Problems of the Revolutionary Communist Movement in India: The Question of Program and Strategy
Abhinav Sinha
There has long been a controversy on the characterisation of the Indian social formation and the stage of Indian Revolution. There is a considerable section of Marxist-Leninist parties/organisations/group that hold that India is still a semi-feudal semi-colonial or neo-colonial country. Others contend that India is no more a semi-feudal semi-colonial country; it is a relatively backward capitalist country. The aim of this paper is to make an intervention in this ongoing debate by going to the fundamental theoretical issues and testing the present Indian political situation as well as the socio-economic conditions against the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theoretical fundamentals regarding what a semi-feudal semi-colonial social formation is. The issues at stake here are principally the determination of production relations in Indian agriculture, the nature of Indian bourgeoisie and the extent of capitalist industrial and financial development in India.
Before we embark upon a discussion of the character of production relations in the Indian social formation, it is imperative to have a discussion on some definitional issues: What is a semi-feudal semi-colonial social formation according to Mao? What is capitalist ground rent? What is the correct Marxist-Leninist methodology to deal with the question of backward forms of tenancy? Without further ado, we would begin with Mao’s understanding of a semi-feudal semi-colonial society.
Mao’s Theory of Semi-feudal Semi-colonial Social Formation
There are many writings where Mao deals with this question: What is Semi-feudalism and Semi-colonialism? However, in my opinion, the three most important writings are Analysis of the Classes in the Chinese Society from 1926; The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party from 1939; and On New Democracy from 1940. Mao returns to this question again and again in his later writings also, however, the above three texts lay the foundations of the theory of semi-feudalism and semi-colonialism, as well as, the related question of what a comprador bourgeoisie is. Therefore, given the limitations of space, I would, in the main, focus on these three writings only.
In Analysis of the Classes in the Chinese Society, Mao first of all discusses the nature and character of the big comprador bourgeoisie and the middle or ‘national’ bourgeoisie. While discussing the comprador bourgeoisie, in a footnote Mao explains the meaning of this word ‘comprador’ in Chinese language. In Chinese language it means ‘a manager or employee in a foreign firm’ who serves the interest of foreign capital and is linked with them. Mao clearly defines the comprador bourgeoisie as “appendages of the international (imperialist) bourgeoisie” which is “wholly dependent on them”. In contrast, Mao argues, the middle or national bourgeoisie represents the capitalist relations of production. It is a clear allusion to the fact that the middle or national bourgeoisie is not simply a commercial, usurious or bureaucratic bourgeoisie, but small industrial bourgeoisie. The inference to be drawn from this is that an industrial bourgeoisie cannot be a comprador bourgeoisie, whose character is primarily that of a commercial, usurious and bureaucratic bourgeoisie. This is a very important point because we know that industrial bourgeoisie itself needs markets and it cannot be comprador by nature, even if at moments it is bullied, its arms are twisted by big imperialist powers and consequently, even if, sometimes it surrenders some of its immediate interests. This point becomes even clearer in the second text that we have talked about: The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party from 1939. Evidently, Mao’s views on this issue were becoming much more well-defined.
In the 1939 text, Mao very clearly mentions the chief characteristics of a feudal country, then a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country. Mao, describing the 3000 years old feudal history of China, enumerates the basic characteristics of a feudal society as follows:
“(1) A self-sufficient natural economy predominated. The peasants produced for themselves not only agricultural products but most of the handicraft articles they needed. What the landlords and the nobility exacted from them in the form of land rent was also chiefly for private enjoyment and not for exchange. Although exchange developed as time went on, it did not play a decisive role in the economy as a whole.
“(2) The feudal ruling class composed of landlords, the nobility and the emperor owned most of the land, while the peasants had very little or none at all. The peasants tilled the land of the landlords, the nobility and the royal family with their own farm implements and had to turn over to them for their private enjoyment 40, 50, 60, 70, or even 80 per cent or more of the crop. In effect the peasants were still serfs.
“(3) Not only did the landlords, the nobility and the royal family live on rent extorted from the peasants, but the landlord state also exacted tribute, taxes and corvée services from them to support a horde of government officials and an army which was used mainly for their repression.
“(4) The feudal landlord state was the organ of power protecting this system of feudal exploitation. While the feudal state was torn apart into rival principalities in the period before the Chin Dynasty, it became autocratic and centralised after the first Chin emperor unified China, though some feudal separatism remained. The emperor reigned supreme in the feudal state, appointing officials in charge of the armed forces, the law courts, the treasury and state granaries in all parts of the country and relying on the landed gentry as the mainstay of the entire system of feudal rule.” (Mao Zedong, 1965, The Chinese Revolution and The Chinese Communist Party, Selected Works, Vol-II, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, p. 308-9)
It is important to understand Mao’s characterisation of a feudal economy and society also, because a number of ML groups and parties claim that India’s production relations are still feudal. Mao here mentions four basic identifying features: a self-sufficient subsistence economy and negligible production for exchange, a feudal landlord class exacting feudal rent from the peasantry and surfs, a feudal state power financed by the collection of feudal rent, and feudal state as the protector of the system of feudal exploitation and oppression (here it is important to note that much before the debate on the nature of absolutist state began among Marxist historians, Mao had made it clear that the feudal state can be characterised by a parcellisation of state, but it can also be characterised by centralised despotic and absolutist state power; the organisation of the state is not the differentia specifica of the identification of character of the state).
