through hate, lies and violence. Only the other day, heady with arrogance following their surprise victory in Tripura, they bulldozed statues of Lenin calling him a foreign icon unrelated to India. They will say the same thing about Marx. These are the people who invite foreign companies to come and plunder India’s resources, who kowtow to Trump as the supreme ruler of the world and if we go back in history we find their ideological forefathers collaborating all through with the British colonial rulers.

And in order not to be misled by this silly distinction of whether an idea or an intellectual is of Indian origin or foreign, we must always remember that the RSS has always idolised foreign icons. Incidentally, the icon they worshipped was another German called Adolf Hitler. And these people, who oppose Marx and Lenin, also oppose Ambedkar and Periyar. Clearly, it is not about the origin of the idea, but the idea itself which is the real bone of contention. All who stand and fight for equality and justice, liberty and fraternity will always feel inspired by Marx while the enemies of equality will always remain mortally afraid of this revolutionary giant. More power to the ideas and legacy of Marx!

(Editorial, Liberation, May 2018)

Frederick Engels’ Speech At The Grave Of Karl Marx

Highgate Cemetery, London
March 17, 1883

On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep – but for ever.

An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt.

Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.

But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark.

Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated – and he investigated very many fields, none of them super-ficially – in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.

Such was the man of science. But this was not even half the man. Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force. However great the joy with which he welcomed a new discovery in some theoretical science whose practical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible to envisage, he experienced quite another kind of joy when the discovery involved immediate revolutionary changes in industry, and in historical development in general. For example, he followed closely the development of the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez.

For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. His work on the first Rheinische Zeitung (1842), the Paris Vorwarts (1844), the Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-49), the New York Tribune (1852-61), and, in addition to these, a host of militant pamphlets, work in organisations in Paris, Brussels and London, and finally, crowning all, the formation of the great International Working Men’s Association – this was indeed an achievement of which its founder might well have been proud even if he had done nothing else.

And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time. Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported him from their territories. Bourgeois, whether conservative or ultra-democratic, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this he brushed aside as though it were a cobweb, ignoring it, answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. And he died beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow workers – from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America – and I make bold to say that, though he may have had many opponents, he had hardly one personal enemy.

His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work.

In the year marking 200 years of the birth of the great revolutionary philosopher Karl Marx, we bring you a selection of writings reflecting on Marx’s legacy.

We begin with Friedrich Engels’ eulogy at Marx’s graveside – a moving and concise tribute to Marx’s legacy by his closest friend and comrade.

The articles by Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), are based on a series of talks delivered across India on the occasion of the Marx Bicentenary, which discuss Marx’s relevance to contemporary India and the challenge of confronting fascist politics in India.

We have also included a biographical note on Marx, prepared by Arindam Sen, a Politburo Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), in 1983.

Finally, we have an article by Vinod Mishra which he wrote as a Foreword to a Hindi edition of the Communist Manifesto published by Samkaleen Prakashan, Patna, in November 1998.

We hope that this little book - a window into the ways in which Marx’s legacy lives and breathes in India - will be useful for those meeting Marx for the first time and eager to know more, as well as for those who have long been practitioners of Marxist theory and politics.

“The philosophers have only
interpreted the world,
in various ways;
the point,
however,
is to change it.”

“... Against the collective power of
the propertied classes
the working-class cannot act,
as a class,
except by constituting itself into a
political party,
distinct from,
and opposed to,
all old parties formed by the
propertied classes.”

“The Ideas of the ruling classes are in every
epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which
is the ruling material force of the society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual
force. The class which has the means of
material production at this disposal, has
control at the same time over the means
of mental production, so that thereby,
generally speaking, the ideas of those who
lack the means of mental production are
subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing
more than the ideal expression of the
dominant material relationships, the
dominant material relationships grasped as
ideas.”

Karl Marx , German Ideology (1845)

Liberation Publications

September 2018

Charu Bhawan, U-90 Shakarpur, Delhi – 110092
Phone: 91-11-22521067
Mail: info@cpiml.org
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Contents :

[Concluding speech at the Sixth Party Congress. From Liberation, November 1997.]

Comrades,

Our Sixth Party Congress is coming to a successful conclusion. First of all, I would like to say that the presence of the foreign guests here has indeed boosted our confidence. The communist movement is always an international movement. It gives me great pleasure to say that our foreign guests here represent the various forms of experiments of the Marxist-Leninist ideology worldwide. Their presence in our Congress signifies the growing international relations of our Party. It also indicates the fact that inspite of numerous differences that may exist between communist parties, they should keep interacting and learning from each other.

