Rs.

10/-
Rs. 10/-

Central Organ of CPI(ML) Volume 10 November 2009 Issue 11 English Monthly

 Maharashtra Election Results
T HE Maharashtra elections are over. Once again,
the results reflect that though people want a change,
there is really no alternative. We can sum up the results by
saying that the BJP-SS combine failed even more than the
Congress.
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has won 13 seats.
Of these 6 were from Mumbai and 3 from Nashik, both major
urban centres. All these were traditionally Shiv Sena seats.
Dadar, Mahim, Sewri were areas from where the Shiv Sena
had never lost in the last 30 years. Electing the MNS from
these areas was in the nature of a way for the electorate to
show their disgust against the Shiv Sena. This also reflects
how the Shiv Sena has moved from being a representative
of the petty bourgeois lumpen force to being a more
sanitised corporatised organisation seeking to represent
the big bourgeoisie of this country. They no more appeal
to the petty bourgeoisie. That is why in the main urban
centres, they are losing their base to the MNS which is
using the fascistic rhetoric of the “Marathi manoos” more.
The third front, as we had stated, was a non-starter. 4
seats were won by the SP, 4 by the Peasants and Workers
Party in their traditional areas of Pen and Raigad and the
CPI(M) won in Dahanu on the basis of the 60 years old
Godavari Parulekar’s struggle there. With two other sundry
winners, their tally stood at 11.
The Congress-NCP combine having won 144 seats,
does not require any support for forming the Government.
CPI(M): Panic measure to
save its Bengal Government
A FTER Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh followed
by the severe drubbing in Lok Sabha polls the CPI(M)
in W. Bengal is in panic. It has found that unless it repeats
its game of breaking the electoral unity of Trinamul
Congress (TMC) with the Congress as it had successfully
done in past polls, a combined TMC-Congress challenge
in 2011 assembly elections will unseat it from power after
35 years of uninterrupted rule. So the bhadralok, the petti
bourgeoisie, leading CPI(M) are ready to go to any extent
to break TMC, Congress unity.
This is what happened in the elections to the mayor’s
post in Siliguri Municipal Corporation Board. In the
elections to the Board the TMC-Congress combine had
captured 30 out of 47 seats. But as both wanted mayorship
the election to this post got postponed. It was at this time
the CPI(M) played a cunning game. Recognising that
Congress in not ready to surrender its domination in North
2 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
Already, within two days of the elections, prices have
started to rise in Maharashtra again and, there being no
elections for the next four years, either to the Lok Sabha or
the Assembly, we can expect unbridled burden being put
upon the common man, in the form of price rise, slum
demolitions, etc.
Our party put up two candidates in Maharashtra, one
from Naigaon constituency in Nanded district and another
from Karanja constituency in Vashim district. Com. Laxman
Sontakke, member of the State Committee, who stood from
Naigaon secured 6238 votes and Com. Sawke from Vashim
secured 2162. This was in spite of the fact that in Vashim,
our work is very new and we have not even, to date, formed
any District Committee there. In both constituencies our
candidates secured more votes than some national parties
like the BSP. It was a marked improvement on our last attempt
in Maharashtra, in 2004, when we had put up only one
candidate and won less than 1000 votes.
The Maharashtra elections have to be seen in the
background of one of the lowest poll percentages in history.
There is a deep sense of disgust and apathy. The people
want change. They certainly did not re-elect the Congress
Government for the third time out of enthusiasm and for
their good governance. Farmers are still committing suicide,
factories are still closing down, hutments are still being
demolished and prices are rising like never before. In spite
of this, there is no viable alternative before the people. ●
Bengal to TMC, CPI(M) unconditionally supported the
Congress nominee and got her elected in the election to
the post.
It has seriously hurt Mamata Banarjee and her
followers who are crying hoarse about the Congress
betrayed. For few days CPI(M)’s game had succeeded to
create a division between TMC and Congress. But as the
central leadership of the Congress recognised the
seriousness of the mistake of their local leaders, in spite of
all the arrogance of Mamata and her party, it has taken
steps for reconciliation. If it works out CPI(M)’s cunning
game will get shattered.
The Siliguri incident shows how much the CPI(M) has
degenerated, like any other ruling class party, in its bid to
sustain its rule. It is ready to go to any vulgar extent for it,
even while claiming to oppose the policies of the Congress-
led government at the centre. ●
 Make All India Special Contents

Conference of CPI(ML) ❖ Assimilate lessons of Great

October Socialist Revolution 4

a Great Success ❖ Boldly Confront the Challenge of

Ruling Reactionary System 4
❖ On Indian-born Scientist Sharing

W E are just on the eve of the All India Special conference of CPI(ML)
at Bhopal which is going to be a significant step forward in the
long history of the Indian communist movement. The Reception
Chemistry nobel
❖ Neo-Colonialism and the
Working Class 6
5

Committees at Bhopal led by new generation comrades and all the state
❖ CPI(ML) Orissa State
committees are giving final touches to the arrangements to make the Conference 10
conference a great success. After the 2009 January 21st CC meeting gave
❖ Kolkata: Seminar on “Neo-
the call to organize the Conference and the June CC meeting finalized the colonialism and the Left” 12
draft documents, from 1 st July the Conference process was started,
beginning with the Party branch conferences. It was followed by local, ❖ Kolkata: Seminar on “Neo-
colonialism and the Left” 12
area, district and state level conferences publishing the four basic draft
documents, along with the Political Organizational Report of the CC from ❖ Jharkhand State Conference14
2003 and the Political Resolution in different languages and involving all ❖ Karnataka State Conference 14
the Party membership in the process. When many of the organisations
❖ Kerala State Conference 15
calling themselves communist have abandoned or severely curtailed such
a process, this itself is a significant step forward.. ❖ Ecological questions come to
the fore 17
Besides, broadening the democratic process, all these drafts were
❖ Political Scene After Assembly
made available to the fraternal parties abroad, fraternal organisations in Election 18
India, to a large number of sympathizers and friends of the Party for their
❖ Jet Airways Pilot Strike 20
comments, suggestions and criticisms. Further a series of Seminars are
organized to discuss various aspects of neo colonisation in public, in ❖ The Winter of Our Austerity 23
order to broaden the understanding about the transformation of imperialist ❖ An Yellowish Mao is the Symbol
plunder from colonial to neo-colonial phase and its consequences. of Present China 24

Our country is presently going through a critical period when all the ❖ Two Tactics of Social Democracy
in the Democratic Revolution27
internal contradictions are unprecedentedly sharpening and the objective
conditions for people’s upsurges are ripening fast. At this juncture the ❖ Resurrecting The Old
Communist Party can be rebuilt uniting all the genuine communist forces Revisionism In A New Guise 34
and individuals on Bolshevik lines only by finding out the ideological,
political, organisational reasons for the decay that set in and the severe Our Web Site : www.cpiml.in
set backs suffered by the international and Indian communist movement
during the last five decades. This effort also includes the development of Edited, Printed,
the ideological-political line based on Marxist-Leninist teachings
according to present concrete conditions. This special conference is a Published & Owned by
significant step in that direction. It shall provide the basis for organizing K.N. Ramachandran
the Ninth Congress of the Party as early as possible, broadening the
present understanding and expanding the Party at all India level. R-8, Prathap Market
Jangpura-B,
The Conference shall also discuss and develop the steps already taken
for initiating the reorganization of the Communist International uniting New Delhi - 110014
the Marxist-Leninist forces to unify, broaden and strengthen the struggles Phone : (011) 24370233
at international level against heinous, pernicious and barbarous moves
redstarenglish@yahoo.co.in
of US-led imperialist forces to impose neo-colonial slavery and hegemony
over the world people. Printed at Param Offestters,
We once again appeal to all democratic forces the left masses in the A-9 Okhla, Phase-I, New
country, to the working class and the peasantry, to all revolutionary classes Delhi-20
and sections to actively co-operate in the efforts of the Party to make the
Special Conference a great success.

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 3

 Assimilate lessons
of Great October
Socialist Revolution
O UR Party, CPI(ML), is beginning its historic
All India Special Conference at Bhopal with a
mass rally calling for assimilating the lessons of the
Great October Revolution on 7th November. Though
the capitalist roaders in the Party succeeded to usurp
power utilizing the weakness that had emerged in
building socialism in the first socialist country in
continuing to wage uncompromising struggle against
the barbarous imperialist system recognizing its
transformation from colonial forms of plunder to neo-
colonial forms, and in developing proletarian
democracy in its forms and content beyond the limits
of bourgeois parliamentary democracy, though they
turned it in to a social imperialist power later leading
to its disintegration, the lessons of proletarian
revolution under Lenin’s leadership and lessons of
socialist building in Soviet Union shall always inspire
the revolutionary masses all over the world.
That the US-led imperialist powers and their
lackeys are still continuing their heinous attacks on
Lenin and Stalin, and the Soviet experience shows how
much they dread the October Revolution, its leaders
and its lessons to world people. Their attacks are on
the very essence of Marxism- Leninism itself. They are
afraid of Soviet Power, the slogan All Power to the
Soviets which means All power to the People. They
know that once the people are aroused and they march
for revolution and political power no force on the world
can stop them.
The enemy, the imperialist forces, especially US
imperialism, and their lackeys everywhere, very well
know that they could once again reassert their
hegemony in spite of the great advances made by Soviet
Union, the socialist camp and national liberation
movements, only because of their neo-colonial
offensive which created confusion and disarray among
the socialist forces and led to their setback. The
barbarians are imposing neo-colonialism with more
vehemence to further their dirty goals.
So it is the task of the proletarian revolutionary
forces to grasp lessons from the set backs during last
half a century. Lenin’s teachings on imperialism, on
proletarian revolution, on Soviet Power and on
proletarian democracy should be grasped and
developed according to concrete conditions of today.
Applying them and the lessons of Chinese revolution
and all other revolutions the path of revolution should
be developed according to the conditions of each
country to lead the revolutionary movement forward.
4 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
This is the task before the Indian proletariat and its
vanguard, the CPI(ML). On the occasion of the 92nd
anniversary of October Revolution let us pledge to
assimilate its lessons and march forward.
Boldly Confront the
Challenge of Ruling
Reactionary System
D URING the 19th century all the rulers of
Europe and the catholic church had united
against the “spectre of communism” which was
haunting their exploitative ruling system. In spite of
it, in spite of brutally suppressing Paris Commune,
October Revolution did happen in 1917, Soviet Union
started advancing along socialist path and the
Communist International took birth in 1919. By the
time the World War II was over the socialist camp led
by Soviet Union and the national liberation
movements were advancing all over the world. The
East Wind of socialist forces looked like prevailing over the
West Wing of imperialism. Once again, in order to
ostracize the “communist spectre”, under the
leadership of US imperialism all the imperialist forces
and their lackeys united transforming colonial plunder
with neo-colonial one. As JF Dulles, US state secretary,
stated then, “if the West had attempted to perpetuate
the status quo of colonialism, it would have made
violent revolutions inevitable and defeat inevitable”.
Through neo-colonial offensive the US imperialist
led camp of world reaction not only succeeded in
degenerating the socialist countries to capitalist path,
but also inflicted severe setback to the revolutionary
forces. By 1990s the US imperialists and their lackeys
declared “end of history”, and end of socialism. With
the CPI and later CPI(M) degenerating as apologists of
neo-colonialism and then implementing the ruling
class policies wherever they came to power, in India
also all the reactionaries had declared that they have
ostracised the ‘spectre of communism”. As the CPI(ML)
came under ‘left’ adventurist influence and
disintegrated by 1970s, they were emboldened to assert
that forces of revolution are dead and gone for ever.
But as imperialist globalisation was imposed in
1991 to intensify neo-colonisation and as the working
class and oppressed masses came under more severe
plunder and oppression, the situation has changed.
The contradiction between the big capitalist-big
landlord state serving the imperialist forces and the
broad masses of people is intensifying. As a result, all
over India, in various forms, people are revolting.
Numerous mass movements are coming up
challenging the ruling classes. The communist
revolutionaries are regrouping fast, recognising the
neo-colonial plunder and are becoming capable of
leading the people’s upsurge forward.
It is at this critical juncture, in the name of
suppressing the small bands of ‘Maoists’ operating in
few packets of five to six states, the UPA government
has deployed almost one lakh strong para-military
and police forces including commando sections. Prime
minister Manmohan Singh and home minister
Chidambaram are repeatedly stating that “Naxalism
is the main danger”. In fact, they have declared war
on the toiling masses in the country.
Any one acquainted with the Indian political
scene can understand that the “spectre of Maoists”
repeated by the ruling class leaders and the corporate-
MNC media is only a bogey to unleash a war against
the toiling masses and oppressed classes and sections.
The statement of the prime minister and home minister,
and the corporate-MNC media that “Naxalism is the
main danger” is an open challenge against the
communist revolutionary forces. The reactionary
sections are even calling for deploying military and
air force also in the so-called campaign against
‘Maoists’. The Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh is
made into the centre of military operations with even
a military cantonment being constructed. It is similar
to the British colonialist constructing the Ramgarh
cantonment in Jharkhand on the site of the trenches
dug up to bury tens of thousands of adivasi rebels
following the Santhal revolt in the region. In
suppressing the people’s movements the Manmohan
government is following the foot steps of the past
colonial masters. These repressive measures are taken
in the name of suppressing ‘Maoists’ only for handing
over the resources, both human and natural, of
Chhattisgarh-Jharkhand-Odissa region to corporates
and multinationals. These militarisation steps and
suppressive policies should be resisted.
We call upon the communist forces to continue
their uncompromising struggle against both right
opportunist forces led by CPI(M) and anarchist forces
of CPI(Maoist) in order to establish the correct
ideological, political line and to establish the
leadership of the Party among the broad masses,
exposing and fighting against the challenge from the
prime minister and the ruling system.
Let the ruling classes and their political
leadership tremble once again before the “spectre of
communism”. Let us confront the challenge posed
against the revolutionary forces and the left masses as
a whole, with the clarion call once again to the
proletarian revolutionary forces to get mobilised,
challenge the ruling system and advance along the
path of Indian Revolution. No body can cow down the
revolutionary forces.
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
On Indian-born
Scientist Sharing
Chemistry nobel
F OR a couple of days the government leaders and
the corporate-MNC media were celebrating the
sharing of nobel prize for chemistry by an Indian-born
scientist, Dr. Ramakrishnan. Though the Nobel prize
committee is highly influenced by imperialist forces as
proved by its prizes for peace, economics and political
sciences often going to Obama like imperialist masters
or their think tanks repeatedly, its award to scientists
of different faculties are considered prestigious, very
often leading scientists get it. So the receipt of this nobel
prize by an Indian-born scientist should be lauded.
He should be congratulated for it. But the cardinal
question is: what right the comprador rulers in the
country and the media which is working overtime for
celebrating it as if they have done something great to
help Dr. Ramakrishnan like people to achieve it?
The comprador ruling system in this country is so
reactionary that they have destroyed whatever little
facilities which were built up in 1950s and 1960s for
science education and research. Very little facilities
exist in this country for them now. A government and
media which are specialising the promotion of
commercialising education and utilising it to prepare
skilled man power for export is consciously
discouraging education in pure science and social
science. So any student who is interested to pursue
these studies have to face many difficulties. Very little
facilities exist for it as government is withdrawing from
this sector slowly and the Shylocks in the private sector
are least interested in it as immediate and huge profit
is their only motive.
The same is the fate of centre for higher education
in science and research centres with long term
perspective. As the comprador government and the
corporate forces are interested only in the import of
technology and the MNCs specialise in importing the
technology even for petty products, the science
education and research work are provided least
incentives. As a result those young boys and girls
interested in them have only one option: go to Britain
or US or any other imperialist country. Naturally, they
become citizen of that country. This is what has
happened in the case of Dr. Ramakrishnan also.
Though he was born in India, his higher studies and
research work took place outside and he is a US citizen.
The way the nobel prize for him was celebrated
by the government and the media is yet another smart
attempt to hoodwink the masses about the ‘success
stories’ of this comprador ruling system.
November 2009 5
I N THE aftermath of the 2nd
World War, the world changed
quite dramatically. All the former
colonies were declared to be formally
independent. The old imperialist
powers like the UK and France lost
their pre-eminent positions and this
position was taken up by the USA.
The Bretton Woods institutions, the
IMF, the World Bank and what was to
become the WTO were launched. The
former colonies were still enslaved but
not by direct political control any more
– they were enslaved through loans,
“aid” and other similar instruments of
economic exploitation. There was a
sudden and sharp spurt in the growth
of MNCs all over the world. The US
also tied its so-called allies in various
economic and military pacts like
NAFTA, NATO, SEATO, CENTO etc.
In short, we may say that the colonial
system was replaced by the neo-
colonial system.
The US has a history of following
a different method of imperialist
exploitation right since the end of the
19th century. The Monroe doctrine had
clearly stated that Latin America was
exclusively the playground of the US
and other European powers were not
welcome there. The method that the
US had adopted in Latin America was
never a colonial method. Having itself
been a colony and having broken out
of the colonial yoke by a revolution,
the US developed its own imperialist
model in Latin America without making
them colony.
The US invested large sums in
the Latin American countries,
ruthlessly exploited their raw materials
and effectively reduced them into
“banana republics”. Large loans and
“aid” with numerous strings tied,
helped to further enslave these
countries. The US, with impunity,
engineered military and civilian coups
and “revolutions” in these countries
to ensure that there was always a
Government favourable to the US.
Even before it entered the 2 nd
World War, the US made sure that the
new world situation after the war
6 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
Neo-Colonialism and
the Working Class
Sanjay Singhvi
would be as it desired. In 1941, before Pearl Harbour, Roosevelt and Churchill
signed the Atlantic Charter. In this the UK agreed that after the war there would
be no more colonies and that all imperialist countries would have an equal right
to exploit the raw materials and other resources of all countries. It was clear that
the new world order would be one in which the US would try to replicate the
Latin American model all over the world.
This was, then, to be the new neo-colonial order that would be the mode of
imperialist exploitation and enslavement after the war. This required that there
should also be certain other important changes all over the world. If exploitation
was to be based upon economics and the market, then there was a need to
regulate many markets all over the world.
In 1944, financial representatives of 44 countries from all over the world met
at the town of Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the US. It was here that the
agreement for the formation of the IMF and the World Bank (then known as the
IBRD or International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) was penned.
Many decisions were taken here which would help the revival of the financial
market and which would also have far-reaching consequences on the whole
world in the near future. It was here that the norms for taking loans and giving
“aid” were worked out. It was here that the massive public sector in many
countries was planned out since it was only Governments which could take
such large loans as were needed to build up the infrastructure of these countries
– and that too, with a sovereign guarantee.
One of the Indian delegation at Bretton Woods was A. D. Shroff the Chairman
of the Central Bank as well as of the New India Assurance Company and the
financial adviser of the Tatas. It was the same A. D. Shroff who, in between the
two rounds of the Bretton Woods Conference, co-authored the “Bombay Plan”
along with big industrialists like J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Birla, Purshottamdas Thakurdas,
Kasturbhai Lalbhai and others. In keeping with the formula agreed to at Bretton
Woods, the Bombay Plan called for many sectors of infrastructural industry,
especially those where the investment was to be massive, to be reserved for the
Government or the “public” sector. Though Nehru never officially accepted the
“Bombay Plan” or the “Tata plan” as it was also called, most analysts agree that
the first Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948 reflected the “Bombay Plan”. It
also asked for the creation of a new “public” sector, more or less along the lines
of the “Bombay Plan”. It was pursuant to this Industrial Policy Resolution that
the Industries (Regulation) Act of 1950 came to be enacted.
Fashioning the world’s economy so as to create markets and allow it to
invest profitably all over the world for its own interests was not the only concern
of the US immediately after the war. The other main concern was to “contain”
communism. It was to this end that the Truman Doctrine was addressed and the
US started its old tactics of interfering – economically and militarily – into the
internal affairs of various countries. Though the UN had, by then, been formed,
as a part of the neo-colonial plan, the US gave military and economic aid to
Greece and Turkey to suppress the communist revolutions which were flourishing
there without reference to the UN.
 At the same time, massive national liberation movements had developed across industries. Craft unions or unit
during the period of colonialism all over Asia and Africa. Many of these unions were not recognised. The same
movements were led by bourgeois forces. Through a combination of delusion nature of recognition was provided for
and collusion, an impression was created that the neo-colonial system was more by the Bombay Industrial Relations
“democratic” and more “just”. This impression was propped up by the fact that Act, 1946, for much the same reasons.
the colonies had gained formal “freedom” and that basic human rights were now This was a measure for making it
being “guaranteed” all over the world. The newly formed UN, under the leadership difficult to dislodge the prevalent
of the US, published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. One of union bosses who belonged to the
the recitals for this Declaration states clearly that if certain minimum rights are ruling parties. Significantly, the
not given to people, there will be revolution. It reads: INTUC, the Indian National Congress’s
answer to the Communist-led AITUC
“Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as
was also organised in 1947. Till then
a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human
the Trade union movement had been
rights should be protected by the rule of law,”
totally unified irrespective of party
Such then was the state of affairs as the world stepped from the colonial affiliation, except for some minor
phase to the neo-colonial phase. The colonial form of exploitation had to give aberrations.
way to “open” markets, and the idea of socialism had to be contained by
The Bretton Woods system
continuing forms of the “welfare state” while protecting the right to private
called for the Government to become
property. It was in Keynesianism that imperialism found the perfect combination
the largest borrower of funds
of both these goals. Keynes called for Government intervention in the economy,
internationally. Keynesian economics
preferably in the form of welfare works, so as to “create demand”.
required the Govern-ment to spend
As a part of creating a “welfare” world as opposed to a communist world, large funds on investing in projects
neo-colonialism called for giving certain rights to the working class. In parallel and schemes which were not going to
to Keynes’ economic formulae and the financial direction given by Bretton give immediate returns. Inevitably, the
Woods, labour law was veering towards Government intervention in the contract Government needed more funds. A
of employment. Such intervention was aimed towards banning violent disruption clear source of such funds was social
of production as occasioned by strikes and lock-outs while at the same time security schemes. Undoubtedly, there
allowing a measure of hope to the worker that he could change his lot within the had been demands for social security
capitalist system. The trend had, once again, started much earlier in the US. The from the Indian working class since
enactment of the Wagner Act in 1930 had accepted many rights of the workers to long. Labour tribunals were regularly
collective bargaining, which was the most acceptable form for the market-driven passing demands for Provident Funds
democracy of the new system. Immediately after the war, these rights were trimmed and Pension Funds. Medical
and further defined by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. In the UK, the National insurance schemes were being
Health Service, providing free medical services to all had been set up in 1945. awarded in various industries. In this
situation it became logical for the
These changes in the world situation could not, and did not, leave India
Government to enact the Employees
unaffected. It is not coincidental that most of our labour laws were made in the
Provident Fund Act and the
period from 1946 to 1952. This was the period when the neo-colonial system was
Employees State Insurance Act in the
being developed and put into practice.
early 1950s. This gave a long pending
The whole of the thrust of labour law was to stop the organisation of demand to the workers, it afforded an
strikes at any cost. To regulate the labour market, it was first required that there illusion that the workers welfare could
should be a law against arbitrary termination of service. The contract of be achieved even in a capitalist
employment must itself be well defined. This was done in 1946, by the Industrial society and at the same time allowed
Employment (Standing Orders) Act. Some elementary labour laws like the for the accumulation of huge funds
Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1924, The Trade Unions Act of 1926, the earlier with the Government at low rates of
Factories Acts and the Trade Disputes Act of 1929 already existed. They were interest.
made more definitive. The Trade Disputes Act of 1929 had provisions for
Such “welfare” measures marked
conciliation and for prohibition of strikes and lock-outs in public utilities.
the Indian labour scene till the
However, there was no provision to adjudicate industrial disputes when
beginning of the 1970s. Some more
conciliation failed. During the war, disputes were being referred for adjudication
measures purporting to be “socialist”
under section 81A of the Defence of India Rules. Similar provisions for referring
in nature were also enacted. The
Industrial Disputes to adjudication were incorporated in that act which was re-
Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948
enacted as the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.
and other succeeding Industrial Policy
The Taft-Hartley Act in the US had provided for recognition for unions Resolutions had all called for some

