The day 25th May 1967 is a turning point in the history of the Indian communist movement. On this day, eleven people- seven women, two men, and two children, were martyred in the Naxalbari village of North Bengal, where they participated in a peasant demonstration and faced indiscriminate police firing. The “spark” of this peasant uprising spread like a “prairie fire” in various parts of Bengal and the entire country, and profoundly shaped the national and international communist movement. ‘Naxalbari’ is not just the name of a place, it represents a revolutionary ideology for the emancipation of working-class people. Despite much discussion around the day itself, not enough emphasis is put on the international political situation that led to this rupture and its consequences. This article attempts to discuss those points that are extremely relevant and important to understand the contributions of the Naxalbari movement.
After the death of comrade Stalin in 1953, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, preached old revisionism in a new bottle by advancing capitalist reforms within the USSR and advocating ideas of peaceful transition into socialism. This led to a ‘Great Debate’ between the CPSU and Communist Party of China under the leadership of Comrade Mao. This influenced global ideological debates within communist parties particularly in ‘third world’ countries, leading to a split within the Communist Party of India in 1964 with thirty-two members of CPI’s National Council leaving and forming a new Party, named ‘Communist Party of India (Marxist)’, i.e. CPI(M) or CPM in short. Although the revolutionary sections joined CPM, it was evident to them that the split did not take place purely due to ideological differences,
rather due to petty power struggles within the old party. Despite such clear understanding, there was a lack of a revolutionary theory in the context of Indian revolution. Comrade Charu Mazumdar, like a true communist revolutionary, came into the forefront with his famous “Eight Documents”.
Inspired by the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung, Charu Mazumdar penned eight important essays between January 1965 and April 1967. Through these documents he provided a theoretical framework for a new democratic revolution in India, centered on the concept of protracted people’s war with agrarian revolution as the axis. This theoretical framework for the Indian communist revolution he formulated, was unprecedented in nature!
Along with the communist revolutionaries, the peasants and labourers of the Terai region responded to Charu Mazumdar’s clarion call to wage a struggle to abolish the feudal order. During March-April 1967, almost all the villages in Naxalbari area were organized. By forming regional and central revolutionary committees in several areas, by dismantling the monopoly of the landlords over the land, by organizing armed resistance against the attacks of reactionary forces in the villages, the peasants took possession of all land that was not owned and tilled by the peasantry and redistributed it. This revolutionary uprising of the peasants naturally shocked Bengal’s newly elected United Front government, of which CPM was a part, and was about to reveal its reactionary character shortly. Central Committee member of CPM and General Secretary of West Bengal Krishak Sabha, as well as the Minister of Lands and Land Revenue in the new United Front Government, Harekrishna Konar, threatened that the farmers would face severe punishment if they tried to seize the land of the landlords through
illegal means, through mass struggle.
The 25th May incident absolutely unmasked the anti-people character of the revisionist CPM. Following CPM leaders’ threats, police started the “Operation Crossbow” on 5th July, to brutally suppress the Naxalbari peasant uprising. On the other hand, operation expulsion started within CPM, to expel the rebels. Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal and numerous other important leaders were expelled from the party, as they stood in support of the Naxalbari peasant uprising. For similar reasons Sushital Roy Chowdhury, Saroj Dutta and many more were expelled from the editorial board of ‘Deshhitaishee’, which was the weekly organ of CPM. These expelled comrades then decided to launch a Bengali weekly– ‘Deshabrati’ – to coordinate between themselves and other aligned communist revolutionaries. Sushital Roy Chowdhury became the president and Saroj Dutta became the editor of this new organ, the first issue of which was released on 6th July 1967.
An ‘Intra-party Committee Against Revisionism’ was already formed within CPM. After the events of Naxalbari another committee, named ‘Naxalbari O Krishak Sangram Sahayak Committee’, emerged from it. To unite with the communist revolutionaries of other states and to spread the political line of Naxalbari, it was decided to start an English monthly journal named ‘Liberation’, under the editorship of comrade Suniti Kumar Ghosh. On 11th November 1967, a public conference was arranged at Kolkata’s Shahid Minar to commemorate the anniversary of the Russian revolution, where the first issue of Liberation was published. The revolutionaries of CPM came from different states to attend this conference. Next two days they discussed the national and international situation,
upheld Naxalbari peasant uprising as a historic turning point, and formed an ‘All India Co-ordination Committee’. Primary tasks were drawn, such as – 1) To develop and co-ordinate militant and revolutionary struggles at all levels, especially peasant struggles of the Naxalbari type under the leadership of the working class; 2) To develop militant, revolutionary struggles of the working class and other toiling people, to combat economism and to orient these struggles towards agrarian revolution; 3) To wage an uncompromising ideological struggle against revisionism and neo-revisionism and to popularize the Mao Tse-tung thought, the Marxism-Leninism of this era and to unite on this basis all revolutionary elements, within and outside the Party; 4) To undertake preparations of a revolutionary programme and tactical line based on concrete analysis of the Indian situation in the light of Mao Tse-tung Thought.
On 14th May, 1968, at the second conference of the coordination committee, it was renamed as ‘All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries’ (AICCCR). However, some communist revolutionaries, who formed a different revolutionary organization named ‘Maoist Communist Center’, did not become part of this coordination committee. On the other hand, there were ideological differences on a few fundamental questions between the committee and the representative of the Andhra Co-ordination Committee. When these differences persisted even in the third conference of AICCCR, during 7-9th February, 1969, AICCCR decided to part with this group; however, it was decided that the group would be treated as a friendly organization outside the committee. Finally, during its plenary session, AICCCR declared its own dissolution through the formation of a new revolutionary party on 22nd April, 1969, on the day of comrade Lenin’s 100th birth anniversary. The new party was named as Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), or CPI(ML) in short with Mao Tse-tung thought as the basic guiding principle of the Party. Comrade Charu Mazumdar was elected as the chairman of the Central Organizing Committee of this newly formed Party. The political resolution of CPI(ML) characterized Indian society as semi-colonial and semi-feudal, emphasised the presence of an excellent revolutionary situation in the country, acknowledged the struggle between two lines in the Party, and responded positively to Chairman Mao’s call to facilitate “the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world …”.
In his famous essay ‘The Collapse of the Second International’ (1915), Lenin said, “The building of a revolutionary organization must be begun – that is demanded by the new historical situation, by the epoch of proletarian revolutionary action – but it can be begun only over the heads of the old leaders, the stranglers of revolutionary energy, over the heads of the old party, through its destruction.” On 22nd April, 1969, nearly two years after the Naxalbari peasant uprising, we could hear the resonance of these words in India. It was the beginning of a new chapter in Indian communist movement. Since that day more than half a century has passed. Naxalbari suffered a setback in face of brutal state repression; however, its fire never died. While it is true that the spectre of “Naxalbari” still haunts the ruling class, it is also true that the revolution in India still remains an unfinished task. A task that is for the current generation of communist revolutionaries inspired by Naxalbari to take up.
