Workers World, Vol. 1 No. 10
The overthrow of the CP government in Kerala was carefully watched by the capitalists of the whole world. It deserves equal attention from the international working class.
This event answers – although not for the first time in history – several life-and-death questions for the workers. Among these are:
1. Is it possible for the Communist Party of any other workers’ party to take power by the ballot (with no matter how great a majority) and peacefully carry out its own program? Will the bourgeoisie peacefully abide by the decision of the majority?
2. Is it necessary for the CP government to resign because it does not reflect the will of 51 percent of the people it governs? Is it a betrayal of democracy for it to continue in office if this seems to be the case?
3. Is it correct for a workers’ party to demand the resignation of a CP government when only a bourgeois party can replace that government in the succeeding election?
When the CP was elected to office in the Indian state of Kerala, it had enormous prestige with the masses. But over a period of more than two years, it lost a great deal of this popularity because it failed to carry out any substantial plank of its platform. It conducted itself in a typical Social-Democratic manner, appeasing the bourgeoisie, retreating on even the mildest social reforms, and not behaving much more “socialist” than the bourgeois Nehru himself.
But even when the CP government acts in a right-wing fashion, even when it opposes strikes and collaborates with the bourgeoisie in suppressing them, the ungrateful capitalists cannot accept a CP government as the executive committee to manage their affairs. They must, for their own peace of mind, and in fact self-preservation, destroy such a government at the first opportune moment.
The capitalists are well aware of the sellouts of the CP. But they have seen what happened in Russia, in China, in North Korea, North Viet Nam and Eastern Europe. They cannot accommodate themselves to the existence of a CP government, even when it acts as the caretaker for the capitalist state, as in Kerala. They will overthrow such a government by force and violence.
The Indian bourgeoisie made up their minds long ago to overthrow the CP government. And they mobilized all the reactionary forces behind them to do the job. The CP failed to inspire the masses to hit back. Instead of fighting back, the CP retreated further.
Because the CP did not act in a communist manner and seize the plants and plantations – high prices, unemployment, and the misery of the poor continued and grew worse. And Indian capital refused to make further investments in Kerala – because it feared that perhaps later on, the CP would carry out its program. Thus the crisis deepened.
The so-called Education Act which the CP government finally passed was a mild and modest measure. But it was directed against the reactionary private managers of Kerala’s archaic school system. It would have diminished the powers of the Muslim, Hindu, and Catholic hierarchies.
The capitalists chose this occasion to throw down the gauntlet. They opened the campaign to overthrow the CP government, mobilizing not only the petty bourgeois elements, but great numbers of workers as well.
How could the bourgeoisie mobilize the workers? First through the Hindu Nairs Service Society, the Catholic Church and the Muslim League. Precisely because the CP failed to satisfy the workers’ material needs, the workers were held that much more in spiritual bondage by religion. Second, through the anti-communist union leaders who called demonstrations and strikes for apparently progressive ends. Third, by demagogic accusations that the CP was responsible for the economic crisis, and by promises that the Congress Party would set thing right when the CP was ousted.
What did the CP do? – It is hard enough to build socialism in one country when a workers’ party has state power – the dictatorship of the proletariat. But when such a party merely wins an election in just one city or state of a capitalist country, it is in a far greater contradiction. It is not only surrounded by capitalist states; it is enmeshed in capitalist society. In such a case, the best thing is to fight it out. – The CP chose to capitulate.
It gave up nineteen twentieths of its program in order to hold on to office in one twentieth of India.
But given the situation, where the CP so discredited itself, what should be the attitude of a proletarian revolutionary party, if such a party is on the scene? Should it join the chorus of the bourgeoisie and demand the resignation of the CP government? Should it join hands with the extreme right wing to oust the workers’ party, no matter how wrong or corrupt, from office under these conditions?
The answer, according to Trotsky, is absolutely NO.
The answer, according to the Militant, organ of some so-called “Trotskyists,” is YES! (July 20, Aug. 10)
“Revolutionaries’” line was like CP’s criminal bloc with Hitler!
A historical analogy literally leaps to our pen – an analogy that the Militant quoted a hundred times in bygone days. Today it must be applied to the Militant itself.
In 1931, Hitler (not yet in power) demanded the resignation of the Social Democratic Severing government in Prussia, the biggest state in Germany at the time. Hitler wanted a new election.
Severing was doing the same thing in Prussia that the CP has done for the past two years in Kerala – making a mess of things and paving the way for the reaction to take over.
The CP joined in with the Hitler-bourgeois chorus, asking for the resignation of Severing, even though the CP itself was not prepared or able to take power alone (against both Hitler and the SP). Leon Trotsky condemned this as criminal.
Fortunately the general election, but a narrow margin, upheld Severing. (Nevertheless Hitler did take over two years later, with the CP continuing its anti-united front policy.) But this colossal and criminal political error of the CP has at least provided us with a classical example of what not to do!
