Communism and Nationalism – The Twain Can Never Meet – The Saga of Indian freedom fight

Coauthored by Saswati Sarkar, Shanmukh, Dikgaj and Gangadhar

Section A: Introduction and Overview

We have been exploring the role of the communist ideology in context of freedom movement in India. Ever since the Communist Party of India (CPI) has been formed in 1919 (or 1925 depending on which event is considered the founding one) many of its positions have been deemed to be contrary to India’s national interests. The most well-known of these are the CPI’s 1) opposition of Quit India, 2) vilification of leaders of freedom fight such as Bose, Jayprakash Narayan, through cheap slander 3) support for partition of India (Gangadhar Adhikari’s “Pakistan and Indian National Unity’’) 4) support for China during 1962 war with India etc. Are these but accidents of history or consequence of the design of the CPI? We delve into the core ideology of communism to obtain an answer.

Relying on the writings of founders of communism such as Marx and Engels, as quoted and paraphrased in scholarly works such as Robert Service’s History of Global Communism [12] and Nicholas Owen’s Oxford history monograph [9], we argue that communism is an ideology that has its roots in Europe, many of the formulations therein constitute responses to the historical events in Europe and trace their fountainhead to religions that had a substantial presence in Europe at the time the ideology was born (Section B). There was nothing Indic in the context, core ideology and motivation of communism. A colonial notion of inferiority of the countries that were colonized at the time of the founding of communism is ingrained in the ideology. The vision of the early communists was for the whole of Europe; they hardly gave any thought to the world beyond Europe. Finally, Marx and Engels rejected the concept of nationalism itself, and made no allowance for cultural or national differences. They were opposed to the existence of the state itself, while nationalism put the state at the centre of veneration.

Lenin expanded the domain somewhat and published his Colonial thesis on the national and the colonial questions in June 1920, which articulated the role of communism in colonies of the European nations at that time (Section C). The genesis of communism in India may be traced to this Colonial thesis. In his Colonial Thesis, continuing the global doctrines propounded by Marx and Engels, Lenin condemned what he called petty-bourgeoisie nationalism, distinguished it from proletarian internationalism, and emphasized on the import of ushering in international dictatorship of the proletariat. He also called for subordinating the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the interests of that struggle on an international scale. The Communist University of the Toilers of the East founded in Soviet Russia in 1921 emphatically stated that they regarded any display of nationalist feeling as the most fatal disqualification for their students. In the 1930s and during the second world war, the principle of subordinating the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the interests of that struggle on an international scale was heavily utilized to subvert India’s freedom struggle by superseding the same goal by stated international goals of fighting enemies of communism such as extreme forms of nationalism like fascism and Nazism. Lenin also declared that the only salvation of the national liberation movements in the colonies lay in the Soviet system’s victory over world imperialism and called for pursuing a policy to achieve the closest alliance between these movements and the Soviet Russia. But he also cautioned the communist movement that an alliance between bourgeoisie democratic national movement in the colonies and the communist movements therein will be uneasy, conditional and temporary. In 1938 and 1939 we will see such uneasy, conditional and temporary alliance between the Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose and the CPI.

Lenin’s confidant Manabendranath Roy (M. N. Roy) is considered by some as the father of Indian communism. Roy interpreted Lenin’s statement in the Indian context (Section D). Roy’s writings between 1920-25, in his books “India in Transition’’ and “What do we Want’’, and manifestos reproduced in G. Adhikari’s “Documents of the Communist Movement in India’’, show that, he condemned the nationalist movement in India as `bourgeois’, and said that political liberation of India must be emphasized only because British domination renders the organization of class struggle impossible, but political liberation is not the final goal of the international communist movement. India’s freedom fight was not a war between two nations, but a part of the struggle of the working class all over the world against imperialism. The communist concept of unity of working classes all over the world would include the unity between the British and the Indian working classes. Class war, rather than nationalism was, deemed the driving force against British imperialism.

In accordance with the Eurocentric roots of communism, Roy envisioned an India that would be disjunct from her ancient past and any religious ideology, and be subjected to intense class struggle. He stringently decried nationalism, using descriptors such as “extreme nationalism’’ or “orthodox nationalism’’. He did not find anything worthy of praise in India’s Hindu past, but enough to deride. He dismissed the Hindu reform movements of the nineteenth century as reactionary as well. One can see this contempt for India’s Hindu past continue throughout the history of communism in India. Indian communists and the intelligentsia influenced by communists usually trace the roots of every concept they deem worthy to somewhere outside India, mostly in Europe. We trace the roots of this syndrome to the absolutism inherent in communism, which resembles the core doctrines of the religions that were prevalent in Europe at the time of the origin of communism. There is a compulsion to convert all to communism, to dig up the foundations of the society and rebuild. In addition, communists would also be fundamentally intolerant of Hinduism, given that their Eurocentric ideology not only had no Dharmic roots, but also because its premises were borrowed from a particular imperialist version of that Eurocentrism that degraded Hinduism in its constructions.

He also diminished the import of political independence by arguing the futility of the same for its own sake. He suggested that political independence is an intermediate step towards overthrowing capitalism. In other words, Lenin’s Colonial Thesis in Indian context is that political independence may be striven for, only if the end-goal is to establish a communist order. He advocated the solidarity of the British and the Indian proletariat on the ground that the British Government in India has been appointed by the capitalist class of England, which exploits both the Indian and the British working class. He argued that India is not being ruled by the English people as a whole, but by a small section of the English, that is, their capitalist ruling class. He exhorted the revolutionary freedom fighters to see India’s freedom movement as an inseparable component of global revolution including that by the British proletariat.

Roy’s concept of political independence of India stands on class war rather than Indian nationalism. In what was essentially an argument against the concept of nationalism, he asked what good would it be to replace exploiters of one nationality with those of the other. He posited that an India governed by Indians will not necessarily ensure that the governance is in the interests of the entire people of India because of class-struggle, that is, conflict of interests between the various classes in India. He unequivocally condemned the Indian freedom movement as devoid of theoretical foundation and as associated with antiquated religious ideology. He traced the revolutionary freedom movement to Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, and castigated it as representative of “extremist nationalism’’, “reactionary’’, “politically nihilist’’, “fanatic’’, “spiritual imperialist’’, of “orthodox and religious phraseology’’ and “youthful impatience and reactionary conservatism’’. He posited that the Indian propertied class wants to be free from foreign domination to win the unrestricted right to exploit the proletariat, that is, they are in reality fighting for their own interests. He repeatedly argued that the Indian freedom struggle was in reality a social strife or a class struggle between the exploiter and the exploited, irrespective of nationality, and has only the appearance of a national struggle. The Indian bourgeoisie is including the proletariat in this class struggle only because they do not have numbers and will eventually deceive the proletariat. Headvocated that the working class must be organized to protect its own interests, though it might enter into a temporary alliance with the propertied classes to oust a common enemy, the British imperialists.

As in other parts of the European political discourse, racial superiority of European colonizers constitute an integral component of the doctrine of communism, perhaps as a result of the European origin of communism (Section E). Between 1920-1922, Lenin and the Executive Committee of Communist International (ECCI) stated that the most active assistance for the organization of communist movements and the bourgeois-democratic liberation movements in colonised countries must come from the communist parties in the colonial countries. In Indian context these imply that the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) must lead CPI’s assistance to India’s freedom struggle, and the seed for the CPGB’s takeover of the CPI was embedded in this. Naturally, communism failed to take on imperialism, and even turned out to be an instrument of imperialism. In the first part of our series, we had shown how right from the start the CPI was under the thumbnails of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) [14]. The Comintern, the global body of communism, stationed in Russia, handed over CPI to the CPGB. While the actual handover was initiated under Stalin, the seed of this handover lay in Lenin’s doctrine as enunciated in this article. In contrast, the CPGB was not required to be as subservient to the Comintern as the CPI, perhaps given their race, or partly because they had an independent cadre and financial base of their own. The handover became complete by 1935, when the Soviet Russia and Great Britain decided to form a `united front’ strategy against fascism. While Russia and the Comintern remained a remote overlord of the CPI, the direct control was exerted by the CPGB, who laid down the operational policies of the CPI, interpreted the guidelines of the Comintern as they saw, and passed on specific operational instructions to the CPI, which they had to follow. In short, CPI became the Indian outpost of the CPGB. The CPI’s stated uncompromising fight against imperialism, that is, their attempt to overthrow the British rule, was entirely guided by the leading lights of the CPGB, namely ideologues like Rajani Palme Dutt, Ben Bradley and practitioners like Harry Pollitt. And imperialist Great Britain furthered the growth of the supposed anti-imperialist CPI, which explains why CPI rarely prioritized India’s interests while fighting for India’s freedom.

The fallacy in the Communist doctrine however becomes apparent from various admissions by the stalwarts of the Communist movement (Section F). In his Colonial Thesis published in 1920, Lenin acknowledged that nationalism is deeply ingrained in the proletariat everywhere, particularly in the colonized countries. The politicians of the British Labor Party, the main political party of the British proletariat, acknowledged the existence of substantial conflicts between the working classes of different countries. The protégés of Lenin, such as M. N. Roy, repeatedly appealed to the British proletariat to join the Indian proletariat in their revolt against the British imperialism on grounds of solidarity of international working class and because the revolt was not merely a nationalist demonstration, but a class war against the capitalists. But, the British prolateriat as a body never showed any solidarity with their Indian counterparts in their fight against British imperialism, which can be seen from the governance record of the British Labor Party in India. The Occident’s superiority over India in political matters was an article of faith even in the British Left intelligentsia, who were considerably ignorant of Indian culture and history, were distrustful of the Indians and expected deference from them. The British Labor Party had defended British imperialism in India, directly and indirectly. The Labor Party leaders publicly or privately held that India was not fit to govern herself, and remained sceptical if freedom would improve the standard of life of the populace. Labor governments brutally persecuted India’s proletariat and the freedom fighters, similar to the conservative governments. During mass movements demanding freedom, the Labor politicians would inititally sympathize with the movements and pressurize the British government to offer concessions, once concessions were offered, however symbolic, Labor politicians would pressurize the Indian leaders even more to accept them. Citing dire conditions in Britain, that is, British interests to be more specific, the Labor leaders would sometimes try to persuade Indian leaders not to launch mass movements demanding freedom.

We provide a brief tour of the Indian freedom movement to demonstrate a manifestation of Communist ideology in action (Section G). We show that powerful individuals who did not have any affiliation to the Communist Party largely shared their worldview and were party to the damages the communist movement inflicted on the freedom movement in India. Thus, ideology and actions, rather than formal affiliations, ought to count in objective historical assessment. We also note that several groups who were opposed to communist ideology perpetrated identical betrayals. Thus, assessments ought to primarily rely on actions of the entities concerned, rather than the labels that can describe them. In future pieces we describe in detail the topics we touch upon in this Section. We conclude in Section J drawing some analogies between the seemingly political opposites – the Communists and the BJP-RSS.

Section B: Core ideology of Communism – culturally European and doctrinally opposed to nationalism

Communism is an ideology that has its roots in Europe, many of the formulations therein constitute responses to the historical events in Europe and trace their fountainhead to religions that had a substantial presence in Europe at the time the ideology was born. The vision of the early Communists was for the whole of Europe; they hardly gave any thought to the world beyond Europe.

In his history of Communism, Robert Service has noted how the worldview of Marx and Engels was shaped by Parris Commune in March 1871, religions like Judaisim, Christianity and Islam, and Lenin claimed to merely interprete and adapt Marxism to the events of twientieth century Europe:

“Most of them [the early Communists] were also committed to the cause of international peace and were horrified by the outbreak of the war between Prussia and France in 1870. But Prussian military success led to the fall of Napoleon III, and a revolutionary situation erupted in the French capital. Workers and socialist agitators set up the Paris Commune in March 1871. This was an attempt to establish an administration of popular self-rule. Each representative was elected and remained subject to instant recall if ever the electors objected. Wages and salaries were equalised; welfare provision was disseminated. The Commune heavily regulated the metropolitan economy. Marx and Engels were ecstatic. To them it seemed that the model of their kind of revolution was being created by the ‘proletariat’. Then disaster happened. The forces of counter-revolution were assembled outside Paris by Adolphe Thiers. In May they marched against the insurgents, scattered the weak resistance and carried out a brutal suppression. Marx and Engels continued to uphold the memory of the Paris Commune, criticising its leaders only for their failure to arm and train the workers in due time.’’ Loc. 659, [12].
“Crucial to Marxism was the dream of apocalypse followed by paradise. This kind of thinking existed in Judaism, Christianity and Islam … Marx and Engels as atheists later in their lives denied that true believers would be rewarded by eternity in heaven; instead they contended that they and their supporters would create the perfect society down here on earth. Christian doctrine predicted that unbelievers would meet a miserable end at the return of the Messiah. Likewise, according to the founders of Marxism, those who obstructed the advance of communism to supremacy would be trampled underfoot. The ruling classes of the day would come to rue their lordship over humankind.’’ Loc. 384, [12].
“Lenin scoured their [Marx and Engels] writings for references like an intellectual detective … He [Lenin] professed to be merely expounding their purposes and represented himself as their modest pupil. The most he claimed for himself was that he was applying their analytical principles to the changed conditions in the twentieth century – and he believed that his interpretation fitted Europe as a whole, not just Russia. Lenin maintained that the ‘bourgeois state’ had to be smashed to smithereens by armed uprising and proletarian dictatorship. In its place a wholly new state order had to be created. He expected this to be built on the foundations he witnessed in Russia in 1905 and in 1917: the soviets.’’ Loc 1322,[12].

In an Oxford Historical Monograph, Nicholas Owen, has noted how Marxism was tainted by the orientalist assumptions of colonial inferiority, and therefore failed to challenge imperialism: “Post-colonial theorists suggest that “all those ideologies which might have developed an anti-imperial cutting edge, including liberalism, forms of socialism, including classical Marxism, failed to do so, because they were themselves the children of imperialism, and, until challenged by the colonised themselves, remained tainted by orientalist assumptions of colonial inferiority. There is now a huge literature assessing the theoretical validity of these claims, especially as applied to Marxism ‘’ Loc 149, [9].

