COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA AND INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE DURING THE
SECOND WORLD WAR
by P. Bandhu and T.G. Jacob
The years of the Second World War were also a period of momentous political developments in the history of India’s freedom struggle. It was during this period that the demand for Pakistan started getting articulated in a forceful manner. And it was during this period that the ‘Quit India’ resolution was passed by the Congress, and Subhas Chandra Bose launched his Indian National Army with the aid of Japanese fascists. Again, during this period unprecedented famine conditions engulfed major parts of India. For the small but active Communist Party of India also this was probably the most crucial period in its history.
Ever since the beginning of the involvement of the Soviet Union in the war in a full-blooded manner and the shift of line of the CPI from that of ‘imperialist war’ to ‘people’s war’, the Communists have faced a barrage of accusations from the Congress leadership, as well as other forces involved in the freedom struggle. The Communists working inside the Congress were charge-sheeted for being pro-British and agents of Russia and it was repeatedly alleged that they had betrayed the freedom struggle.
These charges did not die out with 1947. After 1947 also, communist baiters have repeatedly charged the Left sections as betrayers of the mother country almost to the point of it becoming a stigma. Time and again some bourgeois journalist, or politician or political scientist popularises these charges. Even though it is irrelevant to mention them here due to their utterly shallow and slanderous character, these acrimonious charges and counter charges reveal a very relevant aspect, i.e., the established Left leaderships are equally shallow in their replies to bourgeois journalists. (1)
From Imperialist War to People’s War
In 1939, when Britain declared war against Nazi Germany and dragged India into her war, the CPI, in line with the International Communist leadership’s policy at this time, (2) declared the war an imperialist one, and not a war of democracy against fascism as the British and French imperialists claimed it to be. British imperialism was now characterised to be the most important factor accelerating the outbreak of a world imperialist war. (3) The CPI called for the revolutionary utilisation of the war crisis for the achievement of national freedom: “the war crisis brings out in the sharpest manner and intensifies thousandfold the conflict between the British government and the Indian people... Thus opens up the perspective of transformation of imperialist war into a war of national liberation.” (4)
The CPI carried out propaganda and led struggles in accordance with this line. Under its influence 90,000 Bombay workers carried out on October 2 a one-day political strike against the war and repressive measures of the British government. In rural areas it carried out a campaign, “na ek paisa, na ek bhai” (not a pie, not a brother) to this imperialist government. It also attacked the Congress leadership, particularly M.K. Gandhi, in failing to launch a mass struggle for Indian independence and characterised his politics to be that of compromise with British imperialism. However, the attitude of regarding the Congress as the leading anti-imperialist organisation remained. The criticism of Congress policy was not meant to expose it before the masses, or for the CPI to take up its role as the hegemon in the national liberation struggle, but to “move the Congress itself towards struggle.” (5)
For several months after the Soviet Union was attacked and the alliance of the United Nations was put into effect the CPI continued to reiterate that the character of the war had not changed, that the best way to help the Soviet Union was to achieve its own People’s Republic by dealing a death blow to imperialism. (6) It took some time for the Indian Communist Party to change its position on the war. Harry Pollitt, then General Secretary of the C.P. of Great Britain, had after the Soviet entry into the war immediately switched his position on the character of the war and said that henceforth the Communists must not hinder but support Britain’s war efforts. His letter to the CPGB was quoted in a document “A Note from Jail Comrades” (7), which some CPI members sent to comrades outside expressing their opinion on the changed character of the war and need for changed tactics in relation to it.
The main argument in the “Jail Document” was that “proletarian internationalism” demanded that the CPI take up its role in the world front against fascism, which was now characterised to be the main enemy. It said, “Our international duty to the world proletariat and to the Soviet Union at every time determines our national tasks in every new world situation.” How the imperialist nations stand in relation to the “fortress of world revolution, the fatherland of all workers,” was crucial for determining the character of the war. The conclusion drawn was that the war waged jointly by the United Nations could no longer be an imperialist war but was a “people’s war” for the defeat of fascism and the defence of the Soviet Union. It was the task of the proletariat and its vanguard to transform the alliance of the Governments into an alliance of the peoples by putting pressure against the vacillations of the imperialist governments in order to strengthen the anti-fascist front and make it into a people’s front. It called for unconditional support to the war which, however, did not mean that the Party should cease to demand civil liberties, democratic rights, transfer of defence to Indian hands, Indianisation of the army, National Government at the Centre and so on.
It was basically this new position that was articulated in the Politburo resolution of the CPI of Dec. 15, 1941 and in the CPI booklet “Forward to Freedom.” In this and in two other articles “Imperialist War into People’s War,” and “A New Revolutionary Upsurge,” (8) the changed character of the war and its implications were elucidated. The Soviet Union is not seen in these documents to be a friend, an ally, but as “the invincible bastion of socialism, as the proletarian fortress from which the international proletariat hurls its challenge to the capitalist world. The fate of the proletariat of the enslaved nations lies in keeping this breach in the capitalist world open and then widening it.” (9) The destruction of fascism is equated with world liberation.
The fact that some imperialist countries had entered into a temporary alliance with the Soviet Union is represented to be an expression of the weakness of imperialism in the period of its general and permanent crisis. It is believed that the imperialists have become pawns in the hands of the people and people’s war and are unable to carry out their imperialist policies because this would mean their losing the war, which would mean becoming junior partners of Hitler, so they are doomed to carry out the people’s will.
The magic weapon to overcome the “weakness” and “vacillations” of the bourgeoisie in this war of liberation, to make it truly into an instrument of the people’s will, is their “unity.” And by this unity is actually meant the national united front of the leading parties, the Congress and Muslim League, to form a “National Government.” The aim of this provisional national government would be to mobilise the people for a people’s defence against the aggressors in alliance with the United Nations. (10) According to the CPI it was possible to forge this unity if the Congress accepted the principle of self-determination and thereby gained the confidence of the Muslim League.
CPI and the Quit India Movement
How did the CPI react when the Quit India movement was launched? Though the Congress had not issued any kind of directives, either public or private, about the nature of actions that could be embarked upon, the people themselves rose in spontaneous revolts in many places. It was estimated to be “by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857.” (11) The fiercest struggles were waged in North and West Bihar and Eastern U.P.; here and in other regions parallel governments were established, a process which was abetted and not hindered by the arrest of provincial Congress leaders. These widespread peasants’ and people’s rebellions could be crushed only through the use of immense military force.
