CADRE CONVENTION

All India Cadre Convention at Bhuvaneshwar

Commemorating 30th Anniversary of Party Reorganisation, an All India Cadre Convention was held at Nagbhushan Bhawan, Bhuvaneshwar on 28 and 29 July 2004 . Participants in the Convention included more than 250 comrades including members of the Party's Central Committee, State Committees and State Leading Teams. At this occasion the Party General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya presented a keynote address on behalf of the Central Committee under the title “The New Situation and Our Urgent Tasks”. The text of the keynote address is being reproduced here. A lively discussion followed, in which several representatives from all the States/UTs took part. Earlier, a 7 member presidium comprising Comrades Ram Naresh Ram, Kartik Pal, Kshitish Biswal, Kumudini Pati, N. Murthy, Jayanta Rongpi and Saroj Chaube conducted the proceedings, assisted by a minutes taking team. The Conference was inaugurated by senior Polit Bureau member Comrade Swadesh Bhattacharya (also reproduced here in a slightly abridged version).

The New Situation and our Urgent Tasks

(Key-note address presented in the Bhuvaneshwar Convention by Party General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya)

Comrades,

We are meeting here at a significant point in the history of our Party. This is also a significant juncture of our national political life. In this paper we would discuss certain key aspects of the new situation that has arisen primarily in the wake of the recent general elections, and we would discuss some of our urgent tasks in terms of the movement and also in terms of the Party's ability to lead the movement and produce better results.

The defeat of the BJP in the recent elections marks not only a partial setback for the Sangh Parivar, it also signifies a more basic challenge to the very process of rightward shift that prevailed all through the 1980s and 1990s.

The collapse of the Soviet Union had set the stage for a massive rise of US imperialism as the only superpower of the world which in turn propelled a global political shift to the right accompanied by the economic offensive of imeperialist globalisation. In India this took the form of disintegration of the Nehruvian economic and political model and the BJP exploited this vacuum to the hilt to record a spectacular growth from just 2 MPs in 1984 to 182 MPs in 1998 and 1999 elections.

In early 1990s VP Singh unleashed the Mandal wave and the Congress took the lead to introduce the new economic policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. But for all through the 1990s it was pimarily the BJP which had the upper hand in national politics. The BJP even succeeded in turning the coalition table on the Congress and the protagonists of the National Front and United Front experiments to form two successive governments.

The defeat of the BJP, especially its relegation to the number two position, has now resulted in a temporary loss of initiative for the party. While its old agenda has lost much of its edge, its attempt to win an election on the plank of stability, governance and leadership has failed quite miserably. From Ayodhya to Ahmedabad, it has sufficiently exposed its fascist design and with basic issues of livelihood, economic development and people's welfare returning to the political foreground, the BJP lost its magic plank of communal mobilisation. But we must never underestimate the BJP's ability to stage a comeback. The underlying socio-economic and ideological-political reasons that led to the consolidation of the BJP as the most rabidly rightwing pole in Indian politics are all very much there.

While a clearer popular comprehension of the BJP's fascist threat has certainly contributed to a greater awakening among democratic forces, the key to the ongoing political churning, it must be emphasised, lies in the agrarian crisis that clouds much of the national economy. Indian ruling classes' strategy of adapting capitalist development of agriculture to persistent feudal remnants and semi-feudal relations of production is leading to recurrent crises in agriculture. And in a predominantly agrarian society like ours, an agrarian crisis is bound to produce serious political convulsions.

Looking back in history, the historic decline of the Congress in the latter half of 1960s had also begun in a situation of acute agrarian crisis. The ruling classes then embarked on the strategy of green revolution to make Indian agriculture self-sufficient in the production of foodgrains. Today we are once again haunted by the spectre of food insecurity. Almost every state has its own pockets of starvation death and chronic malnutrition even as the godowns are bursting on the seams. Many of yesterday's beneficiaries of green revolution are today reeling under mounting debt burden, periodic crop failures and chronic lack of market. The areas of capital-intensive agriculture are today better known as suicide belts.

