[Reader-list] The Communist Conspiracy !

[Pawan Durani]

Dear Shuddha ,

Thoughts that emerge out are

1. Communists parties in India are not following the 'real' communist
ideology. That the Communists parties in India are more or less more
opportunistic who dont stick to their policies and deviate for their own
gains.

2. You seem to be more of a hardcore 'communist' and not satisfied with
'Nationhood' policies of the Indian Communists.

3. You believe that the world or people in South Asia would have been much
better and place more peaceful , had India been divided into smaller
sovereign states.

4. You do not support the Communists policy of supporting radical Islamic
politician and alleged terrorist Madani in Kerela . However I would like to
know what may be the compuslion of this alliance .....electoral gains ? not
letting Hindu right wing leaders getting elected even if it means having an
alliance with an alleged terrorist ?

5. Roy had founded the Indian Communist party in 1920 in USSR , though in
1924 or 25 the party was again claimed to be founded by [ don't recall the
name ] .

6. I somehow am surprised to learn ,in plain terms, your hate for Netaji
Subhash Chander Bose. Netaji was a great freedom fighter. Would like to
learn why does the left brigade hate 'Netaji'.

7. Though  you may have given an explanation that the leftist were close to
Tagores institution , however sometimes back I had read a letter written by
Rabindra Nath tagore , and in that letter he did not seem to hold good views
about the communists. I would try to search for that particular letter.

8. Is it not the fact that according to Vasili Mithrokhin who had secret KGB
document , it was allaeged that Indian Communists were on payroll of KGB ?

9. What kind of disciplinary action did Communits take when it was alleged
that  senior communist leaders  like Dange and Rajeshwar rao were supposed
to be reaceiving money and favours from KGB .

10. Is it not true that the biggest corruption in India was founded by the
Communists , who traded with India and introduced the 'middle man' phenomena
?

Would like to learn more ....

Pawan Durani
www.thekashmir.wordpress.com



On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 1:25 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>wrote:

