Saturday, February 1, 1930 THE MILITANT Page The Indian Revolution at the Cross roads backs of the Chinese workers and pea Stalinists Disrupt Minneapolis course pursued by the revolutionary elements particularly by the Communist international, in the past few years, has not facilitated the success of the struggle It has made it harder and introduced the The resolution adopted by the Indian By Max Shachtman terests of the bourgeoisie dictate at the most ridiculous and calamitous confusion National Congress last month on the initiamoment. But so far as the interests of the into the situation.
tive of Mahatma Ghandi, which gives for. is a cardinal principle, not merely of the workers and peasants themselves are conAt the Cross Roads mal approval to complete Indian inde present Government, but of any Govern cerned, whether they are viewed from the But these difficulties are decreased at pendence from the British empire as the ment which will command the confidence angle of the struggle against British imthe present moment by the revolutionary goal of the Congress, is of tremendous of the people in this country. can see perialism, or the native capitalists, userers situation that is developing at such a rapid importance, not so much for itself but for no period when India can dispense with the and landlords, the native bourgeoisie will pace.
guidance and the assistance of this small Under the concentrating pressure of the temper of the Indian masses which it lead them only to defeat and slaughter. such a situation, mistakes and shortcommirrors. And what characterizes the pres nucleus of the British Civil Service. They That the nationalist leaders, from ings of the past can be swiftly rectified or ent spirit of the latter is much less the are the steel frame of the whole structure.
Ghandi to Nehru, have apparently moved lead swiftly to catastrophe.
With no essential changes, this policy to the Left in the recent period, under rectification lukewarm it sonorous phrases of the ele?
is now an essential requirement that dare ments which dominated the Congress than has been pursued in India by every Brit the pressure of the masses, is just an in not be postponed, precisely because the the militant action of the workers in Bom. ish government, be it Tory, Liberal, Coal dication of the fact that they will make Indian revolution now stands at the crossbay on Independence Day (1 26 30) particu ition or Labor. In two words, therefore, every attempt to head the mass movement roads: it can travel either the path of the larly the mill workers who atteinpted to to find the forces and interests making for in order to behead it the moment it pre 1927 debacle in China or the 1917 victory hoist the Red Flag not only in place of a movement to liberate India, one muist sents a serious danger to British imperial in Russia.
the Union Jack but also of the red green look anywhere but in the ranks of British rule and their hoped for class domination As for the workers and peasants, the white flag of Indian nationalism, imperialism. The latter will never volun in the future.
To grasp the enormous significance of tarily yield its domination.
shortcomings of the past, the mistakes of The driving To put a pennyworth of confidence in the present, the character of the coming a genuine revolutionary movement in In forces of the Indian revolution are con the capacity of the nationalist bourgeoisie revolution, the question of the Communist dia, a land embracing some three hundred sequently centered in India itself, even and its leaders to conduct a genuine Party all the problems of decisive consemillion people a fifth of the world pop more so now than a few years ago because struggle agains imperialism is to prepare quence a consideration of these points ulation its place in the mosaic of British of the weakening of the revolutionary pro and permit the strangulation of the Ind require and must be left to another article.
imperialism must first be established, letarian movement in England the only ian revolution in the same manner as the other reservoir of Indian freedom. keystone in the British Empire national bourgeoisie rode to power over the What elements in India constitute Out of every ten people in the British these driving forces? In the first place. sants. The conclusion flows not only from Empire, black, brown, yellow and white, they are not the big Indian bourgeoisie or the bitter experiences of the Chinese revo Conference more than seven are in India alone. From the native princes. The latter exist largely lution, but from the recent past of the Indthe very first days of the conquest of India on the sufferance of Britain and are more ian movement itself.
MINNEAPOLIS Although the by Britain and the ousting of the Portuor less satisfied with their present status.
Ghandi Record unfurled its banner at Cleveland several gese and otber mercantile pirates, the Imperialism exerts no particularly harasmonths ago with a call to the wide masses country has been a source of almost inexWill Ghandi, for example, who introsing pressure upon them. The former is of workers for struggle on all fronts, the haustible loot for the Englishman. The duced the apparently revolutionary resan avowedly counter revolutionary force.
first district conference held in the northBritish bourgeoisie still remembers with olution at the Congress, lead or particiMuch as it would like a larger share in the west opened its one session today with exsatisfaction and longing the days of the pate in a real struggle against British unequal partnership it has established with pulsions of three well known militant wornotorious East India Company, whose proimperialism? His whole record proves the its British master, it likes Infinitely more kers.
