We publish an unofficial translation of a statement made public by Revolutionary Student-Youth Movement from Bangladesh through their facebook page.
After Mao’s death and the subsequent degeneration of
formerly socialist China through several phases into social-imperialism,
many parties in many countries tried to carry forward revolutionary
movements and people’s wars along Maoist lines.
Some — like Peru, Bangladesh, Turkey, Nepal were
temporarily defeated, while others notably the Philippines and India
were able to develop further. The Indian people’s war was a developing
mass war based on a new-democratic revolutionary program, not aimed at
establishing socialism or communism overnight. To crush it, the Hindu
majoritarian native bourgeois–collaborationist ruling class of India,
with the help of all imperialist powers, tried one repression campaign
after another ‘Salwa Judum’, ‘Green Hunt’, ‘Samadhan’, ‘Prahaar’ and,
having failed repeatedly, has now launched a suppression drive called
“Kagar.” Linked to this Kagar, within the party a surrender line emerged
through the weapons-surrenders of figures like Venu Gopal / Sonu, a
so-called line that claims to “save the revolution” by capitulation.
A small minority, led by a former party leader Sonu, split from the party onto the path of self-surrender.
The government denies the existence of some prisoners
and uses coercion to push those currently detained to publicly endorse
Sonu’s surrender line. The state security forces have become Sonu’s
mouthpiece.
Alongside exaggerated propaganda claiming the success of
Operation Kagar, the media spreads half-true and distorted reports
about the Maoists. For example– reports of the PLG’s 170 actions in 2024
resisting Kagar (People’s March, January/25) are nowhere to be seen in
the press.
There is no doubt this is a grave crisis at this stage
of the people’s war. But the surrender line or liquidationism is not new
to the revolutionary movement in India. Starting from Naxalbari, the
Indian Maoists defeated reformist and opportunist lines again and again,
and over the last fifty years the movement built actual party, army,
front structures and infrastructure through successes and failures
capable of waging revolution. This created much hope among the masses
aspiring to revolution.
Sonu’s present stance throws those hopeful people into doubt.
Sonu has put forward some political arguments in favor
of his surrender line. He was himself a veteran revolutionary, active in
the Maoist movement for nearly fifty years; naturally his questions
create confusion in many circles. We do not yet know the full
ideological and political reasons behind Sonu’s surrender. The party
will surely conduct a deep ideological–political analysis. But based on
past experience of class struggle and on some of the assertions Sonu has
made for surrender, we can analyze certain points here.
His main argument is: given the present domestic and
international situation, it is impossible to sustain and develop the
people’s war, and the party is unable to grasp the new situation and
determine what must be done. No new militants are joining the party or
the people’s war; under continuous enemy repression the party and its
forces have become exhausted. Therefore, to save the party, surrender is
necessary.
Even when such words come from Sonu’s mouth, we have
always heard the same rhetoric from enemies of revolution. We remember
that after the rise of Naxalbari, the revolutionary current was
temporarily defeated with the martyrdom of Charu Mazumdar under state
repression. That party then overcame its limitations and became one of
the strongest Maoist parties in India and around the world.
Although the Maoist party in India formed out of the
Naxalbari upsurge, before regular forces and base areas were
established, central leaders like Charu Mazumdar were martyred or
arrested. The party was nearly destroyed. When a new party secretary, K.
Basavaraj, fought for 60 hours and was martyred along with 25 PLG
guerrillas— did those guerrillas fall from the sky?
Likewise, Sonu did not surrender alone with 60 members;
he claims many more will surrender. In an organization already weakened
by losses, do such martyrs and surrenders not prove that Sonu’s
information is false? Are these the losses of revolutionary struggle, or
the ravings of a exhausted revolutionary?
Thus it is not enemy repression but the desertion of the
fatigued revolutionary Sonu that places the movement in crisis. At the
same time, it is also true that questions exist about how to grasp the
new conditions of the developing war and decide on new tactics.
True Maoists, by holding on to the people’s war, will be
able to determine the correct tasks for the new situation not by
abandoning it. Surrendering, or merging into the so-called mainstream or
the exploitative currents promoted by imperialists, is not the path.
Modi–Amit Shah’s mainstream means preserving imperialism, bureaucracy,
capitalist exploitation and feudal oppression in India continuing the
exploitation and oppression of workers, peasants and the oppressed.
Sonu’s surrender line too abandons revolution and returns to that
so-called mainstream.
The politics of Maoist revolutionary change and the
strategy of people’s war cannot be confronted by imperialism the way it
used to be; imperialism has learned from earlier wars (Vietnam, the
post-9/11 wars, Iraq, etc.) and adopted the most ruthless doctrine, LIC
(Low-Intensity Conflict). LIC includes characteristics such as covert
elimination of leaders by covert forces, extracting information,
creating traitors, forming counter-revolutionary forces (Salwa Judum,
DRG, etc.), and more what they call less intense, low-collision warfare.
In Peru the peace line, in Nepal the UN-supervised ceasefire, and today
the reintegration into the mainstream in India are all applications of
LIC.
We must defeat LIC through long-term people’s war in our
country and other nations oppressed by imperialism, and complete the
revolution.
In mastering the line of prolonged people’s war, Sonu
grew tired. His weapons-surrender and capitulationist line may have
saved the lives of some tired revolutionaries, but it will not produce
revolution. This kind of liquidationism was spoken of by the Telengana
betrayers in the 1950s and by electoralists after the deaths of CM and
others. Certainly, genuine revolutionaries will first defeat this
liquidationist line and Operation Kagar, and under the leadership of CPI
(Maoist) the true revolutionaries will advance the Indian revolution
along the path of protracted people’s war.
— 17/10/25.
#Andolanbulletin October 2025
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