CENTENARY OF THE FIRST COMMUNIST CONFERENCE IN INDIA.

 Centenary of the First Communist Conference in India

Defeat Anti-communist propaganda of Fascist Rulers

Build People’s Struggles to advance revolutionary

movement towards victory!

 

Date: December 24, 2025 Venue: Subodh Mullick Square, Kolkata

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People’s upsurge in India against colonial rule after the First World War created the fertile ground in which the message of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia reverberated in India. The Communist movement was born with Marxism-Leninism as its guide and workers & peasants as the main forces for achieving independence from colonial rule and an egalitarian society in India. Terrified by the entry of this new force in the milieu of already growing anti-colonial struggle, colonial rulers hounded the communists and foisted the Peshawar conspiracy cases and the Kanpur conspiracy case. In this backdrop First communist conference was held on December 26, 27, 28 in 1925, in the city of Kanpur in UP, in which communist organizations working in different centers participated- those working in UP, Bengal, Bombay, Madras, and Lahore.

During the hundred years since this Conference, hundreds of thousands of communists devoted themselves to the cause of the toiling sections- workers and peasants, fought for independence of the country, and waged revolutionary struggles, including armed struggle to free the people of the country from the yoke of colonialism and feudalism subservient to it. A large number of communists, men and women, young and old, made the supreme sacrifice of their lives, dying at the gallows, in encounters, and in jails; braved the atrocities of the rulers, including long jail sentences, and endured countless hardships to advance the cause of revolution in India. They organized workers’ strikes, peasant struggles, including revolutionary struggles, organized tribals and Dalits, and built movements of students, youth, and women; fought for democratic rights of the people, including rights of oppressed nationalities occupying front rows in struggles of the Indian people.

In the colonial period, continuous agitation of communists helped bring the demand for complete independence to the agenda of the freedom movement, including that of the Indian National Congress. Struggles of workers forced colonial rulers to make several labour laws, while peasant struggles for which communists worked brought the land question to the national agenda. The influence of communists led to many progressive changes in society and which the ruling classes were also forced to recognize.

 Communists in India built countless struggles of the oppressed. Sholapur commune, though short-lived, was an important intervention of the working class in the freedom movement. Notable among peasant struggles were of Tebhaga, Punnapra-Vayalar, Worli, the glorious Telangana armed struggle, and the struggle in PEPSU. It is these struggles that forced the Congress Government to usher in the first round of land reforms. These led to the elimination of multiple layers of intermediaries. Later Land Ceiling Acts were passed by state governments, but these measures did not solve the land question. These struggles also led to the Bhoodan movement by Vinoba Bhave to contain the land struggles of the peasantry. Pressure of these movements was one of the important factors that compelled British colonial rulers to transfer power, changing India from a colony to a semi-colony.

The Communist movement in India not only faced repression from enemies but also obstacles placed by those who embraced revisionism, abandoning revolutionary Marxism. The Communist movement in India also had to struggle against the impact of modern revisionism. In this period, the communist movement was reorganized twice, and in the second reorganization, after the Naxalbari peasant armed struggle, CPI (ML) was formed. The revolutionary struggles of the people, especially the peasantry, were advanced later by communist revolutionaries. Armed uprisings followed Naxalbari, an armed uprising in Mushahari, Debra, Gopiballabhpur, Lakhimpur Khiri, and Srikakulam, and some other revolts of peasants, a stream which has continued in the form of attempts to wage armed struggle, including resistance struggles in different parts of India.

It is these struggles initiated with Naxalbari that forced the Government to usher in the second round of land reforms, leading to the formulation of a uniform policy on the ceiling on ownership of agricultural land according to the quality of land. Struggles of communist revolutionaries led to the occupation of lakhs of acres of land by tribals, forest areas, and landless poor peasants, mostly from Dalits and oppressed castes in plain areas. These struggles forced state governments to prohibit alienation of tribal lands. Communist revolutionaries are a continuation of the communist movement in India, building struggles against different types of oppression and opposing reactionary ideas and offensive. Communist revolutionaries thwarted attempts to evict tribals from the forest in the name of conservation and built struggles against the forcible displacement of tribals to hand over their land to corporations.