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 7

form of “profit-sharing”. The Bonus
that was given in wartime to boost
production had been continued after
the war, either as a practice or due to
the demands and agitations of the
workers. In the 1950s, large strikes
came to be organised in Ahmedabad
and in other places for Bonus. As a
result, the Government appointed the
Bonus commission and, on the basis
of their report, enacted the Bonus Act
of 1965.
In 1967 Justice Gajendra Gadkar
of the Supreme Court was appointed
as the First Labour Commission. The
Report of the First Labour Commission
made many recommendations on the
lines of a welfare state. It sought the
abolition of Contract Labour, in line
with earlier judgements of tribunals,
in works of a perennial nature,
whenever certain conditions were
satisfied. These same conditions were
enacted in 1971 into the provisions of
the Contract Labour (Regulation and
Abolition) Act, 1970. The Payment of
Gratuity Act was enacted in 1972. Since
the crisis of 1972 and the consequent
advent of monetarism did not reach
India till a few years later, the
emergency period also saw the
passing of “welfare” measures to
prohibit closures, retrenchments and
lay-offs.
By 1972-73, the imperialist world
economy went into depression. Many
countries had taken large loans from
the IMF and the World Bank, which
they could no longer afford to pay
back. Inflation had touched staggering
heights in such countries, especially
in Latin America. The oil-producing
nations reacted by massively hiking
the price of oil and even the US
suffered from the Nixon shock, where
President Nixon de-linked the price of
the dollar from that of Gold and all
currencies all over the world started
to “free float”.
In this crisis, from which the
world has never really recovered till
today, the Keynesian prescription of
“demand creation” could no more be
resorted to. There was no money to
8 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
pay Governments bills, let alone for Government investment. This was also the
period when Reagan became President of the USA and Margaret Thatcher was
the Prime Minister of the UK. The Keynesian prescription was replaced by a
massive cut of Government subsidies. The new economic theories, variously
called as “neo-liberal”, “monetarism”, Reagonomics or Thatcherism were brought
into force. This theory called for the Government to control minutely, not
unemployment, as was the ultimate lever in Keynesian economics but to control
the flow of money and to curb inflation. Money was, therefore, no more available
for welfare works. There was a cut in the welfare spending all over the world.
This was soon followed by privatisation and disinvestment by Governments all
over the world. Many countries all over the world tottered on either side of
bankruptcy and the IMF started imposing this monetarist formula upon them in
the name of “structural adjustment plans”.
The Soviet bloc collapsed in 1990, due to their own economic problems
caused by them too having moved to a capitalist market-based economy. At the
same time, in 1994, the Dunkel draft was accepted by the GATT and the WTO
was born. With these changes, the path was now clear for what is today
commonly called as Globalisation and Liberalisation.
The cut in the rights to labour welfare given to the workers intensified with
the growth of the crisis of imperialism and the advent of “Globalisation”. Since
1972, not a single law of national and universal significance was enacted for the
benefit of the workers. Since long various Governments have promised to make
a comprehensive law to provide for the rights of agricultural labour. This law has
never seen the light of day. On the other hand, attempts have been made to
water down the existing rights of the workers.
The amounts being allotted to social security were cut down. In 1996 the
Central Government enacted the amendment to the Provident Fund Act, creating
the Employees Pension Fund. The rates of pension were so adjusted so as to
leave a large surplus in the hands of the Government. In the same year, the
Government also enacted the Building and Other Construction Workers Act,
which would also put a large pool of money, ostensibly for the benefit of the
workers in the hands of the Government. There was unbelievable tardiness in
bringing this act into force and even today, by Government’s own reckoning,
only 17 states have constituted the boards necessary for the act’s functioning.
Even in these 17 states, the registration of the construction workers is, at most,
sporadic and the collection of the cess from the builders is observed more in the
breach.
A further stage of dismantling the existing rights of the workers was reached
with the formation of SEZs. Under the SEZ Act of 2005, States were permitted to
amend labour laws in their application to SEZs. Many states have enacted
subsidiary legislation substantially watering down the rights of workers under
various labour laws in SEZs.
The trade union movement has remained a largely mute and ineffective
spectator to these developments. Year after year, the trade union movements are
growing ever more militant all over the world as workers seek to fight against the
injustices being meted out to them. The leadership of the movement has proved
impotent or unwilling to give a direction to the struggle.
After the 2 nd World War, the trade union movement largely started to wane.
Massive struggles for basic changes in rights of workers were few and far
between. Compared to the massive struggles for DA, implementation of the
Factories Act and for Bonus that were carried out by the workers in our country
between the two world wars, the sixty years since have only seen two such large
struggles, the Railway strike of 1974 and the Mumbai textile strike of 1982.
 Immediately after 1947, the Communist Party of India, which was the main Therefore, what is required is a broad
guiding force behind the AITUC, the largest trade union centre then, floundered unity on the basis of the fight against
to find the correct line. The change from colonialism to neo-colonialism was imperialism in the current neo-colonial
never correctly understood or analysed. As a result, the lines in the CPI varied phase. Such a broad unity can be
from following the Chinese path as put forward by some votaries of the Telengana achieved by uniting the workers based
movement, to immediate all-round insurrection in the country-side and in the upon an uncompromising struggle
cities as put forward by the Calcutta Thesis of B. T. Ranadive in 1948 to accepting against imperialism and globalisation.
the role of the Congress as a progressive anti-imperialist force and strengthening Irrespective of party affiliations,
its rule. It was this latter line that finally prevailed. unions may come together on this
basis and form the core of such a
This ideological direction of the CPI affected the AITUC as well. The program
unity. Such a unity, alone, can be the
of the AITUC changed from one demanding revolution in India to one seeking
basis for the resurgence of the working
changes within the system. The formation of the CPI(M) in 1964 held out some
class struggle in India.
hopes for a revolutionary line. However, these hopes were belied when the
newly formed party took up a centrist line. Even the CPI(M) made no attempt to
make any concrete analysis of the neo-colonial system in India. By 1967,
communist revolutionaries within CPI(M) had organised the great Naxalbari Seminar on
struggle, where peasants forcibly took over lands that they had cropped, in
opposition to the absentee landlords. The CPI(M) was a part of the Government Neo-colonialism
in West Bengal where this struggle took place but opposed the movement and
opened fire on the peasants and workers. and the working
The communist revolutionaries within the CPI(M) therefore came out of
the CPI (M) and formed the CPI (ML). The CPI (ML) did put the question of
class at Mumbai
revolution back on the agenda. It correctly analysed the nature of the Indian
bourgeoisie as “comprador” - or being in a submissive relationship with A SEMINAR was held on
imperialism. However, under the influence of the sectarian line which was then “Neo-colonialism and the working
dominating the Chinese Communist Party, they did not pay attention to Trade class” under the banner of the
Unions. The CPI(ML) completely gave up work in Trade Unions and criticised CPI(ML) on 23rd October 2009 at
any person working in them. Mumbai at the BUJ hall. Com.
Sanjay Singhvi presented the
It neglected the importance of mass organisations altogether and, under paper on neo-colonialism and the
the influence of the “Chinese path” gave one-sided emphasis on organising in working class (separately
the country-side to the neglect of the cities. It concentrated its forces in some published in this issue on page
pockets, where “base areas” were to be formed and did not make any attempts to 6). There was a lively discussion
build up strong all-India movements in any section, leave alone in Trade Unions on the issue. Some pertinent
– which were referred to as “the highways of revisionism”. The CPI (ML) also points were raised that the role
did not understand or analyse the nature of neo-colonialism and adapt its of the media, including the
revolutionary strategy according to the concrete situation prevailing. electronic media must also be
The strategy adopted by the bourgeoisie after the 2nd World War in India seen in the context of neo-
was to divide the working class into fragments. There are numerous fragments colonialism and how they have
in India today based on party affiliation. As many commentators have stated, played a role in the orientation of
this is the single most important reason why the working class in India has not the working class struggle. It was
been able to exert an influence in this country commensurate with its strength. It also pointed out that the question
may also be the reason responsible why the trade union movement has not been of urban housing and of price rise
able to inspire the workers and the relative unionisation density among the were also features linked to neo-
Indian workers is actually falling. colonialism and which deeply
affected the working class. There
The answer, therefore, clearly lies in the unity of the working class. However, was also a mention of how NGOs
this can no more be a unity of despair. To hope for a trade union unity based were trying to move into the
upon the old revisionism or sectarian ideas is foolish and pointless. It was these working class movement. It was
ideas that led to the degeneration of the trade union movement in the first place. decided by all present that a
Therefore, what is required is a new strategy for the unity of the working class – forum be urgently formed for
a strategy based upon the concrete analysis of the concrete situation in neo- tackling the question of price rise
colonial India within a neo-colonial world system. in Mumbai.
On the other hand, we cannot compare the Trade union with the party.

