The 1971 War of Liberation and Bangladesh’s unfinished revolution 

Today, Bangladesh is glowing with the white heat of revolution. The masses have once more entered the arena of struggle. They are rediscovering a rich revolutionary tradition that goes back decades. Really, the tasks of this revolution are the unfinished tasks of an unfinished revolution, which began more than fifty years ago and culminated in the War of Independence against the domination of Pakistan in 1971. Learning the lessons of that period is vital to not only understanding the present, but to ensuring that the revolutionary struggle today is carried forward to victory.

The revolution and subsequent War of Independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan were earth shattering events. However, very few know what actually happened.

The main political parties in Bangladesh today shroud the war in a fog of lies. They shower themselves in glory, inflating their parties’ roles in the struggle for independence. 

But the real heroes in that story were the millions of unnamed Bangladeshis who fought, and were willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of freedom. It's about time the record was set straight. 

Partition

On the 14 and 15 August 1947, a great crime against humanity was committed. Approximately 2 million people were killed, 75,000 women raped, and 10-20 million displaced in a frenzy of communal violence unleashed by the partition of India. Ted Grant explained the reasons for the crime in this way:

“The partition of the subcontinent into Pakistan and India was a crime carried out by British Imperialism. Initially, British Imperialism tried to maintain control of the whole of the subcontinent, but, during 1946-1947, a revolutionary situation erupted across the whole of the Indian subcontinent. British Imperialism realised that it could no longer contain the situation. Its troops were mainly Indian, and they could not be relied on to do the dirty work for the imperialists.

“It was in these conditions that the imperialists came up with the idea of partition. As they could no longer hold the situation, they decided that it was preferable to whip up Muslims against Hindus and vice versa. With this method, they planned to divide the subcontinent to make it easier to control from outside once they had been forced to abandon a military presence. They did this without any concern for the terrible bloodshed that would be unleashed.” (Ted Grant, 2001)

This was a completely avoidable event. Only one year earlier, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims stood side by side on the barricades in a revolution against British occupation in India. 

Britain could no longer maintain direct domination, so had to resort to divide and rule. In collaboration with the Hindu and Muslim ruling elites, the Subcontinent was divided down religious sectarian lines. 

India was to house the majority of Hindus, while the new nation of Pakistan would house the majority of Muslims. 

The region of Bengal was divided into East and West. The West, being majority Hindu, was incorporated into India, while the East, being majority Muslim, became East Pakistan (modern day Bangladesh). 

East Pakistan 

Whilst the people of West and East Pakistan shared the same religion, they had developed unique cultures and traditions, and spoke entirely different languages, not to mention the fact that they were separated by 1,200 miles of hostile landmass!

From day one, East Pakistan was under the complete economic, political and cultural domination of West Pakistan. 

Twenty-two West Pakistani capitalist families owned around 66 percent of industry and 80 percent of banking in East Pakistan by 1970. Karachi was made the capital city despite the majority of the population residing in the East. 

Furthermore, the average wage for workers in West Pakistan was £35 per month compared to £15 per month in the east. East Pakistan was a captive market for goods made in West Pakistan as wealth flowed from East to West.

90 percent of the army were from West Pakistan and only 16 percent of the elite civil service was made up of East Pakistanis. Urdu was pronounced the national language, despite only seven percent of people speaking it compared to 55 percent speaking a form of Bangla. 

The ruling class of West Pakistan suppressed the democratic freedoms of Bengalis to defend their own privileges and ensure the maximum extraction of profits. 

Whilst formally being free of their British colonial masters, East Pakistan was now a semi-colony of West Pakistan, housing a mass of oppressed Bengalis. 

Lenin once remarked that the national question is ultimately a question of bread. The question of economic freedom lay at the heart of the struggle for independence. 

The state of Pakistan had dynamite built into its foundations. 

The language movement 

The first rumblings of discontent emerged in 1952 with a mass movement for the recognition and practice of the Bengali language. The movement gained mass support after police shot and killed dozens of student activists. 

The first rumblings of discontent emerged in 1952 with a mass movement for the recognition and practice of the Bengali language / Image: public domain

During this movement, a young Mujib-ur-Rahman, the father of the recently-deposed tyrant Sheikh Hasina, came to prominence. He would eventually become the leader of the Bengali nationalist party, the Awami League, which would later become a key player in the struggle for independence.

Mujib was from a middle-class, land-owning background and was inspired by ‘western style’ democracy. He was fiercely charismatic and well educated – the ideal figurehead for the up-and-coming Bengali petty bourgeoisie.

The 1954 general election saw the victory of the Bengali nationalist coalition, the United Front (Jukta Front), which gained 65.5 percent of the vote. Terrified at the growing discontent against West Pakistani nationalism, the West Pakistani elite dissolved the government after only 56 days and were forced to concede official recognition of the Bengali language in 1956. 

It was in the storm and stress of the 1950s that modern Bangladeshi national consciousness was forged. 

Dictatorship

Pakistan’s ‘democracy’ came to an end in 1958. Political, social and economic turmoil led to the banning of political parties and a stalemate between the contending classes.

In 1958, army officer Ayub Khan came to power through a military coup and ruled as a strongman, balancing between classes to ‘save the country from anarchy’. Martial law was implemented and all political gatherings were banned. Bengali culture was suppressed.

Ayub Khan invited the American army in to build military bases, making Pakistan an outpost of US imperialism in the region. 

Internally, Pakistan saw unprecedented economic growth during the 1960s under the military dictatorship. Trade unions were practically illegal, making Pakistan a haven for foreign investment.

Industrialisation had forged a powerful working class in the cities spanning Pakistan, who were becoming increasingly angry at the regime. The masses suffered horrific working conditions while the super rich gang of capitalists, landlords, and military elites flaunted their wealth.

In 1965, Pakistan waged an expensive and disastrous war with India over Kashmir, which exacerbated inflation and increased the cost of living. 