So, I once again, on behalf of the newly elected Party’s Central Committee welcome our foreign guests.

Comrades,

Over the last five days we have debated over many a thing. Differences surfaced on several issues. Sometimes the debates were quite sharp. Elections took place and comrades participated in it. While some comrades won, others lost. But I would like to say that it has been a tradition of our Party to debate and discuss quite openly and frankly in our Party conferences and congresses. In this process, it could well be the case that some grievances crop up, some comrades feel hurt, but still we are all comrades of the same Party. We have the same goal and the same principles. If need be, we are committed to sacrifice everything for this goal, even our lives. Where such a communist bond is there, I think, any such conflict or bitterness cannot be permanent. Hence, I have the full confidence that when we step out of this hall we will once again, shoulder to shoulder, march alongside each other in the struggle to change the future of the country with the same warm camaraderie, with the same rock-like unity. This has been our Party’s tradition and shall remain so in the days to come.

Comrades,

You know that our Party had split in the ’70s. Many factions emerged. In the last 25 years we have seen the disintegration of these groups, witnessed the continued process of splits within them. In contrast, since 1974, with the Party’s reorganisation, our Party, the CPI(ML) Liberation, has never faced any split in its organisation. Our unity continuously kept on strengthening. This stands as a puzzle for many. While all the other Naxalite groups have been continuously dogged by splits, what miracle has enabled CPI(ML) Liberation to maintain its unity? And specially in the present times we see that the crisis is deepening within CPI(M), the social democratic party, with which we have the primary contention for the leadership of the Indian communist movement. Their leadership is seriously divided over the party’s tactical line. In this context our Party assumes special importance.

The fundamental reason behind our strong unity is that we have always held high the glorious traditions of the communist movement of our country. From the Naxalbari movement of 1967 to the movement of the ’70s, inspite of all the deviations and mistakes, we have never negated them. We have always given due regard to our legacy. We have neither rejected the great struggles and sacrifices of our communist revolutionaries nor the leadership of Com.Charu Majumdar. We always held high the dignity of our martyrs and of our great leaders. But at the same time we have always learnt from our mistakes. We have openly criticised our mistakes and incorporated new experiences in our Party line. Holding high our legacy and making necessary readjustments in Party line in consonance with the demands of the present — I think our Party has combined these two tasks in the correct way and this has been the foremost secret of our unity.

At the same time, since the time of reorganisation of our Party, we have striven to develop a full-fledged Party system. From top to bottom, from the Central Committee to the lower-level committees, we have built up a complete Party system. We have developed a collective leadership at all levels and have regularly organised our Party congresses. Whenever required we have organised all-India Party conferences. And this system ensures that the Party is not dependent on any single individual. It doesn’t function on the whims and charisma of any individual. In the course of our long practice, many experienced comrades have come up and a strong unity exists between them. Our Party’s Central Committee is not a collection of several factions but it is an integral body. No faction of any type exists in it. Our Party leadership consists of experienced comrades who have in a long process gained confidence of the Party ranks and of the masses as well. They constitute our Politburo and our collective leadership. I think, these are the reasons, the essential secrets that have for the past 25 years maintained and strengthened our unity. I do believe that the new Central Committee will keep alive this tradition of ours. The confidence that more than 700 delegates coming from all the parts of the country have reposed in the new Central Committee and the new responsibility that you have entrusted to us — I promise you that the new CC will fulfil these responsibilities with all the dedication and skill at its command and the members of the CC will always stand in the front ranks of all the struggles of the people and of the Party.

Comrades,

We are aware that there lie great challenges before us. We face attacks from various quarters. In this Congress we have resolved to face all these challenges. But this is also the time when a lot of opportunities have come our way. This is a period of challenges as well as opportunities. We have to face all the challenges and make full use of the opportunities. This Congress has given us the responsibility to dislodge the social democrats from the driving seat of the left movement in India and establish the leadership of the revolutionary Left over the same. Our entire Party has to accomplish this mission and the present times are the best times because the social democrats nowhere stand at the forefront of mass struggles as they have become part and parcel of the ruling establishment. That is why making full use of this opportunity, we have to move with full force to fulfil this responsibility which has been our historic mission since the Naxalbari movement.