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 9

 CPI(ML) Orissa
State Conference
T HE Orissa state conference of the Party was held
on 5th and 6th of October at Inquilab Bhavan, the
state committee office. As the proposed Seminar on
Neo-colonialism and the Agrarian Revolution could not
be arranged due to rains and other technical problems,
and as a number of delegates from interior areas of
Bhadrak, Puri, Khurda and some other places could
not reach due to continuing strike by the private bus
owners, the Conference had to be re-scheduled. Com.
KNR and Tuhin attended it representing the CC.
The conference started on 5th afternoon with com.
KNR raising the red flag and paying homage to the
martyrs. A panel of presidium, steering committee and
minutes committee was adopted. Com Jaidev Nayak
representing reception committee welcomed the CCM
and the delegates and invitees. 25 delegates and
invitees participated. Com. KNR inaugurated the
conference explaining the importance of the Bhopal
conference and the theoretical offensive the Party has
launched focusing on neo-colonialism.
Then the draft international document and the
draft on character of Indian state were presented by
com. KNR one after another followed by general
discussion and reply. They were adopted with few
suggestions to improve them. On 6th morning com.
Tuhin presented the draft on principal contradiction.
After general discussion and reply it was adopted.
Following this com. KNR presented first the draft on
path of revolution and then the political organisational
report of the CC. Com. Tuhin presented the draft
political resolution. They were approved after general
discussion and reply.
Com. Sivaram, the state secretary, presented the
state committee report which was adopted after
discussion. A panel of the new State Committee
members moved by com. Sivaram was also adopted
unanimously by the conference. The new SC re-elected
com. Sivaram as its secretary. Then panel of All India
Special Conference was elected. The conference
adopted resolutions condemning the increasing state
terror in the name of suppressing ‘Maoists’,
condemning the bus owner’s strike and government’s
inaction, supporting the ongoing struggles of the
peasantry against displacement, against price-rise,
unemployment, etc.
Addressing the conference com. Sivaram assured
that the new state committee shall strive hard to spread
the organisation at state level winning over new forces
based on the ideological-political clarity provided by
the documents. Com. Tuhin congratulated the
10 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
comrades for the advances already made and called
for all out efforts to make the Bhopal rally and
conference a resounding success and new offensive in
all fields based on the theoretical positions put
forward. The conference concluded on 6th evening
with lowering of the red flag amidst singing of
International and militant slogans.
Bhubaneswar Area
Conference Held
BHUBANESWAR Area Conference of CPI(ML)
is successfully held on16th October. As due to technical
reasons some area conferences and district conferences
were not held before, these conferences are continuing
and it will complete before all india conference. The
drafts were passed by the delegates with some
suggestions and amendments. The previous area
secretary com. Bijay Samal presented the
organisational report. The conference elected a 26
members new area committe with Com Harihar Sahoo
as its new Secretary. The conference decided to mobilise
a good number of people to Bhopal All India
Conference. To make success the Bhopal conference
wall writing, street corner meetings, pasting of posters
and distributing leaflets in Oriya are started.
Mass Demonstration
Against Repression of
Kalinganagar Adivasis
IN THE NAME OF ‘development’ and rapid
industrialisation the anti-people Odisha govt. signed
number of MoU with MNCs and corporate houses. To
loot Odisha’s natural resources, mines, forests, water
and cheap labour is the main interest of these
companies. The comprador bureaucrats and
government machinery is deployed to serve their
propose. Single window system is developed to make
their work faster. Despite all this when they tried to
acquire land, every where they had to face severe mass
resistances by the affected common people, farmers,
adivasis and dalits.
From Kashipur to Kalinga Nagar, Posco and
Vedanta people are resisting. They are fighting against
forcible land grabbing and for defending their right of
life and livelihood. They demand irrigation, proper
procurement prices of agrarian and forest products,
education-healthcare for common people of all areas.
Rejecting the propaganda of ‘development’ these
struggles are against displacement of lakhs of people
from land, forest, water and from their traditional way
of living. They demand agri-based development, land
reforms, distribution of lands to real tillers and forest
rights to tribals. But the govt. do not heed the real
demands of people. So every where democratic mass
movements grow and thousands of people rally round
with these demands. Some movements started
spontaneously and in some places CPI(ML) like
revolutionary forces, who believe in real mass
movements, led the movements. CPI(ML) and all other
revolutionary, progressive, patriotic and democratic
forces support these movements.
To repress them police acted as agents of these
companies. Every where lathi charge, firing, sending
number of people to jail in false cases, registered false
cases against hundreds of activists and common
people. In last 15years in anti-displacement and land
movement in Kashipur 3, Kalinganagar 16,
Mandrabaju 8, Raigarh 5, Soran 5, Baijal 1, Posco 1
activists became martyr in police firing and company
goondas attack. After Kalinganagar massacre on 2nd
January 2006 displacement and land issue became a
centre question. All the common people of Odisha
supported this movement and made 7th January 2006
all Odisha bandh hundred percent spontaneous
success. Since Kalinganagar firing all over Odisha
people are struggling or supporting the struggles to
protect their life and livelihood. In posco since four
and half years peoples are struggling and do not allow
to acquire a single piece of land. Vedanta in Puri and
Lanjigada, Tata power plant in Naraj, Mittal plant and
all other plants were resisted. No where Maoists are in
the leadership of these people’s movements. But to
repress all these mass movements the government
machinary, police and monopoly the media consciously
propagate the involvement and instigation of the
Maoists. It is a pretext to repress the democratic
movements. Now declaring Maoists are the enemy of
people, they want to deploy millitary and air force to
smash them. But the real motive behind them is to
supress and smash all the mass movements.
Recently in Kalinganagar the state govt. and police
are acting like the agents of Tata Steel and harassing
the agitating tribals by falsely implicating them in a
case of murder. The police were acting against the
members and harassing the leaders of the Bistapan
Birodhi Janamancha of Kalinganagar. In the name of
arresting accused persons in the murder case in
question, the police had surrounded two villages
Mashakhia and Baligotha for the past several days.
The police and SOG forces conducted raids during
night. To terrorise the villagers blank firing, rubber
bullet firing, smoke gas throwing is done. The demand
made by the Janamancha that the murder case should
be handed over to CBI has gone unheard.
The central and state govts. is adopting new
techniques to supress democratic movements at various
places. To oppose and resist the new tactics of
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
repression by the govt. on 21st October CPI(ML) state
secretary com Sivaram, leader of Posco Pratirodh
Sangram Samiti com. Abhaya Sahu and other state
leaders of Lok Pakshya, Lok Shakti Abhiyan, CPI(ML)
New Democracy, CPI(ML) Liberation adressed a press
conference at Bhubaneswar. On 24th October a mass
demonstration organised by the revolutionary parties
and mass movements of Odisha including Basti
Surakshya Mancha and Jeevan-Jeevika Surakshya
Samiti with the demands that the police and SOG forces
should withdrawn from Masakhia and Baligotha and
other villages of Kalinganagar area. false cases against
innocent tribals be withdrawn and the proposed steel
plant project should be shelved to restore peace in
Kalinganagar. On 31st october a massive protest will
be organised at Kalinganagar Ambagadai, near martyrs
column. CPI(ML) and other revolutionary parties and
mass movements will particepate in protest meeting.
Korean President Visit
Opposed by CPI(ML)
SINCE four and half years South Korean MNC
Posco’s mega steel plant is opposed by those affected
by land acquisition, mining and plunder of water
resources. Other struggling and revolutionary left
democratic masses also stood behind the struggling
people who are fighting relentlessly against Posco. In
spite all effort by Posco company and comprador state
govt. the company has not been able to take possession
of any land for the steel plant project so far.The MoU is
in cold storage since june 2005. In January Korean
president Lee Myung-Bak may come to Odisha to lay
the foundation stone at the earmarked proposed steel
plant of Posco-India at Jagatsinghpur dist. Posco
Pratirodh Sangram Samiti and thousands of people
facing displacement would jointly oppose the Korean
president’s visit and would not allow him to lay the
foundation stone. CPI(ML) Odisha State Committee also
declared their support to the PPSS and started
campaigning and preparation for not allowing Korean
president to lay the foundation stone.
Jeevan-Jeevika Suraskhya
Samiti Formed in Puri
TO PROTECT the peasants, agricultural
workers, dalits rights and to mobise against the
Vedanta company which is grabbing six thousand acres
of land in the name of Vedanta University Jeevan-
Jeevika Surskhya Samiti Puri District Committee is
formed. It started campaigning taking various peoples
issues. A good number of comrades from JJSS, Puri
will participate in the Bhopal rally on 7th november on
the occassion of CPI(ML) all india conference.
November 2009 11
 Kolkata: Seminar on
“Neo-colonialism and
the Left”
T HE Seminar on Neo-Colonialism and the Left
organised at George Hall, Maulali in Kolkata on
4th October evening, though participated by a small
number of progressive, revolutionary sections became
a good launching of the discussion on imperialism in
its neo-colonial phase. In the discussion presided by
com. Sanjay Singhvi, com. KNR presenting the subject
pointed out that this discussion is extremely
significant in the context of two most important
conjunctures: one, the emerging unprecedently
favourable objective condition for outbreak of people’s
upsurges as a result of the consequences of the
imperialist melt-down which is intensifying the neo-
liberal raj; and two, the severe setback suffered by the
international communist movement during the last
half a century from a position of great advances
challenging the imperialist camp to its present
disorganised, weak position making subjective forces
of revolution very weak. In such a critical situation
development of the revolutionary theory based on
evaluation of past experience assumes paramount
importance. The relevance of the theoretical debate
launched by CPI(ML) focusing on neo-colonialism at
all India level as a part of preparation for its All India
Special Conference from 7 to 12 November at Bhopal
Should be seen in this context.
After the emergence of capitalist system, only
when Marx and Engels put forward the Communist
Manifesto with a world outlook of scientific socialism,
the working class could come out of the mire of utopian
socialism and advance. Similarly, when the Second
International collapsed due to the class collaborationist
line of its leadership, it was Lenin’s epoch-making
analysis of imperialism as the highest stage of
capitalism, developing Marxism to higher stage, the
victory of October revolution based on the general line
put forward by him, the formation of Soviet Union
along with its revolutionary advances and the
reorganisation of the Second International in to the
Communist International providing a general line for
the ICM which inspired great revolutionary advances
reaching a peak by 1950s. The severe setback suffered
by the ICM should be seen in the context of the failure
of the international and Indian communist movement
to apply the Leninist teachings to evaluate the
imperialist offensive from the post-World War II years
transforming its colonial domination with neo-
colonial offensive. There were serious weaknesses in
understanding imperialism in its new incarnation,
12 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
leading to capitalist path gaining dominance in the
socialist countries and most of the communist parties.
Unless this grave theoretical weakness is rectified and
Marxist-Leninist understanding is developed
according to the conditions created by the neo-colonial
offensive of imperialism, the ICM cannot overcome its
setbacks and cannot advance.
With this introduction com. KNR explained the
basic features of neo-colonialism and how the colonial
India was transformed to a neo-colonial one, based on
the draft documents. Following the presentation,
starting the discussion com. Babu Dutta criticised the
neo-colonial question from a position of negative
clarity. He could not differentiate himself basically
from old semi-colonial thinking and used the various
categories in an ecclectical manner. Refuting this
approach com. Partha enlivened the debate by
explaining the post World War II approaches of
imperialism and how along with speculative capital,
the market system came to supreme dominance. In this
connection he showed the significance of WTO in the
neo-colonial plunder. He called for further empirical
studies and provide data, as Lenin did in his work
“Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism”.
Intervening in the discussion com. Sramistha of
CCR(ML) agreed that the post-War Soviet policies
should be viewed critically. But she wanted to link
these weaknesses to those that surfaced from 1930s
itself. It was to combat the growing strength of the
socialist forces the imperialist camp led by US resorted
to various neo-colonial policies including land
reforms. She developed the debate based on a firm neo-
colonial approach.
Com. Shankar of CCR(ML) tried to explain the
reasons for the failure of the ICM to address the neo-
colonial onslaught by the imperialist camp. In this
context he referred to earlier mistakes of Soviet
leadership in dealing with the inner party struggle
democratically and in applying the concept of
democratic socialism. Further internationalism was
replaced by nationalism by the Soviet leadership. He
tried to explain the FII-FDI flows and WTO dictates as
further steps to intensify neo-colonialism.
Com. Gautam felt happy that ‘Stalinism’ is under
criticism. His arguments based on Trotskyist position
of permanent revolution, while criticising Stalin’s
position including ‘defence of fatherland’ slogan did
not extend to acceptance of imperialism resorting to
neo-colonialism. To him India is a capitalist country.
Com. KNR in his reply admitted that neo-
colonialism need further substantiation including
providing empirical data based studies. The feudal
relations have undergone significant changes, so that
feudalism is no more the social base of imperialism.
This should be seen in the context of ‘land reforms’
not only to blunt agrarian movements, but also to
facilitate entry of imperialist capital, market forces to
agrarian sector. Of course the weakness of Soviet
leadership in the 1940s should be seen as a
continuation of the weaknesses at other planes in
1930s. And these weaknesses helped the emergence of
Krushchovite revisionism. The development of Deng’s
capitalist path in China can also be seen as a
consequence of not recognising the neo-colonial drive.
Com. Sanjay Singhvi, summing up the discussion
pointed out that it was a fruitful beginning of the
discussion on neo-colonialism in Kolkata. He hoped
that it will be followed up by many more discussions
of this kind to deepen the theoretical efforts to analyse
the neo-colonial phase of imperialism.
Chennai “Tamil
National Question in
Sri Lanka”
A S PART OF the various seminars on different
aspects of neo-colonialism organized by the CPI
(ML) at an all India level as a background to the All
India Special Conference, under the auspices of the
Tamil Nadu State Committee of CPI (ML), a one-day
seminar on ‘Neo-colonialism and the Tamil National
Question in Sri Lanka’ was organized on October 4 at
Chennai. In the seminar presided over by Com. PT
Shanmuga Sundaram, State Secretary, Com. Vinda
Vedhan, State Committee member presented the State
Committee’s position from a Marxist historical
perspective and an intense debate by the participants
on the various aspects of the Tamil question followed.
Com. Kalan Dorai, in his paper vehemently attacked
the bourgeois chauvinistic positions pursued by some
so called ML parties in Tamil Nadu and called for a
Marxist-Leninist approach to the national question.
In the afternoon, Com. PJ James presented the CPI
(ML) Central Committee’s position on the issue in his
paper entitled ‘Sri Lankan Tamil Question under
conditions of Neocolonialism: The Marxist Approach’.
The paper among other things argued that rather than
opting for another neo-colonial comprador Tamil State
under the frame work of neo-colonialism, progressive
democratic forces should struggle for a people’s
democratic state in Sri Lanka overthrowing the present
ruling system and lay the foundations for equal rights
for Tamils in relation to the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
While the ruling classes, and self-professed Marxists
and anarchists are whipping up chauvinistic national
sentiments on the issue for their short-term goals, the
perspectives put forward by CPI(ML) based on a class
approach has attracted the attention of several well
meaning people and progressive sections in TN.
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
Delhi Seminar on
“State Terror and
Neo-colonisation”
O N 26th September a seminar on ‘War on Terror’
at home Fascicisation of the State Under Neo-
colonisation was held at Gandhi Peace Foundation Hall
as part of the seminars organized at various centres
on various aspects of neo-colonial plunder. Dr.
Prempati who presided explained the significance of
exposing the intensification of the state terror in all
spheres pin-pointing concrete instances. Com. KNR
presented the paper explaining how after the transfer
of power in 1947 under various pretexts consecutive
governments went on intensifying the fascicisation of
the state which has reached a peak now under neo-
liberal regime. To facilitate Neo-colonisation caste,
race, religions fundamentalism of all hues, decadent
feudal culture and reactionary imperialist cultural
values are rampantly utilized to divert people’s
attention and to force their submission to the ruling
state. The NGOs and various organisations formed
on the basis of identity politics, along with various
reformist initiatives are utilised to weaken people’s
resistance against the above. They work hard to de-
link the state terror from neo-colonisation. In the name
of fighting Islamic fundamentalists – sponsored
terrorists the Hindutua terrorists who are a bigger
challenge are protected. In the name of putting down
the anarchist ‘Maoists’ all people’s movements and
revolutionary forces are suppressed. Against these a
polarization of all progressive democratic forces is
needed to expose and fight state terror as part of the
struggle against neo-colonisation.
Following the presentation there was an active
discussion in which all participants expressed their
views. Comrades Nandlal, Shivmangal Sidhatkar,
Thomas Mathew, Umakant and others put forward
valuable suggestions while expanding various aspects
of the subject under discussion. In the course of
discussion most of the participants upheld imperialist
plunder has transformed from colonial to neo-colonial
phase that intensifying the contradictions. Based on
this ideological political line various aspects of state
terror was discussed. The role of anti-caste movement
was stressed. The importance of mobilization of the
oppressed classes and sections to fight against the
reactionary Indian state was upheld by all the
participants. Com. KNR concluded the discussion,
once again stressing the critical situation in the country
and the need to mobilize the working classes and all
oppressed people to put an end to state terror by
overthrowing the ruling system.
November 2009 13
 Jharkhand State
Conference of
CPI(ML)
T HE Jharkhand state conference of the Party was
successfully held at Ramgarh in Shahid Birsa
Munda Hall (Sahu Bhavan Dharmasala) on 29-30
September. Seventy five delegates including fifteen
women comrades from eight districts participated. It
started with remembering martyrs at 1 PM followed
by election of presidium and steering committee. Com.
Anjani Kumar, state secretary welcomed the
participants explaining the various struggles waged
by the Party at ideological, political and organisational
levels in the state. Then com. KNR inaugurated the
conference explaining the importance of the present
situation when the conference is held. The
unprecedented price rise, unemployment, corruption
at all levels, criminalisation and Mafia raj have
intensified all contradictions creating objective
conditions for mighty people’s upsurge. We should
seize this opportunity by speeding up the building up
of the Party so as to make it capable of leading the
emerging upsurge.
Then the six draft documents of the CC were
presented by com. KNR explaining their importance
followed by general discussion and reply. The
delegates supporting them. Many questions raised
during discussion were replied. The discussion and
approval of the CC documents continued till 10 AM
on 30 September. It was followed by the presentation
of the report of the SOC formed in February 2009 by
secretary com. Anjani Kumar. It was followed by active
discussion in which comrades Kulchan Pahad, Madhi
Munda, Baburam Gop, John Miran Munda,
Parameshwar Oran, Dulari Toppo, Sunita Oran and
many others actively participated explaining the
situation in their areas and the struggles waged by
them. The discussion on the state report brought
forward the extreme backwardness, repressive,
reactionary situation existing in the state. Displacement
of adivasis and other oppressed sections from their
land has taken serious turn. As the CPI-CPI(M)-
Liberation opportunist alliance and the anarchist
‘Maoists’ are helping the ruling system, a
revolutionary alternative can be built up only by
intensifying the class struggle in all fields by building
up the CPI(ML). The report was adopted by the
conference with some suggestions to improve it.
Following this a panel of 23 comrades including
4 women presented for the new state committee was
approved by the conference. The new SC members re-
14 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
elected com Anjani Kumar Pandey as the state
secretary. A panel of 15 delegates and 15 invitees to
the All Special India conference was also adopted. The
Conference passed resolutions concerning state
demanding the fulfilment of the demands of the
adivasis, on implementation of minimum wages, etc.
Com. Anjani Kumar in his concluding speech
called for intensifying the mass movement in all fields
to achieve the demands of adivasis and oppressed
sections of the people. Com. KNR called for getting
ready to make the Bhopal Conference a great success.
The Party should be built up in the state with full
vigour to carry forward the struggles against the
mounting attacks on people. The Conference
concluded with vote of thanks by the presidium and
with the singing of the International.
Karnataka State
Conference
K ARNATAKa state committee had planned
to organize the 6 th State conference in a big way
at Bangalore with a seminar on Agrarian Revolution in
the Context of Neo-colonisation on 9 th to 12th October.
But the severe floods in North Karnataka which called
for active participation of the Party and class/mass
organisations in relief work forced cutting down the
programme to only delegates session at Raichur from
9 th afternoon to 11 th evening. Still the militant
conference with overwhelming number of the 121
delegates including 17 women from eight districts
below 45 years age, reflected the growth of the Party
in all fields from its first state
conference in 1994 at Shimoga
with about 20 activists who had
joined the party from the Dalit
Sangharsh Samithi forming the
state unit.
After raising the red flag
and paying homage to
martyrs amidst revolutionary
slogans and
songs all the
delegates
moved to the
Jaycees Hall
where the
conference
was held.
The panel of
presidium,
steering
committee

