From Bhagat Singh’s Pen…
To Young Political Workers
[Written on February 2, 1931, this document is part of a larger document called ‘Draft Revolutionary programme’. After Bhagat Singh’s execution this document was published in a mutilated form. All references to Soviet Union, Marx, Lenin and the Communist Party were carefully deleted. Subsequently, the GOI published it in one of its secret reports in 1936. This document indicates Bhagat Singh’s remarkable political maturity, his repudiation of anarchism, his espousal of Leninism, his perceptive critique of the Congress’ vacillations on the question of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or complete independence, and well as Congress’ class character. This document makes it clear that Bhagat Singh’s differences with Gandhi and the Congress cannot be reduced to that of ‘violence vs non-violence’; rather his was a Communist revolutionary perspective that could see how the Indian bourgeois leadership feared a thoroughgoing independence, which would take the path of democratic and socialist revolution with the masses in the driver’s seat.)
…The present movement is bound to end in some sort of compromise. The compromise may be effected sooner or later. ….compromise is an essential weapon which has to be wielded every now and then as the struggle develops….You are fighting to get sixteen annas from your enemy, you get only one anna. Pocket it and fight for the rest. What we note in the moderates is of their ideal. They start to achieve on anna and they can’t get it….
I have said that the present movement, i.e. the present struggle, is bound to end in some sort of compromise or complete failure.
I said that, because in my opinion, this time the real revolutionary forces have not been invited into the arena. This is a struggle dependent upon the middle class shopkeepers and a few capitalists. Both these, and particularly the latter, can never dare to risk its property or possessions in any struggle. The real revolutionary armies are in the villages and in factories, the peasantry and the labourers. But our bourgeois leaders do not and cannot dare to tackle them. The sleeping lion once awakened from its slumber shall become irresistible even after the achievement of what our leaders aim at. After his first experience with the Ahmedabad labourers in 1920 Mahatma Gandhi declared: “We must not tamper with the labourers. It is dangerous to make political use of the factory proletariat” (The Times, May 1921). Since then, they never dared to approach them. There remains the peasantry. The Bardoli resolution of 1922 clearly denies the horror the leaders felt when they saw the gigantic peasant class rising to shake off not only the domination of an alien nation but also the yoke of the landlords….
The political revolution does not mean the transfer of state (or more crudely, the power) from the hands of the British to the Indian, but to those Indians who are at one with us as to the final goal, or to be more precise, the power to be transferred to the revolutionary party through popular support. After that, to proceed in right earnest is to organize the reconstruction of the whole society on the socialist basis. If you do not mean this revolution, then please have mercy. Stop shouting “Long Live Revolution.” The term revolution is too sacred, at least to us, to be so lightly used or misused. But if you say you are for the national revolution and the aims of your struggle is an Indian republic of the type of the United State of America, then I ask you to please let known on what forces you rely that will help you bring about that revolution. Whether national or the socialist, are the peasantry and the labour. Congress leaders do not dare to organize those forces. You have seen it in this movement. They know it better than anybody else that without these forces they are absolutely helpless. When they passed the resolution of complete independence - that really meant a revolution - they did not mean it. They had to do it under pressure o the younger element, and then they wanted to us it as a threat to achieve their hearts’ desire - Dominion Status….
…We require - to use the term so dear to Lenin - the “professional revolutionaries”. The whole-time workers who have no other ambitions or life-work except the revolution. The greater the number of such workers organized into a party, the great the chances of your success….
…The party should start with the work of mass propaganda. It is very essential. One of the fundamental causes of the failure of the efforts of the Ghadar Party (1914-15) was the ignorance, apathy and sometimes active opposition of the masses. And apart from that, it is essential for gaining the active sympathy of and of and organising the peasants and workers. The name of party (would be) a communist party….
…Let me announce with all the strength at my command, that I am not a terrorist and I never was, expected perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through those methods. … I do not mean that bombs and pistols are useless, rather the contrary. But I mean to say that mere bomb-throwing is not only useless but sometimes harmful. The military department of the party should always keep ready all the war-material it can command for any emergency. It should back the political work of the party. It cannot and should not work independently........