International proletariat together with all oppressed peoples and progressive-democratic forces the world over are observing 1 May 2024 as 139th May Day. In solidarity with the historic movement for 8-hour working day initiated by Chicago workers on 1 May 1886, and in commemoration of the martyrdom of workers in Haymarket, it was the International Federation of Socialist Groups and Trade Unions that designated May 1 as International Workers’ Day. October Revolution and establishment of Soviet Union followed by formation Comintern gave an impetus to May Day celebration throughout the world with the clarion call “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite” against capitalist-imperialist system.

Following October Revolution, there had been a world-wide surge in working class and anti-colonial movements for almost half a century. And, especially since the defeat of fascist regimes and along with the transformation of UK-led colonialism to US-led neocolonialism, bourgeois regimes in imperialist countries as well as dependent regimes in Afro-Aisian Latin American countries were forced to concede many democratic rights to the workers and toiling people under the label of so called ‘welfare state’s that lingered on till the onset of the imperialist crisis called “stagflation” in the 1970s. And, 8-hour working day had been the accepted norm and essential component of the state-led welfare policies at a global level. However, the imperialist crisis since the 1970s and abandoning of welfare state by imperialism facilitated by the ideological-political setbacks suffered by the International Left, paved the way for the advent of neoliberalism that imparted unfettered freedom to corporate capital for plundering labour and nature.

Consequently, all hard-earned democratic rights of working class through yesteryear’s heoric struggle are being snatched away. At a time when rapid technological advancements have brought about several-fold increase in productivity of labour, rather than contributing to an increase  in workers’ real wages and reduction in the working time, it actually led to skyrocketing of profit rates and wealth accumulation by corporate capital. While corporate wealth accumulation reached hitherto unknown levels, workers have been subjected to horrific levels of super-exploitation and surplus-value extraction. With the backing of new production and processing technologies, reactionary corporate capital unleashed a new international division of labour called “flexible specialisation” and a “global informalisation” of the workforce,  driving many millions of workers to unemployment, underemployment and contractualisation, and in the process transformed the whole world into a “wasteland of unemployment”. The 21st century “new technological revolution” marked by the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence and its no holds barred application in the tertiary/service sector of the economy where majority of the workforce are engaged today, if not resisted and appropriately reversed, will push world working class and entire humanity into an untoward disaster.

However, under the surging tide of far-right neofascism now being unleashed across both imperialist and neocolonially oppressed countries, the condition of the working class and all oppressed is becoming still more vulnerable. While unprecedented growth in both the number of global billionaires and accumulation of wealth with them driving the working class and oppressed peoples to joblessness, poverty, hunger and deprivation are the trends on the one hand,  backed by anti-Communist, Islamophobic and extreme xenophobic ideologies, neofascist regimes across the world are superimposing draconian laws and biggest-ever inhuman burdens over migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, on the other. And as a manifestation of the intensifying crisis of imperialism, inter-imperialist contradictions and geopolitical tensions are sharpening even as imperialist sponsored wars are continuing in many “hot-spots” without any let up. The  burdens of these imperialist-fascist offensives are also put on the shoulders of working and oppressed people.

The prolonged Ukraine war that began with imperialist Russia’s attack on Ukraine is now continuing as an inter-imperialist war between US-led NATO and Russia where Ukraine has become a proxy and a pawn in the hands of NATO. The root cause of the Ukraine war has been the US imperialist manoeuvres to reinvigorate the NATO by compelling the neo-Nazi Ukraine regime to join NATO.  The Ukraine war while facilitated to fill more wealth into the coffers of US-EU MNCs, has added further burdens onto the shoulders of world’s working and oppressed people through rise in the prices of fuel, food and other essential items of sustenance. More disastrous are the US-EU backed Zionist horrors on the Palestine people. Here too, the Military Industrial Comp!exes and tech-giants of US imperialism are the biggest gainers, even as US is working as a co-belligerent of Zionist war crimes and genocide in Gaza where death toll, majority of them being women and children, has reached almost 35000. It is heartwarming that many Communist parties, workering class unions, democratic and human rights movements, and students organisations  the world over have come forward resolutely condemning the Zionists. At the same time, instead of standing in solidarity with Palestinian resistance against Imperialist-Zionist axis, it is a pity that some other so called Eurocentric Communist parties infected with Islamophobia have no qualms to come up with their apologetic thesis of balancing Palestinian resistance with Zionism.

