SPEO&L ARTICLES

The Telengana Peasant Armed

Struggle, 1946-51 —^
Mohan Ram

20 years ago, Acharya Vinoba Bhave.launched his bhoodan movement at Pochampalli, a village
in Telengana where communists had carried on an armed struggle for five years around an agrarian pro-
gramme. Bhoodan was to be the sarvodaya answer to the communist challenge on the land problem and ,
was meant to achieve what legislative action was not expected to do.
The minuscular peasant revolt in Naxalbari (1967) was a reminder • that neither the sarvodaya ap-
proach nor the legislative process (in which cotmnunists had begun participating after abandoning the
tactic of armed struggle) had solved the agrarian problem in India. There have been many Naxalbaris since.
The Maoist perspective in the Indian communist movement, which began with the Telengana
struggle, has resulted in an extra-spectrum trend which rejects the parliamentary system and seeks to
achieve the people's democratic revolution through people's war linked to an agrarian programme. The
re-emergence of the Macist trend in the Indian communist movement marks the return of the "Telengana
line".
The 25th anniversary of the Telengana armed struggle last year fourid the Indian communist move-
ment indulging in polemics on the nature and significance of the struggle. The main controversy was over
the circumstances attending the withdrawal of the struggle in 1951. This article seeks to place the
'Telengana line' in perspective with particular reference to its relevance to the split in the Indian communist
movement in 1964 and again in 1968.
THE Telengana peasant armed struggle The Communist Party of India's feudal order. In the adjoining Andhra
was the first independent trend in the zig-zags during the Second World War area (i e, the Telugu districts of Madras
Indian communist movement. Commu- (the switch from the imperialist war to Presidency) the CPI had an efficient
nists of the Telugu-speaking tracts of the people's war slogan in 1942 and the organisation and a well-trained cadre
south-central India, now Andhra Pra- consequent support to the British war but in Telengana it was not so well
desh, organised and led it, often in de- effort and the reluctance to support the established and the people of Telengana
fiance of the central leadership of the demand -for transfer of power) did not had no tradition of political participa-
Communist Party of India and of the permit its Hyderabad unit to demand tion. Yet the CPI found itself leading an
international communist movement. the end of Nizam's rule, the abolition armed struggle in Telengana that was
Until 1953, the Telugu-speaking of landlordism in the state and the im- to last five years.2
people lived in a contiguous area, a plementation of a radical agrarian pro- The Telengana region had been under
part of which was in the erstwhile gramme.^ A change in the CPI's policy, a medieval feudal monarchy while the
Hyderabad state, a multilingual entity, coinciding with the post-war upsurge in Andhra area was directly under British
and another in the erstwhile Madras the country, enabled the local unit to' rule and had the ryotwari land tenure
Presidency (later Madras state), also a plan more radical and more militant system. The contradiction between the
multilingual entity. The Telugu districts struggles. peasants and the landlords had become
of Madras state were constituted into In Telengana, the contradiction bet- very sharp in Telengana while it had
the Andhra state in 1953. The Andhra ween the mass of the peasants and feud- been blunted ^in the Andhra area.
state, together with the Telengana re- alism was most advanced in 1945-46. Sscondly, the nationalist movement
gion (as the Telugu districts of Hydera- The peasant movement was initially in British India had been led by the
bad state were known) were grouped organised around simple demands aga- national bourgeoisie, whereas in Te.len-
together to create the present Andhra inst eviction and oppressive feudal ex- g_ana the communists were in effective
Pradesh in 1956, breaking up the tortions but it quickly escalated when control of the small nationalist move-
Hyderabad state. it met with the combined repression of ment.
The first communist groups came into the landlords and the Nizam's govern- .Finally, the decision of the Nizam to
being in Telengana 'in 1939-40. They mental machinery. Peasant resistance refuse accession to India after Indepen-
were illegal and functioned through the to the attacks of organised hoodlums, dence (1947) placed him in direct
Andhra Mahasabha, a mass organisation police and the Nizam's military took contradiction to the new Indian govern-
to promote the cultural and political the form of armed clashes, which even- ment. This factor made it possible for
interests of the Telugu-speaking people tually were to swell into a movement the communist-led movement in Hydera-
of the Hyderabad state. In 1943, the for the overthrow of Nizam's rule. bad, state to take on the character of a
leadership of the Andhra Mahasabha STRUGGLE AGAINST NIZAM national liberation struggle, with the
passed into communist hands. From By mid-1946, the movement had support of the national bourgeoisie lea-
1944 on, communists were organising acquired the characteristics of a national dership of the rest of the country, until
militant struggles against landlordism liberation struggle to free the people Indian forces marched into the state to
and feudal exploitation.1 from the rule of the" Nizam and the force its merger with the Indian Union.
 Jupe 9, 1973
In 1946, the Hyderabad state unit of
the CPI began campaigning for an in-
terim government in the state as the
intermediate step towards breaking up
the multilingual unit and merger of the
various linguistic areas comprising it
with the respective linguistic areas
outside. This was the genesis of the
Andhra communists' slogan of "Visal-
andhra' (an extended Andhra) to unify
the Telugu-speaking people into a
single, unilingual state. In the Andhra
region, the CPI campaigned for an
anti-feudal, democratic programme ar-
ound the slogan of "People's Rule in
Visalandhra" at the 1946 general
elections* and launched a limited
struggle in the area to link up with the
upsurge in Telengana where the Andhra
Maiiasabha had become a united mass
organisation of all the anti-Nizam forces.
