India Moves For Freedom
1.1 The CPI was founded on December 1925 in a conference convened on Indian soil in Kanpur. The process had begun earlier when Indian communists abroad had gathered at Tashkent in 1920 and tried to form an Indian Communist Party. The birth of the Party was the result of tremendous historical developments at home and abroad. It was born when India was groaning under British imperialist rule, just after the anti imperialist struggle had acquired new mass militant dimension.
1.2 Rooted in the National Liberation Struggle which began in the early 20th Century, guided by the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism, and inspired by the Great October Revolution in Russia, the communists went among sections of the Indian people, workers, peasants, youth and intellectuals who had already begun to fight against their condition of life and were seeking a new path to revolution after the withdrawal of the Non-cooperation Movement. The Party had begun its work under illegal conditions and faced ruthless repression from the British rulers who launched one conspiracy case after another on communists (Peshawar, Kanpur, Meerut, etc).
1.3 The National Liberation Struggle led by the Congress was preceded by a series of revolts by various sections of the Indian people attempting to overthrow the alien rule. Following the defeat of India's First War of Independence in 1857, there took place many tribal revolts (Santhallnsurrections, the Chotonagpur revolt led by Birsa Munda and several others), the heroic actions by national revolutionaries dubbed as "terrorists" by the rulers, growing workers' strikes and peasants actions heralding the emergence of new classes and their involvement in the fight for independence. Communists were among the first to raise the slogan of 'Complete Independence", as early as 1921 at the Ahmedabad session of the Indian National Congress, when the official bourgeois leadership was only talking about Home Rule under the British. Again in 1922, Communists at the Congress Gaya session repeated this demand.
1.4 The Nineteenth Century witnessed the ruthless march of the colonial powers who subjugated one country after another by the relentless use of arms against defenceless or poorly equipped people. They used their superior economic might-the might of the capitalist system to seize the raw material resources and capture the markets of these countries.
The Twentieth Century marked the rise of the national liberation movements in the colonies of imperialism. Colonies in Asia and Africa, and also in Latin America won their independence in this century through prolonged and bitter struggles facing brutal and leonine repression. The twentieth century has been marked by great changes for social and cultural progress and economic emancipation. The revolution that heralded a new social system in the history of mankind, the system of socialism took place in this century.
Mankind advanced from national suppression to national independence, from economic exploitation and social oppression to radical improvement in people's life, from autocracy to democracy. No doubt there have been serious defeats and setbacks in the course of the onward march, which only shows that the revolutionary advance does not always proceed in an ascending straight line.
1.5 By 1925 workers' actions on various issues and demands had begun to surge. The years when the Great Depression overtook the world saw great upsurge in working class actions both on political and economic issues. Trade unions were springing up in many industries, and by 1920 the first All India Trade Union Centre, the AITUC had come into existence. The anti-imperialist temper had gripped the working class. The communist party grew along with the growth of the workers' trade union movement. The imperialist rulers repeatedly struck against the Communists but failed to destroy the Communist Party.
1.6 By the time the CPI came into being and grew, all India mass organizations of workers, kisans, students, cultural and literary intelligentsia were also formed. All India Trade Union Congress had already been formed in 1920. The All India Kisan Sabha, the All India Students Federation, the Proqressive writers Association were set up in 1936. The Indian People's Theatre Association was formed in 1943. Their activities and struggles on demands further enriched the content of the freedom struggle and gave it militancy and mass character. Advanced militants from among them joined the Communist Party, which already included many of the national revolutionaries and patriots who had acquired communist ideology while in the British prisons.
1.7. Communists were in the forefront in all these mass organizations and in their struggles, braving hardship and repression. It became the party of workers, peasants, toiling people, students and revolutionary intelligentsia. The party inherited and carried forward the legacy of the revolutionaries and all those who had courageously fought the British rule and made untold sacrifices in the course of this fight. While the Congress led by Gandhiji was in the lead, several streams joined in the mighty turbulent flow of the Movement that finally led on to the achievement of Freedom on August 15, 1947.
