Volume 6, No. 5, May 2005

Liberation’s ‘Political Observer’ has written a doleful defensive piece in Liberation, September 2004, tinged with a fair dose of resentment against the erstwhile CPI(ML)PW’s tactics of talks with the state governments while "waging war on Revolution". Here the CPI(ML) Liberation wishfully equates itself with "Revolution". Such equation is as much stunning to us as to any genuine political observer and Liberation’s sincere cadre too. Our analysis pertaining to Liberation’s metamorphosis from a revolutionary group to a revisionist outfit wedded to the dirty world of parliamentarism, jettisoning all that symbolized revolutionary Naxalbari politics has cut the ‘Political Observer’ to the quick. It is political exasperation, rapidly dwindling political base, continuous degeneration of leaders and activists and most of all its badly dented prestige, which was born out of and painstakingly built up by earlier armed struggles, have pushed this decaying organization to such a sorry state that it feels palpably hurt to hear such words of criticism like "metamorphosis" or "betrayal" of the Naxalbari politics. One can not help feeling sorry for its pathetic defence, going to the extent of positing itself as ‘Revolutionary’. Such ridiculous effort reeks of hypocrisy, basking in the past days of glory; the revolutionary days now consciously buried as futile adventurous exercises.

To reply to the allegations and hurt feelings of the Liberation’s critic, we have decided to confront their main points. For convenience sake, we take up the ‘Political Observers’ most serious cum self-soothing conclusion worth quoting. It runs "As revolutionary Marxists we are not surprised to see the open and unambiguous counter revolutionary turn the PWG is taking in Bihar ….. Before PWG ideologues talk about Liberation’s "metamorphosis’ and ‘betrayal’, should they not be asked to look at their own continuing degeneration in Bihar?" [Liberation, September 2004]

In Bihar the CPI(ML)Liberation once ignited the fire of Naxalbari politics i.e. violent armed struggle in the mid and late 70s. In Bihar too this CPI(ML)Liberation since the mid 1980s began its topsy turvey by reverting to the same political positions of the CPI/CPI(M), which were polemically shredded and practically demolished through the spring thunder of Naxalbari. In the same Bihar the Liberation group with a u-turn like the CPI after the betrayal of the Telangana uprising in the early 1950s went hunting for friendship in its earlier camp of political foes and in this state it began training its gun on the forces upholding Naxalbari politics facing state repression. Like Ajay Ghosh and his trusted men in the CPI, Vinod Mishra, a period after comrade Jauhar’s glorious martyrdom, steered the organization towards the same beaten track of parliamentary politics. Armed squads were disbanded, all underground set-ups were destroyed, forms of struggle and activities were basically and fundamentally dragged to the electoral arena, theoretical justification was made for so-called mainstream politics arguing the futility of the path of carrying on armed struggle and what not. Now while the erstwhile PW and MCC forces have been facing the bullets of the para-military and police forces, Liberation leaders at various levels have kept themselves busy liaisoning with the government administration for securing bank loans, relief’s or such material gains for which all parliamentary parties vie with one another to expand their vote bank.

Liberation’s ‘Political Observer’ appears to feel elated for the PW’s "belated" recognition of the Liberation’s past revolutionary history. The ‘Observer’ had better brush up his/her memory to find the consistent and unequivocal appreciation from the revolutionary camp of the armed resistance struggle once led by this organization. It is never a ‘belated’ recognition as the Observer projects. There is a striking resemblance between the CPI(ML)Liberation in the period consequent upon abandoning the Naxalbari path for choosing parliamentary politics and the CPI in the 1950s. The CPI leadership (later the CPM) seldom publicly condemned the Telangana uprising, rather has always tried to project it as a symbol of glowing struggle but the path it formulated after discarding the Telangana model was pure parliamentarism. History has repeated itself in a new garb in the name of Naxalbari brushing aside and rejecting the very alternative path synonymous with the Naxalbari uprising. Like Ajoy Ghosh, Rajeswar Rao and such revisionist betrayers who felt no qualms in swimming in the turbid water of anti-Marxist parliamentarism betraying the death-defying sacrifices and martyrdom of many hundred, these new-commers to revisionism rank into a similar morass. Like the earlier announcements of the CPI for the withdrawal of the Telangana armed struggle in the name of "new situation" or such nefarious arguments as, "vast Political changes necessitating the withdrawal of armed struggle," the Political Observer gravely adds "…. it (PW) is incapable of understanding the dialectical interconnection and combination of these different aspects into a single revolutionary and historical entity". Such a maya or illusory theorization is meant for simple unconscious souls: the glorious line of revolutionary armed struggle rejecting the parliamentary path and the abandoning of such struggle, disbanding armed squads, destroying the under-ground set-up recanting the very principles of Naxalbari are, the Liberation wants us to believe, "a single revolutionary and historical entity". Now if we are to assume that the CPI/CPI(M)’s practice of dirty spineless parliamentarism, martyrdom of Kayyur (Kerala) comrades, the path of the Telangana uprising, sacrifices of the hundreds and the politics of marriage, short-lived divorce and re-marriage with the Congress or other reactionary parties are all "a single revolutionary and historical entity"!