Apart from this, comrades, the challenge posed by the feudal armies, be it Ranvir Sena or other such feudal armies, who think that they can wipe out our Party with the might of guns, by killings and massacres, has come up as a big challenge for us. We have to tackle this challenge with full self-confidence. We must understand that their frenzied attacks do not symbolise their future, their strength. Rather they are the last-ditch attempts of the dying feudal forces.

Comrades,

This Congress has resolved to forcefully take up the armed challenge of feudal forces like Ranvir Sena. The congress has repeatedly emphasised its resolve that the Party will mobilise all its forces to give a crushing blow to such forces. It has resolved that the Party will not hesitate to adopt all means that are necessary to crush these forces. We have accepted this challenge and we must ensure their defeat on the battlefield. In the past too, many private armies had come up but in face of people’s resistance none could survive. We must have complete confidence that these newly emerged Senas too have no future and CPI(ML)-led mass struggles and people’s wrath will ensure the end of these Senas. This is the second challenge before us.

Thirdly, the Congress has resolved to bring all progressive and democratic forces, the forces fighting for human rights to a common platform on an all-India scale. We have to establish at an all-India level, a genuine democratic front. Such a democratic front that can, in a true sense, become a magic wand for the Indian revolution. Except CPI(ML) no one else has the necessary moral authority and political vision to accomplish this task.

The Congress has placed before us three tasks, viz. to establish the leadership of the revolutionary communists in the Indian left movement, to boldly face the challenge of the feudal armies and wipe them out, and thirdly, to unite in a common thread various struggles of progressive and democratic forces, the forces struggling for human rights, for regional autonomy of national minorities and Adivasis and for democratic rights of various dalit and backward communities, forming a broadbased democratic front. I am confident that this congress will inspire the entire Party to fulfil these tasks. Lastly, we must not forget that hundreds of our comrades have sacrificed their valuable lives for the advance of the Party and the revolution.

This Congress is the occasion to transform our grief into strength. Let us resolve that the unfulfilled dreams of our martyrs will remain alive in our eyes. And we shall not rest content till these dreams materialise.

Long live the memory of our martyrs!
Long live revolution!
Inquilab Zindabad!

[Inaugural address to the Sixth Party Congress in Varanasi. From Liberation, November 1997.]

Comrades and friends,

The Sixth Congress of CPI(ML) is being held at the close of the 20th century, the century which witnessed major upheavals of world-historic significance: the rise of imperialism, two successive world wars, the rise of socialism and the end of the colonial era, and finally the collapse of Soviet system and the advent of globalisation. The century is marked by tremendous advances in science and technology, with humankind developing weapons of self-destruction on the earth while at the same time embarking on colonising the outer space; and so also there have been rapid strides in exchange of information and goods that have made the world look like a global village.

The ongoing processes of gigantic socio-economic transformation were reflected in the best of human brains and consequently this century witnessed great clashes of ideas and ideologies and also the emergence of titanic personalities.

The imperialism that arose in the early years of the century, became discredited by the middle of it and now, in the closing years, is seeking to redeem its prestige in the guise of globalisation. If the old imperialism gave rise to a class of ‘coupon clippers’ who thrived on speculation in the stock markets, globalisation has led to the emergence of a whole class of currency speculators who find a respectable representation on the IMF board. The enormous growth in currency trading has created a huge mass of ‘world money’, aptly described as the ‘virtual money’. As an economist noted, "It fits in none of the traditional definitions of money, whether standard of measure, storage of value, or medium of exchange. It is totally anonymous. But its power is real." This money has total mobility, because it serves no economic function. The volume of this money is so gigantic that its movements in and out of a country have far greater import than the normal flows of finance, trade or investment. Once a national economy, like that of India, gets fully integrated into the global economy, years of hard-won economic gains can be wiped out by just a few weeks run on its currency.

The domination of this ‘virtual money’ symbolises complete detachment of capital from its productive functioning. It further reinforces the parasitic nature of present-day global capitalism. And hence, even though the 20th century closes with setbacks for world socialism, the coming century is sure to open with the resurgence of new ideas, new forces and new movements for a better world order, for a new edition of socialism.

Passing on the unfulfilled dreams and unfinished projects to the next millennium, the 20th century is coming to a close. Let us resolve to enter the 21st century, via this Congress, as a united, confident and strong party of international communism.

The Sixth Congress of our Party is taking place in the year 1997, when our country is celebrating the golden jubilee of its freedom from the yoke of colonial rule. For the masses of Indian people, this historic moment has hardly been a moment of spontaneous rejoicing. By the 50th year of its independence, India’s very political sovereignty stands threatened under the powerful onslaught of global sharks, and internally, freedom has turned into an exclusive privilege of a whole class of ruling elite — it is their freedom for loot, plunder, corruption and criminalisation.

