Kranthiya Gathitarka

Dear friends,

We are attaching the Bulletin no. 1 "Kranthiya Gathitarka" published in 2007 in the context of the inner party struggle that took place in the Karnataka unit of CPI (Maoist). This link contains the three parts of it. Interested Comrades can check out on the links below:
1. shraddhanjali.
2. ola putagalalli
3. kalachida kondiyannu beseyuva prayatnadalli
4. bhaarathada kranthikari chaluvali edurisuthiruva bikkattu
5. pakshaantharika sangharasha - Karnatakada anubhava

Bulletin no. 1: "Dialectics of Revolution"

Dear friends,

We are attaching the Bulletin no. 1 "Dialectics of Revolution" published in 2007 in the context of the inner party struggle that took place in the Karnataka unit of CPI (Maoist). This link contains the three parts of it. Interested Comrades can check out on the links below:
1. Editorial: An Effort at Forging the Severed Link.
2. The Crisis before the Indian Revolution: the major Political Questions that must be resolved.
3. The Inner Party Struggle: Karnataka Experience.

Study Document 2: LESSONS OF THE ‘URBAN WORK DOCUMENT’

LESSONS OF THE
‘URBAN WORK DOCUMENT’

PART I

THE NEED FOR THIS BOOKLET

Comrades,

Coming out of CPI (Maoist) we have involved ourselves in political and organisational work independently. But what should be our attitude towards our past? We should positively incorporate all the ideological and practical aspects of the past that are complementary to the building of revolutionary movement. At the same time we should fight against left sectarianism, dogmatism, mechanical understanding etc. that have become lethal for the revolutionary movement. In fact we have conducted a serious internal struggle in the last 5-6 years against such wrong trends that have deep rooted in CPI (Maoist) party. One of the main points of contention in that struggle was the question of our work in urban areas.

The erstwhile CPI (ML) [People’s War] brought out a document entitled “Our Work in Urban Areas”. Since it was sent as the immediate official guiding document for the entire party we have been demanding that due steps be taken for its implementation in Karnataka. But it was strange that both Karnataka SC and the CC neglected this point all along. They went against the guidelines of this document on several occasions of the internal debate and in the practice of this entire period. Finally now it is learnt that the CC has decided to drop this document altogether.

But we should, while remaining critical about the limitations and drawbacks in this document, adopt the positive aspects in it as guidelines to our practice. With this outlook let us now have a look at the background of this document.

BACKGROUND OF THE DOCUMENT

The all India Congress of the erstwhile CPI (ML) [People’s War] held in 2001 decided on “a time-bound programme for preparing policy and guidelines for our urban work … This should be followed by a campaign to reorganise our work according to the guidelines”.

Later on, a sub-committee was constituted for formulating such guidelines. This sub-committee put in positive efforts for fulfilling this task; subjected all the documents and circulars of the party that had hitherto been issued to a thorough review. It studied the experiences of urban work in the international communist movement, especially those of the Chinese before the revolution, and the contemporary experiences of the Philippines. It also studied the problems of our work in various cities throughout the country. In addition it tried to grasp points from our teachers as well. With such serious efforts it prepared and presented the draft of the document to the then CC which in turn approved the draft and sent it to the whole party as the official guiding document for urban work.

This document tried to critically analyse the hitherto urban work, identify the conceptual problems therein and rectify them. It pointedly showed how the significance of urban work was disregarded when it said, “… a culture was created in the organisation where only the rural work was seen as field work or struggle area work, whereas the urban areas were seen to be out of the field, and non-struggle area work. … cadre were spontaneously transferred out to rural areas without considering the future of the urban areas which were being emptied out.”(p.39). Identifying the drawback in the strategic outlook in the matter of protecting urban work from enemy repression, it said: “… we have merely understood or explained it at the level of stricter implementation of tech precautions and secret methods of function9ing. We have not understood that correct strategic approach is essentially a task of basically reorienting and reorganising the whole urban work basing on the effective combination of illegal and legal forms of organisations.” “… Secret functioning and the long-term preservation of our forces is only possible within the context of a wide and deep mass movement” (p. 40). Reviewing the wrong outlook in the matter of rallying broad masses it said, “It was only much later that we realised that secret mass organisations could not be the only form of mass mobilising in the urban areas in the repressive conditions.” (p. 41); “we did not understand the concept, role and importance of the legal democratic organisations and movement… We did not see the importance of uniting the broadest sections ready to work resolutely on a minimum programme” (p. 41). Thus in addition to bringing several such important shortcomings to light, the document summed them up thus: “The above shortcomings are basically rooted in our defective understanding regarding the role of urban work and particularly the role of the working class in the Indian revolution.” (p. 42).

When this document came out, serious discussions were already underway in Karnataka around the above questions also. Many points propounded by the comrades who are now in KMSK were coincidentally very much on the same lines as those propounded in the ‘urban policy’ document. This document which we received around the time of the 2003 special conference provided support to our stand on many points. But the SC majority and the CCM in charge of Karnataka acted very much against the standpoint in this official document with regard to their understanding and practice.

The SC minority kept pressing in the state committee that we must concretise as to how the guidelines contained in this document should be implemented in Karnataka; there was repeated demand from the other party ranks as well. Yet the concerned CCM and the SC majority comrades who were in the deciding position went on disregarding these. In spite of this document repeatedly stressing that “our urban organisation should be reoriented and reorganised with a long-term strategic approach”, no efforts were made to reorient our urban work in Karnataka in that fashion; instead, the flawed (mechanical and sectarian) thinking and practice that hitherto dogged us came into force even more aggressively.

This situation is not limited to Karnataka alone; there are no indications anywhere in the country that CPI (Maoist) party is reorienting the work in accordance with this urban policy and its guidelines. As the document points out, the CC “did not prepare the all India perspective” for urban work, nor did the states “prepare the perspectives for their respective states”. Not only that. A strange truth is that some CCMs themselves argued against the understanding of this official document during discussions regarding urban work!

Urban work throughout the country lies in a pathetic condition without any development right from decades. The urban work in Andhra which acted as the ‘spring board’ for the rural armed struggle to take a rebirth today lies in shambles. Let alone expanding, it has reached such a state that it can not sustain even the existing work. All attempts at building all India level organisations have failed in the end. Instead of at least seriously reviewing and taking lessons from these, the exercise of ‘again building, again collapsing’ has continued. The slogans of ‘organising the working class’, ‘building powerful anti-communal, anti-imperialist movements’, ‘creating a powerful people’s movement against globalisation’ etc. have all remained only as resolutions. This situation has had a serious negative impact on the survival and development of the armed struggle going on in the rural areas as well. Thus in spite of the failures striking the eye, the fact that the leadership bodies have stuck to the old rigid approach only instead of taking up the task of reorienting the urban work in accordance with a long-term plan highlights the seriousness of the situation.

Yes, this is a bitter truth! Instead of applying the guidelines of this document in practice, the leadership of the erstwhile PW has continued to behave as though these were prepared only for documentation. The situation deteriorated further after the merger with MCCI and formation of CPI (Maoist). The MCCI leadership does not have much experience either in organising the urban masses on a wide scale or in conducting broad political struggles, and it mainly has the experience of the rural struggles of backward Bihar – Jharkhand regions and generalises that experience itself; with this leadership too forming part of the leadership of the party, sectarianism and dogmatism have further strengthened in the leadership layers. It is due to this that the recently held Congress has not only decided to prepare the urban policy afresh but has also concluded that this document consists of right deviation. This is a sure sign that the urban work will get bogged down further in left sectarianism in the days to come.

Comrades,

In this background let us critically analyse the urban work document. We need to carry into implementation the correct concepts contained in it, while identifying its limitations and shortcomings at the same time. This booklet has been brought out with this aim. The next part discusses the main guidelines presented in the urban work document. The third part dwells on the limitations and shortcomings in it that require our attention. The fourth and final part enlists the main points in the document that we need to adopt into our practice.

While discussing the major guidelines of the urban policy in the next part here, the order as presented in the original document has not been followed. Keeping the key aspects which have a bearing on the urban work, the points which the urban work document mentions have been summarised.

The document draws our attention to some of the major changes that have come in the urban structure. As these are aspects that we need to take into consideration while building the urban movement they are added as an appendix. As only the main aspects have been discussed in this little booklet, those who are more interested can benefit from studying the entire document with a critical outlook.

A last word: Comrades, CPI (Maoist) did not implement the urban work document but only made it an ornamental piece in the showcase. The responsibility lies on all of us to see that this does not happen with our practice as well. This little booklet should become an official guide for our practice. Hence we request all the comrades to involve themselves seriously to study it, discuss it, carry it into practice and thereby develop it further.

PART II

THE MAJOR GUIDING CONCEPTS
THAT THE ‘URBAN WORK DOCUMENT’ HAS PUT FORTH

1. The Importance of Urban Work in the Strategy of Indian Revolution

If we note the condition of the urban areas in India –

“According to the census of 2001, 27.8 % of India’s population now lives in the towns and cities. The total urban population is 28.5 crores (now it has crossed 35 crores. According to World Bank estimates, this will be 50 % of the overall population by 2015. – This addition ours); this is larger than the total population of the world’s third most populated country – the USA. Most of this urban population is situated in large cities. Almost two thirds stay in cities with a population of over one lakh, and 10.8 crores (i.e. 38 %) are in 35 metropolitan centres with a population of over 10 lakhs. Three of the world’s twenty mega-cities, with a population of over one crore each, are from India.

The centre of the economy has also moved away from the rural areas. In 1950-51, 56 % of production came from agriculture, but today less than 25 % comes from agriculture. Today most of the country’s production is from the industries and services sectors, which are mainly based in the towns and cities. The urban share in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is thus now over 60%.

India’s urban population size, proportion, and economic weight today is much higher than what was there in China at the time of the revolution. China then had only about 10 % of its production coming from industry and only 11 % of the people staying in the urban areas. This would mean that India’s urban areas would have to play a relatively more important role in the revolution, than the cities played during the Chinese revolution.” (p. 5)

“Working class leadership is the indispensable condition for the New Democratic Revolution in India. The working class exercises its leadership in the revolution through its direct participation… Being the centres of concentration of the industrial proletariat, urban areas play an important part within the political strategy of the New Democratic Revolution.” (p. 10)

Even for the line of PPW, which CPI (Maoist) has adopted as its military strategy, to succeed –

“…while giving first priority to the rural work, we must also give due importance to the urban struggle. Without a strong urban revolutionary movement, the ongoing people’s war faces difficulties; further, without the participation of the urban masses it is impossible to achieve countrywide victory. As com. Mao says, “the final objective of the revolution is the capture of the cities, the enemy’s main bases, and this objective cannot be achieved without adequate work in the cities.” (Mao, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 317).

Thus the correct dialectical relationship has to be maintained between the development of the urban movement and the development of the people’ war. We should, by building up a strong urban movement, ensure that the urban masses contribute to creating the conditions that will obtain success for the armed struggle in the countryside.

As we have seen in the earlier section, India has a larger proportion of the population in urban areas and a much larger working class than at the time of the Chinese revolution. This too increases the relative importance of urban work in the particular conditions of Indian revolution.” (p. 10)

2. Main Objectives of Our Urban Work

Work in the cities and towns has been described under three broad heads or objectives:

1) Mobilise and organise the basic masses and build the Party on that basis: This is the main activity of the Party, which includes organising all the other friendly classes along with the working class.

2) Build the united front: This involves the task of unifying the working class, building worker-peasant solidarity and alliance, building united fronts with other classes … This is a very important aspect of the work of the Party in the city.

3) Military tasks: Tasks such as sending of cadre to the countryside, infiltration of enemy ranks, … logistical support, etc., complementary to the rural armed struggle are performed.

“Of the above three, the first task of organising the basic masses is fundamental and primary. Without widely mobilising the masses it is not possible to perform any of the other tasks such as building of UF and performing the military tasks.” (p. 11)

3. The Dialectical Relationship between the Urban and the Rural Movements

If the revolutionary movement of the past four decades is reviewed, it is clear that this relationship crucial for the advancement of the revolutionary movement has not been correctly grasped. Consequently shortcomings and failures are repeating. The urban policy document explains the mechanical understanding that was there with regard to this aspect as follows:

“Throughout the past thirty years, and in most of the main areas of the Party’s work there has been a disregard towards the tasks of the urban movement and Party. As the Ninth Congress POR concluded, “We have failed to grasp the dialectical relationship between the rural and urban movements. Having understood the formulation that rural work is primary and urban work is secondary in a mechanical way, we concentrated most of our leadership forces only in rural work.”

“Therefore a culture was created in the organisation where only the rural work was seen as field work or struggle area work, whereas the urban areas were seen to be out of the field, and non-struggle area work. All the best and most committed cadres would therefore opt for, and be transferred out of the urban field. Therefore, as many examples in the 1995 review point out, cadre were spontaneously transferred out to rural areas without considering the future of the urban areas which were being emptied out.

“The more serious manifestation of this understanding was however in the serious lack of concentration and specialisation by the higher committees. … Without specialisation also there was no hope of the higher committees themselves deepening their poor understanding of the problems of implementing the strategic approach without specialisation and allocation of higher level comrades the old mistakes only continued.” (p. 39)

While ‘transferring cadres spontaneously to rural areas without considering the future of the urban areas which were being emptied out’ was one problem, on the other hand, “… very few were allocated to the tasks of the urban movement and even those who were given the responsibility were normally burdened with numerous other tasks. This led to severe problems at various levels.” (p. 39)

“… It is therefore absolutely necessary to quickly correct the imbalance in our concentration on the tasks of the urban movement. It is necessary most of all to increase our allocation of higher level comrades to urban fieldwork. It is necessary to increase the specialisation and knowledge levels of the higher level committees regarding the urban work. And it is also necessary, where possible, to allocate suitable comrades at other levels too, or at least give greater consideration to the needs of the urban movement also when deciding regarding transfers out of the cities.”(p. 40)

The document explains the mechanism to be developed in order to achieve proper co-ordination of the urban movement and the urban party structures with the rural movement thus:

“Another problem related to the urban Party structure is the links with the rural party organisation as well as the functional departments of the higher Party bodies. There is often a need of urban help of various types, for which the urban organisation involved in day to day mass work are regularly used. Such links on a regular basis is dangerous for all involved, as well as affects the regular functioning of the urban organisation. Therefore it is important to put a stop to such short cut methods immediately. Separate structures not linked to the running urban organisation should be set up in the cities for this purpose.”

Here too what is basically required is a long-term approach. We must realise that it is only through the implementation of systematic and long-term plans that we can build the different structures required, to mobilise the urban masses, to provide logistical and other help to the rural work, as well as for other requirements.” (p. 24)

4. Long-term – strategic outlook in the work of urban areas

The cities and big industrial centres are the strongholds of reaction where the enemy is the most powerful. These places the police, army, other state organs, and other forces of counter-revolution are concentrated and are in a dominant position from which they can suppress the people’s forces (p. 10). Strategically understanding the strength of the enemy in the city means accepting that we cannot openly challenge him on a military basis (p. 40). We cannot achieve a dominant position till the final stages of the people’s war. It is this objective reality which determines our policy towards work in the urban areas” (p. 10)

In such a situation, where the enemy is much stronger, we cannot have a short-term approach of direct confrontation in order to achieve ‘quick results’. Rather. We should have a long-term approach. The task of the Party is to win over the masses, including the vast majority of the workers, and to build up the enormous strength of the working class in preparation for the decisive struggle in the future. Now is not the time for this final struggle between the revolution and counter-revolution, and we should therefore avoid engaging the enemy in such a fight while the conditions are not in our favour. This means that we should act chiefly on the defensive (and not on the offensive); our policy should be one of protecting, preserving, consolidating and expanding the Party forces, while mobilising and preparing the broad urban masses for revolutionary struggle.

As com. Mao, while o7tlining the tasks of the party n the urban and other white areas dominated by the reactionaries, explained, “the Communist Party must not be impetuous and adventurist in its propaganda and organisational work … it must have well-selected cadres working underground, must accumulate strength and bide its time there. In leading the people in struggle against the enemy, the Party must adopt the tactics of advancing step by step slowly and surely, keeping to the principle of waging struggles on just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint, and making use of such open forms of activity as are permitted by law, decree and social custom; empty clamour and reckless action can never lead to success.” (Mao, Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 318)

5. The Relationship between Secret and Open Work

“Broad, open and legal forms of organising the masses have, however, to be combined with the strictest methods of secrecy, especially with regard to the link between the open and underground organisation. All precautions should be taken to protect the identity of our comrades in the open organisations and contacts with the underground organisation should be maintained at the minimum. At the same time particular care should be taken to ensure that the underground structures do not get exposed and smashed. For this a long term approach and patience are absolutely essential. We should be even ready to sacrifice the short-term requirements of doing a particular job well in order to avoid endangering the long-term existence and functioning of the underground structure. (p. 11)

Correctly assessing the prevailing situation and keeping the long-term perspective in mind, we must make the best use of the available opportunities. At the same time we must ensure that our cadres are not caught under the enemy’s surveillance.

Speaking of the shortcoming in the understanding regarding the strategic approach the document says, “We have mentioned this aspect in our documents and have reviewed that the lack of this approach has been the cause of most of our losses in the urban areas” … “we have merely understood or explained it at the level of stricter implementation of tech precautions and secret methods of functioning. We have not understood that correct strategic approach is essentially a task of basically reorienting and reorganising the whole urban work basing on the effective combination of illegal and legal forms of organisations. Without accepting, deeply understanding and educating all levels regarding this strategic approach towards the urban movement, we cannot bring about a qualitative change in our urban work.” (p. 40)

“Regarding mass mobilisation, we must firstly correct the misconception that the long-term strategic approach of preserving our forces means restricting our mass organising only to narrow secret mass organisations. All comrades must understand that the preservation and protection of our forces is only possible in the lap of the broad masses. We must therefore resort to the widest possible legal mass organising while maintaining a correct balance between legal and illegal forms of organisation and struggle. This direction towards broad mass organising should therefore be one of the crucial components of the campaign to reorient and reorganise the Party.” (p. 44)

Another important aspect concerning long-term – strategic approach is the tech mechanism. Our understanding and practice in this regard is ridden with serious shortcomings. “… the tech mechanism in most cities is very loose and primitive. We are mostly developing our tech methods as a process of reacting to the immediate enemy threat, rather than as a plan based on a long-term strategic approach. This spontaneous approach is very dangerous and must be drastically changed.

“We must therefore thoroughly overhaul the tech mechanism and methods of co-ordinating our open and secret work. For this a gradual piecemeal process will not work. Such a process remains at the most partial and does not bring about the change required. Besides the enemy is moving fast to set up its network in cities throughout the country. We should therefore drastically revise our basic assumptions regarding tech requirements. We must realise that we cannot plan on the basis of the immediate actions and appearances of the enemy. The state is planning on a long-term and all India basis. Our planning too has to be on a long-term basis and cannot make much distinction between repression and ‘non-repression’ cities.

“… our enemy is constantly studying and developing new methods against us. Our approach and method too therefore has to be dynamic and creative. Thus in the course of implementation of our guidelines, each one of us should further make additions, adaptations and developments to these guidelines. Our tech mechanism, while standing on certain basic concepts and principles, should always advance and improve, thus always proving to be one step ahead of the political police.” (p. 44-45)

“The wider and deeper the urban mass base, the better is the possibility of actually providing assistance to the rural work. However we must realise that this task cannot be performed spontaneously in response to emergency needs. Logistical networks should be established in absolute secrecy over a period of time. Separate comrades should be allocated for such work and once they are so allocated they should be released from other work and delinked completely from the mass work. It is only in such a manner that we can create networks that can serve the long-term needs of the people’s war. (p. 36)

“While paying due attention to establish tech mechanism, logistical network, we must always bear in mind that these can function successfully only on the basis of a broad mass base”

“The widest possible mobilisation and organisation of the masses is essential to challenge the overwhelming domination of the enemy in the urban areas. Secret functioning and the long term preservation of our forces is only possible within the context of a wide and deep mass movement.” (p. 40)

Keeping all these factors in mind “we should work to reorient and reorganise the urban work throughout the Party with a long-term strategic approach.”(p. 43)

6. Party Structure and Functioning

The party has the key role in co-ordinating and leading the different types of varied organisations of the broad masses in the right direction. If continuity of the Party leadership is not preserved the Party will not be able to fulfil this responsibility effectively. In the cities where the enemy is overwhelmingly dominant the survival, development and the leadership continuity of the party will have to face serious challenges. The problem of co-ordination between the mass organisations and the party, between open and secret work, between the lower and the higher bodies of the party and between the urban and the rural areas is a vexed one. The all India level experience of the past four decades in this regard is full of mainly negative factors only. Unless we undertake concrete study giving attention to this aspect which is of much significance in the development of the urban movement and unless we develop concrete and practical solutions we will not be able to successfully advance towards our strategic goal. The task of summing up the lessons of our experiences in this regard is before us. The urban document provides us with a broad outline of the method and policy that need to be adopted in order to build and advance the urban party structure.

