This paper was presented at the International Seminar on The Future of Marxism, Democracy & Socialism (18-20 December 2024), organized by the EMS Chair for Marxian Studies and Research, University of Calicut.
The communist movement in India is now a century old. While there are different opinions regarding the actual foundation day of the communist party, the CPI and CPI(ML) both recognise 26 December 1925 as the formal foundation day of the CPI as a party. By all accounts, we can identify the early 1920s as the period when communist ideas and activities had begun to take shape in India and the movement is therefore clearly a century old in India.
The purpose of this paper is however not to revisit the history of the communist movement in India but to draw inspiration and lessons from the past to focus on the challenges of the present. Broadly we can divide the first century of the communist movement in India into four phases - the colonial era, post-Independence period leading to the Emergency and its aftermath, the post-1990s period of neoliberal policies and aggressive ascendance of Hindutva far right, and the current period of outright fascist offensive.
Internationally too, this period can be divided into similar phases. While the period till 1949 witnessed the remarkable global rise and consolidation of the communist movement marked by victorious revolutions in Russia (November 1917) and China (October 1949) and decisive politico-military defeat of the fascist alliance in World War II, the victorious Cuban revolution (1959) and defeat of US imperialism in the Vietnam war (1975) marked the high points of the post-War period.
The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War phase and pushed the world into a new phase of imperialist aggression and corporate plunder. While the communist or socialist movement is yet to regain lost ground in the old Soviet bloc region, during this period it has discovered more hospitable turf in Latin America and Asia. However, in large parts of the world we are currently witnessing a renewed rise of the fascistic far right.
During its formative years, the initial inspiration and impetus for the communist movement came from the success of the Russian revolution and from the deep urges of freedom from colonial rule, feudal oppression and social slavery within India. Beyond the formal camp of communists, the impact of the Russian revolution ran deep in India's anti-colonial awakening and the quest for social equality and emancipation. From Bhagat Singh and his comrades to Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and from Ambedkar to Periyar, we can see this impact in India's freedom movement, social justice movement, literature and other fields of popular culture.
In some countries communists were successful in emerging as the leading political force in the course of anti-colonial struggles and integrating the agenda of national liberation with the task of building or advancing towards socialism. In India, communists made considerable progress, but did not succeed in emerging as the leading current. Yet the catalytic impact of the communist ideology and movement was far more than the actual organizational strength of the Communist Party. The greatest youth icon of India's freedom movement, immortal martyr Bhagat Singh, was a communist pioneer in many ways. The communist leadership in building powerful movements to fight landlordism, organising the working class, championing social equality and communal harmony produced a wider impact and gave the freedom movement a broadly progressive orientation.
While the freedom from colonial occupation came with the trauma of territorial partition, unprecedented communal carnage and displacement of millions of families across the border, it was significant that the Constitution of India which was written and adopted after that traumatic turning point in Indian history rejected the idea of making India a Hindu state and opted for a secular democratic character for the new republic with equal rights for all citizens regardless of their religious identity. The RSS and Hindu Mahasabha which wanted a Hindu Rashtra and doggedly opposed the Constitution remained isolated and weak. In the first parliamentary election held between 25 October 1951 and 21 February 1952, the communist party emerged as the second largest party with 16 MPs and together with the RSP, PWP and Forward Bloc, the Left camp won 22 seats followed by 12 seats won by the Socialists while the Hindu Mahasabha and Jan Sangh won only 4 and 3 seats respectively.
The growing communist footprint in India's electoral map saw the communists emerge as the first non-Congress party to head a state government when communists under the leadership of Comrade EMS Namboodiripad won the first assembly election in the newly created state of Kerala. The government was of course not allowed to complete its full term and became the first victim of the toppling of an opposition government, a trend which has now assumed phenomenal proportions in the current Modi era.
The radical trend of the communist movement also tried to reignite the revolutionary flame of the Tebhaga and Telangana struggles and that's how Naxalbari happened in May 1967 and the CPI(ML) was born two years later. The peasant upsurge of Naxalbari blazed a revolutionary trail across the country and the spirit has endured in spite of the most brutal state repression. Even though the militant upsurge failed to achieve its goal of turning the 1970s into the decade of people's liberation, it took the communist movement deep into India's most oppressed social segments and backward areas.
In electoral terms too, the biggest expansion of the communist influence happened in the post-1967 period, with the beginning of the historic decline and split of the Congress in the late 1960s and especially in the wake of the Emergency. Land reforms, wage struggles and defence and extension of democracy through local self-government were the key planks that sustained and expanded the communist influence and enabled the Left to lead three state governments and send a sixty-strong contingent to Parliament only two decades ago.