Subsequently, Mao describes the basic characteristic features of a semi-feudal semi-colonial society. This is most important for our present discussion as the ML revolutionaries around the world have invented as many new theorisations of semi-feudal semi-colonial, as their own number. The dogmatism prevalent in the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement has prevented many groups/organisations/parties from undertaking a creative study of the production relations of their country as well as the nature of their bourgeoisie. They cling to the General Line of 1963 as if it is matter of ideology, whereas the assessments about the strategy and general tactics of the revolutionary movement are conjunctural issues, which demand a continuously dynamic analysis of the subject at hand. Let us see how Mao defines the basic characteristic features of a semi-feudal semi-colonial society.
First Mao explains how the old feudal China was transformed into semi-feudal and semi-colonial China due to the imperialist intervention. Mao enumerates ten methods used by imperialism to subjugate China, which turned China into a semi-feudal semi-colonial country. These methods are (i) waging wars of aggression, (ii) unequal treaties, rights to use Chinese ports, air-routes, establishing their consular jurisdiction and thus dividing China into spheres of influence, (iii) control of trade and ports and making China a dumping ground of their goods, (iv) exploitation of cheap labour and raw material of China which hampers its national capitalist development; this point of Mao alludes to the export of capital to China, (v) control of China’s banking and finance and loans to China’s government, (vi) creating a comprador merchant-usurer capitalist class to exploit the mass of peasants and workers in China, (vii) Quoting from Comintern’s ‘Theses on Revolutionary Movements in Colonies and Semi-Colonies’ and Stalin on China, Mao reiterates that the allies of Imperialism in China are the feudal landlord class and the comprador merchant-usurer class, (viii) military support to Chinese government to suppress Chinese masses, (ix) Cultural aggression through educational institutions, sending Chinese students to study abroad, missionary work of making schools, hospitals, etc., thus trying to create a compliant subject intellectual class, (x) a large chunk of semi-feudal semi-colonial China has turned into full colony of Japan since 1939.
Mao sums up by saying that the above steps of imperialism have, on the one hand, destroyed the natural feudal economy of China and led to limited capitalist development, and on the other, obstructed the independent national capitalist development of China and turned it into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country. As we can see here, the comprador bourgeoisie has been clearly defined as a merchant-usurer bourgeoisie, whereas it is the national bourgeoisie which is industrial bourgeoisie, much weaker in power and economic might, but representing the capitalist production relations in China.
Subsequently, Mao moves on to enumerating the basic characteristic features of a semi-feudal semi-colonial country. Mao argues that following are the basic characteristic features of a semi-feudal semi-colonial society:
“Taking both these aspects together, we can see that China’s colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society possesses the following characteristics:
“(1) The foundations of the self-sufficient natural economy of feudal times have been destroyed, but the exploitation of the peasantry by the landlord class, which is the basis of the system of feudal exploitation, not only remains intact but, linked as it is with exploitation by comprador and usurer capital, clearly dominates China’s social and economic life.
“(2) National capitalism has developed to a certain extent and has played a considerable part in China’s political and cultural life, but it has not become the principal pattern in China’s social economy; it is flabby and is mostly associated with foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism in varying degrees.
“(3) The autocratic rule of the emperors and nobility has been overthrown, and in its place there have arisen first the warlord-bureaucrat rule of the landlord class and then the joint dictatorship of the landlord class and the big bourgeoisie. In the occupied areas there is the rule of Japanese imperialism and its puppets.
“(4) Imperialism controls not only China’s vital financial and economic arteries but also her political and military power. In the occupied areas everything is in the hands of Japanese imperialism.
“(5) China’s economic, political and cultural development is very uneven, because she has been under the complete or partial domination of many imperialist powers, because she has actually been in a state of disunity for a long time, and because her territory is immense.
“(6) Under the twofold oppression of imperialism and feudalism, and especially as a result of the large-scale invasion of Japanese imperialism, the Chinese people, and particularly the peasants, have become more and more impoverished and have even been pauperised in large numbers, living in hunger and cold and without any political rights. The poverty and lack of freedom among the Chinese people are on a scale seldom found elsewhere.
Such are the characteristics of China’s colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.” (ibid, p. 312-3)
We cannot have it clearer than this. The very first point makes it clear that the agrarian relations continue to be feudal because, though the old feudal natural subsistence economy has been destroyed, but the landlord exploitation of peasantry with feudal rent remains to be the basis of production relations in the countryside. In the very first point itself, this too has been made clear again that the comprador bourgeoisie is by nature commercial-usurer and (therefore) bureaucratic.
In the second point, Mao clarified that capitalist relations have developed to a certain extent due to the imperialist intervention, but China is still semi-feudal semi-colonial because capitalist relations of production have not become the dominant relations of production. In other words, capitalism is not the dominant mode of production in the social economy of China. This is a corollary of the fact that the big comprador commercial-usurer bureaucratic bourgeoisie is in rule in alliance with the feudal landlord class, whereas, the national bourgeoisie is oppressed by imperialism and feudalism and is a vacillating ally of the revolution. In other points, Mao explains how imperialism controls the semi-colony financially and militarily; how the masses lack all political rights and there is no democracy. There is no real political independence. Another important feature of the semi-feudal semi-colonial society is the fragmentation of the political power. In fact, this fragmentation of political power was one of the reasons why Mao believed that the path of revolution of the Chinese revolution and for that matter that of the revolutions in all such semi-feudal semi-colonial formations will not be city-centred armed insurrection but a protracted people’s war in which cities will be encircled by villages. These are called the basic characteristic features of the semi-feudal semi-colonial formation by Mao. Further in the essay, Mao again undertakes the analysis of classes in the Chinese society, while analysing the motive forces of revolution. Here too, the description makes it crystal clear that the commercial and usurer bourgeoisie is the comprador bourgeoisie; it rules in alliance with the feudal landlords under the tutelage of the imperialists. This is possible only for a commercial and usurer bourgeoisie to behave as such. It is not possible for the industrial bourgeoisie whose continued development runs counter the interests of feudal landlord class and total subservience to imperialism is impossible for it as this class itself needs markets.
