Rajani Palme Dutt (19 June 1896 – 20 December 1974) was a British political figure, journalist and theoretician who served as the fourth general secretary of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

from October 1939 to June 1941. His classic book ''India Today'' heralded the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

approach in Indian historiography.

Early life

Rajani Palme Dutt was born in 1896 on Mill Road in

Cambridge, England Cambridge ( ) is a city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of ...

. His father, Dr. Upendra Dutt, was an

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

, his mother Anna Palme was

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

. Dr. Upendra Dutt belonged to the family of

Romesh Chunder Dutt Romesh Chunder Dutt (; 13 August 1848 – 30 November 1909) was an Indian civil servant, economic history, economic historian, translator of ''Ramayana'' and ''Mahabharata''. He was one of the prominent proponents of Indian economic nationalis ...

. Anna Palme was a great aunt of the future Prime Minister of Sweden

Olof Palme Sven Olof Joachim Palme (; ; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until as ...

. Rajani's sister was the statistician Elna Palme Dutt, who went on to become an official of the International Labour Organization in Geneva. He, along with his older brother Clemens Palme Dutt, was a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Dutt was educated at

the Perse School The Perse School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private school (English Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging Day school, day and, in the case of the Perse, a former boarding school) in Cambridge, England. Founded i ...

, Cambridge and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

where he obtained a

first-class degree The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant var ...

in Classics, after being suspended for a time because of his activities as a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, during which his writing was deemed subversive propaganda.Colin Holmes "Rajani Palme Dutt", in A. Thomas Lane (ed.), ''Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders'', Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995; vol. 2, p.284 Dutt married an

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

, Salme Murrik, the sister of Finnish writer

Hella Wuolijoki Hella Wuolijoki (née Ella Marie Murrik; 22 July 1886Hella Wuolijoki biography
, e ...

, in 1922. His wife had come to Great Britain in 1920 as a representative of the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

Political career

Dutt made his first connections with the Socialist Movement in England during his school days, before the outbreak of the First World War. He was expelled from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in October 1917 for organising a socialist meeting. He joined the British Labour Movement as a full time worker in 1919, when he joined the

Labour Research Department The Labour Research Department (LRD) is an independent trade union based research organisation, based in London, that provides information to support trade union activity and campaigns. About 2,000 trade union organisations, including 51 national ...

, a left-wing statistical bureau. Together with

Harry Pollitt Harry Pollitt (22 November 1890 – 27 June 1960) was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from July 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt ...

he was one of the founder members of the

(CPGB) in 1920. In 1921 he founded a monthly magazine called ''

Labour Monthly ''Labour Monthly'' was a magazine associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was not technically published by the Party, and, particularly in its later period, it carried articles by left-wing trade unionists from outside the Party. I ...

,'' a publication that he edited until his death, and also visited India. In 1922, Dutt was named the editor of the party's weekly newspaper, the '' Workers' Weekly.'' Dutt was on the executive committee of the CPGB from 1923 to 1965 and was the party's chief theorist for many years. Dutt first visited the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1923, where he attended deliberations of the

Executive Committee of the Communist International The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ - for ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI, established by the Fo ...

(ECCI) relating to the British movement. He was elected an alternate to the ECCI Presidium in 1924. Following an illness in 1925 which forced him to stand down as editor of ''Workers' Weekly,'' Dutt spent several years in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

as a representative of the Comintern. He also played an important role for the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

by supervising the

Communist Party of India The Communist Party of India (CPI) is a political party in India. The CPI considers the Foundation of the Communist Party of India, December 26, 1925 Cawnpore (Kanpur) conference as its foundation date. Between 1946 and 1951, the CPI led m ...

for some years. Palme Dutt was loyal to the

and to the Stalinist line. In 1939, when the CPGB General Secretary

supported the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

entering

, Palme Dutt promoted

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's line and forced Pollitt's temporary resignation. As a result, he became the party's General Secretary until Pollitt was reappointed in 1941, after the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a ...

cause a reversal in the party's attitude on the war. His book ''Fascism and Social Revolution'' presents a scathing criticism and analysis of

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

, with a study of the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and other countries. He defined fascism as a movement, that historically developed without any guiding theory - a movement that substitutes for its theory "a ragbag of borrowings from every source to cover the realities and practice of modern monopolist capitalism in the period of crisis and of extreme class-war." Dutt fiercely criticizes engaging with fascist "theory" and ideology on its face value and finds causes of fascism in the reality of world economic crisis of 1914 and 1929. According to Dutt, capitalist crisis created a situation, where capitalism could no longer justify itself on rational grounds and the irrationality of fascism was a consciously used tool to direct people into a movement popular in form, but anti-popular in content that serves to destroy the working class revolution and chain the workers to the capitalist state while claiming to be "anticapitalist". In Dutt's analysis, fascism, like liberal democracy or social-democracy is just another form of bourgeois dictatorship, a tool of the bourgeoisie that is used when capitalist crisis is extremely severe and all other methods of gathering working-class support for capitalism have failed. In the book Dutt also directs a lot of attention towards post-war social-democracy, which he blames for betraying the workers' revolution and directly helping the advance of fascism by disorganising the working class from the inside and preventing any militant action: "Fascism operates primarily by coercion alongside of deception; Social Democracy operates primarily by deception, alongside of coercion." After Stalin's death, Palme Dutt's reaction to