In 1958, army officer Ayub Khan came to power through a military coup / Image: public domain

Press censorship and severe restrictions on political expression intensified the feeling of national oppression of Bengalis in East Pakistan.

This laid the basis for an almighty explosion of the class struggle. All that was needed was a spark to ignite the deep-seated hatred and anger at the regime. 

The West Pakistani capitalists made super profits from owning huge swathes of land and exploiting ethnic minority groups for cheap labour.

Therefore, the Pakistani bourgeoisie, tied hand and foot to the landowners and American imperialists, proved incapable of forming a modern democratic state that could answer the basic needs of the people: land to the peasant farmers and freedom for the oppressed ethnic groups. 

In 1966, Mujib-ur-Rahman put forward the ‘six point programme’ which demanded greater autonomy and restoration of parliamentary democracy within the federation of Pakistan. It demanded the right to form an independent military and to have control over its own taxation and revenue, including the existence of two separate currencies. 

Such a programme, however moderate its demands, was anathema to the Pakistani ruling class. East Pakistan was the main source of profits for the ruling class (based mainly in West Pakistan), and at the same time its population represented a majority of the overall population of Pakistan. Conceding universal suffrage would have meant losing control of the situation (as eventually happened). Conceding to East Pakistan the power to raise tax and its own currency would have meant a loss of economic control by the West Pakistani ruling class.

Furthermore, around the six point programme a mass movement was organised which had the support of the majority of the masses of East Pakistan.

Revolution

The prelude to revolution began in 1967 with a militant rail workers’ strike in West Pakistan, and the election of a ‘United Front’ government, which included communist and socialist parties, in the Indian state of West Bengal (adjacent to East Pakistan), which brought thousands out onto the streets of Calcutta in support.

The Economist newspaper alarmingly proclaimed, “if anywhere in Asia is ripe for an attempt at urban revolution it is Calcutta, and the cities of East Pakistan are not far behind’. 

They were not wrong. In the West Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on 7 November 1968, the police opened fire at students protesting aggressive treatment by customs officials, killing one person. Riots and protests broke out across the city and spread like wildfire across the whole country, including East Pakistan.

All the accumulated rage and anger at the regime had burst to the surface. 

By this point, the leadership of the movement was mainly in the hands of Mujib-ur-Rahman of the Awami League and ‘Red’ Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, president of the Maoist National Awami Party (NAP); an amalgamation of Chinese-aligned peasant organisations.

Bhashani was an educated man from a middle-class peasant background. Inspired by Mao and the Chinese Revolution, he believed the struggle for independence would be won through an armed guerilla struggle led by the peasantry. The peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal in 1966 had a powerful influence on the politically aware peasant leaders of East Pakistan.

He was able to gain a mass base among the peasantry and student youth. 

Starting from the end of November 1968, Maulana Bhashani urged the poor peasants to gherao (surround) the residences of the corrupt development officers and Tahsil offices (in charge of land revenue and ownership). This 'gherao' began in numerous districts in December.

On 6 December, Bhashani called a general strike. The government responded with repression and a ban on all assemblies and marches. The movement, this time backed by Mujib and the student wing of the Awami League and the Sarbadaliya Chhatra Sangram Parishad (All Party Student Action Committee), called another general strike on 13 December.

This agitation coincided with the hearings for the Agartala Conspiracy Case, in which Mujib and 34 others were being tried under the charge of conspiring with India to bring violent revolution to East Pakistan. As the final date for the trial approached, agitation demanding the release of all defendants intensified.

The student action committee was formed on 4 January 1969 following a merger of left-wing and nationalist student groups. It became the cutting edge of the revolution. 

Through their own experience, the movement was drawing more radical conclusions / Image: public domain

Mujib’s six points were superseded by the more radical ‘11 point programme’ put forward by the students. This demanded complete autonomy for East Pakistan, release of political prisoners, restoration of parliamentary democracy, reduced taxation on farmers, and “nationalisation of banks, insurance companies and all large industries, including jute”. Through their own experience, the movement was drawing more radical conclusions, linking up democratic with social demands and acquiring an anti-capitalist character. 

Mass demonstrations accelerated on 20 January after student leader Amanullah Mohammad Asaduzzaman was martyred by police in a peaceful demonstration. His death is still celebrated today as a heroic sacrifice to the cause. Students called for a protest hartal (general strike and shutdown) for the following day, which was widely observed.

For every protestor murdered, thousands more joined the movement, which became increasingly radical by the day: 

“The middle class struggle for democratic rule under the bourgeoisie leadership was transformed into a revolutionary upsurge of the masses. The working population – the rickshaw pullers, motor drivers and all other day labourers – of the city joined hands with the students and defied law enforcers. The popular uprising shattered the facade of the regime’s stability and the administration collapsed.” (Labour Movement in Bangladesh, Kamruddin Ahmad, 1978)

On 17 February 1969 came another turning point. A professor, Mohammad Shamsuzzoha, at Rajshahi University in East Pakistan was bayoneted to death by a soldier at a demonstration. Once the news reached the capital city of Dhaka the atmosphere became explosive.

The authorities called a curfew which was ignored. Students and workers clashed with the authorities in the streets with over 100 killed. Bullets were no longer a deterrent. 

When the masses lose their fear, it signals the death knell of any regime. Ayub Khan’s days were numbered.

On 21 February, he announced that he would not be standing at the 1970 elections, which were to be the first elections based on universal suffrage in the country's history.

The student action committee met with state representatives to demand an end to the curfew and the release of political prisoners. Mujib was released a day later on 22 February to a jubilant crowd.

What a victory! Instead of placating the masses, however, Mujib’s release had the opposite effect: they became emboldened and morale was massively strengthened!

This was a turning point in the revolution. The mass of workers now began to flood into the movement, followed closely by the peasants in the countryside. 

