(DRAFT)
Communist Part Reorganisation Centre Of India
(Marxist-Leninist)
(CPRCI - ML)
August 1995
The Programme for People's Democratic Revolution of India sets the aim--viz, national liberation from imperialism and social emancipation from feudalism--which is to be achieved through seizure of State-power, by the revolutionary masses of the Indian people, from the ruling class alliance of the big bourgeoisie and the landlords subservient to imperialism, and through establishing the People's Democratic State. The political strategy for achieving this revolutionary aim is that of pitting the revolutionary class-alliance of the proletariat, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie, under the leadership of the proletariat, against the ruling reactionary class-alliance.
It is crucial for revolutionary practice to have a broad conception regarding the general course or path that the revolution is going to traverse for realising its aim of seizure of power, and also regarding the concrete plan of tasks and policies for the present initial phase that would serve to materialise the revolutionary strategy.
1. Ruling classes never give up power peacefully. Political power has to be seized from them by armed force. This is the central task and highest form of every revolution. India is no exception to this historical-universal truth and law of social development. Transgressing this, any advocacy of peaceful or parliamentary path for the Indian revolution is an outright betrayal.
1.1 The basic dynamic objective of the revolutionary strategy and tactical line is to rally and prepare the people to break free from any illusions and control of the existing State, the parliamentary system included; to develop their political consciousness regarding the anti-people class character of the existing State and the unavoidable necessity to overthrow it; and to lead them in the building of their political-organisational and military capability of ultimately overthrowing and replacing this State. Serving of this objective is the primary criterion with which the revolutionary forces are to devise the political content of their policies and conduct of struggle in respect of the parliamentary system too.
1.2 The repeated projection of the elections and parliamentary institutions, as a vibrant democracy and the means to solve problems of the Indian people, is a fraud played on the Indian people by the ruling classes and their revisionist cohorts. The parliamentary system in India is no more than a poorly gilded mask of the essentially autocratic Indian State that thrives on and fiercely defends the semi-colonial semi-feudal social order.[1] In contrast to any bourgeois democracy, here in India, the colonial origin the undemocratic social foundation comprador-feudal class character and authoritarian operation of the existing State, its Constitution and its parliamentary system, make it incumbent on the part of the communist revolutionaries to work basically as in an autocratic country always keeping their organisational network secret and giving main importance to illegal form of activity for developing the democratic revolutionary movement on a reliable basis. In India, there is neither the scope nor the necessity to utilise the legal struggles (or parliamentary struggle) as a major form of struggle over a long period of time to prepare the people for seizure of power simultaneously throughout the country, as is necessary in the case of capitalist countries.
1.3 This strategic view and the two precepts--having to develop illegal form of activity from the start and having to keep the Party organisational network secret--should be deeply ingrained in the tactical orientation of the revolutionary forces in all their activities, particularly while utilising the available legal opportunities. Whatever marginal legal opportunities are there due to the existence of the constitution and the parliamentary system, for the struggling people and communist revolutionaries, should be utilised by them when possible and necessary, for revolutionary propaganda and rallying wider and wider section of people. But they should never bind themselves to or rely on these legal opportunities in determining their political conduct, plan of work, scope of propaganda and agitation. Legal opportunities should be utilised in the service of the revolutionary movement, but they can never be the basis of the tactical line of the People's Democratic Revolution.
1.4 In this connection, it is pertinent to mention that the question of struggle vis-a-vis the parliamentary institutions in India, in one form or another, can be properly conceived and tackled by the Party with the above-stated orientation in command. Subordinate to the strategy and tactical line, the question of struggle in respect of the parliamentary institutions in India, in the form of participation in or boycott of elections, is a question of tactics.[2] However, within the frame of Leninist principle concerning them, the application and practice of either of the tactics in India will be qualitatively different from that in capitalist countries, because of the difference in the respective State and social systems, character of the parliaments, and consequently in the strategic paths of revolution.
2. India is a vast country with a wide geographical and social diversity. It is marked by uneven economic, social and political development, between its cities and villages, and between its different regions.
Though interspersed with the imperialist-controlled and distorted capitalist enterprises, the Indian economy is predominantly a backward agricultural economy. In spite of the existence of an apparently countrywide market, it is not a unified national capitalist market where different regions are economically integrated. And large tracts of rural India, particularly the tribal and other backward regions, are more or less economically segregated, sustaining on their own, and are not dependent on the cities. The vast peasant masses, who constitute the overwhelming majority of productive forces, are directly under the hold of feudal semi-feudal production relations. The intensity and forms of this feudal, semi-feudal plunder and oppression too vary from region to region. In particular, there are large tracts of tribal population, which have become special targets of ruling classes' ruthless plunder, uprooting and suppression and are treated as pariahs from the national mainstream.
Similarly, while there have been democratic and national revolutionary struggles of the Indian people especially of the peasant masses, at one time or other, in major parts of the country, there are variations in the prevalent degree of democratic awakening of the people from region to region or among sections of the people.
On the other hand, in spite of the massiveness and extensiveness of the repressive, coercive apparatus of the State and in spite of a countrywide network of transport and communication systems, the counter-revolutionary striking capability of the ruling classes and their State is uneven. While the cities, particularly the large ones, have become the bastions of counter-revolutionary strength of the ruling classes, the countryside remains largely as their backyard - particularly, the tribal and other backward regions remain as the weak links in the counter-revolutionary coercive chain of the State.
Besides, there is an unceasing basic conflict of interests among different imperialist powers which compete for control over the Indian market and resources, and correspondingly, among different Indian ruling-class factions that follow them. Even otherwise, there exist internal feuds among different sections of the ruling classes, in particular the landlord class. These inter-imperialist and intra-ruling class contradictions are bound to intensify and break into open feuds, as the crisis further deepens and as the people's democratic revolutionary movement advances. This makes it impossible for the enemy camp to act in unison to suppress or contain the revolutionary people's upsurges for seizure of power in different parts of the country--on the whole and at all times.
2.1 These features of semi-colonial, semi-feudal India, make it possible and necessary, rather inevitable, that the State power be seized by the revolutionary forces of the Indian people, not simultaneously throughout the country by means of a concerted armed insurrection but first in some regions of the countryside, in the form of setting up liberated base areas of parallel people's democratic State-power, by means of armed peasant revolts and prolonged armed struggle; and then, step by step, throughout the country. This process of seizure of power will be carried forward through a tortuous and protracted course of consolidating, expanding and linking up of these base areas, extending them in the direction of surrounding big towns and cities, linking up the operation of rural-based people's armed forces with the popular upheavals and revolts in these urban areas in a planned way and finally capturing these bastions of counter-revolution. Thus, the entire country will be liberated by means of protracted people's war.
2.2 The vast peasant masses, particularly the landless and poor peasant masses, who constitute the majority of rural population, are the worst hit directly by the semi-feudal socio-economic order and indirectly by the imperialist plunder and oppression. Their lives are bonded to a backward mode of agricultural production, under semi-feudal production relations, in which land remains the chief means of production but is concentrated in the hands of landlords and production is characterised by scattered, individual labour process and by individual ownership or holding in cultivation. The central role of force and arbitrariness of social and State authority are living realities of their daily life. Because of such material existence, these peasant masses, in their consciousness and immediate concern, yearn to own sufficient land for self-cultivation and to get rid of all kinds of social oppression as well as police-bureaucratic excesses and exactions. These yearnings and resentments of the peasantry, objectively pit them directly against the socio-economic control and political power of the landlord classes and fill them with antipathy towards the State-machinery. If organised with proper political orientation, these peasant masses are bound to rise in armed revolt to progressively challenge the landlord classes' socio-economic-political power and take on the State machinery.
However, such armed peasant revolts cannot develop uniformly or simultaneously throughout the country. They can break out and advance to their full potential, first only where the feudal plunder and oppression is more acute; the democratic awakening of the people is greater; the class struggles of other sections of the people in the region are also on the rise; and where the ruling classes' counter-revolutionary strike-capability is weaker.
Anyhow, these peasant-revolts, because of the numerical strength of the peasant masses and their direct armed confrontation with the landlord classes, can deliver fatal blows to feudalism, which is the very social foundation in India of the international imperialist-bourgeoisie and the indigenous big bourgeoisie, and act as the battering rams of the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist revolutionary movement of the Indian people. That way, the protracted people's war is going to be essentially a peasant war.
2.3 At the same time, the very material conditions of work and life of the peasant masses, as fore-stated, which lend revolutionary intensity to their class-urges and struggles, cause limitations too in their revolutionary thoroughness and political consistency. Because, as a class, peasants are not a vehicle of a new mode of production and are naturally inclined only towards a democratic re-ordering of private property but not its elimination. Only proletarian leadership can lend revolutionary thoroughness and consistency to their anti-feudal and anti-imperialist movement, instill a strong sense of organisation and discipline in the fighting ranks, and integrate the revolutionary struggles of all other sections of Indian society with peasant armed struggle. So, the protracted people's war is going to be a war led by the proletariat.
