In the meantime, the labor organization of the Royists, the Indian Federation of Labor IFL grew into a massive labor movement and helped the British keep up production to support war efforts. It was also agreed that all portfolios except for Defense would be held by Indian members. The RDP was not included in these discussions. Roy was sharply critical of the plan because he felt that the absence of the RDP at the Shimla Conference meant that the poor and the labor classes had been left out.
However, since the executive council was only a temporary measure, the RDP decided to continue to focus its efforts towards the elections. In March , Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India helped the Congress and the Muslim League reach a settlement on the fate of undivided India and on the 15th of August, India became an independent country. Many thought these principles to be in stark contrast to Marxism, but Roy claimed that change of ideas and opinions because of experiences was essential within the framework of Marxism.
He argued that the nationalist movement derived its strength from religious outlook, medieval dogmas and hero-worship. Fascism in Germany and Italy, too, could be explained not by economic factors but by the lack of democratic traditions in their culture and the presence of high nationalistic and militaristic spirit.
However, he was proven wrong. With the development of a Cold war, the Soviet Union became increasingly hostile towards Great Britain, which allied itself more firmly with the US. He concluded that foreign policy in the U. The party ultimately adopted these ideas at its Annual Conference in December in Bombay.
According to him the purpose of the humanist philosophy was not purely academic. It was meant to bring about revolution to change the social order. Roy spent the remainder of his life furthering his philosophy of New Humanism. He died on 25th January In a series of articles, which were written over a year, Roy explicated his views on the formation of a National Government and the need for democratization.
Through the course of his writings, he was also extremely critical of the view of handing over power to a National Government formed by the Indian National Congress. He maintained that if the Congress party were to head the National Government, not only would India be defenseless against a Japanese invasion from the east, but the war against fascism would also be weakened.
Leaders of the Congress party had consistently argued that India had been forcefully been drawn into the World War due to British interests.
They maintained that although the Congress Party was deeply critical of fascism, India had the right to choose its role in the war. Furthermore, they thought that the threat of a potential Japanese invasion from the east existed because of British administration in India. In other words, they believed that the Japanese would not invade a free India since their feud was with the British Empire and not with the Indian people.
If the war has proved anything, it has proved that ineffective resistance is the greatest folly. Spending money on ineffective defense is a waste of money. From the practical point of view, what we could do, is that we must not surrender.
Certainly, we are not going to be the tools of the British. He argued that it was necessary for India to be industrialized and militarized to face a possible fascist invasion from the east. By asking people to not organize resistance, the Congress party was not helping the cause of Indian freedom. After all, the issue of independence would hardly have been resolved if India passed from being an English to a Japanese colony.
For him it no longer represented the interests of the Indian masses. He advocated for the formation of a war cabinet composed of men chosen based on individual merit. This body would work towards concentrating all resources for winning the war. He claimed that the defeat of fascism was a concern for the welfare of all mankind, which included India.
India, too, therefore had to play its role in the war, and a national government free from party control would be able to take the necessary decisions in that direction. Roy actively campaigned for a greater role for the RDP in decision making. It alone grasped the nature of the problem of Indian defense. It has labored indefatigably, in the face of endless difficulties, much of which came from the authorities to help, at least the progressive section of the Indian people realize the vital issues involved in the war, and to quicken self-confidence and spirit of resistance.
On the question of a Japanese invasion, Roy believed that the views of the Congress leaders were overly idealistic. Many Congress leaders thought, at the time, that the fascists would not invade India with a National Government at the head of the country, and even if they did, peace could be achieved with the aggressors.
If unfortunately, we fail, and we are left to ourselves to make peace with the aggressor, even then it is not impossible to achieve peace on honorable terms. Framed during the First World War, it was used again during the Second World War to curb fascist propaganda and activities against the war efforts. Leaders of the Congress party including Gandhi had criticized the British Government for making arrests under this act.
Roy feared that if the Congress were to head the national government, the Defense of India Act would be repealed. This would only further strengthen the pro-fascist voices, thus making invasion of the country even easier. The National Government would ignore them. Thus, it would begin the defense of the country by removing all watch on the most vulnerable and decisive home front. Cripps had many rounds of negotiations with Mahatma Gandhi and other Congress leaders.
In return for cooperation and support with fighting the war, the Cripps Mission promised self-government and dominion status. However, both the major parties rejected these proposals. According to the plan, while the functioning of the Government of India was to be transferred to the Indians, the direction of the defense of India was reserved for the War Cabinet in England.
