Dhurjoti Buxi
The Central Committee has decided to hold Sixth Party Congress in coming October. Congress is the highest platform of a communist party to decide its ideological-political-organisational line and elect its highest core of leadership for a certain period. Obviously, unlike any other programme, party congress demands a special and extraordinary ideological-political mobilisation of the entire Party. The very process of deciding the party line of a communist party is bound to be creative and dynamic, and our Party ranks will have to grasp its significance for different historical reasons. Left and radical ranks outside our Party could never understand the particular pattern of development of our Party and are provoked to brand us as victims of different ‘deviations’. Similarly, we can’t claim that our ranks have already grasped this process in a full-fledged and comprehensive way. So, it is imperative to understand the very pattern of evolution of our party line and grasp the law of its development. Without it any exercise in relation to further developing our party line will be futile and degenerate into formalism.
So on the eve of the Sixth Party Congress it wouldn’t be irrelevant to have a discussion on evolution of our party line.
To start with, we can broadly divide the entire process of development of our party line into two parts.
Firstly, the 1969-77 period. It can be identified as a stage when we overemphasised the “the practice” and never cared for examining the “theory” in the light of practice or grasp new changes in objective reality to enrich it further. Obviously, “theory” (our party line) was lagging behind the practice, particularly after we suffered serious setbacks.
Secondly, the post-1978 period. It can be identified as a stage of development of out party line in a dialectical way and we were successful to strike a correct relation between theory and practice.
Naturally, we would concentrate our discussion on the second stage.
The point of departure in the entire process of development of our party line was the rectification movement in 1978. It was really a breakthrough in initiating a scientific process of developing and enriching our orientation, policy and tactics. The backdrop of this rectification campaign was a long-drawn stagnation of our Party which culminated into deep isolation from masses. Our failure in regaining the initiative even in changed national political situation after emergency in 1977 also forced us to realise the gravity of our crisis. But unlike other Naxalite or ML factions we didn’t start from tactical or practical questions; rather we concentrated our struggle on thought-process and wrong method of thinking. Because we realised that any tactical rectification would be futile or even counterproductive without ideological consolidation of Party.
In concrete terms we concentrated our campaign against:
This campaign offered a decisive blow to the deep rooted non-proletarian ideology and thought-process within our Party and emancipated our minds. As a result, from a new ideological plane the entire Party started discussing the necessity of changing our different tactical and practical positions in a very natural way. The Central Committee took the initiative to concentrate these scattered ideas throughout the Party and prepared a Draft Document. The discussions on the Draft Document culminated in a Special All-India Conference in May 1979. This conference adopted the document which mainly decided to initiate mass movements and mass organisations, particularly Kisan Sabha, and united action with other communist revolutionary groups and factions on different common issues.
After this, a systematic study of the basics of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-Tung’s Thought and socio-economic study and investigation of Indian society were introduced in the Party. Central Party School and Central Organs, particularly Liberation, were utilised fully for this purpose. This process contributed to further maturing the grounds for creative development of our party line.
Next, major changes were undertaken in 3rd Party Congress in December 1982.
On Strategic and Programmatic Questions
On Tactical Questions
The next turning point in the course of the evolution of our party line was the Fourth Party Congress which was held in early January 1988. Meanwhile basic study of Marxism-Leninism and socio-economic study of Indian society and changed international situation were further deepened in the Party. The important decisions of the Fourth Congress were as follows:
On Strategical Questions
On Tactical Questions
Just after Fourth Party Congress struggle was intensified against liquidationism and the entire Party realised its implications. Thanks to the correct approach of the Central Committee, instead of any split or division, despite various provocations from enemy camp, this bitter struggle culminated in reunification and consolidation of the entire Party.
The most glaring expressions of liquidationism were the advocacy of replacing Party by IPF, joining CPI(M)-led Left Front in the name of ‘Left unity’, and diluting peasant struggle based on poor peasants and agrarian labourers in the name of unity with middle strata or changed agrarian scenario.
Next we had to absorb the shock of Soviet collapse which invited a rightist offensive throughout the world and international communist and socialist movement had to confront a grave challenge. In this backdrop a special All-India Party Conference was organised in 1990 between the Fourth and the Fifth Party Congresses.
This special conference adopted the following:
This conference contributed much in mobilising the entire Party to confront the grave challenges to Marxism with a new vision and acted as an antidote to utter ideological confusion and pessimism which was also witnessed throughout the world.