2.4 Besides, wherever and whenever the anti-feudal peasant struggles develop into armed agrarian revolts, having built their own democratic platforms and instruments of armed resistance in the process, these armed revolts would have to invariably advance as guerrilla armed struggle. This is because, as the peasantry launch armed agrarian revolt for seizure of means of production and political power, they, in spite of being politically strong, would have to face a far superior enemy (ruling classes) in terms of military strength. The international experience as well as the experience in our country stand testimony to the historical fact that whenever a socially large but militarily weak popular force confronts a small but far stronger reactionary enemy, the guerrilla form of armed struggle is the only form of warfare that can gradually change the balance of forces in favour of the large but popular force seeking to seize power. As guerrilla warfare, by its very nature, avoids decisive military engagements with the stronger enemy-forces and requires that the people's guerrilla forces keep the initiative of fighting in their own hands--fighting at the time and place of their own choosing and to their advantage--the change in the balance of forces cannot be brought about quickly but takes place over a long period of sustained guerrilla struggle. So, the Indian people's revolutionary war has to be a protracted guerrilla war.
2.5 Setting up of liberated base areas has to be an indispensable pursuit of the people's armed forces of India as a strategic objective of the armed struggle for State-power and as the reliable basis for carrying on the protracted guerrilla struggle. Although the revolutionary guerrilla war under the leadership of the proletariat, by its very nature and from the very beginning, is based on the extensive support and involvement of the masses of people, mainly the peasant masses, a liberated base area is the most consolidated and comprehensive manifestation of the mobilised might of the people in favour of guerrilla war and against the enemy. That means, the people would have their own armed forces developed and trained enough to inflict defeats on the enemy forces; the broad masses of the people would be greatly aroused, on the basis of the People's Democratic Programme, especially the deepening of agrarian revolution, to set up their own organs of political power and re-arrange economic and social affairs so as to create a strong material backing for the protracted guerrilla war. Such liberated base areas would serve as living demonstrations of the revolutionary alternative and the way to liberation for the revolutionary masses all over the country, exerting tremendous political pressure on the enemy-held areas and giving a marked fillip to the people's struggles everywhere both for their own class demands and against the attempts of the ruling classes to stifle the base areas. Thus, a liberated base area would signify a total war waged by the people on military, political, economic, social and cultural fronts.
2.6 The experience of the revolutionary people's struggles of India in the past, notably the Telangana peasant armed struggle (1946-51), the Naxalbari armed peasant uprising (1967-68) and the Srikakulam peasant armed struggle (1968-70) clearly indicate the validity of the path of protracted people's war for the People's Democratic Revolution of India. Despite the historical limitations and other weaknesses of these struggles, all three of them positively demonstrated how the anti-feudal struggles of the peasant masses, under the leadership of the proletariat, when conducted on the basis of an agrarian revolutionary programme or perspective and imbued with the revolutionary politics of seizure of State-power, invariably tend to develop into armed agrarian revolts and guerrilla war against the reactionary Indian State. The great Telangana armed struggle in particular, provided the most authentic practical evidence of the feasibility of establishing parallel people's political power in the Indian countryside by dint of the peasant-based and communist-led guerrilla armed struggle
2.7 Thus the existing socio-economic and political conditions and the past experience of revolutionary struggles of the Indian people both point out that the Path of Indian revolution is essentially, the Path of Protracted People's War, as theoretically propounded by Comrade Mao Tsetung. Not only the Chinese revolution could succeed following the Path of Protracted People's War as propounded by Mao but also the national democratic revolutions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia could advance to success in the past by following this Path. Even now, the people's democratic revolutions in various semi-colonial semi-feudal countries like Peru, Philippines, etc. are proceeding along this path. In fact, in none of the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries where revolutions succeeded, have there been countrywide insurrections. Mao's theories concerning the strategy and tactics of people's war are the most developed expression of revolutionary political-military thought of the proletariat to date and constitute the basic frame of reference for mapping out the general course and plan of operational tasks for revolutions in all semi-colonial semi-feudal countries.
2.8 It is our fundamental task to apply Mao's theories concerning strategy and tactics of People's War to the concrete practice of Indian revolution. The specific features obtaining in India are likely to necessitate some changes in form and thus even develop some special features of this Path of Protracted People's War in India, but the substantials of it would remain the same. What concrete forms it takes in the earlier and later stages, the advance of Indian revolution alone will decide. For the present, we have to firmly grasp the main direction of revolutionary advance as already described, adequately sum-up the experiences of armed struggles that have taken place in India, particularly in Telangana, Naxalbari and Srikakulam, and better work out the concrete plan of tasks to prepare the people and lead the Indian revolution along the Path of Protracted People's War. Obviously, it is essential that the entire tactical orientation of the revolutionary forces is imbued with the perspective of people's war path.
3. Every revolution has its own share of relative advantages and disadvantages. Revolutionaries always seek to make full use of advantages and overcome or neutralise disadvantages by working out correct strategy and tactics.
International support available to a revolution always constitutes a significant advantage, whether it be a great or moderate one. As is the case with every revolution, Indian revolution also will have international support. For all that, Indian revolution will be won basically by the Indian people with their own strength, while taking advantage of the national and international situation. This is fundamental in a revolutionary mass line; and the path of People's War is based on this line. Only such an approach would prompt the Indian revolutionaries confidently to handle the advantages and disadvantages at hand.
3.1 Advantages and disadvantages the Indian revolution has, relative to the earlier revolutions, pertain to the time-period. We are preparing to unleash protracted people's war in India at an advanced stage of the present era, the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Irrespective of the zig-zags involving the loss of proletarian State-power in the erstwhile socialist countries, the present historical phase of world development denotes an objectively advanced level of the decline of imperialism and of the unfolding of world proletarian revolution. That reality finds major expression in imperialism's loss of all moral-ideological legitimacy and the world people's enhanced awareness of and resistance to the imperialist oppression, bullying, aggression and war. As that reality finds expression in the revolutionary consciousness of the Indian people and raises its level further, it constitutes a major asset for developing People's Democratic revolutionary movement of India. On the other hand, the Indian revolution could not avail of fully or adequalely the existence of strong and prestigious socialist countries in the past, and now, the lack of that favourable factor constitutes a serious disadvantage. Another advantageous dimension of the present historical situation of the Indian revolution accrues from its access to the rich revolutionary experience and theoretical contributions of the past proletarian revolutions' the Chinese revolution in parlicular. This revolutionary wealth has been earned with the toil and blood of hundreds of thousands of revolutionary fighters the world over and constitutes the most valuable asset of world proletarian revolution and thus of the Indian revolution. It is as strong an advantageous factor for pushing ahead the Indian revolution as the Indian revolutionaries would be able to make it by their diligent efforts to tap it and scientifically use it. If properly grasped and integrated with the concrete practice of Indian revolution, it alone can give them enough strength to overcome all the disadvantageous factors that confront them.
3.2 Further, there are certain disadvantages and advantages the Indian revolution has relative to the other contemporary revolutions. Again, primarily these pertain to the time-period, at the national level. The Indian ruling classes were given a breathing space after the 'transfer of power', thanks to the betrayal of the Indian revolution by the revisionists. The ruling classes were given enough time to replenish their forces, disrupt the revolutionary movement and corrupt a section of vocal population by the so-called parliamentary or "Panchayati Raj" system (as a part of creating a network of middlemen and imposed dependence of the people on them). The unusual national/ethnic, religious and social diversity of India and the resultant divisions in the Indian society, especially the social divisions owing to the pernicious caste-system, had been a perennial feature responsible for complicating the process of revolutionary transformation of Indian society. The ruling classes were given enough time to manipulate and aggravate such divisions to the detriment of the revolutionary unity and class struggles of the Indian people. Lastly, one should not underestimate the fact that the ruling classes are armed to the teeth while the revolutionary forces have to proceed from elementary levels on both the planes - political-organisational as well as military. These are some of the disadvantages resulting from a delayed revolution in India. Revolutionaries should take note of them in working out their tactics.
