India and Pakistan have been at war yet again. There is no sharper test of a party, its programme and ideas than the questions of war and revolution.
Unfortunately, in the decisive hour, the leadership of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India Marxist (CPIM) lined up behind the Narendra Modi government, the military establishment and the ‘Godi media’ who all represent ‘The Billionaire Raj’.
Both the CPI and CPIM have put out statements explicitly defending Modi’s actions in carrying out military strikes against Pakistan. In its statement, the CPI “urge[d] the Government of India to immediately call for an all-Party meeting to strengthen national consensus and collective resolve in the fight against terrorism.” (our emphasis)
It goes on to conclude:
“Let this be a moment of unity, strength, and unwavering commitment to justice and secular values of the people of India.” (our emphasis).
In other words, a so-called Communist Party called for a political bloc with the BJP, the reactionary ruling party of Indian capitalism.
The CPI offers political support for Modi’s war against nuclear-armed Pakistan (under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’), violating the most basic principles of internationalism, and placing workers of the entire subcontinent in jeopardy.
For its part, the CPIM praised India’s strikes on Pakistani territory as “measured, focused and non-escalatory”; professed its “support to the measures taken by the Union Government”, and stated that “pressure should be continued on Pakistan to hand over those responsible for the massacre of innocent people in Pahalgam.”
As if Modi, who repeatedly unleashes Hindutva terrorist forces against Muslims and political enemies, and whose reactionary policy towards occupied Kashmir fuels groups like The Resistance Front that carried out this attack to begin with, is seriously interested in ‘fighting terrorism’!
What was it all for?
A tentative ceasefire is now in place (for which US President Donald Trump has claimed responsibility) following dozens of casualties. None of the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack have been handed over. We must ask then what was this war all for?
Modi’s escalation through Operation Sindoor was an attempt to puff out his chest and play the strongman. With important state elections coming up in Bihar, which the CPI and CPIM are contesting, Modi clearly hoped that banging the war drums would help shore up his Hindu nationalist base.
He played the same game after the 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack, which was followed by military strikes, whipping up nationalistic fervour just before a general election. The then-unpopular BJP gained a resurgence in the polls and won a landslide majority. Modi proceeded to go on the attack against workers, farmers, students, Kashmiris and Muslims, and clamp down on dissent against him through authoritarian measures.
But Modi leaves this brief war diminished. The attack itself, which took place under Indian occupation in such a militarised area, was a humiliation. And now he has been publicly put in his place by American imperialism, and forced to de-escalate. Already, Modi’s appearance of invincibility was shaken following last year’s general elections, where he lost his majority. And next week, an all-India general strike of workers and farmers is planned. This colossal force could strike another hard blow at his weakened regime.
In these circumstances, where a policy of internationalism and class war is desperately needed, what have the CPI and CPIM done? Did they follow an elementary communist line of further undermining Modi in his weakened state, directing the anger of the masses against this criminal regime?
On the contrary, the ‘Communist Parties’ moved to prop up Modi and strengthen the warmongering chorus of the ruling class!
Who are the real terrorists?
We say plainly to CPI and CPIM members: your party leaders expose their miserable bankruptcy when they call on Modi to ‘bring justice to terrorists.’ This regime terrorises its own people on a daily basis!
It regularly mobilises RSS fascist thugs, who destroy churches and mosques, whilst terrorising Dalits, Muslims, Christians, workers, peasants, and the poor, all with Modi’s tacit blessing
Furthermore, the Indian government and its intelligence wing, RAW, carried out a state-sponsored murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil and an attempted assassination in the United States.
Since the terrorist attack, Kashmiris across India have been attacked, harassed, indiscriminately detained, lost their jobs, thrown out of taxis, and even had their houses blown up. This is despite ordinary Kashmiris condemning the attack and risking their lives to help those under fire.
Kashmiris remain under occupation, denied the right of self-determination, and are daily harassed by the Indian state. Yet not a word of this has been mentioned by the CPI or CPIM!
We in no way condone terrorism. Yet if a people are denied self-determination, their democratic rights, and kept under brutal occupation, this will breed devastating consequences.
One does not trust the arsonist to put out the fire. Communists should clearly say that the biggest source of terror in the region is the Indian state itself, as the strongest capitalist power with predatory imperialist designs. And Modi, with his poisonous Hindutva demagogy, stands at the head of this state.
Pakistan is a stooge of the West?
Another claim made to CPI and CPIM members is that Pakistan is a stooge of the West and US imperialism; whilst India, traditionally aligned to the Soviet Union and historically part of the non-aligned movement, is therefore more progressive.
This is not accurate. Pakistan is a highly indebted poor country, with a staggering two-thirds of its day-to-day spending going to servicing debts. A large amount of this is paid to western creditors through the IMF, but it is also indebted to China, which holds 22 percent of Pakistan’s external debt. Furthermore, 81 percent of Pakistan’s arms are bought from China, whilst over the last two decades, the USA has gone from being the main supplier of weapons to Pakistan to supplying none of its weapons.
India now purchases a greater proportion of military arms from western powers, and signed a trade deal with Britain on the same week as war emerged.