Functioning through layers: Functioning through different layers is an important method of party functioning. Layers refers to the various levels in the urban Party organisation like city committee, area committees, factory/basti/college committees, cells, etc; it also includes the activists groups that we may form on way to their consolidation as party cells as well as the party links such as the fractions in the mass organisations. Due to greater enemy threat in the urban areas we must pay attention towards building necessary layers in a planned way and compulsorily adopt the method of functioning through the layers.

“The core question for functioning through layers is to see that each layer is trained and developed to independently perform the functions at that particular level. This requires the close guidance and follow-up of the next higher level. The guidance should be directed to developing the independent capabilities of the comrades at that level as well as the team functioning of the committee. This is the key to decentralised organisational functioning according to a centralised political line and policies. It is the only long-term approach to building a party structure that will preserve our cadre and leadership and develop the forces for the future.” (p. 23-24)

“Maintaining relations between the open and secret also means strict adherence to tech precautions. This means protecting the Party leadership from exposure and danger, as well as protecting the legal leadership from being exposed as belonging to our Party. Meetings between open and secret leadership should as far as possible be avoided.” (p. 17)

“Most city organisations have not concentrated on building sufficient layers, and even where some layers exist there is a tendency to deal directly with the lowest levels in order to obtain quick results. We must quickly get rid of such wrong notions and practices and develop a system of layers in every city.” (p. 23)

Political centralisation – organisational decentralisation: The essential principle forming the basis of our Party structure, particularly in the urban area, is political centralisation combined with organisational decentralisation. This means that all PMs and all bodies, particularly at the lower level, should have solid ideological-political foundations, so that they are able to independently find their bearings and take the correct organisational decisions according to the political line of the Party. This is particularly important in the urban areas because of the technical difficulties of maintaining close and constant links between the secret higher bodies and those at the lower levels engaged in direct open work.” (p. 21)

This has another dimension as well. “This is also important because urban work often demands immediate and quick responses to the events of the day. With rapid advances in electronic communication and media, delays of days and sometimes even hours in politically reacting to major events can hinder the impact that our Party can have on the urban movement. This thus depends on the strength of the bodies that form the foundation of our urban Party structure – the cells and the lower level committees – as well as on the Party fractions that link the Party with the mass organisations.” (p. 21-22)

It is in this overall background that we must understand the importance of ideological-political education. While a continuous and systematic ideological-political education provides a sound foundation within the mass organisations and at the level of the party cells, at the committee level it acts as the key factor for the correct Party leadership. Lack of a proper education will hamper the independent discharging of responsibilities by the respective layers and creates a condition where they will have to invariably depend on their higher committees for everything. Or else our practice will have to grope in the darkness.

“Despite this need, political education in the urban Party is a much neglected area. Urban work is mostly conducted by independent organisers who remain for long periods out of the contact of the higher committees. In the absence of systematic planning and follow up, the task of political education is thus left to the capabilities and initiative at the lower level. There is also thus a greater possibility of being caught up in the urgencies of the immediate practical work and neglecting the long-term ideological requirements.” (p. 20)

“A well-planned decentralised political education system, with sufficient teachers and regular follow-up from the committee is thus what every urban area requires.” (p. 21)

Preserving the Party: We cannot expect to protect the Party by tech methods alone without acting with a long-term – strategic approach (adopting offensive tactics) or without adopting proper methods of Party functioning.

“This does not of course deny the absolute importance in urban work of the strict maintenance of tech precautions, natural covers, functioning through layers, and all other means of proper secret functioning. We must thoroughly re-evaluate our tech methods in all cities and a total revamping of our secret mechanism should be an essential part of reorganising our urban work. We must however understand that secret functioning is only one important aspect of the strategic approach of preserving our forces for a long time. Secret functioning itself is based on the mobilisation and support of the broad masses.” (p. 41)

We need to adopt a comprehensive method of functioning consisting of a long-term approach in order to preserve the party and constantly develop it till the success of revolution. We must be able to formulate creative methods in tune with the changing conditions.

7. Types of mass organisations and methods of work

Proper tactics to lead the broad masses continuously towards revolution are as much important as is the correct strategic approach for preserving and developing the secret party. This question of tactics is directly related to the forms of mass organisations and the methods of work.

“In order to mobilise the broadest possible sections in struggle it is absolutely essential that we should utilise all possible open and legal opportunities for work (and not reject the use of legality). Broad mass organisations help the Party to have wide contact with masses, so that it can work under cover for a long time and accumulate strength.”(p. 11)

“The general principle with regard to urban forms of organisation is that the mass organisations should be as wide as possible. As the Indian political situation is uneven, we need to explore right combination of various types of mass organisations.”

“Thus we may organise the people in several forms, depending on the situation. But Party building should always be done with utmost secrecy. As the experience of work in Shanghai city, where the white terror was utmost, during the Chinese Revolution shows, “the party organisation should be secret, the more secret, the better. Whereas, a mass organisation should be open, the wider, the better.” This principle could be creatively applied to our conditions. Those organisations, which openly propagate Party politics, should generally function secretly. Those organisations functioning openly and legally, generally cannot openly identify with the Party, and should work under some cover with a limited programme.

Correctly co-ordinating between illegal and legal structures, we should have an approach of step by step raising the forms of struggle and preparing the masses to stand up against the might of the state.” (p. 12)

“We should … constantly devise new creative means to go among the masses without being exposed. We should not worry excessively that our struggles and slogans are not red and revolutionary enough. As long as we are among the masses and drawing them into struggle, we will be able to politicise them and draw them to the revolutionary line and Party.” (p. 44)

With regard to mobilising and leading the masses we should always keep these guidelines in mind and function with a long-term approach.

“Our central POR identifies three types of mass organisations:- 1) secret revolutionary mass organisations, 2) open and semi-open revolutionary mass organisations, and 3) open legal mass organisations, which are not directly linked to the Party. Urban work within the third type of organisations can further be subdivided into three broad categories:- a) fractional work, b) party-formed cover organisations, and c) legal democratic organisations.” (p. 12)

7 (1) Secret Revolutionary Mass Organisations

“These organisations remain strictly underground and propagate the Party’s revolutionary line among the masses rousing them for armed struggle. They openly call upon the masses to participate in the people’s war, propagate the central task drawn up by the Party at any given time, secretly organise the masses into struggles and directly serve as the base for recruitment for the Party and the people’s war. These mass organisations are built clandestinely and conduct secret propaganda. They are built around a clear-cut and explicit revolutionary programme. Acceptance of the aims of the revolution and willingness to work secretly are thus minimum criteria for membership.

“In urban areas these secret organisations perform the important task of propagating the Party line among various sections of the masses. They are the main vehicles of revolutionary propaganda. Due to the dominant position of the enemy in the cities, the important task of rousing the masses through revolutionary propaganda must be performed through a secret structure. The secret structure of the Party however cannot be the only medium to propagate revolutionary politics. This would limit the extent and depth of the impact of our propaganda. It is therefore necessary to develop separate secret organisational structures among various sections of the people which will carry the message of the Party’s calls to those sections in particular, as well to other sections of the broad masses. This therefore is the principal task of the secret revolutionary mass organisations in the urban areas.

“Secret revolutionary mass organisations may not rally masses in a wide and broad way as that of open revolutionary mass organisations. When an open revolutionary mass organisation is forced to go underground, while changing the work methods from open methods to secret methods by sending exposed cadre to UG, etc., wherever possible, unexposed portion of the organisation’s forces should be shifted so as to work in other types of organisations such as cover organisations, fractional work, legal democratic organisations, and so on.

“The secret mass organisation should serve as the vehicle of revolutionary Party propaganda in the urban areas. It is the form of organisation that is suited for implementing this important task.” (p. 12-13)

7 (2) Open Revolutionary Mass Organisations

“These are the open and semi-open mass organisations, which openly propagate the politics of New Democratic Revolution and prepare the people for armed struggle. These organisations make us eof the available legal opportunities to carry on revolutionary propaganda and agitation openly and try to mobilise anti-imperialist, anti-feudal forces as widely as possible. The scope of such organisations has drastically reduced with the rise in repression on our Party throughout the country. Today only very small open bodies exist in some cities.

“We should understand that the period of legal opportunities for open revolutionary organisations will generally be short and we should make the best use of the period for long-term gains. We must be clear that the open revolutionary mass organisation cannot be a permanent for of mass organisation in the urban areas. It can and must be utilised in the periods and situations of legal opportunities, and we must be ever alert to make use of such opportunities whenever they arise. However while doing so we must be ever conscious of the long-term interests of the Party and the class struggle and make sure that they do not suffer in order to obtain some short term gains.” (p. 13-14)

7 (3) (a) Fractional Work

“Here the Party works through the numerous traditional mass organisations that operate in the urban areas. These traditional mass organisations are the organisations normally set up by the masses to fight for their sectional interests or otherwise fulfil their needs. The Party, through its members or other activists, penetrates such organisations without exposing any links with the Party. Through the activities of the organisation, the masses, while being mobilised for their sectional interests, are attempted to be drawn towards the revolution. This method of organising, if properly conducted, offers the best opportunity for cover work for a long period of time. It is therefore indispensable in areas of severe repression. However it can and should be used in all urban areas because it also provides excellent mass forums for approaching large sections of the people; and if we do not disclose links with the Party we can function for long periods without suffering enemy repression.

“Work of this nature can be carried out in various types of organisations. The best organisations are those which are more oriented to struggle, like trade unions, slum and other locality based organisations, youth organisations, unemployed organisations, students associations and unions, women’s organisations, commuter associations, etc.

“Once we have decided to do fractional work within an organisation we should strive to achieve a leading position in it. This means we should be in a position to influence and guide the decisions of the organisation.

“There are two types of deviations in fractional work. One is to sink to the level of the reactionaries and reformists leading the organisation and refuse to do any political work in the name of having a long-term approach and preventing exposure. The other is to get rapidly exposed due to our desire to achieve ‘quick results’. Both deviations should be avoided. The main problem in our fractional work so far however has been our lack of a long-term approach. Our mistakes range from excessive revolutionary rhetoric, to simple errors like singing Party songs or distributing Party literature without ascertaining the reliability of those whom we are giving the literature to. Though much experience exists in the international communist movement and though we ourselves have gained many lessons in practice, we have not yet successfully been able to internalise and implement these lessons in our day to day activity.” (p.14-15)

7 (3) (b) Party-formed Cover Organisations

“It sometimes becomes necessary for us to directly form mass organisations under cover without disclosing their link with the Party. Mostly, such a need arises due to the absence of any other suitable mass organisation within which we can do fractional work. An example is the case of unorganised workers, where the established trade unions have a limited presence and we often have no option but to set up our own trade union organisation to take up the unorganised workers’ demands. This however is not the only area where we may form cover organisations. In fact, cover organisations can be of as many varied types as the organisations for fractional work we have mentioned.

“Wherever we form such cover organisations our programme will be of a limited nature, similar to other such organisations working in the area. While utilising these cover organisations to mobilise the masses on their specific demands, we will try to draw the best elements into the Party.” (p. 16)

7 (3) (c) Legal Democratic Organisations

“These are the organisations formed on an explicit political basis with some or all aspects of an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal programme, and with a programme of action and forms of struggle that broadly fall within a legal framework. Some such organisations may be those catering to a particular section like trade unions, student bodies, women’s fronts, caste abolition organisations, nationality organisations, writers’ associations, lawyers’ organisations, teachers’ associations, cultural bodies, etc. Others may be formed with issue-oriented programmes focussing on particular core questions like contract labour system, unemployment and job losses, caste atrocities, communalism, imperialist culture, violence on women, saffronisation of education, corruption, regional backwardness and statehood, etc. The scope of the legal democratic organisation is very wide, extending to the broad coalitions and alliances formed against repression, globalisation, Hindutva, and right up to the all-encompassing bodies formed with the banners of anti-capitalism or people’s struggles. Such organisations can be formed at various levels – town/city level, district level, state level, regional level, all India level, or even at the international level. (p. 16)

“Actually the legal democratic organisations serve as important means to the Party’s attempts at the political mobilisation of the urban masses. This is because repression normally prevents the open revolutionary mass organisations from functioning. The legal democratic movement is thus the arena where the masses can participate in thousands and lakhs and gain political experience. It thus has a very important role in the revolution, complementary to the armed struggle in the countryside. Revolutionaries in other countries, particularly the Philippines, have participated within and utilised the legal democratic movement very effectively. In India too there is excellent scope to participate within, build, promote and develop legal democratic organisations and movement to advance the interests of revolution. The masses, suffering under the yoke of imperialism and feudalism, regularly participate in countless small or big, militant, day-to-day struggles. These are led by innumerable grassroots level organisations and leaders with a restricted perspective and functioning within a legal framework. It is these struggles and organisations that provide the concrete material basis for the setting up of broad democratic organisations. And it is through the legal democratic movement that these struggles are brought out of their narrow confines, are unified, and gain political direction. (p. 17)

Serious attempts have not been made at the all India level to build and develop the mass organisations which offer such wonderful opportunities. Though some attempts were made, the tasks of these organisations were mixed up with the Party and armed struggle due to the dominance of left sectarianism and dogmatism. Thus it has not been possible to gain much positive experiences in the sphere of building and successfully functioning these organisations.

“Rather than experience, the problem has more been the lack of a clear understanding regarding the concept, role and importance of the legal democratic organisation. This has led to spontaneity, a trial and error approach, and mistakes in practice. This has resulted in our organisations remaining within a narrow base of support. It has prevented us from actually implementing in practice the full scope of the legal democratic organisations. It has prevented us from making the fullest use of legal opportunities for the widest mobilisation of the masses.” (p. 16)

But we should take care not to deviate from our strategic perspective while building and functioning these organisations. “While taking up this task and allocating forces for it however, we must also guard against a tendency to overemphasise one-sidedly the sweeping mass mobilisations and struggles at the cost of the central task of consolidation and party building. The legal democratic movement itself too can grow from strength to strength and remain on the correct political course only if we concentrate sufficiently and simultaneously on developing the secret Party core within it. Thus while giving due importance to the legal movement, we should take care to maintain the correct dialectical balance between the needs and importance of both the legal and illegal work, the open and the secret organisation.

“Generally we should avoid exposing our Party’s influence within a particular organisation, as well as the identity of our PMs and other comrades close to us. However as its activities expand and intensify, we cannot prevent the enemy from growing suspicious, launching surveillance and indulging in harassment. However, this does not mean that they will be able to easily launch full-scale repression and bring a ban. As long as the organisation adheres to the principles of legal democratic functioning, and as long as it has a broad enough base of support, it will be difficult for the state to close it down.

“The crucial point in this however is the broadness of the organisation. If we set up a narrow organisation limited only to our Party forces, we cannot expect it to continue for long even if we use all tech precautions to conceal our identity. On the other hand, if broad sections of the masses are rallied and if a wide range of non-party forces are united, the enemy will not be in such an easy position to suppress fully. Even if they launch attacks they risk the possibility of still wider protests and support.” (p. 17)

“However in order to achieve broad unity, it is necessary for us to have such an approach in whatever legal democratic effort we participate in. we should broaden our efforts far beyond the revolutionary camp and attempt to involve and unite with a wide spectrum of struggling forces on various fronts. A minimum political understanding for any organisation should be the basis for our unification efforts. Our basic condition should be serious adherence to a minimum political programme. We should in fact target such organisations and individuals that are seriously committed to struggle and try to involve them in any effort at broad unity. If we have such an approach and are able to allocated suitable forces we will definitely be able to soon achieve much success. It is through such efforts that we will be able to see the legal democratic movement emerge as a powerful urban force, complementing the rural armed struggle and helping to advance the revolution throughout the country.” (p. 17-18)

PART III

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The urban policy document throws light on many questions in a very useful way. At the same time it also suffers from several serious weaknesses and limitations. To highlight the important ones –

1. The continuing sectarian understanding regarding the role of cities

Even though the document speaks of the decline in the share of agriculture in the overall production of the country and the share of industry growing above 60 %, about the urban population growing on a big scale (nearly one-third), about the massive changes that have occurred in comparison to China, while noting its significance it sees this only as “this too increases the relative importance of urban work in the particular conditions of Indian revolution.” This only means that all this only quantitative and not qualitative change. Further it states in clear terms that “this however does not mean any change in our basic strategy, which is based on the uneven economic and political development and the semi-feudal, semi-colonial character of Indian society.” That is why, even while discussing the main tasks of urban work it only explains them in a very limited sense as rallying the basic classes, building united fronts, performing military tasks “complementary to the rural armed struggle”. On the whole it considers that the urban work should only perform a role complementary to the rural work; it has not achieved a comprehensive conceptual leap about the political – military role that the urban areas need to play in the seizure of political power. It does not recognise the need for fusing the strategy that was adopted in the capitalist countries, namely, the strategy of insurrection, with the strategy of protracted people’s war, in the present Indian conditions. That is why it does not give the direction of taking up our work in the cities, which are the political centres, right from the beginning – the work that includes: politically intervening; isolating the enemy classes politically and mobilising all other sections to build a mighty political movement; striving to create political crises through general strikes and militant mass struggles while keeping co-ordination with the rural work; directly participating in the process of seizing political power through staging revolts at the opportune moment when favourable conditions emerge, in co-ordination with the rural armed struggle; keeping these important tasks in mind, the need for making preparations right from now onwards. It has not paid attention to the need, as part of the people’s war as a whole, for organising political – military struggle in the cities and the preparations for the same. The document recognises that “we have failed to grasp the dialectical relationship between the rural and urban movements”, “a culture was created … where only the rural work was seen as field work or struggle area work.” But it too has failed to correctly grasp the dialectical relationship between the rural and urban movements. And the outlook that only rural work is the sphere of people’s war has continued in this document as well. It correctly identifies that “the above shortcomings are rooted in our defective understanding regarding the role of urban work … in the Indian revolution”. But the same problem can be clearly seen running through this document as well.

2. The continuing ambiguity regarding mass organisations

The urban work document speaks of 5 types of mass organisations for organising the masses, namely, secret revolutionary mass organisations, open revolutionary mass organisations, fractional work, party-formed mass organisations and legal democratic organisations. While this is generally correct, the document does not sharply recognise the strategic importance of the legal democratic organisations if we keep the present political – economic condition of India as also the nature of urban work in view. The document cites the correct formulation that “the more secret the party work, the better, the more open and wider the mass work, the better”. Similarly, it says, “our policy should be to rally the broad urban masses in revolutionary struggles, prepare them, thereby preserving, protecting, consolidating and expanding our forces”. It unequivocally states that “preservation and protection of our forces is only possible in the lap of the broad masses.” But starting from secret revolutionary mass organisations, it places the LDOs at the end of the list. We do not have any experiences of continuing to successfully function secret revolutionary mass organisations anywhere in the Indian revolutionary movement (though SIKASA has provided many inspiring experiences, even its end has been negative only). Not presenting any analysis as to the reasons for this, the document begins with “Today with the imposition of an All India ban under POTA, mass organisations in many more areas will have to be built underground”, “such secret organisations may be formed in any section of the masses”, (p. 12)_and goes on mentioning what all can be done through them. But it places very contrary perceptions with regard to open revolutionary organisations. While in one place it says, “while there is no possibility to form open revolutionary mass organisations in AP, there are several states in which such possibility still exists”, it also says that “the scope of such organisations has drastically reduced with the rise in repression on our Party throughout the country. Today only very small open bodies exist in some cities” (p. 13). Finally it also clearly states the reality, “we must be clear that the open revolutionary mass organisation cannot be a permanent form of mass organisation in the urban areas” (p. 13).

It is necessary for us to take up fractional work of penetrating into the already existing organisations and bringing them under the party’s guidance where possible, and when repression is severe and possibilities of even fractional work are not there, building cover organisations becomes necessary. But this will have serious limitations as this has to be done taking care not to get exposed and done well within the socially acceptable limits. Hence “the legal democratic organisations are the arena where the masses can participate in thousands and lakhs and gain political experience.” Thus even though the document speaks eloquently about the potential of the legal democratic organisations, it fails to clearly recognise that it is the LDOs which play the principal role in rallying the broad masses in class struggle in the urban areas. Thus the ambiguities that exist at present are repeated in the document as well. Without analysing the hitherto experiences in the building of SRMOs and ORMOs, without taking any lessons from them, it only states that ‘there is need’, ‘there is possibility’ for building them, and allows scope for the continuance of the old mistakes.