However, the organization and finances of the military were also to be transferred to the Government of India. The Congress party, unwilling to compromise also wanted the Government of India to have the authority to make peace with an invader. But do they expect the Japanese to give India more power and more freedom?
They could not possibly take up their reckless attitude except with that expectation. The Furthermore, he said that, even in case of defense, the Government of India was given enough room to make decisions. It was within its power to raise militias and paramilitary forces and to industrialize the country for defense equipment manufacturing.
He maintained that if the Government of India wanted to help the British war efforts in keeping with the defense policy laid down by the War Cabinet in England, it would find sufficient autonomy for making administrative decisions.
According to him national prejudices could not be allowed to impede the fight against fascism. Anyone who can contemplate that idea, does not realize the gravity of the situation, and therefore he may have his own idea of patriotism or prestige but cannot have any share in guiding the destinies of the country in these crucial days.
The purpose of the national front would be to maintain public morale and inspire the masses to resist fascism. He added that these committees would be tasked with combatting fascist sympathizers in the country and educating people about how a successful invasion of India by the fascist powers would prejudice the cause of freedom. Although Roy However, due to British recruitment efforts and big contributions from the Indian princely states, by the end of the war in August the Indian Army became the largest volunteer army in the world with over 2.
On April 26, Roy came out with an article in which he addressed the issue of organizing a National War Front. He criticized the belief that the cooperation of the Congress and the Muslim League was important for the defense of India.
He advocated the Marxist view of going straight to the masses and instilling in them a sense of ownership. He argued that ninety percent of the Indian population lived in seven hundred thousand villages and if they were provided with a sense of ownership and told that the land they tilled was theirs to cultivate and protect, mass resistance could be organized in India.
It is quite possible to go straight to the masses and mobilize them for the defense of the country. According to Roy, countries could not be viewed as monoliths and each nation was split into the two opposing camps, making the global situation like an international civil war. These two camps comprised of people from different countries who were allied internationally. Any attempt to rally India as a whole on the side of the non- The biggest opposition to Indian support towards the war effort came from the Congress party.
While India has no quarrel with the people of any country, she has repeatedly declared her antipathy to Nazism and fascism as to imperialism. If India were free, she would have determined her own policy and might have kept out of the war. He argued that the fact that India had no quarrel with any country was not relevant since the war was between ideals as opposed to being between countries.
It was against a socio- political system based on exploitation which having overrun the democratic institutions in the fascist countries threatened the entire world.
Roy argued that the belief that nations could remain aloof from the war by remaining neutral was flawed. Fascism is the expression of antiquated nationalism. Roy argued that although such measures might have been effective against civilian governments, non-violence could not be the answer for an invading army. He saw this entire approach as a refusal to defend the country till the Congress could decide whether India should partake in the war or not.
If we are to believe that the Congress policy is determined by the principle of non-violence, the only resistance even then will be non-violent non-co-operation, that is to say, capitulation for all practical purposes, or after a token resistance by an improvised army, peace will be concluded with the invader. As the war raged on, the idea of forming a National Government became came to be linked with the defense of India against an invasion.
Roy claimed that there was no reason to believe that defense of the country would be better handled by a National Government led by the Congress. Roy claimed that under those circumstances the terms would be dictated by the Japanese, and they would demand a price for not invading India.
A situation would be created in which the national government would have to introduce all sorts of repressive measures for suppressing the democracy. A really democratic government can no longer be nationalistic; conversely, a nationalistic government cannot be instrumental in mobilizing the popular energy of any particular country on the side of the international democratic front.
According to Roy the only conclusion which could be drawn from these, was that the nationalists preferred a fascist victory thus putting themselves in the anti-democratic camp.
Therefore, freedom from British rule would not mean freedom for the common man or a democratic government for the people. During this period, differences between the Congress and the Muslim League continued to grow over the question of representation of Muslims and the Two-Nation theory which became the ideological basis for the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan. It presupposed that the unifying factor for the Muslims in South Asia was their religion and not their ethnicity, region or language.
In an article written on June 7, Roy elaborated on the rift between the two major organizations and argued that since the legitimacy of the Muslim League could not be ignored, the Congress could not be thought of as the only national organization representing all of India.
He argued that since the Muslim League represented a significant section of the minority a truly democratic government would have to take the form of a coalition between the Congress and the Muslim League. This according to Roy was not possible since a big part of the Hindu population represented by the Congress party would dissent.