Instead of hailing, taking a leading role in and transforming into a higher stage such spontaneous anti-British struggles, the CPI condemned the “anarchy” let loose by such “honest but blind patriots,” and stated that this destruction of the national defence and economy of the country only succeeded in sabotaging the allied war efforts because many of the actions were aimed at disrupting communications, stopping production etc. They only played into the hands of fifth column pro-Japanese fascist elements, who, by encouraging and carrying out such anarchic actions were striving to put themselves in the lead of such movements.
In this situation the CPI could only mechanically reiterate its slogan of Congress-League unity which would resolve the crisis, bring about National Government, help win the war etc. It raised as a central demand the release of Gandhi and other Congress leaders, which alone would help to put an end to the sabotage campaign of the fifth columnists. By coming to a “settlement” with the British government after his release, Gandhi would help resolve the crisis. (12)
In the same way, the CPI utilised its fairly strong position within the working class to keep it away from militant actions against its vastly deteriorated condition in the war, as well as for anti-imperialist political aims. Its policy was to bring the workers to keep the industrial machinery running smoothly, to increase production for the purpose of national resistance. Economic demands of the workers, their trade union rights etc. were not pressed through strikes and stoppages, but were led into legalistic channels, were sought to be resolved through joint consultation among employers, government and workers. (13)
The CPI declared unconditional support to the war efforts of the British government. Apart from actively participating in the voluntary defence force scheme of the government, the CPI went to the extent of accusing the colonial administration of not being able to attract enough Indian youth into the army due to its anti-people policies. By implication the CPI leadership seemed to have been disappointed with the relatively low level of recruitment of Indian youth into the British Indian Army.
The food crisis of 1943, the famine in Bengal which caused the death of millions was the result of combined landlord-imperialist plunder and exploitation: while the government forcefully procured boats and paddy crops and continued exporting rice for its military needs, jotedars and other hoarders stocked vast amounts of paddy to drive up the prices and secure monstrous profits.
The peasants’ and people’s wrath in the face of food shortages was not sought to be directed by the CPI against those who were actually responsible for the situation. They were not led in actions for forcible snatching of food, of harvesting of crops, which would have enhanced their independent initiative, but was directed mainly against the hoarder-traders who were projected to be the ones mainly responsible for the shortages. In view of the enemy targeted, cooperation with the imperialist government was sought in order to alleviate marginally the crisis by demanding and carrying out a policy of rationing, public control and distribution of food. Not only were the attempts to take up any genuine radical demands of the peasantry abandoned, such as abolition of landordism, reduction of debts, rents, forced collection of war levy, but “grow more food” campaigns were initiated to help the war aims of the government. (14)
Soviets and Internationalism
It was the above-mentioned practical and theoretical programme of the CPI during the war years that enabled the opponents of the CPI to brand it to be working as Soviet agents at the expense of India’s freedom from the British. But here we have to make ourselves very distinct from bourgeois propaganda. The global programme of the Communist International, which was functioning under the leadership of Stalin and the CPSU(B), has to be correctly grasped to distance ourselves from vulgar bourgeois propaganda. The CPI leadership followed the programmatic guidelines evolved by the international communist movement, honestly believing it is based on correct Marxist-Leninist principles. The CPI leadership never tried to hide the fact that they are internationalists and that the Soviet Union is the leader and bastion of world revolution. So in this context trying to characterise the CPI leadership as “agents” of some external force does not hold any weight. On the other hand, to understand the problem correctly we have to address ourselves to the question how far the programmatic guidelines evolved by the CI and implemented by the various CPs all over the world confirmed to correct Marxist-Leninist principles of internationalism and along with this the other serious question that has to be examined is how the individual CPs, like CPI, understood and implemented the International’s guidelines.
The deep political and economic crisis of the imperialist system in the 1920s and ‘30s impelling it towards a new war on a world-scale contained within it tremendous possibilities for the international working class movement to take advantage of this crisis situation, of the sharp contradictions within the imperialist camp weakening it, to advance and strengthen the revolutionary movement in many countries, and perhaps to even overthrow imperialist rule in quite a few of them.
Was the revolutionary working class movement, organised in the Third Communist International, confronted by some new phenomena and contradictions, able to orientate itself in a consistently revolutionary way in a situation pregnant with possibilities? On examining the political line and practice of the Communist International, as it was hammered out at its 7th Congress in 1935, we find that it was ridden with some serious flaws, which led, and increasingly so, to deviations of the reformist type, of concessions to imperialism. The policy of the Communists was not such that it enabled them to utilise in a revolutionary way the cracks and fissures in the imperialist system, the contradictions between the various imperialist powers. Instead, the imperialist bourgeoisie was able to seize upon and derive capital from these errors of the Communists and emerge from the war on the whole in a stronger position than was perceived at the time. The later collapse of the International Communist Movement proved clearly that the strength of the “people’s democratic camp” or the “socialist camp,” had been more apparent than real as it was not based on a solid revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideological foundation.
Among the most basic errors of the stand adopted by the Communist International at its 7th Congress and later was its reformist and Eurocentric approach to the war, its illusions in relation to the imperialist powers involved in it. The established Leninist and only revolutionary tactics in the struggle against imperialist war, namely, “to make every effort to use the economic and political crisis created by the war to awaken the political consciousness of the masses and to hasten the downfall of capitalist domination,” (15) to convert the imperialist war into civil war, were given up.