Delegates to Karnataka State Conference
and minutes committee presented by comrade
Manasayya was adopted, and Com. Basavalingappa
welcomed the delegates for the Reception Committee.
Com. KNR inaugurated the conference explained the
significance of this conference to be followed by the
Bhopal conference which is going to take path breaking
decisions.
Then the six documents of the CC were presented
by comrades KNR, and CCMs R. Manasayya and
Basavalingappa, followed by group discussion,
general discussion and reply. Many suggestions to
improve them were put forward by the delegates who
adopted all of them. It was followed by presentation
of the state committee’s report by secretary com. R.
Manasayya which was adopted after an in-depth
discussion and reply accepting many of the suggestion
of the delegates.
The panel of the new state committee of 21
members including five women was adopted. As Com.
Manasayya has to take up higher responsibilities at
central level, Com. Rudrayya was elected the state
secretary. Fifty delegates and invitees for Bhopal
conference were also elected. The conference adopted
23 resolutions dealing with the severe floods in
Karnataka and AP, price rise, growing unemployment,
worker’s plight under neo-liberal policies, agrarian
question, commercialization of education and health-
care, public distribution system, women’s movement,
adivasi question etc. were adopted. In his speech the
newly elected secretary called for intensification of
efforts at all levels to strengthen the party and class/
mass organisations, and to intensify struggles.
In the concluding speech Com. KNR called for a
vigorous effort to make Bhopal Conference a
resounding success at all levels. The conference
concluded with the lowering of the Red Flag amidst
singing of the International and revolutionary slogans.
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
Kerala State
Conference
T HE Kerala State Conference of CPI (ML) was
held from October 16 to 19, 2009 at Com. Krishna
Pilla Nagar ( Panchayat Community Hall, Amballur)
Trissur as scheduled. The Conference process was
preceded by a press conference at the district
headquarters in the forenoon of October 16 led by Com.
KN Ramachandran, Central Secretary, CPI (ML)
followed by a public meeting in the evening in front of
the municipal corporation office, Trissur attended by
Com. Ramachandran and other state party leaders.
This was followed by registration of the delegate
comrades who were elected from the fourteen district
conferences held during the entire month of September
and the first week of October. Altogether 116 delegates
from various parts of the State participated in the
Conference. Senior most comrade, 85 year old AS
Narayana Pilla performed the flag hoisting and State
Secretary Com PJ James made the Martyrs’
Commemoration. Formal inauguration of the
Conference by com KN Ramachandran was preceded
by the election of the presidium composed of Comrades,
K Sivaraman, TC Subrahmanyan, VJ Joy, KS Sindhu,
and Vasanthi and steering committee composed of
comrades PJ James, PN Provint, and MP Kunhikanaran
and minutes committee composed of Vinod
Ramantholi, MK Dasan, and PC Saju and the approval
of the conference agenda by the delegates.
In his inaugural speech which started at 10 AM,
on October 17, Com KNR briefly narrated the
international and national context of the All India
Special Conference and emphasized the urgent task
before the proletariat of building a revolutionary
communist movement both at the international and
national level resolutely fighting the twin obstacles of
right opportunism and left sectarianism. He also
underlined the historical relevance of the four key
documents drafted by the central committee, viz.,
International Situation and Our Tasks, Character of the
State, On Principal Contradiction and Path of Indian
Revolution. After his inaugural speech Com KNR
presented the draft on International Situation and Our
Tasks. Almost twenty delegates participated in the
general discussion that followed. On the basis of
KNR’s reply regarding the doubts and responses
including certain additions proposed by the delegates
during the three hour long intense discussion, the
document was adopted by the delegate session to be
presented for final approval at the All India Special
Conference at Bhopal during November 7-12, 2009.
This was followed by the presentation of the draft
November 2009 15
document on the Character of Indian State by Com PJ Organisational Report along with the audited accounts
James which evaluates the Indian State after the of the State Committee since the 7th state conference in
transfer of power as essentially neocolonial in 2007. The Report highlighted the specific problems of
character. Comrades who participated in the party building confronted by the State Committee in
discussion whole heartedly upheld the Central Karala which has become a ‘show case’ of
Committee’s position in this regard as it is in neocolonialism with all its concomitant decay and
conformity with the concrete historical conditions degeneration. After a marathon discussion spanning
prevailing today. Based on the reply to the doubts four hours, the State Report was approved by the
and suggestions by the delegates this document was Conference on the basis of the reply by the State
also adopted. In the evening, Com KNR presented the secretary. This was followed by the election of a
draft document on the Approach towards determining seventeen member State Committee including three
the Principal Contradiction in India. It explained the women comrades with Com. K Sivaraman as the
principal contradiction in India as between the Secretary. A seven member Executive Committee was
alliance of imperialism, comprador bureaucratic also elected. The State Conference also elected a forty
capital and landlordism on the one hand and the broad member delegation for the All India Special Conference
masses of people on the other. The document at Bhopal. Almost twenty five resolutions relating to
pinpointed that only such an understanding on state-specific and national issues were adopted by the
principal contradiction can enable the communist Conference. The Conference ended by about 6 O’clock
party to fulfill the twin task of national liberation and in the evening with the lowering of the Flag and
democratic revolution under neocolonialism. On the International. The success of the Conference including
basis of KNR’s reply regarding the concerns raised by its participation and level of discussion is a testimony
the delegates who participated in the discussion, the to the fact that the recent anti-party activities by a few
conference approved the draft document. people with the backing of bourgeois media has not at
On October 18, the third day of the conference, at all had any impact on the party structure in the State.
sharp 9 AM, Com. KNR presented the draft document
on Path of Indian Revolution for discussion and
approval by the delegates. The basic thrust of the
document was on the need for evolving an Indian path
of revolution in consonance with the neocolonial
phase of imperialism as against the mechanical
approach of advocating the erstwhile Chinese path of
protracted people’s war for India and other
neocolonial countries by various ML groups quite
contrary to the Leninist principle of concrete analysis
of concrete conditions. The document was subjected
to a four hour discussion by almost twenty five
delegates and Com. KNR replied to each of their queries
before its approval by the conference. This was
followed by the presentation of the Political
Organisational Report of the Central Committee during
the entire period since the 2003 All India Conference Rally at Raipur, Chhattisgarh Announcing
of erstwhile CPI (ML) Red Flag and the Vijayawada State Conference on 23rd September
Unity Conference in 2005. Explaining both the
challenges and prospects before the party, the Report
underscored the urgent need for building up the Party
on Bolshevik lines surrounded by class mass
organizations. Almost thirty comrades from various
districts participated in the discussion and it was
unanimously approved following the reply from com.
KNR. The day’s session ended with the approval of
the Political Resolution by the delegates, which was
presented by Com K. Sivaraman.
Semiar at Raipur on 25th September on
At 9.30 AM on October 19, Com PJ James, State
“Neo-Colonialism and the Left”
Secretary, CPI (ML) presented the Political

16 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009

 Ecological questions countries like Russia and China
have joined hands with US-led

come to the fore

imperialists to fiddle like Nero when
Rome was burning, in this case
caring least to cut down their
vulgar life style even when global

F IRST an almost unprecedented drought with a large number of

the states receiving just half the average rainfall or less. As a result
the agriculture, the rabi crop, is affected seriously throwing tens of millions
warming is going to destroy this
beautiful earth. Even the neo-rich
led countries like India who have
of families to more miseries. Then the floods came following the depression joined the G-20 as junior partners
in Bay of Bengal. It has very seriously affected mostly the Krishna river of the imperialists are taking least
basin districts causing hundreds of deaths and miseries to many millions. interest to put pressure on the
The loss in Karnataka and AP is estimated as more than Rs. 20,000 crores imperialist vultures to save this
apart from the sufferings to the people. That the floods affected to maximum earth.
extent the worst drought affected regions has not provided any relief to
On the contrary, when US
these regions, but multiplied the miseries to the people. What happened
in Karnataka, AP and Kerala was repeated in Bihar and other Gangetic imperialists are dynamiting the
regions as well as the Brahmaputra basin areas of Northeast. As the moon’s surface in search of water
North and North east face these sufferings practically every year or more after criminally causing pollution
than once in an year, the media did not give much attention to them. and plunder of most of the
abundant fresh water resources on
The Corporate – MNC media is behind news that create sensation. this earth, their compradors or
For it miseries of millions of people is not of much interest. It fears that junior partners leading the Indian
more coverage of it may agitate people against its own lords, the Corporates government are spending huge
and MNCs, who cause ecological destruction leading to global warming amount in chandrayan like projects
that cause such frequent droughts and floods, much more than in the to initiate their masters. This is
past. A study of the climate changes including the increasing happening when there are tens of
disappearance of Himalayan glaziers during last ten years shows that thousands of villages who are not
these droughts and floods are not just what they used to be in the past. having drinking water facilities.
They are the result of the consequences of the ecological destruction. In
spite of it the central and state governments are showing least interest to Is Manmohan Singh
ecological questions. government going to supply
drinking water to these millions
At least till now the most important villains who caused the global from moon by spending thousands
warming are the imperialists, especially the US imperialists. In spite of of crores of rupees in search of
many studies establishing the fact, they are not ready to cut down their water particles there? The
fossil fuel consumption and carbon gas emissions. They are not ready imperialists and their compradors
even to sign the Kyoto Protocol which calls for some nominal, vastly alike have joined hands to
insufficient steps to cut down these ecological crimes in the next few ecologically destroy this planet. It
decades. In stead, similar to their efforts to transfer the burden of the is yet another of their heinous
consequences of the recent unprecedentedly serious imperialist meltdown crimes, which should be exposed
to the shoulders of the world people, they are trying to exempt themselves
and fought against without any let
from steps that lead to cut down of their fuel consumption and carbon
up.
gas emissions which cause green house effects by transferring the burden
of saving the earth from global worming to the poor by purchasing ‘carbon
credits’ from the undeveloped countries. It means that let the imperialist
masters continue to enjoy more by prolonging their luxuries, while let
Varga Porattam
even what is happening in the undeveloped countries in the name of Organ of Tamilndu State
‘development’ be cut down further. Committee of CPI(ML)
In the field of global warming, ecological destruction, also the
Varga Porattam Monthly
barbarous nature of the imperialist system, especially of US imperialism
is becoming clearer day by day. Even the parliament of Maldives holding No. 10,
its session ‘under waters, in protest to show the fate of such areas which Gangai Konda Shozan Street
are destined to drown under sea waters if the global warming is allowed MGR Nagar
to intensify is not going to make the imperialist to rethink their demonish Chennai - 600 078
policies. All the imperialists including the ‘new generation’ imperialists

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 17

T HE result of the elections to
the state assemblies in
Maharashtra, Haryana and
Arunachal Pradesh are almost a
repetition of what happened in the
Lok Sabha elections. In the absence
of any meaningful alternative to the
ruling class policies within the
bourgeois parliamentary system,
Congress or Congress-led alliances
have succeeded to retain power. It
is not that there are burning issues
tormentig the people like price-rise,
unemployment and state terror.
These issues are becoming more
and more serious day by day. The
people’s discontentment is
growing as reflected in the many
mass struggles against the ruling
class policies or the consequences
of the neo-liberal raj imposed. But
can a BJP-Shiv Sena combine or any
other BJP-led alliances be trusted
to reverse these policies? From their
experiences people have found
that BJP controlled by RSS cannot
become an alternative to Congress,
as it only represents Congress
policies plus Hindutva fanaticism.
Every other political party in the
election fray, except the few
candidates of the revolutionary left,
represent the very same Congress-
led ruling class policies. This is the
case of the social democratic
CPI(M)-led Left Front also. All of
them make the elections issue-less,
as none of them are for rejecting the
imperialist globalisation policies
which are intensifying neo-
colonisation, for kicking out neo-
colonial development policy and
stand for a self-reliant, national,
people-oriented development
policy.
The corporate-MNC cont-
rolled monopoly media play a
major role in making the elections
‘issue-less’. They join hands with
the big or small or regional
comprador political parties to keep
the burning issues affecting the
people away from their reporting
and ‘panel discussions’. So price-
rise, unemployment, peasants
18 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
Political Scene After
Assembly Election
observer
committing suicide, people forced to migrate, destruction of ecology, ever-
mounting corruption, commercialisation of education, health-care,
transport and communication, mafia raj, communal fascism, caste-based
atrocities, attacks on women, criminalisation and above all the present
devastating ‘development policy’, etc. have become untouchable subjects
during election campaign for the multi-billion election game played by
the fast increasing number crorepati-candidates of these parties. The
people are left with the only option of voting one of these anti-people
candidates in these de-politicised elections or keeping away from the
voting as large numbers did this time in Maharashtra.
It was in the 1970s, the otherwise very much politicised decade, that
the electoral political scene started getting polarised between Congress
and Hindutva led forces, between soft and hard Hindutva forces,
competing to represent the big capitalist, bureaucratic, big landlord classes
serving imperialism, especially US imperialism. The degeneration of
erstwhile socialists parties and groups to the rightist camp of Hindutva
forces in line with their ‘anti-Congressism’ played a role in this. But more
than this, it was degeneration of CPI-CPI(M) to social democratic positions
that made the left forces incapable of utilising the political space created
by the weakening of the Congress that provided opportunity for the
political forces led by RSS — first the Jan Sangh and later BJP — to utilise
this space and get strengthened. The deviation of CPI(ML) and other
communist revolutionary forces to adventurist line, mechanically
pursuing the Lin Biaoist adventurist line that emerged and started
dominating the CPC, and their disintegration following state repression
making them incapable of advancing the revolutionary left alternative
also played a major part in this.
But the six years rule of BJP-led NDA government at centre till 2004
during which, while speeding up the imperialist globalisation policies
and strategic subservience to US imperialism, the Hindutva forces
intensified communal fanaticism going to the extent of the genocide in
Gujarat in 2002. Whatever sovereignty, secularism and democratic values
the country had were further eroded. It was in this situation the Congress
started recovering its position and CPI(M)-led Left Front got 62 seats in
Lok Sabha while the BJP-led NDA was defeated. During the 2004-09 period
when many people’s upsurges against the UPA government’s policies
took place BJP was in effect opposing them. The BJP-led state governments
were pursuing its Hindutva fanatic policies. It was in this situation, in
spite of growing people’s anger against the consequences of imperialist
globalisation policies pursued by the UPA government, BJP-led NDA could
not establish itself as an alternative, and in this vacuum the Congress and
UPA could gain more seats and retain power.
Earlier Jan Sangh and later BJP could expand their influence only
when it developed united front tactics and created the impression of coming
out of RSS influence. But the RSS was always trying to impose its dictates
over its political face, the BJP. As internal dissensions started becoming 1991 at centre, as all these parties
serious within BJP after the defeat in Lok Sabha elections, and the Jaswanth from rightist BJP to pseudo-left
Singh book affair further aggravated them, RSS started directly interfering CPI(M) in practice are pursuing the
and controlling BJP affairs more than ever. At the same time RSS also very same policies of Congress
bestowed its blessing on Congress leadership for its neo-liberal policies which are intensifying neo-
and strategic junior partnership with US and Israel. It was in this colonisation.
atmosphere the latest assembly elections including Maharshtra election In this situation the central
took place. and state governments are going to
That the BJP-Shiv Sena combine which has surrendered third time continue the policies which
before Congress-NCP combine not because of the virtues of the latter’s aggravate price rise, unemploy-
rule or just because of the votes and seats gained by Raj Thakeray’s ultra ment, displacement, corruption,
chauvinist MNS. BJP is defeated because it had nothing to say against the pauperisation of the masses and
reactionary policies pursued by Congress at the centre and the state, criminalisation. They will also
intensifying price rise, unemployment, corruption, criminalisation and aggravate the neo-colonial
communal-isation. The election was reduced to a farce more than ever as subordination to imperialist
both combines have no differences on any of the basic issues. Even the system, especially US imperialism.
‘Republican Left Democratic Front’ in spite of talking so much had no Only the revolutionary left can
credibility among the people because of the RPI groups and CPI(M) led LF throw up a challenge to the
parties have served the Congress band wagon for long. So, in the absence reactionary ruling system by
of any effective opposition, the Congress combine could win for a third putting forward fundamentally
time. different policies and developing a
The results of Lok Sabha elections and the elections to Maharashtra- revolutionary alternative utilising
Haryana-Arunachal Pradesh assemblies are going to weaken BJP further, all forms of struggles. For this the
reducing it to a regional party. The credibility of RPI, BSP, CPI(M) like parliamentary struggles should be
parties has also eroded further. It is the crisis faced by the bourgeois turned in to political struggle
parliamentary system with Congress almost retaining the supremacy it exposing the ruling system and
had till 1996 except for two brief brakes from 1977 to 1980 and 1988 to politicising the masses.