Marx and Engels also believed that the “leading civilised countries’’ or “great industrial powers’’ (read Europe) would usher in the civilizing mission that they perceived Communism to be. Service has noted that,

“Somehow the ‘united action’ of what Marx and Engels called ‘the leading civilised countries’ would supply ‘one of the first preconditions for the emancipation of the proletariat’.’’ Loc. 616, [12]
“Marxism’s co-founders put their faith in the civilising mission of the great industrial powers. They railed against the economic exploitation of indigenous peoples carried out by the European empires; but imperialism was not in their eyes a bad thing in itself. The world was changing as the factory system was extended. It was, for them, a harsh but inevitable process.’’ Loc. 779, [12]

Service has also commented on the absolutist nature ofCommunism, the conviction of the Communists that the world was to be made communist – both of these resemble the core doctrines of the religions that were prevalent in Europe at the time of the origin of Communism:

“The word itself – communism – was invented late, gaining widespread currency in French, German and English only in the 1840s. It has consistently denoted a desire to dig up the foundations of society and rebuild. Communists have never been half hearted about their purposes. They have focused a constant hatred of the existing order on state and economy. They have suggested that only they – and not their many rivals on the political left – have the doctrinal and practical potential to transform human affairs. Some kind of egalitarianism lasted in their objectives. Determination and impatience to achieve change have been permanent features. The commitment to militant organisation has endured.’’ Loc. 367, [12].
“They[Marx and Engels] were maximalists. No compromise with capitalism or parliamentarism was acceptable to them. They did not think of themselves as offering the watchword of ‘all or nothing’ in their politics. They saw communism as the inevitable last stage in human history; they rejected their predecessors and rival contemporaries as ‘utopian’ thinkers who lacked a scientific understanding.’’ Loc. 638, [12].

Marx and Engels, in their vision, specifically rejected nationalism. According to Service, “They summed up their vision in striking words: ‘The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation . . .’.’’ Loc. 616, [12].

The Communists made no allowance for cultural differences, nor for any national differences. Their thought was universal, and further, they actually advocated subsuming the smaller nations inside the larger ones. Once more, to quote Service, “Nor did Marx or Engels have much to say about the ‘national question’. Some of their utterances, moreover, were uncongenial to their followers in the smaller national and ethnic groups. They were scathing about some of the Slavs. Supposedly the best outcome would be their absorption in German culture and an end to the ambitions of their nationalist intellectuals’’ Loc. 779, [12].

To continue further from the reasoning of Marx and Engels, they were opposed to the existence of the state itself [at least, in theory], while nationalism put the state at the centre of veneration. Once more, as narrated by Service, ``The ultimate objective for Marx and Engels was the creation of a worldwide communist society. They believed that communism had existed in the distant centuries before ‘class society’ came into being. The human species had supposedly known no hierarchy, alienation, exploitation or oppression. Marx and Engels predicted that such perfection could and inevitably would be reproduced after the overthrow of capitalism. ‘Modern communism’, however, would have the benefits of the latest technology rather than flint-stones. It would be generated by global proletarian solidarity rather than by disparate groups of illiterate, innumerate cavemen. And it would put an end to all forms of hierarchy. Politics would come to an end. The state would cease to exist. There would be no distinctions of personal rank and power. All would engage in self-administration on an equal basis.’ Marx and Engels chastised communists and socialists who would settle for anything less.’ Loc. 638, [12].

The German Socialist Party (SDP) had for example instructed the socialists to oppose their own governments should the governments choose to go to war. The Congress [socialist international congress] of 1912 had demanded that all socialists vote against any war taxes or credits, in the event of an outbreak of war. Once more, to quote Service, “The gist of the Congress’s decision was that, if the great powers were to go to war, the duty of socialists was to oppose their own governments. Parliamentary representatives were enjoined to refuse to vote war credits. A political campaign was to be organised to bring about peace. The parties of the Second International agreed to act in fraternity with each other and to extract the sting of chauvinism from European public life. … Quite how this would be achieved was left unclear. Some parties suggested that a revolutionary insurrection would be necessary; others wanted to stay within the law and avoid violent methods. But it was a universal article of faith that total opposition to any war was a socialist duty. Bankers and arms manufacturers were said to be the only beneficiaries of military conflict. Monarchs too were brought under suspicion. The Second [Communist] International took a stand against each and every move by governments to exacerbate the situation in Europe.’’ Loc. 969, [12]. Communists went a step further in this direction during the first world war. In Germany, while the Communists voted against the war credits and pushed for dodging draft, most of the SDP leadership voted for war credits. Service writes, “The Second International before 1914 had committed its member parties to opposing their governments’ participation in any continental war. Russian revolutionaries were divided in their reaction to the actual outbreak. Even some Bolsheviks rallied to Russia’s patriotic cause. But many Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries stuck to their principles. The war for them was an inter-imperialist conflict which would benefit the bourgeoisie of one or other military coalition but could only bring poverty and death to the ordinary working people of the world. Socialists in other countries tended to vote in favour of war credits for their governments. But some leftists held to their pre-war commitment. These included groups of French, German, Dutch and Swiss socialists, and it was the Swiss leader Robert Grimm who convoked a conference of the anti-war political left in the little Alpine village of Zimmerwald in 1915.’’ Loc. 1206, [12].

The anti-war stance of the Communists brought them into clashes with the nationalists in Europe, who were never shy of looking for war between nations. Since the first world war, the nationalists perceived the Communists as traitors and enemy agents. It is of course another matter that the Communists openly supported the Allied forces in the Second World War, and even joined the war efforts.

Section C: Lenin Expands the Domain of Communism to the European Colonies

There was nothing Indic in the context, core ideology and motivation of Communism. In terms of contemporary events, the countries outside Europe and North America were at best footnotes in the thought-process of Marx and Engels. Lenin expanded the domain somewhat and published his Colonial thesis on the national and the colonial questions in June 1920 (Lenin’s Collected Works, Volume No. 31) p. 143, [2]. The thesis was discussed at the fourth and fifth sessions of the Second Congress of the Communist International, and it was adopted on July 28, 1920, p. 148, [2]. The genesis of Communism in India may be traced to this Colonial thesis.

In his Colonial Thesis, continuing the global doctrines propounded by Marx and Engels, Lenin condemned petty-bourgeoisie nationalism, distinguished it from proletarian internationalism, and emphasized the import of ushering in international dictatorship of the proletariat. He also called for subordinating the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the interests of that struggle on an international scale:

“Recognition of internationalism in word, and its replacement in deed by petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism, in all propaganda, agitation and practical work, is very common, not only among the parties of the Second International, but also among those which have withdrawn from it, and often even among parties which now call themselves communist. The urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e. existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e. a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole). Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital ‘’ p. 145, [2].
“On the other hand, the more backward the country, the stronger is the hold of small-scale agricultural production, patriarchalism and isolation, which inevitably lend particular strength and tenacity to the deepest of petty-bourgeois prejudices, i.e., to national egoism and national narrow-mindedness. ‘’ pp. 147-148, [2].

In the 1930s the principle of subordinating the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the interests of that struggle on an international scale was heavily utilized to subvert India’s freedom struggle by superseding the same goal by stated international goals of fighting enemies of Communism such as extreme forms of nationalism like fascism and Nazism.

Lenin also guided the work of a Commission on the national and the colonial questions, formed by the Second Congress of the Communist International, which included representatives of the Communist parties of Russia, Bulgaria, France, Holland, Germany, Hungary, the U.S.A., India, Persia, China, Korea and Britain. On July 26, 1920, the Commission presented a report, which condemned national movements as a whole. It said “It is beyond doubt that any national movement can only be a bourgeios-democratic movement’’ p. 150, [2].

In his Colonial Thesis, Lenin also declared that the only salvation of the national liberation movements in the colonies lay in the Soviet system’s victory over world imperialism and called for pursuing a policy to achieve the closest alliance between these movements and the Soviet Russia. But he also cautioned the Communist movement that an alliance between bourgeoisie democratic national movement in the colonies and the communist movements therein will be uneasy, conditional and temporary:

“The world political situation has now placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day. World political developments are of necessity concentrated on a single focus — the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, around which are inevitably grouped, on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities, who are learning from bitter experience that their only salvation lies in the Soviet system’s victory over world imperialism…. Consequently, one cannot at present confine oneself to a bare recognition or proclamation of the need for closer union between the working people of the various nations; a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest allince, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements’’ p. 143, [2].
“the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries; the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations. The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form ‘’ pp. 146-147, [2].

The report of the Commission guided by Lenin advocated the same conditional alliance as before “…we, as Communists, should and will support bourgeois-liberation movements in the colonies only when they are genuinely revolutionary, and when their exponents do not hinder our work of educating and organising in a revolutionary spirit the peasantry and the masses of the exploited If these conditions do not exist, the Communists in these countries must combat the reformist bourgeoisie… ‘’ p. 151, [2].

The Communist University of the Toilers of the East was founded on April 21, 1921 and trained Communists of various countries until the end of the 1930s p. 27, [2]. Manabendranath Roy was stationed in Soviet Russia in 1920, and was close to Lenin. M. N. Roy has written in his memoirs that “I conceived the idea of establishing in Moscow a centre for the political training of revolutionaries from various Asiatic countries. Lenin enthusiastically approved of the idea..’’ p. 751, [2]. We learn the guiding philosophy of instructions in this University and its impact from the memoirs, “Myself and the Communist Party of India’’, of leading early Indian communist, Muzaffar Ahmed.: “ Students from such foreign countries as China, Japan, India, Persia and Turkey, are accepted upon the recommendation of the Third International. They are undoubtedly expected to go back to their native countries and work for the triumph of Communist idea…The strictly international character of the instruction given in the University was emphasized by one of its leading directors. “We regard any display of nationalist feeling as the most fatal disqualification for our students,” he said. “Of course we teach the students who come from countries outside the frontiers of Soviet Russia that they must fight against imperialism, whether the imperialism comes from within or from without. But this fight must be carried on in the name of international communism and the right of every people to self-determination, not through appeals to racial and religious prejudice and fanaticism.” pp. 760-761, [2].

Section D: Ideological Statements Relevant to India- Manabendranath Roy’s interpretations of Lenin’s Colonial Thesis

India and Communism, compiled by the Intelligence Bureau of the Home Department, Government of India, 1933, revised upto 1935, refers to M. N. Roy as “the father of Indian Communism’’ p. 741, [2]. He interpreted and connected Lenin’s Colonial Thesis to the Indian context. On 19 July, 1920, a month after Lenin publishes his colonial thesis, M. N. Roy, Abani Mukerji, Santi Devi [M. N. Roy’s wife Evelyn Roy] published a manifesto titled, “An Indian Communist Manifesto’’ on 19 July, 1920, in the Glasgow Socialist. The manifesto pitted Indian nationalism against the economic emancipation of the workers, which can only be organized on the basis of class struggle. The manifesto condemned the nationalism movement in India as bourgeois, and said that political liberation of India must be emphasized only because British domination renders the organization of class struggle impossible, but political liberation is not the final goal of the international Communist movement. “ The nationalist movement in India has failed to appeal to the masses, because it strives for a bourgeoisie democracy and cannot say how the masses will be benefitted by the independent national existence. The emancipation of the working class lies in the social revolution and the foundation of a Communist State. Therefore the growing spirit of rebellion in the masses must be organized on the basis of the class struggle in close cooperation with the world proletarian movement. But, because British domination deprives Indians of the elementary rights indispensable for the organisation of such a struggle, the revolutionary movement must emphasize in its programme the political liberation of the country. This does not make its final goal- a bourgeois democracy unless the native privileged class could rule and exploit the native workers in place of British Bureaucrats and Capitalist. All that the world is allowed to know of the Indian revolutionary movement is the agitation for political autonomy. This had naturally failed to enlist the sympathy of the working class in any country, which must always be indifferent to purely nationalist aspirations. …To-day there are two tendencies in the Indian movement, distinct in principles and aims. The Nationalists advocated an autonomous India and incite the masses to overthrow the foreign exploiter upon vague democratic programme or no programme at all. The real revolutionary movement stands for the economic emancipation of the workers and rests in the growing strength of a class conscious industrial proletariat and landless peasantry. This latter movement is too big for the bourgeois leaders and can only be satisfied with the Social Revolution. This manifesto is issued for those who fill the ranks of the second movement. We want the world to know that nationalism is confined to the bourgeois, but the masses are awakening to the call of the Social Revolution. The growth of class consciousness in the Indian proletariat was unknown to the outer world until last year, when one of the most powerful and best organised strikes in history was declared by the Indian revolutionaries. Though the Nationalists used it as a weapon against political oppression, it was really the spontaneous rebellion of the proletariat against unbearable economic exploitation. As the workers of the cotton mills owned by the native capitalists were the first to walk out it cannot be maintained that the strike was nothing more than a nationalist demonstration…..The bourgeois nationalist movement cannot be significant to the world proletarian struggle or to the British working class, which is learning the worthlessness of mere political independence and sham representative government under capitalism…. we declare that our aim is to prevent the establishment of a bourgeois nationalist government which would be another bulwark of capitalism. We wish to organize the growing rebelliousness of the Indian masses on the principles of class struggle, so that when the revolution comes it will be a social revolution. The idea of the proletarian revolution distinct from nationalism has come to India and is showing itself in unprecedented strikes. …. Self-determination for India merely encourages the idea of bourgeois nationalism.’’ pp. 52-56, [2].

Subsequently, in various books and manifestos, Roy expounded on the natural interpretation of Lenin’s Colonial thesis, following the overall Communist ideology, that – India’s freedom fight would not be a war between two nations, but a part of the struggle of the working class all over the world against imperialism. The Communist concept of unity of working classes all over the world would include the unity between the British and the Indian working classes. Class war, rather than nationalism would be the driving force in their stated position against British imperialism.