Between them, they have liquidated nationalism, if that is to be understood as the common urge of a united people for political freedom. What is regarded as national freedom by the Congress is dreaded by the Muslim League as Hindu majority domination.
The right of self- Since the two could never come together, neither of them could claim to represent the Indian democracy. Instead of taking India towards democracy, the two organizations, according to Roy, had become impediments in the road to democracy. Roy evaluated the economic consequences of the formation of a National Government in an article dated September 13, He wrote that the industrialized sections of society continued to exploit the country.
Even though the production of food had not fallen, prices had sky-rocketed during the war. He accused traders and grain dealers of hoarding grains to artificially drive prices up. According to Roy it was these traders and businessmen who financed all the principal parties. On the other hand, the peasants have to pay much more for the manufactured things that they buy but do not get proportionately more for the food grains although the price of the latter has gone up so much.
Traders make huge profits, and they constitute the social basis of the principal parties. He believed that a National Government formed by the principal parties would be a government of the industrialists and that their relationship with the poor and marginalized sections of society would be no different than that of the British.
Such a government would work only for the elite and a privileged minority while the interests of the bulk of the society would be ignored. In the articles that were compiled to put together Nationalism, Democracy and Freedom, M. Roy appears to be committed to his stance against fascism. Throughout the series of articles, Roy argued that since India could not isolate itself from the global situation, thinking exclusively in a nationalistic vacuum was inane. The Congress Party had also advocated non-violence to resist a potential Japanese invasion.
Congress Party leaders had repeatedly stated their views — that the fascist powers had no animosity with the Indian people. Furthermore, in the event of an unlikely invasion, negotiation with the Japanese would prove far easier than with the British. He believed that the Japanese would seize the opportunity to invade India regardless of who was in power, and that they would be no easier to deal with than the British.
He was apprehensive of substituting one master for another. Furthermore, in his opinion, declaring non-violence as a national policy was tantamount to issuing an open invitation to any belligerent power to invade India. Roy also argued that since there were sections of the minorities represented by the Muslim League and not by the Congress, any National Government formed by the Congress party would not be truly democratic.
This proved to be a big mistake politically the result of which was seen in the defeat of the RDP in the provincial elections. Ironically the British administration came to attach much lesser importance to Roy as a public figure even though unlike the Congress party, he campaigned extensively in support of their This was because he still maintained a commitment to class politics which the British feared as antithetical to their post-colonial interests and because his popularity among the masses was much lesser than that of the Congress party and Muslim League leaders.
The biggest confirmation of this came when the Cripps Mission, sent by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to secure Indian cooperation for the British war effort did not hold consultations with the RDP leadership.
Even though Roy was aware of that fact that opposing Gandhi was equivalent to political suicide, he remained committed to his ideals and campaigned vigorously against the Congress Party for not taking a strong stance against fascism.
In it, Roy analyzed the immediate global political situation that led to the dissolution of the Comintern. However, he argued that the reasons for its dissolution stretched far back into its past. He explored the relationship between the Soviet government and the Comintern and argued that the Comintern policies were primarily based on the interests of the Soviet Union, which were not always the same as those of the international communist movement.
In his work, Roy analyzed the history of the international communist movement in detail and elaborated on the policies of the Comintern in relation to different events over time. According to Roy, Marx believed that even though capitalism developed within national boundaries it was protected by a universal system.
The laws of capitalism were identical globally and industrial workers were exploited in much the same way in every country. Marx had argued that since the system was universal, the struggle to liberate the working classes had to be initiated simultaneously across the globe. If wages remained low in one country and the workers there labored under worse conditions, the capitalists in another country would not redress the grievances of their workers in that respect that greater cost of production would make them unable to complete in the world market.
Marx had called on the workers of the world to unite and declare that they had no country. To facilitate this consolidation of industrial workers throughout the world, the International Association of Workers or the First Roy, The Communist International, Karl Marx was convinced that capitalism, a stage of economic development, was bound to disappear.
Political power however could be a deterrent or a catalyst in this process and so the capture of political power by the working class was essential. In , an insurrection of French workers established the Paris Commune, a revolutionary government that ruled Paris for a few months. However, unlike the participants of the French Revolution who faced the disorganized royal armies of France, the insurgents in faced strong retaliation. The French Government was much more stable both economically and militarily than the Bourbon dynasty had been at the time of French Revolution.
He argued that most parliamentary democracies did not lean towards socialism and were influenced by fascist elements from time to time. This was also the reason that many socialists advocated violent overthrow of capitalist regimes to establish proletarian dictatorships.
