24th Congress of the CPI(M): Call for Revitalising Party Organisation
B V Raghavulu
Introduction
The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was held in Madurai from April 1 to 6, 2025. Following extensive deliberations, the Congress adopted three important documents: the Political Review Report, the Political Resolution, and the Report on Organisation.
Keeping in mind, the Review Report and the political-tactical line adopted, the Report on Organisation concentrated on conducting a self-critical and in-depth review to identify and rectify organisational shortcomings. It systematically analysed the functioning of the Party at various levels, evaluated the implementation of decisions, and proposed concrete steps for revitalising the Party organisation. The objective is to reforge the Party as a revolutionary force capable of leading class struggles and effectively challenging the Hindutva and neoliberal forces.
Based on this thorough assessment, the report outlined key tasks and directives to strengthen the Party organisation in line with the responsibilities assigned by the political tactical line. Among the various organisational tasks identified, five were prioritised as crucial. Their successful implementation is expected to bring about a qualitative improvement in the Party’s capacity to fulfil the political objectives set forth by the 24th Congress.
Streamlining Organisational Structures
The organisational structures of the Party at all levels must be streamlined to ensure their capacity to effectively implement the directives of the Party Congress. They must also be equipped to initiate and lead class and mass struggles, as well as the ideological battle against all alien ideas—particularly the communal ideology of Hindutva. Only by strengthening these structures can the Party consolidate and expand its independent strength.
The Report on Organisation, after a thorough review of the functioning of Party units – from the branch level to the Polit Bureau – noted the valuable contributions made by various units. However, it also critically identified several serious shortcomings in their functioning that have hindered the Party’s potential for growth. The report proposed specific corrective measures to address these deficiencies and enhance the overall effectiveness of the Party organisation.
Enhancing the Quality of Membership
Even the most correct political line and the most practical, achievable tasks will not succeed without the active involvement of Party members. As the vital link between the Party and the people at the grassroots level, their role is indispensable. This is why the Party places utmost importance on enhancing the political, ideological, and organisational quality of its members.
An analysis of the 2024 membership revealed several concerns. The overall membership increased by 33,252, with the majority of gains coming from Kerala. However, high dropout rates among candidate members remains a serious issue, with Telangana reporting 35.5 per cent and Kerala 22.8 per cent. Only about 35 per cent of members are actively participating in Party activities, and a significant number are not paying their full levy. Additionally, political schooling has reached only 50% of the total membership, indicating the need for greater efforts in political education and organisational consolidation.
These trends indicate loose recruitment practices and inadequate preparatory works in some areas. A significant number of new members are not being recruited through functioning auxiliary groups. These groups – composed of militant and active supporters from mass and class organisations – should play a vital role in preparing individuals for candidate membership.
The one-year candidate membership period is crucial for training comrades politically, ideologically, and organisationally. It is meant to raise their political consciousness and equip them to carry out Party responsibilities effectively. The Kolkata Plenum had called for implementing the five point criteria in renewal of Party membership. This is only partially implemented so far.
Improving member quality is not a one-time exercise during renewal. It is a continuous process involving political education, organisational training, and consistent participation in Party work. This responsibility rests squarely with state and district committees. They must ensure the effective implementation of the five-point criteria, especially during the 2026 membership renewal.
Experience has shown that political education alone is insufficient. Members must be consistently involved in struggles and activities that connect with the everyday concerns of the people. Yet, in many states, Party members are not active participants in any mass organisation. Sustained and militant mass movements are indispensable for recruiting quality members and sustaining their activity and effectiveness.
Social Composition
There has been a modest improvement in the representation of women in Party membership, rising from 18.2 per cent in 2021 to 20.2 per cent in 2024. However, this remains below the 25 per cent target set by the Party. Moreover, the increase in women’s representation within Party committees continues to be uneven, despite the constitutional mandate for a quota. Youth membership has declined across most states, with the notable exception of Kerala, where it rose from 23.79 per cent to 29.8 per cent. The Party’s inability to attract young people remains a serious concern that requires urgent and focused intervention. While the class and social composition of Party membership varies from state to state, there is an overall need to significantly enhance the representation of agricultural workers and poor peasants.