Section D.1: India without her civilizational past

In accordance with the Eurocentric roots of Communism, in his book, “India in Transition’’ authored in 1922 from Geneva, M. N. Roy envisioned an India that would be disjunct from her ancient past and any religious ideology, and be subjected to intense class struggle. He stringently decried nationalism, describing it as “extreme nationalism’’ or “orthodox nationalism’’ and ridiculed the concept that Indian culture is unique. He was also contemptuous of “religious nationalism’’ and “the narcotic effect of the much-vaunted spiritual civilization.” He wrote,

“ It is recognized by all that India is in a state of transition. She finds herself in the period which links the past lived through and left behind, with the dawning future of new activities, new hopes and new aspirations. Indians of all shades of political opinion and social tendencies have written and are writing about this stage of transition. Everybody has defined it according to his understanding or his desire….There is a third school which also takes notice and talks about this transition. They are the extreme nationalists who have been dominating the stage the last several years. Their socio-political philosophy is the hardest to comprehend, being hopelessly confused. The reason of this confusion is that they hold an entirely wrong conception of this transition, in spite of being the most rudely tossed and toppled by this great wave of popular upheaval. To them it is not so much a transition, but a revivalist period, through which India is passing. Because they think that the Indian people are struggling to liberate themselves from the political and economic bondage which obstructed their progress for centuries, not to begin a new life with a new vision, but to revive the old. But the past whose most important chapters is doomed by history, one of is the present transition.. Neither the anxiety of the British Imperialists, nor the desire of the constitutional patriots, nor the fanaticism of the orthodox nationalists will be able to lead the rising Indian nation astray from the path marked out by those historical forces which determine human progress. Jointly or severally they may retard, confuse the forward march of the Indian people; but they cannot stop it for ever.. ‘’ pp. 11-12, [11].
“This tribe of social reformers [of the nationalist movement] can be divided into two categories; the radical religionists with strong national jingoism and the class-conscious modern bourgeoisie with liberal tendencies. The first take upon themselves the great task of proving that Indian culture has been a unique thing, that it developed in its own way and that the structure of Indian society has not been subject to the action and reaction of material laws. And, following this course of reasoning, these apostles of Indian culture social re-adjustment that come to the conclusion that the class-struggle never soiled the sanctity of Indian society, and that it is never going to be the principal factor in the process of social readjustment. They preach that class-struggle is the peculiar outcome of the materialist civilization of the West and is not possible in Indian society, which is based on the knowledge of the spiritual essence of man. “Gandhism” is the political expression of this social movement. The second class of social reformers is the modern bourgeoisie. They are the disciples of the 18 th century school of economics, and their philosophy is that of the nineteenth century freethinkers and utilitarians. No national egoism can make them blind to the class cleavage in Indian society; but class egoism, the idea that by the dint of their education and privileged positions they are the custodians of national interests, makes them diffuse the social character of the present struggle. They encourage the development of a modernised version of religion, whose futile fuss about caste seeks to drown the din of class struggle. These bourgeois reformers, who are the most conscious leaders of nationalism, are very much interested in the uplift of the “depressed” classes; and while holding thousands of wage-slaves in perpetual starvation, don’t hesitate in the least to have them shot when these slaves show signs of revolt, in order to uplift themselves’’ pp. 95-96, [11].
“Orthodox nationalism, on the other hand, is closer to the understanding of the people, and for this reason succeeds in provoking enthusiasm from time to time; but the reactionary tendencies inherent in it preclude the possibility of its ever becoming a dynamic revolutionary force, which alone is able to shake the foundation of foreign rule and start the people on the road to further progress. The backwardness of the people makes them respond more to religious nationalism than to constitutional democracy. The inevitable incapacity of the progressive bourgeoisie to assume the leadership of the national movement on a mass basis, left the ground at the command of orthodox nationalism which sought to incite the people against the foreign domination in the name of religion and culture. But they also failed, because the masses remained equally passive to the national movement based upon religion. At last the stings of economic exploitation exhausted their patience and religious calm, which owed their baneful origin and durability, to the very spiritual national culture they are called upon to defend. It was the narcotic effect of the much-vaunted “spiritual civilization” which kept the Indian masses apathetic to any movement for material progress. They have been taught to sacrifice the hallucinations of the phenomenal world in expectation of a blissful existence hereafter. The present awakening is a reaction against the age-long resignation, created by religious teachings and the tenets of spiritual culture. Therefore it cannot be used for a national movement tending towards the revival of the spiritual civilization of India ‘’ p. 207, [11]

As expected, Roy, here, is following the Orientalist discourse pushed by European and particularly British authors, without showing any awareness of an Indic counter discourse that had begun developing already. He does not find anything worthy of praise in India’s Hindu past, but enough to deride: “ We don’t want to go into an analysis of the caste system. But it is necessary to throw a look back on history to ascertain what was the economic basis of caste. In the Hindu scriptures and classics this is glorified in various ingenious ways. But coming down to the origin of it, one discovers slavery. The caste-line was drawn first between the Aryan conquerors and the conquered aborigines. The distinction was made by colour, the conqueror being fair and the conquered dark. The Sanskrit word for caste is Varna which means colour. The sub-divisions in the caste-system were subsequently evolved in accordance with the inter-mixture between the conquered and conquering races, and the development of tools. The social growth followed almost the same process of evolution as in the savage and barbaric periods in the human society everywhere, only with certain modifications in the super-structure, caused by local circumstances. The physical and climatic conditions told heavily upon the structure of Indian society. Slavery, Feudalism, Serfdom all took somewhat different forms. ‘’ p. 96, [11]. He posited that color of skin, that is, racism, is at the root of the caste system, and discovered slavery at the origin of the caste system. We shall provide a few examples to show that Roy was factually wrong. The word ವರ್ಣ (ৱর্ণ) comes for the caste system, not from color, but from the root ವೃಣ್ (ৱৃণ্) which means `to describe’ or `to [set in] order’. The old Indian system of castes was based on the profession, and did not have a birth based component. This is attested to by the Bhagavadgeeta [16], which says ಚಾತುರ್ವರ್ಣ್ಯಂ ಮಯಾ ಸೃಷ್ಟಂ ಗುಣಕರ್ಮವಿಭಾಗಶಃ (চাতুর্ৱর্ণ্যং মযা সৃষ্টং গুণকর্মৱিভাগশঃ) 4:13 [16], which indicates that the four varnas are created by the lord, keeping in mind the nature [of the people] and work that they do. Similarly, Yudhisthira in the Yaksha Prashna in Aranyakaanda, [17] clearly states that the it is the nature of the person and the work that he does that determines the varna to which the person belongs. He is categorical that whatever the birth of the person, that person does not belong to the caste of his birth if his nature and work do not suit the varna in question. Further, Manusmriti clearly states that Vedas cannot be taught only to four kinds of people, viz, a) traitors b) those who abuse/misuse the knowledge c) the jealous d) the incapable. 2:109-115, [18]. In short, varna is not a restriction for any kind of studies.Further, it is erroneous to relate caste system to colour of skin, and imply that a higher position in the caste hierarchy was allocated to the groups that had lighter complexion. A counter-point to this narrative is the simple fact that many of the primary Hindu Gods and Goddesses, and heroes and heroines are dark in complexion. Both Raama and Krishna are described as `dark as a thundercloud’. The word Raama itself means both `beautiful/handsome’ and `dark’ [19]. Kaali, Kalabhairava, and many other Gods, including Manmatha [the Hindu version of Cupid, the epitome of masculine beauty] are described as dark 12:1, [20]. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad seeks a `dark son’ who will be learned in the three Vedas. Furthermore, Shreekanthacharitam which devotes an entire chapter [chapter 13] to describing the decorations that people applied to their bodies indicates that the most attractive colour was `golden-hued’, which is to say, wheat-coloured complexion with shining skin to indicate the health. It is, in fact, hard to find any particular praise of fair complexion in classical Sanskrit literature.

One can see this trend of demonization of India’s civilizational past and tracing all that is deemed good to outside India, continue throughout the history of communism primarily among the communist-influenced intelligentsia but also among the communist leaders. For example, career communists like Harkishan Singh Surjeet who made it to the CPI Politbureau several decades later saw Socialism as a Russian concept and had no problem with its being so: “ It must be realised that unlike the European and some of the Latin American countries, no socialist movement existed at that time in India. Though capitalist development was taking place and the working class was born, socialist organizations had not yet been set up in India. Some leaders of the national movement had attended one or two conference of the 2nd International [1920] and had the opportunity of meeting Lenin. This however did not enable them to equip themselves with the ideology of socialism even within the framework of social democracy. It is only after the October Revolution [1917] that these ideas began spreading. Indian revolutionaries abroad were the first to come under its influence due to the firm stand of the Russian revolution in support of Indian independence ‘’ p. 20, [5]. In contrast, a nationalist like Subhas Chandra Bose sought to trace Indic roots of various political concepts of his time such as Democracy, political unity, Socialism to ancient India.

Roy dismissed the Hindu reform movements of the nineteenth century as reactionary as well: “ In the 90’s, tendencies of religious reform were being expressed as if to counteract the wave of radicalism headed by the modernized intelligentsia. These tendencies took organized form in the “Arya Somaj” in the north and the “Ramkrishna Mission” in Bengal. The object was the rejuvenation of the teachings of Hinduism in order to make them compatible with the psychology created by modern education. But in fact, it was the resistance of the forces of conservatism and reaction trying to adapt themselves to the new environments. The glaring social corruptions and stifling religious superstitions could not be overlooked, even by the stoutest admirers of the spiritual civilization of the Aryans. The best that could be done and was done by those elements, which constituted the bulwark of the old, was to lay the blame on the degeneration brought about by time. The pristine purity of the original doctrines was vigorously upheld. And a national revival was advocated with the slogan of “back to the Vedas” which even in the present moment finds an apostle in Gandhi. The new movement headed by Tilak perhaps unconsciously transplanted into the political field this tendency of looking backward, in order to find inspiration for a forward march. ‘’ p. 183, [11].

Roy saw Swami Vivekananda as the most potent proponent of religious nationalism who sought to retain the intellectual aristocracy of the privileged few. He could not conceal his admiration for Swami Vivekananda’s intellectual abilities and vision, but deemed him as ` spiritual imperialist’’. Quoting from “India in Transition’’, “ Religious nationalism of the orthodox as well as reformed school had begun to come into evidence in the province of Bengal since the first years of the twentieth century. Although its political philosopher and leader were found subsequently in the persons of Arabinda Ghose and Bepin Chandra Pal respectively, its fundamental ideology was conceived by a young intellectual of petit bourgeois origin. He was Narendra Nath Dutta, subsequently known by the religious nomenclature of Swami Vivekanada. While still a student in the University of Calcutta, Dutta felt the rebellious spirit affecting the lower middle class intellectuals. It was in the early nineties [of the nineteenth century]. He was moved by the sufferings of the common people. De-classed socially, possessing a keen intellect, he made a spectacular plunge into the philosophical depths of Hindu scripture and discovered in his cult of Vedantism (religious Monism of the Hindus) a sort of socialistic, humanitarian religion. He decried scathingly orthodoxy in religion as well as in social customs. He was the picturesque, and tremendously vigorous embodiment of the old trying to readjust itself to the new. Like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Dutta was also a prophet of Hindu nationalism. He also was a firm believer in the cultural superiority of the Indian people, and held that on this cultural basis should be built the future Indian nation. But he was not a partisan of orthodoxy in religion: to social conservatism, he was a veritable iconoclast. He had the courageous foresight, or perhaps instinct which convinced him that if religion was to be saved, it must be given a modern garb; if the priest was still to hold his sway over the millions of Hindu believers, he must modify his old crude ways; if the intellectual aristocracy of the fortunate few was to retain its social predominance, spiritual knowledge must be democratized. The reaction of native culture against the intrusion of Western education ran wild, so to say, in the person of Vivekananda and the cult of Universal Religion he formulated in the name of his preceptor, Ramkrishna Paramahansa. He preached that Hinduism, not Indian nationalism, should be aggressive. His nationalism was a spiritual imperialism. He called on Young India to believe in the spiritual mission of India. The following quotation from his voluminous writings and speeches can be taken as the fundaments of his philosophy, on which was subsequently built the orthodox nationalism of the de-classed young intellectuals, organized into secret societies advocating violence and terrorism for the overthrow of British rule. Vivekananda said: “Materialism and all its miseries cannot be conquered by materialism. Armies, when they attempt to conquer armies, only multiply and make brutes of humanity … Spirituality must conquer the West. Now is the time to work for India’s spiritual ideals penetrating deep into the West. We must go out. We must conquer the world through our spirituality and philosophy. We must do it or die. The condition of Indian national life, of unashamed and vigorous national life, is the conquest of the world by Indian thought.” pp. 193-194, [11].

He dismissed Tilak as a reactionary and a conservative given the latter’s invocation of Hindu nationalism:

“The reactionary forces contributing to the doctrines of “integral nationalism” stood revealed, when Tilak declared that Indian nationalism could not be purely secular, that it must be based on Hindu orthodoxy. In its earlier days, orthodox nationalism assailed the Congress more for its social radicalism and religious heresy than for its reformistic political program. A national independence, which would push Indian society back to Hindu orthodoxy, was indeed not a very revolutionary ideal. If material welfare should be sacrificed for things spiritual, then why should the people be asked to fight for political independence which, after all, is a secular matter? ‘’ p. 186, [11].
“The problematical realization of the program of “aggressive nationalism” depended on the political potentiality of these forces of reaction and conservatism. The aggressive exponents of orthodox nationalism, including Tilak himself, invoked the teachings of the Hindu scriptures and philosophy to serve the purpose of a modern political movement. It was an impossible task fraught with grave danger. For example, the Anti-Cow-Killing Society, founded by Tilak obviously as an instrument of political agitation, soon degenerated, as was to be expected, into an organ of extreme religious orthodoxy. He delved into history to find inspiration for the present and thought to produce a magnetic charm in the personality of the Marhatta hero Sivaji. Festivals to celebrate Sivaji’s birth-day were organized and stirring speeches were made in the name of religion, which was supposed to be defiled by the foreign rule. The orthodox spirit of “aggressive nationalism” crystallized in the formation of such organizations as the “Society for the removal of obstacles to Hindu religion”. The very name speaks for the nature and social tendency of such organizations. ‘’ pp. 189-190, [11].

But why this compulsion of Roy to extirpate the Indic past from India? This is because like the core doctrines of the religions that were prevalent in Europe at the time of the origin of communism, communism was absolutist by design. The communists were convinced that the world was to be made communist. Recall Service’s synopsis, in his history of Communism, “ It [Communism] has consistently denoted a desire to dig up the foundations of society and rebuild.’’ Loc. 367, [12], and “They [Marx and Engels] saw communism as the inevitable last stage in human history; they rejected their predecessors and rival contemporaries as ‘utopian’ thinkers who lacked a scientific understanding’’ Loc. 638, [12]. To convert mankind to the new doctrine of communism, it was imperative that the people must be made to feel ashamed of their ancestors. In the words of Swami Vivekananda, “Ay, when a man has begun to hate himself, then the last blow has come. When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come’’ [13]. Reproducing the full quote of Swami Vivekananda, “It has been one of the principles of my life not to be ashamed of my own ancestors. I am one of the proudest men ever born, but let me tell you frankly, it is not for myself, but on account of my ancestry. The more I have studied the past, the more I have looked back, more and more has this pride come to me, and it has given me the strength and courage of conviction, raised me up from the dust of the earth, and set me working out that great plan laid out by those great ancestors of ours. Children of those ancient Aryans, through the grace of the Lord may you have the same pride, may that faith in your ancestors come into your blood, may it become a part and parcel of your lives, may it work towards the salvation of the world!…. Do not be in a hurry, do not go out to imitate anybody else. This is another great lesson we have to remember; imitation is not civilisation. I may deck myself out in a Raja’s dress, but will that make me a Raja? An ass in a lion’s skin never makes a lion. Imitation, cowardly imitation, never makes for progress. It is verily the sign of awful degradation in a man. Ay, when a man has begun to hate himself, then the last blow has come. When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come. Here am I, one of the least of the Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of my ancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I am one of your unworthy servants. I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the descendants of the sages, you the descendants of the most glorious Rishis the world ever saw. Therefore have faith in yourselves, be proud of your ancestors, instead of being ashamed of them. And do not imitate, do not imitate! Whenever you are under the thumb of others, you lose your own independence. If you are working, even in spiritual things, at the dictation of others, slowly you lose all faculty, even of thought. Bring out through your own exertions what you have, but do not imitate, yet take what is good from others. We have to learn from others. You put the seed in the ground, and give it plenty of earth, and air, and water to feed upon; when the seed grows into the plant and into a gigantic tree, does it become the earth, does it become the air, or does it become the water? It becomes the mighty plant, the mighty tree, after its own nature, having absorbed everything that was given to it. Let that be your position. We have indeed many things to learn from others, yea, that man who refuses to learn is already dead. ‘’ [13]. In addition, communists would also be fundamentally intolerant of Hinduism, given that their Euro-centric ideology had no Indic roots.

