ON AGRARIAN QUESTION
AND
PEASANT FRONT
(Draft)
9th All India Conference 2018
"The property in the soil is the original source of all wealth, and has become the great problem upon the solution of which depends the future of the working class."
KARL MARX: The Nationalization of Land (1872)
1.
Introduction
1.1 In the era of Imperialism and Proletarian Revolutions the stream of Democratic Revolutions and the stream of Socialist Revolutions decide the progress of Global revolution. The stream of Socialist Revolutions always leads the total revolutionary process. It is the Agrarian Revolution (AR) that is the core and chief content of the stream of Democratic Revolutions. As the stream of Socialist Revolutions holds the leadership of the stream of Democratic Revolutions at global level, evidently it guides the premise and practice of Agrarian Revolutions too. Thus, AR became the axis of New/People's Democratic Revolution under the leadership of the proletariat. This was the essential programmatic path in the countries those were under colonial oppression. Even after attaining freedom from colonial yoke, AR continued to be the axis of New/People's Democratic Revolution in those countries in which democratic social transformation could not be completed. This remained so mainly because of political power being grabbed by exploiting classes such as big bourgeoisie and feudal lords in such countries. That is, even after attaining political independence, democratic social transformation by breaking free from pre-capitalist production relations and feudal and other patriarchal social relations in a wholesome national scale had to be completed by way of Democratic Revolutions, which the ruling exploitative classes discarded.
1.2 The material reason for the Agrarian Revolution being the axis of New/People's Democratic Revolution under Proletarian leadership is as follows. The leadership of Revolutionary Course of social change has got historically passed from the hands of bourgeoisie on to that of the proletariat. This is because of the universal phenomenon which the capital has undergone. It is the phenomenon of monopolization and of an accentuating rapprochement with Imperialist Finance Capital. This caused the obliteration of all basic revolutionary character and national interest of the bourgeoisie. Due to this phenomenal change bourgeoisie became decadent and counter revolutionary.
1.3 The said historical shift had caused a progressive transformation of the perception and paradigm of AR. This paradigmatic change has made the course of Agrarian Revolution simultaneously carry two aspects of revolutionary social change. One of these aspects is of socio-economic emancipation from all pre-capitalist production relations including feudalism, its accompanied primitive social institutions and its decaying culture. Another aspect is of getting emancipated from the malicious imperialist exploitation and neo-colonial strangulation. Freedom of market and commodification function as positive factors in the former aspect of the course whereas, freedom from the market play the emancipator role in the latter. This is because of farmers' produces being freed from rent bound consumption by the feudal lord in the former phase of the course of AR as the land-to-tiller policy is implemented by the abolition of feudalism and, because of this, the produces become commodity and get realized by being sold in the market. The reason for freedom from the market becoming the trait of the second aspect of the course of AR is because of the internationalization of market engineered by the International Finance Capital. This internationalization of market is a negative action which curtails value realization of farmer produces by way of integration of the domestic market of every nation. In each nation, the Monopoly Capital houses become part and parcel of this process.
1.4 This means that, in the final, Agrarian Revolution is essentially bound to merge with the course of revolutionary change to achieve the aim of abolition of capital, all other forms of private property and the market. For this, Agrarian Revolution essentially will have to progress to the proletarianization of every stratum of the toiling masses in the agrarian sector and all kinds of production and activities associated with such stratum. It is possible only by persistent implementation of planning in production resulting scientific development of production forces and hand in hand development of production relations. For this, all sections of the peasantry and other toiling people such as artisans and craftsmen are to be led through a democratic course of integration with the proletariat in a harmonious historic process.
1.5 The vanguard of the proletariat is bound to materialize this historic goal of AR because, emancipation of proletariat is inseparable from the emancipation of peasantry and the whole of toiling masses from all kinds of exploitation and oppressions. This epic task has to be done with ever-vigilant guidance by the proletarian vanguard, which alone can provide apt leadership to the whole working class. This is the vital conscious process that can make the whole working class capable of the correct handling of its strategic alliance with the peasantry. This is vital for attaining uninterrupted and total social emancipation in countries that carry predominant existence of agrarian society.
2.
Historical Trait of the Programme of Agrarian Revolution
2.1 The historical trait of the programmatic envisagement of the Agrarian Revolution in the whole Marxist praxis started with the programmatic differentiation of AR‘s communist perception from that of the French Revolution / the bourgeois revolution. Marx himself did this differentiation right in 1872. In his paper 'The Nationalization of Land' presented at the ‘Manchester session of International Working men's Association’. In his presentation he clearly stated:
"France was frequently alluded to, but with its peasant proprietorship it is farther off the nationalisation of land than England with its landlordism. In France, it is true, the soil is accessible to all who can buy it, but this very facility has brought about a division into small plots cultivated by men with small means and mainly relying upon the land by exertions of themselves and their families. This form of landed property and the piecemeal cultivation it necessitates, while excluding all appliances of modern agricultural improvements, converts the tiller himself into the most decided enemy to social progress and, above all, the nationalisation of land. Enchained to the soil upon which he has to spend all his vital energies in order to get a relatively small return, having to give away the greater part of his produce to the state, in the form of taxes, to the law tribe in the form of judiciary costs, and to the usurer in the form of interest, utterly ignorant of the social movements outside his petty field of employment; still he clings with fanatic fondness to his bit of land and his merely nominal proprietorship in the same. In this way the French peasant has been thrown into a most fatal antagonism to the industrial working class.
