A Trotskyist source provided more information concerning the failure of the CPML to unite all of India’s Maoists. It noted that “The three centers of strength of the Naxalites are West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala, although they have some following in Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab. The main Naxalite organizations in both Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have thus far kept their distance from the CPI(M-L).” This source noted that in Andhra Pradesh, Nagi Reddy had formed his own Revolutionary Communist Party, and that it had not taken part in founding the CPML.
This source also noted that even in West Bengal, not all Naxalites had joined the CPML. A rival group headed by Parimal Das Gupta, who had been a member of the AICCCR, had not participated in founding the CPLM. Das Gupta was quoted as saying that “among those who were members of the Coordination Committee when it was first set up, six supported his group, three had become inactive, while only four joined the CPI(M-L).”[688]
Ideology of CPML
However, in spite of the CPML’s failure to unite all of India’s Maoists, it remained the single most important Maoist group in India, and it maintained the Chinese ‘franchise’ for some years. It is of interest, therefore, to look at its official ideology.
The ideology of the CPML was set forth in the resolution of its founding congress, and in some writings of its principal leader, Charu Mazumdar. The resolution proclaimed, “We stated that India is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, that the Indian state is of the big landlords and comprador-bureaucrat capitalists, and that its government is a lackey of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. The abject dependence of Indian economy on ‘aid’ from imperialist countries, chiefly from U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism, the thousands of collaboration agreements, imperialist plunder of our country through unequal trade and ‘aid,’ the utter dependence for food on Public Law 480, etc., go to prove the semi-colonial character of our society.”
The resolution’s analysis of the internal Indian situation continued: “The fleecing of the Indian people by extracting the highest rate of profit, the concentration of much of India’s wealth in the hands of 75 comprador-bureaucrat capitalists, the utilization of the state sector in the interest of foreign monopolies and domestic big business, and the unbridled freedom of the landlords to plunder and oppress the peasantry with the help of the state machinery—all go to prove that it is the big landlords and comprador-bureaucrat capitalists who run the state.”
The resolution elaborated on the type of revolution the CPML was seeking, at least in the immediate future. It said, “The Indian revolution at this stage is the democratic revolution of the new type—the people’s democratic revolution—the main content of which is the agrarian revolution, the abolition of feudalism in the countryside. To destroy feudalism, one of the two main props (comprador-bureaucrat capitalism being the other) of imperialism in our country, the Indian people will have to wage a bitter protracted struggle against U.S. and Soviet imperialism too.”
The resolution proclaimed the adherence of the CPML to China. It asserted that “socialist China is performing miracles of socialist construction. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat in every sphere of life and created conditions for the emergence of the socialist man”
As for the road to power, the resolution proclaimed, “As the party of the working class, the Communist Party must take upon itself the chief responsibility of organizing the peasantry and advancing towards seizure of power through armed struggle. To fulfill this task the revolutionary Communist Party must study Chairman Mao’s thought, for it is only Chairman Mao’s thought that can bring the peasant masses into the revolutionary front, and Chairman Mao’s theory of people’s war is the only means by which an apparently weak revolutionary force can wage successful struggles against an apparently powerful enemy and can win victory.”[689]
The attitude of the CPML toward the urban working class was reflected in an article by its Chairman, Charu Mazumdar, entitled “Our Party’s Tasks Among the Workers,” which appeared in the party paper Liberation in March 1970. It began, “The Party is the organization of the workers to overthrow the class enemy by fighting offensive battles, while the trade union is their organization to fight defensive battles against the attacks of the class enemy. But, today, it is not possible for them to defend themselves with the trade union organization. Hence, it is not our task either to organize trade unions, or to bring them under control or to bother ourselves about the trade union elections. Our task is to build secret Party organizations among the workers.”
Mazumdar went on, “We should not prevent the workers from organizing trade unions where there is none. The trade union struggle will be carried on by the ordinary workers, and our Party cadres should not involve themselves in such struggles. The task of our cadres is to propagate revolutionary politics and build secret organizations.”[690]
Government Onslaught on the Naxalites
As was to be expected, the guerrilla and terrorist activities of the Naxalites brought severe governmental responses. Starting in mid-1970, the Indian national government and those of the states began massive roundups of Naxalites. It was estimated that “between June and September 1970, some 12,000 Naxalites had been arrested, that 4,000 Naxalites had been jailed in West Bengal alone, prominent leaders among them.”[691] By February 1972 it was estimated that 4,000 Naxalites had been jailed in West Bengal, 2,000 in Bihar, 1,400 in Andhra Pradesh, and 1,000 in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and elsewhere, and “hundreds” of them had been killed in clashes with the police.[692]
Many of those arrested in the early 1970s remained in jail for a long time, often without being brought to trial. As late as 1977, the Bombay Economic and Political Weekly said that “even now, more than 30,000 prisoners belonging to the CPI(M-L) and other such revolutionary groups, and cadres of the CPI(M-L) are languishing in different jails all over India. In West Bengal alone, the number of such prisoners could be anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000.”[693]
Government action against the Naxalites was quite effective. Sharad Jhaveri, writing in the Trotskyist Intercontinental Press, said late in 1978, “As a movement, Naxalism was almost wiped out in 1972 by Indira Gandhi. From 1972 to 1977 things were quiet all over, with the possible exception of Bhojour in West Bengal, where Vinod Misra’s group of Naxalites was trying to establish itself as Provisional Revolutionary Government.”[694]
Schisms within the Naxalites
693
Quoted in “30,000 ‘Naxalites’ Still in Indian Jails,”
694
Sharad Jhaveri, “Revival of Naxalism in India,”