Record of the
Discussions of J.V. Stalin With the Representatives Of The C.C. of
the Communist Party of India Comrades Rao, Dange, Ghosh and Punnaiah
[9th February 1951]
Comrade Stalin: Your
questions have been received. I will reply to them and then express
some of my own
understanding.
Perhaps it might
seem strange that we are having these discussions in the evening.
During the day we are busy.
We are working. We are free from work at 6 o’clock in the evening. Possibly it might
appear unusual that we go into the discussions at considerable
length, but regretfully,
otherwise we may not be able to fulfill our mission. Our CC charged
us to meet you personally in
order to render help to your party by giving advice. We are little
acquainted
with your party and
your people. We are looking at this mission with great seriousness.
As soon as we took
upon ourselves to give our advice, we took upon ourselves the moral responsibility for
your party, we cannot give you lightly thought out advice. We wish to acquaint ourselves
with the materials, together with you, and then give advice.
You may think it to
be odd that we have put a few series of questions to you and it
almost looks like an
interrogation. Our situation is such that we cannot do otherwise. The
documents
do not give a full
picture and so we resort to this method. It is a very unhappy way of
doing things but it cannot
be helped. Circumstances compel us. Let us proceed to the essence of
the
matter.
You ask: What is
your appraisal of the impending Indian revolution?
We, Russians, look
at this revolution as mainly agrarian. It signifies – the
liquidation of feudal property, the
division of the land amongst the peasantry and it becoming their
personal property. It means
the liquidation of feudal private property in the name of the
affirmation of the private property
of the peasantry. As we see this none of this is socialist. We do not consider that India
stands before the socialist revolution. This is that Chinese path
which is spoken of
everywhere, i.e. the agrarian, anti-feudal revolution without any
confiscation or nationalisation of
the property of the national bourgeoisie. This is the
bourgeois-democratic revolution or the
first stage of the people’s democratic revolution. The people’s
democratic revolution that
began in the eastern countries of Europe, even before it did in
China, has two stages. The first
stage – agrarian revolution or agrarian reform, as you desire. The
countries of people’s democracy
in Europe went through this stage in the very first year after the
war. China stands now at this
first stage. India is approaching this stage. The second stage of the
people’s democratic
revolution as shown in Eastern Europe is characterised by the
agrarian revolution passing over to the expropriation of the national
bourgeoisie. This is already the beginning of the socialist
revolution. In all of the people’s democratic countries of Europe
the plants, factories, banks are
nationalised and handed over to the state. China is still far from
this second stage. This stage is
also far off in India or India is far from this stage.
Here you speak of
the editorial of the newspaper of the Cominform concerning the Chinese path of
development of the revolution. This editorial was a challenge to the
articles and speeches of Ranadive
which considered that India stood on the road to socialist
revolution. We, Russian communists,
considered that this is a very dangerous thesis and decided to come forward against this
and point out that India is on the Chinese road, i.e. the first stage
of the
people’s
democratic revolution. For you this has the attached importance of
building your revolutionary front
for a revolt of the entire peasantry and the kulaks against the
feudal lords, for an uprising of
all of the peasantry so that the feudal lords feel themselves
isolated. A revolt of the public is
necessary as of all the progressive stratum of the national
bourgeoisie against
English imperialism,
in order to isolate the bloc of the English imperialists with the
national bourgeoisie. Amongst
you the view is prevalent that all of the imperialists need to be
expelled in one blow, all,
the English and the Americans. It is impossible to build such a
front. The sharp blade of the
all-national front is necessarily directed against English
imperialism. Let the other imperialists,
including the Americans, think that you are not concerned about them.
This is necessary so your
actions do not unite all of the imperialists against yourselves, and
for that you must sow discord
among them. Now, if the American imperialists themselves want to get into a fight, the
united national front of India will need to plunge into action
against them.
Ghosh: I am unclear
why only against British imperialism when at present the entire world is in struggle
against American imperialism which is considered to be the head of
the anti-democratic camp?