The Times, in March, described the scene: “strikers from every profession, trade and occupation from doctors to railway workers and state engineers, parade through the streets almost every hour demanding better working conditions and more pay… a police uniform has not been seen in the streets of Dhaka for a fortnight”. 

The revolution was moving at an unstoppable pace. More workers were joining the strikes by the day. Bashani was using increasingly radical rhetoric, encouraging the masses to the streets. He encouraged workers to gherao (siege tactics), which meant holding their bosses hostage until they’d concede to their demands. The tactics used by the peasant movement had now spread to the working class.

A successful country-wide general strike was called on 17 March, which even cut off electricity to the presidential palace. The strike continued until 25 March when Ayub Khan resigned.

In both West and East Pakistan, peasants had begun seizing land and setting up courts to hold hated landlords to account. Their slogan became ‘he that tills the land, shall reap the harvest’, and ‘landlords should abdicate’. 

There were 24 incidents of gherao in East Pakistan where workers took control of large factories and government buildings. Committees of workers’ self-management were formed in most workplaces.

In a state of panic, Ayub Khan stated that “The administrative institutions are being paralysed. The mobs are resorting to gheraos (siege) at will and get their demands accepted under duress. (…) The situation now is no longer under the control of the government. All government institutions have become victims of coercion, fear and intimidation. (…) Every problem of the country is being decided in the streets.” 

He was correct! A separate power did exist in society with more authority than the state. This was the power of the working class organised through their workplace committees. 

A similar situation was developing rapidly throughout the whole of Pakistan. Ayub Khan was forced to abdicate on 25 March, demonstrating the strength of the revolution. 

In West Pakistan, the left-wing populist leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of the Pakistan's People Party (PPP) had leadership of the movement. 

If Bhashani and Bhutto had led an insurrection to seize power, there could’ve been a peaceful transition of power and a workers' government formed on the basis of workplace committees, spread across the whole of Pakistan.

In this scenario, the Bengali people would be given the free, democratic choice between joining a voluntary union with a worker-led West Pakistan, or complete separation. A voluntary union on the basis of a workers’ state would in turn have enabled the spreading of the movement to West Bengal and the rest of India, and, ultimately, the forming of a socialist federation of the Subcontinent in which the right of self-determination for oppressed minorities would have had full recognition. 

However, Bhutto aggressively opposed Bengali nationalism and was determined to maintain the forced unity of Pakistan at any cost.

Betrayals of Stalinism and Maoism 

Furthermore, Bashani never intended to actually take power. He believed that independence would have to be won first, and only then could socialism be built.

Instead of seeing the workplace committees as the seeds of a new society and the weapon with  which to win independence, he simply saw them as a means to leverage basic democratic concessions from the West Pakistani ruling class. 

Demagogic speeches threatening ‘civil war’ were therefore nothing but hot air, while he desperately attempted to maintain a grip on the leadership of the movement. 

This flowed from his alignment with Mao’s China. 

In 1965, the narrow interests of the bureaucracy in China clashed with those of the Soviet Union, leading to the Sino-Soviet split. This caused splits in most of the Communist Parties across the world.

Instead of calling for international revolution and pooling efforts in a worldwide struggle against capitalism, they instead jostled for influence on the world stage, and even collaborated with capitalist regimes in order to undermine one another. 

Therefore, to counter Soviet influence in the Subcontinent, the Chinese bureaucracy entered into an unprincipled bloc with US imperialism, and by extension with the ruling class of West Pakistan. 

A key aspect of this strategy was to use their aligned communist parties as instruments of their respective foreign policies. Bashani’s NAP, and the people of Bangladesh more broadly, were simply pawns in their cynical games. 

This essentially put Bashani in an impossible position. He was supposed to lead the struggle for independence, but at the same time lend support to their oppressor, as Ayub Khan was a friend of Mao and China.

Bashani’s aide at the time recalls his visit to Mao. Instead of returning buoyed up and politically armed to take power, she recalls instead that he returned in a solemn and depressed mood and was never the same again.

All of the left parties, under the influence of Stalinism, tied themselves in knots with the false theory of ‘two stages’. This was the idea that the tasks of the revolution were bourgeois in nature and that, therefore, socialist revolution was off the agenda and only possible after a long period of bourgeois democracy. In a mad hunt for a non-existent ‘progressive bourgeoisie’, so called communists wound up in all sorts of bizarre and unprincipled alliances. 

For example, multiple Maoist groupings in East Pakistan either ignored the Bengali national question or actively opposed it. Some left parties even depicted the Ayub regime as progressive because of the industrialisation being carried out at that time. They therefore labelled the revolutionary movement against him as a US conspiracy fomented by the CIA! 

This complete political failure on the part of the Stalinist and Maoist ‘communist’ parties was precisely what allowed leadership of the revolutionary movements to be captured by Bhutto and Mujib in West and East Pakistan respectively.

The carrot and the stick 

The whole country had ground to a halt and the ruling class demanded order through the suspension of the constitution and implementation of martial law. But Ayub himself could not impose this – he was totally discredited. Power was therefore handed over to military commander-in-chief Yayha Khan. 

Power was handed over to military commander-in-chief Yayha Khan / Image: public domain

If Ayub wielded the stick, Yayha dangled the carrot. He announced a new general election based on universal suffrage and some minor trade union reforms. Their hope was to channel the movement within safe limits. 

This had the desired effect, as many Bengalis had never experienced political representation of this kind. 

Without a clear understanding of how to carry out a revolution, Bhashani began losing his authority. At this time, a debate was ongoing over ‘the ballot or the bullet’ – i.e. elections or revolution? But Bhashani’s conception of revolution was entirely limited to the Maoist view of peasant guerrilla warfare.

In fact, one of his close associates, trade unionist and a leader of his party, Kaniz Fatima, many years later told a comrade of ours about a visit he once made to Karachi. This city was and is the most industrialised and proletarian city in the country. Whilst there, he asked his party members if there were any mountains near Karachi. They said no. He then dismissed the idea that it would be possible to carry out a revolution there!

