Naxalbari and After-A Frontier Anthology - Vol 2

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Volume Two
NAXALBARI
AND AFTER
a frontier
anthology
Edited by
Samar Sen
Debabrata Panda
Ashish Lahiri
Kathashilpa
CALCUTTA 700 073
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EDITORS’ NOTE
The planning of Yol. II has been a little different froim

that of Vol. I. Instead of maintaining a general chronological
order, the articles in the DEBATES section have been arranged
topic-wise. This section has been sub-classified under two
heads : Strategy and Tactics and Appraisal. As in Vol.Ir
the articles have, in some cases, been edited.
The articles in the section, DOCUMENTS, however, have
been arranged chronologically. A number of documents not
published in Frontier—one of them hitherto unpublished any¬
where—have been incorporated. With the exception of the
‘Immediate Programme’ the sources of all other documents have
been clearly mentioned. In printing the ‘Immediate Programme’
we have mainly followed the translation supplied to us by Mr.
Moni Guha, one of the editors of the journal, Proletarian
Path. Minor changes of language have been made in the text
by comparing this translation with a different one published in
New Democracy No. 1 (March, 1972). Where there is no men¬
tion of the source, the date given at the end of the document
is that of the relevant issue of Frontier. Beyond certain
grammatical corrections, no liberty has been taken with the text.
To enable the general readers to properly appreciate the
significance of the documents included, a brief account of the
background and the cross-currents of the Naxalbari movement
is presented below.
The history of the influence of Mao Tsetung on the Indian
communist movement can be traced back to the Telengana
armed struggle, 1946-51. The communists of Telengana had
then, in the teeth of bitter opposition from the central leadership
of the Communist Party of India [CPI], upheld the relevance of
Mao Tsetung’s theory of New Democracy in the Indian con¬
text. Since then, the communist movement in India under¬
went significant changes. The undivided CPI later accepted
the path of peaceful transition to socialism as charted out by?
-the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] in its 20th
Congress. Discontent within the CPI came to a head with
‘India’s China War’ in 1962. In 1964, the Party split and the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] was formed,
which dubbed the CPI ‘revisionist’.
In March 1967, in the Fourth General Elections, non-
Congress governments were formed in eight of the seventeen
states. The CPI(M) joined the United Front governments in
Kerala and West Bengal. In May 1967, Naxalbari, till then
an obscure spot in North Bengal, suddenly became an object of
widespread attention, with an armed peasant uprising. Before
this, Charu Majumdar [CM] had written ‘Eight Documents’,
which, according to the leadership of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist-Leninist) [CPI(ML)], formed later in 1969,
were the ideological basis of the uprising. CM’s article ‘Carry
Forward the Peasant Struggle by Fighting Revisionism’, inclu¬
ded in this Volume, is the last of the ‘Eight Documents’. In
his ‘Report on the Peasant Movement in the Terai Region’,
Kanu Sanyal [KS], one of the chief architects of Naxalbari,
gave an analytical account of the uprising. In a later document,
‘More About Naxalbari’, written from jail in 1973, Sanyal,
however, pointed to some lacunae in his earlier report.
Meanwhile, in an editorial ‘Spring Thunder Over India’,
published in the July 5, 1967 issue of the People's Daily, the
Communist Party of China [CPC] had come out in support of
the Naxalbari peasant movement.
All this had had its share in accentuating the contradic¬
tions within the CPI(M). The leadership of the CPI(M)
disowned Naxalbari. And the U. F. Government in West
Bengal let loose severe police repression.
Then came the parting of ways. A large number of
cadres of the CPI(M) and a section of the leaders were ex¬
pelled from the Party. The Darjeeling District Committee was
disbanded. Thousands of members left the Party. The dis¬
sident and the expelled members branded the CPI(M) leader¬
ship ‘neo-revisionist’ and started Deshabrati, a Bengali weekly,
aud Liberation, an English monthly. A ‘Declaration of the
Revolutionaries of the CPI(M)’ was issued by the All India Co¬
ordination Committee of Revolutionaries [AICCR], formed
-on November 13, 1967, in Calcutta.
The exodus continued to gain momentum. In April 1968,
at the CPI(M) plenum held at Burdwan, West Bengal, the
-draft ‘For Ideological Discussion’, placed before the members
back in August 1967, was approved. The draft criticized the
CPSU, but at the same time charged the CPC with interfer¬
ence in the internal affairs of the CPI(M). The Jammu and
Kashmir and the Andhra State Committees opposed this draft.
Some of the contentions of the latter were that the draft
rejected people’s war as the universal form of struggle in back¬
ward countries like India and abandoned agrarian revolution
as the principal line. The Andhra State Committee walked
out of the CPI(M).
With the Burdwan Plenum the breach was final. On May
14, 1968, the AICCR enlarged itself into the All India Co¬
ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries [AICC¬
CR], under the leadership of CM. On that same day were
issued the ‘Second Declaration’ and a ‘Resolution on Elections’.
The process of consolidation of revolutionaries, however,
made little headway. A large section of the communists in
Andhra Pradesh formed the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary
Communist Committee [APRCC] in September 1968, which
acted as the Andhra State Committee of the AICCCR until
February 7, 1969, when the latter decided ‘to part with the
Andhra Committee’ and to ‘maintain non-antagonistic relations’
with them as ‘friends and comrades outside the AICCCR’.
The causes of the discord were that the Andhra Committee and
Nagi Reddy were not unconditionally loyal to the CPC ; that
instead of owning and glorifying the Srikakulam struggle, they
accorded it at most a lukewarm support; that while the
AICCCR considered boycott of elections a basic question for
an entire period, the Andhra Committee maintainted, it was a
tactical question. Breaking away from the AICCCR, the
APRCC adopted the ‘Immediate Programme’ in April 1969.
On the other hand, the AICCCR had decided to form
itself into a party, and the CPI (ML) was born on April 22y
1969. On that day, the Central Organising Committee of the-
CPI(ML) adopted the ‘Political Resolution’, and the hitherto-
unpublished document, ‘Resolution on Party Organisation’.
A year later, by the middle of May 1970, the Party held its-
First Congress—which was termed the ‘Eighth Congress of
the CPI(ML)—the First Party Congress after Naxalbari’
claimed to be in continuity with the seven congresses of the
Indian communist movement prior to the formation of the
CPI(ML). The ‘Political Organisational Report’ and Majum-
dar’s note ‘On Political Organisational Report’ were adopted
at the Congress.
Tremendous police repression led to the killing and arrest
of a large number of cadres and leaders. In this context, CM
wrote two ‘Notes’, specifying some concrete tasks in the rural
and the urban areas. About the guidelines of the ensuing phase
of struggle, CM left very clear indications in his ‘Last Writing’
before his arrest and subsequent death in police custody.
All this time, Majumdar had been having ideological differ¬
ences with a number of prominent leaders. Parimal Dasgupta,
Asit Sen, Promode Sengupta, Sushital Roy Chowdhury [SRC]
—all of them had, at one time or another, lashed out at CM’s
policies. SRC’s document, ‘Problems and Crises of Indian
Revolution’ gives a glimpse of his points of difference with
CM’s line. In September 1970, the Bihar State Committee led
by Satyanarain Singh [SNS] had levelled charges of “Left”
sectarianism against the Party Central Committee headed by
CM. This subsequently resulted in the expulsion of the Bihar
State Committee led by SNS, who later, on November 7, 1971
formed a new, parallel Central Committee.
Things, however, came to surface with the ‘Open Letter*
written by six prominent leaders from jail. In another docu¬
ment, ‘More About Naxalbari’ written from jail, KS bitterly
criticised CM. In his document, ‘Hold High the Genuine
Lessons of Naxalbari’, written in November 1975, Ashim
Chatterjee was also in complete agreement with KS’s line of
criticism. Some of the major points raised by KS were again
subjected to serious criticism by K. Venkaiah [KV], who had
been one of the signatories to the ‘Open Letter’, in his
document ‘New Controversies in the name of More about
Naxalbari’. KV’s contentions have been supported by two
■other signatories to the ‘Open Letter’, Naga Bhushan Patnaik
and D. Bhuban Mohan Patnaik.
Meanwhile, disintegration had affected the APRCC too.
Following the arrest of leaders like Nagi Reddy and D.V.
Rao in 1969, the active leadership had to be reconstituted.
This reconstituted leadership of APRCC, by then renamed
the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Party [APRCP]
■came under fire in 1970 from Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao—
both in jail. Replying to charges of ‘Left Deviation’ levelled
against them by Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao, the new leader¬
ship headed by Chandra Pulla Reddy [CPR] accused the former
of‘Party-splitting activities and capitulationist policies’. The
position of this group is contained in the document ‘The First
Conference of the APRCP’. Subsequently, in early 1975, this
group merged with the Central Committee, CPI(ML) led by
SNS (vide ‘Unite to Build A Single Party’). The Unity
Committee of the CPI(ML) also joined in, and the Central
Committee, CPI(ML) led by SNS, came to be known as the
Provisional Central Committee, CPI(ML). The CPI(ML) led
by SNS opposes the ‘Gang of Four’, supports the leadership of
Hua Kuo-feng and the Three Worlds theory. Their document
'‘Resolution on Elections’ reviews the stand of the AICCCR
and the CPI(ML) on the question of boycott of elections.
The section which remained loyal to CM also had its
share of divisions. CM died on July 28, 1972 and Sharma
then became the General Secretary of the Party. Mahadeb
Mukherjee [MM], a member of the Central Committee led
by Sharma, formed a parallel Central Committee in late 1973.
MM is known as the leader of the pro-CM pro-Lin Piao group
of the CPI(ML). Loyal to CM, the Bhojpur Committee along
with others that did not join the SNS-group had worked for
some time with MM. But when MM supported Lin Piao,
this Bhojpur Committee along with others dissociated itself
from the MM group. This group supports Hua Kuo-feng and
opposes the ‘Gang of Four’ and is known as the pro-CM
anti-Lin group of the CPI(ML). In November 1975, Subroto
Datta (Jahar), its first General Secretary, was killed by the
police. Since then, Vinode Mishra [VM] has been the General
Secretary of the group. The documents, ‘Editorial, Desha-
brati' and the ‘Present Situation and Immediate Tasks’ reveal
the positions of the MM- and the VM-led groups of the CPI-
(ML) respectively.
In addition to these we have included two other documents.
One is that of the Maoist Communist Centre [MCC], formerly
known as the ‘Dakshin Desk’ group, which never joined the
CPI(ML). Their document ‘How the people can be mobilised
in Guerilla Warfare’ gives their points of difference with the
CPI(ML). The other is that of the Unity Centre of the Com¬
munist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) [UCCRI
(ML)] entitled ‘On United Front’. UCCRI(ML) had its origin
in the APRCC led by T. Nagi Reddy and D. V. Rao. Many
groups formerly belonging to the CPI(ML) also joined it later.
The three organisations—West Bengal Co-ordination Com¬
mittee of Revolutionaries [WBCCR] and the All India Prepa¬
ratory Committee, Communist Unity Centre (Marxist-Leninist)
[AIPC, CUC(ML)] and APRCC merged together in April 1975
to form the UCCRI(ML). During the Emergency, because of
differences within the organisation regarding the role of its
General Secretary, D. V. Rao—most of the UCCRI(ML)
members outside Andhra dissociated themselves from D. V.
Rao group and now function under the same name. The
document is of this latter section. An important inclusion in
the Appendix is Subroto Datta’s ‘One divides into two’.
We have tried to make the DOCUMENTS section as
representative as possible. Still, however, we lay no claim as
to the total representation of all the groups and of all their
view-points. We are also aware that shortcomings may have
crept in, not only because of the inexperience of the editors in
this field but also because of the lack of a predecessor work of
exactly this nature.
CONTENTS
DEBATES
Strategy and Tactics

Indian Maoism—Two Shades ?
—Mallikarjuna Rao ... f
Letter—Morris Roy ... 8
The general line in Colonial Revolution
—Rafiqul Islam ... 12
Letter—A Reader ... 21
The Srikakulam story—Narayana Murthi ... 23
Letter—A Kisan worker ... 27
Andhra Pradesh : Analysis of a Split
■—A Correspondent ... 28
Vote and Revolution—Arun Kumar Roy ... 37
Letter—Sudarshan Chatterjee ... 47
Communists—Simple, Marxist and Revolutionary
—Arun Kumar Roy ... 50
CPI(M)’s Revolutionary Teaching—Digvijay ... 66
On the Thoughts of Charu Majumdar
—B. Upadhyay ... 71
Individual terrorism & Marxism—Ashim Mitra ... 76
Letter—Chandranath Chakraborty ... 80
The Naxalite Tactical line—Abhijnan Sen ... 82
Naxalite Tactics in cities—Abhijnan Sen ... 88
Two Deaths (Letter)—S. Roy ... 96
Two Deaths (Letter)—Arun Majumdar ... 99
Appraisal
Naxalbari : between yesterday and to-morrow
—Sumanta Banerjee *« 100
CPI(ML) : the twilight hour—A Correspondent 109
Naxalbari and After : An appraisal
—Prabhat Jana ••• 117
The Main danger—Baburaj ••• 129
‘The Main danger’—Prabhat Jana ••• 137
‘The Main danger’—Arun Goswami ... 145
What’s to be done'—K. G. 148
Class Struggle—Moni Guha •. • 152
Letter—Arun Goswami ... 155
The main dangers and the main errors
—Rafikul Hassan ... 157
Continuity of Naxalbari—Bhabani Chowdhuri ... 169
DOCUMENTS
Carry forward the peasant struggle by fighting

revisionism—Charu Majumdar ... 177
Spring Thunder over India
—People's Daily editorial ••• 188
Declaration of the revolutionaries of the CPI(M) ... 193
Second Declaration of A1CCCR ... 196
Resolution on Elections (AICCCR) ... 201
Report on the peasant movement in the
Terai region—Kanu Sanyal ... 203
It is time to form the Party (AICCCR) ... 227
I mmediate Programme (APRCC) ... 231
Political Resolution, CPI(ML) ... 251
Resolution on Party Organisation, CPI(ML) 263
A Critique of the Political Resolution (• • • 274
Programme of the CPI(ML), Party Congress
May 1970 ••• 275
Political Organisational Report, Party Congress
May 1970 • 285
On the Political Organisational Report
—Charu Majumdar ... 291
Problems and Crises of Indian Revolution
—Sushital Roy Chowdhury ... 296
How the people can be mobilised in Guerilla
warfare >m 313
A note on Party’s work in Urban areas
A note on Party’s work in Rural areas
Majumdar’s last writing—Charu Majumdar ... 320
Open Letter
—Kanu Sanyal, Chowdhary Tejeswara Rao,
Souren Bose, Nagabhushan Patnaik, Kolia
Venkaiah, D. Bhuban Mohan Patnaik ... 322
More about Naxalbari—Kanu Sanyal ... 326
New controversies in the name of ‘More about
Naxalbari’—Kolia Venkaiah ... 347
The first conference of the APRCP ... 371
Present situation and immediate tasks ... 374
“Unite to build a single party’
—S. N. Singh, P. Vasudeva Rao,
Ramanarsiah, Chandra Pulla
Reddy ... 380
Hold High the Genuine Lessons of Naxalbari
—Ashim Chatterjee ... 383
On the Situation and our Tasks ... 393
Resolution ‘On Elections’ ... 400
On United Front ... 410
Editorial, Deshabrati ... 412
Appendix
One Divides into Two
—Subroto Datta (Jahar) ... 419
Index
DEBATES
Strategy And Tactics
INDIAN MAOISM—TWO SHADES ?
MALLIKARJUNA RAO
The first recorded debate in the world communist move¬

ment on the legitimacy of Mao Tsetung’s theories as part of
Marxism-Leninism took place in India in 1948-49 and the first
open denunciation of these theories as alien to Marxism-Lenin¬
ism came from the General Secretary of the Communist Party
of India, B. T. Ranadive, in 1949. In the wake of the “Left
sectarian” deviation at the Calcutta (Second) Congress of the
CPI, early in 1948, the Andhra communists, who were already
leading an armed struggle of the Telengana peasantry, turned
to Mao Tsetung’s New Democracy (published in 1944) in their
•search for revolution based on a four-class alliance and the
tactic of peasant partisan warfare. Ranadive, who advocated
the new-fangled theory of the “intertwining” of the two stages
of revolution and wanted the entire bourgeoisie to be fought,
had to extend his polemic to reach the very source of the
Andhra communist heresy—Mao Tsetung himself. Ranadive
wrote : “...we must state emphatically that the Communist
Party of India has accepted Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as
the authoritative sources of Marxism. It has not discovered
new sources of Marxism beyond these. Nor for that matter is
there any communist party which declares adherence to the so-
called theory of new democracy alleged to be propounded by
Mao and declares it to be a new addition to Marxism.” Rana¬
dive was equating Mao Tsetung with Tito and Earl Browder
when he said it was “impossible for communists to talk lightly
about new discoveries, enrichment, because such claims have
2 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IP
proved to be a thin cloak for revisionism.” The Andhracom-

munists were invoking Mao Tsetung in June 1948, when what
now is regarded as Mao’s theories or known as Maoism had
not been formalised under this nomenclature. The Chinese
revolution had not yet triumphed fully and the People’s Re¬
public of China had not been founded when the Andhra com¬
munists hailed Mao Tsetung’s New Democracy and regarded
him as a new source of Marxism.
Twenty years later, the wheel has turned a full circle. The
Communist Party of India split into two in 1964. The Com¬
munist Party of India (Marxist), formed in 1964, rejected at
its Eighth Congress (December 1968) an amendment to its
political resolution requiring it to accept Mao Tsetung’s
thought as the Marxism-Leninism of the present epoch. Later,
in May 1969, its Politbureau suggested that the analysis of the
world situation contained in the main document of the Eighth
Congress of the Communist Party of China had nothing to do
with Marxism-Leninism.
With this the polarisation in the Indian communist move¬
ment was complete. The CPI and the CPI(M) constitute the
non-Maoist or anti-Maoist wing. The Communist Party of
India (Marxist-Leninist), formed in April 1969, is the only
organised Maoist party in India though it cannot claim to
represent the majority of Maoists in the country. The Revolu¬
tionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh as well as
other formations have chosen to keep out of the new party.
The Communist Party of China conferred “recognition” on the
CPI(ML) by reprinting excerpts from its political resolution in
the People’s Daily (July 2 1969). But there are two principal
shades of Maoism in India—one represented by the CPI(ML)
and the other by the Andhra Maoists.
There is broad agreement among the various Indian Maoist
groups on the international general line. There is also broad
agreement among them on the stage of the Indian revolution,
though the CPI(ML) identifies it as the people’s democratic
stage [semantically this is in agreement with the CPI(M)’s] while
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS J
the Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh

calls it the new-democratic stage.
The first point of difference begins with the very beginning.
The manner in which the CPI(ML) was formed has not met
with approval of many of the Maoist groups. The first coun¬
trywide co-ordination of Maoists took place in the form of the
All-India Co-ordination Committee of the Revolutionaries of
the CPI(M) in November 1967 and it included Maoists who
had left the CPI(M) or had been expelled, as well as those still
in the party. The Co-ordination Committee was not a party^
or even the nucleus of a party, and its sponsors wanted a
party and programme through a process of revolutionary
struggles. After the Burdwan plenum of the CP1(M) in April
1968, the majority of the party’s membership in Andhra
Pradesh was in revolt and the Andhra Pradesh Co-ordination
Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was formed. It
sought affiliation to the All-India Co-ordination Committee a
few months later. But in February 1969, following serious
differences with the Andhra Pradesh unit, the All-India Co¬
ordination Committee disaffiliated the unit.
Alongside, at the same meeting (February 1969), the AICC-
CR decided to go ahead with the formation of a new party,
contrary to its own views earlier against any hasty step towards
the goal. For instance, in May 1968, the AICCCR, reviewing
the year since Naxalbari, renewed its call for building a “true
communist party” in the course of Naxalbari-type struggles,
for “revolution can not be victorious without a revolutionary
party”. But Charu Majumdar, the principal theoretician of
the AICCCR, was not sure that the time had come for the
formation of a new party. He wrote that “the primary condi¬
tions for building up a revolutionary party is to organise armed
struggle in the countryside” and that a Maoist party cannot be
formed merely by gathering together “the various so-called
Marxists who profess the thought of Chairman Mao Tsetung
and revolt against leadership of the party...”
But in February 1969, the AICCCR leadership decided on
4 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
the immediate formation of the party. Its resolution said that

an excellent revolutionary situation existed in the country and
there was growing unity of revolutionary ranks. The political
and organisational needs of a fast developing struggle could no
longer be met by a co-ordination committee because “without
a revolutionary party, there can be no revolutionary discipline
and without revolutionary discipline the struggles cannot be
raised to a higher level.” Its earlier idea that a party should
be formed only “after all the opportunist tendencies, alien
trends and undesirable elements have been purged through
class struggle is nothing but subjective idealism. To conceive
of a party without contradictions, without the struggle between
the opposites, i.e. to think of a pure faultless party is to
indulge in idealist fantasy.” Thus the CPI(ML) was formed
from above. Kanu Sanyal said at the Calcutta Maidan rally on
May 1, 1969, that those who speak of building a party through
struggle are indulging in petty-bourgeois romanticism.
In contrast, the Revolutionary Communist Committee of
Andhra Pradesh (formerly the State Co-ordination Committee
of Communist Revolutionaries) believes in building a party in
the course of revolutionary struggle. It has taken a decision
in principle to form a party but thinks, as its journal, Janci-
sakti, made it clear, that revolutionary action should precede
the formation of a revolutionary party.
But the differences between the CPI(ML) and the Andhra
Maoists relate primarily to the tactical line. The first difference
is over the principal contradiction in India. The second differ¬
ence, obviously an off-shoot of the first, relates to the form of
struggle. Or, more specifically, to three sub-issues : Is guerilla
warfare the only form of struggle in the present stage in India ?
Is there any need for mass organisation to carry on the demo¬
cratic struggle ? Should a Maoist party be a secret organisa¬
tion ?
These are the issues being debated within and among the
various Maoist groups in India, including the Andhra Maoist
group.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 5
The CPI (ML)’s political resolution identifies the principal

contradiction in India as between feudalism and the masses
of the peasantry, and the immediate task as people’s democratic
revolution, the main component of which is agrarian revolution
to end feudalism. “Comprador-bureaucratic capitalism and
United States and Soviet imperialism”, being the main props of
feudalism, have to be fought too. Some of the other groups
think imperialism is the main enemy and feudalism and com¬
prador bourgeoisie survive only with the help of imperialism.
The Immediate Programme of the RCC of Andhra says that
India is a “neo-colony” exploited by the U.S., British and
Soviet imperialists and along with imperialism, feudalism is
also an exploiting force. “The task of the new-democratic
revolution is to destroy imperialism, feudalism, comprador
bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic capitalism i.e., the big bour¬
geoisie and then to establish a new-democratic State”.
The CPI(ML)’s class strategy is one of a “revolutionary
front of all revolutionary classes” according to its political
resolution, which commends Mao Tsetung’s theory of people’s,
war as the only means of struggle. It says, “If the poor and
landless peasants, who constitute the majority of the peasantry,,
the firm ally of the working class, unite with the middle
peasants, then the vast section of the people will be united and.
the democratic revolution will inevitably win victory. It is the
responsibility of the working class as the leader of the revolu¬
tion to unite with the peasantry—the main force of the revolu¬
tion—and advance towards seizure of power through armed
struggle. It is on the basis of worker-peasant alliance that a
revolutionary united front of all classes will be built up.” But
the party does not seem to be clear as to how to achieve the task
of building a “revolutionary front of all revolutionary classes”.
The CPI(ML)'s documents repeatedly emphasise guerilla
warfare waged by the peasantry against the landlords as the
only form of struggle in the present stage of revolution. There
is little mention of the need for mass organisations or for
an agrarian programme as a concommitant of peasant struggle.
To go by published material, an article by Charu Majumdar

in Ghatana Prabaha (Vol. II, No. 1) is revealing. Rejecting
the ideas of a mass organisation, he advocates the building of a
secret organisation through which the poor and landless
peasants can establish their leadership of the peasant move¬
ment. “Obviously all the peasants do not at first wage guerilla
war ; it is started by the advanced, class conscious section.
So at the beginning, it may appear to be the struggle of a
handful of people. It is not the Che (Guevara)-style guerilla
war because this war is started not by relying on weapons
but on the co-operation of the unarmed people. So this
struggle could be started only by propagating the politics
of seizure of power among the peasantry and this task can be
achieved by the party unit formed of poor and landless peasants.
The party unit can fulfil this task only by organising guerilla
war by poor and landless peasants ...Guerilla war is the only
tactic of the peasants’ revolutionary struggle. This cannot
be achieved by any mass organisation through open struggle.”
(Italics added)
The main criticism by other Maoist groups is that the CPI
(ML)’s line of thinking is opposed to Mao Tsetung’s thought
because by considering armed struggle by the peasantry as the
only form of struggle, it is minimising or even ignoring the
role of the working class and the tasks in the urban areas and
the role of mass organisations.
As for the Andhra RCC, the emphasis is not on armed
clashes with the landlords and the State authority through a
handful of revolutionaries but on mass armed struggles. A
statement on armed struggle (July 1969) notes that “only
through mass revolutionary rallies, revolutionary organisation
and mass armed struggle we can dissolve the present big land¬
lord-big bourgeois imperialist system.”
The contours of the revolutionary front the Andhra RCC
has in view are : “The working class will lead the united front.
Along with workers and peasants, middle classes and (the)
national bourgeoisie will also be in this united front”, to
IDEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 7
achieve the new-democratic revolution. The line is based on

the inseparable relationship between the party, armed struggle
and united front.
A document, devoted to examining the RCC’s differences
with the Srikakulam unit affiliated to the CPI(ML), on the
conduct of the Girijan armed struggle in Srikakulam tribal
tract, clearly declares that to begin guerilla struggle partici¬
pation of the masses is a necessary condition. An agrarian
programme is the basis of all peasant struggle. According
to the RCC, the starting, development, consolidation and
extension of all the struggles of the peasantry would have to be
based on an “agrarian revolutionary programme”. Liberation
for the peasantry means liberation from the landlord-imperia¬
list system. Though complete liberation is possible only after
the establishment of base areas, seizure of power throughout
India and after the establishment of a new-democratic
government, “liberation begins with the starting of class
struggles, with the starting of anti-landlord struggles, with
the starting, of the Agrarian Revolutionary Programme”,
according to the document.
On the call for boycott of elections the RCC’s Immediate
Programme urges action to implement the RCC’s earlier
decision to boycott the panchayat elections in Andhra Pradesh.
It is not a mere question of the Revolutionary Communists
boycotting the poll but one of persuading the people not
to participate in the elections. “To achieve this we must
mainly depend on the consciousness and organising capacity
of the people. No short-cut methods are to be allowed
or treaded”, it warns, because “we must specify that the issue
at hand is not mere boycott of elections by the people” but
one of convincing them that people’s war is the path for them
and that the village soviets and people’s committees would
constitute the foundation of the “new people’s democratic
revolutionary State” in the villages and provide the leadership
ifor implementing the agrarian programme.
The RCC thinks that its attempt to give a positive content
8 NAXALBARIAND AFTER VOL U
to the slogan of election boycott at the grassroots level gives a

new dimension to the concept of organising the peasantry for
action. Where the RCC commands the majority following in
a panchayat village, boycott of elections would lead to an
unprecedented situation. The majority will be outside the
government-sponsored panchayat committee and form their own
parallel “people’s committee”. The people’s committees in the
“boycott” villages will function in competition with the govern¬
ment-sponsored committees, the sanction coming from the
majority of the people. These committees will undertake law,
revenue, village defence (against attacks of landlords or govern¬
ment machinery) tasks and when the peasant struggles move
to higher forms, would become the village soviets. These com¬
mittees would also work as the united front committees, initiate
and carry out agrarian reform and will play their role in the
armed struggle. Revolutionary Communists would dominate
these committees and provide the leadership but these would
have the participation of agricultural labour and the poor
peasants and others. As the movement goes ahead, a few
representatives of the rich peasants might be taken in. But
these committees are to have a clear class outlook and ideo¬
logy.
The Immediate Programme clearly emphasises the role of
mass organisations for the peasantry, working class, students
and other sections of the people. In contrast, the CPI(ML)
seems to have a distrust of mass organisations and urban areas
in general.
July 4, 1970
Letter
Apropos Mr Mallikarjuna Rao’s “Indian Maoism—Two

Shades ?” (July 4) Mr Charu Majumdar, in 1968, said that
“the primary condition for building up a revolutionary party is
to organise armed struggle in the countryside.” Even in 1968,.
armed guerilla struggle was started in Srikakulam and other
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 9‘
parts of Andhra Pradesh. But Nagi Reddy and his groups,

the principal initiators of the Revolutionary Communist Com¬
mittee of Andhra Pradesh, refused to join this struggle and in
every possible way discouraged it. As the political and orga¬
nisational needs of a fast developing struggle could no longer
be met by a Co-ordination Committee, the party was formed
at the initiative of the struggling comrades. As Nagi Reddy
and his group did not join the struggle and, in fact, opposed
it, they were naturally excluded from the party.
Secondly, Mr Rao has described the CPI(ML)’s stand
about the principal contradiction in India as between feudalism
and the masses of peasantry, but the ‘Immediate Programme’
of theRCCof Andhra, as described by Mr Rao, fails to present
any concrete analysis of the principal contradiction in India.
Regarding the building of a “revolutionary front of all
revolutionary classes,” the CPI(ML) has made it clear that only
in the course of struggle can such a revolutionary front be
achieved.
Further, Mr Rao said that contrary to the thesis of the
CPI(ML) that guerilla warfare waged by the peasantry against
the landlords as the only form of struggle in the present
stage of revolution, the Andhra RCC’s emphasis is not on
armed clashes with the landlord and the State authority thro¬
ugh a handful of revolutionaries but on mass armed struggles.
But the problem, which I presume the Andhra RCC has for¬
gotten, is to establish red political power and base areas in the
countryside. About this particular matter, the CPI(ML) said
that armed guerilla struggle and annihilation of feudal lords
and their henchmen is the only way.
Is the accusation of the Andhra RCC that clashes with the
landlords and the State authority are indulged in by a ‘handful’
of revolutionaries true ? Take the case of armed guerilla stru¬
ggle in Srikakulam, Mushahari, Lakhimpur-Kheri and Debra-
Gopiballavpur which are going on under the leadership of the
CPI(ML). The participation by hundreds of people in giving
shelter and food, in collecting intelligence and information
about the enemy’s position, guarantee of passage for retreat

and advance of the guerillas and the participation of the peo¬
ple in the attack and celebration of victories after a successful
attack, the functioning of the Krishak Samitis and People’s
Courts—are all these manifestations of isolated actions by a
handful of revolutionaries and virtual withdrawal from mass
organisations ? The establishment of red political power in
these areas is a clear indication of the fact that the CPI(ML)
has done intensive political propaganda and mass work before
any action.
The Andhra RCC said that “only through mass revolu¬
tionary rallies, revolutionary organisation and mass armed
struggle we can dissolve the present big landlord-big bourgeois
imperialist system”. But how will this mass armed struggle
against the landlord-bourgeois-imperialist system be effected ?
The Andhra RCC lacks any cohesive analysis on this point.
Do they mean that a revolutionary mass upsurge with sponta¬
neity will be directed against the landlords ? But then the
open nature of this struggle would expose the party apparatus
and defeat the purpose of secret political propoganda by the
party units. The Andhra RCC should learn the lessons of the
Naxalbari upsurge which was something of a mass upsurge
in which spontaneity and mass initiative far outweighed the
planning and discipline of a revolutionary movement. With¬
out proper politicalisation, military experience and discipline,
the movement suffered setbacks in the face of police repres¬
sion. The very open nature of the preparation for armed
struggle must also have exposed the party apparatus. Kanu
Sanyal, drawing the necessary lesson, suggested that in the
next phase of struggle the revolutionaries will set up party
units which will not only be armed but will also be “trained to
maintain secrecy.” Such units will propagate Mao’s thoughts,
-intensify class struggle and as guerilla units strike and annihi¬
late class enemies. They will follow the basic tactics of guerilla-
warfare as enunciated by Mao. Significantly enough, in the
statement of the RCC, detailed by Mr Rao, there is no
mention of the annihilation of class enemies. Mao laid it

-down that the fundamental guiding principle of all military
operations should be “war of annihilation.”
The CPI (ML) never disregarded any mass organisation or
economic movements. As Mr Charu Majumdar has pointed
out, “...We do not say that we shall never wage struggles for
economic demands. What we say is that political propaganda
and building party organisations are the foremost and main
tasks before us.” (Fight against Revisionism, Liberation No.
11, Vol 2, September 1969.) Read also his “Our Party’s Tasks
Among the Workers.” Regarding the work in the urban
areas, the CPI(ML) has clearly given directions to launch demo¬
cratic movements in support of armed agrarian revolution in
the countryside. Contrary to the allegation that the CPI(ML)
is minimising or even ignoring the role of the working class,
its Political Resolution said, “It is the responsibility of the
working class as the leader and vanguard of the revolution to
unite with the principal force of revolution i.e., the peasantry
and to seize power by way of armed struggle.” Mr Charu
Majumdar, in his article ‘To the Working Class,’ (Liberation,
No. 5, Vol. 3, March 1970) said, “Today the masses of workers
should think of the hundreds of millions of poor and landless
peasants who have been exploited and oppressed for centuries
and who now find their conditions unendurable. The working
class can earn for itself a status of dignity in society, a status
which it is entitled to as the producer of wealth, only by over¬
throwing the crushing burden of exploitation...Once the
workers and the peasants, the producers of wealth, are united,
a tremendous force will be generated which will make it
possible to accomplish the People’s Democratic Revolution,
and then to establish the socialist system in India by destroying
the exploiters and the system of exploitation. It is the working
. class that must shoulder the responsibility of realising this
possibility and must assume the leadership.”
How can political consciousness be instilled among the
• working class who are infatuated with economism ? This
12 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL JL
will not happen automatically. This can be effected only by

intensifying the armed struggle in the rural sector, by which
the capitalist-agent nature of the CPM and the CPI will be
exposed before the urban workers. Reference may be made
to the penetration of the CPI(ML) among the working class of
Jamshedpur, which has become possible only because of its
armed guerilla struggle in the rural areas of Bihar.
August 1, 1970 MORRIS ROY
THE GENERAL LINE IN COLONIAL

REVOLUTION
RAFIQUL ISLAM
Mao Tsetung’s leadership over the revolutionary war now

being waged in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been firmly
established through the experiences of the people themselves.
The general principles of the Chinese path to revolution have
been found to apply equally to all colonial countries and any
attempt to evade them has inevitably led the revolutionaries
to defeat or to capitulation.
But that does not mean that all colonial revolutions must
be carbon copies of the Chinese revolution. Marxism does
not permit this kind of ritual. As Mao himself said :
“...how to turn Marxism into something specifically
Chinese, to imbue every manifestation of it with Chinese
characteristics i.e., to apply it in accordance with China’s
characteristics, becomes a problem which the whole Party
must understand and solve immediately.for the fresh
and lovely things of Chinese style and Chinese flavour which
the common folk of China love to see and hear.”
(The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the
National War)
Similarly the Indian revolutionary must of necessity “imbue

every manifestation” with Indian characteristics, and clothe
the theory of revolution in Indian style and Indian flavour.
The Red political power can exist in a liberated zone, and
that such a zone must necessarily be created for protracted
civil war, and that such a zone is an inevitable feature of
■colonial revolution, can no longer be disputed. But the five
conditions listed by Mao for the emergence and survival of
such parallel Red power in China must be carefully studied,
and differences with our country taken note of, rather than—
as a wag commented recently—“passing off dung-heaps in
Sonarpur as mountain hideouts.”
The first condition was China’s semi-colonial state and that
she was under indirect imperialist rule—a condition fully
-satisfied in the Indian situation today. But Mao goes on to
qualify this condition with reference to “prolonged splits and
wars within the White regime” (See Why is it that Red politi¬
cal power can Exist in China ?). Chinese revolutionaries
took brilliant advantage of these splits and wars. Now, even
by stretching sophistry to its limit, one cannot find a parallel of
the wars among the Chinese warlords in this country. The
splits and miniature coups of the Indian ruling classes hold no
promise yet that an uprising will not immediately unite them.
The sinister unity at all levels from Delhi to Calcutta in
suppressing Naxalbari and brutally murdering women and
children proves that the reactionaries also learn from experi¬
ence and the Indian rulers today need not behave as their
Chinese counterparts did in 1927.
Mao’s second condition refers to the strength of the bour¬
geois-democratic revolution in the areas where Red power
rose, the formation of trade unions and peasants’ associations
“on a wide scale” prior to armed uprising. This is an aspect
almost entirely rejected by several groups, and notably, the
CPI(ML). Their resolutions refer to “guerilla warfare” as
the “only” form of struggle. (They attribute it to Lin Piao,
who had merely used the expression in the military sense.
14 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IT
describing guerilla warfare as the only method of mobilizing

the masses when the people’s army is already in action.)
They have repeatedly declared through their organs that they
consider the economic struggle of the peasantry to be a “revi¬
sionist” diversion of revolutionary energy ; currently they are
dubbing trade unions as part of the capitalist establishment.
But Mao Tsetung never said that armed struggle is the “only”
form of struggle. He said :
“Our Party was able to co-ordinate directly or indirectly
the armed struggle, the principal form of struggle, with
many other necessary forms of struggle...the struggle of
the workers, the struggle of the peasants (this is the main
thing), the struggles of the youth, the women and all other
sections of the people, the struggle for political power, the
struggle on the economic front, the struggle on the espionage
front, the struggle on the ideological front, and other forms
of struggle.”
(Introductory Remarks to the ‘Communist'. Italics added.)
Thus, Mao Tsetung has been surreptitiously revised, the
word “principal” has been removed and the word “only”
slipped in ; and this has been done in order to justify the total
rejection of work on all other fronts, the virtual withdrawal
of our comrades from mass organisations, and the disastrous
tendency, carefully cultivated, of “starting action” somewhere,
somehow, even though no preliminary work has been done
there to turn the “action” into a struggle for building abase
area. The precondition for Red political power in any area
is “peasant association” etc. according to Mao. By rejecting
all frontal work, our comrades here have openly announced
that they do not want the so-called “actions” to lead to Red
political power. Or they are trying to tell us that Mao Tse¬
tung is wrong and that they have discovered a new method
of jumping over frontal work straight at armed struggle and
Red power !
While Mao’s third condition'—the development of nation¬
wide revolutionary situation—obtains even more acutely today
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 15 '
in every country, the fourth and fifth conditions are cons¬

picuous by their absence in India : the existence of a Red
Army, and a strong and correct Communist Party. We have
no Red Army yet, and we have the beginnings of a Party that
has already begun to revise Mao.
But does this mean that Red political power cannot be
established in India ? Certainly not. However, the condi¬
tions for the rise of Indian Yenans must be calculated from
Indian conditions and the present epoch. Herein is the first
necessity of looking for Indian characteristics, the study of
peculiarly Indian contradictions.
The CPI(ML) has once more solved this question by
misquoting Mao. It has declared :
“In the present stage, the principal contradiction in our
country is between feudalism and our peasant masses. In
this stage, the Indian revolution is the new type of democra¬
tic revolution—people’s democratic revolution...”
(Translated from Bengali)
Two misrepresentations in one paragraph ! Never has
Mao said that at a stage when imperialism is indirectly exploi¬
ting a country the principal contradiction is between “feuda¬
lism and the peasant masses.” On the contrary, he explicitly
states that at such times the principal contradiction is between
“the masses” on the one hand and “the alliance of imperialism
and the feudal classes” on the other. (On Contradiction)
Lin Piao also stresses “the Chinese people” as a whole,
and probably never imagined that anyone calling himself a
revolutionary could distort this into “peasant masses.” (See
Long Live the Victory of the People's War). Mao’s “masses”
has-become “peasant masses” in our comrades’ formulation,
and “the alliance of imperialism and feudal classes” has become
simply “feudalism” ! How they can talk about a semi-colonial
country and in the same breath exclude all reference to
imperialism as an enemy is a mystery.
Furthermore, it is gross distortion of the thoughts of Mao
to say that “in the present stage...in the stage of people’s
democratic revolution,” the principal contradiction constantly

remains the same. Mao has pointed out, how the imperialists
will inevitably pass into direct aggression and then the princi¬
pal contradiction of the previous period will become non¬
principal, and the contradiction between imperialism and the
entire people will become principal. To assert that the
“feudalism-peasant masses” contradiction will remain principal
right through the stage of people’s democratic revolution is to
deny that imperialism is bound to pass into naked aggression
when its lackeys fail to suppress revolution.
Why has it been necessary for them to replace Mao’s
“masses” with “peasant masses” ? Naturally to exclude all
other classes from the struggle, to deny the necessity of a
democratic, revolutionary front, without which, according to
Mao, there can be no revolution. It is obvious to any one that
the entire crisis in India springs from the feudal system.
It is obvious that this system keeps about seventy per
cent of the people of India deprived of purchasing power,
with the result that industries retrench and close down, the
worker is thrown out of employment, the student faces the
prospect of starvation and the commuter that of losing his job
tomorrow. It is obvious that even the smaller producers
can not market their goods and the shopkeeper can not sell his
ware, as long as the vast majority of the people, the peasants,
do not buy. It is obvious therefore that feudalism is the enemy
not only of the peasants, but of all classes and therefore the
broadest possible front can be built against this common
scourge. That is exactly what our CPI(ML) comrades have all
along rejected—the necessity of building a united front. Hence
their abstruse, negative slogans scribbled on city walls : Agri¬
cultural revolution is the way to liberty ! Naturally therefore
the petty bourgeois of the city fails to understand how the
peasants’ struggle concerns him. No one is bothering to tell
him that his job depends on the victory over feudalism, that he
should join this struggle not to help the peasant to a plot of
land, but for his own economic survival.
debates and documents 17
Why have our comrades, twice in one paragraph, tried

to shield the role of imperialism in the forced backwardness of
India ? Why are they going to the length of revising Mao to
obliterate all references to “the alliance between imperialism
and the feudal classes”, when everyone knows the sordid
history of American fertilizer-factories to strengthen the feudals
in India ? Everyone knows the disgrace of a Five Year Plan
held up at U.S. orders.
Everyone is familiar with the abolition of export duties on
iron, manganese and jute, for the sake of American exploiters.
Everyone knows the economics of food shortage so that the
USA can sell wheat to India. It is obvious that the feudal
economy in India is primarily in U. S, interests so that she
remains a supplier of raw materials. And therefore the
principal contradiction, according to Mao, even when imperia¬
list exploitation is indirect, is always between the people on
one side and “the alliance between imperialism and the feudal
classes” on the other, and never abstract “feudalism”.
It is being frequently said that only during direct aggression
by imperialism ( a phase totally ignored by ML theoreticians )
does imperialism make its appearance at one end of the con¬
tradiction ; and that during indirect exploitation it is only
feudalism that is the enemy. Mao never said so. He said, even
during indirect exploitation, imperialism is still the enemy, the
Lidden enemy behind the feudal classes, but that during direct
aggression by imperialism, “foreign imperialism and domestic
reaction stand quite openly at one end of the pole...”
Clear, one would think. The difference between the phases
of indirect and direct aggression is not one of absence of im¬
perialism from the principal contradiction, but only that of
whether it is hidden or “standing openly.”
To the ML comrades, of course, all this has no meaning.
To them the entire people’s democratic revolution can be com¬
pleted without any thought of imperialism. To them LinPiao’s
clear instruction that any country that wants revolution, freedom
and peace must necessarily aim its spearhead at U. S. imperia-
Vol II—2
18 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IP
lism, is nonsense. To them, the Chinese Communist Party’s

repeated warning like the following are mere phrases :
“Two outstanding facts since World War II are that
the imperialists and the reactionaries are everywhere
reinforcing their apparatus of violence for cruelly suppress¬
ing the masses and that imperialism headed by the United
States is conducting counter-revolutionary armed interventi¬
on in all parts of the world.”
(The Proletarian Revolution and Krushchev’s Revi¬
sionism).
The ML comrades are not interested in such assessments of
the role of the imperialist “gendarmerie.” They are sure there
will be no direct aggression, and while there is only indirect
exploitation, feudalism is the only enemy !
But if we are aware of imperialism as the real master
behind the feudals and the big bourgeoisie, we would at once
be conscious of another major contradiction which is peculiarly
Indian. This is a multinational federation of States, and the
people’s struggle is increasingly assuming the form of asserting
the right of self-determination, of struggle against the central
power. It is obvious that the principal instrument whereby
imperialism exploits India is the Central Government, and the
retention at all costs of the federal structure is meant to serve
the interests of imperialism. The armed forces, with which a
parallel Red power must at once come into conflict, is under the
control of the Centre, and even talk of secession can be puni¬
shed by 15 years in prison. It is obvious that the disintegra¬
tion of this federation will immediately force the hidden
imperialist into the open, and we shall enter the phase of
national patriotic war against imperialism. The Chinese
Communist Party has repeatedly come out in support of the
Kashmiri people’s rights and even the Telengana struggle.
Our comrades in Calcutta have merely repeated these declara¬
tions, but have scrupulously refrained from applying the lessons
in the country at large. They have nothing to say about the
Punjabi, or the Maharashtrian, or the Bengali people’s rights.
In fact, the ML political resolution has not a word to say about

national rights and the role of communists in a people’s
struggle for self-determination, in spite of the clear general
line of colonial revolution.
If the communists fail to seize the leadership of these
movements, the fascists will. But the leading theoretician of
the CPI(ML) has declared in print that communists should
not lead movements for national self-determination (.Desha-
brati, May 30, 1968, P. 5). What has this in common with
Mao’s teaching that “in the final analysis national struggle is
class struggle” (See Peking Review, No. 16 of 1968, P. 13) ?
What has this in common with the general line laid down by
the Chinese Party ?
History has entrusted to the proletarian parties in these
areas (i. e. Asia, Africa and Latin America) the glorious
mission of holding high the banner of struggle against
imperialism..., of standing in the forefront of the national
democratic revolutionary movement... It is of primary
importance for advanced members of the proletariat to
work in the rural areas, help the peasants to get organized
and raise their class consciousness and their national self-
respect and self-confidence.
(General Line of the International Communist Move¬
ment, C.C., C.P.C., 1963. Italics added)
But of course, if imperialism does not even exist in our
assessment of the whole period of democratic revolution,
naturally China’s lead will fall on deaf ears and the ML
Party can set itself up against Mao Tsetung.
But if at the present stage we recognise “the alliance of
imperialism and the feudal classes” as the enemy, and if we
are sure that direct aggression by imperialism is inevitable
in the near future, a little more humility will assert itself, and
we shall not have the audacity to reject outright the experi¬
ences of the Chinese Communist Party. We shall then see
that the feudals in the Indian countryside can be exposed
before the peasants not only as class enemies, but also as
national enemies ; not only as exploiters, but also as traitors.

All classes then will rally against the reactionaries, who are
not only impoverishing the masses, but have also sold the
country’s freedom to the imperialists. Class struggle and
patriotic struggle will then merge into one, under the hegemony
of the proletariat. It can then take the road—a road already
taken spontaneously by the masses—of organized destruction
of the federal structure that serves the interests of imperialism.
Only in this manner can people’s democratic revolution be
the continuation of the long freedom struggle against British
tyranny. Only in this manner is it possible to release a mass
upsurge of all exploited classes in defence of national interests.
Only in this manner can guarantees be created for the emer¬
gence and survival of Red power in liberated zones in India.
Armed struggle must be the spearhead of a vast movement
of the masses, led by the working class, for people’s demo¬
cracy as well as national independence. Without a people’s
army the people have nothing, said Mao. Such an army is
not created by so-called mobile units “starting” something
somewhere ; the guerilla grows out of the people and is
sustained by the people, sheltered and nurtured by them. The
guerilla must symbolize the highest aspirations of the people
in order that the people may rally round him. In short, the
guerilla, and finally the soldier of the people’s army, must be
the man who defends not only the people’s home, land, food,
democracy, but also their “national self-respect.”
The struggle in Srikakulam fills us with hope that the party
which is leading it will sooner or later establish itself on the
road to revolution which has been lit up by the thoughts of
Mao Tsetung. But their activities and quixotic tilts at Mao in
this part of the country stand in sharp contrast to the war-cry
of the guerillas of Andhra.
October 18, 1969
Letter
Mr Rafiqul Islam distorts the political resolution of the

CPI(ML). This resolution clearly states that “the Indian
people will have to wage a bitter, protracted struggle against
U.S. and Soviet social-imperialism too. By liberating them¬
selves from the yoke of feudalism, the Indian people will
also liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialism and
comprador bureaucratic-capital, because the struggle against
feudalism is also a struggle against the other two enemies.”
Mr Islam in his translation tries to omit the question of
U.S. and Soviet imperialism from the original resolution and
starts his impeachment that the resolution guards and shields
imperialism from the masses and he misquotes Mao to help him
in his game. What Mao said was : “When imperialism launches
a war of aggression against such a country, all its various
classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a
national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contra¬
diction between imperialism and the country concerned be¬
comes the principal contradiction while all other contradictions
among the various classes within the country (including what
was the principal contradiction between the feudal system
and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated
to a secondary and subordinate position”. Does it not prove
that before direct imperialist aggression, the principal contra¬
diction in China was between the feudal system and the great
masses of the people ?
The CPI(ML) leader, Mr Charu Majumdar, has also made
it clear that the Indian people can liberate themselves by over¬
throwing the “four major contradictions in our country today,
contradictions between the Indian people on the one hand
and U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucratic-capital on the other”. (Liberation, Vol. 3, No \).
Rafiqul Islam attempts to vulgarise the entire history of
Marxism-Leninism on the question of national liberation in a
semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The question in India
is one of peasants’ armed struggle under the leadership of the

working class. In 1925, Stalin, in a speech concerning the
national question in Yugoslavia, said, “...the peasantry consti¬
tute the main army of the national movement—there is no
powerful national movement without the peasant army, nor
can there be. That is what is meant when it is said that in
essence the national question is a peasant question.” Quoting
these lines, Mao Tsetung also says in his famous thesis On
New Democracy—“...the Chinese revolution is essentially a
peasant revolution...” In spite of all these facts, Rafiqul Islam
alleges that the CPI(ML) has “nothing to say about the
Punjabi or the Maharashtrian or the Bengali people’s rights”.
He takes a superficial approach to the problem, which fits
parties like the DMK, Shiv Sena etc. As Mao says, “In
the final analysis a national struggle is a question of class
struggle.” So when Rafiqul Islam raises the question of
Punjabis, Bengalis and Maharashtrians without the question
of class, it should be well understood which network he
belongs to.
Again, Rafiqul Islam charges that the CPI(ML) is destroy¬
ing every possibility of building a democratic front and that
it is abandoning and disturbing mass organisations in defiance
of Mao’s instructions. He starts abusing the CPI(ML) for not
organising mass organisations. He starts with an apology
that as there is no Red army there cannot be any Red base.
So the CPI(ML) should now organise mass organisations.
This is the same old cry of the revisionists of all hues. Accord¬
ing to Mao, through guerilla struggles and guerilla activities
a regular army and base area can be established. He says,
“Thus the transformation of a guerilla zone into: a base area
is an arduous creative process, and its accomplishment depends
on the extent to which the enemy is destroyed and the masses
are aroused.”
The CPI(ML) will adhere to the teachings of Chairman
Mao and will tell its cadres, “We are now living in a time when
the principle of ‘going up into the hills’ applies ; meetings.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS
23
work, classes, newspaper publications, the writing of books,

theatrical performances—everything is done up in the hills
and all essentially for the sake of the peasants.”
A READER
February 7, 1970 Calcutta
THE SRIKAKULAM STORY

NARAYANA MURTHI
The struggle in Srikakulam has been caught in the vortex

of a controversy between a group of young enthusiasts encou¬
raged and egged on by the All-India Co-ordination Committee
of Communist Revolutionaries (now called Marxist-Leninist
party) directly leading the struggle in Srikakulam on the one
hand and the State Revolutionary Co-ordination Committee
led by Mr T. Nagi Reddy on the other, guiding the struggle
with his experience of the historic Telengana struggle.
The trouble seems to have started when the All-India Com¬
mittee, while carrying on a discussion with the State Committee
over the ideological and political issues, overran the State
Committee, gave some local enthusiasts the status of a State
Committee and asked it to take the resistance movement
forward to the stage of an armed guerilla struggle without
adequate preparation and without rousing the people to a level
when they can act as an effective cushion against the onslaught
of the police.
It was, however, not merely the organisational controversy
but the very philosophy of armed struggle itself that was
involved.
Here is a published interview with Mr T. Nagi Reddy
about the points of difference :
Q : What are the main differences between the CPI(ML)
and the Andhra State Committee of Revolutionaries ?
A : The first issue is the question of tactics in relation to

people’s war. When does an armed struggle start ? It starts
only as a resistance to the landlord goondas and government
repression and this resistance is in the form of people’s resis¬
tance. Out of this resistance alone, resistance squads are to be
formed. But the CPI(ML) does not bother about this aspect
of people’s participation as a form of resistance to landlord
goondas and police repression. Formation of squads even in
areas where there is no people’s movement at all is their
methodology, which isolates the squads from the masses.
The second difference : People’s war always starts only as-
a form of resistance, not as a form of offensive. Therefore, it
is a battle in defence of their demands, be it for land, be it for
wages. It is a struggle for economic demands, it organises
people to resist the landlord goondas and the government
offensive and it is through this form of resistance that a real
people’s army could be built up in future.
But the method of the CPI(ML) has no relation to people’s
demands and people’s struggles. Without any such relation,
they go in for offensive actions against any and every landlord
even in places where there is no mass movement of any type.
To put it simply, for us it is a matter of resistance, and for
them it is a matter of offensive.
The third difference is on the question of other forms of
struggle. Even though armed struggle is a basic struggle and is
the most important struggle, it is not the only form of struggle
in all places. For example, if Srikakulam can go into armed
struggle to prepare the ground, organisation of people’s cons¬
ciousness towards armed struggle in other areas may have to
be pursued. We will have to take to various forms of struggle,,
according to conditions prevailing in particular places. It
might be a question of wages for agricultural labourer or the
question of share of tenants or a question of distribution of
cultivable waste lands of the government or even a question of
occupation of government lands which are under occupation
of landlords or have been converted into seed farms. In the:
process of these struggles for these demands, we would use

various methods of struggle including the lowest form of
struggle such as signature campaigns, deputations and demon¬
strations, just as we participate in the labour courts and in the
industrial tribunals in the cities. Eventually, all these various
forms of struggle should be conducted in such a manner as to
develop better organisation, consciousness of the people
towards people’s direct participation on the question of land
and other issues, leading to resistance against landlord and
government repression.
But the Marxist-Leninists do not believe in any form of
struggle other than armed struggle in all areas, irrespective of
the strength of the party or the people. It is for this reason
that they gave the call for party units to form themselves into
squads in the coastal districts and to take action against the
landlords.
This type of action, according to the Andhra Committee,,
does not help build up a mass movement even in an area where
such actions take place. Such actions are against the funda¬
mental principles enunciated by Mao in relation to peasants’
armed struggle.
Q : In this background, how do you evaluate the armed
actions in Srikakulam ?
A : Every action in the Parvatipuram Agency area and
Agencies of similar type is real people’s action on the basis of
a movement, which has been built up over a number of issues
including the basic question of land. People’s participation is
evident there and action against landlords is selective.
But in the plains areas, generally, there is neither a people’s
movement nor people’s participation which can sustain those
actions to develop a people’s movement there in future.
Q : Do you agree with the view of the CPI(ML) that the
Srikakulam armed struggle is a national liberation struggle ?
A : Not every armed struggle is a national liberation
struggle immediately, even though every struggle is an em¬
bryonic form of such struggle. To characterise every peasant
struggle as a struggle for power and for national liberation is

to divert the attention and consciousness of the people from
the basic demands of the people. National liberation struggle
becomes a fundamental form of struggle only after a series of
peasant armed actions in various places get coordinated into
a people’s army to fight for national liberation and People’s
Democracy.
Even Peking Radio has characterised the Naxalbari move¬
ment in Bengal as mainly an armed struggle of peasants for
land and as an embryonic struggle for national liberation.
Q : Will actions of the Srikakulam type lead to armed
struggle ?
A : No. There are two reasons : Without a people’s
demand being focussed and people being organised to get those
demands implemented by their own actions, mere actions by
squads divert the attention of the people from the issues on
which they will have to fight.
Secondly, the people are their own liberators under the
leadership of the Communist Party. That means they them¬
selves must form part and parcel of the squads. But the man¬
ner in which this is being implemented by the Naxalites makes
the people feel that liberators are someone else and not them¬
selves. They look to someone for liberation. In consequence,
instead of taking to actions on the basis of their own unity and
organisational strength, they will look to others to do this job
for them and save them from the exploitation of landlords.
The views expressed in this interview indicate that differences
are pretty serious but very clear. Attempts to discuss these
differences with the All-India Co-ordination Committee appear
to have proved futile. It is perhaps this that has made the
section led by Mr Nagi Reddy and like-minded people in other
States including West Bengal to think in terms of forming
another party. It is a sad but stark reality.
September 20, 1969
Letter
Mr T. Nagi Reddy cynically refuses to see the difference

between submitting memoranda and armed struggle for
liberation.
These days, bourgeois reformists, including • revisionists of
all hues, are caught in the vortex of a serious controversy over
the governmental measures of repression and of economic
reform while the heroism of hundreds of youth and thousands
of peasants in Andhra Pradesh is being tested in the concen¬
tration camps at Nuziveedu, Musule, Narasaraopet (Guntur
district) and in the forests and hills. Only in a struggle against
the heavily armed police and in the concentration camps and
bearing in their stride coldblooded tortures inflicted by the
ruling classes, can the revolutionary mettle of the fighting
people be tested. This process will throw out the weakminded
from the revolutionary ranks.
Unlike the Telengana peasant armed struggle of 1946-51
which stands apart for its monumental betrayal by the central
leadership of the then CPI, the bright feature of present
situation in Andhra Pradesh is that such leadership is kept out
of the picture by the revolutionary people themselves.
The points made by Mr Nagi Reddy were raised by
Marxist leaders in their resolutions on left adventurism or left
opportunism of August 1967. The whole controversy was
whether the Naxalbari peasants’ armed struggle could be treated
as a struggle for liberation, whether an armed struggle could
be resorted to before a phase of partial struggle, and parlia¬
mentary struggle etc.
Apparently Mr Reddy wants to confuse issues with econo-
mism and reformism. Contrary to international experience
and the experiences of the Telengana struggle Mr Reddy and
his associates tried their best to dissuade the Srikakulam
district comrades from overcoming economism and reformism
and taking the road of armed struggle for liberation. While
Mao Tsetung has taught that in people’s war, as in all wars.
28 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IF
attack is primary, Mr Reddy and his associates started

teaching that people’s war is “a battle in defence” of people’s
economic demands. International experience proved correct
and stands vindicated ; the Srikakulam peasants’ armed struggle
is a struggle for liberation from feudalism and semi-feudalism ;
though it was initiated in a small area with a small force, it has
engulfed the whole of the district including the plains areas in
Sompet, Bobbili and Takkali taluks. It has spread to Agency
tracts in Telengana and to some plains in Visakhapatnam,
West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts.
November 22, 1969 a kisan worker
ANDHRA PRADESH : ANALYSIS OF A SPLIT

A CORRESPONDENT
Though the police sources are reluctant to say anything

about the differences between the two groups of the State
Revolutionary Communist Party led by Mr Tarimela Nagi
Reddy, and Mr Chandra Pulla Reddy, party circles told this
correspondent that while efforts were being made to bring
about a rapprochement between all the revolutionary groups
in the State, their party (The Revolutionary Communist Party
of Andhra Pradesh) was on the verge of a split.
The polemics in the party started mainly in the last part
of 1970, particularly between the Jail Committee and the
Provincial Committee outside. Though on the surface it may
look that the differences between the jail leaders and the
Provincial Committee started on the correct implementation of
the ‘Immediate Programme’, in fact it had several other reasons.
It may be recalled here that the members, realising that it
was not possible for them to effectively function as PC and
lead the party and the people’s movement from inside the jail.
resolved to dissolve the PC and ceased to function as PC.

They asked the party outside to form a new Provincial
Committee to shoulder the responsibilities of the party and
the people’s movement. Accordingly, a new PC (with the
remaining two members of the old PC and one new member)
was proposed and the proposal was unanimously accepted in
two separate meetings, one being the joint meeting of the forest
area and of all the armed squads, and the other of representa¬
tives of the district committee of the plains area. The new PC
came into existence in July, 1970. For a few months, close
co-ordination between the newly-formed PC and the arrested
leaders was maintained. But by the end of 1970, the jail leaders
began to circulate their own documents without consulting
the PC, and belittling the armed struggle in the Telengana
Agency area. The jail leaders in their document ‘Left Devia¬
tion’ accused the PC that it had violated the line enunciated
in the ‘Immediate Programme’. Volumes of documents were
issued by both sides, each defending its stand.
The Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra
Pradesh functioning outside the jail in a document ‘Defeat the
capitulationist policies of T. Nagi Reddy and Devulapalli
Venkateswara Rao’, says : All the comradely efforts to reconcile
with the jail leaders proved futile and the whole ideological
discussion with them was of no avail. The jail leaders who are
now on bail are openly criticising in public the revolutionary
movement in the Telengana Agency area and have denounced
it when the enemy was employing every means, political and
military, to suppress the armed struggle and at a time when
the situation demands the utmost unity in the party to strengthen
the revolutionary people’s movement in the State. They tried
to sow confusion, doubts and a sense of no-confidence in the
minds of party members and people about the future develop¬
ment of the people’s armed struggle. “With fabricated baseless
charges and utter lies about the armed struggle and about the
Provincial Committee leadership who were in the thick of the
movement, the two leaders wrote documents and distributed
them from jail on their own without the knowledge of the PC

and without any discussions in the party at any level. In gross
violation of principles of party organisation and party discipline,,
they established a rival PC inside jail and tried to form rival
committees in the State and thus are trying to split the party
and the people’s movement.”
The document further alleged that the jail leaders never
objected to the political line and to the principles of armed
struggle followed by the PC though all the documents on poli¬
tical and ideological issues and on problems facing the armed
struggle prepared by it were sent to them. Moreover, the
jail leaders upheld the armed struggle of the Agency areas of
Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar districts in their docu¬
ment distributed in June, 1970, ‘Present Situation—Our Tasks’
and described the Agency movement as a “struggle being waged
in self-defence of the cadre and to defend the people’s move¬
ment”, and also wrote in that document that “the movement
had the people’s support and it did score many successes and
that it was surging forward”, the present document claimed.
The document at length explained the points of difference,
between the PC and the jail leaders.
About the split in the Indian ruling classes into pro-American
and pro-Russian groups, the document said that India is a
semi-colonial and semi-feudal country subjected to neo-colonial
exploitation by imperialists, especially by U.S. imperialists and
Soviet social-imperialists. The Indian big bourgeoisie and
big landlord classes were split into pro-American and pro-
Russian groups and the two groups were locked in a dogfight
for power. While political parties like the Syndicate Congress,.
Jana Sangh and Swatantra represented mainly the pro-American
group, the private sector in India, the Indira Congress and her
friends represent mainly the pro-Russian group, the public
sector. The Indian ruling classes were split on policies to be
followed and were beset with internal contradictions and as a
result were getting weakened. While it was the stand of the
PC, Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao held that there were
no differences among the Indian ruling classes on policies and

they were not split into pro-American and pro-Russian groups.
The jail leaders further argued that the Indira Congress itself
did represent the whole of the Indian ruling classes—the big
bourgeoisie and big landlords—and safeguards the interests of
both American imperialism and Russian imperialism and thus
they came to the conclusion that the Indira Government was
an independent power, the document alleged.
In this connection, the document quoted the views of the
Chinese Communist Party and said that the view of the PC
were in accordance with those of the CPC while those of Nagi
Reddy and Venkateswara Rao went against the CPC’s views.
Due to the policies of exploitation pursued by the Congress
for the last 25 years, the country is in the grip of serious econo¬
mic and political crises, the people of various classes are
fighting against the policies of exploitation of the ruling classes;
in different parts of the country armed peasant struggles have
broken out under the leadership of Communist Revolutionaries.
As a result of people’s struggles developing throughout India
the ruling Congress party was split into two ; the ruling classes
and their political parties are facing a serious political crisis
and the political situation in the country is unstable. This
instability is a permanent one. The document said that the
PC was of the opinion that a permanent political instability
prevailed in the country.
Contrary to this political estimation, Nagi Reddy and Ven¬
kateswara Rao argue that after the spectacular election victory
of the Indira Congress, there exist no groups or split in the
ruling Classes and that their differences have disappeared. They
also argue that the instability which existed before the parlia¬
mentary elections of 1971 has changed into stability. The PC
argued that the successes of the Indira Congress in the elections
to Parliament and State Assemblies (by false promises, by using
military and police forces and by making most opportunistic
agreements with other political parties) did not alter the insta¬
bility among the ruling classes. The conditions which created
the permanent political instability did not disappear with the

election victory of Indira Gandhi. The so-called stability is
only a temporary phase within the frame-work of the perma¬
nent political instability and this will not continue long.
On the assessment of the revolutionary situation also the two
groups give different accounts. While the PC saw an excellent
revolutionary situation and its development day by day and felt
that the “present revolutionary situation” nationally and inter¬
nationally was more favourable than the situation at the time
of the Telengana armed struggle (1946-51), Nagi Reddy and
Venkateswara Rao said that the existing revolutionary situation
was not more favourable “for armed struggle” than in that
period.
Though no auspicious day can be fixed to start armed
struggle, the Revolutionary Communist Committee in its
‘Immediate Programme’ fixed ‘muhurat’ for the start of such
struggle. “With the onset of the rainy season i.e. in the month
of June wexcan start the armed struggle...Rainy season provides
the favourable climate for resistance movement,” the ‘Imme¬
diate Programme’ stated. This fixing of ‘muhurat’ was ridi¬
culed by the CPI(ML), and PC later could note the mistake they
committed. Nagi Reddy and D. Venkateswara Rao in their
document ‘Left Deviation’ tried to defend the fixing of the
date, saying that when they formulated the ‘Immediate Pro¬
gramme’ there was an exodus of party members into the
Marxist-Leninist Party and to stop it and give confidence to
the rank and file of the party they had to fix a time ! But
later, Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao accused the Agency
leadership for starting the armed struggle in the name of self-
defence “before the people were prepared for occupation and
distribution of the land of landlords”. The PC contested this
line of thinking and explained that the landlords and the
government would not sit with hands tied till the people were
prepared to seize their lands. But at the same time, the PC
did not forget the importance of the preparedness of the
people to come forward to occupy the landlords’ lands. The
document explained, in the following lines, the PC’s stand on

the issue :
When the people launch mass struggle on their own issues
against feudal exploitation, the landlords and the reactionary
government come down heavily on the movement using the
armed police to suppress it. In such a case, if the people, in
defence of their movement, are prepared to resist the armed
repression of the government with arms, the communist revolu¬
tionaries should lead such a struggle, and must strive to
develop the movement which had started on partial demands
into agrarian revolution. If and when people are not prepared
to resist the brutal armed suppression and repression to which
the people’s movement is subjected in the process of its deve¬
lopment, we must adopt necessary tactics for self-defence of
the cadre and the mass movement to develop the movement
Into agrarian revolution. We have to decide upon the forms
of struggle for self-defence taking into consideration the degree
of the preparedness of the people for armed struggle, their
support, geographical conditions (contiguity) of the area con¬
cerned etc.
In the forest areas of Warangal, Khammam and Karim-
nagar districts, when mass struggles were developing against
feudal and other exploiting classes, the reactionary Congress
Government unleashed heavy police repression to suppress the
people’s movement. In order to safeguard this movement
and its gains and to save the cadre, the people and the party
were forced to take up arms in self-defence. So, armed squads
were formed. The party and the armed squads have put
forward before themselves the main task of mobilisation of
people for armed revolution.
The document mentions propagation of revolutionary
politics of people’s war, mass mobilisation on their immediate
issues, necessary actions against the enemies of the people who
actively oppose and work against the development of the
movement and self-defence against the police, as the main
principles that guide armed struggle at the given phase.
Vol II—3
The document criticised Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara

Rao for the change in their attitude towards the Marxist -
Leninist Party from non-antagonistic to antagonistic. The
April convention of the State Revolutionary Communist
Committee decided to conduct political and ideological struggle
against the “left sectarian” and “adventurist” policies of the
Charu Majumdar group on the one hand and on the other to
treat them as revolutionaries and to resolve differences with
them by fraternal discussions on ideological and political
issues. It was also decided to maintain non-antagonistic
relations with them, the document added. The PC also claimed
that its approach, in accordance with the decisions taken at
the April convention, had yielded certain results and many
people belonging to the CPI(ML) were in the process of
rethinking and some of them had joined their party. But the
jail leaders argued that the Charu Majumdar group should not
be treated as revolutionaries and no attempt should be made
for unity with them. The aim should be to defeat them, the
document alleged.
The PC felt that all legal opportunities, legal mass move¬
ments and mass organisations should be utilised for the
development of people’s armed struggle. Civil liberties move¬
ment was also a part of the mass movement and it should help
to strengthen the mass movements and armed struggle. It
should expose and condemn the brutal repression of the
government and should rouse the masses to demand the
restoration of all civil liberties, including the release of the
leaders. The PC said that it should not have any truck with
revisionists and neo-revisionists even in the name of civil
liberties movement. But Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara Rao
wanted to unite not only with the old and neo-revisionists but
even with the reactionary elements in the name of fighting for
civil liberties. They also wanted to make the release of arrested
leaders the central issue of the civil liberties movement, the
document said.
The document severely criticised Nagi Reddy and Venkates-
wara Rao for commenting on Mao’s strategic slogan “political

power grows out of the barrel of the gun” as simply a “figura¬
tively given slogan”. “Where is the difference between these
comrades and the neo-revisionist party leader, Basavapunnaiah,
who joked that “not only power but smoke also comes from
the barrel of the gun” ?—the document questioned.
The document also stated that immediately after the April
convention (1969), Nagi Reddy brought before the then PC his
request that he be allowed to get arrested because he could
not lead underground life and because he had no confidence
in himself to lead armed struggle. The April convention had
decided that party membership should be given only to those
“who are prepared to go underground”. Nagi Reddy refused
to honour the party decision and remained legal till he got
arrested while he was in a hotel in Anantapura, his native
district, in September 1969 under the Preventive Detention
Act.
The document criticised Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao,
the Secretary, for not taking steps to organise a secret under¬
ground party machinery and for not making any efforts to send
the leading comrades in the plains areas underground. He got
arrested in Madras eight months after the April convention
without setting up any secret party machinery.
“One is surprised to know that in the eight months before
their arrest in Madras the two leaders never cared to visit the
forest area where the armed struggle was going on and did
not help the movement in any way.”
“Even after putting forth these arguments and openly
disowning the armed struggle in the Telengana Agency area,
it is ridiculous for them to try to convince the cadre and the
people that they are for armed struggle. It is also ridiculous
for them to say that they are for armed struggle when they
advocate unity with the revisionists and neo-revisionists but
refuses any unity with other revolutionary groups which are
leading armed struggle.”
The document claimed that the movement which was
started with one taluk had extended to nine taluks in the

forest area of Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar districts
and in hundreds of villages people occupied more than 100,000
acres of Reserve and other kinds of land. In most of the
forest area, the people have ‘done away’ with setti (free
labour), corruption and bribery of forest officials, contractors
and patels (village officers) and freed themselves from the
feudal exploitation of exorbitant rates of interest and nagu
(debt in the form of grain). People in the forest area are
freely enjoying and utilising the forest produce.
“As a result of continuous propaganda of revolutionary
politics and mass mobilisation on their immediate issues, poli¬
tical consciousness of the people is growing. People see armed
-struggle as the only way for their liberation from the age-old
and inhuman exploitation. That is why a large number of
Girijan and other youth, men and women, are volunteering to
join the armed squads. People’s village committees are being
organised. The people are doing everything to support and
safeguard the armed struggle, braving the fascist method of
suppression, inhuman torture and raping of women by the po¬
lice of the reactionary government.”
The government has burnt down several villages in the
interior of the forest area “to wean away the people from
■the extremist influence” and set villages in the pattern of Viet¬
namese ‘hamlets’.
The document explained the steps that the PC had
taken to safeguard party unity. It had proposed to hold a
•State plenum of the party to discuss and resolve the political
and ideological issues, and on the basis of the discussions
and decisions to elect a new PC. But Nagi Reddy and
Venkateswara Rao turned down these proposals, the PC
-document added.
It further alleged that the two leaders had formed a rival PC
inside the jail with the arrested members of the old PC (except
one secretariat member who criticised them for anti-party acti¬
vities and capitulationist policies and extended his support to
the Agency area armed struggle and the PC) which they them¬
selves had dissolved. “The two leaders gave a call to fornv
rival party committees in the State and thus caused a split in
the party”.
The PC solemnly declared that they would fight till the end1
and carry forward the armed agrarian revolution until the rea¬
lisation of the great hopes of ‘our martyr comrades’—the esta¬
blishment of New Democracy—and the PC would steadfastly
adhere to and follow Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung
Thought and implement the people’s war path.
January 27, 1973
VOTE AND REVOLUTION

ARUN KUMAR ROY
Universal suffrage, supposed to be no mean achievement'

for a newly independent country like India, has become ans¬
werable, as is clear from the weariness writ large on the faces
of the people during the election campaign. Increased per¬
centage of polling does not indicate victory of the politics of
polling but only greater consciousness and less inertia, narrow¬
ing the zone of the non-political. The vote means no revolu¬
tion : this is the bomb the Naxalites have thrown in the
politics of India.
History does not help much. No country with universal
suffrage has faced revolution or handled “vote boycott”. Lenin
opposed the 1905 Duma election no doubt, but only in the
context of armed uprising, and there was no universal suffrage.
However, when the “deliberative” Duma was replaced by
the legistative Duma, Lenin considered its boycott a mistake
in his Leftwing Communism, An Infantile Disorder. “The
boycott of the Duma by the Bolsheviks in 1906 was, however,,
a mistake, although a small and easily remediable one.”
And the Bolsheviks decided to take part in the elections to

the Second Duma, though :
“The Tsarist election law was, of course, anti-democratic.
Elections were not universal. Over half the population—for
example women and over two million workers—were deprived
of the right to vote altogether. Elections were not equal. The
electorate was divided into four curias : the agrarian (land¬
lords), the urban (bourgeoisie), the peasant and the worker
curias. Election was not direct but by several stages. There
was actually no secret ballot.”
{The History of the CPSU-B, page 89)
Thereafter in Russia the struggle for the vote was com¬
bined with that for revolution as its logical continuation and
conclusion so that even six months before the November
Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks participated in the Soviet
and Duma elections.
In the pre-war Germany, the communists participated
several times in elections between 1920 and 1933 till that
country was handed over to Hitler. But the Comintern under
the guidance of Lenin and then Stalin never asked for the
boycott of elections. The communists were the chief architects
of the “Popular Front” ministry in France creating a revolu¬
tionary upsurge through elections, though ultimately that
slipped into capitulation under Petain. In Spain, elections led
to the Civil War. Even the liberation struggle in Vietnam
started not by boycotting vote but only when the referendum
assured at the Geneva conference was denied. The bour¬
geoisie believes in the vote so long as it serves its interest. So
the USA opposed elections in Vietnam.
There was no vote in Cuba and a dozen of people landed
there to make revolution. The same was the case with China
except that the civil war there was long-drawn. But elections
were “treason” to the cause of revolution in France in 1968
when a near-insurrection fizzled out at a poll which pulled
the country further to the right.
To sum up : in Russia there was election and revolution ;
in Germany and France (pre-war) election and capitulation ;

in Spain election and counter-revolution ; in Vietnam denial
of election and liberation struggle ; in China and Cuba no
election but revolution ; and in France election and no
revolution. So no easy generalisation is possible except that
the vote is revolutionary if it sharpens struggle, reactionary
if it dampens it.
It is curious to note that Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao do
not endorse the theory of “vote boycott” or counterpoise the
vote with revolution. In the article, “The Boycott,” Lenin
wrote :
“It would be ridiculous to shut our eyes to realities. The
time has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democrats
must cease to be boycottists. We shall not refuse to go into
Second Duma when (or if) it is convened. We shall not
refuse to utilise this arena, but we shall not exaggerate its
modest importance ; on the contrary, guided by the experience
already provided by history, we shall entirely subordinate the
struggle we wage in the Duma to another form of struggle,
namely strikes, insurrection etc. In the event of election
taking place, it will be necessary to enter into an election
agreement with the Trudoviks.”.
(Selected Works, Vol. II, page 177)
The Trudoviks were a petty-bourgeois group formed in
1906 in the First State Duma headed by the Socialist Revolu¬
tionary intellectuals. So the tactics of the UF today have the
sanction of Lenin.
Lenin even refuted the contention that the communists
could not participate in a bourgeois government without
committing the same mistake that the French Socialist
Millerand made :
“In France it was a question of socialists taking part in a
reactionary bourgeois government at a time when there was no
revolutionary situation in the country, which made it incum¬
bent upon the socialists not to join such a government ; in
Russia, on the other hand, it was a question of socialists taking
40 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IB
part in a revolutionary bourgeois government fighting for the

victory of the revolution at a time when the revolution was in
full swing, a circumstance which would make it incumbent
upon the Social-Democrats to take part in such a government
in order to strike at the counter-revolution not only ‘from
below’, from without, but also ‘from above,’ from within the
government.” (The History of the CPSU-B, page 77)
However, every time the objective should be clear. The
Bolsheviks should join the Second Duma, for “History has
shown that when the Duma assembles opportunities arise for
carrying on useful agitation both from within the Duma and
outside.” (Selected Works, Vol. Ill, page 396) And,
“The Bolsheviks did not go to the Duma for the purpose
of carrying on ‘legislative’ work with the Constitutional
Democrats but for the purpose of utilising it as a platform
in the interest of the revolution. (The History of the CPSU-B,.
page 94)
Stalin was very harsh with those who refused to use the
legal cover available to build up mass bases. “In 1908, a
number of Bolsheviks demanded the recall of the Social
Democratic deputies from the State Duma. Hence, they were
called Otzovists who started struggle against Lenin and Lenin’s
line. The Otzovists stubbornly refused to work in the trade
unions and other legally existing societies. The Otzovists
were driving a wedge between the party and the working class,
tending to deprive the party of its connections with non-party
masses ; they wanted to seclude themselves within the under¬
ground organisation.The Otzovists did not understand that
in the State Duma, and through the State Duma, the Bolshe¬
viks could influence the peasantry and could expose the policy
of the Tsarist government and the policy of the Constitutional
Democrats, who are trying to gain the following of the peasan¬
try by fraud. The Otzovists were therefore “liquidators
inside out.” (Ibid, page 143)
Lastly, Mao Tsetung’s thought also does not approve of
vote-boycott. According to Chairman Mao, revolution is the
product of counter-offensive retaliation by the masses that loses

battles but wins war. Mao’s concepts of “liberated zone” and
“people’s war” are also based on defensive battles. The out¬
fitted shell is to be shattered by the developing content only
in defence of its growth. The idea is : the offensive of the
rulers provides the moral compulsion to the masses to rally
behind the revolutionaries to strike back. So the more the
repression, the more resistance and more struggle, and fish
would always remain in water. On this footing, denial of
vote and not the boycott of it should be the starting point of
the revolutionary struggle rallying the non-committed behind
the party.
In this respect Naxalites are more an Indian variety of the
New Left of the West rather than a serious communist party,,
and their vote-boycott slogan is the slogan of the offensive.
The revolutionaries must create it by taking the initiative. The
bourgeoisie may not wind up its vote show, we have to smash
it. The very existence of exploitation is a perpetual offensive
of the ruling class. So, why await a new blow before striking ?
Strike the iron while it is hot. But now, times have changed.
The call of the day is : strike the iron by making it hot. So
boycott the vote, do not wait until it is denied. Fifty years
back this would have been an “infantile disorder” in the words
of Lenin or “liquidators inside out” to quote Stalin, but with
man on the moon and one-third of the world under the Red
flag, the whole thing deserves serious rethinking. Quoting
scriptures whether from Lenin, Stalin or Mao has little
meaning where the quantity of time has changed the quality
of the situation. Revolution is an international phenomenon,
and today international capitalism, in crisis and turmoil, is on
the defensive. So the revolutionaries should swing into
offensive. The defensive struggle on the Chinese model needs
a vast country, vast numbers of people and a vast period of
time in possession. But today everything is in a hurry. Speed
is the most important factor. With war technology the
“political technology” of the Establishment has also advanced;.
making it more elastic, manoeuvrable and shockproof. Now

to be on the defensive is to invite defeat. It is suicidal to
wait for all the symptoms of an ideal revolution to appear
before striking. The non-committed mass is already commit¬
ted in favour of revolution as it has learnt from the historic
events of the last fifty years. So what is needed is not so
much generation of circumstantial pressure to set it on but to
provide the new light and conviction. Terror is the only
deterrent left with the Establishment. And power begets
terror. And so power is to be smashed, and offence is the
best defence. And so the vote must be boycotted. Arms
are to be snatched, guerilla zones created and power captured.
A shadow of benevolence is the biggest shield for the existing
order, and the status quo is only disturbed when the brute
comes out in its brutalised form as is the case in West Bengal
with the army, the CRP and the PVA Act. Today, any
attack helps revolution, and so what is needed is the initiative
to attack.
The speed and vigour with which Naxalism has spread in
India and the stir and impact it has produced speak unmista¬
kably of its vitality, and vitality is always associated with truth.
Classical Marxism changed in the hands of Lenin and the
■“problems of Leninism” were answered by Stalin, and now
after Mao Tsetung, who knows this New Left may be the
real representatives of the revolutionary communists out to
change the world in this rocket age while others are busy
interpreting it ?
So it is easy to negate Naxalism with the help of classics
but it is not so easy to answer the questions it has raised, spe¬
cially on the vote and revolution. The modern State is a three¬
storeyed building : ministry, bureaucracy and the army. The
vote can change the ministry but not the others. Despite po¬
pular swings the class-composition remains the same and so
does the class character of the machinery. So even if the
ministry starts intensifying class struggle, the bureaucracy and
militia are bound to be at loggerheads with it. And in no
time there would be an Indonesia or at least another Spain.

In the ultimate analysis, State power means essentially the
politics of the armed forces. The vote cannot smash it. On
the contrary it can only alert it. Lenin called a soldier only a
uniformed peasant. This is true, but even that peasant is se¬
lected from the ruling section of the village society, conserva¬
tive in outlook and unenthusiastic about any radical change,
that is, the stronger section of the society, the dominant
minority always makes up the bureaucracy and the armed
forces. Mr Jagjivan Ram may be the Defence Minister but
the proposal to have a “Chamar Brigade” created furore and
was strongly resented by the Establishment. So there can be
only “Rajput Brigade” but no “Chamar Brigade”. The per¬
centage of the backward Harijan, Adivasi and other sections
of the society who create wealth by dint of their physical
labour, is very small even among the sepoys. So the Esta¬
blishment wants to part with neither the pen nor the sword.
This is not the case with semi-feudal countries like India alone.
In the U. K., the traditional birthplace of capitalism, Attlee
may be the Prime Minister but the Army remains under Lord
Mountbatten.
However, this does not mean that the poorer strata of the
ruling class constituting the militia are immune to class stru¬
ggle. Militant peasant movements have no doubt an effect on
them, but the defection and disintegration of the militia starts
only after it has been hammered and put to pressure by the
people’s militia. And the people’s militia cannot be formed
without starting partisan warfare. Polls and partisan war are
poles apart.
The difficulty with the vote is that it tells how to mobilise
the masses but does not tell how to mobilise force. And
force is the midwife of any change. What is more, elections
expose the party organisation before the enemy so that at any
moment it can swoop on it. And what is most important,
the vote is a non-class instrument and its users are bound
to develop a non-class outlook and organisation. Even if
everything goes alright, by the time state power is exclusively

in the hands of the communists, the communists would
change into bourgeoisie, making fundamentally no change.
Are not Marx’s nearest Social Democrats ruling Europe today
living farther from Marxism ?
The fundamental difference between reform and revolution
is not the quantity of benefits available for society but the
extent of structural change effected in society. Reforms do not
change the ruling class but only induce it to tackle differently
the ruled, may be, more benevolently. But revolution over¬
throws the ruling class first, substitutes it by another and then
settles down for reforms as the new order of the new class of
rulers with a new philosophy. The struggle for the vote may
be carried to revolution, but the vote as such only empowers
reform. The very aim differs. Armed struggle aims at
“through Revolution to Reforms,” while the vote “through
Reforms to Revolution,” but, for the latter, revolution never
occurs. The time needed for the quantity of reforms to bring
about qualitative changes amounting to a revolution in society
through the vote and various legislation is sufficient to enable
the old ruling class to adjust itself to the new wind, penetrate
into the new ruling class and halt the march of quantity before
it is transformed into quality to satisfy ideal conditions of
classical Marxism. Revolutionaries participate in elections to
“wreck the Constitution from within” but it mostly results in
“wrecking the Party from within.” The vote transforms the
Party before the Party transforms the State.
Participation in the parliamentary system moulds the class
character of the party. The vote gives the party an essentially
middle class character, as a basic sophistication is needed
to handle the rules, procedure and techniques of parliamentary
politics. When the party approaches power, its class character
changes to upper middle class. And when it assumes power
the bourgeois and feudal lords penetrate and gradually usurp
the leadership. During the second UF government, many
jotedars turned Marxists and butchered refugees in North
Bengal. One of the reasons why the land-grab movement in

India failed is that most of the middle landowners are
communist leaders.
In the ultimate analysis the struggle is between the domi¬
nant minority and the dormant majority. Feudal lords, at
least many of them, would not mind if they are allowed to rule
the society as capitalists, socialists, communists or revolutiona¬
ries. What is important, they must rule. They must have the
authority and amenities of the rulers in any system. They
must get the time and opportunity to change the signboard
and adopt the new code to rule in a new way. The vote gives
them time. Reforms help in transformation. The dominant
minority remains dominant for ever. To be precise, reforms
benefit the society from the top, while revolution from the
bottom. Reforms relieve the ruled, while revolution liberates
them. The vote is the road through reforms.
What are the compulsions to discuss revolution today be¬
fore heading for the polling booth ? The conditions for any
revolution, as Lenin put it are: (a) that the rulers should not be
able to go on ruling as they used to ; (b) that the ruled,
in their misery, despair and fury, should refuse to go on living
as before ; and (c) there should exist a revolutionary party
determined and able to seize the chance. The very fact that a
midterm poll is to be held, the PVA Act had to be introduced,
the CRP had to be called, indiscriminate shooting is resorted
to, shows that the rulers are unable to rule in the old way—
brutalisation is the barometer of their weakness. Secondly,
the bourgeois system never necessitates direct intervention of
the masses in social events but only indirectly through their
representatives and an offer of choice in elections. It may be
noted, changes of a minor nature can be accommodated in
this way within the normal flexibility of the social system.
But when the social base itself is to be changed, it requires
direct participation of the masses. In the words of Trotsky :
“The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct
intervention of the masses in historic events. The revolution
is there in their nerves before it comes out in the street.”

