Bangladesh is a backward capitalist state. It became independent in 1971. It had been under the Pakistani colonial rule before 1971 and British imperial rule before 1947. So it can be easily assumed that Bangladesh had to traverse a long complicated historical course to emerge as a sovereign national state.

British period

In colonial India anti-imperialist national independence struggle started at such a time of the history which was characterized by Lenin as the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. It was a time when capitalism as a social order had already become obsolete and the bourgeoisie as a class had become reactionary internationally.

That is why the Indian bourgeoisie failed to lead the independence movement based on a true secular-democratic outlook. Instead it compromised with religion and treaded the path of nationalist movement based on two separate religions. Indian National Congress led the movement against the British imperialism.

The majority of the Indian people were the Hindus. The National Congress was a Hindu religion-oriented organization that sought independence through the revivalism of the Hindu religion. Its ideology to establish a national state through the revivalism of the Hindu religion angered the Muslims of greater India resulting in the formation of the Muslim League.

Muslim League drifted away from the mainstream of the Indian national independence movement. It began to demand a separate state for the Muslims. As a consequence of this conflict Indian sub-continent was fragmented artificially into two different countries on the basis of reactionary separatist ‘two-nation theory’.

The independence movement met this unfortunate and tragic end as it was the historical limitation of the bourgeoisie class. The Indian communist movement was no less responsible. Being carried by blind allegiance to the international communist leaderships and mechanical approach the Communist Party of India (CPI) established in 1921 failed to evaluate the then national and international situation correctly.

Specially, because of their failure to stand independently for the cause of independence against the British rule and forge an anti-fascist allied force in the international arena CPI could not lead the national freedom movement. If it could have been able to lead the movement the history of Indian freedom struggle would have been written in a different way.

Pakistan period

However, in 1947 the British rule ended but it left the sub-continent divided into two separate states – India and Pakistan in line with religions. Pakistan, with its two parts – east and west, the east part was the then East Bengal, was formed as the native land of the majority of the Muslims. But the geopolitical structure and characteristics of the two parts – West Pakistan and East Pakistan – did not fulfill the natural criteria essential to make Pakistan a modern national state.

They had no basis of unity except religion and were about two thousand miles apart. Lingual and cultural distinctions were very clear. At that stage there was an administrative attempt, based on the religion of Islam, to establish Pakistani nationalism all over the East Bengal, ignoring totally the rich linguistic and cultural heritage of its people.

That attempt was considered by the people of East Bengal as a naked aggression to establish the Pakistani hegemony. Pakistan was led by the non-Bengali bourgeoisie. East Bengal virtually became a colony of West Pakistan. The rising Bengali bourgeoisie along with the oppressed people of every strata of life raised their voices opposing the Pakistani rule and oppression.

Following the course of the language movement in 1952, which gave birth to the great 21st February, now observed as the International Mother Language Day all over the world, education movement in 1962, movement for autonomous status of East Bengal in 1966 and the mass upsurge in 1969 the Bengali nationalist movement assumed the form of Liberation War in 1971.

The sordid military regime of Pakistan carried out a barbarous armed attack on the unarmed Bengali people on March 25, 1971. They tried to silence the voice of the freedom-loving Bengali people by unleashing a reign of terror through murders, rapes and violence all over the East Bengal. But the people of Bengal stood in valiant resistance and launched the war of independence.

However, similar to the freedom movement of India, in absence of a real proletarian revolutionary party the Bengali national bourgeoisie took the lead of the freedom movement of the Bengali nation. East Pakistan Communist Party not only failed to grasp the international communist movement it also failed to take an independent stand on the question of Liberation War of East Pakistan.

The rift in international communist movement split the East Pakistan Communist Party into two factions – pro-Moscow East Pakistan Communist Party and pro-Peking East Pakistan Communist Party. Their blind allegiance to the two major communist parties eventually harmed the left movement during our Liberation War.

The rift in the communist party opened the floodgate for the bourgeoisie class to get united under the umbrella of Awami League. Disunity in the communists and their theoretical blunder helped the bourgeoisie party Awami League lead the independent movement.

The US-imperialism opposed that movement. India, due to its own expansionist strategic policy and the former USSR, including other socialist countries of the world, stood beside us. Eventually, on 16th December, 1971, the people of Bangladesh won the Liberation War at the cost of millions of people leaving the communist parties in disarray.

Bangladesh period and emergence of SPB

After the Liberation War a bourgeoisie state was established in Bangladesh. The consecutive two colonial exploitations have now been replaced by the class exploitation. And it is this capitalist social order of our country which gave birth to severe crisis soon after the independence necessitating a revolutionary change led by the proletarian class. But due to the absence of a proletarian revolutionary party the real emancipation of the people has not yet been attained despite many sacrifices and struggles.

Despite various inspiring instances of glorious battle and valiant sacrifices of individuals in different, sporadic social, political and economic movements the communist parties in British India, East Pakistan and Bangladesh could not achieve success due to lack of correct political understanding and scientific outlook.

These parties were unable to lead the people, in the independence struggles in India, East Pakistan and Bangladesh, due to wrong social analysis i.e. they could not determine correctly their foes and friends. Moreover, they could not build up a proletarian revolutionary party following the scientific methodology guided by Marxism-Leninism.

SPB detected four points as the basic errors of the communist parties of Bangladesh.

These are:

1) to grasp the correct understanding of Marxism – Leninism as a science. 2) to launch a struggle in every aspect of life based upon the principle of Marxism-Leninism.

3) to determine the mode of production and class-character of the state and thus the strategy and tactics of the revolution

4) to determine the ideological and methodological aspects of building a revolutionary party.

The same drawbacks characterized, as was seen during the British and Pakistani colonial rules, the left parties in Bangladesh. Being unable to understand the problems of Soviet Russian Communist Party and Communist Party of China they have been trapped in a quagmire of the same trend of aligning with either Soviet Communist Party or Communist Party of China.

Apart from this, they have sometimes aligned themselves with bourgeoisie parties and at other times they have adopted petty-bourgeoisie radical line throwing the communist politics in Bangladesh into an abysmal condition.

Under such frustrating left political scenario being led by the class-urge of fulfilling this vacuum Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB) emerged on November 7, 1980, discontinuing its relation with the petty-bourgeois radical trend. Since its inception SPB has been waging a relentless struggle both ideologically and organizationally in order to build up a correct proletarian revolutionary party as well as an uncompromising revolutionary struggle on the basis of ever developing understanding of Marxism-Leninism to overthrow the existing capitalist order in Bangladesh.

SPB, since its inception, has persistently been fighting against the trend of blind allegiance to both Soviet and Chinese communist parties, all sorts of right and left deviations, petty bourgeoisie radical trends and revisionism.