1. The journey from Varanasi (Sixth Congress, October 1997) to Patna (Seventh Congress, November 2002) has been full of unprecedented challenges for our Party. This has been the period of heightened fascist offensive in the country. On the
economic front, the economic policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have been playing havoc. Millions of jobs have been destroyed and tens of millions of labouring people in the agricultural arena as well as the unorganised sector face a serious crisis of survival.
For us the challenge has been all the greater as we lost several leaders at this critical juncture. In 1998 alone, within one year of the Varanasi Congress we lost Comrades Anil Baruah, Nagbhushan Patnaik and Vinod Mishra. The premature demise of Comrade Vinod Mishra who steered the Party through its post-setback phase of reorganisation and recovery to the later years of growth and consolidation has been a very severe blow. During his 23-year long stint as the General Secretary of our Party not only did the Party revive and uphold the spirit of Naxalbari under rapidly changing conditions, it also deepened our understanding of the Indian society and revolution and developed a revolutionary tactical line to translate our strategic vision into living immediate practice.
The key to all this lies in building a powerful Party organisation equipped in every respect and capable of meeting every challenge. True to his vision and teaching, the entire Party displayed tremendous revolutionary will and resilience to withstand the void created by his sudden demise. The resolve of the Party was strengthened by the spontaneous outpouring of public sorrow and sympathy witnessed in Bihar and especially in Patna at the time of his funeral.
As we have already noted, while the overwhelming majority of Party leaders, cadres and ranks have worked hard to carry forward the Party and its revolutionary mission, for some people it was time for renegacy. The Party’s prestige has been considerably sullied by the renegacy of erstwhile CC members, Ramesh Singh Kushwaha in Siwan and Holiram Terang in Karbi Anglong. From 22 April-22 October 2000, the entire Party carried out a campaign to strengthen itself. The ‘Strengthen-the-Party campaign’ unleashed a new dynamism on the agrarian front, galvanised Party district committees and lower-level structures, especially Party branches, into action and reinforced the Party’s resolve to root out alien ideas and practices that weaken the revolutionary spirit and proletarian outlook and character of the Party.
The present Congress also marks the completion of one decade since the Party resumed open functioning after the Kolkata Congress in december 1992. On the basis of a decade’s experience, the time is now ripe for reviewing as to how far we have been able to utilise the new conditions to build a strong and consolidated Party with a firm and indivisible revolutionary will. Such a review must address all the aspects of Party organisation, viz., Party membership, Party structure, development of Party cadres, Party education and Party propaganda and most crucially the ideological climate and other aspects of inner-Party environment.
2. (i) At the time of the Fifth Congress of the Party in December 1992, Party membership was only around 22,000. As an open Party, we had called for rapid expansion of the Party and accordingly, a target of 1,00,000 membership was set for the Sixth Congress. However we could not sustain the required rate of expansion and the Diphu Organisational Conference held in July 1995 extended the time-frame by another three years. By January 1997, our membership strength had reached 53,500. The Varanasi Congress held in October 1997 called for doubling of membership by the next Congress. But today, at the time of the 7th Congress, the strength has gone up to only around 74,000. Even ten years after the Kolkata Congress, we are still way behind that minimum target of 1,00,000.
(ii) The problem is really twofold. One is the basic problem of a low rate of growth in most areas and especially in advanced states like Bihar. The other is no less critical: inability of the organisational structure to absorb more members. If we take into account the total number of candidate members recruited during the last ten years, the figure is no less than 1,15,000! During this period the full membership figure has gone up by only around 30,000! This means we have a very poor track record in terms of converting candidate members into full members (only around 1 out of 4) and also retaining our full members. This indicates a high degree of organisational instability and inconsistency at lower levels.
(iii) The biggest two factors behind cancellation of membership are non-payment of levy and loss of contact, mostly due to migration. This again brings to the fore the question of lower-level Party structures. Lack of functional Party branches and lack of periodic monitoring of the levy system create tremendous pressures on the District and Block committees at the time of year-ending membership renewal. This is also why the process of renewal takes so long to be completed. Clearly, to become a bigger and stronger communist party, we have to streamline the Party organisation and especially galvanise the grassroot structures.