Since communists across the world were enormously influenced by the success of the revolution in Russia, the belief was that revolution had to take the same form everywhere. He discussed the situation at the time to establish that it was a host of factors both within Russia and globally, which led to its success. Unlike most other European countries Russia had not seen a great deal of industrialization and a feudal system had prevailed almost until the fall of the monarchy in Roy argued that the Russian revolution owed its success to the economic backwardness, corruption and inefficiency of the state machinery.
Furthermore, the successive defeats of the Russian army in the World War I served to completely demoralize the military. Apart from these internal considerations, the fact that most of the powerful countries in Europe were engaged in the First World War during the revolution contributed to its success. This was not the case for subsequent revolutionary attempts in other countries.
That was an accident. Revolutionary outbreaks in other countries, inspired by the Russian experience, did not have the advantage and all failed. It proposed to organize revolutions in all the other countries of the world after the model of the Russian Revolution. The impracticability of that plan became evident very soon.
At the same time, he recognized that the military defeat of a state did not guarantee the success of a revolution. For instance, in the German Army suffered defeat and the monarchy collapsed; despite this, the communist revolution in Germany was suppressed.
Even though people joined with the Communist Party in substantial numbers, the German Army did not disintegrate completely, and its remnants remained loyal to the ruling classes. The German and the Romanian armies also suppressed It was not practical to adopt the Russian model in other countries. Thus, although the Comintern continued to exist, its Soviet leaders were preoccupied with building successful socialism in the Soviet Union rather than putting their efforts into fomenting revolution around the globe.
Between and , the Comintern was subject to many purges in which it was deprived of its most far-sighted and intellectual thinkers. These leaders who also led the October Revolution had spent considerable parts of their lives abroad and hence were aware of the global situation. Roy argued that these men, such as Grigory Zinoviev96, Lev Kamenev97 and Trotsky98, all thought in terms of world revolution.
Once it Grigory Zinoviev was a member of the Bolshevik party and a central figure in the Communist leadership of the Soviet Union. Zinoviev was a member of the first Politburo of the Soviet Union and later became Chairman of the Communist International.
He was convicted and executed during the Moscow Show Trials of Lev Kamenev was Bolshevik revolutionary and member of the first Politburo of the Soviet Union. His opposition to Stalin led to his expulsion from the Communist Party and ultimately his execution in Furthermore, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, being engrossed in its post-revolution constructive program, could not spare any capable leaders for the Comintern.
Most of the new leaders were inadequately informed about other countries. While the older revolutionaries had always considered Russian problems in the larger context of the global situation, the new leaders did quite the opposite. In his writings, Roy was also very critical of the position the Comintern adopted toward the rise of fascism in Europe, and particularly in Germany. He believed that the Soviet leaders of the Comintern, preoccupied with the post-revolutionary construction of the Soviet state, grossly underestimated the rise of Fascism in Europe.
In keeping with this policy, the Communist Party of Germany made a united front with the fascists as against the Social-Democrats. In this case, the Communists had helped the fascists come to power in Germany with the hope of leading a social revolution at a later point.
In The Communist International Roy launched a scathing attack on the attitude of sycophancy and unconditional acceptance of Soviet Communist thought. According to him this was especially prevalent in communist circles in India. This was further compounded with the fact that the Comintern resolutions regarding India at the time were based on inadequate information about the conditions in colonial countries.
After a failed power struggle against Joseph Stalin, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and sent into exile. He was assassinated in Acting on the advice of the Comintern, the CPI denounced the Congress party as an organ of counter-revolution. It also denounced the idea of a Constituent Assembly as counter-revolutionary.
Such was the intellectual degeneration caused by the desire to imitate the Russians in every single detail. In , the Seventh World Congress reversed its policy and recommended a National Front with the national bourgeoisie — a stand it had so far emphatically opposed.
Here again, the CPI took its position based on ill-informed direction from Moscow, rather than an analysis of its own conditions in India. In the meanwhile, the political situation in Europe was changing rapidly. As a result, Soviet geopolitical strategy, and consequently global communist positions changed with an equally rapid pace. Initially, to counter the rise of fascism, the Soviet Union tried to form an anti-fascist alliance.
It was in this critical situation that the Soviet Union was forced to forego its anti-fascist stance and enter into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. The non-aggression pact with Germany was not based on common objectives or long-term strategy, but simply to check the Nazi advance towards the east.