Institutions of bourgeois hegemony are pitted against each other: judiciary against the political class, political class against the bureaucracy, bureaucracy against the political authority, parliament against the judiciary, Election Commission against the government etc. All the institutions are competing against each other for enlarging their respective autonomous space and the end result is loss of credibility of each.

The golden jubilee of India’s freedom was celebrated in this environment of all-pervading chaos. Intellectuals, nationwide, engaged themselves in wide-ranging discussions and the national parliament organised an unprecedented four-day session to decide the national agenda. There were frantic calls for a second freedom struggle, even for a war against criminalisation, corruption and illiteracy. But all this proved to be a ritualistic exercise and the nation remains as directionless as ever.

Indian rulers have developed a national consensus on liberalisation and globalisation, which Chidambaram, the Union Finance Minister, justifies on the plea that Indian people desire a high quality of living and the right to choose. According to him, "Earlier, the choice was limited between Ambassador and Ambassador, and between Indian Airlines and Indian Airlines." This makes it obvious what kind of people he is talking about and, moreover, exposes the whole class essence of liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian variety.

Responding to the debate over ‘computer chips Vs. potato chips’, Mr.Chidambaram replied: "As long as it (foreign investment in any form and in any sector) brings jobs, creates income and generates wealth, it is okay."

Chidambaram, the foremost darling of the multinationals and Indian bourgeoisie alike, reflects the economic philosophy of the current UF government that has emerged as a major votary of liberalisation far surpassing the earlier Rao regime, and its Common Minimum Programme is nothing but across-the-board consensus among ruling elite of all hues.

This craze for a right-wing solution to India’s mounting problems has only bolstered the morale of fundamentalist forces and a real saffron threat, for the first time, is looming large over India. Here in Uttar Pradesh, the nerve centre of India and the most populous of Indian states, Kalyan Singh’s return to power in UP has also meant the return of Ayodhya on the national agenda. Moreover, the phoney issue of Chitrakoot has been added to it and clear anti-dalit signals have been issued.

BJP’s ascendance to power twice in U.P. has clearly demonstrated that if somehow this party manages to wrest the central power, it will pose the biggest threat to whatever is left of India’s secular polity, to democratic institutions, to progressive movements, to intellectual, aesthetic and academic freedom, to struggles of the rural poor, to social equality of dalits and women as well as religious and national minorities and to friendly relations with neighbouring countries. We have before us the all-important agenda of forging a militant solidarity of all democratic-secular forces to thwart the communal-fascist takeover of India.

Let us resolve to emerge, through this Congress, as a united, confident and strong party of national liberation and people’s democracy.

This Congress is taking place in the thirtieth year of the great Naxalbari uprising, the uprising which symbolised a decisive rupture with deeply entrenched opportunism in the Indian communist movement and which, for the first time in 40 years of the communist movement in India by then, brought agrarian revolution on the immediate agenda. In the face of brutal state repression, several times the movement appeared almost finished, but every time it rose like the proverbial phoenix.

The social change that was pioneered by Naxalbari got a fillip in the decade of 90s leading to new social and political equations. Amidst the process of great social churning and consequent political instability, old slogans are fast losing their relevance and the heroes are in no time turning into villains.

An all-round crisis is developing before our very eyes and the nation is crying for a new, radical and unconventional solution. With the opportunist wing of the communist movement becoming part and parcel of the ruling central establishment, the responsibility to lead the left movement exclusively falls on the shoulders of the revolutionary Left. This, at the same time, provides us with the best opportunity that has ever come our way to dislodge the official Marxists from the driving seat of Indian left movement.

The new invariably replaces the old — this is the inexorable law of history. Let us resolve, through this Congress, to emerge as a united, confident and strong party of social justice and revolutionary change.

The period after the last Party Congress has been the bloodiest in our Party history since the reorganisation. In a spate of killings perpetrated by the state, the state-sponsored private armies of landlords, as well as the thoroughly degenerate gangs of anarchists, we lost more than two hundred Party cadres and sympathisers. Infants were butchered, women raped and killed, and men, old and young alike, murdered in worst possible medieval fashion. Promising young comrades were shot dead while making speeches or leading agitations, grenades were hurled on mass gatherings, Party offices were attacked and thousands were put behind bars - all in a desperate bid to stop the march of CPI(ML).