(iv) Geographically, our membership is still concentrated in a few states, and that too especially in Bihar. In 1993 Bihar accounted for 64% of the total membership, in 1997 the ratio stood at 70% (combining Bihar’s share of 59% and Jharkhand’s share of 11%, we had however separated our Jharkhand membership in 1996 itself). Now in 2002 the figure has marginally come down to 49%, but Jharkhand’s contribution has gone up to 17%, which means between them Bihar and Jharkhand still account for 68% of the total membership. The share of West Bengal, the second biggest state on the Party map, has meanwhile dropped from 19% in 1993 to 10% in 2002. UP’s share has gone up marginally from 4 to 6% while Assam’s share (excluding the hill districts) remains more or less constant at 3 to 4%. This means that between 1992 and 2002, the growth pattern of the Party has only reinforced its regional concentration. Party organisation in recent years has surely spread to several more states like Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Haryana, and Union Teritories like Andaman and Pondicherry. Contacts are also being established in states like Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur. But the scale of development in these states is still too low to have an impact on the overall growth pattern.
(v) The Diphu conference had also laid particular emphasis on reducing the gender imbalance of our membership profile. The proportion of women membership was only around 6% till 1995. The emphasis laid by the Diphu conference did produce some early results and the proportion went up to 14% in 1996 (the target set by Kolkata Congress was 20%). But the tempo could not be sustained and by the time we went in for the Varanasi Congress in October 1997 the proportion had already started sliding back. Now for the last couple of years, the proportion has been hovering between 8 and 9 %, coming down to 7% in December 2001. We had also resolved at Diphu that Party conferences at all levels should ensure greater representation of women, at least to the tune of 10%, in elected Party committees. We had not constitutionally mandated it as some kind of reservation policy, which we believe is not the right way to build a Communist Party. But do not we already have enough capable women comrades at all levels of the Party to ensure that in every committee of 10 there is at least one woman member? Yet even on this score, many Party committees still do not fulfil this minimum norm.
There is a definite potential for doubling the percentage of women members or raising it to at least 15% by 2005 and to maintain and gradually increase it, provided more and more women activists at various levels down to the village are elected to Party committees and organised in branches and activist groups. Assam and Andhra Pradesh are maintaining a ratio of around 20% women membership. Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal must pay special attention in this regard.
The Varanasi Congress had rightly emphasised the fact that “more than women, it is important for men to learn the basic Marxist approach to women’s issues.” It had called for opposing all patriarchal attitudes that stand in the way of development of self-reliant and independent women cadres. It had called for a thorough overhauling of the Party’s behaviour pattern to make it compatible with the requirements and sensibilities of women comrades.
The result shows that these words have hardly been translated into practice. We must keep up this emphasis and ruthlessly wipe out all inhibitions and prejudices that continue to retard the growth of women membership and women cadres in the Party. Party committees at all levels must unhesitatingly bring women comrades to responsible positions, assign them specific jobs and extend proper guidance and assistance so as to ensure rapid development of a larger contingent of leading women cadres on different fronts.
(vi) It is also important to keep a close watch on the class composition of our membership profile. The majority of our rural members come from the rural poor background. While we must try to expand the Party among the middle sections, we must never slacken our emphasis on the rural poor. Except some pockets, we have very limited membership from among industrial workers. State and District Committees of the Party must take concrete measures to recruit more members from within the working class. Concerned mass organisations and factory- or industry-level Party Committees can play an important role in this regard.
3. (i) Systematising and stabilising the lower level Party structure was identified at the Diphu conference and again at Varanasi Congress as a key task of Party building in the present phase. The Strengthen-the-Party campaign in 2000 took the target of organising at least 50% Party members in functional Party branches. Since then there has been a marginal improvement in this regard, but the percentage of branches that really function round the year is still quite low. Keeping the vast majority of Party members in live touch with the Party on a regular basis through an extensive network of branches and using this network to draw more people into the Party fold remains very much an unfulfilled agenda. It must be understood that a communist party which continues to neglect the question of organising all its members in a vibrant and functional Party structure at the grassroots remains liable to get degenerated into either a reformist parliamentary or an anarchist outfit.