 Coming to India, the most populous country, and hence comprising one of the largest contingents of international proletariat, RSS, world’s biggest and longest-running fascist organisation is holding the reins of the reactionary fascist regime here today. Being far-right and pro-corporate in essence, both RSS and its political tool BJP, claimed as world’s biggest political party, that serves the most corrupt elements of corporate capital, the Indian regime led by Modi is the biggest enemy of Indian working class, vast majority of whom are informal or unorganised, condemned to sell their labour power at the cheapest wages. The neofascist move by Modi government converting the prevailing 44 Labour Laws into four Labour Codes – Code on Wages, code on Industrial Relations, Code on Social Security and Code on Occupational Safety, Health  and Working conditions – in conformity with the “ease of doing business” diktat promulgated by Fund-Bank-WTO trio and imperialist think-tanks at the behest of global corporate capital and its junior Indian partners are intended to transform the Indian workers into 21st century bonded/slave labourers who are bound to work on casual and contract basis devoid of basic democratic/human rights. Long-cherished goals of the working class such as 8-hour working day, permanent employment, pension system, equal pay for equal work, gender-friendly working conditions and so on have become a myth under fascist Modi regime.  Even the allocation to the much trumpeted Employment Guarantee Scheme is drastically reduced over the years, at a time when India is undergoing the biggest unemployment in recorded history. And as part of neoliberal-corporatisation, the Modi government, after transforming itself as a corporate-facilitator has already withdrawn from all infrastructure, industrial and service sectors and everything is entrusted with the most corrupt corporate billionaires for plundering labour and nature as they like.

Under Modi, who came to power on an anti-corruption plank, India has become one among world’s most corrupt countries and a flourishing example of crony capitalism defined as the unholy nexus between corrupt corporates and ruling regime. Policy decisions are made in corporate board rooms while parliament remains as a mere spectator. The notorious Electoral Bond Scheme that allowed corrupt companies to make unlimited, non-transparent contributions to BJP was just one of the manifestions of the flourishing corruption under Modi regime. Due to unprecedented wealth contration among crony capitalists, the widening of the gap between the poor and the rich reached hitherto unknown levels. As a result, the top one percent of super-rich Indians holds more income than that under British colonialism, while that of bottom 50 percent today is less than what it was in 1951. Corporate crony capitalists in whom India’s wealth is concentrated and who are totally depending on imperialist centres for technology and expertise are least interested in employment-generating real production and are engaged in money-spinning speculative businesses. As a result, unemployment has become unprecedented, while working class and oppressed people with steeply going down real income and declining purchasing power are unable even to subsist amidst sky-rocketing prices of food, fuel, medicine and other items. With world’s majority of of “absolute poor” inhabiting India, it is called a “citadel of global poverty” today.

And, in its madding pace towards the ultimate goal of a majoritarian theocratic Hindurashtra, the RSS-BJP fascists are very adept in using the reactionary ideologies of anti-Islam or Islamophobia, anti-Communism and Manuvadi casteism. Effectively utilising the imperialist-sponsored global Islamophobia including the “de-Islamisation” moves in Europe today, RSS, in accordance with its founding approach towards Muslims as enemy number one, is now engaged in denying citizenship to Muslims or making them second class citizens through Constitutional and administrative routes. And along with incorporating economic reservation and thereby undermining caste-based reservation, RSS-BJP is in the process of altering the character of Indian Constitution based on the tenets of Manusmriti according to which Dalits and women are subhuman. To be precise, regarding the liberation of Dalits, the untouchables and women who are the most oppressed, nothing is envisaged by the proponents of Hindutva or political Hinduism.

