People of the Revolution and the USSR

Manabendra Nath Roy

মানবেন্দ্র নাথ রায়
Comintern Communism India India 1887–1954 ○ Heart attack

The Indian Marxist who debated Lenin on colonial revolution

"You are so young! I expected a grey-bearded wise man from the East." — Lenin's first words to the 27-year-old Indian revolutionary upon meeting him at the Kremlin, 1920.

Bengali Marxist. He debated Lenin on the colonial question at the 1920 Comintern Congress and founded the Mexican Communist Party (the first outside Russia) as well as the CPI. Expelled from the Comintern, he served six years in British prisons before turning to Radical Humanism.

Career timeline
  • 1917Co-founded the Socialist Party of Mexico, soon transformed into the Mexican Communist Party
  • 1919Founded the Mexican Communist Party, the first communist party outside Russia
  • 1920Presented supplementary theses on the colonial question at the 2nd Comintern Congress, debated Lenin
  • 1920Founded the Communist Party of India (Tashkent group) in exile
  • 1922–1929Member of the Comintern Executive Committee and Presidium; secretary of the Chinese Commission
  • 1929Expelled from the Comintern for siding with Bukharin's Right Opposition
  • 1931–1936Arrested by British colonial authorities, imprisoned for 6 years on conspiracy charges
  • 1940–1948Founded the Radical Democratic Party; supported the anti-fascist war effort
  • 1947Published the New Humanism manifesto, articulating his Radical Humanist philosophy

Rajani Palme Dutt

Rajani Palme Dutt
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) Communism United Kingdom India 1896–1974 ○ Natural causes

CPGB founding member, chief theoretician for half a century, and pioneer of Marxist historiography on India

After Khrushchev's 1956 Secret Speech, Dutt told the CPGB Political Bureau: 'On Stalin's sun there were, unsurprisingly, some spots.' The Soviet system, he added, had 'demonstrated the ability of a socialist society to recognise and correct its mistakes.'

Founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and its chief theoretician for half a century, a Marxist historian and journalist. His Fascism and Social Revolution (1934) analysed fascism as an extreme form of monopoly-capitalist crisis, his India Today (1940) pioneered Marxist historiography on India, and he served as CPGB General Secretary in 1939–1941, replacing Harry Pollitt over the party's anti-war line at the outbreak of World War II.

Career timeline
  • 1920Founding member, CPGB
  • 1921–1974Founded and edited Labour Monthly (53 years)
  • 1923–1965Member, CPGB Executive Committee
  • 1924Alternate member, ECCI Presidium
  • 1925–1935Comintern representative (Belgium & Sweden); supervised Communist Party of India
  • 1936–1938Editor, Daily Worker
  • 1939–1941General Secretary, CPGB
  • 1943–1965Vice-chairman then Vice-president, CPGB