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The Comintern
and the Indian Revolutionaries in Russia in the 1920s
In the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917 Russia became the refuge of revolutionaries from all over the world who considered the new Russia as their hope for a brave new world of the future. The establishment of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919 on Lenin’s initiative with its avowed objective of realising the goal of a world revolution provided fresh boosters to their aspirations. The Indian revolutionaries abroad, scattered in different countries like the United States, Germany, France as well as the north Western provinces of India were also no exception to it and they began flocking to post-revolutionary Russia as representatives of various streams, especially after the formation of Comintern was announced. Sharp political and ideological differences notwithstanding they were, however, united by one common aim, namely, the overthrow of British imperialism by adopting appropriate revolutionary methods of struggle which would be distinctly at variance with the reformist methods of freedom struggle, as popularised by the Indian National Congress since its inception.
The activities of the Indian revolutionaries in Russia were, understandably, conducted clandestinely, particularly because the activity of the Comintern itself was shrouded in secrecy. Consequently, until the opening of the Comintern archives in the early 1990s, there were very few and not always very reliable authentic primary sources available to historians. Some of the accounts that we come across in, for instance, the Memoirs of M N Roy and Aprakashita Rajnaitik Itihas (Unpublished Political History) by Bhupendranath Datta appear to be quite coloured and contradictory, while the British intelligence reports of this period, [1] although quite suitable for the use of the Raj, do not serve the cause of historical objectivity. During the Soviet era, when the Russian archives dealing with the post-revolutionary historical situation were very selectively accessible only to a handful of scholars, historians such as M A Persits [2] and the late A B Reznikov [3] provided the only account of the role of the Indian revolutionaries from primary sources thanks to their access to the archives of the Comintern.
Following the opening up of the Comintern archives in recent years it has become possible to look at the whole issue afresh and in the present article four crucial historical questions are addressed: (a) what was the nature of relationship among the various Indian revolutionary groups which had assembled in Russia around the Comintern in the early 1920s? (b) What were the political and ideological differences among these groups? (c) How did the Comintern view these differences? (d) Why did the leading role of the Indian revolutionaries in Russia virtually disappear by the end of the 1920s, although the Comintern survived until 1943 and a number of prominent Indian revolutionaries continued to live in the Soviet Union well beyond the 1920s?
I
It is generally believed that in the 1920s, when the communist movement was yet to take shape on Indian soil, it was primarily M N Roy who, through the political and organisational help of the Comintern, was the architect behind the Third International’s recognition of the importance of India as key element in the strategy of revolutionary struggle in the colonies. While this is certainly true, it is now possible to arrive at a more complex understanding of the whole issue on the basis of new archival evidence. Earlier studies on the subject by Adhikari, [4] for example, generally have the inclination to suggest that among the Indian revolutionaries in Russia in the post-October period there were parallel streams with differences represented by the Indian Revolutionary Association (IRA), formed in Tashkhent in 1919; the group of M N Roy and Abani Mukherji who initiated the formation of the Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1920; and the group of activists who represented the ‘Berlin group’ of Indian revolutionaries. What can now be affirmed with certainty is that they were not just different streams but currents crossing one another’s path, leading to sharp conflicts. Eventually, however, it was Roy who emerged as the unrivalled representative of the Indian revolutionaries and the leader of the Indian communists in the Comintern. This conflict, which was marked by a feeling of distrust and suspicion, has to be studied mainly-from three angles: (a) the conflict between Roy’s group and the IRA, in which the two key figures were Abdur Rabb Barq and M B P T Acharya; (b) the conflict between M N Roy and Abani Mukherji after the initial years of co-operation; and (c) the conflict between the Berlin group, including such figures as Virendranath Chattopadhyay (Chatto), Bhupendranth Datta and Panduram Khankhoje, and Roy.
The IRA was formed in 1919 by a group of Mujahirs who had crossed over to Tashkhent from Afghanistan and India’s north-western provinces, their aim being the overthrow of British rule in India with the help of revolutionary Russia. It comprised diverse elements many of whom had a strong inclination towards nationalism and Pan-Islamism. The foundation of the Comintern and the subsequent entry of M N Roy and Abani Mukherji onto the scene led to an acrimonious debate and a kind of power struggle, especially after the formation of the CPI in 1920 at Tashkhent. As the archival evidence shows, this was basically a question of who would gain the recognition of the Comintern.