To cap it all, with its expansionist designs as a regional power in South Asia, and as a junior parner of US imperialism, fascist Modi regime’s arrogant approach is visible in its relation with all neighbouring countries. While Modi government’s basic inability to handle the border question with imperialist China is known to all, it was it’s big-brotherly approach to neighbours that made the SAARC totally defunct. Being a big market for global arms dealers, tech-giants and MNCs, while Indian regime can bargain with imperialist powers as is reflected in its deal between US imperialism and Russian imperialism regarding Ukraine, the Modi regime faithfully remains as a strategic junior partner of US imperialism in latter’s Indo-Pacific machinations targeted against China. Modi government has already abandoned all its non-alignment traditions and is taking a conspicuously antagonistic position towards oppressed nations and peoples. In continuation of the RSS’ Islamophobic campaign in collaboration with Zionists through its innumerable affiliates especially based in US, the Modi  government, in violation of India’s fraternal approach to Palestinian people, has taken a position more or less in tune with the US -Zionist axis. In the same vein, the Indian regime today pursues a cordial relation with many neo-fascist groups and movements in Europe too.

At this critical juncture, while declaring solidarity with the world-wide struggles of the working class and all oppressed against neofascism, imperialism and all ruling classes and against their policies leading to wars, super-exploitation, environmental destruction and repressions, the Indian working class, all toiling and oppressed people of India have the immediate task of overthrowing the most oppressive and most reactionary fascist regime of RSS-BJP. While extending warmest May Day greetings to international proletariat and all oppressed peoples of the world, and while building up revolutionary and fraternal  comradeship with them and all like-minded forces in the struggle for people’s democracy and socialism, the revolutionary Communists and all democratic forces in India today have a two-pronged but interrelated tasks in front of them. First is the strategic task of resisting and defeating the biggest-ever far-right, corporate-fascist offensive against the class interests of workers and oppressed people. However, under fascism that denies even the basic democratic rights, this long-term task can be taken up only by creating minimum conditions necessary for raising such issues. This leads to the immediate and urgent task of overcoming the most reactionary RSS  fascism at t he earliest. That is, while resolutely fighting neoliberal-corporatisation in all its manifestations, including the biggest-ever corporate onslaught on labour and nature, a struggle indispensable for survival not only of workers but of humanity and the entire planet earth, the working class of India along with all oppressed and democratic forces are bound to take up the immediate task of overthrowing the Manuvadi-fascist regime by taking initiative for building up the broadest possible anti-fascist people’s front uniting with all like-minded forces.

Therefore, when we commemorate May Day at this critical juncture when RSS with Islamophobia and most inhuman Brahmanical caste-system as its ideological base is super-imposing its fascist stranglehold over the Indian people, it is the indispensable task of the working class to rise up against this horrific situation utilising all options at its disposal. That is, while upholding solidarity with their international  counterparts, it is the solemn task India’s workers and oppressed to commemorate this May Day calling for a no-holds-barred offensive against RSS fascism. This is indispensable for creating the conditions for taking up the strategic march towards the establishment of people’s democracy and socialism in solidarity with all workers and oppressed peoples  of the world today.

Long Live May day !

Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite !

Down with Imperialism and Fascism !

March Towards People’s Democracy and Socialism !

P J James

General Secretary

CPI (ML) Red Star

New Delhi

30th April 2023

Today, 22 April 2024 marks the 154th birthday of Comrade Lenin. As we all know, October Revolution and establishment of Soviet Union, the theory and practice of which were pioneered by Lenin, for the first time had raised socialism to the agenda of world history as the alternative to capitalism.