Comrade Stalin: It
is very simple; the united national front is against England, for the national
independence from England, and not from America. It is your national
specificity. India was semi-liberated
from whom? From England, and not from America, India is in the
concord of nations not with
America but with England. The officers and the specialists in your
army are not Americans but
Englishmen. These are historical facts and it is impossible to
abstract from them. I wish to say that
the party must not load itself with all of the tasks, the tasks of
the struggle with imperialism
throughout the world. It is necessary to take up one task: to free
oneself from English imperialism.
It is the national task of India. We must also consider the feudal
classes. Of course, the kulaks
are enemies. But it would be unwise to struggle against the kulaks as
well as with the feudal
lords. It would be unreasonable to take on to oneself two burdens –
the struggle against the
kulaks and the struggle against feudalism. It is necessary to build
the front
in such a manner
that it is the enemy and not you who are isolated. It is, so to say,
a tactic to facilitate the
struggle of the Communist Party. Not one person, if he is wise, will
take on himself
all of the burdens.
It is necessary to take on oneself one task – the liquidation of
feudalism, and the survivals of the
empire of England. In order to isolate the feudal lords, to liquidate
the
feudal lords, and
bring down English imperialism, do not brush against the other
imperialist powers for the time
being. If you proceed on your way like this – it will lighten
matters. Now, if
the Americans poke
their noses in, it will then be necessary to carry out the struggle
against them, but the people
would know that not you but they had attacked. Certainly, the time to take on the
Americans and the kulaks will come. But it will be later, each will
have their turn.
Ghosh: I am now
clear.
Dange: Would this
not hinder the carrying out of propaganda and agitational work
against the American imperialists and the struggle against them?
Comrade Stalin: Of
course not. They are enemies of the people and it is necessary to struggle against
them.
Dange: I put this
question so that no one interprets this as opportunism in the task of struggle against
American imperialism.
Comrade Stalin: The
enemy needs to be isolated in a wise manner. You are raising the revolution not
against the Americans but against the English imperialists. If the
Americans interfere, then it
is another matter.
Rao: Among the
kulaks there is a small part which is engaged in feudal exploitation:
they let land on lease
and they are usurers. They usually stand on the side of the
landlords.
Comrade Stalin: This
is not significant. In comparison to the major general task of the liquidation of the
feudal lords, it is a particular task. In your propaganda you need to
speak against the feudal
lords but not against the prosperous peasantry. You must not
yourselves
push the kulak into
a union with the feudal lords. It is not necessary to create an ally
for the feudal lords. The
kulaks have a large influence in the village, the peasantry considers
that the
kulak makes his way
in life thanks to his own ability etc. It is not necessary to give
the kulaks the possibility of
splitting from the peasants. Do your feudal lords belong to the
nobility?
Rao: Yes.
Comrade Stalin: The
peasants do not love the nobility. Here it is necessary to grasp this
in order that the
feudal lords are not given the possibility of having an ally among
the peasants.
Punnaiah: Amongst us
there exists confusion on the question of the national bourgeoisie. What is to be
properly understood under the national bourgeoisie?
Comrade Stalin:
Imperialism is the politics of the seizure of another’s country.
Does your national bourgeoisie
really think of capturing other countries? Meanwhile British
imperialism
seized India. The
national bourgeoisie – the middle, large are your national
exploiters. It is necessary to say
that you are not against their continuance, but against the foreign
enemy, against the English
imperialists. Among the national bourgeoisie are to be found many elements which find
themselves aligned with you. The top national bourgeoisie – it is
already in alliance with
imperialism, but it is only a part and besides it is not big. The
bourgeoisie is
basically interested
in supporting you in the struggle for the full independence of India.
It is interested in
feudalism being liquidated. The bourgeoisie needs a market, a good
market, if the
peasantry acquire
land there will be an internal market, there would be people who
would have the capacity of
making purchases. It is necessary to elucidate all this in the press.
It will be advantageous for you
so that the national bourgeoisie does not move over to the side of
the English. You have to
order matters in such a way that the English imperialists do not
acquire new allies in India.
In China by no means are steps being undertaken to expropriate the
bourgeoisie. Only
Japanese property was nationalised in China, even the American
enterprises are not
nationalised, they are functioning. If your revolution is of the
Chinese type you must not
for the present
undertake those steps which will push your bourgeoisie to the side of
the English
imperialists. Here is your Chinese path. In China the national
bourgeoisie did not go over
and now they have
come forward against the American imperialists and they help the
Chinese people’s
government. This signifies that they may consider the American
imperialists are isolated in China.
