Today, every country’s Comintern-era 'official' Soviet-aligned communist party has at least one dissident splinter party, typically distinguished by the suffix “Marxist-Leninist” and self-identifying as "anti-revisionist". This is accepted as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, with these anti-revisionists taking the side of Mao against Khruschev. India, the third largest country in Asia after the USSR and China, had the largest Communist movement outside of the “socialist camp” at the time of Naxalbari1. It was not only one of the first countries to see this split play out within its own borders, but also the first to witness a split within the nebulous pro-CPC camp itself. What factors, internal and external, then explained the birth of India’s third communist party, the CPI-ML? The answer lies in the response of Maoist leadership in the CPC during the Cultural Revolution to the peasant uprising in India at the time and their respective parallels to the Chinese Revolution. The Naxalite movement as such remains one of the most significant products of the Cultural Revolution outside of China. Class struggle had become the central term in political discourse in China during the Cultural Revolution, where the ruling Communist Party promoted a worldwide revolution as opposed to the Soviet programme of "peaceful co-existence" with the West1. It might even be argued that class itself may replaced the earlier geopolitical unit of the nation as the focus of China’s anti-revisionist strategy to foment a worldwide revolution. From the perspective of imperialist foreign policy based on occupation based on occupation, of course, Mao’s tactics make little sense. From the guerilla movement of people’s war based in the life of the toiling masses, who have no fatherland and hence nothing to lose but their chains, the lines are always shifting and it is acceptable to concede ground for a greater victory later. With the Chinese leadership promoting a line of two-line struggle and open contestation further and further; the existing pro-Chinese party, the Communist Party of India(Marxist), did not do enough in the eyes of their oppressed constituency in breaking with complacent revisionist practice. The CPI(M), though broadly pro-China, had charted its own course in subtle ways. It was arguably the largest in its own right after the massacre of 1965 decimated Indonesia’s Communist movement, it certainly had the weight to blaze its own trail. This would come to a head in the international response to the 1967 Naxalbari uprising, which conferring legitimacy to a new breakaway faction; the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries, which would go on to become the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist2.
The source of the discontent and deprivation which sparked the uprising lie in the everyday hierarchies of rural West Bengal and the hardships meted out by landlords and police upon the poor peasants and tribal people. During the last years of the British Raj, the region had been stricken by a devastating famine in 1943. The 1946 Tebhaga uprising of sharecroppers was met with fierce and fatal repression: though perhaps not the most reliable source, CPI(M) chief Jyoti Basu gives an anecdotal figure of 70 dead in his memoirs. Charu Mazumdar, whose name would become synonymous with Naxalbari, witnessed both disasters firsthand3. While Independence gave hope to many, the new state was fraught with serious challenges. The Telangana rebellion began before Independence and ended in 1951. The Communist Party of India, following the Soviets in seeking to court favour with Nehru, had abandoned the movement; leaving many alienated and feeling betrayed by this decision, setting the stage for the creation of CPI(M). Some such as T. Nagi Reddy would go on to split from the CPI(M) and form the AICCCR with Mazumdar. The bloody aftermath of Partition loomed even larger, it led not only to the creation of Pakistan but also the geographical absurdity of 'East Pakistan', known today as Bangladesh. A significant number of the Naxalites and CPI-ML (along with many among the West Bengal Left) were Hindu refugees and their children. The formation of a new national identity serves as a reminder of the fragility and fungibility of national identities in the context of modernity4. If that were not enough, West Bengal faced the economic difficulties of sustaining a population which risen by over a third during the '50s. Government mismanagement saw the supply of grains in domestic markets decrease by over 30,000 tons despite an increase of almost ½ million in production in the years immediately leading up to the uprising5.