Leasing or Selling Pakistan

KARACHI, Oct 2: At a time when the Pakistan
People’s Party-led coalition government seems to
be bent upon bartering away the strategic, political
and economic ownership in the name of boosting
financial resources, pro-people and patriotic
political forces of Pakistan are perturbed over the
rationale of the so-called ruling elite devoid of
national interests and self-respect.
To resist the government’s latest move to lease
60 lakh acres of land to oil rich Saudi Arabia and
one million acres to American and European
investors, an important meeting of the
representative of the National Workers Party,
Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party Pakistan,
Communist Party of Pakistan and Awami Party
was held here at the residence of Yusuf Musti
Khan, Vice President of the National Workers
Party. The meeting was presided over by General
Secretary, Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party Ejaz
Ghani.
The meeting took a serious notice of a
devastating design under which the agricultural
land would be sold or leased to foreign investors
under the cover of bagging foreign investment, the
ultimate outcome of which would culminate into
losing the national grip of Pakistan’s ownership.
This will not enhance agricultural production but
is destined to be ominous for agricultural sector,
jolting the very foundation of national sovereignty.
A plan of action against the nefarious
government’s move was adopted and the modus
operandi to resist it would be finalized within a
few days.
Those attended the meeting included Akhtar
Hussain, Usman Baloch and Ishtiaq Azmi (NWP);
Mansoor Saeed & Dr. Mazhar Hyder (CPP);
A.R.Arif & Zafar Aslam (CMKP); Ramzan Memon
(AP); Zaheer Akhtar Bedri (writer & columnist) and
others.

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 19

T HE strike of the Jet airways
pilots has broken a long
period without any prolonged
strikes, not only in the aviation
industry but in public utilities in
general. It is an indication of the
times that even such relatively well-
paid group of workers like pilots
are compelled to go on strike.
Jet airways employs both
Indian and international pilots.
However, it pays almost double to
international pilots than it pays to
Indian pilots. It accommodates
them in superior quality of hotels
when they go abroad. They get
higher allowances than Indian
pilots. Most of these foreign pilots
are over the age of 60 and have
passed the age of retirement in their
own countries. To accommodate
the airline managements, the
DGCA (Director General of Civil
Aviation) has, a few years ago,
increased the retirement age to 65.
When Indian pilots have to join a
foreign airline, they have to give 6
months notice. Indian pilots with
a foreign qualification have to
undergo certification exams from
the DGCA. These conditions do
not apply for foreign pilots. For all
these reasons, the pilots of Jet
airways have been fighting for
parity with foreign pilots.
There was also another
irritant. The DGCA has fixed the
Flight Time and Flight Duty Time
restrictions in 1992. These
restrictions are outdated. They
made no provisions for the ultra-
long-haul flights which are
becoming common today. They
made no provisions for varying rest
time and sleep time taking into
account the different time zones
that pilots have to pass through.
There was no provision for the
massive congestion that routinely
occurs near major airports like
Mumbai and Delhi. Due to this, in
2007, the DGCA called for
objections and suggestions for new
Flight Time and Flight Duty Time
20 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
Jet Airways Pilot Strike
Sanjay Singhvi
restrictions. After hearing all parties, the new Flight Time and Flight Time
restrictions were passed by the DGCA in 2007. However, at the behest of
the Airline managements, the DGCA, unilaterally and suddenly, on 30th
May 2008, suspended the new formula and reverted back to the old
formula. The pilots of Air India, Indian Airlines and Jet Airways
immediately got together and challenged the change back to the old
formula. At the very outset, the Mumbai High Court passed orders staying
the change and asking the airlines to go back to the 2007 formula. However,
the airlines made a false statement before the Supreme Court, that the
managements of Indian Airlines and Jet Airways had not been heard and
set aside the interim order of the Mumbai High Court and sent the matter
back to the Mumbai High Court to be heard. In August 2008, the Mumbai
High Court dismissed the petition of the pilots and upheld the change
made by the DGCA on the basis that it was only a temporary measure till
new norms are fixed. The pilots have challenged this decision before the
Supreme Court, where notice has been issued to the Respondents but the
matter is still pending. Thus there is a deep sense of injustice existing
among the pilots.
In December last year, the management of Jet Airways called upon all
sections of the workmen to voluntarily accept a cut in wages and
allowances. Many sections of the workers accepted. The pilots of Jet
Airways were, at that time, organised into a society known as the Society
for the Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP). SWIP communicated to the
management that the pilots would be ready to accept any reasonable cut
in wages if the foreign pilots were removed. They called upon the
management to meet them and address their grievances. The management,
however, refused to have anything to do with SWIP claiming that they
were only a “welfare body” and not able to negotiate on behalf of the
pilots. It went ahead and cut the allowances of the pilots unilaterally,
resulting in a cut in allowances to the tune of up to 40% for pilots. In
response, the pilots decided to form a union.
This was not the first attempt to form a union by the pilots of Jet
Airways. In the past, one Cedric D’Silva, earlier President of SWIP had
tried to form a union but he was summarily dismissed. When he raised a
dispute, the Govt. refused to refer the dispute on the grounds that he was
not a workman. Upon a Writ Petition being filed in the Mumbai High
Court, the Government was asked to reconsider its decision not to refer
the matter since the matter of whether he was a workman could also be
decided by the Industrial Tribunal. Once again the Government reached
the same conclusion. Upon this, Cedric D’Silva again approached the
High Court and this time the Mumbai High Court directed the Govt. to
refer the matter to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal. However,
the manage-ment of Jet Airways has challenged this order of the Mumbai
High Court before the Supreme Court where the order of the Mumbai
High Court has been stayed. The matter is still pending in the Supreme
Court. The management and the Government insist that pilots are not
workmen, though there have been numerous judgements of various courts
in the past where they have been held to be workmen.
 As the first of such judgements (of Justice Bind Basni Prasad sitting conveniently forgot its stand that
as the Industrial Tribunal) held, the job of the pilot is the same as that of a the pilots were not workmen and
bus driver, albeit with greater skill. Many courts since then have reached thus not amenable to industrial
a similar conclusion. law. The High Court, ex parte,
The pilots of Jet Airways held their first meeting for the formation of granted an interim order
a union during the course of a party called by SWIP. At this meeting, they restraining pilots from going on
passed the constitution of the union and other necessary resolutions for strike in violation of sections 22
the formation of a union. This meeting was held on 10th June 2009. In this and 23 of the Industrial Disputes
meeting around 115 pilots attended and signed the minutes book Act 1947.
indicating their acceptance of membership of the union and their On midnight of 7th September,
acceptance of the resolutions passed. pilots of Jet Airways, in a rare
On 13th July 2009, the application for membership was sent to the display of unity started reporting
Registrar of Trade Unions and on 23rd July 2009, the Deputy Registrar sick. The whole of the airlines
issued a letter calling upon the union to provide some documents. Since operations ground to a halt. After 5
the documents called for were all readily available, the pilots union (then days of total strike, the pilots signed
known as Indian National Aviators’ Guild) attended the office of the a settlement in which the four
Registrar of Trade Unions on 24th July 2009. After verifying all necessary dismissed pilots (two more had
documents, they were granted registration on 24th July 2009. been dismissed after the start of the
action) were reinstated. However,
The management soon came to know of the formation of the union the agreement also stated that the
and on 29th July 2009 summarily dismissed the General Secretary and the Registrar should review the
Joint Secretary of the union. Besides this, they went to the office of the registration and that the NAG
Registrar of Trade Unions and met him. On 6th August 2009, the registrar would not take any further steps in
of Trade Unions issued a show cause notice to the pilots union (now this matter.
renamed as National Aviators’ Guild since the office of the Registrar had
shown a notification disallowing the use of the word “Indian” in the On 5th September, the Registrar
name of any union). This show cause notice was frivolous. It did not issued a second show cause notice,
show that there was any mistake or fraud in the registration, which are purporting to be in continuation of
effectively the only two reasons for which registration could be cancelled. the first show cause notice wherein
The nature of objections was so trivial as to be laughable. One objection some new issues were also raised.
was that the General Secretary and the Joint Secretary were authorised to Again the issues raised were
make amendments in the application and other documents, while the frivolous and trivial. The NAG
amendment of the name (which had been done at the behest of the again replied to this show cause
Registrar) was done only by the Joint Secretary. Another was that the notice and again asked for a
signature of the person authorised to receive a copy of the registration hearing in the matter. However,
certificate was not upon the letter granting the authorisation. It was clear there was no response from the
that a political agenda was being followed to cancel the registration of the Registrar.
union by hook or by crook. The show cause notice did not even indicate On 5th October 2009, the NAG
what provision of law it was being issued under. The NAG replied to the moved the Mumbai High Court
notice by its letter dated 10th August 2009 pointing out the mistakes in the against any abrupt de-registration.
show cause notice and asked for a personal hearing in the matter. However, the Mumbai High Court
In the meantime, since the management was not willing to accept the held that the proceeding was
union, SWIP sent a letter to the management asking them to reconsider premature since there had been no
the summary dismissal of the two pilots on around 7th August. Though order passed by the Registrar. It also
SWIP had sought a reply within seven days, the pilots waited for over 14 refused to give any protection to the
days and finally, on 22nd August 2009 issued a strike notice to the NAG against abrupt de-
management that a strike was called for 7th September if the management registration citing the agreement
did not take back the dismissed pilots in the meantime. The Regional between NAG and the
Labour Commissioner called both parties for conciliation on around 30th management.
August but since the management was not willing to take back the Many issues arise from this
dismissed pilots, the next conciliation meeting was fixed for 14th September. matter. The first issue is whether
On 7 th September 2009, the management filed a Writ Petition before pilots must be considered to be
the Mumbai High Court asking that the pilots be restrained from going on workmen. Since many years they
strike while conciliation proceedings were still going on. The management are considered as workmen. All

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 21

major airlines in the world have
unions of pilots. Even Air India and
Indian Airlines have such unions.
How then, can pilots of Jet Airways
be denied the basic constitutional
right to form a union. This episode
only exposes the sordid role played
by the Government and the courts
where they are unwilling to even
protect the basic constitutional
rights of the pilots. This must be
seen as a part of the continuing
attack on the rights of the working
class.
Secondly, never in the past
history of India has a union been
registered by the Deputy Registrar
and where a show cause notice
has been issued by the Registrar
within one month of the
registration. In this case, not one,
but two such show cause notices
were issued, clearly at the behest of
the management. The role of the
Registrar is not to serve as an appellate body for the management. Under
the relevant Government notifications, the power to register is only with
the Deputy Registrar and the Registrar’s powers are only to superintend
and to direct. Here the Registrar has found frivolous reasons to intervene
and cancel the registration by hook or by crook.
Even when the Secretary of the Labour Department of the Government
of Maharashtra was approached, she has suggested that the registration
may be cancelled and then further action may be taken up. Such open
bias, in favour of Jet Airways, shows how the Government is controlled
by corporate interests.
The High Court also took cognizance of the fact that the pilots went
on strike even after an order had been passed restraining them from going
on strike. When hearing the contempt matter, Justice Chandrachud said
that action would have to be taken against people who caused such
inconvenience to the public. This is a totally extraneous considera-tion in
a contempt matter. Secondly, the courts clearly do not see the management
as causing this inconvenience to the public.
The pilots also lost some control over their own agitation by involving
politicians in the mix. Sanjay Nirupam was called to negotiate for the
pilots. This worked against the pilots and they finally had to agree to a
settlement whose wording they were not totally satisfied with. The pilots
of Jet Airways have still not given up hope and they will continue to fight
for their constitutional right to form a union.

TN State Conference
T HE Fourth TN State Conference of the Party
reflected its significant political and
organizational growth from its very humble beginning
in 1996. When the chauvinist groups, individualism,
dogmatism, influence of the sectarian line of erstwhile
People’s War group etc. are dominant trends among the
so-called communist revolutionary groups in the state,
erstwhile CPI(ML) Red Flag had started its political
campaign and activities with com. S. Sundaran and a
small section of young comrades taking the initiative.
In the course of its development a small section who
merged from the sectarian Bolshevik Group
degenerated to rightist positions and left the
organisation. Overcoming all these problems the
activities of the Party has spread to nine districts:
Kanyakumari, Madurai, Dindigal, Arianellur,
Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri and North and
South Chennai Districts. 29 delegates elected from five
district conferences and delegates from Revolutionary
People’s Front of Chennai who attended as special
invitees and merged in to the Party in the course of the
Conference through a resolution, participated. During
the last six years after the Third Conference in 2003, a
number of cadres from CPI(M), CPI(ML) Liberation
and TN MCC and new youth have joined the Party.
The Coimbatore district Committee organized a
very good political campaign preceding the Conference
through postering, placing big boards at important
junctions and pamphletting. On 13th evening a militant
demonstration followed by a public meeting were
organized. Com. KNR and SC members and Com.
Kalan Dorai addressed the meeting explaining the
importance of the state conference.
The Conference started from 9 am on 14th October.
After remembering the martyrs and inaugural speech
by com. KNR, the four basic draft documents followed
by the Political Organisational Report of the CC and
the Political Resolution were presented. Following
general discussion com. KNR replied to the discussion.
Some valuable suggestions besides one amendment
was moved. After reply the delegates adopted the
drafts.
On 15th October after discussion and approval of
the report of state committee presented by com. PT
Shanmughasundaram, the resolution on merger of
comrades of the Communist Revolutionary Group was
moved and adopted. Following this a panel of 13 SC
members including two women plus com. S. Sundaram
as invitee, due to his ill health, was moved and adopted.
The newly elected SCMs elected com. PTS as the state
secretary. The list of delegates to Bhopal conference
were adopted. Resolutions on important issues were
adopted. The Conference concluded with the singing
of the International and raising of slogans.

22 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009

 The Winter of constitutional amendment
requiring every Indian to serve as
MLA for one term at least. It could
Our Austerity be the biggest poverty reduction
programme ever undertaken. (I
mean across all States.
P. Sainath Those who won the last time
and seek re-election have led by
example. The 388 per cent rise in
[The extracts of this commentary appeared in The Hindu on 8th October assets per MLA in Haryana is but
exposes the whole gamut of the bourgeois parliamentary elections and its an average. Break it up and you
so-called heroes in their true colour - Red Star] find some stirring success stories.
The top four MLAs clocking the best
“WE can hardly say we will shut our eyes to the salaries the CEOs are growth rates, all of them from the
going to take,” said Mr. Khurshid, hoping that companies would refrain Congress, saw their assets increase
from handing out vulgar salaries. by over 800 per cent. Imagine what
This time, the media were slow off the blocks in going after Mr. they might have achieved had there
Khurshid. After all, between Dr. Singh’s faux pas and Mr. Khurshid’s been no austerity drive. The numero
mild protest was a Great Recession. And to say “the Market will decide” uno in this list has a rags to riches
isn’t enough, any more. In 2008, the Market decided to jump off a cliff story. Starting from humble
taking much of the world with it. That didn’t stop CEOs in the United beginnings of less than a lakh, his
States from taking home billions in bonuses in a year they ran the globe wealth has risen 5,000 per cent.
into the ground. In fact, more CEOs got hikes rather than cuts in 2008, as Inspiring. And perhaps one of the
an AFL-CIO study pointed out in April this year. In India, while millions reasons — together with a love of
lost their jobs and livelihoods, CEOs didn’t fare too badly. (How can they, democracy — why far more have
in a country where the Union budget alone gives the corporate world been inspired to contest this time
subsidies of Rs.700 crore every day in tax write-offs and concessions? It in this State than five years ago. The
wasn’t the market which decided that $6 million of public money be gifted number of candidates is 20 per cent
to the corporate sector each hour on average, it was the government. The higher than it was in 2004.
government can though, with few qualms, cap the daily wage paid to Of 489 contestants 251 — 51
hungry workers at NREG sites at Rs.100. That, for 100 days only — and per cent, or every second candidate
those days to be shared by the members of each household. — was worth well over Rs.10
million. Though it must be
The clichés of the Market lack that warm, righteous glow they had
conceded that those at the lower
before the meltdown. But as big business re-asserts itself, the media will
end of the crorepati chain see their
find their voice. The two highest-paid CEOs in the country managed to
assets swollen by crazy real estate
save Dr. Singh’s previous government from falling in the July 2008 trust
rates. And as yet, these are just
vote. And only recently, much of a whole session of Parliament went to
candidates. The crorepati ratio will
discussing the fight between the same two CEOs. Mr. Khurshid’s
go up after the results, when much
comments, however, at least make for a debate on ‘austerity,’ its practice
of the plebeian element gets
by the political class and big business — and the ever-closer bonding
weeded out.
between the two.
In Maharashtra, compared to
Growing numbers of elected representatives fund their poll campaigns
2004, there has been a 60 per cent
with corporate backing. And growing numbers of people with a big
increase in political parties
business background have ventured directly into the electoral arena. The
contesting elections. Also, a 33 per
links get stronger, the reps get richer. And there is much entrepreneurial
cent increase in candidates. The
joy and success.
affidavits of 880 of over 3,500
While the CEOs top the charts by miles, the vulgarity Mr. Khurshid candidates seeking election to the
fears also consumes much of the political class. Take for instance, the 42 State legislature show that almost
MLAs re-contesting this time in Haryana’s polls. On average, their assets one in every four candidates is a
have increased by around Rs.48 million each since 2004. A nice 388 per multi-millionaire. NEW has so far
cent leap. That is to say, each of them added Rs.800,000 a month to their seen less than a third of candidate
wealth in their last term. Or over Rs.1,100 for every hour that they were affidavits — and already located
MLAs (for five years). A healthy rate of growth. Maybe we need a 212 crorepatis. Over half of these

