[The following resolution was adopted at a national conference of the Indian section of the Fourth International held in Bombay December 30-January 2.
[Among other decisions, the delegates changed the name of their organization from the "Socialist Workers Party of India" to the "Communist League."
The new name is used in the document. (The text below includes minor stylistic changes made by Intercontinental Press.]
The plea for greater autonomy within the framework of a united Pakistan, put forward by the Awami League leadership after its massive victory in the 1970 election, soon developed into a national struggle for the liberation of Bangladesh from exploitation by West Pakistan.
Ever since the formation of Pakistan in 1947 following an artificial division of the subcontinent on a communal basis, East Bengal, rich in natural resources, was exploited as a colony by the ruling clique of West Pakistan. Understandably enough, the military junta, unwilling to lose its economic grip on
East Bengal, decided to replace economic exploitation with military subjugation.
Soon after the failure of the March 1971 parley between Yahya Khan and Sheik Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, which emerged victorious in the first elections ever held in Pakistan on the basis of adult franchise, an unprecedented and barbarous genocide was let loose by the West Pakistan army.
The Awami League leaders, who were not prepared for any organised resistance, fled from East Bengal and took refuge in India under the protection of the Indian government. They formed a government in exile, which confined its activities chiefly to propaganda highlighting the atrocities committed by the Pakistan army. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Bengalis were brutally massacred by the army.
The responsibility of fighting against the barbaric repression fell on sporadic groups formed by the militant youth under the leadership of the Mukti Bahini. The masses soon rallied behind these militant groups. Thanks to the determination shown by the youth, the resistance of the Mukti Bahini gathered momentum.
The Indian government was reluctant to give adequate arms and training facilities to the Mukti Bahini initially and tried to keep this movement under its control.
Meanwhile nearly 10,000,000 refugees had migrated to India to escape the army brutalities. But the resistance put up by the Mukti Bahini grew far beyond the expectation of the Indian bourgeois rulers, and vast rural areas came under the con- 110
trol of Mukti Bahini militants. When the Indian government realised that it could no longer contain or guide the liberation struggle according to its own interests, it decided on direct military intervention.
The traditional left parties in West Bengal, especially the CPI [Communist party
India] and the CPI(M) [Communist party of India (Marxist)], failed to mobilize the masses of West Bengal for a militant and effective intervention in the struggle of the people of Bangladesh for their national liberation. They were satisfied with pressuring the Indian government to extend more aid and arms to the fighting forces of the Mukti Bahini.
The military intervention of the Indian bourgeoisie in Bangladesh to wrest the leadership of the national liberation movement from the Mukti Bahini and install a government led by the Awami League in Dacca led to the military conflict with the military regime of West Pakistan.
The war between India and Pakistan, as a war between two bourgeois states, had its own reactionary features. The military support extended by the Indian government to the freedom struggle in Bangladesh was motivated by the class interest of the bourgeoisie in extending its market and creating a new sphere of investment.
Such an intervention was possible largely because of the opportunist policies pursued by the ruling bureaucracies of the two major workers states, the Soviet Union and China, and by the opportunist and chauvinistic policies adopted by the traditional left parties in India.
While the Soviet bureaucracy adopted a policy of identifying itself with the bourgeois state in India after signing the Indo- Soviet Friendship Treaty, the Maoist bureaucracy in Peking openly supported the Yahya regime in its genocide in Bangladesh. Both bureaucracies bypassed the basic issue related to the right of the people of Bangladesh to determine their own future as a nation. The Chinese bureaucracy even today talks of preserving the unity and integrity of Pakistan as a nation.
Having "liberated" Bangladesh from the yoke of the military regime in West Pakistan, the Indian government is now concerned with putting the Awami League in office, excluding the other forces that participated in the fighting. The Awami League was elected in December 1970 for a different purpose under different circumstances, with a mandate to run Pakistan and to secure minor concessions to the masses of Bangladesh within the framework of a capitalist-feudal regime in Pakistan.
The Indian government is evidently interested in promoting a so-called mixed economy in Bangladesh on the prevailing Indian pattern and an administration that will be more beneficial to the Indian bourgeoisie.
The period of resistance that lasted from March 25 to December 3, 1971, has created a new revolutionary situation in Bangladesh.
, militants who carried on
The young the heroic armed struggle against the West Pakistan army have gained considerable influence among the masses of Bangladesh, especially in the rural areas. In the rural areas liberated by the Mukti Bahini, a parallel government was formed by the local population based on elected "action councils" that collectively took charge of the administration of the villages.
The Mukti Bahini militants who spearheaded the liberation struggle are reluctant to surrender their arms unless they are confident that the government that will be established in Bangladesh will fulfil the aspirations of the people.
The events that have taken place subsequently to the liberation of Bangladesh indicate that the main aim of the Indian bourgeoisie and the Awami League is to establish a government that will safeguard the interests of the capitalist establishment.
