Calcutta

THE four hard-line factions of the EPCP-ML (East Pakistan Communist Party - Marxist Leninist) agree armed revolution is the only way to free the 75 million Bengalis from the clutches of the "capitalist-backed" military dictatorship of Pakistan. But they remain factions because of differences among the leaders as to a programme. Some put peasant uprising first and others felt urban workers should give the lead. Another proposal was for joint action by peasants and workers.

There also was some basic difference as to general aims. One group held obsessively to its belief that jotedars (small land-owners) must be eliminated and that the major revolutionary effort should be devoted to this goal. The leadership was sharply divided about this assumption - with most feeling total war against the "capitalists" of West Pakistan who were exploiting the eastern wing through non-Bengali armed forces should be given priority.

China is barely involved in East Pakistan's communist activities, though the umbrella of NAP (National Awami Party) leader Maulana Bashani covered communists who were pro-Peking until March, when President Yahya Khan started what was virtually a war against East Pakistan, ruthlessly using Chinese arms to kill Bengalis-and helped by the aid Peking promptly rushed to Islamabad. If China ever had a hand in anything in East Pakistan it was in the training of several thousand Mizos and Nagas in guerilla warfare against India. The East Bengal regiment also received such training from the Chinese: today its personnel is part of the Mukti Fauj (liberation army) which still continues the struggle against the Government's troops.

In the wake of the civil war, most communist groups have reversed their attitude to China, now stigmatised as an imperialist power which is unmoved by the plight of the toilers, the underdogs and the exploited. Perhaps the only group which still retains some respect for the Chinese leadership is the one led by Mohammed Toha and Abdul Huq.

Otherwise, the political ranks have closed in order to fight the common enemy-West Pakistan's military dictatorship.

In a series of secret conferences held at first in Bangla Desh (Bengali Nation) and then in Calcutta, and on two subsequent occasions, Toha's representative was absent. The meetings discussed the creation of a joint national liberation front and election of a war cabinet. But by the last meeting, Maulana Bashani supported a one-party leadership, perhaps remembering his past bitter experience of united fronts. This made it clear the communist's proposal was not accepted. The prime minister of the self-proclaimed state of Bangla Desh, Tajuddin Ahmed, immediately - though without specifically mentioning it-ruled out a joint front. His explanation was the present liberation war should not be fought by any one party but by the entire Bengali nation.

The development of the parties and communist groupings dates back to the stifling of democracy in the late Fifties by Pakistan's then president Ayub Khan, when many leaders were arrested, Bashani among them. Quite a large number of younger political leaders and workers went underground. In the years which followed, as Russia and China were moving apart, divisions appeared between those who accepted the Chinese communist leadership and those who maintained their old allegiance to Moscow. Bashani's two principal advisers disagreed: Toha supported China and the other, Professor Muzaffar Ahmed-by nature not a militant activist came to be known as pro- Moscow.

Toha was a student leader who took a leading part in forming a youth league centred in his Dacca neighbourhood. He had belonged to a wealthy landowning family and lost extensive properties when they were seized by martial law authorities. In politics, he rapidly became a legendary figure, winning all elections in his Noakhali constituency even when unable to be there to campaign before polling.

Through the campaign to establish Bengali alongside-Urdu as one of the two state languages, a number of student leaders established themselves in East Bengal's nationalist movement - among them, Sheik Mujibur Rahman-who, Islamabad announced last week, will shortly be tried for his part in the movement to establish Bangla Desh. All had close links with underground communist leaders, although not all were communists themselves. When Bashani was released from prison on November 3, 1962, he refused to join the national democratic front formed by leaders of all parties with a view to ousting Ayub Khan. Next year found him heading the Pakistan delegation to the May Day celebrations in Peking.

On his return from China, he astonished his followers by praising Ayub Khan's China policy as progressive, and eulogising Ayub's avowed aim of Islamic socialism. The old man believed that, being predominantly agricultural, East Bengal would be best served by the Chinese type of socialism. But, although he was to declare that, if China had not come to help Pakistan, the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war would have continued for another 18 months, he made it clear in the same speech at Chittagong that India was no enemy to his country. Thus, though he presided over and protected most communist groups, China attached no importance to his pro-China utterances and never trusted him.