Functioning of Branches
The quality of Party membership is closely linked to the regular and active functioning of Party branches. The Kolkata Plenum Report on Organisation clearly articulated the strategic importance of branches, stating:
“The branch is the living link between the masses of workers, peasants, and other sections of the people within its area or sphere, and it is the basic unit of the Party. It is the responsibility of the Party branch to deploy Party members into different class and mass fronts and areas; to take up local and immediate issues of the masses; to organize agitations and struggles; and to carry out political campaigns to rally various classes and sections of people. The Party branch should also organize auxiliary group units by enrolling militants who participate in mass struggles and political work.”
As per the latest reports from 17 states, the Party has a total of 81,513 branches. While some state committees have made efforts to improve branch functioning, the overall situation remains unsatisfactory. A large number of branches do not meet regularly, as mandated by Party norms which is once a month.
This lack of regular meetings severely undermines the branches’ ability to mobilise members and fulfil their assigned political and organisational responsibilities. Dysfunctional or semi-functional branches cannot serve as effective instruments of mass contact or political mobilisation.
This issue, however, is not insurmountable. Strengthening branch functioning must be recognised as a core responsibility of local and district committees. If intermediate-level cadres and committee members are assigned specific branches and actively support their functioning – particularly by guiding and training branch secretaries – branch activity can be revitalised in a short time.
This aspect was underlined in the Kolkata Plenum:
“A major question is how to ensure that the primary unit maintains live links with the people and functions actively as a political-organisational unit of the Party. The branch secretary has a key role to play. Training and equipping branch secretaries must be a priority task. Intermediate committees and their members should be made politically and organisationally capable of activating the branches. District and intermediate committees must regularly hold meetings of branch secretaries for this purpose.
To this end, Report on organisation emphasised the need for organising workshops to equip branch secretaries with the necessary political, ideological, and organisational skills and ensuring regular interactions with higher committees.
Activating branches is crucial not only for internal organisational health but also for identifying and addressing local issues through sustained grassroots involvement. Ensuring that branches hold monthly meetings must be treated as a key organisational priority. District and intermediary committees must take full responsibility for this task, monitor implementation rigorously, and ensure follow-through.
Committees
The effectiveness of local and district committees plays a pivotal role in improving the quality of Party members, strengthening branch functioning, and implementing Party tasks at the grassroots level. These committees form the essential link between higher-level decisions and their practical application on the ground.
Currently, the Party has 22 State Committees and four State Organising Committees. Based on data from 16 states, there are 204 District Committees, 76 District Organising Committees, 1,260 Area Committees, and 3,180 Local Committees. Of the Local Committees, bulk of them, 2,444 are located in Kerala.
Reports from state conferences indicate that many local and district committees continue to struggle with functioning independently, often relying on the intervention of state leadership.
The absence of independent initiative has become a serious organisational weakness. Many committees merely wait for instructions from above rather than taking proactive steps based on local realities. Furthermore, state committee in-charges often fail to ensure the proper execution of assigned tasks by the lower level committees, which exacerbates the issue of passivity and inefficiency.
Improving the functioning of local and district committees must, therefore, become an immediate priority for state committees. One key measure is the periodic organisation of workshops for members of district and intermediate committees. These workshops should focus on equipping members with skills related to branch activation, mobilising Party members, studying local conditions, organising local struggles, raising funds from the masses, and strengthening the grassroots units of mass organisations. Special attention must also be given to enhancing political and ideological work, particularly in countering Hindutva communalism.
State conference reports indicate that many state committees do function independently and maintain a democratic atmosphere for political discussions. However, a major shortcoming persists in their inability to identify and sustain local-level struggles. In states where the Party is organisationally weak, state committee members must take an active role in engaging with lower units. For instance, in Kerala, the practice of state committee members attending at least one unit meeting annually has contributed significantly to improving branch functioning.