Section D.2: Indian nationalism was political rather than civilizational and exploitative and reactionary

In “India in Transition’’ authored in 1922, Roy denied any concept of civilizational nationhood for India: “ Political nationhood is comparatively a recent phenomenon in the annals of human history. It is the result of a certain stage of economic development, affecting communities inhabiting a given geographical region. Diverse groups of peoples living in the same surroundings, are gradually welded into a national entity under the pressure of economic forces. So long as these forces are not sufficiently developed, the sense of nationhood remains unknown to a people. India is no exception to this law. The extensive peninsula called India, is a mere geographical expression; it is very distinctly marked out from the mainland Asia by physical barriers. But to hold that this geographical accident has been in itself sufficient to create a sense of of national unity among the diverse communities inhabiting India, would be to misread the history of human evolution. To weld the numerous races and tribes, divided by language and grades of culture, into one national unity was conditional upon the development of a material force which could make such fusion possible. As long as the productive forces remain so backward that the different groups of the people can live in self-contained isolated communities, the simple accident of their happening to be situated within the limits of a certain geographical area does not suffice to make a nation out of them. It is only economic development that induces these isolated communities to come into relation with each other to satisfy their mutual needs’’ pp. 147-148, [11].

Following the opposition to nationalism inherent to communism, Roy castigated his contemporary Indian nationalism as only political, exploitative and a reaction against a common oppression: “The political nationalism of modern India expresses the political ideology and aspiration of a youthful bourgeoisie, which has risen in spite of innumerable obstacles and which has never had the opportunity of utilising the state apparatus for disseminating and inculcating in the people the idea of nationhood. But at the same time, it enjoys the advantage of shielding its exploitations under the cry against foreign oppression. The nationalism of contemporary India lacks the tradition of a national unity, but it rests on the reaction against a common oppression’’ p. 159, [11].

Section D.3: Diminishing the import of political independence

M. N. Roy sent a manifesto to the 36th Indian National Congress, Ahmedabad, 1921 pp. 123-137, [2]. It said nothing about complete independence, just exhorted Congress to lead a mass struggle on the agenda of economic interests of the masses.

In his book titled “What do we want?’’ written in 1922, Roy starts off by unequivocally demanding complete independence from British imperialism, but immediately afterwards goes on to argue the futility of political independence for the sake of it: “We want, first of all and as soon as possible, political independence, because it is the first step towards our goal. But we must know that merely the overthrow of foreign rule will not bring us all we lack today and all that is indispensable in order that the masses of the Indian people shall live like human beings’’ p. 689, [2]. He argues that British government must be ousted because it protects the right of the possessing class to exploit the toilers: “ Why are we determined to overthrow the British Government? Because, it is based on the principle against which everyone who lives by honest labour must rebel. It is based upon the right of the possessing class to exploit the expropriated toiler’’ p. 689, [2]. He suggests that political independence is an intermediate step towards overthrowing capitalism: “Will the condition of the toiling masses, who constitute the great majority of the Indian people, be any better off after gaining such national freedom? No, surely not. The Indian workers and peasants are poor, they are starving, they die by thousands from famine and pestilence, because the exploitation of the propertied class deprives them of the fruit of their labour. The British, being the rulers of the nation, are able to rob the people more than the native capitalists do. Therefore we must fight to overthrow them. But the over- throw of British rule will not be enough to free the entire people from economic exploitation and social slavery. The fundamental motive of our struggle is to abolish the source of human exploitation, which lies in the system of private property, on production for profit, in a word, Capitalism.‘’ pp. 721-722, [2]. In other words, Lenin’s Colonial Thesis in Indian context is that political independence may be striven for only if the end-goal is to establish a communist order.

Section D.4: British colonization of India is a class conflict between international capitalist and working classes

In his book titled “What do we want?’’ written in 1922, in line with the Communist doctrine of internationalism, of solidarity of international working class, Roy advocated the solidarity of the British and the Indian proletariat on the ground that the British Government in India has been appointed by the capitalist class of England, which exploits both the Indian and the British working class: “The present government of India is not elected by the people of India; it is appointed by the capitalist class of England, which make profit by exploiting the labour of the Indian and English working class. We are rebelling against the present government because it lets the British capitalist rob the Indian people.’’ p. 690, [2]. He argued that India was not being ruled by the English people as a whole, but by a small section of the English, that is, their capitalist ruling class: “The concern of British Government is to see that the British merchants and manufacturers, who rule England today, get the greatest amount of profit by robbing the Indian people. The fact that the Viceroy is an Englishman and all the high government officials are also Englishmen does not mean that India is ruled by the English people as a whole. No, India is ruled by a very small section of the English nation—the small section which makes profit by exploiting the Indian people and natural resources of our country, and which is called the capitalist ruling-class. It is this capitalist class which carries on trade, owns railways, mines, and plantations, and makes money by robbing the Indian worker and peasant of the fruits of his labour. It is this class which rules not only India, but England and the whole British Empire today. The British Government is composed of the representatives of this powerful class of exploiters, who control the affairs of the Empire in their own interests.’’ p. 690, [2].

In July 1925, The Executive Committee of the Young Communist International , published a manifesto for the revolutionary freedom fighters of Bengal, titled “A Manifesto of the Young Communist International to the Bengal Revolutionary Organisation of Youth’’ in Masses, Vol I, No 7. M. N. Roy was the authority concerning India in Communist International then, and he ran Masses. So the manifesto was in all likelihood authored by him. The manifesto exhorted the revolutionary freedom fighters to see India’s freedom movement as an inseparable component of global revolution including that by the British proletariat. It said:

“The heroic struggles of the toiling masses of India for their national and social liberation, the fight against British imperialism and the landlord-feudal rulers and other reactionary forces which follow the lead of British imperialism, awakens the greatest sympathy among the tens of millions of worker and peasant youth throughout the whole world, who today are conducting a determined struggle for the abolition of exploitation and for the right to rebuild the whole world on a socialist basis. In the revolutionary struggle for national liberation, the revolutionary youth of the orient plays a most important part. In China, Egypt and other oriental countries, the revolutionary students, jointly with the workers and peasants, are conducting a severe and stubborn fight against the oppression of foreign capitalists. In India also the role of the students in the national-revolutionary struggle is a very important one ‘’ p. 473, [3].
“One of the fundamental principles in the programme of the Young Communist International and the Comintern is the close inseparable union of the national-revolutionary movement in India with that of the other oriental countries and with the revolutionary proletariat of England and of other industrially developed countries. At the Second Congress of the Comintern, on the proposal of Comrade Lenin, a resolution was passed which defined this union as one of the fundamental principles of our work and programme. This is quite explicable. The national-revolutionary movement in India and in other colonies, as well as the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in industrial countries, has a common enemy in the shape of world imperialism. Imperialist capitalism is the worst enemy of British, French, German, Russian and other workers. It is true that not all workers understand this yet. The work of explaining this is only just proceeding, but everywhere we see how the importance of the communist parties is rapidly increasing. It is natural therefore that the revolutionary alliance against world imperialism is necessary and inevitable. Complete mutual support is one of the principles of the Comintern ‘’ p. 481, [3].
“The interests of the British labour movement and the national-revolutionary movement in India form a common basis for this union, and on the basis of this union the fight should be conducted for the emancipation of India and the emancipation of the British proletariat from capitalism’’ p. 482, [3].
“Every effort must be exerted in order to unite the revolutionary movements into one whole, into a single organisation, and to explain to the toilers whose interests are served by these antagonisms among the masses of the toilers’’ p. 483, [3].

Section D.5: “Class war rather than Indian nationalism is the bedrock of India’s march towards political independence”

Roy’s concept of political independence of India stood on class war rather than Indian nationalism.

In his Manifesto sent to the 36th Indian National Congress, Ahmedabad, 1921, he asked what good would it be to replace exploiters of one nationality with those of the other pp. 123-137, [2]. This line of thought was essentially an argument against the concept of nationalism.

In “What do we want?’’ written in 1922, he goes on to say that an India governed by Indians will not necessarily ensure that the governance is in the interests of the entire people of India because of class-struggle, that is, conflict of interests between the various classes in India:

“ The fact that an Indian gentleman may sit where Lord Reading sits today; that Indian officials administer the affairs of the country instead of English ones ; that all the governors of the provinces will be Indians ; that all the magistrates, collectors and judges will also be Indians, does not necessarily mean that the country will be governed in the interests of the entire people of India ‘’ pp. 691-692, [2].
“Why is this so? It is because the interests of all the people in any given country are not identical…. It is clear then that the interests of all the people belonging to the same country are not identical. The interests of the rich are opposed to those of the poor ; those of the landlord are not the same as those of his tenants ; the interests of the mill-owner are contrary to those of his factory-hands. Why? Because one class thrives on the exploitation of the other. The present government represents the British capitalist class whose interest it is to exploit the labour of the Indian working-class, on whose wealth it fattens. When the British government is overthrown, and a government of the Indian landlords, merchants and manufacturers is established in its place, will that change the present miserable condition of the Indian workers and peasants? No, for the interests of these two classes are not the same. A government composed of the upper and middle classes of the Indian people, in spite of being a national government, will protect only the interests of those classes, and not of the exploited majority. The power of the Zamindar will increase; more profits will swell the purse of the mill-owner ; the Indian middle-class intellectuals will fall heir to the fat government jobs today reserved for Civil Service men imported from Great Britain. How can this in any way alter the existing economic condition of the majority of the Indian people? In what way will this change of English rulers for Indians improve the lot of the toiling peasant and starving wage-slave? ‘’ pp. 691-692, [2].

Section D.6: Diminishing the Indian freedom movement

Roy unequivocally condemned the Indian freedom movement from various dimensions. In “India in Transition’’ written in 1922, he argued that the Indian freedom movement was devoid of theoretical foundation and associated with antiquated religious ideology: “The most outstanding feature of the Indian national movement has been its lack of theoretical foundation. A modern political movement involving a sweeping mass-action, cannot go on forever with antiquated religious ideology’’ p. 14, [11].

In “India in Transition’’, he traced the revolutionary freedom movement to Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, and castigated it as representative of “extremist nationalism’’, “reactionary’’, “politically nihilist’’, “fanatic’’ and “spiritual imperialist’’:

“This romantic vision of conquering the world by spiritual superiority electrified the young intellectuals, whose desperate economic position made them restive. Victims of the existing order, they were rebelling against it and would destroy it, if possible. The British domination stood in the way as the root of all evils. Thus, an intelligently rebellious element, which otherwise would have been the vanguard of the exploited class in a social struggle, had to give in to national pre-occupations, and contribute a movement for the immediate overthrow of foreign rule, not for progress forward, but in order to go back to an imaginary golden age, the fountain-head of India’s spiritual heritage. This youthful band of rebels’ fanatically believing in the spiritual mission of their Motherland, embodied in themselves the clash of two forces; that of Reaction inducing them to put their nationalism on a religious basis, to hoist the banner of which so-called “aggressive nationalism” proposed to put up a determined resistance to the menaces of materialism in order to preserve the assumed superiority of their spiritual heritage and that of Revolution, driving them to political nihilism, together with tendencies towards religious or Utopian socialism without, however, any appreciation of the laws of social progress. In their religiousness and wild spiritual imperialism, they embodied the reactionary social forces. Their no less sincere and ardent desire, on the other hand, to educate the people, to improve the latter’s conditions, to revive the golden age unsullied by the vices of the existing system, were generated by the objectively revolutionary forces heralding a coming social struggle. Despite the apparent predominance of their religious tendencies in the ideological domain, it was the latter spirit of revolt, generated as it was by a powerful material cause, which really determined their activities and made them a power behind the Extremist Party. But the de-classed character of the members of these secret revolutionary societies becomes clear when we see them pay but little attention to the program of the Congress, which, whether under the leadership of the Moderates or the Extremists, advocated the interests of the bourgeoisie. Their declassed character enabled them to avoid falling helpless victims to the reactionary tendencies running through them. Revolutionary forces expressed through them got the upper hand’’ pp. 193-194, [11].
“ The practical extermination of the Extremist Party did not stamp out orthodox nationalism, which found a stronghold in the secret revolutionary societies, whose program was the overthrow of British domination by means of terrorist campaigns, to culminate in an uprising at a suitable opportunity. The members of these secret organizations, which outlived years of severest persecution by the government, were more romantic ascetics of Jesuitic character than revolutionaries with a political vision. Through them were expressed the forces of reaction and revolution. They were the product of a society in a great crisis, which was marked by a fanatic resistance of the old to the inevitable appearance of the new. Both these conflicting forces with their origin in the material background of social disintegration on the one hand and readjustment on the other, acted and reacted on the psychology of these young men organized in secret revolutionary societies, and produced in them political nihilism, social confusion and mystic religious orthodoxy. To them national independence meant spiritual imperialism. Clarification of the political tendencies of these fanatical ascetics could not take place until the class cleavage in the society became more glaring and more cruel. And since class cleavage was to follow the development of the bourgeoisie, the field of activity of these ardent revolutionaries remained confined to futile conspiracies, until the society underwent the necessary transformation. In every respect proletarianized by the capitalist society, these lower middle-class intellectuals were objectively social anarchists. National pre-occupations clouded their vision of social antagonism, and made them fall temporary and unconscious victims of the forces of reaction. Their natural tendencies towards religious socialism were taken by storm by the romantic ideal of a great spiritual mission awaiting the Indian nation’’ p. 200, [11].

