Communist Party of India memorandum — "Our Policy and Organisation"

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the National War Front which I had refused to do in my telegram to you. They
tried to cajole and even bully our local and Provincial leaders, into joining
the National War Front which they, of course, refused without exception.
Similarly they tried to bribe us centrally, provincially, and locally and
could not believe that we would carry out our anti-fascist patriotic declar-
ations by relying on our people alone. For them only words had changed, not
their ideas, an anti-fascist meant the good old loyalist and at worst a
liberal, {ms. insertion: the} pro-Fascist was every patriot. (The Police Commissioner of Calcutta
in a meeting to the Special Constables (Europeans) actually went to the
extent of putting Fifth Columnists and Communists together and of the
two classed Communists as being more dangerous).

        The utmost to which the most liberal-minded among Government circles
have gone is "Use the Communists but not let them go strong". Here is the
actual contradiction; if Communist policy is in the interests of the people
and the Communists work among the people who can prevent them from going
strong? This is how our legalisation gets reduced [struck-over word] to a formality.

OUR POLICY AND ORGANISATION

        There is no contradiction between our policy and practice, it won't be
Marxism if [struck-over word] it were so, we could not have become a political force
in the life of our nation if we were guilty of it. The honest endeavour
of every Communist Party is to see that {ms. insertion: the above contradiction} [struck: it] does not creep in through ignor-
ance or lack of experience. We never "change front", our enemies and critics
charge us of this. Our front has been the same and that is of the peoples
of the world. We don't change sides, but we change our policy and practice
as the situation changes, but the purpose remains the same, strengthening
the people's front and our aim remains the same, freeom for ourselves and
all. If we were opportunists, we would have ceased to exist under per-
secution, while we have grown stronger as years have gone by. If we were
opportunist we would not have won ground among our own people despite the
ideological and practical opposition of other classes and organisations
in our national life.

        The only determining factor for our policy is the interests of our
people, as we understand it and learn through our own experience. Our Party
alone decides its policy. We accept no dictation from any outside agency.
We think our policy is the simplest to understand if one looks at it from
the point of view of the people.

        Our Party as an organisation is a political organisation of a new type.
It can never be understood by applying to it the norms or standards of other
or orthodox political organisations. Discipline like ours exists in no
other organisation, selflessness like that of our comrades is found in no
other Party. Failure to grasp this does no harm to our Party but only to
those who have to deal with us either as friends or as foes.

        Members of our Party are only moved through the Party. We never deal
with other organisations, official or unofficial, as individuals, but only
as a Party. To deal with us otherwise is only to waste time.

        I am not being boastful but only trying to show that to think that
there is a contradiction between our policy and practice is neither to
understand our policy politically nor to judge us objectively. We have
struggled between two fires for the last six months. The Government has
dealt with us virtually as the "Congress Fifth Column", our fellow patriots
have slandered us as the British Fifth-Column, and yet we have won greater
political influence over the people than we ever had, we are stronger as
an organisation that ever before.

        To evaluate us wrongly does not hit us really but leads to adopting
a policy which helps the Fifth Column effectively.