We have forgotten neither the memory of our heroic martyrs, nor the identity of the killers. Nothing, absolutely nothing can stop the onward march of CPI(ML). Let us resolve to build, through this Congress, a united, confident and strong party of martyrs’ dreams and enemies’ nightmare!

[From an article published in Lokyuddh to commemorate the martyrdom of Comrade Charu Mazumdar on 28 July 1972. Self-translated excerpts of the article was published in English in Liberation, September 1998.]

Comrade CM had drawn an important line of demarcation between the cadres of the revisionist and the revolutionary parties. Whereas the former keep on waiting for the instructions from above, the latter take their independent initiative and creatively implement the instructions that come from the leadership. For this a revolutionary cadre must be of an enterprising type and he/she should have a firm command over the situation in his/her area. This however is not possible without a deep-going social investigation. Comrade Mao had once remarked that "no investigation, no right to speak". Without questioning the ideas that repeatedly clash with the practice at the ground level, without asking ‘How’ and ‘Why’ on every phenomenon, how can human knowledge move forward? How can new heights be scaled both in theory and practice with ‘yes sir’ kind of communist cadres?

The other important aspect of work style is the style of concentrated work. We shall have to continuously expand the frontiers of the mass movement, take all possible political initiatives at the state and national levels. All this is beyond dispute. But if one has to achieve any concrete results, some particular area will have to be concentrated upon. Otherwise all efforts may go in vain and the practice will not be raised to any higher levels.

In the recent elections we saw that in areas where concentrated work was going on we performed better than earlier. On the contrary, where, in Mao’s words, the work style of ‘visiting the garden on a horseback’ was being followed, our performance went down.

You may be in-charge of an area or a mass organisation, there must be a particular aspect to your practice apart from the general aspect. This particular aspect is virtually your laboratory where as a scientist you undertake ever-newer experiments, test your ideas at the level of practice and then generalise your conclusions. From general to particular and again from particular to general, this scientific work style is the Marxist work style.

Along with the general political and the agitational mobilisations, putting special emphasis on new elements continuously emerging in the course of mass movements, bringing them within the periphery of Party education and the Party organisation, building Party activist groups and the Party branches at the ground level and activating them are the essential components of the communist style of work. A work style in which these elements are missing is nothing but revisionist work style based on the assumption that ‘movement is everything but the aim is nothing’. Ever broadening the scope of the movement but at the same time activating the Party organisation at the grass-roots level — unity of these two apparent opposites is the essence of the communist style of work.

Our march towards organising the Party at the national level and developing a strong and dynamic Party infrastructure at the lower levels will be the real tribute to Comrade CM.

[Excerpts from certain observations made during intervention in the course of debates at the Diphu Conference, August 1995.]

I think the main issue is that there is a particular problem with our Party. I can say that there is a sort of a trend where people feel if political things are correct the organisational things will naturally, automatically, sort of spontaneously, follow. This may be because of the ‘excessive political character’ of our Party or because of a particular way our Party emerged. Neglect of organisational things has been a particular hallmark of our Party. And every time we talk of consolidating the organisation, every time we talk of doing something concrete in the organisational sphere, we face resistance. People start saying that if politics is okay then everything else will naturally and automatically follow. Of course, as communists we all know that if our political line is correct, our political intervention is proper, it does provide lots of advantage in the Party’s expansion. But I think it should not be made that automatic. Organisational problems do constitute an independent entity, organisation is an independent category. And to streamline the organisation, perhaps, we need to take some specific measures, some specific decisions and sometimes special conferences even. So only to fight this trend we are having this Organisational Conference.

Every time we talk of an organisational conference, of tackling organisational questions as an independent agenda, people have lots of resistance. Even in this Conference suggestions came that the Conference should be renamed. Somebody said it should be renamed as the Ideological-Organisational Conference. So I think this has been a particular problem in our Party. This particular trend dilutes the organisational question in the name of politics and political struggle and thus trend puts politics and organisation in contrast to each other. More often it takes the form of phrase-mongering.

I have often found that people who are not serious on organisational questions, who are not serious about Party building, people who are not doing serious Party and organisational work, are often found to ‘preach’ politics. Especially some of these phrases like: ‘Why do you talk of organisation?’, ‘Only politics’ etc. So politics often becomes sort of a scapegoat, a sort of an excuse. I think to counter and fight this trend and to instill seriousness we must make sincere efforts to build our Party organisation and for that we have called this Conference. We have the document before us and we have discussed all sorts of issues and we will have to go back with a particular massage. Now if this dilution remains set in our thinking, then we can do nothing to streamline and strengthen our Party organisation.

