CRISIS OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM , NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES OF EAST ASIA
Reports Presented in 1949 to the Pacific Institute of the Academy of Sciences, U.S.S.R.
E. M. Zhukov
The victory over Hitlerite
Germany, fascist Italy and militarist Japan, led to a deepening of the general
crisis of the capitalist system, to a serious weakening of the imperialist
front and to the strengthening of the forces of democracy and Socialism over
the entire world. The weakening of the imperialist camp was manifested above
all, in the consolidation of the strength and the might of the Soviet Union, in
the dropping out of the capitalist system of a number of countries, where
People’s Democracy was established. It was also demonstrated in the
intensification of the struggle of the peoples of the colonies and dependent
countries for liberation from imperialist oppression and in the victory of
People’s Democracy in China.
In spite of the
extremely important differences in the concrete situation and in the conditions
of victory of People’s Democracy in a number of countries of Central and
Eastern Europe, the intensification of the national liberation struggles in the
colonies after the termination of the Second World War and the successes of
this struggle have been conditioned a great deal by the very same factors that
have also operated in Europe.
These general and
decisive factors were the military defeat of the bloc of aggressors, the moral
and political defeat of fascism and of its accomplices, the great victory of
the Soviet Union which in the course of the war demonstrated the superiority of
the Soviet Socialist system over the capitalist system.
The great victory
of the democratic forces headed by the mighty Socialist power over German,
Japanese and Italian imperialism inspired the colonial peoples to intensify the
struggle against imperialist oppression and exploitation, and strengthened
their faith in the ultimate triumph of their just cause.
At the end of the
Second World War there took place a sharp aggravation of the crisis of the
colonial system. The colonial world became a source of serious anxiety for the
imperialist camp.
Imperialist rule
in the colonies and semi-colonies dooms tens of millions of people to poverty,
hunger, epidemics, and systematic death. Ruthless exploitation of labour, and
in particular of child and female labour, is the inevitable concomitant of
imperialist oppression in the colonial world.
The broad masses
of the exploited in the dependent and colonial countries of the entire world
are rising to wage a struggle against the oppressors and are demonstrating by
their actions that the colonial peoples no longer wish to live in the old way.
The sharpening of the crisis of the colonial system has assumed forms which
threaten the imperialists.
More and more
broad popular masses in the colonies and semi-colonies are being drawn into the
national liberation movement. Even in the most remote corners of the colonial
world, where till recently the civilised colonial ‘rulers’—the imperialists
openly plundered, perpetrated the blackest deeds, ruthlessly dealt with the
‘natives’ and felt themselves to be completely beyond punishment for this,—
popular indignation is maturing now and the pre-requisites are being created
for an organised rebuff to the colonisers. The armed uprising of the Malagasy
people against the French imperialists in Madagascar testifies to this. A
strike wave has spread in the most backward regions of the so-called “Black
Continent”,—Africa. The struggle against British imperialism is assuming a mass
character in the colonies of the Gold Coast, in Nigeria, in Uganda and in South Rhodesia.
The armed
struggles of the people of the colonial and dependent countries against
imperialism and its local agents has assumed the broadest sweep in Burma, in
Viet Nam, in Malaya, Indonesia and in the Philippines. The toiling masses in the various corners of multi-national India are organising
themselves
in order to defend their legitimate rights against the imperialists, the feudal
Princes, the landlords and the usurers, the local capitalist-exploiters and the
police and officials subservient to them.
The greatest
successes have been achieved by the national liberation struggle in China.
During 1948-49 American imperialism and its Kuomintang agent sustained an
unprecedented defeat there; the Chinese people won a great historic victory and
created the People’s Republic of China.
Never yet in
history have such great masses of toilers in the colonies and semi-colonies
been drawn into the struggle against imperialist oppression as at the present
time. The imperialists cannot cope with the indignation of the colonial peoples
by the former methods of rule. They are compelled to seek new means in order to
retain their tottering positions in the colonies.
“.
The ruling classes of the metropolitan countries can no longer govern the
colonies on
the old lines. Attempts to crush
the national liberation movement by military force increasingly encounter armed
resistance on the part of the colonial peoples and lead to protracted colonial
wars. (Holland-Indonesia, France-Viet Nam) ” (A. Zhdanov—The International Situation—Foreign
Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1947, p.11)
* * *
The process of the
sharpening of the crisis of the colonial system found its clearest expression
in the countries of the Pacific basin. This is explained by the fact that it
was precisely here that the liberation role of the Soviet Union which defeated
the Japanese aggressors on the plains of Manchuria and Korea was graphically
demonstrated. The defeat of militarist Japan which for decades had been the
bulwark of imperialist rule and the gendarme of East Asia stimulated to a very
great degree the mass upsurge of the democratic national liberation movement in
the Pacific countries. In the course of the Second World War, the prestige of
the imperialist powers in the colonies and semi-colonies declined sharply. The
peoples of the colonial and dependent countries witnessed the military
incapacity, the impotence, cowardice of the representatives of the colonial
authorities of the imperialist powers—Britain, Holland, France, U.S.A. The
intention of the colonisers who had proved themselves bankrupt during the war
period, to return to their former possessions after the defeat of fascism and
once again to sit on the necks of the people who had participated in the common
struggle against the fascist aggressors, could not but evoke indignation and
rebuff.
Alongside this,
the general upsurge of the national liberation movements in the colonies and
semi-colonies after the Second World War was marked by essentially new factors,
expressing the qualitative changes in
the character of the anti-imperialist struggle.
Comrade Palme
Dutt,2 gave the following definition of the new features of the
national liberation movement in the colonies and semi-colonies, features which
were not to be observed after the First World War:
“First, the
establishment of independent National Republics in former colonial territories,
in Viet Nam and Indonesia, maintaining themselves in armed struggle over a
period of years against the assault of imperialism.
2 Member of the Political Bureau of
the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the author of a number of studies on
colonial problems.—E.M.Z.
“Secondly, the
increased political maturity and the higher level of the liberation struggles
in colonial territories; notably, the advance to armed struggle of the national
liberation movements in Malaya and Burma, and the local peasants’ uprising and
States peoples’ revolts in Indian States reaching to occupation of the land and
armed self-defence in such a considerable region as Telengana in Hyderabad.
