The Left Wing Movement

A powerful left wing group developed in India in the late 1920’s contributing to the radicalization of the national movement. The goal of political independence acquired clearer and sharper social and economic content. Socialist ideas took root in India soon. Socialism became the accepted creed of the Indian youth whose urges came to be symbolised by Jawaharlal Nehru and SC Bose. Gradually there emerged two powerful parties of the Left, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP).

Socialist ideas began to spread widely because many young persons who had actively participated in the Non-Cooperation Movement were unhappy with its outcome and were dissatisfied with Gandhian policies as well as the alternative Swarajist programme. Several socialist and communist groups came into existence all over the country.

SA Dange: Gandhi and Lenon + The Socialist (Bombay)

Muzaffar Ahmed: Navayug + Langal (Bengal)

Ghulam Hussain and others: Inquilab (Punjab)

1. Singaravelu: Labour-Kisan Gazette (Madras)

Student and youth associations were organized all over the country from 1927 onwards. Hundreds of youth conferences were organized all over the country during 1928 and 1929 with speakers advocating radical solutions for the political, economic and social ills from which the country was suffering. Nehru and Bose toured the country attacking imperialism, capitalism and landlordism and preaching the ideology of socialism. The Revolutionary Terrorists led by Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh also turned to socialism. Trade unions and peasant movements grew rapidly in the 1920’s. Socialist ideas became even more popular in the 1930’s considering the world economic crisis. The world depression brought the capitalist system into disrepute and drew attention towards Marxism and socialism. Within the Congress the left wing tendency found reflection in the election of Nehru as president for 1936 and 1937 and of Subhas Chandra Bose for 1938 and 1939 and in the formation of the Congress Socialist Party.

As the most popular leader of the national movement after Gandhi, Nehru propagated ideas of socialism and declared that political freedom would only become meaningful if it led to the economic emancipation of the masses; it had to, therefore, be followed by the establishment of a socialist society. Nehru thus moulded an entire generation of young nationalists and helped them accept a socialist orientation.

In 1928, Nehru joint handed with Bose to organize the Independence for India League to fight for complete independence and a ‘socialist revision of the economic structure of society’. During these years Nehru also emphasized the role of class analysis and class struggle.

According to Mohit Sen, Nehru believed that the overwhelming bullk of the congress was composed of amorphous centrists, that Gandhi not only represented them but was also essential for any genuinely widespread mass movement, that on no account should the Left be at loggerheads with him or the centrists, but their strategy should be to pull the centre to the left.

Sumit Sarkar believes that Nehru didn’t favour the creation of an organisation independent of the Congress. The task was to influence and transform the Congress as a whole in a socialist direction. This could be achieved by working under its banner and bringing its workers and peasants to play a greater role in its organisation. In no condition, he felt, should the Left become a mere sect apart from the mainstream of the national movement.

Seven Indians, headed by M.N Roy (aka. Naren Bhattacharji) – met at Tashkent in October 1920 and set up a Communist Party of India. Independently of this effort a number of left wing and communist groups and organizations had begun to come into existence in India after 1920. Most of these groups came together at Kanpur in December 1925 (at an open Indian Communist Conference) and founded an all-India organization under the name of the Communist Party of India. The CPI called upon all its members to enrol themselves as members of the Congress, form a strong left wing in all its organs, cooperate with all other radical nationalists, and make an effort to transform the Congress into a more radical, mass-based organisation.

The main work by the early communists was to organize peasants’ and workers’ parties and work through them. In this period, it must be remembered, the colonial government was keeping a very strict vigil to stop the entry of Bolshevik literature and Bolshevik trained agitators in India. The government strongly put down all attempts to organise political activities informed by Marxian schemes.

Thus the main issues in front of the Marxists were: Since the government was determined not to allow the communist groups to function openly, how to evolve a plan of action under such conditions? It was then that the idea of forming a legal, open, mass party – the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (WPP)[1] was mooted for the first time. Therefore, even though the CPI was technically founded in 1925 the actual work of the organisation was continued through the WPP. 

