ABSTRACT
The early support of the communists within West Bengal was among the unionized working class. The peasantry within West Bengal has also over the years proven to be more susceptible to radicalism and communist appeals than in other parts of India. The role of Moscow-returned Bengali communists was quite significant in this process. Foreign-returned communists had all the necessary ingredients to facilitate ideological conversion: intellectual sophistication; commitment to anti-imperialism; the blessings of the greatest revolutionary leaders, the Bolsheviks; and most of all, readiness to court danger and risk their lives for a higher social good. Individuals as Pramode Das Gupta, Hare Krishna Konar and Binoy Chowdhury are all old terrorist revolutionaries who converted to communism and then devoted their lives to building the communist movement in Bengal. The very factors which undermined Congress' support, moreover, worked in favor of the communists.
