From Jairus Banaji on FB:
I got to know K. Damodaran (1912–1976) some time in 1974 when he was
busy setting up the P.C.Joshi Archive in a basement of the old campus of
JNU in Delhi. We would pore through the latest available catalogue of
New Left Books and decide which titles to order from London. Damodaran
was a Marxist of great humility who hardly ever spoke about himself or
his past, so I had no real idea then how pivotal he had been to building
the Communist movement in Kerala. Uniquely for someone who had been so
important in the (united) Communist Party of India, by the late 1960s
Damodaran had become profoundly critical of Stalinism and the legacies
it encumbered the party in India with.
Here are some interesting excerpts from the fascinating interview which
Tariq Ali conducted with him in 1975 (which was then published in New
Left Review, Sept.-Oct. 1975):
“We were told that Stalin was the ‘great teacher’, the ‘guiding star’
who was building socialism in the USSR and the leader of world
socialism. And being both new to communism and relatively unschooled in
Marxism and Leninism I accepted what I was told. There is a tradition in
Indian politics of political gurus enlightening the masses and this
tradition suited Stalinism completely. Hence we could accept anything
and everything that we were told by the party elders who themselves were
dependent for their information exclusively on Moscow. This was the
atmosphere in which I was brought up as a communist. However, there were
some comrades who were extremely perturbed at the information on the
massacres which was coming out of Moscow. Philip Spratt, one of the
communists sent to help build the CPI from Britain, became so
demoralized and disillusioned with Stalinism that he abandoned communism
altogether and became a liberal humanist and towards the end of his life
an anti-communist. He was an excellent comrade who played an invaluable
role in helping us at an early stage. The Congress left wing was also
extremely critical of the purges taking place in Moscow and some of
their leaders were extremely disgusted by the propaganda contained in
the CPI front journal National Front, which depicted Trotsky as a
poisonous cobra and an agent of Fascism. Even Nehru, who was one of the
first Congressmen who popularized the Russian Revolution and Soviet
achievements, expressed his disapproval of the purges in 1938. But for
us, communists, in those days Trotskyism and fascism were the same. I
must confess to you that I also believed that Bukharin, Zinoviev, Radek
and other victims of Stalinist purges were enemies of socialism,
wreckers and spies working in the interest of imperialism and
fascism…Looking back on that period I feel that all this was a big
tragedy not just for us, but for the whole communist movement. Can you
imagine: Trotsky had vehemently opposed Fascism and had warned the
German communists against the trap they were falling into and this same
Trotsky was labelled by us and thousands of others as a fascist (…)
[G]iven the twists and turns of the CPI, the ultra-leftism of the 1948
[Party] Congress proved to be disastrous. The masses were not prepared
to overthrow the Nehru government. On the contrary large sections of
them identified with it, and the CPI slogan: ‘This Independence is a
Fake Independence’ merely succeeded in isolating the party. The armed
struggle which was launched together with this slogan led to the deaths
of many cadres and imprisonment and torture of others throughout the
sub-continent. The analysis of the Nehru government as a comprador
stooge government of imperialism was another mistake, as it implied that
there was no difference between the colonial British administration and
the postcolonial Nehru government. As is now commonly accepted by
Marxists, the Indian ruling class was never a comprador class in the
real sense of the word. It enjoyed a relative autonomy even during the
colonial occupation. To argue that it was a comprador class after
Independence was not only ultra-left in the sense that it underpinned a
wrong strategic line, it also demonstrated the theoretical inadequacy of
Indian communism. Many of the themes of that period were taken up again
in the late sixties by the Maoist rebels in Naxalbari and other parts of
India and we know with what disastrous consequences. Apart from the fact
that hundreds of young people were killed, thousands tortured and the
movement went from setback to setback, we still have its legacy in the
shape of thousands of political prisoners imprisoned by the Indian
ruling class. The tragedy here being that the prisoners are virtually
bereft of any mass support (…)
[F]our years after the transfer of power, Stalin and other leaders of
the Soviet Union considered India as a colonial country under British
imperialism. Not surprisingly the Party Conference (Calcutta, Oct. 1951)
approved the new line, especially because it had the blessings of the
‘greatest Marxist-Leninist and the leader of world revolution’. This was
the thinking of the majority of our comrades at least until 1956. I,
too, subscribed to this absurd view for some time, but soon doubts arose
and I began to argue that India was politically free.”
(Here is Damodaran’s insight into what he thinks drove the CPI/CPM split
in 1964)
Many people have written that the CPI/CPM split was a pure reflection of
the Sino-Soviet dispute. This is not correct…In my view the major reason
for the split was internal differences related to the question of
electoral alliances. Ever since the fall of the Kerala ministry a
discussion of sorts had been taking place and it reached a head in 1964.
If you study the party documents from 1960 to 1964 you can trace the
real causes of the split. There is a consistent theme running through
all these documents: parliamentary cretinism. On this there are no major
differences between the two sides. There is agreement on the need to win
more elections in the states and more seats in the Lok Sabha. That is
the road to communism in India. There is a supplementary slogan embodied
in the formula: ‘Break the Congress monopoly’. It is around this that
differences develop. Some party leaders state that the key is to break
the Congress monopoly, even if this means having the Jan Sangh or the
Muslim League as a partner. Others state that the best way to break the
monopoly is by aligning with the progressive sections of the Congress
against its right wing. Thus the debate which led to a split in Indian
communism was not on differences around how best to overthrow the
existing state and its structures, but on how to win more seats. In my
view it was tactical differences which led to a split.
(Finally, when Tariq asked him what his views were on Trotsky)
I am not a Trotskyist. Stalin was my idol. That idol is broken to
pieces. I don’t want to replace a broken idol with a new idol even if it
is not a broken one, because I don’t now believe in idolatry. I think
Trotsky, Bukharin, Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lukács and other Marxists
should seriously be studied and critically evaluated by all communists.
Marxism will be poorer if we eliminate them from the history of the
world Communist movement…I think some of the important contributions by
Trotsky like his essay on bureaucratization published in the Inprecor in
1923, In Defence of Marxism, On Literature and Art, History of the
Russian Revolution and other works are valuable and some of his ideas
are still relevant. This does not mean that I agree with everything
Trotsky said or wrote. The development of Marxism needs a critical eye.
(With thanks to
Sebastian
<https://www.facebook.com/sebastian.budgen?__cft__[0]=AZVenbjkkplaMmtwSOjaKIxtib5dK4pm4cUAHont1SheleAmVB9LL7yOK-1UDXqPyk7lqfWcOrRyGjbOa5la4v-DHMdlp6cD85HUEpledPogE4uLKtJ9-Cr3ToVpZ48VwkIt1tvZm-13SnYgtHpxG4HLe9SmlpLD1ToVx-OZYK7UQQ&__tn__=-]K-R>
for saving me the effort of searching for my back issues of NLR.)
K. Damodaran in 1958 (Photo: James Burke).
May be an image of 1 person, sitting and indoor
<https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159007884415489&set=a.352264660488&__cft__[0]=AZVenbjkkplaMmtwSOjaKIxtib5dK4pm4cUAHont1SheleAmVB9LL7yOK-1UDXqPyk7lqfWcOrRyGjbOa5la4v-DHMdlp6cD85HUEpledPogE4uLKtJ9-Cr3ToVpZ48VwkIt1tvZm-13SnYgtHpxG4HLe9SmlpLD1ToVx-OZYK7UQQ&__tn__=EH-R>
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