3. Working class work – only rhetoric

All the documents of CPI (Maoist) give pride of place to working class. But practice gives it the last place. The urban work document too recognises ‘lack of concentration on the working class work.’ It says, “Lack of a comprehensive approach towards urban work and lack of concentration from the leadership are the main reasons for our weak roots in the working class” (p. 40). It stresses on the political strategic importance of organising the working class which is the vanguard class, on the need for achieving worker-peasant alliance. But no concrete guidelines are available in this document on what are the challenges in organising the working class or on how this task, which is dragging on and never being fulfilled, can be achieved. Its introduction itself says, “A separate document, ‘Guidelines for Our Work in the Working Class’, explains details with regard to working class work” (p. 5). But no such document has appeared even though 5 years have elapsed since the urban work document came. In essence, though talk about the need for organising the working class is continuing abundantly, the history of its neglect without any specific policy or plan is also continuing.

4. Failure to Recognise the Importance of the Work in the Media

Cities are the political transmitting nodals of the country. The media is playing a big role in moulding the collective consciousness of the people in the society today. The ruling classes who control the media are manufacturing consent according to their needs. But an anti-establishment current is also strong within the media. The Party should consciously penetrate into the media and perform the work of exposing and illegitimatising the system and creating a powerful political justification for people’s resistance – which are necessary for building the political movement – bestowing attention right from the beginning. We should note that in Russia which was very backward when compared to today’s India, the CPSU had paid much importance to this work. But the Indian revolutionaries have all along neglected this valuable point. This neglect can be seen in this document also.

5. The Conception of United Front – Missing its Central Link

Out of the 65 pages in the third chapter which deals with the policy and guidelines, 20 pages discuss united front question. There is a lot of scattered explanation on the question of uniting the workers on the industry, issue, area basis, on the need for achieving worker-peasant alliance, on the unity of the urban exploited classes, on the question of the relationship that needs to be developed with the national bourgeoisie, on the need for forming united fronts against repression – Hindu fascist forces – globalisation; but they do not throw any new light on these questions. It fails to provide proper guidance concentrating on the strategic question as to what needs to be done in the cities with regard to building the UF of the four friendly classes (peasantry, workers, petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie) on the basis of worker-peasant alliance. It does not contain any explanation as to how is it possible for building a common UF of the four friendly classes? While discussing about how to achieve worker-peasant alliance too, it puts forward a concept of limiting the question only to expressing solidarity to the agrarian war / peasant struggles by the working class. Explanations such as “the revolutionary workers’ organisation has a particularly important role to play. It has to take on the main responsibility of propaganda and agitation regarding the agrarian war” occur repeatedly. The concept of worker-peasant alliance revolves only around the explanation that solidarity should be expressed to the peasant struggles through LDOs, trade unions and alliance should be achieved. It is correct to say that the political consciousness of expressing solidarity to each other’s struggles should be developed in the workers and the peasants. But alliance cannot be established basing on solidarity alone. The united struggle organised against the common enemy can only lay the foundation for this alliance. But the document does not present any such perception. The continuance of the rigid, mechanical understanding that urban work means open mass struggle – rural work means armed struggle, workers’ struggle means anti-CBB struggle – peasant struggle means anti-feudal struggle, that the contradiction between feudalism and the broad masses only is the principal contradiction in this country, has inhibited the document from either identifying the common enemy or conceptualising a united struggle against it.

It is only when the contradiction between the ruling classes (CBB and feudalism) as one pole and the broad masses as the other is recognised as the principal contradiction that it will be possible to build the united front of all the friendly classes on the basis of worker-peasant alliance and develop a broad class struggle against these joint exploiters. The defect in the basic political concepts themselves is the root cause for the continuation of all these ambiguities and confusions.

To sum up, even though the urban work document has undertaken a thorough review of the urban work that is lying in a state of no revival and drawn many useful lessons, it falters in identifying the root of the problem. Though much light has been shed on the analysis of individual aspects, a leap has not been achieved with regard to their synthesis. On the whole, the contradiction between the positive attempt done to reconstruct the urban work to suit the present objective reality and the dogmatic and left sectarian approaches with regard to the strategy and tactics of Indian revolution can be seen throughout this document.

PART IV

MAJOR LESSONS THAT NEED TO BE ASSIMILATED

Comrades,

We should pay attention to implement and in the process further develop the several guidelines that this document has correctly put forth, while at the same time critically taking these limitations and the contradictions into consideration. Some of the aspects that we should immediately pay attention to are:-

• Let us take the Shanghai experience that “the more secret the party, the better, the more open the mass work, the better” as the basic guideline for all our work.
• Let us keep in mind that a secret party means an ‘unexposed party’ and not fall prey to the reductionist view of it as an ‘underground party’. Let us take care that all our new membership is not exposed to the enemy. Let us build a clandestine party with members who are able communist party members in content but appear as ordinary activists of mass organisations.
• As it is clear that the LDO form, which has the potential for bringing the broad masses into open political struggles on a vast scale, is the one that can yield the best results under the prevailing conditions, let us pay utmost attention to it in the present context and obtain its fullest advantage, without allowing any room for confusions.
• But we need not bring all our contacts into the LDOs that are under our direct guidance. When we think that it better to work inside the friendly organisations or guide the friendly organisations and bring those organisations themselves under the influence of revolutionary politics then let us adopt the method of fractional work. Through close political and organisational guidance let us bring those organisations too under revolutionary politics and pay attention to develop militant qualities in them and build the party secretly within them.
• Based on the situation let us adopt cover organisation forms as well where necessary.
• If we take into consideration the stance of the enemy towards revolutionary movement ever since we adopted the armed struggle form in malnad, it is clear that open revolutionary mass organisation will not have much scope; hence there are no possibilities of us adopting this form in the immediate future.
• In the matter of building and developing secret revolutionary mass organisations in the cities, the experiences in India at least are not positive. Hence let us take a final decision about adopting this form only after studying the international experiences as well and gaining the correct understanding in this regard.
• Based on the guidance that “the correct strategic approach is essentially a task of basically reorienting and reorganising the whole urban work basing on the effective combination of illegal and legal forms of organisations” –
• Let us develop a disciplined work style rectifying the slackness in tech precautions. Let us pay attention to building a mechanism necessary for preserving the secret party.
• But recognising that the underground structures cannot be safeguarded by tech measures alone, let us build layers in the form of different committees capable of staying in the field and providing close guidance to the mass work.
• Always keeping in mind the invaluable principle that “preservation and protection of our forces is only possible in the lap of the broad masses” let us focus all our attention and efforts at organising the masses in the broadest possible manner.
• In the urban work, side by side with the aim of organising the three friendly classes let us concentrate mainly at organising the proletariat and the semi-proletariat. Let us devote more attention towards developing organisations in the slums and the poorer localities, which is where that these classes dwell. Basing on the workers and the semi-proletariat who get organised at the places of their residence, let us also put efforts at building unions in their places of work such as their company, factory, mill, goods shed, etc. As we have very less experience in functioning unions and organising the workers at their places of work, let us gather the experiences of different parties and associations/unions in India and develop our understanding and practice in this regard.
• Let us proceed keeping in mind the task of helping to build the movement in the rural areas and providing the subjective forces for the same. But let us reject the impetuous method of attempting to start rural work at the cost of even the existing urban work because of mechanically understanding the fact that rural work is primary.
• In the present conditions let us pay attention to develop the mass base and the numerical strength of cadres by concentrating our forces mainly in the towns/cities. Basing on these let us extend our activities, wherever possible, to rural areas also. Let us aim at organising both the urban and the rural masses in united struggles targeting the ruling classes who are their common enemies, through the LDOs.
• After a systematic social investigation of Karnataka let us formulate a long-term perspective for the entire state and based on it let us develop both the urban and the rural work as complementary to each other.
• With a view to develop a unified and higher political understanding throughout the party on the basis of the principle “political centralisation – organisational decentralisation”, let us pay an increased and systematic attention to political study, education and discussions. Let us work with the aim of developing different layers capable of taking independent decisions organisationally.
• Let us pay attention to the necessary preparations for building a militant mass movement effectively facing the harassment from the state, the goonda and the fascist forces.
• With the aim of preparing the urban masses for people’s war, let us ensure concentration of all our work around the goal of bringing a polarisation in the society through isolating the ruling classes and mobilising all other pro-people forces, and of building a mighty political movement/force.
• Let us confront the state’s harassment using the tactics of mobilising public opinion against it through effective propaganda and mass protests, and of expanding the scope of democratic rights by politically forcing it into defensive.
• Against the goonda and fascist forces too, let us adopt the method of mobilising public opinion in an effective manner and organising open self-defence attacks as far as possible.
• Let us prepare a plan for constituting and training a team of selected, disciplined members of the party in order to take secret measures in case if unavoidable and special situations demand them.

Comrades,

Let us conduct open discussions devoting special attention to the points identified above and also keeping in mind other issues that the urban work document has highlighted. Let us take note of the guidelines that the document provides us as also its limitations, and further sharpen our understanding regarding the urban work based on the points put forward in this booklet. Basing on it let us give a correct shape to our urban work.

APPENDIX

Comrades,

The urban policy document draws attention to the following valuable factors concerning the urban structure that we need to take into consideration while planning our urban work –

Significant changes are taking place in the class composition and structure of cities. “Most major cities have seen a decline in manufacturing activity as compared to business activity in banking, finance and other service sectors. This is creating an increase of while-collar jobs in the field of services, with investment normally going into these areas.”

Quite a number of changes have taken place in the composition of the working class as well. “Firstly, there has been an increase in the proportion of the semi-proletariat (i.e. self-employed). Secondly there has been an increase in the proportion of women workers being paid very low wages; thirdly there has been an increase in the causal labour force.”

“Another change has been the shift of jobs from the larger factories of the organised sector to the small workshops and industries. In recent years the percentage of workers in the organised sector as compared to the total workforce has fallen. As the workers are divided into smaller units their potential for unionisation also reduces.”

The process of division or segmentation of cities is taking place rapidly. “It has become quite common to have slums adjoining posh high-rise buildings, and hawkers and vendors occupying space right next to the offices of multinationals in the heart of the central business districts.”

“In the liberalisation – globalisation period the ruling classes in most major cities, aspiring to make them ‘global’ cities, have in a co-ordinated and planned manner launched numerous measures to push the poor out of the core of the city and preserve it for the economic and social use of imperialist and comprador capital. Bureaucrats and urban planners operating under direct instructions from the World Ban, Asian Development Bank, and other imperialist institutions have formulated laws, regulations, policies and master plans. The process of pushing the urban poor along with their ‘unclean’ slums and ‘polluting’ industries to the borders of the city” is going on with a rapid pace. The task of involving ourselves in the mass struggles against such evictions is before us.

Another factor that must invariably be taken into account is ghettoisation. “When a particular community is attacked repeatedly and forced, for their safety, to concentrate in particular areas this process is called ghettoisation. Localities formed o the basis of nationality, caste and religion are very common in almost all Indian towns and cities. The main form of violence at present has been the attacks and organised pogroms by the Hindu communalists and fascists, primarily against the Muslims, but also against the Sikhs and Christians. This has led to the sharp segregation of the Muslim community and the creation of Muslim mohallas in almost all towns and cities where they have any existence.” Such drastic division taking place on communal basis can become a serious hindrance against building class unity. Therefore such ghettos should be clearly identified and plans chalked out for penetrating into them.

The above factors denote the major changes that are occurring in the country’s urban areas on the whole. Apart from these, “the actual situation with regard to particular cities will be different. Since this factor is very important for our organisational perspective, plans and tasks at the city level, all the respective committees should conduct city level class analysis regarding the situation and trend in their areas.”

Study Document 1: 25 YEARS EXPERIENCE

LESSONS FROM THE EXPERIENCES

OF THE PAST 25 YEARS

INTRODUCTION

Comrades,

This is an attempt to draw the major lessons from a review of the work that we did as a united party from the time CPI (ML) [People’s War] was born in Karnataka in 1980 till we came out of CPI (Maoist) in July 2006 and formed KMSK. (This does not include the review of our work since the formation of KMSK, its right and wrongs; let us do that separately). Even though we have come out of that party now, it is our history as well. This past experience is invaluable in formulating our future.

In the last 25 years we have worked in most of the districts of Karnataka and in different fields (peasants, workers, students, youth, women, nationality, caste, intellectuals, cultural etc.). But the tragedy is that we have not been able to do any effective work and emerge as a powerful political force in any district or any field, let alone in the state as a whole. Having conducted some bold and effective struggles, developed a few strong party cadres, introduced the Naxalbari politics to an extent in Karnataka are our achievements. But compared to the work that a revolutionary party needs to do, there is no disputing that these achievements are insignificant. Why could not the Karnataka party, which recognises the world’s most scientific ideology of MLM as its guiding principle, is a component of an all India revolutionary party, had the guidance of its CC and which considers class struggle as the basic principle, make any major impact on the class politics of Karnataka in the last 25 years? Why was it not possible for it to sharpen the class contradictions and intensify class struggle? Why was it unable to find a place in the political consciousness of the people of Karnataka? Why was it unable to emerge as the leading force of the broad masses? Finding answers to these questions, firmly grasping the lessons of the last 25 years’ experience which are primarily negative and ensuring that the same mistakes are not repeated, are very important in order to build the revolutionary movement in Karnataka.

An Overview

Before going in for the review, let us first acquaint ourselves briefly with the work that has been done in the last 25 years. The party first came into being in 1980 in Bangalore. SO and YO were formed in 1981. The open revolutionary magazine was started in 1983. In 1984 the human rights organisation was formed. By 1985 some PRs were recruited. In this period we started work in Kolar, Raichur, Bidar, Mysore, Chitradurga from where we got contacts. We sent PRs to all these places. Rural work was also started in Bidar in 1985. By 1987 work was started in Dharwad and Gulbarga also. In 1987 rural work was taken up in Raichur. KRCS was launched. We set foot in Belagaum, Karwar and Shimoga districts also by 1990. In 1989 NF was started.

But by 1990, even though overall Karnataka work was going on in several districts nowhere was there any qualitative growth and there was stagnation. Many PRs got frustrated and started becoming inactive. Not only did complacency and bureaucracy get strengthened in the leadership, one important leader went into moral degeneration too. In this background a revolt against the leadership emerged. Since the revolting comrades had violated some organisational methods, the leadership, taking that violation itself as a pretext, launched an attack against those comrades with fierce bureaucracy. It suppressed several pertinent questions that they had raised. Yet under the conditions that prevailed it was compelled to convene a plenum and undertake some deep review. The mistakes of starting rural work without due preparations, of the leadership not adopting a work style of staying in the villages and carrying on the work, of adopting the CO system mechanically were identified. Yet as the leadership could not instil a confidence that it would seriously look into its mistakes and bring in changes, many comrades became inactive even after the plenum. Work in many districts came to a standstill.

The plenum reviewed that the rural work had a ‘pairavi’ form (i.e. a reformist form) and resolved to intensify the anti-feudal struggle. In Bidar as part of fighting back the enemy’s repression and intensifying anti-feudal struggle, action was taken against a landlord. But failing to advance the rural work there, it was finally withdrawn altogether. Rural work continued only in Raichur. After 1995 some inspiring anti-landlord struggles were conducted there. But after the enemy commenced repression in 1997, the movement could not sustain its strength even though action was taken against a couple of landlords with the intention of resisting the repression. By 2000 the Raichur rural work also had suffered a serious setback. In 2001 the decision to withdraw the work there and concentrate and develop rural work and armed struggle in Malnad was taken. By this time all the open revolutionary organisations in the towns had almost become non-existent. But in this decade, i.e. 1990s, NF and WO gradually grew in spite of several ups and downs and conducted some significant struggles. They also played the main role in building issue-based united fronts and conducting some successful struggles. Some cadres also developed in this process.

In 2001 about 25 comrades were transferred to Malnad and attention was focussed on rural work. At the same time a review of the then 20 years work was also taken up. Differences cropped in the party regarding the review of the past as also the future plan. The SC majority and the in-charge CCM put forth the arguments that: rightist practice was the main reason for the failure of Raichur rural work, armed struggle should be launched in Malnad within 12 months, our main attention should be immediately concentrated on anti-feudal struggles, all the mass organisations should be oriented so as to render direct assistance to armed struggle, priority should be given to building the secret party immediately. Opposing these standpoints the SC minority and other comrades argued that: not adopting mass line and the correct work style by the leadership are the main reasons for the failure of Raichur work; keeping the previous experiences in mind, we should not initiate armed struggle immediately but time should be taken for proper political–organisational–military preparations; since it will not be possible in the concrete conditions of Malnad to rally the broad masses into struggles by immediately taking up anti-landlord struggles, attention should first be paid to build anti-state, anti-CBB and anti-imperialist struggles which the people are ready to respond to at present, and not only underground organisations but open organisational structures should also be built for this purpose; democratic organisations should be developed in the surrounding towns and people should be prepared for rural and urban struggles and for higher forms of class struggle; at the same time, attention should be paid to retain and develop the existing LDOs. Not prepared to tolerate this difference of opinion, the majority and the concerned CCMs launched an attack on the comrades who raised the questions in a very sectarian, bureaucratic and opportunistic way by misusing their position. They made false allegations that a right opportunist alliance had been formed and it was bringing in a right opportunist line; continuously flouting the organisational principles and distorting the minority’s arguments, they attempted to win this inner party struggle through unethical methods. Though the special conference held in 2003 was successful in averting a split in the party it did not succeed in resolving the serious political differences in the party. Thus, though the SC continued to function unitedly serious political and organisational differences persisted in it. The minority kept presenting its political differences clearly in its committee, at the same time abiding by and implementing the majority decisions. Thus it was the SC majority’s stands that continued to be decisive in deciding the affairs of the party.

The National Park question was the main issue when building guerrilla zone in Malnad was taken up as the central task. We also held a massive convention opposing National Park in May 2002. But after that the attention towards mass struggles decreased. In the same month, i.e. in May 2002, armed squads were formed and the method of building the movement through them became principal. Attempts were made to take up anti-landlord struggles. But mobilising the masses effectively in anti-feudal struggles did not succeed. It was reviewed that the rural work had stagnated since December 2002. State repression began. We lost 6 comrades. Out of the comrades sent for the rural work almost half returned due to lack of mental preparedness or physical problems or due to lack of faith in the tactics that were being adopted. The number of squads decreased. Some more comrades from the LDOs in the towns were transferred to make up for the shortage. Some of them were martyred and the LDOs which were their organisational roots became the subject of much discussion. Moreover many more important comrades of the LDOs were sent underground in an effort at building the secret party. Because of all this, the relationship between the armed work that had begun in the perspective area and the LDOs became conspicuous and the state utilised this fact for propaganda and repression. Due to this, even those LDOs which were on growth mode when Malnad work began, weakened and reached the stage of becoming defunct. Mass base dwindled. On the one side with rural work not developing, and unable to sustain the urban work also on the other, the overall condition of the party began to drastically weaken.

But neither the SC majority nor the CC was prepared to objectively review the reasons for this. When they were not prepared even to identify the roots of the problem, the possibility of finding a solution was also not there. The SC minority put forth an objective review regarding the left sectarian politics responsible for this situation and regarding the relation between the problems that are there in the all India work as well and those being faced by the Karnataka movement. Again the majority and the CCMs attacked it with the same bureaucratic, sectarian and opportunistic methods. Due to their rigid attitude of not being prepared to identify the mistakes and the opportunistic and undemocratic attitude they adopted to cover up those mistakes, they brought the party to the brink of a split during the 5^th state conference held in July 2006.

This is only a brief retrospection. Several types of attempts have been made to organise class struggle in the last 25 years. But they could not achieve success in terms of the basic needs of a revolutionary movement, namely, with regard to organising the broad masses or building a strong party or the people’s army. Let us first review the mistakes in the understanding and practice with regard to the building of each of them and then go on to analyse the political and ideological roots that are the basic reason for all of them.

