Marxist spotlight from India

by Robin MacGregor

Revolutionary Democracy new series Vol. II; No. 2 (October 2025) £7.50 including p&p from NCP Lit, PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ

 

 The October 2025 issue of Revolutionary Democracy has safely arrived in London for New Worker readers to acquire their own copy. It contains the usual mixture of material on past and present South Asian politics, archival material and statements from Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations’ members on various issues such Bolivia and the Middle East. 

 In the first category there is an interesting short piece on overthrow of the Maoist Nepali government which is blamed on “the old elites of Nepal, the military bureaucracy complex, hiding under the banner of the youth protest”. A regular RD contributor, C N Subramaniam writes on the BJP Government’s drastic watering down of India’s labour laws. A shorter piece describes the same government’s disenfranchising masses in the state of Bihar by demanding that potential voters present a plethora of documents to get on the electoral role. These new regulations were introduced because the BJP failed to secure a majority in the Hindi speaking state. This would never happen in Britain where Sir Keir Starmer simply cancels those elections he knows he will lose. 

 Much of this issue is devoted to the life and times of Badruddin Umar (1931-2025), an Oxford educated veteran of the Bangladesh communist movement. His politically engaged family emigrated from India to what was then East Pakistan in 1951 to escape the post-Independence communal violence. His career as a lecturer in several universities was abandoned in favour of political activism. Among other things he edited the East Pakistan Communist Party (ML)’s weekly and was president of the Bangladesh Peasant Federation. He long opposed the country’s ruling Awami League and the welcoming of multinational corporations who developed the country’s highly exploitative garment industry. He was also no friend of the present regime, a fact made evident in his own article on the Post-July uprising in Bangladesh.

 Of specialist issue are two articles devoted to the 1975 resignation of the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the political lessons which are to be learnt from that episode. Another is an interesting review of a book entitled Stalin and Indonesia. Soviet Policy Towards Indonesia, originally published in Russian 22 years ago, that provides a useful summary of a neglected but important topic.

This long-standing Indian Marxist journal supports a particularly dogmatic trend in the world communist movement and so it’s not surprising to see that nature of the Chinese state is the focus of an article entitled Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics by the New York based Towards Marxist Leninist Unity group. Less controversial is a shorter piece equally appropriately entitled Trump is a continuation of the politics of imperialism, albeit in decline as well as a topical article on Developments in the Middle East by Hamma Hammami from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

 Another instalment of extracts from a 1937 Soviet book by A V Shchegolov on the Soviet philosopher Alexander Bogdanov (1973-1928) is provided while the main archival material in this issue concerns talks held between Joseph Stalin and Kim Il Sung held in both 1949 and 1952. 

 These are prefaced by an introductory article by RD Editor Vijay Singh in which he claims the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) never became a proper dictatorship of the proletariat because is allowed rich peasants to be involved in co-operative farms. This is a controversial point which the UK Korean Friendship Association took issue with in a substantial critique in a December 2025 blog posting. 

 The March 1949 talks were largely concerned with previous and future Soviet aid to the DPRK was discussed. The the military strength of the DPRK, which was to be a vital matter the next year was also discussed. In September 1952 the talks, which also included the Chinese, were more urgent due to the war against the Americans being in progress. Here the military situation is discussed in detail, along with essential Soviet and Chinese aid which finally ensured a humiliating defeat for the Americans, something for which they have never forgiven the Korean people.

 We also get a 1944 letter from Josip Broz Tito, the head of the Yugoslav resistance during the Second World War, to the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov about the progress of the national liberation struggles in the Balkans.

 Finally, this issue continues with publishing documents relating to relations between the Soviet party and the Communist Party of India. In this case 1952 discussions related to the Indian parties internal troubles and its political strategy.  Regardless of the merit some of the viewpoints expressed here this issue provides much useful information and food for thought.  

Revolutionary Democracy is a half-yearly theoretical and political journal from India. It contains material on the problems facing the communist movement, particularly relating to Russia, China and India, the origins of modern revisionism, the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and developments in the international communist movement.

The world today through Marxist eyes

 by Robin MacGregor

Revolutionary Democracy: Volume Two, No. 2 (New Series) April 2025 
£7.50 including p&p from NCP Lit, PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ

 Once again lucky New Worker readers have a chance to purchase another issue of Revolutionary Democracy which has arrived from New Delhi. The tried and tested three-part format of articles on contemporary India and surrounding countries, statements of parties belonging to the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLPO) and material from Soviet and other archives remains unchanged.  
 This issue opens with a self-explanatory piece on Emergent Fascism and People’s Resistance in India particularly the high-caste Hindu chauvinism promoted by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is related to that party’s neo-liberal economic policies. Next is a timely reprint of the Communist International’s December 1933 thesis on Fascism, The Danger of War and the Tasks of the Communist Parties which has all too many parallels for today.  
 A short article describes a police crackdown in late January on peaceful demonstrations by workers at the Maruti Suzuki plant in New Delhi, where temporary workers staged a massive protest against the Japanese owned car factory demanding permanent jobs at greatly improved rates of pay and an end to fire and rehire.  
 The huge dispute, involving around 4,000 workers, was significant for securing support from a new union and from other workers at supplier plants. At the plant 83 per cent of the workforce are employed on short-term contracts. “Only 5,713 permanent workers out of the total workforce of 34,918 enjoy the benefits and high salaries that the company claims to provide its workers”. This has become very common in recent years in India. The protest was met by a violent police charge and the uprooting of tents belonging to the workers who were perfectly entitled to make their protest. As a tail-piece the final piece in this issue is a book review dealing with the broader question of Japanese companies in India. 
 A similar piece deals with the continuing war against the tribal peoples in central India whose lands contain great mineral wealth. Here the false claim of needing to fight against the Maoist Naxalite movement gives the Indian state an excuse for mass murder to pave the way for mining companies. 
From the specific to the general we have a detailed analysis of the dire state of agriculture which involves 93 million households, the vast majority of which are very small and thus unable to take advantages of machinery. While in theory farmers are now less likely to be under a landlord’s thumb, they are now more likely to be tied to moneylenders. Despite the vast number of small farmers, “1.1 per cent of rural households own about 20 per cent of land and it is they who produce for the market and call the shots”. 
 Next comes an account of the RG Kar Movement which started with protests against the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, which snow-balled in mass protests across Bengal, involving many more than the medical profession.
The July 2024 Uprising in Bangladesh which saw the collapse of the brutal Awami League government is fully recounted by a regular RD contributor, Badruddin Umar. 
 From the archives we have a 1957 article on Commodity Production and the Law of Value Under Socialism by Soviet economist K Ostrovityanov, which editor Vijay Singh states was an important step in establishing a market economy under Khruschev. This is followed by another instalment of Lenin’s Criticism of Bogdanov’s Reactionary Sociological Views, first published in 1937 by A V Shchegolov.
 After some declarations by ICMLPO parties on Palestine, Syria and about the Kurdish PKK laying down their arms. There is also more archival material. 
From 1946 we have a document reflecting on Communist Party of India policies on the question of the formation of Pakistan and its implications for India’s national unity. Similar issues are also covered in a 1952 correspondence between the Indian and Soviet parties where the question of Kashmir loomed large.
Nearer to home for British readers is a brief 1947 discussion between Zhdanov from the Soviet Union and Nicos Zachariadis of the Communist Party of Greece concerning the civil war. All in all another interesting collection.

Revolutionary Democracy is a half-yearly theoretical and political journal published in April and September from India. It contains material on the problems facing the communist movement, particularly relating to Russia, China and India, the origins of modern revisionism, the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and developments in the international communist movement.