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Report from Bangladesh:
PBSP Holds Third Congress Amidst Suppression
By the Proletarian
Party of Purba Bangla (PBSP)
The Proletarian
Party of Purba Bangla (Purba Banglar Sharbahara Party [PBSP]), a
participating party of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
(RIM), successfully and enthusiastically held its Third Congress
in February 1992 despite a renewed campaign of suppression by the
reactionary state. This Congress is, for many reasons, extremely
significant and marks a turning point in the life of the Party.
The Second Congress of the Party, held in 1987, had decided that
in the course of summing up past mistakes in the ideological line
of the Party, past and present political lines should also be reviewed.
In fact, the Second Congress decided that this task of reviewing
the political line should be the Party's principal task. Later,
the task of reviewing the military line was added. The main aim
of the Third Congress was to bring to a successful conclusion the
process of review and the two-line struggle that accompanied it,
to resolve the line questions and elect a new Central Committee
on that basis.
The Third Congress, with great devotion, has accomplished the historic
task with which it was entrusted. While defending and upholding
the correct aspects of past lines, it has identified and rectified
the mistakes in past lines and reached new, more correct positions
on a series of line questions. It has also elected a new central
body, the Third Central Committee, which reflects and is based on
these new positions. The Congress has also decided that building
armed struggle and organization is the main task of the Party in
the coming period, while simultaneously, but secondarily, review
of certain line questions will be continued.
This Congress was held in a political situation in which the parliamentary
autocratic regime of Mrs Khaleda Zia has been carrying out the second
stage of a countrywide counter-revolutionary campaign of suppression,
"Operation Durbar" (Operation Irresistible), aimed at the Party.
(The first stage of Operation Durbar was launched and carried out
by the preceding government of General Ershad, which, though disguised
as civilian, was actually a military regime, and was overthrown
in December 1990 as a result of an almost decade-long movement of
students and urban masses. This was followed by the introduction
of parliamentary and "civil" democracy.) It intensified the great
difficulties the Party was already facing from the serious setbacks
suffered during the heavy, year-long campaign of suppression throughout
the country conducted against the Party. In this context, even holding
the Congress was complex, risky, and difficult - but it was successful.
The world situation today is marked by the complete collapse of
phoney socialism, the extreme bankruptcy of the different varieties
of revisionism and the great lies and propaganda by the imperialists
that "socialism and communism are dead", the daydreams and vain
efforts by the imperialists to impose a new world order, and, on
the other hand, the beginning of a new worldwide upsurge of the
Maoist communist revolutionaries. In this national and international
situation, successfully holding the Third Congress of the Maoist
PBSP, which proudly promises to firmly advance the revolutionary
armed struggle, is an event of importance and a victory of the Maoists
worldwide.
The Congress included delegates from the ranks of the workers, peasants,
middle class intellectuals and women, and, reflecting the use of
three-in-one combinations, there were delegates from the older generation,
the middle-aged and the youth. All of the delegates had been tempered
in struggle, including the newest ones, who had experienced the
great suppression campaign of 1989, and all had played a leading
role in rebuilding the Party (after the 1989 setbacks) at its various
levels.
After an inaugural speech by the Secretary of the Second Central
Committee, Comrade Anwar Kabir, the first resolution adopted by
the Congress was to pay revolutionary red tribute to the fallen
comrades of the Party and in other countries, especially Peru and
Iran. The Congress stood for a minute's silence in honour of the
communist and revolutionary martyrs. A message from the Committee
of RIM greeting the Congress was then submitted and read aloud.
The Congress adopted eleven resolutions, ten of which dealt with
basic line questions. These eleven resolutions in fact make important
changes in a number of the basic lines of the Party. At the same
time, the general correctness of past lines on basic questions has
been defended and upheld. The Congress also firmly rejected a number
of revisionist lines that emerged in the course of the two-line
struggle over the past few years, and it identified questions on
which further review of line was needed. It has reaffirmed and emphasized
that, despite some basic mistakes, in the final analysis Comrade
Shiraj Shikder was the representative of the most advanced trend
in the communist movement of Purba Bangla (Bangladesh) during the
decades of the 1960s and 1970s.
The Congress adopted "Maoism" instead of the previous formulation
of "Mao Tsetung Thought".
