Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Indian Revolution - Democratic or Socialist?

Proletarian Path, New Issue, December 1991 was published from Patna. It contained articles on 'The stage of the revolution in India'. The first article - The Indian revolution: democratic or socialist was written by Com.Partha Sarkar. The second article - People's Democracy: its irrelevancy today (history and theory) was written by late Com. Moni Guha. The third one - The stage of revolution: Presentation of the question was written by Com. R. Bhattacharya. 



The Indian Revolution - Democratic or Socialist?

I
(India-1947)
Historically the Indian big bourgeoisie has exhibited the same traits as elsewhere, namely, that of being a great reserve of reaction. Every revolutionary turn in the national liberation movement found it scurrying into the arms of the British. Whether it be 'Chauri Chaura' or mass 'Satyagraha' it did not hesitate to stem the tide of the mass movements. Discarding mass 'Satyagraha' for individual 'Satyagraha', showing no compunction in condemning legitimate mass violence while condoning state terror, the big bourgeoisie truly revealed its colours. Even scholars like Kosambi have questioned the role of the Congress leadership, (the party of the big bourgeoisie) during that great mass movement, QUIT INDIA 1942. Against the backdrop of this movement, the RIN mutiny, peasant revolts and working class actions came the transfer of power. A war weakened British imperialism, a special conjunction of international circumstances (the rise of the tide of the world revolution, the pressure on Britain against 'imperial preference' during the Bretton Woods negotiations etc.) made this imperative. This was the highpoint of the betrayal of the Indian people but all the same it was a significant change. Let us take an historical example-
"To continue and intensify that slaughter, Anglo-French imperialist capital hatched court intrigues and fixed up a complete new government, which in fact did seize power immediately the proletarian struggle had struck the first blows at tsarism.
.this government is not a fortuitous assemblage of persons. They are representative of the new class that has risen to political power in Russia, the class of capitalist landlords and bourgeoisie which has long been ruling our country economically.. was quick to organise itself politically, taking control of the local govt. bodies, public education, congresses of various types, the Duma, the war industries committees etc. This new class was already "almost completely" in power by 1917, and therefore it needed only the first blows to bring tsarism to the ground and clear the way for the bourgeoisie." (Lenin/CW/23/Letters from Afar/p.303.)
This historical analogy though limited in its applicability is important for us to appreciate the changes in the relations of classes since 1947. (The Indian bourgeoisie was preparing to take political power through a long time - the formation of the Congress ministries in 1937 etc.) The politics pursued after 1947 can only be understood in that light. It is futile today to keep quibbling about the 'modus operandi' of the change in 1947. (The change of government during the February Revolution in Russia was also imperialist prompted for that matter) Political independence has its significance precisely because it allows for a freer, wider, and clearer field for the class-struggle. As Lenin writes--".it would be absurd to deny that some slight change in the political and strategic relations of, say, Germany and Britain might today or tomorrow make the formation of a new Polish, Indian and other similar state fully 'practicable'finance capital in its drive to expand, can 'freely' buy or bribe the freest democratic or republican government and the elective officials of any, even an 'independent' country. The domination of finance capital and of capital in general is not to be abolished by any reforms in the sphere of political democracy and self-determination belongs wholly and exclusively to this sphere. This domination of finance capital, however, does not in the least nullify the significance of political democracy as a freer, wider and clearer from of class-struggle." (Lenin/CW/22/p.144-45.)
India's economic dependence on imperialism is taken as proof of her 'semi-colonial' status. Political independence is considered to be a sham. But it is a sham in the same way as bourgeois democracy is a sham for the toiling masses. Lenin explains -
"The democratic republic 'logically' contradicts capitalism because 'officially' it puts the rich and the poor on an equal footing. That is a contradiction between the economic system and the political superstructure.
How then is capitalism reconciled with democracy? By indirect implementation of the omnipotence of capital. There are two economic means for that: (1) direct bribery; (2) alliance of government and stock exchange (That is stated in our theses under a bourgeois system finance capital 'can freely bribe and buy any government and any official')
"..Laws are political measures, politics. No political measure can prohibit economic phenomena. Whatever political form Poland adopts, whether she be part of tsarist Russia or Germany; or a politically independent state, there is no prohibiting or repealing her dependence on the finance capital of the imperialist powers, or preventing that capital from buying up the shares of her industries". (Lenin/CW/23/p.47-48).
It would not do therefore to reel off statistics on foreign collaborations, multinationals, foreign 'aid' etc. to prove that the Indian bourgeoisie is compradore. The Indian bourgeoisie is part of the world bourgeoisie and we cannot wish away this aspect. India's dependence on finance capital cannot be denied. But the real importance of our political independence is that it allows for a freer, clearer form of class-struggle. Instead of adopting the standpoint of the class-struggle the Indian left argues about Indian independence abstractly. It is what Lenin called, "the method of arguing in professiorial style, from on high, about the path and destiny of the fatherland and not about specific classes pursuing such and such a path..(Lenin/CW/1/p-500).
"the distinctive and basic feature of the petty-bourgeois is to battle against bourgeoisdom with the instruments of bourgeois society itself." (Lenin/ibid/p-348).
This description fits our 'communists' well. They look at Indian capitalism, have heard about its dependence upon foreign capital and conclude that there has been hardly any development at all as India is not independent. They are unwilling to understand imperialism, the domination of finance capital and wish it away. They want to develop 'independent' capitalism away from the high road of imperialism they want to battle against bourgeoisdom with the instruments of bourgeois society itself. They reel off statistics to record this fact of imperialist aided development and conclude that mass ruin and misery can be removed by going in for independent capitalist development. They are not willing to note the rise of classes and their changing correlation since 1947. They are unwilling to reckon with the growth of the working class-essentially the children of impoverishment and ruin attending India's development (capitalist development) since 1947.
They are unwilling to contend that the path traversed by Indian bourgeoisie, the Prussian Path, the path of slow and gradual severing of pre-capitalist relations bringing untold misery to the people, is essentially also a path of capitalist evolution. Today we find a capitalist India. Friends, India has had enough, the way out of its suffering is the expropriation of the Indian bourgeoisie who have sucked the working people dry. Only a socialist revolution is the answer (and not 'independent' capitalist development).
Can a big bourgeois-landlord counter-revolutionary govt. fulfil the historical aims of the bourgeois revolution? Let us see what Lenin says:
"If you want to consider the question 'historically', the example of any European country will show you that it was a series of governments, that carried out the historical aims of the bourgeois revolution, that even govts. which defeated the revolution were nevertheless forced to carry out the historical aims of that defeated revolution." (Lenin/Two tactics/CW/9/p-42).
The democracy of the bourgeoisie is inconsistent, truncated and it does not fulfil all the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. Only the socialist revolution can finish these tasks.
"And will not the future socialist revolution in Europe still have to complete a great deal left undone in the field of democratism?" (ibid, p-85). 

II
Imperialism and India's Development
In discussing the stage of the Indian revolution the most important question would be what classes have developed during more than four decades of independence. What is the coreelation of these classes and the scope of the class-struggle? But since the very premise of the possibility of capitalist development under the Indian bourgeoisie (so-called compradore-bureaucrat capital See Note 1) has been questioned theoretically we shall endavour to answer the question.
We will begin with the Sixth Comintern Congress deliberations on the colonial question. We know that the 'decolonization' thesis of M. N. Roy was lambasted at that Congress and the thesis of limited (or hindered) capitalist development of colonies by imperialism accepted.
Let us recall that Lenin distinguished between the old colonial policy and the new colonial policy. The old colonial policy was of 'primitive' accumulation i.e. naked loot and plunder of colonies. The distinctive features of the new colonial policy were export of capital, monopoly, total division of the world. Lenin wrote -
"The export of capital influences and greatly accelerates the development of capitalism in those countries to which it is exported. While, therefore, the export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development in the capital exporting countries, it can only do so by expanding and deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world." (Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism/CW/L/22/p-243).
Stalin also observed,
"In certain of these (colonial) countries, India for instance, capitalism is growing very rapidly." (Stalin/CW/7/p-147).
At the same time the colonial theses of the sixth Comintern Congress states-
"In any case, the capitalist enterprises created by the imperialists in the colonies (with the exception of a few enterprises established in case of military needs) are predominantly or exclusively of an agrarian-capitalist character and are distinguished by a low organic composition of capital. Real industrialisation of the colonial country, in particular the building up of a flourishing engineering industry, which might make possible the independent development of the productive forces of the country, is not accelerated, but, on the country, is hindered by the metropolis. This is the essence of its function of colonial enslavement : the colonial country is compelled to sacrifice the interests of its independent development and to play the part of an economic (agrarian-raw material) appendage to foreign capitalism.
Just as the 'classical capitalism' of the pre-imperialist epoch most clearly demonstrated its negative features of destruction of the old without an equivalent creation of the new precisely in its policy of plunder in the colonies, so also the most characteristic side of the decay of imperialism, its essential feature of usury and parasitism, is clearly revealed in its colonial economy. The endeavor of the great imperialist powers to adapt to an ever increasing degree their monopolised colonies to the needs of the capitalist economy of the metropolis not only evokes the destruction of the traditional economic structure of the indigenous colonial population, but, side by side with this, leads to the destruction of the equilibrium between separae branches of production, and in the final analysis, leads to an artificial retardation of the productive forces in the colonies." (Comintern & National & Colonial Question - CP -Publication, p. 72-73)
What is being discussed in this passage is 'the characteristic features of colonial economics and of imperialist colonial policy'. That imperialism compels the colony to play the part of an agrarian-raw material base, is an observation made by the theses. It is the concrete analysis of a concrete reality. But this feature does not exhaust the other characteristics of imperialism. Imperialism exists in its manifold inter connections: 'mediacies' , Hegel would say. The characteristic feature (in fact, the quintessence) of imperialism is monopoly and one of the sources of raw materials by the trusts and the financial oligarchy. Marx first noted the need for a "common, all-embracing and farsighted control of the production of raw materials" for rapidly expanding capitalist production required well-planned and regulated supply of raw materials. Lack of planning and regulation led to violent convulsions in the capitalist economy (refer 'Effect of price fluctuations'/K. Marx/Capital vol. III.)
Engels here noted the formation of the trusts (monopolies) to regulate production (in the capitalist manner, of course) (ibid). This is just one of the 'needs' of capitalist production and the monopolies answer it by the method typical of imperialism - seizure of sources of raw materials and subordinating them to their needs. Thus the quest to convert the colonial countries into agrarian appendages. But, we cannot turn this into a abstract formula, into a definition of imperialism-
"Kautsky's definition is as follows : "Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control or to annex all large areas of agrarian (Kautsky's italics) territory irrespective of what nations inhabit it."
This definition is of no use at all because it one-sidedly, i.e. arbitrarily, singles out only the national question (although the latter is extremely important in itself as well as in its relation to imperialism), it arbitrarily and inaccurately connects this question only with industrial capital in the countries which annex other nations and in an equally arbitrary and inaccurate manner pushes into the forefront the annexation of agrarian regions". (Imperialism the highest stage of Capitalism/Lenin/CW/p-268).
Our friends having heard of imperialism and taking a look at the colonial theses turn this aspect into a dogma, take it to be the essence of imperialism and as such conclude that countries like India are only agrarian appendages of the metropolis. What is a concrete analysis of a concrete situation is transformed into a lifeless formula. We have seen that Stalin observed that capitalism was rapidly growing in India - he didn't take the matter one sidedly.
Imperialism is also parasitic capitalism, capitalism which has a tendency to decay -
"Hobson gives the following economic appraisal of the prospect of the partitioning of China: "The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England.., little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat large group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods: all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple food and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa. The situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very probable; but the influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make, towards some such consummation."
The author is quite right : if the forces the imperialism had not been counteracted they would have led precisely to what he has described".(ibid, p. 279-80)
Thus, parasitism leads to the above tendency of decay in old countries rich in capital and 'development' in the new. However, all these characteristics of imperialism act as tendencies and not absolutely. Imperialism not only means political reaction and domination, it also awakens in the masses the striving for liberation. This is what Lenin called an important 'counteracting' factor. If we are to understand imperialism thoroughly, in its manifold 'mediacies', not one-sidedly, then this factor must be taken into account. The colonial theses took this factor into account when it added:
"With the object of buying up definite strata of the bourgeoisie in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, especially in the period of a rising revolutionary movement, the metropolis may to a certain degree, weaken its economic pressure. But, in the measure that the extraordinary and for the most part, extra-economic circumstances lose their influence the economic policy of the imperialist power is immediately directed towards repressing and retarding the economic development of the colonies." (Comintern and National & Colonial Question, p.78).
Our friends who one-sidedly cling to one of the characteristics of imperialism, absolutise its tendencies (the tendency of political reaction and domination in this case) and are unable to analyse the post World War-II changes. The existence of the powerful socialist camp, the seething discontent of the masses saw to changes in imperialist policy. This was the importance of the change of correlation of class forces which prompted the post World- War-II changes.
Seeing the industrialisation India has undergone some of our friends believe that Lenin's description of 'finance capital', as one which can subordinate any state even the 'politically independent ones' has become outdated (for the Indian bourgeoisie has asserted its 'independence'). Others just adopt an ostrich-like attitude and refuse to recognise the changes, theoretically questioning the capacity of the Indian bourgeoisie to industiralise. 'Independence' is taken to be the crux of the matter. But we have seen that imperialism has a number of characteristic features which act as tendencies. And amidst the interaction of these tendencies only can one find the resultant - the concrete situation. Finance capital can help industrialisartion (as Lenin vividly describes in the hypothetical case of China - quoted above) and in fact becomes more parasitic because of it. For all this it must oppress, exploit and subordinate the masses all the more. It drains off greater wealth through various means legal and illegal ('subtle' means). It breeds political reaction and violence (encourages various movements - imperialism skillfully uses every fissure among the masses for its reactionary ends. It not only foments fratricidal wars and programs but also funds, subverts, manipulates all sorts of 'mass' movements in order to weaken its adversaries, and disorganise, divert and destabilise the working class or communist movement. Ultimately it displays and uses its jackboots with impunity).
In order to strengthen its hegemony finance capital buys up whole strata of the people, creates dense networks around the world. As Lenin writes -
"The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extraordinarily dense and widespread network of relationships and connections which subordinates not only the small and medium, but also the very small capitalist and small masters, on the one hand and the increasingly intense struggle waged against other national state group of financiers for the division of the world and domination over other countries on the other hand, cause the propertied classes to go over entirely to the side of imperialism."(Lenin/CW-22/p.285)
Today this network spreads far and deep. It draws in the bourgeoisie of the newly independent countries. The Indian bourgeoisie is tied through a thousand threads with the interests of finance capital.
Lenin taught that the struggle against imperialism must be linked up with the struggle against opportunism. Those of our friends who understand imperialism in a one-sided manner inadvertently fall into the abyss of opportunism. Let us take an example: the non-aligned status of India is often touted as proof of the independence of its bourgeoisie. The Bandung traitors set the ball rolling for the non-aligned movement. We know that after the October revolution the national liberation movements were seen as part of the world socialist revolution. They were seen as reserves of the socialist camp. But the pernicious doctrine of non-alignment tried to server this link and created a 'non-aligned' camp to hoodwink the masses (while serving one imperialism or the other). This was the Titoite betrayal of the socialist camp and a vital surrender to imperialism. The Indian bourgeoisie thus executed its role as part of the world bourgeoisie very well. Hence glorification of non-alignment instead of its exposure is falling into the abyss of opportunism.
The point here is to view any phenomenon (imperialism) in its manifold mediacies and not one-sidedly. To concretely judge concrete situations and not to make 'a priori' inferences from abstract formulas of 'national' bourgeoisie, 'independence' and so on. India might have had a caricature of a bourgeois-democratic national liberation but the point is what is the concrete reality today. The economic evolution had to take place (Indian capitalism grew rapidly during the second world war) and it did, transforming India into a capitalist country though through the Prussian Path (much as we did wish against it) - slowly, gradually severing the pre-capitalist relations bringing untold suffering to the masses. The very betrayers of the Indian national liberation movement had to do it. Remember what Engels remarked in the Preface to the Italian edition of the Manifesto -
"..as Karl Marx used to say, the men who suppressed the revolution of 1848, were nevertheless, its testamentary executors in spite of themselves."

III
The Chinese Revolution
Those who argue that India is a semi-feudal country often cite this statement of Stalin as proof : 
"..imperialism, with all its financial and military might is the force in China that supports, inspires, fosters and preserves the feudal survivals, together with this entire militarist-bureaucratic superstructure." (The revolution in China & tasks of the Comintern/p.700/Stalin/'On the Opposition')
They have heard that imperialism dominates India and conclude from this that there must be feudalism in India too (as its prop). Queer logic. The colonial theses of the comintern states that, "Imperialism first allies with the ruling strata of the previous social structure, against the majority of the people. Everywhere imperialism attempts to preserve and to perpetuate all those pre-capitalist forms of exploitation (especially in the villages) which serve as the basis for the existence of its reactionary allies." (Comintern and National and Colonial Question, p.69). But this does not exhaust the characterization of imperialism. It is only one manifestation of its characteristic of political reaction and domination. To universalise such a concrete analysis of a particular manifestation of imperialism is to go in for a one-sided view of imperialism (see Lenin's polemic against Kautsky above). Lenin writes: -
"The characteristic feature of imperialism is precisely that it strives to annex not only agrarian territories but even the most highly industrialised regions." (Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism/CW/22/p.268-69)
Would it not be ridiculous thus to infer from the fact of imperialist would domination the conclusion that it must be fostering feudalism in India?
The contention of the imperialist powers for the control of China beginning with the Opium War of 1840 led to the carving up of the whole country into spheres of influence by the imperialist powers. It meant the break-up of the Chinese Empire and the emergence of local warlords. This and the powerful peasant wars and the revolution of 1911 all led to the counter-revolutionary alliance of the warlords and the compradore bourgeoisie with imperialism. Only thus could imperialism maintain its rule. These peculiar circumstances made armed struggle, the supreme form of struggle in the Chinese revolution. This was realised by Sun-Yat-Sen in the revolution of 1911. It was these circumstances that led to the setting up of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 with the help of Soviet military experts to form and train a revolutionary army.
Hence Stalin's thesis - "in China the armed revolution is fighting the armed counter-revolution. This is one of the specific features and one of the advantages of the Chinese revolution". Mao stuck to this thesis, brilliantly expounding its profound meaning and thus could further the Chinese revolution.
This was a fact of cardinal importance which was not grasped by the CPC till Mao gained ascendancy at the Tsunyi meeting in 1935 when top priority was given to military questions. To quote Mao :
".we have no parliament to make use of and no legal right to organise the workers to strike. Basically, the task of the communist party here is not to go through a long period of legal struggle before launching insurrection and war, and not to seize the big cities first and then occupy the countryside but the reverse.
When imperialism is not making armed attacks on our country, the Chinese Communist Party either wages civil war jointly with the bourgeoisie against the warlords (lackeys of imperialism) as in 1924-27 in the wars in Kwangtung province and the Northern Expedition, or unites with the peasants and the urban petty-bourgeoisie to wage civil wars against the landlord class and the compradore (also lackeys of imperialism) as in war of Agrarian Revolution of 1927-36...
All this shows the difference between China and the capitalist countries. In China war is the main form of struggle and the army is the main from of organisation. Other forms such as mass organizations and mass struggles are also extremely important and indeed indispensable and in no circumstances to be overlooked, but their purpose is to serve the war
"In China armed. counter revolution". This thesis of Stalin is perfectly correct." (Mao/SW-2/pp.220-21)
These were the special features which made existence of red power in small areas in China possible. Thus -
"The long term survival inside a country of one or more small areas under Red political power completely encircled by a white regime is a phenomenon that has never occurred anywhere else in the world. There are special reasons for this unusual phenomenon. It can develop only under certain conditions.
First, it cannot occur in any imperialist country or in any colony under direct imperialist rule, but can only occur in China which is economically backward, and which is semi-colonial and under indirect imperialist rule. For this unusual phenomenon can occur only in conjunction with another unusual phenomenon namely, war within the white regime. It is a feature of semi-colonial China that, since the first year of Republic (1912), the various cliques of old and new warlords have waged incessant wars against one another, supported by imperialism from abroad and by the compradore and landlord classes at home. Such a phenomenon is to be found in none of the imperialist countries nor for that matter in any country under direct imperialist rule. Two things account for its occurrence, namely, a localised agricultural economy (not a unified capitalist economy) and the imperialist policy of marking off spheres of influence in order to divide and exploit. .If only we realise that splits and wars will never cease within the white regime in China, we shall have no doubt about the emergence, survival and daily growth of Red political power." (Mao/SW-1/pp.64-65)
These are the specific features of a revolution in a country with very specific and peculiar politico-economic features. In as mush as one wants to build a revolutionary party one must try to know and assimilate the 'last word' in the world communist movement as Lenin put it. But does it mean that one turns a blind eye to concrete reality? It was Stalin's thesis, which guided the Chinese revolution, which Mao acknowledges again and again. The same Stalin in his speech to the 'University of the toilers of the East' put India in a category by itself (because of its developing capitalist economy). It does not behove us communists to make a caricature of a great revolution.
(Some specimens of caricature: - Police actions against revolutionaries are called 'encirclement and suppression' campaigns after Mao. India is a country of extremely centralisd polity and a centralised economy. But landlords/rich peasants with private armies are sometimes dubbed as warlords, feudal lords or something similar. In every country advanced capitalist or not there are armed white terrorist gangs (the Ku Klux Klan etc. in USA, the 'fascisti' in Italy and so on). These thugs are fascistic in nature and employed as 'private' armies or mercenaries to suppress the working class and the toiling masses. But does that mean military questions become the top priority there (as in China)? Armed revolution is one thing, the course of the Chinese revolution quite another).