Collective functioning within the state and district secretariats is essential to combat individualism and factionalism, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of each member. The responsibility of fostering this collective functioning lies with the respective secretaries. Daily meetings among available secretariat members can help strengthen cohesion and coordination. Additionally, each state secretariat must establish clear guidelines to ensure the effective functioning of Party centres and committees.
Wholetimers and Cadres
The committees, secretariats, and fraction committees of the Party are, in essence, composed of teams of wholetimers. The effectiveness of these organisational bodies depends directly on the political commitment, initiative, fighting spirit, mass orientation, and overall capacity of these full-time cadres. If neglected, they risk becoming routinised, disillusioned, or driven by careerist motivations rather than revolutionary purpose.
At present, the Party has approximately 10,000 wholetimers—roughly the same number as at the time of the Kolkata Plenum in 2015. However, 95% of them are concentrated in just six states. This imbalance highlights a major organisational gap. Overcoming stagnation in vast regions of the country, particularly in the Hindi-speaking states, is impossible without attracting a new generation of youth and students to take up full-time responsibilities in the Party. To address this, our ideological and political work among students and youth must be significantly intensified.
To provide a uniform framework, the Party has adopted clear guidelines on wholetimer policy and instructed state committees to ensure their implementation. Despite some efforts in select states, overall implementation has remained weak. Allowances for wholetimers are often inadequate and irregular. Special funds earmarked for their support exist in only a few states.
This situation reflects a serious organisational failure. We are not providing adequate care or support to what should be considered one of our most vital assets—the wholetimers. Many of them are not even assigned specific responsibilities, making it difficult to evaluate their contribution to the movement. Periodic assessments, clear task assignments, and efforts to improve their political, ideological, and organisational capacities must be undertaken immediately.
Equally urgent is the need to improve the overall quality and character of our cadre and leadership. Reports from various states point to the emergence of negative trends in some cadre, including corruption, careerism and adoption of alien lifestyles. These tendencies must be confronted head-on through decisive political and disciplinary action.
Wholetimers are not merely full-time functionaries, they are professional revolutionaries. Their role extends beyond routine Party and mass work. They are entrusted with the responsibility of contributing to the comprehensive development of the revolutionary movement. For instance, a wholetimer working in a trade union should not limit their engagement to handling union matters alone. They must also establish contact with working-class families, engage with women, children, and students, and take up issues related to living conditions, education, culture, and social life.
Party Centre
Just as the Political Review Report presents a forthright and self-critical appraisal of the Party Centre’s role in implementing our political line, the Report on Organisation also evaluates both the positive and negative aspects of the Party Centre’s contribution in carrying out the tasks assigned by the 23rd Party Congress.
During this period, the Party Centre and the Polit Bureau functioned with greater cohesion. The daily meetings of available Polit Bureau members enabled the Centre to respond promptly to political developments and organizational matters. The Polit Bureau successfully implemented many of the political and organizational responsibilities entrusted to it.
Key tasks undertaken included the preparation of a report on the RSS, developing teaching notes on 30 subjects, conducting central schools for cadres, drafting guidelines on the wholetimer policy, organizing a rectification campaign, holding meetings with Hindi state secretaries, and conducting workshops on Balasangham, social media, and culture. Additionally, the Centre reviewed the work of three important mass fronts and reconvened meetings of the Left parties. It provided support and guidance to Party units during general and state elections and addressed specific organizational challenges in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Telangana, and Chhattisgarh.
While the Party Centre has made notable efforts to fulfill its responsibilities, several critical shortcomings remain that must be addressed to strengthen its functioning. One such issue is the irregularity of full Resident Polit Bureau member meetings. Another serious concern is the insufficient monitoring by PB and CC members in charge of various states. These comrades have not paid adequate attention to ensuring that state committees concretise and implement key Party tasks on the ground. There was a clear lack of systematic follow-up to monitor, pursue, and assess the extent of implementation. This must be rectified.
Further, the functioning of the Secretariat, sub-committees, and departments requires improvement and better coordination to align more effectively with the execution of the Party’s tasks. Additionally, although the Central Committee has been meeting regularly, thoroughly discussing agenda items, and taking appropriate decisions, the format of these meetings leaves little scope for reviewing struggles, campaigns, the performance of mass fronts, or the actual implementation of organizational plans. The leadership must take steps to restructure the way meetings are conducted to enhance their effectiveness.
