Volume 2, No. 2, February 2001

 Without the People’s Army, People have Nothing!

[As our office received this statement late, we are now printing it in the current issue of People’s March — Editor.]

The Central Committee of the CPI (ML)[People’s War] sends its red revolutionary greetings to all the young guerrilla fighters who have come together under a centralised command to constitute a qualitatively new fighting force on the Indian soil — the People’s Guerrilla Army. This day, December 2, will go down in the history of India as a red-letter day, a historic turning point in the Indian revolution, a new milestone in the ongoing People’s War.

The vision of the Red Army marching across the vast forest tracts and plains of the Indian countryside, liberating the peasant masses from the clutches of feudal oppression, recruiting thousands upon thousands of the poor and landless peasants and growing ever stronger, establishing the rural bases all across India, and finally capturing the cities to win countrywide victory, had fired the imagination and dreams of the communist revolutionaries from the time of our beloved founder leader, Com. Charu Majumdar. Ever since the great Naxalbari uprising in 1967, countless heroic fighters had fallen in the course of advancing the People’s War in India and several attempts were made to realise this vision of the Red Army marching across the Indian countryside. The armed guerrilla attack on the police camp at Magurjan by the poor and landless peasant fighters on October 27, 1970 snatching rifles from the police marked a leap in the process of building the People’s Army in India.

The formation of the PGA captures the spirit of Magurjan and fulfils the much-cherished vision and the historic mission of the Indian proletariat at the present stage of our revolution.

The news of the founding of the PGA — the first ever people’s army led by the Party of the proletariat in India — greatly enthuses the rank and file of the Party, the revolutionary mass organisations, the well-wisheres of the Indian revolution and the oppressed masses of India. It also inspires the proletarian revolutionary forces all over the world and the oppressed people and nationalities world-wide who are waging relentless struggles against imperialism and all their running dogs. Indeed, it is an event of great historic significance to the Indian and world revolution.

Firstly, its significance lies in the fact that it is the first-ever regular People’s Guerrilla Army built on the Indian soil under the leadership of the party of the proletariat. Indian history over the centuries had witnessed glorious armed struggles of the peasantry, specially the Adivasi peasantry guerrilla wars, and many armed uprisings against British colonialism and their feudal lackeys, but all these failed due to lack of proletarian leadership. The great Telangana Uprising of 1946-’51 did not create the People’s Army, despite the favourable conditions, due to the betrayal by the then party leadership. And the revolutionary movement after Naxalbari could not be taken to the higher stage leading to the establishment of the Base Areas mainly due to the failure to build the regular People’s Army, though Magurjan marked a first serious attempt to do so.

Secondly, its significance lies in repudiating the age-old revisionist theory of capturing state power through the parliamentary path, by peaceful means. The formation of the PGA is a reaffirmation of the path of protracted people’s war. In semi-feudal semi-colonial India, the path of establishing liberated zones first in the vast countryside and encircling the cities to win countrywide victory.

Thirdly, its significance lies in the fact that the PGA is making its appearance at a critical juncture of history; at a time when imperialism is bogged down neck-deep in crisis, when the Indian ruling classes have embarked upon a massive offensive against the Indian people by pushing the burden of the crisis, in the name of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation and, consequently, drawing the people into a tide of struggles; at a time when all the ruling class parties have become thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the people who are seeking a real alternative.

Fourthly, its significance lies in the fact that the PGA is the product of the class war in India that has been going on for decades, particularly since the glorious Naxalbari Uprising. The formation of the PGA is the culmination of the revolutionary struggles from the great Telangana Uprising, Tebhaga and Punapra-Vayalar revolts of the late ’40s; Naxalbari, Srikakulam, Birbhum, Mushahari, Debra, Gopivallabhpur struggles of the late ’60s and the early ’70s; the sustained guerrilla war in NT, DK, AP and Bihar during the ’80s and ’90s. It is the concretisation of the lessons drawn from these struggles and points to a qualitative advance of the class war in India.

The process of the building the People’s Army in the Indian conditions has no doubt been an arduous one. Unlike in China, where armed revolution confronted armed counter-revolution from the very beginning, and the People’s Liberation Army took birth in the very early years of the revolution, we are building the army from scratch in India. It is in the course of intensifying the class struggles in NT and DK that the armed guerrilla squads took birth and became the generalised form in the second half of the 1980s; though in DK the armed form had been the feature from the very beginning since the formation of the CPI (ML) [People’s War] in 1980. It was in the course of the guerrilla war against the enemy’s armed forces that our squads became further strengthened, increased in numbers, enhanced their fire power, and improved their fighting abilities and their quality. Gradually, as the guerrilla war with the enemy’s forces intensified further, the military tasks acquired great importance in the overall work of the guerrilla squads. A separation of the organisational and the military tasks was made by 1995 when the first Platoon — the embryonic form of the regular army — made its appearance in DK, to be followed later in NT. More Platoons and Special Guerrilla Squads have come into existence in the past 5 years though they functioned separately.

The coming together of our guerrilla forces in different regions under a centralised command is thus long overdue and the formation of the PGA is therefore the natural outcome, though delayed, of the whole course of objective development of armed struggle in India. You, the members of the armed guerrilla squads that have now come under a centralised command to form the PGA, therefore, have a long history of armed clashes with the feudal forces and the state’s armed forces. It is because of you that the party enjoys enormous prestige among the people in NT, DK, East Region, South Telangana, Nallamala regions in AP; and the Magadh-Koel Kaimur region in Bihar. It is your relentless fight and resilience, your firm conviction in the masses and deep commitment to their liberation, your heroic armed resistance and attacks against enemy forces that has given the masses immense confidence in the cause of revolution and has prepared them politically for advancing the People’s War in India in order to smash the exploitative state and overthrow the ruling classes, and establish a new democratic state and society as the first step in establishing socialism and communism.