Of course, if there were a revolutionary party in the field capable of mobilizing the majority of the masses behind it, that party would be very stupid not to demand the resignation (or the overthrow) of the centrist or reformist government.
But this was not the situation in Kerala. The “Revolutionary Socialist Party,” the largest of the left-wing parties opposing the CP, was said to have had 23,000 members in all of India last year. The CP has hundreds of thousands of members and millions of supporters.
The Secretary of this Revolutionary Socialist Party, not even dreaming of taking the power himself, asks for the resignation of the CP government. Then he suggests the “installation of an impartial caretaker government” until an election can be held. This is published by the Militant (Aug. 10) with a straight face!
What impartial agency is to install this impartial government? And what politician in all India, not to say all the world, is impartial? The Militant knows the answer to these questions very well. But under the pressure of world capitalism, it tears up the lessons of the class struggle and throws them to the winds.
The RSP and the “Trotskyist” Revolutionary Workers Party of Kerala say they have “different reasons” for demanding the resignation of the CP government in Kerala – “different” from those of Nehru and company.
Here is a sample of those “different reasons” from an editorial in the RWP paper:
“The people of the state (Kerala) must be allowed to freely exercise their democratic right to have an elected government of their own choice. (The CP government was elected to serve two more years – ed.) Since the CP government does not reflect the will of the people, it is the right of the people to compel the government to resign. Fresh elections must be held.” (Militant, July 20)
How dishonest to say that the CP government “does not reflect the will of the people”! Will the government that is now going to be elected in Kerala under the saturation propaganda barrage of the bourgeoisie “reflect the will of the people”?
Of course, to these “democratic socialists,” it is an obvious truth that the capitalist Congress Party of India “reflects the will of the people.” Doesn’t it have a parliamentary majority throughout India? – Perhaps it is unfair to call them dishonest. But if they are not dishonest, they are fools.
Here we must explain why the American Sunday Worker has not said one word about Kerala these last four crucial weeks, and would not dream of refuting the worthy democratic thoughts quoted above.
It is because the Worker editors, like the “democratic socialists” who write the Militant, are also hypnotized by the election returns. They would not know how to answer the above brilliant defense of capitalist democracy. And in fact they would probably repeat it word for word if anybody else but their own party were involved.
But while the Worker and the Militant may be equally petty bourgeois in ideology, equally duped by the lies of bourgeois democracy, there is one great and fundamental difference between them on the scene in Kerala. The Kerala CP was a mass party with governmental power; the so-called “Trotskyists” were a small opposition party. And a basic class conflict was taking place between the bourgeoisie and the CP regardless of the reformist ideology of the CP, and regardless of the CP’s Social Democratic-type support for capitalist institutions in Kerala.
In this situation, the Militant found a way, as it often does, to be on the same side as the world bourgeoisie. It added up all the betrayals of the CP, and subtracted the onslaught of the capitalist class! Thus it arrived at “different reasons” for helping the capitalists overthrow the CP government.
What should genuine revolutionists have done in Kerala?
They should have offered the CP a united front on a military basis against the reactionary Muslim League, the Catholic and Hindu forces, etc.
The CP of course should not have used the police. (The bourgeoisie led the masses; the CP led the police!) It should have organized workers defense guards and fought violence with violence on a mass scale.
But as Blitz Magazine, an Indian publication, said: “The Communists have treated Congress violence with Ghandian moderation” – a perfect formula for counter-revolutionary victory!
The formula was strengthened by the confusion of the misled and starving masses. It was further strengthened by “democratic” phrases combined with ridiculous ultra-leftism by the RSP and RWP. This, added to the CP’s own false line, doubly insured the overthrow of the CP government and the victory of the bourgeoisie.
This was a defeat for the working class.
Let us learn something from this defeat. The Kerala experience has demonstrated from all sides how revolutionists do not act!
The fundamental lesson of the defeat is of course repeated a thousand times in the works of Lenin. And that is the idea that the capitalist class will not yield the power without an armed struggle.
But the lesson must be continually learned again and again from life as well as from books. Many pacifists and not a few “communists” hailed the Kerala “experiment” two years ago as proof that Lenin was outdates, and the revolution could be made peacefully.
That soap bubble at least has now be punctured by the Indian capitalists.
Let us learn from this. And let us learn also from the fact that the riots, strikes and demonstrations have now stopped. – The bourgeoisie are in control again! They no longer need these demonstrations against the CP!
Of course, some of the leaders who found the CP government so “intolerable” will find Nehru’s bourgeois stooges much more tolerable. And they will learn nothing because they do not want to learn.
But all honest revolutionaries will learn from this defeat that it is wrong, it is criminal, it is fatal for the workers to bloc with the bourgeoisie against a workers’ party, no matter how cowardly or opportunistic that party may be.
Last updated: 11 May 2026