The Popular Front and the Global Circulation of Marxism through Calcutta, 1920s-1970s

“Prasanta Dhar’s book is a pioneering contribution examining  the global circulation of Marxism and its link to Indian Marxisms and thinking over more than fifty years. Dhar’s book seamlessly stitches the global with the local. A unique feature of the book is its illuminating characterization of the difference between the Marxians and the Marxists in Calcutta. The former were closet or academic Marxists who may or may not have been directly involved in realpolitik, whereas the latter were. Finally, this is the first exploration of how Calcutta Marxisms circulated throughout the world , generating debate on modes of production, and giving rise to the school of Subaltern Studies.”

—Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Emeritus Professor Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata

This book examines the global circulation of Marxism seen from one of its most highly charged sites: Calcutta, India. Building on but also revising approaches to global intellectual history, the book presents the circulation through Calcutta as a historically sited problem of mass mediation. Using tools from media studies, the book explores the publics, the technologies and the meanings of Marxism in Calcutta. Demonstrating how the Popular Front was split between the so-called 'people's group' and those whom were called 'intellectuals', the book argues that the people's group generally identified themselves as Marxists and preferred audio-visual media, while the so-called intellectuals privileged academic rigour and print media, usually referring to themselves as Marxians. Thus, the author reveals a polyphony of Marxisms amongst the Popular Front. Tracing Marxism back to the Bengal Renaissance and the Swadeshi and Naxal movements, this book shows how debate around the meaning of 'Marxism' continued throughout the 1970s in Calcutta, and helped to engender the historiographical movement that has come to be known as Subaltern Studies. 

Prasanta Dhar is a historian of South Asia and has taught at the University of Toronto in Canada.