The 7th Congress of the Communist International advocated a change from this basic approach towards war. (16) A shift from this basic policy was justified on the grounds that “profound changes’ had taken place in the international situation in the last few years; “new factors” had arisen in the relations between classes and states which influenced the character of the war and the tasks of the Communists in relation to it. (17) A major new factor was seen in the rise of the Soviet Union, where the final and irrevocable victory of socialism over capitalism was supposed to have taken place. The basic task of the international working class under these new conditions was to “defend the Soviet Union as representing the bulwark and rallying point of the international proletariat against reaction.” (18)
The crisis of the imperialist system leading to the situation of a world war means the accentuation of all the main contradictions of the imperialist system: that between the oppressed nations and the imperialist bourgeoisie, that between the working class and monopoly capitalism, and that between the rival imperialist powers themselves. To these get added the contradiction between socialist countries, if existing, and the capitalist ones. However, at the 7th Congress this last contradiction was overemphasized. A startling statement was made at the 7th Congress by Togliatti in his report, which in some respects even contradicted Dimitroff’s analysis at the same Congress: “The drive of fascism is a reactionary response of decaying capitalism to the triumph of socialism in the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” (19)
It was also wrong to make such a sharp distinction between the two forms of the dictatorship of the imperialist bourgeoisie which, under certain conditions, is forced to resort to a more openly terroristic variety of rule than a more concealed form. The erosion of bourgeois democracy, i.e., retaining the shell of parliamentarism but with constant attacks upon the freedom of workers’ organisations, right of assembly, freedom of speech, were tendencies that accompanied the rise of modern imperialism, of the concentration of power in the hands of capitalist monopolies, trusts and cartels. The fascist dictatorships that came up in some imperialist countries represented a new stage in this erosion in that they tended to outlaw not only the revolutionary, but also the reformist sections of the working class. All the institutions of bourgeois democracy were openly abolished. Under crisis conditions, faced by a strengthening working class movement, the drive for war and colonies is the only way out for the imperialist bourgeoisie; this is the only way finance capital could rule in these countries. (20)
However, under conditions of fascism, or faced by the imminent danger of a fascist take-over, the Communists would not take as their sole stand the restoration of status quo ante, the restoration of already much eroded bourgeois-democratic liberties. This, too, hand in hand with those disgruntled bourgeois and social-democratic elements who by their own policies, had aided and abetted the fascist elements to come to power. It was instead a ripe moment to bring over those masses which till then had been under the influence of reformist and class collaborationist social democracy, and were now reeling under the political and economic conditions of fascism, towards a revolutionary class struggle. In the face of the repression and terror unleashed by the bourgeoisie, armed retaliation and forms of struggle would inevitably be the main ones. Instead, the tactics of the Communist International involved making the mass fascist organisations the legal or semi-legal field of action, forming an anti-fascist united front or even united front governments with the same bourgeois-liberal and social-fascist forces who held responsibility for aiding the fascist take-over. (21) The formation of such anti-fascist united fronts was projected to be a necessary stage on the path towards the now postponed goal of overthrowing the rule of the entire reactionary bourgeoisie.
The entire tactics of the world-wide anti-fascist united front was predicated on an understanding of the contradictions on a world scale which was contrary to proletarian internationalism, which had a Eurocentric bias, and which amounted to putting the defence of the SU at the centre. The Soviet Union, trying to preserve itself and its “peaceful” construction of socialism and advance towards “communism” lost sight of its primary duty of supporting by every means possible the cause of the world revolutionary movement. Instead of relying for its defence on the revolutionary might of the peoples of the world, especially those in the colonies and semi-colonies, and coming to their aid as far as possible, the leadership of the CPSU oriented itself more towards the European capitalist countries, because inter alia this was the direction from which war was imminent. Not envisaging an immediate overthrow of the reactionary German bourgeoisie by its proletariat in time to prevent such an attack, it preferred to rely for its defence on trying to utilize the contradictions between the various imperialist powers and made this the main plank of its strategy. Narrow and short-sighted nationalism won the day over proletarian internationalism.
Instead of the central slogan being the just war of liberation of the oppressed and exploited against their own and the war-mongering alien imperialist bourgeoisie, the slogan for the preservation of “peace” became central. One of the major aims of the tactics of the anti-fascist united front was the struggle against imperialist war, to hamper war preparations, for the preservation of peace, which it seemed, was the only way to defend the Soviet Union. It was even argued that the existence of the Soviet Union was a new factor which could overturn the inevitability of wars under imperialism, unless prevented through revolution. It was illusionary exaggeration of the role of the Soviet Union vis-á-vis other revolutionary forces to assert that it constituted a “guarantee” of peace. (22)
Dividing the various belligerent imperialist powers into aggressors and non-aggressors, the Soviet Union tried to enter into a collective security agreement with those which were ostensibly interested in the “preservation of peace”, who were “not equally interested in war.” Was this a correct reading of the situation? The policy of neutrality, non-intervention, and appeasement of Britain and France in relation to the fascist powers aimed at abetting reaction in general against revolutionary forces; it also followed the tactics of letting the axis powers exhaust themselves first, particularly also in a war with the Soviet Union, and then to enter the arena as arbiters of peace, democracy and freedom, and in this way, try to turn the situation in their own favour. All throughout, they had been unostentatiously arming themselves and preparing for war.
In this context, dividing the imperialist powers into “aggressors” and “non-aggressors”, into fascist and bourgeois-democratic powers had another problem attached to it: it overlooked the very important fact that if a certain degree of bourgeois-democratic rule and reformist orientation are retained, this is to a very large extent possible on the basis of the fruits of the exploitation of the colonial peoples, and that in these countries imperialist rule had at all times been fascist, despotic, autocratic. Giving such countries, which had preserved bourgeois-democracy to some extent, the label of being comparatively “progressive” certainly also had a very Eurocentric flavour about it.
Algeria and Vietnam under France; Spain under Franco
The experiences of the liberation movements in Algeria and Vietnam and the Spanish civil war can easily be cited as concrete examples of the results of the anti-fascist united front tactics in countries under colonial rule and in the capitalist West. The three examples cited here are not the only ones, but they are very poignant.
Much praised in the journals of the Communist International as a model example of united front tactics was the popular front tactics of the French Communist Party. In 1936, with the support of the French Communist Party the Popular Front Government headed by Leon Blum came to power. This government, despite having awakened hopes of “democratisation,” introduction of some bourgeois democratic reforms in countries like Algeria, stood for the continuation of colonial rule. The French Communist Party also made the common struggle against fascism the pretext for abandoning any support for the national liberation of Algeria allegedly because this would render aid to the plans of fascism and would deliver for example Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco to the yoke of Musssolini’s or Hitler’s fascism. (23)
In line with the tactics of the world-wide anti-fascist united front, the Communist Party of Vietnam gave up the slogan of overthrowing French imperialism, feudalism and reactionary bourgeoisie to form an independent Vietnam, to establish a worker-peasant-soldier government. In its place, between 1936-39, it put forward the reformist programme of only claiming democratic rights, freedom of organisation, of assembly, press and speech, amnesty for political prisoners, and legality for the party etc., because “too exacting” demands like national independence would only “play into the Japanese fascists’ hands.” Thus a policy of conciliation and compromise with the reactionary bourgeoisie was advocated. Otherwise they would “fall into the hands of reaction,” it was argued. (24)
The damaging effects of the anti-fascist united front tactics were also felt in the outcome of the Spanish civil war (1936-39) between the mildly Left-wing republican forces and the military coup led by General Franco on behalf of feudal-fascist forces. The initial period of resistance was marked by revolutionary actions. Factories and transport were taken over by workers and land was seized from the big landlords by the peasants. Local administrative committees and workers’ militia constituted the beginnings of a workers’ government, mainly led by the Anarcho-syndicalist party and trade union.