In the 1940 text of On New Democracy also Mao in passing makes it clear a couple of times that a comprador bourgeoisie is bureaucrat and commercial-usurer bourgeoisie as opposed to the middle bourgeoisie that is national bourgeoisie and represents capitalist relations, that is, industrial capitalism. Mao writes:
“Being a bourgeoisie in a colonial and semi-colonial country and oppressed by imperialism, the Chinese national bourgeoisie retains a certain revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree—even in the era of imperialism—in its opposition to the foreign imperialists and the domestic governments of bureaucrats and warlords (instances of opposition to the latter can be found in the periods of the Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition), and it may ally itself with the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie against such enemies as it is ready to oppose.”
(Mao Zedong, 1940, On New Democracy, Selected Works, Vol-II, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, p. 348)
Mao also alludes to the fact that this national bourgeoisie has a dual character. On the one hand, at moments it plays an anti-imperialist role due to the oppression it faces, while on the other, it might also collaborate with the imperialists. He sees this dual character as a historical characteristic of national bourgeoisie and gives example of the US bourgeoisie and European bourgeoisie showing how faced with feudalism, it played a revolutionary role and when faced with the rising tide of the movements of the working class and working masses it sided with reaction and imperialism. This is very important observation of Mao in the context of Indian bourgeoisie also, which did not even have the vigour comparable to the US bourgeoisie or the European bourgeoisie. From the very beginning it had a dual character. On the one hand it fought for political independence in a very opportunist fashion against imperialism and, on the other, it left no stone unturned to keep the mass movement within the ambit of its own interests. Even after the political independence of 1947, the bourgeoisie of India continued to have a reactionary character and rather than undertaking the path of radical land reforms, it chose a very peculiar kind of variant of the Prussian Path of land reforms, the landlordist bourgeois land reforms. Its repressive nature was clear to Indian masses from the very beginning. May be this is why, Mao chose to characterise Jawahar Lal Nehru as “reactionary national bourgeois” rather than a “comprador bourgeois.” Let us see what Mao said in 1962:
“We have the task of supporting national liberation movements, that is to say we must support the broad masses of people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, including workers, peasants, the revolutionary national bourgeoisie, and the revolutionary intellectuals. We want to unite with so many people. But they do not include the reactionary national bourgeoisie like Nehru…” (Speech at the Tenth Plenum of the Eight Central Committee, 1962)
It seems that it was pretty clear to Mao that Nehru was not a comprador bourgeois. That is why here Mao uses this term “reactionary national bourgeois”. Again in his conversations with Brazilian journalists Mariudim and Mme. Dotere, Mao reiterates that Indian bourgeoisie is not a comprador bourgeoisie but a reactionary “nationalist” bourgeoisie. Mao says:
“I said in that book that after the outbreak of the Second World War it was no longer possible for more countries like Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey to emerge. The bourgeoisie in the colonies and semi-colonies either lined us on the imperialist front or on the anti-imperialist front. There was no other choice. But in fact this view only fits with the case of some countries, and is not applicable to India, Indonesia or the United Arab Republic. The latter are neither imperialist countries nor socialist countries; they are nationalist countries.” (Mao Zedong, Fight for National Independence and Do Away with Blind Worship of the West, accessed from https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/121205)
About such countries, Mao says:
“These countries stand neither on the imperialist side nor on the socialist side. They adopt a neutral position, without participating in either bloc. This suits their present circumstances.” (ibid)
Mao elaborates further:
“But the imperialist countries do not like their neutral position, because their neutrality was obtained by shaking off imperialist domination. The neutrality of the nationalist countries is a position of independence, sovereignty and freedom from control. We in the socialist camp welcome the neutral position of these countries, because it is favourable to the cause of peace and unfavourable to the imperialist plans of aggression and war. We regard as our friends the independent countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and also those countries which have not yet achieved or are fighting for independence. We support them.” (ibid)
One thing becomes clear from this: Mao considered it possible that there can be countries that are neither imperialist, nor colony/semi-feudal semi-colonial. This resonates with Lenin’s view as presented in ‘Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism’. Lenin argued that it is possible to have countries that are capitalist but not imperialist. Lenin gave the example of Portugal.
It is clear from these three texts and the above-cited conversations of Mao with the Brazilian comrades that: (i) a semi-feudal semi-colonial social formation is characterised by limited development of capitalism and continued dominance of the feudal relations of production; the capitalism mode of production is subservient to the feudal mode of production and imperialist domination implemented through the big commercial usurer bureaucratic bourgeoisie; (ii) the comprador bourgeoisie is, in the main, a commercial, usurer big bureaucratic bourgeoisie which is an “appendage of imperialism” and is “wholly dependent on imperialism”; (iii) a bourgeoisie which is in the main an industrial and financial bourgeoisie can never be comprador because it itself needs markets. Being comprador is in incongruence with its principal industrial character. A person who understand the A B C of Marxist political economy can comprehend it; and (iv) it is possible to have countries that are neither imperialist nor semi-feudal semi-colonial/colonial, but which are relatively backward capitalist countries.