(ii) Our experience shows that apart from a general emphasis on making branches functional, some specific organisational measures or norms are always helpful in making branches more viable. Since the viability or regularity of a branch depends to a large extent on the initiative of the branch secretary or the members of the branch leading team, the committee immediately above a branch (local/block/area committees in most cases) should take special care to operate through branches. LCMs/BCMs/ACMs should ideally themselves run a Party branch or closely monitor one or two branches. Secondly, organising regular meetings, let us say once in every two months, of Branch Secretaries at area/district level should be made a convention. These meetings should be personally conducted by the DCS or concerned BCS or any other responsible comrade specifically entrusted with this task. In such meetings, apart from reporting on current developments and Party’s approach to various relevant issues of struggle, the DC should also give a patient hearing to the experiences coming from various branches, and note and discuss important views and complaints, if any, raised by branch secretaries. Thirdly, the more well-defined the tasks of a branch and more well-monitored the performance, the greater the chances of viability. Specific campaign tasks like circulation of journals and other forms of specific propaganda, collection of levy on at least quarterly basis, and other tasks linked to the agricultural labour organisation, peasant association or any other mass organisation, can be taken up quite effectively by Party branches. Branches should have their own banners and should be known by their specific territorial jurisdiction. We can also admit candidate members in Party branches, but not in Branch Leading Teams.
(iii) Our Constitution provides for sub-committees comprising several branches. But in areas where we have intensive work, we have several branches and quite a few hundred members under one Block/Area Committee. We therefore feel we should have a provision of another layer of committees between Block/Area Committees and Party branches. Such committees may be formed at the level of panchayats, covering one or a few panchayats depending upon the concrete conditions. Such Panchayat Committees in rural areas or equivalent Ward Committees in towns and cities should be based on a minimum membership strength of 50 and mass organisations’ membership of 500 and at least two properly functioning branches. This will be the lowest party committee elected through annual conference. The formation of higher committees should also be made conditional upon the existence of a minimum number of Party branches and a minimum circulation of one of our Party organs to be specified by the Central Committee from time to time.
(iv) The Varanasi Congress had emphasised the importance of institutional or industrial Party committees. Such committees are recognised as a specific constituent of the electoral college for Party conferences and the Party Congress. But we have actually very few such committees in our entire party. There is a tendency to form such committees before Party conferences so as to increase the number of delegates, but once the conferences are over we tend to forget these committees. Committees formed on the basis of a particular factory, industrial estate, university or college campus or any other particular institution can closely guide the concerned Party work and help strengthen the Party in those specific sectors.
(v) The Strengthen-the-Party campaign had taken District Committees as the keylink in our Party structure for effecting the necessary consolidation. Most of our State Committee Members and even a considerable number of CCMs are directly attached to various DCs while the DCs in turn are closely linked to the Area/Block Committees and the Party structure at the grassroots. At the time of various organisational campaigns we follow a method of DCs sending quarterly reports to the concerned SC and the CC. Such a system should be institutionalised as a part of our permanent Party culture. All DCs should submit a periodic progress report, ideally on a quarterly basis but at least once in every six months, to the higher committees summing up major experiences in their practice and monitoring the regular functions of the Party system like membership, levy, circulation of Party organs in the district and workshops/classes held during the period.
(i) The role of Party cadres is a crucial factor in determining the quality of functioning of various Party committees and creative and vigorous implementation of the Party’s general line and specific calls from time to time. In recent years, we find an acute shortage of competent Party cadres for carrying out the growing variety and volume of Party tasks. The average age of Party cadres is growing and without a steady supply of fresh cadres, the Party could well be heading for a major crisis. We must undertake a serious campaign to identify promising cadres, impart proper Party education to them, help them develop necessary skills and entrust them with specific responsibilities.
(ii) Essentially this is a problem of re-enforcing the agenda of party building in the regular functioning of the party committees and party leaders discharging their full role. As the Diphu document observed, “cadres in large numbers are not built spontaneously or haphazardly. They are regularly churned out of the party machine that transforms raw materials into finished products. But for that the machine itself should be of superior quality and be in perfect order.”
(iii) There is also the question of dealing with Party cadres. Some of our leading comrades at different levels are so obsessed with their own sense of identity and importance that they have little concern or appreciation for younger cadres. These comrades cannot help burdening everybody around them with their own history of either achievements or grievances and grudges. Instead of setting positive examples and creating an inspiring atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation, they end up vitiating the inner-Party atmosphere and infecting comrades with the virus of dissatisfaction and dissidence. We must change this state of affairs and revive our Party’s fine tradition of grooming young cadres, and entrusting promising cadres boldly with greater responsibilities must be revived in encouraging competence.
(iv) Some whole-time cadres of long standing have lost their revolutionary spirit and initiative. Some comrades, especially those working for a long time in a fixed area or in offices, have developed a kind of employee mentality and are losing initiative and interest in broader Party activities. We must suitably redeploy such comrades so that they can revive themselves, failing which they should be advised to work as part-time activists. In a situation of shortage of whole-time cadres we should also learn to make better use of part-time cadres and organisers.