During the period of struggle and repression, the industrialists and the landlords fled, leaving the industries and the land to the mercy of the masses. The jute and other industries in Bangladesh were essentially controlled by the West Pakistani capitalist class. The rich tea plantations were mostly owned by British joint companies, and the land by West Punjabi feudal lords.
The Bengalis did not own any major industry or plantation, and with the exit of the foreign capitalists and landlords, there is a virtual vacuum created. The masses who fought against the West Pakistan repression are in control of the land.
There is an ideal situation for transforming the national liberation movement into a genuine socialist economy by confiscating all the industries and plantations, by nationalising all means of production, including land, by establishing workers' control of the nationalised industries, and by bringing land under peasants' co-operatives and collective farms.
But instead of establishing a socialist economy, the Awami League government, ably guided by the Indian bourgeoisie, is endeavouring to reintroduce capitalism on the Indian pattern of mixed economy. While industries and plantations previously owned by foreign nationals are being nationalised and placed under the control of professional bureaucrats, private enterprises based on profit will also be allowed to develop. Foreign capital is also being invited to develop the devastated industry and economy.
The main problem faced by the Awami League and the Indian government is the disarming of the Mukti Bahini and other guerrilla fighters, who have become the real fighting force in liberated Bangladesh. The attempt to disarm these militants is bound to spark a new situation, in which the armed militants may offer stiff resistance to the Indian bourgeoisie and the neo-capitalist rulers of Bangiadesh.
The Indian army, which entered as a "liberation" army, may soon be discredited as an occupation army if it is used to suppress revolutionary struggles and to protect the vested interests of the Indian bourgeoisie and the Awami League. Thus the masses of Bangladesh and the exploited masses of India, particularly of West Bengal, will have a common enemy: the Indian bourgeoisie.
This is the most opportune time to ensure that the struggle of the masses in West Bengal and Bangladesh is integrated. In the process of integrating the struggle, the exploited masses of the two wings of Bengal are bound to come closer and closer together.
The people of East and West Bengal have a common language, a common heritage of leftist struggles, a common culture, and now a common task before them.
The artificial division of the people of Bengal on a religious basis did not last long.
The national liberation struggle smashed the myth of identity based on religious considerations, and the new Bangladesh government has declared a secular state. In view of the untold suffering the people of Bangladesh have passed through during the past twentyfive years, any attempt to revive religious sectarianism will be fought forcibly and effectively by the masses.
Apart from the unresolved national problem, which by itself should bring together the two wings of Bengal, the revolutionary situation that exists in Bangladesh as a result of the armed struggle that the people there have waged for nine months has had a revolutionary impact in West Bengal.
The victory of the Indian bourgeois rulers in the recent war has for the time being helped them to tide over the acute economic crisis that they have been facing for the last bourgeoisie has already come to the surface since the war ended. The fact that the Indian government has decided to hold state assembly elections without submitting the national budget is an indication of the gravity of the situation.
India being a vast country of subcontinental dimensions, the political and economic development of the masses and the religions is very uneven in different states. It is likely that the crisis of the bourgeoisie may be manifested more acutely in states like West Bengal where there are already mass struggles. A revolutionary situation may develop much more quickly in West Bengal in view of its proximity to Bangladesh, where the people have already gone through the experience of an armed struggle.
Therefore it is the duty of the West Bengal revolutionaries to accelerate this process by launching effective class struggle and by integrating the struggles of the masses of the two wings of Bengal. The Communist League considers that this is the most opportune moment for advancing the slogan of a United Socialist Bengal, which is not a mere nationalist slogan, but a slogan for the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie in the subcontinent.
With this end in view, the Communist League puts forward the following transitional demands:
1. Immediate withdrawal of the Indian army from Bangladesh to permit the people of Bangladesh to decide their own future without any outside interference.
2. The Mukti Bahini should not be asked to surrender its arms, and it should be transformed into a nucleus of the People's Militia of Bangladesh.
3. Immediate elections to choose a new Constituent Assembly to draft a socialist constitution for Bangladesh, and in the meantime the establishment of a provisional government of all the forces that participated actively in the struggle against the military junta of West Pakistan.
4. No substitution for West Pakistan exploitation by Indian or any foreign capitalist exploitation.
5. Nationalisation of all means of production, including land, since there is no capitalist or landlord class worth the name in Bangladesh.
6. Distribution of land to the tillers, who have actually protected the land during the struggle.
7. Establishment of workers' councils to take over the management of mills and factories.
8. Confiscation of all the plantations and land owned by foreign capitalists, and establishment of peasant co-operatives to manage all confiscated lands.
9. Free movement of people between Bangladesh and West Bengal to facilitate cultural integration of the two wings of Bengal.
10. Linking up the struggle of the masses of West Bengal with the struggle of East Bengal to establish a United Socialist Bengal.
11. Establishment of a state monopoly of foreign trade.
12. Establishment of workers' and peasants' committees to supervise internal trade and distribution of essential commodities.