It may be noted that despite these fundamental characterisations of what a comprador bourgeoisie is and what a semi-feudal semi-colonial formation is, we find inconsistencies in some positions taken up by the CPC as well as Mao on a few occasions. For instance, if CPC believed in the anti-imperialist character of the Bandung Conference, the non-aligned movement and the policies of Panchsheel, it can be inferred from it, that the countries that constituted it were not semi-feudal semi-colonial countries ruled by comprador bourgeoisie. Many compradors together will not constitute a politically independent entity!
Marx, Feudalism and Capitalist Ground Rent
Marx’s analysis of capitalist ground rent is relatively less discussed and debated aspect of Marxist political economy. Of late, we have seen rising interest in this aspect of Marxist theory. Before that, except few notable Marxist political economists like Ben Fine, we could count such political economists on fingers who did notable work on this aspect of Marxist political economy. In my opinion, it is essential to understand the concept of capitalist ground rent, as present in Marx, for a variety of reasons, but particularly for the reason that it is essential to understand the transition from feudal relations to capitalist relations in agriculture.
According to Marx, the essence of feudal relations is the feudal rent. What is feudal rent? How is it different from capitalist ground rent? Feudal rent is the form in which the surplus product or surplus labour of the peasant is appropriated by the feudal lords, mainly, used for their consumption, whereas the peasants also produce mainly for their own consumption, rather than for selling. The feudal rent might take the form of labour rent, rent in kind or money rent. Money rent in itself is not necessarily capitalist rent. However, historically speaking, feudal rent has assumed the form of money rent on a considerable scale mostly when the transition towards capitalism has begun. However, in its pure form, it is not necessarily capitalist rent and it can be feudal rent.
What is capitalist ground rent? Capitalist ground rent is the ground rent which originates when land is used for the production of commodities and a part of the profit, namely “surplus profit”, i.e., the profit over and above the average rate of profit, is appropriated by the landlord. This is the crux of the capitalist ground rent. The peasant or tenant peasant produces for the market and gives away the surplus profit as ground rent to the capitalist rentier landlord (CRLL).
The capitalist farmer landlord (CFLL) on the other hand is the owner of the land himself. He undertakes the agricultural production by investing capital and hiring wage labour, and just like an industrial capitalist, appropriates the surplus value created by the wage labour. He might also sometimes work in the field, often with his family labour; this does not change anything essential in his character as a capitalist farmer landlord.
Then there are capitalist tenant farmers who lease the land from the capitalist rentier landlord, invest capital and undertake capitalist production for the market and pay capitalist ground rent to the CRLL. Needless to say that all of this is possible when the law of value has become dominant in the economy and the average rate of profit is formed.
Marx talks about three types of capitalist ground rent (Absolute Ground Rent, Differential Ground Rent-I and Differential Ground Rent-II). The Absolute ground rent comes into existence due to the private monopoly of a non-produced resource, namely, land which prevents the averaging of profit, giving rise to “surplus profit”, that is the part of profit over and above the average rate of profit. Differential Rent-I comes into existence due to the differential that exists in the productivity of the land. Differential Rent-II comes into existence due to the differences in the investment of capital. We cannot go in the details of the differences between these forms of ground rent and the criticism of Ricardo’s theory of ground rent by Marx, as there is no need here to do so.
This much is clear: if the production in agriculture is done primarily and mainly for exchange, and the tenant pays ‘surplus profit’ over and above the average rate of profit to the capitalist rentier landlord, who privately owns the land, then the character of the ground rent is capitalist. Whatever backward forms of tenancy are there, they can only slow down the speed of capitalist transformation of agriculture, but cannot stop it. Lenin showed this very clearly in the case of Russia and it can be seen in the context of India also, as we will in the last section of this essay.
Another important characteristic of the development of capitalism in agriculture is that there is no intermediary between the State and the peasantry, which, de facto, has executive, legislative and judicial powers, i.e., a feudal landowning class with political power which plays the role of a fragment or parcel of state.
Lenin’s views on the Capitalist Transformation of Agriculture and the Two Paths
While discussing the development of capitalism in agriculture, we just cannot afford to leave Lenin’s views out of the discussion. Lenin, in our opinion, is the foremost Marxist thinker on the agrarian question and his book, Development of Capitalism in Russia along with some other writings, is the best treatment of the subject so far, especially if we are dealing with development of capitalist agriculture in countries like India, that is relatively backward capitalist countries.
As we all know, Lenin talked about two types of capitalist transformation of agriculture: first was the Prussian Path of land reforms, the reformist path, in which the feudal landlords were given the opportunity and sometimes forced to transform themselves into capitalist landlords. This path is also called junker-type transformation. The other path that Lenin demonstrated historically was the American Path of land reforms. This is the revolutionary path in which the slogan of ‘land to the tiller’ is implemented. This path is also called the peasant-based transformation. Historically, we have seen both these paths in different parts of the world and also the mixing up of both these paths in some countries. In India, too, we have seen a special variant of the Prussian Path of land reforms.
Lenin makes it clear that though the first path is reformist, but in terms of qualitative change of the agrarian relations, this, too, is a revolution. Why? Because both these types transform the feudal relations of production into capitalist relations of production. Capitalist transformation has taken place historically by both ways: destroying the landlord economy and by keeping the landlord economy but changing its character. In the Prussian Path, the change is slow and many feudal remnants survive for a long time, giving rise to complex backward forms of tenancy and continued role of usury, though in a capitalist context. In the American path the change is swift and revolutionary, sweeping away the feudal vestiges in a revolutionary fashion.