IV
Pattern of Industrial Development in Post-Independent India
We will just briefly outline the pattern of industrial development in post-independent India.
(i) Rates no Growth in Industrial Production -
From table I(a) we can see the faster growth of basic and capital goods industries. That means faster rate of growth in Department I (production of means of production) as compared to Department II (articles of consumption).
In these figures we also find the reflection of the crisis years in the Indian economy and spasmodic development which is typical of capitalism (e.g. the figure (-)0.54 for capital goods industry in 1966-71 shows the exceptionally bad years for Indian industry ('66-'68)).
It may be mentioned that there was hardly any capital goods industry worth the name at the time of independence. [A World Bank team in 1975 evaluated the Indian textile machinery producers. They found them to be competitive and one firm (which was a joint venture project) produced machinery comparable in quality to the very best in OECD countries. A 1984 World Bank study team which studied select sectors (power, cement, sugar, chemicals etc.) found that Indian firms were capable of setting up plants for manufacturing boilers (power), cement and sugar. However in the chemical industry it was capable of supplying only 50% of the equipment required. In all these cases they were of "competitive international quality".]
Take two figures - while cotton cloth produced in 1950-51 was 4215 million metres and 12738 million metres in 1990-91, finished steel production was 1 million tones in 1950-51 and 13.4 million tonnes in 1990-91 (Source - IEIY, A.N. Agrawal et. al.).So while cotton cloth production increased by 3 times, finished steel production increased by 13.4 times. This shows the typical pattern of capitalist development that was pointed out  by Marx (as we shall see later). Table I(b) shows the relatively tremendous growth in infrastructural industries.
We might mention here that -
".Real industrialisation of the colonial country, in particular the building up of a flourishing engineering industry, which might make possible the independent development of the productive forces of the country is not accelerated, but, on the country is hindered by the metropolis." (Comintern & Colonial National and Questions, p.73)--- this observation of the colonial theses thus no longer operates in India today.
(ii) Table I(c) - productive capital per employee - shows progressive increase. That is an indicator of the growing capital intensity or what we may call in Marxist terms the high organic composition of capital in industry. This is again typical of capitalism as noted by Marx in 'Capital'.
Let us take as an index the utilisation of electricity per factory worker.
Calculating from tables II(f) and I(d) & (e) we get the following figures - while electricity consumption per factory worker was 977 kwh in 1970-71 it increased to 1592 kwh in 1985-86. This shows the increasing high organic composition of capital in India.
Again we find that the development of industry does not correspond to the description of hindered capitalist development in colonies referred to above -
"In any case, the capitalist enterprises created by the imperialists in the colonies (with the exception of a few enterprises established in case of military needs) are predominantely or exclusively of an agrarian capitalist character and are distinguished by low organic composition of capital." (ibid/p.72-73)
(iii) While total production in agriculture is increasing its percentage contribution to share of the 'gross domestic product' is decreasing (in 89-90 it was 28.4% of GDP compared to 52.2 % in 1950-51) - that is how it is under capitalism. The share of industries - manufacturing, mining and infrastructure industries is increasing.
(iv) Table I(f) shows sectoral composition of foreign loans and Table I(g) shows the percentage of external assistance in the total plan investment and outlay. It also shows the extent of the burden of debt-servicing that the Indian economy bears. However all these tables can only give a very rough idea of the dependence of Indian capitalism upon imperialism.  Further it is very difficult to give an accurate picture of the enormous drain of wealth by imperialism.
(v) Table I(h) shows the concentration of the factory proletariat. 48.7% of the factory workers are concentrated in factories with over 500 workers. This is one of the advantages of the Indian revolution. But the Indian ruling class saw to repeated splits in the Indian working class movement with the Social-Democrats (so-called communist parties) playing the role of accomplices.
The increasing and relatively high organic composition of capital, concentration of production, faster development of Department I, the presence of a good and internationally competitive machine-producing sector all markout the development of capitalism in post-independent India. This development is also imperialist aided. Let us move to the agrarian sector to see the decisive growth of the home market for capitalism in India.
TABLE - I(A)
RATES OF GROWTH IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION
Item
1962-66
1966-71
1971-76
1976-81
1980-85
1988-89
1989-90
General Index
8.25
4.02
4.16
4.62
5.5
7.1
8.6
Basic Industries
9.80
6.16
6.18
4.90
8.5
9.9
5.4
Capital Goods Industries
16.65
(-)0.54
5.14
5.82
5.1
7.0
22.4
Intermediate Goods Industries
6.40
2.72
3.50
3.80
3.6
11.5
4.3
Consumer Goods
4.57
4.04
1.40
5.40
3.6
4.2
6.3
*Source ;India Economic Information Yearbook, A.N. Agarwal et al, 1991-92
TABLE I(B)
Infrastructure- A Statistical Profile
Item
Unit
1950-51
1960-61
1970-71
1980-81
1990-91
Electricity






Installed Capacity
' 000 Mw
2.3
5.6
16.3
33.3
70.5+
Generated
Bn kwh
6.6
20.1
61.2
119.3
266.2+
Villages Electrified
' 000 nos.
3
22
107
273
479
Coal (Include lignit)
Mn. Tonnes
32
55
73
114
212
Crude Oil 
Mn Tonnes
0.3
0.4
6.8
10.5
33.0
Surfaced Road
'000 Km
157
263
398
683
960+
 Vehicles on Road
'000 nos.
306
665
1865
5173
16488+
Railway Route
'000Km
54
56
60
61
62+
Freight Traffic(Rail)
Bn.net Tonne Kms
44
88
127
158
318+
Shipping Fleet
Number
103
174
255
403
418
Shipping Tonnage
'000 grt
391
901
2500
5889
6030
Aircraft(Civil) Hours Flown
'000
98
138
130
225
191
  Aircraft Km Flown
Mn.
31
44
59
89
117
Commercial Banks






No. Of Branches

5078
n.a.
22958
35707
59388
Deposit
Rs. Crores
881
1825
6451
46751
192542
Post Office
'000 nos.
36
77
109
139
147
Telephones
'000 ,,
168
483
1293
2785
5204
(+ Relates to 1989-90)
Source : IEIY, 1991-92
Table - I(C)
Productive Capital
1970-71
1980-81
1987-88
Per Employee(Rs. '000)
23
55
136
http://www23.brinkster.com/proletarianpath/table_1B.gif
Source : IEIY, 1991-92
Table - I(D)
Gross Energy Generated : Trends(
Mn. kwh)
Year
UTILITIES
Non-Utilities
Total
Per Capital Consumption(kwh)
Hydro
Thermal
Nuclear
Total
1950-51
286
300
--
586
166
751
17.9
1960-61
784
910
--
1694
319
2012
38.2
1970-71
2525
2816
242
5583
538
6121
89.8
1980-81
4654
6130
300
11084
842
11926
132.3
1981-82
4957
6952
302
12210
902
13113
141.0
1982-83
4837
7987
202
13026
1004
14030
147.3
1983-84
4995
8668
355
14018
1081
15099
154.5
1984-85
5395
9884
407
15686
1235
16921
168.6
1985-86
5098
11434
498
17030
1330
18360
178.6
1986-87
5376
12882
502
18760
1450
20210
191.7
1987-88
4747
14964
503
20214
1530
21744
201.2
1988-89
5790
15770
580
22110
1630
23740
216.5
1989-90
6210
17870
460
24540
2080
26620
n.a.
Source : IEIY, 1991-92
Table - I(e)
Factory Sector main Features(
Value inRs. crores)
Item
1970-71
1980-81
1985-86
1986-87
1987-88
No. of Factories
64565
96503
101016
97957
102596
Fixed Capital
8752
29900
60085
67230
78475
No. of Workers('000)
4231
6047
5819
5807
6062
Wages & salaries
1080
3945
7092
7850
8934
Value of output
13768
61084
119455
133044
153973
Input
10015
47238
92488
102844
119387
Depreciation
604
1917
4401
4647
6252
Net Value Added
3149
11929
22566
25552
28334

http://www23.brinkster.com/proletarianpath/table_1E.gif
Source : IEIY 1991-92
Table - I(f)
Purpose-wise Distribution of Foreign Loans Utilised (
Value in Rs. crores)
Purpose
First Plan
(1951-56)
Second Plan
(1956-61)
Third Plan
(1961-66)
Annual Plan
(1966-69)
Fourth Plan
(1969-74)
Fifth Plan
(1974-79)
Sixth Plan
(1980-85)
Transport and Communication
15.6
159.0
291.4
166.3
371.6
344.4
702.1
Power Projects
12.1
29.3
152.2
145.4
105.1
261.6
1686.0
Steel & Steel project
2.7
254.1
94.2
118.8
109.8
196.0
0.6
Iron ore Project
--
--
10.4
1.3
--
191.4
--
Industrial Development
2.3
255.4
1270.1
1510.8
2197.8
1744.1
2519.4
Agriculture Development
3.4
--
22.5
70.8
175.0
840.3
3121.6
Food Aid
90.3
15.7
--
109.2
312.4
276.4
2.9
Oil & Petroleum products
--
--
--
--
--
433.3
18.2
Debt Relief
--
--
--
77.2
244.9
208.0
--
Miscellaneous
--
--
0.2
0.6
7.1
111.3
546.3
*Source : IEIY 1991-'92
Table - I(g)
Net Foreign Aid and the Plans(Rs. Crores)
Plan Period
Gross Aid Utilised
Debt Serving
Net Aid
Net Aid As % of Total Investment
Net Aid As % of Total Plan outlay
Amortisation
Interest Payment
First Plan
(1951-56)
201.7
10.6
13.4
177.7
5.3
4.7
Second Plan
(1956-61)
1430.4
55.2
64.2
1311.0
19.2
16.9
Third Plan
(1961-66)
2867.7
305.6
237.0
2325.1
20.6
18.3
Annual Plan
(1966-69)
3145.7
606.6
375.9
2162.2
n.a
32.6
Fourth Plan
(1969-74)
3837.4
1584.2
860.8
1392.4
6.2
5.6
Fifth Plan
(1974-79)
5821.9
2539.4
1236.0
1946.5
3.1
2.9
Fifth Plan
(1979-80)
1138.6
503.6
296.9
337.9
n.a.
2.8
Sixth Plan
(1980-85)
10321.0
2906.0
1903.0
5512.0
4.2
3.2
Seventh Plan
(1985-90)
22603.0
7116.0
5487.0
9950.0
4.5
4.5
Seventh Plan
(1990-91)
6660.0
2935.0
4955.0
2310.0
n.a
n.a
Table - I(h)
Principle Characteristics By Size of Employment : Factory Sector (1987-88
)(Value in crores)
Employment Size
Factories (nos)
Employment('000s)
 Fixed Capital
Gross output
Net Value Added
0-49
79729
1352
4201
21400
2487
50-99
11581
791
2341
12472
1735
100-199
5753
826
5746
14644
2442
200-499
3338
1025
6466
19815
3766
500-999
1249
933
11126
24304
4071
100-1999
586
844
10639
23606
4797
2000-4999
291
849
7214
19085
4238
5000-above
69
1166
30769
18647
4798
Total
102596
7786
78475
153973
28334
http://www23.brinkster.com/proletarianpath/table_1H.gif
Source : IEIY, 1991-92