As to the factors behind the outbreak of Naxalbari and the formation of CPI-ML, the newly incumbent CPI(M) government had made considerable concessions to the landlords in order to secure an alliance with other parties in the United Front coalition. It is important to remember that it was not formed as a result of the later split which would occur between supporters of Lin Biao against the Gang of Four (or later those of Deng Xiaoping were) as many other parties and factions were. While the CPI(M) differed from the CPI in terms of its support for China as opposed to the Soviet Union (important in the proximity of the Sino-Indian War, the Sino-Pakistani War, and the Liberation War of Bangladesh, which also saw Chinese involvement), their strategy of taking power through the electoral route mean little difference between them and the CPI on the practical level. There can be no doubt that neither they nor the CPI were the same parties that helmed the Tebhaga and Telangana uprisings: while pro-Chinese, the CPI(M), inspired by the electoral success of Communists in Kerala during the 1950s, had an incentive to preserve the social order and stood for their own policy of peaceful coexistence writ small. Its program of land reform, however, was too little too soon to address the transformation brought about by Borlaug's Green Revolution. Increased yields created a kulak class with a concentration of land and machinery for themselves which the poor farmers could scarcely keep pace with6. The economic life of the peasants was stamped with the humiliating and subjagating practice of borrowing money7. Poor peasants, especially women, were routinely and systemically sexually abused by the rich as part of their subjugation and long before Naxalbari they had fought back specifically against this in organized and spontaneous forms of resistance8. Contemporary accounts also describe the local tribal population’s desire for farmland9.
Rogue CPI(M) cadres led the rebellion, encouraging the initiative of land seizure by the peasants themselves outside of mediated transfer. A dispute resulted in the murder of 11 civilians, including several children, by police10. It quickly spread to other areas and posed a threat to the stability of their new government. In response, the CPI(M) immediately distanced themselves from the events in accordance with their directives from the senior Chinese leadership. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, they had been instructed to cooperate with the Indian state11. The CPC, on the other hand, lauded the movement and denounced the CPI(M) leadership12. There was a clear resonance between a peasant movement that replaced institutions of the old state with ones where the poor and landless took precedence over the rich and imposed their will directly.as Communist cadre had been widely familiar with accounts of the Chinese Revolution since the 1950s13. CPC coverage of the movement even included calls to form “a genuinely revolutionary party” and saluted revolutionaryrevolutionaries 'inside' the CPI(M). This followed the Maoist concept (expressed most concretely during the Cultural Revolution) of continuing the revolution against a party that had been infiltrated by the bourgeoisie14.
To the peasants left behind by the Indian State and betrayed by the CPI(M) who claimed to advance their interest, the CPI-ML was able to relate the policy of the Soviet Union with the realities of life in rural West Bengal. The CPI-ML, following the words of Mao, (illustrated most strikingly in their prohibition of firearms in the armed struggle), drew their strength not from any foreign power but from the masses15. While the CPI(M) may have allowed limited land reform, the Naxalbari uprising gave the poor peasants of West Bengal their first opportunity to exercise political power over their masters. This followed the view of Marx that class struggle(now considered in its Maoist dimension of placing politics, as opposed to economic development, in command), was the motive force of history16. This opposed the economic determinist theory of Deng Xiaoping which came to prominence after the defeat of the Gang of Four, which stated that the development of productive force was the basis for historical change. The disagreement was based on whether the struggle for production was primary over the class struggle17.
When the CPI-ML was finally formed in 1969, it was immediately recognized by the CPC. Mazumdar reacted likewise and issued the slogan “China’s Chairman is Our Chairman” to the rebuke of both Indian Communists and the CPC itself18. Despite coming from “anti-revisionists”, accusations of those against Mazumdar were similar to those Khrushchev had made against Stalin which the CPC had repudiated. The next year, in an effort to keep the Naxalbari uprising going, the party carried out its controversial “annihilation” line. It was the application of guerilla tactics taken to their logical conclusion; the elimination of individual class enemies such as landlords and police, with melee weapons exclusively, as a propaganda action. This program of the party destroying individual class enemies directly bears a striking similarity to the later “Sparrow Units” of the Communist Party of the Philipines. During this period the party also target artifacts that glorified feudalism just as their Chinese counterparts did. The field of operations shifted from the countryside to the cities. In response, the state extended public order legislation only to find this proved ineffective. The state only realized its chance to suppress the movement during the Liberation War of Bangladesh. The war created a fracture within the CPI-ML with Charu Mazumdar maintaining an internationalist position against “Indian expansionism” while others in his party criticized him for alleged support of the Pakistani government. The war not only weakened the party with internal divisions but afforded the state an excuse to employ extralegal measures in suppressing the movement and use paramilitary squads of its own to attack any known associates. The arrest and subsequent death of Charu Mazumdar in police custody essentially meant the end of the original CPI-ML19, who faced a crisis like the Communist Party of Peru would following the arrest of their leader, Chairman Gonzalo. This was even recognized by the CPC20, after rightists within the party had gained significant ground. Lin Piao’s death and his subsequent denouncement by the CPC divided the movement even further. Minute nuances in assessments of the legacies of Lin and Mazumdar would distinguish many CPI-ML offshoots in the 70s and 80s.