Some of our leaders and cadres remain in constant agony about the maintenance of their families and it affects them in discharging their day-to-day Party work. Concerned Party committees/mass organisations must extend minimum necessary assistance to the dependent families. This should however not be construed as a system of salaries. Dependent family members should also be roused to be economically self-reliant and politically active.
Special mechanism must be developed to meet medical necessities and organise legal help for comrades and also for looking after the families of martyrs and dependents of comrades in jail.
We should uphold the orientation of relying on the masses to resolve the material problems of our leaders and cadres and their families too.
4. (i) Over the years, the party has formed a number of mass organizations, most of them with a state-level and even national scope. However, even now most of our mass organizations have a very limited membership base and many do not have a proper system of organizational functioning. In fact, regularly functioning mass organization offices and committees are still a rarity. Clearly, the Party has to pay renewed attention to the question of strengthening and streamlining the mass organizations.
(ii) Excessive politics remains a common problem facing most of our mass organizations. The problem is understandable because in most cases Party cadres have been entrusted with the responsibility of building various mass organizations. By contrast, comrades who are rooted in different mass organizations often tend to remain somewhat aloof from the Party and its political campaigns. The two extremes not only coexist but reinforce each other and the mass organizations continue to suffer in the process. Mass organizations are supposed to pay elaborate attention to the details of mass questions and explore their mass dimensions, but very often we find mass organizations straying into general political or theoretical formulations while neglecting the specifics. Developing a distinct language, agenda and style of work for mass organizations remains a major task before us. Without such a distinct identity and style, mass organizations are bound to remain mere shadows of the Party. And if such a state of affairs continues for long, it will generate all sorts of confusion and amount to sheer duplication and wastage of efforts and energy.
(iii) Party committees are the appropriate fora for guiding the work of various mass organizations at the concerned level. In order that Party committees can provide collective guidance to the entire work of the Party and the mass organisations, it is necessary that all committee members, regardless of their individual assignments, take a healthy interest in the overall work. Otherwise Party committees are liable to degenerate into federative bodies which are more an amalgamation of several departments than a unified vanguard organization providing organic leadership to every branch of the movement. Within Party committees we must oppose any mechanical notion of difference or division between comrades working in party organisation and those working in mass organisations. Often instead of debating within party structures as party leaders about the correct policy on mass organisations, some comrades are treated as party representatives while others become representatives of mass organisations. On the other hand sometimes inner-party debates are, unnecessarily, dragged into mass organisations.
(iv) While we have formed all India and state-level mass organizations, for all practical purposes we still have to work primarily at the level of districts. The leaders of our mass organizations must therefore ensure a high degree of direct involvement in development of work at the grassroots. At the same time, Party committees must also reckon that most of our mass organizations are still in a formative or weak stage, and rather than expecting mass organizations to play their due role, the Party must lay stress on enabling them to play that role. While mass organization functionaries should be seriously involved in Party structures, we should preferably avoid entrusting major office-bearers of mass organizations with the responsibility of becoming secretaries of Party committees.
(v) Party groups/subcommittees should be formed at appropriate levels of mass organisations to ensure effective Party leadership over them. But care should be taken to see that this party system does not replace organisational structures of the mass organisations or intervene in their day to day functioning. All such groups or subcommittees must submit regular reports to the concerned party committees regarding their own work as well as the problems and prospects of work facing the concerned level of the mass organisations. At lower levels, such groups and subcommittees should help recruit Party members from within the concerned mass organisations. Lower level groups/subcommittees will have no linkage with the upper ones. Party State and District committees should organise periodic education and training classes and workshops for party members working in mass organisations.
The entire Party must seriously address itself to the task of building powerful and vibrant mass organisations.
5. (i) Party education remains a much talked about and yet most neglected subject in our Party. We have repeatedly emphasised the need to impart basic Marxist education to all our members but quite a lot remains to be done in this regard. It is not difficult to realise the urgency of the task of spreading Marxist literacy when we consider the fact that two-thirds of our members have joined the Party over the last ten years of open Party practice. A good number of them have come from other parties and traditions. And the last ten years have internationally been a period of heightened bourgeois propaganda against Marxism and in India the discourse has additionally also been greatly influenced by non-class identities rooted in caste, community and region.