1.8. The stormy forties heralded this dawn of Freedom. Following the defeat of the fascist powers in bringing about which the Soviet Union made the greatest sacrifices and played the decisive role, gigantic post-war revolutionary upsurge swept across the globe. Our country and our people moved forward to the final and decisive confrontatior with British imperialism. The "Quit India" movement had already prepared the ground. Unprecedented mass demonstrations and upheavals shook the country. They took the form of solidarity actions with soldiers and officers of the Indian National Army founded and commanded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. This tidal wave had its impact. on the armed forces leading to the historic Revolt of the Royal Indian Navy in 1946. The armed forces of the British imperialists had begun to turn against the foreign oppressors of our people in a manner unparalleled since the Great Revolt - the First War of Independence in 1857.
1.9 It had become clear that the British could no longer continue their rule. The CPI and the mass organizations led by communists threw themselves into this tremendous anti-imperialist upsurge with all the strength at their command. Massive peasant struggles broke out during this period, such as the Telengana, Vayalar- Punnapra and Tebhaga struggles, all of which drew several lakhs of peasants into militant and even armed actions.
1.10 Under the Nizam's rule in the native state of Hyderabad, the biggest in British India, the atrocities of landlords on the peasants knew no limits. The Nizam administration and police invariably sided with the landlords. The struggles against the landlord's atrocities and levies soon developed into a struggle for land. It implied a fight against prevailing laws as well as Nizam's rule. It grew into a full-faced guerrilla warfare against the armed forces of the Nizam. After India achieved Freedom, there was a conspiracy to keep Hyderabad state as an independent entity right in the centre of the country. The Telengana struggle led by the communists fought against the conspiracy incurring huge loss of lives. It paved the way for Hyderabad's accession to India. The inevitable bye-product of this struggle was the land struggle, the distribution of land belonging to jagirdars and landlords. It was at the same time a truly liberation struggle, against imperialism which was the main prop behind the Nizam, against feudalism represented by Jagirdars and landlords, a struggle for national integration and for advance of the languages and cultures of the Telugu, Marathi and Kannad-speaking people.
1.11 The Tebhaga movement in undivided Bengal in 1946 revealed the revolutionary potential of the peasantry and the poor rural masses when roused into action and led by a revolutionary party. Nearly six million sharecroppers, poor peasants and agricultural workers participated in it. Police opened fire in a number of places and killed 72 among whom 11 were women. Hindu and Muslim share croppers joined together and fought shoulder to shoulder against Hindu and Muslim jotedars who had united and called for action by government against "loot and intimidation by the communists". It was a struggle of class vs class. The base of the Left in the countryside of Bengal had built up from those days. It prepared the ground for the land reforms which were ultimately carried out by the Left Front govemment. The Bakasht movement shook many districts of Bihar. The landlord-dominated Congress actively opposed it.
1.12 In October 1946 there took place the death defying battle in the district of Alleppey (Travancore, now in Kerala), where the workers, peasants and agricultural workers fought under the leadership of the Communist Party. The sinister "Cabinet Mission Plan" on the eve of the transfer of power had in addition to partitioning India, given the princely states the choice either to remain as independent states or join India or Pakistan. The autocratic Dewan of Travancore had hatched the plan to setup a 'Free Travancore' with an "American Model of Administration". The ringing slogan advanced by the Communist Party was "Out with the American model! Dump it into the Arabian sea!". Unprecedented bloody confrontation between poor toiling people armed with sharpened poles and scythes and the armed forces of the state with latest firearms took place. In six days nearly one thousand peasants and workers became martyrs.
The revolutionary significance of this struggle was the powerful combination of poor landless peasants and thousands of workers led by the revolutionary party.
