INDIAN PRESS NOTES FORMATION OF TROTSKYIST PARTY
Bombay
Considerable interest has been shown in leftist circles and sectors of the press in India over the formation of an independent Trotskyist organization, the Socialist Workers party, at a three-day conference (August 6-8) in Bombay.
The press attached special meaning to the fact that the SWP is a "Trotskyist" party, seeking to establish "fraternal relations with the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky."
The Indian Express, a mass circulation English daily printed simultaneously in Bombay and four other cities, including New Delhi, devoted an editorial to it August 16 under the title, "Trotskyist Party." This conservative paper, of course, did not look favorably at the new organization: . Co :
"To the list of political groups peddling nostrums for India's -~- and the world's -- ills is now to be added the Socialist Workers Party formed as the result of deliberations recently held in Bombay of Trotskyists from different States. The objective of the new party is described as being a speedy socialist transformation of the Indian society, to be achieved by bringing | about a regrouping of the Marxist- Leninist forces."
The newspaper added: “The party has adopted a constitution and will meet in a regular conference shortly. Its headquarters will be in Bombay and it will maintain 'fraternal relations! with the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky. One of the few Trotskyist groups now extant is to be found in the Lanka Sama Samaj Party of Ceylon which collaborated with the Bandaranaike Government in its last days.
The dig at the LSSP is obvious; but the Indian Express is ignorant of the strength of the world Trotskyist movement.
The Patriot of Delhi, a "left" Congress daily edited by a former Communist party of India leader, E. Narayanan (who supports the Dangeite right-wing CPI), also gave prominent display to the outcome of the "Trotskyist" conference.
The two principal Indian news agencies, the Press Trust of India and the United News of India, carried the report on their national teleprinter services.
Significantly enough, the Trotskyists are launching their independent activity -- after their break with the Revolutionary Communist Party of India in 1963 -- at a time when big mass movements are erupting on questions like food and civil liberties throughout India and when the Congress government is resorting to a policy of ruthless suppression of these movements.
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The government is indiscriminately arresting leftist workers in every state. Recently in West Bengal, two Trotskyist leaders, Kanai Pal, a member of the West Bengal Assembly, and Naren Biswas were arrested and detained under the witch=hunting Defence of India Rules.
The emergence of the new party revived discussion in the Indian press about the "Stalin-Trotsky" controversy in the international Communist movement, especially in relation to the present Sino-Soviet dispute and the split in the Indian Communist party.
Considerable interest has been shown by the rank and file of the two rival Communist parties in the political positions of the Trotskyist movement. The leadership of the right-wing CPI is openly critical of the formation of the Socialist Workers party dubbing it an “attempt to disrupt the left.'' The reaction of the left=wing CPI leaders has been more cautious. :
A welleattended public meeting was held in Bombay on August 21 to observe the twenty-fifth anniversary of the. death of Trotsky, who was killed by a Stalinist assassin in Mexico. The meeting was spon sored by a committee headed by Dr.A.R.Desai, a prominent Marxist sociologist who teaches at the Bombay University.
Among the speakers were C.G.Shah, a 70-year-old Marxist thinker and one of the early Communist leaders in India; 5.B.Kolpe, a journalist and spokesman of the newly formed SWP; N.K.Karunakaran, secretary of the Maharashtra unit of the Revolutionary Socialist party of India; and Mrs. Pushpa Mehta, president of Maharashtra branch of the United Trades Union Congress.
A resolution was unanimously adopted urging the Soviet Union and the other workers states to lift the ban on the writings of Leon Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders such as Zinoviev and Bukharin,