The ruling classes' answer to the present crisis is the plan of a second green revolution under the dispensation of WTO. This will mean greater penetration of corporate capital (corporatisation of agriculture and contract farming) and closer integration of India 's agricultural economy with the international market which in turn will heavily increase the vulnerability of large sections of India 's agricultural population, including sections of well-to-do farmers. Differentiation of the peasantry will grow apace and more peasants will join the ranks of agricultural labourers.

In terms of immediate slogans, the new government has been quick to replace the battered NDA myths of feel-good and India shining with two new and attractive mantras: new deal for rural India and reforms with a human face. Budget 2004 has already outlined the contours of the so-called new deal for rural India proposed by the new government. There is no immediate relief for the rural poor or for the crisis-ridden farmers reeling under a mounting debt burden. There are of course lucrative concessions for kulaks and the agro-business lobby. Attempts to impose such a kulak-oriented corporate solution can however only aggravate the malady. Naturally there can be no immediate prospect of any abatement of the agaraian unrest.

Apart from the well known tools of repression, the government will of course try to defuse and contain the anger of the rural poor and middle sections of the rural society by promoting micro-credit and self-help schemes, creating illusion of growth and employment through contract farming and agro-business and chanting the mantra of decentralisation of power through panchayati raj institutions so that the anger of the people is not easily translated into determined and collective political action against the ruling classes.

While welcoming the defeat of the BJP-led NDA government and acknowledging the great democratic potential of what is popularly described as Mandate 2004, we therefore focus on two key aspects, viz., a general democratic awakening against fascist subversion and imperialist domination and the political impact of a growing agrarian unrest and working class struggles. If the former aspect has been directed specifically against the BJP and the NDA, in Congress-ruled states the Congress too has had to suffer heavy losses because of the agrarian unrest.

Of course for varying reasons, there is an unevenness in the development of the agrarian crisis and consequently in the intensity of agrarian unrest, the intensity being less acute in the eastern states of West Bengal , Bihar and Orissa. Also, we have to take into account various other relevant factors. For example, in Bihar agrarian crisis tends to be viewed as part of the larger problem of regional backwardness and socio-economic anarchy. In West Bengal , the CPI(M)'s elaborate mechanism of hegemony and cross-class mediation still holds.

If agrarian crisis and the resultant unrest shows no sign of abating, the democratic opinion that has played a vocal role in dislodging the NDA government is bound to get disillusioned with the UPA government's acts of betrayal sooner rather than later. The task of revolutionary communists is to accelerate and orientate this process so as to broaden and deepen the base of the Left and democratic movement, expand the Left's influence and enhance its capacity to intervene in national politics.

This revolutionary communist approach stands in dialectical negation of the social democratic or opportunist Left line which even without formally joining the government views itself as an integral part of the new dispensation. There was a strong opinion within the opportunist Left in favour of participation in the central government as a coalition partner of the Congress. The other opinion has prevailed numerically but it did not have the courage to programmatically argue and justify its case. The result has been a pragmatic centrist compromise with the CPI(M) accepting the Speaker's post and behaving like indirect participants in the government. Their leaders and ideologues are busy spreading all kinds of illusion about the UPA government and its Common Minimum Programme.

While Chidambaram himself certified the CMP as a bold declaration on reforms that would give him enough room to creatively pursue the reform agenda, the CPI(M) chose to softpedal the neo-liberal framework and content of the CMP, treating it almost as a minimum programme aimed at poverty alleviation and employment generation for the toiling people. CPI(M) General Secretary Comrade HKS Surjeet stated quite categorically, “we have no doubt whatsoever about the regime's sincerity regarding implementation of the common minimum programme. Yet there is no denying that vested interests of all hues, including those in the media, have already become active to foil the implementation of the document, if they can.” ( People's Democracy , June 20, 2004 ). In other words there is nothing wrong with either the programme or the government, the only task of the Left is to guard the government and the programme against external pressure from amorphous vested interests. Whatever happened to the fundamental Marxist teaching about the state and the government in a bourgeois society?