Concerning the division of India that is a piece of fraud organised
by the English. If you are
drafting a programme of action then you must say in there that you
need a military and economic union between Pakistan, India and
Ceylon. These three states, which are
artificially
separated from one another, will come closer. This will culminate in
these states uniting themselves.
This idea of drawing together must be put forward and the people will support you. The
elite in Pakistan and Ceylon would be against it but the people have
doubts about them. This
artificial division is clear particularly in Bengal. The province of
Bengal will fall away from Pakistan
at the first opportunity.
Dange: The
understanding of the national bourgeoisie is constantly brought up in
the following spirit
amongst us: the middle bourgeoisie is called the national
bourgeoisie. In India the big bourgeoisie
has passed over to the side of the English imperialists.
Comrade Stalin: Do
you have in India banks which are purely English?
Dange: Yes, in India
there are English banks as well as joint ones. In our programme there is a demand for the
nationalisation of the big bourgeoisie, that is bureaucratic capital.
Comrade Stalin: It
is not bureaucratic capital but industrial trading capital.
Bureaucratic capital in China
made a fortune by means of the state. It is capital related to the
state and very little connected to
industry. Through privileged contracts with the Americans the family
of Sun and others received
money. The concerns of the big industrialists and traders in China:
they have remained
intact. I do not advise you to expropriate the large capitalists,
even if they are in alliance with
American and English banking capital. It would be better to say
quietly that whoever goes over to
the side of the enemies would lose their property. Indubitably, if
your revolution heats up,
then a part of such big capitalists will run away. Then declare them
to be traitors and
expropriate their property, but I will not suggest expropriating the
big bourgeoisie just for its
alliance with English capital. If there is a demand for the
expropriation of the big bourgeoisie in your
programme, then it is necessary to cross it out. You will need to
draw up a new programme or
platform of action. It will pay you to neutralise the big bourgeoisie
and to
tear off from it
nine-tenths of the entire national bourgeoisie. It is not necessary
for you to artificially create
new enemies for yourself. You already have many of them: the turn of
your big bourgeoisie will
come and then, certainly, you will have to confront them. The
problems of the revolution are
decided in stages. The stages need not be mixed up. It is necessary
to decide upon the stages and
to beat the enemies separately – today one, tomorrow another, and
when you grow stronger,
you may be able to beat them all, but for the present you are still
weak. Your people copy our
revolution. But these are different stages. The experience of the
other fraternal parties
needs to be critically taken into account and this adapted to the
specific conditions of India.
You will be criticised from the left but you need not worry. Bukharin
and
Trotsky criticised
Lenin from the left, but they became a laughing stock. Ranadive
criticised Mao Zedong from the
left, but Mao Zedong was correct - he acted in correspondence with
the
conditions of his
own country. Follow your own line and do not pay attention to the
ultra-leftist cries.
Now on the second
question, about the Chinese path.
I have already
spoken on the Chinese road in the political and social spheres. It
would be an agrarian
revolution. Concerning the armed struggle it needs to be said that
the Chinese did not speak of the
armed struggle, they spoke of the armed revolution. They regarded it
as partisan war with
liberated regions and with an army of liberation. This means that it
is necessary to speak
of the armed revolution and partisan war and not of armed struggle.
The
expression ‘armed
struggle’ was first mentioned in the Cominform newspapers. The
armed struggle signifies
more than a partisan war, it means the combination of partisan war of
the peasantry and the general strikes and uprisings of the workers.
In its scale a partisan war is narrower than an
armed struggle. How did the armed revolution in China begin?