Further, for Communists the world over, Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, as it was Lenin who developed Marxism based on a concrete analysis of capitalism’s transformation into imperialism since the late 19th century. And, it was in pursuance of this, that Lenin initiated “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite” as the strategic slogan and clarion call of the Communist International since it’s Second Congress in 1920. It implied that  Socialist Revolution in imperialist countries and Peoples Democratic Revolution in countries which are under imperialist oppression are the two streams of World Proletarian Revolution in the epoch of imperialism.

CPI (ML) Red Star observes April 22, Lenin’s birth date, as Party Formation Day since CPI (ML) was founded on April 22, 1969. Of course, the Communist Party of India was founded in Tashkent in 1920 with Mohammad Shafiq as Secretary, and has a glorious history of many valiant struggles against British colonialism and Indian exploiters. However, on account of its failure to recognise the historically determined integral link between India’s inhuman caste system and class formation, the Communist could not carry forward the task of revolution. And though CPM was formed in 1964 following the inner-party struggle against revisionism of CPI leadership, the former also could not make a break from revisionist positions. As a result, the ideological -political struggle against CPM’s neo-revisionism led to the Naxalbari Uprising in May 1967 leading to the formation of CPI (ML) on April 22, 1969.

Today, when we are observing Lenin’s birth day/Party Formation Day, together with imperialism’s  neoliberal oppression and super-exploitation, propped up by the most reactionary elements of imperialist finance capital, world people are passing through the horrors of neofascism too. India is a typical example of this neofascism. In addition to the neoliberal-neocolonial oppression over India, Indian people are under the vicious grip neofascism led by RSS, the biggest and longest-running fascist organisation in history. As part of RSS’ majoritarian Hindurashatra agenda, the religious minorities, especially Muslims, are targeted and wantonly attacked,  even as efforts are in full swing to deny citizenship right to Muslims by altering the secular character of Constitution through CAA. Since  Manusmriti, the ideological basis of RSS, treats Dalits and women as subhuman, they are also stigmatised and even being denied the minimum demcratic rights enshrined in the Constitution for them.  And RSS that controls both State power and street power, micro and macro spaces, and the entire civil and military spheres of India today, is also engaged in dismantling the present Constitution and replacing it with Manusmriti, it’s long-cherished demand since the adoption of the Constitution during the 1949-50 period.

Meanwhile, as we know, due to the influence of sectarian and adventurist positions, the CPI (ML) that formed in 1969 and the Party Program adopted at the 8th Congress in 1970 failed to make an objective evaluation of the postwar neocolonial phase of imperialism and it’s concrete manifestations in India. This erroneous evaluation coupled with left adventurist practice that was effectively used by the Indian regime for repression led to a disintegration of the of CPI (ML) formed in 1969. However, after the revocation of Emergency, many efforts were taken up rejecting the sectarian approach on the one hand, and evaluation of the neocolonial transformation at a global level and in India. It was this long drawn-out initiative at the level of ideological-political struggle as well as efforts at reorganization of the revolutionary  movement totally abandoning the sectarian line that culminated in the formulation of a Program and Path of Revolution in line with People’s Democratic Revolution in India and convening of the 9th Party Congress of CPI (ML) Red Star in 2011.

The 12th Party Congress conducted in September 2022, after taking into consideration the neoliberal-neofascist offensive by imperialism together with the horrific manifestions of mounting RSS fascism in India has updated the Party Documents so as to carry forward the Party’s strategic tasks as laid down in the Program and Path of Revolution and the tactical or immediate task of defeating RSS fascism as laid down in the Political Resolution.

In this context, the All India Anti-fascist Peoples Convention convened by CPI (ML) Red Star in Nagpur on 10 March 2024 has adopted the Nagpur Declaration which has appealed to the people of India to rise up and move forward to save the country from the stranglehold of RSS-Corporate Fascism by resolutely resisting and defeating BJP, the political tool of RSS in the  ongoing 18th parliament election. While appealing to people to tactically use their voting power with this perspective, the Party has called  for people to rise up against Islamophobia in all its forms, uncompromisingly strive for annihilation of the most inhuman Caste system and work together to build-up a People’s Alternative to neoliberal corporatisation.

