Paper Presented for Party School in 2023
Party School – 2023
Paper by Com P J James
On the Ideological-Political Line of CPI (ML) Red Star Based on the 12 th Congress
Introduction
1. The Organisational Line of CPI (ML) Red Star in the neo-fascist Indian context is explained in the Paper “On Party Building in Neo-fascist Situation”. For a Communist Party, organisational line or party building is a corollary of its ideological-political line or Party Line as laid down in the basic documents of the Party, namely, Program and Path of Revolution explaining Party’s strategic tasks and Political Resolution unfolding its immediate or short- term task. According to the basic documents of the Party from the 9 th Congress to the 12 th Congress, the Stage and Path of Revolution in India remains unchanged, and continue as that of People’s Democratic Revolution.
2. However, if we take the first two decades of the 21 st century, including more than a decade since the 9 th Congress of our Party in 2011, vast changes which are faster than any previous period in history have taken place at a global level and in our country. These changes, among other things, include the advent of a whole set of ‘frontier technologies’ such as Digitization coupled with Artificial Intelligence which are a 21 st century phenomenon, and utilising them corporate capital’s imposition of an intensified super- exploitation of working class through a renewed global division of labour, new forms of oppression and marginalisation through migration and refugee crisis, unprecedented ecological destruction arising from corporate plunder of nature, hitherto unknown levels of wealth concentration, inequality, poverty, unemployment, etc., and above all, the emergence global neo-fascism with its horrific manifestations and growing inter-imperialist rivalries and sharpening of all inherent contradictions of world imperialism. Linked with this international situation, in India, the most populous country in the world today, RSS, world’s biggest and longest-running fascist organisation with its most inhuman and reactionary ideology of Manuvadi-Hindutva has established a fascist regime with its multi-dimensional impact.
On Updating the Basic Documents
3. Properly evaluating these transformations, the 12 th Party Congress has appropriately updated the Basic Documents as adopted at the 9 th Congress and as amended in the 10 th Congress, especially the Program and Path of Revolution from the Marxist-Leninist perspective of ‘concrete analysis of the concrete situation’. Of course, CPI (ML) Red Star from the very beginning has evaluated the post-war period as that of imperialism’s neocolonial phase. Based on that, the Party has been of the firm position that after the 1947 power transfer to Indian ruling classes, the leading sections of whom today are ‘junior partners of imperialism’, India has been continuing as a neocolonially dependent country.
On the Question of ‘Political Independence’ and ‘Formal Independence’
4. However, though our approach to neocolonialism and characterisation of India as ‘neocolonially dependent’ remains as such, in the minor amendment to the Program adopted in the 10 th Party Congress in 2015 in Lucknow, an erroneous evaluation of 1947 power transfer as ‘political independence, though limited in character’ also was incorporated, as against the conceptualisation of ‘formal independence’ upheld by our basic documents since the Bhopal Special Conference onwards. Obviously, a ‘neocolonial dependence’ and ‘political independence’ are contradictory and inconsistent at the outset.
5. Hence, when the Program was updated in 2022 in accordance with the changes in the concrete situation, after prolonged inner-party debate, the term ‘political independence’ was replaced by ‘formal political independence’. No doubt, the conceptualisation of 1947 power transfer to Indian ruling classes by British colonial masters as ‘political independence’ was also connected with the revisionist perspective of ‘weakening of imperialism’ in the postwar period, as propagated by Khrushchevites. Together with this, another prognosis of India as a ‘new imperialist country’ also appeared in a Seminar paper presented by the MLPD representative during the 10 th Party Congress. Since a country simultaneously remaining ‘neocolonially dependent’ and ‘new imperialist’ being impossible, from the very beginning, our Party had totally rejected this hypothesis of ‘new imperialism’. At the same time, we cannot be oblivious to the ideological link between proponents of ‘political independence’ and ‘new imperialism’, since the possibility of a ‘politically independent’ country becoming ‘imperialist’ is perfectly in consonance with the laws of motion of capital today.
6. The formulations of ‘political independence’ and ‘new imperialism’ have other ideological-political dimensions, especially in relation to the principal contradiction as elucidated in the Program of CPI (ML) Red Star. For instance, of the five major contradictions adopted by our Party at the international level, the contradiction between imperialism on the one hand, and oppressed peoples and nations on the other, is the principal contradiction. In the same vein, the contradiction between the alliance of imperialist- corporate bureaucratic bourgeois-landlord classes on the one hand, and the broad masses of people on the other, is the principal contradiction with in India.