However, the Spanish Communist Party proclaimed that it was not the establishment of proletarian democracy that was required at this stage, but bourgeois democracy. This approach was in line with the Comintern policy that subordinated the international working class movement to the defence of the Soviet Union. As in the case of France, the military alliances attempted to be forged by the USSR to protect itself from possible Nazi onslaught prevented the Communist Party from launching an anti-capitalist and anti-colonial struggle in Spain.
A rising in Spanish Morocco against Franco’s dictatorship and a proclamation of its independence from Spanish colonialism would have struck a major blow against the fascist forces. The Spanish Communist Party failed to work towards such a rising in Morocco. Moreover, instead of retaining gains already made by the workers and peasants and entering into a discussion with the ‘extremist’ revolutionary forces to persuade them about the advisability of postponing to a more opportune time further collectivisation and other socialist measures in the interest of the anti-fascist alliance it entered into an internecine warfare with the Anarchist and anti-Stalin Left-wing forces denouncing them as fifth columnists who were in fascist pay and threw many of these rebels into jails. This weakened the anti-fascist struggle considerably as it pre-empted worker-peasant support nationally and internationally. These colossal blunders by the Spanish C.P. led eventually to the defeat of the democratic forces in Spain and to a prolonged period of dictatorial rule by General Franco. (25)
CPI’s United Front Tactics
Of utmost importance for us is to examine how the united front tactics were carried out in India. Up to 1935, the stance of the Indian Communists towards the Indian National Congress was to understand it to be the party of basically the national bourgeoisie which was following the policy – under a revolutionary mask – of striking a counter-revolutionary compromise with the British imperialists and betraying the revolutionary peoples. On the basis of such an understanding of the character of the National Congress and its leaders – Gandhi, Nehru and others – the Indian Communists had held that the idea of overthrowing the counter-revolutionary leadership from within the Congress and replacing it by a revolutionary anti-imperialist leadership was an illusion.
“There will always be found enough leaders in the Congress to wear the mask of revolution more successfully than their predecessors and thus to deceive the masses more effectively. In December 1929 J. Nehru appeared as a revolutionary, while his father had to recede in the background; in September 1930 Nehru is able to say, “Father and I are in complete agreement.” The capitalist leadership of the Congress could play its role more effectively through Jawaharlal than through Motilal and others at Lahore. When Jawaharlal is exposed other “left” phrase-mongers will be serviceable enough to carry out the same tasks.
Therefore it is an idle dream to think of “capturing” the Congress and converting it into a genuine anti-imperialist body. The capitalists and their allies and agents only can consciously join the Congress. The workers and peasants and revolutionary middle class youth must combine on an INDEPENDENT united front platform to organise the fight against British imperialism and one of the main tasks of the united front will be to expose and counteract the treacherous manoeuvres of the Congress and its leadership.” (26)
This approach of the Indian Communists was in line with that advocated by the international leadership. (27)
However, after the 7th Congress of the Communist International, the approach of the CPI towards Congress underwent considerable change. In line with the policy of conciliation and cooperation with sections of the liberal bourgeoisie and social democrats in imperialist countries, united front tactics in colonies like India were applied as a line of compromise with and joint action with the national reformist organisations. In Dimitroff’s report at the 7th Congress it was suggested in relation to India that Communists should work within the Indian National Congress with the aim of crystallising a national revolutionary wing within it. (28) An article “Problems of the anti-imperialist Struggle in India” (published in the 9 March, 1935 issue of Inprecorr) suggests that the Communists should rally all anti-imperialist elements within Congress and put forward and make it accept an anti-imperialist programme of complete and unconditional independence; it suggests the affiliation of mass organisations to the Congress.
Most influential in shaping the line of the Indian Communists were the suggestions of the British Communists. They went much further; their line was to make the Indian National Congress into “the pivot of the anti-imperialist people’s front, of the national united front.” By further transformation of its organisation and programme the Congress itself could be made into the form of realisation of the anti-imperialist people’s front.” (29) By implication this involved a change in the understanding of the class character of the Congress. This new line in relation to the Congress was endorsed by the Indian communist Party through its Politburo statement of March 1937, “For the National United Front.” Accordingly, the revolutionary struggle for the take-over of state power, for the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ state was abandoned in favour of concentrating one’s energies on the struggle for democratic rights, for the withdrawal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, against suppression of press, assembly and organisation, against the disenfranchisement of 87% of the population, withdrawal of the 1935 slave constitution and convening of a Constituent Assembly – in all a programme of reforms within the British empire, something which would not disturb the “national” bourgeoisie at all.
Alliance at the International Level
In 1939, after having failed to conclude any collective security agreement with France, Great Britain and the US, the Soviet Union concluded a non-aggression pact with Hitlerite Germany. When Great Britain, France and then later the US, actively joined in the war, the Communist International now suddenly characterized them as the ones who were particularly belligerent. This was because the Soviet Union, having concluded a pact with Hitler, could now afford to take up the stance of neutrality in war, and safely characterize it to be an imperialist one. It is now, when the Soviet Union feels free from the danger of attack, that the slogan of “transform imperialist war into people’s war” is given. Now it is even asserted that the bourgeois-democratic countries, in the crisis conditions of war, are resorting to a fascistic drive. Any distinction between Hitlerite Germany and these powers in terms of fascist/democratic is wiped out; and it is said that these powers in the name of an anti-fascist just war are only unfolding an imperialist war with imperialist war aims. The social-democratic leaders are again charged with the conniving at or even directly conducting the war. Now the earlier method of forming a united front through agreements between the social-democratic and communist parties is repudiated; again working class unity is to be forged from below in a resolute struggle against the treacherous leaders of the social-democratic parties, apart from them and isolating them. (30)
Hitler had his own calculations. He had concluded this pact with the Soviet Union in the East to be able to run over and conquer crucial spheres in the West. Within a short period he overran Denmark, Norway, Belgium and France. Socialism, the worldwide working class movement, embodied to some extent by the Soviet Union, remained for him something to be crushed. He also believed that by gaining Russia’s tremendous mineral, agricultural, industrial and human resources he could strengthen the position of Germany and on both these counts enter into negotiations with Britain and be able to drive a hard bargain for the repartition of spheres. But Hitler also miscalculated. Britain, France and the US had been so alarmed at the growing strength of Germany that they preferred to enter into a temporary alliance with the Soviet Union against Hitlerite Germany with aim of utilising it to weaken Germany and with the overall aim of furthering their imperialist ambitions.
