India – RSF: Expose the “left” phrasemongering of the anti-communist group called SfPD!
We hereby share a joint statement shared by the Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF). We have applied some formal minor changes.
SfPD is nothing but the “cool” and “progressive” face of Surajkund Policy!
Expose the urban avatar of TPC!
“Dark reaction is mustering sinister forces and is doing its utmost to unite them… Dark reaction has launched a deadly attack against the revolution; it wants to cause confusion in our ranks and to dig the grave of the people’s revolution—our task is to close our ranks, to launch a country-wide simultaneous attack against the tsarist autocracy and wipe out the memory of it forever.… Either the victory of the revolution or death—such should be our revolutionary slogan today.”- Stalin, Reaction is Growing, Collected Works Vol. 1
Surajkund Policy is a multi-pronged mechanism by which the Indian state is planning to wipe off the communist revolutionary movement from India. The policy is active at many fronts of which ideological-political and military fronts are very important. We all know that politics is the lifeline of all work. It was comrade Mao who insisted that politics must command the gun. The ruling class and its representatives i.e. the Indian State, know this very well and therefore they are deploying all that they have in order to ideologically and politically weaken the movement. The main target is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. They want to destroy this ideology. Hence, platforms like Nazariya have been their historical targets. Was not both Iskra and Pravda targeted? What was done to Kalam? Was not People’s March banned? Has not the website of Towards A New Dawn faced repeated cyber attacks? Did the state not try to get these organisations split? Nazariya finds itself proudly placed under the legacy
of such great organisations/publications. Nazariya stands like a rock against all sorts of attacks by the ruling class; it will create such a material force that it will be able to defeat the ruling class ideology completely. Seeing this unwavering determination, the Indian state is smuggling some bourgeois elements in and around the broader spectrum of the communist movement. These bourgeois trash files try to corrupt and confuse the masses in general and the cadres of communist organisations in particular. One such imperialist bourgeois trash that props up in the social media space as the clown of the big landlord and big bourgeoisie is the Students for People’s Democracy (SfPD). They have not only promoted liquidationist trends in the revolutionary organisations but have actively collaborated with the state forces in order to break up the communist organisations.
The test of an organisation, whether or not it is revolutionary, is only whether they are with the cause of Marx and Engels who said that the communists “openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions” (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto). Do they accept the words of Comrade Lenin who said “The point at issue is neither opposition nor political struggle in general but revolution. Revolution consists in the proletariat destroying the “administrative apparatus” and the whole state machinery, replacing it by a new one, made up of the armed workers. Kautsky displays a “superstitious reverence” for “ministries”; but why can they not be replaced, say, by committees of specialists working under sovereign all-powerful Soviets of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies?” (Lenin, The State and Revolution)? Such questions confront the likes of SfPD who were speaking of legal action against Nazariya a few months back. However, if they are truly a genuine revolutionary organisation, why are they unable to offer a revolutionary alternative? Our question is simple— how does relying on the same legal system, which is currently undertaking the exploitation, oppression and massacre of its people, offer any person, including the complainant, any justice? How do they reconcile with a system which is, in the final analysis, our class enemy? If they understand that India is a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, do they not also understand that the legal system in its role as an institution of the Indian ruling class is of the same nature? Can justice be expected from such a legal system, or can we realistically expect for it to utilize a potential complaint in order to not only launch a brutal attack on Nazariya, but the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, as well as other organisations who proclaim the same ideology? Is SfPD so absorbed in its crusade against Nazariya that the consequences of the same are irrelevant for it? Is going to the state which is unleashing a brutal assault on its citizens truly the only solution that it could come up with? Did it even consider other options, or was its agenda to unleash the state on Nazariya and subsequently all other MLM organisations and their sympathizers?
Has it ever spoken of the Janatana Sarkar [Editor’s note: people’s government] units in Dandakaranya? It is selling drama of sexual liberation without participating in the struggles to smash the current state apparatuses, it is merely selling a dream of freedom from patriarchy to the petty-bourgeois section in social media spaces. Why can the janatana sarkar units composed largely of the adivasis not be the alternative to the state power and its administrative units? Why is SfPD silent on this? Why is it not organising the masses for defending the Janatana Sarkar units? Why is it going to the apparatuses set up by the Comprador Bureaucratic Capitalist and Big landlord ruling classes instead of giving a revolutionary alternative? In fact, one has to seriously question SfPD for its reaction (or lack thereof) to the fascist assault on democratic and revolutionary voices. When RSF and Virasam and other organisations published statements against the illegal and arbitrary investigation of Comrade Vallika by the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad, not only did these state agents have no ire for the actions of the state, but they even tried to legitimize the state’s actions against Comrade Vallika in particular, and Nazariya in general. By choosing to divert the attention from the ATS’s undemocratic and fascistic assault on basic constitutional freedoms which were violated by the ATS’s feudal and goonish actions, they made their stance clear: the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist state’s attacks are justified. While they have taken out statements against the illegal arrest of Comrade Rejaz (who they were calling out only days ago), why is that they didn’t speak anything (except to legitimize the state’s action against Comrade Vallika) on the intimidation and illegal interrogation of Comrade Vallika, even though it was pertaining to the same case that they had already spoken against? Even though they made the same accusation against Rejaz that he is “enabling a sexual assaulter” that they have made against Nazariya and Comrade Vallika, why was there no statement condemning the state’s fascism? In ignoring the essence of the issue, in refusing to extend even basic unity on anti-fascist principles, they chose to legitimize fascism.