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 23

are from the four major parties, with
the Congress (42) heading the
austere list. The BJP, the Shiv Sena
and the NCP all have 29 each
among candidates surveyed. The
MNS (21) and the BSP (11) don’t
do too badly either. All these
numbers will swell when all their
affidavits are studied.
Around 52 per cent of
Haryana’s 90 sitting MLAs were
multi-millionaires. That beats rich
Maharashtra where just over one
in three (37 per cent) makes the cut.
But Maharashtra outclasses
Haryana in the number of sitting
MLAs with pending criminal
records: 45 per cent to 31 per cent.
And finally, there are those
who get elected to serve the CEO
cause, bringing us back to the
political class-corporate nexus.
The present government of
Maharashtra, for instance, has
handed over 5 airports (including
601 hectares of land) for Rs.63 crore
to a single corporation. A price so
low that even most of the State
government’s own departments
opposed it. It would likely be
difficult to get hectares in the desert
for that sum. The government’s
brilliant defence is that it has not
privatised an inch — just leased out
the airports. Yup, for 95 years for
that pittance, to the Anil Ambani
group. Work out the math
yourselves. I hope it doesn’t get any
more austere than this, though.
Sakhav
Organ of Kerala State
Committee of CPI(ML)
“Sakhav” Malayalam
Fortnightly
Nehru Road
Ayyappankavu
Kochi - 18, Kerala
24
An Yellowish Mao is the
Symbol of Present China
I N The State and Revolution, Lenin has started the first chapter and its
first section: Class Society and the State and The State — A Product of the
Irreconcilability of Class Antagonism with these words: “What is now
happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly
to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes
fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the
oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the
most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous
campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert
them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their
names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and
with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the
revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and
vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor
movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort
the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the
foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the
social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more
frequently German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the
annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who,
they claim, educated the labor unions which are so splendidly organized for
the purpose of waging a predatory war!”
What this counter-revolutionary forces did to Marx was repeated
with more malice, hatred and ferociousness in the case of Lenin and later
in the case of Stalin and Mao. Today Hu Jintao and company lording over
imperialist China are doing the same in more vulgar forms to reduce him
to a ‘harmless icon’, to cannonise him and to hallow his name to hoodwink
the masses.
Earlier, during the revolutionary years, Mao was attacked by the
imperialists, the Soviet social imperialists, the revisionists and imperialist
lackeys all over the world. Within China Deng Xiaoping and the capitalist
roaders in the CPC had attacked him viciously spreading lies and slanders.
In order to over throw his revolutionary contributions it was necessary
for them to constantly hound him, attack his theories with savage malice
and with most furious hatred. In this way they succeeded in usurping the
leadership of the party and the state and turned socialist China in to its
opposite.
But this reactionary transformation of China once again intensified
the class contradictions there. If China is manufacturing the cheapest
commodities and succeeding in capturing markets everywhere, it is
because the labour is exploited to the maximum level, more than in any
other country, without which such cheap products cannot be
manufactured. The “iron rice bowl” of socialist days is replaced with the
theory “to get rich is great”. As exploitation intensified, as the billionaires
started parading their wealth arrogantly, and large sections are pushed
down to poverty, disenchantment against the current leaders is increasing.
People start thinking about the days when Mao was leading. It is to
hoodwink these people a new form of Mao mania is spread by the rulers
now.
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
Remembering Balagopal:
a Campaigner for the
Rights Movement
BALAGOPAl, the synonym for the human rights movement in AP, is no
more. He passed away suddenly on October 8th at 10.00 PM of peptic ulcer. His
death at the age of 57 has left everyone associated with human rights and
democratic movements in a state of shock. Rights activists and supporters of
the movement are still finding it difficult to accept the reality of his death.
In a short span of two days after his death, it is impossible to come to a
comprehensive assessment of his life, three decades of his rights activism and
its characteristics. Our attempt here is therefore a small one in that direction. He wherever a rights violation took place,
was the fifth child of Kandala Parthanatha Sarma and Nagamani. Due to his they would raise their voice against it.
father’s frequent transfers he studied at different places in A.P, from Nellore to Despite the murders of civil liberties
Srikakulam. He did his PUC in Kavali and B.Sc in Tirupathi. After completing leaders such as Gopi Rajanna, Dr.
M.Sc and Ph.D in Mathematics at the Regional Engineering College in Warangal, Ramanatham, Jaapa Lakshma Reddy
he joined Indian Statistical Institute at New Delhi for research. Dissatisfied with and Narra Prabhakar Reddy, he did not
life there, he came back to Warangal to be close to the democratic movements back off or slow down. Instead, he
and joined Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee. After joining Kakatiya tried to infuse courage among the
University as a lecturer in Maths, he started taking a much more active role in the activists. Even when he was directly
rights movement. subjected to repression, he remained
He was an exceptionally brilliant student. He was also an opening batsman unfazed. His response to attacks on
for the cricket team of Venkateswara University. While pursuing Ph.D he became his person exemplifies his democratic
a member of the editorial committee of a renowned international journal of temperament. When he was attacked
mathematics. His task was to review complex research in mathematics and explain by ABVP activists in 1984, kidnapped
the same to the readers in a simple style. by the Khammam police in 1989, was
He was elected to the post of the General Secretary of APCLC in 1985 and fatally attacked in Kottagudem in 1992
carried out that responsibility for 15 years. He took up the leadership of the and even got mauled in the presence
organization when the repression on the naxalite movement had just begun. In of National Human Rights Commission
the process of exposing fake encounters he visited every nook and corner of the in 1993, he refused to pause even for a
state. He expanded the organization from its confined location in a few cities to day. Arrested under TADA, he spent
every small town in the state. Inspired by his activist practice, numerous activists three months in Warangal prison but
were attracted to the organization. To reach out the rights perspective in the always believed that it is quite natural
muffasil areas he enabled the process of identifying issues that are specific for activists to be arrested or
issues to each district and working through them. By teaching the locals the imprisoned. After his release from his
practice of rights activism, he shaped the organization in such a way that kidnappers, he suggested to the media

Even before the 60th anniversary of Chinese Revolution, at the time of dilute Mao in to an yellowish icon
his 33rd death anniversary, conscious efforts were made to create this for the consolation of the masses of
new form of mania. Mao is reduced to an icon, a godly figure and millions oppressed classes, for duping the
are going to his village, Shaoshan, with worshipful eyes. The yellowish people. They are robbing his
CPC of today dish out propaganda promoting him as if he is a god to revolutionary theory of its
provide the younger generation something to believe in. The vendors substance. It is a counter-
selling Mao memorabilia shrug of ideological questions and present him revolutionary attack on Mao like
as a jovial man who worked for making China rich. In short, Mao is also the imperialists and lackeys attack
reduced to one among Deng, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, the capitalist all revolutionary leaders.
roaders who took over after 1976. Mao’s revolutionary thoughts are It is the task of the revolution-
vulgarised. They are presented as another version of capitalism, a Chinese ary forces to expose and defeat this
brand of capitalism. dirty campaign against Mao in the
It is in this way the Hu Jintao and company are trying to vilify and name of cannonising him.

RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009 25

that they should focus more on the
repression of the rural youth, rather
than on him.
He succeeded in making the Civil
Liberties Committee stand up and to
stand by the people, especially in
opposing the repression unleashed by
the government in the name of
containing naxalism. His efforts
towards developing it into a pioneer
in opposing state violence in India are
unparalleled. Working relentlessly he
sought to extend the rights activism
and practice from the confines of urban
intellectual debates onto a much
broader basis. When Dalits were
attacked during the initial years of
Telugu Desam regime, his was one of
the first democratic voices to be
raised. During the anti-Mandal
agitation he wrote the first analytical
essay in support of reservations for
backward castes from a rights
perspective thereby widening the
horizons the rights movements.
Under Balagopal’s leadership
both the perspective and practice of
rights movement grew to become
interdependent and began to draw
strength from each other. For him while
the priorities and perspective needed
to be modified in the light of practice,
practice definitely needed to be
improved with changes in perspective.
In this process he came to recognize
that lack of rights did not arise solely
from class dominance but also arose
in the context of many other modes of
dominance and oppressive practices
therein. He emphasized that all forms
of institutionalized dominance impede
enjoyment of rights and thereby
cautioned the rights movement from
choosing rights violations emerging
from a single domain as its priority. He
also raised for critical discussion the
issue of undemocratic activities of
various movements, arguing that a
human rights movement need not
support every action that other
movements do in the name of struggle.
He thought that there is a lot that
the rights movement could learn from
every democratic movement being
waged against different forms of
26 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
dominance. He believed that the task of the rights movement is to define the
aspirations and demands articulated by these movements in the language of
rights so that they attain universal validity. He outlined the tasks of rights
movements as follows: working for the institutionalization of existing rights,
struggling for the recognition of non-existent ones, and to cultivate democratic
values and culture in the spheres of law, administration and societal thinking. He
envisioned a broad based and autonomous rights movement which is accountable
to the people. Due to the difference of opinion emerging from this vision, he left
APCLC to form Human Rights Forum with similar thinking colleagues. Over the
last ten years, its growth from 32 member organization to an active and energetic
300 member strong organization owes a lot to the untiring efforts of Balagopal.
His vision lay in creative alignment of human rights theory with practice and in
cultivating among common people a spirit of commitment to social responsibility
and faith in democratic values.
After joining the rights movement Balagopal wrote numerous analytical
commentaries on every social and political phenomenon in Telugu society. In
the last ten years, all the anonymous essays published in ten Human Rights
Bulletins were written by him. His book on D.D. Kosambi introducing Kosambi’s
new thinking on history writing to Telugu readership remains a standard textbook
for Telugu medium students in History Departments till today. For intellectuals
outside Andhra Pradesh, his essays in Economic and Political Weekly remain
the most important source to understand what is happening in the state. Many
economists of yesteryears remember his reviews of Cambridge University
publications in economics. His essay on the Chintapalli incident where police
burnt thousands of tribal houses in Visakhapatnam district won the national
award for journalism given by PUCL. He instituted Indian People’s Human Rights
Commission along with Nandita Haksar and Sebastian to conduct public inquiries
into human rights violations all over the country. In a sense, it served as the
basis for the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission. Balagopal
is known to people of Kashmir, Manipur, Chattisgarh, Tamilnadu and Karnataka
which saw rampant violations of human rights violations in recent times. He
visited these states many times with other civil liberties organizations and brought
out several reports.
Despite rising to immense heights in the human rights movement he chose
to live the simple life of an ordinary person. He practiced what he believed in his
everyday life. He did not have any life outside the movement. From 1981 till his
last breath, he used his entire energy towards obtaining justice for poor people
and protecting their rights. For rural people his name is synonymous with ‘rights’.
Intellectuals consider him as a thinker who proposed rights standards to measure
the democratic content of any social and political phenomena. He stood out as
an intensely committed lawyer in a profession increasingly beset with corruption.
He not only provided a moral compass to peoples’ lives but effectively carried
out the task of warning them about impending threats to peoples’ interests.
Balagopal was deeply disturbed by the opportunism displayed by the state’s
intellectuals in the aftermath of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy’s death. His warning to
the activists of Human Rights Forum on the eve of the third State conference on
2nd and 3rd October equally applies to these intellectuals, “This (Human Rights
Forum) is a new experiment in the history of peoples’ movements in our state. If
we do not sustain it, it is not only a blow to our efforts but to the democratic
belief that values can bring people together. If we sustain it and if we successfully
take it forward, we would have strengthened the spirit of democracy itself”.
His own words about Narendranath, the rights activist who passed away in
July this year describe him too, “One should not rest as long as people have
problems”. We invite all of you to work towards such a democratic initiative with
his inspiration…..
 Two Tactics of Social Democracy
in the Democratic Revolution
V.I. Lenin
[While developing the Path of Revolution in present
concrete situation, Lenin’s Two Tactics of Social
Democracy in the Democratic Revolution wrote in 1905
in then Russian conditions is very helpful. In the present
international situation social democracy and social
democrats should be read as communism and communist.
Here we are reproducing the Preface, the first part: An
Urgent Political Question and the conclusion: Dare to
Win? This pamphlet written before the 1907 Mutiny in
Battleship Potemkin at Odessa is an excellent example of
Lenin’s evaluation of the revolutionary situation providing
a correct orientation to the movement. This pamphlet which
provided a clear cut perspective to develop the ideological-
political line of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
Party, to build the party under working class leadership
uniting the peasantry and to lead the revolutionary struggle
forward played the most significant role in Russian
revolution, in the victory of October Revolution in 1917
establishing proletarian political power, giving birth to
Soviet Union. The communist movement in India has much
to learn from this great pamphlet of Lenin - Red Star]
Preface
I N a revolutionary period it is very difficult to keep
abreast of events, which provide an astonishing amount
of new material for an evaluation of the tactical slogans of
revolutionary parties. The present pamphlet was written
before the Odessa events. We have already pointed out in
the Proletary (No. 9—“Revolution Teaches”) that these
events have forced even those Social-Democrats who
created the “uprising-as-a-process” theory and who
rejected propaganda for a provisional revolutionary
government actually to pass over, or begin to pass over, to
the side of their opponents. Revolution undoubtedly
teaches with a rapidity and thoroughness which appear
incredible in peaceful periods of political development. And,
what is particularly important, it teaches not only the leaders,
but the masses as well.
There is not the slightest doubt that the revolution
will teach social-democratism to the masses of the workers
in Russia. The revolution will confirm the program and tactics
of Social-Democracy in actual practice, by demonstrating
the true nature of the various classes of society, by
demonstrating the bourgeois character of our democracy
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
and the real aspirations of the peasantry, who, while being
revolutionary in the bourgeois-democratic sense, harbour
not the idea of “socialisation,” but of a new class struggle
between the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletariat.
The old illusions of the old Narodism, which are so clearly
visible, for instance, in the draft programme of the “Socialist-
Revolutionary Party” on the question of the development
of capitalism in Russia, the question of the democratic
character of our “society” and the question of the
significance of a complete victory of a peasant uprising—
all these illusions will be mercilessly and completely blown
to the winds by the revolution. For the first time it will give
the various classes their real political baptism. These
classes will emerge from the revolution with a definite
political physiognomy, for they will have revealed
themselves, not only in the programs and tactical slogans
of their ideologists, but also in the open political action of
the masses.
Undoubtedly, the revolution will teach us, and will
teach the masses of the people. But the question that now
confronts a militant political party is: shall we be able to
teach the revolution anything? shall we be able to make
use of the correctness of our Social-Democratic doctrine,
of our bond with the only thoroughly revolutionary class,
the proletariat, to put a proletarian imprint on the revolution,
to carry the revolution to a real and decisive victory, not in
word but indeed, and to paralyse the instability, half-
heartedness and treachery of the democratic bourgeoisie?
It is to this end that we must direct all our efforts, and
the achievement of it will depend, on the one hand, on the
accuracy of our appraisal of the political situation, on the
correctness of our tactical slogans, and, on the other hand,
on whether these slogans will be backed by the real fighting
strength of the masses of the workers. All the usual, regular,
current work of all the organisations and groups of our
Party, the work of propaganda, agitation and organisation,
is directed towards strengthening and expanding the ties
with the masses. This work is always necessary; but in a
revolutionary period less than in any other can it be
considered sufficient. At such a time the working class
feels an instinctive urge for open revolutionary action, and
we must learn to set the aims of this action correctly, and
then make these aims as widely known and understood as
possible. It must not be forgotten that the current pessimism
about our ties with the masses very often serves as a screen
November 2009 27
for bourgeois ideas regarding the role of the proletariat in
the revolution. Undoubtedly, we still have a great deal to
do to educate and organise the working class; but the whole
question now is: where should the main political emphasis
in this work of education and of organisation be placed?
On the trade unions and legally existing societies, or on
armed insurrection, on the work of creating a revolutionary
army and a revolutionary government? Both serve to
educate and organise the working class. Both are, of course,
necessary. But the whole question now, in the present
revolution, amounts to this: what is to be emphasised in
the work of educating and organising the working class,
the former or the latter?
The outcome of the revolution depends on whether
the working class will play the part of a subsidiary to the
bourgeoisie, a subsidiary that is powerful in the force of its
onslaught against the autocracy but impotent politically,
or whether it will play the part of leader of the people’s
revolution. The more intelligent representatives of the
bourgeoisie are perfectly aware of this. That is precisely
why the Osvobozhdeniye praises Akimovism, Economism
in Social-Democracy, the trend, which is now placing the
trade unions and the legally existing societies in the
forefront. That is precisely why Mr. Struve welcomes (in
the Osvobozhdeniye, No. 72) the Akimovist trends in the
principles of the new Iskra. That is why he comes down so
heavily on the detested revolutionary narrowness of the
decisions of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-
Democratic Labour Party.
It is exceptionally important at the present time for
Social-Democracy to have correct tactical slogans for
leading the masses. There is nothing more dangerous in a
revolutionary period than belittling the importance of
tactical slogans that are sound in principle. For example,
the [Menshevik] Iskra in No. 104, actually passes over to
the side of its opponents in the Social-Democratic
movement, and yet, at the same time, disparages the
importance of slogans and tactical decisions that are in
front of the times and indicate the path along which the
movement is proceeding, with a number of failures, errors,
etc. On the contrary, the working out of correct tactical
decisions is of immense importance for a party which, in
the spirit of the sound principles of Marxism, desires to
lead the proletariat and not merely to drag at the tail of
events. In the resolutions of the Third Congress of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and of the
Conference of the section which has seceded from the Party,
we have the most precise, most carefully thought-out, and
most complete expression of tactical views—views not
casually expressed by individual writers, but accepted by
the responsible representatives of the Social-Democratic
proletariat. Our Party is in advance of all the others, for it
has a precise program, accepted by all. It must also set the
other parties an example of strict adherence to its tactical
28 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
resolutions, in contradistinction to the opportunism of the
democratic bourgeoisie of the Osvobozhdeniye and the
revolutionary phrase-mongering of the Socialist-
Revolutionaries, who only during the revolution suddenly
thought of coming for ward with a “draft” of a program and
of investigating for the first time whether it is a bourgeois
revolution that is going on in front of their eyes.
That is why we think it a most urgent task of the
revolutionary Social-Democrats to study carefully the
tactical resolutions of the Third Congress of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party and of the Conference, to
define what deviations there are in them from the principles
of Marxism, and to get a clear understanding of the concrete
tasks of the Social-Democratic proletariat in a democratic
revolution. It is to this task that the present pamphlet is
devoted. The testing of our tactics from the standpoint of
the principles of Marxism and of the lessons of the
revolution is also necessary for those who really desire to
pave the way for unity of tactics as a basis for the future
complete unity of the whole Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party, and not to confine themselves solely to verbal
admonitions.
N. Lenin
July 1905
An Urgent Political Question
A T the present revolutionary juncture the question
of the convocation of a popular constituent
assembly is on the order of the day. Opinions are divided
on the point as to how this question should be solved.
Three political trends are to be observed. The tsarist
government admits the necessity of convening
representatives of the people, but it does not want under
any circumstances to permit their assembly to be a popular
and a constituent assembly. It seems willing to agree, if we
are to believe the newspaper reports on the work of the
Bulygin Commission, to an advisory assembly, to be elected
without freedom to conduct agitation, and on the basis of
restricted qualifications or a restricted class system. The
revolutionary proletariat, inasmuch as it is led by the Social-
Democratic Party, demands complete transfer of power to a
constituent assembly, and for this purpose strives to obtain
not only universal suffrage and complete freedom to
conduct agitation, but also the immediate overthrow of the
tsarist government and its replacement by a provisional
revolutionary government. Finally, the liberal bourgeoisie,
expressing its wishes through the leaders of the so-called
“Constitutional-Democratic Party”, does not demand the
overthrow of the tsarist government, does not advance the
slogan of a provisional government and does not insist on
real guarantees that the elections will be absolutely free
and fair and that the assembly of representatives will be a
genuinely popular and a genuinely constituent assembly.
As a matter of fact, the liberal bourgeoisie, the only serious
social support of the Osvobozhdeniye trend, is striving to
effect as peaceful a deal as possible between the tsar and
the revolutionary people, a deal, moreover, that would give
a maximum of power to itself, the bourgeoisie, and a
minimum to the revolutionary people—the proletariat and
the peasantry.
Such is the political situation at the present time. Such
are the three main political trends, corresponding to the
three main social forces in contemporary Russia. We have
already shown on more than one occasion (in the Proletary,
Nos. 3, 4, 5) how the Osvobozhdentsi use pseudo-democratic
phrases to cover up their half-hearted, or, to put it more
bluntly and plainly, their treacherous, perfidious policy
towards the revolution. Let us now see how the Social-
Democrats appraise the tasks of the moment. Excellent
material for this purpose is provided by the two resolutions
that were passed quite recently by the Third Congress of
the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and by the
“Conference” of the section which has seceded from the
Party. The question as to which of these resolutions more
correctly appraises the political situation and more correctly
defines the tactics of the revolutionary proletariat is of
enormous importance, and every Social-Democrat who is
anxious to fulfil his duties as a propagandist, agitator and
organiser intelligently, must study this question with the
closest attention, leaving all irrelevant considerations
entirely aside.
By the Party’s tactics we mean the Party’s political
conduct, or the character, the direction and methods of its
political activity. Tactical resolutions are adopted by Party
congresses in order precisely to define the political conduct
of the Party as a whole with regard to new tasks, or in view
of a new political situation. Such a new situation has been
created by the revolution that has started in Russia, i.e.,
the complete, resolute and open rupture between the
overwhelming majority of the people and the tsarist
government. The new question concerns the practical
methods to be adopted in convening a genuinely popular
and genuinely constituent assembly (the theoretical
question concerning such an assembly was officially settled
by Social-Democracy long ago, before all other parties, in
its Party program). Since the people have broken with the
government, and the masses realise the necessity of setting
up a new order, the party which set itself the object of
overthrowing the government must necessarily consider
what government to put up in place of the old, deposed
government. A new question concerning a provisional
revolutionary government arises. In order to give a complete
answer to this question the Party of the class-conscious
proletariat must make clear: 1) the significance of a
provisional revolutionary government in the revolution that
is now going on and in the entire struggle of the proletariat
in general; 2) its attitude towards a provisional
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
revolutionary government; 3) the precise conditions of
Social-Democratic participation in this government; 4) the
conditions under which pressure is to be brought to bear
on this government from below, i.e., in the event of there
being no Social-Democrats in it. Only after all these
questions are made clear, will the political conduct of the
Party in this sphere be principled, clear and firm.
Let us now consider how the resolution of the Third
Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party
answers these questions. The following is the full text of
the resolution:
“Resolution on a Provisional Revolutionary
Government
“Whereas:
“1) both the direct interests of the proletariat and the
interests of its struggle for the final aims of socialism require
the fullest possible measure of political liberty and,
consequently, the replacement of the autocratic form of
government by a democratic republic;
“2) the establishment of a democratic republic in Russia
is possible only as a result of a victorious popular
insurrection whose organ will be a provisional revolutionary
government, which alone will be capable of ensuring
complete freedom of agitation during the election campaign
and of convening a constituent assembly that will really
express the will of the people, an assembly elected on the
basis of universal and equal suffrage, direct elections and
secret ballot;
“3) under the present social and economic order this
democratic revolution in Russia will not weaken, but
strengthen the rule of the bourgeoisie, which at a certain
moment will inevitably try, stopping at nothing, to take
away from the Russian proletariat as many of the gains of
the revolutionary period as possible:
“The Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party resolves that:
“a) that it is necessary to disseminate among the
working class a concrete idea of the most probable course
of the revolution and of the necessity, at a certain moment
in the revolution, for the appearance of a provisional
revolutionary government, from which the proletariat will
demand the realisation of all the immediate political and
economic demands contained in our program (the minimum
program);
“b) that subject to the relation of forces, and other
factors which cannot be exactly determined beforehand,
representatives of our Party may participate in the
provisional revolutionary government for the purpose of
relentless struggle against all counter-revolutionary
attempts and of the defence of the independent interests
of the working class;
November 2009 29
 “c) that an indispensable condition for such
participation is that the Party should exercise strict control
over its representatives and that the independence of the
Social-Democratic Party, which is striving for a complete
socialist revolution and, consequently, is irreconcilably
hostile to all bourgeois parties, should be strictly
maintained;
“d) that irrespective whether the participation of
Social-Democrats in the provisional revolutionary
government prove possible or not, we must propagate
among the broadest masses of the proletariat the necessity
for permanent pressure to be brought to bear upon the
provisional government by the armed proletariat, led by
the Social-Democratic Party, for the purpose of defending,
consolidating and extending the gains of the revolution.”
Conclusion. Dare We Win?
P EOPLE who are superficially acquainted with
the state of affairs in Russian Social-Democracy, or
who judge as mere onlookers without knowing the whole
history of our internal Party struggle since the days of
Economism, very often also dismiss the disagreements on
tactics which have now become crystallised, especially after
the Third Congress, with the simple argument that there
are two natural, inevitable and quite reconcilable trends in
every Social-Democratic movement. One side, they say, lays
special emphasis on the ordinary, current, everyday work,
on the necessity of developing propaganda and agitation,
of preparing forces, deepening the movement, etc., while
the other side lays emphasis on the militant, general
political, revolutionary tasks of the movement, points to
the necessity of armed insurrection, advances the slogans:
for a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, for a provisional
revolutionary government. Neither one side nor the other
should exaggerate, they say; extremes are bad, both here
and there (and, generally speaking, everywhere in the
world), etc., etc.
The cheap truisms of worldly (and “political” in
quotation marks) wisdom, which such arguments
undoubtedly contain, too often cover up a failure to
understand the urgent and acute needs of the Party. Take
the differences on tactics that now exist among the Russian
Social-Democrats. Of course, the special emphasis laid on
the everyday, routine aspect of the work, such as we
observe in the new Iskra-ist arguments about tactics, could
not in itself present any danger and could not give rise to
any divergence of opinion regarding tactical slogans. But
the moment you compare the resolutions of the Third
Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party
with the resolutions of the Conference this divergence
becomes strikingly obvious.
What, then, is the trouble? The trouble is that, in the
first place, it is not enough to point abstractly to the two
30 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
currents in the movement and to the harmfulness of
extremes. One must know concretely what the given
movement is suffering from at the given time, what
constitutes the real political danger to the Party at the present
time. Secondly, one must know what real political forces
are profiting by this or that tactical slogan—or perhaps by
the absence of this or that slogan. To listen to the new
Iskra-ists, one would arrive at the conclusion that the Social-
Democratic Party is threatened with the danger of throwing
overboard propaganda and agitation, the economic struggle
and criticism of bourgeois democracy, of becoming
inordinately absorbed in military preparations, armed
attacks, the seizure of power, etc. Actually, however, real
danger is threatening the Party from an entirely different
quarter. Anyone who is at all closely familiar with the state
of the movement, anyone who follows it carefully and
thoughtfully, cannot fail to see the ridiculous side of the
new Iskra’s fears. The entire work of the Russian Social-
Democratic Labour Party has already been fully moulded
into firm, immutable forms which absolutely guarantee that
our main attention will be fixed on propaganda and agitation,
impromptu and mass meetings, on the distribution of leaflets
and pamphlets, assisting in the economic struggle and
championing the slogans of that struggle. There is not a
single Party committee, not a single district committee, not
a single central delegates’ meeting or a single factory group
where ninety-nine per cent of all the attention, energy and
time are not always and constantly devoted to these
functions, which have become firmly established ever since
the middle of the ’nineties. Only those who are entirely
unfamiliar with the movement are ignorant of this. Only
very naïve or ill-informed people can be taken in by the
new Iskra-ists’ repetition of stated truths when it is done
with an air of great importance.
The fact is that not only is no excessive zeal displayed
among us with regard to the tasks of insurrection, to the
general political slogans and to the matter of leading the
entire popular revolution, but, on the contrary, it is
backwardness in this very respect that stands out most
strikingly, constitutes our weakest spot and a real danger
to the movement, which may degenerate, and in some places
is degenerating, from one that is revolutionary in deeds
into one that is revolutionary in words. Among the many,
many hundreds of organisations, groups and circles that
are conducting the work of the Party you will not find a
single one which has not from its very inception conducted
the kind of everyday work about which the wiseacres of
the new Iskra now talk with the air of people who have
discovered new truths. On the other hand, you will find
only an insignificant percentage of groups and circles that
have understood the tasks an armed insurrection entails,
which have begun to carry them out, and have realised the
necessity of leading the entire popular revolution against
tsarism, the necessity of advancing for that purpose certain
definite progressive slogans and no other.
 We are incredibly behind in our progressive and
genuinely revolutionary tasks, in very many instances we
have not even become conscious of them; here and there
we have failed to notice the strengthening of revolutionary
bourgeois democracy owing to our backwardness in this
respect. But the writers in the new Iskra, turning their backs
on the course of events and on the requirements of the
times, keep repeating insistently: Don’t forget the old! Don’t
let yourselves be carried away by the new! This is the
principal and unvarying leitmotif of all the important
resolutions of the Conference; whereas in the Congress
resolutions you just as unvaryingly read: while confirming
the old (and without stopping to chew it over and over, for
the very reason that it is old and has already been settled
and recorded in literature, in resolutions and by experience),
we put forward a new task, draw attention to it, issue a new
slogan, and demand that the genuinely revolutionary Social-
Democrats immediately set to work to put it into effect.
That is how matters really stand with regard to the
question of the two trends in Social-Democratic tactics.
The revolutionary period has called forth new tasks, which
only the totally blind can fail to see. And some Social-
Democrats unhesitatingly recognise these tasks and place
them on the order of the day, declaring: the armed
insurrection brooks no delay, prepare yourselves for it
immediately and energetically, remember that it is
indispensable for a decisive victory, issue the slogans of a
republic, of a provisional government, of a revolutionary-
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
Others, however, draw back, mark time, write prefaces
instead of giving slogans; instead of pointing to the new
while confirming the old, they chew this old tediously and
at great length, inventing pretexts to avoid the new, unable
to determine the conditions for a decisive victory or to
issue the slogans which alone are in line with the striving
to attain complete victory.
The political result of this khvostism stares us in the
face. The fable about a rapprochement between the
“majority” of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party
and the revolutionary bourgeois democracy remains a fable
which has not been confirmed by a single political fact, by
a single important resolution of the “Bolsheviks” or a single
act of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party. On the other hand, the opportunist,
monarchist bourgeoisie, as represented by the
Osvobozhdeniye, has long been welcoming the trends of
the “principles” of new Iskra-ism and now it is actually
running its mill with their grist, is adopting their catchwords
and “ideas” directed against “secrecy” and “riots,” against
exaggerating the “technical” side of the revolution, against
openly proclaiming the slogan of armed insurrection,
against the “revolutionism” of extreme demands, etc., etc.
The resolution of a whole conference of “Menshevik”
Social-Democrats in the Caucasus, and the endorsement
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
of that resolution by the editors of the new Iskra, sums it
all up politically in an unmistakable way: lest the bourgeoisie
recoil if the proletariat takes part in a revolutionary-
democratic dictatorship! This puts it in a nutshell. This
gives the finishing touch to the transformation of the
proletariat into an appendage of the monarchist
bourgeoisie. The political meaning of the khvostism of
the new Iskra is thereby proved in fact, not by a casual
declaration of some individual, but by a resolution
especially endorsed by a whole trend.
Anyone who ponders over these facts will understand
the real significance of the stock reference to the two sides
and the two trends in the Social-Democratic movement.
For a study of these trends on a large scale, take
Bernsteinism. The Bernsteinians have been dinning into
our ears in exactly the same way that it is they who
understand the true needs of the proletariat, the tasks
connected with the growth of its forces, with rendering the
entire activity more profound, with preparing the elements
of a new society, with propaganda and agitation! Bernstein
says: we demand a frank recognition of what is, thus
sanctifying a “movement” without “final aims,” sanctifying
defensive tactics only, preaching the tactics of fear “lest
the bourgeoisie recoil.” The Bernsteinians also raised an
outcry against the “Jacobinism” of the revolutionary Social-
Democrats, against the “publicists” who fail to understand
the “initiative of the workers,” etc., etc. In reality, as
everyone knows, the revolutionary Social-Democrats have
never even thought of abandoning the everyday, petty
work, the mustering of forces, etc., etc. All they demanded
was a clear understanding of the final aim, a clear
presentation of the revolutionary tasks; they wanted to
raise the semi-proletarian and semi-petty-bourgeois strata
to the revolutionary level of the proletariat, not to reduce
this level to that of opportunist considerations such as
“lest the bourgeoisie recoil.” Perhaps the most vivid
expression of this rift between the intellectual opportunist
wing and the proletarian revolutionary wing of the Party
was the question: durfen wir siegen? “Dare we win?” Is it
permissible for us to win? Would it not be dangerous for us
to win? Ought we to win? This question, which seems so
strange at first sight, was raised, however, and had to be
raised, because the opportunists were afraid of victory,
were frightening the proletariat away from it, were predicting
that trouble would come of it, were ridiculing the slogans
that straightforwardly called for it.
The same fundamental division into an intellectual-
opportunist and proletarian-revolutionary trend exists also
among us, with the very material difference, however, that
here we are faced with the question of a democratic
revolution, and not of a socialist revolution. The question
“dare we win?” which seems so absurd at first sight, has
been raised among us also. It was raised by Martynov in
his Two Dictatorships, in which he prophesied dire
November 2009 31
misfortune if we prepare well for and carry out an
insurrection quite successfully. The question has been
raised in all the new Iskra literature dealing with a provisional
revolutionary government, and all the time persistent
though futile efforts have been made to liken Millerand’s
participation in a bourgeois-opportunist government to
Varlin’s participation in a petty-bourgeois revolutionary
government. It is embodied in a resolution: “lest the
bourgeoisie recoil.” And although Kautsky, for instance,
now tries to wax ironical and says that our dispute about a
provisional revolutionary government is like dividing the
skin of a bear before the bear has been killed, this irony
only proves that even clever and revolutionary Social-
Democrats are liable to put their foot in it when they talk
about something they know of only by hearsay. German
Social-Democracy is not yet so near to killing its bear
(carrying out a socialist revolution), but the dispute as to
whether we “dare” kill the bear was of enormous importance
from the point of view of principles and of practical politics.
Russian Social-Democrats are not yet so near to being
strong enough to “kill their bear” (to carry out a democratic
revolution), but the question as to whether we “dare” kill it
is of extreme importance for the whole future of Russia and
for the future of Russian Social-Democracy. An army cannot
be energetically and successfully mustered and led unless
we are sure that we “dare” win.
Take our old Economists. They too howled that their
opponents were conspirators, Jacobins (see the Rabocheye
Dyelyo, especially No. 10, and Martynov’s speech in the
debate on the program at the Second Congress), that by
plunging into politics they were divorcing themselves from
the masses, that they were losing sight of the fundamentals
of the working-class movement, ignoring the initiative of
the workers, etc., etc. In reality these supporters of the
“initiative of the workers” were opportunist intellectuals
who tried to foist on the workers their own narrow and
philistine conception of the tasks of the proletariat. In reality
the opponents of Economism, as everyone can see from
the old Iskra, did not neglect or push into the background
any of the aspects of Social-Democratic work, nor did they
in the least forget the economic struggle; but they were
able at the same time to present the urgent and immediate
political tasks in their full scope and they opposed the
transformation of the workers’ party into an “economic”
appendage of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The Economists had learned by rote that politics are
based on economics and “understood” this to mean that
the political struggle should be reduced to the level of the
economic struggle. The new-Iskraists have learned by rote
that the economic basis of the democratic revolution is the
bourgeois revolution, and “understood” this to mean that
the democratic aims of the proletariat should be degraded
to the level of bourgeois moderation, to the limits beyond
which “the bourgeoisie will recoil.” On the pretext of
32 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
rendering their work more profound, on the pretext of
rousing the initiative of the workers and pursuing a purely
class policy, the Economists were actually delivering the
working class into the hands of the liberal-bourgeois
politicians, i.e., were leading the Party along a path which
objectively meant exactly that. On the same pretexts, the
new-Iskraists are actually betraying the interests of the
proletariat in the democratic revolution to the bourgeoisie,
i.e., are leading the Party along a path which objectively
means exactly that. The Economists thought that leadership
in the political struggle was no concern of the Social-
Democrats but properly the business of the liberals. The
new-Iskraists think that the active conduct of the democratic
revolution is no concern of the Social-Democrats but
properly the business of the democratic bourgeoisie, for,
they argue, if the proletariat takes the leading and pre-
eminent part it will “diminish the sweep” of the revolution.
In short, the new-Iskraists are the epigones of
Economism, not only in their origin at the Second Party
Congress, but also in the manner in which they now present
the tactical tasks of the proletariat in the democratic
revolution. They, too, constitute an intellectual-opportunist
wing of the Party. In the sphere of organisation they made
their debut with the anarchist individualism of intellectuals
and finished with “disorganisation-as-a-process,” fixing in
the “Rules” [The “Rules of Organisation” adopted at the
Geneva Menshevik Conference in 1905] adopted by the
Conference the separation of the Party’s publishing
activities from the Party organisation, an indirect and
practically four-stage system of elections, a system of
Bonapartist plebiscites instead of democratic
representation, and finally the principle of “agreements”
between the part and the whole. In Party tactics they
continued to slide down the same inclined plane. In the
“plan of the Zemstvo campaign” they declared that
speeches to Zemstvo-ists were “the highest type of
demonstration,” finding only two active forces on the
political scene (on the eve of January 9!) — the government
and the democratic bourgeoisie. They made the pressing
problem of arming “more profound” by substituting for the
direct and practical slogan of an appeal to arm, the slogan:
arm the people with a burning desire to arm themselves.
The tasks connected with an armed insurrection, with the
establishment of a provisional government and with a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship have now been
distorted and blunted by them in their official resolutions.
“Lest the bourgeoisie recoil”—this final chord of their last
resolution throws a glaring light on the question of where
their path is leading the Party.
The democratic revolution in Russia is a bourgeois
revolution by reason of its social and economic content.
But a mere repetition of this correct Marxian proposition is
not enough. It must be properly understood and properly
applied in political slogans. In general, all political liberties
that are founded on present-day, i.e., capitalist, relations of
production are bourgeois liberties. The demand for liberty
expresses primarily the interests of the bourgeoisie. Its
representatives were the first to raise this demand. Its
supporters have everywhere used the liberty they acquired
like masters, reducing it to moderate and meticulous
bourgeois doses, combining it with the most subtle
methods of suppressing the revolutionary proletariat in
peaceful times and with brutally cruel methods in stormy
times.
But only the rebel Narodniks, the anarchists and the
“Economists” could deduce from this that the struggle for
liberty should be rejected or disparaged. These intellectual-
philistine doctrines could be foisted on the proletariat only
for a time and against its will. The proletariat always realised
instinctively that it needed political liberty, needed it more
than anyone else, despite the fact that its immediate effect
would be to strengthen and to organise the bourgeoisie.
The proletariat expects to find its salvation not by avoiding
the class struggle but by developing it, by widening it,
increasing its consciousness, its organisation and
determination. Whoever degrades the tasks of the political
struggle transforms the Social-Democrat from a tribune of
the people into a trade union secretary. Whoever degrades
the proletarian tasks in a democratic bourgeois revolution
transforms the Social-Democrat from a leader of the people’s
revolution into a leader of a free labour union.
Yes, the people’s revolution. Social-Democracy has
fought, and is quite rightly fighting against the bourgeois-
democratic abuse of the word “people.” It demands that
this word shall not be used to cover up failure to understand
the class antagonisms within the people. It insists
categorically on the need for complete class independence
for the party of the proletariat. But it divides the “people”
into “classes,” not in order that the advanced class may
become shut up within itself, confine itself to narrow aims
and emasculate its activity for fear that the economic rulers
of the world will recoil, but in order that the advanced class,
which does not suffer from the halfheartedness, vacillation
and indecision of the intermediate classes, may with all the
greater energy and enthusiasm fight for the cause of the
whole of the people, at the head of the whole of the people.
That is what the present-day new-Iskraists so often
fail to understand and why they substitute for active
political slogans in the democratic revolution a mere
pedantic repetition of the word “class,” parsed in all genders
and cases!
The democratic revolution is a bourgeois revolution.
The slogan of a Black Redistribution, or “land and liberty”—
this most widespread slogan of the peasant masses, down
trodden and ignorant, yet passionately yearning for light
and happiness—is a bourgeois slogan. But we Marxists
should know that there is not, nor can there be, any other
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
path to real freedom for the proletariat and the peasantry,
than the path of bourgeois freedom and bourgeois progress.
We must not forget that there is not, nor can there be, at the
present time, any other means of bringing Socialism nearer,
than complete political liberty, than a democratic republic,
than the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry. As the representatives of the
advanced and only revolutionary class, revolutionary
without reservations, doubts or looking back, we must
present to the whole of the people, as widely, as boldly and
with the utmost initiative possible, the tasks of the
democratic revolution. To degrade these tasks in theory
means making a travesty of Marxism, distorting it in
philistine fashion, while in practical politics it means
delivering the cause of the revolution into the hands of the
bourgeoisie, which will inevitably recoil from the task of
consistently carrying out the revolution. The difficulties
that lie on the road to the complete victory of the revolution
are very great. No one will be able to blame the
representatives of the proletariat if, having done everything
in their power, their efforts are defeated by the resistance
of the reaction, the treachery of the bourgeoisie and the
ignorance of the masses. But everybody and the class-
conscious proletariat above all, will condemn Social-
Democracy if it curtails the revolutionary energy of the
democratic revolution and dampens revolutionary ardour
because it is afraid to win, because it is actuated by the
consideration: lest the bourgeoisie recoil.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history, said Marx.
[In The Class Struggles in France] Revolutions are the
festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other
time are the masses of the people in a position to come
forward so actively as creators of a new social order as at a
time of revolution. At such times the people are capable of
performing miracles, if judged by the narrow, philistine scale
of gradual progress. But the leaders of the revolutionary
parties must also make their aims more comprehensive and
bold at such a time, so that their slogans shall always be in
advance of the revolutionary initiative of the masses, serve
as a beacon, reveal to them our democratic and socialist
ideal in all its magnitude and splendour and show them the
shortest and most direct route to complete, absolute and
decisive victory. Let us leave to the opportunists of the
Osvobozhdeniye bourgeoisie the task of inventing
roundabout, circuitous paths of compromise out of fear of
the revolution and of the direct path. If we are compelled
by force to drag ourselves along such paths, we shall be
able to fulfil our duty in petty, everyday work also. But let
ruthless struggle first decide the choice of the path. We
shall be traitors to and betrayers of the revolution if we do
not use this festive energy of the masses and their
revolutionary ardour to wage a ruthless and self-sacrificing
struggle for the direct and decisive path. Let the bourgeois
opportunists contemplate the future reaction with craven
fear. The workers will not be frightened either by the thought
November 2009 33
that the reaction promises to be terrible or by the thought
that the bourgeoisie proposes to recoil. The workers are
not looking forward to striking bargains, are not asking for
sops; they are striving to crush the reactionary forces
without mercy, i.e., to set up the revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
Of course, greater dangers threaten the ship of our
Party in stormy times than in periods of the smooth “sailing”
of liberal progress, which means the painfully slow sweating
of the working class by its exploiters. Of course, the tasks
of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship are a thousand
times more difficult and more complicated than the tasks of
an “extreme opposition” or of the exclusively parliamentary
struggle. But whoever can deliberately prefer smooth sailing
and the path of safe “opposition” in the present
revolutionary situation had better abandon Social-
Democratic work for a while, had better wait until the
revolution is over, until the festive days have passed, when
humdrum everyday life starts again and his narrow routine
standards no longer strike such an abominably discordant
note, or constitute such an ugly distortion of the tasks of
the advanced class.
At the head of the whole of the people, and particularly
of the peasantry—for complete freedom, for a consistent
democratic revolution, for a republic! At the head of all the
toilers and the exploited—for Socialism! Such must in
practice be the policy of the revolutionary proletariat, such
is the class slogan which must permeate and determine the
solution of every tactical problem, every practical step of
the workers’ party during the revolution.
Bhopal: Revolutionary Youth Federation of India (RYFI)
burnt an effigy depicting price-rise. Raising slogan
against UPA government, the RYFI activists
condemned increasing corruption in public distribution
system, price-rise, hoarding, black marketing and future
trading.
34 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009
Resurrecting The
Old Revisionism
In A New Guise
[What is reproduced below is the concluding part
of the Fourth Comment on the open letter of the
Central Committee of the CPSU by the Central
Committee of the CPC, dated October 22, 1963:
Apologists of Neo-colonialism. When US-led
imperialist camp resorted to neo-colonisation to
overcome the advances made by the socialist
forces and national liberation movements,
initially the Soviet leadership exposed its
weaknesses in confronting it. Many
compromises were made which were harmful for
the revolutionary advances. After Stalin’s death,
these weaknesses turned into a deviation as the
capitalist roaders within the CPSU usurped the
party and state leadership. They became
apologists of Neo-colonialism. All those parties
at international level including CPI and CPI(M)
also became the same. Once Soviet Union
transformed to a social imperialist power by the
time Brezhnev took over in 1964, it started
competing with US imperialism for neo-colonial
domination. These developments can be well
understood from the following excerpts. That the
capitalist roaders in China after the defeat of the
‘left’ adventurist line of Lin Biao in 1971 started
pursuing almost the same path finally
succeeding in usurping power there also is the
postscript to be added to it - Red Star]
T HE policy of the leadership of the CPSU on the
national-colonial question is identical with the
bankrupt policy of the revisionists of the Second
International. The only difference is that the latter served
the imperialists’ old colonialism, while the modern
revisionists serve the imperialists’ neo-colonialism.
The old revisionists sang to the tune of the old
colonialists, and Khrushchov sings to the tune of the neo-
colonialists.
The heroes of the Second International, represented
by Bernstein and Kautsky, were apologists for the old
colonial rule of imperialism. They openly declared that
colonial rule was progressive, that it “brought a high
civilization” to the colonies and “developed the productive
forces” there. They even asserted that the “abolition of the
colonies would mean barbarism”.
 In this respect Khrushchov is somewhat different from
the old revisionists. He is bold enough to denounce the
old colonial system.
How is it that Khrushchov is so bold? Because the
imperialists have changed their tune.
After World War II, under the twin blows of the
socialist revolution and the national liberation revolution,
the imperialists were forced to recognize that “if the West
had attempted to perpetuate the status quo of colonialism,
it would have made violent revolution inevitable and defeat
inevitable”. The old colonialist forms of rule “on the
contrary, ... are likely to prove ‘running sores’ which destroy
both the economic and the moral vigour of a nation’s life”.
Thus it became necessary to change the form and practice
neo-colonialism.
Thus, too, Khrushchov singing to the tune of the neo-
colonialist flaunts the “theory of the disappearance of
colonialism” in order to cover up the new colonialism. What
is more, he tries to induce the oppressed nations to embrace
this new colonialism. He actively propagates the view that
“peaceful coexistence” between the oppressed nations and
civilized imperialism will make “the national economy grow
rapidly” and bring about an “uplift of their productive
forces”, enable the home market in the oppressed countries
to “become incomparably greater” and “furnish more raw
materials, and various products and goods required by the
economy of the industrially developed countries” and, at
the same time will “considerably raise the living standard
of the inhabitants in the highly developed capitalist
countries”.
Nor has Khrushchov forgotten to collect certain worn-
out weapons from the arsenal of the revisionists of the
Second International.
Here are some examples.
The old revisionists opposed wars of national
liberation and held that the national question “can be settled
only through international agreements” and “advance in
all the arts of peace”. On this question, Khrushchov has
taken over the line of the revisionists of the Second
International; he advocates a “quiet burial of the colonial
system”.
The old revisionists attacked the revolutionary
Marxists, hurling at them the slander that “Bolshevism is in
essence a warlike type of socialism” and that “the
Communist International harbours the illusion that the
liberation of the workers can be achieved by means of the
bayonets of the victorious Red Army and that a new world
war is necessary for the world revolution”. They also spread
the story that this position had “created the greatest danger
of a new world war”. The language Khrushchov uses today
to slander the Chinese Communist Party and other fraternal
Marxist-Leninist Parties is exactly the language used by
RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v
the old revisionists in slandering the Bolsheviks. It is hard
to find any difference.
It must be said that in serving the imperialists’ neo-
colonialism, Khrushchov is not a whit inferior to the old
revisionists in their service of the imperialists’ old
colonialism.
Lenin showed how the policy of imperialism caused
the international workers’ movement to split into two
sections, the revolutionary and the opportunist. The
revolutionary section sided with the oppressed nations and
opposed the imperialists and colonialists. On the other
hand, the opportunist section fed on crumbs from the spoils
which the imperialists and colonialists squeezed out of the
people of the colonies and semi-colonies. It sided with the
imperialists and colonialists and opposed the revolution of
the oppressed nations for liberation.
The same kind of division between revolutionaries and
opportunists in the international working-class movement
as that described by Lenin is now taking shape not only in
the working-class movement in capitalist countries but also
in socialist countries where the proletariat wields state
power.
The experience of history shows that if the national
liberation movement is to achieve complete victory it must
form a solid alliance with the revolutionary working-class
movement, draw a clear line of demarcation between itself
and the revisionists who serve the imperialists and
colonialists, and firmly eradicate their influence.
The experience of history shows that if the working-
class movement of the capitalist countries in Western
Europe and North America is to achieve complete victory,
it must form a close alliance with the national liberation
movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America, draw a clear
line of demarcation between itself and the revisionists, and
firmly eradicate their influence.
The revisionists are agents of imperialism who have
hidden themselves among the ranks of the international
working-class movement. Lenin said, “... the fight against
imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably
bound up with the fight against opportunism.” (Lenin,
Selected Works, Moscow, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 566.) Thus it is
clear that the present fight against imperialism and old and
new colonialism must be linked closely with the fight
against the apologists of neo-colonialism.
However hard the imperialists disguise their intentions
and bestir themselves, however hard their apologists
whitewash and help neo-colonialism, imperialism and
colonialism cannot escape their doom. The victory of the
national liberation revolution is irresistible. Sooner or later
the apologists of neo-colonialism will go bankrupt.
Workers of the world and the oppressed nations, unite! ●
November 2009 35
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What Is Soviet Power?