Mass Work

• Instead of considering the organisational forms required for organising the people of Karnataka in struggles keeping in mind the political–social conditions prevalent here, the work of building organisations began by copying AP. PVK here in place of RSU there, PYC in place of RYL, Karnataka Civil Liberties Committee in place of APCLC, Karnataka Raitha Cooli Sangha in place of AP RCS, Jana Kala Mandali in place of Jana Natya Mandali. Though these organisations played their role in propagating revolutionary politics in Karnataka to an extent and in taking up some struggles, they alone were not enough to organise the broad masses. In 1989 the NF organisation was built in a creative way. In the early ’90s WO was started in a slightly different manner. They began functioning as legal democratic organisations (LDOs) (even though we had not considered them in such terms). After these organisations began yielding results the RMOs built earlier were neglected. Due to this neglect combined with enemy repression they became defunct one after another by the mid-’90s. After this as the LDOs were used for all kinds of needs without understanding their framework they too suffered a decline.
• Attempting to expand to wherever we got contacts with the intention that the movement should be quickly built throughout the state, the mistake of failing to sustain the movement even in the existing places was repeatedly committed. First a PR team came into being in Bangalore. It was immediately dispersed and sent to different districts to build the movement. As a result the Bangalore work became almost nil by 1990. A team developed in Chitradurga too. It was dispersed immediately. Work there ground to a halt. A team started working in Kolar district with self-initiative. Immediately its key activist was transferred to rural work. The work there collapsed. Comrades came forward with the enthusiasm of building revolutionary movement in Bidar and Raichur. They were immediately involved in rural work. Neither rural work could be sustained on the one side, nor could urban work be saved on the other, and most of the people who had come forward became inactive or switched over to other types of politics. In Koppa some comrades were organising the people with self-initiative. Within a couple of years of coming to party’s contact they were shifted; that ended the work there. In Shimoga SO and WO organisations had started growing. But because of transferring the key elements without a thought for the consequences, they suffered a decline. Thus, the SC’s subjective, impetuous decisions of transfers followed an unscientific method of transplanting the saplings even before they had struck roots. These saplings with weak roots could not establish themselves at the new places and yield results. On the other hand, due to shifting of the key elements and placing all the responsibilities on the newer elements, which they could not handle, even their development was hampered. The work in those places could not be developed either.
• Rural work being primary it should be started immediately – with this urgency, rural work was taken up in Bidar and Raichur districts without any preparations whatsoever. The CO system adopted in AP for building the movement was mechanically copied here also. The case of AP was different: in Telangana which had the background of revolutionary struggles, at a time when anti-feudal contradictions were ready to flare up, student and youth leaders with sufficient organisational experience and with the support of an effective revolutionary politics were sent as COs. It yielded good results too. But here new comrades with no organisational experience were termed as COs and were sent to hitherto-unknown villages to organise the peasants. This did not pave way for success in building the movement. Instead it paved the way for the growth of frustration or inferiority complex in many comrades who had come forward with good enthusiasm.
• The leadership which sent the cadres to the villages in this way, continued to remain in the city only. It acted as though its task was only to meet the village cadres once in a way or summoning them to the city, reviewing their work and making new resolutions. It copied AP only in the matter of sending the cadres to the villages but not with regard to its work style. Therefore it could not gain a hold in the matter of rural work. Its decisions did not match the reality. It could not extend any useful help or guidance that the cadres very much needed.
• As the cadres did not have any experience of building the movement by identifying the important mass issues and taking up class struggle, they chiefly adopted the work style of pressurising the government for basic amenities for the people, accompanying the people to the offices, pressurising the officers to get the people’s work done with regard to loans, subsidies etc. While they had limitation with regard to experience, understanding and practice as to how to develop mass/class struggles, this work nevertheless helped in developing good relationships with the people. But the leadership dubbed this as ‘middleman’s work’ wholesale and took a decision to intensify anti-landlord struggles and develop armed struggle. Accordingly anti-landlord issues were identified and struggles taken up around them. Work was going on in the name of Raitha Cooli Sangha, which was an open organisation. An underground team of cadres with small arms led this. Some inspiring struggles were conducted. They generally had good impact on the people, but as they were mainly individual problems, they brought only the concerned families closer. We did not take up either mass issues of the basic classes or problems being faced by the middle and rich peasants. As the party cadres were very limited in number the possibility of expanding to extensive areas was also not there. Thus the work of the organisation remained confined to a few villages only, that too among just a limited section of people. The organisation did not have capable leadership as well. Hence when repression started even the existing organisation collapsed. The underground team was converted into an armed squad with bigger arms. This became the only form of organisation. Action was also taken against a few anti-people landlords as a response to the enemy repression. In essence, attempt was made to intensify ‘armed struggle’ against landlords in a very limited area without either a vast area of struggle, or a broad organisation, or a support structure to politically defend the movement. This made it easier for the state to concentrate in a small area and suppress the movement. As we did not have any long-term plan or preparation to face this repression we could not come out of it. Even the existing mass base shrunk, one comrade was martyred in the enemy repression, many others were arrested and the rural work suffered a severe setback.
• This was the result of implementing a petty bourgeois, impetuous, romantic plan based on a subjective wish of quickly developing the rural movement, of not adopting a patient and rigorous work style by the leadership and following sectarian militancy in the place of mass militancy – instead of chalking out a scientific and objective plan that a communist party should have actually done.
• In spite of having the negative lessons of Bidar and Raichur right before our eyes, the same impetuous, romantic and sectarian – but only a shade different – plan was repeated in Malnad also. The work was initiated very much with the understanding that we should declare war with dramatic military actions within 12 months. The path followed was one of immediately launching armed struggle, of attempting to organise the broad masses basing only on the secret revolutionary mass organisations and of building the movement by mainly taking up anti-feudal struggles – without taking into account that this was a relatively advanced region of Karnataka; without considering the changes that have come in the feudal exploitative methods or the reality that the imperialist and CBB enemies, through the state, have become the everyday hurdle for the broad masses of Malnad and that the people’s consciousness was growing against this condition; without taking into account the subjective condition of the party and its weak mass base; and disregarding the necessary preparations. The existing anti-state, anti-CBB and anti-imperialist issues, the work in the surrounding towns, open work were all neglected.
• In essence, work was started in a half measure manner without matching the ground reality, the AP model was wrongly copied, anti-feudal struggle was sought to be intensified in a sectarian manner. Instead of taking up struggles that the masses earnestly needed, instead of providing the struggle forms that they were prepared to come into, the leadership advanced struggles and struggle forms that it subjectively wished. That is why even after five years, neither could class struggles be initiated in an effective way, nor could the peasantry be organised in a big way.
• Coming to the mass organisations in the towns, the work of organising the working class which needed to be given the primary attention, was neglected throughout. Though some work was done in the slums where workers/semi-proletariat reside, that experience was not summed up in time, the slum work was not streamlined. Conscious and systematic effort was never made to acquire the specialisation or the understanding necessary for organising the working class at the place of their work. Some spontaneous, subjective plans were drawn up with the intention of organising the working class, but they never yielded results. As a result organising the basic class in an effective manner never became possible.
• The work style of not striking root in any place was another problem that existed in our town work. Constant transfers, subjective plans without taking into consideration the abilities of the respective cadres and too many types of work for each organiser, thereby planning the work in a way that concentration was never possible in any place, in any work, and in a manner in which effective results could be obtained from the work – this was a major problem that plagued our mass organisations all along. Neither the organisers were able to achieve specialisation in a specific work nor mass base could be strengthened, thus wasting much effort. We can see that good results have come wherever continuity of leadership was there.
• The leadership did not correctly recognise the importance of the continuity of mass leadership. The wrong thinking that it was enough if we had underground leadership, then we could keep anybody at the forefront of a work to make it function, was strong. Thus all the decisions were taken either in the party committees or in the fractions, the mass organisation committees were not given any importance, making them mere dummies. The mass organisation leadership was shuffled at will. As the leadership was underground there were serious problems in grasping the problems in the field. Nor were there any serious efforts to get as closer to the reality as possible by various methods through the comrades in the field. Consequently the decisions of the leadership did not match the reality many a time. This wrong practice had serious impact on the development of the mass organisations.
• Mass work meant organising the people through the RMOs only – this was what the understanding we had during the ’80s. In the ’90s NF and WO were built in the form of LDOs. Due to not paying enough attention to the RMOs, transferring their members impetuously and due to enemy repression, even the existing organisations became defunct. Afterwards expecting that the LDOs should also play the role of the RMOs and by actually functioning them as such, without understanding their framework and scope, there developed a contradiction between their form and their functions, and they too weakened. The fact that there was no clarity about the form and role of the mass organisations, and moreover there being a wrong conception instead, led to quite a few losses.
• The shortcomings in the application of mass line is another major problem. Not conducting proper social investigations and not correctly identifying the mass issues and taking them up; the work style and work plan of not completely integrating with the masses; the sectarian understanding and work style manifested in the form of not grasping the pulse of the people, of attempting to mechanically build only the pre-determined forms of organisation instead of different organisational forms in accordance with the needs of the masses, all posed a serious hurdle in organising the broad masses.
• Much effort was wasted by the problem of jumping from issue to issue spontaneously, by not paying attention to consolidating the elements, who constantly came into our contact, into the organisational and party structures. The individual style of functioning wherein the organisers themselves take the decisions and conduct the movement instead of adopting the method of forming mass organisation committees and functioning through them was also common. This was also an obstacle for local leadership to develop.
• We have in fact gained relatively good experience in the matter of forming several issue-based UFs and conducting struggles through them. Our organisations played a fine role in bringing different organisations and pro-people individuals under a single banner and conducting struggles. Adopting creative tactics according to the objective conditions it was possible to obtain good results. Continuity of leadership, relatively more freedom in the matter of taking decisions, the creative methods adopted were reasons for this. Along with these positive experiences some serious problems were also there. Neglecting the independent activities and consolidation of our mass organisations while paying one-sided emphasis to the work of UFs, not paying full attention to fraction-type work among the different forces that come into the UF fold thereby bringing them under the influence of the revolutionary politics, not involving the different forces in such a way as to enhance their participation were some of the problems that hindered making full use of the UF work.
• There are examples of suffering setbacks in the mass work because of the inability to handle the situation efficiently when faced with the goonda forces in the cities on a number of occasions. There were many such instances in Chitradurga, Smg, Bidar, Glb etc. Many a time this was reviewed as lack of militancy. But actually the root cause for this was the fact that there was no proper plan at all for the necessary preparations for defending the urban work. On the one hand we went ahead with the notion that we revolutionaries should advance without being afraid of anything, and on the other, when problems arose, we did not have the necessary preparation or the necessary mass support to counter them, and consequently faced setbacks. This problem repeated itself again and again.
• To sum up, not understanding the strategic importance of the urban work, considering the main task of urban work as only sending activists to the rural work and providing logistic assistance, running spontaneously to wherever contacts were obtained instead of trying to strike roots in one place, neglecting the importance of mass organisation committees and the need for the continuity of mass leadership, starting the rural work impetuously and when it did not gain the natural momentum, carelessly transferring activists from the urban claiming it as inevitable, working without any clarity about the framework and scope of the mass organisations, working without any objective plan for safeguarding the urban work – all these were the major reasons for failure of the urban movement as well to grow into a broad and powerful movement. We could achieve good results when continuity of leadership, a broad organisational form, consistent work around certain issues, objective planning – were all provided at least in some measure.

Party Functioning

• Building the underground party is very much necessary for providing successful leadership to revolutionary movement. But it was tragic that in Karnataka, building the underground party was understood and followed mechanically. Building the underground structure should depend not on our wish but on the need. But the practice of sending cadres underground even when there was no need for it began in Karnataka right from the beginning. Due to mechanically understanding the principle that the leadership should be underground, the State Committee went underground as soon as it was formed in 1987. But at that time in Karnataka neither a big movement had been built nor had any repression started. More importantly, that leadership committee did not have the field experience of building struggles by organising the people and developing the organisation. Actually there was a need for the leadership to go among the masses, learn from practice and organise the people, by utilising the legal opportunities available then. For the leadership that went underground leaving aside the opportunities for learning which existed then and distancing itself from the field, understanding the problems in the field was not easy. This shortcoming affected the party’s work throughout the 20 years in the form of its subjective guidance. The CC’s mechanical understanding and guidance was also a cause for this. The CC saw only its (the leadership’s) intellectual grasp as the yardstick and neglected the lack of its organisational capabilities, formed the state committee prematurely and sent it underground. This mechanical understanding continued, because of which several comrades were sent underground even later. Even when it was available, the opportunity for remaining with the people and organising them was lost. Instead of going underground to escape from the enemy, there were instances of attracting the enemy by going underground. The sectarian understanding of trying to get protection only by going underground instead of having the outlook of facing the enemy with the support of the broad masses was also a reason for this. Moreover, in sharp contrast to this, a work style, wherein all the party members who were working openly would be totally exposed to the enemy was followed. Instead of building a clandestine party wherein it should be difficult for the enemy to recognise the party members as such even when they are working openly, the concept ‘secret’ was understood only to mean as ‘underground’, and party structures which were either totally hidden or were fully exposed were built.
• There were many wrong conceptions about party building which blocked its development. Conscious effort was not there from the beginning towards developing different layers of leadership. The work style that was in vogue till 2000 was that the SC was the only leadership committee that took all the political–organisational decisions, while all the rest functioned only as activists who implemented them. The role of the members in the party’s affairs was nominal. Even if not in the committee form, the PRs had some role at least in carrying out different activities. But the number of part-time members was already less, and even those who were there had no importance whatsoever. This was the result of mechanically understanding the principle that PRs are the pillars of the party and neglecting the importance of the part-time members. Moreover, as the ideological foundation in the party as such was weak, the confidence and ability to carry the revolutionary politics for discussion with initiative and recruit more and more people as party members was itself very low in most of the cadres.
• There was a flawed understanding that party building was the responsibility of the underground comrades, while only mass organisation building was the responsibility of the open comrades. This was also a hurdle in the way of party building. At the later stages this understanding was changed. But going to another extreme, a mechanical conception that all the party comrades should participate in all the propaganda activities of the party came up. This brought in its wake another type of problems, such as that of making the members working in the LDOs and in cover and also these organisations vulnerable to enemy repression. This confusion in the party functioning coupled with the problem in the application of mass line led to the party remaining only as a limited, narrow party instead of becoming a mass party.
• Irresponsible attitude towards the party cadres was another serious problem. The fact that a considerable number of party members have left the party points to the gravity of the problem. There was no attention towards imparting systematic education to the new entrants to the party and consolidating them as capable political activists. In a party which ought to have ideology as an important weapon, the necessary emphasis towards preparing the political-ideological foundation as such was not there. There were also quite a few problems in the matter of providing necessary assistance and freedom to each comrade and developing her/his organisational skills. There were serious problems in comprehensively understanding the political-organisational-familial-mental-physical problems that the comrades faced and assisting them in overcoming those problems. And as regards PRs, the irresponsible behaviour of treating their entire fate as one that was left to the leadership was common. Instead of understanding the needs of the movement–the existing possibilities–the preparedness and interest of the comrades as a whole and then giving suitable responsibilities and developing them, the common practice was to entrust responsibilities to comrades in a wrong way, looking only at the needs of the movement and overlooking all other aspects – based on the mechanical understanding that the PRs should be prepared for everything. Due to this, there are several instances where comrades, unable to carry out the responsibilities entrusted to them, developed inferiority notions about themselves and became inactive or lost the initiative. Because of such reckless attitude and decisions of the leadership neither the capabilities of the comrades could be properly utilised, nor could all those who joined the party inspired by revolutionary politics be retained, developed and properly involved in building the movement.
• Democratic centralism is the basic organisational principle of a communist party. This principle first formulated by com. Lenin was further developed by com. Mao. Lenin gave emphasis to centralism at a time when the forces of the working class were all splintered into innumerable small groups. Later he identified some of the shortcomings in his understanding in this regard and paid attention towards further democratising the party. Mao, constantly fighting against bureaucracy that develops as part of an over-stress on centralism alone, propounded the dialectical relationship between democracy and centralism and gave even more importance to democracy. In spite of all these efforts, centralism rather than democracy found more emphasis, bureaucracy grew, and this became an important reason for the restoration of capitalism, in both Russia and China. But here in Karnataka, without taking any lessons from these experiences stress was laid only on centralism all along. A wrong understanding that ‘in a secret party centralism will be primary – democracy will have limitations’ was strong. Rigid opinions such as that the party members should not discuss about their political views anywhere outside their respective committees, that they should not even write letters mutually, were strong in the leadership. Authority, finance, information were all concentrated in the state committee. Cadres did not have much of a role in the important decision making of the party on the whole. Even though conferences, elections were held, the atmosphere where everyone could actively participate in them and present their thoughts freely was not developed at all. Hence until the problem crossed the limits and snowballed into a crisis, that is until 2000 conference, except in 1993 crisis when the cadres played an active role to an extent, they (the conferences, elections, etc.) remained only formal.
• Because of the above conditions, bureaucracy and sectarianism hardened in the leadership. The attitude of considering themselves as always right and cadres as responsible for all mistakes, of placing no effort to learn from the cadres, of being liberal about their own mistakes while being sectarian at those of the cadres, strengthened. Hence they lost a critical outlook about what they did, developed a complacency that whatever they were doing was correct, and an attitude of not learning from mistakes grew. While subjectivism, liberalism, sectarianism, spontaneity etc. were being identified in the conferences as existing in the party, they were only viewed as existing in the cadres mainly. But the question as to what are the problems in the leadership that carries the primary responsibility was not analysed or identified deeply, rectification was not seriously initiated from there. Rectification campaign was never undertaken in the SC. Thus only the list of wrong trends in the party grew year after year, but no qualitative rectification could be brought about in any aspect.
• The leadership saw the party only as a monolithic structure. It acted as though emergence of differences in the party as such was dangerous to the party and revolution. Every time differences arose in the party the leadership adopted the attitude of launching a vicious attack in a most bureaucratic and sectarian way on those who raised questions. They made false allegations against them such as, ‘They are refuting armed struggle, are saying that anti-landlord struggles should not be conducted, are out to destroy the leadership, are violating the party constitution’ etc. and tried to disgrace them and sow the seeds of suspicion in the minds of the party cadres against them. While they took their propaganda widely and in different ways into the party misutilising their position at will, they placed any number of restrictions against the minority comrades who had voiced their differences, and created all sorts of hurdles such that they should not be able to take their views to the comrades effectively. Especially for the PA comrades, they constantly fed wrong information on the one hand, and on the other, tried to put as many restrictions as possible on the discussions of the minority viewpoints. They stalled a minority-supporting delegate from attending the conference. Holding the conference on such uneven discussions they obtained a so-called majority in it and argued that the minority should abide by it. The leadership that constantly infringed upon democracy demanded that the minority abide by centralism. Going by it would have amounted to bowing to bureaucratic centralism and not to abiding by democratic centralism. Actually their utterly undemocratic and opportunistic attitude as explained above was itself the cause that led to the party’s division. It was only because of the sectarian conception which the leadership had about party building that the party could not be built as a broad mass party. And due to intensification of sectarianism, bureaucracy and opportunism in the leadership, the party – to whatever extent it was built – could not be retained unitedly.
• To sum up, the party should be the leading political force of the masses. Grasping the pulse of the people, it should from time to time formulate necessary plans in a dynamic manner and provide guidance to class struggle. The Karnataka party failed in performing this role. The leadership that sat in the ivory tower of its subjectivism failed to grasp the reality and resorted to artificial imitations. Some examples of this are: to have mechanically gone underground; without getting into the field, to have thought that only guiding was its responsibility; to have attempted to adopt the experiences of other places in a half measure way; to have been reckless towards the cadres, etc. Moreover, with the egotism that it knows everything, it did not make any efforts to learn either from the cadres or from mistakes. It tried to suppress and hush up the opinions that arose questioning its thinking and practice. Distorting the meaning of democratic centralism, it tried to impose centralism. Ultimately it created a situation wherein the comrades aspiring for change had no other option but to leave the party.