While taking up these domestic tasks, the Party upholds its solemn task of achieving ideological clarity on the working of imperialism according to the concrete situation today, especially in the neofascist global context. Since imperialism  continues as the principal enemy of the world people, it is our task to go for prolonged ideological- political offensive against world imperialism that also requires overthrowing of the reactionary ruling system. Let’s commemorate Lenin’s birth day/ Party Formation Day with this solemn spirit.

P J James

General Secretary

CPI (ML) Red Star

New Delhi

22nd April 2024

The “encounter killings” of 29 Maoists at Kanker on 16 April claimed by police as the “biggest encounter ever” in Chattisgarh calls for condemnation by all democratic forces. Though the details of the “encounter”, where no casualties are there on the part of security forces, are yet to come, unilateral use of force is self-evident from the reports and more so in the context of the latest claim of authorities that Maoist “cadre base is dying down and their area of influence is shrinking”. Therefore, other than the exigencies of Election, there is no compelling need for unleashing such a horror on a force that is “dying down”, as claimed by BJP regime. And, since the BJP’s coming to power,  encounter killings are on the rise. On 2 April, 14 people including innocent villagers were killed in Bijapur. And, according to information, in the latest killings, along with Maoists, even Adivasis and children are also killed, as reported.

The CPI (ML) Red Star is consistent in exposing the ideological-political bankruptcy of  CPI (Maoist) and we are of the firm position that both the strategy and tactics of Maoism are far removed from concrete national and international reality today. And we earnestly appeal to the Maoist cadres to rethink on their line in view of the overall qualitative transformations in the  neoliberal-neofascist context.

However, differing positions should not be a justification for  unleashing fascist state horror and cold-blooded killings of political opponents in gross disregard of accepted human rights and in violation of rule of law. We appeal to all concerned people to be beware of the fascist  tactic of using such state horrors for disorienting people and diverting their attention from the core issues they are confronting on account of the corporate-saffron fascist policies in the context of the General Election.

We resolutely condemn this massive “encounter killings” and appeal to all democratic forces and well-meaning people to come forward strongly opposing it.

P J James

General Secretary

CPI (ML) Red Star

New Delhi

17th April 2024

P J James

On 14 April 2024, Indian people are celebrating the 134th birthday of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, “Father of Indian Constitution”. As exemplified in the 25 December 1927 ceremonial burning of Manusmriti that categorized the oppressed untouchable castes and women as subhuman, and advancing of the Hindu Code Bill to the Constituent Assembly on 6 April 1948, Dr Ambedkar stands ahead as the celebrated and undisputed leader of India’s most oppressed untouchables and lower caste people comprising vast majority of the working and toiling people together with his utmost dedication to women’s empowerment and gender equality. According to him, under the Manu code, Barhamnism had made the life of the untouchables and women worse than that of animals. Quite logically, Ambedkar is also acknowledged as the greatest ideological enemy of Hindutva.

 Today, when we are commemorating Dr. Ambedkar, RSS, world’s biggest and longest-running fascist organisation which, through its political tool BJP, is already having its hold over the reins of India’s State power and Street power. It is now in a madding pace towards its ultimate objective of transforming India into a Hindurashtra that entails the undermining of the present Indian Constitution itself. For, when the Constituent Assembly was adopting the Indian Constitution and India was becoming a Republic in 1950, the RSS was proposing Manusmriti, its ideological guide as Constitution that Ambedkar had set on fire two decades back.

Along with the burning of Ambedkar’s effigy in Ram Lila ground for his proposal of the Hindu Code Bill in 1949, while India was finally adopting the Republican Constitution, Golwalkar and other leaders of RSS had no qualms in proposing Manusmriti, the ideological basis of caste system (which Ambedkar called “the bible of slavery for untouchables”), as India’s Constitution. Among other things, the RSS then said: “… in our Constitution, there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.” This was perfectly in tune with the total identification of Indian nation with casteism as propounded by the then RSS leaders.