In similar fashion Rameshwar Prasad, the Liberation leader sums up in 2003 (like the betrayers of the Great Telengana uprising as Sundaraya, Gopalan, etc.) this way: "Following the trail blazed by Bojpur and Bihar, the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat of India have already embarked on a higher course of political assertion against the powers that be…." [Introduction, All India Agricultural Labour Association, Documents, First All India Conference 14-15th November 2003, p.7, Emphasis added]. It is pure and simple hoodwinking the people. It is really difficult to consume such a claim as Mr. Prasad makes as to how the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat have now embarked on a higher course of political assertion through vote-catching politics, and assertion of low-keyed demands within the Constitutional boundaries under the leadership of the Liberation? The Liberation theoreticians would have us believe that sliding down to such an arena of struggle is actually "Following the trail blazed by Bhojpur and Bihar". Fine and sweet argument of the Revisionists! Such argument was blurted out by the CPI/CPI(M) while sliding down and down to the murky world of constitutional politics as carrier of "Lessons From Telengana". The CPI(M)’s recent Andhra Pradesh state conference concluded with the call: "Carry Forward Heroic Telengana Struggle Legacy" [People’s Democracy, Jan. 31-Feb.06, 2005] The Liberation ideologues may be greatly elated by this call but is it not a fact that the CPI/CPI(M) leaders consciously betrayed the Telengana Struggle and have always put in all efforts to dump that legacy? Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattachariee at the rally after the conclusion of that state conference went a step forward distorting facts "that the Bengal unit of the Party learnt a lot from the struggle waged by the Andhra Party." [Ibid] The killers now want to prove that the West Bengal ‘Left’ government is busy translating the Telengana dream. Buddhadeb said that "the land issue thrown up by the Telengana armed struggle was taken to a successful conclusion by the Bengal Left Front…." [Ibid] Is it not shockingly ridiculous to tarnish the glorious image of the Great Telengana uprising? And here is a telling symmetry between Mr. Bhattacharya’s conclusion on Telengana heritage and Liberation’s Mr. Rameswar Prasad’s assertion that the legacy of the Great Bhojpur Struggle is carried on by higher (read small-scale movements on minimum demands) and basically electoral battles by this the Liberation and its frontal organizations! Is it the way to pay tribute to immortal martyrs of the Bhojpur peasant struggle like comrades Jauhar, Keso, Sahtu, Jiut and many others?

Kavita Krishnan, in October 2003 in her rejoinder to a People’s March critique of the Liberation practice captioned "Deeper into the Revisionist Garbage Can" had exercised all her skill to establish her stinking logic already heard from the CPI/CPI(M) camp many times over. The writer was pained for quoting a crucially relevant Liberation assertion that "the affairs of Indian State are generally conducted within a constitutional and parliamentary – democratic framework" Kavita hurled her charge for not presenting the rest of that revisionist gem that "like our political independence, parliamentary democracy in India too rests on a rather fragile foundation…." Does the omitted sentences blur the basic political contention of Liberation’s deep faith in the politics of parliamentary democracy after withdrawing from the path of establishing People’s Democracy through People’s War? We are much too much familiar with such rubbish.

The CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML)Liberation etc. harp on the same string to preach the view that comrade Lenin also accepted participating in elections. The context, the socio-economic structure and all such aspects have been discussed too repeatedly to refer to here anew. What was Lenin’s first and foremost task was to get the party and the masses prepared for the revolution. In Russia Plekhanov was bitterly criticized by Lenin for preaching the liquidationist politics of "transformation of the Social-Democrat Party into a self-governing organisation" by "drawing the masses of the workers into open social and political activities in all their manifestations" [V.I.Lenin, "The Illegal Party And Legal Work" in Lenin, Against Liquidationism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1988, pp.206-207]. The same liquidationist view forced open Liberation’s secret structure under Vinod Mishra’s leadership . And this dangerous line inspired the Liberation activists to be oblivious to the higher form of struggles and reduce activities to various "open social and political activities". Sometimes the Liberation leaders like the CPI(M) ideologues defend their participation in elections by stating that they are actually destroying the illusion of parliamentary democracy from the people’s minds. The actual record in assemblies and Parliament, however, blast such hypocrisy. Take for example, the CPI(ML) Manifesto for the 14th Lok Sabha Elections. Nowhere one finds such a clear statement that the system needs to be destroyed not by the electoral process but by a revolution. Rather illusions are galore to highlight how the CPI(ML)Liberation M.P. and MLAs "have also been playing an outstanding role on the development front, in terms of utilization of MP/MLA development funds and implementation of local area development schemes as well as leading popular struggles against bureaucratic lethargy and corruption." [Liberation, April 2004, p.19]. So vote the CPI(ML)Liberation candidates! This is a specimen of how the Liberation, like the CPI, CPI(M) and the known bourgeois-feudal parties, have been duty-bound to sow the seeds of illusion in the minds of the people about the rotten system of electoral politics in India, and thus to smash the so-called anarchism of the Maoists. Well, carry on Liberation, carry on for sheer survival!

Let us now quote from the Liberation’s tricky argument after rejecting the armed struggle. It reads: "The Party does not rule out the possibility that under a set of exceptional national and international circumstances, the balance of social and political forces may even permit a relatively peaceful transfer of central power to revolutionary forces…." Like the CPI (M) Programme this one too indulges in creating such a smoke screen with the tame rider like "the party of the proletariat must prepare itself for wining the ultimate decisive victory in an armed revolution…" [The General Programme, The Party Constitution, 7th Party Congress, Patna, 25-30 Nov. 2002, p.11]. It is well known to the senior Marxists in India that the CPI(M) leadership faced stiff opposition at that time from the revolutionary forces for incorporating that para on peaceful means for establishing people’s democracy. After nearly three decades the renegade Liberation too inserted a similar possibility in its programme adding some confusing words like ‘exceptional circumstances’, ‘balance of social and political forces’, etc. This is nothing but Krushevism with left phraseology. Do the developments after abandoning armed squads, destroying secret organisations, and unmitigated zeal for electoral politics, etc. show that the Liberation keeps open the alternative path of armed struggle and its dispirited leaders are prepared for such a Himalayan task?

The Liberation group sent feelers to the CPI(M) on the so-called Left-confederation but the later showed its back on it. At this, Liberation lamented "As we have already noted, no headway could be made in this direction as the CPI(M),… continued to rule out any interaction with the revolutionary posture in this regard…" [Documents of the Special Conference 22-24 July, 1990, New Delhi, p.44]. However this renegade Liberation derived some satisfaction later for "The CPI(M)’s 14th Congress talked of a positive approach towards CPI(ML)Liberation/IPF as well as some other Naxalite organisation…." [Political-Organizational Report adopted at the 5th All India Party Congress, Calcutta, 20-26, 1992, p.42] This was obviously an example of requited love. The CPI(M) overture was a balm to the heart-broken Liberation. The question naturally comes to the fore as to which Naxalite organisations the CPI(M) has shown such a "positive approach"? There is no gainsaying that it was none but those poor organisations which had also already abandoned the Naxalbari politics of armed struggle.

Following basically the Dutt-Bradley Thesis, a rightist directive, the CPI began to reconsider the Government of India Act 1935 Act that it initially repudiated as rubbish. The Party’s entry into bourgeois politics gained momentum and with the imminent elections the CPI plunged into the electoral arena declaring "…. We want to utilize the election for furthering the anti-imperialist struggle and raising it to sharpen their consciousness and make elections a lever for consolidating the class forces of anti-imperialist masses". [On Election, circular No. 5, PBCC, In Arindam Sen and Partha Ghosh (ed) Communist Movement in India, Historical Perspective and Important Documents, Vol. I, (1917-1939), A CPI (ML) Liberation Presentation, 1991, p.613] We have been listening to the same refrain on every occasion of the election drama. The colonial state first floated this platform and then the semi-colonial Indian state made meticulous advancements upon it to deflect any possibility of a sharp anti-state movement with this dampener. The CPI first swallowed the bait followed by the CPI(M) and then the CPI(ML) Liberation-like renegades.