Next important development was in the Fifth Party Congress in December 1992. It was first ever open Congress of our Party and it decided many important things as follows:
On Strategical Questions
On Tactical Questions
This is the long-drawn process of the evolution of the Party with its specific pattern. But if we go into the underlying process and factors of this evolution we would be able to grasp three important aspects as the key:
i) In the entire process we always stuck to our 3 cardinal principles viz. independent assertion of communist party, grasping peasant question as the key to the Indian democratic revolution and grasping the task of exposing, isolating and defeating social democracy as a historical mission. This was the essential identity of Naxalism or revolutionary movement in India.
ii) We always followed Leninist principle of not rejecting even the worst type of “adjustments” with present system but only as a last resort and moving step by step along the indirect, “inclined” path of revolution.
iii) We mobilised the entire party in organising any change of party line and gave due importance to developing new ideological plane to cope up with new tactical and practical changes in accordance with objective demands.
a) empiricism (which overemphasised practice and in the name of experiences generalises the narrow experiences) and dogmatism (which overemphasises the theory and turns some isolated slogan or quotation into lifeless dogma) as an expression of subjectivism;
b) sectarianism (which considered ourselves as the only revolutionary force and failed to make a demarcation between correct revolutionary line and revolutionary forces); and
c) metaphysical theory of knowledge (which denies the necessity of testing any theory through practice and fails to understand the dialectical process of enrichment of theory in a spiral way instead of simplistic arithmetical method).
The Third Congress initiated a serious attempt at providing Indian analysis and explanations of different formulations on strategical aspects of Indian society (which was correctly decided in the First Party Congress) instead of Chinese explanations. As for example, comprador bourgeoisie as Chinese managers of foreign companies as explained by Com. Mao can never justify the position of Indian comprador bourgeoisie whose essential character is dependent. Moreover it decided on the following important aspects:
a) For the first time, capitalist development in Indian agriculture was recognised as the impact of green revolution initiated by Indian ruling classes (as the response of ruling classes to agrarian crisis). But this development was characterised as landlord path of development of capitalism in agriculture (capitalism was introduced from above and capital penetrated through rich peasants and landlords). So capitalist development in agriculture made a compromise with feudal remnants instead of its elimination.
b) socialist aspects of new democratic revolution were recognised along with their more prominent role in the case of Indian democratic revolution. Obviously, a more direct role of Indian working class in democratic revolution was recognised in comparison to other backward countries.
c) Indianisation of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-Tung Thought was emphasised (a rupture from the beaten track of either “Russian path” or “Chinese path”).
a) The centre of gravity of our activities was shifted from armed activities to mass political activities and political struggle was considered as powerful tool to change the balance of forces in favour of revolution (which is more justified in case of Indian polity).
b) Instead of “parliamentary cretinism” or “boycottism”, the question of election was established as a tactical question and in the given conditions it was decided to participate in elections.
c) Issue-based united action with communist revolutionaries was developed with the objective of a united revolutionary Party through a unity congress.
d) The concept of base area as precondition to building UF was repudiated and the idea of building a people’s front (like IPF, against immediate common enemy — Indira autocracy) was floated with the dual purpose of intervening in political struggle on behalf of an underground revolutionary party and exploring the prospects of mobilising non-party democratic and patriotic forces.
a) The most important change was in regard to our characterisation of the Soviet Union from “social imperialism” to “socialism” in a broad sense. But this change did not mean a change in all our earlier observations on Soviet Union. Actually, the new position was critical of the superpower status of Soviet Union in contrast to either its characterisation as absolute socialism as advocated by CPI-CPI(M) or the characterisation as social imperialism parroted by orthodox Naxalites. This new position had two basic implications:
Firstly, Leninist concept of “finance capital” and not only “expansionist foreign policy” as the basis of evaluating modern imperialism was established. Our earlier characterisation could never justify the existence of “finance capital” in erstwhile Soviet Union.
Secondly, utopian ideas on “socialism” in the given historical limitations (a higher social order than capitalism being materialised in a society which is backward to capitalism) was repudiated. At the present juncture, socialism can be visualised only with all sorts of limitations and distortions.
b) Our acceptance of the necessity of economic and political reforms in the Soviet society never prevented us to criticise Gorbachev’s concept of ‘peaceful imperialism’ as it rejected the Leninist concept: imperialism means war (peace being a recess between two wars).
c) Complex interpenetration of different socio-economic aspects of Indian society was analysed to get rid of simplistic conclusions.
Consolidation of the nexus of feudalism, Indian bureaucrat-monopoly capital and imperialism was recognised. The exclusivist approach to the principal contradiction between feudalism and broad masses was corrected. But the relation between this nexus and objective principal contradiction was grasped.
a) The essential character of IPF was grasped as a mass political organisation of the Party for effective intervention in political struggle. It was yet to develop as a front for different objective reasons.
b) Idea of communist revolutionaries’ unity was replaced by the concept of “Left unity” in a broad sense. Slogan of building Left confederation was advanced.
Actually, it was a blow to the old idea that split in 1964 and 1967 in CPI and CPI(M) had exhausted the prospect of Left political polarisation around the revolutionary core. This new polarisation affecting the entire Left including the mainstream Left was considered as the need of the hour. In this process a section of the communist revolutionaries who have degenerated into phrasemongerers would exclude themselves while a section of mainstream Left would be regenerated to expand and enrich the camp of revolutionary Left.
c) In the changed agrarian scenario aspects of anti-state or anti-government struggle would be growing in agrarian struggle.
