Marxism, Bengal National Revolutionaries and Comintern

Abstract

The origin and development of national revolutionary movement in India, particularly in Bengal, in the beginning of the twentieth century constituted one of important signposts of Indian freedom struggle against the colonial British rule. The Bengal national revolutionaries dreamt of freeing India through armed insurrection & individual terrorism. But in spite of supreme sacrifices made by these revolutionaries, almost after thirty years of their movement, in the thirties of the twentieth century, they came to the realisation about the futility of the method which neglected involvement of the general masses so long. In the first half of the thirties most of these revolutionaries were detained. While in detention in different jails & camps for a pretty long period many of the revolutionaries came in contact with Marxist literature there. Imbibed by the Marxist view of social change they gave up ‘terrorism’ as a method altogether after coming out of jails/camps in 1938 or later. However, a sharp debate developed among them on the perception of the Communist International (CI), its colonial policy in general and the policy with respect to the Indian freedom struggle in particular. Further, CPI’s policy of following Comintern decisions as its national section also came under scrutiny. A large number of revolutionary converts questioned the applicability of the Comintern formulations in the perspective of late colonial Bengal. They were not ready either to accept CPI as a real communist party or to pay unquestionable obedience to the dictates of the Comintern. As a result, instead of joining any of the existing Marxist political parties, these revolutionaries formed their own parties having Marxism as the guiding principle. It has been the common notion among many scholars and writers that the Comintern’s colonial policy has, at least to some extent, resulted in the disintegration of the communists’ in Bengal. The role of the Comintern and conflicting understanding about its role in the Indian context that led to the development of a number of Marxist political parties has been tried to be analysed in this paper with a newer perspective.