The Historic Eight Documents are a set of eight

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

s authored by the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

Charu Majumdar that outline the ideological principles on which the Naxalite militant

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

movement in India was based. Snippet:''Communist leader Charu Majumdar wrote various articles based on Marx-Lenin-Mao thought during the period, which later came to be known as 'Historic Eight Documents' and formed the basis of Naxalite movement.''"The Indian Journal of Political Science, Volume 51", Indian Political Science Association, 1990. ''Snippet: ... The basic argument of these Historic Eight Documents may be summed up: (1) the Indian revolution must take the path of armed struggle, (2) it should be organized on the pattern of the Chinese revolution and not of the Soviet revolution, and (3) the armed struggle in India should assume the form of Mao Tse-Tung's "people's war" and not of Che Guevara's "Guerrilla War" ...'' They laid down the idea that the

Indian State India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

was a

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

institution and that the main Indian communist parties had embraced revisionism by agreeing to operate within the framework of the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...

. They urged a

protracted people's war People's war (Chinese language, Chinese: 人民战争), also called protracted people's war, is a Maoism, Maoist military strategy. First developed by the Chinese Communism, communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the basic conc ...

to overthrow the Indian State.Marius Damas, "Approaching Naxalbari", Radical Impression, 1991, . ''Snippet: ... The documents are historic in the sense that a sharp departure from parliamentary cretinism began to take place and revolutionary politics was resolutely put forward combatting revisionism which was well entrenched in the communist movement in India ...'' They denounced the Soviet Union both for being revisionist, as well as for supporting the Indian State.

Composition

* 28 January 1965 (1st document) - Our Tasks in the Present Situation * 1965 (2nd document) - Make the People's Democratic Revolution Successful by Fighting Against Revisionism * 9 April 1965 (3rd document) - What is the Source of the Spontaneous Revolutionary Outburst in India? * 1965 (4th document) - Carry on the Struggle Against Modern Revisionism * 1965 (5th document) - What Possibility The Year 1965 is Indicating? * 8 December 1966 (6th document) - The Main Task Today is the Struggle to Build Up the True Revolutionary Party Through Uncompromising Struggle Against Revisionism * 1966 (7th document) - Take this Opportunity to Build armed partisan struggle by fighting against revisionism * April 1967 (8th document) - Carry Forward the Peasant Struggle by Fighting Revisionism

Impact and commentary

Both communist and non-communist sources describe these monographs as a significant inspiring factor for the

Naxalbari uprising Naxalbari uprising was an armed peasant revolt in 1967 in the Naxalbari block of Siliguri subdivision in Darjeeling district, West Bengal, India. It was mainly led by tribals and the radical communists leaders of Bengal and further developed i ...

in 1967."Towards a New Phase of Spring Thunder: Evaluation of the CPI(ML) in Its Historical Background", Central Reorganization Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), 1982. Snippet: ''... That is why these articles and speeches are called 'historic eight documents' in view of the historic role they played in the development of Naxalbari ...'' Snippet:''These "historic eight documents" inspired an entire generation of educated Bengali students to take up arms and be part of the Naxal movement in 1967.''

References

External links

Charu Majumdar Archives

Is there a Charu Mazumdar Thought?
{{Maoism 8 (number) 1965 documents 1966 documents 1967 documents Maoist works Naxalite–Maoist insurgency Monographs

Composition

Impact and commentary

See also

References

External links