While people of the country have been struggling against the exploitation and oppression by the alliance of imperialism, big comprador capitalists, and big landlords, a major section of the ruling classes has rallied behind the fascist RSS-BJP, who, with their allies, are ruling at the Centre and in most of the states and are moving to impose fascist dictatorship over the country. This has not only intensified exploitation of workers and peasants, oppression of Dalits, minorities, tribals, and women, but has also jeopardized the future of students and youth and grossly diluted educational opportunities and health care facilities for the vast majority of the people, but has also endangered even the rights which had been won by the toiling people through their struggles and sacrifices. Fascists wish to do away with existing democratic rights and whatever rights of tribals, socially oppressed, and minorities are there in the Constitution. For this, they want to do away with the present constitution, whatever rights of states are in that, and to achieve these, they want to control all state institutions, including apex Court, packing them with RSS nominees.

 While a bigger section of the ruling classes backs the fascist forces, the conditions of the overwhelming majority of the people are declining and becoming unbearable.

Workers are being robbed of their rights by new Labour Codes, land reforms are off the agenda, while corporate penetration of agriculture is increasing and siphoning off the earnings of the peasantry, and tribals are being forcibly displaced for their land, while all-out attacks are being made against minorities, especially Muslims, mostly poor peasants and workers. Their lives, properties, and religious places are being continuously attacked while their patriotism is regularly questioned. Exploitation and oppression are being taken to new heights, and rulers are mocking the people by distributing alarms.

To usher in the fascist state, their Hindu Rashtra, RSS-BJP are ruthlessly attacking communist revolutionaries, killing them in fake encounters, denying them democratic rights, declaring that they would eliminate Naxalites by March 31, 2026. RSS-BJP has launched an all-out attack on revolutionary Marxism itself, as they consider it the biggest ideological challenge. Educational institutions are being packed by RSS obscurantists, critical thinking is being purged from the syllabi, and even slogans like Inquilab Zindabad and Lal Salam are being criminalized.

We are observing this Centenary at a time when the situation is full of challenges and opportunities. The imperialist system is plagued by ever-deepening crisis. Over accumulation of capital and drive to maximize profits, increasing scramble for natural resources and markets is intensifying contradiction between imperialism and oppressed countries and peoples, conflict among imperialist powers, and contradiction between labour and capital in imperialist powers. They are fanning wars in different parts of the world, wars becoming tools of maximizing profits. Capital is becoming intolerant of even existing democracy, promoting xenophobia and racism targeting immigrant workers. Brooking no obstacle ultra-right sections of the ruling classes are accusing liberals, even fewer rightist opponents, of being communists. Specter has come once again to haunt them. On the other hand, workers and other toiling sections are rising in struggles and protests.

In India also the fascist rulers, RSS-BJP, are launching attacks against all sections of toilers, targeting minorities, diluting federalism, monopolizing state institutions even changing the Constitution for this aim. They are targeting communist revolutionaries, conducting Operation Kagar to kill leaders and cadres of CPI (Maoist). They are trying to crush all dissent, branding democratic rights activists as “Urban Naxals”. They are erasing the rich history of anti-colonial struggles of the people of India and all cultures of resistance against oppression and exploitation. Struggles of the toiling sections and unity forged in the course of building these struggles is the most formidable fort against fascist forces and their drive to impose fascist dictatorship.

However, so deep is the crisis that imperialism and reactionaries can have no respite. They are being driven from one crisis to another, deeper crisis, afraid of the toilers of the world, their grave diggers. The objective situation is growing increasingly favorable. subjective forces have to be built.

During its existence communist movement in the country has faced many challenges, including the present danger of fascist dictatorship. We have made advances and suffered setbacks, built on positive developments and drawn lessons from the losses, and have tried and are trying to overcome weaknesses and shortcomings. We have assessed and accommodated changes in the international and national situation to advance the revolutionary movement. A century since the First Communist Conference has been a century of relentless struggle against rulers as well as of two-line struggle for the correct line to make revolution in India by waging a protracted people’s war; the struggle for evolving revolutionary mass line in India is continuing, having built glorious struggles and having made countless sacrifices.