Despite some vague contrary claims the Liberation nurtures a dream to do a CPI(M) in Bihar and other states when the CPI(M) itself has degenerated into a social fascist organization. Liberation’s actual hope resides in the 1964 CPI(M) Programme, also a Programme that smacks of parliamentarism coated with left phraseology. Even more than a decade back it bemoaned that "almost all the dissident forces coming out from the party [the CPI(M)] are accusing the party leadership of deviating from the 1964 programme…" [CPI(ML) Liberation, Firm Defender of the Revolutionary Legacy of the Indian Communists, not dated, p.10]. Apparently favouring the CPI(M) dissidents’ grievance the Liberation actually let out its own position. With all supposed resentment for the CPI(M) deviation from the 1964 Programme the Liberation actually trained its gun on the fundamentals of Naxalbari, Maoist formulations and all that were the salient features of the new revolutionary path. It made devastating attacks on the "revolutionary position" for its "opposite extremes". Such was exactly the charge of the CPI(M)/CPI, etc. And then for defending the revisionist legacy in the Indian communist movement the above document (read Dange or Sundaraya or the likes of Jyoti Basu written document) presented this precious gem to buttress its revisionism. It charged that "… Agrarian revolution was visualized strictly on the Chinese lines and primacy of extra-parliamentary struggles was interpreted as permanent exclusion of the entire stream of parliamentary struggle. These perceptions did work to an extent in a situation of revolutionary upswing, but desperate attempts to stick to these slogans even under vastly different circumstances of a real retreat of the movement could produce nothing more than empty anarchist pharse-mongering". [Ibid, p.11].

What a surrenderist argument to conceal Liberation’s fleeing the revolutionary arena! Such pretentious justification of joining the parliamentary contest were preached by the CPI/CPM leadership after betraying the Telengana struggle. Yet, the CPI(M) Central Committee adopted a resolution in Oct. 1996 on the rectification campaign to be conducted at all levels against "the bane of parliamentarism should be seen as a deviation among some leaders and cadres for holding elected positions and power." Our Liberation leadership has every reason to discover the great revolutionary anxiety of the CPI(M)’s leadership about this Party’s call to go on battle gear against parliamentarism, fearful of losing its vote base. With the same unprincipled political-ideological positions like those of the CPI(M), the Liberation too has occasionally mouthed slogans against pure parliamentarian, also with the perspective that it may loose its vote base. In the nearly past one decade after uttering so much against partliamentarism has not the CPI(M) proved its deeply-entrenched parliamentarism? Mass struggles are also conducted only to further deepen it. Is not the Party now married to the reactionary Congress(I) to prop up the Congress government at the Centre? Has not the CPI(M) frantically tried to forge electoral alliances with parties of dubious distinction to get a foothold in many states for its advance? The Liberation’s love particularly for the CPI(M) brimmed over during Vinod Mishra’s leadership, and though the CPI(M) praised it officially too it was not too eager to leave its own election-oriented political base. And the CPI(ML) Liberation is now nearly love-lorn with few feelers from the CPI(M).

For the Liberation, the word ‘revisionism’ and the very concept of revisionism now sounds Greek to them. In order to pass off its parliamentarism as a sacred anti-state effort, this outfit gushes such arguments that it is the State that encourages to "either follow the parliamentary path like the CPI or CPI(M) or quit the electoral arena like the PWG and MCC". Which state is perturbed by its basically parliamentary politics with a minimalist programmatic activities? Who does not know that, be it in the U.S.A. or India, two or many political parities get locked in electoral contests in a sham and mock battle; and in India even in the early days when the CPI and then the CPI(M) tested positive for parliamentary cretinism, they too received criticisms from various political quarters for their friendly anti-government articulations? The RJD in Bihar or the BJP in another state may criticize the Liberation on this or that score which is the part of the political game in so-called mainstream politics. The Liberation tries to evade the basic question: Why the then PW/MCC or the present CPI(Maoist) in the state’s perception’, stands diametrically opposite to the entire spectrum of constitution-abiding parties like the CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) Liberation, RJD, TDP, etc. etc.?