(ii) To provide the necessary impetus and direction to lower level classes the Sixth Congress had decided upon bringing out a series of booklets for basic study. We have not been able to make much headway in that direction. The “Education Forum” column published occasionally in some of our organs can be no substitute for a well thought out syllabus and prepared study materials. Classes organised by district committees everywhere during the Strengthen-the-Party campaign did enthuse the Party ranks, but they could not be sustained in most cases.
(iii) After a gap of nearly five years, we held one central school in November 2001. The school covered four subjects: globalisation, communal fascism, agraian crisis and agricultural labourers, and caste and class and the dalit question. Following the central school, certain district and state committees organised schools combining some of the central school papers with certain state-specific topics. But most of these lacked proper preparations. It is evident that state committees are yet to develop comprehensive plans for schooling, and they are severely handicapped by the dearth of capable teachers at the district level.
(iv) To put an end to the prevailing ad-hocism in party education, we must try and follow a broad time-schedule for schooling at different levels – say, central schools every three years, state schools every alternate year, district schools every year, and so on. Party Central Committee must have a proper education cell or sub-committee and the same should produce study materials and organise training camps for teachers as well as periodic education camps, particularly for new cadres working in various class/mass organisations. Apart from assisting the Party in imparting inner-party education, units of the Indian Institute of Marxist Studies in different cities should continue to work as platforms for interacting with Marxist intellectuals.
(v) Collective study of Party organs must be taken up on a regular basis at lower levels. Party structures from Block Committees down to branches must be encouraged to make a habit of collectively studying the weekly/fortnightly organs of the Party.
(vi) But all these, even if successful on the face of it, will remain mere exercises in formalism unless and until we cultivate a habit of regular self-study. In this connection the 6th Party Congress had observed: “It is a matter of serious concern that many of our senior leaders and cadres show utter neglect in studying Marxist and Party literature. As wise old men they go on producing subjective analyses of the situation and cultivate a language or discourse in the Party which has nothing to do with a Marxist world outlook. Such a situation makes the party ranks vulnerable to bourgeois streams of thought.”
(vii) Unfortunately, all these strong words seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Many of our leading cadres often err on the side of empiricism, they depend on their vast store of experience and perceptual knowledge, forgetting that the latter, in the words of Mao, “needs to be developed into rational knowledge”; that it is necessary to “synthesize the data of perception by arranging and reconstructing them” strictly in accordance with the science of Marxism; and that such primary data must be comprehensive, i.e., systematically collected through organised social investigations, if they are to form the basis of correct concepts and policies. We must fight out such erroneous trends and re-establish the importance of planned social investigations both as a major component of party education and an inalienable part of Marxist praxis.
6. (i) The task of rapid expansion and diversification of our propaganda networks has assumed a special urgency today in the context of growing saffronisation of the mainstream media. And the more so because liberal bourgeois and social democratic responses to the Sangh’s ideological offensive also corrupt the consciousness of the left ranks in no small measure. Soon after the Varanasi Congress, we started a weekly news bulletin, ML Update, to streamline our propaganda network. This has become a very useful weapon for disseminating the Party’s positions on all important issues along with short reports on our diverse initiatives and movements. The contents of ML Update are translated and reproduced in most of our regional language organs. Seminars on burning issues of the day have also become a frequently used method for putting across our views to diverse sections of political forces.
(ii) Lok Yudh, our central organ in Hindi, and Deshabrati, the organ of West Bengal State Committee, converted themselves from fortnightly to weekly magazines during the Strengthen-the-Party campaign and have maintained this periodicity without break. Another encouraging development is that over the last 2-3 years we have been able to regularise our Party magazines even in weaker states. Vikalp (fortnightly) in Assam, Telugu Liberation (monthly), Theeppori (monthly) in Tamil Nadu and Naba Sphoolinga (recently converted to fortnightly from monthly) in Tripura are all appearing more or less regularly. In Karnataka, comrades are regularly bringing out the Kannada Liberation with the help of Party sympathisers. Similarly, comrades in Kerala have uninterruptedly continued the publication of Janakiya Sabdam (monthly) and recently they have also started ML Sandesham (weekly).
(iii) But we also have areas of major concern. The circulation of our magazines seems to have been trapped in a vicious cycle of stagnation-decline-improvement through special drive-back to stagnation and so on. For the last 10 years, Liberation has been hovering around the 2000 copies mark, and the Party’s coming overground and Liberation becoming a regular monthly organ seem to have had little impact on its circulation. Lok Yudh is trailing way behind the modest target of 10,000 copies for the entire Hindi belt. More or less the same situation prevails in the cases of the state organs. But going by our experiences of special drives, there are vast untapped potentials for enrolment of subscribers. Actually the basic problem is that huge accumulation of dues from certain major districts or states lead to forced reduction in the number of copies sent to them, thereby drastically reducing the total figures.