His inability to offer a clear strategy for independence led him and the NAP to announce their boycott of the elections. He claimed that the elections would strengthen Pakistan and that the questions of hunger and independence would have to be solved first. However, by this time the mass movement was ebbing, and illusions in elections were growing. Without offering a viable revolutionary alternative, boycotting the elections was a barren tactic. The field was thus left wide open to Mujib’s Awami League.

This amounted to an abdication of the struggle. It created an enormous political vacuum which Mujib was all too willing to fill. 

The fundamental question at this moment was what character the revolution would take. Bhashani would not accept that the revolution was assuming a socialist character, even when it was staring him directly in the face! All of their tactics and manoeuvres flowed from the false idea of two stages.

Elections 

The national oppression of Bengalis had produced a revolutionary movement along class lines. It could only be resolved if the working class took power at the head of the whole nation. But because the workers’ leadership refused to do so, the Bengali working class was driven into the arms of the middle-class nationalists. 

The Awami League under Mujib was the party of the emerging Bengali middle classes. The majority of the Awami League's leadership were small-to-medium sized land and business owners, and the party firmly based itself on this layer in society. 

They were willing to lean on the upsurge of the masses to put pressure upon the West Pakistani ruling elite to gain concessions. But even though their language became very radical, reflecting the mood of the movement, they were neither willing nor able to go the whole way. Their whole strategy was based on attempting to find a negotiated solution.

With no political alternative, Mujib’s Awami League won 160 out of 162 seats in East Pakistan / Image: public domain

In reality, the mass movement for national liberation was completely linked to the question of property. The peasants were occupying the land and the workers were occupying the factories. This terrified the middle-class leaders of the Awami League, which feared (quite rightly) that an independent Bangladesh would be engulfed by class struggle and that the whole process might end up with the abolition of capitalism. 

The Pakistani ruling elite pinned their hopes on the vote in the East being split between multiple nationalist, Islamist, and peasant parties. This would allow them to divide and rule, and wait for the masses to become demoralised. 

They woefully miscalculated. They underestimated the Bengalis’ burning hatred of the West Pakistani ruling elite, who for decades had subjected them to extreme poverty and national oppression. 

With no political alternative, on 7 December 1970, Mujib’s Awami League won 160 out of 162 seats in East Pakistan. This gave Bengali nationalists not just a crushing majority in the East, but also a majority over the whole of Pakistan with 39.2 percent of votes cast!

The ruling elite were horrified at this result, which was a de facto mandate for independence and the breakup of Pakistan.

Mujib demanded an immediate calling of the National Assembly, in which the Awami League had an overall majority.

Revolution reignited 

The West Pakistani bourgeoisie and landowners could never agree to an independent Bangladesh. This would mean losing the right to exploit it as a colony and an end to the super-profits they were making there. It would also give an impetus to the struggle of the many other oppressed nationalities that make up Pakistan. Furthermore, a Bengali state, friendly to India and with its own military, would enormously weaken their position in the region. 

The super-exploitation of Bengalis was therefore tied together with their national oppression by richer West Pakistanis, so the only way to solve this was to overthrow those exploiting them: the capitalists.

Mujib, however, was unwilling to break with capitalism and go beyond the narrow limits of bourgeois democracy. He was aghast that the belligerent West Pakistani ruling elite would not offer any concessions, even stating “don’t they realise I’m the only one who can stop the communists”. (Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution, Lawrence Lifschultz. Zed press. London. 1979) 

In other words, Mujib had no perspective of a struggle against the rule of the West Pakistani ruling class. Rather he hoped for a rotten deal, short of full independence, where the local Bengali bourgeoisie would gain some autonomy and share in the loot of exploiting the local workers and peasants. The bourgeoisie will always be more afraid of the working class than a bourgeois 'rival'. They'd be happy to accept subjugation by another bourgeoisie if it meant they retain some of their privileges, rather than losing them all to a socialist revolution.

On 1 March 1971, Yayha Khan postponed the convening of the National Assembly, which unleashed a furious reaction from the Bengali masses. 

One eye witness describes the scene at a cricket match when the news broke:

“[M]any spectators took their transistor sets with them, as soon as they heard about the postponement of the parliamentary session, hell was let loose. 40-50,000 people left the stadium and went into the streets shouting slogans of ‘joi bangla’ – West Bengal nationalist slogan meaning "Victory to Bengal". 

“all three roads in front of the hotel [were] packed with people armed with iron rods and bamboo staves… there was a bonfire of Pakistani flags and Jinnah's [the founder of Pakistan] portraits”.

The whip of the counter-revolution had given a fresh lease of life to the revolution. A general strike was called by the Awami League under pressure by the radical left-wing student organisations.

“Road traffic, shops, factories and offices are closed. Everybody whole heartedly responded to the call for the public strike… even the fish and vegetable market was closed.” (Of Blood and Fire: The Untold Story of Bangladesh's War of Independence 1989, Jahanara Imam)

In response, a curfew was announced and martial law declared, banning the publication of all news hostile to the government. But the curfew was ignored. 

Barricades were being erected while the masses clashed with police throughout the days and nights. The left-wing student leaders were pressuring Mujib to declare independence on 3 March. He held a press conference, with everyone expecting him to announce it. They left disappointed. Instead, he called for ‘non-violent non-cooperation’.

An eye witness to the conference stated “he didn’t say anything. But he seemed rather grim.” (Of Blood and Fire: The Untold Story of Bangladesh's War of Independence 1989, Jahanara Imam)

The student leaders instead called their own mass demonstration at the Paltan Maidan, reading out the ‘programme of independence’. One of the main student leaders, A. S. M Abdur Rab, unfurled the new Bangladesh flag to a jubilant crowd. 

Mujib was losing control of the situation rapidly and was being pushed far further than he was originally willing to go. 