(The History of the Russian Revolution). In India today,
the questions of land reforms, bonus or pay commissions
demand direct action by the masses. Gherao is the midwife
of social justice denied cunningly by the “rule of law”. The
people have refused to be ruled in the old way.
So the vote, if considered a type of war, is to be boycotted
when the ruling class wants it and is to be fought when the
ruling class wants to avoid it. In this manner the vote in
Pakistan was revolutionary ; so it would be in West Bengal
where the Establishment is hesitant. In Tsarist Russia even
the limited franchise was revolutionary as it had to be snatched
from the reluctant Tsar. But in France under de Gaulle in
1968 the vote was reactionary as it was desired by the Esta¬
blishment to prevent the upsurge from becoming an insurrec¬
tion. In India, whether the mid-term poll is revolutionary or
reactionary deserves some serious analysis, for here although
a part of the Establishment under the Congress (R) has offered
elections, only haltingly, as a leap in the dark, finding no way-
out, the other section of the Establishment led by the Swatantra-
Jana Sangh-Congress (O) distinctly opposed it and wanted an
alternative government at the Centre instead, removing Mrs
Indira Gandhi. There was a clear indication of uneasiness
that the status quo might be disturbed.
However, the duty of a revolutionary party does not end
only in ascertaining the context for contesting polls. It must
guide the contest. Those who boycott elections and take up
arms have their logic. Those who boycott arms and take to
polls have their logic too. But for those who would take up
arms, use the vote in the cause of revolution, the task is like
“walking on razor’s edge.” There should be a distinct differ¬
ence in the mode and code of the election campaign by the
revolutionaries.
Clearly the stress on the federal system instead of the
present unitary one, curtailment of the power of the President,
weakening of the Centre, discrimination against West Bengal
etc. are not slogans that would polarise the people for the
higher struggle ahead. It may be noted that there is a funda¬
mental difference between India and Pakistan. In a Marxist
definition of a nation, as clearly stated by Stalin, Pakistan can
not be a nation because of the geographical discontinuity ;
and so, the sooner it disintegrates the better for the develop¬
ment of the revolutionary forces. So there regional autonomy
would focus the revolutionary cause, and a struggle for auto¬
nomy would soon change into a liberation struggle. But this
is not the case with India where it will only strengthen the
hands of the reactionaries by inciting regionalism.
The only slogan that can put this vote to the cause of revo¬
lution is the call to the people to reject the Constitution based
on the right to property as the fundamental right and to
substitute it by one based on the right to work as the
fundamental right. This will bring forth a revolutionary
polarisation : on the one side people with property, and on
the other people without work. All the political parties will be
exposed. As the Naxalites have divided Indian politics into
two—Vote or Revolution—the issue of private property would
divide the parliamentary politics into two—Vote for Revolu¬
tion or Vote for Reform—and would turn this election into a
referendum.
March 6, 1971'
Letter
Vote and revolution are not opposed to each other.

Rather adult franchise is an argument for revolution. In his
preface to Marx’s The Civil War in France, Engels writes that
universal franchise is “an index of the maturity of the working
class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the
modern State.” On this and other statements of a similar
nature by Engels, Lenin comments in State and Revolution,
“Engels repeats here in a particularly emphatic form the funda¬
mental idea which runs like a red thread throughout all of
Marx’s works, namely, that the democratic republic is the

nearest approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat. For
such a republic without in the least setting aside the domina¬
tion of the capital, and therefore the oppression of the masses
the class struggle inevitably leads to such an extension, deve¬
lopment, unmasking and sharpening of that struggle that, as
soon as the possibility arises of satisfying the fundamental
interests of the oppressed masses, this possibility is realised
inevitably and solely in the dictatorship of the proletariat, in
the guidance of the masses by the proletariat.”
Then, it might be asked, why does the socialist revolution
not take place in the democratic republics of Western Europe
and why did it take place in autocratic Russia and semi-feudal
semi-colonial China ? The principal answer will be found in
that the imperialist Europe could avoid the revolutionary crisis
bursting asunder by bribing a section of workers from its
plunder from Asia, Africa and Latin America, while backward
Russia and China could not afford to do it.
The proletariat utilises democracy and the vote to hold the
bourgeois to their word, to educate the minds of the masses
for revolution, especially the backward strata of the population,
to systematically expose those smug “Marxists” who talk
of “exploring limited opportunities to give modest relief”, for
under capitalist relations of production the so-called progressive
measures only proletarianises the masses still more. The
reasons why the communists go in for elections has been
explained but it is clear that forming a government in a capita¬
list state is not one of them. In his famous letter to Turati,
dated 26 January 1894, Engels warned socialists against parti¬
cipation in the government because that would completely para¬
lyse the revolutionary action of the working class they were
supposed to represent. While advocating united front with
the radicals and the republicans he said in the same letter
“that from the very moment of victory our paths will separate ;
that from the same day onwards we shall form a new oppo¬
sition to the new government, not a reactionary but a progre-
ssive opposition, an opposition of the extreme left which will

press on to new conquests beyond the ground already won.”
This is why Lenin in his Left Wing Communism, An Infan¬
tile Disorder asking the German Communists to participate
in elections, warned that “they should not at all strive to ‘get
seats’ in parliament.” The Indian ‘Marxists’ tediously chew
the cud over that portion of the book which is acceptable to
the bourgeoisie.
One might still argue that if they get more seats as they
have won in West Bengal, can they help it ? Should they renounce
them ? The answer is that they get or are allowed to get
them because they adopt a petty-bourgeois standpoint on class
struggle and revolution. They try to show petty reforms as
partial realisation of socialism and succeed in bluffing people
for a while. Second, even this petty-bourgeois-dominated
parliament is not tolerated for long. Because, behind the bulk
of petty bourgeoisie stand other classes and groups which come
out more energetically and take the loudly-proclaimed assu¬
rances more seriously than the leadership likes.
Since World War II, communists in various countries have
participated in elections and governments, but nowhere could
they achieve dictatorship of the proletariat or socialism.
Normally the communists may participate in elections but they
must not join any government. They can join the govern¬
ment in a State, not yet socialist, under special conditions. What
are they ? In The History of the CPSU-B (Arun Roy does
not properly grasp it) Stalin writes that the Social Democratic
Party in 1905 should have joined a provisional revolutionary
government as the result of a successful uprising in order to
carry the revolution to its conclusion. Dimitrov, in his famous
thesis United Front and the Working Class, asked the commu¬
nists to support anti-facist united front governments but told
them that they themselves should remain outside. The commu¬
nists are permitted to join a goverment, according to him,
only on the morrow of revolution in order to distribute arms
and subvert the bureaucratic State-machinery from within.
Vol 11—4
50 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL lit
The boycott was one of the firmest traditions of the most

eventful and heroic periods of the Russian revolution but
Lenin warned that to regard the boycott slogan as being:
generally applicable to every bad and very bad representative
institution would be an absolute mistake. The slogan is a
specific slogan of a specific period and not an immutable tactic.
What is the fundamental condition for proclaiming a boycott T
Lenin wrote that the meaning of the agitation for a boycott
was mainly to combat constitutional illusions. The condition
for the success of the boycott was a “wide genuine rapid and
powerful vise of the revolution.”
SUDARSHAN CHATTERJEE
April 3, 1971 ' Calcutta
COMMUNISTS—SIMPLE,
MARXIST AND REVOLUTIONARY
ARUN KUMAR ROY
The three varieties of communists in India proclaim three

lines and claim three cheers. In the words of Lenin, “The
main question of every revolution is the question of State
power”; and in the words of Stalin, “In the hands of which
class or which classes is power concentrated, which class
or which classes must be overthrown, which class or which
classes must take power—such is the main question of every
revolution”.
According to the CPI, the State power in India is essentially
concentrated in the hands of the national bourgeoisie—may be
represented by Indira Gandhi—who are under increasing
pressure from the big bourgeoisie—may be represented so far
by Morarji Desai—who are in turn progressively collaborating
with foreign imperialists. So the CPI advocates ‘National
Democracy’ in which it would share power with the ‘first’ by
displacing the ‘second’. So, yesterday there was the Gandhi-
Desai Government, next would come a Dange-Gandhi Govern¬
ment and then a pure Dange Government. This spells a
stepwise substitution process through partial struggles as the
road to socialism. As the national bourgeoisie have the State
power, there is bourgeois democratic freedom in the country,
and the scope of parliamentary politics negates any need for
extra-parliamentary methods and underground activities.
The CPI(M) holds that the State power essentially rests
with the big bourgeoisie and their junior partner—landlords—
who are in the process of surrender to the imperialists. The
national bourgeoisie, if any, are of only subsidiary importance.
That means, both Desai and Indira Gandhi are only the two
containers of the same content. So the struggle will be not for
sharing power but for wresting power from the present ruling
class and for putting the workers not as a partner but at the
leadership as conceived in ‘People’s Democracy’. But as the
reactionary big bourgeoisie have not yet surrendered but are
in the process of surrendering, so there is still some bourgeois
democratic freedom left, permitting a limited scope to parlia¬
mentary methods, though the laws of diminishing return have
already started operating so far as constitutional means are
concerned. So the obvious line of action would be a. cautious
mixture of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary methods
with the latter steadily increasing.
The CPI(ML) differs with the CPI(M) intensely, but only in
tense. There can be no two opinions that the big bourgeoisie
are firmly saddled in the country but the process of surrender¬
ing has reached its end and they have in essence a comprador
character. There is no independent bourgeoisie ; so there is
no bourgeois domocratic freedom. And so election is treason,
parliament a farce. There is no scope or utility of election
politics. The line of action should be solely extra-parliamen¬
tary. The organisation is to be built only underground.
CPI Stand : Each of the three varieties seems equally
confident about the correctness of its stand. The Indian

bourgeoisie are the most sophisticated, powerful and consolida¬
ted “haves” in entire Afro-Asia, comparable only with those
of Japan. They not only hold small or medium-scale indus¬
tries, but also giant basic industries like iron and steel. They
keep today an army of technical experts and run standard
research institutions for indigenous development. The biggest
of the Indian capitalists has the “accounted capital” of nearly
Rs. 500 crores which is definitely a dignified figure. Here
industrial capital has already combined with banking capital
to give birth to big finance capital which is not only assertive
on the native market but also out for international exploitation,
i.e., assuming a small imperialist character. The Indian
capitalists are out to set up industries like soap, textile, rayon
and chemicals in the underdeveloped countries of Afro-Asia,
and not less than Rs. 100 crores have already been invested.
Are all these respectable achievements possible for a compra¬
dor bourgeoisie ?
So, the CPI maintains, there may be inherent tendencies
within the Indian bourgeoisie to collaborate with the imperia¬
lists as a junior partner but not to be their subordinates. The
Indian bourgeoisie accommodate many desires of Western
business interests, but they are also in a bargaining position to
force some of their own desires on them. Did not India play
an effective role in preventing Britain from joining the Euro¬
pean Common Market ?
So foreign big business magnates have only some influence
over Indian big business magnates but nothing more. Similarly,
the latter have only some influence on the Indian State power
but not control. That, despite turns and twists, the grip still
remains with the national bourgeoisie is proved by the Five
Year Plans and the increase in the share of the State sector in
the national economy from one plan to another, nationalisa¬
tion of transport, the Imperial Bank, LIC, Banking, etc., and
the continuation of the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956.
The Planning Commission may not lead the country to socia-
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 53'
lism, yet it constitutes the organised brain of the national,

bourgeoisie to find indigenous capital to counter the thrust of
the big bourgeoisie and to complete the bourgeois democratic
revolution. That is why, at every annual general meeting of
Chambers of Commerce, the spokesmen of the big bourgeoisie
pour venom on Planning Commission. But the very fact that
despite the dislike of the Chambers of Commerce, the Planning
Commission prevails is a clear indicator that the national
bourgeoisie prevail over the big bourgeoisie in India.
This economic analysis can also be substantiated by various
political data. India is no less than one of the big three of the
non-aligned world, flanked only by the UAR and Yugoslavia
and outflanked only by Pakistan. Even our Minister without
portfolio always has one of the busiest foreign tour program¬
mes, indicating our political respectability. India has always
maintained very cordial relations with the socialist world,,
braved Western displeasure from Suez to West Irian, and
earned praise for her peace efforts from Korea to Indo-China.
India scrapped the VO A deal, refused a nuclear umbrella,
opposed bases in the Indian Ocean, asked for the cessation of
bombing of North Vietnam, aspired to fill the gap likely to be
created by the probable British withdrawal from the Far East,
and lastly sent her beaming Prime Minister to the top of
Lenin’s tomb on no less an occasion than the 50th anniversary
of the October Revolution. What more do you want ?
CPI(M) and CPI(ML) Stands : All this logic makes the
Marxists smile and the Maoists laugh. They contend that it is
not the nineteenth, century, but the latter half of the twentieth.
Gone are the golden days of capitalism. It is the era of its
crisis and decadence which is a world phenomenon. Last year’s
turmoil in France and the march of the poor in Washington
indicate that the wealth of the West is not the barometer of its
health. Even the classical and assertive independent bourgeois
countries of the West are moving towards inter-dependence
through various forms of economic bondage. The house of
the West is a house with one pillar and that pillar is the USA..
Between the socialist bloc and the USA, various capitalist

countries constitute an intermediate zone, all dependent on the
USA, though in various degrees—perhaps France the least.
South Vietnam the most.
In India, because of British colonial rule, the growth of an
independent bourgeoisie could not take place in a real sense
even during the independence movement when the bite of the
internal class struggle was less and emergence of capitalism
was a world phenomenon. So, when the thing did not grow
properly when it should have grown, how can we expect its
growth and development at such a late hour when Great
Britain, our previous master, herself is being called the 38th
State of the USA ?
This theoretical analysis can be tested by examining the
political economy of the country and any such inspection
must start with a correct evaluation of the State sector. This
sector as such does not carry much meaning if it is not
clearly explained which class or classes control the State power.
The State sector means socialism if State power remains with
the working class ; it means “national capitalism” if it is in the
hands of the national bourgeoisie, but it means only taking an
industry from an individual capitalist and keeping it with a
bureau of capitalists parading as the Government if the State
power lies in the hands of the big bourgeoisie. That the State
power vests in the big bourgeoisie is explained from the fact
that even the State sector has been formed to serve them only
keeping the real authority of the State in the hands of the big
bourgeoisie. This so-called State sector gives a unique handle
to tap the people’s money as a compulsory indirect tax which
was in the Second Five year Plan Rs. 11,000 crores, Third
Five year Plan Rs. 2,880 crores, and in the Fourth Plan
expected to be Rs. 3,000 crores, to strengthen the position of
the big bourgeoisie by compensating the inherent weakness
of the country’s capitalist economy. So, nationalisation of
the consumer goods industry, whether paper mill or sugar
.factory, takes place only in cases of losing concerns which
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 5b
may be again handed back to the private owner after the

take-off stage, i. e. after it again becomes profit-making. The
public sector may be started with heavy industries which
require high initial capital but which, because of the low
return on the capital in the beginning, do not attract any big
private enterprise. The design is also there to hand over
these mammoth public sector projects to the individual
capitalists after they become profit-making. Even bourgeois
philosophy permits the freedom to purchase shares or not,
but here one must be a shareholder with no share in the
profit or in the authority. The sole purpose is to nourish the
limping capitalism and feed the inflated officialdom or the
fooard of directors who come invariably from the class of
the big bourgeoisie, sometimes being their direct relations.
Secondly, the public sector may be utilised to corrode the
very foundation of socialist philosophy by demonstrating its
discouraging performance. The public sector is based on
socialist principles but in India it is governed by capitalist
principles, so naturally it is found uneconomic, less efficient,
wasteful and what not. Ultimately, this discredited and dis¬
torted show would make the people shudder at socialist
-economy.
That the public sector is nothing but a political wing of the
big bourgeoisie, that the State power is firmly concentrated in
their hands, with the landlords as the junior partners, becomes
obvious if one reads the Monopoly Commission’s report headed
by Mr P. C. Mahalanobis. Between 1947 and 1964 the paid-
up capital of the joint stock companies increased from Rs. 480
.crores to 1,400 crores ; even in 1960, five big capitalist families
Tata, Birla, Mafatlal, Walchand and Mahindra, controlled 539
companies, and 10 leading families in 1958 used to have
Rs. 1,600 crores out of the total private capital of Rs. 2,300
-crores. From 1953 to 1961, the Reserve Bank of India has
shown, while the top 10% of the people have increased their
share of the national income from 28 % to 37%, for the bottom
40% it decreased from 20% to 13%.
The same dismal figure of monopolistic concentration is-

also visible in respect of land where, despite various caricatures
of reform and legislation, 58% is concentrated in the hands of
10°/o of the top rural families while the bottom 20% of the
agricultural families own less than 1% of cultivable land. This
is besides the huge army of landless labourers who constitute
less than 22% of the rural population. Between 1950 and
1960 there was not even any marginal change in this abnormal
picture of land concentration.
The so called controversies between the Chambers of
Commerce and the Planning Commission are more a show
than a reality. On every precipitated issue where the big bour¬
geoisie mean business the Chambers of Commerce can get
their object through ; think, for instance, of the dilution of the
Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956, the fertiliser deal, libera¬
lisation of import licenses, free hand in investment etc.
The routine cry of the Planning Commission for land reform
could not give land to the tiller because the big bourgeoisie did
not want to annoy their junior partners, the landlords.
The relation between the big bourgeoisie and foreign
monopolists comes out from economic data which show that
the penetration of private foreign capital increased threefold,
from Rs. 750 crores in 1960, out of which 64% was British and
27.6% American. Britain increased her investment twofold
after “leaving” her Empire. Today the percentage of foreign
capital in Indian economy is, mineral oil 97%, match box
90%, jute 89%0.
Even our economic planning could not make us economic¬
ally independent. The proportion of foreign “aid” has
steadily increased from the First Five Year Plan to the pro¬
posed Fourth constituting now, even officially, 30% of the total
wished investment.
Total investment in Rs. crores

I II III IV (For 65-66)
2100 4800 7200 2225
Foreign aid in Rs. crores

188 1049 2200 669
%9.6 22.5
While our foreign exchange reserve came down from some

Rs. 1,400 crores, our foreign debt increased from nil in 1948
to, this day, Rs. 4,000 crores (U.S. Loans alone Rs. 2,600
crores) without considering devaluation. This is 35°/0 of our
gross national income. It is calculated that 20% of our total
foreign exchange earning through our dwindling export market
is sucked out as interest on our loans.
The myth of a self-generating economy can be clearly
exposed by examining closely each individual item. At the
annual general meeting of the Indian Statistical Institute in
Madras in December, 1956, Mr P. C. Mahalanobis explained-
the thesis of self-generating economy thus : Suppose we are im¬
porting six million tons of foodgrains a year, i.e. some 8% of
our total production at the cost of foreign exchange, this
would employ our people only in loading and unloading it. If
instead, we would import 1 ton of fertiliser for 10 tons of food
grains, we might have to wait for a year before we can use
that fertiliser on the soil and get the additional crop but that
would cost much less foreign exchange and employ a series of
persons from port to field. If, instead of importing fertilisers
we import all the equipment making a fertiliser factory to
produce that additional fertiliser, we would spend still less
foreign exchange and employ more people though we might
go even further by importing fertiliser equipment-making
machines. This would produce the equipment first to make a
factory, employing more people at various stages and using
even less foreign exchange but one will have to wait for
eight years. Lastly, the best way would be to import only
those machines which would first produce the machine
producing machines, i.e. multiply itself, which would produce
the fertiliser equipment which would go to make the factory,
and the factory would produce the fertiliser equivalent to the
58 NAXALBARI AND AFTER _VOL II
additional food to be grown in the field. For this, one has to

wait for ten hard years, but the country will have a completely
self-generating economy, giving large-scale employment and
using minimum foreign exchange, and the food problem would
be solved once for all.
But twelve years (1956-68) after the ushering in of the Second
Five Year Plan what has happened to this self-generating
economy ? Whether it is a steel factory at Durgapur or an oil
refinery at Barauni, each public sector industry has come to
this country as a gift, not as a starting point of technological
independence as was the case even in the era of evolution of
a capitalist economy in Japan at the beginning of this century.
Bhilai was the first steel factory in the public sector built by
Russia, Bokaro will be the fourth one, also by Russia, but the
contribution of indigenous ingredients and talent has not made
any qualitative headway and the coming up of the fifth steel
plant would depend again on the availability of foreign help.
The same is the case with fertiliser. Durgapur is the seventh
fertiliser plant coming under the State sector but it would
require Rs. 13 crores foreign exchange out of a total invest¬
ment of Rs. 37 crores, i.e. in the same proportion as was
needed for the earlier units, while expert opinion says that
not more than Rs. 2'25 crores of foreign exchange should be
needed for a same-capacity plant at present.
Fertiliser Industry
Total Investment Foreign Exchange
31 Five year Plan 47 crores 17-5 crores
Trombay 25 55 13 55
Gorakhpur 18 55 8 55
Nahar Katiya 12 55 7 55
Neiveli 15-60 55 11-50 55
Barauni 35 55 18-40
Cochin 31-25 55 11-05 55
59
Steel Plant (II Five year Plan)

Rourkela ... 50 crores 20 crores
Durgapur
Bhilai
Bokaro ... 200 „ 100
Steel Plant Expansion

Rourkela ... 284 crores 133 crores
Durgapur
Bhilai
Between 1960 and 1966

Iron and Steel 640 crores 305 crores
Machine Tools 40 27
Heavy Machinery ... 119 81-5 5?
Fertiliser 225 100 J?
[Source : Third Five year Plan]

Our dependence has become so bad that even today our
whole Plan is drafted, not keeping in view the needs, either
present or future, of the country, but the designs of others
who are supposed to give us “aid” and our draft Plans
always lead to foreign tours to finalise the pattern of invest¬
ment, i.e. fixing the proportion of light and heavy industries
etc. With the Fourth Plan we have faced a climax—we are
having a “Plan holiday” because we did not get the green
signal from “outside”. The Indian Republic now is no more
than a private limited company like the ICI (India) whose
immediate management is the Chamber of Commerce while
the real shareholders are across the ocean, exercising remote
control.
But things are not so simple as they seem, the Marxists
caution. The spectre of class struggle may be sufficient to
compress the big bourgeoisie into a coherent class but not
60 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IE
enough to conceal their inherent cracks. There are contradic¬

tions at every step. First, there is the contradiction between
an individual monopolist and the group guiding the Govern¬
ment. As pauperisation unites the ‘have-nots’, property
divides the ‘haves’ so that even within the Chambers of
Commerce the members look at each other with suspicion
despite repeated assertion of “solidarity”. So, whenever the
bureau of the big bourgeoisie is forced to keep certain vital
industries under its collective control in the name of the public
sector, that puts all the constituent members under very uneasy
strain, each fearing that the other will get the upper hand in
the melee, endangering permanently their future, specially
when they are sure that this show is transitory while the rule
of the big fish swallowing the small ones is an eternal truth of
capitalist economy. The second contradiction is between the
native big bourgeoisie and their foreign masters. No doubt
the “subsidiary alliance” is certainly for survival, but in fixing
the degree of servility there are always differences. While
from this side there is an ambitious preference for the British-
type of refined inter-dependence, from the other side invariably
there is decisive insistence on the Saigon model. Though a
farce, even this limping public sector discomfits the foreign
financiers who often look at these heavy industries as a
potential threat to their capital goods.
The third contradiction is between the theory and practice
of the public sector. While it is still declared from the house
tops that it is an exercise in socialistic pattern, in practice it is
designed to feed and strengthen the big bourgeoisie only.
This is always dangerous specially in view of the socialist ideas.
However limited the “liability” and however insignificant the
authority, the unsuppressable fact that such giant industrial
concerns can grow and run on the small savings of the people
gives them a sense of respectability and confidence in their
own means, always feared by the bourgeoisie. Moreover, the
inherent contradictions within the big bourgeoisie and the
inevitable lack of individual interest render these concerns less-
•oppressive, giving the working class breathing time to consoli¬

date itself for struggle so that, paradoxically, in the public
sector there is more labour unrest. This again helps the
propagation of socialist ideas.
The fourth contradiction and perhaps the most important
one is that between the public sector units built with the help
of socialist countries and those by the capitalist countries.
The image of socialist construction combined with the efficiency
of the industries made by socialist countries in India, the
behaviour of their technical experts with the workers of this
country, the liberal business terms and rate of interest, their
readiness to take up heavy industries like Bokaro left by the
USA, all this has constituted the biggest check on complete
surrender by the Indian bourgeoisie, providing them with
bargaining power against the West, and by creating public
opinion against such surrender.
No wonder India sends Telco trucks to South Vietnam,
sugar to the USA at the cost of Cuba and so on and so forth ;
nevertheless she has always kept good relations with the
socialist countries. India may be doubly obliged but the two
sides are at loggerheads with each other preventing complete
surrender to either side, because even in this changed context,
among all the contradictions the maximum one is still that
between the socialist and the capitalist world.
And it is here that the Maoists thunder. If the CPI logic
is a revolting over-simplification, the CPI(M) thesis is a dis¬
graceful deceit. The pilgrimage to Moscow means nothing.
The Soviet Union and all the East European countries
(Albania excepted) today constitute the revisionist world and
cannot be taken as a socialist force. What is more, the CPSU
is no longer a communist party and the Soviet Union has only
become another imperialist country. The Soviet Union is also
an exploiter. If Soviet participation in the State sector had
contributed really to a self-generating economy, after fifteen
years we could have got Bokaro simply out of Bhilai without
spending a farthing of foreign exchange, as was the case with
China whose production of steel today, after starting from

scratch—she had no Jamshedpur before liberation—is four
times that in India. So, India is a neo-colonial country with
two masters, the USA and the USSR.
The controversy is even more interesting in determining
the actual strategy and tactics of Indian Revolution. The
CPI have carefully put revolutionary means as an alternative
in their programme, but even a cursory glance at their concep¬
tion of National Democracy shows that they do not actually
mean it.
The stress on ‘People’s Democracy’ shows that the
CPI(M) at least thinks that the road to socialism in India is
noisy.
When forcible overthrow of the ‘haves’ is still the general
line for the emancipation of the ‘have-nots’, the question is how
that overthrow is to be effected. The Naxalites suggest the
Chinese way, i.e. concentrating in the remote villages, pre¬
ferably encircled by hills and forests where the limits of
administration are the weakest, and then developing a people’s
army for an armed showdown. In the town area, the party
should work underground, concentrate only on political
propaganda, and recruit cadres to be sent to villages. Armed
political bases are to be established in villages to encircle the
town, the concentrated points of reactionary might. The
revolutionary rings would be gradually assertive around the
reactionary points leading to their ultimate elimination.
Participation in elections is decried so as to focus attention on
the harder path of armed struggle, to dispel illusions about
bourgeois democracy and also to keep the organisation un¬
exposed, which is impossible in election campaigns.
Though this path is straightforward, easily understandable-
and clear-cut, the Marxists reject it, pointing out its over¬
simplifying nature. India 1969 is qualitatively different from
China 1929. In China, the parties, whether Communist or
Kuomintang, were formed with arms, but in India only on
alms (subscription). The people here are disarmed while the
ruling class operates through the military and police as a more

or less smooth, centralised power. Communication facilities
are infinitely better here than in China. There is hardly any
“remote village’' which the government machinery is unable
to reach with its full might within twentyfour hours. More¬
over in the pre-war China there was practically no centralised
industry but this is not the case here. India today looks more
like pre revolution Russia in the growth of the industrial
proletariat.
In short, if the Communist party wants to seek a seclusion
of the Chinese-type in India to-day, a Chinese-type revolution
would not occur. The party would be isolated from the people
and the current of political life. Marxism never advocates
abstentionism. Why should we abstain ? Why should we
boycott elections ?
Though there are major elements of deception in bourgeois
elections, they are not a farce. Had the whole thing been a
farce the bourgeoisie would not have fought it so seriously,
spending crores of rupees through their agents. Even elections
do polarise the people, politically dividing them into two or
more antagonistic groups, generally the have-nots favouring
the left, the haves the right. That is why every victory of the
left enhances the people's movement, making the ruling class
panicky. Even Naxalbari could become a reality and a political
force in India because the UF was in power. There is a vast
difference in physical strength between the ‘haves’ and the
‘have-nots’ of the country, discouraging the latter from any
largescale showdown with the former beyond some economic
bargaining. By victory in elections the working class cannot
wrest power, it is true, but it can definitely weaken the grip of
the owning class, creating some additional contradictions.
The Congress party of 1969 is qualitatively different from that
of 1947. And the weakening of the main pillar of reactionary
politics in India through four elections has definitely helped
revolutionary politics, and this process of erosion must continue
at least for some time.
^64 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
It is true, Lenin objected to the participation in the Duma

election of 1905 in the midst of a nationwide political strike
and armed struggle. But he criticised boycotting the Duma
election in 1908 and asked his party to participate in elections
even in February 1917, i.e. eight months before the October
Revolution.
That means the communists seldom boycott elections.
When the revolutionary situation comes it is the bourgeoisie
who abandon elections or at least prevent the communists from
participating. This revolutionary situation can only be created
by aggressively participating in the various political avenues
available ; by progressively widening the cracks and fissures of
bourgeois society. The party that cannot force the bourgeoisie
to abandon their deceptive democratic veil will be far from
ousting them from power by inviting an open show-down.
So the main task of the communists is neither to participate
An elections nor to abandon them but to mobilise, politicise and
militarise the people. Any action contributing to this may be
adopted. The mid-term election in Bihar taught the people
armed mobilisation and exposed the ugly character of the
owning class much more than any Naxalbari. People have
realised that they need arms even to go to vote, that those who
profess most by non-violence can adopt the worst form of
violence if their interest is affected. The main positive content
of Naxalite politics is its stress on the villages, and if one per
cent of what is preached is practised that would fill a long¬
standing gap in Indian politics. The slogan “boycott elections”
has also its progressive bearing if it does not aim only at
discouraging the voters of the CPI(M), thus paving the way
for the Congress to win. This slogan, if used without malice
and with prudence, can very well engrave a big question mark
in the people’s mind about the whole process and can show
them that the owning class would never abandon its vested
economic interests simply by losing in elections, and if the
progressive forces remain unprepared, India may very well
turn into an Indonesia, sparing nobody.
The first UF Government in West Bengal created Naxal¬

bari ; the second UF Government has helped to create a
third communist party. So the Naxalites should perhaps be
:grateful to the UF or the Marxists or at least should not have
much to quarrel with them. On the progress of one the
-publicity of the other depends. Naxalbari is a force and even
■Chavan is disturbed if the Marxists rule. Naxalbari is a mere
curiosity if the Congress comes. So if the Marxists remain in
the cities and villages for general mobilization and for creating
a specifically progressive political climate and the Naxalites go
to the remote parts of the country to concentrate on serious
politicalisation and selective militarisation, then there is no
problem, as the two operating among different layers of people
and zones would not physically meet each other to quarrel.
Apart from possibilities of mutual adjustments in the
communist movement, which may come as a compulsion
because of the sharp political polarisation, the correctness of
individual lines can only be tested with the coming events. If
the bourgeoisie still have the power to yield concessions, the
present show of limping democracy would continue, the CPI(M)
would come near to the CPI in its actions. If the owning class
does not have the means, it would steadily start disintegrating
and the political crisis would deepen, taking a fascist turn with
all the consequences. The CPI would be caught napping, the
CPI(M) would have to go underground, and the difference with
the Naxalites would be lessened. But if the country is already
an the neo-colonial stage, then at any time at one stroke the
present balance would go and then the CPI completely and the
major part of the CPI(M) would be eliminated and only the
underground Naxalites would surface to direct the communist
movement in India.
aOctober 18, 1969
Vol II—5
CPI(M)’S REVOLUTIONARY TEACHING
DIGVI JAY
In the historical background of opportunism and the

struggle of two lines the attack* by Mr Basavapunniah (CPM)
on the revolutionaries needs examination. Although criticising
the CPI as well, his main attack is on the revolutionary Left.
We do consider it necessary to expose the ‘Marxist’ arguments
of Mr Basavapunniah in order to identify the opportunism
where it really lies. Mr Basavapunniah stated in his article
that :
(a) the USSR and China represent respectively the right
and left deviation in the international communist movement
and their Indian counterparts are the CPI on the right and
the ‘Naxalites of all hues’ on the left, with the CPM being
the genuine Marxist party free of deviations.
(b) although the bourgeoisie will never surrender power
peacefully, the strategy of people’s war is not feasible in India
as the counter-revolution has made enormous technological
advance and has consolidated itself ; and
(c) the Soviet Union is not imperialist even though the
leadership has turned revisionist and there are serious mistakes,
distortions and deviations in its policies.
1. Nature of the Indian State
The Right CPI’s position identifies the State as basically
progressive (anti-monopolist, anti-landlord and anti-imperialist)
led by the national bourgeoisie ; it seeks to achieve socialism
through joint hegemony of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
peacefully. In other words, it sees no need for revolutionary
overthrow of the State. The CPI is clearly revisionist and has
all but faded from the revolutionary front.
*See “Revolutionary Techniques with Special Reference to

India.” Social Scientist, June 1974.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 6?
The real threat to the CPM position now, therefore, is not

from the CPI but from the CPI(ML) and other revolutionaries.
It is with this in view that Mr Basavapunniah develops his
‘critique’ of the Left. He referred to ‘the Naxalite position’ on
the character of the State which, according to him, is that the
State is a puppet of U.S. imperialists ; the bourgeoisie which
is in power is comprador and a lackey of U.S. imperialism.
He compares this to the position of the CPM, which holds
that the State is a bourgeois-landlord one led by the monopoly-
bourgeoisie in alliance with landlords. According to the CPM,
the bourgeoisie is also collaborating with foreign monopoly
with a view to developing capitalism in India.
Before examining the two positions further, it must be
noted that Mr Basavapunniah’s version of the CPI(ML)’s
position is grossly incomplete. The CPI(ML)’s actual position
holds that the Indian State is semi-feudal, led by comprador-
bureaucratic bourgeoisie in the interest of U.S. imperialism
and Soviet social-imperialism. The CPI(ML) identifies semi¬
feudalism as the main contradiction and claims that the bour¬
geoisie is incapable of independent development. The CPM
holds that the bourgeoisie is capable of independent capitalist
development in India.
Let us briefly examine the nature of the industry leaders—
the monopoly bourgeoisie which is interested in ‘building
capitalism’ in India.
Whether or not the monopoly houses represent independent
capitalists depends on (a) the control of product and techno¬
logy ; (b) the extent of foreign participation in Indian industry ;
and (c) the export and import relations and terms. The extent
of foreign participation in Indian industry measured in terms,
of reproductive capital is rather small (less than 1 °/0). The
important thing, however, is not the quantum of capital but the
amount of control it exercises on the products, processes
(technology) and the direction of growth. The Indian mono¬
polists have now become the national counterparts of foreign
monopoly which uses advanced technology for spreading its.
■68 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
influence. These linkages and an elaborate system of control

of the direction and nature of growth of several developing
countries have been evolved by the imperialist monopolies over
a period of time. The system consists ot advancing ‘loans’,
‘grants’ and ‘aid’ to the government of the recipient country
for encouragement of a particular pattern of industrial and
agricultural growth there. The pattern that is encouraged is
the one that subserves the needs of imperialism. This reduces
the local monopoly bourgeoisie to mere users, promoters and
clearing houses of foreign technology which is rapidly becom¬
ing obsolete in the country of their origin. This technology
is still ‘advanced’ from the view-point of developing countries
like India. This has been amply documented.* One may,
therefore, state that the monopolist bourgeoisie of the country
has got its interests firmly linked with those of the imperialists.
It would be wrong to consider the monopoly bourgeoisie as
capable of independently building capitalism in India.
Thus Mr Basavapunniah not only seems to ignore the real
character of the State, he seems to want to mislead the cadre
by referring to an incomplete statement of what he called the
“Naxalites’ position”. While the positions of the CPI and the
CPI(ML) are widely different, they are sharply defined. The
position of the CPM on the other hand is not so sharply
defined and is vacillating.
2. Soviet Social-Imperialism and Ideological‘Independence’
of the CPM
Mr Basavapunniah’s ideological confusion is not confined to
the question of the State alone. He claims that his party is
neither pro-Moscow nor pro-Peking and will pursue its own
programmes. Once again let us see how the CPM leaders
have demonstrated their ‘independence’ in practice. In 1967,
the Chinese leaders criticised (through the radio) the brutal
repression of the Naxalbari uprising by the CPM Ministry.
*See for instance Sau R.K. Indian Economic Growth :

Problem and Prospect.
This criticism was taken by the ‘Marxists’ as an ‘interference in

the internal affairs’ of the CPM. They vehemently opposed the
Chinese stand. A year later, in 1968, when the Soviet Union
sent troops into Czechoslovakia to put down the movement
there, the CPM leaders gave their unqualified support to the
Soviet move which was opposed even by a section of the CPI.
Evidently, according to CPM leaders, sending troops across
the border is no interference, but ideological criticism through
the radio is. Such is the ideological ‘independence’ of Mr
Basavapunniah and the CPM leaders.
The CPM leaders in order to assert their neutral stand
ignore the facts and criticise the characterisation of the Soviet
Union as social-imperialists. Mr Basavapunniah argues that
since the means of production in the Soviet Union have still
not regressed back to private control, it can never be imperia¬
list. But there are some known facts about the foreign and
domestic policies of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has
not only denied the Chinese access to nuclear technology and
other help, it has collaborated with the U.S. in the ‘contain¬
ment of China’. It has sought to impose the nuclear ‘non¬
proliferation treaty’ on other nations, specially China.
On the domestic side, it is now known that the social recon¬
struction programmes suffer from revisionism. The benefits of
socialist reconstruction in the Soviet Union are not shared by
different social groups equitably. The gap between the wages
of workers and other functionaries is not only there, monetary
incentives have been reinstalled as desirable. All these fit into
a pattern and one can state that revisionism has captured the
leadership of the State.
Revisionism, as Lenin points out, is “promoted by the
bourgeois in working class movement which omits, obliterates
and distorts the revolutionary side of Marxism and its revolu¬
tionary soul ; they push to the foreground and extol what is
acceptable to the bourgeoisie”. Is this not the case in the
Soviet Union today ? The bourgeoisie which has survived the
ruthless suppression by hiding within the party for decades
has now captured power. It has adopted the policy of colla¬

boration with U.S. imperialism in dividing the world into
spheres of influence where each can effectively exploit the
economic resources and the market. It is for these reasons
that the Soviet Union which is revisionist is characterised as
social-imperialists.
3. Question of Tactic and Tasks
Mr Basavapunniah has “exposed” a series of other issues
which he calls the‘fallacies’ of‘Naxalites of all hues’. These
relate to the tactic and current tasks of Indian revolution. On
the one hand he states that ‘he does not have any parliamentary
illusion’ and believes that ‘the State power cannot be attained
through peaceful means’, on the other hand he states that
‘counter-revolution has unified itself, advanced technologically,
militarily and has acquired enormous communication and
transport facilities’. Therefore, people’s war is no longer a
possibility. If one believes Mr Basavapunniah’s claim of no
parliamentary illusion, one may infer that the real determinants
of people’s victory are the military hardware, transport facilities
and communication equipment. This amounts to gross dis¬
respect to the people’s war waged successfully by the Vietnamese
who have defeated the most sophisticated counter-revolutionary
war machine in the world. People’s war has liberated
Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau from fascist-imperialist
•rules. Similar struggles are on, in other places in Asia
(Malaysia, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand) and several Latin
American countries. Ignoring such struggles would mean that
Mr Basavapunniah has come to believe more in technological
hardware than in the people, despite his occasional lip service
■to the latter.
Again, despite his reservation about the success of people’s
war, he states that revolutionary conditions are not yet ripe in
India. One wonders why he bothers about revolutionary
conditions if he does not believe in the possibility of people’s
war, to start with. On the other hand, if he seriously thinks
.that conditions are not yet ripe for people’s war, he may
have indicated his method of gauging the situation. He lists

three places where armed uprising took place and was suppres¬
sed and uses these to substantiate his argument. It is interesting
to note that the failure of two Ministries of the CPM has not
convinced its leadership of the futility of elections whereas two
examples have convinced Mr Basavapunniah about the
unfeasibility of people’s war.
Mr Basavapunniah however rationalises his theory of
continued participation in elections on the plea that “they don’t
wish to give the bourgeoisie an alibi that CPM believes in the
‘cult of violence’ and is not striving to achieve political power
peacefully.” It was the CPM leadership which had the control
of the West Bengal Home Ministry (that is, control of the police
force etc.), when the Naxalbari uprising took place. And later
again during the uprising at Debra-Gopiballavpur (Midnapore).
Mr Jyoti Basu deployed the BSF after the police failed to
suppress the uprising and greatly appreciated the work of the
BSF. Brutal repression of the uprising and slaughter of
cadres has certainly established the CPM leadership’s creden¬
tials with the bourgeoisie.
April 12, 1975
ON THE THOUGHTS OF CHARU MAJUMDAR

B. UPADHYAY
To begin with, although Charu Majumdar himself was

responsible to a great extent in laying emphasis on ‘khatam’
or ‘annihilation’ as the only means to mobilise the peasantry
[cf. his speech at the first congress of the CPI(ML) in 1970 :
'‘Only annihilation can solve all our problems’], in his later
writings he sought to restore the balance by reiterating that
“the fundamental point of class struggle is the seizure of
political power. The fundamental point of class struggle is
not annihilation, though annihilation is a higher form of class-

struggle” (Unpublished note written towards the end of
1971). During the same period, in another note to his comrades,
he wrote : “Today the landless peasant, the poor peasant
must be told about the need to attack the State machinery,.
about our total politics.To tell them only about the
annihilation of class enemies will be economism.”
Unfortunately, the main aim, of creating base areas and
mobilising the peasantry there around harvesting and other
economic activities to enable them to taste the sense of power
and inspire them to protect and enlarge those base areas, was
lost sight of in the craze for getting rid of the immediate
objects of reprisal—the notorious landlords and moneylenders.
Yet, Charu Majumdar urged his followers on November 18,
1971, to rally all sections of the peasantry in the base areas for
harvesting : “The movement is to make even the backward
peasants participants in our struggle. Without conducting
this mass movement we can in no way realise our objective—
the objective of making every peasant a fighter.”. In a
warning against indiscriminate annihilation, he laid down the
rules : “This movement wiff be directed against the class
enemy, i.e. the jotedar class. It will also be conducted against
such rich peasants as may be actively cooperating with the
police. All other classes are our allies in this struggle.”
The other issue which divided Charu Majumdar’s staunch
followers from their critics in the movement in 1971-72 was
the question of revolutionary authority, the former insisting
that everyone would have to accept Charu Majumdar as the
revolutionary authority, and refusal to do so would amount
to treachery. Charu Majumdar himself had a more sober
approach to the question. In a letter to some comrades in
Tripura at the end of 1971, he wrote: “It is incorrect to
mechanically bring to the forefront the question of authority
during any difference of opinions. That pushes the politics
back. We shall never impose authority through methods
of commandism. Comprehension of the vast number of
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 73-
comrades gradually grows only through experience and political

discussion.”
Charu Majumdar also stressed the need for uniting with
the other revolutionary groups towards the end of his life.
In the well-known article, ‘It is people’s interest that is the
party’s interest’ (June 9, 1972), excerpts of which were carried
by Frontier at that time, he reminded his comrades : “Even
those who once practised enmity towards us will also in
special circumstances come forward to unite with us. We
must have such largeness of mind as to be united with all such
forces.”
The slogan “China’s Chairman is our Chairman” which
created a lot of resentment among revolutionaries here and
embarrassment for the Chinese, was, as is fairly well-known
among Majumdar’s close comrades, withdrawn by Majumdar
towards the end of his life.
Paradoxically enough, during the phase that followed the
1972 setback and Charu Majumdar’s death, his devoted
followers courageously rebuilt the party and created bases, but
ignored his last warnings and advice and went on stressing the
same old divisive features that had split the movement earlier.
The second congress of the party, held in December, 1973,
insisted on everyone accepting the revolutionary authority of
Charu Majumdar, reiterated the slogan “China’s Chairman is
our Chairman,” rejected talk of unity with other groups and
laid emphasis on annihilation as the main means of achieving
the goal.
But in spite of these unfortunate sectarian lapses, the
second congress was an important landmark. The leaders of
the congress (most of whom have been arrested during the
last few months), took up the challenge of rebuilding the party
and resuming the movement at a time when the whole
situation looked bleak. Charu Majumdar had died, the
central committee was in disarray, the cadres were either in jail
or killed. From almost scratch, through patient discussions
and contacts, the organisation was gradually rebuilt. An.
important feature of the new organisation was the large

proportion of landless peasants and workers in the leading
committees. The leaders of the second congress throughout
1973-74 sought to implement Charu Majumdar’s directive :
“Unless the poor and landless peasants are elevated to
leadership, however much revolutionary possibilities there
might be, they are bound to fail” (July 14, 1970). The
success that they achieved was because of their firm adherence
to this belief. That the second congress could be held in a
village in Burdwan under the protection of armed peasant
guerillas is itself an indication of the progress made by these
leaders of the CPI(ML). (The first congress was held in 1970
in an office building in a middle-class locality in Calcutta.)
The base in that village could be retained for six months, and
when the police encircled it in June 1974, the entire population
of the village, with guns, bows and arrows fought the police,
managed to make a dent in the encirclement and make a safe
passage for the guerilla squads to escape. This indicates mass
participation. But Kamalpur was an isolated village. The
base there could not be extended to the neighbouring areas,
since there was little time to build up the organisation in the
outlying areas, as well as because of the sectarian lapses
mentioned before—refusal to unite with other groups, etc.
There were also mistakes of another nature. There was often
..among the leadership an over-optimistic evaluation of the
possibility of advancing rapidly and underestimation of the
enemy strength. This attitude was reflected in the party
journals, where wishful thinking often replaced objective
reporting, the justification being the need to rouse the people
by flowery and emotional language. In fact, the party suffered
from the three mistakes against which Mao Tsetung warned
the Chinese Communist Party during the revolution there—
subjectivism, sectarianism and long-winded style of writing.
Writing as early as 1967, asserting the primary importance
of armed struggle, Charu Majumdar reiterated at the same
.time : “One may naturally ask then whether the peasantry
should not wage mass movements for their partial demands

in this period. Certainly the need for such movements is
still there and will remain there in future. India is a vast
country, and the peasantry is also divided into various
segments. So the level of political consciousness can never
be the same in all classes and in all areas. So there will
always be the possibility of peasant movements on partial
demands and Communists will always have to take advantage
of such possibilities.” (Document No. 8—‘It is only by
fighting revisionism that the peasants’ struggle can be taken
forward.’ 1967.)
The need for such struggles has assumed more importance
right now, when a fascist dictatorship, much more sophisti¬
cated than Hitler’s or Mussolini’s, is controlling the country.
Any open platform, however minimal it might be in its
effectiveness, should be utilised to fight for propagating the
message of the revolution and mobilise the masses. As Charu
Majumdar said : “In spite of the propaganda of armed
revolution, the peasants might decide to organise mass
deputation, and we will have to lead such struggles. In the
era of white terror, we should never minimise the importance
of such mass deputation, for it is the mass deputations which
will rally more and more peasants round struggles.” (Docu¬
ment No. 8—‘It is only by fighting revisionism that the
peasants’ struggle can be taken forward’. 1967.) Workers’
strikes in the industrial areas, movements for civil rights,
struggles for higher wages or land can thus be canalised into
militant armed confrontation with the government.
June 7, 1975
INDIVIDUAL TERRORISM & MARXISM
A SHIM MITRA
Armed struggle is central to the whole idea of Marxism-

Leninism. To Lenin it was an object of passionate absorp¬
tion. He said, “An oppressed class which does not strive to
learn to use arms, to obtain arms, deserves to be treated as
slaves”. When Plekhanov, after the failure of 1905, categori¬
cally said, ‘they should not have taken up arms’, Lenin angrily
retorted that, on the contrary, they should have taken to arms
more resolutely, energetically and aggressively. “Those who
do not prepare for armed uprising must be ruthlessly cast out
of the ranks of the supporters of the revolution and sent back
to the ranks of its enemies, traitors and cowards.”
In a remarkable theoretical defence of guerilla fighting,
Lenin said, armed struggle pursues two different goals... “in
the first place the goal of the killing of individual persons,
higher officials, and subalterns in police and army ; second,
the confiscation of funds both from the government and from
private persons.” The common opinion about this struggle
of 1906, he described, was that it was anarchism, Blanquism,
old terrorism etc. But he contemptuously treated them as
‘trite labels’. Killing of individual persons is not ipso facto a
terrorist act. Acts of individuals isolated from the masses,
having no direct bearing on mass movement and insurrection,
not ennobled by the enlightening and organising idea of
socialism, in other words without politics in command, are
inexpedient and harmful. Referring to a political assassina¬
tion in Vienna, Lenin wrote to Franz Koritschoner on October
25, 1916, “As regards the political assessment of the act, we
maintain, of course, our old conviction confirmed by decades
of experiences that individual terrorist acts are inexpedient
methods of political struggle”.
“Killing is no murder’, wrote our old lskra about terrorist

acts. We are not at all opposed to political killing but as
revolutionary tactics, individual attacks are inexpedient and
harmful. Only the mass movement can be considered genuine
political struggle. Only in direct immediate connection with
the mass movement can and must individual terrorist act be
of value....In Russia the terrorists (against whom we always
struggled) carried out a number of individual attacks, but in
December 1905, when matters almost reached the stage of a
mass insurrection, when it was necessary to help the masses
to use violence then just at that moment the ‘terrorists’
were missing. That is where terrorists make their mistakes,”
said Lenin.
Left CPI readers will harp on mass movements ; but
Lenin understood it differently. In a letter to Inessa Armand
dated February 3, 1917 he wrote : “The slogan of a mass
movement is not bad, but it is not completely correct. Be¬
cause it forgets the revolution, the conquest of power, the
dictatorship of the proletariat. N.B. this ! or more correctly
the support and development (at once) of every kind of revolu¬
tionary mass movement, with the object of bringing near
the revolution. Individual terrorist acts are not immoral as
such (mark the word inexpedient), rather necessary in a parti¬
cular juncture to help the masses to use violence.”
In the exciting weeks and months after Bloody Sunday,
Lenin had spent days in the library in Geneva studying mili¬
tary tactics. He had sent from Switzerland endless streams
of instructions with the most detailed practical directions :
“Give every company short and simple bomb formulae.
They must begin their military training immediately in direct
connexion with practical fighting action. Some will immediately
kill a spy or blow up police station, others will organise an
attack on a bank, in order to confiscate funds for the uprising.”
A few days later he wrote on weapons : “rifles, revolvers,
bombs, knives, brass knuckles, clubs, rags soaked in oil to start
fire with, rope or rope ladders, shovels for building barricades.
dynamite cartridges, barbed wire tacks against cavalry. There

were further precepts concerning passwords, the value of
mobility and surprise, use of women, children, and old people,
duties of unarmed contingents who might disarm a lone
policeman or climb and shower troops with stones, acid,
boiling water.”
These were the features of partisan warfare in 1905-1906..
Naxalites claim to be attempting precisely these things in the
conditions obtaining after 1966 to unleash the initiative of the
masses for a violent struggle in the days to come. “Partisan
warfare”, Lenin said, “is an inevitable form of struggle at a
time when the mass movement has actually reached the point
of insurrection and when fairly large intervals occur between
the big engagements in the civil war.” Were not the unpre¬
cedented violent food struggle of 1966, the general strikes that
swept West Bengal and India, the Congress debacle in the
1967 elections, the minority Left CPI victory in Kerala and
West Bengal, sure signs that the mass movement had reached
the point of armed struggle ? Was not the recent armed
confrontation between CPM-led peasants at Alladpur and
Congress hoodlums a sure index that we are in the midst of
civil war ? This phenomenon is not perceptible in the case of
India as whole, but it exists.
The argument that Naxalite activities disorganise the mas&
movement must be regarded critically. Every new form of
struggle, accompanied as it is by new dangers and new
sacrifices, inevitably disorganises organisations which are un¬
prepared for this new form of struggle. Lenin again said : “It
is not partisan actions which disorganise the movement, but
the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such
action under its control. Being incapable of understanding
what historical conditions give rise to this struggle, we are
incapable of neutralising its noxious aspects. He continued
“...What we have said about disorganisation also applies to
demoralisation. It is not partisan warfare which demoralises
but unorganised, irregular, non-party partisan acts. We shall
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 79’
not rid ourselves of this most unquestionable demoralisation

by condemning and cursing partisan actions, for condemnation
and curses are absolutely incapable of putting a stop to a
phenomenon which has been engendered by profound eco¬
nomic and political causes.”
Moreover, “A Marxist stands by class struggle and not
social peace...Any moral condemnation of civil war would be
absolutely impermissible from the standpoint of Marxism”.
{Partisan Warfare). In 1906, a large number of actions were
taken by the vagabond elements of the population, the lumpen
proletariat and anarchist groups ; but Lenin never condemned
them from a high moral standpoint ; on the contrary, he went
into the essence of the problem and noted its significance :
they were the product of powerful economic and political
causes. It was not in anybody’s power to eliminate these
causes or to eliminate the struggle.
When Plekhanov published his Our Differences, Engels
wrote to express his approval of the contents but his dislike of
the intolerent attacks on the revolutionary wing of the
Narodniks ‘the only people who are doing anything in Russia
at present.’ He was pleased that the Russian Social Democrats
accepted so much of his and Marx’s doctrine but he never
ceased to disapprove of their relegating the courageous and
revolutionary Narodniks to the lake of fire and brimstone,
“with other reactionaries”. Stalin urged the workers to be
on guard against economic terror, then (1906-1907) very much
prevalent in Georgia for it would recoil upon organised
labour. But when the local ‘liberal’ newspaper—the mouth¬
piece of the oil magnates, began to preach morals, he retorted
with an angry philippic on the wretched condition of the oil
proletariat which accounted for their despair and violence.
He scorned a Menshevik suggestion that socialists should up
to a point cooperate with authority in preventing economic
terror. By its own means and in its own interests the
proletariat should curb despair and sporadic violence, Stalin
concluded, but it would never denounce the culprits to the
authority. Here people who celebrate Engels’ birthdays,

people who call themselves ‘Stalinists’ are doing the exact
opposite.
The bourgeoisie and their servants accuse Naxalites of
resorting to terror. The bourgeoisie have forgotten their
1649, and 1793. Terror was just and legitimate when the
bourgeoisie resorted to it for their own benefit againt feudalism.
Terror becomes monstrous and criminal when the workers
and poor peasants dare to use it against the bourgeoisie and
the feudalists. Terror is just and legitimate when used for
substituting one exploiting minority for another exploiting
minority. Terror becomes monstrous and criminal when it
begins to be used for overthrowing every exploiting minority,
to be used in the interests of the vast majority. Terror is just
and legitimate against the Naxalites but is monstrous and
criminal when the Naxalites return it.
Not that the Naxalites are not committing grave mistakes—
the so-called cultural revolution, the reckless tactics in a
number of cases are wasteful of human life and energy. These
must be corrected through merciless criticism and self-criticism.
All the difficult dilemmas of partisan warfare which Russia,
China, Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, the European resistance in the
Second World War had to grapple are there. But people
should understand that mistakes are being committed in course
of revolutionary work.
August 7, 1971
Letter
The article “Individual Terrorism and Marxism” is an

effort to idealise the Naxalites.
The lengthy quotations from Lenin, being so very out of
context, help in no way to prop up the argument he advances.
Can any one draw a parallel between the situation in Russia
in 1905 and the situation now in India ? Individual terrorism,
divorced from mass movement, seen in Europe during the
19th century and in Russia during the early part of the 20th
century, at a time when Marxism was being developed in
practice, cannot be compared with terrorism today, after the
experience of so many successful revolutions. In the Indian
situation a tremendous scope is opening up not only in West
Bengal and Kerala but in all the States to develop mass
movement, more effective and broadbased, on a scale not
witnessed before.
During half a century in India we have seen the activities
of terrorists ; they showed their mettle in devotion, idealism,
self-sacrifice and heroism drawing admiration from and applause
of the educated people but they could not arouse the masses
or build up revolutionary bases. The stuff of the Naxalites is
much inferior even though they profess to follow a superior
•ideology. In fact, they are nowhere near the ideology they
claim to follow. They professed rejection of the parliamentary
path and gave the ‘boycott election’ call but in practice they
joined hands with the CPI, Congress (O) and Congress (R) to
defeat the CPI(M) in the elections. And how could Mr
Mitra show his reliance on elections where he said, “the
Congress debacle in West Bengal in the 1967 elections, the
minority Left CPI victory in Kerala and West Bengal (were)
sure signs that the mass movement had reached the point of
armed struggle” ? If the fundamental premise is wrong, one
mistake leads to successive mistakes. “Boycott of elections”
is a wrong slogan and it will be equally wrong to rely on the
election results as an indication of the maturity of the revolu¬
tionary situation.
Naxalites do not understand in what situation Lenin
formulated “boycott of election” as a correct policy and in
what situation he advised participation in the Duma elections.
For the same misconception the advancement of the struggling
people in West Bengal and Kerala is taken as a surer sign of
the maturity of the revolutionary situation for the whole of
India. This misconception is due to a mechanical approach
do try to repeat the experiences of other countries in India
Vol II—6
82 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL ID
without having any consideration for the peculiarities of the

Indian situation. Naxalites claim to follow the Chinese pathi
but in actual practice they have even perverted the Chinese
formulation. The essence of Lin Piao’s thesis is to organise
the masses to organise guerilla warfare but the Naxalites.
controverted it as “organise guerilla warfare to organise the
masses.”
CHANDRANATH CHAKRABORTY
August 21,1971 Behala, Calcutta
THE NAXALITE TACTICAL LINE
ABHIJNAN SEN
The tactical line of mobilising and rousing the peasantry

through “annihilation of class enemies” which was finalised
around April 1969 had, however, been taking shape for quite
some time. One of the first important attempts in this regard
was made by Kanu Sanyal in his “Report on the Peasant
Struggle in the Terai” (Deshabrati, Oct. 24, ’68). The report
dealt not only with the tactics actually employed by the
revolutionary peasants of the Naxalbari, Kharibari and
Phansidewa areas but made some general observations about
the tactics to be employed in the next phase of the struggle.
The broad strategic objective of the Communist revolu¬
tionaries who launched the Naxalbari struggle is to liberate the
countryside by waging a protracted people’s war and then
encircle the cities. Naturally, one of their principal tactical
problems relates to the mobilisation of the peasants for armed
struggle and creation of liberated areas. Kanu Sanyal des¬
cribed in detail the way the peasants were drawn into the
struggle and how they set up an embryonic form of people’s,
power in a limited area.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 83*
The process of politicalising the peasants of the area had.

started quite a few years ago. The local Peasants’ Association
under the leadership of the revolutionaries had in the past-
launched a number of struggles on partial and economic
demands. A qualitative change came in March 1967, when,
the Peasants’ Association of the Siliguri sub-division called,
upon the peasants to launch a struggle for the seizure of politi¬
cal power. Specifically the peasants were urged to establish
Ihe control of the peasant committees on all the affairs of the
village, to get organised and armed for smashing the resistance
of jotedars and other reactionaries, to break the monopolistic
hold of jotedars over land and redistribute them through
peasant committees. In response to this call, thousands of
peasants held numerous group discussions and meetings,
formed branches of peasant committees and armed themselves.
As Sanyal noted, since every small struggle of the peasants
had in the past encountered armed repression, the slogan,
‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ had a magic
effect in organising them. Thus, after the peasants had been
aroused and organised they went ahead to implement the
decisions of the Peasants’ Association.
The ten principal activities of the peasants listed by Kanu.
Sanyal give an idea of the methods by which the decision was
implemented. The first achievement of the peasants was
to strike at the monopolistic land-holding of the jotedars
which is the basis of the latter’s political, economic and social
dominance. The land of the whole of Terai was “nationalised”
for redistribution among peasants. The second, third and
fourth categories consisted in the destruction of all records and
papers concerning debt, and seizure of foodgrains, livestock
and other properties of the jotedars for redistribution among
the people. The fifth was public trial and execution of jote¬
dars known for their oppressive past or of those who resisted
peasant struggle. Their other achievements, according to Kanu
Sanyal, consisted in the building up of a village self-defence
force armed with home-made and captured weapons andi
replacement of bourgeois-feudal power by people’s power.

One thing that comes out clearly from Sanyal’s report is
that although initiated by the revolutionaries of the Peasants’
Association, the Naxalbari movement was something of a mass
upsurge in which spontaneity and mass initiative far outweighed
the planning and discipline required of a revolutionary move¬
ment. Without proper politicalisation, military experience and
discipline, the movement suffered setbacks in the face of police
repression. The very open and public nature of their decla¬
ration and preparation for armed struggle must also have
exposed them too much before they could get sufficiently
organised. Perhaps that is why Kanu Sanyal suggested that
in the next phase of struggle they would set up party units
which will not only be armed but will also be “trained to
maintain secrecy”. Such party units will propagate Mao’s
thoughts, intensify class struggle and “as guerilla units strike
and annihilate class enemies”. They were also expected to
participate, with the people, in production whenever possible.
A conference of the revolutionary peasants of the Naxalbari
area held in September 1968, reaffirmed the line suggested by
Sanyal—the building of party units to propagate Mao’s
thoughts, intensify class struggle and launch guerilla attacks on
class enemies, police informers and even the army, if such
opportunity arises. So far the sole concern of the party
unit, it had been thought, was associated with armed struggle
for the seizure of political power. However, Charu Majumdar
had by that time just come up with some additional sugges¬
tions about the tactical line. In an article entitled “To the
Comrades” (Deshabrati, August 1, 1968) he said, “the com¬
rades who are working in peasant areas, while engaged in
propagating politics should not minimize the necessity of
placing a general slogan on economic demands. Because, with¬
out drawing the large section of peasants into the movement,
backward peasants cannot be brought in a position to grasp
politics or keep up their hatred against class enemies”. In
another article published in Deshabrati (October 17, 1968)
Charu Majumdar further elaborated on the problem of mobi¬
lising the backward sections of the peasantry. While insisting
on the necessity of secret political propaganda by the party so
as not to prematurely expose it to repression, he, however,
pointed out that backward peasants would be late in grasping
politics under this method. “And for this reason”, he wrote,
“it is and will be necessary to launch economic struggles against
the feudal classes. For this reason it is necessary to lead
movements for the seizure of crops, the form of the struggle
depending on the political consciousness and organisation of
the area.” He further stated that “without widespread mass
struggle of the peasants and without the participation of large
sections of the masses in the movement, the politics of seizure
of power would take time in striking roots in the consciousness
of the peasants”.
This line of launching mass struggles for economic demands
did not, however, quite fit into the tactics of secret politicalisa¬
tion by underground and armed party units. Implicit in
Majumdar’s writing was that both these methods of arousing
the peasants would continue simultaneously. But the open
nature of the mass struggle for economic gains would expose
the party apparatus and defeat the purpose of secret political
propaganda by the party units. This dilemma was resolved in
mid-1969 when, drawing on the teachings of Lin Piao that
“guerilla warfare is the only way to mobilise and apply the
whole strength of the people against the enemy”, Majumdar
said, “the revolutionary initiative of wider sections of the
peasant masses can be released through annihilation of class
enemies by guerilla methods and neither mass organization
nor mass movement is indispensable before starting guerilla
war” (Quoted in Deshabrati, April 23, 1970, p. 11). Later,
he further clarified his stand to mean that mass struggle for
economic gains would follow guerilla action, not precede or
accompany it. In his ‘A Few Words on Guerilla Action’
(Deshabrati, January 15, 1970) he explained in detail how
after some preliminary propaganda work for the seizure of
«6 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
power has been done by the party unit, small guerilla bands
would be formed in a completely conspiratorial way for striking
down the most hated class enemies. After the first action has
taken place, political cadres would start whispering around
innocently about the advantages to be obtained when the
oppressors have left the area in fear or have been liquidated.
Then the peasants could enjoy undisturbed the land and wealth
of the village. Many peasants would now be shaken out of
their inertia and encouraged to join the struggle. “When
quite a number of offensive ‘actions’ have taken place and the
revolutionary political line of annihilating the class enemies has
been firmly established, only then the political cadres would
give the general economic slogan ‘seize the crop of the class
enemy’. This slogan will achieve miracles. Even the most
backward peasant would now join the struggle”.
The long way that has been travelled by the revolutionaries
since the Naxalbari struggle can best be guessed by comparing
Kanu Sanyal’s report with that of the Bengal-Bihar-Orissa
Border Regional Committee of the CPI(ML) on the Debra-
Gopiballavpur struggle published in Deshabrati, April 23,
1970. As the report self-critically admits, initially the revolu¬
tionaries of the area had a vague notion about a Naxalbari-type
of armed peasant uprising and they hoped that guerilla bands
would emerge out of armed clashes for the seizure of crops.
But in practice they could not adopt any specific programme
other than propagate the politics of seizure of power through
armed struggle. Rather by resorting to pure economism and
public demonstrations at places they exposed the organization
and invited repression. The movement for the time being
was in the doldrums. It was only after Charu Majumdar had
given the line of starting guerilla warfare through annihilation
of class enemies that they could break out of their inertia, it
was stated. On August 21, 1969, the Regional Committee of
the CPI(ML) met at Soormuhi and decided upon launching an
annihilation campaign against class enemies. As the report
said, the very first armed action which was not even successful
(DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 87
^released the floodgates of peasant initiative, which could not

nave been possible by their propaganda work. “With every
action mass initiative and class hatred of the peasants started
growing and so did rise the level of their political conscious¬
ness”. Simultaneous political propaganda also helped the
process. After two months of guerilla offensive against
jotedars, in November 1969, thousands of peasants, it was
claimed, rose up in arms. Under the leadership of the
party, armed peasants seized all the crops of oppressive
jotedars and those of enemy agents.. Many jotedars were
disarmed and fled the villages. The peasants set up people’s
courts to try the oppressors. They secured the return of all
their mortgaged property from the moneylenders. The jotedars
who stayed on agreed to abide by the dictates of the peasants
who fixed the wage for khetmajurs (landless labourers). Shop
prices were also fixed by them. In the wake of this came brutal
police repression. .But, as the report says, “after the taste of
liberation they had, any amount of repression would not be
able to rob the peasants of their dream of bright days of
liberation in future.” Faced with the encirclement and sup¬
pression campaign by Eastern Frontier Rifles, the guerilla
squads dispersed over a wider area and carried on their anni¬
hilation campaign simultaneously with political propaganda.
The way the struggle in Gopiballavpur, Debra and Bahara-
gora started and developed sets it apart from the Naxalbari
struggle. In Naxalbari, thousands of peasants responding to
the call of the Peasants’ Association sprang into action,
•concentrating mainly on the seizure of land, the basis of feudal
domination. In the Gopiballavpur area the struggle was
launched by small guerilla squads. By delivering lightning
blows at the class enemies they created a sort of power vacuum
in the area into which thousands of peasants moved in, seized
•crops and properties and set up peasants’ rule. Kanu Sanyal
stressed at the end of his report the necessity of thoroughly
•carrying out revolutionary land redistribution. But the report
«on the Gopiballavpur, Debra and Baharagora struggles sum-
marised above does not mention this aspect. Rather than

formal redistribution of land the emphasis seems to have been
placed on the actual control of the peasant committees on
village affairs including appropriation of crops. Compared to
Naxalbari, this struggle appears to be much more disciplined
and planned. It is claimed that the “Red power” which came
into existence, even if temporarily, helped to politicalise and
enthuse the peasants. Political consciousness of the peasants
has, in fact, been raised to such a level that the police as well
as the administration, as admitted even by the bourgeois press,
find the local people totally non-cooperative and often hostile.
All these perhaps explain why the struggle in Gopiballavpur
has survived and continues to develop in the face of massive
repression.
July 4, 1970
NAXAL1TE TACTICS IN CITIES

ABHIJNAN SEN
In the present article an attempt is made to trace in bare

outline the evolution of the CPI(ML) tactical line in cities.
Back in 1967, when no tactical line had yet taken shape,
the Naxalites vaguely stated that their task would be “to
develop militant, revolutionary struggles of the working class
and other toiling people, to combat economism and to orient
these struggles towards agrarian revolution” (Declaration of
the revolutionaries of the CPI(M) in Liberation, December,
1967). In conformity with this line, attempts were made to
organise students and to some extent workers for demonstra¬
tions in favour of the Naxalbari peasant struggle. About the
same time, Charu Majumdar spoke in greater detail about their
task in cities. Tie was most enthusiastic about the students-
whose lack of self-interest, courage and dedication “make then*
an asset for the revolution”. First of all he wanted them to

integrate themselves with the peasants and propagate revolu¬
tionary politics. But “those who are unable to go to the
villages at present he said, “should engage in doing propa¬
ganda work among the workers in the cities. Their aim should
be to organise democratic struggles in the cities in support of
the peasant struggles in the villages” (Liberation, December
1967, P. 87). There was as yet no programme for the students
or for the workers. At the Democratic Convention in Calcutta
on March 22, 1968, the nature of the democratic struggle in
the cities was spelt out in greater detail. Apart from waging
struggles in support of the peasants, the workers were called
upon to build militant organisations for the defence of their
own class interest. It was decided to launch struggles against
the PD Act, automation, retrenchment, lay-off, lock-out and
police repression and for food and trade union rights. Charu
Majumdar, however, put the greatest emphasis on propaganda
work by the students and youth whose political organisation
“would inevitably be Red Guard organisation”. Their task
would be the widest possible dissemination of quotations from
Chairman Mao. (Deshabrati, May 2, 1968.)
Nevertheless, throughout 1968 and up to the birth of the
CPI(ML), the students supplemented their agit-prop work with
movements for partial demands, of their own and the people
in general. Processions and demonstrations were organised
against the tram-fare rise and rise in food prices. The draft
political programme of the revolutionary student-youth move¬
ment published in Deshabrati, February 20, 1969, elaborated
on the reasons for waging partial struggles. Revolution, it said,
cannot succeed with the help of a handful of advanced elements
of students and youth. But it is difficult to draw in numerous
backward elements by simple political propaganda. To unite
and lead this section of students and youth into joining a
revolutionary movement it is necessary to wage struggle for
“food, employment, education and culture” and direct all the
discontent and anger of the youth to the path of long-term
revolutionary struggle. At every stage of such struggle they

would follow such tactics and carry on propaganda in such
a way that there is a mass participation by students and
youth and they would become more active and politically
conscious.
But as the Naxalites were moving in the direction of
forming a party, there was a noticeable tendency to make a
distinction between the work of the ideologically advanced
activists and students and youth in general. Replying to the
charge of neglecting mass organisations and trade unions made
by breakaway Naxalites like Parimal Dasgupta, Charu Majumdar
said, “if everyone concerns himself with building mass organi¬
sations, who is to build the underground party ? Do we
expect the mass organisations to organise the agrarian revolu¬
tion ?” (Ghatana Prabaha, May 1969.) Elaborating further
on the tactical line among workers he said that if one has to
imbue the workers with revolutionary politics it has to be done
Through the propaganda activity of party units from outside
unions, for “the working class will never realise the necessity
of agrarian revolution through its movement for economic
demands”. Trade unions, he said, become a school for
political education when there is no revolutionary situation,
when the capitalist class appears very powerful and the work¬
ing class considers itself to be very weak. At this time the
trade union movement creates self-confidence among the
workers and they also learn about tactics of struggle. But
when the situation is revolutionary, when every struggle is fast
turning into a violent clash, trade unions are not enough to
tackle such a situation. In a revolutionary situation, the party
is the class organisation of the workers. Particularly in a
country like India, Majumdar said, where the principal centre
of revolution is in the countryside, the responsibility of the
party is greater and the task of building party organisation
among the workers extremely urgent, for without this party
organisation the working class cannot perform its duty of
heading the revolution.
A new line about the students was given by Majumdar in

■an article entitled ‘Party’s call to the youth and students’
(Deshabrati, August 21, 1969). In this article he recalled the
glorious tradition of the militant youth of the country. “At
every stage of India’s struggle for national freedom, the youth
and students of India made enormous sacrifices, carried the
*call of freedom to the villages, resisted police repression, and
discontinued their study and voluntarily destroyed the pros¬
pects of building a career for themselves in order to become
wholetime political workers”. Now, it is the task of the
revolutionary students and youth to shoulder the important task
of propagating revolutionary politics. But one obstacle in the
path of their taking up wholeheartedly the revolutionary cause
is the college union. “These college unions”, he said, “cannot
solve any problem of education that confronts the students.
On the other hand the college unions fail to provide leader¬
ship to the youth and the students in their revolt against the
existing education system.” By encouraging a sort of econo-
mism the student unions blunt their revolutionary edge. As a
result, “the union leadership in most cases, is found to sink
deep into the mire of opportunism, and careerism begins to
develop among them while the temptation of staying on in
leadership drags them into all kinds of opportunist alliances
and thus destroys their revolutionary morality.” The article
ended with an impassioned call to the students and youth to
integrate themselves with workers and peasants.
The tactical line in cities, as it had evolved in the past two
years, was very briefly noted in the draft organisational report
■ circulated after the formation of the CPI(ML) in April 1969.
Since the party was to be a secret organisation, launching of
mass or democratic struggle was by implication ruled out. The
draft said that “though the party should learn to utilise all
possible legal opportunities for developing its revolutionary
activities it should under no circumstances function in the
open”. Whether front organisations should be created for this
[purpose was not made clear- either. It was briefly noted that
the party will give first preference to work by which the

working class would be prepared “to assume the role of
leadership of our revolution, rather than carry on economic
and cultural activities in cities”.
The most clear-cut and comprehensive statement of CPI-
(ML) tactical line regarding the workers was made only in
March 1970. The reason why the central leadership had been
silent so long on this, Charu Majumdar explained, was that
unless politics was firmly grasped by the workers the new tactics
of working class struggle could well degenerate into militant
economic struggles. After the comrades have gathered some
experience through political work, time was now considered
opportune for laying down the new line. This new line mark
a departure from the earlier position of total rejection of trade
unions. Charu Majumdar, of course, reiterated his stand that
the party would neither build nor capture trade unions. “But
trade unions are there and will be, mainly under the revisionist
leadership. Struggles would also be waged through trade
unions and since struggle is the nature of the worker, he will
also join in this. We cannot oppose any struggle whatsoever
waged by the workers against the class enemy. That would
be petty-bourgeois idealism. We will not make them depen¬
dent on us in any struggle waged by the workers for economic
demands or against any attack by the employer ; we will
encourage them with politics to take independent initiative”
(Deshabrati, March 12, 1970). The party cadres would
concentrate on building secret party units through propaganda
work. If this work succeeds in developing self-confidence and
initiative among workers, some of them would go forward to
give able leadership to the trade union struggle and also fight
the revisionists there, but it should be ensured that the workers
themselves donot develop revisionist tendencies.
Although the party would “encourage the workers in any
struggle we will always have to tell them that today tools like
general strike or strike in factories have become largely blunted
for tackling the blows of the organised employers (like lock-out.
lay-off, closure etc.) Today we will have to advance not in a

peaceful, bloodless way but in paths such as gheraos, clashes
with the police and the employer, barricades, liquidation of
enemies and agents—according to the situation.” The workers
will also learn new tactics through such struggles. The party
will pay special attention to the organisation of agitation or
other kinds of struggle in support of the workers if they are
attacked. They will not clash with fellow-workers if they raise
revisionist slogans in such a movement. It will help to cement
the solidarity among the workers.
Another thing, Majumdar wished the party to do, is to
develop self-respect among the workers. Whichever party he may
belong to, the worker always has suffered from the humiliation
of slavery. If through political propaganda, a sense of prestige
can be rekindled in him, he will grow into a daring firebrand
revolutionary. He will transcend the fear of losing his job and
even his life. If retrenched, he will become a good organiser
in the city or will join the peasant struggle in the village.
However, after the CPI(ML) tactical line in the city began
to take shape by March this year (1970), Calcutta and other
towns of West Bengal saw scenes that did not seem to tally with
the line. The students started hit-and-run attacks on educa¬
tional institutions, burning pictures of Gandhi and hoisting the
red flag atop schools and factories. Although there was no
published theoretical justification of this movement Deshabrati
continued to support the students’ action. It was only in a
special edition of Deshabrati (August 15, 1970) that Charu
Majumdar came out with an explanation of this line of move¬
ment. The way he has justified the attacks on Gandhi and
other bourgeois leaders and the hoisting of red flags indicates
that these were more a spontaneous movement than something
chalked out and led by the party. The students, he said, are
making “a festival of breaking statues” and in factories the
workers are making a festival of hoisting the red flag, enjoying
the sense of fear among employers and helplessness among the
police and military. The students and youth, according to
him, are doing a correct thing. A revolutionary education

and culture cannot be created without destroying the colonial"
education system and the statues erected by the comprador
bourgeoisie. But he has taken care to remind that this move¬
ment is neither unique nor self-sufficient. It is not a move¬
ment like the Chinese Cultural Revolution for demolishing the
superstructure. It is born out of the revolutionary tide that
has been created in the countryside. “The students and youth
have become restless for the sake of the agrarian revolution
and they are striking blows at the statues of those who had
always tried to pacify the armed struggle of the peasant masses..
So this struggle of the students and youth is a part of the
agrarian revolution.” The peasant armed struggle is striking
at the base and in the process encouraging attacks on the
superstructure which in turn is helping the destruction of the
base. In short, Majumdar says that the present movement is-
an offshoot of the peasant struggle and though not a permanent
feature, “in this age of inevitable collapse of imperialism,” he
said, “the revolutionary tide would swell and burst again and
again into India’s countryside.” While thus approving the
students’ actions in the cities, Charu Majumdar has warned
them against neglecting the primary task of integrating with
the workers and peasants. In an oblique reference to their
city action, he said, it is easy to do one or two revolutionary
things but very difficult to remain a revolutionary for ever.
This can be done only by integrating oneself with the poor
and landless labourer. Thus, while taking an approving notice
of student innovations, he asks students and youth to go back
to their primary task, that of agit-prop.
However, a most serious aspect of Naxalite activities in
cities—“annihilation” of police and military personnel—has
not so far been adequately explained in CPI(ML) publications.
But the course of events since April this year leading to the
death of more than a dozen policemen indicates that this pro¬
gramme enjoys top priority on the Naxalite agenda in the city.
It is not possible to determine at which stage this type of action
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 95 '
in cities was planned but it can be seen as a sequel to clashes

between the Naxalites and CPI(M), and Naxalite attacks on
educational and other institutions leading to encounters with
and torture by the police.
It was in March 1970 that Charu Majuradar while talking
to a group of students and youth urged them to be “always alert
to retaliate against” any party that dared to attack CPI(ML)
comrades. As to the methods of attack he said that in order
to break the morale of “fascist gangs” they should go in a
group of 5 or 6 and launch “swift, guerilla-style attacks from
a very close quarter” (Deshabrati, March 5, 1970). The
slogan that henceforth became very frequent was “Take re¬
venge for every murder of our comrades”. Following the
death of some leading Naxalites in Srikakulam, peasants were
exhorted to take revenge for this by murdering landlords.
Finally, in July it was announced that the “Calcutta District
Committee has decided to take revenge of the murder of the
heroic comrades in Andhra and West Bengal by annihilating
police, CRP and blackmarketeers and capitalists” {Desha¬
brati, July 9-16, 1970). In his latest instructions to the CPI-
(ML), Charu Majumdar has approvingly noted that “students
of cities and workers...are striking at the police force and
killing police officers”.
Thus the present action against the police in the cities is
presented more as one of supporting action for struggle in the
countryside and resistance to police repression in the cities
than one designed to achieve a particular strategic objective.
Although blackmarketeers and capitalists have been included
in the list, the party has not explained how this would be fitted
in with the tactical line evolved earlier. However, the fact
that intelligence agents and Special Branch police are special
targets of Naxalite attack indicates, perhaps, a desire to shut
off the “eyes and ears” of the State power—a thing which is
being attempted in the countryside.
October 3, 1970
Letters
TWO DEATHS
Comrade Sushital Roy Chowdhury died last week and so

did Comrade Ashu Majumdar.
They died because of the dangerous and destructive line
put forward by a section of the CPI(ML) leadership. They
have used the blind, dedicated, passionate allegiance of our
petit bourgeois youth to lead the party into a line where death
is the only reward and blood the only sign of success. Sushital
Roy Chowdhury died fighting against this line, Ashu Majum¬
dar died implementing it. Both died because of it.
The CPI(ML) carried the seeds of ‘Left’ and Right devia¬
tion from its birth. This was inevitable. Right opportunism
wag'the main danger. It still is, except that one must remember
that in revolutionary times, during passages of revolutionary
advance, after every success in the battle against revisionism—
right opportunism manifests itself in the guise of ‘left’ adven¬
turism and tries to wreck the party. In the beginning, in the
CPI(ML) the signs were there. But they were few : isolated
bits of unreason, sudden short bursts of fanaticism, over¬
reliance on conspiracy, a tendency to stick to the city, repeated
instances of directing appeals mainly to youth and students
rather than directly to the toiling masses, thereby shifting the
emphasis. These piled up and collected and a whole range of
“theories” appeared. The “theory” began, qualitatively, by
describing the mechanics of individual assassination to be
achieved by a conspiracy. In the beginning, this was to be a
take-off point, a link between political propaganda and orga¬
nisational work and the formation of guerilla forces and libera¬
ted zones. This was in March 1970. In April/May it was
raised to the level of being the only way, the only link. Im¬
mediately thereafter it was announced to be the strategy for
all the stages of the People’s Democratic Revolution. Those
.DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 97
who accepted this theory in March failed to see that by making

conspiracy the only method of organisation, by placing the
conspiratorial organisation outside the control of the party unit
and by narrowing the definition of‘annihilation’ to mean
tonly the slitting of throats—this ‘theory’ was fundamentally
against Mao Tsetung Thought. The rapid success of this
.line—measured in terms of throats slit—made all questions
evaporate or appear revisionist. As long as the pre-conditions
laid down by the original article were maintained, “successes”
were few and the sphere of activity remained confined to the
village, the deviation was not alarming. It was capable of
correction. But then came the city ‘actions’ followed by the
*eity annihilations. New ‘theories’ began to gush forth from
rthe fountainhead :
1. The theory that all Indian bourgeoisie were comprador.
2. The theory that all intellectual or petit bourgeois
Headers of the past respected by the present society were agents
of imperialism.
3. The theory that more you study the more stupid you
become.
4. The theory that destruction of statues and schools,
colleges, laboratories was correct, revolutionary and akin to
the great proletarian cultural revolution of China.
5. The theory that one activist represents his entire class.
Thus the participation of one landless poor peasant in one
annihilation means that the entire landless poor peasant mass
is ready to participate in the annihilations.
6. The theory that propaganda, organisation etc. are
unnecessary, that only by annihilation would all these be
achieved. Annihilation must come first.
7. The theory that oppression is necessary to revolu¬
tionise the people. Also the theory that every murder of the
enemy must be paid back by a murder. Instant revenge
became the credo.
8. The theory that the urban petit bourgeois youth need
mo longer go to the villages. By destroying statues, schools,
Vol II—7
colleges etc. they were integrating with the rural masses.

9. The theory that in India, in the present age, city and
village, town and countryside are the same, indivisible. The
work in both is the same, tactics in both shall be the same.
The only work in the cities is armed guerilla attack.
10. The theory that Comrade Charu Majumdar is the
only authority, only he understands Mao Tsetung Thought,
that he is the Party, that he must be obeyed unconditionally
and not to obey him is not to be a communist.
11. The theory that to attack only when one is sure of
winning is revisionist.
12. The theory that the rich peasant is an enemy and can
be annihilated.
Sushital Roy Chowdhury fought all this. His hopes and
revolutionary discipline kept him silent for a long time. Then
when he began to speak he was insulted, isolated and abused
as a centrist, a revisionist, a coward.
Ashu Majumdar made up for his inexperience by his fiery
zeal, his fantastic courage and his capacity to organise. He
obeyed the Party. In this obedience he put everything he had ;
in the end, his life.
But to what purpose ?
It is time the people and the revolutionaries asked this
question. What happened ? Why do so many fear us ? Why
whenever there is an unreasonable murder do all of us tremble
and hope that it was not the work of ‘our boys’ ? Where is
the working class who will lead our revolution ? Where is the
roused peasantry ? Where is the People’s Army so flauntingly
announced in 1970 ? Why did so many vote so overwhelming¬
ly in spite of all the threats, the bombs, the pipeguns ? Shall
we be blind to all this ?
Now, this leadership, decimated by arrests, death and expul¬
sion, is again changing its line. Economic work among the
peasantry, concentration upon the urban classes ( working ),
building of rural bases, downgrading of annihilation of the
class enemy—all these are being put forward. But there is no
accompanying analyses, valuation, self-criticism. Thus this

leadership goes on, sowing confusion and reaping death.
Sushital Roy Chowdhury and Ashu Mazumdar were the latest
harvest.
S. ROY
March 20, 1971 Calcutta
As the elder brother of Ashu, I knew him a bit personally.