The hollowness of the seemingly correct stand of the Communist International on the imperialist war, and the tasks of the revolutionary peoples in relation to it, was shown by the subsequent events. The fundamental approach of making the “defence of the Soviet Union” central and that too basically by trying to ally with this or that imperialist power remained unchanged. When Hitler turned around and attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, and this time the Soviet Union did succeed in concluding an alliance with the UK, US and France, it was announced that now the very character of the war had changed and with that the character of the powers allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler. The war was now characterised as an anti-fascist people’s war, a “war of liberation, a just war” to liberate the peoples of Europe and the USSR from Hitler’s tyranny. (31)
Analysing the character of the war Stalin later made the statement: “Unlike the First World War, the Second World War against the Axis states from the very outset assumed the character of an anti-fascist war, a war of liberation, one aim of which was also the restoration of democratic liberties. The entry of the Soviet Union into the war against the Axis states could only enhance, and indeed did enhance, the anti-fascist and liberation character of the Second World War. It was on this basis that the anti-fascist coalition of the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain, and other freedom-loving states came into being.” (32) Not just that, the revolutionary struggles of the peoples of the world were again to be sacrificed to the defence of the Soviet Union. Stalin clearly announced what was expected of the peoples of the world in the course of this war: “All honest people must support the army of our country, of Great Britain and the US as champions of liberation, not only in Europe, but in Asia, in Iran for instance.” (33)
This change in the perspective of Stalin and the Communist International did not have very desirable effects for several countries. An example that readily comes to mind is that of the Greek national liberation war. In the course of the resistance against Italian and German occupation of Greece during the Second World War, the Greek National Liberation Army (ELAS) under the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece fought its way to glory. The Italian army of occupation was forced to retreat and the Nazis suffered heavily at the hands of the resistance fighters. But what happened later is a clear indictment of the wrongness in the line advocated by Stalin asking partisans to collaborate with the armies of the Allies. This policy was implemented by the Greek Communist Party which finally resulted in the liquidation of ELAS and defeat of the Greek revolution. (34) The ideological basis of this policy was the perspective that an urban based Soviet model of revolution is the way out for Greece also.
This streak of error can be observed in the International Communist Movement even before the Second World War. The ideological mistake of a universalised model of revolution irrespective of the concrete conditions existing in different countries lay at the root of this serious error. The case of the Chinese revolution is revealing. In the course of the liberation movement, several times major struggles were launched inside the Chinese Communist Party to rectify the ‘ultra left’ and ‘ultra right’ deviations, (35) which were implemented with the concurrence of the Communist International under Stalin’s leadership.
In the case of the CPI though there was some initial hesitation in implementing the new line of “people’s war”, within a short time, the implementation started in right earnest. Surprisingly enough, there was no serious struggle inside the CPI to thrash out a policy appropriate to the concrete conditions existing in India. The following sections attempt to throw more light on this very important question.
Congress and India’s Freedom Struggle
CPI’s predicament during World War II cannot be understood in isolation from the policies and programmes of the leading force of the day, i.e., the Indian National Congress. In a situation of extreme intensification of political repression and economic exploitation, when mass discontent against British imperial rule began to seethe among more and more sections of the people, the approach of the Congress, of its leading personalities, some of who later accused the Communists of betrayal of the freedom struggle during this period, is revealing.
Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, condemned Hitler as aggressor and offered unconditional support to England and her allies. But he would not participate in the war effort nor would he defend British India against an aggressor. (36) The Congress Working Committee, however, on the one hand at great pains not to spark off or lead any mass movement against British rule at this juncture because it would be sure to go beyond its control and influence, also knew that adopting a position of complete support would be in too much of a crass contradiction to their earlier positions on the war and would isolate them from the masses. Also, they thought it possible to wring some concessions from a Britain in difficulty. So the Resolution of the Congress Working Committee, adopted on Sept. 14, 1939, made support of the “democratic” countries – England and France – in their war against the fascist countries, conditional upon the declaration of the war aims of the government in relation to India. The AICC endorsed this view on Oct. 10 and demanded that India be declared an independent nation and present application be given to this status to the largest extent possible.
On the other hand, the Congress Socialist Party and Forward Bloc tended to think that the war situation offered a quick possibility of India’s freedom from British rule. Accordingly, they mobilised their cadre and also the left of the Centre Congress cadre to hamper British war efforts and Subhas Chandra Bose tried to get the help of the Axis armies; first he approached the Nazis and then the Japs.
The Muslim League passed a resolution on 18 Sept., 1939, promising support for the war on condition that no constitutional advance in India is made without consulting it as the sole representative of the Muslims in India.
The British bourgeoisie would never, without a most fierce and determined struggle against it, peacefully relinquish “that most truly bright and precious jewel” in the crown of the king, which more than other dominions and dependencies “constitutes the glory and strength of the British Empire.” (37) India as a colony was too important for the “well-being of Britain.” The connection between colonial super profits and the buying off of a section of the British working class, and thus through crumbs providing a base for reformism in the working class movement in Britain, was too close for the loss of India to be borne.
Under these circumstances, it was not at all surprising that what the British offered the Congress did not in any way touch their absolute control over the country. While vaguely talking about “Dominion status” at some future unknown date, a promise still pending from the last World War, the British government proposed as an immediate programme the formation of a “Consultative Committee” of Indians to assist the Viceroy in the prosecution of the war by exploiting Indian resources.
To this challenge by the imperialists the Congress could retaliate by nothing more ineffective than calling for the resignation of the Congress ministries. Not an unimportant consideration in this move was the possibility of alienation from the people because by remaining they would too visibly have been party to their repression. However, with the people already restive, launching partial struggles against the war and for their rights, the Congress, if it wanted to retain its leadership in the movement, could not continue indefinitely with a policy of inaction, stalemate and advising the people against any hasty action and asking them to show “restraint in word and deed.” (38)
With the Nazi advance in Europe and the collapse of France in the beginning of 1940, when the British were in a somewhat tight corner – this situation was regarded by some in the Congress an opportunity to strike a bargain with the British for some concessions. So, while on the one hand, offering even now military cooperation to the British in their war efforts, the Congress at its Poona Session in July, 1940, made this cooperation conditional on the recognition of Indian independence and the establishment of a Provisional National Government at the centre as a transitory measure. Again the Congress met with a rebuff. The “August Offer” of the Viceroy, on the pretext of lack of agreement among the various powerful elements in India’s national life, viz., among the Congress, Muslim League and the Princes, pronounced the building of such a Provisional National Government by the Congress as not acceptable. It put forward the meagre proposal to enlarge the Executive Council of the Viceroy with representative Indians and to set up a War Advisory Council.