The set of disadvantages due to the delayed revolution, however, has its opposite aspect too which, although of a secondary nature at present, suggests all the same that, under suitable conditions, the aspect of disadvantages would give way to the aspect of advantages. After decades of plunder and misrule the ruling classes' economy and politics stand bankrupt before the Indian people, who are thoroughly disgusted with the existing state of affairs and vaguely yearn for a revolutionary alternative to the present system. Given the correct lead, they will be ready to proceed fast along the
Path of People's War to change the present system. Not only the geographical vastness and demographic plenty happen to be great natural assets for conducting guerrilla warfare in India, even the national/ethnic, social and religious diversity may ultimately militate against the reactionary Indian State. Because the cynical manipulation, callous and authoritarian handling, and ruthless suppression by the Indian rulers, over the decades, have alienated and antagonised various border nationalities, made the religious minorities feel insecure, made the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes as well as other socially deprived sections intensely feel neglected, slighted and marginalised from the national-social mainstream. On proper handling by the revolutionaries, from a secular, democratic and class standpoint and within the frame of anti-imperialist anti-feudal movement, these forces can veer round to the democratic revolutionary platforms, and lend broader range and intensity to the revolutionary mobilisation of the Indian people against the reactionary Indian State. Similarly, the fact that the Indian ruling classes are armed to the teeth is also painfully realised by various peoples belonging to the neighbouring countries who have experienced, at one time or the other, the bullying, intervention or aggression by this South Asian military power, with the backing or connivance of imperialist powers. This circumstance has given rise to new scope and necessity of revolutionary collaboration among the peoples of South Asia against the common counter-revolutionary menace posed by the Indian State, and to some extent, even to the interest of the neighbouring counties in the growth of anti-State armed forces within India. Indian people can make skillful use of such tactical opportunities according to the concrete conditions obtaining at the given time--with a differentiated approach towards the rulers the peoples of these countries. Last but not the least, during the long-drawn period of gestation of the national democratic revolution of India, particularly since the arrival of the proletariat on the national stage as an independent political force in the Nineteen Twenties, the revolutionary movement has gathered a lot of practical experience. The fact that this experience is largely negative in nature, does not lessen its value and utility for making the past serve the present and shape the future.
3.3 It comes out clearly from the fore-going analysis that the factors which should place Indian revolutionaries in a position of strength to overcome the existing disadvantages have much to do with their ability profoundly to study and sum up or grasp the experiences of earlier revolutions and major revolutionary struggles in all lands, particularly in India. The existence of a capable and dynamic proletarian party organisation is a pre-condition of effectively handling the task of imbibing this rich revolutionary heritage. So, the development of the Party--in terms of proletarian class-ideological solidity, its theoretical political acumen and its integration with the class struggles of the basic masses of Indian people--is the key-link of the whole endeavour to utilise the advantages, overcome the disadvantages and march forward along the path of people's war.
4. The communist party being the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat, the political, organisational and military leadership provided to the revolution by the communist party of India would be the chief expression of the hegemony of the proletariat. In that way, the leadership by the communist party becomes an indispensable requirement of the Indian revolution. That is why, the task of development of the communist party which apparently should be the concern solely of the proletariat of India, objectively becomes the revolutionary concern of the Indian people and constitutes one of the basic problems or strategic tasks of Indian revolution. The successful tackling of this basic problem, along with the two other basic problems--viz.. developing of the united front of all revolutionary classes and developing of the armed struggle--constitutes the crux of providing effective leadership to the people's democratic revolution of India. The whole history of the course of India's national democratic revolution clearly shows how the advance, derailment or failure of the revolution has been bound-up with the correct handling, mishandling or ignoring of these basic problems, the development of the communist party in particular.
4.1 The process of development of the communist party of India encompasses its ideological, political, organisational and military development and consolidation. Essentially it is a matter of its ideological-political development, for its organisational and military development is determined, in the final analysis, by its ideological political development. Further, while the Party itself is guided by the proletarian class ideology--Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought--the Party leads the Indian revolution on the basis of revolutionary politics i.e., the programme for India's People's Democratic Revolution and the appropriate strategy and tactics. In other words, the substance of revolutionary leadership provided by the Party reflects Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought only as integrated with the concrete practice of Indian revolution. So, notwithstanding the fact that the ideological development and consolidation of the Party underlies its political development and consolidation, its ideological development remains a specific class-concern of the proletariat of India while its political development becomes the general problem of Indian revolution too. This means, that the political development of the Party would take place, in the context of the development of the Indian revolution; and it would be moulded by the specific features and laws of the Indian revolution and the policy requirements ensuing therefrom. More specifically, the political development of the Party would take place in interaction with and under the influence of the development of armed struggle and the development of revolutionary united front.
4.2 Proceeding from the premise "that the political development of the party would take place in the context of the development of Indian revolution", it follows that the Party would earnestly seek to develop and integrate with the mass revolutionary movement of the Indian people, the toiling people in particular, and tend to acquire a broad mass-base. Proceeding from the next premise that "it would be moulded by the specific features and laws of the Indian revolution...", it follows that the inquiring spirit of the Party would be whetted by the necessity of grasping the specific features and laws of lndian revolution. Proceeding from the premise that it ''would take place in integration with... the armed struggle and... revolutionary united front", it follows that the development of armed struggle would lend its special imprint to the process of revolutionary steeling of the Party; and the development of revolutionary united front would prompt the Party to better develop the broadness of its political approach and necessary flexibility in practical conduct to pull along forces with diverse views but basically compatible interests.
5. The armed struggle is the highest form of class struggle of which agrarian revolutionary movement is the axis. While the class struggle develops through a process, from lower to higher to the highest levels and corresponding forms, it is the task of the communist revolutionaries, throughout all phases of the revolutionary movement, to constantly educate the people in the politics of seizure of political power and to prepare them for armed struggle in an appropriate manner (to enable them to imbibe the necessary revolutionary consciousness and preparedness on the basis of their own experience). It is the level of consciousness and preparedness of the people that determines the realisation of the necessity and launching of any form of struggle including the armed struggle. While the armed struggle proper will start at a certain level of development of the agrarian revolutionary movement (which is objectively verifiable in terms of actual manifestations of the consciousness and preparedness of the people to seize and control the means of production and hence political power through their own instruments of struggle and power), the people should be guided and prepared to arm themselves to put up self-defence and resistance to armed attacks of the ruling classes and their agents; the party forces among the masses playing the leading role in carrying out such self-defence--all of which is a part and parcel of the process of development of class struggle to its highest form--the armed struggle. Integrating the revolutionary struggles of different sections of people with the agrarian revolutionary movement and integrating and developing different forms of struggle to the armed struggle, should be addressed to by the communist revolutionaries with an integral concept and plan of tasks of the revolutionary movement in all the stages of the process of its development. In a nutshell, the process of development of armed struggle should be conceived in its organic relationship with the process of development of the class struggle, of the Party and of the revolutionary united front.
5. 1 Though the objective in starting armed struggle is to set up liberated base areas, the present correlation of forces in India is such that it is not possible to achieve this aim immediately. To achieve this aim, it is necessary to create areas of armed struggle in a number of areas in the country. For a long time they will be guerrilla zones in the military sense of the term. With the numerical extension of such areas of armed struggle it becomes extremely difficult for the ruling classes to concentrate their armed might in one area. During this process there arises a favourable situation, wherein revolutionaries will be able to wrest the initiative from the ruling classes, and to advance towards the setting up of liberated base areas. Some major changes in the national and international situation may also lead toward quicker development of liberated base areas.
5.2 Revolutionary forces have to fight armed battles in the guerrilla zones for quite some time. Guerrilla forces, skilled and tempered over a long time in these battles, grow in number as well as in experience. In the course of these battles there arises a situation wherein the guerrilla forces are able to defeat the armed forces of the ruling classes. This is the time when a part of the guerrilla forces is turned into a regular people's army. The people in the area are mobilised to help the people's armed forces in inflicting defeat after defeat on the enemies' armed forces and wiping them out. This is how liberated base areas come into being. They are constantly extended into adjoining regions, eventually covering a vast area and a sufficient population with the necessary resources for the people's sustenance.
It is possible to set up liberated base areas in the plains and deltaic areas (where there are well-knit communication lines) at an advanced stage of the armed struggle. In the same way, towns adjoining the base areas are liberated first, then the rest and finally the whole country.
5.3 Indian revolution is directed against feudalism and imperialism. All those who work for this revolution can join the People's Army. Huge number of militants especially from the poor peasants and agricultural labourers, will come forward during the agrarian revolutionary struggles. They must be assimilated first as People's Militia, then guerrilla squad-members and then as soldiers of the People's Army. Students and intelligentsia who join the revolutionary ranks would also join the People's Army. They must work among the masses for some time and integrate themselves thoroughly with the people in order to serve the revolution.
Working class militants, those who are victimised, retrenched or those who volunteer themselves, together with its advanced section, should form part of the People's Army. This is necessary to give it a working class orientation. This is one of the conditions of establishing the practical leadership of the working class to the revolution.
These militants serve in the people's militia first. Normally guerrilla squads are developed from among the advanced members of the People's Militia. When guerrilla warfare reaches a higher level and conditions are created for setting up liberated base areas, the People's Army units are formed and developed.
The People's Army is the army of the people. It should consist of revolutionary elements and should be led by the advanced guard of the proletariat. In short, the Party has to lead the army at all levels. The army should be educated in historical materialism, revolutionary politics and the principles of People's War. Learning from the experiences of the battle field, it will be an invincible force in the course of time. This applies to the guerrilla squads and People's Militia as well. It is to be noted that patriotic elements from the enemy army will join the P.L.A. in the course of struggle. The Party should keep this factor in view, particularly in the context of the fact that overwhelming number of armymen come from peasant families and are affected by the fate and thinking of their peasant kith and kin.