We observe the Centenary of the First Communist Conference not only to celebrate a century of struggles and sacrifices but also, and more importantly, to rededicate ourselves to the victory of the New Democratic Revolution in India, a part of the world socialist revolution. And for this, Communist Revolutionaries in India must unite into a single party based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, practicing the revolutionary mass line, integrate ourselves ever closely with the workers and peasants, lead the struggles of all sections of people, minorities, Dalits, tribals, and women, and entrench the Party deep in their struggle.

Let the lessons of over a Century of the Communist Movement in India guide our path to victory and liberate the people of our country from want and misery; from exploitation and oppression; from the clutches of foreign and domestic corporate and big landlords.

Central Committee

CPI (ML) - New Democracy.

==================================================

ANTI-COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA IN POST-COLD WAR ERA.

 

Anti-Communist Propaganda in Post-Cold

War era.

[This article was written by Nikos Mottas, a political scientist, writer, and

journalist. He holds a Bachelor degree in political science, and two

Master's (MA) degrees in Diplomatic Studies and Public Policy. It is

published in World Marxist Review, 2024, Vol No.3, 41-52]

“A SPECTRE is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. All the

powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise

this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals

and German police spiesThe ”1. With this phrase, written in the

beginning of the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848, Karl Marx

and Friedrich Engels was pointing out the very first manifestation

of the phenomenon of anti-communism.

More than 175 years have passed since then. The world has

changed significantly, humanity has lived through two world wars, and

hundreds of regional ones. Science and technology have made

unimaginable progress in all fields. The epic of the 1917 Great

October Socialist Revolution, as well as the other socialist

Revolutions in several countries proved that the working class

has the power to come to the fore of history and abolish the

exploitation of man by man. Furthermore, the achievements and

conquests made in the 70 years of the existence Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics, but also in other socialist countries, including

The People’s Republic of China, Cuba, and Vietnam proved the

Superiority of the socialist system to capitalism.

What, however, has remained constant and unchanged since the times

of Marx and Engels, is the “spectre of communism”. Indeed, as a

component element of the ideology and strategy of the bourgeoisie,

Anti-communism appeared when the revolutionary theory of Marxism was

linked to the labor movement, i.e., the period when the struggle of

The working class has the characteristics of a battle for the

Conquest of power2. Since then, the phenomenon of anti-communism has

never stopped being present in every manifestation of political,

economic and social life throughout the 20th century and down to this

day.

Every counter-revolutionary activity in the previous century bears

the distinctive stamp of anti-communism: The imperialist intervention

of the Entente alliance against the young Soviet Russia in 1918 for the suppression of the Bolshevik revolution; the Anti-Comintern Pact

between the fascist states in the 1930s; the period of the so-called

Cold War and the persecution of communists in the capitalist states;

the various interventions (ideological, military, sabotage, economic

blockades, etc.) aimed at desalinizing socialism.

The prevalence of the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and

Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 1990s marked the beginning for

an escalation of anti-communism at all levels. Through bourgeois

historiography and mass media, a series of “theories” were

developed, aiming at slandering the actually existing socialism in the

Soviet Union and other countries of Europe and Asia. Consequently,

today, every aspect of the superstructure in modern capitalist

societies, from the educational system to the media, are permeated

With the poison of anti-communism. In this context, the communist

Ideology is presented as a utopia that led to the establishment of

“dictatorial/totalitarian/despotic” regimes, while at the same time

, a multitude of anti-scientific and anti-historical approaches

are vastly promoted, such as, for example, the so-called “Theory of

the Two Extremes”, which attempts to equate communism with Nazism.

Being a strategy of the bourgeois class, anti-communism is constantly

updated, renewing its means of attack and arguments accordingly.