When the Liberation leadership faces a barrage of criticisms that it deserves for the betrayal, hypocrisy and all such traits it flips its lid crying hoarse over its supposedly truly revolutionary colours. The beginning of the end of Liberations’ revolutionary days synchronized with steadily sending in the open the underground activists and leaders during about the middle of the 1980s, streamlining the party activists to be familiar with a way of political life having striking similarity with the revisionist stream and marshalling the organizational structures with equal gusto to make them ready for elections and minimum demands. It has sunk into its own mess, further aggravated by its unethical methods. The irony is that instead of doing a CPI (M)/CPI on Bihar’s soil its electoral record has not been that impressive over about the past two decades. Rather its increasingly marginal position is further pricking the already sapped morale of its honest activists.

Comrade Stalin had warned many years back that a communist party "can not be a real party if it limits itself to registering what the masses of the working class feel and think, if it drags at the tail of the spontaneous movement, if it is unable to overcome the inertia and political indifference of the spontaneous movement, if it is unable to rise above the momentary interests of the proletariat, if it is unable to raise the masses to the level of understanding the class interests of the proletariat. The Party must stand at the head of the working class, it must see farther than the working class, it must lead the proletariat, and not drag at the tail of the spontaneous movement…" [J.V.Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, In Problems of Leninism, Peking, 1976, p.99]

The Liberation’s present election-oriented minimalist programme scaling down from its earlier position of leading and organizing the masses for the protracted war is purely a conscious dragging at the tail of spontaneity. Like the CPI(M) the Liberation too smells ‘adventurism’ or ‘anarchism’ in raising the masses’ revolutionary consciousness to a higher plane for establishing red power centers in the rural India.

The ‘Political Observer’ has taken great pains to prove the underhand link of the PW with the RJD in Bihar. Liberation’s story of underhand dealing of the Maoists with the RJD is crassly unconvincing. The Liberation has for many years been synonymous with falsehood and deception and its tricky politicking has permeated the lowest rungs as well. It has taken upon itself an onerous assignment to destroy the revolutionary forces by militarily engaging with them to the satisfaction of the state and various hues of bourgeois feudal political formations. By this, Liberation not only remains in the good books of the administration but tactfully misdirects its cadres. In the early 1970s it was the deeply-laid conspiracy of the betrayer CPI(M) leaders to target the Maoists for killing them and destroying their rise in West Bengal in particular, in cahoots with the state administration. The sleazy side of the game plan was using the red flag, the name of a communist party and uttering fiercely left rhetoric like ‘Get prepared for the partisan war’, etc. to bamboozle the unconscious CPI(M) activists into getting embroiled in the armed actions not against the state but against the revolutionaries. The same old game was repeated by the CPI(ML) Liberation. During the 1970s the CPI(M) killer leaders emblazoned the walls with slogans crudely highlighting the supposed alliance between the Naxalites and the Congress. The stark reality was, however, that Naxalites regularly got killed by the Congress as well as CPI(M) butchers. In Bihar the revolution-fearing Liberation chose the same old policy of the CPI(M): it incited it’s scattered armed activists to get engaged with the erstwhile P.U, P.W or the MCCI and thus sided with the state to finish off the latter, particularly in those areas it saw its mass base threatened by the growing revolutionary influence. While facing the bullets of the state those revolutionary organisations had to go in for retaliation against the Liberation’s attacks. And it is true many honest and good activists of the Liberation were killed in such clashes thanks to the diversification cunning tactics of the Liberation bosses. These organisations now merged into one called the CPI(Maoist), has already shown its great concern to unilaterally cease all such clashes in order not to harm ordinary cadres of the Liberation, but to wean them away from their fraudulent and revisionist leadership. At least one could justifiably conclude that although the Liberation failed to emerge like the CPI(M) did in West Bengal on the Bihar electoral arena if could outshine the CPI(M) in killing the revolutionaries and pushing its activists into the dangerously wrong stream of gunning down the revolutionaries. For the organisations like the CPI(ML)Liberation or the CPI(M) such tactics of channelising activists’ energies to do battle with the revolutionaries has caused great damage to the revolutionary Marxist Movement in India.

The fantastic claim of the Liberation, falsely charging the Maoists with unholy links with the RJD, falls flat in the light of real-life experiences of bloody clashes between the RJD led administration and the Maoists at regular intervals in Bihar. A clearly panicky Liberation ‘Political Observer’ has gone crazy to disclose the group’s worst pathologies by stating that the PWG as having ties with a "whole range of bourgeois parties" and with "sowing illusions" about them. It sounds like issuing sermons by the culprit himself. Such ridiculous utterances are actually coming from a befuddled Liberation scurrying for cover.