7. Thus, according to our Party Program, imperialism is the main enemy not only of world people, vast majority of whom are living in Afro-Asian-Latin American countries, but also for the Indian people as a whole. On the other hand, according to the hypothesis of ‘new imperialism’, vast majority of the people are living in imperialist countries, and not in neocolonially dependent countries. This is inconsistent with concrete reality and is an outright violation of the very core (stage and path of revolution) of our Party program. That is why, along with rejecting the new imperialist hypothesis, while updating the Program, we replaced ‘political independence’ with ‘formal political independence’.
On Concrete Analysis of Indian Society and Interrelation among Class Struggle, Caste Struggle and Gender Struggle
8. On understanding class India, since the 9 th Congress itself, CPI (ML) Red Star has taken a clear-cut position against the mechanical or copy-paste method pursued by many ‘communist’ parties. As such, in analysing class with respect to the specific, historically determined Indian social formation, the Party took the firm position that both class and caste are integral and inseparable. That is, class struggle in India is intertwined and interwoven with the struggle for abolition of the caste system which is a strategic task and not a tactical one. Hence the Path of Revolution adopted by the 9 th Congress opines: “Fighting caste oppression and campaigning for caste annihilation are not in the agenda of many organisations, or even when it is included, no concrete plan of action is put forward. It is the consequence of the reality that even after 150 years of experience of the Communist Movement, the mechanical imposition of the China Wall between revolution in the economic base and revolution in the superstructure is not removed. That is why the close relation between class struggle and struggle against caste system is not correctly understood and the mechanical approach that class struggle will solve all questions like the caste problem is still put forward repeatedly. This mechanical approach should be replaced by the dialectical relation between struggles at these two levels. Or a comprehensive understanding about class struggle itself has to be developed.”
9. Based on this Marxist approach of concretely analysing Indian society, we have already rejected the mechanical and reductionist approach to caste — that caste shall vanish once ‘class struggle’ becomes victorious or that climbing the economic ladder enables a person to overcome the social stigma associated with caste. On the other hand, caste being intertwined and interwoven with India’s mode of production or social formation, according to our Party’s position, rather than a super-structural issue, it cuts across both base and superstructure, and caste continues to play its major role in spite of the penetration of capital into the micro spheres of our society and not merely connected with feudalism as claimed by certain parties, or a “meagre role” as claimed by the erstwhile minority section within the party. Today, our Party position is that in spite of leading many heroic struggles of Dalits and other oppressed, the inability on the part of the erstwhile communist leadership to grasp the caste question in the proper perspective has led to the alienation of the oppressed castes from the communist movement. And we also have an understanding that the rift between the Communist Party and the movement of the Dalits and oppressed castes is to be urgently resolved by taking a positive approach towards Ambedkar and the Ambedkarite movement in general.
10. In the other Party Documents and writings pertaining to caste too, we have consistently pointed out that over the decades even after Power Transfer, caste system has been gaining more and more strength without any let up as is manifested in the mounting discrimination, oppression, atrocities, untouchability and all round alienation and deprivation of the Dalits with region-wise specificity in multi-national, multi cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-religious India. And it is from this perspective that in the context of the 9 th Congress, CPI (ML) Red Star had taken initiative to form the Caste Annihilation Movement (CAM) to carry forward the ideological-political struggle against Brahmanical Manuvadi caste system in all its manifestations and to strive for the ultimate goal of annihilating caste system fully grasping the dialectical link between class struggle and the struggle for the abolition of caste. Along with CAM, over the years the Party has been earnestly engaged in acquiring more ideological and historical clarity on caste question including developing the required practical struggles in this regard.
11. However, when the task of updating the Party Program was taken up, RSS whose ideological basis is Manusmriti, using its political tool BJP, has already transformed India into a neofascist regime. According to Manusmriti, or Manuvadi-Hindutva, vast majority of the workers and toilers who belong to the ‘untouchable’ and oppressed castes and women are subhuman. And RSS is engaged in converting the Indian Constitution in tune with Manusmriti. In this context, when the Central Committee resolved to situate RSS neofascism in the historical roots of ‘Manuism’ in the updated documents, a few members comprising a minority section, despite their anti-caste rhetoric, vehemently opposed Party’s clear-cut position on caste and eventually went out of the Party. For instance, on the eve of the updated Program drafting, the entire pages of 2021 March Issue of ‘Marxist-Leninist’, theoretical journal of CPI (ML) Red Star were set apart for debate on caste in which this minority’s mechanical approach to caste totally disregarding how caste cuts across various modes of production was also published in detail.