Nonetheless, some basic characteristics remain unchanged, including

lie, irrationality, blatant exaggerations, and even obvious

ridiculousness, to put obstacles to the development of the

people’s class consciousness. Thus, we see, for example, the

demonization of the personalities of the international communist movement

(e.g., Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Joseph Stalin, etc.), The “discovery”

of communist “conspiracies” and “millions of victims of

communism”, as well as the characterization of the socialist

revolution as a coup d’etat against bourgeois democracy.

What is the major objective of anti-communism in our days? The

attempt to poison the working masses, mainly the younger generations,

about the past, the present, but most importantly, about the future of

socialism-communism. The aim is to convince the masses that

Capitalist barbarism is supposedly eternal, and there is no

alternative socio-economic system rather than the exploitation of man

by man. That is exactly why the contemporary struggle against

monopoly capitalism must go hand in hand with the study of history,

so that we can draw valuable conclusions from the struggles of the

previous generations of communists and the heroic traditions of the

international communist movement. The struggle against anti-communism,

the exposure of historical falsehoods is inextricably linked to the broader class struggle for the emancipation of the working class from

the shackles of exploitation. In the following lines, we provide some

limited, but otherwise quite characteristic, examples of anti

communist fallacies that have dominated the bourgeois historiography

during the last decades, as a modest contribution to the dialogue on

the History of Communism.

1. The Holodomor

The Great Famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine, commonly known as the

Holodomor has been one of the most prominent anti-communist

theories, according to which the Soviet government, under Joseph

Stalin deliberately planned and implemented a man-made famine in

order to punish the Ukrainian population and break its nationalist

tendencies. Numerous books have been written about this “Stalinist crime”, with the most famous being Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine3.

The truth is nowhere near the dominant anti-communist propaganda.

Being a fabrication of the Nazis and their Ukrainian

collaborators who emigrated to the U.S and Canada, the theory of

the“deliberate man-made famine” was adopted in the post-war

years by the U.S and Western European imperialism, within the

broader context of the anti-communist crusade against the Soviet

Union and the socialist countries.

The whole fallacy was initially based on a series of fake

reports published in the Chicago American in 1935, a news outlet

owned by pro-Nazi US magnate William Randolph Hearst. The author

of these reports, known by the pen name “Thomas Walker”, was a

real fraud and convicted forger who, as it was revealed later,

had never travelled to Ukraine, while many of the photos that had

being published in the newspaper had nothing to do with the famine

herself. There were photos taken in 1921-22, depicting the famine

caused by the imperialist intervention of the Entente and the Civil

War in Soviet Russia. In 1953, amid the McCarthyist

communist witch-hunt in the United States, Ukrainian nationalist

groups proceeded to the publication of the two-volume book The

Black Deeds of the Kremlin, a blatantly anti-communist work which

reproduced the theory of the manmade famine. Two of the book’s

main authors, Petro Pavlovich and Oleksander Hay-Holowko, turned

out that they had pro-Nazi backgrounds, while Pavlovich himself

was glowingly praising Adolf Hitler in some of his previous

works4. Almost three decades later, in the 1980s, the same lies

were circulated by Harvard Professor James E. Mace, who released a new version of Ewald Ammende’s book Human Life in Russia, which had incorporated the vast majority of falsehoods, inaccuracies and fake documents that had initially been published by Walker on the Chicago American. That is how a historical fallacy

was addressed with the academic validity of the prestigious Harvard

University!

Following decades of independent scientific research by

scholars, such as the extraordinary work done by Canadian

journalist Douglas Tottle, the anti-communist conspiracy theory

has been exposed. The famine really existed, but it wasn’t a

premeditated, man-made one caused by the Soviet government. If we

had to sum up the reasons that ultimately led to the 1932-33

events, these would be the following: a) The extremely intense

climate conditions of that period throughout the USSR;8 b) The

extensive counterrevolutionary activities (e.g., sabotage) of the

Kulaks and other reactionary elements as a response to the policy

of Collectivization; c) The economic situation that arose from

the painful, but necessary, process of Collectivization.