“Third, the
geographically wider extension of colonial revolt and organised movements of
mass struggle, as in the tropical African colonies.
“Fourth, the advance
in the role and leadership of the working class in the colonial countries, the
development and strengthening of the trade union movement and of the alliance
of the working class with the peasant movement, and above all, the existence of
Communist Parties exercising mass influence and political leadership in a
number of colonial countries, and in certain countries at a highly developed
stage of struggle, as in Viet Nam, Malaya and Burma, directly leading the
national liberation movement ”
(R. Palme Dutt—“Struggle of
Colonial Peoples Against Imperialism.” For
A Lasting Peace, For A People’s Democracy, October 15, 1948).
The most important
changes that have taken place consist in that the broadest popular masses are
drawn into the struggle against imperialism and that it is the working class
which stands as the vanguard of this struggle leading the peasantry and other
strata of the people behind it.
In China, in
Indonesia and in a number of other countries, the Communist Parties have become
the acknowledged leader of the millions of toilers and have won their
confidence as political parties, conducting the most consistent and
self-sacrificing struggles for the national independence and sovereignty of
their countries. In many colonial and dependent countries it was precisely the
Communists who headed the broad front of toilers unified on the basis of a
programme of implementing radical and consistently democratic changes. The
leading role of the Communists in the national liberation movement of the
overwhelming majority of colonial and dependent countries, is an expression of
the leading role of the working class in the anti-imperialist liberation struggle
in the postwar period.
This important
change in the character of the struggle in the colonies and semi-colonies by
itself testifies to the deepening of the crisis of the colonial system. The
broadest popular masses have joined the movement and their leadership has
passed over into the hands of the most reliable class forces that are
interested in the quickest and the most complete elimination of imperialist
exploitation, of the poverty and the down-trodden condition of the popular
masses.
It goes without
saying that the passing of the leadership to the working class and its vanguard
of the national liberation struggle in the majority of colonial and
semi-colonial countries is not an accident.
It is historically conditioned by the increasing role of the proletariat
in the colonies and is linked with the growth in the organisation and
consciousness of the working class and the political experience acquired by the
non-proletarian toiling masses in the entire preceding period of the general
crisis of capitalism; and also as a result of the economic upheavals that took
place during the Second World War, the exposure of the treacherous antinational
role of the semi-feudal elements and the big bourgeoisie of the colonies who
made a deal with the imperialists of the metropolitan countries with the aim of
retaining their class privileges.
The economic
enslavement of the colonial and dependent countries is the main content of
colonial exploitation. The colonial policy of metropolitan countries operates
in the direction of arresting the development of productive forces in the colonial and dependent countries. The very backwardness of the colonies is favourable to the
imperialists because it facilitates the possibility of exploitation by
retarding the development of the anti-imperialist national liberation movement
and makes it possible for the imperialist bourgeoisie of the metropolitan
country to utilise the cheap or even the free labour power of the population of
the colonies. Imperialism is interested in the colonies being without industry
which creates the pre-requisites of economic independence, and which is capable
of throwing goods on the market competing with the goods produced by the
metropolitan country. There is no doubt that the rule of the imperialists in
the colonies is linked with encouraging certain types of industrial production
there. But it is invariably directed into that channel and permitted only to
that extent which corresponds to the interests of the metropolitan country.
The capital
imported into the colonial and semi-colonial countries is usually concentrated
in the sphere of extractive industry and is utilised for the seizure and
extraction of raw materials or for their preliminary manufacture. For example,
in Burma, where according to a recent admission of the London journal The Economist, “the Burmese people have
remained a poor people in their own country which is so rich in natural
resources.” British capital has been invested and continues to be invested
almost exclusively in extracting oil, lead, zinc, wolfarm, tin, and also in the
rubber plantations. Thus, imperialism only contributes towards a one-sided and
dependent development of production in the colonies and semi- colonies.
Industrialisation of the colonies is incompatible with imperialist rule.
Neither in the countries of Latin America nor in the countries of Asia and even
more so in Africa, are the imperialist states permitting the advance of heavy
industry, the development of those branches of production which could serve as
the basis of acquiring economic independence. Those individual instances of the
growth of industrial development which are to be observed in some dependent and
semi-colonial countries do not alter anything in the general correlation between
the dependent country and the imperialist country in respect of the slavish and
oppressed position of the colonies and semi-colonies. Real industrialisation,
the key to which lies in machine-building and in the production of the means of
production, is hindered in every way and not allowed by the imperialist metropolis.
The imperialist
countries refuse to export industrial equipment to the dependent and colonial
countries. The head of the British Department of Foreign Trade, Botomly,
“explained” in June 1948 that even if the production of steel-casting industry
were to increase in Britain, Britain would not increase the volume of the
present insignificant supplies of capital equipment to India and Pakistan. The
Indian bourgeoisie which at one time entertained big hopes that the USA would
help in ‘industrialising’ India has been cruelly deceived. In spite of the
general increase in trade between India and the USA, the Americans do not wish
to export machine tools and intricate machines into India. American imports
into India consist of foodstuffs, and also typewriters, electric apparatus,
toothbrushes, and other consumer goods. The Americans export from India for the
most part jute, leather, skins, tea, cotton, and other types of raw materials.
Thus American-Indian trade bears as typical a colonial character as British-Indian
trade. The Indian bourgeois Press has more than once complained about the fact
that the Americans are refusing to import capital equipment and technical
material into India. “The entire foreign-economic policy of the USA is
disadvantageous to the Asiatic countries like India,” noted the paper Indian News Chronicle. Of course, the
external trade policy of the USA is an expression of the general course adopted
by the imperialist powers to hinder the industrial development of the colonies
and semi-colonies.
Capitalism which
is developing (though at a slackened tempo), in the colonial agrarian
countries, does not emancipate the peasantry from the yoke of pre-capitalist
forms of bondage and oppression. As a rule, it only gives a monetary expression
to these pre-capitalist forms of exploitation. Corvee and natural rent is
replaced by money-rent, and natural tax by money tax. This does not ameliorate
the conditions of the peasant masses, but only brings their ruin nearer. At the
same time, the poverty-stricken position of the peasantry hampers exceedingly
the growth of an internal market for industries and is the most powerful
obstacle standing in the path of the development of capitalism.This impedes the
national bourgeoisie from extending the sphere of exploitation and of its
influence. It is natural that the national bourgeoisie in the colonial
countries is interested in restricting or in weakening the feudal survivals
since they fetter its hands. But on the other hand—and this is decisive—the
introduction of serious agrarian reform frightens the national bourgeoisie
since in the Asian countries the bourgeoisie as a rule is itself closely linked
with big landlordism, with the mercantile class and the money-lenders.