The practical formulation of the CPI(M)'s tactical line vis-à-vis the new dispensation is provided by Sitaram Yechury who says the CPI(M) would play the role of a watchdog as opposed to a lapdog. He recently went on to assert that the watchdog was capable of not merely barking but also biting and biting really hard if it was so needed. The next moment we saw CPI(M) leaders rushing to the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister and telling the media at every possible opportunity that the government would not be allowed to fall under any circumstances and that the issues would be sorted out amicably. When the watchdog barks, the owner is bound to pay heed, quipped Yechury. The CPI(M) and its Left allies have already suggested a panel of Left leaders to ensure better functional coordination with the UPA government. All the barking and biting is thus going to end in closer cohesion between the government and its non-participating wing.

It is interesting to note the points on which the CPI(M) has chosen to bark. The basic points raised by none other than the eminent Marxist economist and CPI(M) intellectual Professor Prabhat Patnaik about the budget's refusal to address the agrarian crisis and rural poverty and unemployment are not the central concern of the party. One of course can never expect the CPI(M) to raise any question about the unprecedented increase in defence outlay. The CPI(M)'s practical critique has got nothing to do with the allocations made in the budget, it only questions the use of the budget by the government to announce a hike in FDI caps in certain sectors. The NDA had criticised the CMP primarily on the ground that it was unimplementable because the government would not be able to harness the resources necessary for the lofty promises made in the CMP. The President's address then linked the implementation of the CMP to the availability of resources, and now by keeping quiet on the essential question of allocation of resources, the CPI(M) is essentially colluding with the UPA government in giving a silent burial to its loud promises.

As opposed to this wishful and selective approach of the opportunist Left, we must expose the strategic continuity between the UPA's CMP and the NDA government's policies, not just in the realm of the economy but also in external and home affairs. We must understand that the new government's proposed emphasis on agriculture is very much in line with the latest thinking of the World Bank. Applying certain correctives from time to time is an essential feature of the bourgeois art of crisis-management and policy implementation. Instead of discovering any fundamental contradiction between the central thrust of the CMP and the neo-liberal agenda as the ideologues and intellectuals of the opportunist Left are so fond of doing, we must understand and expose the fact that continuing and even accelerating the reforms is the central thrust of the CMP.

While the opportunist Left will remain content by merely expressing certain reservations on questions of detail while endorsing the central thrust of the UPA's policies and extending essentially uncritical support to the government in the name of preventing a comeback by the BJP, we must challenge the new government precisely on the central thrust of its policies.

With the BJP being pushed into a tight corner, the national political situation is undoubtedly favourable for a major reassertion of the Left and democratic forces. The fact that the opportunist Left has secured its highest ever strength in Parliament – it is the third largest bloc after the Congress and the BJP or for that matter after the UPA and the NDA – and that the future of the present government depends on its support has provided the Left with a major tactical advantage. But given its bankrupt watchdog line and its inability to take any bold step towards unleashing any major mass movement, the opportunist Left can never do justice to the favourable potential in the present situation for setting a Leftward direction for national politics.

As the party of proletarian vanguards, as the party of Indian revolution that emerged from the great revolutionary peasant upsurge of Naxalbari and that has displayed tremendous resilience in rising from the ashes and the courage and maturity to combine various aspects and tasks of class struggle, it is our responsibility to respond to this new situation with all our strength. Let this convention grasp this new situation and resolve to fulfil our revolutionary responsibility in real earnest.

Uphold and Intensify Agrarian Struggle as the Core of Revolutionary Mass Work

Our strategic perspective of new democratic revolution has agrarian revolution as its axis. Our tactical line accords centrality to the task of mobilising the working people, especially the rural poor, as an independent and assertive political force. In successive inner-party campaigns we have repeatedly emphasised our work on the agrarian front. Only last year we launched the all-India organisation of agricultural labourers with a membership of more than one million. The peasant associations have also been revived and reorganised in many states and an all-India coordination body has also been floated. But in terms of initiatives and sustained struggles we are still really at a primary stage in most cases. The stagnation or decline in our votes often reflects a deeper stagnation or disruption in terms of agrarian struggles.