One of the most important aspects of this movement was that the Communists were finally achieving real links with the working class. The basic objective of the WPP’s was

• To work within the Congress to give it a more radical orientation and make it a ‘party of the people’
• Independently organise peasants and workers in class organisations
• First achieve independence and then full socialism

According to Sumit Sarkar the WPP’s influence grew rapidly in a short period therefore causing the communist influence in the Congress also grow rapidly in a short period. The WPP’s played an important role in creating a strong left wing within the Congress and in giving the Indian national movement a leftward direction. The WPP’s also made rapid progress on the trade union front and played a decisive role in the resurgence of working class struggles during 1927-29 as also in enabling in Communists to gain a strong position in the working class. However, Dhanagare believes that the WPP’s lacked clearly and uniformly defined objectives and its charter demands lacked consistency. He felt that the WPP leadership made little effort to either to understand the diverse agrarian social structures in India or grasp the agrarian crisis and class contradictions developing in the countryside.

The growth and influence of the WPP’s was halted in 1929 after two developments.

• The severe repression to which the communists were subjected to by the government. Already in 1922-24 Communists entering India from the USSR had been tried in a series of conspiracy cases and sentenced to long periods of incarceration. In 1929, the government arrested 32 radical political leaders and trade union activists. The basic aim was to behead the trade union movement and to isolate the communists from the national movement. The Meerut Conspiracy Case (as it is called) soon became a cause celebre. Nationalist leaders like Nehru, Ansari and MC Chagla came out in the defence of the prisoners and Gandhi visited them in jail. Speeches of defence by the prisoners were carried in all nationalist newspapers, thus familiarizing lakhs of people with communist ideas for the first time. The government might have failed in its aim to isolate the communists but succeeded in depriving the growing working class movement of its leadership.
• The communists inflicted a more deadly blow on themselves by taking a sudden lurch towards what is described as sectarian politics of ‘leftist deviation’. Guided by the resolutions of the 6^th Congress of the Communist International, the communists broke their connection with the INC and declared it to be a party of the bourgeoisie. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Party was also dissolved on the grounds that it was unadvisable to form a two class party for it was likely to fall prey to petty bourgeois influences.

This resulted in the isolation of the communists from the national movement at the very moment when it was gearing up for its greatest mass struggle and conditions were ripe for massive growth in the influence of the Left over it. Further, the communists split into several splinter groups. The Government took advantage of the situation and in 1934 declared the CPI illegal.

In 1935 the 7^th Congress of the Communist International, under threat from fascism, changed tack and advocated the formation of a united front with socialists and other anti-fascists in the capitalist countries and with bourgeoisie led nationalist movements in colonial countries.

The Communist Party now began to call upon its members to join the Congress and enrol the masses under their influence in the Congress. Communists now worked hard within the Congress, many occupied important positions in the district and provincial Congress committees’ nearly 20 were members of the All India Congress Committee. They built powerful peasant mov. in Kerala, AP, Bengal and Punjab.

Under Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Minoo Masani, many young congressmen, who were attracted by socialist ideology but at the same time didn’t find themselves in agreement with the political line of the CPI, came together to form the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) in 1934.

They were bound by four beliefs:

• The primary struggle at the time was for independence.
• Nationalism was necessary en route to socialism
• Socialists must work inside the INC because it was the primary body leading the nationalist struggle.
• They must give the Congress and the nationalist struggle a socialist direction; and to achieve this they must organise workers’ and peasants’ in their class organisations.

The leaders of the CSP were broadly divided into three broad intellectual currents:

Marxist, Fabian and the current influenced by gandhi.

The CSP was a party, a cadre based party at that, within the National Congress. Moreover, the Marxism of the 1930s was incapable of accepting as legitimate such diversity of political currents on the Left. The result was a confusion that plagued the CSP till the end.

Gradually, as Gandhi’s politics began to be more positively evaluated, large doses of Gandhian and liberal democratic thought were to become basic elements of the CSP leaderships thinking.

MN Roy returned in 1930 to organize a strong group of Royists, who underwent several political and ideological transformations over the years. SC Bose founded the Forward Bloc in 1939 after his resigned from the Congress. The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, and various Trotskyist groups also functioned during the 1930s.

