Marxism in India

Preface

The socialist revolution in Russia was a phenomenon of worldwide importance. It was hailed across the colonial world, much to the discomfort of the imperialists, as it promised to eradicate the poverty of the common masses, and held aloft the ideal of the equality of men, irrespective of nationality and religion.

India was fighting her own battle for freedom. The leaders of the Indian struggle for independence were, however, elated at the success of the socialist revolution, but did not take up socialism themselves. Only a few young men with little or no political experience took to the study of socialism and adopted the socialist mode of struggle to fight the colonial ruler. Since a significant part of the freedom movement in India had chosen to be non-violent, the prospect of armed revolution of the Soviet kind was reduced.

Further, when the Communist Party was formed in India, it found the Communist Party of Great Britain as its natural guardian for advice and support from the Comintern. The marxists did not, rather could not, grow their roots in India.

Marxism had begun as an intellectual movement. The common people who were drawn by its unduly emphasized populist image were soon disillusioned and sought an escape route. This was also the case in the Soviet Union and the East European countries. The people of China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam are also waiting to avail the first opportunity to throw off marxism.

In India, too, marxism has failed to make a dent in the political landscape. Marxist leaders have been clearly unequal to the task of guiding such a gigantic intellectual movement, in terms of their honesty, integrity and political vision. The party’s presence is now confined to a few pockets of the country.

Marxism in India, divided into nine chapters, traces the course of the communist movement in India, from its inception to proletarian revolution to the turn to constitutional benefaction .

I am grateful to my wife, Renuka, for having borne with the many inconveniences that I might have thrust upon her in the course of preparation of the manuscript. My daughters Manjari, Indrani and Pallavi have helped me by taking the responsibility of typing the manuscripts and checking the copies, as well as in numerous other ways.

I am grateful to my friend Shri A.K. Nanda who has been kind enough to go though the text with a toothcomb, making changes and suggesting improvements that I value most.

Kiran Maitra

1

India and the Socialist Revolution

The socialist revolution in Russia came at a time when half the world was under imperialist occupation. India too was under the rule of Great Britain, the greatest imperial power of the day. People who were striving to end British rule in India were elated with the success of the socialist revolution, but were not prepared to accept socialism or the socialist mode of struggle themselves. Under the leadership of Gandhi, India accepted non-violence as the weapon to end British rule in India and was not prepared to change to any other form of struggle – although after the First World War, the emotional and intellectual climate of the country was receptive to the ideas of socialism. Its appeal was universal as it promised to eradicate poverty of the common masses and bring about equality of men, irrespective of religion or nationality. But no political leader worth the name came forward to make use of the situation. Only a few young men with no political patronage or financial assistance, inspired by a vague idea of socialism, stepped forward to end British rule in India, following the method adopted by socialists in Russia. The success of the socialist revolution had a tremendous impact on these youths. Disillusioned and disheartened by the mode of struggle adopted by Gandhi, these youths thought of treading a new path. In Bombay (now Mumbai), Sripad Amrit Dange; in Bengal, Muzaffar Ahmed; in Punjab, Ghulam Hasan; in Madras (now Chennai), Singaravelu Chettiar; and in the United Province (now Uttar Pradesh), Satya Bhakt and Shaukat Usmani formed small, insignificant groups to study marxism, and if possible, to build a communist party in India. These were individual efforts and not the outcome of any decision taken jointly. In fact, these men did not even know each other.

Dange, who was earlier a follower of Gandhi and took part in the non-cooperation movement, soon became disillusioned and took to the study of marxism. After gaining some rudimentary knowledge of marxism, he wrote a book, rather a booklet, Gandhi vs Lenin – an amateurish exposition of Gandhi by a young and enthusiastic marxist. The booklet attracted the notice of a disgruntled gandhiite, R.B. Lotvala, a small industrialist in Bombay. Lotvala liked not only the booklet, but also its author. He called Dange to his residence and advised him to read more of marxism before taking to writing. He also enquired about his means of livelihood, and after getting to know about his financial difficulties, he fixed a monthly allowance for his upkeep.¹ Thereafter, Dange became a regular visitor to Lotvala’s private library to enrich his knowledge of marxism.

