Top 15 Puran Chand Joshi Quotes

We called it a transformation in the situation and not a mere change of degree. We said that the war which was so far an imperialist war now became a people’s war because of the changed re-grouping of forces, changed prospects before the world (P- 49).

All open-eyed and serious people saw the change but there were two groups in our country who did not—the Congress Socialists and the Forward Blocists (p. 40). We took time to discuss the new world situation. The result of our discussion and collective opinion was embodied in a resolution of the Politbureau of our Party and a booklet by P.C. Joshi, Forward to Freedom. We came to the conclusion that it was an entirely new situation, demanding a new Policy, new strategy. We said: ‘We are a practical party and in a new situation it is our task not only to evolve a new form of struggle for it, but also to advance new slogans appropriate to the new stage, suiting the new form of our national movement. The key slogan of our Party which guides all our practical political activity is : ‘Make the Indian people play a people’s role in a People’s War.’ The second feature in the new situation was the entry of a new Power in the war, a power of a new type, a People’s Power, the Soviet union. We saw the new prospect for humanity that opened through the Soviet entry into the war (Pp. 44-45).

Hitler’s aggression against the USSR immediately upset the balance of forces in the Allied camp; the isolation of the Soviet Union was replaced by the Anglo-Soviet and the American-Soviet alliance (p. 42).

With the outbreak of the war, the world seems to have turned upside down, slogans changed sides, friends became foes and so on. Ours is a colonial slave country. The fundamental contradiction is between imperialism on the one hand and the entire nation on the other. The very outbreak of the war deepens this antagonism. National struggle becomes a practical proposal. But it is an explosive struggle with gloves off. The division between the Indian people becomes between those that stand for struggle and those that don’t. We do not have a national struggle because the bourgeoise is at the top of the national movement. The obvious course would be to free the national front from the influence of bourgeois reformism and develop the political strength of the proletariat within the common front so as to develop the forces of struggle in a manner so as to make a national struggle inevitable and overw’helm and isolate the cowardly bourgeoisie. ”

He does not struggle against compromise ; he seeks to canalise the anti-compromise feeling towards himself. Instead of fighting against compromise he is only waiting to take advantage of it. On the basis of neo-Swarajyism, Bose cannot create a breach between the bourgeoisie and the existing bourgeois leadership, nor can he win the abiding loyalty of the masses. He can only shoot a racket and see it going up, in smoke.

“ For a national struggle, Bose wants another Congress. In the name of struggle he disrupts the very organ of struggle and thereby renders struggle itself impossible. He only scatters to winds the achievements of the past struggles—the national unity they created and which is today embodied in the Congress. To raise the slogan of another Congress is not to be pro-struggle but just a disruptor, pure and simple. The slogan of another Congress is not only a cover for an anti-struggle policy, is not only disruptive of national unity but is an alternative road to compromise.

“ Left nationalism, organised under the Forward Bloc, was born as an independent political force five months before the war. Five months of rapidly marching events after the outbreak have turned it into its very opposite and left it neither as genuine leftism nor good nationalism. It acts not as a progressive but as a retrogressive force. Its words are Left, its practice is anti-struggle, anti-unity, its aim remains settlement with imperialism.

“ One can tear off the hair of one’s head looking for some scientific system in Bose’s politics. He is happy without it. Gandhi relies on his ‘inner’ voice—Bose goes by intuition. We get behind Messiahs who are prepared to lead provided we follow them in their blindness. Such is the debacle to which bourgeois leadership, whether Right or Left, is reduced.

“ We would whole-heartedly participate in any call for satyagraha given by the Congress. We would oppose, if it ever gave, the Forward Bloc call of satyagraha for Swaraj because it would be qualitatively a different thing. Workers, peasants, students have already adopted the proletarian technique of struggle—mass action. They have already come under the influence of Socialism. The effort of the Forward Bloc to win over these movements for its satyagraha or political policy has to be resisted as the infiltration of bourgeois influence over the masses. Before the working class, Kisan and student workers, the Forward Bloc has to be opposed not as being too Left but as being the disruptive agency of the bourgeoisie. In fact the Forward Bloc exactly does what the Right wants done—remove their fear of the growing unity of the working class and kisan movements with the Congress.

“ What would we say of a Congress leadership that attacks the Working Committee for being anti-struggle and does not itself launch a struggle ? Is it actual struggle or a paper resolution that related an immediate struggle to the ultimate struggle? To refuse to launch an immediate struggle when it would have brought the ultimate struggle itself nearer is to refuse to be serious about any struggle at all. Promise of struggle in the future and immediate disruption. Bourgeois politics produces the same result—whether it works its way from the Right or the Left.

“ After the appointment of the Ad Hoc Committee the B.P.C.C. had to choose its course of action finally. The Forward Bloc sought an agreement with us. We agreed to defy the Ad Hoc Committee provided the existing B.P.C.C. launched a struggle for Civil Liberties beginning from 26 th January—Independence Day. No preparations for struggle were made. The Central Council of Action was hardly functioning.

“ Rapidly marching events left no choice for Bengal Congress. In December we communists broke with the Forward Bloc. Bose wanted to give a call for national struggle for Swaraj and was against an immediate struggle for civil liberties and against a call for satyagraha for Swaraj either through the Forward Bloc or the Left. Bengal Congress under Left leadership had stomached more imperialist terror than the Congress had ever done under Right leadership. What was such Leftism worth ? Was it Leftism? Was it not just using Left slogans to escape struggle ?

“ There were two ways of fighting the offensive from the Right—the bourgeois and the proletarian. The bourgeois way meant making constitutional arguments against the unconstitutional acts of the Working Committee. The bourgeois leadership could not be fought in the bourgeois way. The proletarian alternative was not a constitutional but a Political alternative ; it was based not on demonstrating a lawyers’ skill but initiating a people’s struggle. To adopt the bourgeois way meant creating Left disruption against Right disruption, not avoiding a split but creating a split and rendering a struggle itself more difficult thereby.

“As a part of their general drive against the Left, they imposed the three years ban on Bose. The first reaction of the Forward Bloc was to defy it. We counselled against it on the ground that a defiance of the Working Committee on the organisational issue would be playing into its hands. Then came the trouble over the Election Tribunal. Once again we took our stand against those who suggested a revolt. Blows from the right came raining in.

“ The situation in Bengal since the very outbreak of war had become intolerable. Huq through an ordinance of his own had sought to make Bengal proof against struggle. A province-wide mass struggle in Bengal would have transformed the situation. Bengal Congress was under Left leadership and a struggle through Bengal Congress would have shown the path of struggle to millions of Congressmen. A province-wide struggle in Bengal would have rendered a national struggle inevitable. These were the great possibilities. Their successful realisation depended particularly upon Bose. He was the unquestioned leader of Bengal Congress and the Forward Bloc was the strongest single group inside Bengal Congress. Bengal was the strongest sector of people’s front of struggle. Exactly for the same reason Bengal invited the wrath and special attention of the anti-struggle national leadership.