>  1. The programme of Communist Parties (as it was expressed during and
> after the first world war) was against Nationalism in all forms. In
> contrast, today, and since Stalin's adoption of the theory of 'Socialism in
> One Country' almost all Communist parties endorse nationalism in one form or
> the other.
>
> 2. This includes all Communist Parties in India. Every Indian Communist
> Party (none of whom I support) declares loudly and clearly that it wants to
> protect the nation-state in india. This is a deviation from the reasons why
> those who were to become Communists broke with the prevailing nationalist
> currents in Social Democratic parties in the early twentieth century. They
> broke because they considered loyalty to the international working class
> movement more important than loyalty to any form of the nation state.
>
> 3. For me, the fact that the undivided CPI supported the Pakistan demand is
> just as meaningless as the fact that its successors now support Indian
> Nationalism. Nationalism, whether Pakistani, or Indian, is a means to divide
> the oppressed classes of one country from their counterparts in others. A
> consistent communist position on the national question would mean opposition
> to all forms of 'national liberation'. This is the position of Marx and Rosa
> Luxemburg.
> The fact that those who call themselves communists have stopped doing this
> for a long time is an indication of how low they have fallen from the
> heights they once occupied.
>
> 4. The Empire of British India, (the state that India and Pakistan
> inherited) was a prison house of many peoples, and the prison house
> continued exactly as it had done after independence and partition. Though I
> am not interested in nationalism of any sort. A post-1947 scenario of
> smaller states (as happened when other Empires broke up) may have made more
> sense than the two behemoths of India and Pakistan that continue to stagger
> through history. Had there been smaller post 1947 states, we probably would
> have seen a European Union type of move towards greater confederal
> consolidation by now.
>
>  There certainly would not have been the bloated armies and nuclear
> arsenals that we see in South Asia today. This might have meant more
> allocation of resources for health, education, housing and less attrition,
> perhaps calmer populations.
>
> Smaller states in South Asia would probably not have been able to afford
> such irrational luxuries (as bloated militaries) , nor would they have got
> drawn into the Cold War in the way that India and Pakistan did through the
> fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties.
>
> 5. As far as I know, the undivided CPI was formed in 1925  in Tashkent, by
> Indian exiles in the Soviet Union. Several communist circles existed in
> India at that time, but since the effort at forming a party was deemed
> illegal, the first 'official' party was formed elsewhere. However, before
> (and after) 1925 several communists continued to work in 'Kisan Mazdoor
> Parties' and 'Lal Nishan'  in Bengal and Punjab. Several of these activists
> were already in prison or in preventive custody, so they were formally
> outside the undivided CPI, as they were not in a condition to join it, some
> did not even know about it. Many, in fact most, joined in the brief
> intervals when they were released after 1925
>
> 6. You are right, two wrongs do not make a right. But, I think the
> circumstances of the period 1942-45 are complex, and I do not think that the
> decisions that people and parties took in that turmoil can be best described
> as 'right' or 'wrong'. Just as you say you are not interested in defending
> the RSS, I too am not interested in defending the undivided CPI. I am merely
> pointing out to you that in this case, both these organizations effectively
> followed the same course of action, namely a tacit collaboration with the
> British Raj's war aims during a period of the Second World War.
>
> As for now, I think that it is shameful that the CPI(M) in Kerala works
> with the tacit endorsement of a blatant Muslim Fundamentalist like Madani. I
> see absolutely no difference between Hindu and Muslim Communalism. if the
> CPI (M) takes the support of Madani today, they might as well end up
> supporting and being supported by the RSS (or some faction of it) some day.
> I would not at all be surprised if that were to happen, someday.
>
> Shuddha
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  On 18-Apr-09, at 12:57 AM, Pawan Durani wrote:
>
> Shuddha,
> Thank you for your detailed mail . However why are communists always a
> suspect to integrity of India ?
>
>
>
>
> Is it not true that Communists originally wanted India to be divided into
> 17 different sovereign states , more like failed 'USSR' ? This is a well
> documented fact .
>
> Why is it that the CPI is not even clear when it was formed ...was it 1920
> or 1925 ? Was it formed in USSR or India ?
>
> Why are the Communists so obsessed with the division of the country ?
>
> I am not interested in RSS , Mahasabha or BJP . They are all 'right' wing
> party .And if they have been wrong , why does a communist have to justify
> their act by comparing it with that of RSS or Gowalkar etc.
>
> Two wrongs dont make one right . I just wanted to learn if the communists
> have a clean past......the present is all well know to us and is being
> exhibited in Kerela with an electoral alliance with Madhani.
>
> It would make an interesting understanding if you would explain further !
>
> Pawan
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 12:21 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net
> > wrote:
>
>>  Pawan,
>>
>> The Communist Party of India and its various off shoots over the years