In 1926-27 the
Chinese comrades broke with the Guomindangists. They distinguished themselves in a
separate camp having prepared an army of 40-50 thousand persons
against the Guomindang. This
army was the basis of the partisan war. They hide themselves in the
forests and mountains far
from the towns and the railways. Of course, wherever the CC of the
Chinese Communist Party was
there, together with them, the basic cadres were to be found. The
Chinese liberation
army could not settle down in the towns and it was easy to encircle
it. In order not to be
encircled and destroyed they left the towns and railways far behind
and founded a series of
free partisan regions. They were encircled, then they would break out
of it, leave behind old
liberated regions and create new ones and endeavoured not to do
battle. The further they
continued, the more the Chinese communists were alienated from the
workers
and the towns. Mao
Zedong did not wish, of course, to break relations with the workers,
but the path of partisan
war led him to that, and he lost contact with the towns. It was a
grievous
necessity. At last
they were established in Yan’an where they defended themselves for
a long period. They called
the peasants to themselves, instructed them how to conduct agrarian revolution, expanded
their army and transformed it into a serious force. But all the while
they did not evade that
minus which characterised partisan warfare.
What is a liberated
partisan region? It is entirely an island in the state, there is no
rear in this region, it may
be encircled, blockaded; it has no rear on which it can lean. That is
what happened. Yan’an
was encircled and the Chinese left that place with large casualties.
This would have continued
for a long time if the Chinese communists had not decided to cross
over to Manchuria. Moving
into Manchuria they rapidly improved their own position, they found a rear in the form of
a friendly state. It was not now an island, it was something like a
peninsula which rested on the
USSR at one end. After this Chiang Kai-shek lost the possibility of
encircling the Chinese
partisans. And only after this, as the Chinese rested, they had the
possibility of going over to the
offensive from the north to the south. Such is the history. What
follows from
this? The partisan
war of the peasants is a serious matter and a big acquisition for the revolution. In this
area the Chinese made new contributions in revolutionary practice, particularly for the
backward countries. And, of course, each Communist in a country where
the peasants are 80-90%
of the population is obliged to carry this method in the arsenal of
their struggles. This is
indisputable. But also from this experience of the Chinese comrades
it follows
that partisan
warfare with liberated regions has its own big minuses. These minuses
are that the partisan regions
are islands which are always open to blockade. It is possible to
break out of
this ring
victoriously only by creating a stable rear, link up with and rest on
a friendly neighbouring state
and turn this state into one’s own stable rear. The Chinese took
the sensible step of moving over
into Manchuria. If they had not done this I do not know how matters
would have ended. In
partisan war one has insufficient strength to achieve victory.
Partisan war leads without fail to
victory if it rests on a friendly neighbouring state. It is highly
characteristic that till the Chinese
comrades reached Manchuria they did not wish to attack, fearing
encirclement, and only after this
transition they began to plan to advance and scored successes against
the troops of Chiang
Kai-shek. We need to take into consideration these minuses of
partisan war. It is said in India
that partisan war is altogether sufficient to obtain the victory of
the revolution. This is incorrect.
In China there were more favourable conditions than in India. They
had a people’s
liberation army ready in China. You have no ready army. China does
not have such adense railway network as India which was more
comfortable for the partisans. The possibility of successful partisan
war is lesser for you than in China. In industrial relations India is
more developed than
China. This is good from the point of progress, but bad from the
point of view of partisan war.
However many detachments and liberated regions are created all these
will only be islets. You
do not have such a neighbouring friendly state on whose back you can
depend as had the
Chinese partisans with the USSR.
Afghanistan, Iran
and Tibet, places the Chinese communists are still unable to
reach.... There is no such
rear as the USSR. Burma? Pakistan? All of these are land frontiers,
which leaves – the sea.
Therefore it is necessary to find a way out.
Do you need partisan
war? Indubitably you do.
Will you have
liberated regions and a national liberation army?
You will have such
regions, and possibly you will have such an army. But this is
insufficient for victory. You
need to combine partisan war with the revolutionary actions of the
workers. Without this,
partisan war alone might not have success. If the Indian comrades can
seriouslyorganise general
strikes of the railway workers that will paralyse the life of the
country and the government it could
prove to be an enormous help for the partisan war. Take the
peasant.... if you say to him –
this is your partisan war and you have to do it all, then the peasant
will ask – why is this
burdensome struggle to lie on me alone, what are the workers going to
do? He will not agree to take on
himself the whole weight of the revolution, he is intelligent enough,
he has the consciousness to
know that all evil comes from the towns – taxes etc. He would want
an ally in the towns.
