4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST and described the programme, tactics and outlook of Gandhi and the Congress organisation as suited to the compromising interests of the national bourgeoisie which effectively restricted the sweep of Indians anti-imperialist struggle. This was part of the class struggle in India that every step forward taken by the Communist movement was contested by the national bourgeoisie and obstructed through repression by the British government. 7'he Communists were paying the price for introducing a revolutionary understanding of the nationalist struggle, for bringing out the limitations of the existing national leadership, for attempting to raise the consciousness of the masses to grasp the significance of their own role. The traducers of the Communists ranged from the British Viceroy to the nationalist press and national leaders. Fiftyfive years back, in January 1929, Lord Irwin, the British Viceroy, in his speech to the Legislative Assembly, declared that "the disquieting spread of Communist doctrines has been causing anxiety" and announced that the government would take measures. The Manchester Guardian of England wrote (August 1929), "Experience of the past two years has shown that the industrial workers are peculiarly malleable material in the hands of unscrupulous Communist organisers." The Right-wing trade union leaders had already declared that "the time has come when the trade union movement in India should weed out of its organisation mischief-makers. A warning is all the more necessary because there arc certain individuals who go about preaching the gospel of strike." And finally the Bombay Chronicle, the mouthpiece of the National Congress, joined the outcry and wrote, "Socialism is in the air. For months past socialist principles have been preached in India at various conferences, especially those of peasants and workers." These signals of panic culminated in the arrests of trade union leaders and Communists in the Meerut Conspiracy Case. Working under the most adverse circumstances, the Communist Party had to face the worst repression. The sacrifices that the Communists had to make to orientate the freedom struggle in the direction of a revolution arc hardly known. Apart from the series of conspiracy cases, beginning with that in 1920 and ending with the Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929, which pronounced heavy prison sentences, every activity of the Communists was accompanied by imprisonment, detention, deportation, arrests for having no ostensible means of livelihood, arrests under the Goonda Act etc. Every strike struggle witnessed cases against the Communist leaders for sedition or violence, while striking workers were sought to be subdued with lathi-charge, firings and imprisonment. Every year almost one-third of the leaders would be in jail. The Communist Party of India (GPI)was an illegal party throughout the British period. By 1934 trade unions and organisations like the Young Workers' League led by it in Bombay were also declared illegal. It was only in 1937 when Congress ministries came to power in several