PATH OF INDIAN REVOLUTION

Adopted by the All India special conference of CPI (ML) held in Dec 2009.Late Comrade Kanu Sanyal Published this Document.

1. India is a vast country with a large population comprising of various nationalities, ethnic groups, languages and cultures. Since the transfer of power, India continues to be a semi- colonial and semi- feudal country. And the state represents the bourgeoisie of comprador nature and the land lords who protect and serve the interests of imperialism especially the US imperialism.

So the stage of Indian revolution is New Democratic with agrarian revolution as its main axis. And the targets of revolution are imperialism, feudalism, comprador and bureaucratic capitalism. Our aim is seizure of the state power by smashing the present semi colonial and semi feudal state structure. The most important requirements to realize this aim are three Magic Weapons: A genuine Communist Party, People’s Army and the United Front.

2. The present Indian Constitution is mainly based on the Govt. of India Act 1935. And its propositions of legislative bodies and Adult Franchise are nothing but a hoax to deceive the masses.

Some changes that have been made by the ruling classes in the superstructure without affecting the basic structure do not establish that India is an independent country. In fact, the economic and political policies pursued by the ruling classes clearly reflect that colonial India has been transformed into semi- colonial and semi- feudal India. A successful completion of New Democratic Revolution can alone change the present set up.

3. What then is the path of Indian Revolution? Undoubtedly, the path of Indian revolution, like the path of other revolutions, is of armed revolution and armed overthrow of the political power of existing ruling classes. Here it may be mentioned that armed revolution had taken place in several countries including Russia and China. Time and again it was discussed whether we should take the Russian path or Chinese path? We want to state categorically that the New Democratic Revolution in India shall be completed in the Indian Path. At the same time we also learn from other revolutions in the world including Russian and Chinese revolutions and take lessons from them. Here again we should stress on the experience of our own revolutionary struggle in the past and the present.

4. India is an underdeveloped country and there is unevenness in the development of the society. India has its own specific features. So the development of the movement here will also be uneven and will be in accordance with the concrete situation of the area or areas.

The experiences of people’s war in China, Vietnam and other backward countries are within our reach. We should study and apply them to the concrete practice of our revolution. While applying the theory of People’s War to the concrete conditions of our country, we have also to sum up the lessons of the struggles waged by the workers, peasants and other working and toiling masses of India, and more particularly, the Telangana and Naxalbari struggles. The People’s war can be launched only by organizing, mobilizing the people to directly and indirectly participate in the People’s War. However at a certain stage of development of struggle the possibility of armed uprising of the masses in towns and cities cannot be overruled.

Unlike pre-revolution China and other colonial or semi-colonial countries, India has a more centralized state structure, a parliament, a well organized army, more developed communication system, and a higher degree of industrialization and urbanization. Even with these dissimilarities, the character and aims of our revolution and theory of Protracted People’s War are equally applicable here. While formulating our tactics we have to take into consideration both our similarities and dissimilarities with other countries including China.

The dissimilarities are: China was facing an armed counter revolution with armed revolution. There was no parliament in China which India has. There are no legal opportunities for the mass movement in China. Communist Party was illegal from the very beginning. Mountainous and hilly areas were much wider in China in comparison to India.

But there are similarities also. Pre-liberation China was semi colonial and semi feudal country and basically an agrarian country. The targets of revolution were: imperialism, feudalism and comprador bourgeoisie. Stage of revolution was NDR. All these features are more or less present in India.

5. We Marxist-Leninist s believe that every revolution will have favorable and unfavorable aspects. The Marxist-Leninist, by determining correct strategy and tactics, utilize the favorable aspects and overcome the unfavorable aspects.

There are backward areas in the central and border regions of India which are largely untouched by transport and communication system. At best, the communications are meager and ineffective. Moreover, the people living in these areas are backward, severely exploited and increasingly are prepared for armed struggle. The oppression on the people and various nationalities by the state, the topographical conditions and lack of proper transport and communication in these areas combine to create added advantages for the armed struggle. It is to be remembered that taking advantage of these conditions the Nagas, the Mizos and other nationalities are continuing armed struggles and this is also favorable for our revolution.

In principle, we support the rights and struggles of nationalities for national self determination including their right to secede. At the same time, we study each struggle concretely before adopting a specific stand towards it. We are clear that the right and interests of nationalities can be defended and realized only when they refuse to fall prey to the machinations of the Indian ruling classes and imperialism to divide and entangle them in fratricidal wars, direct their struggle against the common enemy and unite with the struggles of the exploited and oppressed masses of Indian people to break free from the shackles of feudalism and imperialism and for a New Democratic Society.

The Indian revolution will be won basically by the Indian people while the proletariat leading the revolution always takes the advantage of national and international situation. This is fundamental in a People’s War.

