Written/Delivered: circa 1966
Source: The Collected Works of Charu Mazumdar
Published: Deshabrati Prakashani, publishing house of the Undivided C.P.I. (M-L)
Online Version: Charu Mazumdar Reference Archive, April 2004
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Basu Acharya and Mike B.
During the last two years, the spontaneous struggles of the petty-bourgeois youths and students have created a stir from one end of India to another. Although at the beginning the demand for food was the main demand, but gradually the demand for ousting the Congress government has become main. Chairman Mao has said: "The petty bourgeois students and youth are a part of the people and at the inevitable conclusion of their struggle, the struggle of the workers and peasants will reach a high tide." So hardly had the struggle of the students and youth ended, the peasants' struggle has begun in Bihar. Hundreds of peasants are harvesting and carrying away the crops. They are seizing the hoarded stocks of crops of landlords. This struggle is bound to spread in the coming days to West Bengal and other states. The government is resorting to violent repression to supress the agitating peasants. Chairman Mao has said: "Where there is oppression there is bound to be resistance against it." So we are witnessing spontaneous resistance in the struggles of the students and youth. The peasants of Bihar are carrying on resistance spontaneously. The official spokesmen are repeatedly declaring that they would resort to further repressive policies to preserve peace and order. So the responsibility of consciously building up resistance struggles has come up before the revolutionary working class and its Party.
This era is the era of active resistance movement. Active resistance movement will open up the source of the revolutionary genius of the revolutionary masses. It will spread the tide of revolution all over India. So in this age, to lead legal trade union or peasant association movement can never be the main task before the revolutionary cadres. Trade union or peasant association (Kisan Sabha) movement cannot be the main supplementary force in the present age of revolutionary tide. It would not be correct to draw from this the conclusion that trade unions or peasant associations have become outmoded. For trade unions and kisan sabhas are basically organisations to build up unity between Marxist-Leninist cadres and working class and peasant masses. This unity will be consolidated only when Marxist-Leninst cadres move forward in the work of building up the revolutionary party among the working class and peasant masses with the tactics of revolutionary resistance movement. The revolutionary working class and Marxist-Leninist cadres will have to go forward in the face of peasant struggles to give active leadership to the peasants' struggles through resistance or "partisan" struggles. The reactionary government of India has adopted the tactics of killing the masses; they are killing them through starvation, with bullets. Chairman Mao has said: "This is their class character. They launch attacks on the people even at the risk of being defeated." There are some leaders who faced with these indiscriminate murders, get scared and seek protection. Chairman Mao has said about them: "They are cowards and unworthy of revolutionary leadership." There is another group of people who boldly face death. They try to avenge every murder — they alone are revolutionaries and it is they who can show the masses the path.
Apparently the government might look powerful, because it has in its hands food and arms. The people do not have food; they are unarmed. But it is the unity and firm spirit of these unarmed masses that smash all the arrogance of reaction and make the revolution successful. So Chairman Mao has said: "The reactionary force is actually a paper tiger." In the present era, our main task will be on the basis of three main slogans.
First, unity of workers and peasants. This unity does not mean that the workers and petty-bourgeois masses will give only moral support to the peasant movement. This slogan means the realization that the peasants are the main force of the revolution in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country like India, the unity of peasants and workers can grow only on the basis of class struggle. So on the question of seizure of state power, Chairman Mao has said: "It is the liberated area in the countryside which is the concrete application of workers-peasants unity." So it is the responsibility of the workers, and particularly of the petty-bourgeois masses to develop peasants movement for building liberated areas. So Chairman Mao has told petty-bourgeois students and youth about movement: "Whether they are revolutionaries can be determined only by how much they become participants of this movement." Those who will not participate in this movement have the danger of becoming reactionaries.