When the British formally announced
in June 1947 their decision to abdicate
power in the subcontinent, the CPI
found itself confused about the meaning
of the transfer of power to take place
on August 15. It settled for a non-class
approach to the Congress leadership that
was to take power from the British as a
result oi a-compromise. At the inaugural
meeting of the Cominform iiv Septem-
ber, Zhdanov made his famous speech
characterising the world as being divided
into two hostile camps and calling on
communists to lead movements to
oppose the imperialist plans for expan-
sion and aggression.4 Tndian com-
munists misread this to mean that
in every non-socialist country the
bourgeoisie had gone over to the
camp of Anglo-United States im-
perialism and this new alignment of
forces had created two camps in irrecon-
cilable conflict in everyone of these
countries. So India's independence was
branded fake. Indian communists went
- further than Zhdanov and embraced
the views of Eduard Kardelj, a Yugoslav
participant at the Cominform meeting.
Kardelj had argued that democratic and
socialist revolutions must "intertwine"'
and communists must attack not only
the big bourgeoisie but the bourgeoisie
as a whole. Adopting this Titoite line,
the CPI concluded that India was
already a capitalist country (and not a
semi-feudal, semi-capitalist one) and that
the party should intertwine the two
stages of revolution into a single stage
through an attack on the entire Indian
capitalist class. This was the essence of
the party's thesis at its second congress
in- February-March 1948. It was a swing
from right opportunism to left sectaria-
nism.5
The Andhra communists had already
taken the Telengana peasant movement
1026
ECONOMIC AND'POLITICAL WEEKLY
to the level of partisan armed struggle. these were fast maturing. Only pro-
"Telengana means communists and com- longed armed resistance as in Telen-
munists mean Telengana" thundered gana would bring about the needed
B T Ranadive, the party's General Secre- situation.*
tary-to-be at the second congress which Andhra communists had invoked Mao
deposed the reformist P C Joshi. The Tse-tung's "New Democracy" to
Telengana armed struggle was a few Justify their strategy of a • two-stage
months old and it was not ^until the revolution in India. The new leader-
Telengana delegates had attacked the . ship of the CPI rejected the Andhra
failure of the new political thesis to thesis but the significance of this epi-
realise the "revolutionary significance" sode has not been adequately realised
of the struggle to the "present epoch in India or outside. The first recorded
of maturing democratic revolution in debate on the legitimacy of Mao Tse-
India" that the new leadership appeared tung's theories as part of Marxism-
to support the struggle seriously. The Leninism took place between the
second congress called for similar strug- Andhra communists and the new CPI
gles in other parts of the country and leadership'. The ultra-revolutionary
for working class movements in support Ranadive, in his polemic against his
country-cousins leading the Telengana
of Telengana, all ultimately leading to
armed struggle, suggestively bracketed
armed insurrection. The new albeit
Mao with Tito and Browder and
formally, because it might hasten the
denounced him as a charlatan (",..
working class general-strike-cum-armed-
some of Mao's formulations are such
insurrection which it had' banked that no communist party can accept
upon in the post-war revolutionary them; they are in contradiction of the
situation. world understanding of the communist
parties," he said).7
ANDHRA THESIS
•While the CPI's understanding was
In May 1948, Andhra communists based on a wrong interpretation of the
challenged the second congress thesis
Europe-centred Zhdanov line, the
and its reliance on the general-strike- ' Cominform did not seem to have a
cum-insurrection weapon. The Andhra
clear line yet for former colonies like
thesis said that the Indian revolution, India when Ranadive embarked on his
in many respects, differed from the
anti-Mao polemic. The Chinese Re-
classical Russian Revolution and that it volution had not been brought to an
was to a great extent similar to the
end. It, was not until 1950 that the
Chinese Revolution. The perspeetiv* Cominform endorsed the formulations
should therefore be that of a dogged
of Mao's "New Democracy".
resistance and prolonged civil war in A Soviet academician, E M Zhukov,
the form of an agrarian revolution
advocated a four-class alliance in colo-
culminating in the capture of political nies and semi-colonies.8 A little later,
power by the democratic front rather
Academician V Balabushevich hailed
than a general strike and an. armed up- the Telengana struggle as the "first
rising. Therefore, where a good pro-
attempt at creating people's democracy''
portion of the masses were with the in India and the "harbinger of agrarian
party (in Andhra, Kerala and Bengal)
revolution".9 This was vindication of
it was time to think in terms of guerilla the Andhra leadership's "Telengana
warfare (the "Chinese way") against
line".
the military onslaughts of the Nehru
government bent on liquidating the
' SUPPORT FHOM CHINA
party. Armed guerilla resistance had
to be developed in several parts of the Support to the Andhra leadership
country and these areas were to be con- came also from the Communist Party
verted into liberated areas with their of China within weeks of the formal
own armed forces and state apparatus, proclamation of the People's Republic
later, towns were to be liberated by of China (October 1, 1949). Liu
the armed forces from the liberated Shao-chi declared in Peking in Novem-
areas. ber 1949 that "the road of Mao Tse-
tung" was the path for other colonial
The Andhra thesis also advocated a countries and armed action was the
united front, which included the rich main form of struggle whenever
peasantry and the middle bourgeoisie as and wherever possible.^0
the allies of the proletariat in the peo- A few days thereafter, an editorial
ple's democratic revolution, and in the Cominform journal endorsed
asserted that such a wide front of the most crucial of formulation of
armed struggle could take shape under Liu's declaration:
the. leadership of the party and that
The experience of th© victorious
the objective conditions for realising
national liberation struggle of the
"ECONOMIC AND" POLITICAL WEEKLY
Chinese people teaches that the work-
ing class must unite with all classes,
parties and groups, and organisations
willing to fight the imperialists and
their hirelings to form a broad
nation-wide united front, headed by
the working class and its vanguard ...