He described the revolutionary freedom movement against the British in 1905-1915 as one of “orthodox and religious phraseology’’ and attributed it to “youthful impatience and reactionary conservatism’’: “ Even the possibility of recognizing this authority, when democratized by including the available native element in it, was not admitted. But in socio-political significance this new phase was less revolutionary than the former, because its theory of “integral nationalism” when put to practice would push the country into a backward stage of development in spite of national independence. Youthful impatience and unseen forces of reactionary conservatism, brought about the apparently revolutionary violent outbursts which were the characteristics of this phase of the movement. And in these very causes lay its inherent weakness. But its unmixed influence was but of short duration, because in order to be potential, the interests of the rising industrial capital had to be made the motive force of the movement, which nevertheless, retained its orthodox and religious phraseology’’ p. 182, [11].

In “What do we want’’ written in 1922, he posits that the Indian propertied class wants to be free from foreign domination to win the unrestricted right to exploit the proletariat, that is, they are in reality fighting for their own interests: “The Indian people as a whole are exploited by the foreign ruler, and therefore the British Government is their common enemy irrespective of class distinction. Rich and poor, capitalist and worker, bourgeoisie and proletariat, are fighting and must continue to fight in a united front against the foreign domination. This fight is called the struggle for national freedom. The Indian people are fighting for their political independence, for the right to rule themselves. The Indian propertied class want to be free of foreign rule because under it, freedom of development and the unrestricted right of exploitation is denied to this class. If all the wealth produced by the workers and peasants of India remained in the hands of the rich native capitalists the British would cease to rule India, because there would be no profit in their rule. As long as a foreign government rules the country, the native capitalist class must lose a portion of the proceeds of exploitation, which are appropriated by the foreign ruler and which the native consider their legitimate due. Such being the case, the native upper classes must fight the foreign exploiter. They say they are struggling against foreign domination to make the country free, but what they are really fighting for is their own interest. They are fighting for the freedom to exploit the Indian workers and peasants and the natural resources of the country; in order to secure this they must become the rulers of India. This is the national freedom they are striving for; this is what they want ‘’ p. 721, [2].

He repeatedly argued that the Indian freedom struggle was in reality a social strife or a class struggle between the exploiter and the exploited, irrespective of nationality, and has only the appearance of a national struggle. The Indian bourgeoisie is including the proletariat in this class struggle only because they do not have numbers and will deceive the proletariat. Referring to “India in Transition’’ written in 1922,

“ The more the British Government makes concession to the Indian bourgeoisie, the more ambitious the latter becomes. It knows quite well that it is necessary to make compromises with the Imperial capital, till the time comes when it will be in a position to openly contend for the right of monopoly of exploitation with the foreigner. But it also knows that British Imperialism cannot be overthrown without the help of the masses. So to deceive the workers, whose revolutionary consciousness is steadily growing, owing to their increased poverty, which is accentuated by the concentration of wealth in the hands of the bourgeosie, the latter has thrown open the doors of the Indian National Congress to the masses. But at the same time, by declaring the boycott of British goods for the second time, the Indian bourgeoisie shows its tendency to aggrandize itself at the cost of the people’’ p. 40, [11].
“The nationalists were more interested in turning out a popular demonstration than to develop the revolutionary consciousness of the masses by participating in their struggle of every-day life of course this defect of tactics of the nationalists is due to their affiliation which puts a class-stamp upon their activities ‘’ p. 142, [11].
“Indian nationalism, whether of the progressive character and of evolutionary tactics, as advocated by the Moderates now in League with the Imperialist Government, or based on the integralist theory of the Extremists, orthodox in social tendencies, is fundamentally a bourgeois movement. Excepting the religious orthodox, whose violent outbursts not so much against the British Government as against the “Western Civilization” it stands for, do not make them any less the exponents of the forces of reaction, all shades of opinion in the national movement tend consciously or unconsciously, to the enhancement of the material interests of the intellectual and propertied middle-class’’ p. 202, [11].
“ When the latter [toiling masses, working masses] will begin the struggle earnestly, expected to be more of a social nature than a political movement for national liberation. Since 1918, the Indian movement has entered this stage. It may still have the appearance of a national struggle involving masses of the population, but fundamentally it is a social strife, the revolt of the exploited against the exploiting it is class, irrespective of nationality ‘’ p. 204, [11].
“The movement for national liberation is a struggle of the native middle-class against the economic and political monopoly of the imperialist bourgeoisie. But the former cannot succeed in the struggle, nor even threaten its opponent to make substantial concessions, without the support of the masses of the people. Because the Indian middle-class is still weak numerically, economically and socially, hence the necessity of nationalism in the name of which the people can be led to fight; the victory gained in this fight however will not change very much the condition of those whose blood it will cost.’’ p. 204, [11].

In “What do we want’’ and India in Transition, both written in 1922, Roy advocated that the working class must be organized to protect its own interests, though it might enter into a temporary alliance with the propertied classes to oust a common enemy, the British imperialists:

“The working class must be organized first of all to defend its own interests. We have seen how the interests of the entire people in any country cannot be the same, because they are divided into two antagonistic classes, namely, the propertied and the propertyless, the owner and the producer, the employer and the employee, the capitalist and the worker. The former thrives on the exploitation of the latter, therefore the interest of the one cannot be the interest of the other. Both may unite temporarily to fight together against a common enemy, but this union can never be permanent, because each is struggling for a different goal—neither is actuated by the same motives; each wants liberty, but the liberty of their respective class’’ p. 721, [2].
“Since the entire Indian people are exploited by a foreign power, the entire people must rebel against it, must unite their forces to fight against and overthrow it. But this does not alter the fact that the people are divided into two antagonistic classes, with mutually opposing interests ‘’ pp. 721-722, [2].
“ The proletarian class must develop its own leadership and political career. Shortsighted nationalist tactics have temporarily driven the organised section of the proletariat into the control of those non-revolutionary elements who, however, are helping to solidify the worker’s ranks. The influence of this non-revolutionary element has succeeded in curbing the strike movement, and is trying to divert the proletarian energy into the channels of negotiation and conciliation with the employer. But this will simply embitter the antagonism, because the worker will come closer to the exploiter and will have more chances of seeing clearly the class-line that separates them ‘’ p. 142, [11].

Note that the CPI adopted a somewhat different tone in the manifestos it produced for a purely Indian nationalist audience. For example, the “Communist Party of India’s Manifesto’’ issued for “The All India National Congress, Gauhati Session December, 1926’’, produced a nationalist left agenda, with focus on independence and a vision of a secular, socialist state post independence. It questioned the nationalistic agenda of Congress, Swarajists on the ground that it does not seek franchise or economic emancipation of 98% of India, but never questioned nationalism itself pp. 324-340, [2]. But, in view of their core ideological documents, this comes across as a deception towards attracting traction and securing recruits from a nationalist audience.

Section E: Racial superiority of European colonizers constituted an integral component of the doctrine of Communism

Between 1920-1922, Lenin and the Executive Committee of Communist International (ECCI) stated that the most active assistance for the organization of Communist movements and the bourgeois-democratic liberation movements in colonised countries must come from the communist parties in the colonial countries. Lenin wrote in his Colonial Thesis in June 1920, “first, that all Communist parties must assist the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in these countries, and that the duty of rendering the most active assistance rests primarily with the workers of the country the backward nation is colonially or financially dependent on’’ p. 146, [2]. On March 4, 1922, the ECCI adopted a resolution on the Orient Question, which was published in Inprecorr (International Press Correspondence, official mouthpiece of the Communist International), No. 29 of 1922. It said: “ Owing to the great importance of the national revolutionary movements which are developing more and in the colonial countries of the Near East and neutral Asia and especially in Egypt and in India the Plenum of the Executive proposes to the parties of those countries which are in connection with the aforementioned regions to organize a systematic campaign for the liberation of the colonies in the press, in Parliament and among the masses. The Communist Party of England is especially requested to launch a well-organized and continued action with a view of supporting the revolutionary movement in India and Egypt. The three parties which are connected with North Africa, Asia Minor and India, the Communist Parties of France, Italy and England should follow the example set by the French party and establish special colonial commissions attached to their Executive Committees in order systematically to collect informations on colonial matters, establish connections with the revolutionary organizations in the colonial countries and realize close contact with them ‘’ p. 198, [2]. In Indian context these imply that CPGB must lead CPI’s freedom struggle for India, and the seed for the CPGB’s takeover of the CPI was embedded in it.

The Fifth Comintern Congress, convened on June 17, 1924, adopted a resolution which called for “very close contact between the sections in the imperialist countries with the colonies of those countries” pp. 70, 71, [1] Overstreet and Windmiller has written that “Thus in effect it [the above resolution] directed the British Communist Party to participate more fully in Indian Communist affairs …’’ pp. 71-72, [1].

The stands of Lenin and communist bodies like ECCI and Comintern show how the assumption of inferiority of the colonised countries was ingrained in Communism, perhaps as a result of the European origin of Communism. Naturally, communism failed to take on imperialism, and even turned out to be an instrument of imperialism. Indeed, in his Oxford historical monograph, Nicholas Owen, has noted: “Post-colonial theorists suggest that “all those ideologies which might have developed an anti-imperial cutting edge, including liberalism, forms of socialism, including classical Marxism, failed to do so, because they were themselves the children of imperialism, and, until challenged by the colonised themselves, remained tainted by orientalist assumptions of colonial inferiority. There is now a huge literature assessing the theoretical validity of these claims, especially as applied to Marxism ‘’ Loc 149, [9].

The above racist prejudice of Communists were shared by the entire European left and perhaps emerged from there. For example, the Occident’s superiority over India in political matters was an article of faith in the British Left intelligentsia (not to mention the British right). The British left intelligentsia were considerably ignorant of Indian culture and history, distrustful of the Indians and expected deference from them. We illustrate this phenomenon through one instantiation. The India League was an organization in Britain that was “ tied to the left of the Labour Party and the Socialist League ‘’ 1920s to 1947 Loc 3200-3209, [9]. It was a very British-dominated organisation to start with Loc 3225, [9].Nicholas Owen has documented the ambience in the India League and the mindset of the British members thereof “…British allies were indispensable [in India League]. If [V. K. Krishna] Menon [Secretary of the India League] did not realize this already, his Labour allies were ready to remind him that Indian voices alone would not be heard or trusted. …Mulk Raj Anand, a perceptive contemporary observer of such things, noted Menon’s anxiety that Indian students must not shout slogans or walk out of meetings when influential British sympathisers such as Bertrand Russell were present…Anand felt a certain ambivalence himself, admiring and deferring to the Bloomsbury intelligentsia, while at the same time resenting or despising their often considerable ignorance of Indian culture and history, and assumption of the West’s superiority in political matters ‘’ Loc 3234-3241, [9].

Section F: Did the Communist worldview capture the psychology of the proletariat anywhere?

We argue that the Communist worldview remained at variance from human psychology and behavioral dynamics everywhere, particularly of the proletariat they aspired to cater to. At the doctrinal level, the ideology remained confined to the living rooms of the elites and the intelligentsia. In his Colonial Thesis published in 1920, Lenin acknowledged that nationalism is deeply ingrained in the proletariat everywhere, particularly in the colonized countries: “The age-old oppression of colonial and weak nationalities by the imperialist powers has not only filled the working masses of the oppressed countries with animosity towards the oppressor nations, but has also aroused distrust in these nations in general, even in their proletariat. The despicable betrayal of socialism by the majority of the official leaders of this proletariat in 1914-19, when “ ‘defence of country ” was used as a social-chauvinist cloak to conceal the defence of the “right” of their “own” bourgeoisie to oppress colonies and fleece financially dependent countries, was certain to enhance this perfectly legitimate distrust. On the other hand, the more backward the country, the stronger is the hold of small-scale agricultural production, patriarchalism and isolation, which inevitably lend particular strength and tenacity to the deepest of petty-bourgeois prejudices, i.e., to national egoism and national narrow-mindedness. These prejudices are bound to die out very slowly, for they can disappear only after imperialism and capitalism have disappeared in the advanced countries, and after the entire foundation of the backward countries’ economic life has radically changed. It is therefore the duty of the class-conscious communist proletariat of all countries to regard with particular caution and attention the survivals of national sentiments in the countries and among nationalities which have been oppressed the longest; it is equally necessary to make certain concessions with a view to more rapidly overcoming this distrust and these prejudices. Complete victory over capitalism cannot be won unless the proletariat and, following it, the mass of working people in all countries and nations throughout the world voluntarily strive for alliance and unity ‘’ pp. 147-148, [2].

In accordance with the Communist aspiration for solidarity among the working classes all over the world, Communists made repeated appeals to the British proletariat to stand with their Indian class-comrades in their struggle against British imperialism.