Armed struggle in the form of guerrilla warfare will be the basic tactics of protracted People's War. When the revolution advances, and guerrilla warfare reaches a certain stage, the People's Army will adopt the form of mobile warfare. All the military principles that Comrade Mao enunciated in his military writings are applicable, in general, to the armed struggle in India in all its forms, i.e., guerrilla warfare, mobile warfare, positional warfare. It is the duty of the Party and the military leadership to master these principles and be able to apply then in a given political and military situation in the specific context of Indian conditions.
6. The forging of the People's Democratic revolutionary united front, in order to rally and bring into play all the forces of revolution, is one of the strategic tasks of the Indian revolution. As a part of its overall leadership in the national democratic revolution of India, the proletariat has to initiate, foster and lead the united front of all the revolutionary classes for seizing State-power and carrying out the programmatic tasks of the Indian revolution.
6.1 The revolutionary united front is an act of political cooperation by the revolutionary classes. So, it is to be executed by their respective political representatives on a common political basis. Moreover, it is an act of strategic political co-operation by them. So, it has to be forged on the basis of commonly-acccpted anti-imperialist anti-feudal programme. All forms of co-operation and co-ordination in the struggles of various classes or strata which are not based on a common revolutionary programme should not he equated with the revolutionary united front. At the same time the Party of the proletariat should conduct and guide all the people's struggles with the perspective of the United Front-- i.e., with a view to developing them towards the realisation of the United Front or towards creating a conducive environment for the same purpose. This is the main thing in a principled approach to the formation of the revolutionary united front. However, while remaining firm on the main thing--i.e., the pre-requisite of a common revolutionary programme as the basis of the revolutionary united front--revolutionaries should be able to discern the actual manifestations of this required political content in the struggles of some forces even when they may not have a formulated programme, and to discern in the field of struggle the actual political representatives of some classes or strata even when they may not be formally affiliated to some political party. Such practical situations are likely to be encountered during the initial phase of development of the revolutionary movement.
6.2 The most reliable way of expediting the formation of the revolutionary united front is that of intensifying the struggle against the common enemy against whom the United Front is called for. Because, only the development of such a struggle brings out the tangible prospect of fulfilment of the objective need of various class forces to wage an effective fight against the common enemy, thus accelerating the process of their conscious realisation of the necessity of the United Front. The sharpened realisation of that necessity, under the impact of the actual struggle, would goad various class forces to opt for the United Front; and consequently, to adjust their mutual contradictions and conflicts to the over-arching demand of the contradiction and struggle vis-a-vis the common enemy. The political appeals and moral exhortations in favour of the United Front are poor substitutes for the persuasion tried by means of revolutionary action.[3] Therefore, while striving either to forge the united front or to maintain it, the revolutionaries should make the vigorous promotion of struggle against the common enemy as the hinge of their endeavour to that end.
6.3 The two main principles of conduct in operating and maintaining the revolutionary united front can be stated as follows: the revolutionaries, proletarian revolutionaries in particular, ought to maintain their independence and initiative without impairing, in any way, the common obligations and discipline of the United Front; and they ought to wage necessary struggle in the United Front without impairing the unity among the constituent forces, and in order to vigorously promote the struggle against the common enemy, as a reliable condition of nurturing that unity. These principles of conduct also rest on the proper comprehension of the objective basis on which the United Front is forged: that is, the constituent classes and political parties have mutual compatibility in terms of their basic class interests and non-compatibility only in some non-basic class interests; and even at the level of basic political interests, they have mutual compatibility in the main and not wholly. With a comprehension of the objective basis of their political collaboration, all the constituents of the United Front would tend to develop the realistic approach that, within the constraints of indispensable requirements of safeguarding the United Front and the common struggle waged by it, all of them should have the relative scope for pursuing their independent concerns. Only such a comprehension can instil in them the necessary consciousness for adopting an attitude of healthy respect and positive support to each other's legitimate concerns.
7. The strategic line of People's Democratic Revolution of India, along with its basic features--the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolutionary united front (with worker-peasant alliance on the basis of agrarian revolution as its core); and the protracted people's armed struggle; both led by the communist party--will remain the same throughout the present stage of Indian revolution. Similarly, as a consequence of the basic social contradiction between feudalism and broad masses of the people, the strategic concept of the agrarian revolution as the main content and axis of People's Democratic Revolution as a whole will remain the same throughout the present stage of revolution. But within the frame of this strategic line and concept, the specific tactical line or concrete plan of tasks, for the concrete advance of people's democratic revolutionary movement, in a particular phase of the Indian revolution, will vary depending on which of the two basic contradictions is operating as the principal contradiction in the given phase.
7.1 Of the two basic contradictions of Indian society, in its present stage of development, the one between imperialism and the oppressed people of India, may come to the fore as the principal contradiction when an imperialist power or a block of imperialist powers commits armed aggression on India with a view to turning it into its exclusive colony or neo-colony, as a consequence of inter-imperialist contention for carving up the world into their respective spheres of influence or domination. At times--when imperialism resorts to direct military intervention in support of the Indian ruling classes to suppress the people's democratic revolution, thus forming an open block with the ruling classes--the contradiction between the alliance of imperialism and feudalism on the one hand and the Indian people on the other, as such, may become the principal contradiction. In either case the specific tactical line for that phase necessitates certain changes in the united front policies and in the agrarian policies (without changing their strategic or basic content), in order to accommodate temporarily those ruling-class sections or elements who are opposed to such imperialist aggression, or intervention, for successfully repulsing that imperialist aggression of intervention
7.2 At all other times, as long as imperialism controls India indirectly, as at present, the contradiction between feudalism and broad masses of the Indian people will remain in the forefront as the principal contradiction. As a consequence, the struggles emanating from this contradiction will influence and determine the course of development of all other class struggles emanating from other major contradictions. In other words, in the present phase of the Indian revolution, the development of the class struggle in general is going to be ultimately conditioned by the development of the agrarian revolutionary movement, that is, the development of anti-feudal struggles of the peasantry led by the proletariat on the basis of the agrarian revolutionary programme, and imbued with revolutionary political consciousness.
7.3 Hence, in the present phase of Indian revolution, in order to ensure the correct tactical orientation of the concrete plan of tasks and policies of the communist revolutionary forces, these must give conscious expression to the objective logic of the unfolding of the principal contradiction by making the requirements of building up the agrarian revolutionary movement as their central reference-point. Doing so would have bearings particularly on the scheme for deployment of the Party forces and resources; on the orientation of the political work on other fronts, particularly the workers front--who are to be made to acquire the realisation and capability of discharging their leadership responsibilities towards the peasantry in their struggle against feudal oppression bureaucratic suppression and for real democracy; and on the dealings with various political forces particularly those belonging to the ruling classes.
1. The working class can exercise its revolutionary leadership, over the People's Democratic Revolution of India primarily through the organisation of its political vanguard, i.e. the Communist Party. The Party owing to its being armed with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and with the revolutionary programme as its concrete application to Indian conditions can provide political and organisational leadership to the Indian revolution. Besides the revolutionary leadership of the working class would also be established by means of practical leadership. Such practical leadership would be exercised by organising economic and political struggles including conscious trade union struggles; struggles in defence of democratic rights of the people; and solidarity actions in support of the just struggles of other sections of the people, particularly in defence of the agrarian revolutionary movement and the armed struggle in the countryside. In other words, it would establish its practical leadership by excelling in revolutionary consistency as well as in political initiative and fighting zeal for the common revolutionary concerns of the Indian people. Exercising another important form of practical proletarian leadership, the advanced elements of the working class would go to the villages in order to help the peasantry to organise anti-feudal struggles especially at the level of armed struggle. In view of all this revolutionary work on the workers front has a special significance.
1.1 Effective materialisation of such political-organisational as well as practical leadership of the proletariat, largely depends on the actual level and spread of the revolutionary political consciousness among the workers. For workers can play their role in building the Communist Party or otherwise play a revolutionary leadership role only in so far as they are politically conscious: not only of the need to get organised to fight for their own emancipation from all exploitation but also of the responsibility and role of their class, in leading the struggles of all the toilers and other exploited, oppressed people against their expropriators and oppressors. In particular, the crux of the development of working class leadership, in the present stage of Indian revolution, lies in the workers, at least the advanced sections among them, realising the indispensability of agrarian revolution for paving the way for their own emancipation, and in acquiring as well the awareness and capability of discharging their leadership responsibilities towards the peasantry in their struggle against feudal oppression, bureaucratic suppression and for real democracy. In view of this, and in view of the actual state of workers' movement in India, the communist revolutionary forces, in their work on the working class front, should mainly concentrate on building such politically conscious cores, comprising of the advanced sections of workers. These cores of politically conscious workers can be built by integrating with and developing the class struggle movement of the masses of workers, imbuing it with revolutionary consciousness and orientation. These cores would constitute the reliable material base a) for the Party to exercise effective political influence over the struggle-movement of the proletarian masses, including the trade union movement; b) for replenishing of the Party ranks; and c) for the Party's proletarian revolutionary orientation to be able to effectively contend with various hues of bourgeois reformist orientation which initially find natural foot-holds in the masses of workers. Taking this as the key task of the working class front, for the purposes of accomplishing the strategic task of grooming the working class as the leader of the Indian revolution, they should strive for revolutionary politicisation of the workers' movement.