If you say to him
that he would carry the weight of the struggle together with the
workers, he would understand
and accept it. Such was the case with us in Russia. You need to carry
out work not only
amongst the peasantry, not only to create partisan detachments, but
also to carry out serious
intensive work amongst the working class, strive for their trust and
win over their majority, you
need to have armed detachments amongst the workers, prepare strikes
of
the workers, of the
railwaymen and to have workers’ detachments in the towns.
When these two
streams link up – victory may be considered to be secure. You know
that in 1905 in Russia
the tsar yielded to the people, gave the Duma and a range of other
freedoms. The Tsar was forced
to retreat.
What evoked such
terror in the tsar? The strikes of the railway workers! The capital
was cut off from the
country, the railway workers only let into Petersburg the workers’
delegations
and did not permit
entry to goods or anything else. The significance of the railway
workers’ strikes was very great in the revolution and this helped
the partisan detachments.
Then – work
amongst the garrisons, amongst the soldiers. In 1917 we had carried
out propaganda amongst
the soldiers to the extent that all the garrison stood on our side. What brought over
the soldiers? The question of land. It was such a weapon which even
the Cossacks, who
were the praetorian guards of the tsar, could not withstand. To carry
out correct politics,
one might sow a revolutionary mood and evoke differences within the reactionary circles.
The Chinese path was
good for China. But it is not sufficient for India where it is
necessary to combine the
proletarian struggle in the cities with the struggles of the
peasants. Some think
that the Chinese
comrades are against such a combination. This is incorrect. Would Mao Zedong have been
discontented if the workers of Shanghai had gone on strike when his
army left for Nanking, or if the workers had struck work in the
armaments factories? Of course not.But this did not
take place as Mao Zedong’s relations with the towns were severed.
Of course, Mao Zedong would
have been happy if the railwaymen had struck work and Chiang Kai-shekwas deprived of the
possibility of receiving projectiles. But there was an absence of
relations with the workers –
it was a grievous necessity, but it was not an ideal. It would be
ideal if you strive for that
which could not be done by the Chinese – to unite the peasant war
with the struggle of the
working class.
Dange: We almost
turned the theory of partisan warfare into one which did not require the participation of
the working class.
Comrade Stalin: If
Mao Zedong knew this he would curse you. (Laughter) Let us go on to the next question.
May the government of Nehru be considered a puppet of English
imperialism such as the
Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek was a puppet of American
imperialism and as currently the
French government of Pleven is a puppet of the American imperialists?
According to my
understanding, Chiang Kai-shek could not be considered a puppet when he was based in
China. He became a puppet when he crossed over to Formosa.I cannot consider
the government of Nehru as a puppet. All of his roots are in the
population. This is not like the government of Bao Dai.... Bao Dai is
actually a puppet. Hence it follows that in India it is impossible
that partisan war can be considered the main form of struggle, maybe
it is necessary to say the highest
form of struggle? There are different forms of struggle leading to
the highest form. For the
peasants: boycott of the landowners, agricultural workers’ strikes,
withdrawal of labour by the
tenant-farmers, individual skirmishes with the landlords, seizure of
the lands of the landowners and
then partisan war as the highest form of struggle.
For the working
class: local strikes, branch strikes, political strikes, the general
political strike as the doorway to an uprising, and then the armed
uprising as the highest form of struggle. It is therefore impossible
to say that partisan war is the main form of struggle in the country.
It is also untrue to assert that civil war in the country is in full
swing. In Telangana land was seized but it proves little.
This is still the
beginning of the opening of the struggle but it is not the main form
of the struggle from which India is
still distant. The peasant needs to learn to struggle on the small
questions – lowering lease
rents, lowering the share of the harvest which is paid to the
landlord etc. It is necessary to train
the cadres on such small questions and not speak at once of armed
struggle. If you begin a broad
armed struggle, then serious difficulties will arise at your end as
your party is weak.
It is necessary that
the party becomes strong and orientate the mass struggle in the needed direction and
sometimes even restrain the masses. How did we begin in 1917?
We had many
sympathisers in the army, in the fleet, we had the Moscow and
Leningrad Soviets. However we
restrained the insurrectionary movement of the workers. They
presented the demand of
driving out the Provisional Government. But this did not enter into
our plans then for the
Leningrad garrison was not in our hands. In July the workers of the
main Putilov factory where
40-50,000 people worked, began demonstrations in which the sailors
and soldiers joined in.