The growth of
capitalist relations in the colonial countries inevitably opens up a sharp
contradiction between the development of industry in the colonies and the
interests of the metropolitan countries who would wish to retain unaltered the
low level of economic development of the colonies.
The growth of
industrial production in the colonies brings out on to the political forefront
a new class—the proletariat. And it is here that a new stage in the development
of the colonial countries commences. While the national bourgeoisie is
incapable of consistently fighting for the real emancipation of the colonies
from the imperialists and from the feudal survivals hindering the development
of the countries, the colonial proletariat is the real revolutionary force
capable of rallying under its leadership many millions of peasant masses in
order to put up an organised opposition not only to imperialism but also to its
internal agents, and above all, to the feudal elements and the reactionary top
stratum of the bourgeoisie.
Already in 1920 at
the Second Congress of the Comintern, V. I. Lenin gave a number of very
important directives on the role of the bourgeois elements in the colonial
movement. Lenin said:
“Every nationalist
movement (in the colonial and dependent countries—E. Zhukov) can only be a
bourgeois-democratic movement, for the bulk of the population in backward
countries are peasants who represent bourgeois-capitalist relations. It would
be utopian to think that proletarian parties, if indeed they can arise in such
countries, could pursue Communist tactics and a Communist policy in these
backward countries without having definite relations with the peasant movement
and without effectively supporting it.”
At
the same time V. I. Lenin emphasised that—
“A certain
rapprochement has been brought about between the bourgeoisie of the exploiting
countries and those of the colonial countries, so that very often, even in the
majority of cases, perhaps, where the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries
does support the national movement, it simultaneously works in harmony with the
imperialist bourgeoisie, i.e. it
joins the latter in fighting against all revolutionary movements and
revolutionary classes.”
(V. I. Lenin: Selected Works—Lawrence & Wishart,
London, Vol. X, p. 241)
Lenin taught the
Communists to educate the proletarian revolutionary cadres in the colonial
countries to be conscious of the fact that they possess their own aims as
distinct from the aims of the movement bearing a bourgeois democratic
character.
Lenin emphasised
that it is necessary to act jointly with the bourgeois democratic elements of
the colonial movement only on the condition that the revolutionary proletariat
is able to fight for its own special programme, its own policy without merging
or dissolving itself in the general stream.
This directive of
Lenin is all the more important since it is well-known that the national
bourgeoisie of the colonial countries does not wish to renounce its leading
role and always endeavours to secure
it for itself. It attempts to hold back the masses under its influence, and
sometimes disseminates false illusions about “its irreconcilability” in
relation to the foreign imperialists.
However,
experiencing the dual pressure—on the one side of the popular masses whose
activity it fears, and on the other of the imperialists whom it courts—the
bourgeoisie inevitably arrives at a polity of compromise with imperialism.
The events after
the Second World War, have graphically demonstrated to what extent the
reactionary nature of the national bourgeoisie has intensified and how the
activity of the workers and peasants in the colonial countries has increased.
As the activity of the toiling masses directed against the imperialists becomes
broader, the big bourgeoisie conducts itself in a more cowardly and baser
manner, and it more openly forms a bloc with the forces of feudal reaction. The
example of the biggest Pacific country—China, is extremely characteristic in
this respect.
In China, in the
years of the Japanese imperialist aggression, the landlord-capitalist ruling
top stratum, in spite of the existence of a national anti-Japanese front,
sabotaged every kind of cooperation with the democratic elements headed by the
Communist Party. The reactionary Kuomintang chiefs reflecting the class
interests of the semi-feudal landlords and also the clique of “Four Families”
welded with foreign capital, did not organise and did not wish to organise an
effective nation-wide rebuff to the Japanese invaders insofar as this demanded
the activity of the broad masses of the Chinese people, the development of the
productive forces in the country and consequently the introduction of
elementary democratic reforms (agrarian reform, the liquidation of the
Kuomintang dictatorship, the formation of a coalition government etc.). In many
areas the Chinese ruling classes directly collaborated with the Japanese
imperialists and took to the path of direct national betrayal. But even those
leading Kuomintang circles which in words stood for an armed struggle against
Japan, at the height of this struggle devoted their main attention to
blockading the regions that were under the control of the People’s Liberation
Army, i.e., the regions where
democratic changes had been introduced.
And more than
this, since this diverted the military forces of the Kuomintang from the
struggle against the Japanese invaders, it was as though the Japanese
imperialists were invited to deal with the democratic forces of China. The
reactionary Kuomintang Generals systematically provoked armed conflicts between
the Government troops and the People’s Liberation Armies. The attitude of the
Chiang Kai-shek Government to the partisan movement in those regions that were
for the time being occupied by the Japanese was one of open hostility. Not only
were the partisans not rendered any assistance, but on the contrary measures
were undertaken to crush the partisan movement since it was fostered by the
growing political activity of the workers, peasants, the urban petty-bourgeoisie,
i.e., it was profoundly democratic.
The defeat of
imperialist Japan intensified the anti-national reactionary character of the
policy of the Kuomintang. Immediately after the capitulation of Japan, the
Chiang Kai-shek Government screening itself behind a hypocritical readiness to
conduct negotiations with the Communist Party, began preparing feverishly for a
treacherous armed invasion of the Special Border Regions and other bases of the
Anti- Japanese liberation struggle. The Kuomintang leaders broke all the
promises solemnly made by them in the war period about renouncing dictatorship
and implementing the necessary democratic reforms.