the Communist Party.11
But when it came to the form of
struggle, the Cominform mentioned
China, Vietnam, Malaya and "other
countries" as examples of how armed
struggle was becoming the "main form
of struggle" oL the national liberation
movement in many colonies and
dependent countries. Then it listed
Vietnam, South Korea, Malaya, the
Philippines, Indonesia and Burma as
countries engaged in armed struggle,
but not India which was mentioned
merely as a country with "sham in-"
dependence".111
With the Cominform debunking
Ranadive, the Andhra leadership
found itself heading the party. Rajes-
wara Rao took over • as General Secre-
tary in May-June 1950. The Telen-
gana line of peasant v partisan warfare
triumphed inside the CPI, but Mos-
cow's intervention, was to suppress this
trend later.
The new. CPI leadership worked out
a political line which briefly meant:
(1) Rejection of the programmatic
understanding of the second congress,
subsequently elaborated in what was
called the "Tactical Line" by the
leadership;
(2) Rejection of the thesis -of the
single stage revolution, i e, the inter-
twining of the two stages of the Indian
revolution into one;
(3) Rejection of the idea- that the
entire bourgeoisie, including the rich
peasantry, had become enemies of the
people's democratic revolution;
(4) Upholding of the concept of the
Chinese path for the Indian revolution
which meant developing Jelengana-
type agrarian struggle extensively
wEerever possible.13
The new Central Committee, on
June 1, 1950 highlighted the role of
armed struggle for securing . national
liberation and claimed that precondi-
tions for starting such struggles were
already there. But this did not mean
that armed struggle could be launched
immediately anywhere and under any
conditions. The accent was on armed
. guerilla warfare linked to an agrarian
programme wherever the party's
strength permitted it. The Central
Committee pledged to extend the
Telengana struggle to other parts of
India. It wanted to put the party
on the rails of armed struggle in the
countryside and rebuild the movement
June 9,
in the cities and working class centres was favourable for armed partisan
on the basis of the new line and tactics. struggle. The Telengana struggle, the
committee thought, was the beginning
ENTRY OP INDIAN ARMY of the liberation struggle and it was
In the meantime, the entry of demonstrating that the Indian revolu-
Indian armed forces into Hyderabad tion was more like the Chinese revolu-
and the accession of the state to the tion than the Russian revolution. So the
Indian Union had created a new situa- Telengana armed struggle continued. *
1
tion in the Telengana struggle areas.
The" Nizam's forces and the private OPPOSITION WITHIN CPI
army known as the Razakars had failed Opposition to the Andhra leadership
to suppress the armed struggle. But and its new political line came not
after the surrender of the Nizam, it only from a group operating from the
was a military campaign (with 50,000 party headquarters in Bombay which*
to 60,000 Indian troops thrown in) included S A Dange, Ajoy Ghosh and
against the communists who had S V Ghate, who had been released
developed contiguous liberated zones from prison, but also from the Com-
covering 3,000 villages, complete with munist Party of Great Britain. A letter
village Soviets, people's courts and from its Political Committee late in
people's militia. A formidable modern
1950 traced the CPI crisis to a per-
army was fighting the ill-equipped verse understanding of the Comin-
squads. The guerilla squads retreated form journal's editorial (January 27,
to the forests, leaving small groups 1950). Armed struggle was not ruled
behind to operate in the plains. The out for India but the situation, in the
government tried a strategic hamlets CPI and . the country did not hold
plan similar to the famous Briggs plan immediate prospects for such a
in Malaya. They destroyed about struggle. The CPI could utilise all
2,000 tribal hamlets in the forests and opportunities for legal activities and
herded the people into concentration prepare for general elections (a whole
camps. This was part of the plan to year and more away!). The letter also
isolate the guerilla squads from the called for a change in the CPI leader-
tribal people inhabiting the forests. ship because the Rajeswara Rao leader-
The guerillas moved to newer forest ship had not been "democratically"
areas. elected (a veiled call for revolt against
The correlation of political forces in the leadership determined to continue
Hyderabad state changed significantly the Telengana armed struggle)!. The
with the accession of the state to solution to the party crisis lay in. "full
India. Though the state Congress party and unfettered discussion" (which
and some other non-communist forces meant armed struggle as a tactic should
were not part of all-in front against be abandoned formally). The most
the Nizam, each had fought his auto- important references in the letter wer*
cracy and there was sympathy for to the CPI's failure to work out a
armed struggle even from the masses policy on Korea, where the war was
17
of the people". But with end of the raging, and on the peace movement.