Western capitalists have been courting India for trade deals, investment, and access to its markets as it emerges as the fourth-largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. Soon it will overtake Germany.
The old two-stage theory story, regurgitated ad nauseum by CPI and CPIM leaders, that India is a poor, dominated country, and we must wait until we become a modernised nation before attempting a socialist revolution, was always false and now looks more hollow than ever.
Indian capitalism’s growing strength places an even greater responsibility upon communists in India to wage war against national chauvinism, and relentlessly defend the principles of internationalism; meaning the unity of Pakistani and Indian workers, and the rights of oppressed nations, all of which are fundamental pillars of Marxism.
In the celebrated words of that great communist martyr Karl Liebknecht: The main enemy is at home!
The job of overthrowing the capitalists, landlords and generals in Pakistan is the job of communists in Pakistan. We are proud of the comrades of the Inqalabi Communist Party, the RCI in Pakistan, who have adopted a principled internationalist position in this regard. It is the task of Indian communists to fight their own ruling class. This is precisely what the comrades of the Revolutionary Communists (India) have likewise done amidst this war.
Defence of the Constitution
Another common claim is that the CPI and CPIM can never go against the constitution of India, which professes the principles of “socialism, secularism and democracy”. Yet the constitution of India is based on the 1935 Government of India Act, written by the British Raj! It includes many of the same clauses and legal frameworks from colonial rule, including sedition laws used to imprison Indian freedom fighters.
CPI and CPIM members will remember that such acts have been used against their own members. In 2016, JNU President, and then CPI member Kanhaiya Kumar was charged with the act of sedition on trumped up anti-national charges.
The constitution has always allowed for the freedom of the capitalist and landlord classes to amass enormous amounts of wealth at the expense and exploitation of workers and peasants. Under this constitution, the top one percent owns more than 40 percent of the wealth whilst 129 million live in extreme poverty.
Whatever fine words exist in the constitution do not change the fact that India is a powerful capitalist regime. As Lenin wrote long ago:
“[T]he state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of ‘order,’ which legalises and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes.”
The leaders of the CPI and CPIM fetishise this instrument of class rule, which is used against workers and the poor! India’s ‘constitutional democratic state’ is not to be defended – but smashed! As Lenin writes in The State and Revolution:
“From 1852 to 1891, or for 40 years, Marx and Engels taught the proletariat that it must smash the state machine. Yet, in 1899, Kautsky, confronted with the complete betrayal of Marxism by the opportunists on this point, fraudulently substituted for the question whether it is necessary to smash this machine the question for the concrete forms in which it is to be smashed, and then sought refuge behind the ‘indisputable’ (and barren) philistine truth that concrete forms cannot be known in advance!!”
Lenin had nothing to do with those so-called ‘Marxists’ who, in the midst of the First World War, found all kinds of Marxist-sounding arguments to justify their own social chauvinism and to support ‘their’ capitalist class. The German social chauvinists justified supporting the Germany ruling class by pointing to the reactionary Russian autocracy, British social chauvinists supported the British ruling class by claiming it was a war to defend small nations like Belgium, and the French socialists claimed they were defending their own ‘progressive, democratic, Republican’ constitution against Prussian militarism.
The leaders of the CPI and CPIM are presenting the exact same excuses utilised by the renegade Kautsky and other social democrats over 100 years ago as cover for the class collaboration and national chauvinism.
Return to Lenin
In 1916, Lenin wrote the following about the collapse of the Second Communist International, whose leaders all supported their ruling class’s march to war:
“Opportunism and social-chauvinism have the same political content, namely, class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiation of revolutionary action, unconditional acceptance of bourgeois legality, confidence in the bourgeoisie and lack of confidence in the proletariat.” [V.I. Lenin, Lenin’s Writings on Imperialist War (Wellred Books), p.140]
We believe these words perfectly describe the leadership of the CPI and CPIM. They have no confidence in the Indian working class. They never even talk about fighting for a socialist revolution and spend all of their time seeking coalitions with liberal and even right-wing Hindutva parties(!) to ‘defend’ India’s bourgeois, ‘democratic’ state.
We, the Revolutionary Communist International, urge all serious members of the CPI and CPIM to return to Lenin, particularly his writings on war and the state, which expose the utter betrayals of your leadership.
And we invite you to participate in our open, All-India discussion on Thursday 15 May (at 7:30pm IST). We will outline a correct, internationalist, Marxist position on this conflict, which might not have flared into an all-out war this time, but will continue to cast a shadow over the subcontinent until capitalism is abolished from these lands.
India is the most populous country in the world. Soon it will be the third-largest economy in the world. The development of the productive forces has and continues to produce a mighty working class which will rise up and shake the whole continent, and the whole world.
The last decade has seen glimpses of what the oppressed Indian people are capable of. What is missing is a revolutionary leadership to see this potential through to the end.
- Down with the Narendra Modi government – the true bastion of terrorism in India!
- Long live working-class unity across the Subcontinent!
- No to national chauvinism!
- For the right to self-determination for Kashmiris!
- For internationalism!
- Return to Lenin!
- For a Socialist Federation of South Asia!
- Inquilab zindabad!
- Workers of all lands unite, we have nothing to lose but our chains!