While in the war
period the ruling bloc of semi-feudal and big capitalist monopolist cliques in
China did not accede to the introduction of reforms under the false excuse that
the military situation “did not permit” the implementation of any serious measures
of a social, economic and constitutional character, after the capitulation of
Japan Chiang Kai-shek advanced as a “condition” for the democratisation of the
country the preliminary disarming of the democratic forces—the disbanding of
the People’s Liberation Army. Kuomintang reaction whose many conspicuous representatives had earlier flirted
with the Japanese now wholly and completely orientated itself towards American
imperialism. Through this it finally exposed the treacherous anti-national
character of its policy.
Immediately, after
the termination of the Second World War, American imperialism took to the path
of intervention in China, and assumed the role of protector of Chinese
reaction. By actively assisting in the instigation of civil war in China the
ruling circles of the USA reckoned on defeating the organised forces of Chinese
democracy and converting China into an American colony.
However,
these calculations did not come true.
In the period of
the Civil War unleashed in 1946 by the Chinese reactionaries under the
leadership of American imperialism, the democratic forces of China rallied
still more closely around the Communist Party since this Party, being the
vanguard of the working class, is at the same time the only mass party which
holds aloft the banner of national liberation of China from foreign imperialist
oppression. The broad popular masses of China marched behind the Communist
Party which as the vanguard of the working class demonstrated the spirit of
sacrifice and patriotism and its ability to carry to the end the task of
liberating the Chinese people.
As a result of
this the forces of Chinese democracy have grown and continue to grow
immeasurably, and its enemies have suffered and continue to suffer one defeat
after another. In the middle of 1949 already one half of the population of
China was leaving on territory liberated from the oppression of the Kuomintang
and the American imperialists.
The creation of
the People’s Republic of China which was proclaimed on October 1, 1949, crowned
the historic victory of the Chinese people.
Evaluated from the
international plane, the events in China are of great fundamental importance.
They have shown that in the biggest semi-colonial country it was precisely the
working class and its vanguard—the Communist Party—who headed the victorious people’s
emancipatory revolution. With respect to the Chinese big bourgeoisie and the
landlords who “fought” in the period of the Second World War in an extremely
nominal and peculiar way in the ranks of the National Front against the
Japanese by splitting and breaking this front in essence, in the post war
period they openly took to the path of shameful subservience to imperialism and
wholly and completely renounced the defence of the national interests of china
and betrayed it.
The international
significance of the development of the revolutionary events in China consists
in the fact that the victory of the democratic forces over Kuomintang reaction
was at the same time a defeat of the relatively more powerful American imperialism
and thereby disclosed the adventurism of American claims for world domination.
Already during the years of the Second World War the American imperialists had
looked upon China as a very important object for expansion and, therefore,
supported in every way the reactionary top stratum of the Kuomintang.
The complete
failure of the policy of USA in China revealing the bankruptcy of the strategy
of American imperialism, the adventurism of its policy which was wholly
orientated towards supporting the reactionary forces in China by methods of
economic, diplomatic, and military intervention, has become all the more
evident. The active assistance of the USA in fomenting civil war in China, its
active help to the Kuomintang led not to the defeat of the democratic forces
but to their victory.
China which
appeared to the men of Wall Street as the future inexhaustible source of super-
profits for American monopolists, as a new military satellite and as a supplier
of cannon-fodder for the American
militarists, as a gigantic spring-board “favourably” situated on the borders of
the Soviet Union—this China has upset all the plans and all the calculations of
the imperialists.
There is no doubt
that the defeat of the American imperialists’ plans in China and the bankruptcy
of the top stratum of the Kuomintang is the biggest factor in the further
sharpening of the crisis of the colonial system as a whole. Historic experience
teaches the masses to understand that national liberation cannot be attained
without the most active participation of the people themselves, that the
parties of the exploiting classes are interested not in liberation but in
crushing the workers, and therefore, hinder and disrupt the introduction of
urgently necessary democratic reforms. Already in 1927, Comrade Stalin pointed
out from the example of China the restricted and the nominal character of the
participation of the bourgeoisie in the national liberation movement and in the
colonial revolution. In the works on the Chinese Revolution, Comrade Stalin
gave a number of very valuable directions arming us with an understanding of
the basis of the strategy and tactics on the questions of the national and colonial
revolution as a whole, not only in China but also in other countries.
The essence of
Comrade Stalin’s teachings on the stages of the Chinese Revolution comes to the
following. The first stage of the Chinese Revolution—it is “a revolution of a general national united front” when “a
powerful movement of the workers and peasants has not yet succeeded in
developing, and the national bourgeoisie (non-compradore) sided with the
revolution.” At the first stage the revolution for the most part directed its
blow against foreign imperialism. Comrade Stalin teaches: “This does not mean that
there was no contradiction between the revolution and the national bourgeoisie.
It only means that the national bourgeoisie by supporting the revolution
endeavoured to utilise it for its own aims in
order that by directing it mainly along the lines of territorial
conquests to restrict its sweep.” The counter-
revolutionary coup of Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 denoted that “the revolution
entered the second stage of its development, that a turn has commenced from a revolution of a general national united front, to a revolution of the many million
masses of workers and peasants to an agrarian revolution which intensifies and extends the struggle
against imperialism, against the gentry and feudal landlords, against the
militarists and the counter-revolutionary Chiang Kai-shek group.” (J. V.
Stalin—Collected Works, Russ. Ed.,
Vol. 9, p. 223-26)
Thus the first
stage of the colonial revolution is mainly directed against foreign
imperialism; the second stage, above all, against the internal enemies, against
the feudal regime. However, if the first and the second stages do not entirely
succeed in completing the task of overthrowing the power of the imperialists,
then it is bequeathed to the following, the third stage, the Soviet stage.
Comrade Stalin’s
teachings on the stages of the Chinese Revolution theoretically revealed
the role of the national bourgeoisie on
the one hand, and the working class on the other in the struggle of the
colonies and semi-colonies for their emancipation.
The main task of
the peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies in their liberation struggle is
expressed in two demands: 1) the overthrowing of the power of imperialism, and
2) the carrying out of the agrarian revolution. It is that common element which
unites the national liberation movement embracing all the colonial countries which lie under imperialist oppression.
The historical
experience of many countries confirms the treachery and the cowardice of the
national big bourgeoisie which recoils from the national liberation movement
and enters into an agreement with imperialism just when the broad masses of
toilers who are trying to accomplish the agrarian revolution and rally under
the leadership of the working class, are drawn into the struggle.