On 28 February 28, 1921 Abdur Rabb Barq, president of the IRA, in a report entitled ‘A Brief account of Comrade M N Roy’s behaviour towards the Indian Revolutionary Association’ questioned Roy’s critical attitude vis a vis the IRA [5]. This was followed by the following resolution of the IRA dated Tashkhent, 27 April 1921:
Resolved that a letter should be written. to the Communist International, Moscow asking for the reasons under which Com. Mukherjee and his other colleagues (new arrivals from Moscow} are making false statements about Abdur-Rabb, Barq, the President of the Association. If what Com. Mukarjee and others say be true the Association as a whole in a body should be arrested with its president or otherwise Com. Mukarjee should be asked for the reasons under which he is disheartening the members of the Association and spoiling the name of the Association. The Komintern is requested to give us a definite answer why our President is arrested? If such a staunch revolutionary like Abdur-Rabb Barq can be arrested only because he was against Com. Roy on principles and the latter demanded his arrest the Association in a body strongly protests about his arrest and demands the definite proof of his being a counter-revolutionary. Or otherwise Com. Mukarjee shall be called to a revolutionary tribunal with the Association for his insulting the President of the Association as well, as the Association itself. Leaving alone the President of the Association, the Association can show much more sincere revolutionaries in the Association than Mukarjee and his colleagues who are mere fortune hunters and Opportunists, A revolutionary organisation can never bear insults either for its President or for itself from a mere bourgeois revolutionary like Mukarjee whose sole business is to seek for high living.[6]
That the IRA was desperate to gain recognition by the Comintern is evident from a letter of Abdur Rabb Barq to the secretary of the Comintern dated Moscow, 10 October 1921, which also makes quite evident the Comintern’s lack of sympathy for the IRA:
It is nearly nine months that I am here. The Komintern has not yet arrived to a decision with regard to our organisation. I have absolutely no notion as to what the Komintern intends to do with us. Will you kindly let me know whether there is any prospect of speedy decision with regard to our organisation.[7]
In a long note dated Moscow, 22 July 1921, M B P T Acharya, a leading member of the IRA, analysed the conflict as a clash not of personalities but of principles: on the one side, Roy’s extreme leftism which precluded any idea of assistance to or recognition of non-communist elements among the Indian revolutionaries, and on the other the IRA’s position that such discrimination was not appropriate. It was further alleged that while the Comintern had in principle accepted the proposal of a commission comprising the representative of the IRA as well as Roy’s group, together with Russian representatives, Roy eventually subverted the whole notion to ensure his own dominant position in relation to Indian affairs within the Third International.[8]
As regards the Indian Revolutionary Association of Kabul part of which came to Tashkhent and was the officially recognised body before comrade Roy arrived from Moscow in Tashkhent, this body was neither first associated with nor later officially dealt with by Roy for voluntary liquidation and still later was disallowed its rations on various pretexts… Roy put a stop to getting the help by using his official position in the Tuerk-Buro Komintern and his influence on the President of the Tuerk Kommission as well as by misrepresenting the Association… By the deliberate violation of the principles and tactics of the 2nd Congress now confirmed by the 3rd — principles and tactics which Roy disagreed with, formerly before me and now openly before all — he has been doing everything persistently, systematically and with impunity to break up everything and disperse everybody concerned with the Indian work of the Komintern.[9]
It appears that an All-India Central Revolutionary Committee had been formed in Moscow after the formation of the CPI in 1920, initially including members of the IRA as well as the CPI. However, very soon, both Abdur Rabb Barq and Acharya were thrown out of this committee on the suspicion that they were British spies and had nothing to do with socialism or the Indian revolutionary struggle. That Roy and Abani Mukherji played a crucial role in their removal is evident from a number of documents. For example, in a letter dated Moscow, 24 January 1921, Acharya was informed that he had been removed from this committee at a meeting where in the presence of Roy and Mukherji it was accepted that his conduct had ‘harmful effect upon the Indian work, not only by obstructing, but by lowering the standard of the Indian revolutionaries here in Russia’; that he was ‘making groundless accusations against the Committee members and the condition of the Indian work as a whole’ and that he was doing ‘this in an underhanded and sneaking manner, tale-telling, back biting’ and thus ‘lowering the dignity of the Indian revolutionaries’.[10] This was followed by a second letter dated Moscow, 30 January, 1921 addressed to Acharya by the committee’s secretary and further criticising him ‘on account of actively supporting people engaged in frankly anti-communist propaganda and on account of bringing groundless accusations against all the party members’.[11] Consequently, in a meeting of Indian revolutionaries held at Tashkhent on 3 April 1921 the question of co-operation between the group represented by the IRA and other Indian revolutionaries was discussed on the initiative of Abani Mukherji. This idea was wholly rejected on the basis of allegations brought against them by Mukherji. The record of the meeting runs as follows:
He laid in the question in a very simple and revolutionary manner and asked the meeting to discuss at full length whether it was possible for the Indian Revolutionaries (Nationalist or Communist) to co-operate with the new selected Committee. He brought forth some secret reports and letters to the effect that Comrades Abdur Rab and Acharia with Company have been doing hothing else but reactionary pan-Islamic propaganda among the Indian Revolutionaries and emigrants here in Tashkhant. He threw full light over the past personal and revolutionary histories of the two Comrades and concluded that under the present facts it is absolutely impossible for him and for all the Indian Revolutionaries to co-operate with people like Abdur Rab and Acharla who sacrificed most of their life in the English service, not in ordinary service but in the British Government Secret Department to spy over the Indian Nationalist revolutionaries… In conclusion we bring before the Soviet Authorities the fact that Abdur Rab and his group are imposing themselves before the Soviet Government as Socialists where as it is a big lie.[12]
Although it may appear as an irony of history, the same Abani Mukherji, who brought these allegations against the IRA as a member of Roy’s group and very close associate of Roy in early 1921, was himself branded as an English spy by Roy before long, and the break between the two men was virtually complete by the mid-1920s. A letter of Abani Mukherji dated Tashkhent, 31 May 1921 and addressed to Kobietzky, secretary of the Comintern alleged that in a meeting of Indian revolutionaries held on the preceding day and attended by Virendranath Chattopadhyay, Bhupendranath Datta, Panduram Khankhoje, G A K Luhani and others, he had been accused of being an English spy and was therefore seeking the appointment of a commission to investigate this ‘grave charge’.[13] This however was followed by an undated circular of the Comintern executive (ECCI) which said:
The Executive Committee of the Communist International hereby notifies all its national sections as well as other parties, groups and individuals concerned that reports have been received to the effect that one Abani Mukherji, who attended the II Congress of the Communist International and sometime worked as a member of the Indian Communist Group, has been engaged in activities which make serious reflections upon his political honesty. In view of this fact it is quite impossible for him to remain in the ranks of the Communist International.