It is a blatant lie that his obedience to the party was blind.
His devotion to the party’s cause was the product of critical
judgment—this I know for certain.
He was an active worker of the CPM on the peasant front
and his disillusionment with the CPM came through his field
experiences. He had ideological discussions with Ashim
Chatterjee for months together while he was an activist of the
CPM, and still was not convinced of the line advocated by the
Co-ordination Committee of the Naxals. Before he left the
CPM, he wrote to me once, “we shall have to build up genuine
communist party which India lacks as yet. We know this is a
tough job demanding many of our lives, because we shall
confront the most dangerous enemy in the CPM and Con¬
gress—both shall co-operate with each other to crush us by
any means...If I die, I know that mother shall be very much
upset. But I have decided to pursue a difficult path.” This
he wrote from underground as early as 1968. He left the
CPM much later and joined not the CPI(ML) but the new Co¬
ordination Committee constituted by the remaining members
of the original Co-ordination Committee. In the middle of
1969, he joined the CPI(ML) after much critical evaluation of
its line. This narration of his political life is necessary be¬
cause Mr Roy sought to paint Ashu as a Naxal of blind obedi¬
ence.
ARUN MAJUMDER
April 3, 1971 Santiniketan

Appraisal
NAXALBARI :
BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW
SUMANTA BANERJEE
The Naxalbari movement that began as a heroic upsurge,

although abortive, back in May 1967, now seems to be domi¬
nated by citybred adolescents. Some think that the rot set in
when the centre of the struggle shifted from the countryside to
•Calcutta, that the revolutionary organisation which it sought to
■•create has been rapidly swallowed by the routine of Bengali
middle-class political life.
Yet, if we return to the source of the Naxalbari movement,
we may find that the spring is still ready to spout. The prob¬
lems that gave birth to the movement are not only a living
reality but are fast maturing into crisis and may throw up a
series of similar uprisings in the near future.
The United Front Government may congratulate the people
■of West Bengal on their rejection of the Naxalite call for the
boycolt of elections, but it has yet to find an answer to the fun-
■damental question brought to the fore by the Naxalbari up¬
rising and also by its own experience during its nine-month
regime in 1967. The question is : how far can parliamentary
reforms bring West Bengal nearer to the radical solution for
which the country’s basic problems have been crying out ?
To begin with, Naxalbari movement threw a fierce light on
cobwebbed, discreetly shadowed corner of India’s socio-econo¬
mic life—the world of the landless labourers and sharecroppers
fast being reduced to one of the landless. The mass of these
people, looked down upon by leftist parties, dismissed till re¬

cently as serfs beyond redemption from the influence of the
landed gentry, remained at a distance from the main current
of political struggles.
According to a Government of India survey, out of 16*3
million agricultural labour households in 1956-57, 9'4 million
did not possess a strip of land for supplementary occupation..
About 4‘35 million were attached labourers contractually tied
up with prosperous peasants.
In spite of the appalling exploitation, little has been done
among agricultural labourers by the communist parties com¬
pared with their trade union activities in the trade union fields.
The Kisan Sabhas remain dominated by the middle peasantry.
The organization of the agricultural labourers is almost non¬
existent.
It goes to the credit of those among the communists, now
known as “extremists”, that they had the foresight to realize
that any revolution in India would have to be spearheaded by
the rural proletariat who, more than the industrial urban wor¬
kers, fit into the role assigned by Marx for the revolu tionary
proletariat of 19th century Europe—“the workers have nothing
to lose but their chains.”
In under-developed countries like India, the rural prole¬
tariat consisting of the landless and sharecroppers are the
worst exploited. The industrial proletariat, particularly in the-
public sector today, suffers less as a result of the manipulative
capacity of the trade unions to wring some palliatives for
them from the management or the State. In 1950-51, an
agricultural labourer family’s annual per capita income in West
Bengal was Rs 160 against Rs 268 of an industrial labourer’s-
family ( Dr. B. Ramamurti—Agricultural Labour).
Quite understandably, the industrial workers are not so
much concerned with the acquisition of political power as with
gaining a fair share of economic wealth. On the other hand*,
a change in the lot of the agricultural worker is bound up with
the basic question of changing the entire rural econom ic set up
which is at present sustaining the growth of economic wealth

in the urban pockets.
It may be argued that the U.F. Government, on assuming
power in 1967, proposed to alleviate the sufferings of the land-
hungry cultivators, but that the impatience of the Naxalbari
“extremists” compromised those plans.
But let us here pause to ask what the U.F. Government
could have done or can even now do, to solve the problem in
the existing administrative frame-work ? Its aims would not
go beyond what E. M. S. Namboodiripad said about land re¬
forms on the eve of the second general elections. He hoped
that the installation of an alternative Government in Kerala
would be followed by “legislative measures providing for pre¬
vention of evictions, rent reduction, fixation of ceilings, distri¬
bution of surplus and waste lands, etc.—measures which are so
modest in their character that they do not go beyond what has
been agreed to in the Land Reform Panel of the Planning
Commission” (Agrarian Reform—a study of the Congress
and Communist approaches, 1956).
How are these to be implemented in West Bengal ? The
condition under which agrarian legislation, including ceiling
laws, are enforced, are not only determined by the omnipo¬
tence of the bureaucracy, but the opposition of vested interests,
the jotedars and rich peasantry who at every stage take the
help of some law or other to block or delay the implementa¬
tion of legislation unfavourable to them. The classic case is
that of the fate of the Zamindari Abolition Bill enacted by the
Bihar Assembly in 1948. How successful the zamindars of
Bihar were in obstructing its enforcement is related by the
American scholar, Mr Daniel Thorner, who, visiting Bihar in
1956, found : ‘Eight years after the Bihar Legislature voted its
acceptance of the principle of zamindari abolition, the majority
of the zamindars of Bihar were in legal possession of their
land (D. Thorner—The Agrarian Prospect in India).
While the decision to enforce agrarian legislations through
popular committees as envisaged by the U. F. Government
'DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 103
might eliminate to some extent the distorting control of the

bureaucracy, what can effectively cripple the recalcitrant group
of rural vested interests, who can always fall back in case of
any emergency on the sacrosanct legal system, riddled with
lacunae and moth-eaten by time ? As for the law on ceiling,
it needs reconsideration. The present law presupposes a
ceiling on existing holdings that would preserve the small and
middle landholders and rich peasants. Since more than 60
per cent of the land-holdings in India are under 5 acres, the
fixation of the ceiling at 25 acres in West Bengal might lead to
further concentration of the land in the hands of landlords
and the rich peasantry through the bankruptcy of small
peasants forced to sell their lands.
The U. F. Government, therefore, would be required to
carry out a law inherited from its predecessor—a landlord-
bourgeois ruling clique. The purpose of the law was to con¬
vert the landlords and rich peasants into land-owning farmers
of the capitalist type .
In spite of a ceiling granting adequate breathing space to
the rich peasantry, the latter lost no chance to cheat the
government of the surplus land it owed to the West Bengal
State under the Estates Acquisition Act. According to a study
undertaken at the instance of the Research Programmes
Committee of the Planning Commission, about 105,000 acres
might be estimated to have been transferred mala fide during
1952-54 for evading ceiling restriction. (Land Reforms in
West Bengal by S. K. Basu & S. K. Bhattacharya)
As a result, till 1965, the State government was able to
secure 7.76 lakh acres as surplus, out of which 4.35 lakh acres
were leased out on a year to year basis to the peasantry. This
would hardly be enough to satisfy the West Bengal peasants’
land hunger.
Even after they become owners of tiny, un-economic
holding, the condition of the peasantry will not improve
perceptibly, because the old feudal structure of the rural society
will remain the same, marked by the age-old exploitation by
104 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IIP
traders, moneylenders and monopoly capital in the form of

unequal exchange between town and country.
The measures of the U.F. Government, therefore, however
benevolent they might be, will not change the basis of the
social structure of the Bengali village, which alone can guaran¬
tee the success of any land reform.
It is in this perspective that the Naxalbari uprising assumes
importance. It was not a movement for the occupation of land
as made out to be by some of its friendly critics, but went
beyond the limited aim of land redistribution by giving the
call for the seizure of power. The plan, according to its
leader, Mr Kanu Sanyal, was to smash once for all the village
feudal society and create peasant bases to run the administra¬
tion. No wonder, one of the main aims of the movement’s
10-point programme was to cancel the hypothecary debt,,
lying like an incubus upon the landless labourer and daily
growing upon him. (Kanu Sanyal’s Report on the Peasant
Movement in Terai, November 1968)
This task the U. F. Government would have found difficult
to accomplish, clogged as it was by constitutional and legal
inhibitions. Since it accepted the premises of the bourgeois.
State-order, constitutional limits, parliamentary procedure, etc.
—to wrest power, it now finds itself difficult to bypass them.
In this context, the next important question raised by the
Naxalites deserves notice—the problem of working with an
administration which is a legacy from the past, which assures a
very perfect conservation of anti-people, out-moded ideas.
With its enormous bureaucratic and police organization, with
the host of officials, this appalling parasitic machine enmeshes-
the body of Indian society like a net and chokes all its pores.
During the nine months of its stay in office in 1967, the-
U.F. Government found itself being swamped into the morass-
of the present administrative system. This time it may atone
for its past mistakes of not removing notorious officials by-
overhauling the administration, particularly the disreputable
police force. But its powers are limited by the Constitution,.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 10S
drawn up under the duress of the British imperialists. We

have seen already how the position of the Governor was used
by the Centre to subvert the United Front Government.
Thus a pathetic paradox becomes inevitable in the actions
of the U.F. Government. It has to swear allegiance to the holy
Constitution at every breath to gain permission from the Centre
to rule West Bengal. At the same time, it has to demand
amendments to the provisions of the Constitution to bring
about radical changes in favour of the people.
As a result, we are entertained at intervals with hair¬
splitting debates about the powers of the Speaker and the
Governor and exchanges of idle phrases interpreting the
contradictions of the Constitution—all quite far away from the
problem of starvation.
The other stumbling block is the legal system. The stock¬
pile of archaic law is still exploited by the ruling class in
defence of anti-people measures. An anti-democratic judg¬
ment becomes sacrosanct once it is delivered. It is immune
to public protests. How can the U.F. Government hope to
provide the minimum relief to the people, without first
smashing up this holy order ?
The Naxalbari movement has also rescued from the abyss
of oblivion and negligence another aspect of our socio-economic
life—the fate of the tribal population—and has drawn atten¬
tion to their revolutionary potentialities.
In the 1951 census, the Scheduled tribal landless labourers
formed 6.3°/0 of the total landless population. The figure rose
to 10.6°/o in 1961, indicating their growing impoverishment.
The primitive custom of bonded labour is still a practice
among them.
As pointed out earlier, the question of organizing the land¬
less has been neglected so long. The tribals who form a
major part of them naturally shared the same neglect.
Yet, from the political point of view, the tribals have a
militant tradition. It is significant that peasant rebellions in
the eastern zone of India have always been spearheaded by the
tribals, right from the early days of the British rule.

The Kols rebelled in 1831-32 against the distribution of
their lands among the rich Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in
Chotanagpur. The famous Santhal rebellion took place in
1855. The Sardari agitation began in Ranchi against compul¬
sory labour in 1887. Under the leadership of Birsa, the
Mundas rose against the Hindu landlords and Christian
missionaries of Ranchi in 1895.
Coming to recent times, during the Tebhaga movement in
Bengal in the forties, the Hajangs of North Mymensingh con¬
tributed a great deal to the success of the struggle.
The analysis made by Mr Kanu Sanyal and others of
Naxalbari’s revolutionary potential was therefore not so wide
of mark. But then what went wrong ? According to Kanu
Sanyal, some of the reasons for the failure of the uprising were
“the want of a powerful party organization, failure to have a
firm mass base and absolute ignorance of military science.”
(The Report on the Peasant Movement in Terai)
It is clear that the rebels minimized the repressive power of
the State. There was no preparation to face a ruthless military
force. The Naxalbari rebels did not even have a chance of
facing the army. Police action, and that too a half-hearted
one, thanks to the then U.F. Government, was enough to
make them collapse.
The same mixture of naivete and ingenuousness marked the
operations in Wynaad in Kerala. If they were not a calculated
effort by agents-provocateur to sow disillusionment among
future revolutionaries, they betrayed a certain amount of
romanticism by their dream of conquering State power by
bows, arrows and spears.
The isolation from the rest of the people of the country
was also another factor that hastened their defeat. As the
absence of response to the Naxalite slogan of boycotting the
elections was to prove later, the people are willing to support
the communists with their votes, but are not yet prepared to
take to arms in their defence.
'DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 107
But still one has to start somewhere and the leaders of the
Naxalbari uprising deserve praise on that score. Their
followers in Calcutta are perhaps only parodying their heroism.
These splinter groups owe their popularity not to the fact that
they are more consistently revolutionary, but to the fact that
the situtation is not. Besides, how do they explain away the
fact that the Naxalites showed very little activity during the
hated PDF-Congress regime or Governor’s rule in West Bengal,
but as soon as the U.F. assumed power they have come back
to the arena ? Why are they reluctant to launch militant
actions, with the exception of Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh,
in States run by Congress governments ? Their slogan of
boycott of election and choice of U.F.-run States for staging
uprisings may be ideologically motivated, but do they not
objectively help the bourgeois-landlord ruling clique at the
Centre ?
But despite all this, Naxalbari will remain an important
landmark in the annals of Indian revolution which is still
journeying through purgatory. For one thing, it has served
as a catalytic agent by compelling the complacent communist
parties, and the U.F. Government of West Bengal in particular,
to recognize the basic conflict in the country and to shed the
illusion of solving it through peaceful transition to socialism.
It is yet to be seen, however, whether they have courage to
follow up this realization by action.
The two communist parties in West Bengal are in an over¬
whelming majority in the Government. The “red spectre”
continually conjured up by the bourgeois-landlord clique has
finally appeared in West Bengal. But it has appeared not in
blood-tattered dress, across the barricades, but in the uniform
of ‘order’, in spotlessly white dhoti and kurta, in the plush
chamber of the Legislature. Therein lies the rub.
Will the communists in the Government continue to be
reluctant to upset the Indian apple cart and prefer the comfor¬
table parliamentary road, or will they try to accentuate the
polarization ?
The polarization has already set in. It was reflected in

West Bengal in the disintegration of the PSP, elimination of
Swatantra Party and the Jana Sangh and in the pattern of
voting in the rural areas. It will take a sharper form in the
coming inevitable clash with the Centre. The Indian army,,
hitherto unaffected by any internal political upsurge (what¬
ever political alignment it may have, will be Jana Sangh-
oriented, because of the concentration of people from the-
Hindi belt in its ranks), will prove an obedient tool in the
hands of the Centre to crush any movement in West Bengal.
The forces of reaction within the State also should not be
minimized. A combination of the rural vested interests, indus¬
trialists and the bureaucracy, backed by the Centre, could be a
formidable threat to any Leftist State government. The Right
reactionary forces are not idle and judging by the growth of
the RSS, it is evident that they are thinking in terms of a future
armed confrontation.
In these circumstances, the necessity of preparing the
masses for direct confrontations with the vested powers needs-
no emphasis. In the absence of any such organized prepara¬
tion, the hungry and the impatient may break into blind, in¬
coherent revolts, bereft of conscious purpose, or premature
disorganized Naxalbaris, get crushed and explode again—thus-
initiating a long drawn out process of destruction of the present
social system.
The future of any communist movement in West Bengal
therefore will have to be marked by a subtle combination of
parliamentary activities, of legal and underground machinery
and of course, by building up mass bases in the countryside-
particularly.
May 17-24, 1969

CPI(ML) : THE TWILIGHT HOUR
A CORRESPONDENT
Back in 1967, breakaway communist revolutionaries from

the CPM fanned out in the villages to mobilise the peasant
masses for armed revolution. At the same time they began
discussion on setting up a genuine communist party in India.
As an aftermath of all these was formed the All India Co¬
ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICC-
CR) in 1967 and the CPl(ML) in 1969.
Identifying the Indian society “semi-colonial and semi-
feudal”, the new leadership identified “imperialism, social-
imperialism, big comprador bourgeoisie and big landlord class”
as the main enemy of the people and called upon the masses
to establish a dictatorship of workers, peasants, petty bourge¬
oisie and even a section of the small and middle bourgeoisie.
To do this it was necessary to form a “democratic front of
all these classes under working class leadership”, it said. But
this united front cannot be established unless armed struggle
spreads and red political power is established at least in some
areas of the country.
For the development of armed struggle and the creation of
base areas it was said to be necessary to mobilise the people,
particularly the rural masses, and to draw them into the armed
struggle. But the level of popular consciousness being uneven,
the peasantry cannot be roused unless mass movement based
on economic demands in launched—(Deshabrati, August 1,
1967). While stressing that secret guerilla action should conti¬
nually go on, it was said that even among the revolutionary
classes there would be an advanced section and a backward
section. While the advanced section would take to revolu¬
tionary politics quickly, the backward section would be slow to
respond. “And for this there is and there will remain the
necessity of economic movement against the feudal class. For
this there is necessity of crop seizure movement.” (Deshabrati,

October 17, 1968 )
Briefly then the CPT(ML) political line was that guerilla
warfare was basically a higher form of class struggle which
again is the outcome of the economic and political struggle.
To make the people conscious of armed struggle, mass struggle
should be launched and efforts made to draw the vast mass of
the peasantry into it. Different economic and political stru¬
ggles should be carried on, but simultaneously Mao Tsetung
Thought should be propagated, as only through this can gue¬
rilla war be started and the base area created.
In accordance with this programme, armed struggles were
launched under the CPI(ML) leadership, in the Srikakulam
Agency area in Andhra Pradesh, Debra-Gopiballavpur area
near the Bengal-Bihar-Orissa border region, in Lakhimpur
Kheri in upper U. P., in Mushahari in the Muzaffarpur dis¬
trict of North Bihar and in other isolated parts of the country.
Of these the most prolonged and most bitter were the struggles
in Srikakulam and in the Gopiballavpur area. And the ups
and downs in the party’s fortunes in these areas bring out
clearly the initial strength and subsequent degeneration of its
leadership.
The struggle in Gopiballavpur began in 1969 with the
killing of a jotedar and forcible seizure of crops. Immediately
the struggle caught on and about 40,000 people came forward
to join the crop seizure campaign. But the then CPI(ML)
leadership, instead of hailing this outburst of popular enthusi¬
asm, denounced the crop seizure movement as blatant revision¬
ism on the ground that it exposed the secret party organisa¬
tion and its armed units to repression. (Quoted in “The
Bright Path of Red Chingkang is the way of the Indian Peo¬
ples’ liberation”, Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Region Committee of
the CPI(ML), P. 14). Charu Majumdar laid down how
guerilla squads should be formed and class enemies annihilated.
“Secret guerilla squads should be formed”, he said “in a cons¬
piratorial manner by recruiting guerillas from landless and
poor peasant classes through individual propaganda among

them; each of these guerilla squads should, on the basis of
specific investigation, annihilate class enemies by launching
sudden attacks ; the guerillas by conquering death by means
of annihilation of class enemies will develop into new men ;
each of these new men must be able to acquire a base for
himself ; put together, they will form the People’s Liberation
Army” (Quoted in the Report, P. 9).
From the outset, the CPI(ML) leadership was concerned
with the problem of linking the mass struggle based on econo¬
mic demands with the line of armed struggle and secret poli¬
tical organisation. In his report on Terai, Kanu Sanyal had
said that they did not have the organisational experience re¬
quired by a revolutionary struggle, though they had the peo¬
ple’s backing. Later, the leaders of Debra-Gopiballavpur in a
report admitted that they had no practical experience of
raising guerilla squads through mass movement (Deshabrati,
April 25, 1970). Ironically, these leaders who subsequently
criticised Charu Majumdar for his line of annihilation had
stated that it was only when Charu Majumdar gave them the
line of annihilation of class enemies that they could break the
people’s inertia {Deshabrati, April 23, 1971). Initially
Charu Majumdar said that both these forms of struggle should
be waged simultaneously but it was found that the mass
movement exposes the underground party apparatus and
undermines the armed struggle. So in 1969, Majumdar said
that the revolutionary initiative of wider sections of the pea¬
sant masses could be released through annihilation of class
enemies by guerilla methods and neither mass organisation nor
mass movement was indispensable for starting guerilla war
{Deshabrati, April 25, 1970). Elaborating on this further,
he said that mass movement should follow armed struggle and
not precede or accompany it {Deshabrati, January 15, 1970).
Later, swinging still leftward he declared that mass move¬
ments were impediments to armed struggle and should be
dispensed with. “Mass organisation and mass movement”.
Majumdar said, “increase the bias for open movements and

economic movements, expose the revolutionary organisations
to the enemies and, as a result it becomes easy for the enemy
to launch attacks. Hence mass movements and mass organi¬
sations are an impediment to the development and expansion
of guerilla warfare” (Quoted in “The Bright Path of Red
Chingkang is the way of the Indian People’s liberation,” Report
of the Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Region Committee of the CPI(ML)
P. 14).
This changing attitude towards mass organisation sets out
clearly the CPI(ML) leadership’s course of deviation from the
party programme and its practice. Mass struggle has a cru¬
cial role, as otherwise the politics of seizure of power would
take time to strike roots, and arms, instead of politics, would
command the party and the struggle. But as in the period
between late 1969 and 1970 the leadership was groping for an
answer to this crucial question, the emphasis was being shifted
from mass movement as a link between guerilla action and the
people, to the guerilla action only. The issues of Deshabrati
and Liberation during the period were full of slogans like
“organisation first, then struggle—this is a wrong notion,”
“every class enemy must be annihilated” ; and instruction on
“how to form guerilla units in complete secrecy and in a com¬
pletely conspiratorial manner and how to begin annihilation of
class enemies through guerilla action” appeared frequently in
the party journals (Quoted by the late Sushital Roy Chowdhury
in “Resist the line of adventurism”). City action reflected this
deviation also. Though no specific programme for urban areas
was given in the party programme, it was said that the party
should carry on mass work and wage mass struggle among the
city workers so that trained worker cadres can be sent to the
village and for this the party must build up secret organisation
in the cities (Quoted by Sushital Roy Chowdhury). But the
party activities in the urban areas did not conform to this line.
Mass movement was discarded and guerilla action against the
-class enemies and State apparatus was launched to create red
iDEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 113
terror in the cities. Agitation against the U.S. invasion of

Cambodia in 1971 was put off and the cadres were exhorted
to kill police personnel. Simultaneously, educational institutes,
libraries and laboratories were attacked in the name of a
democratic and cultural revolution. But soon the party
suffered serious reverses in the Debra-Gopiballavpur area.
Even after annihilation of 120 class enemies the peasantry did
not come to its help and the party became isolated. A large
number of its cadres and important leaders were either killed
or arrested by the police. A similar fate also overtook the
party in the Srikakulam Agency area ; at least 150 of its
members, including some top leaders, were killed and nu¬
merous others arrested.
Summing up the failures of the line of annihilation and
■conspiratorial politics, the members of thd Border Region
Committee self-critically admitted five serious mistakes. First,
in spite of repeated annihilations the poor and the landless
peasants did not join the guerilla squads. Those who came
initially left the squad and those who remained became com¬
pletely isolated from the people. Second, the poor and the
landless peasants with families did not support the line for
long. Third, contrary to the leadership’s expectation, the
panicking class enemies did not flee the area and in fact, those
who ran away came back in strength. Fourth, this line attrac¬
ted the student youths, the middle classes, robber bands and
lumpen proletariat of the area. Fifth, the line did not work
in areas of intense feudal exploitation, but struck roots where
petty-bourgeois ideas predominated. [The Report of the
Bengal-Bihar-Orissa Border Region Committee oftheCPI(ML)
P. 15, 16]
Elsewhere in the report, it was pointed out that the same
observations held good for the urban areas also where it was
'“rejected by the working class as a whole and found acceptable
by the student youths and petty bourgeoisie”, {ibid. P. 16)
During the time, some important changes also occurred in the
CPI(ML)’s theoretical formulations. It can indeed be said
Vol II—8
that these deviations in Naxalite activities were a sequel to

more basic and fundamental changes that had occurred in.
the CPI(ML) leadership’s analysis of the revolutionary condi¬
tions in the country as well as the international situation. In.
late 1970, Charu Majumdar, drawing on the Peking Radio
declaration that “every point in India is on the verge of ex¬
plosion,” said that the theory of uneven development of revo¬
lutionary conditions is not applicable in the present-day condi¬
tions in India. In his “Call of the November Revolution,.
March Forward by Crushing Centrism” he formulated his new
line thus : “Power will be captured in the villages first and
when in that struggle the people’s army has encircled cities,
power will be captured in cities. But in this era of victory of
the world revolution and fast and complete collapse of im¬
perialism, to apply this war strategy.in the specific conditions
of India, the land of 500 million, it should be borne in mind
that the cities do not remain idle when the people’s war
has begun in the villages ; in people’s war village and city are
one and undivided.” (Deshabrati, November 7, 1970).
Following this theory of even development of urban and
rural areas, the urban cadres were exhorted to intensify the
class struggle in the cities by annihilating class enemies and
any talk about the necessity of defence and conservation of
revolutionary force in the face of police repression was called
a bourgeois vice, (ibid)
However, the party’s setback in the struggle and the deci¬
mation of its ranks created dissension within it and a number
of important leaders fell out with Charu Majumdar and his
associates. In September, 1970, the Bihar State Committee
submitted a resolution on party activities and bitterly criticised
the central leadership. Later, the leaders of U. P., Punjab,
and a section of West Bengal leaders joined hands with them.
Accusing Charu Majumdar of Left adventurism, the Bihar State
Committee said that Majumdar and his close associates in
defiance of the Central Committee resolution, had advanced
the thesis that rich peasants, all capitalists and traders were te>
be annihilated, that the People’s Liberation Army would march,

throughout West Bengal by 1970-71 ; that the Third World
War had begun ; that comrades should forget all ideas of self-
defence, and attack and destroy all enemies ; and had advanced
the slogan of cultural revolution. The Bihar Committee said that
the moment these slogans were advanced by the General Secre¬
tary of the party, Left opportunism became the main deviation
of the party. (“The Problems of the Indian Revolution and
the Neo-Trotskyite Diversions” P. 33 ).
On the question of the rich peasant, Charu Majumdar said
that “rich peasants in our country indulge in exploitation..
Therefore our relation with the rich peasant will be the relation
of struggle” (quoted in “The Problems of Indian Revolution
and Neo-Trotskyite Diversions”, P. 39). But the Bihar
Committee pointed out that since the aim of the CPI(M L) was.
a bourgeois democratic revolution and the purpose was to form-
a united front, capitalism or capitalist property in general
should not be attacked at this stage. The Bihar Committee,
drawing on Mao’s observation on rich peasants in “The
Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party”, said
that a big portion of rich peasants would support the revolu¬
tion and another would stay neutral ; only a small section
which had benefited from the reactionary State would join-
hands with the enemies. The Bihar leaders claimed that
following the party programme, they had adopted this attitude
in the Mushahari struggle and were able to neutralise a sizeable
section of the rural bourgeoisie. [“The New Upsurge and the
Struggle Against Left Opportunism”, the CPI(ML) Bihar
Committee’s resolution ]
Differences also arose on Charu Majumdar’s analysis of
the national and international situation. Majumdar had said
that in these days of decaying imperialism it would be wrong
to insist on the uneven nature of the Indian revolution and on
the need for protracted people’s war. But the Bihar leaders
pointed out that this assessment was based on a wrong analysis
of the objective conditions of the Indian revolution. For,
though the Indian bourgeoisie were beset with a weak capitalist

economy with traits of feudalism and under the influence of
imperialism, it was firmly on the saddle politically. Besides,
the Indian revolution was weak and the revolutionary party,
the CPI(ML), was at a nascent stage and had no base area.
In this situation it would be wrong to minimise the importance
of protracted war and base areas in the villages and discard
other forms of struggle in the cities. “At this stage’’, the
Bihar resolution said, “the character of work in villages and
cities will be different. In the cities the party will have to
work underground for long, must acquire strength, draw the
urban mass towards the revolution and carry on defensive
armed action. Only in villages the party will undertake offen¬
sive action. The city work will supplement the armed struggle
in the village”. (“The New Upsurge and the Struggle Against
Left Adventurism”, the CPI(ML) Bihar Committee’s resolu¬
tion)
The same leadership also pointed out that the central
leadership, by equating self-destruction with the communist
ideal of self-sacrifice, had asserted that any emphasis on self-
preservation would inevitably encourage revisionism within us
(quoted in “The Problems of the Indian Revolution and the
Neo-Trotskyite Diversions”, P. 73). Implied in this attitude
was the tendency to underestimate the enemy’s power and
•overestimate the power of revolution. The Bihar resolution
said that every effort should therefore be made to check this
dangerous tendency. “Our line should be the line of active
self-defence, the line of self-defence to attack and destroy the
enemy.”
The Bihar Committee submitted its paper in September
1970, with a lequest ior a meeting. The central leadership
under one plea or other deterred the meeting. However, in
view of the losses the party had suffered during the past two
years, more and more leaders came out in support of the Bihar
Committee s ciiticism of the party and pressed for a fresh
•Central Committee meeting. Even the leaders of the Bengal-
Bihar Border region who had initially stood by Charu Majum-

dar published an inner-party document in which they self-
critically reviewed the party activities and admitted failure.
But the most moving self-criticism came from Sourin Bose, a
Central Committee member, in the form of a letter from the
prison cell. Sourin Bose said, “Our entire tactical line is-
wrong and the international leadership’s criticism regarding
this is absolutely correct. We are suffering from a petty-
bourgeois impatience, so we have assumed the objective condi¬
tions for revolutionary situation as spontaneous political cons¬
ciousness of the people. So by avoiding the difficult path of
class struggle, we have found a short cut to revolution in the
name of originality and to make it attractive to the cadres we
have added, mechanically, some slogans of proletarian cultural
revolution. But what is the result ? Today we stand isolated
from the broad sections of poor, landlord and middle peasants.,
from the working class we are permanently isolated”.
NAXALBARI AND AFTER : AN APPRAISAL

PRABHAT JANA
The armed struggle of the Naxalbari peasants upheld the-

truth that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun and‘
marked the beginning of the Indian revolution. It showed the
revisionists in their ‘true light’—lackeys of imperalism, social-
imperialism and domestic reaction, whose sole mission is to
divert the people from the path of violent revolution. It
correctly assessed the stage of the Indian revolution and the
role of the peasant in it. It successfully aroused the masses *.
led by Communist Revolutionaries, the peasant masses, armed
with whatever they could lay their hands on, took part in the
struggle and tea-plantation workers there and in neighbouring
areas actively supported them. The economic struggle for

confiscation of the jotedars’ lands and cancellation of the
peasants’ debts was closely linked with the political struggle
for the overthrow of the reactionary ruling classes. Here,
legal struggle was combined with illegal struggle and the mass
organization of peasants was linked with and led by the under¬
ground party organization—the organization of the Communist
Revolutionaries who had rebelled against the revisionist leader¬
ship of the CPI(M).
Though the political line of the Naxalbari struggle was
correct, it suffered a setback chiefly because of the smallness
of the area, inexperience of the revolutionary leaders and
peasants, their inability to spread it to wider areas and to
develop an appropriate military line. It was a temporary
■setback but no defeat ; rather, it marked an advance for the
revolutionary forces of the country as a whole. It aroused
people in various places, from theTerai region in the northeast
of India to Kerala in the southwest and Kashmir in the north¬
west and helped to unite a majority of the Communist Revo¬
lutionaries of the country. Thousands of them rebelled against
revisionism and chose the path of armed struggle. Many went
to the rural areas to educate the peasantry in Mao Tsetung
Thought, the science of revolution in colonies and semi-
’Colonies, and to organize them. The support of the Commu¬
nist Party of China was of immense help in bringing the
Communist Revolutionaries together, first, within the All
India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries
and then within the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leni-
nist). Sparks of armed struggle flew from Naxalbari to Srika-
kulam, Musahari, Lakhimpur-Kheri, Debra-Gopiballavpur-
Bahar agora, Punjab, and later to different parts of West Bengal,
especially Birbhum. Naxalbari did promise a new dawn.
But the dawn did not break. The darkness of reaction
blotted out the first streaks of light. The ruling classes and
the minions of the law may congratulate themselves on their
performance, but it is not their efficiency in perpetrating dia-
bolical crimes but the weakness of the Party’s line that is to
blame for the present defeat and disarray of the revolutionary
forces. It is the Party line that determines success or failure of
revolutionary struggles.
The richest source of strength for revolutionary wars lies in
the people. “Only by mobilizing the masses of workers and
peasants, who form 90% of the population, can we defeat im¬
perialism and feudalism.” This Maoist teaching was applied
in Naxalbari and Naxalbari proved to be a turning point. But
later, from about the end of 1968, this lesson was ignored and
Ihe Communist Revolutionaries were gradually led away from
the path of Naxalbari. A “left” opportunist line that was
gradually introduced from about this time did immense harm.
What were the concrete manifestations of this “left” oppor¬
tunism ?
First, in the name of combating economism, the party
abandoned the mass line. Instead of trying to forge close
links with the masses through different mass organisations and
different forms of struggle dictated both by their immediate
and long-term interests, the Party led by Charu Majumdar
withdrew from all mass organisations like peasant associations,
trade unions and youth and student associations, and from all
mass movements on the plea that they breed economism,
dubbed them revisionist and described them as obstacles to
the growth and spread of revolutionary struggle. This marked
an abrupt change in the line of the Communist Revolutiona¬
ries. That the usefulness of mass organisations and mass
movements had been acknowledged would be evident from the
resolution on trade union work, adopted by the All India
Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries in its
session of May 1968, and from various writings published in
its journals, including those of Charu Majumdar. But, from
1969, the Party gradually withdrew into its own shell and
relied not on the masses but on small, secret squads of van¬
guards for waging revolutionary struggle.
It is true that mass organisations and mass movements have
for a long time been utilized by reactionaries and revisionists

in the interest of class collaboration and for blunting the revo¬
lutionary consciousness of the people. To confine mass orga¬
nizations and mass movements within narrow, economic bo¬
unds was certainly economism. It was not the mass organi¬
zations and mass movements but the Right opportunist and
revisionist leadership of the CPI, the CPI(M) and other so-
called socialist and communist parties that were to blame.
Even now revisionists of all hues are busy trying to divert all
mass struggles and the wrath of the people along peaceful,
constitutional channels. While people, even their own sup¬
porters, are driven away from their homes, robbed of their
jobs or assassinated by the police, they take upon themselves
the task of organizing petitions and prayers to the ruling
classes.
Nevertheless, to withdraw from mass organizations and
mass movements is to be guilty of “left” opportunism. It
actually means abandoning the patient and painstaking politi¬
cal struggle and arousing the masses and winning them over
from the influence of the counter-revolutionaries and ends in
a fatal divorce between the underground Party and the people,
between the revolutionary vanguard and the masses.
In a country like India, the main force of the revolution
must be the peasantry and one of the main tasks of the Party
is to arouse the peasants. It is necessary to link closely the
peasants’ struggle for land and for annulment of debts with
the struggle for seizure of power. It was “left” opportunism
on the part of the CPI(ML) to issue a call for a struggle for
seizure of power in, rural areas without linking it with the
peasants’ struggle for land and cancellation of usurious
loans. The peasants were aroused and the movement
gained in intensity and acquired a mass character only in those
areas where and when the two struggles became one and
inseparable.
From about the middle of 1969, the CPI(ML) began to
withdraw its cadres from trade unions and all other mass or-
ganizations. In practice it also withdrew from mass move¬

ment on international issues. The mass line that had been
followed in Naxalbari was abandoned. So, the inevitable
happened : the divorce between the underground Party and
the masses of workers and peasants gradually became complete
and the revolutionary vanguard became easy targets of the re¬
actionaries for arrest, torture and assassination.
Another manifestation of “left” opportunism was to equate
class struggles with “the battle of annihilation of class
enemies”. It was insisted that “the battle of annihilation of
class enemies” was the only form of struggle at this stage and
party cadres were instructed to form small squads of poor and
landless peasants in a secret, “conspiratorial” manner—-secret
from the people and secret even from the Party units not
accustomed to underground conditions of work—and to carry
out annihilation of hated class enemies one after another.
Politics of seizure of power was to be propagated, not widely,,
but with the sole purpose of carrying out successful annihilation
of individual class enemies. It was argued that “the class
struggle, that is, this battle of annihilation, could solve all the
problems facing us” ; it would unleash the initiative of poor
and landless peasants, carry, the struggle forward to a higher
stage, raise the level of the people’s political consciousness,'
create new men, build the People’s Army, ensure the creation
of stable base areas and bring about a revolutionary upsurge
ending in a countrywide victory.
These arguments were not based on any concrete analysis
of the conditions in this country but were wholly subjective.
Because of the lack of a dialectical approach on the part of the
CPI(ML) leadership, the ‘battle of annihilation of class enemies’
has, instead of solving any of our problems, made them
much more difficult than before. The initiative of poor and
landless peasants was roused and the struggle reached a
higher stage only in those areas where the struggle for the
confiscation of the jotedars’ land and other possessions and
for cancellation of usurious loans was combined with the stru*
ggle for seizure of power—for instance, in Naxalbari in 1967

and in Srikakulam and Musahari. On the other hand, when
the class-enemy-annihilation line was imposed, it gradually dis¬
organised the revolutionary forces, snapped their links with
the people, and led to the degeneration of the struggle in some
areas and to the suppression of the militants by the police and
the army. Instead of raising the level of the people’s political
consciousness, this line actually spread demoralization among
them. Whatever people’s army appeared in an embryonic
form is today faced with extinction. Neither any ‘stable’ (or
unstable) base area nor any countryside revolutionary upsurge
-could be created by the class-enemy-annihilation line.
In his writing Some Questions concerning Methods of
Leadership, Mao Tsetung said : “However active the leading
group may be, its activity will amount to fruitless effort by a
handful of people unless combined with the activity of the
masses.” He also said : “Communists must never separate
themselves from the majority of the people or neglect them by
leading only a few progressive contingents in an isolated and
rash advance, but must forge close links between the progressive
elements and the broad masses.” (The Role of the Chinese
Communist Party in the National War)
The Party leadership did not heed this warning, ignored the
teachings of all great Marxist-Leninists and mistook terrorism
for revolutionary violence. Naturally, terrorism practised by
groups of its militants failed to accomplish what the revolution¬
ary violence of an aroused people can.
The Party leadership believed that annihilation of class
enemies could be carried on, one after another, in an area
(some of them would be killed and some would flee), the rural
.areas could thus be liberated from class enemies and Revolu¬
tionary Committees, organs of people’s power, could be esta¬
blished there. The very existence of the State machinery, the
purpose of which is to protect the class enemies and their
regime of oppression and exploitation, was overlooked and the
Tact that organs of the people’s power could not be established
an any area without contending with the State machinery was

ignored.
To equate secret annihilation of individuals with guer¬
rilla war is not correct. Guerilla war can be waged only by
relying on the people and their active help and co-operation.
But annihilation of class enemies is carried out secretly, “cons-
piratorially”—without involving the people. Guerilla war is
war between the People’s Army and the enemy’s armed forces ;
it is a form of people’s war. So there is a basic difference
between guerilla war and secret assassination of individuals.
Why do Marxist-Leninists reject individual terror, secret
assassination of individuals, as one of the main forms of stru¬
ggle ? This is not a question of abstract morality. It is not
certainly immoral to annihilate certain mass-murderers—men
responsible for the murder of many workers and peasants.
But, in using individual terror—in special cases, the Party
should be guided not by its own wishes but by the wishes of
the masses and by a proper analysis of the actual conditions
at the given time and place. As a main form of struggle,
individual terror—secret assassination of individuals—
does tremendous harm to the cause of revolution instead
of helping it. First, it diverts the Party from the path
of class struggle, from the path of people’s war. It is petty-
bourgeois subjectivism to dream of creating mass upsurge
through individual terror by a handful of militants. Secondly,
this belittles the enemies’ strength from the tactical point of
view. A handful of militants isolated from the people can
easily be suppressed by the enemy. This terrorism endangers
the Party’s very existence, severs its links with the masses
and renders all political work impossible. Lenin said : “In
principle we have never rejected, and cannot reject terror.
Terror is one of the forms of military action that may be
perfectly suitable and even essential at a definite juncture
.in the battle, given a definite state of the troops and the
existence of definite conditions. We, therefore, declare em¬
phatically that under the present conditions such a means of
struggle is inopportune and unsuitable ; that it diverts the most

active fighters from their real task, the task which is most im¬
portant from the standpoint of the interests of the movement
as a whole ; and that it disorganizes the forces, not of the
government, but of the revolution...Is there not the danger of
rupturing the contact between the revolutionary organizations
and the disunited masses of the discontented, the protesting,
and the disposed to struggle, who are weak precisely because
they are disunited ? Yet it is this contact that is the sole gua¬
rantee of our success.” (Where to Begin)
From about the middle of 1970, the annihilation of police¬
men, spies, bureaucrats, corrupt traders and petty millowners
became the main form of struggle in urban areas. In the
course of this struggle even traffic constables, educationists,
judges, trade union leaders and leaders of different political
parties were attacked and some of them annihilated.
Instead of working underground in urban areas for a long time
to co-ordinate the struggle of the workers and other working
people with the struggle in the countryside, the Party’s mili¬
tants rushed into head-on collisions with the enemy’s organised
forces of violence. The Party cadres showed utter selflessness
and great heroism. But the inevitable happened : while a
large section of the people were antagonised, thousands of
cadres were tortured, maimed and imprisoned and several hun¬
dreds—both leaders and cadres—died.
The Party militants were involved in another bloody stru¬
ggle. The political struggle between the CPI(ML) and the
CPI(M) degenerated into a tragic feud—-a war of annihilation
between the cadres and supporters of the two parties—a war
that bewildered the people and served only the interest of the
ruling classes. The CPI(ML) failed to distinguish between the
CPI(M) leadership and the large section of its cadres and
supporters, did not wage any persistent political struggle to
win over the latter and did little to try to stop this mutual,
senseless killing.
It is right to rebel against the education system in our
country, which is semi-colonial and semi-feudal. Today, chaos
reigns in the educational sphere because of the utter rottenness
of the system. But as Mao Tsetung said, it is always
necessary first of all to create public opinion, to do work in the
ideological sphere. But when CPI(ML) cadres and lumpen
elements systematically attacked schools and colleges with
bombs, destroyed their officees, laboratories and libraries and
set some of them on fire, the Party leadership supported all
these anarchic nonpolitical acts instead of guiding this revolt
along a political channel and doing some work in the ideologi¬
cal sphere. Thousands of teachers felt that they were the tar¬
gets of this attack.
It was also right to rebel against the long dominance of the
cultural and political influence of the leaders who represented
comprador-cum-feudal class interests. The “heroes” of the
so-called Bengal Renaissance, able representatives in the realm
of culture and education of the new comprador-cum-feudal
class fathered by the British rulers, were children of the
British colonialists spiritually and found salvation of the
country in its imperialist fetters at a time when India
was being rocked by anti-imperialist and anti-feudal peasant
uprisings and the First War of Independence. The anti¬
imperialism of many great national leaders, who flouri¬
shed in this century, was indeed sham while their role as se¬
rvitors of imperialism or fascism was quite real. The new
democratic politics and culture of the working class, the pea¬
santry and the petty bourgeoisie, led by the working class, can
not win in the struggle against the pro-imperialist and feudal
politics and culture that still dominate the life of the country
without unmasking its real character. But the manner in which
the revolt took place, the burning of portraits and smashing of
statues, bewildered and shocked the petty bourgeoisie which has
been brought up to revere the pro-imperialist cultural
and political leaders. Compared with the enormity of the
task, very little was done in the ideological sphere. In this
case, too, the Party failed to guide the revolt along the
.126 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IF
correct path and this failure was fully exploited by the

enemy.
Thanks to the Party units, the activities of gangsters and
hoodlums were curbed to a great extent in many areas and
people enjoyed some sense of security. But some oppression
was perpetrated on the people in the name of the Party in
some areas. In a few areas the local Party committees, on
their own initiative, took measures to stop it, but in most areas
nothing was done to check it or to demarcate the Party from
the elements that were utilising its name for their own sordid
ends.
Early in 1971, the slogan that those who would seek votes
(for election to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly) and
those who would cast their votes were to be annihilated, was
raised in some areas. Even the political struggle for boycott of
elections and against parliamentarism degenerated into a‘battle
of annihilation.’ This was another extreme and dangerous
manifestation of “Left” opportunism.
It was wrong on the part of the CPI(ML) leadership to
characterize all other political parties as parties of the ruling
classes. Different small parties represent the interests of the
small and the middle bourgeoisie or the interests they may help
the ruling classes and go against the interest of the people at
certain times, but there are also contradictions between them
and the ruling classes. To see only one aspect, the aspect of
their unity with the ruling classes, and to overlook the other
aspect, their contradictions, is contrary to dialectics and, so,
un-Marxist.
The All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist
Revolutionaries had expressed the hope in a resolution adop¬
ted in May 1968 that its contradictions with the groups that
believed in armed agrarian revolution and professed loyalty to
Mao Tsetung thought would remain non-antagonistic. But,
later,these groups were unjustly abused as agents of imperialism
and international revisionism on the ground that they were
opposing annihilation of class enemies. This was a manifes-
tation of extreme “left” sectarianism. Indeed, an extreme “left”

sectarian line that isolated and weakened the revolutionary
forces, was pursued by the Party. Even the study of Marxist
classics was discouraged and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung
thought was made to degenerate into a cult of ‘bhakti\ into a
blind, unquestioning faith in the revolutionary authority of a
leader, and similar anti-Marxist trash. All this was the work
of a petty bourgeoisie with a long feudal tail.
The emergence of “left” opportunism during the last three
years was perhaps historically inevitable. Isn’t, as Lenin poin¬
ted out, anarchism infrequently a sort of punishment for the
opportunist sins of the working class movement ? In this,
country the Communist Party never became the party of the
working class nor was its Marxist-Leninist ideological founda¬
tion ever firm. Both in ideology and in composition it re¬
mained overwhelmingly petty bourgeois and trailed behind the
pro-imperialist, compromising bourgeoisie. The CPI, as well
as the CPI(M), led not even by a labour aristocracy but by a
petty bourgeois-and-landlord or ex-landlord aristocracy, has
throughout its long life, pursued a policy not of class struggle
but of class collaboration—a policy of treachery against the
people. At particular places and particular periods there have
been revolt against right opportunism, for example, in Telen-
gana in the forties. But right opportunism has dominated the
communist movement in this country. Revolt against right
opportunism started along the correct path in Naxalbari. But,
afterwards, in the course of the bitter struggle against right
opportunism, this revolt degenerated into “left” opportunism,
a punishment for the many right opportunist sins, hypocrisy,
servility and treachery of the communist movement in this
country.
When we are criticizing deviations, it would be wrong to
suppose that the entire work of the last five years was utterly
fruitless and all wrong, and had no positive aspect. Nothing
can be more untrue. The work of the last five years has a
positive aspect of immense significance. What is that aspect ?
First, the Naxalbari peasant struggle, as we have said

before, marked a turning point in India’s history. In view of
the long reign of right opportunism in this country, it was no
easy task for the revolutionaries and peasants of Naxalbari to
uphold the great truth that force is the midwife of the old
society pregnant with a new one. No force on earth can
wipe out the new revolutionary force that Naxalbari repre¬
sents.
Second, the Naxalbari struggle could begin only by raising
high the banner of Mao Tsetung Thought and by waging a
bitter fight against revisionism and right opportunism. For
the past few years Communist Revolutionaries have carried on
an uncompromising struggle against sham parliamentarianism
and other manifestations of revisionist ideology and politics as
well as against revisionist practices.
Third, it was the All India Coordination Committee of
Communist Revolutionaries that unmasked for the first time in
India the character of Soviet revisionism. The CPI(ML) also
exposed the real character of the “Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation.’
Fourth, the CPI(ML) has waged struggle against bourgeois
chauvinism and upheld proletarian internationalism. When
all reactionary and revisionist parties tried their utmost to
poison the minds of the people with hostility and hatred for
socialist China, the CPI(ML) carried on almost single-handed
a struggle against the anti-China campaign. It also exposed
and denounced the Indian expansionists when they invaded and
dismembered Pakistan.
Fifth, the brief history of the CPI(ML) is the history of
struggle, heroism and self-sacrifice. The cadres and leaders of
the Party never hesitated and do not hesitate to lay down their
lives in the interest of the people. Here lies the basic differ¬
ence between the leaders and cadres of the CPI(ML) and the
revisionists. When the former are essentially self-sacrificing
the latter are essentially self-seekers and careerists. The
CPI(ML) has set examples—examples of courage to fight,
•self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause of revolution—at a time
when sham militancy, rank opportunism, careerism and
servility masqueraded as socialism, communism and Marxism
in this country.
May 12—19, 1973
THE MAIN DANGER
BABURAJ
Let us examine how much reasonable are the criticisms

-raised against the CPI(ML). Before going into these problems
we should know how to evaluate the correctness of a theory.
Chairman Mao has taught us how human knowledge develops
■dialectically from the perceptual stage to the conceptual stage
and how the correctness of the conceptual knowledge thus
acquired is tested in the course of revolutionary practice (see
‘On Practice'). When we evaluate on these lines we can see
that almost all the theories have to be modified during the
•course of revolutionary practice in order to suit the objective
conditions. But we have to be very careful before reaching a
judgment on the correctness of a theory, because sometimes
the theory (conceptual knowledge) may not be correctly
•implemented. So the failure may not be due to the incorrect¬
ness of the theory. That means we have to pinpoint the actual
reasons for the failure. If the failure is due to the improper
implementation we can correct it. If the implementation is
.correct and even the theory fails to achieve the anticipated
result, then the theory itself is wrong. Then we have to
abandon that theory. Instead of taking this dialectical
approach many of the critics of the Party line seem to be very
eager to put the blame everywhere except where it belongs.
First of all let us take the problem of mass organizations
and mass movements for the fulfilment of the economic de-
mands of the peasants and the masses. The question of

whether the struggle is for political power or for economic de¬
mands is closely linked with this problem. So we shall
consider both together.
From the very beginning these two formulations were
dividing the revolutionaries in India who revolted against the
revisionist leadership of the CPI(M) and took up Mao Tsetung
Thought as the guiding force. The leaders and followers of
the Naxalbari struggle proposed that “militant struggles must
be carried on not for land, crops, etc. but for seizure of
political power” (Charu Majumdar, “One year after Naxalbari
struggle”, Liberation). Kanu Sanyal wrote in his “Report on
the Peasant Movement in the Terai Region” (Liberation,
November 1968) that the struggle in Terai was “not for land
but for State power”. This is a fundamental question, and
the revisionist thinking which has been prevailing in the
peasant movement for the last few decades, can only be
combated “by solving this problem”. The reason for such a
formulation was very clear. The experiences of the past have
taught the people a very valuable lesson that without political
power in their hands they could achieve nothing and that they
could not retain the gains even if they could win any. It is
true that the peasants may not be having any scientific
knowledge of political power, but they know one thing, that isr
there are the police and the armed forces and other machinery
to safeguard the interests of the landlords and other exploiters^
It is because of this knowledge acquired from bitter experiences
that the peasants in India take a kind of fatalist attitude and
do not become enthusiastic in various struggles. So it is
evident that the peasants can be aroused en masse only in the
ultimate struggle for political power.
On the other hand, another section in Andhra Pradesh
held that the first thing to do was to mobilize the people for
land and other economic demands. “Fertile land and fruit
gardens that - had been grabbed from Girijan peasants are still
in the hands of landlords. People have been anxious to take
them back. We must prepare them to occupy these lands.

This process must start with the first rains” (‘Immediate
Programme’, Revolutionary Communist Committee of
Andhra Pradesh). Along with this they proposed to start
armed guerilla struggle, that too as a defensive tactic. But
after three years’ patient and painstaking work among the
people, they made a self-evident analysis. A relevant portion-
of that document (published in Frontier, July 29, 1972, as a
summary of a part of a document released by the RCC of.
Andhra Pradesh) is interesting : “The fact that the peo pie in
Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam districts did not come
forward to occupy the lands of landlords showed our over¬
estimations on this issue as stated in the Immediate Program me
...The people will occupy landlords’ lands in extensive areas
when they become conscious and have confidence in the
strength of our armed squads in resisting the government's
armed forces and when they are confident and determined
that they can and will defend and retain those lands...We
should not forget that mobilization of the people in extensive
areas for the purpose depends on their readiness and our
work for the armed struggle, on the confidence that can be
created by the strength of the armed squads .” (emphasis
added)
This conclusion is to be taken into consideration not as
speculation, but as a proved fact tested in the course of re¬
volutionary practice. This clearly shows that the formulation
drawn by the Naxalbari comrades was quite correct. This is
no new information. This had been proved during the
Telengana struggle. This is what had happened in China.
While we stress that the peasants’ armed struggle is mainly
aimed at the seizure of political power, it does not mean that
it has no relation with the struggle for economic demands ;
because the struggle for the seizure of political power itself
is aimed at the fulfilment of the economic demands of
the peasants, especially land reform. Both are inseparably
related.
NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
132
Now, the problem is how to rally the people behind this

struggle for the seizure of political power. The Party Pro¬
gramme adopted at the first Congress in 1970 says :
“The path of India’s liberation as in the case of all othei
colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries is the path of
People’s War. As Chairman Mao has taught us, The revo¬
lutionary war is the war of the masses ; it can be waged only
by mobilizing the masses and relying on them."
The working class can wage a successful people’s war by
creating small bases of armed struggle all over the country and
consolidating the political power of the people. This is
possible only by developing guerilla warfare which is and
will remain the basic form of struggle throughout the entire
period of our Democratic Revolution. No one can find any¬
thing wrong with these formulations.
During the course of protracted people’s war waged in
China, Vietnam and other countries, it was proved that
guerilla warfare is the most suitable form of struggle to
mobilize the entire strength of the people. But it is to be
remembered that mobilizing the' people using the tactic of
guerilla warfare is entirely different from mobilizing the people
through mass organizations and mass movement for economic
demands. This had been misunderstood by many. And the
revisionists and the neo-revisionists of all hues are capitalising
this misunderstanding among the rank and file for their
treacherous ends. The problem of mobilizing the people by
integrating with the basic masses and raising their level of
consciousness through politicalisation and waging armed struggle
is not at all a matter to be solved through theoretical dis¬
cussions, but through revolutionary practice. The most
important peculiarity of guerilla struggle is that, as it does not
follow the conventional laws of war, a very few guerillas can
keep a larger contingent of enemy forces at bay arranging
ambushes and launching surprise attacks with all kinds of help
and cooperation from the people. Thus, while regular con¬
ventional warfare does not call for direct involvement of the
people, guerilla warfare cannot be waged without the full co¬

operation of the people. During this process—the dialectical
development of the initial embryonic forms of armed struggle
into a kind of armed mass upsurge—there may appear different
and hitherto unknown forms of mass struggle. This kind of
mobilization of the people through armed struggle has nothing
to do with the open mass organizations and mass movements.
In short, the Party line is never against a mass line, on the
contrary it stands for a revolutionary mass line, while it opposes
the revisionist mass line of open trade unions and kisan sabhas
which breed economism.
The next problem is the tactical line of annihilation of class
enemies. Charu Majumdar never equated the annihilation of
class enemies with guerilla war. On the contrary he had cor¬
rectly defined it as a starting point of guerilla war. In his
speech at the Party Congress introducing the political-organiza¬
tional report, he explained :
“It must be understood that the battle of annihilation is
both a higher form of class struggle and the starting point of
guerilla war. There are two deviations on this point.
“1. Some comrades agree that annihilation is the starting
point of guerilla war, but they do not agree that it is a higher
form of class struggle. It should be borne in mind that only
through the development of class struggle can all the problems
be solved.
“2. There are other comrades who carried on class strug¬
gle—the struggle for the seizure of landlord’s land and pro¬
perty—but did not wage the battle of annihilation. So the
cadres became degenerate. They were lost. The comrades
missed the point that annihilation is the starting-point of gue¬
rilla war.” (Liberation, June-July, 1970)
This was a correct formulation. Here annihilation has been
defined as a connecting link between class struggle and guerilla
war. But Majumdar never equated it with guerilla war. He
had repeatedly reminded the revolutionaries to rely on poor
landless peasants to carry out annihilation. In the initial stage
when the revolutionaries were groping for a line that would

coordinate armed struggle with the class struggle of peasants,
this line was actually helpful in arousing the peasants. The
later critics of this line themselves had stated that “it was only
when Charu Majumdar gave them the line of annihilation of
class enemies that they could break the people’s inertia”
(Frontier January 13, 1973).
It is to be admitted that this line did not work as had been
envisaged by Charu Majumdar. The failure of this line was
mainly for two reasons. First, the petty bourgeois adventurists
who had flooded the rank and file of the Party took this line of
annihilation as their own and did not heed the directives of the
leadership to rely on the basic masses. Actually annihilation
was i ntended to be carried out in the villages only after tho¬
rough investigation and correct class analysis of the area
through which the politics of annihilation can be propagated
among the masses. But in many areas such patient work was
not performed. The petty bourgeois comrades were not
patient enough to study the significance of the line. So in
many areas the battle of annihilation degenerated into mere
manifestations of petty-bourgeois revolutionary impetuosity.
The second and most important reason for this failure was
the lack of a clearly worked out plan to develop the battle of
annihilation into a proper guerilla war. Of course, Charu
Majumdar had pointed out that members of the annihila¬
tion-squads would ultimately form the PLA. But such state¬
ments were very vague. A clear-cut military line was necessary
for this purpose. A detailed plan had to be chalked out in
order to guide the dialectical development of annihilation into
people’s war through a series of confrontations with the
armed forces of the State power. Instead, stress was given only
•on the battle of annihilation and mere repetition of this battle
was encouraged. So, when the ruling classes adopted the
usual policy of ‘‘encirclement and suppression”, the revolu¬
tionaries could not withstand the suppression and they were
virtually wiped out. From this it is clear why the peasants at
•this stage became very lukewarm and indifferent to the revolu¬

tionary movement. They knew that the annihilation of class
enemies alone cannot smash the political power of the ruling
class. They were very conscious of the strength of the State
machinery. But in the beginning they expected that the armed
struggle against the class enemies would be continued directly
against the armed forces also and so they supported the move¬
ment. Still they were sceptical on this point and at last their
fear proved to be correct. Here lay the most important weak¬
ness of the party line which resulted from the absence of a
correct military line. Revolutionaries have to admit this
mistake and correct it in their future work.
A serious discussion on the role of the PLA and its for¬
mation took place inside the party in 1971 ; but it was too
late to link it with the battle of annihilation which had already
been launched in 1969.
Prabhat Jana alleges that the annihilation squads were
^‘secret from the people”. This is a very attractive phrase used
by the revisionists of all hues to divert the people from the
path of armed struggle. Under the present conditions in India,
no activity connected with armed struggle can be conducted in
the open, This is the case especially after Naxalbari struggle.
That struggle opened the eyes of the ruling classes and they
have taken the Naxalbari movement as a serious challenge to
their existence. So they have extended their vigilant arms
wherever there is any sign of a revolutionary movement.
Hence anybody who has devoted himself to the path of armed
•struggle to fulfil the cause of Indian revolution cannot but
■choose the underground conditions of work. Those who are
interested in this matter can read William Hinton’s Fanshen
for a very detailed account of revolutionary activities in an
enemy-occupied village of China. There the revolutionaries
had to work under conditions of the utmost secrecy. The
fundamental, qualitative difference between the revolutionary
activities in enemy-occupied areas and those in liberated areas
can clearly be seen in this book. At present, in India, almost
all the villages should be considered as enemy-occupied areas.

But in many areas revolutionaries have committed serious-
mistakes, not caring to observe the strictest principles of
underground activities and they contributed much to the
setback.
The circumstances compelled the Party and the revolution¬
aries to adopt secret and illegal methods of work. For exam¬
ple, Party organs like Liberation, Deshabrati and Lok Yudh
were published legally until April, 1970, when the police
attacked the offices and printing presses and arrested the
comrades. So the Party was compelled to publish these organs
illegally. Almost in every field this was the experience.
Jana has correctly pointed out that “though the political
line of the Naxalbari struggle was correct, it suffered a setback
chiefly because of the smallness of the area, inexperience of the
revolutionary leaders and peasants, their inability to spread it
to wider areas and to develop an appropriate military line.”
But he concludes that the reason for the failure of the later
struggles is chiefly “Left Opportunism” manifested in the
abandonment of the mass line and adoption of an annihilation
line. At the same time he points out, “The initiative of poor
and landless peasants was roused and the struggle reached a
higher stage only in those areas where the struggle for the
confiscation of jotedars’ land and other possessions and for
cancellation of usurious loans was combined with the struggle
for seizure of power—for instance in Naxalbari in 1967, and in.
Srikakulam and Musahari.” We know, as in Naxalbari, the
struggle in Srikakulam and Musahari also was suppressed and
suffered a setback. Why ? Not because the people had not
been aroused. Then it is very clear that as in the Naxalbari.
struggle, all the later struggles suffered setbacks mainly because
of lack of a correct military line which could reinforce the
correct political line. In short, we can conclude that the set¬
back is not due to the “Left Opportunism” of the Party line
and that the political line of the Party was in the main correct,
though it could not be implemented correctly.
Then, what is the main danger ahead ? Is it “Left Oppor¬

tunism” as has been charged by Kanu Sanyal and others in
their alleged letter ? Not at all. Right opportunism remains
the main danger. Once the revolutionaries are brought into
the routine cycle of open mass movements they can never
return to the path of armed struggle. But this time, in the
1970s, revolutionaries are not going to be betrayed ; because
they have the valuable lessons of the 1950s behind them.
History will never repeat itself in the same way.
June 16, 1973
‘THE MAIN DANGER’
PRAVAT JANA
What is class struggle ? As Lenin said, class struggle-

comprises both economic struggle and political struggle by¬
sections of people in a society organized as classes. “These
two forms of agitation (economic and political)”, said Lenin,
“are inseparably bound up with each other in the activities of
the Social-Democrats like the two sides of a medal. Both
economic and political agitation are equally necessary for
the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat,,
and economic and political agitation are equally necessary in
order to guide the class struggle of the Russian workers, for
every class struggle is a political struggle”. (Selected Works,
Vol. I, Moscow, 1946, P. 135). In What is to be Done ?^
Lenin wrote : “The workers’ organisations for carrying on
the economic struggle should be trade union organisations ;
every Social-Democrat should, as far as possible, support and
actively work inside these organisations”. Instead of running
away from mass organisations and mass movements, the
Communist Party, according to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin
and Mao, should send its cadres to participate in and lead
them, and should at the same time imbue workers and

peasants with revolutionary politics and prepare them to
seize power. One of the central questions in their teachings
was the question of the relationship between the economic
and political struggle. “The Communists”, to quote from
the Communist Manifesto, “fight for the attainment of the
immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary
interests of the working class, but in the movement of the
present they also represent and take care of the future”.
They taught that while the economic struggle has tremendous
importance and must in no circumstances be avoided, politics
must have primacy over economics.
Is the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of class struggle not valid
in a semi-colony like India ? Mao Tsetung did not think so.
In Problems of War and Strategy, where he distinguished
between the path of revolution followed in a capitalist country
and that followed in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country like
China, he categorically said that, though “in China war is the
main form of struggle and the army is the main form of
organisations”, “other forms such as mass organisation and
mass struggle are extremely important and indeed indispensa¬
ble and in no circumstances to be overlooked”—both before
and after the outbreak of war—and that their purpose should
be to serve the war.
Why do mass organisations, like trade unions and peasant
associations, often fail as they have so far failed in India ? To
quote Marx, “They fail generally from limiting themselves to a
guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead
of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their
organized forces as a lever for the final emancipatio n of the
working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages
system”. {Value, Price and Profit ; our italics)
What is our experience in India ? The revisionist parties
like the CPI and the CPI(M) limit the role of mass organisa¬
tions to one of fighting for the immediate interests of the
working people, i.e., to one of fighting against the effects of
the system instead of simultaneously trying to organise the

people for the revolutionary overthrow of the system itself.
On the other hand, the leadership of the CPI(ML) drew, at one
phase, an artificial dividing line between the economic and the
political struggle, withdrew from mass organisations and mass
movements and gave a call for armed struggle for seizure of
power. The two lines—the revisionist and the ‘left’ oppor¬
tunist—ran parallel and did not meet and both led to disasters.
But it is the organic connection and close interweaving of the
economic and the political struggle that can arouse, unite and
organise the people for the highest form of class struggle—the
revolutionary overthrow of the ruling classes and seizure of
power by the people led by the proletariat. History shows
that those who refuse to link up the struggle for the working
people’s immediate interests with the final goal, and vice
versa, sabotage the struggle for liberation of the working
people and play into the hands of the ruling classes—willingly
or unwillingly.
What is guerilla warfare ? It is a form of people’s war,
which can be waged only by involving the people in the war.
It presupposes the existence of people’s armed forces. As
Mao Tsetung said, “It (guerilla warfare) is the indispensable
.and therefore the best form of struggle for the people’s armed
forces to employ over a long period in a backward country,
in order to inflict defeats on the armed enemy and build up
their own bases” (Introducing ‘The Communist’). It is
wrong to call secret annihilation of individual class enemies
the starting point of guerilla warfare. According to the
instructions of the Party leadership, an intellectual comrade
^‘should go to the village and whisper into the ear of a poor
peasant with [revolutionary] potentialities, ‘Is it not good
to assassinate such and such jotedars ?’ Thus the guerillas
should be selected, one by one, secretly and organised in a
group”. This group was to be formed ‘conspiratorially’,
secretly from the people and secretly even from the Party
omits not accustomed to underground work (Charu Majumdar,
140 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL ID
“A Few Words on Guerilla Action”). This tactic has nothing

to do with guerilla warfare or people’s war as it does not
rely on an aroused people for carrying on the struggle. It is
actually anarchistic, terroristic and can be employed only
for a short while. It is contrary to Marxism-Leninism-Mao
Tsetung Thought to describe it as a higher form of class
struggle and the beginning of guerilla war, for it is neither.
Who has said that democratic land reforms can be carried
out in areas other than liberated ones ? But it is necessary
to mobilize the masses of the peasantry on the basis of an
agrarian programme and give a call for a struggle for both
land and liberty. The theory that militant struggles must be
waged not for land but for State power is a symptom of an
infantile disorder. It is preposterous to draw an artificial
dividing line between the struggle for land and the struggle
for State power and to theorize that the struggle for power
must precede the struggle for land. It is an incredible lack
of understanding to assert, as Baburaj does, “So it is
evident that the peasants can be aroused en masse only in
the ultimate struggle for power”. (Our italics). In 1905-06
and, again, in 1917, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party gave the
call for a struggle for both land and liberty (the two
inextricably woven together) and huge peasant movements
swept Russia. In China also, the CPC issued the same call
and they were successful. Has Baburaj not heard of the
Hunan peasant movement ? Liberation wars cannot be led
to victory except in the background of such vast peasant
movements. Listen, then, to Chairman Mao as he details
out the reasons for the emergence and survival of Red poli¬
tical power in China. “Second, the regions where China’s
Red political power has first emerged and is able to last for
a long time have not been those unaffected by the democratic
revolution, such as Szechuan, Kweichow, Yunnnan and the
northern provinces, but regions such as the provinces of
Hunan, ICwantung, Hupeh and Kiangsi, where the masses of
workers, peasants and soldiers rose in great numbers in the
course of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1926 and

1927. In many parts of these provinces trade unions and
peasant associations were formed on a wide scale, and many
economic and political struggles were waged by the working
class and the peasantry against the landlord class and the
bourgeoisie”. (‘Why is it that Red Political Power can exist
in China ?’)
Baburaj seems blissfully ignorant of the history of class
•struggle in his own country. Many big mass movements have
swept India from time to time, though this country is yet to
be liberated.
The only Marxist-Leninist way of arousing and mobilizing
the people is class struggle, that is, both economic and politi¬
cal struggle of the oppressed workers and peasants organised
as classes. Anything contrary to this is opposed to Marxism,
Leninism and Mao Tsetung Thought. “This kind of mobili¬
zation through armed struggle”, says Baburaj, “has nothing
to do with the open mass organizations and mass movements”.
It is granted that armed struggle can mobilize people, but
can armed struggle be launched without some kind of political
mobilization of the people ? And can this mobilization take
place through political propaganda alone or through class
struggle ? Armed struggle for seizure of power is one of the
highest forms of class struggle. Can one conveniently skip
the lower forms of class struggle and issue a call for one of
the highest forms without mobilization, without making orga¬
nised preparations? To do so means belittling the enemy
not only strategically but also tactically and this is what ‘left’
opportunism amounts to. Marxism-Leninism as well as past
experience has proved that secret assassination of class ene¬
mies by secret squads cannot successfully mobilize the masses.
This ‘theory of excitative terrorism’, as Lenin called it, is no
new modification of Marxist-Leninist theories—a modification
which Baburaj’s ‘conceptual knowledge’ seems to demand.
The Russian Narodniks and their successors, the Socialist-
Revolutionaries, had tried the same path and Lenin founded
and strengthened the Bolshevik Party by ruthlessly fighting

this alien and dangerous trend. It was hostile to Marxism as
it belittled the role of the working class and the role of the
masses, severed links between revolutionaries and the people,
and disorganised the forces not of the government but of the
revolution. Only in those cases where it helps to raise their
morale and where it serves the cause of people’s war (after
it has actually started), the use of individual terror is not
only justified but necessary.
Some people fail to understand the meaning of the
word ‘annihilation,’ as Chairman Mao used it. To allow no
misunderstandinng on this point, Mao Tsetung wrote in a
parenthesis in his book On Protracted War : “.to destroy
the enemy means to disarm him or ‘deprive him of the
power to resist’ and does not mean to destroy every member
of his forces physically.”
Baburaj writes : “From the very beginning these two
formulations [whether the struggle is for political power or
for economic demands] were dividing the revolutionaries in
India who revolted against the revisionist leadership of the CPI
(M).” etc. No, till 1969 all of them including Charu
Majumdar were unanimous in stressing the necessity of linking
the economic struggle with the political struggle and in empha¬
sizing the importance of open mass movements. Reference
to the writings in the Party journals, especially Charu Majum-
dar’s articles, such as ‘The Peasant Struggle must be carried
forward by combating revisionism’, ‘To Comrades’ and ‘Build
up the Peasants’ class struggle through class analysis, investi¬
gation and practice’ may conclusively prove that Baburaj is
entirely wrong. It was in 1969 that Charu Majumdar came
to the conclusion that mass organisations and mass movements
bred economism and stood in the way of developing armed
struggle.
In “One year after Naxalbari struggle”, Charu Majumdar
wrote : “It is the first time [sic !] that the peasant waged a
movement not only for his petty demands but also for State
power” (our italics). Kanu SanyaFs Terai Report describes

how the peasants of Naxalbari were mobilized and the struggle
was launched for the implementation of three main slogans :
(1) Implement the decisions of the Peasant Committee in all
affairs of the village, (2) Organise and arm yourselves to smash
the resistance of jotedars and village reactionaries, and (3)
Break the jotedars’ monopoly of landownership and start
redistribution of land through the Peasant Committee.” Both
Telengana and Naxalbari struggles were mass movements led
by mass organisations (which, again, were led by communists)
and developed as struggles for both land and liberty.
Naxalbari was destined to suffer a setback. Why ? Be¬
cause there was no Marxist-Leninist Party to spread the
struggle to wider areas, no PLA and no United Front. A
correct military line alone would not have helped. Yet, if the
analogy is permitted, Naxalbari marked an advance for the
people of India as the Paris Commune had marked an
advance for the world proletariat. What was needed was to
draw correct lessons from the Naxalbari experience. Though
the All-India Coordination Committee of Communist Revo¬
lutionaries started on the right path, the class-enemy-annihila¬
tion line and the line of abandonment of mass organisations
and mass struggles were afterwards imposed. Srikakulam and
Mushahari, where the peasants had been mobilized through
both economic and political struggles, were suppressed be¬
cause of this wrong line. Instead of implementing the class-
enemy-annihilation line in small areas, which soon snapped the
links between the revolutionaries and the masses of those areas,
painstaking class struggle should have been carried on in wider
areas to mobilize the people, to unite them in various organisa¬
tions and to build up self-defence and other forces of the
people. To fight and defeat the enemy, who is militarily much
stronger in the beginning, the people have one weapon—unity
and organisation. Without rousing the dormant strength of
the people and achieving their unity in an area large enough for
the armed struggle to be sustained and for the new revolu-
tionary force, helped by the people in other parts of the

country and the world, to grow from small to big, from weak
to strong, any precipitate call for armed struggle is destructive
not of the enemy but of the revolutionary force. In Srika-
kulam, Mushahari, Gopiballavpur, Birbhum etc., the new¬
born revolutionary forces were faced with disasters for two
reasons among others : (1) the call for armed struggle was
premature in the sense that these areas of struggle were small
isolated pockets which the enemy could suppress without
much difficulty ; and (2) the armed struggle took the form
mostly of individual terror, which assigned a role to the
militants but almost none to the masses. It was a case of
‘active and passive people’. The empty theorizing about
“dialectical development of annihilation into people’s war” (!!)
—a nice string of high-sounding words signifying nothing—
would be amusing, if the subject we are dealing with was
not so serious.
To defend the indefensible, Baburaj felt it necessary to
invest a myth—correct political line formulated by the leader¬
ship and incorrect practice of it by the cadres. He has blamed
the cadres as impatient “petty bourgeois adventurists” who
were responsible for the degeneration of “the battle of
annihilation” “into mere manifestations of petty-bourgeois
revolutionary impetuosity.” Two questions arise : First,
does the role of the leadership consist only in formulating
correct policies and not in guiding their implementation ? If
the practice proved wrong, why was it not corrected in the
course of three years ? Second, if the policies were wrongly
implemented, how is it inferred that the policies were correct ?
What revolutionary practice proved them right during the last
few years ?
One would have expected a noncombatant armed struggle-
wallah to have more respect for truth and more respect for
the combatants who feared neither hardship nor death to
carry out the directives of the Party leadership. What were
its directives ? One may refresh one’s memory by reading
once again Charu Majumdar’s i‘A few words on Guerilla

Action’, ‘Make the 70s the Decade of Liberation’, several
rousing appeals to avenge the brutal murders of comrades by
the police, etc. If “in many areas the battle of annihilation
degenerated into mere manifestations of petty-bourgeois
revolutionary impetuosity”, why did the Party journals syste¬
matically and ecstatically applaud them ? Did not the Party
leadership even hail every urban action of the petty-bourgeois
militants ? “What the students and youth are doing, is without
any shadow of doubt just and proper.” (Charu Majumdar,
‘Forge closer unity with Peasant Armed Struggle’, Liberation,
August 1970). If the line was correct, why, in the course of
the last few years, did not the workers and peasants rise in
their millions, take up “the battle of annihilation” and push
"“the petty-bourgeois adventurists” to the background ?
What then is the main danger ? “Is it,” Baburaj asks,
“‘Left-Opportunism’, as has been charged by Kanu Sanyal and
others in their alleged letter ? Not at all. Right opportunism
remains the main danger”. What did that ‘alleged’ letter
actually say ? “We”, it said, “must be very careful against
revisionism, while fighting against Left deviations, which
have become the main danger inside the Party for the
present.” (Our italics). Why has Baburaj dropped out the
words “inside the Party for the present” ?
July 21, 1973
‘THE MAIN DANGER’
ARUN GOSWAMI
Mr Jana has made helpful observations about class

struggle. But his remarks about the ‘guerilla actions’ conducted
by the CPI(ML) are one-sided. Although the collective
activities of a class are of greater importance, the individual
Vol II—10
activities also constitute a part of the entire class struggle.

Workers unnecessarily move to and fro to reduce working
time ; land labourers slow down work in the absence of land-
owners ; debtors play many tricks with usurers. There are
many such examples. All these are done individually. Yet
these are nothing but class struggle against exploitation.
Undoubtedly, class struggle gains proper momentum when
the individual activities are organised into collective activities
of the class to the proper degree. It may also be mentioned
that at a point when class struggle takes a qualitative leap
instead of gradual quantitative transformation, only a handful
of individuals actively participate at the very initial stages.
Charu Majumdar never asked for the entire affair of ‘action*
to be kept a secret. He instructed that propaganda should
be launched among the peasants in favour of ‘action’, one
should be familiar with their opinions ; but he wanted to
keep the actual programme a secret because the enemy was
tactically strong. The aims of actions should be well explained
to the people and they should be organised up to a degree
required for the initiation of struggle and for facing immediate
consequences. To demand organisation up to the highest
degree before ‘action’ is mechanical, because only through
protracted guerilla warfare can the people be organised strong
enough to win final victory. It is also childish to demand
that the programme of action should be known to all before¬
hand. That denies the very conception of ‘guerilla’ war.
Whether the ‘secret assassinations’ are justified or not is
not a matter to be worked out without any knowledge of the
concrete conditions. If these are executed to carry forward
the main class struggle of the peasantry and are matched
with the level of consciousness of the people involved, then
they are justified ; otherwise not. The line of killing of the
jotedars produced some bad effects only because it was taken as
the central form, and not as a part of the entire class struggle.
There is a lot being said about mass organisations and mass
movements. But how to translate these principles into work
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 147 -
How can a party which is carrying on armed activities against

the Government and whose members and cadres are being
killed or jailed if exposed, combine open and legal activities
with its basic illegal activities ? This problem, I think, is yet
to be solved and Pravat Babu sheds no light on it. At the
time of Naxalbari white terror was not so fierce. In those
days it was possible even to maintain an almost legal organi¬
sation like the CCCR which, in essence, was the party. Now
the picture is different. So while criticising the CPI(ML) ’s
policy regarding mass line, one must state how to combine open,
legal and mass activities (in an area which is not liberated, i.e.
under white repression) with illegal and vanguard activities.
Otherwise, it will lead us straight to economism and legalism..
Armed struggle will be opposed in the name of maintaining
open fronts. Any armed revolt against the present regime
will be termed as the acts of “agents provocateur” to suppress
“movements for democratic rights etc.” There is yet another
possibility. Underground cadres may be exposed to the
enemy in the name of performing open activities. May I
request Pravat Babu to say something about the actual
procedure by which the illegal party, CPI(ML), can take part
in mass organisations, mass movements, and lead them ?
Another thing. The CPI(ML) never said that no mass
movement is possible before the formation of red areas-
What they said was that through the vast mass movements of
the past the Indian people have been educated to a degree
from where the only logical conclusion of mass struggle is
guerilla war. So now the task of revolutionaries is to develop
guerilla war and there is no need to repeat the lower forms
of struggles. That new form of class struggle i.e. guerilla
war, will draw a few people at first. But through gradual
advance, broad sections of the people will gather around it
and only then there is need to conduct mass movements
again. One may or may not agree with this view. But it is
not honest to distort a party’s views.
Mr Jana does not agree with Mr Baburaj that the reason
for the setback is the mistakes not of the party line, but of the
party cadres. It is doubtful whether a total setback through¬
out the country can result only from the mistakes of the cadres.
But it is equally doubtful whether a party can be made so
rigid that the cadres can translate its central directives into
work absolutely without any distortion. The central authority
usually maintains its contacts with low levels through
intermediate chain which, in the case of an underground party
in a vast country like India, is very long. So, distortions
are bound to occur as a natural law. There may be even
political swindlers in intermediate positions who distort the
party’s directives willingly and submit false reports to the
centre. A party requires some time to recover from these
difficulties. Not to realise this is idealism. Even in a strong
party like the CPC, Liu Shao Chi and other swindlers did
great harm to the party and the people in the name of the party
(before they were kicked out. What, according to Mr Jana,
should be the view of a revolutionary about these ? Should
he hate Liu & Co. for the misdeeds, or should he blame
Chairman Mao for his ‘overall responsibility’ ? Whether there
are mistakes committed by the central leadership of the CPI
(ML) is another question. But how cap one rule out the
possibility that there may be evils and errors committed at
intermediate and lower levels even if the central line is abso¬
lutely correct ?
August 11, 1973
WHAT’S TO BE DONE ?
K. G.
The statement by Mr Jana that in Naxalbarithe legal struggle

was combined with illegal struggle is not accurate. In any zone
once armed struggle started, there was no scope for legal stru¬
ggle against the enemy. The enemy will never allow such
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS )
149
action. Besides, to quote Chairman Mao, “it is necessary to

create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it
would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter¬
revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the authority
of the gentry.”
Jana criticised “the weakness of the Party’s line that is to
blame for the present defeat and disarray of the revolutionary
forces” without examining the non-communist process of
the formation of the CPI(ML) which was the root cause of
basic weakness of the Party’s line. During the process of
formation of the CPI(ML), the ideological and political line
was not thrashed out, the strategy and tactical line was not
drawn up and communist organisational principles were not
followed. The result was non-functioning of the party-
committee system, and the writing in instalments of policy and
tactical line of the Party by Comrade Charu Majumdar, and
this led to “the present defeat and disarray of the revolutio¬
nary forces”. Comrade Charu Majumdar formed the Party
with groups and individuals who had no clear conception of
Mao Tseiung Thought, as most of them did not integrate
themselves with the peasants and workers. In this connection
it should be mentioned that Comrade Ashim Chatterjee’s
group which was vehemently opposed to the Deshabrati group
and later on to the CPI(ML), joined the CPI(ML) uncon¬
ditionally as soon as Peking supported the formation of the
CPI (ML).
I do not agree with the contention that “to withdraw from
mass organisations and mass movements is to be guilty of left
opportunism”. Neither do I agree with the simplification
that “it actually means abandoning the patient and painsta¬
king political struggle and arousing the masses and winning
them over.and ends in a fatal divorce between the under¬
ground Party and the people”. First, even after withdrawal
from “mass organisations” and so-called “mass movements”,
patient and painstaking ideological and political struggle can
be continued and the masses can be aroused. The vital
question is whether the Communist Revolutionaries are among

the massses and with the masses on the basis of “class-line”
and mass line. The present situation demands that Commu¬
nist Revolutionaries must remain underground among the
masses and imbue them with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung
Thought. They must take the leadership of the so-called
mass organisations, that is, open and legal trade unions and
peasant associations. But they should organise the masses
and organise resistance struggle with the help of armed gue¬
rilla squads, when necessary, against all sorts of tyranny, repre¬
ssion and exploitation—things which the so-called mass move¬
ments have never done for the last 50 years.
At Kanksha (near Durgapur) the Revolutionary Commu¬
nist workers never joined the so-called peasant association and
mass movement. Remaining underground, they propagated
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and then tried to
organise resistance struggles against oppression, tyranny and
exploitation. Of course, a revolutionary peasant organisation
has evolved in the process of armed struggle, an organisation
fundamentally different from the mass organisation envisaged
by Comrade Jana.
It is also incorrect to say that “it was wrong on the part of
the CPI(ML) leadership to characterise all other parties as
parties of the ruling class”. Since these parties serve the
interests of the ruling classes and suppress and resist revolu¬
tionary armed struggle, they certainly represent the ruling
classes. The argument that these parties are not the parties
of the ruling classes as “there are also contradictions between
them and the ruling classes” is not at all tenable. Will one
refuse to call the Congress (O) a party of the ruling classes
just because it has some contradiction with the latter ? Con¬
tradiction with the ruling classes does not make a party anti¬
ruling class, because this contradiction is not the basic con¬
tradiction, not to speak of the principal contradiction. The
policy and tactical line pursued by the CPI(M) and the co¬
operation it gave the Government for the past few years also
‘confirm the contention that there is no basic contradiction

between the CPI(M) and the ruling classes. G. D. Birla’s
comment that “we have plenty of choices” on the election
results of 1967 should remove any illusion about these parties.
As for economic struggle, to imbue the workers and
peasants with revolutionary politics and prepare them for
seizure of power, Lenin said : ‘‘The conception of economic
struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the
masses into the political movement, which our economists
preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its political
•sense” (Collected Works, Vol. 5, P. 413). For rousing the
masses with political consciousness, Lenin prescribes that
“class political consciousness can be brought to the workers
only from without, that is only from outside the economic
struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers
and employers” ( P. 422, Ibid).
This does not mean that the Communist Revolutionaries
will not participate in the economic struggle of workers and
peasants.
Comrade Jana’s emphasis on mass organisation and mass
movement and all kinds of cultural media to arouse the people
will only retard the progress of building of rural revolutionary
base areas. His very conception of mass movement is erro¬
neous. He calls the Hunan peasant movement as a specta¬
cular mass movement and on the same breath mentions big
mass movements of India. What Chairman Mao said about
the Hunan peasant movement was : “The second period, from
last October to Jauary of this year, was one of revolutionary
„action (emphasis mine). Within four months (it) brought
about a great revolution in the countryside, a revolution with¬
out parallel in history”. Can Comrade Jana tell us what
•“revolution without parallel in history” was achieved by the
big mass movements in India ?
Mao never calls the peasant movement of Hunan a mass
movement, he always calls it a “revolution”, “revolutionary
.action”. The “revolutionary action” of Hunan must not be
152 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IIP
confused with the mass movements for economic gains in

India.
The building of rural revolutionary base areas is the pri¬
mary, principal and central task of the hour.
August 18, 1973
CLASS STRUGGLE
MONI GUHA
Mr Arun Goswami has introduced some interesting points

in his ‘The Main Danger’ (Frontier August 11). In defence of
the “guerilla actions” of the CPI (ML) as an individual form
of class struggle, he says, “workers unnecessarily move to and
fro to reduce working time ; land labourers slow down work
in absence of landowners ; debtors play many tricks with
usurers. There are many such examples. All these are done
individually. Yet these are nothing but class struggle”.
Although the CPI(ML) and its leader Charu Majumdar
declared khatam as the highest form of class struggle, Mr
Goswami, while remaining completely mum over this, says,
“ Although the collective activities of a class are of greater
importance, the individual activities also constitute a part of
the entire class struggle.” As theft, according to Marx, was
the first form of protest against property, it certainly ‘‘‘cons¬
tituted a part of the class struggle” ! One could have also
cited the collective activities of the Luddites as a justification
of his “collective activities of a class are of greater importance”
than individual activities.
Indeed the theory and practice of class struggle can be
extended to an absurd extent and debased. Such attempts are
signs and symptoms of unconscious, primitive, elementary
and crude forms and modes of protest, which Marxist-Leni-
nists do not glorify.
Every year many a landlord or jotedar are killed by many

a peasant. This has been happening since the advent of the
landlord-peasant system and will continue to happen. The
blind hatred and rage of the peasant has an element, a potent
factor of class hatred, but in itself it is not class struggle. Class
struggle must represent the needs and requirements of the
interests of the class as a whole and the needs of the particular
given historical stage of the class struggle. This also must
be conducted as an act of class for itself and not as an act
of class in itself. So long as the organised agrarian revolu¬
tionary movement on the basis of an over-all agrarian revolu¬
tionary programme with a concrete line of implementation led
by a truly working class party fails to capture the imagination
of the overwhelming peasantry, the blind, elemental but impo¬
tent rage of individual peasants will explode. Undoubtedly,,
this is justified and at times laudable. But when half-baked
Marxist-Leninists come forward to organise and initiate such
blind, elementary, individual outbursts of peasants and theorise
them as the highest form of class struggle, Marxist pundits
cannot but say that these have really nothing to do with
Marxism-Leninism or with class struggle. The Marxist-
Leninists being the most consciously organised body represent¬
ing the class interests of the revolutionary classes as a whole
organise the class struggle to the needs and requirements of
given historical stage and combat these elementary, crude,
primitive, unconscious and impotent outbursts and “first forms
of protest”. Instead of glorifying these forms as the highest
form of class struggle, they help the people to fight back with
such forms and methods that may lead them to the fulfilment
of the needs and requirements of the given historical stage of
class struggle. It is not enough to recognise all forms of class
struggle, firstly because a lower form of class struggle, at a
certain time of development, may become the weapon of the
reformists and revisionists ; secondly, because all forms of
class struggle may not reach their logical conclusion in accor¬
dance with the interests of the proletariat. Recognition,,
organisation and glorification of those forms of class struggle

which do not culminate in the establishment of the joint
dictatorship of the revolutionary people under proletarian
hegemony—in spite of being “class struggle”—do not promote
the needs and requirements of the class struggle of a given
historical stage.
Of course, this does not mean that the Marxist-Leninists
repudiate khatam altogether, or repudiate it on moral consi¬
derations. Marxist-Leninists judge it from the point of politi¬
cal necessity of the class struggle. They do not resort to
khatam as a movement, as an episode, but as an auxiliary to
mass movements, as an incident. Lenin said, “as revolutio¬
nary tactics, individual attempts (of assassination) are both
impractical and harmful. It is only a mass movement that
can be considered a real political struggle. Individual terroristic
acts can be, and must be, helpful, only when they are directly
linked with the mass movement”.
Class struggle existed in society before Marxism came into
being. Class struggle is not the invention or discovery of
Marx and Engels. Class struggle of the working class and
revolutionary people are organised and conducted not only by
Marxist-Leninists but also by the right revisionists and ‘left’
adventurists and by the bourgeoisie and landlords. From
this, it is clear that the Marxist-Leninists can neither support
nor glorify all forms of “class struggle”.
Let us go deeper into Mr Goswami’s theory of class
struggle. He cannot possibly deny the element of class struggle
in the 1932 Harijan movement for temple-entry, led by
Gandhi. The Harijan landless peasantry joined this movement
almost en masse and rightly demonstrated their class hatred.
Why did the Communists criticise it ? Because the landless
peasants were then organising themselves together with the
poor peasantry in order to rise in revolt against the landlords.
Already in U. P. a big revolt had broken out. Gandhi deflec¬
ted the spontaneous and anti-landlord movement of the land¬
less and poor peasantry by resorting to hunger-strike and
launching the temple-entry movement. In spite of having

elements of class struggle, in spite of its collective character,
one would not be in a position to support or glorify such a
class struggle as it served the interests of the exploiting
classes.
Another example. Can one justify and glorify the silent
procession of 1966 ? It had a strong element of class struggle
and protest, but stronger was the conspiracy of the “commu¬
nist” misleaders to throw cold water on the rising tide of the
revolt of the people.
Some people see ‘class struggle’ in the trickery of reducing
the working time of a worker and slowing down of work by a
day labourer, but fail to see the other side, that is, the sympto¬
ms of parasitism in it. In fact, in the exploitative society of
‘give and take’, there are some bad habits, the vices of decay,
of parasitism, among even a section of workers and toilers, not
to speak of non-manual workers. The habits of shirking
burdens, getting something out of nothing by trick, the habit
of reducing working time by subterfuge and trickery are signs
of growing parasitism as well. These habits and practices
should and must be fought by class-conscious workers and by
a working class party and not glorified as a form of class
struggle. The revisionist and reformist trade union leaders
indulge this parasitism of the workers and office employees
and this base opportunism is now an accepted normal feature
of the trade union movement. This is one of the ideological
bases of revisionism.
September 8, 1973
Letter
Mr Moni Guha has misinterpreted some of my words