For a wide spectrum of left liberals including self-professed communists whom Ambedkar called “Brahmin boys”, Manusmriti-based caste system and/or a caste-based Hindutva nation was a mere super-structural and ‘cultural’ issue. But for Ambedkar, together with stigmatisation of Muslims and targeting them as main enemy of the nation, a caste-based Hindutva nation meant a situation where the twice-born Brahmanical castes would be prevailing upon Dalits, oppressed castes and women. Therefore, in contradistinction to the RSS position of a Hindurashtra based on Manusmriti, Dr Ambedkar had noted: “If Hindu Raj becomes a reality, it will undoubtedly be the greatest misfortune of this country. Whatever Hindus may say, Hinduism is a threat to liberty, equality and fraternity. This is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj should be prevented from being established at any cost.”

As a matter of fact, Dr Ambedkar’s views on Hindutva and his warnings about the dangers of a plausible Hindurashtra including his observation on it as a “veritable chamber of caste horror” were coming out at a particular historical context, when the presence of RSS in the political limelight was fading and the establishment of a Hindurashtra led by it was a remote possibility and its credibility being at its lowest ebb. As is obvious, this was on account of Hindutva leadership’s altogether betrayal of the Indian independent struggle and castigation of Muslims as the principal enemy of the nation coupled with RSS’ role in the political developments following Transfer of Power. However, today the situation is basically different and extremely dangerous.

In the overall background of the far-right, neofascist world situation today, and taking advantage of the set-backs suffered by the Indian communists whose ideological-political bankruptcy is more manifested in their failure to concretely analyse caste-ridden Indian society, the far-right RSS and Sangh Parivar have already established their stranglehold over the entire macro and micro spaces of Indian society with deep-rooted Hindutva fascist tentacles in the country’s political, economic and cultural spheres. With RSS control over the entire civil and military administration, judiciary, police, education, scientific research, history writing, art and literature and so on, the “Hindu raj” that Ambedkar cautioned and fought against almost a century ago starting with his burning of Manusmriti in 1927 is unfolding in its full-fledged form today. What remains is a formal declaration of it and the RSS/BJP fascist forces are engaged in accomplishing that task by securing a hat-trick win for Modi regime in the 18th Lok Sabha Election. And, this is the last chance before the Indian people to avoid such a threatening situation.

In retrospect, the greatness of Babasaheb Ambedkar lies in the fact that he is the only Indian political leader who was far-sighted enough to predict the dangerous consequences of a Hindurashrastra based on his analysis of Caste and the struggle and practice against Manuvadi Hindutva. Therefore, at this critical juncture, and when Indian people are observing the 134th birth anniversary of Ambedkar, it is high time on the part of the Communists to self-critically evaluate why they failed to have a proper perspective on the caste question and formulate appropriate steps including the badly needed unity with the working class and most oppressed castes who comprise India’s super-exploited working majority.  Only such a formidable struggling unity of the working class and all oppressed by the inhuman caste system alone can provide the strategic base for resisting and defeating Indian fascism.

Those who have gone through the declassified documents from Vatican archives and are aware of the despicable role played by Roman Catholic Church during the “holocaust days” will not be astonished by the screening of Islamophobic “Kerala Story” by the Catholic Church in Kerala in the present fascist situation. When Hitler was massacring the Catholics, on account of its extreme anti-Semitism, the Vatican had been continuing it’s unholy nexus with fascist Hitler and Mussolini.

  In the same vein, as reported from Manipur and from other parts of India, while Christians are wantonly attacked and churches are demolished by Hindutva fascist goons, it is due to their extreme “anti-Muslimness” that the Church leaders are resorting to this highly condemnable move of screening an Islamophobic film to its students and young generations. Obviously, in the context of Lok Sabha Election, its added dimension is to influence Christain voters towards fascists and to their allies at the helm of affairs in Kerala now, who are faithfully implementing all fascist policies.

P J James