The pro-Peking communists under the Maulana split into four groups named after the group leaders: Huq-Toha, Jaffar-Menon, Matin-Alauddin-Deben Sikdar-Basher and Shiraz Sikdar. The Jaffar-Menon group is entirely manned by student leaders. Kazi Jaffar and Rashed Khan Menon belonged to the more radical of East Pakistan's two student associations, Menon - who got his MA when in jail - being president. His father was a high court judge in Dacca and later speaker in Ayub Khan's national assembly. Kazi Jaffar, senior to Menon, was a member of the original EPCP-M (East Pakistan Communist Party-Marxist). Both went straight from university to live with workers in their factory quarters. They established control over more than 50,000 workers in the mills in Tongi, an industrial suburb of Dacca, and extended their authority to almost all East Bengal's cotton spinning mills. The group influenced workers in Khulna and the peasantry in Comilla, but its strongest base is Sylhet-where guerilla units helped by it are still fighting the West Pakistani troops.

Abdul Matin of Pabna, another educated son of a jotedar, was jailed for his part in the language movement in 1952. In Pabna, he spent years organising the peasants. He belonged to the Awami League until 1956, working underground during the first martial law period imposed by Ayub. After that he went over to the NAP being reorganised by Bashani. In partnership with Matin was Alauddin, a wealthy peasant leader from Kusthia who was a founder member of the communist party. The Matin- Alauddin group was the only one to stay with the NAP, using its open platform to establish mass contacts. Originally the group was associated with Deben Sikdar and Abdul Basher, who were basically concerned with labour. During Yahya's military action Basher's followers gave a tough time to Pakistani troops.

Shiraz Sikdar, a young engineer who started a Mao Tse Tung Thought centre in Dacca and Barisal, led the most militant communist group. His programme, although clandestinely circulated, has had a strong impact on the public during the last two years. Wall posters, massive distribution of leaflets quoting Karl Marx and Mao Tse-tung and distribution of books on Mao to younger people were part of a campaign to persuade the masses of the need for immediate, armed revolution. The group was also the first to start manufacturing bombs and handgrenades and also to train young men to use them. The best known group is still Toha's. In 1967 he emerged from hiding when warrants of arrests against him and other leaders were withdrawn and reorganised the NAP, acting as its general secretary in 1967-68. At the end of 1969 he clashed with Bashani over an allegedly CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) document which was found in the belongings of a college student who died, reportedly of poison.

He was a brilliant student and belonged to Maulana's NAP

An American apparently visited him several times in his college and also at his house in Dacca. The boy had complained to friends and others the American shadowed him everywhere after he started avoiding him - in order, he said, to keep hold of a document that he got from him. Shortly afterwards, the student died.

At a peasants' rally soon afterwards Bashani disclosed the document's content. It envisaged a confederation between India and Pakistan and creation of a new state, merging the two Bengals with Assam, to create a military base against China. This disclosure sparked the row which led ultimately to Toha's breaking with the NAP. He and Huq had insisted 1970 should see the start of armed revolution. Now he charged that, under the leadership of Bashani whom he described as a reactionary who opposed revolution, leftist organisations had turned against violent uprising to achieve their ends.

Last April a printed circular which purported to have been issued by the Rangpur branch of Toha's party appeared in West Bengal. It warned the people against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League and Indian Premier Indira Gandhi's Congress Party government which had conspired to attack Great China. Mujib was described as an American agent. Only mild reference was made to Yahya's exploitation of the toiling people of Pakistan. Its objective appeared to be to confuse popular attitudes to the "war of liberation" in Bangla Desh.

While some still believe Toha and his "people" are actually carrying on the revolution, some sympathisers doubt whether they could forge a peasants' revolution if they leave untouched the issue of colonialist exploitation by West Pakistan and its military forces. Toha's group has some influence in the Jessore-Khulna area, but it has not been to build a "red base" anywhere-even in districts where Huq, as an old peasant leader of Khulna and Jessore, is particularly strong. In Toha's Noakhali district there has been no sign of activity.

On balance, it would appear the "Peking patriots" of East Pakistan, traditionally divided, continue to be so in the crisis that has overtaken them. The question is, whether continued fighting in the province will make it possible for these militants to co-operate effectively. Bashani has given some kind of a lead and the Toha group is the only significant group still holding aloof. For the present, it looks as if he and his followers may be left out of the developing situation and that the leftist initiative will remain with the groups which are content to shelter under the Maulana's large umbrella.