Importantly, these issues are not limited to the Central Committee alone. Similar problems are evident in the functioning of state and lower-level committees, pointing to the urgent need for a comprehensive reorientation in their functioning.
Mass Organizations and Fraction Committees
The report on organization focused on three key aspects: first, strengthening basic units; second, consolidating struggles into political influence; and third, improving the functioning of sub-committees and fraction committees.
During this period, the membership of trade unions, Kisan and agricultural workers’ organizations, as well as youth and student fronts, increased collectively by 64 lakh –an appreciable achievement given the current unfavourable political situation. This growth reflects the consistent engagement of these organizations in both independent and joint movements against the anti-people policies of the BJP government.
However, a major weakness persists in the formation and functioning of basic units at the grassroots level. While membership targets are generally set and met, there is little insistence on organizing this membership at the level of primary units. Strengthening these basic units is strategically vital for improving internal democracy, developing local leadership, attracting new activists, maintaining close connections with the masses, and understanding the public mood. All leadership bodies of mass organizations must prioritize this task.
Another critical shortcoming is the failure to politicize the masses who are drawn into struggle by the working class, peasants, and other mass fronts. The purpose of mass organization struggles must go beyond mobilization – these efforts must be consolidated into lasting political influence and Party-building. This necessitates a serious review of how Party sub-committees and fraction committees are conducting political work among mass organization members.
While some progress has been observed in the independent and democratic functioning of mass organizations at the central and state levels, such improvements are largely absent at the district and local levels.
The primary reason for the failure to develop the independent functioning of mass organizations lies in the Party committees’ inadequate attention to the regular and effective functioning of sub-committees and fraction committees. This is not a shortcoming of the mass organizations themselves, but a failure of Party leadership. Meaningful change can only occur if sub-committees and fraction committees function actively and consistently. Those responsible for these bodies must be held accountable for ensuring their effective functioning.
It is the fundamental duty of sub-committees and fraction committees at all levels to implement the tasks laid down by the Party Congress. The Polit Bureau and other leading Party bodies must provide consistent guidance to these committees in discharging their Party responsibilities. Their work, as well as that of the mass organization centres, should be reviewed annually.
To improve the functioning of fraction committees, Party committees at the central, state, and district levels should regularly organize workshops to train fraction committee members in their responsibilities as Party members working within mass organizations.
Key Areas Requiring Immediate Attention
The report on organization highlights several critical gaps in our current work that need to be urgently addressed to strengthen the Party’s growth and effectiveness. Recognizing the socio-economic transformations brought about by neoliberal policies and their impact on various classes, the Party had earlier decided to establish new mass organizations and forums. These included children’s organizations, basti committees, residential colony and locality organizations in urban areas, rural workers’ federations, social service organizations, and pensioners’ associations. However, despite the importance of these initiatives, no appreciable progress has been made, and the Party must now take energetic steps to activate and expand this work.
The report outlines several key areas that demand the Party’s urgent and focused attention.
Rural Non-Farm Workers
Our efforts to organize rural workers outside of the agricultural sector have seen little progress, even after more than a decade. It is essential to recognize the strategic importance of rural non-farm workers. These sections are relatively more active and influential in rural political and social life, and most of them come from economically and socially weaker backgrounds. If organized effectively, they have the potential to become a strong base for mobilizing the rural poor into united struggles. This is particularly important for taking up local issues and advancing class struggles in rural areas.
In the coming period, the Party at all levels must ensure that the task of organizing rural non-farm workers is given due attention and prioritized in its agenda. Both the agricultural and rural workers’ front, and the trade union front, must be actively involved in this work.
Urban Residential Areas
Urban residential areas have also acquired critical importance. These are the very locations where communal forces are most active, caste politics is openly practiced. They are also where the burden of privatization of public services is most acutely felt and welfare schemes are implemented. Additionally, these areas provide relatively easier access to unorganized and informal sector workers. Without integrating our activities into the daily lives of the people in these localities, implementing the ‘Mass Line’ approach remains impossible.