The situation in
India and Indonesia speaks eloquently of this. The Indian big bourgeoisie which
has formed a bloc with the semi-feudal landlords has brought dishonour to
itself by a deal with imperialism at the expense of the
basic national interests of its country. Having attained formal autonomy it has
taken to the path of dealing ruthlessly with the working class and peasant
movement, with all the progressive forces fighting against imperialism and
reaction.
A clear
illustration of the collaboration of the Indian national bourgeoisie with rank
reactionary feudal elements were the events in Hyderabad, in the autumn of
1948. The Government troops of the Indian Union entered within the bounds of
the Princely State of Hyderabad as though to abolish the regime of feudal
despotism—the rule of the Nizam—and to render assistance to the local
population which was terrorised by the bandit gangs of the princely guards, the
Razakars. However, in actual reality the bourgeois government of India rushed
to assist the Nizam and the local landlords who were frightened by the great
sweep of the mass popular progressive movement in some districts of Hyderabad.
The Indian big bourgeoisie feared that the Nizam would not cope independently
with the popular democratic movement, and therefore hastened to his aid, or
otherwise the flames of the revolutionary actions of peasantry would spread
from the Hyderabad territory to other parts of India. With the entry of the
Indian troop in Hyderabad, the Indian bourgeois Press pressed for the carrying
out there of purely police functions—for “the curbing” of the democratic forces
“that had dared” in the areas of Telengana to encroach not only upon the rule
of the Nizam, but also upon the feudal privileges of the local landlords. The
occupation of the territory of the Princely state by the Indian troops did not
in the least bring about the elimination of the feudal rule of the Nizam. The
Indian Government officially confirmed that the Nizam of Hyderabad would retain
a considerable part of his former prerogatives.
As regards police
vengeance against the working class movement, the Nehru Government can hardly
be surpassed by all the rest of the Dominions of the British empire. Not
satisfied with the reaction raging within the country, the Nehru Government
orientates itself in its policy not only towards London, but also towards
Washington, and is participating actively in the formation of the Pacific or
the East- Asian Bloc which is to be a continuation of the aggressive North
Atlantic Pact which serves the aim of preparing for a new world war. The
Pacific Bloc as a union of all the reactionary forces in Asia under the supreme
leadership of American imperialism apart from its anti-Soviet aims, is
specially designed for a struggle against the national liberation movements of
the peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies.
Thus the Indian
big bourgeoisie has become a specially trusted gendarme at the service of the
Anglo-American imperialist masters. The development of historical events in
Indonesia after the Second World War show that the Indonesian bourgeoisie is
also taking to a similar path.
Bourgeois leaders
like Sukarno and Hatta who for the time being headed the Indonesian Republic,
from the very beginning orientated themselves towards the attainment of a
“decent” compromise with imperialism.
As a consequence
of this, an “agreement” between the Indonesian Republic and the imperialists
has invariably been attained at the price of a consistent renunciation of the
most important gains of the national liberation movement.
In the measure of
the growth in the activity of the toiling masses of Indonesia and in particular
the working class led by the Communist Party, the bourgeois top stratum more
and more comes to a rapprochement with the imperialists on the basis of the common
enmity towards the democratic forces. Aiming at not allowing the transformation
of the Indonesian Republic into a People’s Democratic Republic, the bourgeois
nationalists were making preparations to deal a blow to the democratic forces
and reckoned on buying the favour and the support of the USA.
By hindering the
national liberation struggle of the Indonesian people, by sabotaging the
carrying out of the promised democratic reforms, by making advances to the
American colonisers, the bourgeois nationalists of the type of
Sukarno and Hatta have prepared for the conversion of Indonesia into an
ordinary bourgeois republic, as much enmeshed in the network of political, economic,
and military dependence on USA as ‘independent’ Philippines.
The efforts of the
bourgeois nationalists directed towards taking the Indonesian Republic along
the beaten track of Burma and the Philippines, that is, on the path of
fictitious ‘independence’ have evoked the legitimate indignation of the toiling
masses of Indonesia. The People’s Democratic Front led by the Communist Party
has come out against the treacherous policy of the Hatta Government. The
popular masses of Indonesia have demanded a breaking off of the Renville
Agreement thrust upon them by the imperialists and the realisation of the
necessary democratic reforms in the country ensuring the possibility of
mobilising all the national forces and resources to repulse the imperialists.
The nationalisation of industry, the transfer of land into the hands of those
who till it, the arming of the people,
such were the main demands of the popular democratic front headed by the Communists.
The bourgeois
Ministers of the Hatta Government, who had sold themselves to the imperialists
replied to these demands of the Indonesian workers with bloody provocations and
unbridled police terror. Civil war commenced inside the country.
Orientation
towards American imperialism did not save the Indonesian bourgeois nationalist
top stratus from Dutch intervention. The capitulatory and treacherous line of
Hatta and Sukarno jeopardised the very existence of the Indonesian Republic.
However, the
stubborn struggle of the Indonesian people against imperialism and its internal
bourgeois-feudal nationalist agents is a guarantee of the fact that imperialism
will never succeed in restoring its domination over Indonesia in the former
forms.
At the same time,
the more than three years’ experience of the existence of the Indonesian
Republic demonstrated the impossibility of ensuring a real victory of the
national liberation movement, the attainment of independence, till the
leadership of this movement, passes over firmly into the hands of the working
class, till genuinely democratic changes take place inside the country. The
class interests of the bourgeois nationalists and the feudal-landlord top
strata in the emancipatory anti-imperialist front impel it on the path of
betrayal and compromise with imperialism.
Democratic reforms
ensuring the advance of the activity of the popular masses and enabling them to
free themselves from the clutches of want and backwardness are the only serious
guarantee of the success of the national liberation struggle as a whole.
The hegemony of
the proletariat and leadership of the Communist Party are a decisive condition
for the victorious development of the national liberation movement of the
peoples of the colonies and dependent countries.
* * *
Seeing how the
mass movement against imperialism led by the working class and its vanguard,
the Communist Party is growing, the imperialists are strenuously mobilising
bourgeois nationalism with the aim of disorganising the national liberation
movement and establishing the hegemony of the bourgeoisie in this movement.
The example of
Indonesia shows how the imperialists are utilising bourgeois nationalism.
