| Polemics
CPI(ML) Liberation On The Rightist Path
K.N. Ramachandran
in the draft documents to its ‘Eighth Congress’, the CPI (ML) Liberation has admitted that “today, once again we can see the rise of a liquidationist tendency within the Party” (Political Organisational Report). It adds, “This time round, the advocacy is not for an outright dissolution of the Party, but for relegating the Party to the background while handing over the immediate political role of the Party to a national political platform to be sponsored by the Party”. This is nothing but the demand for a new form of IPF. The reasons for emergence of the demand for a repetition of the 1980s’ experiment, when divergent elements were absorbed under the umbrella of Indian People’s Front, after abandoning the efforts for the unity of the Communist Revolutionary (CR) forces, are clear from the draft POR (Political Organisational Report) itself. The foremost reason is the frustration created by the stagnancy or setbacks in the election experiments in Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Karbi Anglong, UP and elsewhere. Another important reason is the CPI(ML) Liberation’s distancing itself from unity, or even united activity, with CR forces and pursuing the illusion of a left confederation with forces like CPI and CPI(M). The emergence of tendencies like liquidationism, federalism and factionalism leading to stagnancy and setbacks — even leading to the splits experienced by Liberation, is entirely due to the basic line pursued by it after bidding farewell to the sectarian line of the 1970s. An overview of the experiments pursued by it and the ideological political line pursued by it, in its efforts to establish itself as the ‘one and only CPI(ML)’, very well reveal the reasons for its present problems.Struggle against sectarianismThe struggle against Dangeism, which pursued the Krushchovian revisionist path of class collaboration, and the split in the CPI leading to the formation of the CPI (M) in 1964, was hailed by the vast majority of the rank and file of the communist movement in India. But as the CPI (M) leadership soon exposed its centrist positions in the Great Debate going on then in the international communist movement led by the CPC and because of its line of class collaboration within the country the CR forces started an inner party struggle leading to the great Naxalbari uprising. Naxalbari was the result of the struggle against the revisionism of the CPI and the neo-revisionism of the CPI (M). Both had, in practice, abandoned the path of agrarian revolution and People’s Democratic Revolution. Naxalbari, in line with the great Telengana struggle, once again brought forward agrarian revolution, with the slogan of “land to the tiller” forward as the central question.Following Naxalbari, revolting against the CPI (M), CR forces formed the All India Coordination Committee of CRs, which upheld the CPC’s denunciation of the revisionist line of the CPSU and the characterization of the Soviet Union, which had degenerated from the socialist path, as a social imperialist superpower contending and colluding with US imperialism. Based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought, the path of New Democratic Revolution, with agrarian revolution as its axis, was adopted. But when the CPI (ML) was formed in 1969 under the leadership of Com. Charu Majumdar, though it generated great enthusiasm among the struggling people throughout the country, it failed to put forward a proper line of Bolshevik party building, an agrarian programme and a perspective for developing class struggle utilising all forms of struggle. On the contrary, it upheld armed struggle one-sidedly as the only form of struggle, adopted the line of annihilation of class enemies and abandoned all class/mass organizations. In this situation, in spite of the enthusiasm created by the movement, it soon got isolated from the masses and suffered severe setbacks under unprecedented state terror. By 1971-72 the movement started splitting into many groups.Though the struggle for a mass line was taken up by some CPI (ML) groups from the early 1970s, CPI(ML) Liberation and many other groups started the struggle against sectarianism and for a mass line seriously only after the 1975-77 emergency. But by this time capitalist roaders led by Deng Tsiaoping had consolidated their stranglehold in China. Though almost all other sections of CRs had denounced capitalist restoration in China by 1982-83, Liberation persisted in upholding the Dengist line and continued to characterize China as a socialist country. Apart from other issues this also became a major issue in the failure of Liberation’s attempts to unite the CR forces in the early 1980s. Instead of rectifying its own ideological, political and organizational weaknesses which were thwarting the unity efforts, Liberation’s leadership came to the conclusion that no more unity efforts to bring together the CR forces are necessary. On the contrary, it launched IPF which was in effect “Keeping the Party in the background handing over the immediate political roles to this front”. It started contesting elections under the banner of IPF, which “implemented the tactical line of the party”. In effect it was something between the Party and the United