To intensify agrarian struggles and raise the level of our movement and mobilisation we need to pay urgent attention to the following aspects.

a) In all our old areas of struggle we are faced with state repression and armed counter-revolutionary violence by private armies, criminal gangs and anarchist outfits, all operating with political backing and administrative collusion. We must pay greater attention to the task of developing effective mass resistance to face these challenges. Without organised mass resistance, agrarian struggles cannot be advanced beyond a point.

b) The challenge of resisting the enemy's attacks often has its own compelling logic, but we must keep it subordinated to the needs and level of the movement and ensure the greatest possible involvement and initiative of the concerned masses. Sometimes resistance threatens to escalate into an unavoidable war of attrition and the agenda of agrarian struggle gets suppressed or obscured. Maintaining continuity of agrarian struggles and the functioning of the agricultural labour and peasant associations in such trying circumstances remains an unresolved problem.

c) Activists emerging from the peasant movement and especially those involved in resistance struggles must be specially nurtured and guided by the Party so that they grow into stable cadres and the struggles are sufficiently politicised. Special attention must be paid to develop activists from among the youth and women. Incidents of repression on peasant activists and violence on peasant struggles must be widely publicised from both human rights and political exposure perspectives.

d) Two other phenomena that are encountered almost everywhere at grassroots level these days are the bourgeois politics of social justice and the bourgeois economics and politics of decentralisation and development. The former adopts the method of caste-based social engineering and develops power-brokers of bourgeois politics to disrupt the fighting class unity of the rural poor. The latter seeks to transform elected people's representatives into administrative agents and even draws them into the vortex of corruption and systemic co-option. We must affirm in practice the primacy of the revolutionary peasant movement and the class line of our agrarian programme to combat these twin weapons of bourgeois politics. Our motto must be to turn the panchayat table on the ruling classes and their state by using it as a forum for revolutionary mobilisation and training of the rural poor.

e) Over the years we have developed a set of slogans and policies for agrarian struggles. We have policies for redistributing land and for establishing collective democratic control over other gains of the movement. But in the course of practice a laxity has emerged in relation to implementation of these policies. In some cases, these resources have become a bone of contention. All such controversial cases must be urgently reviewed and wherever necessary we need to formulate more appropriate policies and must implement them in real earnest.

f) With regard to the agenda of struggle, we do have a set of core issues like land, wages and dignity. In the course of the membership campaign for AIALA we observed that agricultural labourers were keen on waging struggle on a whole set of issues that could provide them with more secure means of livelihood and improved conditions of life. The peasant association too has tried to intervene on issues like procurement, prices and irrigation facilities. While leading a sustained movement on all these issues, we must also acknowledge that in real life we come across several complex and mixed categories. We have peasants engaged in a whole range of share-cropping and land-leasing arrangements whose demands are yet to be adequately formulated and articulated through struggles. For example, even in West Bengal , Operation Barga has reached a dead end and the government is now toying with the idea of various modes of land transfer. Regular socio-economic investigations and periodic review and updating of our immediate agrarian programme must be treated as an essential task of class struggle in the countryside.

g) The new agricultural policy with its pro-kulak thrust (corporatisation of agriculture) is bound to generate a whole lot of tension and turbulence in Indian agriculture. The unending phenomenon of farmers'suicides is just an acute expression of the kind of crisis that is brewing. The crisis provides us with the opportunity and task to reach out to larger cross-sections of the agricultural population. To legitimise its new policy and camouflage its real thrust, the government is also under pressure to adopt some measures to address the burning issues of rural poverty and unemployment. The proposed National Employment Guarantee Act is a case in point. Such measures are bound to open up new avenues for advancing the mobilisation and movement of the rural poor and we must fully utilise these new opportunities.