To cope with the situation we need to adopt a three-pronged strategy: (a) political mobilisation of all Party bodies down to the branches in sustained sales promotion, (b) streamlining the distribution-price realisation networks which are still in a primitive stage in many districts, (c) specifying a mandatory minimum number of copies – preferably a certain percentage of the membership strength to be fixed by the respective state committees which every district unit must take and pay for if it is to gain/retain the status of district committee.
(iv) Stagnation of circulation below the break-even level and lack of regular returns from Committees place a huge financial burden on the Central Committee and in the case of state organs on State Committees to keep the magazines going through unaffordably high subsidies. Our experience shows that most of our readers invariably pay, it just so happens that lower committees often divert the money to meet other pressing needs and accumulate large-scale dues. If this becomes a regular habit or a permanent pattern we will have to say that Party organs are being used less as ideological resources and more as financial resources! Even 25% improvement in circulation and returns can eliminate the need for much of this subsidy burden.
(v) We must keep up our efforts to make our Party organs more attractive for the readers and more useful for the Party ranks. While it is the direct task of the editorial boards to ensure this (and in particular, to ensure that ‘popularisation’ does not end up in lowering of standards), the concerned committee must also provide adequate support. A cursory comparison between Deshabrati and Lok Yudh may help clarify the point. The former has a close-kint 5-member editorial board (three of them being SCMs, among whom two work exclusively for the magazine), several CCMs and SCMs also write fairly regularly. By contrast, Lok Yudh has to depend primarily on one or two regular writers. This definitely tells on its quality, reports coming from the districts are often not properly edited, the quality of translation remains poor and pages are forcibly filled with materials that do not cater to the urgent needs of the movement. State committees in the Hindi belt and concerned CCMs must involve themselves more closely with the magazine in every possible way so as to put an end to its chronic crises.
Our organs must strive hard to achieve both increased circulation and improved quality. Apart from apprising our readers of the Party’s stand on various issues of current relevance, Party organs must also focus on typical experiences of Party practice and mass movements and intervene in the ongoing ideological-political polemics in the national and international communist movement from a revolutionary Marxist standpoint.
(vi) Periodical meetings of the editors of Party organs should be convened to ensure closer central monitoring of, and better coordination among, different Party organs and promote creative and accurate articulation of the Party’s tactical line and programmatic positions and views on topical current issues. We are now technologically much better equipped to develop a national news network. In addition to producing ML Update, Party Central Office should also regularly collect and circulate news and other useful feature items for our Party organs.
(vii) Apart from regular publication of Party organs, we should also publish booklets on topical subjects. We produced a booklet on agrarian crisis and more recently a critical examination of the agrarian scene in Left-ruled West Bengal. Such booklets have always been received quite well but with every such publication we accumulate deficits because most of our committees take very little interest in sharing this ‘extra’ burden.
(viii) We are now maintaining a website of the Party. This is an excellent medium for international propaganda. With computer penetration and internet culture fast growing in this country, it can also emerge as a powerful medium for publicising the Party’s views and activities and promoting the Party’s journals within the country. It can help us pick up contacts in areas where the Party organisation is not present or does not have a public profile. There is a need to improve the visual appearance and content of the website and more importantly, it has to be updated much more frequently.
(ix) An important role in party propaganda is also played by our socio-cultural magazines, the periodicals published by mass organiastions at the national or state levels, those addressed to a particular class or sector, and so on. They transmit the Party’s message to broader circles and to particular segments often in more living and concrete ways. But comrades running such magazines must be careful not to burden such magazines with excessive politics, especially on issues of a polemical nature which are best left for Party journals. Leading Party bodies, on their part, should, rather than standing aloof, provide necessary guidance and logistical assistance to these magazines.
(x) The Patna-based Samkaleen Prakashan is doing a good job by reprinting Marxist classics in Hindi and also making a whole range of contemporary Marxist literature available for our readers. This is now the only institution of its kind in Patna and cadres of other organisations also use it for their requirements. The UP State Committee is also running a network of publication centres cum bookshops in Allahabad and Lucknow. Similar efforts should be made in Kolkata, Ranch and Delhi. The IIMS should advise and help this entire network so that it can better serve the present needs of the Party and the Left and democratic movement.
