Anniversary of death of Charu Majumdar and archive additions
Maoist Documentation Project
(popularly known as CM and general secretary of the Communist Party of
India, Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) from its formation in 1969) died after
ten days of torture in police custody in Calcutta, India. Born in
Siliguri in the northern part of West Bengal state in 1918, he became an
organizer by the age of 20 and became a member of the Communist Party of
India (CPI) a few years later. Primarily an organizer among the peasants
of Jalpaiguri, he led crop seizures during the great British-caused
famine of 1943.
During the struggle against modern revisionism in the 1960s, CM joined
those who opposed the revisionism of the newly-formed CPI(M) leadership
who avoided the key ideological issues during that time. CM's writings
(the historic 'eight documents' - all available in our archive in the
India - "Liberation Anthology" section) formed the political-ideological
basis for the emerging Maoist movement in India. Already, Mao Tse-Tung's
strategy of People's War had inspired the peasant revolt of Telengana in
1948, which was subsequently betrayed by the revisionist CPI who
collaborated with Nehru's armed mercenaries in crushing the rebellion.
When the peasants in the remote village of Naxalbari in north Bengal
rose up in armed revolt against the feudal landlords on March 18, 1967,
CM (one of the leaders of this uprising) saw this as the clear harbinger
of India's long-delayed revolution. As one of the founders and general
secretary of the CPI-ML, CM and others made the supreme sacrifice to
begin the heroic task of beginning people's war for India's New
Democratic Revolution and liberation of the masses from semi-feudalism,
comprador bureaucrat capitalism and imperialism.
Although CM's martyrdom and the brutal repression of the CPI-ML by the
Indian ruling classes, and its subsequent split into several factions,
marked a setback in India's revolution, the spirit of Naxalbari is alive
and well in the ongoing armed struggles, mass movements and peasant
committees in Andhra Pradesh, North Telengana, Bihar and in the immense
forests of Dandakaranya in central India. There are also various
nationality struggles currently raging in several parts of the country
at the present time. And although the revolutionary movement in India
is still disunited, Naxalbari remains a sparkling jewel in the crown of
the international proletariat, a promise still unfolding before our
eyes.
To mark the 26th anniversary of CM's death, we at the Maoist
Documentation Project are pleased to announce a major upgrade to our
India section of the archive. We have begun to archive material from
different Communist organizations in India.
Currently these include documents from the CPI-ML (People's War), which
has been engaged in armed struggle since 1980 and is developing
guerrilla zones in Andhra Pradesh, North Telengana and Dandakaranya.
These zones encompass about 60 million people. The CPI-ML (PW)
documents include:
* "30 Years of Naxalbari": covering 1967-1997, this gives an historic
overview of the protracted struggle of the Indian proletariat and
peasantry (against the state of the Indian big comprador bureaucratic
bourgeoisie and feudal landlords) up to the present time. Contains
several color photos.
* "All India Special Conference (Nov. 15-30, 1995)": delegates from
all over India met secretly deep in the forests of Dandakaranya and
worked to strengthen the development of the CPI-ML (PW) and expand the
guerrilla zones. Contains color photos.
* "Special Features of Indian Revolution and Marxist Approach Towards
the Resolution of Those Problems": A paper presented by CPI-ML (Peoples
War) (COC) at the International Seminar Organised by CPI (ML)
Janashakti.
In the future we expect to archive the 'Voice of the Vanguard', journal
of the CPI-ML (PW) on a regular basis.
We have also added documents from the Communist Party Reorganisation
Centre of India (Marxist-Leninist), which was formed in 1994 in the
western state of Maharashtra by the merger of four groups. These
include:
* Basic Documents: this contains the Program, Path and Constitution of
the CPRCI-ML.
* "Present International Situation and Our Tasks": from issue #4 of
'The Comrade', the journal of the CPRCI-ML.
* "Present National Situation and Our Tasks": from issue #5 of 'The
Comrade', the journal of the CPRCI-ML.
Finally, we have also added two excellant examples of historical
materialism by Dr. Suniti Kumar Ghosh, a member of the orginal 1969
CPI-ML Central Committee led by Charu Majumdar, and a profound Marxist
scholar, historian and political economist. Dr. Ghosh, who works outside
traditional academic settings, consistently maintains a high quality in
his work and explains the unfolding of history from the point of view of
the exploited masses.
These include:
* "India and the Raj, 1919-1947: Volume 2": This is the second half of
Dr. Ghosh's monumental study of the Indian big bourgeoisie under
colonial rule, and its principle political representative, the Indian
National Congress. The present volume can be read on its own and covers
the years 1931-1947. Against a vast panorama of heroic anti-imperialist
struggles put up by the peasants, workers, urban petty bourgeois, men of
the armed forces, etc, this volume exposes the attitude of the big
bourgeoisie towards imperialism, the Congress leadership's stand on
various issues such as communalism, caste, and the rights of
nationalities, the role of the Congress ministries 1937-39, the nature
of the 'Quit India' gamble, the role of the CPI in the freedom movement,
the reasons for the Partition of India, the nature of 'independence' and
why the British quit, and the secret of Gandhi's 'charisma'.
Exhaustively researched and relying on primary sources while looking at
India's freedom struggle from a Marxist perspective, Dr. Ghosh strips
away the conventional historical mythology about Gandhi and the Indian
National Congress Party and shows how India's "liberation" largely
occured under the aegis of imperialism, and how India's big bourgeoisie
and the Congress party betrayed the struggle for freedom waged by the
Indian masses.
* "'Development' Planning in India: Lumpendevelopment and
Imperialism": This penetrating and insightful example of Marxist
political economy looks at how and why for fifty years, the Indian
rulers have made great claims that their Five-Year Plans were
'socialistic'. Yet these Plans have been a miserable failure at ensuring
the people's minimum welfare, let alone bring about 'socialism'. It also
compares planning in people's China during the time of Mao Tse-tung with
that adopted by the Indian leaders which has led to the "utter
deprivation, disease and slow death", and "the appalling degradation and
dehumanization" of the Indian people.
All these new documents can be found at:
http://www.blythe.org/mlm
The India section begins at:
http://www.blythe.org/mlm/misc/india/india.htm
We hope our readers will find this material useful and enlightening. We
have also finalized Volume IX of the "Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung",
and have added a section on Maoism internationally, where we will try to
provide material about struggles around the world. Also, we have added
a new section of documents from the Communist Party of China during the
Cultural Revolution, and have some theoretical documents from the
Communist Party of Ceylon. All of these sections are still being
developed and we hope you will bear with us as we try to improve
electronic accessability to this rare but important material.
In solidarity,
Maoist Documentation Project
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The Maoist Documentation Project
An effort to archive and disseminate the
revolutionary works of Lenin, Stalin and Mao
Tse-tung and other revolutionaries.
Visit our web page at:
http://www.blythe.org/mlm
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