The Swing Back - Tridib Chaudhuri
That the evaluation of the role of the India Government in the world affairs by the CPSU and international Stalinist leadership may have undergone any change in recent months and that the general attitude and policy line of the international Stalinist movement towards India and the India Government take a new orientation consequently need not however be deduced a priori from the assumption of an invariable connection between the national tactical line of Stalinist Communist Parties in different countries and the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, or from the mere fact of the peremptory Cominform directive to the CPI to change its line of tactics and general policy and throw out Ranadive in favour of the comparatively moderate Dange-Rajeswar Rao combine. As a matter of fact the Cominform Editorial did not even refer to the Nehru Government or Soviet attitude towards the matter. But sufficient indications have already appeared in the international Stalinist press pointing to such a change though in general the expression of the changed attitude has been very cautious and guarded so as not to create the impression that the CPSU or international Stalinism has suddenly become enamoured of the Government of Pandit Nehru or started to regard Pandit Nehru himself as a 'progressive' after the manner of P.C. Joshi. As we shall see, there is much in the policy as a matter of fact and more specifically in the foreign policy of Pandit Nehru which is not liked by and appears 'ambiguous' to the leaders of the Soviet Union and the Cominform. But in spite of this, an unmistakable change of tone is discernible, which can be directly linked up with the change of CPI tactical line in India. Instead of an attitude of direct hostility and overall condemnation, there were significant references to India by Soviet statesmen in a new tone of cordiality and friendliness, and the line of attack against Nehru Government's Foreign policy in party press became palpably mild and less critical than heretofore.
In order to disabuse ourselves of any misunderstanding about such a change in the general attitude of the Stalinist Communist movement in the appraisal of a government condemned as a 'capitalist' and a 'satellite' collaborationist government till the other day, being possible at all, we have to keep our minds riveted on the basic world-outlook of Stalinism as discussed in the foregoing chapter, on its denial of the immediate historic perspective, or even the necessity, of the overthrow of capitalism or of calling for Socialist revolution in any country outside the frontiers of the USSR, and holding up in its stead the alternative perspective of peaceful co-existence of socialism and capitalism side by side, and on its insistence on the necessity of determining all key problems of the world working class movement by the criterion of defence and reinforcement of the USSR. Cooperation and alliance of Stalinist Communists in any country or countries outside Soviet Union, including India, was never precluded under terms of that basic outlook. The Zhdanov line of 1947 kept the way wide open, as we have seen, for such cooperation, and there is no reason to be surprised, if under the circumstances of to-day international Stalinist leadership find it advisable to show a certain degree of friendliness towards the Nehru Government in India and seek to find out fellow-travellers from a section or sections of Indian capitalists. The main consideration were the interests of Soviet foreign policy.1
It has been indicated above in broad outlines how the actual need for a re-orientation of Stalinist tactics and the swing back from the left to the right, arose towards the close of the last year.
Briefly, it was the direct result of the following factors.
(1) A radical alteration in the international balance of powers in East Asia and the Pacific after the defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek and the US-backed KMT nationalists and the emergence of the frankly pro-Soviet Chinese People's Republic with unchallenged control over the entire vast expanse of Chinese mainland.
(2) A sharp increase of Anglo-American contradictions and conflict of interests in West Europe, Middle East and South East Asia and the open divergence of British and US policies with regard to the People's Republic of China and East Asian pro-Soviet bloc.
(3) The general line-up of Nehru's India with the British Commonwealth in all larger matters of world-policy and especially with regard to the recognition of People's China, which meant that Nehru Government's policy in East Asia would diverrge from that of USA at hast to the extent of Britain's, correspondingly weakening and undermining US-Far East strategy and favouring SU at the expense of US.
(4) The frantic efforts of the Nehru Government in between Anglo-America and the Soviet Union, to seek the way to an effective modus vivendi of its own, in order to safeguard the basic structure of the vested interests of the class and classes it represents, in the background of the general breakdown of the imperialist capitalist system and the revolutionary upsurge of the toiling masses, by coming to terms with decidedly reformist trends in the popular movement and their leadership before it was too late. An understanding with the Chinese People's Republic and the Chinese Communists with their theory of new democracy, and with the entire pro-Soviet bloc of East Asia, might yet provide the Nehru Government with such a modus vivendi, which means in effect that the Nehru Government would have to readjust its international relationship with the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc of countries correspondingly.