Now on the question of democratic centralism there is a debate. So many things have been said. I think the most important point was: the right for legitimate opposition, i.e., a bloc sort of thing, as a method to unify different factions and different parties in India into a single large Party. It is better if one sticks to the formulation that this is only one way of uniting different left factions and left parties into a single communist party. Well, we have a difference here. For the unification of left factions and communist parties we already have a different idea, viz. left confederation. We have already started conducting talks about that. In spite of all the existing differences among different parties, we can make this experiment for a broader unity of left confederation. But within a single communist party if we try to make that experiment…so far the experiences have proved to be negative. There has been the PCC which tried to operate on that basis. And all such tricks of unification in the communist movement and the ML movement on the basis of bloc operation and legitimised opposition have all ended in fiasco.

They have only given rise to more groups than they had united. In contrast to that if you look at our Party’s history and experience we never went for unity on that premise. But still comrades from different groups and different parties have always been coming to join our Party. If you check up our Party membership you will find a good percentage of them — I think their numbers may perhaps surpass the number of comrades who were originally with us in 1974 — have come from other parties. And those large number of comrades who have come from different groups and parties like PCC, CPI, CPI(M) and other parties, have all united under one democratically centralised party and are carrying on discussions. I don’t think there are any problems in the Party functioning in this regard and, in this formation which we are leading, it has been possible to unite comrades coming from different streams. Some factions have even dissolved their organisations and united with our Party. That way we have been able to unite a good number of left and Naxalite revolutionaries with our Party. This has been our history. This has been a more stable unity than other unity efforts which have been taken so far by any other group in India. If we are to go for the premise of proceeding with unification on the basis of legitimised opposition, our experience so far has proved it wrong. And I think we have a better alternative in the concept of left confederation for broader unity. But still, from this point of view, the debate can continue.

There is another point I want to make on the question of democratic centralism. What we said in the document was that Party leaders and Party committees should not unnecessarily intervene in the functioning of mass organisations which means allowing them to develop on their own. But that is generalised by some comrades that if this is the case, then higher Party committees should also not intervene in the affairs of lower Party committees. I think these two cannot be equated. Party-mass organisation relations are very different. The Party and mass organisation are separate entities. May be we participate in mass organisations but they are a separate entity, they have their own separate character. We have already given an amendment that mass organisations should elect their leaders themselves in their conferences. And that way mass organisations will develop independently. So the relation between mass organisation and the Party is a very different thing qualitatively than the relation between two Party committees, higher and lower committees, of the same Party. I think these two things must not be confused, must not be equated.

As far as the Party’s centre is concerned, I must say, well, minority obeys majority. That is one principle which we follow. Within the Party committee minority accepts the majority. That is natural. Then again lower Party committees are subordinated to higher Party committees. That is also very natural. Very much understandable. The individual is subordinated to the organisation. This is also quite understandable. But the fundamental point of democratic centralism is that the whole Party is subordinated to the CC, an additional formulation which often some comrades forget. This is perhaps the most important one. And this says that the entire Party is subordinated to the CC. And this way the whole relation is reversed. The entire Party means a big majority while the Central Committee is a minority of 25 members. This is very unusual. This is very different. And this is the whole crux of communist party’s democratic centralism. Unless this is understood perhaps you cannot understand the full concept of democratic centralism in its integrity. Therefore the CC’s intervention, not just in the lower committee but even in the case of any member, any committee, any cadre, anywhere, anytime… this is perfectly allowed in the communist party. This is what a communist party is. Without this centralism, without this unity, there can neither be an iron discipline, not can we fight out the enemy in the serious class battles. This ‘majority’ subordinating itself to the ‘minority’, is perhaps the most crucial aspect of communist party’s democratic centralism. And therefore, any attempt to create any confusion or dissension against Party CC is very harmful. And challenging the CC’s right to intervene here and there, to say it cannot do this and it cannot do that etc., are just not allowed in the communist party. This is a very peculiar case. One may like it. One may not like it. But once we have decided to become a member of a communist party, we have to accept that the Party CC is not just like any other higher Party committee. The state committee does not have that much authority over all its ranks. Nor any other local committee. This is a very special right accorded to the Party CC. This a very particular aspect of communist constitution. And I think any attempt to confuse this will be very harmful for the Party.

[Editorial of Liberation, April 1995.]

