TROTSKYISTS ORGANIZE GUS RAT’ UNIT
By Kailas Chandra
‘Bombay
A conference of delegates from different parts of Gujarat, held in Ahmedabad June 4-5, decided to constitute a Gujarat State Unit of the Socialist Workers party of India. The SWPI, the Indian section of the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky, was formed at a conference of Indian Trotskyists held in Bombay in August 1965. The SWPI publishes Marxist Outlook, an English-language monthly, and has. built up units in various states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra and Kerala.
The Gujarat conference ‘electéd a State Organizing Committee of five members with Magan Desai of Baroda as its secretary. Other. . members are Chandrakant Bhatt (Ahmedabad), Sharad Jhaveri (Jamnagar), Ranchhodbhai Dalal (Kalol) and Himmat Khatsuria (Bhavnagar). Headquarters will be in Baroda. 7
In a statement to the press June 6, the Organizing Committee at Ahmedabad said that the SWPI, as a Marxist-Leninist party, is "pledged to achieve the goal of a socialist revolution and the: establishment of a Workers and Peasants: government in India. "
It said that the SWPT disagreed with the "Stalinist politics". of the Right and the Left Communist parties, both of which "are still subservient to the diplomatic needs of either the Boviet, or the Chinese. bureaucracies. wos
A resolution adopted “by the conference ‘said that. the SWPI. in | Gujarat will support the Maha Gujarat Janata Parishad as a "united front of different left and progressive forces in the common strug-_ gle against the capitalist- landlord: government headed by the Congress.
The bourgeois press in Bujarat, considered to be a stronghold of Gandhism, has taken a serious view on the emergence of a "Trotskyist party" in the state.
A group of Communist workers associated with Magan Desai and. Ranchhodbhai Dalal recently resigned from the Left CPI as a protest. against the "Stalinist" methods of its leadership. They joined the © SWPI. a
Magan Desai sent a Lengthy letter of resignation to the CPI . leadership. The 35-year-old former member of the State Council of the Gujarat CPI outlined the Marxist-Leninist alternative presented by the Fourth International to the opportunist policies of the Stalinist parties all over the world. ©
Ranchhodbhai- Dalal, a veteran. trade-union leader with considerable following among the tribal. people of central Gujarat, was detained under the Defence of India Rules and only recently released
along, with other Left CPI leaders.
The adherence of these well- known figures to the SWPI has aroused a great deal of interest in the Trotskyist movement among the ranks of both, the: Right - and Left CPI's in western India.
In conjunetion’ with the ‘Gujarat conference, a two-day seminar was organized: by the SWPI to discuss current political problems. Nearly fifty activists belonging to various parties and tendencies participated.
~ “O°G.Shah, a veteran Marxist author and intellectual, spoke. on "A Socialist- "Revolution. and Its Prerequisites." Dr.A.R. Desai, a Marxist academician on the staff of Bombay University, dealt with. "The Political Situation in India." Sharah Jhaveri, a writer and. | leading member of thé SWPI, took. up the "Agrarian Problem in India," S.B.Kolpe, a prominent’ journalist: and leading member of the SWPI, spoke on "Tactics of the United Front." ©.K.Bhatt, a writer and prominent figure in the CPI in (Gujarat | before it split, talked on "Marxism and History." oo
Other prominent participants in the seminar included Dr.A.A. Carvalho, an outstanding physician and a prominent figure in the Maha Gujarat Janata Parishad ({MGJP] and Rasikh Bhatt, a leader of the Revolutionary Communist party of India. .
It was the first time in many years that a left political Seminar of this kind was organized in the capital of Gujarat.
- The municipal. corporation” of Ahmedabad is presently controlled by the MGJP; and Dinkar Mehta, a leader of the Left CPI has been elected mayor of the city for. the current year.
JAPANESE TROTSEYISTS FROTEST ee SF LEO BERNARD
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