v
The Agrarian Scene
(i)
Agriculture is the mainstay of the feudal economy. It becomes the great preserve of semi-feudalism under a colonial economy. Let us then examine the agrarian scene. We have said that the course of Indian agriculture has been that of the 'Prussian Path' (See quote from Lenin below). Let us see what an astute observer of the early post-independence agrarian scene remarked : 
"This complex of legal, economic and social relations uniquely typical of the Indian countryside served to produce an effect which I should like to call that of a build-in 'depressor'. Through the operation of this multi-faceted 'depressor' Indian agriculture continued to be characterised by low capital intensity and antiquated method. Few of the actual tillers were left with an efficacious interest in modernisation, or the prevention of such recognised evils as fragmentation. The income of the kisans(farmer) and mazdur-log(labourer) (i.e. the overwhelming bulk of the rural population) remained at or below the subsistence level. For the newly developing urban sector this in turn constituted a serious handicap in the form of a severely restricted home-market." (D. Thorner/The Agrarian Prospect in India/p.12)
We find this apologist of capital typically worried about two things - (a) agrarian reforms to remove the 'depressor' i.e. a reform which would allow greater capital flow and 'progressive' farming; & (b) a restricted home-market.
(a)
First, on the character of the agrarian reforms.
In India, we can say, these reforms were not of a positive character. Though reforms definitely had to contend with 'pressure from below' they were mainly tailored to put pressure on the landlords to take up cultivation of land on a capitalist basis (Zamindari abolition etc. with huge amounts as compensation). Abolishing intermediaries, it created direct relations with the state for the owner-cultivators (or raiyats) in the process creating and encouraging a numerous sub-stratum of rich peasants. By making its intentions known beforehand and advancing the reforms through the machinery of the bureaucracy (the state has shown particular abhorrence of any initiative from below, crushing it with an iron hand - compare Naxalbari under a 'communist' led government.), the state has actually facilitated the 'clearing of the estates', Indian fashion - thus we witness the large-scale evictions following the Zamindari Abolition Act and other reforms. It was pressure on the landlords to resume their land for self-cultivation (capitalist cultivation). The agrarian reform laws contained a proviso which excluded capitalist-type landlord farms and plantations from the purview of reform. Of course, these reforms did not per se lead to capitalist farming, but the pressure was there and given other factors could and did lead to this. E.g. In erstwhile Mumbai 70% and in erstwhile Hyderabad 59.8% of the land from which the tenants were evicted were resumed for self-cultivation. These figures vary from state to state. (That it did not sufficiently spur the zamindars of permanent settlement areas should not be seen as a 'failure' of this policy. Slow and gradual, away from the high road of mass movements, that is the path of bourgeois-landlord reforms.)
The occupancy raiyats, many of them already beginning to grow into rich peasants were freed from the burden of overlordship. This was a small stratum of peasant bourgeoisie created in this form of evolution of agricultural capitalism. The ceiling acts were again a measure intended to act as a spur to change-over to a landlordism of capitalist type. Thus we find that between every legislation and its implementation, every announcement and legislation there is a big time-gap to facilitate this process. It is a pity that this negative feature is taken as a positive one and we find snivelling complaints against tardiness of land reforms, ineffective implementation etc. by the 'communists'.
More, this type of land reform leads to that special feature of reformism which charactersied a whole trend in Russian Social Democracy following the Stolypin reforms. If we take these reforms to be positive we get bogged down in reformism. We complain about the tardiness of reforms and do not grasp the class essence of this reform. After all the state sponsored reforms are also a path to capitalist evolution of agriculture - but only a path. To quote Lenin -
"the famous agrarian legislation introduced by Stolypin under Article 87 is permeated through and through with the purely bourgeois spirit. There can be no doubt it follows the line of capitalist evolution, facilities and pushes forward that evolution hastens the expropriation of the peasantry, the breaking-up of the village commune and the creation of a peasant bourgeoisie. Without a doubt that legislation is progressive in the scientific-economic sense.
But does that mean that Social-Democrats should 'support' it? It does not. Only vulgar Marxism can reason in that way, a Marxism whose seeds Plekhanov and the Mensheviks are so persistently showing when they sign, shout, plead and proclaim - we must support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the old order of things. No. To facilitate the development of the productive forces (this highest criterion of social progress) we must support not bourgeois evolution of the landlord type, but bourgeois evolution of the peasant type. The former implies the utmost preservation of bondage and serfdom (remodelled on bourgeois lines), the least rapid development of the productive forces, and the retarded development of capitalism; it implies infinitely greater misery and suffering, exploitation and oppression for the broad mass of the peasantry and consequently, also for the proletariat. The second type implies the most rapid development of the productive forces and the best possible (under commodity production) conditions for existence for the mass of the peasantry. The tactics of Social Democracy in the Russian bourgeois revolution are determined not by the task of supporting the liberal bourgeoisie as the opportunists think, but by the task if supporting the fighting peasantry." (Agrarian Programme of S - D, Lenin/CW/13/243-44)
Herein we can also trace the ideological roots of CPI & CPM's opportunism, its reformism and support of the liberals (Jawahar Lal Nehru ect.). In as mush as the agrarian reforms are "progressive" (albeit in the Stolypin sense) these parties-support it. They find the bourgeoisie 'fulfilling' the tasks of the democratic revolution and hence support it.
It has got nothing to do with the characterisation of bourgeoisie as 'national' by the CPI, CPI(M) as CPI(ML) - Liberation would have us believe -
"The recognition of the opportunist trend in the Indian communist movement is first of all related to the characterisation of the Indian bourgeoisiethey [CPI(M)] basically emphasise the 'national' character of the bourgeoisie and hence its capacity to led the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal struggle. They tomtom its capacity to transform indian society ... and as a natural corollary this oppertunists trend refuses to organise the toiling peasents as the main force in the democratic transformation". CPI(ML) Liberation."Bharatiya communisto ki krantikari birasat ka drirha rakshak" P.9-10. Our translation)
Strange, one would say because the CPI(M) characterises the Indian bourgeoisie as 'national' it refuses to organise the toilers - thus runs the above analysis. Some logic indeed. If the bourgeoisie is 'national' in character then does it signify the communists would not organise the toiling masses for the socialist revolution? The very word 'national' is thought to create miracles - of opportunism and of revolution. No, whether national or not the imperatives of economic evolution forces itself through life. Stolypin was no national bourgeois. Yet his reforms were 'progressive' in the scientific economic sense. Here it is a question of two paths-capitalist evolution of landlord type and the peasant type. The first path breeds illusions in the 'progressive' character of the reforms and hence reformism. (The significance of the 'Naxalite' movement precisely lay in stressing the second path, the path away from reformism, the path of realising the agrarian demands in a revolutionary way. It squarely put forth the question of land with state power. Whatever the ideological cloak that it took - Charu Mazumdar dubbed the emphasis on land seizure as 'economism' - it was a radical break with the past, away from the path of rallying around bourgeois-land-lord reforms. Our contention is that after decades of capitalist evolution of bourgeois-landlord type we have a predominantly capitalist India. the 'Naxalite' movement was the dying embers of the possibility of the second path.)
Thus the 'depressor' was sought to be removed through 'structural' changes of bourgeois-landlord type. Through evictions and grant of sundry rights to the raiyat the landlord was being 'compelled' to go over to capitalist farming - there was no longer the raiyat or the tenant 'tempting' him with 'fabulous rental prices'. (Here we are mentioning it only as a trend). As to the 'low capital intensity', and 'antiquated method' referred to above the state initiated the 'intensive Agricultural Development Programme' in 1960. This was the effort at popularising modern inputs and practices in the most productive areas, where these were more likely to show results, rather than spreading the limited supply thinly over a large area. In 1965, a 'new strategy' for agriculture for the 4th five-year plan was outlined, with the following objectives:
"(1) to supply scientific technique and knowledge of agricultural production at all stages, particularly in the fields;
(2) to select a few areas with assured rainfall and irrigation for concentrated application of inputs based on improved varieties of seed responsive to heavy doses of fertilisers, and on other modern inputs;
(3) to achieve higher production of subsidiary foods both through intensive production programmes and overall development."
(Govt. of India, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural Production in 4th five-year plan, Delhi, 1965)
In the 'Green Revolution' it was the same strategy to put in inputs where they are paying i.e. a profit-oriented strategy. Naturally, those with greater assets could harness greater capital or credit and go in for 'modernised' or 'progressive' farming. Most suited to this strategy was the rich peasants and landlords - again the Prussian Path of development in agriculture.
Though it was argued by the proponents of the new strategy that the new technology was 'scale-neutral' it was only the rich peasants or landlords who could make use of it. This technology was 'scale-neutral' only in the sense of participation in the labour process i.e. bereft of the structure of social relations of production this new technology could be used by anyone. But given the pattern of relations of production only the landlord-rich peasant could use it for only these classes could command the 'resources' (read capital) required for it. Even where this was possible for the small-farmer it was costlier for him. Even where the state 'stepped-in' it could not reach the small farmer as credit through Co-operatives etc. Was in the stranglehold of the landlord-bourgeoisie-rich peasantry, the state could not but favour these sections given its class-character. The small peasant where he did make use of this technology either met his ruin or in isolated cases was transformed into a rich peasant.But this help can only be of a sporadic and meager nature. As Engels say: -
"The material sacrifice to be made for this purpose in the interest of the peasants and to be defrayed out of public funds can, from the point of view of capitalist economy, be viewed only as money thrown away." (Marx-Engels/SW/3p.472) This is admitted by the RBI reports but in a round-about way.
Over the decades since the advent of the Green Revolution this technology has become widespread in its use -  self-perpetuating itself in an irrational manner and causing tremendous loss to the small peasant. Capitalist agriculture is subject to violent price fluctuations and consequently chronic periodic overproduction and underproduction cycles - something to which the small peasant economy is increasingly drawn into and subject to ruin. (e.g. The sensational suicide of A.P. cotton farmers few years back due to this).
"The greater the development of capitalist production, and consequently, the greater the means of suddenly and permanently increasing that portion of constant capital consisting of machinery, etc. and the more rapid the accumulation (particularly in times of prosperity), so much greater the relative over-production of machinery and other fixed capital, so much more frequent the relative under-production of vegetable and animal raw materials, and so much more pronounced the previously described rise of their prices and attendant reaction." (K. Marx/Capital.vol.III/p.119).These 'convulsions' and the crisis in capitalist economy (crisis of overproduction) lead to the greater ruin of small peasant who cannot cope with this (new technology makes heavy demand on his 'capital' and he has to stretch this limit). All this leads to greater differentiation which has been consistently note in the 'Green revolution' areas. This strategy first relied on the irrigated areas (command areas). Then with the increasing use of tubewells, electric pump sets etc. it was felt that groundwater resources are better suited to this type of technology. Thereafter capital intensive agreeculture spreade rapidly to non-command areas too. With time there was a general diffusion of this technology into 'non-target', 'non-progressive' groups too i.e. to all types of peasantry (whose survival became dependent on it), who could use it only in the most haphazard, irrational manner. We find the process of sharp differentiation and increasing use of new technology has become very widespread.
This differentiation and capital intensive technology has created a vast home market for capitalism in India. at this point we must deal with the question of the restricted home market in India and its relation to land reform.
(b)
The prejudice of a restricted home-market due to non-implementation of reforms:
First of all let us deal with this theoretically. We will briefly state the Marxist position on the question of the home-market based on vol.II of Capital (in the section on reproduction) and delineated by Lenin as follows:
"On the problem of interest to us, that of the home market, the main conclusion from Marx's theory of realisation is the following: Capitalist production, and consequently, the home-market, grow not so much on account of articles of consumption as on account of means of production. In other words, the increase in means of production outstrips the increase in articles of consumption. Indeed, we have seen that constant capital in articles of consumption (Deptt.II) is exchanged for variable capital + surplus value in means of production (Deptt.I). According, however, to the general law of capitalist production, constant capital grows faster than variable capital. Hence, constant capital in articles of consumption has to increase faster than variable capital and surplus value in articles of consumption, while constant capital in means of production has to increase fastest of all, outstripping both the increase of variable capital (+surplus value) in means of production and the increase of constant capital in articles of consumption. The department of social production which produces means of production has, consequently, to grow faster than that producing articles of consumption. For capitalism, therefore, the growth of the home-market is to a certain extent 'independent' of the growth of personal consumption, and takes place mostly on account of productive consumption. But it would be a mistake to understand this 'independence' as meaning that productive consumption is entirely divorced from personal consumption: the former can and must increase faster than the latter (and there its 'independence' ends), but it goes without saying that, in the last analysis productive consumption is always bound up with personal consumption." (Lenin/CW/3/p.54-55)
If we compare the data on the elements of means of production (constant capital) in agriculture we find a massive increase in production and consumption over the years both absolutely and relatively (Table-II). This shows that the market for means of production in agriculture over the years has grown tremendously. It has grown because of the progressive use of these elements by the strata of rich peasants and landlords (the rural bourgeoisie) and also other peasant groups who today cannot dispense with these elements. Thus this signifies the growth of the home-market precisely in the department described above by Lenin, in that sector which grows faster and which to a certain extent is 'independent' of the growth of personal consumption ('purchasing power of the peasantry' as our friends put it) i.e. growth of the home-market on account of productive consumption. This productive consumption can grow only because of the concentration of wealth on the one hand and poverty on the other. ("Capitalism is abolished root and branch by the bare assumption that it is personal consumption and not enrichment that works as the compelling motive." (K. Marx/Capital/vol.II/p.123)
This fact, the fact of poverty and pauperisation is a consequence of capitalist relations of production. It is a prejudice to lebel it as a manifestation of pre-capitalist relationships (the existence of pre-capitalist relations may render it more onerous, but about that later). If one compares 'standards' of poverty between advanced capitalist countries and India (to prove semi-feudalism etc.) one has most probably not understood Marx's concept of impoverishment. Marx spoke of this not in the absolute sense - but as a tendency. Further, "poverty grows not in the physical but in the social sense, i.e. in the sense of the disparity between the increasing level of consumption by the bourgeoisie and consumption by society as a whole, and the level of the living standards of the people." Thus is it not ridiculous to compare the living standards of the working people of the advanced capitalist countries and India, and to conclude from this that Indian society is not capitalist? (This apart from the fact that a section of the working people are thrown crumbs from the imperialist table.) One might only go over the chapter on the 'General law of Capitalist Accumulation' in Marx's Capital (vol.I) and draw his own conclusion. Further is it rationalising poverty in India? No, there is no cause for complacency - one of the counteracting factors is the organised fight of the working people against this. Thus the answer is greater organisation and fight.
Now the question of increasing impoverishment and the home-market. It is argued that increasing impoverishment of the agricultural producers restricts the home-market. The ills of the Indian economy are directly traced to this. Let us see how Lenin treats this question: - "The writers.pose this question theoretically, i.e., from the mere fact of the ruin of the small producers they deduce shrinkage of the home-market. This view is absolutely incorrectIt is forgotten that the 'freeing' of one section of the producers from the means of production necessarily presumes the passage of the latter into other hands, their conversion into capital, presumes consequently, that the new owners of these means of production produce as commodities the products formerly consumed by the producer himself, i.e. expand the home-market; that in expanding production the new owners of the means of production present a demand to the market for new implements, raw materials, means of transport, etc., and also for articles of consumption (the enrichment of these new owners naturally presumes an increase in their consumption). It is forgotten that it is by no means the well-being of the producer that is important for the market but his possession of money; the decline in the well-being of the patriarchal peasant, who formerly conducted a mainly natural economy, is quite compatible with an increase in the amount of money in his possession, for the more such a peasant is ruined, the more he is compelled to resort to the sale of his labour power, and the greater is the share of his (albeit scantier) means of subsistence that he must acquire in the market." (Lenin/CW/3/p.41-42)
Thus the differentiation of the peasantry has already created a home-market. We have dealt at length on the question of the home-market, as land reforms are taken as a key to the solution of the crisis in the India economy. This crisis of India economy is there no doubt. But can its solution be land reforms? Land reforms will make over land to the mass of the pauperized peasantry and thus unleash the productivity of the 'masses', endow them with purchasing power and create a vast home-market for  Indian capitalism, which will mean rapid growth and industrialisation - thus runs the dogma. What is the Marxist position? We have already pointed out to the formation of the home-market. The question remains about the Marxist-Leninist attitude to land redistribution. If we are not to approach this question from the point of view of creation of the primary and fundamental conditions for a real development of capitalism (we deal with this below) then we can only point out to the great fallacy of the above dogma. (We should at this point remind the reader that capitalism penetrates agriculture extremely slowly as compared to industry; hence the relative backwardness of agriculture and its uneven development should not make us conclude that capitalist relations have not become predominant in agriculture).
Herman Kriege writing on the 'American General Redistribution' stated: -
"Every poor man will become a useful member of human society as soon as he is given an opportunity to engage in productive work. He will be assured such an opportunity for all time if society gives him a piece of land on which he can keep himself and his family" and further expatiating upon it wrote of the contentment and glow of the hearth of the small peasant. To which Marx sarcastically replied "He might have added, 'this is my dunghill, which I, my wife, my children, my manservant, and my cattle have produced'." Yes, small scale agriculture means degradation, poverty, misery and extremely low cultural level. It can only survive under capitalism because of 'under-consumption and overwork' (Lenin). Do our friends expect that the home-market for capitalism will expand greatly because of this under consumption? As Lenin said, "you cannot eat land"; to work out his land the small peasant must have money. Is it possible for him to arrange for capital under capitalism - no, as we pointed out that 'it will only mean money thrown away' (Engels) and hence almost impossible. Marx says: -
"Proprietorship of land parcels by its very nature excludes the development of social productive forces of labour, social forms of labour, concentration of capital, large-scale cattle raising, and the progressive application of science."
"Monstrous waste of human energy. Progressive deterioration of conditions of production and increased prices of means of production - an inevitable law of proprietorship of parcels. Calamity of seasonal abundance for this mode of production." (K. Marx/Capital/vol.III.p.807)
The advocates of small-peasant economy argue that small farms have proved to be more productive in India. In such cases it is well known, that it is because of putting more labour per unit of land, 'overwork' of the small peasant as we have pointed out. With the progress of capital intensive agriculture the tendency of the big farmer to let a part of their land fallow has been noticed in India. Lenin also noted the tendency towards a reduction of acreage with growth of capital-intensive agriculture (LENIN/CW/22/p.46). (Marx has shown the irrationality of capitalist agriculture both small and large.)
In India these so-called productive small farms are also deficit ones. Those who tout its productivity conveniently forget the poverty - 'under-consumption' of the small peasant. Thus such 'productivity' concerns can only inform bourgeois thinking. It is embellishment of capitalism which is precisely the cause of ruin of the small peasant. The communists want to rid the peasant of his poverty and low cultural life. The petty-bourgeois economist embellishes his conditions. Higher 'Productivity'! At what cost? That is not what they seek to answer - see what Lenin writes -
"The small farmer must inevitably make up for the lack of these advantages (machinery etc. used by large farms-ed.) by greater industry and frugality (he has no other weapons in his struggle for existence),and for this reason those qualities are not merely casual but always and inevitably distinguish the small farmer in capitalist society. The bourgeois economist.call this the virtue of thrift, perseverance etc.,..ascribing it to the peasant as a merit. The socialist calls it overwork and underconsumption and holds capitalism responsible for it; he tries to open the eyes of the peasant to the deception practised by those who deliver Manilov orations, picturing social degradation as a virtue and trying to perpetuate it." (Lenin/CW/5/p.206)
We have shown through the question of the home-market the decisive predominance of  capitalist  relations in India (and in agriculture in particular) [See Table II and remarks] . We have a capitalist India before us. We need not look back, but forward to the socialist revolution which has come on the agenda of the day.
Then why do we support redistribution of land (at the stage of democratic revolution)? Politically, to rally the peasantry behind the proletariat to fight the pre-capitalist order to break the backbone of the feudal and allied classes and achieve the most consistent democratic revolution. Economically, it means confiscation of the feudal landed estates, contending with the lumber of history and for a wide development of capitalism. It also means doing away at one stroke with all those pre-capitalist relations which make the peasant's condition more onerous and hinders the rapid development of capitalism. (see also Lenin's quote on Stolypin reforms above ) Of the two paths India has already traversed the bourgeois-landlord path and there cannot be any question of the option of the second path today.
To conclude we must state that some distribution of land might also become necessary from the point of view of success of proletarian revolution, for rallying around the small and even the middle peasantry, in the interest of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the interest of the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry, the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This question will arise as and when the course of events during the revolution raises it (given the actual correlation of class forces at that time). Lenin states -
"The Communist International is of the opinion that in the case of the advanced capitalist countries it would be correct to keep most of the bit agricultural enterprises intact and to conduct them on the lines of the 'state farm' in Russia."
It would, however, be grossly erroneous to exaggerate or to stereotype this rule
.the objection raised to this, namely, that large-scale farming is technically superior, often amounts to an indisputable theoretical truth being replaced by the worst kind of opportunism and betrayal of the revolution. To achieve the success of this revolution, the proletariat should not shrink from a temporary decline in production, anymore than the bourgeois opponents of slavery in North America shrank from a temporary decline in cotton production as a consequence of the civil war of 1863-65. What is most important to the bourgeois is production for the sake of production; what is important to the working and exploited population is the overthrow of the exploiters and the creation of conditions that will permit the working people to work for themselves, and not for the capitalists. It is the primary and fundamental task of the proletariat to ensure the proletarian victory and its stability. There can, however, be no stable proletarian government unless the middle peasantry is neutralised and the support is secured of a very considerable section of the small peasantry if not all of them.
Second, not merely an increase but even the preservation of large-scale production in agriculture presupposes the existence of a fully developed and revolutionary conscious rural proletariat with considerable experience of trade union and political organisation behind it. Where this condition does not yet exist, or where this work cannot expediently be entrusted to class-conscious and competent industrial workers, hasty attempts to set up large state conducted farms can only discredit to proletarian government. Under such conditions the utmost caution be exercised and the most thorough preparations made when state farms are set up.
Third, in all capitalist countries even the most advanced, there still exist survivals of medieval, semi-feudal exploitation of the neighboring small peasants by the big landowners. . In such cases it is incumbent on the proletarian state to grant the small peasants free use of the lands they formerly rented, since no other economic or technical basis exists, and it cannot be created at one stroke." (LENIN/CW/31/p.159-61)
Thus, Lenin mentioned conditional distribution for the success of the revolution and from no philistine concerns of expanding home-market. 
--
Distribution of land is also advocated on the grounds of the belief that only one form of land tenure is conducive to the growth of capitalism. It is well-expressed by Red Star -
"there is a confusing concept in our revolutionary literature that capitalist development in agriculture is possible only in a specific type of land tenure system. It is true that a congenial land tenure system accelerates capitalist development in agriculture but it is also equally true that no type of land tenure system can prevent it. In our country this misleading concept provides tons of arguments to prove the presence of feudal system in agriculture today and this goes to the extent of closing eyes from the facts." (Red Star/CLI/ed. Ramnath/ 2 March, 1985)
To quote Marx -
".the monopoly of landed property is a historical premise, and continues to remain the basis of the capitalist mode of production, just as in all previous modes of production which are based on the exploitation of the masses in one form or another. But the form of landed property with which the incipient capitalist mode of production is confronted does not suit it. It first creates for itself the form required by subordinating agriculture to capital. It thus transforms feudal landed property, clan property, small peasant property in mark communes - no matter how divergent their juristic forms may be - into the economic form corresponding to the requirements of this mode of production." (K. Marx/Capital/vol.III/p.617)
Again Red Star writes: -
"Second, we will now discuss another confusing concept present in the revolutionary literature. In support of agriculture being essentially feudal, it is full of these types of statements that there is inhuman exploitation of agricultural labourers, that poor peasants are being ejected from their lands. It is true that all this has happened in India, but these are not characteristics of feudal but of capitalist system. Agricultural labourers and poor peasants fall prey to inhuman exploitation by capital. The new exploiter sucks every drop of their blood and marrow and throws them on the road as a helpless slave to capital. New contradictions get sharpened immediately.
If seen from the communist point of view, the result of this is that the class-contradictions became clearer and get sharpened; naturally, the ground is prepared for the class struggle, class polarisation accentuates and the alignment of friendly classes becomes easier." (ibid./p.80)
Well put. The ousting of the peasantry from land, their growing pauperization are the results of capitalism and not feudalism. The existence of small peasant agriculture is taken as a sign of feudalism and at the same time concentration of land is also dubbed feudalism! [Marx in his article 'Socialism and Taxes' (Marx-Engels/CW/10/p.335) even noted the rotation of concentration and parcellisation of land in capitalist society]. Let us see what Lenin says about this. Analysing the agricultural statistics of USA, then the most advanced capitalist country, Lenin says: -
"In effect, the fundamental and principal trend of capitalism is the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, both in industry and agriculture. But this displacement should not be interpreted merely as immediate expropriation. Displacement also implies the ruin of the small farmers and a worsening of conditions on their farms, a process that may go on for years and decades. This deterioration assumes a variety of forms, such as the small farmers overwork or malnutrition, his heavy debts, worse feed and poorer care of livestock in general, poorer husbandry-cultivation, fertilization and the like - as well as technical stagnation an the firm, etc." (Lenin/CW/22/p.70)
Further, extremely low wages of the agricultural labourer is also seen as a manifestation of feudalism. Let us see what Marx says about this: -
".the constant flow towards the towns presupposes, in the country itself, a constant latent surplus-population, the extent of which becomes evident only when its channels of outlet open to exceptional width. The agricultural laborer is therefore reduced to the minimum of wages, and always stands with one foot already in the swamp of pauperism." (Capital/vol.I/p.602) and this (wages) many a time even below the physical minimum!
But then, the law of impoverishment under capitalism is rendered more onerous in the presence of pre-capitalist fetters. In order not to present a one-sided picture we must take this into account. (see our section on 'feudal remnants'). Let us note a few points in order not to confuse capitalism with feudalism and to define our attitude to the agrarian problem: -
In his review of Kautsky's book 'Die Agrarfrage' Lenin writes: -
"It would be absurd to think, says Kautsky, in conclusion, that one part of the society develops in one direction and another in the opposite direction. In actual fact 'social development' in agriculture is taking the same direction as in industry."
Applying the results of theoretical analysis to question of agrarian policy . The radical transformation of agriculture by capitalism a process that is only just beginning, but it is one that is advancing rapidly, bringing about the transformation of the peasant into a hired laborer and increasing the flight of the population from the countryside. Attempts to check this process will be reactionary and harmful; no matter how burdensome the consequences of this process in present day society, the consequences of checking the process would be still worse and would place the working population in a still more helpless and hopeless position. Progressive action in present-day society can only strive to lessen to harmful effects which capitalist advance exerts on the population, to increase the consciousness of the people and their capacity for collective self-defense." (Lenin/CW/4/p.98-99)
The extremely slow and gradual penetration of capitalism in agriculture and the varied forms it gives rise to often foster the illusion that it is feudalism that is dominating agriculture. e.g. :-
"Lastly, it must be observed that sometimes the labor-service system passes into the capitalist system and merges with it to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. For example, a peasant rents a plot of land, undertaking in return to perform a definite number of days' work. How are we to draw a line of demarcation between such a 'peasant' and the West-European or Ostee 'farm-labourer' who receives a plot of land on undertaking to work a 'definite number of days'.Life creates forms that unite in themselves with remarkable gradualness systems of economy whose basic feature constitute opposites. It becomes impossible to say where 'labor-service' ends and where 'capitalism' begins." (Lenin/CW/3/p.197)
Historically agriculture always lags behind industry. To quote Marx: -
"This historical phenomena is the faster development of manufacture (in fact the truly bourgeois branch of industry). Whereas in manufacture productivity has increased tenfold, in agriculture it has, perhaps, doubled. Agriculture has therefore become relatively less productive, although absolutely more productive. This only proves the very queer development of bourgeois production and its inherent contradiction." (K. Marx/Theories of Surplus Value/Part-II/p.18)
This contradiction between agriculture and industry might foster the illusion that while there is capitalism in industry, agriculture is predominantly feudal.
Lastly, let us recall our quote from Lenin that even in the most advanced capitalist countries semi-feudal remnants can be found. It is in light of all these observations that we should try to characterise agrarian India.