The street fighting continued unabated. A much anticipated announcement was to be made by Mujib on 7 March which drew in 300,000 people from far and wide. However, “Sheikh (Mujib) disappointed everybody” again. (Of Blood and Fire: The Untold Story of Bangladesh's War of Independence 1989, Jahanara Imam) 

There were heated debates occurring day and night in every workplace, university, mass meeting, and even within households, over where next for the independence movement. 

Revolutionary nationalist poetry, songs, cartoons and stickers were being produced and widely distributed. New, fresh revolutionary art was being shown hourly on Dhaka television after it was occupied by its staff, inspiring thousands to join the revolution for independence. 

Within the space of two weeks, the masses had gone way beyond the narrow nationalism of the Awami League and wanted to finish the job through revolutionary means. 

The movement seemed unstoppable. All the political parties, student organisations, trade unions, professional associations, and artist collectives called a huge demonstration on 23 March entitled ‘resistance day.’ 

This was the moment. The time had come for a decisive move and the seizing of power. This is what the masses hoped this day would be. 

It was obvious by this point that without the clearing out of the West Pakistani capitalists and landlords the 11-point programme could not be realised. 

The rich West Pakistanis would never willingly give up their ownership of the banks, industry, land and allow the flourishing of a liberal democracy. 

If a genuine communist party had existed with roots in every workplace, community and village, they could have transformed the general strike into an expropriation of the West Pakistani landlords and capitalists, nationalised the banks and commanding heights of the economy under workers’ control, and won genuine independence with very little blood spilt. 

Without clear direction however, the day that had so much potential ended as a kind of mass celebration. Again, the opportunity to take power passed. This would have disastrous consequences. 

‘The Black Night’

On 25 March 1971, the people of East Pakistan awoke to “deafening sounds of heavy guns, the intermittent sounds of machine guns, the whisking sound of bullets”. “There were screams of anguish and ear-rendering cries of the victims”. (Of Blood and Fire: The Untold Story of Bangladesh's War of Independence 1989, Jahanara Imam) 

The Pakistani army invaded to drown the revolution in blood in what was to be named the ‘Black Night’. An indefinite curfew was announced, political parties were banned, and Mujib along with other leaders were arrested by the Pakistani authorities. 

This was a brutal military intervention against an unarmed civilian population. 

Mujib had allowed himself to be caught by the West Pakistani authorities / Image: public domain

The Islamic fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami supplied the West Pakistani army with troops to form a counter-revolutionary paramilitary force. These groups, along with the West Pakistani army, committed a systematic campaign of brutal murder and sexual violence. 

A genocide against the Bengali people was committed. The number of deaths is unknown, but official estimates range anywhere from 300,000 to 3 million. Thousands of Bengali women were raped and 8.9 million people were forced to flee the country as refugees. 

This was the price the Bengali people suffered for the vacillation of their cowardly leadership. 

The weak and indecisive policy of Mujib invited the aggression of the West Pakistani ruling elite.

Unless power was taken into the hands of the working class and the peasantry, violence from a decrepit and vicious ruling class, backed into a corner, was inevitable. 

Mujib’s policy of urging the masses to keep their demands within the limits of democracy completely disoriented them.

No preparation was made for this inevitable event: the masses were unarmed and, consequently, millions died in the most brutal circumstances. A ruling class or caste has never given up their power and privileges without a fight. 

Mujib had allowed himself to be caught by the West Pakistani authorities. Even up until his capture, he continued to beg for Yayha for a compromise. He was even willing to accept a watered down programme of independence, which, in practice, would have still meant subjugation by Pakistan. 

The petty-bourgeois leadership, when faced with the movement of the masses, will always betray when it begins to outgrow their narrow interests, when private property itself is under threat. In the words of Henry Joy McCracken, a leader in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, “The rich always betray the poor”.

Formation of the Mukti Bahini 

The invasion cut right through the burgeoning revolutionary upsurge. Many put their heads down and tried to keep their families safe or left the country completely. 

To rub salt into the wounds, the first Premier of China, Zhou Enlai, wrote to Yayha Khan on 13 April 1971 saying, “The Chinese government and people will, as always, firmly support the Pakistan government and people in their just struggle to safeguard state sovereignty and national independence.” They also helped supply West Pakistan with weapons and financial aid. 

This was a gut-wrenching betrayal to many who looked to Mao’s China as a source of inspiration. This left large swathes of youth disorientated and leaderless. 

But behind the scenes, a significant section of the junior officers and rank-and-file troops had become radicalised by the brutal violence being inflicted by the West Pakistani army upon their own people. 

One such officer was Abu Taher, who defected from the West Pakistani army and joined the resistance, becoming 11th sector commander. He would later play a significant role in the revolutionary events post-independence.

They fled to the countryside to form the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army) with the most hardened and self-sacrificing elements of the youth, and waged a guerilla war. 

Many women joined the Mukti Bahini in female units and fought courageously side by side with the men / Image: fair use

Many women joined the Mukti Bahini in female units and fought courageously side by side with the men.

Women also risked their lives as spies, transporting supplies, nursing the wounded and even converting their homes into makeshift hospitals. 

Women played an instrumental role in the revolution and War of Independence! 

Radical officers 

On 10 April 1971 a Bangladesh Government in Exile (Mujibnagar Government) was set up in Kolkata, West Bengal. 

They attracted a layer of state functionaries, intellectuals and military commanders. They co-ordinated the ‘official’ command of the Mukti Bahini with assistance from the Indian state. 

The ‘official’ command was formed from the Bengali military elite, supported by the Awami League government in exile who wanted to wage a conventional war with a regular officer command structure.

They did not have the numerical forces to strike a decisive blow against the West Pakistani Army so were heavily reliant on support from the Indian Army. 

The Indian state, while paying lip service to Bengali independence, had real material interests in intervening. 

They were afraid that the movement could easily spread to West Bengal and then to the whole of India. They wanted to control this movement, as it had the potential to go beyond the limits of the capitalist system in South Asia. 