The original CPI-ML lived and died by its support of proletarian internationalism. Support from China was paradoxically rooted in admiration for initiative and self-reliance, as it is known that Maoism as a political philosophy eschews material rewards in favour of political ones. The individual targeting of class enemies did not prompt the people to take up an armed initiative, but the movement survives because of its commitment to advancing the political agenda of the disfavoured21. While the original CPI-ML lasted little over 3 years, the endurance of the Naxalite movement in which an ideological guerilla movement can sustain itself with simply the promise of political power to the most oppressed, something which brokerage parties cannot. While economists such as Amartya Sen see the problem as one strictly coming from the relative deprivation of the rural poor in India22, this ignores the political dimension which is the basis of distributive policies that reproduce divisions of class. The favourite refrain of the Indian right; “anti-national” means little to those who have nothing in common with their propertied countrymen. Charu Mazumdar’s position on Bangladesh prefigured a shift in the Maoist movement; from viewing the Indian state no longer as colonized but as colonizer. Amid the lacuna from the end of the original CPI-ML discussed here to the creation of the Communist Party of India-Maoist and the People's Liberation Guerilla Army in 2004) we find the emergence of one of the least studied social movements of our time: the National Liberation Movements in the Northeast of India and Myanmar (surrounding Bangladesh). They are today counted among the “Naxalites”. If the Indian National Bourgeoisie is opposed to the peasantry, then the working class and peasant movement may find an ally in the emerging national bourgeoisie of the nations within its borders. Just as the Second International broke up over the question of National Chauvinism, there are many parallels between the current incarnation of the Naxalite movement and the Nationalities within the Russian Empire at the dawn of the USSR. The importance of recognizing the position of class within the construction of nations goes beyond a mere “enemy of my enemy" logic; instead of appraising its formal democracy, it "must size up its balance sheet against imperialism"23.
Notes
1.Young, G. (1986). "Mao Zedong and the Class Struggle in Socialist Society".
The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, (16), 42. 41.
2. Judge, P. S. (1992).
Insurrection to Agitation: The Naxalite Movement in Punjab. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. 29.
3. Chatterjee, D. (1985).
Marxist Thought in India. Calcutta: Chatterjee Publishers. 129
4. Roy, S. (2013).
Remembering Revolution: Gender, Violence, and Subjectivity in India's Naxalbari Movement. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 29.
5. Dasgupta, B. (1974).
The Naxalite Movement. Bombay: Allied Publishers. 23
6. Rai, H., & Prasad, K. (1972). "Naxalism: A Challenge to the Proposition of Peaceful Transition to Socialism".
The Indian Journal of Political Science, 33(4). 455-480.
7. Ruud, A. E. (2003).
Poetics of Village Politics: The Making of West Bengal's Rural Communism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 56, 106-118
8. Singha, Roy D. K. (1992).
Women in Peasant Movements : Tebhaga, Naxalite and After. New Delhi: Manohar.
9. Ghosh, S. (1975).
The Naxalite Movement: A Maoist Experiment : First Edition with Documents. Calcutta: Mukhopadhyay. 26
10. Roy, 2013, p. 22
11. Chandra, A. (1990). "The Naxalbari Movement."
The Indian Journal of Political Science, 51(1), 22-45. 22-23
12. Dasgupta, 1974, pp. 11-12
13. Dasgupta, 1974, p. 22
14. Young, 1986, p. 41
15. Carlisle, D. (1965). "Stalin's Postwar Foreign Policy and the National Liberation Movement."
The Review of Politics, 27(3), 334-363. 339
16. Gray, J. (1974).
Politics in Command: The Maoist Theory of Social Change and Economic Growth. The Political Quarterly, 45(1), 26-48.
17. Xing, L. (2005). "From 'Politics in Command' to 'Economics in Command': A Discourse Analysis of China's Transformation."
The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, 18, 65-87.
18. Chandra, 1990, pp. 38-44.
19. Ray, 2002, p. 116-118.
20. Ghosh, 1975, p. xxiv.
21. Dasgupta, 1973.
22. Ray, 2002, p. xviii.
23. Stalin, Joseph. (1953)
Foundations of Leninism
Moscow:Foreign Languages Publishing House.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch06.htm