Front.While Liberation’s leadership continued to uphold the Dengist leadership in China even after its capitalist line was becoming glaringly clear, when Gorbachov put forward Glassnost and Perestroika, claiming to reform socialism in the Soviet Union, like the CPI (M) leadership, Liberation’s leaders also hailed it as a great step forward. It rejected the earlier evaluation of the Soviet Union as social imperialist. Soon, it rejected all possibilities for unity of CR forces and called for the left confederation of CPI, CPI (M) and Liberation in line with the formation of CPN(UML) in Nepal. With the later absorption of IPF into the Party, the right deviation started becoming more profound. In 1990-91 when the Mandalisation of the political scene, especially in North India, became strong, the ideological vacillations led a section of Liberation in Bihar to abandon it and join the Mandal forces. As a result, in its attempts to move away from the sectarian line and pursue the mass line, due to the weakness of its ideological-political positions, Liberation started increasingly coming under the influence of a right deviation. It went on distancing itself from other CR forces.Challenge of imperialist globalizationUnder imperialist globalization, imposed from 1991 by the Narasimha Rao Government, every political trend in India had come under great challenge. Not only the Congress, the BJP and all other ruling class parties, including the regional parties and the so-called social justice parties, even the CPI(M)-led Left Front had gone over to the camp of imperialist globalization in practice. In spite of usurpation of all rights won by the working class through numerous struggles as a result of privatization, liberalization, casualisation, contractualisation etc., the TU centres led by not only the Congress and the BJP, but also by the LF parties have refused to wage any meaningful struggles against them. Besides, the new agricultural policy, including the entry of corporate forces and MNCs into agrarian sector on the one hand and usurpation of the land from marginal peasants for ‘industrialization’, SEZs, real estate development, etc. on the other hand, has intensified the miseries of landless and poor peasants and agricultural labourers. Even middle peasants are in crisis. Ever intensifying consequences of imperialist globalization are calling for a revolutionary people’s alternative to struggle for the people’s cause.But, in spite of all these developments, even while repeating its opposition to the ruling system and imperialist globalization, Liberation’s leadership is refusing to join even an effective anti-imperialist, anti-ruling class front with those CR forces which are uncompromisingly struggling against the right opportunism of the CPI(M)-led LF and the anarchism of the CPI(Maoist). It continues to maintain illusions about a left confederation with forces like the CPI(M) which have degenerated to outright ruling class positions. Or with CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc who have recently started criticising Singur and Nandigram like policies pursued by CPI(M)-led government, while continuing to remain within the LF ministry. Though it talks about an independent left assertion repeatedly, in practice it has abandoned it. As a result, the rightist tendencies have further strengthened in Liberation as manifested in the draft documents of its ‘eighth congress’.Experience of Six Party Joint FrontIn this context, it is worthwhile to glance through the experience of the Six-Party joint front initiated by erstwhile CPI(ML) Red Flag, CPI(ML) New Democracy and CPI(ML) Liberation which was later joined by MCPI, COI(ML) and CPI(ML) Unity Initiative from 1995-96. At a time when the ruling class parties and CPI(M)-led LF had joined the bandwagon of imperialist globalisation, the efforts made by this joint front including the mobilisation before the parliament in 1998 focussing on the consequences of neo-liberalism which is leading the peasantry to suicides in a massive scale and the working class and other oppressed sections to despair, were important steps. Though there were some weaknesses in the mobilisation, it was a welcome effort from which the joint front could carry forward all India struggles focussing on the issues charted out by the joint front.But CPI(ML) Liberation was not giving any importance to this joint front as revealed in its documents of the 1995-2003 period. As a result, when three of the organisations within the joint front, CPI(ML) Red Flag, COI(ML) and CPI(ML) Unity Initiative, decided to go ahead with unity talks to unite into a single organisation, using it as a pretext CPI(ML) Liberation walked out of the joint front, in effect leading to its dissolution in 2003. This joint effort was a significant step in the history of the CR movement. That it continued for 7-8 years and took up some of the serious issues confronted by the people during that period was a positive thing based on which if not unity, at least united front work could be carried forward. But CPI(ML) Liberation did not make any efforts to develop this move.Even after dissolution of the above joint front, yet another effort was made by the three organisations pursuing unity talks to unite the revolutionary left forces