6. There is a parliamentary system with limited democratic rights in our country. The legal opportunities available in this system (no matter how limited) are to be utilized in full. Mass organizations must be built; movements must be organized utilizing these opportunities. Masses should be mobilized in large numbers, organized and made politically conscious for the development of the spirit of the struggles throughout the time when the legal opportunities are available. However even under the parliamentary system (with the limited rights) the ruling classes are drowning the people’s struggles in blood. Hence the organizations and struggles built up by us through the utilization of legal opportunities shall exceed the legal limits and advance towards the path of confrontation and take the form of militant struggles. Our task here will be to lead the people towards the path of armed struggle and build up the armed struggle as the principle form of struggle. In this context, it should be remembered that while we categorically reject the parliamentary path we view our participation or boycott of elections as a tactical question and the question what tactic we adopt in a particular situation depends on the concrete conditions.

7. We categorically reject the parliamentary path. At the same time we also reject the path of anarchism, terrorism in all their forms, because both these lines are trends alien to Marxism-Leninism. While rejecting both alien trends we uphold the revolutionary mass line and utilize all forms of struggle to seize political power by overthrowing the present state.

Our experience shows that even the limited rights and opportunities for democratic movements are being curtailed. Hence legal methods should be combined with illegal methods and open organizations should be combined with secret. But as long as various struggles do not take the form of armed struggle, legal movements, mass organizations and mass struggles help and serve to build the armed struggle as the principle form of struggle. And whenever armed struggle becomes the principle form of the struggle, the other forms of struggle and organization must be co-ordinate directly with armed struggle according to the concrete conditions.

It should be remembered that all militant struggles are not armed struggles. A peasant struggle in a certain area might take a militant form, but it should not be termed as armed struggle. We should also remember that irrespective of our objective wishes a militant struggle in a small area might take the form of armed peasant struggle. However once the armed struggle begins in a situation like this we should not obstruct it or condemn it. According to concrete conditions our task shall be to see it that the struggle survives through further experience. In short, the essential thing at present is to develop mass struggles on economic and political issues and transform them into the principle form of struggle. We must adopt a positive approach towards propaganda and preparation for legal work and building up of mass organizations.

8. Our conception of armed struggle is based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao tse tungThought. This only can be Protracted Peoples War. Building up a people’s army and carrying on people’s war are inseparably connected with the people’s armed struggle. It has an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal program and is led by the Communist Party.

9. At present we are in the stage of NDR and agrarian revolution is its main axis.

It is the country side where the armed struggles is based on the peasantry and can be linked to the most substantive democratic reform, land reform and with the building of organs of political power and the well-knit countrywide mass organizations, especially of peasant masses. The task of agrarian revolution with land to the tiller as the central slogan is aimed at eliminating the feudal and semi feudal landlords as a class by confiscating all the landed and movable property of big landlords, distribution of the same among the landless and the poor peasants and overthrowing the authority of landlords and establish the peoples political power in its place.

a) The cast system being an integral part of the feudal system, and being perpetuated by the colonial rulers as well as the present day comprador ruling classes, the struggle for the eradication of caste system forms an important and inseparable part of agrarian revolution, which is an integral part of new democratic revolution.

The masses of peasants and agricultural labor, the rural and urban toiling people who are to take part in the Democratic revolution belong to the Dalits and backward castes in the main. The ruling classes always try to keep the Dalits divided and subvert their struggles against discrimination and oppression based on caste by mobilizing them in such a manner that the machinations of imperialist-comprador-bureaucratic capital-feudal combine may be covered up. It is the responsibility of the Communist party to organize and unite them. We have to strengthen the movement of the oppressed classes by uniting the poor of the upper castes and poor of the Dalit castes. The struggle against the caste discrimination and caste oppression can achieve its actual aim only when it develops as part of NDR. At the same time, we must not fail to take note that the domineering upper caste mentality manifest in the poor of the upper castes who are to become part of the movement of oppressed classes. We must, therefore, see that the poor of the upper castes overcome these trends. For this, we must educate them against the old and conventional theories. We must unite all the oppressed people in the class organizations raising them above the castes.

In order to unite the toiling people in the agrarian revolution it is necessary to organize the struggle against the caste system from the beginning and continue it till the end both theoretically and practically.

b) Feudalism kept the women oppressed. It had degraded women into a dependent status who could neither think nor carry any significance or rights. Imperialism views woman as a commodity and means of income. The present system and admixture of these two is pushing the women into abysmal depths. We must fight against feudal, imperialist oppression, patriarchal oppression, patriarchal ideology and patriarchal family system.

c)There must be an agrarian revolutionary program to build an agrarian revolutionary movement. Though semi feudal relations are common to all parts of India, the forms and extent of feudal exploitation, land concentration and land relations differ from state to state and from one part to the another part of the state. State units must work out their agrarian revolutionary program taking their specific features into account. Without investigation and a resultant program, there can neither be a revolutionary movement nor a people’s armed struggle.

d) Armed struggle will be started at an appropriate level (seizure of land) of this movement. Moreover mass armed struggle has nothing to do with the line of individual annihilation which is the manifestation of anarchism and left adventurism. Any underestimation of the agrarian revolutionary movement will deprive the people of an indispensable support to the armed struggle and will leave them unprepared to face the onslaught of the state apparatus. Hence all the theories which underestimate or ignore the role of agrarian revolutionary struggle are either left adventurist or right opportunist, and they should be rejected.

