The Revolutionary Communist Party of India ( RCPI) is a political party in India. The party was founded as the Communist League by Saumyendranath Tagore in 1934, breaking away from the Communist Party of India (CPI). RCPI led armed uprisings after the independence of India, but later shifted to parliamentary politics. The party is active in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The party was represented in the West Bengal government while being a part of Second United Front Cabinet (1969) as well as in various state government during the Left Front rule in the state (1977–2011). In Assam, the party won four Legislative Assembly seats in 1978, but its political influence has since declined in the state.
Ideology The RCPI works toward a socialist revolution, rather than a people's democratic revolution, a national democratic revolution or a new democratic revolution.
The party strives to build socialism under the leadership of the proletariat with active cooperation of other exploited strata of the humanity, including peasants, working intellectuals and non-manual working sections of people.
Communist League S.N. Tagore founded the Communist League on 1 August 1934.Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas. Origenes y formacion del trotskismo en India y Ceilan Tagore was a communist leader from Bengal who had attended the 1928 Sixth Congress of the Communist International, and had stayed in Europe for seven years afterwards. He toured the continent on behalf of the League Against Imperialism. At the 1928 Communist International congress Tagore had sought to challenge the role of M.N. Roy in the organization. Tagore had turned hostile towards Stalin, possibly as in reaction to his failed bid to gain recognition from the Communist International in 1928. On his return to India in 1934 he appealed to CPI to abandon its ultra-left line. Albeit CPI would later moderate its positions after the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, Tagore broke with CPI and founded his own communist group (the Communist League). In May 1934 Tagore set up an 'initiative committee' for the founding of the new party. Other founders of the Communist League included Sudhir Dasgupta, Prabhat Sen, Ranjit Majumdar and Arun Banerjee.
Tagore denounced the Popular Front line of CPI, rejecting the Congress Socialist Party. In Tagore's view the CSP represented an alliance between socialists and reactionary elements of the bourgeoise.
Communist League and the peasantry After the formation of the Communist League Tagore began touring the Bengal country-side, organizing peasants to struggle for abolishing the zamindari system. In early 1938 Tagore built a peasants wing, the Bangiyo Pradeshik Kisan Sabha, separate from the CPI-led Krishak Samiti. Tagore's BPKS demanded abolition of the zamindari system without giving any compensation to landlords, free distribution of land among the cultivators and agricultural labourers, minimization of revenue demands and cancellation of debts to moneylenders.
Communist League in Murshidabad Tarapada Gupta set up the Communist League branch in Murshidabad in 1936, raising the red flag for the first time in recorded history in the district. Tarapada Gupta had been released from jail in 1935, and he established contact with Tagore's group.Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies. Saumyendranath Tagore and the Peasant Movement of Murshidabad: A Study on Historical Perspectives The Communist League preceded both the CPI and the RSP in Murshidabad. The party successfully organized peasants to refuse to pay rents to landlords in the area. Gupta would later side with Tagore in the 1948 party split.
Tagore in Assam RCPI was the first left organization to established itself in Assam. RCPI built a student movement in Assam. In 1937 a Radical Club was formed at Cotton College, under the cover of the and with Haren Kalita as its leader. In November 1938 Tagore visited Assam and met with a group of students and youth. His visit was organized by the Congressman Debranath Sarma. A Communist League branch was formed in the province in 1939, with several of the Cotton College students as its members. Students who became members of the Communist League included Haren Kalita, Haridas Deka, Tarunsen Deka, Upen Sarma, Ananda Chandra Das, Taracharan Majumdar, Gokul Medhi, Arabinda Ghosh, Loknath Barua, Umakanta Sarma, Bhupen Mahanta, N. Buragohain, Khagendranath Barbarua, Uma Sarma and Kamini Goswami. The students would later contest, and eventually win, the Cotton College Students Union through the Assam Provincial Students Federation.
Tagore made a second visit to Assam in December 1941. This time he visited Khagen Barbarua at his village in Upper Assam and discussed building the party organization in the province. Tagore was expelled from Assam on 18 December 1941. The Assam Provincial Student Federation, which was under the influence of RCPI supported the Quit India movement.
On 2 May 1940 the Krishak Banuva Panchayat was formed in Gauhati as the open front group of the party in Assam. Kedarnath Goswami was the first president of KBP, a former Congressman and labour organizer. The basic unit of KBP was the Gaon Krishak Panchayat ('Village Peasants Council'). The Assamese folk singer Bishnu Prasad Rabha joined KBP in 1945. In 1949 he became a RCPI member.
As the Indian National Congress dominated the tea gardens of Assam and there was little industrial labour in the province, the Communist League instead sought to organize rice mill workers, horse cart drivers and steamboat labourers. The efforts had meagre results. Notably RCPI made no intents to build the party in the hill areas of Assam.