This 22nd April, Party will be celebrating its 26th anniversary. It is surely an occasion to reiterate our commitment to the basic principles and the general orientation of the Party. But if we merely confine ourselves to this ‘reiteration’, commemoration of the anniversary will be reduced to a ritualistic affair. In my opinion, emphasis should better be placed on deeply and critically probing the reason behind our slow, uneven, and at times, distorted growth.

We must not behave like dogmatists who refuse to constantly review their practice and cling to outdated and worn-out formulations almost as blind religious faith. We have vowed to develop the Party line as the living embodiment of Marxism-Leninism’s integration with concrete Indian conditions. This demands a strict scientific approach where theoretical premises are tested in practical observation and accordingly modified. Mao Tse-tung has repeatedly said that practice is the sole criterion of truth and this statement can’t be overemphasised.

Moreover, the strength of communists lies in realistic assessment of the objective situation, in being bold in making self-criticisms and daring to face the worst situation and change them. And for this they hardly need any intoxication. They derive their energy from their dedication to the supreme cause of communism and from their conviction of the progressive movement of human society. I find a certain comrade associated with one of our Party organs always projecting our achievements in the superlative degree. He found the echo of French revolution in one of our modest Party rallies! I have several times pointed it out to him but he seems to believe that such high doses are imperative to keep up the morale of Party ranks.

Every time when elections are round the corner some people start cherishing wild dreams. During the recent Bihar elections, one comrade told me about his grand plans to secure victory in his constituency. I reminded him that the Party never asked him to manipulate victory there. Isn’t it enough if you poll countable number of votes? He did not like my pouring cold water over his wild aspirations. Results, however, show that the comrade has failed even to secure a countable number of votes.

Looking at the current round of assembly elections from Andhra to Bihar it can definitely be said that the tactics of election boycott (even raised to the level of strategy by certain groups) was a total flop. In their desperation to embrace it against the wishes of the masses they first resorted to adventurism, and later on, succumbed to the worst kind of political opportunism. In contrast, our Party organised a vigorous election campaign and at least succeeded in sending a powerful communist group to the Bihar assembly. So much for our success.

But in many parts of Bihar as well as in Andhra and Orissa we fared badly. The number of votes polled in many constituencies reflects a longterm stagnation in our work and in some areas even an erosion of our social base. This is a matter of serious concern and raises many a question about the state of affairs in the Party organisations of the concerned areas. In some areas the Party organisation was found to be engaged in factional feuds while in general Party’s vibrant mass line was replaced by an uninspired routine style of work. Alienation from the masses, detachment from their day to day struggles, and in certain areas, arrogant cadres riding roughshod over the masses etc. paved the way for the intrusion of other political parties in the very core of our mass base. No high-sounding propaganda and opportunistic compromises can ever substitute hard mass work and that was reflected in our poor showing at the hustings in those areas.

Elections are a good indicator for measuring the extent of your mass support and at the same time the degree of opportunism hidden within you.

Analysis of election results has helped in bringing us back to our senses and in identifying our weak spots. It is high time we take corrective measures to revamp the whole Party organisation, inject afresh spirit in the body of the organisation and pursue a lively mass line. It is in this context our proposed organisational conference assumes importance where we expect to effectively deal with such organisational problems. Yet, the question of organisational disorder and alienation with the masses also has a political-tactical aspect to it which is, perhaps, crucial. The growing pattern of progressive political discourse in the country concerns itself with the assertion of dalits, backwards and religious and national minorities. The Party is yet to formuate an active communist response to the same.

As regards United Front practice, if the IPF had reached a saturation point, our efforts to develop a political dialogue with a wide range of grassroots movements has not yielded any concrete results either. The Political relations that we developed with HMKP, Samata Party, SUCI and similar left groups don’t seem to have any bright prospects. The Platform of Mass Organisation could not be raised to the level of political cooperation and has become defunct. Our relations with CPI-CPI(M) have furher become tense owing to their following the new economic policy in Bengal and subservience to JD govt. in Bihar.

Thus, our Party is confronted with the twin tasks of consolidating its own class base and, at the same time, expanding its support base to various cross-sections of people. This necessitates formulating an active response to the social ferment proceeding before our very eyes and to seek political cooperation with the mass allies from the left and democratic camp.

The national scene unfolding before us promises a grand battle between Congress(I) and BJP for wresting the central power in the impending parliamentary elections. A third front having the potential to overturn the applecart of both the leading contenders is yet to take shape. We can neither align with BJP against Congress(I) nor support Congress(I) against BJP. We shall, of course, lend our all-out support to any emerging third front at the national level. It is very difficult to define the exact form of our relationship with such a front at this stage, and with CPI(M) bent upon preventing our emergence on the national political scene, the task is still more complex.