On 2 October 1922, the communist parties of Great Britain, Germany and Italy were first warned about Mukherji.[14]
Interestingly, however, Mukherji somehow appears to have been able to regain the confidence of the Comintern, as is evident from two letters from Roy, one to the presidium of the ECCI and the other to the central control commission of the CPSU, of which Mukherji was a member. The first, here translated from the German, is dated 20 May 1925:
Because of materials and informations delivered to you recently the ICC [International Control Commission] has reconsidered the ‘Case of Mukherji’. The result of this reconsideration is confirmation of the earlier Resolution on 8 December, 1924. The ICC continues to maintain there is not enough ground to expel Mukherji from the Comintern. I must lodge protest against this order, which is wrong and damaging for the Indian movement...
The material which is in the hands of the ICC can at least prove fully the following:…
3. That in two years Mukherji has, not out of political, but on pure personal grounds constantly indulged in factionalism.
4. That Mukherji is not only no communist but has no political honesty.
5. That circumstantial evidences certify that Mukherji even though involuntarily maintains relations with the British informers...In case the Resolution of the ICC remains in force, I reserve to myself, so long as I find it necessary in the interest of the Party and the revolutionary movement the right to request that I be relieved of all responsibilities concerning India.[15]
The second letter, dated 4 August 1926, contains the following observations about Mukherji:
He was not permitted to have any connection with the Comintern work... Mukherji used the apparatus... to carry on his campaign of calumny against myself and the Indian comrades connected with me... Failing to gain his purpose in another way he again resorted to forgery; he tried to smuggle out an article written by himself, but meant to be published in India as written by a number of Indian revolutionaries in Russia. The purport of this article was that I had been thoroughly discredited in the Comintern and nobody trusted me, while Mukherji had at last succeeded in his struggle against me and the crowd of adventurers connected with me.[16]
The ill-feeling, distrust and acrimony that characterised the relations among the Indian revolutionaries was also evident in the somewhat tense relationship between Roy and the Berlin group of Indian revolutionaries. For example, in a letter dated Berlin, 30 July, but without indicating the year, Roy wrote to the Comintern’s Eastern secretariat as following:
There are several factors which are very harmful for our work here, and something must be done to eliminate these factors. First of all intellectual anarchism is the predominant characteristic of the Indian emigrants. Discipline is a thing absolutely unknown to them. They have never worked as parts of a political party. Then while I was trying to impress the idea of discipline and organisation on a few most hopeful people, appeared Mukherji with his subversive activities...Then the propaganda and intrigues of Chatta Group and Dutta Group (there are several groups among the emigrants here) are ever busy in creating a vicious atmosphere. Caught in these unwholesome influences anybody loses his head unless he possesses a very strong sense of discipline.[17]
Apparently Roy maintained good relations with Chatto who, incidentally, was never very active in the Comintern itself but primarily, through his German connections, in the League of Struggle against Imperialism. Roy, it appears, was not very enthusiastic about working with Chatto closely in the Comintern and kept him at bay, considering him perhaps as a possible rival in relation to the management of Indian affairs. Thus, in a letter addressed to Roy, following his return from China, dated 28 August 1927 Chatto expressed very categorically his desire to join the Communist Party of India [18] and also work for the Communist Party of Germany and sent a formal application for membership of the CPI to Moscow.[19] However, there were serious misgivings in the Comintern about his credentials, particularly in the mind of Roy whose opinion in such matters was quite decisive. An earlier letter addressed to Roy by Virendranath and dated 3 January 1927 reads as follows:
I think too that it would be a pity to waste time in unnecessary ‘suspicions’. I want to work — and have no ambitions regarding the Comintern... Let us obliterate the past. On my side you have nothing to hesitate about. I make this appeal in the interests of the work and have no hesitation in asserting that I committed a serious blunder by remaining inactive from 1921 until last year. Let me know if there is anything further you wish me to do so as to get rid of any hostile feelings that may still be lurking in your mind or anyone else’s.[20]
Roy, interestingly, in his reply dated September 14 1927, suggested that although there should be no problem for Chatto in joining the CPI, thanks to his German connection it would be easier for him to join the Communist Party of Germany.[21]
To sum up, the Indian revolutionaries in Russia were organised among several groups and they were locked in rivalry and internecine conflict despite their common aim of liberation of India from British rule. Ultimately, however, it became a power struggle between Roy and the remaining groups which ended in his victory in the early years of the Comintern.