Nizam's rule, this support was thinning. This amounted to directing the CPI to
The all-India leadership of the CPI step up pressure against Nehru's foreign
was divided about continuing the policy.
armed struggle after the Nizam's This letter could not have been sent
accession to the Indian Union late to the CPI without Moscow's clearance,
in 1948. A section of the local party if not a directive from Moscow. It was
unit was also for withdrawal of the addressed to the Central' Committee
struggle.14 In fact, the present day and was therefore not circulated to the
CPI owns up the Telengana struggle ranks. But the Party Headquarter*
only upto this point and regards the faction made it a point to circulate it
rest of it sectarian and dogmatic and three months after its receipt to exert
little more than a terror campaign. It pressure on the Rajeswara Rao leader-
thinks the struggle should have been ship on the eve of the December 1950
called off when the Nizam's rule end- Central Committee meeting, which re-
ed.13 organised itself as well as the Polit-
But the Visalandhra communist bureau to provide representation to all
committee as a whole for continu- the trends. The new leadership decid-
ing the struggle. The big gains of the ed to seek the Soviet party's heh> in
Telengana peasantry, especially the one, establishing political-ideological-organi-
million acres of land distributed among sational unity in the party. »
them, had to be defended and not According, to- P Sundarayya, one of
allowed to be snatched away. Secondly, the leaders of the Telengana struggle,
the national and international situation differences in the CPI related to two
1027
 sets of issues,. One concerned the pro-
, gramme — tjte- class assessment of the
transfer of powef*in 1947, the exact
stage of the Indian revolution and the
class strategy or alliance for it — and
another to tactics the possible path of
the Indian revolution Russian or
Chinese, the nature of the Telengana
armed struggle, the different phases of
partisan peasant struggle and the pro-
blem of equating these peasant partisan
struggles with the armed struggle for
political power, etc.18
Meanwhile the pressure from the
British party continued. The directives
were now explicit and positive, indicat-
ing a clear shift in the Cominform line
and the Soviet foreign policy require-
ments. The directives came in the
form of answers by R Palme Dutt to
five questions on the Indian situation.
The peace movement had to be stepp-
ed up against Anglo-United States
imperialism and for the liberation of
Asia. Nehru's foreign policy, it was
not a "consistent peace policy" yet
and Nehru's opposition to imperialism
was "hesitant and limited", should be
reappraised in the light of his attitude
to the Korean war and to China's ad-
mission to the United Nations. Peace
and freedom went together and India
needed a "broad democratic front"
from above on the basis of a common
action programme for peace and in-
dependence. Finally, armed struggle
was not the correct path for India for
the present.10
Dutt elaborated this in an interview
to visiting Indian communists. He said
that as stated in his party's letter to
the CPI, "ultimately the revolution in
India will and must take the form of
armed struggle. It is hardly to be
debated''. He had no idea of the exact
situation in Andhra and could not say
what would be the proper form of
struggle there. But if the Andhra unit
had adopted correct forms of struggle
during the post-second congress period,
the party should not have suffered
any disruption there. "But from the
reports we possess, this does not seem
to be true. When on the. top of it, the
so-called experience of Andhra is app-
lied mechanically to all over India
where the conditions of peasant organi-
sation and the strength of the party
were both weaker than in Andhra, the
result cannot but be disastrous", he
said. Elaborating the concept of armed
straggle, Dutt was insinuating that the
Telengana struggle was little more
than individual or squad terror. (There-
by he was endorsing the friction
demanding its suspension.) Armed
struggle, he said, was "the higher
1028
form of struggle" and "must bear a
mass character", as distinct from the
terrorism of individuals or small groups.
Again, armed struggle was a "higher
state of mass movement, which there-
fore becomes the pre-requisite". Dutt's
concern was with the peace movement
because the cold war had replaced
class struggle on the Cominform agen-
da to suit Soviet foreign policy inter-
ests. The peace movement presented
the CPI with "one of the most impor-
tant weapons for building a front of
all sections of Indian people . . . If we
recognise that the building of the
National Democratic Front is, the key
task for the national liberation struggle,
then it should be obvious that the
broad front that will emerge out of
the peace movement may lay the basis
for the National Front for national
liberation".20
In sum, Dutt's advice aimed at
persuading the CPI to give up the
tactic of armed struggle at least for the
moment and to seek the broadest
possible united front for peace, while
the task of building a national demo-
cratic front could wait.
SOVIET INTERVENTION
The British advice strengthened the
faction opposed to the Telengana arm-
ed struggle, but the CPI crisis conti-
nued until a top-level delegation clan-
destinely visited Moscow early in 1951
for consultations with the Soviet party
leadership. The CPI t«am comprised
two Andhra leaders (C Rajeswara Rao
and M Basavapunniah) who were direct-
ly leading the Telengana struggle and
two leaders opposed to it (S A Dange
and Ajoy Ghosh). The Soviet party
commission comprised Stalin, Malenkov,
Molotov and Suslov. The main conclu-
sion on the issues concerning the pro-
gramme were incorporated in the Draft
Programme published in 1951.=L
The draft said the state that came
into being with the transfer of power
was the same old imperialist slate and
the Congress government installed with
the consent of imperialism had pledged
to protect the British interests in India.
It rejected the second congress under-
standing that the entire bourgeoisie
including the rich peasantry were out-
side the pale of the people's demo-
cratic front. It recognised the possi-
bility of winning over all the Indian
bourgeoisie, barring some individuals
and groups of big bourgeoisie: It re-
jected the theory of the intertwining
of the two stages of revolution.
As for tactics, an accompanying
document, "Statement of Policy",22
said "neither only the Russian path
nor the Chinese path but a path of
Leninism applied to Indian conditions
was the answer". Partisan warfare of
the peasantry had to be combined with
the other major weapon, that of work-
ing class strikes, the general strike and
uprising in cities led by detachments
of the working class. The statement
stressed the leading role of the working
class in the worker-peasant alliance.