1.13 For long the people in the native-states were kept away from the movement in the rest of India under direct British rule. The CPI however targeted these native rulers and chieftains from the outset. It regarded the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles as interlinked. Marx while writing on India in 1953 had branded the princely state as 'the stronghold of the present abominable English system and the greatest obstacle to Indian progress".
1.14 Praja Mandals came up in several states under the influence of antifeudal democratic sections. The All India State People's Conference was organised in the course of these movements. If later the native states were finally and irrevocably integrated into Free India, the credit was in no small measure due to these heroic fights.
1.15 While the Left, democratic and progressive movements gathered strength on the one hand, on the other reactionary and communal forces also grew. This was the time when the RSS arose on the basis of an aggressive anti-Muslim slogan, and for a 'Hindu Rashtra'. Nationhood began to be defined on the basis of religion. The "two-nation theory" was expounded, first by the Hindu Mahasabha and later picked up by the Muslim League. The antagonism between Hindus and Muslims was exploited to the hilt by the imperialist rulers. This later became the basis of the demand for Pakistan. The CPI tried its utmost to prevent this tragic division of the country by putting forward the slogan of Hindu-Muslim unity (strongly advocated by Gandhiji himself) and the vision of a voluntary federation of a united India.
1.16 Freedom was accompanied by the partition of the country into India and Pakistan with all the tragic consequences. The British imperialists transferred power to the Congress in India and to the Muslim League in Pakistan. The seeds were sown of conflict between the two states which to this day continues to trouble this sub-continent. The genesis of the Kashmir problem has to be traced to this wily imperialist maneuver. The persistence of communalism has also to be traced to this diabolic imperialist conspiracy and to the use of religion in politics. This underlines the need and urgency of secular-democratic polity in the country as the basis of India's unity and integrity, which the CPI consistently stands for.
1.17 Developments that have taken place down the years in the world and in India show that the 21 st century will witness that through many ups and downs, twists and turns, temporary and long-term set-back and forward movements, world social development will inevitably overcome imperialism and capitalism and advance towards socialism. For India too socialism is the future.
1.1 The CPI was founded on December 1925 in a conference convened on Indian soil in Kanpur. The process had begun earlier when Indian communists abroad had gathered at Tashkent in 1920 and tried to form an Indian Communist Party. The birth of the Party was the result of tremendous historical developments at home and abroad. It was born when India was groaning under British imperialist rule, just after the anti imperialist struggle had acquired new mass militant dimension.
1.2 Rooted in the National Liberation Struggle which began in the early 20th Century, guided by the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism, and inspired by the Great October Revolution in Russia, the communists went among sections of the Indian people, workers, peasants, youth and intellectuals who had already begun to fight against their condition of life and were seeking a new path to revolution after the withdrawal of the Non-cooperation Movement. The Party had begun its work under illegal conditions and faced ruthless repression from the British rulers who launched one conspiracy case after another on communists (Peshawar, Kanpur, Meerut, etc).
1.3 The National Liberation Struggle led by the Congress was preceded by a series of revolts by various sections of the Indian people attempting to overthrow the alien rule. Following the defeat of India's First War of Independence in 1857, there took place many tribal revolts (Santhallnsurrections, the Chotonagpur revolt led by Birsa Munda and several others), the heroic actions by national revolutionaries dubbed as "terrorists" by the rulers, growing workers' strikes and peasants actions heralding the emergence of new classes and their involvement in the fight for independence. Communists were among the first to raise the slogan of 'Complete Independence", as early as 1921 at the Ahmedabad session of the Indian National Congress, when the official bourgeois leadership was only talking about Home Rule under the British. Again in 1922, Communists at the Congress Gaya session repeated this demand.
1.4 The Nineteenth Century witnessed the ruthless march of the colonial powers who subjugated one country after another by the relentless use of arms against defenceless or poorly equipped people. They used their superior economic might-the might of the capitalist system to seize the raw material resources and capture the markets of these countries.
