INDIAN TROTSKYISTS FORM PARTY
A three-day conference of Trotskyists from different states, which concluded in Bombay August 9, decided to form a new political party to be known as. the Socialist Workers party, with the immediate objective of bringing about a regroupment of the Marxist-Leninist forces to achieve a speedy socialist transformation of Indian society. -
The conference, which was chaired by Shri Somendra Kumar, a trade-union leader of Bihar, elected a nine-member organizing committee, with Shri Murlidhar Parija of Bombay as secretary, to organize © units in different states and to convene a regular conference of the new party. A constitution was adopted.
The Trotskyists, who had merged with the Revolutionary Communist party of India [RoPr] in 1960, severed connections with that organization in 1963 due to serious differences over the attitude of
the Congress government, particularly since the Sino-Indian border conflict.
The conference was of the view that it is necessary for the Trotskyists, who have been vindicated in their struggle against Stalinism on a world scale, to project themselves as a distinct communist tendency in Indian left politics in view of the crisis in the official Communist movement internationally and the gross distortions of Trotskyist positions disseminated by the Communist parties.
A 23=page policy statement adopted by the conference attributed the present deepening crisis in the Indian economy (acute food shortage, inflationary trend, etc.) eighteen years after independence and despite three five-year plans, as due to the basic policies of the Congress government, which seeks to build capitalism in the country under the false disguise of a “socialist pattern" in a period of the decay of world capitalism,
The new. party believes that only a socialist. transformation of society on the basis of a program of nationalization of the key industries, credit institutions, import and export trade -- i.e., soeial ownership of the means of production under a workers and peasants government -- can free the productive forces in the industrial and agricultural sphere from the present fetters and bring about a resolution of the crisis,
The party therefore calls for the creation of a united front of the left to fight for dislodging the ruling capitalist class from the seats of power and establishing a workers and peasants govern ment based on elected panchayats [councils] of workers and peasants.
The party maintains ‘that ‘the Congress government, despite its policy of nonalignment, is basically allied to the imperialist camp. The party calls for a negotiated settlement of India's border and other disputes with neighboring countries, including China, Pakistan, Ceylon, Nepal and Burma. ;
A resolution adopted by 1 the conference states that the people
of Kashmir should have the right of self-determination. On Goa, the conference favored a referendum, letting the Goan people freely aecide whether they would like to merge with the neighboring state of Maharashtra or remain as an independent .state within the Indian Union.
The party called for the settlement of all interstate border disputes within the Indian Union on the basis of the democratically determined will of the people concerned, It criticized the traditional left parties for exhibiting a regional chauvinistic attitude on these questions.
The declaration of the new party explains the differences it has with the traditional left parties, including the Praja Socialist
party, the Samyukta Socialist party, the two rival Communist parties, the Revolutionary Socialist party of India, etc. The split in the Communist party is considered to be a projection of the Sino-Soviet conflict but is recognized to have its main roots.in Indian politics and to be of far-reaching consequence for the Indian left movement as a whole.
Internationally, the new party is pledged to support the struggles of the workers of the advanced capitalist countries for socialism and solidarizes with the liberation struggle of the colonial and semicolonial peopie against colonialism and neocolonialism, It also supports the people in the workers states in their struggle against the bureaucracy and for socialist democracy.
The party is committed to a policy of unconditional defense of the workers states, including the Soviet Union, China, north. Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Cuba in the event of imperialist aggression.
On Vietnam, the party calls for united action by the Indian and international working-class movement in support of the heroic | liberation war of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialist aggression. It scored the Shastri government for its servile attitude toward U.S. imperialism on Vietnam and other questions, -It stands for India's immediate withdrawal from the Commonwealth. .
The new party has fraternal relations with the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky. Its headquarters are to be in Bombay.
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