Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
The stated political aim of the Communist Party of India/Marxist-Leninist (CPI/ML), the largest Naxalite organization, was to form a united front of peasants and workers and to provoke a violent revolution that will lead to the establishment of a dictatorship of workers, peasants, and certain middle-class elements. The party urged the creation of a People's Liberation Army and foresaw eventual guerrilla warfare on a national scale.
The Naxalite movement in India was born out of the frustrations of the radical young over the inability of the existing leftist parties to make immediate, thoroughgoing changes in Indian social and economic life. The pro-Moscow Communist Party of India (CPI) promised far-reaching change; but, although it had been active in the subcontinent since the mid-1920s, the dictatorship of the proletariat remained a long way from reality, and CPI leaders contested for political offices alongside members of the traditional nationalist parties.
The Communist Party of India/Marxist (CPI/M) split off from the CPI in 1964 with the avowed purpose of reforming the Communist movement and returning the party to its true revolutionary values. Three years later, however, it too had failed to make an appreciable dent in the Indian status quo. By 1967 it was participating as the leading member of a coalition government in West Bengal, thus becoming a part of the system it had promised to overturn. Early support from Communist China for the CPI/M evaporated.
In 1965/66, the "Siliguri Group" [of the newly formed CPI (M) issued as many as six stencil-printed leaflets demanding the immediate start of armed revolution. One of the leaflets called for guerrilla warfare in the Terai within six months. Throughout 1966, the revolutionaries organized peasant groups throughout the Siliguri division; collected bows and arrows, even a few rifles, and established links with the Nepali Maoists active a few miles away. In late 1966, the revolutionaries organized a Revolutionary Peasants' Conference in Siliguri. On March 3, 1967, the seeds of the struggle began to sprout... A group of peasants surrounded a piece of land in the Naxalbari area; marking the boundary with red flags, they began to harvest the crops.
The conference of March 18 was the signal for the peasant upsurge that engulfed the entire region for four months. The United Front government in West Bengal tried to moderate the movement by announcing land reforms. The revolutionary peasants responded to the revisionist rulers by setting up peasant committees to take over the land in the jotedars. The peasant committee members organized massive processions and demonstrations, many of whom were armed with sticks, spears, bows and arrows. The sea of red flags created panic in the hearts of the peasants and landlords, and the countryside resounded with slogans of "march along the path of armed peasant revolution".
At that time, the Chinese Communist Party was the center of world revolution, and they cheered the uprising. On June 28, 1967, Beijing Radio reported: "The stage of peasant armed struggle led by the revolutionary faction of the Communist Party of India has emerged in the rural areas of Darjeeling District, West Bengal, India. This is the vanguard of the Indian people's revolutionary armed struggle...". A week later, on July 5, the People's Daily published an article entitled "Spring Thunder in India": "A thunderbolt of spring shook the land of India. The revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling, India, rose up in rebellion. Under the leadership of the revolutionary faction of the Communist Party of India, a red area of rural revolutionary armed struggle was born in India! ... The Chinese people warmly cheer for the revolutionary storm of the peasants in Darjeeling, India! Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people all over the world warmly cheer for the revolutionary storm of the peasants in Darjeeling, India!"
On July 19, the army was deployed to the area with the approval of the General Assembly. Hundreds of people were beaten and more than a thousand were arrested in a ruthless cordon and search operation. Leaders like Jangar Santal were arrested, others like Charu Mazumdar went underground, and still others like Tribuni Kanu, Subban, Ali Gorkha Majhi and Tilka Majhi became martyrs. A few weeks later, Charu Mazumdar wrote: "Hundreds of Naxalbari people have been burnt in India... Naxalbari is not dead and will never die."
Simultaneously with the police action, the CPI(M) expelled a large number of its members. Sashital Ray Chaudhry, a member of the West Bengal state committee and editor of the Bengal party organ, was expelled. So were other leading members like Ashim Chatterjee, Parimal Das Gupta, Asit Sen, Suniti Kumar Ghosh, Saroj Dutta and Mahadev Mukherjee. The Darjeeling District Committee and Siliguri Divisional Committee were dissolved.
The 25 May 1967 peasant uprising at Naxalbari in Darjeeling district of West Bengal began under the leadership of revolutionary communists belonging to the Communist Party of India - Marxist [CPI(M)]. The Naxalite movement that emerged from the revolt was headed primarily by militants disenchanted with the Communist Party/Marxist. On 22 April 1969 they formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
The revolutionary struggle for seizure of political power by the Indian proletariat faced a serious debacle in 1972. On 16 July, Charu Mazumdar, the only top leader of the Communist Party of India Marxist/Leninist (CPML) still at large, was arrested in Calcutta. The 56—year—old revolutionary gained notoriety as an organizer of the peasant revolt in the Naxalbari area of West Bengal in 1967. Mazumdar went on to become a founding father of the CPML in 1969.