Peasant proprietorship being then the greatest obstacle to the nationalisation of land, France, in its present state, is certainly not the place where we must look to for a solution of this great problem."
It was very clear that Marx had pointed at two key factors regarding Agrarian production such as:
(1) The ever increasing need of greater productivity and the due enhancement of production forces,
(2) The corresponding necessity of collective social utilization of land, as land stands limited, and of all necessary amenities to the maximum.
So, these were the key reasons that led him to unequivocally herald the necessity of nationalization of land.
2.2 At the same time, nationalization of land was never a secluded and segmented action in Marx's paper in 1872. Instead, he saw it as part and parcel of the whole process of socializing all kinds of production in total. He said about it as follows: "There will be no longer any government or state power, distinct from society itself! Agriculture, mining, manufacture, in one word, all branches of production, will gradually be organised in the most adequate manner. National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers, carrying on the social business on a common and rational plan."
So, according to Marx, the process of nationalization of land corresponds with the process of socialization of all means of production and, in effect, the process of abolishing of private property in all of its forms. This process of change goes through essential transformation that passes concrete historical junctures of varying natures. There arises the necessity of concrete forms of this total process of change at every juncture in order to achieve it in its advancing progression.
2.3 These concrete forms of both programmatic and tactical kinds were redefined by Lenin because of the changes in the political economical scenario of the twentieth century. These changes marked the beginning of a new era of imperialism in the epoch of Capitalism. By the closing years of 19th century and the opening years of 20th Century, capital grew into monopoly capital through cut throat competition. By the interpenetration of this monopoly capital with bank capital, a new phenomenon of Finance Oligarchy or Finance Capital emerged. This phenomenal change had been observed in its sprouts by Marx and Engels in the 3rd Volume of 'Das Capital' itself. Still, it was not brought out in detailed clarity until Lenin analyzed and explained its characteristics comprehensively. He proved that the said changes caused the beginning of a new stage of capitalism called Imperialism. Imperialism unleashed unprecedentedly fast and qualitatively magnified exploitation, especially of colonies by way of export of capital to such colonies. So, Lenin defined Imperialism to be the ‘highest stage of capitalism’ because, the imperialist era entered into the optimized spreading of class exploitation to every nook and corner of all continents. It began penetrating into all kinds of systems of production and social structure existed hitherto.
2.4 This process of imperialist exploitation crippled the free growth of capitalist development everywhere. The capitalist development in every country became bound to be in a relation of rapprochement with IFC and the imperialist system. This caused the breaching of all national boundaries and the escalation of exploitation of masses, especially peasantry, to unprecedented levels. It generated a necessary objective situation for fraternal association of working class and peasantry in the colonies. Apparently, it was quite paradoxical to consider the necessity of fraternal action and alliance of proletariat and peasantry before this era-change; but, as the era got changed and Global phenomenon of Finance Capital penetration unravelled itself to be paramount form of exploitation, this became essential possibility. Thus, the immediate possible form of transformation of land ownership, even though it all had to travel ultimately to the finale of socialization, got changed. Even at the earliest stage of formation of finance capital Marx and Engels had glimpsed it and mentioned it in the preface to the second Russian edition of Communist Manifesto as follows:
"Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West?
The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development."
This was definitely an intermediate programmatic step in the total process of advancement to nationalization of land and the whole process of production in the Agrarian sector.
2.5 The programmatic premise of revolutionary programme further got modified concretely by Bolsheviks under Lenin's leadership in Russia. This was done with the slogan: 'Land to the Tiller'. Again, it prima-face looked to be in the opposite to the Marxist programme of nationalization via collectivization, which in the ultimate will merge with the complete abolition of capital and all forms of private property. Actually Lenin's shift in programmatic preference was the truly scientific change in order to materialize the abolishment of the most degenerative archaic form of ownership: the feudal ownership. This had to be done by way of a revolutionary break through by the peasant masses led by the proletariat. The peasantry became enthusiastic to do it only when land came to its ownership. At the same time, the proletariat and the rural working class had to rely on nationalization of land as their strategic programme. This was the dialectical programmatic sense that had to be kept at helm within the vanguard of the proletariat. Lenin's writings on the agrarian programme had explained it lucidly; exposing and fighting the inappropriateness of the Menshevik slogans of 'nationalization' (which was raised only for the bourgeois amassment of land, not as part of the total abolition of all forms of private property ), 'municipalisation' etc. The essence of it was that the agrarian programme must discharge two duties without obliterating any of the two. One is to free the peasantry from the feudal yoke and make it the close associate and the main ally of the proletariat forming the core force of class alliance in the course of revolution, and the other is to ensure the independent action of the working class to facilitate the advancement to the social change that pursues the onward path of scientific socialism. The first duty had to result in creating new form of private property negating the old decadent form of private property that was the feudal estate. This caused the creation of petit-proprietary ownership of land by the farmers. Whereas, the second duty, was to resolve the private ownership of land by transforming the total sector into socialized production through transcending forms of land ownership.