Intensify Political Initiatives and Raise the Level of our Political Assertion

a) A dynamic political vision and bold political initiatives have always been a key component of our Party's development. In a revolutionary movement there can be no overemphasising the importance of transforming economic struggles into political struggles and systematically raising the level of political consciousness and confidence of the masses. While election results provide a useful but rough indication of the extent of our political influence – in favourable situations, especially when local factors converge quite favourably, our votes may overstate the real extent of our political influence and in times of fierce political contention and polarisation we may be stripped down to our minimum level – we must never see politics through the prism of votes alone.

b) Indeed, the very fact that sections of our mass base are occasionally swayed by caste and other considerations enabling bourgeois parties to make electoral inroads in our base underscores the need for greater and not lesser politics. Of course, we must make our politics as concrete and communicable as possible, but there can be no weakening of the national vision and internationalist or anti-imperialist thrust of our politics. The dynamic of class struggle operates through a whole range of interconnected planes. From the local struggle within or concerning a village to the global struggle against imperialist globalisation and war, class struggle is a long chain. Not all the links of the chain may always fit in a straight and linear fashion. For example, we often have to target different enemies on national and state levels. Just as we cannot keep local struggles hostage to national and international priorities, we cannot treat local struggles in an independent local context.

c) While local struggles often provide the immediate fire, proletarian class consciousness always comes from without. If this crucial Leninist teaching is true for trade union struggles of urban workers, it can only be more and not less true for anti-feudal struggles in the countryside. We must also remember that without a high and inspiring political vision it is not possible to resolve all the contradictions among the people and the organisational problems that are bound to arise in the course of day-to-day functioning merely within the framework of morality, persuasion and discipline.

d) Political initiative of course does not mean merely responding to the unfolding political situation and the agenda being set by the government of the day and by the bigger parties. Political initiative must primarily mean presenting our struggles and achievements and even cases of repression and violence on our comrades in a systematic political manner so that the character of the state and bourgeois parties can be effectively exposed and the morale of the fighting people can be strengthened. Systematic and regular political propaganda is a key component of the task of politicisation and without wide political propaganda we can never realise the full political potential of our struggles and lead them to their logical political conclusion. Party organs can play an important role in this regard and so can locally produced posters, leaflets and other propaganda materials. Instead of always going in for routine programmes like a dharna, convention or seminar, we should experiment with new forms which can generate more interest and involvement of our comrades and ensure closer interaction with the target audience.

e) Political initiative should be judged in the context of the profile already attained by the Party. For example, in Bihar and Jharkhand we are widely recognised as a major opposition party. Our political role must be commensurate with the profile of the Party in public perception, with what is expected of the Party and what is desirable and necessary for advancing the Party's political influence. Political initiative is a means for raising the Party's profile and expanding the Party's mass influence. With the BJP being forced out of power at the Centre and losing the political edge it enjoyed for a period in states like Bihar and Jharkhand, it is possible and necessary for our Party to increase our role as the main Left opposition in the states. In all the Assembly seats currently held by the Party we must have the political leadership and dominant initiative in our hands. In all those Assembly and Lok Sabha seats where we have finished second or third, we must keep a close watch on the performance of the siting MLAs or MPs and constantly expose their dark deeds and the anti-people politics and policies of their parties before the broad masses of the people. Are our political initiatives commensurate with this objective demand of the situation and the society? We will all probably agree that there is need for a great deal of improvement on this score.

f) Regular political propaganda and interaction invariably brings in the question of united front practice. We are aware of the difficulties involved in forging programme-based political united fronts or electoral coalitions with Left and democratic forces. There are major tactical questions and basic differences involved in this, and instead of rushing for some kind of ad-hoc unity it is better to wage consistent and principled struggles on these questions. But while we proceed through the zigzag course of unity and struggle in the direction of a Left confederation, we must expand our relations with other democratic forces in a comprehensive manner. While dissolving IPF we made it clear that it did not mean the dissolution of our united front practice. Because of our political line and our significant presence in several important states, we can really have a running dialogue and interaction with a whole range of Left and democratic forces including the socialists and the so-called new social movements. But our efforts in this direction are rather sporadic. No matter whether a front can emerge or not, our ties with other political forces and prominent democratic personalities must continue on a sustained basis.