LENIN
What is Soviet power? What is the essence of this new power, which people in most countries
still will not, or cannot, understand? The nature of this power, which is attracting larger and
larger numbers of workers in every country, is the following: in the past the country was, in
one way or another, governed by the rich, or by the capitalists, but now, for the first time, the
country is being governed by the classes, and moreover, by the masses of those classes,
which capitalism formerly oppressed. Even in the most democratic and freest republics, as
long as capital rules and the land remains private property, the government will always be in
the hands of a small minority, nine-tenths of which consist of capitalists, or rich men.
In this country, in Russia, for the first time in the world history, the government of the country
is so organised that only the workers and the working peasants, to the exclusion of the
exploiters, constitute those mass organisations known as Soviets, and these Soviets wield
all state power. That is why, in spite of the slander that the representatives of the bourgeoisie
in all countries spread about Russia, the word “Soviet” has now become not only intelligible
but popular all over the world, has become the favourite word of the workers, and of all
working people. And that is why, notwithstanding all the persecution to which the adherents
of communism in the different countries are subjected, Soviet power must necessarily,
inevitably, and in the not distant future, triumph all over the world.
We know very well that there are still many defects in the organisation of Soviet power in
this country. Soviet power is not a miracle-working talisman. It does not, overnight, heal all
the evils of the past- illiteracy, lack of culture, the consequences of a barbarous war, the
aftermath of predatory capitalism. But it does pave the way to socialism. It gives those who
were formerly oppressed the chance to straighten their backs and to an ever-increasing
degree to take the whole government of the country, the whole administration of the economy,
the whole management of production, into their own hands.
Soviet power is the road to socialism that was discovered by the masses of the working
people, and that is why it is the true road, that is why it is invincible.
End of March 1919

Demonstration of slum dwellers under the baner of Basti Surksha Manch,

Bhopal against Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Plan
36 RED STAR Platform for Communist Revolutionaries v November 2009