( ii )
TABLE II AND REMARKS
Table II (a) shows the percentage of HYV in the total area under food-grains. The use of HYV seeds as is well known necessarily entails the use of other inputs like artificial fertilisers, pesticides etc. The all-India and state-wise figures show the very high percentage of HYV in the total cropped area. This is a sure indicator of the widespread use of 'modern inputs' (productive consumption). This shows that not only the upper-bracket makes use of these inputs but its use is spread over all groups. (This notwithstanding the obvious fact which we have already noted - the most haphazard, irrational and non-optional use of these inputs that the small peasant can make).
Table II(b) shows the great increase in the use of fertilizers (per hectare consumption) state-wise. The all-India figures show an increase of 606 percent from 1968-69 to 1989-90.
Tables II(c) to (h) and (k) show the following percentage growth (All-India figures concerning the main states) over the years.
Item
Period
Percentage/Growth
Energisation Of Pump Sets/Tubewells
1960-91
4458
Installation Of Diesel Pump Sets
1960-85
1916
Tractor In Use
1966-85
1667
Electrification - Number Of Villages Electrified In
1950-51
1990-91
0.5%
82.7%
Institutional Credit
1950-90
54258
Number Of The Rural Branches Of Banks[Table II (i)]
1969
1990
22.2%
56.6%
Production Of Quality Seeds
1980-84
233
Power Generated In Agriculture Secture[Table II (f)]
1950
1989-90
4.2%
25%
The relatively tremendous growth of productive consumption over the years shows the development of capitalism on account of Department I. The tremendous flow of institutional credit can be seen as an indicator of this growth. This shows the growth of the home-market as pointed out. The increase in the number of tractors from 1950-51 to 1970-71, [Table II(j) (17 times)] shows the measure of increase in productive consumption in post-independent India.
That nearly all groups of peasants are also drawn into it shows this development is very widespread (and the extent of this home-market) notwithstanding the tardy and spasmodic nature of this development. As Lenin points our -
"This process of transformation must, by the very nature of capitalism, take place in the midst of much that is uneven and disproportionate: periods of prosperity alternate with periods of crisis, the development of one industry leads to the decline of another, there is progress in one aspect of agriculture in one area and in another aspect in another area, the growth of trade and industry outstrips the growth of agriculture, etc. A large number of errors made by Narodnik writers springs from their efforts to prove that this disproportionate, spasmodic, feverish development is not development." (Lenin/CW/3/p.597)
Further, it is often contended that -
"The slogan of industrialisation by the Indian rulers is a kind of evasion from the problem of having to tackle the colonial economy inherited from British imperialism, an evasion of direct confrontation with foreign capital and with the semi-feudal landlord economy. This call "to speed up" the growth of industrial output -
"In effect implies the perpetuation of a modernised enclave economy familiar from colonial economic experience," and "calls for minimal disturbance of the established institutional framework".., (Gunner Myrdal; Asian Drama)
To hope to industrialise India under these objective conditions is to build castles in the air and deception of the worst kind." ('India Mortgaged' - T. Nagi Reddy, p.45)
This attempt to show that capitalism has not taken hold of the Indian economy is useless. We have shown the growth of the home market especially with reference to agrarian India and its relation with the extensive growth of productive consumption (However slow and gradual that this transformation has been - that is not the point).
It may be noted that even the small peasant today markets his products. That is, he produces for the market. He is linked to it through this and his productive (and individual) consumption too. Thus India Capitalism is based on generalised commodity production. Technical progress is based upon this production. It is wrong to  picturise the advanced sectors of this economy as an 'enclave economy'. (We have spoken enough about agriculture lagging behind industry under capitalism). This portrayal wants to show Narodnik-like that this industry is not part of the Indian economy. It is made out that though capitalism has developed a few industries it has not taken hold of the economy as a whole (i.e. no development in breadth) and any thought of industrialisation is dubbed 'building castles in the air'.
Lenin criticised this notion, calling it absurd -
"it is wrong to divide the development of capitalism into development in breadth and in depth: the entire development proceeds on account of division of labor; there is no " essential" difference between the two features. Actually however, the difference between them boils down to different stages of technical progress." (Lenin/CW/1/p.105)
The relatively rapid growth of Department I (branches producing means of Production - technical progress) on account of agriculture also shows the fallacy of this argument.
We might be accused of 'overestimation' of capitalism in India. However we also decide this in the crucible of agrarian struggles, a description of which follows. Further we test the portrayal of semi-feudal India by the protagonists of the democratic revolution on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory.
Table - II (a)
Percentage of HYV in the total area under foodgrains
State
1988-1990
 Andhra Pradesh
74
Assam
51
Bihar
75
Gujrat
68
Haryana
83
Himachal Pradesh
64
Jammu & Kashmir
71
Karnataka
48
Kerala
77
Madhya Pradesh
49
Maharastra
63
Orissa
51
Punjab
91
Rajasthan
36
Tamilnadu
98
Utter Pradesh
73
West Bengal
50
All India
64

Table - II (b)
Per Hectare Consumption of Fertilisers(Kg.)
State
1968-1969
1989-1990
 Andhra Pradesh
23.9
131.1
Assam
3.2
6.1
Bihar
7.3
54.1
Gujrat
9.4
62.3
Haryana
10.2
94.4
Himachal Pradesh
5.3
36.6
Jammu & Kashmir
11.2
53.6
Karnataka
10.1
66.0
Kerala
13.0
74.5
Madhya Pradesh
1.7
30.3
Maharastra
6.7
59.5
Orissa
3.2
19.8
Punjab
34.4
158.6
Rajasthan
2.0
17.7
Tamilnadu
24.6
119.7
Utter Pradesh
15.3
83.0
West Bengal
8.1
81.7
All India
189.6
1149
Table - II (c)
Energisation of Pump Sets , cumulative ('000 s)
State
1960-61
1980-81
1990-91
 Andhra Pradesh
18.0
471.6
1165.4
Assam
-
1.9
35.1
Bihar
3.2
159.7
255.4
Gujrat
7.0
231.2
460.4
Haryana
3.5
281.3
358.8
Karnataka
16.9
310.9
723.0
Kerala
2.7
90.4
222.2
Madhya Pradesh
1.8
315.4
878.7
Maharastra
7.2
657.9
1607.5
Orissa
-
17.4
51.3
Punjab
8.6
291.0
601.8
Rajasthan
1.0
204.9
389.1
Tamilnadu
117.7
912.4
1318.7
Utter Pradesh
9.9
399.1
649.3
West Bengal
-
28.8
89.2
All India(Main States)
197.5
4333.6
8818.3
Table - II (d)
Installation of Diesel Pump Sets , cumulative (' 000 s)
State
1960-61
1980-81
1984-85
 Andhra Pradesh
33.9
272.0
308.0
Assam
-
11.1
18.7
Bihar
3.2
59.1
71.5
Haryana
1.2
97.5
133.5
Karnataka
10.0
137.0
173.0
Kerala
3.4
73.3
93.3
Madhya Pradesh
9.7
28.6
34.6
Maharastra
63.7
596.5
732.5
Orissa
1.2
50.0
58.0
Punjab
7.0
220.0
248.0
Rajasthan
2.5
93.5
115.5
Tamilnadu
36.8
911.0
1231.0
Utter Pradesh
8.4
149.3
177.3
West Bengal
3.6
119.0
143.0
All India(Main States)
184.6

3537.9
Table - II (e)
No. of Tractors in use (in Hundreds)
State
1966
1972
1982
 Andhra Pradesh
29
63
215
Assam
8
5
3
Bihar
21
56
146
Gujrat
32
79
282
Haryana
49
184
614
Himachal Pradesh
-
3
9
Jammu & Kashmir
1
4
8
Karnataka
26
57
205
Kerala
4
15
13
Madhya Pradesh
25
50
236
Maharastra
33
56
215
Orissa
7
18
12
Punjab
106
424
1065
Rajasthan
42
106
547
Tamilnadu
33
54
144
Utter Pradesh
101
276
1422
West Bengal
15
7
19
All India
532
1482
5185
The Figures for 1984-85 are 8870 (IEIY, 1991-1992)
Table - II (f)
Pattern of power utilisation : Trends (percent)
 
Types of User
1951
1960-61
1980-81
1989-90
Domestic
12.4
10.7
11.2
16.1
Commercial
6.9
6.1
5.7
5.8
Industrial Power
63.8
69.4
58.4
46.3
Railways (Traction)
6.9
3.3
2.7
2.4
Agriculture
4.2
6.0
17.6
25.0
Others
5.9
4.5
4.4
4.4
Source for Table II (a) to Table II (e) : Basic Statistics relating to Indian Economy, Vol. 2; states (September 1991); CMIE, Bombay. 
Table - II (g)
Village Electrification
Year
Villages Electrified
Number
As % Of Total No. of Villages
1950-1951
3061
0.5
1955-1956
7294
1.3
1960-1961
21754
3.8
1965-1966
45148
7.8
1968-1969
73739
12.8
1970-1971
106774
18.5
1973-1974
156729
27.2
1977-1978
216863
37.6
1978-1979
232770
40.4
1979-1980
249799
43.4
1980-1981
272625
47.3
1981-1982
296511
51.5
1982-1983
323881
56.2
1983-1984
347561
60.3
1984-1985
370332
64.2
1985-1986
390294
67.7
1986-1987
414895
71.2
1987-1988
435653
75.2
1988-1989
455491
78.4
1989-1990
470580
81.3
1990-1991
478966
82.7
Table - II (h)
Flow Of Institution Credit For Agriculture(Rs. Crores)
Institution
1950-51
1960-61
1970-71
1980-81
1985-86
1988-89
1989-90
Co-operative Credit Society
Short Term
22.9
183
519
1526
2747
3833
4223
Medium Term
--
20
69
237
394
381
416
Long Term
1.3
12
101
363
543
731
869
Total
24.2
214
679
2126
3683
4944
5508
Commercial Banks & Regional Rural Banks
Total
n.a
n.a
206
1263
3110
6310
7515
Grand Total
24
24
885
3389
6793
11254
13022
Source : IEIY, 1991-92
Table - II (i)
Population Groupwise Distribution of Commercial Bank Offices
Type Of Area
As at the end of June
1969
1971
1976
1981
1985
1990
Rural
1833
(22.2%)
4279
(35.6%)
7687
(36.2%)
17656
(49.4%)
30185
(58.7%)
33640
(57.6%)
Semi-Urban
3342
(40.5%)
4016
(33.4%)
6387
(30.1%)
8471
(23.7%)
9816
(19.1%)
11201
(19.2%)
Urban
1584
(19.2%)
1778
(14.8%)
3739
(17.6%)
5454
(15.3%)
6578
(12.8%)
7553
(12.9%)
Metropolitan/Port Towns
1503
(18.1%)
1940
(16.2%)
3407
(1.61%)
4126
(11.6%)
4806
(9.4%)
6023
(10.3%)
Total
8262
(100.0%)
12013
(100.0%)
21220
(100.0%)
35707
(100.0%)
51385
(100.0%)
58417
(100.0%)
Source : IEIY, 1991-92
Table - II (j)
Agreeculture Implements & Machinery
1951
1972
Oil Engine Pumps
83000
1546000
Electric Pumps
26000
1618000
Tractors
8600
148200
http://www23.brinkster.com/proletarianpath/table_2j.gif
Source : Statistical Abstract of India, 1978
Table - II (k)
Progress in the use of quality seeds (Lakh Quintals)
Item
1980-81
1981-82
1982-83
1984-85
Production of Breeder Seeds.
0.05
0.04
0.17
0.29
Production of Certified Seeds. 
21.5
24.2
36.6
50.0
Distribution of Certified Quality Seeds.
25.0
29.8
42.1
48.0
Source : IEIY, A.N.Agarwal et al 1991-92