Develop and Promote New Cadres and Strengthen the Party's Leading Role and Leadership Capacity through Improved Collective Functioning

To grasp the new situation and fulfill the challenging responsibilities we must have a strong, confident and determined party organisation. We have addressed various aspects of the problem of Party-building during the last one decade. We have succeeded in increasing the Party membership to more than 70,000 even though we are still a long way from the 1,00,00 target we had set for ourselves till the end of the last decade. Below the state and district committees we now have a network of Party branches and local committees down to panchayat level even though the proportion of regularly and independently functioning branches and local committees is still quite low. We undertake time-bound campaigns, achieve some good results but are often not able to sustain them. Many good decisions that are taken are often not implemented in time or are given up midway.

The biggest complain that we hear from all corners is shortage of competent party cadres. This is certainly a fact and Party structures cannot discharge their full responsibilities without competent cadres. But is it an immutable fact? Is there no solution? Is there no supply of promising new elements who can be transformed into competent cadres? When we look around we find that there are many promising comrades in every sphere, but there is little organised and conscious round-the-year effort by leading Party committees to encourage and enable them to develop to their full potential. Developing Party cadres and getting the best out of them is a key art of Party leadership.

A major reason why we are encountering such a shortage of cadres is because we suffer from a culture of excessive division of labour and narrow departmentalism. Comrades coming from the student and youth fronts quickly learn the art of speaking at street corner meetings, burning effigies and issuing press releases, but organisation building remains neglected even in mass organisations. And the culture of sending student and youth comrades to centres of struggle and intensive Party work, not merely as campaigners during election times or during periods of intense state repression but in the normal course of things, with a special mission to integrate with the masses and learn from them about their conditions, struggles and aspirations, is almost non-existent. As a result we have a high degree of imbalance and problems of attitude. Educated comrades from petty-bourgeois origin acquire political skills but develop a fundamental distance from grassroots practice, while comrades working at the grassroots are also denied the advantage of interacting with intellectual comrades.

In the wake of the rectification campaign the Party had developed an inspiring atmosphere of study of Marxist and Leninist classics and made serious attempts to come to terms with various aspects of the complex Indian socio-economic and historical reality. In the 1990s we have held central and state Party schools, established the Indian Institute of Marxist Studies and its several units, and set up publication centres and book shops. But do we see a general improvement in the average standard of Marxist understanding or outlook in the Party? Do we see a greater attempt to study the various aspects and dimensions of the Indian reality? When it comes to the average level we must admit that the standard is quite low. Even Party Congress documents are not studied seriously. The average grasp of our programme and tactical line is therefore quite weak. And in a situation when we are engaged in electoral struggles and contending with a whole set of bourgeois, social-democratic and identity-based parties, lack of understanding about our own programme and tactical line poses a serious handicap.

On the face of it some of our slogans are often bound to be quite similar to many of our rivals. Where and why and how do we exactly differ? Our failure to develop a functional system of Party education at the district and block level has taken a heavy toll. This must be set right on a priority basis. The idea of a regular teacher training camp to produce appropriate notes and education materials and equip the educators should be given a serious try.

Competent Party cadres are finished products produced by a properly functioning party machine. Effective functioning and maintenance of the machine in turn also depends on competent cadres. So this is a two-way problem which can grow into a vicious circle. The problems of the functioning of the Party machine or the Party system can be clearly understood in taking a close look at how our Party committees function. Leading committees are supposed to be repositories of the total experience gathered by the concerned level of Party organisation in the course of practice and it is by processing this experience in a Marxist-Leninist framework that committees provide guidance and leadership. But what if in a single committee we have comrades coming not just from different backgrounds but continuing to live in different worlds and speak in totally different languages and idioms!