•(September 8). I did not say that khatam should be the
highest form of class struggle and that there was nothing wrong
in the “annihilation campaign” of the CPI(ML). What I said
was that khatam can be a part of the entire class struggle, if
wisely combined with other forms. Another thing, Comrade

Charu Majumdar termed khatam as a higher, not as the
highest form of class struggle. Sadly, Mr Guha lashes out at
the distorted theory.
In a class-society, different forms of class struggle, starting
from the “primitive and unconscious” to the developed and well-
organised forms, exist. Marxists should find out the mains¬
tream of class struggle and try to have a firm grip on it. But
that does not mean that they should boycott the other forms
totally. Marxists should combine every possible ‘low’ and
‘primitive’ form of class struggle with the main forms.
Revisionism occurs when the movement is confined to low
levels when a high level could be achieved. That is why
Marxists do not deny the necessity of organising terror, econo¬
mic work, legal work, but oppose terrorism, economism and
legalism. It is not fair to compare the killing of jotedars with
theft or Ludditism. Communists should organise those forms
of class struggle which arise from the desires and needs of the
people. Nobody claims that theft or Ludditism can solve the
problems of the people as a whole. But liquidating some tyrant
exploiters often becomes a necessity of the people.
Mr Guha mentions the Harijan affair in such a manner as
to hint that at the time of Naxalbari, some genuine Marxists
were organising great mass movements but that the damned
Charu Majumdar and his followers foiled their attempt by
adopting the line of khatam. While some people were busy
lecturing or organising reformist movements, Charu Majumdar
went ahead and tried to make revolution. The movement led
by him shook the ruling classes and aroused new hopes in the
oppressed people of our country. Naturally, mistakes were
also committed. Communists do not glorify wrong theories.
But they have to glorify many a movement based on totally or
partially incorrect theory for their basic content of revolutionary-
class struggle. That is why Marx greeted the Paris Commune
and Radio Peking welcomes many spontaneous and revisionist-
led movements in India. It is a pity that some Marxist pun-
dits cannot find the basic content of revolutionary class

struggle in the post-1969 activities of the CPI(ML).
Mr Guha teaches us new lessons of Marxism by mentioning
that the attempts of the workers to reduce working time reflect
parasitism. He conceals the fact that in the present exploita¬
tive system the toiling people (except for a few lackeys of the
ruling cliques) have little chance to become parasites. To
reduce working time by trickery may be fun to some intellectual
parasites, but it is a question of life and death to the toilers
who are compelled to exhaust themselves and die through
overwork. Communists have a compulsion to support them
in this struggle. To be more sincere and industrious under
the existing production relations means to grow more surplus
for the profiteers and a call for this is issued not by Marxists
but by fascists. Communists should judge labour, sincerity,
morality etc. not as abstract concepts, but on strict class basis.
They should teach the people to be sincere and industrious not
to the exploiters, but to people and the revolutionary authori¬
ties. The crime of revisionists is that while accepting the
people’s right to be ‘dishonest’ and‘destructive’ with exploiters,
they do not promote the sense of serving the people. Thus
they lead people to be dishonest and destructive to each other
and this sharpens the contradiction among the people.
ARUN GOSWAMI
September 22, 1973 Calcutta
THE MAIN DANGERS AND THE MAIN ERRORS

RAFIKUL HASSAN
Any revolutionary criticism of the CPI(ML) has to have to

its credit a close study of the tactics of the ruling classes in
India—its evolution and present phase—vis-a-vis the exploited
workers, peasantry, the lowest section of the middle class etc.
in order to have a positive idea of what can be and should be

done for mobilising people for revolutionary armed struggle.
On the basis of such a positive formulation of revolutionary
tactics, one should examine whether mass movements of the
trade union type can deliver the goods or whether the line of
annihilation as an instrument of class struggle can achieve any
revolutionary purpose or whether, broadly, one can explore
the reasons for the setback the CPI(ML) suffered.
During the colonial period, the Indian ruling classes—the
landed interests and the bourgeoisie of a comprador nature—
had a common front with British imperialism against the
working class and peasantry. But the Indian ruling classes
sought to cover up this main contradiction by demonstrating—-
through its political wing, the Indian National Congress—their
concern for freedom. Demand for freedom was hence the
result of two tactics adopted by the Indian ruling classes—one
being to pose themselves as liberator of the exploited Indian
people and thereby corner those who aspired, at least theoreti¬
cally, to rally the exploited working class and peasantry against
the common front consisting of imperialists and their Indian
henchmen ; and the other being to snatch some concessions
from their imperialist master in the form of greater elbow
room for exploiting the Indian people. The Indian ruling
classes’ demand for freedom was destined to reduce itself to
the demand for a greater freedom of exploitation of the Indian
people, not to assert its independence from the clutches of
British monopoly capital for independent economic develop¬
ment.
Gandhi entered Indian villages earlier than the communists
did and his entry was backed by the feudal interests and
by a peculiar blending between religious obscurantism and
peoples’ immediate aspirations for economic relief. Again
among the industrial workers the communists engaged in trade
union movement could hardly initiate any revolutionary pro¬
gramme and as a result, with the help of the British colonial
power, the Indian ruling classes could contain the working
class movement within the periphery of economism and isolate

the communists from the exploited people by opening their
own trade union front.
It is true that the amount of involvement with mass move¬
ment that the Indian ruling classes had allowed themselves,
contained little economic programme and whatever programme
they had was never operated. The Congress Agrarian Re¬
forms Committee made heroic recommendations, but in
practice these were set aside while framing the programme of
land reform in various States after getting power in 1947.
The Bombay plan of 1944-45 or the recommendations of the
National Planning Committee did contain many revolutionary
policy implications for independent industrial development in
India, but since 1947, the big bourgeoisie have started chang¬
ing their tune and during the Five Year Plans, the collabora¬
tion between Indian comprador capital and British/American
monopoly capital became the mainstream of industrial develop¬
ment. Before transfer of power, ruling classes used to talk
many progressive things just to win the confidence and loyalty
of the people to their fake concern for the immiserised working
class and peasantry ; but after the transfer, they took off their
masks and every economic effort initiated and sponsored by
the State power sought to stabilise the rural feudal interests or
the interest of big business-cum-foreign monopoly capital.
The land reform measures hit the middle peasantry, swelled
the ranks of the poor peasantry and landless labour, enriched
the big peasantry-cum-jotedars. The pattern of industrial
development enhanced threefold the prosperity of big business
and made the small manufacturers more and more dependent
on the big business houses who were for all practical purpose
the indigenous importers of foreign monopoly capital, its
know-how and products.
In a sense, this period—the period between the late forties
and the late sixties—was a period when the dominant section
of the ruling classes was not involved in any mass movement of
any significance. As a result, this was again the period when
various sections of the ruling classes who were not properly

rewarded by the dominant section as represented in the Indian
National Congress resorted to occasional mass movements
with a view to securing a higher number of seats in the
Assemblies or Parliament. This explains how the one National
Congress broke into so many opposition parties like Swatantra,
PSP, Jana Sangh, Kranti Dal etc. During the same period,
the communists also flourished as a parliamentary party—a
party respectable to the establishment of the ruling classes.
But the situation gradually worsened when the economic
crisis started engulfing the entire sphere of economic life of
the country. The ruling classes—their dominant sections—as
represented by the leadership of the Congress—became more
and more isolated and a series of storms in the form of mass
movements swept the entire length and breadth of the country.
It is certainly during this period that the Indian ruling class
confronted disunity among themselves in the severest form.
There was further rift among the ruling classes, the dominant
section as presented by the Naba (Indira) Congress started paying
attention to mass movement with slogans of nationalisation,
‘Garibi Hatao’ and socialism. The Indian ruling classes re¬
framed their two tactics—the tactic of having socialist precepts
along with adopting the severest repressive measures against
revolutionaries in particular and militant sections of the people
in general.
What lessons do we derive from our experiences of open
mass movements in India ?
History clearly demonstrates that during the colonial period
or its aftermath every mass organisation (including the party
organisation of the communists) becomes in essence a petty-
bourgeois vote catching organisation or an organisation of
appeals, petitions, memoranda or protests and every open
mass movement has to move within the confines of partial
reliefs—economic, political or social. It is true that during
colonial days, communists held themselves to be a different
species simply because they held Marx in high esteem and
talked a lot about class violence for overthrowing the British

Raj and its Indian clients, while Gandhi and Nehru had been
promising miracle through ‘non-violence’. The communists
were repeatedly outmanoeuvred by the faithful and cunning
agents ol the colonial power. The great Tebhaga movements
in Bengal or elsewhere in India under the stewardship of the
communists usually started with a bang, contained many spora¬
dic revolutionary upsurges of the peasantry, but ended after
repression with a whimper—whimper for the end of repression,
tor the release of prisoners. Within a few years the retired
veterans of the CPI may celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
heroic Tebhaga movements with Tamrapatras in hand notwith¬
standing the fact that in 90 per cent of Indian villages, the real
sharecroppers are not entitled today even to the one-third share
(two-thirds being the objective of the movement) of their culti¬
vated produce.
After the British colonial power handed over its machinery
of exploitation to the Indian ruling classes, the mass move¬
ments did not change their form or content. With a steady
worsening of the economic situation, the mass movements,
however, continued to gain momentum and the momentum
reached its climax in the sixties. During this period, the ruling
classes in India were off their feet and tremendous repressive
measures were required to quell the spontaneous upsurge of
the masses for immediate economic relief. It is true that the
repressive measures adopted by the ruling class did not always
pay the expected dividend, their isolation from the masses was
indeed accelerated, their political power base developed many
crack within itself, their tactic of cheating the exploited masses
with the help of trumpeted welfare measures in the form of
planning, nationalisation etc. got a big jolt, their tactic of
ruthless exploitation had indeed to reckon with open opposi¬
tion from the masses. All the social democratic parties
including the CPI (M) and the CPI were rewarded during this
period of crisis of the ruling classes.
On the one hand, the mass movements conducted by the
Vol II—11
opposition parties had a tendency to assert themselves in

spontaneous violence and they suggested in no uncertain
terms that in India the objective situation for a revolutionary
armed struggle existed ; on the other hand, such open mass
movements were proved to be a channel through which
people’s wrath against the ruling classes could be driven into
a blind alley. Indeed, when the open mass movements led to
armed uprisings of the peasants and workers (as in Hajang,
Telengana, Kakdwip, Nadia or Narayangunge, Jamshedpur,
Howrah, Kulti, Calcutta etc.) both the repressive machinery
of the State power as well as the social democratic leadership
of the movement sought to attack them from without or within.
The handy excuse of the social democratic leadership has always
been that the time for total uprising is not yet mature ; or that
the violence of the masses is the handiwork of anti-socials let
loose by the ruling classes with a view to disrupting the peace¬
ful democratic character of the movement ; or the people’s
outburst against the misrule of the ruling classes was used to
justify electoral candidature of social democrats for State
power. We all know how hundreds and thousands of militant
peasants or workers had to shed their blood in order to yield
a magnificent electoral victory for the communists or other
social democrats.
The revolutionaries in India cannot escape the conclusion
that open mass movement now has become, in fact, the tactics
of the ruling classes to deceive people burdened with a growing
economic crisis, because without this the ruling classes have no
other path of political survival.
This is obvious after the Naxalbari movement when for the
first time in Indian history, the exploited masses thundered
their determination for the seizure of State power. The ruling
classes, though caught somewhat unawares by this develop¬
ment at the initial stage, replied effectively by changing the
tactics they had followed between 1947 and 1967. They revived
their two tactics the tactic of annihilating with meticulous
ruthlessness the Indian revolutionaries, and the other tactic of
making their political forum—Congress or Naba Congress—

the nucleus through which all mass movements should be can¬
alised. The Congress had to be the platform for the exploited
masses in order to prevent them from the path of armed
revolution.
The tremendous accentuation of the economic crisis com¬
pelled the ruling classes to experiment with the revisionist
model of counter-revolution in the country. Such compulsion
united the Indian comprador bourgeoisie with Soviet social-
imperialism without sacrificing an iota of unity between Indian
monopoly capital and U.S. monopoly giants*.
In such a situation, the Indian revolutionaries cannot
depend on the tactic of open mass movement while the same
tactic is used by the ruling classes to maintain illusions about
the system, to propagate lies and exercise deception on the
masses. On the other hand such tactic is likely to expose the
revolutionary nucleus of armed struggle, to confuse the masses
when revolutionary actions are to be speeded up from under¬
ground. Above all, the tactic of the revolutionary forces can¬
not be similar to that used by the ruling classes, because the
purports of the tactics are to be opposite in nature. This is
more true particulary when armed gangsterism is the accepted
policy of the ruling classes against mass movements—open or
secret—and more slogans of socialism, anti-Americanism, anti¬
capitalism or anti-feudalism are raised from their political
platform in order to cover up the machinery of exploitation
promoted and encouraged by the ruling classes. Revisionism
cannot be fought with revisionist weapons, for its death the
revolutionaries require revolutionary weapons.
Hence the question arises : how to organise revolutionary
counter-offensive against the revisionist model of counter¬
revolution as practised by the ruling classes in India ?
The CPI (ML) under the leadership of Charu Majumdar
held that because the pivotal reasons for mass movement are
the unlocking of mass initiatives for revolutionary activities and
opening of enemy-free areas for consolidation of revolutionary
forces, annihilation of class enemies with the help of the poor¬

est sections of exploited people can break the inertia of the
people, accelerate their revolutionary enthusiasm, initiatives and
struggle-oriented organisations. People’s armed struggle against
the State power being the fundamental postulate of people’s
war and the organisation of people’s armed forces being the
dialectical necessity of the forces of revolution (confronting the
armed forces of the ruling classes) the policy of class annihila¬
tion is supposed to be the crucial instrument of class-struggle,
of huge mass mobilisation against the armed terror of the ruling
classes and of setting up of enemy-free mobile areas where
revolutionaries could consolidate their guerilla preparations for
the higher stage of class struggle i.e. armed seizure of power.
Asa tactical measure, the line of annihilation explodes the
myths around the omnipotence of State power, terrorises those
revisionists who as a matter of virtual performance resort to
open mass movements in order to prevent people from the path
of revolutionary armed struggle and earn something in return
from the ruling classes.
Because the line of annihilation of class enemies has two
ends in view—arousing mass initiative towards a revolutionary
end and exploding the almighty image of the State power—not
all members belonging to the class enemies but only those
picked up by the revolutionary peasant committees in villages
and the revolutionary committees in towns should be dealt with
by armed guerilla squads of three or four members through
planned but secret ambushes. Such acts are to have no veil of
secrecy, in fact they should be intensely propagated but what
is sought to be kept secret is the identification of particular
guerilla members who conduct those acts. This requirement
of secrecy is presumably sought for two reasons : (a) to avoid
the identification of the annihilators by black sheep even within
the ranks of the poor and exploited people and (b) the realisa¬
tion that to the exploited masses only the facts of annihilation
are necessaiy to louse their initiatives, to achieve their mobili¬
sation, to spontaneously decide their friends and foes, but not
the identification of members who perform the acts (particu¬

larly at a stage when the organised guerilla forces are consti¬
tuted by a small number of people and the stage of People’s
Liberation Army has not yet been reached).
In practice, what results have the CPI(ML) movements
achieved ? One must admit that a tremendous revolutionary
enthusiasm was created at the initial stage of class annihilation.
The entire administrative structure proved a flop, the poor and
exploited people particularly in the villages had a taste of their
hegemony, may be for a brief period. The movement chal¬
lenged many of the value-axioms of the intellectual establish¬
ment of the ruling classes. The movement of the CPI(ML)
demonstrated that the communist revolutionaries, though hand¬
ful in number, constituted a force to reckon with and that
without preparedness to dedicate their own lives, no amount
of knowledge of Marxist classics can prepare a true communist.
And above all, without revolutionary practice, no programme
for armed struggle can be framed if revolutionaries remain
confined within the cobweb of revisionist-type open mass,
movements.
These are the positive lessons of the movement. The
failure of the movement can be accounted for by its harmful
deviations and lack of foresight.
Annihilations became the be-all and end-all of revolutionary
activities, later dubbed by Charu Majumdar himself as a ‘new
kind of revisionism’, and the entire line of annihilation got a
petty-bourgeois twist, particularly in the towns and cities, by-
being reduced to a narrow partisan violence of the revisionist
type. In the absence of a concrete programme for revolution¬
ary class struggle to be raised to a higher level step by step in
the industrial and urban middle-class areas and the line of
annihilation being implemented in a narrow partisan manner
(which in fact helped lumpens, professional anti-socials to enter
the ranks)—a manner usually practised by all the parties of the
Establishment, the revolutionaries lost the sympathy of the
lower middle-class, faced a gap between them and the industrial
workers, the poor people of urban areas who otherwise could

be their warmest friends. Even those among the leaders of
the CPI(ML) who did not like such petty bourgeois adventur¬
ism in towns and cities were advocating the absurd line of
sending revolutionary youths to the villages and could not
suggest any programme for towns and cities. The line of send¬
ing urban youth to the villages became absurd because it
prescribed no revolutionary activities in the towns. Exchange
of cadres between towns and villages was required to be
accomplished only at a maturer stage of people’s war, when
the leadership of the working class over the peasantry was to
be harnessed, at least, at the level of revolutionary cadres. The
line however was not accepted. Charu Majumdar opposed
this premature line but stopped short of giving any revolution¬
ary programme for towns and cities. In this way, the
movement was destined to be heading towards a collapse and
the leadership, by supporting all actions of petty-bourgeois
adventurism in the name of arousing the spontaneous class-
hatred of youths had in fact been tailing behind the events.
The revolutionaries’ movements in the villages were rela¬
tively more successful. One has to admit that in Debra-Gopi-
ballavpur huge mass mobilisation took place under the leader¬
ship of the party. There was prima facie success in unlocking
revolutionary enthusiasm and initiative among the poor and
landless peasantry and in rallying a sizeable section of even the
middle peasantry as supporters. The experiences of Srikaku-
lam were initially the same, although the experiences in Musha-
hari and Monghyr were slightly different. The same was
indeed the experience in Birbhum. That the line of annihila¬
tion could be used as an instrument of class struggle at the very
start for mass mobilisation, for accelerating the initiatives of
the exploited people was evident in most of the rural areas
where the programme was sought to be implemented. But the
political and economic programmes prior or subsequent to
annihilation were not implemented everywhere. Only in some
areas vesting of land with revolutionary peasant committees
took place, that too in a half-hearted fashion. The organiza¬

tion of production brigades and village resistance groups in the
rural areas could not be built up because of excessive preoccu¬
pation with annihilation and its after-effects. Whatever econo¬
mic programme the party had in the villages could not be
implemented presumbly because there existed still a lingering
fear of economism in Charu Majumdar and the leadership of
the CPI(ML).
In the rural areas the setback came mainly from the lack of
a proper military line that should have been developed to
protect the poor villagers against the programme of encircle¬
ment and annihilation launched by the State armed forces.
Non-implementation of economic, political and organisational
programmes of the party expedited the setback. For obvious
reasons, the party, during that phase, faced a number of
controversies within its leadership and ranks on the appro¬
priate nature of base areas (whether they should be mobile or
fixed in mountainous regions), on the nature and class
composition of the PLA, on the question of adopting military
tactics against the organised forces of the State power. Side
by side, the party had to face sustained attacks by the State
armed forces on the cadres. There were many petty-bourgeois
errors as a result of decentralised action decisions by party
units as the State armed forces unleashed terrible repression
on the poor villagers and urban supporters. All this combined
to precipitate setbacks in both towns and villages.
The setback should not be attributed to withdrawal from
open mass movements and open mass organisations. It is
fundamentally due not to the line of annihilation as such, but
to its being petty-bourgeois in nature in the absence of a
proper military-political line and appropriate economic pro¬
gramme.
*The compradorial nature of the bourgeoisie is not at

stake under the Soviet model of non-capitalist path of econo¬
mic development. Though nationalisation and State trading
are the main features of the Soviet model of socialist path, a

Third World country is considered “liberated” from the strings
of imperialism, if it is ready to fake a synthesis between the
political and economic requirements of the Soviet revisionist
clique and the activity of private or public monopoly capital.
It is reduced to a three-way alliance : the alliance between State
capitalism and private monopoly giants in an under-developed
country—a result of feeble contradiction between comprador
and his foreign masters ; the second alliance is between State
capitalism of an under-developed country and the U.S. private*
monopoly or the Soviet State monopoly—a result of strong
unity between the comprador and his foreign masters ; and
the third alliance is struck between all the ruling classes of in¬
digenous or foreign origin against the exploited masses of the*
under-developed country in the form of division of spheres of
activity among the respective ruling classes. This three-way
alliance itself suffers from a contradiction—apart from others—
between U.S. monopoly capital and the Soviet State capital.
This contradiction helps the comprador bourgeoisie in its
manoeuvres against both, in order to satisfy its narrow class
aspirations, and any dent etc. between the U.S. imperialism
and Soviet social- imperialism alarms the comprador bour¬
geoisie of the Third World. In fact the contradiction between
the two world monopoly giants, the USA and the USSR
gave rise to the politics of ‘non-alignment’, a platform for
having ‘aid’ from both the giants, its initial architects being
Nehru, Nasser and Tito. But the recent Nixon-Brezhnev
summit has given a big jolt to the comprador bourgeoisie of
the Third World countries and that explains why the most
important beneficiary of the U.S.-Soviet conflict i.e. the
Indian ruling classes and their able spokesman Indira Gandhi
could not conceal their concern at the success of the summit
and had to warn so many times that no division of spheres
among the giants should take for granted the Third World i.e.
the comprador bourgeoisie of the Third World countries, if the
scheme of share of the loot from exploitation of the masses &
those countries is framed without the concurrence of the com¬

prador bourgeoisie of India or any other country. Such
utterances, though they sound patriotic, reveal, in fact, the
helplessness of the prostitute monopoly capital of the Third
World countries.
September 29, 1973
CONTINUITY OF NAXALBARI
BHABANI CHAUDHURI
The present situation in India is full of revolutionary possi¬

bilities. Yet how different it is from the situation a decade
ago. There was the spring thunder over Naxalbari, an upsurge
in revolutionary struggles. There was an urge for revolutionary-
unity sweeping away all obstacles. The CPI(ML) was formed.
Big struggles were conducted under its banner. But that the
process of revolution is tortuous became evident early in the
seventies. Then began a period of severe setback from which
the revolutionaries are yet to recover. Today the lack of unity
among them is as distressing as the situation is otherwise
promising. Workers and peasants are bursting forth in anger
against increasing oppression and exploitation. But struggles
under revolutionary leadership are too fragmented to make any
appreciable impact on the country as a whole.
Eleven years after Naxalbari and nine years after the
CPI(ML)’s birth, the question, therefore, persists : What was
wrong ? To this some revolutionary groups and founding
members of the CPI(ML) give the challenging reply : The
formation of the CPI(ML) itself. Since the predominant
revolutionary practice of the post-Naxalbari period is associa¬
ted with the name of the CPI(ML), how one views the forma¬
tion of the CPI(ML) becomes so very important. If it was
basically wrong, the CPI(ML) can at best be our teacher by
negative example. But if it was basically correct, the summing
up of the experiences of the past decade becomes a valuable

weapon for defending the positive gains and fearlessly correc¬
ting mistakes, for deepening our knowledge of Indian society,
State and classes, for developing correct strategy and tactics.
The splitting up of the CPI(ML) into several groups and
the continuing setback seem to give some strength to the view
that the party’s formation itself was basically wrong. But is
the view acceptable ?
The first argument of the supporters of this view is : The
CPI(ML) was formed not on the basis of the line practised in
Naxalbari and proved ‘correct’, but on the basis of the line
initiated in the adjacent Islampur-Chaterhat area and proved
‘wrong’ in practice. The ‘correct’ line depended on mass
organizations and mass struggles and created the peasant up¬
surge in Naxalbari. The ‘wrong’ line relied on secret combat
groups for actions apart from the masses and led to the ‘isola¬
tion’ of Communist revolutionaries in Islampur-Chaterhat.
Their argument no doubt draws attention to deviations
from the mass line within the revolutionary movement during
the past decade. They also correctly point out that the
revisionists and neo-revisionists look at the peasant problem
as a ‘merely economic problem’ and the left adventurists deny
the agrarian programme itself ; the ‘correct’ line is the linking
of the struggle for land and the struggle for seizure of power.
But the basic weakness of their reasoning is revealed when one
considers their contention that the Naxalbari peasant struggle
developed by fighting against both ‘right’ and ‘left’ deviations.
The Argument, in effect, evades the question : What was the
main ideological fight on the peasant question at the stage of
Naxalbari ? Was it against economism preached by revisio¬
nism ? Or, was it against negation of the agrarian programme
preached by left adventurists ? In the past few years new light
has no doubt been thrown on the history of Naxalbari showing
how the Naxalbari peasant upsurge occurred in the process of
implementing the programme of seizure of land at the stage of
-agrarian revolution. This is a valuable addition to our know-
ledge and constitutes a warning against separation of the

struggle for land from the struggle for political power. But
all this should not make us forget that at the time of Naxalbari
the main ideological fight on the peasant question was against
economism. Without this ideological fight the struggle for
land in Naxalbari could not have been raised to the level of
seizure of power. Forgetting this aspect of history today may
even lead to a relapse into revisionism on the peasant question.
Secondly, supporters of the view that the CPI(ML)’s
formation was wrong argue : It was the result of the ‘cons¬
piracy’ of a group of political ‘self-seekers’ which from the
beginning acted in their sectarian interests. Who constituted
the group and how did they succeed in the ‘conspiracy’ ? The
answer given is : The group consisted of those who initiated
and practised the ‘left’ line in Islampur-Chaterhat, who
utilized the glorious role of the Naxalbari peasant struggle to
establish within the All India Co-ordination Committee of
Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) ‘one and only one
individual’ as the creator of Naxalbari, who ‘hurriedly’ formed
the CPI(ML) to ‘perpetuate’ the breach in revolutionary unity
caused by the AICCCR’s ‘subjective’ assessment of the
Naxalbari struggle.
This argument confuses the ideological struggle against
subjectivism and sectarianism by raising the bogey of a cons¬
piracy without proving it. A conspiracy within the Commu¬
nist movement can only be enacted through repeated violation
of all norms of democratic centralism and the group accused of
conspiracy must have degenerated to such an extent that it was
beyond correction. Did the comrades working in Islampur-
Chaterhat hide their politics from other comrades ? They did
not. Even from the account of those who differed with them
it is clear that the Islampur-Chaterhat comrades had gone
into practice after full discussion of their differences with
other comrades. Are the bitter critics of Islampur-Chaterhat
comrades unaware of a process of correction of mistakes
committed during the CPI(ML) movement, even though some-
172 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL I?
what belated and piecemeal ? Are they unaware of the later

writings of Charu Majumdar, warning against confining the
struggle any more to attacks on class enemies, urging initiation
of land reform in areas of armed peasant struggle under the
party’s leadership, and emphasizing the need for broadest
possible unity against the ruling classes on the basis of stru¬
ggle ? If the CPI (ML) was the result of a conspiracy, such a
process of correction could not possibly have been initiated.
Critics of the lslampur-Chaterhat line should realize that only
when they free their mind of the bogey of conspiracy would
they be able to carry on effectively the ideological struggle
against ‘left’ deviations manifested in a subjective view of the
role of the individual apart from collective practice and in
sectarianism in relations with groups of Communist revolution¬
aries. They would then appreciate that if sectarianism was
partly responsible for the failure to unite all groups of Commu¬
nist revolutionaries at the time of the formation of the CPI
(ML), some of these groups also took too long a time—even
after Naxalbari revolted against the CPI-M leadership—to-
realize that it is the right as well as the duty of proletarian
revolutionaries to rise up ‘in revolt’ against a leadership which
has proved itself out and out revisionist. Were not some of
these groups, though critical of the CPI-M, still trying to dis¬
cover the basis of a revolutionary party in the CPI-M’s pro¬
gramme as late as 1968 ?
The third and final argument of those who consider the
CPI (ML)’s formation wrong is : The CPI(ML)’s creation and
‘subsequent events’ once again prove that one of the main
causes of the ‘deplorable outcome’ of the Indian Communist
movement is the class origin of almost the majority of leader¬
ship at all levels. The leadership, it is stated, comes from the
‘impetuous’ petty bourgeoisie, the class of conservative petty
peasant producers with their narrow outlook and the class of
decadent landlords with their ‘anarchist’ viewpoint. The
‘honest section’ within the Communist movement seeking the
correct path during revolutionary upsurges, big or small, has-
(DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 173
been led into subjectivism because of their ‘impetuous’ class

character and ‘anarchist’ outlook and have been victims of
adventurism in trying to mechanically apply the rich experience
of other countries.
Petty-bourgeois impetuosity is admittedly one of the main
causes of deviation from the correct path, of adventurism based
on subjective ideas, and of unnecessary losses. But we should
not fail to note that petty-bourgeois impetuosity in India is
partly at least a reaction against reformism within the Com¬
munist movement. We should not also fail to note that much
of petty-bourgeois impetuosity here is generated by the dead
weight of a stagnant philosophy of a caste-ridden society. But
the revolutionary process is ruthless at crucial moments and at
such moments petty-bourgeois impetuosity turns into its very
opposite—frustration. As one of those petty-bourgeois join¬
ing CPI(ML) movement without necessary tempering in class
struggle, this writer has personal experience of how he and
some others of petty-bourgeois origin—propagandists of an
adventurist line based on queer subjective notions of liberated
areas—became so much frustrated during a moment of trial
that they lost all sense of distinction between right and wrong,
good and evil, enemies and comrades. But with all this said
and done, petty-bourgeois influence on the Communist move¬
ment can not be wished away. Undoubtedly India has a much
larger proletariat than was the case in pre-revolutionary China
and fresh blood from the working class should be continuously
injected into the Communist movement. But peasantry is the
main force of the people’s democratic revolution and therefore,
petty-bourgeois influence on the movement will continue for a
long time to come. In an underdeveloped country, moreover,
the educated from among the petty-bourgeoisie groaning under
different forms of oppression will feel the urge to carry Marx¬
ism to the uneducated masses. Therefore, merely pointing out
the petty-bourgeois origin of many Communists as a weakness
is not enough. The problem is one of transforming the class
outlook of Communists of petty-bourgeois origin. A new
174 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IS
process was started when the post-Naxalbari movement usher¬

ed in a fresh style of work with emphasis on class analysis,
investigation and integration with peasants and workers.
There were certainly serious deviations from the style. But
those from the petty-bourgeoisie who have not deviated from
this style are still on relatively firm ground.
The basic weakness of the theory of the conspiratorial
origin of the CPI(ML) is its inability to explain the particular
significance of the Naxalbari peasant upsurge. The peasant
upsurge of Naxalbari certainly did not drop from heaven.
Without the long history of class struggle in Naxalbari the up¬
surge would not have been possible. But to say that mass
organizations and mass struggles created Naxalbari is saying
half-truth. How do we explain the leap : the transformation
of the struggle for seizure of land into the struggle for seizure
of power ? How do we, above all, explain the revolt against
the neo-revisionist leadership, the revolt which made all the
difference with Telengana ? Is it not a fact that the Siliguri
sub-divisional peasant convention had given the prior call for
establishing the authority of the peasant committees, for
getting prepared to resist with arms the repression that would
inevitably be let loose by the United Front Government of
West Bengal and other ‘reactionary forces’ on the Naxalbari
peasants struggling against feudalism ? Since the CPI-M was
the largest constituent of the Front Government, did not this
call mean a revolt against the neo-revisionist leadership ?
Wherefrom did the convention get this consciousness to break
the grip of revisionism ? The answer is given by Charu
Majumdar in his poetic language : “The Indian people were
about to be steeped in the mire of revisionism, at that moment
came Chairman’s clarion call—revisionism is the main danger
today. We listened to his message with attentive ears, then we
began searching our hearts. When in 1962 Chairman Mao
began using his pen against modern revisionism led by Soviet
revisionism, we found our path. When during the Cultural
Revolution, Chairman declared in thunderous voice : it is right
to rebel against reaction, we found courage, we found

tremendous strength to stand on our own legs, we ignored the
revisionist Party leadership, we independently took the path
of building up the armed struggle of the peasant masses.”
Without this consciousness on the part of the Naxalbari
leadership, Naxalbari could not have been the first conscious
application of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India.
During the great Telengana struggle, Andhra comrades had no
doubt realized that the Indian revolution would in the main
be similar to Chinese revolution. But in the historical
conditions then obtaining, an open revolt against ‘organizatio¬
nal slavishness’ imposed from above was not possible. That
is why Naxalbari is a continuation and development of
Telengana. That is why it has been a decisive break with
parliamentarism.
Once we realize that the armed peasant struggle of Naxal¬
bari marked decisive break with parliamentarism, we also
recognize the continuity between Naxalbari and the creation of
CPl(ML). The continuity is simply the continuity of rejec¬
tion of parliamentarism and adoption of the path of armed
peasant struggle.
Grasping this today is not essentially a problem of identi¬
fying this continuity with any particular CPI(ML) group. The
several groups—big and small—are poles apart. At one pole
are groups which combine professed adherence to armed
peasant struggle with practices like begging for election adjust¬
ments with reactionary parties—which smack of parliamen¬
tarism at its worst. At the other pole are groups which are
steadfast to armed peasant struggle under the most trying
. conditions but refusing to face reality and correct mistakes
boldly, and are shrinking. But this does not detract from the
essential political continuity of Telengana, Naxalbari and the
birth of CPI(ML). And without recognizing this basis,
there cannot be any genuine revolutionary unity.
April 29, 1978

DOCUMENTS
CARRY FORWARD THE PEASANT STRUGGLE
BY FIGHTING REVISIONISM
[This is the last of the “Eight Documents” written by

Mr Charu Majumdar between 1965 and 1967. The
article has been translated by us from the original in
Bengali.]
In the post-election period our apprehensions are being

proved correct by the actions of the Party (CPI-M) leadership
itself. The Polit Bureau has directed us to “carry on the
struggle to defend the non-Congress ministries against reac¬
tion”. This suggests that the main task of Marxists is not to
intensify the class struggle, but to plead on behalf of the
Cabinet. So a convention of Party members was convened
to firmly establish economism within the working class.
Immediately thereafter, an agreement for a truce in industry
was signed at the Cabinet’s initiative. Workers were asked
not to resort to gheraos. What could be a more naked
expression of class collaboration ? After giving the employers
full right to exploit, the workers are being asked not to wage
any struggle. Immediately after the Communist Party joined
the Government that was installed as a result of a mighty
mass movement, the path of class collaboration was chosen.
The Chinese leaders predicted long ago that those who had
remained neutral in the international debate would very soon
take to the path of opportunism. Now, the Chinese leaders
are saying that these advocates of a neutral stand are in reality
revisionists and they would soon cross over to the reactionary
.camp. In our country we are experiencing how true is this
prediction. We have witnessed the betrayal of the working
class. To this is to be added the announcement of the
Communist Party leader, Harekrishna Konar. In the beginning
he promised that all vested lands would be distributed among
Vol 11—12
the landless peasants. Then the quantity of land to be distri¬

buted was slashed. In the end he informed that the existing
arrangement would be left undisturbed this year. Remission
of land revenue was left to the mercy of junior land reforms
officers (JLROs). The peasants were shown the path of
submitting petitions. They were further told that forcible
seizure of land would not be permitted. Harekrishna Babu is
not only a member of the Communist Party’s Central Commit¬
tee, he is also the Secretary of the Krishak Sabha in West
Bengal. It was in response to the call of the Krishak Sabha
led by him that the peasants had waged a struggle for recovery
of vested and benami land in 1959. In the interest of
landowners the Government had resorted to repression and
had given decisions in favour of eviction, yet the peasants
had not given up possession of land in many cases and had
stuck on to the land on the strength of village unity. Did
the Krishak Sabha leader support their movement after
becoming a Minister ? No. The meaning of what he said,
was that vested land would be re-distributed. Who will
get it ? On this point the JLROs would seek the Krishak
Sabha’s views. But would such views be accepted ? No such
assurance has been given by Harekrishna Babu. But if the
JLROs reject the Krishak Sabha’s views, the peasants would
under no circumstances be permitted to occupy land forcibly.
Harekrishna Babu lost no time in making himself clear on this
point. What is this ? Is it not acting like a bill-collector of
the government and jotedars ? Even Congressmen would
not have dared plead on behalf of the feudal classes so unash¬
amedly. Therefore, obeying the instructions of the Party
leaders would mean blindly accepting the feudal classes’'
exploitation and rule. So the responsibility of the Communists
is to expose the anti-class and reactionary role of this leadership
to Party members and the people, to hold on to the principle
of intensifying class struggle and march ahead. Suppose, the'
landless and poor peasants accept Harekrishna Babu’s proposal
and submit petitions. What will happen then ? Some of the
vested lands are no doubt fallow, but most of it is cultivable

land. There are peasants in possession of such lands.
Today, they are enjoying the land by virtue of licenses. Or,,
they are giving a share to jotedars. When that land is re¬
distributed, it will inevitably result in frictions among poor and
landless peasants. Taking advantage of this, rich peasants
will establish their leadership over the entire peasant move¬
ment, because as the rich peasant has opportunities for can¬
vassing, so also he is a partner of feudal influence. Therefore,
Harekrishna Babu is not only trying to forsake the path of
struggle today, but he is also taking steps so that the peasant
struggle may not become militant in future also.
Yet we have adopted the programme of a people’s demo¬
cratic revolution and the task of that revolution is to carry out
land reforms in the interest of the peasants. Land reform in
the peasant’s interest is possible only when we are able to put
an end to the sway of feudal classes over the rural areas. To
do this, we shall have to seize land from the feudal classes and1
distribute it among the landless and poor peasants. We shall
never be able to do this if our movement is confined to the
limits of economism. In every area where there has been a
movement for vested land it is our experience that the peasant
who has got possession of vested land and secured the license
is no longer active in the peasant movement. What is the
reason ? It is because the poor peasant’s class has changed
within a year—he has turned into a middle peasant. So,
the economic demands of poor and landless peasants are no
more his^ demands. Therefore, economism causes a breach
in the unity of fighting peasants and makes the landless and
poor peasants frustrated. Advocates of economism judge
every movement by the quantity of paddy in maunds or of
land in bighas that the peasant gets. Whether the peasant’s
fighting consciousness has increased or not, is never their
yardstick. So they do not make any effort to raise the pea¬
sant’s class consciousness. Yet we know that no struggle can
be waged without making sacrifices. Chairman Mao has-
taught us that where there is struggle, there is sacrifice. At

the initial stage of the struggle the strength of reaction must
be greater than the strength of the masses. Therefore, the
struggle will be protracted. Since the masses are the progre¬
ssive force, their strength will increase day after day but as the
reactionary forces are moribund, their strength will decline
steadily. So, no revolutionary struggle can be successful unless
the masses are roused to make sacrifices. From this basic
revolutionary outlook, economism leads on to the blind alley
of bourgeois outlook. This is what the Party leaders are
trying to achieve through their activities. A review of all our
past peasant struggles will show that the Party leaders have
imposed compromises on the peasants from above. Yet it was
the responsibility of Party leadership to establish the
fighting leadership of the working class over the peasant move¬
ment. They did not do this before, they are not doing it
even now. Now they are suggesting reliance on laws and the
bureaucracy. Lenin has said that even if some progressive
legislation is enacted but bureaucracy is given the charge of
implementing it, the peasants will get nothing. So, our leaders
have gone a long distance off the revolutionary path.
Agrarian revolution is the task of this very moment ; this
task cannot be left undone, and without doing this, nothing
good can be done for the peasants. But before carrying out
agrarian revolution, destruction of State power is necessary.
Striving for agrarian revolution without destroying State power
means outright revisionism. So, destruction of State power is
today the first and principal task of peasant movement. If
this cannot be done on a country-wide, State-wide basis, will
the peasants wait silently ? No, Marxism-Leninism-Mao
Tsetung Thought has taught us that if in any area the peasants
can be roused politically, then we must go ahead with the task
of destioying State power in that area. This is what is known
as peasants liberated area. The struggle for building up this
liberated area is the most urgent task of the peasant movement
today, a task of this moment. What shall we call a liberated
area ? We shall call that peasant area liberated from which

we have been able to overthrow the class enemies. For buil¬
ding up this liberated area we need the armed force of the pea¬
sants. When we speak of this armed force we have in mind
the arms made by the peasants. So also we want guns. Whe¬
ther the peasants have come forward to collect guns or not is
the basis on which we shall judge whether they have been
politically roused. Wherefrom shall the peasants get guns ?
The class enemies have guns and they live in the village. Guns
have to be taken forcibly from them. They will not hand over
their guns to us voluntarily. Therefore, we shall have to seize
guns forcibly from them. For this, peasant militants will have
to be taught all tactics, right from setting fire to the houses of
class enemies. Besides, we shall secure guns from the armed
forces of the Government by attacking them all on a sudden.
The area in which we are able to organize this gun-collection
campaign shall quickly be transformed into a liberated area.
So, for carrying out this task it is necessary to propagate
extensively among the peasants the politics of building up
armed struggle. It is, moreover, necessary to organize small
and secret militant groups for conducting the gun-collection
campaign. Simultaneously with propagating the politics of
armed struggle, members of these groups will try to success¬
fully implement specific programme of gun-collection. Mere
collection of guns does not alter the character of struggle—
the guns collected have to be used. Only then will the creative
ability of the peasants develop and the struggle will undergo a
qualitative change. This can be done only by poor and land¬
less peasants, the firm ally of the working class. The middle
peasant is also an ally, but his fighting consciousness is not as
intense as that of poor and landless peasants. So he cannot
be a participant in the struggle right at the beginning—’he needs
sometime. That is why clv>s analysis is an essential task for
the Communist Party. The great leader of China, Chairman
Mao Tsetung had, therefore, taken up this task first and was
able to point out infallibly the path of revolutionary struggle.
So the first point of our organizational work is establishing the

leadership of poor and landless peasants in the peasant move¬
ments. It is in the process of organizing peasant movement
on the basis of the politics of armed struggle that the leader¬
ship of the poor and landless peasants will be established.
Because, of the peasant classes, they are the most revolutionary.
A separate organization of agricultural labourers will not
help this task. Rather, a separate organization of agricul¬
tural labourers encourages the trend towards trade union
movement based on economism and intensifies conflicts among
peasants. The unity of the allied classes is not strengthened,
because in our agricultural system the exploitation of feudal
•classes is foremost. Another question that comes up in this
very context is that of compromise with small owners. What
shall be the Communists’ outlook in this regard ? In regard
to compromises we shall have to consider whom do we sup¬
port. So, we cannot support any other class as against them.
In the peasant movement (in India) the Communists have
always been compelled to give up the interests of poor and
landless peasants in the interest of the petty-bourgeoisie. This
weakens the fighting determination of the poor and landless
peasants. In regard to middle and rich peasants also we should
have different stand. If we look upon rich peasants as middle
peasants, the poor and landless peasants will be frustrated.
Again, if we look upon middle peasants as rich peasants,
the fighting enthusiasm of the middle peasants will diminish.
So, the Communists must learn to make class analysis of
peasants in every area in accordance with Chairman Mao’s
instructions.
Again and again the unrest among the peasants of India
has burst forth. They have repeatedly sought guidance from
the Communist Party. We have not told them that the
politics of armed struggle and the gun-collection campaign
constitute the only path. This path is the path of the working
class, the path of liberation, the path of establishing a society
free from exploitation. In every State throughout India the
peasants are today in a state of unrest, the Communists must
show them the path. That path is the politics of armed
struggle and the gun-collection campaign. We must firmly
uphold this one and only path of liberation. The great cultural
revolution of China has declared a war on all kinds of selfish¬
ness, group mentality, revisionism, tailism of the bourgeoisie,
eulogy of bourgeois ideology—the blazing impact of that re¬
volution has reached India also. The call of that revolution
is—“Be prepared to resolutely make all kinds of sacrifices,
remove the obstacles along the path one by one, victory shall
be ours.” However terrible the appearance of imperialism,
however ugly the snare laid by revisionism, the days of the
reactionary forces are numbered, the bright sunrays of
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought shall wipe off all
darkness.
So the question naturally arises : Is there no need for
peasants’ mass struggle on partial demands in this era ?
Certainly the need is there and will be there in future also.
Because India is a vast country and the peasants are also
divided into many classes, so political consciousness cannot
be at the same level in all areas and among all the classes. So
there will always be the opportunity for and possibility of
peasants’ mass movement on the basis of partial demands and
the Communists will always have to make full use of that
opportunity. What tactics shall we adopt in conducting
movements for partial demands and what shall be their
objective ? The basic point of our tactics is whether the
broad peasant class has rallied or not, and our basic objective
shall be the raising of the class consciousness of the peasants—
whether they have advanced along the path of broadbased
armed struggle. Movements based on partial demands shall
intensify class struggle. The political consciousness of the
broad masses shall be raised. The broad peasant masses
shall be roused in making sacrifices, the struggle shall spread
to newer areas. The movements for partial demands may
take any form but the Communists shall always propagate the
necessity of higher forms of struggle among the peasant

masses. Under no circumstances shall the Communists try to
pass the type of struggle acceptable to the peasants as the best.
In reality the Communists shall always carry on propaganda
among peasants in favour of revolutionarry politics, i.e., the
politics of armed struggle and gun-collection campaign. Des¬
pite this propaganda, the peasants will possibly decide to go on
mass deputations and we shall have to conduct that movement.
In times of white terror the effectiveness of such mass deputa¬
tion must in no way be underestimated, because these mass
deputations will increasingly draw peasants into the struggle.
Movements on partial demands are never to be condemned
but it is a crime to conduct these movements in the manner of
economism. It is a crime, moreover, to preach that move¬
ments on economic demands will automatically take the form
of political struggle, because this is worshipping spontaneity.
Such movements can show the path to the masses, help deve¬
lop clarity of outlook, inspire in making sacrifices. At every
stage of struggle there is only one task. Unless that task is
done, the struggle will not reach the higher stage. In this era
that particular task is the politics of armed struggle and the
gun-collection campaign. Whatever we may do without
carrying out this task, the stfuggle will not be raised to the
higher stage. The struggle will collapse, the organization will
collapse, the organization will not grow. Similarly, there is
only one path of India’s revolution, the path shown by Lenin—
building up the people’s armed forces and the republic. Lenin
had said in 1905 that these two tasks must be carried out
wherever possible, even if these were not feasible in regard to
the whole of Russia. Chairman Mao has enriched this path
shown by Lenin. He has taught the tactics of people’s war
and China has attained liberation along this path. Today that
path is being followed in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaya, Phili-
pines, Burma, Indonesia, Yemen, Leopoldville, Congo, in
different countries of Africa and Latin America. That path
has also been adopted in India, the path of building the
people’s armed forces and the rule of the liberation front which
is being followed in Naga, Mizo and Kashmir areas. So the
working class will have to be called upon and told that it must
lead India’s democratic revolution and the working class will
have to carry out this task by providing leadership to the
struggle of its most firm ally, the peasantry. So, it is the
responsibility of the working class to organize the peasant
movement and raise it to the stage of armed struggle. The
vanguard of the working class will have to go to the villages
to participate in armed struggle. This is the main task of the
working class. “Collect arms and build up bases of armed
struggle in rural areas”—this is called the politics of the
working class, the politics of seizure of power. We shall have
to rouse the working class on the basis of this politics. Orga¬
nize all the workers in trade unions—this slogan does not raise
the political consciousness of the working class. This does
not certainly mean that we shall not organize any more trade
unions. This means that we shall not get the Party’s revolu¬
tionary workers bogged in trade union activities—it would be
their task to carry on political propaganda among the working
class i.e., to propagate the politics of armed struggle and gun-
collection campaign, and build up Party organization. Among
the petty-bourgeoisie also our main task is political propa¬
ganda and propagation of the significance of peasant struggle.
That is to say, on every front the responsibility of the party
is to explain the importance of peasant struggle and call for
participation in that struggle. To the extent we carry out this
task, we shall reach the stage of conscious leadership in the
democratic revolution. Opposition to this basic Marxist-
Leninist path of the Party is coming not only from revisionists.
The revisionists are taking the path of class-collaboration
straightaway, so it is easy to expose them. But there is, within
the Party, another kind of opposition ; they admit that revo¬
lution can be made only through armed struggle. But they
envisage that the path of armed struggle can be taken only by
spreading the democratic mass movement throughout India-
Before that, small or even big clashes can take place, but seizure
of power is not possible. They hope that as regards seizure
of power, India will go through some version of October
revolution. In regard to India they mechanically apply their
bookish knowledge of how the October revolution became
successful. They forget that there was the February revolution
before the October revolution ; the bourgeois parties had come
to power and there was power in the hands of workers’,
peasants’ and soldiers’ soviets also. Because of the existence of
this dual power, leadership of the working class became effective
and only when in these soviets the petty-bourgeois parties
handed over power to the bourgeoisie did it become possible
for the working class to accomplish the October revolution.
They do not analyse the objective conditions of India.
They do not take lessons from the struggles that are being
waged in India. The main cause of success of the Russian
revolution was the correct application of the tactics of the
united front. The question of united front tactics is equally
important in India too. But the tactics of India’s democratic
revolution will be different in form. In India also, in Naga,
Mizo, Kashmir and other areas, struggles are being waged
under petty-bourgeois leadership. In the democratic revolution,
therefore, the working class will have to march forward by
forming a united front with them. Struggles will break out
in many other new areas under the leadership of bourgeois
or petty-bourgeois parties. The working class will also enter
into alliances with them and the main basis of this alliance will
be anti-imperialist struggle and the right to self-determination.
The working class necessarily admits this right, together with
the right to secession.
Although those who dream of revolution in India along the
path of October revolution are revolutionaries, they are not
capable of providing a bold leadership because of their doctri¬
naire outlook. They do not realize the significance of peasant
struggles and thus unconsciously become propagandists of
cconomism within the working class. They are unable to assi-
milate the experiences of the peoples of Asia, Africa and

Latin America. A section of them becomes disciples of Che
Guevara and fails to emphasise the task of organizing the
peasantry, main force of India’s democratic revolution. Con¬
sequently, they inevitably become victims of Left deviation.
So we shall have to pay special attention to them and help
them gradually educate themselves. Under no circumstances
should we be intolerant in regard to them. Besides, there is
amongst us a group of revolutionary comrades who accept
the Chinese Party and the Thought of the great Mao Tsetung
and also accept that as the only path. But they view the book
‘How to be a good Communist’ as the only road to self-
cultivation and are consequently led into a serious deviation.
The only Marxist road to self-cultivation taught by Lenin and
Chairman Mao is the path of class struggle. Only through
tempering in the fire of class struggle can a Communist be¬
come pure gold. Class struggle is the real school of Commu¬
nists and the experience of class struggle has to be verified in
the light of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and
lessons have to be taken. So the main point of Party educa¬
tion is application of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism in
class struggle, arriving at general principles on the basis of
that experience and taking back to the people the principles
summed up from experience. This is what is called ‘from
the people to the people’. This is the basic point of Party
education. These revolutionary comrades are unable to realise
this fundamental truth of Party education. As a result they
commit idealist deviations in regard to Party education.
Chairman Mao Tsetung has taught us that there cannot be
any education apart from practice. In his words, ‘doing is
learning’. Self-cultivation is possible only in the process of
changing the existing conditions through revolutionary practice.
Revolutionaries of the world unite !
Long live the revolutionary unity of workers and peasants !
Long live Chairman Mao Tsetung !
SPRING THUNDER OVER INDIA
[Editorial in the Peking PEOPLE’S DAILY of July 5,

1967, reproduced in the LIBERATION, No. 1. ]
A peal of spring thunder has crashed over the land of

India. Revolutionary peasants in the Darjeeling area have
risen in rebellion. Under the leadership of a revolutionary
group of the Indian Communist Party, a red area of rural
revolutionary armed struggle has been established in India.
This is a development of tremendous significance for the Indian
people’s revolutionary struggle.
In the past few months, the peasant masses in this area,
led by the revolutionary group of the Indian Communist
Party, have thrown off the shackles of modern revisionism and
smashed the trammels that bound them. They have seized
grain, land and weapons from the landlords and the planta¬
tion owners, punished the local tyrants and wicked gentry, and
ambushed the reactionary troops and police that went to
suppress them, thus demonstrating the enormous might of the
peasants’ revolutionary armed struggle. All imperialists,
revisionists, corrupt officials, local tyrants and wicked gentry,
and reactionary army and police are nothing in the eyes of the
revolutionary peasants who are determined to strike them down
to the dust. The absolutely correct thing has been done by the
revolutionary group of the Indian Communist Party and they
have done it well. The Chinese people joyfully applaud this
revolutionary storm of the Indian peasants in the Darjeeling
area as do all Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people of
the whole world.
It is an inevitability that the Indian peasants will rebel and
the Indian people will make revolution because the reactionary
rule has left them with no alternative. India under Congress
rule is only nominally independent; in fact, it is nothing more
than a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. The Congress

administration represents the interest of the Indian feudal
princes, big landlords and bureaucrat-comprador capitalists.
Internally, it oppresses the Indian people without any mercy
and sucks their blood, while internationally it serves the new
boss, U. S. imperialism, and its number one accomplice, the
Soviet revisionist ruling clique, in addition to its old suzerain
British imperialism, thus selling out the national interests
of India in a big way. So imperialism, Soviet revisionism,
feudalism and bureaucrat-comprador capitalism weigh like big
mountains on the back of the Indian people, especially on the
toiling masses of workers and peasants.
The Congress administration has intensified its suppression
and exploitation of the Indian people and pursued a policy of
national betrayal during the past few years. Famine has
stalked the land year after year. The fields are strewn with the
bodies of those who have died of hunger and starvation. The
Indian people, above all, the Indian peasants, have found life
impossible for them. The revolutionary peasants in the
Darjeeling area have now risen in rebellion, in violent revolu¬
tion. This is the prelude to a violent revolution by the
hundreds of millions of people throughout India. The Indian
people will certainly cast away these big mountains off their
backs and win complete emancipation. This is the general
trend of Indian history which no force on earth can check or
hinder.
What road is to be followed by the Indian revolution ?
This is a fundamental question affecting the success of the
Indian revolution and the destiny of the 500 million Indian
people. The Indian revolution must take the road of relying
on the peasants, establishing base areas in the countryside,
persisting in protracted armed struggle and using the country¬
side to encircle and finally capture the cities. This is Mao
Tsetung’s road, the road that has led the Chinese revolution
to victory and the only road to victory for the revolution of
all oppressed nations and peoples.
Our great leader, Chairman Mao Tsetung, pointed out as

long as 40 years ago : “In China’s central, southern and
northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise
like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and
violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it
back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and
rush forward along the road of liberation. They will sweep
all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and
evil gentry into their graves.”
Chairman Mao explicitly pointed out long ago that the
peasant question occupies an extremely important place in the
people’s revolution. The peasants constitute the main force
in the national democratic revolution against imperialism and
its lackeys ; they are the most reliable and numerous allies of
the proletariat. India is a vast semi-colonial and semi-
feudal country with a population of 500 million, the absolute
majority of which, the peasantry, once aroused, will become
the invincible force of the Indian revolution. By integrating
itself with the peasants, the Indian proletariat will be able
to bring about earth-shaking changes in the vast countryside
of India and defeat any powerful enemy in a soul-stirring
people’s war.
Our great leader, Chairman Mao, teaches us : “The seizure
of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war,
is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This
Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally
for China and for all other countries.”
The specific feature of Indian revolution, like that of the
Chinese revolution is armed revolution fighting against armed
counter-revolution. Armed struggle is the only correct road
for the Indian revolution ; there is no other road whatsoever.
Such trash as “Gandhi-ism”, “parliamentary road” and the
like are opium used by the Indian ruling classes to paralyse
the Indian people. Only by relying on violent revolution and
taking the road of armed struggle can India be saved and the
Indian people achieve complete liberation. Specifically, this
is to arouse the peasant masses boldly, build up and expand

the revolutionary armed forces, deal blows at the armed sup¬
pression of the imperialists and reactionaries, who are tempo¬
rarily stronger than the revolutionary forces, by using the whole
set of flexible strategy and tactics of people’s war personally
worked out by Chairman Mao and to persist in protracted
armed struggle and seize victory of the revolution step by step.
In the light of the characteristics of the Chinese revolution,
our great leader, Chairman Mao, has pointed out the impor¬
tance of establishing revolutionary rural base areas. Chairman
Mao teaches us : In order to persist in protracted armed
struggle and defeat imperialism and its lackeys, “it is impera¬
tive for the revolutionary ranks to turn the backward villages
into advanced, consolidated base areas, into great military,
political, economic and cultural bastions of the revolution from
which to fight their vicious enemies who are using the cities
for attacks on rural districts, and in this way gradually to
achieve the complete victory of the revolution through pro¬
tracted fighting.”
India is a country with vast territory ; its countryside where
the reactionary rule is weak, provides the broad areas in which
the revolutionaries can manoeuvre freely. So long as the
Indian proletarian revolutionaries adhere to the revolutionary
line of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung’s Thought and rely
on their great ally, the peasants, it is entirely possible for them
to establish one advanced revolutionary rural base area after
another in the broad backward rural areas and build a people’s
army of a new type. Whatever difficulties and twists and
turns the Indian revolutionaries may experience in the course
of building such revolutionary base areas, they will eventually
develop such areas from isolated points into a vast expanse,
from small areas into extensive ones, an expansion in a series of
waves. Thus, a situation in which the cities are encircled from
the countryside will gradually be brought about in the Indian
revolution to pave the way for the final seizure of towns and
cities and winning nation-wide victory.
The Indian reactionaries are panic-stricken by the develop¬

ment of the rural armed struggle in Darjeeling. They have
sensed imminent disaster and they wail in alarm that the pea¬
sants’ revolt in Darjeeling will “become a national disaster”.
Imperialism and the Indian reactionaries are trying in a thou¬
sand and one ways to suppress this armed struggle of the
Darjeeling peasants and nip it in the bud. The Dange rene¬
gade clique and the revisionist chieftains of the Indian Commu¬
nist Party are vigorously slandering and attacking the revolu¬
tionaries in the Indian Communist Party and the revolutionary
peasants in Darjeeling for their great exploits. The so-called
“Non-Congress” government in West Bengal openly sides with
the reactionary Indian Government in its bloody suppression
of the revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling. This gives added
proof that these renegades and revisionists are running dogs of
U. S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism and lackeys of the
Indian big landlords and bourgeoisie. What they call the
“Non-Congress government” is only a tool of these landlords
and bourgeoisie.
But no matter how well the imperialists, Indian reaction¬
aries and the modern revisionists may co-operate in their
sabotage and suppression, the torch of armed struggle lighted
by the revolutionaries in the Indian Communist Party and the
revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling will not be put out. “A
single spark can start a prairie fire.” The spark in Darjee¬
ling will start a prairie fire and will certainly set the vast
expanses of India ablaze. That a great storm of revolutionary
armed struggle will eventually sweep across the length and
breadth of India is certain. Although the course of the
Indian revolutionary struggle will be long and tortuous, the
Indian revolution, guided by great Marxism-Leninism, Mao
Tsetung’s Thought, will certainly triumph.
[Reprinted from Liberation, Miscellany No. 1]

DECLARATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARIES OF
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST)
November 13, 1967
An excellent revolutionary situation prevails now in our

country with all its classical symptoms as enunciated by
Comrade Lenin. But the neo-revisionist leadership of the
CPI(M) has betrayed the people and the Party. They have
betrayed the cause of the Indian Revolution.
Despite all their revolutionary phrase-mongering it has now
^become crystal clear that these renegades have chosen the path
■of parliamentarism and class-collaboration and have shelved
for good the revolutionary struggle for political power. The
great trust reposed in them by revolutionary comrades when
the latter in their glorious struggle against revisionism
repudiated the leadership of the Dange clique, has been
shamelessly betrayed. The process of betrayal had, of course,
started before the organisational split came. The split itself
was brought about not on the basis of ideology, but artificially,
through the instrumentality of Dange letters in order to pre¬
vent consummation of the inner-party struggle into a genuine
split, which these neo-revisionists feared most. They, however,
succeeded, though temporarily, in their game ; this bunch of
conspirators was able to incorporate surreptitiously into the
the Party’s Programme formulations alien to Marxism-Leninism
and Mao Tsetung’s Thought. By disowning, in the name of
independent analysis, the neo-colonial nature of our country
and its semi-feudal, semi-colonial character as well as the
strategy and tactics of democratic revolution following there¬
from, they indirectly indicated that what was being built up in
India was an independent capitalist economy and that the
Indian big bourgeoisie had not exhausted its anti-imperialist
role, and thus they managed to discard Comrade Mao Tse¬
tung’s great blue-print for world revolution, specially for the
revolutions in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America,
Vol 11—13
as presented in a concentrated form by Comrade Lin Piao.-

With regard to the world Communist movement, their attitude
of “non-committal” non-partisanship was a camouflage for
their support to Khruschov revisionism. Thus, nationally
and internationally, the seeds of Titoism were cunningly sown,.
which in course of time sprouted forth into the notorious
Madurai resolutions.
It is profitable to recall here that since the inception of
our Party, its leadership has been usurped at different phases
by revisionists, adventurists and opportunists. As a result,
glorious class battles fought by revolutionary comrades and
people under our Party flag have again and again been
betrayed. The blood of invaluable cadres of the Party has
flown in profusion in many a sanguinary class battle, and
many a significant victory has been won, of whose fruits,..
however, the fighters themselves were deprived, thanks to the
treachery of the persons at the helm of the Party. Time and
again revolutionary elements inside the Party have conducted
intense and principled inner-party struggles ; time and again
they have risen in open revolt ; time and again international
Communist leadership has come forward to help and guide
our Party ; and every time the opportunist usurpers of the
party machinery—both of the ‘right’ and of the ‘left’—have
treated these inner-party battles and ' fraternal offers of help
and advice from the international leadership with utter
cynicism and insolence.
Naxalbari came as a turning point in the history of our
Party and country. The revolutionary comrades of Darjeeling
district of West Bengal rose in open revolt against the Party’s
revisionist leadership and politics as well as against the orga¬
nisational slavery imposed by this leadership. But unlike
earlier inner-party struggles, this revolt was accompanied by
revolutionary practice. It is a typical peasant war modelled on
Comrade Mao Tsetung’s Thought and led by communists and
working class, opening up the real and only way to India’s
democratic revolution. This great class battle of Darjeeling.
peasants at once received the warm fraternal care of the leader

of world communism—the Chinese Communist Party led by
Chairman Mao Tsetung and at once it galvanised long-simmer¬
ing inner-party struggles into open revolutionary revolt.
Simultaneously, Naxalbari unleashed militant and armed peasant
battles in different parts of the country, sometimes spontaneous
and sometimes led by revolutionaries. But one of Naxalbari’s
great contributions to the Indian Revolution is that it has
stripped naked the leadership of the Party and of other parties
mouthing revolutionary slogans and has laid bare before the
eyes of the world the utter hollowness of their revolutionism.
They even openly joined hands with Indian reactionaries to
crush this revolutionary peasant base with utmost military and
police brutality.
Comrades must have noted that revolutionary peasant
struggles are now breaking out or going to break out in
various parts of the country. It is an imperative revolutionary
duty on our part as the vanguard of the working class to
develop and lead these struggles as far as possible. With that
end in view all revolutionary elements inside and outside the
Party working rather in isolation today in different parts of
the country and on different fronts of mass struggle must co¬
ordinate their activities and unite their forces to build up a
revolutionary party guided by Marxism-Leninism, the Thought
of Mao Tsetung. After the final and decisive betrayal at
Madurai the situation brooks no delay. Hence, this urgent
need for co-ordination.
So we, the comrades of different states, who have been
thinking and lighting on the above line, have decided after
meeting in Calcutta to form an All-India Co-ordination Com¬
mittee. On behalf of this Committee, we declare that its
main tasks will be :
(1) To develop and co-ordinate militant and revolution¬
ary struggles at all levels, specially, peasant struggles of the
Naxalbari type under the leadership of the working class ;
(2) To develop militant, revolutionary struggles of the
working class and other toiling people to combat economism

and to orient these struggles towards agrarian revolution ;
(3) To wage an uncompromising ideological struggle
against revisionism and neo-revisionism and to popularise the
Thought of Comrade Mao Tsetung, which is Marxism-Leni¬
nism of the present era, and to unite on this basis all revolu¬
tionary elements within and outside the Party ;
(4) To undertake preparations of a revolutionary pro¬
gramme and tactical line based on concrete analysis of the
Indian situation in the light of Comrade Mao Tsetung’s
Thought.
Naxalbari has shown us the way to the Indian people’s
democratic revolution as much as it has unmasked the true
face of the neo-revisionists at present controlling the Party.
Now it is time to act and act we must, here and now. It is
time we start building a really revolutionary party. A great
responsibility rests upon us and we must shoulder it as true
revolutionaries and try to prove ourselves worthy disciples of
'Comrade Mao Tsetung.
We call upon the revolutionary comrades still within the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) to repudiate openly the
nec-revisionist leading clique and its politics and openly to
join hands with us who are striving to build a genuine
Communist Party in our country.
[Reprinted from Liberation, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 1967]
SECOND DECLARATION
May 14, 1968
I Translated from the Bengali version of the Declaration ]
The All India Co-ordination Committee of Revolutionaries

of the Communist Party of India ( Marxist), in its first session
held on the eve of the first anniversary of the Naxalbari
peasants’ struggle, reviewed the events subsequent to its first
session held six months back and decided to issue a new

declaration in consideration of the changed situation. It was
also decided that henceforward the Committee would be
called the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist
Revolutionaries. The declaration is as follows :
Exactly a year ago the nor’wester with all its fury burst
over India and proclaimed throughout the world that a new
era had begun in India’s history. Inspired by Marxism-
Leninism and Chairman Mao’s Thought and led by the com¬
munist revolutionaries, the heroic peasants of Naxalbari rose
in revolt with arms in their hands to smash the chains of
slavery. Once again they showed that the parliamentary path
which all sorts of revisionists, overt or covert, had been treading,,
had become altogether outmoded. Since that day the message
of Naxalbari—the message of armed peasant struggle under
the leadership of the working class—has reached villages in
remote areas of India and under its inspiration many a peasant
struggle has begun in different parts of the country. While,
on the one hand, this event has caused panic in the minds of
U. S. imperialists, Soviet revisionists, the Indian big landlord
class, comprador-bureaucrat bourgeois class and their
stooges, the renegade Dange clique and neo-revisionists, on
the other hand, the toiling people of India and all the revolu¬
tionary elements irrespective of their party affiliations have
greeted this event with hope and exuberance. To them Naxal¬
bari is a path—the path which is brightly illuminated with
Chairman Mao’s Thought—the path which is the path of
liberation of all colonial and semi-colonial people—the path
along which the Chinese Revolution is victorious.
A little over twenty years ago India was a colony of Britain
today India has been turned into a neo-colony of some impe¬
rialist powers, the principal of them being the United States
and the Soviet Union. The U. S. imperialists, the most
aggressive enemies of mankind, are also the worst enemies of
the Indian people. Their neo-colonial grip over India is
now complete. The traitorous Soviet ruling clique who have
re-established bourgeois dictatorship in the first Socialist State

of the world are to-day actively collaborating with the U. S.
imperialists and they have turned India into a neo-colony of
both the United States and the Soviet Union. India is a
perfect example of the entente into which the U. S. imperia¬
lists and Soviet neo-colonialists have entered to jointly esta¬
blish hegemony over the world.
The increasingly growing economic and political crisis is
the result of extreme and acute contradictions between
the ruling classes and the people. In the present era
capitalist-imperialist system is heading towards final collapse.
In the semi-colonial and semi-feudal India, the contradiction
between imperialist and neo-colonial powers and the people,
the contradiction between feudal classes and the peasantry
and the contradiction between comprador-bureaucratic
capital and the working class have assumed the most
acute form. Today, U. S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism,
the big landlord class and the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeo¬
isie of India are the principal enemies of the Indian people—
these are like four mountains weighing heavily on the backs
of the Indian people.
The People’s Democratic Revolution can succeed only by
overthrowing the direct and indirect rule of these four
enemies. Under the leadership of the working class, the
peasantry—the principal force in the revolution—will have
to develop revolutionary base areas in the countryside, carry
on a protracted armed struggle, encircle the cities from the
villages and in the end occupy them and win countrywide
final victory. On the basis of the alliance of the working
class with the peasantry will be built the united front of the
working class, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and the
national bourgeoisie. The success of the Indian Revolution
will depend on how much the revolutionaries and the people
have been enthused by Chairman Mao’a Thought which is
the highest development of Marxism-Leninism of our time.
The foremost task of all the communist revolutionaries is to
propagate and spread the Thought of Mao Tsetung. The

enemies of the Indian people can be overthrown not by
conspiratorial methods but only by pursuing a mass line.
It has been our experience that revisionists of all varieties—
the Dangeite traitors or the neo-revisionists—are lackeys of
U. S. imperialism, Soviet neo-revisionism and domestic
reactionaries and are undoubtedly the enemies of the Indian
people.
At Burdwan, the neo-revisionist leaders put a final seal of
approval on the anti-Marxist revisionist ideological political
line ; but faced with opposition of revolutionaries and the
people they became more cunning and wicked than ever
before. The opportunists alone—and not the Marxist-
Leninists—can remain inside the Party—a Party which rejects
Marxism-Leninism, Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Thought and
adopts the parliamentary path, discarding the path of revo¬
lutionary violence. It has become all the more clear after
the Burdwan Plenum that like the Dangeite traitors, the neo¬
revisionists too have joined the counter-revolutionary camp,
and with Marxism-Leninism on their lips they are actively
striving to disrupt from within the agrarian revolution that
is being launched. Those who, instead of severing all
connections with them, still think that there is yet some scope
left for inner-party struggles, are creating illusions anew
amongst the anti-revisionist fighters and are creating obstacles
to their unity.
Today India has a position of vital importance in the
counter-revolutionary world strategy of U. S. imperialists and
Soviet neo-colonialists. They have reduced India to a powerful
bastion of reaction in order to conduct war against the revo¬
lutionary forces of India, to defeat the great and glorious war
of liberation of the Vietnamese people, to smash the wars of
liberation of other nations and peoples of South and South-
East Asia and to attack the socialist China ; and the
reactionary ruling class of India has been eagerly, enthusias¬
tically and actively co-operating in these schemes of theirs.
200 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL I?
To achieve these designs, the Soviet betrayers, hand in gloves-

with the U. S. imperialists, have increased their supply of
military hardwares to the Indian reactionaries. Supersonic
jet bombers and submarines are among those hardwares.
They have set up MIG-factory and missile bases on the soil
of India and have been trying to secure marine bases for their
warships in the Andamans and Nicobar islands. World today
is divided into two camps. The U. S. imperialists and their
chief accomplice, the Soviet neo-colonialists, are the leaders of
one camp ; socialist China and Chairman Mao are the leaders-
of the other camp. The present era is the era of Chairman Mao
Tsetung. This is the era when imperialism is on the verge
of final collapse and socialism is advancing towards final'
victory worldwide. Assured is the victory of the Indian
people who are a contingent of the great anti-imperialist army
of the world people against imperialism, its accomplices and*
agents.
At this historic moment we once more appeal to the-
revolutionaries in all parts of India, to all those who have
accepted Chairman Mao’s Thought to consolidate their forces-
and to co-ordinate their struggles so that the victory of the
Indian Revolution is hastened. Come, let us rally under the-
red banner of Chairman Mao’s Thought, apply his Thought
in the concrete conditions of India and organise Naxalbari-type
struggles and thus build up a genuine Indian Communist
Party ; for, without a revolutionary party revolution cannot
achieve victory.
We, on this occasion, appeal to all those revolutionaries
who firmly believe in Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Thought and
have revolted against the revisionist and neo-revisionist
leadership but are still maintaining separate group-identity, to
disband their groups and join the All India> Co-ordination
Committee of Communist Revolutionaries.
They should realise that today existence of separate groups
is harmful to the cause of the Indian Revolution.
The day of final destruction of imperialism and its chief
ally, the revisionists, is drawing near. The victory of the

Indian Revolution will take us closer to that great day.
Chairman Mao in his most recent statement has predicted :
It can be said with certainty that the day of complete
destruction of colonialism, imperialism and all systems of
exploitation, and the complete liberation of all exploited
nations and peoples of the world is not far off.
[Source : Three Documents of the AICCCR (in Bengali)
published by Deshabrati Prakashani, Calcutta.]
RESOLUTION ON ELECTIONS
(A statement issued by the AICCCR.)
May 14, 1968
[Translated from the Bengali version of the Resolution]
‘‘Following the completion of the Chinese Revolution there

is a tide of national liberation movement in various countries,
and Chairman Mao Tsetung’s Thought—which is Marxism-
Leninism in the era of rapid collapse of imperialism and rapid
progress of socialism—has made its appearance. As a result,
bourgeois parliamentary institutions having already become
historically obsolete, are now obstacles to the progress of
revolution in general, and, in particular, to the progress of
revolution in semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries like
India ; for, a country like India is not bourgeois but feudal.
From their experience of the past twenty years people have
realised this bitter truth that as an alternative to the path of
armed struggle as developed by Chairman Mao in China,
parliamentary path keeps intact the chain of slavery and
hastens the process of destruction. Particularly from their
experience of the last ten months during which the revolu¬
tionary struggle of Naxalbari was born, they have derived
a more important lesson. They have seen with their own eyes
that the communist and socialist hypocrites are in reality
partners of this conspiracy of the ruling class. They have
seen with their own eyes how the betrayer Dange clique and
the neo-revisionists have preached class collaboration while
mouthing revolutionary jargons, how they have tried to give a
fresh lease of life to the parliamentary path and have tried to
create illusions anew in the minds of the people regarding that
path. At the behest of their masters they have sought to
destroy the revolutionary peasant struggle of Naxalbari—not
only the Naxalbari struggle but also the struggles of all workers,
peasants and other toiling masses. In the background of the
past twenty years of the satanic Congress rule, people have
learnt from their past ten months’ experience that the betrayer
Dange clique, the neo-revisionists and other left parties are,
in fact, part of the reactionary ruling classes of India—all of
them are their faithful agents and have been safeguarding their
interests. Because they have donned the garb of ‘leftists’, they
have been performing all the more effectively this task of
safeguarding their interests. But our people have begun to
learn from their own experience. Their illusion regarding
the parliamentary path—their illusion regarding elections and
ministries is being quickly shattered. Their revolutionary
consciousness is continuously on the rise.
“After the great Chinese Revolution, we are living in a
revolutionary era of rapid collapse of imperialism ; we are now
in the midst of a great revolutionary upsurge. The traitors
have betrayed the great struggle of Telengana. But today
Naxalbari has made its appearance on the horizon. Naxalbari
came as a turning point in the history of India’s revolution.
Naxalbari has dug the grave of parliamentarism in India.
People of India had so long been submerged in the mire of
parliamentarism. Now they have seen the light. Now they
have realised that the path of Naxalbari is the only path of
their liberation. The reactionary ruling classes and their agents
—the betrayer Dange clique and neo-revisionists, have under¬
standably become panicky over Naxalbari. So, lest the spark
of Naxalbari turn into a prairie fire they are desperately
peddling elections.
“So, comrades, our call is : ‘Down with Elections’. We

call upon all the revolutionaries and revolutionary masses to
raise this slogan, ‘Boycott this Election’. By raising this slogan
foil the mischievous counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the
reactionary ruling classes and their agents, the betrayer Dange
clique and neo-revisionists. But at the same time we must not
forget that this mere negative slogan of ‘boycott’ will not take
us very far. Simultaneously we must have concrete tasks.
Side by side with the ‘boycott’ campaign, people have to be
organised and rallied under the banner of Chairman Mao’s
Thought, along the path of revolutionary class struggles, and
efforts must be made to build up Naxalbari type of movements
—such movements as will help us march ahead along the path
of the People’s Democratic Revolution.”
[Source : ‘Three Documents of the AICCCR’ (in Bengali),
published by Deshabrati Prakashani, Calcutta.]
REPORT ON THE PEASANT MOVEMENT

IN THE TERAI REGION
September, 1968
KANU SANYAL
After about 18 months, we the communist revolutionaries

-of the Siliguri subdivision met at a convention on 15 September
1968 under quite unfavourable conditions.
Why am I speaking of unfavourable conditions ? This is
because during these 18 months attempts have been made to
crush the revolutionary peasant movement of the Siliguri sub¬
division and to annihilate the communist revolutionaries there
through ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaigns. Who
started the campaigns of ‘encirclement and suppression’ ? On
22 May 1967, the leaders of the 14-party United Front
Government led by Ajoy-Jyoti-Harekrishna-Biswanath threw
hundreds of peasants and workers into jail and inflicted
204 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IJ
physical tortures on them, had their homes looted by the

police and shot, bayoneted and killed 15 peasants, including
men, women and children, with a view to crushing the revo¬
lutionary peasant movement.
The leaders of the 14-party United Front were unable to
prevent their fall, even though they had submitted slavishly to
Indira Gandhi, the political boss of the comprador-bureau¬
crat bourgeoisie and the feudal landlords and jotedars. This
is because the Congress party, the political organisation of the
comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlords, toppled the
14-party U. F. Government after having made that govern¬
ment do what it (the Congress party) needed. It dismissed
the U. F. Government in order that it might use the U. F.
again whenever necessary to serve its purpose. The ‘encircle¬
ment and suppression’ campaign that the reactionary U. F.
leaders had started on 25 May 1967 against the revolutionary
struggle is being followed up by the regime of Dharma Vira,
the governor, as clearly shown by the murder of Comrade
Babulal Biswakarmakar, who was shot dead on September 7
this year (1968).
We met at a convention under unfavourable conditions like
these with a view to assessing the experience of the revolutio¬
nary peasant struggle of the last 18 months and carrying this
struggle forward firmly along the path illumined by the Thought
of our beloved leader and great teacher, Chairman Mao.
Naturally, we shall place our views before the comrades
on the basis of the lessons that we have drawn from the heroic
struggle of the Terai peasants.
We have not yet been able to learn well the Thought of
Chairman Mao. So there will be shortcomings in our views.
We shall learn anew from the discussions of the comrades.
The importance of the peasant question
The greatest Marxist-Leninist of our present era, Chairman

Mao, has taught us : “The present upsurge of the peasant
movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China’s
•central, southern, and northern provinces, several hundred

million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane,
a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will
be able to hold it back.”
Chairman Mao further teaches : “Every revolutionary party,
•every revolutionary comrade, will be put to the test, to be
accepted or rejected as they decided. There are three alter¬
natives. To march at their head and lead them ? To trail
behind them, gesticulating and criticising ? Or to stand in
their way and oppose them ? Every Chinese is free to choose,
but events will force you to make the choice quickly.”
The truth of these words of Chairman Mao, of every single
word of it, has been fully borne out once more in the struggle
carried on in our area. Why has the peasant movement of
terai region proved to be an event having more far-reaching
•consequences than even an earthquake ?
Ours is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, 80 percent
of whose population live in the villages. The contradiction
between the people of our country and feudalism is the princi¬
pal contradiction. The comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie,
the landlords and the jotedars have been carrying on their rule
and exploitation through their political organisation, the
Congress party, by protecting fully and developing imperialist
interests and by covering up the basis of feudalism with legal
coatings. So the peasants are the basis and the main force of
the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle. Unless peasants are
liberated it is impossible to achieve the liberation of all other
oppressed classes. The terai peasants are a part of the peasantry
of our country. Seventy percent of the terai peasants are poor
and landless, 20 percent are middle peasants and 10 percent
are rich peasants. These heroic peasants dealt merciless blows
to the obsolete and rotten feudal elements—the jotedars, land¬
lords and usurers. The State apparatus of the comprador-
bureaucrat bourgeoisie, landlords and jotedars is preserving
the feudal system by force and carrying on an armed rule.
Inspired by Chairman Mao’s teaching, “Political power grows
out of the barrel of a gun,” the heroic peasants opposed this

armed rule with armed revolt.
The peasants of terai not only dealt a fierce blow at feuda¬
lism, they also expressed their intense hatred for the imperialist
exploitation of India, specially the exploitation by U. S. imper¬
ialism, swept into the dust the political, economic and social
authority, dignity and prestige built up in the villages by the
landlords and jotedars, who represent feudalism, and establi¬
shed the rule of the peasant committee in the villages
through their armed revolt. That is why the Naxalbari
struggle has shown the path for the liberation of India’s
oppressed classes.
We have seen how the criterion for judging political events
changed as soon as the struggle of the heroic peasants started
and thus proved how true are the teaching of Chairman Mao.
The struggle made it clear as daylight who, in a semi-colonial
and semi-feudal country like ours, is a revolutionary and who
is a counter-revolutionary, who is progressive and who is
reactionary, who is a Marxist and who is a revisionist, and
which political party wants to advance the cause of democratic
revolution, that is, the agrarian revolution, and which party
wants to cover up the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system
in order to preserve it.
Starting from foreign radio broadcasts and newspapers
which upheld the interests of the bourgeoisie and the
imperialists to the man-in-the-street in the cities and the
villages—everyone chose sides on the issue of the peasant
struggle in the terai. Not even one of the political parties,
which never tire of talking about workers, peasants and Mar¬
xism, could maintain its previous position. The struggle of the
terai peasants tore open their masks and forced them to take
sides. The struggle of the heroic peasants showed that all
the leaders of the 14 ‘left’ parties, including the so-called
Marxist party, who had managed to secure ministerial guddies
for themselves, were serving the State of the comprador-
bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlords, like the Congress party.
The struggle made it clear that, like the Congress party, the
leaders of the 14 ‘left’ parties, including the Dangeite clique
and Sundarayya & Co., are enemies of India’s democratic
revolution, that is, agrarian revolution. The struggle of the
terai peasants proved that the agrarian revolution can be led
to success only by waging a relentless and uncompromising
struggle against them.
The struggle of the terai peasants acted as a midwife in
the revolutionary situation prevailing in India. That is why
a single spark of the Naxalbari struggle is kindling widespread
forest-fire everywhere. In a word, the struggle of the heroic
peasants has brought to the forefront quite forcefully the role
of the peasants in India’s democratic revolution overcoming
the fierce and active opposition put up by all the reactionaries
and revisionists.
Establish the Peasant Committees and get organised

The Siliguri subdivision peasant convention gave out the
call to—(1) establish the authority of the peasant committees
in all matters of the village, (2) get organised and be armed
in order to crush the resistance of jotedar’s monopoly of
ownership of the land and redistribute the land anew through
the peasant committees.
The convention further declared that the peasants’ struggle
against feudalism would have to face the repression of all
reactionaries, be it Indira Gandhi’s government in New Delhi
or the U. F. government in West Bengal. So all their repre¬
ssion must be resisted by force of arms and and by carrying on
a protracted struggle.
The call of the sub-divisional peasant convention instantly
created a stir among the revolutionary peasant masses.
How did the revolutionary peasants of terai translate this
call into action ? To put this call of the conference into effect
the revolutionary peasants first of all laid stress upon the task
of creating the armed groups of peasants in the villages. In
every village we heard the words “political power grows out
.208 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
of the barrel of a gun.” This is because every single struggle,

however small, whether for stopping usury or another issue
has been invariably met with lathis and guns. That is why
this call worked like magic in organising the peasants.
Almost all the villages got organised during the period
from the end of March to the end of April 1967. Whereas,
previously, the membership strength of the Kisan Sabha could
not be increased beyond 5,000, the membership now jumped
nearly to 40,000. About fifteen to twenty thousand peasants
began to do whole-time work and built up peasant committees
in villages. The young men of the villages who had never been
seen in the front ranks of the Kisan Sabha now occupied the
place of veteran peasant cadres. With the speed of a storm
the revolutionary peasants, in the course of about one and a
half months, formed peasant committees through hundreds
of group meetings and turned these committees into armed
village defence groups. In a word, they organised about 90
percent of the village population. This action of the peasants
completely changed all our old ideas about organisation.
Chairman Mao teaches us : “The masses have boundless
creative power. They can organise themselves and concen¬
trate on places and branches of work where they can give full
play to their energy.”
We came to realize more profoundly the significance of
this teaching of our great teacher Chairman Mao from this
action of the terai peasants.
The great Lenin said : “Revolution is a festival of the
masses.” What it means in reality was witnessed by us
during the struggle of terai peasants. While the so-called
Marxist pundits, Indira Gandhi and all and sundry were
rending the skies with loud talks of national integration, we
found how the revolutionary activities of the peasants united all
the peasants irrespective of their nationality, religion,
language and caste.
The revolutionary peasants, through their actions, made
their decrees the law in the villages :
1. A blow was dealt at the political, economic and social

structure in the villages based on monopoly land ownership
which dragged the peasants more and more into the depths of
pauperisation. ‘No, not the deeds and documents—what is
required is the order of the peasant commitee’, declared the
peasants. They marked out all the land in the terai with their
ploughshares and made it their own. They declared that all
land which was not owned and tilled by the peasants them¬
selves was to be redistributed by the peasant committees. By
carrying this out in practice, they struck a blow at the main
political and economic basis of the jotedars. The old feudal
structure that had existed for centuries was thus smashed
through this action of the peasants.
2. All the legal deeds and documents relating to the land
had been used to cheat them. They held meetings and burned
all the receipts, acknowledgments, plans, deeds and docu¬
ments.
3. The jotedars and moneylenders, taking advantage of
the poverty of the rural folk, got them committed to unequal
agreements relating to the mortgage of land and bullocks.
The peasants declared all such agreements as well as the huge
burden of interest imposed on them null and void.
4. The hoarded rice which is used as capital for carrying
on usurious and feudal exploitation was confiscated by the
peasants and distributed among themselves. Apart from this
hoarded rice, other things like oil, atta (coarse flour), bullocks,
cows, a huge number of domesticated animals owned by
jotedars, agricultural implements, even articles meant for their
personal use were confiscated and*distributed.
5. All jotedars in the villages who were known for a long
time as oppressors and those who tried to oppose the peasant
struggle were all subjected to, open trial and sentenced to
death.
6. The wicked ruffian elements andTlunkeys who were used
to preserve the political, economic and social authority of the
jotedars in the villages and those who co-operated with the
Vo 1 11—14
police were all brought to open trial. In some cases, death

sentence was given ; in others, the fellows were paraded
through the village streets with shoes strung around their necks
and with fools’ caps on their heads so that they would not dare
commit crimes in future.
7. Realizing that their struggle against the jotedars, the
landlords and the moneylenders would be subjected to armed
repression by the State apparatus, they armed themselves with
their traditional weapons like bows and arrows and spears as
well as with guns forcibly taken away from the jotedars and
organised their own armed groups.
8. Lest the general administration of the villages should
suffer, they arranged for night watch and shouldered the
responsibility of running the schools in a smooth way. The
peasant committees announced that severe punishments would
be awarded in cases of theft and dacoity and took measures to
inflict such punishments in some cases.
9. In every area they created regional and central revolu¬
tionary committees and established the peasants’ political
power.
10. They declared the existing bourgeois law and law
courts null and void in the villages. The decisions of the
regional and central revolutionary committees were declared
to be the law.
In addition to these ten great tasks the peasants also did
many other things which wiped out of the villages the old
feudal system that had existed for centuries. How intense was
the class hatred of the peasants can be seen from the fact that
during a raid on the houses of two jotedars, which lasted for
two days, they not only ate up the cooked food of the jotedars
but also helped themselves to the meals prepared with all
other foodstuff left there. In this struggle we witnessed the
festival of the revolutionary peasants overthrowing feudalism.
Whenever the peasants became conscious of any short¬
comings during these revolutionary actions, they at once came
to the peasant committee for their rectification. This means,.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 21 i
the peasant committees were not something imposed on them.

