THE IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCISM. DIMITROV.

The Ideological Struggle against Fascism

Dimitrov.

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One of the weakest aspects of the anti-fascist struggle of our Parties is that they react inadequately and too slowly to the demagogy of fascism, and to this day continue to neglect the problems of the struggle against fascist ideology.

Many comrades did not believe that so reactionary a brand of bourgeois ideology as the ideology of fascism, which in its stupidity frequently reaches the point of lunacy, would be able to gain any mass influence.

This was a serious mistake.

The putrefaction of capitalism penetrates to the innermost core of its ideology and culture, while the desperate situation of wide masses of the people renders certain sections of them susceptible to infection from the ideological refuse of this putrefaction.

Under no circumstances must we underrate fascism's power of ideological infection. On the contrary, we for our part must develop an extensive ideological struggle based on clear, popular arguments and a correct, well thought out approach to the peculiarities of the national psychology of the masses of the people.

The fascists are rummaging through the entire history of every nation so as to be able to pose as the heirs and continuators of all that was exalted and heroic in its past, while all that was degrading or offensive to the national sentiments of the people they make use of as weapons against the enemies of fascism.

Hundreds of books are being published in Germany with only one aim -- to falsify the history of the German people and give it a fascist complexion. The new-baked National Socialist historians try to depict the history of Germany as if for the past two thousand years, by virtue of some historical law, a certain line of development had run through it like a red thread, leading to the appearance on the historical scene of a national 'savior', a 'Messiah' of the German people, a certain 'Corporal' of Austrian extraction.

In these books the greatest figures of the German people of the past are represented as having been fascists, while the great peasant movements are set down as the direct precursors of the fascist movement.

Mussolini does his utmost to make capital for himself out of the heroic figure of Garibaldi. The French fascists bring to the fore as their heroine Joan of Arc. The American fascists appeal to the traditions of the American War of Independence, the traditions of Washington and Lincoln. The Bulgarian fascists make use of the national-liberation movement of the seventies and its heroes beloved by the people, Vassili Levsky, Stephan Karaj and others.

Communists who suppose that all this has nothing to do with the cause of the working class, who do nothing to enlighten the masses on the past of their people in a historically correct fashion, in a genuinely Marxist-Leninist spirit, who do nothing to link up the present struggle with the people's revolutionary traditions and past -- voluntarily hand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historical past of the nation, so that the fascists may fool the masses.

No, Comrades, we are concerned with every important question, not only of the present and the future, but also of the past of our own peoples. We Communists do not pursue a narrow policy based on the craft interests of the workers. We are not narrow-minded trade union functionaries, or leaders of medieval guilds of handicraftsmen and journeymen.

We are the representatives of the class interests of the most important, the greatest class of modern society-the working class, to whose destiny it falls to free mankind from the sufferings of the capitalist system, the class which in one-sixth of the world has already cast off the yoke of capitalism and constitutes the ruling class.

We defend the vital interests of all the exploited, toiling strata, that is, of the overwhelming majority in any capitalist country.

We Communists are the irreconcilable opponents, in principle, of bourgeois nationalism in all its forms.

But we are not supporters of national nihilism, and should never act as such.

The task of educating the workers and all working people in the spirit of proletarian internationalism is one of the fundamental tasks of every Communist Party. But anyone who thinks that this permits him, or even compels him, to sneer at all the national sentiments of the broad masses of working people is far from being a genuine Bolshevik, and has understood nothing of the teaching of Lenin on the national question.

Lenin, who always fought bourgeois nationalism resolutely and consistently, gave us an example of the correct approach to the problem of national sentiments in his article "On the National Pride of the Great Russians" written in 1914.

He wrote:

Are we class-conscious Great-Russian proletarians impervious to the feeling of national pride? Certainly not. We love our language and our motherland; we, more than any other group, are working to raise its laboring masses (i.e., nine-tenths of its population) to the level of intelligent democrats and socialists. We, more than anybody are grieved to see and feel to what violence, oppression and mockery our beautiful motherland is being subjected by the tsarist hangmen, the nobles and the capitalists. We are proud of the fact that those acts of violence met with resistance in our midst, in the midst of the Great Russians; that this midst brought forth Radischev, the Decembrists, the intellectual revolutionaries of the seventies; that in 1905 the Great-Russian working class created a powerful revolutionary party of the masses. .