>> have a great deal to answer for, not least for their continuing fealty to
>> the cult of Stalinism, one of the terrible monstrosities of the twentieth
>> century. I have no doubts about that at all.
>>
>> However, in our zeal to interrogate the legacy of the Communist Parties in
>> this country, we need to be careful in terms of distinguishing a desire to
>> question from a desire to abuse. And I think it makes sense to distinguish
>> fact from fiction.
>>
>> The article referred by you offers no sources, cites no evidence for any
>> of the accusations it makes. And some of the allegations it makes are truly
>> hilarious.
>>
>> For instance - here is a priceless one -
>>
>> "During the Ranadive party-line in 1948-50, Mahatma Gandhi was “unmasked”
>> as the cleverest bourgeois scoundrel and Rabindranath as mãgeer dãlãl, that
>> is, a pimp."
>> Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941, so it is a bit specious on the
>> part of the author to suggest that the undivided CPI's  Ranadive period
>> (1948-50) would have seen attacks on someone who was not alive.
>> I would like to see where exactly the author finds the source of this
>> statement.
>>
>> Saumyendranath Tagore, the poet's nephew was a significant communist
>> activist (though he belonged to the RCPI, which stood to the 'left' of the
>> undivided CPI) and Tagore maintained cordial relationships with several
>> communist activists and intellectuals. It is a little known fact that Tagore
>> actually worked very hard to ensure that the civil rights of communist
>> detenues in British prisons throughout the 1920s and 30s.
>>
>> If anything, the  undivided CPI firmly took on Tagore's legacy and in some
>> ways interpreted it to its own ends, Tagore's poems and songs were regularly
>> part of the CPI's cultural universe. I know this for certain, because among
>> other things, I know that CPI activists when they were forced to work
>> 'underground' in the 1940s often worked 'overground' through Tagore Memorial
>> Societies in small towns and villages in Bengal. This was by no means
>> insincere.
>>
>> The undivided CPI did however downplay the fact that thoughTagore had
>> expressed admiration for the social strides made in the Soviet Union, he had
>> also been sharply critical of the Stalin regime's suppression of the freedom
>> of expression.
>>
>> Certain intellectuals associated with the Chinese Communist Party had been
>> sharply critical of Tagore during his visit to China in the 1920s. Some
>> other intellectuals and writers associated with the Chinese Communist Party
>> were welcoming and appreciative. However, the criticism of some of these
>> intellectuals of Tagore never gained any currency, either during the 1920s,
>> or afterwards, in Indian communist circles.
>>
>> As for Bose, yes, he was caricatured in cartoons in the CPI's paper
>> 'Peoples War' as a stooge of Japanese Imperialism. And no one can deny the
>> fact that Subhash Bose was both a subordinate bit player in Japanese
>> Imperial Military Strategy, and a long time admirer of Fascist and Nazi
>> methods. He was not alone in this, both he and Golwalkar of the RSS have
>> stated (on record) their admiration for Nazi Germany. Read the unexpurgated
>> edition of 'We, our Our Nationhood Defined' by Golwalkar, and the 'Indian
>> Struggle' by Bose. Both are not very difficult to find. I personally think
>> that the people of South Asia were spared great calamities by the timely
>> exit of the deeply authoritarian and militarist Bose from the Indian
>> political scene after 1945. Bose in power would certainly have worked
>> towards a fascist programme, his own stated political intentions were quite
>> explicit in this matter.
>>
>> As for the charge of being collaborators of the British in the 1940s. The
>> reality is (as usual) a little more complicated than you would perhaps like.
>> Thousands of Communist party members and activists were imprisoned, some for
>> more than a decade, without charge, from the 1920s onwards. The party itself
>> was deemed illegal. In 1942, when the undivided CPI declared that it would
>> support the war effort in India, because Britain and the USSR were on the
>> same side in the war, the undivided CPI was legalized, and some Communist
>> detenus and political prisoners were released (many of whom were re arrested
>> soon after). However, it is true that the undivided CPI got a breather of
>> sorts. Police surveillance on Communists, however, continued, especially on
>> those, who participated in the 42 struggles in their individual capacities.
>>
>> Several other organizations and individuals aided the war effort of the
>> then British Colonial regime in India. Including the RSS and the Hindu
>> Mahasabha, and its eminences such as Savarkar. Savarkar regularly addressed
>> rallies for recruitment in the colonial regime's army.
>>
>> So, if the source you pointed to is justified in dubbing activists of the
>> undivided CPI as spies for the British, then the same charge could just as
>> justifiably levelled against the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha and the
>> predecessors and inspirations of the current Hindutva family of
>> organizations, including political parties such as the BJP.
>>
>> Shuddha
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
>> Raqs Media Collective
>> shuddha at sarai.net
>> www.sarai.net
>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>
>>
>>  Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
>> Raqs Media Collective
>> shuddha at sarai.net
>> www.sarai.net
>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>
>>
>>
>
>  Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media Collective
> shuddha at sarai.net
> www.sarai.net
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>
>
>