On the contrary, these committees were wholly their own.
That is why the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai was
able to hit the jotedars and the vested interests.
The leadership of this struggle was, naturally, in the hands
of the landless peasants, who were the most militant section of
the peasantry. The reason why these revolutionary actions
could become so far-reaching and so vast in their sweep is that
the leadership of the struggle was in the hands of the poor
landless peasants, who constitute 70 percent of the peasantry.
After the conference, it was the poor landless peasants who
realised before all others that the resolutions of the conference
were beneficial to their own interests more than to anyone else.
It is only because of this that the work of organising the move¬
ment assumed such a broad and militant form. From the
experience of their own life the poor peasants realised that any
compromise with feudalism would make their future even
more miserable than before. That is why, in their fight
against the jotedars, the moneylenders, the ruffians and the
police it is the poor peasants who have not shrunk from
making sacrifices ever since 24 and 25 May, 1967. The truth
of this is being proved even today through struggles.
Just after the conference, the middle peasants, who cons¬
titute 20 percent of the peasantry, looked with suspicion at
the call given by the conference. So, they were not active in
the first phase of the struggle. It was only when they came to
realise that their interests would be served by the struggle and
that the main target and enemy of the struggle was the jotedars,
landlords and moneylenders that they came forward. With
the joining of the middle peasants the sweep of the struggle
increased manifold and it grew even more intense.
The rich peasants, who constitute only 10 percent of the
village population, at no time thought the declaration of the
conference and this struggle to be beneficial t o their own
interests. Rather, they, particularly those rich peasants who
carry on feudal exploitation in considerable portions of their
land, apprehended that it meant danger for them. So, after

the conference they took the role of critics and opposed the
struggle in the first phase and sometimes even acted as spies
for the jotedars. But as soon as the middle peasants joined
the poor peasants, their movements underwent a change.
After the jotedars and the wicked people had been punished
and they had fled to the towns and business centres, the rich
peasants gave up the path of opposition and criticism and
began to demand justice from the peasant committees. And
the peasant committees considered every case on its merit and
did justice to them. As a result, the rich peasants generally
became neutral and even took an active part in the struggle in
.quite a few instances.
The small jotedars split into two sections in the course of
the struggle. One section, comprising those jotedars, who were
able neither to develop themselves as they desired owing to the
oppression by the government of the comprador-bureaucrat
bourgeoisie and the landlords nor to maintain their existing
standard of living, took part in the struggle. Another section,
comprising those who realised that it was not possible for them
to resist, turned inactive hoping to take revenge in future.
The struggle of the heroic peasants of terai demonstrated
through practice how to build peasant unity, though, it must
be admitted, the task was often found to be not at all easy.
Real peasant unity can be built only by not making any
■compromise with feudalism, only by intensifying class struggle
against it and by directing the spearhead of attack against it.
The peasants proved this in practice. A look at the past and
the present revisionist Kisan Sabha convinces one that intense
class struggle against feudalism can never be developed by
convening such conferences as the “jute cultivators conference”
or by avoiding class struggle for the sake of unity. A vigorous
class struggle against feudalism not only helps to build peasant
unity but also guarantees the establishment of the peasants’
political power through such peasant unity. This we have
learnt from the peasants of terai.
AI1 the so-called left parties joined the Congress party in

their mad crusade to vilify the struggle of the heroic peasants
of terai. But all their vilification can never hide the fact that
the peasants of terai have overthrown feudalism root and
branch, a feat which could not be done through any legislation
or any other thing during all these hundreds of years.
Our great teacher, Chairman Mao, teaches us : ‘I hold
that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political
party, and army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for
in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the
level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy,,
since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation
between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy
attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a
single virtue : it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a
clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but
achieved a great deal in our work”. The truth of those words
of Chairman Mao has been vindicated through practice during
the struggle of the heroic peasants of terai.
Armed Struggle—not for land, but for the State power

The struggle of the terai peasants is an armed struggle—not
for land but for State power. This is a fundamental question,,
and the revisionist thinking, which has been prevailing in the
peasant movement for the last few decades, can only be
combated by solving this problem.
From the bourgeois parties and newspapers to the leaders
of the so-called Marxist party, all have been saying the same
thing, that it is quite just for the peasants of terai to struggle
for land but that the acts like arming the peasants and the
forcible taking away of guns are dragging the struggle into a
wrong path. By making this one statement all the bourgeois
and petty-bourgeois parties, including the Congress and the
so-called Marxist party, have ranged themselves on the same
side and made themselves agents of India’s ruling classes.
We all know that every class struggle is a political struggle
214 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL It
and that the aim of political struggle is to seize State power.

Chairman Mao teaches us : “The seizure of power by armed
force, settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and
the highest form of revolution. The Marxist-Leninist principle
of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all
other countries”.
In our country also, we can succeed in overthrowing the
regime of the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlords
only by arming the peasants and by building up guerilla
groups and a regular armed force.
The peasants of terai have taken up exactly this work, and
this is the reason why all the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
parties, including the Congress and the so-called Marxist
party, have become so furious.
The so-called communists derssed up as Marxists have
unmasked themselves by hitting away at this. They want to
keep the anti-feudal struggle pegged to the question of mere
distribution of land. Like all other bourgeois and petty-
bourgeois parties, the so-called Marxist party also looks at the
question of land distribution from the standpoint of social
injustice towards the peasants. This is what they have been
doing in reality, whatever may be their subjective motivation.
That is why they become panicky whenever they see armed
peasants or hear the slogan ‘Vietnam's path is our path*.
And they stage like a true bourgeois the farce of setting
up committees with pro-jotedar bureaucrats in order to
distribute land.
It would be relevant to mention here what our respected
leader. Comrade Charu Majumdar, had told us. He said,
“Whatever little concession the U.F. government may be
able to give to other classes, it is not possible for them to
give any concession whatsoever to the peasants”. We set
down this statement in our local election review but were not
able to realise its significance at that time. But later the
peasant movement in terai has cleared up our thinking.
As in the other States of India, the peasants of terai are
BEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 215
also being oppressed by the regime of the comprador-

bureaucrat bourgeoisie and feudal jotedars. And this oppre¬
ssion is carried on in the villages by preserving the political,
economic, social and cultural structure that serves jotedars
and through feudal exploitation. The heroic peasants are
every day realising this in their lives. That is why they
accurately hit at the proper place.
The first thing the peasants of terai did was to arm them¬
selves and then they carried out the ten great tasks and wiped
out at a stroke the old feudal system that had continued for
centuries. Furthermore, relying on the armed revolutionary
strength, they established a new political power, that is, the
rule of the revolutionary peasant committees in their area.
By carrying out these ten great tasks the heroic peasants
have taught us that the struggle of the peasants is not merely
a struggle for land. On the contrary, in order to end the
monopoly of land ownership and feudal exploitation of the
landlords in the villages, which are being preserved by the
Congress party, the political party of the comprador-
bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords, with the help of
the political, economic, social and cultural structure that
serves the landlords, a new political, economic, social and
cultural structure must be created by establishing a new
political power. This political power can be established by
arousing and arming the peasants, by organising guerilla
groups, by creating liberated areas, by building a regular
armed force, and by protecting and expanding this force. Such
a political power, no matter in how small an area it is estab¬
lished, is the embryo of the future people’s democratic State
power in India.
It is never possible to overthrow the rule of the comprador-
bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords, who have come to
terms with imperialism, without arming the peasants in the
anti-feudal struggle, without building their guerilla and regu¬
lar armed forces. This is so because in our country, the
feudal landlord class is the main social base of the imperialist
and comprador-bureaucrat bourgeois exploitation, and the

peasants are the main force and the basis of this struggle.
Herein lies the distinctive feature of the Naxalbari path, that
is, the Naxalbari struggle. It is precisely because the Naxal¬
bari struggle is not merely a struggle for land that it could not
be stamped out.
Without this consciousness, any struggle for land, no
matter how militant it may be, is militant economism. Such
militant struggle for land generates opportunism in the peasant
movement and demoralises the majority of the fighting section
as happened during the struggle for seizing the benami lands.
Such militant economic movement leads one into the blind
alley of revisionism. This means, in other words, becoming,
consciously or unconsciously, a bourgeois reformist. The
bourgeoisie try to gain this object of theirs, sometimes through
their laws and sometimes through a Vinoba Bhave. When they
fail in this, they depend on the present-day social-democrats
who disguise themselves as Marxists. Marxism has nothing
in common with this. In short, the question of making the
agrarian revolution victcrious in our country is not the same
as the question of ensuring social justice to the peasants.
United Front and its leadership in the

Anti-feudal struggle
An important aspect of the struggle of the heroic peasants

of terai is its success in gaining the support of the tea-garden
workers and other toiling people and, thus, intensifying the
struggle still further by building a united front in the anti-feu¬
dal struggle. This is the most important task. The struggle
of the heroic peasants of terai has solved the problem.
The terai peasants began their struggle against the compra¬
dor-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords, who have come
to terms with imperialism, have prettified feudalism and are
carrying on their rule and exploitation through the Congress
party, which is their political organisation. The fact that the
reactionary leaders of the so-called United Front were able to
install themselves on the ministerial guddies did not change
the class character of the State.
While the heroic peasants of terai were smashing the
foundations of feudalism in the villages by performing the ten
great tasks, the tea-garden workers realised from their innate
class consciousness that this class struggle was a struggle to
overthrow the rule of the Congress party, which represents
the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the landlords. That
is why the tea-garden workers could not be kept away from
the struggle of the peasants in spite of the fact that the unions
of tea garden workers were mainly controlled by the so-called
communists.
From their own experience of class struggle, the tea-garden
workers of terai realised that the peasants were their most
faithful friend and ally. That is why they not only participa¬
ted in the struggle of the peasants but were in the forefront
of the struggle. They went on strike and arming themselves
they have taken part in every struggle since 24 May 1967.
The struggle of the terai peasants helped the tea-garden workers
to come out of the mire of trade unionism and economism.
This happened in spite of the fact that the so-called communist
trade union leaders were opposing the struggle. And from
this anti-feudal struggle there grew up a genuine worker-
peasant alliance under the leadership of the tea-garden
workers.
At the present time, every anti-feudal armed struggle is
certain to be opposed by imperialism. There are many ins¬
tances today to bear this out. In the propaganda being
carried on by the bourgeois papers, representing different
imperialist interests, by the Voice of America and by the BBC,
we are witnessing this opposition in an embryonic form. The
object of their propaganda is to crush the struggle without
delay, and the reactionary U. F. leaders are diligently working
to this end under the leadership of the Congress. As soon
as the anti-feudal struggle of the workers and peasants of terai
grows more intense, it will have to face direct opposition from.
J218 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
imperialism. All the anti-imperialist strata and classes will

then naturally join the alliance of workers and peasants.
The struggle of the heroic peasants of terai has taught us
the lesson that a united front, of all anti-imperialist anti-feudal
elements that can be united, can be built only on the basis of
worker-peasant alliance carrying on armed struggle. This
united front of workers and peasants can never be built
through any so-called ‘turn to the villages’ or by taking a few
demonstrations towards the villages.
Any other front that can be built is the United Front of
Ajoy-Jyoti-Harekrishna-Jatin, which can function as ministers
or bureaucrats within the existing bourgeois structure but
which is unable to give leadership to the people’s democratic
revolution.
The question of leadership of this front has also been
solved. No so-called Marxist can lead this struggle or this
front. This front will be led by the political party of the
proletariat—a party which is armed with the theory of Marxism-
Leninism, Mao Tse-tung’s thought, the highest development
of Marxism-Leninism in the present era—a party having its own
army and able to build a united front of workers, peasants,
and petty-bourgeoisie and of all those who can be united.
Only such a party can successfully lead the anti-imperialist and
anti-feudal struggle.
Our Deviations and the Lessons we learnt

Taken as a whole, internationally and nationally, the revo¬
lutionary situation in our country is excellent. The armed
struggle of the peasants of the Siliguri subdivision has begun
after the fourth general elections at a time when Anglo-U.S.
imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, finds itself in an
acute crisis and the quarrel between the imperialists has
become bitter, when the U.S. imperialist capital is unable to
rely fully on the influence of the Congress party in matters of
investments, when all the hoax of economic planning of the
Congress party, the organisation of the comprador-bureaucrat
bourgeoisie and landlords, is falling into pieces, when the

people are suffering from the effects of an acute economic
crisis and when people’s lack of confidence in the Congress
has become even more pronounced, as reflected in the ending
of monopoly rule of Congress ministers in eight states.
We know that we must adopt an offensive tactic in our
struggle when the enemy is beset with crisis and internal
quarrels, and must adopt the tactic of advancing our struggle
gradually when the enemy has gained some stability. Judged
from this standpoint, the struggle of the peasants of terai is
just, timely and beyond reproach.
Why have we failed, though temporarily, to advance the
struggle of the heroic peasants of terai ? The reasons are :
lack of a strong party organisation, failure to rely whole¬
heartedly on the masses and to build a powerful mass base,
ignorance of military affairs, thinking on old lines and a
formal attitude towards the establishment of political power
and the work of revolutionary land reform. We must always
bear in mind Chairman Mao’s teachings in discussing these
matters. He teaches us, “New things always have to experience
difficulties and setbacks as they grow. It is sheer fantasy
to imagine that the cause of socialism is all plain sailing and
easy success, without difficulties and setbacks or the exertion
of tremendous efforts.”
By the lack of a strong party organisation we mean absence
of a party which is armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism
and its highest development in the present era, Mao Tsetung’s
thought, which is closely linked with masses, which does not
fear self-criticism and which has mastered the Marxist-Leninist
style of work. It is true that the revolutionary comrades of
the Siliguri subdivision led by our respected leader. Comrade
Charu Majumdar, were the first to rise in revolt against the
revisionists. But this does not mean that we fully assimilated
the teaching of our great teacher, Chairman Mao. That is,
while we accepted the teachings of Chairman Mao in words,
•we persisted in revisionist methods in practice. Though it is true
220 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL I®
that the worker and peasant party members of terai were in a

majority inside the party and that there was party organisa¬
tion in almost every area, yet in reality the worker and peasant
comrades were led by the petty-bourgeois comrades and the
party organisation in every area actually remained inactive.
The party members were all active at the beginning of the
struggle but they were swept away by the vast movement of'
the people. We did not also realise that the party had a
tremendously significant role to play in advancing firmly the
struggle of the heroic peasants. As a result, whatever might
be the role the party members played spontaneously at the
beginning of the struggle, it was afterwards reduced to nothing
in the face of white terror. To belittle the role of the party
in the struggle is nothing but an expression of the old revisio¬
nist way of thinking. The party played no role in matters-
like deciding what are the needs of the struggle at a given
moment, giving political propaganda priority above every¬
thing else, advising the people about what they should do
when the enemy attacks, preparing the people politically to
meet the moves of the enemy, and developing the struggle
step by step to a higher stage.
We did not even politically assess, nor did we propagate

among the people, the significance of the ten great tasks per¬
formed by the heroic peasants. As a result, there developed
among us opportunism and escapism ; and even the fighting
comrades began to show signs of lack of firmness.
So, we are of the opinion that we must carry on a sharp-
struggle against the revisionist way of thinking and fulfil certain
definite tasks. These tasks are : to form a party unit in a
given locality and elect its leader ; to train these party units,
which must be armed ones, to observe secrecy. The tasks of
the party unit will be to propagate the thought of Chairman
Mao in a given locality and to develop and intensify class
struggle in that locality ; to act as a guerilla unit and attack
and eliminate class enemies by relying wholly on the people ;
and, whenever possible, to take part along with the people im
the work of production. We have now started implementing

the above programme.
We were unable to raise the struggle firmly to a higher
stage because we failed to rely wholly on the people and to
build a powerful mass base. We now admit frankly that we
had no faith in the heroic peasant masses who, swift
as a storm, organised themselves, formed revolutionary peasant
committees, completed the ten great tasks and advanced the
class struggle at a swift pace during the period from April to
September 1967. We did not realise that it is the people who
make history, that they are the real heroes, that the people can
organise themselves and can amaze all by their own completely
new style of work. We failed to realise that comrades like
Tribeni Kanu, Sobhan Ali, Barka Majhi, Babulal Biswa-
karmakar and the ten peasant women of Naxalbari are the
real heroes and organisers and so we failed to move forward.
Though we repeatedly recognised this in words during the
period from April to September 1967, in reality, however, we,
the petty-bourgeois leadership, imposed ourselves on the
people. Whenever the heroic peasant masses took the
initiative and wanted to do something, we of the petty-
bourgeois origin opposed them. The reason is we did not
understand, nor did we ever try to understand, the action
of the masses. On the contrary, under the influence of old
revisionist habits we arbitrarily set limits as to how far
they should go. This resulted in thwarting the initiative of the
masses and blunting the edge of the class struggle. Having
worked in a revisionist party, we were used to bourgeois laws
and conventions and so tried to convince the masses about what
was right and what was wrong. So, when the people wanted
to attack the police, we prevented them on the ground that
our losses would be heavy. We looked at the people’s attitude
towards the jotedars and the police from the angle of bour¬
geois humanism. Asa result, we failed to organise the large
masses, who numbered more than 40,000, and were thus unable
to build a powerful mass base during April and May 1967.
Therefore, during the second stage of our struggle, we

have resolved, we must link ourselves with the needs and
wishes of the people, go to the people with boundless love and
respect in our heart and integrate ourselves with the people.
We must learn from them and take the lesson back to them
again through practice. In other words we must not impose
anything from above. Mistakes may be made owing to this,
but it is possible to correct such mistakes. The most impor¬
tant thing is—never to allow the initiative of the masses to be
suppressed. Our duty is to develop their initiative.
Ignorance of Military affairs and old way of thinking

The struggle of the heroic peasants of the Siliguri subdivi¬
sion was not a movement to realise certain demands in the
old sense. This was a struggle to establish a new political power,
the peasants’ power in the villages after abolishing feudalism
there. So, we shall discuss the reason for our failure in this
struggle both from the political and the military viewpoint.
Chairman Mao teaches as : “All reactionaries are paper
tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying but in
reality they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of
view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are really
powerful”. If, in any struggle, we happen to over-estimate the
enemy’s strength politically, it will never be possible to gain
victory in that struggle. In other words, if we do not have,
from the strategic viewpoint, the courage and firmness required
to defeat the enemy, we shall inevitably face defeat. If we
fail to realise that in the final analysis it is the people who
are powerful, we shall be able to achieve victory in any
struggle. It is this consciousness that lends firmness to the
struggle, urges one to make supreme sacrifice without fear and
teaches one to undergo all kinds of hardship in order to win
victory.
We believed that we had assimilated the teaching of Chair¬
man Mao. But the course of the struggle made us realise
how superficial was our understanding. Today, our continued
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 223;
participation in the struggle makes us feel with every passing

day that this teaching of Chairman Mao has to be realised
anew every day, every moment and this realisation has to be
tested through our own practice. The day when this realisa¬
tion is translated into reality, we shall be able to shatter the
much boasted strength of the armed forces of India’s reacti¬
onary government and march forward undeterred.
The encounter with the police on 24 and 25 May 1967 and
the action of the people in coming forward undauntedly both
during and after the shooting down of unarmed peasant
women by the police, and the boundless heroism and self-
sacrifice of Comrades Tribenu Kanu, Sobhan Ali, and Barka
Majhi—how can we explain all these things if not by the fact
that they are the expressions of that realisation ? And we
of the petty-bourgeois origin failed to recognise this very thing
and so, at times, either under-estimated or over-estimated the
enemy’s strength.
In the first phase of the struggle, we under-estimated the
enemy’s strength and thought of everything in the old way, and
being in a revisionist party we indulged in idle day-dreaming.
Sometimes we imagined that ‘the U.F. cannot go so far’ or that
"it will be difficult for it to go so far’. On the one hand,
we view the revisionists from a purely petty-bourgeois standpoint
while, on the other, we under-estimated the enemy’s strength
and kept the people unprepared in the face of the enemy,
that is, we did not prepare the people regarding the measures
that the enemy was likely to take. This is nothing but
revisionist attitude.
Again, when the people were ready to launch attacks on
the enemy, we over-estimated the enemy’s strength and
subjectively magnified the likely effects of such attacks. The
people fought with determination and created model heroes
whose heroism we belittled. As a result, the people found
themselves in disarray in the face of widespread terror, the
intensity of the struggle diminished and escapism increased.
Comrade Babulal Biswakarmakar, by sacrificing his life on 7
:224 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
September this year has enjoined on us to advance along the

path pointed out by Chairman Mao.
This is a struggle to seize State power and as such, it
demands of us to prepare the party and the people militarily
to the fullest extent. Chairman Mao teaches us : “Without
a people’s army the people have nothing”. We have come
to realise the truth of this teaching of Chairman Mao deeply
through the struggle in terai. Though we had known as
soon as the struggle started it would be met with suppression
by the Central Government and the reactionary leaders of
the West Bengal U.F. Government, yet we failed to take the
programme of action which should have been taken eventually.
We had a wrong understanding of Chairman Mao’s teaching
in that we turned strategic defence into passive defence.
When all the population armed themselves, the jotedars,
the vested interests and wicked persons fled from the villages,
we concluded that we had already created the base area.
We mistook the armed police for the armed force and adopted
the tactic of resisting and attacking by means of broad mass
mobilization as the main tactic of our struggle. The one or
two small armed groups which were formed to take away
forcibly guns from the jotedars were not recognised by us as
the main instrument of struggle. On the contrary, we assumed
that guerilla groups would eventually grow out on the basis of
the spontaneons actions of the broad masses. In many cases,
fooled by the display of revolutionary ardour in vagabonds, we
made them leaders for organising armed groups. Again,
when we found armed rich peasants and a section of small
jotedars by the side of armed poor peasants and middle
peasants, we concluded that together they constituted the united
armed force of the entire peasantry. We totally forgot that
the rich peasants and that section of the small jotedars could
desert to the enemy at the first opportunity. We learnt in the
course of the struggle that a few rich peasants and small land-
owners might take an active part in a big struggle that was
raging. But as soon as counter-revolutionary terror started,
these people quickly desert to the enemy camp spreading fear

among the poor and middle peasants. In short, our total
Ignorance of military affairs is the root cause of the temporary
setback in our struggle.
What we have learnt from the terai peasants is that we must
deeply study the political and military theories of Chairman
Mao, apply them in practice and then study them again. Our
^greatest responsibility is to make arrangements for our worker
and peasant comrades to study the thought of Chairman Mao.
Furthermore, we have learnt from the experience of our
struggle that the armed groups formed, after arousing the
people in the villages and arming them, will become the village
.defence groups.
We must acquire knowledge of guerilla warfare by arming
the peasants with conventional weapons (bows and arrows,
spears etc) and by organising assaults on the class enemies.
We are to build up liberated zones gradually by forming
peasant guerilla groups and by carrying on their activities. It
would not be possible either to form guerilla groups or to
carry on their activities for long if we do not, at the same time,
persevere in building liberated zones also. We must keep in
mind the fact that only the liberated zones or those areas which
can be transformed into liberated zones form the rear of the
guerillas. We must lay utmost stress on building a people’s
armed force. To build a people’s armed force we must form
centrally organised groups of armed guerillas. These, we
think, will be the embryo of the people’s armed force.
In some other areas, again, we may try to organise armed
peasant revolts and build the people’s armed force comprising
those armed peasants who have risen in revolt.
In forming the guerilla groups or the central guerilla
group we must lay utmost stress on the class standpoint. We
have come to realise that only the poor and middle peasants
must be the basis of forming the guerilla groups.
Our failure in establishing the revolutionary political power
.and in carrying out revolutionary land reforms blunted the
Vol 11—15
edge of the class struggle both during and after the struggle.
The revolutionary peasants accomplished two tasks through
mass mobilisation. They are : formation of central and zonal
revolutionary peasant committees and distribution of land.
And we turned exactly these two things into a most formal
affair. Our petty-bourgeois day-dreaming was at the root of
it. We never seriously considered how deeply significant were
these two tasks.
Had we treated these two tasks seriously and carried on
political explanation campaign among the masses about their
significance, had we been able to develop the initiative of the
people to participate in carrying out these two tasks by educa¬
ting them, they would have remembered for a long time the
gains which they themselves had won through struggle and
would have fought unflinchingly in order to retain these gains.
As regards distribution of land, our policy was to confis¬
cate the land fully and distribute the same entirely.
We did not give any importance to this work also. As a
result, in many cases the rich peasants prevented this task from
being carried out under various pleas. In many other cases,,
the top section of the middle peasants, being in the leadership
in some cases, managed to divert the emphasis from the confis¬
cation of land to making raids on jotedars’ houses, and thus
deprived this work of its importance. In some cases again,
there developed acute contradictions between the poor peasants
and the middle peasants in matters of distribution of land.
In spite of all these mistakes, the people have been defen¬
ding heroically the fruits they won through their struggle.
Therefore, we have taken the decision that, of the ten great
tasks of the peasants, we must attach the greatest importance
to these two tasks and turn them into a weapon for our
propaganda.
[ Reprinted from Liberation, November 1968 ]

IT IS TIME TO FORM THE PARTY
Following is the full text of the resolution adopted
unanimously by the All India Co ordination Committee
of Communist Revolutionaries on February 8, 1969.
A little over 18 months has passed since the revolutionary

peasant struggle was launched in Naxalbari under the all-
conquering banner of the thought of Mao Tsetung. And it
is more than a year ago that the All India Co-ordination
Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was formed under
the inspiring leadership of the Naxalbari comrades.
During this period, though brief, the Co-ordination
Committee has, no doubt, made significant achievements in
dealing powerful blows at all reactionary ideology, including
revisionism and neo-revisionism, and in spreading the flames
of agrarian revolution. This period has witnessed the victori¬
ous march of Chairman Mao’s thought, the acme of Marxism-
Leninism in the present era, which is winning new adherents
every day. It is during this period that the flames of
agrarian revolution have spread out from Naxalbari to
Srikakulam in the south and to Mushahari and Lakhimpur
Kheri in the north. It has been the period when the peasant
revolutionaries of Kerala have staged a heroic revolt that has
shaken the whole of India. It has also been the period of the
bursting forth of the revolutionary liberation struggle of the
Adibasi people in Chotanagpur and its uninterrupted advance.
It is also in this period that the national liberation struggles
of the Nagas, the Mizos and the Kukis have entered a new
phase. The reactionary Indian Government has become a
stooge of U. S. and Soviet imperialism and a dead-weight on
the Indian people. And so the resistance of the Indian people
both in the countryside and in the cities—among the working
class and the petty-bourgeois masses—is growing fast and is
creating a new upsurge in the agrarian revolution which is the
main content of the Democratic revolution in India today.

The revolutionary struggle of the Indian people to achieve
emancipation from the yoke of imperialism, Soviet revisio¬
nism, feudalism and comprador-bureaucrat capital has now
reached a new height.
In this excellent revolutionary situation, when the people
of India have finally embarked on the road of revolution, all
the parties of the ruling classes, including the various revisi¬
onist parties, are feverishly trying to strengthen the parlia¬
mentary illusions. The call of “Boycott Election” issued by
the Co-ordination Committee has exposed the hollowness of
parliamentarism and the counter-revolutionary character of
the revisionist and neo-revisionist parties.
It is a heartening fact that within the last one year, revolu¬
tionaries from Assam to Maharashtra have united under the
banner of the All India Co-ordination Committee and all
the centres of revolutionary peasant struggles are linked with
one another through this Committee. The reactionary ruling
classes and their counter-revolutionary agents, including the
revisionists and the neo-revisionists, who pinned their hopes
on the disunity within the revolutionary ranks, have been
sorely disappointed. The growing unity within the ranks of
the revolutionaries despite the obstacles created by the
reactionaries of all sorts proves that we have overcome the
main impediment to the formation of a revolutionary party
in India. The Co-ordination Committee has thus served as
the first indispensable link in the chain—the process of forming
a Marxist-Leninist Party in India.
However, the experiences of the last one year have also
made it amply clear that the political and organisational ne$ds
of the fast developing revolutionary struggles can no longer
be adequately met by the Co-ordination Committees. These
struggles have to be led and co-ordinated in an effective
manner. The entire revolutionary forces have to be fully
roused and organised to consolidate and extend the existing
.areas of struggle. The rich experiences of these struggles
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 229 '’
have to be analysed and assessed, generalisations have to be

made and lessons drawn in order to lead these struggles along
the correct line. These struggles cannot develop to a higher
stage and a revolutionary authority cannot grow if we depend
merely on local initiatives. Without a revolutionary party
there can be no revolutionary discipline and without revolu¬
tionary discipline struggles cannot be raised to a higher level..
Only a revolutionary party can infuse revolutionary discipline,
the spirit of self-sacrifice and death-defying abandon. So, for
taking these struggles forward, it is essential to form an all-
India Party and a centre recognised by all revolutionaries.
The All India Co-ordination Committee was set up to help
this process of forming a revolutionary party and this was
set down in the very first Declaration. In the absence of
such a Party, comrades in the areas of struggle have come to
look upon the Co-ordination Committees as Party Committees
and expect them to function in the same manner. But the
Co-ordination Committees cannot fulfil the complex political
and organisational tasks arising out of the present stage of
revolutionary struggles. At a time when Communist revolu¬
tionaries all over the country have given priority to the task
of building revolutionary bases in the rural areas, at a time
when the slogan of revolutionary class struggle is rending the
sky, it is our immediate duty to form a revolutionary Party
without which the advance of revolution is sure to be impeded.
Chairman Mao teaches us : “If there is to be revolution,
there must be a revolutionary Party. Without a revolutionary
Party, without a Party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolu¬
tionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style,
it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad
masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running
dogs”.
Idealist deviations on the question of Party building arise
as a result of the refusal to recognise the struggle that must
be waged, within the Party. The idea that the Party should
be formed only after all opportunist tendencies, alien trends
230 NAXALBARl AND AFTER VOL II
and undesirable elements have been purged through class

struggles is nothing but subjective idealism. To conceive of a
Party without contradictions, without the struggle between
the opposites, i.e., to think of a pure and faultless party is
indulging in mere idealist fantasy. Chairman Mao has taught
us : “Opposition and struggle between ideas of different
kinds constantly occur within the Party ; this is a reflection
within the Party of contradictions between classes and between
the new and the old in society. If there were no contradic¬
tions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve
them, the Party’s life would come to an end.”
Revisionism is bourgeois, counter-revolutionary ideology.
The inner-party struggle between revolutionary ideology and
counter-revolutionary ideology will continue so long as classes
exist. It is through an uncompromising struggle against
revisionism and other alien trends that the Party shall grow
and develop.
Fortunately for us, we are living in an era when the
thought of Mao Tsetung is winning victory after victory,
when the great proletarian cultural revolution, personally
initiated and led by Chairman Mao, has gained historic
victory in China and has immensely enriched the treasure-house
of Marxism-Leninism, when Chairman Mao is still living and
leading the world proletarian forces in the final struggle for
complete victory of Socialism all the world over. We are
confident that with the active co-operation of all the revolu¬
tionaries of our country we shall succeed in building a Party
in the revolutionary style capable of leading the Indian revolu¬
tion through to complete victory.
It should be borne in mind that ours is a new great era of
world revolution and that the responsibility of the Communist
revolutionaries of India, a contingent of the world communist
movement, is tremendous. All the imperialist powers of the
world headed by the U. S. imperialists and the Soviet social-
fascists are trying to win a fresh lease of life by exploiting the
.500 million people of India. They are also trying to use
Indian people as cannon-fodder in a war to destroy Socialist
China, the base of the world revolution. By carrying the
Indian revolution to victory we shall not only end the brutal
exploitation of the vast masses of our country but also hasten
the collapse of world imperialism and revisionism and thus
help in building a radiant future for ourselves and for all
mankind. We must unite with our class brethren who are
waging heroic struggles in Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Malaya,
Indonesia and various other countries of the world and forge
that great bond of internationalism—that internationalism
which has been given noble expression by Chairman Mao in
the great proletarian cultural revolution.
A stage has now been reached when the formation of the
Communist Party brooks no further delay. The Party should
immediately be formed with those revolutionaries as the core
who are building up and conducting revolutionary class
struggles. This Party composed of revolutionary cadres, steeled
and tempered in the fire of class struggle, shall play its historic
role in leading India’s People’s Democratic Revolution to
victory, in carrying it forward to the completion of the
Socialist Revolution and in helping to bring about the total
oollapse of world imperialism and revisionism.
[Reproduced from Liberation, Vol 2, No. 5, March 1967]
IMMEDIATE PROGRAMME
| Adopted by the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist

Committee at its convention held on April 10-12, 1969.]
We, the Communist Revolutionaries who have broken from

revisionism, are striving for the victory of Indian revolution
in accordance with Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought.
India is a neo-colonial country. The Indian people are
feeing subjected to the neo-colonial exploitation of the
American imperialism, the British imperialism and the Soviet
revisionism. Together with imperialism, feudalism is the main
232 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL 15
exploiting force in the country. Seventy to eighty percent of

the population live in the countryside. They are being subjected
to various forms of feudal exploitation. In view of these condi¬
tions the Indian revolution would be completed in two stages.
Today we are in the stage of New Democratic Revolution..
Immediately after the completion of this, the stage of Socialist
Revolution would begin. Since there are two different stages,,
the tasks of these two different stages would also be different.
The task of the New Democratic Revolution is to establish the
New Democratic State in the country by smashing impe¬
rialism, feudalism and comprador and bureaucrat bourgeoisie
i. e., the big bourgeoisie. The task of the Socialist Revolution
is to establish the Socialist system by abolishing private
property. For the successful completion of the New Democratic
Revolution, which is our immediate task, we should formulate
a general programme. In the stage of the New Democratic
Revolution the basic points of the general programme would
remain unchanged.
These basic points are :
1. The comprador and the bureaucrat bourgeois i. e.r
the big bourgeois feudal State should be smashed. In its
place the New Democratic State should be established.
2. Feudalism should be abolished. The land of the
landlords should be distributed among the poor peasants and
the agricultural labour.
3. The foreign capital as well as the capital of the com¬
prador bourgeosie and bureaucrat bourgeoisie in collaboration
with it in the industries and banks should be confiscated.
4. For the working class, increment of wages, reduction of
working hours and other facilities should be secured and the
problem of unemployment should be solved.
5. The middle class people should be given the guarantee
of employment.
6. For defence of the country the existing mercenary
army should be abolished and a revolutionary people’s army
should be built up in its place.
7. The basis of the foreign policy should be the forma¬

tion of a united front against the world imperialists, especially
American imperialism and British imperialism and its colla¬
borator, the Soviet social-imperialist clique. India should be
party to this united front.
8. Various nationalities in the country should have the:
right of self-determination.
9. All types of unequal treaties should be abrogated.
India should quit the ‘Commonwealth’.
10. Anti-imperialist and anti-feudal education, science
and culture should be promoted. The problems of unem¬
ployment among the middle class people should be solved.
11. Integration of the country should be based on com¬
plete independence and democracy.
The revolutionary programme based on these eleven points
would constitute the New Democratic revolutionary pro¬
gramme. Having a revolutionary programme alone is not
enough. We should also have a revolutionary path in order
to achieve this programme. This path is totally different from
the parliamentary path of revisionists. One of the main
aspects of Mao’s thought is people’s war The essence of the
path of people’s war is to establish guerilla bases in the
countryside, to encircle and liberate the cities and to ultima¬
tely liberate the country. It is the task of the revolutionaries
to apply the path of people’s war to the revolutionary practice
in India and to carry it through to the end.
The formation of a United Front is very important for the
successful completion of the Indian revolution. This United
Front should be formed against imperialism, feudalism and
their collaborator, the big bourgeoisie. Under the leadership
of the proletariat, this United Front should be formed of the
working class, peasantry, middle class and the national
bourgeoisie. Unlike the electoral united fronts of revisionists,
this would be a Front for struggle which would emerge and
develop in the course of revolutionary struggles and armed
struggle for liberation.
To build and develop the United Front for the implemen¬

tation of the programme of people’s war and the New Demo¬
cratic Revolutionary programme, a Communist Party capable
of applying Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought to the revolu¬
tionary practice of India should be built. This should be a
Communist Party formed of the revolutionaries. The revolu¬
tionaries of today should come forward to build such a revolu¬
tionary Party. We should realise that this Party should be
totally different from the revisionist parties that have betrayed
the Indian revolution. It is with this basic understanding we
should formulate a clear cut programme suited to the present
conditions.
We have already stated that this general programme of ours
would be such that it would be applicable for the entire stage
of New Democratic Revolution. Following the path of
people’s war, we are and will be implementing this programme
in different regions. The vital aspect of this programme is to
liberate the villages, encircle the town and then gradually
liberate the urban areas. We should, in accordance with this,
formulate our programme for rural and urban areas.
The mass movement of the Agency areas of Srikakulam
district has reached the stage of armed struggle. The mass
movement in the forest areas of Warangal and Khammam
districts has passed ordinary legal confines. The peasantry,
especially the landless poor peasantry and the agricultural
labour, is coming forward not only to occupy the forest banjars
but also to reoccupy lands illegally grabbed by the landlords.
Hundreds of militants from these classes are participating in
the day to day activities. In the Agency area of East Godavari
district, the Agency peasantry is coming forward to fight
for the abolition of the muthadari system and to reoccupy
the lands illegally grabbed by the landlords. The movement
is spreading to the neighbouring areas of Vishakhapatnam
Agency, Bastar area, Karimnagar and Adilabad districts.
During the months of July and August last year, there
was a tremendous mass upsurge in the plains areas of some
districts adjacent to the forest areas and reached the stage of

confiscation of foodgrains from landlords. This position still
continues. The mass movement in Khammam and Madhira
taluqs of Khammam district and Janagaon and Manukota
taluqs of Warangal district is thus marching forward, reaching
the stage of direct resistance against the landlords. The
movement in Nalgonda district had been subjected to a severe
government repression and once again the peasantry is getting
prepared for struggles.
Our Immediate Programme

With the peasantry constituting more than 70 percent of
the population in our country, the agrarian revolution would
play the main role in the New Democratic Revolution. The
abolition of feudalism and the distribution of land to the
tiller is the main task of the agrarian revolution. Together
with this, the emancipation of the rural masses from all
forms of feudal exploitation would be the main task of the
agrarian revolution. In Andhra Pradesh, the land belonging
to the landlord class and the government is mainly in the
following forms :
1. The landholdings of the landlords cultivated through
farm servants. This is known as self-tilling.*
2. The lands cultivated by the tenant-farmers paying the
rent in the form of grain or money to the landlords as well as
the lands cultivated for landlords by some of these tenant-
farmers.
3. The pastures and other similar categories of lands.
4. Temple and endowment lands under the occupation
of landlords.
5. The cultivable government banjar lands. (This
includes the government banjar lands under the cultivation of
landlords. )
* For the sake of clarity, the term ‘self-tilling’ is introduced

in place of self-cultivation, the term originally used in
the English version of the document.
6. The forest lands needed for the cultivation by the

peasantry.
The land issue could be solved only by re-distribution of
these lands to the poor and landless peasantry and the
agricultural labour. Therefore, the communist revolutiona¬
ries in different parts should study the land issue and carry on,
among the people, especially the peasantry, the propaganda
about the importance as well as the urgent need for the land
re-distribution.
While thus carrying on the propaganda, we should, from
now on, make the preparations for the occupation of lands by
the peasantry in the next year. All the land that should be
occupied immediately, would come in for cultivation from
June, this year. Therefore we should take detailed decisions as
to the areas, villages and the lands that should be occupied,
and prepare the peasantry from now on.
We should, for the present, concentrate only on the big
landlords, the main enemies of the people. It is only these big
landlords that we should keep in view when we occupy the
lands under ‘self-tilling’. Keeping the question—of whether
all the lands under the item ‘self-tilling’ should be distributed
or not—open for discussion, it is essential to distribute the
land to the extent available.
Where there is no preparedness among the poor peasantry
and the agricultural labour, the distribution of the lands under
‘self-tilling’ and the pasture of landlords, the land that the
landlords had grabbed from the poor peasantry and agricultural
labour illegally or with nominal compensation or towards
debts, can be restored to the people belonging to the respective
families in case they still remain poor peasants or agricultural
labour* But owing to this there should not arise a situation
where some would get such land while some would not. We
should, in such a situation, see that others do also get a
portion of such land. Thus it should be possible for all the
poor peasants and agricultural labour to get the land equally
(inclusive of the land they have already in their possession).
At present, we are only concentrating on the lands of the

big landlords. The question of ceiling would arise at the time
of distributing the landlords’ lands. We should recognise the
land needed by a middle peasant who cultivates the land by
himself as the maximum ceiling limit. It is possible that this
may differ from area to area. As the agrarian revolution
advances, it would as well become necessary to distribute a
portion of the land from the small landlords also. In such a
situation, depending upon the needs of the agrarian revolution,
it is to be decided as to where and how the distribution should
be carried out. We should trace out the temple and endowment
lands under the occupation of the big landlords (they are often
concealed) and make preparations for their distribution among
the poor peasants and agricultural labour. We should, wher¬
ever possible, take it up as an immediate problem.
The common people are not in a position to make use of
common banjar lands as well as forest lands since a major
part of these lands is under the occupation of the landlords.
The cultivable lands from among them should be distributed
among the poor peasants and agricultural labour. The rest
of the lands should be taken over by the people.
The poor peasants and the agricultural labour would need
cattle and other implements for the cultivation of lands thus
distributed. At the time of land distribution itself, the cattle
and the implements of the landlords should also be distri¬
buted among such of those that are in need of them.
Moneylending, Nagulu, Khandanalu, these should be
abolished in whatever form they may exist. But it is only on
the big landlords, moneylenders (shahukars) and the rich
peasants, who carry on exploitation in this way, that we should
concentrate. The common people would lose the credit faci¬
lities if we are also to concentrate on petty individual money¬
lenders. It would be necessary to promote the credit facilities
to a certain limited extent till the liberated areas are established
and credit facilities are arranged for the people. There¬
fore, credit facilities are permitted in such a way that they
continue on reasonable rate of interest, either the bank rate

or the lowest reasonable rate in vogue in the respective
regions.
Besides, forced labour (vetti), tips, tilling of land (of the
landlords without any payment) by the peasants with their
own cattle and such other feudal exploitation should thus
be abolished in whatever form they may exist. We should
mobilse the people on all other problems because of which
the rural people are facing difficulties owing to the domination
of landlords. We should concentrate on the problems
specially in villages where the conditions of the people are
the worst. The conditions of the people in some villages
may be better than those in other villages owing to the work
of the Party over a number of years. But it would, howeverr
be wrong not to mobilise the people into struggle on the
presumption that the conditions of the people in all other
villages are also better. The problem of toddy-tappers is
serious in the Telengana region. The degree of exploitation
by the Govt, contractors (who include local landlords) is very
high. They are put to untold sufferings due to corrupt
practices of the Govt, officials. Against this exploitation we
should organise and lead them into struggles on the slogan of
“Tree to the tappers”. We should carry on propaganda
among them that their problems would be solved only with
the establishment of the New Democratic Government and
that for this the path of armed struggle should be taken up.
Similarly, the agricultural labour and the poor and middle
peasants in all the regions are suffering for want of house
sites. We should take up this problem. This is a programme
which should be extended to all parts of Andhra Pradesh.
Now let us work out a programme on problems pertaining to
different regions.
Forest Areas
The importance of forest and mountainous regions would
be crucial in the people’s war. In these regions not only
the enemy is weak but also these are areas favourable for
the people’s guerilla squads to carry on resistance against

the armed forces of the enemy for a long period and are ideal
for establishing guerilla base areas. The landlords, the money¬
lenders, and the forest officials are exploiting the ordinary
people and the Girijans inhabiting the forest and mountain-
ous region in ever so many ways. In these regions, the
masses have become conscious and are revolting against the
government and the exploiting classes. Srikakulam Girijan
struggle is a prelude to it. In all these areas, especially in
the forest areas of Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar,
the land with irrigation facilities as well as a major portion
of the fertile cultivable land is in the hands of the landlords.
For the purpose of grazing, usually hundreds and thousands
of cattle belonging to these landlords are left off in the forest
itself. They earn lakhs of rupees in the cattle-trade. Besides
the distribution of banjar lands, under the occupation of
government as well as landlords, among the poor peasants
and agricultural labour, we should, in these areas, carry on a
struggle for the fertile dry lands as well as the irrigated lands
under ‘self-tilling’ of the landlords and distribute them. The
cattle, available in thousands, should also be distributed.
For this, we should make preparation from now on.
Ploughing should commence with the commencement of
monsoon.
In the coming months, the contractors would employ the
people as coolies to move out the forest produce. We should,
therefore, intensify the struggle on the question of coolie
rates in the next month. Thus, by intensifyng the mass
activities, we should, by the end of April, advance the move¬
ment to a higher stage. In this period, a good amount of
work has been done to organise and mobilise the Girijans in
the Agency area of East Godavari district. The muthadari
system, the worst kind of feudal exploitation, is in practice
in this area. The remnants of it are also found in the Agency
area of Visakhapatnam. The people themselves should go in
for revolutionary actions to abolish this system.
The fertile lands and the fruit gardens that were grabbed
from the Girijans are in the hands of the landlords. The
people are very eager to take them back. We should prepare
the people for occupation of these lands. The occupation of
land should commence with the commencement of monsoon.
By allotting the land needed by the Girijans for podu
cultivation, we should create opportunities for their cultivation.
The government, grabbing away the lands from the Girijan
peasantry, is raising coffee and other big plantations. We
should study the problem of these plantations. We should
examine this problem, taking into account the extent of
these gardens that needs to be distributed, in order to
solve the land problem of the peasantry.
All the corporations set up for the purpose of purchasing
forest produce are nothing but a means for the exploitation of
the people and for filling the pockets of the officials with the
people’s wealth. They should, therefore, be abolished and the
Girijans should be given the opportunity of freely selling to
whomever they wish to.
We should not, while implementing this programme, per¬
mit Girijan and non-Girijan discrimination. Rallying all the
non-Girijans, including poor and middle peasants, a United
Front with the Girijans should be formed and the struggle
carried on. The division on the basis of Girijans and non-
Girijans would only prove helpful to the enemy. This applies
equally to different tribes among the Girijans themselves.
The tips, forced labour (vetti) and bribes to the forest
officials and employees have ceased by now. We should not
permit them in any form or to any extent.
Plains Areas
There are dry and wet lands in the plains areas. To this
day, the exploitation and atrocities of the landlords continue
to be a serious problem in the dry lands. The food problem
is a serious problem here. Vast areas of banjar lands are
available for distribution. There are opportunities in these
areas to organise and mobilise the people on ever so many

problems such as land, coolie rates, food problem, and against
the domination of landlords and so on.
Despite the fact that in terms of armed resistance this area
is less favourable than the forest and mountainous regions, it
would be wrong to conclude that this area would not be useful
for resistance. Under the present conditions, a limited guerilla
resistance would be possible even in these areas. Though it
would take time for an incessant resistance to take off in these
areas, these are highly important since they include areas
adjacent to forest areas and the Telengana area where the
armed struggle was carried on in the past. It is very essential
to develop revolutionary movement in these areas in order to
send the cadres and procure help needed in the forest areas.
Wet Lands
In view of social conditions and geographical features, there
are no possibilities for immediate development of guerilla
resistance here in these areas. Yet from these areas cadres,
funds and other help should be sent to the areas of resistance.
Ceaseless class struggle against the exploitation of the people
should be carried on in these areas. These areas should also
he liberated gradually.
Here, among the struggles of the agricultural labour as well
as the struggle against the general domination of the landlords,
we should mainly concentrate on the struggles of the agricul¬
tural labour and the tenant-farmers. We should launch strug¬
gles for the abolition of Government Farming Societies and for
the distribution of lands under their control among the poor
peasants and agricultural labour. We should study where the
possibilities for developing such struggles exist and make
efforts to develop the struggles there.
Political Propaganda
We should propagate, while implementing the above pro¬
gramme, that the people are waging struggles for their liberation,
Vol 11—16
that the liberation could be achieved only through their armed

struggle and that the people should seize the political power
into their own hands. We should make them realise the fact
that we could seize the political power only through the path
of people’s war. Despite the fact that the need for achieving
a People’s Raj safeguarding the gains achieved through the
struggles and that for our liberation from the exploitation
of the exploiting classes is being propagated, a comprehensive
political propaganda is however not being carried on. We
should especially propagate the politics of armed struggle much
more extensively than what we are doing now. We should
carry on comprehensive propaganda about the revolutionary
struggles going on in different parts of the country as well as
the Srikakulam struggle. In addition to the propaganda by
our cadres through speeches, we should organise local cultural
squads and carry on propaganda through them.
Boycott Panchayat Elections—Establish Village Soviets

Panchayat elections are due in the month of May. We
have resolved to boycott them. We should immediately take
steps to implement this decision. We should give no room
for entering the Panchayat Boards by back-door methods.
Our experience has proved that in the anti-feudal struggles
the Panchayat Boards could not be the instruments in the
hands of the people. It is because even in the villages where
we had been a majority in the Panchayat Boards during this
period, the landlord class got only strengthened and not
weakened. What is more, by way of collection of taxes and
other means, the Panchayat system has only proved helpful
for the further strengthening of ruling classes.
We should, from now on, make the people realise as to how
the Panchayat system and the election system is proving useful
for the ruling classes as a cover to safeguard their power. We
must convince the people that they should not participate in
the elections and thus make them boycott. We should make
the people, especially those who follow us, boycott the elec-
tions. For this we should strictly rely on the consciousness

and the organised strength of the people. But we should not
resort to any shortcut methods. We should make it clear to
the people that it is not merely boycotting the elections, that
there is the path of people’s war for them to follow, that it
means establishing the Village Soviets and the People’s Com¬
mittees, that it is under their leadership that we should imple-
ment the agrarian revolutionary programme and that these are
the foundations for the New Democratic revolutionary State.
(There will be no change in our programme despite the
postponement of the Panchayat elections for the present. We
should carry on an extensive propaganda about the need for
boycotting the elections.)
We should, in all the villages of the forest areas where wo
are working, mobilise the people to boycott the elections. In
the villages where the elections are thus boycotted, the question
of how to manage the affairs of the village would arise. Then
all the people, the adults of the villages, should assemble and
elect the People’s Committees. These Committees should assist
the people in all problems connected with the life of the
people. In the plains areas, District Committees should take
steps to boycott the elections in the villages where we are
strong. Boycott by the revolutionaries alone does not mean
the boycott of elections. In the village, where the elections are
thus boycotted, the People’s Committees elected by all the
people should come into being. These Committees should
function as alternate committees to the government Panchayat
Boards. These would be the Committees empowered by the
people. They should provide leadership in all the affairs of
the village and stand by the people. They should implement
the agrarian revolutionary programme.
They should take the responsibility of law, revenue, defence
of people and so on. These Committees should be prepared
to carry out the given responsibilities at the given stage. As
the struggle reaches the higher stage in the countryside, the
People’s Committees would transform into Village Soviets.
Against the feudal system and the elections, the Village

Soviets and the People’s Committees would act as United
Front Committees to launch and successfully conclude the
agrarian revolution. In these Committees, led by the revolu¬
tionaries and dominated by the poor peasants and agricultural
labour, the others who rally round us should also be given
proper representation. As the agrarian revolution advances,
a few of the representatives, especially of the rich peasantry
can also be given representation.
These Committees should have a clear-cut class and politi¬
cal outlook. We should educate them in the understanding
of the path of people’s war and develop their political cons¬
ciousness. We should not permit the opportunists, careerists
as well as the representatives of the rich classes to join these
Committees.
Volunteer Squads
With the mobilisation of people on the boycott of elections,
on food problem and the problem of forest areas, the problem
of people’s self-defence would arise. For this we should build
the volunteer squads. In the forest areas where the people
have already been mobilised into struggles, the volunteer
squads should be organised on a large scale. All the youth of
the villages should be the members of these squads. One
squad if it is a small village, and as many squads as necessary
depending upon the feasibility of work if it is a large village,
can be organised. Each of these squads should have a com¬
mander and an assistant commander. They should be politi¬
cally conscious and disciplined. They should be elected for
these posts. For the purpose of self-defence the ordinary
volunteers can use any weapon that is locally available. They
can have sticks only if they cannot procure any other weapon.
These squads should assist the Village Soviets and People’s
Committees in the implementation of their decisions. In case
of attacks from the armed police and military, these squads
must assist the people in all possible ways.
The volunteer squads should be organised not only in the

villages where the Village Soviets exist, but also in the villages
where the People’s Committees exist. Only when there is a
volunteer squad, can the activities of the People’s Committees
be carried on effectively, the decisions can be implemented,
and confidence in the Committees can be created among the
people.
We should, in a simple language, educate the volunteer
squads in our political line, path of people’s war and current
politics. The party should take steps for this.
Local Squads
The government armed police attacks would begin with the
implementation of agrarian revolutionary programme. With
this the resistance should also begin. For this it would be
better to have local squads along with the regular squads.
Depending upon defence needs, these squads could consist of
seven members. They can arm themselves with bows and
arrows, spears and axes.
Usually the local enemies are terrified by the very sight of
the people and the volunteer squads. These bullies are still
more terrified if there are local squads. It should be the task
of local squads to deal with the people’s enemies, who cannot
be dealt with by the people and volunteer squads. The local
squads should provide leadership in the mass actions against
the landlords. They should render necessary assistance to the
regular squads. They should be given good military training
and political education.
Mass Organisations
We mobilise the people for the implementation of the

agrarian revolutionary programme. We should recruit these
masses into the peasant organisations. As in the past, we
should not, for this purpose, print membership books and
collect membership fees.
In the meeting of the village people, we should, by show
of hands decide as to who are willing and who are not willing
to join. We should take all those who are willing to join.
All those people who join thus should elect the People’s
Committees and Village Soviets.
We should also hold meetings among the women and
organise them. This task would be easy where there are
female comrades. The women should also join the men and
fight in the agrarian revolutionary struggle. For this they
should be recruited into the women organisations in the same
manner as above. They should also be gradually recruited
into the volunteer squads, local squads and the regular squads.
In a situation when there is severe repression, and when it is
not possible to openly recruit the people into the mass
organisations, the cadres should go door to door and recruit
the members secretly.
Intensify Mass Activities

We should, in the next month, intensify our activities both
in the forest areas as well as plains areas. By May, not only
these activities should be intensified and the Village Soviets
and the People’s Committees formed—and these should start
functioning—but we should also get prepared for counter¬
attacking the landlord class. It is at this higher stage of these
mass activities that we should implement the agrarian
revolutionary programme. For this we should politically and
organisationally get prepared from now on.
Extend to New Areas
At present the movement is, to some extent, being

extended to areas adjacent to the forest areas. But the
pace is very slow. The shortage of cadre is the main reason
for it.
We should quickly bring the Vishakhapatnam Agency
area which is adjacent to East Godavari into the movement.
We should cover the centres and areas left in Khammam and
Warangal districts. We should intensify our activities in
Karimnagar and Adilabad districts. The units of the revolu¬

tionaries have already begun to function in these areas.
Steps are being taken to begin mass activities in Mahabub-
nagar district.
In Rayalaseema district, it is decided to convene a meeting
of the district leaders and intensify the anti-feudal struggles.
Steps are being taken in this direction. We should also begin
to intensify the activities in other districts.
Work in Cities
Notwithstanding the fact that our units are functioning in

the cities, we are not putting well-concentrated work here.
Even though the forest areas are of importance, it is not
correct to leave out the cities. The armed struggle that we
are conducting should have the support and solidarity of the
urban working class. The help of the transport workers as
well as the workers of various other branches of industry
would be needed for the transportation of materials and other
technical assistance. We should give proper importance to
the students as well as to our work in the cities. Influenced
by the revolutionary ideas, today’s students and youth are
being fast attracted to Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought.
Ours is a path of people’s war, i.e., to liberate the villages
and then to liberate the cities. For this we should carry on
Dur work in cities from now on. At the same time we should,
on the one hand, smash the enemy’s plans to suppress the
peasant armed struggle, and should, on the other hand,
prepare the Party and the people to seize political power
by the time we liberate the cities. We should, keeping this in
view, plan our work in cities.
Support the Srikakulam Armed Struggle

An armed struggle is going on in Srikakulam. We are
releasing a separate document explaining as to how this
movement has developed and what are the problems that
arose in the course of the development of this movement.
We should take lessons from the experiences of Srikakulam

movement. We should carefully study the experiences that
the comrades are gaining at present. We should take lessons
from these experiences. We should pass on our experiences
tothe comrades taking part in that struggle.
We should not only support the Srikakulam armed struggle
but should also attack the vile propaganda that the enemies
are carrying on against it.
Consolidate the Organisation of the Revolutionaries

We should have well-organised and disciplined organisa¬
tion to implement the programme explained above, to build a
revolutionary movement through it and to carry on the armed
struggle. Even though the State Committee and all the
District Committees work as Co-ordination Committees, they
are often taking majority decisions and are functioning as
Party Committees.
Should we, the revolutionaries, and our Committee
function like this as Co-ordination Committee ? Or should
we, based on the principle of democratic centralism, go in
for the organisation of the Party ? This is the point of dis¬
cussion now.
We are unable to centralise our activities due to the lack
of discipline and concentration in the nature of Co-ordination
Committees. As a result, they are not acquiring revolutionary
character. In the areas where the Committees observed disci¬
pline and functioned as Party Committees, the revolutionary
movement acquired a definite form and is marching forward..
Since our activities in other areas are being confined to mere
discussions, they are not taking the form of mass movements.
In view of these experiences, our Co-ordination Committee has-
decided to take necessary steps for building up the Party.
In the light of this decision the Party building is going on
in the struggle areas. The Committees are deciding as ta
who should be the Party members. To carry on the Party
activities effectively, the Area committees and the Zonal
committees have been constituted and are functioning.

Necessary steps are being taken for the functioning of these
units in accordance with the principles of democratic
centralism.
The Area committees have been formed and are functioning
in the Jangaon, Mulugu and Khammam area of Warangal and
Khammam districts. We should further consolidate and
develop them so that they would be capable of leading the
armed struggle. Further, we should take steps for all the
units in all the districts to function in accordance with the
principles of democratic centralism. Only then could the
necessary conditions for building the Party be secured.
These steps are necessary for the future advance of the
revolutionary movement.
The question, as to who should be recognised as party
members, still remains a problem. As our cadres accept the
path of people’s war, we should mainly examine as to whether
their practice is in accordance with it or not. From the time
we began our work in the struggle areas to this day, we should
examine the activities of each of the cadres and decide as to
who should be and who should not be given the membership.
Those who should be given membership need not
necessarily be whole-timers. But they should be prepared
to go underground when there is repression. The membership
of those who are not whole-timers should be kept secret.
We should see that the Party members through their
exemplary and revolutionary work, emerge as members of the
Village Soviets and People’s Committees as well as the leaders
of the regular squads, local squads and volunteer squads.
Get Prepared for Armed Struggle

It is our opinion that we should, after quickly completing
the political propaganda, mass mobilisation as well as the
above tasks on the organisational front, get prepared for the
armed struggle by the coming monsoon. We could, with the
first drizzle, begin the land distribution programme, the main
item of the agrarian revolutionary programme. By co-ordina¬

ting the guerilla warfare with this, a strong and broad mass
base would be secured for the struggle. The rainy season is a
favourable period for resistance. During this period—by the
land distribution and the functioning of the Village Soviets
on one side, and organising the resistance on the other, by
implementation of all of them simultaneously, the revolutionary
movement would be strengthened and it would be in a position
to withstand and march forward in the face of the enemy’s
counter-offensive that would follow. The comrades should
bear it in mind and march forward.
As part of these preparations, a militant mass mobilisation
against the landlords becomes necessary in the end of the
summer season. Such a mobilisation would prove helpful
for the launching of the armed struggle.
Comrades :
Today there are favourable conditions for the implemen¬
tation of the above programme. The ruling classes are
frightened out of their wits at the activities of the revolutiona¬
ries. Because of this they are resorting to ruthless repression.
At such a time any complacence on our part would be
unpardonable.
In accordance with Mao’s thought, the liberation struggles
are going on against imperialism, feudalism and reactionary
forces in various parts of the world. Following the path of
people’s war, the liberation struggle has also started and is
advancing in Thailand.
In China, the Communist Party under the leadership of
Mao has victoriously concluded the cultural revolution,
liquidated revisionism and is marching forward.
Taking advantage of all these favourable conditions, we
should, along the path of people’s war, strive to take the
agrarian revolution forward. Only then could we march
forward.
Long Live Mao's Thought.
Long Live Peasants' Armed Struggle.
POLITICAL RESOLUTION
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
April 22, 1969
The events of the last eighteen months since we repudiated

the neo-revisionists, prove beyond doubt the correctness of
■our stand. They prove that the line of rejecting the parlia¬
mentary path and adopting the path of revolutionary struggle
is wholly correct. During this period, the people of India
have seen the rank opportunism of all the bourgeois and
revisionist parties and their total political bankruptcy. They
have lost faith in all the bourgeois and revisionist parties and
are convinced of the utter futility of the parliamentary path.
Indian Society : Semi-Colonial and Semi-Feudal

The events have also confirmed the correctness of our
assessment as regards the stage, nature and character of
our society, state and government. While rejecting the
revisionist understanding, we stated that India is a semi-colonial
and semi-feudal country, that the Indian state is the state of
the big landlords and comprador-bureaucrat capitalism and
that its government is a lackey of U. S. imperialism and Soviet
social-imperialism. The abject dependence of Indian economy
on “aid” from imperialist countries, chiefly from U. S.
imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, the thousands of
collaboration agreements, the imperialist plunder of *our
country through unequal trade and “aid”, the utter dependence
for food on P. L. 480 etc, go to prove the semi-colonial
■character of our country.
The increasing concentration of land in the hands of a
few landlords, the expropriation of almost the total surplus
produced by the toiling peasantry in the form of rent, the
complete landlessness of about 40% of the rural population,
the back breaking usurious exploitation, the ever-growing
eviction of the poor peasantry coupled with the brutal social

oppression—including the lynching of harijans, reminiscent
of the mediaeval ages, and the complete backwardness of
the technique of production clearly demonstrate the semi-
feudal character of our society.
The fleecing of the Indian people by extracting the highest
rate of profit, the concentration of much of India’s wealth in
the hands of seventyfive comprador-bureaucrat capitalists,
the utilisation of the state sector in the interest of foreign
monopolies and domestic big business and their unbriddled:
freedom—all go to prove that it is the big landlords and
comprador-bureaucrat capitalists who run the state.
The political, economic, cultural and military grip of U. S..
imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism on the Indian State,
the dovetailing of its foreign policy with the U. S.-Soviet global
strategy of encircling Socialist China and suppressing the
national liberation struggle, the recent tours of Latin America
and South East Asia by the Indian Prime Minister to further
the interests of this counter-revolutionary strategy, the total
support given by the Indian Govt, for the Soviet armed provo¬
cation against China, the fascist approval of Soviet aggression
against Czechoslovakia and the active collaboration with the
U. S. imperialists against the national liberation struggle of
Vietnam clearly show that the Indian Govt, is a lackey of U. S.
imperialism and Soviet revisionism.
The rising tide of the peasant struggles in various parts
of our country is further confirmation of our stand that the
principal contradiction in our country at the present phase is
between feudalism and the masses of our peasantry.
The Indian revolution at this stage is the democratic
revolution of a new type'—the People’s Democratic Revolution
—the main content of which is the agrarian revolution, the
abolition of feudalism in the countryside. To destroy feudalism,,
one of the two main props (comprador-bureaucrat capital
being the other) of imperialism in our country, the Indian
people will have to wage a bitter, protracted struggle against.
©EBATES AND DOCUMENTS 253
U. S. and Soviet social-imperialism too. By liberating them¬

selves from the yoke of feudalism, the Indian people will
also liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialism and
comprador-bureaucrat capital, because the struggle against
feudalism is also a struggle against the other two enemies.
Excellent Revolutionary Situation

The international developments that have taken place in
the recent period vindicate our stand that a very excellent
revolutionary situation prevails in the world today. The U.S.
imperialists and their chief accomplice, the Soviet revisionsts,
are facing increasing difficulty in their dirty efforts to re-divide
and enslave the whole world. The growing intensity of the
armed struggle in Asia, Africa and Latin American countries
for national liberation, is destroying the very foundation of
imperialist rule.
A new upsurge of struggle of the working class and the
toiling peasants have overtaken the capitalist countries and
the revolutionary ruling classes are facing an irreconciliable
contradiction at home.
An unprecedented wave of struggle of the Afro-American
people against racial oppression that erupted with working class
action is dealing powerful blows at the rule of the monopolis¬
tic classes in the United States. The revisionists, headed by the
Soviet Union, are also confronted with an acute crisis and the
people in the countries ruled by them are rising in, revolt
against the restoration of capitalism and national subjugation
and for the restoration of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
On the other hand, Socialist China is performing a miracle of
socialist construction. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolu¬
tion has consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat in every
sphere of life, has created conditions for the emergence of the
socialist man. The victories of the cultural revolution have
culminated in the triumph of Mao’s Thought, the victories of
Ninth National Congress of the great Communist Party of
China. The Thought of Chairman Mao is winning ever new
victories. The international class struggle has grown more

intense than before and the doom of imperialism and all other
reaction is near. The world has created a new era in history—
the era of Chairman Mao’s Thought.
The events of the last eighteen months have also proved
the correctness of our view that the revolutionary situation in
India is quite excellent. Today, the ruling classes are enme¬
shed in a deeper economic and political crises than ever be¬
fore. Contradictions between imperialism and the people,
between feudalism and the peasants, between capital and labour,
and between different sections of the ruling classes are growing
sharper and sharper everyday. The feudal fetters on the
masses of our peasantry have not yet been smashed and as a
result of the intensified exploitation of our people by various
imperialists, headed by the U. S. and Soviet imperialists and
their Indian compradors, the working class, the peasantry and
the petty-bourgeoisie are victims of growing pauperisation
and unemployment. At least ninetyfive percent of our people
are so hard hit due to poverty and wretchedness that they can
no longer tolerate it and now they are impatient for a funda¬
mental change. At the same time, a dog-fight is going on be¬
tween different sections and parties of the ruling classes that
have linked their fate with that of the U. S., Soviet or British
imperialists.
Everywhere in India, the people are rising in bitter struggles
to remove the four mountains that weigh upon them heavily.
These mountains are U. S. Imperialism, Soviet Social-Imperia¬
lism, Feudalism, and Comprador-Bureaucrat Capitalism.
Armed peasant struggle, which started in Naxalbari, have
now spread to Srikakulam, Musahari and Lakhimpur Kheri
and are spreading to the new areas. Recently, the peasant
revolutionaries of Kerala staged a heroic revolt. The revolu¬
tionary struggles of the Nagas, the Mizos and Kukis, who have
risen with arms in hand, are also dealing hard blows at the
reactionary regime. The resistance of our people, both in
rural and in urban areas, fast develops and brings about a
new upsurge in the agrarian revolution—the main content of

the democratic revolution.
The reactionary ruling classes are resorting to brutal re¬
pression in order to beat back the rising tide of people’s
struggles. They are rushing their armed forces and police
personnel to the areas where armed struggles have broken out.
Police firing, lathi-charge, tear-gassing, arrest and detention
without trial have become the order of the day. The ruling
classes are everyday arming themselves with all sorts of ‘demo¬
cratic’ legislative power to crush the class struggles. At the
same time, every effort is being made to deceive the people and
disrupt their struggles. Communalism, casteism, provincialism
and all types of parochialism are being pressed into service to
destroy the growing unity of our fighting people. National
chauvinism is being fanned against Socialist China and
neighbouring Pakistan to dupe the people and suppress their
struggles. In the name of national integration, the ruling
classes are trying to impose Hindi in the teeth of stiff opposi¬
tion from various nationalities. Equality of all nations and
national languages is being denied.
In such a situation when revolutionary struggles are advan¬
cing rapidly and when the ruling classes are making frantic
efforts to suppress them, the revisionists and neo-revisionists
have come forward to serve as the lackeys of imperialism and
domestic reaction. By presenting the so-called ‘United Front’
govts, as “organ of struggle”, by raising the slogan of “pro¬
viding relief” to the people they are trying to create illusions
among the people in order to blunt their revolutionary consci¬
ousness and divert them from the path of revolutionary
struggle. These “United Front” govts, are in essence the
answer of the reactionary ruling class to the challenge thrown
by the people. The neo-revisionists have been shouting that
“time is not yet ripe for revolution”, “the people are not yet
prepared for it”, and that “the slogan of armed guerilla stru¬
ggle is an adventurist slogan.” There is no doubt that these
lackeys of foreign and domestic reaction are only trying their
best to dampen the revolutionary spirit of our toiling people

in order to save their masters from the fiery wrath of the
people.
Struggle between Two Lines in the Party
The history of the Communist Party of India is the history

of struggle between the line of class struggle and the line of
class collaboration and treachery, between the proletarian
revolutionary ranks and the bourgeois, reactionary leader¬
ship. An appraisal of the Party history will show that the
leadership has always acted as conscious traitors to the revolu¬
tionary cause of our people. It will also show that the revo¬
lutionary ranks failed to overthrow the treacherous leadership
earlier because of their inability to make concrete analysis of
the classes in Indian society and of their role in the Indian
revolution.
With the great victory of anti-Fascist war, in which the
Soviet people led by Stalin, played the most outstanding role,
and the glorious victory of the Chinese people led by Com¬
rade Mao Tsetung, over Japanese imperialism, the fascist im¬
perialist powers met with their doom, thus severely weakening
imperialism as a whole. The world-shaking victory of the
great Chinese Revolution under the wise leadership of Com¬
rade Mao Tsetung breached the imperialist front in the East
and the world balance of force underwent a change. It is
during the anti-Japanese War of Resistance that Comrade
Mao Tsetung’s theory of People’s War was fully developed:
it charted a new path—the path that all the peoples of colonial
and semi-colonial countries like India must pursue, to liberate
themselves from the yoke of imperialist and domestic re¬
action. A storm of revolutionary struggles raged over various
countries of Asia where the people followed the road indicated
by Chairman Mao, the road of People’s War. The pent-up
wrath of the Indian people found expression in a widespread,
heroic revolt against the rule of the imperialists. Led by the
working class, India’s peasantry took to the path of armed
struggle : the peasants of Punnapra-Vayalar put up resistance

against the reactionary armed forces, the peasants of Telengana
rose with arms in hand against the rule of the feudal lords, the
peasants of Bengal waged the Tebhaga struggle against feudal
exploitation. There was an upsurge of working class struggle
all over the country. The revolt spread even among the ranks
of the police, the Army and the Navy. But the revisionist
leadership acted as the lackey of the imperialists and the
domestic reactionaries and betrayed these great struggles.
Alarmed at the revolutionary upsurge, imperialism struck a
deal with the Congress that represented comprador capital
and feudalism in India. The country was partitioned, the
direct rule of the imperialists changed into their indirect
rule. Together with all other political parties of India, the
revisionist leadership committed this treachery against the
people.
The Second Congress of the Party witnessed the revolt of
ranks against the sordid betrayal. The Ranadive clique
utilised these revolts to seize the leadership of the Party. The
Secretariat of the Andhra Provincial Committee which was then
leading the Telengana struggle, correctly pointed out that the
Indian revolution could win victory only by following the road
blazed by China, the road of People’s War. The Ranadive
clique opposed this correct formulation of the Andhra Secre¬
tariat and adopted the Trotskyite theory of accomplishing both
the democratic revolution and the socialist revolution at one
•stroke. Thus, this clique diverted the attention of the Party
ranks from the agrarian revolution—the basic task of the
•democratic revolution. Sectarianism led the Party members
into adventurist actions. Though the Ranadive clique followed
this wrong and suicidal policy, the peasant revolutionaries
of Telengana did not deviate from the path of struggle. They
advanced this struggle forward by adopting the tactics of
guerilla war. The Ranadive clique formally abandoned the
sectarian line when they were forced with a revolt of the ranks.
The just intervention of the international leadership helped
Vol 11—17
this process. But the same treacherous policy was restored

with the adoption of the programme of 1951
The programme and the tactical line of 1951 were adopted
on the understanding that the Indian big bourgeoisie has a
dual character. By this dual character was meant that the
Indian big bourgeoisie has an anti-imperialist role as well as
a proneness to compromise with imperialism. In other words,
the Indian big bourgeoisie is regarded as the national bour¬
geoisie. Though Comrade Stalin said as early as 1925 that
the section of the Indian bourgeoisie which is big and powerful
had already deserted to the camp of the imperialists and had
formed a bloc with them, yet, while swearing by the name of
Stalin and adopting a programme of national uprising, the
treacherous leadership of the Communist Party depicted the
big bourgeoisie as the national bourgeoisie. This enabled the
revisionist leadership to describe the Indian State as an inde¬
pendent bourgeois state. Though they held that the Indian
Govt, is the government of the landlords and the big bourgeoisie
closely linked with imperialism, they put forward the theory
that the big bourgeoisie is the most powerful element in this
combination and that it is they who are building the Indian
State as an independent bourgeois state. Taking advantage
of this theory, the Dange clique adopted the political line that
feudalism no longer exists in India and that capitalism has
developed in agriculture. Thus, Nehru was described as the
representative of the progressive bourgeoisie. The Dange
clique adopted a liquidationist policy as they held that India’s
national democratic government would be set up by forming
an alliance with the bourgeoisie. At the same time, they
preached that the more Soviet ‘aid’ India received, the more
secure would be India’s freedom. That is, Soviet ‘aid’ would
enable India to move out of the orbit of imperialist domina¬
tion. We learn from the experience of the great Chinese
Party that in 1927, after Chiang Kaishek’s rise to power,
the Chinese Trotskyites declared that the Chiang Kaishek
clique had overthrown imperialism and feudalism and were.
preaching the path of independent capitalist development.