II
The factional conflicts centring around power rivalry that marked the relations among the Indian revolutionary groups, however, constitute only one dimension of this issue. More significant is the question concerning the programmatic — that is, political and ideological — differences that characterised them. On this score it is now possible to identify three major viewpoints. One position may generally be described as broadly anti-imperialist and harbouring somewhat nationalistic sentiments, yet sympathetic towards socialism. This was reflected in the outlook of the IRA, broadly represented by Abdur Rabb Barq and M B P T Acharya. Another viewpoint refers to the ideas of the Berlin group, who despite different shades of opinion generally opted for a revolutionary strategy, aiming at close co-operation between the communists and nationalist revolutionaries with support from the Comintern. A third position may be described as left-extremist, as espoused by M N Roy till the time of the Comintern’s Sixth Congress in 1928,and by Abani Mukherji. These were rather sceptical of the idea of co-operation between the nationalist revolutionaries and communists and believed in the leadership of the Communist Party in the anti-imperialist struggle.
As regards the position of the IRA, two documents deserve attention. Abdur Rabb Barq, in a letter dated 29 July 1921 and addressed to Chicherin at the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, alleged that the Comintern was pursuing a sectarian line in relation to non-communist revolutionaries and that this strategy was self-defeating for colonies like India where nationalism had a major role to play:
The Komintern has provided no programme which could combine both Communist & non-Communist revolutionaries together and make them to work harmoniously without giving rise to conflicts... Komintern being a purely Communist institution whose chief business is to carry on Communistic propaganda, create Communist parties in each country, affiliate them to itself and infuse discipline in their ranks, has its hands more than sufficiently full... It has neither time nor inclination to devote attention to the non-Communist revolutionary organisations. Through long association with Communistic work & propaganda it has a fair excuse if it develops a little fanaticism in this respect & intolerance of other points of views & other organisations... To ask the Komintern, the high-priest of communism, to co-operate with nationalistic bourgeois movement is to ask the pope to co-operate with the anti-Christ.[22]
Equally significant is a letter from Acharya dated Moscow, 30 August 1921, which was addressed to the Comintern secretariat and which put forward the idea of a commission for supervision of Indian work that would comprise communist as well as nationalist elements.
2. A mixed Commission of Indian Communists and pro-Communist Indian ‘nationalists’ as well as one or two Russian comrades representing the Comintern — or only one Russian comrade and another representing the French, German or any other strongly revolutionary party interested in the immediate destruction of the British Empire — such a commission must be nominated to make plans for organising, acting and controlling all activities with regard to India.
3. Until a successful political revolution is made in India, all the activities of Communist and non-Communist revolutionary organisations must be strictly subordinated to the decisions of this commission.