However, they never wanted to occupy Bangladesh and annex it to India. This would likely have lead to the movement spreading further.

The best they hoped for was a Bangladeshi state, friendly to the Indian capitalists, that would form a key part of their regional strategy to weaken their arch-rivals. 

In fact, after the events of 1971, India had the option to impose a crushing defeat on Pakistan. But the Indian ruling class needed the bogey of an arch-rival defined by religious differences on their border in order to divert the internal struggles of the masses. This was fully in keeping with the original plan of British imperialism, which divided India on religious lines in 1947.

Opposing tendencies began to crystallise within the Mukti Bahini over the methods and tactics of the resistance. 

The Indian state, while paying lip service to Bengali independence, had real material interests in intervening / Image: Heinz Baumann, Wikimedia Commons

The main force of the ‘official’ command working with the Indian army was led by the retired Pakistan Army officer General M.A.G. Osmany. The operational command on Indian territory in Tripura was led by Khaled Musharraf, with the North brigade under the command of Ziaur Rahman, who would go on to play a counter-revolutionary role post-independence. 

On the other hand, were radical officers like Abu Taher who rejected support from India and wanted to transform the war into a revolutionary war of independence based upon village communes. 

This was the position of the extreme left wing of the nationalist movement, which later went on to form the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal party (National Socialist Party, or JSD), who consciously sent party cadres to the countryside and towns to win over peasants and youth to the Mukti Bahini. 

Taher was building enormous authority within the Mukti Bahini rank and file through his military ingenuity and political message. In mid-September he led a successful campaign in Chilmari which broke Pakistan's military control over North Bengal. 

He then set his sights on another key strategic conquest: the siege of Kamalpur on 24 October, which was finally conquered on 14 November – with Taher losing a leg in the process.

The next step in Taher’s strategy was to launch a final assault upon Dhaka with a revolutionary army of peasants and youth.

Alarm bells began to ring in the Bengali military high command, the Awami League government in exile, and the Indian ruling class.

The Indian ruling class understood that if Taher reached the city with 100,000 revolutionary fighters, they would appear as liberators in a similar fashion to the Cuban rebels and the Chinese Red Army. This would spell disaster for Indian capitalism, which was in the throes of an economic crisis of its own. There too, the ruling class was struggling to keep a lid on the class struggle, especially in West Bengal. 

An advancing revolutionary army would’ve sparked revolution across the subcontinent. This the Indian ruling class could not tolerate, which is why on 3 December 1971, India sent in 150,000 troops, which reached Dhaka before the Mukhti Bahini.

India stepped in and saved the situation for the ruling classes. In one stroke, they were able to stage-manage the end of the war: dissolving the village communes and disarming the left-wing guerrillas. Secondly, they saved the Pakistani Army from the wrath of the local population, who would have punished them for the horrific crimes they had committed during the war. The retribution of the masses would have sent a strong message to the ruling classes of all countries of the region. 

Instead, Indian and Pakistani generals were wining and dining together, laughingly remembering the ‘good old days’ when they served together in the British army as colleagues. Around 90,000 Pakistani army personnel and their families were brought to India as PoWs.

On 16 December, the Pakistani army surrendered and people descended upon the streets shouting Bengali slogans and raising the flag of independence. 

The Indian army was greeted in Dhaka with scenes of jubilation. The atrocities committed by Pakistan's Army and the unbearable war conditions meant that the masses would accept any means to stop the war, even if it meant invasion of a foreign army! 

Aftermath

In her book detailing a first hand account of the liberation war, Jahanara Imam sums up the post-war mood:

“The telephone and electrical lines have not yet been restored. Who will do it? The entire city is laughing and crying at the same time. People are happy because at last they are free but the price that had to be paid in blood was immense”. 

Thousands gave their lives for the struggle for independence. But what would independence look like, and on what basis would it take form? 

Mujib was installed as the prime minister of the newly independent Bangladesh by the Indian authorities, who hoped that he would run the economy in their interests. 

He still held authority in the eyes of the majority of the Bengali population, and could be relied upon by the Indian ruling class as a safe pair of hands to carry out their interests.

For Mujib, he’d got what he wanted. He promised to restore ‘law and order’ and to implement a ‘Westminster style democracy’.

Mujib was installed as the prime minister of the newly independent Bangladesh / Image: Bangladesh Air Force, Wikimedia Commons

However, independent Bangladesh had been plunged into a state of barbarism. The economy was completely paralysed. 

The country's infrastructure was ruined. Over 300 rail and 270 road bridges had been damaged, around 10 million people had evacuated, leaving factories and farms idle, and the land was devastated by floods and famine.

The peculiar nature of the war meant that, even though its end was largely stage-managed by the Indian army, the small handful of powerful West Pakistani landlords and capitalists were driven out by force, leaving large swathes of land and factories empty. 

The Bengali bourgeoisie were far too weak as a class to fill the gap left by them, and so the Awami League regime under Mujib was forced to nationalise 93 percent of industry, 80 percent of international trade, and all local commercial banks.

It was only on the basis of driving out the West Pakistani landlords and capitalists that formal independence was won. Had a revolutionary communist party existed, this could've been done by revolutionary, progressive means with minimal bloodshed. 

However, even the most ‘radical’ petty bourgeois democrats like Mujib proved that, by themselves, they were unwilling and incapable of doing this until they were left with no choice. They continually applied the brakes to the movement. 

Independence was won despite Mujib and the Awami League. 

Only through the active participation of the masses at every stage was the movement driven forward. They ran way ahead of their leaders and pushed through independence by sheer force of revolutionary will.

Instead, due to the cowardice and prevarication of Mujib and the Awami League, the driving out of the West Pakistani elite was completed through a protracted, bloody conflict which cost millions of lives. 

The JSD

Mujib returned to a different country to the one he’d left behind. The country had been decimated by war and famine.

Whilst the majority of industry was nationalised, the primary goal of Mujib and the ruling elite was to restore order and to nurture a native Bengali capitalist class. 