2.6 The second duty of the Agrarian Programme that is the resolution of private ownership on land was seriously undertaken only by the first Five Year plan in 1928. This was so because, as Lenin had explained it, just after October Revolution there needed a retreat. That was the New Economic Policy or NEP. In his speech at the Plenary Session of the Moscow Soviet on 20th November 1922, Lenin said that, the NEP had to be followed keeping in mind that new advancement of socialization had to be achieved successively. In 1923 he wrote in Pravda about the key importance of cooperative sector in that process:
" Two main tasks confront us, which constitute the epoch to reorganize our machinery of state, which is utterly useless, in which we took over in its entirety from the preceding epoch; during the past five years of struggle we did not, and could not, drastically reorganize it. Our second task is educational work among the peasants. And the economic object of this educational work among the peasants is to organize the latter in cooperative societies. If the whole of the peasantry had been organized in cooperatives, we would by now have been standing with both feet on the soil of socialism. But the organization of the entire peasantry in cooperative societies presupposes a standard of culture, and the peasants (precisely among the peasants as the overwhelming mass) that cannot, in fact, be achieved without a cultural revolution.
Our opponents told us repeatedly that we were rash in undertaking to implant socialism in an insufficiently cultured country. But they were misled by our having started from the opposite end to that prescribed by theory (the theory of pedants of all kinds), because in our country the political and social revolution preceded the cultural revolution, that very cultural revolution which nevertheless now confronts us.
This cultural revolution would now suffice to make our country a completely socialist country; but it presents immense difficulties of a purely cultural (for we are illiterate) and material character (for to be cultured we must achieve a certain development of the material means of production, we must have a certain material base)."
2.7 After Lenin's demise, the said challenge had to be carried in the midst of acute global crisis of Great Depression that began in 1929 and continued to the close of 1930s. This was in the midst of sharpening of inter-imperialist contradiction later giving way for the birth of a monster - fascism. It became necessary that Soviet Union had to develop industry and agriculture very fast to cope up with the challenges of renewed imperialist threat; this time with fascist fangs. This criticality of time demanded necessary acceleration of collectivization via cooperative production and of state sectors to go hand in hand with it. As comrade Stalin clearly pointed at it in his speech delivered at a Conference of Marxist Students of Agrarian Questions (December 27, 1929) "Concerning Questions of Agrarian Policy in the U.S.S.R.":
"New practical experience is giving rise to a new approach to the problems of the economy of the transition period. Questions of NEP, of classes, of the rate of construction, of the bond with the peasantry, of the Party’s policy, are now presented in a new way. If we are not to lag behind practice we must immediately begin to work on all these problems in the light of the new situation. Unless we do this it will be impossible to overcome the bourgeois theories which are stuffing the heads of our practical workers with rubbish. Unless we do this it will be impossible to eradicate these theories which are acquiring the tenacity of prejudices. For only by combating bourgeois prejudices in the field of theory it is possible to consolidate the position of Marxism-Leninism."
He then stated the concrete solution by defining the way out from the bourgeois prejudices and from the actual problem of organizing agrarian production stating: "What, then, is the way out? The way out lies in making agriculture large-scale, in making it capable of accumulation, of expanded reproduction, and in thus transforming the agricultural basis of the national economy.
But how is it to be made large-scale?
There are two ways of doing this. There is the capitalist way, which is to make agriculture large-scale by implanting capitalism in agriculture a way which leads to the impoverishment of the peasantry and to the development of capitalist enterprises in agriculture. We reject this way as incompatible with Soviet economy.
There is another way: the socialist way, which is to introduce collective farms and state farms into agriculture, the way which leads to uniting the small peasant farms into large collective farms, employing machinery and scientific methods of farming, and capable of developing further, for such farms can achieve expanded reproduction.
And so, the question stands as follows: either one way or the other, either back to capitalism, or forward to socialism. There is not, and cannot be, any third way.
The theory of “equilibrium” is an attempt to indicate a third way. And precisely because it is based on a third (non-existent) way, it is utopian and anti-Marxist."
Sure that Stalin was specifically handling the question in the premise of organizing agrarian production under proletarian dictatorship and socialist construction in the lead but, he did explicitly depict the desperate course of capitalist takeover of farming 'which leads to the impoverishment of the peasantry and to the development of capitalist enterprises in agriculture.' Thus the programmatic guide, as Great Marx had axiomatically set it, led the question of ownership and utilization of land necessarily tending towards the positive answer of collectivization and to the ultimate and essential socialization as part and parcel of socialist orientation that is ever pitched against all forms of private property including capitalist farming. This programmatic guide has to continue in action in the course of revolutionary social change with respect to the change of advancement in production relations and production forces.
