Volume 6, No. 11, December. 2005

For the last couple of years, the central government of India as also the governments in a number of states spreading across vast stretches of north, central, east and south India where Maoists are reported to be active, are being haunted by the spectre of Maoism. The Naxalites, whom the state describe as Maoists because of their professed adherence to Mao Tse-tung’s teachings, have been striving to build up an India free from imperialist control and feudal fetters and the rule by comprador bureaucratic-capitalism. It was not unexpected of the oppressive Indian state and its US imperialist masters to let loose reigns of terror on these revolutionaries and to try to project them as ‘terrorists’—a term made fashionable now-a-days by the US President Bush, UK Prime Minister Blair and other imperialist representatives and their Indian lackeys like Advani, Naidu, Reddy, Buddhadev and others. They are going all-out to drown the forces of resistance in pools of blood, branding the Maoists as ‘terrorists’ and identifying Maoism with ‘terrorism’. Recently, Anil Biswas, the state secretary of the CPM, WB, has written a lengthy article trying to denigrate ‘Maoism’ as ‘Anarchism’. Needless to state, as the world-capitalist system is beset with a deep crisis in recent years in the aftermath of September 11 and before, and they know it quite well that there was no way to get out of it, they are trying to muster all their forces to forestall their impending doom. Long time back on 20 May 1970, Mao Tse-tung gave the historic call to the people of the world: "People of the world, Unite and Defeat the US aggressors and all their running dogs". How relevant and prophetic these words were are borne out by recent developments the world over.

It was in this context that the Shahid Saroj Datta Smritiraksha Committee organized a seminar—probably the first of its kind in recent years—on the Relevance of Maoism. This Committee was formed many years back in memory of Saroj Datta, a leader of the CPI(M-L) and a close associate of Charu Mazumdar , who was butchered by the police on the night of 4/5 August, 1970. The seminar was organized by this Committee on 9 September — the day Mao died in the year 1976 — at the Mahabodhi Society Hall in central Kolkata in the evening. The hall was packed to capacity. The seminar was inaugurated by Bela Datta, the wife of Saroj Datta, by garlanding a beautiful picture of Mao Tse-tung. Then a statement was read out on behalf of the committee. There were three main speakers, besides the chairperson. Prof. Amit Bhattacharya, Prof. Dipankar Chakrabarty, Prof. Debabrata Panda were the main speakers. Prof. Subhendu Dasgupta and Prof. Nishith Bhattacharya, a political activist also spoke on the occasion. Prof. Tarun Sanyal, a well-known intellectual, could not speak because of his illness. The session was chaired by Samiran Majumdar, a well-known writer. The chairman read out his statement in the closing session.

Prof. Amit Bhattacharya, who spoke first, justified the relevance of such an intellectual effort. He preferred not to go into the debate whether the theme in question should be called ‘Maoism’ or ‘Mao Tse-tung Thought’. He appears to have been more concerned with the contribution made by that great man to the progress of human civilization. Many decades ago, Marx said: "The philosophers have so far only explained the world. The need, however, is to change it". Marxist revolutionaries all over the world had fought and have been fighting in their own way in their own countries to change the world for the better for many years, and by so doing, made new contributions to Marxist theory and practice. It would not have been possible for Lenin to accomplish the Russian revolution by reading Marx and Engels only. Lenin had to write new theories as implicit in such significant essays as Two Tactics of Social democracy, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, The State and Revolution, Imperialism—the highest stage of capitalism and others. In this way, he had enriched Marxism. In the same way, Mao wrote a number of new theoretical articles such as On Contradiction, On Practice, On Protracted War, On New Democracy, On the Ten Major Relationships, A critique of Soviet Economics, to name only a few.

The speaker referred to the differentiation of the bourgeoisie in colonial and semi-colonial countries like China, the concept of New Democratic Revolution, Hunan report that stressed the need of Red terror to counter counter-revolutionary White terror, guerrilla warfare as an essential form of people’s war, the universality of contradictions, the great ideological debate between the CPC and the Soviet Communist party over questions such as the existence of class struggle in a socialist society, the need for armed struggle to bring about social transformation, the Cultural Revolution as an essential part of qualitative social change etc. Prof Bhattacharya was of the view that Mao’s teachings were essential to counter imperialist globalization.

Prof. Dipankar Chakraborty also dealt with the question against a broad canvas. He highlighted Mao’s oft-quoted dictum that the Chinese revolution was accomplished with three magic-weapons. The first is the Party, the second is the People’s Army and the third is the united front. The Indian revolutionaries should pay attention to these three weapons. He was also of the view that there should not be any mechanical implementation of the Chinese path in our country. The application should be creative. He also highlighted the Cultural Revolution as a distinct contribution of Mao to Marxism-Leninism, besides other achievements. He also lambasted Anil Biswas for his article branding ‘Maoism’ as ‘Anarchism’.

Prof. Debabrata Panda spoke mainly on imperialist globalization and the relevance of Mao’s contribution in the field of Economics. He discussed in detail the story of China’s socialist transformation in agriculture and industry, the Cooperatives and the People’s Commune in Socialist China. The process culminated in the Cultural Revolution in the second half of the 1960s. The Maoist path of economic development, the path of self-reliance, is the only path to combat the path of dependence on imperialist capital. The more one depends on the crutches of imperialist capital, the more backward one moves. To counter imperialist globalization, get armed with Mao’s teachings.

Prof. Subhendu Dasgupta started with his political experience of the 1970s and quoted from Mao’s writings to show that people were uppermost in Mao’s mind, and that he placed people above everything else. Prof. Nishith Bhattacharya dwelt on different aspects of Mao’s contributions to Marxism-Leninism. In the end, Samiran Majumdar, who chaired the session, read out a written statement on the relevance of Maoism in the present-day world. The organizers said that they would like to publish all the articles presented at the seminar in the form of a book in future.

On the whole, it was a good beginning. We hope that many more such efforts would be made in different districts and localities. The present generation of young boys and girls is being fed with unending state propaganda through media and other channels that imperialist globalization and foreign investments is the panacea for all the diseases. They should know that such statements are blatant lies voiced from the top of ivory towers to safeguard this man-eating system that rain death and destruction on the people of the world. They should know that there is also another world in the making—a world that lies now in an embryonic form within the womb of this feudal-capitalist system—a people’s world that would surely smash this oppressive system. Armed with Mao Tse-tung’s teachings, the exploited people of our country would rise like a mighty storm, and that no force, however powerful, would be in a position to stop it. It would send all the imperialist hawkers of death and their native collaborators to their grave.

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