Army Building

• Without building the army, without conducting armed struggle, revolution can not succeed. But no armed struggle can be successful unless it becomes a people’s war involving the broad masses, unless the people come forward to upturn history. But in Karnataka the efforts at building the army stressed only the necessity of armed struggle and totally neglected the fact that it can succeed only when it becomes the war of the people. The leadership did not at all have the perception of conducting the people’s war with full participation of the broad masses. The saying that ‘a single spark can start a prairie fire’ was mechanically understood to be true under any and all conditions. Romantic perceptions such as ‘if armed activity was launched with a handful of brave cadres the masses would get inspired and join the armed movement’ were very strong. But this expectation of the leadership did not come true either in Bidar, or in Raichur, or in Malnad. In spite of conducting armed activities for a number of years in each place, the masses played only the role of supporters and sympathisers, and did not take part in the armed struggle. But the leadership has not stopped dreaming about this. The broad masses will not take part in armed struggle unless they are convinced of the need for armed struggle through their own practice, unless the confidence that armed war can be victorious is instilled in them. Armed struggle is the highest form of class struggle. For the masses to accept this form, they should first involve themselves seriously in class struggle, should acquire the political consciousness that the ultimate victory for their struggle is possible only when they seize state power, should acquire, through their own experience of class struggle, the confidence that armed struggle is both necessary and possible for the sake of seizing state power. The people’s collective consciousness should take a leap from one stage to another. In Karnataka where the influence of revolutionary communist movement is absent, where at present the atmosphere of bold struggles is also not there, to expect the masses at once to take part in armed struggle is like expecting a child just beginning to learn to walk, to leaping. The leadership did not grasp the fact that in Karnataka collective political consciousness and class struggle are still at a low phase, the state is relatively powerful and moreover it has not yet become illegitimized in the eyes of the people. Without a grasp of the reality the leadership arrived at the wishful conclusion that the people are prepared for armed struggle. Without correctly understanding the organic, dialectical relationship between the party – the mass base (united front) – people’s army, without also taking into account the level of class struggle in Karnataka today, Mao’s statement made in a particular Chinese context that “armed struggle is the principal form of struggle” was mechanically understood and sought to be applied here. This was a problem of not grasping mass line correctly, of neglecting the principle that different tactics should be adopted in different conditions in order to develop the class struggle. Because of this wrong notion only, the leadership time and again exhibited the petty bourgeois impetuosity of immediately starting armed struggle, without applying their mind on how to involve the broad masses in militant class struggles. Thus neither the people’s army was built, nor could broad class struggle be developed.
• ‘There is not a grain of democracy in this country; especially in villages, organising the people is impossible without armed form’ – this extreme notion ruled strong in the party. It is true that democracy in this country is fraught with serious limitations and that without armed struggle revolutionary changes can not be brought about in the countryside. But it is not a fact that there is no legal opportunity whatsoever, that without armed form nothing can be done. Because of this wrong thinking, rural movement was understood as only armed movement, the possibilities of organising the people in different forms were neglected, and without ripening the conditions, the mistake of resorting to armed activity was committed.
• Strategically the enemy is a paper tiger, but in terms of tactics it is a real tiger – this is a Maoist conception. But the leadership had the attitude of belittling the enemy as a paper tiger tactically also. Even the factor of the enemy being weak in the countryside was mechanically understood. When compared to cities, in a relative sense, it is true that the enemy is weak in the rural areas. But the reality that the enemy who has a centralised state with its arms extended to rural areas also, who has a sufficiently developed transport–communication system and the army, is quite strong, was disregarded. This under-assessment about the enemy was also a reason for resorting to armed struggle without proper preparations.
• There were serious problems in understanding people’s war as a multi-faceted comprehensive war with political-military-cultural-social dimensions. The sectarian conception of it as mainly a military war was strong. That is why in the conception of successfully organising the people’s war there was no emphasis for the tactics of politically exposing the enemy, isolating him from the broad masses, educating the masses to hate him, ensuring widespread political support from different sections of people for the people’s war. As a result the armed struggle in Karnataka could not be converted into a struggle of the people of Karnataka. The ongoing armed struggle instead came to be identified as a struggle of a small group confined to a small area only. This came in handy for the enemy to launch repression. Similarly yet another sectarian notion that enemy repression can be repulsed and the masses inspired only through armed actions was also strong. The Marxist understanding that every military action should carry strong political justification was not followed in the true spirit. The Pavagada-type actions with little political justification helped the enemy to carry on false propaganda against armed struggle and launch a tyrannical repression against it. Such an isolated, confined armed activity with no mass base in fact remained distanced from the masses also. Even though the people have high regard and sympathy for the efforts and sacrifices of revolutionaries, such actions failed to instil the confidence in the people that this struggle will be victorious, that they should take part in it too.
• To sum up, in comparison to China which was divided among several warlords with their respective armies, India’s ruling classes have a mighty centralised state machinery and army. Karnataka is one of the relatively developed states in India. Here it is a mighty challenge before the revolutionaries as to how we build people’s army and establish base areas, simultaneously facing the state’s armed forces. But it is a tragedy that this question as such was not even seriously taken up by the Karnataka party. Without having any concrete long-term plan, without any serious preparations, it set out to developing armed struggle and building people’s army just on blind faith. On the question of people’s war the leadership’s understanding as such was sectarian. Hence it was not possible to involve the people in the war, a concerted resistance could not be posed to the enemy, nor could people’s army be built.

Political – Ideological Roots

• Even though different kinds of wrong practices and conceptions can be seen with regard to mass work, party building and army building, their ideological root is one and the same. Even while chanting repeatedly that ‘Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action’, the dogmatism that understood it only as a dogma is the basic essence of this. Violation of the basic principles of Marxism can be seen all along.
• ‘Concrete analysis of concrete conditions’ is a basic principle of Marxism. No effort was ever made for undertaking a serious study of Karnataka’s economic-political-social-cultural life, the contradictions here, the level of class struggle and understanding it objectively. Attempts were made to build the movement based on superficial, subjective understanding only. In 1987, even though no special study was conducted, a document entitled ‘the perspective for rural work in Karnataka’ was brought out which contained some analysis about Karnataka. But no attempts were made to take up the study needed either for concretising or understanding it better, to apply it for building the movement. It remained only as a document for the record. After that no serious study was undertaken. In 2001-02 a study was conducted in the perspective area in Malnad. In the background of serious differences cropping up in the party by then, the SC majority utilised this study only to defend its dogmatic and sectarian tactics. This study was not one of the entire PA but only of a part thereof. Yet this itself was presented as a study of the entire Malnad. Moreover, instead of understanding at least the glaringly visible particularities in PA and discussing what tactics should be adopted in accordance with them, only very general formulations were put forth such as ‘even this is a part of semi-feudal, semi-colonial social system only, hence the movement can be built by adopting the protracted people’s war strategy here also.’ Instead of formulating tactics based on the study, their subjective understanding was thrust on the study itself by summing it up in accordance with the tactics formulated even before the study was conducted.
• The long-term strategic outlook was seriously lacking in the leadership. Both the rural and the urban work were spontaneously planned on the basis of short-term outlook only, the vision of developing them as part of a long-term plan was not there. That is why even though the 1987 Karnataka Perspective had identified Malnad as a more suitable place for armed struggle, a decision was taken the same year to start rural work in Raichur. Without a vision as to how we would proceed to initiate armed struggle, and how to sustain and develop it in Raichur which is a plain area and where we have our presence in only a handful of villages, without acquiring a long-term and comprehensive understanding as to when and how establishing a liberated area will be possible in the plain area that it is, without at least posing these questions to ourselves, we worked there mechanically for 15 years. Finally, failing to build the movement there and after suffering serious losses, the decision to shift the rural work to Malnad was taken. Stressing only on the favourable geographical conditions of forests and hill ranges in Malnad, armed struggle was resorted to without even finding some answers to the serious basic questions such as: what are the problems that armed struggle will have to face in Malnad which is relatively developed, where commercial crops dependent on national-international markets are grown, and which has a good transport-communication system favourable to the enemy? How will we establish liberated area here? Similarly in the urban work, even though some attention was paid to student work which can bring activists swiftly, no long-term plan was chalked out for organising the basic class, namely the working class. While armed activity was started in villages, questions such as what sort of long-term precautions and measures should be taken in order to sustain and continue the mass work in the cities which are the bastions of the enemy were also not addressed. We simply continued on the understanding that ‘the mass organisations in the cities will function as long as they have legal scope; when they become targets of repression, we will have to build new organisations again’, an understanding that does not have any concreteness whatsoever, that is abstract and irresponsible. It is only because of such lack of a strategic outlook that both rural and urban work suffered serious losses and a lot of labour and time got wasted.
• Chalking out romantic plans based on subjective wishes of the leadership instead of planning based on objective conditions was another major problem. We can provide several examples for this: the leadership, instead of trying to get down into practice and learning from it, to have assumed that they are capable of guiding; to have rushed behind wherever contacts came presuming that the movement should be developed at state level, even as the capacity to work striking root in one place was not there; to have sent new activists as COs to new areas expecting them to build the movement there; having given the programme of armed struggle to the people all at once when they did not even have the experience of militant class struggle; the illusion that armed struggle should be developed swiftly by declaring war through dramatic military actions; the guidance that in the event of an organisation like NF having to face repression it should go underground and organise the broad masses; etc. etc. We can see the manifestation of both dogmatism in trying to adopt here exactly what was said in the concrete conditions of Russia or China, taking it out of context, and of empiricism in trying to mechanically follow here the methods that were adopted in DK or Bihar. Such plans bereft of any objective basis which stem from the petty bourgeois subjective wishes, without a creative application of the knowledge gained from theory and experience to concrete conditions with necessary changes, did not match the objective reality and created the situation of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ again and again.
• The usual practice was contrary to the Maoist principle of ‘strategic firmness – tactical flexibility’. On the one hand, as explained above, there was no strategic clarity for the work being done. On the other, the hardened and rigid, mechanical attitude in tactical matters acted as the main obstacle for the creative application of theory. As rural work is primary, it should be started immediately whatever the prevailing conditions; as guerrilla zone has to be built, the class struggle in the rural areas should be quickly transformed into armed struggle whatever our subjective position may be; as underground party is a must for achieving revolution, all the leadership comrades should be sent underground whatever the consequences or whether going underground immediately is inevitable, useful or not; as Mao has said that all mass work should be for the people’s war, even the LDOs should directly serve armed struggle just as the RMOs; in the villages, only underground organisations should be built; workers should be organised only clandestinely through cover organisations, etc. etc. – such rigid tactics pregnant with wrong concepts were followed. These created endless obstacles in the way of weaving our plans in accordance with the prevailing conditions.
• ‘The people alone are the creators of history’, every move should be determined always keeping the broad masses in mind – such a mass line was neglected throughout. The neglect of mass line can be seen in varied forms such as: in wanting to build the armed movement basing only on a few cadres instead of people’s war based on the broad masses; in thinking that ‘if we move ahead heroically the people will join in’ – neglecting the importance of preparing the people for higher forms of struggle from their own experience; in thinking that class struggle could be intensified in a small area only instead of in a vast area; in building mass organisations basing just on a few activists instead of broad masses; giving importance only to PRs instead of building a party where even part-time members have an active role; in not involving all the members in party building; in sidelining those who express differences of opinion in the party; and so on. This deep-rooted sectarianism distorted the understanding and practice of the party as a whole.
• If we analyse the ideological root of the major political problems identified above, the flaw lay in understanding the dialectical relationship as such between the needs of the revolutionary movement – the prevailing objective conditions, between rural work – urban work, between secret work – open work, between the people’s army – mass base, between armed struggle – political struggle. Even though the former aspect in these has special significance strategically, the relationship that if the latter is not there the former also cannot be there, was not grasped. Mechanically understanding that the former is principal the latter aspect was neglected. Moreover, the metaphysical understanding that the former is principal at all times and under all circumstances, was strong. That one transforms into the other was not grasped. That their relationship also changes in tune with the changes in the conditions and that their relationship should be defined in the context of each objective situation, was not understood. Changes occurring in the society were not observed. With the dogmatic perception entrenched strong that there will not be any changes whatsoever until the revolution, the changes that have come in the productive forces, the production relations and in the role of the enemy classes were not taken note of. The changes that need to be effected in the strategy and tactics in tune with the above were not considered. Attention was not paid to identify the differences between the conditions of China then and India now, between those of Bihar–DK and of Karnataka and to effect necessary changes in accordance with it. The basic conception that unity and struggle will both be there in the party and that the party grows in the process of struggle between differences as such was not internalised. Besides expecting the party to be a monolith with no differences whatsoever, when differences actually arose in the party, the aspect of unity was neglected while that of struggle was given prominence. The non-dialectical metaphysical outlook deep-rooted in the leadership was the basic cause for all this.
• To sum up, the plans and the tactics adopted for building the armed movement in Karnataka did not match the concrete conditions here, were not woven in such a way as to involve the broad masses. That is the reason why years of efforts of hundreds of comrades and the sacrifices of several heroic martyrs could not be efficiently put to good use, revolutionary movement could not be effectively built in Karnataka. The following factors were the main reason for this:

1. The shortcoming in grasping Marxism and its dialectical ideology as such.

2. The problem of not placing serious effort for understanding Karnataka’s political–economic–social life and of not identifying its particularity but instead neglecting it.

3. The problem of trying to follow Maoist theory and AP’s experience in a mechanical, half measure way.

4. The lack of a comprehensive, long-term strategic plan either for building the rural movement or the urban movement or for developing people’s war as a whole.

5. Petty bourgeois impetuosity of seeking immediate results instead of patient and consistent painstaking work.

6. Duality in practice: ultra-revolutionary, romantic talk and plans on the one hand, practice with a liberal work style and lacking commitment and preparedness, on the other.

7. A mechanical, one-sided emphasis with regard to rural work, armed struggle, secret work and army building.

8. The problem of not understanding deeply the role of the urban in building the revolutionary movement in the present situation, the significance of open work in the initial period in rallying the broad masses, the need for political struggles in isolating the enemy, the need for building a strong mass base that perceives the movement as its own in order for any movement to succeed.

9. The attitude of over-estimating the favourable conditions – under-estimating the unfavourable conditions.

10. The problem of subjectively exaggerating the people’s preparedness – belittling the enemy’s strength.

11. The serious problem of not implementing the mass line correctly in the mass organisations, in the building and functioning of the party, in armed struggle and in building the army.

12. The bureaucratic egotism of the leadership expressed in not learning from practice and from mistakes, in not listening to criticisms and differences of opinion, in not being prepared to change their understanding, and in asserting that what they say or do is absolutely correct.

It was only because the above mistakes continued endlessly without being rectified that the party could not come out of its subjectivism and from left sectarian deviation isolated from the consciousness and practice of the broad masses.

The lessons of our past that need to be kept in mind
while formulating our future

Comrades,

As we have not been able to make significant achievements in building a powerful revolutionary movement in Karnataka even after 25 years of work, we have made an attempt here to identify the reasons behind this failure. The lessons that we have gained are mainly negative. But we have to note that in spite of being negative these lessons are invaluable all the same. It is not that we do not have positive lessons at all. We have also gained many positive lessons in building and developing mass struggles and in party building. Basing firmly on them, putting to good use the lessons learnt from old mistakes, making use of those negative lessons to ‘transform the negative into positive’ as com. Mao says, we have to build a powerful positive revolutionary movement.

The mistakes that occurred in Karnataka are not specific to Karnataka alone. As in Karnataka, it has not been possible to develop revolutionary movements in relatively developed states like Tamilnad, Kerala, Maharastra, Punjab, Haryana etc. It has not been possible to advance the movement in Telangana and Andhra also in the changed conditions. This has been the result of the failure on the part of the leadership in adopting different tactics in accordance with different regions and with the changing conditions, and also of its attempts to mechanically apply the Chinese model throughout India without taking into consideration the many changes that have come in the productive forces, production relations, the structure and role of the state, the international situation, as compared to pre-revolutionary China, and in making necessary changes in the strategy. Dogmatism that has developed in the all India leadership as such is the root cause for all this.

In the background of these negative experiences, the main lessons that we should keep in mind while formulating our future course are:

1. Let us deeply internalise the formulation that “Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action”. Let us perform all our work by correctly grasping the dialectical outlook that is the ‘soul’ of MLM ideology.

2. Let us attach utmost importance to the Marxist understanding of ‘concrete analysis of concrete conditions’. Let us identify the specificities of Karnataka based on a deep social–economic–political investigation. Let us keep in mind the experiences of various states, countries and parties; but instead of aping any of them let us put all efforts to give special attention to our specificities and formulate tactics and strategy in accordance with them.

3. Instead of proceeding with short-term plans, let us formulate a long-term plan for rural work, urban work, party building and for organising people’s war as a whole, and carry on our work remaining firm on it. At the same time let us show utmost tactical flexibility in forms of organisation and struggle according to different situations and contexts.

4. Let us objectively assess our subjective force (both its strength and limitations) and also the objective condition. Let us take care not to rush behind whatever contacts we get and not to commit the mistake of planning work beyond our capacity.

5. Correctly recognising the scope and limits of different mass organisations let us develop them ensuring that contradiction does not arise between their form and functions. Let us build a militant mass movement by ‘walking on two legs’, the united fronts and the mass organisations.

6. Correctly grasping the relationship between democracy and centralism, let us strive to build a centralised, disciplined party based on maximum democracy and consisting of both unity of will and ease of mind for the individual.

7. Let us work with the aim of developing the rural work. But let us first strengthen our roots in the existing urban work and based on it formulate plans for building rural work.

8. Let us not repeat the mistake of initiating people’s war with half measure preparations. Let us work with a proper plan to develop extensive class struggle by exposing the class enemies and sharpening class contradictions, and for launching people’s war effectively with sue political and organisational preparations.

INTRODUCTION

Friends and Comrades,

RCP is of the view that there is a serious crisis before the Indian revolution today, especially with regard to the path of revolution. We feel that the revolutionary path that major revolutionary parties and groups in India have hitherto been following steadfastly has shortcomings. It needs to be developed much further ideologically, politically and organisationally. In other words, the strategy and tactics hitherto followed need a fresh look and further enrichment, chiefly on the basis of the experience of the past four decades of our revolutionary struggle.

In order to do that we are making a humble attempt in that direction, by raising some questions, which seem to us to be pertinent. We intend to continue our efforts by undertaking further studies, both in the ideological-political sphere and on the experiences of different revolutionary parties of the world in general and of India in particular.

In this section we have posted a detailed article entitled “The crisis before the Indian revolution: major political questions that must be resolved”, which we had published in our first Bulletin in 2007. The CPI (Maoist) party, the major revolutionary party in India, has brought out a lengthy response to our above Bulletin. We are going to post the political part out of it, and RCP’s reply to that response, shortly.

We request you all to join in this polemical debate in a positive way. We invite responses from you.

Revolutionary Communist Party

The Crisis Before The Indian Revolution

Dear Friends,

please check this link containing a pdf document highlighting the The Crisis Before The Indian Revolution.

This document traces the genesis of the inner party struggle in the CPI (Maoist) Karnataka State Committee. we look forward to your comments on the issues and any suggestions about how do we take it forward.

THE BASIC POLITICAL–ORGANISATIONAL STANDPINTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY

1. Aim of the Party

This earth that we dwell in comprising of vast fertile lands, wonderful natural wealth, rich resources, superior technology, modern industry, able technology and a huge human reservoir of labour empowered with knowledge and strength has all the necessary ingredients to provide a peaceful life and a promising future pregnant with higher potentials. This society holds all the possibilities to fulfil the material, spiritual and cultural needs of every being and to transform the human life into a beautiful and purposeful collective advance ahead. Yet it is a tragic irony that the lives of a large majority of people all over the world should be instead so infused with injustice and insults, misery and tears.

The story of India is no different. The toiling classes who are the basic creators and producers of all wealth are marginalised both from its sources and its fruits, even deprived of fundamental requirements and rights. Thus they are bound to lead a dastardly life marked by constant insecurity, hunger, inequality and ill health.

The cruel caste system that determines a life since birth subjects the oppressed communities to a variety of unbearable physical and mental tortures at every step. Women who play a hard and prominent role in production, reproduction and nurture of the family are treated more as secondary beings meant only to be objects of service and pleasure and as subordinate to men. The minority community who are equal contributors to the history of this country are targeted with consistent suspicion, abuse and violence and made to live in eternal tension. The nationalities, which should have bloomed in diverse brilliant colours, have instead been arrested within the unitary state of India having lost the freedom and sovereignty over their language, culture, land and resources.

Poverty, disease, suicide, prostitution, murder, plunder, communal carnage, torture, oppression, atrocities, frustration, uncertainty, anxiety, insult, alienation etc. are only the reflection of the cruelty prevalent in this society. In the induced poverty amongst plenty, common people everywhere are made to endlessly struggle for everyday survival, desperately rush in the race of insecure life. Human beings are treated only as machines for producing commodities or as consumers for those commodities.

Against this cruelty in society, toiling classes, oppressed castes, exploited women, persecuted religious minorities and the arrested nationalities have been constantly struggling. They have fought and are still fighting for their rights and dignity, for betterment in life, in the face of brutal repression and atrocities. There have been a series of movements/struggles propelled by various eminent leaders of this land who have contributed in their own way for progressive changes in society in their given respective historical context. They therefore remain immortal in history. The popular religious movements marked by Buddha, Basavanna, Guru Nanak and the Sufi saints; the strong social reform movements rooted by Ambedkar, Jyothiba Phule, Periyar and Nareyan Guru; the valiant anti-British struggles led by Tippu Sultan, Jhansi Rani and such others; the revolutionary movements made proud by daring personalities such as Bhagat Singh and Charu Mazumdar – these are some representative examples of those varied streams of popular movements and struggles. And apart from these, the resistance that our countless elders have been putting up individually and collectively against exploitation, the hundreds of movements that have taken place for wages, for land, for independence, for dignity, have all been humane, progressive counter-currents, which have dared the inhuman reactionary rule. It is only due to these movements full of sacrifices which upheld the essence of life that humankind could gain at least some measure of rights, liberty, self-respect, some improvement in standards of life as also a hope for the future, that the light of dignity and equality could be kept aflame. This struggle for truth, justice and equality will go on as long as this inhuman, repressive system that engenders exploitation of humans by humans does not end. The revolutionaries have to shoulder the task of strengthening and organising this natural resistance coming up from different sections of people against oppression, uniting its varied streams and making it an organised outpour, a powerful weapon capable of destroying the exploitative system, and guiding it towards the goal of establishing a real democratic, egalitarian society free from injustice and corruption. There is a need to bring in a revolutionary change in India’s political-economic-social system, to establish a true democratic system in place of this sham democracy, and to build a new society which ensures freedom not to the exploiters but to the exploited and the oppressed classes of this country. Our Party aims to involve itself with complete devotion and seriousness in fulfilling this task. And from there the ultimate aim of the party is to strive to build an ideal communist society which will be completely free from all imposed barriers of class, caste and gender and bereft of any state supervision or other control apparatus and where there are no rulers or the ruled, no exploiters or exploited.

