Author Description

Though Communism has ceased to exist in Europe, it is still found in the Third World where conditions favoring revolutionary change persist. This history of the Indian Communist Movement demonstrates how, despite losing its global status, communism has survived in India, though in a different, democratized, form. Ross Mallick traces this process of democratization, as well as the institutionalization of revolutionary Marxism in this immensely readable study. He demonstrates that through electoral success in a parliamentary democracy, the Communist Party of India (CPI) was able to collaborate with a privileged class base which had a vested interest in supporting the party. In doing this, the CPI not only neglected the numerically substantial lower classes, but also failed to tackle the major questions of under-development and to create the necessary conditions for revolutionary change.