Fight for the victory of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat!
The history of the working class movement of our country has confirmed that revision of the fundamental teachings and conclusions of Marxism Leninism, as well as its dogmatic rendering, have caused harm to the cause of the revolution and communism. Refusal to develop Indian revolutionary theory, thereby falling victim to the Eurocentric outlook that everything from our past is feudal and reactionary, has been a disease afflicting the communist movement in our country, which our Party has diagnosed and is working to overcome.
Fight for the victory of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat!
Many parties in our country have proclaimed communism as their goal but they organise workers, peasants, women and youth behind aims that are contrary to the aim of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. Our Party believes that there cannot be conciliation on this crucial principle. A communist party is defined by the political aim of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, the rule of the toiling majority led by the working class, which is the necessary condition for the transition from capitalism to communism. Any party that pursues a different political aim cannot be a communist party. If the aim of its activity is not to establish the rule of labour, then it is serving to perpetuate the rule of capital, Our Party unequivocally stands by the Leninist principle, that "only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat."
April 22 marks the 141st birth anniversary of Vladimir Illyich Lenin. Lenin defended and developed the theory of Marxism in the conditions of his time. Capitalism had reached its highest stage of imperialism. Lenin analyzed the contradictions of imperialism, and concluded that imperialism was the eve of the proletarian revolution. Lenin developed the theory and tactics of proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.
The working class of Russia under the leadership of the Bolshevik party of Lenin succeeded in overthrowing the rule of the Tsar and of the capitalist class, to establish a totally new power – the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which took the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Leninism emerged from the proletarian revolution and it became strong in its clashes with opportunism.
Lenin led the building and strengthening of the Bolshevik party as a party of a new type. It was a revolutionary party of the working class, a part of the class, its vanguard, armed with the most advanced theory of the time, sufficiently steeled and tempered in the class struggle to provide leadership to the proletariat in the complicated twists and turns of the revolution.
Lenin pointed out “Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” He also pointed out that this theory assumes its full form in the course of a really mass, really revolutionary movement. Lenin regarded theory as the guide to revolutionary action. He fought against the dogmatic rendering of theory as if it is in a finished and final form, and all that needs to be done is to apply it to the specific conditions of each country. He dealt with the problems inherent to the prevailing philosophy in Russia and developed the thought material that would guide its transition to the next higher stage of society. He did not merely repeat the conclusions of Marxism but developed it further by dealing with the problems posed by the development of capitalism to its highest stage of imperialism.
The Communist Ghadar Party of India was founded 30 years and 3 months ago on the granite foundations of Marxism-Leninism. In our first ten years we defended the purity of Marxism-Leninism from the distortions of Soviet and Chinese revisionist trends and their influence in our country. We did so in the course of building a Leninist party organisation and developing our roots in the working class and other oppressed sections.
While opposing the conciliation on the part of CPI(M) and others to the ruling class offensive against ‘fundamentalism’, ‘terrorism’ and “defence of national unity and territorial integrity”, our Party boldly called for Unity against State Terrorism. We condemned the attack on the Golden Temple by the central armed forces and the genocide against Sikhs organised by the state and ruling party in November 1984. We defended the Right to Conscience as being universal and inviolable.
Our party has exposed state terrorism, including state organised communal violence, as a preferred weapon of the ruling class to maintain its oppressive rule and system of plunder. We have been a consistent opponent of the harmful illusion spread by CPI(M) and others that the Congress Party is a ‘lesser evil’ compared to the BJP because it promotes secularism. We have exposed the line of CPI(M) as being anti-Leninist because it blocks the preparation for proletarian revolution, by lining up workers and peasants behind capitalist parties and coalitions.
Adhering strictly to the teachings of Lenin, our Party has defended the right of nations, nationalities and peoples who constitute the Indian Union to self determination, including and up to the right to separate from the union. We propagated widely and loudly the view that there is no justification for state terrorism in Kashmir and the Northeast, and demanded the end of army rule and repeal of fascist and colonial laws that deprive citizens of their right to life itself.
Our Party has opposed terrorism in all its variants, both the terrorism unleashed by the state, by covert agencies of imperialist powers, and the terrorism practised in the name of revolution and communism. We have shown that terrorism is integral to the method of rule of the imperialist bourgeoisie, and that acts of individual terrorism have nothing to do with revolution.
In 1990, faced with major changes that were taking place in the social and political situation on the world scale, in favour of capitalism and against the cause of the revolution and socialism, the First Congress of our Party recognised the need to develop our theory by summing up the experience gained from the class struggle up to the present time. We decided to render scientific socialism afresh, to contemporise Marxism-Leninism, so as to confront and overcome the unprecedented anti-communist offensive that our enemies had launched on the world scale. We also recognised that the Indian revolution requires its own specific thought material to guide it – the Indian theory of liberation, drawing on the best of our philosophical and scientific heritage and consistent with the fundamental teachings and method of Marxism Leninism.
Our Party has analysed that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the world entered a new period within the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution. This is a period of retreat of revolution, a period of ebb in the revolutionary tide. Both objective and subjective factors played a role in bringing about this turn in the tide. This does not mean the end of revolution, but it calls for new forms of organisation and methods of struggle, including the form of waging ideological struggle to restore the unity of communists. We identified the main danger to the advance of communism to be those in the movement who conciliate with the notion that the immediate aim is to bring to power a ‘less evil’ capitalist coalition or a ‘progressive’, ‘secular’ or ‘nationalistic’ bourgeoisie.
Our Party developed the tactics suitable for the present period, while remaining firm on the fundamental goal of proletarian revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat. We have put forth the program of Navnirman of the Indian state and society, which is consistent with the striving of our working class and people, consistent with the Indian theory of liberation and with the communist aim of ending capitalism and ushering in socialism. We have been organising working masses of town and countryside around this program. We are thereby preparing the collective consciousness of the working class and other oppressed to carry out the revolution that would put an end to capitalism and the entire colonial legacy, and open the path to socialism.
In the thirty plus years of our life and struggle, our Party has never conciliated with capitalist democracy and its political process, called multi-party representative democracy. Armed with contemporary Marxist-Leninist thought, we have identified the problems inherent to this political process, and derived the alternative as a modern democracy that vests sovereignty in the hands of the electorate, with direct democracy as its political process. We have posited direct democracy as a political process wherein the role of a political party is to enable the electorate to exercise its right to rule, rather than to usurp this right and rule in the people’s name.
Going beyond the first step of rejecting the parliamentary road to socialism, the historic step taken by the Naxalbari uprising, our Party has developed the revolutionary alternative in the form of the program for Navnirman. By innovating forms of organisation and methods of struggle suitable for the current period, we have successfully resisted and overcome the pressure on communists to either compromise with capitalist democracy or become underground terrorist groups. We have built and are further strengthening political unity around our program of radical change and redefinition of democracy and the union.
The history of the working class movement of our country has confirmed that revision of the fundamental teachings and conclusions of Marxism Leninism, as well as its dogmatic rendering, have caused harm to the cause of the revolution and communism. Refusal to develop Indian revolutionary theory, thereby falling victim to the Eurocentric outlook that everything from our past is feudal and reactionary, has been a disease afflicting the communist movement in our country, which our Party has diagnosed and is working to overcome.
In conclusion, we can say with confidence that to be a Leninist on Indian soil today means to be arming the working class with its own program for ushering in a superior democracy and economic system, consistent with the best of Indian thought, and rallying the masses of discontented people around this program. This is the path of preparing the subjective conditions for the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is precisely the work being carried out by the Communist Ghadar Party of India. We call on all those who aspire to follow the example of Lenin to join this historic work.