resistance movement against the bourgeois state and brutal police repression was cleverly diverted into "civil disobedience" and "token defiance of law," etc., by the leaders of the left parties, who deliberately sabotaged the possibilities of the masses of workers and poor peasants entering the vortex of the struggle with their own class de-
IN PARIS a crowd of several hundred youth under the leadership of the Jeunesse Con-— muniste Révolutionnaire [Revolutionary Communist Youth] demonstrate in front of the Polish embassy March 28. They expressed solidarity with students in Po-
mands. The whole strategy of the traditional left in West Bengal was that of containing the mass discontent within the bourgeois constitutional framework and to utilise the threat of mass action to force a presidential rule as a temporary constitutional solution and not of challenging the bourgeois social order as such. The bourgeois centre, shrewd enough to realise the game of the "left," acted in time before the mass upsurge assumed more serious proportions and got out of control.
It appears as if the Congress leadership has taken a calculated risk. It was clear that Dr. P.C.Ghosh did not command a majority in the Legislative Assenbly in spite of the decision of the Congress party to join the coalition with the Progressive Democratic Front, especially after the revolt inside the Congress led by Ashutosh Ghosh.
land who have been imprisoned for voicing
sympathy with the democratic reforms won
in Czechoslovakia. The Paris students de-
manded the immediate release of the Po-
lish rebels. They closed their demonstra-
tion by singing the "Internationale."
Strangely enough Ajoy Mukherjee
and Jyoti Basu as leaders of the UF de-
spite their claim to be saviours of (bour-
geois) "democracy" were prepared to sup-
port the Ashutosh Ghosh clique to form a
government although this very clique was
initially responsible for toppling the UF
ministry earlier. What more blatant op-
portunism could there be for the self-
styled Marxist and leftist leaders than
this unprincipled horse-trading? Perhaps
the faith of the leaders of the CPI(M)
(Communist party of India (Marxist) --
the pro-Peking CP], CPI [Communist party
of India -- pro-Moscow CP], RSP [Revolu-
tionary Socialist party], SUC [Socialist
Unity Centre], etc., in bourgeois parlia-
mentarism has become so strong that they
are prepared to make any "sacrifices"
(even of their loudly proclaimed princi-
ples) to see that they regain their "min-
isterial gaddis" [throne cushions]. The
anxiety now is to see how soon the centre is going to order a midterm election in the state.
There is no indication when the centre will hold the midterm poll. The president's rule can last for six months "legally" and can be extended further under "special circumstances" although the prevailing mass combativity is a deterrent against any such dilatory tactics.
Even if the election takes place, the bourgeois leaders at the centre have no reasons to be unduly perturbed since the "Marxist" leaders of the UF are conmmitted to playing the parliamentary game, strictly within the capitalist constitutional framework.
The poll might result in an increased strength for the left constituents of the UF in the new Legislative Assembly. The UF as a multiclass opportunist coalition, however, still continues. The real character of the UF during the nine months it remained in office has indeed undergone a change with the Bangla Congress (now the BKD) having gone through a split and the parties like the PSP [Praja Socialist party] and SSP [Samyukta Socialist party], discredited in the eyes of the masses. But the CPI(M) as the dominant partner of the UF, a prisoner of its own parliamentary cretinisn, cannot forsake its bourgeois and middleclass allies. Another opportunist group of defectors from the BKD led by Jehangir Kabir is being admitted as a constituent of the UF.
There will be new horse-—trading for redistribution of seats among the constituents of the UF. The Ashutosh Ghosh clique also might worm its way into the UF. So West Bengal is entering into another spell of "United Frontism" -~ fundamentally the same as it was during the first nine months.
The only positive factor in the situation is the still sustained combativity of the masses of workers, urban petty pourgeoisie and land-hungry peasants and their growing realisation of the limitations of their basic problems being solved within the capitalist framework.
In several districts forest land or land owned by absentee landlords have been occupied and are being cultivated by landless peasants. The spectacular revolt of the Naxalbari peasants under the UF ministry was only an open manifestation of the new mood of the rural poor in West Bengal. Faced with prospects of largescale unemployment, following the closures of the engineering, textile and other establishments, the working class
is left with no other alternative but to
come in direct clashes with the state ap-
paratus protecting the capitalist employ-
ers. Discontent is mounting among the
petty-bourgeois masses and the students
in the urban areas.
The growing restlessness of the
masses is also reflected in the dissen-
sions within the CPI(M) and the revolt
against the party's present opportunist
leadership staged by the so-called Naxal-
bari group influenced by Maoism. The lead-
ership of the Chinese CP has begun to
openly attack the leaders of the CPI(M)
as "neorevisionists." The CPI(M) leader-
ship on its part has adopted a political
line which is critical of the Chinese CP.
Whatever be the outcome of the mid-
term poll, it cannot be gainsaid that West
Bengal is passing through an advanced pre-
revolutionary situation. The mass discon-
tent cannot be contained within the cap-
italist framework very long. The newly
formed unit of the SWP has a special re-
sponsibility in the present context de-
spite its organisational weakness in that
it has to generalise the experience of
the mass movement and give it a new rev-
olutionary orientation.
The main task before the revolu-
tionary Marxists in West Bengal is to
develop and coordinate the emerging strug-
gles of the working class, students, and
the rural poor on the basis of a clear
anticapitalist, antilandlord programme.
The student struggles should centre round
demands like democratisation of university
administrations, reduction in tuition
fees, etc. Struggles of the working class
must be built around demands like nation-
alisation without compensation of all
partially or fully closed industrial es-
tablishments under workers management,
unemployment wages for jobless workers,
creation of elected factory committees,
etc.
The movement of the rural poor
should be developed to a higher stage
around demands like land to the actual
tiller, abolition of all debts, legal-
isation of all land occupation by poor
peasants, minimum.wages for agricultural
workers, etc.
The opportunist policies of "multi-
class coalitions" pursued by the tradi-
tional left parties must be thoroughly
exposed. What is needed in the place of
the present UF serving the needs of the
capitalist class, creating illusions
among the masses, is a united front of
workers and peasants parties which will
strictly subordinate their activities on
the electoral front to the extra-
legislative class struggle outside.