We have committees with members being easily classified into distinct types, practical workers and academic minded comrades, mass leaders and Party organisers, specialists of initiative from above and experts of grassroots practice and so on. Who will then represent the party in totality? How can we then ensure that the Party can really run in a vibrant manner and with a really unified approach and spirit? Actually, this classification itself is often superficial and shallow and the perceived types can easily be broken and moulded if only we can bring about a conscious change in Party culture from above. Party committee secretaries and other senior leaders have to play a key role in this regard. But they will have to have the necessary patience, interest and broad-minded approach in the first place.

Job division and specialisation is unavoidable and can also be used to good advantage to increase productivity. But like in the capitalist economy, in a communist party too, this necessarily intensifies alienation. We must therefore make conscious attempts not to become prisoners of the system of division of labour and combat the monotony and alienation that result from excessive division of labour. The problem becomes more acute at the leadership level for it produces a narrow departmental approach and shell mentality. This lends easily to a bureaucratic atmosphere and bureaucratic style of functioning. In worse and chronic cases this leads to formation of circles of like-minded comrades, factionalism and an atmosphere of permanent misunderstanding and communication gap and Party work suffers enormously. Monopolisation of major functions by a few leaders is then bound to become the practical rule and collective leadership only a cherished exception.

Many ideas and initiatives die prematurely or are even stillborn in our Party simply because there is lack of proper coordination and basic understanding among the comrades concerned. Many problems that can easily be detected and resolved at an early stage are allowed to grow to serious proportions simply because the decision-making mechanism is so lax. Many decisions are not properly implemented and do not yield the desired result because there is no system of monitoring.

Can such a state of affairs be allowed to continue in the Party any longer? The CC is sure that you will all agree that we must wage a ruthless war against such an atmosphere of laxity and drift. All this can and will have to be changed. All we need is a little more coordination, efficiency and accountability. Committee meetings must be preceded by necessary homework. Every meeting must start with a status report and review of the implementation of the decisions adopted at the previous meeting. Committee circulars must be clear and precise. Even though we do not have a system of secretariat or standing committee meetings every week, and it is also not necessary at the present stage of our development, most of our leading comrades happen to meet quite frequently. A system of regular meetings of leaders and regular exchange of information, ideas and opinions must be developed forthwith. This is important not just for the sake of norms but for generation of better ideas, for better formulation and articulation of our views and for developing a more vibrant foundation for collective functioning.

Comrades, this is a convention of Party leaders. All of us have been entrusted by the Party and the people with important revolutionary responsibilities. The primary responsibility for implementing Party decisions in diverse fields lies on us. As leaders we are supposed to lead by setting examples and motivating comrades around them. Even if what we are doing is not exemplary, every action of ours produces a lot of impact. If we are setting negative examples we are surely generating negative impact. If we are behaving like ordinary people and not like class conscious Marxist revolutionaries we are contributing to the lowering of the standards of the entire Party. It is important therefore to make sure that we set good examples and spread the right motivation for the entire Party.

We have tried to draw your attention to certain key aspects of the changing situation, certain key areas of our practice and key problems facing the Party that are preventing us from realising our full potential and from responding adequately and wholeheartedly to the demands of the situation. Apart from Party Congresses we have earlier held central conferences and plenums to address specific questions. We thought we could have a convention to centrally discuss some of the common problems we are facing in practice and launch concerted efforts to solve them. And the convention is aimed at making a determined beginning to this end by generating from above a serious and conducive environment so the entire Party could be better equipped to combat the problems and fulfil the tasks. We have limited time in this convention. Let us make the best use of it and return from this convention at Nagbhusan Bhawan with a message that we are serious about overcoming our weaknesses and that we are capable of moving faster and for the better.

Eternal Glory to our Martyrs! Long Live CPI(ML)! Inquilab Zindabad!