The "Statement of Policy" was the
legal or open version of a larger un-
published document prepared by the
CPI team to Moscow. It was entitled
"Tactical Line". 23 Parts of it were not
included in the "Statement of Policy"
and the omitted passages dealt with
the elaboration of some of the theore-
tical issues and principles which pro-
vided the theoretical-ideological basis
for the "Statement of Policy" and
included details of the discussions
between the CPI team and the Soviet
party commission headed by Stalin.
Neither of the documents referred
to armed revolution as part of the im-
'mediate programme. The "Tactical
Line" cautioned the party against
"premature uprisings and adventurist
actions" and yet thought it wrong to
lay down that armed struggle in the
form of partisan warfare should be
resorted to in every spacific area only
when the movement in all parts of the
country rose to the level of an upris-
ing. This was because the uneven
levels of mass consciousness in a vast
country like India would not permit
peasant movements of the same tempo
everywhere. On the contrary situations
demanding armed partisan warfare
might arise in several areas. For in-
stance, when in a big and topographi-
cally suitable area the peasant move-
ment rose to the level of seizure of
land, the question of effective ^seizure
and defending the land seized would
become a burning one and "partisan
warfare in such a situation, undertaken
on the basis of a genuine mass move-
ment and firm unity... if correctly
constructed and led, can have a rousing
and galvanising effect on the peasant
masses in all areas and raise their own
struggle to a higher level".
SWITCH TO PARLIAMENTARISM
The proximity of the general elec-
tions seems to have made it expedient
for the new CPI leadership to withhold
publication o'f the "Tiactical Line".
Through the "Statement of Policy" the
CPI was trying to project the image
of a party that had virtually abjured
violence and was settling for parlia-
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY
mentarism. The leadership feared that
some of the formulations in the "Tac-
tical Line" might prevent the party
regaining its legality in states where it
hladi been banned (Travancore-Cochin
and Hyderabad). Another reason could
be that a more explicit reference to
the tactic of combining peasant parti-
san warfare with urban insurrection
might provide the extremist elements
in the party arguments for opposing
the switch to parliamentarism.
The "Draft Programme" and the
"Statement of Policy" formalised Mos-
cow's decrees on strategy and tactics
for India. The "Draft Programme"
was published by the Cominform jour-
nal immediately after it was released
in India and the "Statement of Policy"
within a fortnight of its adoption.
Rajeswara Rao had already resigned
as General Secretary and Ajoy Ghosh
had replaced him when the Central
Committee met in May 1951 to hear
about the Moscow discussions. The
May 1951 Central Committee meeting
decided to call off the Telengana
struggle and asked its Andhra mem-
bers to ascertain from the partisan
leaders whether they could hold on
until the party negotiated with the
government on the terms for with-
drawal, which included the following:
land in possession of the tenants should
not be taken away to be handed over
to landlords; all warrants against the
struggle leaders should be withdrawn;
all prisoners released; and the ban on
the CPI lifted. The resolution made
clear that the Telengana struggle was
not started and was not being conti-
nued to overthrow the Nehru govern-
ment, but to end feudal exploitation.
It directed the newly-constituted Poli-
bureau to review the Telengana prob-
lem and adopt all ways and measures
to make the struggle successful.2*
Taking advantage of this resolution,
the Ravi Narayan Reddy faction in
Telengana and the party Headquarters
faction at the all-India level launched
a campaign for withdrawal of the
struggle even before the lerms of
withdrawal could be secured, and to
eliminate the fighting cadre from all
levels of leadership. It began claiming
that the Central Committee had al-
ready called off the struggle and that
what was going on in Telengana was
mere individual or squad terror. The
open campaign by this faction forced
the Politbureau to appoint a three-
member negotiating committee. Ajoy
Ghosh, the new General Secretary,
even threatened to disown the struggle
if it was not' withdrawn immediately.
Maddukuri Chandrasekhara Rao, an
Andhra leader, retorted that in that
case the struggle leadership would be
forced to disown him and his leader-
ship.
The struggle leaders were still talk-
ing to the partisan leaders in the forest
bases when the government told the
negotiating committee that declarations
favouring withdrawal of the struggle
were of no avail unless the leaders in
charge of the struggle announced its
withdrawal.
At the May 1951 Central Committee
meeting, the Andhra members agreed
that the struggle could not last long
even as a partial partisan struggle in
defence of land and should be with-
drawn after securing the most favour-
able terms. They had supported the
Central Committee resolution in this
spirit. As Sundarayya rightly records,
the dissensions that had plagued the
party during the last two years caused
"irreparable harm to the Telengana
armed struggle". There was the vicious
propaganda that the movement in
Telengana was nothing but individual
terrorism or squad actions and that
there was no mass participation. The
Central Committee's resolution was
based on the new programme and a
new tactical line, but in complete
contradiction to it the Politbureau
issued a public statement condemning
individual terror and squad actions and
this helped the slander campaign
against the Telengana struggle.55 Also,
the releasing to the Press of the part
of the Central Commitee resolution
expressing readiness for a negotiated
settlement led the government to be-
lieve that the movement was about to
collapse and the party was about to
surrender. This hardened the govern-
ment's position.