On 19 July, 1920, within a month after Lenin published his Colonial Thesis, his Indian protégés in Europe such as M. N. Roy, and Abani Mukerji, and their associates like Santi Devi [M. N. Roy’s wife Evelyn Roy] published a manifesto titled, “An Indian Communist Manifesto’’ in the Glasgow Socialist, in which they appealed to the British proletariat “to join hands with the coming proletarian revolution in India against both foreign imperialism and the sentimental nationalism which would create a bourgeois democracy of Indian exploiters’’: “ The appeal is made to the British proletariat because of their direct relation to revolutionary movements in countries dominated by British imperialism….. It is known in England how this revolt of the famished workers [a prior strike in India] was crushed by British imperialism. But the British working class were misled into believing that it was merely a nationalist demonstration and therefore abstained from taking definite action according to the principles of class solidarity. A simultaneous general strike would have dealt a vital blow to imperialistic capitalism at home and abroad, but the British proletariat failed to rise to the occasion ……..The loss of the colonies might alarm orthodox trade union psychology with the threat of unemployment, by a class conscious revolutionary proletariat, aiming at the total destruction of capitalist ownership and the establishment of a Communist State cannot but welcome such a collapse of the present system since it would lead to the economic bankruptcy of capitalism-a condition necessary for its final overthrow. To all possible misgivings of British Comrades we declare that our aim is to prevent the establishment of a bourgeois nationalist government which would be another bulwark of capitalism. We wish to organize the growing rebelliousness of the Indian masses on the principles of class struggle, so that when the revolution comes it will be a social revolution. The idea of the proletarian revolution distinct from nationalism has come to India and is showing itself in unprecedented strikes. ….We call upon the workers of all countries especially Great Britain to help us to realize our programme. The proletarian struggle in India as well as in other dependencies of Great Britain should be considered as vital factors in the International Proletarian Movement. Self-determination for India merely encourages the idea of bourgeois nationalism. Denounce the masked imperialists who claim it and who disgrace your name (of British workers).’’ pp. 52-56, [2].
During the Non-Cooperation movement, a Congress procession was taking place at Chauri-Chaura, near Gorakhpur, U.P. on 5^th February, 1922. Then, 21 constables and a Sub-Inspector were rushed by the mob into a Police Station, subsequently the mob set fire to the station with the policemen inside. All 21 men perished in the flames. (Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in his ‘The History of the Indian National Congress ‘, Vol. I, page 235, of 1946 publication) p. 202, [2]. Judge Holme tried the case in the Sessions Court, and pronounced death sentence on 172 men. Muzaffar Ahmad has described in his memoir, ‘Myself and the Communist Party of India ‘, as to how ECCI called upon the British proletariat to protest against the legal murder in Chauri Chaura and express solidarity with the international proletariat in their struggle against capitalism : “It is not known how the actual culprits [of Chauri Chaura] were found out from among a huge number of persons or how the Judge took evidence against them. It was an entirely absurd affair. But Mr. Holme’s heart was filled with malice and vindictiveness. He pronounced death sentence in the same case and simultaneously on 172 persons. That day even Englishmen residing in India hid their heads from shame. The Allahabad High Court called for the papers at once and upheld the sentence in respect of about ten or twelve persons. ” (page 355, 1970 edition) ‘’ p. 202, [2]. In 1923 the Executive Committee Of The Communist International published a manifesto which called upon the British proletariat to rise in protest against this ‘legal murder’ : “Proletariat of Great Britain! It is your duty to take the lead in this case. Call upon the Labour Party to take Parliamentary action against this bloody deed of British Imperialism, if the reformist leaders will not be moved to action even by such a flagrant violation of every moral and legal code which they hold up as a standard for others, you must repudiate their leadership and resort to direct action in order to uphold the right of the subject peoples to revolt, and to demonstrate the world-wide solidarity of the toiling masses in their struggle against Capitalism. The wild career of Imperialism gone mad can only be checked under the threat of direct action of the home proletariat ‘’ p. 203, [2]. The manifesto ended with slogans like “Down with Imperialism’’, “Victory to the Workers and Peasants of India’’, “Long live the International Solidarity of the Working Class’’ p. 203, [2].

But, the British proletariat as a body never showed any solidarity with their Indian counterparts in their fight against British imperialism. Their representatives from the CPGB and the British Labor Party argued that their interests supersede the interests of the Indian freedom struggle. For example, in 1929-31, annual sales of British cloth to India had fallen from 1248 million yards to 376 million yards due in part to the world depression and uncompetitive pricing. CPGB leader Saklatvala and C. F. Andrews had tried to persuade Gandhi that his boycott (of British cloth) was not non-violent because of the injury it inflicted on the Lancashire textile-workers. Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker commented privately to a British Gandhian in March 1930 that it was hardly the right time for Gandhi to complain about British exploitation of India, ‘when Lancashire is absolutely starving’ Loc 2637, [9].

In an article titled, “India and the British Working class’’, published in monthly Journal, “INDIA”, Volume I, Number Six, of June 1935, London, British Labor politician, Lester Hutchinson, acknowledged the existence of substantial conflicts between the working classes of different countries, including that between those of England and India, which reveals the futility of the unity of the global proletariat line of Communism.

We produce some revealing excerpts:

“Marx, in a letter dated April 9, 1870, showed the advantages reaped by capitalism from these artificially stimulated antagonisms between the British and the colonial workers: “ every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class population divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hales the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. The Irishman regards the English worker as both sharing in the guilt of the English domination over Ireland and at the same time serving as its stupid tool. This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. It is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite their organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And of this that class is well aware.” ‘’ pp. 828-829, [4].
“The same antagonism exists between large sections of the British and colonial workers of to-day, having exactly the same cause and effect. The British worker is taught that his bad conditions, low wages, unemployment. short time and general misery are directly due to the competition of cheap labour in India and Japan; he is taught to hate the Indian worker as one who is taking the bread from his mouth: he is taught—and here lies the inestimable value of the system of compulsory education -that he is a member of the ruling race; he is taught that the “native” is sly, treacherous, servile, murderous and altogether inferior; and he is taught to console himself while he stands in the queue at the Labour Exchange that although suffering from cold and hunger he is the part owner of nearly a third of the world. And lest his reason should revolt, he is further sandbagged by the official Labour Party propaganda. He is told that a Socialist Government — save the mark—could not “give” freedom to the colonial peoples at once, for if it did so the whole economic system of Britain would collapse, and the working class plunged into the depths of evil and misery. Instead he is informed that a Socialist Government, inheriting the divine civilising mission of imperialism, would manfully shoulder the white man’s burden and gradually educate the colonial peoples towards freedom within “the Commonwealth”; there would be a danger otherwise that the wanton natives if given their independence might prefer out of sheer malice to eat their raw materials instead of exporting them to the benefit of British “Socialism”; and so on, in an endless farrago of the most hypocritical and nauseating form of Imperialism masquerading as Socialism’’ p. 829, [4].
“On the other hand, in India the British working class is regarded as partly guilty for the long oppression and exploitation of India. And it must be confessed that India has had until recently very little opportunity of drawing a distinction as far as the exploitation of India is concerned between the British capitalist and the British worker. For India the word British alone, irrespective of class, signifies oppression. The Indian believes that the British worker distinguishes between British Capitalism in Britain and British Capitalism in India; the former to be fought and the latter to be supported’’ p. 830, [4].
“In 1882 Engels wrote to Kautsky: “You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general: the same as what the bourgeois thinks. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.” This was written in 1882, the high-water mark of capitalist prosperity in Britain. Capitalism had not then entered upon its decline, and the political backwardness of the working class, sharing to some extent in capitalist prosperity, can then be readily understood. But what is not so easy to understand is that this estimate of Engels, correctly applied to the working class of 1882, equally applies to a large section of the working class today [June, 1935], when the economic system of Capitalism is in contradiction to social needs, when Capitalism has no longer any historical justification for continuing to exist, and when working class prosperity has been replaced by low wages, unemployment, poverty and despair’’ p. 831, [4].

The indifference of the British working class to the conditions of their Indian counterparts, or even the animosity the British working class felt for their Indian counterparts, is reflected in the governance record of their main political party, the British Labor Party, in India. We reproduce documentations provided by members of the British Left, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was for all practical purpose a member of the British Left himself, Subhas Chandra Bose and British historians.

Clemens Dutt of the CPGB has acknowledged that the British Labor Party, the main political party of the British proletariat, had defended British imperialism in India, directly and indirectly, and had persecuted the Indian proletariat just like the British right wing Conservative Party.

In an article titled, “Indian Politics-An Analysis’’, published in ‘The Labour Monthly’’ July 1925, London, Clemens Dutt wrote: “Some Indian nationalists were disposed to see signs for hope in the coming of a Labour government. But an ominous presage was the letter of Mr. MacDonald, rightfully interpreted as a threat, the meaning of which was to be made clear in the nine months’ regime that followed. The British Labour Government changed nothing at all. It was made clear that there was to be no advance towards self-government, no freedom for the thousands of political prisoners, no introduction of political liberty, no relaxation of military autocracy, no amelioration of the lot of the millions of workers and peasants. It demonstrated the complete identification of the British Labour Government with the interests of British capitalism. Further, the Labour Government was responsible for the addition of two measures of the first importance to the long list of crimes against Indian political freedom. The first was the Cawnpore Communist trial (in which a pioneer group of Indian Communists were convicted on a charge of “waging war against the King” for the crime principally of receiving political letters from Mr. M. N. Roy), which struck a blow at the very possibility of working-class political organisation. The second was the Bengal Ordinance, the virtual introduction of martial law in Bengal, which served as an excuse for the arrest and imprisonment without trial of the Left wing leaders of the Swaraj Party’’ p. 1026, [2].
In an article titled, “Indian Struggle for Independence’’ published in “The Labour Monthly”, March 1928, London, Clemens Dutt wrote: “ While the leaders of the British Labour Party openly justify their solidarity with imperialism, proclaiming their faith in the Empire, in caiptalist policy towards India and in the supreme rights of the British Parliament, there are some who defend their opposition to Indian nationalism on the ground that the Indian nationalist movement is led by capitalists and landlords who are only out for their own interests. This, for example, was the basis of the attack on Motilal Nehru which appeared in the Glasgow Forward as an answer to his criticism of the Labour Party. Mr. Mardy Jones, M.P., speaking in India, in November, 1927, made the following observations on the attitude of the Labour Party towards Indian self-government : “The [Labour] Party would not agree to place political power in the hands of wealthy merchants and landlord classes without a guarantee that the right of political citizenship should be extended to the people generally…. They would require very strong proof that the political and industrial leaders of India were sincerely prepared to secure the betterment of the workers and peasants of India.” This kind of argument implies, in the first place, that Indian political freedom is a gift which the British Labour Party can bestow and not the outcome of a struggle against British imperialism. Secondly, it assumes that it is the wealthy classesto whom power will have to be given, provided only that proof of their good intentions is forthcoming ‘’ p. 422, [2].

Before the second Round Table Conference (1931), Harold Laski, chairman of the British Labor Party during 1945-1946, and a professor at the London School of Economics, privately held that India was ‘really not fit to govern itself’ Loc 2569-2576, [9]. Margaret Bondfield, the Minister of Labour in 1930 told Macdonald that Lancashire was sceptical of the Congress claim that Indian freedom would really ‘improve the standard of life and purchasing power of the population generally’ Loc 2637-2644, [9]. Jawaharlal Nehru has written in his Autobiography, “At the Southport Labour Party Conference held in October 1934, a resolution was submitted by Mr. V. K. Krishna Menon “expressing the conviction that it is imperative that the principle of self-determination for the establishment of full self-government for India should be implemented forthwith”. Mr. Arthur Henderson urged the withdrawal of the resolution and, very frankly, refused to give an undertaking on behalf of the Executive to carry out its policy of self-determination for India. He said: “We have laid down very clearly that we are going to consult if possible all sections of the Indian people. That ought to satisfy anybody”. The satisfaction will perhaps be tempered by the fact that exactly this was the declared policy of the last Labour Government and the National Government, resulting in the Round Table Conference, the White Paper, the Joint Committee Report, and the India Act. It is perfectly clear that in matters of imperial policy there is little to choose between Tory or Labour in England ‘’ p. 583, [8]. In his broadcast on 31 March 1942, Subhas Chandra Bose addressed an open letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, in which he said, “India will never forget that between 1929 and 1931 a Labour Cabinet was responsible for putting about 100000 men and women into prison, for ordering large-scale lathi charges on men and women all over the country, for shooting down of defenseless crowds as in Peshawar, and for burning houses and dishonouring women as in the villages of Bengal” p. 85, [10].

In his June, 1935 article titled, “India and the British Working class’’, Lester Hutchinsonacknowledged that the Labour Governments in Britain damaged India in general and brutally persecuted her proletariat in particular: “Nor is this impression [poor impression of the British proletariat in the minds of the Indian proletariat] removed by the shameful record of the two Labour Governments, which, in the name of the British working class, shot, bludgeoned and imprisoned the Indian workers and peasants with a rabid virulence hardly equalled by the worst efforts of the previous and succeeding Tory administrations. Nor has India forgotten that, the new slave constitution for India is the illegitimate child of the Labour Government, now adopted because of its looks by the Conservatives’’ p. 830, [4].

Nicholas Owen has recorded the insidious role the British Labor Party and the British Left played in India’s freedom struggle: “Over the previous twenty years [1915-1942], Labour responses to Congress campaigns had become well oiled. Each wave of non-cooperation – 1917, 1930, 1940 – had begun with a wave of interconnected agitations, which were then drawn together and focused on a non-violent, small-scale Gandhian satyagraha. The usual Labour response in these early stages had been to express sympathy with Indian grievances and to put pressure on the British Government to respond generously to them. However, when offers were made, no matter how inadequate their terms, Labour applied stronger pressure in the opposite direction : on Congress to engage with the offer made and to enter into formal negotiations. On each occasion, acceptance had proved divisive for Congress….This had been so over discussion of the Montagu-Chelmsford legislation in 1919, over participation in the Round Table Conferences of 1930-1, and over the Cripps Mission in 1942. In each case, Labour had urged Congress to make greater concessions, especially when the Party itself had gone out on a limb at home to secure any offer at all. The breakdown in negotiations was in turn followed by a secondary wave of wider, less controlled agitation; respectively, the non-cooperation movement of 1920-2, civil disobedience in 1932-3 and the Quit India movement of 1942-5. In each case the British crushed the movement, drawing as they did so some of the Congress leaders into cooperation. It was normal at this stage for British sympathizers to regret the use of repression, and to call for the resumption of negotiations….Long periods of minimal contact between Labour and Congress then generally followed, mirroring the deadlock in India. In the last of these three cases, Labour responses were much harsher than before, partly because of the repetitiveness of the cycle of expectations and recriminations, partly because of the urgency of cooperation, and partly because Labour had invested much more in securing a settlement ‘’ Loc 3743-3768, [9].

We also refer to the specifics regarding the above phenomenon that Owen provided in one instance “In his closing statement in the second Round Table Conference, Macdonald announced that the Government would work towards producing a single India Bill. It would make its own settlement of the communal impasse. On the eve of Gandhi’s departure, the British leftist sympathizers of Gandhi pleaded with him to go some way to meet Macdonald. “At the very least, the proposals were, as Horrabin put it, ‘dangerously plausible’. British sympathisers would have ‘ real difficulty in getting public opinion to grasp the objections to them.’ Gandhi was pressed by Laski, Brailsford and Kingsley Martin to recognize that MacDonald had outsmarted Hoare, giving Congress more than it had got from the minority Labour Government. On that ground, Martin insisted, Gandhi should restrain himself and neither dismiss the Conference so readily, nor resort to civil disobedience. ‘We may be too stupid to know when we are beaten’, Brailsford commented, ‘but you may be too clever to see when you have won.’ Harold Laski too urged Gandhi to look at the situation from a British point of view. ‘From our angle’, he pointed out, ‘the Prime Minister made a brilliant strategic move’ which made it impossible for Gandhi or his British supporters to respond in an immediate or impetuous way. He advised Gandhi to declare his support for the future programme of Conference work MacDonald had announced. He might legitimately insist on conditions : an end to the Bengal Ordinance, proper places for Congress on the proposed committees, and more Indians on the Viceroy’s Executive. But beyond these demands, he should go slow in order to strengthen MacDonald’s hand against the Conservatives and win British opinion, and thereby provide the left with a task ‘upon which we can embark with a good heart’ ‘’ Loc 2724-2731, [9].

