(40) specific acts or opposition and support for specific acts P.

(44) (45)

by P. Ramamurthy, as an agreement with other progressive parties.

In an interview with two other Indian Communists in London, Dutt further defined the Communist attitude towards the Nehru Government, identifying two strands of opinion within the Congress Government, one represented by Patel and leaning more heavily on the imperialist side and the other by Nehru which adopted a foreign policy which was not 'always in agreement

(46)

with the policies of the Anglo-American imperialists'. The Party

must apply itself to promoting the anti-imperialist stand. By the time of the Fourth Congress at Palghat on 1st April 1956, the tactic of collaboration with other parties was accepted practice and:

Ramamurthi's heresy of July 1954 has become orthodox doctrine.(47)

As far as the K.C.P. was concerned, this made its own image much more acceptable.

While this kind of thinking promised a more realistic approach to the country's problems, it was also accompanied by a growing tendency away from the extreme militancy of Ranadive, in the United Front tactics that

(44) Text of this letter under heading 'Ramamurthy's Letter to N.M. Jaisoorya and G.M. Shroff (1953)' Doc. No. 11 in Democratic Research Service: Indian Communist Party D o cuments 1930-1956 p p .180-194.

(45) Gene Overstreet and Marshall Windmiller: Communism in India p . 305. (46) Report of this interview under heading 'Talks with Comrade R. Palme

Dutt and Other Impressions Gained Abroad by Deven and Bal Krishna

(January-March 1951)' in Democratic Research Service: Indian Communist Party Documents pp.62-70. There seems to be no reason to doubt the authenticity of this report which is mentioned under the same heading as being circulated by the Party Headquarters, and the content being almost identical to the one described by Gene Overstreet and Marshall Windmiller: Communism in India p.305.

were to be so successfully employed in Kerala. Splits were occurring

in the Party over the tactics to be employed and these conflicting opinions (48)

were particularly apparent at the regional level. Already by the end

of 1949, the Party was facing serious dissension and dwindling membership in its own ranks. P.C. Joshi, expelled from the Party in 1949 over his

'reformist' views, wrote of this periods

Of all our sectarian mistakes this has been the most disastrous, /i.e. judging the present

situation to be a revolutionary one - a reference to Ranadive's policies/ for it has led to the adoption of tactics suited to an insurrectionary or semi-insurrectionary

situation. The result has been that the masses have not responded to our calls and our comrades have landed themselves into the terrorist mire ... Passivity, frustration, demoratisation constitute inner party morale.(49)

The Andhra Communists had already started to move away from Ranadive's directives by broadening their base to include wealthier peasants. This line was promptly attacked by Ranadive as a contradiction to the working class base of the Tamil Nad party and 'poor peasant' base in areas like Kerala. Andhra justified its policies by drawing the Politburo's attention

(48) The C.P.I. has seemed to function more effectively at the provincial than at the national level e.g. the Party's success in Kerala, Andhra, West Bengal. There was even at times a tendency for the provincial

organisations to function indifferent of the Centre, e.g. in Andhra -

See H. Gelman ’The Communist Party of India: Sino-Soviet Battleground'

in A. Barnett (ed): Communist Strategies in Asia (Frederick A. Praeger, N.Y. 1963) pp. 103-104.

(49) ’Views' by P.C. Joshi quoted in M.R. Masani: The Communist Party of

supported the new strateqy of the Chinese, and advocated both the specific (51)

Chinese elements of the strateqy (rural guerrilla warfare and chief

reliance on the peasantry) as well as the more important general policies concerning the concentration on imperialism and feudalism rather than capitalism as the chief enemies. It envisaged as Mao had done, first the

’democratic’ revolution and the establishment of the 'New Democracy'

prior to the socialist revolution. It called too for united fronts

modelled on M a o ’s theories, with sections of the bourgeoisie, including

(52)

more well to do elements and the ’rich’ peasantry.

This change in direction in South India had enormous repercussions on the line the Kerala Communists were to follow in the next two decades. Maoism provided the party here with a theoretical framework for the United Front strateqy that was employed in the State. However the acceptance of the validity of the Chinese approach in Kerala and to the national party had still to be decided on officially.

Initially the Central Committee of the Party refused to accept the premises of the Andhra thesis:

(50)

to Mao. In June 1948, the Andhra Committee in opposition to Ranadive

(50) Selig Harrison: ’Caste and the Andhra Communists' pp. 390-91.

(51) Guerrilla warfare was subsequently eliminated as essential to Communist strategy in India, and at the Amritsar Congress in 1958, peaceful

methods were endorsed.

The Communist Party of India has accepted Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as the authoritative sources of Marxism. It has not discovered new sources of Marxism beyond these.(53)

Ranadive in opposing what he regarded as a 'right* deviation (i.e. collaboration with the peasants and a less rigid interpretation of the proletarian dictatorship) wrote:

They ,/Mao’s formulations/ are in contradiction

to the world understanding of the Communist parties ... He condemned Mao's theories as'horrible and reactionary', against the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and did not think they could offer anything

(54)

to the C.P.I. If the Centre could see no direct relevance, the

regional units certainly did, and as Kautsky points out the Leninist (55) basis of Mao's strategies, was never really understood by Ranadive. The Central Committee however was soon to be persuaded to change its

attitude towards the relevance of Maoism to India. The climate of opinion in Moscow was changing towards an approval of Mao's tactics. E.M.

Zhukov, an eminent Soviet spokesman on Asian affairs, and head of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science, had condemned only the 'big bourgeoisie' in contrast to previous Soviet identification of the whole bourgeoisie with imperialism. Zhukov attacked Nehru's government as representative of the big bourgeoisie and hence of monopoly capitalism but hinted at

(53) From 'Struggle for People's Democracy and Socialism - Some Questions on Strategy and Tactics' in T he Communist June-July 1949 p. 77 and

quoted in Jean Curran: 'Dissension Among Indian Communists' in

Far Eastern Survey 19,20, 1950-51 p. 135.

(54) From The Communist Vol. II, No. 4, quoted in M.R. Masani: The Communist Party of India p. 101.

United Front designed to appeal not only to the petty, but the middle (56)

bourgeoisie too. In addition another important Party member, A. Zhdanov,

made a much publicised speech to the Cominform in 1949, and subsequently published in the Cominform's journal 'For a Lasting Peace, for a Peoples'

(57)