WITHDRAWAL OF STRUGGLE
Late in October 1951, A K Gopalan,
on behalf of the Central Committee and
the Andhra Committee, announced the
withdrawal of the struggle. Though the
government had rebuffed the negotia-
tors, the CPI leadership was obliged
to "advise the Telengana peasantry and
the fighting partisans to stop all par-
tisan actions" and to mobilise the
entire people to rout the Congress at
the general elections.26
It was tame surrender because the
party gave the peasantry no guarantee
about protecting their hard-won gains.
The withdrawal of the struggle meant
surrender of all the guerilla zones and
liberated villages to the Indian army,
and with it, the other gains. The CPI
was settling for parliamentarism.
The following agreed conclusions
were drawn by the party about Telen-
gana at the end of the struggle, ac-
cording to Basavapunniah who was
among its leaders:
(1) It is a crime to characterise the
struggle as individual terrorism or
squad terrorism.
(2) It was correct to have continued
the Telengana armed struggle and
guerilla struggle even after the Indian
troops entered Hyderabad, and to de-
fend land and other%democratie gains,
but it was not correct to have had as
the aim "a people's liberation war for
capturing political power and over-
throwing the Central Congress Govern-
ment''.
(3) It was wrong to confuse or char- f
acterise every struggle of the peasantry
or other exploited masses, whenever • " •>
they are forced to use v^eapons, and
especially peasant guerilla struggles, as
the final revolutionary struggle or as
the beginning of the final revolutionary
struggle or as an intermediate part of
such struggles.
(4) There was the danger of the
1
'1
movement degenerating into terroristic
actions by squads and getting isolated
from the masses. How long the armed
peasant guerilla struggle should be
continued, and when it should be
withdrawn, depended on the ebb and
flow of the movement;
(5) Stalin and the Soviet party
leaders had said that it seemed difficult
to continue the Telengana struggle
further, that is, during the first part
of 1951 and it was unfortunate that
the Indian communist movement was
not in a position to continue it. But
they had left 'it entirely to the CPI to
decide whether it should be continued
or withdrawn;
(6) It was not possible to mechani-
cally choose between the Chinese path
and the Russian path and it was ne-
cessary to learn frorp the experience of
both.27
The struggle was called off late in •v
October 1951, but the struggle leaders
could explain what was virtually a
fait accompli to the partisans in the
forests only later. A conference of party
leaders and guerilla fighters of the
Amarabad forest region jvas held in the
third week of November and it approved
the decision to withdraw the struggle.
The underground leadership announc-
ed a reconstituted committee for Telen-
gana with about 25 members drawn from
the underground cadre as well as those
released or still in prison. But General
Secretary Ajoy Ghosh, without consul-
1029
, i1**
June 9, 1973
ting the underground leadership, consti-
tuted an "Election Committee" and
authorised it to function as the de facto
State Committee. The underground
committee asked the cadre to ignore
this body except for election purposes.
While the underground committee
continued to guide the underground
cadre, the Election Committee got the
support of the open cadre. However, the
underground cadre worked for the
success of the People's Democratic Front
through which the illegal party contes-
ted the elections.
LESSON OF THE ELECTIONS
Over 2,000 CPI cadres were still in
jail when the elections took place.
Over 1,000 were underground. The
People's Democratic Front could run
candidates in only 42 of the 98 con-
stituencies in Telengana. The extent of
the CPI victory is underlined by the
fact 36 of the 45 candidates running
under the PDF banner were elected.
In addition 10 Socialist candidates that
had the PDF's support also won. The
Congress won 41 seats but 25 of these
were located in Mahboobnagar and
Hyderabad districts, where the PDF
did not put up candidates. In the
'Red' district of Nalgonda, the PDF
made a clean sweep- of all the 14 seats;
in Warangal, another 'Red' district,
the PDF won 11 of the 14 seats; in
Karimnagar it won 10 of the 15 seats.
Thus 35 of the 45 seats the PDF won
were located in those three districts
where the CPI had conducted the
Telengana armed struggle. Of the 2.5
million votes polled, the PDF got
approximately a third, while the Con-
gress, which had contested everyone of
the seats, could only poll about the
same proportion of votes. It was un-
mistakable that communist gains in
Telengana were most spectacular pre-
cisely in those areas where the CPI
had led the peasant partisan warfare
or guerilla squad actions, inviting mas-
sive police and military repression. If
the vote meant anything at all, it was
a vindication of the Andhra communist
line of Maoist armed struggle. It was
convincing refutation of the vicious
campaign that the Telengana armed
struggle was isolated from the masses
and was sectarian, anarchist and terro-
rist in character.
Even after the elections in January
1952, the cadre in Telengana continued
to be divided. About 25 leaders, from
the fighting areas as well as those in
the open, met in February 1952 for
a week to discuss the differences.
Ajoy Ghosh, who attended the meeting
1030
ECONOMIC ANtf POLITICAL WEEKLY
summed up the agreed conclusions and
a united Telengana committee was
formed to lead the movement.28
The government's hunt against the
underground squads did not stop even
after the elections and arrests and pro-
secutions continued. The government's
argument was that arms had not been
surrendered and therefore the hunt
could not be relaxed. As the logical
step to the withdrawal of the struggle,
the CPI decided to surrender arms.
The question here is: did the 1951
documents (on programme and tactics)
warrant the withdrawal of the Telen-
gana struggle? The present-day Mao-
ist contention is that they did not and
that the withdrawal was an act of
betrayal by "revisionists" who wanted
to take the party into the vortex of
parliamentary politics by entering the
1952 general elections.29 In their
view, the Telengana armed struggle
could have continued as a struggle to
protect the gains of the peasantry,
though not as a struggle for state
power.