(VI)
The Class Struggles in Agrarian India
In order to give a brief appraisal of the agrarian struggles carried out by the two revisionist communist parties namely the CPI(M) and CPI after independence we will quote at length from the All-India Kisan Sabha report by H.S. Surjeet -
"Comrades, land to the tiller and total abolition of landlordism have been basic slogans of the Kisan Sabha since its inception - let me state here at the outset that the seizure and distribution of the land of the landlords still remain the central slogan of the kisan sabha to propagate amoung the peasantry and other democratic classes. Without a victory of this slogan, there cannot be any solution to rural poverty, unemployment in the country and so on.
But the correlation of class forces which existed at the time when the Kisan Sabha inscribed these aims in its programme are not the same that exist today..
.These land reforms had only very limited objectives the main one of which was to reform not abolish the old type feudal landlordism by converting the absentee feudal landlords into capitalist landlords personally supervising cultivation in large farms with farm servants and hired agricultural workers. This is the new type landlord, who combines in himself elements of both feudalism and capitalism. Another objective was to create a stratum of rich peasants. These two sections were to constitute the political base of the ruling party in rural areas.
We have also to note the phenomena of the magnetization of the entire agrarian economy. Today, it is not only those who have a surplus who are taking their produce to the market, even the poor peasant, immediately after the harvest, for various reasons sells his produce in the market and later buys even his food-grains requirement from the market..20% of the rural households are poor peasants possessing one or two acres of wet or 2 to 5 acres of dry land. Apart from working on their land, they have to frequently hire themselves out to earn a living.
The last 50% are those who own no land at all, they earn their livelihood mainly by hiring themselves out as wage-workers or are engaged in handicrafts, village services, etc..
What has to be noted is that unlike in pre-independence days, 25% of peasants - rich and middle peasants - are not moved any longer by the slogan of seizure of landlord's lands and its distribution. At the other end the 70% of landless and poor peasants are not conscious and organised enough to go into action for the seizure of the landlords lands, even when they are moved into action, it is only for government waste land, cultivable forest land, etc. Regarding even surplus land above the ceiling which the landlords are keeping illegally, the struggles as in Kerala or recently in Andhra Pradesh could not go beyond the stage or locating such surplus land occupied..
The ruling class parties, whether Congress or Janata also used their control over Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads and also cooperatives, rural banks, etc. to perpetuate the division in the peasantry and the disruption of their unity.
...Complete abolition of landlordism and distribution of land to the landless and land-poor continues to be the central slogan of the agrarian revolution, a slogan which we have to continue to propagate. But it is a slogan on which we cannot go into action today in most parts of the country." (Kisan Sabha leads struggles H.S. Surjeet-General Secretary Report of AIKS, 1979)
(Similar is the tenor of the report of the General Secretary, All India Kisan Sabha, a CPI mass front. See 'The Changing Agrarian Scene, Problems and Tasks' - Indradeep Sinha, June 1979.)
What is remarkable here is the candour with which the predominance of capitalist-relations in agriculture is admitted, the differentiation among the peasantry noted. But with all that Surjeet is not willing to blaspheme. While admitting that we cannot go into action with the slogan of land (to the tiller), he again and again reasserts the central slogan - "Land to the tiller".
It is almost as if events are forcing the CPI(M) to abandon the slogan 'land to the tiller' and move from the democratic revolution to the stage of socialist revolution. But of course that would be sacrilege.
Writing in "The Marxist", Surjeet says -
"While working to forge all-in peasant unity to successfully build the people's democratic front the CPI(M) stresses the Marxist-Leninist teaching that this unity has to be based on the poor peasant and agricultural worker, the basic ally of the working class in the rural areas. To forget this and base the forging of the peasant unity on the more influential rich peasant section will lead to reformist deviations from which our peasant movement has suffered till it was given the new orientation of basing on the rural poor. Similarly Marxism-Leninism is insistent that the agricultural workers should be organised separately in their own organisation. This is necessary not only for the victory of the democratic revolution but to advance it as quickly as possible to the stage of the socialist revolution. To recall the words of Lenin, 'The object of the Russian Social Democratic Party in all circumstances and whatever the situation of democratic agrarian reform, is steadily to strive for the independent class organisation of the rural proletariat: to explain that its interests are irreconcilably opposed to those of the peasant bourgeoisie, to warn it against being tempted by small-scale ownership, which cannot, so long as commodity production exists, abolish poverty among the masses, and lastly, to urge the necessity for a complete socialist revolution as the only means of abolishing all poverty and all exploitation." (CW/10/p.195)". (The Marxist, vol. one, July-Sept. 1983, p.84)
If it was a deviation, what is at its root? Partly, it was the class-basis of the party which was responsible for it - the bulk of its membership came from the middle and rich peasantry. As the CPI(M) admits in its 1973 Muzaffarpur resolution -
"The struggle against revisionism inside the Indian communist movement will neither be fruitful nor effective unless alien class orientation and work among the peasantry are completely discarded. No doubt this is not an easy task, since it is deep rooted and long-accumulated and also because the bulk of our leading Kisan activists come from rich and middle peasant origin rather than from agricultural labourers and poor peasantry. Their class origin, social links and the long training given to them give a reformist ideological political orientation which is alien to the proletarian class-point.." (C.C. resolution "On certain agrarian issues and an explanation note" by P. Sundarayya).
This is the class basis of a party which would subordinate the working class movement to the bourgeoisie and water-down the fight of the agricultural workers ensuring the hegemony of the rural bourgeoisie. Its movement has to remain bogged down in the democratic periphery and cannot advance to the slogan of socialism, of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the document adopted by C.C. in 1976...it is stated that "the Kisan movement led by our party while projecting the land seizure and its distribution slogan as the central propaganda slogan,, will have to channelise many other agrarian currentsso that all these currents might be harnessed into one big agrarian stream. Otherwise, the maximum peasant unity, isolating the handful of landlords and their hirelings cannot be achieved." (The Marxist, vol. one, July-Sep. 83, p.85)
Again the concern for maximum unity to achieve the elusive democratic revolution, threatens to keep the fight within bourgeois bounds. (The CPI & CPM had to contend with ground realities and were forced to form separate agricultural workers unions later. But the Naxalite groups still hold that it is a renegade move to form such unions, for they disrupt 'all-in' peasant unity so essential for the democratic revolution. We have seen Surjeet's quote from Lenin above. If one wants to move from the democratic to the socialist stage uninterruptedly one must subscribe to such a view. But obviously the Naxalites see a Chinese wall between the 'two-stages' of the revolution.)
We will take a bird's eye view of the agrarian struggles immediately after independence and in the seventies and later and compare the difference.
Let us begin with the heroic Telengana struggle. This struggle which shook the Nizam's rule, undermined landlordism, waged war on exorbitant rents, usurious rates of interest and other illegal exactions, 'vetti' (unpaid labour) etc. ultimately invited the intervention of the Indian army in favour of the landlords. However, as Sundarayya notes it was only after the 'Police action' that "strike-struggle or threat of strikes that real increase in wages took place".
Writing later Sundarayya notes the difference in the situation thus -
"But it is also necessary to note the changing socio-economic structure in the areas of the Old Telengana peasant movement and the consequent changing correlation of forces in the countryside.
The landlords who ran away or were driven out of the villages during that movement, has trekked back and reconsolidate their positions in the rural areas. They seized back most of their Seri lands and sold most of the anyakrantalu lands under the old tenants to other rich cultivators and some protected tenants, who got the right of first purchase under the land law enacted in 1950 and later under the impact of the Telengana peasant movement. The derive to deprive the peasants and agricultural labourers of the waste land they have been cultivating is going on and bitter struggle for 'Patta' right for this land goes on. The Land Ceiling Acts are only on paper, no land over so-called ceiling is taken over or distributed.
These landlords are buttressed by the growth of new strata in the rural areas, the capitalist farmers, the capitalist landlords
A considerable section of middle peasants has also grown. This growth of the new rich and middle peasantry is specially linked with the growth of irrigation under small river projects and under Nagarjunsagar lands and under lands with electric pumps.
The landlords have not only changed their pattern of land-ownership and cultivation, but also their tactics of fighting the growing people's movements. They adopt tactics of dividing the ranks of the people's movement, alongwith their methods of brutal terror and repression. They promise land and actually give it to certain sections of the rural poor based on castes and communities.They utilised the community projects, cooperative societies, electricity for wells, fertilisers etc. to improve their hold over the middle and rich peasantry. They try to monopolised all the key administrative posts in various governmental departments. They resorts to every foul method to dominate the village panchayats, panchayat Samity and Zilla-parishads to garner all benefits through these local bodies.
Because of these reasons, today in these 300 villages where our movement and party had a major position, a considerable section of the rural poor, a large percentage of the middle and rich peasantry are with the Congress. In fact the agrarian movement now-a-days is not in such a strong position to take up as a practical issue the question of land seizure or distribution of the lands of the landlords over a minimum ceiling which would ensure land to the tiller. The movement is just forced to defend possession of and the right to continue cultivation of waste lands; or just take up the same old minimum wages demand for agricultural labor, which we demanded and enforced over two decades ago. (Telengana People's struggles and its lessons/pg.437-439)
What Sundarayya notes here is the growth of capitalist relations of production in Telengana, the result of the bourgeois-landlord path of capitalist evolution. The manipulation of various government agencies by the landlord-rich-peasantry is typical of this path, the Prussian path, it cannot be otherwise. The demands today are precisely those directed against encroachments of capital (the fight against semi-feudal relations - 'vetti', illegal exactions etc. have mainly been settled long ago) - to defend possession of wasteland (the pauperised peasantry's desire to hold on to his land) and the 'same old' fight for minimum wages for agricultural labour. Under capitalism, under 'peaceful' conditions agricultural labour will have to fight for wages whether 'same old' or not. But what is of importance to note here is the correlation of class-forces - the rich and middle peasantry ganging up with landlords (as happens in any 'Junker-bourgeois' country) and ranged against the poor-peasantry and agricultural labourer. More, through the insidious system of state (bourgeois-landlord state) patronage (something which Marx, Engles and Lenin warned against), it has been able to devide the agricultural workers. All this is typical of 'sucessful' evolution of the bourgeois-landlord path, into a bourgeois economy.
Let us shift to Srikakulam-Girijan movement. Since 1959, the Girijan Sanghams had been carrying on struggles and by 1967 the achievements were:
  • From 1959 itself the Girijans gradually reoccupied lands which were illegally seized by the     non-Girijans.. . The landlords' share of the harvest from lands leased out to share-croppers decreased from two-thirds to one -third.
  • Up to 1967 about 1500 acres of forest waste lands were occupied and cultivated by the Girijans.
  • Up to 1967 the Girijans refused to clear debts to the tune of about Rs. 2 lakhs .
  • They got free timber for their agricultural uses.
  • Even in the beginning, they sold their forest produce at weekly markets to private merchants and government corporations. Food-grains produced in the area were not allowed to be transported till the needs of the people there were met.
  • Forced labour had been completely abolished.
  • The nominal rates for palerlu and daily labour were increased. The rates of palerlu increased from six bags per annum to fourteen to fifteen bags. Similarly, the daily wage rates increased up to twelve times. The time for transplanting seedlings or harvesting crops increased several times. .
  • Forest timber had been taken freely for house construction and daily needs. The petty forest, revenue and police officials did not dare approach the Girijans for mamools.
  • Every adult member of the Girijan family got himself enrolled in the Girijan Sanghams.
  • Apart from the Girijan Sangham, women were organised in the Mahila Sangams (Women's Association) to fight against the injustices of the patriarchal system.." (Girijan movement in Srikakulam 1967-70 - Tarun Kumar in 'Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence' ed. A.R.Desai).
Here we find a fine example of attempting to complete the democratic tasks by 'pressure from below'. But the people also realised that the problem of land etc. could not be solved or consolidated without the establishment of people's rule (that is, people's democracy). Here again we find the similarity with Naxalbari, the accent being on consolidating gains through capture of state power which marked the break with revisionism in the Indian Communist movement. That an isolated case could not survive in the face of a strong centralised state is borne out by the fact of the severe repression that broke this movement. Whatever the ideological cloak this movement took is not so important as the basic thing - land with state power - that marked it out. We find that by 1967 in the main the democratic tasks had been achieved 'from below' in this area. Subsequently, life has traversed a long path..
Let us now focus our attention on the Naxalite movement in Bhojpur (early seventies)
Bhojpur (erstwhile Sahabad district) was one of selected areas under IADP described above. This is a district where 68% of the total land is irrigated. As one writer put it "Most of the IADP activity has been centred in the 50% irrigated blocks in the district. Owing to this capital-intensive phenomenon two distinct trends have emerged in the district: one, increase in productivity; and, two, sharpening social polarisation flowing from wage-labour and landlessness. The extremist crucible has emerged in the most productive region of Bhojpur district, i.e. Sahar, Sandesh, Piro and Jagdishpur, partly because of the forces let loose and those held on leash by the changing economic currents released by the IADP"
"Landlords, in terms of estate-landlordism, are a near extinct category. Empirically speaking, only 4% of the privately owned land is held by this section. The former landed estates of Dumroan and Jagdishpur have crumbled over the years and have been leased out, largely, to share-croppers (bataidars) who cultivate the land with the help of their family members as well as hired labours ('banihars'). Rich peasants, though this category is small (1.3%) and owns 11.2% of private owned land, are emerging. Their advance to the fore of rural society has been aided by the IADP projects in the area. Medium, small and marginal peasants owning 0.5 to 5.0 acres holdings form the buffer bulk between the rich peasants above and the landless peasants below." (Peasant unrest in Bhojpur: A Survey by Manju Kala et al; in 'Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence' ed. A.R.Desai).
The main cause of the Naxalite movement in this area has been - social oppression against the lower castes (who also formed the bulk of agricultural labour) and the growing economic divide spurred by the IADP Programme. In other words the growing capitalist relations could bot but sharpen the class struggle fed as it was by a long tradition of peasant movements and communist propaganda. The fight against social oppression signaled the fact that with the growth of capitalist relations the fog of old patriarchal relations had been cleared. The masses were no longer prepared to take social oppression lying down. (But more on that later).
Even as the Bhojpur movement was going on there was another important struggle in Maharashtra. This movement's peak phase began on "30 January, 1972, when a big peasants' conference, the Bhu Mukti - Liberation of the land - conference was held in Shahada". The Shramik Sanghathan, the organisation of the landless labourers and poor peasants led this movement. Its programme of action was -
  • "Occupation of the lands which rightfully belong the adivasis.
  • Building up the organised pressure on the government to implement its Employment Guarantee Scheme.
  • All adivasi land transfers after 1947 to be cancelled.
  • All adivasis debt to govt. institutions to be cancelled.
  • The government to fix a minimum wage for agricultural workers."
(The Shahada Movement: A Peasant Movement in Maharashtra - Maria Mies (ibid).)
The Shramik Sangathan saw in the first month of the year 1972, a series of victories:
  • "In a first phase, the Sharamik Sangathan had helped the Adivasis to get the land back which had been alienated by fraudulent methods. The young activists got the transaction documents the illeterate peasants had signed with their thumb impression. They went to court with the Adivasis activated them to fight for their rights. Thus about 4000 acres were recovered.
  • In March 1972 the Shramik Sanghathan called all the poor peasants and landless labourers to boycott the elections for the state assembly, as elections had only so far benefited the ruling landlord-money-lender class
  • On March 1972, a peasants rally took place in Shahada. It was attended by 15000 peasants. The demands of this conference were -
a.      a rise in the saldars wage to Rs. 900 (formerly they were Rs. 300 per year).
b.     fixed working hours for saldars and one month's leave.
c.      50 paise more for the day labourers.
To back these demands, the saldars went to strike. They were also followed by the day labourers and the share-croppers. The Gujars had to give in to this organised pressure and to accept the demands -
  • In a next step, the Shramik Sanghathan demanded that the government forest land, on which there were fewer than 30 trees should be distributed among the landless"
We find this movement was also spurred by the introduction of the 'Green Revolution'. It had greatly increased the greed for land (as agriculture had become highly profitable) among the rich farmers leading to greater expropriation of the Adivasis or eviction of sharecroppers and consequently these sections came into struggle. It led to the pauperisation of small peasants and landless labourers. This led to a sharpening of the class struggle. Thus the advent of relatively rapid development of capitalist methods of production sparked this movement.
In Tamil Nadu we find the shift from land question to wage question during 1964-70. It was marked by great militant struggles of agricultural labourers particularly in the three taluks of Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, and Nanuilam. Tanjore witnessed major wage struggles and consequently increasing atrocities on the scheduled castes. The new contradiction is essentially between wage labour on the one hand and rich peasants and capitalist landlords on the other. The growing pauperisation and proletarianisation is witness to this.
In Gujrat too the agricultural labourers were becoming restive under the 'Halpati Sevak Sangh'.
On the other hand in Tamilnadu there have been peasant struggles for lower electricity tariffs, on the issue of co-operative loans, taxes etc.
Similarly in Andhra Pradesh the peasant movements have been against betterment levy, remunerative prices, supplies of inputs and credits, and for land reforms.
Similar has been the peasant movements in Punjab, U.P., Maharashtra etc. The organisation of the non-communist peasant unions - B.K.U., Shetkari Sangathan etc. has shown the way the wind is blowing.
Thus we find a parallel set of demands - 'remunerative' prices, increased credits and agricultural input facilities etc. in a word - for 'capital'. This is the demand of capitalist agriculture - of rich peasants, middle peasants and capitalist landlords - the result of decades of traversing the Prussian Path of capitalist evolution.
Parallel to this we find demand for wages (recently in central Bihar ,Bhojpur, the whole area witnessed widespread spontaneous wage struggles - demand for higher than government fixed minimum wages. Instead of welcoming this the left parties killed it by a conspiracy of silence or tried to turn it into a inconsequential fight for land); the demand for house-sites (goes a long way to end dependence and has been achieved in the main), share-cropping rights etc.The demand of share-croppers are also essentially of the capitalist type in general. Following the 'Green Revolution' we find the tendency towards evictions in order to enable the capitalist landlords/rich peasant to resume cultivation; for higher rents (improvements in land lead to higher rents to landlords as Marx noted) etc. The concrete study of the agrarian movements can only make us conclude that the relations of production in agriculture are essentially capitalist. The interests of capital and labour can no longer be 'reconciled'. The peasantry has disintegrated into a peasant bourgeoisie and a semi-proletarian poor peasantry. The agricultural labourers' interests are no longer voiced by the 'all-in' peasant unions. Their separate class organisations have to be 'recognised' by the 'communist' parties. A breach has been made in the interests of rich peasants, middle peasants on the one hand, and poor peasants and agricultural labourers on the other (at a later stage of the revolution the middle peasant might be forced to take a different stand but at present they are hostile to labour).
"As opposed to the old understanding of concentrating the fight against big landlords the peasant struggle in Bihar is progressing in those areas which have a rather broad based pattern of landownership. A considerable section of the kulaks has become its target. Apart from this, various complex political and economic factors allow the kulaks to organise the various sections of the middle strata, especially under the caste banner. Consequently the rural population becomes sharply divided. Under such circumstances the fight for wages becomes difficult and land seizure appears impossible. Alongwith this the danger of severe damage to the interests of the middle strata arises. It was in the presence of such complicated complex of forces that the old communist parties lost their way. No wonder, the CPI, CPM and the socialist 'parites' charge us with instigating fights between the agricultural woekers and poor peasants on the one hand, and middle and rich peasants on the other thus breaking broad peasant unity.
if this so-called broad peasant unity is to be found anywhere in practice, it is totally under the leadership of the rich peasants
(If) this is true that the areas of peasant struggle in Bihar do not correspond to the empirical description of a anti-feudal struggle from the point of view of class-structure." ('From the Flaming fields of Bihar' CPI(ML) Liberation - our translation from Hindi).
The CPI(ML) Liberation is apologetic - apologetic about its new class base, that it is breaking 'all-in' peasant unity so essential for the democratic revolution. But friends, life forces people to accept reality. We have noted the new class correlation about. It could not be otherwise in Bihar. The breach in the peasantry shows the deep differentiation within its ranks, the predominance of capitalism, the refusal of the poor peasantry and agricultural labour to follow the kulak! Let the revisionists say what they will. We have noted the class base of these revisionists above. The Indian communists have not done anything to change the social composition of the communist party - essentially the party of the proletariat - which the Sixth Comintern Congress stressed as far back as 1928! The party could guide itself through the anti-feudal movements very well with its anti-feudal (peasant) class base. But it proved utterly revisionist during the next phase when it had to contend with the emerging reality of sharp polarisation along new lines. Both C.Rajaeshwara Rao and P.Sundarayya have called the bourgeois-landlord reforms 'progressive'. Ideologically unable to adapt itself with the new reality it kept on harping on the democratic revolution. Finding the bourgeois-landlord state fulfilling the 'democratic' tasks it tagged itself on to its parliamentary processes 'democratic' tasks it tagged itself on to its parliamentary processes.
Ideologically many of the Naxalite groups run this danger of state incorporation. The state gives some sops of ceiling, land distribution and they run at the bait. It is not as yet mediated for them through the parliamentary processes of the state but through the 'informal' agencies of the state, the NGOs and Institutes of Social Sciences. The 'land reform unit' of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration, Mussoorie has advocated the incorporation of the 'activist' groups to achieve land reforms in Bihar. Friends, beware of these insidious attempts.
To many of our friends 'socialist' revolution means nothing other than admitting the progressive national character of the bourgeoisie. Well friends, the Prussian Path is the path of the most reactionary bourgeois-landlord state. But all the same we find today before us a capitalist India and should not get dazzled either to the right (as the CPI-ML Liberation has) or the left (holding the impossibility of social development). Ideologically, if we dogmatically stick to the stage of democratic revolution and come face to face with reality we will definitely move to the right of the checkerboard as 'Liberation' has. It means contending with the reality in a negative manner, giving in to the opposite class (bourgeoisie), moving right and inevitably accepting the left-democratic front of CPI, CPM, SUCI etc. The correlation of class forces are such that the call of democratic revolution clashes violently with life and hence the 'democrats' must (in course of time) accept the hegemony of the bourgeoisie and act as 'labour-lieutenants' of the bourgeoisie (as the social democrats do).

VII
Feudal Remnants
( i )
When our friends are asked to point out the feudal remnants they usually enumerate features of capitalism as we have noted above. They might enumerate the exploitation by the pawn broker, the usurer and the shopkeeper. In many struggles this factor has been a target of attack. But the presence of these factors does not define a mode of production. Marx calls it "secondary exploitation which runs parallel to the primary exploitation taking place in the production process  itself."(K.Marx/Cap./vol.III/p.609). As he writes in the Manifesto -
"No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far at an end that he receives his wages in cash, that he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker etc." (p.53)
They also point out to the feudal 'values' and feudal 'way of life'. Overbearing manners, illtreatment of subordinates, proneness to violence against lower orders are all dubbed feudal. Our friends only prettify capitalism - they have in mind an ideal capitalism which is thoroughly democratic, a capitalism which has never existed anywhere and will never exist in the future too. They make a fetish of democracy. Lenin observed, "The big bourgeois is case-hardened, he knows that under capitalism a democratic republic, like every other form of state is nothing but a machine for the suppression of the proletariat. The big bourgeois knows this from his most intimate acquaintance with the real leaders and with the most profound (and therefore the most concealed) springs of every bourgeois state machine. The petty-bourgeois owing to his conditions of life generally, is less able to appreciate this truth.. . The tenacity of these prejudices of the petty-bourgeois democrats is inevitably due to the fact that he is further removed from the acute class-struggle, the stock-exchange and 'real politics' (Lenin/CW/28.p.188-89)
So we pray to our friends not to carry their democratic aspirations to the level of a prejudice.
Look what CPI(ML) Liberation says -
"These (semi-feudal-ed.) remnants provide the basis for the existence of medieval obscurantism, caste and communal fanaticism and barbarity in the whole society and act as a great hindrance to any real democratic awakening of our people." (Documents of the CPI-ML Liberation, 4th party Congress, 1988/p.42)
Yes, that is why we call the democratic aspirations of these people a prejudice. They picture a capitalism which is thoroughly democratic. We all know that all capitalist 'democratic' countries have deep-seated racist, communal feelings - anti-Semitism in Europe, anti-Negro feelings in USA etc. So why is communal fanaticism etc. also used as a pretext for describing Indian society as semi-feudal? (Yes, exactly, the last line in the above quoted paragraph reads - "The Party (CPI-ML Liberation-ed.) therefore characterises the Indian society semi-feudal". Clearly, either it is a prejudice or else deliberate prettification of capitalism and vested interest in keeping the fight within bourgeois bounds. Look what Lenin writes of bourgeois democracy -
"The learned Mr. Kautsky has 'forgotten' - accidentally forgotten, probably - a 'trifle', namely that the ruling party in a bourgeois democracy extends the protection of the minority only to another bourgeois party, while the proletariat, on all serious, profound and fundamental issues, gets martial law of pogroms, instead of the 'protection' of the 'minority'. The more highly developed a democracy is, the more imminent are pogroms or civil war in connection with any profound political divergence which is dangerous to the bourgeoisie. The learned Mr. Kautsky could have studied this law of bourgeois democracy in connection with the Dreyfus case in republican France, with the lynching of Negroes and internationalists in the democratic republic of America, with the case of Ireland and Ulster in democratic Britain, with the baiting of the Bolsheviks and the staging of pogroms against them in April 1917 in the democratic republic in Russia." (Lenin/CW/28/pg.245-46)
With the development of capitalist relations and through the struggle of the working classes most of the semi-feudal relationships - like vetti, begar, vatan services, illegal exactions like mamool and abwabs have been mostly eliminated. We have seen that social oppression in one of the main causes of the struggle in the rural areas. Capitalist relations having been established this oppression does not appear as 'natural' to the worker, not something 'given' in his relationship with his master. Naturally he revolts. This has been one of the most powerful factors of struggle.
With the development of money-wage-commodity relations the 'jajmani' system (See Note)has fallen through. This is particularly true of the utilitarian services - that of the blacksmith, potter etc. Ritual services of the Brahman etc. remain and will remain for a long time. Being of a particular caste might facilitate getting absorbed in a certain division of labour which exists in capitalist society too but that is different. There has been tremendous horizontal and vertical movement (The Mandal report takes into account the social mobility statistics upto 1931 in order to deliberately obfuscate the issue). There is of course a certain caste-class correlation, but something neither strict not homogeneous. (Certainly class division is not division of labour as understood by political economy. Division of labour is the division of the various branches of production.)
It is lamented that the bulk of the lower castes are labouring people. It is forgotten that capitalist society is also a class-divided society and the bulk of the masses are toilers. More, capitalist society is also privilege perpetuating society (privilege of birth, status and wealth).
The majority of the lower castes (or for that matter higher castes) will have to maintain a proletarian or semi-proletarian existence under capitalism. To show the continuity of the plebeian conditions of these lower castes does not prove anything. It can only foster the illusion that their overwhelming majority will become property-holders or that they can better their conditions under capitalism,. It is deception of the worst sort which detracts and diverts them from the struggle against capitalism, from the genuine endeavor to change their living conditions. The overwhelming majority of these castes (or for that matter the higher castes too) can only become masters by expropriating the bourgeoisie, by replacing the capitalist order by the socialist. There remains now the question of caste oppression. Where it is a prejudice, it can only be fought as a prejudice i.e. at the cultural level; laws can help in the fight but culture is not something which can be subjected to laws such. Areas of acute class-struggle in agrarian India have witnessed slackening of this oppression. It has added to the feeling of dignity to the lower castes. As to the question of 'caste-struggle' and casteism we will deal with it briefly in the next section.
"In the Indian society, feudal remnants in the form of backward small peasant economy, labour-service system, share-cropping, usury, caste-oppression etc. exist side by side with the bureaucrat capital's exploitation." (Documents of the CPI-ML Liberation - 4th Party Congress 1988 -General programme, p.42)
The proponents of democratic revolution enumerate the existence of labour-service system as a semi-feudal remnant. India, it is well known had no system of 'corvee' as such. So the labour-service system cannot be of the 'corvee' type. Now, there is a certain incidence of attached labour (e.g. 'banihari' etc.) which has undergone changes over time. The attachment has become of a loose type. The organisation and strikes of this type of labourers has contributed to its dissolution or metamorphosis. This type has been historically found in most of the capitalist countries. One must not mistake it for the semi-feudal labour-service system. As Lenin writes -
"It should be added that our literature frequently contains too stereotyped an understanding that capitalism requires the free, landless worker. This proposition is quite correct as indicating the main trend, but capitalism penetrates into agriculture particularly slowly and in extremely varied forms. The allotment of land to the rural worker is a type to be found in all capitalist countries. The type assumes different forms in different countries: the English cottager is not the same as the small-holding peasant of France or the Rhine provinces and the latter again is not the same as the knecht in Prussia. Each of these bears traces of a specific agrarian system, of a specific type of agrarian relations but this does not prevent the economist from classing them all as one type of agricultural proletarian. The juridical basis of his right to his plot of land is absolutely immaterial to such a classification. Whether the land is his full property (as a small-holding peasant) or whether he is only allowed the use of it by the landlord or the Ritter gutsbesitzer (Lord of the manor), or, finally, whether he possesses it as a member of a Great Russian peasant Community - makes no difference at all". (Lenin/CW/3/p.178-79)