1.2 The fulfilment of that objective--i.e., revolutionary politicisation of the workers' movement--primarily depends on the character and scope of the overall activity undertaken by the Party on the workers' front. Trade union activity is an important and necessary part of the Party's overall activity on the workers' front. This is so because trade unions are the most natural and primary forms of workers' self-organisation at their place of work and through which they most easily learn to defend their economic and elementary democratic interests. But owing to the limited sphere of trade union organisation, such activity acquires revolutionary character only so far as it is linked to and subsumed by the Party's agitational-propaganda activity on that front, on wider issues and through other channels, having democratic revolutionary content. Only the democratic revolutionary content or perspective, as is actually reflected in the Party's overall activity on the workers' front, can lend revolutionary political consciousness to the proletarian fighters, at the present stage of Indian revolution.
Moreover, owing to the special class character of this front, the working class-front, the Party activity includes reiteration of the world-historic role and ultimate goal of the working class, and underlining of the crucial significance for the working class of cherishing and promoting its own class ideology--Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought--and its own class party--the Communist Party.[4]
With this clear conception of the primary relation between the character and scope of the Party's overall activity on the workers' front and the accomplishing of revolutionary politicisation of the workers' movement, communist revolutionaries would assist the workers to take up, for agitation and struggle, issues pertaining not only to their work-places but also to their living-places, pertaining not only to their economic exploitation but also to their political and social oppression, pertaining not only to oppression and atrocities perpetrated directly on them, but also to oppression and atrocities perpetrated on other sections of people by the same dark forces belonging to or associated with the ruling classes. But more than that, communist revolutionaries would focus their efforts on politically analysing and projecting, from the proletarian class point of view, various topical events, facts, pronouncements and struggles of various social-political forces so as to reveal the concrete operation of various class-interests in the existing system of exploitation and oppression. Thus they would reveal, through the analysis of live and concrete cases, the organic links between the problems of the workers and the problems of other revolutionary classes, particularly the problems of the peasants. That would, in time, impart to the masses of workers not only the spirit of solidarity for the various fellow-fighters against the common oppressors but also the realisation of crucial significance of the anti-feudal struggles waged by the peasantry, and the necessity of rendering active assistance to those struggles for the common cause of social emancipation of Indian people. Only through such persistent political commentary and agitational campaigning among the masses of the workers, communist revolutionaries would be able to help them understand the class reality of the social phenomena the workers daily experience or observe around them. In this process, communist revolutionaries would be able, more or less, to equip the workers to broadly comprehend, on their own, such class reality of any phenomenon under their consideration. In other words, they would be able to help the workers acquire class-political awareness.
1.3 The character and scope of the Party's overall activity on the workers' front, as discussed in the preceding portion, indicate the requirement of a number of appropriate organisational-arrangements,[5] secret and open, formal and informal, for carrying out this activity in its fullness. For that purpose, the Party would promote the organising of workers at many levels.
One, the Party would encourage the process of organising of workers to extend in range at the trade union plane to encompass the unorganised sectors containing the vast masses of workers. More than that it should extend beyond the plane of organising workers merely as wage-labdurers to organising of them, say, as tenants/settlers, consumers, etc., in short, as worker citizens. Depending on the concrete circumstances, either all such particular mass-organisational platforms, including the trade-union organisation, should tend to link up through some sort of umbrella mass-organisation or an influential trade union organisation should tend to stretch itself to meet all those particular organisational requirements. In any case, the organisational frame of a normal trade union would be superceded by a broader frame of a workers' organisation. With such organising of workers around the problems of their daily work and life, the Party should be able to utilise the platforms for wider access, to the masses of workers, even to their most backward layers.
Two, besides the union-type platforms, there should be a conscious effort to forge semi-political or political mass platforms of workers, mainly comprising the advanced layers of the workers, for carrying out the democratic revolutionary propaganda and agitation among the masses of the workers. In their rudimentary form, these can be semi-political forums of advanced workers, within the trade union bodies, for projecting the revolutionary trade union orientation while abiding by the constitution and operational decisions of their respective trade unions. Depending on the concrete circumstances, either all such particular semi-political forums, at a given place, should tend to collectively evolve themselves into a political mass platform of advanced workers, outside the trade unions, or a political mass platform of democratic revolutionary workers (and activists of workers' movement) can be set up, on the initiative of the Party forces, which should, then, tend to establish rapport with the advanced layers of workers by supporting and assisting their struggles (irrespective of their union-affiliations) and by conducting political campaigns among them. In any case, the union-frame, with only partial political scope, would he superceded by a spacious frame of democratic revolutionary organisation of workers, with relatively fuller scope, for promoting democratic revolutionary consciousness and activity among the mass of workers.
Three, the Party has to fundamentally rely on its own secret organisational apparatus--cells, fractions, militant groups and groups around Marxist study centres and Party literature etc.--for ensuring the continuity and comprehensiveness of its proletarian revolutionary activity on the workers' front.[6] So, as a part of its main task of organising revolutionary forces on workers' front, the Party would constantly strive to organise Party forces in various limbs of its secret apparatus.
In a nutshell, the main thrust of the Party's organisational plan, on the workers' front, is not one of building alternative centre or centres of trade unions but such political centres of working class movement which can impel the struggles and consciousness of the workers beyond the confines of trade-unionism and onto the democratic revolutionary track.[7]
Such political centres of working class movement can best develop in close relationship with the Party, for the Party forces among the workers, or forces amenable to accept the Party's political guidance on that front, would be constituting the pivot of such a centre.
1.4 The conscious plan of work,[8] on this front, involves the selection of areas and industries for intensive work and the deployment of cadre according to their suitability to the requirements of the Party's general orientation of work on this front as well as the requirements of the particular areas.
As regards the selection of areas or industries for intensive work, it is mainly determined by two strategic considerations. First and foremost is the consideration that the effective workers' movement in those areas or industries would be conducive for developing closer ties with the struggling masses of the peasantry, and for making intervention in favour of their agrarian revolutionary movement. Generally the organised sector industries located in the rural areas, especially in the extremely underdeveloped and tribal areas, fall under this category--namely the mining centres, the tea plantations, some heavy industries such as those in the Chhota Nagpur region of Bihar and in the Chhatisgarh region of Madhya Pradesh and various agro-industries, in particular, the food-processing units, etc. Next in importance is the consideration that the industries to be selected should be such as have a crucial role in the smooth running of the whole economic system; consequently, the workers' movement would have the necessary striking power for delivering incapacitating blows to the system, at appropriate junctures in the unfolding revolutionary offensive. Generally, the infrastructural industries or services--viz. transport (including railways), communications and electricity etc.--as also the petroleum and coal industries fall under this category.
As regards the cadre-deployment, in tune with the key task, on this front, of building cores of politically conscious workers, such cadres would be deployed as possess or can soon acquire, in particular, political-organisational capacities: the aptitude and stamina for hard, patient work over a prolonged period of time; keen sense and skills for secret functioning; and the proletarian class-moulding required-for developing rapport with the workers and for acting as a good conductor for enabling the Party to monitor the concerns and will of the proletarian masses. In the selected areas of intensive work, deployment of such cadre should be preferred as have the preparedness and resilience for shifting to the peasant front, if and when so decided by the Party, in the interests of the overall development of the revolutionary movement. Obviously, the latter demand Can be fulfilled by the cadre only if they develop, in the meanwhile. as professional revolutionaries.
2. Towns and cities, besides being the centres of the working class, are also centres of the non-peasant petty bourgeois masses --students, teachers, employees, writers, artists, lower rung of the professionals, small traders, shopkeepers, artisans, unemployed youth, etc. These urban intermediate sections of people are the more vocal of the oppressed masses and have considerable opinion-making role among them. These intermediate sections have an important bearing on changing the political balance of forces between the ruling classes and the revolutionary fighting segments of the basic masses. As such they are the special targets of ruling classes' propaganda, diversionary-divisive ploys and inducements. Without weaning them away from these ruling class-influences, in the process of rallying them into struggles on their burning sectional and general democratic issues and without garnering their support and services to the revolutionary struggles of the basic masses, particularly to the agrarian revolutionary movement, the people's democratic revolutionary movement cannot acquire composite character and general projection on the political scene. Besides, having mental resources approximating those of the ruling classes and material resources approximating those of the working people, these sections, particularly the intelligentsia and the students, are the most prolific sources of revolutionary cadre. Hence the significance of sustained revolutionary work among these intermediate sections in towns and cities.
2.1 These sections of people are better placed in term of having or acquiring democratic consciousness and political awareness. They are generally better equipped or organised to raise their voice and agitate for their respective sectional interests as well as for general democratic and national demands. Therefore, if they are aroused and led with democratic revolutionary orientation, they can be instrumental in giving the initial boost to the agitation and organisation of the basic masses of the Indian people. Specifically, the urban centres being the centres of State administration, the struggling peasants, in the initial stages of their anti-feudal, anti-governmental struggles in particular, require the political support and practical help of the urban masses. However, these sections are not involved in the actual production processes, or have petty vested interests (existing or potential) in the existing set-up. Consequently, they are afflicted with inherent class limitations in terms of political consistency and revolutionary fighting stamina. Hence, struggles of these sections, except when integrated with and backed by the struggles of the basic masses, particularly of the peasantry, remain quite vulnerable to disorientation or dissipation, under the pressure, diversion and inducements employed by the State.