Mobilising bourgeois nationalism is typical of the present-day ideological
forms of struggle of imperialism against the people’s democratic movement in
all the dependent and colonial countries.
In ,
Indo-China, India, Palestine, and in other countries, the imperialists are
sedulously attempting to set various nationalities one against the other with
the aim of weakening the anti-imperialist struggle and disrupting the united
liberation front of the people.
Bourgeois-nationalist
agents of imperialism deny the operation of the general laws of social
development and demand the determination of special “paths and laws” for every
country, arising from its specific features.
These “special
paths and laws” of development of countries are utilised in order to
counterpose the national movement in every individual country to the general
anti-imperialist struggle of the people and to poison the people with
chauvinism.
An exaggeration of
the specific features of the development of individual countries is directed
straight towards attempting to tear away the colonial and dependent countries
from the democratic and anti-imperialist forces headed by the Soviet Union.
Sometimes, in
order to mask themselves, the bourgeois nationalists advance the idea of
“neutrality” or the so-called middle course, the middle path between
imperialism and Communism. However, this false theory has been upset by
reality. The champions of bourgeois nationalism invariably end up with
slandering the USSR and Communism, thus exposing themselves as agents of
imperialism.
Lenin and Stalin
teach us that it is absolutely necessary to take into account the national
specific distinctive features of development of every country, but this does
not at all mean that the specific features ought to be raised to the absolute.
Comrade Stalin says for example:
“It would be
incorrect not to take into account specific features of American capitalism. The Communist Party must
take them into account in its work. But it would be still more incorrect to
base the activity of the Communist Party on these specific features since the
basis of the activity of every Communist Party—including even the American—on
which it must base itself are the general features of capitalism, identical for
all countries and not its specific features in a given country. It is on this
that the internationalism of the Communist Parties is created. Specific
features are only a complement to the general
features.”
(J.
V. Stalin “On the Right Factionalists in the American Communist Party”,
Bolshevik, 1930)
Communist Parties
in the colonial and dependent countries in waging a struggle against the
various manifestations of ideology hostile to the working class are justly
developing special attention to a exposure of bourgeois nationalism (Gandhism,
Pan-Islamism, Zionism, etc.) and are taking into account the fact that it is
being utilised by imperialism as the most important ideological weapon in the
colonial world. To the international unity of the workers, imperialism attempts
to counterpose the line of dividing peoples. Experience however, shows that
when the leadership of the liberation movement passes firmly into the hands of
the working class, national divisions cease to play the role of a hindering
factor in the development of the anti-imperialist struggle. An example of this
is the struggle in Malaya. Till the war, British imperialism in Malaya utilised
with great advantage to itself the existence there of three compact national
groups—Malay, Chinese, and Indian. These groups—not without incitement from British
imperialism—were in a constant state of antagonism against each other. During
the Second World War, in the course of the struggle against Japanese
imperialism, when the leadership of this struggle in Malaya passed into the
hands of the underground organisations of the working class, close cooperation
was established between these three national groups—the Malayans, Indians and
Chinese. After the war, the three trade union centres in Malaya, led by the Communists began to operate
as a single force rallying workers of Malaya against the
imperialists. The passing over of the leadership of the Malayan national
liberation movement to the working class has led to this—the former imperialist
game of playing upon the national
differences of the Malayans, the Chinese and the Indians is played out.
* * *
The national
liberation struggle in those dependent and colonial countries where its
leadership belongs to the working class, is inevitably growing over into the
struggle for People’s Democracy.
In North Korea and
over a considerable part of the liberated territories of the People’s Republic
of China this struggle has already been crowned with big successes. A number of
measures have been carried out ensuring the passing of real power into the hands
of the people, the expropriation of the landlords has been realised, “local”
capitalist exploitation has been seriously restricted and imperialist
oppression has been abolished. New People’s Democratic power in North Korea
“backed by the mass of the people was able within a minimum period to carry
through progressive democratic reforms such as bourgeois democracy is no longer
capable of effecting.” (A. Zhdanov, The
International Situation, Moscow 1947, p.
9)
The experience of
Viet Nam, India Burma, Philippines, Indonesia shows that the anti-imperialist
struggle generally tends to grow over into a struggle for new People’s
Democracy, corresponding to the interests of those classes which are prepared
in reality to fight to the end against imperialism. For the majority of
dependent and colonial countries complete separation from the imperialist
system is only possible on the basis of the triumph of the principles of
People’s Democracy. This means that the real national independence of the
former colonial and dependent countries can be achieved only through a transfer
of power into the hands of the people.
Facts show that
the attempts to restrict the national liberation movement within the narrow
framework of formal bourgeois-democracy inevitably lead to the retention and
consolidation of imperialist domination. This is explained by the fact that the
national bourgeoisie which in the present instance pretends to the role of a
leader, not only fetters and artificially retards the revolutionary activities
of the popular masses, but even seeks for a “business contact” and for bargains
with imperialism. This is confirmed by the entire course of postwar development
in many colonial and dependent countries both in the Near and in the Far East.
The external forms
clothing colonial exploitation may be different. A colonial position, i.e., above all the economic enslavement
of a country imperialism is completely compatible with its formal equality or
even with “independence”. Quite often formal state independence only screens
actual colonial bondage since its essence which consists in the artificial
retarding of the economic development of the country by imperialism an in its
retention in the position of an agrarian and raw-material appendage to the
metropolitan country remains unchanged.
The granting of
formal “independence” to Burma by Britain is a clear example of this. The
British-Burmese Agreement of 1948 talks about granting “independence” to Burma,
but it simultaneously provides for the training of the Burmese army by British
officers, the sojourn of British Military missions on the territory of Burma.,
the servicing and utilisation of aerodromes “jointly” with Britain on the
territory of Burma, etc. Britain retains the most important economic positions
in Burma.
It must be
emphasised that the essential pre-requisite for granting Burma formal illusory
independence was the temporary advent of unstable vacillating elements to the
leadership of the national liberation movement of Burma. It was precisely this
which conditioned the reformist path, the renunciation of consistent resolute
forms of struggle against British imperialism. This led to a hindrance and a forcible suppression of the
revolutionary activity of the popular masses. This resulted in capitulation
before imperialism under the guise of compromise with it, and the establishment
in Burma of a bourgeois “democratic” regime called upon to defend the
imperialist interests was a screen for capitulation.