Section G: Manifestation of Communist Ideology in Action Indian – A Brief Foray into the Freedom Struggle in India

Given the complete ideological dissonance between communism and nationalism, it is but expected that communists would be at loggerheads with the nationalists everywhere. The communists and the nationalists in Europe were in conflict throughout, with the conflicts intensifying after the rise of extreme form of nationalism in Nazism and Fascism. In the context of freedom struggle in India, this conflict would have significant ramifications. Since communism in India is an imported ideology sans roots in the soil, it is but natural that communists in India would imitate their European counterparts. Indeed, they launched a bitter battle against the nationalists in India, including those within their ranks who harboured nationalist sympathies, and Subhas Chandra Bose. In fact, the worldview of Subhas Chandra Bose – provides an exemplifier of a contrast to the ideology of communism. As seen from his speeches and writings and the recollections of his contemporaries, his nationalism encompassed emotional ties with every aspect of Indic existence, ranging from spirituality, civilizational, intellectual and cultural existence. His Indic nationalism was grounded in Hindu spirituality. The fountainhead of his inspiration was Indic civilization and history. He was also deeply rooted in the literary traditions of his home region – Bengal. He was passionate about Indic music and art and vested in the growth of Indian Science. He strongly opposed propaganda demonizing Indians in general and Hindus in particular, and envisioned a comprehensive cultural revival of India, in which anti-intellectualism would have no place. He wanted an education system that would be fully grounded in native values in the early years, but expose individuals to diverse systems in later years – the combination would equip him to attain a systhesis. He was deeply attached to the environment, the flora and fauna, folk culture, local cuisine of his native Bengal. He chose Indian attire whenever he was abroad as a point of principle. Finally, he picturized his compatriots in a very Indic manner. Being a Hindu was at the heart of his Indic nationalism– this is also an attribute of Indic nationalism. His Hindu religiosity had a distinct Bengali flavour. The Hindu philosophers who ushered in Bengal renaissance had a lasting impact on him. He was for example under the spell of Swami Vivekananda’s teachings throughout his life. Aurobindo Ghose had a strong influence on him during his formative years, though his admiration of Ghose was somewhat tempered later owing to the latter’s abdication of political responsibilities. His Hinduism relied on various philosophical explorations and lived religiosity, that of a distinct Bengali flavour. He objected to Christian Missionary propaganda against Hindus, deceptive practices of frauds assuming Hindu monastic garbs and his insistence that Hindu Mahasabha be representative of Hindus of all provinces. His political nationalism was about securing India’s interests regardless of who was violating those interests. It is well-documented how he fought the British colonization of India with all he had. How he secured India’s interests against his chosen allies like Germany and Japan during the second world war, with the limited resources at his disposal, is however lesser known. His uncompromising opposition to Nazi racism against Indians before the second world war rarely gets any mention. He was deeply concerned with international affairs and geo-politics, but only to the extent that they affected India and could be utilized to extract maximum advantage for India. He sought to exploit every opportunity that international developments provided, to advance his mission, which was to liberate his compatriots from the yoke of slavery – he would also ally with anyone and everyone towards that end despite his personal emotions towards those allies. He was passionate about liberating India, not as a stepping stone towards a broader international goal such as establishing a global communist or internationalist order, but saw freedom as an end in itself and as essential for any nation. He envisioned India’s freedom struggle as a battle between two nations – India and Britain, rather than that between Indians and the British state. He recognized the racial component of British colonialism and how it has inculcated a sense of racial inferiority in Indians. To overcome the latter, Indians needed to free themselves, rather than being led by externals in her struggle for freedom. He expressed deep aversion to communism and its sister doctrine, that of internationalism, which is but natural given how communism can never accept the nationalism of countries not deemed of primary importance .

He described himself as a leftist, per the definition that leftism was unflinching opposition to imperialism, but as many ideological communists have pointed out, his leftism was superficial and one of political expediency.

Simultaneously, it must also be stated that Bose had nothing in common with the current Indian right wing, which is today nearly synonymous with anti-intellectualism and hatred of certain Indic ethnicities, primarily Bengalis and those from South India. The current Indian right wing allows consciousness of only some ethnic identities, namely Hindi speakers, Gujaratis, Marathis as also Marwaris and other mercantile groups. All others are subsumed in the “Hindu only’’ identity (in name), and some ethnicities such as Bengalis and those from South India are actively encouraged to hate their ancestors and disown their historical legacy. Such anti-intellectualism and ethnic ordering would also be an anathema to a rooted Indic nationalist such as Bose, particularly given his Bengali origin and pride in his roots, culture and education. Broadly speaking, Indic ethos simply can not be compartmentalized into Euro-centric left-right taxonomy, as such genuine Indic nationalists belong to neither the left nor the right.

In contrast to Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru was deeply influenced by communism. His worldview turns out to be a derivative of Communism, or in some cases, overlapped with Communism and the other European Left, which all drew their inspiration from similar sources. In his autobiography [8], written in 1936, in which he applauded Marx, communism, communists and Russia, he implied that nationalism was narrow and could only be elevated to a higher plane through internationalism. He saw India’s nationalist struggle as a confrontation between Indian people and only the British state, and portrayed the British people as much a victim of their own imperialist government as the Indian people. Many of the above follow directly from Lenin’s Colonial thesis and M. N. Roy’s interpretation thereof. Nehru envisioned India’s freedom as a stepping stone towards world-peace, and envisioned an international socialist order (such an order constitutes one of the cornerstones of Communism), to which India would cede her independence. Many of his later choices resemble that of the communists and he shared a remarkable bonhomie with the European left, particularly the British component thereof, which led to compromise after compromise of India’s national interests. Throughout the 1930s, India’s freedom movement in England took a back-seat due to the influence of the CPGB on Nehru’s altar ego, V. K. Krishna Menon, who rose in stature in England through Nehru’s exclusive patronage. The CPGB led the CPI’s “freedom fight’’, but given the numerical inferiority of the CPI and the limited politihal heft of the CPI, the CPGB sought to influence Congress politics through Nehru in return of their support for Menon in England and Nehru in India. The conflict of interest in having that CPGB lead the CPI’s freedom fight should have set alarm bell ringing throughout the Indian left, comprising of Nehru, the Congress Socialist Party etc. But it did not, as Nehru and the leading lights of CSP were deeply entrenched in the web of the British Left in which CPGB was an influential bloc, though none of them were formally affiliated with the CPI or any other communist body. This is worth noting given that several public intellectuals and politicians in India plead disassociation from communism, while pursuing identical political and social choices as the Communists. This attempted disassociation is to avoid being bracketed with the troubling history of Indian communists vis a vis India’s interests over the course of history. Thus, core ideologies and choices rather than formal party affiliation ought to constitute the cornerstone of predicting actions.

Moving beyond personalities, we now elucidate the insidious impact of Communism on India’s national interests. We consider the time period just preceding the second World War, namely 1938-39. Germany had a no-aggression pact with Russia then. Hence, the CPI was officially opposed to the British and their war efforts. During this period, Subhas Chandra Bose was trying to get Congress serve an ultimatum to the British to leave India, and launch a mass movement against them from the Congress platform if they do not respond satisfactorily. In accorsdance with the interests of their big business sponsors, the right wing (Gandhian) leadership of the Congress refused to cooperate with Bose, and thereby facilitated British imperialism. Under the instruction of the CPGB, and in the guise of unity with the anti-imperialist forces (read Gandhian Congress), the CPI sought to further the Gandhian line and sabotage Bose, thereby in effect furthering the interests of British imperialism. Other eminent members of the Indian left, such as the CSP and Jawaharlal Nehru were again in the same boat as the CPI. The disagreement between the Indian left leadership and Subhas Chandra Bose boiled down to the latter’s insistence on issuing a time-bound ultimatum to the British. The CPI effort in this part was led by its Bombay wing. At Tripuri Congress 1939 the Bengal cadre of the CPI forced the leadership to support Bose, through an open revolt. CSP, however, comprised of the bulk of the Congress left, and their cooperation with Gandhi rendered it impossible for Bose to get Congress deliver any ultimatum to the British. Bose was forced to resign from Congress presidency which he had won fair and square against a Gandhian proxy.

On 1^st September, 1939, the second world war broke in Europe. To understand CPI’s collusion with British imperialism during the first part of the second world war (until mid 1941), one needs to first study the cosy relation between the Gandhian Congress right wing and British imperialism. The Congress right wing leadership remained pro-British until the end of 1941, mostly to protect the interests of its big business patrons. The rank and file of Congress wanted tangible action against the British, and exerted tremendous pressure on the leadership towards that end. Subhas Chandra Bose gave voice to this rank and file, from outside the Congress, and racheted pressure on the Congress leadership through propaganda and assemblies. The Gandhian wing deflected this pressure through some concessions and some symbolic movements. The situation of the war changed fast during May, 1940 and by 6^th June 1940, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and France had all succumbed to Germany. We describe how between May, 1940 and June 1941, Gandhi started to believe that Britain would lose, and mustered enough courage to launch some symbolic, albeit farcical, movements against the British. No real mass movement was apparent in the horizon. Neither Gandhi nor his wing in Congress nor their mercantile sponsors were under Communist influence. Yet, they were the prime mover of the collusion with British imperialism in this (and possibly preceding) period of Indian history. They were driven by the material benefits that arrived from collusion with the powerful British government and the perks of power that emanated from position in Congress leadership rather than stations in jails. Thus, same actions may result from different motives. And, stalwarts of the Gandhian Congress wing, such as Gandhi himself, then Patel, Rajagopalachari, Rajendra Prasad, are today icons of the Indian right wing. Thus, history needs to be read in totality and objectively rather than through partisan political lens.

Between 1939 and mid-1941, the CPI opposed British war efforts, in its rhetorics, since Germany had a non-aggression pact with Russia. But, in actual action, together with Nehru and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), the CPI sabotaged Subhas Chandra Bose’s opposition to Gandhian collusion. Thus, Nehru, CPI and the CSP indirectly colluded with the British in action, while opposing them in words. Focusing on the CPI, we document this left-wing collusion with British imperialism until mid-1941. Motivated in part by self-interests the British left, including the CPGB was aligned to the British state at the start of the second world war. They prioritized defeating Nazism and Fascism over anything else, and openly supported the British war efforts at the start of the second world war. The CPGB General Secretary, Harry Pollitt, was one of the principal architects of this support. But, given its mutual non-aggression pact with Germany, Soviet Russia forced the CPGB to assume neutrality at least in stated position. Harry Pollitt had to step down as General Secretary. Notwithstanding, large parts of the CPGB continued to support the British war efforts and Pollitt was far from marginalized in the CPGB. Pollitt’s support for Britain became more and more explicit as Hitler advanced and Belgium and France fell to him; in fact, he actively participated in the war efforts in personal capacity. The British left, including the Labor Party and the CPGB, wanted Congress to support the British war efforts in lieu of their stated support for India’s independence.

We next shed light on Nehru’s role during the first two years of the second world war. This was a critical period of India’s history in which a Congress driven solely by national interests could have extracted major advantages for India by exploiting British vulnerability during the starting phase of the second world war. This Congress could not, thanks in no small measure to, Nehru’s capitulation to the interests and demands of the British left. The Congress Working Committee stalled mass movements against the British throughout the first two years of the second world war. This may be attributed in part to Nehru’s influence on the Congress Working committee since he had an eminent role in framing Congress policies during this period. Nehru also had a strong influence on the left wing of the Congress, primarily the Congress Socialist party and CPI. Due to Nehru’s influence on the Indian left, the latter could not put up a united front to force the Gandhian wing, out of their path of collusion with British imperialism.

Next, throughout 1939 the CPGB instructed the CPI to maintain a united front with the Congress right wing. In practice this meant that the CPI ought not to rock the Gandhian Congress boat of collusion with the British during the initial part of the second world war. The General Secretary of the CPI, Puran Chandra Joshi, was beholden to the CPGB and was deeply influenced by CPGB ideologues and leaders and Nehru. CPI as an organization was also obligated to follow CPGB’s instructions in letter and spirit. Thus, the CPI completely surrendered to the British imperialism during the second world war. During 1939 CPI took no concrete action against the British, all they did was to call a one-day political strike of the workers in September, 1939, but only to call it off a day before it was to be launched, and eventually organized it on 2 October, 1939. All other strikes of the workers called by the CPI in 1939 were on purely economical grounds. The only active opposition to the British that the CPI launched in 1940 was the organization of a strike, referred to as the Mahagai strike, in the textile industry of Bombay in March 1940. The short term goals of this strike were all economic, but the long term goals had political componenets. The strike was called off, unconditionally, in a month. CPI’s inaction continued until the middle of 1941.

Subhas Chandra Bose had forged a Left Consolidation Committee (LCC) with Forward Bloc (his own party), CPI, CSP, Kisan Sabha, Roy group (now called the League of Radical Congressmen), Labour Party and Anushilan Marxists, at the time of the first conference of the Forward Bloc (22 and 23 June 1939). The goal was to coordinate the left wing opposition to Gandhian collusion with the British imperialism through a united front. The Royists, the CSP and the CPI gradually dropped off from the LCC one by one on some pretext or the other. The Congress right wing ensured this disintegration through a carrot and stick policy enacted in cooperation with the British government of India. CPI was mortally afraid of Governmental persecution, and avoided confrontation with the Government towards that goal. And, unlike the Forward Bloc and the Kisan Sabha, the CPI was not subjected to governmental persecution until March 1940. Collaboration with Congress right wing leadership saved CPI leaders from arrests in many occasions. This may explain in part as to why CPI continued to maintain a united front with the Congress Right Wing despite its own certainty that the Congress right wing would not act against British imperialism. In March 1940, together with Swami Sahajanand of the Kisan Sabha, Bose organized an Anti-Compromise Conference in Ramgarh where Congress had assembled for its annual conference too. The goal was to pressurize Gandhi into declaring a mass movement against the British. This conference was a thorn in the flesh for the wing in Congress, namely Congress Right Wing and Nehru, that was bent on continuing the status quo of inaction. With Nehru’s help, CPI and CSP together sought to sabotage this Anti-Compromise Conference which was however held as planned. Throughout 1940, Bose and the CPI had a war of words. While Bose attacked the CPI for giving the British a free pass, CPI ran a vilification campaign against him. Starting late 1939, the CPI and the CSP tried to sabotage the struggles that Bose called. Realizing that it would be impossible to force the British out of India from within, owing to the collusion, direct or indirect of large sections of the Indian polity with the British, Bose left India to strike at British imperialism from abroad in January 1941. CPI continued to vilify him in his absence in 1941. Also, the CPI’s inaction against the British continued throughout the first half of 1941.