(xi) Our propaganda initiatives are always constrained by severe lack of funds. The limited resources normally raised by the Party can hardly meet the financial requirements on this front. We must find ways to raise extra resources to increase and improve our propaganda efforts. We had introduced a concept of Central Propaganda Fund (CPF) which requires state or district committees inviting the General Secretary or any CCM to public programmes or Party schools to pay a minimum of Rs. 1,000 to the fund. This has worked well, but as often happens with the passage of time, the norm is nowadays often being violated by many Committees. We must maintain and strengthen this practice.
7. (i) Between April and October 2000, we conducted a vigorous campaign to strengthen the Party. Since the Varanasi Congress we had to remain busy with frequent elections and hectic political campaigns. We also suffered a sudden string of heavy losses with several senior leaders passing away most prematurely. The six-point campaign successfully reinforced the agenda of Party building for the entire Party. Taking District Committees as the key-link the campaign directed the Party’s attention back to the basic questions of (1) consolidating the party committee system; (2) revitalising our mass work; (3) strengthening party propaganda; (4) systematising basic party education; (5) regularising party branches and (6) developing the Party’s capacity to organise mass resistance. The campaign yielded substantial gains and we must consolidate these gains as an integral part of our inner-Party life. All these points need constant check-up and renewed emphasis from time to time. We must remember that all campaigns have expiry dates, and that there are no permanent guarantee periods for a Communist Party. We have to be always on our guard against the danger of deconsolidation.
(ii) The campaign launched a forceful counter-offensive against alien ideological trends that weaken the Party spirit. A vigorous ideological drive was conducted against the virus of pessimism and passivity and the Party emerged ideologically re-energised. However, that there is absolutely no room for complacency was made clear by the fact that even at the level of CC we had to suffer two instances of renegacy. While the cases were very specific and local dynamics and complexities played a major role, the experience must be taken as a serious wake-up call for the entire Party. We must not slacken our ideological vigilance against alien trends that threaten to damage and distort the proletarian revolutionary outlook of the party.
In some cases we still find a deep-seated attitude of cynicism and pessimism which naturally leads to perfunctory implementation of Party decisions or sheer passivity. Ideological questions apart, questions of political conduct and inner-Party relations are also no less important. Some comrades prefer making a public display of their dissent to discussing things in committee meetings. There are some who believe in making complaints about almost everything and finding faults everywhere. Some comrades are allergic to any kind of criticism and behave in an overbearing manner. Qualities like tolerance and patience and an attitude of resolving problems with a quiet determination and without kicking up a storm appear to be in short supply.
We must resolve to bring about a distinct improvement in the inner-Party atmosphere and restore the vibrant democratic environment that has been the hallmark of our Party, an environment that respects differences of opinion, upholds collective wisdom, encourages new ideas and initiatives and thus guarantees vigorous and enthusiastic implementation of every Party decision.
(iii) Except in the hill districts of Assam, the state of discipline in the Party has generally been satisfactory. Individual cases of indiscipline have mostly been resolved by various committees at their own levels. We have however noticed some cases of committees enforcing disciplinary measures without seeking immediate approval of the higher committees. Disciplinary measures must be implemented through constitutionally stipulated ways and except in cases of a very serious nature warranting immediate expulsion, such measures should not be enforced or made public before approval is obtained from the higher committee.
Elements of factionalism have been seen in some areas. The Party must resolutely combat all such tendencies and reassert the absolute primacy of the Party principle. Assertion of the Party principle however demands more than mere enforcement of Party decisions. It also means carrying the whole Party along and not letting personal differences cloud political judgements. Members of higher committees have a special responsibility in this regard. While demanding total compliance with collective decisions and Party norms, we must understand that the ability to appreciate differing opinions and work amicably with comrades having such opinions is also central to the strengthening of inner-Party unity and democracy.
(iv) There is a need to strengthen the Party Centre to ensure ideological rejuvenation, political unification and organisational consolidation of the entire Party. We must increase and improve the supervision of the CC and PB on the entire gamut of Party activities. CCMs working in state/district/mass organisation while remaining accountable for the specific work assigned by the committee should also stay in live touch with the Party HQ as well as with other CCMs working in the same state or in the same department. CCMs operating from the central HQ must meet frequently and exchange reports and views. CCMs working in states should also follow a similar practice.
