Historical Events of the Revolutionary World Movement

INDIA Railway Strike May 8, 1974

"The Indian proletariat is already sufficiently mature to wage a mass struggle, class-conscious and political, and that the Anglo-Russian methods are being played out in India"

(Lenin 1908)

FOREWORD

On the history of the revolutionary trade union movement in India

by Wolfgang Eggers

The Comintern (SH) generally adopts a critical attitude towards the history of the trade union movement in India. There has never been a clear dividing line between the revolutionary and reformist lines on the trade union question in India and hence no red trade union or at least a firmly organised revolutionary trade union opposition under communist leadership in the reformist trade unions of India.

What is the main factor for this weakness of the revolutionary trade union movement in India ?

The main factor for the weakness of the revolutionary trade union movement in India is that it was not under the leadership of a communist party guided by the strict principles of Bolshevism.

The whole history of the Communist Party of India is a history of splits between various reformist-revisionist and nationalist currents. Today there is a trade union opposition which is essentially neo-revisionist in character and thus continues to hamper and obstruct the building of a Bolshevik party and a red trade union in India.

There has never been a Bolshevik party in India that would have consistently and without wavering committed itself to the banner of Lenin and Stalin, let alone the banner of Enver Hoxha. This has only changed with new Stalinist-Hoxhaist forces that are today fighting for the formation of the Indian section of the Comintern (SH) and working to build a section of the RILU in India.

* * *

Even the early trade union movement in India was not consistently under the leadership of a communist party, as they were founded as sections of the Comintern and united in the RILU.

Of course, the October Revolution of 1917 exerted its positive influence on the trade union movement in India too and later the Comintern with the Red Trade Union International.

* * *

Al India Trade Union Congress

AITUC

The various trade unions and their representatives from all over India met in Bombay in 1920 and founded the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) under the leadership of Lala Lajpat Rai.

During 1924, many communist leaders were arrested and prosecuted for class-struggle and protracted strikes.

The international trade union struggle between the IFTU (Amsterdam) and the RILU was also reflected in India. And there were revolutionary trade unionists in India who argued in favour of joining RILU, but the right-wing and centrist tendencies to stay out of this dispute prevailed.

It was RILU that helped most the general textile strike in 1925 and that was first to help Kharagpurmen, without even waiting for an appeal from the Indian communists.

* * *

Under British colonialism, the first trade unions were formed in India, which from the beginning were inevitably influenced by the reformist British trade unions. The British trade unions are known for the infamous so-called "trade unionism". This made it difficult for the trade unions to forge revolutionary links with the communists and, conversely, for the communists to forge links with the trade unions. It was only under the influence of the Comintern - especially the VI World Congress - that the Indian working class managed to build its own red trade union, albeit only for a few years. This was the period in which the communists gained their leading position in the AITUC.