We are filled with national pride because of the knowledge that the Great-Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class, that it, too, has proved capable of giving humanity great examples of struggle for freedom and for socialism; that its contribution is not confined solely to great pogroms, numerous scaffolds, torture chambers, severe famines and abject servility before the priests, the tsars, the landowners and the capitalists.

We are filled with national pride, and therefore we particularly hate our slavish past... and our slavish present, in which the same landowners, aided by the capitalists, lead us into war to stifle Poland and the Ukraine, to throttle the democratic movement in Persia and in China, to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskis, Puriskeviches that cover with shame our Great-Russian national dignity.

[V. I. Lenin, Collected Works 21:103-4]

This is what Lenin wrote on national pride.

I think, comrades, that when at the Reichstag Fire Trial the fascists working masses of the Bulgarian people, who are struggling heroically against the fascist usurpers, the real barbarians and savages, nor was I wrong in declaring that I had no cause to be ashamed of being a Bulgarian, but that, on the contrary,

I was proud of being a son of the heroic Bulgarian working class.

Comrades, proletarian internationalism must, so to speak, "acclimatize itself" in each country in order to strike deep roots in its native land.

National forms of the proletarian class struggle and of the labor movement in the individual countries are in no contradiction to proletarian internationalism; on the contrary, it is precisely in these forms that the international interests of the proletariat can be successfully defended.

It goes without saying that it is necessary everywhere and on all occasions to expose before the masses and prove to them concretely that the fascist bourgeoisie, on the pretext of defending general national interests, is conducting its selfish policy of oppressing and exploiting its own people, as well as robbing and enslaving other nations. But we must not confine ourselves to this. We must at the same time prove by the very struggle of the working class and the actions of the Communist Parties that the proletariat, in rising against every manner of bondage and national oppression, is the only true fighter for national freedom and the independence of the people.

The interests of the class struggle of the proletariat against its native exploiters and oppressors are not in contradiction to the interests of a free and happy future of the nation. On the contrary, will open up to it the road to loftier heights. By the very fact of building at the present time its class organizations and consolidate its positions, by the very fact of defending democratic rights and liberties against fascism, by the very fact of fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, the working class is fighting for the future of the nation.

The revolutionary proletariat is fighting to save the culture of the people, to liberate it from the shackles of decaying monopoly capitalism, from barbarous fascism, which is laying violent hands on it. Only the proletarian revolution can avert the destruction of culture and raise it to its highest flowering as a truly national culture -- national in form and socialist in content -- which is being realized in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics before our very eyes.

Proletarian internationalism not only is not in contradiction to this struggle of the working people of the individual countries for national, social and cultural freedom, but, thanks to international proletarian solidarity and fighting unity, assures the support that is necessary for victory in this struggle. The working class in the capitalist countries can triumph only in the closest alliance with the victorious proletariat of the great Soviet Union.

Only by struggling hand in hand with the proletariat of the imperialist countries can the colonial peoples and oppressed national minorities achieve their freedom. The sole road to victory for the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries lies through the revolutionary alliance of the working class of the imperialist countries with the national-liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries, because, as Marx taught us, "no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.

Communists belonging to an oppressed, dependent nation cannot combat chauvinism successfully among the people of their own nation if they do not at the same time show in practice, in the mass movement, that they actually struggle for the liberation of their nation from the alien yoke.

And again, on the other hand, the Communists of an oppressing nation cannot do what is necessary to educate the working masses of their nation in the spirit of internationalism without waging a resolute struggle against the oppressor policy of their "own" bourgeoisie, for the right of complete self-determination for the nations kept in bondage by it

If they do not do this, they likewise do not make it easier for the working people of the oppressed nation to overcome their nationalist prejudices.

If we act in this spirit, if in all our mass work we prove convincingly that we are free of both national nihilism and bourgeois nationalism, then and only then shall we be able to wage a really successful struggle against the jingo demagogy of the fascists.


SMASH MODERN REVISIONISM - FIGHT FASCISM

This is the reason why a correct and a practical application of the Leninist national policy is of such paramount importance. It is unquestionably an essential preliminary condition for a successful struggle against chauvinism - this main instrument of ideological influence of the fascists upon the masses.

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That is the reason why a correct and practical application of the Leninist national policy is of such paramount importance. It is unquestionably an essential preliminary condition for a successful struggle against chauvinism -- this main instrument of ideological influence of the fascists upon

ASSAM - OPPOSE CRIMINALIZATION OF CITIZENSHIP.

ASSAM - OPPOSE CRIMINALIZATION OF CITIZENSHIP.