Although the Party has long recognized the need for intensified work in urban residential areas, progress has been inadequate. To address this shortcoming, Party committees must internalize the Party’s perspective on urban work and take full responsibility for coordinating the relevant fronts. Special attention should be given to work in dalit bastis and colonies. Efforts of the trade union front and other area-based mass organizations must be integrated to strengthen our presence and interventions in urban residential areas.
Middle Classes
The Party has consistently emphasized the importance of organizing growing sections of the middle class, especially as Hindutva communal forces are increasingly successful in drawing them into their ideological fold. Our traditional trade union methods are insufficient to engage these sections ideologically in the current context. We have therefore underlined the need to reach them through cultural forums, citizens’ groups, and apartment or residential welfare associations.
The middle classes today are largely composed of service-sector employees, a highly diversified group. To organize these sections, the Party must adopt tailored strategies that reflect the sector’s specific conditions and working environment.
While some states have reported isolated but positive experiences in this regard, these efforts have not been scaled up into sustained, statewide movements. The Party must develop a clear plan for effective, long-term intervention among the middle classes.
Work Among Children
Communal forces are actively targeting children, aiming to instill their reactionary ideology from a young age. They are using cultural activities, social events, and other platforms to influence not only children but also their families. This space must not be left to them uncontested. The Party has, therefore, repeatedly emphasized the need to set up children’s organizations across the country.
Some sporadic efforts have been made in a few states. However, these initiatives have not been sustained or developed with a view to long-term consolidation. The form such work take can vary based on local conditions, but the importance of this work must be clearly understood by Party committees at all levels. This is particularly urgent at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult for our student organization to gain access to educational institutions.
Attracting the Youth
To attract the younger generation, traditional methods and forms of engagement are proving insufficient. New, creative, and innovative approaches are urgently needed. Merely addressing issues concerning the youth may not be enough to establish meaningful links with them. In the initial stages, it is essential to actively engage with them through cultural activities, social media, entertainment, sports, social reform initiatives, and community service. These avenues can serve as effective entry points to build connections and trust.
The challenge is not that the youth have become passive or disinterested. On the contrary, they are highly active in diverse fields—sports, culture, social media, social work, and more. What has been lacking is our ability to devise and implement effective strategies to reach and mobilize them. When well-planned and contextually appropriate initiatives are undertaken, our youth front has the potential to connect with and mobilize large sections of young people.
Youth are present across all classes and social sections. They are not limited to students or the unemployed but include contract labourers, informal and gig workers, migrant workers, rural manual labourers, and young women working in sweatshops and the service sector. Therefore, it is not the responsibility of the youth front alone to reach and mobilize them. It must be a collective responsibility of all mass organizations, Party committees, and cadre to develop targeted plans and strategies for youth engagement.
We must clearly understand that the Party’s future depends on its ability to attract and integrate young people into its fold. Review reports from several states reveal a disturbing trend: we are not succeeding in drawing sufficient numbers of youth into the Party. It is imperative that the Party re-establishes its image among the youth as a force distinct from the mainstream bourgeois parties. Our political and ideological campaigns must speak to the aspirations of young people and their quest for an alternative. Today’s youth are open to new ideas. We must find effective ways to communicate our anti-capitalist, anti-feudal, secular, democratic, and socialist values in forms and language that resonate with their experiences and outlook.
Immediate Importance of Trade Union and Student Fronts
In the current context of organizational weakness, the trade union and student fronts have assumed even greater significance. These fronts play a vital role in helping the Party establish a presence in areas where it remains weak. They also serve as key instruments for expanding our reach to broader social sections, particularly in attracting youth and identifying potential full-time activists.
They provide strength, visibility, and essential resources that support the growth of other fronts. This does not imply neglecting other fronts; rather, the strengthening of these two should act as a catalyst for the development and expansion of other mass fronts into newer areas.
Tribal Communities
Our support base among tribal communities remains largely intact in most states. This continued strength is the result of our consistent and committed work in defending their rights and interests. However, this base cannot be taken for granted. If we fail to address emerging challenges, we risk losing ground even in these areas.
