INTRODUCTION
To the Author

M.N. Roy was in many ways a unique person. He distin-
guished himself both as a man of action and as a man of
thought. As a man of action, he was a devoted and dedicated
revolutionary. As a man of thought, he developed into a pro-
found and original social philosopher. He passed through three
phases of political life. He started as an ardent nationalist,
became an equally ardent Communist and ended as a creatively
active Radical Humanist. He built up and propounded the
philosophy of Radical Humanism which may well become one
of the most relevant philosophies of the future.

M.N. Roy was born on 21st March, 1887 in Brahmin family
in a village in West Bengal. His original name was Narendra-
nath Bhattacharya. He started taking part in underground
revolutionary activity from the age of 14. He was involved in
a number of political offences andjconspiracy cases. Under the
leadership of Jatin Mukherjee, he and his colleagues had pre-
pared a plan for an armed insurrection for the overthrow of
British rule. When the first World War commenced, a promise
was secured from certain German agents for the supply of
arms to Indian revolutionaries. InJ1915, Roy went to Java in
search of arms from the Germans. That plan having failed, he
went a second time to Java for the same purpose. Thereafter
he moved from country to country in pursuance of his scheme
to secure German arms. Travelling under different names and
with faked passports, he went from Java to Japan, From Japan
to China, from China back to Japan, and reached San
Francisco in June, 1916. Soon thereafter the United States
joined the World War, and Roy and some other Indians were
charged in a conspiracy case instituted in San Franscisco, Roy
evaded the American police and managed to go to Mexico. By
that time he had studied the basic books on socialism and