The Congress now, if it wanted any concessions and for saving face before the people, was indeed in a position when it could no longer wriggle out of a path of at least limited confrontation and struggle. Gandhi was again asked to take up the leadership in the Congress. He chose to launch “individual civil disobedience” under his own strict supervision. The issue taken up was not “independence” or “provisional government” but the right to “free speech” because the Viceroy had refused to countenance even verbal opposition to the war.
Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, which brought about the alliance first between the UK and the SU, and then that of the United Nations led by the Soviet Union, UK, US and China, was received favourably by the Congress. Nehru stated in Dec. 1941: “The progressive forces of the world are now aligned with the group represented by Russia, Britain, America and China.” The comprador bourgeoisie and some of its representatives in the Congress thought that now they would be accepted as allies of the British without any struggle in view of the “Atlantic Charter” issued jointly by Great Britain and the US, later also accepted by the United Nations, endorsing the rights of the people to self-determination.
However, for the British, as stated explicitly by Churchill, the Atlantic Charter was not meant to apply to any parts of the Empire, but only to those states and nations in Europe under the Nazi yoke. If the President of the US, Roosevelt, declared on Feb. 22 that the Atlantic Charter applied to the “whole world” and took a stand of verbal support for Indian “independence,” i.e., that Indian leaders be given a chance to frame a national constitution, this was with the idea of gaining dominance over India at the expense of the British. This, however, under the pressure of rising national liberation movements and people’s aspirations for self-rule, was best thought to be realized through neo-colonial hidden forms, i.e., through the screen of states headed by the comprador big bourgeoisie as the major alliance partners of the imperialist bourgeoisie replacing feudal landlordism. This also corresponded to the new methods of exploitation of finance capital by “development”, by a limited industrialisation in accordance with and tailored to the needs of metropolitan capital.
A new factor was created for the British by the Japanese offensive in British colonies in Asia in 1942. The Japanese very rapidly captured Singapore, overran Malaya and entered Burma. Britain now felt the need to make some conciliatory moves towards the Congress leaders in order to ward off possible moves on the part of some of them towards Japan. The Cripps Mission was sent to India. However, what it offered did not go beyond the August Offer. Though the Congress was ready to make innumerable concessions in its demand for a national government including serving under the Viceroy and accepting a British Commander-in-chief to support their war aims, they were refused. It was clear that the British did not yet see any real threat to their position in India.
On July 14, the Working Committee, again under the leadership of Gandhi, moved a resolution on non-cooperation with the British as the only way to create pressure for the formation of a national government. If the British government would not come to a settlement, then the Congress threatened to launch a widespread non-violent struggle. This was on the eve of a possible Japanese invasion of India.
There was a division of opinion within the Congress on this resolution adopted at Wardha. Nehru, for instance, at this critical juncture was for unconditional support to Britain and for violent resistance to the Japanese. Gandhi, on the other hand, sensed the people’s growing antagonism towards the British due to their obstinacy in clinging on to absolute power in India and the misery caused by a war fought for alien purposes. Again, he alone realised that to offer unconditional cooperation with Britain after the Cripps Mission was to isolate oneself completely. His anti-British statements only seemingly favoured Japan, because he did not see any fundamental difference between British and Japanese imperialism.
Whether he had become bitter about the British and their repeated refusals to negotiate, whether he was convinced that Britain’s sun had set and that Japan was a rising star and wanted to plump for the winning side, as asserted by Nehru then and by some history interpreters, (39) is not the moot point. What is important is his conviction that only an independent India could help Britain win the war, which made him insist on the necessity of the civil disobedience movement.
Why the British imperialists at this stage too refused to hand over power was because any national government formed by the Congress, with or without the Muslim League, though on the whole a comprador government, would mean that India would cease to remain a more or less exclusive colony of Britain. It would be a neo-colonial government opening the country to an increasing extent to plunder and rape by other imperialist powers, by the US, for e.g., which had already economically penetrated India to some extent and had bourgeois groups aligned with it in the country. Similarly, there were other bourgeois groupings, which would be and already were willing to collaborate with the Japanese. Secondly, the anti-British mass movement was not yet so tumultuous, as after the war when the British capital felt that there was no other way to salvage itself to some extent except by agreeing to the formation of such a national government.
Nehru and others, who had been opposed to any kind of struggle, realising they would be isolated if they did not pay at least lip service to struggle, joined in with Gandhi and a compromise resolution, the famous “Quit India” resolution of 14 July 1942, adopted on 7 August, came to be passed. This demanded that British rule be immediately ended; that a provisional national government be formed which would cooperate with the allies in their war efforts to the extent of allowing them to station their armed forces in India against Japan. Then followed the threat: if this demand with its offer of cooperation was not acceded the Congress would be compelled to resort to non-violent struggle under Gandhi’s leadership.
Though a brave call to “do or die” was given out, no concrete programme of action was placed before the people. Gandhi had at the most hinted a one-day protest hartal. This resolution was released to the press, and the entire leadership, which had made no serious preparations for struggle, allowed itself to be led into detention camps, its patriotic duty done, leaving the masses leaderless.
CPI and Congress
All along the course of the war the Congress had done its best to sabotage any genuine anti-imperialist struggle of the masses, even when it gave the “Quit India” call. In spite of these efforts on its part, the masses had risen in heroic revolt in many parts of the country. In no way did Congress leaders attempt to give an organised direction to these movements; the fact that most of its leaders were in jail became an alibi. It is a fact that nationalist forces led by Jayaprakash Narayan and Subhas Bose could and did try to take advantage of this situation.
After his release, while carrying on his endless negotiations with the British Viceroy, Gandhi publicly repudiated the violence on the part of the people during this period. In spite of this actual role played by the Congress and its leaders, it later and even now in official interpretations of the history of India’s independence movement takes the disturbances, particularly those of 1942, to be the result of this call and draws credit from them to represent itself to be a genuinely patriotic organisation. The role played by the Communists in this period is sufficient pretext for them to condemn these to be anti-Congress and as having betrayed the country for the sake of the Soviet.
All efforts of the Communists to conciliate the Congress leaders, to transform the Congress into an anti-imperialist organisation proved to be utterly unrealistic. In 1945, the Congress, taking advantage of the CPI’s blatantly wrong line during the war years and a certain resultant erosion of sympathy among the people, presented the Communists with a charge-sheet accusing the CPI of having acted as an agent of British imperialism during the war and of having broken up the “high watermark of the freedom struggle in 1942, symbolised by the Quit India Movement.”