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

Secret Speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" () was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 Februa ...

played down its significance, with Dutt arguing that Stalin's "sun" unsurprisingly contained some "spots". A hardliner in the party, he disagreed with its criticisms of the

Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia On 20–21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four fellow Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and the Hungarian People's Republic. The in ...

in 1968 and opposed its increasingly

Eurocommunist Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties, which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more relevant for Western Europe. During the Cold War, they sough ...

line in the 1970s. He retired from his party positions but remained a member until his death in 1974. According to the historian Geoff Andrews, the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

was still paying the CPGB around £15,000 a year "for pensions" into the 1970s, recipients of which "included Rajani Palme Dutt". The Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the

People's History Museum The People's History Museum (the National Museum of Labour History until 2001) in Manchester, England, is the United Kingdom's national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of wor ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

has Palme Dutt's papers in its collection, spanning from 1908 to 1971.

India visit

Rajani Palme Dutt Portrait at Peoples Publishing House

In 1946 the British Indian Government permitted RPD to visit his father's country for the first time since 1921, this time as a special correspondent for the

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in Chicago founded by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists. Publication began in 1924. It generally reflected the prevailing views of members of the Communist Party USA (CPU ...

. The visit lasted four months, during which he spoke at several rallies in different cities of India, all organised by the

. During this time he also interacted with many of that Party's workers, along with senior leaders including PC Joshi. During this visit he also met several important leaders of India including

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a pr ...

Vallabhbhai Patel Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel (; ''Vallabhbhāī Jhāverbhāī Paṭel''; 31 October 1875 – 15 December 1950), commonly known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was an Indian independence activist and statesman who served as the first Deputy Prime ...

Mohammad Ali Jinnah Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, ...

and

Stafford Cripps Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, Cripps first entered Parliament at a 1931 Bristol East by-election ...

. He was also invited by newly-built

All India Radio All India Radio (AIR), also known as Akashvani (), is India's state-owned public broadcasting, public radio broadcaster. Founded in 1936, it operates under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Information and Broa ...

for a broadcast. His visit had such a profound effect upon Indian Communists that when they established the headquarters of their “ People’s Publishing House (PPH)” in Jhandewalan, Delhi, between 1956 and 1958 they named the building the “R. Palme Dutt Bhawan” (Bhawan meaning Building) after RPD. On that building's second floor stairwell hung a portrait of RPD taken during his 1946 visit to India, remaining there until very recently and now possibly hanging in the Party's headquarters at Ajoy Bhawan.

Works

*1920: The Sabotage of Europe *1920
The Two Internationals
*1921: Back to Plotinus, Review of Shaw's ''Back to Methusela: A Metaphysical Pentateuch'' *1921: Psycho-Analysing the Bolshevik, Review of Kolnai's ''Psycho-analysis and Sociology'' *1922: The End of Gandhi *1923: The British Empire *1923: The Issue in Europe *1925: Empire Socialism (pamphlet) *1926: The Meaning of the General Strike (pamphlet) *1926: Trotsky and His English Critics *1928: Indian Awakening *1931: India *1931

*1933: Democracy and Fascism (pamphlet) *1933: A Note on the Falsification of Engels' Preface to "Marx’s 'Class Struggles in France" *1934
Fascism and Social Revolution
*1935: The Question of Fascism and Capitalist Decay *1935: British Policy and Nazi Germany *1935: The British-German Alliance in the Open *1935: For a united Communist Party : an appeal to I.L.P'ers and to all revolutionary workers *1936: In Memory of

Shapurji Saklatvala Shapurji Dorabji Saklatvala (28 March 1874 – 16 January 1936) was a communist militant and British politician of Indian Parsi heritage. He was the first person of Indian heritage to become a British Member of Parliament (MP) for the Labour P ...

*1936: Anti-Imperialist People's Front in India, ''written with Ben Bradley'' *1936: Left Nationalism in India *1938: On the Eve of the Indian National Congress, ''with Harry Pollitt and Ben Bradley'' *1938: Review of Marx & Engels on the U.S. Civil War *1939
Why this War? (pamphlet)
ref> *1940: Twentieth Anniversary of the Communist Party of Great Britain *1940
India Today
*1947: Declaration on Palestine, at the Empire Communist Parties Conference, London on 26 February to 3 March 1947 *1949: Introductory Report on Election Programme *1953: Stalin and the Future *1953: The crisis of Britain and the British Empire
new and revised edition 1957
*1955
India Today and Tomorrow
*1963: Problems of Contemporary History *1964
The Internationale
*1967
Whither China?

Footnotes

External links

''Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the Economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay''
(1934)
''The Internationale''
(1964)

Marxists Internet Archive

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dutt, Rajani Palme Communist Party of Great Britain members Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom Anti-revisionists British Comintern people English conscientious objectors English people of Indian descent English people of Swedish descent Indian people of Scottish descent Indian people of Swedish descent People educated at The Perse School Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford 1896 births 1974 deaths Palme family People from Cambridge British expatriates in the Soviet Union English people of Bengali descent