Regarding the first path, that is the path of gradual bourgeois transformation of the landlord economy, Lenin writes:
“Serfdom may be abolished by the feudal-landlord economy slowly evolving into Junker bourgeois economy, the mass of peasants being turned into landless husbandmen and Knechts, by forcibly keeping the masses down to a pauper standard of living, by the rise of small groups of Grossbauern, of rich peasants, who inevitably spring up under capitalism from among the peasantry…. They have realised that the path for the development of Russia (read India – author) cannot be cleared unless the rusty medieval forms of landownership are forcibly broken up… They have given the kulaks the carte blanche to rob the peasant masses… to ruin thousands of peasant farms, they have handed over the medieval village to be ‘sacked and plundered’ by the possessors of money. They cannot act otherwise, if they are to preserve their class rule, for they have realised the necessity of adapting themselves to capitalist development and not fighting against it…. That path of development… calls for wholesale, systematic, unbridled violence against the peasant masses, and against the proletariat…” (Lenin, 1978, The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907, Collected Works, Vol-13, Progress Publishers,
p. 422)
Needless to say, no communist revolutionary would ever support this path of capitalist development. However, it is not the question of our support or opposition. We cannot ignore this process if it really takes place. We, as communists, must take note of it. The result of this path of capitalist transformation of agriculture is ruin of masses of peasants, creation of a class of landless wage labour by evictions of the tenants, a class of capitalist rentier landlords and a class of rich peasants (farmers as well as tenants). This is what happened in India after the Independence in 1947 in a complex, long and painful process, through Acts like the Zamindari Abolition Act and the Land Ceiling Act. We as communists do not need to cry and sob that agrarian relations did not undergo revolutionary transformation through the American Path. We need to take note of and understand what really happened in history.
Lenin argues that there are three main characteristic features of capitalist agriculture:
1) employment of wage labour and the appropriation of surplus value;
2) commodification of the products of peasantry and market relations;
3) capitalisation of surplus value and expanded reproduction in agriculture.
The commodification of products of peasantry also transforms the nature of ground rent and tenancy. The tenancy might even retain its old form, while the content undergoes this transformation. Lenin argues:
“Capitalism penetrates into agriculture particularly slowly and in extremely varied forms.” (Lenin, 1978, Development of Capitalism in Russia, Collected Works, Vol-3, Progress Publishers, p. 178)
Lenin writes:
“America provides the most graphic confirmation of the truth emphasised by Marx in Capital, Volume-III, that capitalism in agriculture does not depend on the form of ownership or land tenure. Capitalism finds the most diverse types of medieval and patriarchal landed property—feudal, peasant allotment (i.e. the holdings of the bonded peasants), clan, communal, state, and other forms of land ownership. Capital takes hold of all of these, employing a variety of ways and methods.” (Lenin, 1978, New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture, Collected Works, Vol-22, Progress Publishers, p. 22)
In India, most of the people do not understand how to analyse the statistics which are organised in a form which need serious political and political economic deciphering. As a result, they fall prey to the categories that create the impression that character of agriculture is still semi-feudal or feudal. This becomes especially complex in countries that have seen the Prussian path of land reforms. India is one such country. Lenin warned against such confusion in advance, in these words:
“For agricultural statistics to be properly and rationally compiled, the methods of investigation, tabulation, etc….would have to be modified to correspond to the forms of capitalist penetration into agriculture, for instance, the homesteads would have to be put into a special group and their economic fate traced.” (Lenin, 1978, New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture, Collected Works, Vol-22, Progress Publishers, p. 22)
Lenin explains in great detail in Development of Capitalism in Russia that no form of land tenure is an insurmountable impediment for the development of capitalism in agriculture. We need not go into the detail about that. In the above-mentioned work, Lenin also shows that another important feature of capitalist development in agriculture is the differentiation of peasantry. What we have quoted and discussed here suffices to show the basic prerequisites of capitalist development in agriculture and also its basic characteristic features.
We can now move on to an examination of the Indian situation. The basic question that we are required to answer here based on the foundational concepts that we discussed above are these: what is the character of the Indian bourgeoisie? What is the nature of the Indian agriculture? Is it semi-feudal, feudal or capitalist? What is the relationship between the Indian bourgeoisie and imperialism? What is the nature of Indian social formation?
The Indian Situation: A Short Note
If we look at the representative data and statistics regarding the Indian economy, the character of Indian capitalist class, the nature of Indian social formation and especially Indian agriculture becomes clear.
The latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data from the current year reveals that the gross value addition from agriculture constituted 15.87 percent of the total gross value addition. Industrial sector, that is, manufacturing, contributed 29.73 percent; Services sector contributed around 54.40 percent. If we add manufacturing and services sector, they contribute 84.13 percent. If we add only manufacturing, mining, electricity, water supply and financial sector, they constitute around 50.69 percent of entire GDP. This is when we do not add the value added by the entire services. Trade and commerce along with hotel industry and broadcasting services constitute only 18.62 percent. As is evident, the character of Indian capitalism and Indian bourgeoisie is, in principal, industrial and financial, rather than commercial. Such a bourgeoisie competes in the world market, including its own domestic market, for greater share. That the Indian bourgeoisie is in fact competing in the world market with capitalists of other nations is today beyond any doubt. Its investments in Africa are increasing and some of Indian corporations are even investing in Australia and Middle-East. It is beyond doubt that the industry and services sector in India are, in the main, capitalist in nature. It is true that there is a large number of small industries in India and a large of number of workers are employed in these industries. However, all the small industries are not involved in petty commodity production, having a relationship of unequal exchange with the commercial bourgeoisie. Secondly, though the number of small industries is larger than big industries (which is natural), they contribute only 40 percent of the gross industrial value added. Third, a large number of small industries are involved in the production of intermediate goods that they supply to the large industries. In other words, they are what Lenin called ‘outside department of capitalist industry’. Thus, to classify the entire small industrial sector of India as one involved in petty commodity production and dominated by merchant capital through an unequal exchange relationship, would be foolish. This is something that Indian ML groups/organisations do a lot. For them, it is axiomatic and intuitive that all the small industries share a relationship of unequal exchange with commercial capital and are dominated by it. However, on the contrary, if we look closer we find that a considerable part of the small industrial sector is engaged in expanded reproduction involving advanced technology.
