june 16, 2012 vol xlviI no 24 EPW Economic & Political Weekly28

book review

Refl ections of a Steadfast Communist

Arun Ferreira

Red Star over India: As the Wretched of the Earth are Rising – Impressions, Reflections and Preliminary Inferences by Jan Myrdal (Kolkata: Setu Prakashani), 2012; pp 224, Rs 295 (PB), Rs 395 (HB).

Red Star over India is a brilliant compilation of Jan Myrdal’s impres-sions and refl ections of the inter-

national communist movement in general and the Maoist movement in India in particular, during his visit to the Maoist strongholds of Dandakaranya and while interviewing senior leaders of the Com-munist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)], including its General Secre-tary Muppala Lakshmana Rao, alias Ganapathy. The rich experience of Myrdal in observing and participating in almost eight decades of communist history gives proper context to the Maoist movement in India. Throughout the book he rightly asserts that being over 80 years old, he is “intellectually and politically marked by both the historical success and the severe defeats of these decades”. This colossal experience and observations of history give these refl e ctions of Myrdal added signifi cance. Unfortunately, there are numerous typographical errors, and, at least in one instance, the author’s instruc-tion to the publisher, in capital letters, to check an “exact other publication” (p 29), inexcusably remains in the fi nal text.

An Internationalist Perspective

Internationally, he has rightly criticised the weaknesses of the communist move-ment in its understanding and practice of “the colonial question”. Although the Third International (the Comintern) identifi ed the importance of the national liberation movements, there existed and still exists a strong trend in the form of euro-communism that belittles this issue, thus causing these communist parties to trail behind the interests of their imperi-alist ruling classes and ignore the true potential of these movements as the “storm centres of world revolution”. Myrdal has also criticised the (dogmatic) communist party tradition of narrowness,

especially in relation to their practice in forging united fronts. Nevertheless, he upholds the great struggles led by com-munist parties, whether it is the Mexican, Russian, Chinese and Vietnamese revo-lutionary movements of the past or the present revolutionary movement led by the CPI (Maoist) in India. It is this his-torical context and the high tradition of sacrifi ce and struggle, beautifully elabo-rated by Myrdal, which is sometimes lost in the current debates regarding the justi-fi cation of the Indian Maoist movement.

This accurate historical perspective of Myrdal starts from his mention of the “First Indian War of Independence 1857-59” and his fi rst reading of R P Dutt’s India Today. Myrdal’s parti cular engage-ment with the Maoist movement in India was in the 1980s when he spent days with the Naxal squads of the then splintered CPI (Marxist-Leninist) – CPI(ML) move-ment. At that time he managed to dis-cuss issues pertaining to the Indian rev-olution with a then prominent leader, Chandra Pulla Reddy. This resulted in the publication of India Waits. Now three decades later, despite being over 80 years of age, he courageously accep-ted an invitation from the CPI (Maoist) and spent 16 days in Dandakaranya, once again interacting with the Maoist squads and interviewing three Maoist leaders, including Ganapathy.

Red Star over India is a culmination of this experience and carries these detailed interviews and other documents of the CPI(Maoist), which are extremely insight-ful in understanding the present direction

of the movement. At the time of India Waits, the movement was extremely splintered. Earlier efforts to unite the revolutionary streams of the CPI(ML) movement had only caused further rup-tures. However, it was during this very same period of the late 1970s and early 1980s that strong revolu tionary move-ments were establishing themselves in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Dandakaranya. After a thorough self-criticism of the earlier practice of the period 1969-72, these movements spread with the correct use of a combination of mass organisations and armed struggle. Various revolutionary mass organisations of writers, students and youth, and revolutionary cultural organisations in the tradition of Sri Sri and Cherabanda Raju, as mentioned by Myrdal, gave impetus to the ongoing agrarian revolution in the plains. The 1980s also witnessed severe state repres-sion on these mass organisations in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. But compared to the early 1970s, the movement had now forged strong links with the masses, and these areas of struggle grew despite repression.