After studying marxism for some time, Dange gained confidence and brought out a newspaper financed by Lotvala. In August 1922, The Socialist, an English weekly edited by Dange saw the light of day. The weekly made Dange known to people and helped him draw around him a number of young radicals, such as S.V. Ghate, R.S. Nimbkar, K.N. Joglekar, and a few others.

Like Dange in Bombay, Muzaffar Ahmed became the pivot of marxism in Bengal. But unlike Dange, Ahmed had no experience in politics before he became a marxist. Even in the hey-days of the khilafat non-cooperation movement, he kept himself aloof from politics, though he claims that he decided to make politics rather than literature the pursuit of his life, at the beginning of 1920.² In July 1920, along with Qazi Nazrul Islam, Quttbuddin Ahmed and a few others, Ahmed started an evening daily in Bengali, Navayug, financed by Fazlul Haq, leader of the Krishak Praja Party.³

While editing Navayug, Ahmed became interested in the problems facing workers and purchased a few books of Marx and Lenin to gain some knowledge of the working class movement. It was his first exposure to marxist literature and Ahmed did not conceal his initial inability to understand Marx. With humility he confessed, ‘I did not know what I was going to do with them (books). I had not read any marxist literature previously’.⁴ However, Ahmed soon acquired some knowledge of marxism and formed a marxist group around him.

The lead in Madras was taken by Singaravelu Chettiar, a lawyer by profession and, initially, a believer in the ideology of the Congress; in Punjab, Ghulam Hasan, a teacher of economics in the Islamia College, Peshawar; and in the United Province, Shaukat Usmani and Satya Bhakt.

These amorphous marxist groups were neither strong nor influential. They existed more on paper than in reality. Yet, there existence was no mean achievement: at least they provided a foothold to marxism in India.

The situation abroad was a little different. Indians who were working in Europe to end the British rule in India came in contact with French socialists, long before the socialist revolution in Russia. Madam Cama and S.R. Rana attended the International Socialist Conference held in Stuttgart in 1909 as self-appointed representatives of India and spoke for India’s independence. And Lala Hardyal, one of the founders of the Ghadar Party in America, penned down a short biographical sketch of Marx as far back as 1912. Hardyal found in Marx a great lover of humanity and a friend of the downtrodden,though he never subscribed to his views.⁵

However, with the success of the socialist revolution in Russia, quite a few Indians working abroad for India’s independence made friends with Russian socialists. The most notable among them were V.N. Chattopadhyaya, V.V.S. Ayer, Tirimul Acharya, Abdur Rab Nister and Mohammad Safiq. They met Lenin and made all kinds of efforts to urge him to help India in its struggle for independence, but achieved little. Lenin expressed his sympathy, while asking them to learn more about socialism. Their knowledge of socialism was naïve as it was submerged in nationalism.

The most dynamic and fascinating among the Indians who took to marxism was Narendranath Bhattacharjee alias Naren. Naren was a revolutionary before he became a marxist. He came under the spell of the revolutionaries at a very early age and acquired a lopsided view of revolution. He firmly believed that the basic requirements for a revolution were arms and money. If these two things were available, revolution would be child’s play. The prospect of getting arms brightened with the outbreak of the First World War, when Germany promised arms to Indian revolutionaries. These arms never reached India. Disillusioned and disheartened, Naren disguised himself as C.A. Martin and left India in search of arms. After dashing through Batavia, Shanghai and Tokyo, he landed in San Francisco and from there left for a nearby town, Palo Alto, hoping to reach Berlin to contact the German Foreign Office for arms and money. At Palo Alto, he became a guest of Dhanagopal Mukherjee, the younger brother of his comrade in India, Jadugopal Mukherjee. Mukherjee knew Naren, but did not expect to see him at Palo Alto. After the initial shock was over, Mukherjee advised Naren to wipe off his past and start a new life. Naren liked the idea. The same evening, M.N. Roy was born in the campus of Stanford University.⁶ Soon thereafter, Roy left for New York to fulfil his mission.

