Certainly a major factor contributing to the decline of the Naxalites was schism within the ranks. From the beginning, Indian Maoism had not been a highly centralized movement. Groups in different states operated more or less on their own, and even within the same state there might be competing Naxalite groups. We have already noted that by no means all Indian Maoists joined the CPML.
Aside from the groups that never joined the CPML, there was severe factionalism within the CPML itself. Mukund G. Untawale noted that as early as 1970, “the West Bengal state committee of the party split into two groups. The Mazumdar group now labelled the other dissident group led by Ashim Chatterji as revisionists for its subscription to the orthodox strategy of establishing ‘liberated zones’ by means of peasant revolt.” Finally, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the CPML in November, Charu Mazumdar was expelled from the party.[695]
However, disagreements over strategy and tactics in India were not the only cause of dissension in Indian Maoist ranks. Events in China were also of some importance. Late in 1974 it was revealed that the CPML had split into a Lin Piao faction and an anti-Lin Piao faction. The former was demanding that the Chinese reveal in some detail the reasons for their repudiation of the man who had been “Mao’s successor’ until his apparent defection from the Chinese leadership and subsequent death.[696]
Some notion of the degree of splintering of the Indian Maoists can be gathered from the list of Naxalite groups that the government of Indira Gandhi outlawed in July 1976 under the Emergency Rules she had instituted. According to Robert L. Donaldson, these included ” CPI(M-L), both pro and anti-Lin Piao factions; United CP(M-L), the ‘ S. N. Sing-Changra Polly group’; Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Committees; the ‘ I. Nagy Reddy groups’; CPI(M-L), ‘ Sunity-Ghosh-Sharmar’ faction; Eastern India Zonal Consolidation Committee of CP (Communist, Leninist); the Maoist Communist Center; the Unity Center of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist); and the Center of Indian Communists. … The last-named group is apparently the newest, having been formed in December 1974 in Kerala at a convention of disgruntled members of the CPI(M) who favored a Maoist armed revolution.”[697]
The Chinese and the Indian Maoists
In the beginning the Chinese were enthusiastic about the appearance of the Naxalites in India. However, they soon became critical of the line of the CPML under the leadership of Mazumdar, and there is at least some evidence that after 1971 they increasingly lost interest in Indian Maoism.
Justus van der Kroef indicated that with the outbreak of the original Naxalbari revolt, the Chinese expressed strong support. He said, “The Peking media hailed the Naxalites, declaring their ‘torch of armed struggle… will not be put out. … A single spark can start a prairie fire.’”[698]
This enthusiasm persisted for some time. Van der Kroef noted, “Throughout 1969 the Chinese Communist press appeared to perceive a rural tide of revolutionary militancy sweeping the Indian countryside while the ‘parliamentary road’—represented by the Indian ‘revisionist’ participation in state governments in West Bengal and Kerala was being repudiated. … These Chinese reports appeared to rely heavily on, and sometimes reprinted extensive excerpts from, Naxalite publications, especially the Naxalites’ English-language monthly Liberation and their Bengal language weekly Deshabrati.”[699]
The factionalism within the CPML soon drew the attention of the Chinese. According to van der Kroef, “The CPML leadership crisis apparently did not go unnoticed in Peking (although the Chinese media kept silent). In July 1971 there were Indian press reports that the Chinese were ‘trying hard’ to bring the CPML factions together and that at least one member of the CPML Central Committee had already gone to Peking the previous year and had returned with ‘guidelines to help the unity effort.’”[700]
The Chinese were highly critical of the urban terrorist campaign of the CPML in 1970-1971. Mukund G. Untawale noted that “the CCP reportedly levelled ‘bitter criticism’ of the ‘style of work’ and the tactical concepts of Charu Mazumdar and of the CPI(M-L) leadership generally. The CCP argued that Mazumdar was wrong in concentrating his activities in the Calcutta urban area and neglecting the rural areas; that he had failed to consolidate the gains made in the rural areas during 1967-69; and that he had been guilty of too much centralism as well as of sectarianism.”[701]
An Indian source elaborated on the Chinese chastisement of their Indian followers. It wrote, “As early as 1970, a Naxalite group that visited China had been severely lectured about the futility of extending peasant revolts to urban action and of the programme of ‘annihilation of class enemies’ by isolated, uncharted terrorist attacks by guerrilla groups as advocated by Charu Mazumdar. The Peking leaders also forbade the slogan ‘ China’s chairman is our chairman and China’s path is our path.’ The Chinese reportedly explained that the ‘world is divided into classes and nations. The proletariat of each territory is the chief representative of its country. So we cannot but take into consideration the national limits. To refer to the leader of our country as the leader of another party is against the sentiments of the nation.’”[702]
The Chinese may have given up on their Indian friends as too factious and ideologically unsound. When the pro-Lin Piao/anti-Lin Piao split occurred in 1974, the principal document of the former ‘noted the sudden and continued silence of the Chinese CP and Peking Radio regarding the CPI(ML). ‘Since 1971 September till this day,’ it stated, ‘the CPC has not had a single word to say about Naxalberi or about the CPI(ML) or about the martyrdom of our beloved leader,’ Charu Majumdar.”[703]
At about the same time, Robert H. Donaldson noted, “Despairing of the party’s failure to build a mass base before launching an armed struggle, the Chinese have ceased to mention the CPI(M-L) in their publications.”[704]
Modest Revival of Naxalites
In the late 1970s there was a modest revival of the Naxalites, but on a substantially different basis than earlier in the decade. They continued to be split into rival groups, and at least some of those went so far as to give up the CPML’s total opposition to participation in elections.
In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared “emergency” and proceeded to rule by decree. When she finally called elections in 1977, her Congress Party lost to the Janata Party, a coalition of anti-Congress groups. Thereafter, many of the Naxalite prisoners were released.
In late 1978, Sharad Jhaveri wrote that “among the other Naxalite groups, the best organized and most widely known is the one led by Satyanarayan Sinha, who called together various Naxalites working in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar and tried to convince them that the March 1977 Congress Party defeat, had brought a ‘qualitative change’ in the Indian situation. … The Sinha group also advocated participation in parliamentary, state and panchayet (village council) elections. Several Naxalites, such as Santosh Rana, are elected members of such bodies.”
Jhaveri also noted, “The Naxalite groups and individuals, as is the case with all the left parties in the country, are divided over their attitude towards the Janata Party and its government. The majority of groups regard it as ‘comprador’ and see the government as a collaborator with U.S. imperialism. These groups believe that, in place of what they describe as the naked capitalistfeudal dictatorship of Indira Gandhi, the new government will tolerate dissent as long as its political power is not threatened.”
696
Sharad Jhaveri, “Indian Maoists Criticize Peking,”
697
Robert H. Donaldson, in
702
“On the Warpath Again,”