Another important question is the share of foreign companies in the total capital investment in India. Though the Indian bourgeoisie is a junior partner of imperialism at the international level, at the level of Indian economy it is the major co-sharer of the appropriated and capitalised surplus. The share of FDI in the GDP of India was around 1.54 percent in 2017. In 2016, it was 1.95 percent and in 2015, it was 2.09. In 2018, the ratio of FDI inflow to total Gross Capital Formation in the industrial sector was 8.6 percent. The ratio of FDI inflow to total GCF in the Services sector was 3.28 percent. In the Mining sector, it was 0.59 percent. A lot more data can be presented to demonstrate that in the Indian economy, it is the Indian capitalist class that rules the roost.
The industrial development of India has taken a different trajectory than the Imperialist countries and advanced capitalist countries. It is characterised by high levels of informality, predominance of small and medium size enterprises mostly employing advanced technology, a large informal working class and lack of regulation. All these factors have given rise to a particular kind of capitalist industrial development, the nuances of which cannot be analyzed in detail here due to the lack of space. However, its predominantly capitalist character is certainly beyond doubt. No one can claim that the non-agricultural production in Indian economy is in the stage of handicrafts, guild system, or manufacturing. It is certainly in the stage of machino-facture, that is factory system and the entire industrial production is dominated by it. Also, it is not dominated by simple commodity production but by expanded reproduction.
Now let us move to the question of agricultural transformation in India which is also linked with the character of the Indian bourgeoisie. Here we will comment, in short, about the character of the Indian bourgeoisie and will discuss it later in a little detail. Before analysing the historical development of Indian agriculture in the mirror of statistics, first a few words on Indian bourgeoisie. In fact, Indian bourgeoisie, except for a few decades after its birth, has never been an agent or comprador of imperialism. India was totally colonised. It was never a semi-colony. In such a context, Indian bourgeoisie came into existence and in the beginning its character was mainly commercial. However, it very soon developed an industrial base manufacturing some intermediate commodities and some non-durable consumer goods. This led to the increasing economic and political ambitions of this class. During the First World War, between the two world wars and during the Second World War, the Indian bourgeoisie very rapidly developed its industrial base. This was reflected in the increasing political assertiveness of this class. In fact, Stalin himself had remarked in 1925 about the rapidly developing industrial character of Indian bourgeoisie. In the same speech, Stalin puts India, where the capitalist industry and proletariat were developing rapidly, in a separate category than that of industrially undeveloped China and Egypt, where the capitalist industry and proletariat were negligible. However, this bourgeoisie lacked a revolutionary character and adopted a policy of ‘pressure-compromise-pressure’ against colonial state. The reason for this was the fact that the Indian bourgeoisie was equally afraid of the unleashing of the revolutionary potential of the Indian working masses. That is why, rather than undertaking a ‘war of movement’ it resorted to a ‘war of positions’, a kind of a ‘passive revolution’. With the transfer of power in 1947, the state power came into the hands of the Indian bourgeoisie. However, it still lacked enough strength and will to undertake revolutionary land reforms. The Congress in this period was a party of the bourgeoisie and landlords. Therefore, it adopted the path of a peculiar Indian version of Prussian Path of land reforms, which through Zamindari Abolition Act and Land Ceiling Act, ensured two things: one, the landlord economy would be kept intact and tenants would be evicted creating a class of agricultural labourers and two, forcing landlords to transform themselves into capitalist junkers. These were the objectives that were fulfilled, mainly in the decades of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. There were many variations in the pattern of land reforms in India. For instance, two states, Kashmir and Kerala implemented radical land reforms, under Sheikh Abdullah and Namboodiripad, respectively, both of whom had to pay for this mistake. However, overall, the Indian land reforms were a particular kind of Prussian Path of land reforms. This led to a landlord-based capitalist transformation of the Indian agriculture, characterised by the dominance of bourgeois junkers, a class of rich farmers, and also by the existence of a large class of small peasants, who are often semi-proletariat, and agricultural proletariat; now, let us see the picture of Indian agriculture in statistics, which prove what we have said here regarding its character.
The total number of land-owning peasants (‘cultivators’) in 2015-16 was 145.72 million. Out of this number, around 124 million are small or marginal peasants who own very small pieces of land and agriculture is not their principal means of livelihood, rather it is mostly wage labour. Their economy is based either on the wage labour done by members of family in the urban centres or in the farms of rich peasants. In 1970-71, the number of cultivators was around 72 million out of which 50 million were small or marginal peasants. As we can see, the number of semi-proletariat has increased at a much faster rate in the period following the late-1960s. This alludes to the rapid differentiation of peasantry, a marker of capitalist development in agriculture. One of the reasons for this was Green Revolution which speeded up the process of capitalist transformation of agriculture and therefore the differentiation of peasantry. Out of total area under cultivation, the rich, upper middle and middle peasants control almost 52 percent land, though they constitute only 10.3 percent of peasant population. All these statistics show the considerable differentiation of peasantry. In 2011, the number of agricultural labourers was around 145 million, which has increased rapidly in the last 7 years at a much faster rate than before. However, even if we assume the same rate of growth, the number would reach beyond 150 million. In 1951, this number was 27.3 million. One can see the rate at which the process of proletarianisation or depeasantisation has taken place in the Indian agrarian economy. Landless rural population in India increased from 40 percent of total rural population in 1990, a year before the New Economic Policy of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation was inaugurated, to 56 percent in 2011. This shows the increasing concentration of land in the hands of capitalist rentier landlords, capitalist farmer landlords and the rich tenant farmers.