Maoist Strengths and Weaknesses

In the 1990s, efforts to unite the move-ment started to bear fruit. The three major parties leading these class struggles consolidated themselves internally and conducted discussions to resolve major ideological debates and questions relat-ing to practice. Despite the severe state repression and a steady loss of leadership, these three major streams fi nally merged into a consolidated Party, the CPI (Maoist), in 2004. The three decades from India Waits to Red Star over India has seen a growth of the Maoist movement to wider terrains of struggle than ever before. The armed struggle has spread to larger areas in a planned and systematic manner, benefi ted by an experienced, mature and seasoned leader ship. Myrdal’s interview with Ganapathy speaks volumes of the creative use of the armed struggle and mass line in spreading the movement. Campaigns such as “Operation Ropeway”, etc, have been successfully implemented to expand the guerrilla zone to newer areas in Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and

BOOK REVIEW

Economic & Political Weekly EPW june 16, 2012 vol xlviI no 24 29

Odisha. As per Ganapathy’s interview, the party and the movement had come to a position, in 2007 itself, for the estab-lishment of “base areas” and the develop-ment of “mobile warfare”.

The Appendix in Red Star over Indiaregarding the functioning of the embry-onic revolutionary state, the “Janathana Circar”, is enlightening indeed. In fact, the biggest achievement of the movement in the past three decades is the birth of this new revolutionary people’s power and the establishment of an army of the oppressed people – an accomplishment never witnessed before in India. On the other hand, the movement has yet to lift itself from its earlier identifi ed weak-nesses. For one, its inability to sustain urban movements, especially of the working class type, or its setback in the rural movement in Andhra Pradesh, or also its failure to break out from tribal pockets, despite severe repression in the plains. Myrdal rightly comments that the politics of the Maoist movement displays a wider approach as compared to the narrow or sectarian lines of other com-munist parties. He revisits the natio nal

question and considers the inclu sion of the right of oppressed nationa lities to self-determination and the demand of seces-sion as a development of this thought.

Also highlighted by Myrdal in his and Gautam Navlakha’s “Conversation with Comrade Ganpathy” is the issue of Islamic jihadist movements as being essentially a reaction to American imperialism’s “war on terror”, while also being socially and culturally quite regressive. However, the practical experience of building a strong and sustai nable United Front, as one of the important tenants of Maoism, is still lacking. All this is compounded and aggravated by the biggest challenge the movement is currently facing.

Too Early to Judge

Nearly over half of its top and second-level leadership has been eliminated or incarcerated by the Indian state in the last seven-eight years. All the earlier mentioned failures could be resolved in the due course of class struggle. How-ever, for the present, it is urgently requi-red that the present Maoist leaders put an immediate halt to this continuous

haemorrhaging of leadership. The big-gest strength of the Maoists is their vast experience and sound practice. It has helped them to evolve their understand-ing of the realities they seek to change. They also have a strong adherence to theory, a virtue which has helped them throughout these decades to remain resolute against erroneous left and right deviations. However this could also turn out to be their Achilles heel. This strong adherence to theory could easily slip towards dogmatism, which could inhibit a dynamic development of theory in the concrete conditions of the Indian revolu-tion. But as Jan Myrdal, like Zhou Enlai, says, it is too early to comment. Given the present economic crisis, the war of the government against the people in the name of “Operation Green Hunt” and the recent military successes of the Maoists, the wheel is still in spin.

Red Star over India is not a travelogue. Nor is it a comprehensive account of the Maoist movement in India. For the latter it would be worth reading it along with his co-traveller and friend, Gautam Navlakha’s “Days and Nights in the Heartland of

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Celebration of the Chinese World

G P Deshpande

This is a massive book. It appears that American writing on China like their popular fi ction is tend-

ing to be massive. Indeed, the year 2011 saw three books on China being published which might be mentioned here. The book on Deng Xiaoping (Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China) by Ezra F Vogel runs into 876 pages. The other, also a biography (of Chiang Kai Shek titled The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China) is 736 pages long. In comparison, the Kissinger volume is relatively small but only comparatively so. But one must hasten to add that it does not suffer from readability as indeed this review says of the Deng’s biography that few people will actually read the book. In contrast, the Kissinger volume is indeed very readable.