With the steady decline of organizational strength, lumpenisation of activists, the leadership’s inclination towards cozy life, bitter criticisms from the revolutionary ranks, the failure even in the electoral front, deactivisation of the cadres, etc. have thrust the CPI(ML) Liberation to take recourse to such slanders as its raison d’etre for existence. Its reliance on rumour and expertise in cooking stories assume the dizzying height of absurdities when the ‘Political Observer’ seemingly chanced upon "an open leader of the PWG (which) mentioned a meeting they had with Sonia Gandhi" on various issues. The imaginary open leader in Patna, the Observer wants us to believe, added "a complaining note how Sonia Gandhi and the Congress had refused to accept their call for a joint national campaign against black laws!" Liberation is now busy oiling its rumour mill. The Political Observer has relied on the black lie to establish the story that the Maoist are making some sort of understanding with the Congress (I). With its failure to stem the rot in its organization, the frustrated Liberation bereft of any revolutionary agenda is now taking recourse to cock and bull stories.

The observer being devoid of any real-life rational observational capability has discovered the story that the erstwhile PW had direct talks with such top brass of the Congress as Ms. Sonia Gandhi. The Observer has degenerated spreading such cheap rumours. The CPI (M) during the Naxalbari uprising later discovered Comrade Charu Mazumdar’s C.I.A link and the notorious revisionist Mazaffar Ahmad unfolded the story that it was the C.I.A. radio, not the Peking radio, that showered all glowing praises on the rebels in Naxalbari and the great upsurge. People should not be considered as a pack of fools to consume such stories. Such a canard only points to the nadir of political frustration the Liberation has now reached.

At one point the ‘Political Observer’ lamented that the PW had called on Liberation to "Open and unambiguously" declare its dismissing of the Naxalbari uprising and the formation of the CPI (ML) in 1969. It is a misreading of a clear proposition. It is a charge that Liberation is deceiving the people capitalizing on Naxalbari politics that it has already abandoned. A palpably nervous and apparently irked Liberation lost patience to be driven to a different conclusion as if it had been said it had abandoned the name of Naxalbari, CPI (ML), etc. What is meant is that it had already theoretically rejected the feasibility of the Naxalbari path and for that matter the very process of dissociating with the revisionist CPI (M) to launch the CPI (ML) for carrying on the armed revolution in India. Vinod Mishra openly called for a united communist party stringing together the CPI, CPI (M) and such rotten parliamentary organizations minus the ‘anarchists’ like the then PW, MCC, etc. How did the Political Observer conclude that the PW would think that the Liberation was going to fold up its Naxalbari signboard, stop uttering Mao’s name, or to desist from flying the banner of the prestigious CPI (ML)? With the badly dented prestige, the increasingly decreasing influence, political compulsion to stay afloat in the so-called mainstream parliamentary politics and such tactical consideration despite close proximity to the CPI (M)/CPI and other openly bourgeois-feudal outfits make it expedient to the Liberation to capitalize on the glorious names, events and the death-defying sacrifices associated with the Naxalbari path. Once Bhojpur had become synonymous with the bloody revolutionary struggle and this was a beckon light to the Indian revolutionaries in the late 1970s. It is the sullied role of the Liberation to dampen the revolutionary spirit, drag the activists to the murky world of elections and thus project Bhojpur as a battleground for ballots. It is the Liberation path of betrayal preaching the state-friendly version of struggle in the name of a Naxalite formation.

In our last critique of the Liberation’s betrayal of liberation reference was made to the unholy electoral alliance between the CPI(ML) Liberation and the notorious Samata Party in Bihar. The ‘Observer’ grudgingly accepted the charge citing some tame revisionist arguments favouring the alliance, and in retaliation the Political Observer preferred to bluff it sway out by triggering such a cheap rumour like the meeting with Sonia Gandhi or the PWG’s connection with the RJD. This is not polemics; this is a nefarious game for sheer existence

The Liberation under Vinod Mishra at first withdrew from the basic line of armed agrarian revolution by concentrating, or in other words, prioritising issues of general mass struggles along with electoral politics. Once armed struggle received secondary importance Vinod Mishra could bamboozle the activists with great élan and then the burial of the politics of armed struggle or the Maoist path was sanctified with the mantras of the CPM/CPI. In 1990 with a near-complete U-turn the Liberation declared with all revisionist wisdom.