As Indian comrades are nor experienced in labour organisation and Communist propaganda and activity — this applies to Roy himself first and as the Indian political, social and revolutionary situation is very complicated and different unlike Europe, I am firmly convinced that any encouragement to ‘left communism’ in countries like India is an encouragement to counter-revolution in those countries is now, even if it is not in Europe.[23]
Now let us take a look at the documents of the Berlin group. These refer to a number of unknown theses and notes submitted to the Comintern by Chatto, Bhupendranath Datta and Maulana Barakatullah in the 1920s which throw an interesting light on their perception of anti-imperialist struggle in India. Thus, on the occasion of the Comintern’s Third Congress in 1921, Virendranath, together with G A K Luhani, Panduram Khankhoje and others submitted a document which, however, was not discussed by the Comintern. The document had two parts: the first was entitled 'Organization and Scheme of Indian Work' in which a detailed plan had been outlined concerning communist propaganda in labour organisations, work among emigrant Indian labourers outside India, special propaganda among Indian soldiers outside India, production of special communist literature for India, organisation for the arrangement of technical training of Indian revolutionaries, propaganda in Great Britain; etc [24] The second part of the document was entitled ‘Theses on India and the World Revolution’. This long document highlighted three distinct issues: (a) India was described basically as an agrarian country with a feudal structure — a position that contested Roy’s viewpoint at the Second Comintern Congress (1920) which considered India as so far an industrialised country that a proletarian revolution was on the agenda; (b) in India the society was divided not only vertically along class lines but also horizontally along the lines of religion and caste; (c) without mentioning the name of Roy it was stated that the argument advanced from certain quarters that the Comintern’s assistance to bourgeois-democratic and national revolutionary movements would be counterproductive was hardly tenable, since once British imperialism was overthrown, imperialism would be shattered and this would signal the total collapse of the native bourgeoisie and the onward march of the proletariat.[25] This outlook was reflected in the concluding section of the document, which read:
Meanwhile the destruction of British Imperialism remains the first charge on the Communist International, and to that end it is incumbent on the Communist International to exploit to the utmost extent every available revolutionary tendency in and outside India. Mere academic objections on rigid communist grounds to giving assistance to and collaborating with bourgeois democratic and nationalist revolutionary movements of political liberation in the East show a pathetic and stupid detachment from the realpolitik of the World-situation.[26]
On behalf of the Berlin group another document entitled ‘The Statement and Memorandum In regard to the Works to be carried on in India’ was submitted to the Third World Congress by Bhupendranath Datta, Surendra Kar and others in the name The New India Revolutionary League. This too was not considered for discussion. The document had a striking similarity to Chatto’s ‘Theses’ in the sense that here, while the necessity of organising a communist nucleus under the Comintern’s leadership for initiating the formation of a Communist Party in India was stressed, simultaneously it was emphasised that the Comintern should extend all help to nationalists and other revolutionary forces:
The overthrow of the British rule in India, the strongest and best organised capitalist rule in the world, which stands on the way to the free development of the social forces will be first step towards the revolution. The Comintern should therefore help and support the nationalists and other revolutionary forces in India without encouraging any nationalist or chauvinist aspirations. The nucleus of the communist Party will form a part of the revolutionary council consisting of well known revolutionaries which should specially be created to overthrow the British rule in India, and the relation of this revolutionary council to the Comintern should be realised through the Indian Commission and not through the medium of the communist nucleus alone.[27]
No less significant was the outlook of Maulana Barakatullah, who was not a communist but a staunch revolutionary, an old leader of the Gadhar Party in the United States and, subsequently, a prominent figure in the Berlin Committee in the early 1920s. Shortly before his death in September 1927, he had sent to the Comintern two documents outlining a secret plan for establishing a link between the Comintern and the Indian national revolutionaries through Jawahar Lal Nehru. He had the impression that while the Comintern’s work in India was welcome to the Indian nationalists, what was necessary was the reformulation of certain tactics which were damaging the cause of anti-imperialist struggle. In a letter to the Comintern dated Berlin, 6 May 1926, Barakatullah wrote:
It was only lately that I saw the famous Indian revolutionary, Jawhar Lal Nehru, in Switzerland, who has been especially delegated to me from India in order to explain to me the diametrically opposite effect of the propaganda of Comintern in India to the intentions of the said association, and to ask me to communicate the standpoint of the Indian revolutionaries to the Comintern. If necessary, Mr. Nehru is himself willing to come over to Berlin and explain to you the whole situation of the propaganda of the Comintern in India himself.[28]
Decrying the Comintern’s practice of sending literature and money, presumably through Roy, clandestinely ‘to the so-called secret persons’, Barakatullah continued:
...the whole thing falls into the hands of the English agents with the only result that the true Indian revolutionaries are being exposed and put to all sorts of troubles by the police... I, therefore, propose that a meeting should be convened to take place at Berlin with the participation of Mr. Nehru and the representatives of Comintern including Mr. Roy and other comrades concerned in this propaganda. In this case we shall be able to find out the proper way of crushing our mutual enemy, which can only be done if we work hand in hand and not against each other.[29]
This was followed by a note of Barakatullah’s to the Comintern, dated Berlin 2 February 1927, concerning the improvement of organisation and communication channels by involving the Comintern more closely in the activities of India’s nationalist revolutionaries, adding: ‘M. Barakatullah Maulavie and Jawahar Lal Nehru will be the only Indian representatives to come into personal contract with the representatives of the Comintern, in order to maintain secrecy’.[30] There is, however, no evidence that these plans were eventually followed up, one possible reason being Barakatullah’s death a few months later.