2.8 The said course of history provides testimonial experience that, as the part and parcel of New/People's Democratic Revolution and as its axis, the Agrarian Revolution essentially has the socialist content in its lead. Actually, the socialist content in the lead is the force that pilots the whole NDR. Because of this necessary socialist content in the lead, the AR is characteristically against both the stagnant existence of petit-proprietorship and the centralization of land by monopoly capital. Monopoly capital attempts to collect and centralize land at its disposal by way of acquisition of land. This is laid out and enforced by the penetration of International Finance Capital into our national socio political and economical realm during the present day neoliberal regime. This shows that, scientific programme of AR is bound to fight all kinds of speculative businesses on land and its produces by the finance capital and its subsidiaries. So, as the Finance capital penetration into the socio political and economic realm of agrarian production gather epidemic speed in the above mentioned ways, the AR programme should unsheathe corresponding strategy and tactics. Only by placing the socialist content of democratic collectivization persistently in the lead, in various appropriate transitional forms of it, the strategic and tactical necessities of the programmatic premise of AR could be accomplished. Then only the fight against this new diabolic challenge by the Finance Capital Penetration and its malicious transformations could be successfully accomplished.
2.9 So, in the final analysis, unlike in the days of the Soviet experience, the fight for AR has begun to prominently bear the said lead-socialist content irrespective of whether the political power has been captured and whether the socialist construction is started. The key issue that has made this shift is the growth of finance capital to gigantic amassment and its phenomenal penetration into every corner of the world expediting the integration of every genre of domestic capital and every layer of domestic market with the whole web of IFC. This is the phenomenal character of neo-colonial phase that had begun after the WWII and that had aggravated by the imperialist globalization process that gathered greater momentum after the fall of the USSR and the temporary setback of socialism.
2.10 However, the difference in the degree of manifestation, the quality of its effectiveness, modes of its practice and the speed of advance will vary before and after capture of political power. Similarly, the programmatic advancement of successive phases of AR is vital factor in enabling the toiling masses to get galvanized with the proletariat in the fight for political power. The above said dialectical relationship between the advancement of AR programme in praxis and the course of fight for political power is the inseparable fundamental elements of NDR. Taking this into account, the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat must strive to guide and practice the AR programme. It must do it skilfully changing its phases aptly according to concrete conditions. This is vital especially in the context of the penetration of IFC and resulted intensification of methodical extermination of the peasantry and the toiling masses. It alone will vouchsafe the emancipation of the people championed by the proletariat passing all through the course of Peoples’ Democracy and the socialist transformation. Lethargic lingering on at any of its phases before and after capture of political power; and, any kind of hasty leaping over of any of the said phases will be fatal to the success of the means and goal of the whole course of social revolution.
3
Praxis of AR during the Independence Movement
3.1 During the independence movement in our country, agrarian sector was facing immense pressure of blood-sucking exploitation by colonial plunder on the one hand and inhuman and discriminative feudal oppression on the other. Actually the colonial masters chose to reorganize feudalism forming it as the necessary tentacle of colonial expropriation and means of deliverance of oppressive measures. The peasantry fought against it whenever it was brought to the brink of unbearable extents right from the beginning of 19th century.
3.2 A brief survey of the history of peasant uprisings will give us an account of a great saga of peasant struggles in 19th century as follows. In 1814 at Tuppan of Muneer (near Varanasi) Rajput peasants secured the abolition of the sale of land by public auction of a large village community to a stranger. In 1817 the peasants of Orissa led by local feudal lords, rose up in protest against the introduction of taxation of their rent free service lands. Poona district witnessed the uprising of the peasantry from 1826 to 1829 when the authorities were obliged to cede to them holding subject to low revenue charges. In 1830-31 British troops were sent to suppress a peasant uprising in Bedsore district of Mysore State against the tax increase. In 1835-37 there was an uprising in Gumsur in Madras Presidency. In 1842 an uprising flared up in Sagar. In 1846-47 the peasants in Karnal rose up in revolt. In 1848 Rohillas in Nagpur took up arms. In 1844 in the Kolhapur and Santavadi State bordering Bombay Presidency, there was a large-scale revolt in protest against the British decisions increasing the land revenue to pay the princes’ tribute. The peasants of Khandeth in Bombay Presidency rose up in protest against the land settlement which resulted in the increase of land tax. There were also innumerable uprisings of tribal people in this period – of the Bhils in 1818-1831 and Kolis in 1824 in Bombay Presidency, unrest in Kutch in 1815 and 1832 and revolt in Kittur in 1824-1829. In 1820, there was an uprising of the Mers in Rajputana, and of the Hos tribe in Chote Nagpur in 1831-32. In 1846 the Khonds rose up in Orissa and 1855 the Santhal revolted in Bihar. The Kurichya uprising and Moppila uprisings in north Kerala do add on to this valiant heritage of peasant struggles against British Raj. These heroic struggles culminated in the First War of Independence of 1857.