In the campus of Stanford University, Roy met Evelyn, with whom he fell in love and eventually married. Roy’s marriage with Evelyn supplied fodder to scandalmongers. It became the hottest gossip among Indian revolutionaries in New York. Lala Lajpat Rai took pity on the young couple and offered them shelter, along with some money to pull on with.⁷

Lajpat Rai’s company was conducive to Roy in more ways than one. Through Rai, Roy came in contact with American socialists. Both Rai and Roy were nationalists and had no belief in the doctrine of social revolution. They were opposed to marxian materialism. Yet, both became friendly towards socialists because of their sympathy towards the cause of India’s independence. However, to refute the arguments of socialists, Roy took to the study of socalist classics.

While Roy was busy with the study of socialism, a momentous event took place that revolutionized his entire thinking. Lajpat Rai was invited to speak at a meeting of socialists. His vivid description of the poverty of the Indian masses under British rule moved the audience. All those present were avowed enemies of all forms of exploitation of man by man, and thus appreciated Lajpat Rai. However, one person from the audience got up and posed an embarrassing question, ‘How did the nationalists propose to end the poverty of the Indian masses?’ Lajpat Rai’s evasive reply failed to satisfy the interrogator. There followed a heated exchange of words. The interrogator proved his point further by asking provocatively, ‘What difference would it make to the Indian masses if they were exploited by native capitalists instead of foreign capitalists?’ Lajpat Rai flew into a terrible rage and retorted, ‘It does make a great difference whether one is kicked by his brother or a foreign robber.’⁸ Initially, Roy shared Lajpat Rai’s indignation, but soon he realized that something was lacking in his argument. Roy left the hall alone, quite confused and vaguely visualizing a different picture of freedom. Keeping away from friends, he delved deep into the study of Karl Marx’s works for an answer.

His immediate concern, however, was to go to Berlin for arms to bring about a revolution. While Roy was waiting in futility for this trip, America declared war on Germany in support of the allied powers and put under arrest Indian revolutionaries in America on the charge of violating the neutrality of America through a worldwide conspiracy to embarrass its ally, Great Britain. Roy and Evelyn were taken into custody, but were let off after interrogation. Roy was put under arrest again for violating immigration laws and sent to the lock-up for one night, after which he was released on bail. Shrewdly enough, Roy jumped the bail and fled to Mexico in the company of Evelyn, with a letter of introduction to General Alvarado, the Governor of the State of Yucatan, from David Starr Jordon, the President of Stanford University.⁹

Roy landed in Mexico as a stranger and put up at Hotel de Geneva. He did not know a single person there, nor had he established any contacts before. His only hope was the letter of introduction addressed to General Alvarado.

On enquiry, Roy came to know that the State of Yucatan was far away from the city of Mexico. To reach the state, one had to travel on land a distance of about a thousand miles through the wilderness of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. There was no railway connection between the city of Mexico and the State of Yucatan. The usual route was across the Gulf of Mexico. But the ships were all American, and as a rule, after leaving the Mexican port of Veracruz, they called at some American port. Roy, much against his wishes, thought of keeping himself away from the hazardous journey.¹⁰

Roy’s disappointment was over quite soon though. He managed an interview with the minister of defence, who happened to be the son-in-law of General Don Venustiano Carranza, the President of the Republic of Mexico. The minister welcomed Roy and asked for the letter to Alvarado. The content of the letter is not known, but after going through it, as Roy states in his Memoirs, the minister was satisfied and assured him of his safety in his country. The minister further informed Roy that the general was expected at the capital any day and promised to inform him about his arrival in the city.

The letter of introduction to Alvarado and the interview with the minister of defence enhanced Roy’s prestige. It gave the people the impression that Roy had friends in high circles. The next day, he received a letter from the editor of El Pueblo,¹¹ one of the leading dailies of the city, inviting him to his office. Roy met the editor at the appointed hour. After the exchange of niceties, free from the usual Mexican extravagance, the editor informed Roy that the hotel in which he was putting up was not a safe place and that he should move out of it at the earliest opportunity. However, the editor of El Pueblo did not know that Roy’s fortune lay buried in that hotel.

Before Roy moved out, he came to know by a freak of chance about the presence of a few Germans in the hotel. They had escaped either from the Far East or from America to evade arrest. However, the presence of so many Germans in the hotel aroused Roy’s curiosity. Quite unexpectedly, one morning, a German dropped in his room to deliver the happy news that two Germans whom Roy had met earlier at Batavia were staying in the hotel and would be pleased to meet him. Roy, whose zeal for armed revolution had been dampened by now, welcomed the news and decided to meet them.