So it was decided to take as a single whole the anti-landlord and anti-state or anti-government struggle in the course of developing Kisan movement.
d) Ideologically, struggle against liquidationism was emphasised and the agenda of restructuring the Party was put forth to cope up with the imbalances between growing new activities and the old structure of the Party.
1) The collapse of Soviet Union must be understood as “crisis” of socialism. Any attempt at diluting this crisis or posing it as a temporary setback as advocated by social democracy would be counterproductive.
Of course, it must not be equated with “crisis” of Marxism itself. Because, revolutionary essence of Marxism is capable of explaining the crisis of socialism and its way out for mass revival.
2) The essence of Soviet collapse can never be grasped as analysed by social democracy by making Gorbachev the scapegoat. It must be understood as a long-drawn process since Stalin’s era. Stalin’s metaphysics continued to stress on imperialism vs. socialism as the principal contradiction of the world even after Second World War. It was bound to promote arms race leading to an imbalance between military growth vs. overall economic status. Of course this process was aggravated and further distorted during Khruschev and Brezhnev era with different facets and priorities. And Gorbachev’s ‘reversal’ in pre-crisis period was meant for releasing counter-revolutionary forces instead of remoulding or consolidating revolutionary forces in the correct direction.
Anyway, this chapter of analysing the reasons for Soviet collapse should not be closed. But we must grasp the “superpower” syndrome of Soviet Union as the key to any meaningful analysis and probe.
3) Challenge of Marxism in present context lies in its creative enrichment. We must reaffirm the basic tenets of Marxism and its revolutionary essence once again not from fundamentalist point of view but to establish the foundation of “enrichment” without any deviation.
Besides, this conference characterised Congress and BJP as main enemies (rightist turn of society being their point of unity and central power being their source of contention). Moreover, it was decided to intensify the process of party restructuring.
a) Attempt for providing Indian analysis or explanation of different strategical formulations on Indian society which was initiated in the Third Party Congress was concluded in the Fifth Party Congress in a relative sense.
— Semi-feudal and semi-colonial features were understood as the characteristics of backward Indian capitalism.
— The nature of Indian bourgeoisie was analysed as comprador in origin, dependent in nature, with private and public sector, local management and foreign technology, private capital, bureaucrat capital and finance capital etc. interwoven in operation.
— Indian parliamentary system was analysed and specific conflicts centering around nationality, caste and religion were mentioned as complex dynamics of Indian society.
b) On the question of path of revolution two aspects were added:
Firstly, prospect of forming state government vis-a-vis authoritarian central rule.
Secondly, recognising the possibility of relatively peaceful transfer of central power in the hands of revolutionary forces in exceptional national and international situation.
c) The question of Left unity towards a single communist party was included in the programme as a task to intensify the striking power of the working class.
d) Communist party as the vanguard of the proletariat was explained in our concrete situation as a party comprising of vangaurd of different sections of people and it must be able to represent all nationalities. Besides an ideological resolution was adopted emphasising the relevance of Russian October revolution, the role of Stalin in socialist construction and anti-fascist war inspite of his major mistakes, the role of Comrade Mao in fighting modern revisionism, and also condemning Gorbachev as renegade, accepting no international centre and any big-brotherly party, recognising the prospect of introducing multi-party system in socialist India and defending Marxism and retrieving its revolutionary essence.
a) Full-fledged open functioning of the Party was endorsed. But in that case when open Party would intervene directly in political struggle, IPF’s role as mass political organisation would recede to the background and if IPF couldn’t be developed as a genuine UF a trend of parallelism was bound to emerge. This note of caution was mentioned. Moreover, the necessity of maintaining and developing a secret set-up on a new basis was also established.
b) Concept of “left confederation” was formulated in contrast to CPI(M)’s concept viz. accepting CPI(M) as the leader, accepting the idea of forming alliance with the Congress in a secular front and unconditional support to LF government of West Bengal.
Our cardinal positions: independent assertion of the Left based on strong mass movement; broad consensus and maintaining independence on the issues of differences.
c) Streamlining party propaganda, strengthening party committee system and further democratisation of inner-party life were advocated as 3 main points of party restructuring.
d) Advocating party branches as primary units of Party (neither old type of cells nor GB as all-purpose structure) and directly electing delegates to the party congress from district level were some of the important aspects on the organisational question.
After the Fifth Party Congress the next important step was holding the All-India Organisational Conference at Diphu in 1995.
The relevance of this special conference was to grasp the relative independence and the dynamic role of the organisation.
The basic aim was to break the slow, uneven and unstable pace of development of the Party.
The concrete tasks as advocated by the conference were: integrating new PM/CMs in the party structure with the emphasis on party branches and activist groups, developing militant and scientific inner-party relations in contrast to circle spirit, democratisation of the inner-party life, streamlining party propaganda, promoting comprehensive cadre policy and emphasising on party building in mass organisations.