The CPI leadership, on the wrong path for so long, could reply to this charge-sheet only defensively. (40) It could not rid itself of its tailist approach in relation to the Congress and in its reply could only try to prove how the Communists were better Congressmen than the Congressmen themselves (!), that they had always remained true to the spirit of the Congress. P.C. Joshi is utterly unable to expose the Congress role during the war years, its line of collaboration and compromise with imperialism, its striving to only extract a few concessions within the framework of imperialism. He is able to only feebly bleat that what we wanted was the same thing as you, i.e., national government, only our tactics were different, they were better tactics, that we were also persecuted by the government and so on. WE ARE PATRIOTS TOO?? A document that should make any true Communist blush with shame!
How the CPI leadership viewed the unity of the freedom-loving peoples of India is quite interesting. Far from conceiving of any sort of class based unity the CPI’s sole preoccupation was with the unity of the Muslim League and Congress leadership across the bargaining table. This unity, if achieved, would enable the British war efforts considerably and thus pace the way for National Government. For achieving this unity the magic formula ceaselessly advocated by the CPI leadership was that the Congress leadership should accept the Muslim League demand for self-determination and stretching it out so as to mechanically rationalise it in terms of Marxist theory they discovered that it is not only the Muslim demand but the aspiration of the various nationalities of India. Thus in spite of incessant prattling about the right of self-determination of the nationalities in India, including the right to secede, they never seriously bothered to study the question. All that they did was to put forth the slogan of self-determination and piously implore the leaderships of the Congress and Muslim League to implement it. It is little wonder that these one-time advocates of self-determination are now the staunchest apologists of “national integrity.”
The document “Victory – Whose?” by P.C. Joshi (41) is important in so far as it shows the complete lack of a self-critical approach although this would have been called for considering the post-war situation, when as a result of Congress and Communist policies, imperialism remained well-entrenched in India. P.C. Joshi prefers to point to the victories on the international level, rather than look too closely at the situation on the home front. This is a piece where the basic attitude of lack of self-reliance stands out very crassly. The Marxist maxim that only the people can liberate themselves is forgotten. It is better to leave everything to the Soviets, they are taking care of everything for us, it is argued. If the Anglo-Americans, the great upholders of “democracy” of yesterday, are now again having fascist-imperialist plans for world domination, relax, you don’t have to worry or move a finger, the Soviets are foiling their moves. Does one have any doubts about the character of some of the regimes in Europe which are being hailed as “progressive” and “democratic” (for e.g., that of de Gaulle in France)? Perish the thought! They are so because they are in alliance with the USSR! Just as Britain and the US were “progressive” and “democratic” when they were in alliance with the USSR during the war. But now that they are again conspiring against her they are called reactionary. Truly the relation to the Soviet Union is the litmus test for determining friends and enemies as earlier. Whoever happens to be current enemy no. one of the USSR becomes immediately international enemy no. one.
The earlier illusions about maintaining “PEACE”, in spite of the war just over, which one had not been able to prevent under imperialist conditions, continue to flourish. The formation of the United Nations Organisation is a continuation of the tactics of trying to maintain “peace” through negotiations with the big imperialist powers. The tactics of relying mainly on diplomatic methods of utilising contradictions between the imperialist powers for the “safety and preservation of the Soviet Union” are continued.
In relation to India, the CPI creates illusions about the possibility of a peaceful withdrawal of the British and takeover of power by the Indians. It is cited that the coming of the Labour Progressive majority to power in Britain would mean ‘independence’ for India, because one major point in their election platform had been “settlement with India.” In the absence of a programme and tactics of the Indian Communists for a democratic, anti-imperialist revolution in India, a settlement could only bring the comprador forces on to the stage as the major collaborators of imperialism in India. Joshi himself reveals what such a transfer of power would mean: it will mean a big fillip to British industry because it will “create big foreign markets by liberating India and the colonies.” (42)
The stage was set for the transformation of India from a colony to a neo-colony. And the policy and practice of the Indian Communists, and along with that those of the international communist movement, most certainly contributed to the fact that, though the people fought heroically and repeatedly, in Tebhaga, in Telengana, in Warli, in the course of the mutiny by the Indian ratings in the “Royal” Indian Navy, and so on, the Indian peoples could not gain their national liberation from imperialism in 1947.
Conclusion
From the historical analysis we have given above there is little doubt that the CPI blundered heavily in dealing with the developments during the war period. It formulated erroneous slogans and practised the same vigorously. In the absence of any self-critical approach the underlying reasons behind such blunders continue to this day to dominate the leadership of CPI [and later CPI(M) also].
From the example of China we have seen how the wrong guidelines issued at the international level could be fought against and defeated resulting in the victory of the revolution. It is true that the Communist International under the leadership of Stalin is heavily responsible for many of the errors practised by the individual communist parties outside the Soviet Union. But to put the entire blame on the International Communist Movement’s leadership is very unrealistic. In fact, such an approach is incorrect. While not absolving them of their grievous role it is more important to pinpoint the responsibility on the local leaderships because it is they who are duty bound to formulate concrete programmes for their own countries integrating the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete reality of their own countries. This was what was done by the Communist Party of China and not done by the Communist Party of India.
As we said at the beginning it will be a very shallow approach to call the CPI of the war years merely as Soviet agents. They were at the most putting in practice what they sincerely believed to be Marxist-Leninist. First and foremost, this was the result of ignorance about the concrete conditions existing in India and secondly ignorance about the developments at the global level and how those developments are acting and interacting with the domestic developments. It is basically a question of mechanically interpreting the Marxist-Leninist principles and fitting them to the case of India. Whether in the case of the anti-fascist united front concept or in the case of the transformation of imperialist war into people’s war or in the case of the important question of national self-determination within the Indian sub-continent this mechanical, anti-dialectical approach is only too visible.
The post-Second World War history of the Soviet Union and the CPI also bears this out clearly. In India parliamentarism and economism were very soon placed in place of capture of political power. In the Soviet Union the “peaceful transition” thesis was put on a high pedestal. The one-sided emphasis on productive forces at the cost of the relations of production (this was evident during the period of Stalin itself) has developed into its logical conclusion and converted the Soviet Union into a superpower and social imperialist overlord, while trade unionism, parliamentarism and shameless economism (which had become obvious during the Second World War) have degenerated the CPI into the role of nothing less than social fascist taking an openly hostile posture towards people’s movements. With perestroika, glasnost, ‘national integrity’ etc. etc. this process of degeneration is continuing without let up.
