The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-12-09
The Indian Revolution, Gandhi, and
His American Admirers
BY BURCK
ARTICLE No. l
Gandhi and the Indian Masses.


AFTER a short lull, the anti-imperialist strug-
III gle in India is renewing its upward trend
with new vigor Once more mass demonstra-
lions fill the streets of the cities demanding in
dependence, and workers and revolutionary stu
dents come to clashes with the police
While the Labor" Premier. Macdonald at
the Round Table Conference. swears to his love
of the Indian people, in India the rifles and
machine guns are cracking, punitive expeditions
occupy whole villages, tens of thousands are
thrown into prison.
To the casual observer it may look as if the
present movement in India is weaker than it
was last spring and summer 1t is true we hear
now less about such spectacular events as raids
on the government salt depots and bonfires of
foreign cloth, which the Gandhists and their
American friends want us to believe is the final
word of the Indian revolution
In reality, in the ranks of the fighters against
British domination there has appeared new
element which promises a radical turn in the
development of the movement There are un-
mistakable signs that the boundleSs ocean of
the Indian peasantry is coming into notion
Hardly day passes without bloody battles with
the police on account of cutting of trees in the
forests, or the non-payment of taxes or the
destruction of the property of money lenders by
the peasants
The struggle of the Indian peaSantry is still
unorganized still without a proper working
class leadership, without political program but
it is spreading to all the provinces and shows
that the heavy divisions of the revolution are
now coming to take their due place in the
struggle of the Indian people for freedom
The bourgeois nationalist in India, and the
liberals in this country who fl;rt with the indian
bourgeoisie, exalt Gandhi as the undisputable
1ncI Aft l,A
million people do him reverence. and no one in
the world Yields so great spiritual influence"
says Mr. Will Durant in his book, 1.-THE Cause
for India" page I'D, just published
1t has neverSoccurred to any of these wiseacres
|. who boast OF intimate acquaintance with the
Indian revolution to inquire: How is it that in
spite of their faith in Clndhi the saint the
real people namely, the workers and peasants.
throw to the winds his great principle of non
violence and break the heads the police and
OF other supporters of Il: government when
ever and wherever opportunity arises?
One can hardly imagine anything more stu
pid than the attempts to seek the causes of the
uprisings in Peshawar and Sholapur only in the
provocation by the police. and there is nothing
more disgusting than the eagerness with which
the Indian nationalist dissociate themselves
from these uprisngs Government provocator
is rampant everywhere and was also present in
the Amritsar massacre of 1919 when thousands
of women and children we're shot in cold blood
by that king of butchers, General Dyer Yet
nobody has ever had the audacity to explain
any revolution in any country, or even for that
matter. the revolutionary uprisngs in India in
1892 by government provocation
1t is not government provocation that has
defeated the spiritual hold of Gandhi over the
masses. 1t is their class interests their own ex-
periences in day-to-day struggles that push
them to armed resistance to imperialist terror
In the absence of strong Communist Party,
able to spread its influence over the broadcast
masses. this experience is absorbed slowly and
because of that. is more painful and costs the
workers and peasants more loss of life than it
micht otherwise
The Indian bourgeoisie profiting by the alb
sence of strong Communist Party uses all its
powerful resources to keep Gandhi in the fore
front, before the eyes of the masses The latter
still inexperienced awakened as they we're only
yesterday to the call Of political struggle. accept
Gandhi much as the Russian masses accepted
Kerensky after the February revolution when
he was hailed at home and abroad as the idol
of the Russian people
1t Is not that the masses submit to the de.
featist principles Of Gandhism; it is that they
shape Gandh in their Imagination according