Manabendra Nath Roy (formerly known as Narendra Nath Bhattacharya) was born on March 21, 1887, and passed away on January 25, 1954. He is one of the most path – breaking revolutionary figures of the 20th century whose impact is often overlooked.
Among his accomplishments are the founding of the Communist Party of Mexico (it was the first communist party outside Russia) and the Communist Party of India (Tashkent group).
He rose to the top of the Communist international (‘Comintern’), debating the colonial question with Vladimir Lenin.
Disillusioned with Stalinism, he later returned to India, where he pioneered the philosophy of Radical Humanism.
Early Life and Revolutionary Beginnings in India (1887–1915)
Narendra Nath Bhattacharya was born in a Brahmin family in the village of Arbelia, which is situated in the 24 Parganas district of Bengal. He was a school headmaster.
He joined revolutionary underground as a teenager. During the Swadeshi movement against the Bengal partition (1905–07). Later he joined the Jugantar Group, which advocated a more militant form of revolution.
Roy participated in many daring acts including an attempt to smuggle arms and make bombs. He was mandated to secure German arms for an uprising in India in 1915 in what was known as the Hindu German conspiracy during the First World War. The “fifteen years fugitive of British India in disguise began the fifteen years odyssey which changed Roy from a Bengali militant to a world communist leader.
Exile, Transformation, and the Founding of the Communist Party of Mexico (1916–1919)
Roy first reached the United States in 1916 via Japan and China, where he adopted the name Manabendra Nath Roy to evade British agents. Facing arrest in New York, he fled to Mexico in 1917 with his American wife, Evelyn Trent.
In Mexico City, Roy immersed himself in the Mexican Revolution. He initially supported President Venustiano Carranza’s anti-American stance. In December 1917, he helped reorganise the small Socialist Party and, after the Bolshevik Revolution inspired him, pushed for its transformation into a communist organisation.
In 1919, with the help of Mikhail Borodin (a Bolshevik emissary who stayed with the Roys), Roy formally founded the Partido Comunista Mexicano (PCM) – the Communist Party of Mexico. This was the first-ever communism political party formed outside the Soviet Russia.
Roy served as its first general secretary and used German funds (originally meant for Indian revolution) to support the party’s newspaper and activities.
Arrival in Soviet Russia and Meetings with Lenin (1920)
In late 1919, Lenin invited Roy who was a delegate of the Mexican Communist party to the Second Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. Roy and Evelyn arrived in Moscow in May–June 1920.
Roy had several private meetings with Lenin. The two leaders discussed the strategy for revolution in colonial countries. Lenin’s original draft theses emphasised supporting bourgeois-nationalist movements in the colonies as a stepping stone to socialism. Roy strongly disagreed.
The Historic Debate: Roy’s Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question
At the Second Comintern Congress (July–August 1920), Roy presented his Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question. In them, he argued:
- In colonial countries like India, the bourgeoisie was too weak and too tied up with the system to really lead a true anti-imperialist revolution.
- The working class and peasantry must lead the struggle directly.
- Communists should form independent proletarian parties rather than blindly following nationalist leaders like Gandhi.
- The fate of the world revolution would be decided in Asia, not just Europe.
Lenin initially resisted but, after intense debate in the commission, accepted many of Roy’s points. The final Comintern theses incorporated elements of both Lenin’s and Roy’s drafts. Roy’s intervention marked the first major theoretical contribution by a non-European to Comintern policy and established him as a leading voice on colonial affairs.
Founding the Communist Party of India and Global Role
While in Moscow, Roy was tasked by Lenin with preparing the Indian revolution. In October 1920, in Tashkent, which was part of Soviet Turkestan at the time, Roy started the Communist Party of India (the Tashkent group) with a few Indian revolutionaries, like Abani Mukherji and Mohammad Shafiq. This was the first organised communist formation for India.
Roy rose rapidly in the Comintern hierarchy. He served on the Executive Committee, edited journals for the East, and was sent on missions to China (1927). While in China, he participated with Borodin in the failed revolution. He remained a Comintern top leader until 1929, when he was expelled for opposing Stalin’s ultra-left line.
Later Life: Return to India and Radical Humanism (1930–1954)
Roy returned secretly to India in 1930 under the alias “Dr Mahmud”. He was arrested in 1931, put on trial for the Kanpur Conspiracy Case, and sentenced to 12 years in prison, though the sentence was later shortened.He joined the Indian National Congress in 1936 but left soon after because he didn’t agree with Gandhi and Nehru’s decision to support Britain during World War II.
Roy then formed the Radical Democratic Party (1940) and later Radical Humanist Movement (1948), both of which he strongly disapproved of communism and nationalism. He dismissed materialism and dictatorship of proletariat in Marxism and proposed a philosophy based on reason, individual freedom, and secular humanism.
Roy suffered cerebral thrombosis in 1952 and died of a heart attack on 25 January 1954 in Dehradun at age sixty-six.
M.N. Roy was an internationalist to the core. M.N. Roy was a true internationalist, having founded two communist parties on two different continents, influencing Comintern colonial policy directly in debates with Lenin, and then becoming one of the left’s earliest and deepest critics of Stalinism. His transformation from an armed revolutionary to a radical humanist continues to inspire those who believe in reason, freedom and anti-authoritarianism.
“Today Roy is remembered in Mexico (where a famous night club in Mexico City is named for him), in Russia as a pioneer of the Comintern and in India as one of the most original thinkers of the independence movement.” His life continues to serve as a reminder that the struggle for human emancipation is a borderless struggle.