He ordered the Mukti Bahini to surrender their arms and then reinstated many old bureaucrats from the previous regime, 80 percent of whom had scandalously collaborated with the Pakistani regime!

In February 1972, in a purge of radical officers, Taher was removed from his military post.

Mujib could not rely on the military, as they were either collaborators with Pakistan or left-wing radicals. He therefore set up the Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini (JRB), or National Defence Force, a paramilitary force personally loyal to himself. 

The JRB committed many eye-watering atrocities. While they were officially set up to combat smuggling and black marketeers, the bulk of their work was taken up with crushing the left-wing organisations through the methods of violence, rape and torture. 

In April 1972, the far left wing of the nationalist movement and the Mukti Bahini finally split from the Awami League and formed a new party, the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) which was forced to operate clandestinely.

Their cadres mainly came from the radical student leaders during the revolutionary period at the end of the 1960s. The party's general secretary was A. S. M Abdur Rab, a prominent leader of the student action committee.

After their dismissal, Abu Taher and other radical officers joined the JSD, where they commanded the armed military wing of the party, the Biplopi Gono Bahini (Revolutionary People's Army).

Taher drew even more radical conclusions, even calling himself a Marxist. He was disgusted at the corruption of the military elites and the rehabilitation of war criminals, leading him to the conclusion that true independence for Bangladesh could only occur through a socialist transformation of society, ideas which he would later give his life for.

Post-independence economy

The Awami League was made up mainly of small and medium-sized land and business owners. These middle-class upstart bureaucrats were very ambitious individuals looking to become the native Bengali capitalist class. They used the state apparatus to amass considerable wealth.

There was an enormous amount of waste, corruption and nepotism in the nationalised industries. CEOs of large firms were simply brought back in to manage the state run industries. 

Most of the foreign aid received was pocketed by Awami League party tops. For example, the Dhaka president of the Awami League and chairman of the Red Crescent, Gazi Gulam Mustafa, set up a multi-million dollar black market operation. Rationing was introduced, meaning that state officials could make lots of money selling overpriced goods to desperate, starving people. 

Smuggling became a multi-million dollar business. The Awami League government offered ‘freedom fighter certificates’, which gained people favourable access to rations. These however were sold on the black market to the highest bidder. Even Pakistani collaborators (razakars) got their hands on some of these certificates. 

On top of the war ravaged economy, the worst floods in the country's history hit in 1974, leading to a famine that killed an estimated 1.5 million people. 

Between 1974-75 inflation was 51 percent. Rice prices sharply rose and the cost of living quadrupled, while wages only doubled.

The open corruption of the Awami League leadership disgusted the masses / Image: public domain

The open corruption of the Awami League leadership disgusted the masses, who were experiencing unimaginable suffering. Mujib went from being the hero of the nation to the country's most hated man. 

The regime was a regime of crisis from day one. Factional disputes erupted within the Awami League and the state apparatus.

Rapidly, resistance to the regime started to surface. In December 1973, the JSD organised a demonstration of 100,000 people and then, in January and February, organised two general strikes. Then in March, they organised a hunger march on the Home Minister's house. The police opened fire, killing 30 people in what became known as the Minto Road Massacre.

In December 1974, during Eid celebrations, a member of parliament was killed. The regime used this as an excuse to declare emergency rule. 

Political parties were banned, freedom of press and assembly were abolished, and parliament was dissolved into a coalition called the BAKSAL. 

This was a coalition of ‘pro-independence’ parties amalgamated into parliament. But essentially this parliament answered to Mujib and Mujib only. He had the ability to veto any legislation through parliament. 

A democratic, modern, bourgeois democracy was impossible. The contradictions within the new independent Bangladesh were too explosive to control.

Economic life and the rule of law barely existed. The aspiring native Bengali bourgeoisie were, at this point, far too weak of a class to stamp their authority on the country. They were completely terrified of the masses. Instead of allowing the working class a vote through democratic elections, they had to hide behind a strongman figure who would be entrusted with defending their interests.

The working class had been unable to take power in 1970-71 due to the cowardice of their leadership, leading to a temporary deadlock between the classes.

Mujib began to balance between the classes, concentrating more and more power in his hands. 

He attempted to pose the BAKSAL as a ‘second revolution’. This was no revolution but rather an attempt to rekindle his support base to strike blows against the increasingly powerful class of smugglers, black marketeers, rebellious army officers, and state bureaucrats. 

Incredibly, this coalition involved the Communist Party of Bangladesh led by Moni Singh, who dissolved the party into the BAKSAL and completely subordinated the party line to Mujib. 

However, Mujib’s support base among the middle classes no longer existed. They’d been completely ruined by war, famine and poverty. He was no longer their saviour.

Splits were occurring at the top, especially within the military. The pro-Pakistani, pro-US wing were becoming increasingly unhappy at the removal of their power and privileges. 

The writing was on the wall for Mujib. He was suspended in midair waiting to be plucked from power. On 15 August 1975, a group of disgruntled army officers with pro-Pakistani and US leanings broke into Mujib’s residency, killing him and his family. 

Khondaker Mostaq Ahmed filled the role of president. However, he inspired little confidence from anybody. 

These bureaucrats and army officers had mainly been razakars during the War of Independence and so were completely despised by the masses.

With almost zero support amongst the population, he was soon replaced by Brigadier Khaled Musharraff who was put in power in a counter-coup on 3 November. This was led by a small section of the Awami League and officer corps who had been loyal to Mujib and aligned with India.

Again, these people had no support among the population or within the rank and file of the military – being the continuity candidate of famine and corruption did not bring popular appeal.

There were deep divisions among the ruling clique about how to stabilise the situation. 

Ultimately, the splits at the top of society left a gap for the masses to intervene. 

There was fear of civil war between factions. Mujib’s supporting officers were murdered in prison and the situation looked to be spiralling out of control. 