The reunion was extremely fruitful for Roy, though not for armed revolution in India. After exchanging notes about their respec­tive adventures, Roy settled down to talk business. He put forward his China plan, still hovering over his mind.¹² The Germans not only appreciated the plan, but to the surprise of Roy, offered necessary financial assistance to implement it. Roy welcomed the windfall. The little money that he had brought from America was practically exhausted and Roy did not even have resources to pay for his next meal. But now, to his surprise, he found himself a rich man – adventurism had started paying its dividends. As promised, the Germans gave Roy 10,000 gold pesos¹³ to begin with, before he moved out of the hotel.

No sooner had Roy moved into a house in a respectable quarter of the city called Colonia Roma with 10,000 pesos in his pocket, than he received an invitation for dinner from the Germans, for which he was not prepared. The question that haunted his mind was, were the Germans really serious about the plan? Roy accepted the money as his share of the loot, to meet his own expenses. After years of struggle and instability, he was now looking for a settled life – the logical end of a petty bourgeois. He was no more a desperado. He was married and not very keen to plunge into the unknown again. Besides, he had already begun to realize that a shipload of arms would not bring about revolution in India. And even if it did, it would not end the exploitation of the toiling masses. It would simply transfer the instrument of exploitation from the hands of the imperialist to that of the Indian bourgeoisie. Yet, opportunism won at the end. He accepted the dinner invitation from his German friends at the appointed hour, prepared to dupe them again.

The dinner was not a general get-together. It was a business meeting under the cover of a social function. As soon as it was over, the Germans asked Roy about the progress of his plan. Roy not only put forward a rosy picture of his sincere attempt to resume contact with the revolutionaries to fulfil the China plan, but gave the impression that, if necessary, he would himself make a trip to China. The Germans were satisfied. Within a week, Roy’s coffers swelled to 50,000 gold pesos,¹⁴ soon to be followed by another $50,000.¹⁵

The news that Roy had dipped his hands into the gold sack of Kaiser made the Indian revolutionaries in America conscious of their duty. They proceeded post-haste towards Mexico to have a share of the loot, which, they perhaps quite rightly thought, belonged to them. But Roy was not to be outwitted so easily. Except in a few cases, he placated most of them with meagre sums. However, to save himself from the hands of the patriots and to assure the Germans about his sincerity, Roy left the city of Mexico on the pretext of going to China in quest of arms.

Armed with a semi-diplomatic passport, Roy left the city of Mexico quite reluctantly. ‘The heart was not in the adventure,’ writes Roy, ‘it was undertaken under the force of habit, but the conviction was lacking.’¹⁶ However, after a hazardous journey through Guedaljara and Manzanillo, Roy reached Salina Cruz, a small port town on the Pacific coast, only to learn that the expected ship was not calling at the port. The next ship was due only after a month. The news, though disappointing, was a great relief to Roy. He had undertaken the hazardous journey to dupe the Germans to con­vince them of his sincerity to the cause. With the latest news, this adventure was over and Roy’s return journey began. Mexico beckoned him again. Roy reached Mexico via Veracruz, happy and gay, appre­ciating on the way the country’s landscape and Tehuanan beauties.¹⁷

The failure of the mission affected Roy in the least. His contacts with the high-ups in Mexico gave him social prestige and the German gold, the required affluence. ‘My mode of living,’ confessed Roy, ‘was not exactly proletarian,’ and it was true. He took up his residence ‘in the plutocratic Colonia Roma, furnished with green satin-covered Louis XV furniture’.¹⁸ To match the standards, he engaged a Spanish tutor, learnt the game of chess, started visiting fashionable cafés with friends and made inroads into the high-level snobbish quarters of the capital’s cosmopolitan societies. Further, to fit the standards of an aristocrat, Roy took to riding every morning, accompanied by a pair of Alsatians, exploring the neighbour­hood and making friends among the country folk.