The rejection of the “man-made famine” lie has been supported

by the eyewitness accounts of foreigners who had a first-hand

experience of the situation in Ukraine during the 1930s. Among

those are the names of British-American journalist Walter Duranty,

British author and historian Herbert George Wells, French Prime Minister Eduard Eryo, and U.S journalist-author Anna Louis Strong.

2. The imperialist Lies on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Since the end of the Second World War, the bourgeois

historiography has tried to distort various major incidents in

order to vilify Socialism and the USSR. One of these incidents,

which has been a banner of imperialism’s apologists and all

kinds of anticommunists, is the notorious “Molotov-Ribbentrop

Pact, which was signed in 1939. In its unscientific,

unhistorical effort to equate Communism with Nazism, the

bourgeois propaganda presents the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a

medium of expansive policy by the Soviet Union and Hitler’s

Germany. The distortion of historical events, the amalgamation of

lies and the half-truths by the Imperialists and their

collaborators aim to defame the huge role of the Soviet Union

in the anti-fascist struggle of the Second World War.

However, the reality is different than the one presented by the

bourgeois historiography. Here, we will examine the circumstances and the events that led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, to debunk the anti-communist propaganda on this matter.

Having the financial and technical support of the US and European

monopolies9, Hitler’s Germany began to strengthen its armed forces in the mid-1930s. In 1936, the Nazis proceeded to the militarization of Rhineland, helped Mussolini in capturing Abyssinia (Ethiopia) while they played a crucial role in the imposition of Franco’s fascist dictatorship in Spain. The

strengthening of Nazi Germany and the beginning of fascism’s

expansion in Europe took place under the tolerance of the then

powerful “democratic” imperialist powers: Britain, France and

the US.

After the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938,

the Allies (Britain, France) proceeded to the Munich Agreement (30

September 1938). The apologists of Imperialism usually try to

downgrade the importance of this agreement between Britain,

France, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany. However, the

impact of the Munich agreement- an act of appeasement towards the

Nazis - was definitely significant. With the signatures of the

then British and French Prime Ministers, Neville Chamberlain and

Édouard Daladier, the Nazis annexed Czechoslovakia and

intensified their expansionist aggressiveness towards Eastern

Europe.

A few months later, on April 7, 1939, the fascist regime of Italy

invaded and captured Albania. On March 31, 1939, the governments

of Britain and France guaranteed the protection of Poland in case

of a Nazi attack, while both London and Paris signed bilateral

agreements of mutual aid with Poland. Nonetheless, when Germany

invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, Britain and France

declared war against Hitler but without taking any single

military action until the next year! From their side, the United

States declared its neutrality.

Before the invasion of the Nazi army in Poland, the government

in Warsaw had tried to negotiate with Hitler a possible joint

attack against the Soviet Union. The negotiations failed, as long

as the Polish bourgeoisie preferred instead to sign defense

agreements with Britain and France. What is important here is

that Poland had rejected an agreement of mutual defense (against

the Nazis) offered by the Soviet Union. The Imperialist

propaganda tries to obfuscate Britain and France’s stance of appeasement towards the Nazis and hides the reasons behind the US

“neutrality”. The words of US Senator Robert A. Taft are

characteristic: “A victory of communism would be much more

dangerous for the United States than a victory for fascism”10.

According to historian John Snell, the Western powers regarded

the Third Reich as a “barrier” against the Soviet Union in

central Europe. The strategic aim of the “democratic”

imperialist states were to turn Hitler against the Soviet Union;

in a few words, to use the Nazis as a weapon against the

construction of Socialism in the Soviet Union, which was the

initial aim of the so-called “allies”.

On that point, we must remind that, before the war and while

Hitler’s regime was building a powerful military, and For the Soviet

Union took numerous initiatives to deal with a defensive

agreement with the European capitalist states. Despite the Soviet

calls for the preparation of a common front against the Nazis,

the western European “allies” declined such a perspective. For

example, before the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Hitler annexed

Austria, the Soviet Union proposed an International conference

(March 1938) which would deal with the confrontation of Nazi

aggressiveness.