3.3 After the military victory of colonial forces over the patriotic forces by the end of the First War of Independence and the subjugation of the whole nation under viceroy rule, the colonial forces transformed the defeated feudal order and reorganized it as a systemic element of the British raj. During the same period, a bourgeois class began to grow from within the womb of colonial system. Gradually, a new contradiction began due to this development and bourgeois national movement began along with the popular upheavals of anti-colonial struggles. As the bourgeois national movement began, it attracted the peasant legions to the cause of anti-colonial struggle by way of interfering in the struggles of farmers like in the Champaran where the indigo farmers took to struggle. It was almost Mahatma Gandhi's debut. Though the bourgeois national movement interfered and, led the peasant movement against the British Raj to an extent, it did not raise a meaningful struggle against feudalism. Actually, it was by the formation of Communist Party of India and its involvement in the Congress Socialist Party that the formation and advancement of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) became possible in 1936.
3.4 All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) undertook the historic duty of anti-feudal struggles along with Anti-colonial struggles. The active participation and further the active leadership by the communist party strengthened the above said dual task of AIKS. in April 1935, noted peasant leaders NG Ranga and EMS, then secretary and joint secretary respectively of South Indian Federation of Peasants and Agricultural Labour, suggested the formation of an all-India farmers body and soon all these radical developments culminated in the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress on 11 April 1936 with Sahajanand Saraswati elected as its first President, and it involved people such as Ranga, EMS, Karyanand Sharma, Yamuna Karjee, Yadunandan (Jadunandan) Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan, P. Sundarayya, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Bankim Mukerji. The main aims of the AIKS were: -
1) To save the peasants from exploitation by any section of the society. 2) Abolition of Zamindari and Jagirdari system 3) To save the peasants from economic exploitation 4)Ownership of land by the peasants 5)Reduction in the rates of land revenue 6)Waiving of debts 7)Better arrangements of irrigation 8)To give recognition to Kisan Sabhas. The Kisan Sabha started agitations against the landlords. In the 1937-38, they started a movement for the ownership of the lands by the peasants who worked on it and to bring about the end of forced labour. In 1937 itself AIKS decided that its flag to be red flag and abolition of Zamindari as its programme. Soon the organization was distanced by the Congress and when communist party became legal in 1942, it became the leading force of AIKS. Then onwards AIKS stood the ground with its demand of abolition of zamindari and finally for 'land to tiller'.
3.5 The historic role of AIKS in the turbulent struggles of the freedom movement is glorious and indelible. Along with working class movement it welled in the mass base of communist movement in India. The incessant fight put up by the peasantry under its banner played vital role in attaining national freedom driving the colonial forces away. Still, after the transfer of power, the bourgeois landlord classes, the new ruling class combine, betrayed this valiant segment of Indian freedom movement by discarding their cardinal demands like 'land to tiller'.
4
Post-independence scenario and Land reforms
4.1 After independence the bourgeois-landlord state did not implement comprehensive land reforms and related social reforms to complete the process of emancipation of the masses especially the peasantry and all the toiling sections of agrarian people. The bourgeoisie that held its class bond with the feudal land lords on the one hand and kept on its rapprochement with International Finance Capital ditched the cause of social change that would have broken the feudal shackles. So, communist movement and AIKS continued the fight for 'land to tiller' facing heavy repressions.
4.2 The relentlessness of peasant struggles bore the continuum of Social Renaissance movement in camaraderie with working class struggles. This movement surged under red flag in some states like Kerala and West Bengal. That did essentially lead to concrete forms of political advancement and consolidation of forces in these states. Land reforms, announced by the congress but left unaccomplished, were begun to be implemented in these states, especially Kerala, where communist led left forces came to office. This arrested eviction of tenants, stopped the feudal rent, and ultimately led to abolition of tenancy by giving title rights to tenants. The feudal system of land holding and production relations was severed at its roots. This had been an unprecedented experience of communist praxis within the bounds of constitutional limits set by bourgeois-land lord state. Anyhow, even such reformatory work by communist party had shaken the system top to bottom. So, the reactionary forces joined hands together to unleash an infernal attack upon the communist government in the name 'vimochana samaram'. It has to be noted that it was not the agrarian and land policy of the communist party that had been put to practice; instead, was the policy declared by the congress and its government at the centre. This was due to the constitutional obligation of a state government within the system.
5
Mixed economy and Green Revolution: Its Impact
5.1 After independence it took time even to determine whether India would follow the path of a republic and what would be its political economic track. The working class and peasantry were keen on this matter. Communist Party was critical of the Congress Government for its role in conniving with British forces in the military suppression of struggle in Malaya and joining hands with the US war under UN banner in Korea. Communist Party saw the Last British Viceroy continuing as first Governor General and the colonial stakes continuing in India to be sheer mockery of independence. The party accounted the unabated existence of feudalism, continuation of Privy Purse to Kings etc to be total betrayal of the forces that fought for freedom of the masses.