fits frequently mounted to 350 percent a folly of such a belief. From the days when the suppression of every mass movement Hedlund presented credentials year. The period of ruthless primitive ache organized an ambulance corps for ser that threatens its social and economic posfroin the Railroad Council of Minneapolis, cumulation for British industrial capitalition in the slightest.
vice on the side of British imperialism in There is no movethe only militant group of railroad workers the Boer War, and his war record as a ism was greatly accelerated by the plunment away from Britain that has not been in this city. His credential was not only dering of India and the impoverishment of chauvinist servants of Britain, down to opposed by the native big bourgeoisie and turned down by the credential committee, its millions. As a source of markets and the Liberal Federation.
more recent times when he has defended They can be but he was denounced in the conference raw materials for Britain India has ocpropertied interests in counted upon to act hand in hand with the every workers as a Trotskyist. Further than this the cupied an almost unrivalled position in the British bourgeoisie in struggle or strike, Ghandi has played a crushing any railroad workers problems were not conscheme of the Empire.
struggle of the masses for the improvement reactionary role (not to speak of his semisidered.
In more recent times, it has offered an feudal economic theories or his spirituof their economic conditions, not to speak The same treatment was accorded Arimmense field for capital estments. The of their liberation from the imperialist alistic and mystical confusionism. nold Ronn of Superior who presented creBritish investment in India today is estimyoke.
Or do the actions of Ghandi and all the dentials from the Central Co operative Exated at more than one billion pounds ster.
rest of the national bourgeoisie in the change of that city.
The Nationalist Bourgeoisie ling, or a larger sum than that of all the period after the war inspire any confidence Representing the women section of other British dominions combined. In four The second factor in the Indian struggle that their real role is anything but the rethe co operatives, Helen Ronkenan, who post war years alone, from 1919 to 1923, is the petty bourgeoisie in its various sec straining and betrayal of the movement and came down from the Twin Ports as a fratBritish capital exported to India increased tions: landlords, merchants, professionals, interests of the masses? It is sufficient ernal delegate, was also refused a scat.
1800 percent, from 1, 400, 000 pounds to 25, small manufacturers, civil cervice employ to recall the period between 1919 and 1922, The complexion of the conference was 300, 000 pounds, and constituted a change ees, students, intellectuals, etc. etc. Havwhen the liberation struggle reached a high anything but reassuring to one at all famin the capital exported by Britain to all ing no really broad basis, and no over point, with millions participating. The iliar with the workers movement in this parts of the world from six tenths of one secure economic position, they must rely Empire was really in danger, Demonstrasection of the fifty men and women prepercent to fourteen and four tenthe percent for their troops upon the millions of wor tions, strikes and various other struggles sent, less than a half dozen represented of the total, or an ic. rease in the Indian kers and peasants. They are for the devel swept the whole country. The visit of the any one except themselves. The Stalinist proportion of British capital exports of opment of a native industry, by bounties Prince of Wales was the occasion for functionaries were there in force. The dis2400 percent. India is not only a source it possible (Swaraj Party. for protection, magnificent demonstrations of mass antagtrict had been carefully worked. The result for capital exports. One tenth of general for the decreasing of the heavy burdens of onism and resistance to British imperialwas a party membership meeting not a British exports go to India more than any taxation, for the abolition of the Irksome ism. The temper of the masses was apTrade Union convention. long list of other single country in the world and re color discrimination that exists in gevern proaching a high pitch. At Chauri Chaura speeches by party bureaucrats, a still lonpresents 70 percent of India total imports. mental institutions, for a more decisive and Bareilly, conflicts took place between ger list of resolutions presented by the India has even more than an economicvoice in the management of India affairs the workers and poor peasants and the same people, together with the maneuvers financial importance in the British Empire; and destiny.
authorities, both before and after the expulsions, give it is of incalculable strategical value. It But the national petty bourgeoisie The role of Ghandi and the Congress a fairly good picture of the meeting. If is not for nothing that priceless India has constantly vacillates between its troops was to stab the movement in the back, anything really constructive was accombeen the central objective of British Medthe workers and peasants and the class nothing less. The struggle was officially iteranean and Oriental policy for virtually plished it was not apparent to the writer.