{This article is published in ‘CLASS STRUGGLE’ the Organ of CPI(ML) CC}

The Tag of ‘Foreigners” attached to a section of people who migrated to Assam decades back continues to be a convenient tool for the parties of ruling classes to harass the concerned people.

Assam is a State where the National Register of Citizens was first prepared in 1951. A Citizenship Act was enacted in 1955. But the list of citizenship was not updated for a long time.

Assam attracted a good chunk of the masses of peasants and tea plantation workers from West Bengal at various times. Many of them made Assam as their permanent residence. In the context of the 1971 war, many people from the bordering villages of present Bangla Desh had migrated to Assam. The Indian Govt. had opened the doors of Assam for them.

In 1979 the AASU and AGSP led an agitation in Assam demanding the identification and deportation of foreigners from Assam. There reflected the tendencies of viewing even the people from West Bengal as foreigners. The agitation took a violent form and went on for six years. At last, the Rajive Gandhi Govt. at the Center and the AASU and AGSP – signed an Assam Peace Accord on Aug 15, 1985. This Accord said that anyone who came to Assam after the midnight of Mar 24, 1971 will be considered as a “foreigner.” The State Govt. must ‘detect and deport’ the illegal immigrants. However, the successive govt. in the state made little progress in their job. In 2005, the Central and state Govt. and AASU had signed another Agreement. It mandated the updating of NRC at the earliest. But this work was stopped in the half way. On the petition of a NGO, the Supreme Court had directed the state Govt. to complete the work.

While the job of updating the lists of NRC was still incomplete, the BJP Govt. at the Center came to the fore to give a dangerous twist to the problem. It introduced a “ Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliamenin2016 to amend the 1955 Act. This Bill has triggered off serious objections from the Opposition. The BJP Govt. was forced to send this Bill to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament in Aug’ 2016.

At the midnight on Dec 31, 2017, a first Draft of the Updated NRC was published in Assam. It noted that 13.9 million names out of 32.9 million are under scrutiny. Those whose names are under the scrutiny or missing are worried about their status. The State Govt. assures that there is no reason to panic as there is scope for corrections even after the final draft is out.

The BJP Govt’s Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 proposes to grant citizenship to ‘religious minorities’, barring the Muslims. It considers Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Bangla Desh, Afghanistan and Pakistan as eligible for citizenship. Here is a move to discriminate people based on religion and communalise the whole citizenship granting exercise. It is also a move by the Sangh Parivar to smuggle the idea of Hindu Nation from a back door.

Thus the granting of citizenship in Assam was complicated and made a never ending exercise. All these years, the ruling classes and Govts used the undetermined status of many to subject to various harassments, inequality and deny them the rights and evict them from the lands. They also used the insecure status of migrant people to reap votes out of it. Now the BJP’s move to exclude the Muslim migrants from the eligibility of citizenship pushes them into a most pathetic state. The democratic forces must oppose this policy tooth and nail and standby the just right of the Muslim people for Citizenship.

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Assam Peoples Struggle Against Forcible Evictions And For Radical Land Refoms.

Assam Peoples Struggle against Forcible Evictions and for Radical Land reforms.

[This article is from ‘ CLASS STRUGGLE’, the Organ of CPI(ML) Central Committee]

Ever since BJP came to power in Assam in May 2016 it is using repression as well as communal division as two weapons to trample the rights of the common people and enable the MNCs and Indian Corporate houses to grab and control large tracks of lands and valuable natural resources in Assam. The developments in the last one year provide a mirror for this.

In Raha, the people are protesting against the transfer of the site for a proposed AIIMS in the State. On 15 th July 2016, the govt. opened fire and killed a 25 year old man Mintu Dueri during a protest in Raha. The people of Banderdubi village near Kaziranga National Park were demanding resettlement and adequate compensation for the lands seized from them. The police shot dead two persons Anjuma Khatun and Fakhruddin on Sept 19,2016 when they were in a protest demonstration led by Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and All Assam Minority Students Union.

It must be noted that of the 198 displaced families in Banderdubi village, around 40 families were to take shelter in the houses of their relatives. The rest are living under the open in Baghmari, village. These people are mainly Muslims of erstwhile East Bengal origin settled in Banderdubi village more than half a century back. The Govt. had shifted 7 Hindu families to a safe place, but did not bother about the rest of the families. A clear show of communal discrimination!

