Source of the text: Originally published in the
September 1940 edition of Red Front, the English-language journal of
the Revolutionary Communist Party of India.
Digital Version: Provided by the
Revolutionary Communist Party of
India, April 2020.
By issuing a long thesis on the nature and circumstances of the war, M. N. Roy sought to prove that the present war is not an imperialist war but a war between democracy and Fascism. In order to strike down Fascism, we must help Britain in her efficient prosecution of the war. Roy has gone so far as to table a resolution at the last Poona session of the A.I.C.C. suggesting that the support of the people of India to Britain in the present war should not be conditional upon Britain’s acceptance of the principle of declaring India an independent country. Roy and his followers observed 1st September as an anti-Fascist day and shouted hoarse for the support of democratic Britain in its war efforts. Later, Roy came out with an open statement to justify his viewpoint and put forth his arguments afresh.
Is not Roy quite logical? Unlike Congress-communists who begin to fumble for a new line at every turn of events until they get orders from Moscow, Roy follows the Democratic Front ideology quite logically. The petty-bourgeois opportunist in Roy seizes upon the most opportunist line of the Comintern, sponsored in the interest of Soviet foreign policy but since then abandoned in the interest of the same policy under altered circumstances.
The Soviet-German Pact has itself killed the Democratic Front ideology. It is a fashion with Roy always to start with a fundamentally wrong premise. Roy’s proposition is entirely wrong in spite of its apparent logic. It will be abject folly to suppose that imperialist Britain fights for democracy against Fascism. Has the British government in its love for democracy helped the German masses to rise in revolution and overthrow the Fascist government in Germany? Instead, it helped Hitler consolidate his power over the German masses but now tries to stop his expansionist drive. As for imperialistic designs and interests, bourgeois democracy of Britain and Fascism of Germany and Italy are one and the same thing. There is nothing to choose between one form of imperialism and another. Has not the struggle between the rival imperialism assumed world proportions? What are the fights over African colonies and the Middle East for? Is it for extending democracy to the colonies of Africa that the British have been resisting Italian and German forces? Is the handing over of strategic bases to America, instances of extending democracy to British overseas possessions? Are the inhuman tortures, arrests, imprisonments and robbing civil liberties of thousands of democratic fighters in India in the name of India’s national defence, democratic intentions of the British government at war? Roy is not a fool. Roy knows the art of jugglery and camouflage. Roy harps on the most insincere Democratic Front which is simply the British imperialist front against the colonial peoples and its British working masses. Roy asks for unconditional support to British imperialism to stabilise the British Empire at a moment when imperialism is shaken to its very foundation. He formulates and acts as the most erudite and outspoken champion of the special interests of the Indian bourgeoisie and identifies himself with the cause of the British government. In his eagerness to forestall the Congress High Command he discards even the need of drawing the masses, by a manoeuvre of a struggle, into the active support for imperialist war.
In this rarely opportune moment for winning the freedom of the Indian people, when the masses of India has to be organised and led into a decisive struggle against British imperialism, when the chances of victory are more bright than ever, the petty-bourgeois opportunist, M. N. Roy goes over to British imperialism and betrays the best interest of the Indian masses. Will not the masses spit on such a leader who fiddles with words most dangerously and treacherously, and damage the cause of India’s freedom? For us, the Revolutionary Communists, the issue is quite simple. We must prepare the masses to strike down our cruel rulers who sucked our body and spirit and bled us white, when their position is the weakest. The strength of the British government lies in its empire. When it is engaged in a deadly warfare with its imperialist rivals, we in India and the British working masses in their home country must join hands to overthrow the imperialism and achieve for the exploited and oppressed throughout the empire complete freedom.