14 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
and for the establishment of its own sole power, is as applicable to several other situations in the post-Second World War period as to Chile.
It was true for instance of Indonesia where the Sukarno regime, in which the Communist Party shared power, was overthrown by organized counter-revolution and hundreds of thousands were cold-bloodedly butchered.
It was because the lessons of such developments were not learnt that a right opportunist understanding arose that regimes like those in Indonesia and Chile could be the beginning of a process of relatively peaceful transition. The military coup in Chile, like counter-revolutions in several other countries, has given a heavy blow to such a right opportunist ^ understanding.
It would however be wrong to draw the conclusion that whatever opportunities arise for such a development of the popular democratic forces leading to such situations as the emergence of rival centres of power (however partial and limited they may be as in Indonesia and Chile) should not be taken advantage of. What should be guarded against is the facile idea that, when such situations arise, they would enable the popular forces to develop their own state power without armed conflicts. Making such facile assumptions and working out tactics in accordance with these is the essence of right opportunism in the present day.
(This paper, was presented at the Seminar on Chile and the Parliamentary Road to Socialism organised by the Indian School of Social Sciences, Calcutta, on November 28, 1973)
1 Programme of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), para 112, pp 48-49.
2 Mew Situation and the New Tasks Confronting the Party, Report of the Central Committee of the. Communist Party of India (Marxist).
3 VI Lenin, "The Dual Power" Collected Works, Vol 24, Progress Publishers, Moscow
1964, pp 38. * VI Lenin, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution", op. cit., p 60-61.