The Right opportunist Chen Tu-Hsiu followed this Trot-
skyite line. They held that with the completion of the
democratic revolution, China had entered the stage of
socialist revolution. They raised the demand “Set up the
National Assembly”, opted for legal movement and deserted
the path of revolutionary struggle. They were opposed to
all kinds of revolutionary struggle and were expelled from the
Party. The treacherous revisionist leadership of the CPI
followed the same path and opposed every kind of revolutio¬
nary struggle. They forced Telengana’s revolutionary peasants
to surrender arms and stabbed the struggles of the peasants
in the back wherever, in India, they rose in revolt.
When, in 1962, the Indian Govt, launched an aggression
against the Chinese frontier guards, the treacherous role of
the Dange clique was clearly exposed before the Party ranks.
The Party members rebelled against the renegade Dange
clique. Taking advantage of their revolt, the Ranadive clique
again seized the leadership of the Party, as in 1948. Even
in the programme adopted at the Seventh Congress of the
Party in 1964, they depicted the Indian State as an indepen¬
dent state. Assuming that the Indian big bourgeoisie had
an anti-imperialist role, they declared that Soviet ‘aid’
would safeguard India’s freedom and lead to the sharpening
of the contradiction with U. S. imperialism. The same
Trotskyite theories had been adopted in the programme of
the Seventh Congress too. By describing the Indian revolu¬
tion, instead of directly calling it socialist revolution, the
Ranadive clique had resorted to trickery. No sooner had
the Seventh Congress been over than it was declared on behalf
of the Polit Bureau that the Party would pursue the legal,
parliamentary path. So, no revolutionary party but another
bourgeois party emerged out of the Seventh Congress. And
this Party has today forged unity with world reaction by
allying itself with the renegade Dange clique and has become
a Party hostile to the Indian masses—an instrument for
suppressing the liberation struggle of the Indian people. Yet,

this period has witnessed increasing collaboration between
Soviet and U. S. Imperialism. The Soviet renegade clique is
opposing every national liberation struggle in the world and
has tightened its neo-colonial grip on India. Despite all
this, the Ranadive clique not only sing praises of the Soviet
Union as a ‘Socialist State’ but are also loud in praise of
Soviet ‘aid’. Though the character of the Indian big bour¬
geoisie is essentially comprador and bureaucratic, the Ranadive
clique propagate that they are independent and sovereign
and thus try to make India’s revolutionary struggle an
appendage to the bourgeoisie. By under-estimating the feudal
-exploitation of the peasant masses they belittle the importance
of the agrarian revolution and seek to lead the peasant
struggles alongthe path of compromise. So, the most important
task today is to build up a revolutionary Communist Party
armed with Marxism-Leninism, and the Thought of Mao-
Tsetung. Today, the sparks of Naxalbari have spread to many
parts of India and will soon spread to newer and newer areas.
Without overthrowing the enemies of the Indian people—U. S.
imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, India’s comprador-
bureaucratic capitalism and feudalism, there can be no solution
of any of the problems of the Indian people, the reign of
darkness over India cannot be ended, nor can India advance
one step along the road of progress.
Task before the Revolutionary Party

While this revolutionary Party has been formed in India,
it should be borne in mind that the Indian Party may commit
both Right and ‘Left’ deviations because the Party of India’s
working class has never before given serious consideration to
the role of the peasants in the agrarian revolution. Chairman
Mao has taught us, “Who are our friends ? This is a question
of the first importance for the revolution. The basic reason
why all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so
little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to
attack real enemies. A revolutionary Party is the guide of

the masses and no revolution ever succeeds when the revolu¬
tionary Party leads astray. To assure that we shall definitely
achieve success in our revolution and shall not lead the
masses astray, we must pay attention to uniting with our real
friends in order to attack our real enemies. To distinguish
friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of
the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society
and of their respective attitudes towards the revolution”.
If the poor landless peasants, who constitute the majority of
the peasantry, the firm ally of the working class, unite with
the middle peasants, then the vastest section of the Indian
people will be united and the democratic revolution will
inevitably win victory. It is the responsibility of the working
class as the leader of the revolution to unite with the peasantry
—the main force of the revolution—and to advance towards
seizure of power through armed struggle. It is on the basis
of the worker-peasant alliance that a revolutionary united
front of all revolutionary classes will be built up. As the
Party of the working class, the Communist Party must take
upon itself the chief responsibility of organising the peasantry
and advancing towards seizure of power through armed
struggle. To fulfil this task the revolutionary Communist
Party must study Chairman Mao’s Thought, for it is only
Chairman Mao’s Thought that can bring the peasant masses
into the revolutionary front and Chairman Mao’s theory of
Peoples’ War is the only means by which an apparently weak
revolutionary force can wage successful struggles against an
apparently powerful enemy and can win victory. The basic
tactic of struggle of the revolutionary peasantry led by the
working class is guerilla warfare. We must bear in mind
the Chairman’s teaching : “Guerilla warfare is basic but
lose no chance for mobile warfare under favourable condit¬
ions''. Our tactics as described by Comrade Lin Piao are :
“You fight in your own way, we fight in ours. We fight when
we can win and move away when we cannot”. The task
of the Party of the working class is not merely to master

tactics but also to rally all the other revolutionary classes
behind the basic programme of the agrarian revolution.
The revolutionary Party will be able to carry out this task
only when it educates itself in the Thought of Chairman
Mao, adopts the style of work taught by him, and practises
self-criticism.
It is the delay in India’s democratic revolution that enables
U. S. imperialism and Soviet sccial-imperialism to unite the
reactionary forces of the world and to oppose the liberation
struggles in different countries of the world. The U. S.
imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are using India as a
main base for carrying out their strategy for joint world
domination. India is also the centre of conspiracies against
Socialist China, the base of world revolution, the hope of the
exploited people of the whole world. That is why it is not
merely the patriotic duty of the Indian people to accomplish
the I ndian revolution, it is also their internationalist duty.
The international significance of the Indian revolution is very
great. Great Lenin dreamt of the day when revolutionary
India would unite with revolutionary China and bring about
the collapse of the world imperialist system. That is why at
the time of the formation of the Party, the Indian revolutiona¬
ries must resolve that they shall unite with the great people
of China and thus forge unity with the liberation struggles of
the various countries, that they shall build up a revolutionary
united front and destroy world imperialism and its chief
accomplice, modern revisionism. Chairman Mao has given
the call :
“People of the world unite still more closely and

launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against
our common enemy, U. S. Imperialism and its
accomplices. It can be said with certainty that the
complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism and
all systems of exploitation, and the complete emanci-
pation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of

the world are not far off.”
Our task is to prepare ourselves to respond to this call.
[Reproduced from Liberation Vol.2, No. 7, May 20, 1969]
RESOLUTION ON PARTY ORGANISATION

April 22, 1969
Background
Our Political Resolution has already made it amply clear

how at each critical stage of our National Liberation struggle
the leadership of the Party consciously betrayed the revolu¬
tionary cause by dragging the Party into the morass of Right
Opportunism and Left Sectarianism. We have seen how the
Party leadership betrayed the great armed struggle of the
Telengana peasantry, the struggle of the people in the Native
States, the great Tebhaga and Bakasht peasant struggles in
North India, the great mutiny of the R. I. N. ratings and
other sections of the armed forces. We have seen how the
Party leadership recoiled in dread at the sight of the great anti¬
imperialist and anti-feudal upsurge that engulfed the whole of
India in the post-war years, the upsurge that was part of the
world-wide high tide of national liberation struggles delivering
devastating blows against imperialism and their lackeys, thus
shaking the entire edifice of the imperialist rule in Asia, Africa
and Latin America. We have seen how the Party leadership
consciously worked in post-war years to transform the Party
from the weapon of class struggle into the weapon of class
collaboration, from the general staff of revolution into a docile
stooge of reaction, from a revolutionary Party into a legal and
parliamentary Party and from a Party of proletarian inter¬
nationalism into a national chauvinist Party. The bloody re¬
pression unleashed on the heroic peasant masses of Naxalbari
by the Revisionist leadership was the final act of treachery

which completely unmasked their ugly and counter-revolutionary
face. A careful analysis of the Party history proves beyond a
shadow of doubt that there was nothing accidental in these
betrayals of the Party leadership as they have refused to learn
from the great armed struggle of the Chinese people who
were conducting the most longdrawn and the bitterest war of
liberation in the hitherto known history against imperialism
and their lackeys. These betrayals could take place because
the leadership took care to see that the Party was not rooted
among the toiling people, especially among the working class,
and the peasantry. They could take place because political
consciousness of the ranks was deliberately kept at a low level.
However, the history of the Party also proves that time and
again the Party ranks have risen in open revolt against the
policies of betrayals by the leadership and have been constantly
fighting for a thorough revolutionary and proletarian inter¬
nationalist line in both theory and practice. The Party ranks
have played a glorious role in unleashing and conducting
the above-mentioned struggles and have kept the flames of
class struggle burning throughout India’s struggle for emanci¬
pation from imperialism and feudal bondage. The rank and
file of the Communist Party have stood at the head of bitter
class struggles and have borne the brunt of bloody repression
and thousands of them fell martyrs to the cause of the
Indian revolution. There is nothing accidental in this pheno¬
menon either. It was natural that fired by the highest ideals
of Communism and closely linked with the suffering masses,
the Party ranks represented the revolutionary urges of the
people throughout this period.
To sum up, it can be safely said that the history of the
Communist Party of India has been the history of ceaseless
struggles between the bourgeois stand-point and the prole¬
tarian stand-point, between the bourgeois line and proletarian
line and between the bourgeois reactionary leadership and the
proletarian revolutionary ranks.
It must also be emphasised that the revolutionary struggle

of the Naxalbari peasantry represented the final break of the
revolutionary ranks from the counter-revolutionary leadership
and the formation of the All India Co-ordination Committee
of the Communist Revolutionaries was the first link in the
chain process of building a truly revolutionary Communist
Party in India. Inspired by the invincible Thought of Chair¬
man Mao and drawing lessons from the Great Chinese Revo¬
lution, the All India Co-ordination Committee have been
conducting heroic armed struggle in many parts of the country,
particularly in Srikakulam, Lakhimpur Kheri and other places.
The bankruptcy of the parliamentary path has been proved and
the treachery of the Revisionists and Neo-revisionists has been
exposed considerably. The last eighteen months have wit¬
nessed the unification of the revolutionaries of India on all the
essentials of Party Programme, thus placing the immediate
formation of the Party on the agenda, as Chairman Mao tea¬
ches us : “If there is to be a revolution, there must be a revo¬
lutionary Party.”
The Ideological Political Unification

The building of a revolutionary Party is, first and foremost,,
the ideological and political building. The neo-revisionist
leadership of the Party could easily befool the revolutionary
ranks simply by deferring the ideological and political ques¬
tions to a secondary place and putting the organisational tasks
in the first place. Most of the revolutionary cadres were
swayed away by wrong notions about Party unity and legality
and thus played into the hands of the revisionist gang. We
must now draw a proper lesson from this mistake and must
give first place to ideology and politics above everything else.
The ideological and political building of the Party today
means :
i) That we all accept Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought
as the guide to all revolutionary activity and apply their general
truths to our concrete conditions. We all pledge to become
true disciples of Chairman Mao, the greatest Marxist-Leninist

of our era.
ii) We must attain unanimity regarding fundamental prob¬
lems raised during our struggle against revisionists of all vari¬
eties and also regarding the mistakes made by most of the
revolutionaries.
iii) We must attain unanimity regarding the essential points
of our Party Programme, namely, the nature of Indian society,
the primary task and perspective of Indian revolution, the
motive force of our revolution and the path that we have to
traverse, that is, on the general plan of Indian revolution.
The unanimity that we have arrived at is being summarised
in another resolution and the whole of the Party has to be
educated and united on that basis.
The Party of Armed Revolution
The revolutionaries of India have now arrived at a common

understanding regarding the futility of the parliamentary path,
the parties which were organised on the basis of parliamen¬
tarism have sunk to the level of reaction and counter-revolu¬
tion all over the world. Our experience, like the experiences
gained by many other parties, shows that the so-called inter¬
weaving of parliamentary and non-parliamentary paths, in
practice, amounts only to the degeneration of the Party into a
parliamentary party, into the position of appendage to the
reactionary ruling classes. In present day India, the big
landlords and the big bourgeoisie have found out a new device
for hoodwinking the people, i. e. by setting up non-Congress
Governments with revisionists and reactionary politicians
of all descriptions. Under such conditions, great pulls and
pressures of parliamentarism are bound to creep up again
and again.
All these pressures and pulls have to be combated most
vehemently so that we are able to lead the Indian people on
the path of revolution. So, our Party is the Party of Armed
Revolution. No other path exists before the Indian people
but the path of Armed Revolution. It must be understood that

the Party cannot be built in isolation from armed struggle.
The Rural-Based Party

The revolutionaries have also assimilated the truth that the
path of armed revolution is the path of the People’s War. In
the conditions in India, Asia and all other semi-colonial and
semi-feudal countries in Africa and Latin America, it is first and
foremost a peasants’ war against feudalism. Therefore, the
first and foremost task of our Party is to rouse the peasant
masses in the countryside to wage guerilla war, unfold agra¬
rian revolution, build rural base areas, use the countryside
to encircle the cities and finally to capture the cities and
to liberate the whole country. Thus, in the present day phase
of Indian Revolution, the centre of gravity of our work has to
be in the villages.
So our Party, in the first instance, has to be a rural-based
Party and not a town-based Party.
The Secret and Underground Party
A revolutionary Party, to be able to conduct a longdrawn

armed struggle, cannot and must not remain a legal Party.
It must function with the utmost secrecy and keep its main
• cadres underground. Though the Party should learn to
utilise all possible legal opportunities for developing its revolu¬
tionary activities, it should under no circumstances, functon in
the open.
We must assimilate the teaching of Comrade Lin Piao,
which has also been confirmed in our recent Sonapet struggle,
■‘Guerilla warfare is the only way to mobilise and apply the
whole strength of the people against the enemy.” The coming
period will be a period of fast developing guerilla struggle
throughout the vast expanse of our country and the Party is
called upon to conduct and lead them confidently. Therefore,
the Party should concentrate, in the main, on developing
guerilla forms of armed struggle and not waste time and its
energies in holding open mass meetings and forming kisan

sabhas in the old style.
A Party of New Style

According to Chairman Mao, the Marxist-Leninist style
of work essentially entails integrating theory with practice,
forging close links with the masses and practising criticism and
self-criticism. It means that our Party, while persisting in
the ideological and political line has to evolve a mass line on
the basis of ‘taking from the masses and giving to the masses’
and must constantly raise the level of its understanding.
It also means that it has to evolve a proper method of
criticism and self-criticism. The cadre has to be educated
through self-criticism by the leadership. In criticising the
mistakes of the cadre, the policy of ‘curing the disease and
saving the patient’ will have to be constantly worked out.
It is in this way that our Party is going to be a Party of
the new style.
Developing Teams of Revolutionary Leadership
All these tasks can be performed only by a leadership

which is advanced in theory and boundlessly loyal to the
historical mission of the proletariat. Absolute devotion to
the cause, contact with the masses, ability to find out one’s
bearings and observance of discipline independently are the
first and foremost criteria on the basis of which the teams of
leadership should be reorganised at all levels. We should not,
in the least, hesitate in ‘getting rid of the stale and taking in
the fresh’. It will be the incumbent duty of these leading
teams at different levels to work out the method of ‘combining
general with the particular’ and of ‘combining leadership
with the masses’. It means that those who refuse to take
active part in revolutionary activities and refuse to leave the
cities and go to the rural areas to organise red bases of
agrarian revolution should, in no case, be allowed to remain
members of these leading teams. Every member of these
leading teams, in whatever post he is, should be entrusted

with the task of particular guidance to a selected area and to
get personal experience therefrom. Exceptions to this rule
may be granted only from the point of view of the Party’s
requirements and the requirements of the armed struggle
and from no other angle.
It means that the leading teams are to be organised only by
professional revolutionaries, only by those who are ready to
give up every other interest but the revolution.
While organising such leading teams, care must be taken
to bring in all the professional revolutionaries in the Co-ordi¬
nation who accept and implement the main line put forward
by our Political and Organisational resolutions.
It may take some time and great energy in organising the
kind of leading teams that our Party requires. It will be a
difficult job. Much explanatory work will have to be done,
traditional boundaries based upon administrative units of
our committee will have to be changed. But these committees
or leading teams of leadership cannot perform their jobs
unless the criteria set for the teams are strictly applied and
the method of leadership enunciated by Chairman Mao
properly inplemented.
Recruitment of Party Members

It is under the guidance of such committees that proper
-enrolment of Party membership has to be conducted.
While enrolling the membership of the Party, all notions
:about mass membership of the Party should be combated.
A revolutionary Party does not become a mass Party by
virtue of its large number of members. Such is the criteria
-fixed by revisionists and parliamentary parties. A revoluti¬
nary Party becomes a mass Party by virtue of its mass line, by
virtue of its closest links with the masses, by virtue of its being
merged with the masses. It is not the number but the
quality that is essential and primary for a revolutionary
Party.
We will enroll only such members in our Party who accept

Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s Thought as a guide to action, who
accept all the essential points of our Party Programme and
the organisational line set forth in our Political and Organisa¬
tional resolutions, participate in daily activity under the
discipline of some of the Party organisations and give financial
aid to the Party according to their capacity. Those comrades
who are unable to fulfil these primary conditions of Party
membership but have stood with us in revolt against the
revisionists, will certainly not like to degrade our Party to the
level of social-democracy by lightening these conditions and
we are fully entitled to expect that they will remain our best
sympathisers and helpers. We are confident that with the
rising tide of revolution, innumerable young and fighting
elements from the working class, peasants, especially the
poor peasants and other toiling sections will join our Party
readily fulfilling all the conditions of Party membership. It
must be our constant endeavour to bring them into the Party
organisation and turn them into the finest cadre. Elements
from the petty-bourgeoisie, who take the standpoint of the
working class and integrate themselves with the basic masses
will also be welcomed. But those who belong to the exploiting
classes, bad characters etc, should in no case be allowed to
join the Party.
No nation or class has ever attained its liberation without
braving the storms and fulfilling the quota of sacrifices. Our
Party and its members have to play an exemplary vanguard
role by their perseverance, courage, initiative and sacrifices.
They must place the interests of the Party and the people
above their personal interests.
Democratic Centralism
Our Party will be organised on the principle of democratic

centralism. To conduct a revolutionary struggle, establishing
iron discipline in the Party is indispensable. But the first
condition to establish iron discipline in the Party is by
creating an atmosphere of democracy and establishing demo¬

cracy under central guidance. Only by constantly giving
correct line of guidance, only by constantly getting familiar
with the lower bodies and with the life of the masses, only
by taking firm and well-considered decisions and only by
promptly transmitting those decisions to the lower bodies,
getting them thoroughly discussed and helping the lower
bodies in finding out methods of implementing them can the
democracy under central guidance be developed and the
authority of the leadership established.
This is the proper way of establishing the authority of the
leading bodies. This is the proper way of developing innumer¬
able successors of revolution by unleashing their initiative.
Fight wrong conceptions and alien trends

The bureaucratic methods employed by the bourgeois
reactionary leadership of the Party during the entire period
of our Party’s existence, coupled with their meanest craftiness
have terribly shaken the confidence of the Party ranks and,
as a result, all sorts of idealist, anarchic and autonomist
tendencies have grown in them. The apprehension of a
possible re-emergence of a bureaucratic leadership has been
utilised by various petty-bourgeois groups who are assiduously
compaigning to prevent the building up of a revolutionary
Party in India. All sorts of anti-Marxist ideas and concepts
like ‘historical inevitability of groupism at this stage’, ‘the Party
growing automatically out of struggle’ and leaving the task of
building the Party to spontaneity in the name of building the
Party from below and general varieties of ‘poly-centrism’, are
being preached by these groups. On the one hand, they claim
to preach the Thought of Chairman Mao and support the
Naxalbari path and on the other, they deliberately work to
sabotage the building of a revolutionary Communist Party in
India which alone can lead a revolution through to the end.
Hence the building up of the Party means, on the one hand,
to declare a relentless war against the bureaucratic methods
of leadership still prevalent among us at various levels and on

the other, to expose and annihilate the alien, idealistic, anarchic
and autonomistic concepts being preached by these groups.
It is only by exposing and thoroughly smashing these alien
concepts that those honest revolutionaries who are still
following these groups can be won into the Party.
There must be complete clarity in our minds in the methods
of our leadership, in the style of our work and in our day to
day practical life. Revisionist methods, habits and practices
still dominate and they can be eradicated and revolutionary
proletarian methods, habits and practices can grow only by
constant endeavour to remould ourselves through active
participation in revolutionary struggles and subjecting our¬
selves to criticism and self-criticism.
Ours is the real Communist Party of India. (It will affix
the word ‘Marxist-Leninist’ after its name -to denote its
differentiation from the parties running under the leadership
of the Dange clique and other neo-revisionists.)
This is the Party of the proletariat and it represents the
true aspirations and policies of the revolutionary class.
This Party will give first preference to ideological and
political building rather than to organisational structure.
This Party will take as its first task the training of revolu¬
tionary cadres in revolutionary activity.
This Party will be a Party of armed struggle and will be
a rural-based Party in the first instance and will give first
preference to the building of revolutionary base areas in the
countryside rather than work in the cities in the present phase
of the revolution.
This Party will give first preference to prepare the working
class to assume the role of leadership of our revolution
than to carrying on economic and cultural activities in the
cities.
This Party will give first preference to the task of organising
leading teams of the Party than to the enrolment of the
Party members on a mass scale.
This Party will give first preference to the quality of

membership rather than to the quantity.
This Party will be organised on the basis of democratic
centralism but it will give first prefernce to the task of unlea¬
shing democracy under centralised guidance rather than to the
formal discipline.
This Party will develop a mass line and will be the first on
criticism and self-criticism.
It is in this way that we take our first organisational steps
towards rebuilding the Party.
The All India Co-ordination Committee sets up the Central
Organising Committee from its midst with those of its members
leading the armed struggles as its guiding force.
The Committee appeals to all the State units and all other
units to discuss this resolution along with our Political resolu¬
tion and to send us their points and suggestions within the
next two months.
It appeals to all its State Committees to set up State
Organising Committees and Committees for different areas
in the same manner, strictly adhering to the criteria set forth
for the leading teams. It is only under the strict guidance of
the State Organising Committees that the members of the
Party will be enrolled.
It appeals to all revolutionary comrades to unite ideologi¬
cally and politically and to shoulder the responsibility of
rebuilding the Party. It is on the basis of this discussion and
some experience of functioning of the Party that the Central
Organising Committee will place before a Party Congress the
drafts of the Party Programme and the Party Constitution and
take further steps towards Party building.
We earnestly appeal to all State Units of the Co-ordination
Committee to prepare reports of the conditions of the masses
and self-critical reviews of their functioning so that a consoli¬
dated review of all-India developments may be placed before
the Congress and necessary decision may be taken on that
basis.
Vol 11—18
274 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL If
We are fully confident that our Party, led by invincible

Thought of Chairman Mao and trying to become his worthy
disciple, will be able to lead the revolution through to the end.
A CRITIQUE OF THE POLITICAL RESOLUTION
[We mention below some of the major criticisms of the

Political Resolution of the CPI(ML), contained in the 18-point
document, reportedly placed before the Party leadership in
June 1969 by a section of cadres of Howrah District, West
Bengal, who subsequent to their expulsion from the Party,
later formed the LIBERATION FRONT—a group which, even
after that, accepted the CPI(ML) as a revolutionary party. Ed.]
1) Although it is a fact that the revolutionary section of
the Indian people has discarded the parliamentary path, it
would be incorrect to suggest that people as a whole have lost
all faith in all the bourgeois and revisionist parties, or they
no longer harbour any illusion about the parliamentary path,
or they are eagerly waiting for a fundamental and radical
transformation of the socio-political system.
2) At present, clearly visible is the unity—and not disunity
—amongst the ruling classes that have identified their interests
with imperialism.
3) The principal contradiction in the present phase of the
Indian revolution is the contradiction between feudalism and
the Indian people and not that between feudalism and the
peasantry.
4) It would be wrong to draw a strict parallelism between
the experiences of the CPC and the Communist movement in
India while refering to some deviations from the correct path
committed by the Party leadership.
5) Maintaining silence over the need to form a political
‘base area’ may provide incentive to form “roving guerilla
bands.”
6) Notwithstanding the correctness of the formulation
that under the leadership of the working class the principal
tactic of the revolutionary peasants is guerilla war, it is wrong
to maintain that there is no need for mass movements, mass
organisations and class struggles.
7) The contention that the major part of India’s wealth is
in the hands of 75 comprador capitalists is not correct as
feudalism still constitutes the main enemy of the Indian people
and the largest part of India’s wealth is still under the control
of the feudal lords. Moreover, taking the banking and public
sectors into account, this contention is far from correct in the
light of the data published by the Monopoly Enquiry Com¬
mission, 1965.
PROGRAMME
of the
Adopted at the PARTY CONGRESS held in May 1970
1. Our beloved country is one of the biggest and most

ancient countries of the world inhabited by 500 million people.
Ours is an agrarian country, a country of the peasant masses,
hard-working and talented. They have rich revolutionary
traditions and a glorious cultural heritage.
2. The British imperialists conquered India and estab¬
lished their direct rule some 200 years ago and since then the
history of our country has been a history of ceaseless struggles
waged by the heroic Indian peasantry against British
imperialism and feudal oppression. The First War of
Independence in 1857, a war fought by the peasantry and
rebel soldiers, turned into a conflagration engulfing the whole
of the vast country, inflicting many humiliating defeats on the
imperialists and shaking the very foundations of the alien
imperialist rule. This great uprising of the Indian people
failed owing to the betrayal by India’s feudal princes.
3. Since then India has witnessed innumerable armed
peasant revolts. However, these revolts failed as there was
no scientific theory and no revolutionary leadership capable

of leading them to victory.
4. The Indian bourgeoisie, comprador in nature, inter¬
vened to divert the national liberation struggle from the path
of revolution to the path of compromise and surrender.
Beginning from the Champaran peasant struggle, the
Gandhian leadership representing the upper stratum of the
bourgeoisie and feudal class, with its ideology of ‘ahimsa’
‘satyagraha’, passive resistance and ‘charkha’, sought to
tailor the national movement to serve the interests of the
British imperialist rule and its feudal lackeys.
5. The Great October Revolution brought the ideology
of Marxism-Leninism to our country and the Communist
Party of India was born. However, despite tremendous
opportunities, the leadership of the working class could not
be established over the national liberation struggle as the
leadership of the Party refused to fight Gandhism and the
Gandhian leadership and to take to the path of revolution.
The leadership refused to integrate the universal truth of
Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of Indian revolu¬
tion. It refused to integrate the Party with the heroic masses,
chiefly the revolutionary peasantry, and to forge a revolutio¬
nary united front. It refused to learn from the great liberation
struggle of the Chinese people led by the CPC and Chairman
Mao Tsetung and to take to the path of armed struggle.
6. On the contrary, the leadership of the CPI consciously
trailed behind the leadership of the Congress and betrayed
the revolution from the very beginning. The leaders of the
CPI were agents of imperialism and feudalism. Despite the
treachery of the leadership, the Party ranks stood with the
suffering people, led many class battles and made untold
sacrifices for the cause of the Indian proletariat.
7. The smashing defeat of the fascist powers at the hands
of the world people led by the Soviet Union under the
leadership of Great Stalin and the world-shaking victorious
advance of the Great Chinese liberation struggle under the
leadership of Chairman Mao brought about a new alignment

of forces the world over. Imperialism was very much
weakened and the national liberation struggle of the colonial
people surged forward like a torrent throughout Asia, Africa
and Latin America, threatening to sweep imperialism and its
lackeys away.
8. An unprecedented revolutionary situation overtook
the Indian sub-continent too. The mighty movement for the
release of ‘Azad Hind’ prisoners, powerful anti-imperialist
demonstrations by students all over India, the great Tebhaga
and Bakasht struggles, the anti-feudal struggles in the princely
states, the powerful struggle of the P&T workers, the armed
revolt of the R.I.N. ratings along with rebellions in the Air
Force and the Army and the police revolt in Bihar, the great
solidarity actions of the working class and the beginning of
the historic armed peasant struggle in Telengana brought the
imperialist rule in India almost to the verge of collapse.
9. Faced with such a situation, the British imperialism
pressed into services its tried agents—the leaders of the Indian
National Congress, Muslim League and of the CPI with a
view to crushing this revolutionary upsurge of the Indian
people. The country was partitioned amidst communal
carnage and the Congress leadership representing the compra¬
dor bourgeoisie and big landlords, was installed in power
while the British imperialists stepped into the background.
The sham independence declared in 1947 was nothing but
a replacement of the colonial and semi-feudal set-up with a
semi-colonial and semi-feudal one.
10. During these years of sham independence the big
comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and big landlord ruling
classes have been serving their imperialist masters quite faith¬
fully. These lackeys of imperialism, while preserving the old
British imperialist exploitation, have also brought U. S.
imperialist and Soviet social-imperialist exploiters to fleece
our country.
11. They have mortgaged our country to the imperialist
278 naxalbari AND AFTER VOL II
powers, mainly to the U. S. imperialists and Soviet social-

imperialists. With the weakening of the power of British
imperialism the world over, the Indian ruling classes have
now hired themselves out to U. S. imperialism and Soviet
social-imperialism. Thus instead of two mountains, British
imperialism and feudalism, the Indian people are now weighed
down under the four huge mountains, namely, imperialism
headed by U. S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, feuda¬
lism and comprador-bureaucrat capital. Thus, India has
turned into a neo-colony of U. S. imperialism and Soviet
social-imperialism. The ruthless exploitation and oppression
by these four enemies of the Indian people have created
unprecedented miseries, sufferings and calamities. Millions
are struggling on the brink of death. Several millions go
hungry, naked, houseless and unemployed.
12. In the name of ‘national integration,’ these enemies
of the people have been suppressing the genuine rights of all
the nationalities and national and religious minorities. The
right of self-determination is being denied to the Kashmiris,
Nagas and Mizos. Equal status to all the national languages
is being denied and Hindi is being sought to be imposed on
the people by them.
13. Our country is the country of the peasant masses
who constitute over 75 percent of its population. They are
the most exploited people of our country living in conditions
of semi-starvation and absolute pauperisation. In India’s
semi-feudal economy, 80°/o of the land is concentrated in the
hands of the 20% of the landowners, i.e., ‘rajahs', landlords
and rich peasants, while the starving peasantry constituting
80% of the rural population has no land or very little land.
14. The landless and poor peasants have to turn over
50% to 90% of their annual harvest in the form of rent to the
landlords. The extortionate usurious capital continues to fleece
the peasants. Eviction of peasants is the order of the day. Social
oppression on scheduled castes including the lynching of Hari-
jans, reminiscent of the middle ages, is continuing unabated.
©EBATES AND DOCUMENTS 279
15. The semi-feudal land relations have transformed our

■country into a land of perpetual famine, as a result of which
millions of people die of starvation every year.
16. In brief, out of all the major contradictions in our
■country, that is, the contradiction between imperialism and
social-imperialism on the one hand and our people on the
other, the contradiction between feudalism and the broad
masses of the people, the contradiction between capital and
labour and the contradiction within the ruling classes, the one
between the landlords and the peasantry, i. e., the contra¬
diction between feudalism and the broad masses of the Indian
people is the principal contradiction in the present phase.
17. The resolution of this contradiction will lead to the
resolution of all other contradictions too.
18. While preserving and perpetuating the semi-feudal
set-up, the big comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and big
landlord ruling classes have become pawns in the hands of
U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.
19. The phenomenal increase in the total quantum of
foreign capital, the heavy remittances of profits abroad,
thousands of collaborationist enterprises, total dependence on
imperialist “aid, grants and loans” for capital goods, technical
know-how, military supplies and armament industries for
building military bases and even for markets, unequal trade
and P.L. 480 agreements have made U. S. imperialism and
Soviet social-imperialism the overlords of our country.
20. U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism have
brought the vital sectors of the economy of our country under
their control. U. S. imperialism collaborates mainly with
private capital and is now penetrating into the industries in
the state sector, while Soviet social-imperialism has brought
under its control mainly the industries in the state sector and
is at the same time trying to enter into collaboration with
private capital.
21. U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism do
everything possible to foster the growth of comprador-
bureaucrat capitalism for continuing their unbridled exploita¬

tion of the Indian people.
22. The much-trumpeted “public sector” is being built
up by many imperialist exploiters for employing their capital
and for exploiting the cheap labour power and raw materials
of our country. The public sector is nothing but a clever device
to hoodwink the Indian people and continue their plunder.
It is state monopoly capitalism i. e., bureaucrat capitalism.
23. With their octopus-like grip on India’s economy, the
U. S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists control the
political, cultural and military spheres of the life of our country,
24. At the dictates of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-
imperialism, India’s reactionary ruling classes pursue a foreign
policy that serves the interests of imperialism, social-imperialism
and reaction. It has been tailored to the needs of the global
strategy of the U. S. imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists
to encircle Socialist China and suppress the national liberation
struggle raging in various parts of Asia, Africa and Latin
America, of which Vietnam has become the spearhead. India’s
aggression against Socialist China in 1962 and her continual
provocation against China since then at the instance of U. S,
imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, her support to the
Soviet attack on China, her tacit approval of Soviet aggression
against Czechoslovakia, her dirty role in supporting U. S,
imperialism against the Vietnamese people prove beyond a
shadow of doubt that India’s ruling classes are faithful stooges
of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.
25. These hard facts irrefutably prove the semi-colonial
character of our sociely, besides its semi-feudal character.
26. As the obsolete semi-feudal society acts as the social
base of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and
as it facilitates also the plunder of our people by comprador-
bureaucrat capital, the problem of the peasantry becomes the
basic problem of the Indian revolution.
27. Therefore, the basic task of the Indian revolution is
to overthrow the rule of feudalism, comprador-bureaucrat
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 28V
capitalism, imperialism and social-imperialism. This deter¬

mines the stage of our revolution. It is the stage of demo¬
cratic revolution, the essence of which is agrarian revolution.
28. It, however, is not the old type of democratic revo¬
lution but a new type of democratic revolution, People’3
Democratic Revolution, as it forms a part of the 'world socia¬
list revolution, ifshered in by the Great October Revolution,,
and as such, it can be successfully led by the working cla§s
alone and by no other class. The working class is the most
revolutionary class and the most organised advanced detach¬
ment of our people.
29. This revolution will establish the dictatorship of the
working class, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and even a
section of the. small and middle bourgeoisie under the leader¬
ship of the working class. They, together, constitute the over-
w helming majority of the Indian people. It will be a state
guaranteeing democracy for 90 percent of the people and
enforcing dictatorship over a handful of enemies. That is why
it is People’s Democracy.
30. The main force of the democratic revolution led by
the working class is peasantry. The working class fully relies
on the landless and poor peasants and firmly unites with the
middle peasants and even wins over a section of the rich pea¬
sants while neutralizing the rest. It will be only a tiny section
of the rich peasants that finally joins the enemies of the revo¬
lution. The urban petty-bourgeoisie and the revolutionary
intellectuals of our country are revolutionary forces and will
be a reliable ally in the revolution.
31. The small and middle bourgeoisie, businessmen and
bourgeois intellectuals are vacillating and unstable allies of the
democratic revolution. They will now support, then oppose
and sometimes even betray the revolution. Their dual role in
the revolution arises because of their contradiction as well as
unity with the enemies of our revolution.
32. Thus, in order to carry the democratic revolution
through to the end it is necessary that a Democratic Front of
all these classes is built up under the leadership of the working

class.
33. This Front can, however, be built up when worker-
peasant unity is achieved in the course of armed struggle and
after Red political power is established at least in some parts
of the country.
34. It must be understood that the working class can and
will exercise its leadership over the People’s Democratic Revo¬
lution through its political party, the Communist Party of
India (M-L). It also performs its vanguard role by launching
struggles on political issues, both national and international,
by solidarity actions in support of the revolutionary classes,
mainly, the revolutionary struggles of the peasantry and by
sending its class-conscious vanguard section to organise and
lead the peasants’ armed struggle.
35. The path of India’s liberation, as in the case of
all other colonial and semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries,
is the path of People’s War. As Chairman Mao has taught
us, “The Revolutionary war is the war of the masses ; it
can be waged only by mobilising the masses and relying
on them.”
36. The working class can wage a successful People’s War
by creating small bases of armed struggle all over the country
and consolidating the political power of the people. This is
possible only by developing guerilla warfare which is and will
remain the basic form of struggle throughout the entire period
of our Democratic Revolution.
37. As Comrade Lin Piao has pointed out, “Guerilla
warfare is the only way to mobilise and apply the entire strength
of the people against the enemy.” Guerilla warfare alone can
unleash the initiative and rouse the creative genius of the
Indian people, make them perform miracles, function in
various ways and can enable them to effectively co-ordinate
'those ways. Thus guerilla war alone can expand the small
;bases of armed struggle to large, extensive areas through mighty
waves of People’s War and develop the People’s Army which
will overthrow the reactionary rule of the four mountains in

the countryside, encircle and capture the cities, establish the
People’s Democratic Dictatorship all over the country and
resolutely carry it forward to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
and Socialism.
38. The People’s Democratic State will carry out the
following major tasks :
(a) Confiscation of all the banks and enterprises of foreign
capital and liquidation of all imperialist debt.
(b) Confiscation of all land belonging to the landlords
and their redistribution among the landless and poor
peasants on the principle of land to the tillers ; cancellation
of all debts of the peasantry and other toiling people. All
facilities necessary for development of agriculture to be
guaranteed.
(d) Enforce eight hours a day, increase wages, institute
unemployment relief and social insurance, remove all inequa¬
lities on the basis of equal pay for equal work.
(e) Improve the living conditions of soldiers and give land
and job to the ex-servicemen.
(f) Enforce better living conditions of the people and
remove unemployment.
(g) Develop new democratic culture in place of colonial
and feudal culture.
(h) Abolish the present educational system and educa¬
tional institutions and build up a new educational system and
new educational institutions consistent with the needs of
People’s Democratic India.
(i) Abolish the caste system, remove all social inequalities
and all discrimination on the religious ground and guarantee
equality of status to women.
(j) Unify India and recognise the right of self-determi¬
nation.
(k) Give equal status to all national languages.
(l) Abolish all exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous assess¬
ments and adopt a consolidated progressive tax system.
(m) People’s political power to be exercised through

Revolutionary People’s Councils at all levels.
(n) Alliance to be formed with the international proleta¬
riat and the oppressed nations of the world under the leader¬
ship of the CPC.
39. The Democratic Revolution in India is taking place in
the era of Mao Tsetung when world imperialism is heading for
a total collapse and socialism is advancing towards world-wide
victory. Our revolution is a part of the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution which has consolidated socialism and
proletarian dictatorship in China into the reliable base area of'
the World Revolution. Our revolution is taking place at a
time when the great Ninth Congress of the great, glorious and
correct CPC—the Congress of unity and victory—has tremen¬
dously inspired the international proletariat. It is taking
place at a time when the CPC, headed by Chairman Mao and
Vice-Chairman Lin Piao, is leading the international proletariat
to fulfil its historic mission of emancipating the whole of
mankind from the rule of imperialism and reaction and
establishing Socialism and Communism on this earth. We
are a contingent of this great army of the international
proletariat.
40. The CPI(M-L) is placing the Programme of People’s
Democratic Revolution before the Indian people and dedicates
itself to this great revolutionary cause. The Party is confident
that the granite unity of our people with all socialist and
oppressed nations, particularly the Chinese people, will bring
about the victory of the Indian revolution, which as Chairman
Mao has predicted, “will end the imperialist reactionary era in
the history of mankind” and will ensure the world-wide victory
of Socialism.
[Reproduced from ‘Mass Line', Vol. 2, No. 36 Sept 13, 1970],
POLITICAL-ORGANISATIONAL REPORT
Adopted at the PARTY CONGRESS held in May 1970
Our Congress is taking place at a time when U. S. imperia¬

lism is continuing open and naked aggression on Cambodia
and expanding the war of aggression throughout Indo*China
with the sheer logic of an aggressor, reminding us of the
days of Munich. This attack can easily be termed as the
beginning of the Third World War, as the march of the Hitlerite
hordes on Sudetanland was the beginning of the Second World
War. But the world situation today cannot be understood only
in the light of the aggression and aggressive designs of U.S.
imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism for, unlike Munich,
a new thing has emerged under the leadership of the great
CPC and China. The three Indo-Chinese peoples have
united and presented a united front against the U.S. aggressors.
This marks a great victory of the Indo-Chinese peoples and
serves as the key to the understanding of the present world
situation. Our struggle against imperialist warmongers must
take note of this new danger of aggression and the great
victory of the Indo-Chinese people.
In our country also, the Indian Government under the cover
of national defence are feverishly preparing for an aggressive
war to serve the needs of the global strategy of U. S.
imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. Soviet and U. S.
specialists are actually controlling the entire defence organisa¬
tion of our country and this pressure of war efforts is breaking
down the entire economy and throwing the country into an
abyss of permanent and severe economic crisis. But in the
Indian situation a new thing also has emerged which marks the
victory of the people : it is the peasants’ armed struggle under
the leadeship of the CPI (M-L). Within a year, this struggle
has spread far and wide—from Assam to Kashmir—and has
engulfed more than 12 states of India and has already
become a motive force of history. The puppet character of

the present regime and the hollowness of the parliamentary
system are becoming clear to the entire people and the bitter
class struggles are shattering the myth of Gandhism and the
“peaceful professions” of the present regime. The bitter class
struggles have exposed the butcher nature of the present re¬
actionary Government, the necessity of the battle of annihi¬
lation against these butchers is felt by the vast masses of the
people and the struggle is spreading to rural areas with tre¬
mendous vigour.
The emergence of the Party—CPI(M-L), is the victory of
the revolutionary people of India and also the victory of the
all-powerful Thought of Chairman Mao on the soil of India.
Equipped with the great Mao Tsetung Thought, this revolu¬
tionary peasants’ armed struggle has already become an in¬
vincible force which the imperialists, social-imperialists and
native reaction cannot suppress. That this onward march of the
armed revolutionary struggle of the peasantry will continue
unabated and that the struggle will spread to all the states of
India is not only the truth of history but has already become
the reality of history.
In order to achieve victory, we must pay attention to the
building of our Party—CPI(M-L). This task is the most im¬
portant, most immediate and most sacred task of the revolu¬
tionary people of India. We must build up our Party among
the landless and poor peasants and on this alone the revolutio¬
nary striking power, of the Party and the revolutionary people,
depends. The working class and the petty-bourgeois cadres
must integrate themselves with the landless and poor peasants
and this task of integration cannot be over-emphasised. The
history of our inner-party struggles shows that centrism is the
vilest weapon of the revisionists and we must fight all signs of
centrism. Centrism undermines the revolutionary politics and
makes the fighter defenceless.
With the peal of the spring thunder of the Naxalbari
struggle came a turning point in the history of the Indian
revolution. When revisionism seemed triumphant and the

whole of India was steeped in darkness, Comrade Charu
Majumdar, who organized and led the Naxalbari struggle,
analysed correctly the character of the Indian society and state
and the great role of the peasantry in India’s democratic
revolution, upheld Chairman Mao’s great teaching : “Political
power grows out of the barrel of a gunf and applied Mao
Tsetung Thought to the concrete conditions of India for the
first time in India’s history. The Naxalbari struggle led by
Comrade Charu Majumdar marked the beginning of the rout
of revisionism in India—the beginning of the victorious
onward march of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India.
The leadership provided by him since then has kindled the
flames of armed peasant guerilla struggles in Srikakulam and
Andhra and spread those flames to eleven other states in
India.
The battle between the two lines was fought bitterly in the
Co-ordination period on issues like boycott of elections,
characterization of Soviet revisionism as social-imperialism and
the fight against economism. The bitter fight over these issues
led by Comrade Charu Majumdar, strengthened and conso¬
lidated the revolutionary ranks and this resulted in the
expansion to new areas of struggle like Mushahari and
Lakhimpur Kheri. Another major struggle inside Co-ordina¬
tion was fought and won on the question of the formation of
the Party. The intellectuals’ resistance to democratic centra¬
lism, the metaphysical understanding of a “pure” Party, the
worship of spontaneity as reflected in ideas like “building
the party through armed struggles and from below” were
among the many expressions of the wrong line which was
defeated and the Party was formed marking the victory of
Chairman Mao’s line on Party building.
After the formation of the Party, which consolidated the
victory of the revolutionary line over the revisionist line, the
struggle between the two lines entered a new stage. The
revisionist line sought mainly to undermine the authority of
the Party, encouraging polycentrism inside the Party, to

attack the correct political line of the Party in the name of
mass organizations and mass movements for economic de¬
mands as pre-requisites for the development of guerilla stru¬
ggles, to encourage big and spectacular actions for the deve¬
lopment of peasants’ armed struggles and to rely upon the
petty-bourgeois intellectuals for the development of peasants’
armed struggles.
The successful battle against this wrong line has spread the
struggle from one State to another and the peasants’ armed
struggles are rousing the working class and petty-bourgeois
intellectuals and thus a new stage is opening when the peasants’
armed struggles will create waves of mass uprising engulfing
the vast land of ours in a conflagration and the Party will be
required to lead this revolutionary upsurge into a nation-wide
victory of revolution.
Though we are a small Party now, we can fulfil this sacred
task if we raise our study and application of Chairman Mao’s
Thought as embodied in the “Quotations” and the “Three
Articles” to a new height, entrench ourselves deeply among
landless and poor peasants and integrate ourselves with them,
promote the landless and poor peasant cadres to higher res¬
ponsibility, study and concretely apply the correct thesis of
Vice-Chairman Lin Piao : “Guerilla warfare is the only way
to mobilize and apply the whole strength of the people against
the enemy”, realize and apply methodically the correct thesis
that the annihilation of the class enemy is the higher form of
class struggle and the beginning of guerilla war and People’s
War, and realize that the class struggle, i. e., this battle of
annihilation, can solve all the problems facing us and lead the
struggle to a higher plane, raise the political consciousness of
the people to a higher stage, create conditions for the emergence
of a new type of man, the Man of Mao Tsetung era who fears
neither hardship nor death, develop the People’s Army and
can thus ensure the formation of a permanent base area. This
battle of annihilation liberates the people not only from the
oppression of the landlord class and its State but also liberates
them from the shackles of backward ideas and removes from
the minds of the people poisonous weeds of self-interest, clan
interest, localism, casteism, religious superstitions, etc. Thus
this battle of annihilation can bring the East Wind of splen¬
dour and glory of Man.
The politics of seizure of political power can alone rouse
bitter class hatred among landless and poor peasants and only
by putting this politics in command, the battle of annihilation
can be raised to a new height.
The revisionists all the world over are trying to unite the
•groups who are parading the name of Chairman Mao and
fighting Mao Tsetung Thought in the name of Mao Tsetung
by seeking to arrest and denounce this battle of annihilation.
■So any idea of unity with these groups means the liquidation
•of the main plank of our struggle and submerging the entire
Party in the morass of revisionism.
Our comrades must keep in mind that entirely through
■our own efforts we have been able to create a new situation
in India when the ruling classes and their parties are openly
quarrelling with one another in a downright dog-bite-dog
manner, when stable governments have become a thing of the
past and when vast masses of people are coming into the
arena of struggle and creating a new and better situation for
the revolutionaries to carry on their struggles. Our Party’s
call : “China’s Chairman is our Chairman, China’s path is our
path”, our call against any aggressive war against China and
our call to turn the ’70’s into the decade of liberation have
gripped the imagination of the masses, particularly, of the
revolutionary youth and won a victory over national-chauvi¬
nism and revisionism and have opened up a new era of greater
victories. Our battle of annihilation has linked together our
two sacred tasks—the task of liberating our country and the
people and the international task of ending imperialism and
imperialist war—and has created the material basis, that is, the
■emergence of the new man, for fulfilling these great tasks.
Vol 11—19
* So, our Party should continue this battle of annihilation

in a more determined and concerted way, create newer and
newer areas of operation, depend upon unsophisticated arms,
which alone can release the initiative of the landless and poor
peasants and develop the struggles in mighty waves, continue
the political campaign in a purposeful way to develop this
battle of annihilation, try continuously to draw in fresh forces
from among the landless and poor peasants and know how
to rely upon them, concentrate on ‘one area, one unit, one
squad’ basis, direct their entire work to fulfil the main task of
the period, try constantly to improve the political level of the
people, help the fighters study “Quotations” and the “Three
Articles”, link the fighters with the work of production and
draw them inside the Party.
Comrades ! Imperialists, social-imperialists and native
reaction are hatching plans to launch fiercest attacks upon us
when preservation of our main force and our leadership will
depend upon how deeply we dig in among the people. So
the method of work evolved by Chairman Mao should be
studied and applied methodically and conscientiously by our
leaders and cadres, because that alone can ensure the preserva¬
tion and victory of our revolutionary struggles.
The world is progressing at a breathtaking speed towards-
the final emancipation of Man under the leadership of Chair¬
man Mao ; our struggle in India, too, is developing at an
inconceivably fast speed. The victory of the Indian Revolu¬
tion will certainly banish forever imperialism and imperialist
war from the face of the world. Our comrades must always-
feel this great responsibility that is on us, must develop the
internationalist spirit of becoming one with the fighters of the
world under the leadership of Chairman Mao. This feeling
will give them immeasurable strength to carry on this great
responsibility history has placed on us.
Let this Congress usher in greater unity among the
revolutionary cadres and greater victory for the great Indian,
people.
Let this Congress give new strength to the cadres to end

the age-old sufferings of the Indian people, rouse our cadres
and the people for greater sacrifice to change this India of
darkness into an India of brightness and brilliance. Chairman
Mao is there, victory is ours.
Long live the Indian Revolution !
Long live the CPI (M-L) !
Long live Chairman Mao ! A long, long life to
Chairman Mao !
[Reproduced from 'Mass Line', Vol. 2, No. 36, Sept. 13, 1970]
ON THE POLITICAL-ORGANISATIONAL REPORT

Comrade Charu Majumdar's Speech introducing the
Political-Organisational Report at the Party Congress
(based on notes taken at the congress)
In the present world situation there are two important,

phenomena.
On the one hand, there is U. S. imperialism’s naked
aggression against Cambodia. The U. S. imperialists have
thrown away all pretences and invaded Cambodia. Their logic
is Hitler’s logic—the logic of all aggressors. They cannot wait
any more, they can no longer talk of peace. Now they will
attack one country after another. So this is the beginning of
the Third World War.
On the other hand, the revolutionary united front of the
peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, under the leadership
of China, has been built up to fight the U. S. aggressors.
The unity of the three Indo-Chinese peoples has been achieved.
This is a great thing in world history, which did not exist
when Hitler’s hordes marched across Sudetanland. The
Second World War was preceded by Munich—by great
betrayal. But now the united front of revolutionary peoples
292 NAXALBARl AND AFTJER VOL II
under the leadership of China is taking shape. So this is the

great beginning of the defeat of imperialism and the great
beginning of the victory of the world’s people.
The same kind of phenomena exist in India also. India’s
reactionary ruling classes are making frenzied preparations to
suit the global strategy of U. S. imperialism and Soviet social-
imperialism. They are hatching criminal war plans against
China. But the emergence of the C.P.I.(M-L) has changed
the internal situation in India. The armed revolutionary
peasant struggle led by the C.P.I.(M-L) has become the
motive force of history. We must take into account not only
the offensive of the ruling classes but also the counter-offensive
of the revolutionary people.
Our cardinal tasks, therefore, are : to build up the Party
and to get it entrenched among the landless and poor peasants.
The building up of the Party means the development of the
armed class struggle. And without armed class struggle the
Party can not be developed and can not entrench itself among
the masses.
The struggle between the two lines is there within the
Party and will continue to be there. We must oppose and
defeat the incorrect line. But we must be on our guard against
centrism. Centrism is a brand of revisionism—its worst form.
In the past, revisionism was defeated again and again by
revolutionary elements but centrism always seized the victories
of the struggle and led the Party along the revisionist path.
We must hate centrism. On the question of boycotting elections,
Nagi Reddy said : “Yes, we accept it but it sliould be restric¬
ted to a certain area at a certain period. We shall participate
in elections where there is no struggle.” This is Nagi Reddy’s
line. This is centrism. We have fought against it and
■thrown the Nagi Reddys out of our organization. Regarding
Soviet social-imperialism, some say : “The Soviet leaders
are revisionists. But how can they be imperialists ? Where is
that development of monopoly capital ?” These are centrists.
We have fought them and thrown them out of our Party. So
the centrists raised the questions of trade unions and “working

class based party” when armed clash is to be developed by
relying on the peasantry. We fought Asit Sen and company
on these lines and threw them out of the Party.
We must not only distinguish between the correct and
the incorrect line but also find out the centrist position and
smash it.
Now the centrist attack is coming from inside the Party.
On the questions of using fire-arms, the dependence on the
petty-bourgeois intellectuals and the battle of annihilation, the
Party is facing centrist attacks.
It must be understood that the battle of annihilation is
both a higher form of class struggle and the starting-point of
guerilla war. There are two deviations on this question :
1. Some comrades agree that annihilation is the starting-
point of guerilla war but they do not agree that it is a higher
form of class struggle. It should be borne in mind that only
through the development of class struggle can all the problems
be solved.
2. There are other comrades who carried on class struggle
—the struggle for the seizure of landlords’ land and property
—but did not wage the battle of annihilation. So the cadres
became degenerate, they were lost. The comrades missed the
point that annihilation is the starting-point of guerilla war.
Class struggle will solve all other problems—the problem
of building liberated bases and the problem of building the
revolutionary army.
We have tried to develop the army in some areas without:
class struggle and have failed. Without class struggle—the
battle of annihilation—the initiative of the poor peasant
masses cannot be released, the political consciousness of the
fighters cannot be raised, the new man cannot emerge, the
people’s army cannot be created. Only by waging class
struggle—the battle of annihilation—the new man will be
created, the new man who will defy death and will be free
from all thought of self-interest. And with this death-defying
spirit he will go close to the enemy, snatch his rifle, avenge

the martyrs and the people’s army will emerge. To go close
to the enemy it is necessary to conquer all thought of self.
And this can be achieved only by the blood of martyrs.
That inspires and creates new men out of the fighters, fills them
with class hatred and makes them go close to the enemy and
snatch his rifle with bare hands.
We have poured much of our blood in Srikakulam and we
have spilled much blood of the enemy. Yet the class enemy
exists there. Unless we throw the class enemy out of the
land, a new consciousness, a new confidence cannot arise. We
cannot then go close to the enemy and snatch his rifle. It is
the class struggle that can solve this problem of building the
people’s army.
The annihilation of the class enemy—this weapon in our
hands—is the greatest danger of the reactionaries and revisio¬
nists all the world over. So the leaders of world revisionism
are trying to contact the various groups which pay lip-service
to Chairman Mao and the CPC and are trying to unite them
to oppose the battle of annihilation of the class enemy. We
refuse to unite with these groups because they are opposed
to annihilation of the class enemy, to class struggle and so,
are enemies of the people.
Why am I against taking up fire-arms now ? Is it not our
dream that landless and poor peasants will take up rifles on
on their shoulders and march forward ? Yet the use of fire¬
arms at this stage, instead of releasing the initiative of the
peasant masses to annihilate the class enemy, stifles it. If
guerilla fighters start the battle of annihilation with their
conventional weapons, the common landless and poor peasants
will come forward with bare hands and join the battle of
annihilation. A common landless peasant, ground down by
age-old oppression, will see the light and avenge himself on
the class enemy. His initiative will be released. In this way
the peasant masses will join the guerilla fighters, their revolu¬
tionary enthusiasm will know no bounds and a mighty wave
of people’s upsurge will sweep the country. After the initia¬

tive of the peasant masses, to annihilate the class enemy with
bare hands or home-made weapons, has been released and the
peasants’ revolutionary power has been established, they
should take up the gun and face the world. The peasant with
his rifle will be the guarantee of the continuation of the pea¬
sants’ revolutionary power.
Comrades, the peasants’ suffering has reached a stage when
they can no longer endure it. If we can show them the way,
there is not a single point in India where the peasants will not
be roused to action. There is the possibility of a tremendous
upsurge in India if we consciously work for it. Guerilla war
■can be waged through the battle of annihilation in every village
in India. So, start as many points of armed struggle as possi¬
ble. Don’t try to concentrate. Expand anywhere and every¬
where. This is one principle to be followed. The other
principle is : Carry on the battle of annihilation of the class
-enemy.
All the revisionists, all the groups taking the name of
Chairman Mao, are attacking us on this issue of the battle of
annihilation. So, comrades, anyone who opposes this battle
of annihilation cannot remain with us. We will not allow
him to remain inside our Party.
One can see how the revolutionary armed peasant struggle
is rousing the other classes. Look at Calcutta. The revolu¬
tionary struggle of the youths of Calcutta surges forward under
the impact of the armed peasant struggle. The working class
in Calcutta is also rising. And I hope there will be revolu¬
tionary upsurge of the working class not only in Calcutta, but
in all other cities of India. This is bound to happen. The
■situation in the cities will then change completely.
Comrades, let a vigorous armed peasant struggle rage all
-over India after the victorious conclusion of our Congress.
Then a spontaneous mass upsurge in the wake of the armed
guerilla struggle will come as an avalanche, as a thunderbolt.
It is sure the Red Army can be created not only in Srikakulam
but also in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal,

With these contingents of the Liberation Army, the Indian
peasants will march forward and complete the revolution.
Three factors guarantee the victory of the revolution. First,
the revolution that has been delayed by more than twenty
years brooks no further delay. Second, the revolution is
taking place in the era of the total collapse of imperialism and
the world-wide victory of Socialism, the era of Mao Tsetung
Thought. Third, we have been able to hold this Congress
despite severe repression.
Comrades, let us march forward. The ’seventies will surely
be the decade of liberation.
[Reproduced from Mass Line, Yol. 2, No. 36, Sept. 13, 1970J
PROBLEMS AND CRISES OF INDIAN REVOLUTION

SUSHITAL ROY CHOWDHURY
{November, 1970)
[Translated by us from the original in Bengali ]
A lesson of the history of the international communist

movement is that the genuine communist movement has to
advance by waging struggle against the two kinds of deviation,,
the “Right” and the “Left”. From the history of the interna¬
tional communist movement it is again found that after the
“Right” errors are corrected, the “Left” errors are liable to-
crop up. Whenever an individual or the Party advances-
from one success to another there is the danger of “Left”
deviation. This is because arrogance may develop in the
wake of enthusiasm caused by success. On the other hand,
in times of failure, there may be a trend towards pessimism
and depression.
During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China,
it has been found that even when the struggle against “Right”1
devtation continues, some persons raise “ultra-Left” slogans

with an ostentatious play of words, try to create disunity of
the proletariat with classes which are its allies and thus try to
lead the entire struggle astray.
From the history of the international communist movement
it is found that in general the centre from which these two
deviations originate lies within the Party leadership. From
the history of our Party also we know that our experience is
no exception to this.
So Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought teaches us
that the members of the Communist Party should remain ever
vigilant and alert in this regard. All the ordinary members
of the Party must use their brains and must always exercise
careful supervision over the leadership. In the question of
leadership, Chairman Mao’s teaching is that the leadership
must always be modest ; the higher the post, the greater the
modesty required of an incumbent. In case of leadership it is
a question of principle whether one is modest or arrogant ;
because to err is human.
Right from the aggression of China by India in 1962 when
the Party at the manoeuvring of the leadership deviated from
proletarian internationalism, many an ordinary member in our
Party started becoming conscious of the danger of revisionism.
This generated a feeling amongst many of us that we must,
start armed struggle. After March 1967 when the historic
peasant struggle burst forth in Naxalbari, this awareness within
the ordinary Party members as well as the struggle against
revisionism were raised to a new level. Throughout the
country the communist revolutionaries severed connections
with revisionists and neo-revisionists and began asserting
themselves. On the one hand, they went to the villages and
devoted themselves to the task of rousing the peasants ; on the
other hand, for the reorganisation of a genuine Communist
Party they took initiative in establishing contacts and holding
discussions with one another. Through this process was
formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
However, in different States of the country a number of

’Communist revolutionaries continued to maintain their
independent group existence and to make efforts to build up
armed struggle. The Party declared that the ideological
differences with them will be non-antagonistic in character.
As soon as the Naxalbari peasant upsurge took place it
was greeted and blessed by Mao Tsetung, the leader of the
international communist movement, and the great Communist
Party of China.
Immediately after its formation, the CPI(M-L) earned
recognition of the international leadership. For natural and
justifiable reasons, the communist revolutionaries of Darjeeling
district earned respect of the communist revolutionaries
throughout the country for these successes. Naturally in all
these successful developments the leading role of Comrade
Charu Majumdar earned recognition within the Party. Right
at the moment of the formation of the Party he was respect¬
fully chosen for the highest post without any dissent.
The peasant struggle of Naxalbari did not only inspire the
revolutionary members of the Party, it also enthused and
inspired the sympathisers and a large section of people under
the Party’s influence.
After the formation of the CPI(M-L) they assembled
under its banner. After the formation of the Party the
peasants’ armed struggle began to expand rapidly with the
help and co-operation of these sympathisers and the people.
Groups of communist revolutionaries outside the Party too
developed armed peasant struggles in some areas of the
country.
In May 1970, the Party Congress of the CPI(M-L) was
held with success. The successful holding of the Party Cong¬
ress even in the face of policies of severe repression pursued
by the exploiting classes and their government aroused much
enthusiasm amongst the Party members, people and sympa¬
thisers throughout the country. A large number of guerilla
omits were formed. In the real sense, the phase marking
the beginning of guerilla war was reached. Its influence

spread to the urban areas. In particular it generated new
initiative and activity amongst students and youth. This
successful development has been brightened with new
examples of self-sacrifice set by Party members from martyr
Babulal to Comrades Panchadri and Nirmala and by the
peasant masses.
Today the ruling classes and other political parties are
passing sleepless nights because of the CPI(M-L). It has be-
•come the focus of the new hope for the common man through¬
out the country. The task before us is to raise our struggle
to a new phase—to advance along the path of the most
arduous struggle for developing base areas. In other areas
our responsibility is to intensify the class struggle of the
peasants and to raise the armed struggle to a higher phase.
It is a matter of deep regret that at this moment of our
success, in the name of developing MaoTsetung Thought, such
principles and policies are being introduced in our State and
such ideas are being circulated as are nothing but ultra-adven¬
turism. Unless the ordinary members of the Party become
aware of these ideas and policies and make an effort to change
them, the progress of revolution as a whole will suffer.
What are the concrete manifestations of these adventurist
ideas and policies ? The line, policies, strategy and tactics of
people’s war formulated by Chairman Mao Tsetung are inter¬
connected and constitute an integral whole. These are appli¬
cable to and have relevance for all countries.
“Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory of people’s war is not
only a product of the Chinese revolution, but has also the
characteristics of our epoch.Mao Tse-tung’s thought is a
• common asset of the revolutionary people of the whole world.”
(Lin Piao : Long Live the Victory of People's War P. 116)
Explaining the theory of People’s War, Comrade Lin Piao
showed that these (lessons) are : (a) Go on fighting with the
people’s war in perspective ; (b) Correctly apply the policy of
the united front ; (c) Establish base areas in the countryside,
relying on peasants ; (d) Develop the People’s Army of a

new type ; (e) Apply the strategy and tactics of people’s
war in all spheres of work ; (f) Grasp the principle of self-
reliance.
The class enemies of the people are organised ; the state
machinery is in their hands. In the beginning the strength of
the people is unorganized. The protracted war is a process
of organizing the people, rallying them and arming them.
Long-drawn efforts are necessary to weaken the enemy forces
gradually and to expand gradually the people’s forces.
Quite correctly our activities began in the perspective of
this protracted war. “In India this revolution can triumph
only if we wage protracted and arduous struggle. Citing the
fact that imperialism and social-imperialism will come forward
to arrest the revolution in India, it is contended that it is.
nothing but a blind flight of imagination to think of easy
victory in this situation.” (Deshabrati)
But at one time suddenly an idea began to be circulated
that our struggle would not be that much protracted. In the
manner of an astrologer it was forecast that we need not wait
beyond 1975 for the success of the revolution. Undoubtedly,
the style of work that established itself under its impact was
one of getting quick results.
At the commencement of the Second Civil War in China,.
Chairman Mao wrote : “Who are the enemies ? Who are
our friends ? This is a question of the first importance for
the revolution. The basic reason why all previous revolu¬
tionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure
to unite with real friends against the real enemies.” (Analysis•
of the Classes in Chinese Society, March 1926). In explaining
the theory of people’s war, Comrade Lin Piao has first shown :
“In order to win a people’s war it is imperative to build the
broadest possible united front and formulate a series of policies
which will ensure the fullest mobilization of the basic masses,
as well as the unity of all the forces that can be united.” (Lin
Piao : op. cit. P. 25) In explaining the theory of people’s war
Comrade Lin Piao has given the first place to the task of
building the united front.
It is on the basis of this teaching that we have determined
the allies and enemies of our revolution. The enemies are
imperialism, social-imperialism, big comprador bourgeoisie
and the big landlord class.
In our Programme we have defined the objective of our
revolution : “This revolution will establish the dictatorship of
the working class, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and
even a section of the small and middle bourgeoisie under the
leadership of the working class.” As regards these classes
we have said : “They, together, constitute the ovewhelming
majority of the Indian people.” As the condition for the
success of revolution, we have stated in the Programme :
“Thus, in order to carry the democratic revolution through to
the end it is necessary that a democratic front of all these
classes is built up under the leadership of the working class.”
The united front does not develop overnight. The forma¬
tion of the front is but a process. As conditions for the suc¬
cessful building of the democratic front we have correctly
stated : “This front, however, can only be built up when
worker peasant unity is achieved in the course of armed
struggle and after Red political power is established at least in
some parts of the country.”
Chairman Mao teaches us that the aim and object of the
revolution are at one with the general principle which will
regulate all the activities of the revolutionary party. This is
known as the political line. This general principle must have
to be reflected in all the policies of the party.
Then it is clear that from the beginning to the end the
policies cannot be allowed to go against the Party’s general
principle. Otherwise a deviation from the political line occurs.
But what sort of attitude is being taken towards the ally classes
in our activities ? “They will be forced to come to us”.
“We need not bother about them.” Frequently without any
second thought such policies are being adopted as are hitting
them also. The so-called principle of annihilation is being

applied to many traders, teachers and many individuals of
such types.
Chairman Mao has repeatedly said : “The revolutionary
war is a war of the masses ; it can be waged only by mobili¬
sing the masses and relying on them.” (‘Be concerned with
the Well Being of the Masses, Pay Attention to Methods of
Work’, January 27, 1934). He has further said : We are against
issuing orders by depending only on a handful of persons.
In starting people’s war the first question that has to be
faced is how the people, especially the peasant masses, can be
aroused within the shortest possible time. This rousing
involves developing the initiative of the peasants in regard to
different aspects of waging people’s war.
Chairman Mao teaches us : Every comrade should be
taught to arouse and develop the consciousness of the people
in conformity with their levels of conscionsness, to help them
get organised gradually on the principle of sincere volunta¬
riness, and to help them conduct step by step all the necessary
struggles warranted by the internal and external conditions of
definite time and place.
Our correct policy was given as follows : “Guerilla war
is basically the higher stage of class struggle and class struggle
is the sum total of economic and political struggles. While
propagating politics, comrades working in peasant areas should
never minimise the necessity of raising a general slogan on
economic demands. Unless the broad peasant masses are
involved in the movement it will not be possible to bring the
backward peasants to the stage of grasping political propaganda,
and their hatred against the class enemies cannot be kept alive.”
(Deshabrati, August 1, 1967)
The first lesson to remember, therefore, is : we must not
impose anything upon the masses against their wishes.
By forgetting this principle we shall land ourselves in many
deviations. Such deviations may be called sectarianism.
Castroism etc.
“Unless the peasants are made to participate in broad-

based mass movements, it will naturally take time for the
politics of seizure of power to strike firm roots in the consci¬
ousness of the peasant masses. As a result there may be a
trend towards putting arms instead of politics in command.
Areas of peasants’ armed struggle can be developed only by
successfully applying, under political leadership, the four
weapons—the peasants’ class analysis, class struggle, inves¬
tigation and practice”. (Deshabrati, October 17, 1968)
“There are advanced and backward sections even within
the revolutionary classes. The advanced section grasps the
revolutionary principles quickly and the backward section
naturally takes longer time to absorb political propaganda.
That is why the necessity of waging economic struggles against
the feudal class exists and it will be therein future also. Hence
the need for the movement for seizure of crops. The form
this struggle will take in an area will depend on its political
consciousness and organisation”, (ibid)
From the above quotations from Deshabrati it is seen
that at this phase the ideological concepts that guided our
policies were briefly as follows :
Guerilla war is basically a higher form of class struggle
and class struggle is the sum total of economic and political
struggles. As a condition to make the peasants conscious of
the politics of seizure of political power, efforts must be
made to develop the peasants’ mass struggles and mobilise the
broad peasant masses (in these struggles). Various economic
and political struggles must be waged. Simultaneously with
that we must propagate Mao Tsetung Thought ceaselessly.
Only then will it be possible to begin the guerilla war and
build up base areas and peasants’ armed struggle.
In the process of striving to build up peasant movement
with the object of developing (raising it to the level of) armed
struggle, ideological concepts entirely opposed to the ones
mentioned above were smuggled in. Their manifestations
were :
Guerilla units have to be formed “in a completely secret

manner,” “by a wholly conspiratorial method” ; we must
begin with elimination of the local class enemies by such
guerilla units adopting “the method of guerilla action”. True,
mention was made of the need for propagating the politics
of seizure of power prior to actions ; “but it would be wrong
to put too much stress on the importance of carrying on an
intensive propaganda before starting the guerilla attacks”.
In this way will be created the initiative (of the masses) and
mass actions, “and the flames of people’s war will engulf the
whole of the countryside”.
This meant that there could be only one meaning of
‘annihilation’ or ‘elimination’ of class enemies—an interpreta¬
tion, undoubtedly, opposed to Chairman Mao’s Thought.
Those who have gone through Chairman Mao’s works
attentively will have observed that in his various writings, the
words ‘annihilation’, ‘wiping out’ and ‘to destroy’ are used
synonymously. ‘Annihilation’ may mean ‘to kill’ in particular
circumstances, but not always. Chairman Mao says : “.
to destroy the enemy means to disarm him or ‘deprive him
of the power to resist’ and does not mean to destroy every
member of his forces physically.” {On Protracted War,
May 1938)
However, on the basis of ideological concepts inspiring it,
the movement since Naxalbari has been divided into two
phases. If the concepts of these two phases are compared,
the change becomes clear :
(1) Instead of mobilising the broad peasant masses in
broad-based mass movements, form guerilla units by a cons¬
piratorial method.
(2) Previously it was said that once class struggles were
developed by forming the Party units, these Party units would
be transformed into guerilla units. In the second phase it
was said on the contrary that the intellectual comrade would
fotm a guerilla unit by recruiting some one (poor peasant)
■without any knowledge of the Party unit. Instead of carrying
■on political propaganda for a long time and striving to build

up class struggles, it was argued that it would be wrong to put
too much stress on the importance of intensive propaganda.
If only the four weapons—class analysis, class struggle,
investigation and practice—were applied successfully, it was
said previously, peasants’ guerilla action would create mass
initiative and mass action and kindle the flames of people’s
war. But only a little later, guerilla action itself came to be
regarded as guerilla war. Whenever any action took place in
any district or any State, it was suggested that guerilla war
had spread.
Such statements naturally had adverse effects on the minds
•of the comrades. A leaflet distributed by a local committee
in an important rural area even went to the extent of suggesting
that “We shall be organised first then we shall fight—this is
wrong.” This leaflet contained such impractical slogans as :
“Annihilate all the class enemies.” Of the two—“political
propaganda” and “annihilation of class enemies”—the former
was given up at one stage in the process. It came to be argued
that “action itself is propaganda.” Thus there was infiltration
of bourgeois thinking. Previously it was written in iDeshabratV
(September 4, 1969) : “Another manifestation of bourgeois
thinking (i.e. revisionism—S.R.C) is to exaggerate the impor¬
tance of actions and to deny the importance of political propa¬
ganda. This is what Chairman Mao has called ‘militarism’.”
Exactly the same outlook was reflected in the activities in
the urban areas. True, activities in urban areas are not
detailed in the Programme. But from the theory of people’s
war it is evident that for a long time the Party’s task will be
to build up base areas in the countryside and make use of
them for encircling, and finally, capturing the cities. This is the
path of the Chinese Revolution. Our policy in regard to the
cities was determined in conformity with this path. “In the
enemy-occupied cities and villages, we combined legal with
illegal struggles, united the basic masses and all patriots, and
^divided and disintegrated the political power of the enemy
Vol 11—20
and his puppets so as to prepare ourselves to attack the enemy

from within in co-ordination with operations from without'
when conditions were ripe.” (Lin Piao : op. cit. P. 53)
Moreover, the line laid down by Chairman Mao in regard
to the work in urban areas is as follows : To build up the
proletarian base of the Party, to build up all mass struggles
which are just and advantageous for us, to conduct all these
struggles with restraint and thus to preserve our strength and
wait.
In our Programme we have said : “It (the working class)
also performs its vanguard role by launching struggles on
political issues, both national and international, by solidarity
actions in support of the revolutionary classes, mainly, the
revolutionary struggles of the peasantry and by sending its
class conscious vanguard section to organise and lead the
peasants’ armed struggle.”
From what has been said above, anyone with commonsense-
will realise that our first major tasks in towns should be :
(a) to conduct extensive mass work among the prole¬
tarian masses in towns so that cadres from among workers-
may be sent to the villages ;
(b) to build up solidarity movements in towns with'
workers’ participation ;
(c) to build up secret Party organisations with select
cadres so that this work may be conducted lor a long time.
These tasks can be performed if the Party’s proletarian
base is built up and the Party branches are formed in factories-
in important districts. These are the primary tasks of our
programme in towns.
But what did happen ? It was decided to organise a mass-
demonstration in support of Cambodia. The programme was
abandoned. Instead the impression was given out that in
our country it was not necessary to wait for a long time in.
towns as had been the case in China. We need to create Red
terror in towns also and for that it was immediately necessary'
to start the campaign of annihilation directed against the:-
class enemies and the state machinery. All this was said in
the name of the new international and national situation,
denying the character of uneven development of the revolu¬
tionary situation. The sensitive students were exhorted to
accomplish the democratic and cultural revolution simultane¬
ously ; the ‘Luddite”-type action of destroying educational
institutions, libraries and laboratories, in the name paralysing
the educational system was begun. Needless to say, there was
no discussion in the Central Committee on the subject before
introducing this method in urban areas.
It has already been mentioned how the necessity of the
perspective of protracted war was belittled and how the idea
gained currency that quick result should be aimed at. This line of
thinking was encouraged by the wrong assessment regarding the
Third World War. The U.S. aggression against Cambodia was
regarded as the mark of the beginning of the Third World War.
It was Comrade Majumdar who gave this thesis. Of
course the Party and the Party Congress were influenced by
this assessment. But it is also a fact that after Chairman
Mao’s statement of May 20 * had been broadcast, Comrade
Satyanarain Singh of Bihar drew our attention to the wrong
assessment and wrote a few letters to the General Secretary for
rectifying the mistake—the Report of the Congress was yet to
be published. He had requested not to publish the relevant
portion. The General Secretary did not act as requested.
The Marxists’ assessment of the international or national
situation is not unrelated to their practical tasks. The style of
work was influenced by the assessment as regards the begin¬
ning or otherwise of the Third World War.
The Party’s politics and organisation are closely inter¬
related. Wrong politics is inevitably reflected in organisational
* Hailing the Joint Declaration of the Summit Conference of the

Indo-Chinese peoples, Chairman Mao issued a solemn statement on May
20, 1970, supporting the struggle of world’s people against U. S. imperia¬
lism. The statement was issued under the title, ‘'People of the world,.
Unite and Defeat the U. S. Aggressors and All their Running Dogs.”
matters. This is the law. In our state, simultaneously with

the increasing leftist trend in politics, its predominance in
organisational matters is also becoming pronounced day by
day. Some of the concrete manifestations of this trend are
given below :
(a) Mao Tsetung Thought teaches us that the rejection
of the principle of strengthening of the leadership of the Party
Committee means the establishing of authoritarianism. Marx¬
ism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought teaches us that “The Party
Committee system is an important Party institution for ensur¬
ing collective leadership and preventing any individual from
monopolising of the conduct of affairs.” (On Strengthening
the Party Committee System ). Chairman Mao Tsetung has
repeatedly warned us against the trend of monopolising of the
conduct of affairs and solving of important problems by any
individual and making the membership of the Party Commi¬
ttee nominal. But all the members who are regular readers of
‘Deshabrati' must have observed that many an important
policy has been published as “Comrade Charu Majumdar’s”
exhortation. In most cases even the State Secretary was not
informed beforehand—he also could come to know of it
only through the newspaper. Even the request to issue these
instructions in the name of the State Committee was rejected.
The latest example was Comrade Charu Majumdar’s decla¬
ration on the formation of the People’s Army. Even the
“formation of the People’s Army on the soil of India” was not
considered in the Party Committee, nor even in the Polit-
bureau, nor even in the State Committee ! Can anyone think
of such a situation ? Is it not the principle of placing an indi¬
vidual above the Party Committee ?
(b) At one time it was observed that Comrade Charu
Majumdar was sought to be established as representing the
authority and as its only interpreter in India [Shashanka’s *
*'Sh^shanka'was the pen-name of Saroj Datta, the then Secretary

of West Bengal State Committee of the CPI (ML).
observation published in Deshabrati.) Many a member of

the Central Committee had objected to the publication of
such articles. Comrade Charu Majumdar also expressed his
view that “publication of such articles was not correct”. It
was also proposed that the Party Congress Report should
describe him as the sole authority of Mao Tsetung Thought in
India. Quite justifiably many comrades opposed it. The
Party (Congress) acknowledged his leading role—the role on
which there was never any difference of opinions within the
Party. But even after that, some responsible comrades in
Bengal continued to project him as the authority. Is not this,
proposal to appoint him the sole authority ridiculous ? Mao
Tsetung Thought teaches us : “Knowledge is a matter of science.,
and no dishonesty or conceit whatsoever is permissible. What is
required is definitely the reverse—honesty and modesty.”
(On Practice). Mao Tsetung further teaches us : “To learn is
no easy matter and to apply what one has learned is even harder,”'
“This process of knowing is extremely important ; without
such a long period of experience, it would be difficult to under¬
stand and grasp the laws of an entire war. Neither a beginner
nor a person who fights only on paper can become a really
able high-ranking commander ; only one who has learned
through actual fighting in war can do so.” (Strategy of the
Revolutionary War in China).
Only from 1967 onwards we have begun to learn to study
and apply correctly Mao Tsetung’s Thought and his theory
of people’s war. Within such a short time is it not opposed
to the Party principle of collective leadership to propagate
things such as ‘the only interpreter’ etc. ?
To what level has “authoritarianism” reached today ?
Some of the most responsible leaders placed ultimatum before
the ordinary members of the Party, such as these : “This is
Charu Majumdar’s Party. Only those who would obey him
unconditionally will remain inside the Party.” Is it not the
policy of “commandism” that accompanies left deviation ?
(c) In this State, anyone expressing dissatisfaction (over
the policy) or anyone criticising in any manner (the policy of

the Party) is being labelled as “revisionist” or “centrist”.
And such acts are being performed by Comrade Charu
Majumdar himself and by many in responsible positions. Is
it encouraging ideological struggle ? Or, is it shelving it under
threat ? According to Mao Tsetung Thought, ideological
struggle is the “soul of the Party”. Then is not this gagging
tantamount to severing the Party from its soul ?
(d) The Bihar State Committee, in a document submitted
sometime ago, drew the attention to the “Left” (deviationist)
trend inside the Party. The document together with Comrade
Charu Majumdar’s replies to the questions raised therein were
circulated inside the Party. Our State Committee has given
its verdict that it is a “revisionist document.” But it is very
surprising that the document in question has not even reached
many units. Even a Politbureau member who stays very
near to the General Secretary—within a stone’s throw—was
not given the document. Should it be called the honest way
of conducting ideological struggle ? In this article, without
making any comments on the said document or on Comrade
Charu Majumdar’s comment on it, I want only to point out
that Comrade Majumdar concluded his comment with, “This
is vile”, as is known to all who have gone through it. The
question naturally arises—whether Comrade Majumdar was
commenting on any enemy document or that of criticisms of
a State Committee of the Party ? Is not such reaction resulting
from criticisms levelled by Party members an indication of
.impatience inherent in “Left” deviations ? Is it the correct
method of conducting ideological struggle ?
Chairman Mao teaches us : “If there were no contradictions
in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the
Party’s life would come to an end”. (On Contradiction,
August 1937).
(e) Militarism in the policy usually casts its shadow over
organisational matters too. Those who take part in “action”
twill form the Party Committees—the Party is being reorga-
fDEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 311
nised thus. The Party is the Party for “actions”. The Party
built on the ideology of armed struggles has been reduced to a
(terrorist Party.
(f) “We should carry on constant propaganda among the
people on the facts of world progress and the bright future
ahead so that they will build their confidence in victory.” By
this, Chairman Mao never intended that there should be any
exaggerated propaganda. Chairman Mao also says : “At the
same time we must tell the people and tell our comrades that
there will be twists and turns in our roads.” (On the Chung¬
king Negotiations, Oct. 7, 1945). In the pages of Deshabrati
one comes across many instances of exaggeration. A few
among those are being mentioned here.
(1) The “actions” the students and youth are conducting
in educational institutions are said to be comparable to the
May 4th Movement of 1919, of China.
(2) In the immediate past, hoisting of Red^flags over the
(factories and educational institutions were said to be comparable
to the historic Kharkhov movement.
(3) It is claimed that in Bengal thousands of poor
peasants have joined the guerilla units. Chairman Mao
teaches us : “In all mass movements we must make a basic
investigation and analysis of the number of active supporters,
opponents and neutrals and must not decide problems subjec¬
tively and without basis.” (Methods of work of Party
<\Committees, March 13, 1949)
But here Party Committees are not educated to undertake
"“basic investigation” and “basic analysis” in relation to any
movement. Yet report on any movement is presented in
such a way as if it is quite impressive.
Many worthy comrades have become martyrs after respon¬
ding to the call of creating red terror in urban areas. For
inspiration to these comrades it is being propagated that the
^comrades are being ‘tempered’ through the process. (Desha-
ibrati, Nov. 7 issue, editorial). There is a line in Chairman’s
^writings on tempering of comrades :
“...it is imperative for the revolutionary ranks to turn the

backward villages into advanced, consolidated base areas,
into great military, political, economic and cultural bastions
of the revolution from which to fight their vicious enemies
who are using the cities for attacks on rural districts, and in
this way gradually to achieve the complete victory of the
revolution through protracted fighting ; it is imperative for
them to do so if they do not wish to compromise with
imperialism and its lackeys but are determined to fight on,
and if they intend to build up and temper their forces, and
avoid decisive battles with a powerful enemy while their own
strength is inadequate.” (The Chinese Revolution and
the Chinese Communist Party, Dec. 1939.)
In our State we could not develop one single base area
where we could shift our comrades in times of need. In such
a situation, the policy of creating red terror in urban areas and
thus tempering the comrades is nothing but extreme adven¬
turism.
In the process of developing peasant struggle throughout
the country to its present stage since Naxalbari, we have lost
many worthy comrades. Compare with this the total number
of comrades that we lost during the period of creating red
terror in urban areas of our State. It would be apparent that
the loss is heavier in the latter instance. Self-sacrifice is essen¬
tial in revolution but we must also weigh our losses against the
gains achieved. Incurring so much loss was not necessary
simply for the purpose of tempering the comrades.
It is said that we are in an era of self-sacrifice. Chairman
Mao teaches us that fighting is the pivotal point of all our
strategy and tactics. Self-preservation is necessary for waging
a war ; again war itself demands self-sacrifice. The object of
war is specifically “to preserve oneself and destroy the enemy.”
In the strategy of people’s war there cannot be an era of exclu¬
sive self-sacrifice or an era of exclusive self-preservation. In
the strategy of people’s war, one has to go ahead step by step
through protracted struggles. The correctness cf Mao Tsetung
Thought is well-illustrated even today by the people’s war that

is going on around us in our country. To talk of the era of
exclusive self-sacrifice is nothing but an empty slogan.
Comrades, today, undoubtedly, we are standing at a very
critical juncture. The danger of Chairman’s China being
attacked has further increased with the expansion of war of
aggression waged by the U. S. imperialism from Cambodia
to Laos. In spite of this, it would be correct to say that revo¬
lution is still the dominant trend. The crisis faced by the
ruling classes has increased in depth and extent. The holding,
of general elections, before the scheduled time, clearly indicates
this. Chairman Mao teaches us : ‘Ged rid of the baggage
and start up the machinery,” (‘To start up the machinery’
means to make good use of the organ of thought.) Mao-
Tsetung further teaches us : “Communists must always go
into the whys and wherefores of anything, use their own heads
and carefully think over whether or not it corresponds to
reality and is really well-founded ; on no account should they
follow blindly and encourage slavishness.” (Rectify the Party'&
Style of Work, Feb. 1942)
Resist the ultra-adventurist trend raising its head in our
Party.
[Source : Samakal (a Bengali periodical), August 12 &.
August 26, 1978]
HOW THE PEOPLE CAN BE MOBILISED IN

GUERILLA WARFARE
[ This is a translation of an excerpt of a section of

a long article meant for discussion ‘Plunge into Re¬
volutionary Armed Agrarian Struggle’ (June 1971)
enumerating the differences of the MAOIST
COMMUNIST CENTRE with the CPI(ML) and
narrating, briefly, the position of the former regard-
,ing ‘the primary, principal and basic task of the

time’ (1971), viz. ‘to develop the People’s Army
and base areas.’ Ed.']
One thing is very clear. It is that each of the tasks be it
the building of base areas, or the building of the People’s Army
and the Party as a precondition to building base areas, or
developing a solid mass-base in selected areas—is inseparably
related to the success or failure in accomplishing the task of
developing, consolidating, extending and deepening the struggle
for Red resistance as also revolutionary agrarian guerilla war¬
fare in the villages and the cities, particularly in the rural areas
of selected regions. So a basic problem facing us is how to
make the people conscious and organise them very speedily so
that they may be mobilised in the struggle for Red resistance
as also revolutionary agrarian guerilla warfare.
In our opinion, if organizer-cadres do not follow the
correct line and principle constantly, if they do not work in a
planned manner and in the correct method, then it is not
possible to achieve expected success in the matter of constantly
mobilising the broad masses in guerilla warfare.
There are, in the revolutionary communist camp, certain
influential persons who do not care to have any correct lines
and principles, plans and methods ; as a result they are com¬
pletely indifferent towards educating new cadres regarding these
matters. Many of the CPI(ML) leaders consider it their
exclusive prerogative to “rack the brains” about lines and prin¬
ciples and anyone raising questions is immediately branded a
'“counter-revolutionary”. Further, any proposal about working
in a “planned manner” is termed “plan-ism,” not to speak of
pursuing a well-integrated method of work. They have inven¬
ted a short-cut method to mobilise people in guerilla warfare.
From their “fundamental theories” and recent activities, the
little that can be understood about this new short-cut method
is : There is no question of selecting areas most favourable for
the development of the People’s Army and base areas and
working there with special emphasis according to a plan, or of
developing a cadre-policy commensurate with that plan. Any¬

one can go to any village according to one’s sweet will—this
nearly sums up their attitude. On such questions as arousing
and organising the masses in revolutionary politics, investi¬
gating in the correct method and becoming integrated with the
masses, etc., they propound :
(a) “There is no need for intensive political propaganda
prior to starting guerilla warfare.” (Deshabrati, 30. 12. 69)
(b) “Guerilla war can be started without organizing the
people.” (ibid.)
(c) “Struggle may begin with the initiative of even a single
landless poor peasant in any single village and that will be the
only correct thing to do.” (ibid. 11-18 June, 1970)
(d) Again, “it is the intellectual comrade who will have
to take the initiative.” (ibid 30. 12. 69)
(e) “Coming from a centre 15 to 20 miles away, the guerilla
units are able to direct investigations and annihilate class-ene¬
mies in unknown, unacquainted places.” (ibid. 11-18 June, 1970)
We do not know what these and many similar lines have
to do with Mao Tsetung Thought. That the people cannot
be mobilised in guerilla war through these types of lines and
methods has been proved through the experience of the last
few years. In fact, these kinds of theories only encourage
isolated, individualistic, terroristic activities.
...In our opinion, it is only by pursuing a correct line and
principle, well-integrated plans and a correct method, that
more and more people can be mobilised constantly in guerilla
war. Basically it is a question of principle. On the basis of
this principle and keeping in view the aim of building up
guerilla forces and base areas in the villages, the method of
work we are advocating is, in short :
In order to go on defending against enemy attacks and
attacking the enemy, work in villages, covering extensive areas
which are fairly spread-out ; in the matter of building the
People’s Army, have the determination and courage to reach
specific goals within specified time or to surpass the target.
Work tenaciously in the villages, keep yourselves mobile and

try to organize the peasant masses as mobile guerilla teams.
Creatively propagate among the broad masses the politics
of agrarian revolution as also of protracted people’s war.
Investigate, and, on the basis of investigations, further
invigorate your propaganda campaigns ; incite intense hatred
against the rule and exploitation of the class enemies ; make the
people conscious about and organized for the struggle for Red
resistance as also the revolutionary agrarian guerilla warfare.
Rely on the poor and landless peasant masses, organize
the most advanced and active sections among them as mobile
propagandists and organizers or as the backbone of the leader¬
ship or as the Party, and organize the broad peasant masses
as guerilla teams constituting only those that can be organized
around the central programme of revolutionary agrarian
guerilla war.
In this way, arousing the people in wider areas and organi¬
zing some guerilla squads or teams, initiate the struggle for
Red resistance as also the struggle for routing feudalism.
Through this struggle alone, continuously strengthen, consoli¬
date and extend the Party and the guerilla forces (the local
militia and local regular guerilla forces) on the one hand, and
the areas under struggle on the other. Further deepen the
agrarian revolution ; build up a central regular guerilla force
by constantly centralizing the local regular guerilla forces.
Develop work in the urban areas as subordinate to and
around the central task of working in the countryside.
Arouse the people against every incident of exploitation
and coercion by imperialism and its comprador capitalist
groups. Develop resistance against every aspect of coercion—
economic, political, military and cultural. Enrich these resis¬
tance struggles with the ideology of agrarian revolution as
also protracted people’s war. And through these very
struggles for resistance build up regular guerilla forces not
only for the urban areas but also for participation in the
agrarian revolutionary guerilla war in the countryside.
■DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 317
The organizing of the agrarian revolution, the building up

■of the People’s Army and the base area in the countryside are
not the exclusive task of the peasants alone ; the worker, the
student, the youth—each has to take part in it—as organizer,
as soldier.
Apart from sending the best organizers and tested guerilla
teams to the countryside in order to develop, consolidate and
accelerate the agrarian revolution in the countryside, apart
from sending money, arms, medicine, provision and various
other help, the urban working class as also the Party has
another major task. In order to harass a large chunk of the
enemy forces in the cities, in order that the enemy may not
employ their entire—or al nost the entire—force against the
revolutionary struggle in the countryside, and, in order to
hinder enemy military activities, the urban working class as
also the Party has to organize and mobilize against the enemy
the struggling force and the creativity of the people in various
methods beginning with the struggle for resistance. But, in
trying to do these, they must guard against falling a prey to
enemy provocations and must not,—in the name of streng¬
thening urban resistance struggles, or guided by the psycho¬
logy of organizing insurrections in the cities before the libera¬
tion of the villages and the encirclement of the cities from the
countryside, or by any other psychology,—pit the forces of the
countryside in the cities or lay more emphasis on the urban
struggle than on the struggle in the countryside.
In all work, abide by the mass line aid the class line. In
all work, establish the leadership of the working class and its
Party.
In all work abide by Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung
Thought.
The understanding of and confidence in the correctness of
this line of work, which is determined by the line and
principle, and the plans and methods of our organization are
constantly increasing among comrades at all levels and among
the people through objective work.
Self-confidence of comrades is also increasing. Following

the method of work directed by the great Communist Party
of China (see the article ‘Pay Attention to Methods of work’,
collected from the Peking Review and published in
Dakshindesh), at all levels in the organization, particularly
among the leading cadres at all levels, the understanding in
these matters has to increase hundredfold, through theoretical
discussions and practice.
In order that we can continuously mobilise ever broader
masses of the people in the struggle for Red resistance as also
revolutionary agrarian guerilla war, and can, in the matter of
building up base areas, at least attain the minimum specific
goal within the time specified by the Central Committee, we
have to wage ideological struggles constantly against the wrong
tendencies prevailing within the organization and through that
continuously better our modes of work.
[Source : Dakshindesh (Bengali), June, 1971, the organ

of the Maoist Communist Centre]
A NOTE ON PARTY’S WORK IN URBAN AREAS
CHARU MAJUMDAR
We cannot occupy Calcutta and the different towns right

now and that is not also possible. Therefore, the Party
members who are in the urban areas cannot directly partici¬
pate in the struggle for seizure of power. But they have to
live in urban surroundings. As a result, they will repeatedly
be subjected to the influence of the ruling classes. There are
ups and downs in a struggle. Therefore, various sorts of con¬
fusions arise when the struggle suffers a setback. All
such confusion may be greater among comrades in towns.
That is why the comrades who will live in towns must give
greater emphasis on politics. They must steadfastly work
among the working class and the poorer classes and must
repeatedly try to form Party units by propagating our politics
among them. Our object is to form Party units among the
working class and to help develop Party organizers from
among workers. Of course, we shall always support the
workers and co- operate with them in their struggles. If there
are a large number of politically conscious Party units, the
working class will, on its own, conduct many struggles. Thus
the Party’s task is to form more and more units among the
working class and to raise the workers’ political consciousness.
The influence of revisionism on the working class is still great.
It is our task to free the working class from that influence.
The working class is ceaselessly conducting struggles, big and
small. Our political work among them will help them in
those struggles and draw the broad sections of the working
class into the fold of our politics. The class-conscious worker
will then voluntarily go to the villages and participate in the
peasants’ armed struggle. It is in this way that the firm unity
between the workers and the peasants will be established.
(Liberation, July 1971—January 1972, Yol. 5, No. 1)
A NOTE ON PARTY’S WORK IN RURAL AREAS
CHARU MAJUMDAR
{Nov. 18, 1971.)
The movement for seizing crops is a mass movement.