Kissingerian Foreign Policy

It is entitled as On China. But that title is misleading. It is not really on China as much as it is about Sino-American nor-malisation, a process that Kissinger as the national security adviser and later as the secretary of state of President Nixon had so successfully initiated and deve-loped. In many ways it could be called an autobiographical tract. In any event Kissinger is deeply aware of his contri-bution to or perhaps one should call it

creativity in turning Mao Zedong’s role in the then socialist world into that of a Machiavellian cynic.

Kissinger must be an admirer of Bismarck! His interest in the one-time revolutionary turned into a Soviet Union and Vietnam baiter is understandable. There has been no greater triumph of American foreign policy in post-war years. Kissinger is deeply aware of it and this volume is about the most modest, indeed, a very “professorial” statement about that triumph of American (Kissingerian) foreign policy.

What Changed the World?

But Kissinger would not be satisfi ed with a straightforward account of that process. In his scheme of things the weeks that brought about change spanned Nixon’s China visit and, of course, the Shanghai communiqué. In other words, this change of the world deserved an “epic” account.

He has tried to write about a “histo-rical”, near “epochal” phenomenon. He treats the American diplomatic move and success as a civilisational phenome-non. I am sure he fancied himself for a while anyway as Li Hongzhang, the

celebrated late 19th century Chinese diplomat, whose photographic portrait adorns this book. It is also possible that Kissinger thinks of himself as a strategy scientist much like Sun Tzu, the ancient sage who was the earliest theoretician of war and peace in the world. Anyway, he wants to project the Nixon diplomatic feat as something that changed the world; almost one might want to add though.

Some people might argue that what changed the world was not the China-America reconciliation but rather Gor-bachev’s liquidation of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the name of perestroika and glasnost. Indeed, a retired secretary of state, probably that of president Jimmy Carter, once claimed that the liquidation of the Soviet Union was really the genuinely epochal development. And the credit for that must be located where it really belongs. The liquidation of the “Soviet empire was possible because of the United States”. Anyway there are differing assessments of the two major achieve-ments of the post-second world war years. Kissinger clearly views the change of climate in Sino-American relations as a classical historico-diplomatic event of world history.

Civilisational Uniqueness

This book is on the contemporary reality called the Chinese state, which is also a civilisation because there is a marked two-way movement between history and contemporaneity in this narrative on China.

On China by Henry Kissinger (London: Alan Lane Penguin Books), 2011; pp XX+586; Rs 899.

Rebellion” (EPW, 17 April 2010). Myrdal too recognises this and aptly considers Red Star over India as his “impressions, refl ections and preliminary inferences” of the movement. As mentioned earlier, it is Myrdal’s vast know ledge and expe-rience that makes this work ever more valuable. While some writers like Sudhir Dhawale1 have been imprisoned for mere writing on the Naxalite move-ment, others, in fear, have begun to falsely applaud the ruling classes. How-ever, Myrdal, though recognising this threat of imprisonment, death or, as

he says, in his case, the probability of his visa being revoked, knows no such fear.2 Even at an age when others would opt for a more passive existence, Myrdal continues to stand with the struggles of the oppressed.

Arun Ferreira (arunferreira@gmail.com), a democratic rights activist, was a political prisoner for four and a half years until his release on bail last year.

Notes

1 Sudhir Dhawale, a writer and dalit activist in Mumbai, was arrested in January 2011

under the archaic sedition law and provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The major charge against him was that he wrote books on Naxalism titled Olakh Naxali Kranti (An Introduction to the Naxalite Revolution), Operation Green Hunt Konasathi (Operation Greenhunt – For Whom), Maowayache yudh konasathi Kashasathi (The Maoist War – For Whom and Why), etc. Sudhir has been repeat-edly denied bail by the trial court and the high court, even as his trial has yet to commence despite over a year of incarceration.

2 Recently, Minister of State for Home Affairs Jitendra Singh made a statement in the Rajya Sabha that Jan Myrdal will be banned from visiting the country since he has been “advising” the CPI(Maoist) and doing propaganda on its behalf. Myrdal has retorted that he had, “of course, not done anything as stupid as giving political advice to Indian friends”.