2.2 The urban petty-bourgeois masses in India are quite numerous and diversely engaged in the pursuit of their livelihood. The Party's plan of work, has to be selective in its approach to these sections, and would choose[9] to develop systematic work among certain sections, depending on their political responsiveness, tradition of struggle and potential for exercising socio-political influence. Even in the case of the sections selected for the Party's work, the general pattern would be that of developing pockets or segments of intensive work, rather than stretching ourselves to shoulder the organisational responsibility for the whole section/mass-organisation disproportionately to the actual influence and forces of the Party developed therein. Such pockets or segments of intensive work would influence the whole section/mass-organisation and, in time, create capacities for giving it leadership too. As regards the rest of the intermediate sections (those not selected for the systematic work) the Party's approach would be one of ensuring that at least its political voice reaches them in one way or another.[10] In short, the plan of work among the urban petty-bourgeoisie envisages wide political reach to its various segments but the deployment of Party cadre strictly in tune with the anticipated political returns from a particular segment, in terms of democratic political initiative and revolutionary cadre.
2.3 Under such selective plan of work in the urban intermediate sections, communist revolutionaries obviously give special importance and priority to work among students and youth as these sections are more receptive to and dynamic in pursuing revolutionary politics. In this endeavor, revolutionary mass organisations of students and youth (with anti-imperialist anti-feudal orientation on their sectional problems) would have to be built and developed in such a way that in course of time these organised sections could become reliable allies of the revolutionary movement of the basic masses, particularly of the peasantry[11] and could become rich sources of revolutionary fighting cadre.
Next in priority come some or the other sections of low-paid employees, depending on the specific backgrounds of democratic struggle-movements in different states.[12] In such cases also, the mass-organisations would be developed in the direction of becoming essentially democratic-revolutionary mass-organisations; or, at least, their advanced sections have to be provided with such platforms.
2.4 On the one hand, the urban petty-bourgeois sections (students and youth in particular) have sharper sensitivity to acts of national oppression and feudal-autocratic oppression and have pronounced patriotic-democratic aspirations; on the other hand, they (shop-keepers, others of petty-occupations and employees, in particular) are vulnerable to, and special targets of, the ruling class-inspired national, communal and caste chauvinism and regional and linguistic parochialism. As one of their major political tasks, communist revolutionaries would strive to foster and develop these patriotic-democratic aspirations into consistent anti-imperialist, anti-feudal consciousness. Pertinent anti-imperialist slogans and campaigns can arouse them and draw them into struggle on a relatively wider scale. However, conscious and serious effort would be needed to inculcate anti-feudal consciousness among them.[13] Only persistent exposure to democratic revolutionary political propaganda, conducted on the basis of the Party programme and the manifestos of revolutionary mass organisations, would enable them clearly to see the connection of all their basic problems with the semi-feudal social base of the whole system. And, as a corollary, that would enable them to realise the significance of agrarian revolutionary movement; and the indispensable need for lending their support and assistance to that movement. Only thus, the Party could be able to draw on the considerable political potential of these sections to the benefit of the overall revolutionary movement; and to activate with their help various political and cultural channels for spreading the democratic revolutionary awareness among the basic masses of working people, in particular the peasant masses.
When the revolutionary movement is unable to place great revolutionary ideals before these sections (the students and youth in particular) for inspiring them to think and act high, or the revolutionary movement passes through a period of relative ebb in its forward motion, they tend to withdraw into their narrow sectional concerns and become victims of the diversionary and manipulative politics of the reactionary ruling classes. In order to counter the temporary sway of such ruling class political influences over these sections, communist revolutionaries would have to see to it that a) the specific linkage, as perceived by various sections between their vital problems and the prevalent type of ruling class sponsored politics (chauvinist, sectarian, reformist etc.) is concretely comprehended and attacked and instead of that false linkage, the real linkage with democratic revolutionary politics gets vividly projected; and b) the significance of broad-based actions and solidarity actions, as the indispensable requirement of their struggle movement is stressed.
2.5 The general tactical orientation of the Party's plan of work in towns and cities has to be in conformity with the strategic course of India's People's Democratic Revolution, wherein the cities and big towns would remain, over a long period, bastions of enemy-power and hence unsuitable arenas for the people to have decisive trials of strength with the enemy. Accordingly, the orientation of city work is marked by judicious restraint and flexibility in conducting struggles of the workers and other intermediate sections, with the long-term perspective of gathering and preserving revolutionary forces, in preparation for waging decisive battles against the enemy, in future, in liaison with the countrywide offensive of the People's Army. In the meanwhile, the cities and towns are sought to he developed into arenas of political contest and persistent assertion by democratic revolutionary politics while persevering in defensive class struggles as well as lending support and possible assistance to the agrarian revolutionary movement and the armed struggle in the countryside. In this context, the developing of secret organisational network and functioning, the secret methods of mass political work and the skill of working under cover, in organisations led by alien or reactionary forces, acquire particular significance.
3. Building of the anti-feudal struggles of the peasantry into a sustained agrarian revolutionary movement and raising of that movement to the level of armed struggle for the seizure of State-power, is the key-link of the process of unfolding of the protracted people's war in India (in the present phase of India's People's Democratic Revolution). It is the key-link, likewise, of the process of establishment of the proletarian hegemony (over other revolutionary classes) in the Indian revolution. The theoretical and practical grasping of this key-link by the Party would mean successful tackling of the central tactical problem of the people's democratic revolutionary movement, and to pave the way for the exercise of the strategic revolutionary leadership by the Party. Accordingly, the Party's plan of tactical tasks and priorities for the present phase consciously express the central importance of the peasant front and the task of building agrarian revolutionary movement, and the need to adjust the work on other fronts to the legitimate claims of this central concern, in terms of political orientation, choice of the areas of intensive work and deployment of the cadre-force.
3.1 There cannot be an agrarian revolutionary movement without an agrarian revolutionary programme. Only a specific (essentially agrarian) revolutionary programme[14] can lend a coherent shape, definite direction and revolutionary perspective to various anti-feudal strivings and struggles of the broad masses of the local people, mainly the peasant masses. Therefore, the Party's plan of work on the peasant front, envisages the formulation and popular projection of such a specific programme as the requisite political basis of the systematic building of an agrarian revolutionary movement, in any particular region. In its rudimentary form, the specific programme may be formulated as an action programme-- mainly containing pressing economic, social and political demands of the people, with special emphasis on the demands of the basic masses of the peasantry, for their immediate mobilisations and struggles; and indicates their long-term and basic demands too. The Party propaganda should cover their long-term and basic demands as a general practice while the mass platforms would do so as and when appropriate to the occasion, place and level of development of the mass movement.
3.2 While communist revolutionaries are going to develop the peasant work wherever feasible, with the same perspective of building the agrarian revolutionary movement, the type of areas and activity pertaining to the peasant-front broadly fall under two categories: One, there are relatively backward areas marked by intense feudal oppression and ruthless exploitation by landlords, money-lenders, contractors, traders and corrupt officialdom. Much of the mass activity and struggles in these areas are directly generated by feudal exploitation and oppression. So, these areas present early prospects of the growth of agrarian revolutionary movement and its development to the level of armed struggle, hence, the Party's revolutionary work in such areas would be of strategic importance and with full focus on the basic masses of the peasantry--the poor peasants and landless peasants/agricultural labour. Two, there are certain rural pockets where agriculture is relatively more commercialised and agrarian revolutionary movement is weak and under-developed. The predominant mass activity and struggles in these areas are apparently generated by the adverse terms of trade for agricultural products. The Party's revolutionary work among the peasantry, in these areas, demands greater tactical skill and firmer class stand-point to be able to pave the ground, in due course, for the ascendancy of the agrarian revolutionary movement.
Regarding the second category of areas and activity, the prominent peasant struggles revolve around the issues of remunerative prices for agricultural produce. These struggles are dominated by the rich peasants and a section of landlords and are instrumental in rallying the land-owning peasants in large numbers but exclude, by their very nature, the most revolutionary contingent of peasant emancipation movement viz. the landless peasants and agricultural labour. That is why, these struggles, as such, cannot be developed as a part of the agrarian revolutionary movement. Still, these struggles being objectively provoked by the increasing control over and exploitation of commercialised agriculture on the part of imperialist capital as well as comprador bureaucratic capital in India, they can be a suitable arena for imparting anti-imperialist (i.e., anti-neo-colonialist) consciousness to the peasant masses involved. So, communist revolutionaries should participate in these struggles with the objective of obtaining contact and elements from among the basic sections of the peasantry in which they are primarily interested as well as with the objective of giving, wherever possible, their political understanding of the issues that have been taken up. While going in for this activity, communist revolutionaries must not forget for a moment that the gains of this activity can be a consolidated and put to revolutionary use only if they organise the agricultural labour into an independent effective force under their influence in the concerned areas of countryside.
