Volume : 3 | Issue : 4 | April 2014 ISSN - 2250-1991 Research Paper History Emergence of Communist Party in Nationalist Movement Lecturer in History, NBKR Science and ARTS College, Vidyanagar, K.Sravana Kumar Kota Mandal, Nellore District -524413, A.P.India. KEYWORDS After the Russian Revolution, vague socialist ideas began to spread assimilation of all that is best in the life and thought and charac- among the young intelligentsia. The youth welcomed these ideas ter of the west”4 The moderates set up associations, such as the with energy and enthusiasm. They started reading Karl Marx as Poone Sarvajanik Sabha in 1870, to work for the improvement of eagerly as an earlier generation had read Mill or Mazzini. ‘every- the whole of Indian society, seeking educational and other social where there was a new spirit of energy and growing discontent reforms through their membership of legislative bodies and or- with older ideologies ‘However it is difficult to examine and per- ganisations such as the national social Conference. They hoped spectives the status and function of left parties without talking to achieve their ends through the introduction of representative about their background, origin and development. So also their democratic political reforms by the national congress, and by such attitude towards Indian nationalist movement. It is important to methods as public meetings, deputations, and the presentation of recognise whether Communist movement in India has been one memorials all modelled directly upon British Constitutional Politics.5 of the many movements to achieve Indian independence. It can In the above discussion the dynamics of Nationalism in the con- be said that nationalist movement was a profound influence and text of are summed up which gives us a proper frame work to talk inspiration for Communist movement although they significant- about Communism in general and its emergence in India with a ly disagreed with moderate nationalist movement viewing it was focus on Andhra Pradesh. more reformist than radical. It is rightly observed by A.L.Basham, “The nationalist movement was at once a reassertion of traditional The Communist Revolution began in Russia in October 1917, values and symbols against alien intrusion, and itself an alien, mod- and in March 1919, the Russian revolutionaries set up in Mos- ern, untraditional phenomenon. This paradox is found embodied cow the Communist Third International for the purpose of in the different brands of nationalism represented by such figures propagating and spreading Communism all over the world. a Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Dayanada and the Arya Samaj, Au- Their eyes fell on India too because in the words of Lenin, robindo, Tilak, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and the Aligarh School, An- the growing industrial and railway proletariat on the one hand nie Besant, and above all Gandhi and the national congress as he and the brutal terrorism of the British on the other presented influence it. It is hardly surprising then if the paradox has contin- a virgin field for a similar revolution. ued to echo in the subcontinent since independence was won.”1 Muzaffar Ahmad, one of the veteran Communists in In- During the foundation of the first nationalist associations until the dia, claims that the Communist Party of India was founded achievement of independence, the Indian nationalist movement abroad and was affiliated to the Communist International in changed its character in various ways, under the influence of the 1921. According to him the party was formed towards the traditional past and the more recent British past, and also as re- end of 1920 at the Tashkent Military School6 Tashkent in So- sult of the new ideas and methods that marked its development. viet Union. One of the earliest Communists of India was Sri- Modifying slightly the periodisation which Michael Brecher has pada Ananta Dange who published a small book “Gandhi and distinguished in the history of the nationalist movement, 1) the Lenin” in 1921.7 He also established a Marathi daily and Eng- 1870s-1890: the period of Moderate pre-eminence, 2) the 1890s- lish weekly for the propagation of Marxist views. 1914: the struggle for supremacy within the movement between the Moderates and Extremists, and 3) 1914-1947: the period of The first Indian to become communist was M.N.Roy who was agitational politics and Gandhi’s leadership.2 In the first of these pe- also associated with the formation of Mexican Communist riods the nationalist movement was essentially British in its intellec- Party.8 He attended the second Congress of the Communist tual origins, in the second it drew both on indigenous symbols and International in 1920 as a delegate from Mexico. British Com- ideas and upon western ideologies and examples, and in the third munists and M.N.Roy inspired a group of young Indians, who period, the movement drew upon widening circles of Indians and were great admirers of Marxism and the Russian