60 SOCIAL SCIENTIST and chose to form an independent party of the working class with disastrous consequences. The failure of the communists was not in evolving correct tactics but their strategic conception of the national movement itself was at fault.5 We do not intend to survey the extensive debate within the Commin-tern and the Indian communist groups on the national movement or the twists and turns of the tactical positions adopted over time. But the following two may be considered the essence of the communist strategy : (a) the united front of all anti-imperialist classes and (b) the working cliss leadership of the anti-imperialist united front. The feudal landlords and princely rulers being the rural pillars of imperialist rule, agrarian revolution formed the axis of the national liberation struggle. Of the two modern classes, given the character of our epoch and the weakness of bourgeois class under colonial conditions, the Indian national bourgeoisie could not take a consistent and non-vacillating anti-imperialist and an anti-feudal position6. Therefore only under the leadership of the working class can the agrarian revolution be carried out and national liberation be completed. Establishment of a party of the working class, the communist party, was a necessary condition for the fulfillment of the above tasks. To sum up, the task before the Indian communists was to a build up the united front, and at the same time to combat the vacillations of the bourgeoisie and maintain the independence of the working class parfy. It has been claimed that the rich experience of Kerala will contribute to a rethinking of the traditional communist notions regarding the Indian freedom struggle.7 It is in this context that the following analysis of the experience of communists of Kerala in the national movement becomes relevant. Does the experience of communists in Kerala invalidate the general understanding of CPI on the national movement ? The Formation of the Communist Party in Malabar It was in October 1939 that a secret conference of Congrees Socialist Party leaders of Malabar resolved to transform their organisation into an unit of Communist Party of India. On the tenth anniversary of the Congress declaration of independence as its goal, on 26 January 1940, the new party announced to the public its existence through a massive wall-writing campaign. Thus, Communist Party came to Kerala nearly two decades after the appearance of the first communist groups on the Indian political horizon. The late formation of CPI in Kerala might appear rather surprising given the fact it was in Malayalam that one of the earliest biographies of Marx in any Indian language came to be published.8 The October revolution created strong ripples among the Malayali intellectuals. Though few understood the true historic significance of this epochal event it became a source of inspiration to a wide spectrum of intellectuals. To social reformers like K. Aiyyappan it was the social equality of the Soviet revolution that appealed