The central task of any revolution is the seizure of the state power by armed force and India is no exception. It is only with the aid of a strong People’s Army that the oppressed people can acquire their own state power. The People’s Army is the concrete expression of the organised armed strength of the people.

It is this organised armed strength of the masses that can ensure the establishment of the organs of people’s democratic power, and in the vast tracts of NT and DK, wherever our people’s guerrilla forces have been able to withstand and counter the enemy’s attacks, the people are able to exercise their political power. The formation of the PGA will no doubt bring about a qualitative change in the situation by assisting the masses in building and strengthening their organs of power.

One of the greatest strengths of the PGA is the participation of the women in large numbers; over a third of our fighting forces comprise of women guerrillas. Perhaps never before in the history of the communist movement in India have women participated in armed activity on such a vast scale. Another prominent feature is the involvement of a large number of Adivasis, the most deprived lot of the Indian society, who have been victims of centuries of feudal and imperialist oppression. And the vast majority of the fighters of the PGA hail from the poorest of the poor — the landless labourers and the poor peasants, particularly the most socially oppressed Dalits. Thus the PGA is the army of the poor, of the most oppressed sections of Indian society; herein lies its strength, it draws its sustenance from the active support and participation of those who need the revolution most.

Today, the PGA is no doubt a very small force numerically. But, its political significance is great. This is an army of a new type, an army that has emerged out of continuous battles with the enemy forces while operating as smaller guerrilla units for almost two decades; an army that has taken birth in the course of the armed agrarian revolutionary war; an army that is based firmly on mass line and enjoys the support of the broad masses.

Though you are a small force, you have many challenging tasks ahead: destroying the enemy’s effective strength through continuous tactical offensives while taking the utmost care to preserve our forces; organising the masses and building a strong revolutionary mass base; arming and training the masses to defend themselves from the enemy’s attacks; establishing and defending the organs of revolutionary political power of the broad masses; carrying out extensive revolutionary propaganda among the vast masses; recruiting the peasant youth into the PGA and building an extensive People’s Militia; participating in production activity and helping the masses in improving their living standards; and, most important of all, setting up the party organisations at the local level.

By effectively carrying out these tasks, we will be able to consolidate the Guerrilla Zones in NT and DK, establish Guerrilla Zones in the other regions of intense class struggle and advance towards the goal of forming the Base Areas first in DK and later in NT and other regions.

In carrying out these tasks, the Main Force of the PGA — the Platoons and Companies — should assist the Secondary Force — the Special Guerrilla Squads and Local Guerrilla Squads — and the Base Force — the People’s Militia. And all these formidable tasks are to be carried out in the midst of a massive all-round offensive by the enemy forces. The delay in the formation of the PGA has already given the enemy an upper hand who is able to bring about better co-ordination between the various states and launch the first countrywide co-ordinated suppression campaign since April last with the formation of the Joint Operational Command (JOC) consisting of the five states of AP, MP, Maharashtra, Bihar and Orissa led by the Centre. Since then the attacks by the enemy forces have increased considerably. Training, fire power, intelligence gathering, co-ordination, speed and efficiency of operations, etc., of the enemy have all considerably improved. We too have to enhance our performance in all these fronts in order to regain the initiative in the shortest possible time. This is the immediate challenge and the most important task confronting us today. The CC has full confidence of meeting this grave challenge with the active role of the PGA. The CC calls upon the PGA to deal effective blows against the enemy forces by intensifying the guerrilla war while preserving our forces through the tactics of self-defence. You can achieve great victories by mobilising the armed masses to counter the enemy attacks and shatter enemy’s morale through co-ordinated campaigns.

You, the heroic guerrilla fighters of the PGA, the new People’s Army of India, are not alone in your just war against imperialism and feudal reaction. You are one of the many armed detachments of the world proletariat, the Indian detachment of the world proletarian army that is digging the grave of imperialism and all reactionaries on Indian soil just as your brothers of the New People’s Army do so on the soil of the Philippines, your comrades of the People’s Liberation Army do so in Peru, and the comrades belonging to the armed detachments in Nepal, Turkey and several other countries do so in their own lands. You are waging this war against imperialism and all their running dogs in India, hand in hand with the proletarian revolutionary fighters all over the world; with the anti-imperialist fighters in Chiapas, the land of Palestine, in Chechnya, in Kurdish lands, in Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka)in Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, in the land of the Bodos, Manipur and elsewhere.

The founding of the PGA on this historic day shatters the myth floated by the Indian ruling classes that our Party and the revolutionary movement have become extremely weakened after the series of losses incurred in the past few years, particularly after the gravest loss of three of our beloved leaders of the Central Committee — Comrades Shyam, Mahesh and Murali — last year. The formation of the PGA is a fitting tribute to these martyrs, fulfilling their cherished dream. It is a sign of the growing strength of our Party, the people’s guerrilla forces and the revolutionary movement in India. It points to the invincible march of the People’s War in our country. Let the ruling classes tremble! The PGA will grow from strength to strength under the leadership of the Party to liberate the masses from the triple yoke of feudalism, imperialism and comprador bureaucrat capitalism, there by paving the way for socialism and communism.

2-12-2000

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