2. Analysis of the present Indian society

India is a country with an uneven development. It has cosmopolitan cities with the most modern enterprises on the one hand, and tribal areas with the most backward modes of production on the other. Capitalist development is on the rise on the one hand, and semifeudal system has not perished but is continuing in considerable areas of the countryside on the other. The right to self-determination of the nationalities is being suppressed in the name of ‘integrity of the country’ on the one hand, and the sovereignty of the country is being mortgaged with ease to the imperialist forces on the other. In the name of paucity of capital imperialist capital from all over the world is welcomed with open doors on the one hand, and (national) capital of small and medium sections in the country is being throttled on the other. India has many billionaires who figure in the world’s richest individuals on the one hand while around 40 crore people in the country are eking out a poverty ridden life. While use of modern technology and implements is increasing on the one hand, the most retrogressive, outdated ideas continue to persecute the masses in various garbs on the other.

Existence of such strange admixtures, wide gaps, and paradoxes in the society is the result of the mixed character of the country’s ruling classes. India is a country that can be broadly categorised as semi-colonial and semi-feudal. The semi-colonial character indicates that the country is both partially dependent and has partial independence, at the same time. Though there is political-economic independence to an extent, subordination to overall imperialist framework is continuing. Even though direct colonial rule of the British has ended in India, the control that the imperialists exercise over the political and economic life of the country through the IMF, the World Bank, WTO and other such institutions is continuing at different levels. The comprador ruling classes who hold the helm of the country’s affairs have colluded with the imperialists in plundering the country. They are getting a share of the global plunder as well. Imperialism has penetrated deep into every aspect of the Indian economy and culture and distorted them according to its insatiable greed. The massive loot of imperialists through many anti-people mega-projects has multiplied. Their direct investment and share in Indian economy has seen a sharp rise in recent years. Their TNCs and MNCs are gobbling up the varied resources in the country in an unprecedented manner. In the name of SEZs (special Economic Zones) several internal colonial areas are being created.

This vast country with a huge capital, massive population and resources, a large market and a considerably big army also has a partial political-economic self-reliance. After 1947 both state capital and private capital have grown enormously. The all India big capitalists, the treacherous anti-people politicians and the corrupt bureaucrats, who control both the above types of capital, have together emerged as the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie class. They wield utmost control over the economic and political life of the country. The partial independence that the country has achieved is basically the freedom that these classes have gained. That this class has been successful in amassing huge capital, that it has expanded its capital and market, that it wields utmost control in the state power, that it also has some contradiction, though non-antagonistic, with the imperialists in several matters, that it has attained the ability to bargain with the imperialists for its share in the worldwide plunder, that it is able to bully the South Asian countries – all these show the relative independence that it has.

Similarly semi-feudalism indicates that though there is capitalist development the country is not yet free from feudal exploitation partially. The semifeudal exploitation is manifested in: the relatively backward mode of production prevailing in considerable parts of the country, continuing hold of the landlords over the land on the one hand and fragmentation of land on the other, semifeudal forms of relations and control over production and distribution, the caste system that oppresses based on birth, male domination that extracts labour from the entire women community by subjugating them, low capital formation in agriculture with sizeable production going for self consumption, a considerable section of peasantry still tied to agricultural labour, feudal beliefs and practices, control of the landlord classes on the peasantry, usury that acts a vicious circle, and in many such forms. The feudal hold of the landlord class is still continuing in different degrees in the vast Indian countryside. Even though the CBB class has become powerful in the country as a whole and the feudal forces have been weakening economically-politically, the landlords continue to dominate the rural life at different levels.

Capitalist penetration is growing in agriculture also. Capitalist growth is clearly visible in the increase of big plantations and corporate agriculture, spurt in the production of commercial crops, in the phenomenon of agriculture getting more and more integrated with the market, in the growth of agriculture-related fields of herbiculture-horticulture-floriculture-sericulture-dairy-poultry-prawn culture, etc., rise in agro-based industries, in the capital inflow and development in the form of irrigation and electricity, roads, transport and communication, in the formation of a huge, relatively free labour force and in wages being mostly in cash rather in kind, etc. Its effect can be seen in the gradual weakening of the feudal social institutions. It is also highly expressed in increased urbanisation with urban scenario dominated by capitalist relations of production, in manufacture of various commodities for national and international market, in the growth mainly of service sector industries especially the information and technology (IT) sector and so on.

To sum up, imperialist forces, the comprador bureaucrat capitalist class and the feudal forces are controlling the country’s political and economic life. Though the country has attained a measure of independence it has not come out of the imperialist hold. The country’s freedom is chiefly the freedom that the CBB and the feudal classes have achieved. Feudal hold still continues on the rural life considerably. But the CBB class, which is wielding maximum control over the country’s overall wealth and power, is playing the most prominent role in looting the people of this country.

Coming to the condition of the people India is a country where glaring contradictions, wide disparities in ownership and distribution of wealth, in income and standard of living, in education and opportunities pierce the eyes. The majority of the people, whether peasantry, workers, middle class or national bourgeoisie, are under the grip of the CBB and semifeudal forces, which wield the country’s political and economic power. They are heavily burdened by or are collapsing under the burden of price rise, unemployment/under-employment, displacement and corruption. Though there are different classes among the peasantry as landless, poor, middle and rich peasants, yet together the peasantry as a community is getting pauperised. On the one hand there are the agricultural labourers, with neither ownership of land nor wages commensurate with their labour, trying to make both ends meet. On the other hand even those farmers who have some land are not being able to lead a contented life. There has been a grave cut on subsidies for irrigation and electricity and a sharp fall in institutional loans including bank loans. This while the investment on agriculture has been rising. As a consequence the peasantry is compelled to borrow heavily for seeds, fertilisers, insecticides, etc. on extremely unjust compound interest pledging all their property, from private moneylenders and landlords or feudal forces. Returns from agriculture after all the labour involved in it is very low. As producers they have no say on the price of their product and no control over its market. Not just poor peasants, even middle peasants and some sections of rich peasantry are caught up in this pathetic situation. Thus a whole lot of them are steeped deep in debts, and, unable to find a way out, are ending up in suicides in many states all over the country. The entire agricultural sector is in a serious crisis and more and more people from the rural areas are driven towards cities and towns in search of jobs. The urban areas, which are expanding more rapidly than before, are temporarily able to absorb this massive rural labour force into their construction and service industry primarily, it is no solution as saturation and major crises in them are very likely over a period.

When it comes to working class, their overall percentage in the population is on the rise. But the number of workers in the organised sector, which offers relatively better job security, salary and various other allowances, is constantly falling, as many major public sector industries are being privatised and also as there is no fresh recruitment in most. All regular labour is replaced by casual and contract labour wherever possible. Outsourcing is the key word even in banks and such other service industries. The CBB and the imperialists are using all these methods only to exploit large sections of workers further as unorganised, cheap labour force, with women being paid even less than men. With continued migration from rural areas there is no dearth in the availability of cheap labour. The majority of workers are thereby in the unorganised sector with no guarantee of job or timely salary, without proper benefits and essential facilities. These workers have also been losing even their basic rights, which were hard won through years of struggle, such as the right to 8-hour work day, right to unionise, minimum wages etc. In the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which are mushrooming in various parts of the country the situation will become worse, as there is no bar on exploitation or oppression of labour. The law of the land does not apply to these ‘Special Exploitation Zones’. After mortgaging both the land and its people for a price the state is just washing its hands from any responsibility for the plight of workers there. The working class too is not one uniform whole, there are sub strata within it. While one stratum who are well paid live in some comfort and are satisfied with periodic hikes in their salary, those at the lower end suffer even to meet everyday needs. Established revisionist trade union leadership is keener on bargain and compromise for a cut in the cake than in any serious struggle. Thus the task of organising the huge population of workers, especially those in the unorganised sector, on firm political grounds against CBB and imperialist exploiters, against the anti-worker policies of the government remains a very serious need and challenge.

The middle / petty bourgeois class is a major section of the people in India. A variety of people in different kinds of work, ranging from small shopkeepers, traders, clerical grade employees, to teachers, journalists, artistes, medium level doctors, lawyers, etc., fall in this class. The middle class also consists of different strata within it. As this is a section that is increasing in number and can articulate its interests, the ruling elite always tries to woo the top layers of it in its favour. Within this class there is also a trend of strongly supporting the state’s official policies as certain sections derive some benefits out of the system. But the rest basically remain discontented with all education costs going up, with their existing jobs often in jeopardy, with good employment opportunities not in sight, with no recognition for creativity, with the entrepreneurs finding any avenues to develop their businesses-enterprises being limited or scrapped as other big capitalist giants gobble up their market, and so on. As the dissatisfied middle class happens to be generally the intellectual class as well, it has the ability to play a big role in the revolutionary movement if motivated properly. At the same time, if instigated by wrong ideas it could be dragged into the reactionary right wing or chauvinist stream too.

There is a weak indigenous / national bourgeoisie class also in India; while on the one hand it exploits the workers, on the other it is also subjected to exploitation by imperialists and CBB class. With small and medium level capital and very less avenues for more investments or market, this native, national capitalist class has been suppressed without much space to grow or gain strength, both in the past and the present. They do not possess the kind of big capital, wide market or staunch political clout that the CBB has cunningly continued to corner. They have no strong political parties to represent their interests or any share in state power. With the policies of the government which favour the CBB and imperialists hitting them hard, they have to constantly struggle to survive. Unable to stand on their own despite some national aspirations, many from this class often subordinate themselves to CBB or TNC/MNC intrigues. Though this is a class that exploits the toiling classes and is a politically vacillating class, as it also has the possibility of joining hands in the anti-imperialist, anti-CBB struggle, it should be considered as a friendly class.

All the above four classes are again divided based on caste, gender, religion and nationality. And in the case of those among them who belong to oppressed castes/gender/religion or nationality, they additionally suffer specific forms of discrimination, oppression and exploitation, apart from class exploitation.

One of the most fundamental and very specific deep-rooted forms of exploitation of Indian society is the crude, despicable caste-based oppression. The caste system that is kept alive since ages in order solely to subject the people to barbaric exploitation is based on Manudharma and Brahmanical order of society. It has played havoc on oppressed castes people’s lives, most importantly dalits. The caste question is mainly the dalit question only and untouchability is the cruellest form of the caste system. Generally the feudal class belongs to the upper and the middle castes and is the main prop for caste exploitation. Progressive and reform movements which stood up against the caste system, and the dalit movement which addressed the question seriously, mainly Ambedkar and his work, created a sharp awareness amongst dalits. This led to certain changes in the society. This also resulted in Acts on prevention of atrocities on dalits, reservation policies that paved way for some education and employment to dalits etc. Yet caste remains a cruel reality in the everyday lives of dalits marked by overt and covert forms of discrimination, insult and violence. This system utilises the caste divisions and caste-based organisations have multiplied. Dalit assertion is seen very much as a threat against which we see severe backlash in many places. And oppressed castes including the dalit sections have not remained as homogenous entities, classes have emerged within them. Yet the upward social mobility of dalits in general is quite low. Caste system is prevailing as the semifeudal social order has not been changed and as the distorted capitalism here nurtures and uses casteism to its benefit. The perpetuation of the hierarchical caste system despite changes in it clearly reflects the present semi-feudal, semi-colonial undemocratic order.

Women by and large are treated as second grade citizens. The percentage of women in the population is declining in alarming proportions due to violence and inequalities including their physical elimination. There are some significant changes in women’s lives too owing to progressive movements and women’s movements which voiced their concerns. Still patriarchal domination, discrimination and violence in multitude forms continue to corrode their lives. Feudal patriarchal norms restrict women’s lives. Newer forms of violence such as acid attacks on women are also proliferating. Intolerance on growing women’s assertion is also vented through acts of domination, marginalisation and violence. Hindu communalism not only targets women from Muslim and Christian minorities but also glorifies inhuman and anti-women practices of Sati, Devadasi systems, child marriage etc. in the name of Hindu tradition. Religious fundamentalism of all hues subjugates and oppresses women. Women from oppressed classes suffer doubly as class exploitation is an additional factor as apart from gender oppression. And in the case of poor dalit or Muslim women this suffering is tripled with class, gender and caste/religion, all three providing more grounds for further exploitation and oppression.

Caste and patriarchy, while marginalising women and dalits, serve to exploit them to the maximum as cheap labour, with readymade social justification for such exploitation. They aid the ruling classes of CBB, imperialist and semifeudal forces to redouble their profits. Hence both caste and patriarchy are nourished by the exploiting classes in order to perpetuate the existing exploitative order.

The minority population, especially the Muslim community, is haunted by insecurity and violence. The Indian State has a pro-Hindutva bias. The phenomenon of mob lynching, burning and rape, which was the fate mainly of dalits earlier, has been extended to muslims next. The communal forces are triggered by Brahmanical Hindutva fascist ideology. Hindutva forces who indulged in a genocide of Muslims in Gujarat are trying hard to spread their poisonous tentacles in various parts of the country. Sowing seeds of suspicion and hatred in the minds of the young they mark the Muslims as the cause for the ills in society. The majority of the Muslims are poor. They are ghettoised, their language and culture are disrespected and suppressed. Class exploitation being a common denomination to all oppressed sections, poor Muslims, due to their minority marginalised status, suffer all the more without proper means for livelihood, proper education and employment opportunities. To we also witness the phenomenon where due to the growing Hindutva communal violence on the muslims many among them are seeking shelter under Islamic fundamentalism. Due to this situation Islamic fundamentalism, which attempts to blindfold the Muslim masses with backward ideas and norms is also spreading its retrogressive influence. It suppresses the democratic dissent emerging from within the community.

There are various oppressed nationalities in India. In order to enjoy a complete monopoly over the all India market and the country’s wealth the Comprador Bureaucrat Bourgeois class has concentrated all power in the hands of the central government and reduced the state governments to a weak position. They have made the different national languages less important and are instead promoting English, Hindi and Sanskrit by imposing them throughout the country. The Indian State is cunningly destroying the distinct national cultures and indigenous cultures in India. It has forcibly annexed some nationalities in the ‘Indian Union’ against the wishes of the concerned people. It is trying to suppress their demand for self-determination through brute force so as to continue to squeeze their economy to the full. Even as their natural wealth is depleted and devastated by the exploiters these nationalities are treated as intruders in their own territories. The Indian army that has been deployed in Kashmir and the North East region is indulging in a wanton, gory massacre of the young people there, therefore being the butt of the people’s seething anger and resentment. While genuine militant movements of the masses for freedom and right over their land and other natural resources are repressed, many state-sponsored terrorist outfits have also sprung up dividing the people and destroying lives recklessly.

The Adivasi communities of India require a special mention here. They are an excluded and marginalised populace. Taking advantage of their backwardness and innocence the feudal forces have been exploiting them since generations. Today the Adivasi people are in different stages of transition with there being hardly any community that has not been intruded into by CBB and imperialists with state backing. They are subjected to severe harassment by the forest department, forcefully uprooted from their land, and deprived of the basic means of survival. From their rich natural habitat the government conspires to clear these people out like weeds, in order to make way for imperialist and CBB projects such as big dams, mining, national park and reserve forest projects etc. Thus, compelled to live as refugees in their own homelands they have direct contradiction not only with landlords but also with CBB and imperialism. Any resistance by them to all this is met with severe state repression.

In the overall analysis we can find five major types of exploitation, discrimination and oppression in the country, namely, those of class, caste, gender, religion and nationality. Amongst these the class exploitation comprises the core, the key element that underlines all other forms of exploitation. Understanding this, while all oppressed people need to stand united as classes to fight their common enemy, they also need to organise and fight for their specific rights as people belonging to particular caste, gender, religion or nationality and oppose specific forms of oppression against them. The three exploiting forces described above are the root cause for all forms of exploitation and are the common enemies for all the oppressed classes and communities.

Imperialism, CBB and the feudal class – all these three forces stand together in preserving this exploitative system. As it was by serving and co-operating with the British colonialists and thereby gaining their patronage that the CBB as a class grew up, it is comprador in its very historical nature. After 1947 it has certainly grown as a force that is controlling the political power, wealth and the huge capital of this vast country, which aspires to grow even bigger, and has the ability to an extent to compete even with the imperialists for this purpose. At the same time it is also dependent on the capital, technology and power of the imperialists in order to exercise control over the all India market and to extend its business at the international level too. Similarly the imperialists also need the CBB class in order to utilise the Indian army and the Indian labour force for plundering this vast country and thereby gain political and economic hold on the other countries of South Asia as well. At the same time the CBB and the imperialist forces both need to preserve the feudal classes, who are the local power centres at the village level, with necessary modifications. They need to nurture them in order to politically and economically manoeuvre the country’s overall exploitative system and to spread their plunder to all corners. All the above three exploiting forces find it useful to nourish the reactionary social institutions of caste and patriarchy for cheating the people and maximising their profits. In order to break the people’s unity and divert their attention from the real problems, these exploiting forces, with mutual help and collaboration, also utilise communalism, either directly or indirectly, as an important political tool. Thus all these forces are both mutually dependent and mutually supportive in perpetrating their evil designs.

Therefore it is the contradiction between imperialist-backed local exploitative ruling alliance of CBB and semifeudal classes on the one hand and the broad masses on the other that is the principal contradiction that determines the nature and movement of the Indian society. It is this principal contradiction in the Indian society which needs to be resolved and it is these classes which need to be defeated and overthrown in order to liberate the people from their clutches. Among the above two classes, it is CBB which plays the dominant role, which mainly determines and directs the anti-people policies of the State.

The Indian State operates for and on behalf of and at the behest of the ruling classes of CBB and semifeudal classes and serves to fulfil their interests and those of the imperialists. It is fascist, expansionist, casteist and patriarchal in nature. It has a legislature, an executive and a judiciary as its extended arms in order to ensure the dictatorship of the exploiting classes in the garb of democracy. The legislative body is filled with corrupt politicians with no morality, who snatch votes through varied crooked means and next trade their so-called ‘values’ for some posts in the assembly or parliament. It is these very people who constitute the ‘elected governments of the biggest democracy in the world’. The executive body consists of greedy bureaucrats who have no concern for the people or their problems. Their main aim is to suitably implement the policies of the government and have all eyes for their share in the loot. The executive body also comprises of a mighty police and military which is meant to protect the interests of the exploiters. It chiefly acts as a repressive force that serves to maintain the oppressive order. The judiciary, which is the most deceptive of the three, has its definite class bias and class interests. It primarily seeks to defend private property of the exploiters as against public interest.

Even though the legislature gets ‘elected’ every 5 years, the executive and the judiciary are permanent structures. They are completely in the hands of the exploiting classes. Though the legislature is one that is supposed to have been elected by the people, though any one can contest the elections, it has been structured in such a way that only those that have the support of the exploiters can lay hands to power at the centre and the states. Even if an honest party that could shake the roots of the exploiters comes to power, the executive and the judiciary have the power to declare it as extra-constitutional and overthrow it in no time. History has many such instances. Thus the talk of changing the system through elections is nothing but an illusion or a fraud. It is only to safeguard their authority and dictatorship under a show of democracy that the ruling classes have created these structures.

This political system that is stated as democracy is the most crooked and cruel administrative system that the exploiting classes have established in order to deceive the masses and hold all power in their hands. All possibilities of accumulating wealth, enjoying all facilities, governing, using the police-court-administration to their advantage, etc. are available in this system mainly to these classes only. Due to the ceaseless struggles of the people, the ruling classes are compelled to carry out some reforms to keep the façade of democracy intact and are making all efforts to make the people believe that it is possible to change the present society within the existing structure. But in essence, this is the dictatorship of the exploiting classes of CBB, semifeudals and imperialism over the broad masses under the garb of democracy.

It is against this joint class dictatorship that the common people, people who are the victims of class exploitation, caste/gender/religion/nationality-based oppression and discrimination, have to be organised in order to establish a real democratic society.