Here it should be mentioned that armed struggle is the highest form of class struggle. To reach this stage we are to go through all types of mass and class struggle including the movement for the democratic and civil rights of people.

10. In the course of anti feudal struggle, the land lords, the goondas and police resort to attack against the peasant movement. Party should prepare the people from the beginning to resist their counter revolutionary violence with locally available weapons. It should build village volunteer squads and village defense squads depending on the objective situation and people’s preparedness. In the course of building the peasants resistance movement of this kind, the self defense squads can be formed with the militants from the movement where the conditions so demand. The task of these squads is to organize the people, provide the leadership to people’s resistance and defend the people’s movement. They should defend themselves in every possible form.

The bureaucracy and the police attack the people’s movement in order to destroy it. For this the state combines the two weapons, the weapon of repression and the weapon of law and concession to contain and suppress the movement. In the face of this situation, the party has no alternative other than patiently preparing the people to overcome it. It must adopt the tactic and methods suitable to the situation such as asking the important cadre of the area to work secretly among the people.

11. The task of the Party is to help the people to gain the consciousness and preparedness necessary for armed resistance through their direct experience. The peasant revolutionary movement cannot sustain itself and develop further, unless it is linked with the key problems of seizure and distribution of landlords land and building of people’s democratic power. In the context of our revolution, the armed struggle in our country will be peasant armed struggle in the main. For starting the armed struggle party must assess the overall situation in the country, geographical conditions of the area, mental makeup and preparedness of the people to directly participate in the armed struggle in all its aspects in one form or other, self sustainability of economy, strength of the party to lead the struggle and also the isolation of the enemy classes from the people in the area or areas. This demands an all India perspective, strategic planning and proper deployment of forces.

12. Establishment of liberated base areas is a difficult task. CRs have been trying to establish base areas in different areas of our country employing different tactics. But they have not succeeded in doing so. The experience of CRs in Bihar, Bengal, A.P. and other places in the last 40 years has show that the people’s revolutionary movement, in the course of its development, has succeeded in smashing the economic, social and political authority and power of landlords and establing peoples power at local level in an embryonic form but when it came to dealing with the centralized state of the ruling classes, it has not succeeded. Rather, the state has succeeded in containing and/or inflicting serious damages to the revolutionary forces. The situation is not stagnating at this stage i.e. neither the people’s revolutionary forces are capable of destroying the state and establish the base areas nor is the state capable to destroy the people’s revolutionary forces. This experience shows that a state of dual power, in the sense, rule of people at local level or a contest for it and the power of ruling classes simultaneously continue for quite a long time in different areas before the formation of base areas. This is a special feature of Indian Revolution.

In such situation, the CRs are required to adopt suitable tactics to defeat the enemy. They must prepare the people for armed struggle against the land lords with an aim of destroying their economic, social and political authority and power and establish the people’s power at local level. They must build and create conditions for the people’s resistance struggle for the destruction of the state and the formation of the base areas should be launched when the country enters in to a revolutionary crisis and other subjective preparations have been made for the armed confrontation with the state. If thus tactics of armed struggle are employed, the state of duel power would change and the formation of base areas would become possible. We must employ all forms of struggle to reach that stage and isolate the enemy from the people.

13. The policies of subservience to imperialism pursued by the Indian ruling classes under various names like Green Revolution, Liberalization, NEP, Globalization, Sezs and Saz etc. had taken the imperialist plunder in our country to dangerous levels. The imperialists are going all out in their loot of our human and natural resources. The spread of their tentacles in the countryside and its disastrous consequences have brought the struggle against imperialism so close that it cannot be separated from the peasant struggle against feudalism.

The two basic tasks of our revolution – national and democratic - are, therefore, at once distinct and united. Feudalism cannot be overthrown without fighting imperialism because feudalism is its main prop. Powerful revolutionary contingents capable of inflicting a death blow at imperialism cannot be built without organizing and bringing into full play the main revolutionary force – the peasantry – in the struggle against feudalism. So, while undeviating concentration on the task of agrarian revolution, we must intensify the propaganda, agitation and struggle against the imperialism in every possible form.