Over the last decade and a half, the electoral strength of the Left in India has however suffered a steady and serious decline. The decline in West Bengal was triggered by an attempted policy adjustment with the corporate-driven development paradigm at the cost of the welfare agenda. The resultant rightward shift within the state was soon reinforced by the rapidly rising fascist consolidation in the all-India context.
Indeed, the rise and consolidation of fascism in India today poses the biggest challenge not just to communists but to the very constitutional vision of modern India as a secular democratic republic and an open and diverse society. Communists will have to reestablish themselves at this juncture as the most courageous and consistent champion of democracy and bulwark of resistance to the onslaught of Indian fascism.
I prefer the expression Indian fascism to the more generic term fascism in India to take due note of the national and historical peculiarities of fascism in today's India. Way back in the early period of rise of fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany, the international communist movement had rightly identified fascism as an international political trend with national specificities. The rise of fascism in India today is happening against the global backdrop of a renewed aggressive surge of the far right, but we can never lose sight of the typically Indian dimensions of this phenomenon especially given the crucial historical role of the RSS.
Unlike the various instances of European fascism in the first half of the twentieth century which had a rather stormy rise and fall, Indian fascism has had a very slow and steady rise, gathering momentum only in the last three decades, more particularly since the ascent of the Modi regime in 2014. While drawing strength from the regressive features of Indian society, especially the caste system, the patriarchal order and the feudal survivals that have had a long lease of life in the absence of a decisive rupture that could only be accomplished through a victorious democratic revolution, Indian fascism has also deeply penetrated the institutional mechanism of parliamentary democracy and formed an intricate nexus with India's crony capitalism. It also leverages the Indian state's strategic partnership with the US-Israel axis, the global attractions of the Indian market and India's resources and the growing presence of the Indian diaspora in the international arena. We should also take note of Hindutva's close ideological ties with Zionism and growing outreach among other far-right ideologies under the emerging international brand of national conservatism.
To build a powerful resistance to the escalating fascist onslaught, the communist movement will have to sharpen the edge of anti-caste and anti-patriarchal struggles alongside a sustained anti-corporate mobilisation of the working people. While there has never been an easy electoral escape from fascist forces entrenched in state power, every effort must be made to weaken and isolate the fascist camp in the electoral arena and rescue the Constitution and the Republic from their clutches. This of course calls for the fullest utilisation of the united front strategy, the broadest possible mobilisation of all forces opposed to the fascist regime, to combat the fascist campaign of hate, lies and violence and defend the rights and interests of the people.
We are now nearing the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Indian republic. It is remarkable that right at the time of adoption of the Constitution, its architects had forewarned us about the pitfalls that could obstruct and derail the journey of the republic. Some of the most insightful remarks were made by Dr. B R Ambedkar in his address in the Constituent Assembly on 25 November, 1949 on the eve of the adoption of the Constitution. It was Ambedkar, the chairman of the drafting committee appointed by the Constituent Assembly, who warned us right then that "however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad (if) those who are called to work it happen to be a bad lot." Today, we are facing precisely such a juncture when the RSS, which was explicitly opposed to the Constitution and its core ideas and principles in the formative years, today controls the reins of state power, and the result of this paradox is there before all of us. We now have High Court judges who say majoritarianism is law, Governors who take special interest in obstructing and toppling non-BJP state governments, and parliament sessions that are used as a slaughterhouse of dissent and debate only to pass dubious unconstitutional laws.
In the same address, Ambedkar had identified bhakti in politics, the cult of hero-worship, as "a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship" and had stressed the need to reinforce political democracy with social democracy. A year earlier while introducing the draft of the Constitution he had described democracy in India as "a top dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic" thereby posing the task of democratisation of the Indian social soil for the sustenance of the constitutional 'top dressing'.
It is also remarkable that the Constitution had upheld individual citizens, and not the much romanticised traditional village communities, as the constituents of the Republic and preferred the expression 'we, the people of India' in all their diversity as the collective democratic identity instead of entertaining the delusional idea that India had already become a nation. Ambedkar categorically considered caste as the biggest anti-nation impediment and emphasised the inseparable trinity of liberty, equality and fraternity as the foundation of social democracy and national cohesion. The Constitution was also alive to the perils of majoritarianism and overcentralisation and was careful to safeguard minority rights and federal interests from these fatal threats. And let us also remember the most categorical warning that Hindu Raj becoming a reality would be the greatest calamity for India and had to be prevented at any cost.
The communist movement today has to lead India out of this calamitous juncture. The calamity being perpetrated every day using the levers of state power will have to be resisted tooth and nail to rescue the beleaguered republic and fortify democracy on a stronger foundation. The communist movement will have to rise to the occasion and ensure a decisive defeat of fascism through all-round democratisation of the society and state.