After he was done with hobnobbing with the Germans, Roy set his sight on socialism – an ideology that promised both revolution and reconstruction of the society to bring in a new era. He resolved to exploit the new field of adventure with no regret for the failure of the past. Roy was fortunate. He reached Mexico when it had no political party in the true sense of the term. Numerous groups that were based around individual adventurers in the name of revolution were struggling to attain power. Their common aim was the distribution of land to land-hungry peasants and employment to agricultural labourers. It was a sheer bird’s call to rally the poverty-stricken rural masses under the banner of revolution.

Away from this anomalous situation, the bulk of the middle class was looking for a political party that would restore order and peace to the country. The people were conscious of the fact that ninety per cent of the population lived on land and a programme of radical agrarian reform could end perpetual poverty. But there was no political party, because people had little faith in parliamentary reform. The leftists who could bring order to this chaos were scattered and formed a hopeless minority. Roy assessed the situation and thought of organizing the left.

On enquiring, he came to know about the existence of a socialist party, rather a group, under the leadership of an elderly lawyer, Ignazio Santibanez. Roy decided to meet him.

Before meeting Santibanez, Roy, at the request of the editor of El Pueblo, published a series of articles on British rule in India. This was his second experiment with writing,¹⁹ and was quite successful. For at the very first meeting, Santibanez told Roy that he and other members of his party had read his articles in El Pueblo. The members were so impressed that they wanted to contact the author and ‘invite him to speak at a party meeting’.²⁰ Roy’s meetings with the socialists took place in the backdrop of a conflict in Mexico, between President Carranza and General Obregon – the chief architect of Carranza’s military victory.

The cry of the adventurists during the struggle for political power in Mexico was tiere liberated. And the Mexican peasants rallied around whosoever came forward with the requisite programme. Carranza was essentially a landed gentleman, yet he came forward with this popular slogan and quite success­fully rallied a band of followers behind him to fight against Villa and Zapata, who were landed gentry and equally adventurist. They wanted to grab power with the same slogan as that of Carranza. In this struggle for power, Carranza found in Obregon a popular and capable military commander, while Obregon found in Carranza a person providing better opportunity to realize his ambition than Villa or Zapata. However, by October 1915, Carranza, supported by Obregon, made his position quite secure and controlled a major part of the country by throwing away Villa and Zapata into the native woods, as well as boosted his position further by gaining recognition from the USA.

However, Carranza failed to come up to the expectations of the people. Being conservative, he preferred the status quo and did little to change things. Worse, perhaps, he permitted his regime to sink into corruption. Aware of the weakness of his policies, Carranza was on the lookout for an opportunity to conceal the internal struggle.

Shortly before the situation became desperate, General Alvarado, an aspirant for the presidentship of the republic, brought out a paper to garner support for himself in the next presidential election. The tone of the paper, according to him, was to be socialistic, based on his experiment at Yucatan. But because of the distinct American influence on Mexican political life, Alvarado was anxious to enlist America’s support in his favour. This was an impossible task: preaching socialism through the eyes of imperialism. However, the radicals headed by Roy came forward to take responsibility and El Heraldo de Mexico was launched. Roy undertook to write for the paper a series of articles on the Monroe Doctrine, aimed more at his advantage than Alvarado’s. ‘The work gave me,’ writes Roy, ‘the occasion for a fairly comprehensive study of the history of the new world, practically since the American war of independence. It was a very useful knowledge to acquire, which greatly helped in the development of many political ideas and understanding of the contemporary world.’²¹

When Roy decided to write for the El Heraldo de Mexico, he was not a member of the Socialist Party of Mexico, though he had come in contact with the socialists and succeeded in moulding the opinion of the radicals in accordance with his views. The success encouraged him to think about joining the Socialist Party of Mexico to cast it in his mould. Roy called on Santibanez, whom he called the Karl Marx of Mexico, and expressed his desire to become a full-fledged member of the party. Santibanez was almost ecstatic. For want of money, the activities of the party were limited to the publication of a four-page paper titled De Lucha de los classes. It was a small ineffective group of half a dozen people confined to the capital. Roy’s enrolment in the party would at least solve the financial problem. The Indian Prince, known for his wealth, might come forward to help the party. And this was no unjustified expectation. After all, the Karl Marx of Mexico did not waste his time in futile exercise. With the help of Roy, the party purchased a press and converted the four-page class struggle into a regular weekly of eight pages.²²

While Roy was hobnobbing with the socialists, the situation in Mexico was fast deteriorating to the disadvantage of Carranza. Confronted both from within and outside, Carranza started looking for popular support. Roy’s association with the socialists and his articles on the Monroe Doctrine with an anti-American stance attracted the notice of Carranza. He found in Roy both a friend and a scapegoat. As a friend, Roy could be asked to rally the socialists behind the regime and intensify the anti-American propaganda. If the situation worsened, however, he could be disowned as an obscure foreigner. With this end in view, Carranza sent an invitation to Roy for dinner.