As regards the first category, the strategic significance of the peasant work there and the tremendous amount of political and organisational effort required for putting that work firmly on agrarian revolutionary rails, make it obligatory, on the part of the Party, to carefully select such areas of work and make necessary deployment of suitable cadre there as a part of long-term planning.
Besides the issues of land and crop-seizure towards which the peasant struggles in these areas eventually gravitate, struggles frequently come up on issues concerning social atrocities, debt-burden as well as callous loan recovery, wage increases and house sites for agricultural labourers, irrigation facilities as well as discrimination on the-part of institutional and political authorities in handling various developmental projects such as IRDP and governmental as well as public funds for welfare or relief measures, encroachment of people's customary rights on common lands and forest by the landlords, contractors and government-bodies, and uprooting of people from their native dwellings and sources of livelihood through imposed monstrosities of so-called development and defence projects.
So, as an immediate step, an action-programme, comprising such demands and issues of struggle, would have to be formulated on the basis of intimate acquaintance with conditions and needs of various sections of people. However, such an action programme must dovetail itself with the agrarian revolutionary programme for the area concerned. Hence, the relative importance attached to various struggle-issues should get determined primarily according to their potential for promoting agrarian revolutionary consciousness and movement, broad unity and organised strength of peasant masses.
In these areas wherever there is tribal population, its special concerns and sensitivities should be duly taken care of. Besides their particular economic problems, Adivasis/Girijans are feeling quite alienated from the main-stream society due to a long period of harassment, deception and ruthless exploitation at the hands of outsider vested interests. They are generally apprehensive of hostile attempts at undermining their distinct cultural identity and shattering thereby their last social defences against complete subjugation by alien exploitative forces. Therefore, communist revolutionaries would uphold their right to preservation and development of their languages and rational cultural life. Mere creation of a new administrative unit leaves untouched the crucial questions of the tribal peoples' access to the basic economic resources--the forest produce and land--and political power. Their struggles on the cultural issues can also make some significant head-way only in conjunction with the movement around those crucial questions and emergence of their organised power and institutions of collective authority.
3.3 The peasant masses, in particular the basic masses of peasantry, are in dire need of democracy, notwithstanding the fact that they are, generally,[15] not conscious of this need and can hardly relate themselves to the formal bourgeois concept of democracy. It is the revolutionary duty of the political vanguard of the proletariat to carry democratic awareness to the peasant masses in concrete forms and symbols they are familiar with. When they see how their collective assertion can check the arbitrary authority, of a policeman, of a revenue official or that of a forest official to harass and humiliate them, and are told about that being ground-level democracy, they would cherish it and fight for it more ardently than for some routine economic demand. Only when viewed in this context, the real significance of helping the peasant masses to give institutional expression to their collective assertion (through their various mass organisations), comes out clearly.[16] Further, the method of functioning of mass organisations and the method of conducting the mass struggles, as advocated and implemented by the Party comrades concerned, should become forms of practical schooling in democracy for the organised peasant masses.[17] On the basis of that experience, the peasant masses should be encouraged to discuss and resolve any problem/contradictions (economic or social) arising among themselves, without the interference of official village panchayats or police or judiciary etc. To that end, they should be guided and encouraged to form their own bodies, like people's panchayats (distinct from the official gram panchayats), in line with the development of their revolutionary struggle-movement. This will enhance their democratic awareness and self-confidence to progressively break free from the hold of official or unofficial ruling class institutions, in their internal affairs.
3.4 Strengthening or forging the mass organisations/ platforms of the rural basic masses will be almost impossible in the prevalent violent environment, without simultaneously forging the instruments of setf-defence. Hence, right from the initial stages of mass mobilisation and organisation, communist revolutionaries should guide the people and the advanced elements among them to think in terms of the possible violence by the reactionary forces and the steps to be taken to counter that violence.[18] Specifically, communist revolutionaries should guide them to identify more active militant elements in their ranks and start deploying them for security duties, even if these are of a preliminary kind, say, of keeping watch and raising voice against any attempt at interference with the mass: mobilisation or activity by alien forces.
From among the existing mass militants in the mass organisations, a basic force of volunteers should be developed under the jurisdiction of the concerned mass organisation. Initially, this volunteer force should be given the shape of volunteer units and they should be guided to study and discuss the problems of security.
3.5 In view of the programmatic understanding regarding the most staunch and reliable revolutionary allies of the proletariat, and in view of the past experience of the peasant movement under the leadership of the Party, it needs stressing that in whatever activity the Party undertakes among the peasantry and their present organisation, its cardinal principle must be reliance on the basic peasant masses. Only then can the practical work sustain a revolutionary orientation.
At the same time, this compulsory need for agricultural labour-poor peasant base, is not to the exclusion of the need for rallying other sections of peasant masses, both from the angle of immediate tactics of the practical movement as well as from the long-term perspective of building up the worker-peasant alliance as the core of united front of all revolutionary classes. In fact, without rallying these sections, even the struggles or resistance by the basic masses will face heavy odds or isolation vis-a-vis the enemy. This is more so, where the enemy is especially powerful by virtue of a particular caste composition of the peasantry (as in many regions in North India Jats constitute majority population in most of the villages) and on that basis the enemy can enlist majority of the village population against the struggling basic masses. In areas where the Party forces do not have proper access into the basic masses, winning over advanced or enlightened elements of middle peasants first, can prove helpful in not only initiating peasant struggles but also in gaining such access. On the other hand, any rallying of the other sections of peasants or first winning over some elements among them will be frail and unreliable without swift and effective consolidation of the basic masses. Thus, while work among other sections of peasant masses is important and therefore not to be neglected, the consolidation of the base among basic masses is a crucial and urgent necessity.
3.6 In all the facets and phases of this process of building the agrarian
revolutionary movement and revolutionary organisations of the rural people,
the proletarian vanguard organisation plays the crucial role, as its ranks
contact, educate, mobilise, train and organise the people into the mass
organisations, people's self-defence instruments, united from bodies and
the Party organisation. The specific agrarian revolutionary programmes for
different regions, that the communist revolutionaries formulate and popularise,
and the politics of seizure of State-power that they constantly propagate-among
the struggling masses of the peasantry,[19] enable
the people to organically perceive the link between their life-interests,
their specific political aims and the necessity of revolutionary mass resistance
and armed struggle against the organised force of the ruling classes. As
a cumulative effect of the persistent revolutionary political propaganda
of the Party and the experience of their own revolutionary practice, over
a period of time, the broad masses of the peasants, particularly the poor
peasantry and agricultural labourers become ready for the seizure of the
land belonging to the landlords, as a matter of their (peasants') right;
signalling thereby the fact that they have reached the required level of
revolutionary consciousness to wage armed struggle against the existing
State-power and to set up the parallel political power of the revolutionary
people.
1. The ruling class politics in India is based on and works upon the parochial-feudal identities and loyalties of the people, reflecting the communal caste ethnic and regional divisions, inequalities and prejudices among them. Consequently besides the muscle and money power of the ruling classes, it is these parochial loyalties, divisions, prejudices as are manipulated by them and not any real demacratic social consciousness among the people that governs the elections and parliamentary institutions in India. Whatever civil liberties or democratic rights are dangled with one hand in the Indian Constitution are snatched away with the other hand. It provides arbitrary powers to the State to suspend all civil liberties and detain anybody without trial; for prohibiting or banning any association and struggle; for declaring any area or state as disturbed and turning them into army concentration camps and killing fields. Under it the State possesses an ever increasing number of oppressive laws to suppress mass democratic and revolutionary movements. Besides with overt or covert patronage of the State the ruling classes privately organise and unleash, at will, one or the other kind of reactionary violence--feudal atrocities, attacks by semi-fascist political outfits, communal fascist or caste chauvinist campaigns and pogroms --to terrorise and subdue the people and democratic forces.
2. In the present day period of party re-organisation, the objective and subjective conditions are not suitable for utilising as a matter of policy, the tactics of participation or boycott as it does not serve the interest of the strategic development. So the task at the present period will be 'active political campaign' of exposure of the present social system and parliamentary form of rule and of projecting revolutionary alternative with its form of rule (mainly principles). The main thrust of the campaign will be the disillusionment of the people about the State system and dissuading them from getting entangled in electoral politics. The method of the campaign is to be decided on the basis of the objective condition of the people and their consciousness. The propaganda in respect of the general problems should he connected with the concrete problems of the people and various questions posed by the elections. The purpose is to develop step by step the consciousness and movement of the people towards the realisation of the strategic path.
However the organisation will consider any exceptional development under the general frame of this policy.
The objective and subjective conditions under reference arc as follows:
a) ideological-political-organisational consolidation of the Party and clear identification prestige and revolutionary influence among the people (through the revolutionary movement);
b) Development of mass movement in a revolutionary line creating an advanced section from among it;
c) Development of democratic forces inclined to the Revolution around the Party and revolutionary movement;
d) Creation of a capable organisational mechanism and training of personnel.