It has become clear that the only cause for which SfPD is afloat is to launch an attack on the revolutionary communist movement and the organisations which are the representative of its legacy and sympathise with it. This is how the organisation TPC was formed in Jharkhand. TPC’s only objective is to wipe out the communist movement struggling for the liberation of masses but at least they are above board on this. What about SfPD? They are even more dangerous than TPC because they are like a green snake slithering in the green grass. It appears that the single objective of SfPD is to break revolutionary mass organisations working under the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Do they have anything to do other than this?
Liquidationism comes to aid such organisations. It is a serious penetration of ruling class ideologies in communist organisations and movements. It is denial of the vanguard role of a communist party; in fact it is the outright act of breaking it.
The material basis for this trend is the presence of a very large number of petty-bourgeois elements in the communist movement. In a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society like ours, the materiality of such class is more pronounced and, hence, the chance of such forces coming within and around the revolutionary communist movement is sharper here. At the time of crisis within the communist movement in Russia, the Social-Democratic Party took a resolution in 1908 regarding liquidationism. Explaining this trend, Lenin said “(…) liquidationism is ideologically connected with renegacy, with the renunciation of the programme and tactics, with opportunism…But liquidationism is not only opportunism. The opportunists are leading the Party on to a wrong, bourgeois path, the path of a liberal-labour policy, but they do not renounce the Party itself, they do not liquidate it. Liquidationism is that brand of opportunism which goes to the length of renouncing the Party.” (Lenin, An Open Party and the Marxists).
Acting as a carbon copy of the liquidationism which Comrade Lenin has warned against, SfPD is asking cadres of our organisations to leave because we have not taken a stance against Nazariya on the issue related to a sexual harassment case. They have approached our organisations to say that Nazariya and RSF, Nazariya and bsCEM etc are collaborating with each other because they are the same, hence we should release a statement on the sexual harassment issue. In doing so, they are indirectly trying to red-tag not only Nazariya, but our organisations as well unless we cooperate with them and
take out a statement against Nazariya. These are arguments not based on any ideological or political questions, but a simple intimidation tactic to threaten us. SfPD’s approach is simple—they are trying to break the ideological unity amongst the revolutionary organisations by saying that unless we support SfPD in their crusade against Nazariya, our organisations would be called-out and cancelled as well. To be clear, under the current atmosphere of Brahmanical Hindutva Fascism when revolutionary organisations are facing severe isolation and attacks, especially those who openly and boldly declare Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as their guiding ideology, this is doing the state’s work. This is a tactic which has historically been used by the reactionaries in order to delegitimize and demoralise the communists, like they are doing here.
However, besides this issue, there are many issues which confront the communist movement– questions like the daily murder of revolutionaries and the constant attacks on people’s activists like ATS interrogations, NIA raids, custodial tortures, rapes of adivasi women by the paramilitary and other state forces, etc. Why does SfPD not follow up with our cadres on these issues? Why does SfPD not go and ask them whether or not we have released statements on these issues and what are our stances on them? Has SfPD ever tried to engage with us on other questions which plague our country like Kashmir, mob lynching, casteism, indebtedness, unemployment, etc.? Did they ever engage with us regarding questions of patriarchy during the RG Kar case, or the rape of adivasi women in Central India on a daily basis? Apart from publishing a stand that is an apologia for the preservation of a degenerated imperialist sexual culture in petty-bourgeois spheres, did SfPD even try to give a genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoist position on the stance taken by Nazariya? We are all aware of the stand which Nazariya took in its struggle against the post-modernist opportunist section of the petty-bourgeoisie. The debate was clinched by the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist position which Nazariya took. In the whole process, Nazariya has not just punished the accused but has ensured the rectification process of the accused is carried forward. This was done in accordance with the Maoist understanding of preventing the death of the patient by removing the cancer.
Similar to the calls of Com. Stalin at the times of reaction, we, the undersigned organisations, appeal to all genuine revolutionary organisations and individuals to unite against the reactionaries of all hues.
“ (…) the forces of the revolution are on the alert too, and are continuing their great work. (…) Martial law, far from intimidating the proletariat, has, on the contrary, merely poured oil on the flames, and has still further worsened the situation. No one who hears the countless cries of proletarians: “Down with the tsarist government, down with the tsarist Duma!”, no one who has felt the pulse of the working class, can doubt that the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat, the leader of the revolution, will rise higher and higher.”- Stalin, Reaction is Growing.
Signatories:
Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch (bsCEM), Delhi
Bhagat Singh Students Morcha (BSM), UP
Chhatra Ekta Manch (CEM), Haryana
Delhi General Mazdoor Front (DGMF), Delhi
Majdoor Adhikar Sangathan (MAS), Kundli, Sonipat, Haryana
Manesar General Mazdoor Sangh (MGMS), Manesar, Haryana
Nazariya Magazine, Delhi
Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF), West Bengal
Students For Society (SFS), Panjab