Quite different from these positions was the viewpoint of M N Roy and Abani Mukherji. It is well-known that Roy’s original Draft Supplementary Theses on the colonial question submitted to the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920 were extremely sectarian vis-a-vis nationalism and even after the adoption of this document, consequent to Lenin’s substantive modification, the Theses maintained the slant of left-extremism.[31] It is interesting in this connection to look at the hitherto unpublished ‘Draft Theses on the Oriental Question’ presented by Roy to the Third Congress of Comintern in 1921. In this document the role of the East was strongly highlighted and, while acknowledging the limited anti-imperialist potential of the liberal bourgeoisie in its contradiction with imperialism. the following argument was stressed:
But this revolutionary character of the bourgeoisie is temporary; since as soon as the foreign political domination will be overthrown by a mass revolt, it will turn against the working class and will use all violent measures in order to thwart further march of the revolution in the name of representative government and national defence. It is also possible that the weak native bourgeoisie will find it more profitable to sell itself out to its imperialist peer in return for such change in the political administration of the country as will provide it with wider scope and opportunity for developing as a class. Thus, the rapidly growing proletariat including the masses of landless peasantry is the principal social class which constitutes the foundation of the revolution in an Oriental country like India. Therefore the activities of the Communist International in the economically and industrially advanced countries of the East should consist of the formation of such political parties as are capable of developing and directing the revolutionary movement according to the objective conditions. Such parties will be the apparatus of the Communist International — through them the peoples of the East will be unified in their respective countries to fight against the foreign imperialism, and they will lead the fight further on for economic and social emancipation of the working class against the native bourgeoisie as soon as it takes the place of the foreign exploiter.[32]
This was an argument which in a way precluded the Comintern’s support to non-communist forces or parties — a position which was almost identical with his stance at the Second Congress. In fact, Roy’s position in the 1920s remained in general quite sharply sceptical of nationalism although since the mid-1920s, especially after his experience in Central Asia, [33] he gradually began to modify his position as shown in his espousal of a Workers’ and Peasants’ Party through which the communists would operate in India. Roy’s position, however, underwent a radical change after the Comintern’s Sixth Congress in 1928 when the Third International opted for a left-extremist shift in regard to its strategy, so that Roy was now rapidly moving towards a positive attitude towards nationalism, while the Comintern was moving in precisely the opposite direction, leading to an inevitable confrontation.[34]
Available evidences, however, indicate that while Roy’s position underwent a gradual modification, Abani Mukherji remained uncompromisingly critical of nationalism throughout the 1920s. All along he championed the cause of the Communist Party, was highly critical of the idea of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party and stood for a left-extremist line in regard to India. Thus, in a letter to the secretary of the Comintern’s Oriental section, dated Berlin 20 June 1922, Mukherji wrote disapprovingly of rumours of opposition to the formation of a communist party in India.[35] Subsequently, criticising the Comintern’s strategy of a united anti-imperialist front against imperialism in countries like India, in a speech before the Indian commission on 4 May 1928 Mukherji said:
The basis of the Comintern’s political line in India, was that the revolutionary spirit of the subject countries is expressed only through the educated middle classes. This was the basis of the Comintern line in 1922. Then it developed, from the end of 1920 it developed into a programme of radicalisation of the intelligentsia. The Working class, the proletariat went on the side. In 1924 it came a step further, that bourgeois development is necessary to bring proletarian revolution. In 1926, a step still further — that is, people’s movement for India. In 1927 it came to its climax in July, that is for a Kuomintang Party [Workers’ and Peasants’ Party] for India. What does this show? The main current is that the same Trotskyist theory as, or Radek theory in the beginning of the Chinese Revolution — that the fight in the orient is not a class fight but a fight of all classes against imperialism. The result is this that the entire energy of the Comintern was devoted not for the proletariat, not for agitational propaganda amongst the proletariat but amongst the intelligentisia.[36]
Subsequently, in a letter dated August 14 1928, addressed to Otto Kuusinen, president of the colonial commission at the Sixth World Congress, Mukherji described the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party as ‘the party that is accumulating by itself the elements of future Indian Fascism.’ [37]
III
The question thus arises of how the Comintern viewed these sharply contrasting viewpoints concerning the strategy for anti-imperialist struggle in India? From all available evidence it is now quite clear that for the Comintern, while it was no easy task to resolve these differences, M N Roy was looked upon as the key figure to be relied upon. This was evident in his elevation to the highest offices of the ECCI in following years. [38] This does not mean that Roy and the Comintern necessarily agreed upon all issues, especially where the colonial question was concerned. Roy, in fact, crossed swords with others in the Comintern on a number of occasions and given his scepticism regarding the question of nationalism, his ‘leftist’ outlook did not always square with the Comintern’s strategy of an anti-imperialist united front, at least in the early 1920s. Despite these tensions between Roy and the Comintern, Roy’s opinions concerning the activities of other Indian revolutionary groups carried enormous weight and he was considered the most effective spokesman so far as the Indian question was concerned.