The CPI, the CSP, Nehru, Bose and other Left groups and leaders shared a common political program that enabled them, despite organizational and ideological differences, to work together after 1935 and make socialism a strong current in Indian politics. The basic features of this program were:

1. a) Consistent and militant anti-imperialism
2. b) Anti landlordism
3. c) Organization of peasants and workers in trade unions and kisan sabhas
4. d) Acceptance of a socialist vision for independent India

ON the eve of WW II the Left was split into a number of mutually quarrelling groups. On 15 Sep. 1939, the Congress Working Committee met to discuss the question of India’s role in the War. It adopted a resolution which categorically declared that India could not ass. herself with a war which claimed to be anti-fascist and for the defence of democracy when the same was being denied in India. The Left initially, continued with the tactic of presenting a united front with the Congress.

At the Ramgarh session of the Congress in 1940 a resolution pledging support for the allies in return for national independence was passed, which was supported by the Congress Socialists. Soon the communists started emphasizing the policy of ‘exposure of Gandhism’ and ‘sharpest opposition to Gandhian leadership’. MN Roys group was the only group at this stage to fully support the British was effort.

By following this policy the communists once again separated themselves from the national movement. The policy also invited the ire of the colonial government and communist activists were arrested in various parts of the country.

In 1941 when Germany attacked the USSR, the CPI’s position changed. The war went from being an ‘imperialist war’ to being a ‘Peoples War’. Consequently, the communists now began to support Britains war effort.

In 1942, when the government started arresting the leaders of the Congress and managed to abort the Quit India Movement, PC Joshi, the Gen. Sec of the communist party managed to get the detained communist leaders released.

The Communist Party’s position, after its legalization on 22 July (for which there had to be negotiations with the British government) and the Quit-India resolution, left it the only Party out of the old National Front, which was not facing repression. Its position with regard to the British government while not confrontationist, was independent.

The communists thus opposed both the Congress decision to go in for non-cooperation and the British government’s provocative policy of repression. These were political positions: in practice the communists avoided open cooperation with British officialdom, 57 built up trade unions and Kisan Sabhas, and fought in a restrained manner for the people’ s day-to-day demands and relief. In the situation they became practically the sole legal spokesmen for the common man. While a “no strikes” policy was declared, campaigns were organized against hoarders and for proper food distribution; “grow more food” campaigns, appealing directly to peasants, were also attempted. Relief activities were organized, the most important being those during the Bengal famine of 1943-44.

The CPI might have gained numerical strength but lost prestige in the eyes of the people of India. In 1945, after the war was over the communists resigned their membership of the INC.

Despite the fact that the Left cadres were among the most militant and courageous of freedom fighters, the Left failed in the basic task it had taken upon its itself – to estbl. the hegemony of socialist ideas and parties over the national movement.

Explanations for this range from the Left taking on the Congress leadership on the wrong issues, and when it came to the crunch, was either forced to trail behind or was isolated from the national movement. Unlike the Congress right wing, the Left was unable to show ideological and tactical flexibility. It fought the right wing on slippery and wrong issues (it chose to fight, not on questions of ideology but on methods of struggle and on tactics). It failed to grasp the Gandhian strategy of struggle, which was a major failing. Another problem was that the different Left groups and parties failed to work unitedly except for short periods. Their doctrinal disputes and differences were too many and too passionately held.

IMPACT

The Left did succeed in making a basic impact on Indian society and politics. The organisation of the workers and peasants was one of its greatest achievements. Equally important was its impact on the Congress. The Left was able to command influence over nearly 1/3 of the votes in the AICC on important issues. Nehru and Bose served as Presidents of the Congress from 1936-1939. Nehru was able to nominate 3 important socialists to his working committee. In 1939, SC Bose, as a candidate of the Left was able to defeat Pattabhi Sitaramayya in the presidential election comfortably.

Politically and ideologically, the Congress as a whole was given a strong Left orientation. It accepted that the poverty and misery of the Indian people was not only because of colonial rule but also because of the internal socio-economic structure of Indian society which had to be transformed. The impact of the Left is illustrated by the resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy passed by the Karachi session of the Congress in 1931, the resolutions on economic policy passed at the Faizpur session in 1936, the Election Manifesto of the Congress in 1936 , the setting up of a National Planning Commission in 1938, and the increasing shift of Gandhi towards radical postions on economic and social issues. The Left was also very active in the All India Womens Conference.

[1] The WPP had been created out of a combination of the Labour-Swaraj Party(INC), Congress Labour Party, Kirti-Kisan Party and Labour-Kisan Party in 1928.