This is the first time that we are leading a mass movement
since we started our armed struggle. The aim of this move¬
ment is to make even the backward peasants participate in
our struggle. Without conducting this mass movement we
can in no way realize our objective—the objective of making
every peasant a fighter. Otherwise, this all-embracing chara¬
cter of People’s War can in no way be attained.
This movement will be directed against the class enemy,
•320 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
d.e., the jotedar class. It will also be conducted against such

rich peasants as may be actively co-operating with the police.
All other classes are allies in this struggle.
The Party will conduct this struggle through Revolutionary
Committees. It is in this way that the Revolutionary Committees
will be established as the new State power. The guerilla
squads will always help Revolutionary Committees.
If the Party is to discharge this responsibility, the Party
cadres will have to be much more conscious politically. Efforts
must always be made to raise political consciousness of Party
cadres. The Party cadres and the guerillas must study the
Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points of
.Attention. They must try to observe them to the very letter.
[■Liberation, July 1971—January 1972, Vol. 5, No. 1]
MAJUMDAR’S LAST WRITING
This is the summary of a thesis, published after

Charu Majumdar’s death in the July 1972 issue
of DESHABRATI, a Bengali mouthpiece of the
CPI(ML). The thesis is said to be the last
writing of Majumdar. It bears the date 9. 6. 72.
A broadest united front against the Congress rule can be

^established.
Today the ‘leftist’ parties are not giving any lead for
struggling against the oppression the Congress is perpetrating
on the ordinary people. The worker-peasant masses within
these parties have resentment against their leadership. We
have to carry on efforts to be united with them on the basis
of united struggle. Even those who at one time practised
enmity towards us will in special circumstances come forward
to be united with us. We must have largeness of mind to be
mnited with all these forces. Largeness of mind is the quality of
the communists. It is the people’s interest that today demands

united struggle. It is the people’s interest that is the Party’s
interest.
The armed struggle in our country has, after reaching a
stage, suffered a setback. Our task at this time is to keep the
Party alive. We will have to build the Party among the broad
worker-peasant masses. If only we can build a politically
united Party we shall be able to overcome this setback, to
raise the struggle to a stage still higher than before. I hope
that we shall be able to achieve it within a very short
period.
An upsurge is coming. A countrywide upsurge. We
must keep this upsurge in view. Then only we will have self-
confidence. Before this we witnessed upsurges in one or two
districts. The upsurge that is coming will be spread over a
still wider area, it will be of a still higher stage than before.
It has to be remembered that the progress of struggle is not
evolutionary but revolutionary. If we consider the way in
which the struggle under the Party’s leadership is progressing
and calculate on that basis, our country cannot be liberated
even by 2001, what to speak of its being liberated by 1975.
Since the progress and development of struggle is revolution¬
ary, the upsurge in the coming days will no longer be con¬
fined within a small area in which it occurred yesterday, and
the struggle in the days ahead will be still deeper and of a still
higher stage than that of the past.
Shall we be able to provide leadership everywhere during
the upsurge that is coming ? Certainly not. The struggle in
areas where there will be our conscious leadership will act as
an example to areas where our Party leadership is not present.
If we are able today to accomplish the work of land reforms in
some areas, the work of land reforms may be done sponta¬
neously in many areas during this revolutionary upsurge.
Our conscious leadership will give birth to armed revolutionary
upsurge, it is through this armed revolutionary upsurge that
■our leadership will be gradually established everywhere. In
Vo! 11—21
a short period, a spontaneous resentment will develop in our

country and it will ultimately take the character of a national
upsurge. India is a vast country. The people are crippled by
torture and exploitation. The exploiters and exploited are
now living in two distinct camps and face each other. The
hatred is generating among the exploited masses. They will
not allow torture to continue. Their growing resentment will
soon lead to spontaneous explosions in different parts of the
country. When the people of this vast country will explode
no reactionary government will be able to control it.
August 12, 1972
OPEN LETTER
The following letter was reported to have been

circulated by a number of CPI(ML) leaders—in
jail now—quite some time before Charu Majum-
dar's arrest and death in jail custody.
Comrades,
We convey our revolutionary greetings to all. We feel
that we are not competent to send you these suggestions,,
but owing to abnormal situation inside the Party now, we are
compelled to take this course.
By this time, we hope, you all know that the great glorious
and correct Chinese Communist Party had sent us most
valuable fraternal suggestions in respect of our liberation stru¬
ggle in India in the month of November, 1970.
We are citing certain excerpts of the valuable suggestions
for our convenience. The suggestions are :
(1) The Chinese Party grew and developed by fighting
alien trends—both left adventurism and right deviation.
(2) The Chinese Revolution became successful with three
magic weapons : (a) the Party (b) the People’s Army (c) the-
United Front.
(3) To call a Chairman of one Party as the Chairman of

another Party is wrong, and...it will wound the national senti¬
ment of the working class of this country.
(4) Your idea of United Front is wrong. You have said
that the United Front will come into being only after the
formation of some base areas. This is a mechanical under¬
standing. The United Front is a process. The United Front
comes into being at every stage of struggle, and again it breaks
down. This is not a permanent organisation. There is no
doubt that the worker-peasant unity is its main basis. But
the main understanding behind the United Front is the unity
between the exploiter and the exploited (those exploiters who
are not the main target of the revolution). The characteri¬
sation of the bourgeoisie as a whole comprador is wrong.
(5) Regarding the formulation that the open trade union,
open mass organisations and mass movements are out of date,
and taking to secret assassination as the only way : This idea
needs rethinking. Formerly we misunderstood your word
‘annihilation’. We used to think that the idea is taken from
our Chairman’s war of annihilation. But from July 1970 issue
of Liberation (the organ of CPI-ML) we came to understand
that this annihilation means secret assassination.
(6) You have applied Lin Piao’s People’s War Theory
in a mechanical way. Lin’s Guerilla War theory is a military
affair. During the anti-Japanese resistance war when we had
an army of 10 lakhs, at that time some comrades in the army
raised a slogan that positional warfare and mobile warfare are
the way to mobilise the people. In reply to this wrong theory^
Comrade Lin said that guerilla war is the only way to mobilise
the people. This military theory has no relation with political
and organisational question.
(7) Regarding the formulation that if a revolutionary
does not make his hand red with the blood of class enemies,.
then he is not a Communist: If this be the yardstick of a
Communist then that Communist Party cannot remain a Com¬
munist Party.
(8) No stress has been given on agrarian revolution and

the slogan for the seizure of State power is counterpoised
to the land problem. There is no agrarian programme.
(9) Without mass struggle and mass organisation, the
peasants’ armed struggle cannot be sustained. The Commu¬
nist Party of China supported Naxalbari struggle not merely as
.a struggle for the seizure of State power. The article ‘Spring
Thunder’ published in China in support of Naxalbari and
later published in Liberation will clarify it.
(10) The authority and prestige of a leader cannot be
■created but grow and develop.
(11) The general orientation of (CPI-ML) is correct but
its policy is wrong.
We firmly accept these valuable suggestions and criticism
from the fraternal Party. We deeply feel that the Central
Committee of our Party led by Comrade Charu Majumdar
should have accepted the above suggestions and criticism at
-once and made self-criticism and rectify the mistakes, as
suggested, in the interest of the agrarian revolution of our
country.
But to our great disappointment, regret and disgust, we
found that Comrade Charu Majumdar and the Central Com¬
mittee led by him, has refused to take lessons from the above
valuable suggestions. In our opinion, if he had any reserva¬
tions in respect of the suggestions from the fraternal Party,
then he could have readily circulated the fraternal Party’s
suggestions to all the Party units for discussion. But he failed
to take this course, as a result of which discussion and discord
cropped up inside the Party. This is the bad old method and
practice followed inside the Indian Communist movement.
We firmly believe that the Central Committee and the
Central Party line have deviated from the path of the glorious
Naxalbari peasant uprising. That is, the path shown in their
Report on Peasant Movement in the main has completely
■departed from the path enunciated in the famous article
“‘Spring Thunder” in respect of our armed agrarian revolu-
tion. We deeply feel that our policy suffered Left adventurist

deviations as a result of which a wrong left adventurist method
was adopted for which at present the Party in fact has split
into groups and factions and Com. Sushital Roy Chowdhury
was the victim of this method and for this the cause of the armed
agrarian revolution of our country is hindered and jeopardised.
We firmly declare that we do not owe any allegiance to any
group or faction. Our relation with the groups which believed
in the Thoughts of Mao, both inside and outside the CPI (ML)
is not antagonistic. We firmly believe that as General Secre¬
tary of the Party, Comrade Charu Majumdar is mainly respon¬
sible for the Left adventurist deviations and at the same time,
we firmly believe that all the members of the former first
Central Committee elected by the first Congress of the Party
and all the members co-opted in the present Central Commi¬
ttee cannot also shirk their responsibilities, because they are
also more or less directly or indirectly responsible for the Left
adventurist deviations.
We, the undersigned, with utmost devotion and frankness
accept our guilt and we emphatically declare that we will
boldly accept the criticisms of our comrades in this connection,
and we are also doing our self-criticisms with full honesty.
We call upon all the members of the former and the present
Central Committee to accept their guilt and make self-criticism
in the interest of our armed agrarian revolution.
We earnestly request all the members of our Party and the
sympathisers to be bold enough and come forward unhesita¬
tingly to repudiate the Left adventurist deviationist line advo¬
cated by Comrade Charu Majumdar and ask him to make
honest self-criticism and to accept his guilt in respect of our
armed agrarian revolution. We also appeal to our comrades
and sympathisers to criticise the Central Committee members
and ask them to accept their guilt and make self-criticism
honestly. We must be very careful against revisionism, while
fighting against Left deviations, which have become the main
danger inside the Party for the present.
We appeal earnestly to all the members of our Party to

prepare a review of the struggle in their respective areas ;
start discussions throughout the Party ; and try to rectify
the mistakes in the light of the Naxalbari path as laid down
in the article ‘Spring Thunder’, and by accepting the sugges¬
tion from the great, glorious and correct Chinese Communist
Party as the basis, without any reservations and create a new
unity to carry forward the armed agrarian struggle.
Kanu Sanyal
Chowdhary Tejeswara Rao
Souren Bose
Date of publication D. Nagabhusanam Patnaik
in FRONTIER Kolia Venkaiah
November 4, 1972 D. Bhuvan Mohan Patnaik
MORE ABOUT NAXALBARI
KANU SANYAL
(April 1973)
The Naxalbari peasant uprising is going to complete its

sixth year. During these six years, a storm of many events
has swept over the whole country. The formation of the
“Naxalbari Aid Committee” in 1967 and thereafter the crea¬
tion of the “All India Co-ordination Committee of the
Communist Revolutionaries,” centering around the peasant
uprising of Naxalbari, was a big step forward in the history of
the Indian Communist movement. The slogan of building up
of Naxalbari type of struggles under the leadership of AICCCR
brought about an enormous new wave of struggles all over
the country. This enormous new tide was so extensive and
deep that it created stir amongst the majority of the oppressed
people and youth of West Bengal, Bihar, Andhra, Uttar Pradesh,
Kerala, Punjab, Assam, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir. It
■can only be compared with the post-war events of 1946-47.
This stir, on the one hand, created panic within the ruling
classes and on the other, enhanced the process of disintegra¬
tion amongst the reactionary, revisionist and neo-revisionist
parties. Why this new indication of vast possiblities brought
about by the Naxalbari peasant uprising suddenly failed, from
the beginning of 1969, needs thorough re-examination.
The peasant uprising of Naxalbari acted as a decisive factor
in uniting the Communist Revolutionaries all over India.
After the formation of the AICCCR, some of its correct steps
also opened up new possibilities. As the AICCCR did not
make a proper and correct evaluation of the Naxalbari peasant
uprising, Naxalbari was reduced simply to an image. Over
and above, the Co-ordination Committee, not being able to
discuss and reach a clear decision on the ‘Terai Report’ (even
with its shortcomings), hampered the cause of developing itself
into a leading team. On the other hand, for unknown reasons,
no discussion took place on the ‘Terai Report’ in the Darjeeling
district ; as a result, the Communist Revolutionaries of
Darjeeling district failed to give a correct and complete history
of Naxalbari peasant uprising before the Communist Revolu¬
tionaries of the country. This helped a clique of political
careerists, who were trying to utilise Naxalbari for their narrow
group ends from the outset to come in the limelight of leader¬
ship. The All India Co-ordination Committee failed to realise
the mischief of this political careerist group even after the
publication of the article “Spring Thunder Breaks Over India”
by the Chinese Communist Party. The net result of this was
that this clique of political careerists utilised the glorious role of
Naxalbari uprising to project a single individual as the creator
of Naxalbari within the Co-ordination Committee. Taking
the opportunity of confinement in jails, their living under¬
ground and the exclusion from the Co-ordination Committee
for unknown reasons, of the Naxalbari Communist Revolu¬
tionaries, this clique of political careerists established Charu
Majumdar as the leader-creator of Naxalbari with the plea of
"“Lessons of Naxalbari” and “Evaluation of Naxalbari.” The
subjective outlook of the AICCCR towards the Naxalbari

peasant uprising and its lack of political vigilance led to the
split in the unity of the Communist Revolutionaries. Availing
of this chance, this careerist clique were successful in their
conspiracy to make this split permanent by hurriedly forming
the CPI(ML), basing on the slogans : “guerilla warfare is
the only way” and “individual annihilation is the only strategy
and tactic.’* After twenty years of the Telengana peasant
rebellion, the peasant uprising of Naxalbari in 1967 brought
anew the basic question before the Communist Revolutionaries :
What should be the role of the peasantry in the stage of the
New Democratic revolution in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial'
country like India ? On the solution of this question depends
the success or failure of the democratic revolution of India.
To state more explicitly, is it the bourgeoisie who will lead the
peasants, or is it the proletariat who will establish hegemony
over its dependable and numerically bigger ally, the peasantry*
in the stage of the democratic revolution ? The revisionists
and the neo-revisionists pose the peasant problem in an agra¬
rian country like India as a mere economic problem ; in the
question of seizure of political power they tag the peasants to
the coil of the ruling classes and leave the peasants at the
mercy of the bourgeois leadership. And the left adventurists
deny the economic reasons of social development by putting
forward the theory that “force” or “political power” creates
and regulates the economic relations, deny the very programme
of agrarian revolution in the stage of democratic revolution
and push the peasantry towards the bourgeoisie.
Almost a hundred years ago, Engels, while fighting against
the conspirators within the social democratic movement, said
in his work, Anti-Duhring : “In short, always and everywhere
it is the economic conditions and instruments of power which
help “force” to victory and without which force ceases to be
force, and anyone who tried to reform methods of warfare
from the opposite standpoint...would certainly earn nothing,
but a beating.”
The Naxalbari peasant uprising forcefully presented this

peasant problem and its importance before the democratic
revolution of India. In order to confuse this question, an
effort was made to show in a subtle and cunning way, since
1967, as if Naxalbari was suddenly created in 1967, Naxalbari
was the creation of the documents written by Charu Majumdar
known as Eight Documents and Naxalbari could not preserve
its existence because of not following the instructions of Charu
Majumdar. To make a scientific analysis of the real history of'
the Naxalbari peasant uprising, anew post-mortem is necessary.
Mao Tsetung in his article, ‘Reform Our Study’, has said :
“Marxism-Leninism is a science and science is knowledge
come by honesty ; absolutely no trickery will do.” In the same
article he again said : “Instead of relying on sheer enthusiasm
one must, as Stalin says, combine revolutionary sweep with
practical spirit. With this attitude one will not chop up
history...such an attitude is one of seeking the truth from facts
and not one of impressing people by claptrap.”
The Naxalbari peasant uprising was not suddenly created
in 1967. It did not fall from the heaven by the grace of God
nor was it a spontaneons movement. Lenin has taught us r
“Socialism is not the invention of any dreamer ; on the other
hand, it is the necessary result of the development of the
productive forces in modern societies. The past history of
human society is the history of class struggle. This class
struggle will continue until private property and anarchy in
social system of production, which are the foundations of class
contradiction and class domination, are liquidated.” The
idealists refuse to accept this interpretation of history. The
conspirators within the socialist movement want to chop up
the past history. They want to show that history was not
created by the slaves. According to them, heroes, intelligent
and wise persons create history. To them the past history is
full of ignorance and full of mistakes. They say, one or two
wise heroes will enlighten the world. Unfortunately, such one
or two wise heroes did not illumine the path of Naxalbari.
The past history of the workers and peasants of the

Naxalbari area is a history of glorious class struggle. The
beginning of this class struggle dates back to 1946. Then
there was an interruption in the struggle from 1948-51 owing
to the ultra-leftist, adventurist line of the Communist Party
of India. Thereafter, commencing from 1951 at a stretch
upto the year 1967, the history of the Naxalbari area is a
history of longdrawn class struggle. This class struggle surged
ahead through zig-zag course, both peaceful and violent means,
legal and illegal clashes and through consistent painstaking
work of the communist cadres. The aim of this article is not
to go into details about the class struggles of the workers and
peasants of the Naxalbari area. It can be described in short
through a few stages.
The Darjeeling district was a non-regulated area under
the British rule. After 1947, though not considered as non-
regulated area, the ill-effects were still felt. While the workers
throughout the country were enjoying trade union rights,
it was impossible for an outsider to approach the workers
in the Naxalbari area, and to approach the peasant huts, a
person from a political party had to depend on the mercy and
the permission of the landlords (joteders ). Amidst this
condition, 1951-54 was the period of the organisation stage in
the Naxalbari area. During this stage, the peasantry of Naxal¬
bari advanced through clashes to get themselves organised.
This stage was a period to organise and to put a stop to illegal
small extortion of the jotedars. Even at this primary stage the
peasants’ class struggle could not advance through the so-
called peaceful means ; on the contrary, it was a path of bloody
clashes with the jotedars. Tea gardens and villages being
adjacent to each other, the peasants learnt through their
class struggle that without the presence of the tea workers
by their side, their class struggle would not surge forward.
From this angle, the peasant cadres of Naxalbari area, by
skilfully organising the tea workers, proved their class
• consciousness.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 33Jr
The second stage from 1955 to 1957 was the period of

development of united class struggle of the workers and
peasants of the Naxalbari area and it was a higher stage.
It was a higher stage for two reasons :
(1) The worker-peasant unity was not merely a slogan-
mongering one ; the working class understood that in order to
realise its class demands the active support of the peasantry
was indispensable and sought active support of the peasantry
in each of their struggles and supported the peasantry in the
same way. In short, a firm alliance of the working class and
the peasantry developed and it remained as it was till 1967.
(2) The class struggle itself shook their illusions on legalism
and they in turn armed themselves with conventional weapons,
not depending upon customary, legal and peaceful means.
The years 1955-56 were memorable in the class struggle of
the workers and peasantry of Naxalbari. During 1955, in the
Bonus struggle of the tea workers, thousands of tea workers
and peasants not only forced the tea planters but also the
police to retreat. On one occasion, about ten thousand armed
tea workers and peasants disarmed the police force. Armed
workers and peasants transformed the Bonus movement into
a political struggle.
In 1958-62—in the third stage—the West Bengal Kisan
Sabha gave a call to regain possession of ‘benami’ land. The
sub-divisional Kisan Samiti in Naxalbari declared from its
conference that the partial struggle for the recovery of the
‘benami’ land within the four walls of land would not serve
the purpose of real land reforms and would not help build
peasant unity. So the conference gave a call to confiscate
the entire produce of jotedar’s land. The call of the conference
was : (1) Reap and store the harvest at your own place and
raise the Red flag ; (2) jotedars must furnish proof of their
ownership before the peasant committee without which no
share to them ; (3) arm yourself to protect the crop ; and
(4) save your crop from the police. The intensity of the
struggle of 1958-59 could be felt from the following facts :
332 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL ir
About two thousand peasants were arrested in that year

seven hundred criminal cases were instituted ; police could
not arrest any leading cadre ; clashes with the jotedars, clashes
with the police and snatching of arms etc., took place.
Naxalbari, in that year, turned into a Red flag area. The
peasantry could keep 80% of the crop in their possession and
saved 70% of the crop from the hands of the police in that
struggle. In one occasion, a big Congressite jotedar planned'
to loot the paddy of the peasants in a weak area by mobilising
Congress volunteers. Hearing this news, five thousand armed
peasants resisted the Congress goondas and police and helped
the peasants to get back their entire produce. 1958-59 was-
the year of terror for the jotedars and planter-landowners.
The fighting mood and class consciousness of the peasants of
Naxalbari was no lesser than that of 1967. The role of Charu
Babu in this movement was peculiar. Though he was not
directly connected with this struggle, he arbitrarily declared
withdrawal of the struggle at the instruction of the State Kisan
Sabha leaders without prior consultation with the participants-
of the struggle. The intensity of the struggle can be understood
from the fact that the struggle was branded as ‘left adventurist’
in the Political-Organisational report of the West Bengal
conference of the Communist Party held in the year 1960.
Inspite of this, the peasantry of Naxalbari carried on their
struggle to preserve the fruits of the struggle till 1962.
During the fourth stage—1962-64—-in the years of India-
China border clash, the workers and peasants of Naxalbari
stood, in support of China, fearlessly. Even in these years of
chauvinism and bitter anti-communism, the workers and
peasants of Naxalbari boldly stood firm and did not allow
even any meeting to be held by the chauvinists in the rural
areas. As a result, besides many middle class cadres arrested
throughout West Bengal, more than a hundred workers and
peasants were arrested only in Naxalbari. Even then the
workers and peasants preserved their organisational strength
by resisting onslaught of the jotedars and tea planters. In 1964,
(DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 33?
the worker, peasant and middle class party cadres in Darjeeling

-district fought vehemently against revisionism, isolated the
Dangeites from town and rural areas and formed CPI(M) and
xegistered their unequivocal support to the stand of the
Chinese Communist Party in the international communist
movement. These events prove the higher level of political
-consciousness of the worker, peasant and middle class cadres
of the Party of the Siliguri sub-division.
The struggles, as described from 1951 to 1964, did not
develop spontaneously. These struggles could be organised
because there was a leading team of self-sacrificing cadres of
the Communist Party dedicated to the service of the people.
It should be mentioned that there was no wage-earning whole-
timer of Party. A few episodes have only been mentioned here
of the important struggles during the period 1951-64. Therefore,
the Naxalbari peasant uprising did not take place suddenly
in 1967. It is for the existence of this glowing history of the
past glorious class struggles that Naxalbari became a reality.
Those who do not want to perceive the past history, whatever
they may be, are no Marxists.
Now let us come to the ‘Eight Documents' written by
Charu Majumdar. To many, these eight documents may seem
mysterious ; because many do not know their source and
their existence. Particularly, 90% of those connected with
the AICCCR and the CPI(ML) do not know about them.
There was constant propaganda since 1967 that the ‘Eight
Documents' written by Charu Majumdar were the creators of
Naxalbari. How far is this claim justified can be seen from
the events of the communist movement in the Darjeeling
district from 1965 to 1967.
After the formation of the CPI (M) and just before the
holding of its (Party) Congress in 1964, the reactionary
Congress Government arrested the communist cadres all over
West Bengal. At that time, beginning from October 1964 upto
the first part of 1965, workers, peasants and middle class Party
.cadres of Siliguri subdivision (Naxalbari) were arrested en
masse but Charu Majumdar was not arrested because of his

illness, and eventually he too was arrested at the end of 1965.
During the period, 1964—June 1966, the Party cadres of
Darjeeling district had to wage ideological struggle with the
CPI(M) leadership while in jail. And during this very period,
they prepared themselves politically and arrived at the firm
conclusion that the liberation struggle of India must follow
the Chinese path. Just at the same period, Charu Majumdar
wrote six documents and distributed them among the party
cadres expressing his opinion about the democratic revolution
of India and about the CPI(M) leadership. Many cadres of
Darjeeling district could know about these documents while
they were in jail through the press report of UNI of Kalimpong
in the bourgeois papers. The threats of the CPI(M) leadership
regarding these documents on the one hand and the ignorance
of the real contents of the documents on the part of the cadres
of Darjeeling district created an uneasy chaotic situation.
Charu Majumdar sent 5/6 of his selected cadres to the rural
areas with these documents. These new young cadres went to
the villages and made a futile effort from 1965 to June 1966 to
propagate according to these documents. Meanwhile, cadres of
Darjeeling district came to know about the contents of the
documents after their release from jail in June 1966. Then the
discussions on the basis of these documents started between
them and Charu Majumdar.
In short, the major points of the documents were : CPI(M)
is a revisionist party and should be unmasked ; the Chinese
path is the path of liberation of India ; armed struggle is the
immediate task ; to form secret combat groups is immediate
task ; setting fire to jotedar’s house, attacking the individual
jotedar and collection of guns through these combat groups
are the immediate tasks ; not political campaign but ‘action’
will mobilise the people and there is no necessity of mass
organisation and mass movement. The leading cadres of
Siliguri Local Committee after discussion with him agreed on
some points and disagreed on some others. The points on
which agreement was arrived at were : Chinese path is the

path of liberation of India ; agrarian revolution can be
completed through armed struggle ; propagate the politics of
agrarian revolution among the workers and peasants and
organise them to build up a secret Party organisation. The
points on which the leading cadres of the Local Committee
put stress were : the indispensability of workers’ and peasants’
mass organisations and mass movement ; necessity of inner-
party ideological struggle inside CPI(M) ; political work and
‘actions’ are not opposed to each other ; on the contrary,
‘action’ will be meaningless if politics is not in command and
so political work is the necessary condition for preparation ;
necessity of mass struggles through which organs of struggles
are to be built up and necessity of mass organisation in urban
areas. Charu Babu declined to agree on these points. In
short, from the very start there were two distinct opinions
which may be called confrontation between two lines. At
this stage a compromise was reached. It was decided that
the cadres of the Local Committee would put into practice, in
Naxalbari area, those agreed points in accordance with their
own experience, and the new cadres would act according to
Charu Babu’s opinion in an area adjacent to Naxalbari, Chater
Hat-Islampur area in West Dinajpur district. As Charu
Majumdar was connected with the workers’ and peasants’
struggles in Jalpaiguri district till 1952, the cadres of the
Darjeeling district were respectful to him and so this compro¬
mise was possible.
The work in Chater Hat-Islampur area was started exactly
on the basis of the six documents. Secret groups were formed,
a little political propaganda was made and actions were started.
That is, efforts were made to set fire to jotedars’ houses, some
paddy were harvested at night and plans for snatching guns
failed. As politics was not given importance, as the necessity
of building up mass organisations and mass movements was
ignored, actions based on combat groups became the assembly
place for some lumpen elements. During the Naxalbari up-
rising in 1967, the jotedars of this area mobilised the entire

peasantry behind a certain political party and attacked the
houses of the known combat group cadres. The combat group
cadres were bewildered in the face of this attack of the jotedars
accompanied by the peasants. Why the peasants went under
the leadership of the jotedars, they could not account for. As
a result, combat groups became ineffective and disorganised.
Some leaders of the combat groups and party cadres, having
no shelter in the face of jotedars’ attack, were forced to leave
the area. It should be remembered that this happened when
Naxalbari was at its peak. After this nothing was left in that
area excepting a handful of peasant families. The party cadres
of that area isolated themselves from the masses by trying to
apply the ‘Eight Documents'. It is enough to quote Mao
Tsetung here : ‘‘Thus any practice that isolates us from the
masses has no sanction at all, and it is simply the mischief
done by the sectarian ideas of some comrades’ own invention.”
In Naxalbari area, or more precisely in Darjeeling district,
the party cadres decided to gain majority in the District
Committee by carrying on ideological struggle inside the
CPI(M). Out of a total of 26 members of the District
Committee, all but six accepted the politics of the Local
Committee and a separate secret committee was formed inside
the District Committee. The party members of the tea gardens
in Darjeeling district both in the hills and in the plains started
supporting the politics of the secret District Committee. At
that time the struggle inside the CPI(M) reached to such an
extent that the West Bengal State Committee was forced to
withdraw its decision of expulsion of Charu Majumdar from
the party membership. Although Charu Majumdar apparently
accepted the necessity of ideological struggle in the CPI(M),
in practice he disregarded it and so in an unguarded moment
the West Bengal State Committee got the opportunity to
dissolve the Darjeeling District Committee. In spite of this,
the ideological struggle inside the CPI(M) spread to the
„ adjacent districts.
During the Naxalbari uprising in 1967 it was possible to

hold 105 meetings of the Party members and sympathisers
in 21 days only in Calcutta. From 1966 to the month of May
1967, working as one disciplined team, the cadres of the Local
Committee and District Committee organized the Party mem¬
bers on the one hand, led mass struggles on the other, and
were able to resist the attacks of the CPI(M) leadership. It
was possible because the cadres could practise firmness in
principle and flexibility in policy as far as practicable. But
after May ’67 this style of work could not be maintained
Because Charu Majumdar could take advantage of some factors
present at that time : (1) Party cadres’ extreme hatred against
revisionists of all types ; (2) The state leadership’s ill treat¬
ment towards the cadres of the Darjeeling district for their
criticism of the CPI(M) revisionist leadership since 1966. This,
together with the discontent amongst the cadres led to blind
antagonism among cadres who lost the sense of flexibility ;
{3) Treating the rank and file members and the leadership of
the CPI(M) at par by the cadres of the Darjeeling district, i. e,,
forgetting the glorious anti-revisionist role of the rank and
file members of the CPI(M) ; (4) The absence of secret and
skilful party centre to resist the attack of the CPI(M)
leadership, to preserve the mass struggle in face of the police
onslaught of the United Front Government and above all, to
lead properly the Naxalbari uprising ; (5) Unbearable condi¬
tions of underground life of Naxalbari cadres in the face of
brutal attacks of the U.F. Govt, police (with order to shoot
at sight). (6) Lack of self-reliance and self-confidence of the
Naxalbari cadres and their unconditional faith in Charu
Majumdar. At this period Charu Babu was staying at home
due to illness ; it was not possible for him to move about.
So he had no direct connection with the struggle. But these
aforesaid reasons opened up scope for him to distract the
Party cadres.
The period June—December ’66 may be termed as a
springboard of Naxalbari uprising. The District and Local
Vol 11—22
• Ul. . • f l j \Jk ■ : ' f, l '« ■*
Party cadres propagated the politics of agrarian revolution

among the tea workers. As a result, tea-worker Party
members and the general tea workers mobilised around the
revolutionary party cadres. Workers’ discontent against the
revisionist Union leaders on the one hand and economic
clashes on the other, pushed the workers towards struggle.
In that sense, nine days’ general strike in tea industry in
September ’66 played the preparatory role of the Naxalbari
peasant uprising and the tea workers played the role of the
vanguard. When the tea workers’ strike in the adjacent
Jalpaiguri district was fizzling out, the militant mood of the
tea workers of Darjeeling district scared the revisionist leader¬
ship who hastily took to the path of settlement of the strike.
In Darjeeling district, the strike was more extensive than that
of 1955. Besides the workers of the Red flag union, workers
of other unions and even the workers of unorganised gardens
had to join the strike. At the death of a worker in police
firing during clash with police in the hills, the workers’ mood
of revenge rose so high that the revisionists got panicky.
In the plains, that is, in Naxalbari, the peasants stood firm by
the side of the workers leaving aside their intensive agricultural
work. Armed workers and peasants continued the strike
scaring the blacklegs away and forced the police to retreat.
The struggle was not confined within the bounds of the tea
workers’ economic demands but turned into a political struggle
of the working class and the peasantry. By withdrawing the
strike without realising any basic demand, the revisionists got
all the more isolated from the workers. The District and
Local cadres took full advantage of this situation and passed
resolution on the programme of agrarian revolution from the
branch conferences of the plantation unions. In the annual
conference of the hill tea workers, the revisionist leaders
were severely criticised and ousted from the trade unions.
The annual conference of the plantation workers in Naxalbari
advanced one step farther and called upon the peasants to
start struggle for land. The correct method of work of the
party cadres in respect of mass organisation and mass struggle

helped to mobilise the workers and peasants of the district
as well as Naxalbari area, build up anew more trade unions
which led to drawing them in the struggle. It was found that
during Naxalbari uprising the tea workers observed general
strike three times in support of the peasant struggle. The
Party cadres of Darjeeling district defeated through practice
Charu Majumdar’s line of ignoring the necessity of trade
unions for the time being.
From the experience of these struggles, Charu Babu
changed his opinion and was compelled to accept the utility
of economic struggles and wrote document Nos. 7 and 8 on
these experiences. But wrong ideas cannot be got rid of by
winning only once in the struggle against erroneous ideas
so consistent struggle must be waged against incorrect ideas.
It is always urgent and indispensable task to make the party
cadres, general party members and the people vigilant against
the mistaken ideas. But unfortunately because of the conti¬
nuation of struggle inside the CPI(M) and the mass struggles
simultaneously, events advanced with such a speed that this
could not be possible. So though some formulations of
document Nos. 7 and 8 were correct, Charu Majumdar was
able to drag the cadres to his own old line easily. The tea
workers’ struggle of September 1966 influenced the peasantry
so immensely that in November/December of the same year
the peasants’ movement for seizure of crop started. This
movement quickly spread all over Naxalbari area. Utilising
the experience of the struggle of 1958-59 and enthused with
the politics of agrarian revolution, armed workers and pea¬
sants created terror among jotedars and planter land-owners.
Thousands of organised armed peasants harvested paddy and
also snatched guns and this took place without the help of any
such combat groups. When the armed police force came to
seize crops, hundreds of armed tea workers prevented them.
At this time warrants of arrest were issued against the workers
and peasants. As a result, the Party cadres had to go under-
ground. In 1967 the question of election came just at the

time when warrants of arrest were hanging on the Party cadres,
ordinary workers and peasants. The District and Local Party
cadres utilised the election to propagate the politics of agrarian
revolution. During this period, the Party cadres gathered
some experience of combining legal with illegal works in an
illegal condition (because of warrants). A difference occurred
between the District cadres and some new cadres on utilising this
election. The cadres of Darjeeling district pointed out that at
this moment utilising this present election to serve the politics
of agrarian revolution and the advocation of the parliamentary
path—these two are not the same. In practice, the emergence
of Naxalbari uprising immediately after the election proved
the correctness of the District cadres. From this it should not
be concluded that it is a tactic for all the time. The unity of
the workers and peasants of Naxalbari was further strengthened
through the election and a basis of unity between the poor
peasants and middle peasants, on the one hand, and a part of
the rich peasants along with a few small landlords, on the
other, was created. During the past election period the work
of Party cadres multiplied. The division of share produce
.remained postponed owing to the election. As a result,
immediately after the election, the share-croppers started
taking away the entire produce depriving the jotedars, which
sparked off clashes with them. The jotedars were forced to
retreat in face of combined resistance of workers and peasants.
In these circumstances, the peasantry compelled the Party
•caders to declare the practical task of the agrarian revolution.
Consequently the proposal for seizure of land started pouring
from numerous area conferences. This was reflected in the
■sub-divisional joint conference of the workers and peasants
held on May 7, 1967.
This historic conference of May 7, 1967 brought forth
Naxalbari before the whole country. The creator of the
Naxalbari peasant uprising was the mass organisation and mass
struggles of workers and peasants. The implementation of the
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 34 B
task of seizure of land gave birth to this uprising. The program¬

me of seizure of land taught the peasantry that only by smashing
the political domination and power of the jotedars and planter-
landowners in the rural areas and in their place by establis¬
hing the political domination and power of the workers and
peasants in the rural areas, the task of the agrarian revolution
can be completed. The lesson of Naxalbari is that the main
content of agrarian revolution is to distribute land to the
peasants ; it is for the preservation of that land in his posse¬
ssion that resistance struggles will develop in rural areas which,
in its turn, will transform into a struggle for political power.
So in the stage of democratic revolution or agrarian revolution,
struggle for land and struggle for political power are inter¬
twined. The writer of the Terai Report has correctly described
how the Naxalbari peasants’ struggle for land surged forward
and how the peasants’ revolutionary committee established
political power in the rural areas. In spite of that he failed to-
understand the scientific conclusion that in the stage of agrarian
revolution, struggle for land and struggle for state power in the
rural areas are intertwined. For this reason he diverted him¬
self to a mechanical and incorrect formulation by trying to-
explain the real lessons of Naxalbari uprising in terms of
erroneous anti-Marxist-Leninist line of the Eight Documents.
Practically Naxalbari uprising is a living protest to the Eight
Documents. Lenin said : “Both economic and political
agitations are equally necessary to develop class consciousness
of the proletariat ; both economic and political agitations are
equally necessary for guiding the class struggle of the Russian
workers, because every class struggle is a political struggle.
These two kinds of agitation are inseparably connected in the
activities of the social democrats as the two sides of the same
medal.”
Here one more side of the Eight Documents is to be
mentioned. If the cadres of Darjeeling district could
scrutinise the Eight Documents they would have understood'
. ?
that Charu Babu remained in Siliguri from 1952 till 1965—

342 naxalbari and after VOL II
r
which was the time of writing these documents ; but surpri¬
singly enough, in the first six documents no mention was ever
made of the worker-peasants’ class struggle of Naxalbari.
Even in document Nos. 7 and 8 there was no mention of the
implementation of politics of agrarian revolution in the Naxal¬
bari area from June to December, 1966. From these omissions
some fair questions arise, such as : Did Charu Majumdar
omit this unintentionally ? Was there nothing worth learning
from the long-drawn 17 years’ of glorious struggles of tea
workers and peasants in Siliguri sub-division of Darjeeling
district ? Was the glorious struggle of the tea workers and
peasants of June-December ’66 so insignificant that it could
not be mentioned in Charu Babu’s document Nos. 7 and 8 ?
Some more scrutiny of the document No. 8 will reveal that
besides mentioning a partial experience of killing of a scab in
the Tebhaga struggle of 1946, he mentioned only the 1965 food
movement in South Bengal. It was in no way unintentional on
his part. Leaving aside other conclusions it can be said that
Charu Babu was suffering from the disease of subjective
over-enthusiasm which led to personal egoism. That is why
he consciously chopped up the past history and did not take
any lesson from it. He did not want to analyse the objective
realities and so with his subjective over-enthusiasm and egoism
placed personal feelings above principles. Marxism-Leninism
and Mao Tsetung Thought teach that subjectivism will inevi¬
tably push towards opportunism or adventurism. In fact,
that only took place. Charu Majumdar wanted to establish
anarchism in a new form. The history following the forma¬
tion of the CPI(ML) has proved this. In 1878, while
repudiating Duhring in the social democratic movement in
his work Anti-Duhring, Engels said : “...the principles are not
the starting point of the investigation, but its final result ;
they are not applied to nature and human history, but abstra¬
cted from them ; it is not nature and the realm of humanity
which conform to these principles, but the principles are only
valid in so far as they are in conformity with nature and history.
That is the only materialist conception of the question.” Lenin

said : “In this respect Marxism learns, if we may so express,
from mass practice and makes no claim whatever to teach
the masses forms of struggle invented by systematisers in
the seclusion of their studies.” Mao Tsetung said : “We
are Marxists and Marxism teaches that in our approach to a
problem, we should start from objective facts, not from
abstract definitions, and that we should derive our guiding
principles, politics and measures from an analysis of the facts.”
In connection with “Lessons of Naxalbari” and its “Evalution”
an idea was circulated that Naxalbari could not keep its
existence as Charu Majumdar’s instructions were not followed.
Social revolutions take place due to the maturity of the internal
contradictions of the society, not by any individual’s dictates.
Mao Tsetung said : “Changes in society are due chiefly to
the development of the internal contradictions in society, that
is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the
relations of production, the contradiction between the classes
and the contradiction between the old and the new ; it is the
development of these contradictions that pushes society for¬
ward and gives the impetus for the suppression of old society
by the new.”
The problem of the existence of Naxalbari becomes clear
when it is judged in the light of Mao Tsetung Thought.
Mao Tsetung has said that if a red area is to exist, it must fulfil
certain conditions. Besides the condition of the contradiction
among the ruling classes and their split, he has pointed out to
some more, such as : 1) A strong mass base, 2) A correct
and well organised Communist Party, 3) Adequately strong
people’s armed force, 4) Favourable terrain, 5) Favourable
economic conditions for self-reliance. Apart from these, he
mentioned two more important conditions, such as : 1) whe¬
ther the nation-wide revolutionary upsurge is in the high tide
or low ebb ; 2) the places where red political power first
emerges and can last long are not those unaffected by the
democratic revolution, on the other hand it will be there.
344 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL I®
where in course of the bourgeois democratic revolution the

masses of workers and peasants rose in great numbers.
Defying all these it is not possible for any red area to last long.
Judging it from this angle it is true that there were the down¬
fall of Congress party in eight of the states due to its internal
contradictions and its splits, countrywide mass discontent
against the government and there was a strong mass base at
Naxalbari. But save these, all other conditions were absent.
It should be mentioned first that there was no well organised
and skilled communist party organisation in Darjeeling district
to cope with the situation, there was no clear-cut plan to lead
the struggle, there was no direction to build up a people’s
armed force inspite of the presence of armed people and apart
from this, on the question of the terrain, there was no plan to
shift themselves to the hill areas.
In 1967, the situation of West Bengal was of a complex
nature. On the one hand, the Congress party was defeated
and there was a strong aspiration among the people for radi¬
cal change. On the other hand, victory of the so-called leftists
in the election created illusions. So the mood of overthrowing
a government of the so-called leftists, formed after a series of
propaganda for the parliamentary path throughout some de¬
cades, was absent among the people. It should also be borne
in mind that the CPI(M) was formed through struggle against
revisionism and this party had an image at that time as leader
of different mass movements within the parliamentary frame¬
work. It is true that the revolt of the communist cadres of
Darjeeling district, of some leading cadres of Calcutta and
some other districts against the CPI(M) leadership was correct
and they proved themselves to be real communists by firmly
standing at the side of Naxalbari uprising. But the rank and
file members of the CPI(M), though having confusion against
the revisionist leadership, were not ready for a revolt.
In these complex circumstances it was possible to preserve
the Naxalbari peasant uprising without incurring heavy loss-
and also it was possible to advance in a disciplined way from»
anarchic planlessness. At that period the Naxalbari cadres

proposed a dialogue with the United Front Government. But
Charu Majumdar did not agree and said that any dialogue
with the U. F. Government was revisionism. In this complex
situation, subjective tactical mistakes, absence of subjective
preparations and absence of flexibility in policy by keeping firm
on principle led to the setback of Naxalbari uprising.
Then, was the Naxalbari peasant uprising untimely ? Cer¬
tainly not. The question of timeliness of Naxalbari does not
depend on whether Naxalbari could keep its existence as a
red area or not. In the context of the countrywide revolution¬
ary upsurge of 1965-67, and judged by the yardstick of the
inevitability of fighting against all types of revisionism for the
general orientation of India’s democratic revolution and the
advancement of India’s revolution, Naxalbari was a correct,,
timely and extremely important historic event. It is to be
remembered that all the conditions to establish a red area
never remain present ; some conditions will be present and
some others will have to be created. To create the conditions
it is essential to preserve the uprising. The Naxalbari pea¬
sant uprising presented this general orientation : Revolt of
the Indian peasants and revolution of the Indian people are
inevitable. So the uprisings have to be organised ; but in
order to preserve it in a planned way, flexibility in policy
while keeping firm on principle is necessary.
The immaturity of grasping Marxism-Leninism and Mao
Tsetung Thought in the concrete condition of India is the sole
reason as to why such a long time was required to understand
the importance of the Naxalbari peasant uprising. So, extreme
price had to be paid through heavy losses.
India is a vast and ancient land of many nations. Failure
to keep in view the specific features of Indian society and
inability to solve the problems of Indian revolution from the
traditions of struggles of the Indian people led to subjective
super-imposing of the experiences of other countries mecha¬
nically ; it brought about,right and left deviation in the Indian
communist movement. Expressed in the language of Mao

Tsetung, it is “cutting the feet to fit the shoes.” Denying
the materialist truth that it is the Indian people who are
the real creators of Indian history since time immemorial, the
communist leadership painted some persons of the ruling
classes of different era as creators of history and father of the
nation. As a result the Indian communist movement sunk to
the level of metaphysics—some of the communist leaders
revised Marxism-Leninism and diverted the communist move¬
ment to right and left deviations ; on the other hand, another
section, acting mechanically, landed into devastation. One of
the main reasons of the sorry plight of the Indian communist
movement is that almost all of its leaders in different levels
have come from the impetuous petty-bourgeois class, the class
of conservative petty peasant producers with narrow outlook,
and from the anarchic, decadent feudal class. The presence
of permanent deep economic crisis in the Indian society led to
occasional political crises which, in its turn, gave birth to
sporadic revolutionary upsurges both big and small. But due
to the betrayal of the Indian communist leadership, these have
failed time and again. At that time, an honest section within
the communist movement tried to find out the correct path.
But their impetuous class character and anarchic outlook had
pushed them towards subjectivism ; they had fallen prey to
adventurism by trying to apply mechanically the much valuable
experience of other countries in toto, which was utilised in full
by the political careerists. The latest example of that in the
Indian communist movement is the emergence of the CPI(ML)
and its aftermath.
In order to advance with a correct policy by fighting and
defeating revisionism of all shades and subjectivism, the unity
of all the honest communist revolutionaries is the prime
necessity today in the Indian communist movement. But this
unity must develop on the basis of mutual respect, attitude
of mutual learning and on the basis of how much unity can
Be maintained. It is not at all easy to develop this unity, the
situation which developed just after Naxalbari is absent now.

On the contrary, an atmosphere of mutual disrespect and
expression of arrogance in many groups exist ; they pose
great hurdles towards achieving this unity. The CPI(ML)
which was formed by a section of Communist Revolutionaries
of India has been reduced to groups and sub-groups. The
open letter issued by the six leading persons of the CPI(ML)
had been a very correct and timely step. In the present
context the overall political situation of India demands that the
most important task today before the Communist Revolution¬
aries, along with the CPI(ML) groups, is to build up the unity
of all these honest communist revolutionaries of India.
[ Reproduced from Proletarian Path Yol II, Nos. 4 & 5,
May-Aug, 1974 ]
NEW CONTROVERSIES
IN THE NAME OF ‘MORE ABOUT NAXALBARI’
[The following is a translated version of an article by

Kolia Venkaiah from December 1974 issue of “MUNDUBATA”,
a Telugu Monthly. In a Foreword (Dated Visakhapatnam
March 1, 1975) to this article, nagabhushan patnaik,
D. BHUVAN MOHAN PATNAIK AND P. HASSAINAR Write :

“Rightly and timely, the six comrades issued the open
letter.The six that signed the open letter were

certainly not a group, but had a common understanding on
bringing about unity. Each is obliged, in all reasonableness,
to conform to this common understanding in his sayings,
doings or writings, which by all means he is free to resort to.
When ‘More About Naxalbari’ was authored, it was deman¬
ded of him (Comrade Sanyal) whether the article did not
blunt the open letter. Comrade Sanyal did not care to
attend to this minimum obligation. He must have got his

own reasons for it, known to him alone.
“But there appears in the article, prima facie, an undue
rush at far-reaching generalisations from particular parts of
events and, more particularly, from some omissions. One,
without having to wait for any purpose, can safely meet these
generalisations even now. In fact we cannot lose time on
making our point in so far as these generalisations are
concerned.
“In fine, we once again express our general concurrence
with Comrade K. V’s comments in this booklet..., and we
fully appreciate his earnestness in pointing out forcibly and
frankly the erroneous formulations with the sole purpose of
stalling the damage. Com. Sanyal’s article is very likely to
cause damage to the unity efforts that are afoot among the
people and the revolutionary ranks in the country.”—Ed. ]
Some journals have recently published an article entitled
“More About Naxalbari” by Comrade Kanu Sanyal. This
article, instead of serving the cause of unity of the communist
movement, in the guise of further elucidation about Naxalbari
struggle has given rise to some more new controversies and
issues making things more confounded. Once Comrade
Sanyal and I happened to stay together for some time. We
had, at that time, identity of views on some important matters
concerning the unity among the revolutionary ranks of CPI
(M-L). My direct experience with him on party organisa¬
tional matters was very limited. Nevertheless, I have great
respect for him as peasant organiser and as one of the founders
of CPI (M-L). I am one of those who do not subscribe to
the views expressed in that article and who differ from the
formulae, policies and methods enunciated therein. However,
as a colleague of his, I made adequate efforts to see that this
article and the issues raised therein were discussed with him
and other comrades, with the fond desire that the reorganisa¬
tion of the working class party did not receive a setback.
Though my efforts did not bear fruit, I never expected that:
this article would be made the basis for open debate.

Needless to say, the article was openly published in some
journals. Under these circumstances, it has become inevitable
to publish the comment to expound the other view on the
various issues raised in that article. I hope that not only the
author of the article but also the revolutionary cadres and
people will take note of these facts and think in the direction
of and give their mind to helping the unity among the revolu¬
tionary ranks and reorganisation of the working class party.
With this view in mind, I place before you my comments on
the important issues.
Differences between Black and White
This article published in the name of Comrade Kanu
Sanyal and the letter placed before the Party members by
Com. Kanu Sanyai together with five other comrades are
not identical in content. Yet some journals have stepped
up propaganda that both of these are similar and helpful to
forge unity in the revolutionary ranks. This is nothing but
refusing to see the difference between black and white.
While publishing the article by Com. Sanyal in its columns,
Janasakti, the Telugu Weekly, expressed similar views in its
preface. Different comments appeared in journals on the
letter of the six members of the Party. Many might not have
gone through that letter. Whatever may be the comments,
the salient features of the letter to some extent were published
in the ‘Indian Express’ dated 7. 8. 72. The readers who
have gone through the “letter” and the article will certainly
discern the difference between the two and understand that
the divergence is more striking than similarity, and the
attempt to emphasize that both of these are identical is nothing
but absolute distortion of truth.
The letter submitted to the Party members by the six
comrades hoped for principled unity among the revolutionary
ranks and in the CPI(ML) for the purpose of which it indica¬
ted a method. The revolutionary movement received a set¬
back as a result of certain wrong policies carried out by
350 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL li¬
the Party leadership on some important political issues.

The difference arising out of political policies had not been
properly resolved, with the result that there occurred splits in
the Party and engendered antagonisms with the other groups.
It is the Party ranks and revolutionary ranks, that have to
discuss and decide the party policies concerning the affairs of
the country. Without placing the differences concerning the
policies before them and discussing with them, old policies,
methods and splits had been continued in various forms.
Under these circumstances, the letter of the six comrades
made suggestions for a principled unity. Experience in the
revolutionary movement had proved the failure of the important
political policy. Under these trying conditions, Com. Charu
Majumdar, the Secretary of the Party who was expected to
forge unity in the revolutionary ranks by placing all the differ¬
ences before the members and initiating discussions on them
did not attempt to undertake the task. That is why the six
comrades were compelled to approach the Party ranks. The
intention of this letter was not to create another group.
Therefore the ‘letter’ made it clear that the differences between
them and the revolutionary groups inside and outside the
party are not antagonistic. It has only indicated that the
differences and contradictions between the groups and among
individuals wedded to Marxism-Leninism and the great thought
of Mao Tsetung are contradictions among the people to be
resolved with a unity-approach.
Further, it was not the intention of that ‘letter’ to earn
encomiums for them by throwing all the blame on Com. Charu
Majumdar for the opportunistic political line of the Party
and the failure thereof. That is why this ‘letter’ made it clear
that all the members of the Central Committee including those
who drafted the‘letter’ should themselves be responsible for what
had happened, despite the fact that Com. Charu Majumdar
was mainly responsible. The criticism contained in the ‘letter’
being self-critical was only directed against the ‘left’ opportu¬
nistic political policy and the factors responsible. Therefore,
also, it was not the intention to hold the others responsible for
the failure and to escape themselves from being blamed. The
criticism contained in the ‘letter’ was not designed to advance
criticism for the sake of criticism alone.
It had not only invited criticism from among the revolution¬
ary ranks, but also held out prospect of self-critical analysis by
admitting their mistakes. Therefore, the unity appealed for in
the letter is the unity among the revolutionary ranks based on
the principles of criticism and self-criticism. This letter sug¬
gested a basis acceptable to all who subscribe to Marxism-
Leninism and Mao’s thought for forging this unity. The basis
suggested was the article—‘Spring Thunder over India’,
which summed up correctly the experiences of Naxalbari
liberation struggle, the revolutionary experiences and the
Terai Report, excluding the shortcomings therein. That is
why the letter called upon the party members to forge new
unity by summing up the experience of the movement in vari¬
ous parts of the country and by realising the mistakes on the
basis of the article, ‘Spring Thunder over India’, and their
suggestions. From the view-point of Marxism-Leninism and
Mao’s thoughts, this letter suggested correct principles, basis
and method for achieving this unity among the party members
and revolutionary ranks. Whatever be the shortcomings in the
submission of this letter, it is quite proper and correct.
But the article published in the name of Com. Kanu
Sanyal differs wholly with the letter on all important issues.
The difference between the two is that between heaven and
earth.
While the letter by the six comrades was mainly aimed at
encouraging unity in CPI(ML), the article by Com. Sanyal
tends to incite disunity among the Party ranks. While the
letter placed before the comrades focussed the method of
developing peasant struggles like Naxalbari and Srikakulam
to the stage of guerilla struggles in the light of ‘Spring
Thunder over India’ and the revolutionary experiences as
the basis for unity, Com. Sanyal’s article makes proposals
based on a flexible method of ‘negotiated settlement’ capable

of helping the retreat of the movement. While the letter,
basing on concrete facts, advanced criticism on Com. Charu
Majumdar and the Central Committee and gave a call to press
■into service criticism and self-criticism in order to correct the
entire Party, and overhaul the entire Party, the article by
Com. Sanyal, on the other hand throws the entire blame on
Com. Charu Majumdar and holds him wholly and solely
responsible for the Party’s opportunistic policy and its failure.
With absolutely no self-criticism, the article goes on hurling
baseless criticism against Com. Charu Majumdar, against
comrades having divergent views, treating them as enemies,
instead of advancing corrective approach. While the letter of
the six comrades encouraged the Party ranks to take responsi¬
bility for the activities of the Party to learn from mistakes and
build new unity through discussions based on facts, this article
indulged in irresponsible criticism, accelerating antagonisms
and disunity in the party ranks. Judged by the points outlined
above, these two are quite opposite and contradictory. Any
attempt to advocate that both of these are identical and aim
at bringing about unity is not only a great blunder but is also
tantamount to obliterating the demarcation between good and
bad.
Because Com. Sanyal is a signatory to the ‘letter’ of the
six comrades, and the article is also purported to have been
contributed by him, one may be led to think that both the
letter and the article are identical. If anyone thinks so, he is
doing a great injustice to the facts. The ‘letter’ was placed
before the Party ranks in July 1972. The article took shape in
April 1973, and was published openly in press in July 1974.
It would not be understandable unless Com. Sanyal who
signed the letter along with five other comrades in July 1972,
would himself explain and elucidate why he changed his views
by April ’73 on important matters concerning the revolutionary
movement or why he signed the letter if he was holding the
same view in July 1972 as expounded in his article in April,
Debates and documents 353
1973, and why he sent his article to the press without discus¬
sing with comrades who signed the letter along with him.
Whatever it may be, there is no identity or similarity between
the letter he signed and the article published in his name.
Counter-revolutionary Negotiations
If negotiations with the Government are unprincipled,
then they are quite contrary to the uprisings of the people.
Com. Sanyal has made this type of negotiations as the
material basis of his article. By the first week of May
1967, the Naxalbari peasant struggle was assuming the
highest form. Com. Sanyal recalled in his article that in
a public meeting organised on 7. 5. ’67, a “proposal was put
forth calling for negotiation with the United Front Govern¬
ment to which Com. Charu Majumdar was opposed.”
■“This”, Com. Sanyal says, “was mental unpreparedness”
and “subjective tactical mistake.” Though firm on principles,
he concluded, “Absence of flexible approach in the policy
led to doom the cause of Naxalbari struggle.” Indeed, the
very refusal by Com. Charu Majumdar and other Naxalbari
cadres in that public meeting of the proposal for holding
negotiation was only responsible for giving life to the Naxal¬
bari struggle and the peasant liberation struggle which stood
up valiantly earning encomiums from the national and inter¬
national revolutionary forces.
This proposal for negotiations had not descended from
heavens. The neo-revisionist leadership that held the sway over
the United Front Government published this proposal in order
to nip the peasant liberation struggle in the bud. The then
neo-revisionist leadership had also reported to the Provincial
Committee that they made the proposal whereby the struggle
be confined to the land problem and negotiations initiated
with the Government. Some Naxalbari comrades who fell
victim to that propaganda might have made such proposal.
People’s uprising is a revolt against the reactionary
social order and against the Government preserving such
Vol II—23
354 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II?
social order. The relationship existing between that social

order and the Government may not be comprehensible to the
people who took part in the revolt or those who led it. The
reactionary Government while brutally suppressing its revolt
on the one hand, invites the leaders on the other, for
negotiations with a view to split the movement, thereby trying
to keep the revolt under control and subject it to the existing
social order. United Front Government of West Bengal
made such attempts to nip the peasant uprising in the bud
even in the case of Naxalbari struggle. Communist revolu¬
tionaries in the party assumed leadership of the Naxalbari
struggle. They took up Marxism-Leninism and Mao’s thought
as their ideology, and applied that revolutionary ideology
to concrete conditions and set out to translate it into practice.
It need not be felt that the revolutionaries would never attempt
for negotiations. But, they would never agree for negotia¬
tions when they are intent upon carrying forward the revolt.
To agree for negotiations is to surrender the revolt. It
amounts to throwing the peasantry who revolted against the
semi-feudal and semi colonial set up, back in and to their
old life and accepting its authority in some form or the
other. However, it would be a different issue if the
revolutionaries go in for negotiations as desired by the people,,
especially in some instances, where there exists no people’s
revolt at all. But when once the people’s revolt is set into
motion, the act of starting negotiations in the very initial
stage would doom the revolt. During the course of negotia¬
tions, some paltry concessions in matters relating to land etc.
may be extracted, not more than that. That is why, those
who are intent on carrying on the liberation struggle will never
agree for negotiations. No revolutionaries could advise
the rebellious peasantry to go in for negotiations. However,,
there is no guarantee that every uprising and every struggle
would advance from strength to strength only by drawing
lessons out of failures and learning from them. If the peasan¬
try, by any reason, insists on initiating negotiations, the revo-
lutionaries would never oppose such a proposal imprudently.

They would explain the dangers inherent in negotiations. They
explain in clear terms to the peasantry that the feudal set up
would never come to an end by negotiations with Government,
or their life could not be bettered by extracting some of the
paltry concessions, and that negotiations would thus only pave
the way for splits and rifts among them. If the peasantry still
sticks on to their decision of going for negotiations, the revo¬
lutionaries would then remain with them, prove what they
had stated is correct, isolate the opportunists from the move¬
ment and take up the reins of leadership into their hands or
make efforts to mount another revolt. Under no circumstances,
the revolutionaries by themselves, on the eve of people’s revolt,
agree for negotiations which serve as a prop to the reactionary
social order. This is the principle governing any revolt and
revolutionary tactics. This is exactly what Maixism-Leninism?
advocates.
In fact, the Naxalbari peasantry never desired to hold
negotiations with the reactionary government. Though some
cadres put forth the proposal, the majority refuted such a move.
It was because they were inspired by the policies of revolution
that stood for an armed struggle to capture political power.
It was because they organised themselves, took up arms,,
appropriated lands and crops of big landlords, distributed
those among themselves under the auspices of their peasant
committees and established the Red area of struggle. They
did not entertain any illusions that their Red area of struggle,
the power of their land distribution would remain in tact by
resorting to negotiations. Under such conditions, it could
never have been considered a revolutionary tactic if Com.
Charu Majumdar and the majority of rank and file had
succumbed themselves to the proposal of negotiations put
forth by only a handful of cadres. Revolutionary tactics are
such that they alone remove from people’s mind all sorts of
illusions and lead them in the direction of revolution and
national liberation and seldom create any illusions. Such
356 naxalbari and after voL H
illusions are created by Right opportunism only.

The readiness to accept the proposal put forth by a few
cadres cannot be treated as a flexible stand on policy methods.
Indeed, it amounts to abandonment of the path of armed
agrarian revolution in the name of “flexibility”. When once
the path of peasant revolt and agrarian revolution is given up,
the theory of “firmness in principles” only leads to go against
the principles of revolt and revolutionary line. No revolution¬
ary who bases himself on revolutionary ideology is prepared
to yield to or defend such proposals. That is why Comrade
Charu Majumdar and the other comrades, though they
failed in their efforts in developing the Naxalbari struggle to
the level of a guerilla warfare, had taken in refusing and
refuting outright the proposals for negotiations with the
reactionary government, a correct step taken with correct,
revolutionary outlook. Had they opted for negotiations with
the then West Bengal Government in May 1967 and placed
the proposal before the peasantry of Naxalbari, there would
have been neither historic Naxalbari struggle nor any support
from national and international revolutionary forces in
defence of the struggle. There would also have been no anti¬
revisionist ideological struggle initiated by it and the peasant
struggles of Srikakulam etc. led by the revolutionaries.
Proposal for negotiations do constitute a way of thinking
different from them, the existing situation and opinions held
by the peasant masses.
The Real Causes
To attribute the failure of the Naxalbari struggle and the

subsequent revolutionary movement to the non-acceptance of
proposals for negotiations with the Government and non¬
flexibility on policy matters is not only contrary to truth but
also holding back the real factors that led to the failure. No
mention of negotiations with the Government was ever made
either in the Chinese article ‘Spring Thunder Breaks over
India’ or in the ‘Terai Report’, which summed up the
experiences of Naxalbari struggle. Both of them were written

after the first week of May 19b7. Those two formulated that
the armed struggle in India should advance by fighting against
the armed counter-revolution. It was made clear in the ‘Terai
Report’ that...unity among peasantry would survive and
develop only through our uncompromising struggle against the
feudal order. The report had also expressed that the Naxal¬
bari struggle received a set back due to the failure to grasp
the significance of armed peasant squads and to promote the
revolutionary consciousness and self-confidence among the
peasantry. Reducing the struggle, that was to be waged by
the armed squads against the brutal armed forces of the
Government, to the level of annihilation of landlords resulted
in undermining the potentialities of the squads on the one
hand and the initiative of the peasantry in punishing the brutal
landlords on the other. And instead of properly co-ordinating
the liberation struggle with the struggle for land as well as
other important struggles, the method of thinking in terms-
of counterpoising each or all of these factors led to the
set-back of Naxalbari and other armed struggles. This was
clarified by the letter of six comrades and the subsequent
discussions among the revolutionary ranks.
Against all these factors to hide the real causes for the
set-back of the revolutionary movement and to invent other
causes would only be dragging the movement to the path of
retreat. Contrary to all the past reviews to unearth the proposal
for negotiations with the United Front Government, the history
of six years of Naxalbari amounts to drawing out a mouse
after labouring hard to remove a mountain.
New Foundations for Old Path

On all important issues, Com. Sanyal’s article has sown
the powerful seeds for the old thinking and the old path.
Firstly, even this article can not state whether the confe¬
rence of the peasants and the majority revolutionary cadres
held on 7. 5. 1967 had accepted the proposals for negotiations
358 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VoL II
regarding Naxalbari struggle with West Bengal Government.

The argument advanced in this article is that though the cadres
and the peasantry desired to continue the struggle, the condi¬
tions there for it were not existing. In support of this, it
fails to advance a single factor concerning the Naxalbari
area. The reasons pointed out are that the situation in
West Bengal in 1967 was complicated, the people were not
ready for a state-wide revolt and the then party members were
not prepared for a revolt against the revisionist leadership.
In fact, Naxa tari revolutionary cadres could assume leadership
of the struggle only by rejecting such a way of thinking. The
revisionist leadership of the party, while refusing to apply the
revolutionary ideology to the concrete conditions in India and
propagating a plan that they would capture power at the
centre through countrywide revolt, watered down the
struggles and revolts wherever the peasants resorted to them,
by starting negotiations and making compromises with the
Government. The Naxalbari comrades rejecting such a plan
and applying the revolutionary ideology to the concrete condi¬
tions in India thought that the path of agrarian revolution,
the path of people’s war, the path of seizing political power
in different areas through area-wise peasant revolts is the
-correct path for the liberation of the country, and plunged
into action. They selected Naxalbari area and they integrated
Themselves with the peasantry, roused them with the politics
of armed agrarian revolution, organised and armed them and
led the struggle. This gave rise to the struggle. This led
to the creation of big struggles by Naxalbari peasants and to
the unity of the communist revolutionaries throughout the
country and developing Naxalbari type of struggles. But the
article by Com. Sanyal keeps these issues in the dark and
refutes the very basis of Naxalbari struggle. The Naxalbari
comrades did not plunge themselves into action entertaining
hopes that state-wide people’s uprising would take place
•by May 1967 itself and that all the members of the party would
*ally around them. They launched the struggle with a convic-
lion that the peasants’ revolts and the struggles for seizure
of political power taking place in those areas would ultimately
pave the way for the liberation of the country. The escalation
of Naxalbari type of struggles proved this to be correct.
In place of this, to propigate the idea of state-wide and
country-wide revolts is certainly the old thinking. In West
Bengal as a whole, conditions for state-wide revolt were not
existing. Therefore, the argument that negotiations should
be initiated with the Government when there existed condi¬
tions for an upheaval in Naxalbari indicates drift towards
the revisionist way of thinking on the question of tactics. It
is only an attempt to infuse life into the dead theory of state¬
wide and country-wide revolts.
Secondly, this article propagates certain illusions that
the revolt could have been preserved and all the conditions
required for the establishment of a red base could have been
created by resorting to negotiations with the reactionary
Government. This is all pure imagination, far removed from
facts. This sort of fantasy led to watering down the class
struggle. It is easy to advise the rebellious peasantry to hold
negotiation with the Government. But when once the ground
is prepared for talks, the revolt will end only and it will not be
preserved. After resorting to negotiations if it ends in a flop,
it only leads to disruption. If the negotiations are initiated
and the red area of struggle is abandoned it will not lead to
the creation of conditions for base area ; instead, the authority
of the landlords and their Government will be re-established
over the peasantry. This is the lesson taught by the negotia¬
tions resorted to in connection with the Telengana peasant
struggle.
It is obvious from all this, that to propagate that until all
the conditions for the base area are created, the revolts are to
be preserved by resorting to negotiations, that revolts are to
be organised in such a way that they can be preserved, and
to preach that these tasks are of primary importance is only
to drift to the old path. It is day-dreaming to think that
360 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IH
conditions for base area would be created by entering into;

negotiations in connection with the revolt. To say that up¬
risings are to be organised in such a “planned way” as to
preserve them through negotiation is nothing but sabotaging
the uprisings that inevitably take place “in India”. To say
that uprisings are to be organised so as to “preserve them” is
nothing but asking to seek concessions in the name of revolts.
To propagate policies based on illusions contrary to facts
leads only to the old path.
Thirdly, this article agrees to regard the Naxalbari pea¬
sants’ revolt as correct in so far as it formed part of the
couniry-wide upsurge and as there was the need for a struggle
against revisionist outlook. But for that, this article refuses to
regard the Naxalbari struggle as the struggle for liberation.
It further refuses to take note of the characteristic nature of
the liberation struggle as part of the national liberation
struggle. The essence of this article is that the article treats the
Naxalbari struggle as a historic struggle because it had contri¬
buted to the anti-revisionist struggle and not because it had
created again liberation struggle in the country. And hence the
lessons, drawn from the Naxalbari struggle, are also distinct.
This article recognises only that the struggle drove home
the importance of the point that “Revolts and revolution are
inevitable”. This article makes negotiations as the basis for
the policy of dealing with revolts which may arise as a part
of the general upsurge. It has proposed the policy leading
to methods of controlling the revolts at the time of their
occurrence itself. That is why this article has led to the old
line on all important issues and laid, in a way, new founda¬
tions to the old line.
It becomes clear now that this article, from the review it
embodied on the movement, is contrary to the line of class
struggle and it blocks the role of leadership of the working class.
Anti-Class Struggle Attitude
This article, published in the name of Com. Kanu SanyaT

DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 36 F
analyses the ante- and post-Naxalbari situation from an anti-,

class struggle viewpoint. The same attitude is reflected in,
the article in the proposal for negotiations, contrary to the
situation of the Naxalbari struggle in May 1967, in its assess¬
ment of the prevailing conditions and in its attitude towards
the struggle. Without stopping at that, with the same view¬
point, it makes a large-scale attack on the revolutionary values
created by the struggle by slighting, twisting the ideological
struggle that led to the Naxalbari struggle, the role of revo¬
lutionary cadres and the struggle itself. In the same process,
it has slighted the role of the proletariat and has carried on
propaganda of old doctrines and policies that come in the way
of working class playing its role. Instead of levelling criticism
against the opportunistic errors of the Central Committee and
the erroneous policies carried out by the cadres and the Central
Committee under the leadership of Com. Charu Majumdar,
taking advantage of the mistakes, this article makes a big attack
on the revolutionay role played by Com. Charu Majumdar
and the Naxalbari cadres in the course of the struggle.
Firstly, this attack commenced with the refutal of the Eight
Documents drafted and propagated by Com. Majumdar bet¬
ween January 1965 and April 1967. These documents not
only embodied in them the poisonous seeds of opportunistic
policies formulated under his leadership but also contained
points dealing with the armed agrarian revolutionary line that
led to the Naxalbari struggle and a new revolutionary move¬
ment. Taking advantage of the lacunae in those documents,,
this article summed up that the Naxalbari struggle proved all
the revolutionary ideas and theories which emerged against
revisionism to be wrong. It stated :
“Practically Naxalbari uprising is a living protest to the
Eight Documents”.
These eight documents which greatly influenced the Naxal¬

bari cadres might not have reached the cadres in other states..
They were received in Andhra only in the middle of 1974.-
362 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL «
To which part of the documents is the Naxalbari struggle a

“living protest”?
These documents had exposed the revisionist leadership
in the country which by portraying every favourable result
achieved on various issues as political victory and by adopting
the path that the entire political power could be seized through
capturing the centre, transformed the party into a right oppor¬
tunist party. These documents had propagated that the
seizure of political power through area-wise peasant revolts
and armed struggle was the only correct path for the liberation
of the country. The first document urged to spread among
masses the agrarian revolutionary programme and to give
their mind to class analysis. The second document put
emphasis on the theory of seizure of political power through
area-wise peasant revolts and armed struggle as against the
doctrine of seizure of power through country-wide revolt.
And also the ideological and organisational matters connected
with that had been discussed. In those documents the mass
line—from the people to the people—and the experiences of
the Chinese revolution were elaborated. It is indisputable that
these documents have had a great impact on the cadres of
Naxalbari and of West Bengal. An attempt was made in these
documents to apply the revolutionary ideology to the concrete
conditions in India and to lay the revolutionary path. Under
the influence of these, the Naxalbari peasantry led by the
communist revolutionaries created a great struggle. Though
the ideological struggle that was waged on the eve was not
known to the cadres in other states, the Naxalbari struggle
influenced the revolutionary ranks throughout the length and
breadth of the country. The slogan that the peasant revolts
and the armed struggle would lead to the liberation of the
country had become a variant of the Naxalbari type of
struggles. It should be admitted by all means that this had
inspired the revolutionaries and the revolutionary people, who
were swayed away by such right opportunist plans as seizure
of power at the centre through country-wide revolts. But the
.article by Com. Sanyal, refusing to take note of this fact, goes

To the extent of describing Naxalbari as the living protest to
all this.
The fact that this article has gone to the extent of describing
whatever Comrade Charu Majumdar had said in this connection
also as anarchy, shows that he is under the influence of
revisionist thinking—which cannot distinguish between anarchy
and revolution. The author of the article does not deserve
to be defended, since he was well-versed with the contents
of those documents and yet had concealed the revolutionary
points contained therein, kept the readers in the dark and
mounted an attack on them. This is quite contrary to the
method of revolutionary criticism. In fact, Naxalbari is the
living illustration of the revolutionary contents embodied in
those documents.
Because the ideas of Comrade Majumdar were in tune with
the prevailing conditions, they contributed to the revolutionary
movement by gripping the imagination of the cadres and the
masses. While the failure of the Naxalbari struggle is a
living illustration of the anti-revolutionary points in the
documents, the Naxalbari struggle is a living example of the
revolutionary points in those.
The attack unleashed against the revolutionary contents
in the documents is an attack made on the revolutionary
outlook and the Naxalbari struggle for liberation. Com.
Majumdar had only applied Marxism-Leninism to the concrete
conditions in the country and propagated the revolutionary
path, namely “area-wise seizure of state power”—under the
impact of which the role of the proletariat was amply played
in the Naxalbari struggle. Had the comrades of Darjeeling
and the cadres of Naxalbari not played that role, the class
struggle and revolutionary movement in Naxalbari region
would not have reached the highest stage. Instead of properly
reviewing the inner struggle that had taken place among the
revolutionary ranks the article seriously attacks the proletarian
role played by the cadres in this connection. This is only
364 NAXALBARI AND AFTER
. _ *
VOL It
^ -
to impede the correction of opportunistic policies and

methods adopted under the leadership of Comrade Charu
Majumdar and the reorganisation of the party on the basis of
correct policies and methods.
Secondly, in support of the proposals which were not in
tune with the situation of the struggle in May 1967, this article
has started a war of quotations against Comrade Charu
Majumdar who rejected the proposals for negotiations. That
the writings of our great teachers of Marxism illumine our
path of practice was forgotten and quotations were extensively
hurled quite out of context. This article quotes what Comrade
Stalin said regarding the attitude of seeking truth from facts,-
and from Comrade Lenin that “our analysis must start with
concrete conditions” but it does not think whether they are
applicable to itself.
At a time when modern revisionism is mounting its attack
against the theory of political power, against the theory of
revolution by armed struggle and through force, this article
quotes elaborately in support of such an attitude against Com.
Charu Majumdar from Anti-Duhring written by Engels. It is
not understandable as to what purpose does the author intend
to make use of these quotations. Engels in his great work Anti-
Duhring refuted only the theory of Duhring—which advocated
“political power alone determines economic relations”. But
Engels never stated that violent revolution and use of force
were wrong and armed struggle for seizure of political power
incorrect. To point at Engels as if he was against the theory
of violent revolution and of force is nothing but atrocious
trash. What Duhring advocated was completely different.
To reorganise the class relations, the capture of instruments
of production like the factories and land is of prime impor¬
tance. But contrary to this, Duhring raised an argument that
after capture of power the class relations can be changed with
the use of force, without the capture of productive instruments.
Comrade Engels in his work completely refuted this theory.
But without any context, only in support of the anti-revolution-
Debates and documents 365
ary stand, quotations from Marxist classics have been taken.

It is nothing but an inheritance from the revisionist leadership.
Thirdly, the article refutes the revolutionary role played by
the cadres who roused the peasantry in Naxalbari with politics
of armed struggle and also the role of politics in class struggle.
It has theorised that “the programme of seizure of land taught
the peasantry” about the establishment of political power, and
the land seizure movement by itself takes the shape of the
struggle for the seizure of political power. But the revo¬
lutionary movements clarify that no land seizure movement by
itself would teach the peasantry about the need to capture
power and that by themselves they could not transform it into
a struggle for seizure of political power. And the revolutionary
movements always refuted such theories of spontaneity. The
revolutionary movement teaches us that unless and until the
revolutionary cadres based on the experience of the peasantry
rouse them with political consciousness and lead them properly,
liberation struggles can not march forward. The Naxalbari
experiences are not contrary to this. History has clarified
that undermining the importance of revolutionary politics and
minimising the role to be played by the proletariat in this
connection lead to right opportunism. This article digs the
history of Naxalbari from the year 1946 itself and proposes
two more wrong formulae in order that the revolutionary
ranks do not foresee this danger of opportunism. One is
the unrealistic theory that Naxalbari became a reality as a
result of the “glowing history of the past glorious class
struggles”. It is the people that create history and the struggle.
The Naxalbari struggle emerged as a result of the revolutionary
political consciousness of the Naxalbari peasantry. The move¬
ment advanced as a result of carrying on a struggle against
revisionist theories which misdirected the class struggle, and
rousing the consciousness for liberation, based on the history
of class struggles and the experiences and also discharging the
role of the proletaiat through such tasks by revolutionary
ranks. In the name of opposing the wrong idea that Comrade
Majumdar was the creator of Naxalbari, it is incorrect for the

article to go to the level of opportunist theory which under¬
mines the role of revolutionary politics and the role of
the working class. Similarly the article degrades itself to the
level of equating the peasant liberation struggle with the
struggle in 1958-59 waged on economic issues by contending
that “the class consciousness of the peasants of Naxalbari”
demonstrated in the struggle waged during 1958-59 was “not
less than that of 1967.” It is utter fallacy if anybody at
this present stage, when the ideological knowledge of the
revolutionary ranks has improved, attempts to erase the line
between liberation struggle and other forms of struggles and
thereby divert the liberation struggle. He should be considered
as a person living in a dreamland. The revolutionary ranks
realised that the land problem is a key problem for the
democratic revolution and by neglecting the land problem and
other problems, the movement has met with losses. They also
realised that counterpoising the struggle for liberation against
the struggle for land and other problems and neglecting,
under such influence, the struggle for land and other problems
are erroneous. Under such circumstances, to belittle the
importance of liberation struggle by treating both of these
struggles as identical and equal, thereby adding to confusion,
is not only a crime but also a drift from left opportunism to
right opportunism. The criticism in the article is bound to-
lead to that.
Criticism without Self-critical outlook
The article not only attacks the revolutionary ideas by

resorting to opportunist theories and practices and taking the
movement backward but has also gone to the extent of
levelling criticism without any self-critical outlook whatso¬
ever. In the communist movement, Marxism-Leninism never
approves criticism without any self-critical outlook. Unity
in the communist movement and in the proletarian party
can only be achieved on the basis of criticism and self-
criticism. Criticism without self-critical outlook is contrary

to the development of the movement. The question here is not
whether the author has explained his self-criticism in this
article or not. While criticising the revolutionary cadres whether
he has taken a principled stand or not—that is the question.
This article has levelled a big charge against Comrade Charu
Majumdar as an anarchist and that he “wanted to establish
anarchism in a new form”. Instead of criticising the errors
in his documents, it rejects the revolutionary ideas in them.
But it can not cite one single instance to show that he had
wanted only to spread anarchism. In such a situation, is it
correct to level such a charge against Comrade Majumdar,
though he started thinking about the opportunist policies
adopted under his leadership and tried to introduce certain
amendments before his death, even if he failed to rectify such
policies in full and unify the party ranks on the basis of
correct policies ? Though the comrades that split away by
that time, amended the old policies to a certain extent, they
not only failed to rectify them but also attacked Comrade
Majumdar as a Trotskyite and removed him from the party.
In such a situation, six comrades including the author of the
article sent a letter to the party members in July 1972.
That letter appealed to the party ranks to reject the
opportunist policies that were being pursued and to demand
self-criticism from Comrade Majumdar and other Central
Committee members who rejected to place the opportunist
policies for discussion, and to unify the party ranks on
correct lines. It also explained that the contradiction
among the party ranks and among the revolutionary ranks
was not an antagonistic one. Majumdar had died by the time
the letter reached the party ranks. Nobody can say what
would have been the influence of the letter on him. The
working class party at sometime or other has to discharge
the responsibility of assessing the role played by Comrade
Majumdar and his achievements and errors as a party secretary
and his role in the revolutionary movement. It is only the
fruit of subjectivism on the part of the author of the article,

who stated in his letter to the ranks that contradiction among
the party ranks were not of an antagonistic nature and who
appealed to demand self-criticism from Comrade Majumdar,
to treat Charu Majumdar as an enemy, to call him an anarchist
after his death. With the death of Comrade Majumdar, the
party reorganisation faced some more difficulties. Some of
his supporters became the supporters of Lin Piao, who had
come out as a conspirator and betrayer. Some others have
been continuing the old opportunistic policies pursued before
his rethinking, some others are thinking in the direction of
annihilation of class enemies as one of the forms. Inspite of
all this, the urge for party unity and for the reorganisation of
the party has increased. At such a time, how far is it correct
to make such a criticism ? The author had been propping up
the influence of Charu Majumdar and the opportunistic
policies upto the time of his signing the letter of the six
comrades. It will not indicate a self-critical outlook on his
part to call Com. Majumdar an anarchist just at the time of
initiating an inner struggle for the change, simply because
he understood the mistake just earlier. When he had been
supporting the same policies, was he to be called an anarchist ?
This is not correct method. The party ranks have worked
actively because of the inspiration drawn from the views of
Comrade Majumdar and the Central Committee. Proper work
was not carried out in the Central Committee for correct
policies while examining the erroneous ideas of Com. Charu
Majumdar with a correct outlook. Due to the lack of
inner struggle, erroneous ideas developed into opportunist
policies and caused harm to the movement. In such
circumstances, to refute the revolutionary ideas advocated
by Comrade Charu Majumdar and to refuse the responsibility
of carrying on the proper struggle against his erroneous
ideas and of correcting them on the part of the author who
was a partner in all the affairs, would neither indicate his
self-critical outlook nor help the unification of the party ranks.
REBATES AND DOCUMENTS 36?
This article has mentioned the mistakes committed by Com.