interests to which it is inherently inclined, called off at the notorious Bardoli meeting The great harm that would proceed from centuries. It is not for nothing that every to the big bourgeoisie and to compromise which adopted a resolution deploring the the narrow sectarian line given at the conEuropean maritime power has sought enwith British Imperialsim. It has always inhuman conduct of the mob at Chauri ference, in other circumstances, is miniviously at one time or another for a route been ready in the past to accept some form Chaura in having brutally murdered con mized by the fact that the official party apto India. The fabulous riches that spurred of dominion status, which will allow it stables and wantonly burned police paratus and its hangers on have little Columbus to cross the Atlantic exist today greater freedom of action and a larger (stations) and demanding of the peasants contact with the workers movement here in an even more substantial and developed measure of influence in India, without al that they recontinue the payment of taxes and still less authority, form. The Gibraltar guards not only lowing the movement of the masses to get to the govern and rent to the landlords! but India. Malta and Cyprus are stations out of hand. It lives in respect for the The contemptible middle class hoof of the 81, 000, 000 CORPORATION REFUSES TO on the road to India and so is the Suez might of the British master and fear of a hallowed Ghandis was revealed as it alPAY 37 CENTS AN HOUR canal. look at the map will further developing movement of the workers and ways is and always will be as soon as CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Rather than show that Indla forms the apex of a rough peasants. On more than one occasion it the storm of a mass movemen of workers pay the extra cents an hour provided by triange, the basis of which is formed by has already demonstrated that when the and peasants swept the country and threatthe state minimum wage law, the wealthy a line drawn between South Africa and miserably impoverished masses really en ened the existence of British imperialism Harvard University corporation has fired Australia; that India is a guardian towerter the path of struggle against imperialism and the rights of the landlords. The Bar 20 scrubwomen without notice. The Haring over Afghanistan and Arabia, in which the role of the petty bourgeoisie is to sap doli resolution expressed in a classic manvard Scrub Women Protective Aid Soc.
England is heavily interested; that India the vitality of the movement, to misdirect ner the real role of the national bourge lety, believed to have been started by stuneighbors upon that second great Oriental its energies, to curb and limit it, and it oisie in the colonial struggle against imper. dents, is soliciting pennies to make up the field for imperlalist buccaneering, China; necessary to betray it into the hands of lalism: to stand by its foreign master, by Harvard budget so the women may not be that India forms an unrivalled basis for British imperialism.
the native landlord and business man jobless. They were getting 35 cents an Asiatic and Pacific power for the country The Indian national bourgeoisie canagainst the masses of workers and pea. hour, or 10. 50 a week.
that dominates it.
not and will not lead a revolutionary strug. sants.
Some of the discharged scrub women Loss of India a Fatal Blow gle against imperialism. It cannot and will It is not the national bourgeoisie that were reemployed as chambermaids for the not solve any of the fundamental problems will lead the Indian revolution.
It will The loss of India would be a fatal dormitories at 32 cents an hour. Chamberthat now strangle the development of In only mislead it. Its role will be no more blow to the British Empire, compared to maids do not come under the minimum It cannot and will not free the work glorious than the role of the Russian Ker wage provisions. Harvard investments, which the loss of even Ireland or being dia ers and peasants from the British and In engkys and the Chinese Chiang Kai Sheks. listed at 81, 000, 000, have been swelled andriven entirely out of China would take dian chains that fetter them. If anything, The Indian revolution will not succeed as other 5, 000, 000 by a recent donation.
second place. That is why England prizes India as highly as a pauper would value the its role will be even more rather than less a democratic revolution carried on by single political party a socalled revolutionary democratic alliKoh noor. Not a ignominous and treacherous than the deN, TELEPHONE GRABS ceptive, muderous role played by the Chin ance. It will be succesful only if it is 14, 000, 00 MORE or group in England, with the exception of ese national bourgeoisie the revolution led by the Indian proletarint, already quite the Communists has the slightest intenNEW YORK To prevent confiscation of 1925 27 and thereafter. It will lead the numerous and enriched by many militant tion of ever granting India genuine freeof its property. the New York Telephone masses of workers and peasants only to battles, supported by the mass of horribly Co. Bell subsidiary, has announced a flat lom. The policy of England towards its the extent that the latter can be used as a pauperized tillers of the soil. It is quite increase of 25 a month in business rates 109session has been stated with harsh true that there are gigantic difficulties in club with which to extort from England and 50 cents for residence phones. The inankness in the noted steel frame speech certain concessions for the national bour the way greater in many respects than Lloyd George in Commons (8 1922. crease, to net 14, 000, 000 for the already That Britain under no rcumstances those that confronted the Chinese workers profitable company, was obtained through geoisie, as obedient troops who can be ordered to advance or retreat as the class inkinantot nenonsibility in India and peasants, It is also true that the the courtesy of the federal courts.