Recognition of the People's Republic of China by the Nehru Government, in the face of decided American opinion against it marked the decisive beginning of this process of readjustment. It should only be remembered in this connection that Nehru's India, no less than Great Britain, is still very largely dependent on USA financially and economically. The hostility of the ruling classes of these countries to Communism or Soviet Socialism (if not to the Soviet State as such), and to any indication of genuinely progressive and revolutionary mass-upsurges in their own territories were no less real. Similarly real were their apprehensions and fears against the phenomenal increase of the strength and influence of the USSR in the post-war period. There is therefore bound to be a good deal of hesitancy and equivocation about the entire attitude of Nehru Government in its relationship with the Russo-Chinese camp and the American camp, an a good deal of self-contradiction will necessarily be inherent in its whole position. Moreover, leaving aside USA, the opposition of Great Britain itself and the British Commonwealth of Nations, with which India has been linked up by Pandit Nehru's Government, towards the SU and the pro-Soviet People's democratic camp, is also a factor of considerable significance and is invariably reflected in the foreign policy of the India Government, which is guided from behind the scenes by the hardened British stooge Girija Shankar Bajpai. But nevertheless the recognition of the People's Republic of China by India and the advocacy by India for the admission of the former's representatives to the UNO and its Security Council is a move running positively counter to American Far Eastern policies and strengthens and reinforces the Soviet Union's diplomatic position as against USA. The importance of such a move, at such a time, by the government of the leading Asian country outside the Soviet bloc, a government which apparently came to power in the postwar period on the crest of a popular mass movement and still had a very great influence over the minds of the masses, and a government which the American imperialists had hoped to press into service as their last line of defence and their last buttress in Asia after their total strategic debacle in China, is self-evident.
The difference between the British recognition of the Chinese People's Republic and that by India could not also be lost sight of by the discerning eye of the Soviet leaders. The former was partly the result of Anglo-American conflicts of imperialist interest and policies in the Pacific and South East Asian region, and partly the result of an inordinate eagerness on the part of crisis-ridden British imperialism to salvage a part at least of its vast stakes in Chinese trade and commerce. Britain was even encouraged to entertain hopes for a sizable share in the economic and industrial development that might be undertaken by the new government and in meeting new China's demand for capital goods by the eminently 'reasonable' attitude which the Chinese Communists were inclined to take about private capitalism and the trading rights of foreign and Chinese nationals. But India evidently did not have as yet any such clash of imperialist and finance-capitalistic interests with USA in the Eastern market. Nor, did it have such extensive trading interests in China that tempted Britain.
The major consideration behind India's decision about the recognition of the Peking Republic was the necessity felt by the new rulers of India of submitting to the fait accompli and adjust themselves as far as possible to the new situation created by the release of revolutionary mass forces in East Asia by the mighty impetus of Japanese war and post-war crisis of the colonial system. The inherent weakness in the position of the Indian bourgeoisie, who were increasingly feeling the irresistible impact of a growing restiveness of the masses below their feet, inevitably led them in search of a surer prop than Chiang Kai-Shek ever had, in the shape of possible alliances and understandings with the leadership of the rising mass forces beyond their own borders in those countries at least where popular forces had come to power, and where the leadership of the mass movements still preferred, in spite of their open pro-Soviet affiliations, to keep themselves delimited within the frame-work of a petty-bourgeois social reformist policy with only vague orientations towards Socialism. Due to this basic weakness of their policy it might be possible to persuade them, by combining the tactics of judicious takling on the diplomatic level with the employment, as occasion arose, of the pressure of restricted mass-agitation from below, to maintain quite friendly relations with the Sino-Soviet bloc in the Far East, if not to join it formally. They might under certain circumstances be induced to throw their weight in favour of the former against USA in world affairs.
That some such move for tackling the Indian bourgeoisie might have been actually underway after the anouncement of India's recognition of the Chinese People's Republic, was first indicated indirectly by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyshinsky's speech in the banquet given by Ambassador Radhakrishnan at Moscow for celebrating the inauguration of the 'Republican' constitution of India on the 26th of January last. Vyshinsky was reported to have greeted the establishment of the Indian Republic as "a most important step in advance" in modern times, at the very time, be it remembered, when the left parties of India-including the CPI were holding mass meetings and other forms of political demonstrations, protesting against the promulgation of an authoritarian semi-fascist Constitution modelled on the hated Government of India Act of 1935 in the name of freedom and secular democracy; (See : full report of the speech as reproduced in Hindu, Jan. 31. 1950)
(a) The Tokuda formulation : "India cannot ignore liberation movements"
That this was not just an usual expression of 'diplomatic' politeness on the occasion of a formal state-ceremony in the accredited embassy of another state, but might also be taken as the pointer to a new orientation of the India-policy of the CPSU for the entire Stalinist movement, was amply proved by a radically new analysis about the foreign policy of India that was given by Kyiuchi Tokuda, General Secretary of Communist Party of Japan a few days earlier, and which was duly reproduced in Soviet Press and also in the official Cominform organ 'Lasting Peace.'