Apart from overseeing the work in all states and regions from the PB, the CC should also have a network of subcommittees and departments to run the entire work in a more systematic manner. We can have separate departments or sub-committees for working class, agrarian labourers and peasants, women, student-youth, propaganda and education and international affairs. Party Central Office as a centre for information, liaison, record keeping and as an apparatus for the functioning of the CC in general and PB in particular must be prompt, innovative and responsive.
(v) Party HQ did guide our lone M.P. in all matters of major importance. But this needs to be institutionalised. A system of meeting, briefing and deciding the strategy prior to the session and a brief report to the party Centre after each session must be strictly introduced. Party legislative group/individual MLAs must also follow the same in their respective states. The very purpose of Party’s intervention in parliamentary institutions and local bodies will be defeated if the matter is left to spontaneity or to individual members.
Our members should maintain complete transparency in matters of financial transactions and constituency development work and submit regular reports to the Party CC or State Committees. Members working in such institutions are essentially no different from other cadres and members working for the party in various fields. The tendency of seeking special privilege only alienates such members from the Party. Such tendencies should be thoroughly fought out and everyone should place himself/herself at par with other cadres. Full account of salaries, allowances, etc. must be submitted to the concerned Party committee and sanctioned allowances should be drawn from the concerned committee.
(vi) The Party is also facing a bigger political challenge in the context of the growing threat of communal fascism and intensification of state repression as a clear corollary to the heightened offensive of neo-liberal economic policies. As a revolutionary communist party functioning openly in an increasingly repressive and fascistic environment, the Party will obviously have to bear the brunt of this attack. This naturally demands a lot more alertness and all-round preparations on our part including developing resistance and necessary mechanisms. A lot also remains to be done in terms of building a powerful propaganda network, developing closer interaction with the human rights movement and ensuring prompt legal as well as parliamentary intervention.
(vii) Last but not the least, overcoming the acute financial crisis of the Party is also a central task of party consolidation. The crisis not only places the Party in a helpless situation in fulfilling the obligations to its members and cadres but also curbs political-organisational initiatives and other measures to meet the requirements of the movement.
One of the Party’s main sources of income is membership levy which has become most irregular. If the present rate is considered too high, we must rationalise the rate and structure, but whatever rates are decided must be maintained without fail.
There is little Party control left on income from seized property/party controlled river/river-bed/garden/forest resources/fine, etc. Conceptualising these things as mere economic resources is totally wrong and will inevitably lead to financial anarchy, if not outright corruption, vested interest and complete degeneration. Exercising control over public resources by the rural poor under the leadership of the Party and exercising command of the people over all matters of the village is an important element of grass root democracy. Participation of the people in such affairs is not only to be ensured but also given an organised shape. Full transparency must be there and the policy to use a part of such fund in local reform, a part for day-to-day struggles in the area, a part to SC and CC for overall party activities – as prescribed in our Rules and by-laws must be strictly implemented.
The system of mass collection and seasonal collection of crops must be revived. All individual leaders and cadres must furnish account of collections and expenditures to the concerned committee. Financial management must be improved on the basis of annual budgeting and planning and accounting system and a balance struck between income and expenditure and expansion of financial resources and enforcement of party control. State committees/Special Committees/State leading teams must compulsorily submit annual income and expenditure report to the Party Centre. Similarly, District Committees should submit reports to the SC and area and local committees to the DC.
Many of our cherished projects like Charu Bhavan, Nagbhusan Bhavan and building a befitting memorial for Comrade Vinod Mishra are lying unfulfilled because of sheer paucity of funds. We must appeal to all our members, sympathisers and well-wishers to donate generously to the Party fund for completion of these projects.
Comrades,
The critical situation today demands of us whole-hearted and wide-ranging initiatives. Our members, sympathisers, friends and well-wishers and vast masses wish to see us maintain our revolutionary character, but at the same time emerge as a big force, in terms of expansion of areas and mass base, larger number of people marching on the fields and streets in militant protests and resistance movements, and at the same time our notable presence in Parliament, State Assemblies and local bodies as well.
We can and must live up to this expectation. What we need is a Party which combines a full blossomed democratic environment with an iron discipline, dynamism with dedication, diversity in action with uniformity in ideology, unrestrained creative role of an individual with unconditional loyalty to the collective. We need to guarantee cordial and lively relations among comrades on the basis of unhesitant criticism and self-criticism, mutual respect and cooperation, and cement closer ties with the people, particularly with the basic classes. We need to summon the courage and determination to scale greater heights.
Ours is the Party that must lead the Indian people to new democracy and socialism. Let us dedicate ourselves anew to this great cause. q