They demanded the overthrow of the Provisional Government and they
came with these demands
to the CC building. We held them back as we knew that all the preparations had not
been made for the serious uprising we planned. The objective factor
for the uprising existed
– when the masses strove forward, but the subjective factor of the
uprising did not – the
party was still not ready.
The question of the uprising was put into
place in one month, in September.We decided to
organise the uprising, but it was an arch-secret. We did not publish
anything about this. When Kamenev and Zinoviev, members of the
Politbureau, spoken out in print against the uprising,
considering it adventurist, Lenin declared them traitors and said
that they had handed over our plans to
the enemy. Therefore never shout about the uprising, otherwise the
element
of the unexpected in
the uprising is lost.
Here Comrade Rao
says – come before the people and ask them about the armed uprising... This is
never done, never cry out about your plans, they will arrest all of
you. Let us suppose the peasant
says: Yes we need an uprising. But this still does not mean that we
should follow the people,
and drag oneself along the tail of the people. Leadership signifies
that one has to carry one’s
own people. The people sometimes say that they are ready for an
uprising,
taking as their
point of departure the facts and events of their own region, but not
from the point of view of the
entire country in conformity with the overall achievability of the
uprising.
This question must
be decided by the CC. If this is clear then we can go over to the
next question.
Indian Comrades:
Yes, it is clear.
Comrade Stalin: You
ask, may the party organisation carry out the death sentence on a member of the party
upon whose devotion doubts have arisen. One cannot. Lenin always taught that the
highest form of punishment which the CC may carry out – is
expulsion from the party, but when the
party comes to power and some party member breaks the laws of the revolution, then the
government conducts the prosecution as its responsibility. From some
of your documents one
can see that comrades frequent incline to the side of individual
terror in relation to the
enemy. If you ask us, the Russian comrades, about this, then we must
say to you
that amongst us the
party is always trained in the spirit of negating individual terror.
If our own people struggle
against a landlord and he is killed in a skirmish we would not
consider that to be individual terror
in so far as the masses participated in the skirmish. If the party
itself organises terrorist
detachments in order to kill a landlord and this is done without the participation of the
masses, then we always come out against this as we are against
individual
terror. Such active
operations of individual terror when the masses are in a condition of passivity murders
the spirit of the self–activity of the mass, trains the masses in
the spirit of passiveness, and,
moreover, the people judge matters in the following way – we cannot
engage in activity, it is
the heroes who will work on our behalf. Thus, there is a hero and on
the other side is the crowd
which is not participating in the struggle. From the point of view of
the training and
organisation of the activity of the masses such a view is very
dangerous. In Russia there was such a
party – the SRs – which had special detachments to terrorise the
main ministers. We always
came out against this party. This party lost any credit among the
masses. We are against the
theory of the hero and the crowd. You ask also, how
does one at the present time put the question of the nationalisation
of land in India?
At the given stage
you do not need to advance this demand, never, on the one side, put forward the demand
for the division of the landlords’ land and simultaneously say that
the land must be given to the
state. In the countries of people’s democracy the nationalisation
of land was nowhere
proclaimed, more so in China. How did they deal with this in the
people’s democratic
countries? There they forbid the buying and selling of land. This is
the method of approach to
nationalisation. Only the state may acquire land. The accumulation of
land in the hands of individual persons has to cease. It would be
disadvantageous now for you to advance
the demand for
nationalisation. Some of your
comrades consider that civil war has started in India. It is early
yet to speak about this. The
conditions for civil war grow but they still have not grown.
What is to be done
by you now?