The entire
“operation” for converting Burma from a colony into first a Dominion, and then
into an “independent” republic under conditions suitable only for British
imperialism shows that reformist petty-bourgeois nationalist organisations are
incapable of fighting for the cause of national liberation. They cannot ensure
successful leadership to the struggle of the peoples of the colonial and
dependent countries against imperialist bondage. Their path inevitably leads to
capitulation. Hardly six months passed since the proclamation of the
‘independence’ in Burma and the popular masses in that country were convinced
bout the illusory character of the changes that had taken place.
The continuation
of the brutal exploitation in the enterprises, mines, plantations belonging to
the British, the subservience of the “left” Government of foreign imperialism,
the retention of British military bases, the persecution of the workers for participating
in strikes, the dealing with the Communists—all these has overfilled the cup of
sufferings of the Burmese people.
The great uprising
which commenced in 1948 and which embraces a considerable part of the country
was the reply of the popular masses to the activities of the “Socialist” puppet
Ministers of British imperialism, the pitiable epigenes of bourgeois “democraticism”
in a colonial country. The attempts of the imperialists to utilise the national
movement of the Karens against the democratic forces has ended in a complete
failure. The anti-imperialist front in Burma has only expanded. The dimensions
of the national liberation struggles in Burma are now so great that they cause
acute anxiety to the entire imperialist camp.
At one time
referring to the “experience” of Burma the British imperialists tried to affirm
that the sprouts of democraticism were “maturing” gradually and “unimpeded”
within the bounds of the British empire. The Labourite apologists of
imperialism idyllically represent the state of affairs as though complete
freedom is being granted to the fully ‘matured’ colonies of Britain. In actual
practice both the British and the American imperialists are implanting the evil
of formal bourgeois democraticism in the dependent countries with the sole aim
of disorganising the mass national liberation anti-imperialist movement. The
imperialists and their agents aim at utilising the restricted character and the
hypocrisy of bourgeois pseudo-democracy in the dependent and colonial countries
as a method of disarming the national liberation movement and as a means of
directing it into reformist channels safe for the imperialists.
But the Burmese
‘experience’ shows that even this path is not safe for the imperialists. The
popular masses discern the hypocrisy of the imperialist manoeuvres and demand
not fictitious independence under the figleaf of a bourgeois republic but are
fighting for real emancipation.
The struggle for
national liberation can only be successful when it is accompanied by a struggle
for democratic reforms, not only for formal “independence” and formal-juridical
liberties but for genuine democracy for the people. This is inseparably linked
with the passing of the vanguard and the leading role in the national
liberation movement into the hands of the working class and the Communist Parties
because it is only the working class and not the bourgeoisie which is capable
of conducting a consistent struggle for the emancipation of the great masses of
the people—the toilers from the oppression of the foreign imperialists, the
landlords and the money-lenders.
It goes without
saying that in the East, in the colonial and semi-colonial countries it is
possible to have a broader national front against imperialist forces than in
the West. It can certainly include those strata of the bourgeoisie which have
suffered from the ruin of local industry as a result of the flooding of the
market by goods from the metropolitan country. However, the basis of this front
here as in the
European
countries is the bloc of toiling classes—the working class, the peasantry, the
urban petty- bourgeoisie under the leading role of the working class.
The struggle for
new People’s Democracy in the East has its distinctive features reflecting the
specific features of the colonial countries where it is taking place. And in so
far as here the question is of colonial and semi-colonial countries, people’s democratic
power here is confronted to a much greater extent with bourgeois democratic
tasks which demand a solution first. Consequently, the victory of People’s
Democracy in the colonial and dependent countries cannot forthwith lead to a
solution of Socialist tasks to the same extent that it is taking place in the
People’s Democracies in Europe, since the economic backwardness of these
countries is the direct result of their recent colonial past. It is in this
that the main distinction between People’s Democracy in the East and People’s
Democracies of Central and Eastern Europe consists.
The struggle for
People’s Democracy in the colonial and dependent countries is a specific form
of the colonial revolution with all the features inherent in it. However, the
circumstance that the colonial revolution has become possible in precisely a
new and qualitatively higher form by itself testifies to the greatest
sharpening of the general crisis of capitalism. In the East, the people’s
democratic system which is being born out of the national liberation,
anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle does not merely eliminate the
cultural and economic backwardness of the countries whose development has been
artificially retarded and hindered by imperialism. This system is also called
upon to create the pre- requisites for a further progressive development of
these counties on the path to Socialism.
The possibility of
such a development has been conditioned here just as in Europe by reliance on
the Soviet Union, by the support of the mighty camp of democracy and Socialism
by the general correlation of the forces of democracy and imperialism on a world
scale.
* * *
The main enemy of
the national liberation movement in the colonies and semi-colonies is
aggressive American imperialism.
The termination of
the Second World War led not only to the strengthening of the forces of
democracy, but also to a consolidation of the forces of reaction around
American imperialism, which heads the antidemocratic camp. American capitalist
monopolies which enriched themselves on the war are seeking for a way of
retaining and multiplying their fabulous profits and do not stop at anything in
order to achieve this. The Hitlerite plans of establishing “world hegemony”
have been fully inherited by the American financial magnates. Militarism has
become the most active factor of American policy. American imperialism has
openly come forth as an international gendarme, consistently following a line
of crushing every activity of the popular democratic forces.
The American
imperialists see in the growing political activities of the popular masses in
the colonies and semi-colonies a serious obstacle in the realisation of their
adventurist plans of fighting for world domination. Therefore, US imperialism
appears in the role of leader of the colonial powers heading the campaign
against the national liberation movements of the peoples of all the dependent
and colonial counties.
The colonising
policy of the USA in South Korea can serve as an example of the attitude of
American imperialism to the national liberation struggle of the people.
American imperialism attempts not merely to hold back the Korean people from
realising their national aspirations by impeding the unification of North and South Korea into a united and independent people’s
democratic State, but has even
impudently thrust upon the Koreans a semi-colonial puppet regime of Li Sin Man,
guarded by American bayonets.