Thus, on 14 March 1921 in a telegram sent by Carl Steinhardt and D Zetkin (with copies to Lenin and Zinoviev) to the Small Bureau of Comintern, the following observation was made concerning the discord between Roy’s group and the IRA:
The group of the Mukherji-Roy group exactly corresponds to the directions of the 2nd Congress of the Third International. The impressions we have gained from conversations held with interested and non-interested persons (instructors of Indian Military School and of sources of secret information, representatives of the O O Cheka) may be summarized to the effect that the group of Abdur Rabb is at the least, very liable to suspicion of making secret Pan-lslamist propaganda. We were able to be informed of a secret meeting held by the group of Abdur Rabb. The fact that the group denies this, strengthens our suspicions. Pan-lslamist propaganda is a great danger in this country and must be vigorously opposed.[39]
That the Comintern was reluctant to lend support to the Berlin group of Indian revolutionaries is also evident from a letter sent to the Small Bureau of Comintern by Chatto, Agnes Smedley, Nalini Gupta, Panduram Khankhoje, Bhupendranath Datta and others, dated Moscow 8 July 1921, while the Third World Congress was in session:
In accordance with the arrangement originally made with Comrade Karkahn and subsequently confirmed by the Comintern, we, the undersigned, arrived in Moscow about eight weeks ago in order to discuss Indian questions. As all our attempts at direct negotiations with the Male Bureau [Small Bureau] have proved futile and as there seems to be no immediate prospect of arriving at any arrangement with the Comintern regarding Indian work we think it is absolutely necessary for us to return without delay to our fields of activity in Europe and India.[40]
That Roy himself was very critical of the other Indian revolutionary groups and informed the Comintern accordingly is revealed in a letter dated Berlin 11 September (probably 1922), and addressed to the secretary of the Comintern’s Eastern section:
The circle of Indian emigrants here is positively vicious. There is not one who can be trusted or relied upon for any revolutionary work. Intrigues and obstructive activities are increasing every day. Now our ex-comrade Mukherji has joined it openly. The worst of it is that the effects of the situation here are being felt in India and England to a certain extent… There is no end to the dirty intrigues. Suren Kerr, whom I sent for from America, demanded the formation of a comittee composed of all those who went to Moscow last year. He refused to do any work until this was done. He is acting as an agent of the Berlin group… This is only to give you an idea of the vicious circle we are in.[41]
Available evidences further suggest that it was the Indian Communist Party, the brainchild of Roy, which was considered by the Comintern as the nucleus of revolutionary struggle and that the Berlin group was desperately trying to gain recognition by the Comintern as a parallel organisation of Indian revolutionaries independent of Roy’s party in the early 1920s. An undated ‘Report about the Indian Nationalist Group in Moscow’ records how from the beginning it had ‘maintained its independence of the Indian Communist Party’:
It desired to be treated as a Revolutionary Group although many of its individual members claimed to be communists. The Indian Communist Party on its part had no objection to the Com. Intern’s giving direct help to any other nationalist revolutionary elements. It simply maintain that such a method is not practical and brings confusion in our activities…
Lately, two members of the group (Das Gupta and — ) have been carrying on negotiation with the Communist Party. According to them the majority of the Group is communist and therefore has no reason for not working with the Party. The Party has repeatedly declared that it would welcome all those who agree with the communist principle and are ready to work accordingly. But for some reason or other this communist element of the group has not yet succeeded in arriving at a decision about its intention of joining the party. It appears that in case the Com[munist] Intern[ational] recognises this group as an independent body and extends to it help, the group, including those who call themselves communists, would prefer not to join the Party.[42]
While the Comintern rated highly Roy’s leadership in organising the Communist Party of India on Russian soil as well as in in India through his coordination of different communist groups in the British Indian territory, almost from the very beginning it also aimed at building up a kind of parallel centre of power by vesting gradually more and more power in the hands of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB or BCP). This certainly was a challenge to Roy’s position notwithstanding his enormous prestige and authority within the Comintern. That the CPGB was destined to play a key role in organising Indian revolutionary work is evident from the following undated document entitled ‘Report of the Work and Organization of the Indian Communist Party’ and presumably dating from sometime in 1921:
...the Indian Communists held a series of meetings with the delegates from Great Britain, in order to formulate a concrete programme for cooperation and mutual help… lt was decided to organize an Indian Section of the BCP from among the Indian Communists resident in Great Britain to work specifically on the colonial aspect of the Movement, and a special Indian Bureau was to be created to carry out the necessary work. In addition to this, a Committee of two was appointed in the same meeting, consisting of Comrades Sylvia Pankhurst and Beach, who would themselves appoint a third member, an Indian, in Great Britain, to arrange for a communication through the Indian lascars that sail to and from Great Britain to India, sending of literature for Indians and for the English soldiers stationed in India, to create disaffection among them... [T]he project was placed before the Small Bureau of the Third International, and a sum of money requested for the execution of work, but so far no action has been taken... Probably, for lack of funds, the work in England has not proceeded as agreed upon, but if the money be appropriated, it can be started at any time.[43]
IV