While we go on discussing ways and means to play an effective role in national politics, the entire Party must concentrate on rebuilding itself and its relation with the masses.

Let this 22nd April be dedicated to serious introspection and rejuvenation of the Party organisation.

[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the Fifth Party Congress, December 1992.]

In the Fourth Party Congress, we had envisaged drastic changes in several of our policies and resolved to effect necessary changes in the Party structure. A section of comrades, however, felt otherwise. According to them, no amount of restructuring could have possibly imparted a fresh lease of life to the Party and the best course left was to bid farewell to the communist party in favour of a democratic party or at the most, a liberal left formation. "If this is termed liquidationism, then the seeds of this liquidationism have already been sown in almost all the central committees of the communist parties the world over in this era of scientific and technological revolution", proclaimed one of the advocates of liquidationism. He was right. Liquidationism indeed it was, and under the spell of Gorbachevian reforms it did assume international dimensions.

Several communist parties in Europe, Eastern Europe in particular, began disbanding or transforming themselves into social democratic parties and the phenomenon reached its climactic height with the demise of CPSU. The CPC could thwart it only at the cost of a big social turmoil and the Italian and some other parties faced vertical splits.

Our own battle against liquidationism too proved quite stormy. The idea to liquidate the Party had surfaced first within the pre-Fourth Congress Party Central Committee itself. But the debate did not come up in the Fourth Congress and for quite some time after the Congress too, the liquidationists kept shying away from any full-fledged political debate. In fact, while the original protagonist chose to silently withdraw from the Party, several others continued to sow confusions among Party ranks and chose to operate in a clandestine, cliquist fashion, spreading canards against the Party leadership. Of course, subsequently they all had to come out in the open, denouncing Marxism and socialism, eulogising capitalism, ridiculing revolutionary struggles and pursuing their individual careers in government and semi-government agencies while preaching the gospel of reforms.

This struggle, first of all, helped us in standing firm in the midst of the great crisis of socialism and the accompanying all-out bourgeois offensive against Marxism. Our Party has been the foremost in India in upholding the banner of Marxism-Leninism and in rising in its defence and for its retrieval.

This struggle enabled us to carry forward Marxist education within the Party and to restructure and revitalise the Party organisation. The long spell of stagnation and slow growth in Party membership was broken and the Party witnessed a qualitative jump in membership.

This struggle enabled us to firmly uphold the banner of independent left assertion, consistently oppose the tailism of the mainstream opportunist Left and bring out the struggle between the two tactical lines in Indian left movement into sharp focus. At the same time, we could exert increasing influence on the left-leaning ranks of various parties and groups, developing, step by step, close cooperation in movements with the parties of the mainstream Left without compromising or sacrificing our principles.

Although the Party has scored a decisive initial victory against liquidationism, the struggle is far from over. The present ideological environment provides quite fertile ground for the rise and growth of liquidationist ideas. Liquidationism essentially means erosion of the Party spirit which again is not an abstract thing, but is embodied in the Party’s revolutionary principles and in its integrated organisational structure. Compromising these principles and treating the Party as a federal body will only weaken the Party’s fighting capacity and encourage centrifugal tendencies.

The apprehension that the struggle against liquidationism will weaken the struggle against the other harmful tendency of anarchism is quite a misplaced one and betrays a mistaken understanding of the Party’s evolution. The whole practice of our Party has always been directed towards overcoming all the anarchist remnants of our past and making the Party’s tactical line correspond more and more to the concrete conditions of our country. This practice can, however, just get derailed if a sharp ideological struggle is simultaneously not carried on against liquidationism.

Looking at the struggle against these two erroneous trends metaphysically and seeking their eclectic combination will lead us nowhere. The error of judgement on the part of a thinking section of the Party in the struggle against liquidationism came precisely from their failure to grasp this crucial link. Real life has proved that a decisive struggle against liquidationism has not taken the Party back to anarchism. It has rather facilitated our forceful entry into the arena of practical politics with all its ramifications. Persons with die-hard anarchist world outlook, if not reformed, have only deserted us and in many a case they have joined the liquidationist camp. In the coming days, the Party shall go on making bold experiments in the arena of practical politics and hence, dialectically, there will be a greater need for exercising consistent vigilance against liquidationism within the Party body.