With the RSP calling the CPI(M) China's 'agent', Communist unity remains elusive, writes Saswat Panigrahi
Fissures in the Left parties are widening with the Revolutionary Socialist Party leading a dissidence against the CPI(M)-led Left-front. The party has criticised the CPI(M) for Nandigram and Singur. It has refused to toe the CPI(M) line on the issue of SEZs. The intra-Left dispute became more apparent in the recent panchayat elections in West Bengal, in which the CPI(M)-RSP rift reached at a point of no return. The party has even started branding the Marxists as "China agents".
Today, the RSP is working towards the formation of an alternative Left Front, which may even include the anti-national forces like Maoists. However, while flipping through the pre-independence history, one must find how the evolution of the party traversed through some notable nationalist movements.
Founded in March 19, 1940, the party has its roots in the Bengali liberation movement Anushilan Samiti and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army -- an era in which Hindutva, cultural nationalism and socialism had a rare blend to reach at the focal point of revolution against the British Raj.
Emerged as an offshoot of the Anushilan Samiti, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), known as the Hindustan Republican Association until 1928, was led by Bhagat Singh, Yogendra Shukla and Chandrasekar Azad. It was one of first socialist organisations in India and was inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917. An oft-quoted slogan -- Inquilab Zindabad (Long Live Revolution) -- was popularised in the activities of the organisation.
The Anushilan Samiti -- meaning to follow the teachings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was the principal revolutionary organisation operating in Bengal in the early-20th century. The association was established in Kolkata by Barrister Pramatha Nath Mitra in 1902. Sri Aurobindo, Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das, Jatindra Nath Banerjee, Jatindra Nath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin), etc, were its initial leaders. It was in their philosophies and thoughts that the vocabularies of revolutionary ideas were rooted.
A major section of the Anushilan movement had been attracted to Marxism during the 1930s, many of them studying Marxist-Leninist literature, while serving long jail sentences. A minority section, adhering to the ideology of Communist International broke away from the Anushilan movement and joined the Communist Consolidation, and later the Communist Party of India (CPI), which got divided in the post-independence period, hence bringing birth the CPI(M). The core section of the Anushilan Marxists, however, adopted Marxist-Leninist thinking. They later joined the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), formed by some Left-wing elements within the Congress to which the CPI branded as "social fascist". And these core believers of Anushilan Marxism formed the Revolutionary Socialist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which evolved into the Revolution Socialist Party (RSP).
It was the Anushilan Marxism, which termed the dogmatic political lines adopted by the Comintern Congress of Communist International held in 1928 as "ultra-Left sectarian". The Comintern Congress called upon the Communists to combat the "national-reformist leaders" and to "unmask national reformism". The Anushilan Marxists termed it as a betrayal of the internationalist character of the Comintern -- which acted as an agency of Soviet foreign policy. This speaks volumes that in the belief that Anushilan Marxists, socialism and nationalism went side by side.
Those were the chapters from the History. At present, RSP is a small Left party. Now, it no more subscribes to the ideals of Anushilan Marxism. And in a bid to make its presence felt in the political glossary of the country, the party has taken the 'onerous task' of 'saving' Indian Socialism by joining terror elements like Maoists. But the moot question is: Will the RSP succeed in carving a parallel Left Front?
-- Published in Oped page of The Pioneer on June 18 2008