5.2 As a result of this empirical feel of developments, the Communist Party of India determined that it was sham independence and an immediate overthrow of the enemy state was essential for revolutionary social change. Such misjudgement of historical juncture of independence had been fatal and it further alienated the movement from the masses. The extremist line resorted to by the communist party after 1947 and the state repression that it was subjected to had seriously affected AIKS and the worker-peasant alliance. At this juncture the Congress Party declared socialist motto in the Avadi Session of the AICC and Nehru Government followed nonalignment policy and Five Year Plan.
5.3 The said shift of congress policy and its manifestations were utilized by the ruling class forces to lure the propertied sections of the peasantry to their side. The concept and practice of mixed economy and fixing of five year plan within its ambit suited the said approach of the ruling classes. Because of the practice of this policy a metamorphosis happened; mainly of the landlord sections. As part and parcel of this process, Green Revolution was imposed from above with a view to increase productivity. Due to these changes rich peasantry came up and largely that became the close ally of the bourgeoisie in the rural. This transformation led to hindering the process of comprehensive land reforms. This negative trend thwarted the progress of AR.
5.4 Consolidation of the ruling classes in agrarian society and continuation of ruling class reforms in the place of comprehensive land reforms have created a malignant situation of formation of an upper crust in the rural class strata and the sustained impoverishment and alienation of the poorer sections of peasantry such as marginal and poor peasantry. Further, this process led to proletarianization of the last ranks of peasantry and this necessitated programmatic changes to AR.
6
Naxalbari Struggle and after
6.1 Lack of comprehensive land reforms and the uneven development due to the ruling class policies as stated above led to the impoverishment and destitution among peasant masses down the strata. Within two decades after independence and congress rule the situation of rural India had deteriorated to this pathetic low. All the benefits of five year plans and green revolution petered out when it came down the social ladder. Food scarcity had developed into a famine in Bihar by 1966. This situation had proven the basic criticism by the Communist Party that the Nehru administration discarding land reforms and facilitating the landlords and rich peasants was fatal blow to the emancipation of the downtrodden; the poor and marginal peasants. The strengthening and upward movement of the land lords and rich peasants on the one hand, and the depletion of the poor peasantry on the other, had helped to reinforce the caste system and communal divide. So, the first two decades of the newly independent nation aggravated the agony of the oppressed. Caste killings, land grabs, communal carnages were repeatedly lashed upon dalits, adivasis and minorities. For them, none of the pillars of the republic were available to hold on to.
6.2 The communist movement and the AIKS had lost the surge so that, could not rise to the occasion to handle this grievous situation. Ideological political issues such as revisionism and leftwing sectarianism, split and programmatic inadequacies weakened the movement. S.A.Dange's revisionist line that advocated national democracy by aligning with the national bourgeoisie was devastating to the cause and programme of AR. This revisionist betrayal had also havocked the vital class alliance, the worker-peasant alliance, to attain AR. Furthermore, the revisionist line had substantially obliterated the duty of anti-feudal struggle. It had obliterated the Statement of Policy of 1951 that had been articulating its guidance for worker-peasant alliance. Even after the split and formation of CPI (M) the cause of AR was not reinvigorated. This was evident from the self criticism in the resolution (On Work Among Peasant Front) by its CC meeting at Nurmahal in October 1966. That resolution had self critically noted that relying upon rich peasantry had been a revisionist deviation that had affected that party.
Again, it was observed by M Basavapunnaiah in ‘The Statement of Policy Reviewed’’ that it was kept in cold storage from 1951 to 1967. Even in the said review he was just claiming that some aspect had been reviewed. So, it is evident that the vital tactical approach regarding AR and worker-peasant alliance had not been subject to serious perusal, detailed discussion and resolve for action in a positive and conclusive way. This had worked as vital part in triggering Naxalbari and the split in CPI (M).
6.3 Naxalbari struggle was not just an eruption of peasant wrath. It was a revolutionary outburst that was necessitated by the said objective situation. True that it was surmounted by leftwing sectarian ideas that led to utterly anti-proletarian political organizational practices. While that has to be self critically acknowledged and taken as negative teacher, it must be grasped that it was Naxalbari struggle and the series of valiant struggles like Srikakulam, Birbhum, Lakhimpur kheri, Gopiballavpur etc that followed it which had once again brought the question of AR to the forefront. It tilled the soil of Indian revolution; however unruly might be its course. Any attempt of criticism or self-criticism, from within and without, will compel to discuss Agrarian Revolution. In the present day intensity of imperialist globalization and agrarian distress this historic spectacle enables us to face it; unlike those who discarded it or repudiated to reckon it.