On November 12 and 13, 1967, communist revolutionaries from all over the country met and formed the All-India Coordination Committee of CPI (Marxist) Revolutionaries , forming an interim committee to unite all revolutionaries and gradually form a revolutionary party. At its second meeting held on the eve of the first anniversary of the Naxalbari uprising in May 1968, the Coordination Committee was renamed the All-India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries [6] , with Sushital Ray Chaudhry as the convener.
Earlier, the communist revolutionaries decided to publish a political newspaper to propagate the revolutionary line. The first issue of Liberation was published on November 11, 1967, with Suniti Kumar Hoshi as the editor. The Patriot was published in Bengali. At its peak, the circulation of Liberation reached 2,500, while that of The Patriot reached 40,000.
Meanwhile, the Naxalbari-type struggle spread throughout 1968, and the Srikakulam struggle was becoming a major uprising. Under these conditions, the AICPR passed a resolution to form a party at its meeting on February 8, 1969. At the plenary session of the AICPR held from April 19 to 22, 1969, the AICPR finally decided to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) on the occasion of Lenin's 100th birth anniversary.
Naxalbari restored the revolutionary essence of Marxism on Indian soil, which had been "distorted, corrupted and destroyed by the revisionist semantics of the CPI and the then nascent CPI(M). Naxalbari provided the answer in both thought and practice. On the question of program , it attacked the revisionist concept of the CPI and CPI(M) that India was basically a capitalist country with "feudal remnants"... It explicitly analyzed India as a semi-feudal country. It also attacked the revisionist theory that the ruling bourgeoisie in India was basically national and that India achieved real independence in 1947... It explicitly pointed out that the ruling bourgeoisie was comprador, that Indian independence was a sham, and that India was semi-colonial."
On the question of strategy , it opposed the path of "peaceful transition" proposed by the CPI and CPI(M) and insisted on the path of protracted people's war. It clearly stated that the road to liberation lay in guerrilla warfare, the building of a people's army, the establishment of liberated bases in the countryside, and the gradual encirclement and occupation of the cities. It stated that the immediate goal was to establish the people's democratic dictatorship (of the four classes) as the first step in the transition to socialism. The ultimate goal was communism.
Most importantly, in the ideological field , it uncompromisingly opposed revisionism and all forms of bourgeois ideology in the working class movement and firmly supported Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as Marxism today. In particular, it established Mao Zedong Thought as a development of Marxism-Leninism and carried out a massive campaign to popularize it. This had a lasting impact, especially on the students and youth of the country. Specifically, inspired by the ongoing Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, it responded enthusiastically to Mao Zedong's call to "revolt against reactionaries is justified".
"The cream of India’s youth and students joined what came to be known as the Naxalbari movement. While parliamentary politicians were busy playing power politics and amassing personal wealth, young revolutionaries were sacrificing everything – studies, wealth and family – to serve the oppressed masses of our country. Thousands of youth, facing the hardships of rural life, displayed a death-defying courage, endured enemy bullets and inhuman torture, integrated themselves with the landless poor peasants and inspired them to revolution.... Many became martyrs in the brutal massacre of youth in 1970/71, thousands of whom were killed in Calcutta."
Disavowing a constitutional approach in favor of armed revolution, the CPML was the only formally organized party in the declining terrorist Naxalite movement. Mazumdar left, at most, a few hundred hard—core followers in West Bengal. Although there were a few potential leaders among the small number of capable young Naxalites still at large, it was unclear whether anyone would emerge to replace Mazumdar and his dead or jailed colleagues. Moreover, Indian security forces had become increasingly successful in controlling the activities of this group of self-styled Maoists.
The threat of violent revolution by extreme leftists, which troubled Indian authorities a few years earlier, had almost disappeared, at least for the present. Radical fringe groups remained, however, in West Bengal and Bihar, and to a lesser extent in the Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. Barring economic collapse or political turmoil, their efforts over the next several years was limited to debates over strategy, interspersed with occasional attacks on "class enemies" and rival left—wing groups.
By 1978 meaningful attempts were initiated to revive the revolutionary struggles and also the party by the CPI (ML), as tactical understanding became more realistic in accordance with the Indianisation of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse Tung thought.
In India there were many Maoist parties and organizations that either predate the CPI-ML or emerged from factions when the CPI-ML split after the death of Charu Majumdar. Three of them, the CPI-ML (People's War), CPI-ML (Party Unity), and the Maoist Communist Center (MCC), were engaged in armed struggle.
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