Tokuda remarked :
The neutral attitude taken by India is explained by the fact that India cannot ignore the popular liberation movement in the countries of South-East Asia. Thus the setting up of an anti-Communist front headed by India is impossible. This meant in other words that the Congress Government in India and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru would not play the role of K.MT or Chiong Kai-Shek, and fight US imperialism's counterrevolutionary battles in S.E. Asia, but would rather prefer to come to terms with the revolutionary forces headed by the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet. This was of course put down to the financial and other weaknesses of Indian capitalists. But this new interpretation of Nehru Governments' policy of "neutrality" between rival power blocs, taken together with the significant remarks of Vyshinsky's felicitation speech about the Republic of India undoubtedly sounds like an anti-climax after the virulent condemnation hurled against Pandit Nehru by leading colonial national-liberation movements experts and India experts in Soviet Union like Zhukov et. al. till the other day.
"The Indian bourgeoisie"2 now rivals the "most reactionary forces in stifling the mass popular movement," asserted Zhukov only six months back in June 1949, "in the terror against the progressive elements of the working class and peasant movements. The metamorphosis, of Nehru from a left Congressite and an accuser of imperialism into a shrewd servant of two masters both Britain and USA is a clear demonstration of this" (June 8, 1949 'Problems of National and Colonial Struggle After the War').
Parallel with this there came the satirical appraisal of Nehru Government's "Independent" and "neutral" foreign policy as being designed only "for duping the popular masses' and for 'deceiving public opinion both in India and abroad" by V. Balabushevich and others.
"In actual practice the reactionary circles in India" remarked Balabushevich "were adopting a course of consolidating the position of their country in role of satellites of the Anglo-American imperialist bloc" ('New Stage in the National Liberation Movement of the People of India' Problem of Economics, Moscow; No. 8) The contrast here is too obvious to need any comment!
The special significance of the new analysis of Nehru Government's foreign policy as given by Tokuda, as the General Secretary of the Japanese Communist Party, arises from the fact that the political line of policy and the tactics for CP. Japan were being determined for sometimes past under the direct supervision of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Cominform, and generally had the direct sanction of the Soviet leadership. Since the concentration of the US efforts, after big-scale American strategic reverses in China, on feverishly building up Japan as the principal war-base against USSR in the Far East, the Communist party of Japan has acquired a particular importance in the eyes of CPSU leadership. Moreover, it is clearly evident that without the approval of the international leadership and the Cominform, Tokuda's Report could not in any case have been reproduced in the LPPD more than three months back after its original publication in January 24 in the Akahata, the organ of CP. Japan, at a time when the CPI itself was in the throes of an ideological and political confusion about the line to be adopted in India. As a matter of fact the Vyshinsky speech and the simultaneous publication of this new formulation about Nehru's foreign policy was a definite pointer to the CPI ranks for changing their tactics accordingly, from one of all-out opposition to that of the strengthening and fostering its new trend viz. its willingness of coming to terms with the 'revolutionary' forces, a trend evinced by the recognition of the Chinese People's Republic.
The recognition seemed to 'prove' negatively at least that India would not play the part of the spearhead of counter-revolution in South East Asia and pull America's chestnut out of fire!
The only 'correct' line of tactics which was to be adopted in this background was clearly indicated by the Cominform Editorial of January 27th. Henceforth the Indian Communists must give up their policy of barren opposition and "must unite with all classes, parties, groups and organizations willing to defend the national independence and freedom of India." From now-on the main brunt of the struggle had to be turned mainly against imperialism, and their feudal and big bourgeois collaborators incidentally, but certainly not against those who were coming to terms with revolutionary forces and refused to set up an anti-Communist front at the bidding of American imperialism.