7
Impact of Imperialist globalization policies
7.1 Imperialist globalization policies inaugurated in 1991 had its retrogressive impacts in the agrarian sector as it insisted to cut down subsidies for fertilizers and pesticides, disallowed Low interest loans for farmers. Further, the Congress and BJP led government made drastic shift in agrarian policy. In 1980 Indira Gandhi ministry took first loan from IMF and that opened doors for IFC penetration into agrarian sector. As its continuation, in1991, during the days of the Rao regime, agrarian policy shifted. It followed the IMF proposal submitted in 1990 'A Country Study on India'. As a result, the Vajpayee ministry signed agreement with US in 1998 and in 2000 the Vajpayee ministry passed National Agriculture Policy. This whole development in accumulated effect shifted preference from food production to export oriented production and emphasis on to cash crops; and, thus, agriculture began to undergo a basic change into agribusinesses. Thus, congress and BJP governments opened up the banking sector, let loose the petrochemical monopolies like reliance, accelerated fuel price-hikes, cut down the support systems such as procurement of crops and floor pricing, opened for speculative business in grains and grams, pruned down the PDS, relegated Public Health, commercialized education, downsized government machinery, signed WTO like agreements and turned face away from the rising numbers of farmer suicides. Deccan became a plateau of death for Indian farmers, Vidharbha became widow-land, central India turned into killing fields for Adivasis at the hands of central and state special police forces, people of Odisha became grass-eating communities and this long shadow of deprivation and stifling of lives of millions was measured in its ‘edifice of growth’ in the share market. The credit crisis faced by the farmers due to the above said policies has to be seen in contrast with the writing off of the debts of big business. Speculation in crop and resulted fluctuations in the market leads to baffling crop changes that completely discords the rhythm of poor / sharecropper peasant. Failure to realize the crops in the gambling of unpredictable market totally let loose by a spectator-like-government leaves the farmer at the mercy of the money lender / financier bank. Debt traps and drain of inputs duo pushes the farmer out of his livelihood; even dear life.
7.2 This merciless process has virtually dried up the possibility of subsistence farming and petit-farming in strategic sense. Naturally, the eye of the vulture, the IFC, is now upon the land that these poor farmers used to till. IFC and monopolies are to take over that land for which government is making conducive land acquisition law.
7.3 Capitalist development that happened in the field of agriculture has systematically created a new class of agribusiness. The economical and social distortions it has created consist of downsizing of work force and increase in disguised rural unemployment, servitude to market in the form of contract farming and leased farming, large scale interstate migration of cheap labour, increase in child labour and inhuman exploitation of women workers etc. Again, capitalist farming, being tied up with international market, affects crop selection and in effect discards food production to be the basic plank of agricultural production. This jeopardizes food security. In nutshell, capitalist farming that often comes with the hood of farming companies is a socio-economic weed that has to be cleared by AR.
7.4 The said maladies together constitute the phenomenon of Finance Capital Penetration and the extermination of peasantry as the largest producer in the nation. Because of the said freehand to the capitalist forces and the steady and determined withdrawal of the state, the problems regarding irrigation, procurement of crops and drought/flood relief etc are poorly attended. This destroys the possibility of structural construction that is much needed by the peasantry for its democratic development.
8
Transformation of forms of farming
8.1 Transformation on to new forms of farming with newer and more scientific means must be done by pro-people planning that is free from monopoly capital interests. For this, role of research and scientific development related to agriculture and its hand in hand action with production has to be defined according to the needs of the people in general and peasantry in particular. It is only possible by active government intervention with wide consultation at national scale.
8.2 Land preservation and land utilization with characteristics of socialization are the key factors that shall draw line of demarcation in the fight between the penetration of capitalist forces and the rights of the peasantry. It further shall galvanize the peasantry with the proletariat in order to materialise a positive transformation from that of a disunited social entity with private property mentality to that of an essentially united social entity that depends upon social mutuality for existence by way of step by step proletarianization. For this, land preservation for grain production and other edibles must be connected with the socialized utilization of land. This conscience and its practice would be possible only if it is convincingly proven to the vast majority of the peasantry that, the socialized utilization is a surer path for better realization of its labour and produces. Again, the socialized utilization must enhance the bargaining power in the market and must reduce credit pressure upon individuals of the producing class. This transformation has various components in which rural industrialization dovetails with the agrarian production in both the roles of input provider and that of quality enhancer of the outputs of agricultural produces.
8.3 The above said transformation could be effectively groomed to maturity only by envisaging and practicing a healthy and corroborative relationship between industry and agriculture. For this, we have a negative teacher before us; that is, Nandigram and Singur. Actually Marxist Leninist policy of grain and steel together was discarded and predatory capitalist theory of ‘bring-in-industry-and-oust-farming’ was adopted in Wet Bengal. The history of USSR and the first Five Year Plan was discarded. Sovkhoz and Kolkhoz that had surpassed global hard times of 1929-36 (Great Depression) were seen as a thing of the past. This was because of lack of conviction in socialism. We have to recall the sceptical predictions from Bengal that had pushed the possibilities for socialist victories for another 100 years!
8.4 Any industrialization in India has to enhance productivity in total; that is, in industry and agriculture. Such industrialization drive must enhance immediate growth in employment generation in both the sectors with quality and dignity of labour on steady rise. This is very vital because of two important reasons: a) India has the greatest of agrarian labour-force b) India has 51% of arable land (possibly the greatest chunk in the whole Asian continent). So, realization of the said labour force in agricultural production in a democratic way, scientifically utilizing the arable land, is prefatory to and necessary part of the scientific programme of industrialization. It is only possible with well tuned planning of rural industrialization that serves agriculture and vice versa.