Ziaur Rahman, an ambitious officer, was removed as army chief of the general staff and arrested by the coup plotters. 

Ziaur Rahman, an ambitious officer, was removed as army chief of the general staff and arrested by the coup plotters / Image: Croes, Wikimedia Commons

Due to the lack of any clear political alternative, the masses found their expression in the JSD party.

By the time of the coups, the JSD had built a sizable base within the youth, peasantry and sections of the working class. 

With deep splits at the top, they saw an opportunity to intervene and take power. On 7 November 1975, they surrounded Musharraf and his men and rescued general Zia from prison. They then called on the working class, peasants and youth to demonstrate in the streets.

The insurrection was mainly driven by officers who had been radicalised by the revolutionary movement and the War of Independence. They had set up an organisation called Biplobi Shainik Sangstha (Revolutionary Soldiers’ Organisation). Taher even said that: “our revolution is not simply to change one leadership for another. This revolution is for one purpose – the interest of the oppressed classes”. 

The organising of an insurrection was entirely correct. The splits at the top had left an enormous power vacuum that had to be filled. 

Had they not, civil war or a military dictatorship would’ve been inevitable. 

At this point, the entire state apparatus was paralysed. Power lay on a platter for the JSD who stood at the head of the masses.

Unfortunately, the JSD, while calling themselves Marxists, were a mixed bag when it came to their programme, which was eclectic. 

Instead of an independent class programme of expropriations and workers’ democracy, they called for a government of so-called ‘progressive forces’ sympathetic to national independence.

They drew the conclusion that the working class did not yet possess the consciousness required to run society for themselves, so power should be handed to a ‘neutral actor.’

Zia was placed into power. Within a week he arrested all the leaders of the JSD including Taher, who was executed months later on 21 July 1976. 

The JSD leadership thought that Zia “could be utilise[d] for the cause of working people’s politics.” (Political and Organisational Report: 7 November and Subsequent Events, 4th issue, 23 February 1976, p. 14) This was clearly not the case. In actual fact, Zia had been biding his time behind the scenes, waiting to see which way the wind would blow and for an opportune moment to strike. 

Class-collaboration always ends in ruin. The working class can only ever have faith in its own strength. 

With no class in society able to assert its dominance, there was only one possible outcome: a ruthless Bonapartist dictatorship to crush the revolutionary workers, youth and peasants. 

The insurrection was drowned in blood. This was the final nail in the coffin which put an end to the period of storm and stress. The JSD were incapable of correctly re-orientating and realising their fatal mistake. This marked the beginning of their degeneration. 

Today, the JSD are a shadow of their former selves. They have abandoned any semblance of a revolutionary class policy and have simply tail ended Sheikh Hasina’s despotic Awami League regime in the name of stopping the ‘greater evil’ of the BNP.

Zia and the party he created, the BNP, ruled the country with an iron fist, privatising the state owned assets, aligning with US imperialism, and emboldening right-wing Islamic fundamentalists. 

The counter-revolution was firmly back in the driving seat. 

Retying the knot of history

The national question was formally solved for the Bengalis in former East Pakistan. However, today, Bangladesh is one of the poorest nations in the world. It is completely dominated by foreign multinationals which, in collaboration with the corrupt state, enforce dystopian working conditions.

For the last 53 years, the Bangladeshi people have had the choice between two corrupt sets of gangsters to rule over them: the BNP or Awami League. 

As James Connolly once remarked: 

“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”

If you replace the names of the countries and colours of the flags involved, you get a prophetic description of the course of events in Bangladesh.

Today, the Bangladeshi revolution remains unfinished. As these lines are being written, however, a new chapter is opening under far more favourable conditions. 

The working class in Bangladesh, the diaspora across the world, and the students in particular are rediscovering their rich revolutionary heritage / Image: Munbir Tanaha, Wikimedia Commons

The industrialisation following Bangladesh’s independence has forged an extremely powerful working class numbering 73.69 million people. This is more than the entire population of East Pakistan in 1970! The class balance of forces have drastically shifted in the favour of the working class.

This week, the heroic students movement and the heavy battalions of the working class overthrew Hasina’s murderous regime. 

Hasina’s 16-year reign of terror has met the same fate as Ayub Khan’s – it has ended in a popular revolution of students and working people. The students valiantly led the way. But it was only when the mass of workers, and especially the powerful garment workers, began to move, that the regime collapsed like a house of cards. 

The working class in Bangladesh, the diaspora across the world, and the students in particular are rediscovering their rich revolutionary heritage. 

The knot of history is being retied. But to achieve victory, the Bangladeshi masses must learn from the mistakes of the past and pick up where the last revolution left off. The history of the Bangladeshi revolution shows that unless the rule of capital is broken, real democracy and national liberation will remain a far-off aspiration.

Today, the dictator Hasina is gone. But there are dangers. The revolution is incomplete. At the time of writing, a new government is being formed. The liberals will strive to reconstruct the legitimacy of the capitalist state behind this government. In turn, the generals, senior officers, police chiefs and judges will lurk behind it, waiting for the appropriate movement to strike a counter-blow against the revolution.

As communists we sound a warning: the revolution will remain incomplete until the old capitalist state is smashed entirely! The workers, students and the oppressed masses must take power into their own hands. The committees of workers and students must spread, link up and seize power!

In the 1970s, the class collaboration of the official leaders of the independence movement led the movement into a dead end. The military generals bided their time behind the scenes and struck a decisive blow to end the mass movement.

To ensure that this outcome does not have a chance to repeat itself, the most revolutionary wing of the students must begin the formation of a revolutionary communist party, around a clear Marxist programme. Such a party must strive to fuse with the vanguard of the Bangladeshi working class and place the seizure of power by the workers and the smashing of capitalist rule on the order of the day. We call upon Bangladeshi revolutionaries reading this who agree with our analysis to join us – to join the Revolutionary Communist International – in beginning this historic task.