The Twentieth Century marked the rise of the national liberation movements in the colonies of imperialism. Colonies in Asia and Africa, and also in Latin America won their independence in this century through prolonged and bitter struggles facing brutal and leonine repression. The twentieth century has been marked by great changes for social and cultural progress and economic emancipation. The revolution that heralded a new social system in the history of mankind, the system of socialism took place in this century.
Mankind advanced from national suppression to national independence, from economic exploitation and social oppression to radical improvement in people's life, from autocracy to democracy. No doubt there have been serious defeats and setbacks in the course of the onward march, which only shows that the revolutionary advance does not always proceed in an ascending straight line.
1.5 By 1925 workers' actions on various issues and demands had begun to surge. The years when the Great Depression overtook the world saw great upsurge in working class actions both on political and economic issues. Trade unions were springing up in many industries, and by 1920 the first All India Trade Union Centre, the AITUC had come into existence. The anti-imperialist temper had gripped the working class. The communist party grew along with the growth of the workers' trade union movement. The imperialist rulers repeatedly struck against the Communists but failed to destroy the Communist Party.
1.6 By the time the CPI came into being and grew, all India mass organizations of workers, kisans, students, cultural and literary intelligentsia were also formed. All India Trade Union Congress had already been formed in 1920. The All India Kisan Sabha, the All India Students Federation, the Proqressive writers Association were set up in 1936. The Indian People's Theatre Association was formed in 1943. Their activities and struggles on demands further enriched the content of the freedom struggle and gave it militancy and mass character. Advanced militants from among them joined the Communist Party, which already included many of the national revolutionaries and patriots who had acquired communist ideology while in the British prisons.
1.7. Communists were in the forefront in all these mass organizations and in their struggles, braving hardship and repression. It became the party of workers, peasants, toiling people, students and revolutionary intelligentsia. The party inherited and carried forward the legacy of the revolutionaries and all those who had courageously fought the British rule and made untold sacrifices in the course of this fight. While the Congress led by Gandhiji was in the lead, several streams joined in the mighty turbulent flow of the Movement that finally led on to the achievement of Freedom on August 15, 1947.
1.8. The stormy forties heralded this dawn of Freedom. Following the defeat of the fascist powers in bringing about which the Soviet Union made the greatest sacrifices and played the decisive role, gigantic post-war revolutionary upsurge swept across the globe. Our country and our people moved forward to the final and decisive confrontatior with British imperialism. The "Quit India" movement had already prepared the ground. Unprecedented mass demonstrations and upheavals shook the country. They took the form of solidarity actions with soldiers and officers of the Indian National Army founded and commanded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. This tidal wave had its impact. on the armed forces leading to the historic Revolt of the Royal Indian Navy in 1946. The armed forces of the British imperialists had begun to turn against the foreign oppressors of our people in a manner unparalleled since the Great Revolt - the First War of Independence in 1857.
1.9 It had become clear that the British could no longer continue their rule. The CPI and the mass organizations led by communists threw themselves into this tremendous anti-imperialist upsurge with all the strength at their command. Massive peasant struggles broke out during this period, such as the Telengana, Vayalar- Punnapra and Tebhaga struggles, all of which drew several lakhs of peasants into militant and even armed actions.
1.10 Under the Nizam's rule in the native state of Hyderabad, the biggest in British India, the atrocities of landlords on the peasants knew no limits. The Nizam administration and police invariably sided with the landlords. The struggles against the landlord's atrocities and levies soon developed into a struggle for land. It implied a fight against prevailing laws as well as Nizam's rule. It grew into a full-faced guerrilla warfare against the armed forces of the Nizam. After India achieved Freedom, there was a conspiracy to keep Hyderabad state as an independent entity right in the centre of the country. The Telengana struggle led by the communists fought against the conspiracy incurring huge loss of lives. It paved the way for Hyderabad's accession to India. The inevitable bye-product of this struggle was the land struggle, the distribution of land belonging to jagirdars and landlords. It was at the same time a truly liberation struggle, against imperialism which was the main prop behind the Nizam, against feudalism represented by Jagirdars and landlords, a struggle for national integration and for advance of the languages and cultures of the Telugu, Marathi and Kannad-speaking people.