One of the growing challenges is the rise of communalism and identity politics among educated sections of tribal communities. These trends pose a serious threat to the progressive unity we have built over decades. To counter this, we must adapt our approach where necessary, and ensure sustained engagement with both traditional and emerging tribal leadership.
Unleashing Class and Mass Struggles
The Political Review Report stresses the importance of building the independent strength of the Party. To achieve this, it called for the development of sustained class and mass struggles. Party units at all levels must be oriented towards mobilising the working class, peasantry, and other sections of the working people, while also addressing issues of gender and caste oppression and discrimination.
A key component of this approach is the launch of sustained local struggles and movements around class, social, and mass issues, continuing until some concrete demands are met. The Party must take direct leadership in such local struggles, as this enables the basic classes to identify more closely with the Party. State committees should provide concrete guidance to district and intermediate committees, equipping them to identify local issues, take initiative in organising sustained struggles.
While some important struggles have been carried out, the Party has not been able to develop sustained local struggles on a broad scale. For this, a thorough and concrete study of people’s conditions at the grassroots level is essential. Effective campaigns and mass mobilisation must be rooted in a clear understanding of local realities. Party cadres, with the help of study centres and intellectuals, must also undertake grassroots-level studies to identify local issues with the potential to mobilise the masses.
All-India protest and campaign calls must be issued with careful planning. While some protest calls may need to be given immediately in response to unfolding events, campaign calls should allow sufficient time for proper preparation. Nationwide campaigns, when not anchored in local movements, can become a burden and may even hinder the overall growth of the movement. Currently, multiple calls are being issued by the Party and mass organisations at both all-India and state levels, often overlapping or competing with one another. This has led to campaigns and struggles becoming formalistic and ritualistic, lacking genuine mass involvement. The Party must intervene to coordinate such calls through its various fraction committees to ensure they contribute meaningfully to the overall movement.
The Political Review Report also pointed to a significant weakness – the lack of politicisation among the masses drawn into struggles led by the working class and kisan fronts. It is essential to critically examine how Party fractions are conducting political work among the mass membership of these fronts. Concrete steps must be taken to intensify political education and mobilisation. Efforts to build the Party should continue by identifying potential members for auxiliary groups and systematically educating and integrating them into Party work.
Intensifying Ideological Work: To Combat Hindutva Communalism
The report on organization points out that our current ideological efforts are inadequate to meet the demands of the situation. The Hindutva communal offensive has intensified, and our response must match its scale and depth. It must be acknowledged that our initiatives have fallen short in confronting this fascistic threat.
A comprehensive ideological counteroffensive is urgently needed across multiple fronts. To do this effectively, we must pool all available resources and upgrade key tools of ideological work – including Party publications, agitational propaganda, political education, and social media outreach. These tools must be revamped to address the evolving political and ideological challenges.
Party units at all levels must coordinate, strengthen, and monitor forums and initiatives engaged in ideological work. Science forums, literary and cultural organisations, and progressive cultural personalities should be actively supported. The Party’s publishing houses, knowledge centres, and trusts can provide essential infrastructure for these efforts.
Promoting scientific temper and rational thinking – especially among children, students, and youth – is critical to counter the obscurantist and superstitious worldview propagated by the RSS. A consistent and persistent ideological struggle is also vital to attract the youth to progressive and Left politics.
Sub-committees and fraction committees of mass organisations must play a more active role in developing and implementing ideological work, particularly through cultural activities tailored to specific sections.
Special attention must be paid to organising social service and cultural programmes in residential areas where Sangh Parivar activities are strong. Forums should also be developed in industrial clusters, major educational institutions, and other localities, using locally available resources.
Expanding Cultural Interventions
Cultural work is a crucial front in the ideological struggle. Hindutva’s growing influence in cultural life must be countered by significantly expanding our interventions in this sphere. There are many progressive and democratic cultural forces outside our immediate influence who can be mobilised through appropriate strategies and organisational forms. Establishing cultural centres can serve as important hubs for collaboration and joint initiatives.