including Liberation for a joint front before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. But the approach of Liberation towards this was also negative. These experiences show that Liberation had totally abandoned even any joint moves with the revolutionary left forces. It was focussing on the left confedereation theme and trying to make electoral adjustments with sections of the ruling class parties.Theory of Peaceful TransitionIn the new version of the General Programme presented to its ‘eighth congress’, Liberation states: “The Party does not rule out the possibility that under a set of exceptional national and international circumstances, the balance of social and political forces may even permit a relatively peaceful transfer of central power to revolutionary forces. But in a country where democratic institutions are based on essentially fragile and narrow foundations and where even small victories of popular forces and partial refoms can only be achieved and maitained on the strength of the mass militancy, the party of the proletariat must fully prepare itself for accomplishing the revolution by securing and sustaining the utlimate decisive victory in the face of all possible counter-revolutionary attacks.”Just compare it with the formulation of CPI(M) about achieving People’s Democratic Revolution given in its programme updated by the Special Conference in October 2000: “7.18 The Communist Party of India (Marxist) strives to achieve the establishment of people’s democracy and socialist transformation through peaceful means. By developing a powerful mass revolutionary movement, by combining parliamentary and extra parliamentary forms of struggles, the working class and its allies will try their utmost to overcome the resistance of the forces of reaction and to bring about these transformations through peaceful means. However, it needs always to be borne in mind that the ruling classes never relinquish their power voluntarily. They seek to defy the will of the people and seek to reverse it by lawlessness and violence. It is, therefore, necessary for the revolutionary forces to be vigilant and so orient their work that they can face up to all contingencies, to any twist and turn in the political life of the country.”A comparison of the above two formulations reveal how similar they are basically. And the present Liberation position is diametrically opposed to the formulations on capture of political power put forward in the AICCCR document of 1968 and contrary to the position taken by CPI(ML) and other CR forces of that period and even now.In his analysis of the revolutionary path during the present era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, Lenin talks about possibilities for peaceful transition only as a very distant one, when imperialism has suffered irrevocable reverses and socialist forces have made decisive advances. He had ridiculed Kautsky and such others who talked about immediate possibilities for peaceful transition. In line with this, Mao Tsetung had uncompromisingly attacked Khrushchev’s theory of ‘three peacefuls’ including the line of peaceful transition to socialism. Compared to the 1950s, when Mao emphasized the need to assert the line of revolutionary seizure of political power, today, when the socialist forces have suffered severe setbacks and the Marxist-Leninist forces are weaker in most of the countries, when imperialism, especially US imperialism, is indulging in aggressions around the world to impose its hegemony under the banner of ‘war on terror’, when the comprador character of the Indian bourgeoisie is becoming more evident and the Indian state is launching ruthless attacks increasingly on the working class and all oppressed masses, instead of preparing the toiling masses to intensify their struggles for revolutionary seizure of political power, any talk about peaceful transition is out and out reformism. It shows how much Liberation has fallen under the sway of parliamentary illusions.What are the sources for emergence of such a line of peaceful transition when its own presence in most of the states is meagre or non-existent, and when its mass base and electoral possibilities even in Bihar and Jharkhand is increasingly threatened? There are no such “exceptional national and international circumstances” encouraging a party to make such an evaluation. The lessons to be drawn from three decades of uninterrupted rule by the CPI(M)-led LF in West Bengal demonstrate against the possibility of peaceful transition to revolution. It shows how fast a communist party with parliamentary illusions gets integrated into ruling class politics.The main source of this theory of peaceful transition is Liberation’s analysis of present China in its draft ‘Resolution on International Situation and Our Views”. In spite of pointing out many of the aspects of capitalist tendencies gaining strength there, even after the 17th Congress of CPC, when the report presented there, in content, is like the report of a corporate body, Liberation consoles itself by concluding that: “The Congress has also called for “building socialist new villages” by “giving more to villages, taking less from them and breathing new life to them”, and “industry nurturing agriculture and cities supporting villages” and “improving farmer’s living standards.” This open adulation of Dengist politics in China, which has degenerated into an imperialist country colluding with US imperialism against the world’s people, as proved through its support to US aggression against Iraq while contending for more and more space to strengthen its capital and market domination, proves that Liberation is different from the CPI(M) only in words. So when it identifies “right opportunism as represented by the CPI(M) as the main ideological adversary”, this is just for fooling its own rank and file. Its own practice and theoretical formulations expose that it is only trying to emulate the CPI(M). Its assertion of the Krushchovite theory of peaceful transition in its General Programme is a natural consequence of its rightist deviation which is explicitly clear from the essence of all its draft documents.On agrarian revolutionOut of 76 pages of draft documents, it has spent 33 pages on an Agrarian Programme and connected aspects. After going through these pages, one can get lot of information about the crisis in the agrarian sector and many other details. One naturally expects at least some information about how this programme was carried out and what are the experiences in its main areas of activities, Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern UP during the last five years. But no such information is provided. There are no reports about land struggles in any of the states with “land to the tiller” slogan. While providing a detailed analysis of the agrarian situation in the country, Liberation is not putting forward any agrarian revolutionary programme to struggle against the feudal remnants and and landlord class. In essence, this agrarian programme of Liberation is basically different from the agrarian documents put forward during the Telengana struggle and during Naxalbari movement. Though “seizure of surplus land above the ceiling limit, benami land, land held under illegitimate occupation of religions trusts and places of worship, and other such properties held by landlords, the lands of poor and middle peasants and agrarian labourers”, is included in the immediate tasks under the Agrarian Programme, no reports of such activities are visible in the POR.Similarly, as is evident from press reports, Liberation has not taken any initiative anywhere in leading the anti-SEZ movements. Even in Bengal, where it claims a comparatively better mass base and where it organized its eighth congress, even when such a massive and protracted people’s resistance struggle broke out as in Nandigram, there are no reports of Liberation taking any sustained initiative to unite the anti-CPI(M), anti-establishment forces to provide leadership to it. This is not in any way belittling the importance of Liberation not joining the bandwagon of Trinamul Congress as some of the CR forces and individuals have done in the name of fighting ‘the main enemy’, i.e., CPI(M). As a result of this stand joint programmes could be organised with Liberation and CPI(ML) joining hands. But even this positive move could not be carried forward as Liberation is more interested in joining hands with Forward Bloc, RSP, CPI like forces.In most of the areas where it is active, in the name of the peasant movement what is supported is the demands of rich peasants and middle peasants for remunerative prices for agricultural products and for reversal of the cutting down of subsidies for agricultural inputs. No doubt the CR forces should support these demands. But the focus of the agrarian struggle should be the intensification of the struggle for land to the tiller with confiscation of land and its distribution to the landless peasants and agricultural workers on the one hand, and resistance to the entry of corporates and MNCs in the agrarian sector, together with struggles to throw out SEZs and such land grabbing by land mafias on the other. Only in this way can the adivasis, dalits and other oppressed sections, who are swayed by forces like the BSP with deceptive slogans can be won over and politicised as the main force of New Democratic Revolution. This cardinal question is missing from Liberation drafts.ConclusionThe POR reveals that except for the notable victory of AISA in this year’s JNUSU elections and some nominal increase in AICCTU membership during the 2002-2007 period, Liberation’s strength is in decline. Though it could somewhat maintain its forces in Bihar and Jharkhand, in other areas it is getting weakened or many forces have left its fold. Trends of liquidationism, federalism and factionalism are gaining strength. Irrespective of the claims of its leadership, rightist tendencies gaining strength in ideological political positions are getting reflected organisationally. The falsehood of its projection as the sole force fighting the CPI(M)’s right opportunism and the CPI(Maoist)’s anarchism is getting exposed increasingly as it is swaying more and more to rightist positions. By distancing itself from CR forces, this tendency is getting further strengthened. The challenge before Liberation is whether it will be able to reverse the dominating rightist tendencies and rejoin the CR fold. At present the possibilities for this look bleak, as the decisions of its ‘eighth congress’ reveal. |