However, long before Carranza thought of Roy or about winning the support of socialists, Roy was quite active in moulding the opinion of socialists in favour of the corrupt Carranza regime. Having found asylum in Mexico, Roy was always on the lookout for an opportunity to be useful to Carranza. Thus, when on the appointed day Roy was ushered into the magnificent reception hall of the Chepultaken Castle, accompanied by Dom Manuel, head of the legislative branch of the state, his mind was already set.

Before Carranza came out with his plan, Roy informed him that his articles on the Monroe Doctrine were aimed at raising the bogey of Mexican nationalism against foreign intervention to remind the socialists of their duty towards their motherland. This was exactly what Carranza wanted Roy to do. Over a glass of wine, Carranza congratulated Roy. Roy felt flattered and pro­mised to do everything in his power to save his adopted country, and in effect, Carranza.²³

The unqualified support to Carranza was, however, based on personal gratitude rather than on any ideology. It was motivated by opportunism. Carranza was the elected head of a so-called democratic state, but he was a feudal lord by both birth and action. Roy knew that to support Carranza would mean to support a corrupt bourgeois regime. If the present regime was allowed to continue, it would add to the misery of the people. But Roy defied the norms of a revolutionary and justified his action on the ground that ‘preparatory to capturing power, the proletariat must organise itself as a decisive factor in the political life of the particular country, and that it was a very opportune moment to do so’.²⁴

The socialists were on the horns of a dilemma. They objected to Roy’s ‘theory of opportunism’, but were not prepared to lose the Indian Prince from their ranks. The Indian Prince may not be sincere to the cause, but had sufficient dollars in his coffers to give the Socialist Party of Mexico a sound financial footing. Thus, after much hesitation and prolonged discussion, the socialists put their seal on Roy’s theory of opportunism as a sure step towards a social revolution.

Having got the mandate from the party and the blessings of Carranza, Roy arranged the first conference of the Socialist Party of Mexico to rally the working class and the socialist intellectuals in support of the Carranza regime.

The conference proved to be a great success. The Socialist Party of Mexico ceased to be a small intellectual group and emerged as a national organization. It changed its name from the Socialist Party of Mexico to El Partido Socialista Regional Mexico; elected an executive committee and office-bearers; and Roy, a non-Mexican, became the general secretary of the party.

The success of the socialist conference seemed to have given a fresh boost to Roy’s prestige in Mexico. He started meeting ‘the president quite frequently, the formalities of interview were dispensed with’.²⁵ Roy claims that thenceforth he became a friend and unofficial adviser to President Carranza – a claim difficult to corroborate, yet impossible to refute.²⁶

No sooner was the conference over than there appeared a mysterious visitor in Mexico. No one at that time knew who he was, but all took it for granted that he was a Russian bolshevik, though his manners were more akin to a bourgeois than to a friend of the proletariat. The curiosity around the gentleman heightened when he knocked at the doors of the El Heraldo office and enquired for Roy, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of Mexico. Roy was not in office, and on being asked about his identity, the man introduced himself as Mr Brantwein. He left the office as suddenly as he had come, with a request to inform Roy about his presence. After he left, speculation was rife for quite a few days, until it became clear that the gentleman was no stranger, but Michael Borodin alias F. Gruzenburg.

Borodin had come to Mexico under peculiar circumstances. After the failure of the 1905 revolution in Russia, he emigrated to the United States and stayed there till tsardom was overthrown. With the news of the success of the socialist revolution, Borodin reappeared in Russia and wasted no time in encashing on his friendship with Lenin. Lenin selected him for a risky job – to smuggle a large quantity of crown