( ii )
CASTE STRUGGLE AND CASTEISM
Going back into history we find that the tendency to fight against caste oppression in an organised manner began after the advent of British rule. It was only after the village community had been rent asunder; after the 'only social revolution India had ever known' (Marx), had taken place that this begin. The precondition for this was the beginning of the breakdown of the 'immutable' old order wherein the castes had been placed in an 'harmonious' order: a division of labour wherein each fell neatly into his place.
This process has been described by sociologists as 'Sanskritisation'. The fight of the lower castes took the shape of imitating and emulating the behavior and rituals of the upper castes. Every caste found a 'history' of its own, a history of a bygone golden age. It was the negation of the old order from 'within'. The movement to climb the caste-hierarchy was itself indicative of the demolition of the caste-system as it stood then. Later when Ambedkar came to the scene there was a greater awakening among the lowest of the lower orders. This too took the shape of 'Sanskritisation' but the ramifications of this process were far-reaching. The call to the 'outcastes' to give up eating of carrion-flesh and the disposal of dead-animals signaled the beginning of the end of what sociologists have called the 'Jajmani' system. For it was in essence refusal to carry on the caste functions. The criticism of the old order was breaching the banks. (Note the movement against watan services etc,) Thus, it was part of the greater democratic movement. It clearly heralded the fight against the still strong pre-capitalist survivals. The 1942 'Report of the Depressed Classes Conference' is instructive -
The conference came "to the conclusion that a radical change must be made in the village system now prevalent in India and which is the parent of all the ills from which the scheduled castes are suffering from many centuries at the hands of the Hindus".
But along with 'Sanskritisation' another process was taking place which was later to become the predominant form. It was the effort at getting an increasing share of state patronage and administration. The movement led by the Justice party was representative of the latter process. The movement expressed the aspirations of the 'dominant' (In an article on a village in Mysore, published in 1955, M.N.Srinivas defined the 'dominant' caste as follows - Since then this concept has been widely used with or without certain variations - "A caste may be said to be 'dominant' when it preponderates numerically over the other castes, and when it also wields preponderant economic and political power. A large and powerful caste group can more easily be dominant if its position in the local caste hierarchy is not too low.") castes who having monopolised the village resources wanted an increasing say in the state and administration. Power at the village level had to be combined with the power of the state. The landlords and rich peasants of these castes skilfully used their caste-associations in manipulating themselves into the power structure. The non-Brahman Justicite movement thus could never rally around the outcastes - the 'Adi-Dravids' who were at the receiving end of their exploitation. At this point we must point out the role of caste associations.
According to one sociologist - "as the processes of democratic politics began to reach the mass electorate the aims of caste-associations changed and instead of demanding temple entry, prestigious caste names and histories in the census, the associations began to press for places in the new administrative and educational institutions and for political representation". This latter process is the result of the breakdown of the old caste-system. These aspirations to power and state patronage are the consequences of the growth of capitalist relations.
Many have been led to believe that casteism - i.e. the assertion of caste in politics and the economy, is a semi-feudal survival. Far from it, the bourgeoisie has skillfully used the older caste social formation in wielding its power. (It is similar in scope to the use of religion, the tribe etc. by the bourgeoisie.) Almost all sociologists - 'Marxist' or not admit the breakdown of the old parameters of caste - the concept of pollution, caste functions, hierarchy etc. (one of course must point out to the survivals of untouchability and other forms of caste-oppression which must be fought actively). With the breakdown of the old caste-system there still seems to be a reinforcement of caste. But as Rajni Kothari has pointed out "the interesting thing about the caste-federation is that once formed on the basis of caste identities, it goes on to acquire non-caste functions." This is the new role of caste. Thus casteism is a recent development, one that admirably fits in with bourgeois development. A very notable description has been provided by A.R.Desai. He calls castes of today 'competing associations' -
"This (capitalist) development has eliminated the basic gestalt of the caste system and the forces behind them have transformed castes into associations, each mobilising caste resources, pooling economic and other caste assets, creating favourable conditions for the education of its members, supporting caste candidates in elections, enhancing the bargaining power of the castes and broadening its base by merging sub-castes with it and organising caste bodies at regional, state and all-India levels, participating in various economic, political and cultural activities in various sectors of the emerging economy and in the political processes, can be explained only if it is understood that castes are becoming competing associations, adapting themselves to the new pattern of economy and polity emerging in the country.
We thus witness a peculiar dialectical process of emerging modern capitalist classes utilising caste associations, caste combinations, caste practices, caste sentiments and caste resources for gaining their non-caste, class, economic, political, social and educational objectives. In fact, castes transformed into competing associations as stated at the opening of the discussion and impregnated with the new bourgeois value system, have become powerful levers wielded by the proprietary classes to carry on competition among themselves and to divide the pauperised and proletarianised classes in rural society. The value system underlying the caste hierarchy, fundamentally one based on inequality, supplements the value system of the bourgeois order; and thus provides the bourgeoisie with a powerful ideological weapon against the advocates of the unity of all toiling, exploited, non-owning classes of all castes in the struggle against exploitation under the emerging 'capitalist' politico-economic social order." (From 'Agrarian struggles in India after independence')
Those who find the bourgeois anti-Brahman movement 'democratic' in as much as it fights caste (as it obtains today) which they call a 'pre-capitalist' or 'feudal' economic formation would find this observation of a foreigner instructive -
"Anti-Brahman schemings, although they have a demagogic and somewhat violent side are a positive aspect in the struggle against caste. No doubt it takes little courage on the part of a foreigner to say this, but it must be said all the same, and it must be added that it follows that Madras State with its Dravidian Association(s), is probably further advanced on the road to the disappearance of castes than all the other states in India. [I should add that a recent visit to Madras had done much to shatter my nave confidence in this respect (1969)]" (Homo-Hierarchicus, Louis Dumont - p.222-3)
The existence of caste and communal fanaticism, prejudices and other existing backward ideas among the masses are seen as semi-feudalism (See quote from General Programme of CPI-ML  Liberation above). Let us see what Lenin says -
"Capitalism would not be capitalism if it did not, on the one hand, condemn the masses to a downtrodden, crushed and terrified state of existence, to disunity (the countryside) and ignorance, and if it (capitalism) did not, on the other hand, place in the hands of the bourgeoisie a gigantic apparatus of falsehood and deception, to hoodwink the masses of workers and peasants, to stultify their minds, and so forth".
"In all capitalist countries, besides the proletariat which is conscious of its revolutionary aims and is capable of fighting to achieve them, there are numerous politically immature proletarian, semi-proletarian petty--bourgeois strata which follow the bourgeoisie and bourgeois democracy (including the 'socialists' of the Second International) because they have been deceived, have no confidence in their own strength, or in the strength of the proletariat, are unaware of the possibility of having their urgent needs satisfied by means of the expropriation of the exploiters."
"These strata of the working and exploited people provide the vanguard of the proletariat with allies and give it a stable majority of the pollution, but the proletariat can win these only with the aid of an instrument like state power, that is to say, only after it has overthrown the bourgeoisie and has destroyed the bourgeois state apparatus." (Lenin/Constituent Assembly Elections and the dictatorship of the proletariat., CW; vol.30)
Thus, the conditions engendered by capitalism keep the masses in a state where they are highly susceptible to backward ideas - casteism, communalism etc. The way out is for the vanguard to make revolution(That is not to say that the proletarian revolution is a minority revolution: no, Lenin wrote about the need to count in millions during revolutionary upheavals. He asked the vanguard to "merge with the masses", to let the masses learn from their won experience) and then 'proceed with seven-league strides to rise the cultural level of the labouring masses'. That is why we say that revolution is on the agenda of the day.

( iii )
SEMI-FEUDAL ACCORDING TO ACADEMICS
Over a long period of time a group of Indian academics have been regularly writing on semi-feudalism in India. Their theories have been reinforcing the idea of a semi-feudal India. Two prominent names that crop up in this context (and we will deal with them) are of Pradhan H.Prasad and Amit Bhaduri.
Pradhan H.Prasad writes: -
"The characteristic feature of this set-up which we may call semi-feudal is that an indissoluble bond between the semi-proletariat and his overlord is maintained by resort to usury (Bhaduri, 1973). It is precisely because of this fact that the agricultural labourers have been classified as semi-proletariatOften the loans outstanding exceed the total value of the assets of the debtors. The enormous economic power which gets concentrated in the process in the hands of the landowning class And it is this class which shuns rapid development because it is likely to improve the economic condition of the semi-proletariat who can thereby free itself from the bondage" ('Reactionary role of usurer's capital in rural India', in 'Agrarian Relations and Accumulation' ed. Utsa Patnaik, p.228)
"In the case of the lowest asset group, that is those having total assets of less than Rs. 100, the loans outstanding in most of the cases, remain more than the value of their total assets." (ibid., p.230)
And Bhaduri, -
"An important economic consequence of the existing semi-feudal relations is that it tends to perpetuate agricultural backwardness. Since the semi-feudal landowning class derive income both from the landownership (i.e. owner's share of the produce) and from usury (interest on consumption loan primarily), they have an economic interest in perpetuating the economic misery of the tenants. If this, in turn, requires maintaining low productivity of land to prevent the sharecroppers from becoming economically better-off the semi-feudal landowners may well do it. For economically better-off tenants will require less consumption loan and in some situations it is possible that the loss in income from usury will more than outweigh the gain from higher productivity to the semi-feudal landowners. In such cases, even on pure economic grounds, the semi-feudal landowners may restrain the use of improved agricultural technology." ('An analysis of semi-feudalism in East India', Frontier, Vol. 6, Sept. 1973)
For the present we will not controvert this on empirical grounds as Ashok Rudra, Ghanshyam Shah and others have done. Let us examine this on theoretical grounds.
First of all let us make it clear that usury does not define a mode of production. From the quotes above it seems that the authors have endeavored to construct their semi-feudal set-up on the basis of usury. Usury is the antiquated form of interest-bearing capital. Its formula is M-M, i.e. money begetting more money. In this we find no trace of the intervening stage of the process of production or reproduction. Thus we find 'its existence in the most diverse economic formations of society' (Marx)
"Usury like commerce, exploits a given mode of production. It does not create it, but is related to it outwardly." (K. Marx/Cap./III/p. 609-10)
So it is futile to characterise our agriculture as semi-feudal on the basis of the existence of usury. See the confusion in the minds of the authors that they fail to distinguish between the usurer's debtor as producer and as consumer. Hence we find that agricultural landless labourers are lumped together with those owners of means of production - the poor peasants.
"The wage-slave, just like the real slave, cannot become a creditor's slave in his capacity as producer, the wage-slave, it is true, can become a creditor's slave in his capacity as consumer." (ibid./p.595)
And under capitalist production relations the worker is also subject to the pernicious influence of such usury. Thus Marx observed that "the English working class pay 100% to the pawnshops." (ibid./p.601) We have already mentioned this 'secondary exploitation' above. Further, the above assertion of the authors that the usurer does not look towards repayment of the loan but wants to perpetuate bondage makes it clear that usury in this from (as consumer) cannot be a source of enrichment to the usurer. (They have no productive assets, total assets being less than Rs. 100. Hence they cannot have a surplus from their assets which can be siphoned off by the usurer). Thus, it would be ridiculous to assume that since money has this channel of investment, it is not invested in land.
It is argued that, "And it is this class which shuns rapid development because it is likely to improve the economic condition of the semi-proletariat who can thereby free itself from the bondage. That is why they approach the whole process of production and distribution mainly with a view to perpetuating this semi-feudal bondage rather than allowing rapid rate of investment and intensive use of available means of production in the rural areas." (Pradhan H.Prasad, ibid.)
This statement contains a number of fallacies. First and foremost it accepts that 'per se' the development of agriculture leads to the improvement in the condition of the wage workers. What are the facts? Agricultural real wage rates have gone up much faster in Kerala which has a huge labour market ('surplus' population) and appreciably lower rate of agricultural production, than in the North West.
"The stranglehold of semi-feudal production relations has been so strong that even when the index of agricultural production in Bihar showed an annual compound rate of growth of 2.94% (in per capita terms it was about 0.97%) during the period 1952-53 to 1964-65, the benefits did not percolate to the direct producers. The document maintains that the 'condition of agricultural labour has not changed materially and in some respects has worsened in spite of land reforms'." (Pradhan H.Prasad, Lopsided Growth/p.80)
We find that the development of agricultural production has not resulted in any betterment of the conditions of the agricultural workers. But again the author assets - "If the decline in the proportion of the poor in rural India has been low, it is not because the 'trickle-down modified' thesis is not valid in the Indian situation, but because agricultural growth has been low." (ibid./p.68)
We are caught in a vicious circle. We are told that agricultural development will result in the betterment of the conditions of the workers and breaking of bondage ('semi-feudalism') and yet we learn that there has been no betterment in the condition of the workers inspite of development because of the stranglehold of semi-feudalism. Run from pillar to post as we do the author offers us no solution. Rapid development is shunned due to semi-feudalism and development does not lead us anywhere due to semi-feudalism. Inspite of all this the author believes in the pernicious thesis of 'Trickle down modified which is but a modified version of the arch-imperialist American ex-President Hoover's doctrine of trickle-down development.
We do not believe in such bogus theories. We know that poverty is a precondition and a result of capitalism. The very movement of capital is a contradiction - it creates wealth at one pole and poverty at the other. But this poverty should be seen in the social sense. We have defined its movement as a tendency with the working class movement acting as a powerful counteracting factor. It is precisely this factor which makes possible the better conditions of the Kerala agricultural worker as compared to his Punjab counterpart. Thus the authors' arguments take us away from the living reality of classes and class-struggles into the sphere of abstract, nay, insidious doctrines. It is only the class struggle of the working class people which can result in the betterment of the agricultural worker.
We do not deny the existence of a certain incidence of debt-bondage among agricultural workers. But the whole of our argument shows that debt-bondage cannot be used as an explanation of low rate of agricultural growth whatever its level of incidence. Neither can debt-bondage define a situation which we can describe as semi-feudalism.
One possible solution offered in order to break the stranglehold of 'semi-feudal' relations is distribution of ceiling surplus land and low ceiling on land holdings. (ibid./p.36) The 'Report of the Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes' shows the miserable amount of land that can be distributed among the landless. This will only lead to perpetuation and extension of deficit households and hence usury (semi-feudalism as the authors say). At this point let us deal with the contention of the authors that the existence of these deficit households mean semi-feudalism and is a source of enrichment to the usurer (landowner).
Capitalism as it enters agriculture meets its barrier in the private ownership of land. Through slow and gradual expropriation of the direct producers it makes its headway. Thus it implies ruin of the direct producers, their underconsumption, heavy indebtedness, technical stagnation etc. (see Lenin's quote above, CW/22/pg.70). Hence the existence of deficit households which Pradhan H.Prasad, Bhaduri, Chandra et al see as a sign of semi-feudalism is but part of the overall trend of capitalist agricultural development. If we are not to fall into the trap of empirical sociology which through elaborate procedures like field surveys, selected data, questionnaires etc. sets out to 'prove' one thing or the other we should see things in their totality. No wonder Lenin remarks that "if agricultural statistics are taken in general and uncritically, it is quite easy to discover in the capitalist mode of production a tendency to transform modern nations into hunting tribes." (Lenin/CW/4/pg.135)
We have approached the question of capitalism in agriculture mainly from the question of the home-market. This approach sums up the growth of agricultural development. It is within this trend of growth of agricultural capitalism that we should examine different phenomena.
Take the concrete conditions of India - we had inherited from the colonial period a pauperized peasantry and extreme pressure on land. The latter is of such dimension that it has astonished most foreign observers of Indian agriculture. This historical legacy acts as a burden on Indian agriculture prolonging its agony. Land reforms coupled with development of capitalist relations (The 'Prussian Path') has exacerbated the problem for the mechanisms of 'patriarchal' agriculture are not there to moderate and 'mitigate' the sufferings of the direct producers. The extreme pressure on land prolongs the pitiable condition of the Indian peasant, who holds on to his miserable patch in order to eke out a living. It is only a symptom of the existence of a exceptionally large 'surplus population' under conditions of capitalism ('disguised unemployment'). Numerous layers are found in all capitalist societies who somehow make an 'earning' through petty trading etc. As we said it is a legacy of our colonial past which according to Marx, "destroyed it (Indian civilisation) by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry.." "This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindu" (From 'Future results of British rule in India' and 'British rule in India').
This is the historical premise which explains the relatively considerable incidence of share-cropping (Compare Engles' remarks on the Irish sub-division of the soil in the 'Condition of the Working Class in England' p.272) - a large number of which are concealed tenancies which only shows that economic movement takes place despite 'laws' (if we are to believe the figures given below it is very high). (This condition of Indian agriculture is as much feudalism as the presence of the 'khomchavalas' (hawkers) in the Indian cities makes the urban economy feudal.) Since the said figures are that of one of the protagonists of the thesis of 'semi-feudalism' namely, Pradhan H. Prasad let us examine sharecropping in the light of this table: -

Caste,Class and Landownership in the Plains of Rural Bihar 
CASTE
Percentage of Persons to Total in Each of the Caste Groups
Per Capita Cultivated land owned(in Acres)
Landowning Category (Acres)
 Class
0
0-5
5-10
10+
ALL
(100)
Landlord & Rich Peasant
Middle Peasant
Poor Peasant
 Upper
5.7
62.1
17.9
14.3
22.2
89.5
2.9
5.5
0.54
Upper Middle
25.9
66.4
5.5
2.2
21.7
27.8
35.1
27.6
0.33
Other Middle
60.9
37.6
0.0
1.5
16.3
7.5
9.2
77.9
0.17
Scheduled
69.5
30.4
0.1
0.0
27.2
2.0
4.4
92.0
0.12
Hindus
40.9
48.7
5.9
4.5
87.4
31.6
12.5
51.5
0.31
Muslims
58.6
35.4
4.4
1.6
12.6
21.0
10.3
58.3
0.25
All
43.1
47.0
5.8
4.1
100
30.3
12.2
52.3
0.30
Note :Figures in parentheses refer to percentage distribution with referance to row total.
Source of Data :An empirical research study by International Labour Office, Geneva, and ANS Institute of Social Studies, Patna, on 'Dynamic of Employment and Proverty' in Bihar in 1981. See P.H. Prasad and G.B. Rodgers,
 Class, Caste and Landholding in the analysis of the Rural Economy, World Employment Programme Research, Population and Labour Policies Programme, Working Paper Number 140, August 1983, ILO, Geneva.(Economic and Political Weekly, August 17, 1991)  
In the upper bracket (that of the upper castes) we find that thought the percentage of all landowners above 5 acres is 34.2, the percentage of landlords is 89.5 and per capita cultivated land owned is only 0.54 acres. Similarly compare the figures for the other groups and see the astonishing discrepancy. It means that the term 'landlord' can only be explained here in terms of leasing out of land and has no correlation with size. This incidence is so high for all groups that it can only mean that landowners with meagre landholdings (and consequently hardly any 'resources' we suppose) rent out their land. This only confirms our above-mentioned explanation that the pressure upon land and the size of the 'surplus population' is so high that the peasant has to eke out his living under the most miserable conditions. That the landowners renting out land are mostly of meagre means themselves shows that the correlation between the incidence of share-cropping (According to the report of 'Land Reforms Unit' of the 'Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration' presented at the workship on 'Land reforms in Bihar' (February 1991) 9.9% of the arable land is under various forms of tenancy of which a certain percentage is under share-cropping.) and the vested interest of usurer-landlords in maintaining share-cropping (with consequent low growth) can hardly be borne out (as the bulk of the landlords (!) being poor landowners can hardly be usurers).
Take the worst case of usury i.e. say the sharecropper is depressed below his physical minimum wage and all his surplus is siphoned off by the usurer. That means the usurer has a very high rate of interest (or what is analogous in capitalist society a very high rate of profit). But the total volume of produce (and hence total profit) will be very low given the miserable conditions of reproduction which 'usury renders more pitiable' (Marx). Whereas we find that the given level of development of productive forces (HYV seeds, fertilizers etc.) can give rise to substantial growth of produce. So if the usurer's money is diverted to productive investment i.e. invested as capital in land, the high productivity of the given technology will result in a greater produce as surplus. So even if the sharecropper receives a decent share the consequent loss to the landlord can be more than offset through the greater produce. It acts in a way which is similar to the offsetting of the loss due to the falling rate of profit by the increased mass of profit (which is a law of capitalism). Therefore Bhaduri is wrong in contending that even on purely economic grounds it is in the interests of the landlord-usurer to perpetuate backwardness.
Further, we know that returns from improvements in land flow back as rent into the pocket of the landlord even under conditions of capitalist ground rent (refer K. Marx, Capital, Vol. III). So, it is wrong to make the assumption that the landlord's interest is in maintaining backwardness in the above given conditions. Concretely, the very systems of 'bataidari' (sharecropping) also testify to the fact that there is a sharing of inputs by both parties.
Historically under conditions of capitalism domestic industry complements machine production. Marx describes this in his first volume of 'Capital'. But this aspect is overlooked by those who describe domestic industry as essentially pre-capitalist. The same is applicable to agriculture. The extreme variety of transitional and mixed forms should not make us conclude that agriculture is semi-feudal. Let us take an example. The peculiar form of share-cropping prevalent under so-called cash-cropping - take for instance the case of sugarcane production - where all inputs are supplied by the sugar-mill and the product is 'bought' by the mill, is an example of the form of combination of 'domestic industry' and 'factory system' in agriculture. Further it may be mentioned here that "both mortgage and usury are, so to speak forms of capital's evasion of the difficulties which private ownership creates for the free penetration of capital into agriculture" (Lenin/CW/13/p.315). In practice this is borne out by the many forms of usury and mortgage of land actually prevailing in agrarian India.
That usury is not a marked feature of agrarian India can also be attested by the fact that there has been tremendous growth of institution banking in rural India. [Table II(i)] These rural branches also have a large number of depositors. Had usury been an important channel of investment money would not have found its way to these banks.
A certain incidence of debt-bondage of an informal nature might serve the landowner as a means of having an assured and cheap source of labour supply. The competition among the workers greatly contributes to this. The growing organisation and militancy of the workers counteracts this and leads to its dissolution. (Our remarks on 'banihari' etc. are relevant in this respect too).
Further, the increasing and high incidence of migration of agricultural workers from one place to another, the object of lamentations of 'communists', also dissolves all forms of dependence. This is a feature which should be noted in this context.

