The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-28

into the position of national leader of the
masses of India, in opposition to the other, the
collective leader the new revolutionary class,
the proletariat, which has come to the fore
front and will not concede the position to any
strangers and enemies.
With broad gesture the younger Nehru is
today calling for boycott of the Whitley
Commission. sent by the Labor Government to
study the conditions of labor in India This
cleft wing" gesture costs the Indian bour-
geosie very little, as it does not consider 1t
necessary to study anything in this sphere and
is in no way disposed to assist the attempts
of British capital to thrust itself between the
Indian workers and the Indian capitalists. The
younger Nehru is proclaiming boycott of the
Whitley Commission because it is not with this
commission that they will have to discuss their
act of treachery. None the less, at a trade
union conference in the United Provinces this
same Nehru points to the necessity of being
doubly cautious in the handling of such sharp
instrument of class struggle as strikes. That
is enough from him. He knows that some OF
the older men will follow in his tracks and
openly declare that "the class struggle is use
less so long as third power dominates over
both Sides" (Hindostan Times, October,
1929 The innumerable attempts of the ma
tional reformst bourgeoisie to organize their
own trade union movement along Kuomintung
lines is characteristic feature of the last few
months. The Indian bourgeoisie is ready to
exploit the class struggle against the British
capitalists to certain extent in order to
strengthen their influence the working
masses
In addition to all this, the intrigues of the
Indian bourgeoisie with the peasant movement
are worthy of special attention at the present
transitional stage. The weakness of the peas
ant movement at the present time serves to
indicate that the revolutionary rise has still IN
adequately captured the masses outside the
city boundaries. Beyond all doubt no small
role is played in this regard by the circum-
stance that the working class advance as the
decsive revolutionary force has not yet led
to final political and organizational formu-
lation of the Communist advance guard in
India None the less the bourgeoisie realize
quite clearly that the peasants silence is grow
ing more and more suspicious and that the
day is not far distant when the direct ally of
the working class, the basic masses of the
peasantry, will enter the arena of the political
struggle.
The betrayal of the peasant movement in
Bardoli tore the mask of hypocrisy from the
leaders of the Congress. To please the land
owners and bureaucrats the Indian National
Congress was declared to be the common
ground" on which the landowners and the
peasants, the exploiters and the toiers, were to
unite in brotherly union. None the less the
prospect of the working class being supported
by peasant reserves is forcing Imperialism
and the Indian bourgeoisie to seek their
roads to "allevate the peasant misery" and to
eliminate the growing discomfort. In this con-
nection the foundation of the Land League in
Bombay is highly indicative. The first and
chief principle of this league says that prop
erty in land is based not in the rights of the
state, but on the rights Of the landowner" This
principle completely exposes the national TO
formist bourgeoisie's attitude to the land ques-
ton 1t is trying to dam the fiscal appetites
of British imperialism somewhat whilst Great
ing bigger possibilities for the capitalist trans
formation of the landowners and then the
large peasant roperties. None the less, whilst
putting forward his point of view, the bour-
geoisie is simultaneously, trying to catch the
peasant masses with slogans of struggle for
reduction Of the land tax. Mr.. Patel the
super-trator of the Bardoi movement, the
leader of the Bombay Land League, is "pining
in expectation of the day when it will be pos
sible to organize all the peasantry of Bombay
and Madras, raising then, to- a peacable, yet
resolute protest against the existing system of
land taxation" (Hindostan Times, End Sept.
1929 Of course Patel does not forget to add
that "only non-violence" can be the method of