Communists in India also have the responsibility of finding solutions to the unresolved challenges before the international communist movement. There are questions left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union that are particularly relevant for communist parties in positions of governance whether in post-revolution situation or otherwise. In Soviet Union eventually the communist party got so cut off from the people and so completely immersed in governance and the bureaucratic apparatus of the state that after seven decades the entire structure eventually evaporated without any major military intervention from outside or within. Apart from economic stagnation and foreign policy distortions, clearly there was a great lack of internal democracy and dynamism leading to a massive loss of popular support and even legitimacy of the communist party's governing role. The erosion of the 'from the masses and to the masses' communication between the party and the people upsets the equilibrium between the people, party and the state. Communists in power in any set-up will have to be seen to be superior in terms of democracy, transparency and accountability in comparison to bourgeois dispensations. This is a major lesson that communists everywhere must learn from the Soviet debacle.
Socialist models everywhere have made a mark for themselves in terms of redistributive equity, alleviation of poverty and unemployment and basic improvements in conditions of life and work for the working people. But when it comes to processes of production, the use of machines and technology and its adverse implications in terms of environmental degradation and human alienation, there has been little to demarcate existing socialism from capitalism. This is another area where in today's conditions of climate crisis, environmental degradation and growing unemployment and redundancies caused by indiscriminate use of labour-displacing technologies, socialist models will have to stand out in qualitative contrast to the destructive and disastrous trajectories of capitalism.
To conclude, let me return to the compelling national context. As history would have it, over the last few decades the communist movement in post-independence India had branched into diverse streams and formations. Today in the face of the unprecedented crisis of our Republic and the constitutional rule of law, communists must come ever closer with the necessary sense of urgency. The greater the unity of the fighting ranks, the stronger will be the anti-fascist resistance and the brighter will be the future of India's democracy. Paraphrasing the Communist Manifesto, we can say we have nothing to lose but the fetters of fascism while the promises of freedom await to be redeemed.
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Call and Pledge on the 26th Memorial Day of Comrade Vinod Mishra
Important questions of history are always resolved on the streets, Comrade Vinod Mishra had reminded us in his last note to the Party Central Committee in December 1998. He had appealed to young communists to go for all-round initiatives and intensify the battle against the fascist threat which had already begun to raise its ugly head. A strong communist party firmly upholding the red banner of revolutionary Marxism, a powerful movement of the rural poor and all-round initiative against the saffron conspiracy - Comrade VM highlighted these three key challenges in his last note. Today as we observe the 26th death anniversary of Comrade VM, his words ring ever more true.
The Modi government has now been in power for more than a decade. The fascist agenda of the government has been considerably exposed and there is also a good degree of resistance building up on various fronts. Occasionally, the resistance has been successful in inflicting electoral setbacks to the fascist expedition, but as recent elections to Haryana and Maharashtra Assemblies showed, the fascists are desperate to hold on to power.
Clearly we will need more sustained and powerful people's upheavals to stop the fascist onslaught. The fascists draw their strength from communal hate and polarisation, caste and gender oppression and the fullest backing of corporate power. Our resistance to fascism will therefore have to acquire a sharper anti-communal, anti-caste, anti-patriarchal and anti-corporate edge.
Under Comrade VM's guidance the party had begun to build an extensive network of mass organisations and develop a range of united fronts in various arenas of struggle. Today in the context of the fascist threat, we are pursuing these policies much more widely than any other period in the past. Apart from mass organisations and campaign platforms for various classes, communities and occupational categories, we are now part of the all-India opposition coalition and effective electoral blocs in Bihar and Jharkhand. There are also some early signs of a broader Left unity taking shape in West Bengal.
This 26 December we are entering the centenary year of the Communist Party of India. Ironically, 2025 is also the centenary of the RSS. Hence we will be commemorating the CPI centenary as much to salute the glorious history and heritage of the communist movement as to focus on the contemporary challenges of defeating fascism and defending and extending the Constitutional commitment to a socialist, secular, sovereign democratic Indian republic to achieve genuine social transformation and human emancipation.
On the 26th death anniversary of Comrade VM, let us take the pledge to strengthen his beloved party in every way to meet today's challenges. Only a few months ago, the party got a big boost in Jharkhand with the merger of the Marxist Coordination Committee founded by Comrade AK Roy. The merger has given us much needed strength to defeat the BJP in Jharkhand and win two seats in the Jharkhand Assembly from the important Dhanbad-Bokaro working class belt. The CPI(ML) Central Committee extends warm revolutionary greetings to all comrades joining the movement and the party organisation at this historic juncture of the Indian republic. Let us work hard to take the CPI(ML) deep among the people across the length and breadth of our beloved country and make it more robust, vibrant and dynamic to carry forward the revolutionary march of modern India. That will be the best tribute we can pay to Comrade VM and all other departed leaders and martyrs of the CPI(ML) and the Indian communist movement.
- Central Committee, CPI(ML) (Liberation)