But no class, no section of the people has been taking it all lying down. Their seething anger, frustration, hatred all explode in umpteen forms of protests, struggles, rebellion, revolt. The State adopts both methods of coercion and co-option to crush, deviate or quieten the above. Apart from military warfare in some states it has let loose a virtual cultural warfare all over. People are also a product of the same exploitative and oppressive system. This pernicious, decrepit, self-centred culture is so all-pervading that they are also taking part consciously and unconsciously in the process where many of the corrupt values in it keep getting reproduced in the society. The state intervenes in struggle areas not only through repressive measures but reform packages too, which aim at undermining and deviating the masses from struggle. Even otherwise the state announces welfare schemes at will in order to hoodwink the masses about its real nature, to keep the anger and frustration of the people under check, even as it is otherwise gradually withdrawing all major welfare schemes. Rampant NGOisation, election politics, lumpenisation of the youth, casteism, communalism and fundamentalism are all deliberately promoted to serve as serious diversions. It is in the face of all these challenges that we need to organise and evolve effective ways and means to build and carry forward the movement.

All forms of existing discrimination described above will continue, all the vulgarity and brutality will multiply, the human society will turn more and more inhuman, as long as the hegemony of the state that protects the interests of these ruling exploiting classes continues. This will go on destroying the co-operation, harmony and co-existence aspects of the human core. A complete overturn of the power structure is the fundamental necessity for the society’s development and march towards justice and equality. It calls for a real people’s democratic revolution.

Private property, the basis for class society, can be eliminated only through the process of socialisation of capital, land and industry. Hence the goal of the party is socialist revolution or building socialism which has ‘common ownership, equal distribution and collective thinking’ as its aim and which will also lay the foundation for moving towards communist society. But the present stage in the country is not yet ripe for that. By defeating the main enemy classes of CBB, semifeudal forces and imperialism power must first come into the hands of the common people who are the real heirs of the country. The oppressed classes and communities should get real, complete freedom. This people’s alliance should gain the strength to decide the future of the country. Hence the present stage is that of real democratic revolution. It means establishing people’s real democratic power by overthrowing the dictatorship of the exploiting classes and building a real democratic society.

3. The path of Indian revolution

How to subdue the exploiting classes that have concentrated enormous political power unto themselves and how to achieve people’s power is a highly challenging task. We come across many instances in history, where whatever their economic and political strength, regimes that lose people’s support have ended up becoming weak, where destitute masses when organised properly have become a force of tremendous strength, and have thrown to dust even very powerful regimes when proper strategy was used against the stratagems of the rulers. It is a historical fact of the world that an old system impeding the development of society collapses and a society socially more progressive than the old ones comes into being. But this objective principle, this inevitable drastic change does not take place mechanically or spontaneously. It comes into force only when the objective phenomenon is matched by corresponding conscious subjective efforts. So what is the path that needs to be adopted in order to make the exploiting classes in India to lose people’s support, to make the vast masses an organised force, to see that the helm of the country’s affairs comes into the hands of the common people?

Can such a fundamental, structural change be brought through election process? Whether participating in elections, boycotting them or utilising them in any possible manner is all purely a question of tactics. But what we should mainly keep in mind in this regard is that in an exploitative system the basic transformation of power has never been possible through the so-called elections and will never be possible. Why will the exploiting classes, who benefit most by continuing in power and whose luxurious existence is dependent on it, peacefully hand over power to the exploited classes? It is inconceivable. It is only by forcefully overthrowing the present pro-exploiter structure of legislature – executive – judiciary etc. and building new pro-people structures that it will be possible to remove the exploiters from power. And such an overthrow is impossible without a comprehensive war by the people against the rulers and their state. What is to be the war strategy here then?

In history there have been mainly two models of revolution that took place under the leadership of the working class. The Russian revolutionaries adopted the method of insurrection to secure power. They worked by concentrating mainly in cities, organising the working class in struggles on different everyday demands and in political struggles. They exposed the ruling class through wide political propaganda and general strikes, at the same time making secret preparations for armed insurrection for a prolonged period. And when a favourable situation for revolution emerged, they gave a call for a simultaneous countrywide revolt, defeated the forces supporting the ruling classes, and established the people’s government. In China in the beginning there was an attempt to imitate this method and after huge losses the path of protracted people’s war was developed. In this the war strategy adopted was: focussing the attention mainly on the most backward rural areas where the enemy is weak, concentrating on armed struggle right from the beginning, growing from a small force into a big force, building the people’s army and base areas, establishing revolutionary people’s rule right within the reactionary regime itself, and finally encircling the cities and capturing power completely. Revolution was successful in both these countries only because suitable strategies were developed and adopted in accordance with the concrete conditions there. The general conception is that the strategy of insurrection is more relevant in capitalist countries which have bourgeois democratic rights, and the strategy of PPW is more relevant in backward agrarian countries with no democratic rights.

In the changed complex world situation today, wherein different countries are striving for a revolutionary solution, the internal objective conditions and contradictions are naturally not quite the same as were in Russia or China then. Hence the question of simply following the Russian or Chinese model, per say, may not fully well fit. And no revolution has been or can be a replica of another. Thus it is for the revolutionaries of the respective countries to decide what should be the path of revolution in the concrete conditions and the relevant context of their countries. There has been thinking on this point in the international communist movement as well. Our party, the RCP, too, has set before itself the task of undertaking suitable studies in this regard and developing the path of Indian revolution, in the coming days. Several ideas put forth in this document are presently only the primary conceptions of the party. We have the very important challenge of developing them, making them comprehensive and also concretising them, before us.

India in this sense is different in many aspects from pre-revolutionary Russia or China. Though India is also a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country in a broad sense, there are many differences between the nature of pre-revolutionary China and today’s India. China was a country which was ruled by several warlords with the rulers engaged in incessant wars, where arms and war had become a routine matter in the life of the people, where there were no democratic rights, where the urban population was very less. A country which consisted of vast, most backward rural areas with mostly self-sufficient economies and with a weak transport–communication network. But India has a powerful state machinery with a centralised army and administration, has a centuries-old history and is well organised, has a parliamentary system which has not totally lost legitimacy in the eyes of the people, where some bourgeois democratic rights of sorts coexist along with coercion, where already 35 % of the population resides in the cities and the pace of the urbanisation trend has increased in the last decade. In the rural areas too, transport and communication have developed to one extent or the other due to capitalist development. With the growth of commodity production, the dependence of the rural economy on the all India and the international markets and infrastructure has increased at varied levels. Control and exploitation by CBB and the imperialists has been rising steeply in the agriculture sector as well. While the role of CBB has mounted in the economic-political spheres of the country, the strength of the landlords as a class has been declining.

The cruel caste system that divides the society based on birth is an important specificity of India. It is a serious challenge to the revolutionaries. Moreover, India is not a nation but a country having varied nationalities. This demands a different set of tactics. We must also keep the reality in mind that some nationalities are engaged in struggle against the central government for years despite several ups and downs.

The above changes, and the present overall conditions in Indian society already described, in fact point to certain qualitative changes that need to be incorporated in the strategy of the Indian revolution. Conditions in the world too have sufficiently changed in the six decades since Chinese revolution. But the revolutionary movement in India is still struggling to comprehend these changes in a comprehensive manner. It is sheer tragedy that the comprehensive and creative path for the Indian revolution has not yet evolved in spite of having a history of 80 years of communist movement and 40 years of the Naxalbari struggle. Just as confining mainly to some mass work and mass struggles alone without a concrete long-term perspective and serious practice to develop people’s war is a real drawback in itself, so also has attempting to build armed struggle in a few pockets alone in isolation, without sufficient attention to build real all-out people’s war or a broad mass political movement, led to serious losses. The former is basically a product of being unable to fully develop a correct political and military line assessing all the changes and to involve in practice in a serious way. The latter is a product of basically being blind to changes and trying to copy the Chinese model of revolution with superficial alterations, based on the mechanical understanding that like China in India too armed struggle needs to be developed from the very beginning. This lays a one-sided emphasis on armed struggle mechanically irrespective of local conditions and larger changes in the world.

No doubt in a country with vast rural tracts, a considerable agricultural economy and large population of peasantry rural work assumes serious political importance. It is also important from a military protracted people’s war perspective. But the above changes in rural scenario as well as the nature of state and the role of urban India in the economy and politics also indicate towards the fact that in the Indian revolution broad democratic movement, work in the urban areas, work amongst working class, and anti-CBB struggles, anti-imperialist struggles will have a more important role overall than they had in the Chinese revolution. That is why in the concrete conditions here applying both the principles of insurrection and the principles of protracted people’s war creatively in accordance with the specific needs and possibilities assumes serious importance in the warfare with the state. Thus people’s war in our context would be to evolve our own new path through a fusion of the policies of the hitherto two models of revolutions, i.e. insurrection and protracted people’s war, and developing it, in ways suitable to our situation.

This also means utilising the available legal opportunities and developing mass militant democratic movements by organising different sections of the people with adequate emphasis on basic classes both in the urban and rural areas. Workers, peasants, the middle class and the national (anti-imperialist and anti-CBB) bourgeoisie, who are victims of exploitation by the three forces of CBB, landlords and imperialism, and all other masses being subjected to caste/gender/religion/nationality-based oppression, should be united against the common enemy. The movements of each class and each section should be organised for fighting for their respective specific rights. At the same time these should be united as a mighty people’s force, based on common interest, for the sake of targeting, isolating and defeating mainly the CBB and the landlord classes, who are the local exploiters and ruling classes and are the root cause for all their problems. Working class and peasantry, who are the toiling classes, need to be the nucleus of this alliance.

In this massive surge ahead (maha prasthana), every progressive movement, organisation and individual has a role and significance. We must focus special attention towards building unified struggle forums by co-ordinating the different revolutionary, national, progressive and democratic movements and struggles in the country. We must take concrete steps to build a strong united front on the basis of a common minimum programme, and isolate the ruling classes. It is only when all the streams join against the common enemy that it will turn into a mighty torrent, which can wash out the exploitative system. We should keep the doors open even to the sincere elements in the bourgeois parties, in CPI–CPM, in the NGOs, etc.

We must continuously prepare the people for higher forms of struggle by undertaking and suitably intensifying the struggles on their day to day demands. Armed struggle should be initiated and developed at the appropriate time in an effective manner with a correct assessment of people’s preparedness and social conditions and with the correct political-organisational-military preparations. Ensuring the lively, conscious participation of the people in various aspects of war is crucial. Thus it has to assume the form of a popular people’s revolt against the system. In this first priority has to be given to areas where social unrest is severe, the terrain is favourable for guerrilla struggle and the enemy is relatively weak. Even in the urban, necessary defence needs to be built with care. We need to suitably co-ordinate-armed struggle with a powerful political struggle such that each provides justification and support for the growth of the other. And thereby gaining the political confidence and support of the people of the country – and of the world to an extent – people’s army should be built in a wave like pattern. That is the growth has to be in leaps and not gradual as it can otherwise give the enemy an upper hand. Thus The people’s united front and the people’s army should be used as the two arms to politically, militarily and morally weaken and defeat the enemy. It is only through such a comprehensive people’s war that liberated areas should be first established in the regions where people’s war is strong. By consolidating them and continuing and expanding the fight against the enemy, we have to achieve countrywide victory.

In India, which has a strong centralised state, it is not possible to sustain a liberated area in any one region in isolation, without transforming the overall countrywide political situation in favour of revolution, which involves a patient, painstaking process. The formation of base areas has to be therefore seen as part of creating a revolutionary crisis in the entire country. That is why political intervention in national politics assumes great significance. The imperialist globalisation has shrunk the whole world into its mighty fist. As is the case with many others the Indian economy too is by no means isolated but is part of the complex global economic web. So the international situation and any changes thereof in power equations, balance of forces or any such will have a direct bearing on the Indian economy and polity. And in a globalised context where no country remains an island in both economic and political terms, the question of final seizure and sustenance of nation-wide political power is also linked with favourable objective conditions internationally. This also includes our subjective efforts to create such conditions utilising the inter-imperialist contradictions and developing an alternative revolutionary people’s pole. This calls for a strong alliance, unity and co-ordination between various revolutionary forces and anti-imperialist movements and struggles world over. It is a serious task before the international revolutionary community. Our party will also try and contribute its share in this direction.

On the whole all attention has to be paid to build a comprehensive countrywide people’s war, to sharpen both its political and military components along with proper understanding and efforts to sharpen and utilise the contradictions at the international level too, in order to liberate the country from the exploiters’ stranglehold. Only thus can the dictatorship of the exploitative ruling classes be ended and the helm of the country’s affairs transferred to the broad alliance of the exploited and struggling masses of this land.

This is the present preliminary understanding of RCP as regards the path that the people’s real democratic revolution of India has to undertake. We need to absorb what is right from the understanding and experiences, the successes and failures of different revolutionary parties and movements of India and the world, grasp the lessons therefrom, and objectively analyse the conditions in the country and the world through suitable study and possible interaction. And based on all these, we need to arrive at a precise understanding on the path of revolution in India and accordingly provide a definite direction to our overall work. This clarity regarding direction is very important for firmly grounding and building the revolutionary movement. But there can be no permanent blueprint for revolution, until the time we reach the ultimate goal. We need to advance, making necessary changes to effectively counter the various challenges that confront us on the road to revolution and in tune with the political situation that may alter, and strive to continuously evolve the revolutionary line.

4. A broad outline on what the alternative
real democratic society could be

The 20^th century was a century of proletarian revolutions and their setbacks. For the first time in human history the toiling classes were able to seize power in several countries. The dream of an alternative society came true in countries together consisting 50% of the world population. This not only had enormous impact on the international situation but also brought in immense changes in the life of the people of the countries concerned. But that none of these revolutions could be sustained and taken forward is a matter of regret. Capitalist system was restored under varied guises in all these countries. The experiences of the successes and setbacks of revolution are invaluable. Keeping in mind the positive and the negative lessons drawn from them, especially identifying the root causes behind the failures and taking steps to avert their recurrence, we need to achieve revolutions of a higher level in the 21^st century.

Below we only try to provide a broad overview on what this alternative real democratic society that we seek to build should be, politically, economically, socially and culturally.

Politically:

• A real democratic republic, in which the country’s majority common people are able to enjoy and implement maximum democracy, should be established. In other words, people’s supreme authority should be established where it is impossible for the hitherto exploiting classes of imperialists, CBB and landlords to continue exploitation.
• An anti-imperialist, anti-feudal constitution should be framed. All power, right over the resources of the country, and sovereignty should rest with the people.
  
• All friendly classes should have the full right and opportunity to form different parties and organisations, to fight against the regime of the day, and to freely contest in elections.
• The right to power along with the right to contest in elections should be denied to the exploiting classes that have hitherto controlled the state apparatus.
• The electoral procedures and power structures should be reconstituted such that there is representation of each class, caste, gender and nationality according to its respective proportion. The electoral system should be restructured in such a way that no one can misuse money, status or influence and all candidates have equal opportunities.
• All nationalities should have the right to self-determination including the right to secession.
• The prevailing administrative system should be thoroughly revamped. The bureaucratic style of functioning of making the people run from pillar to post and harassing them should be done away with. People’s supervision should be brought into force at every step so that there is no room whatsoever for corruption.
• There should be both centralised and decentralised structures of political administration. But maximum priority should be accorded to decentralised functioning, retaining centralisation only in necessary and inevitable matters. Concentration of power in any single source should be avoided. All elected leaders should be directly accessible and answerable to the people. There should be supervision of the people over the power structures and people in positions of power, to check bureaucracy and ensure accountability to people. People should have the right to recall those whom they elect. They should also have the right to dismiss the government officers who do not work in the interest of the people. Thus a free and increased participation, involvement and role of the common people in politics and administration should be better ensured.
• Existing state structures of police, military, etc. should be completely dismantled and reconstituted on a democratic basis and made accountable to people. They should act as people’s forces with an altered approach and mission to serve the people. Apart from this common people should be trained politically and militarily to defend their interests.
• Freedom of expression should be guaranteed. People should have the right to criticise, to protest and to rebel.

B. Economically:

• All the property in the possession of the CBB and landlord classes that they have hitherto amassed through exploiting the people and which is playing a reactionary role in the society’s motion, should be confiscated and declared as people’s property. While the lands of the landlord class should invariably be distributed among landless and poor peasantry, all other property including the surplus lands of religious institutions should be suitably brought under the common ownership of the people.
• Unequal treaties entered into with the imperialists should be abrogated. The country should be brought out of all the exploitative conditionalities. New type of treaties based on mutual respect and equal footing should be charted with the other countries on the basis of Panchasheel doctrine.
• ‘Land to the tiller’ policy should be appropriately enforced. Agriculture should be made the means of livelihood instead of a burden by removing all shackles on agriculture. Large collective ownership of land by the people should be encouraged over small private ownership for increased productivity and better profits.
• § The oppressed classes should be freed from the burden of debts by annulling the loans availed by them from moneylenders, banks and other institutions.
• § Irrigation, electricity, and such other infrastructure should be expanded and there should be subsidies on them so that they do not become a burden for the peasantry. Doing away with the deceit and exploitation in the seeds/fertilisers/pesticides trade, an alternative structure should be put in place with the participation of the peasantry.
• The state should undertake the responsibility of marketing with remunerative prices fixed for the agricultural products.
• Agricultural practices and methods based on indigenous wisdom should be encouraged. Imperialist designed farming methods and inputs should be rejected as far as possible and new alternative people- and nature-friendly agricultural models promoted.
• All projects should be people- and environment-friendly and aimed at self-reliance and assuring better comforts to people.
• Decentralised small-scale production should be promoted to meet local needs and generate employment.
• Every able adult should have the right to work and also the responsibility to do so. All should have the right to receive the basic necessities like food, education, shelter, medical aid etc. in order to be able to lead a healthy and secure life.
• All the toiling people should obtain a just salary and women should be paid on par with men. The great disparity in income amongst people in different professions and that between mental and physical labour should be gradually brought down.
• Regional disparities should be removed and steps to achieve a more even development taken with special attention to backward regions.

• C. Socially:

• All violence and discrimination based on caste, gender and religion should be abolished. There should be continuous cultural campaigns and struggles against such practice. All atrocities or crimes based on the above factors should be severely punished. Complementary steps should be taken including providing special incentives to the sections affected by these factors, in order to set the historical injustice right.
• Education should be free, with opportunity for education to all at any age. All children should be engaged in study and creative activities and not coerced into labour. Education should be democratic, scientific and linked with real needs of life and society.
• Health services should be free. Alternative safer medical systems shd be encouraged. Knowledge and training on basic concepts of health and medical care should be freely provided to all.
• Judiciary should also be democratically elected. Easy, decentralised judicial mechanism to quickly address the various issues of or between the people on a uniform basis should be evolved.
• Simple and progressive laws on marriage, divorce, family and other aspects of work and life should be enacted and their proper implementation should be ensured.
• The dehumanising institution of prostitution along with its corollaries of child and women trafficking should be wiped out completely. People compelled into it should be provided alternative means to make a decent living.
• Different types gambling should be banned. Steps should be initiated towards creating a liquor-free society. The exploitation associated with it should be done away with and other positive modes of relaxation and recreation should be developed.
• While upholding religious freedom, action should be taken to end the anti-people practices based on superstitions and in the name of religion.
• All science and technology should be people-oriented and need-based. Ample scope for basic research necessary in this regard should be provided.
• Ecological balance should be maintained and environmental and natural resources safeguarded from hazardous use and wastage.

D. Culturally:

• A pro-people culture, a simple, sensitive and humane ideology and philosophy of life that appeals to the hearts and minds of the masses should be developed. This should act as a strong counter to the ruling class retrogressive ideology and philosophy, which is well engrained in the society and amidst people. It is a serious challenge.
• The notion of ‘superior-inferior’ prevalent in different forms in the society should be eliminated and the value of ‘equality of all’ should be deeply inculcated. The general realm of consciousness should be gradually shifted from an overemphasis on private interest to public interest, from individual development to collective development and an alternative larger vision provided. A corrupt value system which has deeply imbued self-centredness, unhealthy competition, unnecessary pride and aggression, a petty property consciousness and vulgar display of wealth in all classes of people, should be patiently replaced by larger ideals and more humane values of kindness, generosity, empathy, co-operation, simplicity etc.
• All traditional cultural forms and sports which are people-friendly and which integrate people, provide pleasure and promote talents should be encouraged. New initiatives embodying new values should be encouraged and developed.
• Folk forms of art, music, dance and drama should be promoted while any backward content in them is replaced by progressive ideas.
• All media should reflect new ideas and new values. Space to express different types of dissent should be provided in them.

Thus in the new social order that is established through the revolutionary transformation of the society, it should be the toiling classes and the sections of oppressed castes, gender, religion and nationality that should have the prominent position. Maximum rights, freedom and democracy to the people, strict restrictions and dictatorship over the exploitative forces – this should be the essence of the real people’s democratic power. Serious, constant caution is a must against the exploitative forces who will be quick to spread their tentacles again in umpteen forms at the least opportunity. It is only by establishing and sustaining such a people’s democratic power that the basic criteria for creating the above political, economic­­, social and cultural conditions will be fulfilled. As the people will be able to decide their own future in a real democratic system, it will be possible, with the consent and participation of the people, to propel this society towards the communist society where there will be no classes and any sort of discriminations.