After the eviction drive, an influential Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in an official Face Book page that the Govt. would never compromise on Jati, Mati, and Bheti (Nationality, Land and Home). Here is an attempt on the part of BJP Govt. to divide the Assam people as “Assamese” and “outsiders” and push the Muslim Community into an uncertain, insecure and pathetically

dependent state and make them easy targets of repression.

A year back, the BJP Govt. in Assam started a drive to evict the people from the government lands calling them as ‘illegal encroachers’. It began with Kaziranga and very soon extended to the entire state. After almost a year, it carried on this eviction drive in Sipajhar on 24 th Nov 2017. Here one person called Ananda Das, a native of Kuruva village was mysteriously kidnapped (Nov 21 st )

and murdered (Nov 23 rd ). But a violent mob went on rampaging alleging that the Gandhia Pather villagers are illegal immigrants and they are responsible for the murder of Ananda Das. They even ravaged and torched some homes. Dramatically, the District administration has immediately moved into action on 24 th Nov 2017 and forcibly evicted almost 60 families from their lands.

The evictions did not stop with Sipajhar. On 27 th November, 2017, they were carried out in the Amchang reserve forest around Guwahati. 700 families were evicted from the forest land alleging them as illegal encroachers. While Sipajhar evictions were carried in the name of an order from the High court, the Amchang evictions were carried out on the demand of Bajrang Dal activists. The Amchang eviction received much flak from every section of Assamese society as the evicted people were largely from Mishing and Bodo communities who lost their lands in Majuli, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji due to river erosion. These evicted people were left with no rehabilitation, no roof over their head.

The Sipajhar evictions were sought to be justified by portraying the villagers as illegal immigrants. But the fact is, almost all of them are legitimate citizens of Assam having voter ID cards. Their earlier generations moved from places like Jonia in Barpeta to escape poverty and river erosion. The people were further tricked into buying the Govt. lands from the locals of Kuruwa. The ruling party

got them voted in the 2016 elections but when it came to their right over the lands they branded the same people as illegal immigrants and illegally and forcibly evicted them from their own lands.

Coming to Amchang evictions, here, the tribal people are coexisting with nature and sustaining it for ages. But they are accused of ruining the forest resources. The Govt. has evicted these people on the allegation that they are destroying the ecology. As per the May 2017 notification of the Central govt. some of the evicted villages are revenue villages. They are marked as the Eco-sensitive villages, but they are not a part of reserved forest. According to the govt.’s own admittance, encroachment had taken place in some parts of Amchang much before they were notified as a Reserve Forest in 2004. But , in violation of laws, the commercial resorts, cement industries and the army firing range are allowed to continue in the reserved forest area.

The government is engaged in this massive displacement of people only as part its policy to hand over lands to the foreign companies and Indian Corporate Houses. It is removing the people from in and around Guwahati. The rulers consider Guwahati as an emerging a Geo-strategic industrial and logistical hub through which goods and services will be funneled to the neighboring states. It is also said that the areas like Sipajhar, Morigaon, Boko,Chaygaon etc. are important to sustain Guwahati as an industrial hub. All this is only a part of govt.’s larger policy of privatization. It is acting like an enabler. Providing easy access to large tracts of land to the MNCs and Indian Corporate Houses is a first step in this. Land acquisition continues to be difficult. So branding a part of the people as illegal immigrants, illegal encroachers, inciting the communal forces and tensions against them have become a part of the game for the BJP rulers in Assam to divide the people, set one section of people agents another, weaken their struggle, use brutal repression and push through their eviction drive more easily and even absolve themselves from the responsibility of providing proper compensation and rehabilitation to the people.

The rulers in Assam are talking much about saving ecological resources. But they almost destroyed the Patkai hills by allowing open mining in different parts of the state. They allowed the extraction of large amount of industrial wood from areas falling under Rabha Hasong Autonomous Councils and Chirang in BTAD. Huge tracts of land in the tribal belt were already handed over to the outfits like Patanjali and Dabur, etc. Clearly, the rulers are feasting a handful of fatty big business concerns by looting and starving the poor millions all in the name of development. On one side, the MNCs and Indian big business are allowed to massively and endlessly gobble the lands and other means of people’s livelihood. On the other side, every year a large part of State’s land is lost because of

erosions turning a large number of people homeless and landless. Hence, fight against the invasion into their lands and means of livelihood by the imperialists and Indian big business; for radical land reforms and a democratic, national and pro-people development policy has become most essential and urgent task of our people.

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