VIII
Trotskyism and the Socialist Revolution
The Indian communists have become so accustomed to hackneyed slogans that the very mention of the socialist revolution is answered by charges of Trotskyism. When we had just mentioned the case for the socialist revolution we were dubbed Trotskyites without further ado and without even any hearing.
Let us begin with an examination of Trotsky's writings - "Basing ourselves on the experience of the last revolution, we inquired into the changes which the last ten years have brought about in the relations of forces that obtained in 1905 : have these been in favor of democracy (the bourgeoisie) or against it? Has bourgeois democracy in Russia become stronger since 1905, or has it still further declined?.. We reply to this question by saying that a national bourgeois revolution is impossible in Russia because there is no genuinely revolutionary bourgeois democracy. The time for national revolutions has passed. Between one and the other there is an inherent connection. We are living in an epoch of imperialism which is not merely a system of colonial conquests but implies also a definite regime at home. It does not set the bourgeois nation in opposition to the old regime, but sets the proletariat in opposition to the bourgeois nation." ('Results and Prospects', Pathfinder Press, New York, p. 118-9).
"According to Lenin, their (workers and peasants) joint uprising against the old society must, if victorious, lead to the establishment of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry."
This formula is now repeated in the Communist International as a sort of supra-historical dogma, with no attempt to analyse the living historical experiences of the last quarter century - as though we had not been witness and participants in the revolution of 1905, the February revolution of 1917, and finally the October revolution. Such a historical analysis, however, is all the more necessary because never in history has there been a regime of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry." (The Permanent Revolution, ibid.)
In both the passages apart from other things, Trotsky is moved by narrow considerations of 'practicability'. 'There is no genuinely revolutionary bourgeois democracy in Russia' and therefore a national bourgeois revolution is impossible. 'The time for national revolutions in Europe has passed.' 'Never in history has there been a regime of democratic dictatorship of proletariat and peasantry' - so such a slogan is wrong. It is important to note that Marxism does not take into account such narrow considerations in the formulation of its party's programme: -
"Rosa Luxembourg wrote that the demand for Poland's restoration was inappropriate in the Polish Social-Democrats' practical programme, since this could not be realised in present-day society. Karl Kautsky took exception to this, saying that this argument was "based on a strange misconception of the essence of a socialist programme. Whether they find direct expression in the programme or are tacitly accepted 'postulated', our practical demands should be confirmed, not with their being achievable under the given alignment of forces, but with their compatibility with the existing social system, and with the consideration whether they can facilitate and further the proletariat's class struggle, and pave for it the way to the political rule of the proletariat. In this, we take no account of the current alignment of forces. The Social-Democratic programme is not written for the given moment - as far as possible, it should cover all eventualities in present-day society. It should serve not only for practical action, but for propaganda as well, in the form of concrete demands, it should indicate, more vividly than abstract arguments can do, the direction in which we intend to advance." (Lenin/CW/6/p.123)
So, Trotsky is patently wrong when he questions the Comintern programme of the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry' on the basis of his bogus historical analysis. He should have shown how the slogan is incompatible with the development of society and that it does not facilitate the establishment of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Criticising those who thought self-determination or the national question impracticable or the national question impracticable under imperialism Lenin writes: - "it is radically incorrect from the standpoint of theory. First, in that sense, such things as, for example, labour money, or the abolition of crises etc. are impracticable under capitalism. It is absolutely untrue that self-determination of nations is equally impracticable." (Lenin/CW/22/p. 144)
Thus, Trotsky makes the mistake of criticising the Sixth Comintern on the above grounds. In his brilliant articles during the First Russian revolution of 1905, Lenin showed the necessity of the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry'. He also showed the need for the two-stage revolution which Trotsky ridicules.
"What is Martynov's muddle-headedness due to? To the fact that he confounds democratic revolution with socialist revolution, that he overlooks the role of the intermediate stratum of the people lying between the 'bourgeoisie' and the 'proletariat' (the petty-bourgeois masses of the urban and rural poor, the 'semi-proletarians', the semi-proprietors) and that he fails to understand the true meaning of our immediate programme." (Lenin/CW/8/p. 286)
In this article - 'Democracy and Revolutionary Government' Lenin elaborately showed the basis for the slogan of the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry'. Apart from the fact that Trotsky's claims are bogus (there was a 'dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' - refer Lenin's 'Letter on Tactics' and other articles of the period), the historical failure of this slogan in a few instances does not invalidate it.
"..the question of the fundamental slogan of the Party must not be confused with the question of the time and forms of achieving particular demands arising out of that slogan.
.the strategic slogans of our party must not be appraised from the point of view of episodically successes or defeats of the revolutionary movement in any particular period(they) can be appraised only from the point of view of a Marxist analysis of the class forces and of the correct disposition of the revolutionary forces on the front of the struggle for the victory of the revolution, for the concentration of power in the hands of the new class." (Stalin/Problems of Leninism/p. 239)
The 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' slogan had its basis in the immediate programme of the Social Democratic party - on the basis of an anti-feudal democratic programme. Since we have shown that India is capitalist and as such a communist party cannot have an anti-feudal minimum programme. So there cannot be any question of the slogan of a 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry'. It is not Trotskyism - it is only not rushing at windmills like Don Quixote.
In fact those who question the practicability of the slogan of the socialist revolution on the basis of low consciousness of the Indian masses behave like Trotsky. Their determination of the stage of revolution is not based on objective correlation of class forces but on practicability considerations like the subjective preparation of the masses. They confuse the question of the success of the revolution with its stage.
The very important question in any revolution is the question of reserves (allies), the question of winning over of the intermediate strata to the side of the proletariat. This very important aspect of every revolution has to be grasped in order not to fall into the pit of such 'mistakes' as Trotsky made.
"What would be the social content of this dictatorship? First of all, it would have to carry through to the end the agrarian revolution and the democratic reconstruction of the State.
.Having reached power the proletariat would be compelled to encroach even more deeply upon the relationships of private property in general, that is to take the road of socialist measures." (Permanent Revolution/Pathfinder Press/P. 129)
Trotsky is writing this in 1929, even after the experience of the Soviet Union. Again here he miserably fails to appreciate Bolshevik policy. He talks about the compulsion to make "deep in roads into the relationships of private property". Marx, Engles, Lenin all taught that the small proprietor, the small peasant is not to be touched. He is to be helped. It was the brilliant application of Leninist policy, that the slogan of neutralisation of the middle peasant was changed to alliance with the middle peasant after the revolution. Is was the policy of the proletariat to lead the toiling masses, to wrest them from the hegemony of the bourgeoisie. Look how brilliantly Stalin puts it: -
"Are the revolutionary potentialities latent in the peasantry by virtue of certain conditions of its existence already exhausted, or not; and if not, is there any hope, any basis, for utilising these potentialities for the proletarian revolution, for transforming the peasantry, the exploited majority of it, from the reserve of the bourgeoisie which it was during the bourgeois revolution in the West and still even now, into a reserve of the proletariat into its ally?
"Hence the practical conclusion that the toiling masses of the peasantry must be supported in their struggle against bondage and exploitation , in their struggle for deliverance from oppression and poverty. This does not mean, of course, that the proletariat must support every peasant movement. What we have in mind here is support for a movement or struggle of the peasantry which , directly or indirectly, facilitates the emancipation movement of the proletariat, which, in one way or another, brings grist to the mill of the proletarian revolution, and which helps to transform the peasantry into a reserve and ally of the working class". (Stalin/Problems of Leninism/pg.54)  
It is precisely in this way that we have tackled the question. In our dealing of the agrarian question we have shown how the peasantry is no homogeneous mass with similar interests, how capitalism has made deep inroads into the life of the peasant masses, how the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat are arrayed against the landlord and the rich peasant. It is on the basis of this that we reject the slogan of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry'. This slogan no longer is of any use, it cannot be put into any action which would facilitate the emancipation of the proletariat, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We reject it because a complete breach of interests has taken place between the peasant bourgeoisie on the one hand and the semi-proletarian and proletarian elements on the other.
This breach brings forth new questions on the agrarian front. The old-type agrarian problem exists no more, we can no longer talk in terms of a general anti-feudal programme. Cognizing this new reality we can today only talk of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the poor peasantry and other semi-proletarian elements as allies. Those who charge us with Trotskyism, of skipping over the  agrarian revolution are turning a blind eye to reality.
"Some think that the fundamental thing in Leninism is the peasant question, that the point of departure of Leninism is the question of the peasantry, of its role, its relative importance. This is absolutely wrong. The fundamental question of Leninism, its point of departure, is not the peasant question but the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the conditions under which it can be achieved, of the conditions under which it can be consolidated. The peasant question, as the question of the ally of the proletariat in its struggle for power, is a derivative question." (Stalin/Problems of Leninism/p.52)
The peasant question crops up in the important context of the question of reserves, of putting forward slogans for the toiling masses of the peasantry as can facilitate the proletarian revolution, the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is because of this understanding of the question that Lenin characterised the 'dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' as an 'organisation of war' which in keeping with the strength and organisation of the proletariat passes over into the dictatorship of the proletariat. He saw no Chinese wall between the two as our friends do.

IX
Conclusion
Decades of capitalist evolution through the slow, gradual, painful 'Prussian Path' has transformed India into a predominantly capitalist country. It has given rise to new antagonisms and new class forces. Herein lay the importance of formal independence that it allowed for a freer, clearer field of class-struggle. Let us not whine like old women about the despicable transfer of power in 1947.
Imperialist domination remained with us but the capitalist-landlord-bourgeois class could frame its own policies giving economic evolution the shape they desired. Imperialist domination need not preclude or exclude capitalist development. It might lead to greater drain of wealth - capitalism means greater production of wealth as compared to earlier economic formations - and thus greater exploitation. But it is wrong to assume that imperialist domination essentially means semi-feudalism. That is why we focussed our attention on agrarian India, for agriculture is the mainstay of the feudal economy and the agrarian question, the basis of the democratic revolution in India.
The growth of the home-market shows the development of capitalism in agriculture. Thus a synoptic view of the class-struggles in agrarian India shows that new antagonisms have come to the fore. It has arrayed the landlord-rich peasant against the proletariat and semi-proletariat.
The whole bourgeoisie including the peasant bourgeoisie is drawn up in a skein of interests. Marx writes that the development of the capitalist was speeded up 'hothouse' fashion by primitive accumulation, protection, the national debt etc. It is much more true of India which became independent under conditions of the general crisis of capitalism and lacked capital and markets (no colonies for primitive accumulation). The state met the needs of the young bourgeoisie through credits, protection, marketing, co-operative institutions etc. [At the same time the main burden of this capital formation fell on the shoulders of the toiling masses (taxes, inflation due to money-creation etc.)] Thus the whole bourgeoisie is tied up thorugh economic interests with the state fulfilling a major role. More, its economic interests tie it up with foreign finance capital (even the green revolution and agricultural development is financed by imperialist agencies). Objectively, thus the fight against the Indian bourgeoisie goes against imperialism. Thus the anti-imperialist edge of our revolution is also necessarily directed against 'our' bourgeoisie. Whoever obscures this helps imperialism.
Our ideologists of the democratic revolution endeavour to draw fine distinctions (with hair-splitting expertise) between the bourgeoisie in their search for the national bourgeoisie. Look how Suniti Kumar Ghosh (ex-editor 'Liberation') portrays the national bourgeoisie: -
Writing about the 'Bengal Chemical and pharmaceutical Works Ltd.' he says: -
"Its objective was not merely to make profits but to harness science and technology for productive purposes and science." (The Indian Big Bourgeoisie/p.10)
This is Ghosh's conception of the national bourgeoisie - whose concerns are 'not merely profits'. Turn over all three volumes of Capital, all the three parts of 'the theories of surplus value' and nowhere can you find Marx describing such a 'altruistic' bourgeoisie (one thought the bourgeoisie invested in and harnessed science and technology in its drive for expansion of relative surplus value and thus an extra shared of profit). But in order to identify their sweet 'national' bourgeoisie our 'communist' ideologues can indulge in any amount of sophistry. This is how they prettify capitalism. All their theories of semi-feudalism only serve to shield the bourgeois order and thus the bourgeoisie no matter of what shade. These theories rein in the struggle within bourgeois bounds for the supposed uprooting of semi-feudalism becomes the main concern. For instance, the constant propaganda for distribution of land serves in practice only to when the appetite of the landless agricultural laborer for land, for private property something Lenin expressly warned us against....(as we have seen earlier, p. 53)
That Indian agriculture is no longer semi-feudal finds its reflection in the theoretical bankruptcy of the 'democratic'  'ideologues' endeavour to describe it in terms of a certain incidence of usury and debt-bondage. Otherwise the 'democratic' movement tries to draw sustenance from the unfinished tasks of solving the problem of the self-determination of nationalities etc. Such left-over 'democratic' (anti-feudal) tasks belong to the more general question of the socialist revolution. Did Lenin not point out that the future socialist revolution will have to fulfil many democratic tasks?
It is a sign of the times that while the genuine activists carrying on the class struggles are hounded and brutally suppressed, their ideological trappings are embellished by the bourgeois press and the bourgeois social-scientists. Their slogans which have definitely fallen behind the times have become a plaything in the hands of the ruling class. Look at the enthusiasm with which these literary hacks, the paid servants of the bourgeoisie welcome the slogans against which they carried on a most malicious and mendacious propaganda at the high point of their struggle. (The fighters are brutally suppressed in as mush as their struggles are taking on a new content while not yet bursting out of the old ideological trappings for cognition of the new reality becomes difficult as capitalist India has emerged through slow, gradual, painful changes). The transformation of semi-feudal Germany into Junker-bourgeois Germany witnessed a similar phenomena. The old slogans which were based on the desire for the victory of the bourgeois order become a play-thing in the hands of the ruling class. But the German Social-democrats (communists) took care to revise their programme. Our old slogans also being grist to the mill of the bourgeoisie. Let the old yield place to the new. The changed correlation of class forces, the emerging class-struggles which shows the breach of interests between the peasant bourgeoisie on the one hand and the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat on the other, all this impels us to recognise the need for the socialist revolution. Only power in the hands of the proletariat, only socialist construction can break the shackles of poverty, stop the ruin of the masses and unleash their energy for the creation of a new society.
That India became capitalist without a peasant revolution should not in any way detract from the cause of socialism which is the proletarian party's goal. The 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' is only to facilitate the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Lenin writes -
"Social democracy, the party of the proletariat, does not in any way link the destiny of socialism with either of the possible outcomes of the bourgeois revolution." (Lenin/CW/13/p. 347)
"The Germans have before them Junker-bourgeois (landlord-bourgeois) Germany, there can be no other Germany until socialism is established." (Lenin/CW/13/p. 343)
"The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty-bourgeoisie."


NOTES
1.     Bold letters stand for emphasis.
2.     In quotations from Lenin read 'Communist' for 'Social-Democrat'.
3.     'Jajmani' System - Briefly we can describe this system as - A system of exchange of goods and services within the village community.
"It makes use of hereditary personal relationships to express the division of labour." It represents a set of relationships where there is no payment for each particular service or goods. Those providing these services or goods have the right to a fixed quantity of grain at harvest time and obligatory presents on certain occasions. It is marked by personal dependence and a permanent 'patron client' relationship. The institution of the caste system with its hereditary and hierarchical division of labour is a prominent feature of this system. This system must presuppose a prevailing natural economy.
4.     Compradore-Bureaucrat Capital -
"Imperialism is able directly to buy up a considerable portion of them (the native capitalists)., and to create a definite compradore position, a position of intermediary trader, sub-exploiter or overseer over the enslaved population." (Colonial theses "Comintern and National & Colonial Questions" p. 83)
"A compradore, in the original sense of the word, was the Chinese manager or the senior Chinese employee in a foreign commercial establishment. The compradore served foreign economic interests and had close connection with imperialism and foreign capital." (Mao/SW/I/p. 19/notes)
"During their twenty-year rule, the four big families, Chiang, Soong, Kund and Chen have piled up enormous fortunes valued at ten to twenty thousand million U.S. dollars and monopolize the economic lifelines of the whole country. This monopoly capital, combined with state power, has become state-monopoly capitalism. This monopoly capital, closely tied up with foreign imperialism, the domestic landlord class and the old-type rich peasants has become compradore feudal state monopoly capital. .This capital is popularly known in China as bureaucrat-capital." (Mao/SW-4/FLP, 1975/p. 167)
And for a vivid description -
Formation of Chinese Bureaucrat-Capitalism
After establishing a fascist military dictatorship in Nanking the Kuomintang reactionaries began to organise an economic monopoly of bureaucrat-capitalists, represented by the "Four Big Families" of Chiang Kai-shek, T.V.Soong, H.H.Kung and the Chen brothers (Chen Kuo-fu and Chen Li-fu).
The monopolist activities of the "Four Big Families" centred around the four banks : the Central Bank of China, the Bank of China, the Bank of Communications and the Farmers' Bank of China. The Central Bank of China was established in November 1928. As the so-called "state bank", it enjoyed the right to issue bank noted, mint and circulate the coins of the national currency and to float government bonds, it was also in charge of the government treasury. From 1928 to 1935, the Chiang government, by means of increasing government capital, obtained the control of the Bank of China and the Bank of Communications, formerly the financial pillars of the Northern warlord government. The Farmers' bank of China was founded in 1935.
The Four Big banks had a monopoly position among all Chinese Banks. By 1936, they held 59% of all the banking assets in China and 59% of the deposits and issued 78% of the bank notes in the whole country. In fact, they served as banks for all the other banks and exercised a monopoly control over China's commerce, industry and agriculture.
In November 1935, the Chiang government, in pursuance of what it called the "legal tender" policy, issued inconvertible currency in order to squeeze the people of their wealth and turn it into private property of the "Four Big Families". This was the most ruthless form of plunder. Up to the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war in July 1937, the total issue of "legal tender" amounted to C.N. $ 1400 million.
With the Four Big Banks as the centre of their activities, the " Four Big Families" began their monopolizing and looting in the field of commerce. The Soong family organized a large-scale commercial trust in cotton, rice and other daily necessities and monopolized the nation's trade.
The year 1935 and 1936 were a period of crisis for national industry and commerce. After obtaining control of finance, the "Four Big Families" proceeded to dominate and monopolize industry. Under the cloak of state management, the "Four Big Families", in addition to annexing the existing bureaucrat industries, established the National Resources Commission as their main organisation to monopolize the nation's industries. Their wolfram mines, steel and engineering works were jointly run with the imperialists. In the guise of private capitalists and by such means as making additional capital investment, reorganization and granting loans at exorbitant interests, the "Four Big Families" seized the control and ownership of privately owned industries when they were hard pressed for money. This was particularly evident in the textile industry. In the first half of 1937, the number of spindles in textile mills annexed or managed by the "Four Big Families" constituted 13% of the total number of China.
In agriculture, the "Four Big Families" were the biggest landlords in the country and the most merciless exploiters of the peasantry. Backed by the reactionary regime, they also imposed heavy taxes upon the peasants all over the country, press-ganged them into forced labour, conscripted them for the army and requisitioned their land without compensation.
Through their monopolist control over finance, commerce, industry and agriculture, the "Four Big Families" plundered the people and became known as the biggest vampires of the country.
(From - p. 140-41; A History of the Modern Chinese Revolution - Ho Kan Chih,/FLP/ Peking, 1959 - Indian Reprint)
5.     Collected and other Works of Marx, Engles; Lenin; and Stalin used in quotations are publications of progress Publishers or FLPH, Moscow.
 Stalin's 'problems of Leninism' and 'On the Opposition' are of FLP, Peking.