RCPI and the World War The party was organized along Leninist lines with party cells at the bottom of the party hierarchy and the Central Committee as its leadership. In preparation of the impending World War, the party developed a three-tier leadership structure in order for the party to survive under waves of repression. The third tier was entirely clandestine, prepared to take over the party affairs after arrests of the first two tiers.
The party raised the slogan "Not one paisa, not one man for war". On 4 September 1939 Tagore issued a declaration, labelling the war as an imperialist conflict and called on the Indian workers to turn the imperialist war into civil war. Tagore was arrested and jailed under the Defence of India Act immediately afterwards. With Tagore in jail, Pannalal Dasgupta became general secretary of the party. He toured Assam, Bombay, Madras and Bengal. During the Second World War, peasants influenced by the party were instructed not to sell rice for exportation.
In 1941 the Third Party Conference of the Communist League of India changed its name to Communist Party of India (not to be confused with its far more well-known namesake). In March 1943 the name RCPI was adopted, in order to differentiate itself from the CPI. The party positioned itself claiming to be the sole true leftist party in the country, denouncing all other left forces as ideologically bankrupt. Overall RCPI avoided collaboration with other left-wing groups. RCPI labour organizing was done largely outside the All India Trade Union Congress. It managed to build a core of political cadres and was active building a labour movement amongst workers at the jute mills in the Beliaghata-Narkeldanga area of Calcutta. The party was often referred to as the 'Tagorites' or as the 'Ganavani group' (after the name of its publication).
RCPI differed with CPI on tactical questions during the Second World War. RCPI denounced the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as well as declaring the Soviet war with Finland as 'imperialist'.
The RCPI fully supported the Quit India movement. The party sought to develop the Quit India movement into a revolutionary upheaval. Most of the known party leaders were arrested, and would remain in detention until the end of the Second World War. Through the Radical Institute, RCPI promoted dissemination of locally produced weaponry to use against British government forces in Assam.
In the "Red Front", in October 1942, Saumyendranath Tagore wrote: The conclusions that we draw from the Quit India movement are the following:
First, the utter bankruptcy of the Congress, the party of the Indian bourgeoisie and its total inability to lead the national movement.
Secondly, the complete overthrow of non-violence as a technique of struggle.
Thirdly, the complete exposure of the National Frontists, the legal Communists, the germ-carriers of anti-revolutionary Stalinism.
Fourthly, the rapid revolutionisation of the masses.
Fifthly, the ripening of the ideological premises for the growth of real leftism as a result of the political development, both national and international.
The national revolution in India has definitely jumped over the hurdles of Gandhism and has scornfully rejected the petty bourgeois Congress Socialism which is at the service of the Indian bourgeoisie.
It has thoroughly exposed the legal communist traitors of the Stalinist and the Royist brand. Only the political line of the Revolutionary Communist Party stands fully vindicated by the development and march of the national revolutionary movement.
In 1945 RCPI raised two key slogans in Assam, 'land to the tiller' (nangal jar mati tar) and 'one third share' (tin bhag), slogans which became very popular amongst landless peasants and agricultural labourers. KBP was able to make some inroads amongst these sectors.
Some Tribal League leaders in Assam, such as Aniram Basumatari and Daben Khaklari, became RCPI members in the mid-1940s. Their presence in the party helped it to make inroads amongst the tribals in Assam.
Independence and Partition As the departure of British colonial rule came closer, RCPI denounced the negotiated independence as a joint conspiracy between British imperialism and the Indian bourgeoisie. RCPI stated that Independence obtained in 1947 was a false one. Rejecting the official process for independence, RCPI began organizing panchayats (i.e. soviets) of workers and peasants in order to convene a Workers and Peasants Constituent Assembly. RCPI denounced the Partition of India as betrayal and surrender to British imperialism. There was a strong Hindu chauvinist trend within RCPI, as alleged by Charles W. Ervin. RCPI opposed the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India, which wanted to place Assam into the Muslim-majority grouping of provinces. According to Salkia, through its opposition to the Cabinet Mission grouping RCPI was able to carve out "a niche for itself in the mainstream politics of Assam".
In 1946 RCPI discussed a possible merger with the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma. The RCPI delegation in the talks consisted of Sudhir Dasgupta, Tarapada Gupta, and Gour Pal. Nevertheless, the merger discussion didn't go through. RCPI refused to join the Fourth International. The BLPI discarded the RCPI line of organizing soviets as a premature move.
In September 1947 RCPI and BLPI collaborated to build a United Workers Front to challenge the Congress-led trade unions.Cahiers Leon Trotsky, February 1998 In December 1947 Tagore was elected president of the All India Bank Employees Association, at its conference held in Lucknow.Syndicate Bank Employees Union (Regd). Looking Back
Tagore–Dasgupta split Tagore was jailed in November 1947. Tagore was released from prison in 1948. After his release from jail Tagore argued that armed revolution was premature in India. But a sector of the party, led by Pannalal Dasgupta, insisted on turning the campaign of building panchayats into a general armed insurrection.