The Vyshinsky speech, the Tokuda line about Nehru Government's foreign policy with a seal of sanction from the international leadership and the new Cominform directive all three logically followed from a reorientated policy line and were the clearest indications of a definite change of basic CPSU appraisal of the role of India and the Indian Government under Nehru which automatically made a change in CPI tactics imperative and a disavowal of the much-boosted 'leftism' of Ranadive as a 'left-deviation' inevitable.
This should not be taken to mean however, that the foreign policy manoeuvres of the India Government were to be regarded from now onwards as entirely satisfactory from the point of view of the CPSU, or that the CPI would be required to give up its crtical attitude to the Nehru Government and its foreign policy line. There was much in that policy which was not at all to the liking of the CPSU and the international Stalinist leadership. Neither could India's recognition of the People's Republic of China be regarded as entirely voluntary. It was clearly forced on the Nehru Government by the radical alteration in international balance of powers after the victory of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. India's affiliations with the British Commonwealth, and through it to the United States, was too obtrusively palpable to be ignored altogether. India Government might yet be drawn into an open alliance with US against the Soviet-led 'democratic camp.' It was prevented from "leaning towards the United States" as per G.D. Birla's advice only owing to "the fear of their own people" and the "powerfully surging movement for national liberation throughout Asia and Far East." It was also due to the weakness of India's general position in the present world set-up. The line of official party criticism about Nehru Government's foreign policy and its entanglements with Anglo-American imperialism was recently set forth in some detail in an article in the Soviet weekly, New Times (no 22, May 1950) specially written by the Soviet publicist V. Berezhkov. The most curious thing about this article which apparently spoke very sharply about the Congress Government's "compact with the imperialists" and their increasing "surrender" to the "extortionate demands of the Anglo-American imperialists," is however that it was more concerned to prove that "there was a good deal of ambiguity" about the so-called "middle course" and policy of "neutrality" of the India Government, and that the Indian leaders were "wary of openly associating" with the aggressive pacts proposed by US imperialism. A good deal of ambiguity came therefore to characterise the seemingly caustic criticism of Nehru's foreign policy by Comrade Berezhkov. "More and more" wrote Berezhkov, "India's ruling circles are abandoning the defence of national interests"... "Britain follows in the wake of Washington's aggressive policy, and India top trims her sails to suit the American imperialists." But due note was taken, at the same time, that the leaders of the Indian National Congress are displaying greater caution than their American partners would like "and that Pandit Nehru resented to the crude pressure" that he was subjected to in Washington! Apparently Indian leaders though prepared to barter away some of the country's vital interests to the Wall Street were wary of openly associating themselves with it "They have learnt a lesson" he concluded, "from the inglorious fate of the Kuomintang clique!"
Terms of Complaint against Nehru The main terms of the complaint against Nehru Government which were detailed by him were the following :
1) hampering the development of trade relations with the Soviet Union and the People's Democracies;
2) sending a delegate to the Baguio anti-Communist Conference convened by President Quirino of Philippines after initial announcement of an intention of non-participation in it;
3) taking an 'evasive' stand at the British Empire Conference at Sydney ('evasive' against what?) :
4) helping anti-popular regimes in Asia, notably the government of Thakin Nu in Burma;
5) taking an ambiguous stand on the representation of the Chinese People's Republic in the UN;
6) brutal persecution of 'democrats' in India.
These were in effect a sort of suggestion from CPSU about the line of agitation along which pressures were to be brought against Nehru Government's foreign policy the implication being that Nehru would be deemed respectable if his government removes these 'evasions' and 'ambiguities.' It was particularly noted therefore that the Indian rulers feared popular resistance and were perhaps amenable to it, that India was 'one of the weakest links in the imperialist chain." So if a vigorous mass agitation could be got up against the Indian Government and public opinion mobilized on these lines (not on lines of mis-conceived 'militant mass actions' of the Ranadive Period) it might not be entirely impossible to draw away India and the Nehru Government from their present imperialist moorings nearer to the people's democratic camp.
Thus the need of criticism against Nehru's policy was still there from the Stalinist point of view. But the criticism would have to be cautious, realistic and imaginative enough to take note of India Government's hesitations about allying themselves openly with the American bloc, and also take advantage of these hesitations. That was the clear hint of Berezhkov in his ambiguous criticism of Nehru's ambiguities.
Whatever might be one's views about Nehru's ambiguities there is hardly any room for doubt that Berezhkov's own ambiguities about Nehru are a clear departure from the earlier Zhukov-Balabushevich line of down-right condemnation of Pandit Nehru's Government, as direct and open collaborators of Anglo-American imperialism and "as the servant of two masters Britain and the USA." The reasons for this departure have, however, been amply dealt with above.