12. Today, many self-proclaimed Marxist scholars claim that caste will wither away through the onward march of modernity and penetration of capitalist relations in to India. This they do based on the experience from Europe where the advance of capitalism could strike at the foundations of feudal, pre-capitalist and patriarchal relations. By hoping to repeat the same in India, these scholars are exposing their inability to comprehend how caste could comfortably sit even on the seat of modern science and technology in India. And corporate capital that penetrated in to the countryside has no qualm to integrate itself with the archaic and inhuman practices such as Khap Panchayat like most despicable caste institutions. As manifested in the renowned ongoing case in a California court against untouchability, Brahmanical techies who migrated to US have succeeded to export caste even to the Silicon Valley-the embodiment of the so called most advanced frontier technology today. The City council of Seattle has recently passed a resolution banning the practice of untouchability which was vehemently opposed by expatriate Manuvadis. Thus an economic interpretation of social change alone is incapable to unravel the underlying forces working at the macro level. To reiterate, today caste remains at the very centre of Indian counterrevolution and Communists have to take up the task of overcoming it as integral part of class struggle against imperialism and its lackeys.
13. In this context, especially in the critical situation of RSS neo-fascism, our basic documents have emphasised all-out offensive against Manuvadi-Hindutva, the ideological basis of RSS together with our uncompromising struggle against neoliberal corporatisation. In this regard, the first four paragraphs of Chapter 3 of our Party Program explains how the caste system evolved through the ancient, medieval and modern periods integrating with the changing modes of production and emerging classes, cutting across base and superstructure, assuming new dimensions of oppression and discrimination and adapting itself to political-economic changes.
14. And, it is in continuation of this historical perspective on caste and in view of the “inherent contradictions and tensions in caste-ridden Indian society” that in Chapter 5 relating to Program of People’s Democracy, the Party opines: “ 5.12 The People’s Democratic State shall take concrete steps for the abolition of the inhuman caste system, eradicate all forms of untouchability, caste-oppression and caste-discrimination from all spheres of life. All caste-practices and reactionary institutions should be suppressed and the perpetrators of such crimes shall be punished. Ensuring caste-based reservation till the wiping out of all caste-discriminations along with required affirmative actions for uplifting the Dalits and oppressed castes and priority to them in land-distribution based on the principle ‘land to the tiller’, along with appropriate administrative and cultural interventions.” Further, in conformity with this position, the 12 th Party Congress unanimously adopted two resolutions in relation to caste: one, on the need of a code of conduct for Party Comrades’ approach to caste and, two, on giving up caste surnames by Central Committee comrades.
15. In the same vein, along with the caste system, the updated Party Program as adopted by the 12 th Congress upheld the question of gender or gender struggle also as inseparable aspect of class struggle. Just as class struggle is directed against the exploiter class, and the struggle for annihilation of caste system is manifested in the form of struggle against the oppressor caste, gender struggle aims at elimination of all forms of gender inequality which is inevitable for democratisation of Indian society where patriarchy based on Manusmriti treats women as subhuman. Party Program says: “5.13 Stop all forms of gender discrimination. Abolish patriarchy in all its manifestations and stop religion and caste-based oppression on women. Stop all forms of discrimination and attacks on women at work places. Stop female infanticide. Ensure women’s equality in all fields, property right to women and equal pay for equal work. All women shall have opportunities to engage in socially productive labor with women-specific and genderfriendly working conditions. In the place of the patriarchal, religious-caste-based family system, the People’s State shall ensure conjugal life of partners irrespective of gender, based on mutual love, respect and consent. “5.14 In view of the exploitation, oppression and marginalization suffered by people of different genders and sexualities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, etc. (LGBTQIA+), the People’s Democratic State shall take appropriate measures for the protection of the entire spectrum of people that come under the broad category of LGBTQIA+.” These tasks are incorporated in to the Program of People’s Democracy in conformity with our ideological political line that both caste struggle and gender struggle are integral part of class struggle in India.
