66 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Marxist-Leninist angle. It did of course have the weaknesses (and the strengths) of being based on the requirements of the practical mass KLisan movement and might therefore be dismissed as ^pamphlet Marxism5 h la P C Joshi. This initial attempt of Indian Marxists to study one of the most burning problems of the country was subsequently carried forward and applied to the specific situation of the years of war and famine in the forties. The country-wide campaign undertaken by the Party in 1943-44 involved not only a practical mass activity but also a theoretical practical study of the mechanism of the landlord-hoarder and the trader-hoarder exploitation of the countryside which culminated in the big tragedy of the Bengal Famine. Again, the problem of nationalities in India was subjected to a serious study in the forties which, despite the mistakes that crept in at one stage in mixing up religion with nationality, yielded the big mass movement for Nutan Bangia, Visal Andhra, Aikya Kerala and so on. These three movements demarcated themselves from other similar movements like Samyukta Karnataka, Symyukta Maharashtra, Maha Gujarat and so on in that, as against the petty—bourgeois and bourgeois class character of the latter, the former had a peasant-proletarian character. It is not necessary for us here to list other examples of the theoretical work done by the united CPI and subsequently by the GPI (M). We would however like to point out that the CPI (M)^s Programme makes a significant theoretical contribution to the analysis of Indian society as it has evolved from century to century. Let us quote the relevant passage : Capitalist development in India, however, is not of the type which took place in western Europe and other advanced capitalist countries^ Even though developing in the capitalist way, Indian society still contains within itself strong elements of precapitalist society. Unlike in the advanced capitalist countries where capitalism grew on the ashes of precapitalist society, destroyed by the rising bourgeoisie, capitalism in India was superimposed on precapitalist society. Neither the British colonialists whose rule continued for over a century, nor the Indian bourgeoisie into whose hands power passed in 1947, delivered those smashing blows against precapitalist society which are necessary for the free development of capitalist society and its replacement by socialist society. The present Indian society, therefore, is a peculiar combination of monopoly capitalist domination with caste> communal and tribal institutions. It has thus fallen to the lot of the working class and its Party to unite all the progressive forces interested in destroying the precapitalist society and to so consolidate the revolutionary forces within it as to facilitate the most rapid completion of the democratic revolution and preparation of the ground for transition to socialism. We are sure that the academic contributors to Seminar 178 would