After the fulfilment of these conditions the Party will consider the utility of the tactics of participation or boycott in the context of general development of the strategic path of Indian revolution.
3. Of course such appeals too acquire particular significance in a situation when under the impact of sharpening contradiction and struggle vis-a-vis the common enemy the masses of a class show eagerness for united struggle but their dominant political leadership is reluctant to do so. Thus such appeals are in fact part of a political campaign to build popular pressure on that reluctant section of leadership in favour of forging the United Front.
4. Other than this special class-distinction the Party's activity on the workers' front is no different in political content, from its activity on other fronts; of course here it being addressed to the workers the activity covers relatively more issues linked to the workers' life and work even as it is not confined to them. The special distinction lies in the fact that here the sphere of projection of the proletarian ideology and the proletarian political Party is not confined to narrow circles of interested militants as is done in the other fronts but extends to mass plane.
5. While the Party's activity among the masses does not bind itself to set organisational forms and has to adopt various organisational forms that are suitable and feasible in the given conditions (of time and place as well as the available resources) the nature or character of the required organisational platforms is determined by the character and scope of the activity to be carried out through them.
6. No legal organisational arrangement can vouch for either the continuity of revolutionary activity (due to the existing undemocratic State-system) or the comprehensive character of revolutionary activity (due to the legal constraints of avoiding clash with the established reactionary law).
7. In fact the whole rationale of the Party's organisational plan on the workers' front lies in the Party being able to develop and function the trade union platforms without getting confined to them or being dependent on the composition of their executive bodies. Even as the need for the trade union platform and activity will continue for a long time to come, only by transcending the confines of this platform can the Party effectively combat such curses as economism reformism and legalism which have been eclipsing the working class movement of India for so many decades: and only then can it accomplish its objective of revolutionary poIiticisation of the struggling masses of workers. Also if the Party is unable to develop its distinctive revolutionary style of work among the masses (mainly relying on developing political influence on them on the basis of their enhanced political awareness) which remains effective irrespective of who holds the union-leadership, it cannot possibly avoid getting drawn info the vortex of competitive trade-unionism for acquiring and retaining organisational hold over the concerned trade unions. That kind of dependence on the organisational hold over the trade unions, for being able to do effective political-mass work naturally tells badly on many of the operative policies of the Party on this front. For instance, it conflicts with the policy of developing a single union in the factory trade or industry; so also with the policy of unhesitatingly supporting and assisting the just struggles of workers irrespective of their union-affiliations.
8. The necessity of devising and implementing a conscious plan of work on the workers front, does not preclude all non-planned work; some points of work always act circumstantially determined particularly in the initial phases of development of Party's resources and capacities. However. the planned work must constitute the principal aspect of the Party's work on the whole.
9. There being or not being Party contacts among a section al the given moment of time. should not be treated as an absolute factor for determining the plan of work. That can only temporarily affect the pace of implementation of the plan. With conscious effort new contacts can be developed and the existing contacts moulded to suit the plans.
10. To that end besides promoting various propaganda-platforms for popular projection (oral or written) of democratic revolutionary politics; besides prompting its mass activists to approach these wider sections in the campaigning and rallying through action committees or struggle committees during the all-people struggles on burning common issues (such as price-rise, unemployment, lack of civic amenities/services or their escalating costs, and cases of gruesome atrocities by the ruling classes etc.): the Party would also foster stray contacts among their respective mass-organisations with a view to facilitate the reach and acceptability of the democratic revolutionary politics.
11. For developing close ties with the revolutionary movement of the peasantry the student and youth movement in urban areas should tend to link up with its rural counterpart. Because the rural youth, including the students, are better placed to interact with the peasant movement.
12. Generally, there is to be found in each state a particular mass-organisation of low-paid employees which has a fine tradition of waging militant struggles and upholding secular democratic and progressive even revolutionary politics and/or acting as an initiator or a rallying pole for united struggles of the employees. Developing of work and influence in such an organisation is likely to offer greater political returns. Of course, avoiding mechanical application of this guideline, the concerned Party committees or organisers would go into the analysis of the historical development and material basis of the past and present conduct of such a mass organisation.
13. Although they greatly resent and tend to oppose the concrete manifestations of feudal-autocratic oppression they experience or witness they cannot easily recognise the class-essence of such manifestations because of the complex features of semi-feudalism and the bourgeois-parliamentary trappings of the existing political system. And the more the urban environment of their existence the more is their confused perception of the predominant social reality of semi-feudalism.
14. The specific programme is addressed to the concrete conditions of the particular region or state. Such a programme is an application and concretisation of the general programme of the people's democratic revolution at the ground level conditions of the given region or state. Such a programme contains all the essential elements of people's democracy and incorporates rates the main immediate as well us long-term demands and interests of the people of the region and the proposed solutions or measures for their fulfilment. Thus it enables the people to realise the need for their self-organisation and participation in agrarian revolutionary struggles.
15. The reference here is to the vast masses of the peasantry who have not earlier experienced any democratic revolutionary upsurge and the resultant elements of democracy. Because whatever little democracy comes the way of the peasant masses in particular the socially-deprived and discriminated masses of poor and landless peasants comes via their organised struggles against the social and political feudal oppression.
16. Here, the phenomenon of coming into being of a genuine mass organisation, especially of the basic masses of the peasantry, has an implied political dimension. Because, unlike a trade union organisation, the peasant mass organisation is not merely an instrument of collective bargaining but, as a platform of anti-feudal struggle, if is an instrument of resisting extra-economic coercion too (which is a characteristic feature of feudal economic relations). The class enemy recognises this political dimension of the peasant mass organisation. His frenzied reaction to this phenomenon is not solely actuated by immediate economic consequences but to a greater extent, by the deeper (socio-political) consequences of this act of inherent defiance by the oppressed masses.
17. The democratic functioning of mass organisations of all sections of people is the general practice of the Party. What is specific in the case of peasant mass organisations is this that here informal and direct methods of ensuring the participation of peasant masses in decision-making acquire greater importance. So group meetings or general gatherings instead of being additional forms to the meetings of official executive bodies of the mass organisation tend to acquire a more effective role.
18. Self-defence or resistance against reactionary violence is an inevitable inseparable and integral part of class struggle in all its stages of development. The Party's basic concept of "self-defence" is that of People's self-defence to defend the material and political/organisational gains of their class struggle at every phase of its progressive development to the highest level i.e. the protracted people's war for seizure of political power.
The State is the official and the highest organised force through which the ruling classes exercise their political power over the people. Mainly banking on this they also use various other organised and unorganised forms of force to exploit and suppress the people. On the other side the oppressed masses struggle against this exploitation and force of the ruling classes and fight to win and exercise their political power. They too use force in this. Armed struggle is the highest form of the use of force by the people to assert their own authority as against the ruling classes' authority when the class struggle reaches the level of seizure and control of the means of production chiefly the land. But this does not come about spontaneously or all of a sudden. People come to this through a process of development - involving qualitative leaps in their revolutionary practice and consciousness through various spirals of exerting their collective pressure and authority for which the people, depending on the nature of issues they are fighting for and the obtaining balance of class forces forge and develop such instruments as are necessary and suitable to the level or extent of the authority they seek to assert.
So long as only rowdy or anti-social elements interfere (in favour of the ruling classes) with the struggle the mass organisations do not have to organise a separate force for enforcing people's will. Their irregular volunteers more or less serve the purpose. But when the enemy employs its organised force of one or the other kind to suppress the struggle then the mass organisation too starts building its organised force. This organised force will be in the form of volunteer units within the framework of the mass organisation. The members of these volunteer units will be performing their special duties as parts of the people's organised force as well as normal duties of members of the concerned mass-organisation. Thus till the revolutionary movement of the peasants reaches the level of armed struggle by guerrilla units generally the volunteer force continues to be part of the mass organisation as it is yet to acquire new role and identity different from the mass organisation. In the meanwhile, though in the process of development of the agrarian revolutionary movement and with the basic issues coming to the fore, the volunteer units and squads acquire more strength better organisation and greater combat-capacities.
Right from the initial stages the basic fighting masses under the united front perspective provided by the communist revolutionaries conceive and forge fighting bonds with other revolutionary classes and in the process the united front bodies (elementary village people's committees etc.) emerge along with the sectional mass organisations. When the instruments of force of the people take shape at the village or area level they do so and operate as instruments of all revolutionary classes. In all stages of their development the relation of these instruments of force and self-defence with the masses of people will that of the spearhead to the body.
19. Thus, self-defence is a process of development of class struggle. Owing to the specificity of the peasant front--i.e. a front of initiating revolutionary direct action against the existing social order and State-power--the Party can constantly and widely propagate the politics of seizure of State-power as this revolutionary propaganda would soon get connected with anti-feudal revolutionary activity of the peasant masses; unlike other fronts where this propaganda relates to the long-term perspective.