On RSS Neo-fascism and the Anti-Fascist Struggle
16 . While the strategic task of our Party is to establish a people’s democratic state overcoming imperialism and its junior Indian partners, today the immediate task before us is to defeat RSS neo-fascism, which has been comprehensively elucidated in the Political Resolution adopted by the 12 th Party Congress. We have elaborated this task further including understanding of RSS neo-fascism and on the anti-fascist front in the articles published especially in our organ Red Star. What requires is the building up of the broadest possible anti-fascist united front against the RSS/BJP regime joining with all like-minded forces including non-fascist parties and organisations. However, as communists, in doing so, we should not surrender our strategic task of struggling for the class interests of the working class and all oppressed. This is possible only if we are capable to uphold our independent ideological line while being part of the broadest anti-fascist front. To accomplish this, we have to work at three levels.
a. First is to build up the Party based on the Program and Path of Revolution. In this regard, the Political Resolution explains: “5.8. In building up the Party with country-wide influence and for leading democratic and revolutionary struggles in the concrete Indian context, while assimilating lessons from erstwhile people’s democratic and socialist experiences, the integral link among class, caste and gender struggles and struggle for ecological protection should be taken up. That is, the party building process needs to assimilate the comprehensive inter-relationship among class struggle, struggle for caste annihilation, for gender equality and for ecological protection. Thus a party equipped with revolutionary theory and having practical experience from leading different struggles of workers, peasants, and all oppressed including women and the entire spectrum of genders, adivasis and dalits and that of environmental protection is the urgent need today.”
b. Second is to build up a Left core of all fraternal and revolutionary parties based on a common minimum program against neoliberal corporatisation in all its manifestations. This all India Left core comprises state-level coordinations composed of like-minded revolutionary-left organisations upholding the interests of the vast majority of the working and oppressed peoples.
c. This Left Coordination shall form the starting point for the tactical alliance against fascism or broadest possible anti-fascist united front in which non-fascist ruling class parties and social democrats are also a part. This alliance with an anti-fascist common agenda against RSS neo-fascism also encompasses appropriate ideological struggle against Manuvadi- Hindutva, ideological base of Indian fascism too. While differentiating from the strategic alliance of workigng class and oppressed peoples against the ruling system and neoliberalism, this tactical alliance can also effectively utilise the contradictions within ruling classes in the fight against fascism.
17. If we properly pursue this approach, it will facilitate the strengthening of the anti-fascist movement and creation of the atmosphere for a broad electoral front capable to defeat RSS/BJP in the 2024 election on the one hand, and the presence of a people’s movement capable to resist the threat of a fascist come back thereafter, on the other.
On Ecological Question and Class Struggle
18. CPI (ML) Red Star’s firm position is that ecological issues are inseparable from corporate accumulation and plunder of nature by capital. Hence the struggle for an environmentally sustainable, pro-people development paradigm is inseparably linked with class struggle. Taking the gravity of the ecological question in the proper perspective that it is one of the basis questions to be resolved as part of class struggle, in the 9th Congress itself the Party had incorporated the contradiction between capital and nature as the fifth major contradiction both at the international and national level.
19. Reiterating this position, the Party Program adopted by the 12th Congress states: “3.23. In conformity with the conspicuous international trend towards intensified plunder of nature by corporate-speculative capital under neoliberalism, India also has been witnessing unprecedented ecological devastation during this neoliberal phase. At the instance of global corporates and their Indian junior partners, all laws and regulations in India pertaining to environmental protection are being taken way one by one. The latest EIA amendment, that legalizes the corporate violation of hitherto restrictions on ecologically sensitive and fragile areas and massive displacement of people from their habitat, is the most notorious among them. An essential component of the so called “ease of doing business” and “investorfriendly” measures taken to attract foreign capital is the import of ecologically harmful and toxic industries and dumping of obsolete nuclear plants in the country. At this critical juncture, when the whole issue of ecology and environment is inseparably linked up with the operation of corporate capital, the initiative for a development paradigm in harmony with nature has become the indispensable component of people’s democracy and socialism.” Now the task before the Party is to carry forward this ideological-political line through appropriate organisational initiatives.
Conclusion
20. The core issues of our Party’s ideological-political line highlighted above are that linked with the inner-party struggle leading to the 12 th Party Congress. On many important issues such as federal question, our Party has its distinct line. For instance, instead of the superimposed unitary character of the State, the People’s Democratic State envisaged in the Party Program is fully in consonance with the multi-national, multi-lingual, multi cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious character of India. Hence the Program of People’s Democracy envisaged by the Party is distinguished by a Constitution based on Federal Principles upholding the linguistic, ethnic, economic and cultural rights of nationalities that constitute India. Including this, to get an overall view of our Party Line, all members have to thoroughly read and comprehend the basic documents in their mother tongue. Hence all State Committees have to take up the task of translating them at the earliest and party study-classes based on them are to be arranged in a time-bound manner.