In the Philippines,
the granting of fictitious ‘independence’ was accompanied by the promotion of
arrant reactionaries and collaborationists to the local government by the
Americans. The American military authorities in the Philippines are exerting
all their efforts in order to assist their proteges to deal with the peasant
movement and the partisan detachments which had played a heroic part in the
struggle against the Japanese invaders.
All the postwar
activities of American imperialism in China bear witness to the fact that the
USA pursued a policy of intervention and aimed in every way at crushing the
democratic movement of the Chinese people and retaining in power in China the
reactionary Kuomintang clique which obediently fulfilled the orders of the
Americans.
The aggressive
plans of the American monopolists thrust them towards a still more intensive
and predatory utilisation of the human and material resources of the colonies
both those which are directly subject to the USA as well as those belonging to
the Marshallised counties (Britain, France, Holland, Belgium). The colonial
policy of the USA subordinated to the plans of aggression, i.e., to the struggle for world domination, for the oppression of
all mankind is directed towards establishing American control over as large a
number of foreign lands as possible, with the aim of monopolising the
extraction of strategic raw materials and of gaining the possibility of
exploiting the cheap or free labour forces for all kinds of military
construction.
During the Second
World War, American propaganda devoted great attention to making display of the
so-called progressive aims of American policy which was ostensibly trying
everywhere to support the democratic principles and in particular was ready to
assist in the liberation of dependent and colonial countries. The activities of
the USA showed the hypocrisy of this propaganda, which served to screen the
struggle that was actually going on for a division of the world in the camp of
the imperialist states—the partners of the anti-Hitlerite coalition—and acted
as a smokescreen for the agents of American monopolies in the colonial and
dependent countries. However, the American imperialists have even now not given
up making demagogic “promises” to the colonial
peoples.
Just as after the
First World War, American imperialist politician devised the term “mandate”
with the object of masking the division of the colonies, after the Second World
War the USA is cynically utilising the institution “trusteeship” provided for
by the Charter of the United Nations Organisation in order to distort the
principles of the Charter and screen and justify the crude colonising practice
of the imperialist powers in the colonies and semi-colonies. The hypocritical
plans of American “aid” in the work of “economic development of backward
territories” advanced by President Truman are also calculated to serve as a
screen for the predatory activities of the USA in the colonies.
However, the
hypocrisy of American demagogic promises is being exposed in practice. The
postwar policy of US in all its aspects is a policy of preparation for a new
war, seizure of colonies, crude militarism, encouragement to reactionary
forces, suppression of free peoples and their conversion into an object of
imperialist exploitation. The postwar colonising practice of the USA has sown
the seeds of hatred towards America imperialism among the people of the
colonial and dependent peoples not only in the Western Hemisphere which has
already become the preserve of the North American monopolies but also in Asia.
* * *
The historic
experience of the recent years has strengthened the close links of the national
liberation movements in the colonies with the struggle of the working class of
the metropolitan counties and with the general struggle for democracy and
Socialism. Leninism disclosed the revolutionary possibilities contained in the
national liberation movements directed against imperialist oppression and
towards the overthrow of imperialism as the common enemy of the toilers of all
lands and peoples.
The most important
factor contributing to the general advance of the national liberation struggle
was the Great October Socialist Revolution and the birth of the Soviet State.
Comrade Stalin said that the October Revolution by laying the foundation of a new
epoch of colonial revolutions conducted in the oppressed countries in alliance
with the proletariat ushered in the era of emancipatory revolutions in the
colonies and semi-colonies conducted under the hegemony of the proletariat.
(J.V. Stalin: Collected Works, Russia
Ed. Moscow, Vol. X. p. 243)
The influence of
the historic experience of carrying into practice the Leninist-Stalinist
national policy in the USSR for more than 30 years on the process going on in
the colonial world is of the greatest historic significance.
Comrade Stalin in
his classical work on the national question (1913) pointed out that “Russia
stands between Europe and Asia”, and, therefore, her role as a factor in
awakening Asia is exceedingly great. This was still in respect of
pre-revolutionary Russia.
And what can one
say now when Russia has shown to the people of the entire world the path to
Socialism, when the theoretical formulations of the founders of Communism have
been transmuted into life and confirmed by reality!
The creation of a
working class and an intelligentsia and the passing over to a realisation of
the programme of unprecedented economic and cultural advance of the country on
the basis of the five year plan in the Mongolian People’s Republic, in a
country which till quite recently served as an example of economic and
political backwardness is only one of the many factors which confirm the great
influence of the victorious building of Communism in the USSR on the countries
of the East.
This is also
intensifying the general crisis of capitalism, aggravating the crisis of the
colonial system, and bringing near the liquidation of imperialist oppression
over the entire colonial world.
* * *
The successful
national-liberationist anti-imperialist struggle in the colonies and
semi-colonies is inspired by the world-historic victories of the USSR, by the
example of the great power which has built a Socialist society to whom national
or racial oppression and class exploitation is unknown.
The national
liberation movement in the dependent and colonial countries is getting welded
with the democratic and anti-imperialist camp headed by the mighty Soviet
Union. It is impossible to look at the successes of the struggle of the peoples
of the colonial and semi-colonial countries in isolation from the growth of the
might of the USSR ad the consolidation of the anti-imperialist camp of
democracy and Socialism. “The USSR and the People’s Democracies pursue a policy
of undeviating support to the colonial and dependent counties fighting for
their national liberation from imperialist yoke.” (G. M. Malenkov: Report to
the Information gathering of the representatives of the Communist Parties in
Poland, 1947).
The successes of
the struggle in the colonies are possible, thanks to the ideological and
political support from the USSR, thanks to the support from the mighty camp of
democracy and Socialism. This determines
the entire development of the national and colonial struggles after the Second
World War and is conditioning the further deepening of the general crisis of
capitalism.
The victory of
People’s Democracy in China, the successes of the Korea People’s Democratic
Republic, the sharpening struggle in Viet Nam, Malaya, Indonesia, and Burma and
in the other countries of the East—bears witness to the impending collapse of
the colonial system. The victorious outcome of the liberation struggle of the
millions of masses who were till recently colonial slaves of imperialism is so
heavy a blow to the entire system of imperialist oppression that it is
impossible to overestimate its historic significance.
CRISIS OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM , NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES OF EAST ASIA
