The Naxalite Movement- A Maoist Experiment (An Old and Rare Book)

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No political party in India could evoke so much interest and controversy within a brief span of five years as did the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), When the Naxalbari movement was launched in 1967, few knew or could guess what it was about. It was only after China had des cribed the movement as the "front paw" of the Indian revolution that serious notice was taken of the movement, Although the Chinese support meant that the organisers of the Naxalbari movement were trying to make revolution in a way different from what were advocated by the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the movement was getterally regarded as an expression of the peasants' craving for land. That the peasants were struggling for State power was known much later.

The Naxalbari struggle was hugely blown up, possibly because of the frequent appreciative references to it in Chinese mass media. The movement failed to withstand the first serious police onslaught; it could thrive and spread as long as West Bengal's first left coalition ministry dithered. The movement, confined to an area of about 250 square miles could bear no comparison with many violent peasant movements of the past, far less with the armed struggle in Telengana in the carly years of Indian independence.

The significance of the Naxalbari movement is that it represents the first experiment with Maoism in this country under the leadership of a party wholly committed to the Chinese path. The insurrectionist policy adopted by the undivided CPI at the Calcutta congress in 1948 was prompted by Yugoslavia.