Majumdar in the Naxalbari struggle since 1946. Such mistakes
in one form or another, on one plea or another were committed
by the leadership at the state and the central level and as a
result of which the opportunist path and the revisionist path
were continued for a pretty long time upto the Naxalbari
struggle. It is nothing but boasting on the part of any
responsible comrade to state that he never committed such
mistakes. It only helps to hide his own mistakes. It is as
much necessary on the part of everyone of us to learn from
the past by helping each other through criticism as it is
necessary to examine all his errors at the time of assessing
Comrade Charu Majumdar. His achievements and mistakes
during the course of Naxalbari and after and within and out¬
side the party are to be assessed. It is a crime against the
self-critical outlook on the part of the author to choose
certain mistakes of Com. Charu Majumdar and to level
antagonistic criticisms against him as if he [K.S] committed no
mistakes during that period. Why the author who states in
the article that heavy losses were incurred in the Islampur area
due to the policies of Com. Charu Majumdar did not raise
the question for discussion in the Committee of which he had
been a member ? If he knew by that time that they were
opportunist policies why did he continue to support them
up to the recent time ? It is an irresponsible criticism on
the part of the author who was responsible for those policies
together with Comrade Charu Majumdar to use Islampur
incidents, for an attack against him, at a time when the move¬
ment is receiving a set-back, instead of helping the party in its
assessment. To state that all he had done was anarchy and
to call him a Trotskyite would only help the disunity and
confusion among the party ranks but would neither help self-
critical outlook nor educate them. Only the criticism made
with self-critical outlook is a principled one and helps the
unity among the party ranks and revolutionary ranks. To
develop arguments regarding the difference of grade and of
Vol 11—24
370 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL 18
time between him and them in committing mistakes, to

develop controversies among party ranks, to reject unity on
this plea and also to reject his correct ideas and certain
correct policies developed under his leadership, would not
be revolutionary outlook but groupism. There are many of
this kind in this article. The party ranks and the revolu¬
tionary ranks have to reorganise the proletarian party capable
of heading the class struggle, unifying on a suitable basis for
carrying on inner struggle for correct policies ; only criticism
made with self-critical outlook can help this process.
Mutually Contradictory Attitudes

It is in no way correct to give the title “More about
Naxalbari” to the article. The first article that summed
up the experiences of Naxalbari struggle is the article ‘Spring
Thunder over India’. ‘Terai report’ made another attempt
to sum up the Naxalbari experiences. There is no identity at
all between these two articles on the one hand and the present
article by Com. Sanyal on the other. They are the results of
two mutually contradictory attitudes. On important points
this article fully differs with the other two.
While the two articles summed up the experiences mainly
from the point of view of class struggle and revolutionary out¬
look, this article reviews those from a ‘right’ opportunist point
of view. While the ‘Terai report’ proposed that only through
an uncompromising struggle peasant unity is possible against
landlordism, this article, contrary to that, proposes a policy of
negotiation with the reactionary government which safeguards
the feudal system. While those two stated that armed revo¬
lution would develop by fighting against armed counter-revo¬
lution, this article proposes negotiations and revolts with a
method of preserving thtm. While those two articles proposed
to adopt the strategy and tactics of people’s war and to imple¬
ment them in a flexible way, this article proposes flexibility in
the matter of negotiations with the Government. It is very
clear that the attitudes, policies, and methods on which those
two and this article depend are mutually contradictory. Not

only that, while those two were leading to the unity of revo¬
lutionary ranks and the development of the movement against
the ruling classes, this article on the contrary is heading to-
raise new controversies among the party ranks and further to
split the party and the revolutionary ranks. This is becoming
an impediment to the unification of the party, to the unity of
the revolutionary ranks and the re-organisatioa of the party,
and is also weakening the class struggle.
That is why the author of the article, the party ranks and
the revolutionary ranks have to examine this. It is in no way a
mistake to wish that the author, as one of the founders of the
party and having experience of the peasant movement,
re-examine his article, discharge his responsibility towards
the revolutionary movement and help the unity of the party
and the revolutionary ranks. With this attitude in view, a
serious comment has been made against the article. Though
he was not prepared to discuss his article, along with the
eomment on it, with the other five comrades who are responsi¬
ble for the ‘letter’, let us hope that he rethinks about his article
in view of the comment.
[ Source : A booklet in English published by Mundubata
Publications, 5/1, Brodipet, Guntur—2 ]
THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF THE A.P.R.C.P.
This is a summary of a report on the first confe¬

rence of the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary
Communist Party {known as the Chandra Pulla
Reddy group). The report was published in
PRAJAYUDHAM, the organ of the Party.
The conference was ‘a big success’ and the party “almost

successfully” fought the ‘left deviationist’ line of the Charu
Majumdar group on the one hand and the ‘subjugationism’ of

the Nagi Reddy group on the other. It may be recalled that
the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Party was
formed in April 1969 and its top leaders—Nagi Reddy and
eight others—were arrested in Madras in December 1969.
Later the Nagi Reddy group broke away from the party.
The conference passed three resolutions : (1) welcoming the
decisions taken in the 10th National Congress of the CPC,
(2) supporting the decisions taken by the party to strive for
unity among the Communist Revolutionaries in the country
and (3) supporting the efforts being made to strengthen the
civil liberties movement in the State.
The party programme which was unanimously accepted at
the conference said that the Indian Government was a big
bourgeois and big landlord Government, preserving the semi¬
colonial and semi-feudal system. The Government was serving
the interests of imperialists, especially the U. S. imperialists and
Soviet social-imperialists. After the split in the Congress party
the Indira Gandhi Government has become subservient to the
Soviet social-imperialists and their grip on the Indian economy,
political system and the military has been tightened.
Explaining the contradictions prevailing in the country
today, the programme said that the contradiction between
feudalism and the broad masses of the people was the main.
“An armed agrarian revolution”, the programme said, “can
resolve the main contradiction”.
The programme underlined the need of a people’s demo¬
cratic revolution under the leadership of the working class,
uniting the agricultural labourers, poor and middle class
peasants, the rich peasants and the national bourgeoisie. It
said, the Indian i evolutionary war would be protracted
Armed agrarian revolution, creating a strong red army leading
to the establishment of rural revolutionary bases and finally
liberating the urban areas, alone could overthrow the present
semi-colonial and semi-feudal Government. Only after estab¬
lishing people’s democracy could India march to socialism.
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 37?
The programme explained that there was an excellent
revolutionary situation in the country and it was developing
every day as the contradictions among the ruling classes in
the country were becoming acute and the U, S. imperialists and
Soviet social-imperialists were beset in their internal and external
problems. As national liberation struggles were developing
in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the
imperialists and social-imperialists were going to their doom.
The conference held that both the revisionists and neo¬
revisionists were getting exposed because of their anti-people
activities and their overt and covert support of the ruling class.
“In the present situation the key task of the Communist
Revolutionaries is to prepare the masses for agrarian revolu¬
tion.” “To fulfil this task”, the conference recommends, “the
propagation of revolutionary politics among the masses, the
mobilisation of people on their issues, leading people in the
struggles against landlord exploitation and government
repression, formation of mass organisations and volunteer
squads.”
The conference declared the need to utilise the legal oppor¬
tunities. The programme declared that “while armed struggle
should be the main form of struggle, all other forms of struggle
should be co-ordinated with it. The people should be mobi¬
lised on both political and economic issues, all legal and illegal
opportunities must be availed of, proper mass organisations
should be built up. If this programme is vigorously carried
out, the conference is confident that the agrarian revolution
will be achieved”.
The report also mentioned the self criticism made by the
party : “At the beginning of the formation of armed squads,
instead of mobilising the masses for armed agrarian revolution
we resorted to armed actions on landlords. With this the
movement took a wrong line. Gradually we rectified the
mistake in 1970. We reviewed the movement in April 1970,
at a meeting of the Agency area committee of Khammam and
Warangal. We decided to take up the programme of mobili-
sing the masses for armed agrarian revolution. Continuing

the self-defence struggle of the armed squads, we strove to
strengthen the armed agrarian revolution. We set four princi¬
ples to follow : (1) the propagation of revolutionary politics ;
(2) mobilisation of people on mass issue ; (3) necessary
actions on police informers and people’s enemies ; and (4)
self-defence from the police”.
The party from the beginning had been opposing all
individual actions. Even while dealing with the police infor¬
mers, people’s enemies and landlords, the opinion of the
people of those villages was first sought and they were dealt
accordingly. The police informants were first warned by the
armed squads and attempts were made to convert them,
explaining revolutionary politics to them. If they did not
change their attitude, action was taken against them, according
to the suggestions of the people in the area.
The subjugationist line taken by Nagi Reddy and his group
was questioned ; if this group had described the activities of
the party as similar to those advocated by Charu Majumdar’s,
they were blind even to broad daylight.
January 12, 1974
PRESENT SITUATION AND IMMEDIATE TASKS
[ This is the statement of the Central Organizing

Committee, CPl(ML), then known as the Sharma
Satyamurthy—Suniti Ghosh group. The majority
in UP, Bihar and Delhi Committees of the COC
dissociated themselves from the organization in
1977 and reorganized in the Communist League
of India (M-L) in February, 1978. Suniti Ghosh,
a member of the Central Committee of the COC,
and others now function in the same name in West
Bengal, independent of the rest of the COC —Ed. ]
The Central Organizing Committee of the CPI(ML) met in

February, 1974, reviewed the experiences of the heroic
armed struggle waged by our people under the leadership of
the Party since 1967, made a concrete analysis of the present
situation and defined the im nediate tasks of the Party. The
following statement was unanimously adopted by the Com¬
mittee.
1. The Central Organizing Comnittee pays its sincere
homage to the memory of the great martyrs who died to mike
the country free from the yoke of Soviet social-imperialism,
U. S. imperialism, comprador-bureaucrat capital and feudalism
—Comrades Charu Majumdar, Vempatapu Satyanarayana,
Daya Singh, Sushital Roy Chowdhury, Appu, Raj Kishore,
Saroj Dutta, Baba Bujha Singh, Panchandri Kishnarnurthy,
Babulal Biswakarmakar, Adivatla Kailasam, Subbarao Pani-
grahi, Nirmala Krishnamurthy, Kailash and many hundreds of
other comrades and sympathisers all over the country. The
capture and subsequent murder of Comrade Charu Majumdar,
General Secretary and leader of the Party, by the reactionary
Government was a great loss to the Party. No doubt, the
Party and the people will ever cherish their memory and re¬
solutely carry forward the struggle in the course of which they
laid down their lives.
2. The Central Organizing Committee also pays its sin¬
cere homage to the memory of all other martyrs who have
been killed during these years by the reactionary Government
for defending the interests of the people and waging struggle
against the present social order.
3. The armed struggle that spread from Naxalbari to
Srikakulam, Mushahari, Lakhimpur-Kheri, Gopiballavpur-
Debra, Punjab, Birbhum and other parts of India brought a
thrill of hope to the much-oppressed people of our country.
Millions came to realize that without the revolutionary vio¬
lence of the people the counter-revolutionary violence of the
ruling classes cannot be defeated and the oppressed and ex¬
ploited people cannot smash their chains. Revisionism, which
asks people to shun the path of armed struggle and promises

change through ballot-box suffered a resounding defeat when
the people took to the path of armed struggle in Naxalbari,
Srikakulam and other parts of the country. The Indian peo¬
ple joined the ranks of the revolutionary people throughout
the world, fighting arms in hand to overthrow the common
enemies—imperialism, sccial-imperialism and reaction. The
Party unfurled the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung
thought, the banner of proletarian internationalism, and waged
resolute struggles against revisionism and social-chauvinism.
4. The people took up arms and tasted power in Naxal-
bari, Srikakulam and other parts of the country for the first
time after Telengana. The devotion to the cause of the peo¬
ple, the spirit of self-sacrifice, and the revolutionary fervour
that our comrades and people displayed are truly great. They
wrote a new, glorious chapter in the history of this ancient,,
beloved land of ours, which will never be the same as it was
before 1967.
5. But, despite great achievements, the struggles have
received a setback because the Party committed certain errors
and all the people whom it is necessary to mobilize and
organize for the triumph of revolution could not be mobilized
and organized. The Party is learning from both its positive
achievements and its mistakes and is resolved to serve the
people better and not to rest until the enemies are overthrown.
The Party has no other interests than the interests of the
people and the interests of revolution at heart.
6. Today the imperialist-capitalist system, riddled with
contradictions, is in the throes of a mortal crisis. The great
victories of the Indo-Chinese peoples, the advance of the
national liberation wars in several countries of Asia, Africa
and Latin America, the emergence of the Third World, the
surging tide of struggles between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat in capitalist countries, the sharpening contradictions
among imperialist countries, specially the rivalry between the
two nuclear super-powers, the USA and the USSR, for world
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 37?;
hegemony—all these are hastening the doom of the entire

capitalist system. The economy of the USA and other impe¬
rialist and social-imperialist countries and of their colonies and
semi-colonies is in the doldrums. Indeed the enemy rots with
every passing day. A broad, worldwide united front against
imperialism and social-imperialism, specially against the hege-
monism of the two nuclear super-powers, is forming itself
under the leadership of Socialist China.
7. Objectively, our country is ripe for revolution. From
Assam to Gujrat, from Kashmir to Kerala our people are dis¬
contented and rebellious. They are rising in spontaneous,
death-defying revolts against the system that oppresses and
exploits them cruelly. The Central Organizing Committee of
the CPl(ML) greets the people—the workers, peasants, stu¬
dents and different sections of the petty bourgeoisie—who
refuse to endure any longer the present man-killing system
under which the few enemies mint gold out of the blood,
sweat and tears of the working-class people and their children.
8. Because of social-imperialism, imperialism, comprador-
bureaucrat capitalism and feudalism, the productive forces of
our country are enchained. With its stagnant agriculture,
declining industry, soaring inflation, sky-rocketing prices and
scarcity of essential commodities, increasingly intolerable bur¬
dens of taxation on the common people, a corrupt bureau¬
cracy, colossal unemployment and under-employment of tens
of millions etc., the country is plunging deeper and deeper
into an economic crisis which exposes the utter rottenness of
the system itself. As a result, there is evidence of great
disorder in every sphere of life. Politically, the enemies are
isolated from the people and hated by them ; the revisionists
are getting more and more exposed. The rifts and contradic¬
tions among the enemies themselves are growing wider and
wider. Under the strain of an unprecedented economic crisis,,
the political crisis will get more intensified and the sharp con¬
tradictions within the ruling classes will shatter the facade of
their unity and give rise to much greater political instability
than that of today. These contradictions will be farther

accentuated by the growing contention between the two nuclear
super-powers. Objectively, the present situation—both inter¬
national and internal—is very favourable to the cause of revolu¬
tion and the people, and quite unfavourable to the enemies.
9. It is for the Party and the revolutionary people to
make the much needed subjective preparations, to lead all the
discontent and wrath, all the struggles and revolts of the
people into a mighty torment of revolution that will sweep
away the rule of the monsters that prey upon them. Experi¬
ence has taught us that the broad strategy our Party formu¬
lated for the seizure of political power by the people under the
leadership of the proletariat is correct. The present stage of
revolution is that of the New Democratic revolution, the main
targets of which are two—one, feudalism, and the other, Soviet
social-imperialism and U. S. imperialism. Our perspective,
no doubt, is socialist revolution which can be carried out only
after the completion of the New Democratic revolution. The
New Democratic revolution can be led only by the working
class, and the other forces are the peasantry, the urban petty
bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. The peasantry,
especially the poor peasants and agricultural workers, will
constitute the main force and the petty bourgeoisie will be a
dependable ally of the proletariat. As the contradiction between
•feudalism and the broad masses of the people is the principal
one, the main centre of struggle will be the vast countryside.
The main form of struggle will, no doubt, be the armed stru¬
ggle of the peasantry led by the proletariat for creating and
extending base areas in the countryside and for encircling cities
and achieving nationwide victory at the end. The entire peo¬
ple must be mobilized and organized to wage people’s war
which will be a protracted one and pass through many twists
and turns in view of the relative strength and weakness of the
people and of the enemy. For the purpose of developing
and organizing the subjective forces, the Central Organizing
Committee undertakes the following immediate tasks :
i. To propagate Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought

among the people, to arm the whole Party with the basic theo¬
ries of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and to carry
on an uncompromising ideological-political struggle, chiefly
against revisionism, which is the main danger ;
ii. To unite with all genuine Marxist-Leninists in the
course of ideological-political struggle and revolutionary
practice ;
iii. To participate in and lead mass struggles of the people
on all fronts—economic, political and cultural—and establish
the Party’s political leadership over mass organizations with
a view to organizing armed struggles of the peasantry on the
basis of an Agrarian Programme and for building up base
areas in the countryside ; and, in the process, to strengthen the
Party by taking in the advanced elements of the proletariat
and the semi-proletariat, to create political bases among the
people and to build the people’s armed forces ;
iv. To intensify class struggle of the working class and
other working people with a view to co-ordinating them with
the armed struggle of the peasantry in the rural areas.
10. The Central Organizing Committee rejoices at the
great victories in socialist revolution and socialist construction
achieved by the people of China under the leadership of the
great Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao Tsetung.
It conveys to them its warm revolutionary greetings for the
successful conclusion of the Tenth National Congress, which
has consolidated the victory of the proletariat over the anti-
Party clique led by Lin Piao, the bourgeois careerist, double-
dealer, spy and traitor.
11. The Central Organizing Committee conveys its warm,
revolutionary greetings to the militant people of ‘Bangladesh’,
which the Soviet social-imperialists have reduced to a new
type of colony with the help of their lackeys—the Indian
expansionists—and assure them that our people will stand
■shoulder to shoulder with them in their armed struggle led
*by the Marxist-Leninists against the common enemies.
12. The Central Organizing Committee warmly greets the

heroic Arab people and all other revolutionary peoples of
the world whose revolutionary struggles against imperialism
and social-imperialism are a considerable support to our own
struggle. 1 - * 1 1
13. Chairman Mao said : “Revolution is the main trend
in the world today”. The Indian revolution is a part of the
world proletarian revolution. Our heroic people and the Party
will surely march shoulder to shoulder with the revolutionary
peoples of the world, achieve victory in People’s Democratic
Revolution and usher in a new era in India’s history.
April 6, 1974
‘UNITE TO BUILD A SINGLE PARTY’
An excellent revolutionary situation exists in the world as

well as in our country. A new upsurge has begun in the revo¬
lutionary struggle of the Indian people against the four big
mountains—an upsurge which promises to be far deeper and
higher than any that our country and people have witnessed
ever since 1947. All the basic contradictions of the Indian
society have been greatly aggravated. The reactionary ruling
classes have split and are at each other’s throats.
The negative feature of the present political situation is that
there exist fragmentation and disarray in the ranks of the com¬
munist revolutionaries. As a result of this division, the reac¬
tionary and the revisionist forces in the country are trying their
level best to divert the struggles of the people from the path
of revolution. The reactionary Government has left no one in
doubt that it would strive for causing division among the
broad masses of the people by bringing about further splits
and division in the vanguard i.e., among the communist revo¬
lutionaries. The enemies rejoice at our split.
It is very encouraging that an overwhelming majority of

cadres of the revolutionary groups are fed up with the existing
group regimes and an irresistible trend of achieving unity in a
single party has overtaken them. However, subjective preju¬
dices and sectarianism continue to handicap and prevent the
urge for unity from taking concrete material shape. Often
minor differences, that can very well be resolved within the
framework of a single Marxist-Leninist party, are exaggerated
-..and attempts at unification get frustrated. This situation
must end. If there is to be a revolution, there has to be a
revolutionary party.
The CPl(ML) and the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Com¬
munist Party have been seriously striving for bringing about
unification and consolidation in the ranks of the communist
revolutionaries under the banner of a single Marxist-Leninist
party ever since 1972. Their efforts took a concrete shape
when together they issued a joint appeal.
After prolonged and thorough discussion, the representa¬
tives of the CPl(ML) and the APRCP have reached agreement
on the following major points of programme, tactics and party
building.
Ours is a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country in which several
imperialist powers contend, the principal being the Soviet
social-imperialism and U. S. imperialism.
The Indian Revolution at the present stage is anti-imperia¬
list...It is a New Democratic Revolution in nature.
The four major enemies of the Indian people are (i) Soviet
social-imperialism, (ii) U. S. imperialism, (iii) feudalism and
(iv) comprador bureaucratic capitalism.
Alliance of the four classes, i.e., the working class, pea¬
santry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeo¬
isie, has to be forged for leading the New Democratic revolu¬
tion. The working class is the leader of this united front
and the worker-peasant alliance is the core of the united
front. The working class absolutely relies on the landless and
poor peasants, firmly unites with the middle peasants and the
petty bourgeoisie, seeks to win the rich peasants and the

national bourgeoisie and directs the main edge of its attack
against imperialism, feudalism and comprador-bureaucratic
capitalism.
The working class is conscious that the rich peasantry and
the national bourgeoisie are vacillating and wavering allies of
the New Democratic revolution.
There are four basic contradictions in the present Indian
society. They are :
(1) Contradiction between feudalism and the broad mas¬
ses of the people.
(ii) Contradiction between social-imperialism and im¬
perialism on the one hand and the nation on the other.
(iii) Contradiction between the working class and the
bourgeoisie, and
(iv) Inter-imperialist (including social-imperialism) contra¬
dictions and the inner contradictions in the ruling classes
which are led by big landlords and big bourgeoisie.
Out of all these basic contradictions, the principal contra¬
diction at the present phase is the one between feudalism and
the broad masses of the people.
The axis of the New Democratic revolution is the agrarian
revolution.
The programme of the New Democratic revolution
recognises the right of nations to self-determination.
The socialist revolution can be achieved only after comple¬
ting the New Democratic revolution.
Party and the Tactical Line
The working class wants the party to rely on the peasants,,

establish base areas in the countryside in protacted armed
struggle and use the countryside to encircle and finally capture
the cities.
The working class and the people must forge three magic
weapons without which victory in revolution is impossible—
a Marxist-Leninist party, a people’s army, and a revolutionary
united front. It is the party that commands the army and it

is the party that leads the united front.
All the struggles of the people against economic, political,
cultural and military policies of the reactionary State are revo¬
lutionary struggles and the revolutionaries must initiate,
conduct and lead these struggles. The broad masses of the
people can be organised for revolution only through comple¬
menting the armed struggle by mass struggles. It is reformism
to confine struggles of the people to economic and partial
demands only and it is adventurism to ignore or boycott the
mass struggles of the people on economic and partial demands
on the pretext of conducting political struggles. Marxist-
Leninists strive to forge a united fiont of all democratic classes
from the very beginning of their activities and they strive to
develop the united front in course of sharp class struggles of
the people against their oppressors.
Marxist-Leninists must resolutely oppose parliamentary
cretinism and individual terrorism as they obstruct the deve¬
lopment of people’s war and isolate them from the people.
Marxist-Leninists must take the countryside as the centre of
gravity while not abandoning work in the towns and cities.
While working in the countryside for building the base
areas and the people’s army, they must give top priority to
concentrating on the mountainous and forest regions and the
river valleys in a planned manner. The people in the plains
areas and adjacent to such zones should also be organised.
While working in the countryside and the urban areas
efforts must begin to build the people’s army. The party must
begin to build the people’s army. The party must command
the gun and the gun must never command the party. The
experience of the Chinese Communist Party, other fraternal
parties and also our own experience teach us that a people s
army is built in course of politically arousing the broad masses
of the people, in course of mobilising them for realisation of
their economic and political demands, in course of fierce class
battles against their exploiters and by drawing the countless
militants from the working class, the peasantry and the urban
intelligentsia. Our experience teaches further that attempt to
build a people’s army by killing indiscriminately landlords and
other exploiters in a conspiratorial manner through a campaign
of annihilation of class ‘enemies’ alienates the fighters from
politics, people and party and causes disaster. It is only a
terrorist band that we get and not a people’s army out of the
theory and practice of individual terrorism. The party must
integrate with the landlesss and poor peasants, firmly unite with
the middle peasants, it must politically arouse broad masses of
the peasantry on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung
Thought ; it must arm peasant masses and disarm the land¬
lords, it must form village defence corps and armed guerilla
squads from among the peasantry. It must form revolutionary
peasant committees and develop them as organs of people’s
rule. It must lead the peasant masses to seize landlords’ land
and other properties for distribution among the peasants as it
is the key issue of the agrarian revolution, and it must punish
the despotic landlords, usurers, local bullies and corrupt
officials. And in course of carrying out the above-mentioned
tasks it must recruit and train innumerable militants born out
of class struggles and make them good soldiers and comman¬
ders of the people’s army and lead them to attack and smash
the armed forces of the enemy following the strategy and the
tactics of people’s war formulated by Comrade Mao Tsetung.
The working class which leads the New Democratic revolu¬
tion, while fighting class battles on economic and political
issues, will act as the inspirer and unifier of other revolutionary
classes by launching solidarity mass actions in support of then-
struggles, specially the struggles of the peasantry.
Special attention will be given to organising the working
class employed in the strategic industries.
They must utilise the contradictions in the camp of their
enemies at a given time and unite all the forces that can be
united and develop revolutionary struggles of the people in
the country while retaining their independence and initiative.
■DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 385
The Marxist-Leninists must unite in a single party that takes

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought as its theoretical
guide and adhere to proletarian internationalism.
The party is to be built by giving top priority to work in
the countryside while giving proper importance to work in the
towns and cities also.
The party must master various forms of struggle and orga¬
nisation and style of work. It must strive to combine the legal
with illegal, open with secret, mass organisation with armed
organisation and mass struggle with armed struggle.
The party must adhere to mass line i.e., it must pursue the
style “from the masses to the masses” in all its activities. It
must combat tailism and commandism in its style of working.
The party must adhere to the principles of democratic cen¬
tralism in its functioning. It must strictly adhere to the four
disciplines : individual is subordinate to the unit ; lower com¬
mittees are subordinate to the higher committees, minority is
subordinate to the majority and all the party members are sub¬
ordinate to the Central Committee. The party must not
permit establishment of personal regimes. It must function on
the basis of the “committee system” and the “method of leader¬
ship” laid down by Comrade Mao Tsetung. Factions are in¬
compatible with the party.
In view of the common understanding between the two
parties on all the major points of programme, tactics and
party building, we have decided to unite into a single party, i.e.
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
We believe, this approach will be welcomed by all the
communist revolutionaries in our country, and they too will
come forward to unite in the CPI(ML) without further delay.
Satyanarain Singh, General Secretary, CPI(ML)
Paila Vasudeva Rao, CPI(ML)
Ramanarsiah, Secretary, APRCP
Chandra Pul la Reddy, Leader, Member, APRCP
Date of publication in FRONTIER, March 8, 1975
Vol 11—25
HOLD HIGH THE GENUINE LESSONS OF
NAXALBARI
(30 November, 1975)
ASHIM CHATTERJEE
Politically, Naxalbari is the continuation of Telengana.

Its greatest significance lies in the fact that after a pro¬
longed break of 16 years, it boldly confronted the communist,
revolutionaries with the basic question concerning the course
of the Indian revolution and rejecting revisionist politics and
launching a peasant struggle that shook all of India. It
decisively showed the way towards armed agrarian revolution.
To draw correct lessons from Naxalbari, it is imperative to
analyse the history of the development of Naxalbari struggle.
Comrade Kanu Sanyal has presented this history in his valu¬
able piece ‘More about Naxalbari’. To study, discuss and
assimilate this article is an objective necessity today. Among,
its many important lessons, some deserve special attention.
Firstly, the peasant struggle in Naxalbari developed by
fighting both right and ‘left’ deviations. Had this fact and the
relevant history of Naxalbari struggle been taken into account
and given due importance, the temporary victory of‘left’
deviation and subsequent terroristic activities would not have
been possible. Immediately after Naxalbari uprising, poli¬
tical opportunists spread the word that Naxalbari uprising was
the result of the struggle merely against right-wing deviation.
Later, Lin Piao’s ‘New Era’ thesis was used to establish that
no ‘Left’ wing deviation was possible in this era. Many, inclu¬
ding the present writer, forgot that both the deviations have
identical ideological basis.
Secondly, it emphasises the importance of the agrarian,
question in the people’s democratic stage of the Indian revolu¬
tion. It is this question which demarcates the communist
revolutionaries from revisionists of all brands. In the ‘Spring
Thunder’ editorial, the Chinese Communist Party said, Chair¬

man Mao had already shown clearly long ago that the
agrarian question was of very great importance in the people’s
democratic revolution.
Thirdly, Comrade Sanyal’s article clearly demarcates the
proletarian from the petit-bourgeois concept of armed agra¬
rian revolution. As a Marxist-Leninist concept, armed struggle
must be seen as a development of class struggle. The attempt
to launch an armed struggle in a semi-feudal country while
ignoring the land question is, in effect, to build an armed
struggle without the class struggle. Chairman Mao has said,
“Never forget class struggle”. In the democratic phase of
the revolution in our country, the agrarian programme must
be a programme of land seizure. Thus, in the arena of
struggle, the land question must remain both a goal and a
process. So, it is not valid to say that we will redistribute
land to the peasants only after the seizure of power ; the
process of seizure of power cannot operate in isolation from
the land question. It is in the process of implementing the
programme of land seizure that the peasantry realises in its
totality the importance in the agrarian revolution of uprooting
the feudal dominance and the power of the landlords by a
political alliance of workers and peasants. Naxalbari brought
out this lesson before the communist revolutionaries of India.
Fourthly, there is the question of mass line. The Chinese
experience teaches us that the peasant struggle can never
succeed without mass struggle and mass organisation. Com¬
rade Sanyal has analysed the struggle between two lines on
this question in the context of Naxalbari and has correctly
concluded, “The mass organisation and mass struggle of
workers and peasants are the progenitors of the peasant stru¬
ggle in Naxalbari.”
If we look closely at ‘agrarian revolution’ as attempted by
Charu Majumdar we will find that he had, in fact, conceived
of an ‘agrarian revolution’ minus the agrarian question.
Any comrade who takes the trouble to read carefully the
'388 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
‘Spring Thunder Over India’ article will see that it first

emphasises the importance of the agrarian question in the
national democratic revolution in India ; it is only in that
context that the questions of capture of power by armed force
and settling of issues by war, establishment of base areas,
etc., in a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country, come up. It then
argues that since India is a very large country and reactionary
forces are weak in the countryside, the revolutionaries could
carry out tactical warfare in the rural areas with comparative
ease. The line of Charu Majumdar recognised only the
latter part of this argument ; the former part, i.e., the
agrarian question, was not even taken into consideration.
There is no doubt that the ‘agrarian revolution’ of Charu
Majumdar was a petit-bourgeois conception which negated
the class struggle in the countryside.
Charu Majumder then proposed the annihilation line in
order to accomplish his so-called ‘agrarian revolution’.
This was one of his ‘great’ contributions. In reality, this
was nothing more than secret assassination by small armed
groups. Such actions do not, in any way, raise the class
consciousness of workers and peasants or enthuse them to
organise on a class basis. Rather, they inhibit their natural
feelings of class hatred within the bounds of individual revenge
and retribution. The tremendous oppression of hundreds of
years have created a natural class hatred in the minds of
workers vis-a-vis their employers or of peasants vis-a-vis the
landlords. All communists recognise that by merely fomen¬
ting such hatred and annihilating individual capitalists or
individual landlords the capital or the system of feudal exploi¬
tation will not be eliminated, nor will a proletarian dictator¬
ship or the rule of workers and peasants be created. It is
natural for those at a low level of political consciousness to go
for the apparently simple solution of annihilating the individual
capitalist or the individual landlord. Such tendencies are all
the more likely among those engaged in petty production and
uninitiated into mature forms of political action. Communists
fight ideologically against such ‘natural’ tendencies and

present before workers and peasants a class point of view, the
idea of establishing a new class rule and the need to organise
on a class basis. Patiently they explain the class nature of
existing state formations and the need to destroy the existing
state structure and create a new one in its stead.
It can now be seen that it was not by any means accidental
that even the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” was
almost never uttered in the CPI(ML) of Charu Majumdar.
Indeed, this absence is particularly remarkable in the context
of the great debate in the international communist movement.
Thus, in fact, the whole idea of carrying forward the revolution
under the dictatorship of the proletariat in the entire period of
socialism is dismissed, and instead an anarchist conception limi¬
ted solely to the destruction of state machinery is substituted.
The so-called “annihilation line” is a gross distortion of
the class struggle, a terrorism of very low kind. It is funda¬
mentally opposed to the class struggle, to the establishment of
a new order of class rule, to political organisation on a class
basis, and is opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
How far Charubabu’s line differs from the concept of class
struggle can be understood from two incidents. First, under the
Coordination Committee, a programme was adopted to under¬
take class analysis in rural areas. As soon as Charubabu’s line
became dominant, the programme was dropped. No one felt
the need for such work. In fact, in the political analysis of the
CPI(ML), the terms “semi-feudal”, “semi-colonial character of
India” or “the four enemies of the Indian people”, had become
merely ornamental phrases. Secondly, where feudal exploitation
was fierce, this line could never be effected, in spite of the best
efforts of our comrades, without a programme of mass struggle.
I can assert from personal experience that in the Jhargram
subdivision, even in Gopiballavpur, where contradictions with
the feudal elements were the sharpest, this line could not be
implemented. The working class of Kharagpur, engaged in
the large scale industrial sector, rejected this line.
Again, obviously, the idea of “the creation of a new man”

through the annihilation campaign was yet another anarchist
conception. Chairman Mao’s “new man” is a Marxist-
Leninist concept which grew out of a social practice in accor¬
dance with the stages of social development. On the other
hand, Majumdar’s ideas of individual heroism, bravery and
sacrifice are, in fact, petit-bourgeois ideas. •
All communist revolutionaries who, like the present author,
had fallen prey to a spell of temporary infatuation and joined
the CPI(ML), should now confess that they had unconsciously
opposed the armed agrarian revolution and served neo-terror¬
ism. It is, again, not surprising that not a single person
remaining within the ambits of discipline of the CPI(ML)
could establish the line of armed agrarian revolution in that
party, and that everyone who did take this path had to leave
the CPI(ML) and form a new group and a new discipline.
The question naturally arises : Why were we taken in by
Charu Majumdar’s line ?
There was, firstly, the question of a weakness inherent in
the class composition of our leadership. In Comrade Sanyal’s
words : “At every level of the communist leadership there is a
preponderance of elements drawn from the impatient petit-
bourgeoisie, the petty peasant producer classes with narrow
conservative outlook and the decadent feudal classes with
anarchist leanings.”
Secondly, there was a strong terrorist trend within the
struggle of the Indian people against British imperialism ; yet
the Indian communist movement has never contested that trend
ideologically.
There has been confusion in the matter of clearly demar¬
cating the communist movement from the reformists on the
one hand and the terrorists on the other. The seeds of idea¬
lism have thus been sown within the Indian communist
movement. The long practice of revisionism had created
among a large section of revolutionary workers a genuine
feeling of intense hatred of revisionism. The apparent mili-
tancy of terrorism thus seemed attractive ; its real nature as a

rejection of the class struggle was missed and the understanding
of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought remained weak.
‘More about Naxalbari’ shows how the party was formed
conspiratorially and the split among the communist revolution¬
aries was made permanent thereby.
Certain persons cling to the view that the CPI(ML) was
founded on the basis of an agrarian programme adopted after
a correct assessment of the Naxalbari movement ; Charu
Majumdar had then pretended to agree with the so-called
exponents of the agrarian programme, but later, in spite of
their opposition, succeeded in carrying the party to a wrong
line. This is a pure lie. Two documents, a political report and
an organisational report were adopted unanimously at the
last meeting of the AICCCR—the meeting from which the
decision to form the party had been taken and the COC had
been formed. In this organisational report it had been stated,
“We must assimilate the teachings of Comrade Lin Piao, which
has also been confirmed in our recent Sonapet struggle,
that guerilla war is the only way to mobilise and apply the
entire strength of the people against the enemy.” What is the
Sonapet struggle ? In Sonapet, a group of peasants beheaded
a notorious landlord out of spontaneous anger. By linking
this incident with the Lin Piao quotation, guerilla warfare and
beheading of landlords had been equated, and this was un¬
animously accepted by one and all in that meeting. This
formulation was the operative part of the whole document and
naturally all the activities of the CPI(ML) had this formulation
as its axis. It is an undeniable fact of history that the CPI(ML)
was formed on the basis of the line of annihilation and none
-contested this formulation in the COC meeting on, April 22,
1969, or even in the Party Congress of 1970. The organisa¬
tional report unambiguously establishes this.
Hence, the thesis that the CPl(ML) was formed on the
basis of an agrarian programme with the lessons of Naxalbari
is a distortion of history, an obnoxious lie.
392 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II'
The formation of Naxalbari O Krishak Sangram Sahayak

Committee as well as A1CCCR was correct and realistic. The
AICCCR took some correct steps initially, but because of a
wrong and subjective evaluation of Naxalbari struggle, subjecti¬
vism became increasingly stronger. Formation of CPI(ML) was
the culmination of that process. As a result, the tremendous
possibilities to which Naxalbari had given birth, were nipped
in the bud and a petit-bourgeois, terrorist Party was born.
Seen in this light, Charu Majumdar was a petit-bourgeois
revolutionary. Proud and vain, he held his own personal
feelings much above Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
In the conflict between revolution and careerism, he gave pre¬
cedence to the latter. The way he disrupted the proletarian
movement in our country, the ruling classes in future will
remember him as a hero, but the workers and peasants will
offer him unmixed hatred.
Thus Naxalbari calls upon Indian revolutionaries to seek
the truth from reality, to stand firmly implanted in real expe¬
rience. The martyr Comrade Babulal Biswakarmakar was
helped out of jail by resort to bourgeois legality, but soon
after he gave his life in the revolutionary cause. If we perceive
the true significance of this event, can we any longer oppose
the correct line of combining legal with the illegal ? In 1967,
the Comrades of Naxalbari followed the correct tactic of using
the elections, yet soon after we had the Naxalbari peasant
uprising. If any significance is attached to this, can anyone
oppose the correct line of remaining firm on strategy and
flexible on tactics ? Our experience of the past few years
demand a fresh look into all these questions. Uniting on the
basis of a correct programme and path is the most urgent task
of the day. No single person or group in India has so far
taken a correct position on every question. Honest and bold
criticism and self-criticism having faith in and respect for one
another, are the pre-conditions for unity among communist
revolutionaries. The revolution of the Indian people is
inevitable. Communists will have to unite to build a truly
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 393,
proletarian party. This is what the national and international

situation demands today.
But does all this mean that we propose to go back by eight
years to where we were before the days of the Co-ordination
Committee ? Though the two situations have some similarities
in appearance, they are very different in essence. We have
advanced politically in all these years. The revolution is not
like an arrow shot, nor like the hands of a clock ; it travels
neither in straight lines nor in circles—“History develops in
spirals”.
[Abridged]
ON THE SITUATION AND OUR TASKS
[The following is a translation of a section of the

Bengali version of the Political Report adopted
by the Second Congress of the CPI(ML)—the first
Congress of the pro-Charu Majumdar and anti-Lin
Piao group led by Vinod Mishra. The Report was
placed at the Congress by Vinod Mishra on Febru-
t
ary 6, and was unanimously adopted on February

8, 1976. The words within the brackets and the
footnotes have been supplied by us.—Editors ].
Standing on the brink of their doom, imperialism and

social-imperialism are beset with crises, at home and abroad.
The world-wide rivalry of the two super-powers for world
hegemony—with Europe as its centre—has assumed acute
form. Under foul tactics of “relaxation of tensions” they
are hatching many a sinister conspiracy to start a world war.
In regard to this rivalry, the U.S. imperialism is in a defensive
position and the Soviet soical-imperialism is in an offensive
position. With a greatly increased stockpile of nuclear weapons,
the social-imperialists today are enormously increasing their
military preparations and are day-dreaming of swallowing the
world in a gulp. Their naked armed intervention in Angola

proves that they have become desperate. Thus the danger of a
world war has become a stark reality and the Soviet social-
fascists are the most dangerous source of this war.
But the main feature of the international situation today
is not this war conspiracy. Today the main feature of the
international situation is “the emergence and strengthening
of the Third Power”. The victory of the national liberation
struggles in small countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
is the victory of people’s war against modern revisionism—the
victory of Mao Tsetung Thought. The significance of this
victory : “A weak nation can defeat a strong nation, a small
nation can defeat a big one. The people of a small country can
certainly defeat aggression by a big country, if only they dare
to rise in struggle, dare to take up arms and grasp in their
own hands the destiny of their country. This is a law of
history.” The rising tide of revolutionary mass movements
is sweeping across various capitalist countries as a result of
enormous progress in struggles of peoples of the Third
World. The governments of the countries not only in Asia,
Africa and Latin America but also elsewhere have become
vocal against the two super-powers. Under the leadership
of the great land of China, all these forces are advancing
along the path of forming a world-wide united front.
“In the international situation this is entirely a new trend,
not witnessed before.” “Many events have occurred which
have no precedent.”
The Chinese Party under the leadership of Chairman
(Mao) has become stronger and has firmly strengthened the
dictatorship of the proletariat by deepening further the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. Struggling against
modern revisionism in various countries of the world, the
genuine Marxist-Leninist forces are developing, getting
organized and gathering strength.
In all respects, we are living in the historical era witnessing
the total transformation of this wicked world, this worn out,
disgraced and obsolete world, and the emergence of a new

world free from all filth, waste, destruction and horror of
death.
In our country, armed with the atom bomb, the reactionary
Government of India—a satellite of Soviet social-imperialism
—has adopted an aggressive nationalistic policy befitting a
sub-super-power. It is intensifying its effort to devour the
neighbouring countries and is stepping up activities against
them. Thousands of Soviet specialists are controlling the
entire defence organisation of the country. Burdened with
war efforts, the country has been thrown into the abyss of
permanent and acute economic crisis. The exploitation and
oppression of Indian masses have assumed a terrible form.
To save themselves from people’s outbursts all over the
country against this exploitation, the social-imperialists are
striving to build up a “powerful centre” making a “hero”
of Indira Gandhi. Today with the promulgation of the
“emergency” the Indira Government has exposed itself
in its naked, armed, counter-revolutionary appearance.
But already its expansionist policy has faced massive
resistance. The recent changes in Bangladesh are a great
debacle for the Indira Government. Inside .the country the
tide of victory over Pakistan has receded ; under the leadership
of our Party, the poor and landless peasants in different areas
of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have risen up in
armed struggle against the age-old ruthless political repression,
terrible oppression and economic exploitation of the landlord
class. The armed peasant upsurge in Patna, Bhojpur and
other areas of Bihar, in particular, has become an object of
terror not only to the bosses in Delhi but also to their masters
in Moscow. On the other hand, this struggle has obtained
support from the great Chinese Party of Chairman (Mao) and
China. It has also been hailed by the revolutionaries of many
other countries. Advancing along the (path of) armed struggle
in the face of the countrywide upsurge of the Indian masses,
we have laid the foundations of a People’s Democratic India.
396 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL It
The completely nationalist character of the armed struggles for

self-determination by different nationalities has undergone a
change ; these struggles have reached the stage of forming
unity with the armed class struggles of the Indian masses.
The demand for self-rule in Tamil Nadu has gained powerful
support. As a result of further intensification of scramblings
among the various imperialist groups inside the country, a
great split has occurred in the reactionary armed forces. The
reactionary Congress regime of the Indira clique has been
reduced to a small group isolated from the broadest masses
of the people. So “it is possible to build up the broadest
possible united front against the Congress regime”.
In such an excellent revolutionary situation when under
our Party leadership the armed peasant struggle has created
a mass upsurge, has taken the form of liberation struggle of
the Indian masses and is advancing, “it is our duty to advance
with the task of building the Party among broad basic people
and to build up a united front with the broadest section of
the people on the basis of struggles.” In order to build up
the Party among the broad basic people we shall have to
build up the Party on a firm class basis—a task which can
be accomplished only by conducting campaigns of assaults
against the mobile enemy forces.
We have launched attacks on the mobile enemy forces
and have started building a regular army. The initiative of
the peasant masses is taking the form of an upsurge following
the birth of the regular army. We shall have to closely
watch these upsurges and form revolutionary committees to
lead them. For example, the recent hartal at Punpun was also
an upsurge.
But despite attacks on mobile enemy forces, we have not
yet been able to organize campaigns of assaults on area-wise
mobile enemy forces. In certain areas, deviating from the
objective of organizing this campaign, we have mechanically
tried to expand our regular army and have failed. We must
-realize that this campaign of ours is a political campaign direc-
ted towards the aim of “establishing people’s state power

through people’s war”. So, only by leading struggles of a
high level against the “ideology of roving rebel bands” and
“flightism” is it possible to organize this campaign. Only by
organising this campaign shall we be able to carry on mass
movements of the peasant masses and to combine the mass
movements with the armed struggle through revolutionary
committees. Only thus will develop people’s guerilla war, and
step by step a well disciplined and vast regular army, a large
number of local armies and people’s militia will grow up and
base areas will be developed.
So it is exceedingly important today to arm the fighters
from the class with the class outlook, the political outlook and
to establish them deep within the class itself. The close link
between the regular army and the people is the key to organi¬
zing revolutionary committees of a high level.
Comrades !
The class war that we are leading is gradually becoming
more and more ruthless. The enemy is desperately resorting
to “encirclement and suppression” in order to destroy the
armed units of our People’s Liberation Army. Unless we are
able to raise the level of political consciousness of fighters,
develop vigilance of a high level and make all-out preparations,
our units will not be able to wage surprise attacks on the
enemy forces and break the “encirclement and suppression”
by wiping out a part of the enemy forces. And failing to do
this we shall not be able to preserve our main force and
the leadership. On this question, spontaneity has been the
cause of much of our loss. We must keep it in our mind
that to become victims of the enemy’s surprise attack
and to lose initiative are manifestations of ideas opposed to
guerilla war.
The Party (branch) inside our regular army must study the
laws of enemy’s “encirclement and suppression” and discover
the laws breaking them. For that we must conscientiously
.study Chairman Mao’s military writings with Comrade Charu
Majumdar’s revolutionary outlook in command ; and on that

basis we must make the commanders conscious.
Apart from one area, one unit and one squad, we must
put all our efforts towards building a one-man ‘nucleus’ with
a view to developing a particular commander. In all situations
he must creatively integrate the Party line, with his ‘Living
idea’. All the tasks ought to be brought in tune with the
central task. The fighters have to be linked with production
the cadres and fighters must be taught to observe the “Three-
Eight Principles”* to the letter, so that they are able to build
close relations with the people. The fighters have to be
trained expeditiously to enable them to discharge political
responsibilities of the Party. Thus under the Party’s leadership
the regular army will become well disciplined.
* “The Three Main Rules of Discipline are as follows :

(1) Obey orders in all your actions.
(2) Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from>
the masses.
(3) Turn in everything captured.
The Eight Points for Attention are as follows :
(1) Speak politely.
(2) Pay fairly for what you buy.
(3) Return everything you borrow.
(4) Pay for anything you damage.
(5) Do not hit or swear at people.
(6) Do not damage crops.
(7) Do not take liberties with women.
(8) Do not ill-treat captives.”
[“On the Reissue of the Three Main Rules of Disci¬

pline and Eight Points for Attention—Instruction
of the General Headquarters of the Chinese
People’s Liberation Army” (October 10, 1947),
Selected Military Writings, 2nd ed., P. 343.
■—Editors J
Those who are willing to join the regular army must be

admitted. We must find out the creative method of speedily
educating them politically. Then only we shall be able to
preserve them and the regular army will grow into a vast force.
From our experience we have seen that where struggles
have been confined to the stage of annihilation of class enemies
only, and where we have not been able to establish the
revolutionary committees as the State power of the masses
by strengthening the People’s Liberation Army, the reactionary
government has distributed lands of the annihilated class
enemies amongst the peasant masses and thus made sinister
efforts to complete our land reforms with a view to blunting
the edge of fighting consciousness of the peasant masses for
seizure of power. Therefore, in addition to developing our
struggle, seizing crops under the leadership of revolutionary
committees, reducing rent in general and redistributing the
lands of the annihilated class enemies, we must undertake the
responsibility of total land reforms area-wise.
Under the impact of armed peasant struggle, today the
working class is holding its head high in different areas and
is coming forward to discharge its responsibility as leader of
the revolution. We have been able to build up Party organi¬
zations within the working class in various basic industrial
undertakings. But our work among workers is not yet
adequate. Within the working class we must further intensify
the struggle against the petty bourgeois outlook. Only in
this way can we get from the working class good organizers
who will rally the broad working class, the poor people and
the petty bourgeoisie of the urban areas in the resistance
struggle and will perform the role of worthy political advisers
of the People’s Liberation Army in the villages.
Our base areas are symbols of the united front of worker-
peasant-middle class masses opposed to the Congress regime.
It is by consolidating and extending these that the united
front will be consolidated and developed. Gradually the
non-working sections of the people will also unite with us.
These base areas are also the bases of our cultural revolu¬
tion. So, the People’s Liberation Army will have to be
transformed into a cultural army as well, repudiating, on
the cultural question, all revisionist points of view opposed
to class outlook—opposed to armed struggle. In this way
alone the struggle initiated by the revolutionary youths and
students against the feudal-imperialist culture will be united
with the revolutionary struggles of the peasants and our
people’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal culture will develop
vigorously.
[Source : Liberation (Bengali), a mouthpiece of this
group, Vol. 1 No. 1, February 1976.]
RESOLUTION ‘ON ELECTIONS’
[ The following is the document {Draft) of the CPI{ML)

led by Satyanarain Singh, dated April 3, 1977.—Ed.]
The Central Committee, having reviewed the Party line

‘on elections’, has come to the conclusion that the line of total
and general boycott of elections during the entire period of
People’s Democtratic revolution is a line contrary to Marxism-
Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and is an outcome of the
Party’s over-reaction to revisionism and subjective and meta¬
physical approach.
The Party, particularly the Central Committee, confused
the parliamentary path as peddled by the revisionists with
participation in and utilisation of the parliamentary institutions
by the revolutionary Marxists for exposing the real nature of
bourgeois parliaments, for educating the backward sections of
the people about the necessity of armed struggle for the over¬
throw of their enemies, for organising and mobilising the
broad masses in revolutionary struggles and for wrecking the
bourgeois parliament from within. The parliamentary path
peddled by the revisionists is to go to establish the so-called
parliamentary democracy in India as an “instrument of peo¬
ple s will” and advocate the “peaceful path” to socialism or
the path of “peaceful transition”. The revisionists’ conception
is to gain a majority in parliament, capture the government
and effect basic social transformation without demolishing the
existing reactionary State machinery. The revolutionary
Marxists, on the other hand, believe in utilising the elections
for mobilizing the people for revolutionary overthrow of the
enemies of the people from power by smashing the reactionary
State machinery, for overthrowing bourgeois democracy and
establishing people’s democracy and socialist democracy. The
parliamentary path peddled by the revisionists and revolu¬
tionary utilisation of the bourgeois parliament are not the
same thing. The Central Committee in its over-reaction to
revisionism, wrongly bracketed the two entirely mutually anta¬
gonistic concepts and adopted the line of total and general
boycott. The impetuosity of accomplishing the revolution
on the morrow to our resolve led the CC and the whole
Party to a negative and harmful line of boycottism. It led to
boycott of elections, boycott of partial and economic struggles
and boycott of mass organisations and threw the entire Party
and the revolutionary movement off its correct rails. In our
enthusiasm to draw a sharp line of distinction between Marxists
and the revisionists, the CC and the Party threw away the
baby with bath water.
Even after the CC and the Party rectified its line of boycott
•of economic and partial struggles and of mass organisations,
even after it upheld and practised the tactics of combining the
legal with the illegal, open with secret and other forms of
struggle with armed struggle, the line of total and general
boycott of elections was continued on the basis of the
erroneous understanding that to utilise parliament was the
same as taking to the parliamentary path and giving up the
path of People’s war.
The CC, victim of subjectivism and voluntarism, negated
Vol 11—26
402 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II'
the Leninist conception that utilisation of the parliament or

participation or non-participation in elections or in bourgeois
parliament was a matter of tactics, that it was part of the tactics
of combining legal with illegal and there cannot be an absolute
approach to this question as it was a question of tactics and
when to participate in it or when to call for a boycott depen¬
ded upon the level of consciousness of the people, degree of
their organisation and strength and the striking capacity of the
Party.
Comrade Lenin narrated the experience of the Bolsheviks
and observed : “...it has been proved that participation in a
bourgeois-democratic parliament even a few weeks before the
victory of the Soviet republic, and even after such a victory,,
not only does not harm the revolutionary proletariat, but
actually helps it to prove to the backward masses why such
parliaments deserve to be dispersed ; it helps their successful
dispersal and helps to make bourgeois-parliamentarism ‘poli¬
tically obsolete’. To refuse to heed to this experience, and
at the same time to claim affiliation to the Communist Inter¬
national, which must work out its tactics internationally ( not
as narrow or one-sided national tactics, but as international
tactics), is to commit the gravest blunder and to retreat from
internationalism while recognizing it in words.”
[Lenin : Left-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder
Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975 P. 54]
Thus, participation in bourgeois parliament before and even
after the victory of the Soviet Republic, in order to prove to
the backward masses the utter futility of such parliaments,
to facilitate its successful dissolution and to make it politically
obsolete for the masses was correct tactics for the Bolsheviksr
according to Lenin. The line of total and general boycott
of elections upheld by the Central Committee was thus a total
rejection of Leninism on this question.
Lenin repeatedly has spoken about the political conditions
in which to participate in elections or not to participate in
elections. Writing about the boycott of Duma in August
1905, Lenin observed thus : “At that time the boycott proved
correct, not because non-participation in reactionary parlia¬
ments is correct in general, but because we correctly gauged
the objective situation which was leading to the rapid trans¬
formation of the mass strikes into a political strike, then
into revolutionary strike and then into uprising. Moreover,
the struggle at that time centred around the question whether
to leave the convocation of the first representative assembly to
the tsar, or to attempt to wrest its convocation from the hands
of the old regime. When there was no certainty, nor could
there be, that the objective situation was analogous, and like¬
wise no certainty of similar trend and rate of development, the
boycott ceased to be correct.”
[Lenin : Ibid, Pp. 20-21]
Bolsheviks linked the question of participation or boycott of
Duma or elections to a particular combination in the situation.
The boycott was correct when revolutionary strikes were
turning into an uprising, when Soviets as people’s organ of
power had begun appearing and when revolution was on the
verge of breaking out. The revolutionary tide was reaching
its zenith.
Similarly, pointing out the reasons justifying participation
in bourgeois parliament, Lenin observed : “Even if not ‘milli¬
ons’ and ‘legions’, but only a fairly large minority of industrial
workers follow the Catholic priests—and a similar minority of
rural workers follow the landlords and kulaks (Grossbauern)—
it undoubtedly follows that parliamentarism in Germany is
not yet politically obsolete, that participation in parliamentary
elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is
obligatory for the party of the revolutionary proletariat
precisely for the purpose of educating the backward strata,
of its own class, precisely for the purpose of awakening and
enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden, ignorant rural
masses. As long as you are unable to disperse the bourgeois
parliament and every other type of reactionary institution, you
must work inside them precisely because there you will still
find workers who are doped by the priests and by the dreari¬
ness of rural life, otherwise you risk becoming mere babblers.”
[Lenin : Ibid, Pp. 52-53]
Thus, Lenin points out the conditions in which it is obliga¬
tory on the part of the revolutionary proletariat to utilise
elections and the bourgeois parliaments to work within them.
As long as revolutionaries lack the strength to do away with
bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary
institutions, they must work within them.
However, the CC ignored the scientific tactics laid down
by Lenin and adopted a disastrous tactic of boycotting all
elections irrespective of the level of the revolutionary move¬
ment, the level of consciousness of the people and the degree
of their organised strength.
The CC, in order to justify its departure from Leninist
tactics, used all sorts of arguments to defend its “Left” slogan
of general boycott. The CC in its various documents {Revisi¬
onist Onslaught, The Indian Revolution and Its Path and
other documents) laboured hard to prove that Leninist tac¬
tics with regard to participation in bourgeois parliament was
no longer applicable to the present day India. The CC took
shelter behind the argument that world capitalism was no
longer in the stage of decennial crises but in the stage of per¬
manent crisis, that the Indian p'eople had already sufficient
experience of the elections since 1952 or even earlier and were
convinced that in India elections were based on bogus votes
and not on real votes, that there existed no lull in the revolu¬
tionary struggles and that it was in the phase of incline. The
CC, in one of its documents, categorically stated that parlia¬
mentary democracy was not only historically obsolete but also
politically obsolete in India. Hence the decision of the Party
to boycott elections. There has never arisen a situation in
which the boycott could be a correct slogan. Overwhelming
majority of people have yet to get disillusioned from the
elections, their struggle has yet to reach the stage when they
could have the strength to sweep away the bourgeois parlia-
merits and other reactionary institutions. The revolutionary

movement is still in its infancy. The areas of revolutionary
mass struggles are microscopically small in size in such a vast
country as ours. Even when the country was passing through
post-Naxalbari upsurge, the level of consciousness of the
people, their organisation and strength had not reached to
that stage when they could sweep away the parliament. The
organs of people’s power were yet to be born. The parlia¬
mentary democracy—though historically obsolete had not
politically outlived itself. People were making use of it and
participating in the elections and this was not only the case
with the backward strata of the people but for the whole
people, except the people of those areas where we had deve¬
loped good movement and where they followed us loyally.
What was politically obsolete to the revolutionary Marxists
had not yet become so for the masses, for not only for a
substantial minority of our people but for the millions of
our countrymen. The CC confused the relationship of the
leadership with the masses. Can the basis of outbursts of
mass peasant struggles from Naxalbari, the militant waves of
siudents’ struggles and working class struggles in several parts
of the country be taken as the emergence of the stage when
combining the legal with the illegal, parliamentary with the
extra-parliamentary, the open with the secret, and other forms
of struggle were regarded as contemptible and counter-revo¬
lutionary ? The subsequent elections also, even the one held
in 1971 after the severe setback suffered by the revolutionary
people in 1970-71, did not move us to the realisation of the
reality that revolution had suffered defeat, that revolutionary
forces had to be revived, strength had to be created and
accumulated in order to prepare the Party and the revolutio¬
nary forces for a rapid advance. The boycott of elections to
the Loksabha in 1977 (March) was the most serious blunder
as it prevented the Party from emerging as a much stronger
force. The bankruptcy of the line of general boycott, the
total absurdity of it can be realised from the fact that it was
overthrown not only by masses, but by overwhelming majority

of revolutionary cadres as well. In this respect, the election
verdict of 1977 is also a convincing victory against the line
of general and total boycott of elections advanced by the
Party. Comrade Lenin teaches us : “We did not proclaim
a boycott of the bourgeois parliament, the Constituent
Assembly, but said—and from April (1917) Conference of
our Party onwards began to say officially in the name of the
Party—that a bourgeois republic, with a Constituent Assembly
is better than a bourgeois republic without a Constituent
Assembly,- but that a “workers’ and peasants’ ” republic, a
Soviet republic, is better than any bourgeois-democratic,
parliamentary, republic. Without such careful, thorough,
circumspect and prolonged preparations we could not have
obtained victory in October 1917, nor have maintained that
victory”. [Lenin : Ibid P. 15].
The CC could have taken the lesson from Lenin and stated
that a big bourgeois-big landlord regime with bourgeois
democratic rights and institutions was better than a big
bourgeois-big landlord regime without bourgeois democratic
rights and institutions but the people’s democracy was the best.
Even this mistake might have saved us from the ridiculous
position in which the CC landed itself in March 1977. In this
election we even failed to correctly estimate the urge of the
people against the fascist dictatorship of Indira Gandhi and
therefore failed to play a positive role in the 1977 elections.
The CC in its effort to overcome Lenin’s objection to the
line of general and total boycott of elections took shelter
behind the argument that since India was a semi-colonial and
semi-feudal country and not a capitalist country, there existed
no democratic rights and that elections on the basis of adult
suffrage and secret ballot had no relevance for the revolutionary
people. The material reality of the existence of parliament
and people’s participation in elections were just ignored or
wished away as it might create illusions in the minds of the
people and divert them from the path of people’s war.
It was argued that if the Party participated in elections it
would deviate from the path of armed struggle. While it
was correct to think that in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal coun¬
try the base of bourgeois democratic liberties as parliamentary
institution is weak, but this was only one aspect of the reality,
the other aspect being the existence of the bourgeois parlia¬
ment with adult suffrage and secret ballot. The elections
could have been used right since the outbreak of the Naxal-
bari struggle to take our programme and path to the vast
millions of our countrymen, and revolutionary movements
developed by combining the legal with the illegal were simplv
not considered at all. The existence of parliament in a semi¬
colonial semi-feudal country was summarily dismissed as use¬
less despite the express provisions in the June 14 letter of CPC
regarding combining parliamentary with extra-parliamentary.
Since, there existed no parliament in China for the CPC to
make use of, we refused to take the concrete reality of a
parliament in India and fell a victim to metaphysical approach.
The CC based itself not on facts but on fancy.
The CC, in order to overcome the discomfiture caused by
Lenin, took shelter behind the argument that it was not a
period of lull but of revolutionary upsurge and that the tactics
of participation in election did not apply. Our conception of
an upsurge was that even if there was a lull in this period, it
would be of a very short duration. In one of our documents,
we had stated that the revolutionary upsurge which had app¬
eared in post-war India was still continuing. Although we
recognized the possibility of a “temporary lull”, for all practi¬
cal purposes, the CC has been a victim of the theory of perma¬
nent upsurge. And, that is one of the main reasons why even
after the serious setback of 1970, even after the caution of the
10th Congress of the CPC that Leninism was the Marxism of
the era and that Lenin’s theory and tactics were valid today,
we refused to move out of our fancy world. The conception
•of permanent upsurge has been damaging the Party’s links
with the masses and leading to voluntarism in practice. Even
408 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL IF*
after being smashed, the revolutionary situation became more

and more excellent and the boycott continued !
The CC, in its attempts to overcome Lenin’s admonitions
to those who believed in general and total boycott irrespective
of the conditions, took shelter behind the fact that since armed
struggle had emerged, the parliament, assemblies or local
bodies would cause hindrance to its development and expan¬
sion. It was not taken into account that though the peasants
rose in mass struggles taking arms against the feudals in several
pockets of the country, areas of armed resistance were micros¬
copically small, the number of regular squads were still very
small and they too acted mainly in self-defence and for more
time they organized the people in struggle on the basis of their
immediate demands, and we had a long way to go in emerging
as a national political force of any significance in the country
and that we had to work hard, and utilise all legal opportuni¬
ties to educate and mobilise the people for agrarian revolution
and for the path of the people’s war. And, for such an objec¬
tive, the parliamentary institutions had to be combined with
the extra-parliamentary and other forms of struggle had to be
waged to supplement the armed struggle that was emerging in
some small pockets in the country. But the CC counterpoised
the utilisation of elections of the parliament against armed
struggle, thus ignoring the dialectical unity between other
forms of struggle with armed struggle.
The CPI(ML) has committed grave mistakes in the sphere
of applying Marxist-Leninist tactics in Indian conditions, which
have caused much harm to the cause of the people (by the line
of general and total boycott of elections irrespective of condi¬
tions). The CC is mainly responsible for the continuance of
this “Left” line for such a long period, although this line was
continuously opposed by several communist revolutionaries
both inside and outside the Party.
The CC committed “Left” deviation on this question be¬
cause it failed to apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete
practice of Indian revolution. It became a victim of meta-
DEBATES AND DOCUMENTS 409f
physical approach and abandoned Marxist dialectics. Besides,

it should be noted that the wrong line on elections was the
product of over-reaction to revisionism and its manifesta¬
tions—legalism, parliamentarism and reformism. Such has
been the ideological source or root of this “Left” deviation.
The social root was the very preponderance of the petty
bourgeoisie in the party ranks as well as in the leadership of
the Party. The urban petty bourgeoisie, the ruined artisans
and impoverished peasantry and its mood of dejection and
impetuosity cast their reflections and the Party became a victim
of impetuosity of the petty bourgeoisie. Such has been the
social basis of our “Left” deviation on this issue.
The historical root of this deviation was the long domina¬
tion of revisionism in our party. The cadres and the leader¬
ship of the CPI(ML) had seen how before the split, the CPI(M)
had degenerated into an election machine, into a completely
legal, open and reformist party and how cadres had got infa¬
tuated with all the views of bourgeois parliamentarians. This
past history created a feeling of aversion against parliamentary
elections in the minds of revolutionary cadres and leaders who
not only lacked maturity in Marxism but also lacked sufficient
experience of revolutionary struggles. The absence of parlia¬
mentary institutions in several countries of Asia also had its
impact on the minds of the cadres and leaders of the Party.
In conclusion, the CC views that participation in a parti¬
cular election or its boycott should be treated as a question of
tactics. And this should be decided on the basis of the concrete
situation existing at the time of that particular election, depen¬
ding on the consciousness of the people, the level and organised
strength of the people’s movement. Comrades should realise
that the aim of participation in or the boycott of a particular
election is the same, namely, the advancement of the revolu¬
tionary movement through different methods. Therefore, the
Party should decide its attitude to any election, whether to ther
parliament or assemblies or local bodies, on the eve of eachi
election on the basis of the conditions laid down by Lenin.
The CC is placing this resolution before all the Party units

for discussion. After gathering the opinions of the Party on
this question, the CC will take the final decision on this.
[ Source : “Red Flag” (edited by Satyanarain Singh),
Bulletin No. 2]
ON UNITED FRONT
[This is a section of the Chapter ‘The National Situ¬

ation’, taken from the ‘Political and Organisational
Report’ of the UCCRI(ML), adopted at their first
Central Conference in July, 1977.—Ed.]
United Front : Democratic and National

...the basic contradictions in Indian society in the present
stage of revolution are : (1) between the masses of the people
and feudalism ; and (2) between the nation and imperialism.
To resolve the first contradiction, we have to build up a
broad democratic front (people’s democratic front) based on
the alliance of all those classes who have a contradiction with
the feudal-comprador capitalist classes and launch the armed
agrarian struggle to overthrow them. This is the four-class
alliance of the workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and
the national bourgeoisie against the internal enemy, with the
worker-peasant alliance as the main axis.
Civil war will arise and develop in both phases of the New
Democratic Revolution, during armed agrarian revolution as
well as during the struggle for national liberation. When im¬
perialism launches an attack on our country, either directly or
through its lackeys, the principal contradiction becomes that
between imperialism and its domestic reactionary lackeys on
the one hand and the broad masses on the other.
The question of forging a United Front with a section of
•the ruling comprador classes in the event of a rival section of
these classes capitulating wholly to one or the other super¬

power, in a bid to turn India into a neo-colony, has arisen
recently during the emergency. Our understanding on this
is that in the first phase, i.e., the agrarian phase of the New
Democratic revolution, that is, before imperialism launches a
war of aggression on the nation, the question of forging an
alliance with a section of the comprador ruling classes does
not arise. These comprador classes are the principal and
immediate target of the revolution. In certain specific condi¬
tions and on certain specific issues it may be possible to
have a tactical arrangement for a while, with one or the other
section of these classes, for we must seize any opportunity of
utilising the contradictions between the ruling classes, dividing
them and weakening them in every way we can. But at no
time in this phase can we modify our basic agrarian revolu¬
tionary programme against these classes as a whole, or enter
into any binding or long-term alliance with them.
Our basic task in the first phase of the revolution is to build
the four-class alliance, the broad democratic front of the masses
of the people on the basis of agrarian revolutionary progra¬
mme. But to do this successfully, we must realise that even
in this phase, the anti-imperialist struggle must be linked with
the anti-feudal agrarian revolution.
When imperialism launches a war of aggression on the
country, there is a split in the ruling classes, and the section
which does not want to lose its semi-colonial status and be¬
come a neo-colony of the aggressive super-power, comes over
to the side of the patriotic and democratic forces who must
now launch the war of national resistance against the foreign
enemy. This is the second phase, the phase of the National
United Front against imperialism, when the question of forging
an alliance with the ‘patriotic’ section of the compradors be¬
comes necessary in order to isolate the native traitors and their
masters. However, this alliance with the ‘patriotic’ compra¬
dors is also temporary and lasts only until the enemy is
defeated, after which the section again becomes the principal
interal enemy of the democratic revolution (as in China

after the defeat of Japanese imperialism—when the civil war
against the comprador classes as a whole had yet to be
fought to the finish).
EDITORIAL, DESHABRATI
[This is a translation of the editorial of the March

’78 issue of Deshabrati, the Bengali organ of the
pro-C. M, pro-Lin Piao group of the CPI(ML)
led by Mahadeb Mukherjee—Ed.]
Today we are living in the era of the victory of world
revolution, of the people’s offensive. Our respected Comrade
Mahadeb Mukherjee, the great Central Leadership, has taught
us that the characteristic of this era is the victory of Marxism-
Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. That is why we witness
that as a result of the successive blows dealt by the liberation
struggles of the revolutionary masses, well-armed with the
weapon of Mao Tsetung Thought, imperialism is battered,
and—faced with final collapse—it has become furious,
maddened and bewildered. In its desperate bid to save
imperialism from its imminent final collapse, world revisionism
is carrying on disruptive acts of sabotage within the revolutio¬
nary war in different countries of the world, adopting various
sinister tactics in a vain attempt to wean away the people from
the path of armed struggle. That is why Chairman [Mao]
has taught us that revisionism is the main danger of the
present era. Summing up the experience of the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution, our respected leader Comrade Charu
Majumdar drew the lesson that today without waging a
struggle against revisionism, revolution in no country can
move even a single step forward. So we see that the people
of the world are boiling with hatred against revisionism in
every country and are taking the mask off its face. Our
respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar said, “Under

Chairman’s leadership the revolutionary struggles of the
world today have merged into a great confluence.” That is
why our national and international tasks today have become
inseparable. So we find in the international sphere today
that the most modern revisionism has adopted the sly tactics
of opposing Chairman in the name of Chairman. Attacking
Comrade Lin Piao, the able successor and close Comrade-in-
arms of Chairman Mao, it has attacked Chairman Mao and
Mao Tsetung Thought and is thus carrying on the last-ditch
battle to resist the world-conquering march of the people’s
war. Similarly, in the national sphere also we find the
revisionists of various hues—paying lip-service to Chairman
Mao—are attacking Chairman’s Thoughts on the soil of India
by attacking our respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar,
who has successfully applied Comrade Lin Piao’s politics, and
are trying to drag the Indian masses from the path of armed
peasants’ struggles into the mire of revisionist struggles. In
this respect, all the revisionists are birds of the same feather-
right from the CPI(M) down to the most modern representa¬
tives [of revisionism], Kanu—Souren—Ashim.
In the history of revolutionary struggles in India, Naxalbari
is the spring thunder, Naxalbari is the beginning of armed
peasant revolutionary war, of establishing Peasants’ Raj,
Naxalbari is the first successful application of Mao Tsetung
Thought on the soil of India. So, Naxalbari is a politics
whose creator is our respected leader Comrade Charu
Majumdar. Waging a resolute struggle against nearly 45
years’ revisionist past, it was Comrade Charu Majumdar who
for the first time determined the method of application of
Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India—and the result was
Naxalbari. That spark of Naxalbari has today assumed the
proportions of a prairie fire which has engulfed the whole of
India. It is to lead this revolutionary war that our respected
leader Comrade Charu Majumdar has personally created the
CPI(ML), the symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the
414 NAXALBARl AND AFTER VOL II
Indian masses. It is at the cost of the arduous struggle and

great sacrifice of thousands of martyrs that the path of Naxal¬
bari, the politics of our respected leader Comrade Charu
Majumdar, is today established as the only path of liberation
of the Indian masses. And that is why revisionists of various
hues do not have the guts to oppose Naxalbari straightaway,
that is why they are opposing Naxalbari donning the garb of
Naxalbari, trying to dismiss the politics of Naxalbari [by
denying] its great creator. That is the reason why we find
that the ‘officially recognized party of Naxals’ (Satyanarain—
Santosh) have come out in the open bazaar, trading the
martyrs’ name in order to shield their ugly traitors’ faces.
But today it is clear as daylight to the people of the whole
country that Naxalbari means armed struggle, that the CPI
(ML) is the weapon for establishing Peasants’ Raj, and that
the martyrs are great fighters in that armed struggle for seizure
of power. So, in trying to peddle the rotten stuff of election
politics, with the martyrs’ names on their lips, and displaying
the signboard of the CPI(ML), they are now being disgraced
by the masses ; when it was becoming difficult to get things
done through them, great men like Kanu-Souren-Ashim
entered the scene. These people have started dancing to that
tune quite shamelessly. Treading upon martyrs’ blood, they
have thrown away the signboard of the CPI(ML), and today
they lie prostrate before Jyoti Basu. They talk of the necessity
of reviewing the situations, and immediately announce their
decisions to start everything anew. In this process they are
seeking to negate the history of the last ten years’ armed
peasant revolutionary war. It is indeed a treat to watch these
great men play political volte-face. It was this Kanu Sanya!
who once on the Maidan declared that Charu Majumdar was
the leader, that it was Comrade Charu Majumdar who had,
combating revisionism, applied Mao Tsetung Thought in Naxal¬
bari. It was he [KS] who had then warned the Indian masses
against those seeking to smash Comrade Charu Majumdar’s
Authority. And then in ‘More About Naxalbari’ he suddenly
DBBATES AND DOCUMENTS 415
discovered that in Naxalbari Charu Majumdar’s politics had
not been applied—a point he probably forgot to mention
earlier. A shim, the propaganda-in-charge of this Kanu
Sanyal, is today posing as a great commentator of the Indian
revolution. This A shim Chatterjee once said that it was at the
feet of Comrade Charu Majumdar that they had learnt how to
start guerilla warfare. It was he who once declared that
even if there was no one to stand by Comrade Charu
Majumdar he alone would do so till the last, he alone would
apply Comrade Charu Majumdar’s teachings to the letter.
O Great Men ! don’t think any of us has forgotten what you
said in those days. So, your sayings today are beyond doubt
remarkable examples of political volte-face. Wasn’t it you
who had issued a firman for sacrificing the armed struggle of
the East Pakistan CP(ML) at the altar of Yahya ? And today
you have the cheek to accuse Comrade Charu Majumdar
of having “led the proletarian movement into disarray” !
You have shed so much tears for Comrade Sushital Roy Chow-
dhury. But the fact cannot be erased that it was you who had
then demanded the expulsion of Comrade Roy Chowdhury
from the Party. And it was in opposition to you that Comrade
Roy Chowdhury had remained in the Party under the instruc¬
tion of the respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar,
and continued as a member of the Polit Bureau of the Party
of our respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar. Today
you have set about organizing the proletarian movement
under the patronage of Jaya Prakash Narayan, that U.S.
Agent, and Jyoti Basu. And you people accuse our respec¬
ted leader Comrade Charu Majumdar of having “led the
proletarian movement into disarray.” Excellent ! Malign¬
ing our respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar and
praising, in the same breath, Jaya Prakash Narayan—that
U. S. Agent—and Jyoti Basu, you have made it clear whose
class interests you are safeguarding. In the international
sphere the most modern revisionism has, under the pretext
of attacking Soviet social-imperialism, taken the path of
collusion with U. S. imperialism, the No.l enemy of the

people of the world, and is trying in vain to save world
imperialism from destruction. What you are doing is just a
national version of this. It is therefore crystal clear that you
are out to peddle your stuff in the political bazaar with the
blessings of Jaya Prakash Narayan and as an appendage of
CPM. But that would cut no ice. Tempered in the last ten
years’ experience of armed peasant revolutionary war and
anti-revisionist struggle, the Indian masses have today learnt
perfectly well to distinguish the fake from the genuine. The
liberation struggle of the masses is bursting forth in the form
of an upsurge today. The politics of our respected leader
Comrade Charu Majumdar has struck deep roots in the soil of
India. Under the personal guidance of his worthy successor,
respected Comrade Mahadeb Mukherjee, the struggle for
creating, defending and developing liberated areas in the
villages of India under the CPI(ML) leadership is intensifying.
Grasping the setting up of Revolutionary Committees as the
main task, the work of establishing Peasant Raj in rural areas
is proceeding at great strides. The spark of the liberated
area of Kamalpur-Kalinagar has turned into a prairie fire
and spread throughout the country. The whole country is
today on the threshold of liberation. Under the impact of
the successive blows dealt by the struggles of the revolutionary
masses, the reactionary clique of rulers and exploiters is
out of its wits. Today they are torn asunder as a result of
inner contradictions and dog-fights amongst themselves.
Their dream of building a powerful centre has been smashed
today. Today the masses are bursting forth in anger every¬
where. All the deceptions practised by revisionism are to¬
day being exposed rapidly ; no mask, however attractive, can
today confuse the masses. The path of betrayal in the name
of Naxalbari has today become bankrupt. Today our res¬
pected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar is well-established
as the great guide of liberation among the masses of India.
So whoever today opposes Comrade Charu Majumdar, opposes
©ABATES AND DOCUMENTS 417
his politics, will be hated and punished by the entire country.

So we are today recalling again the great call of our respected
leader, Comrade Charu Majumdar : “Our work of establishing
people’s political power will be our active line of action against
these traitors”. So let us grasp firmly the politics of our
respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar, the great Autho¬
rity of Indian revolution, the politics of Chairman Mao and
Comrade Lin Piao ; let us hold aloft the banner of CPI(ML),
the Martyrs’ Party led personally by respected Comrade Maha-
deb Mukherjee—the worthy disciple of our respected leader
who is the helmsman of the present Indian revolution ; let us
bury imperialism, feudalism and revisionism—national and
international—by completing the task of creating, defending and
developing liberated areas in the process of establishing
peasants’ liberated governments through setting up of Revo¬
lutionary Committees in villages ; let us, by liberating India,
hold aloft the red banner of the politics of Chairman, Comrade
Lin Piao and our respected leader Comrade Charu Majumdar,
defend Chairman’s China, and carry forward the world
revolution.
Yol 11—27
APPENDIX
‘ONE DIVIDES INTO TWO’
(February 1, 1974)
subroto datta (Jahar)
[ The author of this article was reportedly killed in

a clash with the police in Bihar. As the article
was received late, it is being published as an Ap¬
pendix.—Ed. ]
Class struggle will continue in class-divided society. This

class struggle has its reflection within the Party. As a result,
the dialectics of two thoughts operates both inside and outside
the Party. One is the correct line, another, the wrong line,
i. e., one is the revolutionary line, and the other, the counter¬
revolutionary and revisionist line. Any two-lines struggle
ultimately is the struggle of two world outlooks : one is the
proletarian outlook, and the other, the bourgeois outlook.
In other words, one is the outlook of dialectical materialism,
and the other, the outlook of idealism and metaphysics. The
outlook of each and every reactionary power and revisionists
is idealism and metaphysics. Dialectical materialism is the
outlook of the proletariat.
Within the Communist movement of our country, a struggle
between two outlooks was going on. At that time, the revo¬
lutionary peasant upsurge of Naxalbari took place under the
leadership of Comrade Charu Majumdar. It was because of
the revolutionary peasant upsurge at Naxalbari that dialec¬
tical materialism won in theory and practice, the developed
role of the proletariat guiding it. The victory of the dialecti¬
cal materialistic outlook was possible by struggling against and
completely defeating the outlook of idealism.
After Naxalbari, the struggle between the two lines and
the two outlooks has reached a developed stage. The correct
{revolutionary line of our respected and dear leader, Charu
420 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II1
Majumdar, has been established within the Party and among,

the people through revolutionary practice in recent years.
From 1962, he was the representative of a correct revolution¬
ary line. He was the first person who boldly declared in 1962,.
“The Indian Government has attacked China and so we should
oppose this war.” From 1962, particularly from 1965 to
1967, he wrote the historic eight documents. These are
documents of uncompromising struggle against the revisionists
and set forth the revolutionary theory of New Democratic
Revolution of India. Comrade Charu Majumdar integrated
the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thou¬
ght with the concrete realities of Indian revolution, upheld a
revolutionary theory and formulated a correct revolutionary
line for Indian revolution.
The representatives of the wrong line within the Party
opposed the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar from the
beginning. Ashim—in his document on the national ques¬
tion—completely failed to distinguish between ‘wrong’ and
‘right’, in criticising the Party line, i. e., the revolutionary line
of Charu Majumdar. After that, ‘Soumya’ opposed (the line)
from inside and then, going outside the Party, circulated a big
document in the name of ‘Ajoy’. The main thing in that
document was the philosophical theory of China’s Khrushchev,
Liu shao-chi. ‘Soumya’ propagated that bourgeois revisionist
philosophical theory in the name of dialectical materialism.
That was his little difference with Ashim. Then, what was the
philosophical theory which he propounded in the name of
dialectical materialism ? That was the theory of China’s
Khrushchev, Liu shao-chi—‘combine two into one’. In other
words, ‘Soumya’ saw two aspects, ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, in the
correct revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar. In reality, the
two lines in the Party are : one, the correct revolutionary liner
of Charu Majumdar, and the other, the wrong line which is-
the reactionary, revisionist line. This is the correct philoso¬
phical theory of dialectical materialism, i.e., ‘one divides into»
two’.
appendix 4211
‘Soumya’, with his revisionist philosophical theory searched*

for and failed in finding ‘wrong’ on all the questions in our
Party line, the line which was the correct revolutionary line of
Charu Majumdar. The revisionists, modern revisionists and
then Nagi-Pulla-Asit-Parimal-Satyanarain-Ashim-Souren etc.
—all the revisionists of various hues—attacked the Party line
on this particular question.
The pedlar of the revisionist line that came next, ‘Sharma’,,
hiding his own bourgeois outlook, searched for and failed in
finding ‘wrong’ in the revolutionary line of Comrade Charu
Majumdar—all this in the name of‘self-criticism’and‘with¬
drawal’ (of slogans). This was also nothing but the outlook of
‘combine two into one’.
“One trend covers another trend.” After the Tenth Cong¬
ress of the great Chinese Communist Party, the anti-Party
clique, the supporters of Lin, Mahadeb (Chotda) and company,,
took an anti-Chinese revisionist line from the moderate point
of view. They also—with an outlook of idealistic philosophi¬
cal theory ‘combine two into one’—are searching for ‘wrongy
in the correct Chinese Party line after saying‘Red salute to
the Tenth Congress’ and ‘The Great, Glorious and Correct
Chinese Communist Party’. It is nothing but a vain search
for ‘wrong’ in the proletarian revolutionary line of Chair¬
man.
‘One divides into two’ and ‘combine two into one’ consti¬
tute the struggle of two lines and two outlooks. Everyone is
speaking of ‘one’ and ‘two’, but from two outlooks.
Then, what is ‘one divides into two’ ? Feudal society
divides into two-—peasants and landlord class—whereas dia¬
lectics is permanent. Feudal rule would be repudiated and
then peasant rule would be established. The peasant class
divides into two—on the one hand, the poor and illiterate,,
and on the other, the most daring, kind and bold in their
spirit of sacrifice. The landlord class divides into two—on
the one hand, the living tiger to murder and exploit the pea¬
sants, and on the other, the paper tiger. The proof is that the-
•422 NAXALBARI AND AFTER VOL II
peasants are annihilating them and their destruction is certain.

The world situation is also ‘one divides into two’—the danger
of war, and revolution, the main trend.
Then, what is ‘combine two into one’ ? To search for
‘good’ with the ‘bad’ within the feudal society ; to search for
‘bad’ with the ‘good’ within the peasant class ; to search for
‘good’ with the ‘bad’ within the landlord class. Today, the ped¬
lars of this idealistic philosophical theory are searching for
‘wrong’ even within the correct revolutionary line of Charu
Majumdar. Then, tomorrow they would search for ‘wrong’
within the Thoughts of Chairman. But today, in the violent
revolutionary conditions, the consciousness of the Party com¬
rades and the people has developed. So tomorrow is far
away, they are being flushed out today.
Today, we have to annihilate this idealistic philosophical
theory : ‘combine two into one’ and establish the dialectical
materialistic theory of ‘one divides into two’.
Today we have to understand what it would be if we apply
‘one divides into two’ in the revolutionary line of Charu
Majumdar. Not ‘wrong’ and ‘right’. Then what ? It is the
dialectics between two ‘right’ (aspects), the dialectics between
the ‘basic’ truth and the ‘developed’ truth, the dialectics between
the truth of today and the truth of tomorrow. In this way we
proceed, society proceeds, revolution and the revolutionary
line develop. Comrade Saroj Datta said : The task to be done
at twelve must be done by twelve, the task to be done at one
o’clock must be done by one o’clock, task to be done at two
o’clock by two. The revisionists can cry out that the line is
changing ; the reason is that they see everything from the
dogmatic outlook. They do not understand the development.
In the field of class-struggle also we have to understand
‘one divides into two’. Our basic line is the great line of
‘annihilation of the class-enemies’. After Magurjan, annihila¬
tion is one kind of economism, so we have to snatch the rifle.
After rifle-snatching, it is not only mere snatching, we have to
fuse it : that is, annihilation, rifle snatching and shooting. To-
APPENDIX 423
day we should attack not only the enemy’s standing force but
the mobile enemy also : that is, annihilation, rifle snatching,
shooting and attack on the mobile enemy. This is develop¬
ment, this is the dialectics between one ‘right’ and another
‘right’. Revolutionary line is not a static thing. It is a science
which proceeds towards dialectics, and develops. We all
should understand this.
The experience of our practice is also ‘one divides into
two’ : the experience of victory or moving forward, and the
experience of defeat. If we isolate ourselves from the revolu¬
tionary line of Charu Majumdar we will be defeated. And if
we follow the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar whole¬
heartedly we can move forward and would gain victory.
That is why Charu Majumdar has directed us to grasp the
outlook of dialectical materialism and to refute the outlook
of dogmatism and metaphysics. We should grasp ‘one divides
into two’ and refute ‘combine two into one’.
The future of the revolutionary line of Charu Majumdar is
also ‘one divides into two’. The victory of the revolutionary
line is certain. But it should proceed by destroying the revi¬
sionist line of various hues.
Our future is also ‘one divides into two’. “Future is.
bright but the way is tortuous.”
[Received through Post—sent by The Red Guards]
INDEX
AICCCR : 3, 23, 26, 99, 109, 78, 81, 88, 95, 99, 108,
. 118, 119, 126, 128, 147, 118, 120, 124, 127, 130,
171, 197, 200, 201, 203, 150, 151, 161, 172, 174,
227, 264, 326, 328, 333, 177, 193, 196, 333-35, 337,
388-90 339, 344, 413, 416
Albania : 61 Cambodia: 285, 291, 306,
annihilation ( khatam ) : 10, 307, 313, 394
11, 71, 72, 86, 94, 95, 98, Chatterjee, Ashim : 99, 149,
110, 111, 113, 121, 122, 413, 414, 420
123, 124, 126, 133-36, 145, Communist Party of China : 2,
152, 154, 155, 156, 164, 12, 18, 31, 74, 115, 118,
166, 167, 288-90, 293-95, 122, 148, 187, 195, 250,
304, 305, 315, 323, 328, 253, 258, 274, 284, 285,
388-90 295, 298, 313, 322, 324,
APRCC : 2-10, 28, 29, 32, 326, 327, 333, 372, 379,
34, 131, 231 383, 387, 394, 395, 407
APRCP : 371,372, 381 comprador-bureaucratic capi¬
Basavapunniah, M. : 66-71 talism : 5, 21, 51, 52, 67, 97,
Basu, Jyoti : 71, 203, 218,414, 108, 125, 158, 159, 163,
415 167, 168, 189, 197, 198,
Birbhum : 118, 166 204, 205, 206, 214-17, 228,
Biswakarmakar, Babulal : 204, 232, 251, 252, 254, 257,
221, 223, 299, 375, 392 260, 276, 277, 278, 280,
Bose, Souren : 117, 413, 414 301, 323, 375, 377, 381,
boycott of elections : 7, 8, 37- 382, 410, 411
50, 62-64, 70, 71, 81, 107, Congress : 33, 63, 64, 65, 78,
126, 203, 228, 242, 243, 81, 99, 102, 107, 150, 158,
287, 292, 400-409 159, 163, 177, 178, 188,
C.P.I : 1, 12, 27, 50-52, 61, 189, 192, 204, 206, 207,
62, 65, 66, 67, 69, 81, 120, 213-18, 257, 277, 320,332,
126, 161, 259, 276, 277, 333, 344, 372, 395, 399
330 Cultural Revolution : 80, 94,
C.P.I ( M ) : 2, 3, 12, 51, 53, 97, 117, 174, 183,230,231,
61, 62, 64, 65, 66-71, 77, 253, 284, 296, 394, 412
Dange, S. A [Dangeites] : 51, Konar, Harekrishna : 177,.
192, 193, 197, 198, 202, 178, 203, 218
203, 207, 258, 259, 272, Lakhimpur-Kheri : 9, 110
'Datta, Saroj : 308, 375, 422 118, 227, 254, 265, 287'
Datta, Subroto : 419 375
Debra-Gopiballavpur : 9, 71, Lenin, V.I. : 1, 37-43, 45, 47,.
86, 87, 110, ill, 113, 118, 49, 50, 53, 63, 69, 76, 77,
375, 389 78, 80, 81, 122, 127, 151,
Desai, Morarji : 50, 51 154, 180, 184, 187, 193,
Deshabrati : 19, 82, 84, 85, 208, 262, 329, 341, 343,
86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 109- 364, 402-409
112,114,136,149,201,203, Liberation : 11, 21, 88, 89,
300, 302, 303, 305, 308, 112, 130, 133, 136, 145,
309, 311, 315, 320, 411 192, 196, 230, 319, 323,
Dimitrov, G : 49 324, 400
Engels, F : 1,47, 48, 79, 80, Lin Piao : 13, 15, 17, 82, 85,
154, 328, 342, 364 194, 261, 267, 282, 284,
Gandhi, M.K [ Gandhi-ism ] : 288, 299, 300, 301, 306,
93,154, 158,161, 190, 276, 323, 368, 379, 386, 391,
286 393, 411, 413
Gandhi, Mrs. Indira : 30, 31, Liu Shao-chi : 148
32,46, 50, 51, 160, 168, Lok Yudh : 136
204, 207, 208, 372, 395, Majumdar, Ashu : 96-99
396 Maoist Communist Centre :
Ghatana Prabaha : 6, 90 313,318
Ghosh Suniti : 374 Marx, Karl : 1, 39, 44, 47, 48,
Guevara, Che : 6, 187 79, 101, 152, 154, 156, 160
Immediate Programme : 5, 7, Misra Vinod : 393
8, 9, 28, 29, 32, 131, 231- Mukherjee, Mahadeb: 412,416
*' 250 Musahari : 9, 110, 115, 118,
Indian Express (The) : 349 122, 136, 166, 227, 254,
Janashakti: 4, 349 287, 375
Karimnagar : 30, 33, 36,131, Nagi Reddy, T : 9, 23, 26-
234, 239, 247 36, 292, 372, 374
Khammam : 30„ 33, 36, 131, Namboodiripad, E.M.S. : 102
* 234, 235, 239, 246, 249, Nehru, J. L : 161, 168, 258
373 New Left: 41/ 42
Patnaik; D. B. M : 347 122, 136, 166, 227, 234,.
Patnaik, N.B : 347 239, 247, 248, 265, 287,.
Peking Radio : 25, 156 294, 295, 356, 375, 376
Peking Review : 19, 114 Stalin, J.V. : 1, 22, 38-42, 47,.
Plekhanov, G. Y. : 76, 79 49, 50, 79, 80, 256, 258,.
principal contradiction : 5, 9, 276, 329, 364
15, 16, 274, 279, 373, 382, Tebhaga movement : 106,
410 161, 342
Pulla Reddy, C. : 28, 371,385 Telengana : 1, 23, 27-29, 32,
Ranadive, B. T. : 1, 257, 259 35, 131, 162, 174, 175,
Rao, Chowdhary Tejeswara : 202, 238, 241, 257, 259,
326 263, 277, 328, 359, 376,
Rao, D. V. : 30-36 386
Red Flag : 410 Tito, Marshall : 1, 168, 194
Roy Chowdhury, Sushital : Trotsky, L [ Trotskyite ] : 45,.
96, 98, 99, 112, 325, 415 257-59, 367, 369
Sanyal, Kanu : 4, 10, 82-84, UCCRI(ML) : 410
86, 88, 104, 106, 110, 130, U.S. Imperialism : 5, 17, 21,
145, 203, 347-49, 351-53, 30,31,67, 168, 189, 192,
357-60, 363, 370,386, 387, 197-200, 206, 218, 227,
390, 413, 414 230, 231, 250,252-54, 259-
Singh, Satyanarain [SNS] : 260, 262, 277-81, 285, 286,
307, 385, 400, 410, 414 291, 292, 300, 301, 307,
social-imperialism : 5, 21, 30, 313, 372-73, 375-77, 380-
31, 67-70, 109, 117, 163, 382, 393, 416
168, 227, 230, 251-254, Venkaiah, Kolia : 326
260, 262, 277-81, 285-87, Vietnam : 53, 54, 61, 70, 80,
290, 292, 300, 301, 372- 132, 184, 199, 214, 231,
382, 393, 395, 415 252, 280, 291, 394
Srikakulam : 7, 8, 9, 20, 23- Warangal : 30, 33, 36, 131,.
28, 95, 107, 110, 113, 118, 234, 239, 246, 249, 373
I
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FOUNDED IN 1968, by
SAMAR SEN,
FRONTIER
was unique in its daring
open but critical
support for the
Naxalite movement.
Through all these
ten event-packed years
of its existence,
FRONTIER
has played a significant
role in fusing
brilliant journalism
with an unfailing concern
for progress. * 1
A KATHASHILPA PUBLICATION

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A MOVING

Price in Indian currency for India Other Countries

Published by abani ranjan roy, 19 Shyama

Printed by n. c. seal, Impression Syndicate

The planning of Yol. II has been a little different froim

Strategy and Tactics

Carry forward the peasant struggle by fighting

INDIAN MAOISM—TWO SHADES ?

The first recorded debate in the world communist move¬

proved to be a thin cloak for revisionism.” The Andhracom-

the Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh

the immediate formation of the party. Its resolution said that

The CPI (ML)’s political resolution identifies the principal

To go by published material, an article by Charu Majumdar

achieve the new-democratic revolution. The line is based on

to the slogan of election boycott at the grassroots level gives a

Apropos Mr Mallikarjuna Rao’s “Indian Maoism—Two

parts of Andhra Pradesh. But Nagi Reddy and his groups,

about the enemy’s position, guarantee of passage for retreat

mention of the annihilation of class enemies. Mao laid it

will not happen automatically. This can be effected only by

THE GENERAL LINE IN COLONIAL

Mao Tsetung’s leadership over the revolutionary war now

Similarly the Indian revolutionary must of necessity “imbue

describing guerilla warfare as the only method of mobilizing

in every country, the fourth and fifth conditions are cons¬

democratic revolution,” the principal contradiction constantly

Why have our comrades, twice in one paragraph, tried

lism, is nonsense. To them, the Chinese Communist Party’s

In fact, the ML political resolution has not a word to say about

national enemies ; not only as exploiters, but also as traitors.

Mr Rafiqul Islam distorts the political resolution of the

is one of peasants’ armed struggle under the leadership of the

work, classes, newspaper publications, the writing of books,

THE SRIKAKULAM STORY

The struggle in Srikakulam has been caught in the vortex

A : The first issue is the question of tactics in relation to

process of these struggles for these demands, we would use

struggle as a struggle for power and for national liberation is

Mr T. Nagi Reddy cynically refuses to see the difference

attack is primary, Mr Reddy and his associates started

ANDHRA PRADESH : ANALYSIS OF A SPLIT

Though the police sources are reluctant to say anything

resolved to dissolve the PC and ceased to function as PC.

them from jail on their own without the knowledge of the PC

no differences among the Indian ruling classes on policies and

the permanent political instability did not disappear with the

document explained, in the following lines, the PC’s stand on

The document criticised Nagi Reddy and Venkateswara

wara Rao for commenting on Mao’s strategic slogan “political

started with one taluk had extended to nine taluks in the

VOTE AND REVOLUTION

Universal suffrage, supposed to be no mean achievement'

And the Bolsheviks decided to take part in the elections to

in Germany and France (pre-war) election and capitulation ;

part in a revolutionary bourgeois government fighting for the

product of counter-offensive retaliation by the masses that loses

making it more elastic, manoeuvrable and shockproof. Now