2
People's Democracy : It's Irrelevancy Today (history and Theory)
1. The rise and development of People's democracy should be examined in concrete historical conditions.
2. In the 1930s with the rise of fascism the world revolutionary movement received a setback and the worked proletariat had to take recourse to a defensive line of struggle. Fascism came as a great threat to mankind. It became the main obstacle in the path of historical development and unless it was destroyed mankind could not move forward. The struggle against fascism and the struggle in defence and restoration of bourgeois democracy determined the direction of the main blow and the alignment of class forces both in the international and national arena. Even those countries where the socialist revolution had been on the agenda, tasks of bourgeois democratic nature came to the fore. These were anti-imperialist, anti-fascist tasks and the tasks of national liberation and hence democratic.
3. The domination and the danger of domination of fascism meant regression in all fields of public life, whether political, social or national.
Politically, fascism liquidated even those pitiful democratic rights and liberties which helped the proletariat to open the gates of class-struggle. Socially, the domination of fascism meant the restoration of feudal serfdom and even slave from of exploitation.
Nationally, fascist domination meant regression on the national question on account of direct occupation of the nations by fascist forces.
Fascism meant that history had moved a step backward and the working class and the people were faced with completely new specific tasks to restore democratic order, democratic rights and liberties ON A NEW BASIS.
"The Hitler Party", said Stalin, "is a party of enemies of democratic liberties, a party of medieval reaction and Black-Hundred pogroms." Stalin further said: 'The German invaders have enslaved the peoples of the European Continent - from France to the Soviet Baltic countries, from Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Soviet Byelo-Russia to the Balkans and the Soviet Ukraine. They have robbed them of their elementary democratic liberties. They have deprived them of the right to order their own destiny, they have taken away their grain, meat and raw materials; they have converted them into slaves," (On the Great Patriotic war of the Soviet Union)
4. At the highest point of the anti-fascist democratic movement in Spain, in February, 1936, a Popular Front Government came to power, consisting of all democratic and Communist Parties, which began an anti-fascist democratic revolution, both from below and above. It at once became an international class-struggle between democracy and fascism, in which the middle strata, especially, the middle bourgeoisie, in alliance with the proletariat, became the active partner of the anti-fascist democratic revolution. The existence of the Socialist Soviet Union and her help to the Spanish democratic revolution on the one hand, and the existence of fascist dictatorship in a number of bourgeois states and their help to the Spanish Fascists on the other, determined the alignment of class-forces in the world and thus the question of the class-character of the then Spanish state was posed by the Communist International in different way. The genuinely popular form of anti-fascist democratic revolution by the Spanish Popular Front government could not be reduced to a simple antithesis between bourgeois and proletarian single class democracy. The Government that emerged in Spain was neither a proletarian one not a bourgeois one. It was, rather, an intermediary between the two, which was characterised by the Communist International as "People's democracy" or "New democracy" under the new historical international condition, when the growing role of the Soviet Union and the world proletariat became an important factor in shaping the world scenario against Fascism. Thus People's democracy was born as an intermediate stage facilitating the passing over to the dictatorship of the proletariat more or less peacefully without any break, like that of the 'Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry', on a broader social base under the leadership of the working class.
5. During the anti-fascist patriotic war the Soviet Union, routing German and the Japanese aggressors, released throughout the world, the huge revolutionary potentialities of the entire democratic forces, that had been so long suppressed. The direct presence of the Soviet army could foil the evil designs of Anglo-American imperialism as well as the launching of civil war by the internal counter-revolutionary forces. As a result, People's democracy, as the political organisation of society could arise in alliance with all the anti-fascist democratic forces.
6. Hence, the rise of People's democracy as a direct connecting link between the anti-fascist struggle and the struggle for socialism was the result of the development of world history in a period, when the Soviet Union, the land of socialism, acquired the unbeaten position of exerting almost a decisive influence in shaping the international situation, when the relation and alignment of class forces in the national and international arena had definitely shifted in favour of socialism, when the general crisis of capitalism reached its zenith and brought capitalism on the very verge of collapse, when the middle strata was vacillating between fascism and anti-fascism and finally, when the working class, in many countries was almost in an exclusive position to lead the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist straggle.
"Had there been no Soviet Union", Mao Tse-Tung wrote, "had there been no victory in the anti-fascist Second World War, had Japanese imperialism not been defeated (which is particularly important for us), had there been no People's Democracies in Europe. then the pressure of the international reactionary forces would, of course, have been much stronger than it is today. Would we have been able to achieve victory in those circumstances? Of course not. So, too, it would have been impossible to consolidate victory after it had been achieved." (On the People's Democratic Dictatorship)
7. The establishment of People's democracy solved the question of power in the sense that the big bourgeoisie and landlords were overthrown. However, that was still not the complete solution of the question of power. In the initial period of People's democracy, the middle bourgeois and the rich peasants could not be politically isolated and defeated and the problem of winning over the majority of the population was not fully solved. The middle bourgeoisie and the rich peasants were allowed to participate in governing the country side by side with the working class and the peasantry. The bourgeoisie existed as an independent, politically organised force, with its own parties, press, representative in the government, in the legislative bodies and in the state apparatus.
8. Hence there were two stages of the People's democratic revolution - democratic and socialist. The task of the preliminary first stage was directed at eliminating the political and economic bases of the pro-fascist bourgeoisie and big landlords upon the basis of the political alliance of the working class, the peasantry as a whole and the anti-fascist middle bourgeoisie including all the middle strata. In this period, the People's democratic form of the state could not and did not exercise the function of the dictatorship of the proletariat as power was shared with a section of the bourgeoisie. As such,People's democracy was not and could not be synonymous with the dictatorship of the proletariat, nor the People's democratic bloc and its mass organisation could be the political organisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat IN ALL ITS PHASES as propagated by the revisionists and crypto-revisionists.
9. The People's democratic regime exercised the function of the dictatorship of the proletariat only in the second stage of the revolution. This second stage had to begin before the maturity, before the completion of the exposure, isolation of the middle bourgeoisie and the rich peasants and before the consolidation of the working class power, exactly like that of the introduction of war communism by Lenin. Despite the existence of the mighty Soviet Union, the middle bourgeoisie and the rich peasants dared to launch subversive activities in league with the defeated big bourgeoisie and big landlords, instigated and inspired by the Anglo-American conspiracy of cold and hot war against the Soviet Union. They sabotaged the implementation of political and economic reforms, planned one counter-revolutionary conspiracy after another, energetically organised espionage and wrecking. Not only had this bourgeoisie no desire to co-operate with the regime of People's democracy, but persistently sought to overthrow the People's power. Experience showed that the middle bourgeoisie strove to utilise the participation in the united bloc and government apparatus in order to hinder the progress of revolution and restore its own power. The People's democratic regime could exercise the function of the dictatorship of the proletariat after having exposed, isolated and expelled the parties of the middle bourgeoisie and the rich peasants from the government and united bloc and after having expropriated their capital and land. Only on this basis People's democracy, with the assistance of the Soviet Union - including military assistance - could initiate the programme for laying of the foundation of socialism by the policies of industrialisation and establishment, on a voluntary basis, of agricultural co-operatives.
Experience of the People's democracies clearly shows that the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by sharing power with a section of the bourgeoisie or vested interests and laying of foundation of socialism was quite impossible without the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Unless one understands this, the classical tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat, he can understand neither Titoite brand of socialism nor Khruschovite brand of modern revisionism nor the CPI(M)'s hollow and abstract illusion - mongering talk of People's democracy with broader social base.
10. People's democracy did not triumph in certain countries, though the internal conditions of those countries were most favourable. The internal conditions of Greece, France, Italy and Belgium were ripe for the establishment of People's democracy, but the Anglo-American imperialists sought to land their troops in Albania and Bulgaria, to break through Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary and to reach there before the Soviet army. Had the British and American troops entered those countries before the Soviet army, they would have done their utmost to prevent the victory of People's democracy.
11. People's democracy triumphed as a result of the defeat of fascism by the common front of the international struggle against the common enemy - fascism. Naturally, the social base of anti-fascism and of the first stage of the People's democratic revolution was much broader, which was not the case in the second stage.
12. One must note with care that with the degeneration of the dictatorship of the proletariat in 1953, its Titoite distortion and with the recognition of Yugoslavia as a socialist country (though no tasks of the second stage were completed there), the degeneration of People's democracy and the socialist camp began.
13. Today, there is no common enemy like that of fascism nor is there any common front. There is no socialist country, (which decisively influences world politics) under whose umbrella People's democracy may develop into the second stage. The genuine Communists must realise that in the absence of those above-stated conditions and in the heyday of imperialism, deceptive bourgeois democracy and the much trumpeted free enjoyment of the 'right' of private property, if a firm and resolute proletarian policy is not pursued and if the victorious proletariat does not deal very resolutely with rich peasants, and non-big bourgeoisie, the cause of the revolution would be severely jeopardised. (Without such a policy neither would it be possible to exercise hegemony nor stop the vacillation of the non-proletarian working people already corrupted by profiteering and proprietary habits.)
14. Our main article on the stage of the revolution has clearly shown that only the socialist revolution in India today can solve both the anti-imperialist and the task of uprooting the vestiges of feudalism. 3
The Stage of Revolution : The Presentation of the Question
( i )
"Lenin says that 'the main question of every revolution is the question of state power.' In the hands of which class or which classes, is power concentrated; which class or which classes must be overthrown; which class or which classes must take power - such is 'the main question of every revolution'.
The Party's fundamental strategic slogans, which retain their validity during the whole period of any particular stage of the revolution, cannot be called fundamental slogans if they are not wholly and entirely based on this cardinal thesis of Lenin's." (Stalin/Problems of Leninism/p. 237)
Clearly, this is the Marxist methodology of ascertaining the stage of revolution. If we base ourselves on this we will be able to understand why at different times Marx, Engles, Lenin and Stalin gave different strategic slogans ascertaining stages of revolution to be different under different conditions. After the bourgeois revolution of 1848 in Germany, Marx and Engles still envisaged of a petty bourgeois democratic revolution. Why? This was Marx's analysis:
"In fact it was the bourgeois who, immediately after the March Movement of 1848, took possession of the state power to force back at once the workers, their allies in the struggle, into their former oppressed position. Though the bourgeoisie was not able to accomplish this without uniting with the feudal party, which had been disposed of in March, without finally even surrendering power once again to this feudal absolutist party, still it has secured conditions for itself which, in the long run, owing to the financial embarrassment of the government, would place power in its hands and would safeguard all its interests, if it were possible for the revolutionary movement to assume already now a so-called peaceful development." (Marx-Engels/SW/I/p. 176) From this analysis it is clear that the feudal forces still held sway. Marx had further observed,"they (the democratic petty bourgeoisie-ed.) also demand the establishment of bourgeois property relations in the countryside by complete abolition of feudalism." (ibid/178). Here is Engels' observation about Germany in 1872. "In reality however the state as it exist in Germany is likewise the necessary product of the social basis out of which it has developed. In Prussia - and Prussia is now decisive - there exists side by side with a landowning aristocracy; which is still powerful, a comparatively young and extremely cowardly bourgeoisie, which up to the present has not won either direct political domination, as in France or more or less indirect domination as in England." (ME/SW/II/p. 348) From the above analysis it can be seen that feudal forces dominated in Germany. That was the basic cause why Marx and Engels considered that Germany was still in the stage of democratic revolution after 1848. Already Engels had noted the slow but inevitable embourgeoisment of the feudal forces in Germany through reforms. (See The Housing question, Prefatory note to the Peasant War in Germany)
Engels had further noted that tasks of democratic revolution might be accomplished at the end of the nineteenth century from above since the process through reforms had already started.
"Thus it has been the peculiar fate of Prussia to complete its bourgeois revolution - begun in 1808 to 1813 and advanced further to some extent in 1848 - in the pleasant form of Bonapartism at the end of this century." (ME/SW/2/p. 167)
We have made extensive use of quotations to show that the stage of democratic revolution is discerned when the feudal forces hold sway in the socio-economic structure and the polity of the country. In other words which class, or which classes are to be replaced from state power and by which class or which classes - as Stalin had pointed out - this is the way of presenting the question. If it is to be a democratic revolution of anti-feudal type the feudals have to exist as a class in the true sense of the term - the so-called enumeration of the remnants of feudalism (to prove that there exists semi-feudalism if not feudalism) is of no avail. (As a great many 'Marxists' seek to do in India.)
For instance when towards the end of the 19th Century the bourgeois forces became predominant in Germany though many relies of feudalism still existed and the demand of establishing a republic had yet not been fulfilled in Germany, the then Social-Democratic Party of Germany made a concrete analysis of concrete conditions and came to conclusion that Germany was in the stage of the socialist revolution. In 1905 Lenin had pointed out that the countries of Europe where bourgeois revolutions of a reformist kind had taken place, had undergone an evolution of capitalist forces, and were at the verge of socialist revolution.
"And will not the future socialist revolution in Europe still have to complete a great deal left undone in the field of democratism?" (Lenin, two tactics, CW/9/p. 85) We give here in full Lenin's dealing of the problem.
"Concrete political aims must be set in concrete circumstances. All things are relative, all things flow and all things change. German Social Democracy does not put into its programme the demand for a republic. The situation in Germany is such that this question can in practice hardly be separated from that of socialism (although with regard to Germany too, Engels in his comments on the draft of the Erfurt programme in 1891 warned against belittling the importance of a republic and of the struggle for a republic!). In Russia Social Democracy the question of eliminating the demand for a republic from its programme and its agitation has never arisen, for in our country there can be no talk of an indissoluble link between the question of a republic and that of socialism. It was quite natural for a German Social-Democrat of 1898 not to place special emphasis on the question of a republic and this evokes neither surprise nor condemnation. But in 1848 a German Social Democrat who would have relegated to the background the question of republic would have been a downright traitor to the revolution. There is no such thing as abstract truth. Truth is always concrete." (Lenin/CW//9/p.86) Evidently Lenin had considered that the feudal state in Germany had grown into a predominantly bourgeois one just as bourgeois relations of production predominated in the German socio-economy as Engels had already foreseen in 1874.)
Let us take the case of Russia. The February 1917 revolution was considered to be a bourgeois democratic revolution. Why? Because there the people had replaced the feudals from state power. It may be said why had Lenin given the call for the proletarian revolution in April 1917 in Russia? Can it be said that in April 1917 Russia was predominantly bourgeois so that the stage of revolution was discerned to be proletariat socialist? Marxists had considered the possibility of bourgeois revolutions growing into socialist revolutions. When Marx had spoken on making the revolution permanent in 1850, he had meant precisely this. Lenin had elaborated this thesis in his 'Two Tactics' in 1905. In Russia when in February 1917 the people had made revolution and the feudals had been replaced from state power they did not establish the determined rule of the proletariat and peasantry because of their overwhelming petty bourgeois vacillating nature. They did not proceed further to dispossess the feudals and sided with the reactionary bourgeoisie ceding real power to them. To further the revolution a realignment of classes was necessary. Lenin made a concrete analysis of concrete conditions and gave the call of proletarian revolution, which had to complete the left-over tasks of the democratic revolution as well. (See Stalin's - the 'Slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poor peasantry', Lenin's 'Letters on Tactics - 1st letter', Stalin's - 'Three fundamental Slogans') Marxists have always held that if a country is at the stage of democratic revolution of anti-feudal type and if the working class is at the leadership of the revolution there the democratic revolution can uninterruptedly grow over into a socialist revolution after passing through some stage of dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry (as in Russia, 1917)
If we go through Lenin's writings before the October revolution we find that immediately after the February revolution Lenin did not rule out the possibility that an agrarian revolution would start afresh since the bourgeoisie having come to state power was obstructing the realisation of the people's demand for land (See Lenin's letters on Tactics - 1st letter etc.) If the party of the proletariat was not able to lead the bourgeois revolution to grow into a successful proletarian revolution what would have been the task of the proletarians on that country? In other words, suppose, the bourgeois revolution in February 1917 just ended in a deal with the monarchist feudal forces and the reformist bourgeoisie were successful in preventing the people from going further in revolution, how then the proletarian party would have decided its aim and tasks? This would be the case similar to that in Germany after 1848. For a period of time so long as feudal forces existed predominantly in the economic set up of the country the workers' party would have to decide the stage of revolution to be still a democratic one as Marx & Engels had done in the case of Germany. Only when through reforms the bourgeois forces have become sufficiently dominant in the country the proletarians would decide the stage of revolution to be socialist as Lenin had pointed out while analysing the conditions of Germany in 1905. (We have already discussed this.) In ascertaining the stage of revolution we have the analysis of conditions in Germany and we have also the analysis of the conditions in Russia.
( ii )
THE STAGE OF REVOLUTION IN INDIA
In the light of the above discussion we may proceed to ascertain the stage of revolution in India.
"The passing of state power from one class to another is the first, the principal, the basic sign of a revolution both in the strictly scientific and in the practical political meaning of the term." (Lenin, Letters on Tactics/CW/24/p.44). Lenin had observed: "the passing of power into the hands of the bourgeoisie was a "completed bourgeois revolution of the usual type". (ibid)
But in spite of the 'transfer of power', immediately after 1947 the vital tasks of the national bourgeois democratic revolution were not achieved. Abolition on the feudal classes and institutions, distribution of land etc. were not put into effect. The ground for the emergence of a strong anti-feudal agrarian revolution was still existing in the country. Accordingly, the Cominform and the International Communist leadership ascertained the stage of revolution in India to be democratic. And they were perfectly right. Marx and Engels in Germany after 1848. Lenin in Russia after February 1917 did find the possibility of emergence of democratic revolution in those countries. In India in 1948 the SUCI mechanically ascertained the stage of revolution in India to be proletarian socialist in opposition to the judgement of the International Communist leadership. Their argument was simple: If the fundamental question of every revolution is the question of state power, then, since the state power has passed to the Indian bourgeoisie the stage of revolutions socialist. Their presentation of the question grossly differs from that of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The SUCI did not take into account the possibility of utilising the demands of the intermediate classes (peasantry etc.) and achieving a dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, a consistent democratic rule, in order to facilitate the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the growing over of this revolution into a socialist one after 1947. We have already discussed the analysis of Marx and Engels of the conditions in Germany after 1848. Lenin also agreed that after February 1917 the agrarian revolution had not stated in Russia and that a new stage of democratic revolution was still possible. [Of course only as a possibility not the concrete reality which owing to then prevailing circumstances (the imperialist war, the question of peace, voluntary ceding of power by the soviets to the bourgeois provisional govt. etc.) put the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day. (Lenin/Letters on Tactics/CW/24/p.46-47)]. The methodology of SUCI & R.S.P. etc. parties in ascertaining the stage of revolution in India is therefore mechanical, not dialectical, is one-sided, does not take many-sided reality into account.
However can it be said that the judgement of the International leadership in the early years after 1947 as regards the stage of revolution in India is still valid today? Definitely not. Today in India feudalism does not exist. Feudal land relations do not exist to an extent to give birth to a powerful agrarian revolution. In the state power feudal forces do no exist to any significance. The economic and political life lines are under the strict control of the bourgeoisie. Definitely the stage of revolution in India today is proletarian socialist. Just as Lenin in 1905 observed that Germany was at the stage of socialist revolution though it had to complete the tasks of unfinished democratic revolution, India today is at the stage of Socialist Revolution which will have to complete the tasks of the unfinished democratic revolution and solve the leftover problem of feudal remnants.
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