The Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) (People's War), which has
been successfully leading people's war in Andhra Pradesh and Dandakaranya in
India since 1980, is reported to have held its All India Special Conference, as
successor to the 8th Congress of the united CPI (M-L) held in 1970, in a grand
manner and with great success on November 15-30, 1995. Delegates drawn from the
state units of AP, North Telengana, Dandakaranya, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka ,
Maharashtra, West Bengal , Haryana and a few other regions and fraternal
delegates from the CPI (M-L) (Party Unity) had attended the Special Conference.
A colourful procession of people's guerrilla fighters - both men and women-in
olive-green uniforms and caps, with guns and rifles slinging from their
shoulders and red banners and placards in hands, shouting full-throated slogans,
had marked the commencement of the Conference. Slogans raised, on the occasion
included: "Build Guerrilla Zones", "Advance People's War", "All Powers to
Village Committees", "Smash Feudalism", "Down with Imperialism", "Down with all
Hues of Revisionism", "Long Live World Socialist Revolution", etc. After the
formal inauguration of the Conference, the house adopted two separate
resolutions one paying homage to martyrs and the other sending revolutionary
greetings to the comrades incarcerated in India and other countries such as
Peru, Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, Nepal etc.
In different sessions, the Conference discussed thoroughly and adopted with
some amendments four documents - "The Party Programme and Constitution",
"Strategy and Tactics, "The Political Resolution", and, "The Political and
Organisational Review". The delegates discussed and expressed their opinions on
another document "The Indian Revolutionary War Guerrilla Zones" and authorized
the next CC to finalize it. The Conference is reported to have unanimously
elected a new Central Committee.
On the last day the Conference adopted seven special resolutions, viz., (I)
On expulsions; (ii) Hailing national liberation struggles and workers struggles
throughout the world; (iii) Condemning imperialist propaganda against
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought; (iv) Hailing revolutionary struggles of
other countries; (v) Supporting nationality struggles in India; (vi) Demanding
Com. Gonzalo's release; and (vii) Calling for united struggle against Indian
expansionism. With a vote of thanks by the presidium, the deliberations of the
Conference were successfully concluded.
The political line followed by the Party since 1980 is explained in the
important document "Strategy and Tactics", the essential features of which are:
* The political strategy to be pursued in the present stage of New Democratic
Revolution in India is one of forming a broad united front of all the
anti-feudal, anti-imperialist forces- the working class the peasantry, the petty
bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie -under the leadership of the working
class to overthrow the common enemies - feudalism, imperialism and comprador
bureaucratic capital.
* The military strategy or the path of the Indian Revolution is the path of
protracted people's war, i.e. liberating the countryside first through areawise
seizure of power, establishing guerrilla zones and base areas, and then
encircling the cities and finally capturing power throughout the country.
* The unevenness in the economic, social and political development of Indian
society calls for different tactics, I. e. forms of struggle and organization to
be pursued in different regions of the country, while the political line
throughout the country remains the same. In urban areas the political and mass
work should be carried out observing utmost precaution and the organizational
work should proceed keeping in view the long range perspective.
* Caste is a peculiar problem in India and appropriate forms of organization
and struggle should be evolved vigorously to fight out untouchability,
caste-discrimination and to finally root out the caste system.
* The tactics of boycott of elections have to be pursued for a long time in
the prevailing conditions in India; and participating in parliamentary and
assembly elections under any pretext only weakens the class struggle.
"A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing, there is; it is the
act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by
means of rifles, bayonets and cannon-authoritarian means, if such there be at
all, and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must
maintain this rule by means of terror which its arms inspire in the
reactionaries."
- Frederick Engels, "On Authority"
"The insurrectionary career once entered upon, act with the greatest
determination, and on the offensive. The defensive is the death of every armed
rising; it is lost before it measures itself with its enemies." - Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 1852
"It should be pointed out that destruction of the enemy is the primary object
of war and self-preservation the secondary, because only by destroying the enemy
in large numbers can one effectively preserve oneself. Therefore attack, the
chief means of destroying the enemy, is primary, while defence, a supplementary
means of destroying the enemy and a means of self-preservation, is secondary. In
actual warfare the chief role is played by defence much of the time and by
attack for the rest of the time, but if war is taken as a whole, attack remains
primary."
- Mao Tse-tung, "On Protracted War"