Secondly, the revolutionary resistance movement, armed struggle. The reactionary government of India has declared war against every struggles for democratic demands of the masses. Inside India, it has created a playground for imperialist and feudal exploitation, and in its foreign policy it has turned India into a base of reaction in collaboration with imperialism and modern revisionists. The people of India have become rebellious against this intolerable situation. In this situation, the revolutionary resistance movement or armed partisan struggle of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party against reaction and the passive resistance movement of the revisionist party, have today become the main part of the Party's politics. So every Party member and revolutionary cadre will have to grasp this tactic of struggle. They should learn to practice it and temper the revolutionary spirit of the masses through propaganda among the masses. The success of the struggle is depending on how far we can popularise the politics of armed struggle through propaganda of it among the masses.
Thirdly, the building up of a revolutionary Party. In this revolutionary situation in India today, our Party organisation is not capable of giving leadership. Without being firm in theory, clear in politics and without a mass base in respect of organisation, it is impossible to give leadership in this revolutionary age of today.
(1) On the theoretical question: — It should be remembered that the Party leadership of the world's first socialist state, the Soviet Union, has been captured by a revisionist clique. As a result, revisionist influence has fallen on the Communist Parties of different countries of the world. In our country also as this revisionist influence was felt, the need for forming a seperate Party was felt. And as a result of that, a seperate Party was formed at the 7th Congress. The formation of a seperate Party does not mean that the fight against revisionism has ended. Revisionism speaks of fighting against imperialism, feudalism and the reactionary force, but in deeds it widens the path of collaboration with these forces. Marxism-Leninism firmly opposes these forces, avenges their every attack, and mobilizing the masses through long-drawn struggle alone destroys these reactionary forces. The old ideas become manifest in (i) not accepting the leadership of the great Chinese Party against international revisionists; (ii) in not accepting the new developing forces; (iii) in not making the working class conscious of this new realization; (iv) in not aiding the struggle of the peasantry, which is the main ally of the working class.
(2) Political: — The People's Democratic Revolution will have to be seen as the task of this moment. Chairman Mao has said, "No dying force gives up its power easily: freedom comes out only from the barrel of a gun." So in our politics the main part will be armed struggle for seizure of power. The common people have started this armed struggle spontaneously. The main aim of our politics will be to establish consciously this armed struggle on mass base. The basic three points are, (i) Worker-peasant unity under the leadership of the working class. (ii) Consciously establishing armed struggle on mass base, and (iii) firmly establish the leadership of the Communist Party. It is imperative not to leave aside any of these three tasks. This politics will have to be propagated extensively among the masses.
(3) Organisational: — The mass base of the Party will have to be extended. We have seen during the last few years, thousands of militant cadres come to join the work of the organisation during different movements and struggles, try to give leadership to the struggles, but the moment the movement stops, they again become inactive. Today, in the age of the revolutionary upsurge, people of many backward areas are coming forward on the road of struggles, and it is through those struggles that many young militant cadres are joining the work of the organisation. If we can educate these cadres in our revolutionary theory and politics, the Party can get its mass base. We shall have to begin working boldly on collecting these cadres and on forming secret groups with them. These cadre-groups will carry on political propaganda and will act as units of armed struggle. The striking power of the Party depends on how far we are able to form these groups in increasing numbers among workers and peasants. With whom we are forming the groups and organisational details, like shelter, dumps, etc., should certainly be kept secret. But our theories, politics and the slogan of Party formation must never be kept secret. In the age of armed struggle, every Party unit must be participants in the armed struggle and be a self-reliant leader. The general elections are coming. During these elections the discontented people desire to and will listen to politics. Before the elections, every party will try to propagate their politics among the masses. We shall have to take advantage of these elections to propagate our politics. Let us not be confused by the false slogan of non-congress democratic government. We shall have to take to the masses courageously the politics of our People's Democratic Revolution, that is, the politics of worker-peasant unity under working class leadership, of armed struggle, of establishing the leadership of the Party. If we fully take advantage of this it will not be possible for any leftist leader to oppose us. We shall have to take full advantage of this opportunity.