द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

106 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
who were anxious to demonstrate that the Gandhi method
had not become sterile and was still capable of stirring up
the country.
While the Swarajists represented the main body of rebels
against orthodox Gandhiism in 1923, the same year saw the
birth of another revolt against Gandhiism which was to
acquire greater importance in the years to come. Being dis-
satisfied with the Gandhian ideology, a small group in
Bombay under the leadership of Mr. Dange,¹ took to study-
ing Socialist literature. They had a club of their own and
published a weekly journal for preaching Socialism. Among the
Congress leaders the only patron they had at the time was the
late Mr. Vithalbhai Patel. They soon took up labour organi-
sation in Bombay and before many years elapsed, they
became the first group of Communists in India. Following
Bombay, a similar group was started some time later in
Bengal under the name of the "Workers and Peasants'
Party"—but it was never able to acquire as much importance
or make as much headway, as the Bombay Group. The
reason is not far to seek. Bengal, of which Calcutta is both
the heart and the brain, has for a very long time been one
of the strongholds of the nationalist movement. There the
movement is based on an influential and patriotic petit-bour-
geois class. Moreover, Bengal does not possess an indigenous
and influential capitalist class, as does Bombay. Consequently,
class-differentiation has never appeared in Bengal in that
sharp and acute form in which it has appeared in Bombay.
The petit-bourgeois element is not so strong or influential
in Bombay as it is in Bengal and the national movement
there is of more recent growth than in Bengal. In these
circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the intellectual
revolt against Gandhiism in Bombay should take a Socialist
or Communist turn. In Bengal, on the other hand, the
revolt against Gandhiism took a revolutionary more than a
Communist turn. This phenomenon we shall consider in a
later chapter on 'the Bengal Situation.'
¹ Mr. Dange was convicted in 1925 in connection with the Cawnpore
Bolshevik Conspiracy Case and again in connection with the Meerut
Communist Conspiracy Case in 1933, after a trial lasting nearly four years.