In 1941 January Bose escaped to Europe, through the North West Frontier and Kabul. During his flight he was facilitated by the Forward Bloc units in NWFP, the Kirti Kisan Party (with strong Communist connection) of Punjab, and one particular individual, Bhagat Ram Talwar of the Kirti Kisan Party. Middle of 1941, Germany attacked Russia. Soon, the CPI reversed its official stand of opposing the British war efforts, yet again, under the express orders of the CPGB. Russia was not in direct contact with the CPI during the second World War. Talwar switched loyalty to Russia too. Bose had been counting on him to serve as his agent in the North West Frontier, towards fomenting tribal unrest, sabotaging British war efforts, passing on his instructions to his Bengal base and delivering information about Bengal and the rest of India to him. Talwar put up an appearance of doing all these, but in reality handed over the money, equipment he received from his German handler to Russia, suppressed all the information he was expected to pass on to Bengal and fed false information about British war efforts to Bose under Russian instruction. The Bengal revolutionary base of Bose which was still operational outside British jails refused to join Talwar’s sabotage, there is also no mention of any Bengali communist directly siding with him during this time. The Russians wanted to have two Indian communists to travel to Burma, and directed Talwar to the Bombay wing of CPI for this. We notice the Bombay hand yet again. We next visit the infamous campaign of calumny against Subhas Chandra Bose by the CPI. We show that it was again rooted in the Bombay wing of the CPI, with some minimal contributions from Bengal and South India. The leading figures of this campaign of calumny were also exactly those who facilitated Muslim League in its creation of Pakistan.

By 1942, given Japan’s rapid advances up to the Indian frontier, one part of the Congress right wing (namely Gandhi, Patel) decided to adopt a stringent anti-British line to hedge their bet should Japan displace the British from India. The result was the announcement of the Quit India struggle. The CPI opposed this call, both from within the Congress Working Committee and publicly, and in fact sought to sabotage some of the programs therein. The CPI also enlisted some of the Bengal revolutionaries in its heinous effort – these had earlier been broken in dreaded British jails like Cellular through prolonged torture and accompanying indoctrination. The British had facilitated this indoctrination. End result, the once dreaded revolutionaries of the Raj, issued statements from jails calling upon the nation to suspend their freedom struggle and join the British war. The British publicized their statements but continued to confine many of them well beyond the end of the war. Some of the revolutionaries were however released earlier, and some of those freed sought to organize efforts in the Bengal frontier under the auspices of the CPI to resist Japan should it arrive.

This is where one needs to pause and briefly point to those who shared the vices of the CPI in various time periods. The object is manifold. First, it is tempting to judge the above-referenced revolutionaries, the same men who voluntarily sacrificed immensely for their nation, by their last act of surrender. It is also facile to blame their acts on the adoption of Marxism – that is, retire into the lazy, comforting world of labels. But, for all but one of these steps of the CPI, the actions of the Congress right wing and/or Hindu Mahasabha luminaries provided exact parallels. We choose these two as many leaders of these had fiercely opposed Marxism, had either never been to jail, or been only to jails that were luxury resorts in comparison to Cellular. The last two ensure that their sacrifice for India were nowhere comparable to those of the above-mentioned revolutionaries, and they colluded without being subjected to the argument of force, in any considerable degree. We refer to Gobind Ballabh Pant, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajagopalachari as representatives of the Congress Right Wing and Syamaprasad Mookerjee as the representative of the Hindu Mahasabha. It may be shown that with regards to collusion with the British during the second World War, Syamaprasad Mookerjee was far better than those leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, who had had suffered extended stints in Cellular, namely Savarkar and Bhai Paramanand, owing to their revolutionary activities before and during the First World War. These two were not in the influence sphere of communism either. A group of Anushilan Samiti revolutionaries, who formed a party called the R.S.P.I. that adopted Marxism as its guiding doctrine, pursued courses of action that were in striking contrast to the CPI’s until at least 1947. Their choices were much more patriotic and far less collusive than those of the Congress right wing’s or the Hindu Mahasabha’s, or the RSS’ during this period. Thus, labels can not be defining attributes, actions must be.

We finally point out in which respect the collusion of the CPI with the British damaged the Indian freedom struggle more than that of the Congress right wing and the Hindu Mahasabha. The Indian freedom struggle had primarily proceeded through the fear created by the armed wing in the psyche of the British. It is this fear that had forced the British to strike bargains with the non-violent wing and provide concessions that took India closer to freedom. The armed freedom movement organically attracted the Hindu radicals, who would find nothing in common with the Congress right wing or the Hindu Mahasabha given their constitutionalist approach. But, the revolutionary discourse of the Communists would naturally appeal to the radical section. In the words of Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from 1992 to 2005 and was a member of the party’s Political Bureau from 1964 to 2008, when he passed away, “Peoples of colonial countries struggling against domination, saw in the revolution [in Russia in October, 1917] a reliable friend and ally in their struggles for national liberation. The October Revolution profoundly stirred the national aspirations of oppressed peoples all over the world. Communist Parties began to grow in many parts of the world. In the period between 1918 and 1931 in nearly a dozen countries communist parties came into existence. These included, Turkey, Indonesia, China, India, Japan, Burma, Philippines etc.‘’ [6].Thus, the radical demographics who would have provided manpower to the revolutionary freedom movement in normal course were diverted towards the Communist Parties. This constituted immeasurable damage to the nationalist freedom movement notwithstanding the fact that the communists were farther off from the center of power than the Congress right wing. It is also worth noting that the principal actors of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress Socialist Party have some redeeming acts to their credit, eg, Syamaprasad Mookerjee’s opposition to the Nehru-Liaquat Pact (with its demographic implications that India is suffering till date) and the separation of Kashmir from Indian mainstream, Savarkar’s contribution to Hindu intellectual formulations, the CSP’s organization of the mass and underground resistances during the Quit India, etc. But, the Communists have none.

Section H: Conclusion

Last, but not the least, it is important to acknowledge that Communism in India is now history. Communists (CPI-CPIM) comprise about 1% of the current Lok Sabha. They are part of the government in only 1 state in India – Kerala. Electoral trajectories indicate that by middle of 2021 they would not be the principal ruling party in any state in India. Yet, it is important to internalize their history of collusion with invaders, because the supposed liberal wing of politics in India (namely Congress, TMC, and most other regional opposition parties) are but their ideological fellow travellers or re-incarnations. The secular commentariat recognizes this classification by hyphenating left with liberals (eg, [7]). We need to carefully dissect what is it that drew a considerable section of our populace towards communism, and gradually nudged the active participants including the freedom fighter revolutionaries towards being party to stands that inflicted irreversible damage on India’s unity and interests (such as becoming instruments of British imperialism or ideological supporters of partition of India). The initial point was always unexceptionable positioning, as unity of working class all over India against exploiting classes, or unity against fascism, imperialism, etc. That the actions became facilitation of British imperialism or partition of India became merely necessary evils in minds deceived with noble messaging and in some cases under excruciating circumstances (such as soul-destroying torture in British jails) is a tragedy of history. The parallels with the current liberal politics are unmistakable. The positionings are invariably inspiring objectives such as global humanism, Hindu-Muslim brotherhood, retrieving the soul of India, however it be defined, reclaiming the republic, upholding the Constitution of India, patriotism of waiving the national flag, singing the national anthem, etc. But, without fail, these are invoked to further the interests of violent Islamism – a case in point is how the left-liberal crowd and the Islamists together hit the streets opposing humanitarian gestures towards the Indic victims of religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, in form of the Citizenship Amendment Act. This crowd was only conspicuous by its absence when for example, the indigenous Hindu micro-minority was hounded out of Kashmir, the indigenuous Indic Bru-Reang tribes were expelled from Mizoram, the detention centers of Assam have been populated by poor Hindus. It is time to uncover this double standard and anticipate future moves of the relevant actors through large scale dissemination of and internalization of the lesson that relatively recent history has to offer.

Equally important, the history of communism would be invaluable to detect patterns of deceptive messaging in parallel ideologies, those of stated nationalism in India, more specifically the BJP-RSS. We present an analogy between the Indian Communists and the BJP-RSS, which should help genuine Indic nationalists to anticipate the betrayals of certain ethno-religious communities by BJP-RSS and oppose those accordingly.

Communists berated the concept of nationalism as narrow and swore by internationalism. BJP-RSS, which has sought to monopolize the concept of nationalism in India similarly berates the concept of regionalism, completely oblivious to the fact that a nation is but made of her regions.
Lenin had called for subordinating the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the interests of that struggle on an international scale. The adherents of BJP-RSS call to subordinate the interests of regions to those of the nation.
The intelligentsia in the influence sphere of Communism has persistently undermined the Hindu civilizational past of India. BJP-RSS ecosystem has similarly persistently undermined the historical heritage of some Indic linguistic communities, eg, Bengalis, Malayalis, Kashmiri Pandits [15]. The BJP-RSS ecosystem has vilified most of the cultural and political icons Bengalis are proud of, including but not limited to, Rammohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Chittaranjan Das, Satyajit Ray. They have sought to disassociate from Bengal some icons they could not vilify as those icons are vital to their own legacy, eg, Swami Vivekananda, Syamaprasad Mookerjee [15]. They have pursued a dual strategy with respect to Subhas Chandra Bose, a section vilifies him and associates him with Bengal, another section capitalizes on his legacy through conspiracy theories concerning his disappearance and seeks to disassociate him from Bengal. They have denied history of Bengal before 10^th century AD in complete oblivion to more than a thousand year of documented history prior to that. They have also denied several other cultural legacies of Bengal, eg, pertaining to her cuisine, etc. In short, nothing good may be original to Bengal. Treatment of the Hindu heritage of Kerala by the BJP-RSS’ has been comparable.
In practice, communists have a strict hierarchy of groups. Earlier Russia and now China is at the top of that hierarchy. These have been their fatherlands. The Communists in the colonies were at the bottom. Given the Euro-centric origin of communism, the European left and European communists far outranked the communists in the colonies, for the latter the European left and communists were comparable to Russia in stature. Communists in India are conditioned to defend the interests and reputation of those higher up in the hierarchy, while ignoring the interests of India. During India’s freedom struggle, the principle of subordinating the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country to the interests of that struggle on an international scale was heavily utilized by the CPGB to subvert India’s freedom struggle. The CPI played complicit with the CPGB’s orders. Simultaneously, Russia defended herself invoking the spirit of Mother Russia. The Chinese Communist Party advances China’s territorial interests wherever it can. But, CPI has not spoken against Russian or Chinese nationalism ever. It is an amazing coincidence that BJP-RSS exhibits a hierarchy of regions. Maharashtra is their fatherland given that Nagpur is the RSS headquarters and the RSS leadership heavily comprises of Marathis. Ethnicities from North West India, eg, the Hindi speakers, the Gujaratis, the Marwaris, are high up in the BJP-RSS hierarchy too, while Bengal is at the rock bottom, with Kerala at a comparable or slightly higher position. The adherents of BJP-RSS are conditioned to defend the honor of the ethnicities that are high up, at times even reflexively so. These adherents, which includes the Bengali and Malayali borns, would usually abuse the ethnicities at the lowest rung, or at least remain silent when these are abused. Pride in the lower rung ethnicities, even stated in words, is usually crushed with a heavy hand, while regionalisms of those high up in the peck order are usually encouraged or indulgently overlooked. Reactions of the BJP-RSS ecosystem to slights towards ethnic groups in the North-West India (eg, Hindi belt, Marwaris, Guajaratis, Marathis) resembles that of the communists on slights of Russia or China. Just as internationalism provided a cover to CPI and its influence sphere for betraying India’s interests, nationalism provides a cover to BJP-RSS to betray the interests of its lower ranked regions. We have explored the latter phenomenon in an earlier series [15].
The communists have inherited the prejudices widely prevalent in the regions in which their power-structures have been situated. Communists have an Euro-centric worldview in part because that is where communism was founded and that is where their earlier power lay. Similarly, the prejudice of BJP-RSS against Bengalis and the ethnic groups in South India and Kashmiri Pandits have percolated from the widely prevalent prejudices in the regions of their power-structure, namely the Hindi belt and Western India.

Read Part III

References:

[1] Marshall Windmiller and Gene D. Overstreet, “Communism in India’’

[2] Documents of the Communist Movement in India, Vol. I, 1917-1928, Edited by G. Adhikari https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.460894

[3] Documents of the Communist Movement in India, Volume II, 1923-1925, Edited by G. Adhikari https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.124467

[4] Documents of the Communist Movement in India, Volume III, 1929-1938, Edited by G. Adhikari https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.459838

[5] Harkishan Singh Surjeet, “March of the Communist Movement in India’’

[6] Harkishan Singh Surjeet, “75th Anniversary of the Formation of the Communist Party of India’’, The Marxist, Volume: 2, No. 1, Issue: January- March 1984 https://www.cpim.org/marxist/1995_marxist_cpi_75_hks.htm

[7] Ruchi Gupta, “The anti-CAA protests have hit a wall. Here is why’’, 13 February, 2020 https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/the-anti-caa-protests-have-hit-a-wall-here-is-why/story-T1wT9Ut5pioUzix0m43ZPL.html

[8] Jawaharlal Nehru, “An Autobiography’’

[9] Nicholas Owen, The British left and India – Metropolitan Anti-Imperialism 1885-1947 Oxford Historical Monographs

[10] Subhas Chandra Bose, “Azad Hind, Writings and Speeches, 1941-May 1943’’, Netaji Collected Works, Volume 11, Edited by Sisir K. Bose and Sugata Bose

[11] M. N. Roy, “India in Transition’’

[12] Robert Service, “Comrades: Communism – a world history’’

[13] Swami Vivekananda Complete Works, Volume 3, Lectures from Colombo to Almora, The Common Bases of Hinduism, https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_3/lectures_from_colombo_to_almora/the_common_bases_of_hinduism.htm

[14] Saswati Sarkar, Shanmukh, and Dikgaj, “The Communist betrayal of the Indian Freedom Struggle – the groundwork’’ https://sringeribelur.wordpress.com/the-communist-betrayal-of-the-indian-freedom-struggle-the-groundwork/

[15] https://sringeribelur.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/links-to-articles-on-ethnic-bias-in-the-bjp-rss-ecosystem/

[16] Veda Vyasa, “Bhagavadgeeta’’

[17] Veda Vyasa, “Mahabharata’’

[18] Manu, “Manusmriti’’

[19] Sanskrit-English dictionary, https://spokensanskrit.org/

[20] Mankha, “Shreekanthacharitam’’