What followed the withdrawal was
the quiet abandonment of the perspec-
tive of armed struggle because the
party settled for peaceful constitution-
alism, and eventually opted for peace-
ful transition to socialism.
One of the issues of controversy on
the Telengana struggle is the Soviet
attitude to its withdrawal. Rajeswara
Rao, now General Secretary of the
CPI, contends that the Soviet party
and Stalin did not support the struggle
until it was withdrawn.30 But Sundar-
ayya, the CPI(M)'s General Secretary,
contends that the CPSU and Stalin
thought that it was unfortunate that
the struggle could not be defended or
continued arid that, therefore, the time
had come for its withdrawal. It was,
however, for the CPI leadership
to decide when exactly and on
what terms it should be with-
drawn and how long it had to be con-
tinued to secure suitable terms.31
Whether the Soviet leadership sup-
ported the struggle till the end or not,
its withdrawal had more than its tacit
support.
CHINA'S ATTITUDE
Though the Communist Party of
China now charges "Indian revisionists
with betraying Telengana", it is silent
on the Soviet and Cominform roles.
An NCNA commentary on August 2,
1967 noted that for a long time the
Indian communist movement had wit-
nessed an intense struggle between
two lines. The revolutionaries had
resolutely urged the seizure of power
through armed struggle, that is, the
path of the Chinese people, who were
guided in their victories by Mao's
Thought. "Some revisionist chieftains,
however, feverishly pushed ahead with
the revisionist parliamentary road
resulting in doing tremendous harm
to the Indian revolution." In 1946-
51, base areas of armed strug-
gle were established in Telengana
where landless and poor peasants
were aroused to seize land by
armed struggle "and become the banner
of the Indian plople's revolutionary
struggle of the time". The commen-
tary said though the Indian revisionists
described peasant armed struggles as
adventurism and individual terrorism,
the Telengana struggle grew under the
radiance of Mao Tse-tung's Thought.
In a party document in September
1950 and an open document in 1951,
they villified the Chinese people's re-
volutionary war led by Chairman Mao
and had put forward the theory of
India's exceptionalism, hysterically
preventing the Indian people from
taking the road of Chinese revolution.
Long after the Telengana "sell out"
and after many setbacks the Indian
peasants had realised the "futility of
the parliamentary path and the need
for armed struggle", it Said.
It might be well to record here that
there was even a veiled Chinese sug-
gestion in June 1950 that the Telengana
armed struggle might have been ill-
timed. The timing of this suggestion
(June 1950) is significant. The Andhra
leadership had just taken over from
B T Ranadive, but the Chinese party
seemed to have some reservations about
the Andhra leadership's line of peasant
armed struggle. The suggestion came
in the form of a reply to a reader from
the editor of the People's Daily, the
CPCs chief organ. After referring to
communist peasant warfare in China,
the editor declared that characteristics
of the Chinese revolution "can under
certain historical conditions become the
common characteristics of all revolu-
tionaries of other colonial and semi-
colonial countries". He quoted from
Liu Shao-chi's opening address to the
Peking World Federation of Trade
Unions conference on the desirability
of armed struggle on the part of "many
colonial and semi-colonial peoples'' and
from the Cominform journal's editorial
of January 27. Quoting . a statement
by B T Ranadive (when he was the
General Secretary o£ the CPI) fully
endorsing the conclusions of this edito-
rial and the lessons of the Chinese
revolution as the infallible guide for

June 9, 1973
national democratic state was possible.
The "national democracy" con-
cept added a new dimension to the
CPI's continuing struggle for a new
programme to replace the 1951 docu-
ment. As Nehru's domestic policies
shifted to the right and tension grew
on the Sino-Indian border, the attitude
to the Indian bourgeoisie continued to
be the central issue in the CPI debate
which took a predictable form: national
democracy versus people's democracy.
The right-wing of the CPI, which had
the Soviet backing contended that India's
^bourgeois democracy could metamor-
phose into a national democracy. It
placed heavy reliance on Soviet aid as
the instrument to secure national demo-
cracy. The left wing countered this
by arguing that the bourgeoisie was
1 Vikas, New Delhi, 1969, pp 7-21.
compromising with domestic reaction
and imperialism. Soviet aid, although
necessary, was being used by the
bourgeoisie to bargain for more aid
from the West. Rival programme drafts
were presented at the CPI's sixth
congress and the split was averted
only by the intervention of Mikhail
Suslov, who headed the high level
CPSU delegation to the CPI congress.
Suslov, anxious to preserve CPI unity,
managed to salvage the rightist line
and to manoeuvre the congress into
shelving the issue of a new CPI pro-
gramme. The conflict continued behind
the scenes until the CPI split in
1964, after which the CPI as well as
what later came to be known as the
CPI (M) adopted their own pro-
grammes.
Thus the factors underlying the
1962-63 split date back to the Telen-
gana armed struggle and the diff-
erences over it.
The real significance of Telengana
however lies elsewhere: it was the
first application of the Maoist revolu-
tionary model outside China even be-
fore the Chinese revolution had
triumphed fully and China had pro-
claimed itself a people's iepublic.
Over 20 years later, Naxalbari
brought to the fore once again all the
theoretical and ideological questions
concerning the strategy and tactics of
the Indian revolution but in a changed
context: the international communist
movement had split on issues of
ideology and Moscow had ceased to
be the sole centre of the international
communist movement.