Mass organisations must organise cultural activities, establish forums, and implement the directives outlined in the Party’s cultural document and the six fields of work detailed in the Political Resolution. These directives must be taken seriously and executed with commitment.
Party Dailies, Publications and Social Media
Publications by the Party and mass organisations, along with social media outreach, play a crucial role in ideological work.
Efforts must be made to improve the content and language of Party publications to appeal to the current generation – without compromising quality. The digital and online presence of these publications must be expanded and strengthened. To meet current challenges, strategies and methods appropriate to today’s media environment and our existing capacities must be developed.
Social Media
Since the last Party Congress, our social media work has grown in both scope and quality of content. However, the increase in overall followers has been minimal. Centre-state coordination has improved, with more systematic reporting from state teams, but gaps remain – especially in the timely coverage of struggles.
Given the changing algorithms and platform dynamics, our efforts must prioritise video content, particularly on Instagram and YouTube. We must also strengthen campaigns highlighting people’s struggles and resistance to Hindutva. A key immediate task is building a WhatsApp network to ensure wider distribution of posters and videos.
Need for a Rectification Campaign: Need to Combat Parliamentarism
The Political Review Report highlights the growing influence of parliamentarism and its negative impact on developing local struggles. Parliamentarism – defined by an overreliance on electoral work – hampers the implementation of our political-tactical line, which is centred on building a mass base through class and mass struggles. It also leads to ideological degeneration and weakens the Party’s character. State reports point to a dilution of communist norms and the emergence of alien trends among some Party cadre, threatening the revolutionary character of the Party.
In this background the Report on Organization again stresses the need for a rectification campaign to streamline the Party organisation and to intensify mass and class struggles. The failure to take the last rectification campaign to the grassroots underlines the urgency of launching a new campaign. This must be undertaken with utmost seriousness at all levels. It must be organised with a specific focus on combating parliamentarism, and identifying and addressing other harmful trends such as routinism, bureaucratism, subjectivism, liberalism, obscurantism and patriarchy.
Importance of Planned Work
The Political Review Report emphasised the need for systematic planning to ensure the Party’s growth and expansion. Growth cannot be left to spontaneity or chance. State-specific long term plans – especially in the Hindi-speaking regions – must be formulated to expand the Party and mass organisations into new areas and among new social sections in consultation with the All-India Centre. These plans should align with available resources and take into account the Party’s strengths and the specific conditions in each state. Implementation must be time-bound and regularly reviewed.
Favourable conditions – such as those in tribal areas – and the potential of the student and trade union movements to provide cadre and organisational support should be factored into these plans.
Once prepared, All-India centres of the Party and mass organisations must consistently guide and provide all necessary assistance to weaker states to realise these plans.
Tasks
The conclusions of this review of the Party organization have been condensed into fourteen key tasks. In addition, the report contains several suggestions and observations that can be translated into concrete steps for implementation. Among these, five tasks must be treated as immediate priorities: improving the quality of Party membership, revitalising Party branches, increasing youth recruitment, combating Hindutva communalism, and expanding local struggles on a broader scale.
Other key tasks identified include: organising workers in modern manufacturing, key sectors, and among contract workers in the organised sector; launching a planned drive to increase women’s Party membership to reach the target of 25 per cent; ensuring all Party members complete the basic education syllabus; and focusing work among adivasis in selected tribal areas. A rectification campaign against parliamentarism and related issues is to be launched by the Central Committee. State-wise plans must be prepared – in consultation with the PB/CC – to expand Party and mass organisation work in new areas and among new sections. Steps should be taken to organise rural manual workers through appropriate organisational forms. Activities in urban residential areas – including slums, bastis, apartments, and lower-middle-class localities – should be expanded using decentralised and flexible methods. State committees must also continue integrating social media into Party work. A mid-term review of the implementation of these tasks will be conducted by the Central Committee.
Conclusion
These tasks are undoubtedly challenging, but they are not beyond our capacity. With determination, discipline, and collective effort, we can strengthen the Party organisation, advance the fight against Hindutva communalism, and build a strong Left and democratic alternative.