As a matter of fact, the pact not only warded off the Nazi He also claimed that the Russians had become too engrossed in themselves, and this led to one- sided theoretical solutions that did not factor in the local dynamics in different countries. Therefore, the communists in other countries were in better positions to test the theories of Marxism and add to them. It was for them to take Marxism forward and the Russians to accept these new ideas and not the other way around.
The position of communist parties around the world changed once again with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June Upon the invasion, the Soviet Union joined the Allied powers in their fight against the Axis powers. This policy of a united front both in terms of the Soviet Union allying with capitalist nations and the working classes working with the bourgeoisie was a significant deviation from the previously stated policies of the Comintern which were strictly focused against bourgeoisie led governments.
Roy reasoned that since intellectual subservience toward the Russians was the norm in the Comintern, the communist parties in other countries did not object to the dissolution of the Comintern once it was proposed by the Russians. In the last chapter of his book, Roy focused on the dissolution of the Communist International. He argued that its dissolution did not mean abandonment of the ideal of communism. Since communism is a historical necessity, the ideal could not in fact disappear. The spirit of internationalism would always remain and that the dissolution of the Comintern was not an exoneration of nationalism.
The Communist International, from its very beginning, stood for national freedom of all peoples. But Marxists do not regard any state of social or political organization as final. The Comintern was a kind of action carried out on an international scale and since the impossibility of its success was proven by time it was since abandoned.
According to Roy, the dissolution of the Comintern was the result of the realization No longer a member of either the Comintern or the CPI, he was very vocal in his criticism of the activities of the Comintern after his expulsion in He argued that although the Comintern was once an effective organization leading international Communism, it was rendered obsolete with the rise of fascism in Europe.
Its Indian section had done more harm to the cause of the Indian revolution than any other single factor. Composed of a handful of half-baked youngsters, it could not do so if the authority of the Communist International and of the Soviet government standing behind it, did not enable them to make an appeal to the romanticism of the middle-class youth. He argued that the CPI were mere imitators of Russian policy and that this mindless imitation had grown to such extents that the CPI had denounced the idea of a constituent assembly only because the Bolsheviks had dissolved the Leningrad constituent assembly in In , the RDP was preparing for elections in India, and Roy wanted to project the party as the true representative of leftist ideologies.
He wanted the leadership of the RDP to be the leaders of the revolutionary movement in India. Since according to Roy, the Comintern contributed to none of these, its dissolution was the logical step forward. His ideals and beliefs constantly evolved through the course of his life and he continually attempted to make sense of the developments around him whilst propounding theories to explain these changes.
His beliefs evolved in concert with the complexities of a changing reality, and whether he found himself in India, U. Finally, he left the Congress party after a difference of opinion over supporting the British war effort. His commitment to his beliefs was unflinching. Roy never compromised his core ideals to further his personal ambitions.
He remained committed to the cause of Indian freedom. At the same time, he was also convinced that fascism posed a profound threat to democracy. During his time in China, as a Comintern representative, he was opposed by Mao, and later, he fell out of favor with Stalin, and left the Soviet Union in Upon his return to India, he eventually came to oppose the policies of the Congress party, and Gandhi in particular.
Despite his intelligence, Roy never rose to the highest echelons of any extensive, developed political hierarchy. He was also not able to build a mass movement based on his program and ideas. However, his thought reflected the intersection of the most complex ideas of the twentieth century. Roy is a largely forgotten thinker today.
Unlike Mahatma Gandhi, his ideas were not kept alive in India or the world. He was neither a Trotskyist nor a Stalinist, and lacked a group to continue to promulgate his theories and his contribution. His ideas may prove to have a striking relevance in the decades to come. Political Philosophy of M. Chattopadhyay, Suchetna. New Delhi: Leftword Books, , Haithcox, John Patrick.
Kautsky, John H. Cambridge: Technology of Massachusetts Institute Technology, North, Robert Carver. Berkeley: University of California, Overstreet, Gene D. Communism in India. Remnek, Richard B. Roy, Dipti Kumar. Leftist Politics in India: M. Roy and the Radical Democratic Party. Calcutta: Minerva, In his view to him India was to win her freedom in a free world only. He foresaw that India would attain independence following the defeat of the Axis powers and weakening of the economic base of the British Imperialism.
Roy has been criticized by Koenraad Elst for downplaying and distorting the negative effects of the Islamic conquest of India. Roy books and biography. Biography Click to expand. Collection of work Click to close. Sponsored Links.
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