India¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: India¶
This chapter presents a Marxist analysis of the Indian revolutionary situation, arguing that the fate of the British proletariat is inextricably linked to the colonial masses, particularly the Indian peasantry. Victory for British workers requires an Indian uprising guided by a proletarian programme, and vice versa. India is depicted as the classic colonial country, where British imperialism invests vast sums while extracting them every five to six years. The Indian revolution is therefore a colonial revolution against foreign oppressors, in which feudal relations coexist with bourgeois-proletarian antagonisms.
The text sharply criticises the Stalinist bureaucracy for betraying the Indian revolution. It accuses Stalin of advancing the reactionary idea of ‘worker-peasant parties’, which have proved impotent, and of applying a Menshevik conception that slew the revolution in China. The central slogan of the ‘democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants’ is denounced as a treacherous trap; after the experience of October, it is indistinguishable from the dictatorship of the proletariat leading the peasantry. The Stalinists maintain a conspiracy of silence about the class character of this dictatorship, refusing to clarify whether it means Kuomintang-style bourgeois rule or October-style proletarian rule.
The chapter insists on the centrality of the Constituent Assembly slogan for any revolutionary democratic movement, especially in India given its provincial diversity and feudal-caste relations. Safarov, the Comintern’s leading theorist on India, is criticised for counterposing the Constituent Assembly with the claim that the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry can be achieved ‘only in the Soviet form’. Trotsky attacks this as fetishising the Soviet form while ignoring class content, warning that the national bourgeoisie could create its own Soviets to deceive workers. The Stalinists are further accused of falsely depicting bourgeois nationalism as already dead and communism as leading the masses, when in reality the Indian Communist Party has been deprived of the Constituent Assembly slogan as a mobilising weapon.
Gandhi’s passive resistance is analysed as a tactical knot combining petty-bourgeois naivety with liberal bourgeois treachery, useful for disciplining the masses. His ‘moral’ revulsion from violence reflects the bourgeoisie’s fear of the masses. The peasantry’s struggle for land is the basis of democratism, but passive resistance can become revolution only under urban proletarian leadership. The Indian proletariat, though numerically weaker than Russia’s in 1905, has revolutionary possibilities not predetermined by size. The missing condition is a Bolshevik Party.
The Communist International is condemned for betraying the Indian revolution. Manuilsky subordinates the right of secession to ‘defeating fascism’, meaning Indians must support British imperialism in war. This Stalinist policy is covered by the ‘People’s Front’, a formula for class collaboration that subordinates the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. Coalition leads to abandoning revolutionary struggle, as seen in Germany, Austria, China, and Spain. The proletariat must maintain complete independence from the bourgeoisie to lead the peasantry through a revolutionary agrarian programme. In war, colonial exploitation intensifies; the masses must use imperialist difficulties to strike a mortal blow, not aid their slave-owners. A revolutionary party of the Fourth International is necessary, independent of imperialist democracy, the Second and Third Internationals, and the national bourgeoisie. The struggle for national independence is linked to agrarian revolution and nationalisation. The Indian proletariat must form workers’ groups under the Fourth International’s banner, participating in mass organisations as the extreme left-wing. The Fourth International’s attitude toward India differs from its attitude toward Britain: it defends India. The agrarian revolution under proletarian leadership must be directed against British rule, Indian princes, foreign concessions, the national bourgeoisie, and the leaders of the National Congress and Muslim League.