It would be good if
you had something like a programme, or let us say, a platform of action. Of course
you will have discord. There was also discord amongst us, but we
decided that: whatever was
resolved by the majority would become law. Even those comrades who
did not agree with the
majority decision, honestly carried out these decisions so that the
party acted with a single
will. All of you desire discussion. This may be permissible for you
in times of
peace but a
revolutionary situation is growing at your end and you must not
permit yourself this luxury. That is
why you have in your party so few people, your unending discussions
have disoriented the
masses. The Bolsheviks in the period 1903-12 carried out open
discussions so far as it was
possible under the conditions of tsarism with the objective of
driving out the Mensheviks as we
then had the line of splitting with them. But you do not have such a
situation
where the party
contains enemies. After that, as we hurled out the Mensheviks in 1912
and created our party,
free of Mensheviks, the party became homogeneous. There were differences–then
we would gather in narrow circles, discuss the problem and, as
decided by the majority, we all
worked. After the Bolsheviks came to power Trotsky thrust discussion
on the party which we did
not wish to embark upon. Trotsky provocatively stated that the party
did
not wish to have a
discussion as though the party wanted to fight against the truth. We
began the discussion and
defeated Trotsky. But this was a discussion against which the entire
party stood. If the party
is more or less homogeneous and has ideological unity, then such a
party is not in need of a
discussion. The discussion needs to be carried out in narrow circles,
and not in print. There, what
is decided by the majority, that is the law.
Ghosh: Comrade
Stalin is correct. Open discussion is no longer admissible for us.
Comrade Stalin: In
our party there are 5,600,000 members of the party and 800,000 candidate members.
What is the significance of candidate membership? Earlier instead of admitting members
into the party we verified those wishing to join it. Some were kept
waiting for four years, five
years, we verified, we trained them. Many wished to join the party,
but they had to be, first,
verified and, second it was necessary to train them. Elementary
socialist
education is
necessary and after that, admission. In our practice the institution
of candidacy has justified itself.
Around the party we have a large layer of sympathisers. But we must
not overcrowd the party
with new members, we must not overly enlarge the party. The main
thing is that the admitted
person has a deep quality, and not the quantity of the party members.
You also ask me –
under which conditions might one undertake partisan war. In the advanced capitalist
countries partisan war may not have great significance, here the
partisans are quickly seized.
An especially great significance attaches to partisan war in medium- developed and
backward countries. For example, it is very difficult to initiate
partisan war in the United States of
America or in Germany. Here essentially there are many large towns, a developed railway
network, industrial regions, and the partisans in these conditions
are at once caught. It is
necessary, in order that the mass of the people themselves consider
that they are
heroes, and the
heroes consider themselves as the executors of their own will, that
separate acts, directed
against the enemy, leads to passivity of the mass but to heightened
activity. In every way it is
necessary to support what has originated in Telengana. It is the
first sprouts of civil war. But one
does not need to rely on partisan war alone. It, of course, renders
assistance but itself it is in
need of help.
It is necessary to
have bigger work amongst the people, amongst the workers, in the army, amongst the
intelligentsia, the peasantry. If you brought armed detachments into
being amongst the workers,
they might at the right opportunity in situation of general confusion
seize government
institutions. In Leningrad we had the workers’ guards, we trained
them, and the workers proved to be
of great service to us at the time of the uprising, they seized the
Winter
Palace. Our
peasantry had big assistance from the side of the working class. In
general, out of all the classes of
society the peasants have great trust in the working class. It is
necessary to
unite these two
forms of struggle – the struggle of the workers and peasants, the
peasant uprising and the
march of the workers.
You remember the
events in Indonesia. The leadership of the communist party was good in Indonesia, but
they were provoked into a premature uprising. They were good,
legendary, courageous people,
but they got provoked and perished.
It would be good for
you if you have a platform or a programme of activity. Put as the focal point of this
platform or programme the agrarian revolution. You ask me also
about the character of the foreign policy of Nehru. It is one of
playing off and maneuvering and
it is intended to show that he is against the American policies. In
its deeds the Nehru
government plays off England and America.
[Comrades Rao,
Dange, Ghosh and Punnaiah thanked comrade Stalin for the discussion and declared that on
the basis of the instructions of comrade Stalin they will reconsider
all of
their activity and
would act in correspondence with these instructions.]
Comrade Stalin: I
have given you no instructions, this is advice, it is not obligatory
for you, you may or may not
adopt it.
[The conversation
continued for more than three hours.]
Taken down by V.
Grigor’yan 10.II.51. (Signed) V. Grigor’yan
Typescript. RGASPI
F. Op. 11 D. 310, LL. 71-86.
Published with the
kind permission of the authorities of the Russian State Archive of
Social and Political
History. Translated from the Russian by Vijay Singh.
Published in
Revolutionary Democracy, Sept. 2006.
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