9
Forming co-operatives and development of rural agro-industries
9.1 Development of co-operative structure in the whole echelon of agricultural production to facilitate input supply, creating active units in production is of utmost importance. Such active units in industrial venture for quality enhancement of crops, in agro-based industrial production and in farmer marketing system are necesary. This is the concrete step of social creation of alternatives in order to put up defence against the individual devouring of the peasants by market forces; especially the peasants who do sustenance farming and petit-farming and fall prey to the market. This is the concrete step that can help us salvage the peasantry that is being ousted from production by penetration of IFC and Monopoly capital. Only by this concrete step we can facilitate development of production forces and correlative enhancement of production relations. Co-operative societies with banking and service operations have the edge of social trust and social accountability. It becomes easy for such cooperatives to step on to various phases of initiating collective production activities among farmers and agricultural labourers. Further, new co-operatives could be formed by agricultural labourers themselves and could be incorporated in production. Adivasi peasants and agricultural workers can have special co-operatives of forest collections and forest crops.
9.2 We must grasp the importance of co-operative production in the fight against the IFC and the monopolies. The very credit system that the capitalist forces use could be used in active resistance against the IFC-monopoly capital forces by the labouring/toiling classes, by way of co-operative production. Great Marx had pointed this in Capital itself (Das Capital vol3 chapter27). This had been reiterated and prompted to put to practice by comrade Lenin in the period of NEP itself. It was in the leadership of comrade Stalin that it was implemented in grand scale in late twenties and all through the thirties. So, co-operative production is a proven form of production that helps the socialist transformation amplifying socialist production.
9.3 Some may cite that in USSR it was clearly having the qualitative edge of political power in ushering in co-operative production. They often point out that this is not a workable tactic on universal scale. Such commentators fall short of holding on to the Marxist grasp that it was the systemic transformation that finance capital had ushered in which Marx had seen as the determining factor that made workers co-operative mills possible in England. So, even if it is true that it will be ideal for the producer co-operatives to flourish without monopoly threat in the course of systemic transformation under proletarian dictatorship, it is evident that it has become possible to begin co-operative production by the proletariat also before the accomplishment of political power. However, such initiation of co-operative production shall be part and parcel of class struggle in the face of IFC penetration. According to Marx, co-operative production became possible because of establishment of credit system by Finance Capital in order to attain universal evenness of profit and quicker transaction to expedite realization. In volume 3 of Das Capital, Marx had said that co-operative production was the natural outcome of industrialization and credit system that have become established systemic reality. He had stated that co-operative production was the natural outcome of this phenomena and that it bore the sprouts for future system.
9.4 Affirming the importance of the forms of collective and socialized modes of production to be attainable goal, we must keep in mind that comrade Lenin had reminded of the chief hindrance in the path to accomplish the same is the cultural lag. In the present day India this is very important that any socialized action could be attained only by breaching the patriarchal, caste and communal barriers. Besides, the petit-proprietary ownership mentality has to be dealt with in the most non-antagonistic way. The contradiction between the peasantry and the IFC-monopoly capital driven expropriation policy has to be handled with utmost unity of peasant masses and in unity with the leading proletarian action. Immediate concrete slogans for survival have to be raised in this struggle. Simultaneously, the co-operative activity has to be incorporated in suited forms in services that shall lead to a blended operation into various kinds of co-operative action in production. This is a question of practice of friendly tactic that will help to overcome the said lags step by step. This action is part and parcel of the building up of conscious worker-peasant unity in every day struggle against the class enemies. It is the conscious path of building up of Left Alternative.
10
Representative rights in legislation and in the forms of local self government
10.1 Representative rights in legislation and in the forms of local self government by the peasantry could be bettered. This could be done by way of exclusive legislative sub committees that can incorporate with co-operative movement at various levels in action. Listing the organizing of agricultural production in prime place in the development plans of local self governmental bodies and legislative subcommittees will be another means. More means to achieve this goal should be evolved in order to materialize the said goal. The fact that the representation in the legislative bodies, including Lok Sabha, by billionaires is on the rise has to be seen in contrast with this goal.
10.2 Synchronization with necessary transformation in educational system also is an important factor. Agricultural science is not at all included in schooling up to the needed level. We don’t have sufficient institutional means to train and develop modern work force in agriculture. Technical knowhow also has to be steadily enhanced.
10.3 Blending of apt social security system with the production and distribution system in agrarian production sector is the need of the hour. It alone can meet the necessary betterment of living conditions of the producing classes. Without ensuring standardized living scale for the producing classes in agrarian sector we cannot expect betterment of life at national scale.
11
Focusing on the development of women-farming-communities
The women community is the most adaptable with agrarian production and modernization of agriculture by way of socialization. Agriculture in socialized form is the most suitable form to enhance emancipation of women. Better labour, better knowhow and better form of socialized production will better their attempt for social emancipation. This drive can go hand in hand with the already strengthening of proletarianization (MNREGA, ASHA) among women and the co-operative activity in production will make them the most active force of socialization altogether. This will comprehensively strengthen the force of Democratic Revolution.