The foregoing section was written in the main before the new developments in connection with the Korean War took place. US intervention in Korea, the respective stands of the British and India Governments on the UNO resolution on Korea, Pandit Nehru' peace proposals to Marshal Stalin and President Truman and the welcome accorded to them by Stalin as well as the curt refusal of USA all these have amply confirmed the conclusions reached above. The announcement of whole-hearted support to Pandit Nehru's move by the recently released Stalinist leader Dange comes as a logical sequel. It now seems that active support of the claim of the Chinese People's Republic to UNO representation by Pandit Nehru and India's vote in favour of Soviet representative M. Jacob Malik's proposal in Security Council for unseating the delegate of Nationalist China from that body have actually removed a major item of 'ambiguity' in India Government's foreign policy against which Berezhkov complained so much! One of the recent issues of the LPPD (No. 30, July 28)the Comminform organ makes the following Editorial comment about the new foreign policy of the Indian bourgeoisie, after Pt. Nehru's peace proposals :
The very fact of the peaceable initiative displayed by a number of bourgeois newspapers and politicians who have come out in favour of accepting the proposals of J.V. Stalin, testify to the fact that the most sober minds among the bourgeoisie are beginning to show serious uneasiness with regard to the consequences of the adventurous policy of war provocations being pursued by US imperialist.
The editorial remarks of the LPPD amply testifies in its turn to the fact that the international Stalinist assessment about the Indian bourgeoisie have also been changing rather 'seriously'! The significance of the Soviet and Stalinist point of view of the "peaceable initiative" of Nehru and the "uneasiness" shown by "sober minds among the bourgeoisie" in India at US war provocation has also been made sufficiently clear in this article : "The US-British ruling circles are dissatisfied," point out the Cominform Editorial Board, "with Nehru's action..."
In view of the sharpened war danger, and the switch over of the US imperialists to direct acts of aggressive war, a further strengthening of the democratic camp and the consolidation of the forces of peace are of exceptional importance.
The hint is clear support the "peaceable initiative" of "sober bourgeois minds" by the "extension in every way of the mass basis of peace movement" and "drawing in of the broad peasant masses, middle urban strata, women and youth, and of all sections of the intelligentsia" etc.
One has only to recall in this connection E.M. Zuhkov's criterion of judging the "reactionary" or "progressive" nature of a colonial bourgeoisie by reference to its attitude towards the Soviet Union and the "democratic camp" to understand which way the wind is blowing.
1. The following quotation from the summing up lecture of E.M. Zhukov (one of the leading Soviet experts on India) to the three day's joint session of the Academic Councils of the Institute of Economics and the Pacific Institute of the Academy of Sciences, USSR, devoted to post-war national liberation struggles in the "colonies and semi-colonies (among which India is included) is very instructive. "Everywhere (India included) the main enemy of the national liberation movement is American imperialism. This is precisely why it is impossible to regard the national liberation movement of every individual country...apart from its connection with the struggle of the two camps, the struggle of the forces of democracy and Socialism (SU i.e.) against the forces of imperialism and reaction (USA and its allies or collaborators). "The progressive character of this or that social movement, the revolutionary or reactionary nature of this or that party at the present time is determined by its attitude towards the Soviet Union........Therefore, the controversy as to at what stage the colonial bourgeoisie
(here, Nehru Government) begins to play a reactionary role can be solved only under the circumstances when an answer is given to the main question" (Colonial People's Struggle For Liberation, PPH. P. 99).
The long and short of Zhukov's argument as concretely applied to India means that at what stage Nehru Government can be said to play a reactionary role, has to be decided not by reference to his actual social and political policies, but by reference to his attitude towards SU vis-a-vis USA. That is the crucial question or the 'axis' here also. It is equally applicable to every other sections of the Indian bourgeoisie.
2. The attention of the discerning reader is here drawn to the fact that here as else where Zhukov also uses the generic term 'Indian bourgeoisie' in the manner of Ranadive instead of 'big bourgeoisie', although like Ranadive he also often employed the terms 'bourgeoisie' and 'big bourgeoisie' inter-changeably, But Ranadive is summarily thrown out as a 'left-deviationist' for having confused between the entire 'national bourgeoisie' and the 'big bourgeoisie' while Zhukov's speech still remains a Party text! V.M. Maslennikov also terms Nehru Govt a 'bourgeois' instead of a 'big bourgeois' Government.