Notes
1 For the most comprehensive ac-
count of the Andhra Mahasabha's
movement in Telengana and of the
beginnings of the communist
1032
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY
movement in the are,a, see Ravi
Narayana Reddy, "Veera Telengana
— Na Anubhavakt ' (Telugu),
Andhra Pradesh Communist Coun-
cil, 1972.
2 P Sundarayya, "Telengana People's
Struggle and Its Lessons", Com-
munist Party of India (Marxist^
Calcutta, 1972, pp 7-27. Also, Raj
Bahadur Gour, et al, "Glorious
Telengana Armed Struggle", Com-
munist Party of India, New Delhi,
1973. "Why the Ultra- 'Left' De-
viation?" Communist Party of
India (Marxist), Calcutta, 1968.
3 P Sundarayya, "Visaalandhralo
Praja Rajyam", Telugu, Vijayawada,
1946, p 6.
4 A Zhdanov, "The International
Situation", "For A Lasting Peace,
For People's Democracy", Bucha-
rest, November 10, 1947.
5 See Mohan Ram, "Indian Com-
munism — Split within a Split",
6 P Sundarayya, "Telengana People's
Struggle and Its Lessons", op cit,
p 392-3.
7 "Struggle for Peoples Democracy
and Socialism —- Some Questions
of Strategy and Tactics", Com-
munist, Bombay, June-July 1949.
8 E M Zhukov, "Problems of Na-
tional and Colonial Struggle",
Colonial People's Struggle for
Liberation", People's Publishing
House, Bombay, 1950, pp 1-11.
9 V Balabushevich, "The New Stage
in the National Liberation of the
People of India", "Colonial People's
Struggle for Liberation", op cit,
pp 32-59.
10 For A Lasting Peace, For A Peo-
ple's Democracy", December 30,
1949.
11 "Mighty Advance of the National
Liberation Movement in the Colo-
nial and Dependent Countries",
"For A Lasting Peace, For People's
Democracy", January 27, 1950.
12 Ibid.
13 P Sundarayya, op cit, p 387.
14 Ibid, p 392.
15 C Rajeswara Rao,' "The Historic
Telengana Struggle'*, Communist
Party of India, New Delhi, 1972,
pp 31-33.
16 P Sundarayya op cit, p 393-4.
17 PHQ Covering Note to the Letter
of the Political Committee of the
CPGB to the Communist Party of
India, December 6, 1950.
18 P Sundarayya, p 399.
19 "Palme Dutt Answers Questions on
India," Crossroads, January 19,
1951.
20 Deven and Bal Krishna, "Talks
With R Palme Dutt and Other
Impressions Gained Abroad", PHQ
Unit, Bombay, January 6, 1951.
21 This was amended and adopted
by the All-India Party Conference
in October 1951, and later by the
third (Madurai) congress of the
party in 1953. But it was put in
abeyance by the fourth (Palghat)
congress in 1956 on the ground that
it needed important changes.
22 Statement of Policy of the Com-
munist Party of India, Bombay
1951.
23 "Communist Conspiracy at Madu-
rai", Democratic Research Service,
Bombay, 1954. This is the first
published version of the secret
document and the CPI denounced
it is "forgery". But Sundarayya has
now vouched for its authenticity,
see P Sundarayya, op cit, pp
409-14.
24 Text of resolution in P Sundarayya,
op cit, p 417ff.
25 Ibid, p 428.
26 "CPI Advises Stoppage of Partisan
Action in Telengana", Crossroads,
October 26, 1951.
27 P Sundarayya, op cit, p 415-6.
28 Ibid, p 432.
29 Chandra Pulla Reddy, "Veera1
~ Telengana Viplava Poratam '
f (Telugu), Janasakthi Publications,
Vijawayada, 1968, P 51.
30 C Rajeswara Rao, "The Histroic
Telengana Struggle," op cit, p 34.
31 P Sundarayya, op cit, p 415-16.
Also, M Basavapunniah, "Lessons
of Telengana Struggle — and the
Revisionist Betrayal", Peoples De-
mocracy, November 5, 1972.
32 "An Armed People Opposes Armed
Counter revolution," People's
Daily, June 16, 1950, People's
China, July 1, 1950.
33 P Sundarayya, op cit, p 433.
34 Ibid, p 4.
35 Mohan Ram, "Maoism in India,"
Vikas, New Delhi, 1971, Chapter 1.
Bihar Alloy Steels
BIHAR ALLOY STEELS, which is set-
ting up a project in Hazaribagh dis-
trict of Bihar for the manufacture of
alloy constructional steels, alloy tool
steels and high speed tool steels, ex-
pects to commence operations of the
plant before the end of May next. Con-
struction of various factory buildings is
in progress and machinery is expected
to start arriving from July. The direc-
tors urged the government to declare
Hazaribagh as a 'backward' district
on the plea that the employment pro-
blem is very acute there. If it is
declared a a 'backward'" area, its deve-
lopment would be expedited and the
people would have more employment
opportunities. Meanwhile, the com-
pany's project cost has gone up owing
to virtual devaluation of the rupee
twice vis-a-vis the various European
currencies. Also, increases in import
duties on machinery and various other
levies on steel, etc, imposed in the last
two budgets have added to the cost.
The directors say that the exchange
rates of various foreign currencies are
still in a fluid state and that as soon
as the exchange rates are stabilised, the
revised project cost would be worked
out and arrangements made to -meet
the shortfall.