revolution, to imported inspiration while becoming increasingly inventive, particu- set up in India an organisation to spread the Marxist ideology. larly under the impetus of Gandhi’s creative genius. This organisation came formally into existence on 26th Decem- ber 1925, and was named as the communist Party of India. Any nationalist movement in a colonial situation is bound to have (CPI) 9 Shortly after, the CPI was recognised, on Roy’s advice, both a negative and positive aspect. The negative aspect is the as a branch of the Communist International.10 The task for the determination to expel the foreign rulers and achieve self-gov- Communist Party of India was determined by the Communist ernment; the positive aspect is the concept of the sort of nation International in 1928. That was as follows: 1) Struggle against which should emerge from the struggle for independence. In neg- British imperialism for the emancipation of the country, 2) the ative terms the moderates aimed at moving slowly towards self Communists scattered throughout the country into a single government of India, with the “white” colonies of the British Em- independent and centralised party, 3) unmasking of the na- pire as their mode.. the moderate Indian Association emerged in tional reformism of the Indian National congress and opposing 1876 in Calcutta and spread across northern India with the express all the phrases of the Swarajists, Gandhites and about passive goal of stimulating the sense of nationalism amongst the people resistance, 4) mercilessly exposing the national reformist lead- and from its earliest sessions in 1885 and 1886 the Indian National ers in the Trade Unions, carrying on a decisive struggle for the Congress pointed to Canadian and Australian self government as conversion of the Trade Unions into genuine class organisa- the models for India.3 In this , they were carrying forward the so- tions of the proletariat and teaching the workers principles of cial and intellectual reform movements of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, communism through the method of propaganda and instruc- Ranade and others, aiming in Gokhale’s words, the selective “ tion. 5) Organising the peasants in the same manner so as to 134 | PARIPEX - INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH Volume : 3 | Issue : 4 | April 2014 ISSN - 2250-1991 effect an agrarian revolution and 6) exciting violent revolution leadership and guidance of Soviet Union, its programme of in the country.11 action and strategy was determined by the Third International. Its leadership was subservient to the Soviet leadership. Such The Communist International not only determined the pro- being the character of the Communist movement in India it gramme of the Communist Party of India, it also trained many was but natural that it should act to promote either the inter- Indian Communists in the art of fomenting discontent and ests of the Soviet Union or the aims and objects of the Third rebellion among the people, of preparing them for armed International. This became clear from the part played by the insurrection, of organising worker’s strikes and directing the communist Party of India during India’s freedom struggle. The freedom struggle and of infiltrating into government and insti- top leaders of the Communist movement, Clemens Dutt and tutions so as to wreck them from within. A few of the Com- Ben Bradley an Englishman thought that the Indian national munists who were trained in Moscow were N.N.Roy, S.A.Dan- Congress as it then existed was not the united front of the ge, G.M.Adhikari, C.P.Dutt Dr. Hafiz, NaliniGupta, Ayodhya Indian people in the national struggle, that its constitution left Prasad and Shaukat Usmani.12 out the broadest sections of the masses, that it programme of the struggle as defective, that its leadership could not be Lenin considered Gandhi as progressive, while M.N.Roy recognised as the leadership of the national struggle. And that thought of him as “medieval reactionary”. Lenin wanted the as it was, the Congress leadership did not draw out and guide Indian Communists to help the national liberation movement mass activity but rather acted as brake upon it.20 As a result, conducted under the leadership of the national bourgeoisie. when in 1928 the congress leader, Vallabhbhai Patel, start- Despite Lenin’s advice to the Indian Communists that they ed the Bardoli Satyagraha or the Congress organised country should cooperate with the national liberation movement they wide boycott of Simon Commission the same year or when in did not in fact do so.13 The Communist Party of India later on 1930 Mahatma Gandhi launched his Salt Satyagraha or when admitted that it had failed to adopt the correct approach to in 1932, a more powerful mass struggle was started against the national liberation movement and had also failed to rec- the British rule, the communist Party of India opposed all ognise that Gandhi, in launching the Civil disobedience move- these movements and denounced them.