Indian Masses up Against Crisis of Leadership

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amics of the class struggle throw more and more layers of the Indian masses into open struggle.

This has been shown by large scále demonstrations of the blind, the seizure of land by the Harijans in Bihar, and the national struggle of the Assamese.:

As Gandhi steadily takes steps to enforce rigid political control and stability over the • subcontinent, the Indian work•ing class has expressed its strength through countless struggles over the past year.

Counter attack

Workers in jute, oil, shipbuilding, textiles and banks, alongside civil servants and the landless masses continue to force the bourgeoisie to prepare its counter-attack.

The escalation and polarisa tion of the class struggle takes place under new conditions and on a higher plane with the bourgeoisie led by its traditional party-the Congress (1).

And it is the outcome of the January Indian elections that glaringly highlights the acute crisis of proletarian leadership that confronts the Indian labour moverent.

In the context of economic, political and civil chaos the Congress (1) and the Stalinist CPM emerged decisively. * The Janata Party, düring its rule: had proved totally incapable of arriving at a united, cohesive strategy either to hold back the forward movement of the working class, which had ousted. Gandhi and her regime, or to solve the basic problems of the crisis-ridden economy. • In the face of an organised working class, a starving peasantry and profit stricken industrialists, the Janata Party was driven itself to attempt emergency measures-introducing preventive detention and a newly drawn Industrial Relations Bill.

It was such measures that facilitated conditions under which a reorganised Congress Party could consolidate itself as the leading political representative of the ruling class.

The northern area of Algeria-the Kabyle part of the Berber region-was reported last week to be in a state of open rebellion The main workers party, the CPM, extended its overall base in three traditional, strongholds -West Bengal, Kerala and Tripuia.

Its strength in these states no doubt reflects that the working class and peasantry voted for the CM on a massive scale, especially in West Bengal, enabling it to pose as the main opposition party today.

However, the central thrust of the politics of the CPM remain those of a "people's democratic front"

Gandhi The broadest possible amalgamation of capitalist and Stalinist parties is enthusiastic ally sought and incorporated within a popular front.

Since its inception, the CPM has faithfully pursued this strategy, forming electoral blocs "against the forces of authoritarianism"

Its recent alliance with the big landlord capitalist party the Lok Dal led by Charan Singh is a noteworthy demonstration of the CPM's willingness to ally with the most viciously reac forced students out of he uni, versity at bayonet point. • While there can be no doubting the mass hostility to the central government, it is less tionary bourgeois forces.

The extent of its class collaboration was exposed particularly sharply in Uttar Pradesh, where the Lok Dal stood 78 candidates and the CPM one candidate in an electoral bloc that accrued benefit solely for the Lok Dal.

This took place in a context whe in its forward movement the working class is actively searching for a political alternative to represent its independent class interests.

It is significant that when Gandhi moved in to dissolve oppositional state assemblies before the by-elections in order to secure a majority in the Rajha Sabha that the Stalinist states were left reassured and intact.

Administration

For the time being, Gandhi is content to leave the administration of capitalism in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripiura in the hands of the Left Democratic Front which has been responsible for managing the capitalist state economies in a comparatively stable fashion.

She is not yet ready to deal with the significant base that the CM-for all its betrayalshas cultivated.

Indeed under the present circumstances, the CPM serves to act as a stabilising force in the face of là ' militant, / class conscious labour movement.

As such it poses no threat to. the ruling class.

However, as Gandhi proceeds to confront the tasks of resolving the crisis of bourgeois democracy in India, it is inevitable that she will combine her populism with increasingly repressive measures against the undefeated working class.

Already she has astutely dissolved the nine assemblies led by totally discredited right wing parties in order to centralise her authority and assert direct control. over the weaker states.

She is being forced to abandon the skeleton farce of Indian democracy (which remains the pride of the imperialist bourTrotskyists however give full to self-determination. Charan Singh geoisie and the Indian Stalinists) and is preparing the necessary groundwork upon which to confront the working class and peasantry..

The CPM, balancing itself between the organised movement of the working class and the assaults of the Congress (1) will no doubt repeat their performance during years of Gandhi's Emergency and continue to seek and further support other brougeois parties within the decrepit framework of parliamentarianism.

Trotskyists have consistently argued that parliamentary democracy is only desirable for the neo-colonial bourgeoisie in so far as it guarantees stability and serves in their ever more desperate search for profitability.

For years large tins labelled "herring" have been Unlike the Stalinists of the CM, who periodically despair with the cry that "democracy is in peril" we refuse to sow any illusions of bourgeois democracy but point to the crucial need for workers to formulate demands that express their own independent class interests.

Fabric

It is not Gandhi's antidemocratic moves alone that are the enemy of the working class but the entire fabric of capitalist class relations of production.

The crucial task that faces workers and militants is to build a united front of the independent organisation of the working class and the peasants to withstand the capitalist onslaught.' One of the most vital demands to arise from such a united front should be to mobilise to force the Stalinists to break their criminal counterrevolutionary links with the parties of the bourgeoisie!

It is only the Indian working class which can smash through the barriers of the caste system, national and ethnic oppression and religious supersțition that have fettered the peasantry and the rural oppressed.

It is the historical task of Indian workers to lead the peasantry in an alliance that will end the domination of finance capital and will build in its place a society where human neednot capitalist profitability determines the planning of RS Indeed, as far as the planned socialist economy is concerned, the Stalinist rulers always insist in their propaganda that what they are selling to the working class is authentic caviar.

In fact it is worse than herring!

Reconstruct the fourth Internenional li Copen No. I Nov. 179 DISCUSSION BULLETIN 600 THE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMME IN TODAY'S CLASS Founding document of the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee LONDON WCIV 6XX

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