NOTES:
1. M. Basavapunnaiah, “Quit India Call and the Role of Communists,” National Book Centre, 1984.
2. G. Dimitroff, “War and the Working Class,” 1939, in: G. Adhikari (ed.): From Peace Front to People’s War,” PPH, Bombay, 1942.
3. Ibid., p. 331.
4. “On our Policy and Tasks in the Period of War” Statement of the Politburo of the CPI, Oct. 1939.
5. Ibid.
6. Party Letter No. 44, Sep.-Oct. 1941.
7. An edited version of “A Note from Jail Comrades” (1941), which was brought out by the B.T. Ranadive leadership for and before the Calcutta CPI Congress of 1948.
8. Published in the volume edited by G. Adhikari, op. cit.
9. See “A Note from Jail Comrades,” p. 5.
10. See “The Indian Communist Party. Its Policy and Work in the War of Liberation,” 1942. This
was a publication by the British Communist Party in September 1942 of extracts from a booklet “Forward to Freedom” brought out by the CPI in February 1942.
11. Viceroy Linlithgow to Churchill quoted in Suniti Kumar Ghosh, “The Indian Big Bourgeoisie,” Calcutta, 1985, p. 225. For the description of struggles during this period see Ghosh as well as Sumit Sarkar, “Modern India 1885-1947”, Macmillan, 1984, pp. 392-403.
12. See “The Way Out of the Crisis.” A report by P.C. Joshi on the decision taken by the Enlarged Plenary Session of the CC of the CPI held from Feb. 10-14, 1943. See also, “All Together for the Release of Gandhiji to end National Crisis,” Resolution of the CC of the CPI at the same session.
13. See “Production Policy and Trade Union Tasks,” Resolution passed by the Enlarged Plenum of the CC of the CPI. 22 September, 1942. Also see, “Working Class and National Defence,” Report submitted by B.T. Ranadive to the First Congress of the CPI held on May 28, 1943. (Published by PPH, Bombay).
14. See “The Food Crisis and our Tasks,” Resolution passed by the CC of the CPI at its Plenum Session on 19 February, 1943.
15. Amendment proposed by Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin at the Stuttgart Congress of the Second International in 1907.
16. The basic approach of transforming imperialist war into civil war had also been endorsed at the Sixth World Congress in 1928 in the resolution, “The Struggle against Imperialist War and Tasks of the Communists.”
17. Togliatti, “The Fight for Peace and Against Imperialist War,” report delivered at the Seventh Congress, 1935, in: G. Adhikari (ed.), op.cit, p. 151.
18. “The Victory of Socialism in the USSR,” Resolution on the Report of D.Z. Manuilsky, adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, 1935, in: G. Adhikari (ed.), op.cit., p. 151.
19. Togliatti, op.cit., p. 164.
20. For this analysis of fascism see, “Karl Radek’s Introduction to the book, “Militarism and Fascism in Japan,” by O. Tanin and E. Yohan, USA, 1934.
21. G. Dimitroff, “Fascism and the Unity of the Working Class,” report at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, in: G. Adhikari (ed.), op. cit., pp. 53, 69.
22. Togliatti, op. cit., p. 189.
23. Maurice Thorez, “Report at the 9th Congress of the French Communist Party in Arles,” in: Selected Speeches and Writings 1933-1960, Berlin, 1962, (German ed.), p. 188.
24. For this account of the Spanish Civil War see George Orwell, “Homage to Catalonia,” Penguin Books in Association with Secker and Warburg, 1964 (c. 1938).
25. Ho Chi Minh, “The Party’s Line in the Period of the Democratic Front (1936-39) in: Selected Writings,” Hanoi, 1977, p. 42.
26. “Call a Conference of all Genuine Anti-Imperialists to Launch the Anti-Imperialist League,” 1934. For a similar evaluation of the Indian National Congress see also, “Political Theses of the
CC of the CPI,” published in the form of an abridged draft in Inprecorr No. 40, 1934.
27. See “Open Letter to the Indian Communists” by the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of Great Britain, China and Germany, in: Communist International, No. 8, 9, 15 May 1932.
Also see, “Open Letter to the Indian Communists” from the CC of the C.P. of China, July 16, Inprecorr, No. 51, 1933.
28. G. Dimitroff, op. cit., p. 68.
29. See “The National United Front” by Harry Pollitt, R.P. Dutt and Ben Bradley, 1936; also the so-called Dutt-Bradley thesis, “The Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in India,” published in
Inprecorr, Vol. 16, Nos. 11-12, 1936.
30. G. Dimitroff, “The War and the Working Class,” 1939, in: G. Adhikari (ed.), op. cit.
31. J. Stalin, Nov. 6, 1941, quoted in P.C. Joshi, “Imperialist War into People’s War,” 1942, in: G. Adhikari (ed.), op. cit.
32. J. Stalin, Speech to the Voters of his District during the Elections to the Supreme Soviet, February 9, 1946, in: J. Stalin, “For Peaceful Co-existence, Post-War Interviews,” International
Publishers, New York, 1951.
33. J. Stalin, 6 November, 1941, quoted in “The Indian Communist Party. Its Policy and Work in the War of Liberation,” op. cit..
34. See Dominique Eudes, “Partisans and Civil War in Greece, 1943-1949,” London, 1972.
35. See Mao Tse-tung, “Some Experiences in Our Party’s History,” September 25, 1956, in: “Selected Works”, Vol. 5, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, p. 326.
36. See R.C. Mazumdar, “History of the Freedom Movement in India,” Vol. III, Calcutta, 1977, p. 493. Also see, Louis Fischer, “The Life of Mahatma Gandhi,” Granada Publishing Ltd, 1982,
p. 436. (c. 1951).
37. Statement by Churchill, 1930, quoted in Pattabhi Sitaramayya, “History of the Indian National Congress, Vol. II, Delhi, 1969, p. 254.
38. Congress Working Committee Resolution, October 22, 1939.
39. See R.C. Mazumdar and S.K. Ghosh, op. cit., for such an understanding of Gandhi’s approach.
40. See P.C. Joshi, “Communist Reply to Congress Working Committee’s Charges, People’s Publishing House, Bombay,1945.
41. Article first published in People’s War of May 20, 1945.
42. Ibid.
[This is a lightly emended version of the Introduction to “War and National Liberation: CPI Documents 1939-1945 edited by P. Bandhu and T.G. Jacob. New Delhi: Odyssey, 1988.]