It is now possible to provide at least some kind of plausible explanation of the eclipse of the Indian revolutionary groups in Russia by the end of the 1920s. Two factors can be identified, the first being the rise and extent of the CPGB’s control over Indian affairs as a countervailing force vis-a-vis Roy, but also contributing largely to the demise of the role of the Indian revolutionaries as a whole. This was evident, first, from the formation of an Indian Foreign Bureau sometime in the mid-1920s, which for all practical purposes became an organ effectively controlling Indian affairs on which C P Dutt of the CPGB was a key player. According to an undated document entitled ‘The Indian Foreign Bureau’ it was to consist of Dutt, Roy and Mohammed Ali and provide the organ through which the Comintern’s organisation and direction of both the Indian Communist Party and ‘Nationalist Revolutionary Movement’ would be effected.[44] In a 1etter dated 30 December (probably 1924), Roy wrote to Petrov at the Comintern a letter that possibly refers to the functioning of the Indian Foreign Bureau:
Our Bureau is not working well. Particularly the British part of the work is very unsatisfactory. Contrary to the letter received from you, we are informed by the British party that the representative there has come back from Moscow with new instructions which reject entirely the new line we have been following till now. According to these new instructions, the Colonial Commission of the British Party assumes the supreme political responsibility for the work in India, Egypt and other colonies. This has already given rise to duplication of efforts and work in the wrong direction. The British party starts with the assumption that since they have not done anything in India, nothing whatsoever exists there, and that they must begin the whole thing. Not desiring to raise a conflict, I have handed over to the British party the entire sum sanctioned for the work of our Bureau in the British Colonies.[45]
While the ascendancy of the CPGB may be regarded as one explanation for the eclipse of the Indian revolutionary groups, a second explanation probably lies in the Comintern’s critical and negative attitude towards Chatto and Mukherji, who remained in Soviet Russia after Roy’s exit from the Comintern by 1929. Though the vacuum created by Roy’s departure might have been filled by either of them, considering their Comintern connections and intellectual abilities, this did not happen. Following the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, on the advice of Georgi Dimitrov, with whom he was quite closely acquainted, Chatto moved to the Soviet Union and worked in a Comintern section in Moscow but subsequently came under suspicion and had his case investigated by the Comintern Control Commission. Interestingly, there is a document stamped secret in Chatto’s personal papers dated 10 November 1932 stating that the Commission investigating his case ‘found no evidence for accusing him of political dishonesty’.[46] That he nevertheless continued to be treated as a suspect is evident from a letter sent by him to Dimitrov, dated Moscow 9 April 1935, and translated from the original German:
Unfortunately, for three years I have been kept away from active work in Comintern. Had there been a serious desire to know the reasons behind it, I would have the occasion to submit certain facts. I am not giving up the hope that the ECCI can and will use me, especially now. I request you, concerning the reorganisation of the Indian Department, to take into consideration the question of my use for organisational or other work in an appropriate colony… [47]
As regards Mukherji, after quite actively participating in the Indian commission at the Sixth World Congress in 1928, he was thereafter ignored. According to information from the KGB Archives provided by Mitrokhin, both he and Chatto were liquidated in 1937 on ‘suspicion of espionage’.[48] The death of Barakatulah in 1927, Roy’s exit from the Comintern in 1929 and the neutralisation of Chatto and Mukherji in the following years thus created a situation where it was no longer possible for any Indian leader to provide any direction to hundreds of Indian revolutionary cadres in Russia who were receiving political and military training for revolutionary work in India under the Comintern’s guidance.
What made the Comintem critical of Chatto and Mukherji and eventually led to their liquidation remains a mystery, though it is beyond question that it provided a very big booster to the CPGB to establish its hold over Indian communist affairs. Supplementing the late Vilem Kahan’s meticulous research with more recent archival findings we can now establish that — whereas from some time prior to the Comintern’s Fourth Congress in 1922 till the Ninth ECCI Plenum of 1928 Roy was in charge of Indian affairs — at the Sixth World Congress in 1928 ‘Chatterji’ and ‘Naoradji’ were put in charge of India.[49] After the Seventh World Congress in 1935 it was the CPGB’s Ben Bradley who took on the same responsibilities until the time of the war. That the CPGB would have the real say in affairs concerning India in the Comintern was already made clear by Manuilsky in his speech at the Tenth ECCI Plenum in July 1929 (here translated from the German) — a period in which the communist movement in India was in complete disarray in the wake of the Sixth Congress and the Meerut arrests:
If the British Party does not help the splintered unorganised Indian communists now, who will then help them? Other than the British Communist Party, the Communist International possesses no lever which might act upon the Indian revolutionary movement. The Plenum now has to demand of the British Party that it has to guide the emergent Indian Communist Party by providing active support through labour, spread of agitation and application of all remaining methods.[50]
Thus, the eclipse of all the major leaders, coupled with the rapid ascendancy of the CPGB with the Comintern’s active support, permanently sealed the fate of the Indian revolutionary groups in Russia with the onset of the 1930s.
Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, University of Calcutta.
This is a slightly edited version of an article which first appeared in The Calcutta Historical Journal, Vol XVIII, No 2, 1996, pp151-170.
All archival documents cited are located in the Russian State Archives of Socio-Political History, Moscow (RGASPI). Italicised emphases and misprints in the quoted documents are given as in the original.
