50 SOCIAL SCIENTIST the failings of the Communist movement to the sweeping denunciation which ends up in giving grandiose call for the formation of a new revolutionary party. Underestimation of the Authoritarian Danger The debate while throwing up some valid criticism and problems which have been recognised by the Left movement during the last two decades, fails in the central task of identifying the actual problems of forging Left and democratic unity today and the path to advance towards such a front. The main reason for this is an unreal approach which refuses to take seriously the concrete programmes and tactical lines of the ^Communist parties. Whether it pertains to the GPI (M)or GPI, their current political tactical lines, or their work in the^trade union and Kisan movements, the main tendency is to dismiss them as of no consequence or as just tailing the bourgeoisie. The trend is to read into them whatever subjective interpretation the participants may have had. This serious defect affects the quality of the debate throughout. Probably this is due to the academic nature of the debate. But one suspects it is more due to a non-serious attitude to the Communist movement fostered by an intellectual approach cut off from the real problems and complexities of the Indian situation, which confront the movement of the people led by the Left parties today To drive home the point, Boudhayan Ghattopadhyay, while correctly stressing the danger of imperialist manoeuvres in the subcontinent. lapses into sheer political opportunism when it comes to characterizing the political-tactical lines of the two Communist parties. His formulations such as ^the illusion of the GPI regarding Mrs. Gandhi and her cohorts and of the CPI (M) regarding JP and his cohorts follow from the grossly inadequate understanding ..." emanate from the author's indifference to the serious development of the authoritarian danger under Mrs Gandhi. The whole fight of the Indian people against authoritarianism of the Indira regime is reduced to "illusions regarding JP and his cohorts" —a totally irresponsible approach to an issue around which the political-tactical line of the GPI (M) is centred. This reflects a blindness to the major political issue in the country today. This approach of Ghattopadhyay recurs throughout the seminar, reflecting a total underestimation of the divisions in the ruling class parties and refusal to recognize the correctness of the political-tactical line of the GPI (M) in mobilizing the widest forces against authoritarianism. The suspicion arises that this blindness