The cities of our country have specialty. Hence, our work in cities has great importance. While our cities are the nerve centers of power of the ruling class, conscious and organized masses of working class including students, youth, employees, women and others are also there. They have a great tradition of anti imperialist struggle.

The post 1947 period witnessed massive peoples’ movement on various people’s issues. Many of these movements went beyond the limits of parliamentary bounds. A movement like all India railway men’s strike in 1974 has also crossed the urban boundary and spread to the country side. Even the movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan had an all India dimension. It led to put an end to the autocratic rule of Congress (I) led by Indira Gandhi.

Earlier, in the perspective of Naxalbari Peasant and Workers revolt, a large number of urban students, youth, teachers, employees and women had come forward. The experience shows that the students, youth, teachers, employees and women can play a remarkable and important role in creating political consciousness among the workers and peasants in carrying the struggle in the face of governmental attack and repression. The mutiny of army in 1946, the police and CRP in 70’s have made the indispensability of urban work more apparent. Therefore, if we want to advance agrarian revolution, then there is no place for the neglect of work in the cities. Urban work will act as complementary to the advancement of armed peasant struggles in the country side. In other words we should not forget that the cities will play an important role in the agrarian revolutionary movement in our country.

15. The building up of necessary UF during various phases in the process of development of the NDR is an important weapon for the victory of the working class. There is a mechanical conception regarding the building up of UF, namely UF means UF only with the natural allies of the working class. The peasantry is one of the principal forces in the NDR under working class leadership and the petty bourgeoisie is also another important force. The peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie are the natural allies of the working class. The UF shall certainly be class based. However, building up of UF signifies the building up of a front with the national bourgeoisie by the working class and its natural allies. Another matter demands our attention as regard to building up of UF. In a class divided society every political party represents one class or another. Hence, while we build up fronts of workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie through various mass fronts we also build up’ fronts’ with political parties representing various classes. We often build issue-based ‘fronts’ with various political parties. Such issue-based platforms should not be confused with the task of building up United Front of different classes in the stage of New Democratic Revolution. The issue based platforms of struggle are their purpose is only to isolate the main enemy and utilize the different contradictions in the society. We do not neglect the task of building up these issue based platforms because that would result in the isolation of the working class from other classes.

In short throughout the period of NDR we are to build up and maintain a United Front of working class, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie (vacillating ally) under the leadership of the working class and worker-peasant alliance must be the fundamental basis of this UF.

The party must also build an anti-feudal UF in the countryside. It involves party mainly relying on the landless and poor peasants, winning over the middle peasant, neutralizing and winning over larger sections of rich peasants, letting the small landlords comply with the land reform to isolate and destroy the class of big landlords as a whole.

16. For the revolution to succeed, a revolutionary party of the proletariat armed with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought must be built. The Communist Party is the highest form of class organization of the proletariat. It is the advanced detachment of the working class. It is well disciplined organization with the scientific understanding of reality, based on democratic centralism; tested in the practice of concreted struggle, using the method of criticism and self criticism and closely integrated with the masses of the people.

While maintaining that every legal opportunity should be exploited, the party should remain basically secret. It is therefore necessary for the party to adopt itself to the principles of illegal organization. While taking advantage of legal opportunities, care should be taken to ensure that the party does not degenerate into a legal party. According to concrete situation the party will decide which of its wings should functions openly or not.

17. The working class will provide theoretical leadership to the NDR in our country through Communist Party. However, the aspect of the leadership by the working class over the revolutionary activities in our country requires more attention. The working class can provide leadership to agrarian revolution by launching economical and political struggles. It can provide such leadership by organizing mass political strikes in support of peasant’s struggle. It can provide leadership by sending worker cadres to the rural areas to organize militant peasant struggle. For this investigation and study are the first requisite. It can provide leadership sending armed units to the countryside once the peasant struggle has begun. Besides these, there can be other methods which will emerge out of the experience of the future struggles and educate us further.

18. The buildup of the New Democratic Cultural Movement is indispensable in uniting all the evolutionary classes and strata. This new cultural movement will act as an important weapon against the atmosphere of degenerate culture created by the present ruling classes and their paid intellectuals with the help and blessings of imperialist culture in order to keep intact the decadent social system. Hence, we have to strengthen our activities in the cultural front.

19. In the present situation in India, there are numerous revolutionary groups and individuals working in various parts of the country. It is absolutely necessary that these groups and individuals are united on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought. Unity can be forged only through the process of ideological and political understanding combined with the revolutionary class struggle. This means that the ideological and political struggle should not be degenerated into a debate of verbal criticism, slander and personnel attack, but should be tested in the practice of class struggle. The Communist Revolutionaries can be united into a single party organization on the basis of principled ideological struggle. Such a Party, armed with the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought, alone can carry the revolution through to the end. Therefore it is necessary that efforts should be concentrated towards building such a Party.

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