1.11 The Tebhaga movement in undivided Bengal in 1946 revealed the revolutionary potential of the peasantry and the poor rural masses when roused into action and led by a revolutionary party. Nearly six million sharecroppers, poor peasants and agricultural workers participated in it. Police opened fire in a number of places and killed 72 among whom 11 were women. Hindu and Muslim share croppers joined together and fought shoulder to shoulder against Hindu and Muslim jotedars who had united and called for action by government against "loot and intimidation by the communists". It was a struggle of class vs class. The base of the Left in the countryside of Bengal had built up from those days. It prepared the ground for the land reforms which were ultimately carried out by the Left Front govemment. The Bakasht movement shook many districts of Bihar. The landlord-dominated Congress actively opposed it.
1.12 In October 1946 there took place the death defying battle in the district of Alleppey (Travancore, now in Kerala), where the workers, peasants and agricultural workers fought under the leadership of the Communist Party. The sinister "Cabinet Mission Plan" on the eve of the transfer of power had in addition to partitioning India, given the princely states the choice either to remain as independent states or join India or Pakistan. The autocratic Dewan of Travancore had hatched the plan to setup a 'Free Travancore' with an "American Model of Administration". The ringing slogan advanced by the Communist Party was "Out with the American model! Dump it into the Arabian sea!". Unprecedented bloody confrontation between poor toiling people armed with sharpened poles and scythes and the armed forces of the state with latest firearms took place. In six days nearly one thousand peasants and workers became martyrs.
The revolutionary significance of this struggle was the powerful combination of poor landless peasants and thousands of workers led by the revolutionary party.
1.13 For long the people in the native-states were kept away from the movement in the rest of India under direct British rule. The CPI however targeted these native rulers and chieftains from the outset. It regarded the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles as interlinked. Marx while writing on India in 1953 had branded the princely state as 'the stronghold of the present abominable English system and the greatest obstacle to Indian progress".
1.14 Praja Mandals came up in several states under the influence of antifeudal democratic sections. The All India State People's Conference was organised in the course of these movements. If later the native states were finally and irrevocably integrated into Free India, the credit was in no small measure due to these heroic fights.
1.15 While the Left, democratic and progressive movements gathered strength on the one hand, on the other reactionary and communal forces also grew. This was the time when the RSS arose on the basis of an aggressive anti-Muslim slogan, and for a 'Hindu Rashtra'. Nationhood began to be defined on the basis of religion. The "two-nation theory" was expounded, first by the Hindu Mahasabha and later picked up by the Muslim League. The antagonism between Hindus and Muslims was exploited to the hilt by the imperialist rulers. This later became the basis of the demand for Pakistan. The CPI tried its utmost to prevent this tragic division of the country by putting forward the slogan of Hindu-Muslim unity (strongly advocated by Gandhiji himself) and the vision of a voluntary federation of a united India.
1.16 Freedom was accompanied by the partition of the country into India and Pakistan with all the tragic consequences. The British imperialists transferred power to the Congress in India and to the Muslim League in Pakistan. The seeds were sown of conflict between the two states which to this day continues to trouble this sub-continent. The genesis of the Kashmir problem has to be traced to this wily imperialist maneuver. The persistence of communalism has also to be traced to this diabolic imperialist conspiracy and to the use of religion in politics. This underlines the need and urgency of secular-democratic polity in the country as the basis of India's unity and integrity, which the CPI consistently stands for.
1.17 Developments that have taken place down the years in the world and in India show that the 21 st century will witness that through many ups and downs, twists and turns, temporary and long-term set-back and forward movements, world social development will inevitably overcome imperialism and capitalism and advance towards socialism. For India too socialism is the future.
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