At the same time, the share of total working population employed in agriculture has fallen sharply in the 30 years of policies of neoliberal globalisation. In 1991, agriculture sector accounted for 62 percent of all employment, whereas manufacturing and services sector combined accounted for 37 percent. In 2018, agriculture was responsible only for 40 percent of all employment, whereas manufacturing and services sector accounted for 58 percent of all employment. In agricultural employment too, employment of the wage labourers clearly dominates. In fact, in total population of India the percentage of landholding peasants is a little more than 10 percent. In other words, peasants do not constitute the majority of population anymore. The industrial, agricultural and services sector workers account for the majority of the working population in India today.
It is very clear from the trajectory of development of Indian agriculture that it is capitalist agriculture, and not feudal or semi-feudal agriculture. Another marker of this truth is the clear dominance of production for market in agricultural sector which is also the basis of capitalist ground rent along with private monopoly of land. In the 1950s, the share of marketed surplus in the Indian agriculture was around 35 percent. This was the period when the landlord-based reforms had just started. In the recent years, the share of marketed surplus has increased beyond 70 percent. In the case of cash crops, including foodgrains, share of marketed surplus is above 90 percent, whereas in the case of some crops used for the animal husbandry, as food of the cattle, the share of marketed surplus is between 15 and 20 percent. The reason for this is the fact that these crops are often grown by the peasants for the purpose of feeding cattle. In the case of main food crops like rice and wheat the share of marketed surplus increased from 61.7 percent in 1999-2000 to nearly 78 percent in 2011-12. It can safely be assumed that this share must have passed 80 percent by 2018. Here one more thing must be noted. These are the data of the actual marketed surplus, that is, the surplus that was actually sold. A more correct marker would be the share of marketable surplus, irrespective of what share of it was actually sold. This marketable surplus is definitely higher than the marketed surplus. These data clearly show that agriculture in India is being done primarily for exchange and not for consumption. This tendency is more pronounced among the rich and middle peasants, who control around 52 percent of all operational landholdings and less pronounced among the marginal and small peasants. For instance, the net marketed surplus (= actual sales – net purchase) for the marginal peasants is -9 percent, which means that they have to buy 9 percent more than their total output from the market. Still they sell around 25 percent for their produce for their daily cash needs. The rest is used for consumption, but it does not suffice. Therefore, they have to work as wage labourers on the big farms or in the cities to fulfil the deficit. This too shows the capitalist character of Indian agriculture. It is true that among the small and marginal farmers, the tendency is that of petty commodity production and not expanded reproduction and accumulation of capital. However, this does not show the overall character of Indian agriculture; secondly, it does not show semi-feudal character of Indian agriculture, but only the backward status of agriculture among small and marginal farmers; thirdly, the marginal farmers constitute 67 percent of total peasant population, but they control only 24 percent of all operational landholdings; and finally, the marginal peasants have in the main become semi-proletariat, because agriculture is not their principal means of livelihood anymore, but wage labour.
Coming back to the question of Indian bourgeoisie, if we cast a glance over the political behaviour of the Indian bourgeoisie from 1947 to present times, it becomes crystal clear that it is not a comprador bourgeoisie. A comprador bourgeoisie does not have an independent political character, which only reflects its predominant commercial, usurious and bureaucratic character. However, the Indian bourgeoisie has, on dozens of occasions, shown its independent political character. From taking an anti-imperialist stand on the Suez Canal Issue (though from its own needs and exigencies), refusing to join the Soviet-Asia Maitri Sangh of Brezhnev, to refusing to open the centre of Voice of America in Delhi during the Indo-China War and to the stand taken by it in the Copenhagen Summit and in general on the issue of carbon emissions, it is clear that Indian bourgeoisie is not a comprador bourgeoisie. Then what is the character of Indian bourgeoisie? Is it national? No. Is it imperialist? No. Is it comprador? No. All these categories came into existence at particular junctures of history, based on the real historical experience. The historical experience since the 1940s and 1950s shows us that there emerged bourgeoisie in a number of newly-independent countries that defy the limits of the above characterisations. For instance, the bourgeoisie represented by Ba’athist parties in a number of Arab countries, Sukarno of Indonesia, Nehru in India, and many others, cannot be defined as comprador bourgeoisie. Mao’s term ‘reactionary national bourgeois’, though a contradiction in terms, is much more balanced. This contradiction can be removed by renaming it to ‘junior partner’. These bourgeoisie are not ‘national’ because political independence was gained and they do not share anything with the masses anymore; they certainly cannot be called imperialist as their export of capital is still not at a level comparable with the imperialist countries and their share in the appropriation of surplus at the international level is still minor. They are not comprador, because they do have an independent political character and they are primarily industrial-financial bourgeoisie rather than commercial-usurer bourgeoisie, as we have seen above. They are ‘junior partners’ of imperialism in general. They are not junior partners of any particular imperialist country, but imperialism in general. They are partially-economically dependent on them and they perform a tight-rope walking to maintain their political independence by bargaining for better deals to get capital and technology from different imperialist countries/blocs. That is why, on some occasions, imperialist countries are able to twist their arms and have their way. However, the moment the junior partners are in a better strategic position, they again assert their political independence. India’s trading relations with Iran is an important example to demonstrate this behaviour of Indian bourgeoisie. A junior partner bourgeoisie might behave at certain moments in such a fashion so as to create an optical illusion of being a comprador; however, a comprador bourgeoisie can never behave in a truly politically independent fashion, as Mao had shown in the context of Japanese invasion and the behaviour of various sections of Chinese big comprador bourgeoisie. The historical experience of the behaviour of Indian bourgeoisie proves this point. Its industrial and financial policies also, from the very beginning, demonstrate this. After independence, the policies of import substitution to reduce the reliance on imperialism, the nationalisation of banks and key industries in order to effect primary capital accumulation to help the Indian industry stand on its feet, and then finally, when this objective was fulfilled, the opening of the flood-gates with the New Economic Policy of 1991; all these go on to show that the Indian bourgeoisie is politically independent. On the one hand, Indian bourgeoisie has a miniscule share in the surplus appropriation at the global level, but on the other hand, at the level of Indian economy, its share is larger than the imperialist TNCs and MNCs. The rise of Indian TNCs has become a phenomenon of immense interests for students of Indian as well as international economy. These corporations are industrial-financial giants investing from Africa to Australia. Are these characteristics of a comprador bourgeoisie? Certainly not. Indian bourgeoisie is a ‘junior partner’ of imperialism in general; it is politically independent and economically partially-dependent (though this very notion needs scrutiny in the era of Imperialist Globalisation); it has imperialist ambitions and can be regarded a regional sub-imperialist power at least in the South Asia and is certainly an emerging capitalist power at the global level also.