"From the beginning of 1980s the main form of Party activities began to change. And in subsequent years the realisation dawned on us that mass political struggle should be the main form of party activities, while armed struggle was relegated to a secondary position. The form of struggle underwent a radical change, yet the Party structure remained the old one that was built upon and meant to guide the old forms of struggle…. However, soon it was found that the old party structure was no longer capable of providing the necessary guidance and leadership to the MPO whose mass political activities went on expanding including even the Parliamentary form of struggle." [In Documents of the CPI(ML) adopted at special All India Party Conference, 1990, Ibid, p.67] With this overturning of the principal form of struggle the Liberation declared, "The party must get prepared to function more or less openly. This has become all the more necessary in order to defend Marxism and the Party from the growing attacks of the bourgeois world…" [Ibid p.69]
What a crude display of revisionist logic — to defend Marxism and the Party, destroy the kernel of the highest form of Marxian class struggle embodied in the People’s War!

As a corollary of this revisionist down-slide the hypocritical Liberation made the Indian state happy by its declaration "As regards armed units, we must clarify that at present stage there are no prospects of taking armed struggle to any higher phase." [Ibid. p.69] In the particular situation of Bihar for sheer political existence it knew that some armed squads were necessary on a temporary basis for electoral gains, facing various private senas and of course for resisting the march of Maoist forces. Except some stray attacks on the Ranvir Sena (and that have perceptibly dwindled in recent times) the armed squads (read armed gangs) have been used against the Maoists, not the state. With no question of painstaking armed struggle on the agenda, the regular election and engagement in petty demands have reduced the armed units to a lumpen force. Way back in 1992 itself the Liberation Party Congress admitted that "In a majority of cases these armed units degenerated while peasant association could not be organized." [Political Organisation Report adopted at The 5th All India Party Congress, (Calcutta, 20-26 December, 1992).

It went on record that "…One sided emphasis on general political issues and mass political organisation while neglecting the specific issues of peasant masses and building of peasant association, a trend which continued even afterwards ultimately led to a slackening of grassroots work in villages, and stagnation in peasant struggles was the obvious outcome." [Ibid. p.45] This was the period of beginning the rot and over the past decade the Liberation has become incurably deceased as a pure and simple social democratic organisation, abandoning the revolutionary politics of Naxalbari which set the CPIML) apart from the ‘left’ demagogy of the CPI(M) way. It declared in its 5th Congress, 1992 resolution "… We, in turn, have moved over to incorporate some of the abandoned CPI(M) positions into our overall revolutionary perspective, like for example, the concept of forming Left-led government in some states as a weapon of struggle…"[Ibid p.42]

We don’t know if the day-dream of forming governments in some states would come as a boon from the state, but we can not forget that the CPI(M) has never flinched from such a curious pledge: "Left Front governments are weapons in people’s struggle". The extraordinary example of such ‘struggle’ was set by the West Bengal UF government in 1967 by unleashing brutal attacks on the Naxalbari peasants and sending out the CRP, ERF to crush peasant movements elsewhere Examples are galore in this respect and the Liberation too has been waiting in an unpredictably long queue to seize on such an opportunity to form state governments! One can not but be sorry for the failure of the Liberation to reach that end.

There is a striking similarity between the CPI’s left verbiages during the early stage of dipping into the parliamentary stream and those of the CPI(ML)Liberation during its dragging the organization to the parliamentary path.

In its 3rd Party Congress held in 1982 the Liberation had radically altered its basic line by deciding to participate in elections. It is noteworthy that when the diehard revisionist Satya Narayan Singh made a headway in presenting his rightist line of parliamentary participation, open party organization, rejecting the possibility of developing armed struggle in India, as a state-friendly ‘Naxalite’ in the late 1970s, Vinod Mishra like leaders were perturbed by Satya Narayan’s stealing the limelight and started criticizing more on his personal sincerity than the politics of reformism. Basking in the glory of the Bhojpur struggle Vinod Mishra surreptitiously pushed forward the same Satya Narayan line, to the confusion of many in the Liberation group itself.