On July 23, 1939, the Soviet Union proposed to Britain and

The French began negotiations for the formation of a

defense plan in case of a German attack. However, the British

government had other priorities: to secretly negotiate a non

aggression pact with Hitler’s representatives in London. Indeed,

while the Soviet Union was proposing to the capitalist states an

anti-fascist front, the British government was secretly

negotiating with the Nazis the “spheres of influence” in Europe!

What the bourgeois historiography deliberately hides is the fact

that the Soviet Union was the only state that did not have an

aggressive, expansionist policy. Both sides of

international imperialism (the “democratic” capitalist allies

and, on the other hand, the Nazi-fascist Axis) were aiming at the

elimination of the Soviet Union. The real enemy of both sides was

the Socialist construction in the USSR, and for that, they didn’t

hesitate to use each other against Moscow.

The temporary non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and

Germany came after numerous efforts by the Soviets to deal a

defense agreement with Britain and France. Therefore, being underthe continuous threat of the expanding Nazi army and to prepare itself for an extensive war, the Soviet state forced to sign the non-aggression pact with Berlin. What bourgeois

historians and apologists of Imperialism call an “alliance

between Hitler and Stalin” was, in fact, a necessary diplomatic

maneuver by the Soviet Union to gain time and prepare

effectively for a full-scale war. Even bourgeois historians admit

that the Soviet policy was completely realistic, given the then

circumstances and the danger of a German attack11.

According to the imperialist propaganda, the Molotov-Ribbentrop

non-aggression pact led to the Soviet “capture” of a part of

Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.

Such arguments -about the supposed “Soviet occupation”- have

fostered the rise of fascist, neo-Nazi groups in these countries

after the counter-revolution in the USSR. However, the truth is

also quite different. Poland had participated actively in the

allied imperialist attack, which was launched against the newly

founded the Soviet state in 1918. With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,

signed on 3 March 1918, the Bolshevik leadership had renounced

Tsarist claims to Poland. The Polish government kept under its

control several areas in the Baltic region, including western

Belarus, western Ukraine, and a part of Lithuania). After the Nazi

invasion in Poland in 1939, the Red Army moved towards the

Soviet-Polish borders and liberated the above-mentioned areas.

The bourgeois-imperialist propaganda tries to distort history

when it refers to “Soviet occupation” - on the contrary, the

Soviet Army was the one which liberated the Baltic countries and

eastern Europe from the Nazis. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact did

not include any kind of Poland’s “partition”. On the contrary,

the 1938 Munich Agreement between Britain, France, and the Axis

(Germany, Italy) led to the partition of Czechoslovakia and the

seizure of the country by Hitler’s army.

Notes : 1. K. Marx, F. Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party.

New York: International Publishers. 2. The 1871 Paris Commune,

which was historically the first proletarian revolution that led

to the conquest of power by the workers for 72 days, was marked

by the extensive attack of the reactionary forces against the

Communards and the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA),

also known as the First International. 3. Applebaum, A. 2017. Red

Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. New York: Doubleday. 4. Tottle,

D. 1987. Fraud, Famine and Fascism. The Ukrainian Genocide MythFrom Hitler to Harvard. Progress Books. 5. Martens, L. 2009.

Another View of Stalin, Athens. Synchroni Epohi (Greek version).

6. See for example: Davies. R, Wheatcroft. St. 2004. The Years of

Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933. New York, Palgrave

Macmillan and Furr. G. (2014), Blood Lies, Red Star Publishers. 7.

Proclaiming Hitler “a great humanitarian and Savior”, Pavlovich

was writing: “Only by hard work and our lives will we be able to

repay our debt to Hitler and defeat Judeocommunism”, (Tottle,

1987). 8. Tauger, M. 2006. Modernization in Soviet Agriculture in

Modernisation in Russia Since 1900 (pp.84-103), Finnish

Literature Society. Tauger, M (2006). Stalin, Soviet Agriculture,

and Collectivization in Food and Conflict in Europe in the Age of

the two World Wars.

[Copied from the 'Class Struggle', monthly magazine of CPI(ML) Central Committee.]

***********************************************************************************