And ushering in such major changes in every sphere, to change the wheels of history is a complex time-consuming task that can only be accomplished with the willing active co-operation and self-initiative of the large majority of people. In fact serious initiatives to create alternative economic models, social institutions, and promote alternative cultural values and forms should begin, to the extent feasible, right in the pre-revolutionary period.

5. The necessity for a new Party of the people

In the past 60 years after 1947 there have been many national and regional parties of the ruling classes which stand to promote the interest of the ruling sections they represent. But for mild shades of difference they all deploy the same deceptive methods to obtain and retain control and power over the common people, and carry on the most severe loot. All these parties are mainly interested in wooing a section of the population to their side for vote purposes. They are not only deliberately utilising the existing divisions amongst the people based on caste, religion etc. but are creating more of them. Ultimately their motive lies in dividing the people for their narrow gains and not in any way integrating them. They are working to utilise, promote and preserve the existing exploitative and oppressive system.

It is 80 years since the communist movement was born in India. The CPI rallied the masses and led many glorious struggles against the exploiting classes initially. But gradually both CPI and CPM compromised in class struggle and entered into class collaboration for gaining a share in power and loot. For all their show of protests and walkouts they are finally one with the ruling classes in all anti-people economic policies that plunder the country and marginalise large sections of the masses. With their Marxist rhetoric, and highly dishonest and compromising actions, they have in fact caused distrust and disillusionment in the masses about such ‘communism’.

As against these, a party of the people prepared to fight uncompromisingly against the exploitative ruling classes, to safeguard the interest of the oppressed masses with courage and conviction is a must. A thorough transformation of this exploitative system needs such a political force, which is capable of leading the people’s struggles with a correct orientation and practical application, a force that remains in the forefront of these struggles and acts as a model and guide, with a larger vision and programme for radical change. It was in this direction that the revolutionary left movement placed itself. It has attained 40 years too since 1967 Naxalbari struggle. The split in 1967 from CPM into ML was a major breakthrough that set the question of armed struggle into the revolutionary agenda clearly. The Naxalbari movement created a tremendous impact in the country. But the left adventurist politics and practice deeply embedded in the movement led to its tragic setback. There were many splits after that in the ML camp in the ’70s. Thus there are several revolutionary parties and organisations working in India with the aim of transforming the system. These revolutionary forces have not become a single unified force due to several historical and political reasons and are working separately in a scattered manner. Some of these have turned into a right trend of compromise in class struggle. And with regard to some others, though there have been certain changes from the earlier left adventuristic understanding and practice, the left trend has basically continued strongly, without a serious rupture from it. Some revolutionary parties are still in the process of evolution.

We certainly uphold with pride the brave and inspiring history of numerous valiant struggles and untold sacrifices by these revolutionary parties. At the same time there is also a need to deeply introspect as to why even after so many years the revolutionary movement in India has not been able to surge ahead with the required pace. Our understanding is that this is because the revolutionary movement in India is facing a severe ideological-political-organisational crisis. There are problems in objectively analysing and understanding the Indian society, its caste-class dimensions, its contradictions and the principal enemies. There are serious limitations in acquiring the correct conception with regard to developing a comprehensive people’s war by uniting the friendly classes against the enemies, by building the movement both in political and military terms, in rural as well as urban, in backward as well as advanced areas suitably. Tailing behind the masses or leaving the masses behind, as also not adopting the mass line and class line correctly are serious problems. Failures in correctly grasping the contradictions in the Indian society and developing suitable tactics in accordance with them, in drawing suitable tactics in time with needed flexibility while being strategically firm, in correctly understanding and practising the principle of democratic centralism, are widespread. These are reasons for the Indian revolutionary movement not gaining serious momentum.

Amongst the various revolutionary parties, although CPI (Maoist) has emerged as the major revolutionary party with some mass base and armed strength, it has failed to develop a broad revolutionary movement, a comprehensive war of the people, due to the left sectarianism stemming from its deep-rooted dogmatist understanding. Bureaucracy which has grown deep in its leadership committees and methods has become a big hurdle for both the development of that party and for the needed change in it. A 5-year long inner party struggle took place in the Karnataka unit of CPI (Maoist) party against dogmatism in its theoretical understanding, left sectarianism in its political conception and movement, and against bureaucracy in its organisational structure and functioning. Since an atmosphere complementary for continuing the political-ideological struggle was not there and any scope to bring in a change from within was closed, after serious attempts and prolonged struggle, many revolutionaries came out of it and organised themselves as a separate political force under the banner of ‘Karnataka Maoist Independent Centre’ (KMSK). When the movement is stuck and refuses to recognise it and rectify itself, any real advance calls for a rupture. That is, if the present crisis in the revolutionary movement has to be seriously addressed and solutions evolved, while continuing with the positive aspects in CPI (Maoist) party, it was necessary to break free from its negative stance and practice. The split at this juncture was therefore essential and inevitable in the long-term interests of carrying forward the revolution.

After working for a year in the name of KMSK, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) has been formed embracing a few revolutionaries from other streams as well. It is not our opinion that we are the only correct revolutionary party or that only we have the correct questions and answers. These have to be further evolved. But a new party, new, open, independent, systematic and mature efforts are a must, to continue and promote the political-ideological-organisational debate, to evolve the correct path of Indian revolution through serious study – concrete practice – inquiry – dialogue – struggle in various fronts, to build a powerful revolutionary movement through concrete analysis and correct, creative application.

The Revolutionary Communist Party being a party of the working people will have serving the people as the main motto. It will take into consideration all the available strengths and challenges present in the Indian society and revolutionary movement and attempt to move on further. The major tasks before us in this direction are: to develop people’s struggles by taking both the positive and negative lessons from the experiences of the revolutionary movement of the last 40 years, by correctly identifying the contradictions in the society, by objectively grasping the people’s aspirations as well as their preparedness and by integrating with their life and struggle; to evolve the correct strategic line for the Indian revolution by appropriately assessing the experiences of the successes and failures of the revolutionary movements the world over, by concretely analysing the national-international situation, by constant dialogue, struggle and closer interaction with varied political thoughts and with the revolutionary forces who are grappling with new ideas and are in search of solutions; to constantly involve and learn from concrete practice and synthesise it all to enrich the theoretical premise; to attempt to form the revolutionary centre for advancing the Indian revolution by developing and maintaining efficient communication and co-ordination with all the revolutionary forces of India; to try to develop a powerful people’s force through close interaction with all the pro-people movements, varied democratic organisations and individuals. To accomplish these tasks the Revolutionary Communist Party has resolved to first rid itself of dogmatic and sectarian concepts and practice, of wrong methods in functioning. It needs to be both firm in its basic standpoints and humble in learning.

To sum up, in the present concrete conditions, our principal aim will be to actively involve ourselves in building a powerful revolutionary movement independently and to focus on strengthening the new party in that process. At the same time, efforts to interact and co-ordinate with various revolutionary forces with the long-term perspective of building an effective revolutionary centre of all genuine revolutionary forces, of evolving a higher unity, should be made.

6. The ideological basis of the Party

Every party or class has its declared or undeclared ideology, has a theoretical premise. The principles and values of the party, the path it chooses to tread and its goals are basically derived from the ideology that governs it. The reactionary ruling classes have their ideologies which naturally serve to justify and promote their interests. The ruling class ideology has deeply embedded in the society. It is being systematically spread through every institution such as education, media, culture, religion etc. As a constant counter to this, progressive ideologies which represent the interests of the people have also been spread mainly through popular movements thereby finding their place in society.

The struggle between the reactionary ideologies representing the exploiting classes on the one hand and the progressive ideologies that speak for the aspirations of the exploited classes on the other has been going on continuously ever since class society was born. Unlike the reactionary ideology, which has initially sprung from the ruling classes and later spread throughout the society by imposition, the pro-people ideology has evolved in the process of struggle. Marxism is its modern form. Marxist ideology is not an alternative to other pro-people thoughts. Rather Marxism is a qualitative and historical leap that occurred in the stream of progressive thought.

Marxism was first developed from a thorough study and grasp of the essence of philosophy, political economy and socialism mainly from Germany, England and France respectively, where these ideas had advanced most during that period. This apart from a practical study of the new class of workers in Europe. It studied every aspect of society and struggle in its historicity, existence and change. It ushered in many radically new concepts and theories.

Marx and Engels studied the birth and development of humankind, the different stages of formation and evolution of class society, the history of class struggles, etc. Summing up the same, Marxism, an ideology for the working class, was propounded on solid scientific grounds. Based on clear historic and scientific principles Marxism explained the fact that private property is the basis for the existence of class society, the role of labour in the creation of wealth, the secret of capitalist plunder in the garb of profit, the class nature of the state, the dictatorship of the ruling classes in the guise of democracy, and the dialectical law of development of society. It founded the fact that class struggle is the basic motive force for the transformation of human society, laid the path of revolution, the possibilities for the establishment of a socialist society and its further development into a communist society. In short it explained not only the realities of the society but also the laws of its movement, not only the effects but also the root causes. It taught to see not only the part but the whole and all its inter-relations. It threw light on the past and provided a vision about the future.

Lenin further advanced this theory through the correct analysis about state, imperialism etc., and by developing the organisational principles of a communist party. Mao developed it further by developing new concepts on contradictions and dialectics, on the path of revolution in backward countries and on socialist construction. Both Lenin and Mao thereby contributed to the rich theoretical arsenal of Marxism. This development of theory by them was directly related with the applying Marxism in a creative way in their respective countries. Thus they could successfully lead the revolutions there. With all this Marxism grew into Marxism–Leninism–Maoism through a continued study of the objective realities and a correct synthesis of the lessons from practice. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism therefore has emerged as a tremendous ideological tool of the exploited, guiding the toiling masses of the world in the revolutionary communist movement that shook the ruling classes, their ideologies, their armies, their state power the world over from mid-19^th century to mid-20^th century. Thus it became the most modern and scientific ideological form and concrete expression of the experiences, ideas and aspirations of the oppressed classes of the world.

Ideology or theory is the guide for practice. A correct ideology is a precondition for correct practice. For it is the rational medium for understanding the universe, the nature, the human race, the march of society, the direction of change, and the path to be followed. MLM as an ideology provides amply for all this. It is an ideology that considers everything in its motion (jangama siddhantha), that stands for shedding old, out-dated, wrong conceptions and developing by absorbing new, relevant and correct ideas. That is why MLM is undoubtedly the most developed ideology of human society that is nearest to truth and which is tested in the arena of class struggle. Hence MLM is the guiding ideology of our Party.

There is a notion amongst some people that MLM ideology is borrowed from the west and not suited to our land. But what we need to concede here is that the basic tenets of this ideology are drawn on the universal facts of class exploitation and oppression and the need for liberation from the same and is therefore also universally applicable. However this theory needs to be interwoven correctly with the concrete historical and current realities in each country, drawing strength from them, and appropriate path needs to be developed. But there is serious problem in this regard, with the trend of mechanical aping being most prevalent. Yet another notion that holds sway is that the failure in Russia and China and restoration of capitalism are a failure of Marxism or its practicability This does not correctly reflect the real history. But these failures do seriously denote the definite need to analyse the historical limitations in Marxist theory and the problems in practice, with efforts to overcome them.

Here in fact it is to be underlined that while upholding MLM with pride, we must strongly oppose the tendency of viewing it as an unchanging eternal truth, as a dogma. Such a dogmatist perception has been a major obstacle for the development of the thinking and practice of the Marxist revolutionary movements of the world by and large. The fundamental thrust of MLM, its crux, its live core, lies in the concept of dialectics. MLM holds that anything that is not in motion, that does not grow, change with the objective conditions will gradually lose its relevance and pale into insignificance. This applies to MLM theory as well. It was only because comrades Lenin and Mao developed Marxism to suit the politico-economic and social developments and the needs of time that it could grow further, providing solutions to newer problems as well. But after their demise the need for a proper critical evaluation and development of MLM is not even sufficiently recognised. The efforts of the Communist Party of Peru earlier and of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) presently, in the direction of applying Marxism to their objective conditions and developing it, are commendable. The collapse of the socialist systems in the world, the why-what-how’s arising out of it, the tenacity of imperialism and its global ploys, the multi-faceted changes that have come in the objective conditions of the world, the challenges that these have thrown before the revolutionary movements, the inability of any revolutionary movement to advance beyond a point and seize power are all major factors which indeed stress the urgent need for developing MLM to the next stage. If theory has to really guide the practice, it needs to be constantly developed based on objective developments and the experiences derived from practice. This organic link between theory and practice is often being missed. A one-sided emphasis on practice alone without considering the need to consciously update the theory, due to dogmatism, or harping on just developing the theory without getting into actual practice, will not lead to any qualitative leap in theory or practice. The responsibility to correctly grasp the basic essence of MLM, draw the lessons from its failures and successes, develop it in tune with today’s realities and adopt this developed MLM creatively to suit the objective situations at each place rests on all the communist revolutionaries of the world. Our Party, the RCP, will also engage itself seriously towards contributing its share in accomplishing this great responsibility.

7. The organisational policy of the Party

A genuine revolutionary party is an important need for the success of revolution. And for the revolution to survive it is equally important that the party retain its revolutionary character. The communist parties of Russia, China etc. have played the principal role in the victory of revolutions there. Similarly the degeneration of the same parties is the principal reason for those countries to take the capitalist road again. It is necessary to build our party keeping both these realities in mind and taking lessons from both their success and their failure.

An attitude that the party is above the people which grew strong, with centralism gaining more emphasis than internal democracy in the party, whereby the leadership committees changed into bureaucratic centres and continuously imbibed the character of the exploitative ruling classes – these are some major reasons for the revolutionary parties to gradually transform into counter-revolutionary parties. One of the main underlying causes for this is that the structure, atmosphere and awareness which enable the party ranks to struggle against the wrong trends that raise their head in the party and rectify them, and to exercise democratic supervision over the leadership committees, were weak in the party. The lessons of the great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) should be correctly drawn in this respect.

Apart from this main problem cited above, we can find various other problems in the structure and functioning of different communist parties. Some of the main problems to be identified among them are – the problem of a weak ideological foundation, the problem of dogmatism that tries to mechanically adopt MLM, the problems in developing the mass consciousness and leadership capacity, in ensuring the continued, active and critical participation of the masses in every sphere and at all levels, the lack of preparedness to be in the forefront of militant class struggle, the problem of individual functioning gaining more importance than the collectives, the problem of development of classes within the party itself, the problem of bureaucracy, anarchy, etc.

Keeping all the above in mind we have to formulate correct, new principles of party functioning. We should develop our new party giving added importance to the following 10 guidelines such that the repetition of these mistakes that have emerged in history and in many revolutionary communist parties, is checked.

1. The party should develop on the foundation of scientific ideology and not on the basis of just commitment and faith alone. Hence much attention should be paid to develop ideological conceptions and a dialectical materialistic understanding at all levels.

2. A disciplined and hard working party that can build and provide leadership to militant class struggles, can face the hardships thereof, can safeguard the party’s secrets and is prepared for sacrifices, should be built.

3. The party should be groomed as a vanguard force that has imbibed a real democratic and progressive culture along with a spirit of holding the larger interests of serving the people, and revolution, above one’s own narrow interests. It should cultivate and strengthen values of strong determination, selfless dedication, self initiative, open mindedness, comradely spirit and support, eagerness to learn from varied sources, both a creative and critical faculty, a readiness to overcome or rectify any shortcoming or mistake etc. A communist party should in fact strive to imbibe the lofty ideals of the future communist society in all spheres of life. It should in practice serve to break the private property consciousness which forms the basis for class society, the notion of individual interest as against collective interest and be a model of honesty, courage and commitment. Serious, conscious efforts to develop such a culture and values need to be made.

4. The party needs to be basically secret; that is, all its members should not be exposed to the state, as it is a counter-force that seeks to overthrow the existing exploitative order. The secret here is essentially a question of defending the party from the enemy’s disruptive ways and repressive mechanism. It is also highly important for making it possible for more and more people to be part of the party in different capacities. In this regard despite certain objective difficulties the overall party functioning has to be revamped. Necessary measures have to be quickly adopted such that the new members also do not get easily exposed. All care has to be taken not to further expose the party committees. Technical caution needs to be seriously and strictly adhered to. Between UG and open mechanisms we should adopt the method of operating through intermediary layers as early as possible. Yet the best and the most effective way of building and sustaining the party secretly would be to skilfully camouflage it in suitable mass forms amidst a wide mass base. Thus broad mass work and secret party are closely interrelated and interdependent.

5. The party is of the people and should be amongst the people. At no time should it get distanced or isolated from the real life, needs and aspirations of the people. All committees and individuals in the party must adopt a work style and work plan which involves a lively interaction and deep integration with the masses. Efforts for a close observation and understanding of objective ground realities must be constantly made by the party, especially the leadership.

6. In order to ensure the continuous growth of the party an atmosphere of free, friendly but serious political discussions, debates and inner party struggle at all layers of the party should be developed. All diverse and divergent views should be seriously recorded and considered. In the event of a two-line struggle more conscious efforts should be made to ensure a correct, democratic practice at every step. An attitude of always being politically alert to various happenings within the party, of critically evaluating, questioning and conducting struggle against any problems in the practice, should be promoted. At the same time, every committee and every member should pay attention towards adopting the correct line while conducting inner struggle. It is only out of such process that real unified thought and unified practice can emerge.

7. Learning from historical experiences and our own concrete past experiences consistent, special caution is essential to prevent bureaucracy from developing in the party. Conscious measures need to be adopted to recognise and rectify all overt and covert reflections of bureaucratic practice in the party, in every layer, starting from the top. Care should be taken to continuously evolve proper structures and methods for more democratic functioning in all aspects of party life. Caution should be exercised to see to it that every committee / collective operates with utmost responsibility and care to ensure democratic practice and any position in the party is practised as a position of responsibility and not power. All efforts at serious learning from comrades, for democratic dissemination of information and knowledge, for maximum democratic participation of all comrades in decision making processes, for providing adequate and suitable methods and opportunities for each to develop her/his independent strengths, should be made in this regard. Serious efforts must be placed to translate into practice the concept of democratic supervision of people over the party and comradely supervision of the cadres over the leadership. Any tendency of covering up the mistakes of the party and the leadership should be opposed. The party must in fact exhibit and encourage the courage to bring the mistakes into the open. And when it comes to the question of party elections a UG party certainly has its limitations. Yet instead of holding the elections just as a formality, there is a need to address this challenge seriously, to explore creative methods to conduct the elections in a truly democratic manner.

8. Party work is voluntary. It is one of self-will and conscious dedication. Maximum internal freedom and democracy for expression and action are very essential for the sustenance, development and growth of the party. It will contribute to the quality of work. At the same time if the work is to have a clear direction and the common agreed goals have to be accomplished, discipline and commonness in thought and action are also highly important. Such commonness, a real centralisation of ideas and actions, can be achieved only through a real democratic practice. Thus there is a symbiotic relationship between democracy and centralism in the party where democracy without centralism is purposeless and centralism without democracy is not possible. Utmost attention has therefore to be paid to this core organisational principle of a communist party, which needs to be understood correctly, developed constantly, and applied creatively.

9. The State Committee should concentrate on rendering suitable political organisational training to all committees thereby enabling them to function independently. Conscious efforts must be made to develop leadership layers in accordance with the party’s immediate and long term needs. Each committee should similarly concentrate on developing the necessary political and organisational ability to handle all work that comes within its fold. Necessary close, concrete guidance must be correctly combined with adequate space to function independently with initiative and with scope for creativity and fresh experimentation.

10. An appropriate cadre policy is a must for building a capable party. A full-fledged cadre policy clearly outlining the rights and responsibilities of every member and committee, the processes of decision making, the methods of involvement and education of cadres, the methods of support, encouragement and rectification in the party etc. needs to be evolved.

Comrades,

We have tried to enumerate the basic political and organisational standpoints of the party. It requires enormous efforts to translate what we have placed here into practice. The task of fundamental transformation of society, of revolution is an arduous, complex uphill task no doubt. But it is one that is possible. It can be turned into a definite reality only through the informed, active and enthusiastic participation of more and more people. Therefore we appeal to you to join us in our sincere, serious endeavours.

Do come forward to combine all our efforts and strengths to build a democratic, disciplined, dynamic, directional, dialectical and centralised revolutionary party. Keeping the people’s interests as the goal at every step, in every work, let us strive hard to be in the forefront of struggles with consistent determination, courage and humbleness. Let us together contribute our mite to build a real democratic, just society, free from class exploitation and all oppression based on caste, gender, nationality and religion. Let us pave the way for the blossoming of high, human values, for the birth of a whole New World.