In Lieu of Conclusion
Now we can test the Indian socio-economic and political reality against the theoretical and conceptual yardsticks determined by Marx, Lenin and Mao that we discussed in the first part of this essay. It is very clear from the picture presented above that:
1) Capitalism has long become the dominant mode of production in the social economy of India;
2) Indian agrarian relations are clearly of a capitalist nature; although among marginal peasants owning nearly 25 percent of the landholdings, petty commodity production too is practised, yet, this too does not signal semi-feudal relations. On the majority of the landholdings, capitalist agriculture, very advanced or less advanced, is practised. The character of the ground rent is certainly capitalist and main tendency is production for the market;
3) Indian agriculture shows highly developed differentiation of peasantry, with the marginal and small peasants, or the semi-proletarians constituting more than 80 percent of total rural population and with a population of agricultural labourers which has surpassed the number of peasants;
4) Peasants constitute hardly 11 percent of total population and it has been estimated that by 2025, the urban population in India will surpass the rural population, which is reaching around 40 percent now;
5) Proletariat, urban as well as rural, is the largest class of Indian society and is four times as big as the size of peasantry;
6) Indian industry and services sector are considerably advanced and are of capitalist nature and accounts for the major portion of gross domestic product and the invested capital;
7) Indian bourgeoisie is certainly not a predominantly commercial-usurer and therefore comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie; on the contrary, it is a predominantly industrial-financial bourgeoisie; consequently, its nature is that of a ‘junior partner’ of imperialism in general; it is politically independent and economically partially-dependent;
8) India has been emerging as an important capitalist power on the international level, but it cannot yet be considered an imperialist power, though the Indian bourgeoisie certainly harbours imperialist ambitions; it may possibly be regarded as a regional sub-imperialist power in the South Asia.
It can be stated with confidence that today India is not a semi-feudal semi-colonial or neo-colonial country. It is a relatively backward post-colonial capitalist society. It is in the stage of Socialist Revolution with the revolutionary strategic alliance of proletariat, poor peasants and semi-proletariat and the lower middle classes. There is an urgent need for the Marxist-Leninist parties/organisations/groups of India to seriously reconsider their programmatic position of New Democratic Revolution and India as a semi-feudal semi-colonial country. It appears that they have turned the issue of program, into an issue of ideology. The determination of program depends on the determination of the dominant production relations and, based on that, identification of the enemy classes and friend classes (analysis of classes in the society). It is causing untold harm to stick uncritically and in a non-thinking fashion to the General Line of 1963 as propounded by the Communist Party of China. It is certainly outdated and outmoded for India and many countries like India. The struggle on the question of program, strategy and general tactics of Indian revolution is one of the basic problems of the revolutionary communist movement of India. Of late, a number of smaller and medium-sized revolutionary communist groups have accepted that India is not a semi-feudal semi-colonial country but a relatively backward capitalist country. One of the reasons for this is that many genuine revolutionary communist groups have failed in practice to make a four-class strategic alliance of New Democratic Revolution. The continued failure to do so has prompted a number of groups to reconsider the semi-feudal semi-colonial thesis in the Indian context. Some of them have even discarded the program of NDR as outdated. However, still most of the older groups/organisations/parties cling to the General Line of 1963. The problem with them is that they have never undertaken a creative study of the production relations and class structure of India from a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist standpoint. Some of them do not even feel the need to do so! There is a kind of programmatic dogmatism prevalent among them. This is one of the major reasons of the crisis of the revolutionary communist movement in India. This crisis has already exacted a heavy price in disabling the revolutionary communist forces from resisting the rise of Hindutva Fascism in India. It will exact even heavier price if the situation is not remedied. It is essential for the communists who understand that India is a relatively backward capitalist country, to carry on this debate within the movement. The continuation of this debate has slowly won over a number of communists to this understanding. We hope that we will be able to complete this corrective on the question of program through theory and practice.
(Presented at the Historical Materialism Conference in Athens, Greece on 3 May, 2019)