The central point of the new political decisions taken by the Congress
was the advance in the Party's concept of neo-colonialism, and the
corresponding basic changes regarding the Party's socio-economic
analysis, including agriculture and the principal contradiction.
The essence of the new political line on these questions is, briefly:
Purba Bangla is a neo-colonial country oppressed by imperialism;
the socio-economic character of the country is distorted capitalism
that is under neo-colonial subjugation to imperialism; a commodity
economy is already the principal aspect of agriculture, yet semi-feudalism
is still a basic problem; the contradiction with Indian expansionism
is a basic one; the dominant force in the state is the native comprador
bureaucrat bourgeois class, who are the lackeys of imperialism-expansionism,
and the contradiction between this class and the broad masses of
workers, peasants and middle classes is the principal contradiction
in society. It is only through overthrowing this class that it is
possible to overthrow imperialism, expansionism and the remnants
of feudalism and to establish a new democratic socio-economic order
opposed to imperialism, expansionism, feudalism and bureaucrat comprador
capitalism. Therefore the stage of revolution is new democratic,
and the character of the war is class war, or civil war.
In line with this more advanced understanding of neo-colonialism,
the Congress summed up a few basic mistakes, including nationalist
errors, made at different times in the past in determining the principal
contradiction, the resolution of the national question and the character
of the state.
Very important changes were made by this Congress in the military
line: it was determined that the central task was war against the
state with armed struggle right from the beginning. In regard to
this, the Congress summed up that it was wrong to initiate this
through annihilation of local enemies and to consider this a stage
in itself.
The most important other decisions on line questions included:
-
amendments to and changes in the Party Constitution;
- a
resolution on the present world situation;
- a
resolution on the current domestic political situation;
-
nine other resolutions on political and other questions.
These latter nine resolutions mainly dealt with RIM, the struggle
against revisionism, the people's war in Peru, the emerging armed
liberation movements in South Asia, the Middle East and the Madrid
Conference, the situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts district,
the death of Comrade Chiang Ching, the women's liberation movement,
etc.
A resolution was adopted to promote debate, discussion and review
within RIM on the basis of the new political lines.
The Congress also discussed and adopted an organizational report
by the Secretary of the Second Central Committee. This report dealt
with practical work and the situation of armed struggle and organizational
activity over the four years since the Second Congress. It also
dealt specifically with the situation of the Party at the height
of the struggle against the suppression campaign and the subsequent
setback, as well as with the present situation of the organization.
The report expressed sympathy and solidarity with the masses, who
have suffered enormous physical, psychological and material harm,
and it paid tribute to comrades who have been injured, crippled
or captured during the state's suppression campaign.
The important final session of the Congress was held during the
night of February 9th in a rural area of Purba Bangla. The meeting
hall was decorated with carefully prepared, nicely drawn banners,
posters, festoons and portraits of the five great leaders - Marx,
Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao - as well as a portrait of Comrade
Shiraj Shikder, the founder of the Party. The Party's red flag,
with the hammer and sickle, stood proudly at the front of the podium.
Photographers, technicians and other comrades were all busily helping.
The delegates drank tea and ate a light meal. They wore various
kinds of camouflage for security reasons. Selected armed guerrillas
stood round-the-clock sentry. In the middle of the night, in this
hall lit by flashlights, hurricane lamps and numerous candles, this
session commenced with a speech by a representative of the presidium.
After a final round of discussion and debate and the adoption of
a series of measures which have great significance for the future
course of the revolution in Purba Bangla, the Congress elected the
Third Central Committee by secret ballot. Of the newly elected Central
Committee members, the name of Comrade Anwar Kabir, secretary of
the previous Central Committee, was publicly announced. The session
ended with an informal cultural presentation, during which the important
task of dispersing the leaders and delegates was carried out. By
that time, the hall had filled with neighbouring supporters of the
Party - men, women, young and old.
As the various delegates headed back to their areas of work around
the country, they passed through the fields of winter crops, wet
with the morning dew, and, in the pleasant morning breeze of late
winter, watched as the rising sun spread its red glow over the eastern
sky. The faces of the marching comrades shone with their determination
to face the life-and-death revolutionary struggles lying ahead.
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