12 SOCIAL SCIENTIST exploitation, for instance, fall in the second. By their very nature, the basic demands cannot be achieved in the prevailing matrix of class relations; for they hit at the foundation-of the current social order. Only some of the pai tial demands may be realised immediately* Yet these two components are always there; and it would be a grave mistake to mix them up. The leadership has to determine the contents of these two categories, to synthesise them, and to educate the masses as to how their daily struggle for bread-and-water Would merge into the strategy of historic upheaval for the seizure of power. Nothing but the correct blending of these two components delineates the revolutionary path from ^right9 or ^left'deviations. In April, 1974, Harekrishna Konar called it ^the gi^t of our new understanding". Ic is a tested revolutionary practice that while fighting for immediate demands a revolutionary mass movement must also popularise basic slogans among the people, educate them and organise them to fight for their realisation. It is necessary that practical mass struggles should be developed on immediate issues; masses get organised and conscious through them and thus prepare themselves to fight for basic changes. Hence there is no question of belittling or neglecting such struggles. But it is equally true that without a constant campaign among the people to fight for basic demands, thfc mass struggles on partial demands, however strong they may be, lose their perspective and direction.8 Immediate, partial demands are again of two types, namely, (a) ^the maximum possible concessions from the ruling classes^, that is, the concessions Which the ruling classes would willy-nilly concede in their own long-term interest, and (b) the demands which appear ^reasonable* to the masses but cannot be achieved under the existing correlation of forces. Both these types of demands are worked out in accordance with subjective and objective factors, that is, the level of consciousness and organisation of the woxking class/the peasantry and the common people in a Concrete situation, and the extent of development of the economy. West Bengal Today The 36-point Common Minimum Programme of the Left Front, it should be clearly understood, contains the three kinds of slogans mentioned above; (i) basic, (ii) immediate, feasible aAd ^ii) teitoedi&fe, ^reasonable5, but not-so-feasible. It would thrcrefW be naive to expect that the Left Front Government would be able to translate overnight all or most of the thirty six points into reality. The reasons ate ob^iom. The legacy of West Bengal being what it is, the diaaensiotis of her problems of poverty, unemployment and deprivation being as they are, it would be nothing short of a miracle if any si^mfieant dent can bt ftiade into them. The big bourgeoisie and the imperialists cannot afford t^ ^ee