But Vinond’s topsy turvy not only outshines the likes of Ajay Ghosh, Namboodiripad, Satyanarayan, etc., his capability to chanellise the whole of Liberation’s militant movements into the low-keyed, mellowed and conciliatory parliamentary stream deserved all the state-sponsored rewards meant for the constitutional Marxists. Way back in 1980 Vinod Mishra at first brought forward the concept of a mass democratic front but never disclosed his real motive to destroy the armed struggle. In its 3rd Party Congress in 1982 the Liberation rubbished the cardinal principles of people’s war by pushing forward the notorious line of electoral politics withdrawing the boycott elections call. With all his cunning skill Vinod Mishra did not immediately disclose what was up his sleeve. Left phraseology was, however, not lacking.

Knowing all the revisionist treachery too well in the name of electoral politics practiced and justified by the CPI, CPI (M) etc. Vinod showed no qualms in his over-enthusiasm to choose the dirty but cosy politics of parliamentarism abandoning the Naxalbari path. Yet plunging the entire armed formations and other organizations into this stream was not a cake walk journey. Circumstances forced Vinod to abandon one after another pillars of Naxalbari politics with all meticulous skill in a gradual manner. By 1988 Liberation declared the Soviet Union as a socialist country overturning the Maoist analysis of capitalist restoration there to turn it into social imperialism. This volte face not only altered the CPI (ML)’s analysis of considering the Soviet Union as Indian people’s dangerous enemy to be removed it turned upside down the great revolutionary tradition of the Great Debate in the 1960s led by Mao and a shameless surrender to revisionism. With those two decisions of reversal the Liberation virtually became a great worshipper of the CPI(M) type of revisionism.

The Political Observer like the Liberation Secretary seems to consider the issue of talks in Andhra Pradesh as a weapon to politically thrash the revolutionary Maoists. Embracing the state as a way out of the tortuous path of revolution, Liberation was apparently jubilant with the wild dream of roping in the Maoists into what it values as mainstream-electoral politics. It was not to be and like the State the Liberation too was at a loss when the guns boomed again and battle lines were drawn by the same revolutionaries as well as the A.P. state administration. In general, Maoists consider talks/temporary ceasefire, etc. as part of the people’s war; to be utilized only when it helps further, the people’s war. When and how of course always depends on the situation prevailing. No doubt any serious Maoist party would seek to assess any method they adopt.

They mobilized the masses and narrated their political objectives and prepared the masses to wage an unremitting political battle, which was taken as a part of specific tactics in AP. They intervened directly and openly in the policies of the state and asked the people to rally under their leadership to fight back imperialism, feudalism and the Indian big bourgeoisie. They stuck to their open announcements and exposed the TDP and the Congress government’s hollowness to implement the real agenda of the masses. They addressed the key issues and problems faced by the people and a clear stand was taken publicly that "armed agrarian revolution and putting down weapons is not a negotiable subject."

During this period the Maoists in A.P. were able to send out the call of revolution to the millions, forcing the state to reckon their mammoth and increasing support base despite martyrdom of many thousand communists and the wide and forceful presentation of the reality of the alternate path to solve the problems of India and to establish a new society. In the ongoing people’s war to resist, to counter, to expose, to intervene and to isolate the enemy there is no Laxaman Rekha to use different forms in the course of the battle, but one condition should be strictly followed, that all the efforts should be served to advance the people’s war and to strengthen the three magic weapons: the party, the army and the united front. All the developments since talks had commenced and ended only blast the Liberation hope that the Maoist would join their filthy mainstream.

As Com. Mao once said that it is the political line that determines everything. The Liberation’s metamorphosis from a once revolutionary group with heroic martyrs like Jowhar, into a revisionist group took place gradually, step by step. The poison was introduced gradually, at each step testing the level of the cadre’s acceptance to their turnaround — isolating the reticent and promoting the enthusiastic drum-beaters. Now, there is little to distinguish it from the CPIJCPM. Only they maintain the Naxalbari label for the credibility that is associated with it. Their programme is similar to the CPM, their practice is similar to the CPM, their politics is similar to the CPM, their electoral opportunism is similar to the CPM, and their tactics is similar to the CPM. Only their scale of operations is a fraction of that of the CPM. Quite naturally they are a stagnant force as revolutionary elements in their ranks will turn to the new Maoist Party while the reactionary opportunists would find it better to be with a larger outfit like the CPM. The increase in the number of seats in Bihar from 5 to 7 was not because of a growth in ground strength, but due to the fractured polity in the state. What is important is to tear off the fake Naxalite mask of these revisionists that are corrupting the name of the heroic uprising and the politics associated with it.

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